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bestworstcase · 2 years

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back on the subject of what raven learned: i think it’s probably useful to start by considering what we know with certainty, which is what ozpin told team strq—in all likelihood, the exact same rundown rnjr got in v4-5.

thus:

1 - the gods from the myth of the two brothers are real, and that story is accurate in the essentials.

2 - there are four extraordinarily powerful relics, each representing one of the four gifts given to humanity by the gods, which—if used together—could change the world.

3 - we have an enemy called salem, who commands the grimm and wants to use the relics. it is imperative that we prevent her from doing so. the huntsmen academies exist to serve this purpose.

4 - the fairytale “the story of the seasons” is also true, and the maidens are real and still exist today.

5 - the four relics have been hidden away in special vaults, each of which can ONLY be opened by the power of a specific maiden. the maidens are therefore our first and most important line of defense against salem, and protecting the relics means that we must carefully safeguard the maidens to ensure their power never falls into salem’s hands.

6 - long ago, ozpin tried to stop salem and failed, so the gods cursed him to reincarnate over and over again until he could fix his mistake.

7 - we cannot tell anybody else about the relics, about the maidens, or about salem, because that would risk causing a panic, and that would cause chaos and bloodshed.

8 - salem is cunning; she works from the shadows to turn us against each other, uses other people to get what she wants, and leaves us pointing fingers at ourselves when it all falls apart. she seeks to divide us, and she’s frighteningly good at it.

so, raven hears all of this—maybe all at once, more probably as a slow trickle of information as team strq is brought into the inner circle—and her reaction is that she wants to know more. she’s in her late teens or early twenties, she was raised by bandits, and her original intention when she enrolled at beacon was to learn how to take down huntsmen; while she’s come to trust ozpin since then, a bit of suspicious cynicism has to be baked into her thinking still, because of how she grew up. if she starts asking questions, ozpin likely gets cagey or vague—that’s how he reacts when team rwby really start to question him in 6.2, and that kind of dodginess probably sets off all kinds of alarm bells in raven’s head.

what is he hiding?

there are some…pretty obvious questions raised by the “truth” as ozpin conveys it to his inner circle. he’s been coasting on his authority (as a teacher or as a king) for decades and leveraging the mystique of a wise old immortal to avoid any scrutiny of his narrative, so raven’s drive to find out more likely began with trying to fill in the gaps of what ozpin told them. specifically:

1 - under what circumstances did ozpin “fail to stop” salem before? that implies a victory for her—did she get the relics then? did she use them? did the gods need to intervene, and if so why didn’t they just get rid of salem themselves? if we’re trying to stop salem now, but ozpin failed to stop her in the past, she must have been defeated at some point after her original victory; how and when did that happen, and why wasn’t it enough to lift ozpin’s curse?

2 - if salem operates by turning people against each other in secret so we’ll blame each other instead of her, why is it so important to keep her a secret? doesn’t that just help her? something doesn’t add up here.

3 - how can ozpin know so little about salem, after all these lifetimes fighting her? there’s got to be more to this than—what, a queen-grimm who controls all the others but is also some kind of criminal mastermind? sure, the creatures of grimm get more cunning with age, but… political espionage? manipulating people into serving as her pawns? all for the sake of getting her hands on these four relics? that doesn’t sound like a grimm.

and, because ozpin confirmed the basic veracity of two well-known pieces of folklore, the obvious first step towards answering some of these questions is to examine those stories. “the story of the seasons” is fairly innocuous, and therefore something of a dead end… but the tale of the two brothers doesn’t line up super well with what ozpin said: there’s no mention of the relics, nothing that seems like it has to do with ozpin or salem, and the central conceit of the story itself is that the gods of light and darkness are fighting about whether to wipe humans out of existence or not, which is ALARMING in the context of ozpin having just confirmed that these two gods are real.

how do the relics fit into that? where did salem come from? in one part of “the two brothers,” both gods secretly make something new, to harm or help humanity as they prefer: in the story, it’s more grimm and an unspecified gift, but… might that have been salem and ozpin? are these—people? beings?—both some sort of living weapon fashioned by the gods? is this whole thing just a proxy war for the argument between the evil god and his benevolent brother? or… is salem the “evil in the world” that humanity must destroy in order to prove worthy?

hang on—in the story, the two gods tried to leave remnant, but they couldn’t, because they’d grown too weak, so instead they went to sleep and agreed to judge humanity when they wake up. the myth says that creating the world is what weakened them, but what if it was actually salem? could it be that ozpin really WAS involved in this divine war, some kind of champion the god of light chose to defend humanity from something new the god of darkness had made… only he failed, and that dark creation—salem—did something that wounded or even killed the gods? so now he’s cursed to keep coming back for as long as she still exists?

much to think about. (and given that this is a religious myth, raven could build herself a whole tower of theological discourse and scholarly literature on the topic of the brother gods and their promised day of judgment: there are a million rabbit holes she could follow from here.)

what about the other fairytales? there must be more stories about ozpin hiding in plain sight, surely, and with the right criteria searching for them should be simple enough. raven just has to look for stories that feature:

1 - a wizard

2 - reincarnation

3 - magical artifacts

4 - a strangely powerful grimm

5 - the brother gods

and we know a few fairytales that fit one or more of those criteria, don’t we? “the infinite man” is unambiguously about ozpin; “the grimm child” is about a kind of grimm that possesses people, turns people into grimm; and “the indecisive king” is about a magical crown which shows a king terrifying visions of a dire crossroads in his future, a plausible candidate for either the relic of choice or knowledge.

it’s possible—easy, even—to slot all three of these tales neatly into the speculation from “the two brothers.” if raven concludes that the indecisive king was indeed ozpin and she’s trying to fit ozpin’s origin story as he explained it into the myth of the brother gods, then it’s not implausible to wonder if, maybe, the king was his original life. could the magical crown—the four relics ozpin possesses even now!—have been the secret gift the god of light gave to empower humankind? were they given to ozpin to warn him of the new threat the god of darkness had created, so that he could prepare to defeat it? did the impossible crossroads he foresaw have to do with his eventual battle with salem—the battle that he *lost*?

next, “the grimm child.” it’s noted that this tale has some significant similarities to another fairytale about a “white witch in the woods,” and while we’ve yet to get any further information about THAT story, it’s probable that raven would have come across it, taken note of those similarities, and concluded that both were related to salem somehow. further, a “chill” is a real kind of grimm, but in ozpin’s commentary he remarks that real ones are far less powerful than the one in the story—only capable of inhabiting a corpse for a few seconds, and unable to convincingly mimic humans… but perhaps this fictional depiction of a chill is an accurate depiction of how salem came to be? in “the two brothers,” the god of darkness makes more grimm in secret to “plague” humanity and also to “test their limits.” perhaps, then, he unleashed a special kind of chill—one powerful enough to act like the one in the fairytale? is that what salem is? an incredibly old chill fashioned by the god of darkness himself, powerful enough to truly possess people and able to take over a new host every time ozpin gets too close to defeating her?

that would certainly explain how a grimm can be capable of political espionage, and it even gives a reason for the intense secrecy. the mere idea of a grimm like that really existing is both horrifying and impossible to prove, and if people knew about it salem could exploit the fear of one’s own allies being possessed to sow paranoia and division on an unprecedented scale.

lastly, “the infinite man” follows ozpin through three of his lives, in which he starts a movement, builds a following, becomes worshipped as a god, and then brutally falls at the hands of a rival army. this story clearly takes place after the original failure to stop salem, because he’s reincarnating; but there’s no mention of the gods or the relics, and only oblique references to a danger that might be salem. there are also, apparently, numerous different variations on this tale, which could keep raven busy for quite a while. the key takeaway, though, is that at some point after the original battle with salem, ozpin lost or hid or otherwise did not have immediate possession of the relics; perhaps they were already locked away in their vaults? (unless raven knew that the vaults were a recent measure; ozpin hasn’t said this in so many words, exactly, but he’s not made a secret of the fact that the relics were sealed in those vaults some time in the last eighty or so years, and conceivably more in the neighborhood of 20-30.)

another thing that i think raven would really hone in on, with “the infinite man,” is ozpin choosing to let himself be killed because he trusted his enemy’s word that she would spare his followers if he lost their duel. in the story, she absolutely does not keep that promise, and i bet raven—with her cynical raised-by-bandits streak and her disinclination to take what she’s told at face value—would think ozpin’s choice was Fucking Stupid, and that’s another crack in the foundations of her trust. if salem were to make a promise like that now, would he fall for it again? can they really trust him to keep fighting for them if salem tries to bait him into sacrificing himself?

and from here… well, digging into the literature regarding remnant’s folk history is one option; and there are no doubt plenty of other fairytales and myths related to ozma’s many lives that we haven’t been told because they simply aren’t narratively relevant enough to devote time to. scouring the historical record is another possibility—difficult to say how much might be left of ancient human civilizations, because if humanity re-evolved after the massacre then we’re talking a time span of probably tens of millions of years and the massacre itself would be an approximate analogue to the K-T extinction event; whereas if something or someone brought them back the timeline might be quite a bit shorter, and ancient human ruins more readily available (but then we also have some big unanswered questions about *how*). the grimm campaign suggests that ancient ruins with magically-enchanted artifacts in them do exist in mistral, but those ruins don’t necessarily date back to pre-massacre humanity; they could also be the ruins of the ozlem kingdom.

regardless, chasing rumors and legends of magic might have led raven down any number of bizarre rabbit holes and to any number of unsettling conclusions. i think it’s likely that her basic understanding of the truth is predicated on how she applied what ozpin told team strq to the same folktales that have been revealed to us, partly because those are the ones with connections to the truth that would be obvious to someone whose starting knowledge came from ozpin’s rundown of the situation, and partly because i don’t…think raven knows Significant Lore that we the audience do not, i think she’s got mostly the same puzzle pieces but she put them together on her own, rather than by hearing jinn’s narration of ozpin’s side of the whole story.

had raven played a role in v6-8 i’d be more inclined to believe that she really KNOWS something big that we don’t yet, but with v6-8 m setting up the pieces, then showing the characters interpreting those pieces in various ways, and then making such a deliberate point of hazel being given the opportunity to ask the spirit of knowledge for the objective truth and DECLINING to take it… i’m convinced that the remaining secrets are mostly matters of perspective, and whatever lore reveals we’re getting in v9 will be mostly clarifications that change our understanding of the facts we already have rather than entirely new information. which would necessarily mean that raven knows more or less what we do, but she’s arranged that information into a different narrative.

(this would also square A LOT better with salem’s general theme of storytellers having incredible power over the way their audiences perceive the facts and understand reality. raven is the maiden of knowledge, and her most important role in the narrative so far has been to plant the seeds of critical thinking that ultimately lead to the kids breaking out from ozpin’s authority and discovering the facts he hid from them—embodying the storytelling theme as it is discussed in the commentary on “the girl in the tower.” and of course, in v6 the spirit of knowledge herself turned out to be a STORYTELLER, offering both facts and a narrative that is, in v8, implicitly questioned by several characters via the uncertainty and speculation on what salem actually intends to DO.)

and… given that, i think it’s really interesting how easy it would be for raven to have gotten it almost right, if she tried to fit these fairytales together with ozpin’s explanation? there’s plenty of wiggle room in this limited collection of facts and fiction to get to something like: the god of darkness made salem to torment humanity, so the god of light made ozpin his champion and equipped him with these relics in order to fight her. but ozpin failed, and salem somehow got rid of the gods—hurt them or drove them away or even killed them—so now we’re stuck with her and ozpin is cursed to reincarnate until he’s able to stop her once and for all.

the big missing pieces here are “the girl in the tower,” which lacks any obvious connections to the divine war or ozpin himself, and the very personal history between ozma and salem—which is a hole in raven’s knowledge that would have a critical impact on her understanding of who and what salem is, assuming that salem didn’t fill it for her. (which feels likely even if they DID meet, given how tight-lipped salem is about her past even with her own inner circle.) and of course many of the details here are wrong or scrambled by guesswork, but the basic narrative of salem and ozpin being, effectively, proxies for the conflict between the gods themselves who were in some way created or chosen for that specific purpose does feel like a reasonable conclusion to draw from this. 🤔

i’m also… fairly convinced at this point that raven HASN’T used either of the relics she might conceivably have had access to (the lamp, whose vault she could open; and the crown, if ozpin’s special arrangements involved moving it elsewhere). because:

1 - ozpin has a very particular way of lying; he seldom if ever uses outright falsehoods. his lies are mostly little bits of fact presented with minimal context and arranged in such a way as to get people to believe a certain untrue thing. (consider how he blends his actual mandate together with his subsequent failure to get salem on board in order to produce “the gods cursed me to reincarnate because i failed to stop salem,” for example.) so, when he says in 6.2 that “the [lamp’s] questions were used before i sealed it away,” i’m inclined to think that was partly true—as in, ozpin DID ask one question before sealing the lamp in its vault.

2 - we also know that ozpin himself played a role in a particular event for which the lamp would have been VERY valuable, namely the elevation of atlas. (ironwood makes several statements in v7 that together make it clear that he was present and involved with the plan to raise atlas using the staff; hence, it must have occurred sometime in the last 20-30 years and ozpin almost certainly the one who made the actual request.) i think it’s also quite likely that the vaults were created and the relics sealed within around the same time, because that makes sense; they use the staff to raise atlas, then put the staff in the vault underneath atlas and seal it away, and for good measure they hide the other three relics under the other three academies at the same time.

anyway—the nature of the staff is that it gives you EXACTLY what you ask for. the value of asking the lamp a question to failure-proof your specifications before handing them over to ambrosius is obvious, and with so many lives at stake should something go wrong ozpin would’ve had a huge incentive to do just that. also, if he used one question then, he could have heavily implied to his inner circle that it was the last question for this century, thus heading off any inconvenient future suggestions about using the lamp for anything else. all he’d have to do is ask the question alone, ensuring that no one else could learn jinn’s name or hear her say how many questions she actually had left.

3 - if ozpin DID use a single question 20-30 years ago, that definitively rules out the possibility of anybody else using the lamp since then.

4 - on the other hand, if raven used the first question, that raises a few questions of its own: a) how did she learn the password? b) how did she get into the vault’s chamber without anyone noticing, given that lionheart carried the key around with him and the entrance itself is a huge statue in the lobby of haven academy’s administrative building? it’s not impossible for raven to sneak in, but that would have been a huge risk for someone so determined to keep her status as the spring maiden a secret. and c) why would raven stop at one? why not ask all three of the available questions? even if she initially only had one question in mind, if raven was so determined to learn the truth that she actually snuck into the vault to use the relic of knowledge for herself, surely she would have had some follow-up questions after jinn dropped the lost fable into her lap?

5 - as for the crown, i think it’s been either hidden in a vault underneath the emerald forest ruins this whole time OR ozpin moved it (or possibly moved the vault?) to that location after amber was attacked, for reasons of not stashing the comatose key to the beacon vault right outside the vault itself. in all circumstances, raven would’ve needed the fall maiden to open the vault for her and trusted the fall maiden to keep her mouth shut about it—which feels unlikely at any point in the timeline after raven arrived at distrusting ozpin enough to consider breaking into a vault a good use of her time. if the crown was moved from one location to another, it was theoretically accessible during the transfer—but the most obvious reason for ozpin to take that risk is amber being attacked, and raven was long gone by that point with little incentive to use the crown, because she’d already made her choice by then. it’s not impossible—and there are other intriguing possibilities for how raven might theoretically have gotten her hands on the crown, such as it just never having been in a vault at all—but it feels like a long shot.

further—just on a thematic level—while the character of each maiden is centered around the quality of the relic she guards, i think it’s significant that none of them have used the relics EXCEPT cinder—and that the relics cinder used were knowledge and creation, not her own relic of choice. i’ve discussed this before, but i think the main narrative role the maidens fulfill is to examine the structures ozpin developed to support his conspiracy and the widespread societal and indivual harm those structures cause. the old-guard maidens within the conspiracy are dehumanized, mere tools kept under lock and key or careful supervision; penny, raven and winter all represent varying degrees of imperfect separation from the conspiracy, with penny struggling to escape it, raven hiding from its shadow, and winter rising shell-shocked and grieving from its smoking ruin. none of these maidens are able to interact directly with the relics they’re meant to protect, because ozpin has, in his fear, literally divided humanity; separated the four essential qualities that together define the human soul, isolated them, reduced them to mere objects to be hidden away and hoarded until the end of time.

but cinder is salem’s maiden, not ozpin’s, and moreover she’s the maiden of choice. she isn’t bound by the restrictions the conspiratorial structures impose on the other maidens because she wasn’t supposed to become a maiden in the first place. she tore this power out of the structures ozpin built around it, chose it for herself, and has been gleefully making it her own ever since. so… of course she uses the relic of knowledge as soon as she figures out how to do so, casually and easily and without an ounce of anxiety about using up the last question. and naturally she uses the staff of creation for something as petty and ridiculous as Set This Asshole On Fire Please :). cinder exists so far outside the control of the crumbling structures that burden the other maidens that not only is she able to use whatever relics she wants, using them isn’t even a big deal for her. this is all—like, thematically, symbolically, it makes a very precise point about the rippling harms done by ozpin’s conspiracy; and while it wouldn’t be impossible to do raven using a relic in a way that fit into this pattern, i think it’s simpler and cleaner not to.

LASTLY—if raven hasn’t ever used a relic herself, then that leaves an encounter with salem as the likeliest possibility for raven having gotten some final piece of shattering information, some last straw that made her dawning horror and suspicion snap into desperation to just get the fuck away from this entire mess. and that’s… intriguing, because i really don’t think salem would have told her anything?—not anything important, at least, and certainly not any more than she’s told her own cabal. but there are some options that feel rather plausible:

1 - raven had some theory about the gods and/or salem’s origins that she went looking to prove or disprove, which brought her to the uninhabited continent and by extension to salem; and while it’s possible that salem caught her, it’s not inconceivable that raven might have slipped under the radar and stumbled across evernight *without* salem’s notice. that alone might have been terrifying enough to make her crack—it’s one thing to know there’s an ancient, malevolent being out there who commands the grimm, quite another to trip over her castle and see grimm spawning out of the pools all around it. even more if she caught a good look at salem herself

2 - or else salem did catch her and, upon identifying her as ozpin’s spy, tried to get raven to switch sides. in that case high odds raven got a personal demonstration of salem’s invincibility (terrifying but probably not a shock for her at this point!) and enough of a conversation to confirm that salem is either not really a grimm, or she’s a grimm so old and so intelligent that she’s able to persuasively act like a person (both terrifying options with the potential to crack any notions raven had of this being a straightforward humans-vs-soulless-monsters war, also terrifying.) and while it seems… doubtful that salem divulged anything about her past, virtually anything she said of her plans for the future has the potential for horror given what raven already knew or had guessed. bent on destroying the huntsmen academies and ozma’s legacy generally? vague talk of a “new world”? even the slightest implication that salem intends to challenge the gods themselves? NONE of that sounds good when you’re already up to your eyeballs in an everlasting shadow war between the gods, holy fuck.

3 - i said this in the other post but i really do think “she can’t be reasoned with” is a stance raven came by out of personal experience, by trying to reason with salem herself and failing or watching someone else do the same. one thing i’ve been mulling over today is salem’s recruitment of hazel—which she accomplished by letting him kill her over and over again until he exhausted himself to the point of not being able to move. being able to just outlast everything is such a potent weapon in salem’s arsenal, and she clearly knows it; and that applies not just to physical endurance but also to sheer refusal to budge during an argument. like… the woman has had literally millions of years to think about her situation and figure out exactly where she stands, and while she’s flexible in tactics her position in this conflict with ozma and the gods is never going to change. she’s never going to stop seeing the brothers as tyrannical monsters, and she’s always going to despise ozma for serving them; everything else she does arises from that, and it is utterly pointless to try to change her mind. but that doesn’t mean she won’t let someone try, yeah? let someone talk at her until their voice gives out and they’ve run through every single argument they can think of and they’re exhausted, and then hit them with a calmly implacable reiteration of purpose. let them really feel the futility of trying to change her mind. maybe they’ll be so weary that they just give up and accept the rightness of her position—or maybe they’ll shatter and stumble into a portal back to their brother in crisis because this is so, so much worse than what they thought. who knows!

4 - given that raven was a spy, and given the likelihood that she had at least some kind of conversation with salem a couple decades years ago, and given that raven remarks “i told you ozpin would fail, and he did; i told you beacon would fall, and it did,” i think a lot about the possibility that raven knew salem was considering an assault on the academies, beacon specifically. twenty years is not a long time and while salem hadn’t found a maiden candidate at that point she must have already been getting her ducks in a row as she reached whatever tipping point prompted her to make her move now—and if raven got a recruitment pitch then she might have gleaned a hint or two about what salem wanted to recruit her for. (d’you think salem took one look at this scared young woman who took it upon herself to find the truth and figured out enough to leave her faith in ozpin in tatters and saw a relic-vault-skeleton-key in the making?)

and then, well. once you’ve realized you’re in a cosmic horror story there’s really no going back, is there? on the one hand a duplicitous servant of one god who’s trapped in a doomed and unending cycle of war with an enemy who can’t be killed or reasoned with; on the other an immortal thing who might be human or might be something eerily good at pretending with an agenda she intends to pursue to the end even if it means burning the whole world down to ash to do it. what the fuck.—but the worst part of all this is that, for the rest of team strq, a lot of this might well have felt like old news? we know ozpin’s failed in the past, raven. we know salem’s ancient, of course she wouldn’t be that easy to kill, and we know she’s evil, come on. of course things are bad but this is literally what we signed up for.

because, sure, raven went digging and figured out a lot more detail than ozpin was willing to volunteer… but she didn’t discover the critical missing piece, the personal history ozma has with salem, that would have revealed just how DEEP the lies went. like fundamentally ozpin’s betrayal lies in knowing exactly who salem is, what she is, why she is, the precise nature of her immortality, and obscuring all of that to guide people into war against a vague, faceless, ancient enemy. as long as he’s able to keep the personal history a secret, the particular details anyone in his circle gleans don’t really matter that much. at worst you get a situation like raven’s, where she figures out a rough approximation of the bigger picture and the terror breaks her—or like lionheart, who takes the other option of giving salem whatever she asks for just to survive a little longer. like *waves hands* imagine a lost fable where the only thing we learned was that ozma was sent to remnant to fulfill his mandate and salem is his immortal adversary. the reaction would have been a lot more along the lines of: well, okay? we know more about the relics now and “immortal” sounds alarming but i guess we shouldn’t be surprised, all things considered. it was the shock of specifically learning that salem isn’t “immortal” in the nebulous way that ozpin is immortal, she’s immortal in the “will NEVER die and is IMPOSSIBLE to destroy” way, on top of finding out that ozpin knew EVERYTHING, that produced that feeling of shattering betrayal.

and unless salem told her the whole story, that’s not information raven would have been able to share with her team, so in all likelihood they just… kind of met what she told them with a shrug.

#where is raven’s conspiracy board i would like t—#OH HAHAHA #a CONSPIRACY of RAVENS #anyway i would like to see raven’s pile of unhinged fairytale notes

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nomaejie · 1 year

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This is what i wrote about SxF fantasy AU because I think about it a lot. It's a character setting and I don't go too deep. (I wrote it in Vietnamese and slapped it all into the translator):

The human government in the past was afraid of the power of the mystical creature, so they forced the magical creature to yield to avoid war. It's all a conspiracy from King Ostawest (a combination name of Ostania and Westalis because I'm bad at naming). He has quietly cooperated with other factions (including mystical creature like the Desmond) and especially witches. They created the magic machine to suck all the magic of the world. Taking advantage of that energy source for personal gain and developing the weapons industry. As the world lost its magic, the difference in strength between humans and mystical creature was no longer a scary thing. Those mystical creature that still retain their original powers (it is the nobility who know the secret of Ostawest) will be called Pure Blood. They are highly respected in society.

700 years later, a mysterious organization called Apple (?), combined with an aristocratic family opposed to Desmond, conducts an experiment to create an artificial mystical creature: the Chimera. They wanted to create a power that could defeat Desmond and gain power over the country. Apple on the other hand doesn't care about politics, they want to study the power limit of mystical creature.

Anya is born and becomes the most successful creation of the organization. A Beast that can use magic like a witch. They intended to raise Anya as a weapon until the WISE Graden intervened.

The WISE Graden is a free organization in Ostania city. They have the role of protecting the struggle to protect the peace between humans and mystical creature, eliminating the danger between two races. Twilight and his parter, Yor, stormed the Apple base and took Anya. At that time, they did not know about the purpose behind Apple but only thought that they were illegally experimenting on mystical creature. Loid and Yor decide to adopt Anya and send her to Eden School.

Eden academy is the only remaining magic school in the world, open to both mystical creature and humans. The school is divided into 3 faculties:

Warriors: 80%. Those who want to learn to use weapons, martial arts for fighting.

Beast: accounts for 18%. People who have the ability to transform into large creatures. Here they will teach you how to use your abilities in combat.

Witches: 2%. An almost extinct ability. Although any species can use a spell or two if they have the talent. But witches are people with special powers, they can possess countless spells, the ability to wield the power to shake the world. The teacher of the department of witchcraft is Henreson – one of the 10 remaining orthodox witches. Upon entering the school, each student will be given an apprentice wand, made specifically for that person, by the school. The whole Eden school only has a total of 10 students who meet the requirements to become witches.

Anya: Chimera born from the experiment. Because of her past trauma, she doesn't like her Beast form. After being adopted and healed by Loid and Yor. She asked to learn to be a witch, so her parents sent her to Eden as a human. Anya was attracted to Damian from the beginning probably because they were both creatures that were bred from many different species. However, Damian at that time was because of his arrogant brat, refusing Anya's friend request. Disgusted with Damian's attitude, Anya also gave up on it. However, one day she discovered Damian secretly learning magic in a small corner of the schoolyard. Worried but also curious as to why a Beast would want to learn magic, Anya decided to stop and watch, not expecting Damian's mistake to cause an accident and summon a fire monster. Damian and Anya must then work together to defeat the demonic beast. Damian felt extremely ashamed of his mistake. After many things happened to each other, the two somehow became (secret) friend. Damian will teach help her with homework., in return she teaches Damian magic.

As a Chimera, Anya can use 5 types of elements: fire, water, wind, lightning, and darkness. In addition, she also has the ability to expand to more advanced types of magic, but has been warned by her parents not to arbitrarily learn miscellaneous things. The first magic Anya mastered was fire. Although she is no longer disgusted with her Beast form, she wants to reveal the truth to outsiders.. One time, she lost in a Dungeon with Becky, she transformed into Chimera to save both of them from escaping. The two were back at school looking for first aid supplies then they ran into Damian. Damian became the second person to know her secret. Later, at Becky's encouragement, Anya asked Damian to teach her how to use Beast's powers. Damian: Second son of the prestigious Desmond family – Landlord of the city of Ostania, the political and military capital of Ostawest. Also a Pure Blood. He wanted to learn more about witchcraft but was forced into the Beast by the wishes of his family. Anya secretly teaches him some spells. Around his neck was a Desmond family heirloom magic key. His spells are wind (falcon), and fire (lion part). In addition, Giffin's sharp claws and beak is a weapon that makes most other mystical creature wary. When in human form, Damian can only use a little magic because he does not have a wand.

Becky: A Pure Blood Black Cat witch, she is in the same class with Anya. She was the only daughter of the Blackbell family – closely related to the Desmonds. The family is extremely wealthy and possesses a lot of magical items – which are now very rare in the world. Becky loves to brag about the magic labels she wears on her hands. Blackbell's main spell is lightning, familiar is a black panther.

Yor: The ultimate Pure Blood Vampire. Her power is the most primitive. 700 years ago the Bair house was like discovering the dark secret of the Ostawest royal family and was purged. To protect their blood, Yor's parents sealed the child and hid them underground. 700 years later, someone awakens Yor. Lost in the new world, Yor becomes a bounty hunter. She is then recruited by Twilight of WISE. Loid: A human witch. Quite weak because he can only use 10 spells. That's why he mainly used power-enhancing magic to engage in physical combat with the enemy. As a child, Loid's village was involved in a war between humans and mystical creature, resulting in the death of the entire village including Loid's mother. Before the incident happened, Loid's Father asked Loid to find out the "secret of the world". He became a warrior for a living until the age of 16 when he joined WISE. Because of the tragedy of the past, Loid is always worried about keeping the peace, dissolving the stigma and discrimination between the two species. Also find the answer to what the “world secret” is.

Yuri: Unlike Yor, Yuri was found by the government and brainwashed to become a bodyguard for the King. He is still searching for his lost sister.

The Black Forest: an area for exiled mystical creature who oppose living with humans who have been banished from the kingdom and have to live forever in the forest of darkness. The people there became radicalized and vowed to destroy all humans and traitors. The first person Yor meets when she wakes up is from the Black Forest, they have instructed Yor to become a bounty hunter. The real purpose is to use her power to kill innocent people.

#fantasy AU #I have a habit of having to come up with a specific setup for any AU I draw #Even though it might be very uninteresting sorry

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firendgold · 10 months

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This might be a bit of a rant but I just went through the dumbledore meta tag and theres way to many people who say that he groomed Harry to die. When thats not the case at all. Like okay prior to the end of gof he believed Harry had to die but its not like he wanted it. Its just that Harry had to die so voldemort could die and then Harry had to believe he had to die so he could survive. And I know people say it might be too complicated but its not that because I understood it when I was 11. And with the horcruxes dumbledore obviously wanted to destroy them all himself its just he died before he could and he only brought Harry along to get the locket because he needed another person. And he was the one to drink the poison. Like honestly if dumbledore had so little regard for Harry he would have just killed him himself. Voldemort even gives him the perfect opportunity at the end of ootp. And brings it up. Dumbledore probably would not have protected Harry right before he died either. Its just so very frustrating to me that its such a prevelant thought even amongst people who arent fully anti dumbledore.

Rants are okay! More than welcome here. Not like I haven't gone on several of my own.

Full disclosure though anon, I don't go through that tag or through Albus' regular tag for mostly that reason, so I don't know what the newest incorrect ideas circling are. The grooming narrative is wrong and tired, which in this fandom of constantly-recycled ideas is a miracle. There are so many people who either 1) haven't read the books, 2) have read the books but haven't read closely enough into Dumbledore's parts to fully understand him, or 3) some combination of the above, but they still feel fully qualified to play telephone with some incorrect BS that one fan said years ago and spread those fanon interpretations around like gospel.

Dumbledore's status as the "wise" one who has all the answers is incorrectly conflated with the idea that "he knows and he chooses every decision for every other character". Which isn't only incorrect, it's also horribly infantilizing and demeaning to other fully grown characters who make decisions which impact the greater story.

Similarly to yourself at age 11, it's not very hard for people of any age to posit out why That Woman had Dumbledore in the positions he was in, and why he made the decisions he made, without bashing by dumbing it down to "Albus, a character who famously turned down positions for fear of becoming too powerful and controlling, made all these decisions because he wanted power and control actually".

Dumbledore has a lot of political positions because he defeated Grindelwald and, after the whole "this war happened at the same time as the Muggle World War 2" thing, there probably weren't that many powerful, smart, qualified witches and wizards left in the whole world that people could trust. You know, because Grindelwald and his acolytes murdered them all.

It's likely that Dumbledore didn't want to be Supreme Mugwump and a Hogwarts Transfiguration Professor at the same time, let alone be lugging around an Order of Merlin, First Class, but he was probably overruled. The wizarding world had to had a hero to celebrate, after all. Didn't Albus realize what he'd done? He'd saved the continent! Stopped a madman! Who else is going to help us run our broken nations from the International Confederation of Wizards?

Dumbledore was somehow the only teacher in a school full of children able to recognize the budding fascist sociopath and his equally loathsome little gang, but (as he already says in HBP) he didn't intervene the second Tom stepped into Hogwarts because he believed that Tom deserved a chance to make a better first impression on his teachers and peers than he'd made on Dumbledore himself. Now, mind you, if he had gone around talking about what he'd learned about Tom Riddle, who's to say anyone in this "purebloods rule, everyone else drools" society would have taken him seriously? And then the fandom would have complained that "Dumbledore didn't let Tom meet people naturally and have a second chance to be better". You literally cannot win with these people.

Dumbledore didn't know about Petunia's personality or life beyond that she wrote him once asking to come to Hogwarts and that she was Lily's only surviving relative. All that other shit is FANON. The only people who knew what an ugly person Petunia likely was by 1981 was James Potter (who's dead by the time this knowledge matters) and Severus Snape (who, I notice, did not seem bothered by having Harry live with her and never brought it up).

This idea that Albus "knew" the Dursleys were bad and left Harry there anyway is wrong and we still don't have specifics on what exactly he suspected was going on at the Dursleys once Harry started at Hogwarts. (Because that's another big fanon idea, that Harry told people about the Dursleys in detail and asked not to go back. Neither of those things happened. Harry's not that type of character.) For fuck's sake, McGonagall in book one was not saying she sensed the Dursleys were going to mistreat Harry by neglecting him, she was worried that he was going to turn out like Dudley, who at age ONE was "screaming for sweets" while lashing out at his mom in public. This is exactly why book 6 Dumbledore makes a point of telling the Dursleys that their neglect for Harry was inexcusable, BUT they had also abused their other child by being too indulgent with him.

I've talked about this in other places, but Harry is not allowed to have autonomy over his own thoughts and decisions according to some fans. They believe all his decisions were "manipulated", so he can't have made them on his own. (Harry deciding to sacrifice himself because he understands that defeating Voldemort is more important than his own life, even if he does want to keep living??? GASP!) But often in their own works, in the quest to get Harry away from "manipulative Dumbledore" they just shove him under someone that they turn into an actually manipulative person, whether that's a girlfriend or boyfriend or mysterious relative or godfather or resurrected parents or what-have-you.

That brings us to the oft-relitigated plot points "when did Dumbledore learn about the Horcruxes/realize Harry was about to die", which I think you've covered more than aptly in your ask. Dumbledore didn't realize Harry was a Horcrux until the end of year 2. Dumbledore didn't want Harry to die. Dumbledore had multiple chances to kill Harry, or let him die, in the narrative that he actively did not take. And the fact that Dumbledore's very last act was to protect Harry from possibly being permakilled by someone Lily's bond of blood DIDN'T cover makes it very clear that to the end Dumbledore worked to give Harry his best chance to survive, even if he wasn't 100% sure of that possibility of survival. There were no other options, or they would have been taken.

The opposite side of this argument doesn't even make sense, because it would mean that Dumbledore did know 100% that Harry could come back thanks to Voldemort hijacking the blood protection. So then... what do bashers want him to do in that scenario? Throw Harry at Voldemort one summer for the lolz? What if Voldemort had double-tapped on Harry at age 15? Two Avada Kedavras juuuust to make sure. There goes the whole rest of the series.

Dumbledore says in DH that "Harry must not know, not until the last moment", which to me says he envisions Harry not learning that last terrible thing until all of Voldemort's other Horcruxes have been destroyed, so that he can (paraphrasing) have the strength to do then what must be done—annnd then hopefully come back and kick Tom's ass.

*sigh*

Like I said, I typically don't go through those tags for that reason. It just leads to me blocking or muting lots of people. It's bad enough that a bunch of TERFs who don't even care about the books are hijacking the fandom now, the last thing I need to think about is people who are actually fans letting their feelings get in the way of their reading comprehension.

#fireandgoldposts #thanks for the ask!#not fireandgold #it's no secret at this point that I'm pro ''treat Albus Dumbledore exactly as he deserves and dispense with the bashing bullshit''#he definitely made mistakes and has flaws but overinflating them is stupid #just search 'harry and dumbledore' on tumblr anon and you'll mostly be fine. stay out of the standard tags lmao #or mute every literally anti-albus variant tag like I have #this ask took forever to answer sorry about that :')

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allronix · 2 years

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On Jedi conscription/recruitment

Part 2 of the whole bit with @writerbuddha

Again, fabulous work and thank you for it.

If I am not wrong, the “Jedi critical” position is that when you have monks with swords on your doorstep, saying, your baby is blessed with divine power, and the state gives them right to take them and train them in their tradition, and they say, it’s very risky to leave them in your care, the only reasonable reaction is to slam the door into their faces and flee with your baby.

The fairy tale logic is that these omni-benevolent wizard-priests come down from their mountain to the peasant like the Angel to Mary in the Book of Luke (irony, much?) and see this big Mark of Destiny on the infant. After much ooohs and ahhs, the peasant happily gives their tot to the care of these wise and wonderful wizard-priests because this is such a wonderful honor! Who would dare keep a hero from their Great Destiny unless they were some Owen Lars selfish killjoy who wanted to grasp and hold their aspiring hero so that he never achieves what God and the Force have set out…?

The deconstruction logic is going “How ‘voluntary’ is this practice?” Especially given how real life religious organizations have used the whole “voluntarily given up the child to the church” explanation and then abused (or worse) the kids in their care. The nightmarish track record of the Catholic Church is what an American audience will be most familiar with when it comes to this practice. Perhaps it was more benevolent in other cultures, but perhaps not. The other question is asking if it is for the benefit of the child, or the benefit of the organization.

Note: I also have to admit that Neo Pagan outlook is part of this. Neo Pagans are, at least in my experience, spiritual refugees. It’s a path that attracts many who suffered abuse or deep alienation from organized religious faiths and religious institutions. High percentages of women (who are deemed inferior, spiritually unclean, or otherwise “second class” in most religious paths) and LGBTQ+ people.

Can only speak for myself, but my take on it is that there’s a HUGE power imbalance when it comes to the practice that makes it ethically questionable. Start with the average Outer Rim working class family. You have this kid with special needs. And here comes this Jedi. He’s an agent of a VERY powerful organization. He is armed with a deadly weapon and sorcery that can override your free will or worse. He has the backing of the Senate and planetary authorities. There’s even a law on the books saying he doesn’t even need to ASK permission, he can just take custody if he wants. But he’s being polite and going to subject this family to a magnificent sales pitch about the Order’s benefits that he technically doesn’t even have to give, since he’s holding all the cards.At the very least, the optics on this look awful.

Worse is the only example we get of a Jedi adoption being Shmi and Anakin. She’s enslaved. Even though Anakin is “free” (quotes intentional), he still has no way to maintain that freedom, especially if he stays with her. She gives him up as an act of desperation, a desperation that Qui-Gon seems all too happy to exploit for the Order’s benefit with indifference to her pain, because he and his powerful Order have no intention of helping her out. The only reason he even bothered to intervene in their situation is not out of compassion, but because she has something he wants.

The way Lucas handled Shmi was atrocious. Here we had a fantastic example of someone who could not get justice by any other means, someone whose only hope would be some “Guardians of Peace and Justice.” Despite being selfless and good, giving these space wizards everything, she gets nothing a raw deal. The fact the Jedi seem to bend over backwards to assist the elite of the Republic like Padme and Palpatine just makes this worse.

Now, I know the fairy tale explanation is that the youth must be separated from his childhood comforts and loving mother to “make a man out of him” and see him off to his grand destiny of slaying a dragon. It’s also a fairy tale trope to kill off the “good mother” so that the youth must face the harshness of adulthood or the pain of grief and loss. The deconstruction take is that the most selfless person in the room gets exploited, tortured, and stuffed in a fridge for her selflessness.

There’s also the matter of what these kids are recruited to do. When Mace and Yoda are discussing Anakin in TPM, and when Qui-Gon recruits him, the discussion centers on if he’s a Chosen One who will destroy the Sith. “Destroy the Sith” doesn’t imply sitting them down to tea and making them repent of their evil ways. It implies “we’re going to train this nine year old kid as a living weapon, point him at our enemies, and destroy them for good” Okay, so the Sith ideology being eliminated would be a win-win as far as the galaxy. I’ll grant that. We’re still talking some adults talking about what’s best for their agenda and how this kid fits into it, with no talk about what’s best for the KID.

When we see our only example of a training class in ATOC, the small kids are not practicing meditation, or languages, or spiritual matters. they are training in how to wield a deadly weapon. The way it’s framed, with the soft natural-looking light, the earth tones, the adorable little tots. It’s meant to be cute. Meanwhile we later see the newly decanted Clone Troopers under stark, eerie harsh light and the identical men all invoking a feeling of creepiness and uncanny valley. Yet...they’re both small children being turned into tools of war by the Republic Senate and Jedi leadership, the ones who are supposed to be the Big Good of the setting. That was something that bothered me so much I almost walked out of the film.

I know that the Jedi don’t call themselves soldiers or identify as warriors. They identify as peace makers and negotiators, protectors of the helpless. It would have helped if we had more negotiation than a token thirty seconds at the top of TPM, an attempt to negotiate with the Separatists before war broke out, or to see a peaceful solution to a conflict to make it more substantial.

#fandom meta #star wars #jedi critical #Jedi recruitment

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linkspooky · 1 year

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Continuing on with a writing ask (I’m the same one that originally asked which characters you needed up liking when writing + which you found difficult to write)…

Since you’ve made OCs for your fics, which OCs did you enjoy writing the most? And which one was the most difficult for you to write?

Commission by @/ JJIMCMSN

Michi is the easiest of my ocs to write. He is my baby darling boygirl. Look how many outfits I've dressed him up in. The reason he is the easiest is twofold he is the oc I spent the longest time developing. He existed for over a year backstory and all ever since right around the hidden inventory arc was running in the manga.

Fandom-wise I was way more interested in the kids in the previous generation (the SSS Trio) and wanted a character to explore them by being another student at Jujutsu High during that generation. Second, I wanted Geto's family to be more explored because we know very little about the members who are not Mimiko and Nanako so Michi was created around the concept of someone who defects from Jujutsu High to join Geto's family, and therefore interacts with both Gojo and Geto.

The second reason he is the easiest, is because so much of him is modeled after Gojo his character voice is roughly the same. Michi dialogue is the same as Gojo dialogue, it's just phrased more politely. They are both characters who say whatever comes to mind and often have trouble perceiving other people's emotions in reaction to what they say. Gojo is the easiest character to write, so Michi who is his double in the story, the moon to his sun essentially comes naturally to me too.

Michi is just also once again the character I have put the most thought into, and planned out his arc. I know him when he was seventeen years old as a student in Jujutsu High. I know him and how he interacted with Geto's family for those ten years he lived with Mimiko and Nanako. For example, Michi never believed in Geto's dream, he only wanted to remain by Geto's side because he believed in some small way that he could course correct Geto. One thing he often did was intervene and try to calm Geto down whenever Geto tried to attack children who were not jujutsu sorcerers. Michi also believed that Geto is the only person powerful enough, to have stood a chance of achieving his goal of just destroying Jujutsu Society point blank and forcing them to rebuild.

(Michi is the alternative to Gojo, if he had Gojo's powers he would have just slaughtered the elders and let someone else take control from there, which is pretty extreme but Michi's belief is child abuse is the utlimate evil that can never be tolerated and should be punished and made so it can never happen again. An institution that exists at the expense of children cannot be reformed in any way, only destroyed. Basically Gojo thinks any radical change wouldn't stick and wants to make the next generation strong enough to take power and replace the elders, Michi has no patience and wants them gone now).

Then, in the third stage of his life post Geto's death, Michi basically has lost his purpose and place of belonging so he finds himself again in creating a place that is safe for other lost children like Mimiko, Nanako, Junpei.

Like, see it's easy to write an OC when you have this much of them planned out down to the smallest detail. When you have their character arc, flaws, and where you want them to end up at the end of the story all mapped out. (Ideally, Michi will eventually be a teacher again b/c working with children is what his character centers around).

The OC that was the hardest for me to write was Ito Rie from Werewolf, and that is because they're actually not my OC originally. They belonged to a friend who was basically like "can I create an oc for your universe? Okay, well she's a really dirty kid, she used to live with her grandma but now she's a runaway kid, she cuts things with her kendo sword she swings around. Michi found her on the side of the road and gave her food. And also she's a lesbian. And also I think she'd be friends with Mai."

They did not really give me a lot of details beyond that so I had to spend a lot of time asking her questions, and then giving her ideas for what Ito's backstory could be, and how she became a curse user in the context of the story, and what happened to her grandma that caused her to be homeless and continually on the run from other people. It was all those questions I asked my friend about this character that made Werewolf come about, which was essentially Ito Rie's origin story and how she became a runaway.

The other thing that made Rie tricky is I decided to do the possession with Noranso plotline, which meant I had to write a character who was posessed but this was a twist and not obvious right away. Which means I essentially have to write a character acting very noticeably off (hence why she goes by weird girl) and unsettling for a girl, and at the same time like, idk have her have dialogue, have her interact with other characters, have her do stuff without giving away the twist too early. It was just a weird line to balance. The other thing is that Ito is posessed for most of the story, so I had to establish what Possessed! Ito acted like and what Normal!Ito acted like. The Ito we were talking with for much of the story is not the real ITO! TM so I had to find a completely different character voice for pre-possession ITO! and also she only appears really briefly in her first person segments so she had to be someone unique and striking like. You had to get a grip of what Ito was like before she was posessed within that limited screen time.

I write characters by their voice, basically how they talk, how they think and so characters with clear voices like Michi are easy for me. Characters who are more muddled, which is Ito Rie by design because she's a victim of possesion and she's also a mystery to the girls of the main cast are harder because they're not so clear. Also, in general the more time I spend before planning a story the easier that original character is to write because I have lots of details to inform me how they would act in certain situations.

#askspookies #michikatsu gojo #ito rie #werewolf #exponential decay #fanfic asks #nobody dies au

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mariacallous · 2 years

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As Israel heads to the polls on Tuesday for its fifth election since the spring of 2019, its politics are fractious, but stop short of visceral acridity. The country’s rival tribes are content to jostle each other. It’s an eerie quiet before what could be a terrible storm. With just days to go, Benjamin Netanyahu and the right lead in hypothetical match-ups, but may fall short of the 61 seats needed in the 120-member Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to dislodge Yair Lapid, the current prime minister.

As for Lapid, his chances of securing an outright victory are slim. Talk on the street is of a Seinfeld election – much ado about almost nothing. The country is tired. Yet there is greater internal consensus than one would glean from the rhetoric bandied on the campaign trail.

And overarching all of that is a greater concern – that Netanyahu is basically using the re-election as a way of short-circuiting the criminal prosecution he faces on charges of corruption – and that the electorate may let him do so.

The epic contests between Netanyahu and the late Shimon Peres, the successor to Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995, or Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak, two decorated generals, remain in the memory but are the stuff of yesteryear. The peace process between Israel and the Palestinians is devoid of a pulse, and no one within the Israeli mainstream is clamouring for its resuscitation.

There seems less to fight about. The Oslo accords collapsed under the weight of the second intifada. In the intervening decades, Israel has emerged as a hi-tech hub possessing a military unrivalled by its neighbours’ combined forces.

Meanwhile, the recent Abraham accords have resulted in expansive economic ties, trade and investment between Israel, on the one hand, and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. Confronted with the threat posed by Iran, an entente of sorts binds Jerusalem and Dubai. Being the enemy of my enemy may make you a friend. It can also be lucrative.

The accords, however, are not immune to the strains emanating from Israeli politics. The emergence of Jewish supremacy as a rallying cry for the Jewish right, and its leaders entering a Netanyahu-led government scares people. Axios’ Barak Ravid reports that Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, foreign minister of the UAE, conveyed his concern to Netanyahu about the leaders of the Jewish Power party, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

The two cast themselves as an insurance policy against encroaching modernity, Arabs and gay people. Both are Jewish supremacists. Netanyahu refuses to be photographed with them. Smotrich recently branded Netanyahu a congenital liar. Yet they are bound together in their disdain for the left.

More problematically, the pair demand senior portfolios. Will Netanyahu buckle under pressure or hold his ground? That is one of the campaign’s unanswered questions. He has good reason for acting as their Trojan horse to respectability. By trading cabinet posts with them, and forming a government, he may be able to contrive his own immunity. With his bribery and corruption trial unlikely to wind up for another year, they could effectively be his “get out of jail free” card.

The UAE’s concerns carry weight, particularly among members of Israel’s reality-based right. Jason Greenblatt, Donald Trump’s first Middle East envoy, glowingly praised the UAE’s president, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ), in his 2022 memoir, as “most humble and thoughtful”, and “wise and extraordinarily open-minded”. More to the point, MBZ’s personal net worth is pegged as $30bn, his family’s wealth exceeds $150bn. His money talks, people listen.

Netanyahu has wriggle room. If he prevails, it is possible that he may choose to provide missile defence systems to Ukraine in exchange for the Biden administration staying off his back if he chooses to put Ben Gvir and Smotrich in his cabinet. He knows Ukraine is the Biden administration’s priority.

But even then, Netanyahu has a way of annoying, if not angering US administrations. James A Baker III, George HW Bush’s secretary of state, barred him from the State Department. In 1996, Bill Clinton reportedly exclaimed: “Who the fuck does he think he is?”

Arab-Israelis and the Palestinians form another part of a complicated equation. In the 2021 election, Israel’s Arabs provided the votes needed to see Netanyahu thrown out of office, but 20 months later, that same constituency appears dispirited.

With days to go, one hopes for a jolt that will bring the election to life and remind everyone what is at stake. For now, the stasis benefits only the looming possibility of Netanyahu’s return, the opportunity he represents for the hard right and the obscenity that he may use it as a shield to protect himself.

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heniareth · 3 years

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I was really curious about what your opinions on the DAO companions are :) I know we have talked about some, but I'd love to hear more and about the others as well :D I hope it's ok to pose this as an ask :)

Sure! That sounds like a ton of fun. This might be a long one tho. Mind you, this is not the finished version of the answer. I'd like to link stuff and add a cut, but rn that's not possible. I'll update it when I can.

Edit: I have updated it ^^

Let's go alphabetically bc why not.

Alistair:

Sweet guy. So sweet. There was a moment when I was hard pressed chosing between him and Zevran (alas, Zevran won). Also, he's weirdly tall according to the wiki? How did I not notice that before?

Let's get a bit more serious now, Alistair is a great guy. The only reason he's not the hero of the story is because he doesn't want to. He has all the qualities of a leader: he's good at dealing with conflict (as evident with the conversation with the mage at the beginning. He gets where he wants to get without antagonizing the mage, but without allowing him to trample all over him). He's a solid tactitian and knows how to make allies (he suggests to use the Grey Warden treaties, after all). I bet if he was in the leadership position, he'd even not bicker with Morrigan. His moral code is pretty tight; some might say too tight, but I think it's less about the moral code and more about learning to judge people by their actions, not by the labels they fit into (Morrigan is a proud apostate and therefore bad. Wynne is a humble circle mage and therefore good). He also has a bit of a black-and-white way of seeing the world. I empathize a lot with Alistair, especially with his experience with the Chantry and his subsequent reluctance to deal with it. I really wish I had gotten to know more about concrete experiences he had during his training as templar, but he seems reluctant to talk about it (gee, I wonder why).

Since I've only played the game once, I haven't really picked up on Arl Eamon's abuse towards him, which apparently exists (Isolde, however... I mean, even if he were Eamon's illegitimate son, he's a kid, ma'am, he didn't exactly get to chose his parents. So that's so not okay). Alistair's way of speaking about them both, however, is either sign that he has not come within a hundred miles of acknowledging how much it hurt him, or that he's already gone through the whole process and has decided to forgive them. The latter shows a very strong character; yes, he relies on the approval and leadership of others, he has his issues, but he's already started working on them.

That being said, irl Alistair would be like a little brother to me. I'd tease him relentlessly (all in good fun and I promise to stop if it makes him uncomfortable, but he's just so teasable). I still wish the videogame gave him the chance to take important decisions for himself. But that, of course, would somewhat defeat the point of the game.

Leliana:

Another sweet, sweet person. Her singing voice is amazing. Her belief in the Maker inspires me (I'm a religious person and seeing religious characters represented in a positive light is Very Cool. It's also sometimes a source of discomfort, because the Church has done a lot of very messed up stuff and positive representation can sometimes veer into apologetics for things that should not be excused, but that's a whole other can of worms. The bottom line is that religious characters sometimes work for me and other times don't and Leliana works for me very much bc she's an outsider inside the Chantry).

Leliana is best friend material, tbh. I'd love to get to know her irl, discuss theology and philosophy and maybe even politics? She makes mistakes and has prejudices, but, tbh, so do I. And I do get the feeling that she tries her best to learn. From the times she intervenes in a conversation between the Warden and an NPC, she shows herself to be compassionate and open to the needs of others. What I get from her character is that she genuinely wants to help, which is something that I adore of her. I suspect that she sometimes has a hard time deciding wether she's a good person or not. She has killed and seduced and worked for a morally dubious person, and she doesn't show the same nonchalance about it as Zevran (though they both do discuss their line of work in very... professional terms). This is, however, more of a headcanon than actual factual canon.

I also very much enjoy her girly side, like her interest in shoes and dresses. She's one badass woman who also looses her cool about the latest fashions in Val Royeaux. I like that. Between her and Alistair, a non human noble Warden has as good a help to navigate the Fereldan court as they're going to get. Leliana is also, I can't forget that, clever and insightful. It'd be easy to write her off as the innocent chantry girl, but she's so much more than that. Her kindness is paired with foresight, I think. She knows that taking on the trouble to help now can go a long way in the future. I just have a lot of respect for her.

Loghain:

This one's gonna be short bc I didn't recruit him. He's an amazing villain and would probably be a great Warden as well. He reminds me of Denerhor from LOTR; once a hero/stewart of his people, ambition and desperation have driven them both down a terrible path. I have also only little idea about his past. People say he lost a lot, and I believe it wholeheartedly; it doesn't excuse the fact that he plunged the country into a civil war in the middle of a Blight. I don't have a lot of sympathy for short-sighted politicians. I wish he hadn't made himself regent. That's what I take away from his character.

Edit: One thing I forgot to mention that really impressed me was his death. I had Alistair duel him (that was a rough duel), and then it kinda just jumped to a cutscene of my Warden nodding and Alistair executing him. That didn't sit well with me. I didn't want to kill Loghain, and less so in front of Anora. But what impressed me was that Loghain just accepted it. That takes a whole lot of guts. Compare that to Howe's death, and how he screams out that he deserved (more, probably, or anything but death) and it's crystal clear who the more noble of the two is. Loghain strikes me as very lawful neutral, and any neutral alignment has the particularity that it can be dragged towards good or bad, sometimes without the characters noticing it (which is interesting from a DnD perspective; neutral is often concieved of as just as stable as good or evil, but that may not be true. But that's a different post). Anyway, Loghain's death was impactful.

Morrigan:

I could kick myself for not maxing out her approval in the first play-through. I got to enjoy a bit of her friendship by the end of it and boy was even that little bit worth it. Friendship with Morrigan is something that is hard-won. It's all the more precious because of that.

Morrigan is full of paradoxes, I think. She's incredibly wise in some ways, yet also very short-sighted (”just kill them, don't solve their problems”. Morrigan, dear, I'm not going to gain a lot of allies if I kill everybody who poses a problem to me). She is so intelligent, but emotionally... not so. She knows so much about some things, and very little about the next. She's incredibly wilful and knows what she wants, but follows Flemeth's orders all the time through. She hungers for power and independence, yet craves closeness, but won't allow herself to have it. She asks you to prove yourself to her and is extremely critical of your actions, I think, because she's afraid. She bites the hand that feeds her because it might hit her next.

Like with Eamon, I haven't managed to catch the undercurrent of abuse that seems to permeate Flemeth's relationship with Morrigan. Except there are signs, because there must be something Morrigan is scared of and who has instilled all that rage in her, and that's Flemeth. Also, she clearly hates/does not care about her and wants her dead (unless killing Flemeth was part of Flemeth's plan as well? Hm.)

Morrigan is that one person who you are nice to, continuously, because nobody else is. And suddenly she becomes less cold. And then friendly. And suddenly you're asking yourself why everybody hates her, because she's a really good friend! I just wish the other companions came to a similar conclusion, especially Alistair and Wynne.

Oghren:

They did this man dirty. He has such great lines and I'm convinced he was a great person before Branka disappeared. He has that dwarven warrior spirit, and while he looks like Gimli, some of his most impactful lines remind me of Dwalin or even Thorin Oakenshield himself. He could be so noble had he gotten some character development, damnit!

Oghren as he is written is somewhat disgusting. I hate the lechering comments and the drunkenness. And still, I don't hate him because of those amazing lines he has when he's actually sober. It's frustrating and I'll give him that character development myself if the game won't. I strongly associate the song Whiskey Lullaby with him, bc that's how he would have ended up if the Warden hadn't taken him along (warning: the song talks about suicide and alcoholism). Like I said, they could have done such cool things with his character. As he is written now... it's just sad. Moments of lucidity drowned in alcohol and creepy jokes. As you can see, I don't blame the character for either. The alcoholism happens all too often irl. The creepy jokes... I put that one on the writers' tab.

I actually think Oghren could have been a great mentor figure (I know, I shock myself as well sometimes). Next to the Grey Wardens, the ones who know most about fighting darkspawn are the dwarves because they have to deal with them constantly. Especially a warrior caste dwarf like Oghren could have brought a lot of that invaluable knowledge to the team, especially since there are no Grey Wardens in Ferelden but two extremely green recruits. Next, you get the chance to give Oghren the command of the teammates you leave behind in the battle of Denerim with the reason that he has lead men into battle before. Where did that suddenly come from? Oghren should have been right up there telling my Warden that they were doing this wrong, that they needed more food (and booze) and a confident leader to keep the armies they've called together going. Oghren should have been able to tell my civilian city elf who got recruited into the Grey Wardens a six months ago how one leads an army. How one presents oneself to inspire confidence, how one doesn't crack under the pressure, how one gets the leaders of said armies (some who hate each others guts i.e. Dalish elves and humans) to work together. And, last but not least, Oghren could have had a great story about grief. This is a man who has lost most of what made him (and what he hasn't lost he's spilling down the drain with every mug of ale). This is a man who, if you take him into the Deep Roads, has to see what his wife did to his family, how his wife got absolutely obsessed, and can be forced to kill said wife or watch her die. All Wardens loose their home and families at the start of the story. It would really have rounded the whole narrative out if the Warden and Oghren could have recognised their grief in each other and hashed it out somehow. Such as it is, Oghren is a depressed drunkard and there is nothing we can do about that. I find that frustrating.

Rascal (a.k.a. Dog):

Best boy. 100/10. I wish we had gotten to see the reaction of the different origins to the mabari (because elves probably have a whole different experience with them from mages or humans. And dwarves just... I think they straight up have none? XD). Other than that, no complaints. The name Rascal was the one I gave my dog because you have to be a right rascal to survive what he did and play the pranks he plays. Smartest breed in the world indeed.

Shale:

Shale is one of those characters that I recruited rather late in the game, so I haven't had the chance to explore their personality and worldview, really. I didn't even get to take them to the Deep Roads (this will be ammended in playthrough nr. 2). As such, I don't have particularly strong opinions on them (or her? The wiki refers to Shale as 'it', but that sounds weird). But, because I know so little about Shale, I have a lot of questions. First, what were they like before they were a golem? Shayle, as she was called then, was the best warrior of her time if I remember correctly. Why did she become a golem? Was it to be able to eternally protect her people? Was the sarcasm the golem Shale exhibits also part of the dwarven warrior Shayle or did that come later (if for thirty years you have nobody to talk to but yourself, you better be entertaining. And I can imagine how it could make somebody terribly jaded as well).

Next, how attached is Shale to their golem form, exactly? According to the banter, they infinitely prefer it to a squishy fleshy form. If that is the case, however, why go to Tevinter to try and become a squishy dwarf again? It's not like that process could be reversed if they wanted to become a golem again; if Shale survives to the end of the game, the Anvil of the Void is destroyed and Caridin is dead. Was the whole spiel about their indestructible form a façade? It might have been, but not because Shale actually disliked their form. I think it would have more to do with the loss of their memories and with the very invasive experiments and alterations of Shale's body made by the mage Wilhelm. The loss of memories means that Shale is unable to remember life as a fleshy creature. They might be deflecting by pretending that they didn't care for that experience anyway because of the superiority of their golem form. The modifications made to their form by Wilhelm would have alienated them from their body. In light of this, it's significant that Shale asks the Warden to decorate their form with crystals.

All of this is, of course, pure speculation. I may have easily missed or forgotten details that would disprove the above thoughts. All in all, I like Shale and I hope we meet them again in DA4 (given that it's mostly set in Tevinter). It's a liking from a respectful distance, because Shale is tall and made out of rock and also way more experienced than I will ever be (they are literally the oldest member of the Warden's little Blight fighting squad).

Sten:

Sten is another person I'd keep a respectful distance from physically. That seems to be the what he would prefer, at least. I've enjoyed his character a lot, especially because he seems pretty clear-cut at first, but slowly lets the nuance of his person show (gruff and stoic, but then he has an eye for art, a sweet tooth and he likes cute animals). It's also very interesting that there's no moment when you learn "the truth" about him the way you do with Zevran or Leliana. There's no big reveal about his life under the Qun before coming to Ferelden. He says he was sent to monitor the Blight, but honestly? If neither Ferelden nor Orlais knew there was a Blight, how could the Qunari know? I think he's lying, and he takes his secrets back with him when he leaves Ferelden. And yet I think I know him enough to say that a Warden who has become friends with him has nothing to fear from Sten.

One thing I find very interesting about Sten is how he thinks. His conversation about how women can't be soldiers has been analysed a lot on this page I think. He seems to be arguing based on a different paradigma than the one the Warden has. He also seems to have a very clear-cut view of the world. What is fascinating to me is that, when arguing with the Warden and learning about their culture, he is not necessarily becoming more lax about his worldview. I think it's more likely that he is expanding his paradigma, the structure of thought through which he understands the world. I don't think that he is now convinced that women can be warriors as well. I think he rather understands that, in Ferelden, the relationship between occupation and gender is different than under the Qun. Which of the two he thinks is more right or more agreeable, I have no idea. I'm also not very interested in that. But I find it fascinating how he always seems to be looking on quietly, gathering data, classifying it and trying to fit it into his understanding of how the world works. I wouldn't be surprised at all if his original party was a scouting party to see how vulnerable Ferelden was at that moment to outside forces. One thing I don't understand with all of this is why he urges the Warden to meet the Blight head on. No smart soldier would suggest that, except if they are foolishly proud (and Sten doesn't seem like that kind of guy tbh). I get that the Warden takes way longer to gather allies than expected because they first have to solve all of their allies' problems. But surely Sten sees the need to have allies? Is he just that impatient? Does he have a death wish (à la, I lost my sword and am without honour, better to die sooner than later and in glorious battle)? Was he his group's previous commander and is he now having trouble following somebody else's orders? Or maybe it's his way to make sure the Warden knows what they are doing? To push them into becoming the self-assured commander their allies will need once they're all gathered? I really don't know. I like the last option best, however.

For me, Sten is my fellow, more experienced soldier. Like Alistair, he can potentially be the Warden's brother in arms, but he's definitely the older brother here. He probably doesn't take kindly to tearful confessions of how hard everything is, but I feel like he's otherwise a solid rock to lean on. I feel like the Warden can trust him to do what is necessary and count on him no matter what, especially after they get his sword back. His devotion from that point on is honestly so powerful.

Wynne:

Wynne was such a support for my Warden (except with the whole conversation about love vs. duty and that she may have to choose between Zevran and ending the Blight and that she should therefore break up with him. Wynne had a point. Astala was so not willing to sacrifice her relationship with Zevran. But the whole conversation came at a point where she was already so disillusioned that she blew up in Wynne's face (”can i please just have one (1) nice thing????”)). But all in all, Wynne is great.

She has a lot of flaws. She was very marked by her life in the Cricle and, for all her age, she has little experience living outside of it. She is also a conformist despite her strong moral core. In a way, her ability to find peace with her lot in life impresses me deeply because it speaks to a lot of strength of character. Sadly, however, strength can be ill applied and used to suppress. I think she has convinced herself that the Chantry is right under (almost) all circumstances to be able to rationalize the life that mages live. She's had her son taken away from her as a baby and an apprentice killed. Her reaction seems to have been to convince herself that this was right, or for the greater good (and now I'm thinking about the Guardian's question at the temple of Andraste's Ashes; are you wise or do you just repeat what others have told you? The answer is not as clear-cut as it might be). This is why she is so irritated by Zevran and Morrigan. By aligning herself with the Chantry, she is, in her eyes, good. Zevran and Morrigan are not; they do not conform to Chantry morality and they defend themselves tooth and nails against somebody who would try and convert them. This is something Wynne never allowed herself to do; she always did the "right" thing and it has cost her so much. I'm not saying she was right (it would probably have done her some good to rebel from time to time, and to trust her own gut instinct more), but in light of this, it hardly surprises me that she's so judgamental. She has to be, or she would be forced to confront all the evil she has not fought against all those years and all the hurt that has been caused to her by the very institution she protects (and thank God she only tries to argue and can appreciate it when people have found a good life outside of her comfort zone. If she tried to convince by force or, for example, drag her former apprentice back to the Circle... boy oh boy that would get ugly). If you think about it, Wynne really is a good example for what happens if you live by a philosophy of always choosing the lesser evil.

Something that I keep forgetting over her grandmotherly and dignified character is how damn powerful she is. She has escaped the carnage at Ostagar; HOW!? She protected those mage apprentices in the Circle tower for God knows how long. In the battle of Denerim, she wades through an army and comes out alive on the other side. The wiki lists her age at 40, I think, but that doesn't make a lick of sense unless 75 years of age are the Fereldan equivalent to 100. This lady, about whom people make grandmother jokes, did all that. It's impressive.

Zevran:

You know, I would really love to know what Wynne thinks about the events at Kirkwall in DA2. It might be a disaster for her, or it might pave the way for one last bit of character development. She certainly didn't want to return to the Circle after fighting the Blight. That may be an indicator of some change in her stance on the Circle of Magi.

Edit: I forgot that she is what the Circle considers a literal abomination! Holy cow, how could I forget that?? Anyway, her conversation about what being an abomination means is so... heartbreaking, actually. It's so tentative. So careful. "Am I an abomination? Am I the same thing that has killed my students? The same thing as Uldred? Am I lost and damned? Did I invite this spirit in? Is this my fault?" Like wow, Wynne is going through something huge right there. I love it. I have to continue playing the game to see what it ends up as, but it's fascinating and such a huge thing that she allows the Warden in on that.

Ah, Zevran, my beloved (he has stolen my heart so much it's not even funny anymore). He's funny, he's charming, he's so so loyal and it breaks my heart. Zevran is the one about whom I've read most meta: these three wonderful posts for instance, as well as this one about his possible lack of scars, and this one about his lack of freedom. All of these have influenced my opinion of him and they are great reads.

I have talked about Zevran with you before, so I'll just skip to the new stuff. I have come to conclusion that Zevran is an artist at heart. This is totally not biased by the fact that I also do art, but hear me out. One of his preferred gifts are bars of silver and gold. While those have the obvious utility of basically functioning as money (they can be sold to any silversmith or goldsmith and their value is pretty stable through time and in different countries), there's also this from his codex: "Zevran shows an affinity for the finer things in life—hardly surprising for an Antivan Crow—but his appreciation can be more poetic than he lets on. A simple bar of refined silver or gold, uncomplicated by a craftsman's hammer, is elegantly valuable." Tell me that is not an artist's eye that sees that gold and sees the beauty in it. Then, there's also the meta about Zevran the Seducer which I linked above and link here again. It talks specifically about how he lets himself enjoy the target and be seen in his enjoyment. Tell me that is not an artist's eye that beholds the beauty of something he is set out to destroy. Even his talk about his assassinations show this. He talks about it as an art, the way somebody would talk about the brutal intervention in stone that produces a sculpture. Yes, it's a rationalization of the act of killing and yes killing is still wrong. But he doesn't go on about it on a moral tangent the way Alistair or Wynne would (”this person was bad, killing them was necessary”) or even through the argument of survival like Morrigan would (”it was either them or me and it sure as Hell wasn't going to be me”). He talks about the pleasure of a job well done, of the satisfaction of striking the precise point and executing a plan to the perfection so as to minimize chances of discovery and to make a clean death possible. And pleasure in seeing and in doing, this I firmly believe, is absolutely fundamental for an artist.

My favourite part about my Warden and Zevran as a pairing is that Zevran precisely brings out that ability to take your pleasures as they come and to really savour them. Fighting the Blight is tough; it's so important to find good things amidst the chaos to stay sane. If Astala saves Zevran from himself by offering him a place to stay and a purpose, Zevran saves Astala from herself by keeping her from running herself into the ground trying to save the world.

There are some things I don't like about Zev. The incessant flirting, for example, sometimes makes me uncomfortable (it becomes enjoyable for me once the Warden and him are in a relationship, but before that? Nah, no thanks). I wish he would also leave the other female characters alone (and there's so many more shameless comments of his aimed at Morrigan, Leliana or Wynne than at Alistair or maybe even Sten).

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And that's my take on the Origins companions (this was rather long. Whew ^^' I hope it was still readable and that you enjoyed it!!) Thank you so much for the ask!! It's been a joy thinking about this. I was worrying at first that the less prominent companions like Sten or Shale wouldn't get as much content but... well XD

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shanastoryteller · 3 years

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Questions about outlines: How detailed are they? Are they the same level of detail or do they vary? How do you make your outlines? Chronologically scene by scene? Or do you come up with the scenes that call you and then come up with smaller filler scenes to fill in the gaps? Do you have outlines for each chapter? Or just for the larger general plot points? Do you try to complete the outlying before starting the fic? Or do you add to the outline as you go? Sorry if this is to many at once

lmao okay i got several asks about outlines but i’m just going to answer this one because it’s ~comprehensive~

every writing teacher i’ve ever had has hated my outlines. my friends find them incomprehensible.

if people are going to look at my answers as ways to do their own outlines, i have to say: that’s probably not a good idea

i don’t write outlines a majority of the time

i don’t write outlines to plan a story i’ve already decided to write

i write outlines primarily as a way to exorcise story ideas that i want to write but don’t want to actually commit to writing (answer prompts are another way i do this lol)

now, some things do get outlines as a way to plan and organize. survival is a talent has an outline because it’s 400k and spans six years. child king had an outline. needy’s body had an outline.

b u t

i’m currently writing rotten work without an outline

lynchpin didn’t have an outline

hope is the thing with feathers didn’t have an outline

never grow a wishbone only had an outline for the first couple of chapters

an invincible summer didn’t get an outline until like. chapter 4 of 6.

i just. uh. think about what i want to happen and then hope i remember to write it down. even when i do an outline, i’ll deviate from it wildly, and not update it to reflect that, because i know what i’m doing (ha!)

so! with that in mind, let’s go!

How detailed are they? Are they the same level of detail or do they vary?

they vary! but honestly - not very. sometimes i’ll write out a paragraph or bits of dialogue that are important to me, but most of the time it’s just broad strokes of what i want to happen, or a mechanism of how something complicated happens. like i have several paragraphs in my siat outline dealing with necromancy books, but like. two sentences on how they actually occur in the story because that’s just something i’m trusting myself to figure out when i sit down to write it.

How do you make your outlines? Chronologically scene by scene? Or do you come up with the scenes that call you and then come up with smaller filler scenes to fill in the gaps?

I try to put them chronologically, although sometimes that’s a little hard (in siat i have several scenes that i know will happen, i just don’t know when). that is something i will go back and edit on my outlines, is if i’ve changed the order the something happens i’ll go back and copy and paste until my outlines is in the right order. but only if the outlines is something i’m actually using to write and the story is longer than a couple of chapters.

because my outlines are so very not detailed, i just write down what it is that i want to write, like the reason i’m going to write this or want to write this, and figure out the rest later. i’ll fill it in later - or i won’t! because most of the time i don’t use my outline to actually write the story, and i use it more as an idea list, so if i don’t know what happens between scenes or i find it boring i just won’t write it down

like, for example, here is my “outline” for won’t even plant a garden in it’s entirety

weep as a woman

“you weep as a woman weeps.” “and how is that?” “as if the future rests on your hips, and you must walk it forward.”

crowley and eve were friends. cain killed abel with the flaming sword, and crowley begged them to say it was with a rock instead

crowley was raphael the painter and fucked michelangelo

crowley was there the night yeshua was born, was friends with mary, helped raise yeshua?

ghosts

crowley and anathema and joan of arc

i ended up dropping most of this and crowley ended up sleeping with both eve and yeshua as the major plot points. i don’t explain stuff, really. i know what i mean so i just don’t bother to get very detailed most of the time.

Do you have outlines for each chapter? Or just for the larger general plot points?

siat i divide up by year, and i think i did it by chapter for the last two chapters of build your wings on the way down, but otherwise it’s just one long list. i do my chapters based on words counts rather than content, so outlining by chapter doesn’t really make sense for me (siat is always around 15k a chapter, and everything else i do these days thats multi chapter is around 8k because that’s the best, but ngawb was 5k a chapter and i think for child king it was around 11k a chapter)

Do you try to complete the outlying before starting the fic? Or do you add to the outline as you go?

I’m constantly adding as a i go! my outlines are never really “complete” they’re just abandoned. i write down what i think will help me and tend to ignore the rest. sometimes i just. talking to myself in my outlines when i’m trying to think something through.

my outline for child king is under the cut because that’s one that’s a good mix of stuff i kept and stuff i threw out. DON’T JUDGE ME!! bad ideas don’t get written because they’re bad!! it’s part of the ~process~

child king

Summary: “A child king is still a king,” Deaton says softly. “A child king is still a child,” he snaps, but he knows this is an argument he’s already lost. – Stiles is a born alpha, and after the Hale fire, things get real complicated, real fast.

Stiles’s mom is the last remaining human from a pack that was destroyed by hunters. John is the one that helps her after, so he knows everything. When they move to beacon hills she doesn’t feel the need to say anything to the hale pack, because as far as they’re concerned she’s just a human, and she doesn’t want to get involved in pack business. But then stiles is born with red eyes. The doctor is quiet and scared john and Claudia freak out, but it’s because he’s a werewolf, which is a relief to parents because they thought something was wrong with their kid. Maybe they don’t know he’s an alpha, only that he’s a wolf? Or they know and they keep it a secret on purpose

Claudia is the one to approach mrs. Hale. She tells her that her son is a born werewolf, but that she’s not interested in joining their pack. Her husband is a new deputy and they just bought a house but they’ll move if they have to. “he’ll need a pack one day. It’s safer,” she says. “if he wants to join you one day, I won’t stop him. But that’s not a choice I’m willing to make for him.” Mrs hale agrees that they can say separate as in exchange for the sheriff smoothing over some ruffled feathers no and again. They agree. Claudia to sheriff “we’re going to have to move one day. Our son is an alpha, and he’ll need to make his own pack.”

Stiles is seven the first time he snarls at his mom, eyes flashing red, and she freezes. She’s got the pack instinct, it doesn’t matter that hes her kid, hes still her alpha, so its hella awkward. John can see how this will quickly spiral out of control if they can discipline their own kid. But stiles is the one to back down first, apologizing and doing as he’s told. There are careful power structures here, and this is the beginning of differentiating between stiles the human and stiles the wolf.

When his mom gets sick, stiles offers to turn her. Hale offers to turn her. She refused for Reasons that I have to figure out. Maybe the politics of it? Wanting to protect stiles and not wanting to become part of the hale pack

The fire happens. John ships stiles the hell out of dodge, because there are hunters about. He snoops around enough to figure out it was kate argent, but theres not really anything he can do about it

Scott knows about everything, and tries to tell his mom in a really akward way that they should trust stiles if they’re ever in danger, but she just laughs it off. Except when someone breaks in and threatens her with a gun, and she manages to make a phone call, it’s not 911, not john, but stiles, and she doesn’t even know why, regrets it as soon as it happens. But then stiles shows up and breaks both of the guys, eyes glowing red, and then calls his dad and scott to take care of it, because they’re humans, so they get human punishments. Melissa is told everything.

Scott has a bad asthma attack and, and Melissa asks about the bite. Scott is itching for it. He wants it so badly. Stiles has already promised to turn them when they turn 18, and Melissa knows that. She asks if theres a reason to wait, and the answer is nah, not really. So he gets the bite. Stiles being like uh psa punishments cant include scott staying away

After hale fire and stiles gets back, he’s shocked that hey just left, and that they left peter behind. He starts visiting peter several times a week. He tells his dad that they should pay for his medical care. They have a fuckton of money because his mom inherited all the pack wealth, and john doesn’t touch it because that’s stiles’s money, that’s werewolf money. But this is a werewolf thing, so he agrees. “his pack left him dad.”

Stiles bites Erica when they’re 14. Some point in middle school stiles wises up to the Isaac thing and tells his dad he needs to arrest his dad, or stiles is going to kill him, and he’s not even a little bit joking. Stiles hears Isaac crying while going by the house? In johns squad car. Makes them pull over, then bursts into the house. John goes with it because his son’s eyes are red.

Some point after the hales leave, things start trying to move into hale territory. Some wolves? Stiles smells them, and ends up at 10 years old telling them to fuck off. This how scott finds out? He’s with scott and his dad. Deaton is facing off against something? Panics when stiles intervenes, but stiles goes wolfy and red eyes and is like. This is mine now fuck off. Looks at the hale house, and finally says, we have to take care of this. We have to. But they don’t own the house or the land or any of it. They do … something

Stiles ends up having to deal with a lot of crap real young

Stiles has scott and Isaac when peter wakes up. Stiles is there, and peter isn’t crazy because he wasn’t abandoned to die alone. Stiles says he can stay, or he can go, not trying to pressure anything. Peter chooses to become part of stiles’s pack, because his family is either dead or abandoned him. Peter ends up moving in with them as he finishes healing and to get used to being in a pack and with stiles. It’s very strange for john, but it’s a werewolf thing and he’s trying to be supportive. After a couple months, stiles tells his dad that having peter is a relief, that there’s finally someone who knows things, someone older who can support him as a werewolf. Peter acts as his second, and he finally has some degree of authority that age has lost him. Stiles has peter take care of the hale house. Peter and stiles have the conversation, where peter is like the hale land is your land now. You’re the alpha of beacon hills. He does what stiles directs him to.

Isaac is living with scott under stiles’s direction ish. But lots of Melissa. Isaac like I don’t wantto be afraid anymore, I don’t want to hurt anymore, and stiles is like. Okay. We’ll fix this. But he doesn’t bite Isaac until he goes to a shitton of therapy and has mostly sorted himself out. For isaac’s fifteenth birthday, he bites him.

Erica is spur of the moment, it’s something that all instinct and very little thought. OR they’re dating and it happesn? Erica’s parents suck. Stiles doesn’t want the balancing act of being boyfriend and alpha.

Jackson is so fucking desperate to belong to something. He nags and nags and nags and finally stiles bites him at least half to shut him up.

“dad can I talk to you about something weird and uncomfortable and a little creepy” talks about crush on Lydia, and how he’s not sure if its because he has a crush on her or if it’s bc he thinks she’ll be good for the pack. Lydia joins before Jackson, and she’s the one that pushes stiles into it. Lydia and stiles are not dating, but she’s clearly high in the hiarchey.

Boyd? Just like. Shows up. Idk.

So by the time laura and derek show up, stiles’s pack is: john, Melissa, peter, Lydia, Jackson, danny, Isaac, boyd, Erica, deaton (who’s acting as emissary but is training danny). Maybe bring in some later characters, like malia and kira and cora. Ooooh maybe the twins show up before they became alphas, still run aways and looking for something else? Stiles takes them on. Stiles finds malia early on after the fire

Peter is willing to forgive derek but he has a lot of shit with laura. Stiles agrees to let laura and derek stay and not be part of his pack, although laura insists she doesn’t need his permission. She snaps at peter to come home with them, and he looks at her like she’s insane. He says there’s no hale pack, and if there was, he’s not interested. He’s a stillinkski wolf now. Cora too maybe? Double blow. Peter owns the hale land, and he makes it clear the day stiles turns 18 he’ll be signing it over to him. Stiles is known by the surrounding packs.

Stiles has to somehow defend the surrounding area, has to make it clear he’s his and that he’s not willing to give it up. It’s valuable land. People are going to come looking for it once people figure out it’s abandoned. When deaton finds out stiles is an alpha, he goes around as an emissary to the surrounding packs. Saying that its under stiles now. He’s known to them so it goes mostly uncontested. This is when he and the sheriff have the child king conversation.

Stiles tries really, really hard to be a good alpha. That means controlling the territory, and working with other packs when members go rouge or something goes wrong. He’s thirteen the first time he goes to lend a hand in a fight, and it’s young, it’s too young, but he’s an alpha. He has to do this, to maintain the peace. And the thing is – stiles is good at this, good at not pushing, at not using his status as a crutch or an excuse, instead as a tool.

Maybe this is why no one cares for laura’s excuses. As much as laura wasn’t ready to take on the responsibility, she was an adult, if only barely. Stiles is a literal child, and in her absence shouldered it all. So even if she does technically have a claim, none of them are willing to honor it. “if you kill alpha stiles, you won’t have allies, you’ll have enemies.”

Allison and argents. Stiles brings his pack to kill kate. Gives peter the chance to do it himself, and is so very proud when he says no. but instead of letting her go free, stiles crushes her throat. “revenge would have been trapping you all in here and setting the whole thing on fire. Justice would have been making you watch as she burned alive. This was mercy, and don’t you forget it.” Scott is hella in love with Allison, but he knows this comes first. Her mom is full of hatred, but stiles more than makes it clear that he has no problem with killing her too.

Stiles sees derek soon after. They’ve already gone back and forth a lot. But he and laura weren’t there. Stiles tells him what he did. They have a ~moment~

Derek wants so very much to join stiles’s pack, but he doesn’t want to lose laura.

Something finally convinces laura to take the plunge and the stillinksi pack is one happy family

#asks #anon #writing advice

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potteresque-ire · 3 years

Link

Not sure if this has circulated before, but here’s a link to Henry Jenkin’s reactions to 227, largely as responses to an interview he did with Sanlian Lifeweek magazine (三聯生活周刊), a publication modelled after TIME magazine and published under China Press Publishing group (中國出版集團), the largest and state-owned publisher in China. The magazine asked for Jenkin’s opinions on the fandom-related aspects of 227 back in March, 2020. Henry Jenkins, as many may already know, is among the most renowned scholars of (Western) fan culture ... if not the most renowned.

Personally, I find this article to be quite limited in perspective, because 227 had a significant non-fandom-oriented, sociopolitical component ~ and hence its scope, its chaos, its damage. IMO, 227 stopped being a fan war, stopped being about solos, cpfs, and even Gg the moment AO3 was shut down ~ the powerful Chinese state had intervened, and the incident necessarily became a political incident. That One Fic on AO3, the conflict between solos and cpfs about whether and where That Fic should exist was at most a lighter left at the scene of what would become the blaze; it wasn’t even responsible for igniting the first fire. Most i-turtles (i-fruits?) are probably aware too at this point: if fan wars are sufficient to start 227, then there wouldn’t have been a 227 ~ because 227 would have been every date of the year.

Fan culture is fundamentally transgressive, and what that means can only be defined in the context of the subculture’s “mainstream” sociopolitical and cultural environment. I therefore find the article’s attempt to transplant Western fan culture’s observations / theories / analysis / conclusions to the incident without explicitly comparing, addressing in depth the differences of the pre- and post-transplant environment to be ... prone to rejections (as organs are after transplantations!)—exclusion from being useful or valid. And this article was very short on such comparisons or address. Jenkins being a fandom expert aside (and he was careful about not treading outside his area of expertise), early “antis” of 227 presented themselves as crusaders for the freedom of speech and, by late March when this article was published, the heated debates surrounding the incident on Chinese social media had already led to embarrassment for multiple powerful state publications. It was probably a wise choice to not make another dive into the political aspects of the incident.

Being a new(-ish) turtle who joined the fandom a full half-year after 227, I’ve been backtracking, trying to really understand the incident, which remains very much beyond comprehension in many aspects. The discussions I’ve dug up that have most fascinated me have been those in non-fandom spaces, by non-fandomers / politics enthusiasts who barely knew who Gg was, who didn’t know That One Fic involved more than one idol and had zero knowledge about solos vs cpfs. In these discussions, “antis” are not referred to as “antis” because while the action of the so-called “227 coalition” was to kill Gg’s career, that wasn’t considered its ultimate goal ~ its ultimate goal was to warn whoever tried to clamp down the freedom of expression that their opposition was strong enough, populous to fight back and take away whatever, whoever those who attempted the clamp-down care the most about. In this case, “Gg fans”—I put this in quotes because eventually, no one would know who would lurk behind those pro-Gg Weibo IDs (and the anti-Gg ones as well)—were the perceived enemies of creative freedom. Gg, assumed to be the one, the symbol of what “GG fans” cared about the most, naturally became the target of the coalition.

Gg wasn’t special in that sense ~ and that was perhaps, the saddest thing I found about this incident as a Gg fan (without quotation marks); Gg could be any idol who achieved top fame at the moment, who had enough fans to make the point known. The coalition was therefore not “anti-Gg” in its ideological sense. It was anti the fan circle culture that had cemented Gg’s popularity, that had already been known to deal extremely poorly with dissent—complaints had been abound that c-ent was no longer fun for bystanders because the latter could issue no critique, not even doubt, about an idol without the fear of being reported, torn down by fans. The coalition eventually grew to include anti the many happenings, the many censorships and imprisonments in the past few years that had silenced the creative crowd in China, happenings people dared not speak about beyond a loud grumbling ...

The coalition tried to take down Gg, because they couldn’t take down the force that had shut down AO3, that was truly responsible for the silencing. They played the Hunger Games in the Weibo arena instead of challenging Who The Real Enemy Was, because some might not have given much thought about The Enemy; some might have thought the Enemy too invincible to be worth the effort; some might have got too carried away by their blood thirst, the cruel schadenfreude of shredding a beautiful, successful young man into pieces, and forgot why they were there in the first place ...

And that was only the political side of 227. 227 was also widely suspected to have a commercial component, which added another layer to the symbolism behind Gg the Idol ~ pretty much as soon as 227 happened, netizens investigated, tried to uncover the chain of capital behind Gg. With the scent of money was the memory of filth associated with it, in a country not exactly unknown for its corrupt business practices. Much like in The Book of Exodus in the Bible, the Idol is believed to be forged with gold; it is ungodly, tainted. Whether Gg the Person was identical to Gg the Idol, Gg the Symbol mattered to few. That Gg *was* a person seemed lost to many ...

I’ll have to dive into the non-fandom aspects of 227 with more rigour. As much as I'd love to leave 227 behind, every time I see Gg, I see its legacy on his face, in his smile, and perhaps, I’m not the only one ~ ADLAD cast him as Patient #5 because of 227′s effect on him. Put it another way, 227 is already modifying, writing Gg’s career trajectory ~ a trajectory that is undoubtedly under scrutiny by many who wish to duplicate his success but circumvent his pain. And every time I see a young idol—Gg, Dd, and anyone else—I wonder if the hurt of 227 can happen to them (again) because the crux of the incident has never been resolved; the oppression and silencing have remained strong as ever.

Anyway (sorry for the rant) ... what I found noteworthy about this article was the quotes the magazine highlighted in its published form (in Chinese), which weren’t highlighted by Jenkins on his own website. They reflected what the magazine would like to be the take-home messages of the interview. I’ve listed them below; all of which had Jenkins as the speaker:

[Pie Note: About Real Person Fiction (RPF) in Western fandoms]

“American fans often do have some shared norms about what is and is not appropriate to write, mostly having to do with protecting the privacy of other people in the star’s life. Writing about the star is seen as fair game; writing about their family members is not.”

---

[Pie Note: About GG being “cast” as a transgender woman in The One Fic that started the incident; gender in fandom]

“We write fan fiction as a form of speculation and exploration. For some people, it may be one of the few spaces in the culture where they can express who they are, what they are feeling, what they are desiring. And for others, it is a place of “what if” where they explore in fantasy things they would not necessarily desire in reality.”

---

[Pie Note: Whether GG should be held responsible for his fans’ behaviour]

“Under these circumstances, I would not hold a performer responsible for his fans’ behaviors but the performer is responsible for their own behavior and fans may respond negatively to performers who over-react to the existence of alternative fantasies and insult or hector their audiences.”

---

[Pie Note: About AO3 and why fans were so upset about its closure] “Keep in mind that AO3 is a particular kind of platform. Alongside Wikipedia, AO3 is one of the greatest accomplishments of participatory culture in the digital era.”

---

[Pie Note: About the “problematic” content on AO3]

“Among my findings were that fan fiction sites can be a valuable space for young people to acquire skills (and receive feedback) on their writing from more experienced writers who share these same passions ... That said, while teens have participated in fandom, a large part of those on AO3 are adults, engaging in adult conversations on adult topics.”

---

[Pie Note: About media text in the new media era]

“First, I would stress the proliferation of media texts at the current moment ... We have access to a much broader range of media content than ever before and in this context, fans play a constructive role in curating that content, helping some shows get greater visibility ... Second, these texts have become more malleable”

---

[Pie Note: About idols not producing “good” media texts]

“Rather, the question should be what are fans finding meaningful about these performers and the texts they generate. I start from the premise that human beings do not engage in meaningless activities. I may not immediately recognize why something is meaningful but my job as a scholar is to understand why cultural materials are meaningful to the people who cherish them.”

---

My understanding of this selection of quotes is this: this state publication (as others) was quite ready to forgive Gg, to put this incident behind. It could choose to not publish this interview; it could choose to leave out certain quotes, or not do the highlighting that cast both AO3 and Gg in a positive / innocent light. But it did all these things. This article furthers my impression that the state never intended 227 to blow up the way it did, and that it did—enough for stories about it to be found in non-China websites, and in English—was what I’m still trying to comprehend. 227 was, admittedly, how I was first introduced to Gg beyond Wei Wuxian. And as I got to know Gg, like Gg, my want to understand 227 only becomes stronger, perhaps because only through comprehension I feel I can find peace for the GG fan (again, without quotation marks) in me.

Maybe I should email Dr Jenkins and ask if he’s looking for a PhD candidate. 5 years of research and thinking ... maybe that’s what it’ll take.

I feel I’ve already started anyway.

#pie metas #yizhan #bjyx

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yannowhatigiveup · 3 years

Text

T.W.A.A: The Pseudologist

Part 1

When I posted the first part, someone on AO3 asked if I could write the aftermath. *cue the endless amounts of ideas that I can’t write* So here’s my attempt. There will be more to this in povs from other characters

edit: so I have returned after gaining energy (This was posted when I was running on an unhealthily low amount of sleep, written when I was basically asleep) and I have to say this is the worst one shot I’ve written so far. Bruh my wips are better than this

edit2: I’ve gone back and edited this a bit.

———

Lila Rossi moved to Paris for one reason and one reason only, Adrien Agreste. She knew how famous the boy was, how rich he was too but the most important factor: how oblivious he was. From what she gathered, the boy was locked up in the house for most of his life, if not, all his life. The brunette knew he was probably longing for friendship, freedom, love, and affection. He had all the attention he needed, why would he want more? Lila considered this when she transferred to Françoise Dupont, she'd need attention to gain his attention. She knew what she had to do.

It started with one rumour, one lie. But it slowly lead to more, subtle lies that at first glance would seem believable. She gained the attention she wanted, she gained the attention she needed and much faster than she originally intended. But she wasn't complaining. Alya had played a vital role in her spike of popularity, the reporter girl was the one who spread Lila's words, it had worked great in the liar's favour. Lila even used Ladybug as a way to get recognition, the superheroine had no idea this would be going on so she couldn't expose the brunette. Or that's what she thought.

As Lila observed the students. She took note of the blonde, easily identifiable as Chloe Bourgeois, daughter of Mayor Bourgeois. The girl grew up surrounded by politics, if anyone could spot out a lie it would be her. Lila knew she had to be careful, but since she was known as a bully, not many would believe her words. There was someone else who posed a threat though. Someone Lila didn't take notice of until Ladybug had confronted her. A certain Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

The bluenette caught Lila's attention due to her similarity to the spotted heroine, the same heroine Lila had learned to resent. They weren't just similar in appearance-wise, their demeanours were similar as well. The only difference? Ladybug tried to make amends with Lila. Marinette, despite having no reason to, had no intentions of making friends. The brunette knew she would either be a powerful ally or a dangerous nemesis, considering the fact she was popular, well-known, and well-loved. Lila hoped that this Marinette would not be the latter. Deciding to find out for herself, Lila approached the bluenette in the bathroom. Any friendliness that was once in brunette was obliterated, Marinette knew her lies were just that, lies. Lila knew she had to do something before the blue-eyed girl could expose her. And of course, she devised a plan, but she needed Adrien's influence.

Soon enough, both Agrestes were on her side. Adrien, because he did what his father asked and he hated conflict, and Gabriel for real reasons unknown to the brunette, but she concluded it to be to remove his son from bad influence though she couldn't be sure. Having both on her side made her rise in popularity much easier. She developed a following of mindless fools, completely at her mercy, and disposal. Now to have something to fall back on, Lila began turning the Queen's workers against her.

Chloe was her first target. First, she drove Sabrina away from the blonde, convincing the policeman's daughter that Chloe was using her. The blonde had done in the past but had stopped after some classmates intervened and Lila assumed it would work. And it did. It worked splendidly and the girl had left her best friend with a violently hurtful speech. Like planned, Chloe was alone. However, the blonde managed to make amends with a certain blue-haired girl, it was something very unexpected. Lila didn't like it. She didn't like it at all. The two people she was weary of managed to team up. Lila knew she had to do something about it so she targeted the easier prey of the duo, Marinette.

The bluenette had already gained some distrust from her classmates after she was temporarily expelled, and after she became friends with Chloe, all Lila had to do was add more fuel to the ongoing fire. Small rumours here and there, just to increase the distrust. One day when she realised she had the perfect opportunity to begin Marinette's true downfall, she took it. A bold move it was.

She accused the bluenette of beating her up, with the motive of 'telling others what she had said to Lila herself', sometime before school. Just Lila's luck, the girl arrived a bit later than usual, only adding to the growing suspicion of Lila's words being true. When the classmates approached the bluenette, she obviously denied their accusations. But with her lack of a witness and Lila's smart move to shed tears, Marinette got slapped. Hard across the cheek. It looked like it hurt and it sounded like it hurt but obviously, she looked hurt with betrayal. Alya had been the one to do it. Lila couldn't help the victorious smirk on her face.

From there, the abuse towards the bluenette and the blonde increased. Chloe got the lesser part of it but that didn't mean that Lila spared her. Marinette took both the physical and verbal abuse, much greater amounts than the blonde. But she was resilient. It reminded Lila of someone she knew back in her old school, in Italy. Unfortunately for them, Lila forced them to their fate. And she planned to do the same to Marinette.

Lila watched how Marinette would be abused, yelled at, humiliated, anything to make the girl feel horrible in any shape or form. The brunette watched the strong wall around the girl crack, it took a long time to get to that moment and when it finally arrived, the liar celebrated. The mayor's daughter confirmed her suspicions when she hovered over the younger girl even more than Lila thought was possible. Chloe's protectiveness would easily stop Marinette from breaking, Lila needed to make her turn to dust. And the only way for that blonde barricade to turn to dust would be to get rid of her.

Lila's lackeys laid off the blonde for a while, as ordered by Lila herself, she needed to talk to Chloe one on one. Face to face. One rival to another. The liar was sure that her words and her words alone would drive the blonde far from Paris, crying to her mother and father, begging them to send her away. At first, her words were meaningless to the blonde. That was until Lila threatened to do unspeakable things to Marinette.

"You listen and you listen good" Lila backed Chloe up against the bathroom corner. "You know how far I'm willing to go, don't make Marinette be my first victim. It'll be your fault if it is." Lila hissed the words, quiet enough that no one would hear but loud enough for Chloe to know that she wasn't at all messing around.

Lila smirked as Chloe's brave façade obliterated in front of her eyes, tears the blonde didn't even know she'd shed were dripping to the floor. Satisfied, Lila turned away with a flick of her hair knowing that Chloe would no longer be an obstacle in the way of the final target.

The liar always found it so incredible how Alya, one girl, one clueless girl, was able to be the best pawn in someone's downfall. Even more so when that 'someone' was the pawn's best friend. It was always a beautiful sight, seeing Alya ripping out more and more out of Marinette's heart. Lila had to give credit to the reporter girl, she had given Lila a quick and seemingly effortless rise to power.

Now with Chloe out of the way, Marinette was truly at the mercy of Lila and her loyal minions. The bluenette had virtually no one, she was isolated and excluded from any good feelings in the classroom. From that moment on, the bullying worsened to a height higher than the Eiffel Tower itself. The worst part? Marinette remained resilient, it frustrated Lila to no end. She had to go bigger, wilder. Crazier.

Lila lost count of the many times the bluenette was sent to the hospital, all she knew was that the expenses from all the hospital fees should be growing exponentially. This meant that all she had to do was convince the two bakers that they are wasting their money on a problem that wasn't there to begin with. One day, after a beating that happened bi-weekly, the liar went over to the Tom & Sabine Boulangerie Patisserie knowing she would find two working parents and a lack of the bluenette's presence.

"Hello Mrs Cheng, Mr Dupain" Lila used her worried voice, one that parents would easily recognise as a voice filled with anxiety and uneasiness. The two bakers quickly got to her side as if she were their own daughter, it nearly hurt.

"Hello, Lila dear! Is there something wrong?" Sabine was acting so much like a worried mother that it almost guilt-tripped Lila out of abandoning her plan. The keyword is almost.

"I just wanted to know if you were okay with Marinette, you know, taking your money even though there's no need for there to be any hospital bills" The liar played the concerned classmate like the many times she did before. Lila herself had projected this image so often that she believed she had perfected the act.

"Money? Hospital bills? What are you talking about Lila? Is there something wrong with Marinette?" She hadn't expected the parents to not know that their daughter was healing at the hospital, or that she was even at the hospital at all. Lila knew that despite everything, Marinette wouldn't steal from her parents, but they wouldn't know that. It provided the brunette with the perfect opportunity. Either Marinette was paying with her own money or-

"I thought- she said you gave her permission to use your money to pay for her hospital bills. Well... there aren't any hospital bills so I wanted to make sure you knew. O-oh no I-I shouldn't have said anything, now Marinette is gonna b-beat me up" Lila brought out the fake tears and hiccups that would fool all who laid eyes upon her. Marinette's parents fell straight into the trap.

She saw the two adults exchange a glance before Marinette's father spoke. "We had no idea, thank you for telling us, Lila. We'll make sure she doesn't harm you again, okay?" Tom handed her a box of pastries and wished her well.

Once she was out of sight of the bakery, the disguise she wore dropped. Instead, it was replaced with the smug smile she always wore when things went her way. If others knew what she was doing, who knows what they'd do. But she didn't bother thinking about that, or the fact that she could have forever crushed the relationship between Marinette and her parents. All she wanted was popularly and to be on the arm of Adrien Agreste.

It took her two years to get to that point, but most of the soul-crushing came in the next year.

~~~

The brunette was walking down an empty, quiet street not far from her house when she heard Alya's voice. It wasn't usually in the friendly and star-struck demeanour that Lila was used to hearing. Naturally, she became curious. When approaching the location of where the reporter's voice was heard, she came across an impressive scene.

The young bluenette was bleeding, beaten to a pulp by her classmates. Lila remembered that she had come up with a lie, a very violent one. This must've been her classmates' retaliation since Lila would never truly ask for them to attack Marinette. She would pretend to stop them from doing so. That reminded the brunette that she never got into any of the beatings before, she'd only watch similar to Adrien. She couldn't let her classmates have all the fun, right?

Being careful not to be seen by Alya and the others, Lila snuck into her house, her mother working late as usual. The brunette looked around the kitchen, searching for something in particular, her hand going in and out of each cabinet, searching. When she found it, she headed back to that alley. Making sure to stay in the dark, Lila waited for their classmates to leave before making her presence known. The girl looked pathetically weak, it was pitiful.

"Oh, Marinette" Lila began, hands behind her back, her voice laced with the truest concern she had in a long time. However, seeing the girl flinch at the sound of the newcomer's voice made Lila proud of herself. Proud in the fear she managed to flood into this girl with her vocalisation alone. "If only you accepted my proposal, this never would have happened."

She now stood, towering over the bluenette who was curled up on the floor. Despite her injured position, determination reeked from Marinette. "No, I will never support your lies." The blue-eyed girl spat with such venom that Lila took a step back in surprise. She recovered quickly, however.

"Fine" Lila spat back, taking out the shiny object that was once hidden behind her. "Be that way, but don't say I didn't warn you"

The liar approached with such a deadly glint in her eyes that it shook Marinette to her core. Lila toyed the small dagger in her hands before slashing the bluenette's right thigh. It wasn't as deep as Lila intended but the blood still made her shiver, but a little blood wasn't going to stop her. Instead, the blade went into Marinette's thrice. Whatever cries of pain and agony the bluenette had made, went unheard by Lila, she'd completely blocked out any noise that would distract her from the task at hand. Before finishing, she gave the bluenette a slash on the back. Lila, satisfied with what she had done, pressed Marinette's head against the wall, her blood-soaked knife resting at the girl's neck.

"I warned you," Lila whispered, slowly stepping back. With an exhale from her lips, the girl walked out of the alley, keeping the blade out of view.

She didn't turn back around to see whether or not the girl had listened. Lila ran back to her apartment to clean up. Her breath quickened as she watched Marinette's blood go down the kitchen sink, her hands shaking as she rinsed the knife under the cold running water. Lila thought she had disposed of the evidence and she quickly got changed, reaching for the house phone when she was done.

"Bonsoir, I need an ambulance immediately." Lila spoke into the phone. The next few moments she talked to the operator, spinning up a story about her witnessing an attack. After the ambulance arrived, Lila ended the call, watching from her apartment window as they picked Marinette up on a stretcher and drove away.

The liar made sure to injure the bluenette but she didn't want to kill her, she wanted Marinette to live and suffer in pain. Whatever happened next was meaningless to Lila, all that mattered was she got the fun she wanted. She didn't need to do anything else other than that.

~~~

A few days after that incident, the beloved boy Lila fantasized about had changed, and not for the better.

Lila noticed how Adrien grew colder, more unlike himself. More... distant. True he still had the money and the fame but the attitude she fell in love with was gone, and she watched it fade away. While she did want to be with Adrien, she wanted his love for her to be genuine, or at least somewhat genuine. The liar now didn't feel the same tingling safeness she once felt by his side. Instead, she grew weary of the blonde model. She knew that if her gut instinct was correct then she couldn't be seen around Adrien anymore, it would be too dangerous. However, she had worked too hard to get to where she was, Lila would be damned if she let all that go to waste.

Hesitantly, Lila moved on to someone else, moved on to a much bigger fish. Damian Wayne.

Damian Wayne, the biological son of one of the richest men in the world. That alone caught Lila's eye, she wanted wealth and power. Another reason was, from what rumours had told her, Damian Wayne was incredibly handsome, probably ten more times as such than Adrien Agreste. Lila then realised just how much she was missing out on. She needed to get in the Wayne Family one way or another. So she gave subtle hints, ones that Alya would be able to pick up on.

And like the decent reporter she was, Alya soon concluded that Lila had wanted and Alya spread the rumour throughout the classroom, every single naive classmate believed said story. They even approached her about it to which she 'accidentally' revealed some information known to only her and the Wayne Family. Her classmates absorbed the lies like how sponges absorb water. Her plan was sold.

Passing by the familiar bluenette, Lila couldn't help but whisper. "Do you ever wonder what it's like to fall off a great height?" She didn't expect Marinette to reply, she thought that the girl would ignore her completely. Much to Lila's surprise, Marinette replied.

"Oh I do" the dull-eyed girl replied, using the same tone that Lila had. "I wonder all the time"

She wasn't sure how or why, but Marinette's reply made Lila shiver. Whether it was the sheer seriousness it was said in or the extreme satisfaction that she had managed to get the girl at a breaking point, Lila didn't know and she didn't plan to find out. She was just glad that Marinette didn't bother to point out her obvious lie about Damian Wayne.

Her plan had worked. It had. Chloe was sent to live in the States, Marinette would soon be wiped off the planet entirely and she had managed to wrap the whole class around her finger. As dusk fell, Lila felt victorious after noticing the bluenette wasn't attending the charity event the Mayor had organized. The brunette had dressed in an orange dress, it was a high low dress which complimented her quite nicely but the colour was not doing her any justice.

She was only there due to the fact it was mandatory, there would be well-known and rich people there and she didn't want to take the risk of being exposed. Luckily, all those she noticed weren't people she had lied about. The brunette had completely zoned out the Mayor as he said his evening speech, until he uttered a single phrase that made her blood pressure drop.

"And finally, I'd like to thank the Wayne Family for joining us this evening"

Lila, like many others in the room, whipped their heads around towards the table Mayor Bourgeois's where aimed to. The eldest man there, though not grey, lifted his glass filled with champagne, saying thanks to Mayor Bourgeois. The rich family who she was lying about regularly, were here at this very event. She was screwed.

"You gotta introduce me to your honorary family, girl!" Alya's excited voice snapped her out of her shocked state. At that moment, Lila concluded, she was absolutely fucked. Before she could protest, Alya dragged Lila by the hand and over to the table at which the almighty family was sitting. As they turned their hands to the two girls, the brunette knew she was as white as a ghost. "Hello Mr Wayne, My name's Alya and I'm your honorary daughter's best friend and I was hoping-"

The man lifted his hand, prompting silencing the girl, and turned to another occupant at the table. Lila recognised the person instantly, it was Marinette.

"Marinette," Lila noticed Alya's expression changed from excitement to shock and finally, anger. Whether it was pointed at the bluenette or the brunette herself, Lila didn't know. "Is this girl you're friend?"

Marinette's gaze hardened on both Lila and Alya, flickering between the two of them. This was the first time Lila would ever admit that she feared the bluenette, her life's work was about to get shattered because of her. "No," Marinette stated.

Alya must've thought that Marinette got onto the Waynes' good side. The reporter tried to defend Lila's honour before getting instantly shut down by Bruce Wayne.

"It would be appreciated if you did not talk about my honorary daughter and future daughter-in-law in that manner. In fact, we should be leaving. Miss Rossi, I will not tolerate your lies. You will receive a lawsuit for defamation and slander. Have a good evening." Lila watched, pale-faced, as the family left. She never thought getting sued was possible, she had diplomatic immunity! The moment they were out of the hall, Alya's head snapped in her direction, rage oozing out of her eyes. The brunette tried to get out of the situation to no avail, the class was glaring daggers into her head. The reporter grabbed Lila by the arm and dragged her to the lobby, the class followed suit.

"Care to explain to me what the fuck that was?!" Alya's harsh words almost made the brunette stumble, had Marinette always dealt with this?

Lila tried to defend herself. "I can expl-"

"NO! You will not explain shit to me when I know for a fact that you're lying! You're nothing but a filthy, dirty, liar!" Lila felt this situation was fitting, Alya was the one to initiate her rise in fame, if anyone were to cause her downfall it would be her. But would she tolerate her dear reporter pawn? Of course not.

"You're no different, Alya!" The brunette knew she was taking a big chance, her attempt to distract the enraged reporter might turn out deadlier than intended. "You're the reason I managed to get this far! Without you, I'd be nothing! I need to thank you, actually, for shoving your best friend aside who was only trying to get you to see the truth. You're just as bad as I am, Alya."

The flash of hurt that appeared on the reporter's face was priceless, even more so when she ran off to cry. Lila thought she would be able to escape from the hotel and back to her house only to be kicked off her feet. Letting out a cry of pain, the brunette quickly stood up to face her attacker, it was Kim. Alix came over as well and slapped Lila into oblivion. Many more were about to unleash the anger of her on her only to be stopped by Nino.

"Don't make us any worse than her than we already are" the boy shouted at them, reaching forward to block Alix from attacking Lila again.

She took this opportunity to escape, back to her only safe place, her home. She ignored their shouted profanities as she ran out of the hotel. It felt as she was running a marathon, not risking a look back in case any of her classmates followed her home. Once she reached her apartment, Lila let out a big sigh of relief, still clutching her cheek in pain. The confrontation from the class had allowed her to forget the gift the Wayne Family had left her, that was until she realised her mother was home.

"Lila Rossi!" The Italian froze at the sound of her mother's infuriated voice. Lila trodded to the living room, her mother was standing in the middle of the room, seething with her phone in hand.

"Mamma?" She replied timidly, letting some of her hair loose to cover her red cheek.

"Don't 'Mamma' me, Lila! What is the meaning of this? Lawsuits! From the Waynes! Do you realise how much money this will take to pay back?! Not only that but I am just learning about your behaviour towards your classmates! I am incredibly disappointed! You are to be sent back to Italy to live with your father! Then maybe you'll learn how to pain this all by yourself!" She had never seen her mother as livid before, nor had she known that her mother would've found out as fast she did.

"But Mamma, I'm only sixteen!" Lila pleaded, there was no way she could do this by herself.

"Unfortunately, I know! Your father and I have agreed to pay with your money for university, which means you will be responsible for paying your own tuition fees. Also, regarding your behaviour towards your classmates, you have been given a permanent record on your student portfolio. Any school you try to apply will know of your actions. Do you know how hard it will be to get into any school now?" Lila's mother sat on the sofa, dragging a hand down her face. "I am very disappointed, Lila. Very disappointed."

Her lipped quivered as she ran to her room and cried. Her life was over in a matter of seconds. Entirely, she wasn't sure who to blame. Alya, the one who caused her popularity and defeat. Marinette, the one who pointed out the lies at the very start and got onto the Waynes' good side. Or Adrien, the boy whose mere existence derived her to make such irrational decisions. But she knew, she knew, it was solely her fault.

Lila had forgotten. When you add fuel to the burning fire, you get burnt. Her life would never be the same, all the work she had now gone to waste. And Damian hadn't even spared her a second glance.

#daminette #damian x marinette #maribat #maridami #Lila’s pov #Mlb x dc #ml x dc

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smaidjor · 3 years

Text

and i pay for my place by the ring (Chapter 2)

This chapter took me so fucking long but after much struggle I have completed it!

It was supposed to be 3-4k words. It was exactly 6069 pre-editing according to google docs.

You're welcome.

Chapter Title: with your blessing i will go

Chapter Wordcount: 6073

Content warnings: suicidal thoughts, self-esteem issues, discussion of death, non-graphic injury.

AO3

Chapter 1

i know they're losing (companion fic)

Actual fic under the cut:

The next few weeks are miserable, and if Scott tried to claim anything else, he would absolutely be lying to himself. Not that he doesn’t already do that, but he’s not too proud to admit that not seeing Jimmy is torturous. He knows he can’t, he’s firmly placed Jimmy on the off-limits list, but that doesn’t make the self-imposed rule any easier to follow. There’s still a part of him that wants to go running back to Jimmy’s arms, to beg for forgiveness and pray that Jimmy’s warmth is enough to curb the chill in his bones.

Scott shoves that part of him down firmly. He has no time to hesitate or regret, and he will not spend his days pining and sighing over a human. (Or so he tells himself.) He will be the perfect model of an elven king if that’s what it takes to gain his people’s respect, and he will make his parents proud, not that they’re around to see it. He will . Because Scott may not care about what the Council of Elders thinks of him- he hasn’t for twenty years now- but he does care that the people of Rivendell get a leader who cares for their wellbeing. It’s the least he can do, really.

So he takes on the meetings and the paperwork and the aching, gaping hole in his chest with grim determination, ignoring the way his hands always seem to shake a little and he can never quite get warm. It’s fine. Scott is fine. He’s not going to think about golden smiles or warm brown eyes or the look on Jimmy’s face when Scott told him it was over. He’s fine .

Flipping through the stack of official mail he’s received, Scott’s startled when his hand falls on an elegant cream envelope stamped with the crest of the Ocean Empire. How long has this been here? He hurries to get it open, nearly slicing himself on the letter opener in the process.

Out slides an official invitation in neat cursive.

To High King Scott Dangthatsalongname Smajor, Lord King of the Rivendell Empire,

You are cordially invited to a royal ball to be held at the palace of Ocean Queen Lizzie Ldshadowlady, Queen of the Northern Waves and Reefs, at 8 pm on the fifth of August.

Formal attire is required.

RSVP as soon as possible.

At the bottom of it, there’s a note in slightly more rushed handwriting.

Smajor- elvenking or not, I will not appreciate it if you mess with Jimmy in any way, shape or form. This ball is to be a peaceful affair, and I will not hesitate to intervene should anything occur.

Lizzie

Scott winces. He...can’t say he doesn’t deserve the warning, any more than he can say that it doesn’t hurt to be warned away from his own husband. Ex-husband, he quickly reminds himself, reaching for stationary to pen a response.

Dear Ocean Queen Lizzie Ldshadowlady, Queen of the Northern Waves and Reefs,

He stops, giving it a bit of thought. Would avoiding Jimmy be worth the political consequences of refusing an invitation like this? No, he concedes reluctantly, it wouldn’t. He can always just avoid Jimmy at the ball- Lizzie would probably be happy for it, honestly. She’s been protective over him from the start. Scott puts the pen back to paper.

Luckily, I will be able to attend the ball. It sounds like a wonderful event and I eagerly anticipate it. As for your note, I will avoid antagonizing Jimmy as much as possible. I would hate to sacrifice diplomatic relations between our kingdoms for a petty squabble. Will that be satisfactory?

Sincerely,

High King Scott Dangthatsalongname Smajor

What’s going on between him and Jimmy is far more than a petty squabble, but Lizzie doesn’t need to know that. It’s fine. It’s not like he’s going to run into Jimmy anyways, right?

The day of the ball arrives, and Scott spends far too long choosing an outfit. He’s not vain, not usually, but...Jimmy will be there. You’re not supposed to want to impress him , Scott scolds himself, but that doesn’t stop him from wearing his nicest golden jewelry. The rest of his outfit is far more strategically planned- long skirts to hide how terrible his balance is when he’s near-constantly struggling to get a full breath into his lungs, gloves to keep his dance partners from questioning his cold hands.

The ball is already in full swing by the time he arrives, the trip from Rivendell taking longer than he thought it would. He’s still greeted by the Ocean Queen herself, though, gliding over in her stunning ballgown of blue and green.

“Welcome!” Her smile is bright, warm in a way he almost envies.

Scott dips his head just enough to be respectful but not so much as to truly defer to her. He thinks that’s right, anyways; he hasn’t had to think about that particular part of etiquette lessons in some twenty years. “Thank you, Queen Lizzie. I apologize for my lateness, the trip was a bit harrowing.”

“No problem at all, I just hope you enjoy the ball!” Lizzie’s smile gains a sharper edge. “I appreciated your letter, by the way. Thank you for your promise to keep it civil, King Smajor. Now we just all have to follow through on our words!” She accompanies that bit with a little laugh, but Scott’s not a fool enough to take it as anything but a warning. She doesn’t want trouble at her ball, and who would, really?

“Hopefully we can manage at least that,” he offers wryly, earning another laugh and a bright “Hopefully!”

Scott doesn’t mean to cause trouble at the ball, he really doesn’t. But before he has a chance to even get a look around, Jimmy’s standing in front of him. And oh, this really isn’t how he hoped it’d go.

“Lord Codfather,” Scott greets, swallowing the lump in his throat. Jimmy cleans up nicely- really nicely- but Scott’s eyes keep going to the scar on his throat, the permanent reminder of how fragile and mortal Jimmy really is.

“Elvenking,” Jimmy says. The formality sounds awkward in his bright voice, and Scott wants to kiss the uncertainty right off his face. “Care for a dance?”

He can’t- he should, Scott knows. There would be value to an alliance with Jimmy, and he has no good reason to turn him down. That’s not why he says yes, though. It’s that look in Jimmy’s eyes, the hope poorly disguised by indifference. He’s so optimistic. Scott shouldn't encourage it, but he can’t find it in himself to break that fragile hope just yet.

“I suppose I wouldn’t mind,” Scott says finally. He takes Jimmy’s outstretched hand in his own gloved one; Vilya rests on Jimmy’s finger, still, and it’s a battle to keep the memories of giving Jimmy that ring at bay. He wins that battle, though, letting Jimmy put a hand on his waist as they start into a simple waltz.

Jimmy is a terrible dancer, and Scott knows it. He steps on Scott’s feet, he gets off-rhythm- he’s frankly not made for dancing, much as the way he hums along to the tune is adorable. His hair, which was probably once nicely styled, has already fallen out of place, and his tunic is a little wrinkled. His hands are rough, tough from all the work he does with them, and his face has a tiny bit of mud on it that he must have missed when getting ready. He looks very much like a sweet little swamp boy, out of place in the midst of all the more elegant and powerful rulers.

He’s the most beautiful thing Scott’s ever seen.

Unlike the last time they danced, back in 3rd life where Jimmy leaned on Scott for balance as he tried to learn the complicated steps, this time it’s Scott clinging to Jimmy for stability. He feels bad about how harsh his grip gets, but he can’t afford to show weakness. He has to stay on his feet.

Scott’s silently thankful when the dance ends and he can lead them off the dance floor. He’s exhausted and shaky, and he’s not sure how much longer he can be around Jimmy without breaking down or doing something very stupid.

“Thank you for the dance, Codfather,” Scott says. He takes a step back, banishing the lingering emotion of their dance.

A beat of silence, and then.

“Can we please stop acting like we don’t know each other?” Jimmy demands, earning a ripple of gasps from nearby guests.

“What else do you want from me?” Scott snaps back, anger rising to fill the gap in his chest.

“I- something! Anything! Just acknowledge that I exist, won’t you?”

Scott swallows down the lump in his throat. “Acknowledging you exist doesn’t mean I can still be in love with you, you know.”

“I know,” Jimmy says. He sounds so bitter, so tired. “I know , trust me. I just want you to stop- to stop hurting yourself to try and avoid pain!”

“That’s not what I’m do-”

Jimmy cuts him off, a rare occurrence. “Then what are you doing? Enlighten me, o wise elf! You told me it would destroy you to lose me, but you’re losing me now by pushing me away!”

His chest tightens, and he can barely force the words out. “I’m trying to do what’s best for the both of us, Jimmy.”

“No you’re-”

It’s Scott’s turn to cut him off. “I am an elf, and I cannot love a mortal. Humans are quick flames, burning and changing quickly. You’ll fall in love again, and you’ll forget me.” It hurts, but it’s true. There will be a mortal who loves you- I’m sure there are many already.” Jimmy’s so wonderful, there are bound to be others who see it.

“But I don’t want a mortal,” Jimmy says. It’s almost childish, but his next words still break Scott’s heart. “I want you. ”

“You can’t have me.” Scott is vividly aware of the fact that there are eyes on him, that their little spat has attracted the attention of the rest of the ballroom.

“But why? Why, Scott?” Jimmy’s voice breaks, and the crack in it is damn near enough to make Scott lose his tiny bit of remaining self-control. “You said you loved me, you promised me all the time we’d be able to- to carve out, to steal from the universe.” It sounds like an accusation, and maybe it is. Scott did promise him that, after all, and then he went back on it.

It wasn’t for no reason, though. He needs Jimmy to understand that it was for a reason. “I can’t give you that!” He snaps back, and his hands tremble when they try to form fists by his side. “You’ll live sixty more years, maybe, a fraction of my life, a blink of an eye to an elf, and I can’t even give you that long! Not when I have to be the elvenking before anything else. Nothing I can do will ever be enough for you.” It’s bitter, but it’s true. Scott can’t be enough for anyone, in the end.

“Enough for me? For ME?”Jimmy’s voice rises in outrage. “All I want is for you not to die to your own dumb plan and acknowledge my existence once in a while!”

Scott’s voice rises in response. “And all I want is for you to realize I can’t love you again!”

“Why can’t you care about me?”

“Why can’t you move on?”

“You’re not moving on, you’re just trying to forget!” Jimmy shouts.

Scott falls silent, breathing hard as the ballroom goes quiet around them. He spots Lizzie sweeping through the crowd, coming to a stop next to Jimmy.

“Is everything alright, boys?” She’s smiling, but it’s strained, and her eyes promise death if this quarrel was Scott’s fault.

“My apologies, Ocean Queen,” he says, and he tries to gather his composure as he dips his head to her. “Everything is alright, but I am afraid I will have to leave early.” He doesn’t look at Jimmy.

She smiles again, dangerous this time. “No need to worry, Lord Smajor. Do try to avoid picking fights with my allies, next time, though.”

“It won’t happen again,” he promises, and he only nearly stumbles when he turns to leave.

Distantly, he can hear Jimmy shout after him. “Coward!” The word is harsh, but there’s hurt beneath it. “You’re a coward, Scott!”

Scott stumbles away all the quicker.

He keeps composed all the way out the doors and most of the way down the stairs until he’s sure no one can see him from the ballroom. It’s only then that he breaks into a run, lifting up his stupid skirts so he doesn’t fall. One shoe falls off, a twisted parody of a children’s fairy tale, and he doesn’t bother to retrieve it. The prismarine stabs at his exposed foot, but Scott doesn’t have the energy to care. Instead, he beats his wings, trying to get enough momentum for a good takeoff.

For a few precious moments, he gets off the ground, and then he remembers Jimmy’s face as he left, wingbeats stuttering with the sudden emotion, and tumbles back to the rough prismarine path. It hurts , it does, but it’s nothing on the pain in his chest. Nothing on the words still echoing in his head. Coward! You’re a coward, Scott!

Scott lays there for a moment, half-wondering if anyone’s coming after him. It’s unlikely, he knows, given how badly he messed things up. He tells himself that that’s a good thing, that he doesn’t want anyone to come looking. He doesn’t need them. He should be strong.

Before anyone has time to notice or be concerned, he’s forced himself back to his feet, starting the takeoff sequence all over again.

This time, he gets in the air with little difficulty, though he lists to the side as he favors his right wing, which took the brunt of the fall. It’s fine. He’s fine, he doesn’t need help.

If Scott believed in the elven gods anymore, he would thank them for the fact that he gets back to Rivendell at all. There are tears blurring his vision, and every part of his body aches, his chest most of all. His flight is shaky at best, outright dangerous at worst, crashing into trees and rocks and the ground multiple times. Each time, he barely picks himself back up before mobs arrive. Sometimes, he questions if he should at all. He’s as good as dead anyways. And yet, the tiny stubborn part of him that got him through 3rd life won’t let him just lay down and die. For some reason, even though he’s slept enough recently (he thinks, anyways), there are phantoms on him. They sense when their prey is sleep-deprived, Scott knows, and wonders if he’s just weak enough to seem that way to them.

By the time he crash-lands on the mountainside, it’s pushing two in the morning, and Scott is more dead than alive. Not that he hasn’t been for a while now, he thinks, and laughs aloud to himself, bitter.

The night watch give him strange looks, but both elves on guard duty obligingly dip their heads when he stumbles by. He barely musters the energy to nod back.

Finally he makes it back to his house, slamming his door behind him and burying his face in his hands. This is the right thing to do, why does it hurt so much? He already lost Jimmy once, why does it feel like he’s losing him all over again when he never really got him back in the first place?

Someone coughs lightly, breaking through his thoughts. The voice is familiar when they speak- one of his advisors. “Lord Smajor? Any major events we should know of at the ball?”

Cold. Calm. Scott knows this is the way of the elves- their royalty cannot dare be human. “The Codfather’s our enemy and the Ocean Queen probably hates us too.” He doesn’t bother trying to make himself sound calm and collected, pushing off the wall and stalking towards the stairs.

“What?” The advisor’s voice pitches up in shock. “What did you do?”

“None of your business.”

“You cannot have embarrassed the elven realm at the largest event of the year-”

“It wasn’t like I was fucking trying to,” He snaps.

A gasp. “Language.”

“Fuck off.”

They hurry after him, making to follow him up the stairs. “Lord Smajor-”

Scott turns to face them, taking in the shock and rage painted across their ancient face. “Leave me be.”

“Do not disrespect your elders,” the advisor scolds. “I remember when you were a child, you always were reckless, but this is a new level of disrespect! Why, Xornoth would never-”

“ Enough ,” he hisses. “Do not talk about my sibling.”

They freeze, a bit of genuine fear creeping onto their face. “My lord-”

“Get out of my house,” Scott snarls.

They wisely obey. Scott slumps against the banister as the surge of adrenaline abates, suddenly exhausted. He’s freezing, he realizes, a bone-deep chill that he doesn’t bother to pretend is from his trip home. Scott’s done lying to himself- he’s in pain, and he’s in love, but then again, those equate to roughly the same thing when all’s said and done. You can’t have heartbreak without love or love without heartbreak. (But oh how he wishes he could.)

Scott doesn’t get out of bed the next day, and no one dares try to force him. Varying members of Rivendell’s Council of Elders make a decent shot at trying to convince him, but all it takes is him fixing them with his dead-eyed stare to make them leave. The people of Rivendell are used to their ruler’s odd sleep schedule by now, brushing it off easily, and the empire itself is mostly functional without him. So instead of getting up and dealing with the corruption or making sure Rivendell’s stores are prepared for winter or any of the things he should be doing, Scott lays there in his own misery and thinks about Jimmy screaming that he’s a coward.

He’s right, that’s the worst part. Scott is a coward. He’s scared of Xornoth and the corruption and never, ever being enough, he’s scared of responsibility and his own mind, he’s scared of fading and dying alone, and- most of all- he’s absolutely terrified of how much he loves Jimmy.

His father warned him about fading, once, back before Scott was expected to carry a crown on his brow and the weight of a nation on his shoulders. He bounced Scott on his knee and told him that elven hearts are fragile, too fragile for how strongly they love. “Don’t fall too deep in love, son,” he said, and the words carried the weight of years of grief. “Don’t care too much about any one person, not if you want to live to be a legend of the ages. Doesn’t matter what kind of love it is, love can be lethal.”

Scott didn’t listen, of course- reckless, rebellious Scott, who never once listened to his elders, went and did the most dangerous thing an elf could do. He fell in love with a human.

And now he’s dying. Surely that gives him a pass to wallow in his own misery for a day or two. He’s been brave for so long, can’t he just rest a few moments? Just...just a few. He’ll just lay here a bit longer.

At that moment, the front door creaks open somewhere below him.

“My lord? Can I come up?” Someone calls from below. Their voice is also familiar- Gilnar. Gilnar’s a good captain of the guard. Dutiful, clever, and far more willing to respect him than most of Rivendell’s high ranking elves.

“If you’ve come to convince me to get up, it won’t work,” Scott calls back.

Gilnar’s head peeks over the railing a moment later. “Nope, not here for that. Just thought I’d check in, y’know?” The Sindarin words sound almost musical in their accent, rolling up and down with a unique sort of rhythm.

“Alright.”

“Are you okay, my lord?”

“No.” He’s done lying. “Leave me be.”

Gilnar shakes their head. “Sorry, my lord, can’t do that.”

“If you’re going to tell me my people need me, don’t waste your breath. I know .” Scott’s voice cracks on the last word, just a little.

“Not that either. But with all due respect, seems a little like you’re givin’ up on yourself just a bit, my lord.” They lean against the railing.

“What do you mean by that?”

They cough, a little awkwardly. “The soul-sickness. The fading.”

Scott’s mouth opens and closes, and he sputters. “How-”

“Trainin’ with the royal guard a few weeks back, your hands were freezin’ and your balance was off. You haven’t gotten up at a reasonable hour in weeks, and, well, with all due respect- I know what heartbreak looks like.”

He’s silent for a moment, utterly floored. “What do you mean by giving up?”

“Well, Lauriel and I were talkin’, and….your love’s still alive, isn’t he? The Codfather?”

“How did you-”

Gilnar flashes him a tiny grin. “He’s not subtle, and neither are you. Plus, he has Vilya.”

Deciding to shove that to the back of his mind for now, Scott sighs. “He’s a mortal, Gilnar. I’m not giving up anything that I won’t already lose in sixty years or so.”

“Luthien loved Beren, didn’t she?”

“I am not Luthien. I cannot sing so well that the gods grant me pardon.”

“And Idril loved Tuor.”

“I am not Idril. I cannot bring Jimmy to the Undying Lands.”

“Arwen still loved Aragorn.”

“I am not Arwen. I do not have the choice to give up my immortal life.”

Gilnar’s smile turns sad. “Caranthir still loved Haleth. And Celebrimbor loved Narvi just the same, didn’t he? The doomed love all the more fiercely, my lord.”

“The rest of the elves won’t be happy with me,” Scott points out.

“You think Thingol and Turgon and Elrond were happy when their daughters loved mortals? You think Luthien’s people didn’t scorn Beren at first?”

Scott doesn’t have any retort to that, and Gilnar hops up from their seat on the banister. “Well, I need to get back to my duties, my lord. Good luck with your swamp boy!”

They’re gone as soon as they arrive, and Scott stares up at the ceiling, his thoughts dragging him along a spiral of emotion.

“Coward! You’re a coward, Scott!”

Scott is a coward. He’s a liar and a coward. Nothing he does will ever be right.

“Don’t fall too deep in love, son.”

Scott did, though. Like the idiot he is, he fell in love with someone the universe didn’t want him to have.

“Caranthir still loved Haleth.”

He did. And he paid for it. Does it matter? Scott thinks that losing Jimmy might be a price worth paying for the joy of loving him.

“You cannot have embarrassed the elven realm at the largest event of the year-”

Scott didn’t mean to, but he still messed up and shouted at Jimmy. He’s a failure. Jimmy could do better. He deserves better.

“I don’t want a mortal. I want you .”

Jimmy’s so stupid. Stupid Codfather with his stupid bright eyes and stupid, stupid insistence on not giving up on someone he should never have loved to begin with. Scott loves him so much more than he could ever put into words.

“With all due respect, seems a little like you’re givin’ up on yourself just a bit, my lord.”

Jimmy deserves an apology. Scott won’t give up.

(Not on Jimmy, anyways.)

It takes him nearly a month of furious work to make the precious mithril bracelet, refining it over and over again. He picks the flowers and their meanings carefully- love, hope, protection- and the crystals too. Amethysts for protection, carefully traded for filled with any bit of magic he can spare for them. The lettering carved into the underside is yet another layer of blessings and meaning; he does it in Quenya, the Tengwar script, which Scott knows Jimmy can’t read. He has to look up how to write in it after so many years of never so much as looking at elven script, pouring over old books by candlelight. By day, he rules an empire, relying on the rush of adrenaline and motivation to carry him through even on the days when he’s swaying on his feet by the end. By night, he works on a courtship project like none he’s made before until at last, at nearly three in the morning one night, it’s finished.

It’s not the most beautiful it could have been. Scott isn’t one of the great Noldor smiths of old, he’s just an elf in love. His hands are perpetually shaky nowadays, and he has limited time to work on it between every other responsibility in his life. But every centimeter of it is handmade with all the care he could muster, and that has to count for something.

Scott hardly wants to wait to give it to Jimmy, but he forces himself to try and wait for morning. His anxiety doesn’t let him sleep much, exhausted as he is, but he curls up under the covers and stares at the bracelet on his nightstand. He doesn’t want to take his eyes off it, half-convinced it will vanish if he does. Eventually, his eyes slide shut of their own will, carrying him into an uneasy sleep.

He wakes up long after the sun's risen, staggering out of bed and throwing on a cloak for the journey to Jimmy’s. The cold that he’s been banishing with the warmth of a forge has returned tenfold, and he’s shivering despite elves normally being resistant to chills. When he takes a glance at himself in the mirror, he finds that his hair is out of place, there’s a streak of ink across his cheek, and the dark circles under his eyes look like bruises. He looks a mess, and he doesn’t care. Jimmy is all that matters now.

The journey’s both long and rough, and his landing in the swamp is more like a frantic swan dive out of the sky. Luckily, though, the ground is soft here, and Scott’s able to pick himself up and hurry for Jimmy’s house, ignoring the stares of a few Codland citizens. He knocks, heart in his throat as he waits for the door to open.

The hinges squeak, and suddenly Jimmy’s standing there, a mix of emotions that Scott doesn’t even want to try and comprehend scattered across his face. He looks a little sleepy despite the fact that it must be near noon, and so very sweet with his hair falling in his face. The sight of him knocks the air right out of Scott’s lungs, and he has to struggle to remember why he’s here again for a long moment as they stare at each other.

“Hi,” Scott says weakly.

“Scott? What- why are you here?” Jimmy sounds outraged, and Scott can’t blame him.

Scott swallows hard. “I came to apologize.” His tired brain scrambles for words, something, anything to convey how truly sorry he is. “I was scared- I am scared. I’m terrified to lose you again. But I shouldn’t have pushed you away and hurt you.”

“No, you shouldn’t have!” Jimmy snaps.

“I know.” God, he didn’t expect it to hurt this much to hear the rage in Jimmy’s voice. “I- uh- fuck.” Scott fumbles to get the box he put the bracelet in, holding it out. “I brought a gift as an apology.”

Jimmy’s silent for a long moment, examining the bracelet. Scott barely dares breathe as he turns it over and over in his hands, tracing the flower designs with his fingertips. “Did you make this yourself?”

“Mhm. I did my best, but it’s not as nice as I’d like.” And, well, isn’t that just the story of his life?

“It’s pretty,” Jimmy says. He sounds genuine.

Scott lets out a breath, letting some of the tension go. “It’s spelled, too. Protection, good fortune, that sort of thing.”

“Do the flowers mean something?”

“They do.”

Jimmy doesn’t press for details.

“I-” Scott starts, and then pauses. What does he say? An apology would be a start, maybe. “I’m sorry, Jimmy, I really am. I won’t ask you to forgive me, but I needed to apologize before my time ran out.” It’s the truth, as wholly as he can bear to give it.

“Is it that- that dire?” Jimmy’s voice shakes a little, and Scott gives a tiny nod.

“This is what I chose to do with it. Making that, coming here. You deserved an apology.”

Jimmy goes quiet again. His eyes are still on the bracelet, and Scott can hardly breathe again.

Finally, he can’t take the tension. “It wouldn’t be fair of me to ask you to love me. I can’t promise you eternity. I can’t promise you happiness. I can’t promise you that I won’t have to be the elvenking first and a husband second. But I am still yours-” he’s always been, really- “if you’ll have me.”

The silence that falls after that is even more stifling than the previous two. Scott doesn’t expect Jimmy to want him back- far from it. He’s putting his heart in Jimmy’s hands, but he doesn’t expect anything other than it shattering on the floor. Maybe Jimmy will be kind enough to let him down gently, but Scott’s fragile enough that it would only take a tiny nudge to break him. And yet he can’t stop the tiny bit of hope that blooms, though it dwindles minute by minute as Jimmy stares and stares. Finally, he opens his mouth to make his apologies again and leave to his frozen, icy empire-

And then there are hands in his hair and lips on his, warm and sudden and bold. Scott gives a little startled gasp, which is swallowed up by Jimmy’s kiss. Their noses knock together and Jimmy’s teeth click against his just a little in their haste, but Scott’s far too overwhelmed by the sudden rush of warmth to care.

When Jimmy finally pulls away, Scott’s left breathless, cheeks warm in a way no part of him has been since Jimmy died in 3rd life.

He barely pulls himself together enough to manage a wry little “So, I’ll take that as you want to stay married?”

“Of course I do! You absolute idiot!”

Jimmy sounds so startled and offended at the idea that he wouldn’t , Scott’s not sure whether to laugh or cry. “Just checking.”

Jimmy kisses him again in response, and who’s Scott to protest? No, he’s more than happy to let Jimmy pull him close and kiss away the lingering sorrow. When Jimmy pulls away this time, he’s left dizzy, half caught up in the euphoria of being loved, half terrified that this is only a cruel dream.

By the time Scott collects himself again, Jimmy’s holding out the bracelet to him. “Can you help me put this on?”

Scott can only nod, fumbling with the clasp a little. It’s not complicated, but his hands aren’t steady, and it takes him a moment to get it. Jimmy grabs his hands when he lets go, and he’s so warm that Scott can’t muster the energy to even question why.

“Come in and catch up with me?” Jimmy offers.

Scott nods again, and he can’t bear to let go of Jimmy’s hand when Jimmy turns to go inside.

They talk a lot, Jimmy more than Scott. Scott learns that Jimmy’s been picked on by other rulers (no surprise, but his blood still boils at the thought), and he shares minimal details about what he’s been up to. Jimmy doesn’t need to hear about Scott’s issues, he’s already dealing with enough.

Eventually, though, the sun is starting to set.

“I need to get home,” Scott says, though he has to force himself to. “You need sleep, not to stay up all night talking.” He goes to get up, and Jimmy immediately lunges, catching his sleeve.

“Don’t go! Please.” Jimmy sounds almost afraid, which instantly sets off alarm bells.

“Jimmy, darling, we both need to sleep,” Scott tells him, very patiently.

“We can sleep! I just….nevermind.”

Now the alarm bells are really going off in Scott’s head. He knows when his husband is hiding something serious, and Jimmy’s frantic tone isn’t helping his worry. “No, no. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Jimmy claims.

Scott frowns at him lightly. “ Jimmy .”

That’s all it takes. “I don’t want to be alone!” Jimmy blurts. He’s blushing a little. “It’s just, I’ve been alone for a long time, and there’s this demon thing that keeps showing up, and I’ve only just got you back, I’m not ready to let you go, and-”

Oh, Jimmy . Scott holds up a hand in a ‘stop’ gesture. “Hold on. What was that about a demon?”

“There’s this demon creature that I keep seeing, and it’s really messing with me. It sounds like you, sometimes, but all distorted, and I can’t handle it! You know me, I’m not brave or smart or anything, I’m just Jimmy!” Jimmy’s voice pitches up with distress, and Scott’s heart aches for him.

“Alright,” he says, as gently as he can manage. “How about you come to Rivendell for the night, then? I can protect us both easier there.” More like, Aeor can protect them. Scott’s useless, even with Vilya.

Jimmy nods and takes Scott’s hand with a tiny little “Thank you.”

“Always,” Scott murmurs. It comes out softer than he means it to, though it’s the truth. He’ll always do whatever he can to protect Jimmy, which is why he asks “Do you still have the ring I gave you?”

“I do, I just… give me a moment to remember where I put it.”

“Good. It’s important.” Vilya is one of the most important parts of his heritage, actually, and his advisors would pitch a fit if they knew he had given it to a mortal. For once, he can’t bring himself to care what his advisors would think, though. Jimmy is important, more important than any piece of jewelry.

Jimmy follows Scott to Rivendell, and Scott can’t resist a proud smile when Jimmy praises the buildings. He takes Jimmy inside, lets him curl up under the warm covers, his head tucked against Scott’s chest, and it’s only once Jimmy’s asleep that Scott lets himself break. He’s so tired , so utterly exhausted from being brave for so long. Even now that his husband is curled up next to him, warm and solid and real, he can hardly believe that Jimmy actually wanted him back- wanted him at all, really. Scott doesn’t want to move for fear of waking up Jimmy, but luckily for him, he’s good at crying silently. That’s what he does, tears slipping down his face to wet the pillow below. Only the faintest whimper escapes his lips, a tiny broken noise that he’s embarrassed of even in this emotional state. And when another slips out, he buries his face in Jimmy’s hair and forces himself back into silence. He’s not going to cry over the best thing that’s ever happened to him, he isn’t , but he’s just so tired of being alone that being with someone else is almost painful in contrast; he’s so cold that the slightest touch of warmth feels burning.

Jimmy shifts in his sleep, mumbling something that sounds vaguely affectionate and pulling Scott closer, and Scott nearly chokes from the effort of restraining a sob. Gods, Jimmy . He could die like this, tucked in his husband’s arms, and he doesn’t think he’d regret it.

“I love you,” he whispers into the night. It comes out choked. “I love you so much. I’m so sorry, Jimmy, I’m so sorry.”

Jimmy mumbles something that sounds a lot like “I love you too”, and that’s what really breaks Scott. It’s a miracle Jimmy doesn’t wake up, really, with Scott’s quiet sobs shaking the mattress. He cries until he’s all out of tears, as silently as he can manage, and only then does he slip into a sound sleep.

#scott smajor #jimmy solidarity #flower husbands #empires smp #my writing

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hearteyes-for-killmonger · 3 years

Text

It's been a long time comiiiing down this rooaaddd. I haven't updated this foreverrr, but I'm doing it nooooooowww! 🎤🎵🎶

Part 23: Movement

"I hope I don't have to jump up here," you sigh gripping the pole to test its sturdiness. It seems strong enough, but then so does the hardwood floor. "I don't have the upper body strength to hold myself up and I definitely don't need to bust my ass in these slippery socks--what," you smile watching Toni bite her lip at your skepticism from Ava's other side.

"Nothing. You have a lot of cushion, you'll bounce back," she gestures eyeing your rear. She's joking but you're serious.

"I'm just saying socks on hardwood with jumping if you're uncoordinated seems like a recipe for disaster."

"You get used to it, stick with us," Ava comforts. Stick with us.. It echoes in your mind. They actually want you there.. continuously.

A small group of women in variety of shapes and sizes, mostly black, gradually takes the remaining poles as the mingling conversations rise. It's a comfortable environment. The sun streams in through the windows bringing in nice natural light. Adjusting the band on your sports bra, you hop but neglect to wrap the pole with your legs. Toni chuckles in good humor.

"Ugh.. I don't know about this you guys."

"It's just a workout, girl, you'll be fine," she waves. "Besides, your NOT sugar daddy will love it when you show him all that assss in motion."

"Oh my God, he's NOT a sugar daddy," you whisper as she mocks you. "Y'all are so aggravating."

"That smile says different.. Just remember to tell me all the nasty gritty details when you throw it back with these moves. Yo' ass got handled before," her nude nails clink against the pole judgingly. They'd lost their minds when you told them about that night in the hotel. You had to tell the story twice because they wanted to visualize it. "He did whatever he wanted to do to that kitty, beat it to high hell. Now YOU are gonna have the power to put it on him. That fatass bunda gone kill him, just wait on it."

Watching your wagon in the full length studio wall mirror you grip the pole to make it wiggle watching it move on your reflection. "I don't know, see, I can move it I just can't move it seductively. I'm kinda stiff."

"She ain't ready for all that yet, Toni, let her take it slow. She can't just jump out there, class ain't even start yet," Ava laughs. "She need the basics."

"I need to learn how to dance," you interject. "Like lap dance and all that jazz.."

"That's simple," a woman's voice cuts in demanding the focus of the room of women who seem to recognize her on entry. Casually, you spin to meet a pair of long toned legs like a gazelle building up to a slender curved shape to be envied.. covered in glowing rich brown skin..

This can't be real, you blink as your mind whisks you back to the fateful day of your meeting each other. The memory is fresh as if it were yesterday.

“What’s your name,” she murmurs, voice as addictive as Erik's. You glance at him and he shrugs leaving the decision of how to respond up to you. When you answer, she recites your name like a poem and you smile. She has a calming effect that puts you at ease and she’s so, so beautiful. She tells you you’re the beautiful one and it makes your face heat. Her fingers lightly brush the warmth of your cheek before moving to her own erect nipples tweaking the silver bars.

“You wanna touch them?” She asks while stepping closer and she reaches out for your hand to pull it to her breast. Your eyes nervously flit to Erik’s and he doesn’t intervene. Not knowing quite what to do you tweak the silver bar and she sighs in pleasure. She moves your other hand to her other breast encouraging you to do the same. Her fingers find your chin again and then she’s close, lips coming in hot. You close your eyes.

Those eyes..

Her black lined cat eyes lock onto yours echoing your shock with a thick and strange energy. She's just as shook seeing you yet she never loses the graceful glide in her step to her teaching pole, glancing evenly from you and squaring her gaze to cover the class.

"Well damn," Ava blurts reading the thoughts of the room as the instructor flips her long high pony of burgundy locs. An exhale is all you muster as your brain thinks of several ways this could end badly.

"Hello my SugarDoll Fitness family," Shay waves to the group in a motion ending with her hand perched cutely nder her chin. It gains an equal positive return from the class.

Smiling just to fit in you look around and nod politely wondering what excuse you could make to Toni and Ava if you leave, especially after Ava just invited you to 'stick with' them. Would the truth suffice or would it bring more unnecessary drama and questions?

Toni and Ava would have a field day if they knew the real nature of your relationship with Erik and Ms. Shay. Last you remember, Shay's pierced nipples were in your between your fingertips. She wanted to devour you whole according to Erik. You haven't even told them you were in the BDSM life yet. They don't even know about the submission thing between you and Erik, they're still stuck on sugar daddy.. It's not something you wanted to share.

That's not something to bring up in this setting..

The way Shay looked at you back then made you feel like she was a starved tigress and you were the live prey, but somehow you were comfortable. She was intense but not intimidating... unlike Erik who initially made you so nervous you couldn't relax. No, she wasn't like that.. It felt more like she was wise beyond her years, but very playful and mischievous.. You'd liked her energy.

Then Erik went and cut her off because of his insane jealousy which was great in the sense that it was one step closer to being his only partner, but dumb in the way that it came about. It's one of his flaws. Erik needs to put his jealousy in check before he does something too impulsive to reverse or gets his feelings hurt.

If he'd never taken you to her home, they'd still have their BDSM dynamic, which brings up the issue of blame. Was it your fault? Does she blame you? Does she even care or miss the man?They seemed to pair well despite his gripes that she was troublesome.

Funny... You'd think he'd love a troublesome woman. He say he like spice and Shay had that with the experience to match, so then why choose you? Why not her over you or her and you? He could've made it work. Something about her being too dominant seems like a copout for him, looking back..

"I see some familiar faces. Faith.. Nicki.. Lynn.. Janell.." Her ruby red lips part in a smile and there's something about the simplest of her motions. Everything is a subtle demand for power.. "I see a lot of new faces too," her eyes roll down the line to yours, lingering briefly like she wants to say much more. Her eyes lower for the briefest of moments and where you anticipated malice, there seems to be none. There's something on her mind instead.

"You good," Ava nudges your side in question. You flinch slightly but nod. There's something Shay wants to get out but she can't with everyone else present.

"I want us to get to know each other in here as women. We all have our reasons for being here.. Let's go around the room. I'll start," Shay announces with a slow walk to her right, a natural sway to her hips. "As some of you may know, my name is Shayla Berry, Shay for short aka SugarDoll. Yes, I am an exotic dancer. Yes, I am a dominatrix," her eyes roll playfully. "I also paint by trade and teach pole fitness. I am a multifaceted business woman with a flare for the artistic," her black painted fingers flare. "I meditated on having my own successful studio and then I manifested it to reality when I rented this place a few months ago and baby when I tell you the law of attraction works, I am flourishing."

She gestures to her right and the introductions begin from the repeat students as well as the new. There's a teacher and a nurse present. Everyone's common goal seems to boil down to exploring their sensuality while having fun with dance and getting in a good workout. Then there's Toni. She's a traveler, which you knew. She likes to shop and eat. What you didn't know was that she is also a pilot and works 100 hours a week max. As for Ava, you knew she was originally from the ATL and lived a sugar baby life, but you did not know that she was raised amongst strippers and that she's also an audiologist. She had to explain to the class what an audiologist was.

"And you?" Shay's fiery eyes focus in as she takes a half step towards you.

"Y/N," you say as if she doesn't already know. She knows more than Toni and Ava, she saw your whole coochie for the sake of giving you a biology lesson. Embarrassing.. "I'm from Cali.. born and raised. I don't travel that often, but I'd love to go to Europe.. I love movies, it's really all I do.. watch movies, sleep, and work.. I work in cybersecurity."

"You prevent hackers?" Ava's neck cranes and you nod as she gives a look of approval.

"This is probably messed up," you pause as she and Toni both look up, "But I don't know why I assumed you two were spending men's money in the mall when we met," you whisper feeling superficial. Just because they're universally gorgeous like celebrities doesn't mean they aren't successful outside of that and able to afford the finer things on their own accord. You can do both.

"..We were," Ava shrugs simply. "My money stay in my savings.. I haven't paid a bill with my own money in two years."

"Work smarter not harder babe," Toni smirks. "You oughtta know."

"That's just it, I don't know because that's not something I've experienced because Erik and I are friends with benefits..," you sigh. "A lot of benefits..."

When introductions wrap up, the lesson starts and Shay jumps right into it with terminology foreign to you.

"This is a mixed pole fitness class.. So go ahead and face your poles, we're going to start with some body rolls. Hands low on the pole like so," she demonstrates. "Roll it out." Her body waves in a fluid S motion. "Chest, abs, hips... Chest, abs, hips.. Let it roll, smoothly down to the floor and up. Y/N, get on your tiptoes, baby. Lexi, get your arms involved. Stick that ass out, don't be scared.. Perfect. I'm watching all of y'all," she says pointedly. "..Again."

You watch and try your best to duplicate, your S moreso a stiff Z and she switches her hand position to the top of her pole.

"Now we're gonna walk around and this helps loosen the joints. Think tight and tall as you stride around the pole on those toes. I don't want any flat feet. Keep on your imaginary heels, Y/N," he blinks your way. "Now stop on the side and circle those hips." Her hips rotate as though they're on a swivel.

When you look to Toni and Ava, they're already moving like pros which tells you they do this often. They travel together, shop together, share life, and take classes like this together. They're already extremely close. It's surprising they'd think to invite you into their circle..

"Outside arm and leg sweeps back, across the floor, sweep out and back."

"Like you're swimming," someone adds.

"Exactly, like you're swimming. Next move, grab that knee, pull it up and out, soft hands, open that chest, roll it back... same leg flick the toe and kick forward."

"I can't go that high," the same woman from before says."

"That's fine, go to where you're comfortable. Lunge back same leg.. and we're going to repeat the process with the other leg."

The routine goes on minutes more until she gets to a pirouette which is a more familiar term. Unfortunately, that's followed by slow pushups which, of course, doesn't happen. Toni uses her knees, but Ava does the full set of pushups. She's the only one.

"Showoff," Toni mutters.

The next moves require a lot of knee pivoting and borderline twerking in slow motion. You feel the workout in your thighs, your knees, your abs, and your back. It's only been fifteen minutes out of the hour and you're stopping for water. Some of the motions have been easy to grasp, but some have been frustrating. It's only my first time, you remind yourself.

Thirty minutes in, you've developed an idea of how to move and what to incorporate into your sex life.. when it revives. Putting the moves together into a routine is the current issue.

"I could do some of this," you say to Ava. "I just wish I could borrow some of your core strength."

"You'll get it with time, stay consistent. I'm holding you to it."

"Y/N," Shay calls out as she body rolls and raises her leg high. "What's this about you not knowing how to dance, mama?"

"Huh," I pause standing straight. She remembered. "Well I can dance. I can do the nae nae and the little tiktok dances, but this..," I gesture to the pole. "This is a different story. I guess I'm not the seductive type."

"Have you ever had sex?"

The question cuts and you feel all eyes glued on you. She must know that you and Erik have already.. on multiple occasions...

"....Of course."

"Then... you're the seductive type," she says simply. "Dance is a style of communication. It's about movement and seduction." She comes close and her finger gently snakes your collarbone as she circles you, standing directly behind, her slim hands on your waist.

"We really need to talk.. later," she whispers quietly in your ear. Her hips line up with yours, her center against your ass, and she winds. "If you can walk, you can dance, Y/N. If you can dance, the seduction is that much easier.." This time her words are addressed to the class. Her hips guide yours against the pole as she grinds against it through you. "Follow my rhythm."

You move exactly as you feel her move, in a groove, and after a few moments when you've perfected the body roll she backs up. When you do it on your own in the mirror, you have the S shape down pact.

"That's it, I'm coming back," you smile at the pole. At the end of class you're sore and tired but excited to have picked up some tricks. Meeting Shay's eye, you excuse yourself briefly from Ava and Tony with the excuse of asking about her paintings. "Shay," you whisper once you're close and she leads you out of the space.. far.. all the way outside before she looks around. There's no one standing out nearby, only well groomed trees and sidewalk with some grass and a parking lot.

"How have you been," is the first thing she asks as if she's truly concerned. Her eyes convey a lot.

"Why?.. I'm good," you stare echoing her strange expression. She's having a tough time saying what she wants to say.. she's pausing a lot, hesitating.

"Shay, what's wrong.. I get the feeling you want to tell me something but you're conflicted. I swear I won't run tell Erik.. whatever it is.."

"You're still with him," her brows rise in shock. "Okay so he was serious.. Did he ever mention.. anything about, um.. our last meeting together?"

"You guys had sex one last time, I know about it."

She takes a deep unsteady breath and instantly I know there's more to the story than what he said. She looks around again as if she's nervous.

"He didn't mention anything about.. himself?... As far as what he does...?"

"Hm? Well, yeah, he told me he does the video game thing. We just went to Texas-"

"That's-," she pauses with her mouth wide as if she's deeply confused. "Um.. you know what. Just... be careful okay? Take care of yourself."

"What?" Of all the random things to say. "What are you talking about? Wait," you grab her shoulder as she's walking off. "I feel like you're trying to tell me something about him and I wish you'd just spit it out.."

"Well look at you, definitely got bolder," her eyes flick up and down you. "Actually, it's nothing.. I just wanted to check on you.. make sure you were doing alright, that's all," she smiles, but it doesn't touch her eyes. "I'm going back inside to make sure no one has any further questions for me."

Letting her go, you watch her and something doesn't sit right. She wasn't telling you something and you don't know what that something is, but it's making your mind spin. Ava and Toni come out and walk toward you.

"She showed me one of the paintings in her car," you lie though you're not sure why, it just comes out and they accept it moving on. They have plans to get massages and you're invited there too. The three of you get the full body massage and it's relaxing after all that exercise. When you finally leave them and get to Erik's you OD on water, eat, shower, and watch TV upstairs until you pass out sleep.

The next day, they contact you on your lunch break and actually meet you for brunch, happy to see where you work. You have to apologize to Tanner for canceling lunch plans with him. He's so used to eating with you and vice versa. You've gotten used to looking into his pretty blue eyes. At least he gets to meet Toni and Ava briefly and they call him white chocolate which he eats up. You throw subliminals that maybe he and Toni should hook up but neither seem truly interested outside of surface good- natured flirting.

The following day after work is the beach. The three of you sunbathe while sharing stories about family and teen years. "This is the life," you jest laid back on your towel with your sunglasses on feeling warm and toasty. "I've been missing this. I need to meet more people to do things like this with, I get tired of sitting home alone."

"Aww. I don't wanna leave you here by yourself. I wish we didn't have to leave Cali or maybe you could come south with us," Toni says, but it's not realistic. They can afford to travel all the time but you have to work. When they do leave, you see them off.

-----

"I asked for chocolate," Erik grumbled laid out in his hospital bed six weeks into bed rest. They'd given him vanilla snack pack and he hated vanilla.

"Here you go," his nurse teased, used to his temper. "Stubborn ass.. I will personally bring you your chocolate pudding."

"Two.. and take this nasty one with you," he hudged it toward her. She laughed.

"Baby you can eat all the chocolate pudding you want when you up outta here. You finally got the go ahead as long as you stay the fuck off that damn leg.. Don't kiss your teeth, you've been doing everything short of p90x up in here."

"I wasn't on my leg though, those were upper body workouts.."

"You still need to relax."

"Hell yeah.. soon as I get my pudding.."

She shook her head, amused. Erik knew that once he left she'd think of him still. She was pretty nice though, so maybe he'd think of her too.. just maybe. He thought of telling her the truth before leaving... Perhaps he'd be there if she ever needed someone permanently removed from her life at a discounted rate..

@soufcakmistress @itsiesha @ju5tp34chy @scrumptiouslytenaciouscrusade @blackpantherimagines @blackpinup22 @muse-of-mbaku @goddessofthundathighs @panthergoddessbast @thadelightfulone @misspooh @marvelmaree @youreadthatright @forbeautyandlife @theunsweetenedtruth @bidibidibombaclaat @myboyfriendgiriboy @dameshaemonique @hidden-treasures21 @mysidefanting @hold-me-like-a-heart-beat @syndrlla97 @winteroflife @thotyana-in-this-hoe @texasbama @gingerylimonte @princessstevens @magic-madness-heavensin @wawakanda-btch @wakanda-inspired @blackgirloneshots @thegucciwaffle @thiccdaddy-mbaku @purplehairgawdess @indigoxsummers @cccccx1 @dynastylnoire @iamrheaspeaks @blowmymbackout @they-call-me-le @theblulife @raysunshine78 @sheisexcellent-blog

#original #erik killmonger #killmonger #erik stevens #erik killmonger fanfiction #erik stevens au #black panther killmonger #black panther fanfiction #house rules

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warsofasoiaf · 4 years

Note

What do you think Aegon the 1st would think of the reigns of his sons?

I think he would be disappointed in their failure to grasp his example and act in mere imitation instead of comprehension. Here’s an essay I wrote about three years ago for the Reddit essay competition about their failure. The prompt was: “Who did the worst job in preparing their children for the world they would face?” The essay ultimately ended up not winning, but I think it was the stronger essay.

The Parrot Kings

Aegon I Targaryen was one of the greatest kings Westeros has ever seen. His military conquest was largely unblemished, he forged a single polity out of disparate and oft-warring kingdoms, and he established Targaryen dominance and a peaceful realm for roughly twenty-four years after the conclusion of the wars with Dorne. Any one of these accomplishments would be remarkable, but for Aegon to conquer Westeros from the Wall to the Marches and then establish a generation-long peace is something truly extraordinary in the fractious realm of Westerosi politics. Yet Aegon had a key failure that would imperil his kingdom and nearly cause his new dynasty to collapse in its second generation: he neglected to instruct his sons to understand and follow his example.

To be sure, the first king of the Targaryen dynasty was not idle. Yandel notes that the Conqueror spent half of each year on progress, and would personally intervene when matters called his attention. A king so occupied (and often gone) might well have expected his queen consort to oversee the education of his heir - but Queen Rhaenys fell at the Hellholt when their only son Aenys was three. Aegon was left with Visenya, mother to his second son Maegor, but the king’s relationship with her was at best cold and formal; instead of benefiting from the presence of the three complementary Targaryen siblings, the Dragon’s sons would be raised by an often-absent father and a queen with her own internal ambitions. Still, Aegon’s power and wisdom held promise that his sons would become worthy heirs of House Targaryen.

Yet Aegon failed to teach his elder son the need for decisiveness so crucial for a king. Aegon himself was a delegator: it was he who created the powerful secondary executive office of Hand, and he who charged Torrhen Stark to quell the Sunderland revolt. At the same time, Aegon was always willing to step in when needed, as during Qhorin Volmark’s attempted rebellion. By contrast, Aenys did not delegate, but depended upon others to fulfill his duties for him. Fearful of making an incorrect decision, Aenys gave no orders, and it fell to others to enforce the King’s Peace for the king. Aenys’s failure to either delegate or intervene forced his lords, like “Savage” Sam Tarly, Orys Baratheon, and Alyn Stokeworth, to shed their blood and even give their lives in suppressing rebellions. When such lords acted with the power that rightly belonged to the crown, Aenys rewarded them, but even his rewards failed to grasp Aegon’s teachings: allowing Goren Greyjoy to dictate high-level religious policy destabilized the realm, a further testament to Aenys’s inability to understand Aegon’s balance of power. When no strong figure appeared to handle difficult circumstances, as during the Faith crisis, the realm nearly collapsed: Aenys eventually abandoned his capital to the insurgent Faith Militant, sacrificing his father’s city out of fear, and died a weak king who had brought ruin - the pure opposite of his decisive, strong-willed father.

Aegon failed to imbue Aenys with a suitable sense of the necessary decisionmaking that would come with his future position. Unlike his descendants Jaehaerys I and Daeron II, Aegon did not trust his chosen successor with the office of Hand, educating him in the royal executive authority and allowing him to build a political presence; unlike even Viserys I, Aegon did not instruct his heir to sit at the foot of the throne and listen carefully, where he might gain vital insight into the business of ruling. Accordingly, surrounded by the strong authority figures of his father and aunt, Aenys never quite understood the decisionmaking responsibility which he would eventually inherit. Indeed, Aenys may well have been intimidated by the peerless and dominating Aegon and the formidable and capable Visenya, growing nervous at taking action without seeking their approval; thus, when he inherited his position, Aenys may not have fully realized that it was he who gave approval, not he who sought it. The Seven Kingdoms needed Aegon to impart his lessons of leadership to his son; in this respect, Aegon unequivocally failed.

Aegon failed in his second son’s education as well: Maegor had the decisiveness which Aenys lacked, but never learned from his father the tempering of force which had made his reign so successful. Aegon was not afraid of demonstrating his draconic power, but he also took the time to use symbols and ceremony to confer legitimacy on his rule. At the start of his Conquest, Aegon made sure to stage his own coronation with a grand banner unfurled in the Westerosi tradition, underlining his right to rule; during the war, Aegon confirmed his new vassals with proper ceremony and converted to the worship of the Faith of the Seven to establish common ground with the Westerosi people. Maegor, by contrast, largely ignored any trappings of legitimacy or efforts to assimilate: he usurped the throne at his half-brother’s death, killed the Grand Maester who protested the legality of his succession, burned the capital’s great sept, took multiple wives, and personally slew his nephew (and the legitimate heir). Maegor never offered the Faith Militant terms of settlement the way his father offered to raise up enemy kings as loyal vassals; indeed, since Maegor never offered surrender terms, his enemies would never lay down their arms. Aegon rewarded vassals who served him faithfully, naming Orys Baratheon and Edmyn Tully as Hands of the King, while Maegor routinely butchered men and women alike (even his own wives and kin) for failing him, disagreeing with him, or simply knowing what only he wished to know (such as the craftsmen who built the Red Keep). Even Maegor’s royal rewards were twisted and steeped in bloodshed, as when he called a melee in the blood-soaked streets of Harroway to win Harrenhal. There was nothing deeper to Maegor's reign than oceans of blood and endless war.

Maegor’s faults are again, partially Aegon’s responsibility. Aegon had been a “warrior without peer,” but he was wise enough to understand that brute force alone could not keep a kingdom. Yet Aegon never apparently took his second son on his many progresses, as when he visited the Starry Sept in Oldtown or his paramount lordly families; Aegon thus lost an opportunity to demonstrate to Maegor the soft power of kingship, as important as the sword. Aegon’s one known interaction with Maegor, knighting his son when the boy was sixteen, only emphasized to Maegor that his father rewarded him for his obvious martial skill. Instead of imparting in Maegor a sense of duty and obligation to House Targaryen and his royal brother, Aegon only set an example of martial spirit which Maegor blindly and ruthlessly followed. Accordingly, Maegor saw in the Iron Throne not the institution that allowed it to stand, but only the swords of the king’s fallen enemies, twisted by Balerion’s great flame into a seat of power and symbol of infinite might.

Like many poor parents throughout Westerosi history, Aegon I imparted ideas without context to his weaker children. Tywin Lannister, for one, taught Cersei the power of brutality without the necessary complement of feudal and dynastic alliances, undermining the Lannister-Tyrell union that supported the Iron Throne. Aegon V never impressed upon his children the different political circumstances behind their defiant marriages and his own love-based betrothals to Betha Blackwood, destroying his plan to build alliances. Likewise, Aegon I raised his two children as imperfect halves whose whole was less than the sum of its parts. The two sought to imitate without understanding, and so neither became more than a poor shadow of the Conqueror, mere parrots with crowns.

Thanks for the question, Emperor.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

#aegon i targaryen #aegon the conqueror #maegor targaryen #maegor the cruel #aenys i targaryen

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mrallnight57-blog · 3 years

Text

The Crystal of Mordokia

Chapter 6

Gothic Mirror stood on the second floor, above the stage watching the Punk Rockers, and other members of the Gothic Lights prepare for tonight's event. Suddenly he felt a tap on his shoulder.

Gothic Mirror didn't like being touched, especially by those he felt were inferior. He slowly turned to the man touching his shoulder, and gave him a stare that showed he greatly disapproved of the man's actions.

The man tapping his shoulder was one of the Punk Rockers. Gothic Mirror noticed that the name on his jacket said Spin Doctor. When Gothic Mirror began staring at him. The man immediately put his hands up to try and show, he was not there to cause him any trouble.

"Hey... uh Gothic Mirror was it? I'm not here to start any trouble... I.. I'm just here to ask a couple of questions."

Gothic Mirror just stared at Spin Doctor in silence. Spin Doctor looked away, and began scratching his head. It was at this point Gothic Mirror realized he needed to say something, or the complete moron was just going to keep standing there, and not say anything. So Gothic Mirror broke his silence. "What? What do you feel you need to ask me?"

"Oh... uh... thanks." Spin Doctor smiled. He was happy he finally got permission to speak. "So The Disciples aren't going to be playing there music until midnight tonight. What are your plans until then?"

Gothic Mirror seemed confused by the question. "What do you mean?"

Spin Doctor began to elaborate. "Well, you don't have any food, also I imagine there probably not going to be any music until the band plays. So I was wondering what you had planned."

Gothic Mirror stood there puzzled for a moment. "Well I rarely plan events like this."

Spin Doctor scratched his head again. "Wait. You're a leader of a new religion, and you don't plan events for your followers."

Gothic Mirror began to get offended. "I'm a very busy man, and I depend on others to get the message out!"

Spin Doctor backed away. "Dude! I'm trying to help you out here. Look, before I joined the Punk Rockers, I was a dj. Let me get the boys to go out and get some food, and I'll go back to our hide out, and get my music."

Suddenly Gothic Mirror noticed Mr. Tucker and some teenagers enter the room below. Gothic Mirror then turned back to Spin Doctor. "Okay. Do what you think is best. I have business to tend to."

"Cool." Spin Doctor smiled. "What kind of music you want. Rock, heavy metal, alternative. I also got some rap and hip hop."

Gothic Mirror reached out with both hands, and grabbed Spin Doctor by his jacket. "Heavy metal and alternative is fine, but heaven help you if you play any rap or hip hop in this building! If you do, I will have you pissing your pants, and hiding under your bed for the rest of your life!"

Spin Doctor was shaking. He swallowed hard. "O..okay, well, I will not grab those cds then."

Gothic Mirror let him go. "Good. Now begone with you." Gothic Mirror began walking towards the stairs, so he could greet Mr. Tucker.

"Oh yeah! One more thing." Spin Doctor had called out to Gothic Mirror.

Gothic Mirror was getting agitated. He turned to Spin Doctor and yelled. "What!?!"

At that moment Gothic Mirror could hear Mr. Tucker telling his guest. "Don't be afraid. Our leader is actually a very kind man."

Gothic Mirror felt a rush of embarrassment come over him. Normally he could keep his cool, but the stress of the event, and the inoance of being bothered, got the best of him.

Spin Doctor took a deep breath, and very quickly said, " I just wanted you to know that Rolo was preparing The Disciples dressing room. So that when they got here, they would be comfortable."

Gothic Mirror was trying to calm down. "Excellent. Tell Rolo thank you for putting me in contact with them." Gothic Mirror then turned, and made his way down the stairs.

Once Gothic Mirror got down stairs, he began making his way to Mr.Tucker and his students. Once Mr. Tucker spotted him. Mr. Tucker began walking towards him to greet him. "Master it is so great to see you. It's been quite sometime since last we saw each other.

Gothic Mirror rolled his eyes, they had actually saw each other that morning, during the break at the government lab. In fact the break in had caused Tucker to be late for work.

Gothic Mirror gave a faint laugh. He was pretending to be happy to see Tucker, but truth be told, he could care less about him, or anyone else for that matter. People were just tools to him, and the moment they lost their usefulness, he throw them out, or dispose of them.

Gothic Mirror looked over at the students. "I see you brought some fine re...cruits." Gothic Mirror trailed off for a second, because one of the students took him by surprise.

Gothic Mirror stared at Franklin. He was a little confused by why someone like him would be here. "An African American?"

Franklin's eyes widen. It was at this point he noticed Gothic Mirror staring a hole through him, and all he could think was. Oh shit! This guy is racist. After a few seconds of awkward silence. Franklin decided to say something. "Um... you can just say black."

Gothic Mirror gave an awkward laugh, he realized he was freaking the boy out. He also didn't want the boy to think he was racist. Truth be told Gothic Mirror wasn't racist at all, because he hated everyone equally.

Gothic Mirror smiled at Franklin. "I do want to say, and I mean no disrespect, and I want you to know all is welcome here. I was just taken off guard, because..." Gothic Mirror paused trying to think of a polite way to say what he wanted to say.

Franklin finally intervened. "I think you're trying to say, you never met a black person interested in the a cult.

"Exactly!" Gothic Mirror smiled.

"It's cool man." Franklin said with a smile. "You see, my boy Matt and I have been friends since kindergarten, and when he started getting into it. I sort of got into it too. I actually hear that shit all the time, my parents hate that I'm into it. They were hoping I would get into basketball, or football instead. So I'm use to people being shocked, that this is what I'm into."

Gothic Mirror turned to Matt. "Ah so you're the one who has brought this group together. You must be a very wise young man."

Suddenly Gothic Mirror heard one of the young ladies clear her throat. "Actually I'm the one who brought us together."

Gothic Mirror stared at the young woman, and under his breath muttered. "Of course it was a woman who brought them together." Gothic Mirror hated young people. Even though he himself was only twenty nine. He felt that he was more wise and mature than people three times his age. Most young people were rude and felt intitled. Which was the biggest reason why he didn't want to deal with them, but he needed them to spread his message.

He also currently wasn't very fond of woman and girls. This was for an entirely different reason, which he didn't want to think about it at this moment.

Gothic Mirror turned to the young woman who spoke. "And you are?"

"Samantha!" The girl extended her hand.

Gothic Mirror stared at her hand for a second before reaching out and gently grabbing the tips of her fingers, giving it one shake and letting it go."

Samantha looked at her hand to make sure nothing nasty was on. Normally guys couldn't wait to touch her hand, or some part of her body, but for some reason, this guy seemed to want nothing to do with her. For a second she thought. Maybe this guy is gay.

Mr. Tucker approached Gothic Mirror and put his arm around him. Gothic Mirror stared coldly at Mr.Tucker as to tell him, that he did not want him to touch him. Mr. Tucker seem to ignore the que, and began whispering in his ear. While pointing at the tallest member of the group. Which happen to be Tim.

"Look at this young man over here. He be perfect for... Mr. Tucker paused. Then nodded towards Tim. "The plan."

Gothic Mirror smiled. "Ahh, yes this lad would be perfect."

This got both Tim and Katey's attention. Mr. Tucker turned to them and said, "Tim tell our wonderful leader about your time playing football."

Tim was taken a back by the inquiry, and didn't understand why his time in football mattered. "Well, I was middle line backer last year, and I did it, was because my parents forced me. I actually hate football."

Gothic Mirror removed Mr. Tucker's arm from around his shoulder, and stepped towards Tim. "Yes. I agree. Football is a barbaric sport, but seeing that you are a powerful young man. We could definitely use someone like you."

Katey was beginning feel uncomfortable, while Samantha fully confirmed to herself, that, yup the man was gay. Katey didn't like how these older men were talking about, and looking at her Timmy. In fact Mr. Tucker just freaked her out in general, and his so called Master, seemed like a scum bag. Katey just couldn't stay silent for any longer. "Hey! Aren't you guys suppose to be showing us a Demon!?!"

Gothic Mirror and Mr. Tucker looked at each other and laughed. Gothic Mirror then turned back to Katey. "The Demon is not set to appear until after the concert."

Katey folded her arms. "You know. I'm starting to think you guys are full of shit!"

Gothic Mirror smiled, then began walking towards Katey. Katey's friends began urging her to calm down. Tim even said, "Babe, be quite. You are going to fuck things up." But before anyone else could say anything. Gothic Mirror was in front of Katey.

Gothic Mirror smiled, and placed a finger on Katey's temple. She tried to back away, but for some reason she couldn't move. It was like her body completely froze.

Gothic Mirror leaned in close to Katey and whispered. "You want to see a Demon. I'm going to show you a Demon.

#horror #supernatural #super hero #my writing

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