#never make any distinction between what you can sell and what you can’t

[bripops]

Hey so if you use Canva, you should go to Settings > Privacy and turn off the option that allows them to use your information to build AI tools. This was automatically opted into on both my personal and work accounts without me being notified and I had to manually opt out, and so did each member of my team (as far as I can tell, the administrator can’t opt out for everyone).

This sucks and is stupid!

[detectivehole]

hey man the anti-AI stuff you reblog is rly. Reactionary idk how else to put it. It’s a mixed bag. AI has been used in art for a LONG time, it’s not as new as ppl think it is. It’s used a lot in animation especially. Obviously there is a difference between AI as a tool and AI as a replacement for artists/writers, but nearly every single instance of them attempting this has been catastrophically bad. (Doesnt stop the dumbass studios like Disney and Pixar to keep trying it tho, bc they value short term profit over any actual value) For AI being used in a professional setting, it’s imperative the distinction be made between tool or replacement. Machines, despite how efficient they have become, are managed by humans. Letting them run without a person actually operating it that knows what they’re trying to do is always a bad idea.

However, using AI generated pics for like. Personal use? Let’s say you aren’t a good artist, or as many have pointed out, can’t be an artist due to disability (none of that inspiration porn abt painting w your mouth some ppl can’t do that either.) and you’d like a picture of your Tabletop game character or OC or something, and you do not have the money to spare for a commission from the artist you like. Doesn’t mean you can’t pay for one later on, as a human will take the finer details you want and bring them to life, but if you’re looking for like. A placeholder? And you aren’t planning on selling it or some shit, then ppl shouldnt get on your case. Except every anti-AI bro now hears “AI” and flies into a frothing rage, saying it’s “never ok”. Nobody should care of somebody made a meme using AI or tried to make something just for themselves or friends. It becomes an issue when it’s being marketed as a “replacement” for artists.

Tldr: AI is a useful tool, the tech bros that got a hold of ot do not represent the entire scope of it. If it is used as a tool or personal use, it’s not an issue. It only becomes one when it is used as an explicit replacement for writers/artists.

i agree with the first paragraph, though im a little insulted you'd assume my knowledge and opinions on AI image generation were so shallow and uninformed as to have to explain it to me- but you lost me after that

first off, i wanna make it clear that basically no one thinks you're some sort of amoral monster for having used or even enjoyed what AI image generation and art can give you. most people genuinely don't understand the intricacies of its ethics and effects, and while ignorance like that is annoying, it's something most people who do get it understand and forgive with a sorta... exasperation. most of the time. now, maybe you're not coming from a place of good faith, i can't say, but i choose to think you are

i don't have the chops, time, or particular desire to explain what exactly is wrong with AI art generation (there's a lot in way too many directions), so i'll just give you a link to get you started (it's not a long read, just some basic critiques to jump from) and some admittedly harsh sounding (but well meant) advice that pertains to your particular use of AI:

you dont always get what you want. you're not entitled, for any reason, to the fruits of stolen (and popular AI datasets have been proven to unequivocally be stolen) artistic labor, especially if that theft is impacting the livelihoods of independent artists. (and don't give me "what about other generic media piracy" because that's its own can of worms and you know it. i won't hear it). it's not the end of the world that you have, but it's just not ethical to generate that art knowing it's based off stolen work- if it was all consensually given data it'd be different- and sometimes behaving ethically means you dont get what you want. tough shit. plenty of people can't or won't draw for all sorts of reasons, and none of those reasons suddenly make it ok for them to take other people's art

to be clear, if all the datasets used to train AI were ethically sourced- bought, donated, or taken from free use material- this wouldn't be an issue. i mean there would still totally be issues with casual generative AI, but this particular issue would be moot. the issue with AI art isn't the AI, it's what the AI's being fed. every time you engage with it gets smarter, and better, and more efficient at chewing up its stolen foods and spitting out a knockoff. the issue is what it's being fed and you are putting tokens in the little treat machine at its petting zoo enclosure

you want a placeholder? you got picrew. doll dress up games. hell, pester your friends for doodles. save up. or even just learn to handle not getting it at all- just pick something else

[ihopenoonefindsthispage]

we've pretended to forget the things we hold dear.

Toji doesn’t know how he wound up here, nor is he particularly concerned about it. He figures that he died twice before in that other place and there really is no proving that the third time's the charm. So is he trying to find a way back? Not really. What he is trying to do, though, is find somewhere in this god forsaken world to rest his aching head. 

He’d woken up on the side of some beaten path with a surprising lack of holes in his head. Which was astounding, right? But not as astounding as waking up in the first place. He just can’t seem to stay dead. Despite the air he is breathing that proves otherwise, Toji still feels dead to the world. Or like he wishes he was dead. All due to the nearly debilitating migraine he has, the only real remnant of his short stint at being a victim of himself. That and the hollow feeling for having missed out on knowing someone great. In all aspects other than physical, his track record with being his own worst enemy was telling. 

When he could gather enough strength to stand on his feet he hobbled along like some sloppy drunk down the dirt path beneath him. There was nothing but trees behind him. And nothing but trees beside him. He was sure that with every step he took the treeline would never narrow ahead of him. The wide path he trekked kept on and on and the sun blitzed him between the foliage. He kept on this way until he approached what he mercifully hoped was civilization. That was when the ‘where’ of his situation began to needle at him. The ‘how’ didn’t bother him. The’ why’ was out of reach. But he desperately needs to know where, because from the looks of things, he must have brained himself a couple hundred years into the past.

The dirt road he had been trudging on with the expectation of finding pavement, cars, or a skyline led him to the edge of some rinky dink town. From where he is standing he can see people scuttling about dressed in old fashioned garb, certain aspects more retro than others. People called out from behind stands selling wares, some going about their day in creaking carriages, some just walking around the dusty roads.

Toji grits his teeth as another painful jab attacks him right behind his eyes. He decides to once again shelve his short lived concerns and looks around for anything that would be of use to him. His white sweater, a little brown from rolling around in the dirt and black pants don’t seem too out of place here, but even if it were, he wouldn’t’ve been bothered enough to care. 

He listens to the voices and noises all around him, sniffs the crisp, clean, non-metropolitan air. His eyes rove about to discern escape routes, easy or hard targets, threats and what not. Despite the hindrance of his ailment, he feels capable enough to be able to defend himself if necessary, but doesn’t see anyone under the setting sun in this circus to be wary of. No one pays him any mind as he meanders around poking his head into businesses and under flaps, even with his very distinct height and build, but that is what he expects. He pauses at one place, though when the smell of cooking meat settles in nose. He hears the hearty laughter and clinking glasses and figures that maybe some food will do him some good. He just has to find someone willing to take care of the bill. 

When he’s fully inside of the building, he eyes the occupants from a dark corner near the door, searching for either a kindly, lonely, or drunk looking woman that might take some pity on him. Habits do die hard. Harder than he does as least. But the only two women in the place that would even remotely fit the bill is flitting all around the other one trying to force some water down her throat. 

“Lady Tsunade, if you want to make it to the next village in a timely matter then you should head to bed soon!” The woman seems young, her dark hair cut short, and for a moment he sees a familiar face superimposed over hers. Hears that fretting voice and aches just a small amount.

“Ugh, fine. Just one more bottle and then I’ll let you tuck me in! Go ‘head and find us a place for the night.” The other woman speaks gruffly, a bright red blush scorching across her pale face and blonde strands sticking to her pouty lips. She swats at the dark haired woman’s hands and a pig of all things drops out of her lap.

The woman relents, saying she’ll be back and makes a quick exit after scoping up the smartly dressed pig and paying the bill. Before Toji can finish his third step towards the woman left behind, she turns around on her stool to fully look him in his eye, the drunken flush on her face not doing anything to soften the steely glint in those honey colored eyes as she scrutinizes him. Toji is thoroughly surprised.

“Wha do ya want brat? I could feel you burning holes in the back of my head!”

The surprise is gone. Now he feels slightly affronted to be called a brat, but does his best not to show it. 

“Brat? I think I’m hardly young enough to be called that.”

She scoffs at him but doesn’t refute the statement. He takes this as an invitation to join her. He tries his best not to stare at her unexpectedly large assets he can see now that he’s sitting next to her, so he sweeps his lecherous gaze across the table instead for anything he could pocket. He sees a greasy brown bag, a few empty bottles and plates, and a closed pouch the same green as the haori she wears. 

“Tha didn’t answer my question.” She says instead, her sensibilities still intact even with all the sake littering her table and the deceptive slur she speaks with. Toji smiles charmingly. 

“I just thought you were a beautiful woman whose company I might enjoy.”

She remains unmoved. “How sleazy.”

Toji cracks a smile, “I’m just a simple man trying his luck.”

The woman, whose name he knows is Tsunade, finishes her swig with a content sigh. “I doubt there’s anything simple about you with a build like yours. And that mug to match it.”

“So you noticed that I am sturdy enough to make things interesting and dashingly handsome?”

“You’re the biggest thing in this place, brat, ‘course I noticed.” 

It isn't quite an agreement of what he’d implied and she completely ignores the part about him being handsome, but he isn’t hurting in the vanity department. Toji wants to question if that was the only reason why she was able to notice him walking up to her from behind but says instead, “There are so many ways I can reply to that but I’ll let your imagination run wild for me instead.”

Her red nails drum on the tabletop, probably as an effort not to slap him. She grouches to herself mostly. “Ya really are a sleazy bastard. Probably would get along great with that old pervert.”

With another disorientating stab at his skull, he doesn’t have it in him to keep up the banter. The woman’s patience with him in her space was dwindling quickly anyways. He thinks that maybe running himself through in the head might have knocked something in his brain loose because he decides to be honest instead. “Okay, I’ll give it to you straight. I was hoping to get a free meal out of you.”

A tick forms over her eyebrow as she glares at him, her voice sounding clear at the moment. “You think I’m some granny who will feed any old stray puppy that trots up to me?”

Something being knocked loose in his head really must be the only explanation for what he says next. “There’s no way anyone would confuse you for a granny with tits like those.” 

He sees the fist coming and dodges like he would any other time, however he nearly choked on his own tongue from the crater she created where he was previously sitting. 

“What the…” 

“I can’t say it enough how damn sleazy ya are, ya punk!”

Toji feels himself die for a third time, only it’s not real and he’s still staring dumbfounded at the hole where he would have been if his instincts weren’t so honed. 

“And simple my ass! Ya must be some shinobi or mercenary to move like that! I’lla flick ya into next week if ya don’t get the hell away from me!”

Deadly as his instincts are, it seems like not all of them have survived his escapades because he only steps back a few steps and asks the woman, “How in the world did you do that?”

She tsks, standing up to leave, seeing as he wouldn’t. That and the owner of the place would probably try and make her pay for repairs if she didn’t do a vanishing act. “With chakra like any other shinobi would.”

Shinobi? She’s mentioned that word twice now but he still doesn’t quite understand. His brain is working overtime. He hasn’t seen or felt a lick of cursed energy anywhere since he’d woken up wherever he is. Especially not when the woman was aiming that death flag for his head. The surge of pain that zips through his head nearly topples him to his knees.

“Fuck,” he says hoarsely. 

The woman takes a good look at him, letting her eyes trail over his dirty attire and worn down expression. She shakes her head, huffing to herself with crossed arms. 

“Oi, brat,” she turns away from him, “grab the stuff on the table and follow me.”

Regaining his stability, Toji turns around and without really questioning her reasons, and hoping that she’s about to throw him a bone, he gathers her to-go bag, a half empty bottle of sake and that green pouch that he was hoping was money he could make off with, but with a quick peek inside he realizes was only some type of trail mix. 

He’s tempted to pour it all down his throat, his hunger still going strong. He follows behind the woman, stumbling the slightest bit out of the village until they’re surrounded on both sides by towering trees and the rising moon. 

“Alright, kid,” the name calling is really starting to irk him, “I guess ya hunted me down ‘cause ya wanted me to heal whatever’s going on with yer head? I don’t heal anymore, but I’ll make a bet with ya.” The lilting of her voice makes her sound sure of her victory.

Toji remembers the kanji written on the back of her haori and the implications of it before letting his mind mull over the rest of her sentence. He was beginning to assume she was someone like him with a heavenly restriction, but the many confusing variables he must consider such as the clashing of modern and ancient that village had going on and the fact that he hadn’t sensed any cursed energy or spirits anywhere made that hypothesis seem unlikely.

Instead he latches onto the healing part she mentioned. Maybe she has something like a reverse cursed technique.

“What do you have in mind, ma’am?”

“No need to act so submissive now! Simple arm wrestling between us will suffice. I win,” he feels the full intensity of her eyes as she stares at him, her voice losing its slur once again, “you leave me alone and don’t tell anyone you’ve seen me.”

“And if I win?” His smile is crooked and indulgent. All he can think is blessings, blessings, blessings.

“I’ll heal that headache thass got ya shakin’ like ya got new legs.”

Her exaggeration humors him, but if he laughs he might prove her right. “I just wanna say that I still have no idea who you are, and was truly just tryna con you for some food, but this migraine is more concerning.”

“Yeah, whatever, ya got my food in your hands right now so either way you’ll get something out of this.”

He remembers the bags she unwittingly made him carry around like he was her pack mule. “True.”

“Is it a bet or not?”

Toji’s a notoriously bad gambler, but he hopes that the drunk woman in front of him is one too. 

He smiles wide. “It’s a bet.”

***

Not only did he lose the best, but Toji also lost his cool and questioned quite rudely how a big titty drunk could possibly be strong enough to beat him. The result was the woman’s entire face turning red as she marched up to him, raised her hand, and flicked him through a few trees. 

Despite all that, she was still kind enough to heal his head, her method unclear to him as all she did was hover her hands over his temples and cursed him out thoroughly. As she was preparing to leave him there in a heap, he sat up quickly, rubbing the back of his head grumpily. 

“Hey, uh, you wouldn’t happen to need an errand boy or something would you?”

He didn’t know why he was still barking up her tree when she so obviously was not interested in anything he had to say. 

“Aht aht aht! I won our bet, so you’re supposed to leave me alone!”

“Look, I have no idea where I am, I’ve got nothing to my name. I just need someone who can help me get acclimated and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Don’t you mean you need someone to feed and clothe and house you like some stray?”

He couldn’t deny her words. 

“I’m a talented man. Whatever you need me to do to pull my weight I’ll do.” He hated to sound like he was begging, but he felt a strange kinship with this woman and felt he’d have a better chance at staying alive with her. Even if she has alluded to being on the run. Or at least if he dies again, she definitely won’t try and bring him back to life. 

She stares down at him where he’s still sprawled out beneath her nose, and he resolutely stares at her face only because if he stared at his other options, she’d probably slap him around some more without healing again. Knocking him around must have sobered her up. He laments; it’s much easier pulling on heartstrings when they're inebriated. 

“Are you any good at gambling?”

“Sometimes.”

“How well can you hold your liquor?”

“Pretty good. Better than you probably.”

“Tsk. You’re not doing yourself any favors with that mouth of yours.”

The compulsion to say something lewd is strong, but Toji is stronger. “Sorry.”

“No you aren’t, you brat!” His answering smirk makes her grit her teeth. “Alright, fine! You can help me avoid the debt collectors or shinobi trying to hunt me down for whatever reason. You’re a strong guy so don’t die cause I won’t be healing you anymore. And if you make any big winnings, don't hoard it! Keep up and stay out of my hair!”

He stands up, standing closer to her with a cheeky expression. “Sounds doable, ma’am.”

She rolls her eyes and walks back towards the village. “Tsunade.”

“Toji. I’ve got to say, we sound like a match made in heaven.” He peers down at her retreating back as he keeps close. 

“Maybe in my personal hell!”

His chuckling only makes her walk a bit faster. 

***

The time spent with Shizune and Tsunade was the most stress free he’s ever felt despite being chased around by debt collectors every once and awhile. For the better part of a year, he stuck close to the two women like an overprotective guard dog, although if it came down to it, the old lady alone could kick his ass. And wasn’t that a shock when he found out she was over 55 years old. Almost as shocking as finding out that he was in some ridiculous world where magical, superpowered, fire breathing ninjas existed and went around starting turf wars on this shoe box of a continent. The gang banging ninjas weren’t much of a problem for them though as the old lady was a master of disguise using her magic or whatever she called it. She ducked and dodged every navy blue and green wearing person that got anywhere on her radar or vice versa. 

And despite dogging her heels much longer than he anticipated, he hadn’t learned much about Tsunade. But on those nights where she drank a little too much or too little to bluster and front, he could tell that she was feeling pretty brittle inside. When that shadow makes its way across her eyes, he can hear bells tolling inside his own head covering up sweet sounding laughter and small surly faces. But despite her eroding edges, she never let them fall for anyone to catch them, she made them float away on warm winds and bar tops, on bronze and silver and gold and green. 

Shizune, though, wasn’t made of the same stuff. She wore her heart on her sleeve even if it bled warm blood all over the place. Especially if she knew her warmth would reach Tsunade. 

Everything he learned about this world, about Tsunade, he learned from Shizune. Whenever the old lady was able to give them the slip to be alone in her melancholy, the two would sit together, and he’d ask her simple questions which made for easy distractions. It wasn’t his intention. Really, he was trying to figure out the mechanics of the weird wizardry he would see and get an understanding of the law of the land. But the younger woman unfurled in his presence quite easily after a while. It was nothing romantic, and could barely be called familial, the shape of her face was reminiscent enough of the first woman to ever save him, and his gruffness was something she was fond of as it reminded her of her master. So when Tsunade was off hiding her sadness and Shizune and him were left alone, he would let her bleed over him until everything was painted in a passionate red to his eyes, and his bleeding organ couldn’t dare to claim to be dry.

Those were easy times indeed. 

But then that thing happened with the blonde kid and old man and some creepy looking fucker that managed to make Tsunade go under a metamorphosis.

She’d managed to duck him during that fateful day and he figured she wouldn’t be getting up to too much trouble in broad daylight so Toji let her be. He could take a hint afterall. But from afar, he could see some huge animals duking it out and all he could think at that moment was that the old lady truly had rotten luck. 

When he made it to their location, and he saw her covered in blood but smiling over that blonde haired idiot from some days ago, he thought for a second that all his thoughts came true before reality settled in for him. He figured that all her drifting parts might have come back to her while he wasn’t looking.

There are a lot of similarities between Toji and Tsunade. He envied that that wasn’t one of them. Blessings is ringing in his ears, much differently the they did back then

***

“So you’re going back to your village to run the joint?” They were the only two left up, either commiserating or celebrating, he isn’t sure. Their reasons to drink were flimsy as always. 

“Seems as though,” she mumbles. “You’re welcome to come with. Become a shinobi or bum off me and Shizune until you die.”

“That sounds like the life,” he chuckled, easily accepting the offer. 

“Are you sure though?”

Tsunade is looking inside the cup in her hand, but he feels her gaze prickling him all the same. It is different from how they usually operated but not unexpected. It’s easier to bullshit when you’re not the only one, when a pleasant veneer covers you both up until it’s impossible to take a peek at someone lest you want to be peeked on too. But someone brought the light down on Tsunade and she couldn’t help but to reflect it all around. 

“Where else would I go?” He’d never told them where he came from. Shizune and Tsunade surmised that he was amnesiac and he let them. He still looked to be running from something all the same. Something intangible but with a grip so tight that those green and black eyes that haunt him felt like bruises that will never leave him alone. 

“Ah. That’s true I suppose. Tch. When did I birth a thirty something year old man? Forget what I said about bumming about! You’ll earn your keep somehow, brat!”

“Of course, old lady. You birthed a talented, strong man.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at that twitching eye of hers, she only looked away with crossed arms, a familiar and lovely sight. 

“Toji.”

He stares at his own half empty cup now. Avoiding eyes that aren’t even looking at him and eyes that aren’t even really around. Ghost eyes, omniscient eyes, judging eyes. 

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know what you’ve been seeing all this time when you look at me, but if it’s anything like what I see when I look at you…” The sip he takes of the sake feels heavy like blood on his tongue and just as easy to choke on. “then it’s like looking at something that will break if you touch it. That’ll cut and hurt and fly away.”

“You think I’m made of glass? Of feathers? So what?” It’s a genuine question, almost desperate despite the neutral way it's asked. 

“This is a big enough world for us to fly away forever, but maybe for now, for a little while we should put it to rest. And mourn the blood we let spill.”

Those green and black bruises just hurt all over again, but they’re bruises and not wounds. Not even scabs. Though they hurt like knives, they were just as precious and unforgettable. He could run all he wanted but the knives would just follow him if he didn’t pull them out. The similarities between him and Tsunade are comforting. She is comforting. He needs that comfort if he’s gonna bleed. Blessings, blessed, my blessing.

All his bones are made of glass and feathers. 

The weight is more bearable when those heavy knives are in the ground instead.

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Here's my problem with moral realism:

I value "economic freedom" (as one big nebulous category that includes various specific things like "the right to work," "the right to a college education," "the right to own property," etc.).

It turns out, though, that all the various rights that make up "economic freedom" are linked, and I'm not sure I can completely isolate and separate them.

Economic freedom (as I value it) requires a pretty high degree of trust between individuals, the gears of the market not grinding to a halt whenever people randomly decide not to trust each other. When people don't trust each other enough, they find a way to avoid working with each other or selling to each other or buying from each other.

And from an economic point of view, being present is what matters. What matters is . . . not helping your friends buy groceries or something like that, but having economic activity.

It's sort of a weird thing to say, because it sounds like saying that no one should be friends with anyone else. And yet it seems very hard to separate out the economically functional from the socially/emotionally nonfunctional without making no real-world sense. I mean, there is "people who like each other but have no trouble working together" and "people who do not like each other and have no trouble working together," but the social/emotional/feeling distinction does not seem to map to an economic one, at least not as well. (Maybe these different types of relations have different costs? I dunno.) I think this is one of those "bullshit examples" -- sort of like "the right to own a guitar," which is somehow not a real right because owning a guitar is not (in this imagined world) a practical thing that everyone does . . . maybe you don't think I should "own" a guitar, and think "the right to OWN a guitar" doesn't matter much, but I can still be upset about how I can't have a guitar. (Similarly, you might not think me having friends is a "real right," but if I "lack" friends, and I'm "upset" about "lacking friends," I'm still upset by something and you can be the one causing me to be upset.)

Sure, you can be upset about the wrong things. You can have rights to things that are impractical or that hurt you. You can worry about things that are bullshit. It's fine to worry about things that are dumb, and worrying about something doesn't automatically give you the right to have that something. But when I worry about things, I worry because I have a sense that those things are hard to change, or that it's not very practical for someone to change them, and that I can't change them myself. (I can't change the personality of the person I'm worried about being with, say. I can't manufacture healthy friends out of thin air to make up for a shortage of friends. I can't stop the world from being a "bad place" for the sake of someone who will probably never find the world a good place.)

Or, to put it another way: I think I "have the right to an electric guitar" for much the same reasons I have a "right" to "not starve to death." There is a broad, fundamental set of things that I need to live and function, and that set of things includes, well, food, shelter, safety, and a certain amount of fun. And if I can't get any of these things I'll be screwed.

It doesn't matter if I were "able" to eat rocks and have fun doing it -- if I need to eat in order to be functional, then eating is a real right, even if I'm the type of person who can't eat rocks. It's not about not being able to do things, it's about necessity. The necessity is what makes a right.

Similarly with my "right to have friends" -- I "need" to have a certain amount of contact with other people, and I need to relate to other people in a particular way, and this has a certain sameness across people, even if some people are "the wrong type" to be friends with me. "Why" the thing is necessary doesn't matter, nor does the fact that I'm "the wrong type" to be friends with some people. What matters is that the thing is necessary for the type of organism I am, or I need it to be an organism at all, or whatever.

(This feels somewhat unsatisfactory, but I think it's a good start, anyway.)

[bluejayblueskies]

Please say more abt how Martin fits the closed off trait I'm begging 👁👁

Okay, so I got a bit carried away with this and it got quite lengthy....

I've put a TLDR above the cut and the details, transcripts, and general discussion below the cut!

.

TLDR: Martin is at his core a closed-off character who keeps his vulnerable feelings hidden and close to his chest. He instead focuses on caring for others and considering their feelings above his own, particularly in the case of Jon, who he cares for (sometimes to the point of self-sacrifice) throughout the podcast. His arc with the Lonely in season four and his interactions with Jon in season five demonstrate this lack of emotional vulnerability, and it's really only during the moments he spends by himself that we get significant insight into Martin's emotional state and inner thoughts.

.

Martin, to me, is a character who is very used to hiding how he feels. He tends to care for others at the expense of himself, has low self-esteem, and has a predilection towards the Lonely, all of which go hand-in-hand with somebody who is very used to hiding their emotions--particularly the negative ones--because they either think they're not important or that they're inconvenient and inappropriate for the situation. On a textual level, that's probably due to growing up with a sick (and likely unsupportive) mother who he had to take care of, where there was 'no time' for his emotions to get in the way or for him to prioritize himself in any way, shape, or form.

Martin is self-destructive, dislikes moments of emotional vulnerability, and (I would argue) genuinely struggles when he doesn't have somebody else to prioritize over himself. (His mother at first, but as the series goes on, Jon settles comfortably into this role for him.) Additionally, the biggest way that we, the audience, know anything about Martin's emotional state is when he's alone and self-reflecting (such as in MAG 170 and 186 or when talking to the tapes) or when he's forced to talk about something vulnerable (such as when Jon confronted him about his CV).

We don't get much insight into Martin's character between seasons one and three (at least not as much as we get in four and five), but I find myself drawn to this bit in MAG 118, when Martin is talking to Elias:

MARTIN

So what? I don’t get to be angry? I don’t get to burn things? Just, just run around, making tea, while everyone else gets to actually have feelings?

I think two things are important to note here. The first is that Elias is surprised (or least intrigued) that Martin is acting in this way--specifically, acting on his emotions in such a dramatic way. (And given that Martin is doing this as a distraction, rather than actually acting out because of his own emotions, maybe he's right to be surprised.) The second is that this line very much implies that Martin doesn't talk about how he's feeling, not like 'everyone else' does. He doesn't talk about it, doesn't act on it--just 'runs around, making tea.' And when Melanie comes back in after Elias is done, Martin immediately focuses on the plan and whether it succeeded, ignoring Melanie when she asks if he's okay or not. He closes himself off, and as far as we know, doesn't talk about it at all after that.

And then Jon goes into his coma, and we reach season four.

Martin is incredibly closed-off during season four. He's self-isolating, self-sacrificial, and approaching a state of genuine emotional numbness by the time he's cast into the Lonely. There's a lot to unpack there, but I'm going to focus on a few main things, many of which can be drawn from this bit in MAG 158:

MARTIN

It’s not him! It’s not anybody. It’s just me. Always has been. I…

When I first came to you, I thought I had lost everything. Jon was dead, my mother was dead, the job I had put everything into trapped me into spreading evil and I… I really didn’t care what happened to me. I told myself I was trying to protect the others, but… honestly we didn’t even like each other. Maybe I just thought joining up with you would be a good way to get killed.

And then… Jon came back, and… and suddenly I had a reason I had to keep your attention on me. Make you feel in control so you didn’t take it out on him. And if that meant drifting further away, so what? I’d already grieved for him. And if it meant now saving him, it was worth it.

When you started talking about the Extinction, though… you had me actually, then, for a while. But then – (laughs sardonically) then, you tried to make me the hero. Tried to sell me on the idea that I was the only one who could stop it. And that I’ve never sat right with me. I mean, I mean, look – look at me, I’m not exactly a – a chosen one. But by then I was in too deep. So I played along. Waited to see what your end game was, and here we are.

Funny. Looks like I was right the first time. It’s probably still a good way to get killed?

This monologue is a big insight into Martin's thought process during this season, and I'm mostly going to focus on two parts: the self-sacrifice and the prioritization of Jon.

Self-sacrifice

There's quite a bit of discussion about Jon's self-sacrificial tendencies, but less so about Martin's, both in this season and in season five. In my opinion, Jon's self-sacrificial tendencies originate from (among other things) survivor's guilt from his traumatic childhood experience with Mr. Spider, his increasing belief that he's less than human, and the fact that he prioritizes the lives of others over his own. Martin's self-sacrificial tendencies, while very similar, come from the fact that he thinks he only has worth if he can help and care for someone else and the fact that he doesn't think he's important enough to live. (For example, he says in MAG 158 that he's 'not exactly a chosen one' and says in MAG 198 that he's 'not important enough to kill.')

It's a subtle difference between these two things, and I would argue that while Jon's tendencies are more rooted in the 'help' (ie, 'I want to help other people and I will sacrifice myself to do it'), Martin's tendencies are more rooted in the 'hurt' (ie, 'I will sacrifice myself and other people will be helped in the process'). There is, of course, overlap, and it's not a black-and-white distinction between the two, but ultimately, I think Martin is so used to prioritizing others' emotions and needs above his own that when he's left mostly alone as he is at the end of season three, with the only person left to hold onto being in a coma (possibly forever), he falls back into the same patterns of self-destruction and closed-offness, only without the 'help' to go along with the 'hurt' because there is nobody left to help (especially after his mother dies). Ultimately, he joins up with Peter because he thinks it 'would be a good way to get killed.'

Prioritization of Jon

But then Jon wakes up from his coma, and now Martin has justification for his self-sacrifice again, because he can protect Jon by continuing to work with Peter!

... Maybe.

Jon isn't harmed by Peter during season four, sure, but he does climb into the coffin and visits Ny-Ålesund and is tracked down by Julia and Trevor and struggles emotionally and morally with his own humanity and is hurt, in a way, by the distance Martin puts between them. And I hesitate to place blame for the apocalypse on anybody but Jonah, but if we're going to argue in-canon that Jon was responsible for the apocalypse (he wasn't, but that's not the point of this post), then Martin contributed to that blame and responsibility because it was his actions and decisions that ultimately drew Jon into the Lonely and resulted in him getting the 14th and final mark. (Again, I don't think Jon or Martin are at fault for the apocalypse, but if we were to blame Jon, we could blame Martin as well.) It was only after getting that mark that Jonah was able to use Jon to end the world, something that was hugely hurtful for Jon. So did Martin really protect Jon at all by staying away from him and continuing to work with Peter? Or was that just a convenient excuse to keep self-destructing?

Jon and Martin, in my opinion, had very similar arcs in season four. Martin was sinking further into the Lonely and Jon was sinking further into the Eye. We hear a lot more about Jon's emotional struggle with this given that he's the POV character, sure, but Jon also talks about this with other people. He talks about it to Helen (MAG 152):

JON

…

When does it stop?

HELEN

(impatient) What?

JON

The guilt. The misery. All the others I’ve met, they’ve been – cold, cruel. They’ve enjoyed what they do. When does the Eye (inhale) make me monstrous?

And to Daisy (MAG 136):

JON

My – (large sigh) My memories of the coma are not clear, but I know I made a choice; I made a choice to become… something else. Because I was afraid to die. But ever since then, I – I don’t know if I made the right decision; I’m stronger now, tougher, I can – (he cuts himself off) If I do die, now, or get sealed away somewhere forever? I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. And I don’t want to lose anyone else, so if I can maybe – stop that happening, and the only danger is to me, I – I’ll do it in a heartbeat; worst case scenario, the universe loses another monster.

But all we really get from Martin are the things he tells the tapes when he's alone and the monologue he gives in MAG 158. It makes sense that he wouldn't be as open, yes, given the nature of the Lonely, but I can't help but think of (MAG 154):

JON

The Lonely’s really got you, hasn’t it?

MARTIN

(no hesitation) You know, I think it always did.

Jon was always curious and hungry for knowledge; the Eye amplified it. Martin was always closed-off and isolated; the Lonely amplified that as well.

But then Jon pulls Martin out of the Lonely, they flee to the safehouse, and three weeks later, the apocalypse begins. Martin isn't as consumed by the Lonely as he was in season four, he's with Jon--the person he loves--for extended periods of time, and they're in an extremely stressful situation that's sure to be incredibly emotionally charged. There's a lot to be said about Jon's emotional vulnerability during season five and how Martin both pressures him for it and rejects it in different ways, but for the purposes of this post, I won't go too far into detail about the motivations behind how Jon is feeling and acting.

I will say, however, that in season five, Martin still continues to place a lot of focus on asking Jon how he's feeling, encouraging (or pressuring) him to share, and getting frustrated when Jon can't or doesn't (MAG 167):

MARTIN

Okay, so how exactly would you describe your current emotional state regarding all of this?

JON

I –

MARTIN

(overlapping) Go on, I’m all ears.

JON

I feel…

MARTIN

(go on) Mhm.

JON

(sigh) I feel… sad.

[Brief pause.] MARTIN

(flat) Sad.

JON

Very sad.

MARTIN

(*very* flat) Very sad.

[He sighs slightly as he says it. Their bags jangle.]

A few moments prior to this, Martin expresses displeasure that Jon is Knowing things about him, specifically pointing out his emotions (MAG 167):

MARTIN

It’s just – it’s weird knowing that you can know literally everything I think and feel. E-Especially since you’re not exactly the most open of people – emotionally, I mean.

I think Martin is making an effort to open up more to Jon. But I still think it's difficult for him to talk about how he feels so openly, and while he is completely in the right for not wanting Jon to Know things about him without his permission, I think it's interesting that the focus is on his feelings and that he brings up how Jon isn't emotionally open immediately after. It scares Martin to think that Jon could know, at any given moment, how he's feeling, and I think it's partially because he's not used to that level of vulnerability. He turns the focus on Jon, away from himself, and doesn't really make an effort to talk about how he's feeling about all of this, instead prioritizing Jon's feelings and mental state like he's grown comfortable with.

And when Martin bottles up his emotions--of which there are a lot, in such a stressful environment, they can explode out in hurtful ways:

MARTIN

(overlapping) I know! I know, okay, I just – (bracing exhale) Look, I j,just – don’t want to get burned, all right? It’s, it’s like my least favorite pain ever.

JON

Is that – a joke?

MARTIN

(a bit faster, a bit shaky) No, no, okay? I, I legitimately hate burns, alright? They’re, they’re awful, and they scar horribly, and they just – it – it just makes me sick; I, I hate it. Hate it!

I don't think Martin really thought about what he was saying when he told Jon, who has a large burn scar on his hand, that burn scars make him sick, and I don't think he meant it maliciously. But he'd spent the greater portion of the conversation talking around the fact that he didn't like burns and that was why he didn't want to go into the building, and so when it finally ended up coming out, it did so in an explosion of emotion rather than a conscious decision to share. Martin doesn't have a good handle on his emotions, and he doesn't have a good handle on sharing them.

(Is it too much for me to say that Martin was more emotionally vulnerable with himself in MAG 170 than he was with Jon when Jon finally found him?)

Throughout season five, Martin asks Jon questions, he expresses frustrations with Jon, he shows discomfort or fear at times, but for as much as Martin feels frustrated that Jon isn't talking about how he feels about their situation, Martin really isn't doing so either. The most he talks about his feelings is in MAG 170 and MAG 186, when he's by himself, and I remember MAG 186 in particular because before that, we really didn't know what Martin was thinking about for the majority of the season! And in this episode, we find out a lot of very important things about Martin's character. Like (MAG 186):

ALSO MARTIN

Look, I know what you know. Maybe I’m just a bit more… open about it.

Also-Martin acknowledges that Martin often doesn't say what he means and hides what he really feels, telling him that it's 'hard to be vulnerable,' and Martin is initially very resistant to the idea. And then, when Also-Martin suggests that Martin wants to stay so that he can be 'quietly sad,' we get (MAG 186):

MARTIN

We could talk to Jon about it.

ALSO MARTIN

We could. But we both know that loved ones make the worst therapists. They’re too wrapped up in trying to stop you hurting to actually help. But hey, we know all about that, am I right?

MARTIN

There’s nothing wrong with comforting people.

ALSO MARTIN

A cup of tea isn’t a resolution. At best it’s a… a plaster. At worst… a muzzle.

This is very interesting to me, because for all that Martin tries to help other people, he also believes that comfort doesn't always help and that you can't be your loved one's 'therapist.' I think this gives a lot of insight into why Martin doesn't share his emotions with the people he cares about, especially Jon; he doesn't want to put Jon in the position where he'll become his 'therapist,' and he doesn't necessarily think Jon can help. So instead, Martin just chooses not to be vulnerable at all, because he doesn't want to burden the people he cares about. But, when it's just him (MAG 186):

ALSO MARTIN

Don’t lie. You don’t need to. Not here. It’s just us.

He doesn't feel like he needs to pull his emotional punches. He can't accidentally hurt somebody or put them in an awkward position; it's just himself. But what's said to himself remains with himself, and (at least on tape), he doesn't discuss any of this with Jon. Not even the bit about, if it came down to it, Martin would have rather had Jon smite him than continue to rule over a domain. He goes right back to being closed-off around Jon, but now we, the audience, know what lies underneath, and how little of it reaches the surface.

In fact, the thing Martin's probably most vocal about is how Jon's feelings about himself bother him (MAG 199):

MARTIN

I guess that’s why it really bothers me, you know? I try, but I can’t actually imagine ever making a decision that I knew meant losing you.

And it… It hurts to know you can.

And I think he has a tendency to use anger and frustration to cover up hurt, shying away from the admission that something Jon's done has hurt him (an incredibly vulnerable thing) and instead relying on the less-vulnerable and more external anger to cover it. This is more speculation than true analysis, but I think that's a lot of what's happening in MAG 200, when he discovers that Jon has already assumed the position of the pupil and has, in Martin's eyes, broken his promise.

.

TLDR: Martin is at his core a closed-off character who keeps his vulnerable feelings hidden and close to his chest. He instead focuses on caring for others and considering their feelings above his own, particularly in the case of Jon, who he cares for (sometimes to the point of self-sacrifice) throughout the podcast. His arc with the Lonely in season four and his interactions with Jon in season five demonstrate this lack of emotional vulnerability, and it's really only during the moments he spends by himself that we get significant insight into Martin's emotional state and inner thoughts.

[iadoreneteyam]

The new hot couple

 (um.. this takes place circa 96-99 cuz why not.) 

   The bitter aroma of coffee hit my nose when I walked into the bookstore. The little café at the front often took over the store, people rarely came for books anymore. I prepared for my long shift, the line way already ridiculously long. So long, if fact, I couldn’t see how anyone could bear to stand in it. My co-worker, Andrew, was beginning to become restless with annoyed customers lined up in front of him.

“Look who showed up.” Andrew spoke to me whilst I entered the door labeled staff only in a dying thick black sharpie scribbled on the door. I took my pink apron off the hook and replaced it with my coat.  I walked out the door tying my apron. The cheap plastic name tag my manager had given me my first day practically falling off. Andrew turned to me wiping his hands on his ugly orange colored apron.

He shook flour from his fluffy brown hair. Andrew made pastries for the displays, but he occasionally held down my shift if I was late or I missed a day which he hated doing. He also hated my shift because he had to control the T.V. Our café had a small T.V that sat in a corner of the shop on top of a rolling stand with various V.H.S tapes sitting in a box next to it. It was a miracle no one tried to steal any yet.

“Thought you ditched me, Y/n.” The first thing Andrew did was hand me the T.V remote. I paused the current show that played on the T.V it was some kids cartoon found at the bottom of the box. Our manager probably found it discounted at the film store across the street. “I really can’t believe you think I would ditch my best friend.” I faked a frown and dragged my pointer finger down my cheek to imitate a tear. I gently pushed on the eject button on the T.V, the V.H.S came spitting out.

I quickly replaced the cartoon with a better suited movie in my hand. The side of the V.H.S labeled ‘SCREAM’ was popped into the slot. I walked back to the counter and began to take orders. No matter how many orders I took it seemed the line never got shorter, it was almost never-ending. “We need some more muffins up in the front!” I yelled to Andrew. Pastries never sold out as quickly as the coffee, well since coffee is our main selling point it would be obvious, but our coffee was practically below average.

It’s not like were the only café around. You can find three other ones just six stores down from here. So why did everyone decide to come here? The distinct sound or clapping and cheering from the civilians outside and the customers that crowded the shop filled my ears. Oh. Right. Our friendly neighborhood hero, champion, our man of the hour, Spiderman. The shop had the clearest view of the hero after a tragedy. He would always land in the middle of the main street which is exactly where the shop stood.

Some just wanting to be in the presence of the red and blue suited hero others hoping to catch him in a moment of weakness, just a slight falter in his cocky exterior would make headlines. Not that he wasn’t already, finding out who the mystery man was seemed to be the hit topic of everyone’s conversations, even mine. The skintight suited hero strolled in the shop.

“Can I get a black coffee, one of your like mini cake thingies, please?” His words all streamed together in one long continuous sentence. He didn’t think twice about taking a breath in between which he paid the price soon after when his breath started to stager. “Sure thing!” The simple fact that a hero would simply walk in like it was his everyday routine was shocking, but then again maybe it was. He could be a regular at the shop and no one would even know.

“What flavor?” I questioned the hero. Our mini cakes weren’t limited by any means, especially when it came to flavor. Our display was full of flavors, each of them being organized by the artificial color of the frosting. From red to purple. Spiderman began to tap his chin as if he was in deep thought. The gesture made me chuckle at his joking manner. “I don’t know. What’s your favorite?” He placed his elbow on the display, taking his hand and resting it under his chin.

He looked at me waiting for my answer. In all honesty, I didn’t indulge in the sugary treats the bakery had to offer very often but when you did you couldn’t deny how good they tasted. “My favorite is our triple chocolate mini cake.” I bent down to the clear glass of the display and slid the case open. I carefully took out the cake from its place and placed it on the counter.

I made my way to the other side behind the counter grabbing the pink box from the neatly put together stack. While I was near the coffee machine I decided to put on his coffee as well. I went back to the counter to box up his cake. The hero analyzed the design and decorations displayed on the cake. They were red and blue with mini spiderwebs on the cake and a long spiderweb trimming the bottom. “You dig it?” You began to place his cake in the pink box.

“Do you paint me as that egotistical?” He placed his hand over his heart in a joking manner. A flash strained your eyes. You looked over at the store window, paparazzi. Another flash strained your eyes, they had probably been there since the hero landed. Why hadn’t noticed them before?

“Looks like were going to be on the news as the new hottest couple-“He squinted at my name tag. “Y/n” I decided to make his job slightly easier knowing, or rather assuming, the difficulty of trying to see through the tiny holes in his mask made for sight and ventilation. It was quite fascinating getting to see our ‘neighborhood’ hero up close, getting to notice all the little details someone put into making his suit. The way the spider on his chest slightly glistened from the sun.

“You ever thought about putting it on the back?” I said ignoring his couple joke. Even with his mask I could see his interest quirked through his movements. “Your spider.” I made what I was talking about clearer by pointing at his chest before I turned to grab his coffee. Which would have been done long ago if the boss would break down and get us a new one. I mean, we use the thing like 100 times a day, including the fact we only have one just makes the whole thing obscene.

“I’d think it would sick, y’know.” In all truthfulness, it would look really really cool. “Well I’d be happy to take advice from a pretty lady like you.” He grabbed his coffee and his cake box and began to head for the door. The paparazzi going absolutely insane outside the café window and the customers inside taking their fair share of pics as well. “Spidey!” I called out for him as soon as his hand hit the door handle.

“You gonna pay for that?” I held my hand out and made a ‘gimme’ motion. “Oh, Right.”  He laid his money on the counter and headed for the door again. This time I let him leave, I watched him attach his web to the next building before speaking with the paparazzi. “Ok, ok Sorry to say but I gotta head out, but lucky for you I’ll be here same time tomorrow!” He swung his way to the top of the building over. “And those pictures better be of my good side!” He swung from one building to the next after that. 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Games Workshop declares war on its customers (again)

There’s a difference between a con-artist and a grifter. A con-artist is just a gabby mugger, and when they vanish with your money, you know you’ve been robbed.

A grifter, on the other hand, is someone who can work the law to declare your stuff to be their stuff, which makes you a lawless cur because your pockets are stuffed full of their money and merely handing it over is the least you can do to make up for your sin.

IP trolls are grifters, not con artists, and that’s by design, a feature of the construction of copyright and trademark law.

Progressives may rail at the term “IP” for its imprecision, but truly, it has a very precise meaning: “‘IP’ is any law that lets me control the conduct of my customers, competitors and critics, such that they must arrange their affairs to my benefit.”

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

In that regard, it is a perfect grifter’s tool — a way to put you on the wrong side of the line for simply living your life in the way that works best for you, not the grifter.

Now, copyright and trademark’s framers were alive to the possibility that they might become this kind of weapon, and they wrote limitations and exceptions into each doctrine that were meant to safeguard the public’s right to free speech and free action.

But those limitations and exceptions are weirdly self-eviscerating. Both trademark and copyright’s limitations assume that they aren’t being weaponized by immoral sociopaths. Both collapse if they are.

Take copyright. Copyright has a suite of limitations and exceptions under various global legal systems, including US law. US law also contains a specific set of exceptions colloquially called “fair use,” a subject of much mystification for lay people.

Under fair use, someone accused of copyright infringement can ask a judge to find that their use of someone else’s copyrighted work is permissible because to deny it would be socially harmful.

The fair use law sets out four factors that judges MAY consider when considering such a claim. Note that these four factors are neither comprehensive (judges can weigh other factors), nor dispositive (failing to satisfy a factor doesn’t disqualify your use from being fair).

If that sounds confusing to you, don’t worry. It is confusing. As the lawyers say, “fair use is fact-intensive.”

The specifics of a use really matter: who’s making the use, what they’re using, why they’re using it, how they use it, and how much they use.

That’s why anyone who claims that “X is never fair use” (for example, commercial fanfic) are full of shit — as are people who say “X is always fair use”).

Commercial fanfic absolutely can be fair use. No less a body than the Supreme Court says so:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Done_Gone

Despite all this ambiguity and nuance, IP grifters who want to force other people to arrange their affairs to their own benefit are laser focused on the four factors, reasoning correctly that if they show a judge that the factors favor them, they’re more likely to prevail.

Half of the four factors are out of the grifter’s reach. As a rightsholder, you can’t control “the purpose and character of the use,” or “the amount and substantiality of the portion used.”

But the other two factors are more readily within the IP wielder’s remit. As someone seeking control a work, you can frame “to the nature of the copyrighted work” by talking up how much creativity and originality went into it, which judges will weigh in your favor.

More importantly — and disturbingly — is the way that an IP holder can influence the fourth factor: “the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.”

Think about that fourth factor for a moment here: if my use of your work doesn’t cost you any money, then it’s more likely that my use is fair.

The corollary: if you can bully some people into paying for something they’ve always gotten for free, then you can claim that the people who refuse to pay are ripping you off — that there is a “market” for the use, and that their failure to pay weakens that market.

This is effectively what’s happened to music sampling. Seminal albums like “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” were produced with thousands of uncleared samples — but at the time, no one was clearing samples.

https://memex.craphound.com/2011/07/08/creative-license-how-the-hell-did-sampling-get-so-screwed-up-and-what-the-hell-do-we-do-about-it/

Had the rightsholders to those samples dragged Public Enemy into court, they wouldn’t have had the fourth factor on their side. No one was paying for samples, so a failure to pay for samples had no “effect on the potential market for the copyrighted work.”

However, in the 33 years since Nation of Millions dropped, paying to license samples has become common practice — and the mere existence of paid samples makes not paying for samples more legally risky.

So say a rightsholder decided to aggressively license simple quotations — as the Associated Press did in 2008, when it offered to sell you a license to a 5-word quotation for a mere $12.50.

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/010341.html

All other things being equal, a short quotation from a news article is likely to be fair use. But if the AP managed to terrorize enough bloggers into coughing up $12.50 for a 5-word quote, it could create a market for 5-word quotations.

That market would change the fair use argument for people who don’t pay — yes, they’re making a transformative, critical use, but they’re also undermining the market for the copyright, and a judge might find this change tips the scales away from fair use.

Even more importantly, the additional uncertainty might stampede more people into paying $12.50 for a 5-word quote rather than risk a $250,000 statutory damages award for copyright infringement.

The more people who pay for 5-word quotes, the sturdier the market becomes and the riskier it is to rely upon fair use.

The fourth factor looks like an escape valve for uses that harm no one.

But it actually rewards to bullies who intimidate others out of money they don’t actually owe — until they do.

Trademark has a similar gotcha. Trademark is very different from copyright. Fundamentally, trademark is about protecting buyers, not sellers. Trademark meant to help buyers avoid being tricked into buying an inferior product because it was deceptively named or styled.

If you buy a can of Coke, you want the true Black Water of American Imperialism, not an inferior brand of dilute battery-acid.

But if your Coke turns out to be a fake, you might shrug off the harm or balk at the expense of punishing the fast operator who mis-sold you.

So trademark empowers Coke — and other vendors — to punish third parties who trick their customers, acting as their customers’ champions. Trademark doesn’t exist to prevent Coke from losing money to a rival — it exists to help Coke drinkers get what they pay for.

Trademarks can be registered with the USPTO, who nominally weigh trademark applications to ensure that they’re distinctive and original. Practically, examiners are busy, sometimes careless, and ideologically inclined to grant, not deny, claims.

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/06/14/son-of-cocky-a-writer-is-trying-to-trademark-dragon-slayer-for-fantasy-novels/

But you don’t have to register a trademark to assert it. You can threaten or pursue legal action on the grounds that someone has violated an unregistered trademark, which is any distinctive graphic or phrase that is associated with your product.

Registered or unregistered, trademark enforcement primarily comes down to whether a “naive consumer” would be mislead by someone else’s use of a mark. That is, when you bought a Coke-branded sack of chicken feet, did you think it was blessed by the Coca-Cola company?

If there’s no likelihood of confusion, trademark holders struggle to enforce their trademarks.

This standard seems reasonable, but, like the fourth factor in fair use, it has a sting in its tail.

One of the ways you can induce confusion in the public is to gain a reputation for being a litigious bully. Say Coke is known far and wide for clobbering anyone that uses its trademarks, no matter how trivial the use and no matter how bad it made them look.

If Coke is truly notorious for its zero-tolerance policy, that will lead to a widespread public understanding that every time you see Coke’s marks, the use was blessed by a Coke lawyer — meaning a use that might not otherwise be found to be confusing can be made confusing.

“If that was any other company’s trademark, I’d assume that they had nothing to do with it — but since I know Coke has an army of baby-eating attack lawyers who destroy anyone who uses a mark without permission, that must be an authorized use.”

Like fair use’s fourth factor, trademark’s confusion standard rewards the most vicious and uncaring businesspeople with new rights that their more reasonable competitors do not enjoy. IP selects for sociopathy.

Now, IP — in the most sinister sense of the phrase — has pervaded every industry, but the contradictions of IP are felt most keenly in its spawning grounds: the culture industry.

Culture is in tension with the control of ideas, because culture is the spread of ideas.

Creators (and execs) are vulnerable to the pirate/admiral fallacy: “When I take from my forebears, that’s legitimate artistic progress. When my successors do it to me, it’s theft.”

This pathology, combined with ready-to-hand IP weapons, incentivizes all manner of wickedness. Remember when Marvel and DC teamed up in a bid to trademark the word “super-hero” so that no one else would be allowed to use it?

https://memex.craphound.com/2006/03/18/marvel-comics-stealing-our-language/

These perverse incentives are made tragic by the inherently participatory nature of culture.

It’s not merely that Marvel and DC wanted to steal the word “super-hero” right out of our mouths.

It’s that super-heroes are culturally important because of how we take and remix them in our lives. Marvel went on to use the law to stop us from pretending to be superheroes online, something Casey Fiesler called “Pretending Without a License.”

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277598023_Pretending_Without_a_License_Intellectual_Property_and_Gender_Implications_in_Online_Games

Which brings me, at last, to Games Workshop, a company that has consistently led the IP bully pack, indiscriminately terrorizing the Warhammer 40k fans who made it a massive commercial success.

Warhammer is a strategy/roleplaying game that is played with miniature creatures that players buy, modify and paint. If you’re not familiar with all this, maybe this sounds a bit like toy soldiers.

It’s a lot more interesting — not just because of the game rules or lore, but because of the incredibly, unbelievable, jaw-dropping virtuosity of Warhammer players when they paint and style those miniatures.

There’s a reason I look forward to Saturday morning’s weekly linkdump from Jonathan Struan of the week’s best Warhammer and other RPG miniatures:

https://www.superpunch.net/search?q=warhammer&max-results=20&by-date=true

and why I follow incredible painters like Aurelie Schick:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/110246635@N06

Warhammer is intrinsically participatory, co-creative and active — it’s not media you consume, it’s media you produce.

Games Workshop has become fantastically rich off of this…and they hate it, and they always have.

For years they’ve pursued fans for producing their own fan-made supplements and additions to the game:

https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/99301

The more Warhammer players complained about the indiscriminate censorship of their fan media, the harder GW cracked down on them, wiping out whole genres of creative work:

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/48933/games-workshop-files-purge-09

GW claimed it was only defending its rights, the grifter’s signature move, making you a crook for having the audacity not to put their shareholders’ interests ahead of your own.

Then Games Workshop claimed a trademark on “space marine,” a generic term that had been widely used in science fiction for decades, including, notably, in Heinlein’s classic “Starship Troopers” (1959).

https://web.archive.org/web/20130207002144/http://mcahogarth.org/?p=10593

They didn’t just go after RPGs that used the phrase — they used trademark claims to remove novels from Amazon for having the phrase in their titles.

“Space marine” is a generic phrase, but GW was betting if they were sufficiently, spectacularly brutal in their enforcement, they could create a proprietary interest: “Now, I know GW destroys anyone who uses ‘space marine,’ so this ‘space marine’ must be endorsed by GW.”

GW just launched a new set of terms of service, including: “individuals must not create fan films or animations based on our settings and characters. These are only to be created under licence from Games Workshop.”

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-WW/Intellectual-Property-Guidelines

Now, this isn’t how copyright works. There are many ways in which a fan film or animation could be fair use, no matter whether GW forbids or permits their production. But this isn’t mere overreach: it’s a direct play against the fourth factor in fair use.

If GW can establish that all animations and vids are produced under paid license, then any fanvid that doesn’t pay for a license has a weaker fair use case, because the fourth factor protects existing licensing markets.

Indeed, as Rob Beschizza points out on Boing Boing, GW timed the terms of service change to coincide with the announcement that they’re launching a subscription service including “cartoons, in-house hobby videos, access to a vault of ebooks and mags.”

https://www.pcgamer.com/now-even-warhammer-has-a-subscription-service/

This is bullying with a business-model, in other words. Fans have figured out how to have fun with each other for free, and GW wants them to stop and pay the company for its in-house version of that fun.

Warhammer creators are demoralized and disheartened. The creator of the hugely successful Oculus Imperia Youtube series posted a heart-rending message of surrender.

https://twitter.com/OculusImperia/status/1421136444437970949

Oculus Imperia also edits “If The Emperor Had A Text To Speech Device,” (TTS) another beloved Warhammer fan series. Alfabusa from TTS posted his own absolutely demoralized goodbye to his work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXljeaktnDA

Ironically, both channels would have a stronger fair use case if they mocked and criticized Warhammer, rather than celebrating it, as fair use tips favorably towards critical uses.

The fact is, they love their hobby and its community and they want to improve it, not tear it down.

Neither wants to get dragged into a brutal copyright case against a deep-pocketed corporation. Even people with great fair use cases balk at that:

https://waxy.org/2011/06/kind_of_screwed/

Now, some people might be thinking, what’s the big deal? Why don’t these creators just make up their own stories instead of remixing the ones that come from Games Workshop?

Those people are assholes.

*All* stories are fanfic of some kind or another. Every mystery novel is a remix of Poe’s Murders In the Rue Morgue. Games Workshop’s stories are the thrice-brewed teabags of many sf writers (remember “space marines?”).

Tolkien straight up ripped off his characters from the 1000-year-old Norse poem “Elder Edda,” which features dwarves named “Thorin, Balin, Dwalin, Fili, Kili, Oin, Gloin, Nori, Dori, Ori, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur.”

https://musingsofatolkienist.blogspot.com/2015/07/hobbit-origins-catalog-of-dwarves.html

Culture is made of other culture.

GW made something wonderful with Warhammer — by plundering the stories that preceded it.

The sin isn’t in the taking, it’s in the pretense that it never happened, and the vicious grifting that punishes anyone who does unto GW as they did unto everyone else.

[southslates]

Midas Touch

read on archive of our own!

it was so fun writing this piece for this year’s @grishaversebigbang!

materialki: @doorhandle16​ [piece] and @oranges-and-stuff​ [piece]!

summary: 

Perhaps the rumors that abound in the Staves are more fact than fiction. Brekker's touch burned like brimstone—a single brush of his bare skin caused your flesh to wither and die.

Whatever Kaz Brekker touches with his gloves, he makes sure to turn to gold. But there are only nightmares against his bare skin . . . until he finds the mysterious Suli girl in the Menagerie who can feel him without falling apart.

/

fic:

To those who live in the Fourth and Fifth Harbors, far from the fanciful Merchers’ Districts, Kaz Brekker is a legend who walks the streets. He’s a boy, but they prefer to call him a demon. Really, there are no boys in Ketterdam, especially not in the suspicious and broken alleys of the staves. But Brekker’s reputation is more than that of a corrupt man—there is no lack of those in Ketterdam either. It is supernatural and terrifying. No matter how morally bankrupt these men and women are, most have something to lose. 

It is clear to see Brekker does not. He’s handsome in a disarming way, but also terrifying. And he is distinctive. All of those in the Staves with self-preservation know what to do when they glimpse a demon walking the streets with a cane and leather gloves. You run. There is no way to escape Brekker if you don’t run, but if he really wants you that will not help either. 

Still, he is the only justice in this corner of Kerch.

He plays the game of the evils of the world better than anyone else. He is always underneath your window, always behind your door. He knows everything. 

This is the reputation Kaz likes to hold up but he’s found himself in the awkward position, as of late, of losing track of informers and information—not something he can afford with the current state of the Crow Club and how well it’s doing. It would be terrible to lose his advantage over the other terrifying rats of the Staves now, and that’s why he finds himself at Tante Heleen’s Menagerie. 

He’s not fond of the place for many reasons. A lot of them have to do with his fear of touch and of being touched. This pleasure house is meant for giving and taking, for soft moans and whispered comforts and most of all intimacy, and Kaz cannot stand that. The thought of skin against his makes him think of falling underneath the water, of the way Imogen had looked at him before she’d tried to kiss him and fallen to the ground and never gotten up again. He thinks of Jordie and waves against his skin, curling into his hands, of the way they gave him power and took away his vulnerability. 

And also, Kaz hates the Menagerie because he detests the selling of skin. He is Kerch’s justice, and he knows the women here have not received justice. Most of them were stolen or forced into this lifestyle. Really, he can do nothing about it for now without jeopardizing his position in this place. But that doesn’t mean he has to like it. 

He walks through its gilded, artificial gate and makes a beeline for the desk of Tante Heleen. He balances his stride as calmly as he can, as to not bely his level of uncomfort here. That is a weakness that would certainly be used against him. 

Most of the people of the Staves and the Harbors could not fathom his real weakness—for most in his profession, the fall is caused by hubris or by letting too many words slide between bedsheets. Kaz knows to take advantage of those faults. Men like him, boys like him, are supposed to enjoy losing themselves in the pleasures of the bed and of women who can’t help themselves. They are supposed to enjoy the power of touching and getting touched. But Kaz’s hands have more power than any of those men, and he will not use it. He will make his way to the top and he will hide this disgusting quality of his forever—the fact that he himself is a weapon. The idea of touching a woman or man revolts him. 

The visuals of the Menagerie are not supposed to be jarring, but seductive. To Kaz, they’re just uncomfortable. He throws a bag of coins with the requisite amount of coins at Heleen’s desk, and she peers up at him with over decorated eyes before slyly sliding it into her hands. She bites her lip and delicately removes coin by coin from the bag to her desk, deliberately, painfully slow. 

Kaz grits his teeth but says nothing, keeping his face cold. Heleen sighs as she draws the silver through her smooth fingers and taps them with bold red fingernails. “You do look stressed, Mr. Brekker. I’m sure I could procure you one of my girls to the backroom. It can be quick, of course. I know a busy boy like you is on a schedule.”

He clenches his teeth faster but makes no outward movement other than a glare. “I need information, Heleen. You told me you had Jasker coming by,” he leans into her, not scared of a little intimidation—the crow’s head on his cane stares down at her like a curse. 

To her credit, she barely balks under his unforgiving gaze. With a sigh, she deposits the coins back into the bag and then gets up. “My Suli speaks to him, and she is currently occupied. You will have to wait a few moments, Mr. Brekker. Unless you’d like to spend that time . . .”

She is a businesswoman and a cold-hearted, despicable one at that. “I do not have time or the care to listen to your ramblings, Heleen. Show me your girl.” Kaz does his best to hide the shiver that drives through his soul as Heleen moves and allows him to look at some of the girls standing in the shadows. Their skin arises a mixed bag of feelings he can’t contain, the intrusive thoughts to touch and ruin and also more that he know he cannot feel, what destroyed Imogen. He is cursed and he cannot reach out to them in any way. 

Heleen rolls her eyes and calls for a doe-eyed Kaelish girl in the corner to call a girl she describes as a lynx. Kaz slowly steps back to the entrance of the Menagerie, trying to portray annoyance rather than claustrophobia. 

The girl returns in moments with a slight Suli girl, covered in fake silks and looking downwards. There is a staunch downwards curve to her mouth. Kaz refuses to think she’s beautiful like this, like any of these girls are. He is not as much of a monster as he wants the Staves to believe, as his hands would say. 

Tante Heleen grabs the girl’s wrists and tugs her in front of Kaz, who looks on unflinchingly. “Tell him what Jasker told you.”

In calm, accented Kerch, she quietly whispers everything Kaz had wanted confirmed about his planned raid on Jasker’s mansion and also more. He makes sure to not betray his satisfaction with the information, but a slight smirk makes its way through. He is, after all, human with all of his faults. When she finishes her belaying of information, he nods at Heleen and then turns out of the Menagerie to disappear to Fifth Harbor.

He needs to check several shipments of alcohol he has coming in from the South and then on the jurda he needs to ensure has arrived on time. His latest spider broke his leg coming from in from the Exchange a week ago, so Kaz has been on more excursions than he has in months. He hasn’t done so much ground-work in half a year, but it’s really quite entertaining, and a bit of a variation from his current day-to-day monotony. It’s also far more dangerous, and he finds that appealing too. 

Kaz walks proud with his fingers clenched around the head of his cane, and he almost doesn't notice the small voice in his ear in the thrum of the evening in the darkest corners of Kerch. But then he does. “I can help you,” it whispers. Calm, accented Kerch. 

He pauses. “Reveal yourself.”

“Don’t take me back,” the voice pleads again. Kaz has no idea where it’s speaking from, and that terrifies him. But it also intrigues him. 

“Show yourself,” he says. “Then I’ll see.”

He digs his cane into the earth, waiting just a second for the girl from the Menagerie to suddenly materialize in front of him. She walks like water, and takes a step towards him he can’t hear in the slightest. Kaz looks discreetly to the alley behind her, and then to her feet. 

They are clothed in purple slippers made of silk, and there are bells on her ankles. Bells, like chains. Bells meant to make sound, for men to play with and also for Heleen to hear her girls escaping, but they’re silent. 

He hides his shock. “What do you want?” He knows, but he wants her to say it, wants to see what she’ll say to him. 

“I am Inej. Please, Heleen . . .” she looks pitiful and also strong, such a complex picture. A puzzle, and he knows he is already fascinated. Kaz likes puzzles, and games, things he can work to solve. “I can help in other ways. I am from a caravan and I am good on my feet. I can spy, do whatever you want.”

“Why me?” Kaz asks, his cane still standing up in the ground. He closes one gloved hand around it, turning the crow’s head towards her. “Why me, and not any of the others?”

“You are different,” she says. 

It’s her eyes, the way they peer into his soul at that moment—that is why, he will forever claim, he agrees to her request. He cannot really afford enraging Heleen right now, but some part of his mind is telling him to take this girl who can see right through him back to the Slat. And Kaz has survived this far in the Staves by trusting his instinct more than he would admit. 

He doesn’t respond to her, really. He turns on his heel and she follows and he thinks that should be all. It is all, until she reaches for his gloved hand like she wants to hold it and make a promise. 

Kaz never turns his back to potential threats, and perhaps he just made a grave mistake. But when Inej closes her hand around his glove and he turns around to insist she let it go, he is caught in a moment of sheer horror when he notices that his shirt sleeve has loosened. The tips of her fingers are touching his skin. 

He looks at her wide-eyed, in some kind of expectation. He remembers what happened to Imogen vividly—how she’d fallen to the floor, fallen into herself. It had really just been a few months prior. 

He hadn’t loved Imogen, but he had certainly felt something for her. He had made that feeling harden into something and guard his heart after she had died in his arms, after any of his desire has poisoned her. 

Kaz had never considered himself religious, but in that moment he had thought Ghezen had put him on this Earth and then tortured him to make him a demon. To kill with nothing but touch was the consequence for his instinct and his mind. He could be the enforcer of Ketterdam, could read the minds of the worst men of these streets, but he could be nothing else. Have no connection, no love, no weakness. 

Inej meets his gaze for a moment before she lets go of his hand, finishing the awkward grab she’s begun he hadn’t been receptive to. Kaz walks back to the Slat in complete silence, forgoing a trip to the harbor.

Before he enters the front door, he turns to Inej and speaks gruffly. “Go see Anika—the blonde one with the half-shaved head—and she will help you settle in. Don’t bother me.”

He stalks up the Slat’s stairs without looking back. 

/

Two days later, he’s sitting doing numbers on his rickety desk when he sees a shape at his window. Kaz doesn’t move when the window opens and the slight Suli girl crawls in. 

She looks at him with a tilt of her mouth he thinks he could make cruel. But in the moment, he says nothing. Inej sits in the windowframe and stares out into the dreary Kerch sky for half an hour until he finally puts down his pen. “What do you want?” he asks. 

Inej blinks at him. Her eyes are so wide, so otherworldly. She is looking at him the same way she did, that first day. Like she knows why he is what he is. 

Kaz is the monster that haunts this city, but she scares him. He would never admit it. 

“Something to do,” she whispers, before gliding over to him. Again, she makes no sound at all. “I am grateful you took me with you. What do you want me to do?”

Heleen has not complained about a missing girl to him, not sent any letters. His other spiders have heard of nothing amiss in the Menagerie, either. Kaz files that information away to think of later. 

Sentimentalities aside, he analyzes the girl with the eye of a crook. He has her, and he might as well put her to work. He reaches for the corner of his desk and takes out a map. “I’ll give you a house to stake out.”

Suddenly, she is in front of him, her hand in front of his face. “I don’t need a map,” she says. “What do you want to know?”

He is kind of affronted by the hand in front of his face, but he says nothing, just takes a minute to calm the beating of his heart. Inej looks down like she can sense the way it’s about to bounce out of his throat. 

“The entrance time of the man, and his wife and his children. Any time that would be good to enter, and what you can tell about their security system. The guards and if they are lazy.”

Inej nods, and before he can think again she has jumped out the window. 

When she returns a day later and lists off what she has found in a low, measured tone, he can tell something is off. 

He doesn’t recall telling Inej the address of Meijer’s Geldin District house. Perhaps she saw his finger on the map. He tells himself it must be that. 

/

She has taken to sitting in his window, all the time.

He should tell her to go, but he doesn’t, he can’t. He thinks of that first day and the way she had touched him, and he wonders if it was real. He shouldn’t want to find out. 

Perhaps the gods that made him this way were right, to not allow him to touch. A second of contact with this girl has wasted him. All he needs to do is scare her off and tell her to leave, but now he can’t. He has a weakness. 

Inej doesn’t say much. Sometimes, she brings up pieces of bread and throws them to the birds at his window. At first a medley of birds came, but now there are just crows. They have outlasted and outpicked the rest. Other times, she simply stares out into the sun. She is content with existing, simply, when he is not telling her what to find and where to go. 

And she is very, very good at finding people’s secrets. With her invisibility, the way she disappears, Kaz has more than made up for Roeder’s short stint with an injury. He doesn’t comment on her methods, simply knows they are extraordinary. His annoyance is that she can make everyone else think she is but a wisp of air, but he cannot let her go. 

She sits at his window, but she lives in his mind. And she has opened up a box in him he had screwed tight. Visions flood through his head, that of a boy underwater, gasping for air. A girl falling to pieces. The insides of a man on pavement, bloody bones lining a street. Kaz has seen a lot of things he needs to stay in his mind. Inej has brought them out. 

/

She is the one that approaches first.  

Kaz is sitting at his desk, and then she is in front of him. Up front, she almost takes his breath away. He doesn’t like thinking of her as a beauty, but she is. Her eyelashes flutter in front of him and there is so much power and knowing in her eyes. 

“I need a weapon,” she says. 

He looks at her with heavily veiled shock. “You haven’t had one, so far?”

“No,” she seems confused. 

Kaz frowns. “Anika did not give you one?”

“No.”

“How have you not been attacked so far?”

She shrugs. “I am quiet.”

She is quiet. She is so silent that when she isn’t talking to him, he could look down and not even think she’s here. He can’t sense the pace of her breathing, her steps on the concrete. She is so—

That is the first day Kaz looks at Inej, the first time he lets his eyes see through her and land on the other side, the day he learns she is a wraith made of glass and that is why she is invisible. It is the day she reminds him of a corpse and of a body he’d used as a raft, something to save him, something upon which to build the body of Brekker the monster. 

He ignores her face then, because to compare Inej to Jordie would make him fear loss, and he cannot be that boy again, cannot be weak. Instead, he slides out a sharp blade from the side of his boot. He drops it on the table and Inej swoops in like a bird and picks it up. 

Kaz thinks she will go, but she stands in front of him. 

“What?” he says impatiently. 

“Do you believe in saints, Kaz?” she says it with all the thought in this world, his name. It sounds so soft coming out of her mouth, and he is reminded of Imogen. There had been so much hope with Imogen, a potential beginning, a different fork in the road for him to have taken—a life that wasn’t clouded with revenge, but with something else . . . not necessarily even with her, but with someone. A path he could never pursue. 

He shouldn’t even give Inej an answer, but in a second he looks down at the map in front of him and whispers harshly. “No.”

“How sad,” she says conversationally. I am quiet, she had said, and now she wants to talk. “Have you heard the story of Sankt Petyr?”

“If I believe in God it is only Ghezen,” Kaz sums up his beliefs succinctly. His religion is barter and trade and the pulpits of Ketterdam, where money is prayer. Sometimes he thinks of a boy who believed in gods and saints, but he cannot afford to be him. 

If that religion is real than they have deigned Kaz’s hands as a reward for a demon and a punishment for a man. He cannot think of that, cannot think there is a reason he has been made this way, without his thoughts spiralling to far depths of self-loathing. He doesn’t have time to hate himself. 

“Sankt Petyr,” Inej says dreamily. She walks closer, perches on his desk, so close Kaz is forced to look at her. She is beautiful and her voice is hazy, and her braid is coiled in his direction as she stares out the window. She does not smell like anything, but he imagines flowers, the geraniums that were his mother’s favorite flower. “He was a priest, you know, in Brevno, in Ravka. I had gone there, before. It was one of my earliest memories.”

Kaz stays silent. He wants to bite something cynical but he cannot muster up the courage to. 

“Brevno was attacked by a demon, one that did not use a cane or wear leather gloves, but lured villagers to their deaths regardless. The demon would seduce the villagers with tales of their dead loved ones.”

Kaz cannot speak. Any words he might have had are frozen in his throat and she is not looking at him. 

“Petyr was haunted by his brother who had died in an accident when he was younger and he always blamed himself for it. And the demon tried to seduce him with the words of the brother, but Petyr recited prayers until the words could no longer harm him, the Sikurian Psalms. And then he convinced the villagers to light flaming arrows to kill the demon. When the demon came to collect Petyr, like his dearly loved brother, Petyr held him out of the water for the villagers to shoot him with the arrows. They shot him, too, and now he is a saint.”

Inej holds out the knife just so it reflects the sun. “I think that I will call this knife Sankt Petyr. Thank you, Kaz.”

Then she leaves and there is no trace of her, nothing anywhere, and Kaz does not know what to think, or do, or be.

/

After that, he starts seeing her around everywhere, but only when he’s alone. It’s then he starts to realize, when he starts to feel something like Imogen rise in his chest for this invisible girl. Something like Imogen but worse, because Inej knows he is the demon and also the saint. She knows he is both, she knows he is a demon, she knows, she knows . . . 

It keeps him up at night, these thoughts he can’t think. The next week he commands that she go on a stakeout with him and she comes. They sit on a rooftop in the Financial District, and while Kaz watches the streets he notices Inej watches the stars. She looks otherworldly in the light of Ketterdam’s pollution, like she is one with the air or just floating through it.

He could watch the way she shimmers forever, in a way no demon should. He tells her that she should go with Rotty on his next foray into Black Tips category. He hears later that his man barely avoided death, praising his close encounter on religion. But Kaz knows, he knows now. 

He has known, he has known ever since Tante Heleen had failed to question him about a missing girl, had not even inquired into a indenture. He has known ever since that day when they brushed skin and he felt Inej, felt her like she was alive, and she didn’t fall to the ground. He has known when she said she was quiet, when he could not hear her breathing, could not feel a heartbeat. 

When Per Haskell asks for a roster of the Dregs he doesn’t even have to scan the list Anika puts together to know she will not be there. He could stalk back to the Menagerie, but he doesn’t do that. 

The next day she sits at his window, he grabs his cane and walks towards her. She doesn’t move at all until he is right next to her, eerily still. If she did not turn towards him with wide eyes, eyelids dropping like she is remembering to blink, Kaz could have convinced himself to ignore the truth. 

He glares at her, at her pretty face, and she smiles back beautifically. Then she reaches out a hand in front of her. 

Kaz needs to take a moment because he is overwhelmed with thoughts of drowning and the ocean. Of his brother’s rubbery, loose skin that he had used as a raft, of the feeling that had sunk into his bones after he’d let Jordie go. Of how the man that had approached him not two days after his rebirth had crumpled when he’d reached for Kaz’s hand, had not gotten up again. Of Imogen and her lips and the way she had died with one touch. Of the way the people of the Staves thought of him, of the many reasons they thought he wore his gloves. 

None of them knew Kaz Brekker was afraid of touch, that his touch did burn like brimstone, that it made you wither and die. 

Unless you were already dead. 

Kaz slides off his glove and his fingers shake, and he reaches for Inej’s hand—closer and closer until her fingers, almost warm and alive, are enclosed in his. 

He wants to fall to his knees and pray to saints and cry like a child. It has been so long since he has felt touch. Maybe this is not real and she is not real, but it feels so real. He cannot look at her, but he can whisper. 

Maybe he should say something that reveals the depth of his emotion, but he’s sharp. “Who are you?”

A hand falls to his head, brushes his uneven haircut with so much care. “Someone who did not have the chance you do.”

And then she is gone. Kaz is left sprawled across the floor of his room, pale hands splayed across hardwood and desolation unfolding in his chest. 

/

"I'm sure you've heard the stories."

"Each more grotesque than the last."

Kaz had heard them, too. 

[shuttershocky]

Why is it that FATE is in this weird in between of being one ofnthe most popular/richest franchises in global media ,but at the same time being unknown/niche to the general mainstream? Like its got a global following,but you need to go look for it

Here's the thing. You /think/ it's niche, you /think/ it's unknown, but it's not. It really isn't. Type-Moon hasn't been a humble doujin circle for a while, and its works aren't obscure things you have to go looking for nowadays.

Go to any convention and you'll find at least one Saber / Archer cosplayer. Look through any place selling anime merch and I guarantee you a good chunk of them are going to be servants. Hell FGO had a publishing deal with bookstores where they'd put "As seen on FGO" on the covers of books like The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, or Carmilla, or The Phantom of the Opera" because they thought associating with FGO made those books sell, and they did. To the point where Ryouma's biography ended up selling out when he became a servant.

Last time I visited Tokyo, I ran into Nero twice in one day. The first time was a big banner advertising Fate/Extra Last Record in the Skytree, then the second was on a big TV ad in the middle of Akihabara. Taking the train back to my hotel in Asakusa, I glimpsed a large billboard featuring anime characters, with Saber front and center.

You don't have to go looking for Fate. If you're into anime, you can't avoid Fate. It's one of the largest Japanese franchises in the world now and has literally made billions of dollars.

I feel like what makes it feel niche / not mainstream are three things:

1) There is no proper entry point. Almost everything is an adaptation (of varying quality) and the original Fate/Stay Night was a visual novel with three very different routes, meaning an anime adaptation could never encompass the full experience, thus anime-onlies would end up missing out unless they were curious enough to actually look things up. Fate/Zero's anime is maybe the closest thing to a proper entry point to the franchise for a casual fan, but then afterwards you got to tell the new viewer "Okay from here it splits three ways and you can watch this anime from studio DEEN in 2006, this one from Ufotable in 2014, or this movie series also by Ufotable and then there are all these other spinoffs" and if they actually do that or even read the visual novel then they're no longer a casual fan, they're one of /you/ now. The result is a fanbase that has become gargantuan in size and yet feels like it's a niche nerd club, because anyone who actually overcomes the entry barrier isn't considered by others to be a casual fan who is part of the mainstream anymore.

2) Nasu and Takeuchi never stopped treating Type-Moon like a doujin circle made up of their friends even after going corporate. The Tsukihime remake exhibit in the Type-Moon museum for example, had Tsukihime's programmer explain how not only was he in charge of programming the visual novel, but he was also pulling double duty and being their system administrator along with a whole bunch of other jobs. Type-Moon didn't expand to become a major company employing hundreds of people even after its success, it just partnered up with other companies like DelightWorks to do that heavy lifting for it while the same 15 or so names from two freaking decades ago keep doing what they've always done. I think in some way this has kept TM works from ever feeling "corporate". Having the same team over and over has made the fanbase keenly aware of each writer's distinctive style as opposed to design by committee works that attempt to appeal to as many people as possible. Even FGO, the most mass appeal work Type-Moon has got, still has that something that makes it feel like Type-Moon.

3) This shit really did start niche and the fanbase just never really grew out of seeing it in that way. Nasu and Takeuchi weren't exactly overnight successes: Kara No Kyoukai was an obscure novel initially published on Takeuchi's website; they had to package the first 5 chapters of KnK with Tsukihime because they thought that was the only way to get KnK more readers, and when they made Tsukihime they were literally surviving on cup noodles and working multiple jobs. Their fanbase then would have known Type-Moon as a humble doujin circle taking part in the then-rising VN genre of games. As Type-Moon would get new fans, old fans would describe Type-Moon to them in that way and speak of their fanbase like some niche club. New fans would get this idea of Type-Moon being niche and repeat this to more new fans as time goes by. Repeat over and over again for the next 20 years.

[rumblelibrary]

Kinky stuff you said?

so... i have this idea

I know we all collectively as a fandom have decided that Andrea is a fluff ball lmao

but I'm rooting for him because...I don't know, like when he got angry when he found out about the letter and started to play the violin all annoyed and how he raised his voice and there is also the look that he gave Olga he gives me the feelings like~

Andrea spank me with that violin bow (we can buy a new one later)

Something like Teach me a lesson sweet boy

Dancing the dance [Andrea Marowski x Reader]

Word count: 2k

Warnings: Smut (fingering, spanking, mentions of cheating)

Author’s note: Do I have to say something? I mean the request is amazing enough

It was just a day like any other in the little village, you opened your bookshop, a small little thing that your uncle run and you were proud to call it your precious jewel. 

You worked hard to keep it afloat, you went by bicycle to the bigger cities nearby to get the best books yourself or the classics, you were determined not to let it die on you, but it was every day harder.

It was almost the end of your day when you saw Mr Barnes come inside, he was a war veteran that suffered terrible injuries, but also an avid reader who would come even twice a week.

“Don’t you tell me you have already finished it, James”

You smiled at him and he shrugged, his playful smirk running over his lips. “I like this Agatha Christie author and her Belgian detective, what can I say?”

He was a player, you knew it and didn’t expect anything less from him, he is handsome and he knows it. But you never took him seriously and even less since a certain shipwrecked violinist made his way to your heart, but truth to be told, you indulged him. Sure, he was a passionate reader, but he loved to come and flirt with you and you need him and his coins to call it a day.

“Well, what’s next then?”

“I don’t know, you tell me, you’re the bookworm, aren’t you?”

His smirk was playful but you ignored it and smiled only moving away from the counter, making your away around the books to try the one you were meaning to offer him next. You always planned one in advance, or even two, just to make sure to give him enough attention but not too much.

“What about…” you begun, your tongue sticking a little put as you’re focused, eyebrows furrowed as you read the titles.

“You’d look even more the part with glasses” he interrupted you and you chuckled 

“I know, I know, I should wear them but..”

“No, I mean that you’d look even more attractive with them on”

You kept quiet as he moved closer, his arm leaning against the shelf in front of you as you mumbled a thank you.

He stared at you following your every move, your hand picking a thin book and handing it to him.

“The Great Gatsby” he read out loud “Is it new?” “No, just American, it was published in 1925”

He nodded looking at it as he moved page after page, his lips pursed in concentration as you tried to move past him, but he just stood still and board in front of you.

“What do you do after work?”

“Oh, well I have some chores to do at home, study new purchases for the shop”

“You always do” he said closing the book with a loud snap making you jolt in your spot

“Let’s have a date night, we could dine at the tavern and you can tell me more about those orders you always have to do” he said taking a step forward as you mimicked him taking a step back.

“Y/N” he murmured “we are dancing this dance from a long time, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know what you mean”

You replied only as you tried to move past him

“You’re very attractive, still unmarried, incredibly tempting for every man in town, you should expect it”

The truth was that you weren’t completely far from anything love related, but Dr Mead advised you to keep your little ‘entanglement’ with Andrea s secret for the time being. Most people still didn’t get the difference of him being Polish and not German and it would only make your life harder for no reason. So you obliged, you closed the curtains at night when he sneaked into your room, you visited him often with the excuse of bringing him books, you pretend not to wish his touch on you every time of the day.

“I said I can’t already”

You took the chance to move past James and take the broom to clean.

He took a deep breath, gritting his teeth as his eyes travelled on you. He was patient, but not that patient, nevertheless you were a delicious eye candy to his eyes. He put his hand to his pocket still holding the book into the other one. He pulled out some coins and left them on the table, there was also a tip from you.

“I like this game Y/N” he said bluntly to you and he looked at the book “also. such a small book makes me think you want me to come back soon”

You looked at him, you matched his smirk, oh he loved to be kept on the edge, didn’t he?

“See you next week” you only said and he gave you a light military salutation to you saying something about being at your orders.

You smirked biting the inside of your cheek as you enjoyed the game for sure, or the dance as he called it, but you were realising how you had to probably tone it down. He was liking it a bit too much and going over the simple play, plus you were losing the plot of it since Andrea came into the picture.

After you closed the day, recorded all the sells and cleaned the shop you wrapped yourself up in a coat, taking an easy children book for Andrea to practice with. On your way out you noticed some scattered flowers on the ground, but you didn’t pay much attention to it.

You made your way to Ursula and Janet’s house, the violin being played out loud, a very dramatic and strong melody going off, almost violent.

As you knocked at the door Janet welcomed you quickly.

“Oh Y/N, please try to talk to him, at least you know German” she said and you looked at her confused “he went out for a walk and came back so angry, he shouted at poor Ursula, she is so bumped, I can’t look after the two of them” Janet said in her own way that made it sound almost funny, if not sarcastic.

You nodded taking off your coat and hat, you walked upstairs holding the book with you, the music getting louder as you took the stairs until his room, you got inside without knocking because it would be impossible for him to hear anyway. The first thing you noticed was his back wrapped in that white shirt and the pants kept up by his suspenders. You still remember vividly the first time you pulled those suspenders off his shoulders, it is still one of your favourite things to do as a prelude of what is about to come.

“Andrea” you called him as you closed the door behind your back, locking it just because you know how much Ursula likes to peak in.

He turned around suddenly, almost scaring you off as he held his violin in one hand and the thin bow into his other hand, his eyes on fire, jaw clenched and his back straight like a soldier.

“You bezwstydny” he shouted at you and you looked at him even more confused “schamlos” he said then in German.

“Shameless? Why?” You asked frowning, you had the luck to know German because your family immigrated to Cornwall before the WWI to join your uncle’s business, but that didn’t help when Andrea was so mad to decide not to tolerate any other language by his own like now.

“I saw you” he said spitting venom “You think funny?”

“But what?”

“You with that man in bookshop!” He growled putting down the violin because it was at serious risk of being thrown on the floor.

You parted your lips in shock as he said that, so those flowers were his? 

“Did you come to pick me up?”

He nodded but his lips pressed against each other in disgust.

“Andrea, don’t make that face, he is just a client acting up”

“You act up”

You looked at him shaking your head “you don’t understand” you said.

He raised his eyebrows.

“oh no, I do understand”

His voice was different, his accent thicker than ever, there was no trace of the usual sweet smile, almost mischievous, that he always had on his lips.

He sat down on the chair were Ursula watched him for nights on “on my lap”

You frowned “no”

He raised his eyebrows “I think you not understand” he said threateningly “Are you playing with two men?”

You shook your head vehemently “You know it is not like this” you stated “I want only you”

He didn’t seem impressed, he pursed his lips in disbelief and let out a sarcastic chuckle twirling the bow between his fingers.

“Then prove it”

His accent hitting you again, you loved it, but the way he said it, that didn’t feel comforting.

You stared at him, you didn’t want to argue with him, he was already too mad and to hold a conversation was to ask too much.

So you obliged leaving the book aside and making your way to his lap sitting on it.

“No this way” he said wiggling underneath you to make you stand up

“gebückt” he said in German waving the bow to you. Oh, so he wanted you bent over it?

You stood uncomfortable for a moment but then you nodded again, you needed to get past this crisis, no?

So you moved your dress a bit to make your way onto his lap, you wanted to ask what now but then you felt distinctively the way he pulled your skirts up.

“Andrea” you hissed at him but by now he held you in that position pushing your panties down, the cold air hitting your bum, your cheeks bringing from embarrassment.

“You like play, so you get to be punish like little kid”

You blushed even more if possible, you wiggled but he held you down firmly until you stopped struggling and settled in the position he wanted.

“Repeat numbers in English for me” he said and you whimpered as he smacked that bow onto your ass earning a gasp, your shoulders trembled inward as it was more painful than expected.

“Number?”

“One” you replied immediately, how much do you have to count, you wondered.

You whimpered as other two snaps to the stick followed very quick together

“Andrea, please stop” “If you wanted me to stop you’d not act to earn it” his words an hiss between his teeth “we begin again now, you didn’t count”

You groaned but another slap reduced you to a forced obedience “one”

He smirked widely as he twirled the bow in his hand, you could’t see him but you could ear the way it cut the air around.

You obeyed and counted all the three snaps that followed, your breath itching and your hands trying to reach out to the floor to gain some advantage in the positioning, which still felt too embarrassing, the constrictive exposure of your bottom making you feel uneasy.

Andrea saw that movement and he reached down with his free hand clasping onto your jaw making you look up like some animal in need to be tamed. Another whip hit you.

“Five” you groaned as now your position felt even more humiliating, you shivered as he chuckled

“Now you will be good during more strokes, if you manage to come to dziesięć then you’ll be free”

You groaned, how much is that? The confusion in you was showing as your body stiffened. The unknown scaring you, your core clenched shamelessly, your wetness revealing a pleasure that was evident, a dirtiness of your own that you didn’t expect to meet.

“Only five more”

He whispered and smacked your ass again, you whined squeezing your eyes

“Six”

Oh, to see you so obedient.

“You like to be a tease, don’t you? You love it, showing off like a whore to that man, to all the men, you sell them the whole experience for few coins? You make them believe they can fuck you?”

He smirked hitting your ass again, your hips buckling against his leg as you were looking for relief from that desire

“Seven”

“You love it, you love to be desired by many don’t you?”

“Eight”

“You want them to dream of you at night, to desire to fuck you and smack your ass like I am doing now, these skirts only making them dream more”

“Nine”

You were sobbing by now, his hand on your jaw making it hard to breathe and speak

“Who is a whore?” “I am”

“Who is my whore?

“I am”

He smirked, he was pleased giving you one last whip, the hair of the bow falling down as some of them broke, oh you know too well how much that will cost you, Andrea wasn’t one to easily ruin something like that.

“Ten!”

You almost shouted it, your thighs trembling and knees kept closing and parting trying to find some relief.

Andrea leaned down kissing the back of your neck as he gave you time to calm down, let the humiliation sink in.

“Andrea” Ursula’s voice rang from behind the door “Are you quite alright? Dinner is almost ready”

“I am! Y/N and I need a moment” he said, his voice completely different and far from the dark threatening voice that poured over you a second before “We will be down in ten!” As he spoke he touched over your wet slit, how shamelessly you were patching his pants with all that excitement, so slowly began playing with you, you winced biting on the fabric of his tailored cloths trying to hold back any sound while those skilled violist fingers kept scissoring inside of you. “We haven’t done yet”

Tagged @cazzyimagines​ @lieutenantn​ @handmaiden-of-mischief​ @thesunflowersutra​ @zemomybeloved​​ @fictionlandslanddreams​ @charistory​ @greeneyedblondie44​ @apparrio​ @hb8301​ @whatawildone​ @rhymerhymerhyme @thehuiabird @lilith-blackrose @unbeatablecurlgirl

Let me know if you want to get tagged to my publications too <3

[alfredosauce50]

The anatomy of the obsessed artist [2p! Italy x reader]

Synopsis: You have the golden opportunity to display your art at a newly opened gallery. Nobody stops to look at your work until an eccentric connoisseur praises it, even asking you if he can buy it. Touched and fascinated by his personality, you agree to meet him over coffee. Now that he’s no stranger, he keeps inviting you over to his lavish estate until he realizes it’s not the art he’s so obsessed with. It’s the artist. Wordcount: 3, 686 The reader is referred to as she/her. “Nihilism represented a crude form of positivism and materialism, a revolt against the established social order; it negated all authority exercised by the state, by the church, or by the family.” - Encyclopedia of Britannica

“It's hideous.” He murmured, his eyes narrowed with contempt. They were a hot magenta hue, quick-moving and critical of everything they fixed on. How much he wished to say he was standing back to admire a masterpiece. Tossing his paintbrush into the kitchen sink with a sigh, he sauntered to the couch and plummeted down on it.

A loud clang was heard, but it never fazed his companion, who barely dodged the trajectory of the brush. “Oh, really?” They snorted. “It looks the same as every other painting you've done.”

He whipped his head to him and glared.

“Like you'd have an eye for these things, Lutz.”

Said man gave a shrug. This was probably the hundredth time they had this conversation, so he could practically predict what Luciano was about to say—and how he would wind up listening unwillingly to his passionate spiels.

“Just listen to me speak for once.”

Lutz scoffed and poured himself a hot cup of coffee. “Here we go again...” He grumbled with a distinct droop to his features.

Rolling his head back to the pristine, white ceiling, Luciano threw his hands up in emphasis. “It's the only damn thing that gives this room some color. I need to do better, Lutz. Otherwise, I'll tear this whole place down!” Even then, his animated movements were minuscule compared to the tall walls that surrounded him.

The other sipped on his mug. “If you're so stuck—” He smacked his lips. “—how about going to the new art gallery downtown? Anything to get you to shut up.” Lutz grinned at that, half-expecting him to launch a few throwing knives his way. But he never did. Instead, he jumped up and extended an index to point at him accusingly.

“You think you're so smart, huh, cazzo? Well, I might just go. Just to prove you wrong.” Grabbing his coat hanging over the couch, he threw it on and marched downstairs. As the echoes of his footsteps faded, he gave one final reckoning. “You can't rush art, dumbass! I'll turn the place upside down, and I still won't find anything worth my time.”

The volume of his thoughts had never been so loud. It was the only thing he heard in this quiet institution during its downtime. Nobody was around, save for him, but that allowed him to ramble to himself--whatever he was staring at, it was everything he had been looking for.

“This was definitely worth my time.” He muttered with a pistol grip on his chin. As he scanned over the canvas to take in the brushstrokes, he shook his head. “I hate to think he said something smart for once.” They were so violent, yet so gentle. A unique balance of nihilism and faith. Reaching up to his dark maroon hair, he dug through it and laughed in awe. “This is magnificent. Bellisima!”

“I hope you mean what you say, sir. That means a lot to me.” He turned to the voice ended up gawking at a woman. As he processed the words, he was at a loss for his own.

“Oddio--you don't mean you painted this, do you, signorina?”

She nodded coyly, much to his delight.

“Mhm. The name on the label is mine.”

At the sound of that, he gleamed and took both her hands into his own. “How much?”

She blinked, unsure of whether she heard him correctly. Was he offering to buy her work? “Sorry?”

“How much do you want for your painting? I'll pay you handsomely. One grand. Ten grand. However much you desire! I just need this in my living room. Whatever you ask for, it's a done deal!”

In your short career, you never imagined capturing someone's attention so passionately with your work. Your initial impression of the man was a rich art collector of some kind--an eccentric enthusiast--and not a connoisseur by any means. He even dressed the part, having adorned himself in a loose, silky blouse with a coat tied around his waist. His fashion was flashy and exuded confidence, though nothing else could have suited his personality.

As you talked to him over a coffee, however, it became clear to you he was much more than that.

“I've never seen somebody use color like that! You must've done lots of practice to get that good, eh?” He mused, watching you light up at his praise. There was no denying the sincerity in his voice, so you couldn't help being drawn to him and his zeal. “I'll be honest with you, bella. I'm not letting you run off before we settle on something.”

He could tell from the way you leaned in so subtly, never once breaking your eye contact as you listened to him. And knowing this did wonders--he slowly found himself drawn to you.

“Thank you, Luciano. I'm really flattered, but I can't just sell it to you. It's part of the gallery now.” You smiled gently, curling your fingers around the cup handle. Even as you sipped on your beverage, your gaze on him never faltered. And before you could catch any disappointment on his part, you waved your hands at him.

“I don't mean anything by it, honestly. I'm glad that you understand what I'm trying to say--like, you could've interpreted it completely differently. I wouldn't be able to stop you, either. But the fact that you didn't...” He followed you attentively with those sharp and mysterious orbs, but you were strangely comfortable under his scrutiny.

“Maybe we have similar minds.”

The man had been studying you as you spoke. While he did, this one, singular thought occurred to him. There was nothing in the world he loved more in the world than being heard.

“Hearing you talk is the same as being listened to,” Luciano admitted with a small laugh. Deep inside, he knew Lutz always listened. Unwillingly, that was. But being heard and understood was another story. “You take the words right out of my mouth, bella. I don't know how you do it, but you have to stop reading my mind. It's invasive.” He darted his eyes over your expression that morphed into dumbfoundedness--which served as a prelude for embarrassment.

So he couldn't help but smile flirtatiously. “Take me out to dinner first. Only then will I let you finish my sentences.”

You furrowed your brows together, but his smile was far too contagious to be staved off. The end result was an endearingly stupid face that was a cross between a frown and a grin. “Does lunch count then, you impossible little man? I mean, it's around noon.”

He shook his head, amused. Luciano expected you to pull away, but it seemed like he bit off more than he could chew. You were a handful. He was never a fan of handfuls or really anything that required his energy, but he'd be damned if this was the last time he saw you.

“But seriously, (F/N). I need your paintings. And it doesn't have to be something you've already painted.” Standing up at that, he neared your side lowered himself to your level. He settled a hand on your shoulder, much to your surprise. But you never tried to pull away. “I want you to paint for me at my place. I'll do whatever it takes. I'll drink my weight in this mediocre coffee if I have to.”

With his intoxicating personality, all he needed was a few more espressos to do the convincing.

“I can tell from your taste that you're pretty nihilistic.” You commented with a hint of disbelief. “But this is just crazy! What do you even do for a living?” All the expensive decor and extravagance of his stupidly large mansion must have costed a fortune! Lifting your head to take in the sheer size and height of his living room, you then shot him an incredulous look. “Well? I'm curious.”

Luciano leaned against the couch and folded his arms. “Oh, you don't want to know, trust me.” He grinned devilishly.

“What, are you in the mafia or something?” You joked.

He craned his head from right to left.

“Eh. Something like that.”

You blinked, not expecting him to be so frank. Then, you laughed sheepishly, suddenly feeling as if you've walked right into a trap. “... Are you serious?” The man sensed your uneasiness and walked over promptly. Before you could react, he held your arm, but it was much too gentle to stir any panic.

“Don't worry. Nobody would go after an artist I hired.” He leaned in to keep you hostage to his piercing eyes. The close proximity only heightened the tension you didn't know existed. What he said next, however, would have you blushing like a bride. “To have a target on your head means you're a liability. So unless we were an item--”

He smiled contently at the sight of your reddening cheeks. “--nothing will happen.”

Fortunately, your mortification was short-lived as you remembered your circumstances. Giving him a light shove, you walked off to his hallway. While your back was turned to him, he bit back a sharp grin, but to no avail. Man, were you feisty.

“Stop being such a womanizer and show me your studio, Luciano.” You mused, pausing in the doorway to glance at him over your shoulder. Was that playfulness he saw in your eyes?

“It isn't very professional.”

He hung his head and threw his hands up. Being scolded and ordered around was his worst pet peeve. But when you did it, he was only more compelled to misbehave.

“Mi dispiace. But I was only kidding. If I was part of the mob, my windows wouldn't be this big. Nor this abundant.” Making his way to your side, he walked with you to the said studio.

“And Luciano is a bit of a mouthful, no? You call me Luci.”

Unbeknownst to the two of you, someone else had entered the kitchen to pour themselves a drink. And boy, were they in for a show.

“You got it, boss. You call the shots.” A voice spoke in a gravely-exaggerated mobster accent.

“You're milking it...”

“I'm just joking, Luci. Let me have this moment.”

“Fine. Maybe I should've kept pretending. That'll get you to be a little more obedient.”

“And where's the fun in that?”

“Hmph.”

Lutz narrowed his eyes once the voices faded into silence. And he thought he hated being called Luci.

A mischievous smirk plastered across his face.

“Looks like somebody's found their inspiration.”

A few hours later, he appeared in the studio with a canned beer in hand. Even in such a lavish estate, no form of entertainment could beat pestering an old friend. Waltzing inside like he owned the place, he grinned toothily at what he saw. You and Luciano were busy working on a painting. But rather than using brushes, you both used your fingers.

“Hey.”

Luciano glanced at him and immediately felt the beginnings of anger simmer inside. “What do you want?”

Lutz laughed breathily. “Heh. No knives today?”

“If you don't get out, there will be!” The other whisper-shouted.

You stopped painting and turned to the newcomer with nothing short of curiosity. “... Hi. Are you Luci's henchman?” The joke was probably long dead, but you couldn't resist. Not when the stranger was built on six feet of pure muscle. “Nice to meet you.”

So this was the mysterious artist who managed to tame the bastard, huh? Lutz flattened his lips thoughtfully. “... In a way.”

“No, he's not. Now, get out. Your presence is ruining the mood... And killing my brain cells.” At the sound of that, you exploded into a burst of hearty laughter. Seeing Luciano push him out and leave colorful handprints on his tank only intensified those laughs. Once he managed to get his henchman out of the room, he whipped his head to you with a flustered glare.

“What's so funny?” He frowned. For one, he was rather taken aback at how he wasn't annoyed at you. At all. If someone like Lutz pushed their luck by teasing him, there would be more than one scar marring that punchable face of his.

“Nothing, nothing. I just thought... Maybe we could ask for his top and sell it. That was definitely a masterpiece.” You sighed, catching him off guard yet again. “It's the best work you've done today...”

The blush on his face deepened. A comment like that should've ticked him off, but he only found himself thoroughly infatuated. But that was preposterous! He was only letting this slide because you weren't that German bastard of a bum. That had to be it. But no matter what you did, he didn't have a single mean bone in his body for you. And he was about to test that theory.

“If you thought that was a masterpiece, I'll make you some more.” Marching over and undoing your apron, he wiped his fingers all over your once crisp white shirt. Looking down with a gasp, you weren't prepared for him to clap your cheeks and leave two brown handprints.

“You bitch!”

In his whole life surrounded by the worst potty-mouths, himself included, he'd never heard somebody cuss with so much sincerity. So the most logical reaction was to return the favor, if not be a little annoyed. But even as you ruined his blouse, which happened to be more expensive than everything in the room, he was cackling hysterically.

By the time you both calmed down, he had settled his chin atop your head and wrapped two arms around your neck. The paint on his face was drying up, but he was in no hurry to wash it off. Giving you a squeeze, he leaned down and pressed his cheek to yours. “You're coming tomorrow, aren't you?”

“Mhm.”

“And the day after that?”

“I don't see why not.”

“Then what about the day after that?”

You faced him and pinched his cheek affectionately, but he never complained. “If I was, what's the point of leaving, hm? I have something on that day, but I'll update you.”

Standing up at that, you felt his arms slide off of your shoulders. Luciano pulled away reluctantly, and as you left his studio, he found himself trailing after you against his own will. As quiet as he was, inside, he was tearing himself apart, torn between asking you to stay in the guest room and driving you home. But in the end, he got in the car.

Once he arrived outside your house, his body acted out unexpectedly when he shot his hand out to grab yours. The sudden contact startled you, though you could only gleam at his paint-smeared face that stifled back a thousand words. “What, do you miss me that much already?” You chuckled, much to his pleasure.

“You're just missing me too less.” He closed his eyes for a satisfied look. When he opened them again, he added this. “I'll pick you up here. Same spot. 9 am. If you don't show up in five minutes, I'll break inside and pull you out of bed.” Only then did he let you go.

“You got it, boss.”

With that said, you waved at him and made your way inside. Once the door clicked shut, he returned his gaze to the dashboard and shook his head with a defeated smile. “Oh my god.”

When he climbed the flight of stairs to appear next to the kitchen, the hiss of an espresso machine was heard. Rolling his head to it absently, he dropped his keys on the island and dug his hands through his sticky hair. Without addressing the blonde, who took an obvious interest in his disheveled appearance, he sauntered to the couch and flopped down on it.

“... Luciano.”

“What do you want?” He muffled his voice into the cushion.

Lutz walked over with a mug in hand and sipped it. Pointing to his own face, he swirled his index in circles. “You have a little something there.” When the other rolled his head to him, so did their colorful face.

The next two days saw steady progress in the project he paid you to do. While the painting moved closer to completion, he cared less and less about the finished product. At the same time, his eagerness for you to come grew exponentially. He could never admit it, but that didn't mean Lutz couldn't see right through him.

A single glance at him working in the studio was more than enough to deduce the conclusion that he was hopelessly head over heels for you. For one, it wasn't right to say he was even working anymore. Instead, he was staring at you, and sometimes, for twenty minutes or more if you were particularly immersed in your art.

This was only confirmed in due time.

Trotting downstairs to the cellar, he discovered that over ten bottles of wine had disappeared. And the culprit promptly made an appearance when he returned to the living room. Luciano was holding an empty bottle when they bumped into each other, the contact on his shoulder causing him to drop it. When it shattered on the marble floor, so did his patience.

“What the fu--watch where you're going, you fucking idiot!” He hissed, giving the other a strong shove back.

Beer fizzed out of the can and splashed onto his white tank. Lutz couldn't care less about ruining his clothes, but wasting beer? He pulled back with a growl. “I could say the same for you. I'm not the stumbling drunk here cuz' I can actually hold my weight.”

Luciano rolled his eyes and inhaled a deep breath.

“You know what, just leave me alone.” He huffed, kicking the shards on the ground. Once he scattered the glass all over the hall, he stormed off to his studio. Letting out a frustrated string of colorful words, he tore through more canvases than he cared to count. Punching a hole in one, then using another as target practice, half of the artwork was completely destroyed by the time Lutz showed up.

“I don't get it! Why am I so angry? Why can't I paint something like this?” Luciano exasperated, gesturing forcefully to the painting you were working on. Then, he marched up to the man and gripped the front of his tank. “Am I just that shit? But that can't be!”

At this point, Lutz was done with arguing.

“... You know what I'm about to say.”

Luciano threw his hands up as they chorused the same line simultaneously. “It looks the same as every other painting you've done--yeah, I know! I didn't really expect you to give me any useful advice. I just wanted you to listen to me.”

“Don't I always listen to you?”

“No--”

“Wasn't it me who suggested for you to go to that art gallery?”

“Yeah, but it's not like--it's not like you knew she was gonna show up! (F/N) being there only happened once in a blue moon. You were just lucky, so don't think you're a genius or anything, ha!”

Lutz scoffed, but his unimpressed expression quickly morphed into a shrewd one. “Accept it, liebling. You're down bad. Down astronomically. Just invite her over, and when she comes, you'll know what I mean. It's not the paintings you're making a fuss over.” He watched Luciano's hair spike up like a cat, then him light up like a Christmas tree. That little man was many things, but an honest person was not one of them.

“You think you're so smart, huh, cazzo?” Luciano pointed at him accusingly. “Well, I might just do it. Just to prove you wrong.”

When he left, Lutz clicked his tongue with raised brows.

“That's what you said last time...”

And invite you over he did. When he spotted a silhouette on the other side of the blurry glass, he sprung up from the couch and swung open the door with great gusto. There you were, as effortlessly charming as he remembered, and a little startled. You never had the chance to knock, nor process his scruffy appearance.

“Luci--hey! You look... A little more tired than I remember.”

Without a shred of hesitation, he grabbed your hand and pulled you to his bedroom. Yet again, his body was acting against his will, but perhaps, this was what he wanted in the first place. He just never admitted it. As he slowly came to terms with it, his eyes widened to dinner plates, and his heart pounded obnoxiously in his chest.

“Hey, what're you--”

He pointed wordlessly to the bed.

You shook your head, unable to figure out what he meant. “What do you want me to do?”

Luciano glowered at you, but it served as a stark contrast to the softness in his voice. “I'll pay you. As much as you want. Just stay there.” Seeing that you had yet to go along with his requests, he marched over to you and laid you down. Before you could object, he threw the blanket over you and tucked you in.

Sliding himself in from the other side, he scooted in and coiled his arms around your stomach. “Now, sleep.”

Breathing out a soft sigh, you rolled to him and brushed his mussy bangs back. “For someone so straightforward, you're not very honest, are you?” Sitting up to unzip your jacket, you proceeded to take your shirt off. When you stripped down, blood rushed to flush his cheeks as he came to realize he was completely love-struck.

“... Holy shit.”

Climbing onto his lap, you laughed over his lips and squeezed his neck. “You're really bad at hiding things. But like you said, I can read your mind.”

Luciano knitted his brows together. Then, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to your mouth. “And it's very invasive. Please stop it.”

“Only if you promise to pay me in the morning.”

“... You're not a prostitute.”

“Oh, but you are one too. We're all whores, if you think about it. We just sell different parts of ourselves.”

“Go to sleep, idiota.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

[daisies-on-a-cup]

the trouble with heroes born from tragedy is that they will never have a happy ending. they will never escape the tragedy that made them who they are.

comics and movies like to dangle the possibility of heroes finally getting what they deserve in life, often some form of family or love that they’ve been yearning for or been missing their entire lives. of course, in order to show that, there must be tragedy. there must be absence.

absence creates heroes and villains, and it is often the tragic ending that gets them both. a full circle. the beginning is tragic, the middle is tragic, and the end is tragic. there is no reprieve from the cycle.

the tragedy comes from the fact that we know they deserve better. that there is no justice throughout their lives. that, despite being heroes, they are never able to even hope for a savoir or a rescue of some sort from their circumstances. they are forever meant to carry tragedy on their shoulders and suffer under that weight without complaint for the rest of their lives.

and perhaps that’s where the divide between hero and villain becomes apparent. we like to glorify those that suffer in silence. we like the idea of someone being strong despite the absolute pain they live in. that is who we distinguish as our heroes.

but when they choose to do something about it, when they choose to fight back or force change, force a break in the tragedy cycle, that is when we label them as villains. there is no pride, there is no glory, in watching someone crack under the pressure and weight of their circumstances. if they break, if they can’t handle it, then the illusion of the invincible hero shatters.

the world does not want weak heroes. they want strong ones, and villains are the weakest ones. villains are the heroes that could have been but could not suffer any longer.

and then you have the ones in between; the ones who shattered under the pressure but know that they can still be “good”. that they have not broken entirely yet. just merely fractured. this is where we get the concept of anti-heroes; reflections of today’s modern people. people who have suffered all their lives but still strive to make the most of it despite their situations. in a way, these are the most tragic of archetypes; they will never be seen as entirely good, but they have suffered too much and remained standing to be labeled as bad. it is impossible to justify their existence as a hero when they do not align with our expectations of one, and yet they cannot be a villain either because they are still trying to be good despite their failings.

they will never be anything other than tragic. failing heroes.

tragedy follows them all despite these named distinctions. if you are not ordinary, if you are simple and normal, then you are entirely tragic. there is no other way to be if you are a hero, a villain, or someone who toes the line between them both. it is easy to find these differences on paper, in media.

do you save cats from trees? do you conspire to kill senators? have you shaken hands with firefighters and helped the elderly cross the street? do you sell drugs? are you providing for someone in your family? are you currently harboring fugitives, despite it being illegal? are you actively trying to make the world a better place? are you being lazy? do you tip your servers? can you afford to? do you hurt yourself because you think you deserve it? do you suffer in silence because the world thinks you should?

do any of the answers you just gave justify your label? what even is your label based on that?

how can a hero be justified? how can a villain be justified? what even is an anti-hero if not someone trying but not succeeding?

there are no clean and clear lines and that is where tragedy begins. that is where it will always remain. there is no justice. there is no reprieve. this is how it must work lest the thought of right and wrong become completely screwed. if there is no one to model ourselves after, what else are we supposed to be? if there is no tragedy, if we ourselves cannot be tragic, then what are we?

nobody.

there is no existence without the illusion of choice to be tragic.

[her-and-music]

Xxxtentacion -- The Wing Ridden Angel

You were something else. Your energy is out of this realm. You had a vibe in you that’s irreplaceable and when you left this world it’s like you left a void in people’s hearts that can’t be filled by anyone else. You are by far, the most beautiful soul I’ve ever known. I don’t understand how I can feel so connected with someone that I’ve never met. I fear wandering around in this world not to ever truly be able to relate to any soul the way I related and felt so connected to you. You were a mirror reflection of my emotions, every pain I felt and all the wounds I hid inside of me, you composed into a song, pain only you understood and you were able to turn and articulate through art. You sparked something inside my soul that until this day hasn’t subside.

4 years ago you shook my world, the shock and the pain still lingers on me up to this day, it feels like it was just yesterday. Time has passed by but the intensity of your energy hasn’t diminished. You impacted the world and the lives of many at such a short span of time that you lived in this world. I still reminisce on those days where I was watching you very alive right through my phone screen, your life situations/events that I was following and keeping myself updated with, little did I know I was witnessing/watching a history go down.

The more I look back, contemplate about you and study you, the more it makes sense to me, not until you died was when I only started to understand and have a deeper clarity to see who you really were; you were an old soul, you were divine, an outer-worldly being, heaven sent, you were here to fulfill a mission.

God sent you down here to save people from spiritual despair and mental insanity. You knew exactly how to utilize music as a medium to repair souls. Through you I became aware of the spiritual warfare going on in the minds and hearts of many people, kids and adults who looked for you for survival, kids that relied on you as a crutch, and found peace and salvation through your music. Through you I came to understand that war is no longer physical, it is spiritual and mental, and hell is inside the mind. You woke me up into finally seeing what is perceived to be invisible.

You were one of the most beautiful soul I’ve ever known. You were a star, a superstar, but the kind of star that made itself very reachable for people to touch on and connect to; you connected with your fans in a way that no other artists has ever done the way that you did.

You made music for every kind of emotions there is, you bridged the gap between your listeners and an artist of such high caliber as you by tapping into the hearts and minds of different kinds of individual and it’s reflected/evident through your music’s diversity and versatility, one distinct quality of your music that is unique only to yours and something that no other artists are capable of tapping in to. I can see your genius by the intention that you had put behind the diversity of your music, making different types of music genre; to reach, welcome and comfort into your music all kinds of diverse souls that hold different kinds of energy and vibrate on different levels of emotional frequency and mental wavelength. You made sure every souls that possess different levels of energy can feel a connection with different flavors of your music. Not every artists are as flexible as you when it comes to music diversity, they can sell their music all they want but not everyone can rap, sing and scream like you, and it speaks for the authentic talent that you are, being a multi-genre artist, you made music of all kinds; from melancholic, to rage, grunge, trap, lo-fi, alternative rock, metal, hip hop, R&B etc. But what made me drawn to you the most and the things I resonated with you the most was the vulnerability you showed through your music, your emotional and sentimental music that spoke of the real life situations you lived with giving us a glimpse of your inner world, guiding us to your state of mind and where your heart was placed and positioned.

Your music opened up doors for me to feel and access emotions I don’t feel with a sober mindset. Your music brings me into a place where it feels like home, somewhere my soul is understood and comforted, somewhere that it feels like I’m finally safe. It feels like you knew the language of my soul and you perfected the ways to serenade mine.

Your unorthodox way of thinking was not insanity, it was you being conscious in a world full of unconscious people. You were not weird or crazy, you were the only normal living in a world full of insanity. Your death validated my belief that there is a world outside of what we can’t see, and in that realm you are very alive.

Years passed, I can still feel your energy, still strong, powerful and impactful. I still crave your comforting presence, your unique energy. I still look for you in every artists in hopes that their energy can make me feel the way your energy has made me feel. Many artists make music for different reasons, but you made music for the intent and purpose to heal, to comfort and to save souls. You were a healer, a savior. You repaired and comforted mine and many other’s soul. You helped me become aware of the things I used to be blinded to. You opened up my awareness about myself and of this world. Till this day, you continue to blow me away. Allowing us to see your scars and opening your emotions and sharing your vulnerability helped me feel less alone with my own pain and insecurities. It’s such a comforting feeling and blessing to indulge in the kind of special energy and soul that you are. I am grateful to live in the same lifetime that you lived. I hope to see you again in another lifetime.

-Roxanne

[feysandfeels]

I gathered you read the chapter... how are we feeling, any thoughts you might want to share?

There I was, writing on my journal after a decent day at work when this fucking bomb exploded quite literally on my lap. But fear not I am here and we shall discuss until we can make fucking sense of it.  Should I even warn you of the length of this post, or are we all on the same “Luisa can’t synthesise for shit” boat now?

I. Azriel

I will start by saying that this does not make me hate Azriel or stop caring for him and wanting what’s best for him. I still do very much love him. This however does not mean I applaud or get behind how he expressed himself during this specially chapter. For me it was quite disturbing to see how he saw Elain merely as a sexual partner and thought that that translated into love. If he had made the distinction between being physically attracted to her and being in love with her, then I don’t think we would all be feeling like we are. Because it is fair to be sexually attracted to someone but not necessarily in love with them.

From what we saw I think we can gather that Azriel knows Mor is not into him and in his grief from all those years being in love he wants something immediate and there. On top of that he sees his brothers settled and feels like he is owed from the cauldron, so of course he starts seeing Elain as the perfect “solution” to his pain. Now, of course Elain (and no one for that matter) should be seen a solution to anything really. Much less he should jump on that boat and already think of her as his. Az, my sweet, possessiveness is not love. 

When I first read the chapter something stood out for me, he said he’s envious of his brothers and the emotional stability they both have, the fact that they were both chosen by the ones they love. We know Az loved Mor with all his heart and although she loves him too, it was not corresponded on the same energy since she is well bisexual homoromantic. He, so far, does not feel chosen in that same sense, which only feeds his insecurity of being unworthy.

In his envy he oversimplified things, he saw what both Rhys and Cassian now have and did the simple most stupid math ever: he went Rhys+Feyre = love, Cass+Nesta = love... hummm then If I’m single and Elain is single then it must mean Az+ Elain = love. (Sugar I love you but that is dumb as fuck). This has the same energy of when you are in high school and you let your friends convince you that you are actually into someone when you are really not, but then you buy into it and start believing in it yourself. In this case he was the one who created that push and convinced himself that it was the right thing.

I think so far we can gather a few things of the place Az is at right now: he is feeling extremely lonely, extremely envious and extremely sad. I do not think this excuses his behavior at fucking all, but at least we know where he is coming from. He is clearly mistaking sexual attraction and possessiveness as love. But I do think it all stems from this turbulent place he is at emotionally, not because he is a bad person. 

I do not thing he is a bad person for thinking of Elain as he does, because I truly think this is a set up for the growth he will experience. Is it a good look? honey no. But is it a realistic one? I dare say it is. As I said when I read this I got full on high school bull shit vibes, I thought “ohh I’ve seen this film before and I have lived it”. He is being immature and there is no denying. Which was only confirmed with him regifting that necklace... sugar... that was a dick move, very fucking dickish move -specially since it was alluded that they might have feelings for each other–. My man needs to do some emotional growth because yikes. 

II. The Narrative

Now, I have said before that for me, Sarah’s strength lies not so much on her world building or the originality of her works (which is not to say that her worlds suck or her narratives are not interesting and offer something new), but it lies more on her characters. To me she has always excelled at creating characters that do exemplify the range of humanity in its good, its bad, and all that’s in between. Even you can look at stuff that your fave did and go “yeah not cool at fucking all”. At least I know I can and I adore almost every character in this series. I love characters not because they are perfect but because I can either relate to them or because they allow me to understand and experience points of view that are alien to my own experience. Sarah has never made characters black and white. Your faves will make mistakes. Feyre has, Rhysand has, Cassian has, Nesta has, Elain has, Lucien has, Mor has and Az has. 

What make her books interesting from this perspective is that she says “characters development does not equal character growth”. Take Chaol for example –if you haven’t read ToG do yourself a favor and read it– his character arc is one of the most interesting and best fulfilled ones in that series because we saw him at his lowest, when we couldn’t empathize exactly and he was being an ass, and then we saw him question his problematic behavior and move past it. Character development means just that: that the character move from point a to point b. It doesn’t mean he will be better by the end, but it means movement. Character growth does mean he will hopefully get  to a place where they are “good”.

I think she knows exactly what she is doing with Az and with this teaser. Need I remind you of the chaos the bonus chapter in ACOFAS left this fandom in for a solid two years. This got our emotions high and got us one way or another expecting to see where this will all lead. I don’t think any of us were expecting this chapter when it was announced that Az would get a pov. 

III. Conclusion

To conclude I just want to reiterate that I don’t support how he’s is behaving. I think I am accepting how he is behaving. Acceptance however does not meant that I am behind it, it means that I accept it and I am willing to stick around to see him grow out of this and realize why this is all so wrong (because well you know I can’t actively engage with him since he is... you know... fictional). I have had moments like this with some of my closest friends irl with whom we’ve had talks about previous behavior and have had the “be fucking better” talk, which is something that Rhys essentially said (GOD BLESS YOU BOO), and is also a sentiment most of us shared, even Feyre, when Rhys forced Mor to face both of her abusers and then didn’t consult her when selling Velaris off to her dad. And to me that is part of what friendship means, it means being there through the growth.  

Everyone has their own limits of what they can understand of a character/person. If this is your own then it’s fine, no harm no foul. If this is what makes you jump ship from Elriel (that’s their ship name right?) then hey all good, I’m sorry for your loss.  

I am not an Azriel hater, nor I think I will ever be. At least not from the information I have right now. I do still love him and as I have said before I want to see him happy and with a healthy amount of self confidence (and no Azriel saying you could easily kill Lucien is not the healthy self confidence I am talking about). So if anything I am interested in the arc his character will face, we just caught him at a moral low –which to me still has a solid chance of growth–.

I hope this offer some light or whatever. And remember take it easy, it’s okay to feel things deeply but don’t quit in the middle of the war, we still have his book coming up and I am 100% that will enlighten us more. 

ANYWAYS, LONG LIVE ELUCIEN BITCHES.

[lady-of-the-lotus]

The Undershirt

The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty - Suitang - 2k - G - first kiss fluff - AO3!

..............

“Hand it over,” orders Sui Zhou.

Tang Fan pouts, a pout somewhere in between his “I’m hungry, feed me” face and “Dinner was an hour late, I almost died” face.

“I ran out of clean ones,” he says when Sui Zhou holds out his hand, “and I had to pack in a hurry—”

“I had only three rules. Rule one: Don’t mess up my house again—”

“Alright, alright,” Tang Fan says before Sui Zhou can lecture him. Leave it to Sui Zhou to take an inventory of his clothes as soon as he got home, all because Tang Fan had left his things just the tiniest bit mussed! “Take your stupid undershirt back; it’s too big on me anyway.”

Sui Zhou turns back to his cooking as Tang Fan slips halfway out of his robe, making a face as he removes the undershirt. Missing Sui Zhou, Tang Fan had pilfered the distinctive draped-neck garment from his things after he’d left on his ill-fated “business trip.” “Happy now, Sui-baihu?”

Sui Zhou glances up briefly from the soup, eyes flickering over Tang Fan. Sui Zhou’s handsome features are soft in the warm yellow candlelight and the orange glow of the stove. “Better.”

Tang Fan stands there with his robes draped around his waist, chest exposed, shyly holding the undershirt in front of him, watching Sui Zhou’s strong, sure hands as they slice vegetables and meat and then, once dinner is cooking, assemble the dessert, grinding the sesame seeds and working the delicate mixture.

A swell of fondness fills Tang Fan’s chest as Sui Zhou puts the finishing touches on the little sesame cakes, decorating each with a pink circle of honeyed flower petals.

"Aren't you going to put the undershirt back on?” Tang Fan asks as Sui Zhou puts the last petal in place. Most of the shyness has worn off as Sui Zhou tells him about how he developed the recipe, his deep voice low and soothing as it fills the cozy little kitchen.

"Later." Sui Zhou glances up, eyes flickering once again over Tang Fan's bare chest before returning to his work. Perhaps it's the warm glow of the candle, but Tang Fan imagines there's a hint of color in Sui Zhou's cheeks.

Too late it occurs to him that he should have at least put his robes back up over his arms and chest. Jiejie had driven it through his head that to wear robes without an undershirt was uncouth and a sure way to get the robes dirty, but…

"Do you still have your prison clothes? That was a good look." The question escapes Tang Fan before he can censor himself. "I mean—your uniform is good too—I mean, your normal undershirt is better than that prison one.” He dangles the undershirt from his fingertips, as if this question was just an extension of him returning Sui Zhou's undershirt. “I mean...”

Sui Zhou cranes his neck away slightly, as if trying to avoid looking at Tang Fan but probably only checking to make sure Dong'er isn't nearby to see Tang Fan in this state of undress. "Be careful with that. You're going to set the kitchen on fire again."

Grinning, and more at ease now that the conversation is back in familiar teasing territory, Tang Fan sidles closer to Sui Zhou, waving his shirt near where the mutton soup is bubbling on the fire. "Oh, that was on purpose. You know, to get you to free Dong'er—"

Sui Zhou gives him that look of his, the one that appears completely expressionless but in fact contains a half dozen emotions from all corners of the spectrum. "You set fire to my house on purpose?"

"Well—"

"What about the time you fell asleep with the candle beside your bed, and the time you tripped and fell holding the lamp—"

"Fine, it wasn't on purpose. But the bad food was! I can cook, if I wanted to—”

"You can't cook."

Tang Fan inches closer. He's not quite sure why. "You could teach me."

Sui Zhou frowns slightly. "You step foot in my kitchen without me here, and you sleep outside with the sheep."

Tang Fan wrinkles his nose. "The sheep has a name ."

"Li Qing?"

Tang Fan almost drops the undershirt on the stove. "How did you—”

Sui Zhou turns away again as if to hide a grin. Li Qing is the main character of Tang Fan's magnum opus, My Sexy Lady .

"You didn't read it!" Tang Fan leans forward in consternation. He's not sure why he's so thrown. It's a brilliantly-written work, like all of his books, but somehow to have Sui Zhou privy to—to all that — "Wang Zhi told you or something—wait till I get my hands on him!"

Sui Zhou is definitely holding back a grin. "I liked the part where the ‘sexy lady’ sets fire to Shi Yang's house after she thinks he stole her necklace."

"That never happened! She never did anything half so crazy!”

Sui Zhou is no longer holding back his smile. "Maybe in the sequel, My Sexy Wife."

Tang Fan laughs out loud. People who don't know Sui Zhou think he's stiff and cold and completely humorless, but Tang Fan knows better. It's subtle, but Sui Zhou's sense of humor and appreciation of the outlandish is definitely there. If it weren't, Tang Fan doesn't think he would get along with him as well as he does.

Which, when he stops to think of it, is rather odd. His getting along with him so well, not the sense of humor. Despite having lived in the capital for years, and having many acquaintances, Tang Fan has few close friends. As he knows he’s a delight to be around, never complaining and generously standing people meals, he can only assume it’s a failing in other people.

A failing that Sui Zhou evidently doesn’t have, to appreciate Tang Fan’s virtues, both hidden and overt.

It’s not that Tang Fan annoys people. That can’t possibly be it, no matter what Jiejie says. But he can’t deny that not everyone appreciates him, and that hurts, sometimes.

A sudden thought, and Tang Fan abruptly stops laughing. Why did Sui Zhou pick that example? Surely it was just a joke after what they'd been talking about—he knows it is—but of all characters to pick—

Tang Fan had based a lot of Li Qing on himself. Like him, she's a beautiful genius often put-upon by those who fail to appreciate her properly, driven to do the right thing at whatever costs, someone who appreciates fine food and faces the world with a smile no matter how she's feeling.

No. Sui Zhou is just teasing him, as usual. That's it. He probably hadn't even finished the book...

He wants to ask Sui Zhou if he liked the book, but despite it being his best-selling work, he’s hesitant to ask. Sui Zhou is nothing if not honest, and what if he didn’t truly like it?

Tang Fan resolves to start work on a sequel that night. Perhaps Shi Yang could enter the imperial guards and, together with Li Qing, solve a series of increasingly exciting mysteries that pit them against the world. Back to back, they’ll chase justice and stand strong against the winds of—

“Here.” Sui Zhou slides the plate of sesame cakes towards him. “For coming to get me.”

Tang Fan grins. “You mean rescuing you.”

Sui Zhou turns back to the soup. "Just eat them."

Tang Fan inches even closer, more to annoy Sui Zhou than anything else, he thinks. "Go on, say it. I rescued you."

"Keep this up, and you're getting kicked out of my kitchen."

" Your kitchen? Why is it—oh, right. It's your house." Tang Fan looks down at the sesame cakes. It's almost a shame to eat them, they’re so beautifully decorated. "Am I allowed to eat them before dinner, or are you going to get all sulky?"

Sui Zhou gives Tang Fan a look as if to say, I'm not the childish one here, and reaches for a sesame cake just as Tang Fan does. Their fingers brush, and tingling current runs up Tang Fan's arm. Startled, he jerks away, dropping Sui Zhou's undershirt on the stove.

Spattered in mutton grease, it erupts in a column of flame.

"Augh!" Panicking, Tang Fan drops the shirt in the soup. “Put it out! Put it out!”

Sui Zhou snatches the shirt out of the soup and drops it in a pot of water. "What did I just tell you about setting my house on fire?"

Smiling weakly, Tang Fan begins sidling in the opposite direction as Sui Zhou comes closer. "You startled me! You grabbed at me just as I was trying to eat, I haven't eaten all day, I was hungry, you forced me to take a cake—"

He bumps up against the wall. Sui Zou leans over him, one arm framing him, his face a mix of exasperation and—and fondness, Tang Fan wants to believe, though it’s hard to when there's a charred, soup-soaked undershirt not five feet away.

"It wasn't my fault I burned your shirt!" Tang Fan continues bravely. Whining has always worked on Old Pei and Jiejie, though he still hasn’t quite learned the exact point Jiejie’s indulgence tips over into slapping-him-across-the-face territory, hence all the slapping. "Tired after weeks of traveling, traveling across half the empire to rescue you, if you recall, weeks of seasickness and danger and unpadded saddles and not being able to finish my rice noodles in the one good restaurant between here and I thought you were dead at one point, and that was almost as bad as the noo—"

Sui Zhou bends forward and kisses him.

Tang Fan goes rigid.

Did—did Sui Zhou just—

Sui Zhou kisses him again, as if to clear up any doubts.

"Well, that's one way to stop you from talking," he says.

Tang Fan's heart is beating like a war drum, but strangely enough it's not from nerves. There's a smile on Sui Zhou's lips (rather full lips, he notices. Until now he's been too distracted by his arms and shoulders and—well—all the rest of him, most likely), and there's definite fondness in his eyes.

"I once talked through an acupuncture session for a sore tooth," Tang Fan says boastingly, more to calm his nerves than anything else.

He’s never been kissed before. Or rather, being a man, perhaps it was more appropriate to say he’d never kissed anyone before.

He’d always changed the subject when Old Pei brought it up. The local girls had never interested him, and he’d never though there were other— options—

"You can ask him at dinner,” he blusters on, pulse fluttering. “I was probably able to give him some good tips and pointers, I once read a book on acupuncture that—"

Sui Zhou shuts him up again, cupping his face in his hand. It smells of honey and spice, the callused palm somehow soft against Tang Fan's cheek, his long fingers curling around the back of his neck as he kisses him.

Tang Fan is suddenly very aware that he's half-naked, but it's somehow nice being around Sui Zhou like that, not uncomfortable as he's sometimes felt in the past around others. Natural, despite his first-time nerves.

He suddenly realizes that Sui Zhou is looking down at him as if waiting for him to say or do something.

"Am I allowed to speak again?" Tang Fan asks.

Sui Zhou half-smiles. "Nothing could stop you from talking for very long."

"I want another one of your undershirts, but a black one this time. I saw one tucked away in the chest, but Dong'er said it wouldn’t match my robes, though what does she know? I want the black undershirt, and—"

"Black to hide any future char?"

"This was an accident! You startled me!"

"The one you were wearing today is mostly black now, after you set it on fi—"

Tang Fan kisses him.

"You're right," he says, grinning at Sui Zhou, who seems to have forgotten how to speak. "That does work."

*

AO3

[grumpyhedgehogs]

this tired old elegy

Summary: CC-5052 and a company of other clones bound for decommissioning are instead auctioned off to slavers on Tatooine. Or they would be, if someone mysterious didn't intervene. The resulting chaos stirs up memories Bly craves; CC-5052 thinks they might be best forgotten. Or: In which Bly is This Close to breaking out of the chip's control by himself and Obi-Wan shows up to give him that extra push. AO3.

Notes:  A scene that's been kicking around in my head for a while, of two ships passing in the night. Hinted Codywan and Blyla.

Warnings: Mild violence, seizures, slavery, mind control, grief. 

The clones of Kamino are dying out.

They’ve known this for a long time now. The Empire used them, wiped out the last of the Old Republic with them, and shunted them off, thrown out with yesterday’s trash when they weren’t useful anymore. CC-5052 has heard the horror stories, the ones the admirals always shut down if they heard them spreading among the ranks. Clones decommissioned before their time. Clones going missing, or going against orders in the field. Clones found with a single blaster shot to the head and no explanation for their deaths given. Clones pushed from active duty, given menial jobs or guard posts. CC-5052 heard CC-2224 has a teaching position now.

Disgrace is a clone’s lot, and it tastes sour in the mouth.

This though? CC-5052’s stomach turns over when the doors to the spaceport he and three of his brothers three other clones have been held in for days on end finally open. The air that buffets him is arid, dry and hot against his skin. Sand flings itself, clawing, searching, into his eyes, and CC-5052 coughs against the assault. It does little to help. He never thought for a second that he’d come to this end. It’s poetic in a way his Jedi the Traitor he served under would have found poignant once upon a time. Enslavement is how the clones of Kamino came into this world, so enslavement should be the way they go out, shouldn’t it?

Tatooine is a wretched planet, CC-5052 decides as he and his vode his family the rest of his company are led onto the calling block. The Empire has no use for him, and so it sends him to a useless place.

“One hundred credits,” the auctioneer offers, gesturing at one of the three other clones to CC-5052’s left. A hand raises in the air before them, and the auctioneer dispassionately raises the price by another hundred credits. And so it begins. Is this all there is for him?

I’m going to die on this dust-ball.

The crowd around them is sparse; the midday suns beat down on them all, slave and free sentient alike, and no one is immune to their rays. Most attendants are covered from head to toe in brown, black or white fabrics, wrapped up like mummified remains. Sunlight reflects off of any and all surfaces. A mother carrying a child’s metal cradle passes by on the edge of the crowded marketplace, and the shine off of the basket pierces directly into CC-5052’s brain. He hisses, air whistling between his teeth, eyes clenching. The pain rockets through his skull--it seems to be doing that a lot lately, random headaches plaguing his sleep. Migraines are not uncommon in the vode the clones, but he doesn’t want to examine what they mean. They’re far too often accompanied by a wave of grief that threatens to swallow CC-5052 whole.

His attention has wandered too far; the price has gone up five times since he last checked, and the auctioneer is getting excited now. They bounce on their toes, rattling off higher and higher numbers with a growing grin. As if this is just a good day at the market for them. As if it simply does not matter. As if they don’t matter.

What he thinks now is treason, of course. They are Empire property, were Republic property before that. If the Emperor saw fit to sell him off, who is CC-5052 to argue?

I hate him.

The thought nearly rattles every bone in CC-5052’s body with its intensity--but there is no time for him to examine its implications, because three things happen in very rapid succession.

First, an explosion goes off somewhere nearby and behind CC-5052; debris and sand sail through the air, pelting down on the crowd before the slave auction. The ground rolls beneath their feet, and CC-5052 has to stumble to keep his balance. The auctioneer does not have his luck, and trips right off of the platform, facedown in the dust. It startles a laugh out of CC-5052--Bly--but then he inhales more ash and coughs instead.

Second, the chains around his wrists loosen unexpectedly before falling away completely. His arms aren’t quite as burly as they used to be, from inactivity before the auction and from years of being shoved to the sidelines before that, so Bly’s CC-5052’s wrists slip easily between his manacles. Above the roar of growing fires and screaming citizens, he can just make out three identical thumps as the clones beside him rub raw skin that mirrors his own.

Third, through the confusion and panic setting into the crowd, the fleeing forms and those who have fallen prone and lain still, through the smoke and fire and noise, CC--Bly looks up and sees a hooded person beckoning to him. He can’t see their eyes, can’t see anything but brown fabric and smoke and a hand lifted in greeting, which turns its palm away after a second and crooks its fingers. There’s a tickle at the back of his mind, and, his migraine raging so badly that his vision wavers as he jumps down, Bly follows. His brothers are right behind him.

The stranger ducks and weaves through the enraged crowds, avoiding fire and danger deftly. There’s something almost comforting about slipping into their shadow, something familiar and warm that Bly almost doesn’t recognize. For a moment, Bly thinks wildly that the stranger probably has blue skin, but the thought evades him when he tries to examine it more closely.

They are outside of the city limits within fifteen minutes. The figure stops and waits for the clones to approach, never turning to look at them. Bly CC-5052 (Bly?) stops a few feet away, outside of arm’s reach. Just in case. Their head turns, but the hood obscures anything defining.

“Who are you?”

They shake their head. Fair enough.

Why did you save us?”

His brothers--clones--brothers shift on their feet behind him, anxious for the answer. The figure shakes their head again.

“Will you answer any of my questions?” Their shoulders hitch minutely and he gets the distinct feeling he’s being laughed at. For once, it doesn’t seem malicious. It’s refreshing, even if it does intensify the stinging behind Bly’s eyes. “Fine. What do we do now?”

At this, the figure finally reacts. They turn and point into the distance; Bly raises his eyes to the horizon, where a tiny homestead sits beyond the wavy hot air. Then the figure jerks their fingers towards the spaceport that lies in ruin behind them, then points to the sky, and clenches their fist, bringing it to rest in their flat palm. Then they flatten their fist and mime a ship's take-off.

“Lay low out in the Wastes and come back to steal a ship later.” Bly translates. The stranger nods.

Good enough for Bly.

~

The stranger lets them into what can be generously described as a hovel. There are four rooms in total, and the larder underground is nearly empty. It’s completely bare when he and his brothers are finished with it. There are no beds, only a slab of rock in the corner of one room with a threadbare blanket on it. It makes CC-5052’s heart twist in his chest. It makes Bly’s migraine even worse, so bad he has to sit down or trip over his own feet. Grief overwhelms him. He comes to with the stranger’s hand on his shoulder, and a clone--his name was Gardener, he was a Coruscant Guard, he was just a shiny when they blew it all to pieces--counting his breaths for him.

One thing at a time.

“You got anything to hunt with out here?” Bly asks when his lungs don’t feel like they’re the size of straws. The stranger hands him what amounts to a wooden spear.

~

Killing womprats takes all day and into the evening. Bly and his brothers--Gardener and Ink and Database, he knew them once--prowl back through the early twilight and drop them at the stranger’s doorstep. He tries not to feel like a cat bringing home a trophy.

~

“Body heat would keep you warmer than those rags,” Bly says as they settle in for the night. The stranger, who has not dropped one ounce of cloth from their figure the entire time, shakes their head and turns away. They leave the blanket for Ink to use.

The wind howls around them the entire night.

~

Taking the ship is easy; it’s small, privately owned. The slaver driving it won’t be missed. Bly wonders where the auctioneer got off to and how long it might take to find him.

CC-5052 wonders if he shouldn’t report back to the Empire for decommissioning. Bly rejects it. The migraine gets worse, howling in his mind like the wind does out in the Wastes.

The stranger freezes beside him where they’ve been keeping an eye out for any more crew the clones need to take down. A soft palm clasps Bly’s shoulder and the pain recedes.

He tries not to shake them off too harshly, but the last time someone did that, touched him like that--

She’s not here anymore.

Bly resolves not to go back. There’s nothing left in the Empire for him anyway.

They killed everything I ever loved.

He gets sick from the pain in his head. He wonders how long he’ll last on the outside. Something tells him, not long.

~

“We’re taking off soon.”

The stranger nods. Their shoulders are a stiff, hard line against the backdrop of the Tatooine horizon. Bly finds himself at a loss for words, and filled with a sudden desperation to speak.

He finds his voice, choking, hoarse. As the wind howls across the dunes, he has to raise his volume to be heard. “You could come with us.”

It has the opposite effect than he wants; they jerk back, settling into a more defensive posture. Bly raises his hands in submission, but can’t help taking a step forward. “We’re not going back to the Empire, if you’re worried. We--things happened to us there. Because of the Empire--we’re not who we used to be. But we’re free now, and we wouldn’t hurt--”

Sandstorms and windstorms happen quickly on this planet, and a huge gust nearly takes them both off their feet. Sand flies into his face for the second time in as many days, and, coughing, Bly reaches out and blindly finds his savior’s hand. He tugs relentlessly, fumbling his way through the sudden gusts and dust to the overhang where they’ve stashed the ship. He’s thankful his brothers are already on the ship; no one else needs to be caught up in this mess.

“Are you alright?” His gloves are covered in grime and it takes three or four swipes at his eyes before Bly gets his sight clear. He reaches out, catching hold of the stranger's arm as they cough and bend to spit out dirt a few feet away, face hidden by the low light here. Their headscarf has fallen from the wind, their hood flipped down for the first time. His hand brushes their shoulder, fingertips catching against the only exposed skin they have at the base of their throat, and the stranger flinches back instinctively--and then they turn to look at him.

Obi-Wan Kenobi looks older now. His voice is softer. “Commander Bly?”

“Jedi.” The death sentence falls from Bly’s lips without his knowledge and his vision wavers again. The next time the black spots clear away, Bly’s hands are wrapped around Kenobi’s throat and squeezing. The Jedi’s eyes bulge grotesquely, but then Bly’s hands loosen without his consent, flying down to pin themselves by his sides. He topples over and only Kenobi’s quick reflexes stop him from burning his face against the sun warmed sand beneath their feet. The force holding his hands down relents, as if surprised, and Bly scrambles back, his head pounding. CC-5052, who had been receding for days, weeks, maybe even years, surges against him and Bly retches as he lunges again.

Kenobi was always known for his keen battle sense, though, so Bly is hardly surprised when he’s sidestepped. He throws his weight towards the Traitor (Jedi-General-friend) again only to have his outstretched arm caught and folded around his own back. Kenobi lets CC-5052’s weight fall against his own chest, allowing them both to fold gently to the ground. Another arm wraps firmly across CC-5052’s chest, pinning his other arm to his side. Spittle and froth foam at his lips, choking him, but Kenobi does not let go.

It feels as if a rusted spike has been driven through CC-5052’s skull. Adrenaline is making him shake, as if he’ll fall apart.

“No, my friend,” Kenobi says, almost too quiet over the animal sounds caught in CC-5052’s throat. “You’re having a seizure. You’re ill. Whatever has been done to you--it’s breaking down.”

Bly jerks and spits and gasps his way out from under CC-5052’s influence in fits and starts.

“I--I didn’t--I didn’t mean to attack--”

“I can sense that, Commander.” When Bly fails to strain against his hold any longer, Kenobi’s fingers raise to tentatively touch his temple. “You’ve got pain, here, all the time. It intensified when you attacked, and your presence slipped away. Faded, like a radio signal from far off. Like--like Cody’s did.”

Bly doesn’t have to ask what Kenobi means.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and then something snaps and he can’t seem to stop. Years of torment, too built up to be pushed back. “I’m--I’m so sorry. I--I never wanted--we never meant to--I’m sorry.”

“You need not apologize, Bly.” Kenobi’s touch is soothing, as much as it prompts his migraine to rekindle.  “You need not be sorry. It was not you.”

Her face drifts before his eyes, overlapping Kenobi’s when he meets the man’s eyes. She loved Bly, he knows she did. Bly loved her too. Suddenly, it’s all-important to tell Kenobi of this, for someone to know, for a Jedi to know.

“I loved her.”

“She knew.”

It feels like absolution.

“We loved you all.” Bly says, the final, most agonizing confession. “We loved the Jedi.”

“We loved the Vode.” Kenobi assures gently. Then his fingers find Bly’s temple again and the world goes a pleasant, fuzzy white. “We loved you all too.”

It feels like a gift.

~

Bly wakes up with three of his brothers, a stolen ship, and only the memory of a stranger with a fading smile to account for his time on Tatooine.