#they have to also live with a fabricated version of it -- a warped version of themselves being presented

[deathwis-arc]

honestly, it's really interesting thinking about how the events of the desert dream in 1998 would get blown out of proportion in the coming years ; hell, it already kinda is twenty-four hours later. not only does the fbi get involved ( and they get involved quick ) but the entire thing is immediately labeled as 'the desert dream massacre' which is ... simply not true. if tyler doesn't kill joyce and michelle isn't shot then the total body count is four cops, with two on life support from the motel burning down. this is literally confirmed in game!

events get labeled as massacres if there's a huge body count, or if it's violent enough. the desert dream killings were neither. all the victims were shot, usually at a distance, or they suffered from burns ; which, while violent, it was more of an escape attempt on the holts' part than anything else. i also find it telling that, even if the holts kill a hostage or two, agent bradley doesn't bother mentioning that in private. all he cares about is the cops lost to the standoff. it's no surprise that killing an officer will get you a more severe punishment then if you kill a regular person, that it can sometimes send you straight to death row on its own, but the fact they don't even care about the deaths of any of the hostages ... it sure is something.

especially since the only hostage deaths in the desert dream can turn the only two kids in the game into orphans. or on the flip side, if the holts didn't harm a hostage, there's no mention of that either. or how the hostages were treated, which compared to usual hostage situations, they got it better than most. it's just the fact that they killed cops ( who were under the thumb of a corrupt sheriff, by the way ) that made this into a massacre. though i wouldn't be surprised if to the public the force would then heavily focus on any other victims, that's usually what happens normally, after all.

anyway, point is, classism does play a role in how cases and crimes are treated -- especially back then. the holts were poor, notoriously so, and they were a family full of drop-outs with nothing to their names. the very second they escape the motel, their names are plastered all over the country and their fates ( including jay's, who's merely an eighteen year old who was an accomplice at best ) are decided : they're going straight to death row. even if jay tries to do the right thing and come clean to agent bradley, tries to turn on his family, said guy immediately goes to pin all the murders on him, for seemingly no reason at all! it's very unjust, and ah ... shady!

the news and papers hype up their crime spree and i wouldn't be shocked that within a couple years, the holts would be presented as bloodthirsty rednecks who were simply greedy rather than a family that didn't have any help and got in way over their heads. the narrative would be twisted so much, especially if three of the holts were never found. there'd be no word from their side, no mention of the thugs who were threatening to kill them, just a true crime story where they were at the forefront of a very unfortunate situation and got away with it. leaving gossips to fill in the blanks as they please, and considering the police's and the fbi's behavior towards this case, they would only fuel the narrative that the holts were a family who did all this on purpose and relished in the aftermath, a family who loved doing the crime.

anyway, it's just something i love thinking about for post canon stuff when it comes to my adf muses. how wildly inaccurate the story's become in time, simply because people got bored or because of the classism back then that was so woven into the broadcasted crime that it's become impossible to separate the two. they'd paint the holts out to be wildly dangerous, cruel individuals and probably spin tales about unsolved murders and robberies and how it could be the work of a holt who had got away. their entire motivation would be obscured and would've gone unsaid, leaving random civilians and a force who hates them to speak for them instead. it'd be a whole thing! and the desert dream was dramatic, sure, but by the time everything is said and done you'd probably barely recognize what the media was talking about had you actually been there.

[terramythos]

TAYLOR READS 2024: MORT BY TERRY PRATCHETT

Title: Mort (Discworld) (1987)

Author: Terry Pratchett

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Comedy, Third-Person

Rating: 7/10

Date Began: 1/6/2024

Date Finished: 2/4/2024

Mort, a young man with no clear direction in life, becomes apprenticed to Death himself. While learning the so-called trade, Mort makes a mistake which threatens to rewrite the course of history.

I INVITE YOU INTO MY HOME, he said, I TRAIN YOU, I FEED YOU, I CLOTHE YOU, I GIVE YOU OPPORTUNITIES YOU COULD NOT DREAM OF, AND THUS YOU REPAY ME. YOU SEDUCE MY DAUGHTER FROM ME, YOU NEGLECT THE DUTY, YOU MAKE RIPPLES IN REALITY THAT WILL TAKE A CENTURY TO HEAL. YOUR ILL-TIMED ACTIONS HAVE DOOMED YOUR COMRADES TO OBLIVION. THE GODS WILL DEMAND NOTHING LESS. ALL IN ALL, BOY, NOT A GOOD START TO YOUR FIRST JOB.

For live reading notes, check the reblogs (contains unmarked spoilers).

Content warnings and review (spoiler-free and spoiler versions) under the cut.

Content Warnings: Mentioned -- Suicide, animal abuse. Depicted -- Death (i mean. yeah), animal death, sexual humor, suicidal ideation, fatphobia (kinda).

**SPOILER-FREE REVIEW**

Before I dive into the review, I want to acknowledge that despite several criticisms, I did enjoy reading Mort. It certainly has issues that keep me from rating it higher, but I still recommend it as a fun read despite these flaws.

A major reason for this is the prose. It's difficult to express just how clever Pratchett was as a writer. He has a unique way of presenting scenes and situations which consistently feels fresh and original. Whether it's clever wordplay or a unique spin on tired cliches, he's always catching me off guard in the best way. Saying someone's voice "could have kept milk fresh for a month" instead of "was icy" is one among hundreds of delightful examples. And while there's plenty of witticisms, they feel genuine rather than cynically scripted to appeal to as many people as possible.

Pratchett also doesn't shy away from serious topics despite the general comedic tone, and this contrast makes the grounded parts of the writing all the more poignant. His fantastic style is so omnipresent in his work that to explore it in detail would devour the rest of the review. Even when taking notes while reading I'd have to be selective on WHICH great phrases I wrote down lest I only spend time on them to the exclusion of all else.

One specific thing I like about Pratchett's writing is how specific jokes recur throughout the story but often in ways one doesn't expect. There's a running bit in Mort where characters will call him "boy" or "lad" and he tiredly corrects them with "Mort". As a reader I fully expected him to eventually get fed up and chew someone out for failing to use his name. And… he does! But later the joke is subverted again in a (spoilerific) way I DIDN’T expect, which caught me completely off guard. Setups and payoffs like that are delightful.

**SPOILER REVIEW**

My biggest struggle with Mort is that I found it difficult to care about the plot until the end. There are two things working against Mort's story that made me feel this way.

The first is the main conflict's inciting incident: Mort commits a selfish act and saves the life of a princess who was supposed to die. In doing so, Mort warps reality and the fabric of history itself. The problem is, the only reason he saves Princess Keli is because of a superficial crush on her just from seeing her for a few seconds. The two barely interact before he saves her, and when they do later, there's not any chemistry to make this decision interesting. And yes, I'm aware that this was probably intentional: Mort did something foolish and impulsive and has to deal with the consequences. The problem is that since the rest of the plot hinges on his choice to intervene, and the context around that choice is so lackluster, it brings the entire plot down. I found myself wondering why Mort bothers to keep up the ruse and lie directly to Death when his reason for doing so is so vague and uninteresting. The personal stakes just felt nonexistent to me.

The second issue is how the story is structured. Rather than closely following a standard plot progression, Mort is more like a series of vignettes and scenes loosely tied together. There's nothing wrong with that in and of itself; I'd argue Guards! Guards! follows a similar style, and I'm willing to bet much of Pratchett's work does. The problem is when this lack of focus combines with a weak core conflict. Reality being split and history diverging should be compelling, yet I wondered why I should care at all. The main thing that kept me reading was the clever writing and setups in these scenes. So I found the book fun to read but the story mediocre.

To Mort's credit, the stakes get more personal and involved toward the end. I finally found the story and characters compelling when Mort started to become more like Death. It's jarring when his dialogue intermittently switches to Death's unique typeface. This is probably the only time I've had a font choice genuinely catch me off guard-- unexpected Death dialogue is surprising in other Discworld books, but here it serves a different function because it's NOT actually Death speaking. The true love interest Ysabell also gets a lot of characterization toward the end, which is a shame because she's a great character who should have had plot involvement sooner.

Speaking of characters near the end, it seems like Pratchett suddenly realized the book needed a villain in the third act, so randomly assigned the role to side character Albert. So he's evil for a few dozen pages after showing no indication of this before, then the whole incident with him is resolved by Death with zero problems. It's super weird-- in fact, you could probably cut Albert out of the story entirely and nothing would change. Perhaps I'm missing something but I really didn't see the point of this. There is some context suggesting he is an historical figure referenced in other Discworld novels, so maybe it's more interesting if you've read those. However, having only read Guards! Guards!, this obviously fell flat for me. While inter-book references are fun (I was delighted to see The Librarian, for example), I don't think key components of the plot should rely on them, assuming that is the case here.

On the positive side, there are some small details I loved. One is how Pratchett uses the phrase "There is no justice. There is just me," to refer to Death. Because the moment I read it I wondered when we would hear "there is just us" instead, since the pun speaks for itself. So when we DID get that line during an emotional moment of the story I was cheering and hollering and punching the air and shit. It's one of those predictable things that is nevertheless extremely satisfying as a reader.

Another great detail is that every person has a literal book that describes their life until they die, which is constantly being written. While this is true metaphorically, it's a literal thing in Death's domain. Mort the novel closes with Mort the character seeing his own book and reading from it, and this becomes the narration for the last page or so. It's a clever payoff to a mechanic introduced in the novel.

A last thing to note is that there are still some loose ends. This isn't necessarily a criticism since there is a chance they are addressed in future books, but I'm mentioning them for my own benefit. In one early scene, Mort bungles his job so badly that a witch named Goodie Hamstring successfully manipulates him and escapes dying entirely. Considering the emphasis on this scene and the ominous tone, it isn't addressed at all by the end of the book, so it is possible this character shows up elsewhere.

Something not fully explored is the theme of reality. When Mort rescues Princess Keli, he creates a paradox where multiple realities exist, and one has to dominate over the other, which serves as part of the main conflict. Death's realm is not real despite being a major location in the story-- something that's true in a meta sense (Mort being a work of fiction) but also in the context of the story. Then there's implications throughout the book that Mort becomes "more real" the more he behaves like Death. While Death is the final reality of life, obviously, this is presented more in a mechanical way than a philosophical one. At the end of the story Death gives Mort a pearl of reality that Mort created due to the events of the novel, stating that it can be the beginning of a new universe whenever Discworld finally dies. This is… quite the detail to drop at the end. I feel like reality is explored as an in-universe mechanic rather than a metaphorical theme in the story, which is why it doesn't feel conclusive by the end. It makes me wonder, again, if this is going to come up in a later Discworld novel.

**CONCLUSION**

Overall while I had some issues with Mort as a story, as a reading experience I really enjoyed it. I might delve into more of the City Watch storyline next, since I had a great time with Guards! Guards! and want more of those characters.

[bestworstcase]

anyway i’m caught up and have had a few hours to digest now and let me just say: i think the widespread interpretation that “negative weiss” Isn’t Weiss / that weiss herself is effectively unconscious and absent during the lotus dream does a real disservice to the story and isn’t, i don’t think, particularly well-supported by the text itself. (shion’s explanation to ruby during the first venture into the dream certainly didn’t sound as if they were saying dream weiss was a wholly separate entity, or a ‘character’ in the dream; ‘lies and truth are but small parts of a dream’ etc. to me that says this is weiss in an altered state of consciousness because the nightmare has distorted her perception of reality, but fundamentally still the real weiss.)

i think maybe where people trip on that concept is the equally widespread interpretation that this is a story about how #hard it is for weiss to let go of her bigotry and consequently some resistance to accepting dream weiss as the real weiss, because on its face the virulently bigoted things dream weiss says of the faunus would seem to spit in the face of real weiss’s character development prior. but a) you can’t un-brainwash yourself of bigotry overnight no matter how much critical thinking you do, and b) there is the critical context of the monstrous grimm fang playing a role in the nightmare that keeps weiss alive, which comes to fruition ultimately as weiss having hidden one of the actual keys to her heart inside the headquarters of the white fang, in a library full of blake’s books and marked by a symbol of the white fang as it was when it lived up to blake’s ideals.

what this adds up to is: before the nightmare struck, weiss did some serious soul-searching, saw her own bigotry plainly for what it was, and decided to stop being bigoted. she couldn’t just cut away the fear and disdain she felt immediately—that’s not how brains work—but she could, and did, recognize that those feelings were irrational and cruel and choose to act better right now. then the nightmare struck and sucked her into a lotus dream fabricated from exaggerated versions of every expectation weiss felt as the heir to the SDC—including the bigotry that came with that legacy—and her own perfectionism, anxiety, and determination to fulfill those expectations trapped her inside it so thoroughly that she was willing to fight viciously to maintain it…

…except for the piece weiss had already decided was garbage she didn’t want to believe in any more. when blake and yang discovered the white gang headquarters, blake remarks that this must be where weiss put everything she didn’t want to think about but couldn’t get rid of, and i think that’s exactly right in two different ways at once. it’s the bigotry weiss doesn’t want to possess anymore—and it’s also where she hid blake, the girl in black who haunts the lotus dream and guards the key that saved weiss in the end. she uno reversed the nightmare and twisted its twisting of her bigoted feelings into her own savior because she had already made up her mind to get rid of those bigoted feelings.

and i think that, rather like blake choosing to accept the infection, that’s something weiss did deliberately before the nightmare finished corrupting her. it’s why she never lifts a finger to go defend that train, why she’s so rattled when the train makes it through, why she only lets it into the city after hearing blake call out to her, and why even under the nightmare’s influence she engages emotionally with corrupted blake’s grievances and answers them with i don’t hate you, i don’t hate the faunus—like! adam is everything weiss was taught that the faunus are, and blake’s nightmare twisted her into his mirror image, and yet even under the nightmare’s influence weiss realized within a matter of minutes that something was very wrong with blake and her instinctive reaction was to want to help her! her own nightmare warped that into “i’ll open your eyes before i banish you forever” hkdhch but the point is, in this altered state of conscious with a grimm devouring her soul and almost eighteen years of being primed to take corrupted blake at face value as blake’s ‘true nature’ weiss STILL almost immediately went that’s not you, the blake i know is so much better than that.

because she made a promise to trust blake completely, without demanding any explanations or pleas or coddling or anything from blake in return, and even the nightmare can’t make her break that promise, anymore than blake’s could make her hurt yang.

victims of the nightmare aren’t unconscious inside the lotus dreams, and their corrupted selves aren’t characters—if they were just characters, these lines they can’t cross wouldn’t exist, i don’t think. the nightmare can’t force them to do things they fundamentally WILL NOT do. all it can do is shove them into a dreamlike scenario that dredges up their deepest vulnerabilities in a manner that they’ll feel the need to obsessively reinforce. (which is probably why it got such a hold on weiss vs jaune or blake or ruby, perfectionism is a hell of a self-made prison even without a parasitic monster dumping gas on the fire)

[yes, weiss was disoriented and confused when she ‘woke up’ after the nightmare was killed, but that doesn’t mean the real weiss was unconscious—just experiencing the abrupt ending of an altered state of consciousness that felt totally normal while she was in it. anyone would be like wtf am i wearing in her situation.]

[sleepy-moron]

Comicgayt

I think I’ve actually made a fairly solid connection between byler and one of the most iconic gay couples in marvel history, and I know I’m not the first person to make connections between Will and Billy Kaplan but this is a bit more in depth + some other interesting parallels and a little bit of memes……potential major plot spoilers for s5 if I’m right ahead tho

So I was checking some fan wikis to refresh my knowledge on Billy Kaplan because I am very confident that Will takes at least some inspiration from him (gay nerd with reality warping powers and a heavy association with magic+ it takes a while for people to realize just how fucking powerful he actually is) and the scarlet witch and I randomly had the idea that I should look into Teddy Altman (aka Hulkling aka Billy’s husband) to see if there were any significant parallels between him and Mike because I thought it would be interesting……and while there are a few other parallels that are pretty likely to just be coincidental…..there is a much bigger one that could be plausible as an intentional reference. I need to establish the direction I think Will’s story could go in season five first and then we can talk about the stuff that involves both pairs.

So Will is going to be targeted by Henry in some way, that much is obvious. It’s also a pretty reasonable assumption that Will can control/warp the upside down to some extent (although Will has no idea he can) and that’s why it is still stuck on the day Will vanished as a result of Will being unable to move past what happened to him. I brought up the scarlet witch earlier because she’s Billy’s mom but also because of the House of M storyline (aka literary what wandavision is based off of) from the comics. This involves someone (Wanda) with the ability to warp reality to create a perfect world for themselves to live in as a result of a breakdown and rewrites reality and the memories of everyone else around them to prevent people from destroying this new world.

While I don’t necessarily think Will is going to create a new reality on his own I do think he will be stuck in some version of a perfect world where he is either not responsible for its creation and thus is the only one who knows this illusion is an illusion, or is the one responsible and doesn’t know it which would mean another main character (Mike or El probably) to realize something is wrong and fix it, or Will consciously chooses to stay in the fake world and needs convincing to leave. This ties in with Billy as when it was discovered that his powers could reshape reality there was a conflict where multiple characters were unsure if Teddy was warped into being the ideal boyfriend or was straight up completely fabricated by Billy’s powers. Will’s idea of a perfect world would need to address him being in love with Mike, likely by him and Mike being together or having mutual feelings in the perfect world.

So that’s where I think the story could be going with Will next season, so now we can circle back around and talk about The big parallel: King Arthur and Merlin references. On the comic book side of things we have two boys (both of whom are gay) who are both massive nerds, one of which is secretly an alien prince that is basically destined to one day be king and pulls a special sword out of a stone on the request of a group of alien knights and is deemed by the knights to not be currently able to lead them because he is too loyal to his friends on earth to leave them behind or he wouldn’t be worthy of the sword. The other boy is a magician that unknowingly had reality warping powers (and is also a twin but that’s not super relevant here) a heavy association with wizards and is literally both married to the other boy and was also given the title of court magician a la Merlin by his husband. (Additionally Billy has been turned evil and in that state is referred to as demiurge which is a form of evil god responsible for the creation of the material world and a specific interpretation of this force is basically just what vecna is in canon)

In stranger things we also have two nerdy boys, one of which is Mike who is heavily compared to a paladin and a leader but is depicted wielding a sword and shield in the painting, and the shield literally has a crown symbol on it and has some other evidence suggesting he gets a sword in s5. He also is way too self sacrificing and protective of his friend to the point he literally would rather throw himself off a cliff then living with the guilt of being the reason his friends got hurt. The other boy is Will who is gay and in love with his best friend, has a load of twin imagery with El, is very likely to have been the reason the upside down is mirroring Hawkins and is frozen in time, and has heavy wizard theming with an emphasis on him and Mike being a team and who has been literally possessed by Vecna.

So given that it’s possible Will and Mike draw inspiration from both Billy and Teddy and also Arthur and Merlin this makes a specific poster very interesting in my opinion:

So we’ve all lost our minds over this image, and if we look at some comic covers of Billy and Teddy…….

This is a really fun coincidence but I just think it’s neat and I wanted to share it with you!

Ps: These two also had romantic subtext that fans picked up on way sooner then it was revealed in story as well…..it’s almost like byler might be romantic y’all/s

[whirligig-girl]

Star Trek: War of the Worlds

I’m listening to the excellent Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of War of the Worlds and remembering an idea I had last time I listened to the album. From a friend group DM:

you ever think about how there's probably a bunch of martians who are just... people. maybe they're complicit in the attempted colonization of Earth, maybe they themselves are victims of the colonialism perpetrated by the spacefaring geoengineering martian powers-that-be, maybe both at the same time.

like, WotW was intended as a commentary on how fucked up it'd be if the british got fucked up the same way the british fucked up its colonies. Are there martian authors writing stories about how fucked up it'd be if an interstellar ship visited and colonized Mars? I don't mean that literally necessarily, I just mean, we see Martians as nothing more than monsters, right? As far as the victims of colonialism are concerned, that may as well be all the british were. terrifying soldiers with more advanced technology.

(note: running against my own limited understanding of the history and context of what colonization actually looks like in practice)

ok my brain is being really autistic about this... Star Trek au where the War of the Worlds happened in its 19th century history in addition to all the other fucked up wars of the 20th and 21st century.

Wolf-Rayet: Martian members of the Federation

Yeah. I have shared that Enterprise rewrite with the colonialist Vulcans, right?

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/i-can-reach-any-star.106958/ (written by @open-sketchbook​ )

(reading that made Enterprise's first two seasons so much more interesting to watch while keeping this in mind, and made its final season kinda worse)

anyway it gets a bit messy when you picture Earth as having had two attempts at alien colonization, one where the tech level is rockets (well, lasers[note 1]) vs steam engines, and the other is where it's warp drive vs warp drives on rockets.

Vulcans would have colonized Mars too

and probably facilitated medical aid to provide vaccinations and soforth for the martians so they could live on Earth, this time as humanity's peers. The solidarity would likely be lost on the two groups, however--at least at first.

...

NX-01 Enterprise leaves spacedock with "heat-rays" provided by the martians, who unlike the vulcans, have no qualms at this point with sharing technology.

i think it's a very star trek thing for the martians to be eventually redeemable.

after all, there's no crimes the Martians did on Earth that humans weren't doing to each other right up until Cochrane's warp flight.

...

alien in Phlox's sickbay, wandering around. "You have quite the eh, menagerie, Doctor," he says, and he pokes a brain-like organism sitting on the counter.

"Ahp ahp ahp! That's Ensign, ah-hem, OOOOOLAAAAAA, from engineering, he's waiting for his physical!"

 "UUUUULLLLAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!"

 "I told you you didn't have to get out of your uniform until I finished these results."

 "ULLAHHH!"

"Yes I know Earth fabrics give you a rash, you mentioned that before your appointment." 

[note1: earlier in this conversation I had mentioned that the green flashes from Mars were green lasers being used for laser sail propulsion as opposed to rockets. The description of heat rays also match infrared lasers)

(also i only ever listened to the musical version of the war of the worlds, sorry for not being able to get through a 19th century novel when i could listen to a 2 hour banger of a musical instead. :P i’m told it’s a fairly accurate adaptation though, compared to the radio drama and two movies.)

[circumference-pie]

for the pining prompts: mei changsu/xiao jingyan, 6 | wei wuxian/jiang cheng, 5 | yezun/shen wei, 8 (but like. if yezun had killed shen wei himself??? for your consideration)

romantic or platonic are both fine, where's the line anyways!!

reciprocated for all of them, please :)

Yessss! I took such a long-ass time with this one (2 months QAQ), thank you for waiting.

8 is

Jumping universes to find living version of dead love

(I interpreted the word "jumping" very loosely, lol.)

Relationship: Shen Wei & Yezun Rating: T for some violence Tags: violence, drama-typical logic, OOC Shen Wei but for good reasons

Summary: “Human, Yashou, Dixingren…all full of trickery, betrayal, forsaking…This world is filthy! So I’ll remake it, from the highest of the high to the lowest of the low.”

Yezun gets his wish.

Wordcount: 1700 Thanks to Karios (ao3: Karios) for the beta-read.

= = = = =

Alive…he’s alive. Shen Wei’s trick…

The floor of the Dixing palace swims into his vision, tiled stone. Someone is moaning softly in the distance. Yezun makes an effort, and the crumpled form of Zhao Yunlan comes into blurry focus, limp on the ground from their last fight.

“Shen Wei…”

At first Yezun thinks it’s himself, breathing out his brother’s name. Then he realizes the voice is not his, and it’s whispering a name he’s never used.

“Shen Wei…”

He forgets his wounds, forgets he’s almost dead, forgets everything in sheer blank rage. He forgets there are holes in him, leaking pitch and smoke, as he struggles to his feet.

Zhao Yunlan is the first to go, in a miasma of black mist. His cronies next, the throne room itself, then the palace and everything around it. Yezun’s power balloons with every being he absorbs; Dixing can no longer contain him.

Above, Longcheng is crumbling, buckling inward, and Yezun takes special pleasure in swallowing 4 Guangming Street before sucking in the entire disintegrating city, then the continent, then the planet.

-

He floats in the emptiness, himself, in the stark light of the nearest star. He is all-powerful, burning from within with potential. Some poor Dixingren must have had the power to fabricate matter from nothing, and now Yezun makes sparks and globules trail from his fingertips. Experimentally, he sketches a sphere, a miniature of the planet he just devoured.

Unbidden, Zhao Yunlan’s voice surfaces in his memory. You only know how to destroy out of hatred, not to nurture new things in hope. History will never look kindly on the likes of you.

Yezun’s smile spasms. “You’re wrong, Zhao Yunlan!”

He sweeps his arm toward the planet, and it grows, filling his vision. It suddenly teems with oceans and mountains, lakes and deserts, cities, humans, Yashou. Below the surface, the caverns of Dixing are also there, and crawling with Dixingren.

This is a world where orphans are never abandoned, brothers never separate, and betrayal is impossible.

It’s his world. A perfect one.

Yezun looks around. One more thing…

The man at his side stares straight ahead.

They are twins, after all, identical except for the color of their hair, down to the bones of their little toes. He hadn’t needed a body to recreate Shen Wei.

He holds out a hand. “Big brother. Come.”

Shen Wei takes it obediently.

Yezun takes them to Dixing. Except in this Dixing, there is light. Denizens go about their business under a glow as full as the sun’s, the clatter of carts and babble of a market all clamoring under a bright ceiling.

In front of the palace, in the warping heat from the rivers of molten rock, Yezun waves a hand upward. “Dixing. All in the light, like you wanted when we were children. See? I did this for you.”

Shen Wei turns his head to look at Yezun. His lips tilt up briefly into a smile, before his face returns to a flat, expressionless plane.

The earth around them trembles once. The light above dims briefly.

“What do you think?” Yezun asks, softly, dangerously.

“I think…” says the recreated Shen Wei. “I think…” He smiles again at Yezun. “I think…”

“WHAT?” Yezun nearly screams at him.

Shen Wei only keeps smiling, unaware that Dixing is shaking, the molten rivers are heaving, people are screaming, that his own body is cracking apart.

-

This time Dixing is as dark as new-moon nights aboveground. There is no indeterminate gloaming, no dim twilight to navigate by. The only visibility comes from smoky lamps and hearthfires flickering in windows, and the only sounds are the forlorn footsteps of the city watch.

“It’s beautiful,” says Shen Wei. He’s dressed this time in his human costume, crisp shirt and mint jacket, his hair cropped short.

“Is it,” says Yezun flatly, standing next to him in his own white suit.

By the flickering light of a nearby lantern, the look Shen Wei gives Yezun through his long lashes is happy and tender, something Yezun once saw directed at Zhao Yunlan, before.

Bile rises in his throat, sharp and bitter. Malice curls fingers over his heart. “Let’s go,” he says, taking Shen Wei by the arm.

Surprise glints in the depths of his brother’s eyes. “Where?”

“The surface.”

It’s night in Longcheng, the city sleeping under stars and between electric streetlamps. The bright coin of the moon is out. They stroll down cobbled avenues and past darkened storefronts, their steps clicking into the silence. When they come to what should have been Guangming Street, there is nothing. No shops, no fruit sellers, no boxy brick building. Just a curb where there should have been an intersection, and an empty lot beyond.

“Oh,” says Yezun softly. “My mistake. Your friends don’t exist, none of them. They never have and never will.”

Shen Wei inclines his head. “Little brother is very wise.”

Yezun whirls on him. “Wise? Yes! More than all of you, more than Ma Gui, more than Zhao Yunlan, more than you!”

Shen Wei blinks at him uncertainly.

“WHY?” Yezun roars, seizing his collar. His spittle lands on Shen Wei's cheek. “Why did you give so much to THEM?”

“I…don’t know. Who?”

Yezun thrusts his hand out, and Shen Wei dissolves into black smoke as the ball of dark energy hits him.

-

This world is Dixing, only Dixing. Yezun has only created the palace this time. Shen Wei lies in the center of the throne room, his torso bare, bound by his wrists and ankles to heavy chains that stretch to the corners of the room. The only other people are a man dressed from head to toe in black, and Yezun in his white robes.

“I’ll kill you all,” Shen Wei spits, jerking viciously on his chains, the chamber echoing with the sound of metal. “Let me go! I’ll show you!”

Yezun nods, gratified. Crying and raging. Yes. This is what he wants.

“I’ll kill you!” Shen Wei bellows at Yezun.

Hatred sears immediately through Yezun, as if his words have struck a switch. He raises his hand.

“START!” he shouts, and the man in black raises the chain-whip in his hand, brings it down on the prisoner’s back.

Shen Wei’s screams are very satisfying.

-

A new universe, another one, another, another!

It’s not working, he can’t do it, it keeps going wrong!

-

At last, there is nothing. Yezun floats in a void. His eyelashes are rimed with frost, his body stiff and frozen. His mind will evaporate soon, too.

Brother…

His brother will never stand by his side again. They will never get the childhood they deserved, the future they wanted.

Here.

Yezun opens his eyes to find himself in a bubble of air and warmth. “Little brother,” Shen Wei’s voice says, and then he’s there too, in the embroidered black robes Yezun last saw him in ten thousand years ago, raven braids drifting behind him.

“You left me.” Yezun’s voice is a thin, accusing whine. “That day.”

Shen Wei — the facsimile, simulacrum, figment — smiles sadly. “So that’s why you hate me so.”

“Shouldn’t I?”

“Watch.”

Suddenly the cold of space is gone, and Yezun is surrounded by the parching heat of a Haixing summer, the sun beating overhead. He’d forgotten. He’d forgotten how the insects buzzed in the dry grass that day, how the dust made him cough, how the sky seemed to be so white that it scorched.

He watches two boys, one in white and one in black, struggle on in the wide wasteland. He watches a bandit approach them and the boy in white faint. He can’t contain a cry of indignation when the bandit hurls the boy in black, kicking and struggling, off the ridge. He sees Shen Wei survive, sees himself being carried away.

He watches Shen Wei search for years and years, until he joins the war.

When the vision fades, Yezun is weeping, his tears separating from the corners of his eyes in floating silver droplets. “You didn’t abandon me,” he whispers. “You wanted me with you all along.”

Shen Wei reaches out to clasp Yezun’s shoulder. His hand is solid. Real. “How could I abandon you? You were the one person I loved.”

Yezun sniffs. “It’s too late. It can’t go back to the way it was.”

“Silly.” Shen Wei points at Yezun’s belly. “Everything’s still in there, isn’t it? Let them out.”

He’s right. Yezun can feel them in him, all the people and buildings and animals and oceans, eager to go back to their rightful places.

But there’s one more thing. “You’ll be there, too?” he asks pettily, jealously, already dreading the answer.

“I…I’ve already left the world. It’s not right for me to go back.”

“Then I’m not doing it.”

“But…” Shen Wei’s voice grows quiet and fills with longing. “I want to.”

Yezun understands, and scoffs with all the strength of his wounded spite. “And who is he to you?”

Shen Wei takes both of Yezun’s hands in his, warm and calloused from millennia of wielding the glaive, reassuring. “You will always be my brother, no matter what. Don’t be afraid. I'm not going to leave you.”

Yezun’s eyes narrow. Can’t he erase just one person?

“I promise.”

Yezun closes his eyes for a moment before breathing out, long and sustained.

Everything the same as it was.

-

Zhao Yunlan is even more annoying than Yezun thought he’d be. Always hanging around Shen Wei, always demanding his attention, both arrogant and childish. Yezun didn’t realize he could hate another person with as much concentrated ire as he does now.

Which is why, when Shen Wei extracts himself from Zhao Yunlan’s lanky, clinging limbs to join Yezun at the doorstep of the Special Investigation Division, Yezun smirks triumphantly at the SID chief sprawled on the couch.

“I promised we’d go to the zoo today,” Shen Wei says over his shoulder, to Zhao Yunlan’s last whining protest.

“Then bring me back a—”

Yezun slams the big doors closed.

“So?” he says brightly to Shen Wei, whose face is full of consternation. “Shall we get going?”

[reyofsunshne]

Oh! I've updated again!

For those of you who are more interested in the research I've invested in the chapter, let me run through it in order.

The Skald telling of The Ship of the Dead made of toenails of the dead.

This piece is funnily enough something that one of our skalds in my reenactment group LOVES to tell around the fire, last time he had me on the drum, approximately 2 hours before I threw up everywhere :)

Ring a Ring of Rosie

This version is a distinctly Aussie playground version, and recounts a version of the history told to me by my teachers to make me stop singing it, as I kept making myself sick by playing the spinning song. It didn't work.

Deer antler belt design with tablet weaving

This is actually a pattern from The Barony of Allyshia, and can be found here

Eivor's amber hair bead

This one is based on the baltic trade for amber beads (evidence in Coppergate, York), they make a good closure if you don't have very even ends, as the hair is held together in the bead and whatever leather you have tying your hair together.

Drengr sleeping in the longhouse

This one is anecdotal from our summer camps, where I often find the other members of the garrison asleep in the longhouse when I go in for my breakfast.

Skuld's loom

This is described based on the warp weighted loom reconstructed in Moesgård Museum, which has the two beam system, where the back warp threads are tied to one cross bar, and the front are tied to another, so that it can act like a Rigid Heddle Loom, and make the weaving process much quicker.

Some tapestries, like the one Skuld is weaving, and like the Bayeux Tapestry, have the design embroidered instead of woven in, to make the pattern clearer, and easier to create.

The waxed canvas tent

The process of waterproofing a tent in the early middle ages/ Viking age, involves painting a melted beeswax and linseed oil mixture onto both sides of the linen to create a barrier for the waterproofing, but also allowing it to soak into the fabric to penetrate any small stitching holes. This takes forever to do. And everything smells like linseed for ages.

The names of the Norns

I'll be the first to admit I just googled this one.

Anywho, I love you all for reading, and if you want any more in depth research, let me know!

[mostlyponies]

Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness rewritten by ChatGPT

> Write a premise for Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness where Wanda is an ally and Karl Mordo is an enemy, but not necessarily the main enemy. Also take story elements from the comic storyline ""Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness"

In "Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness," Strange and Wanda team up to stop a powerful and mysterious villain who is wreaking havoc across the multiverse. However, their quest is complicated by the presence of Karl Mordo, a former ally who has turned against Strange and now seeks to use the villain's power for his own purposes.

As Strange and Wanda travel through various dimensions and realities, they encounter a multitude of threats, including monstrous creatures and malevolent entities. They also encounter versions of themselves from alternate timelines and dimensions, some of whom have been corrupted by the villain's dark magic.

As they search for the villain's true identity and motivations, Strange and Wanda must also contend with Mordo's machinations. Mordo, who was once a student of the Ancient One and a fellow sorcerer, has become disillusioned with Strange's use of magic and now seeks to restore what he sees as a proper balance to the universe.

Throughout the storyline, Strange and Wanda are forced to confront their own limitations and weaknesses as they battle against the forces of darkness. They also develop a deeper understanding of Mordo's motivations and past, as they discover that his fall from grace was caused by a tragic event in his past.

Ultimately, Strange and Wanda must use their combined knowledge and abilities to defeat the villain and stop Mordo's quest for power. Along the way, they learn that even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, they can achieve victory through cooperation and sacrifice.

> Who could the main villain be?

The main villain in "Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness" could be an incredibly powerful entity that has gained access to the multiverse and seeks to harness its energy to achieve godlike power. This villain could be a completely original creation for the film, or it could be an existing villain from Marvel Comics that has been adapted for the story.

Alternatively, the villain could be an established Marvel Comics character such as Nightmare, who is a demon that resides in the Dream Dimension and feeds on the fear of others. Nightmare has been a long-standing antagonist for Doctor Strange in the comics and would be a fitting villain for a movie that explores the concept of the multiverse and different dimensions.

Another possibility could be Shuma-Gorath, a powerful and ancient demon that is said to have existed before the universe itself. Shuma-Gorath has clashed with Doctor Strange in the comics and has the ability to manipulate reality and warp the fabric of space and time, making it a formidable foe for Strange and Wanda to face.

Ultimately, the choice of the main villain will depend on the specific direction and themes that the filmmakers want to explore in the film, as well as which characters from Marvel Comics they want to incorporate into the story. ------------------------ I also asked ChatGPT to think of what could happen if Wandavision had another season that continued right where it left off. None of them involve going on a murderspree to get her kids back. Multiverse of Madness is one of the worst Marvel movies made and destroys everything Wandavision set out to do. They had an entire multiverse but had to make Wanda the villain because they couldn’t think of anything else. - The season could start with Wanda trying to live a normal life in the aftermath of the events of the first season. However, her powers are still out of control and she struggles to keep them in check.

- Agatha Harkness could return as a villain, seeking revenge on Wanda for taking away her powers. She could team up with other Marvel villains, such as Mephisto or Nightmare, to try to defeat Wanda.

- Monica Rambeau, who gained powers in the first season, could become a more prominent character and help Wanda learn to control her powers. She could also play a key role in stopping Agatha and the other villains.

- Wanda could encounter other characters from the Marvel universe who are dealing with their own grief and trauma, such as Hawkeye.

- The show could end with Wanda finally learning to control her powers and accepting her role as a hero in the Marvel universe. She could join the Avengers or another superhero team and become a major player in the ongoing storylines of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

- Wanda could face repercussions for her actions in the first season, particularly for the way she manipulated and controlled the people of Westview. This could lead to her being hunted by government agencies or other heroes who see her as a threat.

- The show could explore more of the history and mythology of the Scarlet Witch, delving deeper into the character's comic book origins and establishing her as a major player in the Marvel universe.

- The second season could focus more on action and adventure, with Wanda and her allies battling a new threat that requires them to use their powers in creative and exciting ways.

- The show could introduce new characters from the Marvel universe, such as the Young Avengers or the New Mutants, who could become key players in the ongoing storylines of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

- The season could explore different genres and styles, with each episode taking on the look and feel of a different TV show or movie. This could allow the show to experiment with different storytelling techniques and pay homage to classic TV shows and films.

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Sphere (Rōpā) Doomer

Debut: Kirby’s Return to Dream Land

Kirby dwells with a lot of alien creatures, this is because it is a series all about space and different planets, so really everyone is an alien! But these guys are Extra Alien! They come from a mysterious place known as Another Dimension, an in-between dimension where the fabric of spacetime is warping all the time, and this is where the Doomers dwell!

The Doomers are a family of creatures that live in Another Dimension, and I adore them, if you give anything that silly jagged www mouth chances are I’ll love it! These guys are also extremely rotund AND have a super cool ever-shifting coloration pattern!

You might only be familiar with the Sphere Doomers but that’s only one of the multiple species of them, and they all follow a super cute naming convention! Sphere Doomers are Rōpā, then there’s Rāpa, Rīpa, Rupa and Rēpā Doomers! Ropa Rapa Ripa Repa! Isn’t that fun! Say it out loud multiple times! It’s great!

Let’s start with Rōpā Doomers, they have wings, fancy tail feathers, and their mouths are always fully open! As they usually have an orb containing something you want inside! They can shoot orbs of plasma, fire, and ice, and are constantly flying and teleporting around! They are a midboss common throughout the game, and get to be a Boss in the form of Grand Doomer.

Also in the Kirby Novels, we get to meet a baby Sphere Doomer! 

Here’s where it gets interesting, at the end of the game Kirby and friends get to visit Another Dimension themselves, and they get received by the Rōpās’ extended family!

Name: Rāpa Doomer

Debut: Kirby’s Return to Dream Land

This little guy is the smallest of the family, their mouths are completely shut, they got more butterfly-esque wings, and they even got one little Baby Hair on top of their head!, they like flying in formation with other Rāpas.

Name: Rīpa Doomer

Debut: Kirby’s Return to Dream Land

Oh these guys are grumpy! They’re bigger versions of Rāpa, they can open their mouths to shoot plasma orbs, AND look at their hair! it’s edgy now! 

Name: Rupa Doomer

Debut: Kirby’s Return to Dream Land

We arrive to my dearly beloved! Rupa Doomer! LOOK AT THIS GUYYYY!!! They’re a little egg with feet!! They have no wings at all! They just stand angrily on the ground shooting plasma orbs at you, and of course three funny spiky hairs on top. I also really love the colors of this one the most! They’re teal with hints of violet and navy! All warping around constantly!

Name: Rēpā Doomer 

Debut: Kirby’s Return to Dream Land

And finally we have Rēpā Doomers, by far the biggest among them! Their eyes are the angriest. their hairs are slickly brushed backwards, and they got 4 Cackletta-like horn things, presumably they fly with these? They’re always seen floating, regardless, just as with Cackletta, I kinda wanna squeeze them, I think they’d do a funny honk sound!

And that’s the Doomers! A really lovely family if you ask me! And don’t worry! Kirby seems to have befriended them now! As seen in one of the Find Kirby books, look!

I hope they’re all living their best lives together in Another Dimension, see you next time!

[nasa]

Tomorrow’s Technology on the Space Station Today

Tablets, smart appliances, and other technologies that are an indispensable part of daily life are no longer state-of-the-art compared to the research and technology development going on over our heads. As we celebrate 20 years of humans continuously living and working in space aboard the International Space Station, we’re recapping some of the out-of-this-world tech development and research being done on the orbiting lab too.

Our Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) helps redefine state-of-the-art tech for living and working in space. Here are 10 technologies tried and tested on the space station with helping hands from its astronaut occupants over the years.

1. Astronaut Wanna-Bees

Astronauts on the space station are responsible for everything from conducting science experiments and deploying satellites to tracking inventory and cleaning. While all are necessary, the crew can delegate some jobs to the newest robotic inhabitants – Astrobees.

These cube-shaped robots can work independently or in tandem, carrying out research activities. Once they prove themselves, the bots will take on some of the more time-consuming tasks, such as monitoring the status of dozens of experiments. The three robots – named Bumble, Honey, and Queen – can operate autonomously following a programmed set of instructions or controlled remotely. Each uses cameras for navigation, fans for propulsion, and a rechargeable battery for power. The robots also have a perching arm that lets them grip handrails or hold items. These free-flying helpers take advantage of another STMD technology called Gecko Grippers that “stick” to any surface.

2. Getting a Grip in Microgravity

We wanted to develop tools for grabbing space junk, and something strong and super-sticky is necessary to collect the diverse material orbiting Earth. So, engineers studied the gecko lizard, perhaps the most efficient “grabber” on this planet. Millions of extremely fine hairs on the bottom of their feet make an incredible amount of contact with surfaces so the gecko can hold onto anything. That inspired our engineers to create a similar material.

Now the Gecko Gripper made by OnRobot is sold on the commercial market, supporting industrial activities such as materials handling and assembly. The NASA gecko adhesive gripper that’s being tested in microgravity on the Astrobee robots was fabricated on Earth. But other small plastic parts can now be manufactured in space.

3. Make It, or Don’t Take It

Frequent resupply trips from Earth to the Moon, Mars, and other solar system bodies are simply not realistic. In order to become truly Earth-independent and increase sustainability, we had to come up with ways to manufacture supplies on demand.

A demonstration of the first 3D printer in space was tested on the space station in 2014, proving it worked in microgravity. This paved the way for the first commercial 3D printer in space, which is operated by Made In Space. It has successfully produced more than 150 parts since its activation in 2016. Designs for tools, parts, and many other objects are transmitted to the station by the company, which also oversees the print jobs. Different kinds of plastic filaments use heat and pressure in a process that’s similar to the way a hot glue gun works. The molten material is precisely deposited using a back-and-forth motion until the part forms. The next logical step for efficient 3D printing was using recycled plastics to create needed objects.

4. The Nine Lives of Plastic

To help fragile technology survive launch and keep food safe for consumption, NASA employs a lot of single-use plastics. That material is a valuable resource, so we are developing a number of ways to repurpose it. The Refabricator, delivered to the station in 2018, is designed to reuse everything from plastic bags to packing foam. The waste plastic is super-heated and transformed into the feedstock for its built-in 3D printer. The filament can be used repeatedly: a 3D-printed wrench that’s no longer needed can be dropped into the machine and used to make any one of the pre-programmed objects, such as a spoon. The dorm-fridge-sized machine created by Tethers Unlimited Inc. successfully manufactured its first object, but the technology experienced some issues in the bonding process likely due to microgravity’s effect on the materials. Thus, the Refabricator continues to undergo additional testing to perfect its performance.

5. Speed Metal

An upcoming hardware test on the station will try out a new kind of 3D printer. The on-demand digital manufacturing technology is capable of using different kinds of materials, including plastic and metals, to create new parts. We commissioned TechShot Inc. to build the hardware to fabricate objects made from aerospace-grade metals and electronics. On Earth, FabLab has already demonstrated its ability to manufacture strong, complex metal tools and other items. The unit includes a metal additive manufacturing process, furnace, and endmill for post-processing. It also has built-in monitoring for in-process inspection. When the FabLab is installed on the space station, it will be remotely operated by controllers on Earth. Right now, another printer created by the same company is doing a different kind of 3D printing on station.

6. A Doctor’s BFF

Today scientists are also learning to 3D print living tissues. However, the force of gravity on this planet makes it hard to print cells that maintain their shape. So on Earth, scientists use scaffolding to help keep the printed structures from collapsing.

The 3D BioFabrication Facility (BFF) created by TechShot Inc. could provide researchers a gamechanger that sidesteps the need to use scaffolds by bioprinting in microgravity. This first American bioprinter in space uses bio-inks that contain adult human cells along with a cell-culturing system to strengthen the tissue over time. Eventually, that means that these manufactured tissues will keep their shape once returned to Earth’s gravity! While the road to bioprinting human organs is likely still many years away, these efforts on the space station may move us closer to that much-needed capability for the more than 100,000 people on the wait list for organ transplant.

7. Growing Vitamins

Conditions in space are hard on the human body, and they also can be punishing on food. Regular deliveries of food to the space station refresh the supply of nutritious meals for astronauts. But prepackaged food stored on the Moon or sent to Mars in advance of astronauts could lose some nutritional value over time.

That’s why the BioNutrients experiment is underway. Two different strains of baker’s yeast which are engineered to produce essential nutrients on demand are being checked for shelf life in orbit. Samples of the yeast are being stored at room temperature aboard the space station and then are activated at different intervals, frozen, and returned to Earth for evaluation. These tests will allow scientists to check how long their specially-engineered microbes can be stored on the shelf, while still supplying fresh nutrients that humans need to stay healthy in space. Such microbes must be able to be stored for months, even years, to support the longer durations of exploration missions. If successful, these space-adapted organisms could also be engineered for the potential production of medicines. Similar organisms used in this system could provide fresh foods like yogurt or kefir on demand. Although designed for space, this system also could help provide nutrition for people in remote areas of our planet.

8. Rough and Ready

Everything from paints and container seals to switches and thermal protection systems must withstand the punishing environment of space. Atomic oxygen, charged-particle radiation, collisions with meteoroids and space debris, and temperature extremes (all combined with the vacuum) are just some conditions that are only found in space. Not all of these can be replicated on Earth. In 2001, we addressed this testing problem with the Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE). Technologists can send small samples of just about any technology or material into low-Earth orbit for six months or more. Mounted to the exterior of the space station, MISSE has tested more than 4,000 materials. More sophisticated hardware developed over time now supports automatic monitoring that sends photos and data back to researchers on Earth. Renamed the MISSE Flight Facility, this permanent external platform is now owned and operated by the small business, Alpha Space Test & Research Alliance LLC. The woman-owned company is developing two similar platforms for testing materials and technologies on the lunar surface.

9. Parachuting to Earth

Small satellites could provide a cheaper, faster way to deliver small payloads to Earth from the space station. To do just that, the Technology Education Satellite, or TechEdSat, develops the essential technologies with a series of CubeSats built by college students in partnership with NASA. In 2017, TechEdSat-6 deployed from the station, equipped with a custom-built parachute called exo-brake to see if a controlled de-orbit was possible. After popping out of the back of the CubeSat, struts and flexible cords warped the parachute like a wing to control the direction in which it travelled. The exo-brake uses atmospheric drag to steer a small satellite toward a designated landing site. The most recent mission in the series, TechEdSat-10, was deployed from the station in July with an improved version of an exo-brake. The CubeSat is actively being navigated to the target entry point in the vicinity of the NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia.

10. X-ray Vision for a Galactic Position System

Independent navigation for spacecraft in deep space is challenging because objects move rapidly and the distances between are measured in millions of miles, not the mere thousands of miles we’re used to on Earth. From a mission perched on the outside of the station, we were able to prove that X-rays from pulsars could be helpful. A number of spinning neutron stars consistently emit pulsating beams of X-rays, like the rotating beacon of a lighthouse. Because the rapid pulsations of light are extremely regular, they can provide the precise timing required to measure distances.

The Station Explorer for X-Ray Timing and Navigation (SEXTANT) demonstration conducted on the space station in 2017 successfully measured pulsar data and used navigation algorithms to locate the station as it moved in its orbit. The washing machine-sized hardware, which also produced new neutron star science via the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), can now be miniaturized to develop detectors and other hardware to make pulsar-based navigation available for use on future spacecraft.

As NASA continues to identify challenges and problems for upcoming deep space missions such as Artemis, human on Mars, and exploring distant moons such as Titan, STMD will continue to further technology development on the space station and Earth.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

[viking-raider]

The Belle and the Bane - Chapter II

Summary: Living with the Bane is turbulent, at best. But, you do your best to weather the storm of his moods.

Pairing: Henry Cavill/Reader

Word Count: 8,916

Warnings: PG-13 - Fantasy!AU, Dark!AU, Bane!Henry, Dark!Henry, Belle!Reader, Healer!Reader, Curses, Language, Angst, Light Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Very Minor Character Death, Multiple Personalities(?), Possessive/Controlling Behavior

Inspiration: My warped version of Beauty and the Beast.

Author’s Note: Sorry this took so long! Muse was spazzing from this fic to that fic and this idea to that idea. You know how it goes! Forever and always, thank you to the amazing @wondersofdreaming​ for being my beta, brainstorm partner and encouraging me! Tell me what you think!

You woke that morning with the bright sunlight streaming into your room, as Damien threw the curtains over your windows open, letting the new day stream in, brightening the remaining darkness out of the corners of your room.

“Good morning, Ms.” He grinned at you, standing at the foot of your bed.

“Morning.” You yawned back, sitting up.

“I have breakfast ready for you.” He said, motioning to the table in the corner of your room, by one of the windows. “Also, I have some clothing coming in for you, later this morning. It's not your full wardrobe, but it's a start.” He smiled, sounding happy and chipper.

“Thank you, Damien.” You smiled at him, getting out of bed and pulled on your robe, sitting at the table and looking over your breakfast.

Nodding his head, Damien exited your room and traveled down to Henry's room, finding his master in a similar position you were, but instead of his room being bright with the morning sun, shining off the calm waves of the ocean. Henry's room was nearly pitch black, minus the raging fireplace and a few candles in large candelabras.

“Morning, Sir.” Damien said softly, nodding his head at Henry. “I hope you slept well.”

Henry took a deep breath and rolled his eyes, taking a gulp of his tea. “As usual, Damien.” He sighed. “Other than that girl you went behind my back and allowed here.” He added, with a lifted brow.

“I simply thought that some companionship would do you some good, Henry.” Damien replied, daring to use his master's first name. “Other than myself.” He added, as Henry opened his mouth.

“What companionship can she give me, Damien?” Henry asked, setting his teacup down and rubbed at his tired face. “Other than physical.” He added with a huff.

“Perhaps you should try and find out.” He replied, making Henry's messy bed. “She loves to read! She's almost completely read 'Great Expectations' and she's only been here a day. I know how much you like to read.” He explained, smiling over at him, his eyes glittering.

“I haven't read a book, in a long time.” Henry countered, his blue eyes darkening at his servant.

“Maybe.” Damien grinned, unbothered. “She can read to you.”

“I don't need to be read too. I can read on my own.” He hissed, narrowing his eyes. “I'm not some invalid.” He growled, his body tensing.

“Of course not. It was only a suggestion, she has a sweet voice, was all I meant.” Damien replied, softly. “Give her a week, Henry. If you don't find her presence wanting by then, I'll send her back home to her father.”

The muscles of Henry's jaw flexed as he contained his fluctuating emotions. “Fine.” He huffed, angrily, then winced at the loud sounding of the door bell. “Who could this possibly be!” He barked, looking at Damien.

“I had a bit of a wardrobe made up for her.” Damien replied, finishing Henry's bed. “She only came with what she was wearing, and I'm sure that wouldn't have met your meticulous standards.”

“Spending my money on her, Damien.”

“Would you rather her look a peasant, or be nude?” Damien countered, lifting a brow at Henry.

Henry sighed and rolled his eyes, turning his back on him and staring at the dancing flame of the candle on his table. Damien half smirked at Henry, and left his room, going down the stairs to the third ringing of the door bell, and pulled it open, greeting the visitors. There were two men, holding several boxes, swinging the door open wide, Damien allowed them to enter the castle and showed them up the stairs to your room. You stood as your door opened and Damien entered with the two men, directing them where to put the boxes, then shooed them out.

“Your new clothing.” He grinned at you, pulling open the boxes and removing several articles, laying them out on your bed. “I do hope you like them. I wasn't sure what colors you would like, so I tried to keep them as neutral as possible.” He explained, pulling out more and more things from the boxes.

You stood beside him as he laid them out, surprised by the expensive quality of the fabrics and their current fashion. They were all so beautiful, you had never seen anything like them. Looking them over, you picked out the outfit you wished to wear for the day, and Damien put the rest in the empty walk-in closet. He smiled as he watched you stand in the full length mirror in the corner of the room, looking at yourself from every side and playing with the flow of the fabric of the dress you wore.

“You look beautiful.” He complimented you, standing behind you with a smile.

“Thank you.” You smiled back, your cheeks warm.

Henry groaned, stepping out onto his balcony, needing a breath of fresh air, when he saw a shadow move in the neglected garden below. Frowning, he leaned forward on the oxidized railing of his balcony for a closer look. He saw the shadow again, before you rounded an overgrown hedge, your fingers lightly touching the leaves. He watched you as you explored the ruined garden maze he had played in as a child, with his brothers. Biting his lip, Henry turned and went back into his room, throwing open his bedroom door and storming down the stairs, to the back garden.

“Christ.” You gasped, running straight into Henry, like he was a brick wall. “You nearly scared the life out of me.” You panted.

Henry grabbed you by the shoulders and pulled you away from him. “What are you doing out here?” He demanded, glaring down at you.

“Enjoying some fresh air and sunlight.” You replied, staring up at him, your heart pounding. “Is there an issue with that, like wandering around the house at night?” You asked, lifting a brow at him.

His hands squeezed your arms, before letting go of you as you gasped, realizing he had been hurting you. “No.” He gulped, relaxing. “But, you do need to be careful, if you turn the wrong direction, you'll end up stepping off the cliff.”

“Why would you design a garden to do that?” You asked, frowning up at him.

“It wasn't.” Henry replied, looking over the cracked and overgrown path you stood on. “There was a very bad storm, several years ago, and part of the cliff gave way, taking the back portion of the garden and a gazebo with it.” He explained to you, brushing his wind blown curls out of his face, then turned away from you, disappearing around a corner.

Blinking a couple of times, you followed after him, turning two corners, before you found him again, standing several feet away from the edge. Henry smiled at you over his shoulder, shocking you with the transformation it gave him, both physically and emotionally, he felt less threatening and harsh. You moved to stand next to him, a rush of strong ocean wind blowing against you so much, you felt the, surprisingly, gentle touch of Henry's hand rest on your back, keeping you steady as you both stood there.

“Damien said you've almost finished reading the Great Expectations.” Henry said, after a long pause of silence.

“I have.” You nodded, biting the corner of your lip. “Charles Dickens is one of my favorite authors.” You confessed to him.

“Mine as well.” Henry chuckled, looking down at you. “I've thoroughly enjoyed 'The Old Curiosity Shop'. I've read it numerous times.” He explained to you, looking out over the ocean. “But, it's been some time since I've read anything, but a financial or business report.”

“Why is that?” You asked, glancing up at him, a soft frown on your face.

“Because, life gets in the way.” He replied, his face hardening. “You should go back inside.” He said, moving his hand from the small of your back to your shoulder; turning you away from the cliff. “It's getting much too cold for you out here.”

“And you?” You replied, lifting a brow at him.

“I'll be fine.” Henry answered, in a short tone. “Go.” He barked, pointing back to the house.

Biting your lip, you nodded your head to him and wound your way back through the garden maze, finding your way back through the open veranda doors. You only whiled away most of the morning, before boredom took you, unaccustomed to just sitting around all day. So, you pulled on a coat and went downstairs, you could hear Henry and Damien's voices through the closed study door as you showed yourself out, going back down to the village to check on your father and see if any of the villagers needed you.

“Where have you gone?” Damien asked, appearing in your doorway as you removed your coat and draped it over the back of a chair. “I came to bring you your lunch, and you were gone.”

“I went down to the village.” You replied, turning to him. “To check on my father, and one of the young wives down there was in the middle of giving birth, so I helped her.” You explained to him, unapologetic for leaving the castle without notice, you weren't their prisoner, and refused to be treated as one.

“Mr. Cavill is quite unhappy about it.” Damien replied, pressing his lips together.

“I'm sure, Mr. Cavill can get over it.” You huffed, rolling your eyes at him. “He is a grown man, is he not?”

Damien narrowed his eyes at you and took a deep breath. “Well, be it as it may. If you're to leave the castle, please inform me, or I'm bound to worry you've fallen off a cliff or something.”

“I will.” You told him, your voice tight. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“That's a question I should be asking you.” He countered, a soft smirk tugging on his lip.

“No, I don't need anything from you, Damien.” You sighed, you really just wanted to soak in a hot tub of water, your back aching from bending over as you helped birth the young woman's babe into the world.

“There's nothing you can do for me, either.” He replied, nodding his head. “Yet.” He added, softly, turning and showing himself out of your room.

Sighing and rubbing at your face, you turned towards the bathroom door, stripping off your clothing as you went. You melted into the hot water, up to your neck, eyes falling shut as it slowly eased away your aches and pains, taking your worries and stress away with it.

“If I were to be stuck here for the rest of my life, the only thing I would get used to, is this glorious hot water.” You mumbled yourself, drifting off.

You were awoken in the middle of the night, shaken by your shoulders and the frantic calling of your name. You batted your hands at the ones holding and shaking you, whimpering as you were drawn out from your peaceful slumber.

“What?” You rasped, in a sleepy voice. “What!” You barked, jerking up in bed. “Damien, what in the world! You're acting as if the house is on fire.” You sighed, brushing your hair out of your face.

“It's not, is it?” You added, face snapping to your open bedroom door.

“No, no! The house is intact.” He assured you, no less frantic and antsy.

“Then, what is the rush?”

“It's Henry, he's terribly unwell, and you are a healer, are you not?” He asked in a jumble of words.

“I am.” You nodded, frowning and throwing back your blankets. “What is wrong with him?” You asked, getting out of bed and taking your robe as Damien held it out to you.

“I'm unsure, I went to check on him in his study, he always works very late.” He explained, leading the way down the hall. “He was quite pale, and I'm sure he's thrown up in the bin.”

Your frown deepened with every description Damien gave you of Henry's ailment, your brain shuffling through dozens of different possible illnesses based on them. When you and Damien finally reached the ground floor study Henry spent a great deal of his time in, you found him lying on the sofa, an arm slung over his pale and sweaty face. You knelt down on the rug beside him on the sofa, gently resting your hand on his elbow.

“Henry.” You whispered softly.

“What do you want?” Henry growled, but it sounded more like a pained whimper.

“I've asked her to look you over, Sir.” Damien replied, hovering from the other side of the couch, his face creased with concern and worry. “She's a healer down in the village.” He explained, chewing on his lip.

Henry huffed, but didn't remove his arm. You frowned up at Damien, then stood, going around the couch to whisper in his ear.

“Give me a moment with him.” You said and tilted your head towards the door.

Damien looked between Henry on the couch and the study door, but nodded his head and went out, quietly closing the door behind him. Rounding the couch again, you took up the fire poker and pushed the burning logs apart until they were nothing but glowing embers, then brought the burning candlestick on Henry's desk over to the small end table at Henry's feet on the couch, plunging the study into near darkness.

“You can take your arm away from your face now, Henry.” You whispered softly, kneeling back down beside him. “The light shouldn't bother your eyes so much.” You told him, tilting your head at him, having an idea of what was bothering him.

Henry slowly removed his arm from over his face, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the low light. His handsome face was quite pale, his eyes were red and damp, his curls plastered to his sweaty forehead. He carefully turned his head towards you, narrowing his eyes at you.

“How long have you had migraines?” You asked him, lifting a brow at him.

“Since I suffered that illness.” He replied, gulping thickly. “They're crippling.”

“I can see that.” You replied, glancing over at the waste bin by his desk, where he'd thrown up. “Come on.” You sighed, standing up. “Let's get you off to bed. You need to rest.”

“I have work to do.” Henry protested, slowly sitting up.

“It can wait, Mr. Cavill.” You sighed, shaking your head at him. “If you don't rest, you'll end up throwing up more, and probably passing out. Neither is good for your business or your health.” You protested, planting your hands on your hips.

“So, up you go.”

Henry looked up at you, narrowing his eyes at you. Both of you stood there for a long moment, staring each other down, before Henry growled and stood up. Smirking, you moved around the couch, taking up the candlestick and opened his study door. You and Henry went up the stairs to his room, you paused, resting your free hand on his thick arm as he swayed outside his door for a moment. Henry squeezed his throbbing eyes shut, reaching out blindly to open his door.

You set the candlestick aside and guided him to bed, pulling back the blankets and made him sit down, before he fell. Frowning at him, then sighing, you bent down and pulled off his slippers, setting them aside. Henry watched you through half-lidded eyes as you fussed over him, helping him remove his shirt, then piled up his pillows, so he could rest back on them, and covered him with his blankets. Moving away from him, you went into his bathroom, soaking a washcloth in cold water and brought it back to him.

“Put this over your eyes, it'll help some of the discomfort.” You told him, holding the washcloth out to him.

“As you wish.” He smirked, his tone teasing as he pushed his head back and draped the cloth over his eyes with a moan.

“How is your stomach?” You asked him, watching him gulp thickly.

“Like a raging ocean.” He replied, licking his lips and fisting his blankets, then sat up suddenly, his face going pale as a ghost.

You reacted quickly, picking up the bin by his table and thrust it out to him, just in time for him to throw up, wrenching hard. Henry whimpered as the wrenching agitated his throbbing and pulsing skull. He looked so weak and harmless, like a small boy trapped in the body of a man. Sitting on the edge of his bed, you used the damp cloth to wipe at his sweaty face, the scent of vomit was something you had grown used to as a healer. Sighing, you set the now warm cloth on his nightstand, chewing on your bottom lip as you regarded him and thought about something that could relieve the pain of his migraine and the discomfort of his stomach.

“Do you have any willow trees nearby?” You asked, frowning at him, as a solution brewed in your mind.

“Of course, what kind of question is that?” Henry huffed, shaking his head at you, then instantly regretted it. “The whole county is known for them, there's three in the graveyard alone.” He told you, gripping the waste bin, as another wave of nausea hit him.

“Good.” You nodded, getting up. “I'll be back.”

“Where are you going?” Henry demanded, as you rushed out of his room.

“Is Henry all right?” Damien asked, he had been lingering in the hall.

“He's got an acute migraine.” You told him, rushing up to your room to pull on a shawl. “I need to retrieve some things to help lessen his pain and the discomfort of his stomach. But, I'll also need hot water and a tea set.” You told him, pulling on your shawl and grabbed the sharp letter opener on top of your dresser, before running downstairs and out the front door, into the darkness.

You knew where the Bane's family graveyard was, you had to pass the narrow path that led to it on your way up the castle. The air was bitterly cold and windy, pushing off the ocean and mixing with the late autumn night. The spooky shadows of the trees that lined the path to the graveyard were frightening, but you were far too focused to allow yourself to become scared and paranoid about them. It took some doing, in the dark of the quarter moon, but you found one of the willow trees, near an overgrown, dark stone mausoleum, the names of Marianne and Colin Cavill carved on the sealed doors. You removed the sharp letter opener from the inside pocket of your robe and started cutting into the bark of the willow tree, collecting enough to fill one of your robe pockets, then started searching around it roots, running your fingers through the leafy tops of small plants, until you found the second thing you were looking for, mint. You knew you could find it here, it was how the village of Mintwillow had gotten its name, after all.

Pockets full with what you needed, you raced back up to the castle and into Henry's room. Damien had gotten everything you asked for together. You dumped your pockets out on the table beside them and started breaking up the bark into smaller bits with the mint and dumped them into the boiling water of the teapot.

“What is all of that?” Damien asked, looking over your shoulder.

“Willow's bark and mint.” You replied, stirring the concoction. “Do you have any honey?” You asked, looking over your shoulder at him. “Willow's bark can be rather bitter, so the sweetness of the honey will help with that, as well as coat his throat, after all the throwing up.”

“Certainly.” He nodded, rushing back down to the kitchen for the honey pot.

“Thank you.” You smiled, pouring some of the tea into a cup, then adding a drizzle of honey into it.

“You can go, Damien.” Henry rasped, his voice now sore from throwing up and wrenching. “I'm sure she can care for me now.” He said, his eyes on you.

Damien looked between you both, then nodded his head, excusing himself. Satisfied with his tea, you carefully brought it to him.

“Sip it slowly.” You told him as he raised it to his lips, then chuckled. “It's not meant to taste good, just to help.”

“It better.” He huffed, taking another sip of it. “Or I'm going to be very angry.”

You smiled at him, unphased by his mood swings. “I've given this tea to many people over the years, and it's never failed me.” You assured him. “But, I should let you rest. Sleep is the third best thing for a migraine like this.” You told him, turning away.

Henry's hand shot out, gripping your wrist and stopping you in your tracks. “Stay.” He said softly, his tired and glassy eyes staring holes into you. “Just for a little while.” He whispered, so quietly, you weren't sure he had said anything.

“Perhaps, you could read to me? It helps me sleep.” He added, glancing at a book sitting on his nightstand.

You swallowed slowly, surprised by his request, as the heat of his hand wrapped around your wrist, pushed out the last of the cold that had settled into you, when you were outside. This was a side of him you hadn’t expected, and you weren’t sure how it made you feel; perhaps conflicted from when you experienced his normally callous mood. Licking your lips, you nodded your head at him and Henry felt relieved that you agreed to stay with him, it gave some deep part of him a great amount of comfort, so he slowly let your wrist go. You grabbed a chair from his table and brought it to the side of his bed, picking up his book and saw it was 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'.

Clearing your throat, you flipped the book open to its marker and started reading at the top of the page. Henry relaxed against his pillows, sipping the rest of the tea you had made him, before setting the empty cup aside and closed his eyes, focusing on the soft and easy rhythm of your voice as you read aloud to him.

Henry woke several long hours later, his head still throbbing, but not as badly as it had been for the last few days. He opened his eyes, blinking away the sleep from them, when he noticed you, book open in your lap, and sound asleep. You had also fallen asleep, while reading to him. Henry smirked and got out of bed, carefully setting the book in your lap aside, and gingerly lifted you into his arms, your head lulling gently against his shoulder as he carried you out of his room.

“Good mo-”

“Sshhh.” Henry shushed Damien, angrily, as he appeared on the stairs. “Don't wake her.” He growled, in an almost protective manner, then tenderly shushed you as you whimpered and shifted restlessly in his arms, hugging you closer to his chest.

“My apologies, sir.” Damien replied demurely, moving out of Henry's way and bowing his head, to hide the smirk on his face as Henry went by.

Sighing and rolling his eyes, Henry carried you up to your own room, pushing the door open with his foot and delicately laid you down, your blankets still thrown back from when Damien woke you up to tend to him. He stood above you for a long moment, after covering you up, watching you snuggle and melt into the mattress and pillows, a faint and sweet smile on your lips. But, he quickly turned away as his heart started to pound and his chest hurt, like he'd been punched by a giant.

Leaving you to sleep in your room, Henry returned to his own and felt his head start to throb again.

You woke just before noon and found yourself back in your own bed, figuring Damien had brought you back to bed. Rising and stretching your stiff body from bending over Henry and sitting in a chair all night, you got out of bed and dressed, just as Damien came in, carrying a tray.

“Oh, you're awake!” He grinned, setting the tray on your table, lunch no doubt, since you had slept through breakfast.

“Yes.” You replied, stifling a yawn into your fist as you sat down at the table. “Thank you for bringing me back to my room.” You added, munching on a bit of your food.

“Oh, I didn't.” Damien replied, making your bed. “Henry did.” He explained, seeing your confused expression.

“Henry did?” You replied, slowly setting your teacup down.

“Yes, you fell asleep, while you tended to him and when he woke this morning, he found you sound asleep on a chair.” He explained, fluffing your pillows. “So, he carried you back up here, to bed.” He said it all, like it was the most normal and natural of things.

“Oh.” You gulped, picking your tea back up and taking a large gulp of it. “Is he any better?” You croaked, keeping your eyes on your food.

“He was quite well, until a few hours ago.” Damien frowned, collecting your dirty clothing. “Seems his headache has re-surged.”

“Oh no.” You cooed, frowning over at him, very concerned. “I should check on him at some point today.”

“It could do him some good.” He agreed with you.

After breakfast, you dressed and found Henry hunched over his desk in his study on the ground floor. Even standing out in the hall and peeking through the cracked open study door, you could see the pain Henry was clearly in. He rubbed at his temples at regular intervals as he frowned at the report in his hand, eyes narrowed at the black lettering. Frowning and pressing your lips together, you turned on your heels and went into the kitchen, where Damien had taken the herbs you used the night before to help Henry's migraine.

Finding and filling a kettle, you set it on the stove to boil, preparing the cup of mint and willow's bark, with a drizzle of honey and a splash of milk. Smiling, you set the steaming cup onto a small plate, carefully carrying it down the hall, and into Henry's study.

“What are you doing?” Henry asked, sounding annoyed, as he looked up from the report he had been staring at for nearly an hour.

“Damien said, your migraine returned.” You replied, carefully setting the cup down on a clean corner of his desk. “So, I brewed you another cup to help.” You told him, smiling at him sweetly.

Henry set down his neglected report and stared at the steaming cup of tea, the muscles of his jaw flexing as his mind roiled with a kaleidoscope of thoughts, before huffing and picking his report back up. “You can leave.” He hissed, not looking back at you, with a cold aura rolling off of him.

“Um..” You floundered, then let out a soft sigh and excused yourself from his study.

You made it halfway up the staircase to your room before a wave of tears hit you, no one had been so rude and cold to you as Henry was, and you had encountered some stubborn people in your practice. Taking a moment to get a hold of yourself, you continued upstairs to your room. But, it was an hour or two later that Damien appeared in your doorway with a note in his hand.

“This came from the village for you, Ms.” He said, holding it out to you.

“Thank you.” You replied, taking the note from him and breaking the seal. “Oh no.” You gasped, reading the note.

The note was in your father's own hand, but wrote about one of your patients who suffered from a chronic illness, telling you that he had turned for the worst and you needed to hasten down to the village before it was too late. In a flustered rush, you grabbed your cloak and the bag you kept your herbs in and rushed down to the front door, your heart pounding and mind racing, praying that you made it back to the village in time.

“Where are you going?” Henry's voice boomed, aided by the echo of the vast foyer.

“One of my patients in the village needs me.” You replied, startled and out of breath.

“No.” He snapped, shaking his head, rage burning in his blue eyes. “Absolutely not.”

“What!” You snapped, gobsmacked.

“You heard me.” Henry hissed at you, his body tense. “You aren't to leave this house, unless you have my say.” He told you, crossing his thick arms over his chest. “And you do not. So, go back to your room, this instant.”

You stared at Henry wide eyed, shocked and dumbfounded. How could he refuse to allow you to go down to the village to tend to one of your patients, one so critically ill. Surely, being someone that has lost loved ones to such a crippling illness would understand that need and haste of trying to cure someone with something so life altering. Who did he think he was? Your warden, keeping you in this dark and oppressing castle, cut off from those you loved, with only his hot and cold tempers and Damien the rest of your life.

“No.” You replied, your voice a mixture of stubborn defiance, shock and outlined in fear of what he would do with your disobedience. “He'll die.”

“Then, he can die and you'll have one less obligation.” Henry answered, his voice cold as ice. “Now, do as I told you.”

You gulped, watching him practically grow with his rage and impatience towards you, and your hand still resting on the handle of the front door, gripped it tighter. Henry saw the small action, like a wolf seeing the small twitch of a rabbit's body, readying itself to bolt from the reach of its mighty jaws. You had the door open by the time he took a step towards you and felt the brush of his fingers against the fabric of your cloak as you bolted out the door and into the bright light of the early afternoon sun.

Running several yards, and expecting Henry to catch you at any moment, you realized he wasn't and paused to look back towards the castle. You saw the outline of his tall frame standing just before the threshold of the doorway, unmoving to dash after you and drag you back inside. Henry just stood there, fuming with rage and shaking with something far more complex as he battled to go after you. But, after several long moments, he disappeared, the door slamming shut with an echo.

“Such a strange man.” You panted to yourself, before turning back down the path towards the village, wasting no more time to reach your patient.

“Sir?” Damien frowned, hearing the crash of the front door slamming closed from the other side of the house, and came running to make sure nothing nefarious had occurred.

“Damn that girl!” Henry roared, storming into his study.

“Has something happened to her?” Damien asked, alarmed for your welfare.

“Not yet.” Henry replied, angrily pacing the room. “She's left, after I explicitly told her not too.”

Damien's brow creased for a moment, then it dinged in his mind. “Her note, of course.” He nodded, smiling to himself.

“What note?” Henry growled, stopping his pacing to look at his servant.

“She received a note about twenty minutes ago, from her father.” He explained to his master. “One of her patients suffers from a chronic illness. Her mother cared for him before her death, and she's picked up the patients, in her wake.”

“You read the note?”

“I might have glanced at it.” He replied, smiling softly. “But, the rest of it, she told me herself.” He added, he had grown quite fond of you.

“Why didn't you tell me she received it?” Henry hissed, his lips pressed into an angry line.

“I didn't want to bother you.” Damien gulped, biting the corner of his own lip. “I know you've been very busy lately. Especially after one of the ships go-”

“I want any correspondents she gets, I don't care who they come from!” Henry barked at him. “I'll determine whether or not she'll receive them or not. Do you understand?”

“Of course, sir.” Damien nodded, nervously licking his lips.

“Clear this away.” Henry huffed, waving a hand at the tea cup still on his desk as he sat back down.

“Right away, sir.” He rushed over and picked the empty cup up.

“Close the door.” Henry called as Damien started to leave.

Nodding his head, Damien closed the door behind him and took the cup into the kitchen to be washed. With the door closed, Henry leaned back in his chair and pressed his fingertips to his temples. His migraine had gone away after drinking the last cup of tea you had made him, but now it started to come back, his anger with you disobeying him and leaving the house, and him not going after you, to bring you back.

“Why didn't I bring her back?” He growled at himself, pressing his fingers harder into his temples. “Why couldn't I go after her?” He panted, squeezing his eyes shut against the throbbing pain in his skull.

You sighed as you stepped out of a hut in the village, exhausted from the run to the village and the struggle to help your patient. A warm hand rested on your shoulder and you didn't need to see who it was, before you turned into the warm body it belonged to, enveloped by iron hardened arms that clasped you to an even warmer chest.

“You did your best, little lamb.” Your father's rough voice whispered into your ear, his hot breath warming the cove of your cold nipped ear. “You did your best.”

“Ma would have done better.” You mumbled into his tunic.

He smiled into your hair and brushed it out of your face, before cupping your cheeks in his calloused hands. “Your mother would have done all the same things, little lamb. She taught you well.” He assured you, before gently kissing your forehead. “I should walk back with you, it's getting too dark for you to walk alone.” He said, letting you go.

“I don't want to go back, papa.” You frowned, not willing to let him go. “Please, don't make me go back to him.” You begged, looking up into his eyes. “He's so cold and mean to me.”

“Has he tried to wrong you?” Your father frowned, a flash of anger in his eyes.

“No. Thankfully. But, all I do is sit in my room and read or stare out the window. The only person I have to talk to, other than myself, is his servant, Damien, who is a very sweet and attentive person, it's just..” You paused, your chin dropping to your chest as tears started to overwhelm you.

“It's lonely.” You sniffled.

“I know how you feel, my sweet.” He sighed, huddling you back up into his arms. “It's lonely for me as well. But, things will get better, he'll warm up to you, once you work your sweet charm on him.” He chuckled. “I've seen you melt the icy heart of so many, I doubt Mr. Cavill will be immune to it.”

“I don't know, Papa.” You sighed, fruitlessly dabbing at your tears. “He's not like anyone I have ever met before.”

Your father's roar of laughter echoed in the growing misty darkness. “The man is the richest in the county and among the elitist rich in the country, lamb. He's got airs and graces, self entitlement, ego and everything at his fingertips. He's spent his life with people at his beck and call, doing his bidding and obeying him.” He chuckled. “You've never dealt with a rich person before. But, you'll adapt, you are so much like your mother in that aspect. You are strong, independent, intelligent and like a red hot piece of steel coming out of the forge, capable of shaping and molding yourself to fit into any situation.”

“You just need to show him that.”

“So, you think I should go back to him and his dreary castle?” You frowned up at him, your stomach in knots.

“I do, lamb.” He nodded, but you could see he had knots in his own stomach. “If he ever does anything vile against you or your person, you come home, and he'll feel the strength of my hammer.” He told you, showing where you had inherited your stubbornness.

“All right, Papa.” You sighed, but straightened your stiff back. “I'll go back, for you.”

“Then, let's be off!” He said, taking your bag for you and accompanied you back through the village and up the road leading back to Cavill and his Castle of loneliness. “I'll write to you more regularly.” Your father said, as you both reached the turn on the road leading up to the house. “So, it will seem like I am with you more.” He promised, his voice slightly weak.

“I would love nothing more.” You replied, your own voice weak with tears and emotions, as you reached out and squeezed his hands.

Taking leave of your father, you made the solitary and anxious walk up to the castle, trying not to let the shadows from the trees and sudden animal noises spook you, keeping your eyes forward. Once you reached the front door you thought of knocking or ringing the bell, but knew if you did it would wake Henry and you weren't in the mood and didn't possess the strength for his cold wrath. So, you tried the handle and found it open, which in actuality, didn't surprise you. No one in their right or ill mind would try to rob the Bane, no matter how rich he might be.

You quietly closed the door behind you, before taking off your shoes, not wanting to make the old floorboards creak under their soles. Gingerly tiptoeing by Henry's study door, it was closed, but you weren't willing to risk him being inside and hearing you, before mounting the stairs, pausing with each small noise you or the house made. Only letting out a soft sigh of relief, you weren't aware you were holding, when you reached your floor, no one but you occupied the floor, with the Bane on another floor and Damien sleeping somewhere below stairs no doubt.

But, you lifted a brow at the stream of light coming from under your room door, but brushed it off.

“Maybe Damien made up my fireplace to keep my room warm, while I was away.” You said to yourself, it was something sweet and thoughtful Damien would do. “Has to be, what else would it be?” You sighed at your silly paranoia and went inside.

“So, you came back.”

You yelped, dropping your shoes and bag to the floor with a clatter, pressing your back to the now closed door and your hands to your pounding chest. “What are you doing in here?” You demanded, out of breath from your fright.

“Waiting for you.” Henry replied, leaning forward in the chair by the window, that you usually occupied to read during the days.

“In my room?” You asked, lifting your brows at him and trying to collect yourself, not wanting to give the beast the satisfaction of seeing you off-guard.

“It's only your room, because I allow it to be.”

“How kind of you.” You hissed, finally recovering yourself and relaxed. “I didn't think you were capable of it.”

An oddly sinister smirk tugged up one side of Henry's mouth. “I am capable of a good many things.” He replied, licking his lips and resting his elbows on his knees. “How was your little patient, anyway.” He asked, lifting a brow at you. “Did you cure him with your cute little leaves?”

“Don't mock me!” You snapped, hands tightening into fists.

“I'll take that as a no, then.” He smirked more at you, apparently pleased with himself.

You drew in a shaky breath and let it out, trembling with a built up amount of emotions, before suddenly snapping towards him, in a fit of rage. “You fucking bastard!” You growled, jaw clenched and hands raised.

Henry snapped to his feet, like a flash of lightning, grasping your raised wrists in his hands, instantly restraining you and pushed you up against the wall beside the window he had been sitting next to. “That is fowl language from such a sweet mouth.” He growled, looking into your angry eyes.

“Did your patient break your little heart?” He mocked you, venomously.

He didn't believe for a moment that you had actually gone down to the village for a real patient, that your father had only sent the note as a cryptic message for something entirely different. Like a lover or beloved, trying to plot something to get you away from him.

“What are you talking about!” You yelled, struggling against him, confused and frightened.

“Do you think I'm a fool!?” Henry bellowed back at you, painfully pinning your hands to the wall at either side of your head. “I know that note was a fucking lie! A feign to get away from here, probably to see some peasant lover.”

“What do you care?!” You huffed, even more confused and shocked at him and his outburst. “You'd pawn me off to anything that gave you the chance to do so! You didn't want me here to start with, I know that, the whole village, if not the county, knows that.” You taunted him, hotly.

“Yet, here you are acting like your my scorned lover!”

“Because you are mine.” Henry growled in a low tone. “My possession to do with as I please.”

“Ha!” You laughed in his face. “I am no such thing.” You huffed, shaking your head at him. “I don't belong to you. My only misfortune is being held prisoner here, with a monster as a jailer.”

You yelped as one of Henry's hands gripped your jaw in a vice-like grip, forcing your head back to look up at him. “You belong to me.” He hissed, his face so close to yours now that your noses brushed and his hot breath wafted over your face. “I paid for you. All that money your dear father owes me; for the goods he uses to sustain his profession, for the taxes on the land his forge and house rest on, and so much more.”

“He sold you to me, to have those debts paid for and cleared away.”

The dull nails of his fingers pressed into the smooth skin of your cheeks and you whimpered, pathetically, immobilized by one of his hands pinning your wrists above you, his other hand gripping your head, like a bear trap, and his body caging you in, preventing even the smallest of movements of your body.

Your rage was forgotten in that instance, seeing the true Bane, and fear paralyzed you.

“So, yes.” He grinned at you in a way that made your heart stop. “I am your jailer, and you are my prisoner, and if you ever leave this house again, you will feel my wrath. Do I make myself clear to you?”

“Yes.” You gulped in a breathy whimper, unable to move your head to nod.

“Very good.” Henry replied, tipping his head slightly to the side. “Now, that's settled.” He looked to the clock, then back at you. “It's almost two in the morning.” He moved to stand sideways, but still stood close to you.

“Go to bed.” He ordered you, his tone leaving no room to argue.

Licking your dry lips, you slowly moved away from him, to the edge of your bed and pulled down the blankets, while he approached the door. You gulped, your throat sore from where the heel of his palm had pressed as he held you. “My patient,” You dared to say, as he opened the door. “died.” You informed him, your face hardening against the hurt of losing a patient and the fear that gripped you as Henry turned around.

Henry regarded you with a tired, cold and indifferent face, but his blue eyes gave away to something deeper you couldn't place your finger on. “You no longer have any patients, real or otherwise. So, you should put your mind to other things.” He told you in an emotionless voice, then left.

“Other than you, you mean.” You said to the closed door of your bedroom.

You stood by the side of your bed for a long time, paranoid that Henry was just standing in the hallway listening in on you, which he did for several minutes, before going to his own room, before your turned and went into the bathroom, desperately needing to soak in a hot bath. You needed that delectable heat and steaming water to melt away every ounce of stress, fear and exhaustion that you had coursing through your sore body, and it did just that. You didn't get out of the tub until the water turned as cold as Henry was towards you and it was almost four in the morning. Then, and only then, did you put on a nightie and crawl into bed, using the dying light of the fire in the grate to read your current book and fell asleep as the first rays of sunlight peeked over the horizon and tree tops.

“Good morning, Ms.!” Damien's chipper voice rang out as he entered your room with breakfast.

You groaned and tossed the blankets over your head, you had only gotten four hours of sleep and weren't in the mood for how happy-go-lucky Damien sounded, especially after what had happened with Henry during the night.

“Oh, come on!” He teased you, setting the silver tray of food down on the table. “It is a beautiful day, the sun is shining, the wind is hardly blowing and the birds are singing!” He said, trying to infuse his energetic mood into you, coaxing you up and out of bed, as he threw the curtains open and opened the windows, letting in the fresh sea air.

“Not today, Damien.” You sighed, turning your face into the plush pillow with a groan.

“Didn't sleep so well?” He asked, tilting his head at you, as he stood at the foot of your bed.

“You can say that.” Your mumbled reply answered, staring at the thin seam of light at the edge of your blanket.

“All right, then why don't you stay in bed, until you feel ready to get up and meet the day.” He suggested to you, though the concern was evident in his voice.

“Thank you, Damien.” You replied, closing out that thin line of light, plunging yourself in the darkness you felt yourself being swallowed into.

Lingering for a moment longer, Damien quietly showed himself out of your room, silently closing your door after him. You laid in bed for a long time after he left, not moving and barely moving, before letting out a deep sigh and tossed the blankets off of your body with a huff.

“Damn that man.” You growled, staring up at the canopy of your bed. “Damn him to hell!” You shouted, your anger and despair culminating inside of you.

You didn't care if he could hear you, let him hear you and rot for it. You had done him no wrong, you had done nothing to him, other than the misfortune of your father giving you to him to pay a lifelong debt, before you were even born and your father owed his father, before his death.

“Why couldn't all of you died in this miserable house, that's never been a home.” You growled, beating your fists against the feather mattress. “Do this already dismal world a spot brighter for the rest of us.” You raged, jerking your body to sit up and threw your pillow against the door.

You sighed and rubbed at your face, trying to calm yourself, not wanting the Bane to reduce you to this mood and attitude, it was one thing for him to act like it and another for you to do it. Your parents raised you better and would be disappointed in your tantrum. Straightening your back and taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out, you got out of bed, pulling on your robe and tied it around your waist, before moving over the breakfast Damien had made for you, it was almost cold now, but you didn't mind; your stomach was rumbling like an angry tiger.

Finishing your breakfast, you glanced around your room and sighed, there was nothing to do. But, read, that was.

Getting up, you went into the attached library, since you had finished your last book, The Iliad by Homer. You froze half way into the room, there was a package sitting on the table that hadn't been there the day before. You glanced at the door that led out of the library and into the hallway, it was closed, but the cobwebs that usually covered it, were broken and disturbed.

“Damien.” You sighed, shaking your head, figuring the man was just trying to cheer you up.

Picking the wrapped package up, you touched the delicate, fancy, black and gold wrapping paper, feeling the heft of what was inside and wondered what in the world he had gotten you. It felt like a book, from what you could feel through the paper, and you didn't want to ruin such nice, and clearly expensive, paper. So, you carefully unwrapped it and setting the paper down on the table, it was indeed a book, a hardcover of deep brown leather and gold stamping decoration on both covers and the spine.

Turning it over, you blinked at the cover.

“The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas.” You read off the front cover, before opening it, a folded piece of paper with your name scrawled on it slipped out and fell to the floor, making you bend down to pick it up.

Setting the book down, you unfolded the note, then frowned and shook your head at it, it was written on Cavill Industries stationary. But, the words surprised and shocked you even more.

My actions last night were unspeakable, I do not wish to keep you a prisoner in a place that has become my own penitentiary, nor make you feel fear, while you stay within these walls.

I have my reasons, that are not your fault and beyond your understanding. Take my apology with this gift, I have read it myself, and would love to know what you think of it.

Perhaps over dinner, one night.

If you would be so nicely inclined to have it, with me. - Henry

Your mouth was agape by the time you finished reading his note, having to read it twice over to ensure you weren't misreading it. You were so taken aback and dumbstruck by it, how could this be the same man that had pinned you, bodily, to a wall the night before, telling you of the wrath you would endure if you considered leaving the castle without his permission.

Was it some sick and amusing joke of his?

Was he trying to lull you into some sort of false confidence?

Was he trying to brainwash you into falling into being his good little pet?

Or was Henry being genuine and trying to make amends for his inexcusable and ungentlemanly behavior towards you?

It was all too confusing and made your head throb.

So, you set the note down on the table and picked up the book, rubbing your palm over the orate cover, before moving over to the window seat, settling on its plush cushion, the filtered gray light coming from the cloudy sky came through the windowpane, illuminated the pages just enough for you to read by, and you quickly got lost in the world that inked its pages.

[mirrerover]

Big Plans

“You know shit’s never gonna fucking change, right?” Jason makes to grab for his Zippo. Remembering Dick will happily remove his nuts from his waxed sack for even contemplating smoking inside Dick’s apartment, he stops. His fingers twitch with irritation, nothing like a little nicotine deprivation to start the day. “Gotham’s a gothic nightmare where corruption runs thicker than blood and Blüdhaven’s worse, somehow. Like looking in a funhouse mirror. Uglier. More warped.”

“I really do enjoy our little morning pep talks,” Dick replies, closing the last two buttons on his dress shirt before tucking the fabric into the waistline of his pants. In general, Jason would say he prefers the Kevlar-enhanced, ass-hugging suit Dick prowls the night in—but there’s something to be said for a crisp, white button-down with the sleeves rolled up, forearm veins on display. He doesn’t know how the Blüdhaven criminals are faring but, personally, he wouldn’t mind letting Detective Richard Grayson slap some cuffs on him. Let Dick work him over hard in a surveilled box until Jason cracks, raw and bloody under the harsh fluorescent lights. 

“These fucking places,” Jason grumbles, tired and cranky from watching Dick getting ready to leave, all that warm, gold skin about to slip right out the door. “It’s not something anyone can fix. Nothing short of dropping a bomb on the damn place and razing it to the ground.” 

Dick sighs, running a hand through his hair. It’s getting longer, strands brushing the bone of his jaw. He’s no stranger to this; Jason and the trash he talks. Words pouring out of him sharp as knives, the blades full of blood. Just endlessly spewing shit.

“No point to it all, huh?” Dick leans a hip against the dresser, arms folded, eyebrow raised. There’s an ease to him that’s inherent; the way he owns his body, his space, every room he’s in. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re trying to lure me back to bed.”

 Jason thinks it over. Admits, “not originally,” and lets his legs fall apart slowly. Nude body lounging against cheap, synthetic pillows, he’s got Dick’s low-rent sheets strategically draped across his crotch, all tasteful and shit. Just like the Renaissance paintings cluttering the hallways of the Wayne Manor. None of the shameless, naked peacocking Dick gets up to after sex. No, Jason’s classy. Artful. The signature Jason Todd brand. “But are you feelin’ down to fuck?” he asks. 

Dick throws his head back and laughs. Really fucking laughs. Eyes scrunched up and shoulders shaking, all charisma and beauty and warmth. Laughing like that, it’s suddenly easy to see how a group of metahumans chose Dick as their leader despite his lack of superpowers or how the Blüdhaven Police Corps would accept him as their own despite him being the ward of Gotham’s favourite billionaire asshole. There’s something about Dick like there’s something about Bruce. Something captivating and inescapable that would make you launch a thousand ships for them. Burn down entire worlds for them. Jason’s not sure Dick’s aware of that. And in a way, Jason thinks he understands the Joker better than Bruce ever could. 

Dick’s laughter fades too slowly, and Jason would be annoyed but there’s a tightness to Dick’s pants that wasn’t there two minutes ago, and Dick’s always laughing. Joyful and happy. Like those are easy feelings to conjure and easy feelings to have. As if getting out of bed isn’t like crawling out of a dark pit every morning and as if life isn't like taking a suckerpunch to the gut, over and over.

“Wish I could,” Dicks says, and Jason swears he sounds like he means it. “But I got big plans today. Gotta save a city.”

“‘Save a city.’ Jesus Christ. More like go get shanked in the gut.”

Dick shrugs and slips on a watch. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

The other bats all have their day jobs. The Police Detective, the Socialite, the rising Tech Wunderkind, and Jason’s personal favourite: the Student. Jason derives no small amount of pleasure from knowing that Bruce and the Demon Spawn get to suffer through the worst of it. Like an ill-fitted suit, Jason hopes it pulls and itches every time they’ve got to slip their disguises on. It shows how removed they are from the rot and the grit and the filth of what is Gotham. The gore at the core of it all. 

That’s where Jason lives, at its epicentre. 

He’d fallen into it naturally, being a crime lord. It had been a logical first step when he’d come home, head full of green fumes and rage. He’s proud to say, he puts the organized in organized crime. Outshines even the worst of them in calculated vicious violence. The crime part of the job, Jason can admit he’s gotten more discerning about. There’s no peddling drugs to kids or bleeding junkies dry, no people traded like cattle, and he doesn’t like selling guns to the lowlifes clogging Gotham’s streets. So, he’s become a parasite instead. Infiltrates a crime organisation and eats it from the inside out till it finally collapses. Scraps the dead beast for parts and money.

It’s not something Jason talks about with this version of Dick. His shady deals, his underground moonlighting. Never with a cop like the one making his way to the bed right now, uniform tight over thick thighs and a sway in his hips that’s nothing less than sexual warfare. 

“Try smoking in my bed again, Todd,” Dick warns, looming over him. He stops whatever threat he was going to utter, disrupted by Jason grousing at him to fucking let that go already. Perfectly pleasant, Dick does exactly that. Just stares at Jason with a face far too naked and utterly too fond. Something’s creeping under Jason’s skin at the sight of it—an itch he doesn’t know how to scratch, unable to decide whether he wants to kiss the prick or break his perfect face instead.

A little lower, there’s a bruise peeking out of Dick’s collar that looks like a handprint. Jason had put that there last night. Violently. Not even the fun kind of violent but the messy kind. The kind where something hunts Jason through nightmares and his body acts before his sleeping brain has had the chance to catch up—that kind of violence. Maybe a better person would wallow in the guilt and remove themselves from the situation. Not Dick and Jason. They just get better at hiding the batarangs and guns. The 200 pounds of well-trained muscle and murderous reflexes are a little harder to counteract but Dick’s no babe in the woods. Besides, Jason’s not exactly the first lethal bitch between Dick’s bedsheets.

Dick smiles. A teasing thing full of soft edges. “Mornings are hard. Aren’t they, Sugarplum?”

“Fuck you to hell.” Jason groans with feeling, hating the hard lumps of Dick’s mattress when he sinks back into them. “Just get lost already, Birdbrain. There’s no fucking point to you with your clothes on.”

“Nice to know I’m not completely useless.”

Jason wants to fight that far too favourable self-assessment. Would fight it, were he not half a pack of Lucky Strikes and three cups of coffee short of mustering the energy. Which is also the only reason he’s letting Dick press an off-centre kiss to his forehead. A shitty place for a shitty kiss from a shitty person, if you ask Jason. Very much Dick Grayson’s style.

“Try and behave, Little Wing.” Dick’s already moving away from the bed and shrugging on a jacket. “I really like this place. Got three South facing windows and none of the neighbours run a meth lab.”

“Prime Blüdhaven real estate,” Jason mutters darkly.

“Glad we’re on the same page.” Dick takes one last look at himself at the mirror, shoots Jason a tacky wink because his existence is a curse, and promises under his breath something that sounds suspiciously like I’ll be back or I’ll miss you. Another twenty seconds later and Jason hears the front door lock click back into place.

His day is wide open now. 

There are things to do but there are always things to do. At any time, Jason’s got about forty things in various stages of motion. Always working on something. Someone. Bigger games than the one he’s running on Dick right now, lighting one up in his bed.

Blowing smoke up into the air, Jason decides that today he’s going to crack the safe Dick keeps behind the panel in his closet. Perfectly harmless, really. Just him fishing through some of Dick’s case files—maybe even solving a few, if he’s feeling charitable. And for tonight, there’s that Malaysian place three blocks over that does a better Rendang than anything he’s found in Gotham. Dick never shuts up about it. Like he’s never going to shut up about the cigarette smell seeping into the wallpaper.

Jason smirks. Solid options. He still has last night’s terrors painted on the back of his eyelids and the feeling of Dick’s neck under his hand but they’re slowly fading. And Dick’s got him covered, said he’d take care of the big plans, so Jason doesn’t have to. And next time, when Jason’s Dick and Dick’s Jason, he’ll have Dick covered too. Jason will tackle the big plans while Dick raids Jason’s fridge and leaves wet towels all over his apartment. Jason knows it’ll happen. It has happened. Just not today.

Maybe tomorrow.

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

@wethatake thanks for being the beta and basically a co-writer. You suck but I love you. <3 Here’s to hoping that your sad little sack of a co-worker doesn’t kill you. XD

[wellesleyunderground]

Interview with Stephanie Waslohn '08 on Pandemic Sewing and Fat Liberation

Stephanie Waslohn is a professional archivist and amateur everything else. She lives in her hometown in Northern California with her small dog familiar.

Shelly Anand, WU Founder: The last two years have been trying to say the least. Overall, how has the pandemic gone for you?

Stephanie Waslohn: I've been both really lucky and fairly lonely. I felt so lost in space living alone and suddenly working from home in the early pandemic that I decided to think about my isolation like an astronaut focused on my mission. That mission has changed over the last two years, but the metaphor has let me redefine what's necessary for my survival.

Shelly: One of the highlights of the pandemic for me has been watching your garment sewing journey on Instagram (IG handle @lemonseltzer). What made you start (or re-start) garment sewing?

Stephanie: Honestly? Panic. I'd like to say it was sustainability, or out of pure desire for the kind of clothes I couldn't buy as a fat person, but the truth is I planned my first sewing capsule during wildfires in my hometown-- one tab open on a fire map, the others sewing patterns and fabric stores. I was taught to sew as a kid; I had my mom's old machine and my rusty skills in a vast ocean of time and uncertainty. My personal motto is "do what you can and let go of the rest." Planning sewing projects was something I could do at that moment. I will say I wouldn't have latched onto it without the work of Muna and Broad, an indie sewing pattern company who specialize in plus sizes. Knowing that they designed for larger bodies meant I could mentally skip the fear of needing to adjust a pattern drastically.

Shelly: You also talk about how painstaking the process can be, how you have learned so many new methods of sewing, and how it has been a lesson in patience. What are some key takeaways?

Stephanie: Cribbing from Octavia Butler: happiness is steady progress towards a worthy goal. Sewing is a physical manifestation of that personal truth for me. (Hobbies, dude, they rock.)

Also! Social media is whatever, but finding a community of fat makers and designers through it has been rewarding. My greatest inspiration is other fat people living their sartorial truth. I teach myself skills piecemeal project by project, but the thoughtful work of being part of a community based in mutual inspiration is what keeps me coming back.

Shelly: I absolutely love how you are expressing self love and body positivity through bespoke clothing. How has this process been for you with respect to loving yourself and loving your body?

Stephanie: Body acceptance is both at the center of this work, and an after-thought. From a pragmatic point of view, the size range is the first thing I check when I look at a sewing pattern. Loving my body won't magically extend a limited size range to fit my hips. By the same token, loving myself won't teach me how to adjust a pattern for my body, but it sure as shit makes doing it a lot easier in application.

The revolutionary part for me is the freedom of aesthetic self-expression-- for most of my life my main criteria for clothing was "does it fit?" rather than "do i like it?" A (literal) bind made all the more fun house mirror-esque by the plus size industry that historically offers a pretty warped version of what fat consumers want. It's really rewarding to define for myself the intersection of comfort and self-expression with less external pressure, while knowing I'm partially opting out of yet another system built on the exploitation of women’s labor.

Shelly: How does it feel having been made to measure clothing in a world that doesn’t cater to fat bodies.

Stephanie: Shitty. Even in sewing, the big four pattern companies have atrocious sizing, and many indie pattern companies choose to only offer a limited size range. I have the personal rule not to buy a pattern (or a garment) where I wear the largest size.

But clothing is the tip of the iceberg in a world that rejects fat bodies-- anti-fatness creates systemic barriers to health care at the most life threatening, limiting travel, where we can eat in restaurants and what personal services we can receive, who will hire us/how much we're paid, access to hobbies that require specialized gear, all the way down to mundane risk like the weight limit of my household step stool. There is no sphere of my life untouched by my body type. And I say this as a privileged fat person-- I'm a white, cis, and often perceived as "not that fat.” (As an aside, that's like... a quote from my Wellesley undergrad. After standing up against a fatphobic statement about another student, I was informed I was the appropriate, proportional kind of fat like I should be flattered. The 2000's were wild, man.)

Shelly: You actually helped me review and edit the manuscript of my upcoming picture book I Love My Body Because, co-authored by Nomi Ellenson (sister of my W bestie Hannah Ellenson '08), a picture book I hope will teach kids about body positivity, body acceptance, that someone being fat isn’t bad or negative, that its beautiful, that all bodies are good and capable of so many things. What are your thoughts on the body positivity movement? On the movement to fight fatphobia? How far are we from where we need to be?

Stephanie: The body positivity movement at its core, and its best, is based on the work of fat liberationists. The deeply personal internal shifts of meeting our bodies where they are can be both personally rewarding and serve as a gateway to building a more equitable future.

The way I see it, I'm fat like my eyes are brown. They are both two equal truths about my body. If eye color was as likely to determine the quality of my medical care as my body size, that's how far we are from where we need to be. Not to say that my little brother didn't tease me that my "brown eyes look like poo" but it's a funny reminder of the scales of impact. I love the idea that your book is for the next generation of kids finding more body equity and self acceptance.

Shelly: Which pieces have been your favorite so far?

Stephanie: I really love my Cobden Chore coat. It's a perfect California three season coat, and was my first top stitching. A professional sewist asked me the same question recently and I pointed to the coat I'd worn in, only to see her politely laugh and announce that she loved that I left in my jacked up top stitching. I'm an imperfect maker and loving it anyway is like blowing a kiss to a perfectionist past me stalled by disliking being bad at a new skill long enough to get good.

Sometimes the materials guide me to the final garment-- for example this gorgeous Japanese import linen was planned for another garment. Now it's a beautiful yet comfortable dress that feels like I'm wearing a piece of art.

Shelly: You’ve taken on other interesting projects that you’ve shared with your followers on instagram including your renovating an RV. WHAT WAS THAT LIKE?

Stephanie: My pandemic freak out! I went full snail self-protection. I could unpack why I made the choice, but the main gist is it allowed me to feel in control in a world and a time when that is rare. I’m deeply privileged that my brother lets me park it on his rural acreage in our hometown, the same place I was watching so closely on the map and where his home was saved from the fires. It’s at the top of a hill with some privacy and outdoor space that offers the scenic background to my sewing photography. Minus cursing the heavens when I bonk my head on a low bedroom beam, the trade of living small’s physical restrictions is worth the freedom of outdoor space and knowing I can weather whatever comes. I don't talk about personal finance much as part of my social media presence, but the tiny living does help my craft budget.

Shelly: You have also had some interesting encounters with deer over the pandemic. Care to share?

Stephanie: I'm a very niche disney princess! The combination of a high deer population, California drought, and my rural cottage core raised bed garden fantasies mean we're good judies. A pair of fawns started hanging around the property sleeping under a trailer after their mother was hit by a car. Besides my resident deer, there's a herd of wild turkeys, hares, quails, and so many types of birds. I even walked upon a coyote stalking prey once!

Shelly: For our readers who have dreams of taking on projects, re-visiting skills or learning new ones, any advice?

Stephanie: Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. Seriously.

[readerbookclub]

Before introducing our newest book list, I want to say sorry about this month. It’s been underwhelming to say the least. So far this year was very chaotic (packing up to move countries, having the plane tickets cancelled, and getting into Oxford?!). Between everything that happened, I neglected this club. But I’m very excited and well-prepared for next month, so it won’t happen again at least in the foreseeable future. We also have several enthusiastic new members who’ve messaged me, so hopefully our discussion will be even more lively this time!

Now back to our newest book list. Not to brag, but I think this is the best one yet. Time Warp is a collection of books that bend and play with time. It’s such an interesting topic that includes books from many different genres. Several of your recommendations also fit in perfectly. So let’s jump right in!

Typically stories play out over the span of weeks, months, or even years. But what if a writer were to shrink that timeline? Not to days or hours, but the mere seconds it takes to ride an elevator? Well, that’s what Jason Reynolds did in our first book, a story that lasts for a single elevator ride:

Long Way Down, Jason Reynolds:

A cannon. A strap. A piece. A biscuit. A burner. A heater. A chopper. A gat. A hammer A tool for RULE Or, you can call it a gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he? As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually USED his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator? Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES. And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if WILL gets off that elevator.

***

Our next book warps time in a slightly different way. What if every time you woke up, you found yourself in the same day (a sort-of Groundhog Day situation)? But unlike Groundhog Day, you wake up in different bodies. This thrilling book was suggested to me by one of you, and I absolutely loved the premise:

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton:

Aiden Bishop knows the rules. Evelyn Hardcastle will die every day until he can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest at Blackheath Manor. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others. With a locked room mystery that Agatha Christie would envy, Stuart Turton unfurls a breakneck novel of intrigue and suspense. For fans of Claire North, and Kate Atkinson, The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a breathlessly addictive mystery that follows one man's race against time to find a killer, with an astonishing time-turning twist that means nothing and no one are quite what they seem.

***

Now we move on to an exciting genre: time travel! This next book was recommended to me by @earphonesandquills​​ and I just had to put it on the list. A sci-fi love story between two people on opposite sides of a war:

This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone:

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future. Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There's still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.

***

Typically, the protagonists of time-travel books are very intelligent people. But what would happen if someone wasn’t so competent? What if they fucked it up? That’s exactly what the protagonist in our next book does. Coming from a perfect reality, he messes up and finds himself in a horrifying dystopia (aka our world):

All Our Wrong Todays, Elan Mastai:

You know the future that people in the 1950s imagined we'd have? Well, it happened. In Tom Barren's 2016, humanity thrives in a techno-utopian paradise of flying cars, moving sidewalks, and moon bases, where avocados never go bad and punk rock never existed . . . because it wasn't necessary. Except Tom just can't seem to find his place in this dazzling, idealistic world, and that's before his life gets turned upside down. Utterly blindsided by an accident of fate, Tom makes a rash decision that drastically changes not only his own life but the very fabric of the universe itself. In a time-travel mishap, Tom finds himself stranded in our 2016, what we think of as the real world. For Tom, our normal reality seems like a dystopian wasteland. But when he discovers wonderfully unexpected versions of his family, his career, and—maybe, just maybe—his soul mate, Tom has a decision to make. Does he fix the flow of history, bringing his utopian universe back into existence, or does he try to forge a new life in our messy, unpredictable reality? Tom’s search for the answer takes him across countries, continents, and timelines in a quest to figure out, finally, who he really is and what his future—our future—is supposed to be.

***

Our final book is something I never knew I needed until I found it. I have spent way too much time day dreaming about a scenario where I find myself in the distant past. I imagine myself telling people about electricity and planes and modern medicine. But if they asked me to actually make something, I wouldn’t be able to. And that bothers me. This book is the solution. It’s a non-fiction guide on what to do if you were to find yourself in such a scenario (as unlikely as it may seem):

How to Invent Everything: A Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler, by Ryan North:

What would you do if a time machine hurled you thousands of years into the past. . . and then broke? How would you survive? Could you improve on humanity's original timeline? And how hard would it be to domesticate a giant wombat? With this book as your guide, you'll survive--and thrive--in any period in Earth's history. Bestselling author and time-travel enthusiast Ryan North shows you how to invent all the modern conveniences we take for granted--from first principles. This illustrated manual contains all the science, engineering, art, philosophy, facts, and figures required for even the most clueless time traveler to build a civilization from the ground up. Deeply researched, irreverent, and significantly more fun than being eaten by a saber-toothed tiger, How to Invent Everything will make you smarter, more competent, and completely prepared to become the most important and influential person ever.

***

That’s it for this month’s list. Hope you like these books as much as I do! As always, please vote here.

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[startrekships]

In Star Trek: Voyager's second season, senior illustrator Rick Sternbach was given the chance to revisit the design of the Starfleet shuttle and create a sleek new version for Captain Janeway's ship. Toward the end of Star Trek: Voyager's second season, the producers sent the art department a memo asking them to design a "cool and sleek shuttle." A new shuttle had been on their wish list for some time, but until now there hadn't been a compelling reason to build one. But the next episode in production, 'Threshold,' justified the expense. The story dealt with a specially modified shuttlecraft that could achieve warp 10, something the traditional shuttle just didn't seem capable of. Voyager's resident illustrator Rick Sternbach remembers that he was particularly pleased by the project. "New hardware was always welcome at my desk, so I began working up preliminary hull shapes while Richard James and the set designers, particularly John Chichester, developed the interior. I got the ball rolling on a few interior sketches, showing the producers early on how the cockpit might accommodate two seats, two seats plus a folding jumpseat, or four seats. We knew that 'cool and sleek' was going to mean long, low, and streamlined, but we also had to insure that our actors could stand up inside, so the minimum ceiling height was kept at almost six feet. If we were required to make the speedboat as sleek as, say, a Lotus or Ferrari automobile, they'd have to crouch inelegantly to enter their seats." Remarkably, the new shuttle, which the art department dubbed the 'speedboat,' was the first major redesign the shuttles had undergone since the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. As Sternbach explains, until now the previous 'new shuttles' had been modifications of the same basic ship. "When we began Voyager we had the TNG shuttle, which was given an improved cabin, and even one modification to the exterior, though that was seen only in a miniature for one or two episodes. True to the Star Trek phrase 'like nothing we've seen before,' the speedboat was custom build inside and out. With the exception of the sports car seats, the set construction was new. It followed Starfleet design, of course, in that it had the familiar light-up consoles and paint scheme, brushed aluminum accents, and so forth." Although the speedboat was a major leap forward, Sternbach was careful to make sure that the exterior was clearly related to these earlier shuttles. "The exterior was developed in just a few days, given the form-and-function rules established for the boxy Type-6 and the shuttlepod, with new curves added from Voyager itself. The simple, undetailed hull shape is the easy part; you take a hexagonal cross-section and pull the surface lines more or less to a point in the front and a slightly blunter shape in the back where the door goes. Hull curves could still be pushed and pulled to make the shuttle reconizably new and satisfy the 'cool' requirement. The 'recipe' then says to add pylons and nacelles and sprinkle generously with the usual details. There aren't too many reason to vary that Starfleet recipe within a particular story time period, unless a directive comes down from the producers to evolve the technology ahead or add an alien flavor, as we have with Borg bits in places like astrometrics and the Delta Flyer. Like other shuttles, speedboat had RCS thrusters, a shield grid, phasers, nav deflector, and engine access hatches. "The aft entry door differed a bit from the Type-6 shuttle door in that it split across the center, with one half lifting up and the bottom dropping down to form a ramp. At one time we considered a flexible rollup piece for the upper half, but a solid panel was easier to fabricate and move by hydraulics. We didn't need to build to build the outer surfaces except in CGI, and when we did need to show in live shooting that the speedboat was in the shuttlebay, all we had to do was place the correct style wall outside the door opening." Sternbach's approach to the design was accepted at once, and the shape went through very few changes before the model was built. Bunt, in order to complete the shuttle, his exterior design had to be integrated with the interior Richard James and John Chichester were designing. Fortunately, Sternbach says, their design didn't have any serious implications for the shape or size of the ship. "Unlike the Delta Flyer, whose exterior had to be enlarged to fit its growing interior, the speedboat remained at a manageable 28 feet, give or take a few inches. The overall shape was lower and narrower than the Type-6, but the length was similar." However, his design did evolve subtly to match the complete interior. "The first sketches of the exterior hull were obviously produced before the set designers finalized the window and door shapes. I had sketched in 'placeholder' versions of the windows, which were close proportionally and in the right locations; those were changed to the final versions during the blueprint stage. I also mirrored one of Chichester's ceiling curves on the top of the speedboat to become the dorsal sensor array, so that was a nice of serendipity. We gave the shuttle all of its basic interior parts; the seats, consoles, aft 'cargo hold,' windows, and lighting units. Aside from the DS9 Runabout, we've almost never seen actual transporter hardware in a small craft. We've assumed that the transport emitters were buried in the structure somewhere. The only little bottleneck was a few days' delay on deciding how the aft entry hatch would operate, which impinged slightly on the exterior shape. Every step of the way, Tony Meininger's Brazil Fabrication model shop was kept in the loop with sketches, color samples, and construction drawings." As Sternbach points out, the speedboat shuttle marked the end of an era for Star Trek, because it was the first time the art department didn't bother to build a full-sized version of the exterior that could be used on the sound stage. On the few occasions we saw the shuttle in the shuttlebay, it was a CG model. The speedboat was also last shuttlecraft that was built as a practical miniature before the show moved over to CG.

[dangerouscommiesubversive]

Idk if you’ve been asked this before, but do you have any ideas for what exactly happened in the Oma Zi-O timeline? Like who Woz is, what living in the future is like, Oma’s origin, etc?

I have not been asked this before, and it’s a fun question! I don’t have fully developed headcanons about all of it, but here are some!

There’s a cut in here because I rambled a little.

Oma Zi-O’s origin: As we’re introduced to him initially, Sougo is entirely friendless. He’s not doing especially well in school, he doesn’t attend any clubs, he makes no attempts to socialize. Junichiro is actively surprised and pleased to see him develop friendships, and admits that he’s sort of failed his nephew in not pushing him to socialize or helping him learn how to be vulnerable.

Oma Zi-O is the version of Sougo who never learned how to care about people, just sank further and further into his own head. Maybe he was a superhero fan already, maybe not, but when his powers manifested he had no one to share them with and enough of a reputation as a deluded loner that when he did try to show people they just laughed at him. We know Sougo can and does get angry; in this timeline it just happened sooner, and as a reaction to the mockery of others instead of as an expression of grief.

In short: the ascent of Oma Zi-O began as attention-seeking behavior and ramped up to “general threat to humankind” due to a critical lack of concern for other people. This Sougo wanted to be king, but had no idea what that meant other than “everyone should listen to me.” He broke things because he didn’t know how to tone his power down to not break them, hurt people because he hadn’t figured out how to modulate to avoid hurting them, and then, when everyone started acting like they were afraid of him, said, “Well, ok, if that’s what you all want then I guess I’ll be scary.”

I imagine that when he’s not actively trying to be intimidating and scary he’s a lot like the Sougo we know--sort of weird and goofy and absent-minded, potentially sweet until he says something deeply alarming and you remember that he possesses truly world-ending power.

Living in the future: I think people are probably very hungry there, given how enthusiastic Geiz and Tsukuyomi and Woz all are about Junichiro feeding them.

Woz: So I’ve talked briefly before about the idea that the multiverse contains a lot of different iterations of Woz, and that each iteration of him has some kind of attachment, probably romantic on at least his side, to someone with a lot of temporal power--Sougo, Geiz, Tsukuyomi, Tsukasa, there’s probably a universe out there where Captain Marvelous has a Woz, things like that. The thing is, I don’t think he started out like that. I think he started out exactly as Geiz describes him, a Resistance lieutenant who got picked for a dangerous undercover mission, and who simply had the great misfortune to fall in love with the man he was spying on.*

What he became after that is primarily the result of things that were done to him, and not all of them deliberately. The book, for example, was something that Oma Zi-O made--manifested out of thin air, really--and gave to him, and which proceeded to bond with him physically as a result of the thoughtless way Oma Zi-O uses his powers. Similarly, the proliferation of versions of him throughout the multiverse happened because Oma Zi-O enjoyed his company, and thought, “Well, I know there are other timelines where other people are king, I’ll have to address that eventually, and those kings must also have someone like Woz whose job is just to go around talking about how great they are.” And because his powers warp reality, and because he is thoughtless, this casual assumption very quietly altered the fabric of the multiverse in order to make him correct, and now Woz is myriad and legion.

*Don’t argue with me on this, he’s got a lovely voice, and given that he’s physically Takaiwa I’m willing to assume that he’s at least as attractive as Takaiwa is.