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heatherclowndler · 4 years

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An Open Letter To the Six Fandom

I'm gonna be real with you guys: I’m getting really tired of the moral superiority of some people in the Six fandom. Six is a barely historically accurate concert-musical where the queens fight about their trauma for an hour, but it’s about white women, so I guess that means that its #girlpower is so much more respectable than Hamilton being representation to POC.

If you think I'm not talking about you, I am, @historemix / @ghostheather . I’m fucking sick of your bullshit. How come every time you get called out for being a hypocritical bully, you have a little meltdown, say you'll be better, and then go back to the same bullshit as before?

Before I actually get into the reasons that you’re a hypocrite and a bully, I want to thank everyone that sent me the screenshots and testimonials used in this post. It’s good to know that multiple people are as fed up and disturbed by this behavior as I am, and it wouldn’t have been possible without you.

Anyways, back to the matter at hand. First and foremost, your obsession with being on a fucking high horse is embarrassing. Your self-congratulatory posts about the Six fandom being so much better than the Hamilton fandom is fucking laughable coming from you, and here's why.

Before you get on about the Hamilton fandom being toxic, and the major reason why you can't fuck with the musical, remember that much of the fandom are people of color: most of whom are also minors. And they’re often the first to be driven out of it– not by harmless headcanons and fanfics or kids being "cringy”, but racist, toxic ass adults, colorism, whitewashing and constant harassment. Black fans, minors especially, would be the first to tell you this, since there’s been multiple incidents on Tumblr and Twitter where Black fans have been harassed, called slurs, etc. just for liking the musical, and that isn’t even getting into the amount of shit that’s been sent to the Black cast members for being a part of it. But clearly you haven't been fucking bothered to read the posts of how Black people in this fandom and in the cast have been treated, because maybe if you did, you’d be quiet and think before you start spouting shit, instead of constantly putting Hamilton’s name in your mouth to say shit that you think will give you woke points with the funnymen crowd.

Do you really think that the same bloggers that make fun of Hamilton would see any difference between those fans and you, the adult stanning a musical where Real Life Catherine of Aragon, a character played by a black woman, owned slaves, and was the person that introduced slavery into England is portrayed as a strong, feminist Queen? Or how Catherine Parr, a woman who was complicit in child molesation and later got upset with said child for being a victim of sexual abuse, is portrayed as the ultimate feminist and hero of the musical? Or is it okay for you to talk about how these child-molesting slaveowners were oh so admirable and honorable because you "respect the history,” whatever the fuck that means.

Yes.. I'm sure white women from the 1500s would be so pleased about the fact that their history is being told by women that they thought were inferior to them based on the color of their skin.

Also sidenote, you may want to reconsider your definition of what is a respectable Six fan when you're writing a literal AU for your favorite dead queens. Sis, just say that you want to write Six fanfiction. There’s no shame in it– especially because the people that write Six fanfiction are more respectable than you are.

But speaking of history, you need to take off your clown mask and realize how ridiculous the notion that “respectable Six fans” are ones that have a genuine respect for Tudor history, because despite the fact that you say this, Six completely disregards the actual Tudor history.

Take the example of Boleyn. Anne Boleyn – a woman who was judicially murdered on false charges including incest with her brother, witchcraft, and adultery in part because she couldn’t give birth to a son and wouldn’t be a submissive wife to her husband – is reduced to a three minute comic relief song that makes light of her murder and states that yes, she actually was guilty of adultery, but she only flirted with those guys to make Henry jealous! Writing an entire song about a woman whose name has been dragged through the mud for nearly 500 years after she was murdered on false charges and then saying that she actually did do the thing that caused her to be executed is just peak #Feminism, am I right? And so is making light of her unjust execution by calling the song “Don’t Lose Your Head” and continuously making joking references to her being beheaded, I guess. Never mind the fact that Boleyn was reportedly near-suicidal and “ready to be done with life” by the time she was executed. Never mind the fact that the six fingers rumor – something that’s also repeated in the musical and presented as a fact – was started by Catholics attempting to quell people’s sympathies over Boleyn’s execution by attempting to make it seem like she actually was a witch and therefore deserved to die. None of that matters because Six is about feminism and it does the Queens justice, right?

And let’s not even get started on Catherine of Aragon. You know, the person who you've reblogged posts about that claim she was “a remarkable woman”, and that you’re apparently so sad about the fact that she died that you’ve made memorial posts about her knowing good and well that she was a garbage person who owned human beings? The same Catherine of Aragon that was reduced in the musical to only being angry that her husband cheated on her and wanted to divorce her, as well as bickering with Boleyn? The same Catherine of Aragon that also was reduced to constantly talking in the musical about how she was forced to move to a country where she didn’t know anyone? On that note, isn’t it funny how that works? Especially since she and her garbage family owned slaves, forced them to convert to Christianity and change their names to Spanish ones, and then forced them to come to England with Catherine when she moved there to marry Arthur Tudor!

All of the queens are dumbed down for the sake of the musical and it isn't until the very, VERY end of the musical that they all realize that fighting over who got the worse abuse from their husband is fucking stupid. And, even then, it’s still incredibly fucking problematic and gross because the Queen that makes them realize that the fight is stupid, and ultimately the Queen that’s praised for being the most feminist in the musical and by its creators, is the Queen that literally held her stepdaughter down while her husband molested her. If you’re really so damn upset about how much Hamilton and its creator glorify the Founders that it ruined your ability to enjoy the musical when that musical at least still acknowledges the fact that Presidents Washington, Jefferson and Madison owned slaves (and its creator acknowledging that none of the Founders were good people), why aren’t you upset about how Six portrays Catherine Parr and Catherine of Aragon as feminists when they were a child molester and a slave owner, respectively, and it's never acknowledged in the musical? Why isn’t your enjoyment of Six ruined by the fact that the Six creators praise Child Molester Parr and Slaveowner of Aragon for being strong feminists, or the Six Instagram calling Ferdinand and Isabella (you know, the people that committed genocide against Black people in Spain, had others tortured and executed for their race&religious beliefs, and literally caused Columbus’s colonization of the Americas [and by extension, the Transatlantic Slave Trade] to begin) a “power couple”?

The entire premise of Six is flawed, arguably even more so than Hamilton’s, because at least Hamilton actually did what it sets out to do throughout the entire musical, and not just the last five minutes. But even so, the basic plot idea remains– fictionalized (heavy emphasis on the fictionalized, Heather!) versions of real people fighting to tell their story. So, if the creators of Six cast aside historical accuracy for the sake of creating a diverse and modern take on the Queens’s lives and you eat it up as much as you do, why should we give a shit when Hamilton does the same thing? Since you love Six so much, you clearly fucking don't, because otherwise you’d be shitting on Six just as much as you like to shit on Hamilton. It really just goes to show how much of a hypocrite and a pick-me ass bitch you are, because the fact that you love Six makes it really obvious that you only care about hating Hamilton so much because it’s a stance that you think will give you more street cred with the Tumblr and Twitter crowds.

^^ The absolute hypocrisy of you reblogging this when you regularly make posts and reblog posts of you and other people doing the same thing with Hamilton and its fandom. Embarrassing.

I'm saying this as someone who enjoys Six’s songs and also has common sense and brain cells– they're fictionalized versions of real people, and those real people were shitty. And that’s okay. But you need to stop embarrassing yourself and acting like you’re morally superior to people that enjoy Hamilton when your core arguments for enjoying Six literally could also be said for Hamilton, and your core arguments for hating Hamilton could be said (and would definitely apply better) to Six. I see you all the time making the argument about how important it is for Six fans to see an all-woman cast, do you think Hamilton fans of color can't make the argument that they feel it's important to see a cast with over 95% POC? How for those teens, it brought them into giving musicals a try in the first place (this is just one of many examples)? How Hamilton's overwhelming success brought jobs to so many actors of color, including helping some of them (most prominently, Daveed Diggs) make a stable enough income to give them a place to live and rest their head? When it paved the way for musicals like Six to gain popularity, too? Cognitive dissonance isn't a good fucking look on you, luv.

And don’t even try the "creator is problematic argument", bitch. You're all over Mean Girls, where the creator (Tina Fey) is shitty for a multitude of reasons, blackface and saying the n word included. Not to mention the Heathers musical, where the creators turn JD into a sympathetic villain and apologise for him when the director and writer of the original movie made it clear that JD wasn’t a character that people are supposed to sympathize with. It's a fucking joke that you go "I can't get behind a musical with a bad creator!" when you base your whole blog around a musical whose creator that's transphobic and antiblack, as well as a musical whose creators apologise for an attempted school shooter and use their musical to make him sympathetic. We know LMM is a piece of trash, but that doesn't give you the right to steamroll over fans (again, most of whom are minors of color) who just want to mind their business and enjoy a fucking show, like a pick-me ass theater kid you are.

And while we're talking about your hypocrisy, let's talk about your incessant harassment of a teenage Six fan for fucking months. You’ve instigated wave after wave of bullying towards a fan who was only 15 at the time when it started, for various reasons. I don’t give a fuck if you were just trying to “spread awareness” about their actions, or get them to change their ways, or whatever. You’re a grown ass fucking adult. If you see a minor in fandom – especially one that’s 3+ years younger than you – doing cringy/problematic stuff, let other minors be the ones to say something about it. Your harassment and creepy behavior around minors isn’t justified by the fact that you think that you’re doing something good.

This is just one of the many examples of you vaguing/posting about the teenage Six fan under the guise of trying to “spread awareness” about their reaction. This one is just fucking rude, especially because they’re a minor with ADHD/ADD that projects traits that they have onto fictional characters and vice versa. I’d expect you to know a lot about projecting onto characters and picking up traits from them, since you channel Heather Chandler and Regina George’s bitchiness and their consistent harassment of teenagers that they consider to be lesser than them into your internet persona and identity, am I right?

The potential end result doesn’t justify the means; but clearly you think it does since you never say shit about this teenager getting harassed until you get called out for your complicity in it, say that you never sent them any asks, promise you’ll do better about the way you interact with minors in fandom, repeat.

Not to mention the complete hypocrisy of this statement in the tags of one of the below posts– especially considering that you were the one that made it open season on this girl in the first place with your consistent vaguing about her and making joke posts about her with your friends when she was only fifteen. And on top of that, denying that you ever harassed Lizzie, claiming that your only crime was vague posting her – when you and your shitty friends posted memes about stuff that she had been doing and making it really clear in your vagues that it was about Lizzie. Just because you didn’t name her directly doesn’t mean that it wasn’t harassment, asshole.

Oh, and here you are, months earlier, admitting that you did cause her to get harassed and acknowledging that you named her? Interesting.

The fact that you say that you have to take responsibility for it, but you never fucking do? [Narrator Voice] Heather would not take responsibility for that.

And let’s not forget how after almost driving the girl to the point of suicide and after getting called out multiple times for it, you promised to be a better person, before running to Twitter and continuing to vague about her. And in addition to that, you making memes and joke posts about Jay, the black teenager who was also bullied almost to the point of suicide for minding his own fucking business and making some fucking fanart and quirky headcanons, is fucking nasty. To further stick your nose up at him and go “not my fandom” at him for drawing Trans!Jefferson art when your Tumblr icon is Anne Boleyn with a lesbian flag behind it and your Twitter icon is the same thing with Katherine Howard... the joke writes itself. Do I have to repeat my point?

Not to mention the fact that you fucking lied in your apology on your viral post about him, because you said that you only became aware of the fact that he was a Black teenager that was harassed after the post whent viral.. when someone told you months before (in the replies to the above post) that he was a Black teenager that was harassed relentlessly for his fanart and asked you to leave Hamilton fans of color alone. But clearly you still stand by your point about Hamilton fans. Who’s surprised?

And then after receiving a 22-anon thread where anon presumably called you out on your hypocrisy of this, you still went to Twitter and started bitching about the fact that you were called out despite saying that you were deeply ashamed and that you would do better. Yet another example of Heather the Hypocrite, am I right or am I right?

You really switch up from “I feel incredibly ashamed and I want to reassess where to go forward from here” on Tumblr to “I hate Tumblr purity culture” when you’re on the safety of your Twitter account like clockwork. And it’s awfully bold of you to mention Tumblr purity culture like you didn’t cause waves of harassment to be sent to a 15/16 year old girl to the point where she felt paranoid that someone was going to come to her house and attack her, and later make memes/joke posts about a Black minor who was harassed to the point where he tried to commit suicide and later had to get rid of his online presence altogether for his own safety.

Also, you posted the IP address of the anon who called you out, and tagged them as “asshole” on the website that you use to track IP addresses. But you genuinely felt ashamed, right? You wanted to change and reassess yourself, right? (The anon’s IP address has been blocked out by me to protect their privacy, because the person who sent in this screenshot didn’t black it out, either.)

And even then, aside from all that, your actions have caused multiple minors in the Six fandom to feel uncomfortable. Below are testimonials about your behavior, and how it’s made minors in the Six fandom feel. One of these is also a reply on a post that called out your behavior. (URLs and icons on both Tumblr and Discord are blacked out to protect their privacy.)

Take in what these testimonials are saying. The fact that your behavior with harassing minors has grown so much that people are afraid to post in the Six tags and express their love for the musical because they don’t want to get harassed by you and your group of friends is concerning.

You, a grown adult, have made minors scared to be themselves and do things their way. You’ve created a culture of fear in a fandom where over 80% of its active fans are minors. You should have been leading by example, showing Six fans how the message of uplifting women should be implemented, but instead? You caused a floodgate of harassment to be sent to a then-15 year old girl that got so bad that she was suicidal and paranoid that people would come to her house, and it ended with even more minors afraid to post in the fandom’s tag because they’re afraid that you and your shitty friends will come for them, too. Shit, I was a follower for a while! I had only unfollowed due to your moral high horse, but it wasn't long before I was made aware about your history of bullshit.

You shouldn’t just be ashamed of yourself– you should be mortified with yourself. And your little friend group should be, too: not only because of their part in all of this, participating in harassing and making fun of that poor girl with you, but because of the fact that they keep enabling you to do this harmful shit by not properly shutting you down or calling you out. But it's not like you care anyways, because you’ve made fun of people voicing their concerns about your behavior and calling you out for making the fandom an unsafe space.

"But I said I'm sorry-" Yeah, we know. We saw a series of half-assed “I'm sorry” posts, paired with you not taking real responsibility for any of the harm you’ve caused. And clearly you didn't actually mean anything you said, because you kept doing it again. And again, and again, and again.

By the way, Heather, the implication that you would be indicted for murder if Lizzie committed suicide despite never speaking to her isn’t just an implication: it’s a literal fact that people can be prosecuted for manslaughter/murder without ever laying a finger on the suicide victim. This includes cyberbullying.

It means nothing to admit you're a hypocrite and do nothing to improve, especially because you’ve said this same exact “apology” multiple times, almost word from word. You're a grown fucking adult that vicariously lives out her dream of being a highschool bully through Tumblr by harassing teenage girls on the internet, and it gives me secondhand embarrassment. Grow the fuck up already, Heather. You’re 20 years old.

You're always harping about how the Six fandom is becoming toxic and embarrassing without considering the fact that you’re one of the toxic ass adults that make children embarrassed and ashamed to be a part of their fandoms. Whenever they do something even slightly cringy, and not even genuinely problematic like some of the other shit in the Six fandom, you’re quick to be like “This isn’t respectable,” “The Six fandom is going to be the next Hamilton fandom,” or whatever the fuck else you say. Teenage girls calling Boleyn a gremlin and making headcanons about the queens siblings/children is not the end of the world, and the fact that you act like it is when you’ve actively created a culture of fear in a fandom that’s mostly made up of teenage girls is embarrassing and disgusting.

I don’t care about whatever apology or sob story you’re going to say after you see this post, because in the end, it’ll just be an empty promise as long as you stay on here. At best, you’ll say that you’re going to do better and leave Tumblr for what, a month? Only to bitch on your Twitter account for the entire month, then come back to Tumblr and do the same exact thing that I’m calling you out for.

You need to stay away from minors in fandom. As a matter of fact — stay out of fandoms that are mostly made up of minors as a whole. You’ve proven time and time again that you don’t care about the safety or feelings of minors, nor do you care about actually “improving” or reassessing yourself every time you get called out. The fact that you’ve been called out for the same things via being indirected on a Tumblr post (linked here), being sent multiple anons by different people (shown above), and being sent a 22-anon thread by one single person calling you out (stated by you above), and you still haven’t changed? Is all of the proof that I need that you won’t change.

That’s all I have to say to you.

People in the Six fandom, I’m heavily urging you not to continue giving this person a platform. I can’t force you to do anything, but you all deserve the right to know what’s been going on. Aside from her hypocrisy about Six, it’s historical figures, and its fandom as a whole, she’s been involved in harassing a minor to the point where she felt paranoid and wanted to leave the fandom on separate occasions, made jokes about another minor in a different fandom that was harassed to the point of attempting suicide on multiple occasions (then lying and claiming that she was never told he was a Black minor who was harassed after she was called out due to a post she made about him going viral when someone told her months before that he was all of those things in the notes of another post she made about him), and other minors have posted/stated that they feel her behavior went too fair, and that because of it they feel unsafe posting stuff in the fandom.

She’s been called out on her behavior on multiple different occasions, and each time she said that she would reassess her behavior and discuss how her actions were toxic. People have given her multiple chances, and each time, she’s gone back to the same toxic behavior and done the very things that she claimed she would stop doing. It’s getting ridiculous at this point, and her actions have gotten to the point where it seems like the only course of action is to call her out publicly.

Like Heather herself said, and I will now brilliantly quote because karma is a bitch: “If you keep making the same “mistake” MULTIPLE TIMES, people aren’t gonna be happy about it.” She isn’t exempt from criticism, especially when this stuff has happened multiple times and she hasn’t done anything to change her behavior. Listen to what she said, and hold her accountable.

Again, I can’t force you to do anything, but I hope that everyone in the Six fandom keeps what was said in this post in mind the next time they consider interacting with her or her content. Take care.

#six the musical #six musical #if youre in the six fandom pls reblog this to spread awareness. this has gone on for long enough #ghostheather

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antihero-writings · 4 years

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Blood and Mercury

Fandom: Pandora Hearts

Fic Summary: Symptoms of mercury poisoning may include: irritability, excitability, delirium, insomnia, vivid dreams, depression, and suicidal tendency.

There must have been a lot of mercury in Break's past for him to show so many symptoms.

|| A modern AU about Break's past struggle with drug abuse and suicidal thoughts, and his current struggle with the Mad Hatter's illness, and how much of that struggle he should tell Sharon about.

Character Focus: Break

Notes: 1. Warning! This fic deals with topics of suicide and drug abuse. Everything is described very subtly and poetically, and it's not explicit, but it is about that. However, although it's heavy for the first part, there's some definite comic relief at the end if you can get that far!!

2. This is a modern AU. Not the reincarnation AU, an actual modern AU, where the plot of the series happens in modern time. (I mean, I guess it could be a reincarnation AU if actual events repeat themselves...but I don't think they do). So, in case it's not clear, Break's sick from his second contract with the Mad Hatter, just like in the series. Although I do like the idea that it's actually mercury poisoning.... a) I didn't even think about that until I'd already written it, b) coughing up blood and stuff isn't a symptom of it, and c) that's a really cool idea that I'd rather focus on and do justice in another fic. (Let me know if you'd be interested in reading that!!) The time frame for this is meant to be towards the end of the series--around the time Break was teaching Oz sword fighting.

3. I've always headcanoned Break (or more Kevin) as being suicidal because of the "So...you wanna die?" line. I don't know if the line was actually supposed to mean he was directly suicidal, or if it just meant he was depressed and not doing well, and/or just didn't care about his life, but that's how I've viewed it. And even if he was suicidal, I don't know that he ever attempted it. It could just be that he was suicidal inside but never did anything with those thoughts. Regardless, I do think he wanted to die in some fashion, and to me it makes his story more impactful (especially when he ends up wanting to live at the end), and relatable if he was actually suicidal. So I really wanted to play with that idea in at least one fic (though I'd enjoy playing with it in the context of the actual series too).(You don't have to read this part if you don't want to XD I just wanted to put it up front)

This fic was inspired by the song "Colors" by Halsey!

If you enjoy this fic, I'd really really appreciate if you could leave a comment!! Even the shortest comments can truly make my week, and motivate me to keep writing!!

Chapter 1: The Candy Shop

Collapsing. Blackness. Scratches in his lungs. And the taste of blood.

He never complained but his blood tasted like ash, and regret, and the blackness that overtook his sight was far from empty; an abyss, the memory of one, engulfed his world before he even felt the ground.

The last thing he had heard was Sharon shouting his name, and at Oz to get the medicine—and do so quickly. She didn’t say why, but they all knew it was because every second they wasted was a second he no longer had to spend.

Sharon’s voice, doused with pain. All that hurt and care, and thinly veiled tears, crammed into a few words. He’d never tell her, but he could care less about the wasted seconds, if only she would promise never to cry like that again.

He had collapsed this time. That wasn’t exactly abnormal, still, little by little, line by line, every little sign, he was getting worse.

“Don’t push yourself, Xerx.”

Reim would scold him for not listening.

And maybe Break would laugh, say some quip about how he worried too much, how he needed to let loose. Or maybe he’d say nothing at all. But they both knew—words or no—at some point, this would be all that was left; a few laughs, a drink or two, and the words Xerxes, don’t throw your life away.

What a fool he was.

With Sharon it was different. Different because she was young, and she didn’t understand, not fully, not enough. Or because she understood too much, and everyone pretended she didn’t. He didn’t like to entertain the thought, but maybe that included herself; maybe when she told them to get the medicine, she was telling herself it would work.

Which was the scarier thought; that she didn’t understand? Or that she understood completely, and pretended not to?

What about before? When she was a child laced in light. Was it worse then, or better?

She was younger—so, so young…had they really known each other so long? Was he really so old?…little girls shouldn’t be forced to deal with the broken shards of someone like him.

They might get cut on the pieces.

She didn’t know. She didn’t need to pretend. Still, they tried to hide his pain from her young impressionable brain. And this was not easy, nor fun, but neither were the tears and the questions.

That all but went out the window when the little girl found him, collapsed on the bathroom floor, along with the desperate spill bottle of pills, meant to override the circuits in his brain. Salt thrown over his shoulder.

For good luck on the other side.

Shelly’s face. No anger. No disappointment. That kindness was in Sharon’s smile too, now—and did this kindness mean more if she knew the truth? If he’d known the capacity of their smiles, would he not have tried it?

Sharon had led her mother to him—her voice was desperate, shouting, crying, back then too…some things never change—laying there on the floor, on a date with death and a bottle whiskey and cyanide. As if toasting to the thought We are born drinking from bottles, why not die that way too? Instead of throwing them away he had tried to throw away his life instead.

Bottle up his life, slap a label on it, set it on the shelf. You can take it down on special occasions. Sell it, throw it away, it doesn’t matter. Throw away his life with the very thing that was meant to heal it. Not many murder weapons were once medicine. An overdose on ineffective salvation.

Hadn’t wrote a note either. Hadn’t given them a reason, hadn’t detailed his pain, or plan for revenge.

Just tried to leave without a trace, and left too many.

And when he woke up and, to his chagrin, was still alive—no heaven or hell, just here on an earth that was both—she hadn’t scolded him…well, not at first. She hadn’t demanded to know what he was thinking, or tried to ingrain within him him how much they cared, and how terrible it would all be if this plan of his had worked. She had just smiled, and spoke softly. And later, when she cleaned him up, she had said…

It was always the same. The same now. Black and white and red all over. Sharon’s cries, instead of choking down all the pain, forcing herself not to feel, like he did, she took that pain on her tongue and let it spill out into the open air.

Maybe that was all she could do. Shout his name, and pray her words would pull him from the beyond the veil, and try to discern if there was such a thing as medicine after all. Maybe she wanted to feel useful, because just sitting here, waiting for the end to come and grab him with teeth and claws, was more than she could bear. And in some way he was grateful, because he’d rather she pretend she could save him, than see the real pity, the hopelessness in her eyes when she realized she couldn’t. When she realized the Red Queen and the Black King had her Mad Hatter after all, and she couldn’t break him out of their dungeon.

One day, he was sure, it would all become too similar to a snowy night long ago—a night dressed in black; black cloak, black coffins, black sky, and black around those red eyes, which his own became indistinguishable from too quickly. Maybe Sharon would even say those words too: Break, please don’t leave me, because he’d never had the guts to tell her what his past was made of. And then…he would do just that.

He’d rather have her believe the lie he might live than say to her face I’m going to die and nothing can stop it.

He wasn’t afraid to die. We all die at some point. Some sooner than others. Why should he get more time when he wasted so much of it? Save your breaths. Save your tears. Save your lives, not mine. We all lose the fight eventually. He had spent his whole life fighting, maybe just once he could go quietly into that goodnight; meet death as a friend. He didn’t deserve more time than anyone else.

He just…wanted a few more minutes awake. A snooze button on life. Five more minutes. Ten. Twenty. A year or two? There were a few more things he needed to do. He wasn’t going to let death take him down easy.

All that talk, and not-talk, of medicine and death led him here, today, with a prescription container in his hand, and an ache in his head.

He swung open the lid to the cabinet, a mirror hanging limply out, glinting in the cold fluorescent light.

Why do they put mirrors on medicine cabinets? Like you need a second look to tell you—Yep, I’m crazy— before you pop the little capsules in your mouth, which promise This will make things better. And you tell yourself plastic and paperwork, lab coats whitewashed as their promises wouldn’t lie.

He lifted the container to put it back in its proper place in the cabinet, but paused, letting it rest on the tip his fingers, sliding into place in his palm. His arm dropped back down, eyes scanning over the label, darting to the rest of the contents of the cabinet, as if staring down an old foe.

White ones, and blue ones, red ones, yellow ones…like some candy store for the sick, the insane, and the empty. It wasn’t just pills either; powders, and needles, and glass that breathes fumes into your lungs and brain; a delusion’s kiss, that makes everything just a little bit better, just a little bit funnier. Needles that, needless to say, could take you a real wonderland if you shoved them in far enough.

He’d tried them all at some point in his life. And when they didn’t work, the stash sat dormant in his closet, his drawers, cabinets like this one, while new-fangled solutions took their place. He didn’t throw them away—you never know when one day you might need to fly—like he was keeping illegal souvenirs of a worse world.

There are worse things than bottled happiness. And ‘happiness’ can do more damage than a decent amount of sorrow sometimes.

They smelled like walls that someone puked on at one point, but they painted over rather than clean up, and you could still tell by the smell something was wrong, closer to the woodwork. But they were too easy to keep contained; to not smell, to not taste, too easy not to realize what they were really made of.

He wouldn’t be surprised if there was a few hundred, maybe thousand or more, dollars* here staring back at him in hollow color. The amount of money they cost only comparable to their unending ingredient lists—full of the names of chemicals he couldn’t pronounce, and titles that he could, but wouldn’t waste breath on. He didn’t care about the money, or what they were made of, or the warnings of how much more damage they would cause—asking you to decide between your brain and your liver. All promising happiness, and not-perfect-just-better, and a decent night’s sleep.

He tried not to care about much.

None of them worked. Not for him at least.

And, no, that wasn’t an exaggeration. Wasn’t just an excuse to get more, or him not trying hard enough. There came a point when his body just wouldn’t respond to their signals.

There came a point when too much of him was already too dead to respond to anything but mad scientists, calling upon lightning storms in old abandoned castles. Besides, the Mad Hatter’s malady wasn’t exactly something an ordinary doctor could fix, or even name.

In truth, he could handle the physical aspects of it; the blood in his lungs, the passing out, and the loss of vision—which would be more than a temporary side effect before long. But there was something else—what do they call it? The soul? The heart? Something like that. He’d forgotten long ago. Those parts, that pain, was harder to take, to tolerate, and rotted the longer he stuffed it down. Like he was barricading the door to the monster’s lair with the bodies of those monsters that had gone before, and he knew full well none of them were quite dead.

There was an old picture on the countertop. A woman with hazelnut hair and a sunflower smile, a man in turquoise with a begonia eye, tragedy woven into the petals. And a little girl who thought flowers were bandages.

He picked it up, brushing the dust off their faces, trying to smile, though it was stained as his eye back then.

People need hope. They need this thing to tell them to keep going, it’s not over yet, not to give up. It’s like the glue to the gingerbread house that is you. When you don’t have it, your life kind of…falls flat. Like soda that’s been left out; no longer bubbly, no longer worth drinking. When someone doesn’t have it, it doesn’t mean they can’t live anymore, that life is undrinkable, it just means this thing we called living, once, doesn’t have the same carbonation.

But hope is a funny thing, elusive, reclusive, and volatile. Picky about the things it can eat. Difficult to keep alive.

That’s why this candy store was so full, what its stockers promised to fix, to feed; that beast, hope. That’s what the dealers promised they could provide; something they all knew couldn’t be borrowed, or bartered, or manufactured.

Hope’s not something that can be bottled. We’re all like children, unaware fireflies, those pretty blinking lights, will die without air.

He set the picture back down, turning his gaze to the container still in his other hand.

The only reason he kept using them was for them. For Sharon, Sheryl, and Reim. For Oz and Gilbert, and the rest. As long as it didn’t hurt, or make it worse, if it gave them hope—(a hope he could never have)—for him to take the medicine, he’d do it.

Sheryl had been the one to suggest the medicinal path in the first place. It made sense; she had dealt with this sort of thing before. Shelly had been sickly all her life, and medicine helped—(Helped. Didn’t save her life. And Shelly would have argued she didn’t need it either, and had often refused them herself). But this wasn’t the same. This was deeper than skin or bone. Still, she was kind, and he respected her—or he came to…not to mention he didn’t want to cross her.

Reim had agreed; regiments and tangible, scientific solutions appealed to his personality. He liked when things were concrete, it was more promising to him than whimsy, and words.

They had yet to learn of the concrete things that were tea and sugar, which work a lot better at lifting the spirit than things you aren’t supposed to taste.

Life is about tasting. About watching, and listening, and really feeling. Life is about living. Not swallowing and trying not to taste. Not existing and trying not to live.

It was Shelley who had told him that. She had let them try out their methods, but she told him if he didn’t want them to work, that they wouldn’t. That he could try them, but they were useless without resolve to go with them. She told him that the ones the doctors give are from a factory, made of greed, and half-baked promises that rubbed too close to lies. Not belief, and real promises, and laughter—(which is, of course, the best medicine). And even the ones they don’t give you are too strong to grant you something you can call life. That maybe he oughtta just throw them away after all.

She told him a smile and a day in the sun was all he really needed. That they can’t bottle and sell hope and sunshine. That you can’t pull life out of death, and hope needs to come from something alive—from something free of charge, flickering in the air, that can’t be put in a jar, or tamed. She pointed to his chest and said that hope hails from there. The last thing in the box is always hope, you just have to really empty out the rest of the crap in the box first.

Shelly wasn’t someone you could hide these sorts of things from. She had this sixth sense; she could speak with the already-dead. One way or another, she’d find out—(even if she had to wring it out of you). But instead of sending you to the doctor, telling you that something was wrong with you, that you were crazy, she would smile. Like all you needed were a few kind words, and she’d send you back into the world, heart humming. She could be unbearably compassionate. When she talked about happiness, it was like she was speaking of an old friend of hers. She’d say that it doesn’t come in shots or smoke, it was more elusive, and can be found in a kind gesture, at amusement parks, and in sunsets, in a really good cup of tea, or a homemade cookie.

And when she’d cleaned him up, after finding him on the bathroom floor, she’d said:

“So, you want to die?”

Did he? Did he really want to die? Or was it something else? Something darker? something brighter?

He wanted to sleep. To rest. He knew that much. His sleep was always interrupted and irregular, and he had forgotten what real rest entailed.

Knives and blades rested comfortably in his hands, but he had broken the skin too often, of too many others, for it to provide any semblance of relief when used on himself. Besides, he didn’t want to die naked in a bathtub painted red. He didn’t want to lay in a coffin with stitches on his neck and flowers growing out of his wrists. He didn’t want the world to find him hanging from the ceiling like a criminal in town square. He didn’t want scars to tell his secrets, or his death to show him weak. Very little about his life had been elegant or dignified. So he wanted to die, at least, softly, with some measure of dignity. Make some music out of the cacophony. Without a scratch, or a word, or a second to spare. Something subtler would be his weapon of choice: the prick of needle, the taste of poison, the promise of happiness in a bottle—just enough happy to kill you.

Because that’s how it was, then—during that time when they had found him on the bathroom floor. That desire wasn’t flashy and boisterous. It wasn’t the rich smell of steel and iron, it was more insidious; the smallest pinprick of the soul, or something he may have swallowed at one time or another, that withered his insides slowly. It wasn’t something to parade around, or cry out to the town, and it wasn’t something he needed them to rescue him from. It was just there, nagging at the back of his heart, like a sore soul.

He didn’t cut, and he wouldn’t bruise or burn, and he wouldn’t ask for their help, or tell them a thing either.

His cries were veiled, veiled behind those times he shouted at them, or insulted them, even now still veiled behind his jokes. It wasn’t obvious. The pain was a shadow behind his words and actions, a demon behind him at all hours.

Back then, there had been days when he wouldn’t move from that windowsill, unless Shelly shoved him off.

Sometimes he felt like a shadow himself when he was around the living—like he wasn’t really there. Already dead, an imprint, a faded image of some past, some distant version of a self who may or may not have existed. He couldn’t share their happiness, or even their grief, because he wasn’t a real thing, here, now. He shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be here, with a new young mistress, a doll with his old mistress’s name, and a heart full of regrets. I mean, really, shouldn’t. Time had bent for him, and he feared the bends were becoming breaks.

“You wish to die…so you do not suffer anymore. You simply want to save yourself.”

Was that true? Was this not about death, or even rest, but about…salvation?

He wanted to live. And that’s why he tried so hard to die.

Sharon, Reim, Sheryl, Shelly, and…Oz.

He ran his hand through his hair, grimacing at the thought of Oz seeing all this. Sharon had assigned him the task of medicine-caddy after all. He imagined the boy saying to himself What does Break need all these for? Then backtracking in his mind Oh, right, which would either be followed by, Oh, right, he’s crazy or Oh, right, he said he wouldn’t last the year and take an extra few moments to find the right ones before running back.

Usually Reim was the one to do this. Reim knew about the whole not-working thing. He had told him to stop taking them, to tell Sharon that they didn’t work. To stop pretending they did, that he’d never know what more damage they were doing to his body by taking them. But he also didn’t force him to tell the truth. Perhaps protecting Sharon was for the best. They were like her older brothers—a little too protective at times. Neither of them wanted to see her cry.

He didn’t usually let anyone besides Reim look in this cabinet—best not let the world in on his little secret candy shop—but he hadn’t had his medicine on him at the moment he fell, and Reim had been busy running errands for the bird-brained duke at the time.

He tossed the still-full container into the trash, where it gave a satisfying swish and clang as it tumbled into bottom.

Such a simple action. Why had it taken him so long?

He should have listened to her earlier.

He rested his hands on the sink, closed his eyes again, blowing out a breath.

The yellow pills don’t contain happiness, in as much as the red ones don’t contain anger, or the blue ones sadness. The red pill and the blue pill don’t sit in the hands of the god of dreams, asking you if you want to wake up. We may be made out of dust, but some dust in a capsule can’t patch the rips in our souls.

Can’t fix the hole where his eye is meant to be. Can’t undo the brand on his chest.

Doctors can sew back the skin, but they don’t know how to stitch together a ripped mind. They try, they think they can plug the hole up. But you can’t come to them with the broken shards of your heart and say Hey doc, can I get a new one?. You can’t walk in with a messed-up mind and say Clean it for me, will ya?

There was nothing they could do about his eye, except give him one made of glass, and he had enough broken shards in his brain, and enough falsity in his smile. And they couldn’t rewind the clock burned on his chest. His time had already reached zero, so it made sense he was dying.

He could handle being broken, being Break. In fact, a little penance could do some good. He’d could handle pain.

It was the memories he wanted to tear to shreds and return to sender. But he was not granted the grace of amnesia, unlike little girls named Alice. Just bad dreams, and reminders on his broken body telling him he was less than worthless.

He didn’t want to go to the doctor, especially not a psychiatrist. And Shelly wouldn’t have made him go, until faced with Sharon’s eyes, blurred with tears, asking when he was going to get better.

He didn’t need a shrink to know he was crazy. What would he talk about anyway?

Well, let’s see here, I’ve killed a hundred and sixteen people, so that might be weighing on my conscience a bit.

Why? Because a demon told me I could change the past. To tell you the truth, I could, and I did, but you know what demons don’t tell you? You can change the past, but that change may mean the difference from bad to worse. I made it worse. And in my version of events; the changed past I sought so desperately, that one little girl who survived ended up feeding her family to another demon to save her sister, in the same way I wanted to save them.

I wasn’t there to stop her. And I know she failed. I am what success looks like.

And it’s my fault she’s dead. I killed her. I killed her. I killed that little girl—

Yeah, no diagnosis necessary.

Sometimes he wished he could be diagnosed with something normal. That they could say he had a disease, or a parasite that was slowly eating at his mind. But this wasn’t something that could be found in text books. It was closer to magic—things from the Abyss are not for doctors to diagnose. The blood he coughed up wasn’t from a disease, or pent up abuse or torture, it was something more mysterious; contracts, and scars, and mirrors. It’s not quite the same as an illness, not something they can just cure. They couldn’t explain the whole some of us-don’t-age-anymore thing, why would they be able to explain the blood, and the coughs and the dying just because it was more serious? There weren’t exactly Chain doctors. There are just doctors and either it’s in the books or it isn’t. And even if there were, it wasn’t exactly common for an illegal contractor to survive their trip the Abyss.

Besides, he didn’t ask for help, not even from those close to him, so why would he ask a doctor?

It was easier that way. It was easier to say it didn’t matter, easier to disappear, than to admit that he cared.

So the one time he did go to the whitewashed walls he told them something, some story that was only half based on a movie he’d seen, and they sent him away with a note to the one who bottled the happiness.

And that’s just the explanation for the prescribed ones.

The rest fit under the motto ‘Well, if you can’t beat the crazy, might as well join it.’ And those were the kind Shelly especially wanted him to throw away.

Crazy. Mad. Mad Hatter.

They say hatters used to go mad because their glue contained mercury, and the fumes polluted their brains. A mad hatter, with stitched up hands, ash-white skin, smoky eyes and a mercury turned brain…yeah, that sounded just about right.

If hope is life’s glue, then his contained mercury.

He looked up into the mirror, tilting his head to the side, and smiling wryly to himself at the thought;

There must have been a lot of mercury in his past for him to go this mad.

One day, they all stopped working. Like when he found out he couldn’t get drunk anymore. Two kinds of poisons, no longer effective, because he was already dying. No matter prescribed or uninscribed. Maybe that’s how it was with mercury poisoning; one day cures just stop curing, time stops ticking, hearts stop yearning.

Too crazy. Not crazy enough. And nothing works either way anymore. Maybe she was right, and he just throw them all away.

“Hey!”

Break started, turning to see Oz standing in the doorway.

“What’s up?” Oz leaned into the room, trying to catch a glimpse of the contents of the cabinet.

“That depends on if you’re sitting on the floor or the ceiling!” Emily sang.

Oz was used to his absurdity by now, and ignored it; “I was going to ask,”—he bounced on his tiptoes like a curious three-year-old—“what’s that green turd?”

Break tried not to laugh at his naiveté, and folded his arms over his chest, leaning against the cabinet, shutting it with his body.

“Sorry, Oz-kun,”—he smirked—“but there isn’t any children’s medicine in here, you’ll have to check elsewhere.”

Oz glared at him. He was known for being a pain in the ass…but Oz was known for being one too.

“Is it pot?” Oz continued his line of questioning, smiling like the cheeky brat he was…according to Break at least.

Break’s own smirk faltered, not realizing he was asking out of understanding rather than ignorance.

“I’ve always wanted to try it,” Oz mused out loud.

“Is that so?” The smirk was back on stage.

“Yeah!” He bounced on his toes again. “Seems like fun!”

“You know Gilbert-kun just might just kill you if he found out.” He said it like that would be a good show for a Saturday afternoon.

“You’re not gonna tell him, are you?” Oz pouted, his eyes narrowing.

“That depends.”

“On what?” Oz grunted.

“Maybe you and I could come to an agreement.” He inclined his head towards the cabinet.

“What’s there for me to tell? Are you upset I saw inside there?” He pointed with his thumb to the medicine cabinet. “It might be a little weird, but it’s not my place to judge…Honestly if you’re taking all that, it explains a lot.”

Break snickered. “You think too highly of yourself, Oz-kun; if I were upset, that would imply I care what you think.”

“Whatever.” Oz smiled; he had enough insanity of his own. “I know you love me.”

“Oh sure, the way a farmer loves the cute little rabbits eating his crops.”

Oz made to leave, but before he exited he spun in an attempt to get at the cabinet. In a flash, Break grabbed the broom from the corner, and tripped him with the end, sending him to the floor.

“Ow,” Oz rubbed at his head, which he had knocked against the doorframe.

Break didn’t apologize.

“You’ve been skimping on our lessons.” Break leaned on the broom.

“Why do I have to learn sword-fighting anyway? …It’s like you’re from another century”

“My, my.” He twirled it around so the end was at his pupil’s throat. “Just last week you were saying how excited you were to learn.”

“That was before I realized ‘go easy on him’ doesn’t register in your brain.”

“How else are you supposed to learn~?” Oz sat up, pushing the makeshift sword away from him.

He paused a moment before asking,

“They don’t work, do they?”

Break’s eye widened for a split second. He followed Oz’s emerald gaze to the medicine cabinet.

He gritted his teeth. “Cheeky little brat.”

Oz put on a sad but proud smile. “I knew it.”

“You really aren’t cute at all,” Break muttered under his breath.

“Does Sharon-chan know?”

Break looked away, pretending like he hadn’t heard the question.

“Why don’t you just tell her?”

Break laughed. “What kind of a gentleman would I be if I made my lady worry?”

“Come on, seriously. I mean, what good does letting her believe they work do?”

“There’s good to be found in even the strangest of situations.” Emily twittered.

“I’ll watch the twelve o’clock special later, thanks.”

“He doesn’t want to make her cry,” another voice broke in.

They looked up to see Reim in the doorway.

“Oh, Reim-san~! And we were just getting used to your absence!” Break joked.

Reim’s hand clenched into a fist.

“Spare me the pleasantries.”

Reim walked in to help Oz up, giving Break a reproachful look before saying, “I hope he isn’t causing you too much trouble.”

“Always. But I can handle myself. He’s just mad a saw inside his medicine cabinet.”

“Ah, yes, his little ‘candy shop.’ I have been telling him to just tell Sharon, and throw them out, for years.”

“Years? Break, you should really throw those out! Why don’t we help you?”

Break looked away. “Tch. You really think I need help from the likes of you?”

Oz got a mischievous look. “What if I tell her myself?”

“Then I’ll tell Gilbert-kun you want to take up smoking weed~?”

“Oz-sama!” Reim’s grabbed Oz by the shoulders. “You want to start smoking drugs?!” He shook him, before spinning him to Break as if presenting him. “Xerxes this is exactly the reason I tell you to throw them out! You’re polluting the young lord’s mind!” He shook Oz more.

“Eh.” Oz shrugged. “My mind was plenty polluted already.”

Before Reim could react to that, Break spoke,

“See?” Break put his hands behind his back and stepped up to Oz, leaning down so he was eye level. “That’s the mild version of the lecture Gilbert-kun would give you.”

Oz sighed managing to break free of Reim.

“Come on,” he spoke to Break, returning to the previous subject. “Do you really need to keep taking them if they don’t do anything? Seems like a waste of time and money if you ask me.”

“That’s what I keep telling him!”

“You should just tell Sharon-chan. She’s stronger than you think. I’m sure she’ll understand.”

“Well, boys,” Break patted them on the shoulders as he walked by, “not that this isn’t fun, but I have some serious work to catch up on.”

“You’re going to play video games again aren’t you?” Reim crossed his arms.

“Break!” Oz called.

Break sighed, eyes lidding, before turning to Oz.

“You don’t have to do this alone, you know.”

“He’s not alone!” Emily chittered, “he has me!”

Oz rolled his eyes, and Reim facepalmed.

******

Notes Cont.:

*I know this probably wouldn't be "dollars", but a) I don't remember them mentioning the name of their currency in the series, b) a more generic word like "money" didn't fit the sentence, and, c) as an American, something like "euros" (which, while probably closer to the correct term) didn't sound as natural to me.

I don't know if anyone will believe me, but I actually wrote this a VERY long time ago. I started it sometime around July 2018, before/right when I started posting my writing online. It was one of my very first PH fics, and has even informed some fics I've posted--(I got the name "Black and White and Red All Over" for my halloween fic last year from this fic. Well, I got it from the joke/expression, but this fic is what tied that phrase to Break in my mind). I would periodically work on it over the years, and I really enjoy the language, so it was fun to continually return to it.

The first part has been postable for a long time, the problem has always been the end. Lately I've been going through my old fics and making myself post them even if they're not perfect. Usually the way to do that is just to break them up earlier than I wanted to. I really wanted to add a heartfelt ending to this fic (still do!) but for some reason I had the toughest time transitioning to more of an actual scene at the end and actually writing it, so it ended up just getting stuck on my computer. The other issue is that I have zero experience with drug abuse, so I think I just felt like I was describing things wrong and got cold feet about posting it. If I got anything wrong, please kindly let me know!

Do you think I should write out the memory of Break’s suicide attempt in ch2? I kind of wanted to actually write it out but I wasn’t sure if it’d be too heavy...

Oz and Break's relationship is actually one of my favorites in the series, and I absolutely adore writing for it...but it seems I have trouble doing so. I have one more Break and Oz fic that I absolutely adore that's been stuck on my computer for about the same amount as time as this one, that I also got stuck on the middle/end. (I actually might have written it before this one, as I recognize some similarities XD) Hopefully I can break it up and post it soon too!

Thanks for reading!! Once again, if you could leave a comment, it would mean more to me than you know!!

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valarin-sunstorm · 4 years

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I support BIPOC

If you read nothing else of my post, please take note of these links.

Donate to Black Lives Matter

Donate to Black Visions Collective

Donate to Communities United Against Police Brutality

Donate to Campaign Zero

Donate to Innocence Project

I don’t really know how to talk about this concisely. I guess the first thing I can say is that I feel heartbroken for just a lot of reasons. I’ll try my best to get my thoughts out. I don’t even exactly know what I’m trying to say.

I wish to issue a statement of support to BIPOC. I wish to condemn not only racism, but colorism. I want to share my experience as a non-black POC. I don’t even know if I’m allowed to call myself that as someone who is biracial. I do not wish to detract from the struggles of the Black community. Rather, I want to share my experiences with the understanding that I still have a lot of privilege, but I also have a desire to stand in solidarity. Maybe this will be informative and help others to understand the pervasive nature of racism, and how tiring and hurtful it is.

I will be discussing racism, internalized racism, police brutality, and abuse.

I’m half Mexican. I haven’t really told more than a couple of people on here that. I’m white-passing by virtue of damaging myself. For decades I hated my skin. I thought I was ugly. Unsophisticated looking. I didn’t look like my white family members. I didn’t look like the white community around me. The only person who looked like me was my father and my eldest brother, who I had little social contact with. I have not gone into the sun for decades. I tried to bleach my skin. An endocrinologist told me that my vitamin D levels were on par with someone with severe malnutrition, and I had to be put on medication. Now I am pale in the way someone sick is pale. It mitigated some but not all racist comments.

I no longer live with my white mother. That’s a good thing. She had nothing but contempt for me on several levels. That’s weird, isn’t it? I think she liked my father by virtue of how whitewashed he was made to be. In the 1950s his family lived in a U.S. Naval base in Peru, though they were of Mexican origin. His first language was Spanish. They moved to America in the 1960s. He was made to assimilate into white culture and stop speaking Spanish. He doesn’t speak it anymore. My mother says it’s not a "pretty language.”

My father worked overseas for most of my childhood. I was raised by my white mother. My paternal grandfather died long before I was born, and my paternal grandmother died when I was young. We called her “Grandma Tina.” No one ever told me her real name. I found out it was Eutimia. I guess that was too 'ethnic’ for people to say. No one ever told me I was Mexican. I just looked different and I didn’t know why. I hated everything about how I looked.

My father became chronically ill in the past decade. He requires daily medication or he will quite literally die. A few years ago, he was having a medical crisis and trying to get home. The police pulled him over and arrested him for driving under the influence, despite the fact that he was not intoxicated and had passed their breathalyzer test. He was taken into police custody. My mother took me in a panic down to the precinct to collect him or at the very least give him some of his medicine. It was midnight. We arrived and the police officer regarded my mother with a smug smile. We could not visit my father because visiting hours were over. We could not bail him out because of the time of night. He would not allow her to give him the medicine, and assured us there was a medical facility on location. My mother tried to yell at the cop. I had to pull her away. I was afraid of how things would escalate, and how she could have made things worse for my father. The medical staff did not tend to my father. When we bailed him out the following morning, he was nearly dead. Much longer and he would have gone into organ failure.

Yesterday, my mother made a bigoted facebook posts condemning the BLM protests with no self-awareness about the abuse of power that had nearly cost my father his life. I spoke out against her publicly. I’ve always been scared of her. Even though I no longer live with her. She’s more abusive emotionally and mentally than I feel like I’ve even letting on. I feel like I can’t say she was truly abusive because she only beat me with a hairbrush once, and I feel like I deserved it. I am still closeted as gay and trans IRL out of fear from my family and the state I live in. I guess I’ve been closeted about my ethnicity in-game too. My character is pale, but my face claim is a white-passing man of Mexican descent. Maybe that’s self-insert-y but I feel a connection to it. I don’t know how to explain it. But I do know that I want to speak up.

I want to say this now. Even if it makes me uncomfortable. Even if it makes others uncomfortable. I feel like it needs to be said. I know that as someone who has the opportunity to pass as white, I have certain privileges and a duty to speak out against racism. Silence is Violence. I plead with the members of my community to do their best to hold compassion and openness for the BIPOC around them. I hope that people keep an open heart and a willingness to change behaviors that have been harmful to the BIPOC in their communities.

For the past three months I’ve been working 6 days a week with no end in sight due to COVID-19. I may not be completely available all the time, or completely in the loop about things. I am sorry that I have not spoken up sooner. I don’t know if this enough, or if it’s appropriate. I just want to put it out there. If anyone wishes to speak, please feel free to message me.

#BLM #racism #abuse #police brutality #ooc

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irageneveart · 6 years

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there are so many things a 16 years old person should be doing beside throwing hate, BUT HERE YOU ARE BEING A BRAT

@bfmyers I really can't take this anymore, are you really that full of hypocrisy to scream TOXIC left and right while you yourself use your free time to only spread hate? I don’t usually do this and I try to stay away from useless discourse but you're just kicking on my nerves way too much

under the cut cause boy I have a lot to say. (really, it’s long. I needed to point out everything)

I'm going to kindly tell you to fuck off artists' backs.

you have 0 fucking knowledge of what you're talking about yet you're making callouts and worse, people agree! the same people who supported the artists before by reblogging and liking their art are now shitting on them and "ihh no more reblogs from them" only because you write a lengthy shit in which not only that you threaten a human being, you don't even know how to argue. a link to a picture and screaming "toxic" ISN'T A GODDAMN ARGUMENT

people of this community, PLEASE use your fucking brains and don't bow your head to what every nameless kid has to say. you don't have to believe me either, just use your fucking brain and heart and do the decision making yourself

Now, you did a callout post on @dbd-omija pointing out how toxic they are!!! omg gasp animal death? abuse?? HOW IS THAT pOsSIbLe

where have you been until now because this is a horror community:

in the TCM universe inbreeding is mentioned multiple times

in the Halloween movies Michael kills two dogs and eats one of them

omija clearly stated they went with the 1978-2018 timeline BUT NO YOU KEPT SCREAMING BECAUSE HOW DARE THEY SAY SOMETHING AGAINST YOU

on that matter: in the halloween movies Michael's cult makes him rape his niece, in another movie Laurie, before jumping to what it seemed her death, kisses Michael's mask lips. GASP, when will you sue the directors?

after he escaped, Max literally slaughtered every living creature in that farm. put the DBD devs on your "I need to sue them cause I have something to say against this horror game!!!" list

If there’s something I can agree with you on, it’s about tags. Yes, these are triggers, yes tagging is important, but let’s not forget that being in this community IS about being surrounded by triggers. out of courtesy sure, we should tag our stuff accordingly, but to go all out to say “omija, if you’re reading this, i’m going to pee in your mouth.” HOW. IS. THIS. ACCEPTED?! HOW

HOW THE FUCK PEOPLE WHO REBLOGGED THAT CALLOUT THOUGHT YES THIS IS GOOD?!!?!

now you said that Omija's making all of these seem cute and that’s the real problem. this is where you are sooo wrong and let me explain:

a round head doesn't instantly make everything cute. there are many many details that the human eye perceives as cute, things that artists go to when they want their art to be seen as cute. from the color chosen to the way their eyes and mouths are drawn, to the very line work they’re using. yes, shapes count too, but this is not the case and we should get out of our tiny box and see the big picture. Their comics are not meant to be cute, actually much respect to them for being brave enough to approach well known subjects that are not explored. But that’s it. If YOU see it as cute then it’s your problem really. Art and fiction is prone to interpretation

If anything, how much cute stuff we have in the community should be the anomaly, not that someone draws anxious Bubba

omija's Amanda and Bubba art is problematic! someone asks why, you: because is toxic!!!

really? I actually think that, given their individual personalities, omija portraits the ship’s dynamic really well. Amanda is not dealing well with her feelings and with humans and Bubba has problems understanding things in general. they are two deranged people finding a way to cope and to accept another human presence nearby. "Amanda is picking on a disabled person how can you say it's well!!!!" let me remind you that his entire family is picking on his disabilities and the fact that he loves but also FEARS his family is a big theme in Leatherface's story and personality

Also, another argument of yours was about “the power play” and how that’s problematic. I’m...honestly surprised you even thought of this argument because the entire slasher fandom, the movies, everything slasher related IS BASED ON POWER PLAY. Have you read what they wrote for Laurie/Michael to say the ship is based on power play and it’s wrong? No, me neither, cause I don’t care, but you seem to care enough to vomit about it. Go read some things and tell me how problematic the writing is, you need to call out writers too after all

Btw, surprise! I don't ship neither of the mentioned ships, but I can use my brain enough to see what omija does is actually well made and well thought, sick, weird in some instances, but well thought. kudos to you artist. I can also see those who ship Laurie and Michael are still nice people

But just like you and many others I have my own morals (do you now? Exposing yourself like that to NSFW content while so many people are scared for their life because of people like you? hmmmm) and I can’t really stand explicit pedophilia. I’ve read so many books or seen so many movies where it was mentioned, it’s a trigger factor, it’s taboo, therefore is normal to be used in darker works. It all depends on the circumstances and the way it is presented, cause it’s a piece of fiction. Nobody attacked George R. R. Martin for the controversial things he had written in his books right? I wonder why

Because, another surprise, fiction is different than reality and only this argument alone should be enough, but some monkey brains out there will come to scream at me how fiction affects reality. Someone who writes a murder mystery isn’t actually killing people when they put pen to paper. People who play shooter games do not wish to shoot people in real life. Someone who writes about rape will not welcome the rapist in their arms nor do they wish to rape someone. So on, it’s simple, again, we just need to use our brains.

If you have bullying-related or a family related or any thing related trauma and you see a Michael/Laurie fic or Quentin/Freddy or whatever other ships or subjects you have seen around, and decide to click on it, and then you have a negative reaction, that fiction is not harming you. Your unresolved trauma is harming you. Your decision to read something when you know it triggers you is harming you. The past actions of yourself and those who inflicted harm upon you are harming you. All of those things – your trauma, your real-life bullies, your actions – are real, and have the ability to harm you. (the italic bits are from @dracfics who said it better than I ever could put in words. Thank you)

next on your "who am I going to shit on today" is @renlvbon

not gonna lie, for the omija callout I read everything searching to see whenever you are right or not. I don’t personally know either of the artists but I could read enough to see you’re just a self entitled person with something to say regarding everything. for ren's callout I simply skipped after I saw your argument.

you're not doing gods' work by opening people's' eyes that they can or should portray the characters the way they are, disabled and gross. no, you're just picking on someone's art style

Can we stop this toxic nonsense???

don't get me wrong, I agree that we shouldn't make them supermodels and we shouldn't erase what they are, fucking ugly and gross killers, but saying people who don't draw them a certain way are cowards or calling them out or whatever else shit is TOXIC and ANNOYING. We all change them more or less, we have to because none of us are the original creators! We’re just thirsty people making them to be what we want and what we imagine because they’re fucking fiction

I’ve seen people agreeing with you saying the artist should consider real people with disabilities or on the heavier side (“like me” they pointed out). I’m so sorry if this comes out as rude but if you search or need validation in a horror community that’s not a good thing at all! Body positivity and a healthy approach to disabilities should. not. be. searched. in. a. horror. community or any community on tumblr for that matter. You want some positivity on that? In a real case scenario with them we all would die, no matter how you look like

Going back to the artists, some people don't have experience/ are insecure/ are uncomfortable drawing body hair or fat bodies or whatever. That doesn’t make them fatphobic or whatever shit I saw you writing in your tags.

Drawing a black character less than the color YOU think is good? Have you ever tried to color skin? There are so many ways to do it, there are so so many colors you combine and you play around with + lighting and shading that alters everything. and yeah maybe some people pick a different color, a lighter one, or a more yellow one than they should for asiatic people, or whatever. but these tones are NOT easy to get well (you can always put a brown color down and to call it a day, but maybe people won’t want that. They don’t want to be disrespectful, exactly cause there are predators like you that don’t know how to help, only how to fucking scream). Or maybe they simply don’t know how. Every artist has their own range of comfort zone, be it about subject - composition - colors - etc. I don’t do well with neon colors for example, it happens. Hell even the screen you’re using alters the colors

How about giving actual tips, support and explanations instead of rude call outs? And don’t come at me with the “color picker” shit cause color picker from a real life photo is hell and if you don’t know some color theory your art is going to look dull and lifeless regardless

The only time I can agree that whitewashing is wrong is when white-supremacy, nazi and other ugly shits like these are coming into the topic. But it’s not the case here

some young artists don't have the skill to draw certain body shapes, or body hair, or even a non-anime face. some others think putting a scar on the character’s face make them 'uglier' and ‘scarier’ and for them that's enough AND THAT'S ALRIGHT

drawing something that's supposed to be ugly but still having anatomy and proportions and a functionable mouth or eyes placement or whatever ISN'T EASY. ofc, you can go all out if that's what you want, but personally I want things to still be working because at the end of the day every single one of them is human. I'm not drawing dark fantasy in this fandom, I'm drawing slashers

NO ONE IS DRAWING FOR YOU. NO ONE IS USING THEIR SKILL TO MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD. art and writing, especially when is made in the free time of the creator, is made FOR THEMSELVES. If there are people enjoying it? Yay, that’s a win, but no one expects everybody on this planet to like what they’re doing. We’re getting back to that golden rule, DON’T LIKE: MOVE THE FUCK ON/ BLOCK AND LIVE YOUR LIFE. EASY. no one uses these unnecessary callouts for anything, if you have something to say do so kindly, if you can’t, just vent to your friends

So now let’s wrap it up cause IDK how many of you even make it through this point

can we fucking stop making young artists and writers cowards for drawing or writing how they can and however they fucking want? Please and thank you

this shit going on with "the best artist/writer for x y z character" or "conventionally drawing ugly Bubba uwu" will just destroy the confidence of whoever wants to keep drawing or writing or joining the fandom. There’s no competition who draws Bubba the ugliest nor who writes Michael the best. if you can do things a certain way, do it, and let the rest draw and write whatever they can WITHOUT FEARING THEY'RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

now I'm waiting for your very "well" argumented reply but I hope you'll understand that what you're doing is TOXIC and you should stop or at least change your way to address things. You’re talking to other human beings, not a void when you can throw any random thought you have in the morning. I don't care about you to be honest, but there are so many people out there following your words mindlessly and the creators are suffering and it's not fair.

don't forget to tell me to go kill myself. have a nice day

#ira talks #bfmyers callout #vent and triggers #this shit needs to stop #long post #my opinion #i won't put this in the main tags cause that's really useless #so I don't really know how to tag lol

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thepinkseat-askthemoonbunny · 8 years

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Alright fandom, I got a HUGE bone to pick, get y'all asses over here. Now I saw this post and it just pissed me off. Why is liking Dumbledore, Snape, or fuck any character who may exhibit “abusive” behaviors depending on how one views them, how is liking characters like that and defending them “abuse apologia”? Somebody please tell me, because it’s not. I mean come on, you know the post that says “Why is it Dumbledore is my fave or Dumbledore is abusive and never Dumbledore is so fascinating, let’s write the fanfic about it?” Yeah that post. Somebody replied back that “it doesn’t change that they’re abusive”,and a person reblogged this under the tag abuse apologia. First of all, NO. Second of all I’m sick of seeing people being shamed for liking a character that would or maybe would be considered abusive in real life. Really, stop. They’re not abuse apologists, they’re fans. I mean there’s a difference between condoning their actions and acknowledging their actions as bad but loving them anyway. Like Dumbledore, I love him but I know he’s did some bad things. “Why don’t you call him out on it then?!” I should, and privately I do. I don’t post it much though because we got ninety five percent of the fandom willing to do that HAPPILY, but not many try to understand or defend him, that’s my purpose. I never said that Dumbledore’s actions were “good” per se, or that everyone should do what he did. I just think that most of it was NECESSARY however, which is why I don’t complain.

Fans of “problematic” characters and fans of villains (who KNOW they are villains, don’t whitewash them and love them anyway) often get called abuse apologists by a huge chunk of their fandoms. I’m sorry, more like a very vocal minority that makes it seem like a huge chunk. Anyway, this is for me or anybody out there with a “problematic” fave, if somebody out there calls you an abuse apologists, give them the biggest “Fuck You” you have, because you’re not an abuse apologist. We can enjoy fucking FICTION without being called problematic for it. Like Grand Theft Auto and the Final Fantasy series are some of my FAVE video games of all time. I love them. Does that mean that I’m cool with murder, drug slinging, prostitution, theft kidnapping?! That I would approve of this shit in real life?! Obviously NO, at least this would be apparent to one who can distinguish fiction from reality. Just because somebody likes something in fiction doesn’t mean they’d be cool with it in real life, and they should be able to not get “OMG, ABUSE APOLOGIST! YOU’RE CONDONING ABUSE!” in their face when they talk about their faves. Even when they think their fave is NOT abusive, no. They might be wrong, but maybe they just don’t see it as abuse (unless you say that murder, rape and shit like that isn’t bad in real life, that’s when it’s a problem). Besides that, it’s not a problem. Liking a villain doesn’t hurt anyone. If somebody loves an “abusive” character, LET THEM. It’s fine, that doesn’t mean they are abuse apologists! Well that’s all I have to say for now, Bunny out.

#harry potter #albus dumbledore #dumbledore defense squad #stop fandom #juust stop #hp #stop

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azvolrien · 5 years

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The Lady of Kaltara - Chapter Four

In which we actually learn the title character’s name.

~~~

For the second time in recent days, Fayn woke to unfamiliar surroundings. The memory of why returned all too quickly; immediately she shied away from it, unwilling to return to Cruon’s workshop with its needles and tubes and the chair with its straps, even just inside her head, and forced herself to concentrate on her surroundings instead.

She had been untied, mostly; her wrists and ankles were free, but the collar remained locked around her throat and now sported a chain fixed to the back that rattled with every movement, the other end padlocked to the iron frame of the bed on which she had woken. The bed itself was unexpectedly comfortable, with a proper mattress covered with a clean linen sheet and a jaunty patchwork quilt, while the stone walls had been cleanly whitewashed, one of them decorated by a framed painting of a swan, and a woollen rug lay on the floor. There was even a proper toilet and basin in one corner, rather than just a bucket.

It was, however, still a cell. The single small window was more than her height above the floor and blocked off with thick steel bars, and the door only locked from the outside. Light-headed and weak, Fayn hooked two fingers under her collar – someone had, at least, wrapped it in cloth to stop the metal chafing – and gave it a pull, but to no avail. She sighed and closed her eyes, only to open them again when a key turned in the lock and the Lady let herself into the cell.

“Here.” She placed a steaming mug on the bedside table and sat down on the floor against the opposite wall. Fayn managed to sit up. “It’s just tea with honey. Drink.” Fayn just stared at it in suspicion. The Lady’s expression hardened. “Cruon took a lot of your blood – about as much as he could without you going into shock. You need fluids and you need sugar. Drink the damn tea or I’ll force it down your throat.”

Fayn drank. It was surprisingly good.

The Lady folded her arms. “You’re probably owed a few answers. Know who I am?”

Fayn shook her head.

“Is that right? That’s rare enough in these parts. Still, I did send Vil up to the mountains. Guess my fame doesn’t extend much outside the Basin. Name’s Mara Kovar, Lady of Kaltara. Not nobility in the classic Kiraani bloodline sense, but I keep things in order out here in the marshes and pay my taxes, so the Empire allows me my little affectations.”

Fayn lifted one arm and, glaring, pointed at the bandage wrapped around her elbow.

“Cruon, well… he’s a funny sort of mage,” said Kovar. “Works with blood – draws on the power tied up in it to do his experiments and make his potions. But some blood has more power in it than others, or is good for different ends. Humans are stronger than animals, and humans with magic are stronger than those without. The blood of the moontouched, now…” She sighed. “You know about Andari Sickness?”

A hesitant nod.

“Hardly anyone who saw the Andari Event lived to talk about it, but there are one or two accounts written down. They speak of a brilliant light and a searing heat, like the sun fallen to earth, before it faded away to leave the city in ruins and the land cursed. But stories change, they get exaggerated or twisted around, and soon nobody’s sure what really happened and what’s legend. So naturally when my idiot little brother hears rumours of fabulous treasures left behind in the ruins of Andari, he finds a way over the Wall and goes to see for himself. And he comes back bleeding from the mouth and carried on a stretcher, without any fabulous treasures to show for it.” Kovar bent over in her chair, rubbing her scalp with her fingertips. “As I said, he’s an idiot. But he’s family, and he’s running out of time and options. Cruon’s skills might be the last chance he gets, and how better to lift a curse from the sun than with a blessing from the moon?”

Fayn, staring at her in a mix of reluctant pity and utter disbelief, opened her mouth to suggest taking him to a hospital, but no sound came out. Speechless both literally and figuratively, she touched the tips of her fingers to her throat.

“I had an extra rune added to your collar while you were out cold,” said Kovar with no particular emotion. “You won’t be able to make a sound while you’re wearing it; you’ve clearly got a defiant streak, if Cruon wasn’t lying about how you kept trying to bite him, and I don’t want you yelling and disturbing my brother’s rest. He’s got the room above, you see.”

Fayn bared her teeth.

Kovar smiled sadly in reply. “Heh. Yeah, I think Cruon told the truth there.” She stood, leaning against the wall at her back, and held up the key on its ring. “I have the only key to this cell; nobody gets in here without my permission. I’ll have some food brought down in a while.” She glanced around the cell and added, “I’ll bring a few books for you to read as well. Get some rest in the meantime.”

Fayn curled up in the corner of the bed, resting her chin on her knees, and continued to glare.

“You have a very unsettling stare for someone whose eyes don’t work properly,” commented Kovar. “I’ll leave you in peace.”

The cell door swung closed behind her with a certain finality, and the lock clanked shut. Fayn was left alone once more. She uncurled from her furious ball and lurched dizzily to her feet, then leant against the wall until her head stopped spinning. Breathing heavily, she set about exploring the room. There wasn’t much to see. The bedside table was fixed in place, its single thick leg inserted into a slot in the floor and secured there with lead; no chance of picking it up for use as a weapon, though if she balanced on top of it and leant precariously out to the side, she could just see out of the window. No escape route there, either – even if the bars and the glass were somehow dealt with, it was too narrow for her shoulders, as was the toilet plumbing. The chain on her collar was a fairly generous length; she could reach each corner of the room in turn without pulling it uncomfortably taut, though it would not have allowed her more than a couple of steps into the corridor outside and its weight was an encumbrance all by itself. Perhaps it could be used as a weapon, if necessary.

Fayn sat back down on the bed, rubbing her temples. Looking for possible weapons was all well and good, but no weapon she could find would be of any help if she lacked the strength to wield it. She needed time to recover from Cruon’s needles before any escape attempts would have the slightest chance of success, and she had no idea how much time she had. She was safe as long as Mara Kovar thought she was useful. Perhaps Cruon really could cure Andari Sickness with her blood, in which case she probably had until Kovar’s brother had recovered – or perhaps Cruon was an utter charlatan with no real healing abilities, in which case… Well. Who knew how that would go? Either way, it seemed doubtful she would be allowed to walk free to speak of what had happened. Kovar was clearly not totally without a conscience, or she would not have bothered to arrange reasonably safe and comfortable quarters for her captive, but someone ruthless enough to order the kidnap and bloodletting of an innocent stranger was unlikely to flinch away from having her quietly disposed of once she had ceased to be of use.

She lay down on her back and closed her fingers around her wedding ring, still on its own slender chain around her neck. Kovar didn’t know she had reinforcements on the way. Wygar knew where she was. Wygar always, always knew where she was, whether he wanted to or not, and he would be coming after her. She tried to hold on to that idea, but the walls of the cell, the collar at her neck, and the memory of needles in her veins made it difficult to feel encouraged. Still holding the ring, she rolled onto her side to face the wall.

Fayn wanted her family, so hard it made itself known as a physical ache in her chest. She wanted her husband and her daughter, but also, deep in her bones, her parents and siblings, both those she could barely remember and those she remembered as clearly as glass. Within the privacy of her cell, weak with blood loss and muffled by the collar’s magic, Fayn closed her eyes and cried until sleep claimed her. Despite her exhaustion, it was a long time in coming.

***

Another day of Rathus’ long-legged gallop brought them to a low ridge at the edge of the Kaltara Basin. Ahead, the occasional dry hill or stand of trees rose from the marshlands, but otherwise there was nothing but mile upon mile of water and reeds.

“You travelled in the Gorsfen on your journeying year, didn’t you?” asked Una after they broke camp the next morning, staring up at an impossibly-wide sky.

“I did, sweetheart,” said Wygar. “Nearly drowned, fought an afanc, and lived in a crannog for a couple of weeks. But the Gorsfen is less than half the size of the Basin, and it’ll be much slower going from here.”

“Are there afancs here?”

Wygar grimaced and touched the old hooked claw tied on a cord around his neck. “I don’t think so, no. I certainly hope not. But who knows what else could be hiding in the water here?”

“Crocodiles, maybe?”

“Please don’t sound hopeful about that! No, we’re too far north for crocodiles. Right. Time to get our feet wet, then.”

Rathus trotted down the slope and waded out into the marsh. At first, water only squashed between his toes, pressed from a sodden carpet of moss, but soon it was up to his knees and lapping at his belly as he pushed through dense reed beds and crossed carefully over deeper channels. Calburn’s words had proven true; Rathus was indeed a little more intelligent than before. Where previously he would have walked blindly ahead until directed otherwise by Wygar, now he paused to check his footing more carefully before committing his weight and detoured around the more impassable thickets they found. Occasionally, where the water was shallow and the ground firm enough, he managed a canter, but for the most part he could go no faster than a trot if even that much, and Wygar estimated they had travelled no more than thirty miles into the Basin by that sunset. They set up camp on one of the low islands within the marsh, overlooking a wider channel of water.

“Is it a river or a pond?” wondered Una, crouching to splash her hands in the water. “I can’t see the ends of it, but it doesn’t have much of a flow to it.”

“It – do you know, I’m not actually sure.” Wygar sat cross-legged next to her. “In some ways, the Kaltara Basin is more of… a much shallower bit of the Inland Sea. So I suppose that makes areas like this like sea lochs in miniature, or maybe some kind of natural canal.”

“That makes sense.” Una dried her hands on her tunic and sat down. “What’s your elf-sense saying now?” she asked. “Are we closer?”

“Oh, it goes without saying that we’re closer, sweetheart.” Wygar closed his eyes. “It’s a little clearer now,” he said without opening them. “Not enough to completely pinpoint her location – I can’t do that unless she’s within about half a mile – but… we’re closer, and we’re going the right way.”

“Good.” Una picked up a small stone and flicked it into the water. “Do you ever find that a bit… creepy? How you can always find her?”

“Mm, a little bit. It’s why I try to ignore it most of the time. It would go both ways if she were an elf as well…”

“But she isn’t, so it doesn’t.”

“Indeed. Still, it does come in useful in emergencies. Anyway, let’s raise the wards and get some sleep.”

It wasn’t the sun or the dawn chorus that woke them the next morning, but the sound of voices drifting in the air. Wygar sat up within the wards and packed up his bedroll, trying to make out what was said, but they were still too distant and fell oddly flat through the fog coating the marshes. He could see the water around their hill, but not much further. Frowning, he shook Una awake from where she curled up under her blanket, her back to Rathus’s ribs.

“Morning,” she yawned. “Is something happening?”

“Not sure, sweetheart. Someone’s nearby, but I can’t tell who. Listen.”

Una cocked her head. “They’re getting closer.”

Soon they could make out the words, though what they meant was a mystery. Someone was spiritedly – if not very tunefully – singing to the marshes in a language Wygar did not even recognise, let alone understand, while a low murmur of other voices followed behind them. Soon, dark shapes emerged from the fog and revealed themselves as a little train of barges sailing along the channel. The foremost was hauled along by a seal-like construct, its tow-ropes leading down from the bow to the construct’s harness, while four more were towed behind in turn. The singer was the man at the helm of the tug, who controlled both the rudder and the construct with two different wheels.

“Wait here a moment,” whispered Wygar, before he stepped out of the wards and walked down to the water’s edge just as the tug’s bow drew level with the island. “Heading east?” he called across the water.

“Ayup,” said the pilot. “Bound for Vosta with all manner of cargo.”

“Taking passengers?”

“Sure, if you can get aboard before we’re past.”

“Back in a moment.” Wygar hurried back up to the campsite, where Una had taken an apple from the bags to eat as she waited. “Get packed, sweetheart,” he said. “They’re going the right way, and we’ll move faster by boat.”

Una nodded and stuffed her blanket into a bag while Wygar dismissed both the wards and Rathus. He tied the summoning stone back around his neck, slung the saddlebags around his shoulders and his staff through the loops, and lifted Una into his arms, then sprinted down the hill and leapt from the island into the last of the passing barges.

“Made it?” called the pilot.

“Made it,” Wygar shouted back.

“That was quite a jump.”

Wygar looked up. They weren’t alone on the barge: as well as a cargo of pelts, logs, barrels and what looked like a large cage mostly covered with a tarpaulin, they shared the space with half a dozen other rough-looking travellers, four men and two women. The speaker was one of the men, a skinny, pallid fellow with a long knife sheathed across his chest.

“Thanks,” said Wygar, sitting down with his back to a bale of pelts and setting Una on the deck at his side. “Heading for Vosta?” Wherever that was.

“Aye. Got things worth selling,” the man rapped the blade of his knife against the cage, to a growl from its inhabitant, “and if you can’t sell something in Vosta, well, you just can’t sell anything.” He looked them both up and down. “Got a name, wanderer?”

“Yes.”

“Gonna share it?”

“Heh, been a while since anyone used it,” said Wygar to buy time to think. “Fox. Call me Fox.”

“Fox, eh?” The man sheathed his knife again and stood up, crossing the barge for a closer look at the bedraggled pair. “Suppose that makes the little mutt there your cub, then?”

Wygar placed an arm in front of Una and didn’t quite manage to make it look casual.

The man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You know, I expect she’d fetch a decent price to the right buyer. That nice red hair and gold eyes, and a half-breed for another touch of the exotic.” He genuinely didn’t seem to think this was something his audience might find offensive. His companions glanced at each other behind his back, one of the men clearly trying not to laugh. The two women held a quick, whispered conversation and sat back to see what would happen. “You’d get a better price in Vosta,” he went on, a predatory light coming into his eyes, “but if you need the cash now I could take her off your hands.”

Nobody even saw Wygar stand up. The butt of his staff cracked into the base of the man’s throat, sending him toppling onto his backside as he clutched his neck. Wygar placed one foot on his chest and pushed him down onto his back. “I’ll make this easy to remember,” said Wygar, setting the staff tip against the man’s forehead. “Touch. Her. And. You’re. Dead. Understood?”

Wheezing, the man approximated a nod. Wygar moved both his staff and his foot away and sat back down next to Una, holding his staff across his knees in both hands to disguise their trembling.

The other five shared another look for a silent moment, then burst into laughter. One of the women passed a handful of coins to the other. “You’re an idiot and you completely deserved that,” said the man who had suppressed his laughter earlier.

The other two men picked up a couple of logs from the stacks and built a miniature wall around Wygar’s corner of the barge. “We’ll leave you your territory, Fox,” said one of them, still half-laughing as the man with the knife retreated to the bows and hid amongst the barrels there. “He won’t bother you again now that you’ve shown him who’s boss.”

Wygar just nodded, not trusting himself to speak steadily yet. “I’m sorry you had to see that, sweetheart,” he murmured to Una.

“I’m not,” she muttered back. “He wanted to sell me! If you hadn’t hit him, I would’ve.”

Wygar chuckled softly. “Yes, I thought you might. But you still have some training ahead of you before you can hit as hard as me.”

“Where’s Vosta?”

Wygar didn’t know, but the group across the barge were happy to explain.

“It’s the capital of the Basin, more or less,” said one of the women. “The only proper town in the marshes, not counting the odd little village or shack, and the stronghold of Lady Kovar.”

“Of more interest to us,” said one of the men, “it’s also the biggest and best trading port between the Empire and Huaxia across the Inland Sea – at least if you don’t want to deal with all the customs checks at the Huaxia Shield,” he added with a wink.

“So you’re smugglers?” said Wygar.

“Good sir, we are offended!” said another man with a mock gasp. “We just take our goods to Vosta. The smugglers take care of what happens after that.”

“Your friend there,” said Wygar, nodding towards the bows. “You traffic slaves often?”

“Nah, they’re too hard to transport for a small outfit like ours,” said the other woman. “You need to be dealing in bulk to make much of a profit at that out here.”

“Though Lady Kovar does issue the odd request now and then,” said the first man. “A healer, a beast-blooded, a stonemage to fix up her fortress walls…”

“Moontouched, a while back,” put in the second man.

“Moontouched?” said Wygar.

They explained. “Dunno why she needed one,” said the first woman with a shrug. “Maybe after a symbol of the moon’s favour. Something to do with the tides?”

“Does the Inland Sea even have tides?” asked the other woman.

They fell into a good-natured argument about it, leaving Wygar and Una to their thoughts. Una took Wygar’s hand. “What do you think?” she asked.

“That I’ll need to have a chat with this Lady Kovar when we get to Vosta,” he growled.

“Yep. That’s what I thought, too.”

The little line of barges sailed on. Within the cage under the tarpaulin, a pair of gleaming golden eyes fixed on Wygar and Una, and narrowed in thought.

~~~

Little bit of trivia for you: ‘Kovar’ is a Czech name meaning ‘Smith’. So effectively Wygar and Mara have the same surname.

Una is actually mixed-race both by real-world and Stranatir standards; her parents are (approximate fantasy equivalents of) Northern European and South Asian. However, the in-universe racists don’t really care about that and are more concerned that her dad is an elf.

#az writes stories

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