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kxlinthesky · 2 years

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EPISODE 4 LIGHT NOVEL Chapter 3-3 English Translation

“I didn’t do anything!”

“Then who did do it, if not you?”

“I don’t know! By the time I got here he was already lying there unconscious!”

“So you didn’t assault him? Knock him out at all?”

“What reason would I possibly have for doing that?! None, that’s what!”

Cain had cornered Jack almost as soon as he’d arrived, and now the two were locked in a furious argument over the unconscious servant in the chapel. The former snorted at Jack’s impassioned defense. “Yes, you do,” he countered. “This man has had his eyes on Eliza for ages now.” He glanced over to the other servant crouched in the corner of the chamber. “Right?”

The woman gave a single, tremulous nod. “Y-Yes... h-he has f-feelings for Lady Eliza....”

“See?” crowed Cain. “You couldn’t stomach his feelings toward your fiancée, so you attacked him!” He’d clearly made up his mind about the entire situation, possibly since the moment he stepped into the room.

Jack stood firm, mouth drawn in a fierce scowl. “I didn’t know about how he felt, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t throw such wild false accusations around.”

“That’s right, Uncle,” added Eliza. She’d crowded close to Jack almost immediately, an unwavering pillar of support for her fiancé. “Jack isn’t the sort of person to assault a servant!”

“You don’t know that, Eliza. Everyone has a dark side. Besides, isn’t he supposed to be learning some kind of Oriental martial art? He could’ve easily knocked someone unconscious with one of those techniques, don’t you think?” Cain huffed a laugh through his nose and glanced toward the servant woman again. “You saw everything, right? So you had to have seen Jack knocking this guy around.”

“Huh –?” The poor girl’s face grew even paler at the unexpected question. Her gaze slid to the floor. She was visibly trembling. “Um, I....”

“You don’t have to be scared,” Cain soothed her. “Just tell us what you saw.”

Even with his gentle reassurances, the woman drew back, her breath caught in her throat. Hesitation swam in her gaze. Slowly, ever so slowly, shaking lips opened. “I... saw....”

A new voice cut in before she could get more than a couple words out. “That young man has no external injuries, nor does he show any signs of violence whatsoever. It’s far too soon to say whether Jack did anything to him.” Tristan strode up to the group, his eyes focused on the fallen servant. “I highly doubt there’s a simple explanation for how he came to be lying here dead to the world and unable to wake up.”

“Sir Tristan.” Cain glared at the gentleman. “You may be a renowned alchemist, but a doctor you are not.”

Tristan returned the man’s glare with a sharp glance of his own, though his words were easygoing as anything. “You’re right, I’m not. But then, neither are you. In fact, of all of us, Jack is the doctor here. This isn’t the time or place to stop him – we should let him perform a medical examination.”

Tristan’s declaration put a stop to the arguing. In short order, the unconscious servant was carried into a small room off of the chapel. Smelling salts and other restoratives proved ineffective. Jack lifted the man’s eyelids, revealing that his pupils were wide enough to nearly drown out his irises. It took some time, but he eventually finished his exam and sat back. “... How strange. He has a pulse, but it’s almost like....” He cut himself off midsentence. “Without better equipment, it’ll be difficult to tell what caused this.”

Owl, who had been listening in, rushed up at that. “Jack, Ellie collapsed in Lord Arby’s room at the same time. Would you please take a look at her, too? There might be a connection.”

“Your sister did? Yes, of course, right away.” Jack grabbed Owl’s hand and tugged him off in the direction of Arby’s room.

“Oi, Jack! We’re not done here!”

Cain tried to stop them, but Tristan intercepted. “Please be quiet. My son can ask Jack any further questions. He may be young, but he’s an accomplished detective with an eye for criminal activity and connections in the police force. We can leave this to him.”

That gave Cain pause. “A detective...?”

“A novice, mind, and his reputation doesn’t yet extend outside the city, but yes. He’s an expert at deduction, so we should leave the specialists to their respective fields, right?” Tristan’s tone was exceedingly gentle, but his smile was razor-sharp. He tapped the tip of his cane against Cain’s heart. “You can rest assured that he won’t do anything strange, Mr. Cain.” In a whisper, he added, “Even greedy lions can find themselves gored on a goat’s horns.”

His warning shot through Cain as if they were horns themselves, piercing his heart and stopping his breath. Tristan turned on his heel and headed back to his room without another word, with Ralph and Hannah trailing after him after sending Cain their own icy glares. Cain remained only long enough to click hi tongue in annoyance before stalking out of the side room himself.

Left alone with the unconscious servant, Eliza watched the group disperse. Her teeth gently tugged at her lower lip. Dainty hands rose to grip at her own shoulders. Her whisper was nearly lost in the sudden stillness. “... I have to get it together....”

“How is she, Jack?”

“Hm... this is –”

Owl and Jack had carried Ellie to yet another room and placed her on a sofa big enough to swallow her tiny frame whole. Her eyes were half-open, so she appeared to be conscious, at least, but her gaze was blank and lifeless.

“Miss Ellie?” called Anastasia. “Are you all right? Can you hear me?”

Ellie gave no response. There was obviously something very wrong. Jack performed another examination on Ellie, then stepped back and proclaimed, “It’s magic intoxication.”

“Magic intoxication?” echoed Owl.

Jack nodded, then glanced to Anastasia. “Nasha, could you bring us a cup of water? I want to give Ellie some medicine.”

“Right away!”

Anastasia dashed off, nearly bumping into Tristan in the doorway. The gentleman stepped inside right as the girl left. “Need any help?” he called.

“I do, but I’d rather Owl do it, actually,” replied Jack.

“Me?” asked Owl.

“Yes. She collapsed in the master’s study, right? That makes you the most qualified. I’ll take it out of her, and I want you to grab it.”

“Take it out?” Take what out? Owl had no idea what Jack was talking about.

Thankfully, Jack answered the implicit question, even if his reply was just a vague, “You’ll understand when you see it.” He pulled a pair of thin gloves from his pocket and tugged them on, then snapped his fingers. To Owl’s shock, a white alchemical formula appeared around his fingertip, and one he’d never seen before, at that. The doctor pressed it into Ellie’s cheek and murmured something too quiet and rapid for Owl to catch. A faint breeze picked up around the girl for just long enough to rustle the hem of her robe before dying down again.

The hand on Ellie’s cheek grabbed at something that leaked out of the girl. “There we go,” Jack said, drawing back. A trail of some sort of red mist followed his fist. He squeezed his hands together, compressing its contents into a ball. “Take it, Owl.”

“Huh?”

“You’re the same element, so it should be easy for you to extinguish it.”

Jack handed the substance to Owl. The detective squinted at the foreign object in his hands, bewildered... but it didn’t take long for him to realize what exactly he was holding, given how similar it looked to the stuff he normally controlled within the confines of his own body. “... Is this a lump of magic?” he asked.

“That’s right,” answered Jack. “If she collapsed in the master’s study, then the element she got hit with had to be fire, and she’d absorbed enough of it to get rather sick. But your specialty is fire and sun-based alchemy, right, Owl? So you can rest easy – it might not be beneficial to you, but it won’t harm you, either.”

“How did you know my element?”

“I’m a doctor. My specialty is examining and diagnosing. Now hurry up.”

Owl stared at Jack in mute wonder, stunned by his perfect composure. The detective obediently squashed the lump in his hand, making sure to not let a single drop escape his grasp, and it vanished without a trace.

Jack clapped. “Impressive,” he said admiringly.

“The impressive one here is you, Jack,” argued Owl. “I couldn’t have drawn that magic out of her like that. I didn’t realize you were also an alchemist.”

“Hardly. I’m on the lower end of the alchemist spectrum, and even that’s being generous. The only way I’m even half-decent is by using McCreech tools. These gloves, they pull a lot of weight for me.” Jack scratched his cheek, an embarrassed flush rising to his face. He held his gloves out for Owl to see. “Eliza was the one who made them – said she hoped they’d be useful.”

Owl peered at the gloves. There was a design on the back sewn on with white thread – the “Rod of Asclepius,” a symbol heavily associated with the medical profession – but on closer inspection, the fine details came together to form an alchemical formula designed specifically for health care. He deciphered the thing in mere seconds. “A quick cast formation, huh?” he murmured, amazed once more. “Makes sense.”

Just then, Owl noticed movement. It was Ellie, blinking rapidly all of a sudden. “... Owl?” she whispered.

“Ellie!” Owl jumped to attention immediately.

Ellie stared up at Owl blankly, then glanced around the room. She tilted her head. “What... happened to me...?” That unsettling hollow expression she’d had disappeared as though it had never existed.

“Nothing much,” Owl sighed. He gently patted her head. “You just got a little sick from the air in that room.”

Right at that moment, Anastasia returned holding a cup of water. She gasped in delight when she saw that Ellie had regained consciousness. “Oh, thank goodness!” she yelped, rushing up to them.

“Now for the medicine.” Jack handed Ellie and Anastasia each a sweet drop, then told them, “We’re going to go back and examine the servant again. Can you two stay here quietly until we’re done?”

“Yes, we’ll stay right here,” Anastasia promised. “Please fix him up as well.”

“I promise I will.”

Tristan called out, “Hannah, fetch these girls some tea, please.”

Hannah, who had apparently been waiting outside for a while, dipped her head. “Understood.”

When they returned to the room where the servant was sleeping, Jack let out a sigh, his head drooping. “I said I’d fix him, but....” He gazed down at the unconscious man, eyebrows knitted with sadness.

“There’s nothing you can do,” finished Tristan.

“Yes.”

“There’s no saving him?” asked Owl. “He didn’t faint from magical intoxication like Ellie?”

“No, he didn’t. With him, it’s more like his soul was pulled out of his body.”

“His soul? But he’s alive, isn’t he?”

Jack seesawed one hand. “It depends on your definition. Physically, yes, we could theoretically keep him breathing for a while, but... a person’s soul is the source of their willpower. I don’t know if you could call a body deprived of one of the tria prima ‘living,’ really... though there’s room for argument, I suppose.”

Tria prima was a term for the three substances constituting matter. In medieval times these were thought to be mercury, salt, and sulfur, but in alchemy they were instead understood to be the mind, body, and soul. Mind and soul existed inside the body – they would survive even if the vessel failed. According to Jack, however, the opposite had happened to the servant. His body was still here, but his soul had been separated.

“How could something like that even happen?” Owl wondered. He’d been so sure that this man and Ellie had collapsed for the same reason, but this was far beyond anything he’d expected.

“I’ll have him taken to the Frost estate,” suggested Jack. “Everyone in my family is a doctor. One of the others might be able to determine what caused this – maybe they’ve seen something similar before. I’ll telegram them later.”

“Good idea. Let us know if they find anything. I want to know what happened here, too.”

“Got it.” Jack nodded, then glanced between the pair with a smile. “You’re the type who can’t leave mysteries unsolved, either, huh? Like father, like son.”

“Wha –” Owl’s expression grew complicated at that, rather like a cat who’d just bitten into a particularly bitter fish. “... You think? I don’t see it at all, myself.”

By contrast, Tristan was immensely pleased. “You have a good eye, Jack. I see, so Owl and I are alike, hm? Well, we’ve been together so long, I suppose that’s only natural. But even as a young boy learning alchemy from me, our elements were quite different – his was fire, mine earth. Oh, how he used to make the house shake! Knocking down walls, blowing the roof off... back then, he was actually rather like Lord Arby. I wonder if that’s because they both use fire?”

“Ah, yes, in that respect he’d be similar to the master. Maybe all fire users are just like that?”

Owl groaned, praying for the conversation to be over already. It was awkward to hear the topic drift to “the annoying habits of fire alchemists.” Then a thought occurred to him. He casually asked the pair, “Does Lord Arby also cause this house to shake a lot?”

“Oh, all the time,” answered Jack with a fond smile. “The master’s experiments are extravagant, after all. Eliza and I have known each other since we were little, and I was always coming and going around here since way back when, and let me tell you, the amount of times I saw him blow a hole in a wall.... I must’ve heard explosions and felt the foundations shaking at least once a month.”

“... Earlier, before all this stuff with Ellie and the servant happened, wasn’t there also a tremor? What was that, do you think?”

Jack blinked. “Ah, now that you mention it, it did, didn’t it? I didn’t really notice since it happens so often.... But the master isn’t feeling well right now and he should be resting in bed, from what I’ve been told, so I wonder what caused it this time? It can’t have been one of his experiments.”

“At the time, he definitely wasn’t in his study – I was,” admitted Owl. Maybe I did something by accident? went unsaid.

“Do you have an idea, then?” asked Tristan.

Owl grimaced. “I want to say ‘no,’ but there was something odd that happened.”

“Odd?”

“Technically two somethings. I touched this picture of a person holding a lamp, and there was this odd resonance with my finger, almost like an electric current ran through it.” Owl held up the finger in question to Tristan.

The gentleman nodded immediately. He knew exactly what his son meant. “Ah, that. Right, I suppose it’s about time I tell you. Come with me.”

With that, he swept out of the room, leaving Owl to hurry after him.

Tristan’s room was laid out the exact same as Owl’s, right down to the placement of the furniture. The only difference was the lone decoration – instead of a painting, Tristan’s room contained an unrefined walnut-colored clay pot, large and Oriental in design. It was maybe some sort of water jug. The gentleman pointed at it as soon as they walked in. “That right there is a truly fascinating little item,” he said.

“... Fascinating?” repeated Owl.

“I believe it was a ‘key’ used in ancient alchemy.”

“Ancient alchemy? A key?”

“And I first came to that conclusion when I happened to make physical contact with it for the first time. I felt an odd shock then, the same as you. I was amazed, at first. But I ran several tests, and I eventually determined that the alchemy woven into the pot reacted to my own power. It took some time, mind, given that modern alchemy has a far different structure than it did back then, so I had to go to great pains to alter mine –”

As he rambled on, Tristan approached the water jug and pressed his hand to it. A pale light flashed around his palm, and soon a complex alchemical formula rose around the point of contact.

“– before I could manage this. I had to go around researching old writing styles and texts, analyzing every little detail piece by piece. Its form is somewhat similar to the linear scripts used in one area of the United Kingdom.”

He placed his other hand on the pot as well, altering the old formula to a more contemporary version. However, the formula was only half-converted when it suddenly ground to a halt.

“But this is as far as I’ve been able to take it. I can decipher bits and pieces of it, but it’ll likely take much more time before I can fully decode it all.” Tristan didn’t sound too bothered, but for a state alchemist like himself to be having this much trouble, the old formula had to be nigh incomprehensible. Owl probably wouldn’t be able to read a single letter of the thing himself.

“... I’m guessing that the reason you come here so often is to try and decipher it?” asked Owl.

“You’re not wrong. There shouldn’t be any reason for me to not be able to read an archaic formula, don’t you think? You can’t leave an interesting formula alone, so you can understand how I’m weak to ancient alchemy.” Tristan shrugged. By the twinkle in his eye, he wasn’t just unbothered – he was fully entertained by the prospect. “Plus, it’s not just for myself – I received an order from Lord Arby himself to analyze it. His father unfortunately passed away before he could teach him how to read it.”

Owl found himself nodding along. “Yeah, I get it. The more difficult it is to understand, the more exciting it is.”

“Exactly. This is a great opportunity. Observe my methods as I parse through it.”

“Fine, but... can I actually do it with you?”

Tristan beckoned in lieu of a verbal response, and Owl drew closer to the pot. The young detective’s mask of suspicion still hadn’t cracked, but his pace was swift and impatient, belying his eagerness. Jack’s shoulders shook with laughter as he saw it, murmuring, “They really are alike,” too quietly for either of the other two to notice.

Owl peered at the formula in Tristan’s hands. The mess of symbols was, as he’d expected, impossible to read. Tristan pointed at the first symbol and told him, “This is a combination phonogram and ideogram. If we turn this into a determinative... we can replace this bit with modern formula.” As he explained for Owl’s benefit, he rearranged the symbols. This was not Tristan the proud father; this was Tristan the renowned alchemist. “All right, now starting from here, this word is ‘star.’”

“... And the next?”

“‘Land.’ So connecting that to this bit here, it becomes ‘star of the land,’ and then....” Tristan’s tone suddenly shifted, his next words recited like a chant. “‘Star of the land of the living.’”

“... Hm?”

“‘The shortcut to Heaven.’”

“Huh?” Owl jolted. He knew those words. He’d heard those words before. Without thinking, Owl spoke alongside Tristan, their voices overlapping. “‘Four magicians commanding the elements?”

“Hm?!” Now it was Tristan’s turn to be shocked. He certainly hadn’t expected Owl to know the next words! “Owl, you can read this?”

“Uh, no.” Flustered, Owl tilted his head. “No, I can’t. I can’t, but....” He took a deep breath. This was going to sound ridiculous, and he knew it. “Ellie said those words, when she collapsed earlier.”

“Ellie what? She can read this ancient formula?”

“I really doubt that. She can still barely read the alphabet.”

“I see... but perhaps, if it’s her, she can....”

“Huh...?”

In his excitement, Tristan jabbed a finger at the glowing formula. “No, never mind that, what comes next? What did she say next?”

“Nothing. She passed out right after.”

“Nothing at all? Are you positive? If we could just get past this system of symbols here, I’m certain we would be close to cracking the fundamentals of the cosmos. It’s not complete as it is right now.”

Owl thought back for a moment. “... Well, actually... she said something like ‘that power,’ I guess.”

“‘That power’...?” Tristan echoed thoughtfully.

“Do you want me to just call her here?” asked Owl. “That’d probably be quicker.”

“No, wait!” Tristan fervently shook his head. “I’ve come this far – I want to solve it myself. We can compare answers later. Until then, don’t breathe a word of this to Ellie, and I mean that. If you say anything unnecessary I’m revoking your snack privileges, you hear me?”

“Oi, this isn’t some puzzle or game, you know?” Owl sighed, exasperation lacing the edges of his voice.

Tristan, in response, turned a grim glare on the formula. Rather than answer, he began mumbling to himself, losing himself in thought. “... Yes, I see. So if this part here is ‘that power’....”

Owl’s shoulders slumped. “Damnit.” Once Tristan got absorbed in something, he was even harder to pull back out than Owl. The gentleman probably couldn’t even hear his son’s voice anymore. With another sigh, the detective turned back to Jack and jabbed a finger at the door. “He’s going to be like this for a while. Let’s just leave him be.”

Jack followed. “State alchemists really are something, aren’t they?” he hummed. “I’ve been coming to this house since I was a kid, and I never even noticed that those were alchemical devices.”

“He’s a bit too good at his job,” replied Owl. “Means he’s always bored and he’s always looking for something new and exciting. He’s the worst when he gets all wrapped up in whatever whim’s caught his fancy.”

“Really?”

“Really. We’d need some top-class vintage Chateau Palmer to snap him out of it now. I just hope Ralph brought some with him.” Owl wasn’t even trying to hide his disdain, lips curled in a noticeable scowl.

Jack said, “I thought that you and Sir Tristan seemed to get along well. At least, it looked that way to me.”

Owl’s scowl deepened. “... You might need to get your prescription checked. Our personalities are completely different.”

“Unfortunately for you, my vision’s perfect.”

“So it seems.”

“If it’s wine he needs, the house has a cellar. I could talk to Eliza and pick out a few bottles?”

The pair passed through the chapel, heading for the bergfried’s exit, walking side-by-side as though they’d been friends for years.

And in the shadows of the chamber, a single man watched them leave. He sighed, disinterest dripping from his tone as he whispered to himself, “... Well, this isn’t ideal.”

■■■■■■■■■■

“Four magicians, huh?”

That evening, Owl pondered the phrase. He’d asked Ellie what the words meant after he’d left Tristan, but she’d forgotten everything in the moments before she’d passed out, including anything she’d said or seen.

“Star of the land of the living....”

The detective was sprawled on his side on his bed, tracing the symbols in the air with his finger, mimicking the ancient formula. “Of the land...? By ‘star,’ does it mean the physical ones in the sky? And why ‘land?’ Plus that whole ‘shortcut to Heaven’ thing....”

How would someone send something to Heaven? Is that something supposed to be the star? Is it maybe an anagram, or maybe a code for something else? Round and round his whirling thoughts went, reaching no conclusion. While he wracked his brains over what could be a metaphor or related to stars, his eyes happened to fall to the top of the shelves. There was an astrology book lying there – the one Jack had passed to him earlier.

Right, I never gave it to Anastasia, thought Owl. He rose, picked it up, and leafed through the pages. It was a rather lavish-looking book, the flyleaf containing an adorable illustration of a star. Tracing the blue-black ink with a finger, Owl fell back on to the bed and once again whispered, “Star....”

“I’m disappointed, Owl. I didn’t expect you to be so unfaithful.”

Owl recoiled. Somehow, a person’s face had appeared hovering over his own without his noticing. The detective naturally leaped back in shock, and not just because he’d thought he’d been alone in his room, but because that daring smile could only belong to one person.

“Hude Lou!”

“Good evening to you, too.”

It was the very black-and-white masked phantom thief Owl had come here to stop. The detective reflexively thrust a hand into his gilet to reach for his gun, but bewilderingly, his fingers found only air. He didn’t have his gun. Where was his –?

“Allow me to take this off your hands for a bit. Don’t want anyone getting hurt, right?” Hude Lou twirled Owl’s gun around his finger.

“Give that back!”

Owl lunged for Hude Lou. His hand reached out, seemingly to snatch back his stolen firearm... until it whizzed right past the gun and toward the thief’s cheek, his fingers curling into a solid fist. The punch was swift and direct, aimed squarely at his face –

“Whoa there –”

Except Hude Lou dodged by a hair, the other man’s fist instead passing harmlessly through the ends of his silvery locks.

Undeterred, Owl twisted his body to swing his arm back around as forcefully as he could muster, rolling himself right off the bed to square off against Hude Lou, standing on the other side of the pillow. “Why did you come here?!” he shouted.

He didn’t give the thief even a second to respond before kicking off the floor to lunge in for another punch. His hand positively whistled through the air as it launched itself at Hude Lou’s forehead, no hesitation, no mercy. The thief once again dodged just in time. “What a silly question!” he crowed. “You must have known that I would appear tonight, or else you wouldn’t be here!”

“Yeah, I did, but it’s not night yet, thief! What, did you come all the way here just to get caught?!” Owl once again twisted around, this time raising a leg overhead.

“Haha, now this is interesting,” Hude Lou hummed. “I didn’t know you could fight like this, too.”

Owl ignored him, aiming for his opponent’s chest this time, though Hude Lou leapt away from the bed to avoid the incoming kick. The detective lowered his leg, promptly took a single step forward toward the thief, and raised his other leg instead. “I told my landlord to at least teach me self-defense!” he yelled, his toes aiming for Hude Lou’s shoulders.

“... I see, your ‘landlord,’ hm?” This time, the thief unexpectedly blocked the blow with his arms. “I know this style, too. It was favored by mercenaries on the battlefield way back when, good for knocking people out without killing them.”

And with that, he promptly pushed the leg back, forcing the detective off-balance and sending him tumbling off the bed. Owl managed to land safely on the ground, but he staggered and fell into a crouch fairly quickly, unable to keep his balance.

Hude Lou didn’t give him a chance to recover, grabbing him by his collar to keep him pinned as he continued, “You’re kind. But you won’t get far with something you only just learned as a stopgap. Half-baked self-defense is even more dangerous, even.” He aimed the muzzle of the gun at Owl.

The detective, however, didn’t falter in the slightest. He sharply pulled his head back, firmly pressing a foot on the floor. “And that’s exactly why...!”

Without hesitation, he jerked his head forward again, their foreheads colliding with a loud SMACK! that reverberated throughout the room.

“OWWW –!!” Hude Lou yelped. He’d been prepared for many things, but a headbutt apparently hadn’t been one of them.

“Sorry,” said Owl, “but that’s why I can’t hold back.”

Wincing, Hude Lou stared at the man in his grip. The corners of his mouth lifted in a shadow of a smile. “... You’re more aggressive than I thought,” he murmured, letting the detective go and retreating several paces. “I was under the impression you were more of a gentleman than that?”

“Right back at you. Doesn’t seem very phantom thief-like to attack a defenseless person in their sleep.” As he spoke, Owl took a step closer to Hude Lou and held his hand out. “Give me back my gun, or you’ll regret it.”

“You’ve got guts. Do you think I can’t shoot you?” The thief raised the gun again.

Owl shook his head. “Not like that. It’s just about to flare up.”

“What?”

Instead of answering, Owl bizarrely began counting instead. “Three, two, one....”

A faint sizzling sound hissed around Hude Lou’s hand.

“... H-Hot!!” he yelped, just as his glove caught fire. The thief immediately flung the gun away, sending it skittering across the floor. The grip was so hot the metal was actually turning red, almost as if someone had flung it into the depths of a furnace. Hude Lou stared at the gun with dismay and groaned, “A bonded gun?!”

“That’s right,” affirmed Owl. “If anyone touches it without my permission, it rejects them. Were you burned at all?”

“... What a bothersome alchemical tool you have,” grumbled the thief.

“Your fault for stealing it before I could warn you.” When Owl’s fingers wrapped around his fallen gun, the grip cooled as if dunked in an ice bath instantly. Anyone not in the know would never have guessed that the metal had just been hot enough to set cloth on fire.

Hude Lou’s shoulder’s fell as he waved his burned glove around. “I guess it’s as unpleasant as its owner,” he sniped.

With his gun recovered, Owl turned its muzzle on the thief. “Why are you here?” he asked again. “Can’t be because you wanted to sneak in an illicit visit in the middle of the night, right?”

Hude Lou raised his hands and his head, revealing his previously hidden expression. Any comedy about the situation faded as cold, appraising eyes pinned Owl. “I thought your carefree little attempts to analyze ancient symbols was so laughable that I just had to make fun of you.”

“So you went out of your way to come here and tell me I’m unpleasant?”

“You’re so preoccupied with solving the mystery of the alchemy around the house that you’re not seeing the big picture. Besides, I don’t want the spotlight stolen from me again.”

“... The big picture, huh....” Owl thought back to the luxury express case from the other day. Hude Lou’s theft had indeed been overshadowed by the dreadful murder. So... was he saying that something was going to happen here, too?

The second he met the thief’s eyes again, Hude Lou suggested, “What would you say to a temporary truce?”

“A truce?”

“Right,” Hude Lou said with an emphatic nod. “We could work independently, of course, but that’d just put us at a disadvantage, given that there’s another inconvenient guest staying here right now.”

“... You mean Tristan?”

The thief’s response was instantaneous. “Right, the state alchemist Tristan. To think that the ‘Imprisoning Noble’ was your father...! Well, it took me by surprise, to say the least. During the war, he was the strongest jail cell imaginable, never letting a single enemy soldier escape.”

“If you know that name, then nothing more really needs to be said. You can’t escape now. No one can run from Tristan.”

“Well, I can worry about that later. More importantly, I have something I want you to see.” Hude Lou pulled a single piece of paper from somewhere and held it out to Owl. “That man Cain had this in his room.

Owl didn’t take it just yet. “This was in Cain’s room? Oi, did you steal it?”

“I did not. I only steal what I say I will in my calling cards. My gloves just clamped down on this on their own when I realized what it was.”

“... On their own?”

“That sort of things happens, right?”

Owl raised a single unimpressed eyebrow.

Hude Lou shook the paper in his hand. “Go on, look at it. This mansion holds a lot of secrets. This is a blueprint of the estate – actually, just the bergfried, but still.”

Indeed, the drawing on the paper seemed to be the inner workings of a familiar looking tower. “A blueprint,” hummed Owl. “Yeah, this sure looks like one. Kind of old, though – when was this drawn up?”

“Check the bottom,” advised Hude Lou. “There’s a memo – relatively recently written, by the looks of it. It’s in German. ‘Star of the land of the living –”

Owl flinched at the words. He hurriedly peered down at the memo. “‘The shortcut to Heaven, four magicians commanding the elements...’” he read aloud.

It was the same words again. Why did they keep cropping up? Tristan should have been the only one who could decipher them, so why? Doubt and suspicious plagued Owl’s mind as he read on.

“‘With that power, rotate the sky in the black goddess’ night.’”

Violet eyes rose to meet green. The thief then yanked the memo back from Owl, his gaze narrowing as he smiled. “What do you think? This is what you guys wanted, right? I’d rather keep uncivilized guests out of the party tonight, so hurry up and expose this mansion’s secrets. Your focus should be on me and me alone.”

As the thief waved the memo back and forth, Owl could only nod. “Fine... I’ll wait to capture you until after I wrap this up.”

“At that time.... After you went into Lord Arby’s study, that servant man came into the chapel with Cain. The woman was with them, too.”

Hude Lou had barely gotten a few sentences into his testimony before Owl interrupted, “Really?” The detective had thought Jack had been with the two servants, not Cain. “I’ll have to ask them later.”

Hude Lou shrugged. “I was more interested in you and yours, so I wasn’t paying that much attention to them. I should have probably listened to what they were saying more carefully, but I didn’t. I can at least say that I saw Cain fiddling with that solar system model while he was talking to the servant, though – he was changing the positions of the planets.”

“The positions of the planets?” Owl echoed.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t see what exactly he did after that.”

“Why didn’t you watch till the end?”

“Because I was more interested in Lord Arby’s safe, of course!” Hude Lou scoffed. “You haven’t forgotten the real reason I’m here, right? But just to be clear, I had no intention of stealing my target at that point; I would be violating the whole phantom thief aesthetic if I didn’t adhere to my calling card.”

“Crooks like you don’t have aesthetics, don’t lie.”

“Oh, yes, we do. And don’t just decide that I’m a petty crook, of all things. Do you see everything in black and white?”

“That’s a fallacy.”

“You’re really going to say that, huh? After I went out of my way to bring you this.” Hude Lou pointedly waved the blueprint around again.

Owl glared daggers at the thief, irked by his attitude. “You better not have stolen anything else, thief,” he growled.

Rather than give a definitive answer, Hude Lou instead held something up again for Owl to see. Pinched between his fingers was something small and red... it was a stone. In fact, it was the very stone from Arby’s room that Ellie had touched.

“Oi!” Owl lunged for it immediately, but Hude Lou slipped it into his chest pocket before the detective could grab it. “Didn’t you say you don’t steal what you aren’t targeting?!” he yelled, frustrated.

“Oh, this is my reward for giving you the information you wanted, so if you could let this one slide....”

“That makes it sound like I let you steal it in exchange for the memo!” Owl was rightly indignant. This wasn’t a joke!

“Well, what if I told you the reason Ellie had such a violent reaction to this rock?”

“What?”

“I can explain what happened in that room,” the thief said patiently. “Don’t you want to know who exactly she is?”

Owl unconsciously froze.

“Negotiation successful,” hummed Hude Lou, patting his breast pocket. “But first, try to solve the mystery of this mansion. Anything I have to say can come later.”

“... And you won’t lie to me, will you?”

“How rude. I’m a thief, not a con man.”

“What’s the difference?” Owl sent Hude Lou one last suspicious glare before turning his attention to the memo on the blueprint.

Star of the land of the living

The shortcut to Heaven

Four magicians commanding the elements

With this power

Rotate the sky in the black goddess’ night

“The easiest part to understand is the ‘four magicians’ bit...” Owl murmured.

“By ‘magicians,’ they must mean ‘alchemists,’ right?”

“Probably. This mansion is the birthplace of an entire family of alchemical toolmakers spanning generations – it can’t mean anything else.”

“And the number four?”

“Four elements. Maybe the four basic qualities of the four Greek temperaments?”

“Fire, water, air, and earth,” mused Hude Lou. “So perhaps dry, wet, cold, and hot?”

“This mansion has a lot of celestial elements, most likely installed by one of the previous owners. They must have divided up the zodiac signs by their elements at the same time.”

“And you naturally know the elements associated with all the star signs, right, Owl?” Hude Lou gave a cheeky grin.

Owl glared at Hude Lou again. He knew the thief was trying to rile him up again, but he refused to rise to the bait this time. “The fire signs are Sagittarius, Leo, and Aries. Air signs are Libra, Gemini, and Aquarius. Earth signs are Virgo, Taurus, and Capricorn. And water signs are Scorpio, Cancer, and Pisces.”

“Correct. I should’ve known.”

“Alchemy also has a connection to astrology. There’s no way I wouldn’t know.” Owl considered for a moment before he suddenly said, “Your element is water, which would make you either a Scorpio, Cancer, or Pisces....”

Hude Lou flinched. “Wha –”

A leer unfurled across Owl’s face. Bull’s-eye. “I thought so, since you used mercury in your alchemy before. The attributes of an alchemist’s techniques tend to line up with the elements of their star signs, and mercury used to be known as ‘hydrargyrum’ – liquid silver. This is good, I’m one step closer to figuring out your birthday.”

“No mercy at all.... Give me a break, please,” groaned Hude Lou. “Phantom thieves are charming because they’re so chock-full of mystery, don’t you think?”

“And detectives are charming because they solve those mysteries. I’m going to keep digging and digging until I uncover everything about you, so prepare yourself.” The detective’s smile was tinged with bitterness, revenge burning in his eyes. “I have nothing to hide on my end, so I’ll tell you my sign is Aries, which makes me a fire sign.”

“That makes sense. You’re exceptionally skilled at sun-based alchemy, and you had a reaction to the lamp image in Lord Arby’s study. Fire and water, we don’t mix well, hm....” Hude Lou took a second to lament as theatrically as possible before continuing, “But you know, you and Tristan... you get along with your father pretty well, considering you’re also fire and water.”

“Hm?”

“I still haven’t seen that state alchemist’s skills yet, and speaking as a fellow water sign, I’m interested. I think we’d get on surprisingly well.”

Owl stared at Hude Lou blankly for a moment. “Tristan isn’t a water sign,” he eventually said. “He’s an earth sign.”

“Huh?”

“He specializes in alchemical formulas that form around his feet – that’s typical of earth signs. He’s a Taurus, by the way.”

“That’s odd,” murmured the thief, puzzled. “Because he had a reaction to the water jug in the Cancer room, didn’t he? I thought that only alchemists who shared an elemental sign and touched it could elicit a reaction. Why would an earth sign react to a water item? That shouldn’t be right.”

Owl cocked his head. “You’re right, that is odd,” he agreed. He glanced to the painting adorning his room. The sage’s white robes billowing in the breeze... that had to be a key for an air sign alchemist. He pressed his palm to the painting to check, and as expected, no reaction. Alchemists who didn’t share an elemental sign would feel nothing. “So then why did Tristan react to that pot?” he wondered, almost to himself. He’d been so distracted by the ancient alchemy that had appeared back then that he hadn’t paid it any thought, but in hindsight, something was clearly off.

“Beyond that, it’s strange that the key itself is a water jug, considering that the sign associated with water jugs, Aquarius, is an air sign, right?” Hude Lou pointed out. “It doesn’t really seem fitting.”

“The room, and the element.... If that’s the case, maybe that wasn’t a water sign room, then?” mumbled Owl to himself. “... Actually, wait, this mansion’s room assignments....” His eyes suddenly lit up, and he raised his gaze to meet Hude Lou’s across from him. “That wasn’t a water jug! Ah, damn it all, first impressions really are dangerous when they’re wrong! It was just a normal jar! It’s pottery! Earthenware! So it’s an earth item!”

Hude Lou didn’t share the detective’s excitement. “But the nameplate on Tristan’s door had the symbol for Cancer, didn’t it?”

“Right, which is why I thought it was a water sign room and mistook a regular old pot for a water jug!” Owl bolted from the room without further ado, though he skidded to a halt a few paces down the hall, said to himself, “Wait, not this way!” and twisted on his heel to dash in the other direction instead, toward Ellie’s room. He stopped when he reached her door and waited for Hude Lou to jog up behind him before pointing at the doorplate. “Yeah, this is definitely weird.”

“What is?”

Owl gestured specifically to the emblem embossed on the plate. “This is the symbol for Capricorn.”

Hude Lou frowned. “Capricorn... that’s an earth sign.”

“There are four rooms on the second floor, and each one is one of the four elements. Lord Arby’s study is the Sagittarius room, which makes that one fire. Tristan’s is Cancer, so that’s water, and mine is Gemini, air, and Ellie’s is Capricorn, earth. If that’s the case, then her room should have the pot, not Tristan’s.”

Owl knocked on the door. After a brief pause, Ellie poked her head out of her room along with Anastasia. “Owl? What is it?”

“Ellie, I have a question for you. Can I come in?” asked Owl.

“Mm-hmm.” Ellie nodded and stepped to the side so he could enter. Hude Lou followed.

Anastasia squinted at the stranger trailing the detective “... Who are you?” she asked.

“Ah, I’m a new hire,” Hude Lou responded without missing a beat. “Please call me Huitt.”

Owl glanced back over his shoulder to find that the thief had somehow disguised himself as a servant in the few seconds he wasn’t looking. He’d switched his white hat and cape out for a crisp worker’s uniform, and he’d even donned a pair of round spectacles for the criminally nearsighted to hide his face instead of his usual mask. The change was so swift and seamless that it nearly threw Owl for a loop, but he valiantly overcame his surprise for the moment to survey the room.

But there was nothing that caught his eye. Aside from Ellie’s luggage and the usual furniture, the room was virtually barren. “Anastasia, is there anything else in here?” he asked.

“Such as?”

“Ah... like, I don’t know, a curio, a painting, any sort of decoration?”

“Decoration...?” Anastasia pondered that for a moment, faintly puzzled. Eventually, she hesitantly said, “Do you mean the plate?”

“The plate?”

“Yes, the plate.”

“There’s a plate in here?”

“There was a plate in here, but one of the servants took it away with them to use in the wedding ceremony or some such....” Anastasia pointed to the top of the dresser in the back of the room, where a small stand stood. It had clearly been used to display a decorative plate, but now there was no such plate to display, leaving only the stand behind, lost without its purpose.

“What kind of plate?” asked Owl. “Was there a picture on it or something?”

“What kind...?” Anastasia formed a large circle with her hands. “It was a blue glass plate, as clear as a lake.”

“... Blue glass, like a lake,” repeated Owl.

Hude Lou raised one eyebrow behind his thick Huitt glasses. “That must be the water item, Master Owl.”

Owl nodded. “Thank you, Ellie, Anastasia,” he said, then swept out of the room before they could reply. Hude Lou had to jog after him to keep up.

His next stop was Tristan’s room, striding over the balcony to reach it. He glared at the door once he arrived. “This is wrong,” he muttered. “It wasn’t the items that were switched, it was the doorplates. Someone switched the symbols for Ellie’s and Tristan’s rooms.”

“They switched the symbols?” repeated Hude Lou.

“Yeah, because if you look at the bergfried from a bird’s-eye perspective, the twelve rooms are arranged in a horoscope with the chapel in the middle, and they go in order clockwise – it’s just hard to tell at first because the they’re split up across two floors. From that angle, it’s obvious that the symbols were switched.”

“Who would do that?”

“No idea.” Owl gave a single faint sigh. “Wish I’d noticed it sooner,” he grumbled to himself, lightly slapping his forehead. A note of self-deprecation colored his tone. “If Lord Arby’s room next door is Sagittarius, then Tristan’s room has to be Capricorn, and the item inside has to be the earth element. I must be an idiot, missing something so simple.”

Hude Lou nodded, surveying the chapel below the balcony. “The rooms form a circle in star sign order. So then, is there someone here who wouldn’t want anyone else to know that?”

Owl turned to also look down at the chapel. “Wouldn’t want to... but what? Who? Why?” His mind whirled with questions. Unbidden, the familiar words once more fell from his lips. “Star of the land of the living, the shortcut to Heaven, four magicians commanding the elements, with that power, rotate the sky in the black goddess’ night.... Four magicians... four alchemists, each one of the four elements... what’ll happen if they ‘rotate the sky?’”

The pair headed down the stairs. Once they stood together in the center of the chapel, they carefully inspected the horoscope on the floor.

“With the horoscope here, too, it feels like this whole tower is one big star map,” murmured Owl.

“Owl, there’s something here.” Standing under the ten-foot tall orrery, Hude Lou pointed at something along the base. “Doesn’t this look like that ancient language?”

Owl approached and inspected the row of familiar symbols along the pedestal. “You’re right, they do,” he agreed. The script did indeed look similar to the formula Tristan was deciphering, though Owl still couldn’t read any of it. “The four elements on this pedestal... they’re each facing the same direction as the room elements on the second floor,” he realized. “Is this the key?”

“This sort of trick usually needs a number of alchemists to work together and layer their techniques to solve it,” Hude Lou said.

“Meaning that if the four magicians... four alchemists of the fire, water, air, and earth elements came together and stacked their alchemy on top of each other on this pedestal, something would happen.”

“So it would seem.”

“I want to give it a try,” Owl declared. “And luckily, there are four alchemists in this mansion right now.”

“There are?”

“Yeah. I’m fire, you’re water, Tristan’s earth....”

“And air?”

“Jack. He’s a Libra, which makes him an air element, even if his alchemy isn’t the strongest. I saw the wind pick up when he used it earlier.”

“Well, now, that’s intriguing, but we don’t know what will happen when we try.”

“Yeah, that’s a problem,” admitted Owl with another sigh. Hude Lou was correct – the old script might give them some sort of clue about what would happen when they activated the bergfried’s mechanism, but only if they could read it. As things stood, it could be dangerous.

“But, well, we didn’t come this far to give up now, I suppose,” Hude Lou said. “Outside of college classes, you hardly ever get to see four alchemists of differing elements gathered in one place.”

Owl was of the same mind, but a thought occurred to him. “Are you fine with that, though? With Tristan and I in one place, we’d have an easy time catching you.”

“Oh, but right now, I’m just a humble servant of Lord Arby’s who was once a water element alchemist.” Hude Lou grinned. “You’ll keep our story straight until this is done, right?”

“... Just until we’re done,” warned Owl, before turning toward Tristan’s room again. “Now let’s go get our other alchemist.”

Hude Lou followed at his heels. The pair went back to Tristan’s room, where the detective rapped his knuckles against the door. However, it wasn’t the gentleman who answered, but Ralph. The butler took one look at Hude Lou, then sniffed, a complicated expression passing over his face.

“Is Tristan here?” Owl asked.

“He is not,” replied Ralph. “The master is currently in the guest room with his friend.”

“His friend?” Owl repeated. “You mean Lord Arby?”

“No, one of the master’s gaming friends has also come to attend the wedding. I imagine they are currently in the midst of a heated battle.”

As he spoke, Ralph’s fingers mimed the picking up and putting down of chess pieces.

■■■■■■■■■■

“You should not interrupt the master’s game.”

Hannah stood imposingly before the door to the guest room, fully prepared to keep Owl out.

“I’m not interrupting,” Owl insisted, “I just came to be spoiled.”

“Wha – spoiled...?”

Whatever she’d been expecting him to say, it hadn’t been that. It was so out-of-character that her guard dropped, and that was all the opening Owl needed to push past her and open the door.

Panicked, Hannah’s hand closed in a vice grip on his sleeve as he passed, doubt in her gaze. “You can’t! What are you even saying?... What are you planning?”

“Nothing. What’s wrong with a son wanting to be spoiled by his papa?” Hannah full-on shuddered at that, allowing Owl to slip out of her grip and into the guest room. Tristan was seated at the window, dusky orange light streaming through the glass panes, his expression deadly serious as he played his game. His son paid no mind, though, walking up to him without hesitation. “Tristan,” he called.

Tristan replied without looking up from the chessboard. “Owl? What is it?”

“I have a question for you.”

“I see... but as you can see, I’m in the middle of a match right now.”

“I really am sorry, but it’s an emergency –” Owl turned to Tristan’s opponent sitting across the board, intending to apologize for the interruption, but when he saw who it was, he started and exclaimed, “You!”

“Well, this is a surprise,” said Tristan’s opponent. “Fancy running into you again, Mr. Detective.”

“Why are you here?” Owl’s glance flicked between Tristan and his opponent, apology completely forgotten. “Are you my father’s gaming friend?”

“Your father... you mean...?” The opponent’s face also showed a flicker of surprise for a moment, but it was gone almost as soon as it appeared. He glanced between the two, subtly comparing them. “I see, so you’re.... My, I can see where you get your intelligence from.” His slit eyes were as narrow as the thinnest crescent moon as his lips curled in a tiny, mysterious smile. Owl had seen that smile just the other day, on the train.

Tristan watched their back and forth for a bit before cautiously inserting himself into the conversation. “Mastema, since when did you know my son? I distinctly remember saying I’d be the one to introduce you if you needed and help.”

“Ahh, that’s right, you did. I suppose I didn’t realize that the detective agency you were funding and the son you take such pride in were one and the same – now I know why you were funding it,” he said with an exaggerated nod.

Yes, Tristan’s opponent was the politician that had been on the sleeper train the other day, Mastema. Owl couldn’t quite hide his shock at seeing the familiar face – he hadn’t expected to run into him here. With a jolt, he remembered Hude Lou was behind him and turned back to check in a panic... only to find that the thief had apparently already run off. Probably a wise move. Owl sighed with relief, and only then turned back to Tristan to say, “We rode the train here together.”

“The train?”

“Yeah.”

A distinctly displeased glint flashed in Tristan’s eyes as they slid over to Mastema. “That’s... an odd coincidence, hm?”

Owl unconsciously held his breath at the sour, piercing gaze Tristan had on Mastema. The look in his eyes was one he made a point to never show at home, a look that could dissect a person down their molecules and observe the very depths of their core. Mastema, however, didn’t seem affected in the slightest; he gave an elegant shrug and replied, “Indeed it was. I had wondered what sort of person he was, given that I thought I would never get an introduction....” With a chuckle, he added, “Your son is even more interesting than I expected.”

Tristan leaned back into the sofa. By the twitch in his eyebrows, he was annoyed that his plan had been foiled. “I’d hoped to keep him a secret for a little while longer, but alas.”

The air between the two was charged with something difficult to define, yet clearly disquieting – one got the sense they were metaphorically holding each other at knifepoint. Owl didn’t think he could stick his nose into whatever was going on there, so he instead turned his attention to the chessboard spread between the two, considered, and then picked up a single piece and moved it.

“Ah?”

“Oh?”

“Aahh~, Owl, if you... if you move that there....” Tristan tried to pick up the piece. “Hm...?”

“This is certainly troubling....”

The two stared at their pieces. They’d become immovable, as if they’d been glued to the board. As they pondered how to get their troops mobile again, Owl said, “That should keep them in place for a while. Tristan, did you finish deciphering the old alchemy yet?”

“No, not yet,” Tristan replied. “It’s tough to crack.”

“That’s fine, just tell me whatever you can about how to read it, if you can. The same formula’s written on the model in the chapel. It’s intriguing.”

That caught Tristan’s interest. “Oh? No getting a head start, now, Owl. I was thinking I would take a good long look at that myself later. It’s rude to steal someone’s dessert out from under their nose, especially when they’ve been looking forward to it.”

“Come on, it’s fine as long as I don’t tell you whatever I can decode, right? Or rather, we could figure it out together.”

“No.”

“Not even if your adorable son begs?”

“Not even then.”

“I’ll turn into a delinquent if you don’t.”

Tristan paused, but only for a second. “I’d... admittedly kind of like to see that, actually, but please don’t.”

“Then just tell me, please, I’m in a hurry. I want to know what’ll happen when it’s deciphered.”

Tristan’s gaze slid away as Owl continued his relentless pleas. Is he hiding something? he wondered.

Before he could press further, though, Mastema beat him to it. “This formula hidden by the McCreech family, would it happen to be the ‘forbidden art of soul separation?’”

Owl merely blinked at the phrase, but Tristan went deathly pale. “Oi, Mastema, where did you hear about that?!”

“Where indeed?” Mastema’s mysterious smile widened a hair. “But you know, I am involved with the church on top of being a chronicler of alchemy.”

“Even so, the hidden techniques of the McCreech family can’t have leaked out that easily!”

“Oh? For you to be this flustered... it seems this simple rumor has gained a fair bit of credibility.” Mastema grabbed one of his chess pieces and gently rocked it from side to side before returning it to its original position. “Ah, no good here. This is difficult indeed.” His narrow gaze flicked up to the detective. “Owl, you ought to know the rumor yourself – hidden in the McCreech family estate is an alchemical implement capable of separating one’s soul from their body, or so it goes.”

“Separate the soul from the body?” repeated Owl incredulously, head tilting. “That’s absurd.”

“I won’t ask you to believe me. The McCreeches are known as a family of jewelers nowadays, but they have been honing their skills since their inception trying to achieve the impossible. That is the kind of clan they are. Long ago, the ‘divine revelation’ they received from Heaven allowed them to surpass even the most talented of alchemists.” As Mastema spoke, he toyed with a pawn with a single finger, rendering it an immobile hostage under his touch.

Owl’s eyes followed the pawn. A flash of memory came to him – of that afternoon, of the servant who had collapsed in the chapel. Jack had said that he had lost his soul, but....

“That’s nothing more than cheap gossip,” asserted Tristan. “Don’t take it seriously, Owl.”

Nevertheless, Owl recalled the phrases from before. Star of the land of the living. The shortcut to Heaven. If the “star of the land of the living” was “a person’s soul,” then “the shortcut to Heaven” couldn’t be an actual method of sending something to Heaven. Owl muttered half-formed deductions to himself. “Four alchemists... activating the formula in unison... but no, back then, there weren’t any others expect me... if that’s the case –”

“Stop, Owl.” Tristan’s severe voice cut through Owl’s haze. The detective’s breath caught in his throat under his father’s glare, his body locking up as if frozen in ice. He’d never glared at Owl quite like that before. Don’t go any further, Tristan’s eyes seemed to say. Don’t take another step.

A knock at the door cut through the mounting tension, if only slightly. As the three glanced over in unison, Eliza poked her head in. “I apologize for interrupting your game,” she said.

“Oh, you’re absolutely gorgeous!” Tristan’s voice rose in wonder as he saw her, and no wonder – Eliza was now in her wedding dress, including the veil and tiara. Dressed head to toe in stunning pure white, she was indeed a sight to behold.

Beyond Tristan, Mastema’s eyes fixed upon the scarlet stone set in her tiara and let out a long, quiet breath, enraptured by the sight. “... Splendid,” he whispered.

“Is everything all right?” Tristan asked. “The exchanging of vows is happening soon, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Sir Tristan, and about that – you haven’t seen Jack anywhere, have you?”

“Jack? Is something wrong with the happy groom?”

“He seems to have disappeared. We were practicing our lines for the ceremony until just a little while ago, but now.... I don’t know. Has he been in here?”

Hannah, who was standing by the table pouring fresh cups of tea, raised her head. “If you’re looking for Master Jack, I saw him walking through the courtyard speaking with someone. They turned a corner rather quickly, but it sounded like Master Jack, at least.”

“Huh?”

“Unfortunately, I didn’t see his companion’s face,” continued Hannah.

Eliza’s face pinched with suspicion. “Why now of all times....” She was starting to grow visibly flustered, chewing on her lip. “Did you see which way they went?” she asked Hannah.

“Toward the back of the courtyard,” she answered.

“The back? Why would he go there?” Eliza gave that some thought, her gaze falling to the floor. It only took a few seconds for her head to spring back up, though, and with a pale face and a gasp of, “Surely not....!” she fled the room.

original written by Nagaya Kawaji here

#kotonoha project #the shenanigans in this chapter are what I live for

3 notes · View notes

olderthannetfic · 2 years

Note

"But what really stands out to me here is how universal you imagine your experience of self hatred and misery is. That isn't my life. It isn't the life of the queer people I hang out with. This is a you problem and one you need to discuss with a queer-friendly therapist."

----

I don't understand this. Literally nobody else acts like this is the case outside of the internet. I'm not accusing you of lying. The world is a big and diverse place and I'm sure your experiences are different, but this is not the case in most realities. This whole cherry-picked group of people coming here to say otherwise feels like gaslighting. (I know I am misusing the word. That's not actually what it is.) I'm saying that's what it feels like.

You don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but have ever gone to a therapist for yourself? Is it really going to make a difference to hear affirmations about your identity or your self-esteem or whatever from someone that you're paying to hear those things from? Because anyone could go to a therapist from just about any agenda, be it LGBT+, or Christian, or sex positive or whatever, and they'll craft whatever you say to fit the narrative they specialize in.

I mean, if the therapist is fundamentalist enough, they'd probably just give you sedatives to kill your sex drive altogether. You can spend the rest of your life doing that, thinking that it's good advice because someone with a professional title told you so. Any kind of person can earn the credentials to give a prescription. How are you supposed to trust that a therapist is anchored in the proper reality?

I know I'm getting heated and I will back off. But holy shit, this is not as simple or as universal as tumblr makes it out to be.

I believe you that you're being genuine. It's just fascinating to me.

I've known a lot of queer people in my life. I've had the privilege of growing up in a relatively queer-friendly city, but I wouldn't say it was great for teenagers because nowhere was in the 90s. My gay neighbors across the street (I have multiple sets of gay neighbors) commented that they aren't very demonstrative in public even now because while people are mostly friendly, a lifetime of dealing with bullshit lingers and makes them cautious.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Escapade, the oldest extant slash con, which is full of old queer people. Tonight, I met up with friends offline, many of them queer. Family holidays generally consist of all my queer cousins and like one straight one.

The responses you got here, though they're from some randos and people I know only via tumblr, match what my many offline queer friends would tell you.

This doesn't feel cherry-picked to me: it just feels normal.

We like being queer. We don't love all of the shit people have given us, but we would not change our true selves just for an easier time.

Yes, I have gone to therapy, once voluntarily and once involuntarily as a small child. The latter was extremely annoying, but the former was helpful. I've never been to therapy over my sexuality. I've never felt bad about my sexuality, not my orientation and not my many odd kinks. (It was definitely helpful to have access to the internet and manifestos on why various things are fine though. I wouldn't say I just magically accepted myself with no outside influence. It just wasn't influence from a therapist.)

Many types of therapist exist, and they aren't all just there to make you feel good or tell you what you want to hear. If this has been your experience of therapy, you've gotten some duds.

Like I said, you should go to a queer-friendly therapist, which one finds by looking for recs from other queer people. This is a whole Thing: people often share tips online about which therapists can properly handle their identity, whether they're queer or poly or into BDSM or whatever else.

The stuff you said about bisexuality is bog standard biphobia. We've all heard it a million times. I'm more concerned with how self-hating you sound. That may be the norm a lot of places, but it doesn't need to be your reality.

I'm not speaking from tumblr. I'm speaking from having been out as bisexual since 1995, publicly and offline.

Your attitude does not sound healthy or normal for any of the queer communities I've participated in. That's not an insult. That's a genuine "Whoa? Holy shit! WHAT?" reaction to all the things you said.

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justanothertiredlesbian · 3 years

Text

Define gender I tried to comment on an anti-trans video, transphobes got out of hand. This is the comment thread. I’ll update it when more of them rage at me. For some reason Peak Trans pinned my comment. If I’m mentioned it’s as @maddie, a friend of mine joined the debate, he’s @friend1. At this point it would make more sense to read the YouTube video thread, it’s now at 31 replies: Video here

my comment This whole video is a bit laughable. I only watched it because I have to balance an essay I'm writing about this, but I didn't actually find any logical arguments I could use. Have you thought that MAYBE, the reason Jammidodger has a larger following is because he has studied this in depth, and is actually a kind and an accepting human. Okay, so you mention that how would a person know what their gender identity was if it didn't match what they were assigned at birth? Well, how do you know your sexual orientation? It's a similar concept. Sexual orientation isn't determined physically or by stereotypes, gender identity isn't either. And bringing up some examples of the online abuse that JK Rowling has gone through? Trans people go through this and worse on a daily basis. Also, boiling down being a woman to gametes? This IS offensive to intersex people. But it is also offensive to Cis women, it's acting as if their lives as women are summed up by their sex cells. In addition, you mention Misgendering, and yes, JK Rowling didn't misgender the only specific transgender person she mentioned, but it is misgendering to refer to Transwomen in general, as "men who think they are women". And before any Transphobes accuse me of being an angry transgender person whom is overreacting and attacking people on the internet, I'm a CIS lesbian who supports trans rights, and trying to logically present an argument to people who don't seem to understand some pretty basic concepts. It is okay if people don't understand something that they haven't personally experienced, but defending that belief on the ground that they don't understand the basic concepts/experiences in a way that claims a group neither exists or deserves rights? That is discrimination. (Also the camera quality and audio are as awful/flawed as your logic.)

Transphobe 1 As most commenters here agree, this video is brilliant and you wouldn't recognize logic if it smacked you in the teeth. Name one thing in it that you can refute with logic - you can't. All you can do is throw out insults and wave your ignorance like a flag. You're too closed-minded to recognise intelligent arguments based on evidence. Your ignorance about intersex people is embarrassing. I suggest you watch Maria's video on that very subject and engage with the intersex people who have thanked her beneath it. Have you thought that MAYBE the reason Jammidodger has a larger following is because he's been making videos for ten years and this woman only started last year? Number of subscribers isn't a sign of quality - unless you think that Fox News and the Sun are epitome of intellectual integrity. Judging by your dumb comment, you probably do. my reply Um, did you read my comment? Because I refuted several points she made. I have 2 intersex people in my family, and they disagree with her points strongly, and I'm not exactly ignorant of the issues they face. You mention her videos, however how many other sources and media regarding these topics do you actually watch, and how much of it do you research yourself? Maybe Jammidodger has a higher following because he accepts people who desperately need acceptance and a community to feel safe in. Why would I think Fox News is the epitome of integrity? Everyone knows how insanely bigoted they are. Also it what way does me commenting to promote acceptance for a community that need acceptance and people to educate themselves on the issues in an impartial manner, mean I'm bigoted? Transphobe 1 reply 2 Stop lying. You haven't 'refuted' anything. You don't even know what the word 'refute' means and you are fooling nobody. Do you know what an argument is? It involved premises and a conclusion e.g. P1: Man is the word for an adult human male. P2: Jammidodger is an adult human female C: Therefore Jammidodger is not a man. Refute that.

transphobe 2 Hey, maddie, you realise you haven't presented a single counter-argument, right? Btw, kind and accepting humans don't make nasty videos lying about people. Jamie is a very disturbed and hateful individual. Maybe one day you'll be on the receiving end of the kind of hate Jamie doles out to people who disagree with her and you'll understand but now you honestly sound too young and arrogant to know what you're talking about.

Biologists define sex by gametes, intersex people are male or female and "gender identity" is hogwash. Your question about how you know your sexual orientation is unbelievably stupid. Finally, how are you defining 'woman'? my reply Why is there an assumption that being accepting to the trans community and researching it means I would be young? Is this assumption because all of you are in your fifties and sixties? Is this bigotry because you were all raised in a less accepting era, so therefore have to overcompensate for your lack of understanding in social issues, and what different people go through. Are you calling this lady "kind"? Because all the words you use to describe Jamie (Who is MALE - *him) personally describe this woman. It is strange of you to assume I don't receive hate in real life, however there is a support structure for LGBTQ+ people to fall back on. Is your resentment because you envy this support structure? Also, people DO know their sexual identity in a similar way how they know your gender identity, do I know I'm a lesbian because it's written in bold on my forehead? No, I know as an instinct, as a sense of identity in who I am. A woman is whoever identifies as female. Transphobe 2 reply 2 The assumption that you are young is based on the fact that you sound young: you said the video is "laughable" but didn't say why, you said you were writing an essay but "didn't find any logical arguments" in it, you ask "how would you know your sexual orientation" - which is possibly the dumbest question ever. These are not the comments of a mature person who has been around the block. Wake me up when you are able to put a coherent argument together. In the meantime, I'm sure you have some homework to do. my reply My argument about sexual orientation was to make my point as simple as possible. People point out that it's a stupid question, but then ask how people know their gender identity. If it's a stupid question, answer it in a way that can't be used to explain that people know their gender identity, go on. How do you know your sexual orientation? I've asked transphobic people before and all of their answers can be used to explain gender identity too. Therefore, a simplistic question, it may be, but it gets my point across. You use the phrase "around the block", which originally meant prostitution and sexual experience, are you implying that someone has to either have notable sexual experience or be a prostitute to be considered, in your eyes at least, mature? I feel that my arguments have been considerably more coherent and concise than yours. For some unusual reason you feel the need to attack age and use insults, mentioning how "dumb" my points are, but not saying anything to counteract them beyond your opinion of them. Reply when you can string a sentence together without an insult or stereotype? Have a nice night!

Transphobe 2 reply 3 You've been insulting to this youtuber from the outset, so don't get sanctimonious with me, child. You're not getting the point that so-called 'gender identity' is complete bollocks. I know my sexual orientation because I know the sex of people I am sexually attracted to. What is "gender" anyway? If you've watched the video you're dissing you should be prepared for the question and be able to define it but you can't define "woman" so I won't hold my breath. The expression "been around the block" has nothing to do with prostitution or sexual experience - don't you even have the werewithal to use an internet search engine? You don't even know what an argument is - if you think you've made any coherent ones, you are even more deluded than I first thought.

My Reply First of all, if you think what I started out doing was insulting then you have not spoken to a real human in a long time. Do not call me a child, you may be bored in retirement so seek out logical arguments to combat (or insult because I haven't been receiving many logical arguments), but if accepting people and not being a bigot is childish, then I would happily be a child. As it stands I am an adult. Again, Woman is the female identifying gender of the human race. Yes "been around the block" is a turn of phrase but if you research how the phrase became commonly used you would realize you are wrong. I could provide a link if it's past the retirement homes bedtime ;).

Transphobe 2 reply 4 I'll call you a child as long as you behave like one. For pity's sake learn the meaning of the word 'logic'. It doesn't mean "unsupported statements I like the sound of". You have been calling other people bigots since you arrived on this page but bigotry means intolerance and that is what you are all about. That is why you came here to troll and sneer and name-call. "Woman is the female identifying gender", For crying out loud - are you serious? Can you really not see that you are digging yourself deeper and deeper? Now your task is to define female and define gender. Good luck with that.

creator: Peak Trans " It is okay if people don't understand something that they haven't personally experienced,". I guess that's why you don't understand what being a woman means. Are you still in high school? my reply I understand what being a woman means, I just think it shows a socially regressive mindset that you see the social identities of women boiled down to their sex cells. It insults all women, in every sense, even those you refuse to be inclusive of. And what makes you think that having a different, more accepting mindset means I would be a child? Peak Trans reply 2 I haven't said anything about social identities. However they "identify", all women are defined are adult human females. It is because women and girls are female that they have been oppressed across cultures and throughout history - not because of how they "identify". That is what is important here - not not some subjective feeling of "who you really are". If you disagree, then feel free to provide your own definition of woman that is coherent, meaningful and non-circular. I guarantee you won't be able to. My reply Transwomen don't claim to have been repressed the same way cis women have, (this is another reason the adjectives exist, to distinguish the different experiences). However, Trans people are oppressed as well, like gay people throughout history. Ciswomen are oppressed too, no one is denying that fact, but acknowledging that trans people are oppressed in different ways will not take away from ciswomen's rights. There are different forms of oppression. A lot of Trans Exclusionary people do not acknowledge that gender identity, in the way people instinctively know it, is very similar to sexual orientation. My friend knows he's trans the way I know I'm a lesbian, it's instinctive. Peak Trans reply 3 You were asked to define 'woman'. Your inability to do so is noted without surprise. You know nothing. Stop wasting my time.

my reply @peak trans I did define woman. In 1 of my replies, I said "A woman is whoever identifies as female." And that is a definition. Please read a comment thread before replying to it. I feel your inability to accept changes and progress in society far outweighs any inability of mine. Listening to logic is never a waste of time, well not as much of a waste as the time taken to make this video. ;)

Peak Trans Reply 4 I did read it. That is exactly why I said you are unable to define 'woman'. You were not asked who is a woman, you were asked to define 'woman'. Do you know what 'define' means? It means explain the meaning of a word. The globally accepted definition of the word 'woman' is adult human female. See how that explains exactly what the word woman means? If you disagree with that definition, then by all means provide your own. To put it simply, the question is not who is a woman but what is a woman. Got it now? My Reply Your definition: Adult human female works for all women including transwomen, the definition didn’t specify adult human Biologically female, just adult, human and female. And you mentioned that you didn't mention social identities, but gender identity is a social identity.

Friend 1 @Peak trans Biological Sex - what you were born as and what the doctor originally put on your birth certificate Physical Sex - what your body currently is (for most people the same as biological) Gender Identity - what you identify as/want to be physically All three of these can be completely different. I cannot see what is so hard about these definitions and why some people struggle so much with them. Identity should be what people see as the person's actual gender but I can completely understand believing that Physical is the real one and I believe Physical should be the most important with things like toilets and competitions. Biological really shouldn't matter at all.

Peak Trans @Friend1 Define gender.

You haven't given a good or a bad or an indifferent definition of it. All you've said is that it is "what you identify as/want to be physically". That doesn't tell us what it is. If I identify as a vegetarian, does that make 'vegetarianism' my gender? If I wish I were Japanese, does that make Japanese my gender? Of course not. Try again

Friend 1 reply I did define 'woman', with all three definitions. Or at least better then you did, as yours doesn't even back up your point. Your definition, being "adult human female", doesn't at all exclude trans women, as they are still human, definitely female and usually an adult. I found this pretty funny to be honest, as throughout this video, you felt the need to pause Jamie an annoying amount to ask him to define woman, whilst at the same time providing your own definition that supports his point. You are correct with this, your definition does perfectly summarise what a woman is, I guess I did summarise Gender instead. With Gender Identity, the whole reason for it needing to exist is because it doesn't always correlate to the biological gender of the person. Also, I don't understand your argument of identifying as vegetarian or Japanese changing your gender identity, those two things do change your identity, but it is unrelated to gender. Gender Identity is the GENDER you IDENTIFY as, not your diet or ethnicity, Gender Identity is just for your GENDER, nothing else. Also @Blue Steel, I am finding it hard to believe that your aren't the troll here. I know for a fact me and @maddie are both serious about this and we both provide good points while trying to remain mostly passive. However, you here spend most of your comments insulting us, and when you do actually argue, it is a glorified "no u", which is so pathetic I don't even count it. I have defined Gender for you, and Peak Trans' definition of Woman is correct, but it doesn't support your point.

Peak Trans You still haven't defined 'gender' and you haven't defined 'woman' once, never mind three times. You evidently don't know the meaning of the word 'female' either. Those people you refer to as "trans women" are male. If they were female, there would be no need to call them 'trans'. Oh, and point to a single insult I have levelled at either of you. Here's a suggestion: watch my series about transgender ideology which unpacks all the awful arguments you make and then some. Start with the first one entitled: what is a woman. Then come back to me with your counter-arguments. Until you've done so, I really can't be arsed with you.

Friend 1, who is increasingly exasperated: I have defined gender 3 times but will do it again for you, Biological is whether you had a penis or vagina at birth, Physical is the one you currently have and identity is what you identify as. I have agreed with your definition of woman, and pointed out how it supports my point. Trans women are women, and you are right, there is no need to add the trans just like there is no need to add the cis to you, women are women. Trans and Cis just describe the women just like how transphobic and bigoted describe you, but there is no need to use them to describe the person every time. @Phil Hell, maddie has quoted and broken down not just multiple parts of the video in her original comment, but even talks about parts of JK Rowling's original essay, so not only has she done the research needed to comment on the video, but she has done much more as well. @kellysuther, if I was to get the surgery to become female, I would then produce the female gametes instead of male ones, so I don't really understand what your argument is. Unless you are saying that gender cannot be changed, to which I would ask how some "males" manage to become indistinguishable from females in every way.

Friend 2: @peaktrans @Gee Gog and @maddie have both defined gender multiple times, if you actually read the arguments against your points you would see. ‘Biological sex’ is defined by your gametes and sexual organ, this is the sex you are born with. Physical sex is your current sex/gender, e.g., a biological woman can get gender reassignment surgery to become physically male. Biological and Physical sex aren’t always the same thing, they can be i.e., cisgender. Gender identity is what a gender/genders/lack of genders a person identifies as at a certain time or all the time. A woman can be an adult biological male who identifies as female. If you are going to make a video on this topic you should have done this research, its laughable how this attitude is still widely accepted as ‘ok’. There are ‘different kinds of woman’ cis gender is one of those. Cis woman isn’t used to ‘reinforce the idea there are different kinds of woman’ it just refers to a biological woman who identifies as female. Woman is not your word, yes it refers to adult female, however you don’t have to be biologically female to be a woman. Cis is used the same way as how transgender is shortened down to trans. You say you don’t want the cis at the start of woman however it is necessary as it falls under the umbrella term woman. Being a cis woman is till being a woman. Trans woman are may be biologically male but they still are woman. If you need woman or gender to be defined again it is proof you are not reading arguments against your transphobic view.

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imaginedhaven · 4 years

Text

Reluctantly Rooming: Part Twelve

Link to Masterpost

I didn’t think I’d have this done so quickly, but here we are!

Content/Warning: While not intended to be a main focus of the work, this chapter does contain discussion of sexual orientation and the revelation of a side character as a trans man (who is almost assuredly not trans in the original canon). While I definitely want to be as respectful as possible even though I’m only barely broaching the topic, I cannot claim to be trans myself, so if I’ve gotten something wrong in my admittedly-minimal talk about it please tell me!

Today’s prompts:

Aelin getting stood up for a date

and

Inappropriate exclamations during an innocent massage

~*~*~

Aelin crossed her legs, leaning forward with an interest she was struggling to feel. “So, Ilias, you said you’re here for work? What is it you do?”

Ilias grinned a little too sharply at her, amusement flashing in sea-green eyes. “I work in… private security. I’m afraid I can’t say more than that.”

“Right.” She began to fidget with the skewer that had held her drink’s cherry, searching for something else to say.

“You seem uncomfortable. Want to get out of here?”

Oh gods, was he really…? Yes, he was leaning in, and the way his eyes flitted down her torso and then back up meant he was saying exactly what she thought he was saying.

“You know, if I’m being honest I don’t know if this is going to work,” she blurted out. “I mean, with you being based so far west of here, and traveling all over for your work… I’m not looking for forever on a first date, but maybe something a bit more stable than that.”

Ilias’ brow furrowed, then he nodded with an easy grin. “Fair enough. I definitely can’t promise stable.”

~*~*~

It had been a while since Aelin had been on a date with a woman, but she knew without a doubt that wasn’t the cause of the nerves settling in the pit of her stomach as golden eyes flashed at her from the barstool beside her. “Can I ask you a question that’s probably a bit rude?”

Her companion—Manon, that was her name—merely raised an amused eyebrow.

Aelin blurted out the question that had been at the tip of her tongue for the past several minutes. “Do you find that people being both scared and turned on is a normal reaction around you, or is it just me?”

Manon smirked, flicking her platinum braid over her shoulder. “It’s what I aim for,” she replied with a flash of sharp teeth.

Aelin laughed. “Okay, if I’m being honest we’re probably a terrible romantic match, but I like you. This is probably weird, since we’re on what’s supposed to be a date, but I have this friend who I think would absolutely love you…” Aelin trailed off, scrolling through the pictures on her phone.

Pointed nails dug into her shoulder as Manon peered at the screen. “I’m interested.”

Aelin blinked. “I haven’t told you anything about Elide.”

“I can see what I need to know about her from the way she’s holding herself in that picture. I’m willing to meet if she is.”

“I’ll introduce you on the condition that you teach me that trick you used on the guy you passed on your way in.”

“Deal.”

“You’re the best.”

“I know.”

~*~*~

Aelin sighed from the corner of the bar, shaking her head as Lysandra gave her a questioning stare. Ress was late. Incredibly late, not just something she could attribute to traffic.

She swirled the whiskey in her glass, watching the amber liquid to stop herself from checking her phone for the fifth time in as many minutes. He would show up if and when he showed up, and she was determined to not be bothered by it even though it bothered her immensely.

Maybe she should take Lysandra up on her offer to set her up. It couldn’t be worse than her experience trying to find people on dating apps.

Finally, her phone chimed as the screen lit up with an unfamiliar number. Aelin, it’s Ress. I’m so sorry, but I don’t think I’ll be able to make it. There’s been a huge disaster at work and apparently I’m the one who gets to clean it up.

Aelin sighed. Well, at least he’d texted her.

~*~*~

“Three flops in as many weeks, Lysandra, I think I’m cursed.” Aelin sighed and nestled further into the couch. “I mean, I went on a run today to try and calm down. Who goes on runs?”

“Rowan goes on runs,” her friend replied wickedly. “And I told you from the start that dating apps were hit or miss. This isn’t college anymore.”

“I didn’t have to worry about it in college,” she reminded her.

“That’s right, you were doing that thing with Sam where you thought you were a lesbian and Sam hadn’t fully come to the realization that he was a guy yet. You know, I still can’t believe you two wound up staying friends after how that fell out.”

Aelin grimaced. Some days she couldn’t quite believe it, either; she had hardly been graceful about it in college. “It took a lot of distance and a lot of growing up,” she admitted. “And a lot of admitting that I said a lot of things I didn’t mean.”

“Anyhow, if you’re ready to hear my ideas, I could set you up with Archer.”

Aelin frowned, rubbing at a sudden cramp in her calf muscles. “Is that a person’s name, or a profession?”

“It’s his name. I can help you with that, if you want.” Lysandra leaned forward and took over, deftly massaging her leg.

“And how exactly do you know this Archer?”

“I worked with him at that massage parlor in Rifthold.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?” Lysandra’s brow furrowed in confusion.

Aelin scowled. “No one from Rifthold.”

Green eyes softened in understanding. “He’s not like—”

“I don’t care. No.”

Thankfully, her friend dropped it there, instead focusing on working the knot out of her sore muscles. “I could also set you up with Rowan.”

Aelin groaned. “Oh gods, Lys. No.”

“What do you have to lose?”

“My dignity? My ability to live with him, and therefore my home?” She turned her head just enough to glare at her friend, otherwise remaining practically boneless as she sprawled across the couch.

Lysandra laughed. “You think Aedion wouldn’t kick him out over you?”

“I don’t want it to come to that. So no, you’re not setting me up with him.”

“But you could go on runs together, and when you push yourself too hard he could probably carry you home.”

“You’re a terrible influence. Remind me why we’re friends again?”

“Because you’re a worse one,” her friend grinned. “Besides, I can do this.”

A few deft strokes of Lysandra’s hands had the tension leaving her leg, and she moaned in relief. “Gods, that feels so good.”

“See? Everyone likes my hands, they’re one of my best features.”

“Don’t get all smug with me—yes, right there!”

A loud noise near the doorway had them both freezing and looking over, only to discover that Rowan had gotten home early and looked absolutely mortified. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Aelin, you have a room.”

Aelin blushed hotly as she played back the last several moments of their conversation. Exactly how much had he heard? Hopefully it was just the last part; as awkward as it was, it was easier to explain than her misplaced attraction to him. “As trite as this sounds, it’s not what it looks like.”

“So you haven’t brought one of your recent dates home?” As odd as it was to think, she was relieved by the scowl on his face; the expression combined with his words indicated that he hadn’t heard them talking about him.

“Gods, no. This is Lysandra. From the bar, remember?”

Bless her, Lysandra stood and waved with a grin. She was less thrilled with what her friend proceeded to say, though. “Your friend here pushed too far running and hurt her leg. I was just helping with that.”

Immediately Rowan’s gaze fixated on her legs, obviously searching for any obvious sign of injury. Aelin sighed. “I’m fine, buzzard. It was just a muscle cramp.”

He nodded, the motion sharp and jerky, and strode into the kitchen, fetching a glass of water with almost mechanical precision. “I guarantee you didn’t drink enough water before you ran. This should help prevent it from coming back.”

She scowled, but obediently sipped from the glass after he handed it to her. “I thought you weren’t supposed to right before running. Doesn’t that upset your stomach?”

“I’m talking about yesterday, Aelin. You should be keeping well-hydrated on a daily basis if you’re going to take up running.��

“You just want me to drink more water,” she accused. “That sounds made up.”

“Just try it,” he replied. “You’ll thank me later.”

Her head jerked back toward the living area at the sound of a door closing, only to find that Lysandra had taken the opportunity to quietly let herself out. Her friend grinned and waved from the driveway when she saw her, clearly realizing she was caught and utterly unrepentant.

Aelin sighed and turned back to Rowan, who was watching her with an expression she couldn’t quite identify. “You’re really okay?” he asked.

She nodded. “I just needed something to help me not think for a while after these shit dates I’ve been on lately, and I’m told drinking alone is a sign of having a problem.”

The corner of his lips quirked up in the barest hint of a smile. “They must’ve been really bad, to make you consider running as a viable option.”

Aelin shrugged. “I mean, I’ve had worse, but I’ve also had better? It was just one miss after another, you know?”

He glanced at her again, then turned toward the refrigerator. “I think I have everything we need to make pasta, if that’ll help you feel better.”

“You’d actually make me pasta?” She frowned; there had to be some kind of catch. There was no way he would simply allow that many carbs to be on his stovetop at the same time.

“I would,” he replied, heading toward the pantry and grabbing…

“Wait, that’s not pasta,” she blurted out. Gods, she knew there was a catch.

He laughed, rolling up his sleeves before grabbing their eggs as well. “It’s not pasta yet.”

“You can’t seriously mean—” There was no way he was actually making pasta from scratch. There was a reason it came in boxes, she was sure of it.

“I can and I do. Now either stop talking and watch or get out of my kitchen.”

Aelin chose to watch, and the play of muscles in his forearms as he made and kneaded his own pasta dough was almost enough to make her forget about why she’d thought it was a good idea to try dating again in the first place.

Almost.

~*~*~

Tagging:

@ireallyshouldsleeprn @queen-of-glass @fangirlprincess09 @sassys-world @morganofthewildfire @superspiritfestival @perseusannabeth @sis-it-dont-add-up @jlinez @julemmaes @emilyoftheshadows @thegoddessofyou @mymultiversee @swankii-art-teacher @rowansfirebringer @livsdriverslicense @courtofjurdan @danibutterr @woollycat22 @rowaelinismyotp @sleeping-and-books @acciowests @stardelia @anidealiveson

#rowaelin #haven writes #reluctantly rooming

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aggresivelyfriendly · 4 years

Text

The Future is What?

Hi all! So my imagination is big, and this was a flapping cape to its bull! Enjoy, or don’t, no judgement!

I owe it all to @dirtystyles

"Did I get it?" He feels like it should be rather obvious, but they've been at this, off and on, for most of the day.

Well, not this particular pursuit, but the pursuit of pleasure, his and hers, since he woke up hard and she woke up willing.

So she's very wet and swollen and sensitive too. The deluge had come and gone and come again, it's fair to say.

She smiled, but that wasn't an answer. Her eyes were hazy and she looked just as fucked out as him. But he really wanted to know, couldn't help but ask, both times.

It had started as pillow talk. "You remember that shirt you wore, like early on?"

She'd worn a lot of shirts, she can't stop herself when it comes to a clever tee, so she just raised a sweaty brow at him from where she is lying on his right laurel.

"You know the one." He nudged her with his hip. And he knew he was blushing and she knew he was blushing and she tried to think of red cheek inducing shirts? But then she started thinking how her lower cheeks were probably red from the friendly slaps he'd given her when their morning side lying fuck had turned into full on doggie. God bless younger men.

"I have a lot of cheeky shirts?" She shrugs, it jostles his balls.

"Heeeey, careful!" He warns but he's smiling and his dimples and eye crinkles are almost meeting so she climbs up to kiss him and lay on his shoulder.

"No, really, just tell me what shirt?"

She can't believe he's embarrassed. They've been dancing around for a month, and had been moved on to the horizontal mambo with glee weeks ago.

It had started innocently enough. Around Thanksgiving, she was texting the group chat how she hated that her kiddos were away and she was alone on the actual day. She'd used some crying emojis- it was dramatic, but she was in the right field for that. There had been a smattering or sympathetic responses, Harry had sent a thumbs down. Then with barely a moments pause he'd texted, "Wanna come over? I'm cooking way too much!" To only her.

"Why? You're not even American?" Had been her response. The shrug emoji made her smile. He was kinda weird, and cute, no, hot. So hot, but cute.

She should know better, she might be accused of leading man-itis.

She couldn't deny she was kinda into him. I mean, he was a dreamboat and they decked him out to full wattage daily on set, but she was his boss and older and had kids and had just gotten out of relationship and, and, and. To all these reasons she had to say, "shut the fuck up!" to her own brain.

He could be just being nice. He was seriously the nicest man she'd ever met.

Or, what if it was a move? Did she want it to be a move? No? Yes? Yes...why couldn't she have nice things? She was a badass, and now a single mom who deserved but didn't require love.

And he was an adult. She'd make sure he knew the playing field and rules. That they'd have to share home court advantage, if they were even gonna play to have rematches in the future.

More than anything, the most compelling thing, was the way he made her smile. She appreciated thoughtfulness, and the way her remembered names, preferences, dietary restrictions and favorite flowers, it just melted her. She really thought she'd lost the ability to melt when her vagina died.

She supposed the impulsive adventurer inside never died, even when made shy by more than one bite.

Of course, she texted back, "Address?" Just to him.

And three hours later she'd had an incredible meal and two orgasms.

Then, even with her warning him off, and some wise voice reminding her she often fell too fast, they'd fallen into each other.

On Christmas Eve, when he'd found her crying that her kids didn't come home until morning, he'd pulled her downstairs to excitedly play Santa and then given her a beautiful Gucci outfit, asked her to be his date at his best friend's wedding, and told her if he had to be away from family for Christmas he could imagine no one better to be with.

She was already on his hook, but line and sinker were now also accomplished.

So much for rules and boundaries, and home court advantage definitely looked like her at his house overnight whenever hers was quiet, and driving his car too.

So, that he was so embarrassed now surprised her. They had dove deeply into one another, been bare emotionally as well, they'd rehashed her divorce and her almost marriage. Then his past, his band, his homesickness and his tattoos. She was amazed he felt self conscious, laying with her naked, whatever the topic of her conversation tees were.

"Just tell me the shirt, baby." She knew that melted him right back. He really loved all the couple things they were falling into, she could see it when he preened at small touches or glowed at pet names.

"Um, well." She can't help but laugh, he's so good at action, both at home and when she calls it on set, but he gets incredibly tongue tied with words. Probably why he did music, too. Easier to share thoughts to a page than person.

"Cmon!" She said against his mouth, "tell me..." she bit his lower lip.

"The one about the future." He waits for her to fill the rest in.

"The voting shirt I bought everybody?" That concerned the future.

"Um," he rolls his eyes, she assumes at himself. "The female ejaculation one."

"Oh!" Oh!! She had worn that one to set. It was when she was kinda starting to feel Harry. She wanted him to think of her cumming. She supposed it worked, though she was a tiny bit embarrassed at her brazenness. Most days she thought of it as her best trait. Maybe it was, it was working for her, clearly. "Yeah, what about it?" He was avoiding eye contact. She wanted him to look at her.

He finally did, and he gripped her hips proprietarily, like he needed to be reminded he could, that he had some entitlement to her for this conversation. "Can you?"

Could she? Could she what? Oh, OH! "Um, I have. But it's not like commonplace." She traced his eyebrows and perched on his hips. That was doing fun things to him. "Have you ever?"

He nodded. "But just once, and I'm not sure how I did it. I'd like to learn to master it." He gave her a smug look, well as smug as he could look blushing. The sex flush and sweat helped.

"Oh, you'd like to master it, huh?" She tickled him a little and he squirmed and they giggled together. "How long do you suppose that could take? I've got all day!" She was joking.

"I've got years!" He raised an eyebrow at her.

Years? With them? Why was that compelling? this was a fling. But so was her first marriage, she supposed. A lovely life changing short lived thing that turned into years.

The butterflies in her belly were familiar, from that lifetime ago.

"Alright." She crawled up and over his face. "Let's see that diligence, Styles."

He's really good at this, and they both seemed to like when she's in charge. That's working for them when she's in her director's chair or using his face as a seat.

That one was too easy. She came, but not like he was hoping for.

His long fingers played her next, and she thinks they may have nearly had it.

After that, he was too pent to just let that erection go to waste. That one may have been a wasted opportunity, if they had added some vibes or she had got her fingers down there they may have got it. Also, if Harry had been able to hold off longer.

"Sorry!" He'd breathed into her neck.

She could only laugh, yeah, sorry for today's first orgasm to her fifth. She knew how goal oriented he was though. "It's ok." She ruffled his hair and kissed him.

The nap was needed and inevitable. He woke up on a mission.

This time, he employed all the lessons they'd learned.

But her body was groggy.

"Harry, baby—"

"Hmmm?" He hummed from where he was beneath the blanket, head between her legs immediately after he pulled out. That'd be hot, but..

"Baby, I need a break." She pushed the blankets off and cupped his jaw before pulling him up. "And food."

"I'll cook for you." He got up naked as the day and she slapped his little ass as he went.

"That did it! It happened!" She laughed and he narrowed his eyes at her.

"You're a menace and a meany." He leaned over to kiss her on her sweaty forehead. "What do you want?"

"Whatever can be ready in the space of a shower, I'm so hungry."

"No!" He shook his head. "Don't wash."

"Ok Napoleón. I'll feel better if I'm clean."

"But it'll be like starting over. We're not finished yet."

"Baby, we have time. There's no rush." She reminded him. They'd talked about this. He was scared too, to many relationships sacrificed to fame. She didn't give a fuck; not her first rodeo and all.

He'd been right though. She'd met him in the kitchen and his breakfast in bed plan was foiled. Then they watched a movie, then a documentary.

Luckily that was boring enough, or they were new enough, a make out had ensued.

So here she was, splayed out on the couch, shaking, and she figured when her brain and legs started working again she'd be pissed there were no sheets to simply change. She had an upholstery cleaner somewhere.

"Yeah, yeah," she mumbled. "You definitely got it." His pleased smile, like when he nailed a take, it's her favorite, along with his kiss.

The future looked bright.

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #Harry styles imagine #harry styles oneshot #silliness

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thr-333 · 4 years

Text

Mismatch-Part 11

Bio Dad Bruce Wayne Month 2020

You know... just a trip to the aquarium... what could possibly go wrong?

First < Previous > Next

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“Don't you think we should wake him up?” Adrien asks, looking towards Nino’s door.

“Absolutely not,” Marion picks through his sugary cereal, “You may not understand, as a natural morning person, but waking us up is a death sentence,”

“We’re going to be late,” Adrien seems nervous stirring his cereal, Marion tries not to snort, only someone who has their life planned to the minute would think so.

“Then he’ll rush to get ready and be out the door in five minutes,” Marion bites done, trying not to cringe at the sweetness, speaking through his mouthful, “Like any non-morning person does,”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just get up early?”

“I have no idea how to explain just how wrong you are,”

Marion pushes the bowl away, why Adrien insisted on trying it he had no idea. He goes to double check his bag. He was carrying the miracle box today. It’s compartment taking up half his satchel. Something Klakki seemed annoyed by while Plagg was happy to curl up, like any cat would.

As it got closer to time to leave Adrien keeps glancing at Nino’s door then back to Marion. Marion tries not to smile as he brainstormed names and researched birds. He had found one called Sabine's Gull, tempting but not enough to risk his Maman's life, even if the chances were slim. Adrein keeps reminding Marion of the time, down to the last seven minutes before the bus is meant to leave.

“And three, two,” Marion caught Adrien's attention, “one,”

“I”m Late!” Nino yells from his room, followed by a yelp and some crashing.

Marion chuckles, ignoring Adrien’s ‘I told you so look,’. That was quickly replaced by Marion's one as in only four minutes fifty six seconds Nino was dressed, fed and out the door. They race downstairs, reaching the ground floor to see a crowd outside the building. Marion frowns, they were blocking the way out, and he could see the bus over their heads. Most people held cameras and a few with microphones. They walk outside, trying to push their way to the bus, when Marion spots Marinette in the middle of the crowd.

“Whats going on?” He interrupts Marinette talking with someone rudely shoving a microphone in her face, which filled with relief at seeing him.

“I’ve been trying to explain to these people that-”

“Excuse me but what's your relationship to Bruce Wayne?” A... reporter? cuts Marinette off.

“Bruce Wayne?” Marion casts a confused look to Marinette, “I hardly know him,”

“So he hasn't been a very involved Father?” The reporter asks, and Marion’s does a double take.

“Wh-what?” Marion looks to Marinette who only sighs, “He’s not my Father,”

“Did he tell you to say that?” Another reporter butts in.

“Yes, people who aren’t my Papa usually do,” Marion says sarcastically, pushing the microphone away from his face.

“So he did tell you to say that?” The reporter asks, a glint in their eye that he was most familiar with Alya having when asking Chat Noir questions(when Ladybug wasn't available of course).

“Do you not recognise sarcasm?” He turns to Marinette, “Do they not know sarcasm?”

“No, they also don’t know the term, ‘He’s not my Father,” Marinette chastises, looking at the surrounding crowd like they were three year olds, “and, ‘I already have a Papa’,”

“But you were adopted,” Someone calls out, making Marion reel back and Marinette flinch. Ok. things that are not ok for strangers to talk about; that.

“First of all, it’s creepy that you know that,” Marion snaps, “Second it’s rude to bring that up to a stranger, if at all, and third that doesn't mean that of all people Bruce Wayne is our Father,”

“You heard it here first folks,” A reporter to the side announces, “Confirmation of the Wayne twins,”

“How was that confirmation! Did our english tutor skew us over!?” Marion yells, spinning to Marinette.

“Mari, let’s just go,” Marinette tries to pull him away only to be blocked by multiple reporters all talking-yelling over each other to ask invasive questions.

They were used to reporters as Ladybug and Chat Noir even MDC and MCD, but no one knew anything personal about them. Well mostly. This was not the same. They had apparently done their research as they were shouting out specific questions about their lives. Someone mentioned Chloe asking if the Wayne's were friends with the Mayor of Paris. Marion doubts that, the Wayne's charity work did not line up with the Mayor’s self-serving nature.

They try to ignore any more questions and side step the crowd, slowly making their way to the bus. To their horror the bus pulls away as they reach the curb. Watching the rear window Lila’s smug face is smirking back at their stupor. Neither even have enough sense to reach for their phones before a motorbike pulls up in front of them. The reporters scramble to get out of the way, or get run over.

“Saw the news, thought you could use some rescuing,” Jason pulls off his helmet gesturing to the bike, and the twins hop on, the press snapping pictures like crazy, “Where to?”

“Aquarium, the bus left without us,” Marinette answers, holding onto Marion as they speed away.

Marion can hear Jason mutter unsavoury curses under his breath about the class, and can’t help but agree. They see the bus and Jason speeds up, riding alongside it. No one looks over until Jason practically punches the side. The loud clang making even Marion jump. When their classmates look out to see the twins waving. Marion watches as Kagami starts yelling and the bus signals to pull over. Jason slows down to trail behind the bus as it does. The second the doors open their friends rush out, as the twins get off the bike.

“I’m so sorry,” Adrien frets, “We tried to hold them off,”

“Little miss liar decided that it would be a waste of time waiting for you,” Chloe scoffs, Marion bats her hands away trying to tame his hair himself.

“She convinced everyone you could get your own ride,” Kagami looks like she was planning to throw Lila into traffic.

“We sorta did,” Marion laughs, turning to Jason, “Thanks for that,”

“No problem, didn’t want Bruce picking you up, he’d probably drive you straight to the nearest adoption agency,” Jason pulls his helmet back on, mounting his bike, “Have fun,”

“Thank you,” Marinette calls, and they both wave goodbye.

“Marinette, Marion, please get on the bus we are already very late,” Madam Bustier reprimands, looking out the bus door.

They shuffle back onto the bus, the entire class, minus Max, looking annoyed, if not angry. They bus starts up again, tempting Marion to just walk. Instead he holds onto the bar, Marinette next to him, letting the others take back their seats. The one next to Adrien noticeably empty.

“Was that really necessary?” Alya speaks first, passive aggressive, leaning into the aggressive.

“Well, the bus left, so yeah?” Marion asks, He would be confused why they were angry when they should be upset. But he knew exactly what happened; Lila.

“Only because you stopped to chat with the reporters,” Rose says not unkindly, she has a reassuring look as if there was no ill intentions. There probably wasn't, from her, the rest of the class was hit or miss, mostly hit.

“We weren't trying-”

“It was quite inconsiderate,” Lila cuts Marinette off, “I get hounded by reporters day in, day out but I always do my best to make sure they never come near or disrupt the class,”

Marion could almost snort at that, Lila giving herself away without even knowing it. No reporter would stop trying to corner her if anything she says were really true. Lila bats her eyelashes and gets agreements from the class, Which as per usual spurs her on.

“I mean it’s one thing to spread that awful lie , but to actually call the press to sabotage our trip?” Lila fakes a sniffle at the end. Marion can’t help but suspect she had more to do with this morning than he realised.

“We didn’t do anything, and we certainly didn’t call them,” Marinette says defensively, calmly but visibly restraining her anger. And it Marinette was angry Marion was livid.

“Right and every time your with the Waynes there just happen to be cameras around?" Sabrina sneers, arms crossed Marion glowers down at her. He holds his hand out to Kagami who stands to argue, she sits down begrudgingly.

"Not to mention you've never even mentioned the Waynes before, while Lila has known them for years," Nathaniel mutters, not meeting Marion's gaze as it snaps to him.

"If you want to say something just say it," Marion addresses the whole class, opening the flood gates.

“You’re just looking for attention!” Kim stands up, slamming his hands onto the seat in front of him, startling Mylene.

“Attention?!” Marion rears back, he can feel the anger radiating from his friends behind him.

“Yeah! your jealous of Lila knowing the Waynes so your trying to ruin the trip for her!" Kim points at Marion, although he suspected he meant both of them.

"We know your just trying to distract everyone from the charity she set up in Gotham, so she doesn't get any recognition!" Mylene accuses, genuine rage and hurt behind it.

"The Mayor of Gotham even cancelled the celebration for Lila because you two are causing so much trouble," Rose cries, voice quivering.

"She was going to invite the whole class! Even you two!" Sabrina spits, yeah right.

"You're filling the news up with Tabloid lies!" Alya joins, yelling over Madame Bustiers meek protests.

“What the?!" Marion re orientates himself from the barrage, "Those are all lies! how can you not see that?"

“Don’t start this again, I thought you were over the whole liar thing?" Alya half demands, half mutters.

“We’d be ‘over it’ is she stopped lying!" Marion's eyes follow where his finger points, smug grin churning his stomach uneasily.

“Thats rich coming from you," Kim scoffs, bitter tone so unlike his usual default rage or cheer.

“ What," Marion turns to him, but only gets a glare back.

“You two are always lying to get out of class and school events," Ivan answers for him. Well that was true but they couldn’t admit it.

“Thats not-

“Save it we know you can’t stand to be around us," Juleka cuts off Marinette, her sour tone practically screaming compared to her normal volume. Also true but probably for different reasons then they think.

“If you spread this whole rumour as a way to get out of the trip, fine, do that, but don’t keep disrupting out trip for your five minutes of fame," Alix startles Marion by cutting in. She usually didn't speak to anyone anymore, let alone Lila.

“Five minutes of fame?- spread the rumour? Do you honestly think we wanted this?” Marinette doesn't expect an answer.

“Yes,” It came from Alya, cold and bitter. With one look at Marinette he could tell exactly what his sister was remembering.

Alya has pretty much migrated to Lila after plans being cancelled with Marinette one to many times. After which marintte tried to organise another plan but Alya told her in the nicest way possible(Still pretty crushing) that she would perfer to hang out wwiht lie la and that she and Mari had drifted apart. Mari does point out that this isn’t fair but Alya says she deserves better than a secondary plan, Mari points out that Alya had done that plenty of times. Alya agrees, apologies and lists it as another reason they should renounce their friendship. The rest of the class:

Marinette bounces up to her best friend. She finally had a weekend off, so concerts, no urgent commissions and her manager promised to keep it that way. The only thing that could interrupt this weekend was Hawkmoth himself. Marion even offered to take her earrings.

"Hey Alya are you free-"

"No," It's a single word, but spoken with such resentment and conviction it couldn't be missed,

"I didn’t-" Marinette's face scrunches, was dark Cupid on a rampage again?

"No Marinette I’m done, done with making plans, getting excited only to be cancelled or stood up, I’m done,” The aspiring reporter sounds so strangely defeated, completely unlike herself.

“Alya I’m so sorry about last week-” Marinette apologises again, gut twisting at the though she hurt her best friend this badly.

“It’s not just last week, its the one before and the one before that and every other week, I’m sick of it!” Alya spits, meeting Marinette's eyes for the first time, seeing nothing but rage and hurt.

“Alya I'm really sorry, I’ve had a lot going on and-” Marinette frets, gesturing wildly.

“I know Marinette, you’ve been busy in the bakery and with your designs and every other excuse you've given me, I deserve better,”

“Of course you do Alya, I promise I-”

“No, Marinette its fine,” Alya sounds tired, stepping away from Marinette's outstretched hand, “We’ve been drifting apart for a long time now and I’m tired of acting like nothings changed, I can’t keep putting more effort into this friendship, more time than you, I have friends who are actually there for me, like Lila,”

At that Marinette saw red. Of course it was Lila who put her up to this, whispering in her ear, turning Alya against Marinette.

“That’s not fair! Your not even giving me a chance!” Marinette snaps, her jaw tenses as Alya glares.

“I’ve given you plenty of chances,” Alya glowers.

“Why is this the first I’m hearing of it,” Marinette crosses her arms.

“I shouldn’t have to threaten to end our friendship for you to show up!” Alya shouts, taking a step forward as Marinette stumbles back.

"What did Lila say?!" There was no way Alya would say this, would do this, they were meant to stick together through thick and thin, "Is she making you do this?!"

"So help me- yes Lila talked to me!" Alya throws her hands up, "But not because she's out to get you, like your so convinced, but because she's a good friend who cares when I come crying over getting stood up by you!"

“You’ve cancelled on me plenty of times!” Marinette defends, she had her blog and Marinette was always understanding.

“I know and I’m sorry,” Alya takes a deep breath, “I don’t think either of us are being fair to each other, it’s better to just renounce our friendship before it all comes crashing down,”

“Alya please," Marinette begs, reaching out, tears pricking her eyes.

“I’m sorry Marinette but this is the right decision for me,” Alya walks away, not looking back at the tears streaming down her former friends face, “and I hope in time you’ll realise it was the right thing for you too,”

Marion remembers that day so well. Marinette coming home crying, the Akuma. Bunnix jumping into their room followed by the adult version of them, with miraculous holders he didn’t recognise. They battle with an akumatized Ladybug was tough, even with the extra help. The Akuma was cleansed and the rest of Paris had their memories wiped, leaving Marion the only one in their time who remembers. He never brought it up to Marinette and he never will.

“Well your wrong, we worked hard to get this trip and why would we want to ruin it?" Marion answers, Marinette remaining silent.

“Please we all know you stole Lila’s work," Sabrina rolls her eyes, Marion catches Chloe scowling at her.

“Wh-what!” Marinette splutters, Marion tries to keep his mouth shut.

“I’m sorry, I accidentally let slip that I wrote up the essay to get us this trip,” Lila bats her eyes, curling in on herself as if they're going to attack her for it. Marion just might.

“You don’t have to apologise for anything Lila," Alya places a comforting hand on her shoulder, "They stole the essay you worked so hard, one that you managed to write even when setting up a charity!"

“I wasn't doing to impress everyone, I just wanted everyone to get to go on this amazing trip, so when you two said you weren’t going to make a submission because it was so much work, I just had to, but at least you sent it in, I couldn't do that since I’m not class president,

“Maybe she should be," Marion doesn't care who muttered it, it doesn't matter.

“That's it,�� The entire class freezes, at his tone or expression, doesn't matter, they don't matter, “Marinette worked hard day and night trying to get that submitted on time, she had to research and find all the information and evidence to what this class has done because none of you would talk to her and give all the details, you refused to help out in even the most minuscule ways, No not even! you all actively made it harder!”

“Thats not-

“Enough!” Marion hones in on Lila who falls quite for once, “You lie and scheme and take credit for whats not yours, you treat the class like a bunch of mindless sheep and you know what? I’m starting to see why,”

“Marion,” Madame Bustier reprimands, finally being heard in the following silence “That is quite enough thats no example for your friends-”

“They aren’t my friends,” Marion sends a cold look over the bus, “None of them are,”

The class goes silent. Marion wouldn’t be surprised if that came as a shock to most of them. Despite them not ever talking or spending time together. It was true that the only person who had truly cut them out was Alya, probably because Marinette kept trying even after they had long since stopped with their class. Mostly he was sure they were shocked that he was the one breaking it off, not even giving them a say. They didn’t deserve one. Not that they weren't going to try.

“Fine then! I don’t want anything to do with you anyway!”

“Yeah! You act like a complete jerk then have the gall to say that?”

“We haven't been friends for a long time anyway!”

“You’re nothing but mean to Lila and think we want to be friends?!”

“Don't go forgetting you said that when your all alone!"

He sits down and resolutely stares out the window. More insults are hurled out, Marion paying no mind to the source. Madame Busiter tries to reprimand him for saying 'such hurtful things;. Lila is sobbing and everyone is offering her pointless comfort. Marion doesn't listen but is vaguely aware of Kagami and Chloe arguing with the teacher. He lets the hushed whispers fall behind him. He feels a push against his thigh where his bag rests, knowing it’s Plagg. The small comfort doing nothing.

He notices the bus is driving faster than strictly allowed. He looks over to the bus driver and feels bad for the clearly uncomfortable man stuck right in the middle of their teenage angst.

They arrive at the aquarium. Marion doesn't even try to hide his anger. Let Lila revel in his reaction. His friends try to calm him down, or rather Adrien does, Chloe and Kagami are still glaring daggers. Luckily Marinette convinces Adrien to stop before Marion snaps at him.

He catches a group near them whispering and pointing with their phones held up. Marion sends his deadliest glare and they immediately back off, scuttling off to some other area of the aquarium.

He is left alone after that. Adrien has redirected his attention to cheering Marinette up, the two pointing out fish. Seeing them smiling together Marion feels some anger slip through his grasp. Only to be promptly returned when he accidentally looks over at Lila’s gaggle, whispering and glaring. Marion glares right back making a few of them flinch. He turns and storms off to another part of the aquarium, away from the rest of the class.

“Hey kid you alright?” A fair distance away Plagg whispers from his bag.

“No! Obviously not!” Marion whisper-shouts, not looking down.

“Want to get out of here?” Now Marion does look down at Plagg grinning.

Klakki is off to the one side of the bag, looking up but not interrupting. He and the Kwami are close but they all knew he and Plagg were two halves of a whole. So the other Kwami let him handle it.

“Can’t exactly go running around Gotham right now,” Marion comes to stand in the typical tunnel that you see in aquariums, surrounded on both sides by colourful fish and a few larger creatures like stingrays and sharks.

“We can go back to Paris,” Plagg offers, he glances down at the bag to see Klakki nod.

The Kwami usually didn’t like their miraculous being used for anything but heroics. Still he got a sure nod from Klakki. Marion takes a deep breath, looking out to the fish swimming around the tank, darting in and out of coral. He forced down his anger in the same way he would in Paris. He usually didn’t let himself stay angry that long, or Marinette would help him calm down sooner.

“It’s fine,” Marion sighs, pushing the anger, or rather, his class out of mind, “I’m fine,”

Plagg doesn't comment on his obvious lie, all too used to it. He sees Plagg dart into his pocket out the corner of his eye. Marion smiles, zipping his bag back up with a smile at Klakki who gives a curt nod. He stuff his hands into his hoodie’s pocket and feels the small Kwami inside. Marion lets a small smile settle on his face. Looking out at the fish as he is pulled along by the conveyor belt as he pets Plagg purring from his pocket.

His smile only fades when he notices the rest of the class enter the tunnel, looking from the other side of the glass. He makes no move to join them, even when his friends do a minute later. He turns to look at the other side of the tunnel, doing his best to avoid them.

This becomes the least of his problems when gunshots ring. He ducks down on the non moving part of the sidewalk. Screams can be heard and he looks up through the tank where the class is still in view. Marinette is looking around for him and he curses himself, not being able to change into costume without her. Voices get closer and Marinette starts herding the class further down the tunnel, Marion losing sight of them behind coral. He moves to meet to her when two men each in a gas mask and carrying guns enter the tunnel.

“Where are the Wayne twins!” One yells, another shot making those near scream.

“You know, I’m starting to think Aunt Selina doesn't have this handled,” Marion mutters to Plagg, staying where he is to keep the thugs in sight.

“Forget about that, this won’t end well,” Klakki scolds, Marion watches as the thugs start walking in opposite directions.

“Tell me about, Lila’s going to have a field day,” Marion pulls his hood up, losing sight of the goon going towards the class, focusing now on the one heading his way.

“Not the point,” Klakki sighs, Marion zips up the bag realising he also has the Miracle box.

He throws the satchel on his back tightening the strap across his chest. Plagg was complaining, but Marion only ignores him watching the oncoming goon. He was pointing his gun at some people but wasn’t looking at their faces. Probably clothes then, there were probably plenty of pictures of what they were wearing today. Perfect.

Marion takes off his Jacket followed by his hoodie. He debates keeping his staff for a split second but quickly stuffs it in his satchel followed by his gloves. Turing both his hoodie and Jacket inside out to matching black, he ties the hoodie around his waist and shrugs on the jacket.

He lies down on the moving sidewalk slowly moving him towards the thug. Marion hugs his bag and covers his face. He tenses at the heavy footsteps going by as he slowly moves past. The goon doesn't even stop and he makes a mental note to thank Marinette. He feels the turn of a corner and rolls up onto the unmoving part to the side. Keeping his head below the glass, he crouches down running as fast as he can while refastening his satchel around his chest.

“Found one!” Marion hears a yell just as he reaches the entrance.

He ducks to the side just as all eyes in the room snap to where he was. Marion shrinks into the shadow of a fish tank just outside the entrance, ducking down and covering his head. If anyone actually saw him in his now all black outfit they could easily shrug it off as just missing him the first time.

Marion doesn't look up as people go past, no one noticing him in the shadows. He waits for a few cautious seconds for any more footsteps to go by before scanning the room. There's many civilians huddled around, the nearest security exit being covered by another thug in a gas mask, a trend it seems.

Alright plan time, Marinette can handle herself for a few minutes. Presumably these guys are working for Scarecrow if the gas masks are any indication. Scarecrow was probably with Marinette in the tunnel. If he clears an exit quietly here then he can get the civilians closest to the fight out of danger. It could also provide an entrance to whoever comes to save them.

There's no other thugs in the room so he moves silently, sticking to the shadows to get close to the emergency exit. Luckily the goon is distracted by an octopus in a nearby tank so Marion stays out of his line of sight. He gets up behind the goon, not breathing, and pounces. One hand unlatches the gas mask and covers his mouth and the other grabbing the hand holding the gun. He digs his fingers hard enough into his hand to make the wrist bleed and the gun is dropped. Marion catches it with one foot, balancing as much as possible with the man thrashing in his grip. He gently lowers the gun to the ground so it doesn't clatter. Letting go of his wrist, nails bloody Marion brings his arm around his neck. Squeezing for a minute until the goon passed out. Marion gently lowers him to the ground.

“Quietly,” He hisses to the room.

They do get up quietly. Parents with children covering their mouths as they exit. Marion makes sure they're all a good ways down the hall before tracking back to the tunnel. He can see them through the glass and as he predicted there was Scarecrow, in a very familiar monologue stance. A glimpse at Marinette's expression was all the confirmation he needed. He heads in the same direction as the moving walkway, knowing he’ll be in a blind spot.

“Still not answering,” Marion catches Scarecrow say, stopping as soon as he can hear them, “I think it’s time you screamed so he knows this is serious,”

“Going to show me the rest of your wardrobe?”

Marion's smirk quickly fades with the tell tale snap of a bone breaking. He sprints down the tunnel. Marinette groans. Marion rounds the corner. His sister holding her arm, bending at an unnatural angle. The rest of the class are huddled to the sides with various degrees of horror.

Marion doesn't give Scarecrow enough time to consider trying anything else before he attacks the nearest goon. They shout out and Marion blindly throws quick punches at whoever gets to close. The belt is moving along, Marion now being surrounded by his classmates. Kim cheers as he sends a particularly brutal punch into one guy's face. Marion hears the hiss of a guns release, looking up to see Scarecrow pointing a gun at the now very quiet Kim. Marion anticipates the shot, diving in the bullets path before it can reach its target.

There's a gasp from somewhere, someone. He feels a burst not of pain, but fear. It’s something he's used to Akuma doing, dragging up all his anxieties from the recesses of his mind. Marion shuts his eyes tight, visions dancing across the darkness. He takes a practiced slow breath. He had learnt long ago that letting fear take hold in battle would only lead to fantasy becoming reality.

Marion cracks open his eyes, focusing on where he was. They were still on the belt moving slowly. Everything around him was warped from a few seconds ago but he was still standing in the narrow-too narrow tunnel.

Alright then what is reality. Giant sharks jumping out at him? No, there’s glass. Swarm of purple butterflies? No this is Gotham they probably don’t have flowers. The past Akuma? Just regular people. Marinette covered in blood? She only broke her arm. His parents dead on the floor? They are in Paris. Lila with devil horns cackling? Probably reality.

He takes another calming breath, nothing but the images of Akuma mattered here. But there were dozens more than there had been people a minute ago so some were fake. He could still work with this. Marion takes a deep breath straightening up. The Hawkmoth in front of him looks surprised, he had to guess that was his stand in for Scarecrow right now.

He stumbles a step forward. The akumatized versions of his classmates jeer, most yelling things he had heard that day. The first Akuma leaps out at him, Marion decks him, the weight under his fist feels real and the Akuma goes right down. Focusing his fear on the fight part of fight of flight, he goes to punch the second Akuma with as much force. The blow goes right through the image and Marion stumbles forward. Alright so there were definitely fakes. Marion tousles with any Akuma that comes after him, sometimes landing hits on empty air. It’s typically the more difficult Akuma that are real, so Marion almost scoffs when Mr Pigeon comes at him. He doesn't even block the blow to his ribs. Big mistake, he is kicked back with a burst of pain and a sickening crack.

‘Alright so that was real’ Marion thinks to himself, back connecting with the glass behind him. He falls forward, right on his chest. Marion groans into the metal below, losing focus, letting images of Akumas flying into his ring play on loop. Marion can feel pressure at his back but is far too focused on trying to heave air back into his lungs to care. The weight lifts and Marion watches Marinette's akumatized form crash in front of him, punching what looks like Viperion. Not sure if it's a memory or not he shudders a breath as she knocks out Viperion and leans over Marion.

“Good job C, I’ve got it from here,” Marinette words come out sickeningly sinister, blood running out her eyes and mouth. A great contrast to how she gently pushes him onto his side, making it somewhat easier to breathe.

Marion watches as the twisted version of his sister attacks what looks like civilians. Part of him itches to get up to stop her. Marinette's arm hangs limply at her side. He focuses on that. an Akuma's arm wouldn’t be broken. Civilians wouldn’t have guns. Marinette dodges the bullets instead of deflecting them. Bullets wouldn’t just go through sharks with more rows of teeth than possible. Water doesn't look like blood.

Marion takes a deep breath, his chest burst with pain. It’s fine he can handle that. And with that Marion notices his body bending at an odd angle. He looks down ignoring the corpses of his family laying around him. His legs are still propped up on the unmoving part of the sidewalk. With a grunt Marion pulls them onto the moving part, still not comfortable on top of the shifting plates.

Marion hears screaming, more grounded than the shrieks that have been playing in his head so far. Looking back to Marinette she looked like herself again, yay. But now Hawkmoth was pointing a gun at their friends, oh no. Why would Hawk Moth have a gun? Oh right, fear toxin. Marinette surrenders, letting Mayura come up behind and hold her.

“You have been a pain,” Hawkmoth drawls, Marion hisses, drawing his attention, “Well, it’s not like we need both of you alive,”

The gun points at him, Marinette is shouting but it sounds under water. Marion's visions clear slightly, focusing in on the slow press of the trigger. At the last second the gun jerks to the side, the sound of glass breaking followed by a stream of water landing on Marion. He looks up to see Chloe has tackled Hawkmoth and Kagami is after Mayura.

Fighting breaks out again, he tries to refocus. He closes his eyes, he can hear the same echoing shrieks and cries for help, accusations and insults. Cold water beats down on his side and slowly moves down his leg. He tries to take a deep breath, only to inhale water. Marion's eyes snap open to what looks like a pool of blood as he is cast into a coughing fit, his chest screaming in protest.

“Are you ok!” Kagami yells, Marion looks up to where they were only for the space to be empty. He looks back down the tunnel where they are now fighting, streams of water jetting out from the walls in all directions.

Marion keeps coughing, trolling onto his back to get away from the water. When he's done he takes short shallow breaths, chest still throbbing with pain. He looks back up and is now a fair way from the fight, about to go around the corner.

“Don’t worry I’ll be back in five minutes!” he shouts, hair dripping water in his eyes. That doesn't stop him from seeing Marinette's clearly deadpan face, that cant even be hidden by all the blood.

He lies back, looking up at the ceiling. Or rather Jaws' source of envy grinning down at him. Well at least that's better- oh nope that's his family floating dead in the water. He just sighs ignoring his chest protest, staring right back into the sharks beady black eyes. He remember the good old days where he would tease Marinette over her demented nightmare version of Adrien, who now that he though of also appeared in the water, banging on the glass shouting for help. Marion sticks his tongue out at him.

The minutes drag on Marion trying to be more fascinated than terrified with whatever his mind conjured. It was easier to calm down when the scene wasn't changing every ten seconds.

“Are you ok?” Batman is looming over him, Marion stares unimpressed at the blood dripping from his sharp teeth. A vampire? Really? His nightmares could be so uncreative.

“I’m fine,” Marion keeps his face straight at the nightmare before him, “Go ahead I’ll catch up,”

“You should stay here,” Batman reprimands, voice sounding like a growled threat, probably was.

“Don’t really have much choice,” Marion dismisses, trying not to cringe at the ‘blood’ dripping onto his face.

Marion leans back slightly to watch Batman join Robin running down the tunnel. Marion hears more gunshots seconds later. He hums to himself stubbornly ignoring his chest.

“Dude are you ok?” Nino is now leaning over him, hollowed out eyes and shadows behind him shouting about Marion's insecurities.

“Leave me demon,” Marion watches him reel back, he would probably look confused if Marion could actually read his face.

“We need to move you-”

“Do not,” Marion cuts him off, glaring down at Kim or at least a demon that looked like him trying to pick him up, “My ribs are very much broken and moving would hurt very much right now, thank you,”

“But you’re heading right for the villain!” Mylene shouts, voice sounding hollow, drowned out by echoing screams.

“Then I hope they don’t step on me, good day,” Marion focuses back on the shark which is somehow easier to deal with than his class.

“Everyone we need to go,” Lila's voice sounds normal, and that's probably the worst thing he's heard today, “Batman said-”

“We’re not just going to leave him here!” Kim shouts. Actually shouts. At Lila. Marion can’t keep the smile off his face.

“Kim, just go get an ambulance or something, right now you’re all freaking me out,” Marion says honestly, tired of sugar coating his words. Lila gives them enough sugar to get diabetes as is.

“A-are you sure?” Max asks, or a strange mix between him and Markov.

“Yes floating head I’m sure, now go,”

“... stay safe,” Nino hesitantly stands.

“Don’t really have a choice in the matter,” Marion doesn't bother watching them go.

He hears the last of their footsteps retreat and glances up at the shark. A petty part of him categories that as the second time they’ve left him today. Then again he was staring up at his personal hell so his thought process wasn’t exactly un hindered.

Marion keeps humming, noticing a knocked out thug to his side, followed by another.

“Why did you come back?” Robin snarls from above him, horns sprouting from his head.

“I didn’t by choice,” Marion says calmly as Robin throws a knife he doesn't care to keep track of, “Moving sidewalk brought me,”

“Why didn’t you get off?” Robin talks down to him like an idiot child, punching an approaching goon.

“Oh yeah, my ribs are broken,” Marion tries to shrug, lying on his back it’s hard.

“What!?” Robin thunders, the sound sending warning flares off in his paranoid state.

“Oh look at that,” Marion says, idly watching a man come up behind Robin, who apparently isn't an apparition because Robin attacks him, “Well, see ya,”

Marion is carried away, leaving the two behind.

He flinches back when Batman steps over him, attacking Scarecrow on his other side.

“What are you doing?” He growls, Marion can’t be sure if that's the fear toxin or how he usually speaks.

“Thought you could use the moral support,” Marion gives a lazy cheer as Batman punches Scarecrow. Getting a glare from Batman he had become quite accustomed to the night before. This Batman looked demented but there was the same lingering satisfaction of annoying him.

“Hey Mari,” Marinette crouches down next to him, covered in blood he can’t be sure isn’t real, but at least she's not dead in a fish tank, “How’re you holding up,”

“You’re covered in blood,” Marion blurts as she starts bleeding more.

“No I’m not, don’t worry I’m fine, just wait a second,” Marion runs over to Batman, distracting him from stopping Scarecrow from standing. Batman looks over at him before handing Marinette a needle.

“Oh sure use needles, one of the most common fears, to fix fear, what a grand idea,” Marion mutters, glaring back at Batman as Scarecrow attacks with a knife.

“Ah ha, stop complaining,” Marinette sticks the needle right in his arm without warning, Marion gasps visions fading into darkness.

“That…. was rude,” He weakly curses, feeling his conscious fade.

“You’ll forgive me,” Marinette promises sitting by his side as his eyes droop, “Get some rest, I’ll watch out for you,”

“Always do, Bug,” Marion slurs, Marinette's bright smile contrasts the darkness that follows.

#miraculous #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug fic #bio mum selina #bio dad bruce wayne #Bio Dad Bruce Wayne Month 2020 #Mismatch #Marinette #marinette is mdc #twins au #vigilante au #pop star au #bio dad au #bio! dadbrucewaynemonth2020 #b!dbwm2020 #Maribat #mlb

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anti-anti-stevinel · 4 years

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I’m about to vent, hope that’s okay with you. Not *exclusively* Stevinel related but it can very easily apply to Stevinel.

I really mcfriggin hate it when people get angry at straight ships and say that it’s “erasing lgbt representation”

And the worst part is that usually the characters LGBT status is nothing more than a Headcanon or a popular fan theory.

And the even WORSE part is when the same people turn around and make confirmed straight characters LGBT

Hypocritical much??

And then they accuse you of homophobia! EVEN IF YOU ARE HOMOSEXUAL-

WHAT IS THIS LOGIC-

Like this is literally a conversation I saw in the comment section of a shippy Pinterest post. I’m not lying.

“Gay/Lesbian solidarity at its finest”

“Dude don’t be rude this is ship art, respect others opinions please”

“Lol and respect my opinion that they’re literally both gay”

THEY EVEN ADMITTED THAT IT WAS THEIR O P I N I O N

“LoL yOuRe HoMoPhObIc CuZ tHeYrE gAy CuZ i SaY sO”

I think people tend to say this cuz the character (or only one of them in the case of the ship from the Pinterest post) in question had a crush on a person of the same gender.

Yes! Because you’re either gay or your straight! Bi, Pan, Gray, Poly, and literally so much more sexualities DON’T EXIST! OF COURSEEEE! :D

...I’ve never been that sarcastic in my life.

I understand that straight relationships definitely have a lot of privilege in the world, but that doesn’t make them any less valid than LGBT couples. Love is love.

How these people are acting is the DEFINTION of pregidous. Like seriously. This is how [insert orientation]phobia starts

And I say this as a person who is LGBT. I love representation! I love projecting onto characters!

But whoever thinks that that gives them any right to attempt to erase other people’s (fictional or not) identities just because people have attempted to erase theirs needs to be wacked over the head with a body bag filled with rocks.

uGHH-

Okay rant over.

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marshmallowprotection · 4 years

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WARNING FOR MAJOR SPOILERS TO ONE OF CMC’S STORY AND TRUE BIO BECAUSE MY BLOG WILL PROBABLY HAVE SOME SORT OF STORY THAT WILL INVOLVE IT EVENTUALLY SO YEAH

So it’s been a little and because I got Day 4 BE on Saeran’s AE I have to do it all over again (because I doubt that on Day 3 there is enough heart opportunities to get the GE) so I decided to sketch and finish drawings I had left unfinished in order to devote my time to the AE. I literally am on the “Secure Chat Just For Us” chat on Day 1 whilst I type this, so uh yeah.

These drawings are of my CMCs Yeona (red haired girl) and Emmeryn (brown haired girl). I really like how Yeona looks, Emma (I’m calling her that for the rest of this post)…tbh for some reason her legs bother me a little, but I think thats the point considering she’s 5'9 and is mostly legs XD

And also I don’t know why I went with yellow for Emma, since it’s kind of completely opposite to her story, like I only went with it due to her eyes. For Yeona I went with blue/purple for no real reason tbh. Both colors look good on both of the characters so it’s not that big of a deal but meh.

Also I probably need to stop using blue now because now Marina, Sayaka, and Yeona all have blue in their design (though Marina’s color scheme is black & blue, and Yeona has a bit of royal purple) which is half of the current MCs if you include Valkeria (even though Valkeria is not really a MC, she’s the face of my blog and is meant to be extremely annoying, though, she has some depth to her I’ve yet to reveal uwu but still she is meant to be someone who probably couldn’t fit with any of the Mysme boys, even tho she probably is one of the most tragic characters I have created. I’ll share her true info at the end of this submission because reason. Not a match up, just want to show it.)

Yeona

Emmeryn

Valkeria’s TRUE Info:

Full Name: Valkeria Ambervale

International Age: 27 (AS) 28 (OS)

Korean Age: 28 (AS) 29 (OS)

Nicknames: The Valk, Valkyrie, Ria, Dirty Anomaly, Dirty Half-Breed, Monster

Species: Half-Elf, Half-Human

Blood Type: AB-

Sexual Orientation: Pansexual

Marital Status: Single [Shipped With No One]

Ethnicity: Lefititian

Nationality: World of Mystic Messenger’s South Korea (because there are other worlds with South Korea as a country)

Religion: None (Theist, But Belongs To No Religion)

Birthdate: April 1st, 2009 (in Lefititia, Just Says April 1st Is Her Birthday In Other Worlds And Doesn’t Give A Year)

Zodiac: Aries

Height: 5′7 (170 Centimeters)

Weight: 140 lbs (63 kgs)

Status: Alive (All Routes)

Occupation: Interdimensional Traveler

Hobbies: Annoying Marina, Teasing Yoosung, Communicating With The Admin, Stargazing, Being Aloof, Fawning Over Zen’s Handsomeness with Jaehee

Likes: The Stars, Light Coldness, Astronomy, Running

Dislikes: Being Overly Hot, Freezing Cold, People Trying To Pry, Being Asked Too Many Questions

Affiliations: RFA

Relatives: ???

Background: Valkeria is an interdimensional traveler who came from the world of Lefititia, a world which suffice to say is a fantasy world. But it’s far from a paradise nor a happy world. Half-breeds, as people like her are called, are heavily discriminated against and her life has been one of evading assassination attempts and studying interdimensional travel in order to escape the world. Her parents were killed when she 4 and she was sent to an orphanage where most of the children there thought of her as disgusting and she barely got enough food and water to survive. When she was adopted when she was 12 she only continued to be abused, and she doesn’t even know why she was adopted by the people she was meant to call her “new parents”. Despite the trials and tribulations which came due to her half-breed status, she managed to learn how to travel dimensions, and when she was 15 she escaped her abusive adoptive parents by traveling to another world. She never returned to her homeworld and instead lived a life of wandering dimensions and timelines, never feeling like she belonged in any of the worlds to which she traveled to. In fact, she never felt like she belonged anywhere due to her half-breed status. As she grew up, she developed a defense mechanism to hide her internal constant sadness: Extreme fake energetic-ness, eccentricity, and a habit of riling people up, as well as a habit of annoying and teasing others. Even without that front of energetic-ness, she has extreme difficulty with getting close to others because inside she fears being hurt like she always has been due to most if not all of society in her homeworld forsaking and abusing her because of her being a half-breed.

Valkeria is not actually truly so annoying as she pretends to be, actually quite the opposite. The “real her” is a person who is extremely calm and quiet and prefers to be alone, and she has never known love and has never been complimented genuinely and rejects most compliments even whilst her front is up. Though she isn’t as harsh in rejecting compliments with her front, as with her front she dodges responding to the compliment (not like she gets any with how annoying she pretends to be), whilst without her front, she full-on accuses the person of lying to her because of how many times people have used pretty words and pretended to be nice to her to try and earn her trust to use her for something or to try and humiliate her or even kill her when she was younger. She has extreme PTSD toward weapons due to over 30+ attempted assassinations/kidnaps over the years and goes full-on panic mode whenever she sees a gun or a knife or something of that nature, and due to that she probably will never be able to cook because of many recipes calling for use of a knife to cut something even though she actually would like to cook and bake. Valkeria, if she is in a worst possible situation, has resorted to hurting before she is hurt, for instance, during her last year at the orphanage she started to hurt the other kids and even the adults there who were hurting her before they could hurt her, and gradually the abuse stopped due to everyone fearing her. She knows it’s bad but she has deemed it a viable strategy to avoid pain, and because she feels she has no friends and is all alone, she feels that it doesn’t matter who she hurts. Overall Valkeria’s main motto is to “Hurt and kill if necessary for survival, everyone could take a full 180 and decide to betray you at any time, so always be wary and never trust anyone.”

Trivia:

1. Yes, Valkeria is self aware, kind of. She knows there’s people “outside” in a sense (like Admin Rose; me) and that I’m writing about the timelines and stories of the timelines of my version of the Mystic Messenger universe, but she isn’t aware of anything besides that.

2. Valkeria has light pink eyes and desaturated dark purple hair with a pink streak.

3. Valkeria’s favorite food is anything with sugar, quite literally.

4. Valkeria has regressed into a child-like mind state before, mostly when she is tired. But she hates people seeing her like that and tries to stay aware of how she’s acting.

5. If you couldn’t tell from the last trivia, Valkeria is very self conscious. — submission

This is really growing into something very interesting. You’ve got a whole story line going and everything. I like that. It shows that you’ve put a lot into what you are doing. The designs are really cute and I can’t wait to see what you’re going to do with all of them on your blog! I just. The outfits are really cute! It’s just so freaking cute!!

#littleghostlyrose #ask #cmc #oc #mod kait #submission

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saranghae-hoe · 4 years

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PARTNERS IN CRIME [sarawat x tine fanfic]

Summary:

Sarawat didn’t do it. He didn’t do any of it, despite the evidence being stacked against him. The school, the cops, the victims…everyone was pointing the finger right at him. The only person who believed him was the one person who hated him the most, his combative roommate, Tine.

Tine just wanted a normal college life. Date pretty girls, make some good friends, get drunk, and maybe learn a thing or two if he had time. With Sarawat as his roommate, none of that was possible. Wat was being accused of the unthinkable and no one was on his side. But Tine knew Wat didn’t do the things they said he did. As much as he hated the guy, his morals just wouldn’t let an innocent person take the fall.

The pair are going to have to take matters into their own hands…work together and solve the crime themselves. However, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions…

PART 1

PART 2 AO3 Link

The car ride to the police station was one of the strangest things that had ever happened to Tine. He felt like he was having an outer body experience the entire time. They passed by familiar buildings and his favorite restaurant. They even drove past his old elementary school. But it felt like he had never seen any of it before. Had he actually ever set foot in any of those places? Had the town always looked so...rundown?

He had always wondered what it was like to ride in the back of a cop car. Nauseating, apparently. He almost had to laugh at his naive old thoughts. Sitting there wasn’t giving him any kind of ‘street cred’, like he imagined it might. No, all the kids back at campus were going to think he was a murderer. And no one liked a murderer.

The sickening feeling in his stomach wouldn’t go away; it was only getting worse. Tine glanced over at his roommate who sat staring straight into the back of the headrest, his handcuffed hands lying gently on his legs. If Tine felt this shitty, he couldn’t even imagine how Wat felt. He felt like he should say something. “Hey...Wat.”

Wat didn’t move an inch, didn’t even blink.

Or not..

“You guys are making a huge mistake.” Tine focused his attention on the sentient people in the vehicle.

“Ya know, if I had a dime for every time someone in your seat said that to me, I could have retired before you were even born.” The cop in the passenger seat said with heavy sarcasm.

“Aren’t you guys supposed to read me my rights?” Tine said, pretty sure he had heard something about that before.

“I’m not sure exactly how many times I have to say this,” the cop said with measured patience. “But you’re not under arrest, kid. We only read the rights to people under arrest. Man, cop shows really ruined this whole job. People think they know more about my job than I do just because they watched a couple episodes of some shitty crime show where they wear mini dresses and Oxford shoes at a goddamn crime scene. You know, I tell ya…”

The man continued, but Tine tuned him out. He turned back to face Sarawat. Cautiously and slowly, Tine reached out his hand and gently touched Wat’s arm. Wat flinched at the touch and finally met eyes with him. Within his deep set, warm brown irises, there was so much sadness. Such unbelievable grief. Tine gave Wat’s arm a squeeze. Did they get along? Not even a little bit. But was Tine going to let Wat take the fall for something he didn’t do just because of personal squabbles? No way in hell. Tine tried his best to convey this feeling to Wat without saying anything. He really wasn’t sure how much Wat was processing, though. It felt like he was looking right through Tine, like he wasn’t even there.

The cops up front were still lamenting away about how cop-wannabes were ruining the world, so Tine quietly reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He quickly typed a message and slid the phone across the seat so Wat could see it.

Do you want a lawyer?

Wat glanced down at the phone and then back at Tine. He shook his head almost imperceptibly.

Tine frowned. Why?

Wat just shook his head again and turned to look out the window. Great, Wat was going to try to be a martyr or something.

The car finally pulled into the police station and the cops got out, each of them opening the back doors to let their captives out. Walking towards the doors felt like marching towards the guillotine. When you’re little, your parents tell you that the police station is somewhere safe. Well, Tine’s parents were idiots. He didn’t feel safe at all.

“We’re going to question you both together for now, okay?” The cop said. “This is just a preliminary interview. Would either of you like a lawyer?” Tine looked to his roommate, who, just as he had in the car, shook his head no. The cop seemed a bit surprised, but then turned to Tine.

“Neither of us are involved in any way.” Tine said. “You’re wasting time talking to us when you could be hunting a real murderer on my campus.”

The cop grinned. “I guess we’ll see about that, now won’t we?”

They were led to a small, windowless room. A different man walked into the room, setting 2 cups of coffee down on the table. “Have some.” He said, sounding genial.

Tine wasn’t going to touch that cup. Yes, sure maybe crime shows had ruined the world, or whatever. But at least they had taught him not to give away his fingerprints or DNA for free. He snuck a peek at Wat to see if it looked like he was going to take a drink, but Wat looked like he didn’t even know the cup existed let alone wanting to take a sip.

The detective gave Tine a knowing smile. “So, I heard you boys are in a bit of trouble. What’s the story here? I need you to tell me exactly what happened.”

Wat seemed incapable of speech still, so Tine took the lead. “Nothing. Nothing happened at all. We got this emergency alert that something happened on campus, and then suddenly the cops are running down our hallway. I noticed they were in front of Wat’s...friend’s room and then Wat ran after them.”

The detective nodded pensively. “Friend, huh. Well, your friend Wat here said that the victim was his boyfriend.”

“Does that make a difference?” Tine muttered.

“A big difference. You see, we’ve already begun receiving tips from your school. Lots of people calling in saying they had quite the nasty breakup not too long ago.”

So this was the angle they were going to play…

----------

2 months earlier

The freshman orientation was bustling with anxiously excited students, all trying to make as many friends as possible all at once. Everyone had a nametag on that said their major and dorm room. This was your chance to find your roommate for the year. Tine had been navigating the crowd for about an hour and still hadn’t found his roommate. Maybe he didn’t have one...the thought was super appealing.

A large group of girls began screaming and Tine looked to see what the commotion was all about. One single man was surrounded by a hoard of screaming freshman girls. It wasn’t hard to guess why they were in such a frenzy. The guy was appallingly good-looking. Perfectly tanned skin, perfectly coiffed hair, perfectly plump lips…

Tine slapped his cheeks. What was he even saying? His eyes traveled down to the guy’s name tag and realized his dreams of a single room were being dashed. Tine pushed past some girls and stuck out his hand to the stupidly handsome guy. “Looks like you’re my roommate. My name’s Tine.” Now, Tine never thought of himself as lacking in the looks department, but this guy was putting him to shame.

“I’m Sarawat. You can call me Wat.”

Damn, even his name was kind of cool.

Before Tine could comment on how handsome he was (in a totally straight way), another attractive male walked up and slung his arm around Sarawat’s shoulder. “He’s gay, you know.” The new guy smirked at Tine’s shocked expression and then slinked away.

Wat looked enraged and turned to chase after the guy. Which left Tine in the middle of the circle girls, half who looked dismayed and half who looked excited in a new way. The one thing that was clear though, was the fact that none of the girls even gave him a second thought. Not sure what else to do, Tine wandered away from the orientation table and headed to find his dorm room.

When Tine arrived at the right dorm room, he felt a sense of excitement. This was going to be his new home, no matter how cramped it was, he was going to make the best of it. He slid his key into the lock and pushed the door open. Just in time to see the guy from before deliver a sharp slap to his roommate’s face.

“Hey!” Tine shouted.

The guy seemed surprised, but quickly recovered. “Don’t worry, I’m done here.” He said, holding up his hands.

Tine met his roommate’s eyes. Sarawat looked like he wanted the floor to open up and bury him. “Look, man. I’m not sure what’s going on, but he’s my roommate and if this is going to be an issue, then I’m going to have an issue.” Tine tried to puff out his chest to be intimidating, even though the guy had a good 6 inches over him.

“Issue…” The guy echoed. Shane, was his name, according to his name tag. “If you call seducing a straight man and then telling his parents about their relationship when he was asked, even begged, not to an ‘issue’, then yes, I suppose there’s an issue here.”

Tine blinked. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but it really wasn’t what Shane had said. Sarawat looked about ready to explode. Clearly there was a lot more to the story, there always was. But Tine really kinda didn’t want to hear anymore about this lover’s spat.

Shane sighed. “Sorry, it doesn’t matter anymore. As I said, I’m done here.” He headed to the door, brushing past Tine. “If you ever need a break, my room is just down the hall.” Shane offered and the door slammed shut behind him.

---------

“And so because they broke up in a not-so-great way, he’s guilty?” Tine felt outraged. Actually, he felt doubly outraged. Wat didn’t seem to be feeling much of anything, so Tine felt like he needed to feel it for him. “No one in the history of breakups has ever said to themselves ‘oh, that went well’. So is everyone walking around just a bunch of murderers lying in wait?”

The detective frowned, not amused. “How about you leave the mental gymnastics to someone who’s capable and just stick to answering my questions?”

That was like the 3rd time he had been called stupid today. He sulked against his seat back. Sarawat suddenly stirred and reached out his hand to grab the coffee cup. Before Tine could slap it out of his hand, he took a sip. Fucking hell.

“Detective, if I tell you everything, will you let my roommate leave?” Wat spoke in a monotone and Tine felt his heart almost stop. This idiot really was going to play the martyr!

#2gether #2gether the series #sarawat #tine #wattine #sarawatine #brightwin #2gether fanfic #2gether au #bright vachiwarit #win metawin

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missnight0wl · 5 years

Text

Nobody believes Merula is powerful - not even Rakepick. Plus, my take on “the parallel theory”

I wasn’t really planning on making this post yet (and at first I wanted to do it only on Merula), but then I had a discussion with @wilhelminafujita where she mentioned “the parallel theory”. And since it’s kind of related, I decided to go with it. If you’re not familiar with the parallel theory, it’s basically about the similarities between MC’s group (MC, Bill, Merula) and Jacob’s (Jacob, Duncan, Olivia) – where Merula is supposed to mirror Duncan. However, before we dive deeper, let’s discuss Merula and what the heck I mean by this title.

Y5Ch10, when we finally visited Knockturn Alley for the first time, was quite interesting as a whole, but one small thing I find particularly intriguing are differences in Rakepick’s reaction, depending on who you took as your back-up. To be exact, I’m talking about this dialogue:

MC: What are you doing here?

Rakepick: Saving your life. Again. I couldn’t bear to lose my favourite apprentice.

… and then there’s a part which varies.

For Jae:

Not to mention, a promising Dark Artefact dealer in the making…

For Bill:

No offence, Mr Weasley. I have no doubt you’ll become a formidable Curse-Breaker.

For Merula:

No offence, Miss Snyde.

And honestly, I laughed out loud when I saw Merula’s. She’s so desperate for Rakepick’s approval, and Patricia didn’t even throw her a bone, like “Not to mention the most cunning Slytherin student”, or anything. But then it made me think, and I realised that Merula is hardly ever praised by our mentor in general, at least on-screen. Actually, I suppose that even Jae was more appreciated. He was praised after practising Hex-Deflection and in Knockturn Alley. It’s somehow impressive, considering how little he interacts with the current DADA professor. Meanwhile, Merula – whose practice is way longer – was directly complimented also two times, if I remember correctly. Once, when Rakepick explained her choice as one of the apprentices. Second, when we found Bea, and Patricia admitted that Merula did the right thing to inform her right away (and that we also should’ve thought about it). All right, but she IS the Curse-Breaker apprentice, isn’t she? So Rakepick has to see some potential in her, right? Well… yes and no.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that Patricia considers Merula as totally worthless. I just got a feeling she might see her as not talented enough to mentor her if circumstances were different. Why did she pick her to our group then? Well, she told us why. At our very first meeting, Patricia said that she has chosen “Miss Snyde for her ambition and strength”. Merula is too ambitious to stop searching for the Vaults, and she’s strong enough just to be a pain in the ass for MC – as she was in the previous years.

I know that the urgency of the current events is not very clear for us, players, due to content realising schedule and filler plotlines, but the assumption is that it is there. And Rakepick is probably a person who reminds us about it the most. She gets annoyed when we’re wasting time on Scabbers, on asking about her relationship with our brother, that we still don’t have the portrait. And she probably knows that in the past we were also wasting time on dealing with Merula. So, she decided that it’s better to include her into the team – she won’t be disturbing us that way, and maybe she could even help. And that’s the first reason. Rakepick gave away the second one when she told Merula in the same scene this:

You see, Patricia might be a bitch, but she doesn’t like to see children dying. It seems that she genuinely cares about teaching those kids how to defence, and not only MC’s friends. She’s engaged as a professor because of that, and that’s why students like her. So when she got such Merula who’s asking life for permanent injury all the time, she decided that it’s easier to keep an eye on her while having her closer. Therefore, when she told her:

… she wasn’t really lying. Even though Snyde probably thinks otherwise.

Merula is starting to realise that she and her mentor perhaps see the situation differently, and she doesn’t like it. She has more doubts about Rakepick, she doesn’t idolize her so much as she used to. She’s faster to put her under suspicion, and I believe she’s way more likely to accuse her than defend her recently.

Also, in Y5Ch20, there was an interesting scene before we approached Kettleburn to ask about his “142 cats” letter. He was talking to Merula who had that angry/upset/”I’m done with this�� animation.

(screenshot from I-GGames YouTube channel)

Was she arguing with the professor? Was she trying to find out something about Rakepick from him? Either way, I don’t think it was put there without reason. I’m telling you, despite Patricia’s efforts to keep her in check, Merula is going to do some fuckery (again) by the end of this year.

With all above in mind, we can move to the comparison part. I won’t be talking much about MC and Jacob because I feel this one is pretty obvious. We’re hearing all the time how much we resemble our brother. Instead, I want to focus on two other members and their relationship with MC/Jacob. But let’s start with the basis: houses and personality.

First couple: Duncan-Merula. Both Slytherins. Ambitious, determined, with a mischievous streak. Everything checks.

Second couple: Olivia-Bill. Ravenclaw and Gryffindor. Not the same, although, Olivia was described as exceptionally brave (so Gryffindor characteristic), while Bill is a very intelligent and talented student (Ravenclaw characteristic). So technically it’s quite alike, and you could say it also checks.

However, this is pretty much where the similarities end, in my opinion. Because look…

Duncan and Jacob were friends from the very beginning. They apparently were spending a lot of time together, visiting Zonko’s and causing some mischiefs at Hogwarts. Maybe in later years, it was their way of dealing with the Vaults stress. From what Duncan said, they saw each other as equals, they were in that mess together.

MC and Merula’s relationship depends on the player’s choices/interpretation to some degree, but most of the time we’re in conflict. If we’re spending time together, it’s usually connected to the Vaults and rather goal-oriented. And if you ask me, there’s no way Merula would stop trying to dominate MC.

But you know what? While Bill and Duncan seem to be a very different people, the more I think about it, the more I can see of Jacob&Duncan in MC&Bill. We’re in a friendly relationship from the moment we met, we support each other. We can go to Bill with our problems which reflects J&D hanging out together. Sure, it’s not exactly identical, but it’s the same kind of energy, only directed in different activities. Moreover, @wilhelminafujita noticed one interesting thing in our previous discussion: Duncan wanted to be a Curse-Breaker. I still have doubts if it could mean that he was the first one to get interested in the Cursed Vaults, but it’s an idea worth exploring.

You see, Jacob wrote in his notebook: “I’ll move my research to that abandoned room on the fifth floor to avoid Filch, Snape, and R”. Not we’ll move, not our research. Therefore, I believe he was still alone at this point. But let’s assume that Jacob got interested in the Vaults out of curiosity, maybe even hunger for power, knowledge, or whatever. However, he wasn’t really into the whole curse-breaking per se. What if, when things got more serious, he decided to risk and reach out for help to his friend who’s passionate in this field? Just like MC reached out for help to Bill? I don’t know, suddenly Duncan and Bill don’t seem to be so different anymore, in my opinion.

(By the way, we all know that Bill is older than MC. Interestingly, Duncan could’ve been younger than Jacob. Notice that he told us: “I was friends with Jacob from the day I got sorted”. Not we got sorted. It might suggest that Jacob was indeed older and therefore already had his Sorting Ceremony in previous years.)

Now, let’s try to look at Olivia-Bill, and I’ll reference again something that @wilhelminafujita said about Olivia having a role of a mediator between Jacob and Duncan, similar as Bill was trying to ease the atmosphere at our meeting with Merula. And that there might’ve been a conflict between the boys after Olivia “met her fate”. The thing is… I don’t really see hints for any conflict occurring. Duncan is so angry at Jacob that he’d surely took the opportunity to mention how terrible our brother was even when he was alive. Meanwhile, he’s rather understanding, he doesn’t even blame Jacob for his death – only that he didn’t use it to expose R.

To be honest, I believe that if there was any kind of conflict in their group it was between Duncan and Olivia. It’s mainly guessing at this point, considering how little we know about Olivia, but Duncan still didn’t mention her even once. And when we talked with Grey Lady, she also said only about Olivia talking to Jacob, not “to them” or something like that. It could actually be another similarity between Duncan and Bill, who doesn’t really get along with Merula. And Jacob&Olivia might reflect MC&Merula. We can’t tell what was the relationship between J&O, but there’s a possibility it was somewhat friendly. Just like our relationship with Merula which might be more or less friendly, depending on the player’s choices.

And if we’re talking about Merula-Olivia already… As I said before, it’s hard to speculate about Olivia since we don’t even know what happened to her. But I have a theory that she got trapped in the next vault because she went after it out of order. And I assume they had to know about the order from R, which would mean that Olivia rebelled against R. Similar to Merula possibly rebelling now against Rakepick.

Another thing that is different between these two groups is their nature. Jacob’s group was probably formed by R, and its goal was to choose the winner (next member) while eliminating the rest. The kids were aware of that. MC’s group, on the other hand, was formed to support and help each other. Even if you want to believe that Rakepick is manipulating them to use them (she’s not), they’re working with a totally different image in mind.

I know I might be biased by my own theories, but I really tried to look at all of this objectively, and there are just too many things that don’t add up to me. While some aspects are indeed parallels, the others seem to be the exact opposite, and that’s why I’m not entirely sold out on the parallel theory. I’m also not really sure what I’m supposed to take from that. Should I make parallel predictions or on the contrary? It feels more like one of those metaphorical theories – you know, like Dumbledore, Snape, and Harry representing the Peverell brothers. It’s a very interesting observation, but does it really change the story? Does it explain anything? Not exactly, to be frank…

#hogwarts mystery #hphm #hphm mc #jacob's sibling #hphm jacob #merula snyde #bill weasley #patricia rakepick #madam rakepick #silvanus kettleburn #duncan ashe #olivia green #hphm r #cursed vaults #analysis post #parallel theory #theory #hphm theory

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arcticdementor · 5 years

Link

Douthat has a good piece this morning about how there are times when conspiracy theorists are actually closer to the truth than their critics.

…

In early 2002, shortly after the Boston trial of Father Geoghan blew open the Catholic sex scandal nationwide, I received a tip from a priest that Cardinal Ted McCarrick of DC had a history of sexually abusing seminarians. The priest said a group of prominent lay Catholics who knew this about him flew to Rome at their own expense, trying to prevent McCarrick from being named as Washington archbishop, which would have made him a cardinal. They met with an unnamed Vatican official to tell them what they knew about McCarrick, but it made no difference. McCarrick got his red hat.

The priest gave me the names of two men who had been on that trip, both of them well-known in their professions. I called the first one, who said yes, he had been on that trip, but didn’t want to talk about it. The second one told me that “if that were true, I wouldn’t tell you about it for the same reason Noah’s sons covered their father in his drunkenness.” Translation: yes, it’s true, but I’m not going to talk about it to protect the Church.

I didn’t know what to do next. But then I was called into my editor’s office. He wanted to know what I was working on (I hadn’t told anybody, because I hadn’t made any progress on the story). He told me that he had received a phone call from a very well known public conservative (I’m not going to name him here) who identified himself as a friend of Cardinal McCarrick, and said that the cardinal was aware that Rod Dreher was going to report a story that was true, but not criminal, and that would be very embarrassing to the cardinal. The caller asked my editor to kill the story.

I was stunned. How did McCarrick find out? I told my editor what I was working on, and he simply asked me to keep him informed. Back at my desk, I called the priest who tipped me off. “McCarrick knows,” I said. I asked him how that was possible. I had told no one else. I’m quite sure that neither of the two potential sources I called tipped him off, because it would not have been in their interest. So how did he know?

The priest was shocked. “The only person I told,” he said, “was my spiritual director, Father Benedict Groeschel.”

…

This was a useful lesson to learn, both as a journalist and, well, as a life lesson in how the world works. It happened over and over and over again as I wrote about the scandal. A progressive Catholic journalist and I once shared war stories about covering the scandal, and agreed that the ideological convictions of both the Catholic Right and the Catholic Left prevented people from identifying malefactors who happened to share their ideology. Beyond that, most Catholics simply could not grasp the idea that the institutional Church was in fact honeycombed with networks of perverts. I interviewed a seminarian who told me that his own parents considered him to be a liar when he told them about the homosexual decadence at his former seminary. They found it easier to believe that their son was a lying fantasist than to believe that his seminary was a gay whorehouse.

…

I hardly need to go into detail here about what we discovered over the ensuing years about the networked corruption in the Church. For me, one of the great lessons is that in any institution, corrupt men will take advantage of it, especially if they can work beneath a canopy of presumed innocence. It can happen in a police force. It can happen in the military. This is not just a church thing, not by any means.

Some conspiratorial types like to believe that the media knew all about McCarrick, but refused to report it. That’s not really true. Yes, the stories about McCarrick’s abuse of seminarians were known to some other journalists, but nobody could nail them down. There’s a good reason we have libel laws, and professional journalistic ethics. It’s a very big deal to claim that a man — especially a cardinal — is sexually abusing others. Strong claims like that — claims that could destroy a man’s life — require strong evidence. Off-the-record stories, and the absence of documentation, are not enough. It could have been the case that McCarrick was the target of a conspiracy of liars determined to take him down. Not only would it be morally wrong to accuse McCarrick publicly on the basis of what amounts to hearsay, but any individual or publication that did so could be sued for libel, and could conceivably be destroyed. The only way McCarrick was ever going to be outed is through court documents, and through on the record interviews with victims and others in a position to know what he did. I was dying to tell the truth about McCarrick, but I could not do so without more solid information.

But what to make of this story that follows?

…

The Times had this story six years earlier, but didn’t publish it. Why not? There are people who assume that the media would never, ever sit on a story that could make the Catholic Church look bad. I am convinced that’s exactly what the Times did in 2012, even though it had hard evidence that McCarrick was guilty. In truth, I have no idea why the Times suppressed the story its own freelancer had, but I’m telling you, do not ever assume that the ideological orientation of a media outlet can reliably predict what they’re willing to report, and refuse to report. Loyalties are complex.

…

These days, it is impossible to find a clear line between realism and cynicism, between a valid critical disposition and sheer paranoia. If we ever do get the true, reasonably complete story behind McCarrick’s rise, it will likely expose the nexus of power, sex, and money in the Catholic hierarchy, with unpredictable results. Similarly, if we ever get the true, reasonably complete story of who Jeffrey Epstein was and how he did what he did, we are likely going to see the nexus of power, sex, and money among the international elites, with unpredictable results.

The world is not ordered as we wish it were. It’s not even disordered as we wish it were. I’m thinking this morning of something a faithful Catholic layman told me in the spring of 2002, about the abuse scandal. He was a close friend of Cardinal Bernard Law, and active in the Archdiocese of Boston. This man — a very intelligent, morally upright gentleman — had direct knowledge of widespread homosexual corruption in the seminary at the time. He told me that he informed his dear friend the cardinal about all of it … and that the cardinal had done nothing. I asked the man how he reconciled his love and respect for the cardinal with the fact that Law had allowed this kind of corruption to flourish unaddressed.

The man sat across from me, unable to speak. The cognitive dissonance left him paralyzed. He could not accept that the world was ordered in such a way that his dear friend the cardinal could be guilty of such gross negligence. I used to be pretty naive, the kind of person who believed that good men (like my interlocutor) almost always wanted to know the truth, and to fight for justice. What I couldn’t have truly grasped until that extraordinary conversation was how the mind will protect itself from having to face something intolerable. That man was not asked to believe a conspiracy theory; he was asked to put two and two together — facts that he did not dispute. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He literally could not summon the will to face the terrible truth about his friend the cardinal, and the truth about the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston.

What’s so frightening to me today, thinking about that, is how every one of us is susceptible to that same paralysis.

#rod dreher #the american conservative #read the whole thing

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odogaronfang · 5 years

Note

How about 14, 13, and 2 for Valensuela?

oh HELL yes that’s my man i love him

2; Their emotional/moral weak spots

generally i think he’s more task-oriented than people-oriented, but he definitely has a weak spot for link (and later the links plural). because of the circumstances of link’s birth, he’s helped raise that kid, he’s been there through all the speculation and he was there during the whole quest ordeal (was unfortunately a part of it, lol). if he’s got one major emotional weak spot it’d be that kid. he loves link to death and he would do ANYTHING to keep him safe and happy. as for morality i don’t think he’d really have one? unless he had to do something immoral to protect link or zelda, i doubt there’d be anything important enough to make him violate his (very strong) moral code.

13; What gets them flustered

mmmm i can’t imagine that there’s very much that flusters him as in embarrassment- however i DO think he probably gets VERY flustered with PDA unless it’s around people he knows well. idk he just comes across as that kind of person. however if we’re talking things that get him irritated? some of the things he hates most are being accused of lying, someone saying that he doesn’t know something he insists that he does, etc. he doesn’t like to be mistrusted that way. it just really gets under his skin.

14; Ingrained habits/forces of habit

i think he’s got a set morning routine that he follows to the letter each time. he CANNOT be interrupted or he gets irritated or he starts feeling off-rhythm. also when he gets back to his room he just sort of drops whatever he’s holding (normally anything he takes on patrol shifts) and goes to clean himself up. therefore it’s a habit that when he gets to where he’s staying, regardless of what it is he’s holding, he just reflexively drops it. he’s broken more than a few delicates because he isn’t conscious of what he’s holding. also if he’s wearing clothes and not with his cape/scarf thing he has, if anything brushes against him or feels off with his outfit, he reflexively reaches up to fix the scarf/cape thing, because normally that’s what’s causing the problem. ALSO you can’t tell me he doesn’t wear one of those military-issue dogtag necklaces and he messes with it absentmindedly so if he isn’t wearing it a lot of the time he’ll reach for it only to realize that there’s nothing there.

#im not straight but like i love val thats my guy #skye answers #thank u for the ask!!!!#valensuela #my headcanons

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thinkveganworld · 7 years

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This is long, but I thought I’d post just on the outside chance anybody might find it worth reading. It’s part three of a series of articles I wrote years ago, and it includes information on modern day politicians’ use of political propaganda. I might post the other parts later.

Goebbels and mass mind control: Part Three

How PR opinion-shapers undermine the people's political power

In parts one and two, we compared the methods of Hitler's propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, with the PR techniques of today's corporate spin doctors. We also looked at the ways in which corporate PR spin works against the public interest regarding health care and the environment. Now we'll explore the ways that corporate propaganda undermines the political power of ordinary citizens.

Journalist Frank Rich wrote in a recent New York Times opinion piece that he felt he was living through a Twilight Zone episode when he read the Palm Beach Post's scoop saying that Palm Beach's butterfly ballot cost Al Gore "about 6,600 votes, more than 10 times what he needed to overcome George W. Bush's slim lead in Florida." Rich said the reason it felt as if he had entered the Twilight Zone, was because, beyond Palm Beach, he could find no sign such a thing had happened.

"I turned on my TV," writes Rich, "and had to search to find a mention of the Post's story. It might as well have been a hallucination."

In an article entitled "The Invisible People," (The Progressive, March 2001) June Jordan writes about Election 2000's disenfranchised African-American voters and the corporate-owned news media's neglect of the story. Jordan, a noted author and professor of African-American Studies at the University of California-Berkeley, says, "We have moved from The Invisible Man to The Invisible People. It's a raging and a sorrow at the terrible meaning of that discount - for us, and for democracy itself."

The corporate-owned news media "invents reality," as author and educator Michael Parenti has said, by instructing the American people on which news stories are real, and which facts to ignore. Parenti has also written (Land of Idols, St. Martin's Press, 1994) that our political system can be seen in one of three ways:

1. "A conservative celebration of the wonders of our free-market society, coupled with an insistence that capitalism would be still more wonderful were it not for meddlesome government regulations and the demands of undeserving, low-income people who feed out of the public trough."

2. A liberal complaint about "aberrant problems that remain in an otherwise basically good System."

3. A radical analysis "that sees ecological crisis, military interventions, the national security State, homelessness, poverty, an inequitable tax system, and undemocratic social institutions, such as the corporate-owned media, not as irrational outcomes of a basically rational system, but as rational results of a system whose central goal is the accumulation of wealth and power for the few."

Parenti adds that if you take the radical analysis perspective, you "cross an invisible line and will be labeled in mainstream circles a 'conspiracy theorist.'" He notes that Abraham Lincoln might today be dismissed as a conspiracy theorist, because Lincoln once observed in a speech, "These capitalists generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece the people."

However, Parenti adds that the corporation/ruling class's mode of operation is systemic and institutional rather than conspiratorial. The fact that corporate domination is built into our existing political system, and into many of our institutions, makes it a more daunting problem than a grand and aberrant conspiracy might be.

In a brilliant article for Online Journal (4/24/01), Scott Morschhauser took up the same issue, pointing out that the label "conspiracy theory' is used by those defending corporate interests the same way they use the label 'communist.' If you are successful at pinning a person or idea with a negative label, then the public will ignore the message. It doesn't matter whether or not the label fits. The facts don't matter. All that you have to do is accuse."

When corporate PR teams are able to confuse the public by spinning citizen dissenters as "conspiracy theorists" or as "wacko, tree-hugging environmentalists" or as "extremist fringe," they are able to marginalize activists and dilute their political effectiveness. Journalist Norman Solomon once suggested that rather than succumbing to media manipulation, we can "tune up our personal and collective 'radar screens' to track unidentified flying propaganda."

In False Hope, (Common Courage Press, 1994) Solomon also discusses the subject of public confusion. He writes about the various ways in which corporate PR spin and media "illusion-making" confuse the public. Solomon quotes Anne Wilson Schaef on the results of this kind of confusion:

"First, it keeps us powerless and controllable. No one is more controllable than a confused person; no society is more controllable than a confused society. Politicians know this better than anyone, and that is why they use innuendo, veiled references, and out-and-out lies instead of speaking clearly and truthfully.

"Second, it keeps us ignorant. Professionals give their clients confusing information cloaked in intimidating language that lay-people cannot understand. They preserve their one-up status while preventing us from learning about our own bodies, our legal rights, and our psychology.

"Third, it keeps us from taking responsibility for our own lives. No one expects confused people to own up to the things they think, say, or do . . Fourth, it keeps us busy. When we must spend all our time and energy trying to figure out what is going on, we have none left over for reflecting on the system, challenging it, or exploring alternatives to it."

A confused person will stay stuck within the corporate-dominated system, because creating new options requires mental clarity. Confusion also causes numbness and political passivity.

Frank Rich's "Twilight Zone" experience of the media's ignoring the butterfly ballot story, and June Jordan's sense that African-Americans have become invisible, are normal, healthy responses to the corporate media's lying about reality. When the people see one reality with their own eyes, and simultaneously the corporate media denies that reality, the effect is gas-lighting.

People need truthfulness about politics in order to operate powerfully in the world. Truth is one of psychologist Abraham Maslow's "meta-needs." It has always been a high priority for the world's spiritual and philosophical thinkers. Factual information is a necessary foundation in order for ordinary Americans to set priorities for political action and organize accordingly.

A high priority concern might be weighing corporate interests against the public interest. Another priority might be clearly deciding what our values are. Corporate spokespeople sometimes try to blur the distinction between, for example, good-versus-harmful effects on the environment, or good-versus-harmful health care proposals.

Some corporate spokespeople claim terms such as "good" or "truth" or "justice" can only be vague, misleading "weasel words," despite the fact that philosophers from Aristotle, to the various Enlightenment-era philosophers, to today's best political thinkers have used such terms freely, and have helped clarify their meaning.

For example, the dialogues of Plato explore the meaning of the word "justice." Harvard Professor John Rawls has said, "A just basic structure will be one which produces a proper distribution of prospects of obtaining primary goods, such as income and health care."

How do we define "good" or "harmful" for purposes of the subject at hand? Let's just play with possible working definitions, for the sake of argument. Those options which are "good" could be defined as options that promote health, safety and well-being for the largest number of people, in a kind, egalitarian manner, without discrimination against race, sexual orientation, religion or lack of religion.

Those options which are "harmful" might be defined as ones that destroy health, safety and well-being for large numbers of people in order that corporations can increase their profits, without regard for kindness, egalitarianism, and with (at times) discrimination based on race (as during the Florida election debacle, racial profiling, etc.), sexual orientation, religion or lack of religion.

Are there gray areas within those definitions? Yes. Are there complexities, and is there room for debate? Of course. However, the lines between good and harmful; right and wrong; public health and public detriment are not as blurry as many corporate spokespeople would have us think . . . or, more precisely, would "confuse" us to think.

Thomas Jefferson said repeatedly that democracy could work only if the electorate were "fully informed." He said, "I know of no safe depository of the ultimate power of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome direction, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion."

Thomas Paine, in "The Rights of Man," urged "education for one million and thirty thousand children," saying that "the poor laws, those instruments of civil torture will be superceded" by an informed public given a modicum of "comfortable provision" by government.

Paine also wrote that as a result of a better informed and educated public, and of government's providing some assistance for the poor, "The hearts of the humane will not be shocked by ragged and hungry children, and persons of seventy and eighty years of age begging for bread. The dying poor will not be dragged from place to place to breathe their last . . . The poor as well as the rich, will then be interested in the support of government, and the cause and apprehension of riots and tumults will cease."

Some media propagandists such as Rush Limbaugh and his many clones often say, in their usual Orwellian style, that government assistance for the poor actually hurts the poor. Never mind that the Limbaugh types also generally claim to be of the Judeo-Christian tradition. It's interesting to contrast their "screw-the-poor" comments with those attributed to Christ, such as, "What you do for the least of these, you do for me," or with a typical Hebrew proverb, such as, "When a needy man stands at your door, God stands at his side." And, of course, to corporate mouthpieces such as Limbaugh, agnostic or "pagan" humanists (such as Thomas Paine) who might suggest assisting the poor don't count at all.

Former radio talk show host, Neal Boortz, has said, "That bum sitting on a heating grate, smelling like a wharf, is there by choice. He is there because of the sum total of the choices he has made in his life." ("The Terrible Truth About Liberals," Longstreet Press, 1998.) Boortz implies people are never poor due to being laid off from a job by a corporation that moved offshore in order to pay slave wages; or due to sudden overwhelming medical bills; or, least of all, due to flaws within the corporate-dominated system itself.

Boortz also says this country is a republic rather than a democracy. He claims that the view that this country is meant to be a democracy is an "insidious idea planted by the Left, by liberals anxious to expand the role of government and their own power." Limbaugh often says the same about democracy, and such antidemocratic views have been popular among many right-wing groups in recent years, just they were in Nazi Germany.

The fact is, America is not merely a republic, but a democratic republic. This country has a strong democratic lineage. The above comments by Jefferson and Paine have to do with enhancing American democracy. Activists who worked toward civil rights, women's rights, labor rights and many other social causes, have helped strengthen democracy within the nation.

In parts one and two, we showed that Hitler and his propagandist, Goebbels, worked to dismantle democracy. They accomplished their goal in part by using PR spin, in order to confuse the people and convince them that democracy wasn't good for them. Through propaganda, Goebbels created a national "Twilight Zone," making the Jewish people invisible, marginalizing dissenters and rendering potential activists powerless.

Somehow, it has turned out that corporate America's PR spin has also taken aim against democracy, confused the people, created a national "Twilight Zone," made ordinary Americans (especially Jewish and African-Americans) invisible, marginalized dissenters and rendered potential activists powerless.

Ordinary Americans have been rendered at least so powerless that we have not yet found a way to persuade our elected representatives to enforce laws that would curb corporate excesses when it comes to polluting the environment; to create legislation that would give this country affordable pharmaceutical drugs or a good health care system; or to bring back the Fairness Doctrine or create similar new legislation, so that our nation's news media is not entirely corporate-controlled.

In a Showtime movie aired this week, Varian's War, the lead character (played by William Hurt) helped bring around 2,000 artists and intellectuals to America, to escape the Nazi Holocaust. A character played by the actor Alan Arkin described the Nazis as "destroying everything they do not understand, which is everything that makes life beautiful and sweet and pure."

Corporate polluters, health care opponents, and illusion-makers, probably don't understand that they are contributing to the destruction of (almost) everything that makes life beautiful, sweet and pure. However, it is up to ordinary Americans with clear vision to toss a little light on the subject. In our proposed working definition of "good," working to preserve the beautiful, sweet and pure things in life has to figure in somewhere. It is a better way to spend a life than screwing the poor, plundering the earth and grubbing for corporate profit.

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