#in circles sometimes and not quite linear

[astrhae]

it's the way the season started out with crowley leaving the bookshop after a fight and the season ended with crowley leaving the bookshop after a kiss. it's the way it started out with crowley being offered to be a duke of hell and it ended with aziraphale being offered to be the supreme archangel.

it's the way the second episode started with crowley saying: "well i am a demon. maybe i'm lying", and it ended with crowley telling aziraphale: "well i am a demon. i lied."

it's the way the third episode started with crowley perching beside aziraphale on the armchair and across from an angel who was new to earth, and it ended with crowley telling gabriel: "it's always too late." it's the way the fourth episode started with the demon sent to take crowley's place getting aziraphale's help and it ended with aziraphale helping crowley move the plants back into the bentley

it's the way the fifth episode started with crowley being reluctant about the shopkeeper's association meeting and it ended with crowley rescuing everyone there. it's the way the sixth episode started out with crowley wandering around heaven and it ended with crowley refusing to go to heaven with aziraphale

it's the way they've moved in circles for the past thousands of years around each other, and the episodes move in circles too but not quite a perfect circle because they're still trying to figure out where they are between the lines but it's also the way aziraphale told crowley to look him in the eye and tell him that crowley wanted to kill job's children, and crowley lied to aziraphale about it because he wanted to see how far aziraphale would go along with a demon as forsaken as him, and it's the way crowley said no to god then

it's the way the season ends with crowley telling aziraphale to tell me you said no. and aziraphale couldn't. it's the way they both want to be with each other. it's the way aziraphale was the one who came to crowley first. it's the way the season starts with aziraphale dropping down to greet crowley who was standing there in the dark, and the season ends with aziraphale standing there going up and crowley driving away

[annerbhp]

I was thinking about how in the past I have tried to describe my writing process as a sort of weaving or braiding as I try to keep various plot threads woven in and not dropping any of them. But it never felt quite right because there is still a linear quality to both of those activities, and I so far from a linear writer.

But the other day I was doing a jigsaw puzzle and I was like, no, no, THIS is the metaphor for my writing process. Like, a giant jumble of stuff (vague ideas, snippets of dialogue, character beats, plot), all in a giant mess (possibly all from multiple projects all in one box). And I don't know how other people do jigsaw puzzles, but the first thing I do is find the bright, obvious, easily distinguishable areas with maybe weird texture or a vivid color and go through and collect the pieces that might be part of it in various piles. And then I try to put each pile together into something recognizable and guess where it might fit in the larger frame. Like maybe the frame and then four or five very distinct areas. Until you've got something like this:

Like maybe some areas are big, and some are just two pieces together. And sometimes after a while you realize you have a part that's in the wrong place entirely, or upside down! Or, shit, that's from a different puzzle! (okay, that rarely happens. I am careful with my jigsaw pieces, but I am not with my writing.)

And slowly you add more pieces to connect them all, one at a time. Slowly, slowly. A few pieces a day. Here and there. Maybe adding one more piece to one clump and then pieces to a different clump until they connect. Maybe I leave it languishing on the dining room table for a while to collect dust and get trampled by cats. Maybe I go start a different one. (Nope, I don't do that with puzzles. I don't have the space.)

But the puzzle slowly starts to take shape! The pieces go in faster! Only then... At some point I am left with tons of little spaces and a pile of pieces that are all the same uniform color, but are all funky, different little shapes. And it feels like a drag to figure those out (these are the transitions and small filler bits I have just put off over and over again). Sometimes this is where I literally go back and sort all the puzzle pieces by shape and then try them all one by one until they find a place to go. Tedious. Not the most exciting. Easy to get wrong. But we're So Near The End.

And, sure, it doesn't really happen much when I'm doing a puzzle, but if I stretch the metaphor, in writing I can also find pieces that just don't fit and have to go back to the box.

But what TOTALLY tracks in this metaphor is the euphoric feeling of putting the last goddamn piece into place. And you sit there for a moment being like, "oh my god, it's actually done. It's actually freaking DONE!" And you don't know if you need to get up and run around in a circle or just stare in disbelief. Possibly take a nap.

But it is definitely, finally ready to send off to beta. Ah. So lovely. (Not that I have experienced this in a long while. YEARS.)

Anyway. That is a more apt metaphor for my writing process, for those of you who have asked over the years.

It's probably too early for 2024 resolutions or wishes. But I hope to feel this even ONCE in 2024. Yeah, that would be great.

[hellframe]

T. S. Eliot & The Secret History. Part II.

In the juvescence of the year Came Christ the tiger In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering judas, To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk Among whispers

I found it quite curious to read these lines from 'Gerontion' in relation to Henry's suicide.

We see here the same inverted Christian imagery as in TSH, although in the novel it is entwined and overlaid with the Greek mythology.

It's possible that Tartt reconceptualized some of Eliot's ideas.

'Christ the tiger'

The following note to this line in Eliot's poem explains the origin of such a strange image:

the notes and the full text of 'Gerontion' here

In Bible wild-cats, lion and leopard, are the agents of divine wrath, sent to punish people for their transgressions, to slay and to watch (Jeremiah 5:6). Leopard is a measure of extreme swiftness (Habakkuk 1:8). And there's four-headed leopard (Daniel 7:6) which sometimes is interpreted as a symbol of Ancient Greece.

Wild-cats also scared Dante in the beginning of Divine Comedy, forcing him to step on the pass to hell.

'Christ is no wild-cat'. Yet, in TSH we deal with Dionysus who is strongly associated with wild-cats.

Jesus and Dionysus are juxtaposed in comparative mythology as gods with similar inventory: god disguised as a man, born by a human woman, usage of wine, rebirth/resurrection, ritual purification, etc. In a sense, Dionysus can be called the wild-cat Christ, or 'Christ the tiger'.

It reminds me of Henry's 'tigerish grace and swiftness', that surprised Richard (chpt. 8). And there was another comparison to a feline: 'Henry, generally, was clean as a cat' (chpt. 4).

On the other hand, in Christian tradition Jesus is usually depicted as a lamb. In TSH we see lambs only served up on a plate. It happens three times: the first dinner with twins; Richard's lunch with Julian; and Henry's last dinner at Albemarle hotel. Each of these meals preceded a death.

'In the juvescence of the year' 'In depraved May'

Back to the previous note. Lancelot Andrews suggested to celebrate Christmas in season of Easter as a more convenient time in terms of weather, because actual time isn't important for a mystery. Henry did the same when decided to set the bacchanal earlier in the autumn. [Dionysian mysteries were held two times a year: winter for the country festival and spring for great celebrations in the city.]

In TSH time is quite a tricky thing: there's no difference what time of year actually is, because Henry is always Winter — the season of bacchanal and Christmas. [We can think of the bacchanal as Dionysus Christmas.]

Such frozen time is an essential feature of afterlife, particularly in underworld like Hades or hell. But we can also consider annihilation of time in rituals and sacred mysteries, when time is frozen in a cycle.

[Cycle is basically a circle, the main element of construction in Dante's hell. Hell can be interpreted as cycles of suffering (like human life in Buddhism). There are nine circles of hell to pass — cats have nine lives.]

The Classics group lived in a stilled routine, which Richard named 'cyclical, Byzantine existence' (chpt. 2) — in cyclical time.

Henry killed himself when this cycle was ruined for good: time became linear, unfrozen, real.

Henry killed himself in May, the month when he at last started to live without thinking. It was personal spring of his life: time of love and resurrection of senses. But when the spring comes, Winter must end.

Winter met spring, the cycle of Dionysian mysteries was completed.

dogwood and chestnut, flowering judas

Dogwood is an important symbol in the novel. Dogwood flowers appeared in Richard's sight right before Bunny's murder, on the way to ravine and near it. Dogwood apparently contributes to the motif of dogs that recurs across the story.

Besides, earlier Richard compared Bunny to an old dog as he was fond of walks (chpt. 2) and had a specific manner of shaking wet hair (chpt. 5); and to a gun dog in his humiliating behaviour towards others (chpt. 5).

This association with dog looks quite curious in view of cat-and-dog relationship between Henry and Bunny.

Bunny was killed in the first day of 'dogwood winter', a short period of cold weather in the spring (acc. to Collins dictionary).

[In dogwood winter a dog-like guy was killed by a cat-like guy Winter in the woods behind the Cat-aract mountain. It's a crazy novel.]

When snow suddenly started falling to cover everything, including their crime, a curious dialogue took place:

It's Easter and spring, time for resurrection of nature and spiritual resurrection. But if flowers, an important element of this renewal, are killed, no resurrection will happen. Flowers can be interpreted here as a spiritual symbol, virtues of human soul.

Chestnut was mentioned only once, as a part of idyllic landscape around the country house in October (chpt. 2), some time before the bacchanal. Greeks called chestnut Zeus acorn. [Zeus is father of Dionysus, who gave him birth after keeping encased in his thigh.]

According to George Ferguson, in Christianity chestnut was a symbol of chastity, 'a triumph over the temptation of the flesh.' Etymology of this word is derived from Middle English 'chesten', and look at the meanings (b) and (c):

Source: Middle English Dictionary

Flowering judas-tree doesn't appear in TSH. But in the Classics group everyone is a traitor, one way or another. However, in Albemarle drunk Charles accused Richard of betrayal to his face. And earlier, in emergency room, Francis gave him 'a glare of hatred: et tu, Brute.'

The line 'To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk' recalls how Julian described Dionysiac ritual: 'let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn.' In Christianity god sacrifices himself, but in TSH god becomes a predator. Self-sacrifice of Christ the tiger doesn't bring redemption or salvation.

'Among whispers'. All that secretive whispers during the year, and whispers after Bunny's death. And the last whisper to Camilla.

[taltos-seidmadr]

hello! i'm a burgeoning queer norse heathen and i was wondering if you would be willing to talk about your personal view on odin, specifically his relationship to loki and their partners and children. i'm interested in working with all of them but i'm conflicted on how i feel about odin tricking and getting rid of loki's children, especially the children of angrboda since i am currently working with her. does it ever feel like, unethical to work with gods who have a bad personal history with each other? or is that an oversimplification of the gods? thanks for any thoughts!

Awww dear anon, as another queer heathen let me extend a hug (respectfully)! I'm happy you wrote. I hope that you will enjoy your newly blossoming spirituality and if you wanna talk to someone about literally anything, don't hesitate to reach out.

I think what you're asking is an extremely interesting question because it fundamentally hinges on what you think the gods exactly are, like what is a god overall and what they do, as well as what the myths actually are, and what they mean if anything? These are extremely complicated questions and depending on the underlying beliefs you can get wildly different answers from different people and even one person's belief can change over time (as mine did quite a lot). I can definitely tell you what I believe/built up from my personal experience but I don't want to convince you to think the same, I thought I would just kinda circle around the topic a little bit and maybe you can sort of use it as a springboard to discover what you want to believe.

So... I will start there, that I don't treat the myths like what you are describing, at all. I think of them as entirely man-made constructs, beautiful stories that explain how a certain culture thought the world works. That doesn't mean that they don't matter, of course, but they matter in the same way that for example a beautiful poem does, and not like scientific facts do. I still think that they can and might hold truths, but in ways that are a thousand ways more removed from reality than say, a historical account. It's not even whether they actually happened or not, it's just that like a poem, it's not really the point whether they did.

I wanna point out that if you wanna treat the surviving myths as an actual account of things that really happened, I don't want to attack that - you absolutely can - but keep in mind that that is also an "artificial" and subjective choice. There are two reasons for this. One, is that type of storytelling where the individual stories all hang on a singular, cohesive narrative thread and make up One Big Series of Ragnarök Netflix Original, either didn't exist yet (afaik) or even if it did, it can only be applied to norse myth as a creative exercise, because "norse myths" as they were, were always a collection of regional traditions that sometimes tell wildly different and occasionally conflicting accounts. The reason why this is important is because originally a version of the narrative where, say, Ódin over the course of five separate but tightly connected, linear episodes "turned evil" and "betrayed Loki's family" did not really exist. There is no linear timeline. There are only stories, loosely scattered across a landscape, in which gods sometimes appear, taking on different narrative roles. There are stories in which Ódin is the villain, and there are stories in which Loki is the villain. And there are sometimes accounts that all tell the allegedly same story but in one everything is Loki's fault and in another Loki wasn't even there.

Is this where I insert the gif? You know the one. Yeah, I think it will fit just right here.

The second point overlaps with the first a little bit, but I wanna point out a different side of the same coin. We KNOW this, for a fact, that those versions of the myths that exist today, are texts that were written by human authors (some of which we know by name), specifically for entertainment purposes, with their own unique authorial voices and intent, and the text should be understood within that context before attempting to take it at face value. This is true for all texts, generally. So it's actually less like Ragnarök Netflix Original and more like Ragnarök Extended Universe (as in like, superhero comics) full of parallel universes, retcons, and being handled by different authors who all might have had different visions of what the canon should look like.

Sorry, unfortunately I learned philology and questions like "what is the context?" "what is canon, and why is that canon?" "what does a text actually say, why that, and how is it trying to say it?" are actually SUPER interesting to me and therefore I had to make this detour. But I wanna point out one more thing, and not as a philologist, but more as a friendly fellow believer.

Like I said, treating the texts as something that literally happened is a subjective choice, and not one that I would make, but making choices like that about your beliefs is not only absolutely okay but YOUR prerogative. If someone tells you otherwise, they are either trying to control you, or take your money, or both. Dems the facts.

To stay a little bit closer to the point, my answer to this question is that to me to blame a god for something they did in the myths would be like blaming an actor for something that the character that they played committed in a movie. This would be nonsensical to me because the context is different. Which is a really simple and maybe kinda boring answer. But if you choose to treat the myths as facts, you have some really interesting questions to ask yourself, like, why is it that there are different versions of the same story? Which one do I choose to believe, and why? Are they maybe... really all factually true at the same time? How is that possible? What does that say about Aristotlean logic? Btw I personally do believe that gods come from a place where two things can be true at the same time, if that's anything!

Ok, so, you're asking about the morality of it all, which is I think an even deeper and more intriguing question. The thing is, that there was a time, when I was just a newly beginning Heathen, when I was very convinced that the gods are actually kinda like personified/conscious forces of reality (kinda like forces of nature, but more abstract) and the myths are like an approximation of the blueprint of how they interact, in an extremely metaphorical way. So at that time I was kinda like what I believe is called a "soft" polytheist except that I ALSO did believe that the gods are actual beings that you can interact with somehow, so I was more like a hard if slightly platonistic animist, if you will, without being completely aware of it. At that time, I would have told you that Loki and Ódin being "in conflict" is more like how fire and ice are "in conflict". Ya feel? That's just kinda how things are and there isn't really any morality involved.

However as time went on, I almost completely shedded this belief, and did so extremely quickly. I'm sure there's someone out there who believes the same thing right now, so I don't want to sound even a little bit dismissive, I think it's just a good example of how you don't have to set your beliefs in stone cause time will shape them regardless.

Today, with all the experience(s) behind me, I can say only one thing. I have no fucking idea what the gods really are, where they come from, and what they are doing when they are not interacting with us, if anything. But I do think that even if they are not exactly like people, they are kinda like people. Thinking, feeling persons with their own choices and preferences, and their capacity to have emotions is either like that of a human, or at least comparable to it in some kind of way. So... yeah, from my subjective point of view treating them like the Blorbos from the Ragnarök Show is a little bit reductive... but only if you are willing to take my assumption as true.

That also means that I'm absolutely sure they occasionally experience conflicts among many other things, most of which we will probably never hear about. But I will be honest, just for me, subjectively, it's hard to imagine that the gods engage in conflicts with each other that are irreparable in nature, because it's bad for PR, to put it bluntly. Like, there are so many forces in the world you could be focusing the anger on instead of infighting. It's way harder to Get Things Done (what things, I don't know, but I do believe that the gods are doing Something, influencing the way the world is going as it were) if they sow pointless discord among the few individuals (human followers) that they can count on. On the other hand, even if Ódin and Angrboda are not like, bosom buddies per se, with a little courtesy and encouragement a human who is willing to listen to Angrboda can become a person who is willing to listen to Ódin VERY easily. That's a net positive for everyone involved. Free of charge!!!!

I don't actually believe that the gods are forming like little high school factions against each other that will one day actually and physically go to war, even though the myths literally say that. I'm sure a lot of people would beg to differ, and they would not be able to convince me. In my belief, there are enormous conflicts in the world, maybe even battles, but they are somewhere completely different, and on entirely different scales.

Because I see gods as Kinda Like People, I would treat the issue of hanging out with one or the other as more or less like an interpersonal relationship, as well. Which is to say, I would ask what they think of it, and then I would think about it for myself and whether I give the gods the right to have a say in that or not. And if you believe in gods as persons you can talk to, I would urge you to do the same.

I wanna go into a hypothetical for a second, cause I feel like there is an interesting sub-question embedded into this that I have several thoughts on. Let's say that you take the myths as something that actually happened (which I think you do) and you also think of a god as a person, more or less like you and me (I don't know if this is true but I wanna assume it for the sake of the hypothetical) AND you think that "following" a god means something like "having a friendly or familial relationship with" (which I agree with, and... I think that's also what you think? I'm not sure but let's assume that too, for now.)

So let's say, that said god comes to you, and they reveal it to you as your friend that the other god was really mean to them and/or their family, and let's say you have accepted that as your personal truth. Is it unethical to hang out with said god knowing that they were in some way harmful to your friend? On a completely hypothetical level I think there is at least some sort gray area. But I wanna add two things to this. One, I personally believe that if your answer is "Sorry, I'm a human and this is god stuff and I don't want to be involved/take sides" or even "I don't want you to try and influence my relationships with other gods" it is entirely in your right to set that as a boundary. The second thing is, that the hypothetical is completely moot, because it is my personal experience AND logical conviction that gods never actually do this. If this exact thing happened to someone reading this, I'm not gonna fight that, that's your truth and I'm sure that happened for a good reason. But again, generally this is bad for PR, and also they tend to respect people's boundaries about making their own worship. If a spiritual entity comes to you and tries to control what other spiritual entities you are talking to, that is usually the exact same in the spirit world as it is in the human world. A big red flag.

I will say this. I, as a devoted Lokisperson, not only work with Ódin very frequently, but second to Ódin from his family the one I interact with the most is actually Baldr (if you can believe!) and the only conflict that has ever arisen from this was that at the very beginning Loki was a little bit upset that I assumed he could cause problems about it, which he never did, and truly, it was unfair of me to put him into such a defensive position right off the bat.

I wanna add just one more thing, that I don't really know if it will help or not but I feel like is important to add. Even if you don't believe in the myths as fact even the slightest, like me, being influenced by them on some or other level is not stupid, and in fact in a way kind of unavoidable, I think. Unfortunately it happened once that I had to say: sorry, I know this is unfair to you but the story about you just hits so incredibly close to home in a bad way that it might not ever work out between us in this whole lifetime, no matter what I do. I do think of this as a bad thing, but it is what it is, and we could discuss that and let it rest with no further conflict or issue. I don't really know in which direction the pendulum is swinging for you. But however you feel about working with these gods, is valid, and it's up to you to change it or leave it as it is.

Okay, so Ódin. I like to talk about him, because I think he is a little bit misunderstood and I fancy myself being capable of bridging over this gap, even if shoddily. I think he gets a bad rep because his followers love to talk about him as That Motherfucker(affectionate) and it makes perfect sense from an inside joke point of view but it scares potential new followers away from him as someone not to be trusted. This is really bad for many reasons but especially because he deserves way better than being (mis)represented by fascists and we could always use more people to drown them out.

You know, "tricksterness" is an extremely broad term that entails an entire kaleidoscope of different things, and trickster entities can be so different from one another depending on what aspects they tend to take to. I don't know if you have a personal connection to Loki at this moment, but if you know him, then whatever you think of him (and I can blindly say that, with certainty) you will find Ódin somewhere deep down, in the core, a little bit of the same but in the actual, practical manifestation completely different. What I personally think - and I'm not alone with this view, as far as I can tell - is that Ódin likes to perpetually do something that I could scientifically describe as a "little bit of trolling". If you pick up contact with him, it is very possible that he will purposefully challenge you and especially provoke your intellect and worldviews. Depending what kind of person you are this may seem exciting, annoying or a mixture of both. I think that the sentence "Ódin cannot be trusted" is a 10000000% true statement but more like an optical illusion cannot be trusted. In an emotional sense, he is perfectly capable of building a relationship based on trust and he does deeply care about his followers, like any god worth their salt would. It is definitely worth at least a conversation to figure out whether this is for you or not.

You did ask what I believe personally, so. In my experience Ódin and Loki are clearly very close, and I have never personally witnessed bad blood between them about anything even the slightest bit. Do they bicker, or even fight, yes of course but in the way that two people (and/or two beings who are intertwined across narratives and beyond time and space) who care about each other do. Honestly... I don't even know how to describe that but whatever they have going on makes even such a weighty thing as a narrative plot point in a thousand years old myth completely irrelevant and weightless in comparison. Wherever the story goes, they can go bigger. A book about them may say whatever, their bond is like that which holds the ink of the print to the paper. It cannot be torn apart because it's just on an entirely different level.

As for my tiny little personal perspective, they only ever encouraged me to reach out to the other, I often ask one of their opinions on my workings with the other and they are always supportive and helpful. Needless to say, I treat the myth of Ódin mistreating Loki's kids as entirely fictional, and while this does not necessarily mean that Ódin has never crossed them in any way in the history of time, I have literally never heard about it, saw them behave like that's a thing that happened, or even encountered them referencing it even one time. Somehow I never actually saw Ódin interact with any of Loki's kids but I know that Sleipnir and Ódin are in contact with each other a lot, obviously, and seem to be just fine (yes, I know this may not be the same for everyone but I do treat Sleipnir as a god in his own right). Just going off of gut feeling I would say that out of the whole bunch maybe Angrboda and Ódin are the farthest from each other emotionally, though it wouldn't veer into animosity, just in a room full of gods it's very little likely that they would be the ones to stop to talk to each other unless they had something very important to say. I must admit that I interacted with Angrboda very rarely and I really don't know her well enough to know her true opinions on anything. When we interacted, she seemed like a person who likes to keep a little respectful distance in general, but it was not even a little bit a problem to her that I was connected to Ódin.

The tl;dr of the whole thing is that I don't think that you have to be afraid of picking up contact with either of them if this is what you truly want. I don't know what they will tell you if you do. But I can't imagine they would have anything against it - as far as I know, being an Ódin and Loki follower in some or other capacity, at the same time, is actually very common.

[effervescentdragon]

Omg I love tenet!!! Care to share your thoughts on it? One thing I hate is the theory that Neil was Kat’s son because just no??? It wouldn’t make any sense and besides, it would be weird given the weird (sexual/romantic) tension he had with the Protagonist (in my honest opinion)

So i managed like 20 mins of a nap that left me feeling even more tired and ive teied watching at least 3 shows and none of it holds my attention and then i rmbrd this ask so let me ramble a bit. Hope you're around anon!

Okay so im a slut for nolan. Literally ever since i watched insomnia (way too young btw) ive been absolutely obsessed with him and i'll always recognize his movies even when i dont know he's done them. That being said, i loved tenet. It was really funny watching it bcs me and sis had to pause it quite a couple of times where i had theories about what was happening and sis was like "idk what this is but i like it", and thats rly rare since she doesnt rly like the movies i like. She actually chose tenet for us to watch, and it took us two days bcs the first night we were juat too tired to make any sense of it sometime halfway through. I loved the way they filmed it especially, the reverse scenes were insanely good, especially the vault fight. The final battle scene, the way that building explodes? Mind blown. J'adore.

As for the story, if i dont think about the physics i avoid a headache tbh, but it was really cool, the way they tied in everything together. I refused to believe neill was dead bcs i am Just Like That, but sis clocked it immediately. I love the way it all ended uo being a circle, how it all had a beginning and an end but none of it was in the right order. I rly like the way they had to use masks bcs alveolae retain the air or what was it, that was a real nice touch. I also lowkey love the way kenneth brannagh keeps playing russian villains, and his shakespearean tendencies really come out in his monologues and his motivations. I especially love the way the whole movie feels muted, so it's not difficult to watch the action scenes because the colours are so dark, ans yet i did actually see everything, which is beef i have with modern stupid lighting in the movies. I kept teying to rmbr where i know the tall lady from, and then i rmbrd - the golden aliens in guardians of the galaxy. She feels and looks otherworldy, so it fits very nicely in the movie. Another thing i just remembered - the villains (i forgot his name, kenneth i guess) motivation being some men just want to watch the world burn, but more selfish, bcs if i dont have it nobody will is honestly very much how i think the world will end, as proven by megalomaniac billionaiers, may they all die extremely painfully.

anyways, i really liked it! i did think neil was max because it kind of fit on with the general theme of connecting all the dots full circle, thats a good theory in my opinion tho not necessarily true, and i do get that it may be uncomfortable for some people given the tension between him and protagonist (and how cool was the moment, im not a protagonist, im THE protagonist tho??) but i dont mind. time isnt linear :) and that somehow reminds me of doctor who and river and their storyline, so it just makes it endearing to me.

anyways, i have to rewatch it, deffs, if for nothing else then for personal staisfaction of catching onto little nuances i've deffs missed.

thank you for asking, ramble over!

[speakingagain]

4/12/2024

It's been a hot minute since I posted. 3 weeks I think? I apparently forgot to post the last post but it was saved as a draft till I just opened the app.

I don't know why I'm explaining, no one will read this anyways. Maybe I will, in the future. I guess I should start adding dates to the top so I can get general time lines of my nonsense.

Hi future me. I hope your time has been going better than mine has been recently.

Our life these past few weeks have been absolutely garbage. This week especially. Today, the most. I'm feeling very discouraged.

I feel like an absolute failure. I feel like I can't do anything right, especially with these kids.

Mom suggested I quit and find another job. I haven't had as many jobs as I have just this past year. To be fair, it's only 4. And I worked two jobs at once for the last six months. But four jobs in a year?

That's not me...I spent 2 years working for Allied. Then another 2 at the RTC. I had three jobs in 5 years. I'm loyal to a fault.

I guess I can say I'm not tolerant of toxic work situations as much as I used to be....I dunno. I also like to find the positive in everything.

I just....I had such high hopes for this last year. I wanted to be living in New York by now with my sister. I wanted to be going back to school. I wanted to be closer to paying off my debt. I wanted to be making progress in things.

Just since April started, I lost my part time job, my health Insurance and therefore my therapist, and my will to live. I feel like I'm taking steps back.

I know. I know that progress isn't linear. I know that progress goes in a million directions and circles and bla bla bla. I know.

I know that it will get better. I know that I'm still making progress. I know that I'm better than I was a year ago. I know all that I just need to look at my goals and adjust as necessary and maybe break down my goals into smaller chunks.

But dear God, I feel like I'm such a failure.

I turn 25 this year.

I live with my mother because my marriage was an abusive failure.

I've lost three jobs in a year.

I lost my therapist.

I still can't afford to pay all my bills.

I've been toeing the edge of the line of spiralling. Like the line is narrowing by the day. I have no reasoning to not SIB other than "nah we shouldn't do that."

At what point am I supposed to be able to look at the opportunity to self sabotage and not want to do it for reasons other than 'its not healthy'?

Like duh, I know that. But it makes me feel alive in the moment, and that's more important to me right now. I want to feel something other than like a disappointment or a piece of shit or a failure or any other negative thoughts I can scrounge up at the moment.

I really hate being so self aware sometimes.

I miss being ignorant of my functions of behavior and knowing that I'm doing it for 'x' reasons and that there are ways to alter, decrease and replace that behavior.

I miss just doing the dumb thing and watching shit unfold.

Is that crazy?

[strangebiology]

Why I don't Worry about Being a Gross Vulture Person

One of the agents I was talking to about my book proposal for "Carcass: On the Afterlives of Animal Bodies" was asking me if I had a more personal take, rather than "here's what happens to dead animals."

How does my personal journey work into it? It's a science book... I really couldn't think of anything, until later when I'm a bit boozed up and going on about my Tragic Backstory (ok it's not that serious, let's call it...Things That Informed my Behavior and Personality.)

When I was younger I believed in sort of a narrow definition of success, as was generally defined by my family and school: get good grades, go to good college, get good job. There's sort of a uniform, linear path that we all follow and some get higher on the ladder than others. If I do well at these pre-specified things, I'll get accolades and attention and happiness. Beyond that, only very lucky people can have very good lives, and I'm not lucky.

This turned out to be pretty wrong.

I joined track and field and I LOVED it. And I was very good at it. I set the all-time school record for the 100M hurdles. Track was very important to the formation of my beliefs and values, which is weird because it's just running in circles.

Here's where it went wrong (or...right?): my parents absolutely hated track. I started coming home with a medal or four every weekend or so, and they wanted me to quit. They successfully sabotaged two invitationals and called the school to make them pull me out (now they say they were just faking the phone call, and they didn't pull out their star hurdler/jumper, so IDK.)

I thought "How come I'm not getting appreciated for doing something objectively well?"

Years later, I was running at one of the beautiful spots the track team had shown me. I went into a ravine. I found cow bones.

I started finding more bones of other animals. Sometimes a little fleshy. I learned more online about cleaning. Posted about them here. I processed a few fresh carcasses.

Of course my parents thought it was gross and weird and wanted me to stop. I can't blame them, being disturbed by dead animals is a very culturally normal opinion. And you know, if I had been in a different timeline, I might have said "you're right, this is objectively gross and weird, and because I respect your opinion, I will stop."

But that's not how it went. I just said "Oh, please, you hate everything I do. Regardless of how normal it is."

They could have stopped me, but they wasted their judgement on something completely innocuous, and it's worthless now. I only got more invested in dead animals as the years passed.

The lovely thing is, and I can't speak for anyone else, but I really don't have social trouble because of my interest in dead animals. It's only been good for my career, it brought me this blog, it got me 171,000 followers on TikTok, I write about bones professionally a lot, and I'll probably write a book about it soon. People I meet are generally either fascinated or they just go "oh that's not for me." I've been told one(1) time "oh this will eliminate you from large portions of the dating pool" but I literally have no interest in dating someone who is gonna be that put off by a weirdo. I'm a weirdo at heart even without the bones. I'm so happy that I don't have to fake normalness, and everyone I care about, and most of the people who follow me online, are either neutral or they love it.

I do want to express my gratitude to everyone who has either supported me, said anything nice, bought bone merch, or followed. And I also want to thank the people who do hate dead animals, understand that their personal ick factors don't dictate morality, and proceed block or scroll on by.

[thelightlessflame]

The dreamer walks into the building with the sign out front that says, “The Magnus Institute,” though they can’t read it. When they try, the words rearrange themselves like schoolchildren playing dress-up, playing leapfrog. They open the door and walk inside. Have they already walked inside? They can’t remember. They open the door and walk inside. There is a receptionist at the desk, and they walk up to her. They tell her they are here to make a statement. The receptionist makes a call, and a soft, kind-looking man in a sweater comes out to guide the dreamer further into the building.

The sweater-man calls them by name, or by a name which may have once been theirs. They forget the name as soon as it is out of the sweater-man’s mouth, but they recognize it all the same. The dreamer stops for a moment, confused. Has this already happened before? Have they made their statement already?

It is frustrating, to have no memory to rely on, no linear progression of time to depend on. They wonder if they are living in circles, again. That happens, sometimes. They wish it would not.

There are chairs, and a table, and the man in the sweater who led them here offers a pad of paper and a pen, but the dreamer politely declines. “I’m sorry,” they say, “but I can’t read or write. I can try, but the words will change, and it will be unpleasant for both of us.”

The sweater-man says not to worry, and retrieves a tape recorder so ancient that the dreamer scarcely believes it will actually work. But it does. Of course it does- this is a dream, after all, and things like this always work in dreams.

The sweater-man asks the dreamer to tell their story into the microphone, and the dreamer obliges. “I don’t know if this will work any better than the paper,” they apologize. “I don’t know if the words will change or not- when I write, they change, they become different words each time they’re read, and they usually mean the same thing, but over time the meaning warps, like wood left out in the rain.”

They look up at the sweater-man, who is so soft and gentle looking. Who has been so kind. They pity him, a little, because the world is such a sharp and dangerous place, and it’s very difficult to remain soft and gentle and kind in a world like this. The dreamer was kind and gentle, once- they think. They don’t know for certain, not when details blur and bend and go fuzzy at the edges. They cannot remember what made them stop being gentle, only that it was vast beyond measure and too terrible to mention. They hope they are still kind.

“I have been asleep for seven years,” they tell the sweater-man, who has brought them tea, “and I walk about the world in my dreams.” Their hands curl around the steaming mug, and they can almost feel the scalding heat. Almost.

They take a sip of their tea, and it tastes of nothing, feels of nothing. “It began in the autumn. I was twenty,” they recall, “and I was coming home from night classes, and I was tired. I went to sleep, and I’ve been dreaming ever since.” They take another sip. “At first I didn’t know I was dreaming, I thought I was just living my life as usual, but then as time went on, I became less and less sure.”

If they were real, of they were more substantial than a wisp of dream-stuff, the tea they drink now in gulps would scald their mouth, burn their tongue. But they exist only in the space between waking and sleeping, and so it doesn’t. “Strange things started happening, impossible things. I didn’t question it, it all seemed normal to me. But then I began noticing little things- when I tried to read something, it never said the same thing twice. Clocks didn’t work, time didn’t pass as it should, and I started to realize that none of this is real.”

They drink down the last dregs of their tea, even the loose leaves at the bottom of the cup, and they taste nothing. “Sometimes I’m more aware than others. I almost wake up, sometimes, but I can’t quite manage it.”

The sweater-man frowns, and they almost remember his name- they’ve been here before, they’re sure of it now, they’ve done this before, many times- but it eludes their grasp like trying to catch smoke with their bare hands. “I’m lost in my own dreaming,” they say, feeling suddenly helpless and weary. “I was at my parents’ home in Christchurch when I went to sleep, and I don’t know where I am now.” There is another mug of tea in their hands- or is it the same one? Did they drink this already, or is reality curling around the edges again? They wish it wouldn’t do that.

They stare into the bulb of the lamp, letting the light burn their eyes. It doesn’t hurt. It should. It doesn’t. They miss feeling pain. They miss feeling anything at all. “Sometimes I just drift across distances, sometimes I just appear in different places. I was in a supermarket yesterday, or last week, and when I went around an aisle end, I was in a garden. Space and time don’t seem to work for me like they should. I’m always lost. I can’t seem to find my way back home, and I have the strangest feeling, like if I could just find my way back to my body, I could wake up- but I’ve tried. I’ve gone back home and my body isn’t there anymore. I can’t find it. Some days I think I may be dead.”

They tell the tape recorder their story, and as they finish, reality begins to curl around the edges, and they aren’t in the interview room anymore. They look up from where they’re sitting, and they see a spiral staircase in a vast and empty blackness. The dreamer stands and begins to walk.

[thenightling]

The clues that suggest what Morpheus’s sigil was before his helm

I have a theory that Morpheus's pre-helm sigil in The Sandman was a five pointed star, a pentacle without a circle. In The Sandman Overture we are told the story of how Morpheus got his helm but at the same time we are also told that The Endless were already using sigils (magical symbols used to represent each other) to call out to one and other.  Destiny’s sigil was his book with a chain, Death’s is an ankh, Desire’s is a stylized heart, Despair’s was a spiked (later hooked) ring, Destruction’s was a sword, and Delirium’s (when she was still Delight) was a flower and later a blotch of rainbow color.  But we are never told what Morpheus’s sigil was before his helm.  I strongly suspect it was a pentacle, probably without the circle around it.  A five pointed star.

Probably looking like this:

Here is the evidence to support my theory:

1.  Though non-canonical, the five-pointed-star is Morpheus’s sigil in the 'lil Endless books.

2.   Five pointed stars appear in many patterns within The Dreaming, including the ceiling of the throne room.

3.    Sometimes the five-pointed-stars are in the patterns of his own clothing.

4.  Morpheus says he is of every faith and a star (of various forms) is found in nearly all religious symbolism.   Pentacle in Wicca and other forms of neopagansim, the Star of David in Judaism, the Star of Bethlehem in Christianity,  The star and crescent moon in Islam, and so on.

5.   The meaning behind the pentacle in most pagan beliefs is that it represents the five elements of Water, fire, Earth, air, and spirit, controlled and contained by will.  It is the symbol of magick and of life.  Dreams and reality in one.   What better symbol for the Lord shaper than a symbol which, by its nature, means to shape reality with your heart and mind?

6.  Morpheus's eyes are star-flares in darkness. Stars are literally a part of him.

7.  Morpheus's very "grave" is a star watching over The Dreaming.

8.   When looking at the sand in Soft Places some of the grains look like stars, very similar to the star of David.

And so I believe the five-pointed star was probably his pre-helm sigil.   Spirals also turn up quite a bit but the star is more common.

The five pointed star (or free-floating pentacle without a circle) was probably a Hell of a lot easier for his siblings to draw when and if they needed to call out to him. 

It may have been a slight annoyance for poor Lucien considering his established fondness for werewolves (see Tales of Ghost Castle and The Hunt issue of The Sandman).  This would be because in pop culture such as The Wolf Man (1941), Dark Shadows (1966), and An American werewolf in London (1981) the pentacle was a ward of protection against werewolves.

  I think if there was ever an opportunity for Daniel and Morpheus to co-exist, Daniel would likely retain the helm as his sigil since it was passed to him, but Morpheus’s sigil might have changed (reverted back) to what it had once been millennia ago, his star.  Change isn’t always a linear progression.  Sometimes it’s a reversion. And the star seems more heavily associated with Morpheus than it is with Daniel. 

[infinitecrime]

Just a quick statement in case anyone was wondering where I have been/will be. I've been taking, and will continue to take, a short Tumblr break until the SCU (Sebastian Cancellation Universe) wears itself out and goes on hiatus. I deleted Tumblr off my phone a few days ago and realised immediately that all this vicious, misinformed discourse pretty much solely exists on here and twitter, and if I want to avoid it, I can simply remove myself from the space.

I'm certainly not going to be gone forever - the head Canceller has made it quite clear that her sole intention was to "bully Sebastian off the internet", and presumably his fans too, while using POC and social issues as pawns/collateral damage. To quit the fandom feels like letting them win, but taking a break feels necessary at this point.

I like to listen to others who have different perspectives and value their opinions - but at the end of the day, I form my own and do my own research. And so far, I have seen absolutely nothing to change my opinion that Sebastian is a kind and well meaning man who sometimes doesn't think through every conceivable perspective before his does something - in other words, a flawed human. I'm not going to call for the end of a man's career and/or life, or withdraw my support of him, because 4 years ago he (accidentally, for all we know) liked a video of a man being called out for rapping the N-word and being told to censor himself, or because he smiled weird next to a statue while playing a Buddhist character. We can criticise him for his own actions, but these are willfully disingenuous interpretations specifically designed to harm not just him, but also POC fans who look up to him. I won't let myself be lied to, gaslighted, or dragged into a herd mentality. A disturbing number of people are not actually angry at him, but are simply scared of being harassed if they dare to question what they're being told or form their own opinions, so join the herd. The pursuit of the moral highground is addictive but futile, and you lose it as soon as you stoop to bullying, abuse, harassment, stalking and running dedicated, deranged hate accounts.

I'm not going to cancel him for a handful of bad jokes or mistakes made years ago that have been profusely apologised for and learnt from, either, and I'm not going to cancel him because of the years old actions of people he is associated with that he had nothing to do with. This isn't fair, proportional or helpful, at all. It's not activism, and it's not social justice - in fact, the constant malicious attempts to cancel him are only making it harder for him to see legitimate criticism or respond without setting a precedent that death threats will get his attention and a grovelling apology for things he didn't say and views he doesn't hold.

If your whole life was on tape and available to comb through with the worst intentions, and you weren't hiding behind anonymous accounts, I could construct equally terrible narratives from every bad joke, misspoken word, ill thought out comment, accidental like, dubious friend, mistake, genuinely hurtful moment or show of ignorance that you have ever made, but apologised for, grew from and forgot about instantly. You have that right: but you don't grant it to him, because he isn't truly a human being to you. So many of the blatantly and demonstrably false accusations I have been seeing would have been dispelled through the most basic level of fact checking and critical thinking, but through herd mentality and what I can only describe as moral bloodlust, they've gained serious, dangerous traction.

For someone who was raised in a deeply insular, conservative, traditional, orthodox environment, he has done a genuinely excellent job of freeing himself from that cycle of ignorance and using his platform in a positive way, as well as responding when he genuinely has misstepped. He will likely never be on the same level of educated/woke as a ~25 year old American who was literally raised knee deep in social justice twitter discourse, because he didn't have that privilege, but we are all on a journey and progress is not linear or with a clearly defined end.

The ironic thing is: the current state of the fandom is a direct result of how nice and willing to listen and learn Seb has been! The level to which he used to engage with fans and respond to criticism and feedback has created an expectation that he will ask how high whenever he is told to jump, and if he doesn't respond to every little thing, this means he doesn't care or hates us. His willingness to own up to mistakes, apologise and grow publically has created the strange idea that if he's not doing something publically, it's not happening, as if he only exists while we can see him, like social media peekaboo. His openness and willingness to act on criticism of those in his social and professional circles has led to the belief that we can demand he cut anyone we dislike out of his life immediately instead of helping and supporting them in making amends and learning, if only we can dig up some old dirt on them. It's entitled, parasocial nonsense. This is a total stranger who owes us nothing, is not actually accountable to us, does not have to ever respond to us or meet our demands, and has a complex and private inner life that we ultimately know nothing about.

I feel immensely sorry for the fans, especially POC, who have been wrongly led to believe that Seb hates or is discriminatory towards them on the basis of lies, hyperbole and some serious reaching. I feel deeply sorry for Seb's friends and family, who have been subject to an enormous amount of abuse and harassment (much of which has been racist, sexist, bodyshaming, xenophobic and cruel in nature - all in the name of social justice?) merely for being friends with him, and who recently had to see #RIPSebastianStan trending. Mostly, I feel immensely sorry for Sebastian, who has not been allowed the same basic rights everyone else in the world gets: the right to learn and grow, the right to forgiveness and freedom from harassment, and the right to be judged on things that *you* actually *did* rather than fictional narratives.

I cannot imagine the mental toll thousands of people calling for your death must take. I cannot imagine how it feels to have hate accounts dedicated to abusing you and critiquing your every move, and that of everyone you love. I cannot imagine the impact of obsessive doxxing, stalking and harassment. I cannot imagine all of this happening when you have been quite open about your mental health issues and serious struggles. There are truly only so many messages telling you to kill yourself that you can take, and I just hope he has people in his corner to remind him who he truly is and what he truly stands for.

[gureishi]

I'm the same anon who asked!

Could you talk about Saeran? It doesn't need to be detailed or NSFW, I'm good with anything, I just want to know more about your headcanons!

Hello again lovely anon! ♡

Oops aaaand once again (no surprise, I know): it’s long. I just wanna preface this one with a couple things:

1. There are quite a few Certified Saeran Simps on this site who truly know him much better than I do. Take whatever I say with a grain of salt—I’m no expert!

2. I’m also not an expert on DID! Which isn’t the focus of these HCs, but is obviously relevant. I read lots of books! About brains n stuff! But please never hesitate to tell me if I describe something poorly.

3. I wrote for the AS timeline here but if you want me to talk about SE Saeran or Unknown tell me and you know I will <3

Tw: discussion of childhood abuse, neglect, and subsequent trauma symptoms

Saeran’s body headcanons

A child who grows up the way Saeran did—kept indoors, often physically restrained, and sometimes starved—is not going to develop in a healthy way. There’s a reason why, even as an adult, Saeran is a full 2 cm shorter than his identical twin: he never gets the nutrition and exercise that kids need in order to grow.

We know that his mother uses his sickliness as an excuse to keep him indoors: but was he born sickly, or is he sick and weak because he’s been malnourished and kept from running or playing or interacting with other children? He breathes stale, dry air all day; he’s living on mostly white bread, and not always at regular intervals (plus whatever sweets his brother can steal for him from the outside world). He is not well.

Child Saeran never learns any sports or games. He doesn’t learn how to play with other children, or tie his shoes, or make himself a snack. Adult Saeran doesn’t know how to skip—you’ll have to teach him.

If the twins didn’t have each other, neither one of them would have survived.

And as we know, the neglect that Saeran endures worsens tenfold after Saeyoung leaves. Any glimpses he was getting of the outside world—sneaking out when their mother was unconscious, getting whatever snacks and books Saeyoung could gather for him at church—are cut off.

I’m not gonna tell you when the alters appear, because I am by no means an expert on DID. From studies I’ve read, I can say that typically alters become manifest after a “traumatic turning point” (which is not necessarily the “worst” trauma endured, but simply a particularly salient traumatic experience). It’s definitely possible that the alters emerge in late childhood, while he is still in the house with his mother.

When Saeran is taken from his mother’s home by Rika and V, he is (needless to say) not in good shape. He is painfully skinny, extremely malnourished, and very weak. He still has his red hair and golden eyes, but already he is looking less and less like his brother: his cheeks are hollow and his eyes are dull. 

There is a brief period of time, before his “cleansing” (Oh god. We’ll get there), where he is reasonably well cared for. For the first time in his life, he is eating meals—and he is getting to bathe regularly, and he is getting his hair cut and combed. He still believes, at this time, that he’ll be reunited with his brother. And he is going outside! He is learning how the grass feels between his toes and how the sky looks through clear eyes.

As we know: this doesn’t last.

The elixir is a truly horrifying combination of hallucinogenic substances. No human could consume this cocktail of drugs repeatedly and feel well: and Saeran is already physically weak, and severely underweight. The fact that he survives as long as he does under these conditions is a miracle.

We know that he is being tortured at this time, too: physically as well as emotionally. Saeran has scars, like his brother; while Saeyoung has lots and lots of tiny scars all over his body, Saeran has larger, more distinct scars: perhaps on his wrists, and his throat, and his ankles.

It is around this time that his eyes and hair change. The means by which this happens is incredibly vague in-game, and everyone’s individual HCs are valid. My personal belief is this: he dyes his own hair—first, in a frenzied, desperate attempt to stop seeing his brother looking back at him from the mirror. He keeps dying it because Rika approves: and he never does a good job, and it’s rough and fried, and that “pink” at the bottom? Just the red showing through his patchy dye job.

As for his eyes: I personally believe they change as a result of the elixir. If they were contacts, I don’t think that GE Saeran would necessarily still wear them—and in every timeline, he has those startling blue-green eyes.

The alters take care of the body in different ways.

Ray does not feed himself. He lives on caffeine pills and sweets (and, of course, the concoction of drugs that he’s being fed in increasingly large amounts). The body becomes even skinner when Ray is fronting. And he bites his nails and fingers—brutally, so they are chapped and cut and scarred. But Ray goes outside, and he works in the garden under the sun: his body is getting some form of exercise: and this is good for his lungs, and invigorates his weak, tired muscles.

Ray also takes care of his appearance—something Saeran never did before. He brushes and styles his hair; he dresses himself carefully in the clothes Rika has picked for him; he covers himself in beautiful scents so that he is more appealing to you.

When Suit is fronting, he wants to strip his body of anything that reminds him of Ray. So he styles his hair differently (but still: he is styling it), and he tries desperately to wash the scent of Ray off his skin. He doesn’t feed himself, either—but, if any of the alters are trying to become physically strong, it is Suit (of course). I’m certain that the Believers have a workout regime they’re supposed to be following; maybe Suit even does it (on his own, of course, in secret). He knows he needs to be able to protect himself—and he needs to feel powerful.

When you meet Ray, you don’t notice right away just how poorly he is doing. Rika has intentionally dressed him in a way that hides just how bony he is—and he wears those little gloves, of course, so you don’t see his ravaged fingers. But it doesn’t take long to catch on: he is so skinny you could almost blow him away, and there are dark shadows under his eyes, and he doesn’t sound like he’s taken a deep breath in years.

By the time you meet Suit, you already know the state their body is in: malnourished and weak. Ray cooked for you, but you wish you could cook for all of them; and even when Suit is starving you (in other words: reenacting the very abuse that was dealt to him in childhood), you wish you could wrap him in a big blanket and feed him a bowl of soup.

The Saeran that escapes Magenta with you—GE Saeran: the fusion of Ray and Suit (or a new alter, depending on what you believe)—has never made a single choice for himself in his whole life, until this moment. He never got to pick his own clothes, or what he would eat (if he ate at all), or how he would speak, or what he would do. Running away with you is the first real choice he has ever made—and no wonder this is pivotal and transformative for him.

The AE doesn’t portray the timeline of healing in a realistic way. After two weeks, we see GE Saeran so much healthier, both physically and mentally. And yes: two weeks of eating real food and sleeping in a bed make a difference: we see him with fuller cheeks and brighter eyes.

But what the game doesn’t address is the withdrawal he likely endures when he stops taking the elixir, which is full of substances that are both dangerous and addictive. It doesn’t address the time it takes to build up muscle mass, and get accustomed to healthy sleeping and eating habits, and to begin to heal from years and years of repeated trauma.

GE Saeran doesn’t heal right away, because healing doesn’t work that way. It’s not linear, or straightforward, or simple, or beautiful. It’s slow, and sometimes it’s painful.

But he does heal.

A Saeran who is in love with you is soft, and patient, and willing to put in the months and years (a lifetime!) of hard work to heal his body and his heart. You’ll get to watch as the dark circles under his eyes disappear, and his cheeks become less hollow, and his body grows stronger as he cooks (with you, and for you) and eats real meals and learns to run in the grass the way he never did before. He’ll make a garden, and you’ll get to see how he looks with sun on his face, his eyes clear as the sky as he gazes up at you—smiling.

You can show him how to moisturize his dry lips and cracked hands; you can help him pick out clothes he likes to wear; and you will learn how to support him when his memories haunt him.

And you can hold him: this beautiful, small, soft man, with his thin shoulders and scarred fingers. He’ll close his eyes and you’ll taste the sun on his skin as you kiss his eyelashes. He smells of earth and sky; he loves you with all the power of the universe.

[jaekaicx]

so ive had this idea for an amphibia fangame for a lil while now-

(LONG post)

its based around the idea that sometime after anne got sent back to earth, she decides to sneak out one night to visit sasha and marcys bedrooms and poke through their stuff. this causes a bunch of memories to come back to anne through flashbacks while she tries to process everything thats happened and her feelings abt their friendship.

i was thinking itd be mostly a visual novel type thing. maybe with a few small choices, but the story would be mostly linear. thered be around 3 main story beats: a prologue bit w/ anne sneaking out of her house, marcys bedroom, and sashas bedroom. also one of the main mechanics would be looking at one of their bedrooms and clicking on random objects of importance and triggering a flashback sequence.

it came from the idea that anne will probably try to just shove all her emotions down and try to ignore her feelings abt true colors and everything that went down then. especially with what we saw in the sneak peek, anne will probably try to hide her emotions and bottle them up, which is obviously not healthy. so eventually shes gonna have to work through her emptional baggage and try to process everything.

i havent thought through EVERYTHING just yet, just some more major plot points and maybe one or two ideas for flashbacks. nothing too solid yet. but heres a bit more detailed runthrough of the plot

summary - prologue

so it would start off with anne at home. she and her mom are talking outside annes room. her moms concerned abt how annes been handling everything that happened in amphibia but anne keeps brushing everything off. her mom tries to get her to open up, but she keeps dismissing her and eventually shuts herself in her room. after taking a bit to cool off and think anne decides that shes gonna take the night to just ride off her emotions and stop repressing them for once. she also makes an impulsive decision to sneak out and check out marcy and sashas rooms.

anne goes to gather her stuff in her room, and just as shes about to climb out the window, sprig walks in to check on her. hes still rly concerned abt his big sis but he knows he cant stop her. he tries to go with anne, but she tells him she needs to do this on her own. so, sprig lets her go and tries to cover for her while shes gone.

so at this point i’ll probably give the player the choice of whose house to visit first. it doesnt rly impact the story or whatever, but i guess it might have a small emotional impact depending on whose house u choose to go to first??

(quick note: after this bit, there arent too many specific details for the plot and stuff like that. its largely just an overall idea of how the plot is gonna go. and even then, there isnt much to it. i didnt think that far ahead yet, which is why there isnt as much refinement yet. so far i just have general ideas for how annes gonna get to the bedrooms, with a couple of vague flashback ideas. just keep that in mind; this whole thing is still being thought over and planned as im typing this out)

summary - sasha

with sasha, annes still rly conflicted abt how she feels abt her. of course shes still rly hurt by being backstabbed by her twice and swordfighting her as many times. but as much as she hates sasha she cant bring herself to fully give up on sash. she hates her guts but deep down shes still willing to give sash another chance.

there may or may not be a small sequence where anne has to sneak into sashas house, but eventually she works her way into sashas room. im not entirely sure abt the details of sashas house n her family yet. im probably gonna wait for info from s3 until i solidify anything, but for now i do know that sashas family has a big house n theyre probably rich.

so anne goes into sashas room and its been left pretty much untouched ever since annes birthday, save for the few times someone came in to dust things off. again, dont rly have all the details for sashas room, but it kind of has a vibe of controlled chaos, with organized clutter and a bit of a touch of a rebellious teen girl. one detail i do want to have is a calendar opened up to the month the trio disappeared, with annes birthday circled and highlighted so much that its impossible to miss.

the calendar itself might include a flashback. im thinking of also having a varsity jacket and some old stuffed animal be different “artifacts” that trigger their own memories. there’ll be a bunch more, but those are the only ideas i have so far fjsbndnd

summary - marcy

ok so i want to be rly mean about marcys segment: this is going off the theory that marcys parents moved away while the trio was in amphibia.

anne doesnt know this yet tho, so shes in for quite a surprise when she turns onto marcys street to find a realtor sign on the front lawn. the clues are all there: an empty driveway, sign on the lawn, an overall empty vibe coming from the house. but it doesnt completely register at first. its not til anne actually comes up close does she notice the sign.

anne tries to deny it, and decides to prove to herself that “no marcys parents wouldnt do this. theyre not that cruel. im just gonna check marcys room myself.” the front doors locked, so she just goes over to marcys window and climbs in.

but its completely empty.

ok not totally empty, but a lot of marcys furniture and stuff is gone, except for a few stray toys and other “junk.” the home guys (idk what theyre called????) are still kind of in the process of cleaning everything out, so theres still some stuff left here and there around the house. but its still way too empty. and its yet another gut punch for anne.

anne searches the rest of the house a bit more, hoping that shes just hallucinating. but no, marcys parents are really gone. she tried to deny it before, but now she has more of an idea of how shitty the wu parents are. so anne decides to just mope around in marcys old room, checking out the stuff their parents left behind.

maybe she finds an old blanket marcy liked when he was rly young. or an old rubiks cube from marcys vast collection. a cnc figurine, some cards, a pride flag, and old diary? a couple of other old toys, an old report card or two, or maybe even some stray clothes. whatever anne finds, its all thats left of marcy, at least in LA.

it really doesnt leave anne in that much of a better emotional position. she already felt conflicted enough about what happened in true colors and what she found out abt marcy. but seeing even a small glimpse of what marcy was dealing with, it just makes her more confused. marcy was such a sweet kid! theres no way they couldve done anything wrong. yet here anne was, betrayed by both of her childhood friends.

only now is anne really taking the time to process the fact that marcy essentially kidnapped her and sasha with the calamity box. he didnt mean to do it, and theres no way they couldve known the box would actually work, but it doesnt completely excuse marcy. his actions still hurt anne and sash, and while they meant the best of intentions, it didnt rly come through that way.

and now marcy was dead. stabbed in the back by the newt king.

and now annes curled up in an empty bedroom, wrapped up in one of marcys old blankets, trying to wrap her head around her feelings about marcy while reminiscing in the past.

summary - extras/epilogue??

i kind of like the idea that anne ends up drifting off in which ever bedroom ended up being the second one she visited. she slowly comes back to consciousness, with her surroundings feeling somewhat familiar, only to wake up in horror bc “OH SHIT I FORGOT TO GO BACK HOME” im not completely sold on the idea tho bc it feels a bit abrupt and like too much of a tone shift?? idk it doesnt feel exactly right

but anyways, im also playing around with the idea of a small epilogue scene with the calamity trio hanging out in annes room, a good amount of time after amphibia ended. dont know what theyre doing in there, but theyre just chilling and feeling a bit nostalgic i guess.

but uh yeah thats pretty much what ive got for the overall idea. it doesnt feel too out of reach, but somethjng like this would definitely be ambitious. i could mayyyybe handle writing out the vn and drawing the character sprites, but i have no idea how to code a vn or draw detailed backgrounds, both of which would be pretty important to this fangame fjsndj. so i might consider having help with this.

THIS ISNT ANY SORT OF PROMISE OR WHATEVER. id rly love to follow through and make this fangame a thing, but im not making any guarantees. i have no idea if i’ll actually follow through, but i would definitely love to.

who knows. maybe in like a couple years this might actually become a thing. but for now i have no idea

[masterjedilenawrites]

The Batch Family: Mom

So I decided to write little scenes/vignettes of my Bad-Batch-as-kids idea, rather than a linear or chronological story, that way I can add to this AU randomly as I think of things. And their mom is going to be an OC rather than reader, but I'm not sure what to name her? Anyway, this is just a quick piece to get things going...

She often wondered whether she'd made the right decision. Whether the things people asked were actually true. Are you okay? Are you crazy? Can you handle it? Is this really for the best? She wasn't always sure, but sometimes it felt more true than not.

Right now, though, she was sure... sure that she had made the right decision. She stood in the middle of the kitchen, a tiny room with a weird smell and cabinets practically bursting at the seams. But each dirty dish and crusty stain and piece of trash that hadn't quite made it in the bin was all a reminder of the life that existed in this space. Of the five hungry mouths she had the privilege of being able to feed each day. Of the five excited voices that fought to be heard at the table.

Of the five spirited, unique, beautiful boys that she called her sons.

Her gaze traveled past the dirtiness and fell on a drawing that hung on the fridge, a crayon depiction of five knights defending a queen from a menacing monster. Hunter had drawn it for her as an apology while on a time-out the week before. Holding it to the fridge was a sunflower magnet, a gift from Echo on her birthday last year. Beside it was Wrecker's report card from the previous semester, with his first A circled proudly in red. Above that were letter magnets that spelled out uncopyrightable, a word Tech had discovered used the most letters of the alphabet. And just beside that was an ad of a sports car Crosshair had cut from a magazine and was not-so-subtly asking her to get every few days.

These were her boys, her sons. Yes, they were messy. Yes, they were a handful. And yes, maybe she was crazy for having adopted all of them on her own. But standing in the midst of their mess, looking at all the things that showed just how smart and strong and creative and kind and brave they all were... how full her life was because of them... she knew the craziness was worth it.

She loved being their mom.

[13shapeshifters]

(Ok so this is obviously going to contain huge spoilers for the Raven King) @girlbossfarooqlane , this one goes out to you

When I first listened to the chapter at the end of the book of Cabeswater sacrificing itself to save Gansey, my first thought was that Cabeswater was creating Persephone- was making itself Persephone- to be exchanged for Ganseys life.

It might sound a bit strange in the beginning but hear me out! I have some (good, if i might say so) reasons:

The chapter I'm talking about is chapter 67 of the Raven King. In this chapter we learn quite a few things about Cabeswater, that we know to be true because it’s literally written in its perspective:

Cabeswater is made and remade all the time. It is impossibly old and always young at the same time.

Cabeswater is not quite mortal and can’t sacrifice itself for Gansey, who is quite mortal

The sacrifice has to be a life

Adam/it's magician is the one trying to convince him of saving Gansey, giving it ideas and explaining in what limited way of communication they have

The easiest way of saving Gansey would be to make a copy of him, but Cabeswater knows that that isn’t what the Others would want and Cabeswater is all about making wishes (and not-quite-wishes) come true, so that isn’t what happened

[I would, at this point, like to point out that the way the chapter reads it sounds like Cabeswater is making Gansey new: “But it might be able to refashion him into something new” but that sounds like making a copy of Gansey but since They don’t want a copy of Gansey   Cabeswater shouldn’t be able to do it (see point 5). Although it might be (probably is as far as i understood that scene?) that Cabeswater remade Gansey entirely. As in from the moment he died the first time, the moment Gansey received “a new heart” from the ley-line to save him from certain death by wasps. That moment is the reason why Gansey is a mirror like Blue, the reason why he died the moment Blue kissed him. They kept reflecting power back at each other, stronger each time, and the weaker one had to break.

But if we ignore those two or three sentences I can just continue with my theory I spent too much time on, yknow?]

Cabeswater can’t just kill itself because a) it’s not really mortal (see point 2) and b) it’s all about creation which is- as you might know- pretty much the opposite of murder

Cabeswater mentions that the life-for-a-life sacrifice would only be possible for itself if it created itself a human shape. Let’s go with this. The rest of the chapter is Cabeswater not understanding humans but trying it’s best at creating authentic life

7.1) Cabeswater has no idea how humans are supposed to be

7.2) Cabeswater is going away to create its new life

7.3) Cabeswater keeps coming back to remember what humans are like, which likely results in life that is not quite what it’s supposed to be like but it’s close enough

7.4) It takes Ganseys wonder and regret, his humanity and puts it inside the new life. I will read this as Cabeswater copy and pasting it and not outright stealing it

Cabeswater has a very calming effect on Adam

This is just a collection of facts (with a few of my comments thrown in) so now let’s get to the things we know about Persephone to start connecting them:

Persephone is described as odd due to her youthfulness being side to side with her old wisdom (taken from the Raven Boys Wiki)

She has a concept of right and wrong but it differs very strongly from the “rulebooks” of the Others

Her physical appearance is almost unnatural, especially her eyes. They are described as black, but they turn out to be every color at once. I’m 80% sure that’s biologically not possible

3.1) It could be that her physical appearance is the result of her being a psychic, but she would be the only psychic in the Raven Cycle to have an altered appearance due to her psychic-ness

Maura and Calla meeting was a coincidence (as long as you believe in coincidences, Persephone meeting them was not

Persephone seems to be a sort of mediator of Foxway, she’s pretty much the only calm presence in the books

She taught Adam despite never taking initiative

She dies while scrying

7.1) She can not only see the past, present, future through scrying, she can participate. See: the scene before the discovery of her body in Foxway. She was with Adam one second and the next one she was gone. The cashier said that she was never there. She was projecting herself

So let’s start connecting dots, shall we?

In the chapters just before Cabeswaters chapter the focus lies on Adam and Noah.

Noah's chapter focuses on his life after death and the “time is a circle” theme that has been in every book of the Raven Cycle. Noah goes “back in time” to save Gansey, it turns out he was the one to rescue Gansey, he is the one who started his search for Glendower (which is something I could maybe write another essay on ). So Noah sacrifices his life for Gansey a second time, the first time when he dies, the second time when he moves on.

Adam meanwhile is scrying, getting back his autonomy from the demon. While scrying he sees Persephone, who is dead, and she tells him to take back control. As far as i know (could research) scrying is believed to do three things:

see the past, present and future

give visions coming from the subconscious and imagination

give visions coming from gods, demons and/or spirits

It seems to me that the scrying in the Raven Cycle is based on point 1 since there are multiple occasions where the characters use scrying as a medium to locate the present location of others.

That would not, however, explain the presence of Persephone while scrying.

What Adam is doing can’t be a vision from his subconscious since he is in Cabeswater, he sees how little is left of it.

It could be argued that she too is a projection of Cabeswater, but at that point it’s too weak to do anything, much less create a whole human being while continuously being destroyed.

There is no reason for Persephone to be there, no way for her to be there. Unless she’s part of Cabeswater.

If we start at the beginning (or the end, really) it goes like this: Cabeswater is dying and Gansey saves it. Gansey died and the Others wish for him to be alive again. Cabeswater, being the wish fulfilling forest it is, does everything to do exactly that:

Cabeswater can’t kill itself and a sacrifice would only work if it created itself a human form to inhabit to be sacrificed.

We know that time is not linear, so Cabeswater goes back a few years, and it creates Persephone. It uses up the last of its power to create itself new (always remade, reborn; see facts about Cabeswater point one) and makes itself Persephone.

Persephone is an odd person with eyes that shouldn’t be and who is young yet old and who knows so much about Cabeswater and knows how to help Adam when he is having problems with communicating with Cabeswater.

She takes Adam as an apprentice despite being often described as almost never taking the initiative and as soon as she starts teaching Adam, he stopped having his anger outbursts (See facts about Cabeswater point 8, “Cabeswater has a calming effect on Adam”).

They want Gansey to live so Cabeswater makes itself a person to help his magician help the Others get to the point where they are now (without Adam they would have never gotten to the point of finding Glendower and stopping the demon). So Cabeswater/Persephone gives Adam back his eyes and hands and Adam gives back the idea to trade Cabeswater for Ganseys life in return and Gansey lives. It's a full circle.

But wait! In Facts about Cabeswater point 2 “can’t trade Cabeswaters immortal life for Ganseys mortal one” this theory would be disproven. That's the second purpose of Persephone (the first one being making sure Adam gets to be present for Ganseys death so he can give the idea):

Persephone is the life that gets taken. Her life is the one that gets sacrificed on the leyline so Gansey can live. And one might argue about her dying before Gansey did but I would like to draw attention to two things.

Persephone died while scrying, she went too far out of her own body and never returned.

Adam saw her mere minutes before Gansey died, also while scrying

So Persephone looked into the future and she stayed there, she fulfilled her role as Adams “mentor” and she fulfilled her role as sacrifice for Gansey, giving her soul (not her body) and she never returned to Foxway, dying in the process (see facts about Persephone point 7.1)

This was her purpose, this is her something more that every significant character in the Raven Cycle has.

Obviously Gansey’s quest and sacrifice, Adam’s connection to Cabeswater, Ronan’s dreams.

Noah’s sacrifice for Ganseys life, Neeve’s role in the demon's uprising and end, being the third one in the Maura-Calla party to make it a good number.

Persephone’s something more was to be a sacrifice and she knew it. In that one scene she’s talking to Adam and he asks if she can see her own death and this is her response: “Everyone sees it. Most people make themselves stop looking, though”. She dies in the chapter following this scene, so he knows exactly what she’s doing, that she is going to die and she does it willingly because the Raven Cycle is all about working toward your something more.

Persephone also knows about her origin. She knows about her “connection” to Cabeswater (her being it, really) and it gets “addressed” in the very same scene.

Here a scene:

But Persephone just said in her tiny voice, “But I see now that it could never be. You’re like me. We’re not really like the others.”

Other what? Humans?

[...]

“We’re really better in our own company,” Persephone said. “It makes it hard, sometimes, for others when they can’t understand us.”

^^^The only really “inhuman” thing about Adam is Cabeswater, which implies that Persephone also has a connection to Cabeswater (again, my point here is trying to prove that she is Cabeswater, so that would be the connection) and the talk about not being able to understand them would only prove that further since Adam and Persephones whole relationship started because of communication problems between Cabeswater and Adam.

Here’s the “short” version:

When Gansey died Cabeswater made itself Persephone (with the help of some time warping and circling and stuff) and Persephone/Cabeswater fulfilled her two purposes (it’s just one, really): To make sure that Adam gets to the point of Gansey’s death to share the idea that will save his life and to be the life that is sacrificed.

Her/It’s whole purpose was to give Gansey life and that’s exactly what happened.

[doorsclosingslowly]

They've Made of Our Bodies a Bleeding Stair

Jesper and Kaz try to retrieve Inej from Ketterdam without being recognized and murdered—and without Kaz getting ransomed back to Ravka as the the wayward Sun Summoner.

11k | Sun Summoner Kaz AU pt. 2 | Jesper/Kaz, Inej, past Kaz/Darkling content note: non-linear narrative, explicit sex, roleplay of past rape

“I want you to be him.”

“Of course,” Jesper replies. Then, articulately, once his brain’s caught up, “Uh. What?”

“The Darkling.” Kaz has turned his face away. He’s looking at the ramshackle marriage bed that takes up the bulk of this room he’s lured Jesper into. He unerringly picked the right closed door, too; he skipped the squeaky floorboards, as if he knew the exact layout of this—but it’s Kaz. He knows everything, even some dilapidated house in the Kerch countryside. The bed was probably a masterpiece of craftsmanship, when it was carved from some dark wood, a thousand years ago or whatever. The way it looks, it must’ve been old already when the previous owners of this farmhouse got it, and from the state of the house, they abandoned this place decades ago. Quite a lot of the furniture’s missing, either sold off when the place was left or stolen afterwards, but that bed was too worthless already.

The mattress is still there too. Probably fucking teeming with moth larvae and maggots and their combined accumulated shit, so it doesn’t bode too well for Jesper, how forcefully Kaz is staring at it.

“Please say it doesn’t involve the bed.”

“You said yes,” Kaz rasps, which is all the information Jesper needs to start gagging. Fake-gagging, for now, but if he sees even one wriggly little worm he’ll…

Bed. Darkling. That still doesn’t really… Want you to be him—oh—

“Yes, Jesper.” And how the hell with his ramrod tense back still turned towards Jesper—Jesper, who’s done nothing at all, hasn’t said anything except to register his displeasure at the idea of bathing in insect faeces and their squirming little manufacturers!—how the hell Kaz has realized that Jesper’s figured out what he probably means—it must be a confidence trick. Kaz likes those. But how—yeah, it’s not the point, but trying to understand whatever magic Kaz is using on him right now is much, much better for Jesper’s sanity than dwelling on the fact that Kaz might just have insinuated that he wants Jesper to pretend to be the Darkling, specifically the Darkling from that time he told Jesper about back in the Little Palace, the time he threw up after. The time he thought he could suppress his discomfort with touch long enough to seduce the Darkling into a partnership—seduce seduce, which means he wants—to flirt with Jesper? To sleep with Jesper? Is he actually saying he—

Oh. There’s a cracked mirror on the wall above the bed. That’s how Kaz saw his face.

Jesper would chalk the hallucination up to a hangover, but he’s not even drunk. Neither is Kaz, unless this old ruin of a farmhouse they broke into this morning is hiding barrels of wine the local youth haven’t made off with yet. Also, if he was hallucinating Kaz propositioning him he would—well, Jesper at least hopes he’d have enough self-respect not to make himself a stand-in for the man who bought and imprisoned Kaz for two years, controlled him by using his fears and modifying his body and cutting him off from every other person in the whole court, taking every single object he could have used to protect himself, and whatever those weird spines in Kaz’ chest are he’s probably responsible for them too. Jesper would not, actually, like the first and probably only time he’s allowed to kiss Kaz to be some kind of revenge-by-proxy thing where he recites the Darkling’s lines while Kaz swallows back bile, and then Kaz beats him up. Or murders him. It’s pathetic, but Jesper always imagined that kiss a little sweeter. Kissing over Haskell’s corpse. Kissing over the Darkling’s corpse. Kissing over the corpse of some other piece of shit who’s stupid enough to try using Kaz as their possession.

“Just warning you, I don’t have the costume or the script, so don’t expect something worthy of the Komedie Brute,” is what Jesper says instead.

Kaz’ eyebrow quirks. “You’re acted before, haven’t you? Improvised. You can flirt your way into anything. That was the main reason I kept you around.”

“You kept me around because I’m gorgeous, funny, and an incredible shot. I just play myself, if it’s seduction! Why would I improve upon perfection?”

“This isn’t seduction. He’s already locked me in the Little Palace for months at this point. Two escape attempts have failed. This is… speeding up the process,” Kaz says, nonchalantly enough it makes Jesper want to puke.

Which won’t help anything. He’s already agreed. And Kaz doesn’t care about moral objections, only practical ones. “I need more info. I haven’t actually met the Darkling.”

“You’ve met powerful men. You’ve met men who believe their righteous cause entitles them. You’ve met men mired in greed and vengeance—you’ve met me.”

“I like you.”

“Pretend you don’t, then. You used to complain about me in the Slat—of course I know, I knew everything that went on in the Dregs. You hated the way I seemed to know everything, and held it over you—so does he. You disliked my single-minded focus, the way you all seemed like pawns to me, my mockery. The way I held myself as something far superior to you. That’s a start.” Kaz limps a slow quarter circle around Jesper, and his dark eyes are burning with loathing. Jesper would hold him if he could. “You’re not asking why?”

“Uh, now that you mention—”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

Jesper sighs. Of course. He’s never expected anything else. Then he stands up straight, assuming his best the stick in my ass is so long it’s knocked the word fun from my brain pose that hopefully may pass for authoritative and slimes out, “What business, Mr Brekker?”

“Sun Summoner. Or Sunshine. He figured out Brekker’s a fake name on the first day.”

“Kaz Brekker’s a fake name?!” Jesper should have seen that coming, really… what does he even know about Kaz Brekker, truly? Except—

“It’s a name. It’s real enough. It’s feared. It’s mine.” Kaz’s eyes travel over the cobwebbed wall of the farmhouse bedroom, as if he was searching for the next lie to spin. Except that isn’t one of Kaz’ tells—Jesper’s seen him bamboozle and convince marks of the most stupid tales, and when Kaz wants them to believe him, he looks earnest. Young, depending on the role he plays, old, eager, stupid or wise. He doesn’t bother lying to Dregs, or rather: he doesn’t bother convincing them, usually. All his words are backed by the brutality of his cane. Who could be stupid enough to question even his weirdest utterances. “It just happens not to be one I was born with.”

“So what you’re saying is, the Darkling’s just not Kerch enough to get you?” Jesper grins. “Ketterdam, really—you know, I always really liked that about the Barrel, that healthy dose of ‘You are who you want and we don’t give a fuck to correct you.’ Anyway. Got it. You’re Kaz Brekker, but he’s a dick. Mr Sunbeam, what brings you into my office this evening?”

“The fete, Aleks.” Kaz shrugs off his coat, and then the purple kefta, too. He holds out the kefta in front of him, like he’s expecting Jesper to put it on. Well. That’s as good a start as any, and so Jesper turns and lets Kaz dress him into the robe he never wanted to wear.

“Then he says, ‘You must be nervous. After all, there are few gatherings in the Ketterdam slums that involve such spectacle.’” Kaz has sanded down his rasp somewhat, sounding almost smooth and seductive. He goes into a spiel of the Ravkan court and the inferiority of the Barrel that thankfully, he carries all by himself. Jesper wouldn’t even know what to say, except ‘Stop talking shit about the Barrel, you prick’ and that’s not exactly in character.

Kaz’ eyes periodically dart down to Jesper’s hands, and he realizes he’s fidgeting with the hem of the kefta’s sleeves. He stops.

“I am ready,” Kas says in his normal voice. His normal talking to a mark voice. “I realized what this demonstration represents—that I belong to something greater. It is as you said—we can offer Grisha and Ravkans hope. We. Together.” He stands up straight. Equally on both his legs. He winces. He’s not holding his cane, Jesper realizes. He’s not wearing his gloves. “I am ready to stand by your side. We should be partners. The Sun and the Dark.”

“Uh… great. We’ll be great together. Do great things. Better partners than enemies. Some of those rumours even freaked me out, you know—that kid with the wind-up toy in his throat—”

“Think before you speak, Jesper,” Kaz hisses. “Never let me lead. Never give me control. Every word is a cue to corral your prey where you want it—whether a compliment or a barely-there hidden threat.”

“Is that what you do?”

“Sometimes.” Kaz meets Jesper’s eyes. The tense mask of his face breaks into a smirk. “To be honest, I find the subtle craft of manipulation is wasted on you. You’ll obey anyway. Let’s go back to the start, and focus.”

Jesper shrugs off the kefta again and then lets Kaz dress him, again. He does his best imitation of Kaz, of that early Kaz before Jesper learned how he takes his coffee and before he saw the brutal twist of his face, that one time when the Dime Lions had Jesper on his knees and shoved a gun in his mouth. He plays the imperious tactician in his office who told his goons to drag Jesper up four flights of stairs with a bag over his head, ready to be shot for his debts, and then sold him on the one thing that gave his life meaning.

He insults Dirtyhands’ father and mother to his face, and gets really into it, too: Ketterdam’s full of idiots who’d miss the love of their life because they were busy trying to pry cobblestones off the streets to sell for half a sausage, and the harbour’s so filthy even the fish won’t fuck in it—keeping the brothels in good fish-ness, haha. Because the fish rent rooms so they don’t get fishy sex diseases from the water. Do fish get diseases from sex?

“Kill me now,” Kaz moans, and that one’s probably deserved.

“Anyway, my Sun Summoner, I’m sure you’ll perform well,” Jesper says with just the tiniest hint of slime.

“I am ready. I realized what this demonstration represents—that I belong to something greater. It is as you said—we can offer Grisha and Ravkans hope. We. Together.”

Jesper moves slowly, idly: not caging him in against the bed yet but definitely implying he can and will.

“I am ready to stand by your side. We should be partners. The Sun and the Dark.” Kaz swallows. “‘That means a lot to me. You mean a lot,’ is what you say now.”

How come the Darkling’s not constantly slipping on his own slimy slime trail?

“That means a lot to me.” Jesper gives Kaz a deep, smouldering look. The pockmarks on his cheeks. The jumping muscle in his jaw. The hint of a pained grimace from standing unaided. The boyish grin when he’s totally fucked over another gang boss and gets to gloat. The vicious hatred when someone touches his Crows. Licking powdered sugar off his gloves. “You mean a lot.”

And that’s it. The way Kaz looks at him—this is when the Darkling makes his move.

“I have been waiting for you for so long,” Jesper purrs smarmily, closing his eyes, moving in for the kiss, and—Kaz isn’t there anymore.

It was a single step backwards, because Kaz has hit the edge of the bed already, face blotched with humiliation, and the way he looks at Jesper is—angry is the least terrible interpretation. If he backs out now, Kaz is going to kill him for pitying him or catering to a weakness that honestly—how is not wanting this weak? But Kaz is Kaz, and Jesper’s just Jesper, and—

“Focus,” Kaz hisses. “You own Ravka. You will own the Sun, too. You have waited for this triumph—take it.”

“Why don’t we take this to the—” fuck you, Brekker, for making me say this— “bed, then? Take off your clothes. Don’t be scared.”

That’s a good dig. The kind of insult that looks super caring, unless you know Kaz enough to understand he sees any crack in his image as a dangerous failure. Jesper’s getting the hang of this malicious flirting thing, finally. When this is over, he’ll need to scrub the slime off himself twice.

Kaz looks at Jesper while he disrobes. At him, Jesper hopes against hope, at the real person he’s roped into his worst scheme yet with a goal that’s still totally obscure; at Jesper and not the asshole he’s imagining in his place. Kaz’ eyes trace his cheeks, dance over his shaved head, catch on the lips.

Jesper takes off his boots and gun belt, and the kefta. He undoes the fly of his trousers, pulls his dick out, and stops. He glares at Kaz, daring him to object to the attempt at making this slightly less miserable—Jesper’s the Darkling, he’s in charge, so Kaz can fuck off with his masochism. He’s done undressing. He’s not taking off his shirt or trousers. That layer of cloth stays on.

But Kaz doesn’t object. He stands up straight, naked, brittle, wincing, and then glancing away he mutters, “Ignore the antlers. He hadn’t done that yet.”

Fucking Darkling.

The antlers stick out of Kaz’ collarbones, uneven tines of—possession, mutilation, and Jesper’s eyes catch on a tiny set of grooves on the left one. The scabbed-over cuts underneath. The bruise from the gunshot. And even despite that horror, Kaz has a nice chest. Serious muscle, a street map of scars and a smattering of dark hairs—it feels weirdly improper to stare at him, so Jesper’s eyes dance down to his knobbly left knee and the softly twisted right thigh with its knots of scars, up to the face where he’s biting his harsh pretty mouth, and down again. His dick is nice, fat but not too long, rooted in a tangle of dark curls.

It’s utterly limp.

It’s pathetic, how much that hurts. Of course he isn’t into this. Of course he doesn’t find Jesper remotely attractive. Of course this is just some weird masochistic proxy powerplay for him, some attempt to prove he’s stronger now and can bear it or whatever the fuck, and Jesper’s just the sad stupid body he’s using to enact it.

And of course not even that is enough to make Jesper bow out. Kaz asked.

“Do you want me to suck you off first? Get you in the mood, even a little?” It’s not just for Kaz, that offer, though the whole thing will probably be less painful and awkward if he manages to coax out some arousal. It’s not for younger Jesper, who fantasized about being ordered to blow his boss as penance more often than he likes to admit. No, this is so Jesper can bury his face in Kaz’ pubic hair for a minute. And cry.

Kaz raises an eyebrow. He sounds arch and ice cold when he asks, “Jesper, do you think the Darkling would suck my dick?”

“He should have. Saints, what an asshole,” Jesper shoots back before he can think. “You need a better class of lovers.”

“By which you’re of course implying that you are much better than Aleksander Morozova, the General Kirigan, the Black Heretic, eternal Conqueror and crowned Emperor of Greater Ravka, Salvation to Grishadom, Master of the Fold and He who chained the Sun, et cetera and so fucking on and so fucking forth the Darkling himself?”

“Given I just offered you a blowjob without bringing useless power shit into it, yes.”

“Wrong data, incoherent formula. Correct answer.” Kaz’ grin is crooked. Inordinately fond, and Jesper would have settled for no longer desperately hiding terror but this is—

Yeah.

“I’m going to try to make this roleplay as realistic as I can, but I don’t know if I can forget enough about how to have sex to sink to the Darkling’s level. Also, you don’t happen to have the address of that Grisha Tailor who mutilated you back there? I need them to make my dick look weird. Corkscrew, maybe. Some warts. It’s probably green. I’d peg him for advanced neurological syphilis but I am about to sleep with you, so— ”

“Did you know, Jesper, that the Darkling always wears a gag when he has sex?”

“Shutting up now, boss.”

“Don’t shut up,” Kaz replies instantly. Very, very instantly. “Just keep your disparagements somewhat plausible. And… rare.”

Only to jolt me back, he’s asking. “Got it. So I guess I’m supposed to loom over you a little? How close do you want me?”

“I’ll need to—” Kaz turns around and bends over to root around in the pockets of his coat, and it’s even weirder, worse, looking at his ass when Jesper knows Kaz doesn’t like him back. Kaz tosses over a tiny bottle. Oil. “Give that to me. Tell me to prepare myself.”

“Just saying it once more, boss. You don’t have to go through with—”

“Stop thinking about the Kaz Brekker you know,” Kaz hisses. “Stop anticipating my reactions. Stop caring. You are the Darkling. You have been waiting for the Sun Summoner for decades. You’ve formed your picture of them. This delinquent flinching little rat you bought doesn’t quite fit, not his limp, not his fear of touch, not his pathetic need to assert himself, but, well… you have time. He’ll learn how to make himself fit into the space you provide him. He’ll become your Sun Summoner.”

“Have I told you yet that I’m going to kill that piece of shit?”

“You’ve mentioned it, once or twice. In the last hour.”

Jesper bares his teeth: a grin, but not. A promise. “Good. I’ll hold his mouth open while you stuff him full of black powder and set him on fire.”

“Stop stalling, Jesper. That won’t make it any easier.”

That won’t make it not have happened.

“If you’re sure this will help.”

Kaz nods.

“Lie down on the bed, then. Is there a—no, no pillows here, roll up the coat and slide it under your hips.” Jesper turns his face away, listening to the timid, stuttering squelches of Kaz stretching his asshole. Jesper doesn’t know what would be worse: if, after everything, he can’t get it up… or if he can.

Well. He’ll have to. His dick will just have to obey the dictates of the situation, just as Kaz’ body was made into the Sun Summoner. He’s young. He’s still looking at Kaz Brekker, Dirtyhands, naked, who asked Jesper to sleep with him, and that’ll have to be enough. They’ve gotten this far. They’ll force their way through. That’s how you do it. That’s how you gamble. How you lose big. Kaz might have once tried to explain to him something about sunk costs and throwing good money after bad, but Jesper ignored him that night and lost a hundred and twenty kruge to Specht, and he’s never looked back.

“Okay, Mr Sunshine. Let’s consummate our fucking partnership,” he grinds out when Kaz has gone quiet, takes the bottle to slick up his own uncooperative dick, and carefully, he climbs on top of Kaz. The clothes were a good decision: Kaz barely flinches when he kneels in-between his legs and pulls the sleeve over his hand to carefully guide his right knee to rest on Jesper’s thigh.

Kaz is staring up at his face, breathing, just breathing. The antlers in his collarbone frame his bright face—brighter than the candles should allow, like maybe—and his focus is rigid and he’s breathing, breathing quickly—

“Is this teaching you anything yet?”

“Not really,” Kaz rasps, after too long. “Or—I think—maybe it was—” he glances at Jesper’s pathetic, unhappy limp dick. His face twists. “I thought you were into me.”

This is— “I love you. Kaz Brekker, whoever you are. I don’t give a fuck about this Sun Summoner bullshit. I love you. I love you,” because this is—Jesper can’t do this. He can’t. His elbows are locked: he can’t drop his body any lower. He can't go lower than this. “I love you,” until it’s finally over. “I love you. I love you.”

☼

“And I’m telling you again, I don’t know what he does Tuesday evenings,” Jesper hisses.

“You were still with the Dregs, three months ago!” Kaz is wiping his cane clean. It didn’t even really get dirty—they mostly used kitchen knives to do the deed, and in the case of a maidservant who unwisely came to work in the middle of the night, a bullet that Jesper’s already collected and reshaped into something functional, because he might not get to buy new ones. Desperation. Frugality. The Kerch are rubbing off on him. It’s good, though. The fact he’s cleaning the wood is all the confirmation Jesper will likely ever get that Kaz does like the new cane Jesper made him from a cute straight rowan sapling, reinforced with the metal scavenged from all but the most essential buttons on their hodgepodge of clothes. At least there’s one thing of Jesper’s he values. “How can you not know the behavioural patterns of your boss? Are you that brainless?”

“No-one knew what he was up to! He barely came by the Slat. He wasn’t that interested in us.”

“You worked for Per Haskell, Jesper; you worked for that man for years—for nearly as many as I did, when you ran off to Ravka—and now you attempt to convince me you barely know his name?” Kaz still doesn’t look quite as harsh as he used to, or maybe that’s just Jesper hankering for their past. Well, he didn’t used to explain his plans to Jesper as if he was an imbecile—but then, he didn’t used to need Jesper. He had more stooges back then. Now, he only has one. Ally. Friend.

If it’s as weird for him, though, as it is for Jesper being back in Ketterdam after he didn’t die on his revenge suicide plot and the city didn’t, either—well, he might still get murdered for stealing the Sun Summoner or skipping out on debts or something completely unrelated, and Ketterdam’s… well, she’s weathering having her ruling class torn apart twice in short order, once by the Darkling’s conquest and now, by the slow collapse of the Darkling’s overstretched realm after he’s lost his saint/weapon/doll.

The Barrel’s fine—as glary and miserable as it ever was, anyway, but though Kaz would probably insist most of the Mercher’s Council had their hands in gang business one way or the other, their reach was indirect, mediated and secretive enough for the chaos tearing up the Geldstraat not to trickle down as quickly into the slums. And anyway, the involvement of the merchers only ever made life worse for most people. The plight of the rich can only be a blessing.

Right now, they’re inside a nice place in the Zelver district. Close enough to power to feel the death throes, and even disregarding the political manoeuvring and debris and panic everywhere, just looking at the house from the outside made Kaz twitchy, somehow.

His energy almost matched Jesper’s trigger finger.

It’s Haskell’s house, so that unease makes sense.

Haskell’s expensive secret new house far outside the Barrel that they’re despoiling now. They looked as out of place in the beautiful Zelver district as any Barrel rats, with their heads shorn close to the bone so they’ll look different enough to not get recognized and faces wiped with dirt, dressed in a melange of Ravkan clothes they haven’t found a chance to replace yet and tawdry Barrel flash for everything else.

Kaz was wearing two coats when he entered the house, an old rose and amber paisley trench that even Jesper admitted is hideous, though now it’s splattered with blood that actually really ties the colour scheme together. Still gross though, and luckily slung over the chair. Along with the purple kefta Kaz hid underneath, the one he still hasn’t given back. Or burned, which is what they did to the other Ravkan overcoats. On the streets his two coats bulked up his frame so much he looked like a kid that Jesper’s never met, dressed up to play a gangster’s role. He looked nothing like the Sun Summoner anymore, and only somewhat like Jesper’s imagined baby Dirtyhands crawling out straight from the harbour, fifty kilos sopping wet and ready to kill a man and feast on his entrails.

Now, he’s stripped down to a ruffled red shirt over a green undershirt—he conspicuously shunned the yellow one next to it on the washing line—and light blue pinstripe trousers. The shirt is a little large in the shoulders, and he’s cuffed the trousers. They stole everything from a cottage on the edge of Ketterdam. Not quite Barrel flash, but almost—alike in style but with better fabric, something a town edge kid probably bought to look like a cool gangster. Or something Jesper would have bought to look special for a very special date. If he squints, he can almost imagine—it’s the morning after, and—

Ever since the Little Palace the idea of Kaz naked has totally lost its lustre. The idea of his muscular but scrawny, scarred chest, his wiry tattooed arms, his ambiguously demonic hands—it’s all overlaid now with a flimsy ugly sleeveless yellow paper taffeta gown. With normal hands, kept bare as humiliation.

But maybe—maybe they sat together, not on a log in a forest but on a sofa this time, and then in the morning Kaz was cold and he stole all of Jesper’s clothes to wear over his own. That’s much better. (Maybe he just wanted Jesper naked all day…)

Jesper won’t let the Darkling steal his fantasies, too. They’re—

Ouch. Fucking ouch.

Jesper really shouldn’t have added tiny spiky worms to the side of the cane, but Kaz’ indignation was just too funny.

“Let me make this clear—” Kaz rasps, once he’s regained Jesper’s full attention. Half-full. ‘Like he’s plundered Jesper’s wardrobe’ is still such a good look on him. “We are both hunted. Neither of us can afford to be caught outside on the streets of Ketterdam and let whoever saw us live. If we’re going to make Haskell’s house our temporary base of operations, we need to make his death as inconspicuous as possible. We cannot safely anticipate which of his visitors to eliminate and which to fool unless we know whether they, in turn, may be missed.”

“Well,” Jesper mutters. “Mitki might come by. If the neighbours don’t chase him off.”

Kaz raises a single, dirt-encrusted eyebrow.

“Mitki’s the newest lieutenant. Might have made it this—”

“Not Anika? I can understand why a flake like you didn’t rise in the Dregs ranks, but she—”

“Ambush. Dime Lions, five weeks after you disappeared.”

“Rotty?”

“Slit throat. Still no clue who did it.”

“Specht? Pim? Neeta? Big Bol?”

“Razorgulls, knife, last year. Bullet to the head, same day. Hellgate. Hellgate.”

“Muzzen? Ruk? Keeg?”

“Another ‘Gull stabbing, just before I left. Hellgate, again. Keeg just disappeared, though. Might still be alive somewhere over the True Sea, if he’s clever. Not that he was, he’s probably floating, poor sod.” Jesper shrugs. After a while, it just gets too much: the beginning of the Dregs’ end is seared into his brain, but there aren’t enough synapses for the tenth—or fiftieth—dead friend to hurt as much. “There’s a reason why I didn’t think twice about running when I lost those fifty thousand. Like I said, boss, it’s been a shitshow since you left. Haskell never wanted for new ones, since he got his kids fresh off the street, but he just stopped giving any shit whatsoever, and since you weren’t there to pick up the slack… well, I can see why he didn’t care, now.”

Jesper spares a bitter look for the mountain of kruge next to Haskell’s foot, the mountain he offered Kaz as soon as he saw him, long before Kaz even tried to hack off both his hands and feet with a dull meat cleaver. Long before Kaz had to settle for cutting down to the bone and then wrenching Haskell’s extremities from their sockets by sheer force of hatred, while Jesper puked into the kitchen sink. The mountain he’d never have amassed as the boss of a gang as shambolic as the last years of the Dregs.

The mountain that’s going to pay off Inej’s indenture tomorrow.

Haskell allowed her to rot there. It’s only fair he pays for her freedom with his life.

“Everyone we could use is gone. And you…” Kaz tips Jesper’s chin up with his cane. The world shimmies a little. “You, of all the old Dregs, survived.”

Jesper shrugs again. This is too much to confess to Kaz, of all cruel bastards, probably far too much, but—they’re sitting in the living room of Jesper’s former boss, the man who sold Kaz out to the Darkling and used the prize money to live in luxury, while letting his gang die on increasingly pointless ill-planned errands. The other end of the table is still flecked and puddled with slow-drying blood—not to mention the corpse, or corpse-pieces, laying there—but over here, they have a bottle of expensive whisky they found in a cabinet and they’re trading swigs from the bottle, all bitter and clean.

“I didn’t take it too well, when you and Inej just disappeared, and then my friends kept dying. Might have gone on a couple of benders. Might have lost some games. Might have lost some fights. Might have had some sexual encounters with people who turned out to be massive creeps. Consequently, I may not have been technically around to be asked to go on some of these errands, or perhaps I just didn’t notice because I was drunk.”

“Jesper.” Kaz doesn’t even sound surprised. Wow. Thanks for having faith in me, boss.

It’s not really that humiliating, though, now he’s said it out loud. He spent two years making bad decisions and occasionally braiding Inej’s hair. Kaz spent that time getting turned into a doll. Who can say what’s worse? He takes another deep gulp and grins. “You know me, boss. I need some external structure in life. I really need a commandeering asshole dragging me into his schemes to be my best self.”

“And yet, you outwitted the Darkling.”

“That wasn’t difficult, to be fair. Tell them I’m Grisha, search the Little Palace, shoot Kaz Brekker in the head, get executed…” Jesper trails off. When the silence grows teeth, he takes a pull of whisky that’s so desperate it makes him cough, but Kaz is still letting him stew.

They don’t really need to talk about it, though. No value in going over what happened in the Little Palace. No value in discussing anything. Everything is fine now. Yes, Jesper did want to kill Kaz. Yes, he’ll die for Kaz.

And they both know why.

Kaz steals the bottle. It’s incredible, actually, Jesper was just holding it—well, maybe he’s a little more drunk than he thought, but Kaz would probably like being complimented on his pickpocketing. “I didn’t even see you steal that bottle,” Jesper says.

“I’d be angry you’re drunk,” Kaz rasps. “But you’ve been completely useless at all stages of the current plan so far. And the previous one, by your planning—I always forget, in my amazement at what you accomplished, that you failed.”

He says that, but his cheeks are flushed pink with alcohol. His pupils are wide when he looks at Jesper. He raises the bottle to his lips and tips his head back, swallowing what should have easily been ten more swigs of whisky. Thieving bastard.

☼

When Jesper awakes on Haskell’s second softest chaise longue in the receiving room—neither of them was particularly eager to climb into Haskell’s bed, and, in Jesper’s case, not particularly still able to walk up the stairs either—his mouth is dry, his bladder full and the light is poking his brain even through closed curtains and eyelids. And Kaz—he searches the whole house after finishing his business, but yes, it’s true—Kaz is gone.

So are his cane and his current Barrel flash coat and the kefta, which means Kaz is probably safe. Well. As safe as the escaped Sun Summoner can be. Not kidnapped, at least. More alive than anyone stupid enough to cross Kaz’ path.

He’s taken Haskell’s kruge, and left a note.

In Kaz’ sharp hand, the note reads, “STAY.”

It’s underlined three times, and on the back side Kaz has written, “or you will die,” which to be fair is pretty ambiguous.

‘Die’ as in, ‘I mistrust your competence and assume you’ll get yourself killed if you move a finger?’ Or as in, ‘I’m warning you I won’t go out of my way to save you?’ Perhaps it’s a straightforward ‘Disobey and I am going to personally murder you and piss on your corpse?’ All are very real possibilities, knowing Kaz.

To really understand the message, Jesper needs to get into Kaz’ mood when he woke up—hungover, but how much? Enough he hates the entire world, or so much he hates Jesper more? Also, his current way of thinking. Jesper’s usefulness. A point in favour is the fact that Jesper saved him from a fate worse than death, but on the other hand, Jesper forgot to extract a deal from him and Kaz is so Kerch it hurts, which means he’s pared down solidarity and reciprocity and love into exchange, into deals, and all Jesper’s offering are the first three. They shared a bottle of whisky next to the corpse of their old boss, though, and in general Kaz looked like he was having fun more than once on their dirty, miserable long trek out of Ravka. Way more fun than he had in the majestic Little Palace. Also, Jesper’s incredibly likeable. He’s beautiful and funny and stupidly in love with Kaz without asking anything in return, so really it only makes sense that Kaz has finally succumbed to his charm.

(He dug his hand into Jesper’s hair, that night on the fallen tree and twice afterwards, but—maybe that was only to make Jesper squirm.)

Well, he enjoyed Jesper’s company while they fled from Ravka to Ketterdam, at least. That’s the crux of it.

So why would Kaz anticipate that Jesper might want to run anywhere? There’s a well-stocked kitchen here. A far more sensible assumption would be that Jesper might want to make some waffles or go on a morning jog. No, not that one. Enjoy a lavish breakfast. Have a bath, perhaps, after spending two weeks crawling through the Ravkan forest and the Shu countryside and stowed in the belly of a wine cargo ship and then countryside again, this time Kerch. Jesper’s feet hurt just thinking about it, and that Kaz managed to get here, even at the half-speed they settled on, speaks to—well, the same bull-headed masochism as always, but the fact he still refused to even consider stealing a cart or horse or approach any larger settlement before Ketterdam means he must be even more terrified of the Darkling than Jesper can imagine. He refused to leave any trace whatsoever. (And yet he’s back in Ketterdam, the one city in the world he was connected to before the Little Palace, because…?)

Ketterdam is the only city, village, collection of buildings and people they’ve been to for weeks, which means it’s the first chance Jesper has to gamble, but—even he knows not to stake anything on the possibility there’s someone left in the Barrel who doesn’t know about Jesper Fahey, he who owes Pekka Rollins fifty thousand kruge and just skipped town, kill immediately with extreme prejudice.

Well, Rollins is dead now—the only gang boss courageous or aggrieved or hungry enough to try and covertly resist the Darkling, go figure—but whoever’s head Lion now probably won’t even let Jesper try to spin an argument about how he really owes that money to ‘Pekka Rollins’ Dime Lions’, not any successor organizations. No such luck, and anyway, people stupid enough to bounce on their debts are fair game to any gang in the Barrel. They don’t cooperate on much, not even for mutual benefit, but murdering dishonest gamblers? That’s a team sport.

Jesper’s last recklessly suicidal plan worked out fantastic, so maybe he should find a card table. His luck’s turned. He could win millions.

Which Kaz definitely would anticipate, and warn him away from. Kaz is a buzzkill. Just because Jesper’s going to get murdered on sight in the Barrel…

Because Jesper’s gonna get murdered on sight in the Barrel.

If Kaz wants to rebuild his status in the Barrel, there’s no bigger liability than Jesper. And Kaz wants to, surely. He worked his way up inside the Dregs carefully and diligently, spent more time than anyone sane would inside a tiny attic office adding up numbers, and sucked up to an utter piece of shit like Haskell, just so he could one day become a Barrel boss. And now, to rise again, he has to cut off the dead weight.

Which means Jesper.

That’s why he left.

It’s not even a betrayal. They don’t have an agreement for life after reaching Ketterdam, let alone one that says Jesper can follow him forever and ever just like in the good old days. Inej—but Inej’s actually useful to a new Barrel boss, as soon as her indenture’s paid. Jesper’s the weak link here. Jesper’s screwed.

Which doesn’t mean he won’t go down fighting. He knows the way to the Menagerie—the quickest way, the scenic route, the paths least commonly trafficked by Pigeons and the ones usually avoided by staadwatch or gangsters. He knows Kaz well enough to guess which one he’s taken. If he hasn’t woken too late—and by the sun’s position, it’s still early in the morning—then he has a chance to pass Kaz off and… insult him? Beg? Cry? Sell his father’s soul for a position in the new Dregs? Maybe he’ll just have to wear a Komedie Brute mask for the rest of his life and it’ll be fine. He’ll figure it out later.

Jesper draws his shoulders up to his ears while he scurries through empty alleyways, the collar of his fancy pseudo-Barrel flash coat turned up. He’s almost glad that Kaz made him go hatless and shaved bald—thoroughly unstylish and un-Jesper enough he might survive the morning—but there are drawbacks to the disguise in the damp chill.

Also, the disguise isn’t good enough. After some minutes, Jesper notices that some clusters of metal stay at roughly the same distance to him. Eight clusters of—round, small, definitely mostly kruge with a few Ravkan coins thrown in. Thirteen guns. A rifle. Two of the coin clusters are fairly close together and move in unison. Jesper’s dealing with seven shadows, then.

That’s—a lot.

Jesper’s had a little more training being a Durast now, but what he could really use now is combat training. He hasn’t even been in a battle in over a month, unless you count handing Kaz knives while he carves up Per Haskell, and since Jesper had to puke right after, you probably shouldn’t. He’s fought rabbits. Jesper’s sure fought some rabbits in Ravka. Two deer, too.

He could probably escape his pursuers. It would take time, though, time Jesper doesn’t have when Kaz is leaving him behind without a word. He’ll just have to kill them quickly.

At least there’s one of his favourite surveillance detection routes nearby. One of the rare aboveground tunnels in Ketterdam, not used by Pigeons for obvious reasons of creepiness and also because it just leads to a big courtyard behind a factory: a courtyard that’s easy to escape, when you know the gate’s lock is broken. Kaz showed it to him, just weeks after Jesper got recruited, after the second time the ‘Gulls got the drop on him and beat him to a pulp. In the courtyard, he made Jesper shoot some sparrows and some pigeons to prove his worth. Not crows, though, and for a year Jesper believed that detail was just thrown in to test whether Jesper would obey nonsensical orders. It’s still a plausible explanation.

He’ll just have to ask Kaz, after he begs him for a role in the new Dregs. After he kills these seven pursuers.

If.

He catches the first man off-guard and blows his head off when he exits the tunnel, but after that, it’s a stand-off. Jesper, hiding behind a massive wood barrel for cover, against six men ducked into the mouth of the tunnel.

Jesper manages to pick off another man by firing into the tunnel and blindly redirecting the bullet into the first nook, but the second attempt at using that trick doesn’t hit anything, and neither does the third. He has eight bullets left now, and five enemies. Even Jesper can tell that’s bad odds.

Retreating across the courtyard, though—the first few meters are fine, there are enough wine barrels and he can just dash from one to another, slightly nudging bullets off their course so none hit him.

Those guys have far too many bullets left, though, by the time Jesper’s forty meters away from the gate. Forty meters without cover. His pursuers aren’t bad shots either—likely Dime Lions, because there’s no way a Liddy would ever get so close that Jesper has to redirect their bullet—and they’re cautious enough that only two of them are crouched behind that barrel next to the tunnel, now, while the rest are still hidden inside.

This might get a little tough—but if Jesper starts manipulating bullets more obviously, will that information travel to the Little Palace? They know the Sun Summoner escaped with a Fabrikator. Is he painting a target on Kaz’ back?

Is he—

Bloodcurdling screams and groans, and Jesper’s too far away to hear any thwacks but his senses have expanded and he knows that metal coating intimately. Knows that cane.

Kaz emerges from the tunnel opening, Inej behind him, and—

Boom.

The Dime Lion’s shot him.

Right in the chest, and Kaz stumbles, falls to his knees.

Keels over.

Jesper shoots wildly while he runs over, whirling the bullets around the barrel that the Dime Lions are hiding behind—two left, Kaz wouldn’t have let any of the ones in the tunnel escape—desperate to hit something or at least keep them distracted and scared long enough to get there, or for—Inej’s pulling Kaz back by his coat, and she’s still wearing a sheer Menagerie dress, she probably doesn’t have any knives to protect—nothing’s hit yet, nothing’s hit, and all Jesper’s bullets are in the air whizzing around but he’s not hitting anything and Kaz is down and Kaz—

Kaz pushes himself to his knees, and then he stands up.

He’s breathing hard, and in the ugly rose/amber/bloodstain trench there’s a hole above his heart, sooty and burnt, but he’s still alive, Kaz is alive, he’s—

“What are you?” a Dime Lion gasps. Jesper’s finally got a bead on her. He sinks three bullets into her head.

“I just killed…” The other one is less lucky, and Jesper only manages to hit his stomach before he runs out of airborne bullets. He’ll die, but it won’t be quick.

“I crawled out of the harbour before. I’ll do it again,” Kaz rasps, and before the Dime Lion manages more than “Dirty—” a wet squelch informs Jesper of his demise.

That’s all of them.

“Kaz, you—” Inej’s much quicker at Kaz’ side, but he moves away before she can touch him to check his injury. Moves quickly enough he’s probably not on death’s door. He is a good actor, though. She looks at Jesper, and he’s about to join her in begging Kaz to get some medical aid, at least, but then Kaz shrugs off the ruined trench coat.

“Those kefta aren’t entirely useless,” Kaz rasps, grinning like an amused fucking asshole who almost gave Jesper a heart attack.

And then, Inej wraps herself around Jesper.

“You’re alive! I was terrified,” she shouts against his chest, slapping his back and grabbing as if she can’t decide whether to kill Jesper or never let go. “I thought you got yourself killed! You just disappeared, no word, I thought—”

“I may have lost a game where the stake was fifty thousand kruge?”

“You—Jes—” Inej squeezes him harder. “I told you to stop. I’d rather have you, with me, than have you die trying to pay me off.”

“I almost won! But there was no chance I’d get out of it, without indenturing myself, and—it all worked out, didn’t it? You’re free! Which reminds me…” Jesper takes off his own coat—blue and green and purple wave patterns, very fancy, a bit on the small side for him—and lays it onto Inej’s shoulders. It suits her, too—it drowns her a little, sure, but the way the coat reaches down to her ankles looks regal, and anyway, Kaz is a good sewer. He’ll fix this. “Can’t have you catching a cold.”

Before she can reply—tell him again she wasn’t worth risking his life and freedom in every card game he could for two years, when she definitely is, she’s Inej, he’ll do anything for her—he runs away and searches the dead Dime Lions for a new coat for himself, all their money, the rifle, and picks up the used bullets too. Knowing Kaz, he’ll want them to leave this place soon, and Jesper can’t very well try to convince his boss he needs to keep his sharpshooter around when he has no bullets left.

Speaking of—Jesper saunters over to Kaz when he’s done. With his most careless grin, he says, “I want my goodbye kiss before you ditch me.”

“I left you a note,” Kaz rasps. “I should have remembered you can’t read.”

Which as good as counts as a promise that Kaz didn’t intend to leave him behind: that, and the adrenaline of an easy gunfight has Jesper grinning widely. This is the life he wanted. The life he yearned for during the last two miserable years. The Crows are back, baby. He asks, “What now, boss?”

“We leave. Before anyone comes to investigate those gunshots.”

“Novyi Zem?”

“No,” Kaz rasps, just as Inej says, “They’ll let us drown.”

“They what?”

“Move.” Kaz starts limping past the factory, and then doubles back one street over—in the general direction away from the sea. Jesper and Inej quickly flank him. “I went to the Fifth Harbour before I paid off Inej’s indenture. It’s near empty. Old man there said no boats go to Novyi Zem or Eames Chin right now, and no boats come back. Because nothing gets unloaded. Kerch ships can’t dock there. They all get stranded at sea.”

“People started running when Ravka cut us off from the continent,” Inej mutters. “Before the invasion. And now the Darkling’s gone, the Kerch Grisha are either running or dead.”

“Too many refugees, apparently. Something about culture and scroungers and economic migrants. Novya Zem’s closed its ports to Kerch.”

“But I’m Zemeni—”

“You’re just a person. Those borders don’t exist to help you. The harbour watch don’t exist for you, the government doesn’t exist for you—if there’s a choice between cementing their power and your life, every bureaucrat worth their salt will choose the former.”

Jesper wants to argue, but actually, he’d trust Kaz over Novyi Zem a million times. Kaz saved his life when Ketterdam and Kerch would have swallowed him whole. Novyi Zem isn’t any different. “So we’re stuck in Ketterdam, then, where I’ll get shot on sight and you’ll easily get tracked by the Darkling. I only remember one safehouse that’s still uncompromised, as of last month anyway, unless you think we should go back to Haskell’s, boss?”

“Inej,” Kaz rasps. “That shop over there. Buy us a cart. We’re going to Lij.”

“What’s in Lij, boss? Why Lij? Where is Lij, anyway?”

But Kaz doesn’t answer him. Even aboard the cart, directing their new donkey with a seemingly perfect grasp of the roads leading to a small southern Kerch town none of them have ever been to, he refuses to elaborate. He looks tense, though. Jesper reshapes his many new bullets while he walks alongside. If there’s a fight waiting for them in Lij, they’re going to win.

☼

Kaz paces the length of the room. Window, door, window, door—there’s not much space beside the marriage bed, and the air draft of his passing caresses Jesper’s shorn head.

He’s put back together now, dressed in his socks and his boots and his underpants and his trousers and his gloves, though his torso’s only covered by the open purple kefta. Despite the cane, he limps more heavily than before he trekked for weeks through the Ravkan forest. He’s not fully recovered yet, if he’ll ever be.

Jesper’s on the floor. He climbed off the bed—off Kaz, after he ruined Kaz’ stupid get proxy-raped by the proxy-Darkling again plan. He said what he said, and the silence that followed was all the answer he’ll get, and then he sat down on the floor. It’s as good a place to wait as any. Probably more hygienic than the bed, anyway. He watched Kaz dress, until he almost looked like the Barrel lieutenant they both wish he was still allowed to be, and now he’s watching Kaz Brekker Dirtyhands the Sun Summoner pace holes in the old dusty floor of an abandoned farmhouse an hour’s walk outside of the small Kerch town of Lij.

He’s not getting murdered, though. Not for what he almost did. Not for what he said. That’s as good as this was ever going to go.

“It was worse this time.” Kaz directs his rasp towards the floor. He doesn’t stop moving. “I froze. Why was it—it was you. I knew you were—you’d never—with you it should have been more tolerable. Not worse.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, boss.” Jesper still can’t decide whether he should be ashamed that he was too squeamish to go through with it. Kaz doesn’t seem as angry as he could be, that Jesper totally fucked up this whatever-it-was-supposed-to-be. Not the mocking disappointment he doles out at Jesper’s predictable failures—gambling, distractibility, lateness, no impulse control and so on—and not the seething hatred when Jesper does something he hasn’t anticipated.

“I turned it over and over in my mind. For a year. What I did wrong. How I could have turned this to my advantage. How to excise this weakness. I thought I’d found—but there’s nothing.”

Jesper would offer to brutally desecrate the Darkling’s corpse again, but it clearly doesn’t help. Kaz won’t let this go. Never mind that he was a teenage thief imprisoned in a palace. Never mind it was him against the whole entourage of the most powerful Grisha. The man who crowned himself Emperor.

Sometimes you’re just fucked. And there’s nothing you can do. Life isn’t fair.

“There is a way to beat him,” Kaz hisses. “And I will find it.”

“You did. Sort of.”

“What—”

Jesper grins a shark-grin. “You’re not in Ravka now, are you?”

“That doesn’t count.”

“Why doesn’t it? No, boss, listen—he didn’t beat you alone, either, right? He had his Tailor making you into a doll. His Fabrikators locking your cage. His soldiers. Hell, Haskell selling you out—so really, it’s your victory that I found you.” Now that Jesper’s trying to explain his gut reaction, it just seems more and more logical. “Why can’t you have your own gang? You practically rescued yourself. You took a look at a boy who’d have gotten shot in a few weeks because he couldn’t pay is debts and he couldn’t stop fucking gambling—you had me dragged up to your office. You took that chance. You saved my life so I could save yours. That’s… planning ahead. Planning years ahead. Well done.”

Kaz finally, finally stops pacing. He sinks into the mattress just slightly to the right of Jesper, so he can sprawl out his legs without making contact. He looks at Jesper, but he’s silent, and his face isn’t giving anything away.

At first, that makes it feel like he’s actually listening. Actually considering what Jesper told him, and agreeing. Kaz is a quick thinker, though. He doesn’t need this long to realize that Jesper’s correct, which means he’s coming up with counterarguments—arguments why actually, he’s still weak or whatever and needs to force himself—and Jesper really, really can’t watch him do this to himself again. Why this, anyway? Why is this the weakness he fixated on?

“Why is that creep so obsessed with making you touch people, anyway?”

“Because it’s easy. Necessary. Even a child does it. Touch is what makes us human, and the Sun Summoner is human, whatever lies he tells himself,” Kaz recites. His eyes are bright. Wet.

“Bullshit. You terrorized the Barrel for years and it didn’t matter at all that you never touched anyone. It was just you. It didn’t even really sink in for me, that you don’t touch people, until I saw the way he dressed you up, how miserable you were.” That’s probably a good place to leave it, but Jesper’s livid. Jesper could mince and mangle fifty Darklings with the pure force of his loathing, and there’s not even a single one around here. That energy has to go somewhere. “You’re trying to tell me the Ravkan fucking palace couldn’t change protocol a little and adapt? If it never mattered in the Barrel, it never mattered at all. He just picked something. If you’d been allergic to shellfish, that’s the only food he would have served you, and he would have said you’re weak for your windpipe swelling up. He wasn’t able control you because touch made you weak. When you’re in control, it doesn’t matter. Because you fucking kill whoever touches you. You don’t bow to them. They bow to you.”

Kaz doesn’t reply. He doesn’t look away from Jesper, though. He just stares down at him, with his eyes still wide and still wet. He mutters, “You’ve turned quite opinionated in my absence, Jesper.”

“In your presence. I’m quoting your words back to you—sort of, it was about the cane, and I’ve forgotten half of it. But you were right. You were always right.” Jesper laughs. “See? Now you’re teaching yourself through time and space! Your masterplan is incredibly fucking elaborate!”

“My—I’m not falling for it.” Kaz is grinning, though. “If I agree now—by this time tomorrow you’ll have done something incredibly stupid and you’ll throw the whole Everything I do is your triumph because you saved me thing in my face. I’m not responsible for your awful jokes!”

Pretending to wipe tears from his eyes, Jesper wails, “My plan! My ingenious plan! Foiled by the dastardly Dirtyhands, oh no!”

Kaz laughs at him. Kaz laughs, and laughs, and Jesper joins him.

It takes a while before Kaz stops, gasping for breath. No-one in Ravka’s ever told a good joke, Jesper decides, because he’s made way funnier jokes before that Kaz didn’t even chuckle at, but gift horses and mouths and so on. Colour’s returned to Kaz’ face: his cheeks are blotchy and red, even after his breathing’s evened out. Kaz mumbles, “You know, that’s exactly how I imagined it.”

What? Oh. Jesper’s sprawled on the floor, leaning back on his elbows, his shirt pulled out of his trousers—his trousers, which are open, and he still hasn’t tucked away his dick. He forgot. There were more far important things to do, and now… well, he probably looks more debauched than Kaz in his purple kefta, with just his prick exposed to the chilly night-time Kerch air while he lounges on the ground. He ghosts a finger over it.

“Do you want me to—do you want to watch, boss?”

“I’d—” Kaz swallows. “Saints.”

Jesper turns a little, so Kaz can get a better view. He doesn’t undress, in case that’s an integral part of the fantasy, just gently trails his fingers down his still-limp dick—though it’s definitely waking up now—and looks up at Kaz.

Kaz doesn’t meet his eyes anymore, but that’s fine: more than fine, when he’s alternately looking at Jesper’s cock and at Jesper’s lips. Jesper darts out his tongue, and Kaz’ pupils blow even wider. Jesper licks down his palm and starts jerking off in earnest. “Hey, boss,” Jesper mutters, and when the head jerks up Jesper blows him a tiny kiss.

“What do you think about?” Kaz rasps.

“I just look at you. That’s enough. I like your face.” The tiny quirk of his lips, the way his eyes dart back down. “What are you thinking about, boss?”

“I didn’t expect you to enjoy this as much.”

“Seriously, boss, I know you’re not that stupid. How many times—”

“Not me,” Kaz mumbles. He gestures obscurely at the room. Jesper. The wall. The floor. The floor again. “This. It’s—not proper. Demeaning.”

“I wasn’t feeling demeaned until you started talking—”

“I was going to make you my right hand, once I took over the Dregs. Not my whore—”

“You were?” slips out, small and breathless, before Jesper remembers that this is for Kaz. This for him to enjoy. The warmth expanding in Jesper’s ribcage can wait. “There’s nothing bad about this. You like it. I like it. I don’t see anyone else in this room, and even if—a very clever guy once told me that you don’t bow to the world. You make the world bow to you.”

☼

It’s scratching that wakes Jesper. Scratching like the sharpening of a knife, quick, impatient, desperate—but it’s Kaz who’s on watch right now, Kaz who found this shallow cave they’re spending the night in, and Kaz wouldn’t let any danger come this close unnoticed. Unfought. Kaz wouldn’t just leave Jesper to his fate—would he?

He wouldn’t. At least not yet.

Kaz is sitting at the mouth of the cave. The moon drenches his matted dirty hair in its white glory, his handmade trousers, his naked wiry chest. His chest which he hasn’t bared for a second since Jesper gave him the kefta, even pulling off the Sun Summoner chemise that they tore into threads while still wrapped up in both of his coats: but now he’s half-naked, head bending down to look at those tines sticking out of his clavicle. Those antlers, those keratinized tumours, those bone cancers. Whatever those mutations are, he wants them gone.

In the right hand, he’s holding the knife that Jesper made from buttons so they could cut the blanket into trouser-shapes. In the left hand, he’s holding one of the protrusions growing from his body.

And then, he starts hacking again.

Viciously, helplessly, like a sick rabbit mutated into its own trap. He misses, once, and the knife sinks into his collarbone: but silently he tears it out again and cuts at the cancerous bone, and the knife’s sharp but the only dents that Jesper can see are tiny, glowing, lighting up the knife that’s flecked with his own blood.

☼

Jesper stirs the potato chunks. Thankfully, the old hearth still works, at least after he and Inej fed it with firewood they brought from the market, and so he’s cooking potatoes in butter and water. He mashes them up with some heavy wooden implement he found in a cabinet, once they’re soft enough—he washed it of course; he doesn’t want to eat moth shit—and then Inej passes him a wooden board of carrots in neat small identical pieces. Show-off. Jesper loves her so fucking much.

“Careful, don’t let it burn,” she says, twirling her knife, and Jesper—well, he meant to stir the pot of what’s apparently becoming stamppot. He did. He didn’t mean to think of how he’ll get Inej and Kaz out of Ravka—

And that’s when Kaz limps into the kitchen. He wasn’t still asleep when Inej and Jesper went into town to get some food—as if the Bastard of the Barrel ever sleeps in, even when he’s far from his titular Barrel—but he begged off the trip. He told them to say they’re working for Johannus Rietveld, if they’re asked, who’s apparently inherited this farm, but—they weren’t asked a thing, anyway, and who knows what Kaz did in the meantime. Who knows what weird cover identity he’s cooked up that they haven’t yet had to invoke. And whether it’s weirder than the one Jesper just created.

Jesper gives him a tender little smile. “Had a good morning?”

“No.”

“Because of last—”

But Kaz can read Jesper at least as well as he can read himself. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he rasps. “You’re the least terrifying person I’ve ever met.” Which probably means Yes, I’m rattled, but I won’t take it out on you. Too much.

“Thanks, darling.” And obeying Inej’s sharp elbow, he goes back to stirring the potato mash, and the slices of rookworst smoked sausage she’s dumped into another pan as well. “We decided Inej needs a proper homecooked meal, now she’s free, and we both haven’t eaten anything worth eating for ages, either.”

“You cook?”

“I grew up with my Da. It was either him or me. We traded off, if you want to know, and I’m pretty good apart from when it mysteriously turns into charcoal. And we didn’t find any Zemeni spices in the Lij market—this isn’t Ketterdam, and this old trader I talked to, she said it’s because maritime traffic to Novyi Zem is down to trickles at this point there’s a real dearth of spices, she couldn’t get them at any reasonable price—”

“Don’t burn the stamppot,” Inej orders.

“Anyway, we found a recipe tacked to the wall behind the oven, so that’s what I’m making now. Something super Kerch. Stamppot—you’ve ever eaten it?”

Kaz makes a sound that’s deeply indecipherable. Jesper can’t even tell whether it’s mournful or happy.

“Anyway, we’re almost done. Spinach now, please—Inej made me stick to the recipe, you know—and then the fried sausage and some salt and… you’ll stay with us for lunch, right, even if it isn’t royal Little Palace fare?”

“We ate unseasoned burnt rabbits in the forest,” Kaz replies curtly. He’s gotten over whatever strange emotion took hold of him, then.

“Yeowtch, they were awful. Why didn’t you remind me to take them off the fire. I know how to smuggle us into Novyi Zem,” Jesper says, carrying the deep pot over to their chosen clean bit of floor. Next to the windowsill, so Kaz can sit down with a little less discomfort—the house has been cleaned out apart from the marriage bed, really, and making Kaz go in there now… Making Inej go in there now, when it’s where last night he and Kaz had sex… And it’s not like they were loud, but who knows what Inej read into them pacing around each other for an hour. This is much less awkward. Besides, Jesper’s recently had some great experiences with floors.

Inej doesn’t stop playing with her knife, even after she balances her stamppot served on woodboard on her knees and digs in with her slightly bent spoon. She hasn’t set it down all morning, even carried it into town when they went looking for something to eat, and while she’s been supervising Jesper’s cooking—making sure he’s reading the recipe, keeping him on-track, bickering with him over unclear or illegible instructions—she’s been twirling it around her fingers. A truly remarkable feat, given that it’s the piece of shit knife that Jesper cobbled together from coat buttons, and he didn’t know what he was doing at all except that it should probably be sharp. Inej really needs to talk him through the finer points of balance if she wants him to overhaul the thing.

“They’re not letting in any more refugees from Kerch, you said,” Jesper starts setting up the explanation for his ingenious plan, while he passes over Kaz’ portion and another spoon he dug out from the bottom of a cabinet and small-scienced back into shape.

“The rich Kerch started running first, when the Darkling advanced. Anyone who’d ever had a Grisha indenture… They probably got in. They had the money. As for the rest… well, we’ve all heard of what happened in Fjerda, unless we’re Jesper and too busy drinking and playing Makker’s Wheel—”

“Hey! I was trying to pay off your indenture,” Jesper complains, while nibbling on his surprisingly decent if underspiced potato mash. “I’m Zemeni. They’ll let me in.”

Kaz still hasn’t touched his food. He hasn’t put it away either though, hand cradling the board instead of throwing it at Jesper. Maybe it’s because he’s too curious about the plan. Jesper should have waited, but he was too excited, and now Kaz is frowning as he replies, “So you keep saying. How does that help us? I assume you wouldn’t leave the two of us behind, after all that trouble you took.”

It feels good, to hear him say that. Almost good enough to forgive that Kaz doesn’t like his lunch. “That’s where my plan comes in. I’ve finally figured it out. If we’re married—”

“We can’t marry each other,” Kaz rasps. Before Jesper gets too sad about that, he continues, “In case you haven’t yet learned to count, we’re three people now.”

“I know. That’s why I’ve been thinking it over for so long. But divorce exists, you know so I was thinking that our story should be—and I’ll write to Da, but I thought you should probably agree first—I married one of you and then fell in love with the other but I still loved both, so I was trying to—”

Inej coughs. Laughs. Yeah, she’s definitely laughing at him, and then she says, “You’re going to tell your father about your marriage in a letter—your multiple marriages, because not only did you get married without inviting him, you already traded in your wife for a younger, prettier model. You lothario!”

“If you think that Kaz—actually, are you younger than Inej?”

Kaz, spoon in mouth, glares down at him.

“I’m trying to save our lives here. I’d appreciate some cooperation! And Da will forgive me, when he sees how happy I am with my new bonebreaking gangster wife and my old knife-twirling gangster wife who I had to divorce for petty bureaucratic reasons. Do you like it?”

Another spoonful of stamppot disappears into Kaz’ mouth. His eyes are closed while he chews, and then he looks away. His voice is hoarser than normal when he mumbles, “It tastes exactly the way I—it’s good.”

“Better than unseasoned rabbit charcoal. Anyway, it might throw the Darkling off our scent some more, if we disguise Kaz as a woman—and don’t be sexist. Women come in all shapes and sizes, no-one’s going to suspect a thing. Also we’re from Ketterdam. If any woman like Kaz can marry anywhere, it’s here. It’ll be a scandal, if they refuse to honour our marriage. Letting a few poors drown outside Zemeni borders, sure, but breaking the mutual recognition of administrative documents?”

Jesper is actually pretty proud of his reasoning here. That makes it even more annoying when Kaz rasps, “No-one will ever believe I’m your wife. I can’t even touch you.”

“No-one’s going to believe I love you? Are you sure?” Jesper flutters his eyes up at Kaz.

“He has a point, Jesper. You won’t be the first desperate refugee forging a marriage to leave.” Inej twirls her knife again. “You’ll need to act the part.”

“We’ll just tell them the truth.”

“Which is?”

“You don’t want to be touched, and if they have a follow-up question, they’d better direct it to the barrel of my gun. I’m not letting anybody non-consensually grope my beloved Kerch wife. Never again. Not over my dead body.”

“Won’t they think it’s weird if Kaz—sorry, your beautiful Kerch wife doesn’t let you touch him?”

“I don’t care. I told you. Let the world bow to us. I love my ingenious, vicious Kerch wife, completely independent of any physical contact we may or may not ever have. I respect my stubborn loyal deadpan Kerch wife far too much to cross those boundaries just for social custom. Also, my sweet murderous Kerch wife has a mean right hook.”

“Thankyou for the demonstration of your acting skills,” Kaz rasps drily, scratching his spoon on his serving board for the last flecks of stamppot. “We’re not going to Novyi Zem, though. There are more amplifiers than just the Stag he forced into me, and we’re going to find the rest. I’m going to tear apart every miserable molecule in the Darkling’s body, cell by fucking cell.”

“And you just let me keep talking?”

“It was entertaining.” Kaz licks his spoon, and then the board. Any second now, Jesper will tell him there’s more left in the pot. “Write your Da. We’ll keep your plan as a backup, in case everything goes horribly wrong. You’ll need a ring, though, to make it official,” and Kaz starts rooting through the kefta pockets.

Jesper can’t breathe. Is Kaz really…? He can’t breathe until he looks at Kaz’ stretched-out, gloved hand, and—

“How the fuck did you steal that one?! I was just wearing it!”

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #497

Top Ten PC Games No One Talks About Anymore

Blimey, Quake is rather good, isn’t it? Have you heard about it? I really hope so, because it’s only twenty-five years old. I mean, Jesus. What’s up with that? Quake is meant to be the future. It’s full of true-3D polygonal texture-mapping and real-time dynamic light-sourcing. Fancy it being a quarter of a century old. That’s ridiculous. “Old” is for things like, I dunno, Space Invaders or The Godfather or I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Stuff that our parents heard about before we were born. It’s not – it’s absolutely not – used to describe something that people bought 3D accelerator cards for. It’s not used to describe a game that popularised online gaming.

But old it is, getting silver anniversary cards and everything. No longer the angry, hungry young tiger, devouring its ancestors and growling at upstart rivals like Duke Nukem 3D – sure, you’ve got non-linear levels, interactive scenery, and toilet humour, but we’ve got grenades that bounce with real physics – Quake is now an aged beast of the forest, resplendent, battle-scarred, weary with gravitas. Quake is the game that shaped the now, but it does not represent the future anymore. In fact, arguably its greatest rival – Unreal – is the game with the lasting, living legacy, its progeny building the next generation of gaming with one of the most popular and impressive engines around, the framework underpinning everything from Gears to Jedi to Fortnite. Quake blew us all away, but arguably it ceded the conflict, secure in its status as one of the most important and influential games of all time. Quake II got plaudits for actually having a proper story and an engrossing single-player campaign (and coloured lighting!), and its immediate descendants such as Half-Life changed the nature of what FPS games could do, but in a funny way it feels like Quake has long since retired. A sleeping titan. It got old.

So it’s great that they rereleased it on modern systems! The version of Quake released last month is basically the game I remember, but tarted up a little around the edges, with texture filtering and dynamic shadows and other stuff that I couldn’t manage on my Pentium 75 back in the day. It plays great – it’s slick as anything, and you go tearing round the levels like a Ferrari with a nail gun, blasting dudes and ducking back around a corner before you get hit with a pineapple in the face. It’s the first game I’ve played in a long, long time that evokes the feel of classic PC first-person shooters of that era – which, y’know, kinda makes sense as it is a first-person shooter of that era. But that style of fast-paced run-and-gun, circle-strafing gameplay has gone out of fashion now, with FPS games usually favouring slow, methodical, tactical combat, or larger-scale open-world warfare usually involving vehicles. Whether it’s a straight-up no-frills blaster like Quake, or a game that takes you on more of a linear, narrative journey, like Quake II, or even just a multiplayer-focused arena shooter, like Quake III Arena, it does feel like a dying artform, like a style of gameplay that could do with a resurgence (and, to be fair, there are games on the horizon that look like they’re harking back to the era, so that’s cool).

But it’s not just first-person shooters like Quake that I feel have slipped from gaming’s shared consciousness. Maybe it’s my age (it’s definitely my age) but there seems to be quite a lot of games that were a big deal twenty or so years ago that are utterly forgotten now, whereas some – Doom, Duke Nukem, Command & Conquer, Age of Empires – are often namechecked or rebooted (even before the full-on 2016 reboot, Doom must have been one of the most re-released games of the last thirty years). But there are lots of others where sometimes I feel like I’m the only one that remembers it. And that’s where this list comes in: inspired by the excellent re-release of the Quake franchise, here are some other great PC games of that general era that I feel still need shouting about, even if I’m the only one doing the shouting. Maybe they don’t all need a full-on remaster or whatever, but it’d still be nice if they got a bit of modern gaming love.

No One Lives Forever (2000): coming at a time when most FPS games were still Doom-style blasters with little in the way of real plot, NOLF was different: stylish and funny, genuinely well-written (as in the dialogue), with interesting objective-based missions and a cool female protagonist. It skirted similar ground to Bond and the then-white-hot Austin Powers franchise. Two games were made and then, as far as I’m aware, it evaporated into a mess of tangled rights, hence no sequels or remakes. A shame, because it was great.

MDK (1997): the next game from the people who made the multimedia phenomenon that was Earthworm Jim, MDK was a really cool slice of sci-fi style, all sleek level design and intriguing features. It had a supremely bonkers plot which bled through into a game with a sense of humour, but mostly it was the run-and-gun gameplay and innovative use of a scoped weapon – possibly (don’t quote me on this) the first sniper rifle in a videogame. An even wackier sequel followed, but despite its cult status, that was it.

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Klingon Honor Guard (1998): it’s probably fair to say that Star Trek has not had as many great videogames as Star Wars, perhaps because Trek’s historically straightlaced earnestness just didn’t translate as well as bashing someone up the chops with a laser sword. Honor Guard shook things up by casting you as a Klingon, showering levels with pink blood and going Full Worf. It was the first game to licence the Unreal engine, and had a cool level where you walked along the outside of a ship like in First Contact. Also: shout out to the Voyager game, Elite Force (2000), which was another really good FPS set in the world of Trek, with intriguing gameplay wrinkles as you fought the Borg. It also let you wander round the titular starship between levels. Trek deserves more quality action games like these.

Earth 2150 (2000): the nineties on PC really saw RTS games come down to those who liked Command & Conquer or those who liked Warcraft, but as the decade drew to a close other titles chased the wargame crown (including Total Annihilation, which would have made this list, except I feel like the Supreme Commander franchise is a sequel in all but name). 2150 was notable for its Starcraft-like mix of three factions with contrasting play styles, and its use of 3D graphics and the ability to design and build weapons of war that could lay waste to armies and bases with spectacular results. I think the genre has ossified into something more hardcore, and this was probably an inflex point where idiots like me could still get a handle on things.

Midtown Madness (1999): Microsoft has a history of building up great racing franchises and then abandoning them, but their “Madness” line of games in the late nineties/early noughties was terrific and much-missed. Back when tooling round actual 3D cities was still new and exciting, this was a no-holds-barred arcade racer, with some gorgeous shiny chrome effects on the cars, and very nippy handling. It was great fun smashing up VW Beetles and the like. It was surpassed, I guess, by Project Gotham on the Xbox, and sadly the whole franchise was then forgotten, despite the ascendent Forza franchise mostly shunning city driving.

Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines (1998): part tactical war game, part puzzler, Commandos was famous for its gorgeously intricate graphics and its difficulty – I mean, it was way too hard for me. But its beautiful top-down design and its slow, methodical gameplay was compelling, as you evaded Nazis and solved missions with a team of unique units with special skills. Sequels followed, and western spin-off Desperados, but there’s not been a true follow-up for quite some time, despite promises; and few games have echoed its style or look.

The Pandora Directive (1996): okay, so really this is just a placeholder for an entire subgenre of game that appears to have been forgotten: interactive movies. I know, there are flirtations with this from time to time; and many of these games featured obtuse puzzles and relatively little gameplay strung between FMV scenes. Pandora was great though; a first-person 3D game with loads of old-school adventure aspects, as well as FMV, it was a noir-tinged detective story but set in the future. The Tex Murphy series (of which this was the fourth instalment) has had sequels – the most recent one was sadly cancelled only this year – but many other games of a similar ilk, such as Phantasmagoria and even Wing Commander – have fallen by the wayside. With in-engine graphics now allowing the fluidity and expression of cinematic renders of old, shooting movie inserts doesn’t seem like it’s worthwhile; but I still always loved a point-and-click game that featured digitised actors milling about. Toonstruck, anyone?

Marathon (1994): before Halo there was… Marathon! Back when I used to lug my Pentium round my mate’s house so we could play different games on different machines side-by-side, he’d bang on about this Mac-first series of games, like Doom but better, with an intricate plot and complex levels. And y’know what? He was actually onto something. There’s a style and an earnestness to the Marathon franchise, along with many concepts that would be refined in Halo years later. With Bungie now seemingly committed to Destiny, and Halo in Microsoft’s hands, I’m not sure what could possibly become of this, their forgotten FPS forebear, especially as it shares so much DNA with its offspring.  

Outlaws (1997): LucasArts are famous for two things, really: their Star Wars games and their adventures. But they made loads of other stuff too – including this intriguing Western shoot-em-up. Back when Western games were rarer than Western movies (which were rare at the time), this quirky and difficult cowboy-em-up saw you rounding up outlaws in typical oater locations such as saloons, trains, and mines. It had great music and a really intriguing set of weapons, including (don’t quote me on this) the first sniper rifle in a game. Sadly Outlaws’ success could be described as “cult” and it never got a proper sequel. and, weirdly, despite the success of Red Dead Redemption, we’ve never had a bit Western-themed FPS again. Which is really odd.

Soldier of Fortune (2000): I pondered whether to include this one, as if I’m honest I’m not sure I want this licence brought back. But I can’t deny the game was a huge deal and has seemingly been forgotten. A relatively gritty and realistic combat game with a huge variety of excellent real-world weaponry, its big hook was its incredibly detailed damage modelling, that could see you blowing limbs off enemies, or splitting open heads, or disembowelling them. Whilst its OTT violence made headlines, the granularity of its systems meant you could be more tactical, shooting weapons out of hands. But really its biggest controversy should be its association with a big old gun magazine.

There are many, many other games that nearly made the list - I almost had a Top Ten of just FPS games, for instance. Little Big Adventure was here, till a sequel was announced the other day. Hexen and Heretic I think still have a place in FPS history. Toonstruck, although without a sequel, was only really a cult hit at the time, and I feel the people who’d love it already know about it. I do tend to overthink these things, y’know.

So maybe not all of these could make a comeback, but all the same I don’t think they should be forgotten, and it does make we wonder what games will fall by the wayside twenty or more years from now. That game about the big green space marine dude in a mask – what was that called again…?