#tor too deserves better

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

1968 [Chapter 8: Demeter, Goddess Of The Harvest]

Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.

Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.

Word Count: 6.2k

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Is it a story worth telling? I think so. It’s better than nothing. It’s better than watching raindrops slither down the cracked concrete walls until the prison guards come back to bloody us again.

Today I’m sending John McCain taps in the shape of the tale of Io. John has a hard time tapping back—they’re doing something to his shoulders, they’re destroying him—but he likes to listen. He’s getting it a lot worse than I am; perhaps even the North Vietnamese fear Aemond’s retribution if I die here. They should be afraid of him. He thinks he owns everything he touches, and he’ll snap bones to keep it.

So anyway, Io was a king’s daughter, a mortal who Zeus saw and wanted and took when her father kicked her out to avoid the god’s wrath. That’s easily half of Greek mythology, right? Zeus appears, irrevocably fucks up someone’s life, vanishes in a plume of clouds and thunder. He leaves human rubble behind him: ribs, nerves, disembodied hearts that leak blood from torn ventricles, minds broken in two. Zeus impregnated Io and then turned her into a cow to hide her from his wife Hera, ever-watchful, ever-vengeful, an aspiring mass murderess. When this disguise failed, Hera condemned Io to wander ceaselessly through the wilderness, tormented by the constant stinging of a gadfly. Eventually, Zeus returns Io to human form and she pops out a few bastard kids, as if Zeus needs any more of those. Then he ditches her and she marries some Egyptian dude. There are other details that I’ve forgotten. I don’t think John McCain will know the difference.

I’m sure you’re wondering how I acquired all this fabled trivia. I don’t seem like the type to lie around under trees reading folklore from religions that died thousands of years ago. You’re right, I’m not. But Aemond is. He would tell the stories, and Helaena would embroider scenes on quilts for us to burrow under in the winter, and I would dramatically act out the best parts (mostly murders), and Aegon would scribble comics in jagged black pen strokes. He has all these notebooks down in the basement filled with his new versions of ancient myths: Poseidon as a horny dolphin, Aphrodite as Marilyn Monroe.

Wait, I remember what I skipped. While Io was roaming across the globe, she bumped into Prometheus—chained to a rock for giving humans the gift of fire—and he cheered her up somehow. I guess meeting a guy who gets his liver continuously chewed out by a giant eagle would make me more appreciative of my circumstances too.

I have a lot of time to myself here in solitary confinement. My social circle is microscopic. I tap to John through the wall, I have dinner dates with Tessarion the rat. And I think about my family. They’re fucked up, but I miss them. I miss going to Monmouth Park with Fosco to bet on horse races, I miss getting hammered with Aegon while he sings Johnny Cash or Beatles songs. I miss my mother and Helaena and Criston. I even miss Aemond’s wife, though I only met her a few times before I deployed. She’s sharp, she’s hilarious. She’s mean as hell to Aegon, and sometimes he deserves it.

At first I wondered why Aemond hasn’t gotten me out yet, but I understand now. It sounds a lot better to have a brother being tortured as a prisoner of war than one who received a Get Out Of Jail Free card. It’s the kind of thing Aemond would consider. He understands which stories are worth telling.

I feel kind of bad for her. Aemond’s wife, I mean.

I don’t think she knows about Alys.

~~~~~~~~~~

On a chilly mid-September morning cloaked in fog, Mimi is laid to rest in the Targaryen family mausoleum at Saint George Greek Orthodox Cemetery in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Most of the golden plaques already have names chiseled into them: Viserys and Alicent, Fosco and Helaena. Aegon will one day be interred beside his wife. You have a spot reserved next to Aemond. All of you have already lived and died and been entombed; all of this was predestined by the stars eons before you had blood or bones.

Ari’s vault—an unnaturally tiny drawer, less than half the size of anyone else’s—is located just above yours. You can’t stop staring at it. You can’t hear anything the bearded priest in his black robes is chanting. Then Cosmo squeezes your hand and you look down at him. Mimi’s other children are somber but seem to be coping well enough—they are used to being raised by consensus, they would probably be more affected if one of the nannies died—but Cosmo always wants to be near you. He gazes up with those vast, wet, murky blue eyes, so much like Aegon’s, and you offer him a sad, reassuring smile. Cosmo smiles back. And you think: Life goes on.

Alicent is sniffling noisily; it echoes off the walls of the mausoleum. Criston—a man with no plaque assigned to him—is trying to console her. Aegon is watching you from across the cold granite chamber, grim and red-eyed in his black suit, the first time you can remember seeing him in one since your wedding. He wears no small gold hoops, only a row of stitches in his right ear. He wants to say something, to do something, but he can’t. Aemond is beside you, a hand heavy on your waist but muttering something to Otto. Back in Omaha, Otto had spent a few hours alone with the medical examiner, and when the death certificate was issued it revealed that Mimi died of a heart defect, a perfectly blameless sort of misfortune, an innate impending disaster. And so that’s what the newspapers printed, and any gossip to the contrary is confined to salacious rumors, untrustworthy and unproven.

When the ceremony is over, journalists are waiting to scavenge for photos and quotes under the guise of expressing their sympathies. It’s a shameless display, though they at least have the decency to wait by the cemetery gates. Aemond and Otto go to meet them. Alicent, Criston, Helaena, and Fosco, protective of the children, keep them far away from the feeding frenzy, hungry-eyed reporters like sharks without fins. Ludwika is reapplying her lipstick. Aegon is smoking a Lucky Strike and talking to his oldest son, Orion, a stilted exchange that holds the promise of turning warm with time.

You sit on a stone bench and Cosmo curls up beside you, rests his head in your lap, dozes off as you thread your fingers through his wavy blonde hair. In the mist there are shadows of gravestones and trees that turn skeletal as they shed their leaves.

“He is okay?” Fosco says as he ambles over, meaning Cosmo. He has his hands in the pockets of his slim black trousers that stop at his ankles. His suit is velvet, his eyeglasses speckled with drizzle from the slate-grey sky.

“He’s alright. He’s resting. Are you okay?”

“Oh,” Fosco sighs mournfully. “I keep thinking someone is missing. We came into this family together, Mimi and I. We got married six months apart. I have never had to do this without her. And I know she had her problems, but she was different when she was younger. She always liked a party, that’s why she and Aegon got along so well at first. But she was so loud and so funny, always telling these long stories, and everyone in the room would be grinning as they waited for the good part. Viserys loved her. Otto loved her. And then she had all those children one after the other, and that was hard, and Aegon self-destructed when he was the mayor of Trenton, and that was worse, and she was supposed to fix him and she couldn’t, the harder she tried the farther he ran from her. She started drinking her Gimlets before dinner, and then after lunch, and by the time you showed up it was never ending. But that wasn’t who she really was. She was like a moon that got smaller and smaller until the only thing left was a sliver.”

This family breaks people. This family kills people. “We’ll make ossi dei morti for Mimi tonight. I’ll help you, and we can teach the kids.”

Fosco smiles, swipes a tear from beneath his glasses, squeezes your shoulder with one wiry hand. “I am very glad you are still here.”

“I’m not trying to race you to that mausoleum.”

Fosco laughs. And then he says as he spies Aegon approaching: “Um…I will go avoid the paparazzi somewhere else.”

“You don’t have to leave, Fosco.”

“It is no trouble. And I suspect you enjoy your very rare privacy.” Fosco gives you a knowing glace and then heads back to where Helaena, Alicent, and Criston are lingering with the rest of the children. Now Ludwika is fluffing her blonde curls with her French tips, a smoldering Camel cigarette tucked between two fingers.

Aegon comes to you through the mist, plops onto the bench, and looks fondly down at Cosmo—now fast asleep, his face smooth and peaceful—before he speaks. “I can’t grasp that she’s really gone. We barely spoke for years, but she was always there, you know? Christ, she deserved better than this. She could have been happy somewhere else.”

“Your children need you.” It’s not the first time you’ve said it, but it’s the first time he believes you. He nods, staring out into the fog. “They have to get away from this whole circus for a while. And you have to learn how to be a real parent.”

“I’ll have time to work on it. I’m staying here. I’ve already been informed.”

You are alarmed. “What? By who?”

“Aemond and Otto.” Aegon says. “When the rest of you fly west, my kids and I will be at Asteria.”

“They’re getting you off the campaign trail,” you realize.

“They’re putting me on house arrest.”

Not seeing Aegon, not being near him? How long can I stand that? “I’m sure you’re relieved. You hate the grandstanding and the media.”

He shakes his head, running his fingers through his hair. “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“I won’t be alone. I have Fosco and Ludwika.”

“I’ll talk to them.”

“About what?”

“About the fact that they need to look out for you.”

“Aegon, I’ve been doing the political wife thing for over two years.”

“But it’s different now.”

He’s right, it is.

“You’ll call, won’t you?” he asks. “You’ll let me know how the trip is going, you’ll tell me if anything bad happens? Because I can always get on a plane and meet you wherever you are. Otto might pay someone to murder me, but I’d risk it.”

“Of course I’ll call.”

“Hey.” Gently, he turns your face so you can’t hide from him. “Will you be okay without me?”

I have to be. I don’t have a choice. Instead you reply: “I’ll miss the weed.”

The tension breaks and Aegon smiles, and then he pats your cheek twice with his open palm. “Behave yourself.” He waves Ludwika over, interrupting her meditative chain smoking.

“What, what?” Ludwika says. “Are we leaving soon? Yes, it is so sad what happened to Mimi, but us standing around in the rain won’t resurrect her. And I look terrible in black.”

“I can’t be there for the last leg of the campaign.” Aegon points to you. “I need you to pay attention and check in with her at least a few times a day.”

“This is a common request. I should get a degree in it so I can charge people.”

Aegon furrows his brow at her. “What are you talking about?”

Ludwika smirks as she puffs on her Camel. “You are not the first person to ask me to keep an eye on her.” She nods subtly towards Aemond, then sashays off to give a quote to the journalists.

~~~~~~~~~~

In San Diego, Aemond meets with residents of a new public housing complex to hear their concerns about neighborhood jobs and infrastructure. In San Jose, he visits labor activist Caesar Chavez—being treated for debilitating back pain at O’Connor Hospital—and expresses support for the ongoing boycott of all grapes produced in the state. In Sacramento, he attends a Jimi Hendrix concert and receives a standing ovation from the audience; the next day he joins high school students protesting for a more inclusive curriculum. In Oregon, he makes a speech at Portland State University acknowledging the tremendous cost of the Vietnam War—in money, in time, in blood—and pledges to begin dismantling U.S. involvement as soon as he is sworn into office in January. Aemond talks about hope and despair, the bleak reality and the American Dream, and he is so overwhelmed by the crowd that he doesn’t even notice when someone takes his cufflinks as souvenirs. His lack of concern for his own safety exasperates Criston, but Aemond can’t be convinced to increase his security or his distance. If he expects the disaffected masses to carry him to the White House, he has to be real to them.

“What if another Wallace supporter tries to shoot you?” Criston demands. “What if a Nixon stooge stabs you or a crowd tramples you?”

“No one can kill me,” Aemond says, grinning wryly. “I’m not supposed to die yet. I’m supposed to be the president. It is God’s will.” And how can anybody disagree when that appears to be so true?

The earth dies as you drive north, summer withering into autumn. That familiar brisk cuttingness reappears in the air. You shake thousands of hands, smile for countless photographs. Mothers and wives of dead soldiers sob into your shoulder as you embrace them; teenage girls ask how they can get a good man like Aemond. Only one thing is missing from his glorious pilgrimage: something he wants desperately, something he cannot have (though he’ll never know why), you conceiving his child in time to announce it before Election Day. Each morning you sneak a pill and every night you bite the bullet. As often as you can, you duck into Dairy Queens to order lemon-lime Mr. Mistys.

George Wallace is in the South, galvanizing segregationists and accepting the endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan. Richard Nixon is working his way across the Midwest. He has chosen a politically moderate Greek as a running mate, Spiro Agnew; this does not strike you as a coincidence. He even shares a name with Aegon’s second son.

Nixon promises “peace with honor” in Vietnam, which means no immediate end to the draft. He makes speeches about “states’ rights” and “law and order,” ambiguous euphemisms designed to attract Wallace’s white supremacists without alienating too many suburban moderates. He commiserates with those lamenting the proliferation of sex, drugs, and divorce. He says he will return the nation to a more moral time. You wonder what he means. You can’t think of any such refuge in the bloodletting, spine-crushing history of mankind.

A kindergarten teacher tells you in Olympia, Washington, her eyes alight with reverence usually reserved for heroes, saints, gods: “People are voting for Aemond, but they’re voting for you too.”

And you find yourself thinking as a thousand miles roll by beyond the glass of limousine windows: How many people will I condemn if I don’t help Aemond win? How many lives is mine worth?

~~~~~~~~~~

The Hotel Sorrento in Seattle insists on giving you and Aemond the honeymoon suite: a retreat from the breakneck campaign, a romantic oasis for the future president and first lady…according to half the country, anyway. You are in the impractically large pink bathtub, surrounded by snowy dunes of bubbles. The wall to your right is a mirror, foggy around the edges; just a few yards to your left is the king-sized bed. In the top drawer of your nightstand is the card Aegon gave you in July. You aren’t sure where Aemond is, and you don’t especially care. You are relieved to be alone.

There’s a passion-red phone built into the rim of the tub, conveniently located for sudden room service revelations, champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries, steak and lobster. You have a different idea. It’s 7:15 p.m. here, so after 10 on the East Coast. On the steam-slick keypad, you dial the number for the main house at Asteria.

Eudoxia picks up and demands gruffly: “Geiá sou? Ti?”

“Hi, Doxie. Is Aegon around?”

“Where else would he be? Making himself useful somehow? Killing communists, driving a rocket to the moon? No. He is a burden as always.”

“Please be nice to him. His wife just died.”

“And so he cannot put his empty cups in the sink?” Without waiting for a reply, she sets the handset down on the kitchen counter with a clunk. There is distant, muffled shouting in Greek; she seems to back and forth with somebody. Then Eudoxia returns. “Antio sas,” she says, and hangs up just as a phone elsewhere in the house is lifted from its cradle.

Aegon answers with something halfway between a groan and a yawn. “Yeah?”

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Hey!” You can hear it riding the wire like electricity: a rustling as he sits up, a fresh clarity in his skull. His voice is deep, hushed, still husky with sleep. “What’s up, little Io? Any interesting happenings to report from your neighborhood of the solar system?”

“I just left a riveting tea party. Apple cinnamon scones and smoked salmon sandwiches. We talked about what kind of couches I should get for the White House and I wanted to kill myself. Are the kids okay?”

He’s smiling; you can tell. “They’re alright. I could have used you this afternoon. I was trying to help Spiro with his math homework. Trying, not succeeding.”

“Well he’s in middle school and thus beyond your skill.”

“How’s Jupiter?”

You know who he means. “I don’t want to talk about Aemond.”

“Okay.” Aegon says, curious. “So what should we talk about?”

A few seconds tick by, silent and perilous. “Where are you right now?”

“In my lair. Like a beast.”

“Alone?”

A transitory pause. “At the moment.”

“On the shag carpet or your futon?”

Now he’s very intrigued. “Futon. Why?”

“I just want a visual.” Beneath the water, your free hand is resting on the velvety inside of your thigh.

“Where are you?” Aegon asks.

“You wouldn’t believe it.”

“Maybe I want a visual too.”

You chuckle, peeking over at yourself in the mirror. Your skin is dewy with steam; stray wisps of hair stick to your face. “I’m in a gigantic pink bathtub. It’s ridiculous, it’s shaped like a heart and everything. They have a phone installed right here in case I find myself in desperate need of filet mignon.”

“Oh.” And then he hesitates, like he’s afraid to say the wrong thing. “Big enough for two?”

“More like five. You should get a tub like this for your basement, it would delight the campaign staffers.”

“My basement’s been pretty empty recently.”

Softly, vulnerably, glass offered for him to shatter: “You aren’t seeing other girls?”

“Nah, babe. I want something they can’t give me.”

You picture him, messy hair falling over his forehead, drowsy eyes that gleam with clandestine wisdom. You can smell the smoke and rum that bleeds from his skin. “I wish you were here.”

“In Seattle?”

“No. Right here.”

Aegon exhales shakily, swallows, takes a few seconds to collect himself. “How’s the water?”

“Extremely hot and full of bubbles.”

“So I wouldn’t be able to see you.”

“No,” you say, baiting him.

“But I could touch you.”

“You already have.”

“Not enough,” he murmurs. “Nowhere close to enough.”

“Do you remember what I felt like?”

“Oh God,” he whispers, and you envision him closing his eyes, rubbing his face with the open palm of his left hand. “Yeah. Of course I do. I can’t get it out of my head. But I’ve been trying not to…you know…it felt wrong to think about you that way unless you were cool with it. Like I was betraying your trust or taking advantage of you or something.”

“No, I want you to think about me.”

You can hear Aegon moving around on the green futon, repositioning himself, yanking down a zipper. When he speaks again, his breathing is quick and jagged. “Where’s your other hand, huh?”

“Under the water,” you reply coyly.

“You bitch,” he says, laughing. “I miss you so fucking much. The house isn’t right without you in it. You belong here, you belong where I am.”

Beneath the veil of bubbles and steam, there is no scar on your belly, no infidelity, no campaign, no distance of almost 3,000 miles separating you and Aegon. Your fingers slip between your legs, finding slickness the water can’t wash away. It’s a familiar sensation, though you haven’t felt it in a while: rising steadily until you hit a plateau like a jet reaching cruising altitude. From here, it will either glide along smoothly until it dies out, or eventually turn sharp and painful. “Tell me about you,” you pant.

He can hear it in your voice, a needful surrender that sets him on fire. He can’t believe this is happening; he never wants it to end. “I mean, I’m…I’m insanely hard.”

“Stroke yourself, imagine it’s me. I wish it could be me.”

“Oh fuck,” Aegon whimpers. “Okay, okay…I want you. I want you with my fingers, I want you with my tongue, I want you to beg for it, and then…”

Impossibly, incomparably, your own pleasure is climbing faster than you can reconcile yourself to it, no longer a hunger but a violent aching, a crushing gravity you can’t fight against, a ship being dragged to the floor of the ocean. What’s happening? When will it end? You moan into the phone, amazed yet petrified. You can’t get enough air; it feels like drowning, like dying.

“I need to see you,” Aegon says. He’s close to the climax that you know men experience, he has to be; he’s gasping. “I need to be with you, let me give you what you want.”

“I want you to finish inside me.”

“Io…babe…oh my God, you’re gonna kill me…”

There are sounds out in the front room of the suite: a lock clicking, footsteps, keys and a wallet tossed onto the kitchenette counter. You’re so consumed you almost don’t notice. Aemond is back. Aemond is back!! And every ion of your ascending euphoria evaporates. “Gotta go, bye.”

“Wait—!”

You hang up just as Aemond is opening the bedroom door. He walks in—immaculately tailored dark blue suit, polished black leather shoes trampling soft pink carpet—and turns to you. He has already taken his glass eye out and put on his eyepatch. Vaguely, fleetingly, you wonder where he’s been. His gaze darts to the red phone, your fingerprints in the condensation. “Who were you talking to?”

“My parents.”

If Aemond doubts this, he doesn’t show it. He crosses the room, sits on the edge of the bathtub, peers down at you with an omniscient metallic glint in his eye. He’s always been less a man than a force of nature. “I know this year has been hell.”

You envision Persephone being stolen by Hades, Orpheus searching for his dead wife Eurydice, Charon ferrying souls across the River Styx. “You haven’t made it easier.”

There’s a flash of something in his scarred face, blazing and instantaneous like lightning, and then it fades. He reaches out to touch your hair, swept up and neatly bound with clips and pins. “We can’t forget everything we’ve accomplished together,” Aemond says. “I still need you. You’re my Aphrodite.”

He’s going to tell you to get out of the tub, to lie down on the bed, to open yourself so he can fill you. You distract him, forestalling the inevitable. Each morning Prometheus dreads the return of the eagle that pecks out his liver; as every summer ends Demeter mourns the loss of Persephone. “Any luck with Nixon?”

Aemond sighs, furious, brooding. “He still won’t agree to a debate. Wallace is onboard, he’s rabid for it, he’d show up if we held it in the fucking asteroid belt, any opportunity to spew his idiocy. But not Nixon.”

“Because he knows standing on the same stage as you can only hurt him. People thought he looked bad in 1960, can you imagine now? Television has gotten so much clearer. They’ll be able to count his sweat drops from their living room couches.”

“So how do I get him to do it?”

You look up at Aemond. It’s not a hypothetical question; he’s really asking for advice.

“I have to debate Nixon,” Aemond insists. “It’s close in the polls, which means it will be even closer on Election Day. I’ll underperform whatever is projected, my coalition is less likely to show up when it counts. College kids, hippies, transients. That’s just a fact. But the old people vote. The suburban housewives vote. Nixon’s resting on his political experience and accusations that I’m a communist, an agent of chaos. But I could slaughter him in an hour on ABC.”

You think of the mutilated Vietnam veterans waving their signs and screaming at LBJ from the other side of the wrought-iron gates of the White House. “Challenge him in public. Say that the American people deserve to see the candidates debate, and do it where everyone can hear you.”

“What if Nixon still refuses?”

“Then you call him a coward. You say he must have something to hide. You ask how he’s supposed to square up with the Russians and the Chinese if he can’t even face you.”

Aemond grins admiringly. “You’re vicious.” And he lifts your hand from the rim of the tub so he can kiss your knuckles. Once you licked up drops of his approval like Tantalus, cursed with eternal thirst. Now it is poison that turns your veins black.

“If there’s a debate, everyone should go,” you say, seized by sudden inspiration. “We should have a united front, including Aegon. It can be his return to the public eye. A month will have passed since the funeral, the timing is right. He can pose for a few photos with the kids to show the nation that they’re doing well and distract from any lingering rumors about Mimi.”

Aemond isn’t grinning anymore. He’s studying you with his cold blue gaze; no, he’s trying to intimidate you, to overpower you. “Otto and I will decide what to do with him.”

“He’s a Targaryen. He should be with the rest of us.”

Aemond stands and motions for you to follow, a snap of his wrist like a man calling a dog. “It’s late. Let’s go to bed.”

Panic, tension, an iron sinking in your belly. The water is only lukewarm now, but you don’t want to leave it. “I’m not done yet.”

“Yes you are.”

There’s nothing else to say. Legally, a wife’s flesh is one with her husband’s. You slip as you step out of the bathtub, and Aemond grabs your forearm. Not like he’s helping you; like you’re something he owns.

~~~~~~~~~~

Two knocks, swift and forceful. “Hey, it’s me. You ready? Everyone else is downstairs in the lobby waiting for the limos.”

You hurry to open the door, almost twisting your ankle as you stumble in your heels. They’re an inch higher than what you’re used to. Aemond chose them, and your dress too, and your sapphire teardrop earrings, and the silver chains around your wrist and throat, and your future and your past, and your life itself. It’s mid-October, and the night of what will almost certainly be the sole presidential debate of 1968. Aemond’s retinue is staying at the Hotel Saint Louis. It’s harvest time, the fields beyond the city being reaped of their soybeans, wheat, corn, cotton, and rice, the beef cattle culled in mechanical underworlds. Aegon’s flight must have just landed.

As soon as he sees you his eyes drop, wide and bewitched, ensnared everywhere except your face. You say: “Can you help me zip this, please?”

He blinks a few times, then shakes it off. “Sorry, what?”

“The zipper’s stuck. I need you to get it.”

“Yeah. Sure.” He steps into the suite and stands behind you. The gown is a vivid blue like the Greek flag, gorgeous and shimmering but a size too small. It wasn’t tight a week ago, but now it is, and you aren’t pregnant just always gaining and losing weight in new places, first the baby and then the pill, and it wouldn’t bother you if Aemond didn’t seem so confounded by it. Aegon says as he tugs at the zipper: “I don’t think it’s gonna fit, babe.”

“It has to fit.”

“Even if I miraculously get this closed, you won’t be able to breathe.”

“Do whatever you have to. Just…just…” You push every last molecule of air out of your lungs, suck in your belly, and you hear the triumphant squeal of the zipper. “Yes!” Oh, but Aegon was right: you really can’t breathe. “Okay. Let’s go.”

“You’re not gonna last the whole debate in that. You’ll be sweating more than Nixon.”

“I’m fine.”

“Io…”

“I’m fine. Come on.” You snatch your matching purse off the coffee table by the couch, check your makeup one last time, and hobble in your heels as you walk with Aegon out into the hallway.

At the Kiel Auditorium a few blocks away, the Targaryen children—Aegon’s five and Helaena’s three—are presented for photographs before being escorted back to the hotel by the nannies. And even in the few weeks that have passed since you last saw Aegon’s kids, there have been extraordinary changes. They talk to their father, and he talks back, and he ruffles their hair and rests his hands on their shoulders and asks them about what they’re learning from their private tutors. Cosmo tackles you before he leaves—a powerful bear hug, though he can only reach your legs—and he says he hopes you’re coming home to Asteria soon.

“Me too, kiddo,” Aegon tells him, and then smiles at you; but above his gleam of teeth his cloudy blue eyes, like the Atlantic in a storm, are gloomy and troubled.

As the audience takes their seats and the journalists are poised to capture the best images and quotes of the night, the three candidates and their wives (minus Wallace’s dear departed Lurleen) meet briefly backstage to exchange the perfunctory well-wishes. Pat Nixon is introverted and bookish, though she tries to hide it; but Aemond reels her in like swordfish until her eyes are filled with him. George Wallace gets one glimpse of your venomous glare and escapes, claiming to need one last trip to the restroom before the debate begins. But Richard Nixon beckons you to accompany him to a quiet, discrete corner of the room.

“I tried to call,” he says. He’s a remarkably normal man: medium height, receding dark hair, rough voice, weathered skin, not a god but a mortal, and—you have the impression—more aware of his flaws than his fiercest critics will ever be. “But no one at that damned beach house would ever put me through to you.”

You aren’t sure what he means. “Oh?”

“I never got the opportunity to tell you how sorry I was for your loss in July, Mrs. Targaryen,” Nixon says with unglamorous, plain, genuine compassion. “Pat and I, when we heard, we wept for you. We truly did. And for your husband to be clear across the country…I can’t even imagine. It must have been awful for you. A parent never gets over something like that. It stays with you like a scar.”

“It does,” you say softly.

“I lost two brothers. Arthur died when he was seven, tuberculosis killed Harold in his twenties. God, it just about destroyed my mother. You’re a remarkable woman. You’re lightning in a bottle for Aemond, do you know that? You’re like one of those Kennedy gals, but even better. More personable than Jackie. More intelligent than Ethel…although, to be frank, who wouldn’t be? And you’re not afflicted with any ghastly vices like Ted’s wife Joan. What would Aemond do without you? He’d lose, that’s what he’d do.”

Nixon’s smart, but he’s wounded. He’s capable, but he’s so desperate to prove it. Power could ruin a man like this. “You’re very kind, sir. You did some great work under Eisenhower. Self-made like my father was, a devotee of the American Dream. I believe you have an important role to play in this country…” You smirk, a bit mischievously. “Just not as the president.”

Nixon chortles. “No matter what happens tonight, rest assured that I hate Reagan more than I could ever dislike your husband,” he says, meaning the Republican governor of his home state of California. “You know that bastard tried to primary me?”

“Actors don’t belong in politics.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Nixon says, and then bids you farewell as the lights turn blinding and the curtain begins to rise.

As soon as the adrenaline begins to fade, all you can think about is that you can’t breathe. You take your seat in the audience between Aegon and Ludwika, who won’t stop making jabs about Nixon: “He looks like a troll,” “He looks like a sasquatch,” “Do you think Pat makes him wear a  Creature from the Black Lagoon mask in bed so she is not so repulsed by him?” The most you can offer is an occasional distracted nod in response.

“You alright?” Aegon whispers.

“Yeah.”

“You don’t look alright.”

“I’m great.”

“Sure,” he says, and he acts like he’s teasing, but there’s something tremendously sad underneath. He can’t save you from this. He can’t save you from anything. What must that feel like?

On the debate stage—broadcast to a national audience—Aemond performs brilliantly. Nixon salvages what could have been a bloodbath with a handful of clever retorts that Aemond pretends not to be rattled by. The real loser of the night is Wallace, who is brutally attacked by them both: Nixon because Wallace is commandeering some of his voting bloc, and Aemond because of his near-assassination back in May. After an hour, the contest concludes and the candidates descend to the main floor to pose for photos and get lassoed into brief interviews with various journalists. Everyone in Aemond’s entourage besides you and Aegon flock to his side. By now you’re gasping in shallow gulps, close to tears and in agony from your ribs to your wobbling feet.

“I told you,” Aegon says. And then: “Come on. We’ll take the first limo back.”

In the front room of your hotel suite—one yellowish end table lamp glowing dimly, the rest of the space like twilight—Aegon wrestles with the zipper as you struggle for every breath, trying not to pass out. “Ow,” you whine. “Oh fuck, this was so stupid…”

“Don’t let him make you wear shit you don’t want to wear.”

“I have to do what he says, Aegon.”

“He doesn’t own you.”

“Legally, he does.”

He’s tugging futilely at the jammed zipper. “Are you planning on using this again?”

“I believe that would be wistful thinking.”

“You probably look better out of it anyway.” He grabs his Zippo lighter from the pocket of his emerald green suit jacket and flicks it to life. “Don’t move, okay?”

“Okay.”

“At all.”

“Got it.”

You can feel heat, intense but not painful. Aegon has pulled the edge of the fabric as far away as he can from your skin and is singeing it until it turns black and charred and brittle. Then he tucks the lighter back into his pocket and with both hands rips your dress down to the small of your back. Cool air rushes to meet the ridge of your spine; goosebumps prickle all over. Aegon is marveling at you; you can see it when you glance over your shoulder at him. Then he lays a palm against your bare skin, leans into you, inhales everything you’ve ever been: smoke and sex and starlight, strategies, shadows, secrets.

The others will be pouring into the hallway from the elevator any minute. Aemond. Aemond could find us.

“We can’t,” you whisper, hating yourself for it.

Aegon kisses the nape of your neck—so slow, so kind—and then goes to the doorway. You wait for him to leave, but he doesn’t. He’s looking at you as you hold up the ruined gown so it covers your belly and your chest. You gaze back helplessly, wanting him, needing him, a moon chained to another world’s gravity.

We can’t, we can’t, we can’t.

“I’m so sorry,” you say.

And only then does Aegon vanish.

[its-your-mind]

Tbh I??? Really love these Bell’s Hells Company Retreat Activities???? Bc like. It’s not like any of them have been overly cagey this whole time, or actively hiding big secrets from each other. (someone at some point mentioned how BUCKwild it would have been to watch the M9 try to play What The Fuck Is Up With That within the first ten episodes of c2, with all the shit all of them were hiding and how much their early relationships were based on a mutual understanding that no one would expect each other to bring up the past unless it became a danger - the only one who ever poked that particular bear was Beau with Caleb at the start when she traded access to the Archive for the reason why Caleb gets fucked up by fire, and that private conversation shaped their relationship for the rest of the campaign BUT I digress.)

Nothing anyone confessed during the Honesty exercise was… a surprise. The only one who hadn’t shared the entirety of his past (that he remembered) was Chetney, and his was never the past that felt like a threat - that revelation was more along the lines of FCG’s type of “tell me about your family trauma so I can fix you” line of questioning.

The truths the Hells offered up to each other… they were significant (Fearne, I was disappointed in you for being afraid of your power), and scary (deep down, both Delilah and I kind of want the shard), and hard to say out loud (even on the nights I bunk up with one of you, I feel so lonely), but critically, so little of it was surprising. No one was sharing anything earth-shattering about their pasts or previously unknown plans for future betrayal.

And during the Communication exercise - none of them - Chetney, Imogen, Ashton, or Orym - doubted that their directors were leading them the wrong way. They listened, and paid attention to instructions, and didn’t try their own path because they felt like they knew better.

And then during Trust! The part that should have been the hardest!! All of them were obviously distrustful of each other, shooting around stressed looks, sending familiars to dive-bomb to check for flesh, but like… none of them actually turned on each other. None of them ganged up, or broke off, or stood in opposition - they were wary of each other, and they got the task done.

So… it didn’t really lead to any huge shifts in the dynamic. But that was never really what they needed! The Hells have trusted each other since the beginning, and even when they’re actively having to fight each other, it’s always with a desperation born from a place of concern. They really do care for and love each other. I don’t think any of them, if they sat down to think about it, truly believed that one of them was going to betray the others.

But they haven’t had time to sit and think about it. They have been actively fighting the literal end of the world since like… ep 45 (first irl Ludinus sighting/convo). The apocalypse happened. Has been happening. For thirty episodes now. They spent a good chunk of that time apart from each other, and then the rest of it desperately reaching out to anyone with more power than themselves to beg for their help.

So yeah! It’s not a big surprise that they’re all bottling up a lot of their own shit right now! There aren’t that many personal issues that feel like they deserve more attention than the literal end of the world.

It was inevitable something was going to give. And since Ashton’s shit was up next for dissection because they had a past that brushed up against the Primordials? Of course they were the one whose internal lockdown broke first. And of course when it did, it physically shattered Ashton, too, right along those same fault lines where Milo put them back together the first time. It’s so good that they had friends who were there, past and present, to make sure none of the pieces got lost. To put them back together.

We watched Laudna break down right after, specifically because she was back home, in this place where Delilah had first tortured and killed her, where she had lived as a wraith haunting a castle. Delilah had been slowly picking the lock on the cage the Hells had forced her into, and Ashton’s “betrayal” was the last tumbler Delilah needed to snap into place to break the lock in Laudna’s mind. And her mind shattered, fragmented in the same way it had been after she was first brought back as Delilah’s vessel. How beautiful that it was Laudna’s love of children and her desire to make Ashton a gift (meant to be part insult, “because you’re a child,” and declaration of her care for him, “I like children.”)

And Fearne… Fearne almost broke down after them. Slamming the hammer down next to Ashton’s head over and over and over, screaming at him, wandering away through the city, sleeping alone in the woods… She saw the cliff’s edge coming. That’s why she asked them if they could stop at her Nana’s first.

Because she needed it. And the rest of the Hells say, “Why? Do you think Nana Morri can help us in this?” And Fearne says, “Well, I don’t know, but…” And Imogen says, “Do you need it for you?” And Fearne says, in a small and shattered voice, “…yes.”

And that’s the end of the discussion.

They go home, to a place where they are safe and have time, for the first time since Ruidus was locked in place.

And so they have time to be Honest - and they are. Fearne likes to watch them all and play with their hair while they sleep. Orym has thought through how he would neutralize them if he absolutely had to. Ashton thinks it would be better for him to be dead than for Fearne to be hurt. Imogen is scared to face her mom. Laudna dreams of leaving this behind. FCG is jealous of the people around him with a heart, because they have possibilities he doesn’t. Chetney hasn’t settled down once in 400 years because he’s scared he’s cursed to drive away any family he has.

Behind all of this - I want to know everything about you. I need to make sure you don’t hurt each other. I would sacrifice myself to keep you from pain. I don’t want to choose between my blood and this family we’ve built. I want you all to be safe. I want you to pursue happiness. I don’t want to lose you.

And then, Communication - follow along this path. Listen to my voice. Keep calm, keep quiet. Stay the course. I will keep you safe. Keep walking, keep walking, and… you’re there, honey.

And finally, Trust. Two of them are going to be replaced by fae beings bent on preventing them from completing their mission, and they have to complete this task without letting the infiltrators stop them. Okay. Let’s all stick together. Keep eyes on each other. Wait for the doppelgängers to give themselves away somehow. Do you remember these small, banal details about our mutual history? There’s a possibility that action you took was malicious, but I know you well enough to know that might have been a mistake you made on your own. Here, I’ll walk into traps to show that I’m not going to stop you. I’ll get out of your way and take out the threats. I’ll be eyes in the sky and send my familiar to poke you to test if you feel like you should. But nothing you’re doing makes me see you as a real threat - just the possibility of one. I trust you. I trust in you. I trust myself to know enough about you to identify if you’re doing something differently than normal.

And the result of those exercises? No new information, but maybe some things that we all had lost track of amongst the chaos. I am not shocked by your Honesty. I know deep down that I can rely on your Communication. I do Trust you. I know you. I care for you. I know you care for me, too. Even when I have doubts, even when you fuck up, even when things break bad and you make the wrong call…

We are a team for a reason, and no matter what we said in the beginning, it is not just out of necessity or convenience. Are we a bunch of fucked up, broken people? Absolutely. Are we going to continue to fuck up? Probably. Does that change how we feel about each other? No. Never. As long as you’ll have me, I’ll be here, fighting alongside you. Helping you up when you stumble. Offering a shoulder when you need to cry. Standing over you to protect you if you fall. Laughing with you in good times, kicking ass for you in bad. This is our family, damn it. It is strange, and broken, but it is ours, and it is good.

[ninja-muse]

August is over! My reading month felt like it took forever even though otherwise, the month flew by. I blame this half on my top two reads of the month, which I was only reading in short snippets, and half on a number of lackluster reads and DNFs. I'm hoping to get back into my usual habits in September.

I did do better on reading off my physical TBR though! Even though one book was a "aw man, what do I read now?" and two more were, "I'm behind on my goal, quick, read something fast!" Plus the T. Kingfisher, which was graciously provided by my work, as was Running Close to the Wind. (Finally a month where I didn't spend money to add to my library!)

As for my top reads, The Salmon Shanties would be near the top of my list even if there wasn't a degree of reverse-nepotism involved. Absolutely excellent poetry collection, very layered and complex. If you're into Canadian poetry or poetry-of-place, pick it up! And Rose/House, once I got it back from the library because my Libby hold ran out, was absolutely fantastic! As was the quality of the French translation, because it sounded like Martine. So very, very glad I had the nerve (and linguistic ability) to read it. Super-creepy and I'm glad Tor's picked it up so I can hype the heck out of it next year. And then there's Jinn-Bot, which I wrote an actual review for.

On the other end of the list, sigh. I DNFed one book for feeling kind of trite, and another for being too predictable, and probably should have DNFed Voyage of the Damned for being uneven but I needed to know who the killer was. The Library Thief I'm also counting as lackluster—very good book, just wasn't for me or what I was expecting. Still deserves a 7.

Lula Dean, on the other hand, was surprisingly good! Fun and satirical and just plain entertaining. Read it in a couple days and it would likely be higher on my list except my reasons to be "glad to have read them" this month are less about quality and entertainingness than usual. I can't put "really liked this" above "finally I get to read a new book by X!", for instance. Or necessarily above "learned stuff!"

You might notice a distinct lack of any other news, and that's because there is none. September may be marginally more exciting, we'll see. (I know there'll be a bigger book haul.)

Anyway, on to September now, and in the meantime, here's my list everything I read this month, in the rough order of how glad I was to have read them.

The Salmon Shanties - Harold Rhenisch

A collection of poems centered on and celebrating Cascadia in all its facets (or taking it to task, as the case may be). Out in September.

10/10

🇨🇦

warning: mentions racism, colonization, genocide

digital reading copy

Rose/House - Arkady Martine

There is a body within Rose House—two, if you count its architect, who ordered the house shuttered with his passing and left to its AI. Only one person is allowed to enter now, and she’s accounted for. And yet there is a body within Rose House….

9/10

🏳️‍🌈 author

warning: descriptions of a dead body

library ebook

The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport - Samit Basu

Lina and Bador want freedom: from surveillance, from power structures, for their city, for all bots, or just for their family. This might come from cunning, or revolution, or a lost ancient artifact, or an underground bot-battle, or swaying a visiting space hero or the Not-Prince. Much more than an Aladdin retelling.

8/10

🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (multisexual, achillean), Indian-coded cast, Indian author

warning: discusses colonization and oppression, references police violence

reading copy

Unwritten, Vol. 8 - Mike Carey with Peter Gross, Dean Ormston, Yuko Shimizu

When Tommy Taylor learns that Lizzie is trapped in the land of the dead, he goes to rescue her—but he’s unprepared for his adventures there, or the wider implications.

8/10

Indigenous Australian secondary character

off my TBR

All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque

Paul Bäumer recounts his time serving in the German army in WWI.

7/10

warning: war, death, animal death, gore, injury

off my TBR

A Sorceress Comes to Call - T. Kingfisher

Cordelia’s terrible mother has decided to marry a squire. Cordelia knows he and his sister don’t deserve that—but how to stop her, when she can do magic?

7.5/10

warning: child abuse, torture, murder, animal cruelty and death

finished copy received through work

A Man and His Cat, Vol. 4 - Umi Sakurai

Kanda gets the courage to make a new friend and revisit an old situation.

7/10

Japanese cast, Japanese author

off my TBR

A Gentleman from Japan - Thomas Lockley

The true story of a Japanese man who was brought to the court of Elizabeth I and influenced early modern English science.

7.5/10

warning: slavery, orientalism, war and violence

library book

Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books - Kirsten Miller

In Troy, Georgia, the fight for public decency is kicked off by Lula Dean, who craves attention and loves her Southern history—and her fencepost library, where someone’s put wholesome jackets over books she’s tried to ban….

7/10

ensemble cast including Black, 🏳️‍🌈 (gay, lesbian), and Indo-American POV characters

warning: Nazis, anti-Semitism, anti-Black racism, homophobia, rape, suicide

reading copy

The Library Thief - Kuchenga Shenjé

Florence talks her way into a job repairing a lord’s library, but is quickly drawn in by the mysterious death of the lady of the house. A gothic novel centering race, gender, and other marginalizations in late Victorian England.

7/10

Black British main character, Black British secondary characters, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (trans woman, sapphic), Black British author

warning: racism, including slurs; rape, abuse, misogyny, queerphobia

library book

The Voyage of the Damned - Frances White

A grand state voyage is upset by murder and it’s up to the lowly, non-Blessed Ganymedes to catch the killer before they dock. Goddess help them all if he doesn’t….

5.5/10

🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (multisexual), fat protagonist, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (nonbinary, ace, trans man, sapphic, achillean), Indian-, African-, and Japanese-coded secondary characters

warning: murder, injuries, blood, colonial thinking, attempted genocide, suicidal thoughts

reading copy

DNF

Remedial Magic - Melissa Marr

Safe and ordinary Ellie meets a mysterious woman in her library, and is whisked to a fantasy world where she’s probably a witch—and almost certainly in trouble.

🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (sapphic), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (sapphic), 🏳️‍🌈 author

reading copy

Casket Case - Lauren Evans

Garrett stops to ask for directions at Nora’s casket shop and they hit it off. Unfortunately he works for Death…. Out in September.

African-American secondary characters

reading copy

Currently reading

A Natural History of Dragons - Marie Brennan

A memoir by Lady Trent, renowned natural philosopher and adventuress, but covering her childhood and first expedition, to the mountain highlands of Vystrana, and the troublesome dragons encountered there.

library book

Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century - Richard Taruskin A history of early written European music, in its social and political contexts. The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle Victorian detective stories.

disabled POV character (limb injury), occasional Indian secondary characters

warning: racism, colonialism

Monthly total: 11 Yearly total: 70 Queer books: 1 Authors of colour: 3 Books by women: 6 Authors outside the binary: 0 Canadian authors: 1 Classics: 1 Off the TBR shelves: 4 Books hauled: 2 ARCs acquired: 3 ARCs unhauled: 6 DNFs: 2

January February March April May June July

[little-emerald-snake]

Brat taming w Ominis maybe? 😳 the more mean dominis, the better

Bratty - Dominis Gaunt X F!MC

🔥 NSFW 🔞 MDNI

This isn’t as spicy as I wanted to go but I really struggle with writing Ominis as a super hard Dom. In my mind he is a sweet baby angel who can do no wrong.

Warnings: Mild Dominis, bratty behavior, fingering f receiving, orgasm denial, punishment

700 words

She’d been in a defiant mood all day from the moment they woke up. Ominis knew it was likely just to push his buttons for one reason or another but the more she acted out the more he wanted to act on it and dole out a befitting punishment.

She’d come from work not long ago and when he hadn’t asked for a kiss from her she decided to pick an attitude with him. “What? No kiss? Are you punishing me for earlier today?”

Ominis scoffed, stopping his reading briefly to respond to her. “If I was punishing you for your behavior as of late, you'd know it, Darling. It wouldn’t possibly be something as bland as not asking for your kisses.”

She furrowed her brows in question and irritation, wondering what he was possibly upset about. “You doling out some serious form of punishment, puh-lease. You wouldn’t be so harsh with a punishment.”

He gave her a challenging look. “You’re being quite a disobedient brat lately. Are you looking to get punished? Is that what you want sweetheart?”

She came to straddle his lap, meeting his challenge. “Maybe I am. Maybe I don’t think you could actually punish me for anything because you’re far too teeth rottingly sweet to me.”

Ominis let out a deep chuckle that reverberated through his chest and caused goosebumps to rise across her skin. “Oh, Darling. I thought you knew better than to underestimate me. Silly, silly girl. How wrong you are.”

She leaned in close now, licking her lips in preparation for the searing kiss she knew was to come next. “Prove it.”

In a flash she was pinned underneath him and although Ominis was still pretty lithe like he had been all those years ago at Hogwarts, he was also surprisingly strong, able to pin her down effectively rendering her struggle useless. “Now you’re in trouble, naughty girl. Giving me attitude all day and acting like I won’t take charge and punish you like you properly deserve.”

She whined pathetically as he licked a thick stripe up the side of her neck where he knew it would drive her wild with excitement. Her back bowed off the couch as much as it could from under him. She eagerly tried to press against him but he’d moved just out of reach, denying her of the friction she desperately craved.

Her hands slid up, trying to tug him down onto her but he easily took both wrists in one hand above her head, effectively stopping her wandering hands. “Brats don’t get what they want, you’d do well to remember that, Dove.”

He maneuvered their bodies so he could easily hold her wrists above her head and slide his fingers down the front of her pants. She moaned with relief when his fingers touched her under the fabric where she grew hot and wet for him.

She was absolutely soaked as he plunged two fingers inside of her and used his thumb to deftly roll blissful circles around her clit.

She whined, hips lifting to seek more of his touch. More of the pleasure that he was flaring to life inside her body. He made sure she received only the pleasure he doled out and nothing more, she was being greedy as always. “Naughty, Dove. My greedy little girl thinks she deserves to cum on my fingers? Is that what you think you deserve?”

He chuckled, hearing her whine, hips bucking upwards with need. She was clearly on the precipice of an orgasm and he couldn’t have that. Just as her cries began to crescendo, he pulled his fingers out, leaving her high and dry before her orgasm could hit.

She gasped, eyes misty with confusion and bliss meeting his smug expression. She whined, collapsing backwards onto the bed at the realization of what he’d done. “Ominissss…this isn’t fair!”

He chuckled, sliding his slick coated fingers up her torso and gently sliding them into her mouth. “You’re in no position to bargain about what is and is not fair, Dove. You wanted a punishment and now you’re mad that I’m delivering. You are going to learn to behave. That bratty behavior will get you nowhere.”

[raayllum]

for day 1 of rayllum’s bad vibes rodeo, flowers

He finds the flowers near the rim of the Sea of the Cast Out, growing almost like weeds - stubborn but bright like Moon arcanum flowers, out of whatever outskirts of ruins they’ve stumbled across. He was meant to be gathering firewood, but the flowers catch his eye, and well... They’re pretty, just like Rayla, and he’s been bad at expressing himself since coming back, but he knows she’s homesick and worried about her parents, and maybe something Moon arcanum-y will lift her spirits? Maybe the flowers can do the talking for him?

Callum gathers a small bouquet, the scent soothing, and then tucks them carefully into the seam of his tunic where he keeps her letter over his heart. Maybe, if he gets up the nerve to give her the flowers, they can finally talk about all of it. Why it hurt when she left, what he still doesn’t understand, and what he wants.

That he wants her.

He comes back to the campfire, Ezran playing with Stella, Rayla watching with a sweet smile while Bait grumbles in the corner. Callum adds the firewood to their pile and plops down, decidedly more beside her in a way that would’ve been normal, before, but feels tentative and heart-racing to rebuild now.

“You were gone for a while,” she notes, still smiling, but he can see the faint worry in her eyes. “Almost sent Bait out to look for you.”

Callum scoots a bit closer as a silent apology, his knee bumping into hers. “Ah, excellent tracker, is he?” He’s less surprised this time when Rayla hum and rests her head on his shoulder, her smile growing and worry fading.

“Oh, the best.”

Callum snorts, and they stay like that until the fire dies down and Ez and Stella grow quiet, Stella bounding over to curl up on Rayla’s other shoulder, and Zym coils his tail around a sleeping Ezran.

It takes even longer for Callum to find his voice, the arm that’s not wrapped around her waist half reaching for the flowers in his pocket. They’re beautiful, just like her, and she deserves to know... what? That he loves her? That he loves her.

“Rayla?” he begins, but there’s not even a sleepy hum in response, and he looks over to find her dozing, her cheek softly smushed against his shoulder.

Everything in him eases and twists with disappointment all at once. Okay, so not tonight. He leans forward and gives her forehead a little kiss, mindful of her horns. But tomorrow, for sure.

He wakes up alone, her sleeping bag cold when he reaches for her. His fingers don’t brush any of her weapons either, not her father’s bow or her familiar butterfly blades, and it hits him like a gut punch, the idea of being at Umber Tor and not having anything of her left, because she leaves, just like she always does, and—

Callum sits up, a bitter twinge in his heart. “Where’s—”

“She went out scouting,” Ez answers, petting Zym’s head by the newly lit fire.

“And you didn’t think to wake me?” he grouses irritably. They could’ve gone together. She would’ve let him come this time, wouldn’t she? She’d wanted him to come in the Drakewood, and he’d been too angry and proud to—

“We figured a prince needs his beauty sleep,” she drawls, strolling back into camp with berries and a bright smile. Ezran accepts the present eagerly, Rayla frowning when Callum doesn’t lighten. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he says, composing himself. He isn’t going to be mad anymore. He doesn’t want to be mad. He just wants—He reaches for the flowers, his fingers finding only strange ash. What the—?

Can emotion kill the good things too, as some kind of cruel magic?

“Just... still a bit tired,” he lies, and she softens.

“Eat,” she coaxes. “You’ll feel better.”

He gets his answer later though, when their path takes them by the same bend of ruins he’d traipsed through the previous night. The field had been full of beautiful blooms, but now they’re nothing more than crumbled piles of ash. Zym sniffs at one with a displeased snort.

“What are these about, Rayla?” Ezran asks.

“Flowers of Elarion,” she says. “They’re beautiful, but only at night. They regrow in the evening but don’t make it past sunrise.”

“Like a phoenix cycle?”

She reaches down and ruffles Ezran’s hair. “A bit, yeah.”

“That’s sort of sad,” he reflects.

“Sort of,” she agrees. “But they’re flowers. They can’t change their nature.”

Callum presses his lips together. They’re beautiful and soothing, just like her, and nothing good nor bad ever lasts forever, but fuck, his heart hurts now. There’s a strange quality in his voice, as he says, “So they’re always gone by morning?”

Rayla catches his eye, and there must be something in his gaze, too, because she ducks her head, unable to entirely hold it—just like he can’t entirely hold her, no matter how badly he wants to. “Yes,” she answers. She swallows. “They are.”

[ladymoonstardust]

Little Les Amis de l’ABC rant for you

. Like we see this group of friends who were young and still would've had so much to live for and still they were the ones leading this whole revolution and everyone looked up at them. And the thing is that they were so fucking brave you know. They really did let the people decide like it wasn't even them to make a show of corpses when they realised they'll lose, but the people wanted that so they without question went with it. And there's this one scene in the movie they beg for the people to let them in and I think that's just so human because yes, | they were revolutionaries but they were still just young kids...

And they had this unbelievable moral and bravery and they were just such pure and kind souls. They would've deserved it so nuch more to live than the guards who shot them. And they weren't suicidal. They didn't want to die, and you can see that even under all that bravery they were terrified. But they powered through it, because they really wanted this for the people and the I people said they'll make a protest of dying for the cause, so they went with it and fuck the chapters of the battle in the book is just so heartbreaking to read what went through their heads and how they talked with the people. They literally spent their lives planning this revolution and believing it, just for them to lose hope at the very last minute. And even then, Enjolras keeps a whole ass speech about the importance and why they did it, and none of it mentions power or political influence. All he talks o equality and libety and fraternity and why we need it, and he says that even if it won't be them bringing this forward, it will happen, it has to happen because the world cannot go on without this, and I think with that he tries to calm himself that maybe ne was just too early, but he wants to believe that humanity will get better, he doesn't care anymore if he can't be the part of this world he so wished to bring on, he just wanted to believe that one day it could come

Further on, every death of theirs symbolises something else, like each of the Amis took something with them when they died and it's very heartbreaking and tragic to read but also, so very beautiful because with each of the Amis having these traits, they are basically together as 9 are humanity and what it should have. Enjolras is leadership and determination, Combferre is | intelligence and sensibility, Courfeyrac is the heart and spirit, Bahorel your anchor that keeps you grounded, Grantaire the trauma and pain in you that keeps on continuing to fight until he finds a light that can ease it, he's also devotion and loyalty, Bousset is bad luck which everyone has but like he himself we can never give up, no matter how unlucky we get, Joly is

cautiousness and our instine to care tor oners. reuv our moras we naveto ouro tor ourseves anoenan ne doer. wnien We can all find in ourselves, for everything we say is poetry as we say it with a soul, our words define us and mirror our souls. And the together is what we call a human. With all thise traits and hardshios and that's whv their deaths hurt so much. because with them these traits died, with them we feel pieves of us dying, because they are all parts of us

[mundanemoongirl]

if you could rewrite bloodmarked, how would you do it?

I haven’t thought about it too much, but I definitely want to keep the first part where Bree is captured by the regents. It has a powerful statement about racism and racist systems that’s definitely needed. My problems with Bloodmarked start immediately after this part ends.

Instead of running away, I would have Bree search for Nick. Maybe she can find clues for where he was taken when she pulls him into Arthur’s flashbacks. More of a mystery vibe than just being given the answer. On the way to find him, Bree stops refusing her ancestors’ help and actually learns to use her powers. She has to because they get attacked multiple times on the way as a reminder that camlann is coming. I would love for there to still be a confrontation when she finds Nick, but instead of Bree being useless, they fight off the regents together. And yes, I want them to stay together. I think Nick’s better for her than Sel. Especially because Sel’s more trope than character and has hurt her multiple times.

More needs to be done with Nick’s father than him just dying. To tie into other parts of the book, I think it would be cool if he made a bargain with a demon for more power. I have no idea how this would be resolved though.

Maybe after they secure Nick, they find the rest of the legendborn because why aren’t they in this book? Maybe as Bree’s powers grow, she’s able to summon all of them into Arthur’s flashbacks and communicate with them that way. Everyone gets back together but camlann already started. Bree has no choice but to bond to Lark as her kingsmage because he has no purpose in the original book and if Bree really wants to be taken seriously as king she needs to act like one. Maybe some of the regents get killed off by demons. They deserve it. Maybe they have problems fighting off the demons because Felicity’s agony and Tor’s refusal to see Bree as king. And the rest of the book is how they win the war and end the legendborn cycle because of course the most powerful king will end it for everyone.

I would take out the part with that one demon dude, I think his name is Valec? Everything with going to the bar and that one lady’s house after feels like filler to me. I mean it’s so forgetable that I can’t remember the names. I especially hate that Bree’s powers were retconned to be from a demon instead of ancestors’ strength. I would take that part out then make the underground demon power part of the story a side story that didn’t involve Bree. But it is still relevant if Davis bargains with a demon. This doesn’t need to be a trilogy at all. Without the filler, it can definitely condense into two books.

It’s not the best rewrite, but at least it stays focused on the plot and the empowerment message. Thanks for asking!

[astaldis]

Lost Scenes Thursday! Get to know your favourite authors better. Show five scenes from either abandoned fics where you regret they will never see the light of day, or five scenes from WIPs where you are impatient to see them out there. Long, short, one-liner... it's all good reading. Tag five other authors where you are curious.

Thank you so much for asking @valandhirwriter! Only, I fear I don't have much to share 🙈 Just a little snippet from the next chapter for the Cahir x Sabrina fic I'm working on at the moment. Here it is, the start of chapter 6 of The Interrogation Game:

Sabrina takes her time. First she had a pleasantly undisturbed, long late morning nap and now she is soaking in a wonderfully relaxing hot tub, luxuriating in the delicate fragrances she added to the water and savouring the exquisite sparkling wine she is treating herself with. After the exhausting night and all the hiking hither and tither, it is a well-deserved gratification. The Nilfgaardian is not in danger of dying from his injuries anymore, she is pretty sure of that, and thus not in need of urgent care. Yet, he is clearly not fit enough to do much besides resting. So, all in all, he is rather useless to her at the moment. As the locking spell's effect will last until fairly late in the evening, there is no way he can escape from his unusual prison, no worries there, plus nothing dangerous is inside the bags she left with him, no knives or pointy forks or glassware that he could use to attack her or to hurt himself - unless he chooses to throttle or hang himself with the help of a ripped apart blanket. The man appears to have some serious mental issues with all these nightmares of his, and Sabrina is not a psychologist. However, she did not get the impression that Cahir is desperate enough to try such drastic measures to escape his imprisonment. Well, if he does end himself, then good riddance, one enemy of the free North less, but it would definitely surprise her. 

No, Sabrina is almost a hundred percent certain that she will find the prisoner alive and with his health much improved once she returns to the cave. If only she did not have to walk all the way back there. Things would be much easier if she could use a portal, obviously, but it is impossible. The explosion of Tor Lara can still be felt in the structural matrix of magic on the island and the lingering chaotic effect of its warped portal is too unpredictable and dangerous. Ending up with a missing limb or with her body parts scattered about all over the continent is not a desirable prospect, but it is a possible scenario if she did try to portal. It is not worth the risk. With a deep sigh, Sabrina sets out toward the cave in the late afternoon, carrying another bag filled with provisions.

Fun fact: It's the very first fic on Ao3 with this pairing. I got it from the Witcher Wheel. Just spin it twice to get a ship. It's fun!

[lilithsterrarium]

I think the next words out of your irl mouth should be "I'm dumber than a toddler, im so sorry for trying to insist otherwise". Your bratting is usually cute and hilariously pathetic, but trying to say you are smarter than a real person? Saying you are superior in any way? Thinking you can compete with your betters? You clearly need to be reminded of your place.

Until you say that, out loud, you arent allowed to talk. And next time you try to say you are smarter than a real person, i wont let you off with something so easy.

-📃

BDNEENNQJDJEJDHDHCHDS TTHHATS UM HHCDC THATS FFUCKCJC UM THATS. HDHCHDC

ASKS LIKE THIS MAKE IT SO HARD TO BRAT OH MY GOD 😵‍💫💞

If I had my mic set up, I'd absolutely record it, too....

BBCUSHCD BUT NO!!! Absolutely not, I- I know my place and where I belong... m- maybe I went a BIT far with the "smarter than you" part, but that still doesn't change my mind! I'm a person, and I deserve respect!

I- I just won't speak!! Ever!! I'd rather be mute than admit that I'm dumber than a toddler, because its not true!!! I. HFBDBVJJCCJD GGGOD YOU MAKE IT SO TEMPTING UUUGH <333333

....,,,, fffine. But I don't mean it or anything,,,,,,

I. Had tor esist the urge to shout it when I first read this ask 😵‍💫

[adleryoung]

"Just gimme a name," Burnside insisted after I hesitated. "I'll find her and flay her alive!"

"Didn't you hear me mention she's immortal?" I reminded her.

"Then I'll just have to keep flayin' her forever!"

"She killed Sheila Na Gig," I explained. "She might be more than a match for you. Why are you so upset anyway? I thought massacring villages was something you approved of."

"Not when it upsets my friend," Burnside snarled, gesturing at Rebecca, who still seemed to be in a daze. "And besides, I ain't one to pass up a good chance to take some gruesome vengeance."

"Gruesome vengeance will have to wait," I decided. "We have more pressing matters right now." I knelt beside Rebecca and asked her if she was all right.

"I'll be fine," she muttered, shaking her head. "I just need to lie down and get my thoughts together. We should head back to the lodge. I had hoped to show you what we've put together under better circumstances, but … well, you're here, so now's the time."

"You can save the tour til you're feeling better," I said, letting Rebecca wrap her arm around my shoulder and lean on me as we stood up. "I don't have to be anywhere. There's a problem in Persoc Tor that I need to deal with eventually, but it's not urgent."

"So, fill me in on what you've been up to," I asked as we walked.

"Last time you seen me, I was chasin' that varmint Ash," Burnside began.

"It's Owter now," I informed her. "He has gone back to his Vulpitanian name."

"Whatever," Burnside scoffed dismissively. "After I caught up to Rebecca and Arse, they both of 'em explained to me how he wasn't a traitor but actually saved Rebecca after the situation at the courthouse went all wrong. So I couldn't kill him, which was more'n a little disappointin."

"Even a devious schemer like Ash, er, did you say Outer? That's a strange name," Rebecca sighed. "Even somebody like him deserves a chance at redemption."

"You see what I've had to put up with?" Burnside grumbled, gesturing vaguely at Rebecca. "First thing she wanted to do after I showed up was build a coven. After a few dozen tries one actually managed to stay together. The first bunch kept gettin' run off by locals who didn't want witches around, and the others mostly split when they realized what a goody two-shoes Rebecca was. Turns out most would-be witches are social outcasts that want revenge on ever'body what was mean to 'em in school, go figure. It took a long dadgum time to get enough people together to make a group big enough to actually call a coven. Rebecca tries to school the more malicious recruits in the ways of Seelieness. Sometimes they even listen."

"It doesn't help that a certain Raccoon Monster is always taking them out into the woods for 'secret lessons' on how to fillet one's enemies with a pocket knife and other such useful Life Hacks," Rebecca muttered.

"That stuff's important to know!" Burnside retorted. "But most of 'em faint afore I can even get halfway into the lesson. I've said it before 'n I'll say it again: You is raisin them gals too soft."

"Rebecca, you were a Changeling," I blurted, trying to change the subject. "Did anyone from Faerie ever come to fetch you?"

"Nope," she replied sadly, shaking her head. "No one."

"That's troubling," I mused. "Owter made it sound like the remnants of Faerie had mostly stabilized now, but things would have been pretty chaotic when you were born… Does that mean there's an entire generation of forgotten Changelings out there that were never brought back to Faerie? They would be wandering alone in the lowfolk world, not knowing what they are…"

[mooodyblue]

hello my dear! I hope u’ve been feeling better today <3

could we get a fic of little!e playing in the snow? maybe it snows at graceland for the first time in a while and he’s sooo excited about it and is annoyed when reader makes him wait to put on a jacket and boots and gloves 😭💜💜 (and yes it’s snowing like CRAZY where I live rn)

this was so cute!!! so jealous y'all are getting snow, it was hot today 😭 thank you for the request 🫶🏼

wc: 764

masterlist

you'd been keeping a close eye on the weather the whole week. it was much colder out, the sky was grey and you were eagerly waiting for it to snow. elvis complained about the lack of snow every single year and honestly, you were getting sick of the plain, boring, rainy christmases the past few years. graceland deserved just a little bit of snow.

it finally happened on a tuesday morning. you woke up before elvis, letting him sleep in a little after a long recording session the night before. you slipped on a robe, crossing your arms for warmth as you headed downstairs. "oh my god." you gasped to yourself once you caught a glimpse of the front lawn covered in white.

elvis padded down the stairs, tiredly rubbing at his eyes. "mommy?"

"oh!" you turned around quickly at the sudden name, "baby, come look!" you took his hand and brought him to the window to point outside.

his eyes widened as his jaw dropped, "snow! momma, it snowed! it snowed, it snowed!" he said excitedly. he quickly unlocked the front door, ready to head out in his pajamas and bare feet.

you pulled him back immediately. "nuh-uh, silly boy." you tsked. "we have to get you all bundled up first."

"but mo-"

"nope. no arguments." he let out a huff as you pulled him up the stairs and back to his room, pulling out his many layers. getting him to change wasn't an issue until it came time to put on his coat. he did his best to convince you didn't need it and that his sweater would be enough, but you knew it wasn't enough. "elvie, it's just a jacket. c'mon." you sighed, tried to get his arms through it as he resisted.

"don't wanna wear it!" he complained.

"well, that's too bad. guess you don't wanna go play in the snow then." you shrugged.

he shot you a glare, rolling his eyes and holding his arms out. "fine."

"good boy." you finally got the jacket on, slipping it over his shoulders and zipping it up. "boots next." you got on your knees to help put his boots on, only to get another dirty look in response. "jesus, baby. you're actin' like i'm torturing you or something! i'm just trying to get you bundled up."

"this is t-tour-tort....tor....t-that word you said! jus' wanna go play, momma." he complained, stomping his feet.

"and once we get your boots and gloves on, you can go play." you said, sternly. you got his boots on, tying them on and patting his knee as you stood up. "you see how easy that was?"

elvis grumbled, "can i go out now?"

you slipped on your jacket and boots as well, not forgetting your gloves and his. "so impatient." you mumbled. "okay, let's go." you walked down the stairs with him, stopping him once more before he headed out the door.

"now what!" he whined.

you took his hands and slipped on his gloves. "watch that tone." the moment you opened the door, allowing him to run out into the cold air and snow covered front lawn.

elvis threw himself in the snow, rolling around in it and giggling to himself. you sat on the steps watching him enjoy himself, smiling as he ran through the snow. of course, the one time you turned your back to him, a snowball smacked right into your back. you jumped up, turning around and putting your hands on your hips. "now, who did that?"

he looked the other way, pretending to kick at the snow and not acknowledging you.

you got a snowball quickly made in your hand, slowly walking over to elvis and tossing it right at his back. he gasped, "momma!"

"wasn't me!" you held your hands up in defense.

and thus began a very heated snowball fight between the two of you. then he went on to make a snowman, assuring you he could build it all by himself. it was a struggle for him at first, but he got the hang of it. he placed the head on top, giving him a face and looking at it proudly. "see, momma! i did it all by myself!"

"i'm proud of you!" you smiled.

elvis continued playing in the snow while you watched, shivering slightly and crossing your arms. "honey, let's warm up for a bit then come back out! it's freezing! i think it's about to start snowing again too."

he perked his head up, "hot chocolate? marshmallows?"

"lots of marshmallows."

[bookish-rival]

👑TWIN CROWNS SERIES👑

⚠️BURNING CROWNS SPOILERS!!! SPIN-OFF SPOILERS!!

We are getting 2 standalone novels about Marino and Alarik!!!! 😭♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

I am so happy and excited!!! Especially for my King Alarik🥹❄️🐻‍❄ He deserves to find true love and get his happy ending!!!

~☆~

Now that BURNING CROWNS has been out for a few weeks, I am seeing more and more reviews and reader discussions about it—both positive and negative. Most of the negatives though, are expressing disappointment about Wren's endgame.

Obviously, I cannot change anyone's mind—each to their own— I, too, was disappointed that Wren did not end up with Alarik. HOWEVER, after gaining some much-needed insight, I was able to move on and feel much better about the conclusion.

Because this information helped me, I wanted to share them with everyone else who relates. What I want most is to continue supporting the authors and their work, and I hope this perspective helps others do the same.

Shortly before the US release date, there was an online interview where the authors shared insights behind the trilogy. Catherine Doyle especially addressed Wren's endgame, explaining that “she ultimately ends up with who is best for her, her journey and her happy ending“.

It was mentioned that Wren’s happy ending required someone who made her soft, and we can all agree Tor did that. While many of us preferred Wren to be herself with Alarik, the choice of Tor makes sense given the authors' intention to soften Wren’s character. Tor was always planned as her ultimate partner from the very beginning. They added a love triangle with Alarik to create some complexity, but Wren was always meant to be with Tor.

Moreover, the actual message of the books is sisterhood, with the sisters now united and ruling together, side by side with their loved ones, proves to be the only plausible and perfect happy ever after for them.

The authors also mentioned that it will all make sense once we know every character's journey and that the decisions regarding Wren and Alarik’s endgames will be the best for them. We will understand everything once we know all the stories and see the bigger picture.

I cannot wait to see Alarik's journey and the ending he deserves. Even though I love Wren, I am ready to let her go.

~☆~

About Alarik’s novel and his potential new love interest:

While it may be challenging to envision a different outcome for Alarik, given the build-up between him and Wren, trusting in the authors' vision and their dedication to craft the most suitable and best possible ending for each character is key.

Remember, sometimes the wrong person leads us to the right one. The quote, "if I can love the wrong person that much, imagine how much I can love the right person," is a perfect fit that makes me think Alarik's first failed romance will lead to a brighter future and an even more fulfilling love story that's truly meant for him.

Knowing that Catherine has a special affection for writing Alarik's character and is committed to giving him a fulfilling conclusion reassures me. The passion an author has for a character can be felt by readers. Even though he was only a side character with about 20-30% relevance in the trilogy, Alarik captured many hearts. And now, we are getting an entire book focused on him. It’s incredible to think about!

Understanding the behind-the-scenes reasoning and the authors' thoughts has made it easier for me to accept the ending of BURNING CROWNS, and moving forward allows me to support Alarik's future novel with everything I have.

I am confident that Catherine will create an ending for Alarik that's much superior than what could have been with Wren, showcasing his growth and finding true happiness in a way that will satisfy all readers.

Together, we can appreciate the depth and richness of the world they’ve created and celebrate the characters we love, as we look forward to the exciting adventures that await.

I sincerely hope these insights help more readers who are feeling the same way. Please, let’s continue to support our best-selling authors with all our might. Let’s do it for Alarik and Marino, too! Their journeys are just beginning, and we have the opportunity to see them shine in their own stories.

👑👑👑👑

[celestialarchive777]

Lady Gaga via her Instagram ( March 11th, 2024 ) with the caption “ It's appalling to me that a post about National Women's Day by Dylan Mulvaney and me would be met with such vitriol and hatred. When I see a newspaper reporting on hatred but calling it "backlash" | feel it is important to clarify that hatred is hatred, and this kind of hatred is violence.

"Backlash" would imply that people who love or respect Dylan and me didn't like something we did. This is not backlash. This is hatred.

But it is not surprising given the immense work that it's obvious we still have to do as a society to make room for transgender lives to be cherished and upheld by all of us. I feel very protective in this moment, not only of Dylan, but of the trans community who continues to lead the way with their endless grace and inspiration in the face of constant degradation, intolerance, and physical, verbal, and mental violence. I certainly do not speak for this community, but l have something to say. I hope all women will come together to honor us ALL tor International Women's Day, and may we do that always until THE DAY that all women are celebrated equally. That all people are celebrated equally. A day where people of all gender identities are celebrated on whichever holiday speaks to them. Because people of all gender identities and races deserve peace and dignity.

May we all come together and be loving, accepting, warm, welcoming. May we all stand and honor the complexity and challenge of trans life-that we do not know, but can seek to understand and have compassion for. I love people too much to allow hatred to be referred to as "backlash." People deserve better. “

[dollarbin]

Dollar Bin #4:

Emmylou Harris's Angel Band

I visited four different Iowa record stores while dropping my second born off at college last week and I have much to report. 

Yes, there are at least four record stores in the state.  The mystery is how they stay open. 

Emerson, Lake and Palmer records are deemed worthy of plastic protection in Iowa, and $25 Yes records come with handwritten stickers that say things like "Side 1 Skips!" followed by a frownie face.  These stores are convinced - convinced! - that newly printed Guns and Roses records deserve places of high honor up on the wall and that Jerry Jeff Walker belongs in folk rock. After all, the Country section is behind a wall of dangling beads and George Jones fills an entire crate. 

A rotund, nose-ringed salesdude nods when you enter, drops the store's diamond needle on Bad to the Bone, then ambles over to offer you a tour "of their whole set up" while bragging about the minty, clear vinyl, limited edition Blink 52 record they just scored for $75 even though it's worth $300, easy.

I was happy for the dude, I really was, but I shook them off, strode past a pickle barrel of still cellophaned tapes (4 for $5!) and found that their Neil Young section was - I swear to god - entirely empty.  

Is that even legal? I mean can you really own a record store and not have a single Neil Young record? And how, you ask, are such stores even in business?

I'll tell you how: at one of them I found, after 30 years of earnest hunting, my first ever copy of Henry the Human Fly (it was an original Reprise print no less, and even though I could really give a flying turd about such things - this is the Dollar Bin after all, not Nathan's VGG++ Nerd World - I was still pretty damn fired up and almost hugged the salesdude). Anyway, I snapped up that little blue number for the very non-Dollar Bin price of 37 bucks, thereby keeping that store in business long enough for them to blast George Thorogood for another glorious day. B-B-B-B-Bad!

All kidding aside, the people of Iowa are amazing. At stop signs drivers wave to one another! Please pack up all spare copies of your favorite records, drive to Iowa, and donate them to those lovely people.

I don't know about you, but every time I enter a new record store for the first time I head straight to Young, Neil and start judging the place.  I don't really expect to find anything by Neil that I don't already have - but please, God, please help me find a copy of Ragged Glory someday, and please make it cost less than $50; I don't ask for too much God but this one favor I do of you most humbly implore - but Neil's section is an easy and effective way to find out if the store is worth my time. Or yours. 

If there's nothing to be found other than a $22 copy of Comes a Time, or even worse, nothing but an already dusty, year-old copy of Noise and Flowers for $65, I know I'm better off at Chili's eating a bloomin onion alone; if they have nothing but copy after copy of Re-ac-tor, Time Fades Away and Journey Through the Past, I stay open minded - maybe ten minutes earlier they sold a crunchy old copy of On The Beach; and if they have Old Ways or Trans for $8-10 it's time to get excited and explore the store.

Stop #2 for me in any new record store is always Emmylou Harris. I submit for your consideration the following thesis: a good record store should have on stock most, if not all, of her records between Gliding Bird (1970) and Bluebird (89). We're talking about something like 15 titles between those bookends, and all of them should be in any good record store for under 8 bucks a piece.

Don't get me wrong: these records should not be cheap given their quality. I am hear to tell you that Emmylou Harris does not make bad, or even mediocre records. Like Paul Simon (well, there is Songs from The Capeman...), she only releases good albums. The same cannot be said for Neil or Bob, though I love them dearly. I defy even my famous brother to find an argument for Down in the Groove or The Monsanto Years.

(For those at home taking notes: I did indeed make the statement in an earlier post that Neil can do no wrong. I stand by that statement! Dylan and Young alike put out crap intentionally. It's what genius's do, people! Come to think of it, that's why some (maybe all!) of my posts are gonna suck. Neil, Bob and I are simply shaking off any fair weather fans.)

But back to Emmylou: why, you ask, should every record store worth its salt have all her records cheaply in stock?

Consider:

A) between 75 and 89 she put out a record a year, all of them good, and sold them consistently to my mother and all my mother's friends and all my mother's friends' friends and... you get the idea: that's a lot of records;

B) all those women have, since they made those purchases, got a life. Unlike me. They don't need their records anymore and they've told their loser sons to put down their bongs and go out and do something with all their old vinyl in the hopes that the sons will learn entrepreneurship and decency in the process. Those loser sons have, in turn, not ignored their mother and listened to the Emmylou Harris records (like they should have!) but instead taken them to their local Treasured Vinyl and exchanged them for autographed copies of Roll the Bones, or some other comparable crap;

C) unlike her friend Dolly Parton, Emmylou has no amusement park to call home, nor any lifetime movies made in her honor; and, finally,

D) unlike Fleetwood Mac, no boyband applicant on a skateboard drinking juice has destroyed the internet with one of her songs as a soundtrack, thereby unleashing hoards of hipster kids to demand of all the local rotund record store dudes copies of Rumors.

Put all that together friends, apply a little supply and demand, and what do you get? Record stores should be full of cheap and outstanding Emmylou Harris records.

So let's focus in on one of my favorites and one that I bet none of you have ever listen to, Angel Band.

There's no getting around it, I have to tell you: Angel Band is a Jesus record.

Don't panic! You haven't been lured in here to be told that He Gets You. Instead, it's time for this entry's second thesis: Angel Band is The Best Jesus Record (by a white person, anyway).

That's right, it's better than Saved, Jesus Was a Capricorn, My Mother's Hymn Book and everything Van the 80's Jesus man ever put out. By far! Indeed, I'd even go so far as to argue that while listening to Angel Band you will forget altogether that the man from Galalee is even involved.

Before I preach the word of Emmylou, let's listen to the opening track.

I kinda feel like I could just end this entry right here. What can anyone possibly say other than Jesus Christ! The barely there but perfect band creates simple and delicious space around Harris' aching goddess of a voice. If some jerk doctor ever tells me I need to stop drinking beer (dear God, I'm back! Never mind my earnest appeal for Ragged Glory. Rather, God, please avert that hateful beerless future!), then I'm gonna have to listen to this album every day just to calm the hell down.

My prime hobby in life (good news everyone: as of this morning this blog is my day job because, thanks to my famous brother, I now have like 16 followers and surely that means cash money is coming my way, yes? Isn't that how the world wide web works? Siri, where's my paycheck?!) is teaching High School English and History; in that role I teach a four week block each year on The Holy Books.

The class is easy to teach even though I'm not a regular church goer; tell cool teens about Muhammad getting seized by the Angel Gabriel, back that up by showing them that Abraham is everyone's mythical great-grandad and they are all in. But, given the fact that Donald Trump and Samuel Alito continue to exist and threaten all our lives, Jesus is a tough sell to teens. (See that? Right there I'm not shaking off any new fair weather fans; I'm telling any Trump people reading this to go away and stop acting like shitheads.)

I do what I can in my Holy Books course to salvage Christianity: we get to the good stuff within the Sermon on Mount and St. John's Prelude and we separate St. Augustine's hateful nonsense from the essence of Christ. But the turning point, the moment when smart, open-minded kids realize that Jesus is about love without exception, not hate, often comes not through the texts or through my earnest lectures, but instead when I play them them The Stanley Brothers Angel Band or The Louvin Brothers I See A Bridge. No spiritual teaching that leads to such beauty could be altogether with merit, and kids get that.

Just about any song on Angel Band could win that same argument, including Harris' version of the title track. Covering a song that is perfect to begin with is either a brilliant move (see Dark End of the Street, originally by James Carr, and the versions by Linda Ronstadt and Richard and Linda Thompson), shrugable (Neil Young singing If You Could Read My Mind) or intolerable and gross (Stephen Stills' version of The Loner - I curse thee Stephen Stills!). But as far as I'm concerned Emmylou Harris could cover anything, from Will to Love to Love Shack, and make it great.

So get over your fear of Jesus, dive into your local dollar bin and relax while listening to Angel Band. God, if we are lucky, exists. And she sings just like Emmylou Harris.

[halliescomut]

Secret Crush on You Ep 13

-Are we getting a SkyJao focused ep???? Because I'm down for that!!

-😂😳 Jao doesn't want you to hold yourself back Sky!!!!

-Indeed yes, Sky is very tasty 😋

-I can't believe that uniform has a fake tie.

-Hah! Sky likes to tease, but doesn't like to be teased....at least not in this context 😂

-Awww Jao said the L word too ❤️❤️❤️❤️

-Kong's definitely more than your standard weird awkward freshman....what was that bathroom note????

-Som struggling with bluntness again...not really mad about it though. She's a good friend.

-'Toh, can't I come with you??' 'Dude, I'm tryna get my back blown out and your kinda fuckin that up.' (Not actual dialogue but I really wish it was.)

-Nuea clearly trusts him as much as I do. This is not just a case of cockblock frustration.

-Damn Nuea. But also now I'm a little worried Kong might sneak into the condo and murder Toh and Nuea.

-Who was in that car that picked up Kong??? All I could see is they also had the uniform....

-Haha Jao was totally gonna give that present away before he figured out it was from Sky....what a good babes.

-Aaahhh so he was sort of trying to SWF Toh, but the plan was stealing Nuea.

-I'm not gonna feel bad for Kong, I'm not gonna feel bad for Kong, I'm not gonna feel bad for Kong--I knew it!!! It was an act!!

-Domestic fluff!!! My favorite ☺️

-The sound effects in this show are great.

-They really only ate like 3 bites of their food.

-Nooooo!!!!!!! Not the stalker box!!!! Oh God....well stalker wall revealed.

-The fucking towel!!!

-That was a.... ridiculous save by Toh.

-No, the box!!! OMG

-Sky and Jao have the worst timing. Like 5 min earlier guys. I know you were making out in the car. YOU COULD HAVE PREVENTED THIS!!!

-God this is so awkward. I want to fast forward.

-Rating the awkwardness now. 70billion/10 after the stalker memory walk.

-These two dinguses have been stressed out at the thought of the other finding someone 'better'... They're idiots and they belong together, Your Honor!!!

-Now I'm worried they're gonna have crying sex and I'm gonna have to add another billion to the awkwardness rating....

-I always knew you were weird, I walked into this with my eyes open, is kind of a weird way to go....but okay I guess.

-Awww Jao revealed his Sky box to help Toh. That's very sweet, but also.... Toh definitely needs therapy. (Also, that ambulance first aid kit is cute as fuck!!! I want one!)

-Awww, Sky's so cute.... And Jao's so cute 🥺🥰 Adorable. Also I love how expressive Sky's eyebrows are, especially when he gets that little wrinkle between his brows.

-"I'll show you naughty" [Yes please!!!]

-Yes worship Jao!!! He deserves it!!!

-Oooohhhh we get to meet Toh's family. Hopefully that will go as well as meeting Nuea's.

- SkyJao are too precious and I can't take it!!!!!

-Dude.... y'all are literally like 1.5 feet behind Toh, he 1000% can hear you.

-Toh definitely did not tell Nuea that he invited 6 other people 😂

-Tor, you're watching way too closely my guy.

-Awww Nuea's so nervous and Toh's mom is so sweet.

-Papa Toh....don't be grumpy please, Nuea's so good!!!

-I'll be honest, I'm worried about Papa Toh's health breathing in that smoke.

Alright, final rating....I think 9/10, a lot of sweet moments, 1 point deducted for the stalk down memory lane *shivers*

As established awkward rating 70billion/10.

[shimbongulus]

Pies and Pasta: Another Look

(Read another perspective of this scene here.)

Goodness, I do enjoy everyone’s company, but the preparation for Mettaton Bingo always is quite a hassle. Fortunately darling Frisk helped prepare the second pie - they have been doing more lately. 

Right! Plates and napkins - Myself, Frisk, Sans… Hee hee hee, I should find that whoopee cushion some time. Undyne, Alphys - Always an entertaining pair to have over.

And…. Him. 

Sigh.

It was far simpler in the early days. I was able to keep our interactions to strictly kingdom-related affairs. How did he get this far?

Right - my darling child. Despite his murderous intent, they somehow could forgive him and take him as a father. If nothing else, he is cooperative - and has come around to see reality far better. 

Perhaps that is why I have put him at the opposite end of the table, rather than off to the side where I would not have to look at him. 

Ah - the bell! That must be Papyrus.

Sans! Hee hee hee, come here - 

Oh, that little devil! Hee hee, it is time to frustrate Papyrus. The puns are not that bad. I am sure he is exaggerating for dramatic effect. 

Their surface home is in New Snowdin, is it not? I ought to ask if there is any issue that we have missed. It is quite removed from the rest of the town.

Perhaps we should consider new power lines from the CORE to New Snowdin? We will need more refrigeration for the temperature-sensitive creatures soon.

Alphys! Good to see her - and Undyne, too - she is rather energetic. 

No, I should try not to hold too much of a grudge for her attempts to actively kill my child. I have forgiven, but the soreness is not entirely gone. 

Alphys has made such major strides with her confidence since they have made their relationship permanent! I wonder how she would be as a parent?

Speaking of parents, that heavy and cautious foot-tread. That would be him.

Breathe. In, out. Control your breath when you can control little else, Tor. 

There he is, with that “howdy.” Goodness, it is strange to see him in my living room, and somehow stranger yet that I am happy to see him. 

No “Tori” this time, he is doing far better about that. Especially since the incident at town hall. That reminds me - the garden, I ought to ask about that. 

Good, he has brought the tea kettle. His tea-making was always a great talent, very helpful for long nights with the children. It will be good to taste it again. 

And there he is with Frisk again. He still has not lost his touch with children.

His touch as a father, I should say. Is it right to say that “we” are still parenting Frisk? We cooperate enough that it fits in terms of grammar, but… 

That troublesome word, we. It does not entirely fit. 

And yet it somewhat does. Drat this complexity, let us simply enjoy some food. 

Papyrus’ pasta is actually… decent? This is an unexpected turn! I was entirely prepared to wait until afterward to have some leftover food from last night. 

And now for the moment - Asgore’s tea. That clear orange with the slight murkiness - a little sugar never hurts. 

Oh, goodness, Frisk is going to try that red ramen. That much spice could cause problems.

Determined as ever, I suppose. I shall simply have to keep my eyes on them -

Gracious me! They are fast as ever. All of that sparring must be yielding results. 

Mmm. The tea is excellent - not bitter in the slightest, and the sugar manages to make it that extra little bit sweet, like it always was. 

Oh, goodness, Frisk is struggling with that ramen. Perhaps I should -

Aaah! The sweat, the distress, the - 

Calm yourself! Calm yourself… it is Frisk, not them… This is now…

Goodness, moments like this can feel so alone.

Asgore is looking at me - oh, that smile. That smile. He understands, of course he would.

Yes, yes, it will be all right. They will be fine. It is only some spice. 

I had never thought I could feel so relieved by his smile. 

Ah, the food was refreshing. First, to Frisk - they deserve it for the difficulty of that ramen.

No, he shall not be left for last this time. I have been reluctant to share it with you thus far, but today, you shall receive this piece first. 

Goodness, that smile is massive. He will split his head in two if he continues like that. 

It is oddly infectious, however. 

Calm yourself, Toriel. That is still Dreemurr you are looking at. 

Some television will be welcome after this. 

Curses, the end of this episode approaches, and I have not gotten anything towards this bingo! 

Gracious, Alphys is excited! I have never seen her this energetic! How delightful! A shame that I have not won a single bingo tonight. I must have used all of my luck last time. 

That concludes tonight, I suppose. It is always entertaining to see Alphys cling onto the back of Undyne’s motorcycle like that. 

Sans’ dimensional shortcuts are always an oddity - I have never managed to find out how they work. 

And… him. He is taking an awful long time crossing the lawn -

Oh, he is turning back. Did he forget something?

He is waving - and I am returning it. 

My, my smile is quite broad.

I should clean this all tonight, but it can wait until tomorrow morning.

Pajamas, there - comfortable bed there - ahh, relief. It was enjoyable, but exhausting.

Let me pull the covers up a bit…

Ahh, that’s better.

His visit went well today - perhaps we shall meet  more often?