#anti the whole jacobs family at this point

[blueribbonbaby]

what's your opinion on marsha jacobs?

I hate her after she basically told Nate that she was fine with the fact that he choked maddy. That whole family can drop dead 💀

[a-christmas-carol-from-hr]

dissecting jacob marley again because i'm so normal about him and like

i've been thinking about this part

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don’t know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner.

it's there so we know that Scrooge and Marley were close. they were all the other had, however you define that relationship. And it points out that nobody else was there. It was just Scrooge. Scrooge was the executor of Marley's estate, he was the only person who inherited from his death, he was the only person in attendance.

and that's so interesting to me, given the focus on the family both in Dickens and in the Victorian era as a whole. Marley isn't merely alone. He's estranged from his family. he HAD to have had a mother and father at some point, but by the time of his own death, they're not there. And they haven't inherited either, which is the interesting thing. Scrooge is the ONLY heir to Marley's estate. there's nobody else.

which leads to one of two conclusions: marley has either disowned his family to such an extent that even the law isn't involved, or they're dead.

and i'm inclined to suspect they're all dead since scrooge, who is not related to marley, has inherited everything. Scrooge settles the estate quickly, so there's no dispute. maybe because nobody is left ALIVE to dispute it.

and i KNOW i'm overthinking a handful of lines because i'm insane. but man. an adaptation where you see baby Marley meeting Scrooge and he has a family. Siblings maybe. Fuck, maybe even a wife. Maybe children. And then by the time of his own death, they're dead. Every last one of them.

A Marley losing a family the same time Scrooge loses his. And by the end, he's the last one dead to begin with.

A Marley that's almost an anti-cratchit...

[thelesbianpoirot]

if you ever do feel like mocking saltburn please do. god that movie was ridiculous. just disjointed nonsense and shock factor (although, for me, the most 'shocking' scene was actually the end when he's about to unplug the ventilator or whatever, just because of the suspense and horror i felt knowing he's some deviant freak who's probably not above abusing an unconscious elderly woman.)

I tried to hold back on mocking Saltburn because the director is a woman, I hated the Barbie and only made a single post about it, because I didn't want to obliterate the film of a woman just trying to say some feminism 101 talking points while still making a giant toy advertisement. Especially a woman I know can make good movies, she made ladybird and I did enjoy that.

But when I found out Saltburn was directed by the woman who wrote, co-produced and directed promising young woman, I realize I had to say something. Emerald really isn't a survivor of assault, she can't fucking be, if she thinks promising young woman isn't a fucking slap in the face. I have never hated a protagonist and plot more. The message of her movies are any lacking substance. They have down right conservative messaging masquerading as radical, and are so misguided. Sheltered rich kid movies. She can't write for shit and people are blowing smoke up her ass. There are many male nepobaby hacks and frauds in hollywood, Emerald fennel is a rare female version. Saltburn is no different from promising young woman. I will be quick because I am about to go to sleep. She wrote that one too. She can't write. She could be a good produce and director, but not as a writer. Her ideas are uninspired, childish and not realistic. And she isn't inventive enough to make viewers suspend their disbelief. She made no effort to hide that the main character was sinister. I don't blame Barry, he's a good actor, he can do innocent and evil, but the movie showed it's hands so fucking early. I knew within the first 15 minutes where this movie was going and the only thing that shocked me was the blatant-ness of it all. This feels like the plotline of a season of dynasty, when I know she wanted it to feel like succession.

Oliver Quick is character that should be dismantling the wealth elite. He isn't poor, he's upper middle fucking class. I could not take any solace in a working class character seizing the wealth of the rich. His family is fucking loaded. Do you see his house? His happy loving parents. He is not a hero, or even anti-hero, he's no better any of the rich people he killed or had a hand in killing. If that is the point, what is the point. Everyone is an entitled rich evil bastard in succession, but they are people, they don't see themselves like that and we the audience no matter how aware we are, can fall victim to caring about them. At no one in this movie do I care about Oliver Quick or any of the other characters. They weren't people, just quirks and archetypes.

Is she saying poor (middle class really) people are entitled psychopaths social climbers? We hate and love the rich and famous because we want to fuck them and be them? Is that the message? I think she decided to make it a comedy after she saw the completely boilerplate boring runt of a film she made, so she added wacky scenes to get comedy from it, I did not laugh, not even in a dark things are funny sense. It just pissed me off more and more. I paid to see this on my day off, took the bus into the city and everything, emerald give me my day off back!

Does the women's wealth make their treatment okay? The sexual manipulation of the younger sister, and the abuse of an unconscious elderly disabled mother?

Young women are horny for Jacob Elodi, who isn't even a good actor, he's just tall, like I can't see a reason why this man is famous another than he's tall, and straight girls need to feel small and little to feel sexy idk. The whole film is dedicated to how enigmatic Jacob elodi's character is, and how someone wanting to be him or be with him could drive them to murder. Yet he is a PLANK. A BRICK WALL. THERE IS NOTHING THERE. He will never be Jude Law/dicky greenleaf (i.e charismatic asshole).

Yes, putting nonsensical meaningless shocking scenes in your movie doesn't make it good. Having a jump scare in your horror movie doesn't make it scary, you just surprised people, got a natural human response from them. I cringed, scrounged up my face, rolled my eyes and complain about the movie, that doesn't make it thought provoking. Just irritating.

She wanted this to be her THE MENU (Latest hollywood class struggle critique) mixed with Talented Mister Ripley (sympathetic but psychopathic protagonist tries to blend in with the cold shallow rich people).

But what she did was connect a series of aesthetic shots (jacob Elodi montage that belongs in a music video at best), weird sexual shit social media will cling to because it is weird and sexual, and location shots/scenes that looked like meaningful things should be happening but nothing is there. Film twitter tiktok can't stop talking about this dumb movie, and she got what she wanted. I can't wait till she makes a good movie for once, instead of relying on backlash, outrage to fuel her film career.

[cto10121]

Twilight Clownery—Part 2

In the guise of a personal essay on OP’s relationships with toxic men, at that. Honestly, the whole thing is so loosely conceived it just sounds like a parody of anti-Twilight clownery. Let’s get to it.

Already we have Bullshit #1. Although Team Jacob had its passionate adherents, Team Edward was definitely the most popular by a large margin. OP may have ~lucked out by having Team Jacob fans as her friends, but I was there. I remember the discourse, the fanfiction, the ~atmosphere. Most everyone was Team Edward.

Nowadays Jacob—the “healthy” choice—is mostly lambasted for his assault on Bella and his manipulation into kissing him. So already this essay and its ~Team Bella conclusion is several years outdated.

Tag yourself, I’m “reinforced his being a man.” 😂Also, “abstracted danger”—literally nomadic vampires and a whole-ass vampire royal family. Also, also, Edward considers himself a danger as well.

Charismatic and everyone despised them. That is some hot ice and wondrous strange snow right there. The quality of the prose here is truly ~~stunning.

Considering that Rosalie canonically hated Bella for 1) Edward liking her and 2) for Bella wanting to be a vampire and not choosing humanity like she would (*foot stomp*) and viewed her as a baby incubator in Breaking Dawn to the point of Jacob and Edward both calling her out for it in disgust…she is perhaps not the best character to use as a grand metaphor for your sapphic desires, Clown OP.

At this point I’m not at all convinced that Clown OP even watched the movies. This was in Eclipse, and Edward didn’t deflate the tires of her Chevy; he removed the engine. Nor did he forbid her to leave the house, only not to see Jacob or the werewolves. And homeboy literally just gave up after Bella’s toothless “grizzly bears” threat.

This is toxic, all right, and I’m not referring to Twilight. Seriously, wtf? Being heartbroken after a major breakup with someone you love is one of the most realistic parts of the whole series. It’s so real it’s frankly basic. Even Clown OP was appalled, lol.

The movies may have been godawful adaptations, but the fact that they depicted Bella’s heartbreak is not one of them. Had Meyer made Bella move on after a month or two with Jacob or a new beau, I would have called bullshit. Bella was so in love with Edward—he did save her life three times and stopped himself from draining her dry in the process—that no other response would have been plausible.

As if Jacob didn’t show “toxic” behaviors the fandom is in continual pearl-clutching over, to the extent of making the incredibly asinine fanon that Meyer purposefully “ruined” his character in Eclipse. Also, Clown OP unironically thinking that basic-ass compliment is “queer” is clownery of a very different kind.

…Doesn’t Bella actually attribute some of these traits to Edward? In Eclipse? Maybe not all of them, but most? I don’t think Clown OP is making the point she thinks she is making.

One of these days I will make a whole-ass post about this whole notion of reading characters as role models. There are truly people out there who read all fiction as medieval morality plays for actual instruction, and Clown OP is almost certainly one of them.

This is going to sound super wild, I know, but did Clown OP ever consider—just once—that Meyer may be doing this very much on purpose? That throughout the book Edward gets to know Bella and begins to like her as a person? That the whole metaphor of bloodlust isn’t so much carnal lust but dark impulses of (patriarchal?) violence and lack of empathy? That the the whole point of the book is to see Edward develop from an arrogant vampire to a boy in love struggling on being completely out of his element? Did Clown OP ever think of it or did she just want to talk about her awful experiences with men through very hazy memories of watching the first Twilight movie?

(Also, not to be mean or anything, but Clown OP criticizing Meyer’s prose…don’t go throwing stones in a glass house, hon. I’m just saying).

[redjaybird]

JAY’S RP PLOTTING CHEAT-SHEET

Want new-and-exciting plots for your character? Long to reach out to more of your followers, but don’t know where to start? Fear not! Fill out this form and give your RP partners both present and future all the of juicy jumping off points they need to help you get your characters acquainted.Be sure to tag the players whose characters YOU want more cues to interact with, and repost, don’t reblog! Feel free to add or remove sections as you see fit. Template here.

Mun name(s): Yams Mun pronouns: She/her/they/them, but also don't mind whatever OOC Contact: DMs or D.isco (mutuals/people I vibe with only ask for my d.isco)

Who the heck are my muses anyway:

He's a little shit that causes problems and pisses people off for the heck of it. A bit of an edgelord (is that an understatement?), rude, vulgar, and extremely tough to crack if you want him in friendlier stages. Good luck. He's not going to make it easy for you.

Points of interest:

He has various verses, some things may change depending on what verse things are in. Details in his design are important and have stories behind them. In his main verses, he has extra strengthened abilities and a little extra chaotic surprise, sometimes. He has a lot of anger issues and is really shit at dealing with other emotions, often turning them into anger, too, because he doesn't know how else to handle things. He likes to think of himself as a villain, but really he's more like an anti-hero. And he's got a whole revenge case he's trying to deal out. He's got some emotional issues that he refuses to talk about, and others he will just spill because he likes to talk about himself. And he's got trust issues.

What they’ve been up to recently:

Well, this varies for people and verses. Things won't be following the same paths for everyone he interacts with. In in his main f.c5 verse, he somehow got himself in a position where he's gotta help protect the Seeds, because of the relationship he ended up in with Jacob. Everything in the B.L verses kinda got put on hold, but these days its after his Arena fell. A vampire verse, in the f.c5 land, has been distressing him. Bloody City (original) verse is getting more developments lately (yeehaw). Depends on what version you wanna deal with, really.

Where to find them:

In general modern times, usually Chicago. In the borderlands, usually Pandora. In F.C3, on Rook Islands, hanging with the pirates. In F.C5, Hope County, usually in Jacob's region. Frontier, the pirate is in Montreal in the company of Mr. Grant and Mr. Pond.

Current plans:

Plans? What are plans? We'll have to see what unfolds. Anything could happen.

Desired interactions:

Enemies to awkward found family member, enemies/rivals, slow burns of any kind of relationship (because its almost always a slow burn with him), helping him learn to cook maybe? (his whole fear of stoves and fire issue man), dad bird dad bird dad bird dad bird (has an accidentally adopted daughter in some verses btw), etc.

Offered interactions:

Uh, do you like problematic little shits? Do you like conflict? Stories are boring without conflict, after all. And it makes the good times so much more worth it, you know? If you for some reason want him to work with you, however, the price is gonna be a little different. Because he doesn't care about money.

Current open post/s:

Keep an eye out for random IC posts, they happen a lot, and are generally open to anyone if they don't have a tag. (I don't always tag ic posts but I do always tag any trigger warnings when I think they need it.) Some will have specific verse tags, sometimes, just so you know where things will be focused on but yeah, generally most things are open unless someone specifically gets @'d on.

Anything else?:

[I'm not super great at writing, and am especially bad at describing things in words, but Jay will make up for a lot in dialogue because he loves talking. Interactions can inspire art, lots of drawing going on here. Also things never stop developing. I've been running this character for 12+ years now and I'm still developing him.]

Tagging: whoev's wants to do this thing go for it, i tried

[adventism-atheism-orthodoxy-me]

Seventh-Day Fetishism

I have been forced to revisit my thoughts regarding core Seventh-Day Adventist beliefs again in light of some online discussion and in talking with my family.  I made the mistake of making an off hand remark that was not received too graciously in my home.

So, I will follow with my thoughts here, as is usual.

It helps that I continue to partake of Orthodox Christian Media.  The Lord of Spirits Podcast recently touched on the subject of Christian Idolatry in a Two-Part Series which I think touches on this subject (1, 2).  Fr. Stephen Freeman has also touched on aspects that I think are pertinent to the topic (1, 2).

Seventh-Day Adventists take an almost smug superiority over all other Christians for their advanced - superior even - understanding of the Bible, and of God’s plans.  Everything is dialed in, from Daniel to Revelation, and at the end of time those who keep the Old Testament Sabbath will have a leg up on all those unwashed heathens who failed to read, “the Bible’s Plain teachings”, regarding this sacred day.  The torment will, I suppose, be especially harsh for those unfortunates who happened to be, “led astray”, “into novel new (i.e. Catholic) teachings”....

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

I used to watch a show put on by a well known photographer on PBS.  In one episode, he was in Benin or Mali, I think, and he visited a “Fetish Doctor”.  This doctor would prescribe rituals to be performed with various things, mostly animal, but not exclusively, in order to prevent disease, misfortune, or to cure illness.

Christians fetishize a lot of stuff. 

The “Solae” types fetishize a book among other things.  The Sabbatarians and militant Anti-Sabbatarians both fetishize a day.  Penal Substitution fetishizes “Justice”, or maybe just a formula - they may be, and probably are - the same group as the “Solae”.   Many Christians fetishize the Ten Commandments.  Even “Salvation”, as a goal, becomes a fetish.  It’s easy to fall into the trap of making something that is supposed to draw you closer, or to help you better understand God, and make it the point of your devotion.

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. – Colossians 2:16

Now maybe God doesn’t want us to judge the observance of New Moons or Sabbaths because he wants to do it himself - “Smite the Sunday keepers”!  But I don’t think so.  I watch both sides of the Sabbath issue go back and forth over its validity, but in the end, I think its usefulness needs to be contextualized or discarded.

He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan). – 2 Kings 18:4

The Serpent had served its function, and had become a focal point of idolatry. What had been good, had changed, and needed to be discarded.

Given that I believe Salvation is found in true communion with the Trinity, I think that the idea of a single day, all by itself, isolated, outside of any other liturgical reality is just lame.  It’s empty ritual.  People are doing it because some book somewhere said so.  Really?  Because a book said so?

And we wonder why Atheists don’t take us seriously. Most Protestants come across as morons, to be perfectly honest.

The Sabbath, as part of a body of celebrations found first within the Israelite Jubilee cycles, became contextualized later within Orthodox Christianity as part of a greater whole.  It is the day memorializing the Old Covenant and the Old Testament Saints. 

Yes, you read that correctly - Old Testament Saints. 

The God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, is celebrated within the Orthodox Church.  Formally in the monasteries where liturgies are performed, but definitely part of the fabric of communal worship found within the Orthodox Calendar universally.  Once a year as part of the Holy Week Cycle, Great and Holy Sabbath is celebrated, and these words are spoken -

“The great Moses mystically foreshadowed this day when he said: God blessed the seventh day. This is the blessed Sabbath This is the day of rest, on which the only-begotten Son of God rested from all His works....” – Vesperal Liturgy of Holy Saturday

and

"Foreseeing Your Divine self-emptying on the Cross, Habakkuk cried out in amazement: “You cut off the power of the mighty, O Good One, speaking to those in Hades, as the Almighty.” Glory to You, our God, glory to You. You have sanctified the seventh day, which You blessed before You rested from Your labors; for You create everything, and You renew them, observing the Sabbath, and restoring Yourself." – Vesperal Liturgy of Holy Saturday

This is Sabbath in its context, not just a fetish, but the day as deliverance, as the culmination of Christ’s work on Earth.

Can Christians worship on Sabbath? 

If there were liturgies, I would attend. 

You will never hear me argue against it, all the better if it’s integrated into a larger liturgical calendar.  But you will never hear me argue for it exclusively; bartered in preference at the expense of another day for worship.  The Christian life is best understood as a communal experience, formalized perhaps, in a desire to do honor to our God and to each other, both those living with us, and those dearly departed; and in the end traditions give us the days we come together.

Sunday has been that day for a very long time now.

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

Some time ago, it may have been in a book, or at the table of a Priest, I was told that there were services going on continually at the height of Hagia Sophia’s glory.  24/7/365 - How many modern Sabbatarians would be willing to devote that much time in a year to true Sabbath Rest?

Now that’s the question.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have Mercy upon me, A Sinner

[lesbow]

my issue with The Sea Beast

so i recently watched The Sea Beast and really loved it. a lot of the visuals were stunning (i was absolutely wow-ed during that one scene of drops of water hitting the deck during a battle). i love the pirate atmosphere and the “world of beasts” concept always calls for interesting designs, such as the Giant Crab.

i also loved Maisie. as a black woman, she was the biggest reason i was drawn to the film. i was so excited to see what kind of journey she’d go on, and seeing how many women in general are given roles in the story was pretty great. Sarah, the red head sailor, the laid back carriage driver, etc. not to mention that found family is always a good plot. the movie just checked boxes all around lol!

i just have two issues. one minor and one… pretty major:

the issues

i would’ve had it where in the beginning of the movie after Maisie breaks out of the orphanage, as she goes through town it’s shown that she’s highly loved by the townsfolk. maybe it’s cause she’s been there the longest and knows many of them first hand, or the others find her curiosity abt things to be endearing, or for any other reasons, idk. i’d just put this tweak in bc personally, all the townsfolk siding with her in the end felt a bit rushed. i knew Maisie was spitting, but i definitely thought “omg no one’s gonna believe her :(“ bc how would they? but the townsfolk just immediately do so lol. by having it where we know she’s already highly respected/admired, their unanimous support would feel more natural.

now this is the “pretty major one”. it was a concern i had before i watched, one that unfortunately stayed with me while watching, but that was kinda sorta not really but kinda pacified by the ending? my issue is with Maisie and Jacob’s dynamic.

(no more numbered points bc we’re abt to go into an essay)

going into the movie, i was worried Jacob’s character would overshadow Maisie’s. i already knew most fans would obnoxiously view them in that way, but i was hoping the movie itself wouldn’t and would give them equal development. unfortunately, up until the finale, that hope of mine was crushed.

a compliment i saw that was given to TSB is that it lets Maisie be a child. but i disagree, i think the story throws child!Maisie out the window pretty quickly. after they get shipwrecked, i found myself constantly wondering exactly how old Maisie was supposed to be, as more often than not she was more mature than grown adult Jacob.

let me put this in perspective:

about 80% of the film is Maisie, a young black girl, having to prevent, teach, and beg Jacob, an adult white man, to not be violent and aggressive. do yall see how this kind of arc could be a little disturbing, to say the least?

i am not saying that Maisie was in danger when with Jacob, im merely pointing out how ridiculous it is that the whole plot revolves around it being a young black girl’s job to educate a grown white man on no longer being violent.

but ofc this kind of narrative isnt specific to The Sea Beast. this is the standard in most “young person schools the older generation on how to do better” stories. Coco, HTTYD, Encanto, Moana, the list goes on. but in the case of TSB, it’s an issue bc it largely overlooks the characters’ racial identities when thats just not smthg that can be ignored. and no i am not saying TSB should’ve been a cultural movie, it having an anti-imperialist narrative is fine. great even! but if you’re going to have a diverse cast, then at bare minimum you need diverse writing to match.

representation in media, especially children’s media, is desperately needed and TSB is a decent example of progress. but it is by no means perfect. when it comes to representing marginalized communities, how many times does it need to be said that some things (tropes, archetypes, themes, etc.) aren’t a One Size Fits All?

comparisons

i’m going to compare two movies that come to mind. a lot of ppl compare TSB to HTTYD, but i think it has much more in common with Moana than anything else. it shares similarities with Treasure Planet as well.

Treasure Planet and Moana also have the theme of a younger person having an older one learn and grow alongside them. John Silver develops as much as Jim Hawkins and Maui as much as Moana, but it is still clear it’s Jim and Moana’s stories as we get more time and focus on their characters than their counterparts.

in Moana, Maui starts the film already wrong and committing an injustice as he stole Te Fiti’s heart and caused her to turn into the dangerous and violent Te Kā. Moana journeys with Maui with the hopes of making a difference and helps him grow into a better person along the way (sound familiar?) Moana’s arc is to find herself and save her home. Maui’s arc is learning he has value not because of but despite his abilities, and to not put others down for one’s own glory. they both have their own arcs, but not once does Moana waste time to sit Maui down at a classroom desk and desperately try to teach him selflessness. her goal is bigger than him. as Jim’s journey in Treasure Planet is bigger than John.

but in TSB, Maisie sits Jacob down and tries to “educate” him several times on how to have sympathy. sadly, her development takes a significant backseat to Jacob’s, and what little she does have is rushed as all hell. Maisie realizes Red is a friend 5 seconds after meeting her. she gets over her parents’ image as “heroes” and comes to the conclusion that they were flawed 5 seconds after that. and then at the end, she realizes all of it is the fault of The Crown after a 3-second book searching scene! ffs let her grow slowly! the film makes it a point to say she has the right to speak, but doesnt allow her arc the right to take up too much time in the narrative.

WHY does Maisie have to speed run her own progress and spend the remainder of the time helping a white man through his?! let them develop naturally alongside one another instead of constantly playing teacher and student. i saw someone say “it’s funny how it’s like Maisie adopted Jacob instead of the other way around” and that person was joking ofc but that’s literally how the plot comes across. TSB does NOT let Maisie be a child and it was so disappointing to see.

possible solutions?

some ways this could’ve been rectified:

switch Sarah and Jacob. this could’ve added the subplot of Maisie having always admired Sarah in particular and wanting to become exactly like her someday. then as the truth about the beasts unfolds, Maisie realizes that the hunters aren’t as great as she thought and that instead of following in somebody else’s footsteps, she should make her own. this would make her standalone speech at the end hit even more than it already does. it also would’ve been interesting for Sarah herself, who is known for being “the most loyal 2nd in command ever”, to over time lose her loyalty the more she learns abt the beasts.

if the main pairing had to be interracial, why did Jacob have to be white? for some reason whenever this type of bond is brought up, most ppl’s first go to is a white person being involved. i promise, they are not a requirement for interracial themes.

and include more scenes about Maisie’s own development! we have way more than enough about her parents as heroes, but what abt her actual relationship with them? she talks abt them as if theyre nothing but symbolic figures. were they close? and if not, have her address that too. how was her time in the orphanage? the kids all seemed to like her, but when she meets up with Jacob, its like hes the only family shes ever known in years. slow down her turn from “hunters are cool” to “hunters are wrong” and make it develop over time instead of it being a lightning quick arc. and maybe, besides beasts, have her and Jacob have a side hobby/interest in common so that we can have some clue what theyre going to be doing after they give up hunting for good.

conclusion

with all that said, i did like Maisie and her speech at the end was beautiful. kudos to the script writers and Zaris-Angel’s VAing bc her words abt the The Crown being the one at fault were very impactful. i was so proud of her! if only the story allowed Maisie to be more of a person and less of a mouthpiece, then i probably would’ve even cried.

[avidrawsthings]

AU VS. Game Canon

As different as night and day.

With regards to the game canon, I still applied a few differences to explore what would realistically happen to someone that went through everything MC went through.

AU: Reina Cortez and Ricardo De Los Santos

Ricardo and Reina are half siblings on their mother’s side.

Reina was raised by her father Rolando and her grandparents in the Dominican Republic.

Ricardo was raised in London by his older sister following the death of his father Daniel, who had sacrificed his life to save the boy when he was 4. His sister would die just before he started Hogwarts, and felt he had no family left.

The pair met when Ricardo was 13 and Reina was 8. Ricardo had been approached by R just months prior. He had wrongfully believed they kept their promise of giving him a family, and stayed with them out of misguided gratitude.

He was halfway through his 5th year when he got expelled. Prior to that, he lost both Olivia and Duncan. The former never showed up when they started their 5th year, and the latter died due to the tampered Erumpent Potion going off by accident. Before Duncan’s death, the two only knew Olivia was killed after R sent them a package containing her glasses, along with a letter confirming her death.

Reina only found out about his Vault business after she had transferred to Hogwarts to be closer to him, fully expecting him to be there starting his 6th year. She only got involved with the Vaults to bring him home.

He left with her and her friends back to Hogwarts after his rescue, and took on a mentor role to them. He was made the leader of the Anti-R Coven (ARC), this AU’s answer to the Circle of Khanna, as no one died in the forest.

Tried his best to prevent Reina and her friends from getting involved since he felt it wasn’t fair to them, and that they shouldn’t be paying for his mistakes.

Same parents. They used to be close as kids until Jacob’s involvement with the Vaults made him distant. It got to the point Reina wasn’t surprised when he disappeared. She gained a heavy dislike for the Ministry after they allowed the publication of the article that would scandalize her family.

Same parents. They used to be close as kids until Jacob’s involvement with the Vaults made him distant. It got to the point Reina wasn’t surprised when he disappeared. She gained a heavy dislike for the Ministry after they allowed the publication of the article that would scandalize her family.

Going to Hogwarts was a nightmare thanks to the ensuing bullying and harassment she was subjected to. She nearly dropped out had it not been for Rowan convincing her to stay. Reina could barely stand being in the same room as Merula, and had no respect for Snape as a teacher.

Reina got involved with the vaults because she still missed Jacob and was hoping for some normalcy back in her life. She went through some of the biggest challenges of her life just for his sake, which made his instant abandonment after his eventual rescue all the more heartbreaking. Her entire world shattered and she felt like she was tossed aside like nothing now that he didn’t need her anymore.

Jacob would realize too late how badly he hurt her by his decision to leave her behind. Reina’s eyes would lose their spark, leaving them dull and lifeless. Any time the siblings crossed paths, she never made eye contact with him and only ever felt angry. His apparent obliviousness to the whole thing only made her feel worse.

She’d go on to reconnect with Rowan, and just as it seemed that she would start healing, Reina was left in a worse state than ever with Rowan’s sudden death. To make things worse, Reina didn’t know of Ben and Merula’s plans. Rowan did but didn’t tell her, and only went to keep an eye on Ben to try and bring their trio back together. It was what Rowan happily promised her the last time she saw her alive.

Reina came to view Ben and Merula being at fault for what was a stupid and reckless plan that was doomed to fail from the start. She never forgave the pair, and her friendship with Ben was over for good. The shock and weight of everything falling on her at once caused Reina to lose her voice, leaving her mute.

By Year 7, she was on autopilot. She barely reacted to her surroundings, and when she did, it was only with a very small handful of people such as Talbott and Chiara.

[popanalysis99]

Toxic Men in TV Series who are the absolute worst.

(TW: R*pe and Sexual Assault)

While there are some men who seem to be interesting, let’s not deny the fact that there are most male characters who act like their “toxicity” is cool but honestly, it’s horrible and something not to root for. So here are the toxic male characters who are the absolute worst, excuse my misandry:

Kevin McRoberts - Kevin Can F**k Himself

We had to start somewhere from the bottom of the underworld. A recent entry on this list, Kevin is the lead character Allison’s husband who...let’s just say has the brain of a dumb frat bro who is extremely high on pot and hasn’t recovered since then. While most of the sitcoms in the past would portray these so-called goofy and dim-witted husbands as “big fun” and lovable, Kevin is not like that, at all. In this anti-sitcom nightmare, Kevin literally believes that the whole world revolves around him. He plans such stupid unrealistic schemes to seize the day, recklessly spends the savings on stupid irrelevant sports merchandises and doesn’t even let Allison have her own agency outside of his life. Plus he is so petty and spiteful to the point he destroys one good thing that any of the women in the series have, like Allison’s dream job and Patty’s love life. And that latter was because she didn’t bring him a burger! All of this makes him look less funny and more tyrannical. No wonder poor Allison got spurred into wanting to kill him.

Ross Geller - Friends

Ross may seemed like a “nice guy”, but let’s just agree it was a facade. Ross believes that he knows what’s best for the women he dates in the series and thinks he is superior and is always right about everything. He is seems extremely disturbed over the fact that his ex-wife, Carol is a lesbian and is jilted towards her current wife, Susan and snarks at the latter for it. And then there is her extreme control and jealousy towards Rachel, especially in her career. While Rachel is no saint either, Ross jumps to the conclusion that the man who got her a perfect job wants to sleep with her, then goes out of his way to humiliate and mark his territory on her and even if it’s revealed that the said guy has a girlfriend of his own, Ross still doesn’t abandon his theory, unless he believes that the guy is cheating on his girlfriend with Rachel. And then there is the fact that he joined his student girlfriend on a spring break just to have her all to himself, not caring about the fact that what if one of his students or colleagues would’ve seen him on TV with her and that could’ve put him in a huge scrutiny.

Joe Goldberg - You

The show is basically built around how toxic Joe is, but this didn’t stop him from having his own fanbase apparently, with most of them glossing over his actions. But Joe is not a dream boyfriend at all. Once he sees a woman in front of him, he immediately gets obsessed with her and believes she belongs to him and him only. And to achieve that, he stalks her, he checks everything about her, kills people he believes are harmful to her when he himself is the same and when the woman finds out about him and rejects him, he kidnaps and kills her and the cycle begins again.

Chuck Bass - Gossip Girl

What is it with the teen drama industry’s obsession with the “Bad Boy who can be redeemed with love” trope? Chuck Bass is “the bad boy” of Gossip Girl. If his attempted rape of Serena and Jenny didn’t give fans an indication that how deranged he is, his violent and emotional abuse of his girlfriend Blair cements him as this. He slut-shamed women around him, hit Blair once and even traded her for a hotel ownership and somehow he gets a happy ending with her at the end! What?

Nate Jacobs - Euphoria

Nate is a star quarterback of his high school football team and seems like he has it all, but underneath, he is fucking deranged. His untamed manly rage causes him to physically and emotionally abuse his girlfriend Maddy and blackmail Jules, who didn’t do anything wrong but just sleep with his father, which makes me think that Nate is blackmailing her into lying to the cops about his assault on Maddy when she wasn’t even there when it happened just because it’s fun for him. Honestly, I’d like to see the imagine Rue and Jules had of killing him become a reality someday.

Dawson Leery - Dawson’s Creek

Just because the show is named after him since he is the protagonist, doesn’t justify his actions. Dawson sees himself as some sort of a Nice Guy hero who believes he is entitled to everything. He has this extreme view on women and how they should fulfil his fantasies of his Rom-Com world. He is extremely critical of Jen when he finds out about her promiscuous past and tells her that she should be ashamed of herself for it, and gets jealous when his two best friends Joey and Pacey begin dating. And when he was briefly in the movie business, he was a rookie but was already a primadonna with the director and crew of the movie was working on and insulted a film critic for criticising his movie which was actually bad.

Kilgrave - Jessica Jones

Kilgrave is the main villain of the Marvel-Netflix series Jessica Jones. He becomes obsessed with the titular heroine when she breaks off from his mind-control. Before that, he spent years treating her as his sex slave and raping her constantly, which left her traumatised. He begins to stalker and believe it will be a “lover’s reunion” when he will see her again someday. He manipulates and brainwashes everyone around him to his whim and treats most women as objects but despite all that, sees himself as the good guy of the situation. Even after Jessica finally gives him his just desserts, he still haunts her everyday.

Fernando Vera - Mr. Robot

This spawn of satan is the reason why I decided to write this list in the first place. Where do I even start? He is first introduced into the series when he forces Shayla to go on a date with her and later rape her. This is what causes the misandrist vigilante Elliot to sell him out to the FBI and this apparently turns on Vera and moves his unhealthy obsession to Elliot. He has Shayla killed when he tricks Elliot into breaking him out of prison, then returns to have him all to himself by kidnapping his therapist Krista and forcing information out of her about Elliot so that he could “break him and build him back up”, like a fucked up version of The Taming Of The Shrew. He psychologically abuses Elliot into remembering being sexually abused by his father as a child and proceeds to gaslight him into thinking that he was just helping him. The huge problem with Vera is that he sees himself as some sort of Christian Grey who believes that his abuse towards both Shayla and Elliot is charming. Whenever someone failed his desires, he immediately gets bored of them and moves onto someone else, like when he got Shayla killed and moved onto Elliot. That’s why it felt so cathartic when Krista killed him.

Tate Langdon - American Horror Story

Apparently, he is Tate Langdon and he is...hot?? While most of the AHS fans glorified him due to his emo bad boy nature, let’s not forget the fact that he was a school shooter who murdered innocent students and staff and was in general possessive and toxic towards Violet. So no way he is boyfriend material!

Don Draper - Mad Men

Don Draper was the main protagonist of Mad Men. He was an advertisement and marketing executive who had a lot of vices and did a lot of horrible things such as cheat on his wife and treat almost every women and colleagues like crap.

Dexter Morgan - Dexter

While Dexter might seem like the serial-killer killer, there are a lot of things about him which are unadmirable. He gaslights those he is close to so that they could get off his back, obstructs evidence pointing out to him, captures those who didn’t even fit his victims like Doakes and caused the deaths of LaGuerta, Rita and finally his sister Debra. Yeah I think you should stay away from him.

Walter White - Breaking Bad

Aaah..the worst of the worst. Walter White is the protagonist of the series Breaking Bad. He first starts off as a pushover high school teacher who isn’t respected by anyone. When he gets diagnosed with Lung Cancer, he gets into the meth business so that he could support his family, but we all know that it’s not true. He relishes on the power and glory from being a drug dealer and then kingpin and because of that he ends up abusing both Jesse and Skyler, emotionally abusing and selling out the former to the sadistic Nazis and raping the latter several times. He is so petty and spiteful that he kills anyone insulting his ego, just ask Mike. And even after all this, he still claims that it’s all for his family. Like what?

[carewyncromwell]

Cinderelly, Cinderelly, night and day, it’s Cinderelly~... ^.^ Okay..before I jump into the next part of the Cinderella AU, here’s your usual appetizer of random historical/etc. notes!

Although carriages were developed centuries earlier, actual coaches like the kind we think of from Cinderella stories were first developed in the late 16th century in Hungary, specifically a little town called Kocs. (The word “coach” and its alternatives in other languages, such as the German Kutsche and the Spanish and Portuguese coche, are thought to have been derived from the Hungarian kocsi, meaning “of Kocs.”) They then really caught on in the rest of Europe after Queen Elizabeth I of England started using them in the 1580s. The terms “coach” and “carriage” are often used interchangeably, but if one wanted to pin-point the advancements coaches specifically made in contrast to carriages of the past, there are a few differences one can pick out in how they’re built. Coaches generally are four-wheeled enclosed vehicles with doors and/or windows (glass was added in later centuries), and often include a “boot” seat on the outside for a footman and/or luggage to sit on. Coaches also generally have a reputation for providing a smoother ride than previous modes of transport because they’re suspended between the wheels rather than directly over or beside them. After the invention of the coach, one can find carriages (royal ones, in particular) adopting some of these same attributes.

Sadly wheelchairs really weren’t a thing in the 16th century. The first self-propelled wheeled chairs were developed in the mid-17th century and refined in the 18th, with sedan chairs or litters (A.K.A. chairs you carried) generally being used by the nobility prior to that. But there’s no way in Hell I’m not going to give McNully the independence he deserves, so I used a completely anachronistic design inspired by this antique wheelchair I found online, made circa around the 1840′s. Hey, this is a fantasy world anyway, so bleh. :P The flower detailing on the wheel is supposed to evoke an emblem I see being on Florence’s green and gold coat of arms (get it? “Florence?” “Flora?”). You might also notice that McNully has little Snitch-like “wing” frills on each of his buttons! XD

Another fun thing I learned while doing research -- although cloaks were often worn for warmth during the medieval period and beyond, in England during the Elizabethan era, their use was actually actively discouraged and even prohibited, as they were associated with criminals and rebels! Therefore it was common for a lot of English noblemen and women to wear thicker clothing made of wool and accessories like muffs, gloves, and even jackets for warmth instead. I tried very, very hard to find historically accurate examples of period-worthy jackets and capes for women around the time of the Renaissance, and was very frustrated to find a lot of fantasy-esque costume pieces or historical clothing from later eras that were simply mislabeled -- but I did find one lovely recreation of a 16th century wool jacket, so that’s what I used as reference for Carewyn’s jacket in this sketch, though I personally imagine it as a dark red, so as to better blend with her burnt orange and beige servant’s uniform. Bill’s uniform is based off a real castle guard uniform from early 16th century France, though with a much simpler color palette (I see Royaume’s colors being blue and red). Like with McNully’s chair, there’s a crown on the chest of Bill’s uniform, which I see being on Royaume’s coat of arms (“royaume” is literally French for “kingdom”).

In her canon, Carewyn was born when Jacob was nine years old. Although in most of Carewyn and Jacob’s canon post-Portrait-Vault, they end up being only two years apart in age, that’s only because Jacob stopped aging while trapped in a Portrait for seven years. From Carewyn’s fifth year on, Jacob and Carewyn in canon therefore act much more like contemporaries, even though Jacob actually kind of ended up partially raising Carewyn alongside their mother Lane.

Previous part is here – whole tag is here – Katriona “KC” Cassiopeia belongs to @kc-needs-coffee and I hope you all enjoy! xoxo

x~x~x~x

Every day over the next week, Carewyn met Orion at the gate of the palace of Royaume, and the two would spend an hour or so together. Orion would ask her about life at the palace, Carewyn would playfully respond, and sooner or later, they’d end up getting diverted and talking about something else completely, whether the upcoming Winter Festival, the language of flowers, art, poetry, the meaning of life, music, fencing, or (after seeing a rather beautiful eagle flying overhead) what it might be like to fly. Carewyn honestly wasn’t entirely sure what Orion got out of their meetings besides entertainment, and naturally she couldn’t afford to indulge in such entertainment too long, when she had so much work to do around the castle and she still had to find out where Jacob was positioned. But she had to admit, with the King and Queen having invited Iris over to stay in one of the guest suites at the palace for the remainder of the month, Carewyn didn’t mind having an excuse to stay far away from her cousin. Lately Carewyn had actively planned her days so that she could clean the guest suites at teatime, when Iris would be in one of the foyers with the King, Queen, and Prince on the opposite side of the palace. She did not want a repeat of the other day, after all...particularly since she’d also need time to change out of the nicer, collared dresses she’d wear when spending time with Orion.

Orion, meanwhile, was of course getting a bit more than entertainment out of his and Carewyn’s meetings. Through speaking with Carewyn, he’d sussed out some very helpful information about Royaumanian culture, the dynamics within Royaume’s royal family, and both their and their country’s financial state. One day he told his closest confidantes at court, Skye and McNully, some of what he’d learned...but Skye didn’t react quite as favorably as Orion had expected.

“...I gave Lady Cromwell a copy of the sheet music for ‘No One is Alone’ last week -- you remember the song, of course? And from what I understand, Prince Henri and the castle staff have quite taken to it. Not that I’m surprised -- Carewyn has a very soothing voice. I’m sure she performed it very well. But the Prince listening to the words at all is a good sign -- I even asked Carewyn if the Prince enjoyed them, and she said she believed so. She also found their message meaningful...one of Florence’s best-loved anti-War songs, and one about looking through another’s eyes and forgiving past grievances, no less! That can only be a good sign, for Royaumanians to take heart in it. It surely must have been fate that Lady Cromwell and I collided at the market -- I had a feeling we were kindred spirits, when she came to my aid, but now I am most assured of it. I might hazard a guess that she wishes for peace just as much as I -- for the sake of her brother fighting in the field, yes, but also selflessly for the sake of others, not wishing to see any other person in pain...”

“She sounds like a perfect knight in shining armor,” said Skye, her voice oddly cutting.

Orion looked up at Skye, startled by her tone. Her arms were crossed over the chest of her faded blue linen dress.

“Anything else you want to tell us about the fair Lady Cromwell,” she said rather icily, “or are you actually ready to talk about how you plan to end this War?”

Orion blinked slowly. “...I thought that we were already discussing that.”

“Really?” scoffed Skye. “‘Cause it sounds to me like you were busy gushing over your new conquest.”

“Conquest?” Orion repeated. His confused tone then melted into something more soothing and indulgent, “Oh -- no, Skye...you misunderstand me. I have no interest in courting Carewyn -- she’s just my contact point, with the palace.”

Skye gave a very loud, disbelieving snort. “Ha! Right, of course she is -- that’s why you can’t stop gushing about ‘Carewyn this’ and ‘Lady Cromwell that.’”

“Skye has a point, Orion,” said McNully, though his voice was a lot less confrontational. If anything he sounded almost sheepish. “I mean, about 85% of your report was about Lady Cromwell. You used her name over ten times just in the span of a minute.”

Amazingly Orion’s calm, hard-to-read expression didn’t crack. His hands clasped lightly in front of him.

“Lady Cromwell plays an essential part in this strategy. I’m an outsider looking in, without her insight -- a ship sailing blindly, without the light from a lighthouse to give me direction.”

“A lighthouse for a lost ship -- oh yeah, those sound like the words of someone who’s focusing on winning a war and not swooning over a pretty face,” said Skye scathingly. “Maybe instead of always running off and playing dress-up, you could actually bother to do your duty and go help fight on the battlefield for once!”

Orion’s lips came together tightly, but it didn’t make his expression any less composed. McNully shot Skye an uncomfortable, faintly disapproving look.

“Easy, Skye,” he murmured. “You know Orion -- ”

But Skye didn’t seem to hear McNully. Instead she tore into Orion.

“Face it, Orion -- you just like being treated like a commoner again and being able to make believe that you don’t have any responsibilities or worries...well, guess what? You’re not a commoner anymore! You’re the Prince of Florence -- you reckon little Miss Knight-in-Shining-Armor would take kindly to that, when she finds out?”

Orion’s dark eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly upon Skye’s face.

“Carewyn’s not an unreasonable woman,” he said softly. “I’m certain she would understand the reason behind my secrecy.”

This, if anything, only seemed to make Skye madder.

“Of course she would,” she muttered sourly. “Little Lady Royaume can do no wrong in your eyes, can she?”

She turned on her heel and stormed out, leaving Orion feeling very resigned and confused. McNully gave a heavy sigh, before facing Orion with a more serious expression.

“She’s overreacting, as usual,” he said, “but she’s still 60% right. It’s risky enough for you to get this close to anyone right now, when your position as Crown Prince is threatened by the likes of Lord Malfoy. He’d frankly love to have something like that over you. But someone from Royaume? The granddaughter of one of the most powerful, wealthy, and feared noblemen in their country? Orion, that’s dangerous.”

Orion leaned his hands on the table, looking down at the map of Florence and Royaume laid out on top of it.

“McNully, I assure you...my objective has not changed,” he said very levelly. “Everything I have done is for Florence -- for peace and balance. I admit, Lady Cromwell is a fascinating woman, and certainly one to be admired...but I spend time with her to gather intelligence I can obtain nowhere else. That is all.”

McNully looked doubtful, but didn’t directly address it. Instead he said, “I understand she’s your eyes and ears inside the palace, and the intelligence you’re getting is valuable...but don’t forget, she isn’t on your team. She’s on Royaume’s. And right now, Royaume is kicking our tail out there, on the battlefield.”

Orion’s dark eyes drifted away from the table as McNully leaned his arms on the table himself.

“It’s getting bad again,” he murmured very seriously. “I know you said the palace of Royaume’s strapped for funds, but somehow or another, they’ve scrounged up enough to get more cannons, and their troops have been moving them around every couple of hours so that our men never know where they’re going to be firing from next. It’s been very effective. Whoever’s been giving Royaume’s King and Queen military strategy lately, they’re a bloody genius.”

McNully clearly was irritated about this, given the flash that shot through his narrowed eyes.

“Your father sent me a request for a counter-strategy this morning. You know it’s likely if the strategy isn’t one he can execute on his own, he may ask both you and me to join him there, on the front lines.”

Orion did not respond. His expression was as unreadable as ever, but there was something oddly detached and avoidant in his posture.

“I know you don’t want that, and you know I have faith in you,” said McNully, “but your strategy is a slow burn, Orion. It requires both patience and time...and we might not end up having as much of those as you think.”

Once again, Orion chose not to answer. McNully sighed again.

“You know I’ll be right behind you in a coach, if you need me,” he said tiredly. “Just...mind that you use your head as well as your heart, all right?”

Orion threw on his black traveling cloak and headed back to Royaume not long after, hoping to meet up with Carewyn for an evening stroll. There was a notable chill in the air -- if it got much colder, he thought that any rain might instead come down as sleet or maybe even snow.

When Orion arrived at the gate, however, he was met not by Carewyn, but by KC. She was dressed in a high-necked gown made of black velvet and holding a leather-bound book and a stack of parchment in her arms.

Orion tilted his head slightly to glance at the piece of parchment on the top of the stack, which had several “X’s” scattered over an oddly familiar map.

“Plans to bury some pirate treasure?” he asked pleasantly.

KC gave a lightly amused snort. “No, just military plans.”

Her lightly freckled face then grew a bit more serious. “I guess you’re here for Carewyn?”

Orion had been ready to ask more about the military plans KC was holding, but decided not to circle back to it when she changed the subject.

“Yes. Has she been detained?”

“I guess so...” said KC. Her lips twisted into a concerned frown as she looked out at the darkening sky.

Orion’s eyebrows knit together over his eyes slightly. “You seem concerned.”

KC bit her lip. “Mm...it’s just...well, you see, one of the royal carriages broke down earlier today, when the Queen was riding through the country with Lady Yaxley.”

Orion raised his eyebrows. “Lady Iris Yaxley, do you mean? Carewyn’s cousin?”

“Yes. No one was badly hurt, fortunately, but the Queen, Lady Iris, and the coachman and footman were forced to ride the horses back and leave the carriage behind. When they got back, they asked the royal carpenter, Charlie Weasley, to go fix it. Charlie said that he probably wouldn’t have the proper tools to fix it here at the castle, so Carewyn offered to ride out with him, so that their horses could drag the coach together to the Weasley family cottage, about forty minutes away. The problem is,” she said with a deepening frown, “they left over two hours ago, and they’re still not back yet. Bill headed out after them on his own horse not long before you got here...he’s Charlie’s brother, so he knows the route they would’ve taken...”

Orion’s dark eyes had narrowed significantly.

“Which road did Sir Weasley take after them?” he asked, his calm voice nonetheless touched with the faintest edge.

KC pointed. “Northwest -- toward the mountains.”

Orion nodded. “Thank you.”

And with this, he turned on his heel and rushed back toward where he thought he might find McNully’s coach. He needed to borrow a horse.

Setting one of the black horses free of the black coach, Orion rode off toward the mountains, his slightly-too-long dark hair flapping freely behind him. The road was well-marked, but it soon veered off into dense woods as it migrated up toward the mountains. Orion had never gone so far west into Royaume before, let alone far from Florence before. Despite himself, he had to acknowledge the beauty of the landscape. The views of the castle below were breathtaking -- it looked as tiny as a toy, and yet the infinite glass windows made it sparkle like some diamond-like beacon in the darkening sky. He wondered if his own palace in Florence looked so beautiful to others, at a distance. As much as he himself hadn’t been raised a prince, it was difficult for him to look at his own palace as anything other than a cage.

As he went further uphill and the sky darkened, it also grew colder. Orion was starting to see his own breath on the air. He thought of Carewyn alone in the cold, perhaps hurt, and had to take several deep breaths to sooth his nerves. He was never in a right state, when he let his thoughts run too wild or his fears chatter too loudly.

Finally Orion caught sight of two familiar ginger-headed men, standing by an overturned coach, covered in mud and missing one of its back wheels. One of the men was the tall, freckled castle guard from the other day who Carewyn called Bill, dressed in his high-collared blue and red patterned uniform tunic and matching white feathered, blue-velvet hat -- the other was much stockier, but no less freckled, dressed in a burgundy-colored tunic and loose brown pants and boots, and he wore his ginger hair in a ponytail not unlike Orion’s when he was at court. When Orion approached them, Bill immediately reacted with suspicion -- Orion explained what KC had told him and asked where Carewyn was, and was incredibly startled to hear her voice coming from over the edge of the cliff.

“I’m down here!”

Orion couldn’t help but feel a flash of concern. He raced over as if to look over the edge, but Charlie lashed out an arm in front of the taller man to stop him.

“Uh, I wouldn’t look over if I were you, mate,” he said, having trouble biting back his laughter despite himself.

He pointed at the broken carriage. Hanging over one of the doors was what looked like the burnt orange and beige skirt of a dress and several wool petticoats.

Orion blinked a few times in great surprise, his tanned cheeks darkening with a faint blush. Bill, however, reacted with anxiety.

“Carewyn!” he shouted over the ravine. “Are you in your underwear down there!?”

“Ugh -- well, I couldn’t very well climb down into this briar patch and wrench this wheel loose in my dress, could I?” Carewyn called back up rather haughtily. “At least my bloomers are slightly akin to the sorts of trousers you all wear.”

“You’ll catch a death of cold out here!” said Bill.

“I’m all right,” Carewyn reassured him. “Ulk -- ugh -- I have the wool jacket Andre made for me on...”

Charlie took a step forward, his eyes moved up toward the darkening sky pointedly so as not to look over the edge as he called down,

“Bill’s right, though, Carewyn -- it’s getting colder by the minute...and it’s getting dark too. Are you sure you can lift that thing up and over all by yourself?”

“Ugh...I admit, it’s a bit difficult!” she called back. “But I think I can manage.”

Recalling Carewyn’s blatant refusal of help in retrieving her horse, Orion -- still fighting back a slight blush -- called over the ravine himself.

“We do not question your capabilities, Carewyn,” he said patiently, “but would you like our help?”

“Ugh -- don’t be silly,” said Carewyn, sounding faintly haughty. “You, Charlie, and Bill would break your necks, climbing down here. And I’m still in my undergarments -- I have no interest in anyone seeing me prance around without proper clothes on, thank you.”

“It’s no use,” Charlie muttered under his breath, “I’ve tried to offer her help for the last hour, but she keeps putting me off, saying she’s fine. I don’t get why she feels like she has to do everything by herself...”

“Probably because she’s always had to, Charlie,” said Bill quietly. His voice betrayed a lot of sympathy and sadness as he exhaled through his nose.

Orion’s black eyes deepened with some compassion for Bill as he called back over the ravine to Carewyn,

“Your points are well made, my lady...but we’d still like to help you.”

“Ugh -- you can help me by leaving me my dignity and not looking over while I’m only half-dressed...ack...”

“Would you accept us doing more than that?”

“Urgh -- I am...sorry to have made you and Bill come out all this way -- but I’m all right, really.”

Bill glanced at Orion out the side of his eye, and then back at the cliff. Despite his distrust of the man, the eldest Weasley was sort of glad he wasn’t the only one who disliked how reticent Carewyn was to accept help.

“You don’t need to apologize,” he said earnestly. “I was -- we were worried about you, Carewyn. You and Charlie.”

He and Orion glanced at each other. Bill wished the other man’s expression wasn’t so hard to read. The castle guard tried to twist his uncomfortable frown into a smile that Carewyn would hopefully be able to hear over the edge of the cliff.

“Come on...let’s get you and that wheel up and over so you can get back into your dress.”

There was a silence. Then Carewyn said a bit more quietly,

“...You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Wha -- oh, come off it, Carewyn!” said Charlie exasperatedly. “To hell we do! You think I was mucking about, calling you my pal and saying I needed to figure out a nickname for you? Now let us help you, or I’ll consider making that nickname an irritating one!”

There was another silence. Then Carewyn sighed very loudly and tiredly, and Orion couldn’t help but grin, because he could tell she’d finally given in.

“Oh, all right,” she said begrudgingly. “But I don’t really know how you’re going to help, when you can’t look at me.”

Orion closed his eyes.

“Describe your surroundings, Carewyn,” he said. “Paint a picture for me, with your words.”

“...Well, I’ve gotten the wheel out of the briar patch. I’m trying to roll it back up, but it’s as large as me, and the downward slope and the ice is making it difficult. Plus the wheel isn’t in great shape -- all of its spokes are broken, so there isn’t much for me to push up on, while rolling it uphill.”

“I would’ve told her to just forget it, but it’d be much easier for me to carve a new wheel if I have framework from the old one,” Charlie explained. “I’m already going to have to make the new spokes and hubcap completely out of wood instead of using any gold or metalwork, but it’s still going to take a lot of time...even more so if the old wheel framework can’t be saved...”

Orion considered the matter, visualizing the set-up down below on the inside of his eyelids. “...What’s left of the wheel...is it made of metal or wood?”

“Wood...but there seems to be some sort of metal lining around the rim, held on by nails.”

“That’d be for durability, I reckon,” said Charlie. “Wood alone would get chaffed badly on the ground, moving in a constant circle down cobblestones or over anything rocky.”

Orion opened his eyes and looked over the broken coach. His gaze lingered on the thick leather straps coming off of the front that no doubt would’ve attached it to their horses. Then he abruptly got up, rushing over to undo the straps from the carriage.

“What are you doing?” said Bill, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

Orion quickly knotted the long, thick leather straps together with several complex-looking and strong knots.

“Carewyn,” he called over very calmly, “I’m going to lower this down to you -- use the buckle and loop it securely around the inside rim of the wheel, so that it’s tight. Give it a light tug when it’s secure.”

He blindly tossed one end of the rope made out of leather straps over the edge of the cliff. After a minute, he felt a light tug at the end.

“Gentlemen,” Orion murmured to the Weasleys, “I’ll need you to hold this, for just a moment. Carewyn,” he added, as Charlie and Bill both grabbed the end of the makeshift rope and he let go, “I’m going to need you to step onto the wheel yourself and hold on.”

“What?” said Carewyn. “Orion, you can’t lift both me and the wheel -- it’s far too much! I’ll climb up and out myself -- ”

“Not to worry, my lady -- none of us will be doing the lifting,” said Orion serenely.

He led both his black horse and Bill’s chestnut horse over by their reins, and -- taking the makeshift rope from Bill and Charlie again -- he looped the end under the straps of both his and Bill’s saddles. He gave several tugs at all of the connections to make sure they were tight and secure before mounting his horse.

“Sir Weasley, if you would assist me.”

Catching onto Orion’s idea at last, Bill rushed forward so he could jump up onto his own horse.

“Mr. Weasley, you may want to have your hands ready to help Carewyn climb out when she gets close to the top,” said Orion over his shoulder. “Sir Weasley, together now.”

With a lot of effort and strain, the two horses were able to lift Carewyn and the broken wheel up and out of the ravine. Once Carewyn was out, all three men averted their eyes so she could put her dress back on. Once she was suitably redressed in her orange-and-beige dress, snood, and dark scarlet wool jacket, she, Bill, and Orion helped Charlie secure some makeshift posts he’d carved out of some nearby tree branches under the broken coach so that their four horses could lift it up off the ground and help support it without its second back wheel. Then the four hobbled the coach up the mountain the rest of the way to the Weasley family cottage.

The home of the Weasley family, affectionately nicknamed “the Burrow,” was built up against the side of a hill. Attached to the house was a large farm with sprawling pastures and short, rustic wooden fences. Its roof had clearly been patched up multiple times over the years with whatever kind of wood was on hand, making it resemble a patchwork quilt.

When the group arrived, Bill and Charlie’s youngest sibling and only sister Ginny immediately ran out to greet them -- she’d seen them coming up over the horizon and was beyond thrilled to see that it was her eldest brothers. Bill and Charlie’s teenage brothers Percy, Fred, George, and Ron soon followed along after. Fred and George -- who were identical twins -- were quick to crow that Charlie had brought them an early birthday present (namely, the coach), and Percy scolded them that clearly it was for work and they should let it alone. Orion and Carewyn ended up staying back at a distance, both faintly baffled by the amount of warmth and noise emanating from the seven siblings as they chattered amongst themselves, constantly stepping on each other’s feet and interrupting what everyone else was saying. Neither of them had ever encountered a family quite like this before. When Bill and Charlie’s parents, Arthur and Molly Weasley, emerged from the house, however, Molly very quickly bustled every last one of them inside, including Orion and Carewyn.

“In you go, the lot of you,” she said in a forceful, but very warm tone of voice. “You all look like you need some supper-- ”

“Oh -- no, Mrs. Weasley,” said Carewyn very quickly, “I couldn’t impose -- ”

“Nonsense, dear!” said Molly, as she took Carewyn’s hands and led her inside. “Why, you’re positively freezing! To think, you came all the way out here without a proper muff for your hands...”

“I had to help Charlie with the carriage,” Carewyn said, her eyes drawn away awkwardly rather than looking at Molly, “I couldn’t hope to have my hands free, using a muff...”

“Then both of you should come inside and get warm,” said Arthur, startling Orion with an amiable clap on the back. “Any friend of Bill and Charlie’s is a friend of our family.”

Carewyn had never been the subject of such coddling and generosity before in her life. Her mother had always taught her to treat people with respect and compassion, of course, but she had been a soft-spoken and understated person, and their family life had always been very quiet. And of course at the Cromwell estate, it had been less modest and quiet, but far less affectionate as well. Never had she ever visited such a loud, crowded, and faintly uncomfortable place that still nonetheless felt like a home, full of warmth and love.

Even Orion found himself feeling a bit unsettled by the Weasley family’s overwhelming hospitality. He’d been in plenty of unruly, crowded, and loud settings like this before -- but none of them had ever been quite this...well, jovial. It made it so that Orion yearned for peace, quiet, and returned distance, and yet also couldn’t help but marvel at the positive vibes that rippled off of this family and how much they could give, despite clearly having so little. When dinner was served, Orion had to politely decline a bowl of beef stew because he didn’t eat meat, and Molly Weasley immediately handed the bowl off to Ron so she could set about making Orion his own plate, piled high with cheesy mashed potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, and roasted cauliflower seasoned with garlic and chives.

The Weasley family and their guests sat in an uncomfortable, messy half-circle around the large brick fireplace, laughing and talking as they ate. After supper came the dessert of hot, fresh apple dumplings, and after dessert came some hot tea and scones. After all, said Molly Weasley, having guests over was a rare treat, so they were going to celebrate appropriately. Neither Carewyn nor Orion could remember ever having felt so full in all their lives.

As everyone enjoyed their scones and tea, stories and songs were swapped around the fire. At one point in the evening, twelve-year-old Ginny -- who was perfectly thrilled to have another girl around, for a change -- begged Carewyn to sing for them. Apparently Bill had told his family all about her lovely voice. So, with some encouragement from Charlie, Arthur, and Molly, Carewyn bit back a broad, amused grin, took a deep breath, and started to sing.

“Mother cannot guide you...now you’re on your own.

Only me beside you -- still, you’re not alone...”

Orion had thought to himself that Carewyn must have done the song from his youth proper justice while singing for the Prince, but hearing her sing it in person, seeing her smile at him and her eyes sparkle as she did so...it was a completely different matter. As before, Orion felt all of the tension in his shoulders ebb off of him, as easily as dirt was washed away in warm water. He bowed his head and closed his eyes, tilting his head a bit so that he could hear her better, as his breathing and heart rate slowed. Even with his eyes closed, he could hear a smile in every word Carewyn sang...even when she likely wasn’t smiling at all, he thought. How could she be smiling, when lines like “sometimes people leave you half-way through the wood” and “people make mistakes -- fathers, mothers” rang with such emotion and pain? Was that pain visible on her face? Orion thought not, given Carewyn’s sense of grace and composure...but he heard it, all the same. He felt it -- her heart, aching with a kind of deep, blazing empathy Orion had never encountered in anyone else before.

When Carewyn came to the end of the song, Orion opened his eyes at last. The Weasleys all clapped, delighted, but he barely heard them as he turned to Carewyn.

“...That was remarkable,” he murmured.

Carewyn smiled. “I’m glad you think I did it justice.”

“Mm,” said Orion. “I’ve...never heard anyone drown like that, before.”

Carewyn couldn’t bite back a laugh. “Perhaps I didn’t do it justice then, if I sounded like I was drowning...”

“You were drowning in the words’ meaning,” corrected Orion. “Enveloping and submerging yourself in them -- allowing them to pull you in and take your breath away.”

He smiled, his black eyes very soft upon Carewyn’s face.

“It was...very moving.”

Molly’s face spread into an indulgent smile as she reached forward and patted Carewyn’s hand. “It was absolutely beautiful, dear.”

“Orion’s right, Carewyn,” agreed Arthur. “Your feelings really came through. I could tell the words mean something to you.”

Carewyn offered a polite smile, even as her eyes drifted away. “...I suppose they do.”

“It sounds like a lullaby, sort of,” mused Ron. “Even if it talks about your mother not being around.”

Ginny tilted her head toward Carewyn, Ron’s words prompting concern.

“...Do you not have a mother, Carewyn?”

The rest of the family went very quiet -- some like Percy shot Ginny warning looks, while others like Molly and Ron couldn’t help but glance at Carewyn in similar concern.

Carewyn’s gaze had drifted off onto the fire. Although she was turned away and her face was stoic, however, Orion could see her eyes rippling like turbulent ocean water, before she closed them solemnly.

“...I had one,” she answered softly at last. “She died when I was twelve.”

“Was she sick?” asked Ron, very hesitantly.

Carewyn bowed her head and gave a single, silent nod. Everyone in the room knew what that meant. The Plague had swept through both Royaume and Florence several times, over the span of the War -- one of the worst years was about nine years ago now...probably the same year Carewyn had lost her mother.

Orion’s black eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly upon her face. Molly looked like she wanted to envelop Carewyn in the biggest hug and was only holding back the urge because of her husband’s tight, reassuring squeeze to her hand.

“Oh, you poor dear,” she murmured.

Carewyn raised her head at last, her expression once again touched by a small, resilient, pretty smile.

“It’s all right,” she said gently, her eyes only briefly grazing each of the Weasleys’ faces. “I’ll always miss my mother...but I’m getting along all right. And I still have Jacob.”

“Your brother?” asked Percy, and Carewyn nodded.

“He left for War the same day he and I moved in with our grandfather,” Carewyn explained.

“Your brother must be quite a bit older than you, then,” said Orion.

Carewyn glanced at Orion out the side of her eye, smiling slightly. “Nine years older, yes. You know...you actually remind me of him, a bit.”

Orion raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

Carewyn was forced to stifle a giggle behind her hand. “Jacob is also the sort to do things in his own clever way. Only he’s a lot more aggressive than you -- and more talkative, and arrogant, and overprotective...”

“And uglier,” inserted Fred.

“And smellier,” added George.

“With a long crooked nose and ears like a bat’s.”

The younger Weasley siblings were all laughing now. Carewyn had to cover her mouth to stifle her giggling.

“No!” she choked. “I don’t mean it like that! He’s wonderful, really. He’s just...well, an absolute idiot about how to interact with other people. He’s completely brilliant, mind you -- he could give you whole lectures about anything from geography to mathematics to physics...but coming up with spontaneous gifts for no occasion at all, just based on someone’s interests? He’d need some prodding, to do something like that.”

She smiled at Orion, who couldn’t help but grin fully in return.

“It was truly nothing at all, Carewyn,” he said. “With your love of music, it felt like that song would be something you would appreciate.”

Arthur glanced at Orion curiously. “Where is that song from, Orion? I’ve never heard it before.”

“I learned it as a boy,” Orion answered. “I would hear it sung outside the window of the workhouse, sometimes.”

Molly looked very troubled. “Workhouse? Orion dear, you don’t mean to say you grew up in one of those terrible places?”

Orion felt Carewyn’s gaze on him. When he looked back at her, her almond-shaped blue eyes were rippling with concern as well, though much gentler and more empathetic than Molly’s. He tried to offer her a smile.

“Let’s just say the words spoke to me as well, at the time,” he said lightly. “Not just to me, either...all of the boys there, one way or another, were where they were because of other people’s ‘terrible mistakes.’”

Orion’s gaze drifted down to his own hands as he lightly clasped them in his lap.

“...The War doesn’t touch you the same way here, but...the closer you are to Florence...the more the reality of it hits you in the face, every day. Even when you’re not on the battlefield itself -- even when you’re just at the border -- you, and the ones you care for, run the risk of getting caught in the crossfire. And on the border of Florence and Royaume...in those towns where it’s hard to tell where one country starts and another begins...tensions are like gunpowder. One spark from the tiniest match can set it ablaze -- can make everything implode, and force you to start all over again.”

His face was unreadable, but his black eyes were endless, rippling with the recollection of the fire and smoke -- the red and blue colors of Royaume, on the saddles of horses -- the life leaving his mother’s eyes -- his own heavy, terrified hyperventilating...

He closed his eyes and took several very deep, measured breaths before continuing.

“In such a place...one can find people desperate enough to want to lash out at others, to avenge their pain,” said Orion solemnly. “But there was one sweet old woman who owned a flower and herb shop near the workhouse. She’d had to rebuild her establishment several times over the years, and from what I understand, she finally had to leave town not long after I did...but every time she caught wind that the army was coming to town, looking for new recruits...she’d sing the song just loudly enough that we boys could hear it through our window.”

He absently played with the crudely carved circular charm on the cord around his neck in one hand.

“And although there were those who still enlisted afterwards...many others did not.”

Carewyn’s eyes widened.

“‘While we’re seeing our side,’ ” she sang again, more softly, “‘maybe we forgot...they are not alone. No one is alone.’ ”

Orion’s lips spread into a smile as he looked at Carewyn, his black eyes rippling gently as he nodded.

“So it’s against the War, then,” murmured Charlie. He glanced at his parents, who both looked concerned.

“Did that woman with the flower shop give you that?” asked Ginny curiously, indicating the charm around Orion’s neck.

“Yes,” said Orion. “She gave it to me one night when I tried to run away, to soothe my nerves. Its effects wore off by the next morning, but I’ve never really had the heart to throw it out.”

Percy sputtered, looking very pale. “Th-then she was a witch?”

“Whoa,” said Fred and George, looking almost too eager.

“Did she turn all the army into pigs?” asked George.

“Did she lure you in and try to cook you in a soup?” said Fred.

Orion smiled indulgently. “Of course not -- ”

“Well, thank Heavens for that!” said Molly, shooting the twins a very reproachful look. “Magic isn’t something to make fun of, you two -- it’s frankly a wonder you weren’t hurt, dear...”

Orion frowned. “There was no danger, Madam Weasley, I assure you.”

“No danger! Orion,” Molly scolded him indulgently, “I applaud your courage...but nature has its own way of things, and any magic that twists it out of shape is more dangerous than it’s worth.”

To the Weasley family’s surprise, Carewyn actually spoke up.

“Mrs. Weasley, men tend fields, plant seeds, domesticate horses and dogs...treat illnesses and injuries...cut hair and wear makeup and put on heeled shoes to make ourselves appear taller. Would that not also be twisting nature’s intent?”

Molly actually faltered somewhat. “Well, yes, but...that’s very different from magic, Carewyn! Magic is...well, it’s wild. Uncontrollable.”

“It’s untamed chaos,” said Arthur more levelly than his wife. “A kind that’s done a lot more harm than good.”

“But it still can be used for good,” said Carewyn very firmly. “And if it has that potential, why must we treat it as though it and all of its users are inherently reprehensible? If magic can be used to save lives, or heal the sick, or even just calm a scared boy down after something horrible...”

She glanced at Orion out the side of her eye.

“...Then it seems to be like any other weapon or tool, or even any other person -- something that could protect or hurt.”

Orion felt like his heart was being flooded with warmth, and his entire expression melted with pride and something like affection as he stared at Carewyn.

She truly is a woman to be admired. The memory of Skye’s irritation and McNully’s warning rippled over Orion’s mind and he found himself faltering. Admire...yes. Anyone could grow to admire such a woman, couldn’t they? To respect and esteem her...to...grow an attachment, to her... Even I? Could I...?

The Weasleys exchanged uncertain looks amongst themselves.

“Come to think of it,” said Ron thoughtfully, “wasn’t there that old myth about fairy godmothers who grant you wishes?”

Fred brought an arm roughly around his younger brother’s neck and put him in a rough choke hold. “Aww, ickle Ronnie wanting a pwetty new dress?”

“‘Oh fairy godmother, I just gotta have a new dress for the Winter Festival!’” said George in a high-pitched squeal.

“Geroff!” growled Ron, as he pulled free.

“Oh, but that would be fun!” sighed Ginny. “Dancing at the Winter Festival, in the prettiest dress you’ve ever seen...you’re going to the Festival, aren’t you, Carewyn?”

“Probably not, Ginny,” said Carewyn gently, “I’ve got so much work to do...”

“Oh, but you have to!” whined Ginny. “The Festival’s tradition! Right, Orion?”

“So I’ve heard,” Orion said modestly, “but I’m afraid I’ve never attended a Winter Festival either.”

“What?!” said all of the Weasley children except Bill in thoroughly aghast unison.

“It’s the biggest celebration of the entire year -- ”

“Everybody in town will be there -- ”

“ -- well, aside from the noble tarts -- ”

“ -- but hey, who needs them?”

“Everybody makes the best mince pies and hot apple cider -- ”

“There’s dancing and singing and games and gift-giving -- ”

“You just can’t miss it -- ”

Before long, they’d completely gotten off the topic of magic all together, so the Weasleys could tell Orion all about the Winter Festival. Carewyn took the opportunity to start carrying dishes into the kitchen so that she could help Molly clean up. While she did so, Bill pulled her aside.

“Carewyn...can I talk to you? Alone?”

Carewyn blinked, but nonetheless put down the dishes she was carrying and followed Bill off into a secluded corner.

“What’s wrong?” she asked in concern.

Bill bit the inside of his lip, his brown eyes drifting over in the direction of the fireplace where the rest of his family was sitting with Orion.

“Carewyn,” he said slowly, “who is that man, really?”

Carewyn’s eyebrows knit together. Bill ran a hand over the undone collar of his tunic absently.

“He’s hiding something, I know it. And I’m sure you see it too. He dodges questions he doesn’t want to answer, and as much as he’s even told us tonight about himself, he never gives important details. He lived near the border, but he didn’t mention what town he’s from. He lived in a workhouse, presumably after losing his parents, but he never said what he lost them to.”

“Those things might not be easy for him to talk about, Bill,” Carewyn said softly.

“Yes,” said Bill in a bracing voice, “but he also hopped the walls of the palace, completely ignorant of how tight royal security is and why, has enough time to chase after you most every day, and gets paints from people he can’t identify and learns songs from people who, from the sound of things, practice witchcraft.”

Bill crossed his arms. He clearly was trying to be considerate to Carewyn’s feelings, but couldn’t hold back his concerns.

“Look, I...I understand you like the man. And I understand why -- Ginny and the others seem to have taken to him pretty well, too. But there’s no reason for someone to hold back that many secrets, unless they’re up to no good. He could be a cad, or a criminal, or maybe even something worse. Judging by his stance on magic, he could even be a magician himself...”

His brown eyes narrowed slightly upon Carewyn’s face.

“I’m just...worried about you, that’s all,” he said lowly.

Carewyn considered Bill for a long moment. Then, reaching out a hand, she gently took hold of Bill’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

“Bill...I understand how you feel. And I’m grateful, truly grateful, for your caring. I hardly deserve it, and it...it means a lot to me.”

Bill frowned deeply, ready to say something, but Carewyn cut him off.

“But believe me when I say that people don’t just keep secrets because they mean to do harm. Sometimes -- for some people -- they’ve had to learn to hide themselves and shield their hearts...so much so that even when they encounter good people, it’s hard for them to let their guard down. Sometimes they’ve known so much pain that, even though they’re kind people, they’ve numbed themselves to a degree, just to protect themselves. Lied so much...that it becomes second-nature. Or worse, lie because they don’t know who they can really trust...because so many people have hurt them that they don’t know what trust even feels like anymore.”

Bill’s expression lost some of its edge, though it still looked wary.

“...And if he is a magic user?”

“Then he’s one of the good ones,” said Carewyn firmly.

Bill still looked a bit unsure. Carewyn squeezed his shoulder a bit more tightly, her eyes resting there instead of on his face.

“Bill, my brother is only alive, thanks to magic.”

Bill was startled.

“The Plague swept through our whole house,” said Carewyn lowly. “First the landlord and his family -- then my mother...and then Jacob. We were living hand-to-mouth, and I didn’t have anyone else to go to...so I went to the Cromwell estate.”

Bill’s brown eyes became a little smaller, darkening with grim understanding.

“...You went to your grandfather.”

Carewyn nodded. “He disowned Mum long ago, but he was still our family, so I thought he might be willing to help us. He agreed to take Jacob and me in and nurse Jacob back to health, so long as we paid back his generosity. Grandfather then tracked down a witch who could cast a spell to save Jacob’s life.”

Bill’s eyebrows furrowed. “Lord Cromwell hired a -- ?”

“Do not repeat this, Bill!” Carewyn said very sharply and urgently. “To anyone, do you understand? No one.”

Her eyes then softened visibly, becoming grimmer and sadder.

“Jacob was dying. There was no other option.”

Bill looked like he was in pain, just hearing this second-hand. He swallowed, and then gave a nod.

“So that witch saved your brother’s life,” he said quietly.

Carewyn nodded, her eyes full of emotion despite the stoicism of her features.

“The spell she cast bound Jacob’s life to Grandfather’s will. Jacob was brought into the house on a stretcher just after dawn, and within a half-hour...he was up on his own two feet again.”

Carewyn closed her eyes. She could still remember Jacob’s blazing, relieved smile as he barreled down the stairs and threw his arms around her, cradling her like a baby.

“My Wyn -- my sweet Wyn -- ”

Not long after that, though...Jacob’s arms were yanked away -- all of him was yanked away -- held back by Blaise and Claire and Pearl’s husbands, who all had work to together just to restrain Jacob as he fought to reach her, screaming and raging like a mad man --

“WYN! NO! GET OFF OF ME -- WYN! I WON’T LET YOU -- CAREWYN!”

Carewyn opened her eyes, the soft longing fading from her face completely and leaving a much more stony expression behind.

Bill himself, however, looked more troubled than ever.

“You said your brother left for War the same day you and he arrived at the Cromwell estate,” he whispered shakily. “Do you mean that, right after saving your brother’s life...Lord Cromwell immediately sent him off to War -- all while knowing how few men return home alive?”

Carewyn’s lips came together tightly.

“Grandfather sent him to the front, so that Jacob could start paying back the debt I owed him,” she said, her voice very soft and oddly distant. “After all...a man who wouldn’t die, so long as he willed it...would make an excellent soldier.”

Bill looked horrified.

“Then...” he whispered, “...then Jacob’s only alive because your grandfather decides whether he lives or dies? You only know your brother’s still alive after so many years at war...because Lord Cromwell is bound to him through magic, and he’s holding his life over your head?”

Carewyn withdrew her hand from Bill’s shoulder and turned away.

“Carewyn...that’s monstrous!” said Bill, and he was unable to keep his voice from rising. “I didn’t even know magic could do something like that -- but -- but that’s nothing, compared to...”

He couldn’t restrain himself. He actually threw an arm around Carewyn and pulled her into a hug from behind. The small ginger-haired woman stiffened like a startled cat.

“Bill?”

Carewyn looked up at him -- were those tears, in his eyes?

“Have you...never told anyone else, about this?” Bill murmured.

Carewyn tried to turn around, her blue eyes welling up with regret and pain. “Bill...”

She brought a hand through his hair, trying to soothe him the way she used to for Jacob.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I -- I didn’t mean to upset you -- I only wanted to explain why I’m not scared of magic...please forgive me.”

Bill closed his eyes to try to hold back both his righteous anger and his tears.

“Forgive you?” he repeated in a choked voice. “For what, trusting me with the truth?”

“For making you worry unnecessarily,” Carewyn said forcefully, trying to ignore how uncomfortably her stomach was squirming.

Bill opened his eyes, looking both flabbergasted and more upset than ever. “Unnecessarily?”

He roughly grabbed both of Carewyn’s shoulders and forced her to look up at him.

“Now you listen here, Carewyn Cromwell,” he said, taking on the sort of tone he only ever used with his younger siblings when they were being rowdy, “you may get to decide if you want to interact with me or not, or rely on me or not, or accept my help or not. But you don’t get to decide whether I worry about you or not. And from here on out...”

Bill’s brown eyes were blazing with resolve.

“...I’m going to worry about you. Because I hate the thought of someone feeling like anybody else worrying about them is somehow a problem.”

Carewyn was left speechless.

Bill’s face broke into a broad smile through his tears. “Until your brother’s back from the War, Carey, I’ll be looking after you for him -- no arguments, no dismissals, no saying you’re fine on your own. Got it?”

Carewyn looked at Bill, perfectly stunned. Then her gaze fell away toward the floor.

“...It sounds like...I really don’t get a choice in the matter, then,” she whispered.

“Nope,” said Bill, grinning broadly.

Carewyn was unable to fight back the weak smile prickling at the sides of her lips, nor the emotion flooding her eyes, even as she kept her face turned away.

“...And I suppose ‘Carey’...is a suggestion of a nickname you plan to give Charlie, for me?”

Bill’s eyes sparkled fondly. “Well, every one of my siblings has a nickname, in case you haven’t noticed.”

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Hi! As someone who’s literary opinion I really trust, I was surprised that you’re a twilight fan? I know almost nothing except commen knowledge things about that series, and I always assumed it was actually bad/un-feminist. What is it that you like so much that others seem to miss? I’m just genuinely curious about your take on the hate it always seems to get vs. it’s actual quality. I’m not gonna judge bc animorphs is also one of those books where you see it and assume it’s bad.

In over 14 years of loving this series, I’m not sure anyone has ever asked me why I enjoy it instead of simply trying to convince me that I’m wrong to do so.  So thank you for that.

First and foremost, I love the Twilight saga because of the vivid detail in Stephenie Meyer’s writing style.  The descriptions are so lush and dense with sensory information that you can practically bite down on them as you read.  Bella and Jacob aren’t just sitting on the beach; they’re sitting on a gnarled log of driftwood, worn smooth at the top from where so many Quileute teens have sat upon it during bonfires but still uneven enough to rock on its branches when Bella suddenly stands to rage at her own mortality.  Meyer describes that log in Twilight, so tangibly and with such economy of detail, that we recognize it immediately when Bella and Jacob return to that spot in Eclipse.  I’ve always disliked the movies, because I’ve always felt that the best part of Meyer’s writing simply did not translate well to the screen.

Secondly, I love the feminism.

Okay, let’s take a quick pause to let everyone gasp and clutch their pearls over me calling Twilight a feminist work.  I will address the criticisms later.  For now, please just hear me out.

Twilight strikes me as a premier example of what Hélène Cixous means when she calls for “women’s writing,” or writing for women, about women, by women, with a strong focus on the concerns and strengths and desires of womanhood.  This is a series about building and maintaining close relationships, both romantic and platonic.  It celebrates beauty, and love, and care.  Bella moves to Forks because she recognizes that her dad is lonely while her mom is quite the opposite, torn between family priorities.  She doesn’t simply subsume her interests to those of other people, but instead actively chooses how and when and where to express her love for her birth family and her found families.  Most of the other major decisions throughout the story — Alice “adopting” Bella, Carlisle moving the family to Alaska, Jacob becoming werewolf beta, the Cullens going up against the Volturi, etc. — are motivated by care and devotion for one’s family and friends.  Even the selfish or morally ambiguous character choices are shown to be motivated by love.  Rosalie tells Edward that Bella died because she genuinely thinks it’ll help him move on.  Victoria creates an army that nearly destroys Forks because she’s avenging James.  Alice abandons Bella and the others before the final battle because if she can’t save her entire family, then she’ll settle for saving her lover before letting him die in vain.

Not only is there a striking concern with love and care, but there’s also a strong commitment to avoiding violence.  Bella’s eventual vamp-superpower proves to be preventing violence and protecting others, an awesome character decision that I’d argue gets set up as early as the first book.  She lives in a violent world — this is a YA SF story, after all — but she has the power to suppress violence and create peace, both in herself and others.  I was already sick of “power = ability to inflict damage” in YA stories well before I knew the word “patriarchy.”  Twilight was one of the first books to convey to me that power could be refusing to do harm in spite of hunger or anger, that power could be shielding ones’ family, that power could be about building enough friendships and alliances to have an army at one’s back when facing an enemy too strong to take on alone.

Closely connected to all of that love and care, I love how much Twilight is about navigating teenage girlhood.  Is it empowering, intersectional, or all-inclusive?  Hell no.  Does it still dare to suggest that a completely ordinary teenage girl could have valid concerns about the world?  Yep.  The main conflict of the story, as Stephen King so derisively explained, is about the romantic entanglements of a teenage girl, and the book therefore has no literary merit.  (To quote my dad’s response: “Bold words from the guy who inflicted Firestarter on the world.”)

There is, indeed, a lot of romance in Twilight.  There are a lot of clothes.  Alice and Rosalie especially spend a lot of time on makeup, and hair, and choosing the prettiest cars and houses.  Twilight embraces all the stereotypically “girly” concerns of adolescence, and makes no effort to apologize for or condemn them.  Bella isn’t particularly good at performing them — she likes but doesn’t excel at shopping, fiercely defends her ugly car as ugly, hobbles through prom on crutches — but she can still enjoy the feeling of being pretty in a sparkly dress while dancing with her sparkly boyfriend.  And Twilight, like Animorphs with Cassie, takes the daring step of treating that feeling as valid.

Speaking of sparkles, I love the commitment to the fantasy concept in Twilight, including the myriad mundanities that Meyer brings with that commitment.  If you have super-speed, why not use it to play extreme baseball?  If you’re a mindreader with a clairvoyant sister, why wouldn’t you two play mental chess games?  I couldn’t tell you, after seven seasons of Buffy or eight of Vampire Diaries, what Spike or Damien or Angel or Stefan does all day when not brooding or lurking in the bushes to creep on human women.  I can tell you what the Cullens get up to.  Emmett and Rosalie work on their cars, usually by holding them overhead one-handed.  Carlisle and Alice read plays, and sometimes talk the whole family into home Shakespeare productions.  Edward and Carlisle debate theology, Emmett and Jasper have dumb athletic competitions, Edward and Esme play music, Alice manipulates stock markets, the twins go shopping online, etcetera.  The Cullens feel real, feel like the vampires next door, in a way that Louis and Lestat simply do not.

To get to the elephant in the room — I just described Twilight as a feminist text! — let’s talk about the other thing the Cullens do for fun: they have sex.  Weird sex.  Kinky furniture-breaking sex.  Sex that Emmett (who would know) compares to bear-wrestling.  These books suck with regards to queer representation, but they are sex-positive.  They feature an old-school Anglican protagonist offering his daughter-in-law a medical abortion.  They treat Edward’s desire for sex only within marriage and Alice’s desire for sex outside of marriage as both being valid.  Like I said, not groundbreaking, even by the standards of 2005, but still more than most teen novels do even today.

There’s a passage from Breaking Dawn that people love to pull out of context as “everything wrong with Twilight in two paragraphs” because it describes Bella waking up the morning after sex with bruises on her arms.  That moment is shocking out of context, to be sure — but in context, it’s the end result of an in-depth consent negotiation that lasts four books.  Bella says that she’d like to become a vampire.  Edward says okay, but only if she spends a few more years living as a human and considering that choice.  Bella says okay, but only if Edward, not Carlisle, becomes the one to turn her.  Edward says they can use his venom, but that Carlisle, who’s an MD, really needs to supervise the process.  Bella doesn’t love the idea of Edward’s stepdad cockblocking what’s supposed to be an intimate moment, and so agrees only on the grounds that she gets to have sex with Edward as a human first.  Edward’s hella Catholic, so he requests that they get married first.  Bella’s super horny, so she demands that the wedding happen within six months.  Edward says that he might hurt her during sex, and Bella says that she wants a little hurt during sex.  They marry.  They bang.  During the banging, Edward makes every effort to be controlled and courteous and gentile, while Bella goes wild and crazy.  The next morning, she has bruises and he does not.  Edward apologizes, but Bella’s actually really into it.  She spends a while admiring her sexy vamp-marked self in the mirror, touches the bruises many times, and reminds us yet again that Bella Swan’s whole M.O. is being a monsterfucker.  Her kink is not my kink, and that’s okay.

To be clear, I think there are other aspects of the romance that get criticized for good reason.  Edward does not negotiate with Bella before sneaking into her room to watch her sleep, and he does make unacceptable use of their power differences when he thinks she’s in danger of being mauled by werewolves.  The text condemns Jacob’s “don’t wanna die a virgin” ploy to manipulate a kiss out of Bella, but not the wider conceit of all the male characters as possessing uncontrollable urges.  Bella’s struggles to adjust to a new town feel very feminine and realistic; her amused tolerance of Jacob’s and Mike’s sexual harassment as the price for their friendship does not.  Werewolf imprinting might be mostly platonic, but that doesn’t make it okay for Meyer to depict it as a form of soulmate bonding that happens with child characters. Those are good points, all around.  I just wish that most of them didn’t come up in the context of post-hoc rationalizations for loathing the femininity of a feminine text.

I’m not calling Twilight an unproblematic series.  I’m saying that it gets (rightly!) criticized for appropriating Quileute culture, while Buffy’s total absence of main characters of color and blatant anti-Romani racism are (wrongly!) not remarked upon. I'm saying that I’ve been told I’m a misogynist for liking Twilight but not for liking James Bond.  I’m saying that there’s a reason people tend to go “oh, that makes so much sense!” when I let them in on the fact that reactive hatred for “Twitards” started and spread on 4Chan, later home of Gamergate and incel culture.  I’m saying that Twilight depicts problematic relationship dynamics as sexy — but then so do Vampire Academy, Blue Bloods, Supernatural, Vladimir Tod, and Vampire Diaries.  All of which take the time to stop and thumb their noses at Twilight, smug in the superiority of having vampires that fly rather than vampires that sparkle, and for thoroughly condemning teenage girls for being girly while continuing to show men inflicting violence on them.

After all, as Erin May Kelly puts it: “we live in a world taught to hate everything to do with little girls.  We hate the books they read and the bands they like.  Is there anything the world makes fun of more than One Direction and Twilight?”  No one has ever called me a misogynist for liking the MCU, in spite of less than a third of its movies even managing to clear the low-low bar of the Bechdel test.  Because people are still allowed to like Harry Potter in spite of its racism, or Lord of the Rings despite its imperialism.  Because hatred for Twilight was never about its very real sexism, or the genuinely silly sparkle-vampires, until it had to justify itself as something other than hate for everything that teenage girls have ever dared openly love.

I enjoy the novels, and I enjoy the fan fiction that tries to fix some of the problems with the novels.  I appreciate the extent to which Meyer has elevated fan culture, and made an effort to acknowledge her own past mistakes.  I would love to be able to talk about my love for the series as a flawed but beautiful work of literature, but for now I’ll settle for asking that the world just let me enjoy it in peace.

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

PVA- in a different ask I discussed mc joining R and now I want to talk about the different route. In this au, Merula still trusts Rakepick since she didn’t get tortured by her plus she’s a member of R by this point so she dislikes Mc besmirching Rakepick’s name. If Mc chose to trust Jacob, Merula will try to convince them otherwise and mc will be given a chance to express any doubts about Jacob. Tulip is a constant in the anti-Rakepick storyline, regardless of if Jacob is trusted or not.

You know, it's an interesting question. There are so many interesting questions leftover concerning Merula's feelings about Rakepick, and all of her decisions as a whole, now that we know the truth about her allegiances. Was her loyalty and hero-worship of Rakepick a genuine thing? Was she just trying to sell Rakepick to MC as this awesome mentor they should trust? I don't know. If Merula knew, at least to some degree, what would happen in the Portrait Vault, it doesn't make a lot of sense. Then again, did she already know about the plan to recruit MC? I'm inclined to think she did, it would tie in to her befriending them during Year 5, and trying to teach them the Killing Curse. Then again, had R already decided to try and recruit MC? Or was that just something that Rakepick wanted? Either way, knowing Merula, I'm inclined to think her fondness for Rakepick was genuine. The poor thing just wants a mother figure, the same way Harry was seeking a father figure in Sirius.

I do like the idea of her seeing it as a betrayal if MC sides with Jacob during this whole conflict. It would be a betrayal because, by turning on Rakepick for who else, but their damn cursed brother...MC is also turning on Merula and personally hurting her. Just like Tulip did, and it's no accident that Tulip stands against Rakepick. None of this is an accident. Because, as twisted and messed up as it really was, The Curse-Breaking apprentice team from Year 5 was a kind of found-family. To the point where that word, "family" is even used. Well, it's used by Rakepick, and to a degree, I think she was trying to invoke that trope. Or maybe she was just repeating the lingo of R. Merula does later on say that she's ready for R to become her "real family." I don't think it's an accident that Merula was chosen as the mole, and thusly added to the apprentice team. Two out of the three kids present come from broken homes. Bill is there too, but that's mostly an obligatory inclusion. He was studying Curse-Breaking, he was friends with MC, and his loving family background broke the pattern. Excluding him would have made the whole thing look that much shadier. Besides, he was one extra distraction for the dragon. And maybe he could have been a planned candidate for the friend that R wanted MC to ultimately lose.

[dclevinson]

August 21: my kaddish month

I’ve sent this to a number of people, but I’m putting it here too in case some readers who might be interested will stumble across it:

A little more than a month has passed since Cindy died, and I get asked a lot how I’m doing. My standard answer starts with a couple ways of framing:

 --- the earthquake is over, but there are lots of unpredictable emotional aftershocks

 --- I’m past the Shock & Numbness phase, but normal life doesn’t seem normal. Lots of How Can This Be Real moments that can be disorienting and distressing

 --- many times emotions collide: how much to lean into or away from grief, how to feel it’s OK to feel OK when I do, how keep her with me and move forward too, etc

 I suppose at some point a fascination with grief can start to make others uncomfortable, but grieving has a logic of its own. One key part of “after” life was the 30 days of daily religious services I attended to honor her memory.  I found the routine and --- surprisingly, the ritual --- spiritually nourishing. Cindy’s eyebrows always shot up at the word “spiritual.” Usually mine too. I hope those of you I send these four pages to don’t find it too tedious Perhaps it’s a way of keeping Cindy in your thoughts and hearts too…

       I am a most unlikely daily mourning ritual observer. I didn’t do it for my father, and he asked us not to. But the ritual mourning prayers and the place where I’d be doing it meant a lot to Cindy, so I just committed without much deliberation. One problem in writing about a fairly traditional type of observance is that the spectrum of Jewish religious practice can be mystifying, even to many Jews. So how explain it to outsiders? I’ve tried to do it without being either too reverent or irreverent.

 One basic mourning commitment is to say “kaddish”, the mourner’s prayer, for a set amount of time. Jewish practice and custom is intellectually intricate and often arcane; there are rules and exceptions to rules and different interpretations of rules, etc. There are other customs/demands for remembrance too. Many think of saying kaddish as a year long commitment. Plus yearly anniversaries, set to a moving Hebrew calendar --- just to add to the degree of difficulty. But even the year thing has permutations: actual practice for some groups is 11 months, not 12.

 Why?. Different interpreters and communities make their own choices on duration. Our ritual director says “eleven.” Basically, some 13th century source says that “the wicked in Gehinom took 12 months for their souls to reach the highest levels of heaven.” But most Jews don’t even believe in a physical heaven!? Never mind. So, the reasoning goes, if the wicked took 12 months, we’ll mourn for 11: because our beloved Was Not Wicked. Welcome to Talmudic reasoning. But, traditionally, the year(ish) is for parents and children. For spouses the allotted time is 30 days. Though many people today may just do a year for anyone in the family. Thirty struck me as the perfect amount for the act to stay meaningful, helpful and not something I would treat as an increasingly resented chore.

 It’s not a prayer that religious custom allows you to say by yourself. You need a minyan (quorum) of 10. It used to be men, but now men or women, at least at our conservative temple (shul, synagogue, whatever --- more insider confusing terminology). But some do say it by themselves for the comfort it brings if finding a group is too arduous. And I cheated a couple days by joining the group virtually. But I found being with a gathering of supporters did matter to me. I could have gone to a shorter evening service to do this, but preferred the morning time. And came to think a 40ish minute observance time a good block to have meaningful daily impact.

 And then there’s the prayer itself. I realized right away that the weekday morning prayer service had many different kaddishs, similar prayers of thanks for and praise to a divine entity. But there’s one specific mourner’s version, said 3 times in oour short 40ish minute service. Twice, almost in succession at the end --- overkill or emphasis, depending on your point of view. Why the repeats? Haven’t pursued that yet. And, as some of you know, the prayer for the dead doesn’t mention dying or losing loved ones or honoring their memory, etc. It just profusely praises God (and lots of different words or phrases to refer to such entity since he/she/it is too holy and all powerful to mention the Real Name). Some phrases: “May god’s name be exalted and hallowed, his sovereignty soon accepted… glorified, celebrated, lauded, worshiped, exalted, honored, extolled and acclaimed… Lots of current Jewish religious practice incorporates the Middle Ages wholesale. Or earlier. Read the English on the facing page of the prayer book and much of the service sounds like the practice of a small, threatened tribe huddling in the desert thousands of years ago.

 There’s a lot about Jewish practice that seems natural and essential to practitioners but might alienate the uninitiated.  Or reluctant observers like me. The head coverings. The shoulder covering prayer shawls. The standing for this (many do: why not all??!), turning right for that, covering eyes for this line, fingering prayer shawl strings (tzitzit) for that. Whew. So many prayers and practices for so many different occasions. Designed, I’ve thought, to cement the devotion of believers. But it repel skeptics, too, I surmise.

 One such example: in these early services most men put on tefillin. Leather straps with little black boxes attached (a prayer inside) that have very specific wrapping/unwrapping  procedures for arms and head. It’s deeply moving to believers, but I’ve always thought it look repellent or ridiculous. Way too much like the garb of the ultra orthodox “crazies.” There are lots of I’ll do this/not that decisions in religious practice. I understand there’s a tenuous dynamic that exists between any minority and majority community, and clinging to tradition and being true to oneself can seem preferable to “selling out” to fit in. But sometimes it strikes us skeptics as more a clinging to “guns and religion” type intransigence.

 So, if you walked in on these services cold (I was lukewarm), there’s lots that would be pretty mystifying and potentially off-putting. How could you possibly fit in? In fact, I believe I was the only new guy or gal over my month. And there had to be a decent number of temple members who have lost family members during the time I attended. Seemingly no person younger than I was doing the morning kaddish thing. And usually I was the only or 1 of 2 who didn’t put on tefillin. Men. Women usually don’t. Though one of our female rabbis did. Good for her, though I wasn’t tempted to follow.

 I could fit in and feel comfortable at these services because a) I knew people there b) I was committed to being there and c) people took care of me. I no longer bristled at the imputation (real or just in my head?) that I’m a Bad Jew and I need instruction to be a Good One. This time I felt many there had cherished Cindy, understood why I was there, and quietly welcomed me. I was willing to look/be ignorant and accept guidance.

 It was reassuring to see many of Cindy’s compatriots from the temple sisterhood there day after day too. The whole group (20 to 40 most days) was interesting to observe: lots more joking and side conversations during the service than I’d imagined. And there was the guy older than I who usually wore cycling shorts and shirt, the much older guy who sat to my right who usually shuffled in 15 minutes late, etc etc.  Lots of accomplished people and interesting stories for another writer’s version. And --- most days --- someone called out the pages so I had some sense where we were.

 I can read Hebrew if I already know the prayer or chant. So I can’t really read Hebrew anymore. Much of the service is praising God’s amazing powers, thanking him for singling out and helping Jews (don’t let anti-Semites see this!), an intricate mix of different intricate sections that over days start to fit a pattern. There are a always some bits in any prayer book that I find edifying and worth recalling; often I’m reading in one place when the service is in another. My favorite in this one:

Rabbi Schuel ben Nahmani said: We find that the Holy One created  everything  in the world; only falsehood and exaggeration were not God’s doing. People devised those on their own.

 There’s no sermon on any days, just the chanting. And different melodies for different sections. And torah reading ritual (I could spend pages on this alone) Monday and Thursday. I still have to learn why those days. I preferred the shorter days without.

 I was most fortunate to have a long time neighbor and, like Cindy, long time temple leader who I was delighted to learn (only some 30 some years later) is a regular attendee of daily morning services. Like Cindy, he has the ability I don’t to take what’s worthwhile in religious practice and ignore the rest. He credits Cindy with his reading the new alternate section of one prayer praising the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) by adding Matriarchs too.

 It’s not supposed to be used at this particular service, but a couple women who led services on a rotating schedule snuck it in. Much to my friend Rick’s and my glee. He joked about wanting to write: Minyan, the Musical. Have to decide how reverent or irreverent to be I replied. Yes he said, and some would love it, some hate it. Like so much else in life, I thought.

 There’s way more I could describe: the various “honors” during torah reading for one. Early on I got congratulated for pulling the strings to open the torah ark/cabinet. Basically, the only task our ritual director could be sure at that point I wouldn’t flub. One more key detail: I was wearing Cindy remarkable hand knit prayer shawl. Which, of course, many of her friends recognized. Once I made the mistake when taking it off at the service end of holding it to my face: way too emotional to repeat daily. Much more detail I could include, but there’s likely already too much. Ask me if you want more.

 I was asked to say a few words on the last day, right before the concluding prayers. I told people I was a most unlikely minyan attendee, etc. Grateful for this and that person’s help and Rebbe Rick’s (joke) guidance and company. Uplifted seeing Cindy’s sisterhood comrades, etc. Hoped in coming months to find an enduring way to honor her memory, etc.

 My one specific observation: I had been hearing people recite kaddish at Saturday services off and on for over 60 years.  But I’d never given a thought to the brief parts where the congregation joins in on a quick line. Just part of the practice I’d heard without really hearing. Until I was the mourner. Then, on many days when the congregation joined in…

       Y’he sh’meh rabbvo m’orach l’olam ulolmey olmayo…

 …on many days I felt my heart lifting and a wave of emotional support wash over me. This is why you should say kaddish in a minyan if at all possible. Or I hope in your tradition or life there’s some equivalent thing to bring you comfort when/if you need it. Em and I have been lighting candles at a set time each week also. That works for us too.

 The morning group skews old. But I hope that such a group is always there for anyone who needs it. I don’t want to attend any religious services daily. Or weekly. But this is my favorite service. I’ll be back. But on a day they don’t read torah. Forty minutes is plenty.

 I decided, too, that on day 30, I would take off my wedding ring. I sensed that if I didn’t tie that act to a ritual I might have a hard time doing it.

[unknowncountrygirl]

The Letter

This is just a little short story featuring my MC Iris Rosewood with Ben Copper. As soon as they had the dialogue in the game where he wrote a letter before entering the Portrait Vault I knew it was to the MC and my gears started spinning. To me the final “reading of the letter” at the end of year six was anti climactic so I wrote my own.

On a side note if anyone watches North Woods Law, even if you don’t, does Officer Kevin Bronson remind anyone else of what Ben would look like in the real world? Or is it just me?

Also if this post oddly, I did it from my phone as my computer is on the rocks.

Ok, please enjoy!

~*~*~

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

“Take a break. Spend time with your friends. There will always be more mysteries to solve at Hogwarts.” Mad Eye had told her.

For the first time, Iris did finally feel like she could breathe. She strolled down the halls and made her way towards the greenhouses, a nice walk amongst the flowers felt like a good place to start and the sweet peas were beginning to bloom.

Iris had been admiring some of the flowers, and had taken it upon herself to re-pot a few that looked like they needed a new home when a bird began knocking on the outside of the greenhouse. She walked over and lifted one of the window vents and let the little owl inside and pulled the note off his leg.

Meet me at the Owlery, I found something for you.

Cryptic, typical Talbott.

She cast a simple cleaning spell on her hands and the jeans she was wearing, before rubbing her forehead. She transformed into her animagus, a peregrine falcon, and soared off towards the owlery. She flew into the open window and came to a stop right in front of Talbott before turning back into her usual self. She shook out her hair and smoothed it back into place while asking,

“Your note sounded urgent, Talbot Is something wrong?”

“Not at all. I simply found a letter for you.” He informed her as he handed over the dusty, and slightly stained from owl poop, envelope. “It looks like it's been here for a long time.”

“A letter?” She flipped it over and saw her name written simply on the front. “That's all?”

“Iris. I think you need to read it.” Talbot insisted. Her blue eyes looked up and met his. While Talbot was a serious person, he seemed even more so in this moment. Iris took the letter and leaned up against a small table near here and skipped to the bottom to see who the letter was from.

“It's from... Ben.” She was honestly genuinely surprised. Their friendship had been strained since the portrait vault and what conversations they had anymore was strained and tense. Well, all but for one night when they had went to Jacob's room to search, the night that Rowan was killed. He had told her how he didn't want her to suffer and bear burdens, all such sweet and genuine things... Only to turn his back on her in his grief and deal with it in a hurtful and dangerous way.

“He must have left it here for you.”

Then it hit her like a ton of bricks.

I was writing a letter to an important witch.

“Ben mentioned writing a letter before we entered the Buried Vault.” Iris informed Talbot. “He

said it was for a very important witch.”

“Well, I suppose that important witch was you.” Honestly Iris felt her stomach feel sick a bit. She

wrestled with the idea of not reading the letter in truth but Talbot pulled her from her thoughts. “Iris. I didn't read the whole letter, it seemed to important. You need to read it.”

She took a deep breath and opened the envelope and pulled out the piece of parchment.

Dear Iris.

I have always admired you, from the first day we met. You came into my life and for the first time it felt like my life went from black and white to full bright color.

You were so sure of yourself, so confident and strong. I had never met anyone like that and I wanted to be like that not just for myself but for you, and I have failed miserably.

You have been my truest friend and my confident when I could not let anyone in. Even if I didn't let you in, I feel like you would have pushed back any road block and found your way into my life and my heart all the same.

I am terrified to go into the vault. R has promised to kill one of your friends and I know it will be me, that's why I am writing you this letter, so at least I can say my peace to you even though I'm to cowardly to tell you in person.

You are the brightest light in my life, and I wish I could be that for you. There were times when we would do homework together and you would ask what I was thinking. I would answer with something like 'nothing' or 'Snape' just so I didn't have to face the truth.

Those times I would be thinking of you, even though you were right in front of me. I would think of things far off, like after Hogwarts. Where you may see me not as a terrified kid but as a man who is worthy of your affections.

Somewhere between sandwiches, Gobstones, homework, and butterbeers my feelings for you turned.

All this to say, is that I love you Iris. Not the platonic love that you feel for a friend.

I am in love with you. Even though we are young, I know it deep in my soul.

I'm sorry I never said this to you, you deserved that much even though you don't feel the same. I

hope that you can forgive me for being cowardly even to the end. I never deserved your friendship, and I never deserved to have you in my life as actively as you were. There were so many more deserving people that you could have been spending your time with.

I hope you find this note one day, and that it finds you well and living your life to the absolute fullest. You deserve happiness more then anyone that I know.

Pursue your dream of being a Herbologist, don't listen to anyone telling you otherwise, because you love it and that's what you should do.

Plant your flowers, grow your garden, find that little cottage in the woods and have that little farm you always talked about doing after Hogwarts.

I hope you find love that is worthy of you, and can give you the family you want. You are the most beautiful human being, and I was lucky to have you in my life for the time that I had.

Yours, Ben Copper.

Water droplets splattered on the paper and Iris took in a deep, shaky breath.

“It's strange to see the old Ben again, even if it's on parchment.” She managed to get out to Talbot, who had taken a step towards her and laid a hand on her shoulder. It was his awkward way of trying to lend support to her while she cried over the letter.

“Whatever he said, I don't think he believed he would live to tell you in person.” He told her as she folded the letter up again and slipped it back into the envelope.

“He's never said anything.” She managed to get out as she wiped her tears off her cheeks, seeing her mascara smudged on her fingers. She grumbled and pulled out her wand, casting a simple makeup removing spell that left her face bare. “I have to go.” Iris said suddenly and pulled away from Talbot.

“Right now?”

“Yes! Right now!” Before Talbot could say anything else she was flying out the window in her falcon form. She flew all over the Hogwarts ground looking for any gleam of tawny blonde hair before she landed and transformed, looking for him on her own two legs.

The Great Hall, the Library, the common room, and finally she managed to see him rounding a corner ahead of her.

“Ben!” Iris shouted, all but running up to him. He turned to see her coming up to him, looking a bit ruffed up then normal for her. He noticed she had no makeup on, her hair was out of sorts, and that her eyes were red and puffy.

“Who made you cry?” He asked angrily, ready to hex whoever had made Iris cry when he spotted the letter in her hand. He felt his eyes widen and his stomach fell to his feet. She held it towards him.

“Talbot just found it up in the Owlery.” She explained. “This was the letter you wrote before the portrait vault.” It wasn't a question, it sounded more like an accusation.

Blue eyes met dark brown as they simply stared at one another, both knowing exactly what laid in the letter, but neither wanting to be the first to address it. Ben took a deep breath, and gulped hard, feeling himself beginning to perspire.

“It is.” He simply stated.

“Is it true?” Iris asked him, her voice soft but still stern.

“It was-”

“I'm not asking of it was true then, obviously it was, or else you wouldn't have wrote it.” He

noticed then, as she held up the letter, that her hands were shaking. “I'm asking if it's true now.”

There was two options for him. He could lie, and tell her that he was no longer in love with her

anymore. Or there was option two. He could tell the truth, which honestly was the more scary option. He knew he had treated her wrongly the last year, and she was more then likely farther away from him then she had ever been before.

After Rowan's death. In truth, he had pulled away from everyone. He had thrown himself head first into training, to the point of exhaustion. He had been snappy with Iris, on more then one occasion, and likewise she had been irritable with him. It felt as though what tiny shred of friendship they had was hanging on by a thread, threatening to snap at the smallest gust. So they had generally left one another alone.

But they were here now, at the crossroads that he had put off for more then a year.

She was looking up at him with her large blue eyes and her lips were slightly down turned as she waited for him to say anything. He remembered vividly the day he knew he felt for her, they were in Charms, Iris was between him and Rowan. They were reviewing Riddikulus, one of the boys from Ravenclaw managed to turn a dummy into a dancing frog and it caused the class to burst into laughter. Iris laughed and looked over to Ben with a bright smile, and he had zeroed into her lips. Full, pink, plump lips that he wanted against his own. He had never wondered what Rowan's or Penny's lips would feel like or taste, but Iris's had invaded his brain. The smell of her perfume seemed to get stronger, he wondered what it would be like to run his hands through her her silvery blonde waves.

Iris was his first true friend, the first person he had confided truths, fears, and secrets with. The first person he cared for, the first person he loved besides his family. He adored her.

Every past wrong, every crass word spoken, and hurtful thing seemed to pass through his mind in a split instant, digging their claws deep into his brain, squeezing what life he had left from his heart.

Ben had tried so hard to show Iris that he was strong, resilient, and brave that he had pushed her away in the process. He wanted to fix it, he wanted her back. He missed her laughter, he missed their chats and late night talks on the Gryffindor couch in front of the fire. He missed her.

“I still love you.” He managed to say.

It was like he watched a fire ignite in her eyes, a fire he hadn't realized came very close to burning out. For a split moment, he thought she was going to hit him as her hand came dangerously close to his face. Her hand grabbed his neck, not in an aggressive way, but a gentle way. His entire world came to a freeze as warm lips collided with his own.

He had felt like had been propelled, into ice cold water and that time had stopped. He had dreamed about this moment for years, the part about it happening in a hallway for anyone to see was not part of the dream but it was what it was and he was not about to complain about it.

His hands grasped at her like he was a man drowning and she was a life preserver, one hand lost into her hair, slightly damp from perspiration, and the other in the small of her back pulling him as close as he could to her.

As far as he was concerned, nothing could ruin this moment.

But he would be wrong.

“Mr. Copper!” The shrill voice called out, causing both of them to jump. “Miss Rosewood! I

would expect more from head girl and two members of Gryffindor!” Professor McGonagal reprimanded the two of them. “Twenty points from Gryffindor.” She began to walk past them, both cheeks burning before she turned around to face them one last time, a grin curling at the corner of her lips. “It's about time.” They watched her disappear around the corner and Iris looked up to him, the blush still across her cheeks, but a bright smile from her lips.

“I don't think that was twenty points worthy.” She winked and he knew she was being cheeky, and laced her fingers in his.

“Are you insinuating we find somewhere more private?”

“No, I'm saying it.” She smiled and leaned into his side as they began to walk down the hallway.

*~*~*

After Hogwarts, Iris planted her flowers and wove them into a champagne and blush colored

crown that she wore intertwined with her curls at her wedding.

Ben found a cottage in the woods near to his Muggle parents with a chicken coop and a little

duck pond. In Muggle tradition, he had carried Iris across the threshold, into the home that they would make together.

[norvicfiddler]

Michael Emerson - The Hatch podcast, Jul 28, 2020.

The following is my transcription of part of an interview Michael Emerson recorded with the The Hatch earlier this year. I’ve concentrated on the parts where he specifically talks about Ben as a character, but you should go and listen to the whole thing, as he has some nice behind the scenes anecdotes (and who doesn’t want to hear Emerson talk for half-an-hour, right?). If you’re interested in Lost at all, or TV production, the whole podcast is worth a listen (despite the hosts’ inexplicable love for Sayid). They have a load of other great cast and crew interviews.

(transcription note: the ellipses indicate pauses, not cuts) 

about The State of Things to Come

‘I think it’s the turning point in audience sympathy for Benjamin’

h: really? we thought letting his daughter be killed was one of his worst crimes

‘It’s a terrible crime, but, evidently an innocent one, because he thought they had a set of … … parameters or rules about engagement. And one of them was, no-one in your family would be harmed.’  

‘That’s why it’s unthinkable to him. Keamy doesn’t even wait for the countdown, he doesn’t even let him finish, his … tawdry little speech about how she’s nothing to him. Oh it’s, so sad. But, human.’

h: how’s Ben handling things at this point?

‘Well, he’s kind of on autopilot, I mean he’s doing what he … thinks or knows, to do but, it’s not one of the more successful phases of his career, and, he must be … I thought he was, desperate. And, you know, trying to maintain an image which we’ll eventually see, it’s a false image. But, here again this is all humanizing for the character, I think. He’s guilty of hubris, he’s guilty of pride, he’s guilty of … ignoring obvious signals. All that stuff. But, that’s just him.’

h: Ben tells Locke he always has a plan. Does he?

‘Right, what kind of plan is it that you have, Benjamin? ‘cos it doesn’t seem like a great plan (laughs). OK, so you have one, so you’re thinking ahead, so you fancy yourself a gamesman. How’s that workin’ out for ya?’

h: what is it that’s making Ben break down?

‘Yeah, I think his bravado was always kind of false. I don’t think he was naturally, a, warlord or a commandant, or, a … leader, even. It was something that, was an exhausting amount of work for him. He was supposed to be some other kind of boy, ya know, some other kind of life. I guess he was doing the best he could. Ah, I tried to find the pathos in it. You know. You’re, you’re overmatched. Now, what do you do? You don’t have any fallback, you don’t have any assistance, you don’t have any mentors. There’s no-one to go to, for help. So he kind of slowly loses his mind, in the way you would, under those circumstances, when you’re … ill-suited for your role.’

on filming that scene with Keamy

‘Well, we knew it was going to go to a heavy place, so, I can’t remember the exact discussion, but there was some question about … let’s save the heavy lifting for the end. Let’s, take care of all the mechanical business of handing out weapons and choosing windows and, you know, where’s Keamy, and Alex and, all of that. And we’ll shoot aaaall of that stuff, and at the end of it all, we will turn the camera on your, sad little face, you know, in that one pane of window that you can see through. And then, we will figure out … how to play it. Or, what it is.

But … I have to say. I wouldn’t even call that in the top ten of difficult moments for me, in that series. Cos, it’s just … a bare naked horror, and shock and, an ungraspable mourning and, to know that you made … like a … cosmic mistake. And it cost … the life of someone. So, I was ready to play that.’

‘It ends up taking care of itself … in some way. I mean, if you have, if you feel an empathy, for the situation or, for the character. I always feel kind of empathetic about whoever I’m playing. I get them, I get, Ben. He’s tryin’ to be something that he can’t, fully live up to. But he has some skills, he has a skillset. He’s a good talker! He’s straight on psychology.’

h: he’s trying to talk his way out here

‘Right, it’s a good strategy. In, in a chess game, he senses “Oh, let’s undervalue the pawn. That’s the way to save her.” But, it was the wrong choice, because he wasn’t playing the game he thought he was.’

on Keamy’s countdown

‘In the … world of dramatic countdowns, that’s a cheat too. We didn’t even get the countdown. We, you know, no trickle of sweat ran down anybody’s face. It was just, you know, five four boom! WAIT! WRONG! NO! (laughs)’

h: there’s a real electricity between Ben and Keamy in this scene

‘Partly that is just actor chemistry. I look at him and, what he embodies, and what he sounds like, and it’s like anti-matter to my matter. You know, he’s just like, he is the non-Ben. But, whenever you say that … then, you have to think OK but, there are some … shared … character … traits (laughs). He’s been ruthless. All of that is contained, in a way, in this one episode. The facets of, Benjamin and his strengths and weaknesses and stuff that works and stuff that doesn’t.’

h: did Alex hear what Ben said?

‘Of course, whether she hears him or not, Benjamin Linus will always believe that she did.’

h: how does this change Ben from here?

‘Well, I think it’s where … whatever passes for faith, with him. With the island, with Jacob. I think it, that faith is now … it’s cracked open. He, there’s no going back, from this. So what, I dunno, his forward momentum, his plan from now on will be … flawed and a little half-hearted, I think. Or desperate.’

h: does this lead to him killing Jacob?

‘Yeah, I think there’s a direct line, from this episode to that, sure. Can’t remember what my lines were exactly, when I killed Jacob, but, it was about him not supporting me. Me having given all. And by all he means, my own blood, my own child, and that means this little to you? Then die, you SOB! That was kind of his attitude.’

h: like if God had let Abraham kill Isaac, how would Abraham feel about God?

‘I think Benjamin was tested in a way that Abraham wasn’t.’

h: is redemption something Ben can hope for?

‘It’s not on his mind at the time, obviously. He’s just scrambling, just scrambling. And the end of the series, shows him unredeemed. So, he’s so caught up in the action of things, that he has no reflective mode I don’t think. Well occasionally, like … when he has that father/son, argument with Jacob or there are some other moments where he even reveals his, his weaknesses and doubts and, his sense of betrayal. But mostly, he can’t see anything else to do but just keep on, keep on with, whatever crazed plan there was in place. Before everything went wrong.’

on the scene with Widmore

‘That scene to me was really satisfying, ‘cos I thought the threat of it, the gamesmanship was, really high stakes. It was fun to be Ben and to keep a lid on it, that much. The fact of him being in the man’s bedroom. You don’t need to raise your voice, when your enemy wakes up, and you’re in the room. So then you just … you just say what you need.’

h: Widmore calls Ben a rat

‘Yeah, that’s alright. Ben doesn’t think he’s a rat. Ben thinks he’s … an avenging angel. So, he can call me what he wants. I don’t even hear that. That runs off me like water off a duck’s back.’

on Ben not going through with killing Penny

‘As a ruthless killer he has an Achilles heel and it is parenthood, or children. (h: where does that come from?) I think, you know, his own upbringing, I suppose, or just … wishing, maybe he’s always wished that, his life … he wasn’t meant to be this, he was meant to be something, you know, some tenderer, and more natural and normal thing. (h: a guy who plays piano and reads books?) That’s right, that’s right. So … yeah, the kids. Here’s his soft spot. It’s endearing.’  

[bittybattybunny]

Did Kai have any sort of family after losing her foster family and becoming the Demon King? Or did she only have her husband?

Yes actually!!! A lot of Kai’s own story involves her own found family collection (i say collection just. cuz she tends to outlive them)

I’ve briefly mentioned she has a few kids and you see them in one of my sketchbook tours

but she also has a group of friends who she was close to

and the opening chapter of one of her ‘stories’ involves her dealing with the loss of a close friend she considered family (she even tried to go through legal means to see him but when humans turned around and said fuck you she snuck in. I can actually post this writing if people wanna read it?)

She also has some of her adoptive family still alive tho the bloodline is thinner. The Hellsing family she was raised in still exists to a point in her story (before the great catastrophe at least) Her whole ‘became the demon king’ thing happened when her uncle attacked her but she was able to get her sister in law and unborn nephew to escape while she distracted the rest (i have a whole ass animatic planned for this to the song “monster” from frozen’s musical. someday. someday I’ll be able to sit down on it weep)

This nephew was the one who hired Ren to help find “the king of fear” as she was known at that point. Alex is a good boy. His son was the one who went to find his great aunt after Ren’s death and she fully became a fallen god and offered her a place to stay and just. try to relax. She ended up falling into a deep sleep for a while and his family was the ones to build the ‘tomb’ she normally rests in when ever she has these extreme ‘low energy’ periods which can last between 5 years to her longest one was 5000. Typically she’ll rest for between 20-50 years at a time. and there’s a legit reason she does this too. But that’s not about family---

Point is that family is still very fond of their matriarchal demoness and she helped them found “Prometheus” a group to help humans deal with monsters and monsters live in peace. (cuz boy howdy do people have trigger fingers) there are other groups in their world with either similar goals or ones to ‘suppress’ monsters (example: The Order is a group who sees monsters as tools and lesser beings. sometimes Prometheus is forced to work with them and normally they send strong demons or dragons and such so that The Order can’t do anything to their operative. it was on one of these collaborations that Kai kidnapped Booberry from them. she regrets nothing.)

Kai often just refers to the current descendant as just “her nephew” as she’s too lazy to shove the amount of “great” in front of it because she’s old. there’s only one case of a niece and that’s where the bloodline ended (again that’s another story all together)

When Kai woke up after the Great Catastrophe alone she ended up meeting a young man named Leo (who if you look in Kai’s tag on my blog you can see him!) Who she bonded with and she likes hanging out with (and there’s other things but I’m not gonna talk about it)

There’s also her ‘generals’ and a few of them are gonna show in TLC soon (just a brief cameo) A group of 4 who’ve met Kai in a few incarnations and they always tend to get along. Original names were Matt, Trisha, Faith, and Maki is Maki (she’s an elf so she lives longer) Current names are Byron, Tiffny, Jacob and Maki. These four actually form Ren’s party when he’s trying to find his wife at the actual start of “Nightmare’s Dream” and you learn they each have a connection to Kai through the story.

Matt/Branden/Byron; he’s featured in the writing I mentioned up top, he’s kinda similar to Leo in the way he interacts with Kai as an almost human morality pet for Kai. He used to be Kai’s student when she was teaching, and his father was the warden at the jail her friend Sammy was in (this is the friend she lost) Matt can see through her disguise when she’s showcasing nightmares. Kai can cause hallucinations on targets using her ‘fear’ hence her title “king of fear” and normally they are only visible to her and her target. But Matt can see them.

He ends up getting in trouble a few times; once with a tribe of demons who want to turn children into imps, once with the literal Anti christ, once with a haunted house. And each time Kai was there and ends up saving him.

Matt later is in an accident and ends up reincarnating as a winged human named Branden and has all his past memories. So when he starts working at Prometheus as one of their ‘informants’ (aka he goes to gather information in both human and supernatural affairs. he’s referred to often as the angel of trust because of his silver tongue) and he meets her again he shouts something from one of his classes with her causing her to snap back on reflex until she realizes (running joke is Kai loathes Julius Ceaser and if you say his name she always whips around shouting “WAS A SLUT AND A HARLOT” in a very aggressive tone. It makes people laugh when she does and she always gets embarrassed afterwards)

The two of them end up working together for a while and become good friends (and maybe a bit more but they never state really) but then when with his new work partner Trisha (nicknamed angel of death, she works in the sector that deals with cleanup) he ends up betraying Prometheus and Trisha rips his wings off and kills him (this is the context between the ‘redraw’ meme I do every few years of a man with a bleeding back drowning)

Trisha is also someone who grew close to Kai (hence she killed Branden because his folly led to Kai nearly going berserk) but she was killed by a sleeper agent from the order. And this is how Kai lost two of her close friends.

Now backing up to Sammy the inmate one; he was with her when Kai met her first child, the young moon goddess Artemis. Arty is a constant for the demoness ever since she picked her up in the woods (her arc also has one of my favorite kai lines: (which i can’t find the direct line but)

Sam shuddered as he looked around the woods, “Do you ever feel like there’s 100 eyes watching you?”

“Yes but it didn’t work out so we broke up.” The demon responded flatly as she looked around with a deep set scowl.

While she was out with Sammy when he was hunting they ended up finding a little girl who turned out to be a new goddess and her elder sister was kidnapped by the embodiment of Greed in his attempt to become a god. Kai ends up stopping this but also kinda ends up becoming Arty’s mom. While she doesn’t raised Arty fully she does do a lot of teaching and such for her and does refer to her as “her daughter” and Arty calls her mom. when the great catastrophe occurs, Arty is one of the few gods who remained when the rest went to new ‘realms’ or simply vanished and is considered one of the main gods of their world because of this.

And then there’s her son Ganon, an Orc Lord she adopted when his village was ruined. he currently poses as her ‘demon king’ while she pretends to be the chancellor (this is the ruse she uses. normally heroes will fight the ‘king’ and lose but if they actually are a threat or have poor reasoning she kills them from behind. this is also how the story starts as someone found a spell to try and incapacitate her buttt)

There’s also morte and her daughter demeter (I’ve shown them before, a set of necromancers) who she’s very friendly with. Demeter even calls her aunty Kaya and loves to sit on her lap and such during meetings. (i have one snippet when Kai was recruiting someone to their side but hadn’t told her yet she was the REAL demon king and Demeter was sitting on her lap laughing) Morte is thankful to Kai for saving her circus (Morte runs a circus that helps those stuck in limbo pass on but at one point demons of sin over took it in a way to gather souls)

There’s also her friend Ciera, the daughter of the girm reaper. she’s Kai’s best friend for the most part of her life, and is the one who helps Ren when the gods of life and death try to prevent him from reincarnating again (which is like other things a whole other story) (she also briefly shows in Bone Stealer at one point. While visiting bunny’s sick grandmother, Bunny and Steve run into Ciera as she’s leaving. Steve stops Bunny from attacking her) She’s over all chill.

There’s also Nicki. Kai’s ‘twin’ brother. He’s the ‘bad guy’ through the arc that contains Leo and sets up ‘the great Split’ that Kai will cause (this is lore/plot stuff) He originally was raised to hate her by their maternal Uncle who’s a arch mage like Ren however he’s fallen due to his hatred of Kai’s birth. Nicki is not really her brother (in the first life) but a failed clone of the demoness. When Kai is reborn Nicki gets to actually be her brother and the two get along really well and he’s very protective of his sister now that he understands what her actual deal is and not the bs his uncle fed him. Before the rebirth too Nicki helped kai solve some stuff and worked with her until his death (unlike her, he was not immortal)

And then Kai actually has two bio children with Ren! Akito her son takes after her and he’s the one who takes over her role as the true demon king of Tir-Na-Nocht so she’s able to die and try life again, and a daughter, Rei who takes after Ren in looks but... she’s a himbo. pure moron. she got her grandpa’s himbo gene strong. She’s a cat girl who works with her brother and she is the head of the guard.

Aki actually has his own story where he grew up in a ‘mundane’ world but then his entire class got ‘isekaid’ to another. it gets shown that this isn’t truly the case. the great ‘split’ mentioned above was Kai literally broke the world in two realms. She made one primarily humans and high tech and then the other was magic and mostly monsters. there are a mix of both but it cut down heavily on the murder. She raised Aki in the human side for his and Rei’s safety due to them being the children of a fallen god (mama worries) and Aki inherited his mother’s odd ‘status’ “Hero/Demon King”  so he has to not expose his demon nature and also stay below the radar (it turns out the person who summoned them was attempting to break a centuries old treaty) until his mother and father can figure out what happened to him (thankfully he can go to a church and his older sister Arty can act as a messenger but there’s a bit of a time split in the worlds) That world is actually the one “Fae Rules” takes place in o7o.

She also is friends with a dead prince named “Shade” (yes this is who you think it is) as well as her ‘cousin’ Sena (who she loves to give shit to)

And in her second life she obvs has her brother, cousins, her father (her father’s boyfriend/her manny), aunt’s etc!!!

So yes; she had family other than her husband!!!! And she cherishes them all.