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tagsecretsanta · 9 months

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From @gaviiadastra

From @gaviiadastra to @womble1

Hello to my wonderful gift recipient! I’m certain this was a gift to me; I got to write my all time favorites. Thank you! I hope you have a wonderful holiday and that you enjoy this story, and special thanks to TAGSS for organizing the exchange this year.

My prompts were:

1. FishTank (Virgil & Gordon) and woodland dappled light.

2. Alan having to deal with life outside the island.

3. Anything christmassy. Who am I kidding, I'll be happy with anything. 😁

___

Along Country Roads

Summary: a place can hold unique memories for different people - sometimes it’s the same one, just different.A/N: I promise, it’s a balanced level of sappiness and brother time with some light h/c. For exact warnings: references to depression and avalanche aftermath, in which I headcanon Virgil was present with Lucille. Gordon’s hydrofoil accident is always in the background. But there’s laughs too, aaaand I’ve continued to use crafty!FishTank as a plot device.

~*~

For as much as Scott fought the GDF for them to have a family holiday, the IR commander sure managed to make himself scarce, Virgil thought bitterly. It was the first time they’d managed to take International Rescue offline for a full week without there being an excuse of a serious injury prompting the decision – a fact that hurt his heart to think about. Still, Virgil awoke to a mostly empty household despite the homely comfort of coffee still warmed and the gentle brush of heat throughout the cabin from the controlled flames stoked in the fireplace.

But, no, that wasn’t necessarily fair to Scott either, and Virgil recognized his sleepiness taking control of his thoughts. He’d known his older brother would need to take some time in DC, and it wasn’t actually all that far to the Capitol. All would be well, as long as Scott’s business was concluded by Christmas, like he’d promised them. It still felt strange to be offline; not knowing what was happening in the rest of the world left an uncomfortable itch that ran through his blood, which was only eased with the knowledge that Eos was still watching, listening, and would alert them if they were needed.

The distance away was exactly why they'd chosen here in the first place - a remote location for the full step back and reset they needed after months of running on exhaustion.

These days, the mountain cabin and its surrounding property belonged to Virgil, even if he still thought of it as one of their family’s winter homes. It was only after their mother’s death that they started vacationing here in Appalachia. The hills of Shenandoah were different enough from the ski lodge, so he’d been able to form new cozy Christmas memories within its walls, comforted by the East Coast’s gentler, wiser mountains. The Blue Ridge Mountains to the east and the Alleghenies to the west and were among the oldest on the planet. They knew loss.

The ache in his soul then had been raw and bare, and certainly it had taken a few winters for him to heal enough to step foot into the snow. But he'd wept with the song of the ancients and walked stronger for it.

Home, through country roads, indeed.

That morning, though his heart rang with the distant echo of the constant activity of their childhood, he’d walked in instead on just Gordon cozied by the fireplace, wearing more layers than his usual attire and with a blanket thrown across his feet. Virgil recognized the hank of heathered blue and dusky grey, now spun into a usable yarn cake, that Gordon had selected for a pair of fingerless mittens for Scott. And it was that which had reminded Virgil of their brother’s planned departure that morning; Scott’s absence had given Gordon some privacy to finish his Christmas gift.

In lieu of a greeting, Gordon finessed his foot from beneath the blanket to waggle his toes at him, while continuing to crochet the stitches in the round. “Do NOT tell him how close I cut it.”

“Ugh, gross. Good morning to you too.” Virgil parked himself in the adjacent recliner, far enough from potentially stinky feet and near enough to a side table for him to comfortably drink his coffee while watching the flames flicker within earthen stone. “And I would never.” It was the curse of the homemade gift - always the best of intentions and never enough time.

The fireplace mantle he usually kept bare save for a large, framed painting of a creek running through a grove of autumn red oak trees. The brush strokes were ones he knew as well as his own. He’d studied from them, committed them to memory. And though their mother never knew the cabin home, the scene could’ve easily been something right outside their door, albeit in a different season. The deciduous trees were spectacular in the height of color-changing foliage, and he’d had the pleasure of seeing them many times in their travels as children for their father’s business, then again with International Rescue through which he’d seen many of the world’s marvels as well as its strifes.

When they arrived, the first thing they did together was pull out the old holiday decorations, and so for the first time in a long while the artwork shone from a podium of garland, the green of blue spruce with wine-red bows interspersed in the artificial branches.

“What are you thinking about?”

Virgil flicked his eyes away from the painting where Gordon had pulled his earbud away, his yarn work resting in his lap while he rotated his wrists to stretch.

“Mom,” Virgil answered, glancing back to the landscape captured in time.

“Oh, I always thought that was one of yours.”

Virgil shook his head. Coughed. “Where is everyone else off to?”

Gordon rambled in answer, but Virgil was versed enough to catch the key points: that Scott was, of course, in Washington; John was in the office on a conference call with his editor in New York; Grandma had gone into town for supplies – “I would’ve gone with her had I known” – and Alan was still asleep.

Virgil glanced down at his watch.

“He was up until four modding for one of Brandon’s livestreams,” Gordon defended on their youngest brother’s behalf.

“I’m going to pretend I know what that means.”

“It means let the kid sleep.”

Virgil knew he’d have to trust Gordon on that one. Besides, he wasn’t one to argue over late mornings; he’d done his fair share of staying up late to catch the sunless sky for this art project or that over the years. He nodded in acknowledgement and took another sip from his coffee as Gordon settled back into his project, replacing the ear bud.

It had been rare, in their childhood, for Virgil to enjoy spending time with Gordon like this, not because of the age difference between them though that certainly played a small part, but because they existed on different schedules. Even more so than his space-faring siblings, Virgil was like the moon to Gordon’s sun. His late nights, however, were not a product of scientific interest, but rather an overactive imagination and trauma-based insomnia, and later - as he got older - the artistic outlets to alleviate the worst parts of them both.

When they were younger, Gordon would be the first awake and the first to wake everyone else with his volume and exuberance. He didn’t really like Gordon for that back then, but it was also something that he didn’t realize he missed until it was gone. That was something that had changed drastically over the years between Gordon developing a discipline for a morning routine with his swimming and then his subsequent military experience. And though the vivacity came back after the accident, there was a time Gordon understood Virgil’s own mind more than Virgil ever wanted his younger brother to.

The Gordon he knew now was plenty more considerate than his younger self, among the most carefree spirits he knew despite the scars on his heart, and still the most resilient, most tenacious person he’d ever met.

They made a good team. His light was good for him.

“You’re thinking so hard, V.” Startled, Virgil tried to regain control of the remaining coffee in his mug so it wouldn’t spill. “Honestly,” Gordon added, laughing, “I can’t even focus on my stitches.”

Virgil watched as Gordon stabbed his hook in the top of the stitches from the row before, grabbed his working yarn with the hook, then struggled to wiggle it back through the loops. It budged eventually, but mid row, Gordon stopped and had to stretch again.

Virgil gently placed his drink down on a coaster to protect the wood of the side table. “You should take a break,” he suggested.

Gordon shook his head. “I have to finish these by tonight.”

“Scott’s out the whole day, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but - ”

“So come for a walk with me?” He glanced out the window. Outside it was a clear day, deceptive in how bright the sun was, dappled through the branches of the trees. “I’ve been meaning to check the markings along the trails. Make sure they are clear or if they need a new coat of paint. Come with me?”

Gordon hesitated, squinting at his progress. “You know the cold isn’t my thing.” Suddenly, frustration cut through his concentration as his brow furrowed. “My stitch count is off! For fu-”

“Ooookay, you definitely need a break.” Virgil hopped out of the recliner and pried the work out of a grumbling Gordon’s hands before he could unravel the whole thing unnecessarily, gently placing the hook, yarn, and partly-finished mitt on the adjacent table. “Come on. The air will be good for you. It doesn’t have to be for long, and we’ll be walking the whole way, which’ll help with the cold.”

“And walking for the whole time?” he pressed, eyeing Virgil warily, like he knew better in trusting Virgil’s word when it came to the wonders of natural beauty. He had to hand that one to Gordon; there was some truth to that lack of faith.

“For the whole time,” Virgil promised. “I won’t even bring a sketchpad, scout’s honor.”

“You weren’t ever a scout,” Gordon countered.

“Still.” Virgil beamed.

~*~

They met back in the lounge after Gordon changed and located a hoodie to slide over his long sleeve, and after Virgil had poked his head in the office to check on John, realized he was still on his call, then slid a note for him under the door. He handed Gordon his sherpa-lined puffer jacket, then donned his own hooded flannel with fleece interior. They each had their own preferences for winter accessories – so Gordon grabbed his pair of grey fingerless mitts and a matching knit hat from the closet, while Virgil wrapped a wide scarf in ivory white loosely around his neck.

Virgil’s core body temperature always ran a bit warmer than his siblings’. There had been many a winter growing up with one (or both) of the terrible two tucked into his side.

With the additional layers on, Virgil’s skin crawled with the heat from inside the cabin stifling him, so he didn’t linger in the entryway while Gordon tied up his hiking boots. Outside in the crisp chill he breathed deeply, his nose finding the gentle tickle of pine and woodchips, before he exhaled a cloud of breath that warmed his cheeks. He stepped down from the porch, and the frozen patches of amber grass and earth crunched under the heel of his boot.

“Ugh, it’s so cold out here!” Gordon exclaimed in the clamor of him joining Virgil in the great outdoors. “My hands are going to get so dry.”

Virgil fondly rolled his eyes and started to reach for the top of Gordon’s head before he remembered he would be blocked by the hat. “That’s what hand lotion is for,” he said instead, further loosening the knot of his scarf.

From the front porch, the road curved past a line of bare trees before it disappeared down the mountain. The drive there was treacherous enough it sat comfortably on Scott’s favorites list between testing hot sauces and bungee jumping. Despite the drop close to the road, deceptive with the blanket of trees, Virgil trusted his older brother behind the wheel. The cabin was only midway up the mountain, and it really was only one large stretch of hill that was particularly touch and go. Scott was plenty capable, and the lack of land rover was an indicator that Scott had driven himself into the nation’s Capitol. He might be back a little later than expected, but Scott thrived in his time behind the wheel. Relaxed even. Those hours to decompress would be beneficial for him – plenty of time to mentally leave work behind so he could fully and completely join the family for the holiday.

“So, up or down?”

Gordon, his covered hands tucked into his jacket pockets, twisted toward him then glanced at the two paths as he shifted onto toes to stretch his back. With a sigh, “Let’s get uphill over with. As long as you promise not to linger at the look out.” Virgil held his hands up, palms out, to prove he was without his art supplies as promised.

As they walked, Gordon excitedly shared the latest on his co-written article for Marine Science Daily, which Virgil knew was the exact reason Gordon’s Christmas project plans had been derailed. He nodded along at the appropriate talking points, having read the article but always more engaged when hearing it from the aquanaut directly. Meanwhile, Gordon subconsciously kept moving closer to Virgil’s side. Eventually Virgil untied the scarf completely, letting its length fall unsecured down the front of his jacket. Like a tie at the end of a long, wild night. Not that he would ever admit to having those. What happened at college stayed at college.

“Do you know my favorite Christmas?” Gordon asked, pulling Virgil from his fond memories of theater afterparties and post-concert celebrations. But Gordon hadn’t waited for Virgil to answer, his eyes unusually bright against the reddening of his cheeks with the bite of the wind. “I used to hate the cabin when we first started coming here. I was too young to remember – uhh – before, but I remember how it felt against all that change and you were so different and always so sad all the time. The first time it snowed, I remember you running back inside like it burned you, and Scott ran in after, leaving John to help Al and I with our snowman.”

The lump in Virgil’s throat grew.

“But then one year, it actually snowed on the holiday. A for real white Christmas! And I remember thinking – this is it, this is what we’ve been coming here for. It wasn’t a massive snow; just enough to cover the grass – definitely not enough for a snowman, but we made our fun anyway. I had just made the perfect snowball out of what little was there. And any moment, you would come join us. I just knew it. And then I saw you watching us from the window, and it didn’t look like you were going to come.

“It was just enough time distracted for John to launch his freezing projectile at me. He hit me square in the face and I dropped my perfect snowball. And as I cleared the snow off my face, I caught you actually laughing about the snow. You did eventually come out that Christmas. Scott encouraged you to sit with him on the porch stoop first, and then you walked out on your own. I know you leaned a lot on Scott in those days, but there was just something about that laugh – it made me feel like I helped you take those steps, even if I wasn’t the one at your elbow to keep you steady.”

Virgil swallowed hard. He remembered that year, and Gordon had only been a child. “You did plenty.”

Their breaths expelled in little huffs as they continued the climb, where Virgil noticed, as he figured might be the case, certain spots where the red paint had faded on the trees. It could use a refresh to make sure the trails were clearly marked. If he didn’t get to it this season, he’d be sure to prepare for next time he visited his cabin. Beside him, Gordon trampled over fallen branches, grumbling about the temperature between curse words, especially as they reached what had seemed like the top of the last hill only to see another awaiting them.

Virgil chuckled as he waited for them both to catch their breath at the top of the hill before they continued to the lookout just a few more steps up the final hill. His mountain was not among the tallest nor the smallest of the range, and so the top was a vision of both the valley below and the neighboring peaks. He loved the view; when it was cold enough, the mountains were sometimes snowcapped, the trees blanketed in white as soft as the cumulus through which he’d often soared.

So far, the sky had yet to open. But, oh, how she teased. Nimbostratus in neutral grey with a cobalt undertone approaching from the east, mottling the sunlight.

Beside him, Gordon took advantage of the flatter land and Virgil’s brief examination of the sky to stretch. Virgil recognized the movements in his periphery, and when he glanced back over, Gordon’s hands were placed purposefully on the small of his back as he twisted both directions.

The sway of the wind had been absent of Gordon’s familiar idle chatter for a while, he realized, and there was an unusual balance to his stance that hinted at stiffness in his joints.

“Are you okay?”

Gordon didn’t answer, but rather smirked at him and gestured with a flourish for Virgil to lead the way.

Virgil was barely two steps forward when he felt a weight launch onto his back. Squid arms quickly slung around his neck, squeezing, and Virgil leaned forward, his hands instinctively moving to catch his younger sibling before he fell off his back.

“Help me, Virgil-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope!”

“Oh my GOD,” Virgil grunted, already shifting him into a better position. “You’re fine.”

“I am, mostly,” Gordon laughed at the back of his head. “Carry me anyway.”

An arm around his neck loosened as Gordon lifted it to point one finger onward up the mountain.

“Don’t you dare say it.”

“I’m going to say it.”

“Gord-!”

“Thunderbros are go!” His laughter echoed, past tree and stream and along the paths they’d traveled.

Virgil couldn’t let him go if he tried.

He carried Gordon piggyback the rest of the way, a short sprint upward that had his calves straining, but the ache was minor compared to some of the training they did at Grand Roca. Only once they reached the lookout did Gordon hop down, giggling, while Virgil worked on calming his heart rate.

“Thanks!” Gordon skipped past him.

Virgil was tempted to throw something. In fact…

He tugged his scarf the rest of the way off his neck, scrunched it into a ball, and sent it sailing at the back of Gordon’s head. It unfurled some, but Gordon hadn’t gotten too far ahead, so he definitely felt it hit before the rest of it dropped to the ground.

“That’s no way to treat your accessories. I’m offended.” Gordon snorted. He retrieved the scarf, gave it a shake that sent a few leaves in Virgil’s direction, and then wrapped it around his own neck. “You don’t get to have this back now.”

Feeling light despite the burn in his legs, excited to witness the lookout once again, and without any real anger towards his brother’s antics, Virgil joined him at the bench nearer the view and positioned safely away from the edge. He hadn’t known how to respond to his brother’s sudden introspection about their childhood, though his own version of the memory lingered with him.

He hadn’t known that year mattered so much to Gordon. Nor was he able to recall the events leading up to him walking in the snow. Those details were fuzzy for him, but he remembered the warmth. He remembered the laughter. He should’ve realized the mark his sadness had left on his family, and before he could think any further about it, Virgil was apologizing. For dragging Gordon out in the cold, for all the years he couldn’t help the littles with their snowmen, for not doing more to make sure they had the Christmases they deserved without the weight of loss.

“Sorry? Whatever do you need to apologize for?” Gordon interrupted. He shook his head. “No, Virgil. Don’t do that.” He stared out to the mountainscape, his lips thin, as slowly he raised his palm to catch the first snowflakes in the center of his hand. One, two, then they melted into the knit fabric. “I don’t think I ever thanked you.”

Virgil gaped at him. “For what?”

Gordon lifted his gaze from his clenched fist to meet Virgil’s baffled expression, fiery resolve softened into humility. “I told myself, if Virgil could learn to re-love the snow – I don’t think you understand how important that was for me to keep carrying forward. I know I can get so stuck in my own head sometimes, but your support has always been incredibly grounding. You’re like… having a sturdy shore to return to for when the tide ebbs too far. I can’t imagine having another co-pilot as good for me as you are.”

It was too much.

His own words, his own thoughts about Gordon, mirrored back to him, about him.

“Well,” he rasped, clearing his throat of the overwhelm of emotion, “we are Tracy’s after all.” It didn’t say nearly enough, but it also said exactly what it needed to. Perseverance ran through their blood, after all, and they’d both been through the unimaginable.

Virgil turned his head towards the sky, the feather fall of snow catching in his lashes, and in his hair, and on his flannel.

“It’s also entirely your fault my project’s not finished.”

“My fault?”

“You promised no lingering for art purposes, and I definitely heard a whispered phthalo earlier.”

“Cobalt,” he corrected.

“Same thing.”

“It’s not at all -”

“Soooo, do you think John’s done his meeting yet? Maybe he’ll make us hot chocolate?” Gordon hopped off the bench, clapped his hands together resolutely, and started walking back towards the trail and away from Virgil’s disputes.

“Gordon! They aren’t the same color. They don’t even sound the same!”

Smiling, Virgil had no choice but to follow.

#thunderbirds are go #tag team secret santa #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction

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malaierba · 1 year

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Thinking about Chibita's Matsus Ranking:

POSITIVE TIER

1. Karamatsu: Duh. Especially obvious in the games! He looks after him and doesn't mind his painfulness. they match each other's freak (and actually, in the anime, it's KARAMATSU who sometimes struggles to match Chibita lol)

2. Ichimatsu: He hired the guy! They worked together! Ichimatsu is a surprisingly sensible and reasonable person. He's also blunt, which I'm sure Chibita appreciates. I can see why they worked together. Chibita likely took a risk hiring the most obviously gloomy Matsu but it seemed to pay off.

(it's maybe a bit funny to see those two sharing top places, considering the general consensus of how Ichimatsu treats Karamatsu.

TBF, from Chibita's POV those two were close from childhood through highschool, and when he sees them in the oden stan as part of the six-pack, Ichimatsu is probably not significantly more terrible than the other drunkards are to each other.

Besides, he makes sure to force Karamatsu to drink water, and Karamatsu usually carries him when he's had too much alcohol. I can see Chibita assuming that they're on ok terms. Heck Karamatsu might've even recommended the guy)

NEUTRAL TIER (tie)

3. Todomatsu: They guy can be an annoying drunk but he's at least not very likely to cause property damage. He mostly keeps his ruckus to riling his brothers up with words, which isn't appreciated but it's not the worst thing.

I can also see Totty as inclined to pay for his food, at least when he's not with the other five. On the other hand, I think he's the least likely to visit Chibita's stand without his siblings. Not his scene, yknow?

3. Osomatsu: this guy never pays and he's too good at getting the other five demons to behave like a feral pack of clones. He gets drunk on Chibita's alcohol, gets loud, his humour gets raunchy, and he's not above trying to pick a fight with Chibita at their age.

ON THE OTHER HAND, he does seem to frequent Chibita's stand either with just a couple of his brothers as company, or alone. Chibita is one of the few social relationships that Osomatsu kept after highschool, and Chibita is probably aware of it. Osomatsu trusts him, or at least his judgement, enough to vent and ask for advice.

Besides, I'm sure that in Chibita's mind, Osomatsu (& co, although to different degrees, lead by him) is a sort of childhood friend. So the very annoying stuff gets balanced by the fact that they've known each other basically all their lives, and they continue to interact with each other despite a long list of arguments and fights.

NEGATIVE...ISH TIER

4. Jyushimatsu: He's a fun, if weird guy, when he's sober. BUT WHEN HE'S DRUNK... His destructive power is too high even on acciden. He's also loud, loud enough to keep away other patrons. Also, he keeps paying with acorns!?

At least he's not trying to pick fights, although he'll be one of the first to join a kerfuffle with his brothers if someone else initiates it. Which leads us to,

5. Choromatsu: I know, who would've thought so lol. Well you see, this man has THE SHORTEST temper amongst the sextuplets, and he's all too willing to yell about it + general frustrations + include threats if he's riled up enough.

It gets worse when he has alcohol in his syste: his inhibitions get lower, his will to make good on his threats rises, and his rowdiness doesn't need much of anything to take over. Such a punk, still at heart. To make matters worse, the drunker Choromatsu is the easier he is to piss off.

At least he pays on occasion, even when he's part of smaller groups of his siblings. It just never seems to be enough to cover his intake 🤨

What Choromatsu's got in his favour is that I can see him be one of the Matsus who visit Chibita on his own, like Oso or Kara. As far as I know this is just a headcanon though lol. Maybe this would be enough to put him on Jyushi's level at least? Or even just a bit below Oso.

#karamatsu #ichimatsu #osomatsu #todomatsu #jyushimatsu #Choromatsu #would love to hear others takes or even additional info that comes from other media #I've only seen some of the game's storylines on YouTube and I've never touched the manga/novels/osokun #the reason why Karamatsu's is so short is because it felt too evident but also bcs if i start talking karabita I'll never stop #rambles #ososan rambles #Chibita #karabita #ichibita #osobita #todobita #chorobita #jyushibita #Matsugo

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poet-to-none · 30 days

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Trivia for "Black, Soft, Unearthly"

1)👄 "I swallow his breath and I bite afresh." Magnus biting across Lestat's lower lip/his inner mouth for the final drink is an homage to Sam Reid's adorable little crease, at one side of his mouth, that begs to be interpreted as a scar I thought a maker's kiss would be a profound physical way Lestat connects to Magnus, by sight or touch, long after their night's gone 2)🔥 "Not a method, as I had to do for myself"

The fangs of a vampire never pierced Magnus. He let blood, cut a vampire, and drank. This is a method, not an intimacy, built upon his practice of medicine. It's executed flawlessly. However it reminds me STRONGLY of Akasha's one way transformation as well. There's a virgin birth parallel going on here, even though Magnus doesn't care. ALSO about theft/stealing of immortality: calling alchemists thieves/dishonest is contemporary to Magnus' era. Why Anne decided to make a nod to the sterotype, I don't know, but she added it with quite the positive spin, Lestat seeing Magnus in his memory as 'a dark Prometheus stealing a luminescent fire.' I mean, damn. He's really hot. He's sexy. That's sexy.

3)⚗️ "The grains of the philosopher's stone"

This is one weird thing to wrap one's head around, but if I understood it right, the stone (if it could be gotten) is the first matter of creation and putting it in an elixir would change the properties to some perfect balance, so you'd want the grains of it, as a powder, for use. Lestat being the philosopher's grains for mixing a vampire's HIGH PRAISE.

4)🐺

"Thinking of a new element, an untested substance"

Why's Magnus obsessed with Lestat's wolf killing? Why is THAT the crucial element he thinks would be irreplaceable if he decided not to take Lestat? There's two answers! It tells Magnus everything about how Lestat will handle becoming a vampire. He has a nature to kill he can enjoy, he has a means to recover from a deeply altering sense of self/depression, and he considered his family gone and felt ok. All that will happen to Lestat, and in Magnus plan it has to happen to Lestat alone (without his being there). He needs to KNOW Lestat's good, that he's not vulnerable to misery or giving up on surviving. He needs an empirical weight to it, cause that's how he rolls, needs things closer to facts than guesses. And then, it also relates them. Lestat in the woods, being alone, hunting, is timeless. Magnus in the woods, being alone, gathering his materials, is timeless. So many hours they've experienced where there's no cultural disconnect, doing what they love, they can completely understand one another in these memories. They can bond. And the medieval weapons Lestat used! Right from Magnus era practically. He had a sword too. 5)🩸 "Ask for the dark water. You'll find it water of all waters."

The dialogue before the turning the the most intentionally altered, as in many places it remained exact or had single word/phrase omissions.

Why?

Although alchemists were wildly fueled with religious thoughts in the middle ages, Magnus would have been among those in the late-1400s, closer to the Renaissance. I wanted his interpretation to be functionally atheist, a REALLY rare quality for thinkers then, an extreme. His living with such a secret conviction, that no one agrees with would make a compelling part of his inner fire. And a dichotomy too, being so aware of religion but indifferent to it. Circling back, Anne's heavily Christ like language from Magnus, in the original, sounded too sincere, from a closet atheist, there's not enough clever perversion telling Lestat what's really him. 6)⏰ "I turn the dial to wind it. I live forever."

Mechanical clocks are a 1300s invention. By the 1400s there's small clocks and they are spring driven! They get a twist from a nifty crank/dial daily to keep going. Time keeping in this era's always on the mind so that's why it's kicking around in his brain in general. And in context to his turning, Magnus is implying he did everything he needed once for immortality and it will go on as it is, it won't run out! The opposite of expectations. It's got such a flair of his ego! 7)❄️

"Standing this night, a cold December night" I wrote in December! As a reference, I changed the night Lestat's kidnapped by Magnus. That evolves into fun astrology theory in Then Shall Change Red too, as a bonus. Magnus, as a medieval thinker, wouldn't have transformed his fledgling approaching the month of Scorpio. However, October (2022) IS when I first read TVL though, right on Lestat's book canon immortal birthday.

8)🧻 "Soured by the street waste" Paris had sewers by 1370! Then didn't modernize them until 1855! We're in 1781 in our story, mostly pre-plumbing, so the streets are dirty (though made with drainage in mind). People also carried their fresh water in buckets from the Seine. 9)🥩 "It does taste good in that way." Vampires don't use tastebuds anymore, but beef might be the only food that has a blood flavor to it, if cooked savory/not too much. That would translate as an eating memory! Wild! And perfect to add because of the stew Lestat eats in TVL.

10)💗 "Their hands hold in sleep, these lovers"

Lestat and Nicki's romance is such a true love's tale. Magnus no doubt glimpsed their attraction while mind reading, during theatre performances, hastily lifting a thrilling fact: Lestat's attracted to men, just as much as he is. Then caught up in himself, a powerful vampire on the go getting things done, he wouldn't realize they're IN A RELATIONSHIP until he's at their bedside. 11)☀️ "Sunlight in the hair" "Golden hair on pillowed satin rags" Lestat's aspects (physical and otherwise) cross over into representation of alchemy, in the flesh (the list is long guys), and what probably fed Magnus subconscious/conscious obsession with blonde hair is his fixation on symbology, what gold represents. Alchemy's his happy place. 12)💔 "I love you. Magnus." The total times Magnus tells Lestat to "Ask" for him is five, all of these Lestat denies. But in a very sweet parallel, Lestat also says "I love you" five times. Don't @ me if this reminds of the three denials of Peter. 13)🚫 With the creative task of wondering what extra stuff would be in Magnus head, I had to choose the thoughts he'd have about his servant. And the amount's zero (I'm glad you noticed). Lestat's the only thing that exists for this guy after committing, let's be real. 14)💬 First Person Present Tense! Anne wrote TVL in First Person Past Tense. To be authentic to the Vampire Chronicles style of writing I felt I should use the same. But as Magnus is now in the Vampire Beyond, how would he retell his story? He'd have to tell it in real time! 15)🌿 "Where the doves have been. The apple wine." Why doves? I chose them intentionally as a visual symbol. They've always represented peace, love, and hope. Black, Soft, Unearthly is meant to be viewed as why Lestat and Magnus reached these feelings with each other, in Anne's writing. It unpacks the narrative delicately, in detail, from the immortal's eyes, which is Anne's usual go to. In the case of Lestat's story, we see it all through his mortal eyes only. This effects people I think, a lot more than they realize. Emphasizing doves also alludes to the concept of a nest, because Magnus' made Lestat's nest worth it's salt. Coven vampires didn't get strong blood or wealth or freedom. Lestat did.

#bsu tvl #the vampire magnus #dark ages daddy #prince and prometheus #lestat/magnus #the vampire lestat #the vampire chronicles #lestat's siring #don't be shy Sam Reid this food is for you too #still not over the mention

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kimyoonmiauthor · 7 months

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The worst recipe for Kimchi I've ever seen.

So I'm a food nerd, if the love of Anthropology of food isn't self-evident enough in the 50 page doc on the history of food and food Anthropology based on Subsistence. lol

And I'm a super food nerd when it comes to kimchi. I've tried almost all the varieties of vegetables one can kimchi and learned their mush points. And this, by far is one of the worst recipes of kimchi I've ever, ever read. And being a food nerd, I'll break it down for you.

Don't worry, it's not made by a Korean--it's made by someone white, but I am Korean. And before someone chases me down, "You're an adoptee" I grew up in Korea for the first 5 years and have been tracking down Eomma's kimchi recipe after I semi-remembered the flavor. TT Covid stopped me from going overseas to test it out.

I know when you think of kimchi, you most likely think of the spicy cabbage variety, but I'll inform you that I've made a lot of types of kimchi. I made the Dae Jang Geum Kimchi after a lot of research and digging around. I made kimchi in plastic that never turned out well. I've taken out ingredients and put them back in. I've made kimchi out of different vegetables, and I famously got cited by my own city for making Eomma's kimchi, which BTW, has raw clams and mussels in it.

I've made monk Kimchi too, and gave those tips off to Maangchi.

I'm like kimchi geek over here. I can tell you all different facets of kimchi. Maybe because I tend to hyper focus on things, and I definitely hyperfocused on kimchi.

So I definitely can say the above is not kimchi.

Let's define Kimchi:

Kimchi is an aerobic lacto-fermetation process that is usually balanced with a protein in order to preserve mainly vegetables/vegetation, but sometimes seafood or other seafood matter.

Why is this not a kimchi?

1 Chinese cabbage

3 garlic cloves, crushed

2.5cm/1in piece ginger, grated

2 tbsp fish sauce (optional)

2 tbsp sriracha chilli sauce or chilli paste (see below)

1 tbsp golden caster sugar

3 tbsp rice vinegar

8 radishes, coarsely grated

2 carrots, cut into matchsticks or coarsely grated

4 spring onions, finely shredded

Chinese cabbage is not the same as napa. Chinese cabbage is longer than napa. Does it look similar, yes. Have I attempted to make kimchi out of it yes. Did it have the same properties? No.

But forgive the white person for not knowing that. Chinese cabbage has more water content than your average large head of Napa.

3 Garlic cloves is laughable. It won't preserve for a year like kimchi is supposed to.

1 thumb of ginger? No. No. No. That's not enough.

The fish sauce is not optional. You need that to even out the lactobacilli. If you're not going to use fish sauce, then up the protein content with barley. I really do swear after messing up kimchi on purpose the fish sauce does have a FUNCTION not just a taste.

BTW, more than fish sauce goes into kimchi, though. Usually depending on the region you might get shrimp paste, mussels, clams, crab, octopus, squid, oysters. These pretty much ceviche in the liquid over time.

My favorite is Eomma's recipe with katuggi. ^^;; But I suppose that would anger both my parents. Hers I'm fairly sure had mussels, clams and maybe crab? And yellow corvina fish sauce.

Anyway... Sriracha is made up of red jalapenos, which do not belong in kimchi. Kochu is special. BTW, this already has sugar in it. Kochu is designed to stain on purpose. See the slurry portion below.

golden caster sugar isn't something that came about until industrialization.

rice vinegar is a totally different process of fermentation than kimchi. It won't render the same results.

European radishes don't belong in kimchi. Have I tried it? Yes. Did I regret it? 100%. TT There isn't really a substitute for Mu. Daikon is a distant second. European radishes are when you're dying in a desert and there is a gun to your head to make the kimchi with them and you have no other choice. Get this: Koreans who moved to Brazil, rather cut out the radish component completely, use European cabbages than use European radish. It's just nasty to bite into as a kimchi. Mu has less water content and is far denser than your average daikon and definitely over European radish. I'd choose watermelon radish over European radishes. (Have I made that into kimchi? Yes.)

Carrots do sometimes go into kimchi, but I don't think that's why it's there. This is more a Jeolla thing though.

You're not supposed to shred green onion for any dish I know... and I'm thinking of things like pajeon and green onion soup. Where is the slurry? ALL Korean Kimchi has a slurry, if it has sweet rice flour, whole wheat flour or Barley flour. It has to have a slurry. The slurry has a function. It's there to make sure the ingredients distribute evenly.

Lactobacilli aren't going to act in ONE day. This brings the health benefits of kimchi.

The food science:

Since the majority of Korean fermentation lives on the wild side and likes things like air and sun, often the "weird" ingredients in kimchi that foreigners hate are there to MAKE SURE YOU DON'T DIE when you eat it. Stop trying to cut it out without understanding its function.

Got it? Now stop doing this crap and actually understand the food science of things like the anti-bacterial properties of garlic. How lacto fermentation is good for you, so you don't leave it out for only one day.

Koreans boast their heads off about the health benefits of kimchi as passed down from our ancestors for thousands of years. Why mess with a good thing without understanding why our ancestors made it that way?

#kimchi #i might be obsessed #hyperfocus

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ohthehypocrisy · 14 days

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Marvel VS Capcom 4EVER - The Perfect Dream Game

(This is going to be something different from my blog's usual content. I don't just love pokemon, I'm also a really big fan of crossover fighters. My very first fandom was Super Smash Bros. and it was where I started writing fanfics. I may not be all that good at 2D traditional fighting games, but I enjoy the time I spend on them. As such, I will be talking about Marvel vs Capcom and what I would want the 4th game to look like)

The Marvel VS Capcom series is a franchise founded on hopes and dreams. When an unlikely collaboration spawns one of the most fantastical crossover events in history, well before Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was conceived, you can imagine that it is fondly remembered and well regarded in its popularity and gameplay.

And yet, with such powerful Intellectual Properties populating the series, the games are rife with copyright power struggles and negotiations. So much so, that the game had been in limbo for as many years as it had been played competitively. The demand is there, the problem is that no one can decide how much money both sides should be making to allow for a character to be put into the game and to get punched in the face.

To put it into perspective, Marvel VS Capcom 2 came out in 2000, and it pulled a Masahiro Sakurai and included every character from the past games plus a little extra. The game was entirely 2D with mostly reused sprites, which is how it got away with a whopping 56 characters on the roster right out the gate. This also created some balancing issues as the top tier characters from previous games were also top tier here as well, though that topic of discussion is beyond my area of expertise. All you need to know is, there's a reason all the top level matches have the same 5 or so characters.

Now, as for Marvel VS Capcom 3, that title came out in 2011, a whole 10 years after the arcade experience was brought home. The hype was still there, but the series would run into some licensing issues in the background. It's how we got Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3 less than a year later, and how Marvel VS Capcom Infinite came out the way it did. Though perhaps it would be best if you, the reader, looked into that yourself, as I'd rather talk about Marvel VS Capcom 4, or rather, what it could potentially be.

Since the Marvel VS Capcom Fighting Collection was announced, I have been ecstatic about finally owning these games that I would rarely see. I didn't go to arcades all that often, but I always liked going to look at all the cabinets and all the games I've never seen before. Remember, arcades were a big deal back in the day, and the internet wasn't, so this is where you would discover games you haven't heard about. This is how I learned about Marvel VS Capcom, and how I fell in love with crossover fighters in general. I was a 90's kid growing up, so these quarter consuming cabinets were like a vivid dream to experience. And being on the autism spectrum meant that a strong first impression would consume my waking thoughts for years on end. It's my hope that a rail shooter collection comes out soon so that I can reexperience 'The Ocean Hunter' in all its glory.

Back to the topic at hand, the rerelease of these games would imply that relations between Marvel and Capcom have mellowed enough that all the licensing headaches for this collection passed like a mild flu. It's a bit of wishful thinking, but the door might be open for a potential new iteration of Marvel VS Capcom. I mean, everyone has been talking about it lately, so I figured I'd put in my own two cents.

Before we begin, we do have to go over why MVC Infinite isn't being given the honorary title of number 4, and there are a few reasons. One of them being the confusing order of titles of the franchise. Marvel VS Capcom 2 is actually the 4th in the series, starting with X-Men VS Street Fighter, though it could also be the 6th of you started with X-Men: Children Of The Atom. So what would that make UMVC3? It was an updated rerelease sold less than a year after MVC3, so does it count or should it be a separate thing? MVC Infinite didn't use a number in their title, though if you tilted the ∞ sign you would get the number 8, which is the exact number of games in the series if you count UMVC3 as a hefty DLC bundle.

The other reason is because of all the executive meddling that poisoned the roster. What is a Marvel VS Capcom game without Wolverine or any of the X-Men? Well, you get MVC Infinite, that's what. On top of the squandered roster, there were loads of criticisms over the models looking the way they do. I'm not gonna dwell on this bit for too long, but don't be surprised when you hear people boldly claim that Infinite isn't a true MVC game.

So, what would a Marvel VS Capcom 4 look like? Everyone has their own ideas, but it seems that no one can decide on a concrete roster for Launch Day. I specify 'Launch Day' as it's to be expected that a big game like MVC4 will have DLC, it's how you keep a game like this alive for as long as there is work to be done. I mean, I've yet to hear anyone complain about DLC for this series, except for when UMVC3 was announced, but that is the exception that proves the rule. As long as it doesn't happen again, you can do no wrong.

Well, what do I think? After all, this is my post, my idea. As such, I'm proposing a base roster of the best of both worlds, the absolute pinnacle of popularity for the birth of the best beat 'em up game ever made. I'm talking the top picks like Cyclops, Ryu, Wolverine, Chun-Li, Captain America, Mega Man, Deadpool, Dante, all the fan favorites that would guarantee a Day 1 buy for everyone.

But I'm also proposing a massive DLC roadmap for the game's foreseeable future. With a plan of releasing new characters for the game as time wears on, the starting roster and number of characters don't really matter that much. Granted, there are some characters who are nonnegotiable for the starting roster, like Spider-Man and Morrigan, but as long as everyone understands that there will be loads of DLC characters coming down the line, you can guarantee that Launch Day sales will go through the roof.

Think of this potential game to function like Fortnite, or more specifically, like a live service. Now, I know that live service games have performed very poorly, but that's usually because of bone-headed executives making the decisions for the developers. There are live service games that do very well, like Splatoon for instance, or the aforementioned Fortnite. Since the plan is to gradually release new content, it'll pay to make everything accessible to the players by turning it into a live service.

Of course there's the issue of what the base price for the game will be or if new characters will be paywalled. You have to charge SOMETHING to make a profit, especially if you want to pay your team to make new characters. In a perfect world, the game and characters would be free and all the monetization would be made through cosmetics. But the fairest asking price would be between $60 and $70, with the promise that all characters released through DLC will be free. Of course, the developers and the company won't leave the money on the table, they'll probably whip up a battlepass or something to engage daily play. Again, as long as the characters are free and everything else is cosmetic, we can't complain too much...

In order to keep the game fresh, however, new character releases should be released in bundles. Even with the starting roster of about 30 or so characters, fans will always want something more out of the game. But the developers are only human, and crunch time is one of the worst things you can do your workers. As such, the DLC shall be 'seasonal' with each release period being named after a Marvel VS Capcom title. For instance, 3 months after the release of Marvel VS Capcom 4, the first seasonal DLC will be called 'X-Men VS Street Fighter' with 6 new characters from these Intellectual Properties, and more coming later down the line. The seasonal DLC will last until a sufficient number of X-Men and Street Fighter characters have been added to the roster. That might get stale quickly, though, so maybe the rest will come out later in between seasons.

Following this trend, after 'X-Men VS Street Fighter' we'll get the 'Marvel Super Heroes VS Darkstalkers' DLC pack. And then following that, we can get the 'Clash of Super Heroes' pack, which is the subtitle for Marvel VS Capcom (which is the fifth game). Then comes 'New Age of Heroes', followed by the 'Fate of Two Worlds' pack, then the 'Ultimate' Pack, and finally the 'Infinite' pack. The idea here is to cram this $70 game full of characters so that everyone who bought it will have their money's worth, and all the fans get all the characters they could ever want. Masahiro Sakurai, the Lead Developer of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, left the industry with one of the most ambitious crossover games of history. A dreamed up version of Marvel VS Capcom 4 has to meet and exceed this insurmountable expectation of crossover greatness. Even if I'm not all that familiar with either Marvel or Capcom properties, I would want nothing less than to make as many people happy as possible.

So that's the plan, but what about the gameplay? I mean, you can't just release Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3 again with more characters and expect everyone to be happy, right? I mean, no, but the ironic thing is that a lot of people would love to have that. In fact, there's a massive mod scene behind UMVC3 right now and they're adding in loads of characters. If you're comfortable with tinkering around a bit in computer files, I highly recommend giving it a look. (It's also extra apparent at how apathetic people are about MVC: I, though that game is also getting its own mod update).

youtube

Anyway, as for gameplay, if we HAD to add something, I had the idea of throwing in something called the 4EVER Assist. It's why I titled the post the way I did, as this is how you add even more characters to the game. See, back in Marvel VS Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, there was a random assist feature that you could pick along with your two main characters. This is where a majority of the games new sprite work came from, aside from newcomers like Venom and Captain Commando. Basically, you technically had a team of three characters, though the assist varied in strength and usage. The weaker and less effective assists could be called more often, but the stronger and better assists had very limited calls.

This assist system had very little risk to the player, which is why each one was ratioed with different number of uses. In other installments, each chosen fighter could be called for an assist, but summoning them recklessly could leave them vulnerable to combos from the enemy. But if you got clipped along with the assist you called, well, expect the crowd to start singing 'Happy Birthday', if you know what I mean.

Anyway, for my idea of Marvel VS Capcom 4EVER, both assist systems are combined, turning what was traditionally a 3v3 fighting game into a 4v4. The 4th character cannot be controlled, but they offer some benefits over regular fighters. For one, the player will never be out of assists if they are brought down to their last character, making comebacks a lot more feasible. Secondly, all characters on the roster can be delegated as the 4EVER assist and allows them to use exclusive moves when called as an assist. And thirdly, since it is only one move, you can have new characters exclusive to the 4EVER assist list that otherwise wouldn't make the cut, like Nick Fury or Cut Man. Not to say that these characters can't be promoted to fully fledged fighters down the line, but it'd be nice to have them around otherwise.

I've also got the idea of adding something called the 4EVER Ability, a passive effect unique to each fighter. This is closer in execution to Pokemon Abilities but tailored to the team fighter combat system. Basically, each fighter offers a different boon that affects the whole team, and since you can choose three fighters and a 4EVER assist, you can have four passive abilities active at once. However, if a fighter gets KO'd, their 4EVER Ability is negated for the rest of the match, leading to a structural degradation of team synergy. Of course, the 4EVER assist cannot be KO'd, so a player can make a last stand with at least two active 4EVER Abilities in play.

Here's a short list of 4EVER Abilities that would be in the game and their function:

Cyclops - "Dreams don't die!" Super Meter Generation is increased by 1.5x (Hitting and getting hit generates Super Meter, which can be used for Super Attacks, so an ability to hasten that generation is useful.)

Ryu - "I walk the path of a true warrior!" All 🡳🡶🡺P attacks deal 2x more damage. (This boon is restricted to Punch attacks, but all attacks, Supers, and Assists that use this motion get the power boost.)

Wolverine - "I'm the best at what I do." Your combo is more resistant to Damage Decay. (The later installments of MVC have a Damage Decay system where the longer the combo drags on for, the less damage you'll deal overall. Other fighting games have this. Wolverine's ability caps the damage drop-off much earlier.)

Ken - "Here's to a good fight!" All 🡺🡳🡶P attacks deal 2x more damage. (Same as Ryu's ability, but for 'dragon punch' motion attacks.)

Spider-Man - "With great power, comes great responsibility." Damage increases by 2x for each bar of Super Meter you have. (With you being able to control 3 characters, the Super Meter maxes out to 5, meaning a potential 10x damage increase for your combo. The damage is instantly reduced when you spend some for a Super, however.)

Mega Man - "Mega Buster, Power UP!" Super Attacks deal 2.5x more damage. (Super Attacks cost Super Meter, but they hit very hard, can fill the screen with damage, or even be used to counter other attacks. However, Mega Man's ability is still susceptible to Damage Decay, which Super Attacks tend to generate quickly.)

Hulk - "Hulk is strongest there is!" Damage is increased the more HP you have. (This ability grants a massive power boost in the first minute of the fight, but it wavers later on. Tagging in other characters is also risky if they are brought in recklessly and lose some HP during their assist calls.)

Captain Commando - "Let's go, Commandos!" Assists deal more damage the more HP they have. (Because of how integral Assists are to making combos, dealing more damage through assists is a powerful asset. But it can only scale up with how healthy you keep your teammates.)

Captain America - "Freedom prevails!" Reduces damage taken while blocking. (This one is self-explanatory, given how strong Cap's adamantium shield is. It's also crucial in avoiding chip damage during critical moments, as most attacks will still whittle down your HP bar, even while blocking.)

Mike Haggar - "The Mayor of America!" Throws deal more damage and it is easier to Tech Throws. (In contrast, working around blocking means knowing how to throw your enemies. This boon also increases the damage dealt through command throws. When you get grabbed, you have a very short window of time to input a grab to negate the attack, this is called a Tech Throw. This ability widens the window by a few frames, but keep in mind that command throws cannot be Teched.)

Doctor Doom - "Defeat is beneath Doom!" Damage increases gradually the lower your team's HP is. (MVC3 and UMVC3 had a comeback mechanic called X Factor, where activating it increased your speed and power drastically. But the less teammates you had, the greater the boost, functioning as a divisive comeback mechanic. I'm not sure if MVC4 will have a similar mechanic, so I'm a little hesitant to put something similar as an ability.)

M. Bison - "This place will become your grave!" Damage dealt to the enemy increases the more Ichor they have. (In nearly all versions of MVC, there is an HP mechanic called red HP or something to that effect, I don't think it was ever officially named. Anyway, when you get hit, a portion of your HP lost turns into red HP, which you can recover later through healing specials or by tagging out and waiting. In MVC4, this will be called Ichor, meaning this ability deals gradually increasing damage to the enemy as the combo continues.)

Ghost Rider - "Feel the weight of your sins brand your soul." Counter Specials and Super Attacks deal 3.5x more damage. (In MVC, Counters in general are rare and rarely used due to how team supers function. As such, this ability grants a massive boost in damage to those specials if they land.)

Dante - "Now it's a party!" Attack and Speed increase a little bit during Installs. Also extends the duration of Installs by a little bit. (An 'Install' is traditionally a temporary transformation into a slightly different character, but they typically add in buffed stats and extra moves. You can call it a temporary self buff that may or may not cost Super Meter. It should be noted that Installs do not run out when the character is tagged out and is retained when the character is called back in for an assist, which this ability will continue to boost the damage of.)

I have more examples but I think that'll do for now. The idea of a 'passive ability' system in a tag team fighting game is a bit foreign but since this game will have loads of characters, it helps to give each one a bit of personality.

I'll leave it at this for now. The irony here is that, if a Marvel VS Capcom 4 were to be in the works right now, I wouldn't be able to play it, owning only a Nintendo Switch right now. Maybe if the Switch 2 is real and can run more graphically intensive games, and that MVC4 gets a Switch 2 port. But this is all a dream for me, so it's time to wake up.

Thank you for reading this far. And remember, only two things last forever, diamonds, and MAHVEL.

#Marvel VS Capcom

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the-good-spartan · 2 years

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Spartan Social Structure: Part Three – Spartan Women

It may seem strange to remove Spartan women into a social grouping of their own – they were, after all, of Spartan blood too; however, their existence was so entirely separate to the homoioi, that there’s really no other way to approach them.

They might usefully be viewed as second class citizens – though I must emphasise I use this term in no way to suggest a value judgement upon them, or that this should be taken to mean that they weren’t respected by the men around them; I speak only in the sense of a patriarchal, hierarchical structure which absolutely placed the homoioi above every other Lakedaimonian.

Modern scholarship around this particular topic is vexed by interpretations reached via a modern feminist lens, with the result that we very often find an entirely skewed view of Spartan women as liberated (in the modern sense), free to do as they pleased, going so far as to support the notion that Sparta was, ultimately, a secret gynocracy.

For example, and summing up this view, Christensen quotes Simone de Beauvoir, who wrote that, in Sparta women:

"… underwent the burdens of maternity as men did war: but except for this civic duty, no restraints were put on their freedom."

I have tried here to give a more balanced view of historical probabilities by focusing on the primary sources rather than modern perspectives; consequently, I’ve used a lot more direct quotes than usual.

The Privileged Women of Sparta

When academics speak of the privileges accorded Spartan women, they are usually referring to comparisons with Athenian women, and by that yardstick, Spartan women did enjoy certain privileges; most notably, the ability to own property and to participate in physical exercise. Cartledge even suggests that they were granted an education in parallel to the agoge, though this is pure speculation, and Ducat resoundingly states his opinion that it’s nonsense.

We can be fairly certain, though, that girls did receive some form of education, even if it wasn’t in line with the agoge. They were raised at home with their mothers, but perhaps had a system of mentorship on the same pattern as the agoge, if Plutarch is to be believed:

‘Sexual [pederastic] relationships… were so highly regarded that respectable women would in fact have love affairs with unmarried girls.’ [Lyk 18]

They played some sports as you will see below – though which sports, whether with the boys, whether naked or in short tunics, are all controversial, realistically unanswerable questions – and they participated in sacred dancing and footraces on behalf of various gods.

Perhaps we might view their girlhood as being blessed with some form of freedom which their Athenian counterparts didn’t enjoy; but this probably ceased at marriage, which occurred between 18 and 20.

But before we get into that…

What did the Ancients say to Make us Think Liberation was Even a Possibility?

More than usual, it’s super important to remember that our sources were written by cultural outsiders, who acted from a variety of motivations:

1. To reinforce the social norms of their own city-states, particularly around the need for monogamy and social control of ‘their’ women by means of using ‘Spartan women as a cautionary tale’;

2. For comic or dramatic effect;

3. In defence of Lykourgos’ Laws.

The possible exception to all these men being outsiders is Xenophon, who (we believe) sent his two sons through the agoge during the 4th Century BCE, and perhaps had some first-hand experience of the Spartans at home – but that is by no means certain.

Plutarch, for example, in his Sayings of Spartan Women, reports the young royal girl, Gorgo (future wife of the famous King Leonidas), speaking up when invited to do so by her father, King Kleomenes:

‘When the Milesian Aristagoras was urging Kleomenes to make war against the Great King in support of the Ionians and was promising him quantities of money, and also adding more to meet his objections, the king’s daughter Gorgo said, ‘Father, this miserable little foreigner will ruin you completely unless you drive him out of the house pretty quickly.’ [Sayings of Spartan Women, Gor. 1]’

Kleomenes took her advice, and this story is often held up as an example of feminine empowerment; however, what Plutarch doesn’t include from the original story in Herodotus, is that the historian had already told the reader that Kleomenes ‘was not quite right in the head, to the extent that he was almost a lunatic’ [His. 5.42].

Aristotle, in his Politics, claimed that Spartan women enjoyed such total freedom that they defeated even Lykourgos, the Lawgiver himself, in his attempt to curb them:

‘…it is said that Lycurgus did attempt to bring them under the laws, but since they resisted, he gave it up.’

He claims that, unburdened by constraint, they lived totally at their ease:

‘…And this has taken place in [Sparta], for the lawgiver wishing the whole city to be of strong character displays his intention clearly in relation to the men, but in the case of the women has entirely neglected the matter; for they live dissolutely in respect of every sort of dissoluteness, and luxuriously.’

It is on his say-so that anyone believes that Sparta may have been a gynocracy:

‘…in the time of their empire, many things were controlled by the women; yet what difference does it make whether the women rule, or the rulers are ruled by the women? The result is the same.’

[Selections taken from Politics, 1269b-70a].

From quite a different source, and a contemporary, Classical one, Euripides in his play Andromache, has Peleus complain about the sexual license of Spartan women:

They leave their houses in the company of young men, with bare thighs and loosened tunics, and in a fashion I cannot stand, they share the same running-tracks [dromoi] and wrestling places [palaistrai] with them. After that, is it any wonder that you do not bring up women to be chaste?

[Andr. 597–601, trans. D. Kovacs.]

Aristophanes, in his comedy Lysistrata, gives the Spartan woman Lampito a forward, vigorous character, in line with this idea of their immodesty:

LYSISTRATA Welcome Lampito!/Dear Spartan girl with a delightful face,/Washed with the rosy spring, how fresh you look/In the easy stride of your sleek slenderness,/Why you could strangle a bull!

LAMPITO I think I could./It's from exercise and kicking high behind.

LYSISTRATA What lovely breasts you have!

LAMPITO Feel them for yourself with your tender fingers... /I feel as though I’m an altar-victim.

[I’ve taken the liberty of translating the Scotch dialect the original translator irritatingly gave Lampito.]

Xenophon in On Spartan Society, supports these claims only so far as to say that:

‘In Lycurgus' view, by contrast, clothes could be produced quite adequately by slave women, whereas in his opinion the production of children was the most important duty of free women.

So in the first place he required the female sex to take physical exercise just as much as males; next he arranged for women also, just like men, to have contests of speed and strength with one another, in the belief that when both parents are strong, their children are born sturdier.’

Being freed from sedentary activities and participating in sporting or group activities can give girls a feeling of control over their lives, provided they enjoy it; however, this is to overlook the fact that there were almost certainly those who didn’t enjoy sport and would’ve preferred to weave. They had no choice whether they participated or not.

Plutarch gives us the fullest picture, though I place his information last because, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, he was writing more than 500 years after the Classical period, and through a Roman-era lens and we don’t know how reliable his sources were. He should always be taken with caution.

‘First, [Lykourgos] toughened the girls physically by making them run and wrestle and throw the discus and javelin. Thereby their children in utero would make a strong start in strong bodies and would develop better, while the women themselves would also bear their pregnancies with vigour and meet the challenge of childbirth in a successful, relaxed way.

He did away with prudery, sheltered upbringing and effeminacy of any kind. He made young girls no less than young men grow used to walking nude in processions, as well as to dancing and singing at certain festivals with the young men present and looking on.

On some occasions the girls would make fun of each of the young men, helpfully criticizing their mistakes. On other occasions they would rehearse in song the praises which they’d composed about those meriting them, so that they filled the youngsters with a great sense of ambition and rivalry. For the one who was praised for his manliness and became a celebrated figure to the girls went off priding himself on their compliments; whereas the jibes of their playful humour were no less cutting than warnings of a serious type, especially as the kings and the gerontes attended the spectacle along with the rest of the citizens.

There was nothing disreputable about the girls' nudity. It was altogether modest, and there was no hint of immorality. Instead, it encouraged simple habits and an enthusiasm for physical fitness, as well as giving the female sex a taste of masculine gallantry, since it too was granted equal participation in both excellence and ambition. As a result, the women came to talk as well as to think in the way that Leonidas' wife Gorgo is said to have done. For when some woman, evidently a foreigner, said to her: 'You Lakedaimonian women are the only ones who can rule men,' she replied, "That's because we are the only ones who give birth to men.'

[From Lyk 14]

But Were They Really Liberated?

Liberation necessarily requires the ability to choose one’s own path through life – whether to work or make a home, the ability to take part in the political system, whether to marry or not and who, and most importantly, to have full bodily autonomy. I’ll try to address each of these points below.

Women’s Work

There’s no evidence that Spartan women did any kind of manual labour – the helots are attested doing everything from nursing babies to weaving and everything in between. The only task, beyond the requirement to produce children, which Spartan women are attested doing, is whatever we might understand ‘managing a household’ involved.

I can’t imagine there was a great deal to do, beyond managing the helots themselves and perhaps taking care of any religious obligations, and it’s worth mentioning here that it’s highly likely that households were multi-generational. A newly married couple probably lived with the husband’s parents (certainly that’s where the marriage took place) and, if he had any, his brothers’ families – so we might imagine that this task was shared between many women.

Political Exclusion

Spartan women were precluded from taking part in the political system, as everyone who wasn’t homoioi was, unless we choose to give some credence to Aristotle’s suggestion that they had undue influence over their men.

However, Aristotle’s basis for this belief is problematic. He says:

‘It is true, therefore, that at the outset the freedom allowed to women at Sparta seems to have come about with good reason, for the Spartans used to be away in exile abroad for long periods on account of their military expeditions, both when fighting the war against the Argives and again during the war against the Arcadians and Messenians …’

[Pol 1269 again]

[Dates of these engagements in order: Argives: ~546BCE; Arkadians: primarily against the Tegeans, which included the infamous Battle of the Fetters ~550 BCE; Messenians: presumably he means the Third Messenian War, ~464 BCE, though he may be referring to the much earlier Second, which was in the 7th century BCE.]

This idea is spurious – let me explain as briefly as I can.

Spartiates, according to the Laws, were required to live in Sparta at all times when they weren’t on active service elsewhere. The gerousia, the board of 28 elders (who weren’t the kings) were all beyond the age of military service so they would always be in Sparta. The gerousia was instituted very early on and was almost certainly in place during the 6th century.

Only one king was permitted to march with the army at any given time, so there was, in theory always one king in Sparta (except during the times there was only one king at all, of course). This was current from the end of the 6th C BCE (~506 BCE.)

Men who had more than three male children were exempt from military service and would’ve remained in the city at all times, too – though this is often argued to have come into currency only after the Great Earthquake of ~464 BCE.

Those who marched out with the army would only have been a portion of the military-aged men. The army was selected by bouai (age groups), and only some of those groups were called into service for any given campaign. It was never the case that all the men of military age were sent from Sparta at once.

Though Aristotle is talking about the 6th century BCE, common sense tells us that some of these elements must still apply. There’s no version of reality in which all the men old enough to do so march out to war, leaving a city with only the women to take care of things. It simply never happened.

What’s more, there’s an issue with this claim of them being absent for an extended period of time – and it crops up in a lot of talking points, not just around women. During the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides tells us the longest duration of the army’s absence from Sparta was 40 days, and this occurred in two campaigns.

There’s a good reason why campaigns couldn’t be much longer than this, and that’s the difficulty in the provisioning of food. Twenty days appears to be the outer limit of what could be brought from Sparta. If this was an issue in the 5th century, there’s no reason to suppose it was easier a hundred years earlier or more.

Anyway – This is the long way of saying that Aristotle is wrong. Women were extremely unlikely to have been left to their own devices for long lengths of time.

Marriage and Children

Women were betrothed in exchange for a dowry, and her husband was chosen by her father or male guardian.

To quote Aristotle again:

‘… He [ie. a woman’s (explicitly) male guardian] is allowed to give an heiress in marriage to whomever he likes; and if he dies without having made directions as to this by will, whoever he leaves as his executor bestows her upon whom he chooses.’

[Aristotle again, from the Politics.]

Even once a woman was married, she wasn’t protected from being given to other men without her consent – and the emphasis is always very obviously on the production of children.

‘[Lykourgos] observed, however, that where an old man happened to have a young wife, he tended to keep a very jealous watch on her. So, he planned to prevent this too, by arranging that for the production of children the elderly husband should introduce to his wife to any man whose physique and personality he admired.

Further, should a man not wish to be married, but still be eager to have remarkable children, Lycurgus also made it lawful for him to have children by any fertile and well-bred woman who came to his attention, subject to her husband's consent. And he would approve many such arrangements. For the women want to have two households, while the men want to acquire for their sons' brothers who would form part of the family and its influence, but would have no claim on the estate. For the production of children, then, he made these arrangements so different from those of others.’

[Xenophon OSS]

Referring back to my initial definition of liberation, I think this makes quite clear that women didn’t choose ‘whether to marry or not and who,’ and it’s equally clear they didn’t have anything approaching full bodily autonomy.

Freedom?

In summary, I don’t believe that Spartan women were liberated in any sense that we would recognise as such today. Their privileges, assuming they weren’t all invented by Athenians, were small, and soon gone.

If we wanted to follow the path to a utopian ideal for them, we would have to take these sources at more-or-less face value, while ignoring a couple of really important points.

The ‘liberated and empowered Spartan woman’ as she appears in the ancient sources is a construct of (mainly) Athenian men with a vested interest in reinforcing their own marital norms, social behaviour and patriarchal authority - directly in contrast to Sparta.

The Spartan women in these texts are deliberately designed to be Other – to be despised and derided, as the Other always is.*

Also, to come out of this exercise with anything like a liberated Spartan woman before us, we must engage in serious cherry-picking, ignoring those sources, particularly around eugenics, plural marriages and ‘wife-loaning’, which make it absolutely clear that women were in no way in control of their lives or their bodily autonomy within marriage.

~~~~~~~~

[*For those who aren’t familiar with the terminology related to post-colonialism, Othering is a key tenet of the theory of Orientalism. I studied post-colonialism pretty extensively as part of my English degree – it is very applicable here in Australia, but the theory is useful in studying history at least as much as literature.

Orientalism, amongst other things, posits that the centre of power (sometimes referred to as Mother, or the Centre - in this instance Athens), knowingly, deliberately creates a distance between itself and the periphery (the Other or the Periphery, in this case, Sparta) by developing an image of them as lesser, not-like-us, and essentially bad and wrong. There is very often no necessity for this to be true – it must have just enough truth in it to be believed by the audience.

In modern times in the west, we can see this play out in rhetoric around Muslims, the Middle-East, and closer to home for me, the Aboriginal peoples here in Australia.

You can find more about this theory in the work of Edward Said, particularly his book of the same name, Orientalism. It’s not an easy read (theory never is), but definitely worthwhile as an approach to understanding how the centre of power denigrates those on the periphery.]

#I'm posting this before the planned section on the hypomeiones #because I have to stop tinkering with it #I have spent far too much time on this #ancient women #sparta #spartan women #ancient sparta #ancient history #ancient greece #lakedaimon #orientalism

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smartzelda · 2 years

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for the author ask meme: 3, 5, 7, 19!

*GASP*

Thanks🥺💖

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3: I mostly write start to finish? Like when I started out I vehemently wrote start to finish, but nowadays it's common for me to write in order and then occasionally skip ahead a small bit while fleshing out my outline to type a rudimentary version of an interaction or thought process so I don't forget it by the time I get to that point. Every once in a while I'll hop around by choosing to just write whatever point in my outline that struk me in the brain on how to do, usually because I have writer's block on the scene before, but rarely do the stars align for this.

ㅤ

5: I am ngl, the perfect environment is basically just cozy and homey and comfortable, but it wildly shifts between "No sounds. NO SOUNDS WHATSOEVER" and "Play that music that you're obsessed with on repeat it will give you the energy". Although the sound thing probably depends on how over or understimulated I am

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7: Hmm probably...the getting myself to write bit?

Coming up with ideas? Mostly figured out. Doing the outline? Let my brain go wild as it gets obsessed with the idea. Dialogue and fight scenes? Sure there can be struggle here and there, but got that. Editing? Only freaking sucks when the fic is long or when I'm stressed and also can't tell if I hate it because it's bad or because the brain is bad

But getting myself to start writing takes the most struggle and can often feel like I'm just waiting for the stars align and for it to just happen (which it can actually, just not reliably enough to rely on it)

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19: Ooohoo this is a good question and it'll probably not have an easy answer

So, in general, I have the easiest time with characters I am 1. Obsessed over and 2. Have spent a lot of time thinking about and/or writing meta for. For example, I've done a lot of Riku pov in my kh fics, and I think even today Riku's pov is one that I can fall into naturally, even if it's been a while since I wrote kh fic or back on my hyperfixation bullshit (and sometimes if I'm not on it at all). Even if I haven’t written a fic, just the act of doing media analysis and thinking about them and having gender envy can get me in the headspace enough for them to be easier, because I have an idea of them in my head and I feel as if I almost *get* them

In general, the hardest are ones for properties I have just gotten into or for characters that I might love but haven't quite fully dissected yet. For example, I've been a zelda fan for ages, but writing the Ghirazim fic was difficult. And you wouldn't think that, cause it's a dumb crackfic for a crackship, right? But on top of having to balance two character who are from completely unrelated properties, make their personalities play off of each other, make their similarities obvious but make sure to balance this and make it clear what makes them different so you're not equating them as the same person, and try to make them convincingly have feelings for each other while also being in character, I had to write Ghirahim. And even though I love Ghirahim and have been a Zelda fan since I was young, it's only recently I've been digging deep into him, and I just barely had at the time, so it was hard writing him while also not having it from his pov. (Wow I just realized how that fic probably prepared me for writing lawlight wtf). And it gets harder if the character isn't one I'm currently obsessed with. For example, I can sink into Riku so easily, but even though I wanna wrote Terra ship fic, it would take perseverance to start, because I've never really written Terra Kingdom Hearts and I he doesn't live in my brain rent free, even though I do like and relate with him.

The easiest answer I can give you to this question is Light Yagami. He is easy yet hard. I can easily fall into his headspace but he takes so much work. The reason being is that I have done the first thing I meantioned. I think about him a lot, even if I don't always talk about him. There's scores of meta on the brain for him as to his morality, what an act is to him, the difference between his acts and the real him, pulling at all the strings to work out what is closest to who he is and thinking about what he's been through that makes up him, etc. I need to kiss him, I need to see him wrecked, he looks the best when he's on the verge of death, I have gender envy and just regular old envy for a few things (I also love when he gets kicked and punched in the face. I also love when he looses. Duality of man and all that. He's my seemingly put together and perfect neurodivergent bitch loser). I feel as if I can sink into his headspace. And yet....he's still so hard at the same time? No matter what iteration of him I'm writing, I always have to keep in mind what makes the versions of him different, how he would react in a specific situation, what times he would be fine letting go and which he would choose to hold back. It's like I'm playing a perfect balancing game of all the things that make up him and his acts, channeling my meta and character analysis of him through him, dealing with my own perfectionism. He is not easy. He is not hard. He's so easy. He's so hard. He's easyhard idk what to tell ya, but the outcome of writing him always feels so satisfying to me. So, at least all the effort and thoughts taken up pay off😂😂😂

#fr thank you so much for this ask #I was actually almost gonna lead with ''*gasp* attention?!''😂#my writing #ask meme #ask game #feel free to shoot me more questions everyone I love to talk about my writing

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twiainsurancegroup · 5 months

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sakuraswordly · 6 months

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Pit: That's Ereshkigal?!

Naminé: The Mistress of the underworld, Ereshkigal......

Punch: Yes. O queen of the gallûs spirits who gazes at the sky of darkness.

Gilgamesh: Gallu demons hauled unfortunate victims off to the underworld. They were one of seven devils (or "the offspring of hell") of Babylonian theology that could be appeased by the sacrifice of a lamb at their altars.

Ereshkigal: You speak as if you know. You are merely a demigod king.

Gilgamesh: 2/3 god not very demi-god, Ereshkigal.

Ereshkigal: I never thought you were still alive. I thought that black mud already destroyed you King Of Uruk. Fear, pray and Despair. I am the ruler of the underworld, the keeper of death!

Skuld: So that's Ereshkigal.....I'm getting chills down my spine!

Ephemer: I can see the temperature hasn't changed, but I feel a cold chill down my spine too.....! This can make your pulmonary cells explode if we still are humans.....!

Ereshkigal: So frail.....simply revealing myself to you is enough to destroy all of you! Because all living lives are created to fear me!

Pit: That's not true! Both you and Hades are not evil!

Ereshkigal: Why are you thinking like that........?

Pit: Because both of you're not evil goddesses!

Ereshkigal: My choice will not change. The world will end and the goddess of darkness, Kujaku will consume and destroy everything. I will keep every life and gather their souls in this new Kur.

Periwinkle: That's can't be......?! You're......

Ereshkigal: And then, they will all become my property. That's Ereshkigal's very first choice of her own free will.

Yesudas: Even so.....you really don't wish for such a thing! Despite modern connotations of death as evil, You were actually more altruistically inclined in mythology. You were portrayed as passive and never portrayed negatively; your role was often maintaining relative balance.

Ereshkigal: If you're going to stand in my way....I will kick your butt right here and right now!

Peter: "Your butt"....?

Ereshkigal: I mean kill you all!

*Slash*

Enkidu(Echo): She still remember our jokes huh....but what will you do? Now that she's shown herself, you won't last long you know.

Peter: Punch...! She's not the same we know now in Babylonia. What are we going to do now?

Punch: We need to reach her.

Gilgamesh: So we fight her then.

Gilgamesh & Punch: *Nod*

Periwinkle: My King. Maybe we can deal with that Lance!

Gilgamesh: Ho?

Ereshkigal: None of you will be able to escape from here.Huh?.......!! Humph! Even so, you're no longer an Arbiter to be able to judge me. ..........!! What?! Impossible!!

Periwinkle: It's working!

Gilgamesh: Even though I am no longer an Arbiter but I can still convict you under my royal authority!

Ereshkigal: .........!! Your duty still not gone.....?! You still.......

Gilgamesh: Ereshkigal! Have you abandoned your duty to protect Sumerians and many lives?

Ereshkigal: Make no mistake, King of Uruk! Even Babylonia or Uruk no longer exists. I am still Ereshkigal, the one entrusted with the underworld! It's my destiny to manage all souls. I have no regret or remorse for dedicating all I have to that task!

Gilgamesh: Well then, your defeat will serve as punishment for your sins!

Ereshkigal: .............!! Why.......? I still carried these duties as a goddess. You are also too. Then why did you punish me?!

Peter: Because what you have done is mainly used for evil deeds!

Ereshkigal: What are you saying........? My duty is evil deeds?!

Pit: ...................................

Ereshkigal: That's how happened......?! Am I a mistake?

Punch: Ereshkigal......

Ereshkigal: I thought I could be free......I thought I could be happy.....but after I separated from Dumuzid......I have none....entertainment, joy, sadness, or friends to call my own..I didn't have any of those......while I've managed the souls of the dead here for a numbingly........long....long....very long......And now.....my duty became a crime and evil deeds?! After all this, you point out that everything I had done is for nothing?! Is nobody going to commend me for all the work I've done? Punch......what about yours?

Punch: ...........................

Ereshkigal: You're my first friend that I ever met......I thought I could do something for you as a friend....but I failed to heal and cure King Anunnaki and Humbaba......I failed as a friend that you believe in me the most.....Or...does that mean everything you've done is because you feel obligated?

*Flashback*

*End of flashback*

Punch: I cannot commend you. If I commend you, I will hurt your pride!

Ereshkigal: I see.........if you're going to understand me.......if you're not going to commend me....then that's fine...! I will have no choice but to kill you and your friends then!

Peter: Punch. Let's do it.

Punch: Mr Gilgamesh.

Gilgamesh: Sure.

Ephemer: We're counting on you.

Ereshkigal: A sky without light.....a surface without reflection......mud without flowers! Yes! Protecting this silence was my pride as a goddess!! Even I don't understand what the souls are saying! There is nothing here...nothing left.....even then I will continue this.....!

Punch: That’s the path you choice?!

Ereshkigal: That's right I made my choice!!

Punch: Please Ereshkigal, you need to stop lying!! Because you actually care about us even back then!! And you actually are trying to protect humans!

Ereshkigal:............”Punch”.........

Punch: Mr Gilgamesh. Are you sure you want me to command you as a servent?

Gilgamesh: I need your mana to boot up. Without your power, I cannot guarantee this will work.

Punch: .................Okay, I trust you, my brother.

Gilgamesh: Now awake, Ea!

Punch: King of heroes Gilgamesh! I command you! Protect Ereshkigal dignity, her choice and her will with all your might! Everyone stand back!!

Peter: Everyone back up quickly!!

Ereshkigal: Nammu.....

Gilgamesh: Enuma.......

Ereshkigal: Abzu......

Gilgamesh: Elish!!

Ereshkigal: Gugalanna!!

*Boom*

Ereshkigal: How could.....you become so powerful?! King of Uruk?! I thought you'd already died in Kujaku's hand!!

Gilgamesh: I made a pact-like master and servant. Thanks to Punch for becoming a vessel for me that's why I survived from destruction of Babylon..that’s why....!!

I will protect you not as a King's duty but as a friend! And I believe what I do now is the right thing!! Because that is the path I already have chosen!!

Ereshkigal: My...burden..as ...duty..!!

*BOOM*

Ereshkigal: ..........................

Naminé: She finally changed her form.....we did it!

Pit: We still have hope.......we still......yes! We still can do it!

Peter: Whew.....that's what an amazing power of whatever.....

Punch: The sword of creation.....Ea.....

Gilgamesh: I did use to fight once only that "Enuma Elish" is the first time I ever use......

Peter: You did tell me and Merlin once. Enuma Elish is a creation story that narrates the beginnings of the cosmos and the gods, in contrast to the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is a tale about a king's search for immortality. While both books provide us with knowledge of Mesopotamian civilization, they do so from various angles. The myth tells the story of the great god Marduk's victory over the forces of chaos and his establishment of order at the creation of the world.

Punch: Because this myth is a creation story that narrates the beginnings of the cosmos and the gods. That's why this art you named "Enuma Elish".

Gilgamesh: Ereshkigal. Bemoaning the obligations you chose to uphold dutifully is evil, and to praise that pain is an insult only to yourself. This sin is beyond any of the other goddesses. Even if I am "dead", I can judge you and find you guilty using the authority of the king. We can defeat the invaders with strength, but someone who betrays their companions will be judged by the world itself. That, is the meaning of the authority of the king. You understand this, don't you?

Ereshkigal: Of course.....I know.....

Peter: Ereshkigal, you hid the truth and you hide behind false words even now. If you feel even a shred of shame, then answer me. You created the domain of death, but that is because…As a goddess entrusted with all of the souls of humanity, you love humanity deeply, do you not?

Skuld: From Hades in Greek mythology to the Christian Hell, almost all religions throughout time have believed in an afterlife where the souls of the departed live in another world that is inaccessible to the living. In many religions, the afterlife was referred to as the “underworld” and was located beneath the physical plane. Unsurprisingly, this type of myth is as old as human civilization, and some of the first references to a subterranean afterlife come from the Mesopotamians. Unlike most ancient cultures, however, the underworld of Mesopotamian myth was ruled by a woman: Ereshkigal. Along with being an important part of Mesopotamian cosmology, this goddess was one of the most respected and feared deities in the pantheon.

Punch: You do your best to not allow death to fall to terror or anything detestable. You treat death with dignity, and you stay behind and protect all those souls that are left behind. You protect all of many lives, to save as many souls as you can.... It didn't matter if no one understood you, even if all these millions of souls were isolated by you, your desire was to protect this peace. That is your path as a goddess.

Ereshkigal: But......I... I already...lots of people.....

Gilgamesh: It's not too late. We still have time to defeat Kujaku....if you...umm--

Punch: If you join our party.....you can save as many souls as possible because this is your talent that you have given not because of your duty....you're free and Dumuzid.....he's still alive.

Ereshkigal: We can......are you sure....? King of Uruk....? Then now....

Gilgamesh: We are friends.....because you're Punch's friend....I think we don't have to be royalty to each other just like in the past. Everything has been over since Babylon's fall. You're you. I still me. If you just release the souls from your prison, then they'll all come back to life.

Ereshkigal: I'm so happy that we are still friends.....*Start to cry*

Pit: We still can save Hades......please watch me, Lady Palutena.....Miss Morgana.

Later at Vimana Airship

Ereshkigal: That wasn't my intent... but maybe that's what you felt earlier. Oh, well, I'm a goddess. I, I, I'll do my best and do my part!! I'll join the party as Sunscreen Rangers group!!

Everyone: !!!!!?????

Ereshkigal: Haha, are you surprised? You look surprised. This must be what surprise is! What, you think I looked like a Garula spirit? That's a disguise, dummy! Not even the Mesopotamian gods know what I look like. How did I do, Punch, did I surprise you?

Punch: Ereshkigal! *Happy Sound*

Gilgamesh: Well.......you haven't changed a bit......

Ereshkigal: What? Come on ...That reaction is super disappointing, King of Uruk!? Why? Why is that? Isn't this how those books are supposed to go? Right now, this is supposed to be the arc where "One finally meets the friend that they've secretly admired for long!"

Peter & Pit: I think black hair is much better than blonde hair.

Ereshkigal: Hey! What's that supposed to mean?!

Gilgamesh: Sorry, Ereshkigal, but I, the king, must act as the third wheel in this occasion. Forgive the king who doesn't understand how to socialize with people.

Ereshkigal: What do you want you stupid king who died of overwork? I didn't plan to kill you, and all you've done is give me trouble once you're in the underworld!

Everyone: King Gilgamesh is WHAT now?!

Merlin: Welcome aboard then, Ereshkigal!

Gilgamesh: We talk about that later.......

Naminé: I hope we can be a great friend!

Ereshkigal: Me too!

#sakuraswordly #tsubasa of phantasia concept #tsofph season 11 #tsofph Season 11(Chapter2 Shadow Path)#Punch Whalen #Tsofph Gilgamesh #fate Ereshkigal #tsubasa of phantasia #ereškigal

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meditating-dog-lover · 6 months

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Skin care routine

So I haven't really been focused on establishing a solid skin care routine. I have a chronic skin disease so I've been more concerned for my skin from a medical than an aesthetic point of view.

People will purchase super expensive skin care products and have a 10 step routine, but I believe the essence of skin care is inner care. Consuming the right vitamins and minerals (all vitamins A-K are great for skin and iron, zinc, and silica are too), omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and balancing your gut function and microbiome (I'm very much convinces that imbalances and dysfunctions play a huge role in eczema which is inflammatory at its root) make a big difference. Also being hydrated helps. That's why I don't believe in using a lot of topical products besides the essentials.

However, the skin care products I think are essential are:

Cleanser

Vitamin C

Hyaluronic acid

Serum

SPF

Moisturizer

Exfoliant

Occlusive

Eye cream (with retinol)

Retinol/tretinoin (f your derm gives you a prescription)

I wash my face with water in the morning, then I apply my Vitamin C moisturizer and SPF. Then at night I cleanse my skin, and then I apply my hyaluronic acid moisturizer. I will exfoliate every now and then. Because my skin has been very dry, I haven't been using eye cream nor tretinoin because they are drying. I will use any cleanser and I like my 2 moisturizers. However sometimes I feel like my skin looks dull. I believe that using a serum and occlusive can help here. Like I said I don't use those consistently and serums tend to be overhyped and overpriced. But I can definitely benefit from using an affordable yet effective one (Korean serums are great in this regard, same with Korean sunscreens). I can use the serum in the morning and occlusive at night because I don't want to go to work with greasy Vaseline skin. But they both work in a way that promotes healthy skin glow, something a cleanser, moisturizer, and SPF won't do on its own.

But really it's also a matter of looking into diet as well. I drink coffee everyday, some people will cut coffee out for the sake of their skin aesthetics. However I remember in college I used to drink matcha everyday and my skin was glowing. I was told I had dry spots on my skin in the past and I'm sure it's due to coffee, but I'm not going to quit just based on that. Though I will drink more matcha for its antioxidant and skin glow boosting properties. I can even look for skin care products with matcha (again I know a lot of Korean products do). I already drink 2 L water.

I already supplement with vitamins, minerals, and omega 3 fatty acids, and I eat berries which are a good source of antioxidants (I'll drink more matcha for an additional antioxidant benefit though). I also heavily believe in the skin-gut link. Even though gut health is overhyped, skin is one of the organs that are heavily linked to gut health (function, microbiome, and detoxing abilities). So a gut health supplement and overall gut physiological efficiency will help a lot. I'm still in the process of addressing this issue and potentially finding a go-to gut health supplement so I can help my skin/eczema. So I'll do that, continue my usual supplements, drink enough water, and incorporate matcha tea.

I'm going to look for a go to skin exfoliant. And potentially a new eye cream (you can't put retinol/treintoin by your eyes so getting an eye cream with something that works in a similar manner can help). I will also get professional facials every 4 months (with microdermabrasion because I really liked the results when I did it last time). I'll go for a treatment in a month.

While I have a chronic skin disease, it doesn't mean I can't focus on the aesthetic side of skin care. Even though I believe internal health comes first, and that's what makes your skin look healthy. Not just topicals. Good quality supplements, matcha tea, and addressing gut health do wonders for your skin more than a 10 step skin care routine will. The fact that I used to get glowing skin from drinking matcha tea proves that it has an internal benefit. Topicals are NOT enough, and I would be the first to know that as someone who is always prescribed steroid creams.

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littleharpethcrossfit · 2 years

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Tuesday, 14 March, 2023..... Warmup.......Back Squats...... “Turkey Trot”, Triceps Extends.

It was one of those deceptive days where you look out your kitchen window and see Sunny sky’s and think it’s a shorts and t-shirt day at the Barn. Nope !! There was a very chilly breeze and after the Sun set the temp plummeted below 40.

Warmup:

4 Rounds

15 Back Raises

30 Seconds Squat Holds

Strength WOD

Back Squats: 8 / 8 / 8 / 8 / 8 (50% 1 RM)

Armando=225 Herb=215 Ed/Paul/Chase=185 Dyer=175 Tom/Coach=165 Linda=95 Sue/Kayla=85 Sandy/Cheri/Shannon=65 Timmy/Old Joe/Howard and others=failed to post results

Metabolic Conditioner

“Turkey Trot”

3 Rounds For Time

( E = 35 / 25 / 15 ) KB or DB

Alternate (R) & (L) Arms

E 20 / 16 Turkish Get-Ups

Run=400 / Row-Ski=500 / Bike 1000m

Timmy and several others voluntarily showed off their Turkish Get-Up skills for the class.

Sue=19:27 Chase=19:51 Kayla=19:55 Shannon=20:07 Armando=20:35 Timmy=20-ish Paul=21:04 Dyer=21:05 Cheri=21:09 Sandy=21:23 Coach=21:25 Tom=28:30 Herb=29:28 Ed/Linda/Old Joe/Howard and others failed to post even though they did it.

Cool-Down

Triceps Extensions: 5/5 X 5 Any KB or DB Not many did this

Note:

Turkish Get-Ups are no doubt an exercise that are ridiculed by ELITE CrossFitters who think TG-Ups are beneath their skill level, but your old Coach thinks the TG-Up is valuable for it’s flexibility/coordination/balance enhancing properties. It is also a serious strength test if you are strong enough to test yourself. I was very pleased that all of you displayed adventuresome attitudes and worked very hard to work very hard. Honest.

Dr. Schwartz complained that the extreme contortions required to do TG-Ups caused him to suffer tears in his “GRUNDLE”. Although I have spent considerable hours in anatomy classes and labs including human dissections, I never recalled reading about or seeing a real live GRUNDLE. Oddly enough, Mrs. Schwartz not only knew precisely what a GRUNDLE was (is), she has had in depth experience with that anatomic part, and even knew who it would be that would be likely to be injured in that area. We tried to get Tom M to confirm Herb’s injury, but he declined to help.

Warren A is from East Tennessee and apparently has also had experience with the GRUNDLE area. After all, there is a county over there named “GRUNDY” which may put some light on that anatomic area. WA said it is sometimes called a “TAINT” but I am not allowed to say why.

There was a mini-spontaneous beer party afterwards. We managed to dispose of 6 to 8 bottles of left-over Christmas Party Beer. Acknowledged beer-snob Howard declared that the beer was skunky even though #1 He had not tasted it yet #2 The said beer had been perfectly and cooly stored in the Barn for the last 3-4 months #3 When Howard finally deigned to try a Pale Ale he chugged it like he was at a frat party at U.T. We should continue these spontaneous beer parties and dispose of the stash of beer before it actually does get skunky.

I considered not having a Wednesday WOD (tomorrow) because so many of our regulars are away on Spring Break, but I’m glad I persisted because a big bunch of you guys have declared you will be here. So check the posted WOD and come on.

Wednesday at 0800.

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butterflydm · 2 years

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wot reread: winter’s heart (chap 14 - chap 27)

spoilers through winter’s heart. There is also a section at the end with spoilers through a memory of light, because I have some strong spoiler-based reactions to some of the scenes but I have it set off with spoiler space.

1. We are introduced to She Who Owns Many Slaves, Tuon herself. She’s currently having her head shaved by one of her slaves, Selucia. She’s the official herald of the Return (the actual settler invasion), as opposed to the Forerunners (the scouting invasion). One of Tuon’s big things is omens. This is not something that has been hugely focused on by other Seanchan PoV characters, but Tuon is obsessed. The main thing that I notice about this, of course, is that we do have some other characters who also obsess and worry over signs and portents: Rand (the Prophecies of the Dragon), Elaida (her Foretellings), Egwene (her prophetic dreams), and Min (her viewings).

2. Tuon gave a command in anger the previous night and it has made her feel off-balance, as if she’s lost honor. We casually learn that she has a total of ten slaves here specifically as maids, but Selucia always dresses her personally. We are also reminded that those maids of hers are da’covale and they are only wearing translucent white gowns at all times, so their bodies are always on display. Tuon is used to seeing nearly-nude ‘property’ all the time, so public nudity isn’t a thing that really bothers her. We also learn that her slaves have been picked out for their attractive appearance as much as their skills.

3. Tuon is a good rider, a good wrestler, and can handle weapons well, but she wishes that she didn’t look like a mischievous child whenever she forgets to keep on her stern emotionless mask, she wishes she were taller, and she wishes she had bigger boobs. She has ‘trained her mind’ as much or more than any of her other weapons. Selucia has been her personal bodyguard and nursemaid since she was ‘in the cradle’, given to her by Selucia’s mother. Violence is embedded in how children of the Seanchan Blood are raised; they are beaten when they are unruly and expected to thank the slaves who were assigned to beat them once they turn sixteen (which is when they are ‘presented’ as an adult).

4. She saw her mother twice a year when she was growing up, and her brothers and sisters were her rivals for her mother’s favor. We know from TPoD that the current Empress has been ruling for at least thirty years and she’s spent those thirty years planning and building and hyping everyone up for their invasion of the Westlands. Two of Tuon’s siblings died in power struggles; three of her siblings have tried to kill her; a brother and a sister have each been made into slaves and had their names stricken from the records. We also learn that anyone who is discovered to be able to channel is also stricken from the records. Tuon is aware that a single misstep on her own part could lead to her death or to her being ‘stripped and sold at the public block’ as a slave. Again, the Seanchan continue to be The Actual Worst, literally no matter what your place in the society is.

5. We learn that she has a symbol of Raven-and-Roses (which just makes me think the Shadow plus Andor lol) and she tells her slave Selucia that she needs to be veiled (she needs to ‘restore balance’ and believes her other option would be asking for a penance from her relatively new Soe’feia, who she doesn’t quite trust). The Veil thing is basically a big piece of theater, where everyone has to playact that they don’t know exactly who she is, even though literally all of the Seanchan know exactly who she is. It’s a big meaningless gesture that makes her feel better about herself. Tuon thinks about how she has definitely regretted punishing Selucia more than Selucia herself regretted being punished, the two times that it happened. (x) doubt.

6. When she leaves the cabin, we learn that she has six damane slaves with her on this ship. So that’s a total of 17 personal slaves for this one person so far. One of the damane is crouched over and weeping. She ordered the damane beaten with a cane last night because she asked for a prophecy and disliked the results. Conclusion: Tuon is not as ‘gentle’ with her slaves as she personally believes herself to be. Even when she’s trying to ‘comfort’ the beaten slave she hurts the woman more by making her sit up on her still-painful welts. We learn that these six slaves are not her only damane but are her ‘best’ and they have been broken to eager, groveling servitude, where they kiss Tuon’s hand and thank her for letting them have make-up treats after she’s had them beaten.

7. “She found as much enjoyment in training damane as in training horses”. We learn that Tuon tested successfully for being a sul’dam, though her high place in society means that she can’t actually be a sul’dam, so we know right away that she is CAPABLE of channeling and there is an implied narrative that should happen for Tuon, given all the information that we have about Seanchan society and its secrets. Finding out that Tuon is actually a channeling learner is one of the big things we find out about her in this first chapter of hers. And yet!

8. One of her favored damane is called Mylen by Tuon, but her real name is Sheraine and she was abducted by the Seanchan during their invasion of Falme (it is not mentioned yet in the narrative, but I refuse to call her by the name given to her by the people who tortured and broke her into accepting it). Tuon bought her when she was ‘half-dead with shock and fear’, refusing to eat or drink, and she is very proud of herself for training Sheraine into a properly obedient and eager slave, when most sul’dam had given up hope of being able to train her into obedience. Tuon is aware that Sheraine was Aes Sedai.

9. Tuon has over five hundred of the Deathwatch Guards as her personal slaves as well. It’s noted that they will “die if she dies”, which we remember from what happened at Turok’s place back in The Great Hunt. Selucia is probably also trained to kill herself if Tuon dies. Two dozen Ogier ‘Gardeners’ (actually also killers & soldiers) also follow her, but they alone are not slaves among all the people she has with her.

10. We learn that her secretary (not confirmed that he’s a slave but he probably is) is also the person who runs her personal complement of Seekers for the Truth (who are all slaves to the Empire as well). Because Tuon is wearing a veil, she gets slight bows from all the rest of the Blood instead of them groveling at her feet. Again, it’s so meaningless -- every one of the people here knows who she really is, so they aren’t REALLY going to ‘treat her like an equal’ when they know full well that she can take off the veil whenever she wants and then it’s groveling time all over again. Tuon might be fooling herself here, but she’s not fooling anyone else.

11. Tuon thinks again about how she is afraid of her Truthspeaker. Her old Truthspeaker died less than two years ago and her new one was appointed by the Empress unexpectedly, as there had already been a ‘Left Hand’ ready to take over. Anath is tall and dresses all in black silk. Anath points out literally the same thing that I did in the previous point, lol, that Tuon is just doing some meaningless virtue signalling here. All anyone else knows about the fortune that was told to Tuon was that it made her ‘throw a tantrum’ (I know Anath is not a good person but I can't help but agree with all her opinions on Tuon lol). Tuon says she will wear her veil until she receives an omen to remove it. Anath continues to tell her what a fool she is for several long minutes. This is a long tradition of her family, to have a ‘Truthspeaker’ who is allowed to say whatever they want and not get punished for it.

12. So, the Consolidation was only two hundred years ago, but Tuon’s family has had the Crystal Throne for much longer than that, as Tuon thinks that it was a thousand years ago when a man last sat on the throne, and it’s been all Empresses in the time since. So they must have ruled a much smaller portion of Seanchan at that time.

13. Tuon says that she needs to contact the Dragon Reborn as soon as possible, so that he can kneel before the Crystal Throne before the Last Battle (or all is lost). Speculation: Tuon specifically was sent with the Return after Rand and Aviendha’s honeymoon trip to Seanchan revealed that it was the Dragon Reborn who turned back the Forerunners at Falme? I might need to reread that chapter to try to confirm what information they might have figured out from Rand there. Anath tells Tuon that she must be careful not to reveal to the Dragon Reborn how dangerous that she is to him.

14. So, overall, this is a genuinely good introduction for this character - it has a lot of fascinating Seanchan lore and ends on an ominous note for both Rand and Mat with the reveal that she’s the DotNM plus a threat to Rand. I thought Tuon was quite intriguing back when we were first introduced to her and thought she had the possibility of having some very interesting and compelling stories ahead of her. We’ll, uh, see how that goes.

15. Since I was keeping track of whether or not people thought about Mat while he’s been missing, I will also keep track of whether or not he thinks of the people that he’s been separated from.

16. Most of chapter 15 is, unfortunately, the book establishing what a horrific nightmare that Mat is currently living in, a month or so into the Seanchan invasion of Ebou Dar. Tylin has taken advantage of him being injured and left behind and ‘as good as has a leash around his neck’ and has dressed him up as an obvious ‘pretty’ to the extent that strangers on the street will openly mock him and sexually harass him because they know he’s someone’s sex toy (Mat attempts to laugh this off in his internal narration when it happens). He broke his ribs and one of his legs when the building fell on him and he has ‘mostly healed’ but still feels the pain of the injuries from time to time. His hip hurts if he sits in one place for too long. It’s implied that he had to offer Tylin humiliating sexual favors (beyond what she normally demands) in order to keep his outfits from being even worse than they currently are. And, as a reminder, this all started as soon as he was healed enough to move out of the bed at all. As soon as he was slightly mobile, she dressed him up for her pleasure and started raping him again. He still needs to use a staff to help himself walk and he limps and he doesn’t believe he’s currently capable of riding a horse for further than a mile.

17. In other news: The Illuminators’ Guild essentially doesn’t exist anymore. The Seanchan destroyed the main chapter house in Tanchico when the Illuminators resisted the invasion. Every Illuminator who didn’t die was enslaved by the Seanchan as da’covale. And here I thought ~for most people, life was ~better. Anyway, Mat is trying to convince Auldra to teach him the secrets of fireworks so that he can turn them into a war weapon. She tells him that if he can tells her what she could do with a bellfounder, then she will tell him all her secrets. At this point in time, btw, he wants very much to use the weapons AGAINST the Seanchan. Just to establish his emotional starting point.

17. Mat thinks about how all his friends are probably doing just wonderfully right now, while he’s trapped as Tylin’s ‘pet and toy’. Thinking about Rand and Perrin makes colors swirl in his head. He still desperately wants to escape Ebou Dar - he’d like the secret of fireworks too but “he would take escape any day”. And Beslan is still hounding Mat’s steps and has insinuated himself into Mat’s life. Ugh, I also hate what this series has turned Olver into as a character, so I’m going to mostly ignore him from now on.

18. Mat was hoping to use the circus as his means of escape and Valan Luca is willing, for a price... but doesn’t plan to leave until spring. Mat despairs over this in his head but, out loud, he tries to pretend it doesn’t matter (I suppose he has to, since Beslan is RIGHT THERE). We learn that Beslan thinks that his mother is “a little too possessive” of Mat but otherwise is fine with what she does and worries that she’ll marry Beslan off to someone he doesn’t find attractive if she finds out he's helping ‘her pretty’ escape and that he thinks it’s good she has someone to rape to take her mind off dealing with the Seanchan. Mat is actually actively wishing he could be back in the Two Rivers right now, so I will note that down. Mat hates being in Ebou Dar, hates being Tylin’s pretty, and is doing everything in his power to escape as quickly as possible and anything to the contrary that the narrative tries to tell us later is revisionist history. The chapter ends with the dice starting in Mat’s head.

19. We are once again boldly told that ACTUALLY, the invading slaver culture did BARELY ANY DAMAGE and why are you all so fussed about being invaded and enslaved anyway? Okay, narrative, sure. You literally just told us about them completely destroying an entire subculture in the last chapter and there are heads on pikes right outside the city walls, but sure. Barely noticeable. Honestly, the Seanchan invasion and Mat’s abuse are treated the same very odd way -- the readers are clearly shown the damage that was done, but then it gets brushed off by the narrative as if we weren’t just shown how horrible it is. Jordan shows how terrible it is, and then immediately tries to soften it. Like in last book, we saw how uncomfortable and miserable Mat was during the entire section of the book when he was being raped and abused... and then, at the end of the book, we have Mat ~genuinely realizing he will miss her~. ??? wtf, Jordan! And we got a lot of that same stuff going on with the Seanchan now, too, where we see how horrific the slavery is... and then get the narrative cheerfully going, “but it’s not so bad; chin up!” And that’s really a situation where the note that the narrative ENDS on tends to be the note that is remembered the best, which is... unfortunate, in this case.

20. We learn that Mat used to go down to the docks to longingly look at the ships that he wasn’t allowed to leave on, but he doesn’t do that anymore (I think we learn later that Tylin punished him for doing this, so... yeah, whether or not Mat is ‘technically’ a slave right now is really a distinction without a difference, because Tylin definitely treats him like her sex slave). I note that Mat places ‘Tylin’ in the same category as ‘building falling on me and leaving me horrifically injured’.

21. Olver’s complete obliviousness to how horrific Mat’s situation is seems... unrealistic? He’s not a sheltered rich kid; he’s an orphan who has gone through war trauma. And he’s now in a city that was recently invaded and his mentor figure suffered horrific injuries as a direct result of the invasion and Olver is just... la-di-da, I will skip to-and-fro and do my best to flirt up all the grown women in sight. This child’s soul got sucked out of him sometime between LoC & ACoS. Like, I don’t genuinely think that Olver is to blame for Mat being stuck in Ebou Dar (despite my jokes about it) but I find it difficult to believe that OLVER wouldn’t think that? Mat was only still in the city because Olver wandered away from his minder, and then Mat had a building collapse on him. And I feel like most kids would internalize that somewhat and feel to blame, even though they aren’t. And that Olver not only hasn’t done that but is super-carefree and only cares about Hot Grown Ladies right now feels... frankly, just weird. I don’t think he even ends up being aggressive towards the Seanchan at all, at least not that I can remember, despite that being something that would absolutely be in character (he tried to kill Aviendha because his parents were killed by Shaido Aiel invaders).

22. A shitton more Seanchan arrived while Mat & Co were out at the circus (Mat is allowed to leave the city, but has to take Beslan with him, is I think the implication we’re given here) - the Return has officially arrived in Ebou Dar, with all the invading settlers who are here to steal the land from the people who already lived here (more ‘manifest destiny’ type stuff) - Mat realizes that this is an invasion force harder to fight than just soldiers, that it’s a settlement, complete with livestock, etc. We also learn that Beslan was whispering to Thom about potentially rebelling against the Seanchan invasion. Ah, here is where we learn that Mat got punished when he tried to buy passage on a ship before and we also learn that (now that Elayne and Nynaeve are gone) Tylin openly sexually harasses Mat in public, not caring who is watching. Mat is terrified that Tylin might marry him and make it even harder for him to escape and actually finds some reassurance in his fate-assigned marriage because At Least It Isn’t Tylin. Honestly, I’ve always felt that this is part of the reason Tylin exists as a character, so that Mat would feel somewhat relieved about whoever else it was who was the ‘Daughter of the Nine Moons’ because at least it wasn’t his rapist, no matter how awful she might be otherwise. Tylin sets Mat’s bar for ‘acceptable wife’ basically in the dirt, so all Tuon has to do is not be personally raping Mat in order to be considered ‘better’. A very very low bar. tbh, Tuon is kinda the queen (empress?) of ‘just barely clearing the lowest bar possible and then the narrative pretending that she broke the record for high jump’.

23. Aww, Mat has a lot of faith (or maybe just desperate hope) that Rand will ‘take care of’ the Seanchan invasion force. He also has a much more poetic description of the colors in his head than Perrin did, lol. I wish his faith in Rand had been rewarded here.

24. We’re reminded that anyone who fails to take the oath to await and serve immediately gets enslaved to do hard labor. Because, you know, life is better for (almost) everyone under the Seanchan. I do appreciate Mat pointing out that this oath taken under extreme duress is not a valid oath to him. We’re also reminded that the Listeners could be literally anywhere and that one of them overhearing something suspicious can immediately get your head put on a pike. Because, you know, things are so much better now that the Seanchan are here. Anyway, yeah, despite the narrative trying to talk about things being ~a little better~ for the common folk, sounds to me like that climate of fear, mistrust, and paranoia that Fain loved so much in Falme is getting set up again right here in Ebou Dar. At this point in the narrative, the cheerful ‘chin up, could be worse’ vibe can definitely still be read as Mat desperately lying to himself, since we do get hints of tension and wariness being thrown at us. Mat is very anti-Seanchan at this point and very anti-slavery, but he’s trying to keep his head down while he arranges his escape.

25. Ugh, the way in which Mat is constricting his movements so not to anger his abusive rapist ‘partner’ is really painful. He doesn’t even dare go too close to the docks, because he’s ~learned his lesson. What Mat absolutely did NOT need after what happened with Tylin was yet another woman who believes absolutely that she has the right to own people. Almost anyone else would have been better. Elayne, Rand, Talmanes, Aludra, NYNAEVE, I don’t care. But not another woman in Tylin’s mold. This is such a fucking horror show and I don’t understand how Jordan could write this and then undercut it later by his various narrative choices in this and in Mat’s later ‘relationship’. We just really see Mat cutting off pieces of himself in order to try to make Tylin less angry with him, because he is trapped and it’s clear that she’s willing to do some horrific awful things to him all while telling him that she’s just ~having fun and ~why is he objecting. (it really is treated just the same way as the Seanchan invasion). Mat is literally trying to figure out how to have a place to stash his running away money; this storyline just bleeds domestic abuse in every aspect. Tylin is still starving him when he displeases her.

26. Mat gets attacked by the gholam. It runs away when they start to draw attention and Mat chases it. It escapes into a hole much too small for it to fit through naturally and Mat meets the man who tricked it into thinking that people were coming around: Noal Charin. I’ll be honest with you - I do not have the emotional energy to care about Noal, lol. But he’s here and Mat’s met him, so I guess that’s nice. Mat notes that the dice are still tumbling in his head, so whatever it is that stops them is going to be worse than the gholam. So true.

27. Even seeing the title of this next chapter kinda makes me want to throw up. Summary: I hate Tylin and the way that everyone in the palace treats Mat like her property and is happy to serve him up for her to rape if it helps keep her temper away from them. I hate that Jordan decided to start off Mat and Tuon’s relationship (not a spoiler, since he already revealed to the reader that she’s the DotNM) with Tuon trying to BUY HIM. I hate hate hate Tylin pretending that she doesn’t think of Mat as property even while she blatantly does so, and I hate us needing to go through Mat dreading her punishments of him. We do get Mat seeing Teslyn in one of the damane collars and trying to convince himself that it’s better than her being dead (he can’t quite do it). re Teslyn - “She had done him no good turns, and maybe some bad, but he would not wish this on her.” Mat is currently anti-slavery, even of people he doesn’t like. Just marking that down again. Also, he thinks in this chapter that he would rather face the gholam again than be alone with Tylin.

28. Next chapter. Apparently now, after months of letting Olver press his face into her breasts, Riselle has finally asked and been told that Olver is ten. How old did she think he was? No idea. This is such a fucking weird subplot, the story of how ten year old war-orphan Olver is Obsessed With Breasts and doesn’t seem to have noticed that the city he’s living in has been invaded and his mentor was horrifically injured during said in invasion and that the whole reason he is being Deliberately Distracted By Boobs was so that his mentor could be raped by his distraction’s boss. This kid seemed so much more aware of his surroundings and the realities of war back in LoC.

29. Back when markantonys was first reading ACoS and feeling despair over the Mat & Tylin situation, I had to break the unfortunate news that Tylin raping Mat is actually plot-relevant -- and it is; that’s the whole reason that Mat is trapped in Ebou Dar in this book. Even with his injuries, if Tylin weren’t caging him here so that she could rape him on a regular basis, Mat would be long gone by now and unavailable for Tuon to stalk. So, this is me, trying to think of how the show might handle this entire horrible situation. I can think of a few possibilities:

tighten up the timeline: if Tuon & the Return arrive in Ebou Dar with the initial invasion force, then Mat doesn’t need to be living in Tylin’s cage in order to meet her. honestly, it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to kill off Suroth in TGH-ish area and simply have Tuon be the one leading the Seanchan in all future appearances. And this method would keep Mat & Tuon’s meeting intact without Mat needing to be raped and abused by Tylin.

Cut out Mat & Tuon’s relationship. Unsure how likely this is. If we don’t get Mat hearing the DotNM prophecy in Tear, then this is likely the road that is being taken. This road would probably mean that Ebou Dar would be truncated or skipped entirely, which might be a good idea if the show instead decides to make Dumai’s Wells more of an ‘all hands on deck’ situation and Elayne, Nynaeve, Aviendha, & Mat all end up there. Mat doesn’t need to have a romance - we don’t need to pair-bond everyone. Rand has enough romance to cover everyone else lol.

Keep the general story as-is but don’t soften it the way that Jordan kept doing: show that what Tylin is doing is horrific and don’t sexualize it; show that what Tuon is willing to do (re: slavery) is horrific and don’t romantize it. What Jordan does in the books to try to ‘soften’ the Seanchan does not work, imo (and it SHOULDN’T; they are slavers) and the show should steer clear of doing any of those same things.

30. Mat notes that he’s learned from the various soldiers here that the continent of Seanchan has “almost constant rebellions and revolts that kept its soldiers’ skills keen” (matches what we heard in the Seanchan PoVs in TPoD). So we are still undercutting what the narrative tells us on one hand (life is ~better~ under the Seanchan) with the realities of what rule under the Seanchan is actually like on the other (constant unrest against the oppressive heavy hand of the Empress). I really am going to be keeping an eye out to see if/when this nuance gets lost in the story, along with keeping an eye out to see if/when Mat loses his loyalty to Rand & the Westlands and turns his coat to the Seanchan/slavers side, since he is prophesied to marry one of them and all. But, yeah, on my first read through of this book, I don’t think I was worried about either of those things happening at all, since Mat is so clearly miserable in Ebou Dar and miserable around the Seanchan.

31. Mat hears various rumors about Rand but does his best to dismiss them -- even ignoring the colors, he’s convinced that he would KNOW if Rand were dead. This is so much more ridiculously romantic in Mat’s PoV than it is when Perrin is thinking about it. Perrin literally took two sentences to dismiss Rand & the colors and Mat needs an entire page. We also have Mat thinking “whatever Rand’s situation, he could do nothing about it in Ebou Dar”. Aww. He’s worrying about Rand. It’s very sweet. Given what a horror story the rest of Mat’s chapters have been so far in this book, between the rape and the Seanchan, getting to see Mat thinking about Rand is a very nice page-long breather before we dive back into the horror.

32. Mat is now legitimately traumatized by the color pink. He not only burns all the pink ribbons that she... used on him, he burns every other piece of pink clothing that she’s added to his wardrobe. Again, things to remember for the future. Honestly, this almost feels like another Tylin-Tuon metaphor at this point -- the use to which pink was used makes Mat have such a distaste for it that he’s relieved to put on the garish clothing that he despised the day before, as long as it isn’t pink. Before Tylin, I don’t think anything Tuon could do would make Mat look at her with anything but disgust for being a slaver. After Tylin -- At Least It Isn’t Pink/At Least She Isn’t Tylin.

33. Mat finally gets his cubbyhole of safety, at the Wandering Woman, where Setelle Anan is relieved to hear that (as far as Mat knows) The Kin all escaped with Elayne. Her inn has pretty much been completely taken over by Seanchan, including lots of sul’dam. “He was happy too” [about the Kin & Elayne & co escaping the Seanchan] “just not happy enough to put himself in chains for joy”. Anan is also the first person to mention that, traditionally, pretties are supposed to have CHOSEN it and be allowed to leave when they chose, so Tylin has been breaking tradition this entire time by forcing Mat into it. So I will also note that for the future: Setelle Anan is aware of the fact that Mat was forced into being Tylin’s ‘pretty’ and not allowed to leave when he wanted to leave. But Setelle Anan also requires Mat to ‘pay’ for his cubbyhole by sexually harassing him too (forcing him to display himself in his clothes for her). So. Yeah. Ebou Dar is such an awful place. I hate this city. Anyway, Mat arranges for the two valets - Nerim (who works for Talmanes) and Lopar (who worked for Nalesean) to move his old clothing -- which Tylin surprisingly did not burn but did hide with Prince Beslan’s old childhood toys -- over to the cubbyhole at the Wandering Woman piece by piece so as not to arouse suspicion.

34. “Light, it would be nice to think that he had more to look forward to than scars and battles he did not want. And a wife he did not want or even know. There had to be more than that.” I definitely agree with @essie007 and markantonys that Mat’s narrative does frequently come across as a queer narrative - him fighting against What Is Supposed To Happen For All Young Men, of trying to resist folding into that stereotypical narrative of toxic masculinity and forced heterosexual monogamy. There has to be more to life than warfare and a wife. There must be, he thinks. But the narrative refuses to let him choose his own path and, when we actually get to the moment of decision... well, we’ll get there. But there’s a strong Min comparison in that moment that I’m already pretty sure I will be making (and Perrin too). But his narrative here is (deliberately?) a traditionally feminine one -- he needs to navigate around the whims of a powerful figure who rapes and abuses him, sock away hidden run-away money and clothes, and try to figure out how to escape without letting his abuser know what his plans are. I am wary of thinking this was deliberate just due to how it ends, though.

35. Mat and Aludra do spend some time kissing in secret, we learn. I honestly hope that they both enjoyed it a lot, because* (reason popped down below for spoilers through AMoL). It sounds like they both enjoyed it, even if Auldra is sadly also of the same school as Min/Egwene and believes that men shouldn’t be told more than “they need to know” even if they’re literally trying to help you.

36. Tylin is adapting to the Seanchan culture more and more, spending much of her time closeted with Suroth (darkfriend) and Tuon (who told Tylin to think of her as like a sister), laquering her nails and making plans to shave parts of her head in the future. Beslan is currently very upset about that, as he’s still unhappy about his city being invaded by slavers for some reason. Tylin is also seriously considering the idea of enslaving Mat and turning him into da’covale because her possessiveness and paranoia is ramping up. Note here how easy it is implied for a member of the Blood (or at least the High Blood) to enslave someone. She doesn’t need a REASON to make Mat property; she needs to want to enslave him and it will be done. Mat tries to insist that he’s not unhappy about his situation because he dislikes being bedded by Tylin (despite all the evidence that he actually dislikes ‘being bedded’ by Tylin a great deal and constantly attempts to sneak out of the palace before she has a chance to summon him); it’s just that she tries to take up so much of his time. The maids always summon Mat to Tylin with ‘broad grins’ because him being raped is a good thing to them, because it calms Tylin’s temper.

37. Mat begins to note that it seems like Tuon runs across him too much for it to be chance. Tuon tells him that she will buy his raven-inlaid spear for ‘ten times’ what he paid for it, and he tells her that he didn’t pay in gold and refuses to sell it. This section here, with this sort of cat-and-mouse isn’t poorly done. Again, it could be the start of a character arc for Tuon, running into this person that she thought perhaps she could intimidate or buy and finding out that he won’t let her do that. It could make her maybe rethink some of her assumptions about the world, especially this new continent that her people have invaded.

38. Mat visits the Wandering Woman to check on his stash but Anan is out, so he goes to the kitchen instead and gets a meal there (he missed breakfast because he slipped out before Tylin could see him again). And he is ~luckily~ there long enough to see Anan come back with a hooded Joline (the other of the Aes Sedai who was originally here from Elaida’s embassy). She’s actually here specifically to meet with “a man who might take her with him when she leaves Ebou Dar” though she wasn’t expecting it to be Mat. At first Mat thinks that she’s the one who slipped him that note, but her reaction makes him realize that it must have been Teslyn. And between the two things there -- promising to help Joline and realizing that Teslyn tried to warn his friends back in ACoS -- Mat now has a new obligation that he needs to try to meet.

39. But first we are reintroduced to Bayle Domon and Egeanin. Doman has... embraced Seanchan culture? idk why. And he’s Egeanin’s Voice now. Last I remember, they were planning to drop the SAD bracelets in the ocean forever and NOT hang out with the Seanchan but I guess that plan went out the window (or I’m forgetting something in their narrative). Anyway, Mat almost but doesn’t quite recognize Bayle, and the pair of them end up leaving the kitchens without Bayle seeming to recognize Mat either. Which makes sense! He hasn’t seen him since EotW, I don’t think.

40. Mat forces himself to go into the damane kennels to talk to Teslyn (and he does have to force himself -- he even thinks being raped by Tylin again right now might be preferable to needing to go there). He’s horrified by it all! He hates that he doesn’t feel like he has the power to save them! He’s disgusted even at the thought that he might want to have sex with someone who has been enslaved and had their choice to say ‘no’ stripped away from them when Tuon mentions that some people do that sort of thing. Mat in Winter’s Heart is ANTI-SLAVERY.

41. It really is horrific. They’re kept in tiny wooden cells, and the Windfinders have all had their cultural jewelry stripped from them. Mat can hear some of them crying. The rooms are small enough that the woman inside can reach everywhere she needs to with her a’dam bracelet on its peg. This is what Tuon actively believes should be the fate of every woman who is capable of channeling. Egwene, Elayne, Nynaeve. Every Windfinder. Mat’s sister and every Aes Sedai. Aviendha and all the Wise Ones. But, hey, if you torture them enough and convince them that there’s no hope, they’ll kiss your hand and beg you not to uncollar them so... yeah. I really hate the Seanchan. I really hope the show does better with their narrative arc than Jordan and Sanderson did. Because this, all of this in Ebou Dar, is a HORROR STORY and it deserves to be treated that way as the story continued forward.

42. Mat tells Teslyn that he will help her escape, if he can, and she promises him that she will do anything he asks of her in return. She tells him, in horror, that she’s found herself looking forward to getting treats from the sul’dam because it means that she’s pleased them. She can feel her spirit starting to break. She tells him about another sister that she wants him to save, Edesina, and, with sadness, that there are two others who have already had their spirits broken and respond only to their slave names and Teslyn is unhappily certain that they would betray any escape.

43. On his way out of the ‘kennels’, Mat runs into Tuon, who is probably here to creepily think about how much she loves owning all these poor ladies and how much ~better life is for them being trapped in tiny wooden cells than living free lives. We get a genuine ‘cultural misunderstanding’ here between Mat and Tuon, where he is disgusted at her bringing up the idea that anyone would want to sleep with someone who has been enslaved and has no choice while Tuon is relieved that he isn’t a pervert who sleeps with ‘animals’. Again, this is something that COULD have been built on in the future when Tuon was forced to confront that she herself qualified as less-than-human by her own definition, since we the readers already know that she’s capable of channeling. At the time this story was published, I’m pretty sure that I assumed that it would be something that Tuon would be forced to confront about herself (oh, I was searching for some factual info about Tuon a couple of months ago and came across a hilarious old forum thread where people were arguing, with complete sincerity, that Tuon actually WASN’T capable of channeling; lol we literally learn that she’s a channeling learner in her first PoV chapter).

44. Now we flip over to the Seanchan side of things. Bethamin is with Renna. Renna is one of the two sul’dam that got leashed with their own a’dam at the end of TGH (the other, Seta, is assigned to Suroth, we learn in Bethamin’s narration). “A new name was a useful tool with the most difficult cases, creating a break with what was done and gone.”* This chapter is mostly useful for what it teaches us about how the Seanchan break their slaves (from the side of the slavers). It is... unpleasant. Have I mentioned recently how much I hate the Seanchan?

45. Teslyn has been renamed ‘Tessi’ by the sul’dam and Bethamin notes that she doesn’t seem as miserable as normal and is responding like a normal damane and not reluctant to say the proper forms. She suspects that ‘Tessi’ is pretending to play along, so Bethamin writes a note that her training and punishments are to be redoubled and her ‘treats’ to be sporadic, in order to keep her off-balance and crush her spirit. “She would be happier for it, in the end," Bethamin tells herself.

46. Now we get Bethamin finally getting herself think about that day in Falme, when she had gone upstairs to check on Egwene (”Tuli”) and seen Renna and Seta collared and desperately trying to remove the collars from each other’s necks. And it made Bethamin question everything she knew about being sul’dam, about how something she felt like she could ~almost see weaves. I... do not remember where this plot thread goes from here, but I feel like if it had a satisfying conclusion that I WOULD remember it? But we’ll see, I guess. We learn that the empire yearly tests sul’dam until their ‘twenty-fifth name day’ for the spark and she thinks about how if the Empire finds out about Renna and Seta, that testing won’t end at 25. So it sounds like some damane in the empire are learners who accidentally opened themselves up too much and so got caught. Because women generally spark around 16, I think we’re told, so every sul’dam who is caught in that yearly testing afterwards was a learner and not a sparker. I wonder who instituted the 25 year rule originally.

47. She has figured out that Alwhin must have found Renna and Seta and told Suroth, so Suroth knows the truth and is keeping it a secret. She believes that Suroth is keeping the secret ‘for the good of the Empire’ so as not to undermine their war machine by revealing that their soldiers are actually supposed to be guns instead. Bethamin thinks about how she is “dedicated heart and soul to protecting her own freedom” rather than protecting the Empress and the Empire as she should. Again, again, this book promised so many things in the future narrative.

48. We see here how readily the average Seanchan just crumbles when confronted with a Seeker for the Truth. She was ready to defend herself, but he shows his little badge and she turns into a meek kitten. Seekers for the Truth are allowed to torture even the Imperial family, if they decide they need to. But once she realizes that he doesn’t actually know that she knows dangerous things, she IS brave and bold enough to lie to him here. Oh, wow, so Egeanin was rewarded by High Lady Suroth (darkfriend), was she? Um. Anyway, Bethamin is ordered to renew her old friendship with Egeanin and report back to the Seeker whatever Egeanin says and does, and Bethamin is so internally relieved that the Seeker is after Egeanin and not her. Because it’s so great to be under Seanchan rule, everyone! Look what a lovely government they have in place! “In the Empress’s name, he could take even Suroth to the question, or Tuon herself.” Anyone at all can be tortured if they are suspected of stepping out of line (except the Empress herself)! Ah, we get the whole story of how Egeanin bought Bayle after their ship was boarded by the Seanchan.

49. Now we flip over to Egeanin’s PoV. I have to admit, I appreciate on some levels that we’re getting this Seanchan storyline (since it is being honest about what the Seanchan are like)... but I wish Mat weren’t trapped in it*. Of course, a main character kinda HAS to be stuck in it in order to justify all the pages that Jordan clearly wanted to spend on it (not that this stopped him from spending so much time on the Shaido before Faile and Perrin got involved...). Anyway, Egeanin lied her ass off to Suroth and thus was rewarded with her promotion to Low Blood and orders to go to Ebou Dar and await more orders. We learn that Bayle, at least, resists being treated like Egeanin’s slave -- the one time she ordered him beaten, he refused to sleep with her until she apologized for it (and obviously she hasn’t done it again, from what she says here). Oh, fuck, here is also where we learn that Suroth has the SAD bracelets that can control Rand, because Egeanin and Bayle were found by the Seanchan and got out of the mess by saying “oh, look, we have a gift for the Empress!” So, yeah, an easy way to condense A Certain Plotline after Tanchico is just to have Bayle and Egeanin actually be able to complete their mission and dispose of the collar & bracelets. Oh, eeek. Part of the reason that Egeanin talked Bayle into giving up and handing over the bracelet is because some part of Egeanin DOES think it might be necessary for Rand to be collared for the Empire. Hate this song. Hate it to pieces. Honestly, bringing Egeanin back into the story is already started to tear down the plotline that she’d had before about getting deprogrammed from the Seanchan, because it’s clear that her promotion to Low Blood has put a lot of that programming right back in (though not all of it). There’s a lot of memes about her being a ~friend to channelers, so I hope she deprograms again, but I do not remember a surprising amount of Mat post-WH storyline, I have to admit. My dislike of Mat & Tuon kinda blots out everything else.

50. Bayle sort of asks her to marry him, and points out that it would require her to free him in order to do so. She thinks about how she had wanted to marry him, before he’d gotten sold at block and she’d needed to buy him, but hadn’t known enough of his customs to get around to asking. But now: “She wanted wholeheartedly to marry the man Bayle Domon. She was bitterly unsure she could bring herself to marry manumitted property.” They’re literally sleeping together but her belief in the Seanchan slavery system is SO STRONG that even though Bayle has only been enslaved a matter of months, it has so completely changed the way she looks at him that she’s unsure if she could bring herself to marry him once he is ‘freed property’. (also this kinda shows another of the lies in the Seanchan fairytale -- the idea that slaves can be freed, because we see here that even once a slave is freed, they aren’t seen as a person again but as ‘freed property’ instead. Once you become property, you are never really a person again in their eyes*).

51. *sigh* We now have the FIFTH romance where a woman punches a man in the stomach. Faile-Perrin; Min-Rand; Nynaeve-Lan; Setelle Anan-Nameless Husband; and now also Egeanin-Domon.

52. Oh, Bethamin WAS in trapped an a’dam as well - in Tanchico. I... absolutely do not remember that storyline at all. Anyway, Egeanin freed her. This is now the scene where Bethamin has come to befriend Egeanin. Bethamin is absolutely up-front and honest about the Seeker telling her to come and renew her ‘friendship’ with Egeanin. Love to see some honesty. Bethamin tells Egeanin about Renna and Seta as well. “The empire depended on sul’dam; its strength was built on them. The news that sul’dam were women who could learn to channel might shatter the Empire to its core.” There is so much rich storytelling meat being set up here. We have been promised a specific story about the Seanchan since BOOK TWO and it is getting reaffirmed over and over in this book that this is the story that we’re about to be told about the Seanchan. All the puzzle pieces are in place to tell this story. Ah, and we learn here that Bayle did recognize Mat back in the Wandering Woman, so that’s how the two storylines will collide again. And Egeanin does understand the difference between the genuine affection of a man who does not actually think of her as his owner and the enforced and trained affection of a slave when she sees the way that Bayle says that he wants to help her. And Egeanin is committed to her own freedom here as well, “whatever it took”.

53. Ah, and now we are in Rand’s sidequest about hunting the traitor Asha’man. I feel like this whole traitor Asha’man thing could and should have been wrapped up in a single chapter (and not been placed in Far Madding), so we could move on to the cleansing. The side-quest vibes in this storyline are just as strong as the ones in Perrin’s ‘kidnapped wife’ plotline. I will summarize the bits that stood out to me:

It is hilarious that Rand thinks that dying his hair black makes him unrecognizable. His face was bannered across the sky in fire! He’s basketball player levels of tall!

Nynaeve is with Rand in his storyline (she’s the one who dyed his hair) and yet still has not told him about Mat being left behind in Ebou Dar. Rand feels like she’s behaving ‘weird and mysterious’ like she’s given up who she is to be Aes Sedai.

It’s so ridiculous that Rand took Min along to Far Madding, given his feelings about putting Elayne and Aviendha in danger and the Asha’man definitely all know what Min looks like because she is his famous breeches-wearing mistress.

Oh, he does still have his sword from Aviendha! And is capable of having an independent thought about her! That’s nice.

Rand literally decided to set his trap in a place where he knows that the people in charge would truss him up in a cell for Elaida (and where the Power doesn’t work so they would actually be capable of it). wtf.

Ah, here is where we get Taim and Demandred talked about clearly as two distinct people who are both giving the traitor Asha’man orders, with Demandred apparently unaware that Taim is also a Darkfriend. Moridin is ALSO giving this Darkfriend Asha’man orders, btw. Talk about overkill! Three sets of bosses all giving him orders about Rand. Anyway this one gets killed by Fain anyway, so I guess he was just here to establish that Taim and Demandred are definitely seperate people.

Min takes over folding Rand’s laundry, because heaven forbid we forget for a single moment that she is Here For Her Man and now cares about all these domestic things that she used to hate.

Oh, Luc/Isam has returned to the plotline and we get some vague details on How His Thing Works. It’s also confirmed that he killed the Black Ajah sisters back in the Stone of Tear way back in TSR. He also was the one who killed the Gray Man in the White Tower in... TDR, I think it was. He’s in Far Madding to kill Rand and Min, but accidentally kills some randoms instead. Anyway, he’s basically the Shadow’s elite assassin, it sounds like. You’d think he’d be better at finding his correct targets.

Don’t understand how Rand could have his first PoV chapter after the bonding and yet we don’t really get his thoughts on it at all except in passing. wtf. It’s like a non-event to him, especially since he’s going to continue to only hang out with Min and just occasionally think about Elayne and Aviendha.

54. I don’t care about anything that happens in chapter 23. I’m over the Windfinders. I’m over Cadsuane. This chapter shouldn’t exist, only exists to make this book even longer by feeding into Rand’s upcoming new plot event that also shouldn’t exist.

55. I also don’t care about anything that happens in chapter 24. If Jordan wanted us to know about Far Madding so desperately, he should have thought of a reason to involve it that didn’t mean re-treading already-done ground or making Rand act even more reckless than the taint makes him act at times (why in the world would he go to a place where he can’t channel and where he is also aware that if he were to be captured he would likely be given to Elaida?). I think this entire subplot is meant to sell us on Cadsuane’s usefulness/ruthlessness but I just find myself annoyed and bored that I’m being forced to endure it. The only person in either of these two chapters that I care about even in the slightest is Verin.

56. Chapter 25 is mostly pointless, though at least it has Rand. Notable things:

He’s playing his flute again now; he’s playing a song Lews Therin knew. Something that he knows would have scared him once, but now he takes it in stride

Min threatens Rand with a dagger to make him stop playing his flute and jams it into a doorframe when he gives her a silent look over the threat. Something like this is inevitably going to make me think of Tylin when it happens in the same book as Tylin using her knife to communicate to her servants when it’s time to fetch Mat to rape him. I’m still unsure why Jordan decided to make knives a thing for Min in LoC, especially when they have yet to actually be useful for her.

Min provides yet another viewing that’s bad for Rand’s mental health -- Alivia is going to ‘help him die’ which kinda feeds into his self-sacrificing/self-loathing stuff, as Rand thinks about how death would probably be a relief.

while Elayne saw the importance of getting Rand’s consent to bond him, Min says she would have been willing to bond him even without his consent. Good thing she can’t channel, I guess, because she would have been just another Alanna. Probably would have force-bonded Rand that very first day she showed up in Caemlyn.

Rand forces himself to endure Cadsuane’s company entirely because of Min’s viewing. Literally the only reason that he’s enduring her and trying to ~spark her interest is because he trusts Min.

Cadsuane hits Rand in this chapter. Honestly, a lot of how Cadsuane treats Rand is also reminding me of Bethamin’s Rules For Breaking A Slave that we went over a few chapters ago.

Verin almost kills Cadsuane but decides not to at the last moment. We also find out she’s a ~wanted woman~ in Far Madding. Verin and Rand are the only interesting people in this chapter.

Min’s loose lips strike again: she told Cadsuane that she told Rand that he needs Cadsuane. Rand is literally the ONLY person that this woman can keep a secret from!

57. Elayne!!! My dearest!!! I’ve missed you so much! Elayne is talking with Egwene in TAR, where they are walking in the dream version of Emond’s Field. Elayne feels saddened by the changes she notes in the village (Oh, I think Nynaeve showed her Emond’s Field in TAR a couple of books ago, yeah?) and Egwene is completely shocked to the point of losing control of her appearance in TAR. It isn’t a village anymore but a prosperous town. A thick stone wall is being built around the town and Egwene is particularly struck by the battle monument.

58. Elayne misses Rand. Continue to be gutted out of how much she gets cheated out of spending time with him. Aviendha, too, but we get Aviendha PoV much less frequently than Elayne.

59. Elayne thinks about how the Red Eagle being raised in the Two Rivers is a Complication that she needs to deal with, because it challenges Andor’s rule too much. She also reminds Egwene that she could Travel to see her home, if she misses it and wants to find out how her family is doing, but Egwene is of the opinion that she Can’t Go Home because she’s changed too much. Oh, and Elayne’s section here is set in the past from where we ended off with Egwene at the end of TPoD, because the army hasn’t shifted over to Tar Valon yet. So Egwene’s last bit of TPoD is actually running AHEAD of Rand’s plotline in Winter’s Heart, because Rand’s bonding of Elayne anchors that moment in time. We are currently in Egwene’s past right now. Everyone is still catching up to Egwene’s timeframe. It has been “a few days” since Elayne saw Rand.

60. Elayne gives Egwene an impulsive hug and tells her that she trusts that Egwene will make the right decision. Egwene tells Elayne that if Rand “comes to her again” then she must inform Egwene and tell her anything that might give Egwene a hint as to what Rand is planning to do or where he’s planning to go. And Elayne thinks here, slightly guilty, that she has told Egwene ‘almost everything’ about Rand’s visit, but did not tell her about the group bonding. I’m glad she was willing to keep at least one secret for Rand’s sake. Gives her a leg up over Min, anyway, who is willing to tell pretty much anyone all of Rand’s secrets at the drop of a hat. Elayne doesn’t say anything to Egwene here about how Rand mistakenly thinks that Mat is with her and her army, btw, and Egwene mentions nothing about her dreams of Mat “pale and in pain”. Egwene DOES very ominously say that she does not plan to heal the White Tower just so Rand can chain Aes Sedai like damane and then disappears from TAR before Elayne can ask her what rumours she’s heard to make her believe that’s possible.

61. Aviendha and Elayne are sharing a bed. <3 lol, Elayne forces Aviendha awake because if SHE has to be awake, so does Aviendha. And Aviendha is only annoyed that she slept so late. Aviendha has special permission to sleep with Elayne in the palace but now needs to rush back to her Wise One training. Wish we saw more of that. I’m also curious if Aviendha is as open about Rand’s secrets with the Wise Ones as Elayne was about most of his secrets with Egwene (and as Min is about all his secrets with literally anyone). See, the thing is... having people to confide in is important, right? But it’s sensitive information getting shared with people that Rand doesn’t trust that makes me grumpy. Especially since Rand himself doesn’t seem to ever get any benefits of his secrets being known -- he doesn’t get comfort over them, or the chance to process them, or anything like that.

62. Okay, now we begin the incredibly weird saga of Woman Less Than a Week Pregnant Already Considered Nothing But a Vessel For Her Fetus(es), as Elayne doesn’t get to eat a real breakfast anymore (????). Genuinely do not believe that Jordan talked to anyone actually capable of being pregnant when he wrote the entirety of this part of Elayne’s storyline because it is BIZARRE as fuck. I’m going to mark down any pages about this in unnecessary but just know that I am thinking wtf??? during almost every moment where Jordan talks about the Extreme Baby-Coddling Lengths that we must go to when Elayne is literally “a few days” pregnant. I do not blame Elayne for any of her later pregnancy-related shenanigans tbh because the way she is treated by the people around her is RIDICULOUS (and genuinely makes no sense). I am including the whole “desperately pick a random man to be the fake dad for her future kids” under this entire weird saga btw.

63. Also, the only reason people know that Elayne is pregnant is due to... you guessed it... Min’s loose lips. The ONLY people that she didn’t blab to were the ones who left with her to be in Rand’s storyline (because Rand isn’t allowed the hope of knowing he’s going to be a dad, I guess, and because Only Min is allowed to be ever-present in Rand’s thoughts and if Rand knew Elayne was pregnant, Jordan probably would feel obligated to actually have him visit Elayne every now and then and not just hyper-focus on Min).

64. But luckily we do get to focus on other things in Elayne’s plotline as well! I do like hearing about the political stuff that Elayne is dealing with. We never really focus on any one specific thing long enough for me to get bored about it. Elayne worries about Rand alienating the Aes Sedai but doesn’t worry about how the Aes Sedai may have potentially alienated him (which they... have). They’ve uncovered nine spies and dealt with them by NOT dealing with them. “A spy is your enemy’s tool until you know her but then she is your tool,” her mother told her, and Thom had given much the same advice as well. Ha, this is basically exactly the approach that Rand took with Aviendha when he viewed her as the Wise Ones’ spy in his tent. Since he knew she was the spy, he was content to keep her where she was so that they wouldn’t send another, unknown spy (which I guess they ended up doing when they started interrogating Min last book). The merchants are nervous that Elayne might choose to anger The Dragon Reborn, which would have a huge impact on trade. She does want she can to reassure them that she plans to ally Andor with him in due time (presumably after she is crowned) but they are not fully reassured. Ironically, the merchants would probably find it very reassuring to know she has a personal connection to TDR but I do absolutely understand her not wanting to lean on that connection and to instead make sure she has the crown under her own influence and power, and not Rand’s.

65. Some nights, Aviendha half-carries Elayne to the bed that they share because Elayne is too exhausted to get there on her own. Yeah, it will be so easy for the show to make Avilayne full canon. They are literally a kiss away. This is one change that I really do feel like we’re definitely going to get; it just seems like such an obvious update to the relationships as presented in the books. And we could also actually have MIN bond with Aviendha at some point and become her first-sister, so that we still have a first-sister relationship. But Avilayne should be canon and I have strong feelings that it probably will become canon.

66. Merilille returns from talking to the large Borderlander army to the north. She can confirm that all four rulers of the Borderlands are there, just hanging out with their armies. Hate that Mellar is here... not just because we know that he’s secretly a Darkfriend but because he has no business being in Elayne’s meetings with people! Why is she allowing this! There are at least two hundred thousand soldiers with this army. And she spotted “at least ten” Aes Sedai sisters (we know that there are 13 total). They want to talk to Elayne because of her ~connection to Rand (though Merille speaks around his name) and because they know she was at Falme? I genuinely do not know how they know that Elayne was at Falme; we might find out, because Elayne finds this mysterious as well. Elayne decides to go back and meet with the rulers immediately.

67. Interesting. She plans to approach them as “Elayne Sedai” and not “Elayne, Daughter-Heir”. She is going with Aviendha and Birgitte, with Merilille going ahead with a letter. She has dressed all in green to emphasize that she is Elayne of the Green Ajah. She is able to meet with the four rulers directly, without all the pomp and circumstance that would be needed if she were coming as the Daughter-Heir.

68. Elayne starts off on the offense and soon learns the reason that they’re all here -- to find the Dragon Reborn, and they thought he might be found in Andor, due to the rumors. They’re looking for him mostly to figured out why he is ignoring the Borderlands and the Blight, where it seems most likely that the Last Battle will take place. She says that she will give them the direction that she believes that the Dragon Reborn is currently in, if they will cross Andor without a fight. King Easar and Queen Ethenielle realize that Elayne plans to use the potential threat of the Borderland armies to unite Andor and then ‘negotiate’ with them once they are near Caemlyn and ‘convince’ them to leave without a fight. And both sides hopefully get what they want -- the rulers of the Borderlands will be heading in Rand’s direction and Elayne will be Queen of Andor.

69. Tenobia wants to talk to her uncle on the way, and Elayne says she can tell her where Bashere is located (at the center of the encampment of the Legion of the Dragon, I’m guessing, since Elayne says he’s near Caemlyn). However, Elayne doesn’t actually tell them where she feels Rand is located (in the direction of Tear) but sends them towards Murandy instead. Okay, wait, let me check something. Okay, per the map, Far Madding is basically exactly between Murandy and Tear, so they actually WILL be a lot closer to Rand if they go that way... as long as he doesn’t Travel out of the way before they get there. Elayne does want to try to figure out how to warn Rand but isn’t sure how to do so safely. Take care of him for us, Min, Elayne thinks, once again being the person holding this polycule together by her fingertips.

70. And when she gets back to the palace, she gets the urgent news that armies are approaching from the EAST (competely different army) and should arrive in a week. Despite her exhaustion, she kicks herself back into gear to begin preparations to defend Caemlyn. Twenty or thirty thousand soldiers are approaching and it is unknown who they follow. I think this might be the end of her storyline for the book, but it was quite an exciting ending! Elayne is doing her best to hold up this entire story by herself and I thank her for it from the bottom of my heart.

Tuon’s omens:

a soaring albatross means victory

an owl calling at dawn means death

rain without clouds means an unexpected visitor

ants and beetles are both involved in omens though we don’t get the details

broken nails are very bad luck

three gray porpoises rising once means to hold to your course

Mat mentions:

Nynaeve x5

Egwene x1

Talmanes x1

Elayne x5

Rand x12

Perrin x2

Asha’man in general x1

Things Mat considers preferable to or the same as spending time with Tylin:

facing Moghedien

facing the gholam

a building falling on him, leaving him with horrific injuries that take well over a month to heal

Unnecessary scenes:

the Mat-Tylin horror show: 1 (9 pages), 1 (1 page), 1 (4 pages), 1 (4 pages), 1 (12 pages), 1 (2 pages), 1 (3 pages), 1 (6 pages), 1 (1 page)

Far Madding nonsense: 1, (10 pages), 1 (21 pages), 1 (16 pages), 1 (18 pages)

the weird way Elayne’s pregnancy is treated: 1 (4 pages), 1 (1 page), 1 (1 page)

Spoilers up through A Memory of Light below

* on Mat & Aludra in chapter 18:(includes post-canon speculation with post-canon spoilers)

this is probably the last time Mat gets to kiss a woman purely because they both want it, with nothing hanging over his head telling him that he better like it or else (unless I’m forgetting someone else in the future). It makes me so sad, honestly. Because Mat doesn’t want the future that we know he gets at the end -- Tuon wants to retake Seanchan, which will mean endless battles and scars for him (and if they stay in the Westlands, there’s a very uneasy peace between Tuon’s slavers and... all the people who don’t want to be slaves). And though Sanderson tries his hardest to make us believe that Mat loves Tuon for whatever inexplicable reason, the original Mat (the real Mat), as we can see here, is horrified by slavery. So as soon as the 'marriage/infatuation’ high wears off Mat’s character, he will be horrified again and baby-trapped into his literal worst nightmare -- a life of scars and battles, with a wife that he doesn’t really know. Mat ends up in his own Worst Ending and it makes me so sad.

After a bit of searching, it looks like it’s even semi-canon that it’s Mat’s Worst Future, because the two sentences that Jordan provided about how the outriggers would begin included Mat in a gutter, having gambled everything away... apparently including his iconic hat:

Interview: May 24th, 2013

Phoenix ComicCon Report - KakitaOCU (Paraphrased)

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Lastly, and IMO, most important. While he stated he was paraphrasing from memory, he revealed the "two sentences" that Jordan had left for the outriggers. The first was a scene of Mat in a wool cap laying in a gutter having gambled away everything. The second was a scene with Perrin on a ship thinking that he was going to have to go kill a friend. (source is here: theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=999 -- that same source actually says that Siuan’s death was Harriet’s decision and not in Jordan’s original notes, which is... interesting)

So it sounds like if the outriggers had been written (they were supposed to start 5-10 years post-canon, I think?), it would have opened on Mat being miserable in Seanchan (possibly having run away from Tuon given that apparently he doesn’t have access to the resources of the Empire) and Perrin potentially on his way to kill Mat, perhaps because they think he’s a mastermind behind horrific slaver crimes of some kind but don’t realize he’s ~left Tuon’s service~? idk but Jordan did apparently realize that he was sentencing Mat to a miserable life when he married him off to Tuon, at least that’s what ‘in a gutter’ implies to me. It also kinda gives “Sam Vimes at the start of Discworld” vibes to me, and Mat is kinda a Vimes-y character anyway, when he’s at his best; I could picture Older Mat kinda going through a similar character arc as Vimes, as long as Jordan or Sanderson kept their hands off him.

* on Setelle Anan and Mat in chapter 19:

In addition to Mat’s character getting butchered to make Tuon look better, Setelle Anan gets character assassinated as well -- she goes from being willing to risk her life to save an Aes Sedai who is hiding from the Seanchan slavers to buddying up with the future head slaver of them all and being protective of her. There are things I dislike about Anan (she’s yet another of the increasing trend of women who are legit abusive to the men they’re in relationships with) but she is firmly anti-slavery here and while she puts on a show of being welcoming to the Seanchan, we see her true colors behind the scenes. And from what I remember of CoT/KoD, she’s just... genuinely on Tuon’s side because Woman Good, Man Bad.

And Mat, here seeing Joline’s absolute terror at the idea of being caught by the Seanchan and then seeing Teslyn in the ‘kennels’ later in this chapter as well. It just makes me want to spit rocks at what I remember happening in... Knife of Dreams, I think it is, where Tuon is allowed to collar someone and hurt them and get away with it because Tuon is Our Special Princess Who Never Gets Consequences For Her Actions, even when she’s literally torturing someone that she wants to enslave. And then she gets rewarded with Mat being more attracted to her because of it! The narrative REWARDS her for being the type of person who tortures and enslaves other people, because, hey, she’s ~pretty when she smiles~ and Jordan has decided that THIS is how low Mat’s morals have fallen, despite there being absolutely no reason for Mat to have changed this way. (it’s almost funny that Tuon has such a tragic and interesting and compelling backstory because wow does the narrative pull every possible punch when it comes to her actual in-book storyline; it’s like Jordan used up all the good writing on her backstory and didn’t have any left over for now!Tuon, who mostly acts like a coddled spoiled brat who refuses to grow up, from what I remember of CoT/KoD)

Like... I understand why people get mad at Sanderson’s portrayal of Mat, but Jordan is the one who started dragging Mat’s character into the mud, not Sanderson. Sanderson accelerated a process of moral decay that Jordan started. And while there is a sexism leap in TGS (from what I remember), Mat has been getting progressing more sexist the last couple of books as well, so that’s not something Sanderson was pulling from thin air either. He exaggerated it, because he exaggerated everything about Mat, but Jordan is the one who put it there when he decide that a pretty smile outweighed Mat’s morals about slavery. Mat feels a VISCERAL DISGUST about slavery in Winter’s Heart (as well he should). But that was inconvenient for the “falling in love with a slaver” plotline, so Jordan warped Mat’s character in CoT & KoD, and then Sanderson continued that process in TGS-AMoL. But Jordan started it.

* from chapter 20 - on slave training and Mat & Tuon’s relationship

So this is a thing that I do not believe was intentional on Jordan & Sanderson’s part but, wow, after rereading chapter twenty, it is impossible for me to get it out of my brain:

One of the points that Bethamin makes is how getting a slave to accept their new name is one of the ways that you can ‘break’ them from their old life. This is definitely a technique that we see Tuon use with Mat in CoT-AMoL (and he is answering to his assigned name in aMoL, like an obedient slave). I think one of the ways that I am going to survive through the rest of the Mat sections of my reread is marking out every place where it feels like Tuon is using slave-training techniques on Mat to break him to her will. Every time she uses ‘Toy’ instead of his name, every time she throws him off-balance to get him to obey her, etc. It will be depressing but hopefully distracting as well (honestly, it might be too depressing for me to actually do this; we’ll find out!).

So, things we know are used in training a damane:

they need to be completely removed from their previous, non-slave life

they must depend on you for their everyday needs

teach them to respond to their owner-given name

reward them when they obey you and work to please you (I believe Tuon uses kisses for this in KoD), but sporadically, so that they have to be constantly pleasing you to get even a small occasional reward

punish them when they disobey you or disrespect you

teach them to show proper respect to you and your position above them

and then use them to teach other, newer slaves how to behave properly (which reinforces proper behavior in them)

Thinking back, I’m pretty sure Tuon uses most if not all of these techniques on Mat throughout CoT-aMoL (and, according to what we hear from Bethamin here, Tuon treats Mat as a ‘hard case’ that needs to have his spirit thoroughly crushed in order to gain his loyalty and make him meek for her hand). And, honestly, in a lot of aMoL, from what I recall Mat is basically responding like a trained slave -- by the end of the series, he removes himself from his former life (doesn’t go to his best friend’s funeral); he accepts the name his mistress gives him and says he finds it pleasing, no longer protesting that he wants her to respect his own choice of name; he guides his actions by how much they please his mistress; he judges other people on how well they are showing respect to his mistress and iirc thinks about how he’ll need to teach Min the proper way to behave around his mistress.

There are a handful of moments where it feels like Original!Mat breaks through, but overall... it kinda does feel like his spirit has been at least half-broken to slavery by the epilogue (and while part of that can be chalked up to Sanderson, again, it started with Jordan). Which, you know, I hate. Absolutely hate. Literal worst ending that he could have gotten. Dying would have been better than living like this (as Mat himself realizes in Winter’s Heart when it comes to the damane), a shell of himself who exists only to please his mistress and eek out what tiny bits of happiness and contentment that he can salvage in his gilded cage, stronger than Tylin ever managed to make hers.

And if this is supposed to be ‘love’... it looks a lot like a leash. Just... I hate that a story that could have been about toppling or undermining a slaver empire instead became a story about how we all just have to live with slavery and accept it. Mat’s storyline post-LoC is just one damn depressing thing after another and it culminates in this depressing as fuck ending where he’s essentially a slave to his ‘wife’/empress but has convinced himself/been convinced that he’s okay with it. Escapes one abusive relationship only to end up in another one, more subtle but also harder to escape.

* On chapters 20-21 and Mat

Of course, the frustrating thing is that, from what I remember, all this set-up that we’re getting in these two chapters is going to end up have a very disappointing narrative conclusion. I don’t remember ANYONE successfully standing up to Tuon during the circus arc (which is one of the reasons that the circus arc feels so pointless for her; there’s no character growth, just her realizing that Mat is a more useful and dangerous tool than she’d first realized), so I feel like both Bethamin and Egeanin just crumple like wet rags in front of Tuon and then just stay that way, instead of rallying the way that Bethamin does at the end of her chapter?

Maybe I’m wrong - my memory of Mat’s storyline in CoT is basically just “ugh, why is Mat courting a slaver, why is Mat completely ignoring that she’s a slaver who is actively enslaving someone right now” (Tuon basically stays glued to her slave’s hip during the whole journey iirc) and my memory of his storyline in KoD is “why is Mat being TURNED ON by a slaver actively treating someone like a slave wtf wtf wtf?? who IS this person? this is not Mat Cauthon” so it’s possible that the background characters did have a good story and I just missed it in all my visceral disgust at the Mat & Tuon storyline. I will find out!

But, yeah, from what I remember, this all ends up dying in an unsatisfying whiffle, so all these elements that I thought were actually a deliberately horrifying but compelling start to a potentially fantastic storyline are just... disappointing during this reread. Again, I ask, wtf happened to Jordan in between writing Winter’s Heart and writing Crossroads of Twilight? Why did he have Mat go from vehemently anti-slavery to where Mat ends up in KoD? Because Winter’s Heart!Mat would be sickened by Knife of Dreams!Mat and probably straight-up lose his lunch if he knew about A Memory of Light!Mat willingly using damane in battle and giving up his own name for a Seanchan name. Ugh, I hate what a frustrating experience rereading Winter’s Heart is now that I know how disappointingly this storyline ends, at least from what I remember.

* On the subject of freed property (and Mat and Tuon)

Egeanin’s feelings here, that she is unsure if she can ever actually see Domon as a person again, despite obviously being in love with him, is something that is also very difficult for me to untangle from the upcoming Mat and Tuon ‘love story’. Once property, always property even if freed, seems to be how the Seanchan view things. Tuon spends two books (I think?) calling and thinking of Mat as ‘Toy’, as Tylin’s property that ran away from her and that Tuon is considering claiming for her own. Even when she completes the marriage ritual... does she see him as a person or does she still see him as escaped property that she is reclaiming for the Empire because he’s useful and maybe she wants to have sex with him in the future?

#wot #wheel of time #wot reread #winter's heart #wot book spoilers #wot spoilers #mat cauthon #slaver empress tuon #seanchan content warning #i am still on vacation but i have my phone!#tylin content warning as well #the wheel of time

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wishesunderthestars · 3 years

Text

Eunoia // Ch. 15

eunoia (noun): beautiful thinking, the possession of a well-balanced mind, which exhibits goodwill and kindness

Pairings: Hybrid! BTS x reader

Summary: You are a world famous director and you have dedicated your life to your job.You have everything you could ever dream of; wealth, recognision, talent, your friends and family. But loneliness ins’t cured by success. So what happens when you somehow rescue seven hybrids? Can they fill the void?

Genre: Angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, eventual smut

Word Count: 16k+

Warnings: past abuse, past sexual abuse

Masterlist

Chapter 1, Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14

A/N: And here we have another chapter I had to cut in the middle. The next chapter is almost done though and will be posted next week, maybe earlier if I find more time to write.

The taglist is now closed.

Yoongi would have slammed the door if Hoseok hadn’t been sleeping. His hands were trembling. Inside, he was breaking glass and thunder. Outside, the room was too quiet. Instead of shattering the small statue on the shelf that had been watching them since the day they had arrived, he threw himself on his bed over the covers.

The sheets rustled as Hoseok turned in his sleep.

They had become spoiled living in this place. Sleeping in a comfortable bed and eating as much food as they wanted. They had to leave. Yoongi couldn’t stay in this house full of luxuries anymore. He had to take Hoseok with him and get as far from this place as he could. He should have been more clever and left when you had been away in Virginia. That way he could have stayed ignorant.

Hybrids were nothing but cheap entertainment for humans, most of all the rich ones. What other reason could there be to adopt four hybrids? Yoongi shuddered. They were sub-human, property. The laws protecting them were nothing in comparison to the laws condemning them.

Humans never had innocent intentions when it came to hybrids, he had learnt that the hard way. It was easy to manipulate someone when you owned them, easy to break them. Yoongi had ignored the signs before. He had seen the way that vile man used to treat Jimin and how Jimin flinched at unexpected touches. He had seen them and yet he had done nothing. Nothing, until it had been too late. A stab pierced his stomach thinking about that night. He couldn’t stay silent this time.

But there were some things that didn’t make sense. It was easier to ignore how Jimin spoke about you like you were precious and how protective Namjoon was over you. You had even charmed Hoseok. Thinking about all that caused him a headache. Because it couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be true that kindness like that existed in such a cruel world.

Hoseok was hugging a pillow in his sleep. Yoongi had half a mind to wake him up and tell him to pack up right then.

Yoongi had failed Jimin once, he wouldn’t allow himself to do that again. Tomorrow, he would warn him and if he wanted, Yoongi would take him away from this place.

Sleep didn’t come to him until the early hours of the morning, the first rays of sunlight slipping through the glass wall.

He was woken up by hands grabbing his shirt and pulling him out of bed. Sleep was clouding his vision and his movements were sluggish as he tried to fight back. His back hit the wall followed by his head, the hands not leaving his shirt. The growl ringing in his ears was familiar.

“Are you here to beat me up?” he asked, forcing his trembling lips into a smirk.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Namjoon stood over him, holding him against the wall. He had the advantage of height, muscle mass and not suffering from a possible concussion. Behind Namjoon, Hoseok’s bed was empty. Yoongi let out a quiet breath of relief. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Yoongi laid his head back, he wasn’t going to fight back this time. “I don’t need your lectures. Let’s get this over with. Are you going to punch me? Tear my neck open?”

“I wouldn’t go to jail for you, you aren’t worth it,” Namjoon said through his teeth.

He rolled his eyes. “I’m sure she has enough money to get you out.”

There might have been a crack as Namjoon pulled him forward and slammed him against the wall again. “Don’t you dare talk about her. Don’t you dare say anything about her again. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care where you came from, you are only here because for some reason Jimin cares about you. But I’m not going to let you hurt my pack.”

“I did nothing to your pack.”

“Nothing?” Namjoon repeated. “That’s what you call your bullshit yesterday? You know nothing about her.”

“Just because she has you wrapped around her finger doesn’t mean that I can’t see what’s going on,” Yoongi retorted. “What do you think would happen if I told your pack that you were sucking each other’s faces yesterday?”

The hands on his shirt tightened.

“I know my pack and if you think you can threaten me with them, you are very wrong. You think they care if we kiss or not? All they care about is that we look after and love each other. And at the end of the day, why do you care who I kiss?”

Yoongi turned his head to the side. “The fuck I care who you kiss. If you want to remain oblivious, that’s your choice.”

“The fuck-?” Namjoon’s fangs were poking at his bottom lip. If he sunk them into Yoongi’s neck, in one move he would be dead. “I have no idea what your deal is or what hidden agenda you think she has but I know one thing. You don’t know her and you don’t know me either. You think I would really let my pack be adopted if I thought there was the slightest danger for them here. I would give my life for them. You think I would take such a risk? I would rather starve to keep them safe.”

Namjoon was the alpha of the pack, Yoongi had realized the moment he had first entered the house. He had observed their every move. Yoongi had disliked him in seconds. Namjoon was a threat and a dangerous one at that. But he couldn’t question his dedication to his pack.

The silence spread. Namjoon pulled him away from the wall and threw him on his bed. One of Yoongi’s legs buckled colliding with the leg of the bed.

“I really want to punch you right now,” Namjoon said. Yoongi could tell by his clenched fists and the angry way his tongue poked the inside of his cheek. “I have half a mind to throw you out of the house and out of our lives. But you aren’t getting out of this. You will apologize to her.”

“Like hell I will.”

Namjoon’s imposing figure loomed over him. “You will. And you want to know why? Because she deserves it. She took you and Hoseok in when she could have left you to die in that rundown building that could have fallen on your heads at any moment. She tended to Hoseok’s injuries for weeks and did everything to make you feel comfortable. And this is how you repay her? She didn’t ask you for anything, the least you could do is show her some respect.”

There was a dull throbbing where his leg had his the wood, his arms felt weak like his elbows would give away any moment and he would fall flat on his back on the bed.

“You are so quick to accuse her when you know nothing. What do you know about us? Jimin probably told you we lived in the streets for two years, but do you know how she adopted us? She didn’t just see three strays and thought, ‘Oh, look at them. I’ll just adopt them!’. No. She saved Jimin and Jungkook from five men who had attacked them while I was away looking for food. They were hurt and she brought them here to heal them. Jungkook could barely walk.”

That sounded familiar. It seemed like you had a habit of stumbling across injured hybrids and nursing them back to health.

“She wasn’t planning on adopting us,” Namjoon went on. “She had never wanted hybrids, hadn’t ever thought about adopting one. We were supposed to only stay for a few days and leave.” His lips curled. “I didn’t trust her either. I avoided her as much as I could, I went as far as to look up her name on her computer hoping to find something. And I regret those days now. But I was never as cruel as you.” Yoongi’s stomach hardened. “It took weeks for her to finally decide to adopt us. She was afraid that she couldn’t care for us the way she should because of her job. She wasn’t planning on adopting Jin either. Do you know what a red cross on a hybrid’s door means?” Yoongi’s lungs constricted, there was a painful tightness in his throat. “Of course you do.”

All hybrids knew what the red cross meant. Only the thought filled them with dread. Hybrids that had gone feral, that had hurt humans, they got the red cross.

“She was curious what the red cross meant. She thought it was a medical room.”

Yoongi couldn’t imagine Jin harming anyone. Jin with his loud laughter and terrible jokes, who cooked for everyone and cared for them quietly. Yoongi wasn’t stupid, there were many reasons that could push someone to turn to violence. But there were no traces of it on Jin while violence clung to Yoongi like a second skin.

“Apologize to her,” Namjoon said firmly. “And then you can get lost for all I care.”

He didn’t slam the door behind him.

Yoongi pushed himself up to sit properly on the bed. The digital clock on the nightstand read a quarter to eight. Hoseok had been waking up earlier and going outside to meet the other hybrids, no wonder he wasn’t there. On the other end, Yoongi would sleep until ten, mostly because he had trouble falling asleep before the sun was on the edge of rising.

Apologies were nothing but words and Yoongi wasn’t good with words. Apologies meant nothing if they weren’t sincere, if they weren’t followed by actions. He wasn’t one for apologies, he wouldn’t apologize just for the sake of it.

The door opened again. For a moment, Yoongi thought Namjoon was back to punch him and he almost smiled. The eruption of pain on his face was something he was familiar with, he preferred that to the storm inside.

Hoseok walked in, the smile he had been wearing the past days nowhere in sight.

“What did you do?” Hoseok asked.

Yoongi looked down at his hands. “What did the dog tell you?”

He sighed heavily. “Stop that. Why do you dislike him so much? I thought you were getting more comfortable here. What happened?”

“Nothing happened.”

“You think I believe that?” Hoseok asked, his voice raising. Hoseok didn’t get angry. He was loud in his happiness so it shouldn’t be so startling to hear him being loud in anger. “Y/N left the house at the crack of dawn today without saying anything. She wasn’t even there for breakfast. We thought something had happened to her. Namjoon tried calling her but her assistant picked up saying she was busy. What did you do, Yoongi? Namjoon said I should ask you.”

“I saw them yesterday.”

Hoseok’s face scrunched up in confusion. “Who?”

“Him and Y/N.” Hoseok’s face didn’t change. “I saw them together last night. They were kissing.”

Silence stretched for a few seconds. “They were kissing,” Hoseok repeated. He looked surprised but more than anything he looked confused. “And?”

Yoongi got up from the bed. His hands hadn’t stopped shaking. “What do you mean ‘and’? They were kissing!”

Hoseok looked at Yoongi like he had gone mad. Maybe he had. He felt like he had. “So what? They were kissing. What does that have to do with anything?”

“You don’t understand.”

He thew his hands in the air in exasperation. “No, I don’t understand because you don’t help me understand. They were kissing. Why does that matter to you? They already act like they are in love. We shouldn’t even be surprised.”

“He’s her hybrid! It isn’t- Don’t you see that she has him wrapped around her finger? She can do whatever she wants to him. She owns him!”

Hoseok took a step back, he was looking at Yoongi like he didn’t know him. “Is that what you told her? That she’s somehow controlling him because he is her hybrid? And why? Because they kissed? What is wrong with you? Is that really what you think about us? That all hybrids will do whatever their owner asks them to? And I guess you are the only exception, right? The rest of us are all brainless animals, aren’t we?”

“That isn’t what I meant. Don’t put words in my mouth. I-”

“You what?” Hoseok took a deep breath. His face had turned red. “You what, Yoongi? You never helped me understand. You never tell me anything. You know everything about me, every small detail about my life. And what do I know about you? Nothing! I know nothing about your past. But it was fine, because at least I thought I knew you. But I don’t. I don’t think I know you.” Yoongi’s insides twisted up at every word. The storm was gone and he was left with the ruins. “How can I know you when you refuse to open up to me? The Yoongi I thought I knew wouldn’t just hurt people like that, but you aren’t him.”

His throat had closed up. He couldn’t get the words out, he couldn’t even find them.

“Even now you won’t tell me, will you?” Hoseok took his silence as an answer. “I can’t believe you. I-” His ears were pinned to his head as he bit his lip. “You told me that your past was too much of a burden to let me in on it. Now I realize that meant that you never really trusted me, you never relied on me like I did on you.”

“That’s not-”

He cut him off. “Don’t tell me it isn’t true. If it wasn’t, you would have told me by now. We have been here for weeks and I have no idea what happened between you and Jimin. You tell me nothing when I tell you everything! How is that fair?”

“Hobi-”

“Don’t.” Hoseok closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I need to be away from you right now. If you decide you actually want to talk to me I-” He didn’t finish his sentence, opening the door and leaving the room.

Yoongi let out the growl that had been building at the back of his neck. It sounded like a hurt animal crying out.

What was he doing there? He didn’t belong in that house with the glass walls and huge gardens. In that house, he was losing everything he had. He couldn’t blame you this time. He thought about Namjoon and how he had demanded he apologized to you, but you didn’t need an apology. People like you didn’t need apologies from people like him.

♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩

They had waited for you in the kitchen. Even as they could feel you pulling away, you never missed breakfast or dinner with them. Namjoon should have gone after you but you had been so distraught he had been afraid he would only throw you into a worse headspace. He had laid in his bed, listening to the melody of Jimin and Jungkook breathing, and waited for the morning to come. Only that you never showed up.

Namjoon was getting up to go get you from your room but Jimin was already on his feet rushing to your door. Your absence had been palpable in the air the past weeks, even when you were with them you kept your distance. It had affected all of them but it was the hardest for Jimin who was used to receiving a lot of affection from you.

He had made his coffee too bitter, Namjoon noted as he sipped on it.

The oven alarm beeped and Jin rushed to turn it off and open the door. The room was filled with the smell of banana and sugar. Jungkook was playing a game on his phone, the annoying melody he didn’t seem to mind was interrupted every time he lost. Jin placed the tray on the counter and left the muffins to cool. The music trailed off, Jungkook had lost again. Jimin wasn’t back.

Hoseok came into the kitchen and greeted them all with a smile, he had been joining them for breakfast for a few days now. Namjoon didn’t find it in him to be angry at him for what Yoongi had said. Hoseok was the exact opposite of him and Namjoon wondered how the two of them stuck together when they couldn’t be any more different. After he made sure you were alright, Namjoon was going to share a few words with the panther hybrid. Just thinking about last night had him suppressing a growl.

His ear twitched. Jimin was running to them, no other pair of feet following him.

“She isn’t in her room,” he said, his eyes wide and his tail lowered between his legs.

Jin placed his cup of tea on the counter. “What do you mean she isn’t in her room?”

“I knocked on her door and she didn’t reply so I thought she was sleeping but she always wakes up before seven so I tried knocking again but she wasn’t answering and when I opened the door she wasn’t there. I called for her but she wasn’t anywhere,” Jimin said everything without taking a single breath. “I-I don’t know where she is.”

“No, that’s-” Jungkook looked around him like he was expecting one of them to have the answer. “She must be somewhere and she didn’t hear you. Downstairs, she must be downstairs and she didn’t hear you call her. Humans have weaker senses, right?” He looked around again, seeing no nods. “Right?”

The first room you would go in the morning after waking up was the kitchen. If you really were at one of the other rooms, one of them would have seen you going. But they had to at least check.

Namjoon patted Jungkook’s back. “Maybe you’re right. We should go look for her and tell her to come to breakfast.”

“I’ll go to her office,” Jungkook said decisively.

They separated to scout the house. Never before had Namjoon been so bothered by how large the Castle was. They looked at the places you were most likely to go at first; your office, the library and the gardens. When they didn’t find you there, they extended their search to the rest of the house. Dread was starting to creep in. Namjoon’s instincts were kicking in, his wolf whining and howling for you. It only made it worse that you had disappeared directly after what had happened last night.

They searched and searched. They must have looked at every room but you were nowhere to be found. Jimin got so desperate he even checked all nine bathrooms and the elevator.

“She isn’t here,” Jimin whined. He was hugging himself, his tail wrapped around his waist. “What if something happened to her? What if-?”

“Don’t say that,” Jungkook interrupted him. “Nothing happened to her. The house is protected.”

Namjoon really hoped he was right. He repeated to himself again and again that if someone had broken into the house then at least one of them would have woken up. The security alarm would have gone off. There would be signs.

“Maybe she left early,” Hoseok offered. There were red lines on his lips where he had been gnawing on them.

That had been Namjoon’s conclusion as well. Your bed was perfectly made like it was any other morning, the bag you usually took with you to work was gone and your white sneakers weren’t on the rack by the door. According to logic, that had to be the answer but unfortunately his heart refused to stop racing until it was a certainty.

“Why don’t we call her?” Jin asked reluctantly.

Damn, Namjoon always seemed to forget about phones. “Yeah, you’re right.” He looked in his pockets only to find that he didn’t have it with him.

Jin reached into his own pocket. “Here,” he said with a small smile, handing him his phone.

The ringing was way too loud in his ears and with every second the call went unanswered Namjoon got more anxious. The ringing stopped. A male voice greeted Namjoon and he almost growled before he registered what the man was saying. It was Will, your assistant. When Namjoon asked about you, Will assured him that you were at the studios. You had left your phone to him because you were busy and wanted to avoid any interruptions.

Namjoon stared at the phone after the call ended. No one had heard the door opening, not even Jin who had been in the kitchen since he woke up. You had left at the crack of dawn without telling them anything.

His feet carried him to the panther’s room. He was sure he would slip up. He was sure he wouldn’t be able to hold himself back and punch him straight in the face. And he would have. He would have if Yoongi had fought back, if he hadn’t sagged in his hold like he had accepted everything that would happen to him. No one hurt Namjoon’s pack. But there was something holding him back from landing that punch. Yoongi looked like he had given up on something and Namjoon wasn’t about to waste any more time on him.

He needed to find you. He shouldn’t have waited so long to talk to you.

So he did the first thing he thought of. He called John. The first time he had seen the man, his large build had instantly classified him as a threat in Namjoon’s head. But the man had turned out to be nothing like what he had expected and the reasons he had steered clear of him were the reasons he had grown to be thankful for.

John agreed to drop by and drive him to the studios. You had sent him a text in the morning giving him the day off and hadn’t replied to his texts since then.

“Make sure she’s alright,” Jimin said, standing on the tip of his toes to bury his head in Namjoon’s neck.

Namjoon wrapped his arms around the younger. “I will,” he promised. Jimin ran his nose along Namjoon’s neck, purring lowly. When he pulled back, he offered his own neck. Namjoon scented him quickly and pressed a kiss there.

“And tell her not to leave like that again,” Jungkook said.

It was clear that the two of them wanted to go with Namjoon. He hadn’t told them anything but with one look they had understood that there was something serious he needed to talk to you about and he would rather have the two of you be alone.

Jin appeared from the kitchen, a tote bag in hand. The bag was loudly proclaiming that “MY WEEKEND IS ALL BOOKED” above a stack of books. It was true given your schedule. “Can you take this to her? I packed a few banana muffins for her,” he said. “I don’t know if she’s had breakfast yet.”

Namjoon took the bag from him. “I think she will really like them either way. Come here.”

Jin flushed to the top of his human ears as he came closer. Namjoon had grown too fond of the rosy color on his cheeks whenever he scented him. He couldn’t tell if it was because his wolf and it didn’t matter either way. He wrapped an arm around his waist and brought their foreheads together. His instincts called for him to scent his pack before leaving and he didn’t mind listening to them on this.

He heard Jimin giggling when he pulled back and Namjoon nipped at his ear to make him stop. They had all been a little more attentive to Jin after he had got sick. Thankfully none of them had fallen sick after him. You had called a doctor who specialized in hybrids and she had told you that it was probably due to exhaustion or stress. Hearing that, Jungkook and Jimin made it their mission to help Jin in everything, which resulted in him throwing them out of the kitchen because of how noisy they were one day. That didn’t stop them, though. Their favorite pastime became cuddling in the sugar glider’s nest and watching shows and movies with him.

John was leaning against the black car where the road divided to curl around the fountain. He leaned his head to the side motioning for Namjoon to get in. The ride was mostly silent. It was weird being in a car alone, without anyone from his pack. He wasn’t afraid or anxious, it was something else. Hybrids weren’t meant to be independent but that’s what Namjoon felt like. Independent, able to make his own decisions. It was a different kind of freedom from what they had in the streets. A comfortable kind.

They arrived at a cluster of buildings and John showed a plastic card to the guard at the gate. Namjoon guessed it was some kind of pass. The man nodded, letting him drive on. He parked the car in a busy parking lot, the one closest to your studios he said.

It was loud, people moving around, talking to each other or to their ear pieces. A woman almost collided with John, too focused on the papers in her hands and not enough on her surroundings. A man came out of a building carrying a tree and three people were rolling a giant donut across the street. It was like a different busy world. John didn’t give anything a second glance. He had been accompanying you to work for years, it wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before.

Large black numbers on the buildings stated which stage they housed but John didn’t pay them any mind. He found the door he was looking for, that looked exactly the same as all the others, glanced up at the numbers for a second, as if he couldn’t be bothered much with them, and went inside.

The inside was very much like the outside but more contained. John seemed to be popular on set, many people waving at him as they passed by while a few stopped for the typical pleasantries. He was a part of this place as much as anyone else.

The room they entered was the largest Namjoon had seen, large enough to fit the inside of a diner and leave the other half to be taken up by cameras, chairs and the crew moving around. There were a lot of people sitting at the diner but the cameras were focused on a group of four boys. They had walked in in the middle of a scene. Namjoon looked around him but everyone was focused either on the boys or on their job.

It didn’t take long to spot you. You were sitting on a chair with ‘DIRECTOR’ on its back. Your hair was pulled up in a low ponytail and what Namjoon guessed was the script laying on your lap. You were leaning your head to the side with two fingers by your eye and your elbow on the arm of the chair. Your eyes were sharp on the actors, taking in every detail.

John was talking to a woman with his arms crossed. They glanced at you and the woman nodded.

You looked right at home there, in this weird edge between fantasy and reality. Bringing the fantasy to life. Namjoon had watched a lot of your movies and shows and it was like the curtain was being pulled back but the magic was still there, just distorted, closer to reality.

“Cut!” you called. “Let’s take it-” The woman John had been talking to whispered something to you. You paused, turning and looking right at them. Your lips parted in surprise but you recovered quickly. “Everyone, take a five minute break and we start from the beginning. Same angles.”

The room got louder as the actors and the crew started talking. You got up leaving the script on the chair.

“What is going on?” was the first thing you asked.

“You have a visitor,” John said gesturing to Namjoon.

You looked smaller now, hugging your waist with one arm. The aura of control was still there but it came second to the bitterness of your scent.

“I can see that. Why do I have a visitor though?” you asked, sounding unsure.

“You left without telling us anything. We were worried, we thought something happened to you.”

Behind you, a carrying tray fell on the diner’s floor. You pursed your lips and turned your head from the scene of the crew rushing to pick it up and place it back. “I have a lot of work today and I had some things to get done before filming.” You turned to John. “And I thought I gave you the day off.”

John shrugged. “Namjoon called.”

“Is he your new boss?”

“By association,” he replied. “I’ll be going to Brenda’s now. I didn’t get to eat breakfast, rushing here like that.” He saluted.

“It was your day off,” you muttered as he left. By his chuckle and shaking shoulders, he heard you. “So… You called John.”

“You didn’t answer your phone.”

“Will did!”

“So you know I called and you didn’t call back.”

You massaged your temples like the conversation was exhausting. You looked exhausted. The makeup couldn’t conceal the black circles under your eyes or how pale your skin was. “Will told me while I was busy, I didn’t have time to call.”

“Is that really the reason?” Namjoon asked. He wanted you to open up on your own but he realized that you weren’t about to do it without any prompting. You were already too absorbed in your job to prioritize this and Yoongi had made everything a thousand times worse. “Why didn’t you tell us you had to leave earlier?”

You glanced behind you again. You were doing it every few seconds, either to check that everything was in place and no one was calling for you or hoping someone was calling for you. Namjoon couldn’t be sure. “It was sort of a last minute decision. And I didn’t want anyone else to wake up that early.”

“What if we wanted to, though?” He had forgotten of the bag he was carrying, he felt its weight shifting when he raised his hands to gesture at himself. That’s when you noticed it too, furrowing your brows at the tote bag hanging from his shoulder. “Did you have breakfast?”

“I had coffee.” Not surprising but not the answer he would have liked. He guessed you had to stay awake somehow.

He pulled the bag off, offering it to you. “Jin made banana muffins for breakfast. He packed a few for you. They are really good.”

You peered inside the bag with a small smile. “Everything Jin makes is really good.” You sighed. “I can’t believe that you really called John to drive you here.”

“I didn’t have any other options.” Namjoon didn’t know how to drive and he couldn’t get a driving license according to the law. Only independent hybrids were allowed to take driving lessons and get a license. He couldn’t understand the logic behind that but most hybrid laws were the same. “If it helps, he was very willing to drive me here.”

“Of course he was. Apparently you are his boss by association.” It was meant to be a joke but Namjoon felt something stirring inside him. Humans wouldn’t allow a hybrid to be their boss, independent hybrids were offered only the lowest positions. If they managed to find a job. Yet John hadn’t denied it but jokingly said Namjoon was his boss. It was something unfathomable to him but he should have learnt to not be surprised when it came to you and the people you had surrounded yourself with. “I think my five minutes are up.” A woman was nodding towards the set, gesturing for you to go back so filming could continue. “John is at a nearby coffee shop, let me just call someone to take you there.”

“Wait.” He wrapped his hand gently around your wrist before you could go. His fingers were so loose you could slip away with ease. “Can I stay? We need to talk.”

You took a deep breath, one that said you were buying yourself time to decide. “Okay, just- Michael, can I have another chair next to mine?”

“Coming right up, Boss,” the man, who must be Michael, called. In seconds a director’s chair was placed next to yours. On the other side there was one more empty chair that said ‘ASSISTANT DIRECTOR’ at the back. Namjoon hadn’t seen Will before so he couldn’t recognize him but he guessed he was busy somewhere behind the cameras.

You picked up the script again and settled on your chair. “Sit here and be quiet.”

“I’m good at that.” The chairs were more comfortable than what he had imagined.

“I know or I would have kicked you out,” you said. The twitch of your lips told him a different story.

“Back to 1,” a man from behind the cameras called, approaching the monitor next to you. The actors took their places at the diner. You gave him a nod. “Everybody quiet. Picture’s up. Roll sound.”

“Sound speed.”

“Roll camera.”

“Rolling.”

A woman came out from behind the camera with a clapboard and held it in front of the camera. Red digital numbers were in the middle and around them more numbers, letters and words were written with a black marker.

“Mark it.”

“Scene Twelve Beta, Take Two, Mark!” The sticks shut with a loud clap and the woman rushed out of the shot.

“And… Action,” you called.

♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩

You had woken up before the light of the sun had touched Los Angeles, got ready like any other time but three times more careful and four times more distressed, which wasn’t a good combination. Being alone in the car, driving under the black sky, left too much room for thought so you had turned up the radio listening to the random selection of songs that didn’t fit with each other and the ads that came on promoting all the things you didn’t care about.

It was time to forget. Forget about why you were running away. Forget the fact that you were running away. You were going to work, albeit a few hours earlier than you should, and you were a professional. That didn’t leave room for personal problems. You hummed along to a song you had never heard before by a female artist. Her voice was generic and you could think of at least four mainstream artists who could be singing the song. Voices weren’t important only in singing but in acting as well and you were trained to catch the details but the autotune was so exaggerated everything sounded the same.

A few weird looks were directed at you at the studios. Very few people were there at this hour. It was mostly the maintenance stuff getting everything ready for the shooting. There wasn’t anything for you to do so you pulled out the scripts in the lounge area and went over them for what must have been the hundredth time.

You were a professional but you couldn’t help noticing your mind slipping away during filming. Will had coughed when you had come very close to forgetting to call ‘cut’. Drowning in work was what you would call your coping mechanism, it was not the most unhealthy one as far as coping mechanisms went but it wasn’t the best either. You had been able to identify it but had yet to do something about it. Working forced your brain to focus on something that wasn’t threatening to overwhelm you or in some cases ignore anything too complicated. No distractions.

This time, you were having trouble focusing.

One coffee in, four successful takes and you were getting better. You kept yourself occupied, switching between looking at the script, the actors and the monitor. If you didn’t give it any time, your mind wouldn’t wander.

All that went down the trash when you turned around and you were faced with an amused John and a Namjoon looking out of place in the bustle of the studio. Your personal problems had come to set. You couldn’t do much about it in the middle of filming a scene.

Back into director mode.

It was lunchtime by the time you finished filming the scene. You used scene as a broader term because there were three different sub-scenes you were filming in the sequence of events. After calling the final cut, repeated by Will to make sure everyone had heard, you announced that you were done with the scene and it was time for lunch. Catering had been delivered and everyone rushed to get their portion. You had already devoured the banana muffins during a small break so you weren’t as hungry.

“This way,” you told Namjoon, leading him to a large buffet in another room. Chairs and tables were littered around, a few people already sitting and eating. You greeted the people behind the table, thanking them, and filled your plate.

“That’s all?” Namjoon asked, eying your plate.

You checked his to see double the amount of food compared to yours. “I’m filled with banana muffins, I doubt I can eat much more.” That didn’t seem to satisfy Namjoon but your stomach would only complain if you ate more. “C’mon, let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” he asked as you led him out of the room.

“Somewhere more quiet.”

You had considered staying at the “cafeteria” and sitting with Will and some other people from the crew but you were sure Namjoon would feel uncomfortable. It was tempting to avoid talking with him but you had done enough running. You were an adult, you could deal with your personal problems for once. Also, it would be impossible to run from Namjoon when you lived in the same house.

You opened the door to a small office space. Three of the walls were taken up by bookshelves and the other by a red leather couch. A desk was placed in the middle of the room with only a computer on it. There weren’t any windows but the lights in the ceiling created the illusion that there were. It was sort of your office. Sort of, because it was also used by one of the executive producers and occasionally Will but it was used so rarely you had encountered neither before. There was a similar office in the other buildings, used just as rarely.

You sat down on the couch, balancing the plate on your lap.

“And here we are,” you said, trying to fill the silence.

The room didn’t look like your home office at all. It was too small, cramped and plain. No one had attempted to make it pleasing to the eye. It was simply functional. You didn’t spend much time in it and functional was exactly what you needed.

“Why did you leave without telling us anything?” Namjoon asked, sitting down next to you.

Your hand paused as you were cutting into the savory crepe. “Jumping straight into it?”

“Do you want to eat first?”

Your stomach was up in knots. His presence always seemed to calm you and it was like your body wasn’t sure how to respond. “I can multi-task. Usually.”

“Do you want to answer then?” he asked. He wasn’t pushing you. You weren’t sure if you would have preferred that. One thing you had learnt about yourself through the years was that you worked better under pressure.

You continued cutting the crepe, just to do something with your hands. “I think you already know the answer.”

“It wouldn’t be fair of me to assume.”

Your knife hit the plate. You moved on to cutting another piece. “I haven’t been at my best these days.”

“I noticed.” You huffed. “It wasn’t that difficult. Something happened. But that isn’t the point right now, we can talk about it later. Do you want to tell me why you left like that this morning? We searched the whole house for you.”

“Sorry about that.” In your rush to get away, how they would react to you missing had been only an afterthought. You hadn’t thought of leaving a note. “I just… I wanted to get away.”

You didn’t elaborate. Namjoon was looking at you like he understood. No judgment.

“Why?”

“You sound like my therapist.”

The corners of his lips twitched up. “Are they at least good?”

“Haven’t seen her in some time,” you admitted. Not since your life had slipped down the slope last autumn. “But she is. She’s really good.”

Namjoon nodded. “You know that what Yoongi said was completely out of line. You shouldn’t believe a thing from what he said. He has no right to talk to you like that.” You shrugged. The crepes were cut and you didn’t have anything else to occupy yourself with. “Do you hear me? Nothing he said made any sense. He-” Namjoon had become your safe space, he was a calm and steady presence in your life. It was strange seeing him struggle to keep his composure. “What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know.” Everything was tangled up. You couldn’t distinguish where one thought ended and another started. It was all a big mess. “I don’t know.”

“Do you trust me?” You nodded. You would trust him with your life. “Then listen to me. Everything he said. Everything. It was bullshit.” Your eyes widened at the curse word. In the garden, it had been your first time hearing him cursing and you weren’t used to it yet. “I- I care about you. I care so much about you and that has nothing to do with what you can offer us. The house, the food, the clothes. They don’t matter. All that matters is you. You are pack. Do you know what that means?”

“Kind of.”

“Haven’t researched that?” he asked, his dimples making an appearance.

Researching was one of your best and most useful skills. You had researched hybrid packs in the early days they were living with you but the results were vague at best.

Namjoon’s plate was untouched. He left it on the desk. “Pack isn’t just family. For us, it’s much deeper than that. It’s a bond we build that’s impossible to break. I don’t want to scare you but you needed to know. You’re human so you probably don’t feel it the same way we do but you’re part of our pack now.”

The food was getting cold, no steam was rising anymore. You pushed a piece of crepe around. “Do-?” Was it worth asking? Or would it make everything awkward?

You had ran enough.

“Are there any romantic bonds?”

Namjoon’s face melted into an expression you couldn’t recognize. It wasn’t sad but it wasn’t happy either. “There are. It’s difficult to explain. Romantic love is just another side of love as a whole and pack bonds are so deep it’s only a fragment of it. Kissing and …” His cheeks were tinted with pink. It was the first time you were seeing him blush. “You know,” he ended up saying. “They aren’t that -I wouldn’t say important, because they are in their own way- but they don’t compare with the intensity of the bond. Humans make a much bigger deal about them than hybrids do. Some packs have three or more people involved together. But it’s rare, most centers don’t let hybrids forge a pack, it’s difficult to sell them if they do.”

It didn’t surprise you. Not many people would adopt a pack and it would be cruel to break them up. But something else demanded your attention first. “You mean there are polyamorous packs?”

Namjoon looked confused for a moment. “I didn’t know humans had a word for that. I haven’t heard of it before.”

“It means that more than two people are together in a relationship. The relationships vary, they could all be together or in a unit of three one person can be romantically involved with both of them but the others aren’t.”

“Oh. I guess that’s similar. But from what I know, in hybrid relationships everyone is… with everyone. It’s normal.”

That released something inside you. It wasn’t gone but it wasn’t suffocating you anymore. “I guess I’m still quite ignorant when it comes to hybrids.”

“Becoming an expert in anything is a long journey,” Namjoon said.

You took the first bite of the crepe. It was delicious. “I don’t aspire to become an expert but at least I’m learning.”

Namjoon smiled, taking a bite from the steak in his plate. You hadn’t noticed but he had cut it up in small cubes while you were talking. “Learning is a journey too.” He gazed up at the ceiling and the small lights. “You aren’t the only one who is learning. We are learning too. Learning how to live together and care for each other. We have changed since coming to live with you and we are getting familiar with those changes. I have learnt that Kookie loves to paint and some days he will get grumpy if you interrupt him, Jimin is fascinated with flowers and everything that grows and he wants to learn how to grow flowers himself, and Jin can’t sleep well unless he is covered by a heavy blanket and surrounded by pillows. And I know there is something wrong when you throw yourself into work and grow distant from the people that care about you.”

You let the silence stretch. For someone who worked with words you were too often at a loss.

“My mother,” you said in the end. “She said some things I can’t forget.”

“Αbout us?”

You nodded. “I should have expected it. I should have expected she would have somehow found out about me adopting you. I haven’t been hiding it but I had no idea some magazine had already published all about it. And of course my mother learnt of it. She means well, I try to remind myself but at the same time I can’t stand listening to her.”

“You shouldn’t.” You turned to him surprised. His expression was set. “You shouldn’t listen to her if it makes you feel like that.”

“It isn’t like I have much of a choice. I’m their daughter.” You weren’t sure if you were trying to convince Namjoon or yourself.

“That doesn’t mean you owe them anything.”

You had tried for years to mend your relationship with your parents, it was what you thought a responsible adult would do. You didn’t have any delusions that you would become the family you had dreamed of when you were little but you could have this; seeing them a few times a year, keeping up the illusion of polite co-existence.

“At this point, I don’t know what I owe them and what they owe me. Somewhere along the way I stopped keeping score. My calculations were all wrong.” You thought back on the night of the gala, the way your mother had spoken of your hybrids like they were fancy dogs. “I should have said something to her. I’ve been keeping up the pretense so long I don’t know how to stop.”

“You can start one step at a time.”

“And what would the first step be?”

Namjoon reached for your hand. He didn’t take it, his hand hovering over yours. You left your plate on the couch and took his hand, placing both of them in your lap.

“Don’t fret over what she said. Whatever she said that night, try to forget it. Her world isn’t yours, you said it yourself. That means your world isn’t hers, so what does she know about it?”

“Not much, not much at all,” you said. Other than pleasantries, gossip and your relationship, you didn’t talk about much. Your conversations failed to reach deeper than the surface of your life.

Namjoon squeezed your hand. “Not enough to influence it then. Unless you let her.”

How were you supposed to tell him that your parents were the reason for the person you had become? Their absence had created something inside you, a perfect flame, a determination to show the world what you were worth. Show them what they had left behind. You owed your independence and your drive to succeed to them but not in the way other children did. Your parents had only set the scene for you.

Your mother didn’t know you and you didn’t know her either. The life you led was far beyond her comprehension.

“I asked you something some time ago,” you said. “I’m going to rephrase that question. What are we doing? You said there are romantic bonds in some packs. Is that-?”

“Is that what I feel for you?” Namjoon asked. His eyes shone like molten gold, like they were stealing light from the sun. “Romance, as a concept, isn’t enough. You are home. You are like a warm flame in the hearth luring me in. I want to keep you in my arms and never let you go, kiss you until we are breathless. My wolf howls for you, do you know that? He wants you close, always. Is that enough?”

Was that enough? How could it not be?

You threw yourself forward, falling in his arms and crashing your lips together. He welcomed you, pulling you close to his body, holding you like you might disappear, fade away like smoke in the wind. You tangled your fingers in his hair at the nape on his neck , pulling a low growl from his lips. How were you ever satisfied with anything else? You couldn’t stay away from him.

If you were a flame pulling him in then he was the sea that called you with a thousand voices. The great expanse of blue of your childhood that captured you every single time. Your aunt or your friends would shout for you to get out, that you had spent enough time in the water but it was never enough. And the story would repeat itself.

His hands roamed down your back, slipping under your shirt and laying there burning your skin. He sucked on your bottom lip, grazing his teeth over your flesh. You suppressed the sounds threatening to spill past your lips, letting only the most quiet ones through. It was an unfair battle, you hadn’t come prepared. He leaned back against the couch and let you climb on his lap, pushing your bodies together until every inch of you was touching. You drank him like you were dying from thirst.

A shout from outside the door pulled you out of your trance. You scrambled off of him in an instant. In the heat of the moment, you had forgotten you were at work. Whoever it was didn’t shout again and didn’t get a reply either, not in the same loud manner.

Namjoon’s hair was in a state of disarray, his head angled back exposing his neck. Your mostly untouched plate had miraculously not fallen from the couch.

You licked your lips. “I should eat before someone comes to fetch me and I have to go through the rest of the shooting hungry.”

Namjoon smirked. “Like a wolf?”

The folders on the shelves were very tempting objects to throw at someone.

You ate in a haste, which was a bad idea for your digestive system but you didn’t have any other options. Every few minutes you checked the time on your phone. In some sort of miracle you finished your meal before anyone called for you.

Namjoon followed you through the corridors to the new setting, one you deemed much more interesting. Monmouth Manufacturing. It had the aura of things lost and found, a disjointed mess that made a whole, “a hungry-looking factory” as Maggie had described it in her book. An impressive miniature of the fictional town of the novel took up a large expanse of the floor.

The crew rushed around behind the scenes. As soon as you walked inside, you were swept away by a camera assistant and handed a few loose papers by someone that disappeared before you could turn to look at them. The cameras were looking for the ideal first shot, changing the angles by milimeters. The makeup artists were adding the final touches on the actors. Someone was shouting instructions.

Will appeared next to you with a wild look in his eyes, he was wearing his pendant backwards, bare silver chain on the front. “The location manager isn’t cooperating. Of course, she does have a point. Why would we need a forest for a show about a magical forest?”

You chuckled, leafing through the papers of sketches and details about some new sets. “Why, indeed. I trust your charms to make her come around.”

“As you should.” He looked over your shoulders at the papers. “So, everything alright now?”

“Fabulous,” you said, only to realize that he wasn’t looking at the papers anymore but at Namjoon sitting on your chair and taking the scene in like it was a movie. Close enough. “Mostly alright. It’s mostly alright.”

“I’ll take that.”

Filming ended at eight, the lights dimmed as everything was wrapped up. The studios were different at night, empty of noise and movement, like a portal to another dimension. The same was true for early in the morning, the studios didn’t wake up with the rest of the world but rather waited patiently for the sunrise. It was a place for wonders, hungry like Monmouth, hungry for life and energy and creation. They were the place worlds were created.

New papers and folders resided in your backpack, scripts and sketches and contracts. Many of them you hadn’t had the chance to look at, they could be recipes for éclairs as far as you were concerned. You exchanged goodbyes, the studios growing empty. There was a certain air in the emptiness of places used to be loud and full of life.

John had left after a hearty breakfast at Brenda’s, waffles with bacon and cheddar by your years of experience with him. The coffee shop/bakery/diner was the best the studios had to offer and it was where everyone from all the different projects in the area gathered regardless of how far they were from it. It was called “The Burning Sun Coffee” but everyone called it after the owner, both because it was a mouthful to say and because you all loved the owner, a middle aged woman who greeted everyone with a smile and memorized all your orders.

“And that was a day at the studios,” you said, fishing your car keys from the small pocket at the front of your backpack. You pressed the pink button on the key and the doors unlocked with a beep. The reason why the button was pink, instead of the usual open lock symbol or the internationally-accepted green for turning on something or starting, remained a mystery for you. Manufacturers of expensive cars had their reasons that only they were privy to.

“Is it always so…?”

“Hectic?” you finished for him, opening the door of the car. “Yes, it is. But you get used to it. Some people have it worse than others.”

“Are you one of those people?” Namjoon fastened his seatbelt and you did the same. Safety first.

You slid the key in the ignition. One turn and the car came to life. Most expensive cars didn’t require keys, opting for the more comfortable keyless entry. But you liked the feeling of the keys in your hand, the edges and the dips in the metal.

“I am responsible for the smooth running of the show and that includes much more than we have time for me to explain. I’m like the captain of the ship if you’d like.”

The mirror reflected Namjoon’s smile, the street lights washing him in their glow. “You have to go down with it?”

“In good conscience? I suppose.” You glanced at the screen guiding you home, it was the only light inside the car. It wasn’t necessary, you had traveled the same roads too many times to forget. “It isn’t impossible to hop off a project if it’s falling apart. So far, I haven’t had such experiences. Let’s hope I never do. I’ll be way to stubborn to save myself, I’ll just try to save the show. Or movie.”

“You could,” Namjoon said. “You could save that show or movie or whatever is drowning.” He was looking out of the window at the empty streets. The studios were out of the city, where the shops and restaurants were few and life sparse. “You could build it back up from the ground.”

You turned the wheel and changed lanes, few cars occupied these streets. “You have way too much faith in me.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” You hummed, unsure how to answer. “You must be used to it by now but being on set, behind the cameras, it felt special. Thank you for letting me stay.”

You shrugged as warmth traveled to your cheeks. “You didn’t bother us so I don’t see a reason I shouldn’t have. And getting used to it isn’t the right term exactly. More like you learn to look at it from the inside.”

The traffic was non-existent closer to your house, the gated community was far from the heart of the city and very few houses were spread over the area. The Castle was a fair distance from any other buildings, on its own like a private world. It was a little worrying at first, how remote it was with the forest practically slipping inside. Or better, the house slipping into the forest. The real estate agent had assured you that their client’s safety was their top priority and there had never been an incident in the past.

The Castle was too beautiful to pass on and you were too blinded.

The hum of the engine filled the space between the two of you. At the moment, you preferred silence over the radio. The GPS was on mute, the voice giving the instructions was both unnecessary and often irritating.

You turned on the road that branched towards the side garden of your house. A beep from the remote control and the garage door was raised. The lights turned on on their own lighting your way. Inside, the garage was in pristine condition, clean in a way that garages weren’t supposed to be. The ivory walls were stainless like they had just been painted and the metal shelf units were empty save a few tool boxes and an air-fryer box Helen stored a few cleaning supplies in.

“Here we are,” you said, pocketing your keys. Namjoon was looking at the garage like he was seeing it for the first time. Which… Oh. “Please, tell me this isn’t the first time you’ve been in the garage.”

Namjoon looked amused. “I knew the house was endless.”

“It isn’t endless,” you protested. “It’s a little larger than most.”

Namjoon huffed. It was the understatement of the century. But it did make sense that Namjoon hadn’t been to the garage. John was usually the one to drive you to your various destinations (read: the studios and the company building) and when you were driving you picked them up from the front of the house.

“Is the need to run away from us gone now?” he asked.

In hindsight, it was embarrassing disappearing like that in the morning but your panic often got the best out of you. For someone who harbored a strong dislike for pointless miscommunication in books and movies, you avoided the talks that would solve it too much.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” You shrugged. “It isn’t like I could run away for too long. I can’t escape you.”

In the blink of an eye, Namjoon was standing in front of you. Too close. You took a step back in surprise, your back coming in contact with the side of the car. “You can’t. I won’t let you go.” There was something playful shinning in his eyes so you pushed.

“What if I run away?” You wiggled your eyebrows at him and he let out a chuckle.

“Then…” He leaned closer and captured your lips in a kiss. You giggled, holding on to his shoulders for balance. The day had slipped away from you, it was like a year had passed since you had woken up in the morning. You felt strangely reassured even though you hadn’t shared everything with Namjoon. You should learn to trust yourself more.

You were the first to pull away. If you let yourself go, you would spend the rest of the night in the garage. “As much as I would love to stay here with you, my feet are killing me and I’m craving a shower like mad.”

Without any warning the ground disappeared from beneath your feet. A shriek, that wouldn’t be pleasant at all for Namjoon’s sensitive senses, escaped you. Namjoon bounced you in his arms to get a better grip. You hadn’t compiled your will yet, you were too young to die.

“Put me down!”

You wrapped your arms tightly around his neck as he pulled you closer and started walking, carrying you bridal style towards the exit. “We wouldn’t want your feet to hurt more, would we?”

“On second thought, they don’t hurt at all. I must have imagined it.”

Namjoon laughed at your weak attempts. “Just let me have this one. You’re tired, relax. I swear I’m not going to drop you.”

You gave up, sinking in his hold. Closing your eyes, you breathed in. Namjoon had an aura of calmness around him and you were quick to cover yourself in it.

He placed you down right in front of the door to the Castle. You pulled out the key chain again, if anyone stole it from you they would have access to everything but it was impractical to keep each key separate and too time consuming every time you looked for the right key to pull out of your bag. And if someone stole your bag, then they would have all the keys anyway.

The door opened and before you could lean down to unlace your shoes, a weight landed on you throwing you back against Namjoon. Thanks to him, you didn’t end up on the floor.

“You’re back, you’re back,” Jimin repeated like a mantra, his arms wrapped tightly around you. Your heart clenched. You had been so stupid, not considering how worried they would be if you disappeared without leaving any note behind.

“Hey, I’m here,” you whispered, scratching at the base of his cat ears. The hybrid shivered in your arms, rubbing his face along your neck and collarbones. “I’m right here. I won’t leave like that again. I’m sorry.”

Namjoon placed his hand on Jimin’s shoulder. “She’s fine, Jiminie. You can let her go.” Jimin shook his head with a whine.

“Jiminie, I love your hugs but I can’t walk with you hanging off of me like a koala. Also, I need to take my shoes off,” you said, motioning to your sneakers.

Reluctantly, he pulled back. Behind him, all the hybrids were gathered in the living room. Jungkook standing by the couch as if he had got up when he heard the door open but had stopped himself from running to you, Jin was sitting on the couch with his phone in his hand but he wasn’t looking at it anymore and finally Hoseok was sitting next to him, his red tail wagging behind him. From the corner of your eye, you saw Namjoon whispering something to Jimin who was laying his head on his chest.

Jungkook took a step forward but stopped again. You went to him and wrapped the bunny up in your arms. He hid his face in your neck sniffling. “I’m sorry. You weren’t there in the morning and I- I’m sorry.”

You shushed him gently. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m sorry. I completely forgot to leave a note. It was inconsiderate of me. In many ways, I am still stuck to living alone and I often forget how different things are now.”

He breathed in deeply, his soft hair tickling your shoulders. “Don’t leave like that again. Please.”

“I won’t,” you promised and you were planning to keep it. “I won’t leave that early again unless I have to catch a flight.” A very possible scenario, your trip to Virginia was less than a couple of months away.

Jungkook let go of you with a shy kiss on the cheek. You reached for Jin’s hand, who didn’t hesitate to place it in yours. You sat down next to him on the couch, laying your head on his shoulder.

“Thanks for the banana muffins, I needed them,” you said.

He brushed away the hair falling in your face. “I was sure you would. You hadn’t eaten breakfast, had you?” You shook your head. “I didn’t spend half an hour making them for them to be left uneaten.”

You bit down your smile. In this house, between four hybrids and a human nothing edible was left uneaten. Jungkook and Namjoon had huge appetites. And you had guests as well.

“Dinner is ready if you’re hungry,” Jin offered. “We were waiting for you to come back.”

“Dinner sounds good,” you said thoughtfully. You went to get up, planning to help with carrying the trays downstairs, but Jin pulled at your hand and you landed back on the couch.

“You sit here and relax,” he said in a voice that left no room for arguments. “You had a long day. We’ll prepare everything.”

The other hybrids quickly agreed, following him to the kitchen. Only Hoseok remained behind, looking down at his lap. He was picking at the sweatpants you had purchased for him recently. A simple gray cotton pair, they were very comfortable and he wore them a lot around the house. He had thanked you so many times for those and the other pieces of clothing you had gifted him. You were just happy they fit him, you didn’t have the best track record of guessing sizes.

You were about to lay down when he spoke up, “I’m sorry.” He was pulling at a loose thread and you put your hand over his to stop him. It was an expensive pair.

“What are you sorry for?”

He shrugged, a tiny rise and drop of his shoulders. “Yoongi. I don’t know what happened exactly but I’m really sorry. You’ve been so kind and I’m sorry he can’t extend the same kindness to you.”

You held his hand in both of yours. You waited until he looked up at you. “You don’t have to be sorry on his behalf. He is his own person and his flaws are his, not yours. I don’t blame you for anything.”

Hoseok seemed to brace himself, lowering his fox ears. “I’m still sorry. If I hadn’t been… If it weren’t for me we wouldn’t be here.”

Alarm bells started ringing in your head. “No, no. Stop thinking like that. I don’t regret bringing you here. It’s better than-” Roaming the streets. Like they would be doing if Jimin hadn’t caught Yoongi’s scent. Like they would be doing when they left. “I’m glad I got to meet you. Even under the less than pleasant circumstances.”

“I’m glad I met you too,” Hoseok said quietly.

A shout from the kitchen interrupted you. There weren’t any noises of glass shattering, your tableware was probably safe. A few more seconds of listening and it was revealed that Jungkook had come very close to dropping a tray filled with food, which was miraculously saved by Namjoon’s quick reflexes. Big surprise there.

You turned to Hoseok and after a few seconds of staring at each other you dissolved into laughter.

♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩

Dinner was served under the fairylights tangled in the branches of the trees in the backyard and the electric blue glow of the pool. Hoseok had come to await for dinners with great anticipation, other than the quick breakfast, which he had recently started to attend to, it was the only meal you were there for. Breakfast was more of a rushed affair, with you checking your phone and looking over papers for your job.

At dinner, you were more relaxed, leaving aside any electronic devices and files. Whenever your eyes were drooping, you covered it up with conversation and laughter. Hoseok had noticed you pulling back after the gala. He might have been there only for a few weeks but he had started noticing things about you.

Coming back with Namjoon, you looked lighter, like a weight had been pulled from your shoulder, or more accurately like the weight had shifted so it was much easier to carry.

Returning back to his room after dinner, it was way too quiet. Yoongi was nowhere to be seen. He must have gone to another guestroom for the night. Hoseok ignored the pinch at his heart. Anger wasn’t that quick to leave him but it had softened into disappointment. Yoongi had been fighting tooth and nail not to let you through his walls, you had reached too far inside for comfort. Hoseok had hoped he would give in, let himself enjoy the time they had with you and the other hybrids.

There had been no signs. Yoongi’s edges were smoothing over. No glares, no sneers. And then an explosion. Hoseok was still missing pieces. Never had he thought of Yoongi as someone cruel. He had been there for him through everything, he owed his life to the panther. Yoongi’s anger and refusal to trust anyone would be his downfall.

Hoseok had told him everything. Every small detail about his life. His fears, his dreams and his hopes. When the world was the darkest it had ever been and all they should be thinking about was survival, Hoseok had trusted him with his impossible dreams and his pain.

And Yoongi had told him nothing. He knew nothing about him. He didn’t know where he came from, how he ended up there, what he had been forced to leave behind. You and Jimin had barged into his life like a hurricane and Hoseok knew nothing. If he hadn’t been injured, threading a very delicate line, Jimin would have been just another part of Yoongi’s past that he didn’t talk about.

He pulled the blankets tighter around himself. It was all on Yoongi now. He would wait for him.

The next morning came without any disappearances. You were sitting at the counter in the kitchen, sipping from a large cup of coffee and chuckling at the ridiculousness of another one of Jin’s jokes. The rest of the day, Hoseok roamed the gardens, rolling in the grass with Jimin. Jungkook carried his art supplies outside and dipped his brushes in myriad shades of blue. He didn’t see Yoongi once.

After dinner Jin stopped him before going to his room. “Has Yoongi eaten anything today?” The resentment that should have been there was missing. But then, Jin didn’t know what Yoongi had told you.

“I haven’t talked to him.”

“Did you see him anywhere?” Jin asked, like he was willing to look for him.

“I didn’t.” Yoongi could have sneaked into the kitchen and taken some food. He was stealthy, there was no reason for the knot in Hoseok’s stomach.

Jin pushed back his hair, the move stilted. “I left a plate of lunch for him in the kitchen but it was still there when I went back to make dinner. Maybe he didn’t-” Maybe he didn’t want to take it. It wouldn’t come as a surprise to Hoseok. On the contrary, it would be a very Yoongi thing to do. “There is some leftover dinner you can take to him.”

Jin was precise in how much he cooked and all the food had disappeared from the table. There weren’t any leftovers.

“He wasn’t in our room last night,” Hoseok said.

Jin frowned. “Where did he go?”

“I didn’t look.” He shouldn’t feel guilty. Yoongi could do what he wanted, they weren’t each other’s keepers.

Jin looked like he wanted to ask more but he held himself back. “If I prepare a plate for him, will you deliver it?”

Hoseok wanted Yoongi to come to him, to finally explain everything. If he was hopeful enough, ask him to forgive him. “Yeah,” he said in the end.

He followed Jin to the kitchen. Plates were stacked up in the sink and the trays were back in their place. There was an empty plate on the counter. Jin put in the last piece of lasagna and emptied a small bowl of salad he had saved.

“Thank you,” Hoseok muttered taking it from him. Living in the Castle, Hoseok was starting to get used to the unexpected small acts of kindness. He stood there for a moment. “Goodnight. And thank you again.”

The expression on Jin’s face was confusing, Hoseok didn’t know what to make of it. Sadness? Worry? Sympathy? Sympathy for what? “Goodnight,” he said.

It felt like Jin could see through him. Hoseok nodded and disappeared.

Yoongi wasn’t in their room. He wasn’t in the other guestrooms on the second level. The guestrooms in the ground floor were empty. The pounding of his heart echoed in his ears. The house was silent. The game room was empty, the library the same. He ran to the cinema room, the living room in the second floor that no one used and upstairs to the kitchen and the surrounding area. His mouth had run dry. As a last resort, he cracked the door of your office enough to see that no one was there and closed it again.

♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩

Thundering knocking pulled you back to the shore of wakefulness. The remnants of thoughts turned into dreams faded, never to be remembered. You sat up on the bed, your head heavy. The door opened before you were awake enough to call for whoever was on the other side to come in.

In the darkness of your room and your hazy vision, you recognized Hoseok’s silhouette calling your name. You patted your nightstand blindly until you found the switch to turn on the lamp.

“Yoongi is gone. He’s gone. I can’t find him anywhere.”

You couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. You rubbed the sleep from your eyes. The next time you opened them, Hoseok was kneeling by your bed. His face a canvas of desperation.

“What?” you asked. You coughed, an attempt for your voice to sound stronger. “What do you mean?”

“He’s gone. I looked everywhere for him and I can’t find him.”

“Yoongi?”

“I can’t find him,” Hoseok repeated. He was breathing heavily, chocking on air.

You threw the covers off yourself. “Are you sure you looked everywhere? The house is huge.”

“Where would he have gone in the middle of the night?” His expression fell. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know he hurt you. But please, please, help me. I can’t lose him. He’s all I have. I can’t lose him too.”

You swallowed with difficulty. Hoseok was on the floor in front of you, it was too close to another scene not too long ago that still haunted your dreams. No use being emotional now. Now you needed to act. Slipping into your Boss/Director Mode, you pulled him to his feet. “You said you checked all the rooms.” Hoseok nodded weakly. “Did you tell anyone else?”

“No,” he said hesitantly. The pained look only spread.

You took a deep breath. “Okay. We’ll look once again. Maybe he went to a room after you checked. If he isn’t here, we’ll face that when we are sure.”

Namjoon was easy to wake up, standing alert the moment you called his name. Jungkook looked at you with bleary eyes, covering most of Jimin with his body. Namjoon went to wake up Jin while the rest of you combed through the house. You turned on every light in the house and in the gardens, like you were hosting a grand celebration.

Hoseok was right. Yoongi had left.

You slumped down on the couch, a headache developing behind your temples. Namjoon was talking to Hoseok in hushed tones, Hoseok’s hands were trembling. Taking a better look at them, it wasn’t just his hands.

“I have to go. I have to find him,” Hoseok pleaded.

Namjoon’s face was set. “You can’t go looking for him alone in the middle of the night. He could have gone anywhere. The only thing you’ll accomplish is getting lost too.”

“I don’t care,” he said forcefully. “He’s alone, too.”

“Do you really think that if you go out there right now you have any chance of finding him? He could be a day ahead of you for all we know. He could have gone in any direction. How do you expect to find him?”

“I’m not giving up on him!” It was a shaky cry, a cry for help. You could hear the tears in his voice.

Jimin hid his face in your neck. Hoseok wasn’t the only one distressed. In the midst of the search, you had almost forgotten of Jimin’s connection with Yoongi. The cat hybrid had curled himself around you like he was hiding from the world.

“We aren’t asking you to give up on him,” Jin spoke up. “But it’s dangerous for you to go out alone.”

“And pointless,” you added. “And we can’t go rushing out with no plan. We are in the outskirts of Los Angeles, it is a long way back to the city.” The term ‘outskirts’ should be taken with a grain of salt because it implied that it was inside the city and that wasn’t true for the Castle. “It would take hours and hours of walking to reach the city. If he’s going to the right direction.”

“Yoongi has a good sense of direction,” Hoseok said. “And every second I’m here, he’s getting further and further away.”

The ornate wall clock with hands carved into swirls revealed that it was past midnight. Filming was set to begin at half past eight in the morning.

“We can take the car and look around. If he is going to the city he must be following the main road.” You stroked Jimin’s back. He was looking up at you with wide eyes, his lips parted.

The shock was clear in Hoseok’s face. “You’ll help me?”

“Did you believe I wouldn’t?” you asked. After everything that had happened between you and Yoongi it was a fair assumption but you weren’t like that. Yoongi was scared and angry and although you wouldn’t make excuses for him, he didn’t deserve whatever fate awaited him alone in the city. “Why did you come to my room then?”

Hoseok looked sheepish. “Hope.”

You drove the car out of the garage. All the hybrids had insisted on coming with you. Namjoon had offered to search the forest, which was fortunate, six people didn’t fit in any of your cars. You drove along the road, stopping every now and then to search the surrounding area. Hoseok couldn’t get a whiff of his scent anywhere.

The darkness washed out, a lighter sky taking its place. Jimin and Jungkook had fallen asleep in the back of the car. Jin couldn’t keep his eyes open for more than a few seconds and you felt like you couldn’t walk.

“We can’t give up now. We might still find him,” Hoseok begged. His eyes were bloodshot and his skin white as paper.

“We aren’t giving up,” you said. “But I have to be at work in a few hours and we’re all exhausted. We won’t be finding anyone this way.” As the morning rolled in, more cars drove by and someone was bound to complain that you had parked your car at the side of the street.

Hoseok looked towards the distance, over the grass and the hills. “I can’t leave him.”

“You aren’t leaving him, you are taking some time to rest. Sleep for a few hours and I will call John to help you later in the day,” you offered.

“I can’t rest knowing he is out here alone,” he said, something faraway in his gaze.

You placed a hand on his back, guiding him to the car. “You can try.”

Jin fell asleep on the drive back, finally succumbing to the exhaustion. As you stayed focused on the road, you were thankful for your long practiced tolerance to lack of sleep. By all regards, you shouldn’t be driving in this state.

Namjoon jogged to the car when you arrived, standing outside the house like he had sensed you coming. He opened your door and placed a kiss on your forehead that had a small smile rising on your face, then he gently shook Jin’s shoulder to wake him up. He helped him out of the car and then did the same with the two youngest.

Hoseok got out of the car silently. He had kept his eyes open all the way back.

You parked the car in the garage. There was no way you were driving yourself to work, you would rather avoid any car accidents. John picked up on the second ring, he was dressed and ready to come pick you up. You had just enough time to pick up your bag and make a cup of coffee. It would help you keep going until you reached the set. Your personal assistant could bring you one more along with an energy drink.

“Are you going to work? After a night like this?” Namjoon asked, he stopped next to you.

The coffee machine made a noise before the descent of the brown liquid began and the rich aroma of caramel filled the room.

“I don’t have a choice. It isn’t a job I can call in sick unless I can make out Death’s door through the fog. If I’m not there, filming can’t start and we are on a tight schedule. Every moment is planned out, every scene is scheduled on a specific day and time.” The coffee machine went silent. You pressed another button and milk came pouring into your thermos bottle. “I’ll survive on a little less sleep than usual.”

Namjoon raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “A little less? Did you sleep at all?”

You ignored the question. “I’ll be fine. John is on his way, I’ll catch a few minutes of sleep in the car. Besides, we don’t have any scenes in the afternoon. I’ll see if I can take some time off.”

Namjoon leaned back against the counter. It wasn’t enough but he couldn’t stop you and he knew it. “He was so protective over Hoseok, I never thought he would leave him behind.”

The sneers and the mistrust, it had been all to protect Hoseok and himself. He had put aside some of his pride to let you heal Hoseok. You had avoided thinking of the day they would leave but when you did they left together. It didn’t make sense any other way.

“Yesterday, there was something I didn’t tell you,” Namjoon said. “When I found out you had left without telling us anything, I went to Yoongi. I was angry, I’m still angry at what he said.”

“Namjoon…” you muttered.

“I didn’t do anything to him. I told him what I should have told him that night and I don’t regret it. He shouldn’t get away with things like that, he was out of line. He was talking nonsense to hurt you.” He took a deep breath. “He didn’t fight me. I could have hit him, punched him and he wouldn’t have done anything.”

That didn’t sound like the Yoongi you had met or the Yoongi you had fought with.

“What did you tell him?”

“I demanded he apologized to you.”

“He left because he didn’t want to apologize?” Nothing was making sense. If that was the reason, which was unlikely, he would have told Hoseok. He wouldn’t have left him.

Your phone beeped with a message from John, he was outside.

You picked up your thermos filled with coffee and slung your bag over your shoulder. “Call me if you learn anything. And when Hoseok wakes up. Don’t let him leave until John is here.”

“I’ll go with them,” he said. “I slept for a few hours tonight after I came back. I’ll help them, you don’t have to worry.”

You didn’t overthink it, kissing his lips. It was a quick kiss by all standards but time was valuable.

♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩

There was no sign of Yoongi. The second search had the same results as the first. Nothing. They hadn’t found any clues about where he was and the hybrids hadn’t caught his scent at any point. Hoseok was panicked. Namjoon had to drag him by his clothes back home after hours of searching.

“You don’t know what this means!” Hoseok cried, tears clinging on his eyelashes. “It’s dangerous. He could be- He- It’s dangerous for him out there. He can’t escape them alone.”

“Escape who?” you asked.

Namjoon and Hoseok had arrived shortly after you had and Hoseok was fighting him every step of the way.

Hoseok collapsed on the couch, hiding his face in his hands. “I can’t tell you.”

You exchanged a look with Namjoon. They hadn’t shared their past with you and you hadn’t asked. Maybe you should have. “There are people looking for you?”

A noise that sounded like a sob came from Hoseok. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

That was serious. That was more than two stray hybrids hiding from the hybrid services. Your brain executed its special ability of jumping from one worst case scenario to a worse worst case scenario. Counting seven worst case scenarios in under a minute.

“There are people looking for you,” you repeated. You felt betrayed that they hadn’t mentioned anything all this time they were staying at your house. This could be a disaster. “Hoseok, who is looking for you?”

He whimpered. “I can’t tell you.”

Namjoon knelt in front of him, pulling his hands away from his face. Hoseok’s cheeks were red, tears streaming down in tiny rivers. “We won’t let them do anything to you, do you understand? But to protect you we have to know who we are against.”

“You shouldn’t want to protect me,” he said shakily.

Namjoon held both of his hands in his. “You can’t decide that for us.”

Fresh tears rolled down his cheeks. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Start from the beginning,” you said.

Hoseok hesitated. “Can you call the others?”

Namjoon got up from the floor, letting go of Hoseok’s hands. Hoseok clenched his eyes shut like it hurt him.

The three hybrids were in the kitchen making dinner but with the lack of walls, the short distance from the living room and their hearing, they must have heard everything. Jimin went straight to Hoseok, enveloping him in a tight hug. Jungkook was holding Jin’s hand pulling him to sit down next to you.

Namjoon came back last, sitting on the arm of the couch. It was large enough to fit all of you, arranged in an L-shape. Hoseok was sitting on one end, the one closer to the TV and you were sitting on the other.

“I should start,” Hoseok said, like he was trying to persuade himself. “I am not from here. I wasn’t born in the United States but in Seoul. I was adopted when I was fifteen by an idol. He was very famous, everyone loved him. I did too. He taught me everything. He was the one who taught me how to speak English. He also taught me how to dance. He was really good to me. I traveled the world with him.” His eyes dimmed. “A few years after he adopted me, he got into gambling. It wasn’t that bad at first but he couldn’t stop. His managers tried everything, the company threatened to drop him, but he wouldn’t listen to them. He listened to no one.”

The spotlight was a demanding mistress, harsh and unforgiving. The illusion of glamour didn’t last forever, the spell broke and the ones enchanted by her sought out the cure for their pain in destroying themselves. Being in the film industry with a lot of connections, you had heard horror stories about a lot of actors, directors and producers.

Hoseok tangled his hands together, his face full of sorrow. “He gambled me. And he lost.”

You moved back in shock. How could he? It was sick, gambling a person. But that’s what Hoseok had said, his owner was sick, addicted.

Jimin put his hand over Hoseok’s, his eyes shinning with unshed tears. “I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t be, but thank you.” Hoseok cradled Jimin’s hand in his like it was a butterfly and he was caught between being afraid that it would fly away and that he would crush it. “I was taken to a hybrid fighting ring. That was last year.”

“But that’s illegal,” Jungkook said, his ears falling in his face.

“A lot of things are illegal but people still do them,” Jin said.

It was all clicking together. “You ran away from the fighting ring with Yoongi. Is that why you were injured?” you asked.

“I had a fight.” His face twisted up in disgust.

“You lost?” Jungkook asked.

Hoseok clenched his teeth. “I won. If I had lost I wouldn’t have been able to walk.” The implications of that boiled over. There were many rumors about hybrid fighting rings, one more gruesome than the other.

Allegedly, some fights didn’t stop until one of them stopped breathing. You felt like throwing up.

“They gave us injections to make us fight better. The injections…” Hoseok winced like he could feel the phantom of the needle. “They made us go feral. I don’t remember what I did when I was under their influence. They come back in flashbacks at random. In my dreams. I can see the blood. The bruises. I caused them. The blood- It was everywhere. I can only remember the blood and their eyes. It was like I couldn’t control my body, like danger was everywhere around me.”

It was. He was surrounded by dangerous and sick people. Hoseok had been through hell.

“They were moving us to a different location,” he continued. “The police was looking into illegal hybrid activities. It was right after one of my fights. Yoongi had heard our handlers talk about the move. Security was lax, they were more focused on the outside than the inside. The effects from the injections had faded enough for me to recognize Yoongi and remember his plan. But I was still under their influence. We attacked them and we ran away.”

He didn’t give any more details, it was probably too painful to think about it.

Those monsters.

“I’m sorry,” Hoseok said again. “I’ll go. I understand if you are disgusted by-”

“Don’t say that again,” Jimin cut him off. He was crying too and seeing both of them with tears falling down their cheeks, you felt like crying too. “Please, don’t say that. It isn’t your fault. You didn’t have a choice, they were controlling you.”

You stroked Jungkook’s hair, his lips were trembling and it wouldn’t be long until he was crying too. The baby of your house was easily moved to tears and nothing hurt him more than seeing one of you in pain.

“The only ones that disgust me are those that did that to you. You were a victim,” you said. Hoseok didn’t look like he believed you completely but there were more pressing matters at hand. “This changes things. We have to go to the police.”

Hoseok leaped to his feat. “No, no. Please, don’t. You can’t go to the police.”

“This is a crime,” you said. “By now Yoongi will have reached the heart of the city. It will be impossible for us to find him. It’s more likely they will find him first.” A shadow of despair fell over his face. “The police is our only chance. If they find the ring, you and Yoongi will be safe. You had been there for a year, you can help them find it.”

“We can’t go to the police,” Namjoon said. He nodded to Hoseok, “He is considered a stray. If we go to the police they will alert the hybrid services.”

Hoseok’s face fell. The hybrid services were the police of hybrids, they were both independent but one supported the other.

“Isn’t there another way we can find him?” Jungkook asked hopefully.

“Even if the police uncovers the ring, there isn’t any guarantee we will find Yoongi,” Jin said.

“At least he will be safe,” you said.

Namjoon shifted, crossing his arms. “A hybrid roaming the streets alone isn’t safe.”

You recalled when you were in the garden, feeling like the world was crumbling around you. Yoongi was standing there, pale under the moonlight, throwing accusations at you like weapons. It had only been two days ago but it felt like it was much longer, time stretching until it lost its meaning.

You should have been angry at him. The sound of his name should enrage you. And here you were thinking about his safety. You were hurt and maybe a little bitter but you would set that aside to help Hoseok. There was a part of you that cared about Yoongi even though the only thing he knew how to do was hate you.

There had to be a solution. Everything in life had a solution if you looked hard enough. Maybe it wasn’t perfect, maybe it had a cost, but it existed and it was there if you were willing to risk it. You went down the corridors in your mind, opening doors and looking inside. The solution wouldn’t come to you, you had to look for it.

“The police won’t take Hoseok away,” you said. “Not if he is adopted.”

Five heads turned to you confused, most of all Hoseok who had sat back down on the couch. “But I’m not adopted.”

You looked at your hybrids, carefully examining their expressions. “I could adopt you. It’s the first thing I can think of if we want to go to the police. I can’t make a choice about that on my own, though.”

Hoseok’s face morphed in disbelief. “You would adopt me?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I would but everyone involved has to agree.”

A moment of silence passed. Adoption wasn’t an easy decision and under the circumstances it held a different meaning.

Namjoon was the first to speak up, “I think it’s a good idea. Hoseok has been staying here for close to a month already.”

Jimin’s tail wrapped around Hoseok’s arm before his arms did. “I don’t want you to go.”

Fresh tears fell from Hoseok’s eyes.

You looked at Jungkook and Jin. The youngest was biting his lip. “It’s dangerous outside. Everyone should have a home.”

“If that’s what he wants,” Jin said, his voice warm.

Hoseok wiped his eyes but the tears wouldn’t stop falling. “Please adopt me.”

Amelia was convinced you were joking. You were adopting a fifth hybrid and she was thinking you were going mad and you desperately needed an appointment with your therapist. The appointment wasn’t a bad idea but it would have to wait. Amelia had contacts everywhere, she was the most well-connected person you knew and once she had mentioned a friend of hers that held an important position in the Los Angeles Police Department.

She didn’t stop you while you recounted the story of finding Yoongi and Hoseok. You intentionally left out a few parts, you suspected she noticed but she didn’t comment on it. By the end, she made sure to point out you were crazy and had really bad luck. You couldn’t disagree. Regardless, she was quick to sent you the adoption papers and contact her friend. She was the best of the best. Whatever hole you managed to dig yourself into, she will get you out. I promised you, didn’t I? she told you.

That same night, you and Hoseok signed the papers in your office, not in the absence of tears. It was like Hoseok hadn’t stopped crying all night, which wasn’t true but that was what it looked like.

“Welcome to the family,” you said, which only made him cry harder.

Please comment and reblog it motivates me to keep writing

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