#nor do they haunt the narrative quite like these ones do

[bulkhummus]

What I think is particularly heart breaking about this episode, is that Esteban is immortalizing a memory that Cecil doesn’t get to experience. Esteban knows about his grandfather, because he has heard the story several times before according to Abby, in fact they all just heard it. Cecil is experiencing, second hand, remnants of a memory that slides off of him. It refuses to stick.

There is something so poetic to me about Cecil being a reporter, a journalist, an observer, and doing everything to piece together a story from literal scraps of his own life, only to find its already been written for him. The story has already been told. Cecil doesn’t listen to stories, he tells them. I can think of nothing more infuriating than a story being told and not having a satisfying ending, or an ending that makes sense. Nothing within the story justified the ending. And yet we have seen it before throughout the show.

I am reminded of the episode It Doesn’t Hold Up, where Cecil watches the last few minutes of his comfort film Cat Ballou, changed and different. He has seen the same movie over and over and over again, and now the ending is different. In the drawing Esteban drew in 245, there is a shovel stuck into the dirt, and there is a boy climbing into a tree. In the ending of Cat Ballou, there is a man digging into the base of the tree. Just like in the episode It Sticks With You, when Abby, Cecil and their mother journey into the woods, and Cecil climbs into a tree over and over and over again until he can no longer remember the outing with his husband and son. Just like in Cassettes, when a young Cecil’s story is cut short, in an ending that Cecil refuses to listen to, immortalized on tape.

Just like in Liminal Spaces, when Cecil enters a space that is neither here nor there and is haunted by someone who tells him that he wants Cecil to remember. The very face that Cecil saw in Cat Ballou in It Doesn’t Hold Up. In fact, he tells Cecil he has no choice, before once again, he is pulled from the story.

Cecil’s whole life is one long interrupted narrative. It’s as if he is an old cassette that isn’t rewound all the way before pulled out of the slot and put back on a shelf. The next person to listen to the tape, unknowing, doesn’t realize where they’re starting off is not the beginning. There are things missing. Cecil has gotten so good at forgetting (and justifiably so) — has forgotten how to stop. He’s recording over the same tape over and over again until the tape inside is no longer coherent. I’m thinking, of the sound of a cassette being rewound, and how it could sound very much like how Cecil is often describing owl sounds.

So, how disquieting, to have your own family stare back at you, privy to information about yourself that you do not get to have. Cecil is there, quite literally, to construct a story for his town, but who is there to construct a story for him? A man you used to hate? A sister you aren’t sure you even like? A husband who you have forgotten before? Children who see and hear more than you realize? The listener?

No. Instead he will sit until dawn comes, and be made a fool out of trying to create a story, maybe even a better one, out of scraps of memories.

[skippygiraffee]

Leon Pokemon Analysis

These are probably things that have been said already/a post that's been done before, but that's never stopped me from both thinking about it nor posting it online. Certainly not the way it's been floating around in my head recently. Regardless, I've been thinking quite a bit about the Pokemon Leon uses, why, and what it says about him. Namely that his staple team is:

· Aegislash

· Dragapult

· Haxorus

· Charizard

All of which I feel like say something unique about his character, preferences, and add to the symbolism of his character as a whole. Leon himself is cloaked in knight imagery (as well as Prince locked in a tower energy, but for this especially I'm going knight), and I think it's telling one of his Pokemon is a literal sword and shield, and two are Dragon Types, while Charizard is always seen as a dragon. This image of a knight with a team of dragons (when he should be slaying them, and is narratively set up to do so and fails) is one of the more interesting subersions of Leon's character in my opinion. Dragon tamer vs dragon slayer, I guess.

And also, two of his main Pokemon are Ghost Types. To me, I always think of Ghost Types and Ghost trainers holding onto this enternal youth in a way, because they are stuck in time (as a generalization of those trainers, since there are outliers of notoriety). For Leon, as it's often talked about, he was sort of forced to be stuck in time as Champion, both growing up and also made too retain his youthful visage to be marketable and appealing on a larger scale (in my opinion anyway). Aegislash and Dragapult are also two of the three he takes into the Galarian Stars tournament, and that's post game, post Eternatus, and I think too it sort of leans into that feeling that he's haunted by the events of the Darkest Day and his own loss there. Though, I have a lot of thoughts on Leon and his Ghost Type affinity that I'll save from derailing this post

Charizard is always the one that gets me, because I really do think it embodies the vision of "small kid becoming a big hero," both within Pokemon and in the real world. Charizard just is that Pokemon. Leon is that kid picking a starter and becoming Champion, and what better Pokemon to represent that? But I think having it be this stereotypically overhyped and overused Pokemon works well for him, how Leon is built up in the story to be undefeated/unbeatable, and there's Charizard right there. In a way, to a player outside of the in game universe, it's a true motivator to come and get him. Inside the game's story, I just think Charizard is this Pokemon that looks bigger and badder than he actually is, and that's how Leon is too. They're both just bigger and more grown up versions of their smaller selves, where are changed, more mature, but still carry remnants of who they once were.

This is likely more a rambling post than anything, but I really do have Leon on the brain and enjoy posting about him akfjsksksl. So I offer the analysis of his team that's been floating around in my brain

[saintsenara]

Also would love to know what you think of Lily/&Sirius as well! I can totally see the slight resentment on his part you mentioned but i loveee the letter Harry finds in DH. AND tell me your thoughts on jilypad bc I just need to dig your brain

thank you very much for the ask, pal!

i know this was prompted by me saying - while discussing jily - that my preferred version of lily and sirius' relationship is one in which sirius resents lily for stealing the love of his life [and i don't mean lupin!] away from him. so i think it's worth clarifying what i mean by this:

because i certainly don't think that sirius' resentment towards lily would be overt - i don't think he'd ever be openly hostile towards her, i don't think he'd do anything to undermine james and lily's relationship, and i don't think he'd ever be anything other than sincerely delighted that james was so happy. he evidently values the relationship he has with lily - enough to have kept her letters somewhere he could retrieve after his sojourn in azkaban [the most plausible date of the letter harry finds in deathly hallows is august 1981, which means that we know sirius wasn't living at grimmauld place when it was written. this is something he's stored deliberately, rather than something he had just lying around.] - and i don't propose that he was pretending.

what i think, instead, is that sirius' canonical tendency towards suffering and abiding would make him actively want to cheerlead jily's relationship. he's someone who clearly believes that it's honourable to make sacrifices and that his own happiness is subordinate to the greater good. and while this is all very noble, it's also an enormous - and somewhat toxic - burden for someone like lily to bear.

i like the idea of sirius - much like his narrative mirror, snape - having an extraordinarily idealised view of lily which the real lily struggles to live up to [which provides an interesting watsonian explanation for why he only mentions her once in canon - the doylist reason is just that the series needs to obscure lily's centrality to the mystery for as long as it can, but it's much more fun to imagine that sirius actually knows nothing about the version of lily he didn't construct in his head]. i also like the idea of him struggling constantly with guilt over how he secretly would like to see james and lily split up, so that he could comfort james with tender forehead kisses [and much, much more...]

when it comes to lilypad as something non-platonic, then, my preferred version of the ship is one in which sirius and lily end up together after she survives voldemort's attack [and is, therefore, able to exonerate sirius by revealing that wormtail was the secret keeper] as an extraordinarily unhealthy way of dealing with the earth-shattering weight of their mutual grief. this doesn't mean that i think it would be an abusive or toxic relationship - nor that it couldn't last - but that it would be a... strange and quite melancholy one, haunted constantly by james' ghost.

which means, i suppose, that it's also my preferred version of jilypad. i don't like it as a triad when it's just written as really happy and flawless [well-functioning polygamy takes introspection, and none of these three strike me as possessing that ability...], but i do like it as a mess.

[rise-my-angel]

Rhaegar looked a good potential ruler only in comparison to Aerys lmao. He would have been terrible, from an objective pov. I mean he managed to piss off THREE major houses at once. That is quite the achievement.

Like, he only looks good when you look at his father, grandfather and great grandfather. Aerys II was, well, I think there's little need for any elaboration on that. A man who enjoyed cruelty to the degree that when he begun to turn mentally unstable, the voices in his head had only made that cruelty turn up to the degree war was going to be inevitable one day no matter what.

Jaehaerys II was also not a good King and had a very short reign. He ruined the very carefully balanced status of Westeros created by his father in order to have an incestuous marriage with his sister. He did the most damage to the last reign of the Targaryeans by creating only ONE direct bloodline by marrying his sister and then ordering the marriage of his son and daughter together. His only good contribution in his short time as King was delegating the Ninepenny Kings War to the command of Ormund Baratheon, but he only did it because Ormund was the one who talked him down from fighting in the war himself, so it wasn't even his own idea.

Aegon V should have been remembered as a good King, but he failed his own family by creating circumstances which allowed Jaehaerys II the opportunity to both marry his sister and marry his own children together, thus dooming the bloodline of his own family. He also ruins his final memories with his actions at Summerhall. Summerhall is the one event which ruins Aegons ability to be remembered as a good ruler because his downfall was still his own obsession with his house's superiority with dragons.

In contrast to all that, sure, maybe Rhaegar wouldn't be the worst King but he wouldn't have been a good one. He too by Roberts Rebellion was delusional and obsessed with prophecy to the degree no one around him understood why he was doing the things he did. His actions led to a massive war that overthrew his own family and left three members of the Stark family dead which haunts over the narrative the entire main series.

Meaning if Rhaegar did not realize the ramifications of kidnapping the firstborn daughter of a major house who was betrothed to the firstborn son of another major house, all the while insulting another major house whom had married INTO his family via his own wife, meaning he was just an idiot. Or he knew the ramifications but was so obsessed with the prophecy he did not care, which means he was utterly delusional.

The whole point of the downfall of House Targaryean is that it was inevitable. In their own ways not even the best remembered Kings were good people. None of them really were because the Targaryeans are the wrong fit of people to live amongst Westeros, let alone rule it.

Rhaegar nor Viserys nor Daenerys would have been good rulers.

[itsnothingofinterest]

Didn't expect a Curious vestige/ghost/hallucination(kind of prefer to think of it as her ghost for the memes) this late in the game, but am not complaining. I like how it shows again how much Curious got to her when it came to someone prodding at her past and how it affects her now with someone else trying the same thing in this 2nd battle. Also like how it builds off the Curious mention in the first war and her fight by legit making her someone that 'haunts' Toga even beyond death.

You said it. Horikoshi sure likes his call backs, especially in a climactic arc like this one (even if I still stubbornly think this arc isn't the end of My Hero as a whole, it's certainly closing a chapter on a lot).

And boy is the art for it something too.

I don't really have much to add on Curious having an effect on Toga; but something that's interesting is that what ghost!Curious brings up here is something I noticed and talked about when we got the Volume 38 cover: while I wouldn't quite say Toga's 'suppressing herself' (her anger and grief is clearly very genuine), Toga is presently tossing aside her 'feelings' and her own wants for romantic love in the pursuit of justice/revenge.

I remember asking before if the series would consider this a character improvement or detriment. On a personal level I mean; to the heroes, she is far more dangerous like this. But you could've argued it was healthier then her previous behaviour; after all, she's not thirsting for blood in this state, nor is she trying to hurt uninvolved innocents. All her targets now are definitely involved & hardly innocent. But it seems the narrative has come down on saying this development was bad in a rather unexpected way; drawing a direct parallel between Toga forgoing her pursuit of love & blood for revenge, and her inevitably-doomed childhood habit of suppressing her impulses to appear well-behaved & 'normal'. "Toga the Avenger" is as fake as "Toga the Middle School Who Definitely Doesn't Want Your Blood." And for a girl whose whole deal is wanting to live safely & freely as her true self: that's bad.

(Though to be clear, I am not blaming Toga for this development as a whole, and I think it's unfair when anyone to call her self-destructive for it. Far more so than any hero here; this is not a course of action she choose. Toga is doing what she's doing to survive.)

...Suppose that means she still likes Deku & Uraraka then, and like, she's just covering it up by lashing out at them rejecting her? Her stabbing her crush would be emblematic of the internal crisis I'm describing after all.

[be-ready-when-i-say-go]

Sweet Dreams--Part 7

Calum and you have dance around reality for a few months now. But after Calum leaves and returns from a trip, the reality has to be confronted. 

Weeks are passing and maybe more is blooming between you and Calum than might meet the eye.

Prince!Calum x Reader Insert.

CW: Smut across the series. This particular part is smut adjacent (mentions of BDSM, kinks/fetishes)! Mentions of parental neglect, and alcohol abuse across the series as well.

Series Masterlist

My Complete Masterlist

Calum checks his watch. The face stares up at him in blinking gold and lets him know he’s still got a little over an hour before he should pull the plug on work and get ready for the date. The black dress shirt he wore for sessions is overkill for the date. He’d already promised that you didn’t need to dress up. Besides, if Calum’s honest the starch on his collar has made it stuff to the point he’s worried he could chaff him. Thankfully at this point in the day, he doesn’t need it buttoned up so he takes a moment to undo a few buttons. The air rushes in, cool as it skates over his now exposed chest. 

78% of constituents responded no when asked if they felt Cabinet responded in a timely fashion to major crises (historically). The cursor stares back at Calum now. The data’s on his other monitor. He could see it with just a glance of his eyes, wouldn’t even have to move his head entirely, but something about the words feels hollow. They’re true. It doesn’t feel like it’ll be enough. Calum’s not lying, nor is he stretching the numbers to fit his narrative. It’s a haunting thought that no matter what Calum does it will never be enough, yet, this is all he’s got. This is what all his effort is culminating; this is all that he has left for this vote. 

It’s the anxiety, Calum knows. If so much weren’t riding on this, Calum is sure he would continue on with ease. But there are stakes. Every word feels like it must carry twice the weight. So Calum’s twice as slow to put the words down on the page and to string together sentences. By the time he gets another two sentences down, the blink of the cursor is burned behind his eyelids. Calum can recite the paragraph by heart as he reads and rereads the sentences that precede each new one he writes. 

This isn’t a new anxiety; Calum feels it when he has to deliver a speech at events. The intent is very much different. Calum is not speaking to a crowd, gathered for the same agenda. He is antagonizing. He is directly pointing a finger and it will no doubt cause a ripple. People will squirm. They’ll push back and rebel. He can imagine the disappointed stares, the murmurs that might arise between members. But this is what they need--a fire, a disturbance. Someone’s got the rattle the cage in a way that they’ll actually fear. 

Though, Calum can’t rattle a cage with a cursor blinking at him with no words. 

A knock sounds from his door. He huffs before pushing up out of the chair. No one should be at the door. He’s not late to any meetings. His phone and email would’ve alerted him to that. It could be someone from the cleaning crew coming through for quick rounds but they usually make last rounds around 6:30, sometimes 7. “Coming,” he calls out as he rounds the edge of his desk. 

The other person remains quiet. With another glance at his watch, Calum wonders if this will be good enough to call it quits. He still needs to change. He’s got half an hour but he worries that if he forces it, he’ll become so frustrated nothing will come. The door creaks and Calum just happens to take note of the shoes first before taking the long glance up. There you stand, sneakers and jeans with a button up and motto jacket to seal the deal. The jacket looks well worn, molded around you, but well kept. While there are some spots that look a little lighter than others, Calum knows when leather’s been polished after doing it to his own jackets plenty of times. 

“Hey,” Calum greets, pulling the door open further for you. 

“Hi, I know I’m early. Is it okay if I hang out with you until you’re ready to go?”

“Of course, baby. C’mon.” 

Your steps are slow as you cross the threshold, head circling to take in the sights. Calum knows his office isn’t that impressive. A lot of the decor was well established before he acquired the office--namely the desk, office chair, wall color, couch, and table. There are a few pieces--pictures of family, Duke, and friends-- that Calum’s framed and put up. The thought pops up to do more, but Calum never gives into the command.

“If you’ve got suggestions for how to decorate an office I’m all ears.”

“It’s nice,” you return with a laugh. It’s soft as you spin on your heel to face Calum again. “May need a new paint job.”

The beige walls are a bit drab, but they do their job nonetheless. “Got a color in mind?”

“Red,” you answer. It’s definitive, leaves you with little hesitation. 

Calum whistles at the answer, pressing on the door until the locks click. The noise of the hallways--mostly folks shoes on the floor--is shut off from the interior. “That’s bold.”

You settle into the couch, right on the edge as you peel out of the jacket. “I’ve heard that about myself a time or two.”

“Is it cold out?” Calum asks. He doesn’t imagine it to be that cold. Not yet anyway. There were hopefully still a few more weeks left before the chill of October descends. Granted, Calum’s always liked the warmer weather anyway. He doesn’t want it to go away ever. 

You shake your head. “It’s my fanciest casual jacket,” you return. 

Calum pauses. He has a hunch, but doesn’t want to come across as insensitive. You don’t have any need to worry about what you dress like. That’s not a concern of his, but more and more he wonders if this is a manifestation. “You can always borrow something from me if you want,” he offers. “But I don’t think I have anything as cool as that jacket, so.”

“It’s silly, isn’t it?” you return, placing elbows onto knees as you hold your face up on your knuckles. 

“What is?”

“To worry.”

Calum has guesses on what it is that you worry about. Yet, again, he won’t make assumptions. “About?” he asks. 

“My looks. I’m not really dating the public, am I?”

“Technically, no, you’re not. I know the pressure exists. If they’re talking about me and scrutinizing me, whomever I date gets some fall out too.”

 You nod, falling back into the cushions now. If this didn’t feel so important, Calum might make a joke about it being a fainting couch now with how you’ve thrown yourself into the corner of the arm and the back piece of furniture. However, it is serious, so he reframes. 

“It’s just the worry talking. I know it is. I know it doesn't matter.” It’s soft as it leaves you, deflating your chest as you push air behind the words. 

“Worry’s got a loud mouth sometimes,” Calum concedes. It is a loud voice at times, even for him. 

“That it does. How’s it going with you though? I hope I’m not interrupting.”

Perched onto the edge of his desk, Calum shakes his head. “I’d never dare call it an interrupt. Perhaps, a distraction though.” It leaves him with a grin and your smile is all the return Calum needs. 

“Oh no, I’ll leave and bug Janet instead.”

The threat doesn’t sound hollow either. “I’ll behave, I swear. You need anything? Water? A snack?”

“I still technically work in that kitchen and this palace for at least another two weeks, I can get it if I need anything.”

“Fair, fair. I have to ask though. As your boyfriend, it is my duty.”

“A job you do very well,” you whisper. The space hardly carries it to Calum’s ear, but when it does settle it makes his chest warm. “Now, you do have work I suppose, right?”

With a shrug, Calum lifts from the desk. “I mean there’s always work. But if you’re asking where my priorities are, it’s not with Cabinet bullshit.” It’s a bit of an odd angle to bend over the couch, but Calum does it, holding himself up by the back of the couch and the arm, effectively caging you in with his body. 

“How dare I do such a thing?”

“How dare indeed,” Calum whispers in return before pressing a kiss to your lips. “You’ll help pick out my outfit, yeah? Once I get done?” It’s a small request, but he hopes it helps. The two of you can be on the same caliber this way. It’s more symbolic and still Calum prays the offer is enough. 

“Of course.” You press another kiss to his lips and then slip back down further into the plush cushions. 

“I can take a hint,” Calum laughs.

He does take the moment of your soft laughter to gently nip at your cheeks, it’s just his lips, but he still takes a little chomp before pushing up. At his desk, settled back into his seat, Calum watches the way you curl up into the arm of the chair. Your socked feet slip a little on the leather, but it doesn’t take long for you to settle. 

“I’m not the work,” you laugh again.  

Calum huffs, but does turns back to face his screens. It doesn’t help that he can spy you out of the corner of his eye. It really doesn’t help that the cursor is still a blinking curse. His fingers settle onto the home row of the keys and the dread trickles back in. The first draft doesn’t need to be perfect. He has two days before he’d address the Cabinet. Yet, he does still need to get the first draft done. Just a first draft, Calum reminds him. He just needs a first draft. His fingers are slower this time. The tap of the keys holds a longer echo, but the words start to fill the page. 

With another half page filled, Calum glances at the time. It’s about eight minutes from when he originally said he’d stop and get dressed. Though he could press on, he’s worried that he’d lose track of time too much. So he saves the document and jots down some mental notes of the things he wants to mention next. It should be enough when he comes back later on tonight to help jog the memory. 

A bit of moment catches his eye and he turns, to find you peering up at the bookshelf in the office. It’s a lot of legal stuff. There are some history books scattered amongst the shelves, with the occasional self help and nonfiction books. It’s a rather boring collection, but they’ve all got their own practical uses to Calum. There’s more interesting ones in his collection in his room, he knows. But you seemingly hold each one with a high regard of interest as you trail a finger down the spines. 

“See anything interesting?” Calum asks. 

“You’ve read all these yet?” you ask in return. 

“Most of them. There’s a few I didn’t finish all the way, but keep as references.”

“Well read,” you tease as you rattle off one of the nearby titles. 

It’s a book about the political soundscape of grassroots movements at the turn of the century. It’s outdated now by a thousand miles and reminds Calum to see if the authors have anything more recent that they’ve published. 

“All a part of the job,” Calum laughs. It can feel like a boring part, but a part nonetheless. “But I’m at a good stopping point right now. Okay if we leave out a little earlier?”

Your nod is immediate. “Yeah, that’s okay.”

It’s a rather quiet walk up to his room, palms pressed into each other as your fingers thread through his. It’s a welcomed and comforting silence, warm as it fits between the two of you. Calum lets you into the room first and then follows with an immediate action to remove the dress shoes. The exhale is heavy from his chest. “Hate those things,” Calum mutters to himself. 

Calum stops behind you. There’s a bit of anticipation, how you’ll stay rigidly at attention in the threshold of his closet, but you lean back just a little. It’s just enough to bring the scent of your detergent to Calum’s nose. The heat of you starts to seep through the dress shirt. Then there’s another small step back. Your back is pressed snugly against Calum’s chest. The touches have always been easier here, in private. Yet, they still always send a surge of electricity through Calum’s body. They never get old. 

“I’m going to get you out of these button ups,” you remark. Your fingers slip through the racks. “I don’t care if it kills me.”

“I’ll care,” Calum whispers against your ear.

He watches as you pull out yet another button up shirt. The red snake stitched into the collar stares back at Calum. It feels so silly to say the snake knows the exact secret Calum is holding. It’s more than likely less that the snake knows and more that Calum’s uneasy about withholding from you. It’s all for good reason, but it still makes his stomach quake. Nonetheless, the shirt does not fit the particular atmosphere of the restaurant.

“No, too formal,” he interjects. 

“Is this fucking Gucci?” you hiss. It sounds less like an accusation and more like disbelief. 

The name is tacked into the back of the shirt. Calum squeezes gently at your waist. He'd forgotten that he had been given this shirt previously. It'd just been hanging and he hadn't worn it a year. “If I say no, does that change anything? I think that was a gift, if it helps.”

“Oh,” you return and then place the item back onto the rack. You eventually settle for a yellow button up and hold it up to Calum. He takes it with ease. 

“That doesn’t sound like a very convincing answer,” Calum states. The long sleeves of the dress shirt roll a little as he peels himself out of it. The black ribbed tank underneath will be fine even with the new shirt. But he will not be leaving the ends tucked in. 

“No, I am convinced.” It doesn’t take long for you to pull a pair of jeans down from the tiered rack. They’re more of his work jeans, given by the hole forming at the knee, but Calum doesn’t object to the item as he takes it from you. “Only time I’ve seen Gucci in real life was from a window. Call it disbelief.”

It’s all you say before you pass Calum his pair of black Doc Martens. How utterly simple: call it disbelief. Perhaps, that’s all it is. The reality of the two of you wrapped into one phrase: call it disbelief. Disbelief that you felt so bold enough to reciprocate when Calum cracked open the door. Disbelief that when you needed slow, you were given iy. Disbelief that even the threat of outside voices have not yet broken inside. 

With the boots laced, Calum grabs his keys and wallet from the desk. You’re leaning against the door, arms folded over your chest. While it could be so easy to say that you look displeased or bored even, Calum sees what’s just behind those eyes. There’s a small twinkle. Your lips turn up and Calum can’t think of a time he’d fight his own grin in return. “Do I look good?”

You nod. “Really good.”

Calum’s yet to see himself fully. But he doesn’t need to. “Hair looks okay?”

Like a dog, you tilt your head just a little. Calum wonders if the angle is to hear or to see better. It’s only a few seconds later that you’re pushing up and towards him.  It only takes a few rakes of your fingers before you smooth and comb through the strands. “There you go.”

“Thanks, baby.”

“You’re welcome, love.”

Oh--that’s a pet name that Calum’s not sure he could get used too. It’ll always make his stomach flutter. It’ll always make his heart race. His tongue becomes heavy and awkward in his mouth, so much so that he doesn’t trust himself to even work through a response. He takes your hand instead and just smiles, feeling the heat lick at his cheeks. 

“Oh, he’s blushing,” you tease, but walk through the opened bedroom door hand in hand with him. 

There’s nothing to say, no way to deny the truth so Calum continues on down to the elevators. He’s always happy to accept his fate with you; that is no shocking revelation. There’s no need for disbelief with the thought. 

“I did some research on Forest,” Calum confesses as he pulls out of the back lot. 

Your laughter is soft. “I’m sure you did.”

“The owners seem really caring. They do a lot of community events.”

“That’s what Turner said too.” 

He knows that. You relayed it to him. “And you’re sure this is a good fit for you? Seems like a great place, but I also don’t want you diving into just any old thing.” Calum’s sure if it weren’t the right option you’d know. You sounded so enamored after the interview; he just wants to make sure that none of that has faded. It’s his responsibility, a duty to make sure that regardless of what you were doing it was the best thing for you. Even if it changes, of course. 

“Does the perfect job really exist?”

Calum knows he doesn’t have much experience to articulate an answer. But he waits. He knows there’s more. Perhaps, there is no perfect job--just better and better fit ones. 

You continue on, “I don’t think it’s perfect, but it’ll work for now. And if I hate it, no one says I have to stay there forever. I could always move on.”

“How freeing of a thought,” Calum returns. For you, he means. You don’t have to say some place that’s not working for you forever. 

“Are you now saying you regret your duties?” 

A valid question, even Calum can admit that. “No, I think it's a job with flaws though. Things that would be nice to change about it, but ultimately, I’d waste more energy on those things than truly necessary.”

“If you ever do start to hate this, taking the throne, could you not leave?”

“Hadn’t considered the thought,” Calum returns honestly. He never had much of a reason to consider what it might be like should he leave. Calum’s not even sure if he’d ever want to leave. Not without something major of course. It’s not his own volition that would send him away. It’d be something external, something that weighed more and mattered more than his own sense of responsibility. 

Your hum acknowledges Calum’s answer. But the more the streets unfold in front of him, and the more Calum considers the thought, he wonders if you’re asking something else. “Do you not want this? You can tell me truthfully.” It's not meant to corner you, just to open up the conversation should it need to be had.

“I want you; I’ll tell you a thousand times if you need it. I understand what comes with it.” It’s such a simple response, but it levels Calum. You have the ability to speak plainly, to say if something wasn’t working. You are aware that each choice you make has its own consequences.

Calum knows it’s ridiculous to keep dancing around the same fire. You are more than capable of making your own decisions, of understanding what comes with it. The hard reality to face is that Calum knows it’s not fair. He knows you’re not asking for scrutiny just because of him. He knows you’re not asking for crushing worry or guilt because of him. He assumes if given an easier option, you might choose that. Perhaps, that’s the true fear. This is not the easy choice. It’s not the choice Calum thinks he would make if he were you. Maybe he’d taken it slower, much slower than the two of you are right now.

Yet, you continue to make the choices that all lead to him. Yet, he continues to make the choices that all lead to you. 

“Worry has a loud mouth,” you state at the red light. You cup his cheek.  

Calum can feel the sting behind his eyes. He turns to you, blinking away the haze of tears casting shadows over his eyes. “Yes, it does.”

Over the console, you stretch and press a kiss to his forehead. “I’m still here. I’m still choosing us.” 

It’s a whisper over his skin--a prayer Calum wishes to carve into his bones. When the light turns green, Calum takes just a second longer to take in the warmth of you before facing forward again. The confession bashes at his teeth, but today’s really meant to be a celebration. It’s about you. It’s about the victories you’re facing. Besides, Calum’s worried about what he’d choose if he were in your position, a path that his life hadn’t lead him down. No one knows what they’d choose if their positions were different. It is a terrifying beauty of life. The worry of his what-if is not from a position of current reality. 

In the parking lot of the restaurant, Calum takes your hand and presses a kiss to the back of it. You are choosing him and he is choosing you. You nudge his face upwards from the kisses along the back of your hand and the two of you share a small kiss. 

“Love you,” Calum whispers against your lips. 

“Love you.”

“Now, don’t move a muscle, I’ll be on your side in a second.” Calum offers the command knowing the risk of it falling on deaf ears. But he does command it anyway. As he shuffles to the passenger side door, he finds your head peering out of the car. He helps close the door behind you though. “You don’t listen too well, I see.”

“Only when I know it doesn’t matter too terribly.”

Calum’s gut reaction is to take your hand, lead you inside, but he remembers. That you need things to be slow. His only concern is that undoubtedly the longer he’s here the more word will spread about the location. It’ll get busy, but not unbearable. “Let’s head in, yeah?”

“Please.” The simple phrase is coupled with you reaching out to hook your pinkie around his. 

“Of course.” Calum’s sure to keep you side to side with him as the two of you take the short walk inside. It’s a hole in the wall kind of place. Run by one family for the last sixty years or so. But the food’s always good and the patrons that frequent are usually older--a softer and quieter place to visit. Even with the sports on and the older men grumbling at the bar, there’s very little in the way of ruckus. 

“Just the two?” the hostess asks. She’s new--Calum can tell that much. But she doesn’t seem phased by his presence which is more than welcomed. 

“Yeah, just the two of us,” Calum returns. 

“Booth or a table then?”

He turns to you and you shrug in response a fraction of a second before you speak, “Booth, I’d guess?”

“Booth,” Calum confirms and lets you walk in front of him as you’re directed on where to sit. 

Settled into the cracked and squeaky leather of the booth, you and Calum both take a moment to look over the menus. Though it’s a menu Calum’s seen a hundred times, he still eyes it to see if his favorite mushroom stew is still on the glossy lamented menu. Once he’s sure it is, he takes a look up at you. He watches you, the way you’re looking over the menu and everything threatens to come up this throat again--the secret in the back garden, the worry on the drive over earlier. It’s all too easy to think you’d make space for it. But he withholds. He can bring that up all at a later time. 

“What do you suggest?” you ask, looking up finally. 

“What are you in the mood for? Soup and salad? Burger? Something else?”

“Burger,” you return. 

“The Double Stacked is pretty good. It’s thick though, so if you don’t want too much meat, I’d suggest Barn Raised. It’s got a fried egg on it.”

“You clearly come here often.”

“It’s good food,” Calum defends. 

“I’ll try Barn Raised. I don’t think I have the appetite today for Double Stacked.”

“Everything okay?” He hadn’t asked about your day before. By your early entrance and his work, it hadn’t been a topic, but it wasn’t off his radar. 

“Yeah, things are good. I just, I have to tell Janet. A little nervous about that.”

Janet won’t be an easy person to tell about your departure. He doubts anyone on staff would be happy to hear about you leaving, though he’s sure they’d all know the reason behind why.  Though Janet especially is not easy. A benefit is that she was there when Calum advocated for you to have more time and better benefits in your severance. Yet, he distinctly recalls that she left that meeting with a wobbly chin. 

Calum nods, reaching out across the table. It’s an offer, if you want his comfort through touch. “It does sound hard. I know she cares about you a lot.” 

“I care a lot about her. And everyone else. I stay late a lot to help folks out, things that don’t feel like they should be a problem, but are.”

The confusion pulls at his brows. Calum feels the frown on his own face. “What do you mean by that?”

“Do you know the last time new uniforms were ordered for the folks that work in the kitchen?” you ask. 

Calum’s not sure how this is supposed to answer his question, but he pauses. He hasn’t looked into anything about kitchen staff if he’s honest. Not at least in a year or so. No one had brought it up as something that was pressing. “I-I don’t remember the last time. At least a year.”

“Two,” you correct. “I mend what I can when people need it, but new uniforms haven’t come in in two years for us hosting. Do you know how many people eat at the castle because the chefs over prepare?”

Yet another question Calum can’t answer. So he shakes his head no, though it’s already starting to dawn. “I wouldn’t have a clue.”

“I’d hazard a guess that about 60% of your staff live with roommates because they can’t afford it on their own. Another twenty percent or so, have second jobs. Some are still at home. And it’s not to say that we aren’t paid or we’re getting scraps. We’re just not getting enough sometimes. People have other responsibilities that money goes to first. You, Calum, are not immune. As much as I don’t want to hurt you, you are not immune to economic disparity blindness. It has always been right around you. You just never knew what to look for. Not in your own home.”

It feels like sinking, Calum realizes it only after the drinks have arrived. Only after he’s spun his cup around, stunned into inadequate silence. He’d been right in the middle of his own web. The very thing he was about to accuse a Cabinet of doing, he’d done it himself. He wants to say something, wants to disprove the point. Yet, he can’t. He doesn’t recall the last time he spoke to anyone or anyone had spoken to him about the budget for salaries inside the castle. He can’t recall a time where there wasn’t an overabundance of food in that kitchen at breakfast and lunch for everyone to eat. It always felt purposeful, like they were doing this because it was the right thing to do--give the folks there a good meal or two for their shift since they were working and the food would be there. Calum considers-a bit selfishly-it was the right thing to do at some point. At some point it is just a thing they did because it made the most sense, but now it carries on out of desperation.

Now after ordering food, after he’s worked open his jaw from its clenched state, something like disbelief works itself over his tongue. “But-” and yet there’s no real rebuttal. He could ask why no one’s brought it up before. But why hadn’t he looked into it himself? Why hadn’t anyone demanded higher wages? But why did someone else have to do all the work? Calum knows he can’t do it all myself. He’s one person. It’s too much weight for one person to bear. Yet, none of his advisors had brung it up. 

To say, I’ll look into it, feels too dismissive. Though it bashes against his teeth and it is true, Calum can’t say that. He doesn’t want to belittle the sentiment or the vulnerability needed to express your thoughts. Instead he nods, lifting his gaze from the worn wooden table of their booth. “Thank you. For telling me.”

“Thank you for listening.”

The sip of Calum’s sweet tea is sour. Not that the drink has gone bad, but because the guilt coats his tongue. He is not immune, not that he’d been willfully ignoring obvious signs. He hadn’t been taught what to look for. He hadn’t questioned it because it hadn’t been questioned to him. He just simply did not know; an ignorance born out of circumstance. An ignorance Calum can’t afford to keep swimming in. If he wants to make real change, he’ll have to start with himself. 

The whole night isn’t soured thankfully. You hum around the first bite of the burger you’ve ordered and note that you plan to come here without Calum more often. It’s a bright spot to see the delight crossing over your face. He’s glad that you’re enjoying the food. He hadn’t run into an issue with the place and enjoyed it, but there’s always an unknown with others. It’s warming to know that so far, you’re enjoying the place. However, no celebration is complete though without dessert. The dessert and drink menu coexist and Calum memorized the desserts by heart at this point. But he still slips it closer to you. 

“We can’t call it a celebration and not get dessert,” Calum teases. 

“I think we could.” You take the menu though. “I won’t tell if you don’t tell.”

Calum laughs with a shake of his head. “Get whatever you want.”

“Would you have some of what I got?”

“If you were sharing, of course. If not, I’d lick up the crumbs.”

You snort. “God, Calum. I wouldn’t torture you like that, unless you asked of course.”

“Well, I’ve considered dabbling in masochism once or twice.” It’s not a whole lie. He has found himself vaguely intrigued by the idea, but has never once seriously considered it enough to bring it up to any previous partners. Not that they stuck around long enough for him to consider breaching the topic with them. It’s not all inherently malicious of his or their own doing. Most of the time it’s quite clear what lines should be crossed and which ones shouldn’t. 

But something dances in your eyes. Calum watches the way you watch him. You seem to dance down from his face over his neck and chest down the length of his arms. He wonders if you’re imagining something different than the scene in front of you; would it include rope or wax? Perhaps, there’s something much more sinister behind the deep irises. 

“Are you saying all I need to do is ask?”

“I’m technically implying it, but yes.” 

It’s a heavy stare that you level him with; intense eye contact and a smile that lifts one side of your mouth higher than the other. He knows that look, knows what it means. His toes curl in the boots and the cracked leather under his thighs is suddenly way too hot. The denim feels damp when he shifts a little and the stiff construction of the jeans brush over his growing erection. He is damned but it does not matter. His heart races, a prickle of sweat forming on the end of this nose and under his pits. Yet, Calum feels no obligation to move. The panic doesn’t make him want to flee. He wants to be consumed. Swallowed whole by whatever desires you have. 

“But perhaps another time,” you shrug and then smile as the waiter approaches. 

“Oh, looking at the dessert I see. Anything catch your eye? I recommend the apple pie. Best thing on that menu,” the waiter comments. 

You hum, casting a quick glance down to the menu with a nod. “I’ll go with that then. Is it served with ice cream by chance?”

The water nods. “Sure is. Always,” they laugh. 

“Perfect. Could I get it with two spoons?”

“Absolutely you can. I’ll be right back with it.” 

Calum is sure he resembles a stone carving, held in place by a prickle of fear that if he’s not careful more than just pictures of a date may surface. Something caresses his ankle, it’s a dulled sensation thanks to the thick leather of the boots but the pressure remains as the movement traces up along his shin before it drops. There’s an uproar from the bar, men and women huffing about some game. It’s not quite football season yet. Teams should be headed into conditioning now and games starting in about October if not a little earlier. But the noise is a perfect backdrop. You bring his hand to your mouth and kiss the back of it. The action is coupled off with a tease bite--hardly with enough pressure to cause redness, but just enough pressure to start the recognition of pain-- and the whimper slips. It’s swallowed on the outside of the booth by the roaring crowd but inside of the booth the sound resonates. 

“There he is,” you tease, reclining back into your seat.

Before Calum can blink himself back to the reality of the restaurant, the plate is settled into the middle. Two spoons sit off opposite sides of the apple slice. The dollop of ice cream is starting to melt and trickle over the sides. All Calum feels capable of doing is staring. His muscles are locked, part of it is a small bit of embarrassment. He’s hoping no one heard it, and another part of him is wondering what happens if someone did. What might the world think of him if they only knew?

“C’mon,” you encourage. 

Calum blinks now and sees the spoon near his face. It has a good scope of ice cream and pie on it, too much that it looks like it’ll topple at any second. But a balanced portion of both items. The ice cream drips just a little onto your lower, waiting palm. It feels like it falls in slow motion until it hits the crevices of your palms. Time speeds back up. The noise of people talking, the clink of forks on plates sound back up in Calum’s ears. Always a sneaky one, you are. Always looking for those buttons. And you always find them. Calum never shies away from their exposure. 

Calum inches forward to swipe the sugary concoction into his mouth, but not without taking hold of your now sticky palm. The urge to lick your palm clean hits Calum. After swallowing down the bite Calum swipes up the melted ice cream onto two fingers. He sucks his fingers and watches the shift of your weight from your side of the booth.  “Tastes better that way,” he grins and then takes a spare napkin to dab up the excess. 

“I am sure it does.”

The pie doesn’t last long between the two of you. While it was a decent size slice, the apples are cooked to perfection; melting every so slightly with minimal chewiness. They don’t melt instantly, but they are soft and cooked thoroughly without turning into a slurry mush. It’s all too easy to take scoop after scoop. The spoons settle against the empty plate with a perfectly synced clink. 

“Anything else?” Calum asks. He starts to rattle off about the fudge brownie they have but the shake of your head is vigorous. 

“No, no, if I eat anything else I’ll pop,” you huff. 

Twilight is settling by the time Calum and you push off the leather seats and start back to the car. The purpling sky is interrupted by the distinct flash of a camera only a few moments after Calum opens the door for you. It’s clear to tell the sight startles you and he takes your hand, sliding now to block your body with his. 

He wishes he’d prepared you more for this. He’d prayed that no one would show up. Yet, as fate would have it, someone always does. The second flash is slow to come. There's probably just one person hanging around. “You okay?” he asks. 

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

“I’ve got you if you want to keep your head down. Just…just stay close, alright?”

Another flash blinks through the darkening evening. Your step is small but inches you into Calum’s space. “Okay.”

Thankfully, it’s a short walk. You stay just a half step behind him and the entire walk is just bursts of light. There’s a voice that calls out, but Calum ignores it, listening instead for the thud of your shoes on the concrete. Calum’s already palming the fob to his car to be ready to have the doors unlocked and get you inside as quickly as possible. Two more shutters sound before the pair of you get to the car. The lights flash as Calum unlocks the doors and helps you inside, still attempting to shield you as much as possible. 

“C’mon, Cal. Give me something. We’ve been at this a long time together.”

The voice of the pap is clearer now and when Calum does look up, only briefly, he notices it’s the same guy who started a rumor nearly two years ago about Calum out with a friend, Nicole. She and Calum met in college. She went off to Physician’s Assistant school a year or so after they graduated college. Nicole comes back into town for the holidays to see her family. It’s usually then during that break that she and Calum get together anymore--usually for dinner with other friends if they can all manage a good day in their schedules.  That one dinner, which had dwindled down to just Calum and Nicole due a bad flu season, had been captured on film though that year. Like fire only needs oxygen--the platonic dinner went up in tabloids like a new sparkly romance. Save for the fact that weeks went by with no new updates or sightings so it quickly quieted down. 

“Fuck off,” Calum returns to the pap and lifts up into the driver side of the SUV. 

“I take it you don’t like him,” you quip after Calum’s pulled out of the parking lot.

“I don’t think I really like any of the paps that harass me. But him in particular, I don’t care for.”

“What’d he do?”

The thing about the photos is that it hadn’t caused a ripple in the slightest for Calum’s life. Though Nicole did have to eventually move practices where she was working for safely. “Jeopardized a friend’s safety,” Calum answers. “He didn’t doxx her, but it was still pretty bad.”

“Is he particularly fond of stalking your favorite places to go?”

“Sometimes.” He’s not there often, but he is there frequently enough that Calum knows him by sight now. Though Calum can’t pinpoint the car the guy drives, Calum can always pick him out in a crowd now. 

“Are you okay? Guy seems like he comes up a lot then.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. What about you? I know the flash can be dizzying.”

“I’m okay. The first time it went off it was a lot. I finally understand why deers freeze sometimes. I would’ve been roadkill.”

“Sorry I didn’t give you a proper heads up.”

“No harm, no foul, Calum.” 

He catches that. No pet name and though Calum is dying to hear it again, he understands. It’s still a nice sound, the way you say his name--soft like coaxing a scared animal out of hiding; needing to exude as much gentleness as possible as not to unravel the fragile moment. 

“Sounds like you’ll need some new hang out spots though? A place you can just breath with no nosey Nancy’s around.”

“I had a place,” Calum returns. “Well, I guess I still have it. It still exists. Just needs some sprucing up.” He could say that, though it is in the middle of already being renovated. And it’s not really his anymore as it is something he’d like to share--something he can include you in on. 

“Could I see? I know it won’t be in the most pristine condition so you literally don’t need to warn me.”

It is killing me. He wants to show it to you but he thinks about what your reaction might look like should it be revealed when it’s all done. Calum knows he can't keep this secret for too long. It'll kill him if he does. He wants to tell you about all the updates on the project.

The roof was repaired a couple weeks ago. Now there’s some paneling in the midst of being fixed up. Once that’s done the outside can be painted. The inside’s been gutted and waiting for the wall and the floors to go down. Next he’ll see what he can do about getting at least a space heater and a tiny area for at least a kettle in the winter and a fridge. It may be more than  It’s not a long project but it is one they’ll need to get complete before the weather gets too cold or the rains come. Fall can be weepy at times and would only serve to set them back if the take too long to finish it.

Perhaps, you’d enjoy knowing now. Calum knows he would. He’d appreciate not trying to hide on the calls the work he’s been doing or trying to shower before he sees you, a bit more difficult given that he works on the renovations mostly on the weekends and you’re at the castle too at the same time. You’re working usually, or asleep in his room, but it’s still right on the edge of being caught it feels. 

“You don’t have to show me. I don’t want to push you,” you state. 

“I-No, it’s not that. It’s not that I don’t want to. I started some work on getting it in good shape. So, just be warned,” Calum laughs. “It’s still a little rough.” He doesn’t know when the project will be fully done anyway. But the building still stands, there’s still a place Calum goes when he wants to get away. 

“I’ll be sure to give it some extra grace.”

It’s like you give either a little extra grace lately with him. Calum is grateful to hear you say that, the way you don’t seem phased at the prospect of something not being complete. Calum guesses the irony in all of this is that nothing in your life has probably felt complete. Maybe you don’t worry about that because even when you get somewhere that feels like you could settle it’s pulled out from underneath you. Maybe turbulence has become akin to peace. The only hope Calum has is that he can ease the rocking seas, that he can help you get to a point where you’re not always waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

He can’t brute force it. You’d asked him to promise that and he wouldn’t break his word. Yet, as the skies continue to darken and the light of dying stars twinkles above his head, Calum hopes this can be a small respite. A small place for you to have peace like he did here. The garden’s aren’t necessarily lengthy as they are wide. To walk it lengthwise would only take a couple of minutes, but to take in its depths is a journey of many more yards. There are rows of bushes and flowers outlined on the grass path. There are containers that rest above the ground near the back. It’s easy to spot their shadowy figures amongst all the flora around. There’s some vegetables his mother grows. She likes to still work the land with her hands when possible, so they keep up the container gardens for her. 

But back in the depths, back behind the new gardening shed lies the place Calum used to escape too. Even before the old shed was gutted out and replaced, he’d walk the soft path down and down and down until he reached the edge. The old shed remains only because Calum insisted on it. Had it not been for him, they’d taken it down fully, used parts of the innards and exterior for the new one. But Calum asked to keep it up. So when he couldn’t sleep, when the worries pressed so loud in his own ears, he’d walk using stars as light to the old shed. Even in the rain, bundled in a coat, his boots sloshing in the wet grass, Calum would come out to the old shed. He’d unhook the latch, shimmy his way inside and watch out the window across from the one folding chair he kept at the ready to the stars. He’d listen to the sounds of the night--in the summer chirps of crickets, in the winter the soft whisper of snow.

“Your mother’s spinach might be ready to pick.”

Calum turns to the right, where he knows his mother’s planted spinach just a few weeks prior. “How can you tell? I can’t tell ever when it’s ready to be picked.”

“Just a guess since it’s dark right now. I watched her when she planted them and I know they won’t last too much longer if they aren’t picked now. The night and morning temperatures are getting dewy.”

“Do you garden?” You hadn’t mentioned it before. Calum would be intrigued to know if he might be able to find another link between you and his mother, something else to keep you two close. 

“Mrs. Shirley did. I’d help her sometimes.”

“And Mrs. Shirley, were you close with her?” Calum can’t place the name, but wants to be sure he hadn’t missed something important. He also doesn’t want to be made a fool if she’s important.

“She’s who taught me how to make the biscuits. It’s her recipe.”

“Oh, wow. Was she an instructor in culinary school?” Calum never considered to ask where it came from. Just knew that yours were vastly different than the last chef--sweet without sacrificing the savory integrity. Soft, but never chalk-like. 

“No, I met her when I was volunteering at a homeless shelter while in school. I worked early in the morning to help prepare breakfast like I do now.”

“You’ll have to tell her that her biscuits are a big hit amongst our family and the entire staff in general too.”

You nod. “Yeah, I’ll let her know.” 

Your eyes look a little glassy, not quite like tears are falling. But they could. They are threatening at the edge. Calum pulls you in closer, hands slipping down to your waist. The jacket has kept you well and warm, as he can feel heat radiating off you. “What is it, baby?” Calum asks. 

“I just--I haven’t talked to her in a while. I hope she’s doing okay, you know?”

“We can call her next week. How does that sound?” He doesn’t want to put the onus just on you. There’s few things in life that a five minutes spared can’t help or fix. The least he could do is be there as emotional support if you needed it. Calum presses a soft kiss to your forehead, nose burying just a little in the hair at the top of your head. 

“I’d appreciate that.”

“Anytime, baby. C’mon, we’re almost there.”

It’s past the probably ripe spinach, and the containers of cabbage when the newer, brighter green building opens up, Calum continues on down, off the grass onto the gravel. Just behind the hedges that outline the gardens rests the old shed. There’s lumber still out, leaning and resting against each other. The work table is stationed a yard away to the left. The power tools are tucked inside or housed separately in the garage. But the old shed still looks like it used to in some ways. Still a rectangle with chipping blue paint. 

“I didn’t know this old shed was still up. I thought they tore it down,” you comment. “Or at least that’s what I was told that it was torn down.”

“I asked them to keep it up but they told me the only way to let it stay was to put the new one directly in front of it from the farther vantage points so it’s not so much of an eye sore.  But I come here, when I want to get away. The inside’s a lot cleaner now too, thankfully.”

“Inside? Who do you have working on this project?”

He watches you take a few steps closer over where the bench usually holds the blueprints. They shouldn’t be still out, given that this week did have the potential for rain in the later half. From what Calum can tell, they've been collected. “Well, it’s me and a few others actually,” Calum answers. 

You hum as you softly inch closer and closer up. “Any plans for it once it’s restored?” Your cough is swallowed by the innards as you poke your head inside. Calum holds onto the door so you can cross through fully. 

“Uh, not sure yet,” he cautions. “But could I run some ideas by you?” 

“Oh, yeah, sure. But I mean it’s your spot, so whatever you want will probably suffice.”

Calum nods. He is sure whatever he did choose would be okay. But still he wants to make sure he’s going in the right direction for you. “I just need a second opinion, that’s all.”

“Well, I’m happy to assist.”

“So, here, I’m thinking about adding a little mini kitchen island. Cabinets at the button and an outlet for a little mini fridge and maybe at most an electric kettle. The back wall would be mostly storage--shelves. Books, or something.” Calum shuffles to the wall opposite of him, where he normally sits but is currently now housing more lumber, stain and miscellaneous tools. “I might keep something else on those shelves too.”

“Like what?”

Calum shrugs. “Some art supplies. Don’t know. But here,” Calum motions around him. “I’m thinking of a little couch. I don’t know. Some kind of seating. I was considering building some benches into the wall like in the kitchen with a little table and then some stools or other chairs to be scattered about. Just a little cozy spot to hang out.”

You’re nodding, attention elsewhere as if you might be trying to picture what Calum is describing. But Calum’s breath is caught in his throat like a pill that didn’t get washed down with enough water. It is a lump, poking, and Calum won’t be able to release it until you address the one little line, some art supplies. 

“Is there a safe way to get the power out here? Looks like it could get awfully cold in the winter. There isn’t much else around to break the winds.”

“We’re looking into some solar panels. I’ve got a time scheduled with an electrician next week to make sure it’s all good.”

He wants to tell you more--how he envisions you out here, stopped up on a stool or possibly standing while he’s on that bench in the corner, watching. The strokes of your brush are faint in his imagined scene, but the windows are open with a spring breeze coming through. Perhaps another puppy is soaking up sun at Calum’s feet.

Yet, you haven’t cracked the code. 

“Good. Sounds like you’re really going to breathe new life in this old place.” The smile that you bestow on Calum is bright. 

“I’m going to try. I figured there’s decent space to share too.”

“With friends?” you ask. “Is there anyone else you know who likes to paint?”

There it is. That’s what Calum was waiting for. His shoulder drops and he waves you over with a wag of two fingers. You shake your head with a laugh, backing into what’s almost the center of the gardening shed.

“I think an easel stand would look good here, don’t you?”

Calum’s response is a nod. It’s where he imagined one too. “I’ve got an old buddy from college that’s into the arts too.”

“Ceramics? Illustrations?”

“Music, actually. But I think he knows another guy who is into ceramics now that I think about it.” The gap is short to close and when Calum’s pressed into your chest, he wastes no time to wrap you up into his arms. “So what’s your second opinion?”

“I think you should match the original blue when you paint the outside again.”

“I’ll take that as you like it.”

“Yeah,” you nod, taking Calum’s cheeks into your palms. “I do like it. Thank you. For thinking of me. I don’t know what else to say besides thank you. I can’t imagine the effort it’s taken and will take.”

“I figured you’d like a little bit more elbow room than what your room has right now. It’s not all that hard if I’m honest. The guys are a good bunch; even when I’m slowing them down.”

“Is this what I have to thank too for the deliciously sweaty photo that may or may not be my home screen background now?”

Calum laughs, quick and from his chest before shrugging. “It may or may not be.”

“Thank you,” you whisper against his lips, “my love.” 

 ______________________________

Irony is how the paper shakes in your grasp, how you’re knocking but not quite sure if it’s loud enough and you want nothing more than to slip the page under the crack at the bottom of the door, but your feet don’t carry you an inch out of place. You are here, now, bolted to the floor in front of Janet’s office. You can’t back out of this, can’t just slip it to her. Not after how integral she’s been in you securing the new job, in how long you’ve stayed, in getting you out of the monotonous routine you had for yourself. 

“One second,” Janet calls back. Her keys click though as she shuffles about. The door creaks open a few seconds later and when she sees you, the single page in hand, her face crumbles. “No, stop. Already? I thought--oh,” she sighs. “I wanted you to get something else quickly. I know it’s gotta be stressful, but I don’t think I’d ever be prepared.”

“That makes two of us.” Your throat quivers as you try to force the words out and you know the words are all shaking too. “This-this is for you.” The words feel like concrete, heavy thuds as they fall to the floor. 

Janet nods, taking the letter. You watch her read over the words, the date for the middle of September sticks out like a sore thumb you know. It was the last part you put in, knowing that once you put that down your fingers wouldn’t be able to type anymore so you came back to it. Janet’s eyes are glassy when she looks back to you. “I’d ask if there’s anything we can do to keep you, but it might be a useless question.”

“I’d never go as far as to say useless. The priorities are different.” They’re vastly different now. No longer is this a game of pay, of trying to find the top dollar and best benefits. It’s a matter that’s utterly out of even your own control. You want to see how far things will go with Calum. You want to go on more dates. You want to see how that old shed comes together. You want to have him in your kitchen, laughing as popcorn sounds in the microwave and the movie is queued up. You want a simplicity you’ve never fucking had--even if it means gardening with Joy and being a terrible caddy with David. 

Janet nods, arms opening up. “Can I have a hug?”

It’s easy now, to slot yourself into her embrace. Though you two hadn’t previously been this affectionate, there was always a jab or two, you can’t deny such a simple ask. Her hold is firm, a squeeze around your shoulders that feels like it could crack your bones. You don’t object though. You hold back tighter. Even though Janet was a boss, you know that you’re not just leaving a job. You’re leaving a little piece of your family-- a family that you choose but you’d choose a thousand times over. 

The sob racks up your chest. It’s a cry that blindsides you but you don’t hold back. Janet gently shushes in your ear. “We’ll still be here. I’ll call your new job like a mom and tell them not to overwork you and to not let you overwork yourself. We’re not going anywhere.”

Janet’s words are comforting, but you know that you’re not crying because it’s change. You’re crying because this places feels like home. It’d never dawned on you--not even as you dished up everyone’s individual breakfast orders or stitched buttons back onto uniforms or tagged in to help set up for events. But now it’s all crashing down. This was a job and it will always be just that. But the folks here have become home. 

“Thank you,” you sob into Janet’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Her voice is tight and you think she might be crying too. “Tell him he better not ever break your heart or I’ll make sure the next breakfast shift makes burnt pancakes for him. Everyday. No one will fix them for him either. I promise.”

Your laughter is choked, torn between the amusement and trying to suck back down the snot and tears. Only Janet would ever consider such a thing. “I’ll let him know.” You try to break the embrace, peel back because you know without a doubt Janet’s business. 

Yet, Janet squeezes you tighter. She clings to you and you don’t fight it. “You have to visit us. You can’t forget about us.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

It takes you ten minutes in the bathroom to get the stains off your cheeks and for them to lose the flush thanks to your tears. The cool water is a welcomed addition to the heat that’s flooded through your body with the emotions. You know soon you’ll need to get into the kitchen, not that your shift is anytime soon, you’ll actually need a nap between now and then, but there’s a CCTV in there to watch. With the voting happening, everyone’s wondering if the ratification of the emergency funds will go through. It’s been dire straits now to think about what you could do with the cash--your dental bill’s been paid off now, all important bills are up to date. Perhaps you could get ahead on the Christmas shopping or save it for a rainy day. 

There’s commotion as always in the kitchen, the creak of the door seems to hardly register as the crew’s gathered around the kitchen island. Declan’s at the stove, manning dinner it appears. Yvonne and Cyprus are at his right and left, dawned in their chef coats too. “You feeding the whole Cabinet today or what?” you ask, leaning against the wall next to Declan. 

He laughs. “Nah, not today. Gotta get the meat ready though now.” His focus remains on the hunk in front of him for a moment. You can spot oregano, basil, thyme, salt, pepper, and a few other spices that already decorate the cut. “Janet would’ve lost her whole head if we were, you know that already.” His brows furrow as he takes you in. “You okay? Your eyes are a little red?”

You nod, though your throat threatens to close up again on you at the thought. You’ll have to tell him, and everyone else soon too. Before the week is out of course. They’ll need to know. “Yeah, I’m okay,” you squeak out and then clear your throat to relax the muscle. You can’t cry again. Not here. 

The TV crackles a little, voices still far away come floating in through the speakers. You watch for a moment as members of the Cabinet come filtering in. You spot Joy and David, and find yourself with your heart racing trying to spot Calum. He’d been long gone by the time you gained full consciousness though you barely remember giving him a good luck kiss before he left in the morning. 

“You don’t sound okay,” Declan counters. His voice tears your focus from the screen back to him. “Did you and him get into a fight? I’ll kick his ass.”

“No, not that. Also, Declan, I think I could hold my own in a fight if it came down to it.”

“You can tell me what’s going on, you know? Whenever you’re ready of course. But if it is the prince, just let me know. I know some guys,” Declan teases with a wink. 

“Declan I will deck you if we don’t got the rub together before the new fucking year,” Cyrpus snaps. She stalks over, a mixing bowl held to her body as she whisks away at the bowl. You’re not sure what it is, but think it may be a dessert. 

“It is my turn as head cook. Things get done when I say they get done not the other way around,” Declan huffs, but turns back to his work of getting the rub on. 

“But he still listens to me,” Cyprus teases in your direction. The door opens behind you, you catch the squeak in the hinge. 

“Good afternoon,” Calum’s voice cuts through the chatter of the kitchen. The silence falls instantly around the room. A hand rests on your shoulder and you know Janet’s joined the room too. “Thank you for joining me today. I know we are here today to vote on a long debated and much needed issue. I understand for the members of Cabinet present here today that me taking the lead on this voting is a little bit different to previous times. And I greatly appreciate your willingness to hear me out today as the last speech; it is an honor. Over the last few weeks, we have borne witness to an economic leap--one that’s leading our constituents to face decisions no one should be forced to make. Should they get grocery? Are they able to forgo medications? How much can they pay on a bill before the service gets cut off fully? Questions that should not be plaguing the people we, in these roles, take responsibility in helping. 

“I wanted to write this speech with two matches under it; a fire to make big progress and prove to myself that I could be a good leader and to prove that I could make real change. I had an image of myself built on the years I spent in university where I am aware of the crevices. I’m reading up on the latest news. I’m watching what laws go into effect and watch what the impacts are. I’m watching how the people I am meant to lead and care for are impacted by the small things. I suppose, I had an imagine of myself with quite a high nose. I thought just because I was younger and just because I was aware of political issues that we collectively in the Cabinet have historically shied away from or stayed conservative on, that I somehow was immune or better than. However, I spoke with a dear friend recently.”

You feel the entirety of the kitchen look back at you even as you keep your gaze lasered in on the freshen shaven face of Calum. You point back to the TV. Even if it is true that you are who he is referring to, you are not the focus. There’s small bouts of laughter as they turn back to Calum. 

“It came to my attention in that conversation that the budget for the staff that works for us, here, in the castle, gets reviewed every three to four years. Which, from a business perspective, is appears to be a perfectly balanced system. It’s just enough time for things to change and, theoretically, just enough time to respond to them without it cutting into the margins and profits substantially. The reality is that a schedule like this calls for sacrifice. Someone has to stitch buttons back on when they’ve fallen off shirts. Someone inevitably comes into work hungry because the money they do get goes towards their children, or nieces or other family members. Someone picks up a second job. Someone picks up extra shifts--even if it means they work 15 or so hours straight. 

“In reality, even a system that seems perfectly balanced is creating a sacrifice. A system built on someone having an over means someone else has the under. In the very same place, we discuss, we meet, we theorize, there is someone else doing the sacrificing. In the very same place where I lay my head down each night, there is someone sacrificing. I polled the current landscape of the staff in the castle. Out of 165 staff members polled, 49 members reported having a second job. 73 reported that they have come into work without a meal prior to their shift. 86 of my staff live at home or with roommates and this still does not always save them money. Over 100 members of my staff polled reported that they have had meals prepared by the chefs at work or saving leftovers from events in order to make ends meet. I am not immune to the propaganda. I am not immune to the smoke and the mirrors. You are not immune to them either. 

“In a poll conducted just three weeks ago,” Calum starts. The screen cross fades to bring up the graphical visual. “78% of the constituents who participated stated that they did not feel the Cabinet responds to major crises in a timely fashion. This based on a sample size of 5,923 participants, a small but mighty sampling. Those that did state that the Cabinet responded quick enough, noted that most of the help received only marginally impacted them. Upon reviewing the response to the medical pricing surge, five years ago in which we worked to help regulate some the pricing on medications, I found that the national insurance coverage received over 11,000 complaints on deductible changes as it impacted the cost of prescriptions. According to formal insurance regulations, 11,000 complaints is not quite significant enough to constitute an internal investigation. Instead, it took several grassroots advocates, with 42,000 signatures in tow, to bring the issue to our door. 

“In the 18 weeks we debated and worked on solutions, there were 53 deaths directly connected to improper access and usage of prescriptions. Doctors reported that the people who passed did so because they were not regularly taking medication needed for health. I don’t know how to reconcile the number 53 after rattling off numbers in the thousands, and tens of the thousands. One might dare say that 53 could not be hefty. Yet, there are 35 of us in attendance. That is one and a half Cabinets dead. 53 direct deaths. 53 grieving families. 53 mothers who have lost children. 53 fathers who ask themselves if there was anything they could’ve done to save their child. 

“You,” Calum emphasizes with a single digit to the members in front of him, “are not immune. I urge this Cabinet, as you vote, to think about the staff in your own homes. Do you know the last time they skipped a meal? Do you know the last time your staff did not fret at the emails and paper statements in their inboxes and mailboxes? Do you know the sacrifices being made in your very homes while you sit here and talk theory? What have you turned a blind eye to in order to maintain your over? Who is under? I urge this Cabinet, as you vote, to vote not just for yourselves but the people who need this relief the most. I urge this Cabinet,  as you vote,  to consider the 53 families who received the news of their loved ones dead because we waited. I urge this Cabinet to consider that it has already been five weeks since we started making substantial strides to get money back into the hands of those who need it. I urge this Cabinet, as you vote, to consider who’s family might get this relief too late, just in time for a debate about what pine box they should get, if we drag on longer.” 

The kitchen erupts into cheers, the hoots and claps echo well above your head. You can hear Declan’s laughter, his shouts of “Someone had to finally tell those old crusties off in a way they understand!” but you are focused on Calum. The fire that stays lit in his eyes, the distinct lack of a closing gratitude, the hard line of his mouth. That is a man with two matches under him. That is a man ready to make waves--damn the boat if it tips over. 

The screen flickers to the floor and you can see the specs of the Cabinet members in their seats. You imagine that the room is tense, that they may be swaying in their seats after such a direct and open flogging. They have to make smart moves now because the man fit to take over the helm will no longer be playing a game of handshakes and behind closed deals. There’s a sense of pride. You feel it in the base of your gut. You know Calum worried himself to death about his speech, about what to say to get through. And surely he delivered. You hope he feels the same way at the end of it too. 

The members of the Cabinet--one by one-- cast their votes into the box. You watch them all. Count every single one of the 35 slips as they fall into the box. The part that you hate, the part that you know will stir your gut with anxiety is the count. As the names are off with their vote, your heart lurches. You wait for the name and the call for ‘nay’. 5 for, 6 against. Then 7 for and 6 against. 8 for, 6 against. 10 for, 9 against. 11 for, 12 against. 15 for, 12 against. 16 for, 13 against. 17 for, 13 against. 17 for, 14 against. 19 for, 16 against. 

A tight vote, a race to pull through by a hair. The thing that you realize is some victories, even brutally won, are still victories. This is still a win for Calum. Even a few of the stark and staunch most moderates, swing in favor of economic assistance. Your feet are shuffling, your weight shifts and you know where Calum is vaguely. You know that it’s just a few wings over. You could get there in about ten minutes or so. Yet you stay, you watch on the screen as Calum and David embrace. The smiles they both wear. The cup of David’s hand on Calum’s cheek in pride is a sight you’re glad you get to witness. 

The feed cuts a few minutes later with the count as the last display. The kitchen is slow to resume back to it’s normal pace. Everyone’s still drawn into the now dark TV. You wonder when you held so much anticipation that the bill wouldn’t get passed through. Where had all that pessimism been hiding? Its a shock to see the votes, 19 to 16 still burned into your retinas. “Hell of a speech,” you hear from a cluster at the kitchen table. 

“I’d sure as hell would vote for him if I could,” someone else laughs in return. 

“Alright, if you keep hanging around this stove, I’m going to put you to work,” Declan teases to you. It’s clear he’a ready to get back to work, even after such a rousing speech. The reality though is that the world keeps turning. Even after wins and even after losses, the earth still rotates on its tilted axis waiting for no one. 

You slide away with a laugh and move a bit closer to the kitchen island. THere’s still a crowd around it but you’re hoping to be absorbed into that crowd, make light conversation until you can slip back away for a nap. “No need to tell me twice.” 

You can feel the hover though and turn to find Janet in the space between you and Declan--like a mother torn between her children. You nod her over to you, scooting to a corner of the kitchen island. “If Declan burns the food, just give me a call,” you tease. 

Janet’s laughter is small, but she nods, hand clasping yours. “I know you won’t be far.”

Her comment will raise suspicions and you notice the looks from a few other staff. “Oh, did someone melt your heart outside of the prince now finally?” Yvonne teases. “I’m hoping so.”

You know she means well. Yet Yvonne looks at you the same way Declan did--like they know but don’t want to say what’s going on. “Oh, for a moment, it sounded like you might care.”

Yvonne shrugs. “And if I did?” she huffs, but pats your shoulder as she passes. Perhaps, it’s less about telling them and more about accepting the fact that things have changed drastically. You’re not just the person who comes in when they need it. You’re not just a coworker all the time. Though it feels much too little too late for that. 

“Tell me; are we losing you before or after Christmas?” It’s Val who asks. She’s seated right next to the corner that you’re tucked into of the crowd around the kitchen island. 

“Before,” you return. “Mid September.”

She nods. “Do you think if I took your shift there’s a second prince in the family to fall in love with me?”

You snort at the question. “Worth the shot, I guess. They do say lightning can strike twice.”

“A rarity, but I could try,” Val returns. “We’ll miss you.”

“I’ll still be around. I won’t be going far.”

“Where’d you land?”

“Forest; downtown--couple blocks from the town center.”

She nods, “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard about it. Good food, allegedly. I’m sure you could make it better.”

You shake your head and wrap an arm around her shoulder. She’s the youngest of the group, recently joined for the mid-day shift mostly but takes whatever shifts she can get. You don’t know what her home life is like, but in her, there is a mirror. You see yourself--the person working to escape life. “I’ll just be a line cook and potential bartender to start out. Highly doubt I’d be in the near anyone high enough to influence the menu.”

“You’ll get there soon enough.”

“Maybe. But it’s neither here nor there really. If you really want my spot though, I’ll give you my recipe for french toast.”

“But not your biscuits? I see how it is.” The two of you share a teasing grin but Val nods before speaking, “Deal. You work tonight?”

“When am I not here working?” you return. 

“When you’re upstairs getting smooches,” Cyprus interjects. 

“Who’s getting smooches?”

The voice nearly startles you but you catch the cologne; it soothes the ache in your chest. He’s not directly pressed against you, but now that you’re aware you can feel him behind you. You release Val and turn to face him. The grin’s lifting your cheeks before you can stop yourself. “Congratulations,” you offer first. “Hell of a speech.”

Calum reaches into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and produces a pack of matches. You’d jokingly bought a matchbook of them from an antique shop that you happened across in search of second hand canvases that you might be able to use and to find something to replace the desk lamp in your room; you’d come up on a bust for either one of those but did manage to find the matchbook. The matchbook had small individual packets in them. And now the white cardboard of the match pack is tucked between Calum’s fingers. “I had my good luck charm.”

You gingerly take the pack from his fingers, and flip it open. “If only now you had something to light with them.”

“I think it might defeat the purpose of them being a good luck charm.”

“Only one way to find out.” It’s not lost on you about the box also tucked into that inside pocket of Calum’s jacket. You press the match back into Calum’s chest, over the box of cigarettes. “But seriously, that was fucking incredible. Perhaps, not all politicians are bad.”

“Well,” Val teases from behind you. “I don’t know about all that.”

You snort and Calum’s laughter shakes him too as he takes hold of your hand still pressed into him. “I’d say I’m offended, but I’m far from it,” Calum states. “Can I steal you away for a second? It’s nothing bad and can wait if you’re busy.”

“I can spare a second.” You follow behind Calum as he leads the way out. The crowd lets out a few whistles and the urge to flip them all off wins out against the better odds. You raise the single middle digit into the air briefly and there’s a roar of laughter from the group. 

Calum leads you down the hallway, like one would take to get to the front of the castle but ducks into a small offshoot of the hallway. Around another corner, a door reveals itself and it’s not long before the two of you are outside. It’s a side of the castle that none of the windows in the kitchen face, which is a plus. Here you press in a little closer to Calum, daring a grasps at his waist. The belt presses into your palm as your fingers catch around the loops. 

“How do you feel about that speech?” you ask.

Calum’s exhale is heavy. “I-I don’t know how I really feel. Relieved. A little stoked.  A lot of emotions right now I think that I can’t pick apart if I’m honest. I wanted to find you immediately, but it took a little while to do the rounds.”

You shake your head. “No it’s okay, Calum. You have to do those formalities. I get it. But I hope, once you’re able to dissect those emotions a bit more there’s pride in there too. You were phenomenal.”

“It wouldn’t be the same speech it was if you hadn’t asked those questions. If you had made an accusation, or kept quiet, I think I’d be looking at a very different outcome.” 

“Well let’s be glad I didn’t do any of those things.” 

“I am. I’m very glad.” 

The gap between the two of you inched closer and closer together. And like magnets the final push happens together. You reach up towards Calun and he reaches for you. The kiss is soft, a gentle press of lips slotting together. As much as you want to give in, press your body into Calum's, you settle for the quick squeeze at his hip. A teasing hiss falls from his throat. “Tell me you’re staying through the day?” 

You nod at Calum’s question. “I am.” 

“Good, I want to properly show you my gratitude.” 

The exhale of laughter is quick. “I haven’t forgotten about the diner either. You little masochist.” 

“Tricks up your sleeves? Or are you just a sadist with nothing to back it up?”

A hum falls from your throat. “That’s a lot of lip coming from the guy that’s begging.”

“Well, not yet I’m not.” Something buzzes from Calum’s pocket--his phone you assume. He ignores it, coming in again for another kiss. It’s deeper than the first, but still chaste enough. “Tell me, how long did you know?”

“Know about what?”

“The smoking,” Calum answers. 

“I had suspicions when I took us on the picnic. Was confirmed when I got in your car the other day by the smell”

“I’d say I’m trying to quit.” Calum offers it with a grimace. You don’t mind the habit much. You shrug at the statement. He’s probably on and off on the habit as the smell is not overpowering in the slightest. And there’s no reason to force him into something he wasn’t ready to give up yet anyway. 

“Well, it’s a good thing I’m not asking you to be a liar.” There’s another buzz. “Someone’s trying real hard to get in contact with you,” you tease. 

Calum huffs a little. “Yeah, apparently.” 

His half step back to gather the phone from it’s pocket gives you enough time to look him over. The navy blue suit, as always, is tailored to perfection. It’s clear he means business, and you hate the way he’s lately been wearing the dress shirts with the top couple of buttons undone. You don’t actually hate it, thought more often than though the thought of tracing the valley of his chest with your tongue has come to mind. The thought doesn’t linger long, as you trail your gaze up to his face again. 

“I’m proud of you,” you whisper to him. 

Calum’s snap is fast--so fast you think he might drop his phone. But he looks up at you, eyes wide. “What?” he questions. 

“I said I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you, baby.” You swear for a second you see his chin wobble, but Calum grins in return, slipping his phone back into the pocket. “I’ve gotta head back, but I should be done before 5:30. Do you think you’ll still be up?”

“If I’m not up, you have permission to wake me.” It’s about 3 right now, you figure. Maybe a little before, but definitely not quite four. You don’t think you need that long of a nap, but you do know you’ll need sleep. 

“No, no. If you’re still asleep, I’ll get you up after dinner then. No need to interrupt your sleep. Did it go well with Janet?”

“We both cried. But, she understands.” That’s about well as it could go, if you’re honest. “I didn’t realize I’d miss all of them so much.”

“You all are like a highly dysfunctional, yet functional family. I wish I could say you don’t have to give it up. But you don’t have to stop being friends with them. That’s not something I want for you, given how much I’m part of the reason so much of your life is being uprooted.”

Your worry though is that things will shift. When you go and if things with Calum get more serious, you worry that the relationship will have to change then. It’s a worry that you can’t afford to hold onto right now. You don’t know where things are going. You know you want to carry this torch with Calum for as long as it’ll burn. You want every second you can with him. But the future is evasive--the murky waters that don’t clear until your waist deep in them. You just need to wait until you’re waist deep in it. 

“They’re nice.” You want to try and find a way to continue whatever relationship you’ve built with them. 

Calum cups the back of your head, lips pressing into the skin of your forehead. “They’re your friends, baby. You’re allowed to call them that. I’ll see you tonight, okay? I’ll bring you a plate if you want.”

“Check the meat first. Declan’s cooking dinner.”

Calum’s laughter is soft against your skin. “I’ve yet to get sick from anyone’s cooking. But I’ll check it before taking the first full bite. If it’s all clear I’ll bring you a plate. Let me walk you back, okay?”

“Okay.”

The hallways are quiet, but you know the kitchen is always alive. Calum cracks open the door to the kitchen and lets you in first. Yvonne, Cyprus, and Declan are still bouncing around the kitchen. A few others are already gone, most likely only hanging around for the vote after their morning shifts. Calum doesn’t cross fully into the kitchen, leans into the door he’s got cracked open. His smile is soft. 

“Play nice. I don’t want any calls from Ms. Janet,” Calum teases. 

You shove at his shoulder, the heat flooding your cheeks. “I’ll have you know it’s only a problem if you ever get caught.”

“Well, then, I guess don’t get caught then.” He winks and starts to back away from the door. 

Once the door closes, you exhale. You didn’t want him to go yet, but you know he has too. “Oh you’re not even going to get a kiss goodbye?” Val shouts from behind. 

“Oh,” you groan. “You lot are going to be insufferable from now until eternity I take it.”

“You wouldn’t have us any other way,” Cyprus laughs. And, you know that you wouldn’t. Not in the slightest. 

______________________________

Calum takes the door handle tight in his palm, easing his weight into it. The light under the door is still off and he’s not sure if it’s from your departure from his room this afternoon or if you’ve returned and gotten the nap in like you said you might. So he takes the steps into the room carefully. There’s a small shuffle from the sheets and Calum’s quick as he can to get the door closed. The light from the hallway fades as he sweeps the door closed. 

I’m proud of you. The soft utterance has echoed in his mind the entire afternoon. It’s played like a loop--the soft look and ooze of pride on your face. It’s not that he thought he’d done terrible. He felt good about the speech. A couple people approached him and tld him how rousing it was. The close vote didn’t exactly help his vote of confidence either. Yet, Calum still felt an odd mixture of emotions--some of them a lingering anxiety that he now considers something he’ll be dealing with for quite some time. He’ll always be concerned about how what he says is received. He’ll always be worried that he’s not doing enough. 

But you’d stilled most of that concern with such a simple phrase, I’m proud of you. He had done good. He’d won the vote like he wanted. It is still a victory nonetheless. 

“No,” you groan as Calum settles onto the bed next to you. “No, you’re too handsome right now for me to resist you.” Your voice is thick with sleep. 

“Just one kiss,” Calum barters. 

You blindly reach for his face. “One.”

Calum captures your lips in a kiss, once, and nearly goes in for a second you, but you fall back into the pillows. He kisses your cheek instead and pushes up from the mattress. I’m proud of you, feels almost as good as the first time the two of you shared an ‘I love you’. So Calum lets the thought carry him to his bathroom where he strips from the day and showers. He doesn’t need your approval for everything, he knows. But it’s nice to hear it, to have that verbal affirmation to what he knows the two of you share. 

Changed into an old T-shirt and flannel pants, Calum slips onto the bed next to you. He stays above the covers, but does press another kiss to your temple. This time you don’t rouse awake. He knows in another hour or so your alarm will ring if it’s set, so he settles against the pillows. Like clockwork his right hand falls to the top of your head, light scratches against your scalp as he picks up his phone in his left hand. 

Calum checks through is texts first--a few from friends who also watched the voting today and congratulating him. One reminding him of his dental appointment next week and then one from Michael--outside of the group text. Don’t ask how I found this. Attached to the message is a link. Calum doesn’t like the look of things just from the preview and when he opens it, pictures from the date the other day load up first--one of Calum walking you of the restaurant. Your face is mostly hidden. 

So Calum scrolls on, down until a hot pink headline catches his eye: Even as summer cools off, things with this pair are heating up. 

His heart thunders in his chest as scrolls down. A picture of you kissing Calum’s hand is the first one after the headline. It’d be passable if not for the look on Calum’s face. He knows immediately without a doubt people will scrutinize the hell out of it. Though he should be embarrassed about his own pleasure being captured on film--not with his own consent involved of course--the thing he’s worried about is that this causes issues for you. 

You just landed that job and hadn’t even started. The thing Calum doesn’t want are these photos to ruin your shot. They aren’t the most scandalous photos ever--far from it. But they are particularly revealing the more Calum scrolls, pictures of the teases and taunts. Calum tries to remind himself it is tame. There’s no nudity, no sex tape, or sexual photos that have gotten out. It just feels like a warning that nowhere in public is truly safe for you.

The first thing Calum wants to do is call Forest, see if he can get in contact with Turner and ensure that your position stays secure. And the second thing he thinks about is his promise. How you asked him to only be a knight in shining armor when you asked. Right now, Calum knows that he’ll need to tell you when you wake up. He only needs to talk to you and then everything else will be done together as a team--whatever you want. Calum just hopes nothing bad comes as a result of this. There’s no reason for this to get in the way of your new job. Your face isn’t that clear in some of these photos. It wouldn’t be hard to piece together who you might be, but it is a worry that even with your job as a line cook that things might get crazy fast. 

The chime echoes around Calum and he spin from his desk chair to the bed. You push up from the covers to turn off the alarm. When your arms hit the mattress, you sit up. “Why are you way over there?”

“I’m sorry, baby,” Calum returns. He crosses the short distance to your open arms. 

“I don’t like the sound of that,” you whisper into his shoulder. 

“Oh, it can wait a minute. You just woke up.”

“Pictures of our date are surfacing online,” Calum mutters into your neck. “I’m worried it’s going to hurt your chances with Forest.”

“Show me, please?”

It’s hard to piece together your thoughts, not with the furrow of sleep still on your brows as you scroll through tabloid on Calum’s laptop. But you do release a snort after a moment and tip the device so Calum can see the screen. “I’m kissing and nibbling on your hand, baby. I thought it was the picture of you sucking my fingers or like ass out photos.”

“Okay, first, we’ve not been ass out in public so unless they’re deep faked that wouldn’t get out there. Second, there is a photo of me sucking the ice creams off your fingers if you scroll down far enough. Third, there’s going to be more people interested in trying to get the next most scandalous shot of us. The sharks can smell the blood in the water now.”

Calum watches over the top of the screen to the photo in question. It's clear as day with him licking the ice cream off your lingers, the spoon does just enough to block anything that could be construed as too graphic, but it's as close as Calum can get being caught red-handed without having the paint on his hand.

“Hmm, yeah, I can see your concern especially about people knowing that you're really into ice cream now," you snort.

Calum knows it's your attempt to diffuse the situation. The insecurity isn't lost on him, but you've always covered up that fear with a bit of a deprecated humor. It's a smoke and mirror tactic. Though perhaps now some levity isn't harmful. It is, on the face of it, not an appealing photo of Calum--the angle is terrible and if it there weren't high stakes he could find it himself to laugh. These photos are truly child's play to what has come out in the past about people of interest and celebrities, but it's you--you are cost in the crosshairs this time.

"But, I mean, in all seriousness," you continue on, "the first photos plus these don’t make it exactly hard to maybe piece together what I look like. However, if Forest wants to take back a job offer because of pictures of me with my boyfriend then maybe it’s not a good company. I mean, we’re in the business of service. As long as I can cook, then I don’t think my chances are hurt that much.”

You know more about what something like this can mean for your chances. Yet Calum’s not ready to let go of the voice in the back of his head. What if it does hurt your chances? What if after all this you don’t have any income anymore? Calum’s more than happy to help cover whatever expenses you have until you find a job or arrangement that suits your needs best. But you’re going to want to work and find something fast. 

“But,” you start and then stop to clear your throat. “But thing I can do right now is I could try and call Turner and get ahead of this on their end. We can’t stop the folks who do this, but we can take precautions. Go to places a little further out of town. I’ll be a bit more careful about taking bites out of you if you promise to instead suck toes in private. We can figure something out.”

Calum gathers a throw pillow from the floor and whacks you in the shoulder with it. "I highly doubt this situation demands a joke about sucking on toes. And if there's something you want to tell me, please by all means do so. But yes, we could take more precautions."

Your laughter chokes you, a broken but delightful sound. Calum hands over his glass of water. He’d gotten it in the hour-long fret session he’d been down. Michael offered his help too, keeping an eye out for any more sites that post the photos and so his best to collect them for Calum. Calum could then go to Miranda with a clear list of who would be slapped with whatever legal red tape she could give them of course. 

“Would you be okay if I went to Miranda and see what she can do? She’s got connections to places we dare not think about.” 

You nod, swallowing down your sip. “Yeah, that’s okay. Just keep me posted on what she says, if that’s okay.”

“More than okay, baby.”

“I’ll call Turner tomorrow after I get home and I’ll let you know what happens there too.”

There’s a plan, as you and Calum settle down into the kitchen and Calum warms up the plate of the food Declan made, he reminds himself there is a plan. There is a plan and the two of you would work it together. 

"So," Calum starts around the plate of cookies he put together himself to snack on while you eat. "We have a plan."

You nod around a bite of potatoes.

"We have a plan," he mutters to himself. It's real. Tangible. A plan. You'll call Turner. He'll go to Miranda. Whatever happens after that just has to come after that. For the most part, you should be okay. It might not be hard to piece together who you are, but it's not easy. There's still time.

There's still time.

"We'll be okay, love. We'll be okay," you offer, taking his hand.

Calum squeezes at the pres of your digits into his palm. "We will."

[deacons-wig]

If It Be Your Will

Chapter 1 Teaser.....

Working on a freeform, E-rated fic with druid Tav and Gale. Here there be magic, Gods, secrets, and un-dooming themselves from the narrative. Coming soon to an AO3 near you.

“I hope this isn’t impertinent, but may I ask…”

“That’s often followed by an impertinent question.” Danae raises an eyebrow Gale and his gentle smile goes crooked and embarrassed. “But I’m curious, so go ahead. 

“Are you charting the heavens? You’ve been stargazing for white a while this evening.” He gestures to her journal, laying open for the world to see while the ink dries.

Danae wrinkles her nose at him. “Aye—in a manner. It’s a map. And a diary. Using Druidspeak. We call them story maps.”

Gale leans forward. Beneath strong brows his eyes are dark shadows, their color indistinguished in the gloom. “Fascinating. I know Druidspeak is a closed language, not one ever taught to outsiders, but I’ve read about these story maps—an ancient tradition, is it not?”

“I’m just mapping the ground we’ve covered,” Danae said, reaching for the journal and gazing down at the intricate diagrams. “Helps me…make sense of things.” 

“May I?” 

Ma and the Circle wouldn’t approve of showing an outsider.

They'd warned her of wizards, interested only in power and damn the world that hangs in balance. Wizards reap the wheat of hard-won knowledge and leave the chaff for common folk. They plunder ancient secrets. But Ma was long dead and Danae’s Circle was broken, leaving Danae alone in the world with a worm in her head and monsters at her heels. And besides, Gale won’t be able to read it. Nor has his telescope escaped her notice—perhaps he’d let her use it if she shared something that interested him.

“Only look at that page, please?” she says. “I don’t want it to smudge.”

He nods solemnly. “I understand the sanctity of one’s personal works. My old spellbook, before—” he bites back his words with a sharp breath, and waves as if swatting away the words he was about to say. “Before all of this…no mortal hand touched it but my own.”

“It’s just a diary,” Danae said, passing it to him. “No fancy spells or anything. Just the stars, and the land, and my thoughts.” She smiles, crooked. “The stars you can likely read. My thoughts, the maps…probably not.”

He gazes at the pages before him, eyes flicking from constellation to constellation. Above their heads, the same stars watch them, impassive and perfect. Her scribblings are but poor reflections.

“Oh, but these are quite perfect! You have the hand of an artist. There, our old friend Firbolg, coming up on the horizon there—the end of high summer… Oh...” His sigh hitches—like he’s been burnt, or stung. She studies him anew: a furrowed brow and the high bridge of his nose make him look as if he’s perpetually solving some difficult problem. His lips part slightly, eyes bright, his chestnut-colored hair doing its best to escape its tie.

“The Lady of Mystery,” he says at last. “I suppose it is Her time now that highsun has come and gone. One of my favorite constellations, you know.”

He hands the journal back back with the same solemnity, and there’s a curious look in his eyes, something haunting that Danae had never seen in him—not that a week is long to know someone--but there's some sorrow he must keep buried deep behind his cheerful, awkward verbosity. Her hand reaches for his arm but she drops it as he shakes off whatever gloom had struck him. Their eyes meet and though he smiles, it is the smile of a condemned man who has long accepted his fate.

“Gale? Are you—”

“Ah, a story for another time.” He gets to his feet with a groan. Danae does the same, collecting the dishes to wash. “Though quiet nights seem few and far between, when we find another you should come and use my telescope. The Tears of Selȗne are especially good viewing right now.” 

Danae’s heart leaps. “Really? Oh, that would be marvelous! If you’re sure…I promise I won’t break it or anything. I—”

“Pish posh,” Gale says. “A broken telescope is right twice a day, anyway—”

“I think that’s clocks, Gale.”

"Hm. I think you may be right. Perhaps I'm taking a funny turn, mixing up my colloquialisms. But! If playing the fool makes you crack a smile, who am I to deny you?"

Danae touches her fingers to her lips and find she's grinning at him. Her cheeks burn hot and pleasant as he takes his leave with a slight and silly.

"Good evening, Danae.”

"'night," she echoes.

She’s nearly asleep on her feet by the time the dishes are done. Danae dresses for sleep, cleans her teeth and dutifully braids and twists her mass of curs in a satin headscarf. At last, bed. She settles gratefully into her blankets just outside the shelter of her tent, gaze straying to the stars.

She finds the familiar abstraction that training has taught her too see as the shape of a woman, eyes veiled and hands aloft. 

The Lady of Mystery. Mystra... Venerated goddess of arcane magic. The weave itself. A ripple of apprehension stirs in Danae’s core, just below her breastbone. She rolls over, curling in on herself until the ache soothes, and her mind turns to Gale and his condemned-man eyes, and she drifts to uneasy sleep. 

[i-am-literally-deranged]

I have long said that Hitori is the most well written character in Hatoful, and I'm right. But most well written ARC goes squarely to Sakuya. Sakuya is possibly the most dynamic character in the game. Sakuya on day one of the game, and Sakuya in the epilogue of BBL are entirely different people.

That's actually part of why I don't usually talk about him all that much. Sakuya has a complete character arc. That's not something that you can really say about the rest of the cast. They all definitely HAVE arcs, but one of the things that keeps me constantly coming back to the series is how none of them feel quite complete. Like they're all still hanging open, their arcs stopped just short of coming around to their proper conclusion. Characters in Hatoful Boyfriend are often just left bleeding. You watch them grow and get torn down by the world around them, and then they come to stop, still hanging and bleeding, neither patched up nor bled out. And it's this incompleteness that makes it stick in my brain. I keep searching for that last note needed to close out the movement, and it's just not there.

Hitori's story is a revenge tragedy, but we never reach the revenge, or the natural conclusion of the tragedy. Both he and Shuu are alive at the end of the story, with nowhere to go. They've backed themselves into a bloody corner, and the story has just left them there. There isn't a resolution. Their narratives can really only end in death, and they don't die at the end, so instead it's left open and incomplete.

Ryouta just gets slowly torn down throughout the narrative. Misfortune after misfortune pile onto him, and he slowly runs ragged. Hatoful Boyfriend is chronicling his descent. From the most normal, cheery member of the cast, to the most broken and miserable. But at the end of BBL, he's just left waiting. Waiting to die or for someone to come back with a cure. Left in a sort of eternal stasis. He's left open and bleeding, without a proper conclusion either way, hopeful or tragic. In Holiday Star he keeps being pushed to confront his abandonment issues, and he just keeps refusing to do so. He never really confronts them despite how many times he's faced with these issues, and again, we're left without a real satisfying resolution to his character arc. He goes most of the way through an arc, and then stops just short of completing it.

Shuu's story is this grand tale of hubris. He so clearly lines up his own downfall with every decision he makes. From how many enemies he makes, to how much he underestimates those enemies. Following Shuu is like slowly going up a rollercoaster headed towards the big drop. It's all build up for either his grand plan going off in this spectacular act of genius, or else his great failure, going out in a big blaze of glory, falling into all of the holes he left for himself, that he thought were too small and unimportant to worry about. And the way he ends is... Neither of those things. His terrible decisions do come back to haunt him, but the price he pays for it is ultimately so small compared to all that he's done. It's underwhelming, and leaves me feeling like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, and for him to finally get his dues, and it just never comes. It's all build up, and then a sudden jarring stop just short of the grand crescendo promised.

Yuuya's arc is a lot like Ryouta's. It's a descent. It's his unraveling. Unlike Ryouta's thought, we do see him putting some of these pieces back together, or at least trying to. The game explores a lot of the consequences of his hero complex, and he fully faces the consequences of his act of revenge, and spends the rest of his arc looking for redemption from this guilt he carries. It's hard to call Yuuya's story a redemption arc. Redemption is the thing he's seeking, but I don't think he's ever really condemned by the narrative even before seeking this redemption. It's more like what Yuuya's arc is about is seeking forgiveness from himself, and seeking to repair his relationship with Sakuya, which is what complicates his arc for me. If it was a straightforward quest for redemption "I took vengeance once, and I am paying for my sins. I seek to redeem my soul" then you could see him taking that scalpel for Sakuya as a conclusion. But the fact that it's never really treated by the narrative as though Yuuya's act of vengeance was actually wrong instead makes it feel less like Yuuya is seeking forgiveness from the universe, but instead like he is seeking forgiveness from himself. In which case, his self sacrifice is a step backwards. It's more of Yuuya devaluing himself, more of him prioritizing others to an extreme. If we take the egg incident to be Yuuya's biggest sin, then BBL is just him repeating those same mistakes again and again. It's him choosing Sakuya over everything to a destructive degree. He chops up Hiyoko's body and covers up her death, to protect Sakuya. He throws away his own life, to protect Sakuya. It's just a loop of Yuuya doing something terrible in Sakuya's name. There's no redemption found in there, only a further spiral. And further reinforcing Yuuya's guilt, and self hatred, and this steady creeping towards the place Hitori is in. And he doesn't really deviate from this path. He continues onward, repeating his mistakes, and slipping towards the same cliff that Hitori plunged off of. Again, it's left unresolved. He keeps starting to learn, starting to heal, starting to confront his flaws, and then not quite overcoming them.

I'm.... Honestly not sure what Anghel's arc is? I know it's about coming to terms with his complicated identity, and being understood by the people around him, but it's hard to say how much progress he really makes on those fronts? Anghel is sort of just... Perfect as he is? He serves very effectively as a plot device, and he's loveable and compelling without having an especially dynamic arc. Anghel is somewhat static, but I don't think that's really a bad thing on him. I'm not sure if he just doesn't have a whole lot going on arc wise, or if I'm just not seeing it right now, but oh well. I'd love to hear someone else give their takes on him, see if I can't find a new perspective to come at him from. But as it is he's just my funky little guy that I love so so much, but in a sort of no thoughts head empty kind of way.

Nageki is the hardest to talk about for me, which is why I saved him for last. He has so much going on. Nageki's route is famously emotionally moving. I cried for it, I think most people did. And I'm not sure exactly how to approach it from a meta perspective. Nageki is almost a sort of... Messianic figure. Nageki died to save humanity, despite all the ways that it had wronged him. You could say Nageki's arc is one of taking back power for himself. He was weak, and unable to do anything for himself or for anyone else either. He felt like a burden, and so when he found an opportunity to do something for someone, to protect people, he threw himself into it regardless of the cost. Even though it cost him his life. He made this selfless sacrifice. But while that was something of an arc of him finding power for himself, I hesitate to call it a full arc. Nageki had always been that selfless. Nageki pre-Hatoful House massacre would likely have been just as ready and willing to give his life for others as he was in the end.

Was it him losing hope then? Nageki being beaten down by the treatment he recieved at the St Pigeonations clinic? In the end succumbing to the misfortune that had haunted him all his life and killing himself? That doesn't feel right either. Nageki dying is, strangely enough, never actually a change for him. Nageki was dead from the beginning of the game. But more than that, Nageki was always going to die. From even long before the game began, Nageki had this clear path to an early death laid out before him. Nageki was ALWAYS going to die. There is no other way for him to go, this was always how it was going to be. And it's how it went. He accepted his fate, embraced it, and leaned into it. He took ahold of his incoming death for himself. It's very difficult for me to identify what exactly is going on with Nageki because it feels like he has SO MUCH going on. Nageki sits nestled at the heart of all of it. Both games orbit around him. I know that Ryouta is the unofficial main character. And I know that you can trace everything that happened in the series directly back to Ryuuji. I know that Shuu is the driving force behind the plot and that he laid out all of the pieces and players for this whole game, that it was all his doing. But Nageki feels, to me at least, like the true heart of the issue. He's your first introduction to the fact that something is truly genuinely Not Right in this world. So much of the plot is all of the living characters chasing after Nageki. Trying to unravel his secrets. Following his trail. Trying to find him. Nageki stands ahead of the crowd, several paces up, and every other character is tripping over themselves running after him.

Nageki is the axis upon which the story rotates. Hitori's entire character revolves around him. Orbits him. Ryouta's downfall is so tightly intertwined with Nageki. At the end of the day, one of Ryouta's most important roles in the plot is simply as a vessel for Nageki. It's carrying a piece if him inside of him. Ryouta's place in the narrative is sometimes as a sort of second coming if Nageki in a way. Shuu's fate was sealed the moment he chose Nageki as his victim, and he has been paying the price for that decision ever since, in little increments. Almost every character has their moment where they serve as a parallel to Nageki. The King's entire thing is RIDDLED with parallels, they are established as sort of foils to eachother. Two ghosts, two sad little birds who died unfortunate early deaths, two people that Hitori feels so responsible for, the two shadows that haunt him. And so much of Holiday Star is about how they handled this differently. How The King used his fire to draw others in and trap them, to make himself feel better and to have company in his misery. And how Nageki, the scorpion, burned himself to ash to free them. It's the scene in the lighthouse, how he was prepared to burn to death all over again. Sakuya is also often cast in parallel to Nageki as part of Yuuya and Hitori's parallels. With these two sets of brothers you have two stories of selflessness and giving as a bad thing. They're about self destruction, and living your life exclusively in service if someone else, and how unfair that can be to the person you are trying to help. How in the end, for all of Hitori's selfless sacrifice none of Nageki's wishes came true, and how for all of Yuuya's selfless sacrifice he wound up hurting Sakuya more than anyone else. And both of them, in this single minded quest, choosing one person above the entire world, leave this trail of bloody mistakes behind them. This parallel casts Nageki as Sakuya's mirror.

In a way, that's really Nageki's role. He's a mirror held up to each member of the cast. And in that reflection you see the worst of each of them. Nageki is sort of perfect, and the narrative stands each other character next to him to show you their flaws. What does Nageki do wrong, ever??? I can't think of a single thing. He doesn't make any real mistakes, so I don't know where to find an arc in that. There's nowhere to go, there's no change. Nageki really does thrive in his role as a ghost. He's sort of intangible, impossible to catch, impossible to hold on to. He's an impossible goal to be chased after, and ultimately, be left unreached. So much of the plot is just looking for Nageki. Looking for his secrets. Looking for his remains. Looking for anything he left behind. Looking for him. Looking for Nageki, and instead only finding your own reflection. I don't know how to discuss that, really. Which is why I usually don't. The story of Hatoful Boyfriend is this massive downward spiral, pulling everyone in, and down to their lowest point, and curled up right in the center of it all is Nageki, with every other story element orbiting around him, but never actually managing to reach him.

But after all that, looping all the way back around to my actual point. Sakuya.

Sakuya's arc actually finishes, and it finishes beautifully. In a story full of people getting worse, chasing unachievable ends, and being left eternally swirling around and around never quite reaching a proper conclusion just getting more and more damaged with each go around, Sakuya actually improves. He has this perfect, solid character arc.

Sakuya starts out as an egotistical bigot, living under false pretenses, with high ambitions of becoming a great leader. Through the story he faces every single flaw he has, confronts it, changes for the better, and grows as a person. And with each one he approaches his goal of being a great leader. Sakuya begins as a good leader, and ends as a fantastic one. He confronts his biases. He confronts his fears. He confronts his beliefs. He confronts himself, his identity. And he comes to terms with all of it, and rises from it stronger, and wiser, and more worldly. Sakuya walks out of the BBL epilogue a hero, and an incredible leader, having made good on all of his promises, and made significant good in the world. He's also quite possibly the least self destructive character we have, save for maybe Okosan, but I'm not going to even touch Okosan here. Sakuya learns from his mistakes and doesn't repeat them. And he achieves all of his goals. Sakuya is the only character not stuck in this downward spiral. And his character arc is just so perfect. It's such a nice clean arc. Sakuya starts out the first game as a genuinely kind of shitty guy. Every time I've introduced someone to the game I've said "It's totally okay not to like Sakuya. I like Sakuya, but when you first meet him it's hard to do, I get it. But just hold on, he gets better, I promise."

Sakuya has a Zuko tier redemption arc. The way that he learns to respect Ryouta more and more throughout BBL, the way that he starts to really think for himself and escape out from under his father's expectations in his route, the way that he was completely untouchable by The King's attempts at manipulation. Sakuya just fuckin THRIVES.

And this is sort of why I haven't really talked about him before today. That unfinished feeling to everyone else's story arcs eats at me. It sticks in my head. I can't stop talking about them because they're COMPELLING and they feel UNFINISHED and now I'm sort of obsessed with it. I'm caught in the loop with them, hunting for an ending that isn't there. The imperfections in these arcs are what keeps me speculating about still, 8 years down the line. I'm still trying to find that ending. But for Sakuya, and Nageki too actually, the only thing there is for me to talk about is why they work so well. And in Nageki's case, I'm not especially sure why, and so I don't have a lot to say on him. He's sort of a mystery to me. But for Sakuya, it is just so apparent to me why he's such an incredibly well written character. It feels sort of redundant to go through it. His arc is clean, and perfect. Just look at it! There's no holes for me to obsess over and write endless essays on. And there's no mystery to how effective it is. It's clean, and simple, and utterly perfect. I don't need to puzzle over how it works so well, because you can just take one look at it and it's all laid bare. He has the ideal redemption arc. The platonic ideal of exactly what his type of character should be. It's perfect. I don't feel like I can contribute much of anything to it by discussing it, further than just shining a light at what about it works so incredibly well.

So I don't.

Simply put, Sakuya has the most well written arc in Hatoful Boyfriend, and I would consider him the second most well written character in all.

[mirthlxss]

Off to the races

Chapter 10: He loves me, with every beat of his cocaine heart

“You need to remember who’s on your side.”

master list

price x oc, series.

a03: pricescigar, Off to the races is posted in full.

taglist:  @deadbranch , @jxvipike, @smoggyfogbottom

warnings: just two stubborn idiots really.

a/n: a series of bad decisions.

Lilith shifted with his mood, dictated to by tone as she lived in the Captain’s wake. Slithers of tenderness. Sympathy, always. But it wasn’t always clear, had to be watched carefully because he was a fickle man, narrative swayed with the direction of the smoke that left his lungs, feelings left to the breeze as he wrestled with the ebb and flow of his mounting responsibilities, tidal waves crashing on the shore of his desire. He’d swim and swim, never quite making it to the sand. 

Here, pleading, chaste kisses pressed to his hand, reverent even as she presented herself before him, soft and belly up. He remained quiet, she did not feel the need to retreat just yet, lips hovering, eyes downcast. She could morph with him, predict the mood, armed and entrenched within herself, she could recoil, each pointed bone that protruded from her form serving as a blade. Soft or sharp? Desperate writhing back and forth from belly to back as she grappled with the need to rip herself apart and present humble and vulnerable, no threat to him, beating heart and bleeding flesh. To invite his worry to borrow in, wrap itself beneath sinew and muscle so that they may agree on something better, nurse a solution together. Something liveable. But John knows, the only thing viable that spawns from himself is death. He could deliver himself and his worries unto her to swallow but what point in soiling fertile promise with rot? 

He will not tell her. She will not rot. 

His silence is deafening and the horrid shift begins. Bones and blades, back and forth, she jerks from him with an agonised sound, smile like stained glass, colourful and ornate as it illuminated the hallow church of her face. 

“I’ll find out eventually.” Ominous enough, not needing to waste precious breath. Assured that within this peculiar prison, someone would crack. “Even worse, John,” She drew him in, piercing eyes a grim slash in the light as she armed herself “Your situation is mine.” Cruel echoes of the Captain’s words claw menacingly from the caverns of her mouth. 

“And I will make it much, much worse for you.” Down and down she’d fallen into his den, what was the point? Of denying it? Why clamber toward the light when the rest circled the warren? They knew more, no chance of fighting the change. 

She’d shift with it. 

With her haunting smile and exchange of words, John remained very still. Wound-tight, rusted wire scraping against each coil, bound by the sheer determination not to snap. “And how do you plan on doing that Lilith?” Price pressed, whistling tone through his teeth, suppressed as always. 

“Well, I’ve seen his face.” Her smile disturbed him. 

Lilith did not make it to Kyle to help him with the nurse. Nor did she make it to dinner. The threat lingered between the liminal space of the Captain and herself, a bleak reminder that neither played fair, a ghastly mirror of one another, it was hard to fight your reflection. 

Russians, he said, it was ultra-nationalists that had managed to nearly take Simon out of the worldly equation. She sat curled tight into the seat across from his desk, arms wrapped securely around her knees, collapsing inward to a tight ball. Russians wanted to tie up loose ends, stop the task force from interfering as they had before. Her presence, however fleeting it was, raised suspicion of other operatives on the playing field. A man named Shepard, needed to cover things up, something to do with another mission the task force had botched for the other side. It was, complicated. Two opposing forces, unregulated and sporadic in their actions, surged up from the unmarked graves of missions just buried. 

Ultra-nationalists think she is working for the likes of Shepard and reportedly, are searching for friends. 

‘Why?’ The resounding question kept ringing out, head rested atop her knees as she peered up at Price, who had been pacing the room for the hours of his storytelling. 

They have a common enemy, a common interest in seeing the task force dead and gone, ‘looking up at the grass’ as he put it. There was mention of missiles, a disgraced General Shepard now crazed and off-grid, dangerous. It all seemed to be out of touch, an outstanding blood-red mosaic of lies. How could there be so much grey area? More than she’d ever imagined, every doomsday lunatic sounded saner and saner by the minute as she tried to soak it in, tried to imagine John in action. No. The Captain in action. 

She scribbled softly, unsharpened pencil scratching monotonously against the crisp paper as she listened, slowly adding item after item to her list. It helped it settle in, acknowledge that the world she knew was shallow and rather obscured, the pain and pleasure nothing compared to what interfered beneath the surface. 

Lilith leant back, stretching out her limbs with a loud groan, inhaling deeply soon after. She’d become accustomed to his atmosphere of storm clouds and cigar smoke, it no longer made her so dizzy. A quiet fell upon them, more comfortable than before, a lull in his grand tale and the repetitive creak of the floorboards under his boots. She took her chance, holding out her wish list of supplies with a tentative look. “I wouldn’t actually hurt Simon.” Statement soft, sheepish and skittish compared to her outrage from before, tone thick with promise. 

Price let himself stare down at the list, smudged lead and neat, rounded writing. “You need to remember who’s on your side.” He led off, taking the paper and scanning down the writing, he’d tease her about its length later. 

“You were sedating me barely three weeks ago, this is a two-way thing John” Defensive, teeth-baring down onto her cheek, gum ground between her molars in thought. “This” She mentioned between them “has helped, I kind of.. understand a bit more now, that’s all I wanted.” 

“Good. I think it’s best we put you up to doing something useful, other than making threats and yellin’ at me.” He chided teasingly, eyes a little warmer as he looked at her, crinkling at the sides slightly. 

“Oh yeah? Kyle wants me to join morning training, that good enough?” 

John shook his head, returning back to his desk to pull out a paper from one of his many files, sliding it over to her. “Says ere’ your degrees’ in finance.” There’s a troublesome cheek in his statement, a little glint in his gaze. “I could use a little help keeping the books straight.” 

Lilith laughed awkwardly, eyebrows raised at his suggestion. “Thought you guys just ran around shooting people.”

“Yeah well, someone has to keep it all in order, the usual army accountants do most of it but when the team is black ops well, can’t really get them to file reports on that, and I still need to keep check of what goes in and out.” 

“Let's see then.” A hefty ledger was dropped onto the table and she began to sift through its contents, face contorting into a grimace as Lily could barely make out the statements, briefly attempting to tally up a basic budget on a page left her even more horrified. 

“You make that face at bad bookkeeping and not at the general violence and world-threatening missiles in the catch-up.” 

“This is barely accounting John, this is miracle work, not even God himself would be able to fit these numbers into the budget, how’d you even carry on like this?” It was beyond salvation. “Your outflow is well, outrageous, it doesn’t match up to any revenue, how the fuck are you not in debt?” None of it made sense, by these numbers, the task force wouldn’t even have enough money for a pot noodle between them, let alone money for home nation guns on black ops missions. 

“Exactly, see love, this is why you’ll be scrubbing up the books. We get funding from elsewhere for certain team-related missions, it just needs to seem viable on here so nothing looks too out of sorts.” Hoarse hums left him as he watched her pool over the mess of numbers, admittedly, the accounting wasn’t his strong suit. Keeping track of the money that Laswell poured into underground operations became tedious and halfway impossible when the team was out on the deployment so much, he barely got his field reports in on time. 

“Also, old man, why the hell are these on paper? Are you slow on excel or something?” Lily slammed the ledger shut in disbelief. 

“Oi, less of the old man, thank you very much.” It felt more natural giving Lilith some slack, a little room to flex her muscles and take some control again, already she’d uncurled from within herself and spread her presence more. It was a vivid thing, the tenacity she emitted shone so brightly he could see it through her eyes, that lively twinkle that came about every so often. Selfishly, he was glad it was there for him to observe, the illumination nearly made him forget about the putrid reality he was allowing her to spiral into. 

[lairofdragonagelore]

The Red Lyrium Idol

The mysterious idol that has appeared in DA2 and Tevinter Nights will probably be key in the story of DA:D. 

Context

Once the group escapes from the Thaig, the problem of the Red lyrium continues after Act1 with Varric trying to locate his brother. Later we are informed that Bartrand went to Rivain and came back.

He is supposed to be in his house in Hightown. When Varric explores the place he finds Bartrand's steward, who gives us the following information about the idol:

Bartrand sold the idol in Rivain to a woman. [We will know later it's Meredith, now why Meredith was in Rivain? The devs explained that due to the rush of the game, they had to make Meredith get the idol to become an overpowered templar. So all this stuff is quite weak in terms of narrative because lack of time to solve it better.]

It sings to Bartrand. Even when he sold the idol, the song continued.

The guards of the house are mad, since Bartrand forced them to eat red Lyrium [why?].

The rest of the people in the house has been killed by Bartrand, cut into pieces while alive so they could "hear the song".

Bartrand hears, sees, and talks to thing that are not there.

When we access to his studio, we find him with corpses and shades.

He is going mad because he can't hear the song anymore [Apparently Bartrand's steward was wrong]. This scene feels a lot like The Mother in Awakening.  

Anders tries to contain the madness, but he can do little. He says that it's a madness similar to a demon possession [once more we keep seeing references of red-lyrium with blood magic and demons by unreliable narrators, while in DAI the references include the Taint contamination of the lyrium]

In act 3, Varric tells us that

Bartrand is in a sanatorium now.

He sold Bartrand's house to a minor noble in Rivain who informed him that the house is haunted: there are whispers, apparitions, and floating things. [These things are attributed to the idol by the end of the quest].

A mage Hawke can assume that the atrocities that Bartrand did in that house weakened the Veil and there must be some demons walking around.

By exploring the house, we see spirits running away but Anders explains that the Veil can't be _that_ torn apart. For some reason, Varric assumes it's because the idol is in the house, and despite not being close to it, we see Varric starting to be under its influence.

We find a servant [of this noble in Rivain, I assume], a human one, who doesn't know about the idol. Varric shows some uncharacteristic violent behaviour, which emphasise how the idol or the situation is affecting him. The idol is influencing him? It’s weird because the influence happens trough consumption or exposition, and even though he was in the expedition with all that red lyrium veins around them, no other companion nor Hawke showed effect after that brief exposition. One will think it’s just Varric getting nervous about this whole situation. Now, it's curious how easily the two dwarves were victims of the idol's influence “faster”, while the humans/elves seemed to be more resistant. One would assume otherwise. Again, lore content or just symptom of a rushed game? This apparent concept of dwarves being more sensitive to red lyrium, instead of being more resistant was never explored or repeated again in the following game, so I assume it’s just consequence of the rush.

The interrogation of the woman is interrupted when an ethereal golem comes out of the blue. This is so weird. Why a phantasmagorical Golem would appear? This Golem, in truth, is a shade, since it can separate itself in several shades. Lore-wise, it is very strange, since shades enter this world without shapes... that one of those could turn into a golem... I dont know. 

The golem ends up being a piece of the red idol. Like... what? The idol itself, as a piece, can be possessed by a shade? That’s what the game is telling us? And how did they de-possess it? Because they didn’t destroy the piece of idol. Clearly the idol has a very, very strange “self-healing” ability, since in Tevinter Nights the whole idol can be removed from Meredith’s chest. How is that possible if it was broken and then, later, turned into a sword? Retcon stuff? I‘m totally lost on this. 

Anyways, returning to DA2, Varric wants to keep the piece to study it and save his brother. Anders tells him to be careful, since it's something that, now broken, is even more potent. You can choose to let Varric keep the piece or destroy it. In any case, there are no consequences in DAI. Meh.

The red idol 

Description of the Idol [in concept art, DA2, and trailer]

This idol was found in a Thaig without statues of paragons, placed on an altar. It could mean it was sealed or revered. We have no a strong idea about what happened in that Thaig, only some suspicions that Tevinter magisters may have been related, somehow. For more details, read Primeval Thaig and Red Lyrium.

It's not made of red lyrium, but some wood-based material [in DA2] or metallic material [DAI/DAD trailer/concept art]. This is hard to know due to the graphic limitations of the game in DA2. We only saw the idol in frost engine in a trailer. So far, it looks more metallic than the one we saw in DA2. In fact, it looks like a similar kind of metal that elven statues in Mythal’s Temple are made of, or the golden mosaics we find spread in DAI. It is not an idol completely made out of lyrium. This is very confusing to me when in Tevinter Nights people say it’s an idol of Lyrium. It has some contamination of red lyrium at the bottom and all over it [as the trailer shows], but we clearly see it’s not made entirely of it, as we did see Meredith in her final state. This is more than unreliable narrators: the characters are lying about what they see and what we, as players, saw. 

Like The Strange Idol, it has carved canals along the female torso [better seen in concept art] that seem to contain dried blood or, in this case, red lyrium [seen in the trailer version]. I’m not sure if these canals have a “ritualistic” purpose or represent the withering state of the central figure.  

Behind the main figure there is a circle that looks like the circles we found in elven temples in DAI. It’s also the circle/orb that the elven statue of the owl has in its talons. 

From behind the circle a thorny snake-like creature pops out.

The central character is a woman, hugging two bald figures. In the concept art of the idol they have elven ears. In DA2 their ears were removed, looking like eroded lumps impossible to distinguish. In the trailer, we see something that looks like an elven ear. 

She wears a tiara, or maybe it's her forehead, where a spike is protruding, a symbol we find later in DAI in statues of ferelden wyrems, in Andraste herself, and in Flemeth.

Her eyes, nose, and mouth [in the concept art and in the trailer] drip a black fluid, reminding us of Darkspawns like The Mother.

Her breast looks flaccid like she has been breastfeeding a lot, which, again, reinforces the idea that, in combination with the embrace to the other two figures, she may be representing a mother. 

The other two creatures, whose faces barely can be seen, seem to be hugged and comforted by her. They have some broken limbs [a forearm and a hand are missing in each figures]. It feels more like a natural consequence of age than something to think about as a hidden prophesy of the Inquisitor [who has little to do with this item]]. However, it seems reasonable to think that these limbs are not there on purpose: the idol regenerates itself when broken, so these missing limbs are from the original design.

The three creatures are born from a thick thorny stem, opening it in half. This thorny vine has also long carving canals along it. Similar texture can be seen in one of the concept arts of DA4, where we see a gargantuan creature with horns emerging from the sea.

It's in the bottom part where the main contamination with red lyrium can be seen. The “roots” of this thorny vine are made of red lyrium [trailer] or the veins that sustain the thorny vine are made of red lyrium [DA2 version and concept art].

In Tevinter Nights: the idol was recovered from Meredith’s body. The idol, regenerated, was pulled out from her chest, intact. Solas is looking for the item since it is required for the ritual to eliminate the Veil and restore the ancient world. He, personally, never says the idol is his [it’s said by a Nevarran Mortalitasi who has been lying during all the tale she narrated.] 

Details of the DA2 Idol can be seen [here] and [here], and the trailer [here].

Personal connections without (much) interpretation:

(Not) Made of Red Lyrium: I'm so annoyed with this statement in the book. It's not entirely made of red lyrium. Even if the book Tevinter Nights says so [it's said by a Carta dwarf who knows little of everything, so clearly is not really reliable, he doesn't even know the idol has three figures in it].  It looks contaminated with red lyrium or fed by red lyrium.

Canals: I think this idol shares design style with the Strange Idol: the facial expression, the mouth, the way limbs are done [very thin and long] and the canals on the skin that make dripping blood easy to get trapped in them. Graphically speaking, which is very poor in DA2, they seem to be made of similar material, but I would not rely on that much. Again, graphically speaking, DA2 was always a bit limited. 

The Circle. We find this exact same circle in several statues, paintings, and murals, I only put two in the image above for simplicity’s sake but this symbol appears even in paintings. 

The DAI murals always depict the idol or the black city surrounded by a circle that looks like a barrier. The elven statue of the owl has always a circle or a sphere in its talons. 

When it's a circle looks like this one in the red lyrium idol; when it's a sphere,  it looks like solas' orb. More circle iconography can be found in the tombs of the Elven Knights: Din'an Hanin and in the murals of the removal of the vallaslin in the Forgottten Temple: the face of the Strange-Idol appears on a circle. 

All across Emerald Graves we find a painting of elves walking like zombies, chests and faces erased, under a yellow circle of similar looking. There are two elaborated paintings of ancient elves in these places which have this circle behind them, in white. 

In the DLC Trespasser, there is a room arranged with figurines where Fen’Harel’s is in the middle of this circle.

This circle is of key importance and seems to be related to control, power or even the Veil [maybe the power to create the veil]. It seems to be a source of destruction, a source of secrets, a container, and/or a control device.  

The female figure has a lot of interpretation. She is a mother, comforting two figures that are suffering. She is consumed by something, her face looks like Meredith’s when the red lyrium killed her, plus the dark fluid dripping down as it seems blight does on darkspawns [The Mother is the best example of it]. The two male figures may be crying the death of this mother, or they are suffering for the mutilation of their limbs. One of them is on the other side of the Circle. 

Thorny snake: There is a Codex in DAI related to Andruil in which Mythal  transformed herself into a snake-like creature to fight her. Recently, in the concept art of DAD, we had found a gargantuan enemy called Evil God which body looks like a thorny serpent.  [Its head shape and single eye speaks of more connections too]. To be honest, the body of this Evil God looks more like the “thorny vine” from which the three figures came out than the single small serpent floating around them, coming from behind the circle.] 

Thorny vines: In general, all DA series have been using this element without stop. The representation of the Taint/darkwspan has always been related with dark thorny vines in DAO, DAA and DA2. In the DLC of Jaws of Hakkon, the whole area presents an unknown type of plant [several characters point this out] which had experienced an overgrowth: it’s a tree with red thorny extensions, its origin seems to be related to Razikale’s Reach.

 If we see the idol, the roots of the big thorny vine from which these creatures are born has a root of red lyrium, meaning that this thick thorny vine or creature has roots / veins of red lyrium inside. It feeds on it, the “root” of its nature is red lyrium. On a subtler note, I think it’s important to always remember that the few representations of Elgar'nan we have via his Vallaslin show how deeply related to thorny vines he is.

Spike tiara: This detail speaks of Mythal. The statues of Mythal always have this spike, which is the same one we find in ferelden wyvern statues in DAI as well as in Andraste statues. The relationship between Mythal and Andraste is not new. They always had common elements to the point one suspect that Andraste’s tale was based or inspired by modifications of the tale of Mythal. The curious thing is the wyvern. And this is a connection forced in the game: in Mythal’s Fade, we find  a statue of Andraste’s face in front of the wyvern. They are telling us to connect them?  Maybe it’s just an emphasis on how Mythal, Andraste, and Flemeth, all share something in common (?). 

Tevinter Nights only offers a more or less reliable fragment of Solas and the red lyrium when Solas himself speaks. We know he prefers to omit truths before lying. So I trust him that bit he narrates. And yes, I don’t consider reliable anything of what the other characters speak about, all of them show strong evidence that they are lying most of the time, why should we trust what they say about the Dread Wolf then?

The elf walked unhurriedly to the pedestal. Slowly, he lifted the red lyrium idol from the pillow where it rested. He whispered something as he picked it up, tracing his gloved fingers gently along the crowned figure who comforted the other, but I could not make out the words, for I fear they were elven. Then he turned back to his mirror and stepped through its shimmering border. A moment later, it was dead and dark again.That is all I know of the Dread Wolf, I am afraid. The idol’s journey is now complete, and it has found its master. He will destroy anyone in his way without regret or hesitation, and whatever he intends, I do not believe we can stop it.

What we can conclude with certainty is not much:  The spike thing is a crown, and the "mother” comforts the other bald figures.

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore ]

[aiyexayen]

writer ask game: 1, 11, 16

1) is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason? yes! i have so many little wip's and story ideas that i kind of stash up and hoard and start and stop on quite often in my docs. some of them even have quite a lot of writing gone into them and then i just fell off and hope to get back to and rework eventually. more particularly, though, right now, i have a longfic idea i very much want to try to write in collaboration with a friend but i'm in the middle of writing for a fandom event of a totally different fandom and i know if i let myself go all in with this idea, i'll get behind on the event writing, so i'm making myself wait.

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing? hm, it depends on when we count "started writing" from because i fancied myself a little author at like age 10 and spent much of my youth wrapped up in that and that's too long ago to measure relative progress. but i gave up writing for quite a number years for Reasons(bad), and i started writing again in 2019 when i found online fandom for the first time. i think (hope) since then the one thing that has most improved is my flow wrt descriptiveness. it's been difficult for me to work in visual details, sensory input, and general setting details in a way that sounds like it belongs and flows into the narrative and i do believe i'm getting better. i also think my ability to characterise more diversely and complexly has improved with my own maturity and experiences and time invested in analytical/critical consumption.

16) are there any characters who haunt you? this is such an interesting question because i feel like it can be interpreted a number of ways. my first reaction to this was "not really" because i thought, "well, i don't find myself pulled back to any particular character whenever i move away from them, achingly compelled to tell their story--nor do i find any particular character turning up all over the place in my writing or ideas needing attention until i deal with it" but i do think i have characters who kind of...stick around. characters whose heads feel familiar and relevant no matter how much i change. characters whose relatability and failures and triumphs got me through my own rough shit and whose stories were formative to some core piece of me, especially ones i got to know as a writer borrowing them to make them my own. characters i can always go back to whenever i need them and find it easy to reacclimate because i never really stop. benign ghosts that haunt me with their understanding and borrowed strength and have just grown into the walls, never to be exorcised because how hollow would i be without them. it would be tedium to list them out but the newest one is wen kexing.

[mediaevalmusereads]

In the Garden of Spite. By Camilla Bruce. Berkley, 2021.

Rating: 2/5 stars

Genre: historical fiction, crime

Series: N/A

Summary: Early in life Belle Sorensen discovers the world is made only for men. They own everything: jobs, property, wives. But Belle understands what few others do: where women are concerned, men are weak.

A woman unhampered by scruples can take from them what she wants. And so Belle sets out to prove to the world that a woman can be just as ruthless, black-hearted and single-minded as any man.

Starting with her long suffering husband Mads, Belle embarks on a killing spree the like of which has never been seen before nor since.

And through it all her kind, older sister Nellie can only watch in horror as Belle's schemes to enrich herself and cut down the male population come to a glorious, dreadful fruition . . .

Based on the true story of Belle Sorensen whose murderous rampage began in Chicago in 1900.

***Full review below.***

CONTENT WARNINGS: blood, miscarriage, violence, child death, poisoning, murder, dismemberment

OVERVIEW: I came across this book randomly at a used bookstore and decided what the heck. Sounds like a fun time. I knew a little about Belle Gunness before, and was intrigued by a work that would explore how a female serial killer might arise in the 19th century. Unfortunately, this book wasn't as enjoyable as I had hoped. Between the dual POVs, the weight given to telling over showing, the dialogue, and some confusing narrative choices, I couldn't quite lose myself in the story. Thus, this book only gets 2 stars from me.

WRITING: Bruce's writing choices were a little confusing for me, and some of them made this book less enjoyable than I had hoped. For one, Bruce decided to tell this story from two perspectives: one from Belle's POV and one from her sister, Nellie's. While the dual perspective in itself isn't "bad," I did find that Nellie's POV added very little to the story. Most of her POV involved her talking to other people about Belle, and to be honest, it wasn't all that interesting or insightful. The POV could have been cut and the book would have been much tighter.

Another thing that bothered me was Bruce's style. Bruce seems to prioritize telling over showing, with a lot of interpretive work done via dialogue. Characters would talk about things in a self-aware manner, which made the speech feel clunky and unnatural. It also made me think the conversations were Bruce's way of making sure the reader understood what she was trying to do. As a result, I felt like I was being fed an interpretation rather than being trusted to come up with one on my own.

Lastly, I did think that a lot of this book was repetitive, with conversations making the same point multiple times or conversations covering the same ground chapter after chapter.

But I think I should mention things I liked. One was the recurring image of the overstuffed pantry. Belle has this habit of filling her pantry with more food than her family can eat, so much so that the food molds. As a metaphor and recurring motif, I actually thought this worked quite well and coincided with moments when Belle's behavior would shift. I also liked the way Belle linked some of her pain back to the experience she had in Norway and how that seems to haunt her for the rest of her life.

PLOT: The plot of this book follows Brynhild Paulsdottir, a Norwegian immigrant who travels to America in the 19th century to look for a better life. By the 20th century, she has married twice, inherited suspicious sums of cash, and has become Belle Gunness, America's first prominent female serial killer. How, the author asks, does such a woman come to be?

Unfortunately for me, I didn't find Bruce's exploration of Belle's life compelling. For one, Bruce didn't quite seem sure herself on what to make of Belle: was she a sympathetic woman with ambition? Was she driven mad by her desire for children? Or was she selfish and greedy, using men to her advantage? Bruce doesn't quite have the skill to entertain all possibilities in a way that sounds believable; instead, it seems like she's trying too hard to make Belle into a female fury. For me, this didn't quite jive with what I already knew about Belle and I wasn't sure what I was supposed to take away from the story.

Also, I did not quite feel that scenes flowed into one another well or built up to form a plot with "shape." On some level, I know that narrating a life can be tricky; history and individual lives don't often flow as neatly as a story. But even so, I was frequently confused by what Bruce chose to focus on and how certain scenes fit together to produce a portrait of Belle Gunness. Insurance fraud, for example, did not come up organically; it felt randomly dropped in and abrupt. Things like drawing up insurance policies and even some important murders/deaths happened off page, so the focus wasn't on building up Belle's MO. Overall, it felt less like an exploration of what makes a female serial killer and more a portrait of an impatient, entitled woman trying to survive. Nothing wrong with that, per se, but one must admit that we don't come to a book about Belle Gunness for the day to day struggles in 19th-20th century America.

TL;DR: In the Garden of Spite attempts to narrate the life of a notorious female serial killer, but unfortunately, it does not seem to know what story it's trying to tell. Between the dual POVs that do nothing but drag the story down, inconsistent characterization, and focus on everything except murder, this book fails to give any new insight into what might drive a woman to kill.

CHARACTERS: Belle, our protagonist, is not easy to like, nor is she compelling in a love-to-hate-them kind of way. I personally found her characterization to be inconsistent, one minute wanting nothing more to be a caring mother and the next treating the death of a child in a rather flippant manner. I also got the sense that Bruce couldn't decide what she wanted to do with Belle, sometimes making her into an ambitious woman who just wants to survive and sometimes suggesting that there is something wrong with her and she has a taste for murder. Of course, multiple things can be true at the same time, but Bruce didn't take the opportunity to explore how Belle's psyche works. It's a shame because there was a lot of potential there, with Belle's anger and entitlement being ripe for analysis.

Nellie, Belle's older sister, was completely useless and wholly uninteresting. It felt as if Bruce inserted her POV in order to heighten suspense via Nellie's suspicions, but Nellie's chapters ended up feeling repetitive and tedious. Nellie doesn't do much except complain about her bad back, suspect something is wrong with Belle, and then make excuses for doing nothing, and after a while, I couldn't see what her point was at all.

James Lee, Belle's confidant and sometime lover, is an interesting invention and, quite frankly, the most intriguing character in the book. His loyalty and encouragement of Belle is twisted, which makes him compelling, and though he doesn't seem to be based on anyone from the life of the historical Belle Gunness, I could respect a little creative freedom.

Other characters didn't really stick around long enough to be interesting, and even those that did didn't have many complex character traits. I wasn't really upset when some of them died because we didn't really gets much of a chance to like them, and even if we did, there wasn't enough in the book to trick us into thinking maybe they'd escape Belle's clutches.

[findingspringinfadingtrees]

I desperately wish you could see how much of our hardship has been hoisted onto my shoulders. That sometimes the pain you see when you look at me is a reflection, a mirror to yourself that you can’t quite accept. Like how I have loved you loyally and faithfully. How I did not burn down the world nor tore the universe apart but laid my own self on the pyre for your sake. I accepted everything without a flinch to show you my dedication and it has still ended with you believing somehow my frustration and anger was a lack of compassion. How cruel to have the man begging for my vulnerability shun me after he has obtained it. How tragic that even healthy expressions of emotion were twisted into crucifixions. If I’d abandoned my duty and broken my promises, if I’d stayed silent instead of giving you my heart, grief, pain, fear, and dissatisfaction scarring it’s surfaces, you would have stayed. It will haunt me until I die that somehow you have taken your emotional self flagellation and turned it into a claim that I held the whip. That I was the one debasing you, treating you as though you were worthless, and not the one fighting the weapon out of your hands and trying to tend to your wounds. The hours I’ve spent holding you when my hurt over a mistake caused you to violently lash out at yourself have melded into me being the one to deal out the pain. I have told you countless times I love you, that you are perfect to me, that you’ve always been enough, but now you have rejected that for a narrative that I never showed you the compassion you deserved. The random messages of praise and thanks,the reassurance, the constant devotion, is clouded over by your own vexation. Not three days ago you told me you didn’t realize love as pure as mine could exist. Now you’re claiming I am toxic, damaged, heartless. That I inflict pain on you without even realizing my own wrong doings. I have turned from your comfort, your “savior”, to a monster you can hardly stand. What horrible irony to be seen as a monster by the person I loved, while at the same time being told that I was treating him as though he were a monster himself. I have forgiven you for everything thus far between us, but I don’t think I could ever forgive you for trying to claim that your self loathing was reflective of my feelings for you. I’ve proven countless times in every imaginable way that it wasn’t the case yet I am still being put on the rack without discrimination. Not to mention me opening up, setting boundaries and discussing my needs all while you talked down to me for not doing so enough, when all along you were the one unable to voice your own concerns and desires to the point it destroyed us. Or how you are now pinning things on me being insecure, when your insecurity ate you alive to the point you delved through even some of my most private thoughts to assuage yourself. None of this is to say I haven’t had my own faults and wrong doings. I’ve never claimed to be a perfect person, nor a perfect partner, and just like you I have torn down some of our love without having any cruel intentions within my heart. But that doesn’t fit the mural of yourself cutting off medusas head. You can’t accept that I didn’t have cruel intentions, that our mistakes were made with a similar mind and heart, because doing so would mean accepting that you have thrown away something that we might have salvaged. It would be a confession of your own part, an admittance that maybe you have damaged the ability to have the life you so desperately wanted. By claiming that I’m the one projecting unto you, you are sparing yourself the regret, the guilt, the fear of what could have been. And though I have been watching myself burn alive in your name, damned in part for sins I didn’t commit, I will refuse to let you walk away believing that you have rescued yourself from a monster instead of facing the fact that you destroyed the woman you loved.

- A letter I’ll never send

[zannolin]

in my unhinged little head dsmp dynamics go like this:

wilbur & tommy: best friends, brothers, i love you but are you bad for me? i hate you, but are you good for me? stay by my side, though i can’t stand to look at you. i am so afraid of being alone, but i don’t know how to be around you. i hurt you. i regret it. i love you. i regret that too. i would go to hell for you (and i have). we are family in something stronger than blood and bone and dna. more than my brother, you are my best friend, my right hand, the shadow i hide in, my confidante. you are also haunt my nightmares, but all i want is for you to be safe and happy. [insert crazed babbling here.]

wilbur & techno: wilbur grew up with him, sees him as a brother, neither will admit to anything

tommy & techno: tommy wishes they were brothers, but not the same way as him and wilbur

tommy & tubbo: best friends. some fics are allowed to play the brother card, if they do it well (see: devil town)

wilbur & tubbo: they were never brothers but they could have been (wilbur sees only his failures, tubbo is definitely not jealous of wilbur & tommy’s bond)

tommy & fundy: competing for wilbur’s attention (tommy usually wins; fundy is jealous but still looks up to him all the same)

phil & techno: phil is immortal, techno is literally just some powerful young guy; they are best friends and phil is a bit of a mentor to techno. i don’t think phil meant to get attached (because immortality) i think techno is incredibly capable of taking care of himself and pulled the “for you phil the world” card and phil was like ok mate and now they’re besties

phil & tommy: tommy wants phil to like him (to love him, to be his dad or his mentor or someone he can confide in) as an extension of his care for wilbur (and techno, a bit) phil doesn’t get it

tubbo & quackity: narrative parallels for wilbur & tommy, almost-not-quite brothers (they both privately wish), they’ve been through so many things together that they understand one another but are completely different at once

tommy & ranboo: if you call them brothers i am packing my bags and going the opposite direction; they’re not opposites and not parallels, but ranboo feels like tommy is someone to live up and kind of look up to, while tommy worries ranboo is his “replacement”, a better version of him, and thinks maybe things would be better if everything had been ranboo instead of him. they’re friends, but not best friends; they’re friends in the way that your best friend has another best friend and you are close with them because of that

techno & ranboo: ranboo looks up to him but is also scared of him, techno’s pretty neutral; they are literally neighbors ranboo is the weird neighbor kid no one knows what to do with so they invited him to their super secret book club to be polite

tommy & quackity: see tommy & ranboo re: calling them brothers; quackity feels responsible for tommy because he wants to protect everyone and tommy is his friend; they have been on opposite sides and through awful things together, so there is a unique brand of understanding there, but they end up not quite on the same side more often than not

wilbur & quackity: recognition of the self through the other; they’re the type of friends/rivals who think the other is everything they should have been and ever wanted to be, the kind of not-friends not-enemies who flirt all the time because they know they could never work and would be bad for each other so it’s safe to pretend

hope this explains everything about me. i could do more but i won’t, also this isn’t an invitation to reblog and say “well actually” or “this BUT-” or otherwise insert your opinion (/nm) nor is it me saying if you disagree you are bad, this is me rambling about how i perceive and approach their dynamics in my own works okay thanks *eats a handful of dirt*

[zeta-in-de-walls]

Tommy’s character and the theme of failure

One thing I’ve always rather appreciated about Tommy’s story in the Dream SMP is how it explores the idea of failure. It can be a challenging one to do right as it means exploring a character’s weakness a lot and can start to feel unsatisfying if the character never succeeds but I feel like Tommy’s story avoids this issue as his arc is ultimately an encouraging one. His character never stops trying or gives up in spite of his losses, showing the perseverance to keep going until eventually he starts to find happiness, no matter how elusive it seems. 

Tommy’s character is no stranger to failure of course but I’d say this theme starts to become prominent with November the 16th. Tommy had two goals: to save L’Manberg and to save Wilbur. He was pretty optimistic about both. And he failed. The day ended in disaster with Wilbur dead, Technoblade, his idol, mocking his heroism and telling him to die, and his home in ruins. It takes him a long time to come to terms with who Wilbur was, separating Wilbur into two in his mind: President Wilbur and the ‘crazy’ Wilbur who blew up L’Manburg. 

But Tommy continues on, quietly moving on as L’Manburg gets rebuilt. No matter what, he still believes in L’Manburg; it’s still alive. Also, he wants to finally get his remaining disc back from Dream, feeling the need to do this after putting it aside for so long.

But of course, things don’t go well. That which he had taken for granted, his bond with Tubbo, was under fire. His personal wish to get his discs back was causing division. A simple prank gone wrong was tearing everything apart as Dream threatened L’Manburg once again. None of these things were purely Tommy’s actions, and yet his actions played a part all the same as Dream essentially took advantage of all of Tommy’s weaknesses. Tommy was being viewed as a liability, a troublemaker, as self-centred, as a problem. 

Tommy’s character likely blamed himself somewhat for his failure with Wilbur and L’Manburg the first time but it had been out of his hands and his reactions were more shock than being truly broken by the events and he kept up his optimism. Yet this time, the problems were not things far beyond his control. It seemed it was his own mistakes spelling his doom and it impacted him quite severely. As much as he recognised Dream as an antagonist here, his friends distrust of him was his failure. Despite his best efforts, he could not convince Tubbo not to exile him. 

Rather than seeing the fairly resilient, optimistic Tommy like the first time he was banished, this time Tommy’s defeated. We see the full effects it takes on his mental state and the narrative does not pull its punches. Tommy’s already depressed and we start to see evidence of suicidal thoughts very quickly. This is all made far, far worse by Dream who encourages his dark thoughts and feelings of worthlessness, telling him everyone’s better off without him while breaking his spirit and making him miserable by repeatedly blowing up his items. 

Dream was of course Tommy’s enemy, he’d recognised before that what Dream had been doing to L’Manburg, with the obsidian walls and insisting on banishing Tommy, had been unfair even if Tommy had been helpless to stop him. Yet over exile we see him really start to internalise Dream’s words, starting to really believe that narrative that he is unloved and a liability, despite his best efforts. As his mental state worsens we see him starting to believe Dream’s lies so much that he begins to believe that Dream is really his friend who cares about him. Meanwhile, he’s angrier and lashing out at the people he cares about, we seem him kill Jack, break the bridges he built and generally lashing out at the people he misses the most. 

So through exile, we see Tommy at his weakest and most vulnerable. We also see some of his flaws with his uglier side, his uncontrolled emotions, his dependency on others, his deep self-worth issues and how he can be so successfully lied to. This deep exploration of Tommy’s character allows us to really see how the repeated failures and setbacks and losses affected his character mentally and depict it as yet another obstacle he needs to overcome. 

And ultimately he does, ultimately deciding to fight back and run away from exile on his own. Tommy’s arc goes to very depressing places but manages to remain an inspiring story by showing you at his weakest and yet also show him never truly giving up but pressing on, in search of that happy ending. Running away from exile has him also realising that Dream is his enemy, not his friend and he commits to fighting back against him. 

But of course the narrative doesn’t entirely move on. Tommy’s struggles and failures continue to plague him as the mental issues he has with self-worth and his confused feelings towards Dream do not go away. He managed to continue but that wasn’t the perfect victory as most of his problems are still there and he’s still the same person. at Techno’s house, we see him and his confusion. He’s lighthearted and joking about but he’s still deeply troubled without a clear stance on Dream or L’Manburg or Tubbo and he clings to the idea of the disc as a simple goal. It seems as if he’s doomed to become the person he hated or make the same mistakes again. He once failed to save Wilbur and it seems as if his greatest failure would be to go down Wilbur’s path too, blowing up the country he once loved. 

And Tommy nearly goes too far. He finally meets Tubbo again and his anger, his issues all come back as does some self-centred behaviour as he declares that ‘the discs are worth more than you ever were’.

And he immediately regrets it. He apologises, he turns around and gives them up to Dream. He won’t let himself turn into Wilbur. 

And yet, every little victory he fights so hard for is met with an even greater failure. He switches sides on Technoblade while giving Dream exactly what he wanted. His story isn’t a happy one in spite of him trying his very best and making the decisions that are right for him. And we can only wonder how inevitable it was or if he could’ve done better for he hurts Techno deeply. Is he doing better or does his very nature doom him to make the same mistakes again and again?

Once ore, we see L’Manburg blown up and this time Tommy declares it a lost cause. Despite his best efforts, it’s over and we can only stare at the ruins of the nation he’d once helped build with Wilbur. Additionally, Tommy is dead to Techno now, that relationship seemingly broken forever. 

But it’s not the end. Tommy is defeated once more, with each failure hitting harder than the last but he doesn’t give up. He keeps on fighting. For all he’s lost, he’s won Tubbo back, and the experiences may have been terrible but he has learned something through all of it. Even if all that is, is understanding suffering a bit better and getting back the courage to apologise and reconcile.

He and Tubbo go after Dream and it’s almost, almost too late. He’s nearly locked in prison forever and Tubbo almost killed. 

But it’s not end. Just this once, it’s not a failure. They bet it all and finally had that victory. The rest of the server comes to save them and Dream gets locked in his prison while Tommy and Tubbo are finally free. 

Course, Tommy’s story isn’t over there. And the thing with this theme of failure is that it keeps on cropping up. They may have finally gotten a victory but Tommy’s issues aren’t over. he tries to start again, building his hotel but the trauma from exile has made an impact on him. It’s something that can’t be solved in a day, but only over a long time. And despite everything, the issues keep coming back. Tommy feels like things are unresolved with Dream and visits him again. 

And he gets locked in prison and dies and then gets resurrected. And its all absolutely devastating and it seems as if Tommy will never get better, that he’ll never truly have his happy ending. His hotel gets stolen from him and its as if everything he tries to do ends in failure.

He tries to sort things out, tries solving things with killing Dream and it just gets Ghostbur killed and the guilt can only eat at him. Wilbur is back at Tommy’s afraid but time has passed and he’s starting to see Wilbur more for who he is. After all he’s been through, he understands him way better than he did before. He once more commits to helping him but Tommy isn’t the naive kid he once was. 

Tommy still lives in the very same spot he always did. He still wants the same things he always did: a home, security, peace, friends, and he’s been experiencing many losses. And yet, his story is not a hopeless one. Because in spite of all that’s happened, he’s still trying again. And he’s learned and can avoid making those mistakes again. Right now, he’s doing better, he’s committing to living peacefully in a way he hasn’t in a long time. He’s been attempting to build bridges and though all his failures haunt him, he is gradually healing day by day, still trying to find that happy ending.

I think Tommy’s story is very cool for the way it really explores these themes of failure. It does not pull its punches, its dark, never easy or straightforward but that’s also what makes it so powerful. Those bright spots, feel so good, they feel so rewarding because they were so hard-fought. We root for Tommy’s character because we’ve seen his journey and really feel he deserves his happy end even though its never going to be perfect and indeed every failure is a mixture of forces outside of his control and his character which he has been trying to improve, learning to be nicer, more forgiving and more aware of his own emotions. He can’t fix Dream nor does he know how best to help Wilbur but he can help himself and that’s what he’s always trying to do. He holds himself to account and always tries his best.

[sepublic]

The Golden Guard: Eda’s Dark Parallel?

           Does anyone else think that the Golden Guard actually reminds Lilith a LOT of Eda, specifically Eda as a kid, during the good old days before she got cursed?

           Think about it… They’re both sassy, hot-headed teen prodigies with an owl motif and yellow attire. And the way Lilith angrily talks about the Golden Guard, it seems her feelings of resentment mirror how she felt towards Eda back when they were kids? Lilith, who was by-the-book and traditional, worked so hard… And then there’s this younger person with an Owl motif who just swoops in out of nowhere and through talent, completely outclasses her!

           If you go with the idea that Lilith wanted Gwendolyn’s approval and had to compete with Eda over that… Then for all we know, maybe Lilith lowkey wanted Belos’ approval as well, but felt like she was being cheated out of that with the Golden Guard, who kept stealing the spotlight from her! 

          Like she was afraid he’d take her spot as head of the Emperor’s Coven, the way Lilith feared that Eda would win the initiation duel back when they were kids… And lo and behold, the Golden Guard DID take that! Granted Lilith left an obvious vacancy from her own betrayal of Belos so of course he took that spot, but still; It’s quite a sore spot.

           In some ways, perhaps Lilith is aware of this, deep-down or not; She might see the Golden Guard as just Young Eda, but without any of the emotional connection, nor any redeeming qualities; If he does have them, again, it’s not like Lilith knows the Golden Guard well enough to know these traits, much less take them into account.

           LOTS of text and speculation and analyses below!!!

           The Golden Guard is even sixteen years old… Which, is very likely EDA’s age, back when her and Lilith competed for the Emperor’s Coven! That can take on a whole new, dark meaning for her… 

          Perhaps Lilith is low-key disturbed by the Golden Guard’s existence, because he reminds her too much of Young Eda? Eda, before she was cursed- So it’s like the memory of her is coming back to haunt Lilith, in the form of someone who has no concern for Lilith whatsoever to hold him back, unlike the actual Eda.

           And in a way, it’s a horrible reminder that some things never change, that some things stay the same and Lilith can’t get past them, she can’t outgrow it like she thought she did; Because even now, even as head of the Emperor’s Coven, there’s still a 16-year-old prodigy with an owl motif and yellow attire, who is sassy and playful and mischievous, who threatens to upstage Lilith’s self-esteem and sense of power. Somebody Lilith is afraid of; Thirty years later, and she STILL has to deal with this kind of person in her life, but it’s worse because she’s actually older and should be better, yet somehow isn’t…

           Who knows? Maybe Lilith even recognized the similarities to Eda, enough to actually be sympathetic to the Golden Guard at first? Perhaps she, on some level, saw the Golden Guard as a way to vicariously redo her past with Eda, but without the mistakes… Maybe she tried to be nice to the Golden Guard, but then he quickly turned out to be a snob, he’s not REALLY Eda; So Lilith settled on never cursing him like she did Eda, but then otherwise decided that she didn’t owe him any love and could just quietly loathe his guts.

          Lilith failed Eda in part because she was an older sister who abandoned her in a time of need, but there’s not really that expectation with the Golden Guard, so why bother? She’s got enough on her plate as is, and an ACTUAL Eda to worry about, to look after, to be concerned for and patch things up with.

           I’ve even seen people make the very good point that in a lot of ways… The Golden Guard is like a Dark Eda? In the sense that, he’s Eda, had she joined the Emperor’s Coven as a kid. He’s a look at Young Eda, if she didn’t reject the Coven System, and joined Belos- Reveling in her own talent and power as granting her ‘special treatment’ over the rest, so any downsides to the coven system weren’t HER problem anyway!

           Again, this adds another layer to the Golden Guard being very reminiscent of Young Eda, and even current Eda as well… Except, he never lost his magic and was never cursed. Maybe that’s another thing he unknowingly haunts Lilith over; He’s lowkey a reminder of what Eda could’ve been, had Lilith not been selfish and a coward, or had she communicated better. Yet at the same time, he’s frustrating- Because the Golden Guard is like the worst parts of Eda, the parts that Lilith hated and made her resentful…

           And this constant reminder of the past, of her own issues with Eda back then that culminated in the curse- It could’ve made it a LOT harder for Lilith to really resolve things with Eda, because this kid keeps reminding her why she was so angry, and it’s impossible for her to move on because the Golden Guard isn’t some distant memory, but an actual person who continues to threaten her, the way Eda had…

          And of course, the Golden Guard reminds Lilith of the Eda she lost; The happy, carefree Eda who wasn’t cursed, the Eda she could’ve had in a sense. The Eda that Lilith in some ways wanted, yet is forced to confront and acknowledge is a very obnoxious and terrible person that makes her unhappy…

          And this kind of rude reminder that the Eda that Lilith wanted would’ve continued to make her miserable, if not moreso, is not something she appreciates shattering her dreams and low-key denial, of a world where things had just been a little different.

          The person you’re trying to get, maybe get BACK, wasn’t so great after all- So you just have to move on, and be glad for the Eda who IS happier with her life and more mature, despite being older and more cursed. You gotta move past your guilt Lilith, and realize that Eda is in a better place- Not that she ever needed the curse, but she doesn’t quite need saving from the parts of her life she actually chose for herself, in part to be kind to Lilith no less! Because I bet Lilith believes that deep down, she didn’t deserve Eda’s kindness, so she wishes to reverse that compassionate decision of Eda’s that only resulted in Eda suffering because of how terrible Lily secretly is.

           But, back to the subject; There’s more similarities to Eda and the Golden Guard, especially at the end of Separate Tides; How he makes an ominous warning before casually, happily yelling “BYYEEEE!!!”, just like Eda when she warns Luz about trying to have a Moonlight Conjuring in Hooty’s Moving Hassle, before heading off to the Night Market. His widow’s peak even bears a decent resemblance to Eda’s, doesn’t it? Which…

           Combined with all of the talk about bird motifs being a Clawthorne thing, it DOES raise many questions about the Golden Guard’s potential connection to Eda. Is he some long-lost son? A third child that Gwendolyn had later in life, because witch biology might allow them to do that? Some homunculus, crafted from bits of DNA from Eda, and maybe even Belos? Belos does seem weirdly fond and trusting of him, the two are placed together in the Season 2 outro when nobody else, not even Kikimora, is there; And of course, the Golden Guard wields a staff, red magic, and fleshy creations, VERY similar to Belos…

           I can’t say for sure- But the idea of the Golden Guard as an alternate Eda is fascinating. An Eda who became completely arrogant, and didn’t stop to care about others; Her cockiness and mischief becoming cruel and obnoxious, essentially the worst parts of Eda, down the path she’d always dreaded. A look into another life, a different choice in such a pivotal part of her past… Personally, I LOVE this kind of dark parallel of a character, so I’m hoping these similarities are commented upon in-universe, assuming they’re not outright literal!

           In a way, the Golden Guard could haunt Eda, because he reminds her of herself… Of her carefree youth, but what she could’ve had… But also, the terrible things she’d done. And obviously Eda despises the coven system too much to really change her mind, and it’s safe to say that the Golden Guard is not at all what she wanted to ever become… But still, it’s a neat bit of character writing and parallelism. If Belos is like a Dark Luz, what Luz could’ve been had she not grown… And the same could apply between King and Kikimora;

           Then who knows? The Golden Guard could be a Dark Eda, who got by talent and continued to take things for granted. An Eda who swore loyalty to Belos and was embraced by the emperor for her skill and ability. Jovial and cheery, but without any of the actual compassion that makes this genuine with Eda. An immature brat who never grew up (granted he’s only sixteen and hasn’t gotten the chance), unlike Eda. And if the Golden Guard is an alternate Eda;

           It’s fascinating how his roles are reversed with his alternate Luz… The Eda parallel is younger than the Luz parallel, learning from them, and taking after their motifs as well! But I guess it’s not all too surprising, with how Eda and Luz both learn from one another, though I suspect Belos and the Golden Guard aren’t as mutual, but who knows? 

          It does make you wonder about Kikimora and King as potential mediators between these duos, whose placement remains consistent… How does Kikimora, the King parallel, interact with her Luz and Eda? Did she become close friends with HER Luz, while, as Dana’s art suggests, she seems somewhat irritated by and resentful of her own Eda? So it’s like Eda and King never grew to be friends and conquer differences… As well as if King never grew to respect Luz and saw her as just a “f*cking nerd”?

           With how Luz is taking after Eda, and possibly getting a Cardinal palisman to complete the Clawthorne motif as a new member of the family… Who knows? The Golden Guard could be an intriguing character for her to bounce off of narratively, maybe as someone Luz might have, in another universe, learned to look up to and admire? How well Luz’s relationship be with the Golden Guard, if they are a Dark Eda? And how can this indirectly show us about how Luz and Young Eda would’ve interacted, what Young Eda was like, what Lilith went through as a kid…

           And, for all we know- The Golden Guard’s owl motif doesn’t hint at a pre-existing connection to the Clawthornes, but rather a future one… Maybe he’ll end up being adopted by Eda, the way Luz was? I’d love to see the Golden Guard become an evil older sibling who’s protective of Luz… 

          I ADORE that trope to death; Evil older brother with bright, younger sister, whom he cares about, and the sister cares for him too, even if it’s complicated because the sister believes in the brother to be better, while the brother doesn’t want to be better, or is at least reluctant about having to change…

           I’d love to see another Hugo and Kipo dynamic, and actually… If the Golden Guard parallels Eda, then who’s his Lilith? Could it be Luz herself? I’ve talked before the similarities between Luz and Lilith, as kids who were bullied and struggled with a lack of talent, but made up for it with hard work and ingenuity; They’ll give you a lot of trouble for doing the right thing, but then happily leap at the opportunity if they think someone is improving.

           And, as Separate Tides has also shown us; They both grapple with guilt over making Eda suffer, unintentionally to varying degrees. Luz and Lilith both learn that they’re not a burden and that it’s okay to ask for help, and come to terms with their guilt with Eda… If Belos and the Golden Guard are Luz and Eda reversed, then could Luz and the Golden Guard also be Lilith and Luz, reversed?

          With the Eda parallel being the older sibling in this scenario… An alternate timeline where Eda and Lilith were the same people, but switched places in birth, and it was EDA who ended up being the cruel and toxic sibling who left the younger feeling demeaned and worthless. I imagine if that were the case, the Golden Guard’s toxicity would occur largely in the beginning, as he acts adversarial to Luz and mocks her, taunts her over Eda’s loss of magic, and her own glyphs no doubt; The Golden Guard doesn’t seem to acknowledge glyphs as a valid form of magic himself.

           But then, if he were to get a redemption, the Golden Guard’s tune might change as he matures and learns to treat Luz more kindly… In a way mimicking how Eda really grew to care for Luz, but also the way Eda has begun to reconnect with Lilith, except with the Golden Guard as the one with the baggage and guilt.

           And, a redemption might not be too implausible, because… He is literally only sixteen, the same age as Emira and Edric, and likely the same age as Eda when SHE was cursed. Younger than Lilith, when she made the worst mistake of her life, because she didn’t understand the coven system for what it truly was –and who could blame her?- and was grappling with a likely terrible mother in Gwendolyn… The Golden Guard is literally a minor, and possibly an overworked teen prodigy.

           After all, the first glimpse of his personality Dana gave us, way back in 2020, was of the Golden Guard admitting that he was tired; And despite his usually cheery personality, all of our glimpses at his face behind the mask (symbolism!) have had him look likely serious and glum… But then again, we don’t see the lower half of his face, so who knows? 

          Perhaps the Golden Guard is abused and overworked by Belos, kind of like Amity with her parents… The Golden Guard is a child dealing with a very toxic influence, and a huge burden of responsibility no less. And with all the potential connections to Belos as maybe even a literal father, or at least a parental figure, it’s not hard to see why the Golden Guard would turn out so messed up. And the Golden Guard being ‘tired’ could be a connection to how Eda is left exhausted from her curse, too.

           So, who knows? Because of his age, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect, or at least hope, for a redemption for this kiddo. But a recent sister show to The Owl House has taught me anything, kids aren’t free from death, and Infinity Train made it clear that you can humanize and sympathize and mourn someone who deserved better, yet ultimately dug their grave and was condemned to a sudden death because of that; All because they didn’t know any better, and really couldn’t have.

           And on another note- Maybe the Golden Guard has owl motifs like Eda… Because in a lot of ways, he actually admires her? He admires the Owl Lady, or at least the certain ‘past’ version that others such as Lilith may have brought up… Maybe the Golden Guard seeks to supplant Eda the Owl Lady as The Most Powerful Witch in the Boiling Isles. Maybe he sees himself as Eda, but better, and this rebellious, hot-headed kid feels the need to prove himself by defeating someone he sees himself in.

           Maybe the Golden Guard is like Lilith, as someone who wishes Eda could’ve joined the coven system, and he’s disappointed in how all her talent was ‘wasted’ on other things. Maybe the Golden Guard was disappointed in Eda losing her magic, losing further respect for his ‘problematic idol’, and/or he felt some validation and vindication in being a successor to Eda. 

          Does he hold some grudge? Did the Owl Lady’s power excite him, give the Golden Guard a goal to recklessly challenge and defeat, so he can experience the thrill of victory and add to this feeling of invincibility that teenagers, especially the talented ones, have?

           Eda as a kid, and even now, has always been fond of spiting what others say she can’t do, or setting new precedents and accomplishments to prove herself. Maybe the Golden Guard is like that, and hopes to take on the onus of outdoing the Owl Lady; Perhaps he admires Eda, and wishes she could’ve joined a coven like him. As an outside admirer, he mourns Eda’s ‘potential’ in a way similar to Lilith, but different; Because he’s a kid who looks up to her, and not an older sibling that has an actual childhood with Eda. If so, then that’s another dark parallel to Luz;

           After all, Luz got frustrated by Eda in Adventures in the Elements. So maybe the Golden Guard is someone who grew resentful of Eda for not living up to the legend he hoped, the image he wanted, sort of like Lilith! I’ll go out on a limb and even suggest him as a past apprentice, who unlike Luz, never learned to be patient and appreciate Eda’s teachings, so he turned to the coven system and Belos for easy gratification. He didn’t want to be challenged… And in that way, the Golden Guard could parallel my speculation on Belos, as also a Dark Luz.

          So of course, it makes sense that Belos would recognize this same dilemma in the Golden Guard, and perhaps be sympathetic and take him under his wing for it. Eda might not recognize the Golden Guard because he’s changed a bit himself, is hiding his own identity –Lilith doesn’t seem to know much about the witch beneath the mask either, just the public image and façade- and Eda’s been having memory issues. Maybe this will add to the Golden Guard’s resentment, who knows? He really might just be a rebellious teen who Eda failed, unlike with Luz… And that could add to more envy, perhaps.

           At the very least; Dana’s fondness for the Golden Guard takes on a whole new meaning… What with how Eda is pretty much one of, if not THE most favorite character of hers, the one who really jumpstarted this entire show and world to begin with… Having this other character she likes essentially be a canon AU version of that beloved creation, would certainly make a lot of sense! Dana likes Eda, she likes to show us about Young Eda; So a character who IS Young Eda, just on a different path, would likely appeal to her. We’ll see…

           I think it’s worth noting that in her art of the Golden Guard, it depicts him as essentially a normal, lazy teenager who’s asking someone else to do his chore for him, while he lounges around to do something else. I could see a young Eda as occasionally fulfilling that role and asking her older sister Lily for a favor- And maybe this could allude to the Golden Guard being frequently exhausted from being overworked himself, hence “I’m tired” and wanting to extend his breaks as much as possible. We’ll just have to wait and see…