#This man makes me feel so insufficient as a person | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

heichou-ackerman · 11 months

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Texting Levi fluff

Levi hates texting but he likes you. Another modern!AU which I am re-uploading since tumblr was stupid about it

TW: Some slight cussing but nothing MORE

It was rare for Levi to actually utilize his phone for anything more than just make necessary calls, checking the weather, and keeping up to date with his monthly Tea Box subscription.

Lately, however, he found himself spending more time watching the bright screen on his phone, face scrunched up, as he began to understand the means of what it meant to actually meant to maintain consistent communication.

Unfortunately for him, you seemed to have a knack for coercing him to text you throughout the day no matter how busy he actually was with his actual work or with his own personal chores.

He both liked and hated this about you. Although your apparent clingy behavior was charming at best, it was a bit exhausting for the introverted man to keep up with some of your needs.

Like clockwork, your good morning texts would pop up at almost the exact same time every weekday (he actually began to depend on that more to wake up than his actual alarm). He learned the hard way you really had expectations of him texting you back and in maintaining a conversation with you from morning to night, at least during the days where you both were unable to see each other.

It was a pain in the ass.. Single word responses were insufficient to satisfy your need to drag out his opinion about a variety of things, ranging from your choice of lunch for the day and where he saw himself in ten years. He really didn’t understand why you valued his opinion so much about these things or why it was important for you to know.

>where do you see yourself in 10 years Levi? :)

> I dont know.

>Come on! Do you wanna live in a different city or something like that?

> I see myself being 10 years older

>You suck

He got a bit better over time, unaware of how he began to think a little more in depth about his responses to you. If he was curt and short, you would become upset at him. When it was something more of a slight flirtatious advance, his screen would be filled with heart emojis. He wouldn’t admit it but there was some satisfaction in seeing you reply eagerly to him. A curious feeling but not a bad one.

>cant wait to see your face on the weekend!

>you literally saw me yesterday

>so you dont wanna see me then?

>I didnt say that

>so you are excited to see me too :)

>I didnt say that either

>awe, getting tired of me already I see

>I told you Im not going to respond to anything stupid you say

>You just did! :D

>everything you say is stupid so Im at a loss

He wondered if you acted this way with anyone else. He supposed, the way you tended to be, that you were equally as warm and inviting to most of your circle. Not to say, he wanted to have this particular ‘treatment’ for himself only, but it genuinely felt like you did dedicate most of the day to stay in touch with him as much as you could.

In the past, Levi would had found this overwhelming. He appreciated his friendships and relationships with others, but he was also someone who valued his privacy, and most people in his semi social circle understood this of him. He would be the type to hang out a Saturday evening and then would be completely out of reach for the rest of the month, which was minimal for him. He was unbothered for most of the time, which to be fair, is the way he preferred it.

Once you and him became an item however, there was a noted disruption in this rather, exclusive lifestyle of his. It wasn't awful but it was something he was not attuned to, so it made things feel awkward during some of these interactions. Despite his standoffish demeanor and his lack of substance in some of his messages, you still kept at it. You didn't shy away from him or even become too upset when his responses seemed bland or cold. It seemed like you had an understanding of the type of person he was, but you still wanted to simply spend as much time in touch with him as possible. You genuinely craved for his attention and treated it as something important and precious. And this simple fact made him like you so much. So, he would make an effort.

---

After a long day at his office job, Levi arrived home, throwing his belongings onto his couch, not caring much about things spilling out, and flopping onto his bed, a deep sigh coming out from his nose. It was a shitty day at the office to say the least, which soured his mood for most of the day. As usual, you made attempts to message him throughout the work day, but he would be lying if he said there was a bare minimum effort at responding back to you. He knew you were probably peeved off at his lack of consistency for today, but he was far too exhausted to really explain himself about the matter.

He closed his eyes for a bit, feeling he might literally drift of to sleep still in his day clothes, when he felt the vibrations from his phone go off in his pocket. He groaned slightly, knowing only one person in the world would message him at such a time. He reached into his pocket to pull it out, squinting at the bright screen to see your name pop up with the following message:

> are you mad at me? :(

Jesus fucking Christ. He knew if he began to entertain the conversation (and no he wasn't mad at you), he would probably be up for another couple of hours trying to reassure you of this fact. He debated to leave it as it was for the sake of being able to go to sleep, but at the risk of you blowing up his phone the entire night. "Goddammit." He muttered to himself. He sighed heavily, bracing for the worst as he gave into it and began to message you.

>no, long day at work

There, that should be sufficient, right?

Not even five seconds later, he saw those three dots appear, indicating you were messaging him back. He pictured you literally hunched over your phone like some gremlin, texting him rapidly.

>awe, im sorry to hear that. you home now?

Okay, not too bad. It seemed like you were considerate of his situation at the moment. He blinked forcefully, feeling his eyelids begin to droop as he stared at your response on his screen. No, he wouldn't be able to last long like this, he might as well just cut it short.

>yeah im home, super tired, need to sleep.

He hit the send button and set his phone down, allowing his eyes to droop shut, feeling the inbound sleep coming to him. He would literally be able to fall asleep and wake up in the same position the following morning, and for a couple of minutes, it felt as if this would be the case.

And then his phone begins to ring.

His eyes shoot out open as he become startled by his ringtone, and by nature, he immediately picks up the phone, being met with its bright screen.

It was you. Of course it was.

Levi rubbed his hand over his face, muttering curses at you and at the situation. It really didn't even fucking matter at this point if he tried ignoring you. He sighed heavily as he lazily answered, bringing you over to his ear.

"What." He muttered, not even as a question.

He could hear you slightly giggling over the other line, which made him kind of irritated. He told you how tired he was, we’re you really just fucking with him?

"Just wanted to check in to see if you're okay. But I can tell that you are super sleepy." He heard you on the other line.

"Yeah." He replied simply. "I told you I was."

"Sorry. You mentioned you had a hard day at work, I figured you wanted to talk about, buuuut I didn't think you'd be this tired. You usually stay up pretty late, even during your worst days."

Well, you weren't wrong about that. He would usually be a night owl most weekday evenings, entertaining your text shenanigans well off into midnight.

"I'm fine." He iterated, allowing his phone to fall next to his head, close enough to still hear you. He kept his eyes closed, still somewhat attentive to you. "Work was shit but I'm fine. Sleepy."

"Want me to tell you a bed time story?" You asked softly, jokingly of course.

"No. "

"Didn't think you'd want one. Want me to sing you a lullaby?"

"No, fucking weirdo."

“Kidding, kidding. Kinda sucks, but I’d be so down to just do that thing you like me to do to you. If I was there of course.”

He raised a slight eyebrow, eyes narrowing slightly towards his ceiling. “I literally don’t have the energy to talk nasty right now.”

“No!” You exclaimed. “Not that stupid. I meant like, that one night when I was playing with your hair and you fell asleep on my lap.” He hummed in consideration. “Ah, yeah. Maybe. That was nice.” It wasn’t too long ago, but it was another of those exhausting evenings for him, similar to this one. You mindlessly began to run your fingers through his hair, coaxing him to rest on your lap as you minded yourself on your phone. Your fingers were soft and it seemed like they knew exactly which parts of his scalp would respond the best. It was no secret he enjoyed your pampering from time to time, although he would never directly ask you for it. He would always hope you would initiate it however and it seemed as if you had an intuition of when he really needed. This being one of those times.

You chuckled softly on the other line. "Okay, okay, let me leave you be then sleepy head. Can I text you tomorrow then?"

Why the hell are you asking that?

You didn’t need his permission to do so, and its not like you ever asked him for it.

"Why are you asking that?" He asked you bluntly, his voice low.

You stayed quiet for a bit on the other line for a bit, and Levi could feel the hesitation from you. "Don't know. Just wanted to be a bit considerate."

Considerate? Considerate of what?

He should really go to bed, he thought. But there was something weird about you right now.

"What's with you?" He continued to probe. "You're being weirder than usual."

"Gee, thanks." You respond dramatically. "But nothing is wrong, I just wanna be considerate of, your time lets say."

He sighed loudly enough for you to be able to hear him on the other line. "Okay, I'm too tired to be subtle about it. What's wrong? What did I do?”

" "Nothing Levi!" You exclaim with a laugh. "I just wanna be mindful of not bothering you too much during the day, especially when you got all this stuff to do at work. I realize I can be a little too demanding of your attention, but I also don't want you to feel obligated as well. Hence...why I asked if it was okay."

Yeah, he agreed in his mind that you were a little bit demanding at times with this, but you weren’t overtly intrusive about it. Plus, if he was actually bothered by it, what was stopping him from simply blocking your messages during his shift? He obviously didn't do it because he didn't think of it that way.

"Don't be stupid." He replied lowly. "Let's be real, you'd lose your shit if I didn't reply to you during the day. Regardless, I'm fine, it doesn't bother me."

"You sure?" You asked a bit skeptically. He could tell you were genuine about all of this, and even if you did like to be overtly clingy, he understood you were capable of understanding necessary boundaries about things. He would never admit it to you, but you were capable of making mature choices about things.

He kept thinking of that particular pout you'd make when you tried to be serious with him. He didn't know if you made it on purpose but it was a rather cute feature about you. He imagined you making that same face right now as you tried to see if he was actually okay with you. He felt a smile form on his face.

"I'm sure, you brat." He responded back. "I enjoy talking to you, it makes work a bit more bearable. So stop asking me for permission like some kid."

He could hear you hum rather approvingly on the other line. "Okie dokie then. But legit, go ahead at get some rest. I'll check in with you in the morning yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Good night, love you."

He grunted back to you as his response. Yeah, he was still like that about those words. It was hard for him to say it back to you without feeling the need to be swallowed whole by the entire earth. He did care deeply for you, without a doubt, but it was as if he physically couldn't utter those things to you. At least not yet, it was still a work in progress.

You hung up on him on your end, and Levi rolled over to his side, breathing in deeply. An image of you kept popping into his head, wondering how this conversation may have ended in person. He wondered what kind of stupid face you'd be making or how annoying you'd be with your necessity to touch and hold him. He imagined a situation where you'd get upset at him for swatting his hand away, unaware that he would do it on purpose just to rile you up and to encourage you to forcefully grab a hold of it. He felt a crooked smile form on his face as he recalled your goodbye to him, your soft voice lulling him in his head as he felt a need to share the same sentiment to you in some way.

He rolled over back in his original position, eyes slowly peering open as he grabbed his phone, slowly tapping on its screen, soon pressing send to you before finally drifting off to sleep.

>I love you too.

#levi ackerman #levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman x you #levi x you #aot x you #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #captain levi

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pinkboxess · 6 months

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just want to air this out i guess to like-minded people

it bothers me when people (including the show's own writers) think that people ship ted and rebecca just because they are the male and female leads and that's what we expect out of shows.

maybe that's true for some people, but for me, i'm literally queer and on the asexuality spectrum somewhere. i do not just automatically ship a man and woman because i think that's how things naturally go. if anything i'm predisposed to typically not go for hetero ships.

my reasoning for shipping ted and rebecca is the loads of textual evidence of all of their interactions together. they are just, like, visibly and clearly soulmates to me, and i've always felt that way even from the first few episodes of the show that i ever watched.

it seems crazy to me to write characters that have a connection like they do (think of the september 13, 1991 thing and their experiences with divorce and the way that they fit together perfectly and help each other grow and the way that rebecca is the force who brings ted to england) and then say "oh, no, their relationship is only platonic"

again, as a queer and ace person, i actually really fucking do value platonic relationships and i do not think everything has to be romantic or sexual. but the dismissive attitude and the insertion of "just" in front of platonic makes me feel like people are missing the cosmic connection these two characters have.

honestly, in my mind, ted and rebecca don't have to be "just" romantically involved either. it almost feels like what they have is so big and powerful that relegating it to any label is just kind of insufficient.

they are each other's people. they are soulmates.

(also, as a side note, an additional thing i don't like is when writers believe that writing happy or ideal endings makes for a bad story. like there's this need that people feel to not have the couple get together in the nicely tied up way like a fairy tale, or for things to be "nuanced" and "realistic." i kind of think fuck that. honestly, for me, the truly subversive and different ending would be for everyone to love each other and be happy and get the ending that hopeful fans want for them. i don't always want a lesson in how the world works and we have plenty of that already.)

#basically what i'm saying is the idea that there isn't evidence for them being together is insane #when you consider the literal events of the show #this is not just people seeing a man and woman and going oh okay they have to date then #ted lasso/rebecca welton #ted/rebecca #tedbecca #ted lasso

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toushindai · 4 months

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I finished reading your latest fic and I have to say your character study of both Rauru and Ganondorf and their relationship to themselves and power made for a very interesting read! My question: what parts of Rauru do you enjoy studying and elaborating on the most? What parts of his character endear you to him?

Thank you anon!! And thank you for the question as well. Rauru is my favorite character in the sense that my brain will NOT stop chewing on him but I don’t know if I have ever felt endeared to him, per se. My firstest reaction to him—when the final trailer dropped—was one of suspicion. “Did you kidnap my princess so that I would solve your problems?!” This was mildly unfair. He didn’t kidnap Zelda. He sure does want me to solve his problems, though? So the feeling somewhat persisted.

He’s just sssooooo. Infuriating. In a way that I’m maybe 70% sure the devs didn’t intend? I’m almost but not quite certain that the game’s writers just want me to perceive him as a noble king whose justly founded kingdom was threatened by a scary evil man who had no real reason for his violence against Hyrule, whose courageous sacrifice of his own life is to be admired and emulated (never mind that Zelda doesn’t need to be told that it’s a ruler’s duty to sacrifice themself for their people, she already did that for a century). Almost, but not quite, and 30% is not a small amount of uncertainty, actually. And that uncertainty comes from:

The specifically called-out fact that he repeatedly reached out to the Gerudo in spite of a lack of positive response, whatever that looked like. Buddy that is ✨coercive✨

His cold, superior treatment of Ganondorf in the Show of Fealty cutscene. Which is even more potent linguistically in Japanese and, I am told, in French. There’s something very twisted IMO about treating Ganondorf as a technical equal whose rightful place is beneath Rauru. It makes my brain go brrrrrrrrr real hard (this is known) and it is too apparent for me to think I’m not supposed to find it a little sick. s-sorry I'm just thinking about it and my brain is going brrrrrrr again. give me a second. ok

And—shifting away from that cutscene even though I live there—I have been thinking recently about how much of the game’s message is that you are not alone and yet how heavily Rauru’s instinct is that he must face the Demon King alone. How he sets up Link, only, as Ganondorf’s eventual doom. It’s Zelda and Mineru who build the framework for the future sages to fight at Link’s side. Rauru’s not fully aligned with the theme of the game, and he grunts at his sister, miffed, when she points that out to him.

So was this intended? He is arrogant—the game names this as his fatal flaw, he names this as his fatal flaw—but how much of his arrogance does the game criticize and how much does it treat as his right? My brain will not stop chewing on this question so I make it the central question of his characterization.

What do I like about him. As a person? Not very much. He is kind and supportive to Zelda. He loves his wife. His ears are very expressive and that’s cute. List ends here, I think. I don’t even respect as a person his desire to be a good and just king because it is far too wrapped up in that “king” part.

But as a character, I like him as someone who showcases—if unintentionally on the game’s part—how ultimately insufficient good intentions are. And how solipsistic it is to think that good intentions are everything. I like writing him as someone who truly wants to be a good person, as good as he can possibly be, and who suddenly finds that he has desires and instincts that don’t support that self-perception at all. I think that happens to all of us, sometimes. We all have moments where our instincts are crueler or more selfish than our ideals. It’s how we chose to react to those instincts that matters, and part of that process is to look at them honestly and admit to them. But Rauru, as I write him, fails this step pretty hard. And what happens as a result? He is left in this morass of inner conflict, he is not able to deal honestly with his own desires. They keep building, and he keeps blaming Ganondorf for provoking them. He faces them for just long enough to act on the worst of them and then, horrified by what he has done, he looks away from them again. Not ideal! Not a desirable outcome! But not, I hope, outside the realm of his characterization. (Zelda tells him he will sacrifice himself and he says well that’s my duty but (A) of all you weren’t here before so things will be different! dw about it! And then when he realizes that no, to sacrifice himself is the only option, there is heartbreak on his face. My guy, you were warned. Did you convince yourself this wasn’t coming?)

He’s complex. Maybe on purpose or maybe because the game doesn’t realize how insidious the evils of empire and monarchy are--I think probably the former greatly exacerbated by the latter. I have made up so much about him but he would not be nearly as interesting if exported into an OC because I'd be starting with the premise "ooooh he's a lil fucked up actually" as opposed to my making this point about the game writing about a character the game (mostly, I think) wants us to think of as purely good.

gnaws on him some more. puts him back in the terrarium. gives the terrarium a good solid shake. what a guy

#thanks for the ask!#anonymous #and we were both kings 😳#bad and imperialist zonai get put in the goat wiggler #tou and the tearful kingdom

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nuttytani · 3 months

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When your boss and his "friend" are too lovey dovey

Fandom: Genshin Impact

Pairing: Tartaglia | Childe x Zhongli

Premise: In which, Ekaterina makes the mistake of posting about her boss and his "friend", and the entire Liyue goes crazy

A/N: This is a social media au fic cross posted from my ao3! which you can read here

chapter 1

Ekaterina . @ katyaaa

My boss and his “friend” better hook up, or I’ll seriously kill someone. How is it possible to not notice the heart eyes your “friend” looks at you with, for like every time you talk??!?? 2 years. It’s been 2 years since both Master Childe and Mr. Zhongli have been dancing around each other. 2 YEARS!!!!

And just now… You literally won’t believe the level of PDA I had to witness. Mr. Zhongli lent his coat to Master Childe because his official uniform is too “risque” and “insufficient” for Liyue’s winter.

It’s not even 9 am yet… I need coffee for this shit.

| Vlad . @ vladaddy

Replying to @ katyaaa

You’re not the only one. Sweet Tsaritsa, have mercy on us.

Ekaterina . @ katyaaa

Update: He finally went out to have lunch with his “friend”. Thank archons.

| Nadia . @ spynadia

Replying to @ katyaaa

You gotta admit, they’re pretty much couple goals, even without the dating.

| Xiangling . @ cheflingling

Replying to @ spynadia and @ katyaaa

[Insert blurry image of two people, one with ginger hair and another with dark brown. The brunette looks like he’s feeding the ginger haired man. They’re both basically glue to each other’s side]

Awwe, look at them!! How cute!

| Felix . @ felixis

Replying to @ cheflingling

Definitely did NOT need that image on my home feed and it definitely does NOT make me feel sour ass single pringle.

| Ekaterina . @ katyaaa

Replying to @ cheflingling

What happened to something called privacy ?

| Yunjin . @ operagrandis

Replying to @ katyaaa

Privacy went out the window the moment you decided to post about your “boss” crushing on his “friend” and vice versa

Show replies

Signora . @ thefairestlady

Hey. @ katyaaa , dig up some more pics and info on the two idiots in love. Tsaritsa’s orders

| Ekaterina . @ katyaaa

Replying to @ thefairestlady

What ?

| Pantalone . @ theregrator

Replying to @ katyaaa and @ thefairestlady

Don’t bother asking why, it’s strictly confidential. Oh and also, make it quick :)

Show replies

Ekaterina stares at her phone in horror as the notifications from her socials go blasting off every- freaking- second. Not to mention, the weird, suspicious and vague “mission” about digging more information on her boss and his “friend”

Ugh. Why is she the one who has to suffer?

chapter 2

First thing Ekaterina does is to mute her socials. The constant pinging of the notifications started to annoy her and it might overheat her phone too.

“-terina”

She shouldn’t have posted about her boss. Worst decision she ever made in her entire life- well… not exactly the worst but definitely ranks up high somewhere in the regrets list.

“Ekaterina?”

But to be fair, it was getting on her nerves recently, since Mr. Zhongli got very bold with his affection towards Master Childe recently, and well… her boss being the oblivious and dense person he is, hasn’t even noticed the advances, and instead he just shoots his “friend” an extremely blushy smil-

Woah —

Something- no - a pair of hands grab Ekaterina’s shoulders and shake the living soul out of her body. “Oww.”

“Katya! Come on! I’ve been calling your name so many times now. Where is your mind at?” Nadia, one of her colleagues and friend, stares at her with concern.

“Sorry,” Ekaterina replies, pushing her hair back. “Was thinking…”

“Is it the new mission?”

“Yeah.”

She shoots Ekaterina a pitiful look before handing her a cup of coffee. “Better start the hustle then. Call me or the others if you need help. And boy, we have a lot of work cut out for us.” Nadia ushers her away to her office, “Go, go, time is mora. Don’t waste it.”

With that, the door to her office closes. Ekaterina places her coffee on the table and pulls out her chair, before remembering to check her phone.

Notifications

Signora . @thefairestlady

3 messages

Pantalone . @theregrator

1 message

Back to regretting my life choices, I guess.

It took about a week to stalk gather intel on Master Childe and Mr. Zhongli’s time together. Stacks of brown envelopes and manila folders, labelled as “CONFIDENTIAL : FATUI ONLY” covered the entire top of Ekaterina’s dining table (scouring over reports about a harbinger’s rendezvous with a funeral consultant during working hours would have been too much on the nose)

The mission became a joint effort between her and other agents working at the Northland Bank. It was found out on their first day, that it wasn’t an easy task observing their extremely lovey dovey targets… The PDA displayed by them was too much (it was lethal to the agents’ health to watch them longer than an hour).

As the mission is classified to be confidential, and specially ordered by her majesty, Ekaterina and the agents couldn’t take any risks to get information leaked about whatever the heck they were doing. So, everyone opted for hard copy reports which could be destroyed once it fulfilled its use.

But no one expected it to be a massive headache as Ekaterina and her colleagues went through each one of them.

“When will this end?! There’s too many,” Felix breaks the silence with a groan, then slams his head down on the table.

“I feel like I’ve already read the same report a million times now, just worded differently.” Vlad rubs his eyes with a heavy sigh. “Every single day, they eat lunch together at Chef Mao’s, go to Yun Jin’s plays, or sometimes to Third-Round Knockout and finally crash at either one’s home for dinner, did I get that right?”

“You’re correct, except for one thing. Everything and everything is paid by Lord Tartaglia,” Felix responded, seemingly recovered from his exhaustion.

Everyone hums in union.

To be fair though, the mora used by Master Childe on his outings weren’t really his, but Lord Pantalone’s. Hell, even Ekaterina would exploit 9th Harbringer’s mora (if she had a higher standing in the fatui, of course)

“Lets not forget these.” With the most deadpan expression, Vlad tosses pictures of the “dates” their boss and his “friend” had, but many many cropped pictures of Master Childe’s chest framed perfectly by his leather harness, stood out from the stack.

“Who took these?” and “Why?” was left unsaid amongst them all.

Nadia choked suspiciously on air just then. Nervously shifting her eyes around.

Thinking to save her friend from embarrassment, Ekaterina tries to change the subject. “Ahem, anyway, since all the reports are basically the same, let’s just summarise it.”

“Umm something along the lines of … Master Childe is a sugar daddy for Mr. Zhongli and they act like a married couple?” Felix says while rubbing his chin in deep thought.

“Let's… At least try to rephrase our wording, not so straightforward.” Vlad smiles, or at least tries to.

chapter 3

Childe . @ tartaglia

Why did I receive an emergency summon from her majesty?

| Signora . @ thefairestlady

Replying to @ tartaglia

Idk, you probably did something. Again.

| Pantalone . @ theregrator

Replying to @ tartaglia and @ thefairestlady

Only one way to find out.

| Lumine . @ thebettertraveller

Replying to @ tartaglia

GL, I hope you don’t get your ass kicked.

Ekaterina . @ katyaaa

Phew! Mission successfully completed and with a generous reward too! I’m glad all that stalking of Master Childe paid off.

| Childe . @ tartaglia

Replying to @ katyaaa

You were spying on me? Don’t tell me this is the reason why I’ve been summoned…

| Ekaterina . @ katyaaa

Replying to @ tartaglia

Spying ? hahaha what spying ? I don’t know what you’re talking about :DDD

| Felix . @ felixis

Replying to @ katyaaa

You’re so fired. Stupid ass.

[ insert facepalm GIF ]

| Childe . @ tartaglia

Replying to @ felixis and @ katyaaa

Oh don’t worry, you’re both in trouble, and so is Nadia and Vlad ;)

| Ekaterina . @ katyaaa

Replying to @ tartaglia

Please have mercy, my lord!

Show Replies

Meanwhile, in the privacy of Zhongli’s home, an elegantly written note addressed not to Zhongli, but Morax, materialises right in front of him.

“You shameless old dragon, get your broke ass to Snezhnaya now! We need to talk”

Never in his life did Childe feel as nervous and scared until today. He was shaking in his boots as he looked back and forth between her majesty and Mr. Zhongli (alternatively Rex Lapis, as he just found out… but that can be discussed later). He didn’t think that he’d get summoned by The Tsaritsa nor did he expect Mr. Zhongli, who was supposed to be in Liyue doing his job, to be invited to her majesty’s garden for tea.

Tea? Nope this isn’t tea, this is basically an interrogation session!

“Now, let me get this straight. You gave the boy a pair of marriage chopsticks and he accepted it?” Tsaritsa raised her teacup to her scowling lips slowly.

Hold on, wait a minute… Marriage chopsticks?

“That is correct–”

“And you thought that my youngest, born and raised in Snezhnaya would understand the meaning behind this act? You didn’t think this through did you, Morax? How embarrassing, I suppose Barbatos is still right, you ARE a stone blockhead.”

Mr. Zhongli coughed discreetly to disguise his embarrassment, before taking a sip from his cup, “Now please, Tsaritsa, there’s no need to chastise me for it.”

“I must, with how you shamelessly court my youngest Harbinger without my knowledge.” Tsaritsa’s eyes narrow down at Zhongli, like a mother ready to scold.

Childe watches the entire exchange in shock– courting ? Mr. Zhongli and courting ? Just what in Celestia is happening ? He must have looked like a dumbfounded monkey, staring at them, until her majesty’s words interrupt his inner turmoil.

“Well,” she says curtly “Has the wedding date been set? If not, I shall take care of it.”

Sputtering and hacking on his tea, Childe replied, “W-What!??”

Bonus scene

“Lord Tartaglia! Congratulations, we heard you’re getting married–”

“My my! What good news! I can feel the tears of joy in my eyes already”

“How shocking… It feels as if just yesterday you were but a little boy running around the palace”

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kauzebridgerton · 2 months

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Kauze History.

Chapter 2: Strangers like me.

Mr. Karlheinz was a bit strange and mysterious, he didn't talk to me much during the time he took me away from people, his way of dressing was a bit funny, but of course I didn't say that to him.

— Where do you live? — I said a little curiously.

— Hah, sorry for making you walk so much Kauze, but I couldn't let the curious humans go after us.

Humans? What did he mean by that? I immediately tried to pull my hand away from his, but he held it so I wouldn't do it. Was he some kind of monster that the stories told? I remember very well hearing the story of a certain Slender Man among the other children!

— Let go of me Slender Man! — I tried to get rid of him.

—What are you saying boy? Tsc, really children tend to be very peculiar to me. — He sighed, he seemed a little irritated and that made me even more scared. — I'm a vampire Kauze, just like you.

I widened my eyes in fright, a vampire? Like Dracula! This was very strange, especially when he said that I was one too, I didn't really know how to act, since I was still very scared about it all, this guy must be crazy or something, and now he doesn't I wanted to let me go! Some tears started to fall and I started to cry, afraid of what he could do to me, why did I decide to follow a stranger after all? What's my problem?

— Why are you crying, Kauze? There's no reason for that, you should be proud to be a vampire. — He said in a firm tone. — Besides, it's rude to cry about being a vampire in front of the King of Vampires. Your parents may not have raised you well, but I'm sure I can fix it.

— You're scaring me... — I sobbed. — But...But you brought me in the middle of nowhere and didn't let me leave, and then you say that you're a vampire and that I'm one too... how do you think I can react to all this? Adults are scary!

— I'm sorry if the truth scares you, child. But I will clear all your doubts soon. You know if you were just a human boy I wouldn't bother helping you. But you are one of mine. Feel grateful for that.

I didn't say anything, I just nodded my head in agreement with him, I didn't want to get into any kind of danger or anything like that, besides he mentioned my parents again, which made me curious again. I had calmed down a little, but soon he took me in his arms, I immediately crossed my arms and pouted.

— Hey, I'm not a baby! — I said sullenly. — If you are a vampire, where are your powers? And do I have powers too?

I said it a little curiously, sometimes not being ordinary can be like receiving a great gift, I feel that ordinary people can be lonely and sad, and I didn't want to be that kind of person, I wanted to be someone happy and special. Even though Mr. Karlheinz is scary most of the time, he could also differentiate himself from other people, being different makes me curious and makes me want to get closer to him, I just hope I don't get in trouble because of it.

— That's what we're going to talk about, Kauze. — He answered me, and in the blink of an eye we were in a room, it seemed to be a living room or something.

— You came here in the blink of an eye! You really are a vampire! — I said, completely impressed. — You have to teach me how to use these powers! Please! Please!

I put my little hands together and made an abandoned dog face, I could finally become a hero if I also used powers or something, that would seem very unrealistic, but at the same time so charming, I would finally be useful for something.

— Unfortunately, I think your age is insufficient for that. I could keep you here with me, but I have a lot of things to sort out. — he put me on the floor. — I will leave you in the care of my children, until you grow up a little more and are ready for your Kauze training. I can guarantee that you will not disappoint me. I will give you a home and I will teach you how to use your powers when you are the right age, the only thing I ask in return will be your loyalty above all else, you will do everything I ask of you, won't you?

I looked at him, this could be some kind of trap, but I also knew that part of what he said was true, if he hadn't taken me away, I might still be on the streets, so I guess the least of it I could do was be very obedient.

— Humm... Okay! I don't think I'll have any problems with that. -I smiled - Your children? Are they nice?

— Yes of course. You will like them.

The way he spoke seemed a little strange to me, I think he was lying to me, but I know I shouldn't judge people before getting to know them well.

#kauzebridgerton #kauze bridgerton #diabolik lovers oc #diabolik lovers

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robinsceramics · 11 months

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@catkin-morgs yeah, I've got tips! <3

First, it definitely does take time. Especially when you're just starting. It's not great to have a time limit while making sculptures, especially since one of the essential materials in ceramics is time. See, (I'm about to geek out for a minute feel free to skip this paragraph), clay is made of tiny flat particles ("plates") with water between them, and the water allows the plates to slide around over and under each other. That's why clay is moldable! But when the water dries out of the clay, the plates stick close to each other and are no longer moveable. So, while working with clay, time and wetness counteract each other. But you have to take time to make a sculpture look like what you're envisioning and less like blobs of matter. You have to get the main shapes into place and then smooth them out and refine them, and that takes time, man. In ceramics, you learn to make time your friend while it tries its best to be your enemy.

All of that to say, yeah, if you're rushed, it just won't work out that well. I'm glad you're thinking of trying again in a less regimented environment!! That takes some real bravery, to try again at something you weren't good at the first time.

Also, on a personal note, I know you have an eye for good Shapes and pretty Animals. That sense of physical proportion, posture, cuteness, color, and so on, will pay off in ceramics even if it takes a while to get your physical skills to match your eye for beauty.

If ceramics turns out not to be for you, that's fine. It took me years to get to where I'm at now skill-wise, and it's not worth the investment for everyone. And I have been extremely lucky. My dad had all the materials necessary for ceramics just. hanging around the house. when I was growing up. And he helps me fill the kiln, which he owns, which is not a cheap or easy investment. So: I acknowledge that I have been privileged in getting into clay. Please don't feel insufficient if you just Can't because the resources you'd need aren't worth the price of laying your hands on them. Ceramics as a hobby is Expensive :|

But there ARE resources! Community centers, public studios, and even private studios (on request) often have studio classes, studio hours, and kiln sharing available. You'll typically have to pay for that, of course, but I mean. it's way cheaper than buying your own $2000+ kiln and equipment and stuff. As a college 3rd year, I'm facing down what it'll look like for me to get my own studio equipment in the future, and man... at least until I've saved some more money, I think that getting membership in a public studio is the way to go for me. It might be the same for you.

Oh, and don't worry about buying your own materials if you go that route. A studio, whether public or private or university-owned, will typically provide all of the raw materials necessary to ceramics making out of the fee you pay to use the studio. You won't need your own clay, glazes, or maybe even your own sculpting tools depending on the studio.

Another resource is https://www.kilnshare.com, which is a worldwide network for potters to share kiln space! Oh, and if there are no studios in your area, depending on how much you want to invest and what your schedule is like, if there's a college with an art program, there's always the possibility that you could audit a college ceramics class. *shrug* just throwing anything out there that might help!

As for how to do the sculpting itself—you'll figure it out! I promise! Doing sculpture because you want to is way different from doing it for school. Put love into what you make, and it will be lovable.

#not ceramics #my process #ceramics asks #sorta

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stronghours · 2 months

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Acts of Love

Analyzing the situation from all angles, Roscoe, the fair arbitrator, the sole solid voice of reason for everybody in the neighborhood but himself, was left with the insufficient and constant truth that there was nobody in the vicinity to blame. With nobody to blame he had nobody to advise, and with nobody to make fun of his advice, all his shortcomings formed a cyclone of immaturity within his breast.

He made a split decision – he could make decisions; he was an adult – and phoned up the one person who could not be more physically separated from the problem if he tried. Heedless of what time it was in San Francisco, Roscoe phoned, and by the time the ringing cleared he had nearly convinced himself that he had found the right person to blame after all.

“There’s a problem,” he stated clearly, before any how-do-you-dos could pass. “And I’m blaming you for all of it!”

“You got it, sport,” Martin replied, those 2,000 miles of distance, in Roscoe’s opinion, unduly bolstering his confidence. “Tell papa all about it.”

“Solids,” Roscoe asked the room, “or stripes?”

“Ugh,” said Harper, “shirts with collars.”

Roscoe rotated the selection a minute degree to the stool on Harper’s left.

Jules didn’t even pick up his chin. “Boy clothes are boring,” he declared.

Roscoe twirled a 160 to the only customer in the shop. “Jackie? Stripes? Colors? For goodness sakes.” Jackie, a good two-fifty in his socks, was sumptuously unearthing himself from his own tank top. “We have a dressing room for a reason.” The dressing room was a shower rod and sheet stabilized with clothes pins, but it certainly existed.

“Jack,” Harper advised, “The three-strikes consequence is not so interesting that you have to keep testing me so.” Harper, in his own words, preferred to keep the chest hair out of the register.

“Yeah,” Jules said, “plus there’s a lady present.”

“A confident man prefers a visual opinion.” Jackie threw a wink at Jules. To Roscoe he threw: “A Saturday night event, and you need to wear a shirt? That’s barbaric.” He thumped away toward the shower curtain, swinging his rag.

“Sure, I’ll just go out the way I am now.” Roscoe gestured at his undershirt and his not-even-nice jeans. “I’ll go out to my meeting like a slob. Or nude. Apparently, this is all I need to strive for!”

“Wear the solid, Roscoe,” Harper said. “Don’t have a heart attack. I couldn’t possibly stand more excitement.”

Jules and Harper possessed similar levels of social astuteness (inconveniently high) but Jules’ sadistic appetite for discomfort presented the skill with far more aggression than phlegmatic Harper ever mustered the motivation for. He twitched upright, terribly alert. “A meeting on Saturday night?” He posed.

“Yes,” Roscoe answered mildly, stepping into Jackie’s vacated mirror. He’d known Jules four long years and knew enough to work him, a little. “The communications head for that men’s health initiative that sponsored the safer sex seminar we played host for. Remember, Pride? You helped set up the folding tables.”

“Oh.” Jules, turned off instantly at the whiff of an informational brochure or pamphlet, sat back in his stool. “That’s boring. I feel bad for you.”

“Kid, your compassion is an inspiration.”

Harper picked up what Jules had childishly put down. “You’re extremely stressed,” he observed, “about your choice of shirt for a mere meeting.”

“You only have one chance to make a first impression,” Roscoe replied. He liked the stripes.

“But you met this guy before,” Jules said. “You literally just said.”

“One of those professional, no-nonsense Saturday night corporate one-on-one meetings,” Harper continued. “Perks of the white collar.”

“Business in that world doesn’t work the same as business here!” Roscoe fended and fought and failed to keep Jules and Harper from listing toward each other in the malevolent mind-meld they could occasionally broker when their victims’ irritation superseded whatever pet animosity they held toward one another. Jules provided the energy, and Harper contributed the bulk of the riposte. “You know. The department heads are interested in utilizing our space again, but nothing is approved until a million emails have been sent – emails on a corporate server – and until the right person signs the right release, you can hardly get the ok to speak to a man.” He rattled the hangers. Now he hated both shirts. “And anyway,” he continued, “I’m lucky he’s even decided to broach the topic with me on his own time, so I’ll have all my cards on the table before the holidays. It’s really inconvenient for both of us. And it’s a matter of public health.”

“Come on me, not in me,” Jules recited. “That’s one, right? An old one? From black-and-white times?”

“You’ve known of this man since June,” Harper laid out, “so exactly how many dates have you been on?”

“It’s not a date,” Roscoe said, mainly to himself, to keep calm. “It’s an informal meeting.”

“Speaking of informal –” Jackie briskly swept the shower curtain aside and presented his torso to the room. It was encased in a series of canvas straps. The man possessed the most prehensile chest hair Roscoe had ever seen. “Little man,” (this was Jules) “my buddy, if my goal were to seduce a very cutie-pie cashier, say, seduce him outright and carry him to my home to have my will in all ways, would this design be the one that allows said cashier to be seduced? And if not, what improvements could be made?”

“You’d have to pinky-swear you’d eat him up all in one bite,” Jules suggested, “so he wouldn’t have time to get scared.”

Harper, stiff in the wrists and face red, retrieved his Tristram Shandy from beneath the counter and began to ignore everybody.

“Jackie,” Roscoe said, “Stripes? I like stripes.”

Jackie shook his big mug slowly. “Solids,” he said.

Roscoe gave it up and started for his office again. In the jumbled space, it was slow going. Jules called: “Solid. Solid color.” He sounded abruptly calm and steady.

“The striped is a little more…” Roscoe shook the hanger again and stared hard at the shirt, realizing once more that he could barely hold an opinion on it. He may as well argue, he had a couple hours. “Jovial? Fun?”

“That’s what we call you behind your back,” Harper said behind his pages. “Fun Roscoe.”

Jules, instead of taking the path of least resistance, slithered bodily over the countertop and came for Roscoe that way. “No, no,” he said, as if he’d devoted a miniscule percentage of time in his hindbrain to figure out the issue while he and everybody else had fun with their torment. “Listen, so you two are doing this stupid extended-coy thing. Informal corporate meeting, sure. Buy into it. That’s what this guy will expect. Who looks jovial at a meeting? Play the game.”

“Play the game,” Roscoe said to himself as Jules freed him from the hangers. He wondered how long Jules would be able to say that so casually before the rules and the years made things stale.

“That’s how adults think they have to play,” Jules said, so fiercely it was as if he’d overheard the passing thought. “Don’t blame me if you’re too scared to do something different. This one needs pressed.” And he shoved his way down the narrow hall and disappeared behind the basement door. He slammed it shut.

“He reminds me of this houseboy I had a share in, back in the eighties,” Jackie mused. He’d pulled on his tank top but he was a man who remained spiritually naked, no matter the coverage. “Only this one didn’t have the attitude. And we weren’t having him do the ironing.” He lounged now against the glass countertop and spoke past Harper, though ostensibly to him, as was his respectful habit with cute young men who evaded his understanding.

“I cannot possibly,” Harper repeated, in arctic timbre, “bear any more excitement.”

Roscoe had come around to the fact that he was not particularly respected. That he was appreciated – a walking, talking, emotional necessity – had only to do with the physical existence of his environment – the bar and the leather shop – and the fact that he’d taken it all over after Val died. This one responsibility assumed in 1989 had earned him an immovable seat in the scene, but he’d been frozen in community judgment at 22 – an anxious, retiring, conflict-averse functional alcoholic. At his glummest moments he wondered if Val had left things to him less out of any belief in his business prowess, and more out of the practical sense that out of all the surrounding men, Roscoe would always have the least going on socially.

You could have respect, Roscoe thought while he buttoned his solid-color shirt behind his narrow office door, or be appreciated, or be beloved. Most men only had one. A few could muster two. Val had been the only one he’d known who’d netted all three.

“And you’re fucking dead,” he said aloud, and tried to nab his reflection in the black computer screen. These were not the thoughts to rev yourself up before a date. He sought back in time, not to Val, but far more recently when he’d been down in the basement pawing through historical paperwork while Jules hunched, absorbed, over some strap or belt or harness in his little workshop. They’d passed several minutes in total silence until Jules, out of nowhere, spoke aloud with so much poison Roscoe whirled around, exceedingly hurt. Jules remained completely bent, eyes on his work surface. He was shaking with passion and so keyed up over some frustrating detail his face had reddened and his eyes watered. He wore headphones. Not only had he been speaking to himself, but he wasn’t aware Roscoe had come downstairs.

He said to himself now what Jules had said down there. “Don’t,” he muttered, hand on the door, “Don’t be a fucking loser.”

He had met Bobby at the safer sex seminar; he’d told the truth. At the end, when the bar had cleared out, he’d walked past a trim man around his own height, with a lot of loose brown hair. He wore a green linen shirt that appeared out of place in the grubby surroundings yet managed to look rather graceful and cool. The man had reached out and touched Roscoe’s arm. “They told me when they hired me that parties were one of the job perks,” he said confidentially, as though he and Roscoe were well known to each other, “but they didn’t mention I’d have to organize them all.”

Roscoe, idiot, had blurted out “Oh!” And then, recited Bobby’s email address, which was how they knew each other. Bobby had laughed and compelled him to sit down. For months Roscoe had been sneaking out the shop’s back door to meet him for coffee, brief pleasant chats that thrilled him, though he wondered what someone that corporate-cute got out of it. Roscoe was not corporate – he was not even particularly leather. He was what a lot of the gay men around were – a forty-two-year-old guy.

Bobby had been the one to suggest a dinner, albeit with coy hedging, but Roscoe had suggested he meet him at the shop “to meet the crew” as his own gesture of good faith. After the shirt debacle he doubted the wisdom of this, but he left his office bravely and made his way to the front. Jules and Harper remained in position – Jackie, to his disloyal relief, had lumbered away.

“Alright, I’m out,” he tried to declare, boss-like. “Please, no calls. Unless there’s a deadly emergency, in which case, please call me.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Harper said.

“Yeah,” Jules said. “Whatever you do, don’t go out with this guy and finish your dissertation.”

Harper kicked out against Jules’ stool and upended him. At that moment the bell over the door jingled and Roscoe, distracted from the fracas, whipped around for what felt like the dozenth time that evening. “Hi!”

“Hi!” The nice thing about Bobby was that he naturally matched the energy of whatever greeting Roscoe gave. He looked pleasantly flustered coming out of the coolish autumn evening and fresh air blew in behind him. “Now I suddenly forget your name,” he directed to Harper, who was busy shoving Jules’ yapping head below the counter. “But I know it starts with an H.”

“Hello,” Harper said.

“Hello!” Bobby repeated, delightfully awkward.

Jules, behind Roscoe’s back must have resurfaced, for he gasped so significantly he gagged on air. He said, overloud: “Oh no!”

Roscoe wanted to ignore it; he could have ignored it, if he hadn’t seen the pleasure, all at once, drain from Bobby’s expression. He turned and saw Jules, wide-eyed with a transient horror that struggled not to jitter toward amusement, as if he had just become aware he’d laughed at a joke full of slurs. “Oh no,” he said again, and clapped a hand over his mouth. Jules was not someone who voluntarily shut himself up.

Roscoe looked back to Bobby, whose face was overcome with irritation; it de-aged him considerably. He folded his arms and drew himself up into a neat little package. His jaw set harder than Roscoe had ever seen it; He had the feeling this is what Bobby looked like in meetings.

A cold wind sucked through Roscoe’s bowels. “You two already know each other,” he predicted, and lapsed into a little horror himself, at the obvious innuendo.

“Not like that!” Jules said through his fingers.

“A little like that,” Bobby said coolly. “Only the matter of how and with who are not as clear. The shock on your face! I would think,” he continued, with nastiness Roscoe hadn’t thought him capable of, “you’d be used to this kind of thing happening to you!”

To Roscoe: “Should we go along now? I think we should.” His painful smile brought Roscoe gallantly out of his stupor. “Yes, yeah,” he agreed. “We’ll talk about it later.”

He ushered him gently out the door; the idyllic bells jingled; the smell of dying leaves and of balcony gas fires cleared their heads; and behind them among the brightly lit hedonism, Harper, triumphant enough to be heard through glass, intoned, “have any other smartass thoughts about my fucking dissertation now, you nasty little slut?”

In months past, Bobby had always been collected and softly confident in himself. Any faux pas or nervousness on Roscoe’s part had been gently absorbed and accepted by his mere mildness. Now, Roscoe found himself squiring a virtual teenager to dinner. They sat out on the restaurant’s patio, but Bobby cast his head around rapidly at any loud, passing group. His left hand unconsciously picked at its own cuticles. He carried on a staggered and desperate conversation with Roscoe about something funny that had occurred at work until Roscoe, ashamed he’d let this go on so long, found the little bit of steel he kept inside himself for these moments. He reached out and touched Bobby’s stiff hand, clenched through the gaps in the garden table. “Listen,” he began, but Bobby crumbled instantly.

“Oh my god,” he moaned. “I’m acting like a moron. I know.”

“No,” Roscoe insisted. He had enough experience to know the less he spoke, the more Bobby would blurt out. This was the function of Roscoe in any scene. He knew so many sordid secrets he was surprised no uptight bar queen had had him assassinated yet.

“I didn’t sleep with that brat,” Bobby explained. “Let me emphasize that.”

“I believe you,” he said, brat tweaking him inside, even as Bobby’s hand relaxed in minute segments.

“About a year ago,” Bobby continued, his eyes fixed on his and Roscoe’s stacked fingers. “I was in a relationship, an open relationship, so to speak. And it was open because, well, the man – Neil – he lived with me at that point – well, he was an animal.”

“Right.”

“I mean,” Bobby’s eyes widened, and he traveled off into some kind of fugue. “He possessed absolute filth. He was such a stud. He carried me off. I was astonished he was interested in me at all. I was literally possessed. He pushed you back into a wall and you just blacked out. My friends were mortified. I worshipped him, in private, though I could be such a catty bitch about his adventures; adventures where I was not included. But he could be, you know, very kind about it. He’d touch your face and ask why you were so worried. He kissed in public and held your hand. He wasn’t a malevolent person.” This came out in one long, humiliated gust. “He was sweet and relaxed, even when I was furious with him. Before that, I attracted boring men – you know, administrative people – and boring wouldn’t be so bad, but boring doesn’t mean nice and gentle. There’s nothing worse,” he said with some savageness, “than a boring, corporate, unkind man. And I dated stacks and stacks of them. Then Neil.”

“Neil.”

“Right.” Bobby held Roscoe’s hand proper, now. “Now, the rule was that he had to let me know if he was embarking on some conquest, and he wasn’t allowed to bring anybody back to my apartment. He was always bad about the letting me know part before the fact. It was always a “by the way honey” after the fact. And I put up with it, and I put up with it, then one night I came home unexpectedly after a work retreat was cancelled, and there’s Neil standing up in the kitchen, just roped with sweat, extremely post-post, just a towel over his shoulders. He said casual as you please, hi babe! Then guess who strides out of my bedroom.”

“Oh dear.”

“Not a stitch on his body,” Bobby gilded the image nicely. “He sees us both; He read the situation instantly, I give him that – He says, oh no! Just exactly how he said it back there.” Softer, and more dangerous, “with that stupid look on his face, like he was trying not to laugh at me.”

Jules, Jules, Roscoe chided in his brain. It was an automatic reflex, with the real culprit vanishing, as they always could, into the sexual ether of the past.

“It was one thing when he was going behind me to nail people his own way, his own age, his own level,” Bobby continued. “But seeing his aftermath with what looked like some teenager – these hot new young things coming up behind us, not a care in the world – that was the last straw. I’d gotten used to humiliation, but this was the kind that makes you see yourself. And I saw myself – this pent-up, boring, unkind, thirty-five-year-old admin sissy, obsessed with the sexual propriety of some goddamn hustler. I was better off sticking with my own kind.”

They ordered; they lapsed with the words for a while.

“It’s so stupid,” Bobby said quietly at one point, “To be heartbroken over what amounted to dumb sex games. You get older and older, but you can never get older than that.”

Roscoe had used this time to consider his next move. “Listen,” he said, drifting forward in his seat. “How much money would someone have to pay you to go back to being in your early twenties?”

Bobby released something; He laughed out loud, enough that he closed his eyes. “Oh god!” He cried out. “Awful! Awful!”

Roscoe shook his head. “Not even millions,” he said. “Not even.” He was pleased to find he agreed with what he was saying: not for a million bucks, not in a million years. “I think he’s a good kid,” he ventured, bolder. “Down in it, he’s a good kid. He’s running a little wild now. Most of them are. But, Bobby,” he said, more insistently, “There’s nothing to be jealous of there.”

“Skinny,” Bobby offered. “Youthful energy. Plastic brain. Full head of hair, no greys.”

“Puppy dogs online have more money than he does,” Roscoe said bluntly, walking the tripwire; he had two people to try not to betray. “He lives in an illegal basement. He works at Domino’s. He can’t get along with people his own age.”

“Demonic sex powers.”

“He’s treasurer for the neighborhood gay bridge club,” Roscoe countered. This did the trick; Bobby cackled briefly, then stifled himself out of kindness.

“Alright fine,” he agreed. “Fine, you’re right. I’m better than all that now. I should be glad about it.”

“You shouldn’t regret that you were brave enough to have your heart broken,” Roscoe said. “The only man I ever let break my heart was my father.”

Bobby had softened now to pre-Jules levels. “If I have a glass of wine with dinner,” he asked, “will we still be able to kiss goodnight?”

“Oh sure.” He mustered all his power to appear nonchalant about such a thing happening. “I’m not someone who’s particular.” Which was, miraculously, the first lie he’d told all evening.

He’d returned to the shop at the end of the night alone, meaning to placate Jules, but he only found Harper, who smirked to himself while he balanced the cash register. He was lighthearted for once and greeted him cheerfully, so Roscoe could guess he’d battered the complementary tale out of Jules, who’d been slick enough to slip away into the night. “Well, it’s not a big deal,” he said firmly as Harper’s smirk evolved into a one-sided grin. “Bobby and I talked, and he understands. It’s nobody’s fault, it's just an awkward situation.” He was still a little dizzy from the kissing and didn’t have the energy to scold Harper, who appeared truly gleeful with misfortune.

“Oh certainly,” Harper said. “Merely an awkward situation.”

Roscoe shot him a warning look with zero heat behind it. “Let the heterosexuals wreck their own lives about insignificant crap like this,” he lectured. “I should hope we are a little more sexually evolved than that.”

“Fags aren’t sexually evolved,” Harper said, “They’re sexually primordial.”

“And if you want to keep working here,” Roscoe shot back, “may I suggest you quit talking like you aren’t one?” This was about as rough as he could get with Harper, who primly returned to his steno pad.

But he overestimated Jules’ resilience – he stayed away from the shop for three days straight. It was his habit to lurk in the basement and putter regardless of if he had a piece on order and Roscoe was truly stumped. He was under the impression Martin had scrubbed most of the shame out of the kid. He settled on the idea that Jules was sulking over his privacy being pierced and, feeling sneaky, he made another date with Bobby on the fourth evening, when Jules was set to cover for Harper behind the register.

At the appointed hour, Jules sailed through the back door with his eyes half-shut and his face arranged into a careful, bland portrait. To Roscoe he said “Hey,” as if he’d been in the basement all week.

“Been busy?” He truly didn’t know – he had made it a rule not to pester Jules by phone.

“Sure.”

Jules kept one eye on Harper, who was grinning again as he stuffed graded papers into his satchel. He kept quiet until he could no longer resist. “There’s plenty of time,” said Jules’ older and blonder mirror-self, “to hide downstairs, baby child.”

Jules turned on Roscoe, betrayed. “You did not.”

“There’s nothing to do.” Roscoe flicked through his wallet, attempting to appear a bastion of mature calm. “It’s not a big deal. It’s not a big deal at all, so just relax.”

“I’m not talking to you about this.”

“That’s just fine,” Roscoe said. “There’s nothing to talk about. Because it’s not a big deal.”

He couldn’t understand the outsized misery emanating from Jules’ slumped shoulders. He looked like a gangling, tortured foal. “What’s wrong now?” He asked, too gently and too late, because Jules was already facing away, and Bobby was already jingling through the door.

“Hii-iii-!” Harper greeted him first, happy as a clam.

Bobby smiled weakly. “Hi,” he said softly, toward Roscoe, and Roscoe was touched that he was trying. “Jules, hello.”

Jules was utterly still. “Mmhmm,” he mumbled, and Roscoe, suddenly a bit sick with foreboding, wanted to grab Bobby and rush him out the door. But Bobby was graciously (relentlessly) coming forward.

“Now hear me out,” he said, mildly. “I was surprised. I still had some feelings about the whole situation. But it’s over with now.” He shrugged and offered his hand (Jules literally leaned away). “Let’s just forget about it,” he suggested. “Let’s leave it with Neil. Wherever the hell that devil is.”

“Yeah.” Jules woke up and allowed himself to shake hands, though he let go snappish. “He was, uh, a pretty active guy.”

“Oh, I certainly know.” Bobby moved toward Roscoe.

“I mean, I know too.” Jules barreled forward, an uncontrolled tone entering his voice. “As in, I knew. Like, knew him. Knew of him. For like, a year before that night. But like, maybe you weren’t even seeing him at that point?”

“Probably should head out now,” Roscoe suggested, but Bobby planted his feet.

“Like,” Jules said, his face a mask of blank horror, as if he were under some horrible influence and couldn’t possibly stop speaking until all was revealed. “Maybe you weren’t even seeing each other around, uh, fall-winter of 2008? Because that’s when we were uh, most active. Together. With others.”

“Pardon me,” Bobby said, “others?”

“Yeah,” Jules answered, totally helpless. “You know, the gangbangs.”

“Gangbangs?”

“Not that I arranged that,” Jules swerved. “My old man at the time arranged all those. But I was there, as, you know, the subject of the evening. And Neil was a participant uh, most of the time. And sometimes individually, for house calls.”

“House calls?” This was Harper, cross-legged on the carpet, clutching his satchel and likewise paralyzed by the situation.

“But maybe you weren’t even seeing him, at that point,” Jules repeated, like saying it enough times would make it true. “At that point, fallish and winterish of 2008?”

Roscoe gripped Bobby by the shoulders, unwilling to move him extrajudicially, but hoping to impede him if he lunged forward. Jules, for his part, did not bodily retreat.

“No,” Bobby answered at long last, his voice a monument of cold dignity that surpassed even Harper’s abilities. “No,” he repeated. “No, I was not aware of the gangbangs. Or of house calls. I was also not aware that my boyfriend, at the time, was some kind of doctor to small animals. Let’s go now,” he said to Roscoe, and revolved gracefully underneath his hands without dislodging his grip. “I’d like to leave now.”

“Right,” Roscoe agreed. He ushered him out, pained that he couldn’t discreetly look back. No tender autumnal milieu appealed to his senses this time, and Harper, struck as dumb as everybody else, made no glass-passing remarks. When the door slammed, the door slammed.

There were, to Roscoe’s dismay, no vulnerable talks this time. Bobby, drawing on some kind of work persona for power, handled the evening and the conversations with brisk, friendly professionalism and relaxed only a few degrees when it became clear Roscoe wasn’t going to push the issue. And it would have been fine, if this had ended that evening – it lasted through the whole week, and into the next. Bobby took the date-arrangements into his own hands, and they met away from the shop. This way, he gradually recovered some of his previous warmth, but he swiftly hardened anytime Roscoe brought up some doing or event connected to the shop or bar. He couldn’t even mention Harper without Bobby’s eyes glazing over protectively. Roscoe didn’t bring up Jules’ existence whatsoever, and this, after barely seven days, made him feel like a real piece of shit.

He understood, at last, that he’d made it as a gay man past forty and had never had to delineate his life in even trivial ways. His friends were everybody else’s friends, his job was everybody’s trivial and unhealthy sanctuary, and he never had any reason to hide himself. When he could no longer bear his family, he’d left them. When his AA sponsor reared his head with too much religion, he’d broken off and made his own sobriety group. When those sober friends got snitty about him owning a bar, he’d walked right through them and continuously among them and left them free to leave or stay or slink back, however they needed. He’d never considered himself a person with principles until now, when it seemed impossible to heed their calling.

He newly considered the position of Jules and Harper, who were still too fresh to be beloved or appreciated or respected. Without the stability of those prisons, they floated in some hellish erotic no-man’s land, out of sight of their own peers, hobbled economically, excised from shared history, right or wrong. He remembered Harper, years ago, a scrawny little adjunct with Kurt Cobain’s hairstyle and fire in his face, charging through the doors with his retail resume hot in hand. He recalled Jules, not as many years ago, speaking very calmly, face half-maimed and half blind, no resume, inquiring about the antique sign in the window, leather bespoke, custom order. (I’m afraid it’s an old sign, Roscoe had said, horrorstruck that Jules was even upright. Do you consider that a wise business decision? Jules had replied, blood down his chin, speaking crisply through pink teeth). The hot new young things – sure.

And Bobby, neighborhoods away all this time, on another planet practically, lost in all this context, buried enough to be oblivious to it. He greeted Roscoe now with apprehension in his eyes that lasted and lasted and only vanished at the end of the night when they were separating anyway.

“Listen,” Roscoe said, but he didn’t know what to say and he didn’t know what to do.

“It’s alright.” Bobby petted his cheek. “It’s alright. It’s nothing.”

But he’d begun to make small, suggestive comments, very skillfully (a doctor to small animals), in ways Roscoe couldn’t counter – mostly about groups of young gays when they passed. Bobby would say something brief and clear and cruel and just as quickly shut it down and peer at Roscoe from his peripheral, observing the tested waters. A talent for verbal knackery could, would, be used just as easily for personal self-satisfaction as well as for social good.

And Jules, still a teenager at heart, but beholden to his adult ambitions, showed up at the shop as usual but dealt with the situation by refusing to speak to Roscoe whatsoever. He was hurt by this apparent anger, and once when he tried to come down the basement stairs behind Jules, the kid had shouted, brutally, over his shoulder: NO!

The fathers Roscoe had known had mostly been deplorable; He didn’t like feeling he’d become one himself.

He called Martin.

“Leaving so soon, gangbang boy?” Harper called out after the basement door slammed shut.

“You,” Jules answered, walking around the counter, and deliberately smashing every metal outcrop of his bag and kit and equipment into its locked glass cabinet, “are not pretty enough to be this mean. No wonder you haven’t had a boyfriend in years.”

“And where’s your boyfriend?” Harper stretched his arm across the counter to block Jules’ way. “Roscoe called and said he wants both of us here. I know he must have texted you; you shouldn’t be leaving.”

“I can do whatever I want.”

“Oh, you demonstrably do.” Jules dropped all his things on the ground at once, with the following expected awful noise. He deliberately made rackets when you didn’t want one and was still capable of supernatural silence when it suited his needs. “I don’t know why you’re acting like a child. If you’re old enough for high-risk sex, you’re old enough to handle high risk consequences.”

“This is not a natural consequence,” Jules argued. “This is a bizarre fucking freak-ass coincidence because god hates me.”

“And before the freak-ass coincidence interfered with your comfortable situation,” Harper poked and prodded, “you seemed perfectly at peace with the fact that you had probably ruined somebody’s relationship.”

“Neil was a high-risk person to be in a relationship with.” Jules’ voice pitched raggedly higher and higher, as was so whenever he got too excited. He started pulling together his bags again. “I knew it after he fucked me once. If Bobby didn’t figure that out after knowing him for years, then he was a fucking moron.”

“And you’ll tell him that to his face, too,” Harper said. “To Roscoe’s only beau!”

“Why not?” The front door jingled and opened broadly. “If he’s going to act like some wounded bitch every time he sees me, why shouldn’t I get the jump on him? But not now.” Jules turned and collided with a familiar, half-bare chest.

“Oh, fuck off,” he wailed, backing away from what he knew, in his experience, was an immovable surface. “Will everybody quit fucking interfering with my shit?”

“Now, now,” Jackie said, unbothered as usual. He topped Jules’ shoulders with his heavy hands. “What’s the hurry?”

“Jackie,” Jules asked, immediately popping on his most fetching impersonation of innocence. “If I asked you to carry me away right now, out the door past everybody to wherever you wanted to take me, would you do it?”

Jackie appeared to regard these words visually. “Mmm-mmm. No.” He shook his head with some regret. “I’m sorry, little brother. We have to face our fears.” He grasped Jules’ ribcage in a paralyzing, two-handed grip, lifted him like a hollow doll and propped him on the countertop next to Harper’s register. Jules, kitten-rigid in some kind of tonic seizure, grabbed two handfuls of Jackie’s shirt in shock. And there wasn’t much shirt to spare.

“Alright now,” Jackie said, satisfied that all was right in the world – his world. “Who can tell me what all the emotions are about?”

“He’s upset because him being a massive fucking whore has preemptively ruined Roscoe’s first relationship in years,” Harper supplied, testy about the no boyfriend line himself.

Jackie, in a rare event, looked directly at Harper and with some disapproval. “I never understood,” he said, “any m or bottom’s insistence that swear words are for them to say. I’d leave the heavy language to the men, son.”

Harper, too proud to slump, merely narrowed his eyes and dragged his nails across the counter.

“I just said like three swears,” Jules interjected, with jumbled loyalty. “And that’s after you came in.”

“Harp’s older than you, he should know better.”

“Well, he’s right.” Jules had to look askance to say it. “I was a huge whore and I ruined Roscoe’s life, and I don’t know what to do.”

Jackie nodded, then thought twice, and shook his head solemnly. “Don’t understand at all, sorry.”

Jules rapidly regained coherence. “I homewrecked a guy a year ago,” he explained. “And he showed up just now as Roscoe’s new boyfriend, and he hates me. And turns out, I’d been homewrecking him for the year before that too, only I didn’t know it due to the uh, casual nature of the events.”

“Ah,” Jackie said, in an enlightened way, as he and Jules realized a common language. “Gangbangs. Martin was around.”

“Right,” Jules said, relieved. “But now he’s not, and I fucked it all up.”

“You young people. No, no,” he said toward Harper, who’d been about to interject, feeling lonely in the conversation. “Young people. You let any problem that happens now ruin all the good things that happened before. Calling yourself a whore – since when is that your job? Boys should be happy – they should smile and laugh and bounce around and feel good about turning over.” He cast, again, a significant look at Harper.

“I’m going to find a way to kill you,” Harper said. “Silently. When you least expect it.”

“Sure you will – you’re a lot smarter than me.” He turned back to Jules, who had restlessly moved his grip from Jackie’s shirt to his biceps. “Listen,” he said, kindly, “you’re taking responsibility for things that aren’t your business to take on. Martin did what he did to you as an act of love. You behave the way you do as an act of love toward him, even if he’s gone. I’d be pretty sad if you kicked yourself around because another adult got their feelings hurt.” Jackie, again, peered tangibly into the open air. “Some guys, adult guys,” he continued, “just can’t bear to know how intimately we’re all connected. Spooks them. Roscoe’s guy, he can learn. I won’t judge him, never met him. But it’s a lot easier if you never get to be that way in the first place.”

Jules, by this time, was gazing intently at Jackie’s bland, stereotypical face as if he had to absorb all the answers from it before cynicism again wised him up. In a moment of weakness, he dropped his forehead on one of his square and improbable pecs – Jackie, briefly and appropriately, patted Jules on the head, and even Harper looked uncertain about scolding the proceedings. He lucked out, because just then Roscoe, accompanied by a morose Bobby, strode through the front door.

The sight of Jules on the counter, being publicly snuggled by a creature like Jackie, was simply too much for Bobby to bear. He shot out, the snake that rears with eyeball-lancing precision, “Oh god! You let him carry on in your own business?”

“Bobby.” Roscoe grabbed his forearm. Bobby shook free.

“It’s one thing when you carry on in the privacy of your own home,” he spat at Jules. “Or should I say, more accurately, in one’s own basement squat?”

Jules, held back by Jackie’s huge paw, forgetting every single lesson he’d just attempted to absorb, shrieked with rage. “You haggard, unloved queen! Fuck you!”

“I’d rather be a haggard queen than a used-up slut!”

“I’d rather be a used-up slut than some neocon society faggot!”

“It’s always you uneducated goddamn children slinging around correct phrases like neocon, because you’re all too goddamn selfish to give your all to one person!”

Harper, who’d taught Jules the word neocon, just barely opened his mouth before Jackie valiantly drew him and stool both toward the protection of his insane body.

“Maybe if you really were giving your all to Neil,” Jules continued screaming, “he wouldn’t have been fucking cheating on you every fucking second of every fucking day!”

“– With fucking whores like you making it possible –!”

A clothing rack tipped; seemingly of its own accord, it tipped and terminated the human outburst with its own; Harper yelped, christ, the slings! as though they were made of glass,and Roscoe, arm outstretched for reasons nobody had actually seen with their own eyes – they’d long forgotten he was there – bellowed in the loudest voice any of them had ever heard him use:

“BE QUIET!”

Everybody, quiet; they froze in place too, all except Jackie, who fully turned around with great interest, thrusting his chest out hard as if he needed it to properly hear. But Roscoe was turning on Bobby, now shaky in the knees and white in the face. He touched his mouth, like he didn’t understand who on earth had just passed all those insults.

“That is unacceptable,” Roscoe said to him.

The shop space, its contents so incongruous with what was going on, seized the words and froze them. The air twanged and vibrated.

“That is unacceptable,” Roscoe repeated, gaining power. “It’s always been unacceptable, and it’s my fault for not telling you before, but I’m telling you now: you can’t talk to my employees like that. You can’t talk to my friends like that. I’m not interested in someone who feels they have a right to speak to people like that; if that’s so impossible for you to quit doing, then this stops right here. Bobby? This stops here. Right now. There’s no compromise. Do you understand?”

Bobby had clutched one arm around his stomach, as if seized with sudden cramps during this speech. He wiped his face with his hand, words out of reach.

“And you!” Roscoe turned on Jules, who leaned so far back on the counter he was in danger of injury. “You, buster, are not nineteen anymore! You’re old enough to know when you should act like the bigger man! No screaming! No silent treatment! And quit saying faggot! Both of you!” He gracefully included Harper; nobody was left out.

Everybody, stunned, waited for something. Nobody knew what.

“I’m sorry,” someone said quietly. It was Bobby, who among all in the shop, was the only one standing alone. “I’m really terribly sorry. I’m acting exactly as –” he cut himself off. “Well, exactly as was said. And it might seem easy to say this,” he explained, this time to Roscoe. “But I’m truly ashamed right now. I don’t know what to do.”

Roscoe struggled not to wilt in the face of this weakness. “I want you to apologize to Jules,” he said, doubling down.

Bobby veered toward Jules like a well-trained child. “Jules, I’m sorry,” he said, very simply, and seemed on the verge of saying more before a surge of emotion disfigured his face; he hid again behind his hand.

Jules contrary to the situation, whispered to Harper: “what do I do?”

“Traditionally, one accepts,” Harper advised.

“Right,” Jules said. “I accept. Uh. Sorry for calling you a neocon and the f-word and haggard and unloved and a queen.”

Bobby laughed shortly and bitterly, almost on the verge of tears, and not one of them would have known how to move forward if not for Jackie, who cleared his throat and said, quite loud, “Roscoe, have you seen that shithead Danny Bride sneaking around at all?”

“What?” Some of Roscoe’s signature haplessness retook; after such decisive behavior, the change was like a douse of cold water. Everybody looked around confused, freed from some spell. “I don’t – pardon me?”

“Well.” Jackie scratched his head, one of his other favorite gestures, and stepped away from the counter. “If you see him, tell that chickenhead the longer he stays away from me, the worse I’ll rip him up. Don’t parse it gentle – he doesn’t really understand stuff that way.” Jackie approached Bobby, who leaned back, stunned. “I’m Jackie,” said Jackie, and he held out his hand. He shook the tips of Bobby’s offered fingers in a gentlemanly manner. “Jackie. You’ll see me around. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Enchanted,” Bobby said, his eyes now dry and stable.

“Right,” Roscoe said, as Jackie trundled through the door exactly the same as he’d entered it. “Right. So, there’s that. And now,” he placed his hand on Bobby’s shoulder. “If you don’t mind, we have reservations, don’t we?”

“We do,” Bobby said, a little thick in the throat and not unsurprised at Roscoe touching him. He did not touch back, and something about the pain of this unmatched gesture made Jules and Harper start bustling around for anything to do but watch. “Yes, if you like, we do.”

“I’ll be back later,” Roscoe called out as he led Bobby away. “And one of you should really fix that rack. You know, if you aren’t too busy working.”

“Sure, big daddy,” Harper said. “Say the word and I’ll polish the boots you don’t own.”

Roscoe, the bigger man, let this go unchallenged. The door jinged and janged.

Jules, quick to recover and his enviable plastic brain ready for life’s next great mystery turned to Harper and asked, “how come Jackie knows you’re a bottom?”

Outside, far enough from the shop door but not enough from the bar, Roscoe grabbed Bobby and swung him around. “I’m not actually a yeller,” he said.

Bobby blinked, once at him, once toward the smokers lounging on the façade, then he seemed to give up and held Roscoe back – he didn’t notice.

“I’m not,” Roscoe insisted. “I don’t shout. I don’t make demands. I’m not that kind of person. But I couldn’t stand myself if I didn’t do everything possible to live with myself and keep you here. Because I want all of this. I want all of this, alright? These are my people and I want you here with me. Are you listening?”

Bobby, now eloquent beyond words, stared back at him with due attention. Roscoe understood exactly what Neil had seen in him – he had looked at the right time and caught a moment of breaking-open in a face that could be kind or cruel. An opening so large and so tender you thought you could stick your hand in – but you couldn’t – and Roscoe, looking back on what he had assumed of Bobby before, knew he’d been blind to the man right in front of him, this stranger peering into his face right now, who wanted to meet him too; the regular guy that he was.

The previous night, over the phone, after laughing himself sick over the sexual hijinks, Martin laid down his own reasoning. “Can I tell you,” Martin had asked, “about a mindset that helped me when I was in a tough spot about what my relationship with the kid was going to be? There were the usual issues with honesty and fear, on both sides. But, you know, all that stuff gets carried along by the realities of the situation as they present themselves. The age difference, being one of them. Which some might call significant to unacceptable.”

(I’m aware, Roscoe had said, bitchy – Bobby was only six years younger.)

“It’s especially hard when the younger in that kind of situation has only ever had shitty experiences with adults in authority. Grown-up is such a fuckless phrase, isn’t it?” Martin remarked. “Kids don’t like grown-ups. They don’t want to bang around with grown-ups. They don’t want to trust grown-ups. But boy, when you look like one, especially in comparison, it’s easy to act the part, right? And maybe a little bit of you – him, whoever – does need a grown-up sometimes, but you can’t sustain a mature relationship like that. You know, a mature relationship with the works. Anyway,” Martin continued. “I sort of had a talk with myself. Then I had a talk with him, about what I was going to do – what I was going to do, listen – and what I was going to do, was start giving him very real, very tangible experiences to help him work out emotionally that I wasn’t a grown-up – I was a man.”

He waited, sat with the obvious to see the deeper meaning beneath what Martin was saying, before realizing Martin was not that kind of person – none of his friends were.

(You’re telling me to man up? That’s it?)

“I am, huh,” Martin said. “Yeah, that is exactly what I’m telling you to do. Because you’re the boss, and those are your employees, and that’s your boyfriend. They may whine and cry and get scared, but they need you to act the part. They’ll either calm down that they have a lead to follow – or they’ll man up themselves one day, god willing.”

(And how exactly does a man discover the right decision to make? The right decision that gets him everything he wants?)

“Let’s not get too essentialist,” Martin said. “Nobody on earth gets the privilege of one-hundred percent certainty. That’s what makes our choices so important. Even if things go wrong, now or in the future, we have to know the decisions we made in the moment were acts of love.”

Martin paused for a long time. Roscoe could literally see him shrugging, oh well! From 2,000 miles away, the sadness was, for a millisecond, awful and acute. Then it was gone.

(My old man set those up for me. Is that what he called you?)

“No,” Martin had said. “Jules called me Dad.”

Roscoe, back in the moment outside the bar, held Bobby in his arms and had not a clue what the next move would be to give everyone everything they wanted. But Bobby, in his own wisdom, let himself break open further.

“I don’t want to impede on your plans,” he suggested, shyly. “But exactly how attached are you to those reservations?”

Down the street, in the opposite direction than planned, arm in arm. Roscoe had seen it happen to others plenty, and now that he was living it, wasn’t sure where his mind was supposed to be besides anchored to some bizarre, blank emotion others would call calm. Bobby might change his mind before they reached Roscoe’s apartment; he might not. Roscoe might choke in bed at the critical moment; he might not. He put his arm around Bobby’s neck and walked in the dark and hoped he’d be strong enough to put his arm around the whole rest of his life. Everywhere, he thought, thousands of people were rolling over and doing just that, staring forward at a bulwark of love that might fail – and they put their arm around it.

These are the acts that convince us we’ve become adults, Martin had said.

It stings; right?

#safeworld #2010 #we bust along a few years into the future and see what the crew is up to

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that-gay-jedi · 8 days

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Learning shit is my favourite form of recreation but learning any new historical thing ever fucks me up so much bc adding any shred of context to the things I hate about life on earth today makes me want to scream. For example, like, a few months ago I was reading The Faithful Executioner by Joel F Harrington and realized very early into the book that our conception of the purposes of brutal medieval punishments reveals a LOT more about us than it does about the people who enacted them.

Shortly prior to the period during which Franz Schmidt, the subject of The Faithful Executioner, lived, responses to murder and other horrendous acts were typically managed by blood debt or other honour systems like those that play pivotal roles in the Norse epics and ancient Greek tragedies and are found in surviving legal codes from numerous other cultures.

Whatever your personal stance on avenging a loved one's death, a significant problem with these systems was that they often spun out of control in various ways, such as creating cyclical feuds between families or communities that could persist for decades, or facillitating an excuse for the victimization of community members who were simply unpopular.

A high priority of the judicial system at this time was to quell these cycles of violence by satisfying the aggrieved public. Making a public spectacle of things like executions and floggings was far more about averting a cycle of violence and supplanting extrajudicial punishments with judicial ones than the motives we so often ascribe to them.

The popular image of medieval tortures and public executions as being performed for their own sake, or to satisfy the laws of a wrathful Christian God, or as a crude attempt at deterring similar crimes comes more from our own perceptions of morality and criminality than from surviving historical records. It holds up a mirror to today's prevalent attitudes toward addicts, the extremely impoverished or unhoused, non-working people and people whose work is deemed to be of low or insufficient value.

People who believe in capital punishment today typically see condemned persons as needing to die for ontological reasons, not because of what the victim's family might do if the law doesn't satisfy them. These are so often the same people who will talk about who does and does not "deserve" food and shelter or about "teaching criminals a lesson." We ascribe these grotesque opinions retroactively to medieval people either because we're not conscious of how they pervade our own worldview, or to foster in ourselves a sense that today's cultures are definitively more enlightened and compassionate than those of the past.

Another example, a while ago I listened to Ancient Mesopotamia: Life in the Cradle of Civilization by Amanda H. Podany and I was repeatedly floored by her emphasis on both the symbolic and material ways in which the ancient Mesopotamian cultures she studies prioritized the wellbeing of community and family as a whole, including the lowliest members, over the exercise of a king's or head of household's (to them these were practically one and the same) powers. It might not quite be enough to make a motherfucker want to go back in time without antibiotics or water sanitation but it sure made me despair about how the fuck a culture like ours, which descends from theirs in so many ways, could have ever reached the point where we allow mass death and suffering on an unthinkable scale at the whims of hyperwealthy Musk-like and Bezos-like figures.

I dunno man. I'm not quite ready to say ignorance is bliss, but I so often feel like my specific interests and hobbies have rendered me very alone in seeing a certain angle of something being so very very wrong.

#books #nonfiction #history #ancient mesopotamia #medieval #capital punishment #capitalism

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phoeebsbuffay · 2 years

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Imagine you are a long time friend to Hayden Christensen. You are there to support him after his divorce, but something seems to alter the dynamics of that friendship. Part II.

Warnings: not recommended for minors due to explicit smut and adult language.

Recommendations: “Our Song” by Anne-Marie and Niall Horan.

***

For the very first two days, Hayden and you seem to ignore the spark that seems to prompt a change in your friendship. Whereas there had always been—at least before his marriage—some sort of flirtation going on between you and him, it was never taken seriously by the parts.

But if you have to be honest with yourself, most guys you’ve been in a relationship with resembled Hayden’s personality somehow or at least was close to it—although neither had Aries in a star sign, and this foolish remembrance makes you giggle.

However, you are still scared about the possibility of nurturing sentiments to Hayden. He’s been only recently divorced and you’d not consider a casual sex, insufficient it is for you as your recent experience showed. Thus, it is that every possibility seems to end with you hurting.

“You are overthinking again.” Hayden has been watching you and you don’t notice it until he gets your attention.

It’s close to sunset, you are sitting by his side at the fire pit outside, eyes glued at the fire that is burning the wood. Hayden had brought marshmallows and Hershey chocolate because he knows how much you love these things.

“Uh? I am not.” You chuckle, but a slight blush betrays you.

“You are. Every time you are busted, you blush.” Hayden side smirks at you, eyes glinting with pride at how your blush deepens. He knows you so well, reading the smallest of details you always regarded as some insignificant part of you.

“You are an annoyance.” You roll your eyes at him. “Hey, did you get marshmallows?”

You feel like a child every time you burn them in the fireplace. Hayden would tease you about it, since you like them almost entirely burnt. Last time you did that he was shooting a few scenes of “Revenge of the Sith” upon which Anakin was left burning by Obi-Wan at Mustafar. Much to his dismay, you called your burnt marshmallows as Bad Anakin.

Hayden chuckles, and he is probably remembering the same thing as he passes you the marshmallow on the stick.

“I cannot believe you’d think I forget. Seriously, Y/nickname, do you know me at all?”

You giggle softly, leaning closer to the fire as you insert the marshmallow to the contact with orange flames.

“And here we go again. The dramatic never ceases to show.”

“Me? You’re the overthinker.” Hayden teases you, watching you intently.

“I was not!”

“You are a terrible liar. Everytime you do that, you blush. I wonder why.”

He chuckles because he is right and you both know it. When you flirted with his ex-wife’s cousin at their marriage and you tried to deny it because that same day you found out you’ve been flirting alone—the man was actually, eh, not really uninterested in you; or when Hayden had to look for you after that douchebag you called ex left you alone in a restaurant after some stupid arguing and you were drunk elsewhere. So many occasions and when he listens them, you two are laughing your asses off.

“You don’t remember that because you were seriously drunk. My goodness, you’ve never had drank that much before!”

“I felt so sick the other day, though.”

“And I was looking after you. You’re welcome.”

You laugh again, the sound of it breaking the silence, the quietness that surrounds you two, where the cold wind howls. It’s when your eyes find their ways to his almost unconsciously so.

“Your marshmallow, Y/nickname!” He exclaims, and you burst into giggles as you take it away from the flames. “Always disastrous. Thankfully when it comes to food I am better prepared.”

He gives you a plate and some napkins as you eat.

“Oh please, stop staring.” You shoot him a glare. “It is rude to stare when one is eating.”

Hayden smiles sarcastically at your remark.

“Really? I’ll remember that next time you stare at me drinking.”

“I know what you are referring to.” You pause to lick your fingers. You do love burnt marshmallow even better than with chocolate. “And I was looking after your well being, you ungrateful brat. You were so heavily drunk. I cannot even remember what the fuck happened.”

In moments like these you feel as if your life is funnier than Bridget Jones’s. Had people known what you and Hayden gone through together, they would either be skeptical about the stories or make a lot fuss about them. Disastrous you might be, sentimental? Of course. But your life by his side has never been so amusing. It graces your lips with a smile.

“You got some…” Hayden leans closer to you and he uses his thumb to clean the remaining of marshmallow at the corner of your lips.

You are caught off guard by such a gesture. Simple, but completely significant. You and him lock gazes. Your heart races so loud, beating against your chest and you fear it might rip your chest out.

His thumb softly slips to your bottom lip in long seconds, and you might lean into it… had he not quickly removed it from you. And the cold is suddenly perceived even thought the fire pit is burning bright with orange flames.

You swallow hard and you can tell Hayden is uncomfortable too. His eyes, however, linger at you, waiting for something? You, however, seem unable to do anything at all. Instead, you quickly stand and mutter a few words:

“I-I should better get going. My phone is out of battery.”

You are quick in your paces, adrenaline in your veins. Hayden knows you are lying, not only by reading your body language, but also knowing you never use the phone when he’s around.

So he stands and comes after you. He holds your wrist before you go inside your bedroom. You are surprised by how fast he comes after you.

“What was that about?” Hayden asks you straight away as he does.

“I-I…”

“Come on, Y/nickname. We are on this together.”

“I am not…” Your breath is shorter as he steps closer to you. His hands are cupping your cheeks. How did you get to this moment so fast? But was it really? Or perhaps your fear is clouding your memories?

The day after Hayden married Rachel you were found drinking and weeping. The hangover was terrible. Or when you and him shared a bed after a night of indulging in drinking, except you didn’t do nothing that was not cuddling. You were the first to open your eyes and the joy you experienced could be easily accessed even now.

“You are scared. I know you.” He lifts your chin, searching for your eyes. “Don’t overthink. Let this go.”

“And if you break my heart?”

“And if we fly high?”

You close your eyes, leaning into his touch. He rests a hand around your waist, drawing you closer to him. As you open them, you spot those blue irises diving into your y/c ones. He places a hand at the back of your neck.

“Well? Will fear stop you from living?”

You hate these questions, but for once he has a point. Wherever this is going to take you, you will not waste your own time anymore. So your hands are now resting over his shoulders as your lips press against his.

It’s innocent at first. He hums happily at the contact with your mouth, brushing it softly before allowing your tongue to snake into his. It is a slow, acquainting kiss, though one does not feel the need to know the other. It flows naturally as if your tongue has long paired with his.

It warms you, giving you more confidence. Your hands move higher to cup his cheeks before going to his short hair. Your fingers play with his curls. Your mind is blank when Hayden presses you against the wall.

It begins to grow fervent, sending you waves of heat all over your body. It has been such a long time since a mere kiss makes you aroused. And you want more. Your desires are coming out of your cage, the intensity you’ve sought to repress, the one fire that no man could handle… it is there, rising in your chest.

Hayden knows you. He reads you well. He feels it too—it mirrors his own. You never knew the long looks he gives you, the lust that darkens his irises whenever you are wearing clothes that, whilst not showing so much skin, definitely reinforces your skin. He wants you.

He opens the door of your bedroom and drives you inside. Hayden smiles when you press him against you, your hands desperately trying to remove his shirt. It is comical how, by doing so, you slip and fall in bed. It could be worse, though. You could have slipped and fell on the floor.

“Oh bloody hell.” You heavily sigh as Hayden laughs at the situation. You stay there for some seconds, contemplating your embarrassment. “I had to ruin it, didn’t I?”

He’s crawling over you and your mind is distracted by his perfectly shaped body. You feel a friction in between your legs never before aching as it does now.

“You never ruin anything, my love.” Hayden tells you, so sweetly and so intently too that you are barely able to breathe.

Did he just call you his love? You do not wish to overthink it, but it does make you beam. You lean to capture his lips as his arms engulf you in a warm embrace. It does not last so long, though, as he parts the kiss to brush his lips in your jawline, going down to your neck, briefly interrupting his doings as he begins to remove your blouse.

You are now only wearing your underwear. It is funny how you feel exposed to his eyes in a dark room where there are no witnesses, not even the moon light. But he sees you, though, as you see him. He strokes your cheek before messing a bit with your hair.

“You are gorgeous, Y/N. I shouldn’t have taken this long…” It is as if he’s saying to himself as he leans to kiss your neck, going rigid in his pants as you shiver in response to his kisses, a content sigh coming out of your lips.

“No, you should not.” You don’t mind the subtle confession, eyes closed as you enjoy those lips against your skin. You take your time as you slip your hands from his shoulders to his arms before resting in his abs. You feel that aching again, but nothing stops you from immersing your hand right into his manhood.

“Oh.” Hayden groans out of surprise. His eyes go slide wide, not expecting you to be so bold. “How naughty of you.”

“I can be very naughty.” You smirk, slowly taking control of him, swapping positions as you lay him down just after helping him remove his pants. “You need that, don’t you?”

You begin to feel juices making your panties wet and your nipples going hard, but none of this matters when his moans are so damn sexy. No man was as handsome as Hayden is right now.

“I need you.” He breathes out. You lean forward to peck soft kisses around his neck, never letting go of his erect member. “Fuck, Y/nickname. This is so damn good. Better than in my wildest dreams.”

Oh, he could so easily bring that naughty side of you that very few knew it well. The one shamelessly bare of all social concealing skills. You chuckle against his skin, trying to struggle to keep your arousal unseen despite the growing hunger he makes you. But to feel it pulsing against your hand as you go up and down, softly twirling the tip in between your fingers, is so damn good.

“Are you saying you have dreams with me?” You ask sweetly as you kiss his abs and move your lips right below.

Hayden breathes in anticipation, his hands already gripping your hair. He holds it tight, your long locks a completely mess in his fingers. You smirk when he pulls you right where he wants you to.

And as you finally engulf him with your mouth, the fun has just begun…

***

You don’t mind him dominate you. In fact, it’s moments like these you realize he always had been your soft spot.

He spreads your legs, removing your intimate clothing with gentleness. His eyes are glued on you, how you give in to his touch so easily, so eagerly.

He leans forward to you, caressing your thighs before he inserts one finger right in the between. There’s a devilish air playing in his eyes as you squirm under his skillful, intent teasing. He smirks mischievously down at you, his attention diverting from your facial expressions of pleasure to your body reactions.

He kisses your neck, gently bruising it with small bites and saying dirty things to you all the way he moves to your heavy breasts. There he stays for a very long time, long enough for you to burst right into his hands.

And what you did to him, he does to you. Having him right in between your legs is more than you could have conceived. He does it so well, you mewl under his touch.

Hayden enjoys to have you wrapped around his finger. But, to be fair, he’s under your command too. As he crawls over you and finally gets inside you, when he locks hands with you, Hayden comes to confirm his inner desires: that you have always been the one.

This observation, whilst remaining unspoken, is there to be seen in his blue eyes and in the way he side smiles at you. When he cups your face and kisses you as he makes love with you.

It’s in the particular details amongst the meetings of the flesh, the drunkenness of lust, that you two realize that you are in love.

***

It is an amazing discovery: to see the one you’ve been looking for has always been there by your side. You happily contemplate the vision of Hayden asleep in your arms, his curls dropping in his eyes, face half buried in the pillow. Such a handsome sight to behold.

It’s been three days since you and Hayden stopped contenting yourselves with friendship with shades of flirtations. You are positively amazed by how he assures you this is anything but casual, although neither seems to speak about it.

You try not to overthink about it, but eventually you do so. You lean your head back to pillow, your mind starting to wonder that if this, whatever you have with Hayden, is not casual, how come there is no label of what is going with you two?

We don’t need a label. We are modern and that is it.

And here you are, in another internal struggle. As you take a sit and curiously take a peak to the landscape that is absorbed by the cold outdoor, you try to distract yourself by comparing the differences in temperature between indoors and outdoors.

“You are overthinking again.” You are startled by his morning voice. You haven’t seen him waking up and watching you with love in his eyes as the blanket slipped from your back, leaving your back completely bare half hidden by your long locks; you’ve missed his side smirk, the love in his eyes that would have ceased any question, would have buried any doubts your mind invented about him. Now he is resting his chin over your shoulder and smiling adoringly at you. “What is it, princess? What is troubling your mind?”

He rests a hand in your hip, caressing it softly as he draws you closer to him. It is so evident his effect on you, overall because of the blush that paints your cheeks. Hayden knows you, he is your connoisseur. Perhaps he’s always known you’ve had a secretly crush on him, but he never had the courage to talk about it. Or because circumstances prevented you two to acknowledge it.

“I am not overthinking.” You tell him. “I was just observing the beautiful scenario there is outdoors. It’s so cold that I don’t see the sheeps out there.”

Hayden chuckles at your typical way of running away from the difficult questions he asks you. His hand moves to play with your hair, tangling every curl with his fingers before resting it in the back of your neck. He leans to press a kiss on your cheek. You blush deeply again.

“You don’t fool me, love. I know you’ve been quietly staring outdoors with a mind so full of questions.” When you give him a look of surprise at him, Hayden smirks. “Should it surprise you that I know you well?”

“No one has ever read me like you do.” You admit it in bewilderment.

“That’s because they never took the opportunity to actually get to know you.” Hayden strokes your cheek and you lean into his touch, before resting your face in his shoulder only to bury it in his neck. His scent still gives you shivers. He pulls the blanket over your bodies, clinging into you whilst doing so. You realize your insecurities had taken possess of your spirit again. “They were buffoons who never took you for who you are, what you could offer them.”

You raise your eyes and instantly meet his. You smile to each other.

“Will you please tell me what is going on with your mind?”

Simple as that and your barriers are knocked down. You tell him about your insecurities and he does not judge you for them. Hayden listens all the way, eyes concentrated on you.

Before your anxieties try to play a trick on you, he cuddles you and plants a kiss all over you face, making you smile.

“I get your feelings, my love. Speaking them out is better, don’t you think?” He caresses your shoulders, your arms, your back. “If I told you I had not come to think about it, I would be lying. To be frank with you, I’ve been hesitant because of all I’ve been through… I too was scared. I am fable, I’ve hurt people before. But you give me hopes, every day you make me smile. I’ve been trying, but I can’t fight this feeling anymore. I love you, Y/N. You’ve been in my head for a while now.”

You reluctantly part the cuddle to look at his face. You are barely believing what you are told. This time, Hayden is the one whose face goes completely red. You beam at him, leaning towards him as you throw your arms around your neck. There is so much to speak but all you can say is:

“I love you too, H.”

He is most pleased to hear you say so, even if your body language already had dismissed his fears. Hayden holds you against him and presses a kiss over your nose before doing the same against your lips.

***

As good as it is to live in paradise, world as it is summons you back to reality. Hayden is about to start filming the episodes of “Kenobi” and you have your own things to figure it out.

“As soon as it is possible, we’ll make another trip like this again.” He promises you. You’ve never seen him this smiley before and it makes you beam each time.

“Oh I’m sure about it. I’ll see to it.” You joke about it, enjoying to see your fingers locked with his all the while he drives back to airport.

Hayden chuckles quietly.

“I know you will.”

Going back home never felt so blissful.

***

Epilogue.

God knows why you are so disastrous. Your mother would claim this is a flaw you never got rid of whilst growing up besides dressing with a poor fashion taste. You are tired to tell her that first, it’s not your fault that objects are always standing in your way as you pass and second, you prefer the comfort than looking sexy all the freaking time.

Although you now start to think that it is more related to your mood because since you’ve become Hayden’s girlfriend, you’ve been feeling sexy enough to dress fancy clothes—at least in occasions where you tend to feel horny and ends up with the two of you in bed, which has been working very well for the last twelve months.

But as you start a new job at long last as a reporter of a conceited magazine, you have to dress accordingly. So here you are, all formal with hair tied in pony tail and trying not to look painfully disastrous in high heels.

“You’ll be fine.” Hayden assures you. “Maybe I’ll get to see you covering the “Kenobi” series. That would be fun.”

Oh and it does prove to be fun. When it happens, you slip a few times here and there, and you might have twisted your ankle. Your co-workers are laughing their ass off as you stand and recompose, acting like nothing had happened.

And whilst you mask your feelings, you feel like taking a seat and cry. Thankfully though, you’ve made a friend of your team named Sheryl and she’s sensitive enough to see you’ve been having a hard time with balance over heels since day one.

“You know, I’ve been there myself. No need to worry about it. Go on and be brave. You are the most competent of us all here.”

“I appreciate, Sheryl.” You thank her.

Thankfully though you are there to transcribe the interview not to ask them the questions. You blush lightly when Ewan sees you are coming with a notepad in hands and you swear you see an exchange of amusing glances with your boyfriend, but thankfully he says nothing. Otherwise you’d be the center of the gossips and you don’t want that.

Hayden gives you a quick loving glance which only makes it difficult for you not to pay attention as your colleague H/N asks him questions, all the while you record and try to transcribe it at the same time.

But at the end of the interview, as you wait for your friend Sheryl leave bathroom, Hayden comes to you.

“Hey. How was it? I hope you’re calmer. You looked a little nervous.” He searches for your hand and you discreetly hold it. He feels you are still shaking.

“Oh yes. It’s so much pressure”, you tell him. “But this is not the worst, you don’t know what…”

You are interrupted as your phone buzzes. You heavily sigh. Hayden smiles at you.

“We’ll talk at home.” He gives your hand a quick squeeze.

Even though just recently you’ve moved in together, you miss him dearly as he leaves you with your phone.

But of course you could not worse your situation, could you? Your team is leaving and so are you, having just formally said goodbye from Hayden and Ewan professionally so—you would later today ask Ewan to try to look more serious for future references because he could not stop shooting you amusing glances throughout the whole interview—when you slip again.

This time, though. It’s more serious. Because you broke your foot.

But there is a good side of plastering the foot: you are being spoiled by your handsome boyfriend and your lovely stepdaughter who is making sure to write her name in your plaster and also draw cute things.

“And they were laughing at me as if I wasn’t feeling myself a joke.” You are telling Ewan and Mary Elizabeth as Hayden is getting pizza for you guys. “Couldn’t it be any less awkward?!”

Ewan chuckles.

“It could always be worse. Look at the bright side of being anonymous: you are spared of seeing the worst angles of you all around internet for entertainment purposes.”

“Always wise, my dear. Always wise. I’ll drink to that.” You raise your empty glass. You are about to stand though and get yourself some wine when Hayden forbids you to stand.

“What are you doing? You ought to rest, stubborn creature.”

“And here’s a good thing as well”, says Mary Elizabeth. “You are being spoilt by the one man you love.”

Hayden captures the moment the blush rises to your cheeks, a vision that never ceases to delight him. He comes back with pizza and wine—and juice for his daughter—when you are telling Ewan’s wife that this is the only good thing of going to endless embarrassing moments like breaking your foot.

“As if I don’t spoil you enough.” He snorts at you, making you giggle.

That night goes well as usual, surrounded by the man of your life, good friends and a child you love as if she is yours. You could not have been more content with what you have, with what life gifted you.

Soon, though, you will find out your new family is growing and with it, the secretly wanted moment where you will become Mrs Christensen is about to happen. Looks like you finally put your shit together.

#Star Wars #Star Wars imagine #imagine Star Wars #Hayden Christensen #Hayden Christensen x reader #Hayden Christensen x you #Hayden Christensen x y/n #this hints me a bit of #bridget jones #lol

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adickaboutspoons · 6 months

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bad writing where? I don't think you know what bad writing is and I have doubts you understand the core of the characters.

Hi Nonnie! Girl, how ARE you? Because you seem to be taking it awfully personally that I am not enjoying this season as much as you are. To be perfectly clear, if you ARE, I'm DELIRIOUSLY happy for you! I wish I was too! I was SO looking forward to it! And even though I didn't care for some stuff here and there for the first half of the season, there was a LOT that I LOVED, and I was still holding out hope for the rest of the season! After the last 3 episodes, I am decidedly less optimistic. I'm glad to tell you exactly why, and At Great Length, because that's kind of just What I Do, but here's the thing... It's ok if you like a thing that other people don't. It doesn't reflect poorly on you as a person. You don't have to defend a thing that you like as though it was an extention of yourself. Also? You and I don't have to agree. There's room for interpretation. I have mine, but that doesn't make it Objective Truth. My positions are only as good as I can offer coherent, well-supported arguements to back them up. I like doing that. I think it's fun. You may still not be convinced. That's ok. I don't need you to agree with me. And, frankly, you don't even need to worry about other people agreeing with me. I am small potatoes. I have maybe two posts ever that have made it into the low thousands in terms of notes - not reblogs, but notes cumulative. Most of my original stuff don't even break triple digits. Believe me NO ONE is rushing to espouse the doctrine of spoondick llc. And that's fine. So I'm gonna go ahead and give you the benefit of the doubt that you're asking genuine questions and not just lashing out. But I'm also gonna put my answers below a cut. Because, frankly, you may not entirely agree with me, but you also may not be able to unsee some of the things I point out once I do, and I don't want to take your enjoyment of the show away from you.

So second claim first: that I don't understand the core of the characters. I mean... I have written quite a lot and at length about these characters and their motivations. I mean, each of those is a link to a different meta I've written, and it's not even close to all of them. Which reminds me - I need to update my pinned page. So while you may not agree with my interpretations, at the v. least, you can't argue that I haven't put SOME thought into the matter. With regard to bad writing, the qualifiers may vary from person to person, but to me, it mainly comes down to three interconnected things: Inconsistency, telling rather than showing, and contrivance. I feel that there have been a LOT of inconsistencies with the characters, both between seasons and just within season 2 itself. I'm an unapologetic Stede girlie and he IS the main character, so most of my big qualms are with how his character is being butchered handled.

How the are we supposed to square Stede "had multiple breakdowns over Nigel's accidental death and was so traumatized over everything with Chauncy that he walked back to Bridgetown in his bare feet" Bonnet with the man from last night who murdered Ned in cold blood, and then went on to casually set a man on fire and QUIP about it? It's one thing to butch up with a "how to pirate" montage, it's quite another to become a psychopath, completely unbothered by taking a human life.

And about butching up. While I would, and have, argued that a lot of Stede's insecurities in the first season stemmed from insufficient performance of masculinity, I would NOT say that it was because he wanted to BE more typically masc himself - but rather from the way he has been TREATED for being soft, and internalizing the distain and derision of his bullies. Rather, the whole central thesis to his approach to piracy is it's "traditionally a culture of abuse... And my thought is: why? And also, what if it weren’t like that?" He's flattered when Yi Sao clocks his energy as soft. So his mid-season pivot to needing to embrace these "traditional pirate" behaviors? Yeah - I'd say that's a pretty glaring inconsistency.

Speaking of Yi Sao, lets talk about his fight with her. Because Stede in the first season is consistently shown to be a master of improvisation and using his environment and people's underestimation of him to his advantage to overcome stronger and more skilled opponents. He sends Officer Show Daddy rowing back to the British ship with some impromptu mannequins to give the Revenge time to escape after Nigel's death. He uses distraction and supersition to get the upper hand on Izz during their first encounter. He bests Izzy again in the duel using gunpowder to the eyes when he's pinned, and then using what Ed taught him about taking a stab angling to have it happen against a mast he knew would cause Izzy's sword to break. This initially carries over to the second season with Stede using his lowly position in Towels to acclimate people to deeply inhaling the scent he adds to the towels, and later uses that to his advantage to knock out the guards and escape. So it might have been one thing if Stede was in his cups and mourning Ed's departure that led him to getting overly possessive of his remaining crew and pick a fight with Zheng as a parallel of the Art Exhibition scene from season 1, and getting his ass handed to him as a parallel to Mary's attempted murder/an expression of what a deep impact Ed leaving has made on him that his normal strategizing fails him, but instead, he's getting emotional support (from IZZY of all people) and doesn't even seem tipsy, so he's got no reason to fail so profoundly, and it's played as though Yi Sao is RIGHT about him being "a mediocre man who thinks he's exceptional" when he legit JUST bested her with fucking tea towels 4 episodes ago.

Another big inconsistency for me is Stede's attitude toward Ed, over the first half of the season especially. At the end of season 1, we have Stede irrevocably torching his life as a gentleman of leisure to the ground because Mary has helped him to realize that 1) no body's life in improve by him doggedly trying to insert himself into a life he never wanted or chose for himself, and 2) he and Ed are in love with one another, and he should got find Ed about that. Then we get Stede dragging his heels in the Republic of Pirates while he "earns enough money," but his convo with Blackbeard's wanted poster reveals that he's afraid Ed's life is better off without him. Which? Real Chauncy-coded take there (and also, really? When Stede KNOWS that Ed is weary of the pirate life, but the wanted poster and rumor mill suggest he's thrown himself into it full tilt?). I could understand being worried that Ed doesn't love him anymore because Stede broke his heart, but NOT that "his life is better." But still, Stede IS determined to get back to Ed - he's just nervous about what he'll find when he does. He won't stop talking about it to anyone and everyone. He even yeets himself overboard shouting for Ed when he hears that the Red Flag has come across the Revenge. And then he thinks that he's come too late - that Ed is dead. And he manages to forestall his grief over that long enough to effect an escape, but then goes to do his mourning in private. But wonder of wonders! Ed is still alive! Stede didn't lose him after all! Imagine the rapture within his heart! And then he lets Ed leave without so much as offering to come with, when Ed has barely recovered from 1) a coma, & 2) a suicide attempt. It just doesn't make any sense in any possible world.

I also have a big problem with Mr. "Talk it through as a crew" running away from Lucius when he finally started opening up about the traumtic things he's lived through since he got shoved overboard. I've seen some posts suggesting Stede isn't doesn't prioritize or seem to care much about his crew, but that's just demonstrably not true? His first concern on awakening from being gut-stabbed was about his crew. He apologized when he lost his temper about the fuckery (Never heard an apology, Roach? Really?) and incorperated all of their ideas into the final product. Before he bought the treasure map, he inquired and found out there were no oranges for sale in St. Augustine due to a blight. Stede let Olu crash on his couch instead of having him bunk down with the rest of the crew because they were the charter members of the "my crush just left me for their old life" club and misery loves company. Even in the new season, he set aside his grief over Ed until he made sure his crew - INCLUDING the ones he thought were the ones who MURDERED THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE - were safe. So Stede running away from Lucius in his moment of unburdening himself? And it being played for COMEDY? Is not only antithetical to the established character, but to the central thesis of change being effected by the application of loving support that (I THOUGHT) was central to the whole show.

With Ed, it's mostly better, but even he doesn't escape unscathed. I'm absolutely baffled by the suggestion in episode 5 that Ed doesn't know how to be quiet and sit with his feelings when we see him: 1) stimming quietly with his silk after the "donkey" comment until Stede invited him to open up 2) stimming quietly with his silk after the French Boat Party 3) staring broodingly out to sea after the doggy heaven convo 4) isolating himself in the tub after his kraken meltdown 5) quietly sitting and folding socks 6) pillow fort isolation pod 7) standing quiet and alone after the Izzy confrontation, and apparently not seeing anyone until that night 8) stimming with silk before giving Lucius impromptu late night swimming lessons 9) playing with his dollies 10) cry alone in his room multiple times And maybe it's just that Fang doesn't see those times, because, for the most part, Ed self-isolates when he's feeling particularly emotionally vulnerable. But the show frames it as though Fang is correct? Especially in the after-credits scene where we're listening to Ed's non-stop internal monologue as he fails to sit quietly?

There's more with other characters, but, like I said, the categories are overlapping and inform one another, so I'd like to pivot to Tell-Don't-Show. Because whooo boy is there a lot of it going on. The most glaring one to me is Izzy's whole arc. I've seen a lot of people talking about extending unearned grace and how it's for the healing of the crew, not for Izzy, and that the crew are showing that they've embraced the loving support model they experienced under Stede's tenure as captain. But that doesn't change the fact that Izzy was SUCH a dick that even human-ray-of-sunshine-OLU was rooting for Stede to stab him in the duel, and by the end of last season Izzy sold them out to the English and did such a shit job at captaining that the crew (of which Fang and Frenchie were a part) unanimously voted to throw him overboard bound hand-and-foot. SOMETHING must have happened in the interim to move the needle from "gleefully ready to murder him" to "giving him hugs and unconditional positive regard therapy". But whatever it was happened entirely off-camera. We're just being asked to go along with it. And, to me, that's just bad, lazy writing.

The rest of his arc isn't much better, and highlights more of those inconsistencies. Last season, Izzy was openly dismissive and derisive about sharing feelings - it was one of his driving motivations at taking down Ed and inducing the Krakening. And now he seems to have taken the season-1-Lucius role of being the ship's emotional intelligence? Offering coping advice to Lucius. Suggesting to Ed that he should talk his feelings through. Giving support to Stede after Ed left him (again). Where would he even have accrued that skillset? I'm not saying that it's impossible for him to have changed with the loving support of his crew and in the wake of an identity crisis when he has to figure out who he is if not Blackbeard's right-hand man. What I'm saying is that very little of the actual changes happened on camera. And THAT'S what I have a problem with.

Similarly, I have a problem with the whole Yi Sao-Olu-Jim-Archie relationship tangle. Olu didn't even seem to realize Yi Sao was flirting with him until she said as much. I think he was flattered by the attention, and not averse to the idea, but that's not the same thing as being into her in return. And then, when it's relevant to the plot, we're meant to just trust that he's been secretly pining this whole time? Compare to when Jim left - before they'd even kissed. Olu spent his time mooning over the railing, telling everyone how much he missed JIm, getting drunk, and giving away his room. Since he left Yi Sao, there's been not a single word about missing her, not a moment where he even looks slightly broody. We HAVE seen him bonding with Jim and Archie. Hunkering down against the curse on the same bed as Jim and Archie. Dancing with Jim and Archie. Do you see how this LOOKS like the show is possibly moving in a throuple direction? And then we suddenly get Olu saying out of nowhere that he misses Yi Sao, Jim playing matchmaker for them, and Olu announcing that he's going to leave the revenge to be with Yi Sao. Bye, I guess. And this level of Telling-Not-Showing and inconsistency smacks of Contrivance. And Contrivance really feels like the engine that is driving most of the season to me. It looks an awful lot like the writers had an end-goal in mind, and worked backwards to get there, and along the way did all the hand-waving they had to in order to get where they wanted. Gotta have Stede & Zheng team up against Ricky for an Epic Beach Battle that pits Pirates against The Crown, but why would she want him - especially if she thinks he's "a mediocre man who thinks he's exceptional"?

Oh, what if she loses all her ships because Ricky blew them all up with the world's most contrived bombs?

But why wasn't she on the ship?

Well she was beating Stede's ass at the time.

Why was she beating his ass?

Because he picked a fight with her because he was drunk and she was poaching his crew?

Why are some of Stede's crew willing to leave him even though they were literally ride-or-die even when he was trying to find the guy that marooned them?

Oh, Olu's been in love with Yi Sao this whole time, but, like, never fucking mentioned it, just trust us.

Why was he drunk - Stede thinks drinking 'til you puke isn't fun, remember?

Oh, he is getting plied with drinks because all the pirates love him now.

Why do all the pirates love Stede now?

Because he killed some Big Name Pirate.

Stede? "I'm having a bit of a hard time adjusting to being a mur... mur... murderer?" Stede? Are you sure?

Yeah. He's totally butch now.

....How?

He trained on how to be a pirate with Izzy.

Izzy. The guy that conspired with the British specifically to murder Stede Bonnet? Why?

Ed said he needed to work on his "mean voice" and be more dom assertive.

Why would Ed ever say that? He loves that Stede is out there doing things like no one else.

Because Stede doesn't feel like a captain.

Even though he's calling all-hands meetings and mediating crew grievences and rescuing his crew and no one is challenging his authority or even questioning whether his devotion to his boyfriend is possibly compromising his ability to do his job?

...Yes?

But why Izzy? Stede hates Izzy. Izzy hates Stede. Surely these are universal constants.

Izzy's nice now. He's been rehabilitated by the love of the crew.

...How?

Jingly keys.

#I'm gonna stop there because I've already devoted 3 hours to you nonnie #if you don't believe me by now that I'm not just having thoughtless knee-jerk reactions I don't see how I could possibly convince you #anyway lots of love and I hope you're able to keep enjoying the show #but if my grousing is gonna imperil your enjoyment the block button is v. convenient I've been told #ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd s2 spoilers

22 notes · View notes