#speaking as if we HAD that assessment in the materials center

[chemmerson]

WHY DO THESE THINGS ALWAYS HAPPEN TO ME!!!!!

[pinkeoni]

Figuring Out Lonnie’s Whole Deal

(Or, assembling a timeline of pre-show events inspired by a culmination of theories centering around one Lonnie Byers)

After spending much time deliberating and theorizing, I’ve come to what I believe is a solid timeline of events relating to Lonnie Byers grounded in evidence from the show.

Now I don’t have all of the pieces, but also if I had all of the pieces then I wouldn’t need to be theorizing in the first place. Still, I’m fairly confident in my assessment. Maybe it would be wise of me to wait for The First Shadow to come out to give me more information, but for all intents and purposes of this I will only be looking at evidence within the text of the show. So no cast or crew comments, no supplemental materials, and as much as I love it, no speculation regarding TFS. Still, I think the show has enough evidence to support my assertion.

Things to establish:

A lot of what I’m about to talk about comes from a basis of these three things—

1. Will and El’s storylines mirror each other, which I charted out here. Their stories share a lot of differences, and a lot of similarities.

2. Powers are being used in this show to explore themes of sexuality through a sci-fi/supernatural lens. I talk about this in length here, but tl;dr El’s powers are used to explore the exploitation and reclamation of female sexuality, and Will’s powers are being used to show the demonization and repression of homosexuality.

3. Oh yeah, and Will has powers, by the way.

Surface Level Information We Are Given About Lonnie Byers:

It might be best to have a refresher of what we know about Lonnie Byers. Most of this comes from season one and all of it is displayed directly to the audience—

Lonnie is the absentee father of Jonathan and Will and ex-husband of Joyce

He left his family at an unspecified date that led Jonathan and Will to build Castle Byers the night of

He currently lives in Indianapolis

He used to call Will homophobic slurs

Joyce once argued with him about not showing up to a visitation with Will

Jonathan and Joyce do not speak of him fondly. Will’s feelings are unclear but seem positive “It’s fun to go with him sometimes”

Expressed interest in wanting to see Jonathan more

Referred to Joyce as “babe” despite being apart and having another girlfriend

Did not take Joyce’s calls to his house

Doubted Joyce, took down her Christmas lights and tried to repair the hole in the wall

Has unspecified debts

Likes to fix cars

Doesn’t like cops

Tried to use his “dead” son for lawsuit money

Was kicked out by Joyce and hasn’t been seen on screen since

Things to glean from just below the surface:

The following are things that are not stated directly, but can be easily inferred from clues given in show—

Lonnie is likely an alcoholic, shown through an abundance of beer bottles littering his house. Even if he splits it between him and his tiny girlfriend, it’s still an absurd amount of beer for two people. It’s possible he may have other addictions as well.

Lonnie was likely physically abusive towards Jonathan given his “You’ve gotten stronger” comment in the house. It’s possible that the extent of his abuse could stretch far beyond that for both Jon and Will.

Will likely used to hide from his dad. Jonathan and Will built Castle Byers the night he left, which Jonathan remarks that Will likes to hide in. Not to mention the “he’s good at hiding” comment.

The rest of this post is going to be much more speculative, but it’s all speculation that is grounded in what we see on and just below the surface.

Theory #1) Lonnie was involved with MK-ULTRA

This was an idea that I tossed around a while ago, that after spending time with and finding new evidence I’ve now grown more confident in.

Most of this confidence comes from this conversation between Becky and Jopper. Becky tells Hop that him and Terry would have gotten along, as Terry didn’t like authority or the government— “The Man , with a big capital M.” (which is ironic given Hopper is a cop)

When discussing who was involved with MK-ULTRA, Becky mentions “people like [Terry]”

So people like Terry, who maybe don’t like authority as was just mentioned?

It seems as though the Byers have always been down on their luck in terms of finance. Would it be hard to believe that, especially given the close proximity of the lab to the Byers house and Lonnie's willingness to get money in the show, Lonnie might have partaken in a paid study in the past? ("You were in it for the money!")

Above I mentioned the implication that Lonnie is an alcoholic. If he was involved with a study involving hard drugs, could he have developed addiction problems through the program? Furthermore, wouldn't it also make sense for Lonnie to gain a mistrust of authority after being taken advantage of by the government?

In my initial post about it I discuss how this could be foreshadowed through Hopper’s past as well. Hopper was involved with something government related that required chemicals, something that ended up affecting his child.

Theory #2) Lonnie was working with the lab during season one

Another part of proving Lonnie’s MK-ULTRA involvement is his connection with the lab. Everything that I’m about to list could align perfectly with Lonnie simply just being a shitty ex and father, but everything that I’m about to list could also align perfectly with the idea that Lonnie was working with the lab against Joyce the entire season.

1) Lonnie’s fishiness with Joyce’s phone call

I’ve already made an entire post about this here but I’ll recap all of the important bits.

Right before we see Joyce call Lonnie in the first episode, we are shown the lab spying on her conversation explicitly. Joyce is then sent to voicemail, which given the ordering of scenes makes me wonder if the lab purposefully intercepted her call.

Joyce also never actually talks to Lonnie on the phone. Cynthia picks up until their call is disconnected, which could have been Cynthia but also could have been the lab interfering again.

When Jonathan confronts Lonnie about not returning Joyce’s call, he kind of shrugs off his answer.

Why the hesitancy at first, Lonnie?

Lonnie tells Jonathan that he’s talked to police, which is likely, but then adds a comment that makes me question if he talked to any Hawkins cops at all.

Why do you need to ask if Hopper is chief, if Hawkins police came to question you, Lonnie?

2) The timing of Lonnie showing up in Hawkins

Even after being told this his own son is missing, Lonnie does not show up in town until after—

Will’s “body” is found in the quarry

Joyce refuses to sign off on the fake body

Joyce actually speaks to and is able to see Will through the hole in the wall

The next time we see Joyce is when Lonnie pulls up that night at the Byers house. Here is what Lonnie does while he’s there:

Tells Joyce that Will is in her head

Tell Jonathan not to feed into Joyce’s “delusions”

Takes down the Xmas lights that Joyce was using to talk to Will

Covers the hole in the wall that Joyce saw Will through

Unsuccessfully tries to convince Joyce to use Will’s "death" for money

All of these actions align perfectly with Lonnie’s character, do you also see how it also aligns perfectly with Lonnie trying to purposefully cover up the truth?

We don’t see Joyce call Lonnie to come over and I highly doubt that Jonathan asked him to come. Granted, Lonnie was most likely notified by police of Will’s death, why not come right away? Why wait until after Joyce refuses to believe that it’s Will’s body and after she actually sees Will alive in her walls?

Remember that the lab had likely bugged her house as well, given the scene where Hop finds a bug in his cabin.

Think about the timing of when the lab decided to place Will’s body in the quarry and have it found, something that we know for a fact was their doing. This comes after Joyce had discovered the ability to talk to Will through the lights and right after the writing on the wall scene, when Joyce was coming closer to the truth.

If a lab personnel showed up at the Byers, took down the lights and hammered over the wall, that would obviously draw a lot of suspicion towards them. But if the lab could get someone on the inside to do it, perhaps an ex-spouse that can be easily manipulated with cash and already had connections to them, that wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.

That’s also where the lawsuit comes in. If the lab is paying off Lonnie and his family, they can’t just give them the a ton of cash directly, it would likely have to go through a third party under the guise of something else, like a legal suit. I’m willing to bet all my money that the suit Lonnie wanted to file on the Sattlers was just another cover from the lab.

Theory #3) Lonnie was trying to hand Will over to the lab

Another note about Terry, if Will and El are mirrors then Lonnie and Terry may possibly be mirrors, too. If Terry was desperate to get El out of the lab then maybe Lonnie was desperate to get Will into the lab. Also the difference between Terry's daughter being taken from her/Lonnie voluntarily leaving his own son.

Something we know about Lonnie Byers— he was homophobic towards Will and did not want to visit him after he had left.

Something else we know about Lonnie Byers— he likes to fix cars.

We have confirmation that Lonnie was trying to “fix” Will, at least in a less aggressive manner, by taking him to baseball games. Jonathan says explicitly, “He’s trying to force you to like normal things.” This line is so incredibly loaded, what Jonathan is saying below the surface is "He's trying to force you to like girls."

The above scene is in the same episode where Jonathan goes to Lonnie’s Indianapolis house, and we get a line from Lonnie about him fixing up a car.

Yes, Will is being compared to a car. Lonnie wants to fix him.

And remember, Will has powers, and powers are being used as a way to explore sexuality.

So given Lonnie’s connection with the lab from MK-ULTRA as expressed before, along with Lonnie’s hatred of Will and homophobia, along along with powers as a metaphor for Will's queerness, it leads me to believe that Lonnie was trying to cure Will of his powers through the lab. This would essentially be the supernatural version of gay conversion therapy.

I want to talk about the word “mistake”

This word is so potent and really sticks out because we haven’t really seen it used in this way on the show before. The writers could have had Will say “monster” to relate to El's arc, or they could have had him say “freak” which would not only relate to Eddie but is something that Will has called himself in the past. But instead they decide to give him a new word that is different from the labels other characters give themselves.

The word mistake is unique to Will.

What do you do with mistakes? You fix them.

I have a lot of fun with Will-being-a-lab-kid theories, and nothing but absolute love to those who make them, but after doing a lot of my own thinking I’ve since come to the conclusion that Will didn’t grow up in the lab at all, but Lonnie was making an unsuccessful effort to ship Will to the lab. Part of El and Will’s narrative mirroring is Will coming from a normal background while El does not.

Which isn’t to say that the lab didn’t want Will, I think they very much did. I’ve seen the take that Lonnie tried to hand Will to the lab but he didn’t display powers at the time so they wouldn’t take him. But do you really think that that would stop them from wanting him anyway, especially if the boys father was giving him to them willingly? Do you really think that Martin “you wouldn’t stop” Brenner was gonna turn down another child? That someone was willing to give to him?

So then, if Lonnie was willing to give Will to the lab and the lab was willing to take him, what was stopping them?

For starters, I’m guessing that the process involved in receiving a new test subject, especially one that wasn’t born into the lab, would take patience. They can’t just nab Will off the street. They would probably have to surveil things for a while, gain intel from Lonnie, and come up with a strategy.

A strategy that may involve falsifying an accident, a fake body, and the funneling of money via fake lawsuit?

I’m not saying that the lab was the ones behind Will’s disappearance, at least initially. I think the mothergate opening was completely unpredictable from their end and instead necessitated the plan to be accelerated due to sudden unforeseen circumstances, as well as taking advantage of Will’s presence in the Upside Down to try and take him for themselves.

So why wait until now? If they had an airtight plan, why not act sooner?

Could there have been an incident, perhaps, with the lab, which happened prior to Will’s disappearance, that may have delayed this process?

I’m willing to bet that a mass death event of majority of the test subjects and personnel from the place that Lonnie was trying to send Will to, might be enough to put the brakes on this operation, if not on delay for a few years so they can regroup.

While we’re here, I wanna talk about Will’s similarities to Henry Creel

The comparisons between Henry and Will aren’t something hidden under the layers for only die hard theorists to find, this is something that everyone and their mothers were discussing on twitter. The similarities were noticeable even from casual viewing.

Image via Reddit

We know from his monologue that Henry’s mother knew he had powers and wanted to send him away to a doctor, a doctor that we later learn was actual Papa Brenner.

If Will and Henry are similar, is it possible that their parents wanted similar things? The main difference being that Will actually did evade Dr. Brenner.

Furthermore, is it possible that Will has powers similar to One’s and that the lab could have been knowledgeable of this? If that is the case, it may stand to reason that they might be hesitant to bring in someone with similar abilities to the guy who just killed a bunch of people.

I used to think that Will and Henry had to have completely different sets of powers, and while I do think that Will may have abilities unique to himself, given how they are compared I do think that Will may have similar powers to him. In fact, we may have already seen Will display a traveling into the mind ability in season one.

Theory #3.5) Lonnie’s departure correlates with the Hawkins Lab massacre

If Lonnie was desperate to get rid of the son he hates, and then was told that there was an unexpected delay, it would make sense for him to give up and leave town.

There’s been comments from cast and crew in the past regarding when exactly Lonnie left, but it’s never been confirmed in show.

Evidence for why I think it coincides with the massacre actually comes from the shed scene.

Joyce first mentions Will’s eighth birthday, which would have been in March of 1979. The massacre was in September of 1979.

Mentioning his eighth birthday specifically places emphasis on that age. Jonathan then follows Joyce by talking about the night dad left.

We don’t get an exact timeframe or age, but the fact that this follows the story if Will’s eighth birthday does create a correlation with that age. We then switch timeframes when Mike brings up kindergarten.

Think about it, if their dad had left when Will was eight, bringing up his age again would be redundant because Joyce just mentioned it. Mike mentions kindergarten to let us know that this is a different time and age that we’re talking about.

Let’s talk about Lonnie’s debts

What exactly these debts are that Joyce brings up is never specified. And it could be anything. Maybe a loan he took out, drug or gambling debts, since nothing is stated it’s all possible. But here’s my take:

Will is Lonnie’s debt. That’s what he owes.

Remember that the exact way that Lonnie was going to pay back these debts was with Will. He is linked with this debt conversation.

It is Joyce who brings up the debt, but since she doesn’t specify there’s a reasonable doubt that she herself doesn’t know the specifics. She could know that Lonnie is indebted to someone but not know what/could have been lied to.

I’m imagining the lab giving Lonnie some kind of advanced payment for Will, with the promise that they’ll eventually have him. It would be a way for the lab to control Lonnie. He now owes them, and the lab expects to collect their debts. Despite the lab and Lonnie having similar goals, there is definitely a power imbalance.

Lonnie does want a family, just not one with Will in it

More thorough post here, but in season one we get indications in Lonnie's dialogue that he does want to be around his family, like expressing interest in seeing Jonathan more and calling Joyce "babe," which seems to contradict him living in another town, or hell even leaving his family at all.

When Joyce gets mad with Lonnie over the phone about not coming to visit, it was specifically a Will visitation day. It's seeming more and more that Lonnie's departure is centered on Will. (Which doesn't take away from any of the potential abuse he hurled at Jonathan or Joyce. He doesn't care about their interests, only his. Furthermore, I'm not placing blame onto Will for Lonnie's absence. That is all Lonnie's doing)

Am I saying that Lonnie has powers?

Well, maybe.

That is something that I’ve been wondering if Lonnie had powers, which granted is something that relied heavily on speculation regarding TFS which I said I wanted to stay away from for this post. Since I don’t have all the pieces yet, I want to consider as many options as possible.

Option A) Lonnie was born with powers, and MK-ULTRA was simply how he became acquainted with the lab/his powers were repressed and MK-ULTRA activated them

Option B) Lonnie received powers from MK-ULTRA and passed it on to Will

Option C) Lonnie was not born with powers nor received powers from MK-ULTRA but it did give him super-powered sperm

May I remind you of Lonnie's comparison to Terry from earlier in the post, and the fact that Terry herself does have powers.

I oftentimes see the theory that Joyce herself has powers, and I myself even theorized that her Aunt Darlene may have had powers. However I'm more inclined to believe that Joyce is a carrier of this gene rather than having powers herself. Most of the evidence used to suggest that she has powers comes from Joyce reacting to what Will is showing her. There's also no indication that Jonathan has any powers.

If Lonnie participated in MK-ULTRA after Jonathan was born, then it could explain why Will would have powers and not Jonathan. Moreover, having both a mother who is a carrier and a father with powers/nuked balls would likely have a higher chance of having a powered child. (That's how genetics work, right? Please forgive me if my science is wrong.)

Notes on Lonnie's character

You'll note that there are multiple times in this post where I acknowledge that I lot of Lonnie's actions are explainable because of his identity as a shitty guy, and maybe that's all this is. However, I want to explain why having this type of character is actually perfect for a reveal like this.

In order to pull off a successful reveal, you have to hide the truth while also giving enough information so it doesn't come out of nowhere. Lonnie's personality allows for the truth to be hidden in plain sight.

Let's say that Lonnie was actually an upstanding man. Jonathan and Joyce both had fond memories of him, but he left in the past for some unknown reason. Lonnie was always a great husband, but for some reason he's doubting Joyce and taking down her Christmas lights even when she asks him not to.

Do you see how that would create a huge plot hole? How season one would feel incomplete? How it would create a giant unanswered question that needs answering?

Why didn't Joyce know about any of this?

Unfortunately we are told pretty explicitly in season one as to why something like this could have been happening under Joyce's nose. We are told in the first episode that Joyce works long hours, leaving early in the morning and not coming home until later in the night. Jonathan is expected to get Will up, make breakfast, and take him to school. My guess is that Lonnie may have been in charge of such tasks when he was still home.

If Lonnie was, say, taking Will to the lab for some preliminary tests or meetings, he could have easily done this while Joyce was at work or while Jonathan was in school.

We even hear from Joyce herself that she hasn't been keeping up with Jonathan, she isn't in the know how with her sons. (This is not me calling Joyce a bad mother btw, this is definitely a symptom of capitalism rather than bad parenting.)

Why doesn't Will say anything?

If Will was being taken to the lab for appointments in the past, wouldn't he say something about it? Especially to El, who grew up in the lab?

Well, there's a chance that Will doesn't remember this.

Longer post here, but we are given a scene in season four where Will expresses not remembering something from his childhood very well.

Which I could write off as Will being too little to remember this small detail, but this is also coming from the same season where we just got an entire plot line about memories from El's past being erased. (El who, as I stated in the beginning, has a storyline that mirrors Will's)

The Final Timeline

Tl;dr, or, the timeline written out chronologically:

Lonnie marries Joyce and has Jonathan. Jonathan is born without powers

Lonnie becomes involved with MK-ULTRA sometime prior to Will's birth as a way to make money

Joyce and Lonnie have Will, who was born with powers

When Will is very young Lonnie knows that he has powers

Lonnie begins taking Will to the lab in hopes of curing him

Lonnie and the lab strike a deal that involve taking Will in exchange for money

There is a plan to take Will involving a fake accident. Lonnie will file a fake lawsuit in order to exchange the money and avoid suspicion

The Hawkins Lab massacre happens and the plan is delayed

Lonnie leaves

Mothergate is opened by El and Will is taken

Upon realizing that Will is in the Upside Down, the plan moves forward with Lonnie in on it

Things don't go as expected and Joyce is on to Will being alive, so the lab asks Lonnie to come home in order to help with coverup

Joyce is infuriated about the lawsuit and kicks Lonnie out

The rest of the season follows as we see on screen and the labs plan unravels, some of the personnel is killed by El and the demogorgon in the school

[born-to-riot]

WIP Wednesday

Since there is exactly one week until the day I plan to post my @polyacotarweek fic, I think it's time I share a little snippet of Nesta's adventure with Amren and Varian.... in their bed hehehehe

TW: NSFW

____________

[So 900 words may be too long for a snippet but just so you have an idea of what you're getting into, this is the message I sent @acourtofladydeath when I came up with this idea: (I think there is a sore lack of vamren in the community and shall I fix that by having them invite a third? Shall it be Nesta? Shall Amren show her how to harness her potential by taking it out on a needy overstimulated Varian?)

__________

“Oh sweetie, I’m sorry, did we leave you alone too long,” Amren coos to her lover. Varian sits exposed on a simple wooden chair in the middle of the couple’s bedroom. The Summer Court male’s head is hanging low, his white tendrils of hair acting like a shield in front of his face. Nesta did not pick up on any sort of response from the male that indicates that he acknowledges their presence. She takes a quick peek over at Amren and decides not to worry after finding the other female to seem emphatically unconcerned. Nesta watches on silently as the tiny fae takes a couple soft predatory steps towards the subdued male. Nonetheless, she stills to take in the view of the delicious specimen of man in front of her. Nesta can admit fully that she has never really given much thought to Varian before, not really having much time to assess him in the short three months after the war with Hybern. However, now, she can’t seem to look away from the large male’s thick muscular thighs, his heavy cock, his beautiful dark skin–fuck, Nesta feels her cunt throb in anticipation. 

“Baby boy,” Amren releases another coo, causing Varian to finally raise his gaze to meet his Mistresses and causing Nesta to shiver for a different reason entirely. Now, not only does she have a better view of the male himself, a white blindfold and ball gag rendering his sight and ability to speak obsolete; but also she can see his nostrils flaring and his muscles twitching. Nesta is absolutely enraptured in the scene in front of her as she watches Varian suddenly seem to try to lunge in Amren’s direction, the man trying and failing to get closer to her, his muscles bulging in their effort to win a one-sided battle against his restraints.

But it isn’t until Nesta spots Varian’s collar, large and heavy on his neck, that she feels her nipples harden and another bout of wetness starting to form between her folds. Here, on Varian’s neck, in Amren’s apartment in Velaris, was one of the Summer Court’s infamous blood rubies. The massive jewel's weight was supported by a two-inch thick diamond encrusted platinum band. She knows it must sit heavy on his neck, it seems almost impossible that a jewel that large could be fixed upon a collar without falling, but here it stands.

Last Nesta had checked, the source material of Prythian’s most common nightmares had decided to use this ‘threat’ as a paperweight. Although, she can’t deny how much the pathway to her center steams at the thought of the Summer Court male being made to wear a sign of ownership stamped with the ultimate symbol of betrayal of his own court, an invocation of  a feud on a personal level. 

Nesta can’t help but muse over what the thrill of incurring such a depth of loyalty from another must taste like, she wonders too, greedily and needily what it feels like to be such a fearsome predator to surpass the laws of societal expectation. Is this Amren’s subtle yet personal way of invoking her own feud, a remnant of the possessive creature that once roamed inside of her that is furious at the land for claiming ownership of something that she marked as hers. She also wonders heatedly, enviously, what it would be like to be wanted that furiously. Need starts to play at the strings of her core, she can feel it heating and readying itself for something more.

“Don’t be shy now boy,” Amren instructs Varian, the man immediately turning his head in the direction of her voice, clearly desperate for her touch. Nesta would be lying if she said the palpable smell and taste of his desperation didn’t cause her clit to start to throb.

The sweetness of the pair in front of her simultaneously puts Nesta on edge as well as incurs yet another thrum of heat inside of her. Amren is never sweet. Nesta watches on as her mentor finally reaches her lover–no, her pet. Amren looks Varian up and down with a hungry gleam in her eye before grabbing his chin roughly, causing what sounds like a gruff moan to escape the large man’s lips. That’s all it took? Nesta thinks to herself. 

“You haven’t even been touched boy and you’re already sweating?” Amren tuts, roughly maneuvering his chin as she gives him a thorough inspection, the male seemingly keening into the contact despite its roughness. Nesta tries not to get whiplash as Amren softly pats the male’s cheek twice with her free hand before letting it drop to rest on her waist.

“Pathetic,” the ancient one scoffs, finally releasing her other hand’s grip on his chin. 

Nesta realizes that the male in front of her is not the same one that has been a frequent guest at their dinner table over the last couple of months. No, tonight she is not looking at the same captain of Tarquin’s guard nor the commendable battle tactician that she has come to know. Instead, Nesta finds herself looking at Amren’s pet. As soon as the thought crosses her mind though, Nesta is hit by a shudder that rolls through her entire body, a shock of a reprimand from something deep in her core, something primal. No, Nesta reprimands herself, straightening her posture as she starts to make her own way towards Varian. Tonight, he is her prey.

__________

hehehehe if you liked this then feel free to come back next week to see the full thing (hopefully I will come up with a title before then)

EDIT: im slow so this is going to be posted on the free day!!!!

[stillness-in-green]

Favorite Characters of 2023

Saw this meme template by @limayde and had to drop anything more productive because I Love Character Memes. I tried to focus on characters who particularly signified 2023 in fandom for me, not necessarily just my favorites in any given fandom, and certainly not my favorites of all time! So consider it a reasonable representation of what I read/was reading/was still thinking about last year.

(I'm also relatively sure I could fill this out entirely with BNHA characters, but if I were to do that, it would be with the goal of representing how much I was thinking about said characters in terms of Fix-It Fic(s) Brainstorming, rather than simply how much I like them. Yoichi would be prominent in the former and not present at all in the latter, for example.)

Anyway, after much painstaking cropping, here it is!

(A full list of who all these people are and a blurb apiece of my thoughts on them, as well as the meme template, can be found beneath the cut!)

Most Favorite Blorbo(s) of 2023

Lord Glück and Macht of El Dorado (Sousou no Frieren) – Macht's was the arc that turned me around on Frieren's treatment of demons—he’s so interesting, and so tragic, totally set in his ways while also yearning to change them.  Glück, meanwhile, is so devoted to his word, blunt in his assessment of Macht’s character but wholly sincere about trying to give him the knowledge and environment he needs to change.  My BF asked me for the spoiler-free version of what I liked about them, and the best I can sum it up as is, “A mutual acceptance despite the parts of each other they can’t understand,” and, “They’ve made each other promises that go all the way to end, to the goddamn end.”  Thirty years of that!  I am once again begging on my hands and knees for Frieren to get a second season, and also, if the universe really loves me, to end the first season with a tease for the Golden City.[1]

(I cheated a bit here; the central square is intended for a single supreme fave, not center-mounting one's OTP. I am, however, entirely incapable of picking one of those two above the other. Also, putting them both there does bring the character count to a nice even 50.}

1: A second tease.  There’s actually been one already, a reference to Macht’s enchanted jewelry, squirreled away in some on-screen text—one of the anime’s many additions to the background detail compared to the manga.

12 Characters vs. 12 Months In A Year. Coincidence? Probably!

(Starting at the top left corner and moving clockwise.)

Shigaraki Tomura (BNHA) – 2023 was the year Shigaraki Tomura got his groove back, thank heavens.  While he didn’t get much material in which to speak his own mind—really just Chapters 379 and 411, a full year apart (the latter didn’t officially come out until just a few days ago; we just got the leaks a week early).  We’ll see how he holds up going forward, but even those few scenes effortlessly demonstrate just how profound a waste of time handing AFO the reins to the end game was.  Here’s to not letting Heroes off the hook in the new year!

Iguchi Shuuichi/Spinner (BNHA) – Spent a lot of 2023 worrying about this guy.  Still am worried about this guy.  But him turning the tides of the war at the end of 2022 shifted the whole course of the battle, and new we’ve got Shigaraki invoking The Horizon to finally give us incontrovertible evidence that Shigaraki and Spinner have talked about more than just video games!  2024 is shaping up Spinaraki!

Yotsubashi Rikiya/Re-Destro (BNHA) – I provide fanart for this man because, of course, he was in the actual canon not at all last year, absent a single flashback panel from Hose Face, not at all making up for what a caricature that character was otherwise.  All the good Re-Destro content I was getting last year was thanks to @nickfoo’s wonderful, wonderful fanart of him.  Thanks for continuing to give this guy love, foo! (full art here)

Geten (BNHA) – Himura backstory reveal!  And that revelation accounted for the only fanfic I posted last year at all, as well as being super satisfying in terms of largely clearing Todoroki Enji of the responsibility for the heteromorphobic microaggressions perpetrated by certain of his children, as well as giving us some more hints about Geten and Re-Destro’s relationship.  Exquisite. (Now just let him have something to say that isn’t mostly there to Contextualize Dabi.)

Vamirio/Anne from Management  (Helck) – I reread Helck last year in celebration of its anime, and just to reiterate this again, Vamirio and her determination lead her to make firm stands and fiery declarations about her combat role and priorities that Deku has never even fuckin’ thought about.  Vamirio a best; vote Vamirio for Head of Management.

Samuel Murphy +Hal and Nobu (Canis: The Speaker) – Sam’s my favorite of another inseparable trio, probably because, at least as an adult, he’s the most vulnerable—not simply because he lacks the firearms or goons that his partners’ positions allow them to call to hand, but also because of his struggles with insomnia.  Whip-smart, observant, and well-spoken, and I always have had a preference for the smart ones.

Jasper (Steven Universe) – I started reading @faelapis’s post-canon Jasper exploration fic Something Better last year and absolutely fell in love with it.  It reminded me all over again how much I love Jasper, and how much I wanted a story that gave her all the time she needed to change.

Somei Yoshino (Yakuza Fiancée) – Last year saw the anime announcement and Yoshino’s totally amazing bathtub fight with Azami, which I guess there are cowards out there who didn’t like?  RIP to them but I’m different, I guess!  I’ll watch Yoshino break her terrible suitors’ fingers any time!

Wolfgang Grimmer (Monster) – Reread the back half of Monster last year solely because I love Grimmer and wanted to read his material again.  A perennial favorite, manga and character alike.  I love a man held together with scotch tape, stitches and good intentions.

Boutarou the Pirate (Golden Kamuy) – Probably not my actual favorite character in the series, but I finally got to see him in anime form last year after a maddening wait thanks to the delay in 2022.  Shiraishi’s best ship and a feral merman (look at the way he uses his hair and tell me I'm wrong) that someone unaccountably let walk around on dry land. A+ character.

Sailor Cosmos (Sailor Moon) – Speaking of characters with a huge wait on seeing them in the anime..!  God, I’ve wanted anime Sailor Cosmos since high school, and I’m thrilled to finally get her (and the merch that would accompany her).

Mitaka Asa (Chainsaw Man) – I read the first half of Chainsaw Man a while back, largely on the basis of @robotlesbianjavert’s enthusiasm, and while I enjoyed it well enough, particularly Denji’s assorted travails, I never got super invested in it because, not having to wait week to week for releases, there was never really enough time to get attached to most characters before they got unceremoniously offed.  Whether it’s the week-to-week wait or just that I like Asa as a character more, she’s really done the job of getting me interested in the series.  I love this loser failgirl and I want only the best for her; while I doubt that’s what she’ll get, at least I can watch her torture logic to make sick weapons and have affecting scenes about her own crippling inadequacy issues in the meantime.

36 Others

(As before, starting on the top left and moving clockwise through the BNHA Zone.)

Scarecrow/Spinner’s Number 2 (BNHA) – Scarecrow’s big speechifying moments would have been back in autumn of 2022, but I still loved him more than enough in 2023 for him to make this grid.  He was reduced to a shallow caricature and still had to get knocked off a roof because no one could actually out-argue him, and through all of that unendurable authorial laziness, his potential still shines through for me.  Stan the MLA, MLA 5Evah.

Toga Himiko (BNHA) – The only Villain whose Hero foil plotline is working for me on any level, though a lot is hanging on whether or not she, y’know, lives.  She definitely should have gotten to stab the bejeezus out of Hawks, and Ochaco should definitely go on the run with her once Apple Cheeks realizes that the HeroAca justice system could not possibly be relied upon to do anything other than throw Toga in a hole for a few years before executing her.

Gentle Criminal (BNHA) – The only redeemed villain whose regard for Deku functions at all thematically.  Lady N’s return is hogswash on multiple levels, but I will defend Gentle’s without reservation.

Kunieda + Aoyama Yuuga (BNHA) – Consider these two to be a stand-in for all the thinking I did last year about Fix-It Fic scenarios for this whole final arc.  For example, Kunieda in the canon speaks far too knowledgeably both about and to Aoyama for them to be total strangers, so why not plant some seeds for their confrontations earlier?  I ask the reader to consider this:

In a version of the Edgy Deku arc that allowed the rest of 1-A to get out into the world to help out with relocation efforts, they one day come across a scene of dread: a neighborhood full of corpses and Kunieda’s flowers.  Aoyama has a noticeably shaken reaction, which he plays off as just horror to his similarly horrified classmates, but the truth is that he’s got prior history with Kunieda—AFO didn’t plop corpses in front of his parents to intimidate them (because that’s ham-handed and silly), but bodies were still involved.  They’d turn up buried in the family's fancy gardens sometimes, always heralded by those vivid red-black flowers…

Frieren (Sousou no Frieren) – I was relatively neutral on the title character until the anime came out and I had to suffer through The Discourse about her attitude towards demons (arguments on both sides tending to be poorly considered and ignorant, both of canonical details and real-world relevance).  That made me a bit more defensive of her, but even setting my contrarianism aside, I was also very pleased with how she navigated the manga’s most recent arc.[2]  She’s maybe the first character I can think of who I have actively wanted to write Asexual Representation fic for, if only because my answer to, “Does she Romantically Love Himmel?” is much more complex than just saying, “No, she only saw him as a friend,” or, “Yes, and now she’s going to be sad about her Tragically Lost Love for the rest of her life and we need to write all the fix-it fics about that.”

2: She wants to go home!  Her feelings for Himmel, whatever they are, are of less importance to her than going home!  Despite everything we know about how she perceives time, she still values her “now” more than her lost “then”!  My gloating aside, though, I was far more affected by the sword scene than I was the wedding attire or the near kiss.  Being trapped in a wedding illusion?  Trite, overplayed.  Being trapped in a wedding illusion yet still being able to wrap your hands around your partner’s arm and faithfully guide them into drawing the sword neither of you can perceive?  Now that’s intimacy!

Heiter (Sousou no Frieren) – While I had little overall use for the aforementioned most recent arc of Frieren, I did very much enjoy my favorite member of the Hero Party getting a moment to demonstrate what being The Priest Of The Party That Defeated The Demon King actually means in practice.  Grausam being unable to put him down with an illusion?  Being the only one who could defend his downed companions?  The sheer level of trust he has in Himmel?  A little bit of vulnerability where he’s bare seconds away from getting gibbed by Grausam?  Heiter is the member of the party that we get the least amount of in on: Sein didn’t stay with the party long enough to serve as a point of comparison, and despite Heiter raising Fern, she didn’t assume his role in the new group, like Stark did Eisen’s, nor do her reminiscences about him get anywhere near the amount of screentime that Frieren’s do of Himmel.  So for real, you guys, Chapter 118 was so good.

Edward (Shadows House) – *bangs fists on table*  WORST BOY WORST BOY WORST BOY!!  Anime Edward is pants, but Manga Edward is where it’s at, always keeping Kate scrambling, always coming out on top of his maneuverings against his peer group rivals, just flappable enough that his victories doesn’t look effortless, and engaging enough that his smugness feels earned rather than intended to turn the reader against him.  I have no idea how the story is going to deal with the adult shadows, who are after all still just as brainwashed and wronged by Grandfather’s workings as the kids are!  If anything, they’re worse off, having already been manipulated into losing the “faces” they must once have loved dearly.  Thus, while Kate and her allies certainly approach the conflict with a very Us vs. Them, Adults=The Enemy mentality, the screentime Edward’s own affairs get, fully independent of how they intersect with Kate’s, along with an avowed desire to improve the House that parallels Kate’s, make me hopeful that the authors have something a little more nuanced in mind than, “Free the current victims by wiping out all the previous ones.”

Melinda Desmond (Spy x Family) – The main cast are all perfectly fine, but Melinda is interesting.  Super curious to find out more about the Desmond family dynamics, and I love Melinda bouncing around with Yor. (I swear, though, judging by the collective response to the most recent chapter, the fandom is going to turn me into a Donovan Apologist yet. Only one member of that family has visible scars suggesting brain surgery, folks!!)

Anti/Knight/Gridknight (Gridman Universe) – Always my favorite single character from both Gridman and Dynazenon, and he was characteristically great in the movie as well.  His scene with Akane at the end was only my second favorite beat because, while it’s wonderful emotionally cathartic (more fanservice like this, please!), it’s also kind of muddled thanks to the idea of Gridman!Anti and Dynazenon!Knight being two separate entities. Churlish to hold that against it, though, when it's so heartfelt.

Minami Yume + Asanaka Yomogi (Gridman Universe) – Such a great pairing in their own show—I once saw someone call them forced, which has always struck me as just being too high on Bashing The Hets to see that Yomogi and Yume have a great arc towards getting together, actually.  Seeing them be unabashedly together and happy about it in the film was 100% delightful and deserved. Yume swooping down out of the sky on Dynarex to scoop up her wifeguy boyfriend is my actual favorite beat in the movie.

Hyura (Helck) – Firstly, the dry humor around Hyura is fantastic.  (“Something like an arm grows back simply enough.  That’s just common sense.”  “It doesn’t, right?”  “It does not.”)  Secondly, she’s the biggest badass in the secondary cast.  Thirdly, she and Edil have the designated rival ship dynamic (incredibly rare to see across gender lines in shounen manga), and Hyura holds her own all the way to the end.  Hyura is great.

Mikaros (Helck) – “Yes, we may have lost some assets and I personally shattered the mind of one of our strongest soldiers, removing him from the playing field.  But the important thing is that I personally overcame my trauma, so overall it’s a win.”  What a slimeball.  What a total heap.  And what an excellent example of the end-stage stakes driving the title character's choice in the epilogue! I love Mikaros unreservedly.

Harold Aldo Hughes and Iwaki Tadanobu + Sam (Canis: The Speaker) – Transformation, reinvention, the fierceness of devotion and the ruthlessness of rebirth—I don’t love them quite as much as I do Sam, but they’re also both great.

Hera (Lore Olympus) – Lore Olympus is one of those series I read more because it’s interesting enough while also being blisteringly gorgeous than because I’m deeply invested in the characters, but the plotline about Hera and Kronos really has pulled me all the way into active, character-specific interest.  Great, tense, painful stuff.  Can’t wait to see where she goes following recent events.

Redcloak (Order of the Stick) – His last really insightful and heartwrenching scene was in the year before last—that fantastic exchange with Oona!—but for as long as I’m reading OOTS, Redcloak is going to be a favorite.  God, the Law Elemental summoning is so funny.

Hyness (Kirby franchise) – This one’s entirely on my sis-in-law—like another character further down the list, I am not remotely “in” the Kirby fandom.  But what can I say—tell me about a warped cult leader who started in a bad place and only got worse who still managed to get saved by the Hero taking a leap of faith that paid off, and tell me the fandom calls him a horrible abuser?  Sorry, but I Have No Choice But To Stan. (full art here)

Lafcadio Boone (The Sexy Brutale) – Replayed this again last year, and it’s still great.  In a sense, despite its sizeable named cast, it really only has the one character, and his story is such that I want to make every single person on tumblr that gets hyperbolic about the forgiveness and redemption of fictional wrongdoers play this game.  “Time to move on, old man,” indeed.

Sissel (Ghost Trick) – Finally got the remaster of this and replayed it, and it’s also still great.  Knowing The Spoilers about Sissel seriously make replays such a scream, but also man is this game really sitting on some completely over-the-top darkness not at all far beneath its candy apple red and Matrix-text green surface.

Pavitr Prabhakar/Spider-Man India (Across the Spider-Verse) – Strictly in terms of character writing, he’s very fun, but I don’t think he’s as strong as Spider-Punk or Miguel O'Hara, but on the other hand, he’s so much fun, especially to simply watch in motion.  Most of the rest of the leads, however varied their artstyles might be, still feel like they move in basically the same ways, just with varying levels of grace vs. power, intent vs. controlled collapse, but because of the way Pavitr uses his thread, he moves completely differently, and it’s just a ton of fun to watch.  The first character I went hunting for fanart of when I got out of the movie theater.

Gwen Stacy/Spider-Woman (Across the Spider-Verse) – I have outstanding affection for Spider-Gwen from reading her comics back when, but that opening Vulture fight, the fantastic look of her dimension, and all the trans signaling kept her right at the top, too.

Brutha (Discworld: Small Gods) – @codenamesazanka read this and a few of the Watch books last year, prompting me to do some rereads as well, and Brutha and Small Gods remain very dear to me.  I only wish more artists would draw versions of him that remotely resemble “fat, simple-looking young man from a desert country in fantasy!expy!Middle East” rather than “suspiciously trim and Benedictine.”

Sam Vimes (Discworld series) – Ditto on Nal’s read above, but also chatted with foo a lot about this guy, and he’s been my favorite single character in the series since high school.  It takes very little to prompt me to reread his books generally, but last year was the first time I’ve had it in me to reread Snuff, as it was previously a little too tied up in my feelings about the last few books prior to Pratchett’s death.  Regardless of anything else, though, Snuff is the book for Sam/Sybil.

Mina Murray (#DRCL: Midnight Children) – Discovered this lush chonk of horror phantasmagoria last year and I’m kind of in love with it.  Its take on Mina anchors it well—she’s smart and fiery but up against ingrained sexism and classism in her setting, and not too Anachronistic Grrl Power to not be hurt by that sometimes; she’s stubborn, but vulnerable to the supernatural horrors in the way any child would be.  An unreliable but intriguing and sympathetic narrator.

Capone Bege (One Piece) – The other character I got onto largely without getting into the series he hails from, nickfoo—whose art I again use to illustrate—does great work with this guy, a once-jovial monster shocked back from that moral brink by marriage and fatherhood.  Still gets a bit Into It at work, but tries not to bring it home, at least as much as that can be avoided when carrying both family and crew around in the same heart/sub-dimensional space.  (Also, foo’s version of Bege is great, but her rendition of Chiffon is—speaking as someone who doesn’t read the series and can only gauge by image search or skimming the wiki—borderline miraculous, accurate to Oda’s lively caricature design, but so much more sensitive, expressive and human.)

Prince Kazu/Lady Chikako (Ooku: The Inner Chambers) – On the occasion of the Netflix anime, I finally tracked down and finished Ooku last year, and when I tell you that I laughed more and harder in the final arc than I did through the entire rest of the series combined…  The Kyoto cast members are a big part of why,[3] and none more delightful than the stuffy, prideful, possessive, and deeply impetuous Chikako, one of the most singularly human characters in the whole 19-volume melodrama.

3: Catty ex-male prostitute turned head of the Inner Chambers Takiyama is the other part of this equation, by the way.

Gao Shun (The Apothecary Diaries) – Long-suffering stoics are my absolute favorite type, and that holds true even though Gao Shun's stoicism has been largely a humorous beat thus far.  I want this guy to get more attention, but until then, I will continue to enjoy his weary exasperation every time he has to deal with Mao Mao’s eccentricities/Jinshi’s enthusiasm about same.

Mao Mao (The Apothecary Diaries) – Best female character of the season, for sure, but I’ve been reading one of the manga for a while now, and she’s a regular delight.  Eccentric and ruthless by turns, painfully aware of the limitations of her position and yet wholly willing to make her own decisions and exert her own agency within those limitations without ever concerning herself with whether she should ask permission from or report to someone above her rank.  Mao Mao’s mercy takes the form of knowing when to speak and when to demure, and every time I see some stuck-in-their-own-ethical-framework commenter complain about her moral compass, I appreciate it harder.

Accustomizer Stud/Tiffany (Angelic Acceptor Alouette) – Enthusiastically resourceful teenage girl who would probably be super into transhumanism if she hadn’t fallen in with angels (sic) instead, transforming into the gloriously nonbinary pile of muscles and amazing hair that is Accustomizer Stud, Tiffany’s ultimate expression of her inner self.  Stud is magnanimous, gracious, and well-spoken, and they are also VERY LOUD AND FIGHTY.  My absolute favorite character in a game wall-to-wall with great characters.

Yuunagi Tsubasa/Cure Wing (Hirogaru Sky PreCure) – The first Official Boy Cure with absolutely no provisos or qualifications or ways to wiggle out of it, and the show gets him just right by playing him basically completely straight.  Has a costume no one would look twice at in a magical girl line-up, wastes no time on masculine embarrassment at his frills, with the only nod he/the show make towards his gender at all being to frame his role as being a knight to a princess, rather than simply a guardian to one, but it’s not really what he’s about.  His actual character is driven by knowledge, studiousness, and a desire to overcome the limitations placed on him by being a human/pudgy flightless bird fairy.

Kei Miyama (Go With the Clouds, North By Northwest) – Something of a stand-in for his series generally, which I read the two most recent volumes of last year and fell in love with all over again—particularly the most recent one, which switches deftly between depictions of shattering, world-hollowing grief and the beguiling intimacy of the rhythms of life and nature.  But my love for the manga itself aside, Kei’s a great protagonist, full of little contradictions and snags that make him feel much more fleshed out and grounded than your average animanga male lead, even as he’s running around doing very Animanga Male Lead Things, like solving mysteries by using his Strange Power to get information a normal person could not.

Lord El-Melloi II/Waver Velvet (Fate franchise) – Waver is possibly my favorite character of all time in any medium, so it takes very little to rekindle the love.  In last year's case, it took the Fate/strange Fake special!  Love to see my boy continue to wrest more narrative space for himself than he was originally allotted by virtue of being a run-away audience favorite of the Fate/Zero anime!

Ivan (Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still) – Got the remastered Blu-ray last year as a gift, and guess what?  I still love Ivan in all his cartoonish mini-boss villainy layered over the pathos of tragic loss and resentment.  Honestly, I can only assume he’s as well-adjusted as he is because Alberto is so inspiring to work in close quarters with (mood), because otherwise I’d think it pretty unfair that the sole surviving Bashtarle national in the story gets so little to say about/to the people who blew it up.

Isurugi Camice (Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans) – I was a bit too preoccupied with BNHA meta last year to think much about my prior fandom phase, but I still made time to rotate Isurugi in my mind from time to time.  As one of my beloved long-suffering stoics, I can always make that kind of time for him.  (Image source is from the cover of a doujinshi I have, because melancholy BL doujinshi is definitely more the kind of tonal zone my mental rotations were occupying than they were canon’s!)

And, finally, the blank

(If anyone reading this wants to give it a whirl, I reccommend blowing it up to x2 size; makes the small squares easier to work with.)

[lemonhemlock]

The posts you reblogged about the fantasy elements of ASOIAF and it's comparisons with other fantasy books is so timely because I've been meaning to send you an ask about this very topic. I think a lot of the disconnect between people who unironically stan house targ and see them as the heroes, saviors, having this magical bloodline that makes them better lol vs. the rest of the fandom that clearly....does not is because of the series itself and how it is viewed within the genre.

So, I do believe that this is obviously a fantasy series and has been marketed as such, but what Martin ended up actually producing in the five books he published is basically a grimdark, edgy historical fiction series with some magical/low fantasy elements. I fundamentally see ASOIAF as a historical fiction work in the realm of The Accursed Kings, or even Phillippa Gregory if we want to get low brow lol, just WAY more gritty and with fantasy/magical elements thrown in as plot devices to spice the story up and to also prop up the greater socio-political and human family drama that is the true center of the story.

I know people say that the magical elements i.e. Bran's importance, the fight against the others, prophecy, etc. will be ramped up and gain more importance in the last two books....but Martin hasn't written them? So I'm not gonna judge this series based on unwritten material and the fandom's headcanons as to how or why this magic will be supposedly important. Martin's most magical figure, Bran, has some of the least chapters and hasn't had a chapter in two decades lmao. Fire and Blood, outside of dragon riding and some witchy characters, is pretty much historical fiction as well with very few and sparse magic to speak of.

I don't mind this at all, because I find the historical fiction and human drama vastly more interesting and have always been neutral at best re fantasy as a genre. But anyway, I think this is why there is such a gap between the subsections of the fandom because some are purely analyzing this as a magical series where it's really historical fiction with low magic/fantasy elements.

I kind of agree with some of your points, but I tend to look at it a little differently. I do agree about it generally being low fantasy, with plans to pump up the fantastical elements in the last two books. And, honestly, I sympathize with your take on just having five books published and being unable to judge a series based on plans that haven't seen the light of day yet. I think that's a reason for these heated debates, namely that we've been left in a pretty awkward point in the plot - the magical elements are ramping up, but still haven't been placed at the very fore, the majority of the Westerosi population either don't believe magic exists (anymore) or that it's pretty irrelevant to their daily lives etc,

...which in turn makes the political machinations stand out, more than they do in many other fantasy works.

On the whole, though, I would argue against calling it historical fiction, as the narrative takes place in a realm that doesn't exist, with a climate that would be impossible on planet Earth, with unexplainably stagnant technology.

I also don't really interpret ASOIAF as grimdark. Again, it's a tempting assessment to make based on the awkward point we are in the narrative now, but I don't think the progression of the series is going to be Nolan's-Batman-gritty. I think that we're fully in deconstruction mode right now, but that the ultimate goal is to pick the pieces back up together and build something better and more hopeful, get to the core of what makes these tropes so transcendent and appealing in the storytelling canon. What does a good king actually mean anyway? Why do we yearn for chivalry and courtly romance? Why do we keep coming back to these kinds of stories, why are we so attracted to the medieval aesthetic that makes all of this possible? What does it truly mean to be a hero? How can we genuinely help our fellow man? How does hope prevail when we are faced with the horrors of this world and the otherworld? Essentially, what does it mean to be human, which is the best and highest theme one can explore through the medium of writing.

[f1ghtsoftly]

Im being real I only want to organize with other women but my interest in like passing laws vs direct action is literally zero.

Laws are helpful, but they are ultimately reformist. I think, coming out of the 20th century a major takeaway I had is that women need to build things that cannot be taken away from us (basically separatism). Abortion should have never been a debate, it’s a right, if a government tries to legislate that then it is illegitimate. Women’s work should be paid. Women should run households. No women should be forced to live under constant threat of rape or battery. Sex is about love and connection not about owning someone (or their children). None of these things are complicated. Women understand this reality intuitively. It is men who do not. By asking rather than taking-we in turn legitimate this source of power but, men should not hold power over women. It is illegitimate.

The biggest failure, in my opinion, of second wave feminism in the US is it could not reproduce itself. I agree with Federici’s assessment that “Wages for Housework” (or some variation) is one of the biggest tasks left undone. By and large child production in the US remains a task for the nuclear family, ensuring patriarchy will live on for another generation and another generation of adult women will suffer inside of it. We can remedy this by creating intentional communities of women by women, raising our own wages and collectively supporting each other through family creation and in the workplace.

Furthermore, I really strongly encourage women to stop supporting causes, political movements or organizations that refuse to prioritize women’s issues. This is particularly relevant in the realm of foreign policy. I find it repulsive how many self styled radical feminists turn around and support US imperial projects abroad. We must reshape the way we organize the production of commodities if we are to liberate women. That means *not* supporting the imperialist powers in their quest to secure new markets and create sources of cheap labor+raw materials. Women’s piss poor wages in garment factories in Bangladesh is directly related to the strength of the conservative patriarchy in Bangladesh. Subsistance farmers in Brazil and South Asia need women to produce a large workforce as cheaply as possible, they accomplish this through patriarchal marriage and religion. The US forced it’s way into Eastern Europe to secure new markets and access to raw materials and the looting of the Soviet State saw the largest entrance of women into the sex trade in world history. Im not saying be uncritical about places like Iran, China or Russia, but I am saying be mindful of what exactly the person speaking intends to do about it. Global revolution is different than a proxy war between US+friends, solidarity with striking workers is different than Sanctions and Embargos which starve women and children. NGO’s operate in the interest of their donors, whoever they happen to be. Both horrors can be true and we must develop the capacity to see all of them-so that our intention to help does not untinentionally prolong the suffering of our global sisters. I cannot be more adamant that vigorous opposition to imperialism, vigorous opposition to the US government and her military is the absolute best way those of us living in the west can support women globally.

Many women are fooled by the belief that this is impractical and centering women and demanding real, revolutionary change is hopeless but allow me to ask you this, how many women have lived and died under this current regime? How many women have given their lives, have devoted themselves entirely to women’s advancement? We have made small gains-but it is not nearly commiserate to the effort we have put into achieving them. We are staring down the barrel of a new age, one where women’s bodies can be spliced and sold like pieces of meat. One where religious fundamentalism will remain a dominant global force. One where women can look forward to lives as drudges, whores or wives living with back to back pregnancies, constantly under the boot of men. Is that the world we want? Is that the world women have worked so hard to achieve?

We need a more radical, more prideful strategy befitting our dignity and in line with what we deserve. We deserve so much more than concessions. We deserve freedom and the fruits of our labor.

So please, consider that it is ok for you to be the main character in this story and stop lending your time, support and energy to causes that do not center women’s experiences. I don’t care if you’re “also lgbtq” or also a “poc” or also “colonized”. You’re suffering more than a man is, women deserve to be at the forefront of every single social movement, not a supporting role, a woman unfairly in prison is just as significant as her male counterpart. Lesbians get beat up and preyed on by homophobic men just as much, if not more, then gay men do. Women suffer worse under occupying armies, women suffer worse under sanctions, women suffer worse in post colonial political chaos then men do.

You matter just as much as they do and you need to *leave* if they do not recognize that. You will never lose by recognizing your worth.

[tencrowns]

Hello I would love a reading! My question is how to make pyshic antenna stronger? I'm going through a transformational process and I'm having a hard time with self belief. Thank you! N.V.W.

Hi! Thanks for your patience, I didn't really have a great spread for this prepared as I've been focusing on yes/no type questions today. Since I already had my Tomas Hijo LotR sorted the way I needed for a y/n, I grabbed The Labyrinth deck by the same artist and pulled this:

Starting with the far left, This is what you already know. The Chariot. Decisive action and forward movement--you have already determined that this is something you want to do, pretty clearly, and you have the momentum to carry through with it successfully.

Far right: this is "on the other hand." Fate, reversed. If you look closely, you can see that this card is numbered XIII, and is a thematic retitle of the traditional Death. Big change, right? This speaks more to whatever is about to happen as inevitability. Whatever happens as a result of this process is something you can't avoid, and that there may be changes in more than one plane of your life that you may not have yet anticipated. Increased awareness and being in touch with the immaterial may change your perspective on some things in your life that are comfortable right now, and that shift, like all change, may be unsettling.

Card three, bottom center. This represents something you need to change. The three of poles (wands). This card traditionally speaks to collaboration and cooperation. To me, not knowing your situation intimately, suggests that you are trying to tough through this process alone when you don't really need to go through it alone. Even if it's just someone to bounce your experiences and ideas off of to get an outside perspective, I think it's very easy for us as people to get lost in our own sauce and paralyzed by second-guessing or not understanding what we have experienced. Having someone else to push off of, and allowing them to push off of you in turn, can provide valuable insight and the kind of friction you need to get ahold of a tricky idea.

Fourth card, top center. Six of junk (pentacles), reversed. So typically pentacles refer to very material things, or things that have some kind of tangible, monetary value, but this card in this position specifically refers to debt, and I am electing to read this as a debt of energy, for lack of a better term, in the context of your question. There's an unfair exchange going on somewhere in your life that is a problem, though I can't pin whether this is something you are owed or a debt you need fulfill yourself. Is your time and attention being allocated fairly? Developing any skill or your intuition takes a lot of investment of yourself, and if your time and energy is being monopolized by something without good reason, that's a problem, or it could be that something or someone else in your life that you have been neglecting is holding you back from the kind of advancement you're looking for because it's there in the back of your mind, gnawing at you a little bit. I'm not sure which way this is going, but it definitely recommends you do an assessment of any loose ends you might have.

I think the framing on this reading is so interesting, with the two majors on the outside and the minors in the center, mirroring each other in the upright/reversed positions!

[tsasocial]

Intertextile Shenzhen wraps up three days of trend, innovation, and sustainability exchange amongst key asian textile players

From 5 – 7 June 2024, the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center (Futian) was the sourcing hotspot of South China’s apparel textile industry. Nearly 1,000 exhibitors from 11 countries and regions showcased various garment-related products, with major categories covering ladieswear, functional wear, and accessories. Together, Intertextile Shenzhen Apparel Fabrics and Yarn Expo Shenzhen 2024 welcomed nearly 20,000 visits from 45 countries and regions, including two buyer delegations from Malaysia and one from the European American Chamber of Commerce & Industry. Witnessing an influx of brands, manufacturers, and regional designers, the apparel fair’s Trend Forum, fringe event venues, sustainability-centric display areas, and key Asian zones and pavilions all proved high-traffic platforms.

Speaking at the show’s close, Ms Wilmet Shea, General Manager of Messe Frankfurt (HK) Ltd, said: “The fair has been very effective for international and domestic suppliers to showcase their innovations to the South China market – likewise, we have had a very strong response from ASEAN-based buyers and brands seeking on-trend products in between two traditional sourcing seasons. As organisers we couldn’t be more pleased, having delivered a business-friendly trading platform for players from across the value chain, and given a stage to experts sharing insights across a range of innovative industry topics.”

At Talking Point and Textile Dialogue, Intertextile Shenzhen’s two seminar venues, topics ranged from the transformative impact of AI in the textile landscape to upcoming fashion trends for both S/S 2025-26 and A/W 2025-26, equipping buyers with key product and industry information. Across three days of insight sharing and trading, key international sourcing brands included the likes of Club Monaco, Diesel, lululemon, Ralph Lauren, Quiksilver, ZARA, and many more.

Three international buyer delegations crossed paths with exhibitors, including delegates from EA Chamber representing six countries, the Malaysia Knitting Manufacturers Association, and the Malaysian Garment Marketers Association. Meanwhile, with some travelling less than 50 kilometres and some from further afield, 12 domestic delegations visited the fair, such as China Top 10 Designers, Shenzhen Jinhui Nanyou Fashion Creative Center Visiting Group, and Guangdong Garment & Apparel Industry Association Buyer Group.

Including both individual brands and various delegates, over 250 business matching meetings with exhibitors took place across the three-day show. The buyers included 20 Shenzhen-based designers and managers, from brands such as DAQINGLIU, CHICCOMAO, DiLiUnbound, and Yishangshi. Representing the likes of Annil, Dayang, and Marisfrolg, many other domestic brand buyers visited the early summer showcase.

On the show floor, the Spring / Summer 2025-26 Trend Forum by Fabrics China gave buyers a visual anchor for future vogues. Meanwhile, the Sustainability Zone provided insights into different brands’ applications of sustainability policies, as did the debut of featured display zones Eco Trends by Intertextile x Sateri and Functional Sustainability by Intertextile x Idole.

The early summer textile platform also included the Japan Zone, with exhibitors displaying accessories, cotton and man-made fabrics for menswear, ladieswear and sportswear; the Korea Pavilion, featuring jacquard, mixed woven, and more; and the Taiwan Pavilion, with a focus on high-quality lace, embroidery and yarn. Whether sourcing or showcasing, a range of exhibitors, visitors, and speakers offered positive assessments.

Exhibitors’ feedback

“Our buttons are made with very unique materials – palm tree seeds which can only be found in Ecuador, that are durable and eco-friendly. Although more expensive than plastic buttons, the product attracts many high-end fashion brands from Europe, the US and China due to its sustainability, quality and uniqueness. We have received very positive feedback at Intertextile Shenzhen; many designers have enquired about the product. With the help of the fair, I hope more and more players in the fashion industry will choose to use sustainable materials in the future.” Mr Wilson Chiu, Managing Director, Yee Fung Hong Ltd (PRO ECUADOR co-exhibitor)

“This edition of Intertextile Shenzhen is better, as the location is different, and the number and quality of visitors have increased. At this fair, most of the visitors are manufacturers based in Shenzhen. Our main fabric here is voile, used for party dresses for example, and so many buyers have requested this item. Being part of the Korea Pavilion is better than in an individual booth. Buyers can see the Korea Pavilion, identify where we’re from and it helps generate more interest.” Mr Jay Hwang, General Manager, SK Tex Co Ltd (Korea Pavilion)

"Most of our products are fabrics produced in Japan, and we have also brought our spring and summer collections to this fair. Since we have an office in Shenzhen and many of our apparel industry clients are from South China as well, we decided to exhibit at Intertextile Shenzhen to look for new customers in the Greater Bay Area, and increase our brand exposure. Today we have connected with many Chinese buyers, and visitors from Europe and the US have also come to our booth to learn about our products.” Mr Tomokazu Matsuda, KITATI Co Ltd (Japan Pavilion)

“Our collection comes from Italy, and the quality is very well-known. We are about 200 years old and supply brands such as Chanel, Max Mara, Celine, and Gucci. In China, our presence is growing due to the rise of online brands, with buyers interested due to our association with Europe. For autumn, most of our products are wool, mohair, alpaca, while for spring we use cotton, polyester, and more. At Intertextile Shenzhen, we are showing S/S and A/W fabrics together, and buyers have been looking for both.” Mr Dongbo Han, Dongyu Chengxin International Fashion Fabric (Lanificio Paoletti agent)

Visitors’ comments

“At this fair, our association members want to communicate with yarn, fabric, accessories and other exhibitors, keep up to date with the latest industry developments, and discover new products and advanced technologies. We made good progress and found many interested potential partners, and we will follow up with them after we return. This year's visa-free entry policy is very conducive to business exchange between Malaysia and China, making it easier to come here, and greatly enhancing sourcing efficiency.”

Mr Kuan Chee Tan, President, Malaysia Knitting Manufacturers Association

“Perhaps 70% of our customers are online brands with thousands of stock keeping units, and we help them procure fabrics and finished garments, store them, and handle logistics. We develop systems software for e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, AliExpress, and Amazon. Some of our clients are very interested in new fashion industry trends, and products such as eco-friendly, recycled fabrics, and nature-friendly accessories. I’m exploring jacquard for airline uniforms, Italian booths for R&D and trends, and bridal wear. As an EACham member, this is probably one of the best shows I’ve been to but I need to explore more.”

Mr Dileep Kumar, Director, ExPlus Logistics (Member of European-American Chamber of Commerce & Industry)

Speakers’ insights

“The presentation today was about our self-developed innovative functional fibre yarns that are super strong and tough. Afterwards, attendees can visit our booth to exchange thoughts and learn more about the relevant technologies, therefore holding concurrent seminars is useful. At this fair, there are more of our target buyers who have consulted with us, and many manufacturers are now looking for such functional materials. We also noticed buyers from Europe and the US are more interested in sustainable fibres.”

Mr Kang Zhang, Technical Manager, Nano and Advanced Materials Institute Limited (Speaker at Bioinspired Super Fibre with High Strength, Toughness and Damping Performance seminar)

“My key point was the use of AI technology for high-speed recognition of materials, colour, garment type, and construction, which are important elements for textile recycling. I also promoted technology to draw fibres from existing garments, and ensure they are as long as possible, in order to recycle garments to yarns. The industry audience here was informed, drawing links between what I said and their situations. This was a good platform to share that recycling technology already exists and it’s time to step up in this area.”

Mr Raymond Chiu, Senior Research Manager, The Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel (Speaker at Threads of Innovation: Textile x AI Exploration and Prospect seminar)

Held concurrently with Yarn Expo Shenzhen and PH Value, Intertextile Shenzhen Apparel Fabrics is organised by Messe Frankfurt (HK) Ltd; Messe Frankfurt (Shenzhen) Co Ltd; the Sub-Council of Textile Industry, CCPIT; and the China Textile Information Center.

Other upcoming shows:

Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics – Autumn Edition / Yarn Expo Autumn 27 – 29 August 2024, Shanghai.

Vietnam International Trade Fair for Apparel, Textiles and Textile Technologies 26 – 28 February 2025, Ho Chi Minh City.

[news4dzhozhar]

The case of al-Shifa: Investigating the assault on Gaza’s largest hospital

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/21/al-shifa-hospital-gaza-hamas-israel/

JERUSALEM — Weeks before Israel sent troops into al-Shifa Hospital, its spokesman began building a public case.

The claims were remarkably specific — that five hospital buildings were directly involved in Hamas activities; that the buildings sat atop underground tunnels that were used by militants to direct rocket attacks and command fighters; and that the tunnels could be accessed from inside hospital wards. The assertions were backed by “concrete evidence,” Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said as he laid out the case in an Oct. 27 briefing

After storming the complex on Nov. 15, the IDF released a series of photographs and videos that it said proved its central point.

“Terrorists came here to command their operations,” Hagari said in a video published Nov. 22, guiding viewers through an underground tunnel, illuminating dark and empty rooms beneath al-Shifa.

But the evidence presented by the Israeli government falls short of showing that Hamas had been using the hospital as a command and control center, according to a Washington Post analysis of open-source visuals, satellite imagery and all of the publicly released IDF materials. That raises critical questions, legal and humanitarian experts say, about whether the civilian harm caused by Israel’s military operations against the hospital — encircling, besieging and ultimately raiding the facility and the tunnel beneath it — were proportionate to the assessed threat.

The Post’s analysis shows:

The rooms connected to the tunnel network discovered by IDF troops showed no immediate evidence of military use by Hamas.

None of the five hospital buildings identified by Hagari appeared to be connected to the tunnel network.

There is no evidence that the tunnels could be accessed from inside hospital wards.

Hours before IDF troops entered the complex, the Biden administration declassified U.S. intelligence assessments that it said bolstered Israel’s claims. In the aftermath of the raid, Israeli and U.S. officials have stood firm behind their initial statements.

“We are absolutely confident in the intelligence ... that Hamas was using it as a command and control node,” a senior administration official told The Post last week, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive findings. “Hamas had been holding the hostages in the hospital compound until shortly before Israel went in.”

The U.S. government has not made any of the declassified material public and the official would not share the intelligence this assessment was based on.

“The IDF has published extensive, irrefutable evidence that points to the abuse of the Shifa hospital complex by Hamas for terrorism purposes, and underground terrorism activity,” an IDF spokesperson told The Post.

When asked if more evidence from al-Shifa would be forthcoming, the spokesperson said: “We cannot provide additional information.” On Nov. 24, Israel’s military announced in a statement that it had destroyed the tunnel on the hospital grounds; its forces withdrew soon after.

“Before, I was convinced that [al-Shifa] was where these operations were taking place,” a senior U.S. member of Congress told The Post, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. But now, he said, “I think there has to be a new level of demonstration. They should have more proof at this point.”

The targeting by a U.S. ally of a compound housing hundreds of sick and dying patients and thousands of displaced people has no precedent in recent decades. The march on al-Shifa caused the hospital’s operations to collapse. As Israeli troops closed in and fighting intensified, fuel ran out, supplies could not enter, and ambulances were unable to collect casualties from the streets.

Before troops entered the complex, doctors dug a mass grave for as many as 180 people, the United Nations said, citing hospital staff. The morgue had long since ceased to function. Several days later, when WHO medics arrived to evacuate those still inside, they said the place of healing had become a “death zone.” At least 40 patients — including four premature babies — died in the days leading up to the raid and its aftermath, the United Nations said.

In the weeks since, other hospitals in Gaza have come under attack in ways that mirror what happened at al-Shifa — making the assault not just a watershed moment in the conflict, but a vital case study in Israel’s adherence to the laws of war.

Protected status

The al-Shifa medical complex was Gaza’s most advanced and best-equipped hospital. After Israel launched its withering campaign of airstrikes in retaliation for the brutal Hamas attack on Oct. 7, al-Shifa became the beating heart of the enclave’s faltering health system, as well as a place of refuge for tens of thousands of displaced Gazans who feared they would be killed in their homes.

Medical facilities are afforded special protection — even in times of war — losing their status only “while they are being used outside their medical function to commit acts harmful to the enemy,” said Adil Haque, a law professor at Rutgers University.

Without a complete understanding of Israeli intelligence and its battle plans, the legality of Israel’s military operations against al-Shifa remains an open question.

But in his Oct. 27 briefing, Hagari provided a clear picture of what he thought Israel forces would find, showing an animated video of what allegedly lay beneath the facility. In the film, masked militants patrolled on one level, which was connected to a warren of rooms further below ground with laptops and sleeping quarters.

“The law is about what was in the mind of the attacker at the time the attacker planned and executed the mission with respect to both the collateral damage they expected to cause and the military advantage they anticipated gaining,” said Michael Schmitt, an emeritus professor at the U.S. Naval War College.

The IDF would not comment on the military advantage sought or achieved.

“What was the urgency? This is not yet being demonstrated,” said Yousuf Syed Khan, a senior lawyer with Global Rights Compliance, a law firm, who has drafted U.N. reports on siege warfare.

While the underground tunnel uncovered by Israeli forces after the raid does point to a possible militant presence underneath the hospital at some point, it does not prove that a command node was operating there during the war.

“We’re getting more of a granular, three-dimensional understanding of al-Shifa Hospital, the tunnels underneath it,” said Brian Finucane, a former legal adviser at the State Department and now a senior adviser at Crisis Group.

“What we’re really lacking here is a confident understanding of the fourth dimension, which is time. When were various elements of the hospital being used in certain ways? When were the tunnels beneath the hospital complex being used in certain ways?”

The Oct. 27 news conference sent ripples of fear through the hospital, with staff viewing it as a pretext for military action. Communications networks went down across the enclave hours later. “After that, the bombardment began on the buildings surrounding al-Shifa,” recalled Ghassan Abu Sitta, a British Palestinian surgeon working at the hospital that night. “The bombing was so close and the building was shaking so violently.”

By early November, thousands of terrified civilians were trapped inside the hospital grounds as Israel’s military operation effectively sealed off the compound from the outside world.

At least two premature babies died on Nov. 11 when the hospital ran out of electricity to power its incubators, staff said.

Several dozen more patients died in the ICU over the following days, medics reported. The Palestine Red Crescent said it could no longer send ambulances to assist or evacuate the wounded.

In the early hours of Nov. 15, the IDF said it was carrying out a “precise and targeted operation” against Hamas in a specific area of the complex, and that it had killed a number of militants outside the complex “prior to entry.”

By late morning, medics inside the facility and Gaza Health Ministry officials said that Israeli forces were in complete control. Troops had gone room-to-room questioning staff and patients and asking some to gather in the courtyard, not far from the mass grave where the dead were buried without ceremony.

The Post analyzed satellite imagery and photographs on social media to map damage to the hospital and locate the gravesite, just inside the eastern gates of the hospital complex.

“This was a very precise and targeted military operation that Israel carried out with a range of efforts to reduce any civilian casualties,” the senior U.S. administration official said.

When WHO aid workers arrived on Nov. 18, medics and patients begged the team for safe passage, the organization said.

In the emergency department, several dozen premature babies were bawling, videos showed and doctors said. Two more of them died before the WHO evacuation vehicles arrived.

Evidence emerges

During the IDF’s more than week-long occupation of al-Shifa, it released multiple sets of photos and videos showing alleged evidence of Hamas military activity inside and underneath the hospital.

Less than 24 hours after Israeli forces entered the complex, the IDF released video footage showing spokesman Jonathan Conricus walking through the radiology unit. Behind an MRI machine, he points out what he calls a “grab bag” containing an AK-style rifle and an ammunition magazine.

Photos released by the military later that day purported to show the full haul of weapons recovered at the hospital — about 12 AK-style rifles, in addition to magazines of ammunition and several grenades and bulletproof vests.

The Post was unable to independently verify to whom the weapons belonged or how they came to be inside the radiology unit.

In the days that followed, a larger piece of evidence would emerge, potentially indicating militant activity beneath the facility. On Nov. 16, the military released visuals showing the entrance to a tunnel shaft in a northeast corner of the hospital complex near the specialty surgery building.

Satellite imagery indicated that Israeli troops had found the shaft inside a small building that they demolished.

Later, the military released videos of its troops, and Hagari, exploring the tunnel network connected to the shaft. The footage showed a long tunnel extending east from the shaft and running south beneath the specialty surgery unit; another section headed north away from the hospital compound. It wasn’t possible from the videos to determine the north tunnel section’s final distance or direction.

“It’s blocked and sealed; they know that we were going to come here more than a month ago, and sealed it,” Hagari said in one video.

The Post mapped the path of the tunnel by geolocating the excavation sites within al-Shifa and analyzing the videos frame-by-frame to determine the network’s directionality and length. The Post then superimposed the tunnel routes on the original map released by the IDF on Oct. 27 that it said showed the full extent of Hamas’s command and control infrastructure.

None of the five buildings highlighted by the IDF appear to connect to the tunnels, and no evidence has been produced showing that the tunnels could be accessed from inside the hospital wards, as Hagari had claimed.

In one section beneath the surgery building, two small bathrooms, a sink and two empty rooms are joined to the tunnel. Hagari said the rooms and the tunnel drew their electricity, water and air conditioning from al-Shifa. One room, Hagari said, was an “operational room,” he said, citing the electric wiring as evidence.

The bare, white-tiled rooms showed no immediate evidence of use — for command and control or otherwise. There are no signs of recent habitation, including litter, food containers, clothing or other personal items.

“This room was evacuated, and all the gear was evacuated. I guess it was evacuated when they knew or understand that we were going to enter Shifa Hospital,” Hagari said in the video.

He did not elaborate on when militants were known to be operating in the tunnel or when their alleged departure took place. The IDF did not respond to requests for clarification.

“If you don’t end up finding what you said you were going to find, that justifies skepticism as to whether or not your assessment of military value in conducting the operation was legitimate,” said Geoffrey Corn, a law professor at Texas Tech University and a former senior law of war adviser to the U.S. Army. “It’s certainly not conclusive. The ultimate question is whether the assessment of military advantage was reasonable under the circumstances.”

In a Nov. 18 statement, Hamas described claims about its use of al-Shifa as part of a “campaign of blatant lies.” Officials have not responded to a request for comment on the group’s alleged use of the tunnels.

The following day, the IDF published an additional piece of evidence: security camera footage showing armed militants leading two hostages through the hospital on Oct. 7 — among some 240 captured during the assault on southern Israel. One appeared to be wounded and is on a gurney. It was not clear if the hostages were taken to the hospital for medical treatment or other purposes.

Hostage-taking is a crime under international law. But “misuse of the hospital five weeks before the IDF operation does not bear on the legality of the IDF operation,” Haque said.

Hospitals as targets

As the dust settled on al-Shifa, experts warned of the precedent it had set.

“I think there’s a risk that what Israel might be trying to do here is pre-excuse future operations against hospitals. There should be no presumption that hospitals are generally targetable based on what Israel has put forward regarding Shifa,” Finucane said.

By the time of the Nov. 15 military operation, almost half of the major medical facilities in northern Gaza had been targeted or damaged in the fighting, according to a Post analysis of data from Insecurity Insight, a not-for-profit research group.

In the month since, a string of other hospitals have closed or pared back operations to the point that they are barely functional, as airstrikes continue and casualties mount.

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Sunday that he was “appalled by the effective destruction” of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, leading to the deaths of at least eight patients and putting the facility out of service.

After arresting the hospital’s director, Ahmed al-Kahlot, Israel released an interrogation video Tuesday in which Kahlot admitted to being a member of Hamas and said the hospital was under the control of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the group’s armed wing. In response, Gaza’s Health Ministry said the statement was made “under the force of oppression, torture and intimidation” to “justify [Israel’s] successive crimes, especially against the health system.”

Al-Awda Hospital, among the last functioning hospitals in the north, was besieged by Israeli troops early this month as doctors continued treating their patients and fuel and food ran low, medics and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said.

“Let us be clear: Al-Awda is a functioning hospital with medical staff and many patients in vulnerable condition,” said MSF’s head of mission, Renzo Fricke, in a statement.

On Tuesday, the group said that Israeli forces had taken control of the facility. Men and boys over 16 years old, including medics, were taken outside and stripped, bound and interrogated. There were still dozens of patients in the wards, the organization added, but supplies of anesthetics and oxygen had run out.

[benchmarkedu]

Mastering the PTE Academic Test with Online Preparation Courses

Introduction

The PTE Academic Test has emerged as a prominent and widely recognized English language proficiency exam for individuals seeking to study or work in English-speaking countries. Whether it's for academic purposes or immigration, acing the PTE test is crucial. With the rise of online learning, PTE Preparation Online has become an increasingly popular and effective method for candidates to enhance their language skills and achieve their desired scores. In this article, we will explore the benefits of PTE online courses and coaching in helping test-takers excel in the PTE Academic Test.

Accessibility and Flexibility

One of the primary advantages of PTE Preparation Online is the unmatched accessibility it offers. Gone are the days when candidates had to commute to physical classrooms or coaching centers for test preparation. With online courses, candidates can study from the comfort of their homes, eliminating the constraints of distance and time. This flexibility allows test-takers to create personalized study schedules that suit their daily routines and commitments, making it easier for working professionals or students to balance their test preparation alongside other responsibilities.

Comprehensive Study Material                    

PTE online courses provide a wide range of study materials that cover all aspects of the PTE Academic Test. From grammar and vocabulary exercises to listening and speaking practice sessions, these courses are designed to address each section of the test in detail. Moreover, online platforms often incorporate interactive quizzes, mock tests, and instant feedback mechanisms, enabling candidates to assess their progress continuously. This personalized learning experience aids in identifying weak areas and focusing on improving them effectively.

Expert Guidance and Coaching                                                   

One of the critical elements of PTE online courses is the presence of experienced instructors and language experts who provide coaching and guidance throughout the preparation journey. These instructors are well-versed with the test format, scoring criteria, and common pitfalls that candidates may encounter. Their expertise enables them to offer personalized tips and strategies tailored to each student's strengths and weaknesses. Regular feedback and support from instructors play a pivotal role in boosting candidates' confidence and refining their language proficiency.

Mock Tests and Simulated Exams

Simulating the actual PTE Academic Test environment is vital to acquainting candidates with the test format and time constraints. Online courses offer multiple mock tests and simulated exams that closely resemble the real PTE test. Through these practice sessions, candidates can familiarize themselves with the exam interface, manage time efficiently, and gain experience in dealing with various question types. This experience helps alleviate test anxiety and enhances performance on the actual test day.

Performance Tracking and Analytics

Online PTE preparation platforms often come equipped with sophisticated analytics tools that track candidates' progress and performance. These analytics provide detailed insights into strengths and weaknesses, enabling students to concentrate on specific areas that require improvement. Additionally, it offers a comparative analysis against other test-takers, motivating candidates to set higher goals and strive for better results.

Conclusion

In conclusion, PTE Preparation Online has revolutionized the way candidates approach the PTE Academic Test. The convenience, flexibility, and comprehensive study materials offered by online courses make them an ideal choice for individuals aiming to achieve their desired scores. The guidance of experienced instructors, combined with regular mock tests and performance tracking, equips candidates with the necessary skills and confidence to excel in the exam.

As the demand for English language proficiency continues to grow globally, investing in high-quality PTE online coaching is a prudent decision for aspirants looking to unlock opportunities abroad. By harnessing the power of technology and expert guidance, test-takers can embark on their PTE preparation journey with confidence and determination, opening doors to a brighter future in English-speaking countries.

[riftstudiosnyc]

The Best Recording Studio Configuration Advice

There are fundamentally inestimable things that should be considered. The room, the power's decisions and plans, soundproofing and acoustic treatment, studio screen decisions and position — it's a far reaching frame. I've focused in on everything, overall. I genuinely don't recognize I'm especially looked into the field. I manage DIY game-plans and savvy choices that make audiophiles giggle. Anyway, I'm good with that, since I've never chosen to satisfy them. My establishments are in punk music. So for my motivations, getting the show actually has as an uncommon game plan to do with the chance of the music as it does the creation. So I by and large mean to view as a heavenly focus. Similarly, I think I've really gone with the choice to do this in my recording studio.

I offer had the choice that may be valuable to a fundamental help to local entertainers who basically don't have the resources for keep in the master recording studio. I never had the money, in the mean time. How would you think I showed up? In a perfect world, I have a satisfactory number of cool tips and confuses open to me to help the novice with entering the universe of sound recording. The alliance shouldn't play with being agonizing. It will not whenever be principal, but it will generally speaking be less upsetting.

Begin with the room. If it doesn't sound perfect, then stop. Now is the ideal time to take action. Place the bass in the corners to help with cleaning up the low-end thunder. Place broadband shields at crucial reflection focuses normally seen through the room. There are a ton of DIY undertakings with serious results concerning both of these. I composed my own bass by stacking fiberglass into a self-developed frame with wire. I then, covered them with non-keen material. For the reflection places, I essentially got some love seat cushions off the roadside and used them. In any case, I attempted to shower them down with sanitizer. Both of these blueprints will help immensely. Finders will get what you feed them, so it's obviously truly speedy to give them something pleasurable to process.

Unprecedented studio gear doesn't have to come at an unstable retail cost. We ought to investigate enhancers. A subtle pile of Recording Studio could help you through an entire collecting at whatever point used the right way. Moreover, there are correspondingly one of a kind various brands that give solid areas for quality at a spending plan cost. Do some evaluation. Check out at some intensifier shootouts on the web. Condenser enhancers may should get the customary sound of the room. A matched blueprints of condenser mics is by and large the choice as overheads for a drum set. To the degree that particular conditions go, there are some that should be visible, however there are no specific headings. Fundamentally truly center around sort out issues. Besides, trust your ears. Expecting it sounds magnificent; go with it.

Unambiguous screens are exceptionally fundamental in the recording studio. They are essential for getting the sound definitively. A general, intermittent response is required. No bass or high frequencies should be extreme. Notwithstanding, for the screens to work, the room ought to keep an eye out. That is where the meaning of acoustic treatment turns out to be the main variable. Get a nice condenser assessment mouthpiece and make assessments of the room. I use the REW Room EQ program for this. It's astoundingly simple to use and can be set up rather quickly. With barely enough consistency, I had the choice to get my room inside 3db across the entire repetitive response. Additionally, I have heard no horrendous comments about the sound in my recording studio.

So these are a couple of techniques for setting up a recording studio. In the long run following the going with hit record is the best opportunity.

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Source URL :- https://sites.google.com/view/recording-studio--/home

[monkeyandelf]

Unusual plasma objects encountered at high altitudes by pilots, crew members and aircraft passengers

Such cryptic sightings as unknown flying objects or mysterious organisms moving through the air at an altitude of 30000 feet in front of astonished plane passengers are often reported by pilots. Who are these otherworldly entities and where do they come from?  Unfortunately, there is no exact information about these incidents, a fact which makes an accurate assessment difficult, since, as meteorologists note, we can talk about a rare natural atmospheric phenomenon. Therefore, it would be important to know in which region these phenomena occurred, whether they were observed there before. At first glance, one might assume that they are clouds that quickly change their size and appearance under the influence of temperature, humidity or atmospheric pressure. On the other hand, there is a possibility that we are dealing with a living organism. In addition to UFOs, this also includes angels and other entities from higher dimensions. These are entities that do not have a solid body, and therefore in this context we also speak of plasma entities, since the word plasma in Greek means "essence". Plasma, by the way, is the fourth state of matter. Plasma formations are one of the largest living formations in the Universe that do not have a uniform appearance. Because they have no physical structure, they can move and change shape quickly due to their high energy.

Plasma pervades our entire universe. After all, 99% of the visible space in the universe is plasma, including stars, galaxies, and clouds of cosmic gas. Plasma existed before the advent of all other forms of matter. In this context, we need to realize that there are many different forms of evolved life in the universe.

There is only what can be seen and felt

The problem that science faces today is that we automatically associate intelligent life with the physical body, because of our notion that only what we can see with our eyes and touch with our hands exists. This outdated idea is completely wrong. In the meantime, we know that on many advanced levels that are completely unknown to us as yet, there are interdimensional light beings that exist in a formless or disembodied state as plasma beings. These beings are even able to project their high consciousness into several dimensions at once and at the same time can create any kind of body if they want to incarnate, for example, on a three-dimensional level. But why doesn't conventional science try to scrutinize this phenomenon? For many, the answer may be obvious: how can one study something for which there is no tangible and, above all, material evidence? Therefore, scientists prefer to leave things as they are. After all, reputation in the scientific community is more important than revolutionary research results. The structure in the photo below may be a plasma craft, visible as a translucent body.

This shape of the object is often found around the world. Especially at high altitudes by pilots, crew members and passengers. Jean-Charles Duboc, a former French pilot, had a similarly strange encounter. Duboc remembers well this hitherto inexplicable incident at an altitude of almost 10,000 meters on Air France Flight 3532 from Nice to London in 1994. Duboc: "It looked like a huge flying saucer. It stabilized and stopped moving. We observed an object to the left of our plane for more than a minute. Surprisingly, it completely stopped in the sky, and then gradually disappeared. We did not know anything about the nature of the UFO, it seemed embedded into some sort of magnetic or gravitational field and had no lights or other visible metallic structure. At the same time, the radar of the Air Defense Control Center detected a point that for a minute crossed the trajectory of our flight. When I plotted the alleged location of the UFO on an aerial map, I was surprised to find that it was in close proximity to the Tavern base, where the headquarters of the French Strategic Air Command is located. This observation was investigated by the French Army's COMETA team led by General Denis Letty and in collaboration with several high-ranking French defense officers with GEPAN at the French space agency CNES. The exact background of the incident has not been established - the Air France crew was convinced that it was not a sensory illusion only after landing in London.

Pilots prefer to remain silent

Transport aircraft pilots experience unusual phenomena more often than anyone else. They are undoubtedly among the most important and probably the most knowledgeable eyewitnesses. They often have to be able to correctly evaluate and judge what is happening in the sky in a split second. This includes determining the height at which the object is flying, its course, and the speed at which it is moving. Many pilots are afraid of possible reprisals if they report encounters with unusual objects, so they prefer to remain silent. James Courant, who has been a pilot for over 30 years, knows this. Courant has been dealing with this phenomenon for more than 15 years. Over the years, he met with many civilian and military pilots who told him about encounters with unknown objects and phenomena. The pilots are not afraid because of their status or the threat of reprisals against them but for their families, which confirms how difficult it is to talk about them in public. Courant recalls an incident reported to him by a pilot over the Pacific Ocean in 1980, when an unidentified flying object more than twice the size of an aircraft suddenly appeared out of nowhere in front of the crew of a Boeing 747. https://youtu.be/sVlTb1SXAY4 The Boeing pilot later spoke in a detailed interview with the Courant about the pressure he and the crew were under to not speak to anyone about the incident after landing in Japan. In recent years, the policy of censorship and intimidation has become much tougher. Anyone who contradicts the political narrative must now fear the worst.

This can be observed in all areas of research and science. However, as long as researchers and eyewitnesses are pressured by governments and organizations to keep silent about their findings and incidents, the truth will never become public. Read the full article

[allium-fields]

my @mcytblraufest gift for @boomybelovd, an empires s2 au in which Joel isn’t actually god but received his powers from real gods

I know you requested angst or found family, and I had more angst planned, but I had some family stuff, so I hope this is enough! :)

Joel leaned against his fountain, admiring (assessing) his empire’s few buildings from the best view around. The center of Stratos, the greatest thing he’d ever created. Of course, when he’d built it, he’d been a puny little human. Before, it had been quite a bit taller than him. Now, it was the perfect size to support his massive body. Honestly, though, as great as it was to be tall, he was running into some problems.

For one thing, it was a pain to deal with his elytra. Before he got mending and Sausage gave him unbreaking, he went through them like mad. It was, evidently, difficult for the delicate wings to hold his new weight. But even his newly enchanted wings needed so much phantom membrane added to make them large enough. They shifted, sure, but the wings had limits. And those limits had been tested many a time in his quest to build an empire in the sky. Stratos was undoubtedly worth it, though. Even if he was the only one living up in the clouds. His villagers didn’t deserve to live on the same level as him. He was their god and they would worship him from below. Which reminded him, he needed to build them a temple soon.

The sun was getting in his eyes. Stupid Gem. Oh well. He knew what he needed to add anyway. He wanted to give his villagers a temple. And for that, he’d need some mangrove wood, gold, quartz, sandstone… maybe some granite for the outside, if he didn’t have enough already...

Though he’d gotten a good night’s rest the day before, he felt his eyes begin to close. At first, he tried to fight them, to stand up and start collecting materials. But when he attempted to stand, he felt his legs collapse beneath him.

He slowly came to. He tried to open his eyes, gain his bearings. But it was like they were glued shut. Slowly, he tried to move his fingers. Then his hands. Then his legs. Nothing worked. What on Earth?

“I thought you said you chose a good champion this time.” The voice was deep and resonant, echoing around like they were in some huge room. Joel didn’t have any room that big in his empire. And while he hadn’t gotten around to visiting all the others, he was pretty confident that no one else did, either.

“I thought so, Father. Now, I’m not so sure.” Not so sure? Now that was just rude. Joel was capable! He was massive! And big and tall and strong and handsome and sexy. Not someone to doubt! Again, he tried to open his eyes. Again, they resisted.

“Make sure he is not a waste of the fountain.”

He tried to open his eyes again. This time, it worked. Two enormous faces came into sight. He was eleven feet (and it was cannon), but they made him feel like a 5’8” again. One with graying hair (ha, old), one with black hair. They wore matching looks of impatience.

He sat up, taking in the enormous room that was so large, it must have taken days to build. He wasn’t sure it was worth those days, though, to be honest. With all the quartz and diorite, it was looking awfully flat. He was sitting on a hard quartz bench that would definitely make his back ache later.

“Took you long enough,” the young one said. “We’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”

“Who are you?”

The older one looked at who had to be his son. “He still doesn’t recognize you?”

“He will eventually. It seems that his mind barrier is quite strong.”

“I can’t imagine how you’ve dealt with this. Well then.” He leaned down until he was all but speaking into Joel’s face. “We are the sky gods, who gave you your powers.”

“Oh my gosh, is this lore? I didn’t even build this! Are you telling me this is how it works this whole time? Do the other rulers just not build anything?”

Obviously, he knew that wasn’t true, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t built this and then drugged himself to forget it. He was committed, but he wasn’t that committed. Not to mention, this wasn’t his building style at all. Especially not for Stratos. He was using lots of quartz, yes, but where was the teal? And the gold?

The old one looked confused. “Pardon?”

“Ignore him, Father. I don’t think he is of sound mind. The fountain drove him a bit mad.”

Joel was many things, feral perhaps among them. But mad? That was last season! This time, he was a changed man. A changed god if you would. “Excuse me, I’m perfectly sane,” he asserted.

The gods (if they were telling the truth) shared a doubtful look. It was annoying, how much taller they were than him. He glared up at them.

The older god glared back. “Fine. But we are not… lore, as you put it. We are the reason for your power.”

“Are you asking me to thank you?”

“No. To acknowledge us,” the young one said.

“That would be easier if you had names.”

The old one said, “Humans cannot pronounce our names.”

“I’m not a human! I’m a god!” That was his lore, and he was ticking with it, so help him.

“No, you’re not. You’re a human champion for me.”

“I think I know what I am.”

The young one looked very perturbed by this, which pleased Joel. “What are you?”

“A god.”

“Enough of this,” said his father. “We brought you here to ask about your progress.”

“With what, the empire? It’s going great! Still don’t have a name for it, but…”

“That’s not what we meant. We’re asking about your progress with the others.”

“Oh, the other rulers? Well, Sausage and I have a child now, don’t know how that happened. We’ve mostly just been passing Hermes back and forth. I chose that name, by the way. It’s from the Greek messenger god, I think it was? Oh, and I bother Jimmy all the time. I saw Katherine’s empire for a bit, she’s cool. And Lizzie comes by sometimes. She’s a mayor, I’m pretty sure. She’s got a big head. Scott’s my nemesis, as always. Fhwhip’s got some lore going on with my fountain, he keeps stopping by.”

“Very well then,” the older god said. He looked exasperated. Which was stupid. Joel had given him absolutely no reason to look that annoyed. None at all. “Is he always like this?”

“Yes, Father. I told you, you didn’t have to be here.”

“I wanted to meet your champion. Now, I have little interest in meeting him a second time.”

The young one nodded. To Joel, he asked, “Do you have anything more to say?”

Actually, he had a lot more to say, but before he could open his mouth, he felt a sharp pain at the back of his head. Like he’d hit his head against his fountain again.

Joel stood up, feeling shaky. He had the vaguest recollection of a quartz room and two big people, but little else. He felt unsteady but did his best to dismiss it. He was a strong and powerful god and no one could mess with him.

After all, this wasn’t the first time he’d woken up from a dream like this one.

[siriusmydeer]

can you please do headcanons for young sirius black x reader fic where reader has really bad anixety attacks where sometimes she feels nauseous

breathe with me

sirius black x gender neutral!reader

summary: sirius helps you through an anxiety attack.

word count: 1.7k

warnings: MENTIONS OF VOMITING!!, mentions of gagging, anxiety/anxiety attack, over stress, mentions of digging nails into your palms (borderline indications), mentions of failing school/exams, migraines, mentions of pain killers, mentions of feeling gross, possible insecurity, sirius comforting reader

a/n: so i turned this into a fic rather than hc’s because i felt like i could portray it better through a fic. also dedicated to isa ( @acosmis-t ) my love bc i cant write so thank u baby for helping me !

“Argh.” You piercingly groaned with a hand lowered to your febrile forehead, a feverish burn arising to the skin. The day had steadily been cut close to the final bell. Your Transfiguration exam had finally been completed and not without weary, of course. The prior nights you had been found asleep with drool pooling down your tear-tainted cheek and your talons promptly sunken into your palms as a desperate endeavour to relieve your stress. (Although it had not been the best choice, and at some points rather painful)

The piling books glared fiercely at you in the library till Madam Pince undoubtedly had to beckon you away, so you could sufficiently rest. Indeed then, your unconscious mind was piled in dreadful dreams (More-so nightmares) regarding critical failure and your pleaded requests to Mcgonagall, so you could re-attempt your failed exams. 

Your polished nails had been essentially glued to your pearly teeth, chomping at the rarebit till there was nothing left to bite. The strums of your heart steadily increased as the last final students had cautiously worked on their assessments. You had patiently waited, subtly noticing your brawny throat becoming excessively dry as well as well as your diaphragm contracting by the minor second, an indistinguishable bile substance threatening to overtake the taste buds on your parched tongue.

A small, minuscule tap in the nape of your skull had increased to small needles swimming around your brain while the time ticked. 

Sirius had been sitting in Charms flipping away at ‘Quidditch Through the Ages’ anxiously as he had to withhold himself from darting nervously out of his class and inquire how you were feeling with a knowing sense of how the rest of the day would take place. He had been made quite aware of your particular issue in the Third Year when you had disgorged your lunch, Shepherd's Pie that you had previously eaten had been hurled onto his Oxford’s his noble family spent a pretty penny to purchase. 

At McGonagall's constructive dismissal, you had collected your materials and begun to walk cautiously through the corridors with your books clutched eagerly to your chest. 

A slight increase in your breaths began to inflate your lungs and the steadily increasing heart strums became an overwhelming palpitation deafening your ears. Your heart had battered in your chest; nearing closer, and closer to your dormitory. Your hands had begun to develop a slight tremor at the anxious vibrations poisoning your blood, whilst your vision began to mildly obscure. You needed a moment to recollect yourself, a minute to breathe.

You had murmured a small, ‘Fairy Lights’ to the portrait before trudging up the stairs and colliding into the dormitory. The hinges had creaked whilst you abruptly had shut the door, luckily nobody was present to allegedly witness your exertion. Your bedroom had frequently remained tidy, a typical symptom of your anxiety that had obsessively pursued you to attempt your very hardest, even better than your very hardest, at everything and anything. 

You had stood center in your room venturing for the hostile seizing in your bones to cease for at least a moment. Your chest had felt tight, like a tensed muscle that had been pulled after an unusually hard sport.

You had walked toward your window and back Window, and back. Window, and back. Again, Again and Again.

Your nails are placed between the mild edges of your teeth. The cavern of your mouth almost feeling obstructed by the bile mingling around with your parched throat. At the incessant pacing of your feet, there had been a remaining thud in your thick skull adding to your misery. 

The small gust of wind was the singular audible sound in the dormitory as one of your dorm mates had abandoned it open. Your brain had felt like it swelled beyond generating capacity now your mild dehydration was too obvious to ignore like you had planned to do. You had deliberated with your eyes closed and your face contorted into a frown, you would’ve had to trudge to the kitchens for a possible amount of comfort in your state. You had groaned again, your hand promptly placed over your face, as you traipsed across the room, attempting to comfort yourself, in a sense.

Perhaps some painkillers spewed on the bathroom counter that you had previously taken before your exam could help you. Your neck had begun to sear in heat the hair that was almost clung to your nape, you raised your heavy eyelids halfway only for them to fall shut a twinging pain beginning to naturally arise behind your optics. You huffed with a minuscule gag, too much effort it would take to stroll around the school in the huffing state you were currently in, a migraine still revelling in your mind. Maybe later, you thought with a creased brow. You had heard the hinges creak again, incorrectly assuming one of your dorm mates had been back. Except your dorm mates didn’t possess the baritone of a burly male.

“Y/n” He whispered tenderly, attempting not to disturb your pacing.  

“Not now.”

He had partaken notice to your mindful scratches against your neck, continuously pulling up the hair only for it to fall once more. You had paused for a moment with a tremor in your finger that was trapped between your teeth. A familiar distortion of torture wrapping around your throat like a snake that was threatening to suffocate you; your respires heavier and more frequent. He had begun speaking, a blubber of words escaping his trachea. Yet, all jumbled like alphabet soup in your brain between his dismembered sentences. 

You suspired heavily in frustration, “Just— Shut up! Please.” You begged in exasperation. Still prying your hair from your neck, you stood frozen, discontentment building in your system.

He had noticed the black hair tie absentmindedly clung to his wrist whenever you had asked for one. Steadily walking towards your paused figure he had gathered your hair in the tie, your neck feeling the refreshing air against it; a slight relief applied against your skin. You promptly initiated to remove your robe, there was a warm discerning grip on your body overheating your arms as well as your midriff due to the uniform.

With a violent tremor in your fingers, you started grasping at the buttons, a mild frustration initiating at the fact you couldn’t pop them open due to the recurrent quiver in your digits. Sirius had removed your hands from your robe, hastily unbuttoning it before you hurled it aside. 

“How 'bout we go to the bathroom, Hmm?” He cooed while beckoning you into the bathroom, noticing the tremor in your body as well as your fidgeting fingers that were twiddling between each other. He had turned the sink on, switching the handle left where a blue spot differentiated the colours. Delicately, he grasped your trembling wrists and ran them beneath the cooling water. “Just… Feel gross.”You murmured to yourself as he ran a few fingers under the downpour, placing his frigid fingers behind your neck. 

Your shoulders faintly shrugged at the sensation while he turned off the water and let your hands air dry, helping you not feel solidified by anything. During his movement, you had grasped onto his fingers where a few heirloom rings had fit snugly on his fingers, “Tell me about them.” This was a technique he had created in an effort of distraction at the uprising feelings of disgust for yourself bound to erupt at any moment. 

“There’s a B, I guess. Erm, engraving, swirls and stuff…” You trailed off while attempting to decipher the designs in the ring that was on his forefinger.“S’too much! Just wanna— Dunno, not feel like this anymore!”

He had partaken scrutiny to your physical tics as well as your body language, with a faint clutch on two of your fingers he had hauled you to the very center of your dormitory. Within a few inches of each other, he had mauled your hand over his sternum. You felt the heavy respires in his chest as well as the vibrations melding with your palm as he spoke, “Breathe with me.” 

You had stood there, minutes, maybe almost an hour, time was now pushed to the very nooks and crannies of your mind. The surges of perturbation still prominently surging through your veins to the density of your bones, the recurrent tremble still foremost notable but the buckling of your knees had calmed down as well as the faint chatter of your teeth. Still copying his sluggish breathing, you looked deep into his pear irises, his optics having a settling effect, a tingling reassurance reflecting in them. In the sunlight state that had remained in your room due to the unclosed curtains, there had been cerulean hues caught in that state.

Sirius’ eyes had been crafted like delicate feathers that were used for quills, not the albino kind of dove feathers, but the ones with a hue so softly grey that they could have been pencil-drawn rather than used by a quill with smeared stygian ink. They had that look of birds flying on sunlit days, the shine and quick movement, yet relaxed, purposeful, at ease.

“Can we sit?” You questioned quietly after removing your hand from his chest, hesitantly grabbing onto two of his fingers as he had previously done with you. “Anything you want.” He replied in a murmur, craning his head left, then right, trying to figure out where to beckon you into a seated position.

You had sat upon the wooden floor. The flooring designs similar to a chorus of browns; they sang together, an acapella of baritone hues that rose into vibrant soprano notes. It was a fitting place for a dormitory where laughter could normally be discerned, a place for those new sounds to soak right in and join the spirit that was already there when you had first entered the dormitory your first year.

“Here?”

“Mhm.” You nodded your head scarcely as he sat next to you. You sighed for a moment, placing a minimal amount of your temple against his shoulder, feeling the similar respires soothe you. “Here.”

taglist: @fific7 @wisedreamcatcher @kittykylax @ronbrokemyheart @aspiringsloth20 @georgeswh0re @amourtentiaa @msmb @fangouria @five-cups-of-coffee @dracofknmalfoy @emmaev @serenitywilderness @i-love-scott-mccall @artemis1orion @miss-starkov @siriusbarnesslut @inglourious-imagines @iamninaanna @livvysnaps @famdomhideout @hufflepogue @kirascottage @luvvninaz @miraclesoflove @black-like-my-soul @slytherclawbitch @90steaology

[pillage-and-lute]

An Ever Fixed Mark (part 4)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 (here) Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10,

Read it on Ao3 HERE

A little bit of BAMF! Jaskier, a lot of emotionally constipated/self flagellating Geralt, some miscommunication, and a secret.

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Geralt awoke slowly. The anxiety and excitement of the wedding had taken its toll, and the comfortable bed had enveloped him nicely. There was also the warm, comfortable weight in his arms.

Jaskier.

It was Jaskier in his arms. The young man was curled up, still fast asleep, with his head tucked against Geralt’s chest. Geralt wondered who had gravitated to whom in the night. Had he vvmoved unconsciously hold Jaskier? Perhaps. Jaskier must have cuddled up to him too, though. There was no other way to explain the way Jaskier’s hand was curled, lightly, around Geralt’s medallion. Holding on to Geralt. On his other hand, the wedding ring glittered.

Used to assessing battle situations, this train of thought happened in thirty seconds or less. His processing was significantly sleep slowed, however, because he finally became aware of what had woken him.

There was a pounding on the door. The urgent pounding of someone who desperately wanted to speak with the occupants but didn’t want to make others aware.

Without other options Geralt gently extricated himself from Jaskier, accidentally waking the young man in the process, pulled on the pants from the day before, and crossed to the door.

It was Eskel.

“What?”

“It’s almost ten in the morning,” Eskel said. “Vesemir wants us to leave really soon. Um, check if Jaskier has people he wants to say goodbye to.”

“Our things,” Geralt began.

Eskel waved a dismissive hand. “Vesemir had them packed up last night, but he really wants us to leave and he won’t tell us why.”

Geralt shrugged, reassured his brother, and closed the door.

Jaskier was sitting up in bed, his undershirt, a large, flowy thing, had slipped off one shoulder. Geralt’s stomach lurched, rolled, and finally curled up. Somehow it wasn’t in an unpleasant way, though. The skin was pale gold in the torchlight. It brought thoughts of sinking his teeth into all that glowing skin, gripping as he folded his body over Jaskier’s and...

Geralt dunked his head in the washbasin.

“Is that an okay temperature,” Jaskier said, slipping on his wedding attire from the day before. “I think it was warmed up for us last night but it’s probably pretty cold by now.”

It was doing exactly what Geralt needed it to, so he just grunted.

“I don’t have anyone I need to say goodbye to,” Jaskier said as Geralt wiped water from his eyes. “We can leave whenever.”Geralt nodded and pulled on his wedding doublet. Jaskier, all in white and pearls still looked like some sort of angel. He took Jaskier’s hand, and they left.

It was Jaskier’s guidance, of course, that brought them back to the rooms that had been for the witchers, and Vesemir was outside the door already.

“Was worried you two would linger,” he griped, but it was good-natured.

“Yeah honeymooners, how’s married life feel?,” Lambert smirked. He had packs over his shoulder, so did Eskel, and Vesemir. Eskel offered Geralt his pack and swords. Geralt shouldered them and took a much nicer pack from Lambert, obviously Jaskier’s. Vesemir picked up a lute from where it had been leant against the wall and Jaskier took it gratefully, a hint of a smile touching his round cheeks.

Then the odd little party left.

After all the anxiety and waiting and intrigue and the wedding itself, just walking down to the stables as an little group felt strange. No one stopped them, though. 

The witcher’s horses had been cared for, but were otherwise untouched. There was a fifth, a black and white stallion, big but not a battlehorse by any means. Jaskier reached forward and kissed it’s muzzle. The horse responded by huffing in the way horses do and tossing his mane.

They mounted up and were off before the bell in the town center tolled eleven. It just didn’t feel real.

“We’ll ride with you to Egerbak,” Vesemir said, naming a town a day’s ride from Chateau Lettenhove. “From there we’ll go our separate ways, not good for witchers to be all in one group.”

“Why?” Jaskier said, looking puzzled. “Wouldn’t it make fighting monsters easier?”

“Sometimes,” Eskel said, “But if the terrain is rough you can get in one another’s way.”

“Get paid less too, the locals think it’s easy and give up less coin,” Lambert said, a little sourly.

“Most jobs need just one witcher,” Geralt said, unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “And villagers get edgy if there’s more than that, they fear an attack.” He didn’t mention why. Surely Jaskier knew the reason he was called Butcher. “But there isn’t many of us left, either. We four are all of the wolf school. If there were people who wished us harm, having us all in one place could exterminate our school.”

“That’s horrible,” Jaskier said, blue eyes wide. The color was muted today, Geralt noticed. The sky was overcast and his eyes seemed to reflect the blue-grey light that filtered down.

“Do you think we’re in danger now?” the young man said.

“Depends, do you think your father would send people after you? To kill you I mean.” Vesemir didn’t even raise the question gently.

Jaskier sat, moving steadily astrid his horse, looking straight ahead. After a long moment with just the sound of five sets of hooves he said quietly, “I think maybe we should move a little faster.” He nudged his horse into a canter and fingered his lute strap nervously.

Without further instruction, the witchers formed up. Eskel, keen with magic and with the same good senses of any witcher, rode in front. Lambert, with his predilection for blowing things up from a distance, rode behind. Geralt and Vesemir rode along in the middle, Jaskier between them. He was probably the safest man for a hundred miles.

“You really think he might try something?” Geralt asked quietly. He knew speaking softly wasn’t the same as being tactful, but it was about the best he had.

Jaskier nodded. “It makes sense. If his goal is to start war with the witchers. To say you mistreated me and voided the contract, that’s one thing. But it makes a better story to feed to people if his beloved son is killed the day after the wedding.”

“I just don’t get it,” Geralt said, frustratedly. “Why does he want a war with witchers? I understand he doesn’t want you to be his successor, but he could just disown you, couldn’t he?”

“I was thinking about that,” said Jaskier. “It would look bad if he did, but he could. I think he wants a war with witchers because he wants a war with other countries. Any place that didn’t immediately turn against witchers-- all witchers, not just your school--well, he could declare them an enemy of Lettenhove, which is a big province. That makes it an enemy of Kerack and then Kerack goes to war with anywhere that decides they need someone to fight their monster problem.”

“That’s...” Geralt said.

“Despicable?”

“Well, yes, but I mean, it’s a lot to comprehend,” Geralt said. He felt a little at sea. This wasn’t his job, all this, this politics. He was a witcher. Find monster, swing sword, kill monster, get coin. That was what he did. Alliances and assasination and wars and marriage, they weren’t supposed to factor in.

“Yeah.” Jaskier said. 

They rode on, safe inside the wolf school’s formation. After perhaps a quarter of an hour Jaskier slung his lute around and began to pick at it idly. It had a case, but he’d tied that onto his big stallion instead. Apparently he liked having it available.

“Why does he want a war?” Geralt asked after a little longer. “What does your father get out of it?” 

Jaskier stopped plucking. “It’s part of the earl thing, in his case the position has a lot to do with finances and the kingdom’s treasury. Wars mean finances are more important, which makes him more important, and he get’s more power.”

“All of this is just a power grab?” Geralt said. “That’s daft.”

“That’s politics,” Jaskier said, a tad tiredly. “He probably thinks he could be made a duke. And yes, daft is a good word for it all.”

After that they just rode, stopping only briefly for lunch and to rest the horses. Jaskier played his lute quietly, most of the journey. At one point he pulled a notebook and charcoal stick from his bag to jot things down and muttered as he played.

Geralt had no idea if the lad’s music was impressive, but he was impressed with how he sat a horse, multitasking as if he was part centaur. He did most emphatically not think about how nice Jaskier’s thighs looked in the clothes he’d changed into at their lunch stop.

The wedding attire was very fine, but Jaskier looked somehow...right in the clothes he wore now. Blue trousers of fine but durable material and a white chemise under a blue doublet. He’d asked if he should wear the basilisk leather, but Geralt had shook his head. It was a fine spring day and basilisk leather kept heat like a fur coat, he didn’t want to cook his husband before they’d been married a whole day.

And wasn’t that a thought that clanked about in Geralt’s head. Husband. Husband husband husband husband husband. They were married and Geralt had a husband. Who was nobility. And Geralt was his husband.

And Geralt kind of wanted to kiss his husband.

That was his problem, however, not Jaskier’s. Whatever the damn ‘implied hidden fidelity clause’ said, Jaskier was free to sleep with whomever he chose. Why would any young man, in the position to choose, pick a scarred witcher, the Butcher of Blaviken? Who could choose Geralt?

Geralt suddenly felt very bitter, for himself and on Jaskier’s behalf. Neither of them had asked for this, and the witchers weren’t even going to get anything from it. Now he had a husband, a semi-disgraced noble, who apparently had musical talents. Bardic? Geralt didn’t know but it seemed...right. 

Regardless, he needed a place to drop Jaskier off. Somewhere safe. It couldn’t be claimed he mistreated the man if they weren’t together. That way, Jaskier couldn’t...

Couldn’t what? 

Geralt had never before actually contemplated all the ways a normal human could be hurt on the Path. Witchers, sure, he knew about that but humans were delicate. Geralt had been told once that you shouldn’t just eat rabbit because it...it did something and you would get sick. Or maybe starve? Because the meat was wrong somehow. Too lean? Not lean enough?

It didn’t matter because he wasn’t a human. He remembered a dreadful three weeks when coin had been lean eating just rabbit and he’d been fine. Jaskier might not be. Geralt hardly earned enough coin for himself how was he supposed to feed and protect them both. 

Not to mention things like sleeping rough and rainstorms and all the little pitfalls of traveling.

It had seemed fine in theory before. Jaskier would have his basilisk leather and would stay at camp but now reality was setting in. 

Tired from the road, the whole group spoke little as they set up camp. Geralt pitched the tent that he would share with Jaskier then set up the fire while his brothers put up their own tents and Vesemirs. Vesemir went hunting.

Geralt was almost eighty five years old, and had been hunting for most of those years, but not one of the younger wolves could match Vesemir’s skill. 

Dinner was stew, with meat courtesy of Vesemir. Dessert was no talking at all. This wasn’t unusual at all for the wolves, but Jaskier was looking around nervously. 

“You’re safe,” Geralt said. “It’s fine.”

“Okay,” Jaskier said. It seemed odd, because he’d been so vibrant and chatty back at Chateau Lettenhove.

“Pass me your dish,” Geralt said. Wordlessly, Jaskier handed him the shallow bowl. Geralt scraped it onto the grass.

“I’m sorry about the whole...assassin thing and, and everything,” Jaskier said after another silent minute.

“Hmm,” Geralt said.

The overast sky finally gave way to the rain that had been threatening all day and with a sigh the witchers each turned in for the night. Jaskier crawled into the tent after Geralt and settled down onto one of the bedrolls.

Geralt went about his nightly routine as if nothing was different, untying his hair and stripping himself his clothes. He felt oddly flattered when Jaskier let out a tiny gasp as he divested himself of his smallclothes. A glance showed him the young man, wide eyed in the dim light, kneeling on his bedroll. 

The tent smelled of lust.

Geralt pulled on the well-worn loose trousers he preferred and nudged Jaskier’s pack at him. The boy took the hint and rummaged in it, pulling out similarly loose sleep pants and changing quickly. Geralt looked away for decency’s sake. They may be married but that was no reason to take liberties. Unfortunately, Jaskier was wearing another loose chemise to bed, and Geralt’s thoughts dragged back to the tantalizing view of shoulder from that morning. 

“Wrap up tight,” he grunted, annoyed at himself for even thinking of that. “If the temperature drops in the night I don’t want to have to deal with you getting sick.”

The lust smell, which had waned somewhat, was entirely gone, replaced with a scent Geralt had smelled on Jaskier before. 

“Okay,” Jaskier said quietly, and tucked himself obediently into his bedroll.

Jaskier smelled sad. Like he had the night before.

Geralt rolled into his own bedroll and cursed himself. Of course the boy was sad. Dragged onto the Path with a husband more monster than man. Boyish hormones made him horny, not any desire for something like Geralt. And he was a boy. Nineteen was legally an adult but it was like...what was the phrase Vesemir had used? De jure is not de facto. Legallity is not truth. 

Geralt listened to Jaskier’s breathing and thought about their ages. Eighty years for a witcher was still considered a mere stripling youth when considered in the course of a witcher lifespan. For Jaskier, though, he would live to be eighty only if he was lucky. On a witcher’s Path he almost certainly wouldn’t be. 

Jaskier’s breathing hadn’t slowed into the deep, even pattern of sleep. Geralt wondered what was keeping him awake. Then again, if he was sleeping beside a monster, he’s lie awake too.

It seemed as though neither of them would ever sleep, both of them laying, inches between them, on their separate bedrolls. Then, between one blink and the next, Geralt must have slipped into sleep.

He awoke to a damp world. It had rained through the night and the rain was still drizzling against the tent when he opened his eyes. The humidity and the little moisture that seeped through the cloth of the tent had built up and everything felt sticky and muggy. 

Although every item of clothing in his pack had been put in dry, almost nothing felt entirely dry as he struggled into proper clothes. Jaskier woke too, blinking his eyes open muzzily and wrinkling his nose at the damp feeling. He also dressed in silence, frowning as he pulled on his clothes. 

There was no dry firewood for a fire and Eskel, gifted though he was with magic, couldn’t make a fire last on soaked wood. The group ate cold rations. Jaskier tried to start up a conversation with Eskel about literature. 

Geralt smiled inwardly, but let none of it show on his face, lest Jaskier think he was mocking him. Eskel, despite the best efforts of everything the wolf school could do, was so far from being a morning person as to be out the other side. He could stay up all night, but wasn’t conversational until nearly noon.

Jaskier looked disheartened, though. Geralt wasn’t a substitute for literary conversation, so he just packed up Jaskier’s horse for him. For some reason, Jaskier frowned at that, but then nodded at Geralt and they all mounted up. 

It was an hour’s ride to Egerbak, where the witchers would part. From there, Geralt thought, mapping the journey in his head, he and Jaskier could turn for Oxenfurt. The journey would be almost a month, and Geralt would have to hunt along the way to earn coin, but Jaskier would be safe there.

While Geralt was musing, Jaskier was trying to strike up a conversation with Vesemir. The old wolf was more of a morning person than Eskel, but not a conversationalist, so Jaskier eventually shrugged a little sadly and pulled out his lute. 

He plucked a tune, editing it again and again until he seemed satisfied. It was catchy, an earworm Geralt was sure would never leave his head. Then Jaskier began to hum.

Geralt himself was very nearly tone deaf, and frankly didn’t like music in most cases, but Jaskier’s voice sounded okay. It was only humming, anyway. 

Geralt’s ears pricked and he saw the shoulders of Eskel, riding point, tense up too. He knew all the witchers had heard the noise. Hoofbeats were approaching fast. Geralt craned in his saddle to see the rider, but could make out little between the rain, which had graduated from drizzle to downpour. 

Vesemir coughed, flexing his hand on the reigns, opening his fist then closing it again. The witchers drew together, closing their formation. To the rider it would likely look as if they merely were drawing towards one another to give him room. It worked to do that, for sure, but it was also a defensive maneuver, trained into them and beaten into their memory. Witchers rarely fought alongside eachother, but when they had to they were prepared. Closing ranks also had the benefit of enclosing Jaskier, like a hand wrapping around a precious stone. 

Geralt’s steel sword had been tied at his hip, and his silver along with the saddlebags. It made him look less threatening, more like a knight errant than someone ready to battle at any time. In truth, the change from being slung at his shoulders was practical. In combat he could draw the sword from his hip and be prepared, rather than having to reach up to draw his weapons. It left him less exposed on horseback. He reached down to his hip and, in a smooth and almost impercepitble motion, flicked the tie open on the sheath of his sword, loosening its hold to make the sword easier to draw. He turned the movement into a casual stroke of Roach’s flank. 

The rider pulled up alongside. “Sir witcher,” he panted, “I must speak with Master Julian.”

Geralt glanced at Jaskier but the boy looked...different. He was sitting his horse more stiffly and looked more haughty and aristocratic than Geralt had ever seen him. Nothing of his clothing had changed, and he was in poor garb compared to the silken doublets he had worn before, but in a second his posture had turned him into the spitting image of his father. 

“Speak, man,” Jaskier said, waving one hand dismissively. 

“You left without your dowry.”

“Dowry,” Jaskier said coldly. 

Geralt felt cold for a different reason. He’d seen a ring on the hand of the rider, the left hand’s index finger. It was large, with a heavy stone. He was a slim young man in the dress of a footman, but something in his build said otherwise. This was an assasin, Geralt would bet his medallion, and the ring held poison, or something equally nasty. 

“I have no need of a dowry,” Jaskier was saying, passing straight through haughty and going for enigmatic without bother to slow down. 

“Your father insisted,” said the assassin, sidling his horse closer. Geralt nudged Roach and she deftly stepped in the way. 

“My father can take back his coin,” Jaskier said, even as the man offered a bag, slightly open to show gold coins. “I am no maiden, and my marriage shall produce no heirs.”

“But--”

“Don’t speak over your betters,” Jaskier said, every words ringing like steel. “A dowry is to set up a household. Well my household, such as it is,” here Jaskier gestured about him. “Is set up. Traditionally, if the wife dies without producing a male heir to the marriage the dowry is returned. I shall produce no heirs, so I’m returning the dowry preemptively.”

The assasin looked truly stumped. “I must give this to you,” he said, reaching forward, across Roach’s rump to hand the bag to Jaskier. Geralt saw the man’s thumb hover over the poison ring, as if about to flick open the compartment. 

“No,” Jaskier said.

“At least dismount so that we can discuss this,” pleaded the rider. 

Geralt looked about them. They’d been riding through woodland all day, but it was dense here, just the place one might lie in wait. Then he saw it, the thing he’d been waiting for since they’d left Lettenhove. A glint of light off of metal in the underbrush. Vesemir caught his eye, he’d seen it too. 

“Melitele help us!” Jaskier cried. “There’s bandits in the woods!”

Geralt saw anger and annoyance flash onto the face of the assassin. “No bandits in these woods my lord, I’m sure,” he said smoothly.”

Geralt knew the plan in that instant. Jaskier would be found dead on the roadside, the rider would stagger back into Lettenhove, or perhaps onward into Egerbak and tell how the witchers had cruelly murdered Jaskier and made off with the dowry, leaving him for dead. These hiddent troops were presumably to subdue the witchers while Jaskier was murdered. 

Finally, Geralt drew his sword.

Damn. If they killed the Earl’s men that would also look bad. 

Jaskier, switching from enigmatic to foppishly distressed. “You simply must turn back,” he was saying to the assassin. “It’s quite alright, I have all these big, strong witchers to protect me, and before I left lettenhove I sent a xenovox message to a mage in Temeria, a friend of mine. I have a powerful protection on me.”

“You do,” the assassin said, edging his horse back a step. Protection spells tended to get messy in a guts and gore way for those who crossed them.

“Oh yes, and my darling husband, isn’t that right, dear heart?” Jaskier said, giving Geralt doe eyes. Geralt blinked.

“Uh, yes, Triss Merigold,” Geralt said, thanking his lucky stars, which most of the time had utterly failed to be lucky for him, that he actually knew a mage in Temeria.

“Merigold,” the would-be assassin said. “The name rings a bell, I’ll just,” and he rode off, back towards Lettenhove. 

Jaskier spurred his horse. “Let’s get out of this rabbit snare,” he muttered. The witchers rode double-time to clearer ground.

“Well,” Vesemir said, once they were well and truly clear. “Quick thinking, lad, and some of the most pretentious acting I’ve ever seen.”

Jaskier bowed in his saddle, smiling like a moonbeam. “Thank you, although I’m just glad Geralt had a real name to back me up.”

“Should do,” Lambert snorted as they rode past the first few buildings of Egenbak. “She practically sewed his guts back into his body after a Striga--”

“Shut up,” Geralt growled, but it was too late. Even in the rain, Jaskier’s eyes were sparkling. 

Greed, Geralt reflected, and indeed, lust, came in many varieties. Jaskier’s father may covet money and power, but the mere mention of a story had Jaskier coveting it just as viciously. What could be so boring, so lacking in a wealthy young man’s life, Geralt wondered, that he was so starved for adventure?

They bid their goodbyes to the other witchers, Jaskier surprising them each with a hug. Vesemir huffed, but Geralt caught the slight upward twitch of his moustache. 

“Fair roads,” Jaskier said, waving to them all. Geralt waved too, and then his brother’s and Vesemir rode away. 

So did Jaskier and Geralt, but it hadn’t been three minutes when Jaskier asked, “Striga?”

“Mmmhm.” 

“What is a striga?” Jaskier pressed.

“Monster.”

Jaskier huffed. “What sort,” he said, with a bit of a whine. “How is one born...made? What does it look like? What does it do? Why have I never heard of one before?”

“Made by magic. Looks ugly. Does messy awful killings. They’re rare.”

“Please, Geralt, tell me the story?” 

Geralt didn’t look over at him. Wasn’t going to. If he caught a glimpse of that face and those eyes pleading he’d give in.

“The rode is going to be awfully boring, Geralt, a story would really help,” Jaskier said, still begging.

“Just focus on riding,”Geralt growled. “I don’t want to have to deal with you if you fall off your horse.” Then he urged Roach on ahead. 

It was indeed a very long and boring ride. After a while Jaskier pulled out his lute and began to play.

“Toss a coin,” he sang quietly, then he changed the cord and tried it again, a little higher. “Toss a coin to your witcher.”

“Don’t make up songs about me,” Geralt growled.

“Short of you telling me stories I have to make things up,” Jaskier said. “I know nothing about you.”

“So you write me a song?”

“I think you deserve one,” Jaskier said, as if his very believing it made it fact. 

Geralt urged his horse on ahead. 

“Come on,” Jaskier said, nudging his horse faster too. “My singing can’t be that bad, can it?” he asket.d lightly.

“Yes,” Geralt growled. “It can.”

They rode the rest of the day without speaking. Jaskier plucked sullenly at his lute. 

Geralt was angry, and worse, he didn’t really have any right to be angry. He knew he’d messed up. Day two of marriage and he’d fucked up spectacularly. He was bad at this, and he was angry at himself. Somehow, though, he felt angry at Jaskier too. What was Geralt supposed to do? Answer every childish question? Tell stories? Discuss literature like Eskel could? Like probably all of Jaskier’s high class friends at Oxenfurt and Lettenhove could?

He was a witcher. Witcher meant solitary. It meant silence. It did not mean infernal music and being pestered about a story like a nanny.

He was being an asshole and he knew it, but damnit, he’d been an asshole so long he wasn’t about to stop all at once. It was practically baked in at this point. Being angry was better than trying to be kind an failing. Silence was easier than speaking.

Jaskier drooped in his saddle though, and Geralt felt like a cad.

They stopped for lunch at the side of the road, eating soggy rations and not talking to one another. They were both soaked to the skin, despite heavy cloaks, which were too hot in this late spring storm. Jaskier dripped miserably and carefully wiped down his lute, putting it reverentially in its case.. Up until that point the instrument had been mostly safe from rain, cradled against his body under the cloak. He’d clearly come to the same conclusion that Geralt had, however, that if the instrument stayed out any longer, cloak cover or no, it would get truly wet. 

“Raining cats and dogs,” Jaskier said, tentatively. It had the same feeling as a man dipping his toe into water to see how cold it was. 

“Hmmm.” Geralt said, neutrally.

Apparently seeing this not outright aggression as an invitation, Jaskier, metaphorically, jumped into the pond. 

“See, I think that saying is really rather silly,” he said. “Not only because it, obviously, doesn’t rain animals, but really, cats don’t even like water.”

He continued chattering as they remounted and rode on.

“Dogs do like water of course, well, some, but so few like rainstorms, especially thunder. I wonder why we have that saying then.”

His mind seemed to skip back and forth between subjects like a grasshopper. 

“I understand why dogs don’t like thunder, of course, and I don’t care for lightning much myself, but the thunder must be so loud with their sensitive hearing.”

He paused for a split second and Geralt wondered if blissful silence would return but then,

“I imagine thunder must be dreadful with your hearing, right?”

“Hmmm,” Geralt said. Shut up, he thought.

“Oh that’s awful,” Jaskier said. “Do you think it will thunder tonight? I hope not. If it does - or perhaps even if it doesn’t - I think we ought to get a room in an inn tonight. Give our clothes a chance to dry.”

Melitele’s tits. Geralt couldn’t believe one man could talk so much. It was almost like nervous chatter but it grated on his already fraying nerves.

“An inn would be perfect don’t you think? And I could play there. I’m a bard you know. Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘you’re a Viscount, Jaskier,’ and that’s true, although I suppose not anymore, technically from the moment I said ‘I do’ that honor was passed to my half-brother but, I’m a bard as well.”

“Shut up.”

“What?” Jaskier said.

Geralt pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling as he did so cold water drip from his hood onto his face. “For the love of all that is good just shut up,” he growled. 

“Maybe if you said something back occasionally it wouldn’t be so one sided,” Jaskier said sniffily.

“Maybe if you had any brains in that empty head of yours you’d have something worth while to talk about.”

“I have brains,” Jaskier said, affronted.

“Clearly not enough to know when to shut up,” Geralt sniped back. “I don’t want to have to deal with your incessant chatter all the way to Oxenfurt.”

Jaskier stopped his horse and dismounted, in the middle of the road, in the pouring rain. 

“Get back on your horse, have you lost your mind?” Geralt said, but he reigned Roach in.

“Oxenfurt?” Jaskier said, quietly. His voice held no emotion and Geralt felt suddenly that he had really fucked up this time. He dismounted.

“Yes,” he said. “You have friends there, I thought it would be a nice place to go.” He wasn’t sure why he didn’t tell Jaskier that he intended to leave him there, but he felt that, at this time, that wouldn’t go over well.

Jaskier’s face softened. “You thought it would be nice,” he said. “For me to go back there.”

Geralt shrugged. “One destination is as good as the other on my Path, often I just wander.”

Jaskier smiled softly and remounted. “Okay then,” he said. “To Oxenfurt.” He chuckled. “I’m sorry, I suppose dismounting was dramatic, I guess I thought you were taking me somewhere to get rid of me.”

It was like having ice shoved into Geralt’s spine as he mounted Roach again. “I wouldn’t get rid of you,” he said lowly.

“Oh, not ‘get rid of’, like that stupid assassin. I meant...discard, abandon, leave, wash one’s hands of, cast aside.”

They rode on, Jaskier chattered, but less. Geralt didn’t say a single word.

They didn’t make it to a town with an inn that night so they made camp in a soaked clearing again. Guilt ate Geralt as he was eating cold rations and chased him into their tent. He lie awake feeling heavy with it as he heard Jaskier’s breathing drop off.

Jaskier wouldn’t like being left at Oxenfurt, but it would be for his own good, Geralt thought. He didn’t have to tell him right now, anyway. That was a discussion that could wait until Oxenfurt. 

Geralt’s guilt didn’t lift completely, but it eased enough that he slipped into meditation.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’m still pretty sick with mono, so this took me ages to manage, but its here at last! So psyched to write the next part too.

Tag List!

@llamasdumpsterfire @stinastar @aziz-the-fangirl @mordoriscalling @bastardofmothman @negativenuggetz @morte-mistrata @ailorian @hayleynzlive @filledepluie @bygodstillam @sociowithatardisachevyandawand @faery-god @honeysuckletook @theflurtifly @saibowtie @werevampiwolf @frywen-babbles @the-kewlest @innocentbi-stander @1stbonesfan @aqueenrisesintheeast @toothhurtyam @marauders-fan-account @ineffable-lasagna @limevodka @rocknrollphanda @seralyra @permanently-exhausted-witcher @aj-itated @watchthewolvesfall @00qtee @the-blondey @birds-of-forgiveness @west-moor @abstractartwithoutpaint @darkonesdagger7437 @onwardsandfourwords @underwaterattribute @whenrainbowsend @goldbvtton @little-piece-of-tamlin @in-love-with-writing002 @flustratedcas @fontegagrilledcheese @so--many-fandoms @kirk-spock-in-the-impala @oniongrass @flowercrown-bard @maya-the-yellow-bee @thecomfortofoldstorries @wellthisstinks @thenameislion-dandelion @flowercrown-bard @obsessedchildsworld @debellatis @zotinha456 @tumbleweedtech @goblin-loves-shiny-things @birdsflyhome @holymotherwolf @the-shenny-of-azkaban @darkangel91939 @enkelikauneus @saphiramalbec                  @silvermirror1997 

[kayr0ss]

Hands that Remember [AO3 Link]

[Horizon Zero Dawn, Elisabet Sobeck Lives, Found Family, Mother-Daughter Feelings, GAIA is recovering, Ereloy]

Summary: Aloy saw the recordings, felt their grief over the death of their culture - the loss of their identity. Ted Faro had blown away the light meant to guide humanity through darkness - but she was willing to risk it all to take it back. To bring APOLLO back.  It wasn't the first time that the world asked her for a miracle, but it bargained with a miracle of its own: This time - she didn't have to do it alone.

[Wherein Elisabet Sobeck returns, GAIA is recovering, Erend is done waiting around, and Aloy discovers a family she's never had before to help lift the weight of the world off her shoulders.]

---

Chapter 1: Resurfacing

It was endless.

The dust and sand reminded him of the canyons north of Meridian—but it seemed harsher.  Endless, expansive. Flat. He’d lost sight of All-Mother Mountain days ago and soon even the icy northern peaks of the Cut had fallen behind the horizon. All that was around him were rocks and packed earth.

Clouds of dust rose from under his footsteps, caught in a wind swooping over from further west. He wondered if they would reach the end of the world before the end of this desert. Did it just… stop? Was there an edge where everything ceased to be, a void down below ready to consume anything unfortunate enough to travel just a bit too far?

He grunted at his thoughts. Way too poetic. Been hanging around too many Carja these days—and not enough ale to drown out all the needless chatter.

What was Aloy doing out here anyway?

Still, he pressed on with gritted teeth, pulling up the fabric of his scarf above his nose. There was shelter up ahead. The faint purple glow he was following led him straight down its path: a ruin of the Old Ones full of rusting metal and crumbling rock. There were a few trees in the vicinity, tall and shooting straight up from the ground as though they were arrows.

“Must’ve taken shelter here,” he grumbled to himself.

It was a short trek to reach the threshold of the ruins. There was an archway holding a dilapidated sign, looking as if a strong kick to the base would be enough to knock it over. For a minute he entertained the thought, but what for?

A pile of metal junk lies near the perimeter of the building—one of those rectangular containers, similar to those dumped by the Old Ones in the scrapyard near Free Heap. The building itself was covered in vines and… flowers? That’s when he noticed the grass by his feet. It was lush and green, much like in the Embrace, and where plant life thrives it means—

“Water.”

He picked up his pace, falling into a jog. The journey had taken a toll on him. He was glad to have kept some empty water skins on hand—a fresh refill and his store of dried meats would be more than enough to last him the walk back. It was a small comfort against the mounting restlessness that clawed at the back of his mind, the feeling that he was never going to catch up with her at the rate he was going. He wondered if he’d tracked Aloy down this far west only to have her meet him on the road—already on the way back.

At least he hoped she was. Coming back, that is. He shook his head. Not the best time to think about that.

Further inspection revealed no machines in sight. Odd. Did Aloy clear the way already? Or was there something else, something that kept them away? The thought was unnerving, but he kept his hammer stowed away at his back. Couldn’t pick up any threats, anyway. No mines either, he nodded to himself. Stalkers could be ruled out.

He looked up towards the building. It was worn down, only the haunting twisted metal of its skeleton left standing, rubble littered at the base. “Probably fed a whole thunderjaw into a forge to build this one.” He chortled. “Great. Now I’m talking to myself. Right. Water.”

He followed the way to a patch where the growth was thicker. “Huh.” He paused, frowning. There were purple flowers arranged in a triangle too perfect to be natural. Some sort of stone seating structure was in the center and—

“Fire and spit!” he sputtered out, war-hammer pulled at the ready while he awkwardly regained his footing after nearly tripping. For some reason, even in the heat of battle he decided he didn���t want to step on the violet blooms that seemed so dainty and beautiful.

Was that… a person?

His frown deepened, brows knitting together as he looked over some sort of machine suit. It reminded him of the material Aloy had crafted over standard Nora leathers. He gently prodded at the suit with the end of his hammer’s grip. No movement. The overgrowth consuming it was an indication that it’d been sitting there for, well, a while.

He stepped in a little closer, laying a hand along the suit’s shoulder to dust it away. Cold. He recoiled.

Cold as death.

For a second or two he considered scavenging the strange machine-suit for parts, but quickly dismissed the thought when he realized there might be someone… inside. He stepped back, putting down his hammer. Oseram were delvers, not grave robbers.

I should probably go. He rubbed at the back of his neck, feeling intrusive and out of place, but one last look over the suit made him shake his head. Was this their home? He tried to imagine what the ruins might have looked before. Like Meridian, perhaps?

The person looked peaceful. Content. But it looked like a lonely way to go.

“You, uh…” he set a heavy gloved hand on the suit’s shoulder. “Have a good rest.”

The stillness didn’t last for very long. As he lifted his hand a cloud of cold, frigid gas began to leak from the small slits along the suit’s shoulders and joints.

The focus Aloy gifted him began to buzz, in sync with the deep onset of frantic panic at the pit of his stomach. By the forge did he break something? He stumbled backwards, hand coming up to tap his focus. Purple lights sprung to life—a spattering of odd blinking symbols and words that were enough to disorient him. Circles of light hovered highlighted portions of the suit, bringing up numbers and flashing words—counting down with urgency.

[WARNING:  Ultraweave Terrestrial Suit Atmospheric Seal Compromised]

"Seal?" What was that supposed to mean? He frowned. Too sober for this.

A disembodied voice buzzed into his ear—eerie and inhuman, like how the Shadow Carja’s god HADES sounded, except not quite as threatening. A woman’s voice.

[Ultraweave Terrestrial Suit Oxygen Supply—Depleted. Ultraweave Terrestrial Suit Potable Liquid Tank—Depleted]

There was a chilling pause.

[External Personnel Detected. Assessment: User of FAS Standard-Issue FOCUS Unit Number ZERO-ONE-ONE-THREE - Assistance Required. Please attend to personnel within UTS Unit Zero-Alpha-Psi.]

“What am I—?!” He looked around in a panic, feeling out of his element. Was it talking to him? This was the sort of thing Aloy was good at! “What am I supposed to do?!”

[Please attend to personnel within UTS Unit Zero-Alpha-Psi.]

“You already said that.” He grumbled back, frustrated. Does that mean this thing—this…Old One—was still alive? Upon closer inspection he could see it: frost crawling out of the vents. Cold. Still as cold as death.

He couldn’t believe it. Frozen in time.

[Stand-by for assisted reanimation.]

He reached out towards the blinking lights across the rectangular badge on the suit’s odd chest plate. It responded to his touch with purple lights blinking into living words floating across his fingertips. He gasped.

He recognized that name.

[Disengaging Cryostasis Protocol. Stand-by for assisted reanimation. Projection: ninety-three minutes to thermal homeostasis.]

--

“Captain, what happened?”

Voices. Too far away. Or were they nearby? Damn. She couldn’t tell. Couldn’t even open her eyes. It was cold. So fucking cold—colder than Nevada had any right to be.

“Get blankets! Anything! Beladga, got any shirts you can spare?”

Why was everyone in a panic? Had she fallen asleep in the control center? Huh. She didn’t recall Travis sounding nearly as gruff as that.

Travis? The others—

She… she had a job to do. A mission. What was it? Everything felt distant—disconnected. She vaguely realized she that she was shivering but why? She tried to call out but realized that she was physically unable to speak, her throat feeling dry as sandpaper. Coughing erratically, she noticed that she was partially intubated with a sort of breathing apparatus.

[Seventeen minutes to thermal homeostasis. Please prepare for disengagement of auxiliary respirator.]

An automated voice was buzzing into her ear through her focus. She could feel her senses turning, along with the slight mobility of her limbs. It seems she was being carried—or rather, being laid down onto something soft. There were footsteps. Movements. The voices were hushed, secretive and confused. There was a soft yellow light through the ambiguous blur of color that swam around her vision.

[Auxiliary respirator disengaging.]

The machinery abruptly detached the mask from her nose and mouth. The sudden brightness made her recoil, her face feeling exposed. She fell into a fit of violent coughing—as if she had forgotten how to breathe. It was painful. God, it fucking sucked.

“Take it easy now,” said the voice from earlier. It was a man. He—He was speaking with her through his own voice. How is that possible? No one could survive out here without a suit. The atmosphere was too—

A sudden wave of nausea overcame her.

Memories of her last excursion came flooding back: the bunker door failing to seal. Her last transmission to the Alphas. Project Zero Dawn. GAIA—the Swarm!

Coming home.

Dying.

I’m supposed to be dead.

“I—” she rasped out, voice hoarse and jagged. Panicked.

“Whoa there,” there was a steady hand on her shoulder, helping her turn to her side. She felt something press against her mouth almost forcefully. “Drink this.”

“We got to get her out of that suit, captain.” There was another voice, female this time.

“I think—” the captain, she assumed, replied “—I think we need to wait a few more minutes. The device is telling me that—”

Everything was fading into black again.

--

“—else to go follow her trail, or just hope she comes back. She has to… she needsto see this. I just… Oh. She’s awake, I think.”

There was some shuffling. Once again, she was offered water. It was sweet this time. Did they mix in sugar? She tried to ask but she was so, so tired and…

--

Sobeck Journal, 1-27-66

I wasn’t going to see any of it anyway.

Best I can do is hope, I guess. The landscape is barren now – I’m kind of glad the other Alphas don’t have to see it this close up. Stings. I’m half-expecting to hear Patrick patch me in via holo, asking why I haven’t dragged my feet to the conference hall for the scheduled status briefing. He’ll take good care of the younger kids, him and Charles both. ZD and the Swarm seem so small and faraway now that I’m walking away from it all. Quite literally. Hauled my ass all the way to Nevada.

Glad mom isn’t around to see the ranch like this. When I close my eyes I can almost imagine it: the tall pine trees, the grass. Maybe I’ll get to see things the way they were before on the other side… wherever that might be.

I’m tired.

Time to rest.

--

She woke up with a jolt.

“Hey.

He was still there, sitting on the ground across from her and looking just as confused as she was. Her vision was clearer now—and every detail she managed to catalogue drove a spike of panic and confusion deeper into the hollow of her chest. They were in a leather tent lit by a small gasoline lamp in the corner. They seemed to be in the outskirts of an encampment, faraway enough to not be disturbed.

“I’m guessing this is freaking you out a little.” He scratched at the back of his head, unable to meet her eyes. He pointed to a waterskin laid down beside her bedroll. “Maybe get some more water in before you speak? I’ve got some dried meats too. I’m guessing you haven’t eaten in… a while.”

On the matter of guesses, she had a vague idea what might be going on. It was equal parts terrifying and exciting and a hundred percent something she did notask for.

She had an unfortunately stellar track record for hypothesizing, though. Chances of her guess being wrong were dreadfully slim. The cold. The scenery. Even the clinical tone and instructions of her Ultraweave Suit’s reanimation module—a system she helped develop herself, back when the prospect of sleeping through the disaster was considered an option.

It wasn’t. Not consistent enough to use en masse—not enough foresight to secure species continuity.

She took a drink of water, willing to steel her nerves before panic caught up with her executive faculties. She needed to orient herself with wherever it was she woke up in. Hell, forget where, the real question is—

“When… is it?”

He blinked. “Uh, today?”

“What year is it?”

The man’s expression softened—a look that didn’t quite fit with the rest of his character. He was big. Towering—even while seated on the floor—with broad shoulders and a figure strong enough to walk around with enough steel to build a car door, apparently. “You sound so much like her.”

“I don’t follow.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache coming along. She needed to eat.

“Sorry I—” he scratched at his beard. “It’s the reign of the 14th Sun-King, Avad the Liberator.”

Kings? Again?

“I’m Erend, captain of the King’s vanguard.”

He paused.

“You’re Aloy’s mother, aren’t you?”

-

fin

-

A/N: I'd like to acknowledge Tototops for doing an amazing job beta-reading this! It's always a pleasure, and my writing is always pushed to grow better with every suggestion and correction you help me with. x) And to my friends Sleepy, @theguardiandragon1, @saltypyrotato, @tanuki-pyon and Fridge for listening to my HZD manic fever ramblings and helping me make sense of the plot I had in mind.

Just finished the game about two weeks ago and read a bunch of fanfic. I consumed Writerly's Second Dawn (which is absolutely amazing!!!!), which is my foremost inspiration for even attempting to write fanfic of this wonderful franchise. I base a lot of my characterizations and format of story telling in this fic from their work, and hope to do so in a way which is still true to the unique plot I've set for it. I am very excited to be trying something new and to learn and get better along the way. Hope you all enjoy. :)