#my current theory is still that he found an out to the isolated world they live in through sending things to someone

[micechicken]

I will say, surprisingly Home genuinely freaks me out.

[therealvinelle]

Hello! Why do you think Carlisle likes Aro? (Love your meta btw!)

This blog lasted 25 days before becoming an Aro/Carlisle blog. The sanity was nice while it lasted, I suppose.

Oh well, I embrace my trash ship.

(Anon is referring to this post)

(This one is also relevant)

So, while on Aro’s end it was a case of “did the gods just give me my very own Enkidu?”, for Carlisle we must look at the circumstances. The Carlisle Cullen who walked into Volterra is not the Carlisle Cullen who works at Forks General.

Carlisle was a demon-hunting priest who brought his religion into his new life. Having no idea what he’d just become, apart from the obvious things like “I desperately want to kill people for their blood” and “I sparkle?!”, many of the things that are obvious to us would not be at all obvious to him. His only experience with other demons was the slum-dweller that killed him. It was brutal, and three other people from his parish were murdered as well. He’d been able to track the vampire down, something I can only take that to mean that the vampire used his parish for hunting grounds. He’s so horrified by what he’s become that he tries to destroy himself. This fails, and instead he finds a way out that lets him live without having to kill, and with that comes to the realization that vampires retain their souls (which is for another post).

My point being, Carlisle wakes up as a demon, and has no way of knowing how any of this works, nor of how to explain the fact that he is able to retain his soul. It’s telling that even after centuries of being a vampire he still thought something might be fundamentally different about him, as he chose to turn Edward by simulating his own transformation, even though it meant more pain for Edward. In other words, Carlisle was not guaranteed that his experience was universal. By the time we meet him in canon he’s wonderfully friendly to everybody regardless of what they eat, but I strongly doubt he got from point “Demons are monsters and I’ll rally a mob to lynch them!” to “Vampires are people who sadly eat other people.” right away.

So, you have freshly immortal Carlisle Cullen wandering around Europe with no way of knowing that other vampires are as (for lack of a better word) human as he is. How can they be, when they choose to eat people? (My personal headcanon is that he went by a Persephone theory, and figured that by resisting human blood he’d remained a man.)

It was this Carlisle who met Aro and the other Volturi. According to Edward (I unfortunately don’t have Twilight with me so I can’t quote his exact words), they were the ones who showed him that vampires can in fact be sophisticated.

Sophisticated. Not just as in Aro, Marcus, and Caius eat their virgins with some fava beans and a nice chianti, but as in they’re civilized and intelligent beings. Carlisle was no longer a one lone freak who somehow retained his soul while everyone else went full Buffy vampire, or any other such theory. I can’t even imagine the impact that must have had on a young Carlisle who would have been even lonelier than the Carlisle who found Edward in Chicago. That Carlisle at least had friends, this younger version had absolutely nobody.

Aro changed that.

More than being sophisticated, Aro turned out to be a kindred spirit, an absolutely brilliant mind and a generous host. Carlisle chose to live with him for decades, leaving only because of their dietary differences. And even if people disagree with me with all of the above, I don’t think anyone can argue that this one isn’t huge.

Of all the people Carlisle knows in canon, Aro is the only one he stayed with just for Aro’s own sake. Carlisle loves the Cullens dearly, but the cornerstone holding them together is their shared diet, and the fact that Carlisle turned four of them, the other two joined. He did not happen upon them and then like them so much that he decided to move in. As for his other friends, he cares for them all, but he didn’t share decades of his life with them.

Regardless of how we’re interpreting their relationship (as in, platonic, UST, or raging homosexual affair), I don’t think anyone can dispute that Carlisle and Aro are each other’s best friends.

But beyond proving that vampires aren’t all sewer-dwelling, priest-eating rascals, what exactly made Aro so special?

I’ll just list his qualities in no particular order.

Sophistication This guy is a lover of the arts and of knowledge. His gallery and library must have been the most extensive and diverse in the world, and it probably still is. I can’t even begin to imagine the wealth of knowledge and treasures that Aro must have collected over the years. If the Holy Grail exists within the world of Twilight, Aro has it. Where I’m headed with this, is that not only would Aro’s collection be the coolest thing ever to Carlisle, but also that this was a time when the number of books and an art collection was a sign of high class, of intellectualism, of all things fine and noble that was considered virtuous. Aro acts very much like wealthy European nobility, he even lives in Italy, the cultural epicenter of the Western world of old. He physically could not have been more impressive to Carlisle.

Kind of a continuation of the previous point: Aro is from Ancient Greece (well, he’s Myceanaean, but same difference to a “You predate Homer?!” starstruck Carlisle). Ancient Greece was the ultimate, perfect, civilization to Europe, and Carlisle got to Volterra just ahead of the Enlightenment. This alone would have made him so unbelievably cool to Carlisle.

Nerd I think this one speaks for itself. Carlisle is an unbelievable nerd, an inquisitive mind who’ll study anything and everything, and in Aro he found someone who also has an inquisitive mind and will study anything and everything. They’re both very intelligent. Carlisle went from being that sad whale that sings on a frequency no other whales can hear, to having someone who just got it.

His gift So you’re all gonna have to stay with me on this one. Aro’s gift is one most people would find very invasive, which as I touched upon in one of the posts linked above must be very isolating. And yet we know from canon that Carlisle has no problem at all with Edward reading his mind all the time, and more, if Aro reading his mind was a problem then Aro and Marcus would both have known, and I doubt their friendship would have worked out. So, I think that Carlisle not only didn’t mind having his every thought read, but that this was an actively good thing. Because what is less lonely than the company of one who knows you as intimately as you know yourself? To be friends with Aro is to be truly understood, known more deeply than anyone else can ever know you. And to someone who seeks companionship as much as Carlisle does, I imagine this is an extremely attractive feature.

Offer of friendship Carlisle would have been hopelessly lonely when he met Aro. And as no one else is mentioned as being close to him, Jane hadn’t even met him which I find pretty telling of how he interacted (or didn’t interact) with the Guard, and he wouldn’t yet have any of his other friends that he later made, he only had Aro.

He enforcers a law that keeps the known world from descending into chaos Human civilization wouldn’t last a day without the Volturi. There would be nothing stopping vampires from taking out entire villages in one go, immortal children would be everywhere, and the newborn armies would spread like wildfire. In the world of Twilight, the Volturi are a necessary evil. And Aro is their leader. The fact that he not only keeps the world together, an ungrateful task with no end in sight, but had the idea to create a law in the first place would make him all the more amazing to Carlisle.

And I’m sure there’s more that is currently slipping my mind.

Just, Aro is on every level the most impressive, awe-inspiring, and dare I say dazzling, that anyone can be to Carlisle. And he came into Carlisle’s life at the best possible moment. If he’d agreed to do the animal diet, Carlisle would have stayed. If he wanted to seduce Carlisle, I think he’d succeed. I also think that their time together was far more formative for the person Carlisle became than anyone gives Aro credit for.

(And if Carlisle had never found anyone who’d share the diet, he would eventually have returned. I imagine Aro thought the same, but that’s for another post.)

Oh, and last bit - in Breaking Dawn we get this beautiful moment where Carlisle learns that Aro robbed the British royal family, and he just goes, “yup, that’s my guy”. Even after Eclipse, he remains fond of Aro. I mean, there’s also the fact that he’s been lugging around this giant painting for centuries, even at a time when he didn’t have a house and I can only speculate as to where he was keeping it.

Of course, over the course of Eclipse and Breaking Dawn everything goes to hell, but that’s for another post.

TL;DR, Carlisle went from a priest’s son to living with an evil vampire overlord for decades because he’s just that great, in the present he keeps a giant painting of him in his office. I feel it’s safe to assume he likes the man.

(Edited on the 13th of April to fix some phrasing and add a link)

[starry-nocturne]

★ ryo headcanons

Just some random headcanons about my girl because I didn’t know what to write about <3

She can speak three languages fluently: Japanese (mother tongue), English and Russian. English is part of her curriculum at school and she started learning Russian as a way to impress her older (half-)brother.

Ryo doesn't like cooking at all. Put that together with having a painfully big sweet tooth and you have the perfect recipe for poor food choices. She has the habit of carrying lollipops, sweets and candy around in her bag in case she gets hungry. Luckily, it seems that no matter how much sugar she takes she doesn’t seem to put on any weight.

Cats are the superior animal full stop: don't try to argue with her on this, she won't take it nicely. Ever since she started going to the garden in Ryoutei, cats can be seen around more often. She found a small spot hidden from view and she brings food and toys for the kittens every so often. So far, no teacher has found out about this but even if they did, she won’t stop.

She looks unmotivated most of the time and won’t do things unless she feels like she has a reason to do them but even with this she keeps a surprisingly clean attendance record at school. On breaks, she can be seen sneaking into the music room to play piano, which causes her to run into Shu more often than not. They have reached some sort of agreement on the type of music she is allowed to play while he tries to sleep and, so far, there haven’t been many arguments.

Piano is her true passion in life, only next to composing. She doesn’t remember what pushed her to start writing her own scores back when she started playing piano as a kid but, judging by the huge pile of music sheets in her bedroom, she won’t be stopping any time soon. If she evers gets the chance to choose what to do in the future, she will aim to become a professional composer.

Her musical talent is mostly shown in piano improvisations and composing but she is also able to play the guitar and the koto. She wants to learn how to play the violin some time too. Her hidden musical skill is actually singing, but she refuses to admit she even likes it so, for now, it’s an activity reserved to her ears and her ears only.

Ryo doesn’t know much about pop culture or technology because she grew up very isolated as a kid, so she struggles a bit when talking to trendy people (not like she would ever admit it). She started getting into video games a few years ago and that is slowly helping her to close the gap. She is especially fond of fantasy media and history heavy games (but she also keeps playing Neko Atsume on her phone…)

Ryo considers herself a human, even if that isn't quite the case. Her mother was human and her father was a Vibora, so she is a hybrid of sorts, currently leaning more into her human side. I have an entire theory on hybrids in the DL world (which I should write some time) but to sum up I think vampires and humans can have children between them and they're born as a mix from their parents.

Depending on the child, this can go from a full vampire of sorts to pretty much a human, with all the range in between. As a human, carrying a baby with vampire blood in it is extremely dangerous for both sides and many hybrids die young or have health problems, as their body struggles to fit into one “race”. A hybrid can lean more into their “human” side or their “vampire” side differently throughout their life. Living with the Sakamaki, Ryo has started to feel this kind of effect even though she doesn’t know about it.

Had things gone a different way, she would have never found out about her Vibora side and would still be living with her mother and her grandparents back home, in Kyoto. Her mother’s family might have a stronger connection to demons and vampires than she thinks they do, though…

[ibijau]

A Little Help pt3 / On AO3

A third secret meeting between Nie Huaisang and Lan Xichen

Nie Huaisang barely made it out of the Unclean Realm this time. In truth, he would have preferred not to leave at all. Distance hadn’t been such an obstacle thus far after all. Lan Xichen, after some hesitation, had agreed to send the score for Cleansing to Nie Huaisang, along with detailed written instruction on how to play it.

Nie Huaisang had taken it as another proof that Lan Xichen could be impossibly naive for a man this clever. It would have been so easy to sell the score of that song to interested party. Certainly, Su Minshan would have paid a real fortune to get his hands on that. Not that Nie Huaisang would ever have traded with someone as slimy as Su She, but he could have, and Lan Xichen shouldn’t have trusted him so easily.

Then again, they’d had no other choice. Nie Mingjue had barely accepted the excuse his brother had given for leaving without permission last time, and Nie Huaisang hadn’t been sure he could have gotten away with it again. He had hated admitting that to Lan Xichen, but Lan Xichen had been very kind in his reply, reminding him that this was only the result of a deep imbalance, that Nie Mingjue loved him and trusted him. And Lan Xichen was right of course, but lately it was a little too easy to forget that.

Lately, Nie Huaisang had become scared of his brother, the way he’d once become scared of their father.

For the past two months, Nie Huaisang and Lan Xichen had only communicated through letters and hidden messages, taking ever increasing precautions not to be discovered. Nie Mingjue would have had a fit if he’d learned his brother was conspiring against him, and Lan Xichen remained worried his brother would be harmed if he was discovered to have gone against the Lans’ council of elders. But there was only so far their plan could go without meeting in person again, and Nie Huaisang was forced to eventually agree to meet again, at that same spot as before.

As before, Lan Xichen was waiting for him, wearing a robe of blue so dark it almost looked black. The colour suited him well, better in fact than the usual white of his sect which washed him out. Not that Nie Huaisang had time to spare on such frivolities, not this time.

After the briefest of greetings, Lan Xichen asked to hear the progress he’d made regarding Cleansing, and Nie Huaisang was only too happy to oblige. Time, more than on their previous meetings, was of the essence.

Nervous as he was, Nie Huaisang did his best to play the song appropriately. He paid attention to each note, infusing them with what little spiritual energy he could offer at every key moment, making sure to play at exactly the right speed. It was strenuous work to play that song, but the thought of his brother’s health had pushed him to put more effort into this than he ever had in anything. 

By the time he finished playing the song, Nie Huaisang felt a little weak, and his head was spinning. Thankfully Lan Xichen was sitting right next to him, and Nie Huaisang was able to lean against his side to rest a moment.

“You did very well,” Lan Xichen said, briefly wrapping one arm around Nie Huaisang’s shoulders before quickly removing it, afraid perhaps to act improperly, even when there was no one to see them. “I think you only need a little more practice and you’ll be ready to play it.”

“How soon?” Nie Huaisang asked, pulling away from the other man. “A week? Two? I’ll practice until my fingers bleed, and you can fight off your elders, and…”

Lan Xichen frowned. “Huaisang, it’s not that simple.”

“But I don’t know if I have more time. We need to act soon!” Nie Huaisang urged, grasping Lan Xichen’s hand. “Da-ge is… he’s been like this too long, and he’s really not getting better on his own. I think he’s even getting worse.”

It had been Lan Xichen’s theory that without the corrupted song played to him so regularly, Nie Mingjue might start recovering on his own, without the need for more Lan songs. Nie Huaisang had thought that was more likely than himself ever mastering a complex piece of magic in a matter of mere weeks.

Hope was a bitch.

“I’ve heard he’s become… quite aggressive toward small sects that are taking the Jins’ side,” Lan Xichen cautiously said.

Nie Huaisang miserably nodded, prompting Lan Xichen to gently squeeze his hand.

It had always been Nie Mingjue’s problem that he saw things in black and white, good or bad. That mentality used to be balanced out by his conviction that most people were honest, with only a few bad apples here and there.

Nie Mingjue didn’t believe that anymore.

“You have to do something,” Nie Huaisang said. “You have to make a statement, to let everyone know that da-ge isn’t crazy, that the Jins really did attack him! Otherwise he’ll just end up all alone, like…”

“Like the Wens?”

“More like Wei Wuxian,” Nie Huaisang whispered. He felt Lan Xichen shudder at his side, but refused to look at the other man and glared instead of the guqin before them. “Er-ge, you have to do something, you have to help, you have to!”

“They still have Wangji,” Lan Xichen replied. “I don’t dare… It would be so easy for the council to order his death. Not only that, but they could make the whole world applaud. Just one sentence from them, and even your brother would rejoice at Wangji’s execution. You as well, perhaps.”

"What could he have done to…" 

"I trust you with almost anything, Huaisang,” Lan Xichen quietly said, taking both of the other man’s hands in his, his expression painfully earnest. “But this is not something I can tell you. Even telling you that Wangji's actions put such a threat on his life is too much, but it was the only way to show you I’m not… indifferent to the situation. I just don’t have a choice. You seek to save your brother, and I have to protect mine.”

A fair point, and yet Nie Huaisang grimaced. He simply couldn’t imagine what Lan Wangji, always a stickler for rules, could have done to deserve death. But with Lan Xichen holding his hands like that, it was impossible to ignore the wild beatings of his heart, as if he were truly terrified on his brother’s behalf. If Lan Xichen said that Lan Wangji was in such danger, it had to be true.

“What if… what if you sent him somewhere safe?” Nie Huaisang suggested. “I don’t know the situation, but if he just left, maybe…”

Lan Xichen’s hold on his hands tightened.

“Wangji is not currently in a state of health where it would be wise for him to wander the world or hide in wilderness,” Lan Xichen explained. “Not to mention…”

He hesitated, staring at Nie Huaisang as if searching for something on his face. “It is not just about Wangji,” Lan Xichen confessed. “He’s declared himself the protector of a young orphan he found somewhere. The council of elders has agreed to let this child reside safely within the Cloud Recesses, but only as long as Wangji behaves.”

That certainly complicated things, but it also made sense. It explained why Lan Wangji, in spite of having done some horrible deed that went against his sect’s morals, would remain with them. It could also have been the mere fact that Lan Wangji was definitely the sort of person who believed in rules even when they had negative consequences for himself… but few men kept that sort of belief when the consequences in question were their own death. While if there was a child…

“If your brother could be offered a safe house of sorts where to hide with that child until everything is under control again, would he accept?” Nie Huaisang asked.

“Perhaps, if I explained to him why I need him to disappear for a while,” Lan Xichen replied, a small crease forming on his brow. “But I’m not sure there’s anyone who would accept to hide him at the moment. Not when I’m almost certain the elders might reveal…”

“Er-ge, let me make you a promise,” Nie Huaisang said, gently squeezing the other man’s hands. “Because you see, I own a house a little way out of Qinghe. My father bought it for my mother when they married, for when she needed to retire somewhere quiet, and when she died it went to me. It’s abandoned now, and in disrepair. It’s also quite isolated. So here is my promise: if you trust me enough to send Wangji there with that child of his, I won’t reveal he’s there, no matter what I learn about him. Whether he killed someone, or consorted with demons… even if he ate human flesh, even if he used evil ways to improve his cultivation… no matter what terrible people he associated with, or how inhumane his deeds… as long as he is inside my mother’s house, I will not tell a soul where he is, for your sake.”

And for his own sake as well, Nie Huaisang thought, knowing his brother and him desperately needed an ally, someone the cultivation world would not dismissed as biased against the Jin or touched by madness.

That little declaration had exactly the effect Nie Huaisang hoped for. Lan Xichen froze, his grasp on Nie Huaisang’s hands nearly painful. His face, so pale a moment before, took on a warmer hue visible even in this dark night, while his eyes shone as if he might cry. Before he could shed any tears, Lan Xichen let go of Nie Huaisang's hand so he could pull him into a crushing hug. 

Nie Huaisang only hesitated only a moment before returning that hug. It was just a ploy to get Lan Xichen to finally act, nothing more, but he hadn't been hugged in so long, and it felt good to be held that way. 

"Huaisang, I am so grateful that you would offer this," Lan Xichen whispered, sounding as if he might really start crying. "But I can't accept. It's too dangerous. If your brother found out, in his current state…" 

Nie Huaisang pulled back, not quite breaking the hug, but enough to bring his hands to Lan Xichen's face, cupping his cheeks the way he'd seen some particularly besotted lovers do. 

"You help me with my brother, I help you with yours," Nie Huaisang said with more earnestness than he'd planned. "We're in this together, so please trust me as much as I trust you." 

Lan Xichen could only stare at him with an expression of such open affection that Nie Huaisang almost felt guilty for using it against him. 

Guilt, surely, was the only reason he felt almost dizzy while held so closely, and gazed at with such tenderness, the explanation for his heart beating too fast. 

Nie Huaisang felt guilty, but it was all to protect his brother. And it was also to protect his brother that he impulsively pressed his lips to Lan Xichen's. 

If that didn't convince him to do what was right… 

But it did the trick, just as planned. When they stopped kissing, too breathless to go on, Lan Xichen looked as if he would have gathered every star in the sky, should Nie Huaisang have asked for them. 

"I will talk to Wangji," Lan Xichen promised. "I will convince him… I doubt he'll put up much resistance. He doesn't like that they're using little A-Yuan against him, and he'll like it even less when he find they're using him against me." 

Nie Huaisang agreed, and gave a detailed explanation on how to find his mother's house, and described where he'd hidden some money there, in case if emergency. Nie Huaisang doubted that he would be able to go greet Lan Wangji for fear of attracting attention, but he could provide some help even from a distance. 

"I am for ever in your debt, Huaisang," Lan Xichen said, stealing a quick kiss. "I swear I will repay it. I'll make sure everyone knows the truth about Jin Guangyao, I will force my sect to stand with da-ge. Just hold on a little longer." 

"I trust you," Nie Huaisang replied, stealing a kiss as well. "And until da-ge can see again you are truly his friend, I'll keep practising your song. We're going to save him!" 

"We are," Lan Xichen agreed. 

He looked so happy as he said that, as if it truly mattered to him to help Nie Mingjue, and that in turn made Nie Huaisang’s heart race in his chest. He might forgive Lan Xichen for having sided a while with the wrong sworn brother, he thought. Lan Xichen was doing his best to correct his mistake after all, the way a true friend would do. 

In fact, Nie Huaisang might have already more than half forgiven him.

Still, just to make sure Lan Xichen remembered he had much to gain by doing the right thing, Nie Huaisang kissed him again. Just for safety, he told himself. And the next kiss was to distract Lan Xichen so he wouldn't ask too many questions about Nie Mingjue's current state. 

For the last kiss they shared, Nie Huaisang had no excuses. He had just felt unbearably scared as they both prepared to head home, and he'd wanted a last moment of warmth and tenderness before returning to the coldness and isolation of the Unclean Realm. 

It might not have been his smartest decision to have lost time with that. Dawn was starting to colour the sky when Nie Huaisang finally reached home. Not that it mattered much, he told himself. The secret passage he used to get out was well out of the way. It also wouldn't surprise anyone if he slept later than strictly reasonable once he made it to his room. Or else if he was spotted inside the Unclean Realm, he'd just say he'd wanted to do a bit of bird-watching and got up early. That always worked. 

What he didn't have was an easy explanation being discovered outside the Unclean Realm by his brother, just as he was about to enter that secret passage. 

"I swear it’s not what you think," Nie Huaisang cried out, but the expression on his brother’s face only darkened.

This time, Nie Huaisang was in trouble.

[faranae]

may I ask about the necromancer landlord because I love DnD stories and that sounds like a good one

OK. Fair warning this is a little background-story heavy because I gotta give some context to explain why the necromancer landlord is a thing at all. 

Edit: In fact, it got so out of hand I gotta put it under a cut.

So I know a lot of players don’t like using prefab background/trait/contact stuff from the books, but for Sam I wanted to give it a shot and modified them as-needed to suit him since we were rolling character concepts that already existed (Chemist and Cryptid). One of Sam’s contacts reads as-follows: 

I helped a Golgari spore druid with the fertilization and growth of their fungus field.

This single line actually shaped a good chunk of Sam’s backstory. After clearing it with my DM, I spent some time with him fleshing out the background behind this contact. I gave the DM my notes in the end, to build off of for the sake of his metaplot. (And HOLY SHIT did my DM take this and weave it into his metaplot in the most fantastic of ways? I love my DM.) 

So Sam’s field of specialty in the college during his early teen years involved the application of magic and technology to the study of genetics, specifically with regards to grafting the features of living specimens onto one another as the Simic are wont to do. 

However, rather than applying his studies to self-improvement, he chose instead to see how deep into the genetics themselves he could apply new and existing techniques through the study of flora and fungi. In the process he developed some unique theories, including a method which allowed splicing of features between specimens in a way that the host itself produced the fresh material; This reduced rejection rates to near-irrelevant levels and allowed the “natural” crossing of species that would otherwise be considered risky or outright incompatible. 

It was also faster than the current standards. Much faster: The use of living, established specimens allowed the introduction of features over the course of months or even weeks rather than generations. 

(Parts of this research would later be stolen by a former romantic acquaintance in the college and repurposed to springboard the final stages of advancement for a rogue branch-off of the Guardian Project, which is how Funnel got Fucked Up, but that’s a story for another time. TL;DR: Fuck Squad 6, the bastards.) 

As part of his studies and in preparation to present his findings to the guild, Sam spent about six months on-site optimizing a private Golgari operation as a chance to apply his research in a practical setting. Six months isolated in a cave below a crypt, with nobody but his sponsor/benefactor and her (numerous) undead sentries for company.

Enter Natasha. 

If there’s one thing we know about the Sams in any dimension, it’s that their type is “how can you ruin my life today”. Nat fits the bill: Predatory, forward, sassy, and most definitely a woman who knows what she wants and how to take it. What would you expect from a woman with suspiciously high standing in the Golgari Swarm? Not that Sam knew that at the time. 

The two grew close. Admittedly a bit too close when you consider that the prodigy met his 17th summer under her employment. Not only did the application of Sam’s research exceed expectations, he also learned plenty about the Swarm’s unique take on the magical school of necromancy from observing Natasha’s work when she was present. In the end the youth made one hell of a good impression, and when his work was complete they parted on fantastic terms. 

... Which is why when Sam and his swiftly mutating companion found themselves on her doorstep a year later, Nat welcomed the two with open arms. 

Fugitives from their own guild with not a soul in the world they could trust, Sam had suggested she might still have some of the equipment from his time with her, and they might be able to build off those remnants to make their own field laboratory. This proved to be the case, and after a little work (and some wise allocation of party funds) the three established a mostly-functional lab in Nat’s caves, as well as a small but homey subterranean living quarters for the boys. 

Art credit: Funnel’s player @spudinacup​ [LINK TO POST]

And so, Sam and Funnel's current “home base” is a makeshift laboratory located in a ruin/cave system below some crypts. 

With a necromancer landlord. 

And numerous undead sentries. 

All of which, by the way, now have “Hi my name is” name-tags christening them “Todd”. Which is coincidentally the name of the stray paladin we brought home a few weeks ago. Honestly at this point I’m not sure if she’s threatening him or fucking with him and I’m not sure if I want to know - but it’s certainly hilarious to watch it play out every time we return to our little hub for downtime. 

But that’s also a story for another time. 

[alovevigilante]

Since life is a process I find myself constantly editing. I go through my day, I make observations, I feel things, I create thoughts around the observations, my perceptions from those thoughts about what I observe support my beliefs around the observations… For example: I see that the pot that I used to make marinara in last night is sitting in the sink, and needs to be soaked. I’ve learned from experience that to me it’s better to use dishwasher liquid to soak it to degrease the residue of olive oil so when I use it again, it doesn’t have an oil slick for my next meal I’m cooking. I’ll also probably remember i like to do that the next time I cook and wash dishes. I have found through trial and error that soaking it with soap is the easier, less resistant, more helpful way to do things. I like the outcome much better. Cleaner pot, less elbow grease, definitely a more efficient way to roll.

We do this all the time as humans. Our observations feed our perceptions, and if we’re in a neutral place in our emotions and environments to start the thought process, it all seems pretty calm, and easy to navigate.

Let’s add some stress to that recipe. It’s a quarter to 8 in the morning, and your kid still is in his/her pajamas, and hasn’t charged his/her tablet for school, and hasn’t eaten, and is upset because it’s spirit day, and all they have are short sleeved spirit shirts, and it’s 53 degrees outside so it’s too cold to wear short sleeves, and he/she can’t wear long sleeves under the short sleeved shirt because it’s too hot, and he/she can’t wear a hoodie over the short sleeves because no, and you’ve given them 57 other extremely decent options for a smoother morning and no one is taking you up on it.

Now, let’s look at the pot you need to wash in the sink. You not only notice that dirty pot that needs soaking and is crusty cause you didn’t presoak it cause you didn’t feel like it the night before taking up precious real estate in your sink area, cause it’s a huge pot, and your sink is too small to accommodate nothing but it, but you also notice all of the dirty dishes piling up that you have to wash and put away, but they don’t magically do it themselves and they are seemingly overflowing on your countertop, overwhelming your kitchen, and you, and there’s no room to make your coffee, which you so desperately need to get some faux energy going to face your day. Also, both of your dogs like to dig in the mud in the backyard, and your child let them in without wiping their muddy paws, so to quote Bill Cosby back in the day, all of the “filth flarn” is now all over your house because they’re wild and mostly feral, and they love you so much that they decide put their paws all over your fach and give you a free mud facial. Also, it is now 8:08 am and you have to be at the school for the first bell in 5 minutes. Then what?

Now, it should be noted, that I’m exaggerating for the sake of this example, kind of. But I have chosen to blow off the thought of the dishes, and also allowed the dogs to be filth flarn back in the great outdoors, and my son is now at school, and I am drinking coffee, so it seems ok. But, if I was pissed off prior to that, let’s say because a year ago I dropped off the face of the planet from basically everyone I’ve ever known to go on another bout of my “Willy wonka lockdown” to quote the creepy sounding guy that sharpened knives in the original version of the movie, “nobody ever goes in, and nobody ever comes out”, and you feel isolated and alone, and a bit sorry for yourself but eh cause eh, then those thoughts will compound to create a really bad observance in your present moments. Everything feeds on your choice on what thoughts to entertain in your mind. And when you already feel like crap, you will find every crap thing to support your theory.

Here’s where my editing comes in. I do this a ton. I even do this when I post publicly online. What you initially read may not be the finished product. But that’s life. Life is a process of editing to become more of that which you decide to be with your focus. You learn more as you go. You remember things and add them to your consciousness and even maybe into your 3D somewhere. I’m constantly coming back to myself and other people and adding onto what I offered before. If I’m mad, I’ll yell or not, and come back 5 years later to add what I forgot to tell you when we stopped talking. I may just choose to do this in my head as well, which a lot of us choose to do, and it’s hard when the record in your head is stuck in that groove. So, it takes a conscious effort to lift the needle off the record to move on, and not become DJ Jazzy Kari, and keep scratching the crap out of it when I’m playing my day out.

And so, we edit, we adjust, we add and subtract, we multiply and divide our thoughts according to our current circumstances. And the daily grind will put you in a funk of 40,000 years (yes, Michael Jackson’s thriller made a huge impact on me when I was in 4th grade) if you allow it to. The only way to start to change, is to choose at least one thing different than before. That’s it. That one simple action with a loving intention to change the way you see the world can change your world in an instant. You will feel the relief that is offered by not focusing on what hurt you in the past, and dragging it though to support your present activities.

I’m going to go now, and appreciate my dogs. They are hilarious, and extremely loving, and like Madge the manicurist would so diligently do to her clients when they came in for a manicure in the 70s, I’m going to most likely Palmolive the crap out of their paws happily, so I won’t be upset later on that my house is a disgusting muddy mess later on more so than it usually is. They will find themselves surprisingly “soaking in it”. And then they’ll have a choice to either go with it, or try to escape from my grasp, like Hazel May tried to pull yesterday. And both of the dogs ran in the house past the baby gate I put up with their muddy paws and their insanity. And then I had a choice, and I chose to yell and laugh, cause it was a ridiculous situation.

Choice is good. Edits can be made at every minute of every day. Don’t like what you established before? Edit it. Change it. Your life isn’t etched in stone. Do your part to change the way you think, and you will find that you will be happier in the doing. Edits are not always bad. I may choose to edit this and eliminate mentioning Moses and the 10 commandments. Yes, I will. 💕😎🙌

[glowyjellyfish]

Okay, I am sure somebody else somewhere has thought of this, but I was just watching the ending in an LP and had a bunch of thoughts and it all sort of came together like this.

Sephiroth wants to never die. He’s also ferociously lonely and has a horror-hunger-level need to belong somewhere, while simultaneously knowing in his gut that he does not, cannot belong with 99.99% of people on the planet. Back at Nibelheim, he found out the surface-level stuff about Jenova and lost his shit, assuming it was accurate that she was an Ancient and probably getting some influence from her. So during his first meltdown--he believed he was an artificially created Ancient, and wanted to kill all the humans and take the planet back for the ancients. Again, he was probably being manipulated by Jenova at this time, but it’s unclear how much that could influence his emotions and behavior. Then he was thrown into the Lifestream, where he undoubtedly learned the full truth of his own creation. He then supplants Jenova’s will, because she barely has one and he is a person with feelings, and turns all her powers towards his new goal of smash meteor into planet and become god. I’ll have to recheck dialogue, but if I’m not mistaken he doesn’t actually want to completely destroy the whole planet. His intention is to kill every living thing on the planet, absorb all the lifestream, and… make a new planet? Use the power to travel through space like jenova? Idk. I like the former for my theory, because then I can conclude he assumes he would of course belong to a new world of his own creation that he reigns over like a god. But I can’t remember how thoroughly he described what he wanted to do after Meteor.

So. He’s prevented from completing that goal by the events of the OG/compilation, but he cannot fully be killed either and just hangs out isolated in the lifestream until the Planet dies, much later. Sephiroth cannot have the actual planet actually dying. That makes him die too. So he uses a mix of Jenova and Lifestream powers to go back in time. He can’t change history himself, that’s part of the planet and he isn’t, and for the same reason he can’t really affect the whispers, although he can stir them up. So he has to use his influence over Cloud and other Sephiroth clones to achieve his current goal of never dying. And he genuinely believes that his interests and Cloud’s interests align for this. Why, Sephiroth is actually trying to save the planet! That’s what Cloud does! ...not to mention that throughout his entire life, Cloud as the sole successful Sephiroth clone is the closest thing Sephiroth feels he has to a peer in the entire history of the planet. I am not familiar with Genesis and Angeal, but for the sake of this theory I have to assume that Sephiroth preferred to dismiss them as clearly inferior for dying rather than feel any grief or closeness or anything. He has come to respect Cloud because Cloud’s the only one who has repeatedly been able to defeat him. Therefore, I think he’s being as sincere as he can when he’s talking to Cloud throughout Remake. Manipulative, yes. Not telling him everything, of course. But if there’s one thing I have noticed about Sephiroth’s character over the course of 25 years of playing the OG, it’s that he is not actually particularly interested in outright lying. The main time he is believed to be lying, it’s unclear whether he even realized at that point that Cloud was the same soldier that was at Nibelheim, and if he did he might not have realized how much of Cloud’s persona was still him and not just a weird Jenova-crafted show. I think the Zack stuff is very likely things Sephiroth is attempting to offer Cloud, or things Cloud subconsciously changed without fully realizing what he was doing.

Anyway, the main reason I really like this whole theory is that a. This places Sephiroth and his worldview in direct opposition to Aerith. Aerith is connected to the Planet and must accept the inevitability of her own death as well as the Planet’s. Sephiroth is isolated from the Planet and refuses to accept any such thing. Which I feel could lead to some very interesting push and pull on Cloud, as Sephiroth could very well attempt to push Cloud to save Aerith, trying to get Cloud in a headspace of refusing to accept death, while Aerith would insist on letting go for the greater good and the natural order. (Not that Sephiroth will in any way try to avoid killing her. He can’t change the past, and the point isn’t “let Aerith live”, the point is “make Cloud change things to save her, make Cloud change things to save everything forever including me”). And b. it does as much fleshing out of Sephiroth and his development and motives as the Remake has done for every other character so far. In my opinion, Sephiroth is not and should not be portrayed as a flat evil villain. He’s cold, disconnected, cruel, and inhuman, but in a lot of ways he is still very human. I have felt for ages that it was Sephiroth’s very human emotions that made his will strong enough to completely supplant Jenova’s will in her own cells, and his freak out in Nibelheim was a very human reaction acted out with terrifyingly inhuman strength.

...anyway that’s just where I’m at with Remake Sephiroth right now. My opinion will probably change again next time I play through, and I will probably be wrong no matter how much I like any of my own theories, but I’m enjoying the ride. It’ll be fun to test this theory again the actual remake dialogue and see if it holds up.

(Sephiroth, I accept I am very likely wrong about. Certain other characters? My god I hope I’m right about Reeve, I will be so disappointed if my remake-inspired rethinking him through is too far off the mark.)

[phoenix1410200]

Well, here is the post clarifying my thought process for the next few cards and the characters I'm unsure on. (Hope you'll enjoy it and that you may can help me with the decisions.)

Here are the remaining cards I still need to do (four of the cards I've already decided on a character/event with 99% certainty, regarding the rest I'm quite torn on which character/event/object I want to depict):

• The Magician (Card 1)

• The Hermit (Card 9)

• Justice (Card 11)

• The Hanged Man (Card 12)

• Death (Card 13) -> The Titan (probably)

• The Devil (Card 15)

• The Star (Card 17)

• The Moon (Card 18) -> Amity Blight

• The Sun (Card 19) -> Luz Noceda (I am waiting for the reveal of her palisman)

• Judgement (Card 20) -> The Day of Unity (probably)

• The World (Card 21)

[Note: Firstly, I'm not an expert in Tarot, so not everything will be 100% correct (especially due to the fact that Tarot is highly symbolic). Secondly, I'm using the Rider Waite deck, so the characters I chose are mostly fitting the description of that deck.]

Now, let's get to the potential candidates and my reasoning behind them.

Card 1 — The Magician

Keywords of "The Magician":

• UPRIGHT: Manifestation, resourcefulness, power, inspired action, willpower, desire, creation, skill, ability, concentration

• REVERSED: Manipulation, poor planning, untapped talents, wasted talent, cunning, trickery, illusions, deception, out of touch

First of all, I need to explain some symbolism regarding this card. In this card the four suits of tarot are shown (wands, pentacles, cups, sword). Each one stands for one of the classical four elements (wands = fire , pentacles = earth, cups = water, sword = air) and represents how the Magician is a master of the elements ("he has all the tools (and elements) he needs to manifest his intentions into being"). This of course would translate to (elemental) glyph magic and a master of glyphs.

Candidates for "The Magician":

• Luz Noceda — Luz wants to be a witch aka a magic user. She rediscovered glyph magic and is very skilled in using glyph magic. Also, a snake is usally depicted in this card (which might be Luz's palisman).

• Eda Clawthorne — Eda is (or at least was) one of the most powerful magic users on the Boiling Isles. She was a master of all kinds of magic and currently learns glyph magic. Eda can also be deceptive and manipulative. Her plans aren't always the best, but she's still very cunning and skilled.

• Augustus "Gus" Porter — Despite his young age, Gus is a very skilled witch (especially or rather mainly in illusion magic). In "Through the Looking-Glass Ruins" he felt down and how he felt like he was useless and wasted his talent. Also in this episode, Gus started to use glyph magic which he could still used later down the line.

• Hunter — Hunter is a very skilled person, both physically and in regards to his magical abilities. He also can be manipulative and deceptive (as shown in his appearances so far). He is also interested in wild magic and knows about 'elemental magic used in the Savage Ages'. Not to mention the potential of him learning glyph magic.

• Philip Wittebane — Mostly for his potential as a character and the fact given that he must have learned some sort of magic (probably glyph magic) during his life on the Boiling Isles.

Card 9 — The Hermit

Keywords of "The Hermit":

• UPRIGHT: Self-reflection, introspection, contemplation, withdrawal, solitude, search for self, search for truth, inner guidance, being alone

• REVERSED: Loneliness, isolation, withdrawal, recluse, being anti-social, rejection, lost your way, returning to society

Candidates for "The Hermit":

• Eda Clawthorne — Eda lived a long period of her life in solitude and isolation. She had to do a lot of introspection in order to get where she is now. This card also sometimes represents a mentor figure and is sometimes considered the mature and wiser version of "The Magician".

• Hunter — Hunter is quite a lonely character that needs to do a lot of introspection. Also, he has potential to fit this card quite well.

• Philip Wittebane — Mostly for his potential as a character.

• "King's Father" — He seems to travel alone in a chariot, so the descriptive term 'hermit' does seem to fit. This card often depicts a star which fits the astronomical symbolism found in King's orginal home. There is also a lot of potential for him as a character. (We really don't know much about this guy, so he's kinda a wild card.)

Card 11 — Justice

Keywords of "Justice":

• UPRIGHT: Justice, fairness, truth, cause and effect, law, clarity, karma, consequence, honesty, integrity

• REVERSED: Unfairness, lack of accountability, unaccountability, dishonesty, injustice, retribution, corruption

Candidates for "Justice":

• Augustus "Gus" Porter — Gus is a very juste and morally good character as we see in "Through the Looking-Glass Ruins". He has a very explicit moral compass in that episode, though he isn't flawless in that regard as shown in "Something Ventured, Someone Framed".

• Warden Wrath — He works as an enforcer for the Emperor's Coven.

• The Coven Heads — Mostly for their potential as a characters.

• The Emperor's Coven — They are basically the police system of the Boiling Isles, just extremely corrupt and founded/controlled by Emperor Belos.

• "Statue of Hekate" (S1E19)

Card 12 — The Hanged Man

Keywords of "The Hanged Man":

• UPRIGHT: Pause, surrender, letting go, new perspectives, sacrifice, release, martyrdom, waiting, uncertainty, lack of direction, contemplation

• REVERSED: Delays, resistance, stalling, indecision, needless sacrifice, fear of sacrifice, avoiding sacrifice, disinterest, stagnation, standstill, apathy

Candidates for "The Hanged Man":

• Augustus "Gus" Porter — Gus did sacrifice quite a bit during his episodes like "Something Ventured, Someone Framed" and "Through the Looking-Glass Ruins". In the latter episode, he expressed the desire to learn new kinds of magic.

• Raine Whispers — Raine sacrificed themself for Eda in "Eda's Requiem" and created the BATS, a resistance movement against the Emperor. So, they fit quite well.

• King — Mostly for his potential as a character.

• Hunter — Mostly for his potential as a character (e.g. Titan Sacrifice Theory).

• The Bat Queen — Mostly for her potential as a character.

• "King's Father" — Mostly for his potential as a character.

Card 15 — The Devil

Keywords of "The Devil":

• UPRIGHT: Shadow self, attachment, oppression, addiction, obsession, dependency, excess, powerlessness, limitations, restriction, sexuality

• REVERSED: Independence, freedom, revelation, release, releasing limiting beliefs, reclaiming power, reclaiming control, exploring dark thoughts, detachment

For people who do not have much knowledge of tarot and this card, I should explain something. This card does NOT stand for a literal devil or an evil person. The most common and basic description for the card is about an unhealthy bond with someone or something that's (usually) not for the greater good like an addiction, an obession or a toxic relationship. This card also symbolizes instant gratification, even if it is at the expense of your long-term well-being.

Candidates for "The Devil":

• Hunter — Hunter has clearly a very unhealthy bond with Emperor Belos. This is especially shown in "Eclipse Lake" and how badly the relationship to Belos affects him (Hunter literally dug his own grave due to the negative influence Belos had on his sense of worth). Also, both the upright and reversed keywords of this card do fit him quite well. He is a powerless witch that works for the restrictive and opressive Emperor's Coven and is dependent on Emperor Belos in regards to his own self-worth. And we know from "Hunting Palismen" that Hunter wishes some personal freedom and independence for himself (especially regarding his future). There is also the potential of Hunter's possible redemption arc in S2B and his breakaway from Belos.

• Emperor Belos — Emperor Belos is a dictator that causes a lot of opression and limitations on the Boiling Isles. His relationships with characters like Lilith, Kikimora and Hunter and his treatment towards them is quite unhealthy and even abusive. He himself is also very dependent on the essence found within palismen for his well-being. (So, most of the upright keywords fit him quite well.)

• Alador & Odalia Blight — Like Emperor Belos, Amity's parents are quite unhealthy people to be around (especially Odalia). This was shown in regards to their treatment of Amity. They also seem to be quite materialistic which this card can symbolize.

• The Titan — Mostly for his potential as a character and his design.

• "King's Father" — Mostly for his potential as a character and his design (a horned demon with wings).

Card 17 — The Star

Keywords of "The Star":

• UPRIGHT: Hope, faith, purpose, renewal, spirituality, rejuvenation, inspiration, positivity, healing

• REVERSED: Lack of faith, faithlessness, discouragement, despair, hopelessness, self-trust, disconnection, insecurity, negativity, despondent

Candidates for "The Star":

• King — King is quite interesting character. We know his hopes in regards of meeting his father. He also felt a lot despair and distress due to absence of his father. In his original home, there is also a lot of astronomical symbolism like stars.

• Augustus "Gus" Porter — Gus is a very positive character. And he has insecurities and he felt discouraged in "Through the Looking-Glass Ruins".

• Hunter — In "Eclipse Lake" Hunter is shown in his most despaired state so far, as well as his mindset in regards to one's purpose. He has also a lot of potential as a character.

Card 21 — The World

Keywords of "The World":

• UPRIGHT: Completion, fulfilment, wholeness, integration, achievement, accomplishment, travel, sense of belonging, harmony

• REVERSED: Incompletion, feeling incomplete, seeking personal closure, lack of closure, lack of achievement, short-cuts, delays, emptiness

Candidates for "The World":

• The Boiling Isles — The main setting of the series.

• The Titan — The Titan makes up the Boiling Isles which is the main setting of the series.

• The Bat Queen — Mostly for her potential as a character and her design.

• "The Collector" — Mostly for her potential as a character and her design.

If any of you have other suggestions regarding the remaining cards and the placement of the characters, please let me know. I would love to hear your ideas. :)

[lastsonlost]

BECAUSE THE CORONAVIRUS IS JUST HURTING FEMINIST AND ONLY FEMINISTS AND ABSOLUTELY NO ONE ELSE...

..........

Enough already. When people try to be cheerful about social distancing and working from home, noting that William Shakespeare and Isaac Newton did some of their best work while England was ravaged by the plague, there is an obvious response: Neither of them had child-care responsibilities.

Shakespeare spent most of his career in London, where the theaters were, while his family lived in Stratford-upon-Avon. During the plague of 1606, the playwright was lucky to be spared from the epidemic—his landlady died at the height of the outbreak—and his wife and two adult daughters stayed safely in the Warwickshire countryside. Newton, meanwhile, never married or had children. He saw out the Great Plague of 1665–6 on his family’s estate in the east of England, and spent most of his adult life as a fellow at Cambridge University, where his meals and housekeeping were provided by the college.

For those with caring responsibilities, an infectious-disease outbreak is unlikely to give them time to write King Lear or develop a theory of optics. A pandemic magnifies all existing inequalities (even as politicians insist this is not the time to talk about anything other than the immediate crisis). Working from home in a white-collar job is easier; employees with salaries and benefits will be better protected; self-isolation is less taxing in a spacious house than a cramped apartment. But one of the most striking effects of the coronavirus will be to send many couples back to the 1950s.

Across the world, women’s independence will be a silent victim of the pandemic.

Purely as a physical illness, the coronavirus appears to affect women less severely. But in the past few days, the conversation about the pandemic has broadened: We are not just living through a public-health crisis, but an economic one. As much of normal life is suspended for three months or more, job losses are inevitable. At the same time, school closures and household isolation are moving the work of caring for children from the paid economy—nurseries, schools, babysitters—to the unpaid one. The coronavirus smashes up the bargain that so many dual-earner couples have made in the developed world: We can both work, because someone else is looking after our children. Instead, couples will have to decide which one of them takes the hit.

Many stories of arrogance are related to this pandemic. Among the most exasperating is the West’s failure to learn from history: the Ebola crisis in three African countries in 2014; Zika in 2015–6; and recent outbreaks of SARS, swine flu, and bird flu. Academics who studied these episodes found that they had deep, long-lasting effects on gender equality. “Everybody’s income was affected by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa,” Julia Smith, a health-policy researcher at Simon Fraser University, told The New York Times this month, but “men’s income returned to what they had made pre-outbreak faster than women’s income.” The distorting effects of an epidemic can last for years, Clare Wenham, an assistant professor of global-health policy at the London School of Economics, told me. “We also saw declining rates of childhood vaccination [during Ebola].” Later, when these children contracted preventable diseases, their mothers had to take time off work.

At an individual level, the choices of many couples over the next few months will make perfect economic sense. What do pandemic patients need? Looking after. What do self-isolating older people need? Looking after. What do children kept home from school need? Looking after. All this looking after—this unpaid caring labor—will fall more heavily on women, because of the existing structure of the workforce. “It’s not just about social norms of women performing care roles; it’s also about practicalities,” Wenham added. “Who is paid less? Who has the flexibility?”

According to the British government’s figures, 40 percent of employed women work part-time, compared with only 13 percent of men. In heterosexual relationships, women are more likely to be the lower earners, meaning their jobs are considered a lower priority when disruptions come along. And this particular disruption could last months, rather than weeks. Some women’s lifetime earnings will never recover. With the schools closed, many fathers will undoubtedly step up, but that won’t be universal.

Despite the mass entry of women into the workforce during the 20th century, the phenomenon of the “second shift” still exists. Across the world, women—including those with jobs—do more housework and have less leisure time than their male partners. Even memes about panic-buying acknowledge that household tasks such as food shopping are primarily shouldered by women. “I’m not afraid of COVID-19 but what is scary, is the lack of common sense people have,” reads one of the most popular tweets about the coronavirus crisis. “I’m scared for people who actually need to go to the store & feed their fams but Susan and Karen stocked up for 30 years.” The joke only works because “Susan” and “Karen”—stand-in names for suburban moms—are understood to be responsible for household management, rather than, say, Mike and Steve.

Look around and you can see couples already making tough decisions on how to divide up this extra unpaid labor. When I called Wenham, she was self-isolating with two small children; she and her husband were alternating between two-hour shifts of child care and paid work. That is one solution; for others, the division will run along older lines. Dual-income couples might suddenly find themselves living like their grandparents, one homemaker and one breadwinner. “My spouse is a physician in the emergency dept, and is actively treating #coronavirus patients. We just made the difficult decision for him to isolate & move into our garage apartment for the foreseeable future as he continues to treat patients,” wrote the Emory University epidemiologist Rachel Patzer, who has a three-week-old baby and two young children. “As I attempt to home school my kids (alone) with a new baby who screams if she isn’t held, I am worried about the health of my spouse and my family.”

Single parents face even harder decisions: While schools are closed, how do they juggle earning and caring? No one should be nostalgic for the “1950s ideal” of Dad returning to a freshly baked dinner and freshly washed children, when so many families were excluded from it, even then. And in Britain today, a quarter of families are headed by a single parent, more than 90 percent of whom are women. Closed schools make their life even harder.

Other lessons from the Ebola epidemic were just as stark—and similar, if perhaps smaller, effects will be seen during this crisis in the developed world. School closures affected girls’ life chances, because many dropped out of education. (A rise in teenage-pregnancy rates exacerbated this trend.) Domestic and sexual violence rose. And more women died in childbirth because resources were diverted elsewhere. “There’s a distortion of health systems, everything goes towards the outbreak,” said Wenham, who traveled to west Africa as a researcher during the Ebola crisis. “Things that aren’t priorities get canceled. That can have an effect on maternal mortality, or access to contraception.” The United States already has appalling statistics in this area compared with other rich countries, and black women there are twice as likely to die in childbirth as white women.

For Wenham, the most striking statistic from Sierra Leone, one of the countries worst affected by Ebola, was that from 2013 to 2016, during the outbreak, more women died of obstetric complications than the infectious disease itself. But these deaths, like the unnoticed caring labor on which the modern economy runs, attract less attention than the immediate problems generated by an epidemic. These deaths are taken for granted. In her book Invisible Women, Caroline Criado Perez notes that 29 million papers were published in more than 15,000 peer-reviewed titles around the time of the Zika and Ebola epidemics, but less than 1 percent explored the gendered impact of the outbreaks. Wenham has found no gender analysis of the coronavirus outbreak so far; she and two co-authors have stepped into the gap to research the issue.

The evidence we do have from the Ebola and Zika outbreaks should inform the current response. In both rich and poor countries, campaigners expect domestic-violence rates to rise during lockdown periods. Stress, alcohol consumption, and financial difficulties are all considered triggers for violence in the home, and the quarantine measures being imposed around the world will increase all three. The British charity Women’s Aid said in a statement that it was “concerned that social distancing and self-isolation will be used as a tool of coercive and controlling behaviour by perpetrators, and will shut down routes to safety and support.”

Researchers, including those I spoke with, are frustrated that findings like this have not made it through to policy makers, who still adopt a gender-neutral approach to pandemics. They also worry that opportunities to collect high-quality data which will be useful for the future are being missed. For example, we have little information on how viruses similar to the coronavirus affect pregnant women—hence the conflicting advice during the current crisis—or, according to Susannah Hares, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, sufficient data to build a model for when schools should reopen.

We shouldn’t make that mistake again. Grim as it is to imagine now, further epidemics are inevitable, and the temptation to argue that gender is a side issue, a distraction from the real crisis, must be resisted. What we do now will affect the lives of millions of women and girls in future outbreaks.

The coronavirus crisis will be global and long-lasting, economic as well as medical. However, it also offers an opportunity. This could be the first outbreak where gender and sex differences are recorded, and taken into account by researchers and policy makers. For too long, politicians have assumed that child care and elderly care can be “soaked up” by private citizens—mostly women—effectively providing a huge subsidy to the paid economy. This pandemic should remind us of the true scale of that distortion.

Wenham supports emergency child-care provision, economic security for small-business owners, and a financial stimulus paid directly to families. But she isn’t hopeful, because her experience suggests that governments are too short-termist and reactive. “Everything that's happened has been predicted, right?” she told me. “As a collective academic group, we knew there would be an outbreak that came out of China, that shows you how globalization spreads disease, that’s going to paralyze financial systems, and there was no pot of money ready to go, no governance plan … We knew all this, and they didn't listen. So why would they listen to something about women?”

Remember this article the next time a politician brings up the draft again...

because I remember the last reaction.

[jeannereames]

Writing Historical Fiction (Well)

From an anonymous ask:

"What advice would you give to someone who wants to write about Alexander?" Sorry I didn't clarify, I was thinking of writing a fictional novel (but do not plan to publish it, lol)

If you’re just writing for yourself with no plans to publish, you don’t have to worry about constraints like wordcount and publishability. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to sell mainstream historicals. Selling a genre historical is easier (historical fantasy, historical mystery, historical romance). But there’s a reason it took me 30 years to get Dancing with the Lion into print. Yes, some of that time I was actually writing it, but much more was devoted to finding a market for it, and notice that I did, finally, have to sell it as genre even though it isn’t really. (It was that or shelve it forever.)

Yet if you’re asking for my recommendations, I assume you want to write something that’s marginally readable. Ergo, what follows is general advice I’d give anybody writing historical fiction.

For historicals, one must keep track of two things simultaneously: telling a good story, and portraying history accurately enough. It’s possible to do one well, but the other quite badly.

First, let’s look at how to write a good story.

There are two very basic sorts of stories: the romance, and the novel. Notice it’s romance small /r/. A romance is an adventure story; in romances, the plot dominates and characters serve the plot. A novel is character-driven, so plot events serve character development. Dancing with the Lion is a novel.

Once you’ve decided which of those you’re writing, you have a better handle on how to write it. You also need to know where you’re going: what’s the end of the story? What are the major plot points? Writers who dive in with no road map tend to produce bloated books that require massive edits. That said, romances will almost always be faster paced, in part because “what’s happening” drives it. Whereas in novels, the impact of events on characters drives it. Exclusive readers of romances are rarely pleased by the pacing of novels. They’re too slow: “Nothing is happening!” Things are happening, but internally, not externally.

Yet pacing does matter. Never let a scene do one thing when it can do three.

You will want to pay attention to something called “scene and sequel.” A “scene” is an event and a “sequel” are the consequences. So let’s say (as in my current MIP [monster in progress]) you open with a fugitive from the city jail racing through the streets with guards following: he leaps the wall of a rich man’s house and ends up in the bedroom of a visiting prince. That’s the scene. The sequel is the fall-out. (House searched, prince hides fugitive, prince gets fugitive to tell him why he’s running.) Usually near the end of the sequel(s) to the first scene, you embed the hook to the next (a slave of the rich man has been found murdered outside the city walls). The next scene concerns recovering the body and what they discover (then fall-out from that). Etc., etc., etc.

That’s how stories progress. Or don’t progress, if the author can’t master scene-sequel patterns.

It also means—again—you need to know where you’re going. Outlines Are Your Friends. But yes, your plot can still take a sharp left-hand turn that surprises you…they almost always do.

When I sat down to write Dancing with the Lion, I knew three things:

1)     I wanted to write about Alexander before he became king.

2)     I wanted to explore his relationship with Hephaistion.

3)     I especially wanted to consider how both became the men they’d did.

With those goals in mind, I could frame the story. Because I always intended Hephaistion to be as important as Alexander, the novel opens in his point-of-view to establish that. And because I didn’t want to deal with Alexander as king, the novel had to end before he became one. History itself gives a HUGE and obvious gift in the abrupt murder of Philip. Where to open was harder to decide, but as I wanted to explore the boys’ friendship and its impact on their maturation into men, I should logically begin with their meeting, and decided not to have them meet too young. From there, I spun out Hephaistion’s background, and his decision to run away from home to join the circus, er, I mean Pages. 😉

IMO, Alexander’s story is Too Big to do in a single novel, or you get an 800+ page monstrosity like Chris Cameron’s God of War. The author must decide on what piece of the story she wants to tell. (Or, like me, view it as a series.)

So that’s (in a nutshell) how you construct a story.

As for the historical side, there are three levels here:

1)     What the world looks like (details).

2)     The events that take place.

3)     How people living in that world understand life, the universe, and everything.

Number two is probably the easiest. Numbers one and three require deeper research on all sorts of things. Sometimes historical novels spend all their time on number one and completely forget number three exists.

The past is a foreign country. Just as you wouldn’t (or at least shouldn’t) write a novel set in Japan (if you’re American) without learning something not only about the physical country but also the customs…same with stories set in the past.

This is why the Oliver Stone movie failed. He put modern people in a costume drama. He didn’t understand how ancient Macedonians (or Greeks or Persians) thought. So he committed crazy anachronisms like the oedipal complex between Alexander and Olympias. Freud may have named his theory after a Greek hero, but it’s largely a foreign idea to the Greek mind. (Whether it’s valid at all is a topic for another day).

The author has to let ancient people be properly ancient.

Problem: what do you do when they’re SO foreign they’re impossible to understand for modern readers—or their attitudes are outright offensive?

Well, if you don’t plan to get your story published, you don’t have to worry about that. Or not as much. But if you want to share it with others, you might still want to consider it.

There are two basic approaches:

1)     Introduce your world through a “stranger” who enters it.

2)     Spread out more “modern” views among various characters in the story, to give modern readers something familiar to hang onto.

The first of those is by far the most common. So in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, Claire Randall—quite literally a modern woman—introduces the modern reader to Jacobite Scotland. As she learns about her new world, so does the reader, and in Claire, the reader has a voice to express both their fascination and their horror of that world. In Judith Tarr’s Lord of the Two Lands, she uses Meriamon, an Egyptian priestess, to enter the Macedonian world of Alexander. Judy can then contrast Egyptian and Macedonian cultural values in order to explain them. Meriamon asks questions the reader wants answers to—or Niko (or Alexander) ask questions of her about Egypt.

The second choice (which is what I did in Dancing) is to identify cultural mores likely to offend modern readers: indifference to slavery, glorification of war and conquest, Greco-Macedonian attitudes towards women, and Greco-Macedonian attitudes towards sexuality. Then to assign one of the characters to voice a more modern view. Alexander gets to be a proto-feminist, and I gave points of view to two women. One of those women, I made a slave. Hephaistion gets to express a more modern view regarding the horrors of war. Sexuality was a bit tougher, but I used the boys’ atypical relationship—that the younger is the one of higher status—to illustrate Greco-Macedonian assumptions about what a male-male relationship should look like.

That approach presents more hurdles, but for my purposes, I preferred it.

I harp on this because it’s the biggest problem for historical fiction: not having historical characters! It wrecks what might otherwise be decent research into the details. No matter how much you look up what they ate, how they dressed, the way their houses were laid out…if you have them behaving anachronistically, it’s a bad historical. Or if you have circumstances that just wouldn’t occur.

Let me give an example. I’ve said before that, when I started writing the novel in December of 1988, Dancing always began with a run-away boy (Hephaistion). But in my initial version, he showed up in Pella incognito. The more I read about Macedonia, however, the more I realized that was virtually impossible. There just weren’t that many Hetairoi. He’d have been recognized, and probably sooner rather than later. So I went back to the drawing board and, instead of having him try to hide, he comes right out and says who he is, and that he wants to join the Pages. It might take away the “mystery,” but set up more interesting dynamics: would Philip let him stay? What would his father do? Etc.

That requires the author know enough about the culture to know what’s possible, probable, and impossible. It also requires the author to be willing to change original plans in order to reflect reality, not insist on doing ___ anyway.

A good example of jettisoning history in favor of “what I want to do!” can be found in David Gemmell’s Lion of Macedon. So many, many things wrong with that book, starting with his choice to make Parmenion a Spartan for no historical reason whatsoever—but (I assume?) because Spartans Are Sexy. Parmenion likely belonged to the royal house of Upper Macedonian Pelagonia. Although even if he didn’t, absolutely nothing suggests he wasn’t Macedonian, and quite a lot says he was. The whole duology (with included The Dark Prince) was essentially Blue Boltz ™ Epic Fantasy Does Greece. The fact he actually included a bibliography in back, and got weird, isolated details right only added insult to injury.

Yet Gemmell was a best-selling British fantasy novelist who knew pacing and how to spin a good yarn. For a reader with zero knowledge of Alexander, it would stack up as a predictable but tolerable fantasy set.

Remember that as an historical fiction author, your job is to practice the art of getting it right. If that isn’t important to you, please God, write something completely made up.

At the spectrum’s other end is Showing Notecards on Every Page. You’ve done ALL that hard research, and you’ll be damn sure the reader knows it!

Um, the reader doesn’t care. The reader wants to be transported to another world. How locals in that world shoed horses (or if they shoed horses at all) is irrelevant. It matters only if your main character’s a farrier. And even then, it matters only if said-farrier is having a conversation with someone else while shoeing a horse.

If people want all the little details of history, they’ll read a history book.

Now, how much detail is “too much” can vary from reader to reader, and often has something to do with the genre.

Regular readers of historical fiction are fans because they enjoy history. So they’ll expect proper world-building. But they don’t want the Dreaded Information Dump. Weave in details. The Dreaded Information Dump is a common beginning-author error across the board, but especially bad in certain genres, such as historicals, fantasy, and SF.

What’s an “information dump”? It’s where the author provides details the reader doesn’t need at that point in the story. What the character looks like, is wearing, their family background, what they had for breakfast….

As mentioned, details should be woven into the story organically. What your character had for breakfast matters only if, later, it’s giving him/her gas: “Damn those beans in my breakfast burrito!” Some details may be useful to set a scene and prevent characters from walking around, having conversations in a void, but again, a light touch.

Similarly, One scene, One head. We do NOT need to see everything from each character’s point of view. No, really. We don’t. And dear God, please don’t “head-hop” inside of scenes (unless you’re writing omniscient, but be sure you know what omniscient IS). Drives me BUGGY.

Anyway, back to the Notecard Showing Problem. As noted above, genre expectations and reader preferences often dictate what IS “too much detail.” Generally, historical Romance (the genre) and historical mysteries go lighter on detail than historical fantasy or plain historicals. That’s because the former two have genre conventions that work against it. Romances preference the love story front-and-center at all times, and mysteries have a mystery to unravel. E.g, they’re plot driven. By contrast, historical fantasies tolerate more world building because world building itself is a feature of fantasy (and science fiction too). And the appeal of mainstream or literary historicals IS the world building, so you get massive novels like Ken Follet’s Pillars of the Earth.

I’m blathering now, but hopefully this gives pointers not just about writing Alexander, but writing fiction period, and historical fiction in particular.

[innuendostudios]

The newest installment of The Alt-Right Playbook - Endnote 4: How the Alt-Right is Like an Abusive Relationship - is a little different. This installment was presented live at Solidarity Lowell, and includes a bonus Q&A section. This video expands on the ideas put forth in How to Radicalize a Normie.

If you would like more videos like this to come out, please back me on Patreon.

Transcript below the cut.

He is intriguing, yet unpredictable. He demands unconditional loyalty. He seems to have an intuitive understanding of what people want to hear but no actual empathy; he treats others as simply bodies or objects. And he’s surrounded by a network of subordinates but the personnel is always changing.

Does it sound like I’m describing The President? Because these are, according to Alexandra Stein, qualities of a cult leader.

Hi. My name is Ian Danskin. I’m a video essayist and media artist. I run the YouTube channel Innuendo Studios, the flagship endeavor of which is currently The Alt-Right Playbook, a series on the political and rhetorical strategies the Alt-Right uses to legitimize itself and gain power. And, if that sounds interesting to you, and you haven’t already, please like share and subscribe.

The most recent episode of The Alt-Right Playbook is about how people get recruited into these largely online reactionary communities like the Alt-Right, a subject which, as it turns out, is real fuckin’ hard to research.

What I want to talk about with you today is how I go about studying a population that is incredibly hostile towards being studied. It involves finding the bits and pieces of the Alt-Right that we do have data on - the pockets of good research, the outsider observations, the stories of lived experience - as well as looking at older movements the Alt-Right grew out of, that have been extensively researched, and spotting the ways the Alt-Right is continuous with them, and trying to extrapolate how those structures might recreate themselves in the social media age.

So it’s… a lot. And, in the process of researching, I found a wealth of interesting perspectives that, by focusing the video on recruitment specifically, I barely dipped a toe in. All that stuff is what I’d like to get into with you today. But I’m trying to thread a needle here: you don’t need to have seen my video, How to Radicalize a Normie, to follow this talk, but, if you have seen it already, I will try not to be redundant. This talk is one part making my case for why I think the conclusions in that video are correct, one part repository for all the stuff I couldn’t get into, and one part how I’ve come to look at the Alt-Right as a result of this research, including some pet theories I wouldn’t feel right claiming as truth without further research, but I do think are on the right track.

This talk is called Isolation, Engulfment, and Pain: How the Alt-Right is Like an Abusive Relationship. We’re going to cover a lot of ground, from information processing to emotional development, but we’re necessarily also going to cover racism and violence and abuse dynamics. So this is an introduction and a content warning: if some of these subjects are particularly charged for you, no offense will be taken if you at any point leave the room. I have to research this stuff for a living, and it is rough, and sometimes I have to step away. We don’t judge here.

Now. Requisite dash of self-deprecation: don’t give me too much credit for all this. I am proud of the work I do and I think I’m genuinely good at it, but much of this video was compiling the work of others. Besides research I had already done and my own observations, the video had 27 sources: three books, five research papers, six articles, one leaked document, three testimonials, four videos, four pages of statistics, and one Twitter joke. I also spoke to four professional researchers who study right-wing extremism and one former Alt-Righter.

Without all their hard work, I would have nothing to compile.

OK? Let’s begin.

We’re gonna center on those three main texts: Alt-America by David Neiwert, a history of the Alt-Right’s origins; Healing from Hate by Michael Kimmel, about how young men get into (and out of) extremist groups, be they neo-Nazi or jihadist; and Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein, about how people are courted by and kept inside cults and totalitarian regimes.

I began with Kimmel. The premise of Healing from Hate is that extremist groups tend to be between 75 and 90% male, and that you cannot understand radical conservatism without looking at it through the lens of toxic masculinity. Which makes it all the more disappointing that Kimmel has been accused by multiple women of bullying and harassment. I found the book incredibly useful, and we’re still going to talk about it, I just need to caveat here that retweets are not endorsements. Also, if I spoil the book for you then you don’t need to buy it, give your money to someone who isn’t a creep.

Kimmel’s argument is that extremism begins with a pain peculiar to young men. He calls it “aggrieved entitlement.” I call it Durden Syndrome. You know that scene in Fight Club where Tyler Durden says, “We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires and movie gods and rockstars, but we won’t, we’re slowly learning that fact, and we are very, very pissed off”? Yeah, that. As men, the world promised us something, and the promise wasn’t kept.

Some men skew towards social progressivism when they realize this promise was never made to women, or men of color, or queer or trans or nonbinary people, and recognize the injustice of that. Some men skew towards economic leftism when they realize that every cishet white man being a millionaire rockstar movie god is mathematically impossible. But they skew towards reactionary conservatism when they feel the promise should have been kept. That’s the life they were supposed to have, and someone took it from them.

Hate groups appeal to that sense of emasculation. “You wanna feel like a Real Man? Shave off your hair, dance to hatecore, and let’s beat the crap out of someone.” Kimmel notes that the greatest indicator someone will join a hate group is a broken home: divorce, foster care, parents with addictions, physical or sexual abuse. The greater the distance between the life they were promised and the life they are living, the more enticing Real Masculinity becomes. Their fellow extremists are brothers, the leaders father figures.

The group does give them someone to blame for their lot in life - immigrants, feminists, the Jewish conspiracy - but that’s not why they join. They’re after empowerment. According to Kimmel, “Their embrace of neo-Nazi ideology is a consequence of their recruitment and indoctrination process, not its cause."

But once an Other has been identified as the locus of a hate group’s hate, new recruits are brought along when the group terrorizes that Other. Events like cross burnings and street fights are dangerous and morally fraught, and are often traumatic for a new recruit. And experiencing an emotional or physical trauma can create an intense bond with the people experiencing it with him, even though they’re the ones who brought him to the traumatic event in the first place. The creation of this bond is one of the reasons some hate groups usher new recruits out into the field as early as possible: the sooner they are emotionally invested in the community, the faster they will embrace the community’s politics.

This Othering also estranges recruits from the people they are supposed to hate, which makes it hard to stop hating them.

So there’s this concept that comes up a lot in my research called Contact Hypothesis. Contact Hypothesis argues that, the more contact you have with a different walk of life, the easier it is to tolerate it. It’s like exposure therapy. We talk about how big cities and college campuses tend to be liberal strongholds; the Right likes to claim this is because of professors and politicians poisoning your mind, but it’s really just because they’re diverse. When you share space with a lot of different kinds of people, a degree of liberalism becomes necessary just to get by. And we see that belief systems which rely on a strict orthodoxy get really cagey about members having contact with outsiders. We see this in all the groups we’re discussing today - extremists, cultists, totalitarians - but also religious fundamentalists; Mormons only wanna send their kids to Brigham Young. They are belief systems that can only be reliably maintained so long as no one gets exposed to other people with other beliefs.

So that’s some of what I took from Kimmel. Next I read Stein talking, primarily, about cults.

Stein’s window into all of this is applying the theory of Attachment Styles to what researchers calls totalism, which is any structure that subsumes a person’s entire life the way cults and totalitarian governments do. Attachment is a concept you may be familiar with if have, or have ever dated, a therapist. (I’ve done both.)

So, for a quick primer:

Imagine you’re walking in the park with a three-year-old. And the three-year-old sees a dog, and ask, “Can I pet the dog?” And you say yes, and the kid steps away from your side and reaches out. And the dog gets excited, and jumps up, and the kid gets scared and runs back to you. So you hold the kid and go, “Oh, no no no, don’t worry! They’re not gonna hurt you! They were just happy to see you!” And you take a few moments to calm the kid down, and then you ask, “Do you still want to pet the dog?” And the kid says “yes,” so they step away from you again and reach out. The dog jumps up again, but this time the kid doesn’t run away, and they pet the dog, and you, the kid, and the dog are all happy. Hooray!

This is a fundamental piece of a child’s emotional development. They take a risk, have a negative experience, and retreat to a point of comfort. Then, having received that comfort, feel bolstered enough to take a slightly greater risk. A healthy childhood is steadily venturing further and further from that point of comfort, and taking on greater risks, secure in the knowledge that safety is there when they need it. And, as an adult, they will form many interdependent points of comfort rather than relying on only one or two.

If all goes according to plan, that is Secure Attachment. But: sometimes things go wrong when the kid seeks comfort and doesn’t get enough. This may be because the adult is withholding or the kid doesn’t know how to express their needs or they’re just particularly fearful. But the kid may start seeking comfort more than seems reasonable, and be particularly averse to risk, and over-focus on the people who give them comfort, because they’re operating at a deficit. We call that Anxious Attachment. Alternately, the kid may give up on receiving comfort altogether, even though they still need it, and just go it alone, developing a distrust of other people and a fear of being vulnerable. We call that Avoidant Attachment.

Now, these styles are all formed in early childhood, but Stein focuses on a fourth kind of Attachment, one that can be formed at any age regardless of the Attachment Style you came in with. It’s what happens when the negative experience and the comfort come from the same place. We see it in children and adults who are mistreated by the people they trust. It’s called Disorganized Attachment.

According to Stein, cults foster Disorganized Attachment by being intensely unpredictable. In a cult, you may be praised for your commitment on Monday and have your commitment questioned on Tuesday, with no change in behavior. You may be assigned a romantic partner, who may, at any point, be taken away, assigned to someone else. Your children may be taken from you to be raised by a different family. You may be told the cult leader wants to sleep with you, which may make you incredibly happy or be terrifying, but you won’t be given a choice. And the rules you are expected to follow will be rewritten without warning.

This creates a kind of emotional chaos, where you can’t predict when you will be given good feelings and when you will be given bad ones. But you’re so enmeshed in the community you have noplace else to go for good feelings; hurting you just draws you in deeper, because they are also where you seek comfort. And your pain is always your fault: you wouldn’t feel so shitty if you were more committed. Trying to make sense of this causes so much confusion and anguish that you eventually just stop thinking for yourself. These are the rules now? OK. He’s not my brother anymore? OK. This is my life now? OK.

Hardly anyone would seek out such a dynamic, which is why cults present as religions, political activists, and therapy groups; things people in questioning phases of their lives are liable to seek out, and then they fall down the rabbit hole before they know what’s happening. The cult slowly consumes more and more of a recruit’s life, and tightly controls access to relationships outside the cult, because the biggest threat to a Disorganized Attachment relationship is having separate, Securely Attached points of comfort.

And at this point I said, “Hold up. You’re telling me cults recruit by offering people community and purpose in times of need, become the focal point of their entire lives, estrange them from all outside perspectives, and then cause emotional distress that paradoxically makes them more committed because they have nowhere else to go for support?”

Isn’t that exactly how Kimmel described joining a hate group?

Now, these are commonalities, not a one-to-one comparison. A cult is far more organized and rigidly controlled than a hate group. But Stein points out that this dynamic of isolation, engulfment, and pain is the same dynamic as an abusive relationship. The difference is just scale. A cult is functionally a single person having a very complex domestic abuse situation with a whole lot of people, #badpolyamory.

So if we posit a spectrum with domestic abuse on one end and cults and totalitarianism on the other, I started wondering, could we put extremist groups, like ISIS and Aryan Nations, around… here?

And, if so, where would we put the Alt-Right?

Now, I have to tread carefully here. There are reasons this talk is called “How the Alt-Right is Like an Abusive Relationship” and not “How the Alt-Right is Like a Cult,” because the moment you say the second thing, a lot of people stop listening to you. Our conception of cults and totalitarianism is way more controlled and structured than a pack of loud, racist assholes on the internet. But we’re not talking about organizational structure, we’re talking about a relationship, an emotional dynamic Stein calls “anxious dependency,” which fosters an irrational loyalty to people who are bad for you and gets you to adopt an ideology you would have previously rejected. (I would also love to go on a rant puncturing the idea that cultists and fascists are organized, pointing out this notion is propaganda and their systems are notoriously corrupt and mismanaged, but we don’t have time; ask me about it in the Q&A if you want me to go off.)

So I started looking through what I knew, and what I could find, about the Alt-Right to see if I could spot this same pattern of isolation, engulfment, and pain online funneling people towards the Alt-Right. And I did not come up short.

Isolation? Well, the Alt-Right traffics in all the same dehumanizing narratives about their enemies as Kimmel’s hate groups - like, the worst things you can imagine a human being saying about a group of people are said every day in these forums. They often berate and harass each other for any perceived sympathy towards The Other Side. They also regularly harass people from The Other Side off of platforms, and falsely report their tweets, posts, and videos as terrorism to get them taken down. (This has happened to me, incidentally.) I found figureheads adored by the Alt-Right who expressly tell people to cut ties with liberal family members.

We talked before about Contact Hypothesis? There’s also this idea called Parasocial Contact Hypothesis. A parasocial relationship is a strong emotional connection that only goes one way, like if you really love my videos and have started thinking of me almost as a friend even though I don’t know you exist? Yeah. Parasocial relationship. They’ve been in The Discourse lately, largely thanks to my friend Shannon Strucci making a really great video about them (check it out, I make a cameo, but… clear your schedule). Parasocial Contact Hypothesis is this phenomenon where, if people form parasocial feelings for public figures or even fictional characters, and those people happen to be Black, white audience members become less racist similar to how they would if they had Black friends. Your logical brain knows that these are strangers, but your lizard brain doesn’t know the difference between empathy for a queer friend and empathy for a queer character in a video game. So of course the Alt-Right makes a big stink about queer characters in video games, and leads boycotts against “forced diversity,” because diverse media is bad for recruitment.

Engulfment? Well, I learned way too much about how the Alt-Right will overtake your entire internet life. There was a paper made the rounds last year by Rebecca Lewis charting the interconnectedness of conservative YouTube. (Reactionaries really hated this paper because it said things they didn’t like.) Lewis argues that, once you enter what she calls the Alternative Influence Network, it tends to keep you inside it. Start with some YouTuber conservatives like but who’s branded as a moderate, or even a “classic liberal.” Take someone like Dave Rubin; call Dave Rubin Alt-Right, people yell at you, I speak from experience. Well, Dave Rubin’s had Jordan Peterson on his show, so, if you watch Rubin, Peterson ends up in your recommendations. Peterson has been on the Joe Rogan show, so, you watch Peterson, Rogan ends up in your recommendations. And Rogan has interviewed Gavin McInnes, so you watch Rogan and McInnes ends up in your recommendations.

Gavin McInnes is the head of the Proud Boys, a self-described “western chauvinist” organization that’s mostly known for beating up liberals and leftists. They have ties to neo-fascist groups like Identity Evropa and neo-fascist militias like the Oath Keepers, they run security for white nationalists, and their lawyer just went on record that he identifies as a fascist. And, if you’re one of these kids who has YouTube in the background with autoplay on, and you’re watching Dave Rubin? You might be as few as 3 videos away from watching Gavin McInnes.

There’s a lot of talk these days about algorithms funneling people towards the Right, and that’s not wrong, but it’s an oversimplification. The real problem is that the Right knows how to hijack an algorithm.

I also learned about the Curation/Search Radicalization Spiral from a piece by Mike Caulfield. Caulfiend uses the horrific example of Dylann Roof. You remember him? He shot up a church in a Black neighborhood a few years ago. Roof says he was radicalized when he googled “Black on white crime” and saw the results. Now, if you search the phrase “crime statistics by demographic,” you will find fairly nonpartisan results that show most crimes are committed against members of the perpetrator’s own race, and Black people commit crimes against white people at about the same rate as any other two demographics. But that specific phrase, “Black on white crime,” is used almost exclusively by white racists, and so Roof’s first hit wasn’t a database of crime statistics, it was the Council of Conservative Citizens. Now, the CCC is an outgrowth of the White Citizens Councils of the 50’s and 60’s which rebranded in ‘85. They publish bogus statistics that paint Black people as uniquely violent. And they introduce a number of other politically-loaded phrases - like, say, “Muslim fertility rates” - that nonpartisan sites don’t use, and so, if Roof googles them as well, he gets similarly weighted results.

I have tons more examples of this stuff. I literally don’t have time to show it all. Like, have you heard of Google bombing? That’s a thing I didn’t know existed. The point is, the same way search engines tailor your results to what they think you want, once you scratch the surface of the Alt-Right they are highly adept at making it so, whenever you go online, their version of reality is all you know and all you see.

Finally, pain. This was the difficult one. Can you create a Disorganized Attachment relationship over the internet with a largely faceless and decentralized movement? I pitched the idea to one the researchers I spoke to, and he said, “That sounds very plausible, and nearly impossible to research.” See, cults and hate groups? They don’t wanna talk to researchers anymore than the Alt-Right wants to talk to me. Stein and Kimmel get their data by speaking to formers, people who’ve exited these movements and are all too happy to share how horrible they were. But the Alt-Right is still very young, and there just aren’t that many formers yet.

I found some testimonials, and they mostly back up my hypothesis, but there’s not enough that I could call them statistically significant. So I had to look where the data was.

My fellow YouTuber ContraPoints made a video last year - in my opinion, her best one - about incels (that’s “involuntary celibate,” men who can’t get laid). Incel forums tend to be deeply misogynistic and antifeminist, and have a high overlap with the Alt-Right. If you remember Elliot Rodger, he was an incel. Contra’s observation was that these forums were incredibly fatalistic: you are too ugly and women too shallow for you to ever have sex, so you should give up. She described a certain catharsis, like picking a really painful scab, in hearing other people voice your worst fears. But there was no uplift; these communities seemed to have a zero-tolerance policy for optimism. She likened it so some deeply unhealthy trans forums she used to visit, where people wallowed in their own dysphoria.

And I remembered the forums I researched five years ago in preparation for my video on GamerGate. (If you don’t know what GamerGate was, I will not rob you of your precious innocence. But, in a lot of ways, GamerGate was the trial run for what the Alt-Right has become.) These forums were full of angry guys surrounding themselves with people saying, “You’re right to be angry.” And, yeah, if everywhere else you go treats your anger as invalid, that scratches an itch. But I never saw any of them calm down. They came in angry and they came out angrier. And most didn’t have anywhere else to vent, so they all came back.

I found a paper on Alt-Right forums that described a similar type of nihilism, and another on 8chan. What humor was on these sites was always shocking, furiously punching down, and deeply self-referential, but it didn’t seem like anyone was expected to laugh anymore, just, you know, catch the reference. I found one testimonial saying that having healthy relationships in these spaces is functionally impossible, and the one former I talked to said, yeah, when the Alt-Right isn’t winning everyone’s miserable.

So I think it might fit. The place they go for relief also makes them unhappy, so they come back to get relief again, and it just repeats. Same reason people stay with abusers. I wanna look into this further, so, I’ll just say this part to the camera: if there are any researchers watching who wanna study this, get at me.

Finally, I read Alt-America by David Neiwert, a supremely useful book that I highly recommend if you wanna know how the Alt-Right is the natural outgrowth of the militia and Patriot movements of the 90’s and early 2000’s, not to mention the Tea Party. Neiwert also does an excellent job illustrating how conspiracism serves to fill in the gap between the complexity of the modern world and the simplistic, might-makes-right worldview of fascism.

Neiwert also provides an interesting piece of the puzzle, suggesting what people are actually looking for when they get recruited. He references work done by John Bargh and Katelyn McKenna on Identity Demarginalization. Bargh and McKenna looked at the internet habits of people whose identities are both devalued in our society and invisible. By invisible, what I mean is, ok, if you’re a person of color, our society devalues your identity, but you can look around a room and, within a certain margin of error, see who else is POC, and form community with them if you wish. But, if you’re queer, you can’t see who else in a room is queer unless one of you runs up a flag. And revealing yourself always means taking on a certain amount of risk that you’ve misread the signals, that the person you reveal yourself to is not only not queer, but a homophobe.

According to Bargh and McKenna, people in this situation are much more likely to seek online spaces that self-select for that identity. A fan forum for RuPaul’s Drag Race is maybe a safer place to come out and find community. And people tend to get very emotionally tied to these online spaces where they can be themselves.

Neiwert points out that the same phenomenon happens among privileged people who have identities that are devalued even as they’re not actually oppressed. Say, nerds, or conservatives in liberal towns, or men who don’t fit traditional notions of masculinity. They are also likely to deeply invest themselves in online spaces made for them. And if the Far Right can build such a community, or get a foothold in one that already exists, it is very easy to channel that sense of marginalization into Durden Syndrome. I connected this with Rebecca Lewis’ observation that the Alternative Influence Network tends to present itself as nerd-focused life advice first and politics second, and the long history of reactionaries recruiting from fandoms.

So I can see all the pieces of the abuse dynamic being recreated here: offer you something you need, estrange you from other perspectives and healthy relationships, overtake your life, and provoke emotional distress that makes you seek comfort only your abuser is offering. And I found a lot more parallels than what I’m sharing right now, I only have half an hour! But the thing that’s missing that’s usually central to such a system is, an abusive relationship orbits around the abuser, a cult around the cult leader, a totalitarian government around a dictator. They are built to serve the whims of an individual. But I look at the ad hoc nature of the Alt-Right and I have to ask: who is the architect?

I can see a lot of people profiting off of this structure; our current President rode it to great success, but he didn’t build it. It predates him. It’s more like Kimmel’s hate groups, which don’t promote an individual so much as a class of individuals, but, even then, their structure is much more deliberate, designed, where the Alt-Right seems almost improvised.

Well… one observation I took from Stein is that cult recruiters often rely on two different kinds of propaganda: the winding diatribe and the thought-terminating cliche. The diatribe is when someone talks at length, sounds smart, and seems to know what they’re talking about but isn’t actually making sense, and the thought-terminating cliche comes from Robert Jay Lifton’s studies into brainwashing. So, I went vegetarian in middle school, and, when I would tell other kids I was vegetarian, some would get kind of defensive and say things like, “humans aren’t meant to be vegetarian, it’s the food chain.” Now, saying “it’s the food chain” isn’t meant to be a good argument, it’s meant to communicate “I have said something so axiomatically true that the argument need not continue.” That’s a thought-terminating cliche; something that may not be true, but feels true and gives you permission to think about something else.

Both these techniques rely on what’s called Peripheral-Route Processing. So, I’m up here talking about politics, and, Solidarity Lowell, you are a group of politically-engaged people, so you probably have enough context to know whether I’m talking out of my ass. That’s Direct-Route Processing, where you judge the contents of my argument. But if I were up here talking about string theory, you might not know whether I was talking out of my ass because there’s only so many people on Earth who understand string theory. So then you might look at secondary characteristics of my argument: the fact that I’ve been invited to speak on string theory implies I know what I’m talking about; maybe I put up a lot of equations and drop the names of mathematicians and say they agree with me; maybe I just sound really authoritative. All that’s Peripheral-Route Processing: judging the quality of my argument by how it’s delivered.

Every act of communication involves both, but if you’re trying to sell people on something that’s fundamentally irrational, you’re going to rely heavily on Peripheral-Route tactics, which is what the winding diatribe and the thought-terminating cliche are.

I noted that these two methods mapped pretty cleanly onto the rhetorical stylings of Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro. But here’s the question: cults use these techniques to recruit people. But can I say with any confidence that Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro are trying to recruit people into the Alt-Right?

The thing is, “Alt-Right” isn’t a term like “klansman.” It’s more akin to a term like “modernism.” It’s a label applied to a trend. In the same way we debate the line between modernism and postmodernism, we debate the line between Right and Alt-Right. People don’t sign up to be in the Alt-Right, you are Alt-Right if you say you’re Alt-Right. But the nature of the Alt-Right is that 90% of them would never admit to it.

So are Peterson and Shapiro intentionally recruiting for the Alt-Right? Are they grifters merely profiting off of the Alt-Right? Are they even aware they’re recruiting for the Alt-Right? Part of my work has been accepting that you can’t know for sure. It would be naive to say they’re unaware; when they give speeches they get Nazis in their Q&A sections, and they know that. But how aware are they? I suspect Shapiro moreso than Peterson, but that’s just my gut talking and I can’t prove it. Like 90% of the Alt-Right, it’s debatable.

I don’t know if they’re trying to be part of this system, I just know they’re not trying not to be.

A final academic term before we say goodnight that’s been making the rounds among lefty YouTubers is “Stochastic Terrorism.” There’s a really great video about this by the channel NonCompete called The PewDiePipeline. Stochastic Terrorism is the myriad ways you can increase the likelihood that someone will commit violence without actually telling them to. You simply create an environment in which lone wolf violence becomes more acceptable and appealing. It mirrors the structure of terrorism without the control or culpability.

And I hear about this, and I look at this recruitment structure I see approximated in the Alt-Right, and I remember something I learned much earlier in my research, from Bob Altemeyer in his book The Authoritarians. Altemeyer has been studying authoritarianism for decades, he has a wealth of data, and one thing he observes is that authoritarianism is the few exerting power over the many, which means there are two types of authoritarians: the ones who lead and the ones who follow. Turns out those are completely different personality profiles. Followers don’t want to be in charge, they want someone to tell them what to do, to say “you’re the good guys,” and put them in charge of punishing the bad guys. They don’t even care who the bad guys are; part of the appeal is that someone else makes that judgment for them.

So if you can encourage a degree of authoritarian sentiment in people, get them wanting nothing more than to be ensconced in a totalist system that will take their agency away from them, putting them in the orbit of an authoritarian leader, but no leader presents themself… can you just kind of… appoint one?

Like, if you don’t have a leader, can you just find yourself an authoritarian and treat him like one? And, if he doesn’t give you enough directives, can you just make some up? And, if you don’t have recruiters, can you find a conservative who speaks in thought-terminating cliches just because he thinks they win arguments; find a conservative who speaks in meaningless diatribes because he thinks he’s making sense; and then maneuver those speeches and videos in front of people you want to recruit? If you’re sick of waiting for Moses to come down the mountain with the Word of God, can you just build your own god from whatever’s handy?

Every piece of this structure, you can find people, algorithms, and arguments that, put in sequence, can generate Disorganized Attachment whether they’re trying to or not, which makes every part plausibly deniable. Debatable. You just need to make it profitable enough for the ones involved that they don’t fix it. This is a system created collaboratively, on the fly, with the help of a lot of people from hate movements past, mostly by throwing a ton of shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. The Alt-Right is a rapidly-mutating virus and the web is the perfect incubator; it very quickly finds a structure that works, and it’s a structure we’ve seen before, just a little weirder this time.

I’ve started calling this Stochastic Totalism.

Now, again, I’m not a professional researcher; I do my homework but I don’t have the background. I have an art degree. This isn’t something I can prove so much as a way I’ve come to look at the Alt-Right that makes sense to me and helps me understand them. And I got a lot of comments on my last video from people who used to be Alt-Right that echoed my assumptions. But don’t take it as gospel.

Mostly I wanted to share this because, if it can help you make sense of what we’re dealing with, I think it’s worth putting out there.

Thank you.

[neonflare]

Random and weird kind of a x Philza Minecraft drabble part 1

Walking in nature is quite calming, isn't it? You found yourself walking through trees and lakes to get to your boyfriend's house, Wilbur. You smiled at the thought, Wilbur was quite sweet to you, and you loved him very much.

You found yourself climbing a few mountains and dropping into water from those mountains. Luckily the armor kept your clothing dry. Even if it wasn't dry you brought a very long coat that you could put on that covered enough of your body.

Your hair did get quite wet so you were going to have to deal with that issue which wasn't even hard to deal with in the first place. You were almost there. Why did you have to build your house so far away from everybody else?

You took a bite out of the sweet berries that you had. You had other food but you needed to get rid of the sweet berries you over collected. You already planted some in your farm, so the only thing left is to just use them up.

The amount of nutrition you get from the sweet berries is actually surprising. You could technically only eat sweet berries and you would survive. Every other food was the same too, you were always fascinated by how different and similar foods can be.

That was quite off-topic though, you were finally at the SBI household. You clipped off your armor and put it in your bag. You squeezed the water out of your hair and untied the ponytail you had.

You slightly ruffled up your hair to make it more poofy, and started braiding it so it was near impossible to tell you were in water other than the fact that your hair is slightly darker because of the leftover water.

You didn't normally braid your hair as you weren't that type of girl, but right now you really needed it. You tied the end of the braid and knocked on the door.

"I'll open the door! Wait a moment!" The familiar voice of Philza, Wilbur's father, called out as a response. Shuffling could be heard on the other side and a short click noise before the door opened.

"You're here to see Wilbur, right? You came at the perfect time! I had just finished cooking, and made some extra as always, so you can come in and have a seat."

The man moved aside so you could walk in. You took the offer and stepped into the house that you have been to so many times. Everybody in the household was nice, even Tommy. Tommy may be hot headed and clingy but he still is quite accepting and welcoming.

You were following Philza to the Kitchen that wasn't far from the door. "Take a seat, I'll call the others and set the table up." Phil treaded over to one of the chairs around the table and pulled it out for you to sit on.

You obliged and walked over to the chair and sat in it. "Wilbur! Tommy! Techno! Tubbo! Ranboo! Dinner is ready! We have a guest too!" Surprisingly, Philza could get quite loud. Currently he was at the doorway.

He moved away from it and went over to the cupboards and grabbed a bunch of plates. "Do you need any help?" You offered, you didn't like to just sit and do nothing. "Ah, Could you please grab the cups and set them on the table? The cups are in the open cupboard."

Philza placed all of the plates he had on the counter and started dividing and placing the cooked food onto the plates. You stood up from your chair and headed over to the cupboard to grab some cups.

"What did you make?" Small talk was never bad, right? You were placing cups two at a time on the table. "Steak, vegetables, and some mushrooms." Ah, that explains the pleasant smell of the food. You recognized the smell of the mushrooms and steak.

"I heard you went on many adventures, and we're here for a very long time. Before any of the others were brought into this strange world too." Philza had said in a previous conversation that he was comfortable with talking about his adventures in this world.

It was quite strange, it always felt like something was missing. Everybody had just woken up one day in a forest, and little by little more people came in and more things started getting built. There wasn't the process of 'growing' like in the books we read about.

There were many public discussions about this world. There were multiple books and scraps of paper saying about other people who were brought into this world against their will. We had figured out that we weren't meant to be here, but we were brought here without our memory of anything other than this world.

Many people went exploring different places, we found something we called 'The Nether' and something we called 'The End'. None of those proved an escape path from this isolated but surprisingly large shelter.

"Ah, my adventures. Yes I've been on many. Do you wish to know about some of them?" The food was on the plates. "Yeah, I'm quite curious actually." You smiled, adventures were always fun to hear about, and you haven't gone around to asking about Philza's.

"Could you get some juice from the refrigerator?" He asked as he was placing plates on the table. "Sure thing." You walked over to the fridge and pulled the door open to look inside. There were quite a few juices. Apple Juice, Sweet Berry juice, Glow berry (1.17.0 MC) Chorus fruit, ect.

You already had enough of sweet berries and berries in general, apple juice was too plain. Chorus fruit it is then. You grabbed the small bucket of chorus fruit juice and closed the refrigerator.

Pouring the juice carefully into the glass cups you spotted Philza placing the utensils down. Once you were finished with pouring the liquid you gently set the bucket in the middle of the table and went over to the counter to grab napkins and place them on the table.

"There is this one story that happened in a cave. Remember the rumor that if you had a skeleton shoot a creeper, a disc would fall? That rumor is true." The rumor part piqued your interest. It was hard to get a skeleton to shoot a creeper.

You would have to go behind the creeper as the skeleton is shooting, which is hard as you have to time it well or the skeleton will move away to get a better view and have better accuracy when shooting their bow.

It was easier to do skeleton on skeleton as if they are very close, they could accidentally shoot each other and start a duel, or if they are on opposite ends of you they could shoot each other. You finally finished placing the napkins.

"Tell me all about it, please." You were very excited to hear the story. "Since we've finished setting the table, let's take a seat and l'll tell you about the day I first got a 'Cat' disc."

Cat discs were the most common discs, but discs were hard to find in general. You plopped down on your chair again, and Philza took his seat at the opposite end of you.

"I was mining in a cave, trying to get resources and exploring to see what I will find. Mind you, this around the very beginning. Maybe my...7th time going into a cave? It's been years so now I probably have 500+ times." You chuckled to yourself.

"500? That's a very large number, it has been years though, so I wouldn't be surprised at that." You commented. Philza snickered to himself, "Yeah, it's been quite a long time. I was getting some more iron with an iron pickaxe. Just when I had finished mining and was turning around, I spotted a Creeper.

Before that moment I had killed a few creepers already, and knew that they dropped gunpowder. So I naturally wanted to kill it and hoped to get some gunpowder. As I approached it, hit it, and was moving back, I heard an arrow whizz by me. There had been a skeleton that I hadn't noticed."

You winced at the thought, you had been caught off guard by skeletons many times. You still get caught off-guard sometimes. It's like they just appear behind you and you have no idea where it came from.

"Right now you probably wouldn't have any issues with that kind of situation, but back then you weren't the person you are now." Speaking in a quiet tone you responded. Phil let out a chuckle

"Yeah, I had panicked as I didn't know who to focus on. My fighting skills weren't as good as they are now either. That did not help the situation at hand." You were on the better side with fighting. Definitely not the best, but you could easily hold your ground against an opponent for quite a long time.

You got lucky and managed to kill somebody who had a netherite axe with your fists. You would have been toast if they were wearing armor, but you are still proud of that one moment. They respawned shortly after the duel between the two of you.

"My focus was shifting between the Creeper and Skeleton. I was moving a lot to avoid the arrows. When one of the arrows shot I heard a strange noise, I turned around for a split second and the Creeper was no longer there. I turned around and finished killing the Skeleton.

When I turned to get a better look at where the creeper was, I noticed something on the ground. It did not look gray and didn't look powdery, so I knew that it wasn't gunpowder. I got curious and walked over to the item and there it was, the cat disc." How would a disc be inside a Creeper?

That's the main question you had from the story. Weren't Creepers made of dynamite? You had saw a Creeper x-ray in a book before, it never showed any disc in the x-ray. Which was probably why most people called it a rumor, it was really hard to get a skeleton to shoot a creeper so it wasn't like people could tell if the rumor was true or not.

Of course some people managed to do it, it wasn't impossible, but they decided to stay silent about if the rumor was true or not. "It's really strange, isn't it?" Your thoughts came running out of your mouth. Phil stayed silent, signaling you to continue.

"The disc and the rumor, how would it be inside a Creeper? Don't the x-rays say that there are no discs inside a Creeper?" The words were rolling out of your mouth. You were genuinely wondering about it.

"This theory may be insane, but it just could be true. The x-rays never showed the inside of the TNT inside the Creeper, mh?" Wait, no no. " You aren't saying that it could be inside the TNT, are you?"

"I am, it would explain why it doesn't show up in the x-ray, and it would also explain why it doesn't drop any other time. When any monster is killed, they seemed to just poof out of existence.

So in that case the disc would disappear with the Creeper, and the reason gunpowder drops is because of the Creeper being hurt and leaking out gunpowder through the wounds. When it explodes it probably explodes the disc with it.

Though an arrow hitting a Creeper pierces through the creeper and it could catch onto the disc. Since the arrows stay and the Creeper disappears, the disc stays as it's attached to the arrow. Though it's strange how it doesn't work when we shoot Creepers.

I could be a mad man talking, but who knows, I don't think anybody has really figured out how it happens." It was an insane theory alright, there are a few unexplained parts that explanation gives, but it can't be debunked either.

"You're probably the only one who can come up with that kind of theory" you smirked to yourself. "Nobody knows why the discs drop, and I don't think it matters if we never figure it out. At least we have the discs in the first place." Philza was keeping in a laugh from coming out of his throat.

"Yeah, and the theory I said was kind of dumb, wasn't it?" You wanted to laugh too. "No offense but, yes, yes it was." Philza started laughing, and you joined in.

It was quite nice talking to Philza, you felt as if you could be yourself. You liked that, with the SBI you felt like you could be whoever you wanted to be and you wouldn't be judged.

You got closer to Philza, and that was always a plus, right?

"Eyyo Phil! We're here!" You immediately recognized Tommy's voice. You turned to look and saw everybody else at the entrance to the kitchen. They started to go around the table and take their seats.

"What took you so long?" You asked. "This child kept us from going down here and made us finish something." Monotonic as always, Techno looked at Tommy with an evil smirk on his face. "I did not! Phil! He's lying!" There's the Tommy I know. It felt nice to be here.

[kiranxrys]

Alone Together Episode 3 Transcript

I apologise for taking so long on this one, Episode 4 will be posted much more quickly. This is a viewer-made transcript of Episode 3 ‘Tango’ of Alone Together: A DS9 Companion performed on the Sid City Social Club.

watch: one | two | three | four

read: one | two | four

ANNOUNCER (ON-SCREEN): ‘Alone Together’ – a Deep Space 9companion, Episode 3 – ‘Tango’. Centuries ago, the Military Assault Command was integrated into Starfleet. Not willing to completely abandon the militant aspects of protection, Section 31 of the Federation Charter retained certain aspects of the four founding species’ respective militaries. Eventually, the surreptitious organisation Section 31 enlisted Doctor Julian Bashir as an unwilling operative. Ultimately, he realized one cold fact – that it was better to work from within, than to fight the good fight from the outside. This led to many strange bedfellows and even more regretful complications. However, by playing the game, Bashir has risen to a leadership role in Section 31 with unwelcome alliances from foes old and new in this quadrant.

[fade to black]

RECAP: In our last episode, Jake Sisko joined Doctor Bashir in his efforts to determine the origin of the Cardassian virus. Though a Romulan agent is likely to be responsible, they have not found a cure and time is running out. Garak’s condition is progressing, which suggests his people are also in dire straits. Jake persists in his investigation of the source of the virus, while Doctor Bashir continues his work on a cure.

JULIAN BASHIR (VOICE ONLY): Mission log, stardate 73714.2. I’m continuing to work on the structure of the virus. I know that I’ve seen a similar nucleotide sequence but the Cardassian RNA is complicating matters. Every simulation I’ve run on the computer indicates the vaccine will not work in the same way. The pathogen appears to share characteristics of bacteria and viruses. The vaccine destroys the bacterial sheath, but the underlying virus remains unaffected. I’m hoping to interrupt viral protein synthesis, but the challenge is ensuring other genetic material remains unaffected.

JULIAN (ON-SCREEN): Garak? [pause] Garak, are you there?

ELIM GARAK (ON-SCREEN): Yes, yes – just a moment, Doctor, I’m sorry. Ah, yes, I was in your cursed scanner and I’m still there, wandering about like a beggar in the wilderness. Where-

JULIAN: I’m sorry Garak, unfortunately these tests are the only way to make progress. By the way, when-

GARAK: Ah, good. Good, good. All right. The computer should be compiling – one moment, Doctor. It should be compiling the results now. All right, yes. Where were we…

JULIAN: Well, I asked you, Garak – when was the last time you had a conversation with anyone on Romulus?

GARAK: A conversation? Oh, well… well I suppose it’s been some time.

JULIAN: This virus is working quickly, so please dispel your natural inclination towards suspense. Our best theory is that the Romulans are somehow involved in all of this.

GARAK: All right, all right Doctor. An old acquaintance named Koval, he sent a rather… ambiguous message recently.

JULIIAN: Koval?

GARAK: Yes.

JULIAN: We’ve met.

GARAK: Oh, the pleasures we share. May I continue?

JULIAN: What did he say?

GARAK: He said he heard that Cardassia was returning to its renaissance and I to my roots. He congratulated me! Somehow, he became aware that the Obsidian order was in the midst of a rebirth of sorts. It became necessary to secure Cardassian interests as democracy took hold – a happy people are a sedate people. But Doctor, as the leader of this world, I cannot afford to relax. So I returned to what I knew, and the Order rose from the ashes of the Cardassian past.

JULIAN: I assumed it was something like that, but you said it was an ambiguous message. That seems pretty straightforward.

GARAK: Well, acquaintance was perhaps the wrong word – we were adversaries.

JULIAN: Meaning?

GARAK: Well, Koval tried to have me killed a dozen times during my exile. Once by the Duras Sisters – charming ladies, I so like them – once by Bajoran militants, and once – actually, several times, after the Romulans entered the war. Yes and… and one of their offers would happen by my shop from time to time. Koval always contacted me after each of his failures to congratulate me.

JULIAN: Each time he made an attempt on your life, he congratulated you?

GARAK: Yes, yes. Doctor, Koval is nothing if not a good sport.

JULIAN: Well Garak, don’t you see this time he’s congratulating you before you’re supposed to die. He had you infected.

GARAK: Ooh, circumstantial I suppose, but… well, it does fit all of the appropriate information. According to the Order’s operatives on Romulus, Koval has had to step down.

JULIAN: Tuvan Syndrome?

GARAK: Yes, Tuvan Syndrome, exactly. Koval kept that mostly to his trusted advisor. Only a handful of members of the Obsidian Order found out after he revealed his illness to the senate.

JULIAN: I’m surprised we didn’t learn of this plot. Koval was a mole for Starfleet Intelligence – well, until his recent retirement.

GARAK: Indeed. Of all of his failures to kill me, at least Koval chose the winning team.

JULIAN: Right, uh… let me have a look at your results. Hmm… The microcellular analysis – it looks so familiar. It looks like an intracellular pathogen but… but…

[pause]

GARAK: Well, do take your time Doctor. I mean, genocides are known for their glacial pace.

JULIAN: Quickening. The pathogen has characteristics of both bacteria and viruses. Why didn’t I see this sooner?

GARAK: Quickening? [pause] What is it Doctor, please?

JULIAN: Garak, you need to start all infected Cardassian on the antigen right away. I can send the formula to you. It may even reverse very early infections, but we can’t be sure. Just give me some time to modify it for Cardassian physiology. Another thing, the infected should be isolated from EM fields – scanning and diagnostic equipment could lead to mutation.

GARAK: All right, I’m transmitting the order now to isolate the patients. I eagerly await your formula. [pause] Doctor- Julian, will your antigen cure this… Quickening?

JULIAN: Garak, I can’t even be sure it’ll work at all. This pathogen has been significantly altered. The Quickening caused systemic collapse of vascular structure but didn’t have the capacity to cause neural defects. It has a similar configuration, but it isn’t The Quickening. In the Teplan people, the antigen only worked as a vaccine. Today, there are virtually no infected people left on the planet. But this pathogen… well, it’s far more intricate. If nothing else, the antigen may protect unborn children. Computer – begin a genomic analysis of the viral protein currently displayed. Insert chromosome adaptations into the antigen established for The Quickening to this genome.

COMPUTER: Awaiting additional input.

JULIAN: Garak, I’ll have the formula to you shortly.

GARAK: Well, I- I can’t very well tell my people that some of them must die, a rare few could live and that their children alone will survive. I mean, haven’t you been studying this disease for years?

JULIAN: Yes Garak, but again, this isn’t the same sickness. It looks like The Quickening on the most basic scale. Another doctor may not even have recognised it. The Dominion engineered their viruses specifically to punish the Teplan people for daring to defy them. The pathogen underwent a random mutation that accelerated the vascular collapse without warning. It was unnaturally accelerated by EM emissions.

GARAK: And how does it naturally accelerate?

JULIAN: Look, when I say random mutation, I mean that it happened entirely at random. But the DNA sequence on this virus are almost entirely Cardassian. It was built from the ground up, nucleotide by nucleotide, but it’s definitely based on the pathogen structure of The Quickening. At least the antigen gives us a starting point.

GARAK: Well, then it looks like you have work to do, Doctor.

JULIAN: Yes, yes, of course. Now back to more immediate concerns, Garak – your heart appears to be developing some mild swelling in the fourth ventricle. Give yourself another hypospray with 15 milligrams of improvoline and repeat it every six hours – it should help stabilise your vascular pressure. Add 10 milligrams of cordrazine for any potential discomfort. The challenge of The Quickening is that neither an antibiotic nor an antiviral agent can interrupt its replication process quickly enough to stop its proliferation. It simply hides itself within the lymphatic system, waiting for a new chance to propagate.

GARAK: Well, that sounds rather insidious.

JULIAN: It is, it is, but this pathogen affects neurons, and the closest lymph nodes are in the neck.

GARAK: Oh dear. [pauses]

JULIAN: What?

GARAK: Doctor, as you requested, patients are being isolated from EM fields but I’ve just received word that the first death has occurred in the Coranum sector of the capital, and two new patients in Lakarian City have been placed in quarantine as they’ve begun… babbling.

JULIAN: Well, babbling isn’t the worst of symptoms. Wait- is there any nominal aphasia?

GARAK: It’s… babbling is putting it mildly. They’re both glinns in the military, Julian. Apparently they’ve been revealing classified weapons locations to anyone who will listen. The neurological impact of this virus seems to compel the infected to share secrets. Doctor, it is exactly as I feared. Koval must have been hoping I would betray myself. [chuckles] I’m impressed! And I am not easily impressed.

JULIAN: Well Garak, you are such a practiced liar, I hardly think anyone would believe much of what you would tell them.

GARAK: Oh, why Doctor, I don’t know what to say. Am I blushing?

JULIAN: My recent simulations suggest that the original vaccine won’t be effective. It’s a start, but it won’t do nearly enough to destroy the pathogen. I’m making progress though.

GARAK: I appreciate optimism Doctor, but naivete is hardly in my nature. Perhaps your optimism will be as infectious as this disease.

JULIAN: Perhaps. I hope.

GARAK: Hope? [laughs] Hope, my dear doctor, has never been found in a hypospray. We now have dozens of patients who’ve progressed to this dangerous place of… unchecked honesty. I’m running out of time.

JAKE SISKO (VOICE ONLY): Julian.

JULIAN: Jake!

JAKE (ON-SCREEN): Julian, I have news. And I’m afraid you’re not going to like it.

JULIAN: Well, that would be hardly surprising at this point. What have you discovered, my friend?

JAKE: Koval, the former head of the Tal Shiar, the man you mention earlier… Well, uh, he was forced to step down due to an illness but, apparently, he disappeared from Romulus a few days after retiring. [sighs] My sources tell me that he showed up on Cardassia, about five weeks ago. He attended a state function. You remember that dispute between the Breen? Well, it was followed by a dinner.

JULIAN: Garak? Garak!

GARAK: Yes, Julian.

JULIAN: Garak, you told me that Koval sent you a message around that time.

GARAK: So I did. [pauses] All right, the message was delivered personally. He made an appearance at the dinner following our trade negotiations. Suffice to say, he did not stay long. He managed to elude security with falsified credentials and found his way to me, posing as a waiter of all things. And he was serving delicious Aldebaron canapes. But I of course recognized him immediately.

JAKE: Did you try to expose him?

GARAK: Well, as soon as he left my side I alerted security. He must have been transported off the surface.

JULIAN: He must have infected you. It fits will all the available information. Jake, have you heard anything else?

JAKE: Yeah, just one more thing. Uh… Koval is dead.

GARAK: Oh, what a pity.

JULIAN: Garak, without Koval’s information about the pathogen our ability to develop a cure is reduced.

JAKE: If Garak was infected by eating the canapes… I mean, doesn't that help you kind of figure out anything new?

JULIAN: No. All we know is the method of distribution. It also explains why other Cardassians fell around the same time. Chances are that once attendees ingested the pathogen, they were able to infect others.

JAKE: Were Cardassian and Breen the only species in attendance?

GARAK: Well, not entirely, though we were the majority.

JAKE: Well, I haven't heard of any reports of illness on any other worlds so far.

JULIAN: Well, that's good news. It means the pathogen was likely designed for Cardassians, and hasn't mutated to infect other species yet.

GARAK: Yes, and- and while that's good news, it hardly solves our more immediate problem.

JULIAN: But Garak, don't you understand what this means? I can beam down to the planet with no danger to myself. I'll be able to do so much more-

GARAK: Julian, Julian, we've been through all this.

JULIAN: I'd be coming alone.

GARAK: And if word gets out that the Federation is able to beam to the surface, yet no one else is permitted… no, no, no, no, no… I'm sorry – you cannot come to the surface, certainly not yet.

JAKE: Well, I still haven't been able to find out who did the work on the pathogen. I still have some associates looking into it. Julian, have you figured anything out?

JULIAN: So far I've been able to destroy the bacterial sheath that contains the virus, that makes the virus susceptible to attack, but the adapted vaccine stops there. It appears that The Quickening was just a starting point for Koval. The virus itself seems to attach itself to specific areas of the brain, destructing some autonomic functions while also causing a kind of dementia.

GARAK: Well, I suggest you return to your work, Doctor. Thank you for your help, Mr Sisko.

JAKE: Yeah, I still have a few sources – I still may be able to get some more information. But you know, the odd thing is that according to my people on Romulus… I mean, Koval's condition shouldn't have deteriorated so quickly.

JULIAN: There are ways to accelerate Tuvan Syndrome, but I can't imagine Koval wouldn't want to see his final triumph over Garak.

JAKE: Tuvan Syndrome?

JULIAN: Oh Jake, Jake – that was off the record. As well as everything we're discussing.

JAKE: Yeah, I get it, Julian, but you know Koval's people, they… they reported his death as natural causes, and neither would explain the swiftness of deterioration. I don't know, a suicide seems even less likely.

GARAK: Especially considering how many species would gladly kill him in whatever manner he desired.

JAKE: Well, I'm gonna do a little bit more digging.

JULIAN: Thanks, Jake.

[Jake leaves]

GARAK: Now, Julian. Julian, Julian. Shall we return to the work please?

[cut to black]

JULIAN (ON-SCREEN): [sighs, distracted]

SOMEONE (VOICE ONLY): [a female voice, humming a tune]

JULIAN: Garak? Garak, is there someone there with you?

SOMEONE: No. Guess again, Julian.

[humming continues]

INTENDANT KIRA NERYS (ON-SCREEN): I'm already bored. [laughs]

JULIAN: Oh, what do you want? I'm in the middle of something.

KIRA: Oh, Julian, Julian. I know what you're in the middle of, exactly. Even with all the interference, I can access your mission logs. [sighs] Why do you make such an effort to avoid learning my rules? I mean, I make such an effort to be your friend, Julian, don't I? Don't you have time for an old friend?

JULIAN: Don't mistake tolerance for friendship. And you obviously know I don't have time for your usual entanglements, so get to the point.

KIRA: Oh, you know, I liked you better in the old days, Julian. Timid… hesitant… submissive.

JULIAN: Working alongside people of questionable morality tends to change a person, and not all for the better.

KIRA: [laughs] Oh, well then, I will get right to the point. We need a stable Cardassia for your stable Alpha Quadrant.

JULIAN: We’re agreed. I'm researching a cure as we speak, something I really need to get back to.

KIRA: Oh, I won't keep you, Julian.

JULIAN: Then why are we still talking?

KIRA: I miss our chats. My Julian just loved it when we chatted, when we spoke- well, when I took the gag off. [laughs] But he was never as amusing as he was and educated, articulate, attractive. Oh yes, yes, enough pleasure. Your universe is always so serious. All business. Well, let's just say I've been talking to some of our section associates, and we need to make a slight alteration to your plans.

JULIAN: My plans? I don't have a cure yet, there isn't time for alterations! People have started dying!

KIRA: Yes, a few dead Cardassians won't destabilize the quadrant, and from what I've learned from this universe’s Bajor, they won't be missed. So how is Ken, by the way?

JULIAN: Cairn. And we are not… we anymore.

KIRA: Oh, oh how delightful! I really must thank whomever told the Trill government about you two being so close.

JULIAN: Enough! Why are you here? I don't see what any of this has to do with you, unless you wanted to admit to your years of bio-engineering on the other side that I didn't know about.

KIRA: Oh, oh, oh, oh! I'm here to represent Bajor in a capacity that luscious young Mr Sisko cannot.

JULIAN: Bajor and Cardassia have made peace. It's been over two decades, Intendant.

KIRA: Deep wounds are slow to heal, Doctor. You should know that more than most.

JULIAN: Do you have a point?

KIRA: You know, the Garak I knew was always plotting behind my back, he was always looking for a way to take my life. His death was delicious. Your Garak is equally deceptive. So, we want you to let him die.

JULIAN: Look, what other agents are tasked with doing is nothing of none of my business, but I will not be responsible for a death.

KIRA: Oh, you mean directly responsible, don't you?

JULIAN: Meaning?

KIRA: Well, since joining Section 31 you've been aware of some of our less palatable but… necessary missions. By allowing them to be carried out, you played a role, however indirectly.

JULIAN: I didn't join Section 31 of my own accord, and my input has also prevented dozens of unnecessary deaths.

KIRA: Oh, Julian, however you justify your role in all of this, you still played a part. And personally, if something gives you pleasure, it's never unnecessary, Julian. Garak cannot be trusted – your Garak, my Garak, any Garak. The plots, the lies, the manipulations… Garak alone is a full-time job. We have agents on the planet. One or two of them could run for office and maintain the Cardassia that we have today without the constant need for monitoring.

JULIAN: On the contrary, history is rife with foreign governments installing political leaders who are almost as quickly corrupted as they were inaugurated. I can trust Garak more than I ever trust you.

KIRA: Yes, but you’re one man among trillions of others, and you were indirectly responsible for Koval's ascension. What a good part you've played in Section 31, Julian. But we're not done with you yet. We need more.

JULIAN: More?

KIRA: We may co-ordinate this section together, Julian, but we both have to do work for the good of the Federation that we don't necessarily agree with.

JULIAN: We can talk about Garak again later. Right now, I have work to do.

[pause]

KIRA (COLDLY): We aren't talking about this later. You have a mission. Garak has been holding back the Andorian recovery, instigating attacks from various mercenary groups. He is manipulating the Breen economy with carefully coordinated accidents, and those are just the latest problems that we can attribute to him.

JULIAN: The Andorian evidence is circumstantial at best!

[pause]

KIRA: You have your orders. Garak’s political life is over… amongst his other lives. Gone. Oh and Julian, we really must do this more often. [blows kiss] Kira out.

[Kira leaves]

JULIAN: Damn it.

[Garak reappears]

GARAK: Well, that was uh… unexpected.

JULIAN: Garak, I wasn't sure if you were able to monitor her.

GARAK: Well, her signal interfered with my visual pickup, but I could hear everything.

JULIAN: I'm sorry.

GARAK: Julian, we have no time to waste on trivial apologies. What I need to know is if you intend to carry out that mission.

JULIAN: Really?

GARAK: Yes.

JULIAN: I came here to help my friend – I’m not here to kill anyone, let alone let them die due to alleged incompetence. I do have a reputation to uphold, after all.

GARAK: Thank you. And I truly mean that. [pause] All right, and I suppose I should stick around for the simple fact that you still have so much to learn.

JULIAN: That's not to say that we aren't going to discuss Andoria and the Breen when this is all finished.

GARAK: Very well. Now actually, I have more pressing issues to deal with internally.

JULIAN: Which would be?

GARAK: My informants told me you were a member of Starfleet Intelligence.

JULIAN: Ah yes… well, I obviously couldn't confirm what you said earlier.

GARAK: But Section 31? You seemed to have detested that organisation! Was- was all that a façade just to throw me off the trail?

JULIAN: No, I had no intention of joining Section 31. I was forced to work with them during the Dominion War. In fact, I thought that Koval was their target at the time.

GARAK: Ah, I see. Well, it's a shame that he wasn't their target – it would have saved us a great deal of time, trouble and effort.

JULIAN: Of course.

[both sigh, Julian distracted by his work]

JULIAN: This is infuriating. If I could just access your diagnostic data more directly-

GARAK: Doctor…

JULIAN: The production of interferons is far lower than a pathogen of this complexity should stimulate. It appears that cytoplasmic receptors have been disrupted.

GARAK: Well, I- I don't know… [inaudible] …talk to me, Doctor, please.

JULIAN: The [uncertain] receptors should have activated an immune response as soon as the microbe passed through the blood-brain barrier. The pathogen must disrupt the natural immune response to prevent your body from affecting its own attack.

GARAK: And that means…?

JULIAN: It means I have a place to begin developing a treatment regimen. Computer, begin new biometric analysis.

COMPUTER: Standby.

JULIAN: Garak, this could be promising. We should know in a few minutes.

GARAK: You know- [sighs and devolves into coughing fit] You know, ah… Well, I never killed sub-commander Ustard – that was the Romulans! The Romulan ambassador, however- [laughs] …that was a different story! [another coughing fit]

JULIAN: Garak, are you alright?

GARAK: Julian, I- I think we'd better hurry. That was information that never should have been shared.

JULIAN: Understood. Garak, perhaps you should consider taking a sedative?

GARAK: Oh, if only it were that simple, Doctor. I can't very well allow myself the luxury of rest when my people are suffering. You're making progress – I suggest you focus on that.

JULIAN: All right, Garak. Perhaps you should get yourself something to eat.

GARAK: Oh, yes, well I'm sure I have some Delavian chocolates around here someplace.

JULIAN: Fine. And when this is all over, you can share them with me.

GARAK: Julian, when this is all over-

JULIAN: Over lunch. We will have lunch again, Garak.

GARAK: Yes, yes. Of course, we will. I have incoming calls from some of the hospitals. I'll be in touch, Julian.

JULIAN: I look forward to it, Elim. [pause] I look forward to it.

[cut to black]

[credits]

[iliveiloveiwrite]

Take me to your river

A/N: Okay. So this is my first time writing for this fandom and honestly I’m actually really worried about it. It’s a huge fandom so I hope its received well. Anyway, it has been ages since I’ve posted but I have been so busy its ridiculous, but I had this idea and I had to write. I know that the tenses are slightly mixed up through this, please bare with me, I’m overloaded right now.

Title: Leon Bridges - River

Pairing: Sirius Black x Fem!Reader

Summary: (Set in the year of Prisoner of Azkaban, so I’m taking a guess at 1993/1994) You’ve left the wizarding world, barely had contact for over ten years. Then Sirius Black breaks out of Azkaban.

Requested: No.

Warnings: none, I don't think. 

Word count: 2.5k.

It had been thirteen years.

Thirteen years since you had last seen the man you loved.

Twelve years since he was put away for a crime he didn’t commit. You knew that, you knew that deep down in your very being. That that day in the street, it was not Sirius who killed the muggles and Peter.

But you didn’t speak up. It would do no good. The Ministry of Magic had signed his death warrant – life in Azkaban until he died of insanity or the Dementor’s performed their kiss.

Sitting in your kitchen, the sunlight filters in through the window and you relish the slight warmth. It had been thirteen years since you had slept properly.

You and Sirius had been together through it all. He had asked you out on a Hogsmeade weekend, and you didn’t say no – how could you? You had been crushing on him since Third Year. He was your first for everything; first kiss, first relationship. Together, you had sat your O.W.L.S. and N.E.W.Ts. Sirius being your rock through the constant growing stress you put yourself under. (Looking back, you can’t help but chuckle, if your past-self had any idea of what your future would look like you would not have put in so much effort with your exams.) You had also been there for Sirius when he was disowned by his family and went to live with James and his family. James’ mother accepting you as one of her own as well. You two had danced together at James and Lily’s wedding, had waited anxiously for news of their baby and had cried when asked to be godparents of tiny Harry James Potter.

However, you were left alone to cry over their graves after that tragic night in Godric’s Hollow.

Shaking yourself awake, you take a long drink of your coffee and stretch your limbs, willing some life into them. The sun had completely risen now, and it was almost time to start your day. After what happened in 1981, you somewhat shunned all wizarding society, you left it not even a year later. Instead, isolating yourself to a tiny village in Yorkshire. People in Yorkshire kept themselves to themselves and your neighbours didn’t ask a lot of questions. The only one of the Marauders to visit was Remus, he didn’t visit often, but it was nice when he did.

One of your last remaining contacts with the wizarding world was your subscription to the Daily Prophetnewspaper. It was this subscription that brought you to your predicament. Slapped across the front page: Escape from Azkaban and there, in the centre, a picture of the man you thought you had an eternity with. Sirius Black.

Tears threaten to fall as you continue to stare at the moving picture. He’s screaming and screaming, and it physically hurts you to look at. But it’s the first time you’ve seen him in thirteen years. Any memories of Hogwarts and the Marauders were safely locked away in a trunk in your attic; waiting for a time when it doesn’t hurt so much to remember. You don’t think that that time will be coming soon, however, especially now with news of Black’s escape.

The article reported that out of protection, Azkaban’s guards the Dementors would be placed at Hogwarts. You had to take a minute when you read that little bit, James and Lily’s son would be at Hogwarts now, he would be entering his third year. You could only hope that the Dementors would not attach themselves to him. But you doubted it, he had already seen so much at such a young age. It would be likely that they would. You prayed he would be safe; Remus had contacted you over the summer to tell you that he had been appointed a teacher at Hogwarts – he didn’t have to tell you that he would look after Harry; it would be in his nature. Remus was more than his wolf.

Shaking your head, you rid yourself of anymore thoughts of Black and his escape, if you stared at his mugshot any longer you felt as if you would go as insane as the new article was painting him to be. It would only trigger your anxiety and that wasn’t happening today. Instead, you leave the kitchen entirely, depositing the Daily Prophet in the bin as you go. You head towards your office where you can begin your workday. You had settled well within the Muggle world; when you had arrived in Yorkshire you had no idea on what you could do and what you wanted to do. That was your one caveat with the wizarding world, it was so alienated from the rest of the world because they expect all witches and wizards to remain there – it does not cater for those that want to leave. So, once you had settled the business of finding somewhere to live, you set out to make your house your home. To do this, you virtually ransacked a charity shop of their furniture and of a second-hand computer sat gathering dust in the corner.

It was not the old computer that you used now, but rather a newer one. One you had treated yourself to with the profits of your last bestseller. After you had settled, and you needed something to do, you simply started writing. Your genres ranged from fantasy, all the way to romance. As the computer started up, you took a moment to look at you copies of your books on the shelves, and you felt happy. This was your life now, and you were completely fine with it. The last thing you needed was something coming in to mess up the balance you had created.

-time skip-

Months had gone by and whilst you had met the deadline for your next book, and it was currently going through its editing stage, you had religiously kept up with the news of Sirius Black and his escape.

Every sighting, every theory. You read each and every one of them. You had even gone so far as to send a message to Remus at Hogwarts, but he reassured you quickly enough that everything was fine and that you had no need to worry.

So you let yourself relax for a bit, enjoying putting the finishing touches upon your next novel. Christmas had come and gone without an issue; spending the festive season on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, watching Muggle Christmas films. In all your years in the Muggle world, your favourite Christmas film would have to be The Muppets Christmas Carol. It never failed to make you feel Christmassy.

Winter melted into Spring, and you started working outside more. You spent the early days of March travelling the country to bookstores to promote the release of your new novel. Remaining as tight-lipped as always when asked about your inspiration for this book.

The weeks were slipping away, and you were celebrating the fact that one of your books had been bought by a film company. Your version of celebration meant no work for the evening, and your new favourite TV show that you had recorded, ER. A recent TV medical drama set in a hospital in America; you were hooked from the very first episode, particularly drawn to the young Dr. John Carter.

It was through this particular TV show that there was a knock at your door.

You paused the show, uncertain as to what you heard.

Another knock sounded throughout your house. And some part of you just knew.

Throwing the blanket off you, you head towards the front door. A third knock rang at your door and you knew you couldn’t keep him waiting any longer.

Unlocking the door, you opened it and stood before you was him.

Stood before you, after thirteen years, was Sirius Black.

You take him in. Your eyes raking over every single inch of him, to his greasy hair to his too-skinny body. You stand there, not quite sure what to do. It isn’t every day that the man you have loved for over two decades is stood on your doorstep after escaping from a heavily guarded prison.

He utters the first word, “Darling.”

You take a couple of breaths before answering, “Sirius.”

“It’s been a while.”

“Thirteen years, if I’m correct.”

“Too long.”

“I don’t think the situation could be helped, Sirius.”

He laughs, and asks, “Can I come in? I haven’t had a roof over my head for a couple of weeks.”

Somewhat still in shock, you move aside for him to enter. You close the door behind him before gesturing to the living room. He follows you in and sits down. You stand in the doorway, uncertain of what to do next. You never expected for him to find you but found you he has and now everything is up in the air.

Sirius is watching you; he’s calculating every possibility. He never imagined he’d get through the front door and now he’s in your living room watching you have an internal panic over what to do next.

Then all of a sudden, you say, “Tea! Tea makes everything better. You can solve everything over a cup of tea.”

Then you’re off. Heading into the kitchen where Sirius can hear the kettle starting to boil and mugs being slammed onto counters.

“Everything okay in there?” He asks, even though he knows it isn’t and she just needs a minute to collect herself and her thoughts.

“Of course! Everything is fine!” You shout back pouring the now boiled water into the mugs. Your mind is whizzing through every possibility as to how he found you. You had never hidden yourself away, but you were never open about where you were living. You prayed that Remus hadn’t given you away, knowing how close he and Sirius was through Hogwarts.

Walking back through to the living room, you hand a mug to Sirius warning him that it would be hot before sitting down in your spot where ER was still on pause. You turned the TV off, knowing that you would not be watching it tonight. You can’t help but look at him, seeing how he has aged after a decade spent in Azkaban.

“Don’t you want to know how I did it?”

“Of course I do, but it isn’t my place to ask such things.”

“I used my Animagus form to get out of that hellhole and then swam the rest of the way. I would have come to you sooner, but I needed to go north. I had to see him.”

“How is he? What does he look like now?”

Sirius smiles wistfully, “He is the spitting image of James. But he has Lily’s eyes. And he’s got a group of friends and they are as close as the Marauders were. He’s doing okay.”

You close your eyes at that, as if a deep wound within you had finally healed. Harry was doing okay, he had friends and he had settled at Hogwarts.

“I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” You start. “I never believed a word anybody said, and after you were gone, I couldn’t live in that world anymore. So I moved here.” You gesture to your house.

Sirius looks slightly taken aback by what you’ve said. For over a decade, he hadn’t let himself think of you, he hadn’t let himself dream of you. And now he was at on your couch and you had just admitted to missing him too. He only hoped that you had no-one else in your life. He may be an escaped prisoner, but for over ten years he has loved no-one else but you. There would be no-one for him, but you. You were his true north, he could only hope he remained yours. Sirius didn't realise, however, that you had done the same. closed that part of you off, the part of you that belonged to Sirius - for the first two years in the Muggle world, you could barely think of him without feeling as if your heart had been broken all over again. 

Taking a sip of his tea, he asks, “What have you been doing for all this time?” He has to know.

You look down at your mug, wrapping your hands tighter around it as if willing the warmth to seep into your bones, to help you relax. “Not a lot. I moved here not long after James and Lily and I haven’t left since. I’m an author now, I love it. It wasn’t the path I had chosen for myself when I was leaving Hogwarts, but I love it all the same, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. I’m happy here, Sirius, in my little Yorkshire village with my mugs of Yorkshire tea, and my books.”

Sirius smiles weakly, he has to ask you, he has to know. “Has there been anyone else?”

“No, there hasn’t.”

For the time in twelve years, Sirius lets himself hope. He lets it bloom in his chest. He can only pray that your feelings haven’t changed.

“What are you going to do now, Sirius?”

“I don’t truly know,” he admits, “I could go to London, to Grimmauld Place where I know Remus will join me. There isn’t a lot I can do, I’m an escaped convict.”

“No shit.”

He barks a laugh at that. It’s the first bit of humour all night, and it helps to relieve some of the tension in the room.

He knows he needs to tell you, but he doesn’t know the right time. Everything is so delicate, so fragile, one wrong move and everything he could ever dream for could be lost within seconds. But he has to do it.

So he does.

“I still love you.”

You drop your mug of tea. It doesn’t smash, but your lovely rug is stained for life with tea. At least you won’t forget this moment, you think to yourself.

“You what?”

“I still love you,” he repeats.

“After everything?”

“After everything. It was us next to get married after Lily and James. I had the ring, and I was working up the nerve to ask you. Then everything happened and I couldn’t. Then I was taken away and any hope I had that I would see you or hold you ever again was crushed. It is astounding how quick a life planned can veer off course. I’m not saying we should get back together, I would like that, but I am nowhere near mentally, emotionally or physically ready for one and I don’t think you’re the type to jump into relationships either. What I’m trying to say is that I’d like to give the Muggle life a go, I need to rest and your life sounds so peaceful.”

You take a minute to digest everything that Sirius has said to you. You debate everything internally, but you know that your heart will win. And win it does.

“Okay. The Muggle life isn’t so bad, it’s done me well for this long. Let’s see how it works for you.”

“You’re serious?”

“I am. I have a spare room for you, we can sort everything else out tomorrow. But for now, lets get ready for bed. It isn’t every day that the man I’ve loved for almost twenty years comes knocking on my door.”

“I like the sound of that,” Sirius says as you stand up, holding out your hand to him. He grasps it tightly in his own. “I like the sound of that very much.”

[ericsonclan]

A Rather Slimy Present

Summary: Clementine isn't sure if she'll ever see that strange boy again when all of the sudden he reappears.

Word Count: 1000+

Read on AO3:

After the bizarre encounter Clementine and Prisha had experienced the other day, the pair went into their second day at Fenrell Cove not knowing exactly what to expect. Would the mysterious, strangely silent swimmers be back for another visit or were they gone for good? With no way to know, both girls set about continuing their research, Clementine with her trusty notebook and Prisha with her older backup camera since her favorite camera that had fallen into the water yesterday was disassembled and still drying on the boat in hopes that it could be saved.

Returning to the point where they had run into the strange pair of swimmers the day before, Clementine surveyed the water in hopes of seeing the same pale green leaf that had drawn her attention the first day. No, not a leaf, it must be attached to some sort of animal. Whatever animal that was, it and its camouflage had moved on to calmer waters since Clementine could not find the bit of faux foliage anywhere. Setting aside that endeavor for now, Clementine instead circled round the shoreline to another section of the cove to investigate further and perhaps to move out of earshot of Prisha’s constant grumbling over the shoddy quality of her current equipment and her threats should she ever come across those two nincompoops again.

Passing a small clump of bushes she had only fleetingly explored the other day, Clementine headed to an isolated section of the cove, one banked by a cave wall that joined with it to form a sort of cozy grotto directly by the shoreline. Taking a seat in the soft sand just inches from the water, Clementine began compiling notes about what she observed around her. Though crystal clear, the surface of the water kept hidden whatever species dwelt beneath its currents. It must be that there was a sudden drop off here instead of the usual shallows that would lead into further depths. Perhaps this would be a good entry point for her and Prisha in the scuba portion of their investigation.

Jotting this down, Clementine’s focus turned skyward. The portion of the cove she was currently in was also still within the cave. The setup somewhat reminded Clementine of how the inside of Skull Island looked in the old Peter Pan film: there was the enclosed intimacy of the cave walls but the amount of light let in through the immense entrance meant that nothing about this portion of the cove felt cold or dreary. It was a pleasant, secluded place. Perhaps that supported some of the theories she and Prisha had read about Fenrell Cove, that it at one time was the site of religious rituals for islanders from distant shores that were now long gone.

Or were they? Was it possible that the strange boy and girl they had encountered might in fact be familiar with the cove or even residents? Could that explain their total bewilderment with the English language? No, that was crazy. It was like Prisha had said (again and again in her impassioned rant last night) – they must have been tourists on an ocean cruise who had swum out and found the cove by happenstance, nothing more.

A disturbance in the water suddenly drew Clementine’s attention to its surface. Her eyes widened in surprise as she saw what had caused it. There before her was the same boy from yesterday, smiling brightly at her. His dreads dripped droplets onto the surface of the water as he drew nearer, his eyes locked with hers. Setting aside her notebook, Clementine moved closer to speak with him. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again,”

He had no reaction to her words, simply staring steadily at her, his eyes large and bright with interest.

“That was pretty shitty what happened to my friend because of you,” Clementine attempted again. “You pretty much wrecked her best camera. I think you owe her an apology,”

Still no response. The young man was as silent as ever, though his focus had shifted from her face to her legs which were tucked beside Clementine as she sat on the sand. Clementine glanced at her legs. There was nothing weird about what she was wearing unless cargo pants were considered an unforgivable fashion faux pax. Was he actually looking at her notebook behind her? Clementine moved to grab it but lifting it up in the air to share with him did nothing to draw his focus away. Her legs did look pretty scratched up. Perhaps that was it?

Clementine ran a finger along a particularly lengthy scratch. “They got sort of banged up yesterday. Some of it’s from when I lunged forward to save Prisha, but the rocks around here are pretty fucking slippery so I fell down a lot more after that. Some of these are permanent too, just left over from other expeditions. Like this one-” Clementine paused, looking over at the boy again. He was listening to every word she said with rapt attention, but it was clear none of it was getting through to him. “You don’t know English?”

A few small squeaks came out of his mouth. He looked at Clementine expectantly. Was that a… language? He did seem to be trying to communicate.

Unsure what else to do, Clementine squeaked back a couple times.

The young man’s nose wrinkled in confusion. Whatever that sound she had made was, it was apparently nonsense. Suddenly he dove down, disappearing deep below the water. Clementine leaned over to try to spot him but couldn’t see anything. Had she offended him somehow? She truly hoped not. Clementine continued to wait, watching the surface of the water for any sign of movement. Nothing. How long was he going to stay under there? It had already been about a minute, which Clementine was ashamed to admit was her limit.

She hadn’t been able to spot him or the girl emerging from the water either. Did that mean they’d stayed underwater till she and Prisha had walked away? Intrigued, Clementine started up the timer on her wristwatch. Either he’d emerge within the next few minutes somewhere within eyesight or there were secret tunnels within the cave’s waters that allowed him to disappear and surface elsewhere.

Three minutes passed. Then five. Then ten. Clementine had been watching the shoreline the entire time. Either he was the fastest swimmer ever and had crossed the length of the cave to reach the exterior of the cove without her seeing or Clementine’s underwater tunnel theory was correct. Either way, he seemed long gone for the day. Letting out a small sigh, Clementine picked up her notebook to return to her work. Then a bright chirp came from in front of her. Glancing back up, Clementine felt her jaw go slack in shock. “What the-”

The mystery boy was before her once more but this time instead of the slippery minnow that had fallen from his mouth the first time they met there was a full-sized fish wriggling within his toothy grasp. Letting out another short trill, the boy leaned forward and spat the fish out upon the shore, smiling at her proudly.

“What the fuck,” Clementine whispered in bewilderment. “Did-did you catch that? With your teeth?”

Seeming to pick up on her general gestures between him and the fish, the young man nodded, his chest swelling as he grinned with self-satisfaction. When he caught Clementine staring though, he suddenly grew self-conscious and looked away in embarrassment.

Clementine looked back over to the fish, still flopping on shore with desperate vigor. This wasn’t the sort of puny guppy you would catch on your first fishing trip and take photos with as you looked goofy in your bucket hat. This was the sort of fish you would brag about as the one that got away. And this strange young man had caught it… with his teeth.

The cruise ship passenger theory was completely out the window. But did that mean that Clementine’s native islander theory was their next best guess? This young man seemed completely unaware of the meaning of anything in English and was an incredibly proficient swimmer who seemed to know the ins and outs of this cove like the back of his hand. Would it be so crazy to think that the islanders that had been spoken of in ancient records hadn’t been wiped out but instead were merely forgotten by the rest of the world and continued with their lives as always?

Clementine gazed at the young man with intense curiosity. He met her eyes shyly, drifting closer to her. The freckles smattered across his chest and shoulders stood out upon his skin as it shone in the morning light. He was so close and just as curious of Clementine as she was of him. Trying to communicate, Clementine raised a hand and pressed it to her heart. “Thank you. I really appreciate the gift,”

The boy’s eyes brightened in joy as he recognized her thankfulness. Letting out a series of happy, short barks, he twirled round in the water again and again, enraptured by joy.

All of a sudden a rustling sound drew both of their attentions to the bush. The boy’s eyes widened in fright before he dove for cover under the water, disappearing once more into its deceptively clear depths.

“No, wait!” Clementine cried, but it was no use. He was already gone, and Clementine had a feeling that this time he wouldn’t return in just a matter of minutes.

Prisha emerged from the bushes, camera raised expectantly. Her expression fell when she saw Clementine’s face. “I scared it off, didn’t I? I was heading over this way and heard some sort of animal cry that sounded almost like a bottlenose dolphin. I tried to approach quietly enough to not arouse alarm, but it’s clear I was unsuccessful,”

Clementine shook her head. “It wasn’t an animal. It was him. The same boy we saw yesterday?”

“What?” Prisha’s brows knit together as she frowned. “I was sure he and that sour-faced companion of his would have been long gone by now. A cruise never stays in one place for long,”

“That’s the thing.  I don’t think they’re with a cruise. Look what he brought me today. He caught this in his mouth,” Clementine gestured to the large fish now dead at her feet.

“In his mouth?! Surely you can’t be serious,”

“Look!” Clementine pointed to a series of indentations upon the scales. “See that? Those are teeth marks!”

“My stars…” Prisha leaned over the fish, gaping at it in bemusement. “What sort of manner of man would do such a thing?”

“Prisha,” Clementine’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper as she locked eyes with her friend. “I don’t think this island is uninhabited after all,”

[beatsfortheillperth]

Words with Jetson

Our next interview is with a producer and rapper out of a beautiful place known as Tauranga, in New Zealand, This creative is known as Jetson.

He happens to be one of my cat, Rain's personal favourites for sleep time and regardless of the amount of thumping bass Jetson's music creates and picture frames it knocks over, I understand why he sleeps so sweetly.

Probably a lot to do with the fact that bass has rhythm, just like the sweet sweet words Jetson correlates with his word-plays in tracks such as "Milk" and "SENSEI". Not only impressing cats, Jetson has made moves and connections beyond the long white cloud, proving isolation doesn't always silence brilliance. Jetson brings words any generation can hold some sort of relevance to, words that allow one to notice life moves fast and slow and sometimes you just have to chill and become an observer rather than an instigator.

This is something I feel Jetson has accomplished with his rather low-key approach to releases and interviews.

Jetson is a natural, a true prodigy of sound and a sharer of moods, and to me, is a reminder that with a little bit of passion and persistence, great things can happen, whatever your field.

Jetson’s collective and label - Chill Children is evidence of that, as through it , Jetson is able to work and release with producers and beat-makers all over the globe.

emo the optimist, BACKWHEN, fuyu, eets, and junyii are just some of the diverse talents working with Chill Children and everyone on the catalogue are game-changers that make music that’s anointed in chills. 

Creators that push boundaries and portray emotion through sound in the most soothing way, one must check Chill Children.

So with that I hope you enjoy rare words with the nuance wonder, and in his own words.

Sit back, relax, get baked, create, f**k it.

Enjoy and much love.

Hey man thanks for the opportunity to share words. Let's start with a few random quick questions to get things going. Favourite Beverage: Lemon water. Favourite thing to do in your down-time: Make music/skate. Views on Reincarnation: It will be cool if it is true but I guess it doesn't really change anything if it is 🤷‍♂️ Favourite Food: Sushi. Favourite Album of All Time: Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders A song to break it down to: Ethereal & Playboi Carti - Beef A song to chill to: Durand Jones & The Indications - Cruising to the park Do you prefer Sunrise? or Sunset? Why?: Sunset, because I'm never awake for sunrise. A childhood memory in regards to music: I remember saving up to buy Graduation by Kanye West and listening to that shit front to back for weeks straight. Favourite Place to be: Probably on an island.

Thanks for that, so let's start by asking what inspires you to produce and not only produce but continually produce, what to me is an array of tunes fitting so many genres?

Do you have a set of goals in place when you release a track or do you just hit upload and just hope people are feeling your sound?

What I like to listen to is constantly changing so I like to challenge myself to try and make the things that I'm inspired by.

I like to think that you never know what you're gonna get when you listen to my music but I've still got so much to learn and experiment with. I just try have fun with it and not think about it too much.

How long have you been producing music, and what did you find was hardest to get the hang of when it first came to producing beats?

I had no music theory knowledge or anything when I started making beats (I still don't have much) so there was a lot to learn right away.

Probably the hardest thing that I still battle with is knowing what you should release, what you shouldn't etc. It's hard to balance knowing when something is finished and when it still needs work.

Could you give a quick run-through of the process you follow when it comes to making a beat?

I try to change my process as much as I can to keep things fresh and fun for myself. But I really enjoy hearing a sample somewhere like keys, a quote or a rapper I want to remix, then I start working with that piece and see where it goes.

I'll mess around with the beat for a while and sometimes a track comes out. It can take one day, it can take months. Just depends.

Oldies are always goodies in my books and I have to mention your "bumps from 2014" mixtape, it truly is something special.

What inspired those little bumps? What were you doing back then? Also, can you remember the mood you were in when you made them?

I'm glad you like it haha. That was when I really had no clue what I was doing in terms of making beats, I was making all of those 'off the grid' in Ableton so I was placing drums in random places, I had no idea what bpm the samples were or anything. I really didn't know wtf I was doing, just going off of a vibe. 

My mood was really just being excited about making music, I was living in the basement at my mum's house blasting beats on the speakers all day.

[bumps from 2014] - https://soundcloud.com/sleepgodd/bumps-from-2014

You are also a rapper. My favourite NZ rapper to be more precise so thank you for the vibes you create. How did you find out you had it in you to rap and how old were you?

Damn, I appreciate that ✌️ I started rapping with a friend of mine, Jesse aka j cafe when we were around 20. We'd sit in my room smoking weed, and free-styling over beats on Soundcloud all night. 

Then we decided to make a track, so we found a beat and jumped in the closet to record some vocals on the laptop microphone.

We put it up on Soundcloud and I've been addicted to making music ever since.

Link to j cafe’s Soundcloud here - https://soundcloud.com/j-cafe

Cover art for Jetson’s 2019 rap release - bluntscraps

Album cover art by Takuroh Toyama

When did you first start rapping in front of others? What did it feel like in the beginning compared to now when you perform live?

I was insanely nervous the first time I ever did anything live and that feeling really hasn't left me lol.

Except now I know how to deal with nerves a bit better and actually enjoy the whole experience of doing something live.

I definitely think I'm a lot better now than my first time doing it, but I still kinda suck 😂 Staying on topic with your rapping, material-wise you have mad skills, your music is forever helping me chill out so thank you.

When did you start writing down your words and turning them into structured songs? Do you have any other artists that inspire your writing style?

When I was younger I really liked the flow of rappers rather than what they were actually saying.

Dudes like MF Doom and Earl Sweatshirt really influenced me at the start wanting to come up with lines that were catchy and different.

To form an actual track I usually just mumble over beats to get the flow, then I start placing words in the spots where I think they fit.

Does your family know you make music? If so what do they think of it, any dance parties in the Jetson Family Household? 

My immediate family all know and support my music. My mum used to have one of my tracks as her ringtone for years lol.

No jetson dance parties yet, but seems like every year more people in my extended family know about my music.

You were also a member of NZ Duo, Chill Children of which you rap and produce with yet another kiwi talent, both having low-key approaches when it comes to presenting yourselves through social media. What happened with that?

Me and J Cafe started Chill Children as a rap project in the early days but we moved to different places in the world and started doing our own solo projects so things sort of stopped happening with it.

I still credit those times with really getting me started on music though. He's still making dope shit and we'll probably link up on a track soon.

So then it became a sort of collective community, and through your Chill Children Soundcloud, you allow a platform for other artists to have their music heard.

Much Love on the concept, What inspired you to start sharing other artists music and what keeps you sharing? I'm very grateful btw, too many gems.

I work on music a lot with my friend emo the optimist (aka kodama) and we always wanted to run a label/collective kind of thing so we could release music from artists that we really liked.

After me and Jesse started doing our own thing, Chill Children seemed like the perfect place to start doing that.

It's one of my favorite things to work on as we have a hand in working with the artists on every release. I just love that we're able to share so much music that we really like with the world.

Check Chill Children here -

Bandcamp - https://chillchildren.bandcamp.com/

Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/chillchildren

Instagram - @chillchildren

Any new Chill Children material we should keep an eye out for?

We always have new music from new artists dropping so definitely follow our instagram/twitter if you want to stay updated on it.

We're currently working on a phonk compilation with guys like DJ Yung Vamp, Genshin etc. It's gonna be crazy 🤯

Back to your solo releases through your alias Jetson. What made you want to start putting out your material alone? Also, do you have a favourite Jetson release?

I really felt like I had to release music solo to see what I could do.

I've learned so much about myself through that process, became more confident and a better musician.

Probably my favorite rap track I've made is called 'Escape'.

Not many people have heard it but it's on Spotify and other places.

My favorite beat I've made is probably 'dylan rieder'.

Have to ask, are you working on any new releases we should keep an ear out for? If so, what can we expect with your coming releases?

I just released an album on Bandcamp called THROWED TAPES which was really influenced by DJ screw and other phonk producers.

I'm working on a lofi R&B tape for Bandcamp, a lofi beat tape, and I really want to release a rap EP.

Who knows when those will come out though haha

Taking it back a little to your rapping again I have to mention "Milk". What inspires the words in this track?

Also please share the story behind your track "Melancholy"? The words are somewhat mesmerizing, thank you!

With milk, I just heard the beat from bsd.u and really wanted to make something weird that just followed the flow of the beat.

On melancholy I tried to think about what I was saying a little more. The instrumental is so introspective and smooth I knew I had to come correct on it.

THROWED TAPES By Jetson, released August, 27, 2020

Musical Recommendations?

junyii - emo the optimist - knxwledge - j cafe - jesse james solomon - the smiths - dj yung vamp - shuggie otis - hm surf - alicks - MIKE - baccyard - meraki soul - steve hiett I could go on for days though lol

Creatives to keep an eye out for in music and art? Takuroh Toyama (photography) Moebius (visual art) Steve Hiett (photography/music) Any Last Words?

It really trips me out that people enjoy something I love to do so much.

So just thank you for vibing with me, I have a lot more to share ✌️

Support Jetson here -

Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/highimjetson

Bandcamp - https://jetsonbumps.bandcamp.com/

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/artist/2bkf2PmiVyfCqg2uzIFIqJ

Twitter - https://twitter.com/jetsonbumps

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jetsonn/?hl=en

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Milk by Jetson (Production by bsd.u)