#Some relevant words from the late antique

[yamayuandadu]

The most important deity you've never heard of: the 3000 years long history of Nanaya

Being a major deity is not necessarily a guarantee of being remembered. Nanaya survived for longer than any other Mesopotamian deity, spread further away from her original home than any of her peers, and even briefly competed with both Buddha and Jesus for relevance. At the same time, even in scholarship she is often treated as unworthy of study. She has no popculture presence save for an atrocious, ill-informed SCP story which can’t get the most basic details right. Her claims to fame include starring in fairly explicit love poetry and appearing where nobody would expect her. Therefore, she is the ideal topic to discuss on this blog. This is actually the longest article I published here, the culmination of over two years of research. By now, the overwhelming majority of Nanaya-related articles on wikipedia are my work, and what you can find under the cut is essentially a synthesis of what I have learned while getting there. I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed working on it. Under the cut, you will learn everything there is to know about Nanaya: her origin, character, connections with other Mesopotamian deities, her role in literature, her cult centers… Since her history does not end with cuneiform, naturally the later text corpora - Aramaic, Bactrian, Sogdian and even Chinese - are discussed too. The article concludes with a short explanation why I see the study of Nanaya as crucial.

Dubious origins and scribal wordplays: from na-na to Nanaya Long ago Samuel Noah Kramer said that “history begins in Sumer”. While the core sentiment was not wrong in many regards, in this case it might actually begin in Akkad, specifically in Gasur, close to modern Kirkuk. The oldest possible attestation of Nanaya are personal names from this city with the element na-na, dated roughly to the reign of Naram-Sin of Akkad, so to around 2250 BCE. It’s not marked in the way names of deities in personal names would usually be, but this would not be an isolated case.

The evidence is ultimately mixed. On one hand, reduplicated names like Nana are not unusual in early Akkadian sources, and -ya can plausibly be explained as a hypocoristic suffix. On the other hand, there is not much evidence for Nanaya being worshiped specifically in the far northeast of Mesopotamia in other periods. Yet another issue is that there is seemingly no root nan- in Akkadian, at least in any attested words.

The main competing proposal is that Nanaya originally arose as a hypostasis of Inanna but eventually split off through metaphorical mitosis, like a few other goddesses did, for example Annunitum. This is not entirely implausible either, but ultimately direct evidence is lacking, and when Nanaya pops up for the first time in history she is clearly a distinct goddess.

There are a few other proposals regarding Nanaya’s origin, but they are considerably weaker. Elamite has the promising term nan, “day” or “morning”, but Nanaya is entirely absent from the Old Elamite sources you’d expect to find her in if Mesopotamians imported her from the east. Therefore, very few authors adhere to this view. The hypothesis that she was an Aramaic goddess in origin does not really work chronologically, since Aramaic is not attested in the third millennium BCE at all. The less said about attempts to connect her to anything “Proto-Indo-European”, the better.

Like many other names of deities, Nanaya’s was already a subject of etymological speculation in antiquity. A late annotated version of the Weidner god list, tablet BM 62741, preserves a scribe’s speculative attempt at deriving it from the basic meaning of the sign NA, “to call”, furnished with a feminine suffix, A. Needless to say, like other such examples of scribal speculation, some of which are closer to playful word play than linguistics, it is unlikely to reflect the actual origin of the name.

Early history: Shulgi-simti, Nanaya’s earliest recorded #1 fan

A typical Ur III administrative tablet listing offerings to various deities (wikimedia commons)

The first absolutely certain attestations of Nanaya, now firmly under her full name, have been identified in texts from the famous archive from Puzrish-Dagan, modern Drehem, dated to around 2100 BCE. Much can be written about this site, but here it will suffice to say that it was a center of the royal administration of the Third Dynasty of Ur ("Ur III") responsible for the distribution of sacrificial animals. Nanaya appears there in a rather unique context - she was one of the deities whose cults were patronized by queen Shulgi-simti, one of the wives of Shulgi, the successor of the dynasty’s founder Ur-Namma. We do not know much about Shulgi-simti as a person - she did not write any official inscriptions announcing her preferred foreign policy or letters to relatives or poetry or anything else that typically can be used to gain a glimpse into the personal lives of Mesopotamian royalty. We’re not really sure where she came from, though Eshnunna is often suggested as her hometown. We actually do not even know what her original name was, as it is assumed she only came to be known as Shulgi-simti after becoming a member of the royal family. Tonia Sharlach suggested that the absence of information about her personal life might indicate that she was a commoner, and that her marriage to Shulgi was not politically motivated The one sphere of Shulgi-simti’s life which we are incredibly familiar with are her religious ventures. She evidently had an eye for minor, foreign or otherwise unusual goddesses, such as Belet-Terraban or Nanaya. She apparently ran what Sharlach in her “biography” of her has characterized as a foundation. It was tasked with sponsoring various religious celebrations. Since Shulgi-simti seemingly had no estate to speak of, most of the relevant documents indicate she procured offerings from a variety of unexpected sources, including courtiers and other members of the royal family. The scale of her operations was tiny: while the more official religious organizations dealt with hundreds or thousands of sacrificial animals, up to fifty or even seventy thousand sheep and goats in the case of royal administration, the highest recorded number at her disposal seems to be eight oxen and fifty nine sheep. A further peculiarity of the “foundation” is that apparently there was a huge turnover rate among the officials tasked with maintaining it. It seems nobody really lasted there for much more than four years. There are two possible explanations: either Shulgi-simti was unusually difficult to work with, or the position was not considered particularly prestigious and was, at the absolute best, viewed as a stepping stone. While the Shulgi-simti texts are the earliest evidence for worship of Nanaya in the Ur III court, they are actually not isolated. When all the evidence from the reigns of Shulgi and his successors is summarized, it turns out that she quickly attained a prominent role, as she is among the twelve deities who received the most offerings. However, her worship was seemingly limited to Uruk (in her own sanctuary), Nippur (in the temple of Enlil, Ekur) and Ur. Granted, these were coincidentally three of the most important cities in the entire empire, so that’s a pretty solid early section of a divine resume. She chiefly appears in two types of ceremonies: these tied to the royal court, or these mostly performed by or for women. Notably, a festival involving lamentations (girrānum) was held in her honor in Uruk. To understand Nanaya’s presence in the two aforementioned contexts, and by extension her persistence in Mesopotamian religion in later periods, we need to first look into her character.

The character of Nanaya: eroticism, kingship, and disputed astral ventures

Corona Borealis (wikimedia commons)

Nanaya’s character is reasonably well defined in primary sources, but surprisingly she was almost entirely ignored in scholarship quite recently. The first study of her which holds up to scrutiny is probably Joan Goodnick Westenholz’s article Nanaya, Lady of Mystery from 1997. The core issue is the alleged interchangeability of goddesses. From the early days of Assyriology basically up to the 1980s, Nanaya was held to be basically fully interchangeable with Inanna. This obviously put her in a tough spot. Still, over the course of the past three decades the overwhelming majority of studies came to recognize Nanaya as a distinct goddess worthy of study in her own right. You will still stumble upon the occasional “Nanaya is basically Inanna”, but now this is a minority position. Tragically it’s not extinct yet, most recently I’ve seen it in a monograph published earlier this year. With these methodological and ideological issues out of the way, let’s actually look into Nanaya’s character, as promised by the title of this section. Her original role was that of a goddess of love. It is already attested for her at the dawn of her history, in the Ur III period. Her primary quality was described with a term rendered as ḫili in Sumerian and kuzbu in Akkadian. It can be variously translated as “charm”, “luxuriance”, “voluptuousness”, “sensuality” or “sexual attractiveness”. This characteristic was highlighted by her epithet bēlet kuzbi (“lady of kuzbu”) and by the name of her cella in the Eanna, Eḫilianna. The connection was so strong that this term appears basically in every single royal inscription praising her. She was also called bēlet râmi, “lady of love”. Nanaya’s role as a love goddess is often paired with describing her as a “joyful” or “charming” deity. It needs to be stressed that Nanaya was by no metric the goddess of some abstract, cosmic love or anything like that. Love incantations and prayers related to love are quite common, and give us a solid glimpse into this matter. Nanaya’s range of activity in them is defined pretty directly: she deals with relationships (and by extension also with matters like one-sided crushes or arguments between spouses), romance and with strictly sexual matters. For an example of a hymn highlighting her qualifications when it comes to the last category, see here. The text is explicit, obviously. We can go deeper, though. There is also an incantation whose incipit at first glance leaves little to imagination:

However, the translator, Giole Zisa, notes there is some debate over whether it’s actually about having sex with Nanaya or merely about invoking her (and other deities) while having sex with someone else. A distinct third possibility is that she’s not even properly invoked but that “oh, Nanaya” is simply an exclamation of excitement meant to fit the atmosphere, like a specialized version of the mainstay of modern erotica dialogue, “oh god”.

While this romantic and sexual aspect of Nanaya’s character is obviously impossible to overlook, this is not all there was to her. She was also associated with kingship, as already documented in the Ur III period. She was invoked during coronations and mourning of deceased kings. In the Old Babylonian period she was linked to investiture by rulers of newly independent Uruk. A topic which has stirred some controversy in scholarship is Nanaya’s supposed astral role. Modern authors who try to present Nanaya as a Venus deity fall back on rather faulty reasoning, namely asserting that if Nanaya was associated with Inanna and Inanna personified Venus, clearly Nanaya did too. Of course, being associated with Inanna does not guarantee the same traits. Shaushka was associated with her so closely her name was written with the logogram representing her counterpart quite often, and lacked astral aspects altogether. No primary sources which discuss Nanaya as a distinct, actively worshiped deity actually link her with Venus. If you stretch it you will find some tidbits like an entry in a dictionary prepared by the 10th century bishop Hasan bar Bahlul, who inexplicably asserted Nanaya was the Arabic name of the planet Venus. As you will see soon, there isn’t even a possibility that this reflected a relic of interpretatio graeca. The early Mandaean sources, many of which were written when at least remnants of ancient Mesopotamian religion were still extant, also do not link Nanaya with Venus. Despite at best ambivalent attitude towards Mesopotamian deities, they show remarkable attention to detail when it comes to listing their cult centers, and on top of that Mesopotamian astronomy had a considerable impact on Mandaeism, so there is no reason not to prioritize them, as far as I am concerned. As far as the ancient Mesopotamian sources themselves go, the only astral object with a direct connection to Nanaya was Corona Borealis (BAL.TÉŠ.A, “Dignity”), as attested in the astronomical compendium MUL.APIN. Note that this is a work which assigns astral counterparts to virtually any deity possible, though, and there is no indication this was a major part of Nanaya’s character. Save for this single instance, she is entirely absent from astronomical texts. A further astral possibility is that Nanaya was associated with the moon. The earliest evidence is highly ambiguous: in the Ur III period festivals held in her honor might have been tied to phases of the moon, while in the Old Babylonian period a sanctuary dedicated to her located in Larsa was known under the ceremonial name Eitida, “house of the month”. A poem in which looking at her is compared to looking at the moon is also known. That’s not all, though. Starting with the Old Babylonian period, she could also be compared with the sun. Possibly such comparisons were meant to present her as an astral deity, without necessarily identifying her with a specific astral body. Michael P. Streck and Nathan Wasserman suggest that it might be optimal to simply refer to her as a “luminous” deity in this context. However, as you will see later it nonetheless does seem she eventually came to be firmly associated both with the sun and the moon. Last but not least, Nanaya occasionally displayed warlike traits. It’s hardly major in her case, and if you tried hard enough you could turn any deity into a war deity depending on your political goals, though. I’d also place the incantation which casts her as one of the deities responsible for keeping the demon Lamashtu at bay here.

Nanaya in art

The oldest known depiction of Nanaya (wikimedia commons)

While Nanaya’s roles are pretty well defined, there surprisingly isn’t much to say about her iconography in Mesopotamian art.The oldest certain surviving depiction of her is rather indistinct: she’s wearing a tall headdress and a flounced robe. It dates to the late Kassite period (so roughly to 1200 BCE), and shows her alongside king Meli-Shipak (or maybe Meli-Shihu, reading remains uncertain) and his daughter Hunnubat-Nanaya. Nanaya is apparently invoked to guarantee that the prebend granted to the princess will be under divine protection. This is not really some unique prerogative of hers, perhaps she was just the most appropriate choice because Hunnubat-Nanaya’s name obviously reflects devotion to her. The relief discussed above is actually the only depiction of Nanaya identified with certainty from before the Hellenistic period, surprisingly. We know that statues representing her existed, and it is hard to imagine that a popular, commonly worshiped deity was not depicted on objects like terracotta decorations and cylinder seals, but even if some of these were discovered, there’s no way to identify them with certainty. This is not unusual though, and ultimately there aren’t many Mesopotamian deities who can be identified in art without any ambiguity. 

Nanaya in literature

As I highlighted in the section dealing with Nanaya’s character, she is reasonably well attested in love poetry. However, this is not the only genre in which she played a role. A true testament to Nanaya’s prominence is a bilingual (Sumero-Akkadian) hymn composed in her honor in the first millennium BCE. It is written in the first person, and presents various other goddesses as her alternate identities. It is hardly unique, and similar compositions dedicated to Ishtar (Inanna), Gula, Ninurta and Marduk are also known. Each strophe describes a different deity and location, but ends with Nanaya reasserting her actual identity with the words “still I am Nanaya”. Among the claimed identities included are both major goddesses in their own right (Inanna plus closely associated Annunitum and Ishara, Gula, Bau, Ninlil), goddesses relevant due to their spousal roles first and foremost (Damkina, Shala, Mammitum etc) and some truly unexpected, picks, the notoriously elusive personified rainbow Manzat being the prime example. Most of them had very little in common with Nanaya, so this might be less an attempt at syncretism, and more an elevation of her position through comparisons to those of other goddesses. An additional possible literary curiosity is a poorly preserved myth which Wilfred G. Lambert referred to as “The murder of Anshar”. He argues that Nanaya is one of the two deities responsible for the eponymous act. I don't quite follow the logic, though: the goddess is actually named Ninamakalamma (“Lady mother of the land”), and her sole connection with Nanaya is that they occur in sequence in the unique god list from Sultantepe. Lambert saw this as a possible indication they are identical. There are no other attestations of this name, but ama kalamma does occur as an epithet of various goddesses, most notably Ninshubur. Given her juxtaposition with Nanaya in the Weidner god list - more on that later - wouldn’t it make more sense to assume it’s her? Due to obscurity of the text as far as I am aware nobody has questioned Lambert’s tentative proposal yet, though.

There isn’t much to say about the plot: Anshar, literally “whole heaven”, the father of Anu, presumably gets overthrown and might be subsequently killed. Something that needs to be stressed here to avoid misinterpretation: primordial deities such as Anshar were borderline irrelevant, and weren't really worshiped. They exist to fade away in myths and to be speculated about in elaborate lexical texts. There was no deposed cult of Anshar. Same goes for all the Tiamats and Enmesharras and so on.

Inanna and beyond: Nanaya and friends in Mesopotamian sources

Inanna on a cylinder seal from the second half of the third millennium BCE (wikimedia commons)

Of course, Nanaya’s single most important connection was that to Inanna, no matter if we are to accept the view that she was effectively a hypostasis gone rogue or not. The relationship between them could be represented in many different ways. Quite commonly she was understood as a courtier or protegee of Inanna. A hymn from the reign of Ishbi-Erra calls her the “ornament of Eanna” (Inanna’s main temple in Uruk) and states she was appointed by Inanna to her position. References to Inanna as Nanaya’s mother are also known, though they are rare, and might be metaphorical. To my best knowledge nothing changed since Olga Drewnowska-Rymarz’s monograph, in which she notes she only found three examples of texts preserving this tradition. I would personally abstain from trying to read too deep into it, given this scarcity. Other traditions regarding Nanaya’s parentage are better attested. In multiple cases, she “borrows” Inanna’s conventional genealogy, and as a result is addressed as a daughter of Sin (Nanna), the moon god. However, she was never addressed as Inanna’s sister: it seems that in cases where Sin and Nanaya are connected, she effectively “usurps” Inanna’s own status as his daughter (and as the sister of Shamash, while at it). Alternatively, she could be viewed as a daughter of Anu. Finally, there is a peculiar tradition which was the default in laments: in this case, Nanaya was described as a daughter of Urash. The name in this context does not refer to the wife of Anu, though. The deity meant is instead a small time farmer god from Dilbat. To my best knowledge no sources place Nanaya in the proximity of other members of Urash’s family, though some do specify she was his firstborn daughter. To my best knowledge Urash had at least two other children, Lagamal (“no mercy”, an underworld deity whose gender is a matter of debate) and Ipte-bitam (“he opened the house”, as you can probably guess a divine doorkeeper). Nanaya’s mother by extension would presumably be Urash’s wife Ninegal, the tutelary goddess of royal palaces. There is actually a ritual text listing these three together. In the Weidner god list Nanaya appears after Ninshubur. Sadly, I found no evidence for a direct association between these two. For what it’s worth, they did share a highly specific role, that of a deity responsible for ordering around lamma. This term referred to a class of minor deities who can be understood as analogous to “guardian angels” in contemporary Christianity, except places and even deities had their own lamma too, not just people. Lamma can also be understood at once as a class of distinct minor deities, as the given name of individual members of it, and as a title of major deities. In an inscription of Gudea the main members of the official pantheon are addressed as “lamma of all nations”, by far one of my favorite collective terms of deities in Mesopotamian literature. A second important aspect of the Weidner god list is placing Nanaya right in front of Bizilla. The two also appear side by side in some offering lists and in the astronomical compendium MUL.APIN, where they are curiously listed as members of the court of Enlil. It seems that like Nanaya, she was a goddess of love, which is presumably reflected by her name. It has been variously translated as “pleasing”, “loving” or as a derivative of the verb “to strip”. An argument can be made that Bizilla was to Nanaya what Nanaya was to Inanna. However, she also had a few roles of her own. Most notably, she was regarded as the sukkal of Ninlil. She may or may not also have had some sort of connection to Nungal, the goddess of prisons, though it remains a matter of debate if it’s really her or yet another, accidentally similarly named, goddess.

An indistinct Hurro-Hittite depiction of Ishara from the Yazilikaya sanctuary (wikimedia commons)

In love incantations, Nanaya belonged to an informal group which also included Inanna, Ishara, Kanisurra and Gazbaba. I do not think Inanna’s presence needs to be explained. Ishara had an independent connection with Inanna and was a multi-purpose deity to put it very lightly; in the realm of love she was particularly strongly connected with weddings and wedding nights. Kanisurra and Gazbaba warrant a bit more discussion, because they are arguably Nanaya’s supporting cast first and foremost. Gazbaba is, at the core, seemingly simply the personification of kuzbu. Her name had pretty inconsistent orthography, and variants such as Kazba or Gazbaya can be found in primary sources too. The last of them pretty clearly reflects an attempt at making her name resemble Nanaya’s. Not much can be said about her individual character beyond the fact she was doubtlessly related to love and/or sex. She is described as the “grinning one” in an incantation which might be a sexual allusion too, seeing as such expressions are a mainstay of Akkadian erotic poetry. Kanisurra would probably win the award for the fakest sounding Mesopotamian goddess, if such a competition existed. Her name most likely originated as a designation of the gate of the underworld, ganzer. Her default epithet was “lady of the witches” (bēlet kaššāpāti). And on top of that, like Nanaya and Gazbaba she was associated with sex. She certainly sounds more like a contemporary edgy oc of the Enoby Dimentia Raven Way variety than a bronze age goddess - and yet, she is completely genuine. It is commonly argued Kanisurra and Gazbaba were regarded as Nanaya’s daughters, but there is actually no direct evidence for this. In the only text where their relation to Nanaya is clearly defined they are described as her hairdressers, rather than children. While in some cases the love goddesses appear in love incantations in company of each other almost as if they were some sort of disastrous polycule, occasionally Nanaya is accompanied in them by an anonymous spouse. Together they occur in parallel with Inanna and Dumuzi and Ishara and Almanu, apparently a (accidental?) deification of a term referring to someone without family obligations. There is only one Old Babylonian source which actually assigns a specific identity to Nanaya’s spouse, a hymn dedicated to king Abi-eshuh of Babylon. An otherwise largely unknown god Muati (I patched up his wiki article just for the sake of this blog post) plays this role here. The text presents a curious case of reversal of gender roles: Muati is asked to intercede with Nanaya on behalf of petitioners. Usually this was the role of the wife - the best known case is Aya, the wife of Shamash, who is implored to do just that by Ninsun in the standard edition of the Epic of Gilgamesh. It’s also attested for goddesses such as Laz, Shala, Ninegal or Ninmug… and in the case of Inanna, for Ninshubur.

A Neo-Assyrian statue of Nabu on display in the Iraq Museum (wikimedia commons)

Marten Stol seems to treat Muati and Nabu as virtually the same deity, and on this basis states that Nanaya was already associated with the latter in the Old Babylonian period, but this seems to be a minority position. Other authors pretty consistently assume that Muati was a distinct deity at some point “absorbed” by Nabu. The oldest example of pairing Nanaya with Nabu I am aware of is an inscription dated to the reign of Marduk-apla-iddina I, so roughly to the first half of the twelfth century BCE. The rise of this tradition in the first millennium BCE was less theological and more political. With Babylon once again emerging as a preeminent power, local theologies were supposed to be subordinated to the one followed in the dominant city. Which, at the time, was focused on Nabu, Marduk and Zarpanit. Worth noting that Nabu also had a spouse before, Tashmetum (“reconciliation”). In the long run she was more or less ousted by Nanaya from some locations, though she retained popularity in the north, in Assyria. She is not exactly the most thrilling deity to discuss. I will confess I do not find the developments tied to Nanaya and Nabu to be particularly interesting to cover, but in the long run they might have resulted in Nanaya acquiring probably the single most interesting “supporting cast member” she did not share with Inanna, so we’ll come back to this later. Save for Bizilla, Nanaya generally was not provided with “equivalents” in god lists. I am only aware of one exception, and it’s a very recent discovery. Last year the first ever Akkadian-Amorite bilingual lists were published. This is obviously a breakthrough discovery, as before Amorite was largely known just from personal names despite being a vernacular language over much of the region in the bronze age, but only one line is ultimately of note here. In a section of one of the lists dealing with deities, Nanaya’s Amorite counterpart is said to be Pidray. This goddess is otherwise almost exclusively known from Ugarit. This of course fits very well with the new evidence: recent research generally stresses that Ugarit was quintessentially an Amorite city (the ruling house even claimed descent from mythical Ditanu, who is best known from the grandiose fictional genealogies of Shamshi-Adad I and the First Dynasty of Babylon). Sadly, we do not know how the inhabitants of Ugarit viewed Nanaya. A trilingual version of the Weidner list, with the original version furnished with columns listing Ugaritic and Hurrian counterparts of each deity, was in circulation, but the available copies are too heavily damaged to restore it fully. And to make things worse, much of it seems to boil down to scribal wordplay and there is no guarantee all of the correspondences are motivated theologically. For instance, the minor Mesopotamian goddess Imzuanna is presented as the counterpart of Ugaritic weather god Baal because her name contains a sign used as a shortened logographic writing of the latter. An even funnier case is the awkward attempt at making it clear the Ugaritic sun deity Shapash, who was female, is not a lesbian… by making Aya male. Just astonishing, really.

The worship of Nanaya

A speculative reconstruction of Ur III Uruk with the Eanna temple visible in the center (Artefacts — Scientific Illustration & Archaeological Reconstruction; reproduced here for educational purposes only, as permitted)

Rather fittingly, as a deity associated with Inanna, Nanaya was worshiped chiefly in Uruk. She is also reasonably well attested in the inscriptions of the short-lived local dynasty which regained independence near the end of the period of domination of Larsa over Lower Mesopotamia. A priest named after her, a certain Iddin-Nanaya, for a time served as the administrator of her temple, the Enmeurur, “house which gathers all the me,” me being a difficult to translate term, something like “divine powers”. The acquisition of new me is a common topic in Mesopotamian literature, and in compositions focused on Inanna in particular, so it should not be surprising to anyone that her peculiar double seemingly had similar interests. In addition to Uruk, as well as Nippur and Ur, after the Ur III period Nanaya spread to multiple other cities, including Isin, Mari, Babylon and Kish. However, she is probably by far the best attested in Larsa, where she rose to the rank of one of the main deities, next to Utu, Inanna, Ishkur and Nergal. She had her own temple, the Eshahulla, “house of a happy heart”. In local tradition Inanna got to keep her role as an “universal” major goddess and her military prerogatives, but Nanaya overtook the role of a goddess of love almost fully. Inanna’s astral aspect was also locally downplayed, since Venus was instead represented in the local pantheon by closely associated, but firmly distinct, Ninsianna. This deity warrants some more discussion in the future just due to having a solid claim to being one of the first genderfluid literary figures in history, but due to space constraints this cannot be covered in detail here. A later inscription from the same city differentiates between Nanaya and Inanna by giving them different epithets: Nanaya is the “queen of Uruk and Eanna” (effectively usurping Nanaya’s role) while Inanna is the “queen of Nippur” (that’s actually a well documented hypostasis of her, not to be confused with the unrelated “lady of Nippur”). Uruk was temporarily abandoned in the late Old Babylonian period, but that did not end Nanaya’s career. Like Inanna, she came to be temporarily relocated to Kish. It has been suggested that a reference to her residence in “Kiššina” in a Hurro-Hittite literary text, the Tale of Appu, reflects her temporary stay there. The next centuries of Nanaya are difficult to reconstruct due to scarce evidence, but it is clear she continued to be worshiped in Uruk. By the Neo-Babylonian period she was recognized as a member of an informal pentad of the main deities of the city, next to Inanna, Urkayitu, Usur-amassu and Beltu-sa-Resh. Two of them warrant no further discussion: Urkayitu was most likely a personification of the city, and Beltu-sa-Resh despite her position is still a mystery to researchers. Usur-amassu, on the contrary, is herself a fascinating topic. First attestations of this deity, who was seemingly associated with law and justice (a pretty standard concern), come back to the Old Babylonian period. At this point, Usur-amassu was clearly male, which is reflected by the name. He appears in the god list An = Anum as a son of the weather deity couple par excellence, Adad (Ishkur) and Shala. However, by the early first millennium BCE Usur-amassu instead came to be regarded as female - without losing the connection to her parents. She did however gain a connection to Inanna, Nanaya and Kanisurra, which she lacked earlier. How come remains unknown. Most curiously her name was not modified to reflect her new gender, though she could be provided with a determinative indicating it. This recalls the case of Lagamal in the kingdom of Mari some 800 years earlier.

The end of the beginning: Nanaya under Achaemenids and Seleucids

Trilingual (Persian, Elamite and Akkadian) inscription of the first Achamenid ruler of Mesopotamia, Cyrus (wikimedia commons)

After the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire Mesopotamia ended up under Achaemenid control, which in turn was replaced by the Seleucids. Nanaya flourished through both of these periods. In particular, she attained considerable popularity among Arameans. While they almost definitely first encountered her in Uruk, she quickly came to be venerated by them in many distant locations, like Palmyra, Hatra and Dura Europos in Syria. She even appears in a single Achaemenid Aramaic papyrus discovered in Elephantine in Egypt. It indicates that she was worshiped there by a community which originated in Rash, an area east to the Tigris. As a curiosity it’s worth mentioning the same source is one of the only attestations of Pidray from outside Ugarit. I do not think this has anything to do with the recently discovered connection between her and Nanaya… but you may never know. Under the Seleucids, Nanaya went through a particularly puzzling process of partial syncretism. Through interpretatio graeca she was identified with… Artemis. How did this work? The key to understanding this is the fact Seleucids actually had a somewhat limited interest in local deities. All that was necessary was to find relatively major members of the local pantheon who could roughly correspond to the tutelary deities of their dynasty: Zeus, Apollo and Artemis. Zeus found an obvious counterpart in Marduk (even though Marduk was hardly a weather god). Since Nabu was Marduk’s son, he got to be Apollo. And since Nanaya was the most major goddess connected to Nabu, she got to be Artemis. It really doesn’t go deeper than that. For what it’s worth, despite the clear difference in character this newfound association did impact Nanaya in at least one way: she started to be depicted with attributes borrowed from Artemis, namely a bow and a crescent. Or perhaps these attributes were already associated with her, but came to the forefront because of the new role. The Artemis-like image of Nanaya as an archer is attested on coins, especially in Susa, yet another city where she attained considerable popularity.

Leaving Mesopotamia: Nanaya and the death of cuneiform

A Parthian statue of Nanaya with a crescent diadem (Louvre; reproduced here for educational purposes only. Identification follows Andrea Sinclair's proposal)

The Seleucid dynasty was eventually replaced by the Parthians. This period is often considered a symbolic end of ancient Mesopotamian religion in the strict sense. Traditional religious institutions were already slowly collapsing in Achaemenid and Seleucid times as the new dynasties had limited interest in royal patronage. Additionally, cuneiform fell out of use, and by the end of the first half of the first millennium CE the art of reading and writing it was entirely lost. This process did not happen equally quickly everywhere, obviously, and some deities fared better than others in the transitional period before the rise of Christianity and Islam as the dominant religions across the region. Nanaya was definitely one of them, at least for a time. In Parthian art Nanaya might have developed a distinct iconography: it has been argued she was portrayed as a nude figure wearing only some jewelry (including what appears to be a navel piercing and a diadem with a crescent. The best known example is probably this standing figure, one of my all time favorite works of Mesopotamian art:

Parthian Nanaya (wikimedia commons; identification courtesy of the Louvre website and J. G. Westenholz)

For years Wikipedia had this statue mislabeled as “Astarte” which makes little sense considering it comes from a necropolis near Babylon. There was also a viral horny tweet which labeled it as “Asherah” a few months ago (I won’t link it but I will point out in addition to getting the name wrong op also severely underestimated the size). This is obviously even worse nonsense both on spatial and temporal grounds. Even if the biblical Asherah was ever an actual deity like Ugaritic Athirat and Mesopotamian Ashratum, it is highly dubious she would still be worshiped by the time this statue was made. It’s not even certain she ever was a deity, though. Cognate of a theonym is not automatically a theonym itself, and the Ugaritic texts and the Bible, even if they share some topoi, are separated by centuries and a considerable distance. This is not an Asherah post though, so if this is a topic which interests you I recommend downloading Steve A. Wiggins’ excellent monograph A Reassessment of Asherah: With Further Considerations of the Goddess.

The last evidence for the worship of Nanaya in Mesopotamia is a Mandaean spell from Nippur, dated to the fifth or sixth century CE. However, at this point Nanaya must have been a very faint memory around these parts, since the figure designated by this name is evidently male in this formula. That was not the end of her career, though. The system of beliefs she originated and thrived in was on its way out, but there were new frontiers to explore. A small disgression is in order here: be INCREDIBLY wary of claims about the survival of Mesopotamian tradition in Mesopotamia itself past the early middle ages. Most if not all of these come from the writing of Simo Parpola, who is a 19th century style hyperdiffusionist driven by personal religious beliefs based on gnostic christianity, which he believes was based on Neo-Assyrian state religion, which he misinterprets as monotheism, or rather proto-christianity specifically (I wish I was making this up). I personally do not think a person like that should be tolerated in serious academia, but for some incomprehensible reason that isn’t the case. 

New frontiers: Nanaya in Bactria

The key to Nanaya’s extraordinarily long survival wasn’t the dedication to her in Mesopotamia, surprisingly. It was instead her introduction to Bactria, a historical area in Central Asia roughly corresponding to parts of modern Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The early history of this area is still poorly known, though it is known that it was one of the “cradles of civilization” not unlike Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley or Mesoamerica. The so-called “Oxus civilization” or “Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex” flourished around 2500-1950 BCE (so roughly contemporarily with the Akkadian and Ur III empires in Mesopotamia). It left behind no written records, but their art and architecture are highly distinctive and reflect great social complexity. I sadly can’t spent much time discussing them here though, as they are completely irrelevant to the history of Nanaya (there is a theory that she was already introduced to the east when BMAC was extant but it is incredibly implausible), so I will limit myself to showing you my favorite related work of art, the “Bactrian princess”:

Photo courtesy of Louvre Abu Dhabi, reproduced here for educational purposes only.

By late antiquity, which is the period we are concerned with here, BMAC was long gone, and most of the inhabitants of Bactria spoke Bactrian, an extinct Iranian language. How exactly they were related to their BMAC forerunners is uncertain. Their religious beliefs can be compared to Zoroastrianism, or rather with its less formalized forerunners followed by most speakers of Iranian languages before the rise of Zoroaster. However, there were many local peculiarities. For example, the main deity was the personified river Oxus, not Ahura Mazda. Whether this was a relic of BMAC religion is impossible to tell.We do not know exactly when the eastward transfer of Nanaya to Bactria happened. The first clear evidence for her presence in central Asia comes from the late first century BCE, from the coins of local rulers, Sapadbizes and Agesiles. It is possible that her depictions on coinage of Mesopotamian and Persian rulers facilitated her spread. Of course, it’s also important to remember that the Aramaic script and language spread far to the east in the Achaemenid period already, and that many of the now extinct Central Asian scripts were derived from it (Bactrian was written with the Greek script, though). Doubtlessly many now lost Aramaic texts were transferred to the east. There’s an emerging view that for unclear reasons, under the Achaemenids Mesopotamian culture as a whole had unparalleled impact on Bactria. The key piece of evidence are Bactrian temples, which often resemble Mesopotamian ones. Therefore, perhaps we should be wondering not why Nanaya spread from Mesopotamia to Central Asia, but rather why there were no other deities who did, for the most part. That is sadly a question I cannot answer. Something about Nanaya simply made her uniquely appealing to many groups at once. While much about the early history of Nanaya in Central Asia is a mystery, it is evident that with time she ceased to be viewed as a foreign deity. For the inhabitants of Bactria she wasn’t any less “authentically Iranian” than the personified Oxus or their versions of the conventional yazatas like Sraosha. Frequently arguments are made that Nanaya’s widespread adoption and popularity could only be the result of identification between her and another deity.Anahita in particular is commonly held to be a candidate. However, as stressed by recent studies there’s actually no evidence for this. What is true is that Anahita is notably missing from the eastern Iranian sources, despite being prominent in the west from the reign of the Achaemenid emperor Artaxerxes II onward. However, it is clear that not all yazatas were equally popular in each area - pantheons will inevitably be localized in each culture. Furthermore, Anahita’s character has very little in common with Nanaya save for gender. Whether we are discussing her early not quite Zoroastrian form the Achaemenid public was familiar with or the contemporary yazata still relevant in modern Zoroastrianism, the connection to water is the most important feature of her. Nanaya didn’t have such a role in any culture. Recently some authors suggested a much more obvious explanation for Anahita’s absence from the eastern Iranian pantheon(s). As I said, eastern Iranian communities venerated the river Oxus as a deity (or as a yazata, if you will). He was the water god par excellence, and in Bactria also the king of the gods. It is therefore quite possible that Anahita, despite royal backing from the west, simply couldn’t compete with him. Their roles overlapped more than the roles of Anahita and Nanaya. I am repeating myself but the notion of interchangeability of goddesses really needs to be distrusted almost automatically, no matter how entrenched it wouldn’t be. While we’re at it, the notion of alleged interchangeability between Anahita and Ishtar is also highly dubious, but that’s a topic for another time.

Nana (Nanaya) on a coin of Kanishka (wikimedia commons)

Nanaya experienced a period of almost unparalleled prosperity with the rise of the Kushan dynasty in Bactria. The Kushans were one of the groups which following Chinese sources are referred to as Yuezhi. They probably did not speak any Iranian language originally, and their origin is a matter of debate. However, they came to rule over a kingdom which consisted largely of areas inhabited by speakers of various Iranian languages, chiefly Bactrian. Their pantheon, documented in royal inscriptions and on coinage, was an eerie combination of mainstays of Iranian beliefs like Sraosha and Mithra and some unique figures, like Oesho, who was seemingly the reflection of Hindu Shiva. Obviously, Nanaya was there too, typically under the shortened name Nana. The most famous Kushan ruler, emperor Kanishka, in his inscription from Rabatak states that kingship was bestowed upon him by “Nana and all the gods”. However, we do not know if the rank assigned to her indicates she was the head of the dynastic pantheon, the local pantheon in the surrounding area, or if she was just the favorite deity of Kanishka. Same goes for the rank of numerous other deities mentioned in the rest of the inscription. Her apparent popularity during Kanishka’s reign and beyond indicates her role should not be downplayed, though. The coins of Kanishka and other Bactrian art indicate that a new image of Nanaya developed in Central Asia. The Artemis-like portrayals typical for Hellenistic times continue to appear, but she also started to be depicted on the back of a lion. There is only one possible example of such an image from the west, a fragmentary relief from Susa, and it’s roughly contemporary with the depictions from Bactria. While it is not impossible Nanaya originally adopted the lion association from one of her Mesopotamian peers, it is not certain how exactly this specific type of depictions originally developed, and there is a case to be made that it owed more to the Hellenistic diffusion of iconography of deities such as Cybele and Dionysus, who were often depicted riding on the back of large felines. The lunar symbols are well attested in the Kushan art of Nanaya too. Most commonly, she’s depicted wearing a diadem with a crescent. However, in a single case the symbol is placed behind her back. This is an iconographic type which was mostly associated with Selene at first, but in the east it was adopted for Mah, the Iranian personification of the moon. I’d hazard a guess that’s where Nanaya borrowed it from - more on that later. The worship of Nanaya survived the fall of the Kushan dynasty, and might have continued in Bactria as late as in the eighth century. However, the evidence is relatively scarce, especially compared with yet another area where she was introduced in the meanwhile.

Nanaya in Sogdia: new home and new friends

A Sogdian depiction of Nanaya from Bunjikat (wikimedia commons)

Presumably from Bactria, Nanaya was eventually introduced to Sogdia, its northern neighbor. I think it’s safe to say this area effectively became her new home for the rest of her history. Like Bactrians, the Sogdians also spoke an eastern Iranian language, Sogdian. It has a direct modern descendant, Yaghnobi, spoken by a small minority in Tajikistan. The religions Sogdians adhered to is often described as a form of Zoroastrianism, especially in older sources, but it would appear that Ahura Mazda was not exactly the most popular deity. Their pantheon was seemingly actually headed by Nanaya. Or, at the very least, the version of it typical for Samarkand and Panijkant, since there’s a solid case to be made for local variety in the individual city-states which made up Sogdia. It seems that much like Mesopotamians and Greeks centuries before them, Sogdians associated specific deities with specific cities, and not every settlement necessarily venerated each deity equally (or at all). Nanaya's remarkable popularity is reflected by the fact the name Nanaivandak, "servant of Nanaya", is one of the most common Sogdian names in general. It is agreed that among the Sogdians Panjikant was regarded as Nanaya’s cult center. She was referred to as “lady” of this city. At one point, her temple located there was responsible for minting the local currency. By the eighth century, coins minted there were adorned with dedications to her - something unparalleled in Sogdian culture, as the rest of coinage was firmly secular. This might have been an attempt at reasserting Sogdian religious identity in the wake of the arrival of Islam in Central Asia. Sogdians adopted the Kushan iconography of Nanaya, though only the lion-mounted version. The connection between her and this animal was incredibly strong in Sogdian art, with no other deity being portrayed on a similar mount. There were also innovations - Nanaya came to be frequently portrayed with four arms. This reflects the spread of Buddhism through central Asia, which brought new artistic conventions from India. While the crescent symbol can still be found on her headwear, she was also portrayed holding representations of the moon and the sun in two of her hands. Sometimes the solar disc and lunar orb are decorated with faces, which has been argued to be evidence that Nanaya effectively took over the domains of Mah and Mithra, who would be the expected divine identities of these two astral bodies. She might have been understood as controlling the passage of night and day. It has also been pointed out that this new iconographic type is the natural end point of the evolution of her astral role. Curiously, while no such a function is attested for Nanaya in Bactria, in Sogdia she could be sometimes regarded as a warlike deity. This is presumably reflected in a painting showing her and an unidentified charioteer fighting demons.

The "Sogdian Deities" painting from Dunhuang, a possible depiction of Nanaya and her presumed spouse Tish (wikimedia commons)

Probably the most fascinating development regarding Nanaya in Sogdia was the development of an apparent connection between her and Tish. This deity was the Sogdian counterpart of one of the best known Zoroastrian yazatas, Tishtrya, the personification of Sirius. As described in the Tištar Yašt, the latter is a rainmaking figure and a warlike protector who keeps various nefarious forces, such as Apaosha, Duzyariya and the malign “worm stars” (comets), at bay. Presumably his Sogdian counterpart had a similar role. While this is not absolutely certain, it is generally agreed that Nanaya and Tish were regarded as a couple in central Asia (there’s a minority position she was instead linked with Oesho, though). Most likely the fact that in Achaemenid Persia Tishtrya was linked with Nabu (and by extension with scribal arts) has something to do with this. There is a twist to this, though. While both Nabu and the Avestan Tishtrya are consistently male, in Bactria and Sogdia the corresponding deity’s gender actually shows a degree of ambiguity. On a unique coin of Kanishka, Tish is already portrayed as a feminine figure distinctly similar to Greek Artemis - an iconographic type which normally would be recycled for Nanaya. There’s also a possibility that a feminine, or at least crossdressing, version of Tish is portrayed alongside Nanaya on a painting from Dunhuang conventionally referred to as “Sogdian Daēnās” or “Sogdian Deities”, but this remains uncertain. If this identification is correct, it indicates outright interchange of attributes between them and Nanaya was possible.

The final frontier: Nanaya and the Sogdian diaspora in China Sogdians also brought Nanaya with them to China, where many of them settled in the Six Dynasties and Tang periods. An obviously Sinicized version of her, accompanied by two attendants of unknown identity, is portrayed on a Sogdian funerary couch presently displayed in the Miho Museum.

Nanaya (top) on a relief from the Miho funerary couch (Miho Museum; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

For the most part the evidence is limited to theophoric names, though. Due to unfamiliarity with Sogdian religious traditions and phonetic differences between the languages there was no consistent Chinese transcription of Nanaya’s name. I have no clue if Chinese contemporaries of the Sogdians were always aware of these elements in personal names referred to a deity. There is a fringe theory that Nanaya was referred to as Nantaihou (那那女主, “queen Nana”) in Chinese. However, the evidence is apparently not compelling, and as I understand the theory depends in no small part on the assertion that a hitherto unattested alternate reading of one of the signs was in use on the western frontiers of China in the early first millennium CE. The alleged Nantaihou is therefore most likely a misreading of a reference to a deceased unnamed empress dowager venerated through conventional ancestor worship, as opposed to Nanaya. Among members of the Sogdian diaspora, in terms of popularity Nanaya was going head to head with Jesus and Buddha. The presence of the latter two reflected the adoption of, respectively, Manichaeism and Buddhism. Manicheans seemingly were not fond of Nanaya, though, and fragments of a polemic against her cult have been identified. It seems ceremonies focused on lamentations were the main issue for the Manichaeans. Sadly there doesn’t seem to be any worthwhile study of possible Mesopotamian influence on that - the only one I found is old and confuses Nanaya with Inanna. We do not have much of an idea how Buddhists viewed Nanaya, though it is worth noting a number of other Sogdian deities were incorporated into the local form of Mahayana (unexpectedly, one of them was Zurvan). It has also been argued that a Buddhist figure, Vreshman (Vaisravana) was incorporated into Nanaya’s entourage. Nanaya might additionally be depicted in a painting showing Buddha’s triumph over Mara from Dunhuang. Presumably her inclusion would reflect the well attested motif of local deities converting to Buddhism. It was a part of the Buddhist repertoire from the early days of this religion and can be found in virtually every area where this religion ever spread. Nanaya is once again in elevated company here, since other figures near her have been tentatively interpreted as Shiva, Vishnu, Kartikeya and… Zoroaster.

Buddha conquering Mara (maravijaya) on a painting from Dunhuang (wikimedia commons)

zoom in on a possible depiction of Nanaya next to a demon suspiciously similar to Tove Jansson’s Fillyjonk

To my best knowledge, the last absolutely certain attestation of Nanaya as an actively worshiped deity also comes from the western frontier of China. A painting from Dandan Oilik belonging to the artistic tradition of the kingdom of Khotan shows three deities from the Sogdian pantheon: the enigmatic Āδβāγ (“highest god”; interpreted as either Indra, Ahura Mazda or a combination of them both) on the left, Weshparkar (a later version of Kushan Oesho) on the right and Nanaya in the center. It dates to the ninth or tenth century.

Nanaya (center) on the Dandan Oilik painting (wikimedia commons)

We will probably never know what Nanaya’s last days were like, though it is hard to imagine she retained much relevance with the gradual disappearance of Sogdian culture both in Sogdia and in China in the wake of, respectively, the rise of Islam in Central Asia and the An Lushan rebellion respectively. Her history ultimately most likely ended with a whimper rather than a bang. Conclusions and reflections Obviously, not everything about Nanaya could be covered in this article - there is enough material to warrant not one, but two wiki articles (and I don't even think they are extensive enough yet). I hope I did nonetheless manage to convey what matters: she was the single most enduring Mesopotamian deity who continued to be actually worshiped. She somehow outlived Enlil, Marduk, Nergal and even Inanna, and spread further than any of them ever did. It does not seem like her persistence was caused by some uniquely transcendent quality, and more to a mix of factors we will never really fully understand and pure luck. She is a far cry from the imaginary everlasting universal goddesses such longevity was attributed to by many highly questionable authors in the past, from Frazer to Gimbutas. Quite the opposite, once you look into the texts focused on her she comes across as sort of pathetic. After all, most of them are effectively ancient purple prose. And yet, this is precisely why I think Nanaya matters. To see how an author approaches her is basically a litmus test of trustworthiness - I wish I was kidding but this “Nanaya method” works every time. To even be able to study her history, let alone understand it properly, one has to cast away most of the dreadful trends which often hindered scholarship of ancient deities, and goddesses in particular, in the past. The interchangeability of goddesses; the Victorian mores and resulting notion that eroticism must be tied to fertility; the weird paradigms about languages neatly corresponding to religions; and many others. And if nothing else, this warrants keeping the memory of her 3000 years long history alive through scholarship (and, perhaps, some media appearances). Bibliography

Julia M. Asher-Greve & Joan Goodnick Westenholz, Goddesses in Context: On Divine Powers, Roles, Relationships and Gender in Mesopotamian Textual and Visual Sources (2013)

Paul-Alain Beaulieu, The Pantheon of Uruk During the Neo-Babylonian Period (2003)

idem, Nabû and Apollo: The Two Faces of Seleucid Religious Policy in: Orient und Okzident in Hellenistischer Zeit (2014)

Matteo Compareti, Nana and Tish in Sogdiana (2017)

idem, The So-Called "Pelliot Chinois 4518.24". Illustrated Document from Dunhuang and Sino-Sogdian Iconographical Contacts (2021)

Olga Drewnowska-Rymarz, Mesopotamian Goddess Nanāja (2008)

Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: an Anthology of Akkadian Literature (2005)

Andrew R. George & Manfred Krebernik, Two Remarkable Vocabularies: Amorite-Akkadian Bilinguals! (2022)

Valerie Hansen, Kageyama Etsuko & Yutaka Yoshida, The Impact of the Silk Road Trade on a Local Community: The Turfan Oasis, 500-800 in: Les sogdiens en Chine (2005)

Wilfred G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths (2013)

Enrico Marcato, An Aramaic Incantation Bowl and the Fall of Hatra (2020)

Christa Müller-Kessler & Karlheinz Kessler, Spätbabylonische Gottheiten in spätantiken mandäischen Texten (1999)

Lilla Russel-Smith, Uygur Patronage in Dunhuang. Regional Art Centres on the Northern Silk Road in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (2005)

idem, The 'Sogdian Deities' Twenty Years on: A Reconsideration of a Small Painting from Dunhuang in: Buddhism in Central Asia II. Practices and Rituals, Visual and Material Transfer (2022)

Tonia M. Sharlach, An Ox of One's Own. Royal Wives and Religion at the Court of the Third Dynasty of Ur (2017)

Michael Shenkar, Intangible Spirits and Graven Images: The Iconography of Deities in the Pre-Islamic Iranian World (2014)

idem, The Religion and the Pantheon of the Sogdians (5th-8th Centuries CE) in Light of their Sociopolitical Structures (2017)

idem, The So-Called "Fravašis" and the "Heaven and Hell" Paintings, and the Cult of Nana in Panjikent (2022)

Marten Stol, Nanaja in: Reallexikon der Assyriologie, vol. 9 (1998)

Michael P. Streck & Nathan Wasserman, More Light on Nanāya (2013)

Aaron Tugendhaft, Gods on Clay: Ancient Near Eastern Scholarly Practices and the History of Religions in: Canonical Texts and Scholarly Practices. A Global Comparative Approach (2016)

Joan Goodnick Westenholz, Nanaya, Lady of Mystery in: Sumerian Gods and Their Representations (1997)

idem, Trading the Symbols of the Goddess Nanaya in: Religions and Trade. Religious Formation, Transformation and Cross-Cultural Exchange between East and West (2014)

Xinjiang Rong, The Colophon of the Manuscript of the Golden Light Sutra Excavated in Turfan and the Transmission of Zoroastrianism to Gaochang in: The Silk Road and Cultural Exchanges between East and West (2022)

Gioele Zisa, The Loss of Male Sexual Desire in Ancient Mesopotamia. ›Nīš Libbi‹ Therapies (2021)

[mandoalorian]

Look For The Light [Joel Miller x F!Reader]

Prologue: Part I

Summary: You are a hardened survivor trying to navigate your way in a post-apocolyptic world when you bump into an old friend who goes by the name of Joel Miller.

Warnings: the reader is slightly younger than Joel, say a 10-year age gap? All TLOU relevant warnings such as gore, violence, guns, drugs, and cursing. Joel has an anxiety disorder which parallels his portrayal in the games. Diet talk. Expect smut later on… [Please do not read if you are under the age of 18!]

Author’s Note: I can’t believe it has taken me so long to write a full-blown Joel fic. Those of you who know me well know that I became a fan of TLOU in 2019, just a year before I became a fan of Pedro. I was elated when it was announced he’d been cast as Joel and thus far, I am thrilled with his performance and the many themes of the TV show that have stayed true to the game/s. It is everything I could’ve asked for, and more. I feel as though there is no better person qualified to write a ‘re-write’ per-se of the game/TV show, and I aim to release chapters in time for the new episodes coming out. 

Word count: 6,800 words.

Masterlist | Want to support me? | Listen to 'Look For The Light' on Spotify

<Please remember to reblog to show your love and support! Reblogs give me the motivation to continue the series, and motivation means that I’m able to pump out chapters quicker than usual!>

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Sarah had been sitting on the patio since she finished middle school at noon, waiting for her dad to come home from work. Every school in the US was let out early today for some unknown reason. Government orders. But when Sarah’s dad called her at four-thirty and told her that he’d be home at nine, she thought little of it. This often happened, especially this season. With it just being him and Tommy, working on big contracting jobs often took some time, but Joel often reassured Sarah that it was better that way. Despite their constant brotherly bickering, Joel and Tommy were hard workers and made an excellent team. When Joel heard how disappointed Sarah was that he would be home late, he told her that she could take some money out of his wallet, which was located in his bedside drawer. He told her she could order a pizza and stay up late to watch a movie, and if she got bored waiting up for him, then she could visit their neighbours—the Adlers. They weren’t remarkable company, but they were kind people and they adored Sarah.

Sarah’s mind worked fast as soon as her father hung up the call and it didn’t take long for her to concoct a plan. If she recalled correctly, there was a cheese pizza in the freezer, so instead of ordering take-out, she opted to take her dad’s money and his favourite (yet broken) watch to the jewellers to get fixed. Luckily it wasn’t too far and she managed to get there before five, which was closing time. Sarah was elated that she was able to do this for her father. He always complained about his broken watch, and he was so busy that he was never given the opportunity to get it fixed.

She placed the broken watch on the counter, alongside a twenty-dollar bill, and she offered the gentleman who worked in the store a small wave ‘hello’. He was an older man with white hair and crow’s feet by the corner of his eyes, a sign that he’d smiled a lot during his lifetime. 

“Oh, hey Sarah. How’s your dad?” The man, who according by his nametag, went by Eric, enquired while picking up the wristwatch and examining the damage. 

“He’s good, thanks. Working late tonight,” Sarah hummed absent-mindedly while she admired the many antiques and trinkets which were dotted around the store. This wasn’t your traditional jeweller—but somewhat of a pawn shop where you could buy the occasional bracelet or diamond ring. “Actually, it’s his birthday tomorrow. Was hoping to get his favourite watch fixed.”

Eric chuckled heartedly. “Well, you’re in luck, kid. Looks like it just needs a new battery. That’ll get it ticking again.” After a few short moments, he returned the repaired watch to Sarah. Eric slid the twenty-dollar bill back over to her.

“No no,” Sarah surrendered her hands. “That’s your payment,” Sarah put the watch in her backpack. “Please take it.”

“Your father is a good man, and you’re a sweet kid—doing this for him. Don’t worry about the payment, I—” Just as he was about to finish his sentence, an older woman came charging into the front of the store, appearing panicked and dishevelled. “Honey, what’s the matter?”

Sarah identified the woman as the shopkeeper’s wife and noted her shaky hands and rapid movements. She was in a frenzy.

“We have to close the store,” the woman said quickly. 

“What? Why?”

“We have to close the store!” the woman repeated this time shouting, and switching over the ‘Open’ sign to read ‘Closed’. She then turned to Sarah and grabbed the young girl by her arms. “You need to go home. Now.”

“Wh—is everything—” Sarah couldn’t even finish her sentence when the lady began to push her out the front door. Within seconds, the door to the store slammed shut and locked, and the blinds flew down. 

Sarah stood outside the jewellers for a few moments, her brain trying to register everything that had just happened. It wasn’t until an abundance of fire trucks and police cars zoomed past her; their sirens were deafeningly loud. Sarah heard some screams in the distance and took that as her sign to head home. She hoped that her dad would get home at nine as he promised.

The streets were eerily quiet on the walk home, and there wasn’t a soul in sight. Sarah noted the lack of cars on the road. She wanted to take her time to travel back to her neighbourhood—after all, her father wouldn’t be back for hours and she had plenty of time to kill, but the more she began to think about the things she had seen, the more she found her footsteps were speeding up into a fast pace.

When Sarah arrived home, she fumbled with the keys to unlock the front door. The sky was growing dark now and she wondered what she could do with herself to keep occupied while she waited for Joel to return home. Mrs Adler, the Miller’s neighbour, called for her, and Sarah turned to see the nice lady relaxing on the front porch, next to her mother who was much older. Sarah picked up the keys and pondered across the Adlers’ front lawn, and over to their porch, greeting Mrs Adler.

Sarah spent the rest of the evening with the Adler’s and their dog, Mercy. By eight-thirty, Sarah headed home, but not before taking ‘Curtis and Viper 2’ from Mrs Adler’s DVD shelf. Mrs Adler was fine with Sarah taking the movie. She described it as a boyish film, anyway. Sarah watched the movie and cooked her frozen pizza. By midnight, she found herself becoming increasingly worried about why her dad hadn’t returned home at nine like he had promised. Usually, she would be okay with it, knowing the nature of his job-- but with the strange occurrences that had been happening today, something felt off. 

The pale crescent moon shone like a silvery claw in the velvet night sky. When Joel finally pulled up into the driveway, he sighed, rubbing his tired eyes. He wasn’t getting enough sleep, and he was beginning to feel the effects of the long laborous hours on the same damn job. Tommy left at nine but Joel stayed back for a few hours to tie up loose ends. At least now he was paid, and he could forget all about it. He remained in his seat for a little while, listening to the end of the radio broadcast.

“—Indonesian minister of health released a statement today stating that the government is doing everything in their power to maintain the spread of the Cordyceps infection in Jakarta.”

Joel turned off the radio and left his truck. His mind was far too preoccupied to understand the severity of what was going on in the world around him. As he sauntered to the front patio, he cursed himself for being home so late knowing that Sarah would have been disappointed in him.

To his surprise, he heard Sarah’s voice the second he opened the front door. She’d stayed up for him.

“You said you’d be home at nine,” Sarah grumbled, her lips pulling into a frown as Joel walked through the front door. Her eyes felt heavy but she had stayed awake this long, anticipating her father’s return. She wasn’t going to fall asleep now. Her determined mind stopped her from doing that. The young girl looked up at the wall clock above the television and her frown deepened. “It’s almost one in the mornin’.”

Joel removed his brown work jacket and brushed down his t-shirt before sliding out of his shoes and shuffling into the living room. The room was illuminated by the amber lantern on the coffee table. His gaze was immediately drawn to a little brown moth, hazily dancing around the lantern before settling down atop it. If he was in his usual teasing mood, he would have pointed the moth out to Sarah, knowing it would scare her, but instead, Joel just ignored the insect and slumped down onto the sofa. Joel spread his legs and leaned back, pulling out a yawn. What a day.

“I’m sorry kid,” Joel finally said, feeling a genuine sense of guilt. “Rough day. Bad traffic.”

At least that wasn’t a lie. The roads had been hectic, with people swerving chaotically and more sirens in the neighbourhood than Joel had ever heard. 

Sarah hummed knowingly. She’d been hearing the panic outside too, and the news broadcasts on the television had been secretly terrifying her to the point she couldn’t bear to watch. Something about an infection from Jakarta having sightings in the city. Not much was known about it, but Sarah was just glad she lived on the outskirts of Austin, Texas.

She’d be okay and so would her dad. 

That’s all that mattered.

“Sweetie, what are you still doing up? It is way past your bedtime.”

“Oh! But I got you something,” Sarah beamed and reached down the side of the sofa, bringing up a white box. Joel looked at Sarah with surprised eyes and held the weighty box in his hand.

He opened the box, not exactly sure what to expect from his fourteen-year-old daughter, only for it to be revealed that she had gotten his favourite watch fixed. The watch had been broken for quite some time and Joel, being the busy man that he was, never got the chance to fix it.

When Joel didn’t respond to the gift, Sarah interjected, feeling the need to explain herself. “You kept complaining about your broken watch so I figured…”

“I—honey, I love it but I think it’s broken,” Joel tapped the watch face and held it to his ear, checking to hear for its ticks. Sarah, in a panic, grabbed her dad’s wrist to inspect the watch for herself, only to see that it was working in perfect order.

“Oh ha ha.” Sarah mocked as her father snorted a chuckle.

“Where’d you get the money for this?” He inquired, quirking an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Drugs. I sell hardcore drugs.” Sarah joked with a smirk, pleased with herself for getting her dad a present that he truly liked.

“Oh good. You can help out with the mortgage then.” Joel countered and Sarah laughed, snuggling into her dad and resting her head on his lap.

“You wish.”

Joel turned on the television and despite it being late, settled on an old war movie to watch. Sarah hated those old black-and-white films, and it didn’t take her long to fall asleep. Taking his daughter in his arms, Joel picked up Sarah, carried her upstairs, and tucked her into bed. Placing a kiss on her forehead, Joel remembered just how lucky he was to have Sarah in his life. She kept him grounded—she kept him sane—and she gave him reason to keep going. 

By the time morning rolled around, Sarah was the first to wake up, as usual. Joel pressed snooze on his alarm three times, before his fourth and final alarm—being Sarah—came into his bedroom, opened up the curtains and let in the blinding golden sunlight which enveloped him. Joel winced as he felt the rays burn his skin, and turned over, putting a pillow over his head in frustration.

“Get up, dad,” Sarah announced. “It’s your birthday and I am making you special birthday pancakes.”

The pancakes were more so for Sarah, but her dad’s birthday was the best excuse to make them. She’d make rainbow funfetti pancakes with cream and syrup and strawberries. They were her all-time favourite breakfast. If he was lucky, she might have even stuck a candle in the top and sung ‘Happy Birthday’ to him.

That got Joel’s attention. “Birthday pancakes?”

“Be downstairs, dressed, in five minutes,” Sarah said before leaving her father’s bedroom.

Joel crawled out of his warm bed, the pancakes being the only motivation he had to actually get up, and pulled over the same navy blue t-shirt that he was wearing the day before. Buckling up the belt of his dark wash denim jeans, he shuffled down the stairs and into the kitchen.

“I don’t smell pancakes,” Joel frowned. “But I do smell coffee.”

Already preparing her father’s daily black espresso, Sarah sighed. “We don’t have any flour,” she replied, just as disappointed as he was. “You must’ve forgotten to pick it up. I guess you forgot the birthday cake too?”

“Damn it,” Joel huffed, realising that hopping to the grocery store yesterday must have completely slipped his mind. “That’s okay baby girl, I’ll make eggs.”

Eggs were fine, but they weren’t part of her convoluted plan to give her dad the best birthday imaginable. Sarah supposed that it would be okay and that the both of them were still able to spend the day together.

Sarah placed her dad’s coffee on the table. “Your shirt is inside out.”

The young girl helped her dad set the table and poured out some orange juice before taking her seat and eating her breakfast. After fixing his shirt, Joel sat down and turned on the television before digging at his eggs.

‘BREAKING NEWS: Cordyceps Brain Infection comes from contaminated food, spokesperson says. Total number of infected rises to 5000.’

“5,000?” Sarah repeated in disbelief. “Where is this infection spreading?”

“Jakarta,” Joel replied, stuffing a mouthful of bacon into his mouth. “Heard about it on the radio yesterday. Those poor people…”

“What kind of food is contaminated?” Sarah asked, to which Joel could only shrug in response.

“I don’t know honey, but don’t worry. We’re fine over here.”

Just as Joel and Sarah were finishing up their eggs and bacon, they overheard the front door swing open.

“Well well well, happy birthday old man,” Tommy Miller strolled into the kitchen with ease ruffling his older brother’s already messy bed hair playfully.

“Old man?” Joel countered, dropping his fork to the plate and acting mockingly offended.

“Old. Degenerate,” Tommy corrected and Sarah stifled a laugh. “Hey, I thought we were having birthday pancakes.”

“No flour.” Joel and Sarah replied simultaneously knowing that those two words offered enough of an explanation.

Tommy grumbled in dismay. “Well, in that case, I’ll see you guys later.”

When Tommy left, Sarah and Joel erupted into a fit of laughter. Tommy lived in the neighbourhood so it was often he would just pop in for a few minutes only to leave again. Now that he had the day off, Tommy would most likely spend his day in a bar playing pool, or hitting on girls that were way out of his league.

“No but seriously, what are we doing today?” Sarah asked, clearing her plate and heading over to the sink to wash her dishes.

“Well I got to pop out to the city for a little while. I promised an old friend I’d help her with a favour. You remember your old nanny?”

Sarah beamed at the memory of her. “Of course! Can I come with you?”

“No darling, I won’t be there long. She just wants me to take a look at her shower. She’s got a place up in Austin now.”

“Nice,” Sarah smiled. “She always did want to move to the city.”

“I should be back in time for dinner, and this time I’ll grab a birthday cake from the grocers,” Joel promised. Sarah offered him a hug.

“Okay daddy, do what you gotta do. I’ll see you later.”

The traffic was even worse than yesterday. The roads that led into the city were filled with people who were seemingly fleeing, all speeding in opposite directions. There was an accident on the quickest route so Joel found that he had to go through back alleys and side streets in order to get there as quickly and safely as possible. He didn’t understand why the roads were so hectic, and his mind was too preoccupied with the thought of seeing you again after so long.

Joel wasn’t sure whether or not he had done the right thing when it came to rejecting the new contracting job that was proposed by a local business, only to take on a free favour for the girl who used to babysit his daughter. You had done more than enough favours for the Miller family; having been there for Sarah ever since she was a little girl. If Joel had to be honest with himself; you were as much of an influence on Sarah as he could’ve hoped for. Being a young, single dad had its difficulties and Joel’s job often meant that he had to work long hours away from his daughter. As Sarah got older she understood why her dad would have to leave so early in the morning and come back so late at night. He was simply doing it to take care of her.

But when he wasn’t around, you were the reliable force that protected Sarah and watched over her during the day. You took her to kindergarten and later elementary school. You sat with her during the late evenings, helped with her homework and even cooked her dinner. Despite the ten-year age gap between you and Sarah, the two of you had become quite close, and according to Joel, you were simply a terrific girl; well-mannered and gentle. Your personality had an influence on Sarah, and Joel certainly couldn’t complain about that. He was so proud of his daughter. That’s why Joel was prepared to do this job as a favour to you, much to Tommy’s dismay.

Tommy being Tommy, always had something to complain about.

“This is un-fucking-believable. You got to earn a living Joel—and I do too. You sacrificed a legitimate job to help fix Sarah’s old nanny’s bathroom plumbing. And shit man, you ain’t even a plumber.” Tommy was midway ranting to Joel on the phone when he pulled up outside your apartment. After moving out of your family home, you found a place in central Austin, where you were living with your boyfriend. The commute to work was much easier now that you lived in the city. You’d scored a secretary job in a corporate office down on Congress Avenue. 

“We are doing fine for business,” Joel sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance. It was times like this when Joel would wonder about the fine line between love and tolerance. Tommy was never going to let his brother forget about this. “I just owe this girl some favours.”

“You just want to get in her pants.” Tommy snarked back, the vulgar words dripping from his tongue.

“And you better watch your mouth boy,” Joel warned, his tone darkening as he immediately found himself getting ticked off by his brother’s comment. Tommy was always one to jump to accusations. “Just a favour.” Joel reminded before promptly hanging up the call. 

Joel slid his cell into his jean pocket and took a deep breath. He hadn’t seen you in months. Not since you moved away. He felt his palms get just a little sweaty with nerves as he approached the front door to your building. Apartment number 13. After a brief moment of coaching himself, Joel pressed the button to buzz into your apartment.

“It’s me—Joel—uh, Miller—Joel Mil—” where were these nerves coming from?

“Come up!” your cheery voice interrupted him and he heard the electronic front door click open. Joel said a silent prayer hoping that you couldn’t sense his anxiety through the intercom. He had forgotten to take his medication that morning.

Noticing the elevator was out of order, Joel had no choice but to take the many flights of stairs that led up to your place. The walls in the hallway were painted a dingy brown and several cracks laced the webbed corners. When he got to your floor, he wiped away the beads of sweat that laced his hairline and noticed that the door to your apartment was already wide open, beckoning him to come in.

He lingered outside for a moment hesitantly, peeking around your front room; but you were nowhere in sight. He scratched the back of his neck before calling your name. It would be rude to just enter your apartment without you knowing. 

When there was no response, Joel called your name again. He proceeded to take a step into your apartment and shut the door behind him. It was very small; just a sofa and a small TV and a bookshelf in the corner. Your kitchen was adjoined to your living room, and there were only two rooms towards the back. He assumed one must have been your bedroom, and the other… he heard a rush of water running. The bathroom.

The door was shut and Joel took a few steps, calling your name as he got closer and closer to the bathroom.

“I’m in here!” you called back. “Uh—you can come in—but please don’t laugh.”

Joel quirked his eyebrow as he pondered what could be beyond the door. He slowly reached down to the door handle. 

“Are ‘ya… are you decent?” Joel asked awkwardly, noting that the shower was still running.

Another moment of silence before your timid voice responded. “…I suppose…” 

Joel pushed down on the bronze door handle and let himself into the bathroom, only to be enveloped by warm, thick, humid air coming from the running shower. His immediate response was to choke back a cough as he squinted his eyes, trying to navigate where exactly you were hiding. You were behind the fogged-up shower glass, on your knees and sopping wet. You made no effort to remove yourself from the running water, even when Joel had already entered the room. You were adamant you could get this fixed yourself.

“Damn it!” you cursed loudly, finally withdrawing yourself from the shower and crawling out of the bathtub. You were never one to give up easily, but meddling with this shower was like fighting a losing battle.

You looked up at Joel whose large hand was covering the smirk that grazed his lips. He was trying so hard not to laugh at you. His broad shoulders were adorned by a brown jacket and his dark locks of hair seemed to be adorned with just a few grey specks—and hell, if he wasn’t staring at you with the utmost judgement—you might have even considered just how attractive he looked.

“You good?” Joel chuckled, the corners of his chocolate eyes creasing with elation. You stood up to meet his level, ignoring the fact your t-shirt was now stuck to your skin and water droplets were falling from your hair.

“Do I look good?” you snarked back, narrowing your eyes.

“Well—” Joel raised an eyebrow, eyeing you up and down. You felt your cheeks heat up under his gaze and you sheepishly looked down at your feet, hoping he wouldn’t catch your earnest reaction. “What happened?”

“Thought I could be all big and clever and try and fix this damn shower by myself,” you admitted, feeling silly for even giving it a try. “Thought that if I fixed it, I wouldn’t have had to waste your time.”

“Ah,” Joel nodded, stepping aside from you and hesitantly approaching the shower. A few stray streams of water jumped out at him. “You ain't ever wasting my time.”

You fiddled with your thumbs as Joel pulled out a wrench from his back pocket. Without hesitating, he stepped under the hot water and began to adjust the shower faucet, tightening the metal valve located under the head of the shower. The wrench kept slipping however and Joel ended up placing it on the side of the tub, opting to use his strength to tighten the valve. You watched as his grip tightened against the faucet controls, his biceps flexing as he let out a quiet grunt. The main flow of water came to a halt and the condensation in the room began to slowly fizzle away. Small drips of water fell from the leaky showerhead, but for the most part, Joel fixed your problem in just a matter of minutes.

Scratching the back of his neck, Joel ran his finger down one of the pipes that joint into the valve. “You might need to get your pipes checked, could be rust or—”

“Fungus,” you cut him off. “It’s gross, I know, but a neighbour was telling me she had the same problem with the faucet in her kitchen. Damn water wouldn’t stop running. She had some guys come around and they found this gross, fungus-type thing growing in the pipes.”

Joel made no effort to hide the disgusted look on his face. 

You sighed, knowing you’d have to call a plumber over to investigate your shower further. You really didn’t need the extra expense right now. But then you remembered just how grateful you were that Joel travelled all this way to do you the favour of fixing your shower—even if it was a temporary solution. You walked over to the man and gently interlinked your fingers with his, your cautious movements taking Joel by surprise. 

“Come on,” you said softly. “It’s slippery. Let me help you out of the tub.” You noted how your hand fit in his. It was much smaller, and even though you wanted him to hold onto you for support, it felt more like you were holding onto him.

Joel graciously took a step out of the tub, and you realised he didn’t need to hold onto you whatsoever. You took a towel from the radiator and wrapped it around his shoulders; a pathetic attempt at getting him dry.

“I should’ve brought a change of clothes.” he huffed, running his now empty hand through his short hair.

“I have something that might fit,” you smiled. “I mean—not my clothes of course, but my boyfriend, Michael… well, he’s probably the same size as you.”

Boyfriend?

It took a second for Joel to register the word. For some reason, he’d made the assumption you didn’t have a boyfriend. But then again, it had been a while since he last saw you, and now you lived in the city with your corporate job and your brand-new life. Just when Joel thought he knew everything about you, he realised that there was now so much more for him to learn. He followed you into your small, box-shaped bedroom and into the closet.

You searched through a pile of clean laundry that was mixed with both yours and Michael’s clothes. 

“If you see anything you like, just take it. Michael won’t mind.” You offered.

Despite your assurance, Joel reluctantly knelt and searched through the pile of clothes. Amongst your many shirts, pants and colourful pyjamas, Joel finally found a light grey sweater and a pair of matching sweatpants to wear. As he pulled them out from under the pile, he couldn’t help but notice a lace lingerie set that was placed delicately underneath. Deliberately, at the bottom of the pile. His eyes were drawn to the piece and his grip on the grey fabric tightened as he imagined you wearing the set. The thoughts invaded his mind without choice and Joel cursed himself for not fighting them away.

He finally stood up and turned to face you, only to immediately retract back when he saw you pull off your t-shirt. Catching a glimpse of your bare back, Joel swallowed the lump in his throat and turned to face the poorly painted wall behind him, not wanting you to feel uncomfortable upon you discovering that he had seen you like that.

You had in fact told him that you were going to change out of your wet clothes too—around about the same time he noticed your lingerie. He was just too distracted to have heard.

Dropping your soaking wet jeans to the floor and letting them pool around your ankles, you pulled up your favourite, fleece-lined black leggings and wrapped your wet hair into a towel. Now dry and cosy, you turned back around to Joel who was staring at the concrete wall, waiting patiently for you to have finished.

“Joel?” you asked.

“Y—yeah?” Joel stuttered, clutching onto the sweats. 

“You found something to wear?”

“Yeah.” Joel confirmed, smiling softly and showing you the grey sweats that he had picked out, almost as if he was asking permission—again—as to whether or not he could take them. 

He was such a sweetheart.

“Perfect,” you returned his smile. “You can get changed in here. I’m going to head into the kitchen.”

Before Joel could reply, you left your bedroom and gently closed the door behind you, allowing Joel to get changed in privacy.

You opened up the refrigerator and took out a batch of chocolate chip cookies that you’d baked the night before. Heating them up in the microwave, you prepared them neatly on a plate and placed them down atop the small table that segregated your kitchen from your living room.  Just as you were finishing up presenting the cookies, Joel exited your bedroom and you felt your heart blossom in your chest when you caught sight of him.

You were so used to seeing Michael wear those same grey sweats all the time, you hadn’t even prepared yourself for how they’d look on Joel. For the same garments, you’d imagine they would look identical—but you couldn’t have been more wrong. They fit on Joel’s body like a glove and tugged on him in all the right places. The light colour highlighted his slender waist and broad shoulders, and the way the waistband around his sweatpants was just ever so slack…

Joel cleared his throat and you felt your cheeks heat up as you snapped out of your daydream. 

“Looks good,” You nodded your head with positive affirmation and then your eyes quickly darted to the cookies on the table behind you. “Cookies!” you announced, happy to have found a reason to change the subject. Joel shuffled towards you and eyed up the plate of cookies.

“Oh wow—chocolate chip?” Joel smiled. “Those are my favourite.”

“Sarah’s too,” you beamed. “I remembered. Would you like to try one?”

“I—I would love too,” Joel grinned and extended his arm over to the plate. But then he abruptly stopped himself. “But—ah, I’m on Atkins. And I’m doing so well…”

“What’s that?”

“Oh,” Joel grumbled. “Just this dumb diet thing. I’ve basically been cutting out carbs. Lasted nearly two weeks so far.” 

Your frown deepened at his admittance. “That doesn’t sound healthy…” 

“No, well, neither is this.” Joel prodded his tummy. 

You wanted to tell him not to diet—that he didn’t need to. That his body was damn well gorgeous just the way it was.

But you didn’t want to overstep any boundaries.

“Take them home for Sarah?” you offered.

“She’d love that,” Joel smiled and inched towards you. There was barely any distance separating you both now, and you couldn’t recall a time when you had been this close to one another. “Thank you.” His words were so genuine, so real, that they sparked butterflies in the pit of your tummy and you held back a smile. You held it back because, without any restraint, you’d be grinning like an excited little girl. 

“How is Sarah?” you asked, looking up at Joel.

If you took just one step forward, your chest would be touching his. 

“She’s good,” his voice had lowered an octave and that Southern twang in his accent became all the more prominent. “I’m sure she’d like to see you. You should come over sometime for movie night.”

“I—I would love that,” you admitted. Movie night with Joel and Sarah… just like the old days.

“She’s really into those horror movies now she’s getting older…” 

It was like some kind of mystic energy was pulling you both closer to each other. It wasn’t conscious, and the movements were small, but as your bodies got closer together you noticed the way Joel’s voice trailed off into eventual complete silence. And then, like magic, the curve of his nose bumped into yours and you let out a small giggle. The proximity of each other felt so intimate and yet you couldn’t bear to draw away from him. You wanted him to touch you, hold you, bump noses with you again… 

Joel’s eyes became dark and lust-filled as his gaze flicked down towards your mouth. Your eye line followed his and you observed his pretty pink lips that were framed by his moustache, all the same. You both wanted the same thing.  He wanted to kiss you, softly and delicately—and he wanted to cradle your face as he relished the moment. And equally, you wondered what it would be like to kiss him, if his light stubble would graze your skin or if it would tickle you and make you erupt into a fit of giggles. You wondered if his hair would be rough and brassy or soft and fluffy. 

You cautiously extended your arms and placed both your hands into his still-damp hair, threading your fingers through the roots to the tips. As a response, Joel closed his eyes and hummed in contentment, the vibrations in his chest sending chills through your own body. His own hands swung down to your hips and he bravely pulled you in closer to him. 

Joel opened his eyes and brought one hand up to your shoulder and then gently cupped the side of your cheek. You leaned into his palm and he swept his thumb over your bottom lip. Bumping noses with you again, this time he did not draw back. You could feel his breath fan over your lips and you pushed your chest into him and opened your mouth when---

Ring.    Ring.    Ring.    

The alert of Joel’s ringtone made him jolt back from you and stumble even a few steps further. You stood there, as still as could be, your brain desperately trying to piece together what just happened. 

You almost kissed Joel Miller.

“Shit, it’s Tommy,” Joel explained. “I should take this.”

Breathlessly, you nodded, and all Joel could do was shoot you an apologetic look before flipping open his phone and holding it to his ear.

“Joel—Joel—I need you to come to pick me up. I’m in jail.” A brief moment of static buzzed through the line but Joel heard Tommy loud and clear. He wished he had misheard.

“You what—” Joel placed a hand on his hip, taking a second to process his little brother’s words. “Why the hell are you in jail, Tommy? What did you do?”

Your eyes widened when you heard what was going on. Tommy in trouble?

“I—it wasn’t my fault—”

“It never is,” Joel grimaced.

“I was at Linkin’s Bar down by the Creek and some guy just started attackin’ Isabella. Grabbed a hold of her and wouldn’t let go… so I smashed a bottle in his face. Knocked him to the ground. That showed the fucker.”

“Jesus Christ Tommy,” Joel sighed.

“You’d do the same,” Tommy called out. “Isabella’s only small, and she couldn’t defend herself. Anyway—I need you to come to the County Jail and bail me out. I’ll pay you back, I promise. I just can’t stand to spend another moment in here.”

“Alright, I’m on my way, but I’m in Austin. Will take me a while to drive back up that way.”

“Just get here quick,” Tommy practically begged. “I—I think there’s something wrong with the officer. He keeps twitchin’ all funny. People have been acting weird, Joel.”

Joel shook his head and let out a deep sigh. “Whatever Tommy, I’m on my way.”

As soon as Joel put his cell back in his pocket, you placed a caring hand on his forearm. “Is Tommy okay?”

“He’s always getting into trouble, that boy.” Joel sighed. 

“You take care of your brother. You’re a good guy,” you said softly. “Maybe… maybe we can plan that movie night for tomorrow, huh? I get off work at five.”

Joel smiled. A good guy. That was all he wanted to be. And making plans for movie night with Sarah? Joel felt a buzz in his chest. She would love to see you again. “That sounds good.” He said casually, trying to hide the fact he was beaming inside. 

“Alright,” you returned his smile and then nudged his side playfully. “I’ll see you tomorrow then. And I’ll bring the cookies.”

“See ‘ya.” 

Joel turned around and left the apartment without another word and you stood there, your heart racing, still reeling from what had happened just minutes prior. You’d hardly lost track of time when Michael came through the front door. 

“Hey, who was that guy I just saw leaving? He kinda looked like me.”

Michael wished he looked like Joel, but you assumed that remark was made in reference to the outfit that Joel had ‘borrowed’.

“I—” immediately you felt defensive. Not that you needed to be, because technically, nothing happened. Was there any need to be defensive over mere feelings? “It was the plumber.”

“Oh. He fixed the shower?” Michael asked, stealing a cookie from the batch you had baked. 

“Yeah—hey! Don’t eat those. They aren’t for you.” You warned, but Michael was already swallowing his first piece.

“Huh?” Michael chortled. “It’s not like you need to eat them, looks like you’ve eaten enough already.” He said with a snide look. 

You felt your jaw slacken slightly at the comment and resisted the urge to tell him exactly just who this ‘plumber’ guy was, and how much you wished you had kissed him in that heat of the moment. 

You didn’t respond but instead watched Michael eat two more cookies. Your lips curled into a frown, knowing you’d have to bake another batch, but at least this time they would be fresh for tomorrow’s movie night. 

For the first time in weeks, Joel felt he was finally able to relax. He took the drive home slow and steady and turned up the car radio to drown out the ongoing sirens in the distance. The song ‘Future Days’ by Pearl Jam played, and Joel decided he would take up learning it on the guitar when he got home. Now that he had a few days off from work, he could put his feet up and do whatever he wanted. He looked forward to seeing you tomorrow, but now he just had to head on to the grocers, like he had promised Sarah, and pick out a birthday cake.

He found a red velvet one with buttercream icing, knowing it was more Sarah’s favourite than his own. Joel liked fruitcake but he knew that if he brought a fruitcake home for Sarah, she’d just sit there disgusted and pick out the raisins. He’d rather she was satisfied.

Joel brought the red velvet cake to the cashier and opened up his wallet, preparing to pay.

“I’m sorry sir,” the lady behind the desk said. “I can’t sell you this. I’m afraid all wheat-based products are being recalled due to the Cordyceps Brain Infection.”

Joel furrowed his eyebrows together in bewilderment. “The Cordyceps--? I thought that was all the way in Jakarta?”

“You haven’t heard--?”

Just then, alarms began ringing in the grocery store and an automated voice boomed through the speakers. The cashier froze and her eyes widened as soon as she recognised the voice. “This is an automated message. This is a red alert warning from the United States government and the CISA. Please stop what you are doing and return home immediately. Lock your doors. Do not let anyone inside.”

The message repeated repeatedly, and the entire store erupted into a panic; including the cashier standing before Joel. 

“What the hell is happening?” Joel asked, his gaze darting around the store. He watched a stampede of people head towards the fire exit, clambering and yelling frantically.

“You have to go.” The cashier replied before running off into the crowd.

Joel headed towards the entrance, thinking he could leave that way where it was less crowded. He had no comprehension of what was happening, but he knew for certain he wouldn’t leave Tommy behind.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Prologue: Part II

[19thperson]

19th's June 2024 Steam Next Fest Impressions - Day 4

Day 0/Day 1/Day 2/Day 3

Leximan

You are a wizard with word magic in a shitty wizard school.

In the overworld, that translates to typing out random words to get various effects. In battle, word fragments bounce around the screen, and you have to form a word with whatever you get to handle the situation.

As per it being a comedy game, my experience was making the wrong choices on purpose to see what happens. There doesn't seem to be any actual damage system, so it's just do whatever until you progress.

At it's height it is the best of early homestuck or problem slueth, laughing at the absurd consequences of an obtuse system. At its worst, the jokes feel incredibly forced. It's a land of contrast.

Biggest complaint is that I wish you could redo fights. I often found myself ending one early and wanting to see the other outcomes.

Mind Over Magnet

After years of telling people how making videos game works, youtubesman Game Makers Toolkit made a video game. A puzzle platformer about being a robbit and throwing your magnet friend around.

From the demo alone, it is... entirely cromulent.

It has puzzles that are puzzles. It's movement is smoothment. Nothing surprising, nothing disappointing.

It is a video game equivalent of a bowl of really good cereal or oatmeal with some effort put into it, with fruit chunks and everything. It's perfectly filling and enjoyable, and then you go about the rest of your day.

49 Keys

Apparently, this is an adaptation of a well received italian puzzle book.

It plays like an attempt to mix the classic text adventure style and the modern adventure game style. Most everything is text description with sparse illustrations, but interaction is done by dragging inventory items onto relevant paragraphs.

The plot is that you are a dominican priest or some other church official. Your teacher had not only been into church stuff but also astrology and occult stuff and would teach whoever had an ear. Church didn't like that, but he came from a wealthy family, so the best they could do is exile him to an island to continue his studies in peace and not corrupt the other clergymen.

On his deathbed, he sends the player a letter saying "hey I'm about to kick the bucket, I got a project I need finished, and I only trust you to do that." Which judging from the art and descriptions is some Lovecraft shit.

Unfortunately, the demo never gets to the lovecraft shit, ending right when you find a way to enter his house. While it didn't clock as "Scary" yet, they've got the historical fiction voice down, nailing the balance of antiquated sounding speech while still being easily legible. And they've got a good UI to add to that atmosphere.

Of course, the hot demon lady color spreads on the steam page kinda clash with that.

Curiosity piqued but expectations reserved.

Raining City: Millions Recollection

Gotta admit, I recognize it's sort of an unfair expectation, but after being burned by multiple chinese VN demos in previous next fests, it's nice to see one that's been translated to competent english. Not perfect, still has some pronoun switching, name inconsistencies, and some weird phrasing sprinkled throughout, but it was a naturalistic reading experience. I could consistently follow what was meant without much effort.

This is a supernatural mystery thriller. Lu Xuan is a member of a secretive group called "The Agency." She returns from a mission, expecting to relax, only for a mysterious lapse in memory to occur. When she wakes up, she's covered in blood, and there's a pure black hole in her hand. thin black lines wriggle out, spelling "100,000,000."

Before she can figure out what's going on, she's attacked by a creature that seems half dessicated corpse and half withering tree. After it rips off her arm, it regrows, with a few million dropping from her hand number. Thus starts her descent into the supernatural, as the new supposed "wealthiest woman in the world."

From the first two chapters the game has given, it's set up a lot of threads at once. The hand hole, the agency, a mysterious pawn shop, an unusual beached whale incident, the implication of a cult/religious group, multiple characters having simultaneous gaps in memory.

The cast feels well varied in both design and character voice, and I really like what the character designer is doing. I am guessing the backgrounds are based on photos because there's a nice sense of lived-in detail for a lot of them.

Definitely going on my wishlist.

[saint-rouge]

It is not that a man of virtue is honoured because of high office, but rather that the office is honoured because of his virtue.

Boethius

[thegrapeandthefig]

Spiritual protection in the Greco-Roman world

This was this week's hot topic, so I'm using the opportunity to make some things clear from a purely hellenic and historical perspective. Needless to say I am tired of seeing modern magical concepts being slapped on ancient beliefs and I am not writing this post unbiased.

Amulets Etymologically, the word amulet probably means "something that can be carried". It's, personally speaking, my favorite type of protection. Technically speaking, an amulet could, therefore, be a lot of different things as long as they serve two main purposes: tutelage (protection) and prophylaxis (preventive).

Let's go through some of the most common types:

Bulla: typically given to male roman children 9 days after birth. It is worn like a locket where other amulets are placed (typically phalluses).

Lunula: a crescent moon pendant worn by little and young roman girls until their mariage.

Fascinum, tintinnabula and other phalli: the symbol of protection par excellence, found in many shapes and forms. The tintinnabula is more potent, as it also has bells, which are considered apotropaic as well. Bells could also be put around children's and animal's neck for a similar protective effect.  

The Eye (mati): still widely in use, it appears as soon as the 6th century BC on Greek cups. Sometimes added on the phallus for a double protective effect (also true for wings).

Gorgoneion: Often worn simply as a pendant and easily found a bit everywhere, from house thresholds to carved on bullae.

Hercules' Club:  late Antiquity amulets shaped like wooden clubs and most common in Roman Germany between the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. An examplary speciment bears the inscription "Deo Herculi", thus confirming its link to Hercules hero worship.

Amulet strings: Mostly seen for Athenian children. It is a cord with several amulets attached to it that is worn diagonally (or on the chest) instead of around the neck so the child can't choke on it.

Garter and waist amulet strings: Mostly worn by Greek women. Their function is debated, but it seems that amulets that were worn this way might have had something to do with easing childbirth, menstruation and sexuality in general (eg. to avoid miscarriages or, the opposite, as a contraceptive).

Coiled snake ring/bracelet: Common protection for young Roman women. 

Depiction of gods on medaillons and other objects: quite a straightforward way to put yourself under the protection of a deity. Helios and Semele together seem to both have been a popular choice.

Coins: Especially old reused coins, sometimes pierced in the middle but not always. This is especially the case for coins which have the image of a deity or hero (Alexander the Great got very popular for this function). Other notable examples include Fortuna, Nike or Helios. The image on the coin matters more than the coin itself.

This is not even an extensive list, but it's worth noting that when we're talking about the ancients, we're talking about people who have been put under some kind of magical protection since their first days of life. I personally have used 2 types of amulet cited above so far, a silver coiled snake ring which I worn until it broke, which I replaced by a fascinum. This one travels with me, as I keep it with my apartment keys but I have 2 consecrated phalli in my apartment that also serve a purpose: one to Dionysus and one to Priapus. The latter being by definition, a protective deity. 

Protection starts at the threshold

I know this can be hard to pull off, but in ideal conditions, you’d want to have a small altar or shrine by the main door of your place. Amulets are meant to follow you around, but protecting your space is just as important. In one of the ridiculous arguments I’ve witnessed this week, someone said, and I paraphrase, that “you could have negative entity living in your house and fucking your life up” when trying to honor the gods, which is “why you should banish". The problem here is banish against what? If the answer here is "negative spirits", then, by hellenic standards, this is a whole other process that: 

1) Doesn't happen at the altar 2) Protects the household on the long term instead of a one shot thing

This, alongside other elements of ancient greek theology, is why you don't need to "protect yourself when you approach the gods" and other ridiculous claims I've seen. If you need to protect yourself in such manner, it means you never either 1) developped kharis with a deity to protect you or 2) took care of protecting your place. 

The first protection for a typical greek door would be an aniconic pillar dedicated to Apollo Agyieus aka "of the street" because that pillar was outside of the house. This Apollo, protector of entrances is also called Thyraios in later sources: 

Apud Graecos Apollo colitur qui Θυραῖος vocatur, eiusque aras ante fores  suas celebrant, ipsum exitus et introitus demonstrantes potentem. The Greeks worship Apollo under the name Thyraios and tend his altars in front of their doors, thereby showing that entrances and exits are under his power.

-Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.9.6

It's important to note that the same epithet is attested for Hermes, which makes total sense since he and Hekate are also traditionally linked to the protection of thresholds (represented by hekataia and herms). 

Why am I insisting so much on doors? To quote Johnston: 

"Divinities who guard the entrances to cities or private dwellings would be expected to avert all sorts of dangers that might threaten those dwelling within, from burglars to mice, but in ancient Greece (like many other places), they were particularly expected to ward off unhappy souls and other demonic creatures, who were believed to congregate at entrances for two reasons. First, because inhabitants vigilantly used protective devices to keep them out, these creatures were imagined to lurk near entrances, patiently awaiting those rare moments of laxity when they might dart back inside."

It's important to note that the protection granted by threshold deities, whether it is Hecate, Hermes or Apollo is that it concerns both the mundane and the spiritual, restless spirits are one thing but it seems to extend to general ills.

Conclusion

I should add, before wrapping this up, that there is an evolution in time with how the Ancients considered their protection to work. As such, between the 8th and 5th centuries BC, amulets weren’t so prevalent. The gods were considered the only ones who had the ability to protect. After the end of the 5th century onwards, there is a gradual shift towards a more “DIY” approach to protection, where human action is considered impactful, thus making the use of atropopaic amulets relevant. 

Further reading: 

Faraone C., The Transformation of Greek Amulets in Roman Imperial Times, 2018

Habib R. R.,  Protective Magic in Ancient Greece: Patterns in the Material Culture of Apotropaia from the Archaic to Hellenistic Periods, 2017

Johnston I. S., Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece, 1999

Kerr M. D., Gods, Ghosts and Newlyweds: exploring the uses of the threshold in Greek and Roman superstition and folklore, 2018

Porto C, V.,  Material Culture as Amulets: Magical Elements and the Apotropaic in Ancient Roman World in: Philosophy Study, 2020

[padfootagain]

A Very Rose Mistake (IV)

Part 4: How You Became Lambkin

 Here we go for a new chapter! This is cute, but also, an important chapter for many reasons! The plot is now starting to unfold!!

No warnings of any kind to apply here, really, it's just rather innocent and cute. I hope you like this new chapter! Tell me what you think about it!

Word Count: 3911

I

Holmes Chapel, 2007

 Shakespeare was a pain.

Maybe it was still relevant if you went to the theatre and saw professionals actually perform the play, but from the point of view of two 13 years old who had to read the plays for school… it was a pain.

Besides the language being old, there was also the fact that tons of the words on the page had just been made up. Or at least, it sounded that way. Because Harry had most certainly never heard any of those being used before and he had better things to do with his time than try and guess the meaning of these words. Playing football was one of them. And there was no way his mother would let him out of the house before he would have finished his homework.

There was only one way he could get to the pitch on time to play tonight with his friends. He had to ask for the help of the brightest mind he knew.

He got up from his bed where he was lying down with his copy of Henry V covering his face. He let the book fall on his bed while he reached for the piece of red glass that rested on the side of his window. He aimed at the sun, until the reflection of the light on the glass would dance over your own window. The perks of having his best friend living in the house right next to his: it was easy to reach you.

And indeed, it took you less than a minute to appear before you would appear on the other side of your own window. He couldn't help but grin at the sight.

Harry grabbed a piece of cardboard from behind his desk, that he had already prepared. One of the messages that you often used and both had kept, ready, just in case you would need them.

Help with homework?

He saw you laughing and shaking your head, but you grabbed your own cardboard, large enough to hide you completely behind it.

My place?

He merely nodded with a big goofy grin on his face, before grabbing his bag, his book and heading to the living room.

"Mum!" he called, thumping through the hall.

"Yes, I am not deaf," Anne laughed at her son.

"Can I go over to Y/N's to do my homework with her?"

"To do your homework or play videogames?"

"I have a match tonight."

"Ha… so it's really for homework then! Sure, you can go. Bring some snacks if you want, I bought some cookies, the ones she likes."

"Thanks mum! I'll go directly to the field when I'm done…"

"No, you won't. You're going to come back here to drop off your stuff and to get changed and then you'll go to the field."

He heaved a sigh, but complied without arguing.

"Okay. Bye!"

"Love you!"

But Harry was already slamming the front door shut and sprinting towards your house. Your mother was waiting for him with her door open and an amused smile on her face.

"Hello, Harry! How are you today?"

"Great! Thank you, Mrs. Y/L/N!"

"Y/N's in her bedroom. Do you want to bring up some snacks?"

"I've brought some cookies my mum bought today."

"How nice! Well, go ahead then!"

"Thanks!"

He took off his shoes, placing them in the space that was saved for him in the hall, before sprinting up the stairs to your room.

He closed the door behind him.

"Hey! Thanks, I'm struggling with this bloody play!"

You merely chuckled, resting your back against your wall as you sat on your bed.

"It's alright, I haven't started that one yet."

"Have you done maths already?"

"Yep! Just finished."

"Me too. But that English stuff… ugh…"

He climbed on your bed by your side, dragging behind him his notebook, pencils and his Shakespearean play.

Harry gave you some time to catch up with him on the assignment, although he hadn't done much yet. You then spent some time trying to analyse the text and answer the questions on your assignment about the scene.

Harry was annoyed to say the least.

"What are these words, even…" he groaned.

"Come on… some are cute… 'lambkin', that's cute!"

"Lambkin?! You think calling your girlfriend lambkin is cute?"

"I do. It's sweet!"

Harry rolled his eyes.

"Alright, then, I'll call you that from now on. We'll see for how long you find it cute."

You exploded in laughter, the sound enough to erase his grumpy frown.

"That's not fair! I would be the only one with a ridiculous nickname like that!" you protested.

"You are not calling me lambkin. Ever."

"Alright," you shook your head at his silly remark. "After we're done with this, we'll look for a nickname for you."

"I'm going to the field after, I'm playing with the guys."

"That just means I'll choose whatever I want to laugh at you!"

"Wow… scary… lambkin."

You narrowed your eyes at each other, and you considered his banter as a challenge.

"You're gonna regret that, Styles."

"Oh, am I, lambkin?"

But you could only keep up the serious act for a few more seconds, before you both let go and were lost in a fit of laughter.

You did manage to finish your homework on time for Harry to go play football with the guys. You spent the rest of your allowed time before a screen looking for old and ridiculous nicknames to use against Harry on your computer.

You eventually found the perfect one.

His phone beeped after he was back home, about to go to bed. He had changed in his pyjamas and was about to turn off the lights for the night when the sound rang through the room.

"Harry! Go to bed, you have school tomorrow," Anne ordered, as she was passing by in the corridor right at that moment.

"I am going to bed! It's Y/N!"

"If you're not in bed in five minutes…"

"I am going!"

He checked your text all the same.

Y/N: I've found your nickname. You are chuckaboo.

He snorted, answering once he was buried under his blankets.

Harry: What does that even mean?

He put his phone on silence to avoid his mother hearing your response.

Y/N: It's a term of endearment to call a friend. Fits just right. Plus, I think it suits you, chuckaboo.

Harry: You'd better not call me like that at school.

Y/N: Oh, I will :)

He laughed, despite feigning anger in his next response. You merely replied with another smiley face, and wished him good night.

He went to sleep with an amused smile on his face.

It was just a joke, it would last for a few days before you would both grow tired of it. Stupid nicknames that would make you laugh for a while. Or so he thought, at least.

Lambkin and Chuckaboo.

What a ridiculous pair…

II

Loch Lomond, 2020

Harry kept on holding your hand as you settled around the large table that had been set for your family. The atmosphere was more relaxed as you waited for Amy and her family to join all of you over dinner. Your mom and you sat between your father and Harry, a protection of some sort against the nasty glances that your dad kept on throwing at your fake boyfriend. Dinner was merry, and Amy's family provided a nice distraction for your own family members to focus on. Harry spent most of the evening lost in a deep conversation with Amy's grandfather about 'the music back then', and he seemed to blend in just fine, not that you had ever had any doubt that he would.

One chair though had been left empty. In the large hall decorated with flickering lights, the view upon the loch growing darker and darker as the hours passed, until there was nothing left to see but the stary sky, there was one empty spot. It was for one of Amy's cousins, who had to work late at the hospital in Glasgow, where he worked as a nurse, apparently. Patrick, was his name, and he was set to sit right opposite you. It's only when you were waiting for dessert that he appeared.

And you struggled quite a bit to hide your reaction.

Because Patrick was handsome. Patrick was very handsome. Patrick was also 1000% your type.

And Patrick was set right across from you around the long, rectangular table.

He gave a kiss to his family, was introduced properly by an Amy that was on her way to getting from tipsy to drunk, and he seemed a little embarrassed by her antiques as she praised him for his work in medicine and called all who were single around the table to 'give him a ring'. And you found it cute.

You decided it was your duty, as you were the person sitting across from him, to make some small talk. Anyway, your parents were entertaining a conversation of their own that you weren't particularly interested in, and Harry and Amy's grandfather were lost in a vivid argument about Carole King's best song on Tapestry.

"I'm Y/N!" you introduced yourself with a welcoming smile. "Cassie's cousin."

"Oh, so we're the cousins then! Nice to meet you!" he greeted you with a warm smile as well.

And he had a nice smile. Very nice smile, indeed…

"So… you're a nurse then!"

He ran a hand in his hair, embarrassed.

"Yeah, I am. Sorry about her rant, I think she's had too much to drink."

"It's her wedding, I reckon she has the right to have a little fun."

"I guess. And what do you do for a living?"

You were interrupted by the dessert arriving, and you waited for the waiters to have left to answer.

"I'm studying for a PhD in history."

"Oh, wow."

He seemed genuinely impressed, which was always nice to hear. You waited for the next question to strike what do you do with a PhD in history, but it didn't come. Instead he asked another question, seeming genuinely interested.

"What is your thesis about?"

"The influence and impact of the XIXth century international exchanges and relations on modern politics."

"Wow."

"It's a mouthful," you joked, nodding your head.

"No, no! It sounds very interesting! Where do you study."

"California. But before that I got my degree in Oxford."

"Dear God… I'm sitting in front of the next Nobel Prize."

You laughed, shying away.

"No, absolutely not. Besides, I don't even think there is one to congratulate historians."

"A shame. I would have bet on you."

You did notice the way he shot you a shy smile. And you did notice the way he didn't look away, and didn't look for another conversation to settle into. He was focused on you while you ate your dessert, and you did the same.

Your conversation went on when the coffees and teas were served. And you had to admit that you liked it that way. He was charming, with a cute Scottish accent, and eyes that glimmered in the yellowish light of the room.

It's only when your cup of coffee was empty that Harry took your hand in his again, planting your feet right back to Earth, and reminding you of what you were here for in the first place.

He gave you a smile, before guiding your hand up to his lips to place a kiss over your knuckles, surprising you with the tender gesture and making your heart rush a little more as he looked at you with the tenderest of gazes.

"Are you tired, babe? Or would you like to take a walk with me? I could use some fresh air."

Your heart stumbled a little at the pet name, and you didn't like it. You didn't like it one bit, so you forced the organ to stop its little dance.

"Sure."

You bid everyone a good night -and did notice the disappointed look Patrick gave you as you abruptly ended your conversation in order to leave with Harry - and some other people retreated to their rooms at the same time as you, while you followed Harry outside.

It was cold outside, a heavy wind sweeping skeleton leaves to gather at your feet. You could hear the shushed rumble of conversations on the other side of the windows and the wind caught in the branches and lifting the water of the loch in clapping waves. Harry offered you his arm, and as you noticed that you could still be seen from the table inside, you took it with a grateful smile.

You walked along the shore in silence for a few minutes, your gaze distracted from the dark path by the shining lights above your head, but you weren't worried about falling, not when you were holding Harry's arm. He would catch you before you could fall.

He finally heaved a sigh.

"Well, that wasn't a complete disaster. It went better later on, don't you think?"

"Yeah, I reckon that once the shock had passed, it was alright," you nodded.

"Except for you father, of course. Judging by the way he was eyeing me all night, he probably will try to cut off my balls before the end of the week."

You laughed at that, the sound clear and joyful, luminous over the dark scenery that surrounded you. But the reflexions of the stars over the water was lovely all the same. They seemed brighter to Harry as your laughter echoed a little longer around both of you.

"He's not so fond of the idea. Don't know why."

Harry shrugged.

"Must think I'm not good enough for you."

You rolled your eyes, shaking your head.

"Anyway… I think we're getting away with it."

"Getting the hang of it, babe?"

"Oh, shut up, chuckaboo."

"Ha, here you are again, back to your normal self. Will you start punching me next?"

"I've never punched you!"

"But you've threatened to do so dozens of times."

"I am very good at boxing."

His smile grew more tender, a little melancholic as well, but you attributed it to the quiet of the place that surrounded you. You were away from the lodge now, enough so for voices to have disappeared. It was only you, Harry, and the whisper of autumn leaves now.

"You're good at everything, Y/N."

There was a moment of silence, while you stared at him. But then, his expression grew a little mischievous, and he faked to be lost in thought.

"Except at cooking, and singing, and playing guitar, and most definitely climbing, and gymnastics, and…"

"Yeah, okay, I get it, you jerk!" you stopped him, punching his arm, although your gesture wasn't violent enough to hurt. Still, Harry dramatically held his arm as if you had thrown him your stronger uppercut.

"See, I knew it! Knew you would end up doing it for real, instead of only threatening me with your punches!"

"Well, you should shut up before I do it again."

"You're so cruel, lambkin," he tried to sound convincing, but the goofy smile upon his lips betrayed his thoughts.

You shook your head at him, wheezing.

You walked in silence for a little longer, before deciding to go back to the lodge. You were still holding Harry's arm, even if no one was around to see the two of you pretend. None of you acknowledge the fact, merely choosing to act as if you weren't. Maybe, a voice in your mind explained it by acting in case someone would bump into the two of you. You knew it wasn't the truth though, but you pretended that it was for the few minutes more that the gesture lasted while you walked on the edge of the water and under the tall trees.

"So… Patrick?" Harry asked after a long silence.

"He's nice!" you answered with a smile. "He's a nice chap!"

"Hmm," Harry nodded. "You did seem to have fun with him tonight. Even thought that maybe you didn't need my services anymore."

"Pfft! Don't be ridiculous! I've just talked with him for 5 minutes."

"Almost an hour, actually."

You narrowed your eyes at him.

"You counted?"

He rolled his eyes at you.

"I just noticed it was a long conversation."

"Hmm…"

"You know, we can still tell the truth to everyone, and you can take your shot with Patrick."

You didn't know how to describe the tone he used to say the man's name, but it wasn't oozing with fondness, that was for certain. You looked at him suspiciously, a smirk creeping its way to your lips.

"Are you… jealous?"

"Jealous? Me?"

"You're the jealous type, don't deny it."

"And don't flatter yourself. We're not really together, remember? Why would I be jealous."

"I don't know, but you sound like you are."

"I'm not jealous."

"Good."

"But do you like him?"

You shrugged.

"I don't know. I think he's attractive. I think he's nice. So…"

"You like him."

"He's alright so far. And he is my type."

Harry raised an eyebrow, before his features molded into a frown instead. His mind couldn't help but compare himself to Patrick, and point out everything that was different between them.

"Am I your type?" he asked after a long silence.

You laughed, taken aback.

"What kind of question is that?"

He shrugged.

"I don't know. Just wondering. I'm playing your boyfriend for a week, but… would I be your type? Had I not met you when we were five and crashed your ice-cream into your face… had you met me tonight instead of Patrick… would you have thought that I was your type?"

You looked away, finally letting go of his arm, and the lack of contact between your two bodies made Harry regret his question.

"I don't know," you lied, before finding back your composure, and shooting him a smile. "But you're my boyfriend for this week. So for the next seven days, you are most definitely my type, honey."

He laughed, shaking his head. You had walked back to the lodge, and he opened the door for you, dramatically bowing before you to let you through first.

"After you, my love."

Harry went first to take a shower, and then it was your turn. Some warm water was just what your tired muscles needed to relax after your busy day. When you walked out of the bathroom, a little bit of fog following you through the door, Harry was lying on the bed, atop the blankets, scrolling on his phone.

He had changed into a comfortable jumper and a pair or pyjama pants that seemed warmed and soft. His curls were still damped, wetting his pillow, but he didn't seem to mind it at all.

He looked up when you stepped out of the bathroom though, and you didn't fail to notice the way his eyes settled on your legs before hurrying to your face while his cheeks blushed.

Your pyjama shorts weren't that short at all, stopping right above your knees. Still, it seemed enough to make Harry's cheekbones and ears turn crimson. You wore an old Treat People With Kindness jumper too, matching his grey hoodie.

"You're alright, Harry?" you asked, rather puzzled by his reaction.

"Sure, why?"

"You're blushing."

"I'm not."

"You are."

"It's nothing. I'm just tired."

You weren't convinced, but chose to drop the subject, your own fatigue weighing on you. So you shrugged instead, finishing to get ready for bed.

You slipped under the covers and heaved a sigh as your head hit the pillow.

"Tired?" he asked, and you could only hum and nod in response.

He hesitated for a second, while you closed your eyes.

"There's an extra blanket. I can sleep on top of the covers, and you under them, if you want."

You opened your eyes again to look at him.

"Would that make you feel more comfortable?"

He considered your question, and shrugged.

"I don't know. Maybe?"

"I don't really care. But… maybe for tonight, you can do that. Won't you be cold though?"

"It's quite warm in here. And the blanket looks cosy."

"Alright, but don't hesitate to get under the covers if you're too cold. I don't mind if you do."

"Okay," he nodded, before getting up to get the blanket.

He lied down by your side again, getting comfortable, before he would turn off the lamp on his nightstand, and you did the same, letting darkness take over every inch of the room, looking darker than it really was as your eyes got used to the shadows.

"Goodnight Harry."

"Goodnight, Y/N."

You turned to your side, trying to get comfortable too, and your foot gently bumped into his through the layers of sheets and blankets as you moved.

"Sorry," you quipped, moving your foot away.

"'S okay," he replied, his voice lower than usual.

You let silence settle for a while, but it felt strange. Awkward. There was something unspoken hovering above the two of you, you could cut the tension in the air with a knife.

"Harry?"

"Hmm?"

"I feel weird."

"Weird? You mean sick?" he asked with worry in his tone now.

"No, I mean… it's a little weird sleeping next to you. Why though? We've done that since we were six."

He shrugged, but couldn't deny that he was feeling the same. His heart was beating so fast, he was worried you would hear it in the silent night.

"Maybe it's because we're not children anymore," he whispered.

You hummed in response.

"And we haven't done it in a long time too," you added, and he heard you nodding, your cheek brushing against your pillow.

He took a deep breath before speaking again, his tone hesitant.

"Do you… would you feel better if I took the couch?"

You considered his offer, but shook your head.

"No, I… I don't feel uncomfortable. It's just… strange."

It was his turn to hum.

"Would you feel better on the couch?" you asked him.

"No, it's… it's a nice weird."

"Yeah, it is."

"I'm just… it makes me a little nervous."

"Nervous?"

He made a face, that you couldn't see, but you would have found it adorable if you had.

"I'm afraid I'll wake you up with my snoring. Or speak some nonsense in my sleep. Or you wake up tomorrow morning and see me drooling, with saliva all over my face."

You laughed at him, reaching in the dark to touch his arm. You patted the muscles tenderly.

"Don't worry, chuckaboo. I've seen worse! Seen you throwing up a fair amount of time. Also, I'll just punch you again to wake you up if you start snoring too much."

He laughed, and both of your laughter mingling through the room made most of the tension in the room disappear.

"You're right. Besides, maybe you'll be the one waking me up because of your snoring!" Harry went on.

"I don't snore!" you snorted.

"You do. I've heard you before."

"Well, then, you can wake me up if I do."

You moved your fingers away from his arm, but they lingered on the mattress near him all the same, in the little space between the two of you.

"Sleep well, lambkin," Harry whispered, closing his eyes, and when you answered, you had the same smile on your lips as the one that he wore.

"You too, chuckaboo."

************************************

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[feministfocus]

Cautious, Vigilant, Fearful: On Being Asian American

Art by R. Kikuo Johnson

By Cynthia Lin

The mother and child wait for the subway. The mother grips the hand of her daughter tightly, her other hand raised to check the time. A simple illustration, yet the mother’s and daughter’s eyes catch my attention. They are cautious, vigilant, fearful.

I realize what else makes me uneasy. The mother wears a turtleneck sweater beneath a long blazer and wide black pants. And tennis shoes. The sneakers clash incongruously with her formal attire—why wear sneakers with a blazer? Unless you fear you will need to run.

The New Yorker’s recent cover, “Delayed” by artist R. Kikuo Johnson, comes at a time in which racial violence against Asian Americans has surged. Just a few days before, a man was filmed kicking and stomping on a 65-year-old Philippine-American woman while onlookers from the nearby building watched. One even shut the door in her face.

It’s simple to blame the violence on the pandemic and the subsequent xenophobic rhetoric, but it’s not as if racism against Asian Americans did not exist before—it’s just that the public is finally made aware of it. It’s difficult to argue that racism is just overblown paranoia when there is widespread video evidence of the harassment.

For a while, I used to debate with myself whether someone was being racist towards me. Is it all in my head? Why am I making a big deal of this? Am I too sensitive? Can I not take a joke? It is exhausting to constantly question whether or not an action is racially motivated. I did not want to be so overly sensitive that every slight I experienced came down to race. You start to doubt yourself—is it not worse if you think it is racially motivated when it is not? Am I being hampered by my race, using race to excuse others’ treatment of me when it is just their reaction to me? But then again, my Asianness is written all over my face; how can you react to me without reacting to a core part of my identity? So there must have been some part of that action that was racist, even if it was mostly ignorant.

But it is easier to wonder what you did that made you seem so foreign, so “un-American” to warrant that might-be-racist action. You start overanalyzing your past actions, and you turn silent and reclusive, thinking it best that you should not bring more attention to yourself, but then you realize that by being quiet you are contributing to the Asian stereotype of meekness. You wish that there was a clear line distinguishing what is racist and what is “all in your head.” But that is the issue, isn’t it?

When the news first broke, I think I might have even believed the narrative the investigators spun about how the spa shootings in the Atlanta area were not racially motivated. In my mind, I hovered between calling the shootings a “hate crime” or a “crime.” It did not strike me until I read the words “sex addiction”—the excuse the shooter used to explain his murder of the eight people, six of whom were Asian women—that I realized the label “racial motivation” contributes to the falsehood that there is a distinct line separating what is racist and what is not.

“Racial motivation” is the covert label we use for the obviously racist. But the phrase doesn’t take into account the subtleties, the dangerous norms we have adopted to mark what is foreign and what is “American.” Or even more relevant, the generations of popular culture over-sexualizing and fetishizing Asian women. Perhaps the shooter’s alleged sex addiction is not inherently anti-Asian, but depictions of Asian women in film and television have dehumanized them into objects of desire, generalized them as “docile,” “demure,” and “obedient.” Easy targets.

But why this compulsion to explain the actions of the perpetrator? This desperate grab for a motive every time a racist crime is committed? Whether or not the shooter’s intent was racist, the ramifications still exist. Asian Americans, especially the elderly, do not feel safe in America. I worry about my grandparents’ recent move from Brooklyn’s Chinatown to Staten Island, where they are cut off from all that is familiar and comforting. After living in America for over twenty years, is it not their right to go on an afternoon walk without fearing for their safety?

Anti-Asian sentiment in America has not recently materialized; it’s only resurfaced in our collective attention span. Lately, I have been digging deeper into Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) history, approaching it with the intent to examine the longevity of the community’s residence in America, not just the well-taught immigrant story. Asians have been here before many Europeans immigrated through Ellis Island, but even to me, these “newer” Europeans seem to fit better with the American mold. How can they not, when U.S. history lessons consistently depict Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders as foreigners and national security threats? When the few times the curriculum touches on Asian American history, it focuses on Chinese immigration in the mid-19th century, the subsequent Chinese Exclusion Act, and the internment of 120,000 people of Japanese descent during World War II? The Asian Americans I learn about in history class seem to exist solely in the backdrop of exclusion, which only serves to highlight their “otherness.”

What of Larry Itliong and his efforts in organizing the Delano Grape Strike? Or Patsy Mink, the first Asian American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives? Why is it that these milestones in Asian American and Pacific Islander history aren’t taught more? By acknowledging the multifaceted and ever-changing nature of the Asian community in the U.S., we acknowledge the progress made and what we have yet to achieve. Instead, I learn about AAPI history through an antiquated lens—depictions of Asian Americans have remained stagnant, fixed in time, and painted in broad strokes of homogeneity. The diversity of the AAPI community has often been forgotten, pushed aside for the ease in generalizing one collective group of people. This has not only perpetuated the harmful myth that most Asians, being the “model minority,” have attained success in America, but has also led to blame on the whole AAPI community for the pandemic.

In high school, race was a political topic, one made so controversial that even now, there is still some ingrained part of me that hesitates to voice my opinions for fear that I would “get it wrong.” It was only through my college search that I realized a major like “Ethnicity, Race, & Migration” even existed. And if I, someone who plans to study race, feel this way, how do others —students, teachers—even begin to broach this topic without fear of controversy? Focus on eradicating the stigma behind racism without fixating on being politically correct? So, besides a reevaluation of curriculum, we must also change the culture of avoidance we have fostered in schools, end the mindset of avoiding uncomfortable conversations.

Perhaps during the first discussions, we’ll stumble over a few social faux pas, reveal some implicit biases we’ve kept locked away under niceties, but it is better to acknowledge these societal problems than pretend that ignoring these issues will make them disappear. Uncomfortable conversations elicit defensiveness, but they can also be an opportunity for growth, a way to find empathy for others who at first seem entirely unlike ourselves. Having these conversations can help make true social change, can even help materialize a world in which a mother doesn’t have to fear for her and her child’s safety while doing something as mundane as taking a subway.

Chen, T. (2021, March 22). Asian women are Hypersexualized, so don't tell me the killings In Atlanta aren't about race. Retrieved April 20, 2021, from https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tanyachen/asian-women-fetish-racist-atlanta-shootings

Fan, J., Hsu, H., & Park, E. (2021, March 19). The Atlanta shooting and the dehumanizing of Asian women. Retrieved April 20, 2021, from https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-atlanta-shooting-and-the-dehumanizing-of-asian-women

If the mass killing of six Asian women isn't a hate crime, what is? (2021, March 18). Retrieved April 20, 2021, from https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-03-17/killing-six-asian-women-hate-crime-atlanta

Mouly, F. (2021, April 13). R. Kikuo Johnson's "Delayed". Retrieved April 20, 2021, from https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cover-story/cover-story-2021-04-05

Waxman, O. (2021, March 30). Why the Asian-American story is missing from U.S. Classrooms. Retrieved April 20, 2021, from https://time.com/5949028/asian-american-history-schools/

[the-starryknight]

Fic Writer Interview ✨

Two lovely folks have tagged me in this, so thank you @skeptiquexx​ & @thesleepiesthufflepuff​!!

Picrew here, I just thought it’d be cute to add to this!

Name: Starry

Fandoms: I write for HP (mainly Drarry), but the fandoms I follow and love change seemingly daily... I’ve been immersing myself in some lovely Old Guard lately, and am about 2/3 of the way through Gideon the Ninth and am absolutely prepared to be launched full-force into that fandom :’) 

Where you post: Ao3!

Most popular oneshot: That would be Matching Pair, my little art museum oneshot!

Most popular multi chapter: I only have the one multi-chap out for now, my Advent fic, A Room Up There (And You In It), and I’ve been so honored by the responses I’ve had so far!

Favourite story I’ve written so far: Ooh, what a hard question!  I think Room Up There has so many pieces of my heart in it, so many treasured bits of antiques and descriptions, and habits of mine... would have to be that for now!

Fic you were nervous to post: I’m never not nervous!!  But I’d say my other oneshot, Lie Awake, is probably it. It’s very different from the ~soft and emotional~ stuff I usually write, and I really had to challenge myself in making sure all the spatial things made sense (one of my biggest struggles).

How do you choose your titles? I like to make lists of words and such that are related to the plot or things I want to get across.  I put them together, look for idioms with them in it, and sometimes trawl through wikipedia pages looking for thoughtful turns of phrases relevant to whatever’s on that list.  And when all else fails, I look at poetry with the right vibe!

Do you outline? Oh definitely!  I really like to lay everything out, because I don’t always write in order.  Sometimes, I feel very overwhelmed by a project, and seeing the outline with all the little steps laid out makes it feel more doable.

Complete: Everything I’ve completed is up!

In progress: I have some new ideas percolating (more house renovation?? pottery-making Potter? an ancient Greece AU? TBD...) but not much that’s in progress.  

Coming soon: 🕵️ a certain fest fic may arrive in the new year, plus [Redacted gift fic] and a little oneshot I’ve been workshopping!

Prompts: I may open up for some after this week is over!  Keep your eyes out if you’re interested <3

And I’ll tag... @tackytigerfic​, @unicorn-in-the-library​, @glittering-git​, @peachpety​, @ladderofyears​ and @missdrarrydawn​! and anyone else who’d like to do it!

[i-did-not-mean-to]

Never say never - Chapter 6

So, here’s the next instalment of this little romcom story...

°6° ~Victoria~

“But, I insist upon apologising to the other people in attendance, again.” Victoria hated apologising, but Martin had been right in telling her off about snubbing people who had done her no harm…this far.

Knowing that it would make Martin laugh, she snatched up a bowl of peanuts and held it in her palms like an offering.

As expected, the man beside her doubled over in hilarity, holding his sides as the wheezing grew painful. The polite but confused looks of his friends and colleagues seemed an endless well of amusement to him.

“Ah, thank you.” Hiddleston took up one of the nuts gingerly and shoved it into his mouth as if it had been a ritualistic offering indeed. “See? The tamest of…beasts.” Martin whispered into her ear, and she was tempted to pat the golden hair on the man soothingly.

Following the other man’s example, Armitage also picked a nut and ate it, keeping his eyes questioningly on her face.

“Look pleased, girl, smile at them.” Martin said in a hushed voice, nudging her in the side gently.

Victoria was almost sure that she was grimacing, her teeth bared awkwardly, but she had never been good at smiling on command and this fraught situation was, unfortunately, no exception to this shortcoming of hers.

“So, tell us, what did you refer to when you called this a “nerd-fest”?” Martin prompted her gently to speak, seemingly understanding that direct exhortations would get him nowhere with her. It was, in general, always best to come at a petrified Victoria sideways, starting a seemingly inconsequential conversation and letting it flow from there.

“There are literally dolls of you.” Victoria scoffed, moving her hands vaguely in front of her body in an imitation of how a child would play with a doll. “Not soft though, hard plastic…” Her hands sunk back, she was making a fool of herself.

“Dolls?” Liza hooted gleefully. “Well, I’ve also seen the theatre productions.” Victoria said, just a moment too late, her voice tinged with resentment again. She hated being caught unawares and being goaded into saying stupid shit.

“No, you tell me more about the dolls.” Liza was having fun, but her expression was devoid of malice or ill-will.

“Liza, I have seen those funny movies with the costumes and the creatures and…” Victoria sighed, she didn’t remember the names and she was already at a disadvantage here. She felt caught and put on the spot amidst these people who, naturally, knew those movies so well, down to the very lines of the characters.

“And did you like them?” The good beast, Tom as he had introduced himself with a smile, was grinning at her warmly again. Yes, she could see what Jenna saw in him, he seemed to radiate warmth and a polite friendliness.

“Oh, yes, very much. It was a bit…sad though.” Victoria shrugged. She was not ready to explain to a bunch of strangers that she didn’t like seeing bad family relations and vicious fights, as her reality had enough of those to last for a lifetime.

Liza looked at her questioningly, but after a moment, she understood. She had seen Vic pick up on the most random things, but strained family relationships and weird homosexual undertones were always amongst the things that moved her most. Also, like most soft-hearted, even though Vic was equally hard-headed, women, Victoria hated untimely deaths.

Maybe, her plan would work after all. All she had to do now was to draw back and hope that Armitage had a tad of charm on his own. He had taken the peanut and he was giving them his best constipated smile.

Waving discreetly at her wife, she withdrew, pulling Jenna along with her, much to the chagrin of the young woman.

“That is one good-looking man.” She sighed under her breath and Liza turned around, scanning the room for the person her wife’s employee might have meant by those words. Martin followed them discreetly, coaxing Benedict along with the promise of more cakes and sandwiches (and a prime vantage point to follow the developments of their plan).

“Where are you all going now? What?” Vic called out, distress in her voice. “I’ll be right back; you stay with Armitage.” Liza grinned suavely, physically shoving Jenna along as she dug her heels into the carpeted floor.

Victoria blinked, looking up at the man in front of her until she could feel herself grow slightly dizzy.

“Oh darn it! That’s it. I’m done trying to be pretty.” She cursed under her breath, opened her tiny clutch bag and fished out a pair of gold-rimmed, round glasses that she put on resolutely. Unfortunately, she could not suppress the gasp.

“Oh Saints.” She sighed under her breath as the slightly blurry surroundings became sharper instantly. She had known that these were dangerous men, but she had believed that her myopy and the artistry of the editors had embellished them considerably; suffice it to say that she was shocked to find that she had been wrong.

~Richard~

They had left her alone with that woman. Not entirely alone of course, Hiddleston was still hovering around, but Martin that treacherous weasel had followed the cakes and the gentler women, leaving him stranded with this surprising creature whose eyes made it quite hard for him to find something relevant to say.

She blinked owlishly up at him until he thought that she’d go cross-eyed. To his surprise – another one – she usually wore glasses and when she put them on, an obscene sound of pleasure escaped her half-open lips.

Again, she called to the Saints, pushing the glasses up before they had even had the chance or the time to slip, which told him that she wore her glasses more consistently than him and probably had done so for a long time.

She had made an inane comment about no longer attempting to be pretty, before putting on her glasses but that made no sense at all to him, as her glasses were beautiful and, in a strange way, so was she.

Obviously, pushing up her glasses was a habit or a tick as she did it twice while looking at him as if he was a painting in a museum rather than a real, living, breathing person. Then again, he stood nearly as still as a statue under her forbidding, critical gaze that roamed over his face with detached curiosity.

“Hmmm, how do you find the 1971 Armitage then?” Hiddleston stood next to her, eating peanuts, and joining her in her intense study of the immobile man facing them. No doubt, he deserved the attribute of “stony” now, Richard thought, dismayed to be the butt of the joke after all. He had known that had been a risk and he had walked right into it.

“1971?” She asked absent-mindedly, throwing a quick questioning look at her interlocutor before returning her gaze to him, and Richard flinched a little bit. Why did that man have to lead with his age when talking to a woman that young?

“A collectible, I’m sure.” Hiddleston purred, his voice laden with affectation which made Victoria chuckle again.

Hmmm, if it made her laugh rather than growl and spit, he would be standing there and be mocked for a little while longer, Richard decided. She looked like she needed a laugh.

“Not quite an antique.” Victoria opined, but Hiddleston was quick to reassure her: “Almost though. It’s been wonderfully preserved.” Again, that pealing, throaty laughter resounded, and Richard’s own mouth curled into an indulgent smile.

“This deserves to be in a gallery.” Victoria murmured, her voice devout and strangely vulnerable.

“I am right here; I can hear you.” Richard interjected, without much hope to break up their little game.

“AAAH, as you can see, Ma’am, it is unfortunately haunted. It can tell the time…if you hang it opposite a clock that is…” Hiddleston was quick to take Richard’s intervention in his stride, giving himself an apologetic expression that amused Victoria greatly. “Haunted? A piece of art so young?” She expressed her doubt and suspicion.

“Yes, yes…It’s looking for a good home though, a nice attic or a cellar maybe…” Hiddleston was waving his hands around Richard’s face as if to dazzle Victoria by the speed of his movements, an old trick salespeople used to distract from the inferior quality of their wares.

“I have a home, thank you, Hiddleston. I am not a piece of junk to be sold for 50p in a yard-sale.” Richard growled.

Her face grew grave, and he wondered what dark thought had crossed her mind to make her smile die on her lips. Immediately, he regretted having cut short their fun. He really was the grumpy, old sad sack he never wanted to be.

~Victoria~

When Tom spoke of attics and cellars, Victoria was immediately reminded of the stately house her father had raised her in. She could imagine a man like that one living there, she could picture a painting of a man such as that hanging in the great hall over the fireplace or high above the broad staircase winding its way to the two separate wings of the manor.

He had a skin like the Italian marble that had been so ridiculously slippery and that had made her afraid to take a fatal tumble down the very same staircase. Many people had told her that the idea was ludicrous and overly dramatic, but she knew it to be possible. Her mother had died that way.

Yes, there had been a bottle of bourbon and some prescription drugs in the mix as well, but the fact remained that her mother had fallen down the staircase and died on the spot from a broken neck. Father had replaced that patch of marble, but its veining was different, and they all hated that marred, ugly square that stood out like a sore thumb.

Thinking of her childhood home invariably made her sad; but she couldn’t deny that Richard Armitage would have fitted better into the décor than the little girl she had been.

He would look terribly imposing on the steps of the stairs or sitting in the huge armchairs in front of the roaring fire in the library. He would not be swallowed by every piece of furniture, he would not look out of place in the huge copper bathtub, and he would certainly not blend into the dark corners of the much too spacious rooms when the main lights were turned down. Maybe, she would have to get a painting of him and try to sneak it in to see if her father would even notice.

“Would that he were a painting.” She murmured, a desperate note sneaking into her voice that Tom picked up on immediately. There was pain in this woman, and he could see the gooseflesh on her arms as she tried to keep still. Evidently, she was on the verge of breaking into another run, unable to cope with something that distressed her, a thing that escaped his notice though…which frustrated him, as he really wanted to help her.

“So, you prefer the theatre to the cinema?” He asked, hoping it would be the right path to choose.

Victoria took a deep breath; this was what Liza and Angie had aimed for, for her to meet new people and talk about herself again. “I don’t know, I’ve only been to the movie theatre a few times before. It was a long time ago though.”

She could remember the smell of popcorn and of anticipation as the room grew dark and the screen lit up like a window to another world. Even then, she had been consumed with an absurd fear to be among so many other people; terrified of what they might think of her if she was to gasp or cry at the wrong moment, so she stayed immobile.

The man who would marry and divorce her within 10 years had thought that she had hated the experience and hence had not asked her to go to the cinema often afterwards. Maybe, if he had believed that she liked it, he would have taken her instead of other girls and this shared hobby would have strengthened their bond rather than frazzle it.

Victoria coughed, she had said too much already, and her heart was pounding. She was not ready for this.

“I’m sorry. I have to go home. I’m not feeling well.” She uttered hastily, turning to leave.

She was a terrible person; she had tried to make things right and all she had managed were fits and starts, broken off conversations that would leave a stale taste on the silver tongues of these men.

“I…can’t.” She stammered to no-one in particular as she waved at her friends and vanished before they could make their way back through the room to keep her from leaving like an absurd perversion of Cinderella.

She wanted to say how sorry she was, she wanted to thank them for their kindness, but she just couldn’t…so, she ran, her feet drumming against the pavement and her dress soaking up the moisture of the ground as she made for the next corner to catch a cab.

By the time she arrived home, her chest was heaving frantically, and she was crying with panic and distress.

When she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror, Victoria had to admit to herself that she was irrevocably broken. She had had the great honour to meet people so fascinating and charming that many a woman would have torn out her own throat to be in her shoes and yet, she had not been able to shake the ghosts haunting her every breath, dogging her every step, spoiling her every pleasure.

Whatever Angie and Liza had thought they could achieve here, it would not happen, it never could.

~Richard~

That woman was utterly confusing. There were threads of a vibrant, quick-witted, funny person shining through behind a veil of confused anger, but somehow, they couldn’t get a hold of her.

In his mind, he could not reconcile the words he had read on the pages with the wide-eyed distress on her face; there was such a difference between the person he had imagined her to be and the person she had turned out to be in reality.

Now, it was true that his own taciturn demeanour had not been exactly conducive to drawing out the parts of her she was obviously hiding from the world, shielding them like deep wounds or fragile saplings.

Hiddleston however… that man was charming and even he had not managed to make her let down her guard for more than a few minutes at a time.

“What the fuck have you done to her?” Elizabeth stormed over, dismay writ plain on her face.

No, she had been angry before, she has bloody screamed at YOU, Richard thought, you cannot blame us for her leaving…but he still felt responsible and a tiny bit guilty. If he had been a little more open, she might have felt less insecure.

She has made it very clear that she’s afraid of you, he reminded himself, and you have done nothing to assuage her fears. No, you’ve given her your crooked, sharp-edged smiles that must indeed have looked like a predator baring its teeth at her more than the shy warmth he wanted them to convey.

“We were nice, all was well until Armitage gave her one of those cold, snide smiles.” Hiddleston shrugged and Richard felt weirdly hurt and betrayed even though he could hear that it had been a joke. Cold, a thing he had been called much too often and that made him despair within his own heart. He had not chosen his face and even after 50 years of life, he could not outrun its angular repulsiveness.

She had not known him well enough to be prejudiced, maybe, she would have been able to find warmth where others saw ice, but he had not managed to make her see. Also, Hiddleston had not been a great help.

“Awww, Richard, come on!” Martin sighed, disappointed, as if he was pursuing some ulterior motive Richard ignored.

[sheliesshattered]

This Isn’t A Ghost Story extras for Chapter 5: The Present

It’s Friday, so the next chapter of This Isn’t A Ghost Story has been posted! Chapter 5 is here on Tumblr, and here on AO3. There are spoilers below the cut, but I walk through the chapter in order, so it’s fairly safe to keep this one open for visual references as you read, if you want.

Those of you who have been following along with my writing process for This Isn’t A Ghost Story may have noticed how the story grew and morphed on me as I wrote. Despite knowing early-on the sort of story I wanted to tell and all the facets of the mystery that would need to be revealed, the story still managed to grow organically and surprise me at various points.

When I finished chapter 4 and started working on chapter 5, I had every intention that chapter 5 would be the final chapter, with a short epilogue that followed -- six chapters total, rather than the eight we ended up with. I knew what plot points and mystery reveals ch5 needed to cover, and I figured I could fit it all into one reasonably sized chapter. Even as late as the last week of July I was still thinking along those lines, and I quite nearly started posting chapters then, thinking I was nearly finished writing. 

But something held me back from posting, and when I woke up the next morning I realized that chapter 5 really needed to be split. What ended up being chapter 5 and chapter 6 are together about 12,300 words, which wouldn’t have been the longest chapter I’ve ever posted, but certainly longer than I meant for chapters in this story to be, and thankfully I was able to find a good spot to split it.

As with the rest of this story, my husband Jack has been acting as my beta reader and in-house cheerleader, and particularly after reading chapter 4 he was really adamant that I keep focusing on writing and get through the story as quickly as possible -- maybe partially so I could start posting, but mostly so he could read it and find out the answers to the rest of the mystery, lol. Starting with chapter 5, he began reading chunks of the chapter as I finished them, and then eventually went back and re-read all of chapter 5. And every time he’s read it, he’s commented that this is his favorite line in the entire chapter:

“No,” she told him firmly. “Not unless you take away my say in it.” She didn’t add again, but she knew they were both thinking it.

Jack and I have been together nearly two decades, and I think it’s that shared unspoken language of spouses that he finds so amusing here.

For most parts of this story, I can’t really pinpoint exactly when I wrote a particular line or scene, as I tend to write non-consecutively as bits come to mind, tackle conversations or plot points I know will need to happen and then fill in the gaps in between, and go over any given section dozens of times making little edits or adding whole paragraphs until it reads the way I want it to, with the sort of pacing and emotional weight I think it needs. But this bit in particular, I know exactly when I wrote it:

“Our story, Doctor... It isn’t the tragedy you think it is. This isn’t a ghost story. It never was. It’s a love story. And if I know one thing about love stories? They always have a happy ending, one way or another.”

July 15th. I’d been having a rough writing day, hated everything I’d written the day before (more or less everything from the start of ch5 to that line, in its first draft form), and was feeling really unmotivated. Then I saw some excellent meta about the episode Hide on my dash that @clara-oswin-oswald​ had just posted. The title for this story comes from something the Eleventh Doctor says in that episode, and here was Sophie talking about that scene again, just when I was ready to stuff This Isn’t A Ghost Story into a drawer and never look at it again.

My intention with the title for this story had always been to evoke that line from Hide, and hope that most people would be able to fill in the second half of the sentence, “it’s a love story”, on their own. But it hadn’t occurred to me until I was reading Sophie’s meta that I could actually have Clara articulate exactly that thought within the story. The 42 words of that line of dialogue was all I managed to write on July 15th, but I woke up the next morning feeling significantly better about the story and ready to dive back in, make the edits that would fix the first part of the chapter, and keep hacking away at the next scenes to come. 

Of course, the next bit I was trying to connect up with was actually something I’d written parts of earlier, that corresponded with the teeny tiny detail I’d posted a little poll about way back at the end of June. I knew I wanted to introduce Clara’s wedding ring around this point in the story, but I got hung up on what it should look like. Theoretically that should be a little inconsequential detail, just a single line of prose to help the reader visualize it better, but the results from that poll -- blue, unusual, and in support of world-building -- ended up leading me down a complete rabbit hole of research, that eventually spawned what turned into chapter 8. I’ll wait to share the details on that for when we reach ch8 at the end of this month, but the relevant bits from chapter 5 are of course Clara’s ring and what inspired the Doctor to pick that one for her in the first place.

Clara’s ring is based on these two antique rings:

The center stone is what’s known as a star sapphire, which are known to be particularly stunning in direct sunlight.

The Doctor tells Clara that when he first saw it -- presumably while ring shopping before their wedding in 1923 -- he was reminded of when he took her to see the archaeological work going on at the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut in 1921. The Temple does in fact have multiple areas where the ceilings are painted blue with rayed stars. It’s a popular motif from that era of ancient Egypt and shows up in a several other places as well.

I picture the jewelry box that Clara digs up as looking something along these lines:

The other piece of jewelry that is mentioned in detail is the necklace the Doctor bought for Clara in 1925. It’s based on the winged sun disk found on many ancient Egyptian temples:

It’s also meant to be a nod to the necklace Clara wears in The Bells of Saint John and The Rings of Akhaten, similar in both design and size:

From there, we get into one of the final remaining mysteries of the story, which the Doctor is clearly reluctant to talk about. There have been hints about this as far back as the first chapter, and from comments on previous chapters, I think a few of you may have guessed that this is where things were headed. Did this reveal turn out the way you thought it would? Or did it surprise you?

Lots of heartbreak at the end of this chapter, but we’re only a few chapters away from our happy ending now. It has been so much fun for me to hear your thoughts and theories as the mystery has unfolded! Thank you to everyone who has left a comment on This Isn’t A Ghost Story, both here and over on AO3. ❤️

--

Extras for Chapter 6: The Future

[oldmanatom]

wrote a whole long post about how i “did” “NaNo,” thought i saved it to my drafts, came to post it tonight and it’s not there. that’s genuinely a bummer since i had other Thoughts™ baked into it, but i’ll take it as an opportunity to write a second draft version instead, now that i have my thoughts more together:

my version of NaNo, much like my version last year, was just to hit a word count goal with whatever writing i could scrape together. this year i set the goal lower than last year, and actually more or less hit it, which was cool and tbh surprising.

i’ve been resistant to writing to hit a word count in the past—seemed like an easy way to psych myself out, plus how i write (jumping all around the story/page/doc) makes keeping track of word counts annoying at best, challenging at worst—but succeeding last month made it far more appealing. i’m going to try and hit it again this month, to see if it might be a good way to keep myself on the writing...treadmill? hike? grind? [insert relevant metaphor here].

for the first time in literally (literally!) years, i’ve completed a first draft of something. it’s objectively not very good, and will need a lot of work—i didn’t know what the hell i was doing for 50% of it, and once i figured out what i was trying to do i didn’t know how to do it for the other 50%, and it took me basically the entire month to put it together brick by brick, so what i have now is about as scattered as you’d expect from that process—but it’s done, which means i can actually do that work and make those edits with a holistic view on what i’m working with, instead of, like, trying to fix the foundation as i’m also trying to build the frame and hang the drywall, so to speak.

thinking also about this post, and about that Terry Pratchett quote about how the first draft is just you telling yourself the story, and about how impossible it is to know and see everything there is to know and see about my story on the very first pass. this idea—that something being done is better than it being good when it comes to first drafts—is something that’s both obvious and easy to understand, and yet has taken me years to realize and more years to actually implement.

why? lots of reasons. one of them: i get stuck in write-edit cycles—write something, go back and edit it, write more, edit that and edit the other part to fit in with the new part, write more, etc etc. it’s a momentum killer. if i do that, i finish nothing, as i’ve proven over and over again over the years as i’ve started a million things and followed through on exactly none of them. trying to break myself of this habit has been a struggle, and mostly i lose, but i’m losing less often and less extensively than i was at the beginning, which i’ll take.

why care about this? lots of reasons. one of them: i am extraordinarily tired of looking at my folders full of bits and pieces stuck in Google docs that get forgotten about and left to collect virtual dust. they might be “good,” but i’m not satisfied with just writing them and letting them sit and do nothing, like some sort of dragon’s hoard of words. i am, regardless of how i feel moment to moment, a decent writer; if nothing else, i’m writing things that i like to read, and that i’d like others to read; i should find a way to bridge the gap and finish these off into something i can share.

(feeling like nothing’s ever done enough to share is its own point which i’m still trying to figure out, and which might be the next meta “thing” i tackle on the first edit/second draft of this piece. how much can one oneshot teach me? is it wise to make this into The Little Story That Could? i guess we’ll find out.)

one thing i’ve been learning as i’ve been trying to put this idea into practice, which will absolutely sound sappy but keeps proving itself true: my story’s going to teach me as i go. it’s going to tell me what needs to happen with the plot and characters and everything else, and it’s going to do that regardless of whether or not i have a 19 page scene-by-scene outline or a conversation i like, an image in my head of the scene, and a vague idea of what i want to happen next. and, whatever i miss on the first round i can pick up and work on in the next rounds. but it only teaches me if i keep writing it, unfortunately.

basically: it doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be done. that’s it. that’s the only requirement of a first draft: that it be complete. just keep writing until the damn thing’s finished. polish comes second. i keep repeating this like a fucking mantra, like something you’d chant to yourself to get through a root canal or the last hour of a truly terrible shift, and honestly that’s what it feels like half the time, but it worked once, so who’s to say it won’t work again.

i think there was a third point in my original post, but i can’t remember it so i guess it can’t be that important. i’ll end with a few quotes from this past month of NaNo, entirely from that draft, which is partly because that was 80-90% of my writing this past month and partly because the other 10-20% is stuff that i’m likely going to be posting soon (yes, i do have plans to post something soon, sorry @ my poor neglected writing sideblog). without context, because i think that’s funnier—

1.

To your eternal shame, you can't actually manage to look up at the woman you know is standing in the doorway, one sandaled foot through the threshold and leaning heavily on the Death First to Solicitors and Thieves doormat. Instead, you glance partway over and see weak, yellowish light spill out from inside, cascade over the porch steps, and reach with dim and blunted fingers out towards her soaked half yard. You trace the watery edges of it with your eyes instead of looking at her, and it's a coward's move but that relief is back again, so.

"Harrow?" she says, barely audible over the pounding water around you.

You remember, then, when you told her ages ago that her vintage standing lamp needed its bulb replaced and the two of you had gotten into a nice little row over well, it's not dead yet, now is it, and where the hell am I supposed to find another weird filament bulb like that, and who exactly decided to get the damn antique showpiece thing anyways. It's entirely unsurprising that after all these years it's still the same almost-flickering bulb stuck in it, that it's somehow still alive and managing to bleed light out onto this miserable scene.

2.

Being shorn down to your shirts and jeans and socks makes you wrap your arms around yourself again. No longer having five pounds of wet denim on your shoulders lets your body remember what warmth is, and more importantly reminds you that you have none, and so what had been a vague shaking for the last hour turns into full-on shivering, teeth clacking and everything. You ask, not for the first time, for some reasonable God to show you mercy and cut you down.

Instead, Ianthe covers her smile half with her hand and says, "Oh, look at you, Harry, you poor thing. Soaking wet and I didn't even have a hand in it."

"Shut up," you try to say, but your chattering teeth and jaw make it come out more like "s-s-s-hhhht 'p," and Ianthe doesn't react regardless, just shakes her head and throws you another towel.

3.

"Harrow, please. It's late and I've never been fond of your insistence on bullshitting when I have your back against a wall. Besides, ending up huddled on my porch in the worst storm of the year is a little much, even for—"

"Even for me," you interrupt, "as though I was the one who slept in front of our front door for three nights so that I wouldn't 'run out on you with the rent' after you lost an argument."

The corner of Ianthe's mouth twitches, but it's the only slip of her otherwise curious, focused expression. "To be fair, it was an argument about the rent."

[venusofthehardsells]

Dreamgirl [part 3]

ReaderxBucky Barnes [part 2] Summary: Bucky tries to adjust to his new life in the Avengers compound. One day he meets a girl who might be everything he needs in order to move on, but is his past really that far away? Warnings: NONCON in this chapter - if you are triggered by or uncomfortable with this DO NOT READ, death, masturbation, psychological manipulation, violence, vomit A/N: Holy goat, this took forever to write. Thank you so much for all your comments and your patience! ♥ This chapter was really difficult for me to get through and I won’t be surprised if this is not your cup of tea - I’m not even sure it’s mine at this point. Maybe chapter four will be kinder to Bucky. Who knows anymore. Let me know your thoughts ~

The run back to the compound is a complete blur. Bucky is drenched in sweat when he throws himself into the last empty chair in the briefing room, one minute before the clock hits the hour. He avoids looking at Steve altogether; he can’t bear it, the concern from his friend. Instead he spends the entire briefing staring at Stark as if he is actually saying something of importance, which he never does. Nothing relevant to him at least. Bucky is still not ready for field duty. It’s just about the only thing he can agree on with Stark. It doesn’t make much sense for him to be there at all, but Steve and Fury insist. Something about keeping him in the loop, in case he suddenly becomes fit for going on team missions. So he shows up and he tries to care.

But today, he doesn’t hear a word Stark or any of the SHIELD agents are saying. His running clothes are strangling him. He keeps checking the time on every screen within view, watching the digital numbers change every minute. How did it get so late in the day? He almost doesn’t dare blink, afraid the hours will vanish again in a brief second of inattentiveness. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t piece the morning together properly. He was talking to her… God, the mere thought of her makes him dizzy, everything from the scent of her perfume, to her sweet smile, to the little yellow hearts on her nails. Is it possible that he was so far gone fantasising about her that he lost himself that deeply? Could he have been asleep in his seat without realising it? No, he’s pretty sure the coffee cup was empty when he left. He doesn’t remember drinking it though. His head pounds and he vaguely thinks this is what a really bad hangover used to feel like. The sweat from the run back dries on his body as he sits there and when Tony Stark finally wraps up, Bucky feels cold as ice. Despite the hour and his long sleeves, his teeth are almost rattling in his skull. Worse is he can tell how bad he is starting to smell and it’s making his stomach roll and lunge inside of him, or at least it feels like it. If he had eaten any breakfast, he’s sure it would have been on the floor by now. He ought to get lunch though, to make up for the meal. Bucky considers it for less than a second. He knows he should eat, that he needs to with his crazy super metabolism and all, but he cannot remember ever having felt less hungry. The mere idea of food, the taste of greasy fried bacon, rubbery texture of eggs in the mouth, even the slightest thought of that fucking smell of cooking oil, fuck, it’s enough to make him sick. As soon as people start to leave, Bucky is out of the door, ignoring Steve’s call of his name. He jumps into the first bathroom he passes and flings himself into a stall, not a second too late. He pukes into the toilet the moment his head is horizontal and it just won’t stop. Even though there’s nothing in his stomach save a bit of coffee, his body wants it gone. Badly. His flesh hand shakes holding onto the edge of the basin. The metal one is a little more calm, but he can tell his thumb has made an indent in the porcelain. Was it always this bad to throw up? He can’t recall, he hasn’t done it in seventy years. Whatever HYDRA pumped into him has kept him healthy and fit and mercifully out of situations like this. Bucky keeps heaving for several more minutes even though there’s nothing to chuck up. Just when he is sure all of his entrails are about to fall out through his mouth, the cramps finally let up and he sits back against the wall, the sour taste in his mouth almost enough to set him off again. He runs a hand through his hair; it’s sticking to his forehead and his neck in the cold sweat that has erupted all over him. “Bucky?... Are you in there, pal?” Even though he knows Steve has seen him at his absolute worst, he tries to pull himself together. As quick as he can without stumbling he gets on his feet and splashes some cold water in his face. Takes a few slurps from the tap too to clear his mouth. The man staring back at him from the mirror above the sink is paler than he remembers, and his eyes are a little wider, but otherwise Bucky doesn’t look as out of sorts as he feels. “I’m okay, Steve,” he answers with a strain in his voice as he exits the stall. Steve doesn’t look too convinced, standing against the wall with his arms crossed and a frown on his face. “You sure?” “Yeah. All good. Probably just need some more sleep.” He shrugs and realises that he does in fact feel exhausted. “I, uh… might have overdone the running a little bit.” “How long were you gone?” Bucky bites back a remark about minding his own business. “Left around five-ish I think,” he says in what he hopes is a casual tone that hides his annoyance. And the fact that the nausea is bubbling back up already. “Jesus Christ…” Steve runs a hand through his perfect blonde hair, looking equally concerned and impressed. “That’s almost seven hours Buck! That ain’t a run, that’s…” His voice stops short of whatever word he was about to say, but Bucky can guess. Torture. Self-harm. Inhuman… They hold each other’s gazes across the bathroom for a moment of hard-strung silence, before Steve averts his eyes. “It’s a problem,” he says then, clearly using all of his self-control to sound somewhat calm. Bucky wishes for the millionth time that Steve wouldn’t try so damn hard. His old friend is walking on eggshells around him and it’s driving him up the wall. The small army of therapists and doctors working on him already treat him like a brittle antiquity and the other Avengers as though he’s some sort of unstable explosive. Stark is the only one who doesn’t seem to care if he breaks or blows up and it would be refreshing if it wasn’t for the fact that every one of his vicious jibes and insults makes Bucky feel like less than the dirt under Stark’s shoes. Of course, he deserves it, there’s no doubt in Bucky’s mind about that; sometimes one of the others tells Stark to back off, but Bucky doesn’t see the point. He is a killer, he is a monster. Should he ever forget it, they’re all there to remind him with their caution and their adjusted voices. Bucky Barnes is still not really human, is he? If only Steve, of all people, would just treat him normally, he’s sure it wouldn’t be so excruciating to exist. He bites down on his lip. “Yeah, well, like I said… I needed the extra time.” Bucky fights the urge to cross his arms and sticks his hands into his pockets instead. To think that he was almost happy only this morning. “Bucky, you know you can talk to me about-,” Steve starts, but Bucky cuts him off before he begins to sound too much like one of his shrinks. “Stark’s parents, okay?,” he all but hisses, no longer able to look Steve in the eyes. “I dreamt about Stark’s parents again, saw their faces and I just… forget it. I’m fine, Steve.” His voice almost cracks at the last words. He needs to find another bathroom without Steve in it so he can puke his guts out in peace. The way Steve looks at him, hurt, shocked, utterly helpless, feels a little bit better than stepping on a landmine and almost having both feet blown off, but only a little. Bucky can’t bear it. Before Steve manages an answer, Bucky pushes past him out of the bathroom and down the hall as quickly as possible. Moments later, he hauls himself into his own room and locks the door behind him. A weary air of guilt, worn threadbare over the past few months, scrunches his features as he trudges to the toilet, kneels down and vomits again. It’s quite fitting for how sick he feels when he thinks of Steve’s expression - the single constant in his life and he’s screwing that up too. Steve just wants to help him. It’s a quality in very short supply and Bucky knows he should value it more than he has done so far. He should try to be more open, more cooperative. After all, it’s Steve… When his stomach stops fighting, he peels off his clothes and crawls into the shower for the second time that day. It’s quickly becoming the only place he feels remotely comfortable. No one to judge him but himself, no dreams but the ones he chooses. As the water starts to trickle down his body, he begins to relax. It takes longer than usual, he’s already so worked up from the day and it’s not even two pm yet. But he forces himself to let go of everything, at least for a little while. His muscles unclench slowly as he lets all thoughts seep from his mind until he is thoroughly unburdened in the little safe space of steam and water. Bucky’s flesh hand glides down between his legs and takes hold of his cock. Practicality tells him an orgasm will help him loosen up enough to maybe catch up on a little sleep before dinner and still, he hesitates. He knows exactly what he wants to see, who he wants to see, but he’s afraid to try and imagine her. It’s okay, it’s just a fantasy. Bucky groans and gives himself an uncertain pump, then another. I won’t mind, James. You can think of me. Let me help you feel good… Her whisper in his head is as clear as if she had been standing behind him, breathing the words on his neck. He can almost feel her hands glide down his shoulders, his arms, until they close around his wrist and gently makes him let go. Let me take care of it for you. Her much softer hands replaces his own around his cock and he can feel her body press into his back, her lips on his shoulder, her nipples against his skin, her hip nudging his ass, her arms tight around him, her scent of coffee and floral perfume filling up the air. He hardens in her grip before she even starts moving. See? You need this. It’s okay, James, I think of you too. “Fuck…” The way her fingers slide up the underside of his length, trailing the vein there with her painted nails is almost painful and he moans loudly. Do you want to know what I imagine? What I think of whit my fingers inside of me? Bucky can’t hold the sounds back anymore. He groans at the images flashing through his head, of her hands that he has already touched now stroking him so intimately, and dear god, those same fingers disappearing into her slick, warm folds while his name falls from her lips. He moans again and thrusts his hips up a little to meet her strokes, bites down hard on his lip when her thumb traces the head of his cock. Both of her hands work relentlessly on him, one fast, one slow and he can feel every muscle in him contract until he’s trembling and the only thing on his mind is the release he desperately needs. I think of this, she whispers and the words are a brief chill on the back of his neck beneath the heat of the shower and the heat building inside of him. I think of this big, hard cock inside of me, stretching me… There is a bit of hot water running into his open mouth as he throws his head back, but he hardly notices anymore. He is panting, nearing. His legs are shaking. He is so close, he’s going to- …stretching me so good, filling me up until I- He cries out with the release before he can stop himself and his vision flashes into white. The force of his orgasm is so intense he staggers and leans on the tile wall. Cum covers both his shuddering hands and his stomach. It takes a while for the shower water to get rid of it all; he watches the white fluid slowly run and circle into the drain like a peppermint swirl. Bucky can’t remember the last time he came so hard, but then again, he can’t remember the last time he came from a fantasy of this kind either. Her smile when she looked at him from behind the counter in the coffee shop is the only thing he sees as he turns off the water and towels himself dry. A part of him feels like a creep for having used her to get off, or at least the image of her, but Bucky is so tired of feeling guilty and at the same time, he can’t help but hope she really does think of him, too. Guilt is too easy, he decides as he wraps the towel around his hips and leaves the bathroom. His life has become one long agonising guilt-trip for simply being alive and while he is still adamant he is to blame for all that Stark and everyone else accuses him of, he is starting to feel sick of it. Maybe she can be the one person he doesn’t have to feel guilty about. If he can allow himself as much, that sliver of normalcy she offers with her sweetness and her adoring eyes, perhaps somewhere in the chaos of the twenty-first century even Bucky Barnes has a chance of healing. “Do you honestly believe that?” The voice makes him snap his head up. He briefly meets his own startled gaze in the mirror above his desk and in the span of a single heartbeat, every trace of warmth is gone from Bucky’s body. Right there, behind him, in his room in the compound is the monster that haunts his dreams and sometimes his waking hours too: staring back at Bucky from above the edge of the black mask covering half his face, are the cold, calculating eyes of the Asset. “No… how…” “I’m never far away.” Bucky watches in silent terror as the Asset takes four almost languid steps towards him and stops right behind him. “This mind…” The Asset lifts two silver metal fingers and taps Bucky’s temple. “…isn’t just yours. Not anymore.” “Shut up,” he manages weakly and even with the mask on, Bucky can tell the Asset is smirking. “It’s been a long time, but I gotta hand it to you. This new life is quite comfortable. I’m especially gonna enjoy that pretty little plaything of yours. Looked real good in that tight skirt today, didn’t she?” The word doesn’t exist in Bucky’s cache of languages to describe the dread flooding his veins then. There’s no longer blood inside of him, only ice water that bites and rips as it courses through him. His hands are gripping the edge of the desk so tightly it’s a wonder it doesn’t splinter. “Don’t… don’t touch…,” he tries, but his voice is sticking in his throat like a knife with a serrated edge that hurts worse the more he fights to get it out. “Or what?” The Asset slowly turns his head and Bucky follows the direction of his eyes in the mirror, somehow already knowing what is happening, what he is going to find. His galloping heart nearly crashes through his chest anyway. She’s lying on the bed behind them. Asleep, Bucky realises with rising panic, no longer wearing the work uniform, but instead a silky little one-piece that drapes to show off every single detail of her body from the point of her hip to the rounds of her soft nipples. His girl sleeping in his bed, wearing something for only him to see. And he wishes she were anywhere else. A contented sigh escapes her mouth and she turns a little, making the delicate fabric drag enough to allow him the conclusion she hasn’t bothered with underwear. “You sure know how to pick ‘em, Barnes. Quite the little dreamgirl, isn’t she?” “No…” The Asset sits down on the edge of the bed and reaches a gloved hand out to rest on her thigh. She hums in her sleep as that monster slowly strokes her skin, inching closer and closer to her barely covered folds. He raises an eyebrow without looking away from Bucky and dips his fingers beneath the fabric, starting to draw languid circles there. Bucky wants to rip the entire arm off him. He wants to call out her name, tell her to run, but the words keep lodging themselves somewhere behind his lips and the Asset just sits there calmly, working her clit while watching him with satisfied triumph gleaming in his eyes. “Do you think she dreams of us?,” the Asset almost purrs as she lets out a moan in her sleep and bucks her hips up to meet his movements. “Stop it,” Bucky whispers, his entire face contorted in rage. It is as if he is frozen in place in front of the mirror; both of his hands are locked around the edge of the desk that he wants to fling into the Asset’s smug face and his feet are solidly planted on the floor. He can’t move. Only watch as the Asset starts to rub her clit faster and the sound she makes when she finally comes undone has him hardening beneath the towel. Then the scent of her cum washes over him and he has to bite back a moan of his own. It makes his knees go weak. “I don’t think I want to stop, Barnes. Your little squeeze is delicious.” The Asset holds up his hand so that Bucky can clearly see the white cum running down the black glove. “And she seems to like it, doesn’t she?” White-hot anger surges through Bucky’s frozen body as the Asset takes a deep breath of her essence covering his fingers. Get away from her, he shouts inside his head; blood is thundering so hard in his ears that he almost misses her confused little voice. “James?...” She looks at the Asset, then meets Bucky’s eyes in the mirror. Her heartrate is faster than normal, probably the aftershock of the orgasm. “What’s happening?” “Get out…,” he wheezes in that strained, almost-not-there-voice that is all he can manage to force out. What is wrong with him? Her eyes widen when she realises his panic and she moves to get off the bed. She doesn’t even make it to the side before the Asset grabs her shoulder and drags her back. “Not so fast, pretty girl.” She shrieks as the assassin pushes her back down into the mattress and quickly straddles her before she can roll away. “I’m gonna have a little more fun with you.” “Let go of me!,” she hisses and lashes out at his face, at the mask, but the Asset easily captures her wrist in his silver metal hand before she can make contact and pins it above her head. “Not yet,” he says quietly, getting hold of her other wrist as well. She is completely locked beneath him. The Asset takes his time to admire the view before him, seeming to relish in the way she squirms uselessly between his legs. “James, please. Help me,” she begs, her voice unsteady and shrill and it rips at Bucky’s very soul to hear. He is trembling in place, but that’s all. Why can’t he just fucking move?! The Asset grabs the crotch of her flimsy one-piece and tears through it, pushing it out of the way. She immediately struggles harder, but the Asset merely squashes her wrists tighter and she cries out in pain. Stop hurting her, Bucky mouths desperately. Nothing but air comes out of his mouth, but he’s sure the Asset can hear him. Let go of her, you have me, you can do whatever you want to me, kill me if you like, just don’t hurt her. The Asset audibly chuckles and turns his head to meet Bucky’s gaze in the mirror. “You shouldn’t have shown her to me, Barnes. What is yours, is mine.” He undoes a buckle and a zipper with casual indifference only using his flesh hand. The motion is efficient and Bucky knows from the worst, most repressed parts of his memories that it’s from experience. He always lies whenever people asks him if he remembers all the people The Winter Soldier killed, tells them yes, because he cannot bear to unearth certain victims yet without surely shattering himself beyond repair. When the Asset frees his cock from its restraints of his gear, already hard and leaking, and lines himself up with her exposed entrance, the faces of all those forgotten victims seeps back into Bucky’s mind and he wants to die. It would be easier than to face those ghosts, the ones he didn’t just kill but wishes he had. Please, just let go of her! You can have this body, I don’t care. I won’t fight you for it if you let her go. Listen to me!, he yells inside his head, but the Asset doesn’t acknowledge it. Don’t fucking touch her! “James, help me!,” the girl cries, the one that isn’t a ghost, the one he hasn’t… “You don’t have to do this, please don’t do this, just let me go… let me go, no! Stop, please, no! No!” Her words disappears into a scream when the Asset plunges into her in one unforgiving thrust. He leans back and closes his eyes, savouring the feeling of her tight walls around him. Bucky clenches his own eyes shut at the sight, flinching with every cry and sob the Asset now wrings from her as he starts to thrust his hips at a brutal pace without letting her adjust properly. He can’t look at it. He can’t stand there and look at the Asset hurting his girl and not being able to stop it without going mad. The sound of her crying is bad enough. “Wanna know how good she feels?,” the Asset growls and the sobs turn back into screams. Bucky immediately knows he’s made her cum. Again. Even in his petrified state of terror and disgust, the thought of her warm, silken cunt throbbing around his length almost makes him see stars and he can’t remember a time he has ever been more ashamed of himself. “Stop it,” he gets out, choking on the words and the fear and the wrath. Please just stop it. “But I’m not done with her yet. I’m sure she has more to give,” the Asset says between breaths. Instead of slowing down his thrusts, he increases the force behind each movement, jolting her body harshly each time he bottoms out. “Come on, pretty girl, you can take more than this. Don’t hold back on me.” Bucky can tell from the desperate, high-pitched sounds she’s trying to stifle that he is not letting her come down from the orgasm. Instead, he pushes her right into the next one. Tears are streaming from her tightly shut eyes as the high shoots through her and the Asset still doesn’t let up. He let’s go of her wrists and grabs a hold of her throat instead; the metal fingers closes easily around her neck, unyielding despite how she now claws and scratches at his lethal prosthetic. He is far enough above her for her fingers to only graze the mask in her turmoil. Somehow, Bucky’s eyes have managed to fall open again and he almost wishes he could gorge them out entirely. Let go, you’ll kill her! She’s gasping for breath through the tight grasp on her throat, her struggle slowly growing weaker. “She wouldn’t be the first,” is all the Asset answers before he reaches down and pinches her clit. The sound that escapes her then is so horrifyingly raw and desperate Bucky can’t believe it’s coming from the same girl who had in a soft, sweet voice asked him about something as mundane as coffee.  Her back arches off the bed and her arms and legs flail in a vain attempt to get his hand away from her overstimulated bundle of nerves. It’s too much. Every part of her is shaking violently under the unbroken string of orgasms the Asset forces out of her pinned down body. He lets out a groan and his hips finally begin to stutter and lose their ruthless pace. He lifts his hand from between her legs and for half a second, Bucky thinks it’s over, that he’s finally done with her. She will be in pain, but she’s alive. They both are. That’s all that matters. He has already pricked his finger on the peak of relief when the Asset raises his flesh hand and removes the mask. She stops struggling. Stops heaving for breath. Her bloodshot eyes just stare up at the face of the man she knows as James in shocked disbelief as her arms fall limply to her sides. The Asset’s lips spread in a sinister smile as he watches the fight leave her completely. He thrusts into her one final time, spilling his cum with a deep groan and his metal hand tightens on her throat until her eyes roll back in her head and she goes still. There is a strangled cry, like a small animal being trod on, and Bucky realises the sound is coming from himself. You… you killed her… The vicious grin on the Asset’s face turns into a knowing smirk. “Did I?” Bucky tries once again to free his hands from their cramped hold of the edge of the desk, only to find that he’s no longer standing at it. Instead, his eyes are looking right down at his own dark vibranium fingers clutching the dead girl’s neck. His knees are solidly planted on the bed, her body trapped beneath him, his cock still inside of her… With an agonised howl, Bucky sits up in the bed and stares at an empty room. His heart is thumping so hard and rapidly against his ribs, his entire frame trembles with it. The images from the nightmare flashes before his eyes every time he blinks and he rubs them in the hope that they’ll leave him alone. Both his hands come away wet with tears. This has been the worst dream he has had in months. He slowly clenches and unclenches his shaking hands to make sure they still obey. That they wouldn't somehow… She wouldn't be the first. He curls into a mess of sheets and limbs and pillows and let the crying rake through him. Everything hurts. It's hard just to get air into his lungs. There is a gentle tap on the d,or, so quiet he almost misses it. "Buck? Pal, you in there?," comes Steve's soft voice. "You didn't come down for dinner and… I, uh… Bucky, I just… if I was outta line earlier, I'm sorry. Don't want to bother you, I just gotta know if we're good?" A particularly violent sob leaves Bucky before he can prevent it and Steve's enhanced hearing picks it up immediately. He opens the door carefully, giving Bucky time enough to tell him to go to hell, but he doesn't.  "Oh, Buck," Steve sighs when he sees his friend and quickly shuts the door again, before kneeling down next to the tangled heap of bedding and supersoldier. Bucky reaches out with his flesh hand and grabs onto Steve's shirt  "Don't leave," he manages almost desperately between sobs, afraid of how gravelly his voice sounds, afraid it'll disappear again. "Of course not." Steve settles in next to him and places an arm around Bucky, awkwardly at first because of Bucky's wrapped up fetal position, but with a bit of shuffling and wiggling they make it work.  "Of course I'd never leave you."

From Alhabor’s private notes, page torn out and crumbled: I miscalculated today’s dose. Not enough to kill him which would have been a fucking nightmare. Didn’t include it in the report, hope I won’t have to. Must be more careful from now on. Too close to the target for mistakes at this rate.

Tags will be added in reblog ~

[softspiderling]

will you find me (afterlife) | t.h.

Summary: the five stages of grief start with denial and it didn’t seem like Tom was going leave that stage anytime soon.

Pairing: Tom Holland x Reader

Song I listened to while writing: Afterlife by Hailee Steinfeld

Author’s Note: it’s not my first time writing something supernatural, but it is my first time doing so for Tom, so we’ll see how that went, huh? This went incredibly well with the spooky month and I was hella inspired by Hailee Steinfeld’s new song, so, enjoy it!!

Warnings: mention of character’s death, supernatural elements

Word Count: 3,2k

Tom stepped out of the door and quickly pulled the hood over his head to protect himself from the rain that was falling from the clouds. Even though it was only four pm in the afternoon, the sky was dark and it was pouring rain; the weather matched his mood.

It was his first time leaving the house since you’ve died and honestly he couldn’t have brought it over his heart to even get out of bed if it wasn’t for the thing he desperately needed answers to. If his family or Harrison knew that Tom had managed to get dressed by himself, let alone get a shower they would have been ecstatic.

But no, Tom couldn’t tell anyone where he was going, not yet. Not before he could confirm anything.

He quickly walked to the next tube station, painfully keeping his eyes away from the empty parking space in his drive way. Head kept low and eyes trained on the ground, Tom got on the tube and leaned his forehead on the cold window as the darkness flashed past him, while the people around him were chattering excitedly about whatever dull topic, he couldn’t care less.

It was their laughter that made his ears perk up, that one person that giggled just like you did and he curled his hands into fists, squeezing his eyes shut.

It wasn’t you.

Tom bolted the moment the tube stopped at his station and jogged up the stairs, his head turning to find the way. He pulled out his phone to look at the address of his destination, your face smiling at him from the screen. With a bitter smile, he wiped the rain drops from your face and followed the directions to the address he was given.

He’s been walking for fifteen minutes in the freezing rain when he took a left turn and knew that he was at the right place.

The smell inside was musky and dingy when he entered the shop, he barely had space to turn his body; the small room was packed with shelves and tables, which had varying kinds of antiquities on them, ranging from small candle holders up to an intricate looking lamp in the far corner.

Tom was moving carefully between the furniture, pulling his hood down as he dodged a particular bulky coat rack, when a nasally voice sounded next to him.

“You’re not here to buy antiquities, are you.”

It wasn’t posed as a question, but he nodded either way as he took in the appearance of the woman that was standing to his left side.

Her back was hunched, draped with several layers of scarfs and cardigans, her hair curling wildly around her face. Even though she had deep wrinkles in her face, she somehow looked young and old at the same time, Tom couldn’t exactly pinpoint why.

“The thing you came here for involves a highly dangerous ritual, boy. It is not something a mere mortal like you can play with,” she told him and he bristled, his eyebrows furrowing.

“How do you even know why I’m here?”

The woman gave him a condescending look. “If you don’t know that, I’m not sure if you’re in the right place after all.”

“I’m in the right place,” he argued. “And if you know why I’m here, you also know that I’m not leaving until you’re giving me the answers that I need.”

She let out a dry laugh and disappears behind a shelf, with Tom following her hot on her heels.

“You have a big mouth for someone who needs something only I can give you.”

“Please,” Tom croaked out and she turned to look at him. “I need to know if anything that was written in the book was true. I need to know if I can bring her back-“ he cut off, letting out a harsh breath.

“I can’t live with her.”

“Aren’t you alive right now?”

“Just barely,” he whispered and the woman eyed him skeptically.

His eyes were blood shot and sunken in, his cheeks bony. He looked like he hasn’t eaten in a week and the way his hands were shaking, it seemed like he desperately needed it.

“How did you even find me?” she asked, her voice softer.

 “Someone gave me a book and the address was written on the back. His name was John Huntley.”

Tom leaned his head into his hands, the tears falling on the squeaky white floor below him. He knew that he shouldn’t have let you go to the store by yourself, he should have gone with you instead of staying at home, but would that have made matters better? Maybe he’d be dead, too.

That certainly beat having to live without you.

“Excuse me, Tom Holland? May I have a word?”

“Can’t you just give me some fucking privacy?” Tom snapped at him, lifting his eyes to glare at the man who was standing over him, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his black coat. Even though he probably looked like a crazy person right now, he couldn’t care less. You weren’t even dead for half an hour and this man wouldn’t even let Tom mourn in peace. 

 “I’m not here to bother you, I swear,” he said, raising his hands in defense. ”I just- My name is John Huntley and I think I can help you.”

John reached into his coat and pulled a small leather bound book out, handing it to Tom. The book looked old and honestly, Tom wasn’t sure if it would survive the trip home.

“What the fuck is this?”

“Something that is going to help you,” John answered, sticking his hands into the pockets of his coat. “I am only here to help, if you accept my help or not is up to you.”

He turned to leave, but before he took any step away from Tom, he looked over his shoulder one last time.

“I am sorry for your loss, Tom.”

Tom narrowed his eyes, staring after the retreating form of the man, so distracted that he didn’t notice Harrison walking up to him to lay a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey man, who was that?” Harrison asked, his eyebrows furrowed in concern as he eyed his best friend.

“No one important,” Tom said absentmindedly, still looking at the back of John Huntley’s head while his hand slipped the book into the pocket of his hoodie.

How did he know that you’ve died?

It was later that day when Tom returned to an eerily quiet house that he remembered about John Huntley and the book in the pocket of his coat. Grabbing himself a bottle of beer, he sat down at the kitchen counter and opened the book, skipping through the pages.

“Love potion, binding spell, what the fuck is this supposed to be, some kind of witch book?” he muttered to himself, throwing the book across the counter, before opening his beer to take a big sip, his eyes brimming with tears. Placing the beer bottle back on the counter with more force than needed, he glanced back to the book and on the page it was opened on.

His eyes glazed over when he read the title of the page, his hands starting to shake when he reached out to pick the book back up, his lip trembling.

“John should stop putting his nose where it doesn’t belong.” She said courtly and Tom pulled out the book to show it to her, skipping to the part that was relevant to him.

“He was trying to help me. He knew that it wasn’t Y/N’s time yet, this is him telling me to bring her back!” he said hotly, his voice rising.

The woman merely blinked at him. “You don’t strike me as someone who believes in things like these.”

Tom slumped, his arms falling numbly to the side.

“I didn’t use to. Y/N was the one who believes- believed in magic and the supernatural, always whispering about witches and vampires living among us. I humored her. I thought it was cute of her to believe in things. It makes you appreciate life so much more when you believe.”

“So are you saying you believe in magic?” the woman asked and Tom looked her straight in the eyes and he swore a look of familiarity passed her face before he gave her an answer.

“I believe in Y/N.”

“Very well. But do be warned, this is a ritual even highly skilled witches and warlocks fail at and I can’t promise you that a mere mortal like you can perform it.”

Tom nodded, the comment indicating that there were more than one witch and even warlocks completely went over his head, he had one goal only and that was the only thing that he could focus on right now.

“Now listen carefully because I’m only going to tell you this once,” the woman warned him and Tom quickly pulled up his phone to take notes.

“This ritual only works during the full moon, so you’ll have to do it tomorrow, because by the next it’ll be too late. Now, for the ingredients you’ll need…”

Shouldering the backpack, Tom had the hood pulled deep into his face as he casually walked along the hospital building, the darkness engulfing his figure. He waited a split second as a nurse left through the back door, as to not look suspicious before he snuck into the building, heading the stairwell down to the morgue.

The basement was dark, and Tom was searching for the light switch to bring some light into the hallway, looking over his shoulder to make sure no one was coming down the stairs. But just to be safe, he shut the door of the morgue behind him when he stepped foot into the room and locked it, blocking the door with a heavy cabinet for good measure. He didn’t need anyone to come in and put him in the psych ward.

Tom took a few cautious steps towards the mortuary chamber he knew your body was stored in and a chill ran down his spine. He didn’t know if it was caused by the low temperatures or the fact that he was about to come face to face with your dead body. Squaring his shoulders, he checked the labels on the chambers before he finally found your name, unlatching the bolt and pulling your chamber out, his breath hitching in his throat.

You looked so peaceful; your eyelids a faint purple, scratches scattered across your face and he could see bruises on your shoulders, from which he knew went down to your chest. Tom reached out to take your hand in his and it felt ice cold, against his warm skin. Swallowing thickly, he wiped the tears that were starting to fall with the sleeve of his sweatshirt before he brought his backpack forward to unpack the ingredients for the ritual.

Tom stroke the hair out of your face gently before applying the paste he had stirred together beforehand on your forehead and cheeks. As he slowly worked his way down your body, the doubts started clouding his mind and the breath stocked in his throat, his hand trembling.

What was he supposed to do if this wasn’t going to work?

When he told the old woman at the shop that he wasn’t able to live without you, he wasn’t exaggerating. The only thing that kept him going and the blood pumping through his veins was the fact that he had a chance of bringing you back, there was no plan B, this was it, it had to work.

He pushed back the stray curls out of his forehead with his elbow, his fingers slowly running down your pale arm, before he wiped his hands on a towel. Tom glanced on the watch that was wrapped around his wrist before he removed the small pendant that rested on his chest, the small heart glinting in the light.

“If what you’re thinking is true, that it wasn’t her time to go yet, it is possible that her soul is still around and latched onto something else when her body died. The object is something she held dear, something important to her. You have to find that object for the ritual, otherwise it won’t work.”

He had taken the necklace when he had looked at your body after your accident. Your cuts were still fresh then and there was still a glow on your face that made you look like you were just asleep. Tom had wanted to keep a part of you close to him and he never realized how he was literally keeping a part of you around his neck.

It wasn’t even a gift from him, you had been wearing the necklace long before you met. It was a gift from your grandmother when you were little and you had never taken it off, usually playing with it when you were nervous. In all of the time you were dating, Tom had never even thought of buying you a necklace as a gift because he knew you’d never take off your grandmother’s necklace.

He hoped he was right about this.

Tom pulled the book out of his backpack and turned the pages until he reached the chapter of resurrecting the dead. He straightened the page and when a small alarm went off on his phone, he read the three small verses that were written below the instructions.

With longing and passion you are missed, as your body slowly starts to wither. With life again you shall be kissed, interrupting your path with her.

Bring your soul back to its rightful place, your time has not yet come. Return to the living with all your grace, bring life to what is numb.

I call you here and now, with a power holier than thou.

As Tom finished reading he expected something to glow or maybe a blinding light, but nothing. It was silent, the only thing that made a sounds was the light flickering above him. Everything looked scarily normal and you still looked dead.

You still were dead.

The tears he was trying so hard to hold back sprang into his eyes and he turned away from your body, angrily hitting his open palm against the wall. It was over, it didn’t work. He was out of options and he just didn’t know how he was supposed to keep going. A strangled sob escaped his lips as he leaned his forehead against the wall, the tears running down his face.

With his hand curled into a fist, he squeezed his eyes shut and wiped his wet cheeks. His body tensed and the hairs on the nape of his neck stood straight when he heard rustling behind him, almost giving himself whiplash with how fast he turned his head.

You were groaning out in pain, your body still showing a few splotches of the purple paste on your skin. While Tom was staring at you shell-shocked, your hands gripping the side of the metallic stretcher you were laying on, you pushed yourself up in a sitting position, before he finally shook himself out of his trance and rushed over to help you, supporting your back.

“Easy,” he hissed, his hands carefully holding you as if he was scared of breaking you. “Your body’s been through a lot in the past few days, don’t push yourself.”

“Holy shit,” you cursed. “Fuck, why does everything hurt so much? I feel like I’ve been hit with a truck.”

Tom winced and one hand came up to stroke the hair out of your face lovingly, the smile on his face was so bright it hurt your eyes. He couldn’t believe his luck.

“Well, you got hit by something, but it wasn’t exactly a truck,” he said softly and you narrowed your eyes at him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

You then glanced around the room and down your body, confusion written all over your face. Tom wasn’t sure how he was supposed to explain this to you, he didn’t even know what you remembered.

“Where am I? Why am I naked? Wait-“ you squinted your eyes at the mortuary chamber in front of you and all the color drained from your face.

“Tom, why am I lying in a mortuary chamber?”

He quickly pulled out the spare clothes out of the backpack and helped you to get dressed, before cupping your face gently.

“Do you trust me?” Tom asked quietly and you stared wide-eyed at him, nodding. You were scared, he could see that in your eyes, but right now he just needed you to trust him before he could answer any questions.

“Good, then put some shoes on and I will explain everything to you at home okay?”

You nodded obediently and he wrapped a jacket around your shoulders before he helped you off the stretcher. Eyeing the blocked door suspiciously while Tom pushed the cabinet away and returned to your side with a strong grip around your waist.

It wasn’t easy to get up the stairs and out of the hospital with you limping and him having to dodge your questioning looks and the hospital staff, but you managed to get to his car.

“I can buckle up by myself Tommy,” you told him with an amused grin on your face while he was leaning over your lap to put your seatbelt on, but judged by the concerned expression he was wearing, he wasn’t in the mood to joke around.

“I just want my girl to be safe,” Tom told you with a gentle kiss on the cheek and after making sure the seatbelt was on tight, he got into the driver’s seat, pulling out of the parking lot to drive home.

Two figures were watching the car drive off to the distance from the roof of the hospital building, one casually sitting on the edge with her legs dangling in the air.

“I still think it’s a bad idea John,” the girl said, wrapping her scarf tighter around her neck. “How do you think he’s going to explain this to his family, or the public?”

John was still focused on the car growing smaller in the distance, only turning away when he couldn’t see the lights anymore, smiling at the sitting girl.  

“They’ll be fine, Mya. We both know that it wasn’t her time to go yet,” he reminded her, plopping down on the ground next to her.

“And they reminded me of us, you know how much I went through to get you back, he at least should have gotten the chance to do so, too.”

Mya sighed and waggled her feet, though a smile was playing on her lips. “You’re right. He was very determined to find a way to bring her back, even though he didn’t 100% believe in us. But that’s what love can do, right?”

“Right,” John answered with a smile on his own, reaching over to grasp Mya’s hand. “Love’s even more powerful than death herself.”

He leaned in to give her a small kiss and the moments their lips touched, they vanished into thin air, a hint of vanilla being the only thing they’ve left behind.

A/N: Let me know what you think of this!

if you want to be added to the taglist, let me know!

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[teabooksandsweets]

Very Long Post On Cancel Culture, Wokeness And Tumblr

Warning: This text is not one bit ordered because it all belongs together and I write it down as it comes to mind, and I also stray off topic a lot.

Also: This text is NOT about how all people are too soft or special snowflakes or too sensitive or anything of that sort. On the contrary.

I am glad that people finally begin to speak out against cancel culture, but their approach to it is usually wrong.

It’s not just that it doesn’t matter if people maybe were not perfect(ly woke/pc) in the past, and can change. What really matters is that people don’t have to be perfect and woke and pc at all.

And I am saying this for an entirely different reason than you might think, for a different reason than people usually speak out against political correctness, and “sjws”, etc. The problem is: all this makes people less kind, less considerate, less caring and open towards others. It makes them hateful and hostile and selfish.

In the late 00s/early 10s everyone was a relativist, saying how there was no right or wrong, etc. and luckily that’s over. But in the mid-to-late-10s people began to be absolutely obsessed with morals in an entirely corrupted way.

The thing is this: people should always strive to learn and to behave well and kindly. Generally. Everyone. Always.

But people ought to be generally kind and good, not specifically perfect in regards to very specific things, and otherwise absolutely hateful, as is nowadays encouraged, especially on tumblr.

Tumblr cares about specific social issues. All of these are incredibly important. But tumblr doesn’t see the Big Picture, doesn’t connect humans to each other, fails to recognise that all humans are human and should treat each other well.

Instead, to tumblr, the smallest offence of a Very Specific Kind, one careless word, one lack of knowledge, is seen as the worst crime imaginable. But truly bad, truly evil behaviour of another sort, a sort that for some reason isn’t condemned by tumblr, is seen as unimportant, sometimes even encouraged. “It doesn’t matter if you harm people and make them suffer, if you are hateful or dangerous, as long as you remember the strict codes we have made up.”

All this is done without any sort of coherent logic or consideration. Different social issues (e.g. sexism and racism) are sometimes played out against each other to make a point, sometimes blended to make a different point, as long as the person making the point can use it to appear as woke or good as possible.

It is seen as absolutely fine to harm great many of the people in whose name one claims to do good, if that brings one closer to the goal of Doing Good In Their Name For Everyone To See.

Minorities and people who are for some reason often oppressed are taken up by people who are (in that sense) more privileged as a sort of “cute little pet” to be infantilised and misused, in order to make a point, or maybe just to offend a family member one doesn’t like, or simply to Appear As Woke As Possible.

(The patronising attitude towards minorities also often shows in the context of religion. There are so many posts on tumblr claiming to support a specific (often oppressed) religion, only to make plenty of other posts on how they hate specific aspects of another religion (usually Christianity, but not necessarily) or of religion in general, which this particular religion shares. But of course—some people (usually people of colour) are “excused” for being religious, even if their actual faith is looked down upon.)

Groups of people are only seen in the context of one Time And Place (today’s USA) and members of these groups in other times and places are judged and treated in exactly the same one as one would judge and treat their people in That One Time And Place.

Good manners and generally kind and considerate behaviour are rejected for being elitist and snobbish and antiquated, and instead replaced by a perverted sort of Political Correctness, which is by far more elitist and excluding, overly specific and only benefiting a few people, and free of any sort of warmth or kindness, instead expecting people to pass a test of sorts, to remember the latest overspecific information, and to repeat it correctly, regardless if one understands it, regardless if one actually applies it towards actual people.

Being considerate of others, treating them well, not behaving absolutely horridly should not be special. And the idea to take away all good manners, all kindness, all consideration, because they are supposedly outdated or even elitist, and to replace it with a stiff and superficial degeneration of what used to be political correctness, so that people behave well in certain circumstances (and not at all otherwise) out of nothing but fear is Not Good.

Pseudo-PC behaviour is even sometimes used to disguise hostility towards the people it should actually protect, you can harm people as long as you are Saying The Right Things.

(This also shows in the treatment of fictional characters. A serial killer might be a fan favourite, but once they say something racist or otherwise bad it’s like “uh, I can’t believe they did that! Now my fave is problematic!” No, your fave has always been very problematic and now there’s just another bit that shows what you should have known for a long time!)

Groups whose actual intention is supposed/claimed to be of a social and helpful nature are destroying themselves from within, attacking their own members or subjects of care in precisely the manner in which they claim outsiders do.

People are actually speaking out in favour of bullying people “if they deserve it” even though people always find “good reasons” to bully and harm people, and claiming that particular people deserved it is their go-ahead. As someone who has been bullied, I can assure you that people always find reasons, and if they are encouraged to bully people who “deserve it” they will make sure that they appear to deserve it.

People are encouraged to denounce people, which specifically means to accuse people of something to the personal benefit of the accuser, usually either made-up or twisted. I repeat this: People are not encouraged to report people for doing something bad, they are encouraged to denounce them, which has a very different and very specific and very, very harmful meaning.

Even more so, whatever accussation of a person is made, is believed. “Innocent until proven guilty” has been abolished. The moment a person makes a claim on someone the judgement has been made.

Even more so, well-meant, but politically incorrect things are considered worse than pc hate. If a person knows all the language, has all the background info, they can be personally hostile. If a person actually means to be kind, but is doesn’t go about it the “right way” is considered horrible (eg. a man who may be a unintentionally sexist but who doesn’t mean any harm is seen worse than a true misogynist who knows feminist lingo).

Even more so, “tumblr swjs” much too often adopt concepts of their actually hateful people. For example, while actual Cultural Appropriation is a horrible thing, people on here take it as far as “all cultures are valuable but they Need To Stay In Their Place and Never Mingle and Make Them Impure”. Which is precisely the argument of many... what? Ah, yes, white supremacists. Yes, you here me right. Not all WPs openly admit that they hate all people who aren’t white. No, many claim that they just want to keep people seperate, just like so many of the people on here who claim to be anti-racist. But cultures have never been seperate, many cultures people think to have nothing to do with each other have influenced each other greatly, and others that people were one and the same culture are actually not.

(In that vein, people on here also don’t understand that racism is always bad, but also always different, and that that dividing people into “white” and “poc” is once again a very Modern Day USA thing, and that people can be racist in many more shapes, and that what people have been considered white or not has changed greatly over the years. All racism is bad, but not all is the same.)

But even more so, in the name of social justice, many methods of actual fascists have been adopted. People don’t notice it, because the primary focus is not on what things are done, but on who does them and to whom they do it.

But that’s a particular problem. Consider the concept, not the victim or the culprit. Even if you apply it to people “who deserve it” it does. not. help. if you model for path to social justice after bloody revolutions that led to fascist governments, or if you systematically (help to) ruin people in the same manner as fascist states did and do. Perhaps I am biased. Perhaps I am simply a German who is frightened of seeing people on the internet telling others it were their moral duty to persecute people in manners common in nazi times and/or the gdr. But perhaps people should also consider whether it really makes sense to condemn people for using the term “witch hunt” outside of sexism. Because it’s also a method, a structure, no matter to whom it is applied, or why.

But to get back to the terrible lack of proportion. This is especially relevant in regards to celebrities. The bar is so high and so low at the same time, and so randomly adjusted, that people are praised and put on pedestals for absolutely no proper reason, simply because they acted like normal decent people, and then, just as quickly, pushed off it, and condemned, just for acting like normal decent people. Normal = nonetheless flawed, because: human. There’s so much undeserved hate following so much praise, usually unexplained, so that people just join in nwithout even knowing what “good” or “bad” that person has done. People are glorified for nothing, and then ruined. And what does it teach normal people?

To always look out, to always be frightened. To worry about every thing one says or does. Not about the way one treats others—treating people badly is a power move, of course, and general decency is entirely insignificant. Just to remember the special jargon of a superficial political correctness, and sometimes even the in-jokes of people. (I have once witnessed people bullying a child out of this site, claiming she was homophobic, because she didn’t understand a gay in-joke. You only get that on tumblr. I hope.)

And because people constantly have to prove that they are not bad, they can not even be normal. It’s not enough to be normal, considerate, kind, but imperfect people—everyone has to absolutely perfect, by standards set by some random people who claim to know better, and whenever people just appear particularly good by those people’s standards (especially if they are something Inherently Evil, like men) they get praised to be Especially Different Someones And The Only Good People Of Their Sort. Until they got found out, are finally proven to be normal, decent human beings, like the majority of all people, and are suddenly brushed aside, hated forever, another point made to prove that This Sort Of People Is Always Bad. (To this adds: Too many bad things are immediately attatched to a specific group of people, even if it is commonly done by various groups/all people/actually the people complaining about it.)

I mean, sure. Tumblr is the first place in which I’ve seen people who criticise Christianity don’t do it for the obvious problems in churches and with some of their members, but for the concepts of loving one’s neighbour and forgiveness. The first place in which I have seen people who “advocate” for human rights also support the death penalty and vigilante murder. The first place in which I have seen people talk unironically in favour of the French revolution and the USSR.

But, kids, I know, most of you are over-excited and extremely well-meaning teenagers, and it’s important to rebel, and all, and I hope you will never outgrow your social conscience, but you should really outgrow the way you apply it. Because there’s people among you who don’t mean well, and who take advantage of you.

I mentioned the (luckily) outdated relativism earlier, and I need to say more about it. It’s mingled its shades of grey with today’s black-and-white mindset. In the past, nobody could citicise people for doing something because nothing was seen as really good or bad. Now everything is either good or bad, and people still can’t critise someone for doing something they don’t like—unless they prove it’s bad. You can’t just say “Oh, this is not for me. I don’t like it.” Or even “This or that aspect of this should be looked at critically.” No. You have to say “Here I Will Prove Why This Is Evil And Shouldn’t Be.” Criticising someone, or just disagreeing, can’t be done out of worry over hurting their feeling, just as it was in the olden days (aka ca. 10 years ago) of Everyone Should Do As They Like, so what to do instead? Prove they are Bad and Everyone Who Doesn’t Agree That This Is Bad Is Also Bad. “Not my cup of tea” is over, everyone has to drink the same tea, always.

To this adds that things that people don’t like are always equated to things that are really undoubtedly bad. Thanks to this, actual terms used for actually bad things lose their meaning, and the demonisation of harmless things ultimately leads to the trivialisation of what’s truly bad. Words have lost their meaning and are used just as one pleases in order to “call someone out”.

(A particular common matter on tumblr is the equation of pedophilia and age gaps between adults; but the issue that many adults on tumblr seem to consider themselves children and seem entirely concided that they could also become victims of child predators, whereas they themselves can prey on children because they like Disney movies or whatever; and many children on tumblr think they had a right to patronise adults, is a different issue about which I really don’t care to talk right now. The idea that people also shouldn’t be in relationships with people who may have some sort of societal advantage over them, also holds plenty of implications that make me very uncomfortable, but about which I also really don’t care to talk right now.)

To come back to an example mentioned earlier. Take misogyny and racism. Two bad things, two things to fight against, two things that shouldn’t be exploited to fight the other. To say “I want to fight the bad treatment of women, and specific things are prevalent in specific cultures therefore I can be hostile and prejudiced towards these people.” is not good feminism, not even bad feminism, it’s plain racism, and nothing else. But to say “This thing may be really harmful to a lot of women is valuable to people of this or that culture, so one has to support it.” is also not anti-racist in the least, it’s just an attempt to appear open minded by people who are in no way affected by it. And these are two examples—it goes far beyond racism or misogyny.

There’s plenty of very right and good posts on tumblr on how people should benefit from society, rather than society benefitting from them. The same should be applied, for example, to feminism, and anti-racism, and other social causes. They should be positive and helpful to the people who need their help, and they need to work together. These are just two examples, to all other work to help people of all sorts applies the same.

If you don’t ask yourself “How do I help individual human beings, and how does my cause help some of them?” but instead ask “How do I help My Specific Cause That I Care About, regardless of the people?” you are doing it wrong.

And tumblr woke culture teaches that all humans are are seperated into little groups, which sometimes overlap, and that all people within these groups are exactly the same. But all humanity is one big group, and every human being is an individual, and some individuals have more in common with each other than others, but all in all, we all do belong together.

But I am not saying this to encourage even more people to attack others for caring about a specific social issue, seeing that as prove that they only cared about that. People cannot probably handle everything, and all things to play into each other anyway.

And yes, I believe in social mindfulness, in work to help others and especially to help those who are in particular need of help, in care and in consideration. But I believe that the means to these things, whether it’s a specific group with which people choose to identify or even join, or a concept such as political correctness, etc. should serve the people and their well-being and safety and happiness. People should not serve them out of fear or being torn down by strangers on the internet.

And people shouldn’t alienate each other, they shouldn’t attack those who want to help, they shouldn’t refuse people to grow and to learn, they shouldn’t seperate social issues from each other as if we weren’t all people, as we shouldn’t cooperate to b help those who need help. And to do all this, we must allow humans to be human, to be imperfect but generally kind and well-intentioned. This striving for over specific perfection combined with disregard for general kindness can not possibly help. It only alienates people, frightens them, and paints those who actually want to do good in a bad light.

Please: My writing was perhaps very muddled up, and it may be that I took up some strings that I didn’t finish, or phrased some things badly. So if you wonder about anything I wrote here, or dislike anything of it, please tell me so that I can explain myself. I’ve seen so many people lately write things that in the end got negative responses that were in no proper relation to the original text and obviously based in misunderstanding, and I don’t want that.

[internethistoriananalysis]

Habermas’ Public Sphere and its Transformation in Relation to YouTube

The Public Sphere

German philosopher and devotee of liberalism, Jurgen Habermas conceptualised the ‘bourgeois public sphere’ through his historical analysis; arising from the establishment of a new liberal social order starting in the coffee houses of England in the early 18th-century before spreading across Europe to countries like Germany and France; necessitated by the increased trade which upped the need for more open discussion of matters of common concern (Habermas, 1989). He defines the bourgeois public sphere as “[being] conceived above all as the sphere of private people come together as a public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated from above against the public authorities themselves, to engage them in a debate over the general rules governing relations in the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labour” (Habermas, 1989:27).

Habermas’ theory of the public sphere is ingrained into the late-stage enlightenment philosophy of liberalism and its values. As such, Habermas defines a set of prerequisites that must be met in order for a space to be categorical of a public sphere. The space must be accessible to and inclusive of all citizens; there must be allowances for the formation of public opinion within a debated framework of rules and governing regulations wherein unrestricted debate may take place in accordance with the ideals of free association and expression (Habermas, 1989).

Transformation of the Public Sphere

YouTube, as a place that anyone can go, and a tool that anyone can use; could easily be called a ‘public sphere’. The question lays in if the prevalence of the digital era constitutes a transformational change for the public sphere as a whole.

Habermas argues that the ‘public sphere’ that came into existence in the 1830′s due to the advent of increased trade was a very open, rational, and freethinking arena. The relationships in this public sphere were horizontal, not vertical. In essence, this means that people interacted with people of a similar class or socioeconomic status to themselves, rather than any action between classes occurring (Habermas, 1989). The public sphere during this time was structurally classist in this regard, something that would persist later on, but for different reasons with the emergence of the corporatism of the 20th century, and the formation of the welfare state.

In the in the 20th century, classical liberalism sacrificed itself to avoid Marxism through the creation of the welfare state. Paralleling this was the merger of many large companies into corporations, particularly in the publishing and media industries where the narrative was thereon controlled by the stage-managed narratives of corporations that operate(d) on curated content that was unilaterally incentivised by a profit-motive sought to promote the interests of advertisers: other faceless corporate entities. According to Habermas this re-established the vertical nature of the public sphere seen in feudal times, as it was analogical to the nature of King talking to Subject. Instead in the modern era, the ‘King’ became the Media Corporation and the ‘Subject’; the Consumer.

Old versus New Media

YouTube, in some regard is similar to the traditional media organisation, yet on the same hand is also radically dissimilar. I would argue that the similarities are less prevalent, and that the differences are so radical in their nature that they outweigh any similarity between traditional media; it’s conventions, and itself by an order of magnitude.

One of the most notable similarities between these two ‘institutions’, for lack of a better term, is both YouTube and the traditional media are controlled by corporate entities. In the case of the former; Google. This means that YouTube is still controlled by the same kind of institution as the traditional media. It can be succinctly argued that this control has had a significant impact over the platforms evolution over the years. For example, there has been a marked shift from the platform promoting itself as a platform of independent creators, to a more traditional stage managed one, where the platform can be controlled. “YouTube is inevitably heading towards being like television, but they never told their creators this,” remarks Jamie Cohen a professor of new media at Molloy College speaking to USA Today in 2018 (Alexander, 2019).

It is undeniable that YouTube has fundamentally changed people’s expectations of media and the way in which they consume it. There is no doubt about the fact that traditional media is on the decline, especially in the certain antiquated domains such as the newspaper industry. CVM for newspapers; books and stationery has gone down from over £2.2bn in Q3 2000 versus £569mn today, Q3 2020 (Ruddock, 2020:Online).

So, has the Public Sphere been Transformed?

As I have explained above, it seems clear that the public sphere has been fundamentally transformed as the old corporate-controlled narratives of the past have subsisted in favour of independent rational thought and reasoning by a decentralised network of content creators on platforms such as YouTube and Twitter due to the lack of ‘stage management’. This would imply that the vertical relationships as described by Habermas have ceased to be. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

Targeted advertisement based on people’s personal data is now a societal norm. Curated content is so too, with the YouTube algorithm personalising content based on one’s viewing history. It has also been described as “one of the most powerful radicalizing instruments of the 21st century” (Tufekci, 2018). These divisive algorithms seek to divide society through further polarization of political thought. It is hard to see how this could improve the quality of the public sphere.

I mentioned above, when describing the similarities that YouTube was purchased by Google. What was ‘Google’ is now known as the parent company ‘Alphabet Inc.’ This is not a new behaviour, as media corporations did the same kind of mergers and buyouts in the 20th century when forming what became the corporate media that is now in decline, it is certain that the similar narratives are being promoted if the logic is Habermas is correct, except in different ways. Possible examples include incentivising self-censorship through revocation of monetization from videos when certain unfavourable key words are detected; algorithmic discrimination, and termination of accounts. The above explained algorithmic polarization often lead to amplified censorship within communities that are politically biased (Ashokkumar, et al. 2020).

Compared to the 19th century coffee houses of London, a place of free and rational debate. The public sphere in the digital era seems like a stone’s throw away from societal breakdown. The main driving force is algorithmic technology which has arisen from the profit-motives of large corporations such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and others. It is safe to say that the public sphere has been transformed, but it is difficult to argue that it has been transformed for the better.

References

Ashokkumar, A., Talaifar, S., Fraser, W. T., Landabur, R., Buhrmester M., Gomez, A., Borja, P., Swann, Jr., W., B. (2020) ‘Censoring political opposition online: Who does it and why’ J Exp Soc Psychol. 91(104031) DOI;  10.1016/j.jesp.2020.104031

Alexander, J. (2019) The Golden Age of YouTube is Over. The Verge. [Online] [Accessed 4th January 2021] https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/5/18287318/youtube-logan-paul-pewdiepie-demonetization-adpocalypse-premium-influencers-creators#:~:text=The%20attention%20Kjellberg%20brought%20to,from%20halting%20their%20ad%20spending.

Habermas, J. (1989)  The structural transformation of the public sphere : an inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Cambridge: MIT Press

Ruddock, V. Office for National Statistics (2020) 09.5.2 Newspapers; books & stationery Newspapers & periodicals CVM NAYear NSA £m. Newport: Office for National Statistics.

Tufekci, Z. (2018) YouTube, the Great Radicalizer. New York Times. [Online] [Accessed 4th January 2021] 

[qqueenofhades]

can you write a fic where aziraphale decides he needs to change up his look so he comes to lunch one day dressed in like tight pants and a t shirt and crowley loses his mind

(i realize i did not say please in that last ask like some kind of bARBARIAN please forgive me)

The year is 2018. The world was saved from apocalypse about, oh, three months-ish ago. This is relevant only insofar as it means that it has been one hundred and thirty-five years, one not-quite-apocalypse, and three-ish months since the angel Aziraphale went clothes shopping, which he did in 1883 to make a jolly good splash at the discreet gentlemen’s club. William Gladstone was prime minister, the gavotte was really crackingly fashionable, and the supply of jackets, bow ties, and other items that this venture provided him with have stood Aziraphale in good stead ever since, with minor additions here and there. He’s had to use the occasional miracle to keep them really tickety-boo, but he is just so very fond of them. Whilst Crowley has been trying every hairstyle and fashion under the sun, Aziraphale has seen the value in being traditional, steadfast, old-fashioned. He’s a bit of a silly, yes. But he likes it that way.

Now, however, he’s been feeling just that bit self-conscious about his antiquated wardrobe, and as such has ventured out on a probably doomed attempt to, well, groove it up a bit. Aziraphale has only a fuzzy idea of what is considered fashionable by youths these days, but all of it is what Crowley wears, just in lighter colour palettes. He figures he can’t go wrong by copying Crowley, though some of the price tags on the designer bits make him worriedly hope that the demon hasn’t just been nicking them. Surveying his spoils back at his flat, Aziraphale isn’t sure how well he did, but he is determined to try. He’s meeting Crowley for lunch later, and he’s heard you should keep things fresh in a relationship. If that’s exactly what they are. He thinks, at least.

It takes Aziraphale an excessive amount of wiggling to make it into the dungarees (jeans, angel, they are called jeans, Crowley’s voice remarks in his head), and he is self-conscious of the fact that he is not a celestial being properly built for skinny jeans. It’s all right for Crowley, he’s got the dimensions of a beanpole, but once Aziraphale has added the jacket and unbuttoned his collar in the fashion he has seen of really agonisingly cool gentlemen, he’s hopeful that it’s not a total disaster. He’s tried that elegant-shadow-of-stubble thing, and he’s even gelled his hair. His hair looks very much as if it would prefer not to have been gelled and would have run straight off his head to avoid it if possible, but is just stuck there like a sucker. Too late to change it now.

Aziraphale puts on a pair of mirrored sunglasses, takes a deep breath, says, “Pip pip, chaps,” to himself, hopes this is a thing that really agonisingly cool gentlemen still say, and pops out.

Once he gets to the restaurant where they’re meeting, he sees Crowley sprawled casually at a corner table and gazing off into the distance, and he doesn’t glance up even when Aziraphale is standing right in front of him. Finally, when Aziraphale has cleared his throat a few times, Crowley looks up. “Yeah, sorry, human, I’m waiting for someone, I -- ”

At that, the Serpent of Eden cuts himself off with a small choking noise. His face turns a very interesting hue indeed, as Aziraphale wonders nervously if angels can have heart attacks. Finally Crowley wheezes, “Angel, you feeling all right?”

“Er, yes?” Aziraphale decides that care in sitting down is justified, in case he splits the dungarees up the backside. Everything feels quite a bit more form-fitting than usual. “Do you not like it?”

Crowley opens and shuts his mouth, remains completely immobile for a solid twenty-three seconds (Aziraphale counts), and then beckons him to sit down with one of his indecipherable keysmash noises. (Aziraphale understands keysmash as something that you do when the typewriter has got its ribbon stuck, and is rather an unkind thing, since the poor machine is trying its best.) He picks up the menu. “Ah, what are we brunching on today? Nip of a nice Châteauneuf-du-Pape to go with it? I’ve been having a craving.”

“Nnnngh.” Crowley is wearing his sunglasses, of course, so it’s hard to tell, but he seems to be blinking even less than usual. Another fifteen seconds elapse before he says, “Ah. Yeah, yeah, whatever you like.”

“Oh no,” Aziraphale says despairingly. “You don’t like it.”

“It’s...” Crowley shakes his head as if to clear an opium haze. “It’s just... you haven’t changed your clothes since -- what, 1883? I need a minute.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says, suddenly uncertain what to think that Crowley has apparently tracked his wardrobe obsolescence in such pinpoint detail. “Time to, well, change with the times and all that, isn’t it? Try new things? Now that we’ve got the whole world? You’re always so very interested in all of that, my dear, always on the cutting edge, and I thought...” He trails off. “Well,” he says, almost inaudibly. “Perhaps I feared that you’d get bored with me.”

“Wh -- ” Crowley starts to say something, then stops. They order brunch, a middle-aged woman at the next table looks at Aziraphale admiringly, and then decides to keep her eyes front upon receipt of a scorching yellow glare. At last he says, “Aziraphale, you have to know that I have never once, in six thousand bloody years, expected you to be fashionable, don’t you?”

“I’d hope not,” Aziraphale says feebly. “Not really something I know much, me.”

“Exactly.” Crowley looks as if he can’t decide whether to laugh or not, but he suddenly reaches forward and grabs both of Aziraphale’s hands, which have knotted anxiously on his lap. “Look,” he says. “You look amazing. Really. I’d be happy to -- well, kids over there, I won’t say it. But I don’t care if you wear your ridiculous bowties for the rest of eternity, angel. It doesn’t matter to me.”

Aziraphale blinks. “It doesn’t?”

“What do you think, you feathered numpty?” At that, Crowley really does look incredulous. “Save the bleeding world with you and then complain about your pants?”

“I. Ah.” Aziraphale, despite himself, can’t deny that he’s relieved. “The dungarees are rather tight. I’m afraid to stand up too quickly.”

“Jeans, angel,” Crowley says, in exactly the tone Aziraphale imagined him saying it earlier. “They’re called jeans.”

(They eat brunch, and have a perfectly lovely time, and go for an arm-in-arm stroll in the park. Then they return to the bookshop, Crowley demonstrates exactly the carnal thoughts that the clothes put into his head, and later, Aziraphale puts on his frumpiest and most comfortable plaid dressing gown and carpet slippers. Crowley comes up behind him, wraps his arms around his waist, rests his chin on Aziraphale’s shoulder, and kisses his ear. “There,” he says, with a satisfied hiss underlying his words. “That’s more like it.”)