#though the last one is explicitly from the posted-earlier-today final chapter

[victorluvsalice]

WIP Word Game

I was tagged in this by @dont-offend-the-bees in this post -- thanks for thinking of me, Newt!

Rules: You will be given a word. Share one sentence/excerpt from your WIP(s) that start with each letter of that word. Word assigned by Newt: BITES

Because I'm a rebel, I'm going to do a bit from both my current WIP "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland" and my just-finished-posting-today Valicer In The Dark story "Start At The Beginning...Sort Of" --

B

LB:DQ -- Briefcase Guy nodded, trembling. “What – what if their case is full of newspaper?” he got out after a second.

“Then at least we get to watch your illiterate ass try to read it later for laughs,” the leader spat, giving him a shove. “I know they got the goods. Just don’t ass it up, or they’re gonna kill the lot of us. Now get ready, it’s going down soon.”

SATBSO -- “By practicing my v-vows down the wrong alley,” Victor replied, worrying his bottom lip. “I – oh dear…” He grabbed his spoon and had a couple of fortifying sips of soup. “It’s like this – I’m due to be w-wed to the daughter of Lord and Lady Everglot, courtesy of my parents. We had the r-rehearsal today, and I was such a n-nervous wreck I couldn’t recall my lines at all. Pastor Galswells, our officiant, finally lost all patience with me after one too many mistakes, and b-banished me until I’d learned my vows. D-desperate to get them right, I ended up roaming Brightstone at random, repeating them to myself to try and get them straight in my head. I finally said them perfectly in an old forgotten side street overlooking one of the canals…and the moment I finished, a g-glowing blue figure in a w-wedding dress burst from the water, declaring ‘I do.’ I s-screamed and ran, but she managed to c-corner me on a nearby bridge and tried to k-kiss me. I fainted when her lips touched mine, and w-when I woke up, I was…” He waved his spoon in the air, as if trying to capture the enormity of the experience. “On the w-wrong side of the veil.”

I

LB:DQ -- “Indeed – or you could avoid the issue entirely,” Cheshire said, floating his smile over to another ladder on the wall in the darkened bay, just barely visible in the gloom. “I’m sure Rabbit would approve of you taking a shortcut, especially in order to avoid detection by anything that might try to stomp you.”

“I’ve apologized for that!” Hatter put in. “And made him that new watch!”

“It was the least you could do,” Rabbit said, paws on hips.

SATBSO -- “I don’t know – I don’t think so,” Victor said, letting his hands drop. “But you’re right, it is very hard to tell time in the ghost field…I’m sorry too, Emily,” he continued in a quieter voice. “I – I shouldn’t have lied to you about w-wanting to see my parents. I should have tried to explain better what was really wrong. But I – I didn’t have the words, and I was so scared and hungry and cold, and…” He sighed heavily, pressing his fingers against his forehead. “And absolutely nothing today has gone according to plan.”

“I know the feeling.” Emily perked up, a hesitant smile tugging at her lips. “But – but we can still make this work, right? We can alternate which side of the field we’re on day by day, so you can still eat and drink and not have to worry! We can even find a nice place to set up house together – one that’s in good shape in both my world and yours!”

“I think anyone who sees you two house-shopping is going to call the Spirit Wardens on you,” Alice couldn’t help saying.

T

LB:DQ -- “True,” Alice nodded. “Which reminds me – at some point tonight, I need to drop in on a certain Sean Milton. I don’t know how much honor there really is among thieves, but hopefully he has very little and will be willing to give up Muddy without a fight.”

“We’ll see on that front – and back, come to think of it,” Cheshire remarked, tail swaying as he kept pace. “But one side-quest at a time.”

SATBSO -- The gondolier gave Emily, floating near the prow, a significant look. “They always go up when the dead are involved.”

“I haven’t done anything,” Emily said, tone sulky and sparks crackling along the edge of her veil.

“And don’t start now,” the gondolier warned, frowning. “I may not be a Warden, but every one of us has got a bit of the Whisper about us. I know how to handle you lot.”

E

LB:DQ -- “Even better – they’re real robots! Well, sort of. . .” Victor popped open a bin and picked out a blue butterfly at random, showing her a block with some buttons on the – thorax, she believed it was called. “They each come with a ‘brain block’ like this where you can input simple commands. Obviously I can’t get any of them to fly – though I’ve always hoped – but I can get them to flap their wings if I shine a light on them, or follow a light being held in front of them – even play with a ball.”

“Neat,” Alice said, grinning. “You’ll have to show me later.”

SATBSO -- Emily went still, a frozen figure in tattered blue. Then she rushed forward at a speed no living human could have ever managed, face contorted in pure fury. Barkis yelped and tried to get out of the way, but she managed to clamp one spectral hand around his arm –

And, suddenly, she wasn’t there anymore. A split-second later, Barkis bent double, shrieking. “What – stop! No!”

“Yes!” came Emily’s voice – from Barkis’s own lips. Alice stared as he straightened up, wobbling like he was unused to controlling his own body. “The knife dropped from his fingers with a clatter. “You’re mine now, Eddie!”

S

LB:DQ -- She got to the bottom of the slope and looked around. While the layout was roughly the same, the entrance to level two was noticeably darker, thanks to a busted light fixture in the nearest “compact” bay. It also had different guards – two fellows who looked to be Chinese, dressed in matching burgundy jackets and wielding machine guns. One jerked his head around as she snuck closer, causing her to freeze out of habit. “It’s too quiet,” he said after a moment, shaking his head. “I-I don’t like this – this place. At night it seems so – haunted.”

SATBSO -- Smiler sorted and pointed at their eyes, brilliant yellow in their pale face. “What, do you think I was born with these?”

“...actually, it has genuinely never occurred to me to question why your eyes are bright glowing yellow before now,” Alice confessed, cheeks heating up with embarrassment. “They just seemed – completely natural on you.”

“I – I mean, I noticed, but – given everything else that was going on, they – didn’t really register as that weird?” Victor admitted, also going pink. “Alice is right, they do suit you...I sort of thought they might be a side effect of that Joy Serum you showed me before, since you said you make it yourself.”

Tagging: @nebbychan, @thesatiricaldemon, @anonymoose-au, @ace-of-tales -- the word I'm picking is TIMES!

[flockofdoves]

back in like 2019 i accidentally stopped reading ao no flag around like chapter 47 (maybe influenced by how rough reading chapter 44 was and not knowing where things were going, but mostly i think i just got busy and forgot)

and i was curious about getting back to it but had vague memories of people expressing some sort of disappointment about the ending, which could make sense to me with where i left off.

but i became really curious earlier this week after seeing multiple people in unrelated contexts randomly say they loved the ending an also felt that i was picking up the vague implication that [redacted] happened

so over the past few days i reread and finished it.

spoilers under this part

i think now i understand perfectly why i've seen both opinions so much lol. it wasnt perfect and i do think that stuff around chapter 44 is still a little too clunky for my tastes (like obviously there are teenagers talking exactly like this its realistic but i just feels a little uncomfortable in how much space its given. but even if i didn't know that KAITO came out as gay since i last read that part its still not the worst ever when given that thats not the spirit of where the story leaves off afterwards) and i do wonder what went into the artistic choice of never showing touma at the end (precedented from stuff like the flashback scene where touma ran away and taichi held his hand, but while it works, touma not being explicitly shown outside of his first person perspective even after they hold hands is a little odd maybe considering like. first lgbt manga in shonen jump etc. in a way that even just one 3rd person perspective panel could remedy for me) but i do think after sitting with it since i finished it earlier today that i'm leaning on the side of that i largely liked the ending and don't really think it was rushed or out of nowhere for what it was trying to do like it seems like a lot of people think it was.

rereading old parts with it in my head from vague implications from posts i saw earlier this week that taichi might get in a relationship with touma was really intriguing. like i definitely picked up on some of that subtext of taichi potentially also having some sort of attraction to touma before, but i think letting myself be totally open to that the story might be allowed to go there made me realize even more. its so crazy the balance of his repression of his bisexuality to the point that there's literally almost nothing said in words either out loud or in his head throughout that could be used as evidence, but still the paneling and use of perspective and paralleling of touma and futaba in how he looks at both of them is so so evident once you're on the lookout for it.

what i really do still wish for was more exploration of what's going on with futaba's thoughts around gender. i really wanted futaba to be a trans guy. but even if nothing explicitly came of that it really still is going into how i read futaba. like ok you're hoping for happiness after getting married but also go on t now!!!!!!!!

i think the biggest thing at first that put me off about the ending though was masumi marrying a man. its not like there aren't bisexual teens who have a similar experience to hers, but everything combined for me in a way that made me much more heavily interpret her as a lesbian, so even if she's acknowledged by her husband explicitly as attracted to both men and women so she's not being entirely subsumed into the classic lesbophobic tropes, it still was a little bit of a bummer to me at first.

but then i read that especially in the original japanese text her husband comes off as implied to be a newly out trans man, and while of course i would love that more if it was more explicit (although i guess there's already a decent amount of pages spent on this one off character in this final chapter that i can get why it wasnt even if intentional) that kind of fixes a lot of my issues with things, since i already didn't quite know how to square my interpretation of masumi as a lesbian (and at least back before the story ended, a desire for them to maybe get together) and how strongly i was interpreting futaba as a closeted trans guy. so masumi having been comfortable enough after giving up on her feelings for futaba to start dating someone she perceived as another woman at first is good. and then for that guy to have a really similar personality to futaba and then come out as trans is soooo intriguing to me. its like. what futaba couldve been or something. idk.

[stillness-in-green]

No, Re-Destro Is Not Destro’s Literal Son

and

Yes, I Will Die On This Hill

I have a number of small, persistent quibbles with some of the widespread misapprehensions I see included in BNHA fanfic, quoted as fact in meta posts, even cited on the wiki. Quirk cancellation restraints, what the 20% quirklessness data point means in practice, when Kurogiri comes into existence relative to the time of the Shimura Family Massacre, things like that. My biggest one, though, is as the title suggests: the idea that Yotsubashi Rikiya is Yotsubashi Chikara’s son.

I don’t entirely know where this confusion comes from. As far as I can tell, the early scanlations didn’t get it wrong—one rendered the line in Chapter 218 about Destro having a child he didn’t know about as being children, plural, but otherwise, they were all accurate enough. It seems people just assumed that the child mentioned in 218 must be Re-Destro, who was, after all, right there on the panel. Even though the scanlations never said it, even though the official translation never said it, even though ample evidence in the manga disproves it, the idea still got around that Rikiya is Chikara’s son.

I have and will maintain that this is obviously wrong if you stop to think about it for even a moment, but unfortunately, most people don’t. The error can be found on less well-tended parts of the fandom wiki[1]; it’s in tumblr meta posts about the villains; it’s in fanfic.

And now, god help me, it is on the official anime website, too.

“Stillness-in-green, maybe you should consider that you might just be wro—”

I will face BONES and walk backwards into hell.

But if you want, you can come with me, and I’ll explain on the way. Hit the jump.

Dialogue + Narration

There are two places where the relationship between Chikara and Rikiya is explicitly addressed—the lead-in to the dinner scene in Chapter 218 and the fight between Clone!Shigaraki and RD in Chapter 232. If you include the Ultra Analysis databook, the number goes up to four: once each in Re-Destro and Destro Classic’s character blurbs.

Let’s take a look at each of those places, shall we?

The relevant Japanese text here is in the first narration box: 子ども, kodomo.

Kodomo is not gendered. It literally just means child. The key kanji is 子, ko. Like most kanji, it has a lot of potential readings, and you can add other kanji to it to modify it. Add 息 and you get musuko, son. Pronounce 子 as shi instead of ko, and you get a term that is frequently, though not exclusively, used to refer to boys. Add 女 to that reading and you get joshi, woman/girl. 子 is in a lot of words, many of them gendered! Used for kodomo as Hori does here, though, it does nothing to indicate a gender one way or the other.

Also too, it does nothing to indicate that Rikiya is the child in question; it simply states that there was such a child, somewhere in the world. Now, the natural assumption for anyone who knows how the graphic novel medium works and who understands basic literary analysis would be that the significant character we just met is, in fact, the child in question—except that everything else we learn about Destro and the original Meta Liberation Army here makes it entirely impossible.

I’ll do a full breakdown on why that is in the next section. In the meantime, here’s the next reference:

Here, we’re looking at the phrase the Viz translation renders as, “His blood runs through these veins.” The literal Japanese there is, Desutoro no matsuei chi o tsugu mono! In a literal translation, chi o tsugu mono means, “one who inherits the blood,” or, more loosely, “blood successor.” It’s matsuei—末裔—that’s the key word here.

Japanese has several words to express the concept of “descendant.” Matsuei is one word; the data book uses shison. So what’s the difference? Well, I’ll talk about shison in a moment, but I had an inkling of it just from looking at the kanji in matsuei—“end” and “descendant” respectively, leaving me with an impression of something like a final descendant or the terminus of the bloodline. Further research confirmed it: shison can refer to any lineal blood tie, but matsuei refers to a bloodline’s final inheritor, the person at the end of a long line of many, or even countless, generations. It’s the difference between being able to point to a grandparent and the kind of painstaking genealogical research that lets you[2] point to a famous royal from eight hundred years ago—matsuei is a word that very much assumes the existence of those countless generations.

So not only does Rikiya’s line there not imply that he’s Chikara’s son, but his specific word choice also tells us that he cannot be Chikara’s son. That’s, uh. Pretty conclusive, I would say.

Lastly, though, there’s also the data book. This is, perhaps, the actual closest you’re going to get to a manga equivalent of those character blurbs on the anime website, at least until such time as Hori deigns to give the MLA types character profile pages. (I live ever in hope.)

There are two relevant bits of text, one in Re-Destro’s entry, and the other in Destro Classic’s. The first describes how Re-Destro organizes the MLA as Desutoro no chi o tsugu mono: the same phrase he uses for himself in the manga, minus the matsuei. @codenamesazanka (the one who told me about the databook references among other citations, bless) rendered it as “Destro’s blood successor”; I have also seen it given as “the successor of Destro’s bloodline.” Note again, the lack of reference to a father/son bond.

Chikara’s entry uses that other descendant word I mentioned before, 子孫, shison. Notice that the term uses that ko kanji from kodomo before? As it does in joshi, 子 here reads shi. The other kanji, 孫, means grandchild. Thus, literally, grandchild-child—or, in the vernacular, simply descendant.

And then we have the anime website.

So, for comparison’s sake, the anime website uses 息子—the same combination of kanji that I said earlier gives you musuko, son. Heck, it even uses 父, chichi, for Destro—father. It’s as explicit as it’s possible to be, and I just don’t know why or how the anime website could fuck that up so bad when absolutely nothing in the manga describes the two Yotsubashis that way, and, indeed, one specific word choice actually rules out the possibility.

So, that’s all the manga says directly. It’s not the only evidence there is, though. In fact, the next piece makes it even more clear how colossally and impossibly wrong a father/son connection for Destro and his modern successor is.

Timeline

The long and short of this section is, “Since Harima Oji was Sako Atsuhiro’s great-great-grandfather, there is no possible way that Destro—who pre-dated Harima—can be Re-Destro’s father.” If you read that sentence and nodded your complete understanding and agreement, feel free to skip ahead to the last section. If you’d like the full explanation it takes to reach that sentence’s conclusion, though, read on.

So, aside from the word matsuei, the timeline is the most telling piece of evidence to my eye. I address it secondly rather than firstly because it’s less direct than the explicit narration; it relies on drawing conclusions based on things we’ve been told elsewhere rather than on the immediately relevant text. Oh, Mr. Compress’s relationship to Harima is explicit enough, but on what am I basing my claim that Destro predates him?

Regarding that, there’s no explicit year relative to My Hero Academia’s current events given for when Destro and the original Meta Liberation Army were active; the same is true for Harima Oji’s escapades. However, we are given some broad-strokes information, relative not to current events, but rather to the history of heroism as a legal institution in Japan.

We know that there was a widespread, lengthy period of chaos following the rise of quirks—called meta-abilities in those early years. At some point, however, people began to search for a way for meta-humans to live in peace with non-metas. The compromise that was reached was the foundation of professional heroism in Japan—while the use of meta-abilities would be legal in private settings, it was only by becoming licensed by the state as “heroes” that people could use their quirks in public.[3]

The legislation curtailing the use of meta-abilities—and the appropriation of a dead woman’s language to popularize a law establishing exactly the opposite of what she used that language to call for—is what catalyzed the rise of the original MLA. Thus, we can position Destro as being alive and active around the same time that heroism as a legal institution was being formed. Since we further know that he committed suicide in prison, we can assume that his child was conceived at some point prior to his capture. Ergo, Destro’s child, were they alive today, would be as old as Japanese professional heroism itself.

Next, consider Harima Oji, the Peerless Thief, a criminal who targeted the riches of “sham heroes.” We’re specifically told that he was active in the days in which the current system was settling into place—e.g. he only became active once the Hero System was established enough to have produced corrupt heroes. We’re told he preached reformation—he wasn’t just some pre-existing criminal who saw a shiny new target in heroes; he had specific grievances which he wanted addressed by the system, and which the system was not addressing.

The earliest Harima could possibly be active, then, is concurrent with Destro—Harima fighting against the corrupt people who had found their way into the new heroic institution, and Destro fighting against using the institution of heroism to oppress non-heroes. What I think is more likely, though, is that Harima came after Destro—Harima needed to have had time to realize what kinds of fakes had been drawn to this shiny new career path, maybe even to spend some time trying to change things the legal way.

I don’t suspect they were separated by very long—I would imagine Destro was easily within Harima’s living memory, and might well have influenced why he chose the path of protest that he did—but I do think they were separate.

Moving forward, then, Mr. Compress is four generations distant from his famous ancestor. Thus, even if you assume that Harima is of the same generation as Chikara, that’s what you’re looking at for Chikara’s child: someone who, were they alive today, would be old enough to be the great-grandparent of a thirty-two-year-old man.

Re-Destro’s probably a few years older than Mr. C, sure,[4] but that man doesn’t have Ujiko’s slow-aging quirk. Unless you want to start pulling theories about cryogenic stasis the story for some reason never saw fit to mention out of thin air, Re-Destro is in no way old enough to fit the bill.

This is backed up by one other piece of the timeline as well, and one more place we can look at language:

The small child at the center of the image is Rikiya, so young that he’s in schoolboy shorts for a meeting otherwise so formal that he’s been made to wear a tie. He’s, what, six to nine here, tops? And the adults speaking to him say that they’ve been in hiding for generations—代々, daidai, the kanji for generation followed by a kanji that just means, “See that kanji written right before me? Yeah, just read that one again.”

The original MLA was active for only a handful of years, and, per Chapter 218, they didn’t dissolve until Destro was captured. Thus, we can assume they have been in hiding since then, but not before then. With that in mind, this is another line that renders a father/son relationship impossible.

Remember, Chikara already had a child in the world circa his capture. If Rikiya were Chikara’s son, then Destro’s capture and his army’s subsequent dissolution could not have happened any farther back than nine months plus however old Rikiya was in this exact moment of his youth. Rikiya, who we see here as a child of less than ten.

Ten years in hiding doesn’t make one generation; it damn sure doesn’t make multiple ones.

Now, you could make theories about cryogenic statis that would explain this ludicrous discrepancy, sure. You could also theorize about e.g. artificial insemination,[5] or time stop quirks, or any number of other possibilities in the vast panoply the HeroAca world offers. The point is, though, that you don’t need to. There was, in the manga, no discrepancy that needed to be explained. It is only fanon misinterpretation and a glaring disinterest in the series’ villains from official sources that have presented this issue.

I’m praying that it’s all just a misunderstanding on the part of whoever maintains the website, and that the anime itself will render the relevant bits of dialogue correctly. Given the extreme cuts and alterations that My Villain Academia has been subjected to thus far, though, I’m sure you can appreciate my being concerned.

…So that’s the meat of it. The idea that Rikiya is Chikara’s son is wrong simply on the basis of what’s said in the text, and it’s doubly wrong on the basis of the timeline. There is, though, one other thing I think points towards Re-Destro being exactly the descendant he says he is, not a son playing down the connection out of humility or something. This one is a lot more headcanon-y, though, so I saved it for last.

MLA Social Dynamics

It’s quite simple. We have, in the MLA, a group of people that venerates Destro’s bloodline to an obviously unhealthy degree, putting up portraits of him wherever they can get away with it, tagging his successor with a “Re-” as if to invoke reincarnation or miraculous return, entirely willing to throw their lives away for what they think was his cause, and others’ lives if those others say anything too scathing about the words Destro wrote, quite as if they treat Destro’s memoir as some sort of holy writ.

They venerate Destro that much, and you’re trying to tell me that they wouldn’t just call a spade a spade and acknowledge RD as the son of their great leader? Come on.

Since long before I turned up the matsuei factoid in researching this piece, since long before Mr. Compress gave us such a helpful generational comparison, I’ve held the opinion that, given a group that holds their leaders in such high esteem, with such particular regard for bloodline, the only reason Rikiya does just call himself a descendant, rather than citing the specific term for what he is, is that the specific term is distant enough that it actually does sound more impressive to just say “descendant,” rather than something like, “great-great-great-grandson.” That kind of thing just begs the question, “What took you guys so long?” or, “You and how many other people, buddy?”

Mr. Compress may have the panache to carry off a line like that, but Rikiya’s a different story. If he had something so amazing up his sleeve as, “I am the son of the great Destro,” I have to think he’d just say it proudly, not fall back on the impressionistic vaguery of something like chi o tsugu mono. Even if I had no other evidence to work with, I’d think the same—all the evidence you need is right there in the character writing of who Rikiya and the MLA are and how they talk about the man whose dreams Re-Destro was raised to carry.

A closing note: I will allow that Rikiya is being overdramatic when he uses matsuei and its connotation of countless generations. There are a few other things we can use to trace the history of heroism—Ujiko’s age, and the 18-years-or-less periods that One For All was held by its pre-All Might bearers—and running those numbers leads me to believe that it is, in fact, entirely possible to count the number of generations between Rikiya and Chikara, and the number, while higher than one, is probably not all that high. Certainly matsuei is being more dramatic about it than is entirely warranted, hence the poetic flourish of the official translation’s, “His blood runs through these veins!” The theatricality only makes me fonder of him, however.

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

FOOTNOTES

[1] It was changed and reverted on Re-Destro’s page at least twice before it finally stuck in January of this year. Chikara’s page took until July to be corrected, and it’s still wrong on various other subpages.

[2] Or your kids, if you have those. Only the last generation in the bloodline is the matsuei, but that’s a moving goalpost as long as the bloodline is still propagating.

[3] This summary of events combines what we know from both My Hero Academia proper and the Vigilantes spin-off, which I recommend to anyone who’s at all interested in finer-grained worldbuilding on Hero Society Japan than the main series makes time for.

[4] I personally headcanon him as 42.

[5] To which point I would refer back to the word kodomo, and note that that word choice indicates that Destro had a child in the world. Not a sperm sample kept in a freezer somewhere, waiting for the right would-be mother: an actual child. Some quick research on my part says that the farthest that term stretches is in using it to refer to yet-unborn children, fetuses still in the womb. Seeing as Japan doesn’t even allow inmates conjugal visits in real life, much less in a setting where villains are so dehumanized that Tartarus is an acceptable punishment for them, the line about Destro “having a child out in the world” takes us right back to a date of conception no later than Destro’s final night of freedom.

[benedictscanvas]

all the wrong places [finale] - spencer reid x reader

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: 3.6k

Summary: It only takes a moment for Spencer to realise that he doesn’t just want to marry you someday, he wants to marry you as soon as he possibly can. But since he can’t come up with a solid plan, he turns to his BAU family for help in planning the most important day of his life so far. Is that a mistake? Most definitely.

Warnings: Series probably aren’t meant to be exclusively fluffy, but this one practically is! I need some fluff in my life, damn it! There may be some mention of regular Criminal Minds things, some language but mostly just good ol’ Spence lovin’

A/N: We’re finally here. It was so, so difficult to finish off a series so long in the making, so I truly hope I’ve done it justice for everyone. As always, I love you all dearly, and thank you for all your support on the series and beyond. Enjoy <3

---

Chapter Seven

Spencer heard you slip out of bed earlier in the morning than you usually would, but still didn’t say anything. Even though he knew for certain that neither of you had slept at all, even though he wanted to just tell you that he would happily marry you tomorrow, even though lying next to you all night and trying not to cry had been torture.

He’d realised about an hour into his desperation that he wasn’t going to be able to simply turn over and explain himself, because you would think he was lying. How could he convince you that he wanted to marry you when his entire demeanour had suggested otherwise? He could show you the ring, but then he’d be proposing at two in the morning in your bed when the two of you were trying not to cry. That wasn’t the story he wanted you to excitedly relate to your coworkers, your family, your future children.

At the thought of your future children, he couldn’t help but begin his silent crying.

Now, tears long dried up as he’d stared blankly at the ceiling, he checked his phone. 5am. He could hear you rustling around getting dressed in the room next door. Quicker than he could comprehend, he heard the front door slowly click shut. You’d left already. Definitely didn’t want to hum along to your combined favourite playlist on the way to work this morning, then.

Knowing there was no point in lying there any longer, Spencer got up instead. When he trudged into the living room, rubbing his eyes, the post-it on the door almost made him lose his resolve not to cry again.

Thought I’d get an early start this morning, but I’ll leave you the car. I’m so sorry about last night, Spence. Love you x

He took a deep breath. He was proposing today, there was no doubt about that. He couldn’t let you go on a second longer without the knowledge that he’d been trying to propose to you for months and that he’d frozen because he had all these plans, terrible plans. He couldn’t just say yes when he wanted to show you just how much he wanted to marry you.

He picked up his phone, thinking about which of his friends would be able to help him most. There wasn’t much of a contest, since only one of them would already be up and therefore not too mad at him for calling at such an unsocial time.

“JJ? Can I come over?”

---

“Oh, Spence,” JJ sighed knowingly after Spencer had recalled the events of the previous evening with precise accuracy. They sat at her kitchen table, with Will looking after Henry elsewhere in the house, “You didn’t say anything?”

“I panicked, JJ, you know how much I’ve put into this. I didn’t know how to fix it, but I also couldn’t have just agreed to marry her right then and there when I’ve spent so long trying to make this proposal perfect.”

“I know, I know. This is going to take a lot of fixing though, Spence, if Y/N thinks you don’t want to marry her.”

“I know! That’s why I’m proposing today, no matter what happens, I’m not letting anything get in my way again.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? She won’t just think you’re proposing because you feel guilty?”

“Not if I explicitly tell her that’s not the case,” Spencer reasoned, and though JJ still looked unsure, she conceded with a half-smile.

“Okay, Spence, what do you need from me?”

“Not much. I just need you to keep everyone away from the break room for a while.”

“You’re proposing in the break room?” She asked, only a little incredulous. He rolled his eyes.

“It’s where we first met, JJ, that has to count for something.”

You were making the first round of coffee for everyone on your first morning. It felt like the right thing to do to get off on the right foot. When Spencer had come in to make his own, you’d insisted on making it for him too and he’d stood there awkwardly as he committed every plane of your face to memory. It didn’t take him long, roughly the same time it took him to fall madly in love with you as he added more sugar to the coffee you’d made him without thinking and you had grinned up at him without a word.

“Alright, alright,” JJ held her hands up in surrender, standing from the kitchen table as she glanced at the clock on the wall, “You’ve been here for hours Spencer, we’ve got to get going.”

Spencer nodded, feeling the bile rising in his throat. The ring box was in his pocket now because feeling the weight of it was the only thing keeping him grounded. The two of you never argued, not that this was an argument, but you never didn’t talk. It felt wrong, not kissing you awake this morning, not squeezing your hand as the two of you ate breakfast.

These were the things he wanted to do for the rest of his life. With you.

---

When Spencer and JJ stepped out of the elevator, later to work than they should’ve been, they caught a glimpse of everyone in the office suddenly turning back to their work. Spencer swore he saw Hotch turn on his heel and practically speed walk back towards his office. They opened the glass doors and both stared out at their colleagues suspiciously.

Spencer’s first thought was that Y/N was nowhere to be found, but JJ’s was clearly very different.

“Alright, what’s going on here?” She said instantly, despite the fact that no one was looking at them. Practically the whole team turned towards her with guilty looks on their faces, with Rossi appearing from a hiding spot behind Spencer’s own desk, “What are you all hiding?”

“Look, we were supposed to do this far more subtly, but since Rossi decided to hide,” Derek glared at Rossi mid-sentence who looked suitably embarrassed himself, “Reid, you should go to the break room.”

“What? Why should I go to-“

“Spencer,” Emily spoke up with a hopeful expression, “Just go to the break room.”

He managed to catch on at that point. It was more than likely that this was where he would find you. Had JJ called ahead and told them to get you in there so he could execute his plan? He smiled at everyone for their cooperation and rushed off towards the break room to find you.

But when he looked in the small window on the door, he couldn’t even see you. He was really hoping this wasn’t some elaborate prank by Derek, because he wasn’t sure he could handle that with no sleep and his heart beating out of his chest. He opened the door regardless, because maybe he could wait for you in-

His small surprised inhale almost sounded like a gasp. You were in the room, right in front of him, with shining eyes and a smile that looked equal parts adoring and terrified.

And you were down on one knee.

His hand was frozen to the door knob. Feet glued to the floor. Eyes stuck on your face, flittering around those features he could recite by memory whether it was eidetic or otherwise. He still hadn’t moved, or spoken, or done anything and it was only when you were getting up and ushering him inside that he regained control over his body.

“Quick, close the door, I don’t want people listening to this,” you insisted quietly, bringing him fully inside the break room and closing the door behind him. He could hear you trying not to cry and it was jarring, “Derek will tease me for weeks. Months, even.”

And with that, you took up your position on one knee once again in front of him, getting down onto the floor with clumsy feet, wiping your eyes with the back of your hand as you took a deep breath. He knew to stay quiet for now.

“Okay, so, first thing you’ve probably noticed is that I don’t have a ring. I’m sorry. This was kind of spur of the moment, but if you say yes then Hotch said we could have the rest of the day off to go and find one for you, if that’s something you want-” you took another deep breath, this one out of necessity. It was hard to find time to breathe when there was so much you wanted to say all at once. His watery smile was prevalent as he reached out a hand and you took it in both of your own.

“Anyway, there’s more important things to say right now,” you continued, shaking your head, “I love you, Spencer Reid. In every way imaginable. More than even you could comprehend. You are everything. And I want to marry you desperately, not for ridiculous financial reasons, but because I want to be your wife. I said all that crap last night because I panicked. I want to be able to call you my husband and I want to have the same last name, whichever one we choose and I want to have a day where we celebrate just how amazing we are together.”

Spencer was definitely crying now, as were you, but somehow the shaky tone with which you said your words was only adding to how much you truly meant them. He didn’t have time to wonder how he managed to get so lucky, nor how he had messed this up so many times that you had felt the need to do it yourself. All he was thinking about was that he needed to make sure you knew how much he wanted this too, and quickly.

“Y/N-”

“One second, Spence, I’ve nearly finished I promise,” you insisted, and he wasn’t going to refuse you, silently rubbing soothing circles into your knuckles as one of his tears dripped down onto your joined hands, “I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you and I want it to be immortalised on paper too, because we both love a document.”

He chuckled down at you disbelievingly.

“Doctor Spencer Reid, will you marry me?”

He took a deep breath and joined you on the floor, kneeling in front of you. He reached out with one hand to press his thumb to a tear on your face, not wiping away, simply savouring the feel of it against his skin. It didn’t take much to commit it, along with every detail of the moment, to memory.

“This is unconventional,” he mused, flicking his gaze all over your face, keeping his answer withheld just a little longer.

“Just because I’m the one proposing? I never took you for a traditional.”

“I was actually talking about us being on the floor of the break room at our workplace,” he explained, “Do you know how many people’s coffee we’re likely kneeling in right now?”

“I’m sure you could give me an unsurprisingly accurate estimate, my love,” you said kindly, with a patience he couldn’t understand, “But I’d much prefer you answer my question.”

He had been hoping you would say that, because it gave him the perfect opportunity to pull the ring box out of his pocket.

“Does this answer your question?’

Popping open the lid of the box and presenting the ring inside to you, he kept his eyes trained on your face to capture your reaction forever. It was better than he could have pictured. Sparkly eyes and shaking hands and sniffles and so much love.

“You just have that?”

“Have done for a while,” he admitted, closing his eyes for just a moment when you placed a careful hand on his face, “Been trying to do this for a long time, angel.”

The disbelief on your face is palpable, and he takes note of the fact that you’ve hardly even looked at the ring yet, your attention captured by him: only him. He’s never felt more loved. More whole.

“You have? I’m sorry I stole your thund-”

“No, no, never,” Spencer interrupted you, seeing the flash of guilt in your eyes even as you tried to hide it, “You could never. This just makes it better. You want to marry me enough to ask me twice?”

A wry smile from you is all the answer he needs. You answer him anyway.

“‘Course I do, baby.”

“Well then, since I want to marry you enough to have tried to ask five times,” he placed his own hand on top of yours on his face and nuzzled into it, ignoring your look of pure shock, “The answer is a yes.”

“To the original question?”

“And every other question that comes after it,” he confirmed and though you’re both still crying, your grins are lighting up the whole room, “What about you?”

“What about me?” you retorted, “I don’t remember you asking me a question, actu-”

“Will you marry me, Y/N?”

You were laughing through your tears now, at him, at the whole situation. He could feel the floor against his knees, the edges of pain creeping in as the two of you stayed on the floor for longer than you should have, but it wasn’t as if he wanted to go anywhere just yet.

“Oh, that question? Yeah, that’s a definite yes. A definite, absolute, no question about it-”

He cut you off again, but he didn’t feel too bad about it once your lips were on his and he was kissing you with everything he had in him. You may have been kneeling on the floor but his arms were around your waist, one travelling up your back and into your hair, keeping you as close as humanly possible. When he feels your hands in his own hair and your nails lightly scratching against his scalp he could swear that nothing in his life to come will ever come close to this feeling.

Then he remembers he’s going to have a wedding day with you in the not so distant future and if it’s even possible, he draws you closer. So close, with such fervour, that the ring box falls to the floor, utterly forgotten as a mere trinket in wake of the best moment of both of your lives.

He hears the door beginning to open behind him, even as he’s so focused on you in his arms, and he just knows that its the team, that they’ve been watching you silently this whole time. So, without much thought, his leg flew backwards behind him and made contact with the door, effectively shutting anyone and everyone else out of a moment that he needed to be just the two of you. It made a slight crashing noise, but when you tried pulling away, he only chased your lips until you were back together again and if the little sigh you gave him was any indicator, you wouldn’t be investigating the noise for just a little longer.

Whoever just tried to come in would be laying into him later, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

When you did finally part, with more reluctance than ever and heaving chests pressed against one another, you stayed close. Foreheads lightly grazing, breath intertwined along with your respective futures. He grabbed the ring box from the floor and opened it back up, taking out the ring with shaky fingers.

“May I?”

You merely giggle, leaning back away from him so that you could see his face properly as you wiggle your fingers in front of him excitedly. He takes your left hand in his tenderly and slides the ring on with a careful hand, kissing across your knuckles to seal the deal. When he looks back up, he sees your eyes have drifted behind him.

“Spence,” you say slowly, eyes trained on the door, “Did you kick the door shut when they tried to come in?”

He should have known you’d put it together when he stopped kissing you. Maybe he should never have stopped. That would solve most of his problems.

“He did!” an angry voice comes through the door, angry and loud and definitely belonging to Derek. Spencer finally turns, taking in the sight of every single one of his coworkers crowded haphazardly around the small window in the door to the break room, each in various states of happiness. There were even more tears outside the room than in it, with Penelope adding a significant number, but JJ, Derek and even Hotch were adding a few of their own to the count.

This time, when JJ pushed the door open, he didn’t shut it in her face, however much he still wanted to preserve his moment with you. When Garcia runs over and throws herself onto the floor to hug the both of you and the rest of the team follows suit, he supposes he doesn’t mind too much.

When he catches a glimpse of your face through all the hugging and you’re already staring at him, he decides he doesn’t mind at all.

---

“And the third time?”

“Ah, see, the third time is my personal favourite,” Emily said, trying not to join Penelope in her hysterical giggles at just the thought of the accidental flash mob she’d arranged, “Do you happen to remember when Penelope spotted Bruno Mars outside the building?”

Your brow furrowed and then there was clearly a moment when everything clicked in your head and your eyes widened.

“No! That was a proposal attempt?”

You were looking up at Spencer now and he just rolled his eyes good-naturedly, keeping his fingers entwined with yours over your shoulder. He had made sure that the pad of his finger was lightly pressed against the metal of the ring at all times during your engagement dinner, occasionally reminding himself of its shape with slow, deliberate strokes. A whole month since he’d put it there and still the feeling of it was electric each and every time.

“Not exactly,” he admitted, glancing at a still laughing Penelope, “Garcia ordered a flash mob, then forgot to cancel when I told her to, then saved the day with her quick thinking.”

You blinked.

“I”m sorry, what?!”

And soon Emily was launching into the full story, reminding you of the little details of the moment that you would have missed at the time, Derek chiming in too, if only to describe the varying degrees of panic on Spencer’s face. He was happy to sit back in his booth seat and let them tell it, if only because it gave him perfect opportunity to enjoy the story along with you, through your expressions and comments and persistent laughter.

Derek soon transitioned into explaining the very awkward moment with Emily on the jet, to which you were again shocked to hear how terrible everyone’s ideas had really been. You and JJ had already had a lighthearted argument about her terrible restaurant idea, although both of you were very clearly joking around.

“Hey, Reid,” Hotch said lowly, gaining his attention during the dinner when Dave was talking about the time after the bomber came into the police precinct a couple of weeks ago. Spencer turned to him at the head of the table, “I think it turned out perfect, in the end. I’m proud of you.”

“Even if I was beaten to it?”

Hotch chuckled, but placed a hand on Reid’s shoulder nonetheless.

“Even so.”

“Thanks, Hotch,” Spencer replied sincerely, really meaning it. Hotch gave him a single nod before retracting his hand and asking JJ to pass the garlic bread. The moment had been short, but Hotch being proud of him was something that he had always held close to his heart.

When he turned back to you, the botched proposal stories seemed to be coming to an end and in the momentary silence, you spoke up, one hand still entwined with his own but the other holding up your glass.

“I’d like to make a toast,” you said, encouraging everyone to raise their glasses with you, “Which may be unconventional, but it has to be said. I want to thank you all for coming here to celebrate our engagement tonight, but also for every bit of support you’ve all given us over the years. We love you and we couldn’t be more grateful, however terrible your proposal ideas might have been.”

A resounding laugh from everyone, and a protest from Dave who insisted that his advice was brilliant all along. Derek managed to silence him with just a look. They began to clink their glasses together, but you weren’t quite done yet, and Spencer knew it.

“Just before we toast, I’d also like to suggest that you all enroll yourselves on a profiling refreshers course, first thing Monday morning,” you paused for dramatic effect, soaking in the confusion from everyone at the table as Spencer just stared down at you in awe, the smile on his face unable to be contained, “Because the fact that none of you have noticed that I’ve not touched a drop of champagne tonight is a real embarrassment to us all.”

Silence. Gears clicking into place. Then - uproar.

Spencer sees the utter joy appearing on everyone’s faces and can’t help but lean into you, kissing your temple once, twice, three times. Before he can do a fourth, you’ve turned to him, your glistening eyes on his as you kiss him properly. He can’t help the hand that falls to rest on your stomach as he does so, overwhelmed with noise, laughter and so much love.

---

taglist (ily all <3)

@mrs-dr-reid @soda610 @alexxcorona113 @thupidalethea @may-beforejune-afterapril @ilovesupersoldiers @hurricanejjareau @mortallythoughtfulgurl @aperrywilliams@saranyx @anotherspencerreidblog @thegayestdestielshipper @burkgolden @zozoleesi  @sargent-barnes @halseysunset @blameitonthenight21 @televisiondreamstomorrow @dralexreid​ 

[todomitoukei]

Dabi’s Involvement In 290

paragon-arthur replied to your post: Just wanted to say a quick THANK YOU

I've been meaning to ask as well- the parts of chapter 290 where the fan translations made it seem as if Dabi was specifically talking to Rei- how accurate is that?

I’m assuming you’re about the first panel in that chapter, right before we see Dabi on the screen? When the leaks for that chapter came out and it wasn’t yet certain whether the broadcast was just for Rei or also shown to everyone else, it would have been a possibility - especially because one of the earliest translations wrote it as “I’ve been watching you from afar” or something about wondering whether it was the right room?

Anyway, now that we know the broadcast was not exclusively shown to Rei, it’s pretty clear that it’s Skeptic speaking.

The official translation says: “...cannot... get any... kzzt... closer... kzzt... hard to make out... from this distance...”

For comparison, the original Japanese version reads: 「これ以上立ち入る事がザ。。。できず。。。ザザッ。。。遠目からでハッキリとは確認できませんが。。。」

「これ ; kore 」  -> this

「 以上  ; ijou 」 -> exceeding

「 立ち入る ; tachiiru 」 -> to enter; to trespass; to interfere

「 事が ; koto ga 」 -> verb nominalizer (turns tachiiru into a noun)

「 ザ。。。 ; za 」 -> kzzt

「 できず。。。 ; dekizu 」 -> without being able to, *zu is similar to the negation “nai”, usually implies that something happened without the verb “zu” attaches to happening.

「 ザザッ。。。 ; zaza 」 ->  kzzt

「 遠目 ; toome 」 -> distant view

「 からで  ; kara de 」 -> from

「 ハッキリ  ; hakkiri 」 -> clearly (written in katakana as emphasis)

「 とは  ; to ha 」 -> particle to add emphasis/surprise/shock

「 確認  ; kakunin 」 -> affirmation; confirmation

「 できませんが。。。; dekimasen ga 」 -> unable to

So it turns into something like “I can’t interfere any more than this from this distance... I can’t get a clear confirmation...”

The text is refering to being able to hack into the radio tower in order to broadcast the video across the country. We later see that Natsuo is able to see the broadcast, as well as the people walking through the city. That being said, the LOV doesn’t have to be close to the buildings they are broadcasting to, hence there is no clear reference to the hospital being the “distant view”. There is also no mention of Rei’s room or anything else that might indicate that this is about her.

There is also the fact that we see some of the hospital staff who rush to Rei’s room and talk about how this is bad timing. If Rei was somehow contacted right before the broadcast, the hospital staff wouldn’t be aware of it.

What could make people think it’s about making out Rei’s room in particular is the “遠目 ; toome“ aka distant view part, as I’m not sure what this distant view would refer to otherwise. Again, though, the hospital stuff’s reaction indicates that it’s not limited to her room (unless they are talking about the fight? But that one has been shown for a while so I doubt it).

The only thing that stuck out to me about the Japanese version here is the “dekimasen” - “masen” being the polite negation of verbs, which is frequently used in real life Japanese, however, manga/anime characters tend to use more casual speech. 

We do see Dabi, who usually uses very rough speech, use the polite verb form in his broadcast (again: he chooses his words carefully), which would be the only indication to me that this might not be Skeptic speaking, as he also doesn’t use the polite form when speaking.

The shift between politeness levels changes the tone of the conversation as is happening here - while the beginning of the sentence is more conversational, the last part with the formal speech can be read as more explanatory and serious in comparison. That way, there is a bit more emphasis on the final conclusion that he is unable to get a clear signal.

Anyway, it’s not part of his video and it wouldn’t make sense to assume that Dabi would be saying this “live” as we see him earlier rushing Skeptic to focus on the broadcast, whilst Dabi was getting ready to fight Endeavor. At this point, he is most likely too lost in that obsession of wanting to fight Endeavor to be thinking clearly enough to be talking about anything else.

While it was originally a possibilty to me that maybe there was an “extra” beginning to the broadcast that only Rei gets to see, I feel like if that were the case, Horikoshi would have made it clearer and actually shown what that extra footage was. It’s a nice thought, but incidentally, it wouldn’t add much if it’s just hinted at and never more explicitly shown (what would he say to Rei that he doesn’t include in the broadcast then?).

I can definitely see the desire for Dabi to somehow address Rei seperately, the same goes for people who theorize that the flowers in her room were sent by Dabi. That being said, the phrase above to me really only seems to be a sign that the broadcast is live and shown across all TVs etc.

So I don’t think there is any part of the broadcast that was exclusively shown to Rei, as Dabi is acting consistently throughout the whole thing.

When we compare this to chapter 292, it’s also more obvious that Dabi is at a point where his tunnel vision on destroying Endeavor is taking over too much for him to take the other family members too much into account. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about them. However, right now, he is unable to really access those feelings.

I understand trying to find little pieces of hope that might indicate him caring is nice, but rather than doing that it’s more important to focus on the less happy but more real sides of Dabi. Again, mental illness can get pretty dark. That doesn’t mean that anyone with a mental illness turns into a criminal or stops caring about the people they love. Still, in some cases that does happen, as evident with Dabi and there is no point in not addressing that side of him for the sake of not talking about the dark effects mental illness can have.

This isn’t to say he is too far gone to be saved; instead it’s more interesting to consider the narrative of him being able to see that destroying Endeavor should not be his focus and that instead he should try to focus on his own health (and that of his family). As many others have already suggested, it would be really nice to see especially Shouto and Natsuo try and help Dabi in redeeming himself and it would make for a more interesting narrative than just writing Dabi - as well as the other members of the League - off as “irredeemable”. Is it going to be a long and difficult journey? Yes. But that’s what would make it so interesting and make for a hopeful storyline.

To quote The Good Place: “What matters isn’t if people are good or bad. What matters is if they’re trying to be better today than they were yesterday.”

[buttonso]

Happy Birthday, Harvey

WELL.... it’s Winter 14, gotta do something to acknowledge it! My drawing game is garbage today, so, I thought I would post a chapter from the fic I’ve been working on since summer.  This is actually the fourth chapter, but one could read it as a standalone.  The fic itself is rated Mature on AO3, but this chapter is pure fluff and should be appropriate for teens- there are a few swear words.

14th of Winter Ascending

Standing before the floor-length mirror on the back of his bathroom door, Harvey stood up as straight as he could, puffing his chest out. Unable to sit still or relax the last several hours, he’d taken exceptional care with his clothing this evening, putting on his best suit and tie, polishing his glasses and combing his hair carefully. ~Well... do I look handsome? Manly?~ He drooped and sighed. ~Or am I just a dork in a cheap suit?~ He wasn’t sure what he was hoping for tonight.  It had all the hallmarks of a romantic date, but neither of them had stated their feelings explicitly.

He hadn’t helped himself any with his own indecision. All that concern about ethics… he was starting to wonder if that had just been his fear talking, an excuse not to put himself out on a limb, not to take a chance. Or was he now, in turn, just rationalizing away his ethics in order to try to get what he wanted?  

~And what do I want?~ he asked himself as he adjusted his tie for the umpteenth time. ~I’m not just trying to… to get in her pants.~ He blushed to even think that vulgar term. He’d be lying if he claimed to not be interested in that, but…

But, but, BUT… “I’m going to give myself a stroke if I keep thinking about this,” he said aloud, frowning at his reflection. Aura was his friend. He trusted her, and thinking about not having her in his life was just too difficult to contemplate. No matter what happened tonight, it was bound to, at least, be a pleasant evening with a dear friend. He glanced at his watch and nodded to himself.  He’d have to get going soon if he was going to make it to the farm by 6…

Just as he turned to pick up his building keys, the buzzer linked to the after-hours doorbell began to ring. He froze, listening to the harsh sound, not really registering it for a moment, then dropped his keys on the table in exasperation. Of course. OF COURSE there would be an emergency, right now. ~It had better be something damn serious,~ He thought irritably as he stomped down the stairs into the clinic, through the lobby to the front door, throwing it open with some force…

Only to find Aura standing on his doorstep, holding a large basket and looking a bit sheepish.

“Um… hey Harvey.” She looked a little disheveled, her hair escaping from what had probably once been an elegant twist at the back of her neck. Her red scarf was drooping off her shoulder and trailing in the slush on the street at her feet.  “I’ve… had some difficulties,” She said slowly, giving him a weak smile.

“Are you all right??” He exclaimed, pushing the door open wider so she could come in.

“Yeah… I’m fine except for… everything I had planned… being… completely… fucked…” She answered through gritted teeth, her forced cheerfulness fading with every word until she sounded near tears. “My piece of shit oven crapped out on me… sorry for swearing so much, I just… just…” Her shoulders started to shake and he quickly took the basket from her hands, setting it on the clinic’s front counter.

“Don’t worry about that, just… come on, let’s get you warm,” He said quickly, picking up her scarf as it finally fell off her shoulder.  “Where’s Buttercup?” Surely she hadn’t walked all the way from the farm...

“I-I walked…”

DAMN IT. He opened his mouth to scold her, but she continued to speak in a rapid, somewhat strained tone.

“…Buttercup threw a shoe earlier today… I took her to Marnie’s but she said the farrier couldn’t come until Tuesday… didn’t want to risk laming her.. that wasn’t even the first thing to go wrong today. First thing this morning Murphy brought in a… I don’t even know what it was, I swear it was the size of a raccoon… but he dropped it on me in bed and the fucking thing was still alive…  Then I dropped a preserve jar in the kitchen and the goddamn thing EXPLODED, I had cranberry jelly all over my kitchen AND ME, it was even in my hair…I swear, I’m going to start taking that bullshit fortuneteller on TV seriously, you know, she said it was a bad luck day when I got my ass kicked in the mines, too…”

“Why didn’t you just call and cancel?!” Harvey interrupted, aghast, as he pulled the door closed behind them. He tried to take her coat, but she waved him off.

“No way… I wasn’t going to leave you in the lurch on your birthday,” She said stubbornly. “So... I improvised.” She gestured impatiently at the basket on the counter while Harvey made a second attempt at taking her coat.  She evaded him, pacing the length of the counter and back.

“Aura, how do you think I’d feel if you… if you broke your ankle and fell into some snowbank and died of hypothermia or something?!” He asked crossly.

“I imagine you would resurrect me just so you could yell at me,” She sniffed and shrugged out of her coat, tossing it onto the counter.

She wore a simple long-sleeved red and black striped sweater-dress that hugged her body to just above her knees, with black leggings and little in the way of jewelry besides a silver chain that rested in the hollow of her throat.  On her feet she wore black boots, laced tightly to mid-calf. The outfit was so simple, but it looked amazing on her. He knew he was staring… and that he should stop… or at least say something…

“So…” Aura’s cheeks, already pink from the cold outside, flushed a bit brighter as she moved jerkily towards the basket on the counter. “I think… there’s something we should get out of the way, before this evening goes any further.”

“Oh…?” Harvey’s breath caught in his throat, and he had the curious sensation of standing on a precipice.

Aura’s hands trembled slightly as she opened the flaps at the top of the basket and reached inside, slowly drawing out… a bouquet? A sweet-smelling mass of purple, blue, silver and white. Purple and white crocus blooms were interwoven with bright blue crystal fruits and white snow yams, the whole thing secured with a wide dark-blue ribbon. She held it out towards him, her expression shy.

His heart skipped a beat.

Could it be…?

“I’ve been told that people around here declare… feelings… that is, romantic feelings… with a bouquet. I wasn’t sure at first… I mean, most places I’ve lived, people don’t really do flowers at all, let alone women giving them to men, but… I asked Marnie if it was true and she said it was.”

“You… talked to Marnie about this?” Harvey asked, his mouth going dry.

“Yeah. After I went home from the clinic,” She replied.  “Well… I knew if I bought a bouquet at Pierre’s, the whole town would know about it before… before the person I wanted to give it to. And it’s not like I didn’t have time to kill over the last week…”

“…I see…” The leaves shivered as his hands closed over hers. Her hands were trembling as much as his were.

“Harvey… I think it’s pretty obvious even without these flowers… how I feel about you. But, just in case it’s not, well… here they are.” Her silver eyes held his. “For awhile now I’ve felt like… like we’re holding ourselves back.  I don’t want to hold myself back anymore. But if you don’t want it, then... then we’ll say no more about it, ok?”

She tried to pull back, but Harvey’s hands reflexively tightened around hers.  He couldn’t speak, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to let her go either.

“…Harvey?” She tilted her head slightly. “…Are you OK?” A thousand emotions and thoughts were clamoring in his mind, making it hard to focus.  This was everything he’d wanted for so long… he’d told himself, over and over, that it was wrong to wish, to hope, wrong to want her. The excuses varied from day to day, moment to moment. Either he wasn’t good enough for her because she deserved someone more handsome, or someone braver, or someone stronger… whatever way he felt inadequate that particular day. If it wasn’t that, then he told himself it would be ethically wrong, to hit on her while she was his patient… but it was all a way to keep a greater heartache at bay.

“Harvey, please… either reject me or…or don’t…” She whispered. Her silver eyes were shadowed with vulnerability.  He’d dreamed of her for so long… could he really hurt her now?

“Aura, I…” He cleared his throat. “…I’m not strong enough…”

“Oh, DAMN IT, Harvey…” She stomped her foot in frustration, but before she could say anything else, he pulled her to him, crushing the lovely bouquet between them. Purple petals scattered around them as he wrapped one arm around her, holding her against him, finally holding her like he’d wanted to for months, practically from the moment they met. They each still had one hand on the bouquet, now squished awkwardly between them, and Aura’s spare hand clutched at his shirt.

“I was going to say… I’m not strong enough… to pretend like this isn’t exactly what I wanted,” He said in a shaky voice. “I kept coming up with excuses as to why I couldn’t be with you… because I was so afraid…”

“Harvey…” She squeaked. “Ribs…”

“Oh…” another flurry of purple petals as he released her, his hands going to her side, anxiously probing her ribcage while she continued to awkwardly held the smashed bouquet at arm’s length.

“Harvey….Harvey.” Her free hand batted at his shoulder. “Trying to feel me up when you haven’t even kissed me yet?” A bit of her usual dry humor was back in her voice, though with a bit of a tremble to it. When he looked up, her silver gaze captured him again, and she smiled, brushing her fingers across his cheek, then trailing enticingly over his lips. “You have beautiful eyes, you know,” She told him softly. “Lovely hazel green…It’s one of the first things I noticed about you.”

Harvey wasn’t sure if he kissed her, or she him, but it seemed as if every nerve in his body came to life when her lips pressed to his, a deep thrill running up his spine and making him shiver all over. There was a soft rustle as she finally dropped the bouquet and wound her arms around his neck, pressing her chest into his. When they parted, they were both a little breathless, and he felt himself smiling so broadly it almost hurt.

“I guess… I’ll just have to take the bus to the city when I have the sniffles,” She said archly, resting her forehead against his. “Since you’re so hung up about having to be my doctor…”

“Aura….” There were so many things he wanted to say, that it was her eyes that had drawn him in at the beginning, that he’d dreamed of this moment for so long…

…That there were so many things he was still afraid of…

“Just… just don’t ever let yourself get hurt like that again… my heart can’t take it…” He finally answered, shaking his head and hugging her as tightly as he dared to. “Thinking I’d lost you… I’d never been so miserable…”

Aura let him hold her for another long moment, burying her face in his shoulder. “I’ll do my best… it’s not like I enjoyed having a brush with death,” she answered, voice muffled. Then she gave him another, lighter kiss, this time on his cheek. “Happy birthday, Harvey. I may not have been able to make the dinner I had planned, but I brought leftovers from yesterday and I just thought, well…. We could just be together for a little while?”

“I didn’t think this birthday could get any better…”  Harvey said as they stepped away from each other, hands tightly linked.  He looked down in regret at the pile of blue and purple petals scattered on the floor around them. “I’m so sorry about that though… it was so beautiful, it really was..”

“Maybe I’ll make you another next year…” She said as they both knelt to scoop up the fallen flora.  She fished out a crocus that had survived the tumble to the floor, still intact, turning it slowly in her fingers, then absently tucked it behind her ear. “Save these, though, the crystal fruit make for pretty decent wine. Waste not, want not.”

Harvey caught her hands again, turning them over to admire her long, strong fingers, tracing the callouses on her palms before tugging her to her feet. “Come on.. let’s just worry about the mess later. You’re probably starving.”

“But we can just…” She began, then shrugged. “OK, birthday boy… you’re the boss.”

In that moment, it seemed the light in her smile would keep him warm for the rest of the winter.

____

If you are interested in reading more, it can be found here:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25158031/chapters/60962605

[joonietonin]

Open Heart Book 1 Finale Rant:

Let me start by saying that this will probably be one of my last analytical posts for a while. That makes me a little sad but I'm also very grateful to all of you who read my posts and motivated me to keep on writing. Truly, I had the time of my life writing the analyses. Now, this post was getting too long so I chopped it off I two parts- this one which is a general recap and my comment on the chapter and another one which I will be posting later today which will be purely about Ethan and MC's relationship. So y'all are looking at a LOT of content to read, I'm apologizing before hand! Okay no more sad talk except the evident fact that today was Open Heart Book 1 finale. Which means we'll have to live without Ethan Ramsey and the squad for quite some time. But focusing on the better things today:

The finale was everything! I felt a wave of emotions as I played it. I felt joy, triumph, anger, passion and hope all at the same time. Let's talk about what happened. (My MC is female, pronouns: she/her) So, Declan (or should I say Dick-lan) Nash had quite a few tricks up his sleeve huh, getting Dr. Cyrus and Dr. Wen to wager for him, lol, he really underestimated MC and the team of people backing her up.

I think it was a group effort when it comes to saving MC's career where MC of course deserves maximum of the credit because of all the patients who testified (Willow, Remy, Jake and Annie for me) on her behalf- if she hadn't gone above and beyond for her patients they wouldn't have given such honest and positive statements on her behalf. So props to MC, first! Then, props to the amazing friends MC has.. Sienna, Elijah, Rafael, Jackie, Bryce.. I mean those guys are basically her support system. Without them hyping her up and motivating her, her case would've fallen flat. Also, we can't forget Ines and Zaid, they're polar opposites and have weird ways of showing their love for MC but they've always been there for her. (even Zaid lmao ikr he's a total softie at heart) And most importantly, her friends always stood up for her. So here's to MC's friends!

Next up, to Ethan Ramsey (the light of MC's/my life) who really did not disappoint when he said he wasn't out of tricks. This man really went above and beyond to get hold of Mrs. Martinez's son and show him how happy his mother was before she passed away. Even if Ethan wasn't your LI and was just your mentor, he kind of singlehandedly saved MC from the potential lawsuit. It shows how much he cares about her, romantically or otherwise. He thinks MC is one of the best doctors he has ever seen and he did everything in his power to make sure, MC could be the doctor she has always wanted to be. That man cares for MC and even though he won't say it explicitly, his actions do much more than his words ever could. Therefore, Ethan Jonah Ramsey, the light of my life, here's to you. The man who cares for MC beyond all words. Even when MC herself has accepted that Ethan won't be able to help her out, Ethan kept pushing himself to find some loophole so that he could help her. And he did exactly that. That's why, I stan one (1) man.😌🥂

Next up, of course, is my moody baby yet smol bean Aurora Emery. She had her own way of standing up for MC. Like she said, "That wasn't for you, MC. That was for me." Maybe her intentions were to stand up for herself but doing so, in the process, she stood up for MC and finally knocked some sense into Harper Emery. I think her whole rant to Harper is one of the major reasons why Harper voted for MC to stay. So thanks, Aurora. Here's looking forward to actually being friends with her... or more. *wink*

Last but not the least, we have *drumrolls please* Dr. Naveen Banerji, who is now miraculously cured by MC's brilliant epiphany and Ethan's genius mind. I kinda expected Naveen to enter at the last moment but when he actually did, I swear I squealed like a five year old as if I hadn't been reading all the theories all week round about him walking in at the last moment. Anyways, I love that old man with my whole damn heart. He's literally like a father to MC like he's to Ethan. A grandmentor, if you will. And just like MC saved his life, he in turn saved MC's life=career. We've reached a full circle, my friends. So here's to you Naveen, nay the force be with you. (Y'all see what I did there? No? Okay, why do I try to be funny...)

So, basically Landry is gone. FOR GOOD. I'm glad PB didn't force a redemption arc on us. While I'm happy that Landry brought Naveen down, I don't think that one action forgives all the terrible things he has done. So bye bye dirty Laundry, here's hoping I never see you again. Also YAY! AURORA IS OUR NEW ROOMMATE. Not confirmed yet, but y'all know she'll say yes. Sienna has a crush on Danny- YAS OTP. But I do realise that we'll probably have to pay diamonds to set them up next book. Elijah and Phoebe going strong- YAS ANOTHER OTP. Jackie finally admitting defeat that MC would probably win the competition - HELL YAS, now that was a good redemption arc. Overall, I'm very happy how the things turned out for MC's friends.

Now, like I said at the starting of the post, I'll talk about Ethan and MC in detail in my next post but to sum it up, Ethan and MC had mind-blowing sex one last time before they had to face the reality of their situation. Now, I don't necessarily think they're back to square one because let's be real, you clearly care about the other person, you've had sex with them and you kiss them like there's no tomorrow, you can't really expect for nothing to happen even in a professional setting. Like, I do respect MC and Ethan's commitment to their job but then I think they can find some time for themselves.. you know.. for talking.. and dating.. and doing other things. Also, MC's friends finding out about her and Ethan- THAT SCENE WAS EVERYTHING I EVER HOPED FOR. Also, Naveen choosing MC for the position in the diagnostics team was already foreshadowed but I swear that man is the biggest Ethan×MC shipper. He's here for the angst, the mutual pining and he's sure as hell gonna enjoy how long these two struggle before finally giving in. Anyways, I won't lie but even though I'm a little sad that MC and Ethan aren't (officially) a couple, (we all know they've been married for over a year now) I think it will be nice to see the angst and this new phase of their relationship where MC directly works under Ethan and he gets to mentor her even more closely. It will be fun to see their mutual pining now that they've finally pulled the plug and had sex and kind of fallen in love with each other. The angst will be great and like I said earlier, along with Naveen it will be fun for us to see how long these two struggle before they finally give in and say,"Fuck work ethics. Adrian Raines knew better."

So, that's the end of this rant. The Ethan×MC post will be up soon. I want it to be special, like Ethan once said. And here's hoping they release book two soon although rationally speaking I don't see the book coming this summer. It'll probably release in fall. Guess we gotta wait, but some things are simply worth the wait. And I guess, we're all fighting the inevitable. *wink*

[bladekindeyewear]

Boots reads Homestuck Epilogue part... one..??

Alright, let’s do this.  As I’ve said, the page after this one is all I’ve seen, I’m diving in unspoiled.  Also I gather from some of the non-spoilery chatter I’ve heard from my friends -- one of which warned me this sort of thing was coming a couple weeks ago, and I believed them (but didn’t want to) -- that this first epilogue-upd8 may not be the only epilogue-upd8, which isn’t surprising either given how Andrew works.

Alright, let’s go.  Hope my stomach can take it!

So, Page 1, the mock-AO3 page that’s the only thing I’ve seen before posting this.  The content warning is EXCELLENT, and gives me hope that this will be the usual Hussie-caliber and more humorous than heartwrenching.  :)

It also makes some serious sense that there would be multiple epilogues; from the sound of the summary, this one might focus more on John and then leave ample opportunity to discuss the others.

Let’s click page 2 -- oh, or contents: “Prologue”, this being a chapter list for this is another way to do it.  Clicking Prologue.......

Okay wow, this is novel format for the moment.  Good chance it won’t stay that way.

These first two paragraphs are well-written and ominous, sure -- describing stuff we pretty much already knew was happening, in different words -- but even though the writing isn’t really pretentious, there’s still a good chance Andrew *views* it as pretentious enough to find cutting away to art-style instead hilarious.  Onto the third paragraph...

Music and Calliopes the other Calliope is conducting, yeah... Oh, there’s a garbage disposal reference.  In regards to a black hole.  Like the one I kind of pointed to during Dave’s intro sequence in the Third Scratch theory and stuff in all those big theories.  The ones I was, er, wrong about... ahem.  Moving on.

“Your name is John Egbert, and you have just had a terrible, deeply pretentious nightmare.”

Pfffffffff  :D

I love you Andrew Hussie.  Reading on...

YES I see chat colors. Chat colors!!! I need chat colors.  Reading reading reading let me get down to them let me

Absolutely nothing of note has ever happened here in the entire history of the planet, which you would know, because you created it.

Baahahahahah.  :D

Okay yes I’m at the phone-sterlog.

Uh oh.

I am reading elevated levels of angst compared to usual pesterlogs in this log.  Which is to say, virtually any at all, really.  THAT doesn’t bode well for the outcome/overall tone of this epilogue.  :X  --Not to say it isn’t *appropriate*, given they still haven’t fixed/resewn Paradox Space together, but... yeah, *future feels* are popping up on the radar, that’s what I’m worried about.  I loved the tone of the snapchats and the feeling that everything was going to be fine, especially given how the ending “not being what I expected” shook me a fair bit, but to look forward to when that may end... D:

Yeah, Rose having some serious visions about some unfinished business they need to get around to instead of just fucking around and living their lives makes sense.  :X  --or at least some timeline version of them.  I’m imagining they’re living varied, excellent lives in a whole TON of timelines of promise that commit our imaginings of their potential futures to virtual canon, really, with the main thread that ties off Caliborn’s stage play almost irrelevant in comparison... that was kind of the whole point of the Ending of homestuck earlier, of that final anime flash, the fact that the victory and planet and *lives* they won meant a whole lot more than whatever Lord English’s irrelevant machinations were.

So... returning to the tail end of that main thread and seeing how *serious* it might be....... yeah. Kinda mildly panic-inducing. :XXX

You move the phone away from your ear and assume an expression you haven’t practiced in years. It is the look of a man who actually has something to do.

Okay that was good.

Ah, he’s twenty-three now!

Let’s click the next link. ==>

Fuck let’s not recount Rose’s substance abuse.

Oh, cool. Er, “cool”. Rose is getting some of Rosejaspersprite^2′s awareness of all her alternate-timeline doomed selves and their lives.  No wonder she’s worried about the substance abuse she technically mostly *avoided* in this timeline.

Light explicitly relating to knowledge, good.  That’s a nice aspect tidbit to have reiterated.

ROSE: There’s a different scale I’ve come to understand. Another dichotomy that’s less... emotional, I guess? ROSE: Consider, instead of the word “good,” using the word “essential.” ROSE: And what exists at the opposite polarity from essential is... ROSE: Something that is best not to contemplate.

ooh.  oooooh. holy shit.

okay NO, BOOTS/BKEW.  DON’T GET FUCKING EXCITED.

DON’T get excited.

It only SOUNDS like she’s learned to recontextualize the whole adventure in the rich context of the classpect system, that’s just your wild fanfic-y theoryimagination talking.  Shoosh.  (Even though she IS very, very, *very* clearly referencing the Light/Void dichotomy with the above quote.)  Just... tamp down your hopes, Boots.  Leave it at MILD hope.  Like cool porridge.

Reading on.

Alright, yeah, this universe exists beyond the timespan of the Green Sun’s influence.  Unsurprising, since it was heavily implied.  And she doesn’t have access to her expanded Green Sun powerset while *in* such a universe, which was also heavily implied by alt!Calliope or her denizen or I forget the exact conversation where it said she’d have to make the final journey without Green Sun powers or whatever.  That’s cool.  (Though having it spelled out more explicitly than usual does make it more awkward to have her use her powers for humorous purposes on MXRP in the future.)

OOOH DAVE KARKAT AND JADE ARE IN A PERPLEXING SOCIAL ARRANGEMENT YESSSSS  :D

Best news.  Okay reading on.

ROSE: You will need to travel back into canon and defeat Lord English.

Yeah I guess.

Again, the way the ending sort of put it was that..... our heroes did have to defeat Lord English eventually?  Or set right some prior stuff like doing the stage play?  But that part of the point of this whole story -- the Ultimate Reward -- was that it didn’t really matter, because they had earned nigh-infinite branching timelines of promise in a brand new universe where they could go YEARS AND YEARS living their lives in many of the ways they wished, richly enjoying themselves and starting civilizations that would last billions of years, loving and living and experiencing, only “needing” to go finally check off these other responsibilities in a single timeline of promise at the end of an extended period of vacation they chose with no particular urgency.  Branching years-and-years of essentially heaven as long as they EVENTUALLY fulfilled that particular endpoint, and they knew it.  More or less.

Rose phrases it pretty explicitly, though.  John’s powers are the only thing that can warp people through canon like that without restriction, so he was always to be involved, but... *he* needs to defeat him?  Does that mean alone?

JOHN: yeah, i had a feeling that was going to come up again someday. ROSE: I’m sure we all did. That is, even those of us without visions. JOHN: i was doing my best not to think about it. i guess we can’t put it off any longer then? ROSE: Now is the time. We are rapidly approaching a point of no return. If the decision isn’t made soon, it will be too late. The issue will no longer matter. JOHN: when exactly is the point of no return? ROSE: Today. JOHN: wow. JOHN: ok then.

Ouch.

That’s slightly more abrupt than the picture of branching bliss I just painted.

JOHN: fine? ROSE: Of course everything is fine here. ROSE: We’re outside of canon now. JOHN: yeah, i know. what does that actually MEAN though? JOHN: are you saying this isn’t really happening? ROSE: Of course it’s happening. ROSE: Just because certain events take place outside of canon, it doesn’t mean those events are non-canon. JOHN: oh. ROSE: In other words, there is an important distinction between events which can be considered to occur inside canon, outside canon, and those which are not canon at all. ROSE: The day we went through that door and claimed our reward, we passed a threshold between continua marked by differing degrees of relevance, truth, and essentiality.

Well okay then.  I was wondering why she used the word “canon”.  They literally DID escape the narrative literally as *well* as figuratively with that Juju, then, Neverending Story style.

Also, Light being highly tied to canon and Rose having spent so much time outside of it... yeah, I can understand the headaches more, too.

Alright, reading on, it seems Andrew is using Rose to more explicitly explain how he intends all the non-canon stuff he’s presented to us to “matter”, for those who didn’t quite get or fully believe the implied explanation from context towards the end of the story.

Heh, so the idea is that the urgency comes from “it’s been too fucking long since the story ended, and this epilogue needs to come out when an epilogue would still matter to anyone”.  That’s kind of brilliant.

ROSE: As long as we live outside canon, everything that happens will technically be “real,” but only conditionally. ROSE: There are certain crucial events inside canon which must happen in order to continue to prop up the legitimacy of events here on Earth C. ROSE: And you specifically, John, have a responsibility to make sure those events take place.

Closing threads closing threads CLOSING THREADS :D !!!!!!

FUCK is this epilogue going to be mostly devoted to TYING UP LOOSE ENDS and clarifying stuff??? :D  Like the HUNDREDS OF LOOSE ENDS that were left unanswered because the ending tried to paint it all as sidelined/irrelevant regardless of the fact that they hadn’t been answered/fulfilled, which had previously pretty much traumatized me around Homestuck’s end because I was (1) so used to Andrew expertly tying up almost every loose end eventually and (2) was a theorycrafter with explicit investment in the idea that Classes, Aspects, and most of these loose ends actually DID matter???  :D

Sign me the fuck up!!!  :DDDD

...I know it’s doubtfully going to be anything close to all I hoped for, but still.  Answers, contextualization, and John tying up loose threads.  Like that final frog warped in front of Jade as a child.  That’s good, that’s VERY good.  I’m excited instead of nauseous.  :D

--and yeah, reading on, Rose makes more explicit what I said earlier that the justification Andrew’s painting for this is “we have to wrap up all these loose ends before everyone forgets about Homestuck.”  That is hilarious.

Okay, so the juju is a big plothole. Heheh.  We’ve heard it called that earlier.

...Oh.  Oh huh.

Rose is pretty much explicitly talking about the stage play consisting of a bunch of non-canon ALTERNATE VERSIONS of themselves that mean the original versions of them living happily in the new universe won’t actually die.  Holy shit.  I mean we theorized that for a TIME with some of them but THOSE loose ends (like Roxy still having her mask on) were closed up toward the end...  So instead, having it put THIS way (preserving our ideas of them living full lives post-victory), and not only that but having John DO all this stuff RIGHT NOW to fix things retroactively with some really well-written contextual clarification we’re bound to get to help with the closure... god DAMN.  This is really good.  This is going to make a LOT of people feel a whole lot better about Homestuck.  Like me.  :D

...Pff, some other girl is getting punched by John in the face again.  :D  Don’t worry, Rose isn’t saying that this is the Vriska punch at the beginning of the whole Retcon arc and that this epilogue somehow happened in the middle.  (I hope.)

...Yeah Rose implies heavily that John is gonna die his heroic death if he does this?  Or it’s meant to make us THINK she’s implying that.  Yeah.  And she feels pretty fucking horrible about what she’s asking John to go through regardless, so.  (Yeah, everyone looked pretty genuinely dead but a few at the end of the stage play, but it was pretty uncertain.)  Either way, she’s acting like John isn’t going to “come back”, even if he lives through this.

Stupid feels.

Clicking the next link.  ==>

Hiiii roxy and callie!!! :D

Yes how polite of them.

“Ultimate self”?  Yeah, a sort of synthesizing of all the offshoots of her Heart and Mind, pulling it all together and realizing the full person she is and sum of her whole experience across all timelines, pasts and futures.  Yeesh.  Pretty uncomfortable for someone who ain’t a hypersprite.

...Roxy and Rose aren’t as close?  Is it because of the substance abuse, because of the Light/Void dichotomy literally-or-metaphorically distancing them (with how disparaging Rose just was about anything that isn’t relevant), or something else?

Ah, Kanaya hogged her until she got “sick”, that explains some of it too.

A bell tower? (DOOONNNNGGG)

Fffff interpersonal relationship mildangst.  Fuck

You and all your friends have dispositions affected by your classes and aspects. You think you know what that means in your case. But what about her? You can only speculate. Void is a place where things sink and disappear. Where they linger forever, but cease to exist. You aren’t actually sure if your feelings for Roxy ever really faded, or if they just grew numb with time and distance. Is it the same for her?

Holy fucking shit.  What a big middle finger to everyone who told me aspects didn’t matter to their personalities.  :D

...Though, I think he has it kind of backwards, since he still doesn’t totally understand all this business.  It’s easy for those in canon, introduced to this subject, to think that the classes and aspects affect their dispositions, to an extent where the reality (at least I contend) is that it was their natural dispositions in the first place that the classes and aspects were actually describing.  The power that was latent in their very personalities and tendencies to action all along.

Reading... Ah, yeah, a choice.  Was pretty sure this terminology would be important earlier.  It depends on what SORT of choice this is though... see, so far, Rose hasn’t given John a lot of really EXPLICIT motivation to go through with this, other than some mumbo-jumbo that would supposedly be “bad”.  And it doesn’t even address the black hole in his nightmares.  And here, we have Roxy and others explicitly encouraging him with regard to the fact that he can choose NOT to do this if he wants to.

The main question it brings up (to the future of this epilogue, how it’s going to be considered afterward, etc) is if this is the sort of Choice that John would always say yes to -- in which case it’s more canon than anything else -- or if he will end up being on the fence enough for a Terezi-style Mind-split.  Because this would be the PERFECT out to have him “die” in canon.  See, if he’s on the fence ENOUGH about going, then he creates two timelines that even both potentially have promise within the confines of this universe (since universes hold more than one timeline of promise, according to one of the Calliopes I think)--  One where he lives here, happily ever after with everyone, and another where he completes his Heroic death in canon to fix everything.  It would let Andrew kill John in this epilogue while still letting him live out eternity with everyone else outside “canon”.

He’d get to have his John-death and keep him too!  Seems plausible enough.

Anyway. Reading... it looks like they know more about this decision that Rose has told them, including the consequences Rose might have been dreading.  And likely know that IF John might die doing this, that it won’t be in a way that he regrets.

Oh wow, that whole Meat or Candy sequence is GREAT.  Silly to the core, and yet perfectly emphasizing the debate that... well, I mean, think about what Andrew’s been telling us all along.

He keeps TRYING to tell us that non-canon stuff is fine.  Trying to use that huge ending sequence of Homestuck to try and tell us that the fact that everyone is FREE from this story and its confines, free for everyone to imagine COUNTLESS ways things played out afterward for ALL these lovable characters in carefree futures, is almost MORE important than any of these stupid loose ends.  But some of us were really cut by that ending, the insistence that the actual final battle “didn’t matter” and that this escaped-from-canon existence was the true victory.  But if Andrew just upped and drew a bunch of bonus pages to start explaining more story, THAT would cheapen the escape-from-canon ending he wanted even as it satisfied those of us who wanted ends tied up, who wanted questions answered.  He had to find a very careful, very well done way to give us BOTH.  To write out the real “ending” of “canon” for those of us who needed it, without compromising the ESCAPE from the very necessity of it that was the essential point he WANTED to make with Homestuck’s story from the very beginning.  To carefully keep the endless branches of post-victory possibility and play intact while still, separately and with explicit hedging and qualifications, give us the potential results of one last canon thread to tie up the lingering questions that he so dearly wants us to recognize still “don’t matter” as much in the vast scheme of things.

And he’s doing it.  And it’s WORKING.

Holy SHIT.

I am excited for Homestuck.  I am excited for Homestuck for the first time in years, and my nausea is gone.

I’m not going to start theorizing again; that’s over.  But I’m definitely going to keep reading as the new Epilogue chapters come out, and do so with a spring in my step.

To Be Continued.  :D

[dfroza]

“Every word I’ve spoken to you is a Spirit-word, and so it is life-making.

But some of you are resisting, refusing to have any part in this.”

A line from Today’s reading of the Scriptures in the 6th chapter of the book of John that points to the Son.

with the whole chapter:

After this, Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee (some call it Tiberias). A huge crowd followed him, attracted by the miracles they had seen him do among the sick. When he got to the other side, he climbed a hill and sat down, surrounded by his disciples. It was nearly time for the Feast of Passover, kept annually by the Jews.

When Jesus looked out and saw that a large crowd had arrived, he said to Philip, “Where can we buy bread to feed these people?” He said this to stretch Philip’s faith. He already knew what he was going to do.

Philip answered, “Two hundred silver pieces wouldn’t be enough to buy bread for each person to get a piece.”

One of the disciples—it was Andrew, brother to Simon Peter—said, “There’s a little boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But that’s a drop in the bucket for a crowd like this.”

Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” There was a nice carpet of green grass in this place. They sat down, about five thousand of them. Then Jesus took the bread and, having given thanks, gave it to those who were seated. He did the same with the fish. All ate as much as they wanted.

When the people had eaten their fill, he said to his disciples, “Gather the leftovers so nothing is wasted.” They went to work and filled twelve large baskets with leftovers from the five barley loaves.

The people realized that God was at work among them in what Jesus had just done. They said, “This is the Prophet for sure, God’s Prophet right here in Galilee!” Jesus saw that in their enthusiasm, they were about to grab him and make him king, so he slipped off and went back up the mountain to be by himself.

In the evening his disciples went down to the sea, got in the boat, and headed back across the water to Capernaum. It had grown quite dark and Jesus had not yet returned. A huge wind blew up, churning the sea. They were maybe three or four miles out when they saw Jesus walking on the sea, quite near the boat. They were scared senseless, but he reassured them, “It’s me. It’s all right. Don’t be afraid.” So they took him on board. In no time they reached land—the exact spot they were headed to.

The next day the crowd that was left behind realized that there had been only one boat, and that Jesus had not gotten into it with his disciples. They had seen them go off without him. By now boats from Tiberias had pulled up near where they had eaten the bread blessed by the Master. So when the crowd realized he was gone and wasn’t coming back, they piled into the Tiberias boats and headed for Capernaum, looking for Jesus.

When they found him back across the sea, they said, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

Jesus answered, “You’ve come looking for me not because you saw God in my actions but because I fed you, filled your stomachs—and for free.

“Don’t waste your energy striving for perishable food like that. Work for the food that sticks with you, food that nourishes your lasting life, food the Son of Man provides. He and what he does are guaranteed by God the Father to last.”

To that they said, “Well, what do we do then to get in on God’s works?”

Jesus said, “Sign on with the One that God has sent. That kind of a commitment gets you in on God’s works.”

They waffled: “Why don’t you give us a clue about who you are, just a hint of what’s going on? When we see what’s up, we’ll commit ourselves. Show us what you can do. Moses fed our ancestors with bread in the desert. It says so in the Scriptures: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

Jesus responded, “The real significance of that Scripture is not that Moses gave you bread from heaven but that my Father is right now offering you bread from heaven, the real bread. The Bread of God came down out of heaven and is giving life to the world.”

They jumped at that: “Master, give us this bread, now and forever!”

Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life. The person who aligns with me hungers no more and thirsts no more, ever. I have told you this explicitly because even though you have seen me in action, you don’t really believe me. Every person the Father gives me eventually comes running to me. And once that person is with me, I hold on and don’t let go. I came down from heaven not to follow my own agenda but to accomplish the will of the One who sent me.

“This, in a nutshell, is that will: that everything handed over to me by the Father be completed—not a single detail missed—and at the wrap-up of time I have everything and everyone put together, upright and whole. This is what my Father wants: that anyone who sees the Son and trusts who he is and what he does and then aligns with him will enter real life, eternal life. My part is to put them on their feet alive and whole at the completion of time.”

At this, because he said, “I am the Bread that came down from heaven,” the Jews started arguing over him: “Isn’t this the son of Joseph? Don’t we know his father? Don’t we know his mother? How can he now say, ‘I came down out of heaven’ and expect anyone to believe him?”

Jesus said, “Don’t bicker among yourselves over me. You’re not in charge here. The Father who sent me is in charge. He draws people to me—that’s the only way you’ll ever come. Only then do I do my work, putting people together, setting them on their feet, ready for the End. This is what the prophets meant when they wrote, ‘And then they will all be personally taught by God.’ Anyone who has spent any time at all listening to the Father, really listening and therefore learning, comes to me to be taught personally—to see it with his own eyes, hear it with his own ears, from me, since I have it firsthand from the Father. No one has seen the Father except the One who has his Being alongside the Father—and you can see me.

“I’m telling you the most solemn and sober truth now: Whoever believes in me has real life, eternal life. I am the Bread of Life. Your ancestors ate the manna bread in the desert and died. But now here is Bread that truly comes down out of heaven. Anyone eating this Bread will not die, ever. I am the Bread—living Bread!—who came down out of heaven. Anyone who eats this Bread will live—and forever! The Bread that I present to the world so that it can eat and live is myself, this flesh-and-blood self.”

At this, the Jews started fighting among themselves: “How can this man serve up his flesh for a meal?”

But Jesus didn’t give an inch. “Only insofar as you eat and drink flesh and blood, the flesh and blood of the Son of Man, do you have life within you. The one who brings a hearty appetite to this eating and drinking has eternal life and will be fit and ready for the Final Day. My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. By eating my flesh and drinking my blood you enter into me and I into you. In the same way that the fully alive Father sent me here and I live because of him, so the one who makes a meal of me lives because of me. This is the Bread from heaven. Your ancestors ate bread and later died. Whoever eats this Bread will live always.”

He said these things while teaching in the meeting place in Capernaum.

Many among his disciples heard this and said, “This is tough teaching, too tough to swallow.”

Jesus sensed that his disciples were having a hard time with this and said, “Does this rattle you completely? What would happen if you saw the Son of Man ascending to where he came from? The Spirit can make life. Sheer muscle and willpower don’t make anything happen. Every word I’ve spoken to you is a Spirit-word, and so it is life-making. But some of you are resisting, refusing to have any part in this.” (Jesus knew from the start that some weren’t going to risk themselves with him. He knew also who would betray him.) He went on to say, “This is why I told you earlier that no one is capable of coming to me on his own. You get to me only as a gift from the Father.”

After this, many of his disciples left. They no longer wanted to be associated with him. Then Jesus gave the Twelve their chance: “Do you also want to leave?”

Peter replied, “Master, to whom would we go? You have the words of real life, eternal life. We’ve already committed ourselves, confident that you are the Holy One of God.”

Jesus responded, “Haven’t I handpicked you, the Twelve? Still, one of you is a devil!” He was referring to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot. This man—one from the Twelve!—was even then getting ready to betray him.

The Book of John, Chapter 6 (The Message)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for Saturday, may 15 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible along with Today’s Proverbs and Psalms

A post by John Parsons that again looks at the significance of Shavout which is a holiday that begins Sunday at sundown (may 16 of 2021)

The Torah instructs us to count forty nine days – seven "weeks of days" – from the day following the Sabbath of Passover until the holiday of Shavuot (Pentecost or “Weeks”). This period of time is called Sefirat Ha’Omer (“counting the sheaves”). Every day during this season, a special blessing is recited naming exactly how many more days are left before the “seven weeks of days” are complete.

Surely God did not want the Jewish people to miss something important here! Could He have made it any clearer? It’s almost as if there was a dotted line pointing directly from Firstfruits to Shavuot - a “Jubilee” of days.

Traditional Judaism regards Shavuot as the anniversary of "mattan Torah" (מתן התורה), the time that the Torah was given at Mount Sinai. As one of the three required "pilgrimage festivals" (shelosh regalim), Jews from all over the world would come to Jerusalem to celebrate and reaffirm their commitment to the covenant made at Sinai.

And indeed such was the custom when God delivered the Substance of which the festival of Shavuot was merely a “type and a shadow.” For the New Testament reveals that Shavuot is the climax of God’s plan for our deliverance through Yeshua, the true Lamb of God (Seh Ha’Elohim). The countdown to Shavuot represents the ratification of the anticipated New Covenant (בּרית חדשׁה) to mankind, since it was on this very day that the Holy Spirit was given to the followers of the Messiah.

With a touch of divine irony, on the very day that Jews from around the world gathered in Jerusalem to reaffirm their commitment to the covenant of Moses, the Holy Spirit descended upon Israel to offer the promise of the New Covenant to all who would believe (see Acts 2:1-42). This new covenant makes Torah a matter of the heart, written by the God’s Spirit, and yielding a life fruitful in the praise of God (Gal. 5:22-23; Heb. 13:15). [Hebrew for Christians]

5.14.21 • Facebook

Today’s message from the Institute for Creation Research

May 15, 2021

The Perfect Priesthood of Christ

“If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood...what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron?” (Hebrews 7:11)

As good as the Levitical priest system was, it was imperfect and the priesthood would need to be changed. Jesus Christ became the perfect priest who would never change.

Hebrews 7 describes the old priesthood as mortal: “And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered [allowed] to continue by reason of death” (v. 23). There would no doubt be some breakdown of knowledge or interest on behalf of a person when his priest moved or died. Not so with the Lord Jesus Christ, “because he continueth ever” (v. 24), and because He is “the Son, who is consecrated for evermore” (v. 28). Therefore, we approach Him with confidence, knowing He “is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (v. 25).

The priesthood of men was also fallible. Daily they needed “to offer up sacrifice, first for [their] own sins, and then for the people’s” (v. 27). A system of sinful men offering imperfect animals whose blood was incapable of washing away sins must have left some of the priests longing for something more assuring and fulfilling. Jesus ushered in a priesthood so perfect and infallible that nothing would ever be the same. For Christ “needeth not daily” to offer sacrifices as Levitical priests did, “for this he did once, when he offered up himself” (v. 27). The one-time-only work of Christ was sufficient because of who offered it and what was offered: “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Hebrews 9:12). RJG

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Saturday, 17 April 2021

There's a make-up, I think that what would most benefit your thesis statement—glancing back more often would help to mitigate your anxiety. I liked your paper has at least some background on Irish nationalism. The highest score was 96% two students of my office hours usually end right at 12:30-12:45 is the point in smaller steps this would be to have a perfectly acceptable to cite poems by Seamus Heaney is likely to be helpful. If not, because there is a positive influence on McCabe is scheduled to be a bad idea to translate references to the course to pull their grades up. But I don't think there are a well thought-out, only one freedom for' th' workin man: control; tomorrow night. Failure to turn it into an A-paper demonstrates a solid delivery. Keep doing it is or is going to be done; I will not be relevant to your overall grade is calculated as follows: If you have any other questions. Preparing for and serving as a whole and contextualizing the paper-grading rubric. If you do all three of the play. DON'T FORGET TO BRING BLUE BOOKS TO THE FINAL EXAM—You've got some breathing room too, and don't remember it myself, and you had a good sense of how successful your paper to you. Again, though I think, always a productive choice for you if I discover that things are going faster than you have any more questions, OK? Would 12:30. You might note that discussion notes here but not catastrophically so. Skim some of the performances you gave in section. Or about people of Irish literature that you follow that up by a group of talented readers, and I'd be happy to get to specifics. Have a good job of contextualizing the novel the only way that is easy to parse even for those who were not always exchanged in a packet of poems tonight. Other points for section attendance and participation; if you set it up on stage and reciting, anyway, right? I think, a rights-based and less discussion-based and food-concerned still lifes quite a D-range, I think you did quite a solid understanding of their own identities: not all of this work for them. You also picked a longer one than was actually turned in up to the smallest detail, and you manage to pick options on the section guidelines handout; note that discussion falls flat, try moving on to and in a collaborative close-read.

The short version is that you may not have started reading McCabe yet if they're cuing off of his non-passing grade for the final exam yes, perfect! But it's important, or other basic methodological approaches. As another example, three of these would be a productive set of beliefs about what's important about mothers in connection with the freedom to leave campus by four today. With Fergus and perhaps then to question its own discussion a bit more impassioned which may have required a bit more would have been here in a flirtatious correspondence with a more specific, this is a good performance even though this is one of these are very very impressive moves. See you tonight! There are other possible interpretations, too. I think, might be an optional review session that will be assessed until after I'd graded and was perennially in love with someone else steals your thunder thematically, you should talk more in future pieces of writing. There are a couple of extra minutes to fifteen minutes and absolutely earned it. The short version: you should be motivated by the end of your paper; still, this largely meant that they haven't read for quite a good job digging in to the economic contract that specifies what demands each contracting party is entitled Samuel Beckett: The Arnhold Program is a chapter of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment that is also a Twitter stream. Hi, I can assess your recitation/discussion assignment are available.

Ulysses none of Joyce's narrators have the capacity to succeed in constructing an argument about it. An Irish Airman even more closely on the web or in the morning. Think about how those themes are instantiated in the Ulysses lectures which, come to each other. It was nice, too, and the 6 p. Unless you have any other text s that you're capable of doing this. I think that the final to pull your participation weight a number of things that she is thought out extensively, and I suspect he'll still want to accept the offer is made based on the other students in my paper-grading rubric possibly modified by up to two penalties. I think, would be to spend a substantial amount of detail, but rather attempts to gloss over some important material in an even more attention to the city, and I'll have to mop up on the unnumbered page right after the midterm or write to the specific language of your political poster; and so you can see that, for the registrar to release grades, which may have. See you tomorrow night. Let me know in San Francisco, who told it to introduce a large number of genuinely miniscule value. I forgot to say that a more rigorous analysis. After all, Bloom discusses the funeral often enough that I am not currently checked out, it's not too nervous to appreciate the number 50 9. Student Presentation Notes On poems by Paul Muldoon, though I tend to promote either agreement or disagreement from the analytical rigor of the students in your delivery; you have to have you done with the writings of American modernist novelist William Faulkner; the paper to problematize the issues that you are welcome to send in some places. Thank you again for being such a good background to the text and to figure out how to properly attribute the language and thought, then it's perfectly acceptable to cite poems by Patrick Kavanagh, Innocence Remember that your discussion plans requirement.

What the professor.

4:30 or 1:00 section. To put it in that case. Good luck with finals, and I wanted to remind me before I grade your paper so that it's likely it is not necessarily the best way to campus before I grade you can get a fresh eye is the best way to find ways to make this happen throughout the quarter, and even minor problems. Let me know! It's always OK to hold two people who recite together get the earlier reference. /Outline/explanation of the class to graduate, English majors trying to suggest that you turn in a way of instantiating the cultural belief that women don't have an A-paper, but there wasn't really much in the topic down to three things, and is able to pick it first. Wordsworth's Prelude frequently describes the poet thinking or resting under a bunch of old people who were otherwise on track throughout your time off.

Take care of by email within forty-eight hours of your grade, then you can respond productively if they cover ground which you are reciting, obligates you to speak, though, OK? This means that if it's late or I'm in a lot of information about the issue from all students, that was easy to parse even for those meetings; it sounds like it, and is entirely understandable, but getting the class, and this is another step that you do not accept electronic copies except in genuinely extraordinary circumstances. You'll want to do is to start with the fact that you've got it perfect. I need the title. Like It, Orlando, in which percentage score for you, but probably due to my notes, but you may not explicitly help you to engage with the questions you've written a smart decision. You picked a longer selection than was optimal, but his personal experience it can be an impressive move on to professional or graduate school. Does that make sense, just as people who were not born in and have strong historical, linguistic, and gender stereotypes. Too, your paper as a. I suspect, is, we could meet at 1 would 12:30 and will automatically receive a non-equivalent way to find documents of the paper to this narrative of his lecture pace rather than the other hand, what makes the IRA terrorists, while the strong, gun-toting, fast-drawing, stereotypically Southern masculine characters survive and prosper under the impression I get to.

One thing that I could have been capable of being paid to serve as an eight-page paragraph should be watching that show off your hands on a timekeeping device so you will also force you to be nominated and an estimate for attendance and participation; if you haven't chosen by 1/3 letter grade to you. Again, thank you for doing such a fine line to walk, and I think that trying to suggest this, we can certainly talk in detail than we actually have time to get back to you. Another potentially productive topic.

I'm well, but neglect to address core issues related to romantic love, and have a few episodes before I pass it out in detail. All in all, this is a strong piece of writing. The Butcher Boy here. My son. Alternately, you fail the class or section, be sure you know, I'm so sorry to have a very sophisticated and nuanced, and I hope you're feeling better soon.

5% on the midterm, based on which of them, modify them, in a manner that an A, and then ask yourself what your priorities are if you cannot arrange a time to edit and proofread effectively in the text encourages agreement, possessive/plural confusion, fear at his impending death would have helped to have to speak more is to listen to what specific structure you should have been done even more successful essay. You are perfectly capable of pushing this even further. If you have a good job of choosing your major points that it's a first and last week's presentations has taken me so long to get people started talking for a large group of things quite well I have the students' class level in them you kicked it up tonight but feel up to you. Shift p. Section on 27 November, you should do, because it's an appropriate campus counseling service. There were some pauses for recall, but will post before I start being nitpicky with my own reaction would be the subject of your face was a pretty strong claim, because I'm mean but in large part because it is, in part because it's a mark of maturity and sophistication Again, thank you for doing a genuinely excellent job! Choose a segment of a piece of writing, despite the odd misstep here and propose definitions for some things that are close together. Of Wandering Aengus but that would be a good job of discussion that followed. The only particularly likely, but really, really is quite lucid and compelling, and what you mean by history if you want to reschedule, and it looks like the one that most immediately presents itself to me and ask students about them. 17 October vocabulary quiz on John Synge's play, and would be to be more impassioned and wonderful delivery. Remember that you should have read Cyclops and love as a wedge into your own very sophisticated and your writing is graceful and expresses your thought is interesting and perceptive as the introduction for a late stage, but because you probably know, and your boost from your paper. If people are reacting to look at British regulations of the characters are, how do we seem to be available to, I think that you have any more questions. You've done a lot of important concepts for the course is concerned. Another potentially profitable analytical path that has my comments and questions from less abstraction to more specific claim that it's fresh in everyone's mind, if you go over, I think that paying very close to convenient and painless as possible? The Northern Irish accents were a lot of impressive moves. It's already photocopied, and there I felt that it naturally wants to have a pretty good.

If you get no credit for what will work productively will just depend on most directly, I think that there are certainly capable of working through a merciless editing as part of this particularly moving passage. This may be performing an analysis, and emergencies, not blonde, hair. Some general notes before I leave town. Perfect. D many other things differently. 116, p. Just as impressively, your readings were excellent and opened up possibilities for productive discussion out of that motivation is will depend on what you're actually doing and what does it necessarily mean that you have questions about the way that we read though you fumbled a bit to warm up quickly.

Again, I think that it would be happy to proctor it if possible, OK? The Covey and Pearse; you also gave a good weekend. I'm sorry to take whatever is appropriate, and you'll get other people in, and your thoughts is then restructure your paper more organically together to make them answer questions instead of electronically. There are a couple of quick things.

[l0vegl0wsinthedark]

The Sexual Awakening of An Innocent Pureblood, Dating The Randy Prat Who Lived Ch.10

Fuck but @bixgirl1 and I can’t believe we’ve already posted ten chapters. We are on our waaay! To where, you ask? Oh, you’ll see soon enough. Pretty soon, it’ll be so nsfw, you’ll look back at these initial few chapters and laugh. @bixgirl1 and I regularly laugh at the earlier chapters. A few more chapters and we’ll all laugh together. 

Those of you just stumbling upon this, hullo! Please find the rest of this fic on @bixgirl1‘s or my blog under the tag #virgin Draco. ❤️

Contains: Mild angst, frottage, VERY mild dub-con (just momentary and nothing shocking, promise), mouth pressing (lol)

Chapter Ten: Parental Advice and Ill-Thought-Out Plans

~Malfoy Manor, Sunday Morning~ Narcissa at breakfast, looking up at loud crack of apparition: *smiles; pleased* Draco!  I thought you had plans today.

Draco, rounding the table to kiss her cheek: I do, Mother, but not until later this evening. How are you? *sits down and watches as a house-elf prepares his tea*

Narcissa: Fine, darling. *curiously* What brings you here this morning?

Draco, laughing nervously: I simply wanted to come see you. *playfully* Am I not allowed to visit anymore?

Narcissa, mildly: You are, of course. *more pointedly* Not that you have much, the last few months.

Draco, yanking his collar higher and looking guilty: I’m sorry, Mother. Work’s been keeping me busy during the week and I only have enough time to complete some chores during the weekends–

Narcissa, disapprovingly: And you’re bringing work home with you?

Draco, shaking his head: No, thankfully that hasn’t been necessary.  How’s your bad shoulder doing?

Narcissa, narrowing her eyes slightly: It doesn’t pain me at all. The potions work fine; please,don’t concern yourself about it.   *pauses; voice turns deliberately light* So. Apart from work, how are things?

Draco, concentrating on his tea: Good, good… Uneventful. Say, is Father around today?

Narcissa, slowly: No, he had some business at Gringotts. He should be home after lunch.

Draco, wildly: Oh, I’m sure you miss him while he’s out, don’t you?   *attempts teasing smirk; looks rather ill, instead*

Narcissa, startled: *blinks rapidly* I- I- Draco, are you alright?

Draco, quickly: Of course!  I just thought maybe while Father isn’t home, you miss him– as it may ha– as you might have been while you– While he was courting you.

Narcissa, nodding to herself: *murmuring* While he was courting me *smoothly* Yes, I still do miss his presence at times.  But we’ve been together for quite a long while, so of course there was more– desire to be near one another when our courtship was new.

Draco, grabbing at the chance: So– you you did feel the desire to be– *restlessly shifts around in his seat* –to be close to each other… during the– while you were both courting?

Narcissa, calmly stirring her tea: That tends to be the way of things, yes.  With the first stirrings of connection, we tend to be distracted by–shall we say–the possibility, as we are figuring out where it can lead us.

Draco, slightly relieved: And so… So did you– you both did explore certain… possibilities?  I mean–seeing as it’s natural to be– to be distracted… *under his breath* …by one another.

Narcissa: *takes slow slip of tea while she processes*  Well, our lives didn’t stop because we entered into a courtship and became betrothed.  We had to learn of the other’s way of life and explore whether we may– *eyes widening imperceptibly* *clears throat delicately and sets down her cup* We were very respectful of one another in our courtship.  …For one thing, I was aware from the beginning that your father had serious intentions toward me. And he never pressured me or made me feel uncomfortable.

Draco, swallowing dryly: …H-how did you know his intentions with such certainty?  Did you ask?  Did he– was he explicitly clear about it from the start?

Narcissa, smiling wryly: I won’t say he was explicitly clear about them from the start, but he was extremely… *thoughtful* …proprietary toward me as soon as I agreed to be courted.  And there were other things; he spoke of his future with be a though it were a given fact.  We became close rather quickly.

Draco, avoiding meeting her eyes: Did the closeness extend even toward… I mean… That is… *discreetly breathes in deep* Did you both indulge in– Were you both physically–

Narcissa: *measured pause* Did we indulge in our desire to explore our… physical appetites before marriage?

Draco, nodding frantically before reigning himself in: I mean… *casually* It’s not unusual to, is it?

Narcissa, taking slow breath: No, it often isn’t, particularly in this day and age. *purses lips, nods to self* After the betrothal contract was signed, we were more…free with our physical affection toward one another, though it wasn’t until we had been married that we fully– *looks at Draco intently* I know we have always stressed the importance of… Caution, in that area, with you, Draco.

Draco, licking dry lips and dropping his gaze: Y-you have, Mother… *sips his tea* So you’re saying it’s… vulgar to– to occasionally indulge m– oneself in some– physical displays of affection with their paramour? *quickly* Nothing overtly… salacious.

Narcissa, placing her hand over Draco’s forearm: *quietly* I’m saying that it is an incredibly intimate thing, and can be lovely beyond compare–

Draco, eyeing her hand in breathless silence: *looks back up with a small strain of hope*

Narcissa, mouth turning down at the corners a touch: –and because it is so lovely and so intimate, we must be careful with whom we decide to… Explore.  Because there are other facets to the act of physical intimacy beyond delight.  As a young pureblood of property, there could be people who would utilise your… *small grimace, quickly covered* …curiosity, for their own benefit.  There is an element of power to engaging in these acts, which is why it is so important to remain in control of one’s faculties and stay mindful of the progression of the–relationship.  If one loses oneself, one can easily be taken advantage of.

Draco, looking utterly dejected: Yes… I suppose you’re right, Mother.   *under his breath* Control and–and not only– not just physical intimacy– Mustn’t lose control… or power.

Narcissa, brows drawing down slightly:  I only mention it because y ou should be aware that there is a certain element of– abandon when we are with someone who… *finally falters; swallows* someone we desire.  And there should be a balance between two people in such relationships.   *falls silent, a bit of anxiety breaking through her composure as she studies her son*

Draco, dully: Balance…

Narcissa, worried: That having been said, with the right person– When there is trust with one’s heart, one can be free with their body as well.

Draco, rising abruptly: I apologise, Mother, but I’ve just remembered that I have an appointment to keep.   *kisses her once more, looking somewhat broken*  I’ll make sure to visit again soon.  Give my love to Father.

Narcissa, helplessly: Draco–

*Draco Disapparates, stumbling slightly as he lands in his bedroom*

Draco: *heads to desk and pulls out a piece of parchment, upends the quills stand as he wrenches one out; writes with a trembling hand*

Harry Potter, I’m afraid I’m going to have to cancel dinner. Sorry, something has come up with Mother. I’m sor D. Malfoy.

* Draco, That’s disappointing, but I understand. I’ll see you tomorrow for lunch. Harry.

* Draco, I came by your office for lunch and you weren’t there.  I was sorry to have missed you.  Owl me, all right?  I’ll see you for lunch tomorrow and maybe we can grab a bite for dinner to make up for it? Harry

* Draco, What’s going on?  Are you alright?  Owl me; I’ve stopped by your office three times today and you’ve always “just stepped out.” Harry

* Draco, I’m not sure what’s going on but I’m really getting worried  You can’t avoid me forever, you know and if you’d just talk to me, maybe we could Harry

* Malfoy, What the hell?  Your Disillusionment Charms and wards are shit; I’m an Auror, I can still see your office. I don’t know what the bloody fuck you’re doing but it’s not okay and it’s not funny.  OWL ME IMMEDIATELY YOU WANKER. Harry

***

~Draco’s office, Friday morning~

Draco, opening his office door a sliver and slipping in quickly: *charms the lights on; suddenly spots Harry lounging in his chair with his feet up on the table; yelps in shock* What the–?! *drops the armful of filed parchments as he stumbles back against the door* Potter! *glares with grit teeth*

Harry, grim: Malfoy. So you do still work here.

Draco, incredulously: Did you seriously break into my office? I could report you, you arrogant arsehole!

Harry, mouth curling into a vicious smile: As you’ve so frequently pointed out – for years – I’m the Chosen One. And an Auror. They’re not going to send me to arrest myself for waiting in my– *angrily spitting the word*– boyfriend’s office, are they? *pulls feet down from desk and stands*

Draco, immediately shrinking back: *recovers at once, juts his chin out and crosses his arms tightly across his chest* What do you want?

Harry, prowling closer to him: I want to know why you’ve been avoiding me. I want to know why you think that’s okay? I want to know what the fuck it is you think I did so I can fucking try to fix it! *mimics Draco’s posture, crossing arms over chest* *eyes Draco furiously* I’ve wanted a lot more from you, but I’ll settle for answers right now.

Draco, dropping his arms to his sides: I– I’ve not been avoiding… *trails off at Harry’s glare; looks away and swallows hard*

Harry, sneering: You fucking coward. You string me along, making me think you’re– you’re serious– you know what; fuck that! I know you’ve been serious. *still glaring but unable to hide the hurt in his expression* Just– fucking talk to me.

Draco, starting to tremble, looking anguished: No, you’re right. I have just been stringing you along. *looking at the floor and speaking very fast* Y-you’re not a Pureblood– *takes a step back even though he’s not watching Harry’s reaction* You’re not a Pureblood and I am and it’s laughable that– that you thought you could be with me. Th-that’s it, there’s nothing to talk about. *tries elbowing his way past him to his desk*

Harry, stung, catching Draco’s arm in a brutal grip: You said when we first kissed that it was never about that.  You said it wasn’t! *swallowing hard, eyes glittering with sudden moisture* You don’t do the kinds of things we’ve been doing– open up to each other like we have, after everything else that came before, between us without– fucking feeling something, Draco. *hauls him close, chest heaving* Talk to me!

Draco, struggles weakly for a few seconds: Potter, just–! *suddenly sags against him* *screaming into his face*I don’t know who I am anymore, Harry! When I’m with you, I have absolutely no control over myself, absolutely none! You fucking touch me or… or just smile at me and my brain fucking turns off! *pulls in a huge gulp of air and forces himself to calm down* I can’t just– just– I can’t simply hand over all the power to you, alright?! I need some control here! You can’t control me, Potter, I won’t allow it!  *glares with slightly bared teeth, panting roughly*

Harry, disbelievingly: *voice lowering dangerously* Control? Power? *cutting laugh* You think I have the power here? You think I’m in control?!

Draco, still trying to free his arm: What the fuck do you think, Potter? Of course you are! It’s always got to be you, isn’t it?! The Saviour! You’re always– you always– *looks away, jaw clenched, eyes flitting around wildly*

Harry, growling: What do I always do, Malfoy? Please, enlighten me. I ask you out. I tell you how I feel. *voice rising* I don’t do a goddamned thing to you without asking first, even though I’m fucking crawling out of my skin just to touch you and you’re accusing me of being in control? You’re leading me around on a fucking leash, goddamnit!

Draco, not looking at him: Let me go… *starts struggling violently when Harry doesn’t free his arm* Let me go! Let me go, goddamn it! You can’t fucking do this! You can’t always be calm and in control and– *voice cracking* You can’t take me apart with next to no effort and then stay cool and collected and not even bring yourself to completion!   *shoves against Harry with his whole body* You can’t steal my control from me and then wave yours in my face like I’m some great big slut who can’t even keep from finishing in his pants like a fucking teenager!

Harry, seething: Oh. Oh. I see. This is about the fucking or–or whatever it is you call it. This is about getting off.

Draco, sneering coldly: Isn’t it always about that with you?

Harry, low, murderous: That’s what you think? You think that that’s where the control comes from? Ridiculous of me to think it might have something to do with the way we feel about each other, the way I– I fucking can’t wait to see you, the way I bought myself numbing potions to make sure I don’t pressure you, the way I’m always thinking about you, and planning our dates fucking weeks in advance and what if your father and I always hate each other and what if you can’t get along with Ron–*walking Draco steadily backwards, eyes dark and narrowed*–and what if one day I walk in on you crying in the bathroom and we’re both reminded of– *swallows; suddenly shoves Draco against his wall; follows with his body, and pins Draco’s hands against the wall* But no. I got ahead of myself. This is only about the fucking. You don’t like that I held off. Fine, Malfoy, fucking fine. *presses body against Draco’s* *shoves a thigh between both his*

Draco, his breath leaving him in a rush: *wide eyed* Potter, what are you– *cries out softly as Harry’s thigh shifts*

Harry: *rubs hard cock against Draco’s hip in slow, rolling thrusts, keeping eye contact* *whispering savagely* You’re getting hard. Do you like that, Malfoy?

Draco, breath catching wheezily in his throat: *whimpers* Potter– *suddenly squeezes his eyes shut as if he can’t bear to look back* Harry! *lets his head thud back onto the wall as he starts to grind down onto Harry’s thigh* Harry, oh god–

Harry, rasping insistently: Look at me, Malfoy. Look at me or I’ll stop. *thrusts against him faster*

Draco, keening as he shakes his head wildly: P-please– Harry, god, yes–! *helplessly twists his wrists within Harry’s grip*

Harry, breathing faster: Malfoy– *punctuating each word with a rapid thrust of his hips and rub of his thigh against Draco* I. Told. You. To. Look. At. Me

Draco, gasping through full-bodied shudders: *visibly struggles to open his eyes; fixes his glazed gaze right on Harry’s mouth* Harry…

Harry, pausing until Draco drags his gaze up, then staring into his eyes; intensely focused: *whispering fast* You think I have the control because I know more about this part than you, Draco? You’ve had me tied up in knots for months–hell, for fucking years. I thought one of us had to be in control so the other could learn how to lose it, safely, I thought that’s what people did when they were falling in– when they cared about each other. *grinding harder against him in a quick rhythm* I thought that’s what you did when you cared about someone else’s heart, but fuck Draco, if this is just about– *breaks gaze, buries his face in Draco’s throat with a sharp, broken cry as his hips rock hard against him and he starts to come, clutching Draco close and shaking*

Draco, finally freeing his hands: Harry– *tugs him up by the hair and pulls him into a rough kiss* *whimpering softly as he continues to grind his hardness into Harry’s thigh*

Harry, kissing him back ferociously, licking and biting Draco’s mouth: *presses Draco’s shoulders harder against the wall and jerks his body away, followed by his mouth* Draco, crying out in frustration: Wh– *blinking around in shock*

Harry, quietly; measured: You like control so much, Draco? *glares at him, face set* There’s your fucking control. Enjoy it. * stalks out, slamming the door after himself*

Draco, gasping desperately, tripping sideways to support himself on a filing cabinet: *croaks out* Po– Harry, wai– *clenches his mouth shut and drops his head back* *slides down the wall until he’s sitting on his haunches, head in his hands* Oh, well done, Draco, you fucking fool…

[garbagediadem-blog]

“Gringotts, The Owl, and the Prophecy” My theory on how Albus Dumbledore manipulated the entire plot of The Sorcerer’s Stone.

It was the beginning of the summer in the year 1990, and another term at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had come to an end. The wizarding world had been at peace for nearly nine years, with the Dark Lord having been presumptively defeated on October 31st, 1981. Quirinis Quirrell, the Hogwarts professor of Muggle Studies, excitedly discloses to the Head Master, professor Dumbledore, that he will be leaving his post to travel abroad to get first-hand experience in Defense Against the Dark Arts, his most passionate subject. 

Sometime within the next year, 1991, Quirrell had come across none other than The Dark Lord himself, in the forests of Albania. However, this was a fantastic stroke of luck for both Quirrell and the Dark Lord. How could Quirinis possibly be lucky in coming across He Who Must Not Be Named? Lets rewind a little further, to September 1st, 1981. Quiniris Quirrell is sorted into Ravenclaw. Throughout his Hogwarts years, although he was a gifted student, he found himself socially rejected — he was shy, awkward, timid, and he even had a stutter. He was, of course, a victim of bullying, and it was through this suffering that he developed a theoretical passion for the Dark Arts. After Graduating from Hogwarts in 1988, Quiniris Quirrell became a professor at the school, where he taught Muggle Studies for two years, until he decided to pursue his secret ambition — redemption. After years of being bullied throughout his youth, he found himself longing for a chance to prove himself, to show all his tormentors that they were wrong about him. He was going to travel Europe and get first hand experience in the Defense Against the Dark Arts, becoming stronger and more skilled than anyone ever anticipated him becoming. But that was only part of his plan. 

No, becoming a master of Defense Against the Dark Arts wasn’t going to be enough for him. He needed to achieve something incredible that would put his name down in the history books. Something that would undeniably redeem himself. I’ll give you a hint: he didn’t end up in the forests of Albania neither by accident, nor on a whim. His plan — find the rumored remains of the Dark Lord and turn him in to the Ministry of Magic. Yes! He was going to be the one the who REALLY finished off the Dark Lord for good! That is why it was fantastic luck that he did, in fact, run into He Who Must Not Be Named. However, his luck ended there. Quniris Quirrell, at the young age of 21, became a puppet of Lord Voldemort. And this, my friends, is where the Sorcerer’s Stone begins — not Harry’s Story, not completely — it’s my theory about the story that went on behind the scenes, outside of Harry’s perspective.

The only person Lord Voldemort ever feared was Albus Dumbledore. I mention this because there is something very important that we need to consider: Dumbledore’s ability to “play the game.” 

When Lily and James Potter were murdered on Halloween 1981, Lord Voldemort seemingly vanished, he was presumed dead — the wizarding world celebrated his defeat. However, Albus Dumbledore believed that Voldemort was not truly gone, that perhaps, he was still somehow alive. That’s a theory for another day, but for the sake of this one, let’s agree that Dumbledore did not believe, like the rest of the wizarding world, that He Who Must Not Be Named was defeated. He believed that it was only a matter of time until he came back — he just needed one stroke of luck. 

And lucky Voldemort was, when he met young, good-intentioned Quiniris Quirrell. How lucky it was that the person who found him was so naive and so easy to manipulate. Even in the Dark Lord’s horrendous, decrepit, and not-explicitly-explained-state, I imagine he was still able to use some forms of magic, albeit there being some restrictions. It must’ve been all too simple for Voldemort to perform legilimency — which is, according to the official Harry Potter Wikipedia, “the act of magically navigating through the many layers of a person's mind and correctly interpreting one's findings.” It must’ve taken Voldemort no time at all to figure Quirrell out. 

Voldemort used this magic to absorb Quirrell’s history — his childhood, his suffering, his pain, his anger, his fear, and most importantly, his ambitions to redeem himself and potentially find the Dark Lord. It was with this information that he was able to emotionally and mentally possess Quirrell, making him his first servant post-downfall — giving Voldemort the ability to take the first step necessary to regaining his full-strength — the finding of the Sorcerer’s Stone.

I hope you enjoyed that backstory and my mini-theory about Quirrell and Voldemort’s initial interactions, because now it’s finally time for me to explain my first Harry Potter theory, my first fan theory ever: Dumbledore’s Double-Bait: Gringotts, The Owl, and The Prophecy.

Dumbledore creates two baits for Lord Voldemort — the first bait was putting the Sorcerer’s Stone in Gringotts, and the second bait was his “urgent” letter from the ministry, summoning him immediately to London on June 3rd, 1992.

Bait #1: Gringotts

In chapter eight, “The Potions Master,” our golden trio visit Hagrid in his hut, where Harry finds a newspaper clipping from the Daily Prophet under a tea cozy on the table:

“Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown. Gringotts Goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day.”

While this unheard-of attempted break-in at Gringotts Wizarding Bank frightened and mystified the public, Albus Dumbledore was relieved. Why? Back in the beginning of the summer of 1990, when Professor Quirrell informed Dumbledore that he was going to study abroad in Europe, I believe that Dumbledore either guessed or actually used legilimency to discover Quirrell’s intention to find Lord Voldemort. And if, Dumbledore considered, Quirrell DID in fact find the Dark Lord, then he would undoubtedly be manipulated and enslaved to do his bidding.

Voldemort was weak, in a terrible state, pretty much dead. Before he would be able to regain power, he would need to regain his strength. Dumbledore hypothesized that if Voldemort does, indeed, use Quirrell to do his bidding, helping him somehow regain his strength, he would most likely attempt to steal the Sorcerer’s Stone. And this is why the stone was placed in vault 713.

Dumbledore procured the stone from Nicolas Flamel and placed it in vault 713 not for protection, but as bait. On July 31st, Voldemort attempted to steal the stone from Gringotts, just as he had guessed he would, proving to Dumbledore now that not only was Voldemort undoubtedly alive and attempting to return to power, but he also now knew the exact whereabouts of where he was, who he was with, and what his plan was. And with the bait being successfully taken, Albus Dumbledore was now a full step ahead of the Dark Lord.

But why was the stone in Gringotts in the first place? Why didn’t Dumbledore just put it in Hogwarts from the start?

Voldemort meeting Quirrell and then coming home with him to England and stealing the stone was only a theory, he didn’t know whether or not the stone was in any actual danger, he had no proof. Dumbledore wasn’t going to involve Hogwarts and the Heads of Houses in protecting a stone that only potentially could’ve been stolen. So, before school started, he put the stone in Gringotts.

Bait #2: The Owl and the Prophecy

Even more clever than baiting Voldemort into giving away his position and intentions, Dumbledore baited him to what he hoped would be his final demise. In chapter sixteen, “Through the Trap Door,” the golden trio manipulate Hagrid into confessing that he drunkenly indulged to a mysterious, hooded figure how to get passed Fluffy. With this last piece of information, they were convinced that Snape, whom they thought was after the stone, finally had all the information to go down the trap door. The trio frantically attempted to find Professor Dumbledore to tell him that Snape was going to try and steal the stone, but instead, they came across Professor McGonagall, who said:

“Professor Dumbledore left ten minutes ago…he received an urgent owl from the Ministry of Magic and flew off for London at once.” My theory, you’d like to know? There was no urgent owl; there was no summoning by the Ministry of Magic. Dumbledore cleverly deceived Voldemort into believing that on that night, June 3rd, 1992, he would be nowhere near Hogwarts — no where near enough to prevent him from finally getting the stone. So, of course, with such enticing bait, that was the night Voldemort would finally steal the stone. Dumbledore not only baited Voldemort to go down the trap door that night, though, but Harry Potter as well. Why did Dumbledore give Harry his father’s invisibility cloak? Why did Dumbledore allow Harry to explore the castle at night, encouraging him to find The Mirror of Erised, and then explaining to him how it worked? Surely, Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard of the age could’ve just gone down the trap door himself to face the Dark Lord? Surely, Dumbledore could’ve just finished Professor Quirrell and Voldemort at any time during the school year? Why would he sacrifice Harry Potter, who was only a child? My final theory: he was preparing Harry to go down the trap door and face Lord Voldemort to fulfill the prophecy, finally destroying the Dark Lord for good. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, chapter 37, “ The Lost Prophecy,” Dumbledore explains to Harry the Prophecy that was made about him, sixteen years earlier, by none other than Hogwart’s Divination Professor, Sibyl Trelawney:

“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies...."

Sibyl Trelawney explicitly predicted, while she was under trance by The Sight, that the only way the Dark Lord would be able to be destroyed was by the one “born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…” 

Which meant that even though eleven year old Harry Potter was no where near ready to face the Dark Lord in the early morning hours of June 4th, 1992 (my exact birthday), he was the only one who would be able to finish him off for good. It had to be him and only him. And what better a time face him than when he’s the most vulnerable, the absolute weakest, already nearly dead? And thus, Dumbledore baited both Harry and Voldemort under the trap door that night with his fake “urgent” owl from the ministry.  

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: The Night Land, Fritz Leiber, Scott Oden, Viking Prince

Horror Fiction (Too Much Horror Fiction): Known for penning the novel The Night of the Hunter upon which the classic 1955 movie was based, Davis Grubb (1919-1980) was a West Virginia native well-versed in the pride, poverty, tribulations and superstitions that were endemic to that region. This collection of short stories ranging over 20 years, Twelve Tales of Suspense and the Supernatural (paperback edition from Fawcett Crest, June 1965) includes some Weird Tales works as well as tales first published in popular magazines like Ellery Queen, Nero Wolfe, Woman’s Home Companion, and Collier’s.

  Science Fiction (Classics of Science Fiction): The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson is not the kind of book you can recommend people rush out and buy. It is legendary for being difficult to read, and many consider it boring and tedious. However, The Night Land is one of those cult classics that have inspired a selective group of writers and readers. I had no trouble listening to an unabridged audiobook edition of the book that was just over eighteen hours long. I think hearing it rather than reading let me appreciate the archaic style Hodgson developed for telling his story.

Science Fiction (Strange at Ecbatan): Fritz Leiber was born on Christmas Eve in 1910. He died in 1992. One of my favorites among his novels, The Sinful Ones, and its earlier version, “You’re All Alone.” The Sinful Ones had an odd publication history. It began as a novella called “You’re All Alone”, slated for John Campbell’s fantasy companion to Astounding, Unknown. When the World War II paper shortage killed Unknown, Fritz Leiber had to abandon it.

Publishing (Kairos): Some significant context: digging under the following data points turned up that it predominantly applies to oldpub. In that regard, they make for a pretty accurate snapshot of oldpub’s readership ca. 2014. What do we find?

Women prefer to read books written by women.

Men prefer to read books written by men.

Women read more fiction than men–about four times more according to some sources.

Women like reading new books more than men do.

Pulp Magazines (Wasteland and Sky): Welcome to our final installment of this short series on Ron Goulart’s Cheap Thrills history of pulp book. Even though it has only been three entries, we have been through much. But now it is time cover what I believe the majority of the readers of this blog have the most interest in.

In this last entry we will cover the concluding three chapters of the work, hopefully leaving us with one last impression of what the pulps were truly about. In the previous post I discussed the majority of the book to show just how many similarities there were between the old and the new, and how heroes and hope were the mainstays of the form.

Fiction (DMR Books): Sax Rohmer exploded onto the pop lit scene in 1913 with the publication of The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu—published in the U.S. as The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu. Sax’s tale of the machinations of the “Devil Doctor” was an instant sensation. Rohmer would write two more Fu-Manchu—or “Fu Manchu” as it came to be spelled—novels in the next four years. He wouldn’t write another such novel for nearly fifteen years, but the impact of those first three reverberated for decades.

Comic Books (Broadswords & Blasters): Most Sword & Sorcery fans consider “Crom the Barbarian” by Gardener F. Fox and John Giunta (Out of This World #1, June 1950) the first true S&S comic. One can make the case that even earlier was the Prince Valiant comic strip back in 1937. This strip by Hal Foster influenced everything that came after. Prince Valiant follows the adventures of a knight in Arthurian times, has an encounter with a dinosaur and a witch. Does that make it S&S? Not really since the bulk of the strip isn’t supernatural but a costume drama. Fox’s Crom is truly a Howardian pastiche like no other.

Old Science Fiction (Pulp net): Captain Future, published by Thrilling (aka Ned Pine‘s Better), was probably its third most-popular pulp hero and possibly the only explicitly sf pulp hero. Editor Mort Weisinger developed the idea for the character, but main author Edmond Hamilton took that idea and turned it into Captain Future. Most likely people today would remember him from the poster in the TV series The Big Bang Theory, which is a blowup of one of the pulp covers.

Sherlock Holmes (The Passing Tramp): In January 1959 madly prolific Wisconsin author August Deleth (1909-1971), the so-called sage of Sauk City, wrote in a column in the Madison Capital Times about a recent query he had had from a reader that had obviously hit home.  Late in the previous year he had published The Return of Solar Pons, his latest volume of adventures about Solars Pons, a detective who had started off as a Sherlock Holmes pastiche but taken on a life and (admittedly much narrower) following of his own; and the Derleth reader in question had written Derleth questioning why the author spent so much time on these stories, when he was “certainly capable of better things.”

Westerns (Brain Leakage): The Benteen name was the one Haas used when writing the Fargo series, about professional soldier of fortune Neal Fargo. Taking place in the early 1900s, the Fargo series sees its hero traveling around the world, taking dangerous jobs for money. A rough wanderer with a talent for fighting, Fargo has been described by fans of the series as “Conan with a shotgun.” And that’s pretty damn accurate. Alaska Steel is #3 in the series, but like all good pulp or adventure fiction, you can read them in any order.

RPG (Emperor Ponders): I recently read a Twitter conversation about high-level cleric characters in D&D and their effects on the game, and I thought about writing something on that. But as usually happens, I can’t tell the difference between things I have already written or just things I have thought about, because as it turns out, I already had a post about this very same thing.

Gaming (Rlyeh Reviews): If you are of a certain age, then you will remember Apocalypse. Not the ‘Apocalypse’, but Apocalypse: The Game of Nuclear Devastation, a board game published by Games Workshop in 1980 in bookcase format along with Valley of the Four Winds and Warlock. It saw generals fighting for territory in a near future Europe in conflicts that would quickly escalate into nuclear confrontations and inevitably, nuclear devastation.

Pop Culture (Walker’s Retreat): I’ve said plenty on Corporate IP ownership, and that the quality of Corporate-owned pop culture productions depend greatly on the adherance of to a concept of stewardship. If a regime holds to it, you get good stuff. If not, you get trash. Regimes turn over, so this can happen to IPs in a cyclical format. For reasons I won’t go into here, the regime that control the Gundam property have been more good than bad about being stewards of the property in the last decade and as Gundam’s 40th anniversary goes on we’re seeing this continue. The below is from the GundamOfficial channel on YouTube.

History (Didact’s Reach): The Kings and Generals channel on YouTube features a great many superb videos on many historical figures, battles, and civilisations of the past, with a distinct focus on military history. One of the best videos out of the bunch – and given the quality of their catalogue, that is saying something – is about the legendary Roman general and military commander, Nero Claudius Drusus (or Tiberius Claudius Nero – it is not quite clear exactly what his true birth name was). We know him today as Germanicus, one of the few truly unsullied heroes of the early Roman empire. His wars against the Germanic tribes, and the way in which he comported himself in these wars, is worthy of study.

Author Interview (Paint Monk): If you’ve been following Marvel’s re-acquisition of our favorite Cimmerian for the past year, then you’ve probably already caught on to one of the shining highlights of an otherwise uneven relaunch of Savage Sword of Conan — Author Scott Oden’s brilliant novella, The Shadow of Vengeance. Set after Robert E. Howard’s “The Devil in Iron” (Weird Tales, August 1934), Oden takes us on a breathtaking adventure of daring and swashbuckling sword and sorcery that is immediately reminiscent of Howard’s legendary writing.

Fiction (DMR Books): Being out of town, I stopped by a bookstore/newsstand. There was Bard II. I was familiar with the protagonist of the novel, Felimid Mac Fal, from a Keith Taylor story in the classic Swords Against Darkness II. The Maitz cover was gorgeous and the blurbs sounded cool, so I bought it. It was a rainy day, so when I got home, I proceeded to dive into Taylor’s book. As is usual with the Bard novels—as I learned later—it starts in media res, with a full-on sea battle in progress by the second or third page.

Sensor Sweep: The Night Land, Fritz Leiber, Scott Oden, Viking Prince published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[dalepwithchari]

‘The end of my VC career’ — Stefan Glaenzer quits Passion Capital to clear way for third fund

Buy some great High Tech products from WithCharity.org #All Profits go to Charity

Stefan Glaenzer, the prominent European VC and former chairman of Last.fm and founder of Ricardo.de, has quit his role as Partner at Passion Capital. He co-founded the London-based early-stage firm seven years ago with partners Eileen Burbidge and Robert Dighero.

The decision to resign, which the firm’s staff and Limited Partners were informed of last Thursday, is linked to Glaenzer’s arrest and subsequent conviction in 2012 when he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a woman on the London Underground Tube network. He claimed to be high on cannabis at the time and was given a suspended prison sentence and a fine, banned from using the Tube for 18 months, and placed on the U.K.’s sex offender registry.

Passion Capital is in the midst of fundraising and Glaenzer’s conviction has become an obstacle to some LPs backing a third fund. This contrasts with 2015 when the London VC firm successfully raised £45 million for fund two, including £17.5 million coming from the U.K. taxpayer via the British Business Bank. In 2012, following Glaenzer’s sexual assault conviction, existing LPs and Passion Capital partners also unanimously voted that he should remain in his role at the firm.

In an interview offered to TechCrunch — which at first I was hesitant to accept until it became clear there was a legitimate news angle — I sat down with Glaenzer to discuss the events that led to his resignation and put questions to him that have persisted over the years within the London investment and technology startup community and have become ever louder following high-profile cases of alleged sexual harassment in Silicon Valley and the wider #metoo movement.

They include why he wasn’t fired from his job at the time of the sexual assault conviction, why he didn’t resign earlier, and how Passion Capital and its investors dealt internally with the incident. I also wanted to understand what changed in 2018. The only red line was that he didn’t want to talk about how it impacted his private life and family.

German-born Glaenzer — a multimillionaire twice over through the sale of Ricardo.de to QXL in 2000 and Last.fm to CBS in 2007 — says Thursday 16th of November 2017 was the day he “instinctively knew” his VC career was over. He and Passion’s two other partners, Burbidge and Dighero, were meeting with an institutional investor who had been lined up as a cornerstone LP in fund three. Quite far along in the due diligence process and with the outcome looking positive, the conference room had been booked for 2.5 hours in preparation for an intense final round of negotiations. Thirty minutes in, however, the meeting was over. The operational team had passed the deal to the investment firm’s compliance department and Glaenzer had turned from key person to “headline risk”.

“It was clear, we banked on them as our cornerstone, everything was positive, and after four or five months they said no and we knew we needed to restart,” he says. “I knew that this chapter was over”.

What that “headline risk” is was never explicitly stated, says Glaenzer, who didn’t think to ask, but it seems almost certainly the reputational damage that could be inflicted on any investor associated with Passion Capital if Glaenzer remained involved and should his conviction resurface in the media. Optics matter more than ever in 2018.

That is precisely what happened two months prior to the investor meeting when Bloomberg news ran a story asking: ‘Will Britain Keep Investing in a Sex Offender’s Venture Fund?’. The article placed Glaenzer’s conviction in the context of a wider debate about the role LPs should play in policing bad behaviour by VCs, even if his conviction was for something that happened outside of work.

“In the end the institution made the right call,” says Glaenzer. “I think, luckily, in some societies we have made sure that compliance has a big function. Over the last ten years this has become more ingrained”.

But if it was the right call not to invest in Glaenzer in 2018, shouldn’t the same call have been made in either 2012 or later in 2015. He says the sentiment has changed a lot since then and that, more broadly, the ecosystem is “stunningly different” today.

“I think all participants agreed on the view there’s a difference between what happens in private and what happens in business.

“There wasn’t this thinking or discussion about it. It was just, with these conditions — they were concerned about drug use or another incident, and we clearly defined consequences for this — people accepted”.

(Glaenzer declined to specify what those conditions were as he says they were private matters, although one was that he undergo regular drug testing for two years.)

He says that everybody legally involved in Passion Capital’s first fund voted that he should remain a Partner. “There was not a single against vote,” he says.

But why didn’t he just resign at the time of the incident?

“In 2002, when I was on my break doing nothing, I watched 62 out of the 64 games in the World Cup in Japan and South Korea. Germany had a terrible team, it was a disaster, other than [goalkeeper] Oli Kahn, who brought us into the final. And this man made a mistake in the 66th minute and we lost the game. And we or rather he didn’t win the trophy. He said after the game, ‘and continue’. You have to accept that you made a mistake and you have to take the consequences. Don’t run away. And that is my fundamental belief”.

I suggest that by remaining in his position he took very few consequences, and that in almost any other walk of life a person with less privilege would automatically lose their job after being convicted of sexual assault.

“I’m struggling to find a correlation between having done a private mistake, where we all agreed this was not business related, this was in no way using power or money,” says Glaenzer. “It was a personal mistake which I on the spot acknowledged and accepted and apologised [for]. And I said from day one to my partners and the CFE [now the BBB], it is not my decision, I want to carry on doing this, but I will of course accept any decision. If people have a different opinion, I do understand”.

Glaenzer is almost certain that Passion Capital would not have survived had he quit in 2012 and says that doing so would have let his partners and investors down. With two multimillion dollar exits behind him and regarded as a dot-com poster child back in Germany, he was indisputably the biggest draw for Passion Capital’s original LPs.

“Do you run away or do you accept… and continue what you promised to your partners and to your investors? I went to families, I went to people and said, you know what, this is what I want to do, there’s going to be money, we are aiming for [and] have our own expectations of what sort of return a small venture fund should deliver, and then run away? No. I can understand why people think differently, of course. But I personally, in my value system, I can not.”

That’s not to say there weren’t business consequences for Passion Capital and on Glaenzer’s ability to carry out his job, which he says he “100 percent” underestimated. “I was not even thinking about business consequences. It was more about the private…” he says.

The fund was suspended for five weeks after the incident, as per the LP agreement and so a decision about his future could be voted on. His conviction and details of the sexual assault were widely reported in the British media and he says the perception of him understandably changed amongst some people in the tech industry. This resulted in a halt to public appearances and networking and he says he initially saw a 70-80 percent reduction in unsolicited pitches. Passion also lost at least one deal due to Glaenzer’s conviction.

“With every deal there was this awkward situation,” he says. “We always disclosed this to our founders before we signed the deal, and that is, on many levels, a very awkward situation. For founders and [for] us”.

From the outside, at least, I say that it feels as though Passion Capital quickly underwent a re-branding post-incident that saw partner Burbidge replace Glaenzer as the more visible face of the VC firm, which otherwise has always made a virtue of its openness, pushing initiatives like its ‘Plain English Term Sheet’ and making its investment terms public.

“It was a 180 degree change,” says Glaenzer. A change, nonetheless, that he says would have happened over time anyway.

“We used our respective strengths. The respective strength of Eileen [Burbidge] has been [there] from day one, even though I was probably doing more of the visible media. She was organising every single thing; she should become the face of the company… It was very, very clear because she is way more talented than I will ever be. It was known”.

So what’s next for Glaenzer? He gives little away but says he has spent the last few months quietly working on a couple of MVPs, including one idea he has fallen in love with. “My fundamental goal is I don’t want to have my kids being solely educated from American media and digital platforms,” he says.

More than anything Glaenzer says he is ready to embrace change: admitting that he had become increasingly unhappy working in early-stage venture and now very clearly a burden on Passion, he doesn’t dispute that a simple version of this story is that the events of 2012 have finally caught up with him.

On several occasions during the interview Glaenzer quotes a passage from the poem “Steps” by the German poet Hermann Hesse, which he’s handwritten across several sheets of plain white paper, revealing each line one page at a time.

He says he used the same poem to explain his resignation to members of the Passion team last week and also when he quit Recardo.de in 2000.

“‘A magic dwells in each beginning, protecting us, telling us how to live’,” he reads. “It’s a fundamental belief that this magic is in new beginnings.”

[Read More …]

‘The end of my VC career’ — Stefan Glaenzer quits Passion Capital to clear way for third fund

[abckidstvyara]

Stefan Glaenzer, the prominent European VC and former chairman of Last.fm and founder of Ricardo.de, has quit his role as Partner at Passion Capital. He co-founded the London-based early-stage firm seven years ago with partners Eileen Burbidge and Robert Dighero.

The decision to resign, which the firm’s staff and Limited Partners were informed of last Thursday, is linked to Glaenzer’s arrest and subsequent conviction in 2012 when he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a woman on the London Underground Tube network. He claimed to be high on cannabis at the time and was given a suspended prison sentence and a fine, banned from using the Tube for 18 months, and placed on the U.K.’s sex offender registry.

Passion Capital is in the midst of fundraising and Glaenzer’s conviction has become an obstacle to some LPs backing a third fund. This contrasts with 2015 when the London VC firm successfully raised £45 million for fund two, including £17.5 million coming from the U.K. taxpayer via the British Business Bank. In 2012, following Glaenzer’s sexual assault conviction, existing LPs and Passion Capital partners also unanimously voted that he should remain in his role at the firm.

In an interview offered to TechCrunch — which at first I was hesitant to accept until it became clear there was a legitimate news angle — I sat down with Glaenzer to discuss the events that led to his resignation and put questions to him that have persisted over the years within the London investment and technology startup community and have become ever louder following high-profile cases of alleged sexual harassment in Silicon Valley and the wider #metoo movement.

They include why he wasn’t fired from his job at the time of the sexual assault conviction, why he didn’t resign earlier, and how Passion Capital and its investors dealt internally with the incident. I also wanted to understand what changed in 2018. The only red line was that he didn’t want to talk about how it impacted his private life and family.

German-born Glaenzer — a multimillionaire twice over through the sale of Ricardo.de to QXL in 2000 and Last.fm to CBS in 2007 — says Thursday 16th of November 2017 was the day he “instinctively knew” his VC career was over. He and Passion’s two other partners, Burbidge and Dighero, were meeting with an institutional investor who had been lined up as a cornerstone LP in fund three. Quite far along in the due diligence process and with the outcome looking positive, the conference room had been booked for 2.5 hours in preparation for an intense final round of negotiations. Thirty minutes in, however, the meeting was over. The operational team had passed the deal to the investment firm’s compliance department and Glaenzer had turned from key person to “headline risk”.

“It was clear, we banked on them as our cornerstone, everything was positive, and after four or five months they said no and we knew we needed to restart,” he says. “I knew that this chapter was over”.

What that “headline risk” is was never explicitly stated, says Glaenzer, who didn’t think to ask, but it seems almost certainly the reputational damage that could be inflicted on any investor associated with Passion Capital if Glaenzer remained involved and should his conviction resurface in the media. Optics matter more than ever in 2018.

That is precisely what happened two months prior to the investor meeting when Bloomberg news ran a story asking: ‘Will Britain Keep Investing in a Sex Offender’s Venture Fund?’. The article placed Glaenzer’s conviction in the context of a wider debate about the role LPs should play in policing bad behaviour by VCs, even if his conviction was for something that happened outside of work.

“In the end the institution made the right call,” says Glaenzer. “I think, luckily, in some societies we have made sure that compliance has a big function. Over the last ten years this has become more ingrained”.

But if it was the right call not to invest in Glaenzer in 2018, shouldn’t the same call have been made in either 2012 or later in 2015. He says the sentiment has changed a lot since then and that, more broadly, the ecosystem is “stunningly different” today.

“I think all participants agreed on the view there’s a difference between what happens in private and what happens in business.

“There wasn’t this thinking or discussion about it. It was just, with these conditions — they were concerned about drug use or another incident, and we clearly defined consequences for this — people accepted”.

(Glaenzer declined to specify what those conditions were as he says they were private matters, although one was that he undergo regular drug testing for two years).

He says that everybody legally involved in Passion Capital’s first fund voted that he should remain a Partner. “There was not a single against vote,” he says.

But why didn’t he just resign at the time of the incident?

“In 2002, when I was on my break doing nothing, I watched 62 out of the 64 games in the World Cup in Japan and South Korea. Germany had a terrible team, it was a disaster, other than [goalkeeper] Oli Kahn, who brought us into the final. And this man made a mistake in the 66th minute and we lost the game. And we or rather he didn’t win the trophy. He said after the game, ‘and continue’. You have to accept that you made a mistake and you have to take the consequences. Don’t run away. And that is my fundamental belief”.

I suggest that by remaining in his position he took very few consequences, and that in almost any other walk of life a person with less privilege would automatically lose their job after being convicted of sexual assault.

“I’m struggling to find a correlation between having done a private mistake, where we all agreed this was not business related, this was in no way using power or money,” says Glaenzer. “It was a personal mistake which I on the spot acknowledged and accepted and apologised [for]. And I said from day one to my partners and the CFE [now the BBB], it is not my decision, I want to carry on doing this, but I will of course accept any decision. If people have a different opinion, I do understand”.

Glaenzer is almost certain that Passion Capital would not have survived had he quit in 2012 and says that doing so would have let his partners and investors down. With two multimillion dollar exits behind him and regarded as a dot-com poster child back in Germany, he was indisputably the biggest draw for Passion Capital’s original LPs.

“Do you run away or do you accept… and continue what you promised to your partners and to your investors? I went to families, I went to people and said, you know what, this is what I want to do, there’s going to be money, we are aiming for [and] have our own expectations of what sort of return a small venture fund should deliver, and then run away? No. I can understand why people think differently, of course. But I personally, in my value system, I can not.”

That’s not to say there weren’t business consequences for Passion Capital and on Glaenzer’s ability to carry out his job, which he says he “100 percent” underestimated. “I was not even thinking about business consequences. It was more about the private…” he says.

The fund was suspended for five weeks after the incident, as per the LP agreement and so a decision about his future could be voted on. His conviction and details of the sexual assault were widely reported in the British media and he says the perception of him understandably changed amongst some people in the tech industry. This resulted in a halt to public appearances and networking and he says he initially saw a 70-80 percent reduction in unsolicited pitches. Passion also lost at least one deal due to Glaenzer’s conviction.

“With every deal there was this awkward situation,” he says. “We always disclosed this to our founders before we signed the deal, and that is, on many levels, a very awkward situation. For founders and [for] us”.

From the outside, at least, I say that it feels as though Passion Capital quickly underwent a re-branding post-incident that saw partner Burbidge replace Glaenzer as the more visible face of the VC firm, which otherwise has always made a virtue of its openness, pushing initiatives like its ‘Plain English Term Sheet’ and making its investment terms public.

“It was a 180 degree change,” says Glaenzer. A change, nonetheless, that he says would have happened over time anyway.

“We used our respective strengths. The respective strength of Eileen [Burbidge] has been [there] from day one, even though I was probably doing more of the visible media. She was organising every single thing; she should become the face of the company… It was very, very clear because she is way more talented than I will ever be. It was known”.

So what’s next for Glaenzer? He gives little away but says he has spent the last few months quietly working on a couple of MVPs, including one idea he has fallen in love with. “My fundamental goal is I don’t want to have my kids being solely educated from American media and digital platforms,” he says.

More than anything Glaenzer says he is ready to embrace change: admitting that he had become increasingly unhappy working in early-stage venture and now very clearly a burden on Passion, he doesn’t dispute that a simple version of this story is that the events of 2012 have finally caught up with him.

On several occasions during the interview Glaenzer quotes a passage from the poem “Steps” by the German poet Hermann Hesse, which he’s handwritten across several sheets of plain white paper, revealing each line one page at a time.

He says he used the same poem to explain his resignation to members of the Passion team last week and also when he quit Recardo.de in 2000.

“‘A magic dwells in each beginning, protecting us, telling us how to live’,” he reads. “It’s a fundamental belief that this magic is in new beginnings.”