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chernabogs · 2 months

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I can see an entire bouquet matching Malleus 😭 Calla lily, Ivy, Red Salvia, NATSURIUM and White carnation with pecks of Daffodil and Fern

Don't feel obligated to use all of them! Chose whichever you find most suitable! I just could stop with one alone, the more prompts i read the more i had this idea for a story in my head

I think you and I had the same idea cooking LMAOOO I hope I did this well! <3 Thank you for the request!!

Sin Eater

Inc: Malleus, Reader, a sin eater, and one advisor WC: 3.4k Warnings: Heavy discussion of grief and coping with loss Flowers: Calla Lily (something at first sight), Ivy (we’ve always been friends but we were never just friends), Natsurium (I refuse to bury you), Daffodil (a god bows before a mortal), Fern (In a world of magic, the greatest miracle was you... subtly implied) Summary: A quiet conversation in a hall between a prince, a starving idol, and a body.

Their arrival is marked with the sombre chiming of Dragon City’s bells, which is the only reason Malleus knows they’re approaching Black Scale. The window of the bedroom you shared is wide open, letting in both the breeze and the song as he stands so still that one may consider him to be a mere statue on display. He feels equivalent to one; his breath is shallow, his body cold, and his expression far away enough that he hardly registers the carriage approaching.

“Your highness?” A faint voice speaks by his right side. Malleus’ finger twitches at the sound as his emerald gaze slowly slides from the streets below to the advisor who is now anxiously twisting her sleeve. He can hardly remember her name—advisors come and go so often that they’ve become a blur in his mind—but he’s taken to calling her Scops due to the owlish stare that she always seems to wear around him. “The sin eater is here.”

Malleus stares for a moment before he looks back down to the courtyard. The carriage door is open, and a figure is now standing on the stone, speaking with one of the guards. The discussion is brief, ending with the guard walking to the doors and the figure looking upwards at the palace walls. A golden mask conceals their face, capturing the rays of the sun which battle through Briar Valley’s ever-present clouds, and they wear a simple black funeral suit.

“I see that.” He replies curtly, his voice ungiving on how he’s really feeling. “They arrived quite quickly, didn’t they?”

“I suppose they have,” Scops steps a bit closer to the window to look down at the sin eater. “Strange, really. It isn’t like their profession is a competitive market anymore.”

Sin eaters used to be far more prominent in Briar Valley back when it was still Briar Nation, and old traditions were held to a greater esteem. Unfortunately, the changing of times meant the dismantling of old organizations and beliefs, rendering the sin eaters as nothing more than a token piece in a funeral party. Perhaps once they were esteemed in a religious fashion—but not anymore. Now they will sit for anyone, so long as they get their meal.

You had always admired the old traditions, though. He remembers your avid interest in his family’s history, and the many nights you’d waste away in the library, reading tome after tome in delight. You had been the spearhead of a new age for old beliefs—revamping Briar Valley’s tourism through the demonstration of habits long dead—and you had made a difference. That’s why there is a sin eater here today.

Malleus dislikes their presence, however. Them being here means that what he’s going through is not just a simple dream. He exhales through clenched teeth and forces his shoulders to relax as he turns on his heel and nods.

“Regardless, it’s best not to keep guests waiting.”

_____________________________________________________________

The hallowed hall in which you lay is silent, even with the presence of the sin eater looming over your shrouded form. How they managed to move quickly enough that they arrived before Malleus did is something he decides not to question—nor does he question how they knew of the hall to begin with. Their profession is one that draws the most peculiar of magic users into it. Like a bloodhound, they caught your scent and followed it to the room. He’s surprised the guards who have been standing watch over you for a day now permitted them to enter.

Malleus enters alone and waves for the room to be sealed. He notes the hesitation in his guard’s body language before they oblige, stepping away to pull the great wooden doors shut with a resounding boom that stirs a pair of birds residing in the rafters. Their wings flutter in distress as Malleus spares them a passing glance before returning his focus on the figure ahead. The sin eater has turned to look back at him, and he sees upon closer inspection that the mask they wear lacks a mouth. They incline their head in greeting before speaking in a surprisingly clear tone considering their facial obstruction.

“Your grace. Forgive me for the intrusion before your arrival; I merely wished to prepare in advance.” Their voice is soft and low as they touch a hand to the place above their heart. Malleus hardly reacts to their words as he brushes past them to where you lay, body enshrouded in a white sheet with a torc affixed upon your neck. His fingers brush along its form; forged of mystium and gifted to you as a token by him. It was the closest he could get to a marriage declaration in the eyes of the Senate.

“It’s hardly my place to prevent a sin eater from completing their role.” He replies languidly as his fingers skim off of the torc to rest on your chest. Stiff, still, and cold against his fingers. “I just wish you had not come to begin with.”

He doesn’t wish to have you buried quite yet, but he knows he’s already pushing the limit of how long he can keep you. He kneels by the platform that holds your form as his fingers brush along the shroud that hides you. If he could, he would drag you off of this macabre display and back into the rooms you shared for so many decades together, to wrap you in his arms and pretend this isn’t happening.

But that was foul. Utterly, utterly foul. Your body would putrefy and decay while he clung to a false hope of resurrection.

No, the sin eater is here now. He just doesn’t want you out of sight quite yet.

“Many do not welcome me, but I have never left without gratitude.” The sin eater replies softly. Like a god before a mortal, Malleus’ ethereal features are painted into a stony expression, his gaze still distant. He hardly feels a part of this world right now as he hums quietly in turn.

“Perhaps.” He muses as his fingers toy with the shroud before he turns to look at the sin eater. Like his own face, their mask is a stony expression, their eyes concealed from his seeking gaze. If they were to not move and speak then they could easily be dismissed as one of the many statues adorning the hall. “How shall we proceed?”

“Do you feel ready to proceed?” They posit as they gesture to your form.

Malleus rises back to his feet but doesn’t remove his hand from your body. The pungent scent of flowers—used to disguise the sweetness of decay—wafts up with the abruptness of his motion. “The opportunity to refuse has long passed. I am aware that there is a feast to be had—that, they regaled me of this back when they were still alive.”

You had been enamoured by the concept of Briar Valley funerary rites throughout your time in life. He remembers thinking it to be grim when you would speak of them, and rather anxiety-inducing when you began to plan for your own. He always knew that your status as a human meant that you would join the stars long before he did—he had simply not wanted to think about it, though. In the end, your efforts to establish your own postmortem care had saved him a great deal of distress these past few days.

Your ability to think far ahead had been one of the many aspects he had loved about you.

“Indeed, and I am delighted to see one is set for me.” The sin eater drifts off of the steps of the platform towards the far side of the room, where a table lay with an array of foods on it. Wine, dates, meats, and a variety of other luxuries decorate pristine plates and spotless cutlery. He had spared no expenses in the lavishness of your memoriam. “Sometimes I have served people who are still cooking the final meal by the time I arrive. But then again, I would expect a prince to have ample amounts of resources available to get things done.”

“I give nothing but the finest when it comes to them.” Malleus retorts sharply as he goes to sit in the chair on the other side of the table. Before he can properly settle, the sin eater raises a hand and shakes their head.

“Turn the chair around if you please. You are not meant to see my face when I eat—that honour is for the deceased, and the deceased alone.”

Malleus pauses, his hand resting on the back of the chair before he obliges and twists it around to face the wall. He then sits down and crosses his legs patiently. Despite the fact that he knows the sin eater to be unarmed, he still feels a prickle of paranoia creep up his spine. Old habits die hard when one has been hunted for so many years.

Eventually he hears the sound of the sin eater sitting down in their respective seat, followed by something heavy hitting the table. The sin eater clears their throat, and the sound is far clearer now than before. Their mask has been removed—which means the rite has officially begun. Malleus inhales and readies himself for what he recalls the next few steps to be.

“Tell me about them. Call them to the table where we feast.” There’s a brief pause then before a fork scrapes against porcelain plates. Malleus’ eyes flutter shut as he gives a low sigh.

“Mira calirh.” The affectionate term flows from his tongue easily as he touches upon memories long passed. How can he summarize you in a simple conversation? You had been a person of many complexities—of devotion, of will, of love as boundless as the sea. To boil all that you were down into a mere few lines felt sacrilegious in his heart.

“Tell me of your first.” The sin eater prompts, and so he does.

“I met them outside of their dorm. I thought the place was abandoned, but suddenly they were there before me, sleep-dazed and curious. I remember thinking how calm they were when facing me directly—only to find out they hadn’t a single clue about who I was.” Malleus’ lips curl into a faint grin as he pictures the moment so clearly. He can see you in your youth, eyes glassy with sleep and hair slightly dishevelled. You had not registered in his mind as someone of importance quite yet.

Oh, how such a thing would change.

“Tell me more.” The sin eater urges. He can hear the wine glass lifting and being set back down on the table. Malleus’ hands clasp tight as he feels his fingers begin to grow numb. In his peripheral vision, he thinks he sees movement from the pedestal. He resists the impulse to look its way as he considers his next words.

“It made me feel… alive. For a moment. They would accompany me, speak with me. It was shortly after my overblot that I began to consider them as a friend—although I suspect we never were just that. It was two summers later that I began to consider them something more.”

Malleus pauses for a moment to gather his thoughts. He remembers that summer—it had been warmer than usual in the Valley, and you had come to visit for a week. He recalls the smell of sunscreen and the sight of you with your hat on your head as you sat in a field of eternal green. The land was lush and abundant with life, but it had been you that had drawn his gaze the strongest.

The sin eater pushes a plate away before grabbing another. It drags across the wooden table with a bitter screech. “Is that so?”

“Quite. They stayed with me for a week, and I wished every night that the next day would never come, only so that I could hold onto them for just a bit longer. I kissed their cheek before they departed through the mirror back to NRC—I wanted to kiss their lips, but I panicked and missed.” He can’t help but laugh at that. His palms had been sweating and his mind had been in a panic when he clumsily pressed his lips to your cheek in a kiss of farewell. “Foolish I was. Fortunately, it didn’t turn them away from me. The next time we met, they made sure my aim was true.”

“Young love has a habit of sending our hearts aflutter, no?” The sin eater muses as more scraping sounds out. “Tell me when you loved them.”

When? Malleus’ brow furrows as he considers the question. When did he not, really?

“Every day. Every hour. Every minute. I think once they became mine there was not a moment I did not love them, even when we had our disagreements, or the obligations of my role drew me abroad. I loved them in the day, I loved them in the night. And in the sparse moments between, I loved them even more.” Malleus feels his jaw clench slightly. “We could not be married, and so I made sure they knew my devotion.”

“You could not marry because they were not fae. I remember that being a point of contention in the papers.”

The sin eater must be a fae themself, then, if they can recall the tabloids from that time so easily while looking as young as they appeared. Malleus bristles at their comment.

“Yes, that was a point of great contention, and one I had to swallow despite working to change the laws. Even my grandmother agreed that such outdated beliefs had no business in and amongst our courtiers.”

He had fought viciously against nobility for the opportunity to keep you by his side. Eventually it had ended in a standoff, with the courtiers begrudgingly agreeing to permit you to live in Black Scale, so long as you never officially became his consort. Your body hasn’t even been cold for a day, and he’s already heard rumours from Scops that the Senate is hunting for a suitable replacement.

The knowledge tastes like bitter fruit on his tongue.

He thinks he sees the flutter of white fabric moving at the pedestal again. His brow furrows as he rationalizes it away as a trick of the odd lighting in the hall. Still, the cold breeze that follows makes him shift in his seat uncomfortably.

“Tell me how you loved them.” The sin eater diverts his thoughts and the conversation once more as something heavy scrapes across the table. It may be the plate of quail he saw—or the pig's head. “What did you do to always let them know?”

“Everything. Anything they wanted I would give to them. If they had asked me to move the mountains we rest on, I would do so. If they asked me to pluck the sun from the sky and fasten it into a brooch for them, I would make sure it was held by the finest of metals. If they wished for the rains to fall and the earth to turn green, then I would drag the clouds from across the world to where they stood.” Malleus shivers again as he feels an ache in his chest. It’s been there for days now. “Magic bends to my whims, but I bent to theirs.”

“But you couldn’t give them time.” There’s a licking sound and a low hum of satisfaction from the sin eater. “Time will eat everyone in the end—much like how I feast on their memories now. You could give them every precious gem and flower in the world, but you could not give them a second more than what they were meant to have.”

“If I could have, then I would.” He snarls back, his head turning slightly to glare at the blurred image of the sin eater. “I would have stolen the seconds from anything and everything and given it to them instead. The gods know they would have benefited from it. They had plans, ideas, to improve this nation and now? Now they’re already beginning to decay.”

“As things do.” The sin eater tosses a bone onto a plate as Malleus looks back to the wall. He feels something cold brush against him again, and then the scraping of a chair to his right. His shoulders tense at the sound and he wonders if the sin eater has changed places.

Until they speak.

“How very kind of you to finally join us.”

The comment is simple and one that draws confusion in Malleus until it finally clicks in place and his entire body plunges into freezing water. The world spins to a stop as he hears a whispering voice by his ear, its words indiscernible. Malleus’ eyes widen and dilate as any words he had to say stutter to a stop from his lips, drawn shut by a cold touch brushing up his arm—much like how his touch had brushed along yours moments ago.

“One last bite, then.” The sin eater interjects once more as they push another plate away. “Tell me how you will keep them alive. The body may be rotting, but the soul does still linger. Within this hall, within this palace, within the memories stored in your mind. How will you honour that?”

The words become clearer now. Your voice is soft as your breath brushes against the skin behind his ear, making him shiver as a small, painful sound escapes him. The scent of you lingers just beneath that of the roses your body was bathed in before being wrapped for your cremation. He can feel the brush of the shroud against him as phantom fingers touch his back.

He wants to turn to see you as he once knew—but something tells him that doing so will merely send you away faster.

“Their legacy.” He offers slowly, eyes fluttering shut again as he loses himself in your touch. “Their memory carries on through years upon generations of work. They brought life back to Briar Valley’s beliefs. They reshaped this old, rotting home—reshaped me—into something better. I may have portraits of them, and statues, and items that they loved dear stored in my rooms—but I think the only thing they would wish for me to do is continue the work they had started.”

A sensation floods him then like that brought on by a lover’s kiss. It curls around his wounded heart and floods itself through his veins, warming his body in a way that it hasn’t been able to for days. Another pained sound leaves him, but it is not drawn out because of any agony.

Then, as quickly as it arrived, the sensations are all gone. Your scent disappears, your touch disappears, and Malleus Draconia is left once more to sit in a stiff wooden chair in a large, desolate hall, with a body and a sin eater as his company. He wants to grasp for you and hold you in place like he did so dearly with your body—but the voice screams at him again that this is not the way it plays out.

The sin eater sets the cutlery down before drawing their mask over their face. They push the chair back to stand, and only when they’re on their feet again does Malleus turn to them. He can feel wetness on his cheeks as he stares at their slender, frail form. He had managed to keep himself from crying so far—but now it’s become a battle he can no longer wage.

“What a delectable meal.” The sin eater sighs as they brush down their suit before stepping away from the table. They pause as they face the prince before bending at the waist in a low bow. The black pits that represent their eyes do not stray from his face as they do so. “They rest—as you should, too. I know you have at least another day of the wake to endure, so try to recover as much energy as you can. They would not want you to suffer on their behalf.”

Malleus doesn’t reply as his gaze drifts to your shrouded form on the pedestal. His love, his partner, his calirh. When the sin eater is already halfway to the door, he clears his throat, causing them to pause and look his way. Malleus stares at their masked face with an expression of neutrality once more.

“... thank you.” He offers softly. The sin eater tilts their head, bows, and steps out of the silent hall.

#malleus draconia #malleus x reader #twst malleus #twst #twst fanfiction #twst x reader #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #OKAY got those out of the way #anyway sin eaters... sexy concept #sad they went out of style #probably bc it costs too much to buy food /j #kinda went off the rails w this im so sorry if it isnt what u envisioned b ;;#but YEAH nice.#nice.

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ot3 · 5 months

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Hi, I just finished the AA trilogy with my bf and we fell in love with it! I found your blog the other day, and it sometimes feels like you're the only one giving correct takes on these characters' writing and the minutiae of everyone's inner worlds (or the fumbling of, see Godot).

I just got here, but, something that's been bothering me about the fandom's approach to the sequel trilogy is like... the imperialist undertones are glossed over, or swept under the rug. Researching "The Dark Age of the Law" and beyond puts a sour taste in my mouth. And with Khura'in the country vs Kurain the village? It all feels racist at best (the concept of the Divination Seance gives me squick). If you have the time, I'd love to hear your thoughts about AA5 and AA6 in relation to the world of AA as a whole. Thanks again for all of your thoughtful and nuanced takes on this series!

so glad to hear you guys liked the games!! thank you for enjoying my posts, i always appreciate it.

the tl;dr of it is that i do think they are genuinely bad enough additions to the franchise that they have signed mainline ace attorney's death warrant. picking out the dark age of the law stuff and aa5 and the imperialism in aa6 you've pretty much honed right in on my two biggest critiques

however i do want to say that although they're being bundled and sold as a 'second trilogy' that's not quite accurate either experientially when playing the games or from a development perspective. aa4 had scenario design/creative direction by series creator shu takumi, with the art director being kazuya nuri (responsible for character design for rise from the ashes in the series previous to this); aa5+6 was spearheaded by takeshi yamazaki, who had been with the franchise since its first game, with the slightly less tenured takuro fuse on art direction/character design. yamazaki and fuse are not without skill, but i think they're both significantly less skilled than takumi and nuri respectively and. it really shows.

pair that with the fact that aa5 and 6 fundamentally do not follow up on any of ace attorney 4's established characters or plots more than superficially, i don't think it's particularly useful to critique 4-5-6 as if they're a single body of work in the same way the trilogy is. apollo justice isn't a perfect* ace attorney game but it's a good one.

anyway i think buying into the 'dark age of the law' stuff in ace attorney 5 necessitates cheapening all of the events preceding it. the implication that 1. the law wasn't that bad before but it Is Now and 2. a single case was the tipping point for whether or not the entire legal system would be bad just ruins the times when ace attorney has managed to acknowledge corrupt systems as a massive source of problem for the everyman in the past

i think this screenshot from the dark age of the law wiki page says a lot:

For starters, that phoenix quote. He would not fucking say that. I don't think there has ever been a point during or leading up to phoenix's career where he thought the legal system had 'glory' he would then want to restore it to. you seem to get it so im not gonna harp on this too much on this but. jesus christ

then, then there's fact that even by stating the most basic details about the franchise's events undermines the whole premise. like okay notice that the corruption that happens during the trilogy/investigations spinoffs is coming from all of the actual agencies that represent law and order/the system: the prosecutors, the police, and the prosecutorial investigation committee. however in aa5 the thing they choose to paint as responsible for supposedly unprecedented levels of corruption in the legal system is defense attorneys resorting to more drastic means, and the general public; aka not the people who are responsible for upholding the legal system but the people who are victimized by it and in opposition to it.

i don't think this was an intentional choice as much as it's just sloppy, inconsiderate, and contrived writing.

aa6 is just flat out racist. 'imperalist undertones' is i would say the gentlest way you could phrase it. like. japanese characters going to a made up south asian country that needs to be taught how to govern itself to quash its internal rebellion is like. so high on the yikes meter.

making a bunch of fake 'ethnic sounding' nonsense names filled with apostrophes to make them into silly sounding english phrasing was a disastrously tone deaf thing for the localization to do. they're really unforgivable. the worst of it all is probably "Inga Karkhuul Haw'kohd Dis'nahm Bi'ahni Lawga Ormo Pohmpus Da'nit Ar'edi Iz Khura'in III" i'm unsure if the names are quite as offensive in the original japanese because i haven't looked too much into what they actually are and have a really limited knowledge of the language. but. this name in japanese is "インガ・カルクール・ククルーラ・ラルバン・ギジール・ホフダラン・マダラ・ヴィラ・ヤシマ・ジャクティエール・クライン３世" which is written in katakana. katakana is, in contrast to kanji and hiragana which are used for writing japanese, used to phoenetically transcribe foreign languages or to write loan words. so the foreign-ness of this character is being emphasized here in the original text as well.

the supposed cultural inferiority of the khurainese people is baked into the game at pretty much every level, down to the gags. khura'in has the 'plumed punisher' show, which is actively criticized by the characters in game for just being a cheap ripoff of the steel samurai. they don't even get to have their own tv.

i believe the reason the racism is pretty much glossed over a lot in the fandom is for several reasons. for starters, ace attorney fans overall tend to fall into three camps: 1. people like me who fucking hate these games, refuse to acknowledge them, and would retcon them out of existence if possible. 2. people who have found things they like about the game and have a Good Version of the characters and plots that they have constructed in their head and 3. people who view all of the hate on these games as completely overblown

the first camp Does talk about how the game is racist but we're all already in agreement about that so it's kind of preaching to the choir and a bit redundant to keep going on about. the second camp tends to acknowledge the stickier aspects of the game but focuses on making content around the elements they like rather than critique. the third camp is the type to throw the baby out with the bathwater re: critiquing a thing they like. it's all haterism to them. but either way i think its kind of fucked up how many people will be like 'aa6 isnt that bad you guys are just mean' without even acknowledging these complaints.

anyway the khura'in country vs kurain village thing is really weird to me it shows both a lack of imagination and a disregard for the series' own established lore. why would a girl from a village where almost everyone is a spirit medium need to go to a place where only, like, two people are mediums to train.

i will say though that the divination seance is kind of one of the only things i found about aa6 to be an interesting addition. for a franchise with ghost summoning and murder solving, the two have a kind of hilariously low amount of overlap so i found the idea of bringing ghost bullshit into court really fun. mechanically speaking, the divination seances also felt a LOT better to play than the mood matrix segments of aa5.

in general, i think the biggest weakness of the mainline franchise under takeshi yamazaki's stewardship is its misunderstanding of stakes. both aa5 and 6 prioritize more bombastic and impressive on paper material stakes. oh no! the ENTIRE JUSTICE SYSTEM BEING GOOD OR BAD depends on this one case! on no! we have to DEAL WITH REBEL INSURGENTS! complete horseshit when there is not competent and functional enough character writing to get us emotionally invested here. yamazaki seems to think bigger is better, and that just simply isnt true for something like ace attorney

i've pointed this out in the past when critiquing aa5 and 6 but if you look at the actual material stakes on the line in ace attorney, they're at their highest after rise from the ashes. ousting the corrupt chief of police is the most impressive and impactful thing phoenix does with his career (arguably until the jurist system, but definitely in the trilogy.) but that's not the big Finale case for his character arc. his finale case is defending his college girlfriend; a nun who lives in the mountains, whose conviction would have had zero implications on the larger fabric of ace attorney's legal system. because takumi's writing clearly shows that he understands what makes a plot impactful is the emotional stakes the characters have invested in the events.

before taking over the main franchise, takeshi yamazaki was responsible for the miles edgeworth investigations spinoffs. i do enjoy both of those games - aai2 in particular is really strong. yamazaki does a great job with edgeworth's character arc even if i have some specific gripes with the duologys writing. i think theyre solid additions to the franchise. but you can see traces of this sort of misalignment in narrative priorities here as well. for example, the last case in aai1 is notorious for still going on for, like, an entire hour or two past the time when the last remaining plot point we care about has been revealed. because yamazaki seemingly had no understanding that That was the thing the case should have been about, and that should have been the final mic drop of the game. it just keeps going! he didn't know the game was done and he added a bunch more bullshit busywork after it that no one likes!

so yeah. without going into anything even as specific as how individual plotlines or character arcs were mishandled in aa5/6 that's really my overview What Went Wrong of those games.

#i genuinely might need to put my opinion on aa5 and 6 in my faq at this point #not because i mind getting a chance to talk about how much i hate these games. but just for due diligence #ace attorney #*there are two perfect ace attorney games: aa1 and plvspwaa #this got so long im so so sorry.#i think ill just hotlink this post in my faq because it hits most of my talking points about these games

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cyber-corp · 7 months

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wow. WOW.

This one was a nutter. Here are some of my favourite moments from the final Doctor Who special, The Giggle

SPOILERS AHEAD

First of all, I underestimated Neil Patrick Harris as the Toymaker. He is absolutely terrifying and absolutely hilarious all in the scenes he’s in.

The Toymaker was the perfect villain for this special. A unstoppable, petrifying entity that hasn’t been seen since William Hartnell is a very good choice for an anniversary special

The puppets of the past companions were a nice touch, and the Doctor correcting the Toymaker on what actually happened is funny

Furthermore, the Toymaker entering to Spice Up Your Life. RTD saw what Chibnall did with Rasputin and went “OH NO CHIBBIE. DON’T TRY AND OUT-CHEESE ME”

The less-than-subtle political and social allegory through the Toymaker “making everyone’s thoughts superior”, which kind of shook me a little bit with how accurate it was.

Mel!!!! Melmelmelmelmelmel!!!!! Never really knew her in the Classic Series, but she is absolutely wonderful in this episode 🥕

Donna utilising her typing skills as Best Temp in Chiswick

Fourteen’s last words were probably going to be “Allons-y” which is the complete opposite of “I don’t want to go”. Please ignore me while I go cry in a corner

Bi-regeneration? Okay???

NCUTIIIIIII GATWA IS HEEEERE EVERYBODY!!!! HIS SMILE COULD CURE SO MANY DISEASES!!!!!! AND HE DOESN’T HAVE ANY PANTS OOOOOOON

Three guys play with balls

Fifteen giving Fourteen/Ten a hug was my all-time favourite moment from these specials. Someone finally tells the Doctor “Hey man. Slow down.” and that the only person that could tell him is him

The Doctor finally talks about the planet where you communicate with your eyebrows, as mentioned 53 years ago in Spearhead in Space

The Fourteenth/Tenth Doctor finally settles down with people he loves. A satisfying ending to a once tortured character.

Meanwhile the Fifteenth Doctor goes off on his own adventure, ready for a new era of this show.

This was absolutely fantastic, and it also made me cry the most out of all the specials (unsurprisingly). Everything in this episode felt right, and it feels like RTD has been planning something like this for quite some time. A proper end to David Tennant as the Doctor.

Fifteen’s era is going to be amazing!!!!

#doctor who #doctor who spoilers #spoilers #fourteenth doctor #david tennant #donna noble #catherine tate #the celestial toymaker #neil patrick harris #fifteenth doctor #ncuti gatwa #mel bush #bonnie langford #the giggle #I think I did a very good job hiding my excitement in this post #because AAAAHUWHRHWIWHWHD #gecko boy

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kickedin17 · 19 days

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Thoughts after reading the Clancy journal (messy) (incorrect) (this is basically my fanfic rough draft read at your own discretion)

I finally sat down and read through the Clancy album journal and I have Thoughts and speculation which will probably mostly be incoherent and incorrect, but I need to put them somewhere.

The main point of confusion I've had with the lore up to this point is the divide between Tyler and Clancy as characters. We know that Clancy watched the events of the Jumpsuit MV*, and we also know that his bishop is initially stated to be Keons, while Tyler's is Nico. However since at least SAI we know Tyler has been portraying Clancy in the music videos.

After reading all the journal entries in one sitting, my conclusions are (tentatively) this - 1. Tyler and Clancy are the same person, but different incarnations of some kind, 2. At least one of these incarnations is certainly dead, 3. Tyler is also Nico, because Nico is Blurryface and Blurryface is Tyler, which we already knew. Blurryface = Clancy. Okay? Okay.

Allow me to badly explain:

The evidence:

The axis of this post is from the journal entry dated "022 03moon 18" where Clancy finds out about seizing, and he wonders if this is how the bishops maintain immortality. He wonders how he's able to be seized like a glorious goner, stating "I am in my original life," aka he's never died so he shouldn't be controllable as far as he was previously aware. We then know from the videos that he gets quite good at seizing on his own, and he uses it to spread discord within Dema. I don't think the implication here is that he's able to do this because he's a bishop, or whatever. The implication is that he's able to do this because he is *not* in his original life.

In his very earliest entries, Clancy states that he lives within Keons's city region, and recognizes Keons when he's being trained to perform. He is taken back to the city after his first escape by Keons. But in "I am Clancy" and Paladin Strait, he explicitly names Nico as his bishop. I do not believe this is a retcon or anything like that. At one point Clancy was under Keons, and now he's apparently not. Tyler has always been under Nico, though.

As I mentioned, Clancy obviously describes witnessing Tyler's escape attempt and being dragged back to Dema by Nico. Again, I do not believe this is an issue of continuity, and afaik they've never referred to this as Clancy having an out of body experience or anything. I believe that Jumpsuit depicts *Tyler's* failed escape. The NatN video is also probably Tyler because he's familiar with the Torchbearer. Levitate could be either Tyler or Clancy becoming part of the banditos and then getting smeared, but I believe it's Tyler as well.

(*EDIT: someone in the replies very helpfully let me know Clancy does actually refer to an incident with a "rider in the river" which I completely missed! Hiss boo etc., because I do see this as an obvious retcon if it's intended to mean that Clancy was the one in the Jumpsuit MV, and not one I like very much. Dude was hiding in a cave, it feels kinda unnecessary for them to justify his presence this way imo. This still actually works with my goofy interpretations though, but if the intention was just to fully retcon the early journal entries, well I simply pretend I do not see it)

I also believe the journal entry where "Clancy" (signed) describes the upcoming complete diversion in the NatN video is actually from Tyler's perspective. The reason I think this is because, from other entries, Clancy only seems to be familiar with the banditos through hearsay up to that point - whispers about the world beyond the walls, the old ways. I think he was involved with or took advantage of the diversion to escape, but I don't think he spearheaded it - Tyler did. According to Clancy, Tyler seems like someone who's escaped many times before. Of course he could and would pull off something like that

In "019 01moon 22", after being recaptured by Keons, Clancy muses, "I assumed the bishop was forcefully retrieving his subject, but I now wonder if the bishop was actually trying to save him, and he refused." Part of this is Clancy's conditioning setting in again, coupled with his self-doubt, but it's also genuinely ominous to me in what it doesn't quite say. Saving him from "the dangers of the outside world?" like many cults push? Or, saving him from punishment, should he fail to be obedient? The bishops possess corpses, probably possess living people, and enforce a religion of suicide. Being obedient is literally the safest option. Refusing could mean death or worse.

In his first journal Clancy describes becoming aware in his "ninth year." It's uncertain whether this is meant to imply his ninth year within Dema, because we know children live there so it seems to be a place you could in theory be born, and grow up. Did Clancy grow up there? Was he captured / did he move there nine years ago? Is that the point in time when the bishops established Vialism and overtook the city and conditioned everyone? If it's not his literal ninth year in Dema, it could imply something else happened nine years ago. Perhaps.... a cycle of some kind....

Last note from the journals for now: in the entry where Clancy describes being prepared for the show, and then the events of the Saturday music video, he mentions (scribbled out) that he knew the bishops on the ship were fake. This is plot, but it's also a potential theme and recurring tøp motif: people are wearing other people's names and faces.

Onto a Chlorine tangent. I have literally never stopped thinking about the Chlorine music video and what it implies or doesn't imply about the story. I don't really ever see people talk about it in plot/lore discussions either, so either everyone just knows what it's getting at and never told me, or other people are also stumped, or they just ignore it because it's messy. To explain my current thoughts I actually have to switch to talking about lyrics for a sec.

So, substance abuse is a recurring theme on SAI. Like, kinda weirdly explicitly. "Medicate in the afternoon." "He's fairly sedated most days of the week." "Keep your pills, save your breath." Beyond that album, we know Tyler mentioned that one interpretation (and probably the true meaning of the song, based on how he said what he said) for Vignette is addiction.

And in the Chlorine MV we see Tyler/Clancy drinking..... something. "Straight chlorine," I guess, but that's obviously metaphorical. I'm too lazy to watch the whole thing rn but I always assumed, and it may actually be shown to be, the blue stuff they pour in the pool, which I believe is probably the same glowy blue stuff that the bishops use as a life force. If we follow the color coding, this could be a metaphor for being controlled via seizing, or it could be depciting literal drugging. Or both! Woo hoo!

Chlorine, Saturday, and Backslide all also have themes of being underwater in some way, specifically within a pool or small entrapped space like a fishbowl.

I'm jumping around a lot here but bear with me, it's going somewhere. We know that the Shy Away MV is a dream or hallucination Clancy is having, potentially during the events of the Saturday MV based on their very similar timing for key events.

With all that in mind, I believe it's likely that Clancy is heavily "medicated" or siezed for most if not all of his time in Dema. This could be either self inflicted or part of conditioning to make the citizens docile and mindless. Or both, like with real life cases of people becoming addicted to medications that are meant to help them. The events of Chlorine are some kind of dream Clancy has while he's under the influence, probably when he's imprisoned. The reality is represented by the shot of him sitting in the drained pool. He is being kept metaphorically underwater by this substance, confined and alone. Trapped.

All this leads me to conclude that the Josh in the Chlorine video also isn't real. Sorry. But I think Ned appears in the video because he's seen a Ned before at some point, and is remembering.

If this is correct, then it's probably safe to assume that videos like My Blood and the Hype are also dreams of his. I don't think the non lore clancy vids apply here since Tyler explicitly said they weren't all lore related, they're just vids

Redecorate is the second linchpin. I'm going to go line by line here for the next few bullets. Hopefully my points will become clear.

"Taking inventory of his life, seeing snapshots chronologically in line" - Clancy is a person who keeps meticulous track of his life. Even in scenarios of extreme upheaval, like post shipwreck or his first escape, he makes a point to journal, which is not something many people would jump to do. Why? Why the inventory of himself? Is it just the urge to journal, or does he have a deeper reason to keep track of his self and his memories?

"Tried looking at it from a new perspective" - Clancy sees what happened to Tyler, and wonders what it must've been like. He wonders often about the state of his fellow dema citizens, how they've been brainwashed and blinded. And, he seizes. He becomes others and sees from their perspective, literally.

"She's not afraid of her reflection but of what she might see behind it / she had plans to change her name, just not the traditional way" - again, people obscuring their faces, taking other names, perhaps unable to face themselves

"He might’ve made it if he lived on a different street" - under a different bishop, perhaps?

"I don't wanna go like this" - a plea. They're taking him somewhere he doesn't want to go, can't go. He can't go like this. Not again.

There are three conclusions I can come to with all of this. A complicated one and two simple ones.

The complicated one, which I teased miles ago at the top of this post:

Tyler and Clancy (and maybe the unnamed "she" in redecorate, but maybe not) are different literal physical incarnations of the same person. Tyler died following the events of Jumpsuit, either killed by Nico or at his own hands (which is effectively the same thing). At some point in the timeline, probably following Levitate, he's been reincarnated as Clancy (changing your name in an untraditional way)

Clancy is the start of a new cycle, thus under a new bishop. Like Tyler he eventually becomes awakened to the reality of Dema/vialism and decides to escape, but unlike Tyler he seems to be ultimately successful, in large part because of his escape to Voldsoy and learning seizing.

Because life in Dema is cyclical and unending, Clancy is still able to witness events involving Tyler concurrently to his own time as if they're happening to someone else. Everybody's dead and alive at the same time, basically. Vialism is a purgatory proud of being a purgatory, dependant on death and reincarnation (both true, ie Clancy, and false, ie seizing vessels) to keep the bishops immortal. Nothing ever happens in Dema so everything happens at once.

When Tyler died he also became - and has always been - the bishop Nico, aka blurryface. This could've been a fracturing, where Nico physically represents the very worst of Tyler and the things he struggles with, while Clancy represents the longing for freedom and creativity. Or, Tyler could himself be a reincarnation of Nico ("he told me I'm a copy, when I'd hear him mock me, that's almost stopped me). Again, regardless, they can all exist at the same time because the city is cyclical.

Clancy isn't dead. Clancy is still alive. He lived on a different street, and he made it. But his destiny is to wake up to the conditioning, to leave, to find the banditos, to instill rebellion, to reclaim the creativity and life that vialism steals. Every time. And the bishops are terrified of this, so he becomes a prisoner and a subject of propaganda. He's medicated. They sipphon his creativity to their own ends, almost literally. He backslides. But he still gets out.

At some point he becomes aware of the cycle, which is when he begins recognizing Nico as his bishop instead of Keons. (EDIT: this could also be why he later remembers the Jumpsuit vid as if it happened to him)

Bandito Torchbearer is real and is waiting for Tyclancy every time. He knows what's up. Gay lovers or some shit idfk

And the simpler answer, but the one that actually makes less narrative sense to me because of the very first bullet point I made about original lives:

*Clancy* is the one who dies. He either dies or is killed sometime after being returned to Dema by Keons after his first escape. Tyler finds out about this and takes on the name and mantle of Clancy to carry out his continued rebellion attempts (changing your name in the untraditional way). Clancy *is* dead. He lived on the wrong street. Tyler, now Clancy, is the one who's used for propaganda by the bishops, and all plot events following that happen to him.

This would mean that the person we see in the MVs has always been the same character, which again is less confusing (and explains the Jumpsuit discrepancy my ultimate foe), but it doesn't explain how or why one seems to know things the other doesn't across different points in time.

It could just be that at different points in the cycle Tyler is either more or less aware of the conditioning, is also medicated, and also imagines a lot of shit

And the boring answer I hate

This whole post was futile, it's always just been Clancy the whole time, and you can explain Jumpsuit as an out of body experience and that's all there is to it, and Nico isn't *actually* Tyclancy's bishop he just hates that bitch personally. I don't like this, I don't think it's correct based simply on Nico being Blurryface, and I don't think it's a good story if I'm being honest

Either way, this much is fact:

Tyclancy created Dema. This world. All of it. And he can destroy it, too. There was a time before vialism, a time before Dema. The truth is, he can leave at any time, if he wants. At least that's what he tells himself.

And some more misc thoughts because I didn't say e fucking nough already!!

If the "she" is not a different incarnation or alias of Tyclancy (this was all a fucking transgender Clancy truther theory I tricked you) it's prrrrobably one of the woman banditos we see in the videos, and in that case I would have no idea her significance, so I'm leaning toward the first idea (get transgenderized idiot)

Clancy mentions learning the colors of the banditos at one point, which I think makes his choice to effectively reclaim red really interesting and powerful. He knows what red means and he's using it as a weapon. He doesn't want to be protected or hidden by yellow. He wants to be seen. He Is Clancy, goddamnit.

Clancy mentioning that the bishops showed up and imposed vialism at some point implies there was a time in Dema without vialism, but Clancy doesn't necessarily remember this time (he only remembers being unaware and then "waking up" to the realities of the city). He also says vialism "reversed the hope that many arrived with." People went to Dema for a reason other than vialism, then. It either existed for a long time or they established it, for some other reason. There was a time before the bishops, or at least a time before they were Like That. What was Dema originally intended to be?

#twenty one pilots #clancy #josh dun #tyler joseph #this js literally a novel #and i feel so stupid writing it bc im worried i just don't understand the lore #if it's completely off we will just call this fanfiction and you all better LIKE IT #i cant believe how long this is i was on a roll

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penny00dreadful · 1 year

Text

Crossroads

So I was hoping to get some more Return of the King or Somebody to Love out but these antibiotics are burning a hole through my stomach so I needed something incredibly self indulgent for my own comfort.

Some warnings up front: this is a reincarnation AU so there will be character death. But they do come back, I promise. Apparently my comfort involves a fuckton of angst and devastation so there's that too 🤷‍♀️ but I make it better, I promise. This is a heavy one guys, so take care of yourselves.

Now with beautiful cover art by @subbaculture

AO3 Link

Steve kept his voice low and soft.

Comforting.

Respectful.

He gently gestured the small group of mourners through to the viewing room, content to stand like a sentry in the back, there if they needed him but invisible otherwise in his plain black suit and glasses with his hands folded in front of him after double, triple checking his phone was on silent.

Death was an old friend to him now, though it had taken him a very, very long time to see it that way. Maybe that’s why he’d chosen the profession he had. Becoming a mortician wasn’t something many people actively worked towards since their teen years, unless they were already in the family but it just felt right to Steve.

He hadn’t been taken seriously at the start. He was young. Very young to be in this line of work. Currently in his early thirties and still fifteen years the junior of most funeral directors in the country.

But he was good at what he did. How could he not be? He’d seen more death than any other human alive.

He’d spent so long trying to fight death and losing every time that death no longer felt unsettling to him anymore. It was a fact of life.

Unavoidable.

So he made it his business to ease the crossing from one life to the other, for both the living and the dead and they tried to meet the needs of as many religions, as many traditions, as many practices as they could, both new and old.

They’d spearheaded more eco-friendly and green practices and with the recent rise of neo-paganism and wicca and worship of the Old Gods, they tried to be as accommodating as possible.

If the Steve from all that time ago, still on his first go around and organising the single most devastating funeral he’d ever experienced, could see him now, the Steve whose hands shook as he washed and anointed him with oils, the Steve who was so consumed by despair and fury as he placed the coin in his mouth with one last kiss…

He was pretty sure that Steve of old would have been enraged at his calm acceptance of death in any form.

But this Steve had grown. After all this time. Maybe it had taken him too long. Maybe he hadn’t grown in time, hadn’t grown quick enough to break it.

His Curse, he had taken to calling it.

But that had been when he was a broken and angry man. Now he saw that it had been less of a Curse and more of an Opportunity.

But it had taken him so long to pull himself from his spiral of devastation and anger and as a result he’d squandered that Opportunity.

It had been too late by the time he’d let any humility in.

So this was it now. This was his life and though he’d never be truly happy again, not without him… he was calm.

He was as centred as he could be.

He’d accepted his Fate.

Steve glanced up at the sound of a woman’s sob, ready to step forward if he needed to. The woman, Marion, he remembered, ended up being soothed softly by her sons, Jeremy and Killian. Their fathers death hadn’t been sudden, Walter had been sick for a while but that didn’t make it any less devastating for the three. They’d be okay. They were strong together, Steve thought, loving. Funerals were often make or break for families but these three at least, would pull through.

Steve loved what he did, strange as it was. He loved being able to bring comfort to the living during their hardest times. Helping them to say goodbye and hopefully get some closure.

Closure that he himself had rarely had.

Having that person one day then… they’re gone the next.

He wanted to bring that closure to people.

The room was exploding in flowers, both as a show of love from the deceased's family and a kindness from Crossroads Funeral Home, to try to cover up the smell of Robin's embalming work and to quietly bring some beauty to the room.

Robin.

Pretty much the only good thing that had come from that previous Life.

She'd followed him to this one after they had both died, side by side, dragging Vecna/Henry/One back into the Rainbow Room with the last of their energy and locking everyone else outside before the explosion could go off on the cold night of New Years 1987.

She didn't know it, of course, no one did. No one ever remembered except for Steve. But she knew there was something between them. Some strange string of Fate that connected them. He didn’t know how he’d survived so long without her.

She'd told him once that he looked old. He'd snorted and pushed her away, sitting on that dirty bathroom floor in their comical sailors costumes but she just shook her head.

I meant, like, you don't look old. It's your eyes Steve. They're… they're ancient. Like this isn't your first go around, you know?

He did know. God, did he know. He’d been in a cycle of life and death, life and death, on and on for over two and a half thousand years.

That first Life had been good. Fantastic, even. Two men living together and keeping the same bed wasn’t unheard of at the time. It wasn’t the done thing but it wasn’t something that brought them the hatred of their neighbours.

It was seen as more of an eccentricity than anything.

In later years, in later Lives, they’d have to learn the hard way to hide. But for now, they were happy. They were content.

Steve would accompany Eddie to visit Her temple at the entrance to Thessaly though he never much bothered with worship himself. He never much cared for Heracles or Zeus or Demeter or Atlas. He had everything he ever needed standing beside him.

Though Eddie would often jab him with some kind of teasing comment about how Eros had come for him specifically through Steve, waxing poetic about his moles or the line of his shoulders, often loudly and in public with that terrible cheeky grin of his that Steve was just forced to kiss off his face.

And if it wasn’t Eros then it was Helios inhabiting his eyes or his hair or his skin with the light of the sun.

Everything had been so good.

Steve didn’t think he’d ever been so happy just living.

But they hadn’t had enough time.

Barely seven years they’d had together before death came to tear them apart and vengeance buried itself deep in Steve’s blood.

When it all started, when Eddie lay feverish and dying in their shared bed from an infected bite, Steve had gone to Her.

It was the first time he’d ever given much of a shit about the gods and he didn’t know much about any of them to start with. But he knew Her. He’d listened to Eddie as he’d spoken about the strange feeling he had, the weird connection he felt to Her. He’d watched as Eddie had placed little food offerings of grapes and nuts at their little household altar for Her. He’d seen Eddie find a weird rock or shell or odd trinket and it was always a toss up as to whether it would be placed into Steve’s hand or on Her shrine.

He even wore Her strophalos around his neck.

Hecate.

She was a strange deity for Eddie to focus his dedication to. Her temple was mostly women but Eddie had always been a bit eccentric.

Sorcery, witchcraft, necromancy, the moon, ghosts, gravesites, the night and crossroads. All the things She watched over. All things that were just so Eddie.

Of course he felt a kinship with Her.

Steve’s weird and wonderful freak.

When it happened… Steve had been incandescent with rage and desolation and wanted the world to bend to his will as a consequence of it. He’d been ready to tear everything apart.

His despair had crawled up on him in those last few days, sitting at Eddie’s bedside, watching his love slowly fade away.

Once the infection took hold, Eddie wasn’t really there anymore. He was in and out of consciousness, muttering nonsense and barely able to register anything around him.

Steve spoke to him constantly, holding his hand, stroking his hair but Eddie never responded, not coherently anyway.

They didn’t get to say goodbye. They didn't get any last ‘I love you’s’, they got nothing.

The only time Steve had left his side was to beg and plead and offer himself up at the small household altar. He told Her he’d give anything She asked, make anything She wanted to happen happen, She just had to save him. But like always, She stayed silent. No sign, no movement, no feeling, not even a gust of wind.

But when had the gods ever paid attention?

There was a reason he’d never worshipped. It never brought them anything.

When Eddie died, Steve had refused to let anyone else come in and perform the funeral rites. Eddie was his and his alone, no one else had the right to wash his body, to anoint him, to carefully place the wreath over his head.

Tradition could get fucked.

He had lost his whole world, so everyone else could deal with the consequences.

Steve had kissed him one last time after he had placed the coin in his mouth. He’d debated the coin heavily with himself.

If he didn’t pay the Ferryman, maybe Eddie could come back?

But in the end, common sense won out. He couldn’t keep Eddie trapped like that. He’d never forgive himself.

By then his rage had settled into something cold and constant in his gut.

He would get Eddie back.

If he had to climb to the top of Mt. Olympus himself to demand it, he would.

After the burial, he stood in the street outside Her temple, watching with a half drunk bottle of wine in hand. He wanted Her to know he was coming. He wanted Her to know he was a damn force to be reckoned with.

How dare She ignore him.

How dare She allow him to be taken.

How dare She not give him back.

Eddie was his.

And he was Eddie’s.

How dare She.

He didn’t know how long he stood there before he walked inside.

He wasn’t supposed to be here.

It was forbidden. He shouldn’t have even thought about it. He’d been touched by death, it had entered his house and he would be unwelcome anywhere holy for at least a year, lest his miasma spread to the precious gods.

Funny how they claimed to be all powerful but shrunk away from the air of death that hung around the mortals left behind by loved ones.

Fucking cowards.

People tried to stop him from coming inside, of course they did. Everyone knew of his loss, his rage, his determination. He’d screamed so loud when Eddie had died, the sound had practically stretched through the entire town. They were all so loyal to the gods who couldn’t give a flying fuck about any of them.

As soon as he stepped over the threshold, the worshipers cowered away from him. The Priestesses fled, as though the taboo of the touch of death in this sacred space could somehow infect them.

He had managed to fling Her offerings to the floor and tear a small statue from its pedestal before he was dragged back outside.

The people on the streets gave him a wide berth in the weeks after that. He’d disrespected a goddess and no one wanted to get caught in the crossfire.

But fuck Her.

Let Her be pissed off.

She’d taken everything from him.

Steve felt like he was adrift. He spent hours every day at Eddie’s grave, barely able to exist away from him for long. And whenever he wasn’t there he was at home, in the dark, lying on Eddie’s side of the bed slowly dancing in between unbearable waves of sadness and crawling, festering anger.

The anger he felt was… it was poisonous. Sometimes he felt like he couldn’t breathe for how furious he was.

Physicians were sent to him and were all extremely alarmed at how out of balance his humours were. His Yellow Bile was in extreme excess and they desperately advised him of what he needed to do to become balanced again, but Steve didn’t want anything less.

He needed to stay angry.

His legs were carrying him to Her crossroads before he even knew where he was going.

It was the dead of night and the only thing lighting the intersection up was a single torch burning bright, hanging off a pole in the ground, illuminating up the three faces of Her statue.

She stood like a sentry watching and waiting carefully to make sure travellers made it across safely. A small gathering of offerings stood at the bottom of the statue and Steve had a sudden urge to burn them.

He wrenched the torch down from where it hung and thrust it at Her feet, catching the wreaths and flowers and fruit and small hand carved figurines worshipers and travellers had left behind in deference.

It did nothing to quell the rage within him so he swung back around, prepared to bury the charred and desecrated remains right in the centre, to send a goddamn sign straight to Her heart if he had to.

But as he straightened up he was forced to recoil in shock as the head of the statue had turned. She seemed to stand taller now. She had been of a height with him when he started. Now She loomed over him, glaring down at him with such ferocity he could feel it down to his very core.

But he refused to back down now, he couldn’t.

She was finally paying attention.

“Give him back.” He growled at Her. Her face didn’t move, She stayed as still as stone. Maybe She was still stone, he hadn’t actually seen Her move after all.

And angry wind blew through the crossroads, nearly snuffing out the torch Steve still held in his hand.

She didn’t speak to him but Her words were clear.

He is not mine to give back.

“You’re fucking right. He’s not yours. He’s mine. You had no right to take him.”

Something hissed behind him and Steve whipped around with the torch that almost seemed to phase, one into two into one again.

At the centre of the crossroads, slowly writhing and coiling about itself sat a giant serpent, its crystalline amber eyes burning through him. It was much bigger than it should have been, as thick as one of his arms and so long Steve couldn’t see its tail extending back into the darkness beyond.

I did not take him. She hissed, extending a forked tongue.

Steve swallowed, trying to stop the oil from the double-single torch dripping onto his hand and burning him but also keeping an eye on the giant creature in front of him, taking a shaky step back, heart beating furiously through his chest both from fear and all encompassing rage.

“I don’t believe that. He loved you and you did nothing to stop his crossing!” He spat back at the viper.

The dark was so close around him now, closer than it had been, though the single-double torch still burned as bright as ever.

The crossroads felt completely separated from everything else on earth at that moment, like he was on an island afloat in the darkness.

A low rumbling growl reverberated through the air behind him, sending another spike of fear up through Steve’s spine and forcing him to turn, trying to keep one eye on the giant snake and another on the behemoth of a creature that was slowly stalking towards him on the opposite side.

The dog was huge. It’s snout just about level with Steve’s shoulder, with teeth bared, head low and an angry look in its eye.

That is not my domain. She snapped at him with a gnashing of Her teeth.

“Then make it your domain!” He snapped back, baring his own teeth in kind.

He took another step back, away from the two creatures but was frozen to a stop as a great gust of air was exhaled onto the back of his neck and through his hair.

Turning again, he was backed into the centre of the crossroads as a great and powerful horse approached, towering over him. It did not glare or snap but simply observed.

Steve was now surrounded by Her on three sides, the writhing serpent, the gnashing dog and the stoic horse all slowly closing in on him.

The horse tilted its head, almost curiously.

If you have not earned your penance by the time I am worshipped again, you will bring your end to the both of you.

“Wh-what?” Steve was still trying to strike with anger but the roiling terror was starting to take hold, especially as Her three avatars slowly closed in. “What does that mean?!”

She didn’t answer and Steve knew in his soul the conversation was over. He’d signed his warrant by searching Her out in the first place and whatever happened now, he just hoped it brought him back to Eddie, somehow.

He felt the snake coil itself around his neck, he felt the teeth of the dog in his stomach and the crack of a hoof against the side of his head before everything went dark.

Steve was fifteen in his second Life before things really started to make sense. Because ever since he’d hit puberty he had all these memories that didn’t belong to him.

Or he thought they didn’t belong to him.

His parents thought he was some kind of Seer. He thought so too until one day four years later. He’d been hired as a private and exclusive Seer to a local wealthy politician who Steve suspected just preferred to look at him, rather than have him divine anything.

But they’d been travelling for days to a neighbouring city to marry his daughter off to some young aristocrat or other when their party came upon a familiar crossroad.

The place had changed in the twenty years since he’d last stepped foot here in his previous Life, where he’d sealed his Fate. He could feel it in his bones.

Her statues had been replaced with finer, more intricate and detailed reliefs. The offerings towered high, stretching out into the road itself, like the people here knew this place had been touched by Her.

Everything came back to him tenfold. All the anger, all the devastation, all the bargaining and rage and loss hit him like it had happened only yesterday.

What the fuck was he doing here? Following around some fat, over-indulgent, lecherous old man, spitting nonsense at him like that would help his political decisions?

That’s not what he was here for. He was here to find his Eddie.

Steve didn’t even know if he could find him. Is that how Hecate had punished him for disrespecting Her so much? To relive his life again but without him this time?

Didn’t matter.

If Eddie was here, he’d find him.

And he did find him.

Betrothed to his Master's daughter.

Of course.

But their wedding would never happen. He stole Eddie away with him into the night. As soon as they had laid eyes on each other the decision had been made. They had to have each other, no matter the consequences.

And the consequences did come for them. Thirteen years later they were finally caught and Steve had been forced to watch Eddie die again. They’d been sentenced to death by banishment.

The downsides of pissing off a politician with a grudge.

They’d been starved out, stripped of everything but the clothes on their backs and dumped out into the wilderness.

Eddie had died first of exposure to the cold and the only mercy Steve found in that was that he followed soon after.

He learned pretty soon in his following Lives to be a bit more careful when seeking Eddie out, trying to keep him as safe as possible.

Because Steve remembered everything.

Eddie remembered nothing.

Each new Life was a fresh start for him.

But it didn’t really matter how careful Steve had tried to be. Tragedy and devastation always came for them. And it always came for Eddie first.

He thought sometimes that maybe things would have been different if he’d tried to get Eddie back through Hades, or Thanatos or Atropos. But then again, they probably would have taken his desecration of their shrines much more seriously. Maybe Eddie’s connection to Hecate had been a kindness.

Throughout his various Lives, Steve had died almost every way it was possible to die. He’d been executed, fatally injured, succumbed to sickness, fallen victim to accidents and even died of old age a few times.

Eddie usually died too soon. Way too soon. But Steve wasn’t sure if that was just his own perception of things. No amount of time with him would ever be enough, so any time death came for him seemed too soon.

So maybe he wasn’t dying unusually early just because Steve was there.

But it certainly felt like it.

Once Eddie died, Steve usually followed not long after.

And then he'd be born again. Sometimes nine months later, sometimes years and years later, often in another country, another part of the world.

He’d seen hundreds of years of history pass him by.

He knew where Cleopatra was buried (with extreme disrespect), he knew what happened at the Library of Alexandria (it wasn't burned to the ground), he'd been to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (estimated location was about 200 miles off where people thought), he knew what had happened to The Princes in The Tower (they hadn't survived five minutes once the door closed), he spoken and forgotten ancient languages and text, he'd been in moments of history again and again.

Each of Eddie’s deaths felt like dying to Steve. Each and every one.

Some were gentle.

Some were not.

In some Lives Steve never even knew what happened to him.

In some, by the time Steve found him, Eddie would already have a family around him. Some strange amalgamation of outcasts and ‘undesirables’. Sometimes he’d have a wife or a husband at his side and some children of his own.

Steve could never bring himself to get in between those relationships. Yes, Eddie was his. But only when he chose to be.

Regardless of Eddie’s choice, Steve would always belong to him.

And if that had to be as a friend, then so be it.

He just wanted Eddie to be happy.

Because he knew intimately all the ways it could end for him.

Steve had seen him sentenced to transportation for life to Australia, just reaching the dock as the vessel was on the horizon, disappearing soon after and Steve would never see him in that Life again.

He’d seen him starving and pale boarding a coffin ship during The Hunger, just slipping out of his grip before he could get to him. Eddie had never made it to Quebec.

Steve had seen Eddie hanged and stabbed and shot. He’d died beside him in battle.

He’d seen him fade from sickness and his own grief at the loss of all of his children during the Black Death.

Eddie had died in almost as many ways as Steve had and Steve had to bear witness to most of them.

The worst of all of them had been in 1602 in a tiny village on the edge of the Holy Roman Empire.

It was early in the morning. They’d been asleep in bed, curled around each other when their door was kicked in. Steve had been as prepared as he could be. He was always prepared now. It had been two thousand years at this stage and he was always ready for anything.

Well, almost anything.

He’d snatched up his sword without a second thought and swung. He was the most skilled combatant in the world, hundreds of years of training and discipline in some of the best armies, under some of the best commanders history had to offer. It allowed him to cut down three of the men before Eddie could even untangle himself from their blankets.

But no amount of skill could help him when he was overpowered and outnumbered.

Something had cracked him hard over the back of the head and everything had gone dark before he could raise his sword again.

He didn’t know how long it was before he came to, but when he did he almost wished he could go back to blissful darkness.

Almost.

Because Eddie was struggling, tied to a wooden beam on a small platform in the centre of the town with kindling being tossed at his feet and a long list of heresy charges and accusations of witchcraft being called out to the gathered townspeople.

Everything was still foggy, like his brain was being filtered through a slow fed sieve. His movements were sluggish and broken and he couldn’t break free. He was being held on his knees, on his own platform with a guard on either side.

Things were still fading in and out for him as he tried to shove the guards away and fought to loosen the bonds around his wrists, tying his hands behind his back.

Steve’s head was wrenched upwards by his hair as the first torch set the kindling under Eddie ablaze.

His gaze locked with Eddie’s, his wide, brown, beautiful eyes were tear streaked and terrified as he screamed out for him through the rapidly thickening haze, coughing and spluttering as he tried desperately not to breathe in the suffocating grey-black smoke.

The cry that Steve let out was one filled with millennia of fury and anguish as he snapped the ropes around his wrists clean away and reached over, unsheathing one of the guards swords and beheading the two of them before they could even blink.

He cut his way through the crowd, completely uncaring if it was civilian, soldier, guard or religious figure who stood in his way. If they didn’t move, they were removed.

Steve threw himself up on top of the pyre, ignoring any pain that came from the stifling heat and burning wood below him as he cut Eddie's limp body down and threw them both off the side.

But it was too late and Eddie was gone again.

Steve turned his cold eyes back on the crowd who were now standing back, regarding him with apprehension and fear as he slowly got to his feet and twirled the sword in his hand.

That town wouldn’t be found on any modern map. He’d obliterated it.

He’d let the streets run red and razed it to the ground.

It would never be remembered.

History never knew it existed.

He’d made sure of it.

Something in that Life had broken Steve irrevocably. Something had cracked. Doubt began to seep in. He started to worry that this cycle would never end.

This was the worst kind of punishment.

It was a punishment he’d not only doomed himself to, but he’d doomed Eddie too.

With each Life his soul felt heavier and heavier.

Until it all came to a head in Hawkins.

Being Steve Harrington, babysitter extraordinaire and ex-King of Hawkins High had been… easy at first. He’d been born into wealth this time which was always a relief. He didn’t have to scrape and slog just to eat or put a roof over his head but wealth had its own shackles, its own chains.

Expectation and duty and honour. That always travelled in wealth, no matter the century.

Add that onto the crushing weight of his Curse, the deal at the crossroads he’d made with Her… it wasn’t the worst Life he’d ever lived but it wasn’t the smoothest either.

Because the Life in Hawkins was the first Life he had ever lived where he made the choice not to find Eddie.

It should have been simple.

It should have been the simplest thing he’d ever done. Born, live, die in the same small town.

And Eddie would stay safe.

Live a long and happy life, wherever he’d been born into.

Steve had scoured the town out of the corner of his eye as soon as his memories came back to him but was able to breathe a sigh of relief when he couldn’t find hide nor hair of him.

Because if he wasn’t here, if he wasn’t around Steve, maybe he wouldn’t die tragically this time.

But it was almost as if the universe heard his sigh of relief.

Almost like She had.

Because a year later when Steve was thirteen, a miserable boy with a buzzed head and giant, defiant brown eyes turned up at school.

He’d be living in the town now.

Steve couldn’t escape him.

He could run away, get as far away as a bus would carry him and hope he wouldn’t be brought back, but he knew he’d never be able to. He’d seen Eddie now, so trying to physically separate himself would be like trying to rip his own arm off.

So no, he couldn’t escape him.

But he could ignore him.

If he couldn’t put physical distance between them, he’d keep the emotional distance as much as it killed him to do it.

He was growing crazy with it by the time he was sixteen and he thought…

Maybe he could try something else?

Nancy was as much of an Eddie look alike as it was possible to get. He hadn’t even realised that that was why he’d picked her. It hadn’t been a conscious decision.

But if he was going to let Eddie go, he could allow himself to have the next best thing.

Up until Tommy and Carol and Barb and the pool.

He couldn’t… he couldn’t do it.

It made him feel disgusting.

It felt so disloyal to do anything with anyone else. He never had. He’d never wanted to. He still didn’t want to, he realised.

Eddie wasn’t his in this Life.

Eddie had never been his to dictate decisions over anyway.

But Steve was Eddie’s.

In every Life, in every iteration, Steve belonged to Eddie.

Whether Eddie knew it or not.

So no, he couldn’t go through with it, with Nancy. She was a lovely girl but she wasn’t him.

Steve had only ever belonged to one person and he would only ever belong to that person.

And he was okay with that, he realised.

Nancy was a bit surprised that he’d stopped but understood well enough in the end.

All of that was swiftly forgotten about though, when they heard Barb scream from outside and had to pull her from the jaws of some otherworldly demon.

Steve had thought he’d seen everything the world had to offer but he’d never seen anything like this.

War was no stranger to Steve, he knew it well.

He and Eddie had fought side by side many times whenever Fate had pushed them in that direction, most memorably in The Sacred Band on Steve’s second or third Life. They’d actually survived long enough to retire from that troop and had another ten years together before death came for Eddie again.

Throughout time Steve had fought using an aspis, a gladius Hispaniensis, a Hallstatt sword, then maces, glaives and longbows. He fought as a knight in plate and then with canons and bayonets before getting his hands on an SMLE and then an M1 Garand.

But this war was different to every one he’d fought in the past. There was no phalanx, no column, no cavalry. Just vicious mindless monsters, a handful of kids and teenagers and one super powered child.

Steve fought that war like he’d fought every other one in his long life, with reckless abandon, trying to keep his charges safe and most importantly, trying to keep Eddie safe.

Eddie was a musician in this Life, like he so often was and he was going to go far. He was talented. He was beautiful. He had so much life in him.

Steve was going to make sure Eddie got there if it killed him.

Again.

He’d let him get as far away as possible and maybe, just maybe Eddie would live the life he deserved.

But that hadn’t happened.

Like the universe, like She had heard Steve’s silent pleas again, the two of them had been shoved together under the most apocalyptic of circumstances. Like it was all one last test of Steve’s resolve. To see if he could stay away. To see if he could let Eddie go. Allow him to look at him with those big, beautiful eyes and smile his devastatingly pretty smile and light up like a live wire in Steve’s space with so much energy and passion Steve felt like he was caving in on himself.

If he could let Eddie be, if he could avoid reaching out, if he could stop himself from ruining Eddie once again then maybe Eddie would be allowed to live. The Curse would be broken.

And he thought he had succeeded.

He felt something snap in him, something break, something release.

So he thought he’d done it.

But then he’d made it back to the trailer to find blood. Blood and torn flesh and bubbling breath and one last whispered “Stevie?” before Eddie’s endless brown eyes went dull.

And Steve was done.

He couldn’t do it anymore.

He’d walked to the crossroads just outside his house and screamed that he was done. It was over. She’d won.

He didn’t get an answer.

He didn’t expect one.

So he went into that Rainbow Room with Robin convinced this was his last Life. Ready for it to be over. For good.

Almost wishing for it.

But he’d been born again in 1992 and now?

Well now he had learned to just exist.

To just be.

And to find whatever contentment he could.

He had his business. He had Robin. So he was… okay.

And that was okay.

Robin stuck her hands in her pockets as she stood in the cold of the morgue, watching Steve close everything up for the evening.

“I don’t want to go.”

“You have to go, Birdie. You need to break up with her.”

Robin sighed, long and heavy. “God, I know. Can’t you do it for me?”

“For the last time, no. Break up with her over text if you have to. She deserves shitty treatment. Fuck her.”

“I can’t. She’ll refuse to accept it. She’ll keep showing up and insisting it never happened and then she’ll throw the mother of all fits when I try to tell her it did happen!”

“So that’s why you’re taking her out to dinner? So she has to listen?”

“And we’ll be in public. So she can’t cause a scene.”

Steve scoffed. “That’s never stopped her before,” he muttered to himself but raised his voice again at Robin's scowl. “That’s all very red flag behaviour, Birdie.”

“Yes I know Steven, thank you. Why do you think I’m breaking up with her?”

“Okay.” He gave the door to the morgue one last tug, making sure it was locked up tight. “No dead bodies are escaping from me tonight. Call me after?” He jabbed his finger up to the ceiling and behind, in the direction of his house, tucked away at the back of the business, separated and hidden from sight by a line of trees.

“I can’t believe you still own a landline. Who even has a landline anymore?”

Steve shrugged but grinned at her still. “I’m old fashioned.”

“Whatever. Okay. I’m gone. Wish me luck!” Robin called back as she bounced her way up the stairs.

“Good luck!” He shouted after her. “Let me know if you need my assassination skills!”

“You’ve never killed anything bigger than a spider, babe!” The sound of the front door closing was the only thing she left behind to punctuate her statement.

Steve frowned. “Never killed anything bigger than a spider,” he mimicked as he trudged back upstairs, grumbling, “I’ve taken on the damn Mongols, never killed anything bigger than a spider, pshh.”

He continued to mutter to himself as he walked through, switching off the lights before making his way outside to lock up the front door.

He had just given the door one last tug when he heard a voice behind him, speaking in a language he hadn’t heard in over two millennia.

“I’ve been looking for you, my sunshine.”

Steve swiped around, scarcely daring to believe what he was hearing but there he was.

Eddie stood in front of him, ripped up black jeans, black cons, long curly dark hair and a yellow sweater that looked like something Steve had worn in the 80’s.

All Steve could do was breathe out his name. “Eddie.”

Eddie smiled at him, a warm, gentle, pretty thing that filled Steve’s heart and made it ache all at once.

“What… what do you-?”

“I remember everything, sweetheart.” Eddie stepped forward, only stopping when they were toe to toe.

“Everything?” Steve could scarcely believe it. Wouldn’t dare believe it if it wasn’t for the strophalos symbol hanging around his neck.

“Everything.” He nodded, placing a hand at either side of Steve’s face. “You came for me. Every single Life. You were there. I figure it’s about time I return the favour.”

A laugh burst out of Steve without his permission but it was really more of a sob than anything as he raised his own hands to encircle Eddie’s wrists.

“What does this mean?” He whispered, terrified that too loud a noise, too sudden a movement would shatter everything. “What does this mean for us?”

“It means it’s broken, baby.” Eddie touched their foreheads together and said, with scarcely a breath between their lips, “It means you have me. And I have you. Forever.”

And Steve was so scared. So scared that it wouldn’t stick, that it would all change the second he closed his eyes but he couldn’t deny he could feel it. Deep down in his soul he could feel that he was free.

Steve nudged himself forward, just barely a hair but it was enough to bring them together, it was enough to kiss and it was only at that moment he realised he hadn’t kissed Eddie in decades.

Since before Hawkins.

It was like electricity had shot through him, his whole body, his mind, his soul had been aching, craving, needing Eddie's touch and it was like he could breathe again with it.

When their kiss broke neither of them pulled away, they continued to hold each other, to hug, pressed flush with arms tight around each other and Steve didn’t think he’d ever be able to let go.

Yeah. Forever sounded pretty good.

I am not a particularly religious or spiritual person but when I tell you I felt seen as I was writing this know that I am not exaggerating 😅 it was less that I felt watched, more that I felt observed.

I shit you not when this idea popped into my head, Hecate started appearing everywhere. On my podcasts, in my YouTube videos, my tiktoks, on the radio, in conversation at work... Everywhere.

Being Irish living in Ireland I'm surrounded by mythology and legends and stories and paganism all the time so that did fuel some of my interest. I follow a good number of pagans and wiccans on social media and I know a few in real life too so I tried my best to be as respectful to their beliefs as I could in my depictions.

This has been my most researched fic to date. The amount I read for this was intense. Funeral rites in Ancient Greece, as much as I could read on Hecate, how funerals work in America because apparently the Irish do things very differently to the rest of you?? The greatest mysteries in history, millennia of military tactics, the intricacies of the Greek Gods... just so much stuff! And it was fun!

ALSO The Sacred Band! Holy shit! The Sacred Band was a specific troop of soldiers in Ancient Greece composed completely of male lovers under the understanding that if you're fighting next to your love you'll fight harder. And people say this whole queer business is a recent thing 🙄

Anyway I hope you liked it! 🖤

Hecate

Strophalos

The Princes in The Tower

Coffin Ships

The Hunger

The Black Death

Holy Roman Empire

Heresy witch burnings

The Sacred Band

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soulcandi · 10 months

Text

𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐆 (𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬) | 𝐣𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲 - 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞

synopsis: Widowed Jake Sully (sorry) gathers his four children to seek refuge in the isolated territory of the Metkayina clan. He warns them to be on their best behavior, but quickly realizes that it's himself he'll have to watch out for when he meets the eldest daughter of the clan leader.

warnings: jake's pov, alternating povs, mutual pining, written with afab!reader in mind, reader has a na'vi name.

a/n: cross-posted on ao3 and Tumblr <3 noticed some people on tumblr kinda ripping off my work so ig i need to establish dominance on this hellsite too. not sure if i vibe with the pov dividers yet, but they're there regardless.

word count: 2,092

masterlist, next chapter

The foreign white sands seemed to sink under my weight as I dismounted my Ikran. One arm held my youngest daughter against my hip while the other gestured for my three eldest children to stand down and lower their guards. I felt the weariness and apprehension radiating off of them, and understood it, but knew more in the ways of diplomacy than I ever thought to pass on.

The people emerged from their dwellings in droves, peering out into the open sands at the new arrivals from beyond the horizon. Tuk began to stir in my arms as I hoisted her up higher. My legs threatened to buckle underneath my body with every suggested movement. I hadn’t stepped foot on solid land since we first disembarked from the forest floor. I couldn’t afford to.

A low hum rose from the curious silence as the people’s wonder turned to fear. Who were these people? Why have they come to us?

I threw my head in every direction, searching through the many faces for that of Tonowari, who met the sky people in battle alongside me many years ago. He of all people would understand our dire situation. My stomach churned when out of a thousand faces, all melted into a rippling sea of coral blue, none made any move to come forward. Instead, I began to take notice of the pointed spearheads prodding out of the makeshift barricade. They were arming themselves.

A commotion behind me made me whip my head around just in time to catch Neteyam making a grab for the bow strapped to the saddle of his Ikran. “Tiftang,” I hissed. Stop it. If these people saw us as a threat in any capacity, it would be onto the next clan, then the next, and the next, until we came across someplace stupid enough to harbor five fugitives from the forest.

Neteyam met my eye and hesitated before lowering his arm helplessly to his side, a dejected look quickly masking the curiosity that I detected in him immediately after landing. Just as soon as the whispers ceased, they returned tenfold. When I looked back down the beach, it didn’t take long to establish why.

A single figure emerged from the wall of defensive clanspeople, stepping across the platform of pliant sand as if it were a marble runway. It was effortless in a way that should have made me uneasy but instead inspired a rush similar to adrenaline in my cold and wind-beaten body.

The very first thing I noticed was the flowing white cloth draped over your waist — a type of fabric I would have assumed was cotton back on Earth, but on Pandora, I couldn’t be too sure. A long slit ran all the way to your outer thigh and billowed like a sail on the open sea. Strings of beaded pearls twisted around both your legs like thin aquatic vines, and when you grew closer, I would soon notice how similar beads had been woven into the hair framing your face.

I had never seen anything quite like you – on my native planet or this one.

Swallowing, I lowered a wriggling Tuk to the sands where she quickly disappeared behind her sister. I intended to meet you in the middle of the small peninsula, but as soon as I found the strength to move, you had already come within a few feet of where we landed.

There was something so regal in the way you composed yourself, with a sense of majesty that commanded the attention of all those around you, including myself. Anyone could have whispered in my ear just then and told me you were something ethereal — something larger than life — and I would have had no choice but to believe them.

I immediately moved to make myself smaller, afraid of coming off as too imposing. Before I earned the respect of the Omaticaya, I was the oaf, the fool who didn’t consider his own size before running blindly into conflict. I refused to inherit that same legacy here.

Touching two fingers against my temple, I brought them down in a wide arch away from my body. “Oel ngati kameie.” I see you.

Boy, did I ever.

You met my display with a bow of your own, bringing two fingers to the space between your eyes. Your wrist was cluttered with bracelets woven from strong green fibers and I studied you shamelessly, assuming your eyes were closed when in reality, you were studying me back beneath your curtain of long eyelashes.

You heard them well before you ever saw them — the mighty flying beasts whose wings beat up the waters flying low over the edge of the reef. You were raised on stories of the Ikran and of the Toruk who ruled over them in the forest regions. But more often, you were ensnared by tales of Toruk Makto who fought alongside your father in the war against the sky people — those who hunted your tulkun siblings over the horizon.

You were barely able to hold your own in those times of great sorrow, buried in your studies as you learned the ways of the Tsahìk – the role you were blessed to one day inherit from your mother. You long outgrew the audience of the village storyteller, but you had to have been blind not to recognize who now stood in your presence, bowed to offer you his deepest respects.

“Oel ngati kameie,” he spoke, voice low and tinted with a guttural edge. His eyes, a startling yellow that rivaled the burnfibers that grew in the underbrush around the clan border, moved not once from yours.

Your face began to burn from the heat of his gaze – evaporating whatever seawater still lingered on your cheeks from your morning swim. A man who not once in his life reduced himself to beg was now pleading before you, empty hand still outstretched as if for you to take.

In an attempt to hide the effect he was having on you, you quickly moved to fulfill your end of the gesture by touching your own two fingers to your temple. It was only polite by way of your people. Before you could part your lips and repeat his own words back to him, however, you heard furious footfalls upon the sand and staggered backward as your brother Ao’nung appeared out of nowhere and drew you close behind him.

“We have no peace with these forest people,” he seethed, turning back to glower at you before glaring straight forward at your unexpected guests. You were six cycles his elder, but no one would ever guess it by how closely he mirrored your father in both leadership and combat. Despite this, Ao’nung was undeniably a child; a child who did not yet wield the power of clan leader.

Your brother had far to go in his studies, but if he were to become Olo’eyktan one day like he so planned, the village was better for it.

You watched as Toruk Makto — Jake’sully — drew his ears flat against his head like a wounded animal. Only then did he finally drop his hand and a wave of regret washed through you for not showing him his owed respect when you had the chance.

Planted all around him was a small army of children, all cowering at his side. Two boys looked around Ao’nung’s age, or close. Beside them, bearing no signs of fear, only weariness, a girl with choppy black hair who reminded you very little of your sister stood before an even smaller child who was too far hidden behind the others for you to see clearly.

“That is Toruk Makto,” you whispered in warning, placing a hand on your brother’s shoulder. He huffed at your display of seniority but did not back down. “Ao’nung.”

“His title makes no difference to me,” he scoffed. “Outsiders are unwelcome.”

Pursing your lips, you stepped back. “Where is father?”

Any efforts you could have made to remedy the situation proved to be in vain as both your parents surfaced from the flood of villagers standing at the shoreline. Neither of them looked as forgiving as you might have hoped to be.

You could stand up to either of your siblings in a heartbeat, and you’ve done it a thousand times before, but both you and your brother knew better than to test them. Especially now, when human gunfire could be heard over the horizon in the deadly stillness of night.

Stepping aside, you allowed the Olo’eyktan and Tsahìk past so they could cast their own judgment upon the forest refugees.

There was a flurry of mixed reactions when Tonowari announced to his people that my family and I would be allowed into the village. More whispers, which were expected, but no thunderous applause. Definitely no applause.

The Metkayina looked down upon us like one would look upon a child struggling to stand, but with pity where hope should have been found. I could only swallow the last of my shame and give all the thanks I could muster.

“Dad?” Tuk tugged on my tunic, wet with ocean spray and sweat from several days’ travel. I lifted her once again over my hip, using my free hand to unhook the leather satchel that hung from the saddle of my Ikran. Kiri and the boys watched me closely, waiting for the go-ahead to do anything but stand there rigidly.

I nodded toward their Ikran. All three had been locked in a conversation entirely their own, comprised of clicks and caws I couldn’t even begin to understand. Not like Kiri miraculously could. “Get your things,” I commanded. No time to sit around and sunbathe. Not while Ronal could easily whip her head back around and overpower her mate’s decision to allow us refuge, sending us right back out into open seas with nothing but the last of our rations and a week’s worth of exhaustion.

They snapped to it immediately, grabbing the netted sacks that held the last remaining fragments of their previous lives and dismissing their Ikrans to the skies. I followed suit before turning to face the village, our home for the foreseeable future, for a final time.

Everyone else had long since wandered off, returning to their duties just as Tonowari ordered. Those that remained sprinkled across the sands were doing a half-assed job of pretending there weren’t five foreign faces walking amongst them. They watched from the shadows of their straw buildings, or from underneath the surface of their crystal clear waters.

But you?

You were standing right where I left you, hands clutched together in front of your body with a gentle smile pulling at your lips. I tried not to replay your first impression of me in my head for fear of ruining a second. I see you, I repeated to myself in the furthest reaches of my mind. I see you, I see you, I see you.

“May the great mother look upon our meeting with favor,” you beamed like you had been waiting your entire life to roll out the welcome wagon. Considering the clan’s attitude toward outsiders, this was likely the case. “I will show you to our village. May I?”

The last of your words were directed solely to Neteyam, who was struggling to haul both his and Kiri’s luggage over his arm. He froze instantly in the presence of your warm smile and did nothing to deny you as you stepped forward and took his bag into your hands.

You made a point to greet each of the children with a welcoming smile, even going as far as to offer Tuk a private giggle before meeting my gaze with a neutral, diplomatic air. “Right this way, please.”

A true leader in the making.

If I stopped to ponder it long enough, I could force myself to remember you. In my first tour of the neighboring clans, when Toruk Makto was called upon to unite them against the sky people, you had been there. Hidden behind Ronal, I remember your eyes as clear as day. They were your father’s eyes, though brighter and filled with hope rather than wise resignation.

When your back was turned, I watched my eldest son gulp and shift his remaining bag higher over his shoulder. Lo’ak snorted and socked him roughly in the arm before taking off after his sisters, who hounded close behind your retreating figure as if it were a beacon in the dark.

#atwow #jake sully x reader #jake sully #atwow x reader #avatar 2 #avatar x reader #avatar #avatar fanfiction #candywrites #dreaming (of all the possibilities)#dreaming

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loaksky · 1 year

Note

Congrats on 2k!!!! 🥳🥳Could I request a neteyam x reader with the laughing more around them? 🥰🥰

fifth installment for the party; thank you for participating!

neteyam x fem metkayina!reader, pure fluff, wc: 1270

yesterday was officially the last day to send in anything for my 2k party, so thank you to everyone who participated! after this installment, i have two more little drabbles that will most likely make it to you guys by the end of today!

The people of Awa’atlu have a saying. They say that the ocean can feel every visitor’s deepest desires. That if you whisper your wishes to the rippling waters, perhaps the waves will deliver.

On the eve of your nineteenth orbit, you murmur your wish for a great love. It’s spoken into the quiet of the lapping seafoam, barely evading the pricked ears of your closest friend and confidant.

Tsireya thinks that you’re asking for strength, or maybe even the courage, to serve the people. It’s what’s written in your stars, but your heart, so full of love with no one to love, yearns for a taste of what your parents have, what the leaders have, what the island’s lovers have.

You don’t expect the ocean to give so soon, but eclipses later, over the beat of ikran wings and chattering villagers, the sea delivers you your great love in the form of Neteyam.

His family seeks refuge, seeks a calm in the storm that rages in the distant forest. The people are hesitant at first, want nothing to do with the family that hosts demon blood. But Tsireya, ever diplomatic and kind-hearted, spearheads their assimilation.

You keep your distance at first, watch from afar as she falls headfirst into the Sully’s youngest son while you observe the eldest with curious heart. He’s kind, exceptionally so, with an unbreakable duty to his family and to the island, and that’s what breaks the fragile tension between the two of you.

He’s collecting tangles of seaweed and the fragments of shattered shells when you happen upon him on what seems to be the sunniest day in a long while. Your skin is warm, accustomed to the relentless beating of the sun’s rays, while Neteyam’s worked a sweat that beads at his hairline.

“The elders are grateful for the time you take to give love to the reef,” you say quietly, hand coming up to shield your eyes.

Neteyam stops, gaze swinging towards you. He gives you a sheepish smile, tucking the last of the weeds into a pouch slung across the broad of his shoulders. He’s closing the distance and your face draws upwards as he stands a few paces away.

“Least I can do,” he replies, fingers fidgeting with the strap of the small knapsack.

Your head tilts and something shutters across his face as his eyes dart over your features indiscreetly.

You can’t help the small laugh that bubbles past your lips when the two of you stand there in a prolonged silence. His expression shifts and you note the smile lines that dent his chiseled cheeks.

“Were you up to something” he finally asks.

You shrug, shifting the weight from one leg to the other. He scratches the back of his neck, ears twitching when you breathe another airy laugh.

“Wanna go for a swim?” you ask shyly. “We can work on your breathing and you can cool off.”

His smile widens.

“Yeah,” he agrees slowly. “I’d…I’d really like that.”

Your best friend argues that you’ve changed. Something inside of you shines so bright and she has an inkling that one of the new villagers is responsible.

Sees it in the way your gazes linger unbeknownst to the other. Or maybe it’s the way the two of you end up falling so far behind during swims and excursions, only to be found giggling and splashing in shallower waters. Definitely could also be the way you two separately seem to always have the other on your minds.

“You and Neteyam seem…cozy,” Tsireya says tentatively, looping a hollowed pearl through a thin braid in your hair.

“Could say the same about you and Lo’ak,” you retort.

A smile threatens the corners of your mouth as you begin to absently draw shapes in the shore. You almost take her lack of a response as an answer, but her own laughter tinkles into the air. When you follow her gaze to the sand, you find that you’ve vacantly etched a certain forest boy’s initials.

Before you can splutter out a poor excuse, your name is called.

Like you’ve summoned him, your gaze flits to an approaching Neteyam. The heat of your cheeks intensifies as you quickly rake through the sand to hide your heart’s latent subconscious.

“Tsireya,” he greets, nodding towards the leader’s daughter.

His eyes find yours a moment later and you’re suddenly shy, the pads of your fingers rolling over the newly threaded pearls in your hair.

“Hi,” he says quietly.

Tsireya’s grinning like a maniac as she gives the final braid the tiniest of tugs and stands from where she sits with her legs crossed.

“Hi,” you murmur sweetly, eyes widening a fraction when you notice your friend gathering her things.

She bids you a wicked farewell, masked as a singsong declaration that she’ll see you at the evening meal. Your heart lurches in your chest when Neteyam takes her spot next to you.

The quiet is accentuated by the ocean’s lull, wind whistling through the leaves of the imposing mangroves. Like clockwork with the two of you, the smallest breaths of a laugh blow through your nostrils.

Neteyam’s already watching you, the ghost of a smile quirking.

“What’s funny?” he presses, leaning so that your shoulders bump.

You shake your head.

“Nothin’,” you say quietly, unable to form the words to tell him that you’re enamored.

That you asked the ocean for your great love and it delivered him to you, perfect and missing nothing but a pretty bow.

Like the thought slips and he captures it, he clears his throat.

“Tsireya told me to ask you about the ocean’s wish,” he says sheepishly, eyes flitting to the gleaming blue waters, calm like it’s listening. “You know what she’s talking about?”

Your chest is alight.

“Yeah,” you say gently, angling to face him. “The Metkayina says that the ocean can feel every inhabitant’s deepest desires. Maybe it will grant a wish, maybe not. It is only the will of the waters.”

His lips part in understanding, nodding as his gaze sweeps back to yours. Your skin still brushes his, balmy and soothingly warm, and in this moment you realize that it’s easy with Neteyam when both of your beating hearts are glaringly stitched to your sleeves.

“So…I should make a wish?” he asks, fingers millimeters away from yours.

“Only if there is something you desperately desire,” you say softly.

The words are weighty, laced. You’re trying to say more than you’re letting on, and Neteyam’s always been good at reading between the lines. It’s only a matter of if he’ll squash the fear.

“Oh,” is all he whispers.

“Is there something you want?” you ask, unable to meet his prying gaze. “To ask the sea for, I mean.”

“Yeah.” His voice is hoarse. “I do. Badly.”

Your stomach is in knots and you don’t think you’ve ever wanted to kiss anyone more.

“Oh,” you parrot. “I see.”

This time he’s the one who laughs, dimples making your already weak resolve crumble.

“Have you made yours?” he asks, and you don’t want to disappoint yourself by reading too much into the shift of his eyes, round and golden like the sun.

Your nod is delayed.

“I have,” you respond.

“Do you…” he trails off, swallowing down the lump in his throat, “Do you think it’s come true?”

Neteyam’s breath stutters, chest hitching, when your gaze seems to scan his features thoughtfully. Your mouth twitches as you grin, almost glowing, and you pin him with a look that tells him all he needs to know.

“Yes,” you hum. “I think it has.”

#neng's 2k party ! 🐉#neteyam drabble #neteyam x reader #neteyam sully #neteyam #neteyam fic #avatar #avatar way of water #avatar the way of water #avatar the movie

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cosmic-herbal-tea · 19 days

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Im not understanding the nonsense surrounding Yord and i actually went out of my way to not look at anything related to Acolyte until it came out.

SPOILERS under the cut

i’m

“ Im distrustful of the dude that flagarantly uses the Force to get their way.”

First off, he probably did that to scare them without any real intent. He follow protocol & is an over-achiever. And second, people love jumping on black characters for supposedly flagrantly using powers.

But stay dead silent when Qui-Gon was quick to use the same ability casually to get his way & laud him as THE Jedi™️. I don’t hear people bad mouthing Cal Kestis’s casual usage of mind trick towards both animals & others to the point even he lampshades Cere may not particularly like how he uses it. Gameplay implies he can even kill people with the mind trick if tapped into the dark side.

Hell, Sol flagarantly used the same power for a similar purpose of getting through bullshit when the violent prisoners made up some shit about Oshra & he’s being hailed as “the Qui-Gon” of the show.

“He’s quick to use his lightsaber”

Dude uses his lightsaber as a flashlight just like Cal Kestis or he fears a purported Jedi Killer enough to be quick to use his lightsaber or is not above using it against a potential jedi killer & suddenly it’s bad because “hIgH rEpUbLiC jEdI uSe iT aS a lAsT rEsOrT”

This is not Avatar & the Jedi Order is not the Air Nation. They’re not pacifist and Mae, a ASSASSIN, killed a JEDI MASTER known for her abilities in combat. God forbid in a fictional setting, black characters defending themselves is bad.

Honestly, this is a non-point especially when this same franchise & fandom gives lot of focus & credit to characters who are quick to use their lightsabers (Anakin, CW!Ahsoka, Survivor!Cal, Rebels!Ezra) to the point mentor characters remind them how to solve problems without one (Cere, Kanan, Tera Sinube) but they’re the “RIGHT Jedi”.

“Something something ACAB Jedi”

Against, pitting this idea primarily with the actions of a BLACK CHARACTER in TWO episodes who is helping solving a JEDI KILLER related case sounds both tone deaf & nonsensical.

“Something something flaws Jedi prequels parallel”

This is the last point because it’ll sum up the intent of the post: let characters be CHARACTERS for goodness sake.

Star Wars fandom is so used to unconventional Jedi being protagonists & being in the “morally correct” (even when they’re tweaking & capping) that people who follow basic rules are bad even though they don’t actually do anything significant to warrant bad faith.

Not to mention Yord is a 2 year old knight. How the fuck can he represent the prequel Jedi when he’s not even in a position of leadership to spearhead whatever flawed mindset you think the Prequel Jedi had?

Final thoughts

Me personally, Star Wars fandom is capping again with some of these characters & it shows. And it needs to be said & pointed out every time. These characterization & ideas get to the point people behind the scenes feed into this but don’t even consider the implications of it. It’s not riveting storytelling of “George Lucas’s true intentions”.

#yord fandar #the acolyte #star wars #jedi order

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thebroccolination · 4 months

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Krist's Thai Fans

My favorite thing about Krist's Thai fans is how kind they are. As long as you're respectful when you ask, they're more than willing to answer questions about him and clarify the past to people who are looking for context. That's what I've always done, and it really speaks to the kind of bond that exists between him and them that although interfans have happily tried to destroy his reputation overseas for years, his Thai fans are able to be this patient dealing with the same misinterpretations of his character over and over.

And a lot of them have been fans since SOTUS. I've spoken to some who attended the filming of SOTUS. Some have known this man since he was a teenager, and since he wears his heart on his sleeve, they know him better than most fans would know the average celebrity. At the BMF finale event, he started crying when he saw a fan he hadn't seen for months. He thought she'd lost interest, but it turned out she'd just gotten busy with work and had been donating to his food support for months instead.

Before I went to Thailand, my friend told me he'd been to a bunch of BL actor events and he said of all the fanbases he saw, Krist and his fans seemed the most like actual, genuine friends. And then I attended the BMF finale event and Krist's solo concert, and my friend was right. At the fan benefits portion of both, Krist not only recognized his fans, he had unique ways of interacting with each of them. One woman opened her arms and ran at him with a yell, and he grinned and yelled back. One guy walked up to him with a beaming smile and Krist lit up and hugged him. It wasn't a, "Hey…you!" thing, he knew these people well enough that he immediately recognized them and matched their energy.

Two friends, a guy and a girl, took a 3:1 photo with Krist, and it was clear from his nervousness that it was the guy's first time meeting Krist. He lingered after, said something to Krist, and Krist beamed and took his hands. The guy walked off the stage barely keeping it together, and his friend turned around and waved at Krist with a knowing smile.

Then, during a group photo, a woman and her friend told Krist that she'd been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and she would likely never meet him again. She was smiling, and he gave her a long hug. She passed away recently.

The reason I'm so enthusiastic about Krist as a person is because I saw firsthand the amount of energy and devotion he reserves for the people who care about him. Friends, family, coworkers, staff, fans. He could easily give half of what he does and it would still be admirable. The fan benefits for the second day of his solo concert went on until at least eleven at night, and the concert started at three. And he was there rehearsing from early morning after doing another concert with benefits the day before. And he was sick. He got through both days using steroids, and he was violently ill from them afterward.

And like, every time I think about this bond with his fans, I'm moved by how immensely kind his Thai fans specifically have always been to me. They've been through so incredibly much with the weird witch hunt against Krist spearheaded by international fans. He was tormented off social media in 2020, but his long-time Thai fans were still there. Watching as western people arrived in this fandom for the first time and started cheerfully spouting death threats at someone whose language they didn't even speak. These people saw one screenshot and an inflamatory TikTok or two and rather than ask anyone why Thai fans weren't also baying for his blood, they decided they knew best and that his fans must just be simps or idiots.

When I visited Thailand last year, it struck me how humble and kind most of these actors are. Be it because they have perspective from working other jobs (doctor, chef, etc.), and if they're like Krist and only work in the entertainment industry, they might just see their fans so often and at such close range that it's probably impossible to want to maintain an Aloof and Mysterious Distance from them. Maybe it's cultural, too. Here in Ireland, Irish people famously don't give a toss when they see Irish celebrities. I saw Hozier on the corner in my neighborhood a few weeks ago chatting with an unhoused man and no one at all reacted.

All this to say, since KristSingto will be active this year, and they'll likely have a series announced at the showcase, please encourage people to do more research than skim through a YouTube video called PROBLEMATIC BAD PEOPLE IT IS ACCEPTABLE TO BE MEAN TO. If not for Krist, then for his queer Thai fans who are, I can confirm, extremely tired of international fans coming into fandom with sanctimonious and cruel intentions that make the entire experience dramatically worse.

I promise you if Krist had ever been perceived as homophobic by his Thai fans, who know him far better than we do, then his queer Thai fans would still be saying something. He also wouldn't have primarily queer friends. Like, it's not one or two. Most of his friends are queer. The industry is queer.

Anyway, y'know. Another day, another casual effort to stamp out this nonsense so we can all enjoy KristSingto time in peace.

#i also just wanted to talk about his fans #they really are absolutely lovely #i'm as excited to go back to thailand later this year to meet his fans again as i am to see him #his solo concert especially was such a bright and happy time <3 #thai fandom has its own issues but overall it seems a lot more relaxed #krist perawat #thai bl

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wartakes · 6 months

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Fighting Back in an Age of Impunity

Its the last essay of the year and the events going on in Gaza - and similar events elsewhere - had me pondering some thoughts for those who may feel powerless and like they can't do anything. It's not perfect, but its something. Full essay under the cut. Happy Holidays.

I feel like I increasingly start each of these essays with checking on folks and seeing how they’re doing following “the event” – with whatever “the event” is varying depending on what time of the year the essay is occurring in. When I first started thinking about what I may be writing for my last essay of 2023, I thought the worst event I’d have to think about was Azerbaijan’s assault on Artsakh, which resulted in over 100,000 ethnic Armenians fleeing their homes as Ilham Aliyev finally realized his genocidal dream of cleansing the region and forcing it fully into Azerbaijan by force.

Of course, then October 7th happened.

This is not to say that what happened with Artsakh should be forgotten about by any stretch of the imagination. We definitely shouldn’t forget about Armenia and Azerbaijan – especially as Azerbaijan, supported by Turkey, continues to make aggressive statements suggesting it may attack the Republic of Armenia proper in order to secure a corridor to its exclave in Nakhchivan. This is still very important and deserves our attention.

At the same time, if you’ve been following world events at all since October 7th, you kinda know what the most pressing, soul-sucking issue of the moment is. In the weeks since the attacks launched by the Gaza-based Palestinian militant groups – spearheaded by the Islamist political-military movement HAMAS, which largely controls the enclave – Israel has used that unarguable tragedy as an excuse to launch a horrific campaign of violence of its own in revenge, the sheer scale and scope of which has left the Israeli bodycount of October 7th in the dust as more and more Palestinians are killed by the Israel Defense Forces with each passing day – most of them women and children.

I originally was going to shift focus and write something entirely about what’s going on in Gaza, but I was also not sure what more I could say that would be constructive and not simply venting to avoid exploding (something I do on Twitter on a regular basis). I also didn’t want to complete leave Armenia and Azerbaijan in the dust, because I felt there were a lot of parallels between the two situations and their histories (which makes sense since Azerbaijan and Israel have such a cozy relationship, with Israel being one of Azerbaijan’s main arms suppliers in its wars against Armenia and Armenians).

In the end, I decided I wanted to write about something that is more generally going on, and that we’ve seen in Israel’s campaign against Palestinians, Azerbaijan’s campaign against Armenia and Armenians, Russia’s war against Ukraine (which Putin says isn’t ending anytime soon in case you were curious), and other acts of aggression by hostile states and armed groups in what feels like every corner of the globe these days. Everywhere you look, it seems that fascistic states and groups are taking every possible opportunity to try and conquer and kill that which they covet or hate.

We are currently living through what I conceive of as a new “Age of Impunity” in international relations, of which the current assault on Gaza is only one example – though certainly the most egregious and barbaric of the moment. Such ages are not new, and have waxed and waned throughout history, but they all have one core theme in common: during their span, we see a drastic increase in aggression by those states and groups who are determined to hammer home the Thucydidean cliche that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

But there is a new rub to this tale as old as time. Now, in an age of an increasingly interconnected world via the internet and social media and smart phones and etc., aggressors are not just seeking to prove that might is right, but to gaslight us constantly as they do it, doggedly endeavoring to convince us that this state of affairs is not simply the glib, bleak reality that is allowed to persist in international relations, but is actually good and right and just and fair that those of us that dare question their narrative are insane and sick and even criminal for believing otherwise. To try and add further legitimacy or distance themselves from the acts of information warfare, such aggressors often enlist third parties as well who are aligned to them either ideologically or financially (i.e. they’re paid to).

This combination of consequence free mass violence combined with an aggressive campaign to make you feel insane for not thinking its actually good is enough to make anyone with a moral compass feel actually insane, or to feel incredibly depressed and distraught over it all. Its so easy to feel completely and totally powerless from events such as Gaza and more, boiling over inside with a sense of impotent rage, especially when it seems that all that a key set of individuals and governments would need to do to stop it all – or at least less the impact – is show a modicum of backbone and a slight bit of effort to go along with it, but they don’t.

However, it is important for us all to understand against this backdrop of slaughter, that we are not powerless – not completely. There are limits on our power as “normal” people, absolutely; but we are not totally powerless, and the longer we go on thinking that the longer this Age of Impunity will last – to say nothing of other negative states of affairs we’d rather not stick around. There are actions that we as people can take to try and effect better outcomes. These actions are often indirect, focusing on applying pressure in various forms on those who can actually do something or who can otherwise force someone else to do something, but are none the less impactful and not to be disregarded.

To the end of helping folks not feel powerless in the face of impunity and aggression and giving them a concept through which they can push back on aggression and fascism and authoritarianism worldwide, I’ve crafted an approach of my own. The approach I’ve conceived of is extremely simple, straightforward, broad, long-term and almost certainly incomplete – but a start. So, if the gifts you’re looking to get this holiday season are a shred of hope, a sense of purpose, a modicum of agency, and the ability to actually make an impact upon ongoing global events, let’s open up Santa’s big bag of toys and see what’s inside for all the good little guys, gals, and non-binary pals out there. Ho ho ho.

BLUF: “Don’t Shut Up”

I already warned you that my plan is pretty simple. What I haven’t warned you is that this plan, in a nutshell, may make some people roll their eyes and go “yeah, right, whatever” (or something more impolite), so consider yourself warned of that now.

So, the plan? Don’t shut up. Ok, obviously this is going to need more expounding upon.

To build upon “don’t shut up” in more detail, the plan is simply to not give up voicing your opposition to the unjustifiable acts of aggression going on throughout the world – whoever it is that is undertaking them, whenever they occur, and wherever they occur. This opposition can come in various forms, be it protests and various other forms of activism and civil disobedience, both physical and virtual, but it really can be boiled down to those three words: don’t shut up. Keep talking – shouting, rather – about what’s going on and don’t let people forget what’s going on.

Not to get defensive right off the bat, but I am anticipating some people reading this feeling a bit disappointed, dismissive (maybe to the point of eye-rolling), or frustrated with this simple approach. So I want to take a little time to push back gently before we get more into the nuts and bolts. I’m going to try and not go on for too long with this because I wrote this earlier and fully made half of the essay me being defensive so be thankful I went back to make this part shorter.

First, to those saying “that’s it?” I would say, ‘yes’; but with the caveat that while its a simple answer, its also a simple problem (which I will get into more detail about later). To those saying “that won’t work,” I would say “based on what?” I feel the problem with that strain of preemptive defeatism, dismissiveness, and doomerism are a uniquely American-centric perspective that is focused only on our own experiences – and also, a very recent and limited view of them. All you need to do is look to the rest of the world to see instances where mass movements that refused to be silenced and maintained pressure accomplished the ousting of various dictators and autocrats (I picked relatively recent examples here, but you can look even further back). I know we’re all tired and demoralized and depressed (hence why I’m writing this), but all you need do is widen the aperture a bit and look beyond our shores to see that things are not as hopeless as they seem. That doesn’t mean that there are quick and easy solutions (something else I’ll get into – we’re in this for the long haul), but again, that doesn’t mean that we are powerless and that our actions mean nothing.

Ok, I got my defensive preemptive pushback on doomerism out of the way and I did it in two paragraphs instead of a page and a half. You’re welcome. So let’s actually get into the nuts and bolts.

Using the potential criticism of “that’s it?” as a starting off point, I will concede again that t his is a very simple approach. But, I would also assert that the activity that this approach is crafted to counter is actually fairly simple in its own right when you think about it. It makes sense that a relatively simple problem demands a relatively simple answer (note that just because the idea is simple doesn’t mean the execution will be quick or easy, but we’ll get to that).

Regardless of the approach or the medium through which they are attempting it, in the information sphere, the ultimate goal of an aggressor to is to silence criticism and to boost its own narratives and supporters. If aggressors can’t coerce or cajole you to their side, they’ll settle for getting you to shut up by whatever means are at their disposal – which is just as good to them; it doesn’t matter if they don’t actually have a lot of popular support at home or abroad, but as long as they can silence dissent and criticism and keep their narrative as the main one, they can just keep on doing what they’re doing.

This can take multiple different forms: drowning you out with torrents of useless, twisted, or outright false information, intimidating you through hostility and harassment, depressing you by making you feel weak and powerless and convincing you that there is absolutely nothing that can stop them (potentially giving you a genuine mental breakdown through their gaslighting), and mental and emotional exhaustion from some or all of what was previously described, just to name a few different methods. These methods may be utilized by the aggressors themselves, or through various allies, partners, and proxies – be they other states and organizations various individuals who are consciously or unconsciously boosting the aggressor’s narratives and attacking the aggressor’s detractors. But the end goal of all of these methods remains the same in every case, but in different guises: to shut you up. If the aggressor’s goal is that simple, it make sense that our response doesn’t need to be that complicated either: deny them their objective by simply refusing to be silenced and, in fact, continuously increasing that pressure.

If information is a domain in warfare, it is probably appropriate to think of your role in it not as a soldier in the army of a peer competitors in a high-end conventional fight. Rather, you should think of yourself as a fighter in an insurgent army, and as this information warfare as an insurgency or rebellion or an uprising rather than the information equivalent of a conventional war (at least not at this stage; we have a few more stages of Mao’s guide to get through first in this analogy). If you conceive of it that way, it can make your task seem even more daunting, but then it also can reveal the inherent advantages that we have in our approach and the challenges it creates for an aggressor trying to manage information.

The Cognitive Insurgency of Attrition

I’ve talked about insurgency and counter-insurgency in the physical domains of warfare before at great length, with my main takeaway being that counter-insurgency is almost always a losing game for whoever is acting as the COIN force. Unless they are prepared to make significant political concessions, they are likely to never win; the best they can ever hope for is to not lose – which will require constant fighting and expenditure of resources of all kinds, indefinitely (something that few countries, even reasonably prosperous and powerful ones, can hope to keep up).

Recalling that takeaway, your advantage and the disadvantage of the aggressor becomes clearer. When I said earlier that really all you have to do is not shut up, I really meant it, because as long as you and others refuse to be gaslit and continue to speak out against particular aggression and injustices, the aggressor is failing at the primary objective they have regarding you. As long as you exist and continue to act and speak out, they will continue to have to expend time and resources to try and counter you. The struggle with the aggressor becomes a battle of wills, and by simply continuing to exist and refusing to be silenced, you are wearing them down in a war of attrition. The more they are worn down, the more likely they are to make mistakes and to show more of their true colors, and the full extent of the horror becomes harder and harder for more and more actors (be they people, organizations, states, and etc.) to ignore and turn a blind eye to, and the pressure mounts to take actual action.

This whole approach and the idea of not shutting up and not giving up is closely tied to another idea, which is that “bullying works” (another thing I originally had in a section unto itself, for another peek behind the curtain, but decided it wasn’t dissimilar enough to separate out). As you refuse to be silenced and continue to speak out and apply pressure, one form of that pressure, is in effect, “bullying.” Basically, making sure that those who are either taking part in various acts of aggression or who are facilitating it or supporting indirectly won’t get a moments peace in their lives as long as they continue to do so. They need to be shown that people will not forget what’s going on and will not go away and will be reminding those who are carrying out out aggression or supporting it at every possible opportunity and be making their lives very difficult for as long as it takes and for as much as it takes until change for the better occurs. Remember kids: bullying by punching down (figuratively), is bad; but bullying by punching up (again, figuratively), is not only good, but necessary for a healthy society!

The inherent downside to this overall approach, of course, is that it is a long-term one. This is not a single battle, but a broader campaign in the wider war against aggression and authoritarianism and fascism. This in its own right may be discouraging to some, but also a bitter pill that must be swallowed. To be perfectly clear: this is not me saying that we shouldn’t bother trying to apply pressure and affect change on issues in the short term. To use our primary example of Gaza once more, we should absolutely be trying in the short term to bring more pressure to bear to bring about a lasting ceasefire and greater humanitarian relief and more in Palestine. However, we’d be deluding ourselves if we believed any action we take right now would suddenly and decisively end the occupation and fundamentally change the political status quo in Palestine in the short term.

As discouraging as this reality can be, it should not dissuade us from taking action, but compel us to gear up for the long fight. Much as the right is willing and able to do with its policy goals at home and abroad, we need to undertake more generational and multi-generational efforts to achieve our aims in all areas – especially when it comes to foreign policy and international relations. Like an actual insurgent force fighting an occupying army or authoritarian regime, we must take a long-term view. This long-term view may encompass short term surges and bursts of activity to achieve specific, tangible, secondary and tertiary goals (like a ceasefire, humanitarian aid, or what have you), but its primary goals and planning must be fundamentally protracted in nature.

Even if you understand, agree with, and accept the protracted nature of this approach, that doesn’t mean it can’t still be demoralizing in the short term. However, there are reasons to be optimistic, because if you look around you can see the signs that this approach is already bearing fruit. In the case of Gaza, you can see signs that the dedication to not “shutting up” about the plight of the Palestinian people on the receiving end of Israel’s military campaign in how the Israeli government and its supporters are either becoming more deranged in their defensiveness for their actions, with some Israeli government officials being increasingly mask off about their genocidal intentions towards Palestinians and their homes, as well as increasingly dismissive towards ideas such as the two-state solution – which governments like that of the United States continue to cling to. We also see this in the reaction of some states supportive of Israel, such as the United Kingdom, where now former-Home Secretary Suella Braverman labeled all pro-Palestinian protesters in the country as “hate marchers” (and was fired from her post not long after that).

In other cases, where governments and groups supporting Israel haven’t gone fully deranged, its becoming increasingly difficult for them to look the other way in the face of Israel’s mask-off violence and aggression. Even as US President Joe Biden continues to stand by Israel doggedly and assert its right to “defend itself”, the administration has internally squirmed at Israeli actions (as well as the potential for escalation). While the administration continues to fruitlessly try and have it both ways (which is fundamentally impossible and only wastes time as more civilians die), the fact that they’re even attempting to do that rather than continue to support Israel wholeheartedly shows that the pressure is mounting. This is born out by polls in the United States that show that support for Palestinians is rising. If aggressors and those running support for them are lashing out or are becoming more desperate in their attempts to control the narrative or silence opposition or even have a leg to stand on in their support, those are signs that the pressure that countless regular people are bringing to bear with their humanity is having an impact. Don’t give up now.

I am once again asking you not to give in to despair

We can’t stop everything going on in the world on our own as individuals, that’s true. And posting alone also won’t stop anything – that’s also true (as much as a lot of us wish it would – or convinced ourselves it will). But we are absolutely not powerless, and we must avoid falling into that trap, or the aggressors win right off the bat.

You are fighting in one particular campaign in a much wider war against aggression and fascism and authoritarianism the world over. There are other fronts that exist now and there will be more in the future – both physical, and virtual. But combat of various sorts (literal and figurative) will be required on all of them in order to achieve successes. It is a collective effort; we are are all in this together, in numerous different ways. To crib a line from the trade union anthem Solidarity Forever: “yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one, but the union makes us strong.”

The broader struggle against fascism and aggression will be a long war, and all likelihood, it will likely never end in an absolute victory, and only be one in a series of wars and struggles to come (again, both figurative and literal). As I’ve always said in my writing, part of the reason I’m sure people like me will still have a job even in a better world is because there will always be authoritarian aggressors of some kind who can convince others to fight and die for them in service of their rancid ideology and hatred (hence why I say a “better world” and not a “perfect” one). But even if we there will always be another enemy around the corner in some shape or form, we can set ourselves up to be stronger, smarter, more united, more compassionate, and better prepared for the additional struggles and wars ahead.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that everything I just talked about isn’t exclusively for responding to acts of aggression abroad, but is perfectly applicable at home as well. The approach that I’ve laid out can be applied to fascist aggressors of the domestic political variety, just as much as they can be applied to aggressor states and groups overseas engaging in armed aggression. In the United States in particular, we face an ever increasing war from within. Even if the political crisis in the United States doesn’t escalate to the level of a full scale civil war (something that I certainly don’t want, that I imagine most sane people don’t want, and something we should all work to avoid), we still find ourselves in an American Years of Lead situation at bare minimum that will very likely only get worse as we approach the 2024 election. Again, we can see some promising signs that these approaches are actually working, from the progressive gains that have been made in recent off-year elections on matters such as abortion, legalization of marijuana, and other progressive causes – many of which have been in response to right-wing forces doubling down on their extreme positions in desperation as normal people increasingly point out and deride their “sicko” behavior and refuse to let it go unanswered.

However, as heartening as these victories are, polling shows that the 2024 election is looking increasingly fraught, and nothing should be taken for granted in the eleven months that remain before election day 2024 – especially as former-President Donald Trump has been perfectly blunt about what his plans are if he makes it back into the White House (to say nothing of the coterie of other sickos and chuds that he will put into positions of power in his administration if he wins). While far from the only tool at your disposal, the approach I have laid out previously for pushing back on the narratives of fascism, authoritarianism and aggression abroad may very well make a real difference in the rhetorical and political battles against those same insidious forces at home. Keep that in mind on the road to November 5th, 2024 (or, if you live outside the United States, to road to whatever political battles you have to face in the near future).

We live in particularly bleak times in general, there’s no arguing that. This current Age of Impunity we find ourselves in has no shortage of dictators, tyrants, and fascists who are eager to take advantage of global instability and shifting geopolitics to take things they’ve long coveted, settle scores and seek revenge, and carry out a laundry list of other heinous acts. But even in those acts of aggression, we can find hope. For example, in Myanmar, a diverse coalition of varied ethnic groups – spearheaded by young people – are pushing the fascist junta back on its heels in that country’s civil war. While their battle is far from over, the progress they’ve made in recent weeks since launching a new offensive against the junta has been remarkable. Wherever we can, we need to grab onto examples of maintaining persistence, applying pressure, and not giving up hope – whether its on literal battlefields, or political and ideological ones. We need to take the progress and victories where we can, to remind us why we’re doing any of this at all: because we believe a better world is not only possible, but necessary and inevitable. It is on that note, I leave you on this last essay of 2023. I’ll be back with another by mid-March at the absolute latest for the first essay of 2024 (God only knows what I’ll be writing about by then, but we’ll see where Mr. Bones’ Wild Ride takes us all). For those of you who are celebrating, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday Season, and also a Happy New Year to you all. Please, wherever and whenever you’re able, even while you all try to keep up the struggle, try to find some time to rest and be kind to yourself because we all need that. See you in 2024. Stay safe.

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