hi! :)

short answer: nah, i don’t

long answer: i actually don't think there's any point in the movies or TCW where it's stated that the Jedi Order has banned "romantic relationships and marriage and all that."

more (too much, my apologies) under the cut:

does that mean i think the Order was out there encouraging its members to fall in love all over the place?  nah.  and yeah, i agree that "the jedi don't encourage romantic relationships/marriage" is the more reasonable inference to make.  but i also think it's important to note that we've never actually gotten any piece of canon containing enough info about the Jedi way of life to really say we know anything at all about the Order's proscriptions/history/philosophy.

our perception of what the Jedi Order does/does not allow is built on assumptions. the ubiquity of these assumptions makes it very easy to forget that when it comes to the movies and TCW, we have almost zero information about what the Jedi Order actually encompasses, never mind their stance on romance/marriage.  for example, when we watched TPM, there was no mention at all about marriage/romance/etc being "banned," which led to a fascinating (and, retrospectively, bizarre-feeling) phenomenon where official-ish (EU) material created between TPM and AotC included plot points like Ki Adi Mundi or Thracia Cho Leem being married and/or having kids.  

then Attack of the Clones came out, and everybody started reevaluating their assumptions (by making new ones, ironically enough) - because in AotC, what we actually hear about Jedi philosophy re: relationships is really only three exchanges:

Anakin: I'd much rather dream about Padme.  Just being around her again is... intoxicating.

Obi-Wan: Be mindful of your thoughts, Anakin.  They betray you. You've made a commitment to the Jedi order, a commitment not easily broken.

which...doesn't really tell us anything about the Order's stance on romance at all. obi-wan, in this moment, can tell that anakin is so completely caught up in thinking about/desiring/grasping for padme that it's disrupting his focus, displacing what is supposed to be a commitment to service, thoughts of the bigger picture.  anakin is, for the moment, overwhelmed with personal desire, rather than the appropriate Jedi impulse towards selfless devotion to others. this is not explicitly a “relationships will break your commitment to the Jedi Order” conversation; it's a “capitulating to personal, individual desires is not in line with the philosophy we choose to serve.”

Padme: Must be difficult, having sworn your life to the Jedi...not being able to visit the places you like or do the things you like.

Anakin: Or be with the people that I love.

Padme: Are you allowed to love?  I thought that was forbidden for a Jedi.

Anakin: Attachment is forbidden.  Possession is forbidden. Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is central to a Jedi's life.  So, you might say that we are encouraged to love.

i've written about this one before, but again, this conversation, as well as yoda's admonition to anakin about loss in RotS, are as explicit as Jedi philosophy ever gets, in canon.  that's it.  those two conversations are as deep as it ever goes. everything else is just conjecture.

this scene makes the important distinction, though - love is not the same thing as attachment or possession.  pretty much everybody likes to take jedi philosophy in the direction of 'romantic love/marriage etc is forbidden,' but canonically, at least, it's just as possible that the philosophy is actually ‘these types of relationships are not technically forbidden, but it is very difficult to engage in them without succumbing to the desire to possess another, to attach ourselves to something that is not actually ours to cling to, to greedily cling to the things we love and so relegate our service of the Force's will to a secondary priority, and so therefore such relationships are not encouraged/common/etc.'

it's more complicated than a romance ban, essentially, is what i'm saying.  you have to get down to the heart of what a Jedi strives for, which has nothing to do with surface things like "i have a kid/i'm going to get married/i have a significant other" and everything to do with where your inner self is oriented in relation to these relationships/your priorities/your place in the Force/your chosen path of service to the Light.

Anakin: Put the ship down!

Obi-Wan: Anakin!  Don't let your personal feelings get in the way! Follow that speeder!

Anakin: Lower the ship!

Obi-Wan: I can't take Dooku alone!  I need you! If we catch him, we can end this war right now!  We have a job to do!

Anakin: I don't care! Put the ship down!

Obi-Wan: You will be expelled from the Jedi order!

Anakin: I can't leave her!

Obi-Wan: Come to your senses!  What do you think Padme would do were she in your position?

Anakin: ...she would do her duty.

again, this has nothing to do with a ban on romantic relationships; it's about anakin placing personal desires above the whole good.  the jedi order wouldn't expel anakin because he’s experienced romantic feelings for someone, but they certainly would question his suitability to walk this path if he casts aside his responsibilities to the greater good in order to fill his own personal wants.

and that's it for Attack of the Clones.  

in RotS, we get even less.

Anakin: I won't let this [dream] become real.

Padme: This baby will change our lives.  I doubt the queen will continue to allow me to serve in the senate.  If the Council discovers you're the father, you'll be expelled -

well, maybe!  for lying about this stuff for years?  definitely a possibility.  this is padme talking, though, and for all that i appreciate her, it's worth noting that she doesn't actually have much inside access to understanding the inner workings of the Jedi Order on more than a basic level.  and this isn't a basic issue.  it's also worth noting that anakin has never once tried to discuss his problem with obi-wan or get help, despite obi-wan giving him openings to do so (see TCW for that), so even anakin can't accurately say that the consequences would be so dire.  he doesn't truly know.

i like this excerpt from Rogue Planet (partway into the linked post) as an example of Jedi disciplinary proceedings (i'm aware that as this isn't part of the films, it's not Canon, but i'm not arguing that it's the truth; just that it's as likely a scenario as any other, given what little we actually know about the Jedi in practice).  The focus is not punitive, but exploratory, and restorative - what is the root of the transgression?  what is out of balance?  what inner understandings must be adjusted, and what, situationally, can be changed, to make things better?

a process like that, embarked upon in good faith, would be less likely to result in "expulsion" and more likely to result in the mutual realization or acknowledgement that the jedi path isn't where anakin skywalker belongs. fulfillment, for him, lies elsewhere, and that's okay - there are many ways to serve and do good.  the jedi order isn't the only option for someone who wants to be a hero.

Yoda: The fear of loss is a path to the dark side.

Anakin: I won't let these visions come true, Master Yoda.

Yoda: Death is a natural part of life.  Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force.  Mourn them, do not.  Miss them, do not. Attachment leads to jealousy.  The shadow of greed that is.

Yoda: What must I do, Master Yoda?

Anakin: Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.

again, nothing about marriage/romance/etc.  the stumbling block is attachment - which doesn't mean love.  it means inappropriate clinging to other beings, who belong to the Force and are not ours to possess; to possible futures, which are not ours to control; to relationships, which enrich our lives but should not steer us into selfish waters.

and..........that's it.  that's all we get about the Jedi Order and romance in the movies.  TCW gives us two other conversations, which i can certainly include, but generally i consider the movies as Canon, and TCW as lying somewhere outside that (yes, i'm aware that this is not the official position.  i grew up on comic books and my interest in slapping canon/not-canon labels on stuff according to any criteria but my own personal preferences is null.  blame batman.)

but anyway, TCW:

Anakin: You didn't stay to help her?

Obi-Wan: That would have been...problematic.  My duty as a Jedi demanded I be elsewhere.

Anakin: Demanded?  But it's obvious you had feelings for her.  Surely that would affect your decision.

Obi-Wan: Oh, it did.  But I live by the Jedi code.

Anakin: Of course.  As Master Yoda says, "A Jedi must not form attachments."

not much more to add here that i haven't said above.  this is, again, not about surface level things like romance and marriage - it's about the deeper underpinnings of behavior, an examination of internal motives, a voluntary commitment to a way of life that prioritizes service to others over personal pursuits.

Obi-Wan: Master Yoda feels that your judgments concerning Rush Clovis are clouded.

Anakin: I believe he can't be trusted.

Obi-Wan: Yes, but there is more, isn't there? I sense a deep anger in you by my simply saying his name.

Anakin: He almost got Senator Amidala killed, and I would have been responsible.

Obi-Wan: The Senator has risked her life many times.  She's quite capable of taking care of herself.

Anakin: They had a relationship once.  I simply feel she is vulnerable to her emotions.

Obi-Wan: She is, or you?

Anakin: What are you implying?

Obi-Wan: Anakin, I understand to a degree what is going on.  You've met Satine.  You know I once harbored feelings for her.  It's not that we're not allowed to have these feelings.  It's natural.

Anakin: Senator Amidala and I are simply friends.

Obi-Wan: And friends you must remain.  As a Jedi, it is essential you make the right choice, Anakin, for the Order.

again - obi-wan flat out says "it's not that we're not allowed to have these feelings; it's natural."  the real problem isn't anakin's romantic feelings, it's his "clouded judgement," it's anakin being ruled by his emotions, overruled by them; it's him beating clovis to within an inch of his life and trashing padme's apartment; it's anakin, ruled by attachment/jealousy/greed, saying stuff to padme like, "as your husband, i demand that you tell the chancellor you are stepping down [from your job, from the duties of a career to which you've devoted your whole life]." that's the problem.

obi-wan says that “as a jedi” it’s essential that anakin make the right choice. but anakin doesn’t have to be a jedi, if he finds that his true path is taking him elsewhere.  that point has been addressed with him (in the expanded universe, at least) several times, at least twice directly by obi-wan (and again, yes, it’s not in the films, so i’m not going to argue that it’s Truth, but if we’re going to make assumptions about what the Jedi allow/don’t allow based on no explicit canon evidence, i feel comfortable making a few inferences using expanded universe material *shrugs*.)

so, in response to the question "do i think it’s wrong for the order to ban marriage etc" - the answer is first that a) i don't think we have concrete, irrefutable canon evidence that they do, and b) if they did (which, yes, despite the entire above essay, i do feel it's a reasonable inference that the jedi at least discourage these kinds of attachments) i don’t think it’s wrong at all.  the jedi order is a culture, with its own history, values, and sacred philosophy.  “jedi” isn’t just a synonym for "superhero."  there are lots of ways to do good in the world and help people, but jedi culture is more that just that - it's a way of life, a way of thinking, living, and dying which extends far beyond the identity "guardian of peace and justice in the Republic."  

and this means that jedi culture is not for everybody.

plenty of real life organizations/cultures/religions require certain things of their members.  belongers, or believers, give of themselves willingly, voluntarily choosing to pursue a certain way of life or to sacrifice certain things, because those choices are in accordance with their values.  the jedi are the same, and just as entitled to their own internal structures.  the fact that one of the things a jedi might choose to eschew is engagement in romantic attachments isn't really that odd - and it isn't really a problem, given that anyone can leave the Order at will.  like i said before, there are multiple instances in the expanded universe of obi-wan or someone else reminding us of this, sometimes directly to anakin's face - the jedi are not jailors, and they aren't wandering around the universe trying to make everyone conform to their way of life, telling people who don't belong to their Order that romantic relationships are dangerous and the jedi way is the only way to be a good person/do good deeds.  the jedi are aware that their choices are their own, that they are just one of a billion different galactic belief systems, that not all good-doers in the world were meant to walk their particular path.

anakin skywalker is one of those good-doers.  he isn't truly jedi, because being jedi doesn't mean being able to use the Force and swing a sword around; it means living your life according to a certain set of values and philosophical/cultural mandates.  anakin, who ultimately does not believe and cannot accept many of those 'pillars of faith,' is a hero, certainly, but he is not a jedi.  and there's nothing wrong with that - or at least there wouldn't have been, if anakin had been able to accept this and use his new self-understanding to make slightly better decisions.  

if he'd been able to do that - if he'd accepted that where he really wanted to be was with a lover, with a child, still doing good but in his own way - then it would have been wrong, if the Order had tried to force him to stay.  but instead, anakin never asked to leave.  he couldn’t let go of the things he feared to lose, even when those things were bad for him, even when they made him unhappy.

if only he'd been able to push through that dilemma, and ask for guidance, so many things would have been different.

The Oracle Vault [Pt. 1]

Summary: Byleth and Sylvain take refuge from the cold and prying eyes at the Abyss.

Rating: K+ - Suitable for more mature childen, 9 years and older, with minor action violence without serious injury. May contain mild coarse language. Should not contain any adult themes.

Words: 2435

Notes: So, a new series. I hope you enjoy this one, too.

The Oracle vault.

The large, stone salon was tucked somewhere on the face of the stone that held up the monastery main buildings. A wrong turn away from the Abyss settlements, the chilly, mysterious room had always elicited some strange regard from the new Archbishop.

Before the war, Rhea would use the room to make predictions about the future and the wishes of her mother, trying to communicate with the Blue Sea Star. The monks tasked with the prophecies used all sorts of methods, from magical objects, narcotic substances and, mainly, ritual dancing. So much so, the White Heron Cup was usually held to identify students with a particular talent for it, as, upon victory, they were brought here to further education in magic.

Of course, the former Archbishop’s attention to it was uneven. At the dawn of the Church of Seiros, Rhea would invest heavily upon the art, hoping to bring forth Sothis through their magic. After the Four Apostles failed so shamefully and were purged away from the religion, the woman started investing in Crestology and alchemy instead, returning every so often, after another failed experiment and lidden with guilt for perverting her mother’s creations in such a manner, hoping for absolution and guidance.

Byleth does not know why she cares for this room, as she is unsure about its power to predict the future and the will of the Goddess. She understands why she appreciates the gardens and gazebos, and do have fond memories of her old classroom, but, prior to the war, she had never even heard of this place.

It was far more contrasting from the others, consisting simply of stone walls and arched ceilings, a large empty space in the middle, as if what should go there was yet to appear. On the dark and damp corners, mismatched tapestries draped in ruffles from the walls in bursting colours, equally so in the various sizes cushions and chairs with rugs to match. Other objects as pebbles, scales, magically-infused items and strange clothing were discarded around, as well.

Regardless, it laid empty and forgotten. The Oracle mages and dancers were seen by Edelgard as the consubstantiation of everything that was wrong and corrupt about the Church, just short of the Immaculate One in foulness, and so made her personal business their systematic persecution and murder. Seteth said it was unlikely any of them managed to survive, and if not, they had no news of any of them. Their art is mostly lost, and it elicits a bit of a melancholy in Byleth’s heart, knowing that.

“Why is it that we are coming here?” Sylvain asks with a sigh, trailing behind her as Byleth ascend the last few steps of the winding spiral staircase.

The green-haired woman turns to him with a slight wicked grin and a raised brow, a look he soon returned as he grasped her hand in his own.

“I think we could do with a change of scenery, after all.” She responds with some ease. “I am growing rather tired of the Goddess Tower and the Star Terrace.”

“What is wrong with the Goddess Tower?” He scoffs in faux offense, his brows furrowing as she tugged him along with her into the vacant room as he looks over his shoulder once more.

“It is far too cold and cloudy to go up there tonight. Besides, this is one of my favourite rooms in the whole monastery if you must know. You will survive mingling with the Abyss people just this once, Sylvain.” She jests light-heartedly, releasing his hand to skip ahead of him as he groaned at her sudden absence and he had no choice but to follow her.

Though, he felt that he would follow her anywhere, and this was a proven fact with the conflict that came to a head only a few Moons prior.

“And if I do not?” He calls after her just to be difficult, pinching a piece of red velvet fabric between his fingers before his eyes roam back to her.

Byleth turns on her heel and purse her lips at him, narrowing her gaze as she fights her bemused smile. She shakes her head as he holds her stare in just the same manner, his head tilting and eyes squinting as he challenged her and she readily gave up on suppressing her grin for a moment longer.

“You did not have to join me if this is not to your taste, you know?” The Archbishop says, and he rolls his eyes as he tugs her close to him by a gentle grip on her hand. “If you have such a strong opinion of my wards, you are more than welcome to turn around and leave, but I have a feeling you would miss me too much if you did.”

The horseman silenced her very logical words with a kiss, her chuckle dwindling as she relaxed against him. His kiss was soft and tender as he hummed against her lips, his hand coming to brush her hair behind her ear as his lips moved from her own to sweep across her cheek. They linger just under her jaw before pressing chastely under her ear, his nose brushing over her skin.

“Must you always pick on me, darling?” Sylvain murmurs, his breath tickling against the shell of her ear.

Her soft laughter starts up again at his words, pulling his attention back to her gaze as he pulls back to look at her. She rests her hands on his chest, her fingers splaying across the azure fabric of his wool-lidded coat and smoothing over his furred collar.

“Yes, I think I must.” The woman concludes and, with that, she turned away from him and left his loose embrace much to his dismay.

She walks over to the centre of the salon, and twirls around slowly, taking in the static air buzzing on her skin. She knows her companion can feel the magic, too, and was just being a contrarian for sport. Besides, they were deep underground, behind complex magically-protected doors. If there is a private, unassuming room in all of Garreg Mach, this is probably it.

Sylvain watched as she smiled contently, her eyes falling closed as she tips her head back and bask in the peace that came with nightfall. In the enchantment of the room. For it was the time where they could love one another as freely as they would like, for as many hours as the moon remained in the deep navy sky. He wanted desperately to love her in the light of day, without fear of prying eyes and listening ears, but she knew why things were the way they were.

The House of Gautier were devout followers of the Church and loyal subjects of the Kingdom. The Margrave’s assistance on the Homefront during the war against the Empire was undeniable, and absolutely invaluable on their struggle for resistance.

However, for all the decoration and respect the family has amassed throughout their existence, and above all the more recent achievements, are believed by the current house head to be thanks to their Crest, and its consequent ability to yield the Lance of Ruin. As such, the blood must be protected with all zeal.

In Fódlan, that usually meant inbreeding, but the House of Gautier has not birthed a girl in one hundred and fifty years, and so incest was a material unpracticality, even between cousins. So, it was established a rotation between the Crest houses of the Kingdom: Blaiddyd, Dominic, Galatea and Fraldarius. It was believed that, through this system, the family would profit from the influx of blessed blood, but no one other Crest would be able to supplant the Gautier, as it happens from time to time with noble children.

In this regard, while Byleth carries a valuable and powerful Crest, coveted by many houses throughout the continent, a match between her and the only heir to Gautier seemed like an existential threat to the Margrave. Not only she carried the Crest of Flames, the sign of the Goddess’ favour, the Church documents seemed to indicate that both her parents carried the Crest of Seiros. They would certainly overpower the Minor Crest of Gautier the old noble and his son carried.

While Byleth cannot say for certain which Crest her children would bear, or even if they would bear one at all, or even still if she is able to have children of her own, the Church does know of ways to make one carry any Crest. From blood reconstruction surgery, to Crest Stone rituals, to even a valuable collection of Dragon Seals hidden away, if there is a pressing need for a bearer of the Crest of Gautier, she is guaranteed of its supply.

Nevertheless, it was widely agreed amongst the war generals that Crests were an undesirable feature of their society, and they should be let naturally purge away in the coming centuries. She cannot go back on such an important and consensual position for her own personal gain, especially if it means announcing to the world that the Church could have granted Crests to anyone all this time.

So, Sylvain’s father pressured him to sever his ties with his girlfriend, he is constantly pressured to wed either Annette or Ingrid, and they continue their liaison under the clandestine guard of the Garreg Mach nights. It was not a situation that would be left standing for long, but the dices will fall where they must, and Byleth has decided to deal with them as they do.

For now, to his great delight, the nobleman watched the way the torchlight glowed against her divine beauty as it shines against her verdant hair, falling like a protective veil over her head. It danced across his girlfriend’s unmarred and soft skin, as soft and jovial as a new-born’s, in bitter spite of the many years of probations she endured.

Such an ethereal beauty left him wondering how someone so perfect could love someone so flawed. He found himself to be an anchor tied to her at times, his grievous mistakes and current standing in the nobility something he felt kept her from thriving the way he knew she would, the way she deserved. She already was, far more than he could say for himself.

His girlfriend still had that unsettling unfazed look on her face, that tendency of over-rationalize what is said, but, as he grew accustomed to it, he found it more endearing than disturbing. In her own way, she radiates warmth and, above all, acceptance, something he so desperately craved and found he could not keep himself from. To him, she was the embodiment of sunshine and he felt he was quite the opposite, rather bringing storms and rain. Yet still, she chose to love him in spite of it.

He felt guilty, really.

Guilt for having a father who made her feel like their relationship was in jeopardy without ever having the displeasure of meeting the man. For not being able to love her as fully and openly as he so desired.

“Are you going to join me or are you going to stare all night?” Byleth quips, breaking him from his pestering thoughts.

His gaze flickered from the vacant spot she once stood in to where she sat on purple velvet cushioned stool. She smiled as the crystal sphere flowed before her and a grin of his own tugged at the corner of his mouth. He took a seat on the small crimson stool right next to her, finding himself a bit too tall for such a small seating arrangement but he decided against complaining.

The sphere before she contained a fog-like haze that swirled around much like the clouds many floors above their heads.

“Just what are we doing?” He asks, an amused smirk on his lips as he raised a brow.

The green-haired woman shrugs. “As the Archbishop, I suppose I should be proficient in every aspect of the religion I am expected to lead. Perhaps I would be able to see something on these. I was told they were quite easy to operate, in fact.”

“Are you having any luck with it?” He asks, as his girlfriend peers ever closer to the object.

“Unfortunately, no.” She says, laughing at his scrunched nose and the way he gripped her stool and tugged her closer with one swift pull. “Tell me, what will our future be in five years’ time?”

He chuckles, shaking his head fondly as he looked from the crystal to her. “That is quite simple, I do not need some silly crystal to tell me that.”

She raises her brow in amused curiosity. “Is that so? What lays ahead, Oracle?”

The redhead nobleman looks at her attentively, his smirk softening to an adoring smile. “Of course, Your Grace. The future is that I will love you as long as you will have me, and even more.”

Byleth nearly rolled her eyes at his sappy words, but she found them too earnest and the look on his face far too endearing to do so. She cannot deny the fact that she appreciates his steadfastness, too, but she also did not have it in her to miss an opportunity to tease him.

“Is that so? The crystal ball seems to disagree from you. As I see here, I shall sustain a wart on my nose in the next five years, and you, heartbroken from the lost beauty of mine, shall flee with a travelling minstrel.” She jests, and he rolls his eyes as he fights his smile.

“I am convinced you love to torment me.” He frowns, even in spite of his half-amusement from the stupid joke.

Despite the light-hearted moment, he finds he cannot enjoy it fully with the worry weighing heavy on his mind. Her question was merely playful, but it had been one that frequented his thoughts far more than he cared to ever admit, more than he ever will admit.

In a perfect world, one there were no Crests, that there was someone to shoulder the responsibilities he is so eager to shirk, Sylvain would have felt confident with the idea of loving her for the rest of his life. Would have felt rather excited for their future together because he loved she entirely too much for his own good.

However, it was much too difficult to indulge in thinking of such dreams when there were things in particular pressing down on his shoulders.

That one night in particular, to be specific, he would never forget that.

*_*_*_*_*

The Oracle Vault Masterlist

Fire Emblem Masterlist

Three Houses Masterlist

Feeling a touch nostalgic today...

So I’m gonna self indulgently prattle on about my very first Legacy of SWTOR OCs

I first started playing the game in earnest in mid 2015 after I graduated High School. I had been feeling very depressed and unsure of my path going forward. Thus I reverted back on things that made me happy as a child and preteen. Most prominently, Star Wars. I had known about the existance of SWTOR for years even prior to it’s release as I followed it’s development because of it’s connection to KOTOR. I was very skeptical of it being an Online game at the time, and when I first tried it in 2012, I wasn’t impressed. In 2015 though, I dared to give it another shot and I’m glad I did. It spawned perhaps some of my favourite moments of the last 5 years, introduced me to some amazing friends, and even this year allowed me to make new friends here on tumblr dot hell 

So cookbook recipe anecdote out of the way, let’s discuss the OCs. My very first Legacy was called The Furcifer Legacy. Furcifer meaning “Rogue” in Latin, I don’t speak Latin, I’m just a try-hard. Being F2P at the time, I only had two characters for most of 2015, and they were these two:

Reyal Bradack

Reyal came first. He was a Gunslinger Smuggler and admittedly a somewhat self insert. His name came from a “What is your star wars name” meme (you know the ones that are like “The first two letters of your surname + first three of your forename”) He was a child slave after his father ran out on his mom shortly after Rey’s birth, his mom sold him to the Hutts on Nal Hutta to repay a drugs debt. As a teen he managed to escape on to a Smuggling freighter. The smuggler captain took pity on the teen and took him as an adoptive son. The Smugglers were members of The Black Sun and Rey was introduced to a life of crime. He met his future Husband who was one of the Crew Members, a Chiss named Nalin. His life got thrown into disarray in 10 ATC when The Hero of Tython and Coruscant Security Force raided The Black Sun headquarters and began killing and making arrests. His husband and adopted Mother died from an explosion, he and the other member of the crew, Zoee, were taken into custody and given a choice, serve the Republic or life imprisonment. Both chose the former and were made to help with the ground work for the liberation of Balmorra. It was here on Balmorra that Rey would make a shocking discovery...

Atzethel “Zeth” Rist 

My second ever character, and for a long time, my main character. A Jedi Shadow Consular, he has gone through many iterations (which I may share someday). Zeth is the younger half-brother to Reyal. Both share the same father. At some point, the “Furcifer” patriarch found himself on Alderaan, in the employment of The Rist family. Despite dying under mysterious circumstances, he conceived a child with Lady Tharra Rist. Zeth was born with an unusually volatile connection to The Force, he was taken only days after The Treaty of Coruscant to be trained on board a Jedi Praxeum ship. The boy excelled due to his strange connect, however it caused him to be irrationally dangerous and as such, was ostracized by his peers and a topic of contention for his masters. He was taken under the wing of a Jedi Master, Nede Vaa, a togruta who sought to teach him patience and direct his urges. She was successful and trained him in the arts of The Jedi Shadows, hunting down and destroying The Sith from within. He and his Master were assigned to help lay the foundations for the Liberation of Balmorra. He discovered his brother Reyal on Balmorra, and after their mission was completed, requested to join his brother, though he kept his relationship to Reyal a secret. Begrudgingly accepting his request, Zeth worked with Reyal in uncovering several other Imperial threats and securing alliances with The Republic and certain criminal syndicates. During the Battle of Corellia, Zeth met another member of his family that surprised even Reyal to see.

Drrunn’al’inrokini “Nalin Bradack”

The first extra character I made upon subscribing, was a Chiss bounty hunter. He became a member of the smuggling crew, and Rey’s husband. While it was suspected that he was killed on Coruscant, he narrowly escaped with his life. He wandered the Underworld for a couple years after his ‘death’ believing that Rey and the rest of the crew had died. He eventually came across a mercenary, Loyabe Lealta, who claimed to have met a Reyal Bradack on Balmorra. The pair began searching for Reyal, eventually tracking him to Corellia. What should have been a joyous reunion was cut short when Reyal was hit with a poison dart by Loyabe intended for Zeth. Loyabe revealed her true self as an Imperial spy that had tried to hunt down the brothers for their involvement in the liberation of Balmorra. Before they could get another info out of her, Loyabe died from a posion capsule encased in her teeth. After racing to save Rey’s life, the family decided to return to Alderaan to rest and meet Tharra Rist, Rey’s step mother. The intent to reunite the family once and for all. But the peace wasn’t to be found.

Rhia Kriari 

A Dark Jedi, was waiting for them on Alderaan. She revealed herself to Zeth during a party at the Rist estate for the homecoming of Lord Atzethel Rist. She revealed to him that Loyabe was only one of a number of Imperial spies and assassins that were sent after people like them. Rhia revealed that she and him were born with the same midichlorian anomaly and that another of the children like them, was a Darth by the name of Attroxus who sought to convert or kill the others. She explained that the midichlorian anomaly was the result of a Sith experiment on infusing non-force sensitives with force imbued DNA in the hopes of creating Sith Soldiers. The experiment was discovered by The Dark Council and was shut down, however some of the test subjects managed to escape, including her mother and Zeth and Rey’s father. The experiment did not succeed however, as the altered DNA became unstable, mutating within it’s hosts and killing them violently with explosive bursts of force energy. Exactly the type of mysterious circumstances that Zeth’s father had died under. She convinced Zeth to help her find the other children before Attroxus could. Reyal, Zoee and Nalin agreed to help as well. The five found the other two children, Blanna Gira and Jaysen Karn. During their search, she and Zeth became closer and inevitably began an affair.

Jaysen Karn 

A plucky and optimistic Jedi Knight Ace, he was the first child to be tracked down. Found on Corellia as the last skirmishes of the battle raged. Zeth found him engaged with a Sith Lord named Lord Neystaa. Having been found by this Sith Pureblood assassin and offered to join Darth Attroxus or die. Jaysen, Zeth and Rhia were able to drive Neystaa away. Concerned by what he had heard, Jaysen requested permission to aid the Jedi Shadow Zeth in his mission to uncover the truth behind this new cult. Now with back up from another Jedi Knight, the search became slightly easier as it allowed them to quickly reach their next destination, Alpheridies.

Blanna Gira 

A Miraluka from Alpheridies, is another of the children from the experiment. Zeth and Rhia found her on Alpheridies where see lived and served among The Luka Sene, a group of cultural teachers and guides, acting as a seer and healer. The Sene’s devotees obey only the light side of the force. These teachings helped Blanna to keep her underlying darker urges at bay, though she wouldn’t confess to it, she struggled with this greatly. As she was not a fighter and had taken an oath of pacifism, she had no experience with weaponry and combat, thus Zeth began to train her in lightsaber combat, enough to defend herself if needs be. Though hesitant to go, she had received a vision of Attroxus and knew the danger he presented. She also received a vision of Zeth’s master, Nede Vaa in danger on The Fourth Moon of Yavin. Concerned, Gira informed Zeth, and the group headed for Yavin 4, right into a trap.

Lord Neystaa 

Darth Attroxus’s personal assassin, more machine than flesh. She was one of a pair of twins. She and her brother, Greveron were stationed on Balmorra at the end of the cold war. Zeth had killed Greveron during a battle to disable the planet’s early warning systems. The Brothers had teamed up to take Neystaa out of the fight as well with Zeth pushing her into an adjacent hallway, while Reyal tossed a grenade at her. Badly injured and barely holding on to life, Neystaa was recovered and outfitted with cybernetic replacements for her lost limbs and organs. She was made to be the perfect killing machine. Attroxus offered her a chance at revenge for herself and her brother and she jumped at the chance. After an unsuccessful duel on Corellia, Neystaa set a trap for Zeth’s Master, Nede Vaa, on Yavin 4. The Force User group arrived in time to see Neystaa slay Master Vaa, sending Zeth into a fit of rage. Uncoordinated and less adept in some cases (such as Blanna), Neystaa was able to hold her own. She succeeded in destroying Zeth’s double-bladed lightsaber and toss aside Jaysen, Blanna and Rhia. Seeing Rhia get injured was the final straw for Zeth who managed to take one of Neystaa’s twin sabers and over powered her with heavy crushing blows. Zeth was victorious in defeating her but rather than show mercy, he violently killed her instead. The group used Neystaa’s ship to track the co-ordinates of Attroxus’s ship. Though Zeth was disgusted with himself, they still had a mission to do.

Darth Attroxus

Born a slave of The Empire, Attroxus demonstrated a strong affinity for the Force at a young age. He was taken to the Academy on Korriban at age 7 where he faced extraordinary hard ship due to his race. In spite of the torment, Attroxus was able to rise to become one of the most promising students. He knew within himself that he was more powerful that the other acolytes and considered him better than them. He rationalized that they picked upon his race because it was the only way to put him down. If he was human, he thought, he would have been on the fast track to a lord. Upon completing his final trial, Attroxus returned to the Academy to discover that he had been passed over for the opportunity to become an apprentice. Enraged, he murdered the overseer and his fellow acolyte. The Lord whom wished to take the student, found Attroxus amusing and took him as an apprentice in place of the murdered on. Eventually, Attroxus began to eclipse his master in power and killed him, at which point, he assumed the title of Lord of The Sith for himself. Attroxus became interested in his power. He knew he was more powerful than the average Sith, and began delving into his parentage. He came across information about the experiments and became obsessed with them. However, power comes with a price. From giving into the Dark Side of The Force for so long, his mutated DNA became stronger and threatened to consume his body just as the original experiment subjects. It instilled in him a goal, to find the others like him. To perfect the experiment process, and rise to his rightful place as Emperor. His plans would not come to fruition. The Furcifer strike team was able to land on his Ship and while the force users set out to find Attroxus, Reyal, Nalin and Zoee began to disable the ship and plant explosives at key areas. All The Force Users engaged in a duel however Attroxus quickly realized that he was outmatched and began to feed his power-hungry cells for more power. It gave him the advantage however, in trying, he lost control of his power as his body began to deteriorate rapidly. The Furcifers managed to escape as the bridge exploded in a blast of energy, killing Attroxus.

Welcome Home

[LWA, Diakko, domestic, family, baby?, cute happy shit]

Akko and Diana are still settling into this new life, routine, and responsibility. But coming home to this...? It was the best thing that ever happened to them.

—–

Diana clicked at the button of her retractable pen, eyes moving rapidly from left to right and back again. She paused, humming softly to herself while she appraised yet another essay on how ‘the advent of big data and analytics is a turning point in the synthesis of magic and artificial intelligence technology. She scribbled her remarks on the paper’s margin:

‘Revise – provide suggested guidelines and security measures for magic-infused data-driven machinery.’

Now, it may come as a surprise to many, but Diana never really considered herself a traditionalist. In fact, her on-going tenure at Luna Nova’s higher-education learning center is heavily decorated with progressive and future-minded research and perspectives. This idea, however, simply sounded a little too much like… Croix—and she wasn’t going to pretend that kept her at ease. But Diana also believed that very few people fall far beyond redemption, and Prof. Croix’s appointment as the Head of the Magical Engineering Ethics Board was the perfect example of redemption if there ever was one.

‘As we’ve learned historically, aggressive technological progress should be done under the guiding hand of ethics and humanitarian agenda,” she jotted down. She spared a quick glance to the office clock her before diving back down into the paper.

05:17:PM

Still early, she thought to herself, I could probably finish this stack before going home and—

“Quarter-past-five!” she suddenly exclaimed, forgetting that her former working hours of until well-past-eight were no longer applicable. Recent events had turned her entire world… upside-down.

“Grading will have to wait until tomorrow,” she hurriedly—but meticulously, of course—tidied the papers into her drawer; the pile on the left for marked papers, and unmarked papers on the right. Her keys jingled while she put her belongings back into her handbag, and the hurried clacking of her heels signaled the other professors of her early retreat back home.

--

Diana Cavendish rarely rolled her eyes, but by Jennifer the traffic was horrendous on the north-bound lane. Which she wouldn’t even be on, had she not forgotten the towels she was supposed to buy earlier in-between lectures. Akko reminded her thrice that morning (each time answered with an obedient, “yes, dear.”) Diana was once again reminded that one of the most surprising—and amusing—things she discovered since her marriage to the brunette witch was that between the two of them, Akko was ‘wife-zilla’.

06:13:PM

And there was extra-emphasis on the ‘zilla’ part lately. Traffic be damned, she was going to get those towels.

--

“Eep!”

The sharp whistling of a boiling kettle startled Akko out of the sports magazine she was so deeply engrossed it. Shit shit shit—she clumsily shut the glossy pages closed, darting towards the kitchen and—kami-sama, why did Diana think it was a good idea to have doors everywhere? “Stupid door,” she groaned, anxious to silence the whistling lest it disturb their special guest.

She lunged towards the stove, snapping the burner knob closed. “I could have done that with magic,” she flicked herself on the forehead, old habits from a magic-less childhood kicking in during the oddest moments. She blinked, scanning the kitchen counter for a small box before realizing that she left it back at the living room. “I’m almost as bad at this as I was at transmutation spells!”

About five minutes later, she was jogging back towards the dining area balancing a warmed tumbler in one hand, and several plastic utensils in another. She narrowly avoided tripping over the carpet (“Fuck!”), and was unfortunate enough to hit her shin across the low coffee-table, warranting an impressive parade of crisp, native-to-Japan curses. Thank Kami-sama it was Friday, she thought with relief. Diana would be taking over evening household duties by Monday and she damn well needed a break; even if a break meant more hours working.

She tipped the warmed tumbler over and let a few drops of its content spatter at the back of her hand.

06:37:PM

It was still too warm but should be just fine by dinner time.

--

[Capitalism is a predator, but I’m nearly home.]

Diana hit ‘send’, letting her wife know that she was around 2 blocks away while waiting for the last stoplight to turn green.

[As long as u got the towels lol. Tnx, luv u :-*]

Diana smiled at Akko’s reply, turning her attention away from her phone screen when she saw the soft glow shift from red to green. Yes, she had the towels—and maybe a full set of Reuven-Eilhart designer night pajamas. Or three.

She also brought home new ‘friends’—she saw that the store had recently released a set of ‘We There Bears’ themed products. Diana remembered Akko raving about them; they were apparently quite the in-thing as of late. She was immediately drawn to the pure-white polar bear with an interestingly unreadable expression. “That un’s ‘Nice Bear’,” the clerk supplied. “But if y’gonna get ‘im, you gotta get the whole gang else he’d be lonely.”

And so she did—because if Diana ever did anything she never did it half-way done. Frizzly Bear and Fanda sat snugly beside him in the backseat.

The blonde witch pulled up into their driveway, sorting out her belongings before stepping out to unload her shopping bags from the back. She opened the door and couldn’t help but laugh at herself.

“What has become of me,” she smiled, wondering how to bring three bears and several frilly-looking things into their house without painting herself as silly.

06:53:PM

Warm, yellow light flooded through the dining room curtains, and the familiar sound of their car alerted Akko to Diana’s arrival.

“She’s actually home on time,” she remarked to a little fellow seated at the end of their dining table, pulling on an exaggerated expression of being impressed. But Diana’s arrival always makes her smile, so she walks towards the front door so she can giver he wife a hand and—

She paused, taking a strong sniff of something which was coming out of the kitchen.

“Oh, no.”

The pizza! There was pizza burning in the oven! She bolted back towards the kitchen for some damage control, relieved to find that the pizza was only beginning to blacken at the crusts—easily salvageable.

“Mou, Diana’s gonna give me an earful,” she whined in defeat. She could hear the sound of their door unlocking, followed by footsteps through their dining area and the rustle of shopping bags being unloaded.

To her surprise, Diana had no drop of sternness in her voice. “I’ve missed you,” she cooed.

Akko broke into a grin, turning to face Diana. “Missed you to—”

She bit back her words, fascinated at the sight of her wife, looking weary from a long day, cradling their beloved Sara with all the fascination in the world. Their daughter giggled up to her mother, hands reaching for her face, prodding at Diana’s nose (which scrunched up adorably) and pulling at her platinum curls before squealing in delight.

“I may have missed you, as well.” Diana teased, tossing a smile to Akko’s direction.

“That’s hardly fair!” Akko tried to pout, walking towards the two people she loved most in the world.

Diana nuzzled against Sara’s forehead, running her fingers softly over the thin patch of light-brown hair beginning to grow longer. Sara perked up immediately when Akko came into her field of vision.

“I think she likes me better,” Akko whispered before kissing Diana’s shoulder. She wrapped an arm around the pair and tickled at Sara’s nose.

“Not a chance.” Diana leaned her head against Akko’s, watching as Sara grabbed onto Akko’s finger with a chubby little hand.

“Did you buy her another hundred sets of pajamas?” Akko raised an eyebrow.

“Only three,” Diana tried to hide her defensiveness. “And... several room accessories?”

Akko laughed, “pretty soon we’re going to run out of space in her room. This little lady has got you wrapped around her finger!”

There was no use denying it, so Diana simply rolled her eyes.

“Come here,” Akko smiled. “Welcome home.” She moved up to her tiptoes, and Diana turned her head to meet the brunette half-way for a small kiss. She appreciated the way Akko’s embraced tightened around her torso and warmed her chest; the way it made her family feel so... whole.

Akko pulled back, but Diana chased after her to steal another quick kiss, amused at the way Akko would still blush whenever she did that.

“So,” Diana gave her wife a look, “burnt pizza for dinner?”

“Mou, Sara! Your mother is such a bully!”

--

A/N: Woohoo finally churned another one out! I’m feeling a bit sick, and it’s early in the morning, so hopefully there aren’t that many typos/errors. Anyway I’m doing fine, hope you all are too! I’ve been re-reading Appointments over and over so I can get a feel of the writing style and flow I used to have for it and finally finish the next chapter. I do feel out of touch from how I was back in 2018; so I really need to do a lot of fanfic reading. You guys have any suggestions?

ALSO - meet Sara! Her name means vivid blossoms; it’s Japanese but also western-sounding so win-win for both moms. A homage to ‘Botany’, with the flowers and everything. She was originally meant to be Leia, because I’m a big Star Wars fan, but hey! I saw Sara and instantly thought it was the best fit. Hope you enjoyed. :) [Also, I’ve noticed I tend to switch between past / present tense a lot and I’ll be working to actively fix that moving forward!]

AU Thursday: Tell Me Where To Find Shelter/Fallout of Darkness Worldbuilding

I really gotta decide on a proper name for this verse. . .anyway, a few worldbuilding thoughts about this weirdass crossover, focused around how vampires work here:

-->I’m still trying to figure out how Bloodlines would work in the world of Fallout 4, but I do know Heather was a person in Alice’s life for a little while. Alice sent her away shortly after the “locking a man in the bathroom” incident, realizing the blood bond was doing awful things to Heather’s head. She wanted to catch up with her at some point, try and forge a real friendship, but -- the ending of Bloodlines happened, and I’m thinking Alice ended up fleeing L.A. as soon as she could.

-->I stated in the past that this version of the Commonwealth has a small vampire community, living in Wildwood Cemetery because I once saw a mod that set up a player house in there. It’s about eight vampires, and made up of the various vampires you can pick for Bloodlines protagonists. I’m thinking Male Ventrue, Female Toreador, Female Nosferatu, Male Tremere, Female Brujah, Male Gangrel, and both the Female and Male Malkavians because I like thinking of them as creepy twins. XD I’m not sure when Victor encounters them, but he helps them out with a hunter problem and earns their loyalty that way. Also, the Malkavians call him “Sole Survivor” because I think it’s funny.

-->The Wildwood vampires have Plasma Fruit from Sims 4 at their disposal! With the nuclear war having killed off a lot of the vampires’ food supply, not to mention a fair number of vampires, the Tremere ended up pouring a lot of effort and blood into a ritual to warp the mutfruit that developed in the aftermath of the radiation. They succeeded, and the Tremere of the Wildwood maintains a couple of plants for their community. It doesn’t taste great to them -- nothing compares to a fresh human neck -- but it satisfies their nutritional needs, and that works for them.

-->As for other vampires in the Commonwealth:

1. I think the blood center up near Fort Hagen is being maintained by a Tremere who hasn’t quite gone wight (aka 0 Humanity) yet, but is on the edge. They’re keeping their emergency blood supply magically preserved, meaning it serves as a great food source for Alice and the Wildwood vampires after Victor ends up tangling with the Tremere investigating the place.

2. You know how Deacon implies that he’s had regular plastic surgery to maintain his anonymity in the Commonwealth? I kind of want to make his “surgeon” a friendly Tzimisce who fleshcrafts him from time to time in exchange for blood. They’ve got the usual creepy flesh decoration thing going on, but it’s all nonsentient animal parts. Everyone is still freaked out.

3. I have mentioned that I think it would be funny for Caine to be the “Mysterious Stranger” in this reality? XD I just want Alice to be able to ask him “so, the cab driver thing didn’t work out, huh?” and tell Nick that he can arrest the Stranger for “murder -- the FIRST murder, in fact!” (Nick, meanwhile, is having a mild panic attack over his “white whale” target being THE GRANDDADDY OF ALL VAMPIRES)

-->Mama Murphy’s Sight in this verse? She spent some time in her youth the unknowing ghoul of a Malkavian, who told her his blood was some sort of special drug. She gained a measure of Malk insight during her time with him -- and when he died, it lingered. She’s been using chems to activate it in a desperate attempt to find the same high drinking “Vitae” gave her. Alice is pissed when she figures this out.

-->Also, I kind of want Coursers to be as tough as they are thanks to some sort of infusion of vampire blood in their system. I haven’t fully decided where the Institute is sourcing this blood, but -- well, it would make SENSE for Beckett to have gotten tangled up in this mess, right?

-->And now, a moment with “Me and My Brain:”

Me: Urgh. . .I still have no idea how I’m going to fix Alice’s little “sunlight issue!” I kind of want to leave the job to Jack Cabot, but I don’t feel like I know enough about him and his quests to really commit to that. . .but what other options do I have?

My Brain: Psst.

Me: What do you want?

My Brain: Remember how you stumbled across Monte Cook’s World of Darkness and liked the general idea of how an incursion by some Lovecraftian being caused vampires and whatnot?

Me: Yesss. . .

My Brain: Doesn’t Fallout 4 canonically have a Lovecraftian being in it? And you stumble right into one of the spots where it was being worshiped?

Me: . . .

Me & My Brain: [evil grin]

So yes, vampires in this verse are in fact the result of Caine’s murder of Abel calling a bit of the essence of Ug-Qualtoth into the world, which “infected” Caine and caused the vampirism thing. Also Kremvh's Tooth (the sacrificial machete you find in Dunwich Borers) is the weapon Caine used to do in Abel. The bit of Ug-Qualtoth in Dunwich Borers notices Alice and her condition while she’s trying to help the hallucinating Victor, and puts it in the couple’s heads that, if they kill someone using the Tooth and Alice drinks the blood, it’ll strengthen the connection to Alice just enough for Ug to fix the “burns to death in sunlight” issue (I can travel near the stars with no issue; why can’t you?) Victor and Alice are -- uh -- anxious about taking the deal, but can’t leave until Victor at least takes the Tooth, and eventually it gets used on some pretty vile enemy, which does indeed lead to Alice being able to walk in sunlight. (Possibly the other vampires too, if Ug is feeling nice.) Alice is quite anxious about being manipulated by the essence of Ug within her, but Ug never actually does anything, content to watch its “children” in this strange world.

Fosterson Fic Rec Masterlist: Multichapters

The Main Reclist has been split to fix the links that tumblr decided to break if there were too many of them in a single post. I’ll be keeping the main reclist updated (even if the links appear broken) as well as maintaining this list and the list for oneshots.

I need help expanding this list! If you have any favorites or fics of your own of your own you don’t see included in this list and you’d like to submit for consideration, please drop me a line.

List updated April 2020. New additions marked with **

Updated during this wild quarantined time, which should serve as a reminder to everyone to APPRECIATE YOUR CONTENT CREATORS! Leave all the comments and kudos to show our love for everything they do. Big thanks to everyone who recommended and/or created content for this amazing ship.

Rated G/K-K+

**The World has Turned and Left Me Here by alwaysaprilia: Jane Foster’s mission is impossible: build a wormhole, save the world. Thor Odinson thinks his task is even more impossible: keep Jane Foster alive long enough for her to accomplish her mission. AKA: What-to-do-when-the-damsel-in-distress-keeps-distressing-you. Rec: This is such a lovely little AU fic, brings in such an expansive world so succinctly and smoothly. | 16k | In progress

**Unspoken by igi_pigi: Post bringing his brother back to Asgard from Midgard, Thor is told by Heimdall that Jane Foster has decided to stop looking for him. [Set after Avengers1.] Rec: Angsty, with some nice Frigga content. | 4.8k | Complete

**Overlapping Spaces by khilari, Persephone_Kore: Thor returns to Earth a month after the Chitauri invasion to keep his promises -- to see Jane again, and take her to see Asgard, even if the rainbow bridge is still undergoing repairs. Not that Jane is complaining about watching the repairs. But she wasn't expecting Loki to be haunting the palace library, even in psychiatric care; and Loki wasn't expecting to make friends with Thor's mortal girlfriend. Rec: If you’re looking for a good, long Jane-centric fic that also features endgame fosterson, a well written Loki, and really interesting take on Asgardian culture, this is the fic for you. | 107k | Complete

IW Coda by hariboowrites: THOR AND JANE FOCUSED CODA TO IW bc i am who i am. Rec: We all need a fosterson followup to Infinity War, and this one has an ending that made me scream internally with excitement. Make this the opening of the next Avengers movie pls. | ~4k | Complete

Five Times Jane Was Kinda Jealous And One Time Thor Was by shinyopals: ‘Hello, Jane,’ said Thor. He gave her a smile that would move mountains and definitely still made her stomach flutter. ‘This is Rachael and Amanda. They wished to give their regards for my help during the Convergence. Although of course without you we would have been hopeless.’ He turned back to Rachael and Amanda. ‘This is my dear friend Dr Jane Foster, of whom I was speaking.’ Dear friend? Jane blinked. They’d been sleeping together for a couple of weeks and had had a slightly awkward conversation to establish where they stood with each other (what Jane called dating exclusively and Thor called a courtship). “Friend”, however “dear”, seemed a bit of an understatement. Sometimes dating a gorgeous world-saving alien prince has its drawbacks. Rec: BURY ME AND HAVE THIS JEALOUSY FIC PRINTED ON MY TOMBSTONE. I usually don’t like the toxicity most jealousy fics are infused with, but this one is so pure and wonderful. I could read it every damn day. | 14k | Complete

The Arizona Banana Famine by Niobium: Thor experiences the simpler side of Earth. Rec: Absolutely hilarious. Thor + shenanigans of living on Earth and trying to hide his identity + Jane helping him to varying effect. | 7k | Complete

Non Est Ad Astra Mollis e Terris Via (there is no easy way from the earth to the stars) by Rozilla: Jane Foster keeps out of social media mostly, but does keep a blog for all things science. With a few personal posts thrown in. Edited (with sarcastic asides) by Darcy Lewis. Rec: Fosterson is mentioned often, but Jane’s voice is incredibly worthwhile. | 10.4k | Complete

Hidden resonances by kes: After the vision Wanda Maximoff gave him, Thor had more questions than answers, and so he sought truth with Jane, in a cave beneath the mountains. Rec: A really great fix-it taking place during AOU, plus some fosterson feels. | 6k | Complete

Time and Trouble by shinyopals: Frigga thinks she knows exactly what to expect from the rest of her life. Then one son perishes and returns, whilst the other falls for a mortal woman who’s like nothing Frigga could have predicted.(Frigga’s POV from the end of Thor right through to post-TDW.) Rec: BLESS ALL FRIGGA-CENTRIC FICS. Great outside perspective fosterson, plus a TDW fix-it. | 14k | Complete

If You Want To Live series by hariboo: They lost Loki when they sunk Manhattan. Three years laters Loki finds them and that’s really when everything begins. This is that beginning. Rec: Terminator fusion AU that you didn’t realize you needed until now. Knowledge of the Terminator films is helpful but not required. The 'needing each other’ that comes along with a desperate post-apocalyptic situation really lends itself well to fosterson. It also hurts a hell of a lot. I wish it wasn’t finished. | 5k | Complete

Fabulous Baking Sisters or How to (not) Get Over A Norse God in 730 Days by Rozilla: After seeing Jane in a slump one too many times, Darcy decides to get her into stress baking… and soon regrets it. Rec: A lot of Jane/Darcy brotp, but lots of fosterson goodness especially near the end. The phrase “sex coma” is definitely used. | 8.5k | Complete

Waking Ease by Salmon_Pink: Thor/Jane, rated G. Set after Thor: The Dark World. Written for Comic Drabbles, prompt "halo”. Rec: very, very short, but cute. This is a part of a larger series by this author, but this is the only fosterson chapter I’ve seen so far. | <1k | In progress

Hold the Sun by writerblocked: Thor and Jane (and everyone else) share a meal. Rec: A nice peek into regular life, complete with some touches of angst and fluff at the same time. This story, like the above rec, is a part of a larger work that does not solely include fosterson. | <1k | Complete

If She Is Worthy by Mr. Chaos: During the battle with The Destroyer, Mjolnir returns to Thor’s hand. But what if Selvig hadn’t pulled Jane away? And what if it wasn’t just Thor that had proven himself worthy? Rec: Jane kicking ass and taking names with Mjolnir. Nuff said. Downside? A giant twist at the end and still waiting for a sequel. | 4.5k | Complete

A Story of Us by me: Short and sweet prompt fills. All feature Thor and Jane as the main couple and are all just ridiculous fluff. Rec: A collection of my prompt fills from tumblr. It wouldn’t be a true reclist without a self-plug. | 26.2k | In progress

Rated T

The Foster Edition series by asoulofstars, MissChrisDaae: What happens when Jane Foster is in the Battle of Manhattan? In short, it changes everything. Rec: FIXING MARVEL WITH JANE FOSTER IS THE BEST, NAY, THE ONLY SOLUTION I WILL ACCEPT. | 60k | In progress

Game Changer by asoulofstars, MissChrisDaae: In the aftermath of the Convergence, Jane and Thor return to Earth in search of the scepter, and the Avengers slowly begin to reassemble. Across the cosmos and on Earth itself, enemies begin to gather, enemies that threaten everything the team has ever fought for, and Jane is faced with something just as daunting, but far more personal. Evolving from a mortal to a goddess. From a spectator to a player. From a scientist to a queen. Rec: A fluffy setup for something big, I can feel it. | 8k | In progress

A Magical Solution to the Einstein Field Equations by shinyopals: Jane Foster has got enough on her plate, what with being a full time researcher, giving lectures, applying for grants, writing books, and consulting for Stark Industries. When Thor drops off the face of the universe and leaves her on Earth with no clues as to where he is, she doesn’t know what to do or how to find him.Then an attack on Stark Industries changes everything, and she finds herself getting thrown into a life that she’s previously only watched from the sidelines, and where getting punched through a wall is suddenly just an average day of the week. Rec: THE MOST PERFECT RAGNAROK AU TO EVER EXIST ANYWHERE EVER. EASILY ONE OF MY FAVORITE FICS OF ALL TIME. | 56k | Complete

Ace in the Hole by MissChrisDaae: Working alongside Selvig on Project PEGASUS, Jane manages to escape when Loki arrives, bringing with her the data on the Tesseract, and making herself SHIELD's biggest resource in combating the rogue trickster. At least until her semi-boyfriend finally makes good on his promise to come back, and she finds herself caught in the middle of a war. And she might be a key part in stopping it. Rec: MOAR JANE IN THE AVENGERS. MOAR JANE BEING VALUED IN THE MCU. MOOOOAAAAAR. | 11.5k | Complete | Part of The Foster Edition series

Wild Card by MissChrisDaae: Separation is, for Thor and Jane, a little easier in knowing what's happening to each other, but they have their own trials to face. In the midst of a war, Thor learns of a force greater than anything he has ever faced, one that could change the fates of both himself and and the woman he loves. Nothing is certain, and the burdens of his family, his life, and his love are weighing heavily upon him. Working with Betty Ross, Jane works to understand the secrets of the universe, unaware of the fact that she's being tested with every move she makes. When she temporarily moves to look after her mother's house in London, she and Darcy come across the Convergence. And, for the third time, Jane's life is turned upside down by an ancient force from another realm. Rec: Canon divergent Fosterson is my freakin JaaaaAAAAm. Also BETTY ROSS. A great replacement for canon if you’re feeling Salty. | 33k | In progress | Part of The Foster Edition series

Dancer in the Dark by MissChrisDaae: Jane Foster has always been a member of the corps de ballet, and has never voiced complaint until one night when she indulges in the fantasy of being the prima ballerina. A mysterious voice calls out to her, tempting her, coaching her, offering to make her a star, and she accepts. Months later, the prophecy comes to light when the star of the company becomes mysteriously indisposed. Jane is suddenly cast into the spotlight, becoming an immediate success, but she only has eyes for Thor, the young scion to the ballet's greatest patron family, who has been masquerading as a stagehand in order to continue a longstanding liaison with her. But Jane's made a deal with something far worse than the devil, and now he's coming to claim his due. Rec: A ballet AU that reminds me a lot of Black Swan tone-wise. Warning though, there is a love triangle that includes Lokane. | 9.6k | In progress

Five Times Having An Alien Prince's Baby Sucked A Lot, And One Time It Didn't by shinyopals: It was the doctor’s turn to look nonplussed. ‘Dr Foster,’ she said quietly, ‘you’re around four weeks pregnant.’ ‘No I’m not,’ said Jane again. She was pretty sure she’d remember if Thor had reappeared for some awesome sex a month ago. He had not. She’d gotten through enough batteries to prove it. Jane isn't quite sure how this all happened. She just knows it's a lot of work and it keeps taking her away from her Physics. Rec: The Definitive™ Fosterson babyfic. I’m generally not much for babyfic because I’m not much for babies. But I’ve read this so many times and it’s so incredibly wonderful. | 24k | Complete

Strange Earth series by Niobium: The apocalypse has come and gone, leaving the Earth strange and altered in its wake. What was once a thriving world of magic and science has become a tractless, untamed Wilderness teeming with dangerous creatures born of warped energy pouring through rents in the fabric of space and time. Society has withdrawn into magically-walled Wards to keep itself safe as it seeks a way to reclaim the planet before it’s twisted beyond all recognition, and its Seers and Champions struggle to protect humanity and one another. Rec: An incredibly imaginative ghost hunting AU. Great world building, and fantastic interaction between Jane and Thor. | 12.6k | In progress

The Obloquy of Newness by Niobium: Jane just wants to present her findings and maybe win a Nobel Prize. That would be a lot easier if all these xenophobes, science deniers, and robots bent on world destruction would stop getting in the way. Or, Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis, and what they were up to before, during, and after Avengers: Age of Ultron. Rec: A really delightful companion to AOU. | 17.4k | Complete

Sex Ed For Asgardians (Isn’t Exactly Necessary) by shinyopals: 'It’s a condom,’ Jane said eventually, reminding herself she was an adult in an adult relationship, albeit a very new one with an alien forty times her age who could hardly be expected to know what Earth birth control was like. Jane and Pepper learn that some myths and legends are true. Rec: I have no idea why this wasn’t on the reclist before. It’s hilarious and also really heartfelt. I love Respectfulinthebedroom!Thor. I love the open communication between them. Lawd. | 3.4k | Complete

Pedulum: Beginning by hariboo: Kept apart, with worlds between them, Jane and Thor do not give up on one day finding each other again. Rec: Exquisite buildup to a reunion. Both Jane and Thor are in-character with their own agency, but its obvious they’re nuts for each other. | 28.5k | Complete | Part of in progress series, Pendulum

Pendulum: Between by hariboo: Having found each other again doesn’t mean things have gotten easier for Thor and Jane. In some ways things are only getting more complicated. At least now they can face whatever comes their way together. Rec: Continiation of Beginning (recced above). Nuanced, sweet, messy, fantastic character dynamics, and with a great plot. | 56.8k | Complete | Part of in progress series, Pendulum

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Guardians of the Galaxy by Maybug: Jane Foster and Thor are finally getting married! Most couples go a little crazy when they’re ecstatically happy, unfortunately for these two going crazy involves knocking a hole in spacetime and marooning themselves and two of Jane’s friends on a desolate and dangerous planet halfway across the galaxy. Meanwhile Darcy, Sif and Bill are trying to find them in Skuttlebutt. Will they survive? Will they make it to the wedding in time? Will Thor’s attempts to communicate with Groot drive everyone crazy? Will Darcy get to witness Jane’s brief Goth phase? Will Jane’s friend Sayed get over his Star-Trek inspired fantasies about green-skinned alien women? Find out in the next exciting installment of Journey into Mishap! Rec: Part of a really great series by a great author. Humorous and kind of cracky. Mixture of MCU and comic canon. Just one chapter short of completion. | 12.7k | In progress | Part of Journey into Mishap and the Fosterson Files

Welcome to the Fall by Niobium: The Avengers pick up the pieces in the aftermath of Sokovia. Inter- and post-film gap-fillers and ficlets, with varying POV characters. A couple of them are slightly canon divergent and will be labeled as such. Rec: A really solid piece of prose, careful of canon while building upon it/improving it. The fosterson is handled really well. | 5.5k | Complete

The House of Foster by ArticulatioHumeri: She had set out to study wormholes. Never would Jane Foster have thought that it would lay the foundations of a family clan. Rec: Great fosterson moments, and with proper time devoted to them. A good, long read. Probably the longest fic I have on this list, and the longest Marvel fic that actually legitimately features Fosterson prominently. | 224k | Complete

The Measure of a Man by fayedartmouth: Thor is banished to Earth. Reclaiming his worth is harder than he thinks it will be. AU of the movie Thor. Rec: By now, y’all know I love fics where Thor was on Earth longer than in canon. This is probably my favorite, because Thor is incredibly well-written, and the cultural/personal struggles he encounters are written fantastically. The fosterson is incredibly organic and lovely. | 140.7k | Complete

Towards the Storm by iwillavengeyou: Jane Foster is worthy. Jane Foster is the Mighty Thor. But was she always this way? This fic seeks to examine Jane’s path to picking up the mighty hammer Mjolnir, and her journey as a heroine who, underneath it all, is only human. Rec: One of the few fics I’ve been able to find and enjoy that deals with Jane’s place as Thor in the 616 universe. I like the story’s trajectory, but it has since been orphaned. If anyone wants to... ya know... pick it up... that’d be swell. | 1.5k | In progress

As You Wish by MissChrisDaae: After the apparent death of the only man she will ever love, Jane finds herself the unwilling bride-to-be of the kingdom’s icy hearted crown prince, whose interest in her is almost as unnerving as the man himself. Before the wedding can take place, Jane finds herself in the hands of three kidnappers, her life in danger, and a mysterious figure in black pursuing them. Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Revenge. Giants. Monsters. Chases. Escapes. True love. Miracles. What more does a story need? Rec: THE PRINCESS BRIDE FUSION THAT YOU DIDN’T KNOW YOU NEEDED UNTIL NOW. Also Sif is Indigo Montoya. If the fosterson wasn’t enough to get you to read it. | 21.3k | Complete

Girls’ Night by Maybug: With Thor in Asgard and the other Avengers away on a mission, Darcy, Betty, Pepper and Jane decide to have a girls’ night. A certain supervillain has other plans, but it’s nothing they can’t handle. Rec: fosterson is background, but you all know I can’t resist a good Marvel ladies asskicking story. Story is mostly from Jane’s POV, so good insights on fosterson. | 11.2k | In progress

Thor 2 Rewritten: The Shaded Tree by kes: Rec: A series of oneshots and short multichapters that rewrite the second Thor movie. Not everything is over fosterson, but it’s always an undercurrent. Worth the read. Such a great alternative to canon. | 44k | Incomplete, abandoned

don’t need no ammunition (ain’t the bridge that’s falling down) by anthropologicalhands: Thor (2011) AU. After the battle at Jotunheim, something goes wrong and Sif finds herself stranded on Midgard. Jane is still chasing bridges and wants to know how this strange woman got in her atmospheric disturbance. Darcy’s psyched…and a little freaked out. Meanwhile, Thor and Loki embark on an quest (actually: intergalactic road trip) to rescue Sif. Thor has to prove himself. Loki is having an identity crisis. Do the math. Rec: Great interactions with everyone. Jane and Thor are still absolutely smitten despite the different circumstances. Loki/Sif is also a main pairing. | 39k | Complete

Fate Has Brought Us Together by asoulofstars: A series of one-shots detailing the lives of Thor Odinson and Jane Foster. Set after the events of Thor: The Dark World. Rec: We all know I’m a sucker for fosterson fluffies. The chapters are generally short and sweet. Read for smiles and butterflies and rainbow puking. | 9.9k | In progress

We Have Joyed To Be Forlorn by Niobium: Jane Foster’s life carries on in the wake of the Convergence, complete with exciting new research prospects, a displaced and grieving alien, considerations on the functionality of magic, and massive shakeups in world espionage. Or, The continuing adventures of Jane Foster, from the end of Thor: The Dark World to just after the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Rec: What it says on the tin. I highly recommend reading anything by this author. Both Jane and Thor are done justice to, beautifully. Lots of cutesy Fosterson that feels very real and not just like a fangirl threw up on a page. Really a gorgeous story. | 13.8k | Complete

Rowing in Eden by ancarett: The Bifrost is no longer broken but is becoming unpredictable: delivering its travellers far afield. With Midgard’s link to Asgard at risk, Jane and Thor have to restore stability to the wormhole or risk being separated forever. Rec: Jane and Thor doing science together and being cute together. Features all the Avengers. | 34.5k | Complete

Fundamental Forces by nayanroo: In an attempt to rein in the son that remains to her after Thor’s banishment, Frigga arranges a marriage between two old friends in the hopes that they can work together to heal an eroded realm. On Earth, a prince searches for identity after his world is turned upside-down. And in the darkness, something stirs. Rec: mostly a Loki/Sif pairing story, but there is enough fosterson to give a rec. Even if it wasn’t, I’d still rec it somewhere else. One of the most well-thought out stories I’ve read (part of an amazing series, which contains gratuitous fosterson) with incredible characterizations. Great plot, monstrous word counts in chapters. | 181k | Complete | Part of in progress series, The Kingsverse

When the Stars Fall Up by Nyxelestia: Loki is not so foolish as to let his pride get in the way of his plans. And Thor learns there is a lot more to being a king than being brave. Rec: Despite a Loki-heavy intro, we get some good Jane/Thor in the second chapter. It’s incomplete, and hasn’t been update in a long time, but I feel like it is going somewhere good if it is continued. | 7.3k | In progress, possibly abandoned

Watchtower by me: When research on the Tesseract begins, SHIELD recruits Jane Foster instead of Eric Selvig to harness the other-worldly artifact. When Loki raids the facility, he takes over the mind of the mortal woman his brother loves. The Avengers with Jane Foster in Eric Selvig’s place. Rec: Because it wouldn’t be a true reclist without a self-plug. (although tbh I’m tempted to take this off the rec list because I hate the way I wrote it so much XD) | 56k | Complete

Let Me Follow You Down by me: Jane is sick of her family always pushing her towards a relationship. She thinks she’s figured out the perfect solution. Fake Dating AU. Rec: Because it wouldn’t be a true reclist without a self-plug. | 24k | Complete

Rebuild All Your Ruins by me: Ragnarok AU. Despite his hunt for the Infinity Stones taking him far beyond Jane’s galaxy, Thor had always managed to get word to her that he was safe. When months pass without any word from him, Lady Sif arrives with a dire message: Thor has gone missing, Heimdall has been removed from his post as Gatekeeper, and the Warriors Three wonder if their king is truly Odin. Rec: Because it wouldn’t be a true reclist without a self-plug. | 11.2k | In progress, slow updates because it’s me and I’m garbage

Rated M (these won’t contain the smuts unless otherwise noted)

**Stalemate by igi_pigi: "It appears we're at a stalemate, Miss Foster." He meets her eyes at last with his bloodshot ones. "My association with you will continue to doom you with mortal dangers at every turn. And you will continue to inexplicably not hold me blameworthy for it." (Alternatively, how it should have been instead of how it was in Thor3.) [Well after Thor2.] Rec: PAIN. LOTS OF IT. Contains some smut | 8.7k | Complete

Symbiosis: Part I by SteeleHoltingOn: Jane and Thor have to decide if they can make their relationship work. She’s a scientist. He’s a prince. It’s the ultimate of long-distance relationships. It seems that Odin isn’t (wasn’t?) the only Asgardian who is unhappy with Thor’s fascination with Jane. Rec: An amazing look at Thor and Jane post-Dark World building their relationship, as well as all the pitfalls and heartache that comes with that. This author really plunges their hands into the nitty gritty problems with Jane and Thor, their cultural differences, their age/lifespan difference, and so on, yet it is still clear how much they love each other and their determination to make it work. | Contains some smut, but nothing very explicit | 92.5k | Complete

Symbiosis: Part II by SteeleHoltingOn: Loki ascends the throne of Jotunheim. He might have been lonely, but for the little hitchhiker in his head. Thor and Jane have their hands full with their daughter, Val, and the demands of Asgard and the Nine Realms. Rec: A lot of Loki, but also copious amounts of married Fosterson. As someone who isn’t always Loki’s biggest fan, especially when it comes to fan portrayals, I can say that this one is very true to canon and is an incredibly interesting read, and is balanced well with Jane and Thor-ness. The political drama is done very well. The plot planning seems meticulous and is absolutely admirable. I still have the same praise for it as its predecessor. | Contains some smut | 41.4k | Complete

Terrestrial Constellations by NightOwl360: For Jane and Darcy bringing Thor back to Earth is only the beginning of the adventure. Relationships are never easy, the past is always just a step behind, and sometimes the people we know best have the biggest secrets. Rec: Great characterization of Jane and Thor, and fabulous buildup until they meet again. Packed with not just fluff, some inevitable angst, as well as an intriguing storyline. Only downside: I’m pretty sure it’s been abandoned, and on a hell of a cliff hanger. | 78k | In progress, possibly abandoned

The Poetic Edda (was almost entirely wrong) by PhoenixVictoria: In Which: Thor is from a warrior culture (and Jane Foster understands); Loki is badass (but also kind of a puppy); Thor grows a pair and fixes his mistakes (and is a good brother); Loki is a slut (and is a good brother when he has no knives); Darcy Lewis is The Geek Whisperer (which really turns Loki on); And the Odinsons have no idea how to act in front of the media (and wouldn’t care if they did.) Rec: Almost entirely for Thor. He is so well-written in this. Loki and Thor fixing the damage they’ve done, and Jane being a great person. I love this so far (it is a WIP). Later chapters make Tasertricks a thing, so a heads up if you’re not into that ship. | Contains some smut, graphic imagery of torturing/punishment | 81k | In progress, possibly abandoned

One and the Same Thing by MissChrisDaae: Jane Foster is born to the bloodline of the Alchemysts, and the first woman to be inducted into the order. After the murder of her mentor, Jane becomes the first Alchemyst to mix the study of alchemy with that of magic, trying to enhance the art and find a way to avenge him. This is seen as bastardizing the craft, and she is cast out of the order, still working her craft as she wanders the realm. Forbidden from using the title of Alchemyst, Jane instead calls herself Ástkona Óþekktur, a Mistress of the Unknown. On her travels, she picks up an apprentice in Darcy Lewis and the two women meet another very unusual pair: the crown prince, Thor, and his foster brother, Loki, on the run from Amora, the sorceress who murdered Thor’s father and usurped the throne, the same woman who killed Jane’s teacher. Finding common ground, the four agree to join forces in taking down the Enchantress. Even if Jane won’t admit it, she finds herself drawn to the older prince, and Thor seems to be returning her affections, much to the annoyance of Loki, who sees the Ástkona Óþekktur as an unneeded distraction from what matters. If they win the war, there may still be something left to lose. Rec: You can see by the description that this is way AU. Incredibly imaginative, with a good characterization of Jane. | 33k | Complete

The Salt Skin by hariboo: One day Sif walks to the edge of the Bifrost to see compelled to see where Loki had fallen. At the same time Jane is testing a way to open the Bifrost. By accident Sif falls to Earth, what happens after she never would have expected, and then she finds Loki. Post-film. Rec: I can’t believe I haven’t recced this yet. A long, Sif-centric fic that is respectful to fosterson is hard to find, but this one hits all my must haves. Jane and Thor are beautiful idiots, and the outside view of their relationship is great. Very well-written. Loki/Sif is also very prominently featured. | 44.4k | Complete

Off The Grid by Shawn30: As stated by Phil Coulson in 'Agents of Shield’ episode 1-15, "Thor is currently off the grid.” So the question is, where are Thor, Jane, Darcy, and Eric post 'The Dark World’? Rec: This person was one of my FAVORITE fic authors of all time because of their Star Wars fics, and then THEY WRITE A FOSTERSON STORY. I was over the damn moon. There’s a unique take of all the characters, and there’s promise of really great things coming from this story. This fic would be a wise investment. Only problem is that sometimes their fics have very slow updates. Contains some smut | 15k | In progress, possibly abandoned

Lost in a World Full of Terrors by psychollama: Inspired by typhoidcandy - “After Darcy attempts to perform one of Loki’s spells, things go awry and she’s sent to another universe. In this medieval-like universe, Loki is King, Thor is banished and living in the forests, and Jane is an arrow wielding rebel. Can Darcy make it home before the real Loki finds out what she did? Or before medieval Loki captures her and either kills her or makes her his slave?” Rec: A different take on a medieval AU. The first and only chapter is very fosterson-centric, and sets up the action nicely. Jane and Thor are handled very well in the different context. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been updated since 2013, so I fear it has been abandoned. |4.4k | In progress, possibly abandoned

Stop All The Clocks series by Della19: Rec: NOT fosterson centric. This series is, I think, the first thing I read on AO3, and I was blown away. This person has constructed a great world around Supersoldier!Peggy Carter, and I rec the whole series, as the world and the characters are all vibrant and well-rounded. The stories, while connected, can easily be read as standalones. The fosterson, when it’s a larger focus, is absolutely lovely. | 49k | In progress

Rain Upon the Ashes by me: Medieval Fantasy AU. An ancient evil threatens Yggdrasil. An illegitimate heir sits upon the throne of Asgard, and an unknown menace seeks to destroy the Royal Family. Thor Odinson, true heir to the throne and banished years before, emerges as one of the leaders of the Rebellion, further endangering his family. Known publicly only as the Raven, Jane Foster, once a high-born Lady of Midgard, finds herself fighting a war when she once only desired to see the stars. Rec: Because it wouldn’t be a true reclist without a self-plug. | 33k | In progress, slow updates because it’s me and I’m garbage

Rated E (these will contain the smuts unless otherwise noted)

The Secret of Mind and Memory by capitainpistol: Jane and Thor wake up to an empty Asgard and zero memory of their pasts or each other. PWP. Rec: The Amesiacs Who Are Instinctually Drawn to Each Other AU that I never knew I needed in my life. I can’t wait to see how it ends. | 2k | In progress

Love in a Time of Tentacles (or How We Hired Out Our Sex Parts To Tentacle Monsters in Exchange for Remaining in Space) by Rozilla: Jane and Thor’s ship is left drifting in space and the only option is to take up the offer of a Bio-Engineering corporation to submit their bodies to science. Science in this case being mostly tentacles. It’s a good thing Jane’s into this sort of thing. Rec: I hope you’re into wild space porn because that is exactly what this is. Woop woop. Mind the warnings. | 13.2k | Complete

Edging Towards the Light by Shawn30: Thor and Jane navigate the treacherous relationship waters of ambition, duty, passion, and love. Rec: SMUT WITH PLOT YUM. A unique but plausible take on Fosterson. | 30k | In progress

Play Along Prisoner by Rozilla: You’re so used to being not listened to, put down, doubted and generally made to feel worthless when you work twice as hard as everyone else, sometimes you need a hobby like this one. Especially when you have such a willing participant. Rec: AU, Domme!Jane and Sub!Thor. Mmmmyes. Mind the warnings. | 15.3k | In progress

For The Days Inbetween by Simple.White.Lie: Heroes are seldom allowed happiness, and far too often Duty comes before Love. That only means he must fight even harder for that which he desires. Rec: While it isn’t always the prime example of great writing, this fic is still very good. It is a long multichapter which features gratuitous smut (hurrah!) while still maintaining good plot. Jane and Thor’s ups and downs as a couple are well written, and if you’re a sucker for married Fosterson, check this one out. | 79k | Complete

On the Outside by Simple.White.Lie: The King and Queen of Asgard are not prepared for the dish Fate has served for them. To be tossed out like a ship in the wind is more than their hearts can take. Their love is something to fight for.. Isn’t it? Rec: Sequel to For The Days Inbetween (recced above). Both stories feature a very strong Jane, which is a big plus. Again, while the writing isn’t always stellar, it is a worthwhile read. | 33k | Complete

Thor Pwns Walmart by charis2770: Jane and Thor have found a way to be together at last. It’s all she could have wished for, and then some. But it’s playing heck on her worldly possessions! Jane takes Thor shopping at Wal Mart so she can replace all the things which have been torn or broken during their reunion. And buy more pop tarts. This turns out to be an adventure. And hotter than you might think. Rec: Okay, holy high heavens this story is well done. The author does BDSM amazingly, and I recommend their other stories, too. Mind the warnings. Also, if BDSM isn’t your thing, I still recommend the bits in between the smut because it is hilarious and perfect. | 35k | Complete

Stealing Away by charis2770: This is what happens when the Black Widow puts herself in charge of planning a weekend getaway for four friends, three of whom happen to be Super Heroes, and one of whom has an unfortunate tendency to be a little hard on Midgardian buildings. Rec: a continuation of Thor Pwns Walmart, and also features a good deal of BDSM Clint/Natasha. This author remains a good example of how to properly write good BDSM. Mind the warnings. Also, if BDSM isn’t your thing, I still recommend the bits in between the smut because it is hilarious and perfect. | 30.4k | Complete

Lily reads Star Wars: Red Harvest, part six

In which EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE (and no, I do not exaggerate). Eat your heart out--oh, wait, sorry, eat someone else’s heart out. My bad.

(If you’re just joining me, check out the “Red Harvest” tag on my blog for previous posts)

We left off with Darth Scabrous waiting for Zo in the library. There's the obligatory villain monologue with some much-needed backstory.

“This library,” he said, “is the oldest part of the academy, older even than the tower itself. It was constructed over a thousand years ago by a Sith Lord named Darth Drear. He founded the academy, back when the planet itself was young. The ancient writings tell about how he used his first students as laborers. For hundreds of years, the Masters at the academy believed that a good many of those students died down in these very chambers, using the Force to move hundreds of tons of snow and ice and dig out these corridors and chambers to house Drear’s vast collection of … specimens. It was thought that Drear worked the students until they died from exhaustion.”

Blah blah blah Sith holocron blah blah blah eternal life. The usual stuff.

“Before he died, Darth Drear wrote of the final stage of the process—the step that he himself was never able to achieve. He dispatched his sentries to a nearby planet to abduct a Jedi and bring him to the secret temple underneath the library. After ingesting the elixir, in the final hours before his body gave in completely, under exactly the right circumstances and conditions, Drear planned to use a ceremonial Sith sword to cut open the Jedi’s chest while he was still alive, and eat his heart. Only then, with that final infusion of midi-cholorians still warm from the Jedi’s blood, would the decay process be held back—granting the Sith Lord his ultimate immortality.”

I TOLD YOU THEY WENT THERE.

The plant!zombies show up again - turns out they weren't really dead! They carry Zo down to the Secret Sith Basement at Scabrous's command, where the sacrifice is to take place. But don’t worry, not!Qui-gon is in hot pursuit! The tree librarian grabs not!Qui-Gon and dangles him in the air. I am LIVING for this. “No need for your weapon here,” the voice said. “Not in this place of learning. We are both learned beings, are we not? Enlightened and informed by the written word. No need for the encumbrances of physical violence.” It uttered another bulky, dusty chuckle. “Look upon me, if you like. Seek my face.”

There's a bunch of book avalanches. not!Qui-Gon  goes into the tree!Librarian's head at his own urging and sees his memories

It was the librarian’s name, Trace realized, his patronymic, and somehow he knew that on his home planet it meant “lover of knowledge,” a perfect choice for—

HOW DID HE END UP ON A SITH PLANET AS THE SITH LIBRARIAN IF HE WASN'T ACTUALLY EVIL?? Sadly, we don't get answers.

Also, more relevant to the plot, not!Qui-Gon sees the secret Sith basement being built and gets caught up on all the backstory that Scabrous already revealed. Then everything catches on fire and not!Qui-Gon uses the Force to retrieve his lightsaber and create an air bubble to ward off the flames.

He looked at the lightsaber, laboring to evacuate every other thought from his mind. At the Jedi Temple, they had taught that it was never a matter of manipulating the object, but of eliminating the space that separated you from it. Yet at this moment, the object in question had never felt so far away....

The timing of what happened next was critical. Deactivating the bubble, he opened his hand, and the lightsaber flew into it. Its handle was almost too hot to hold, but the solidity of it had never felt better in his life.

I like this attention to detail in my Star Wars.

Not!Qui-gon gets pulled down to the basement via plant zombies for the final showdown as the library burns around him.Good-bye, Tree Librarian -- you may have been evil at the end, or perhaps this whole time, but you were fucking rad.

The mechanic is still alive and in hiding. He gets lured out by Kindra's pleading, only to reveal it was a trap by the zombies and she's a prisoner. The zombies rip her to pieces but the mechanic gets away. I’m so mad because even though I knew it was a trap, and I knew she was going to die, I hoped she got a more badass ending. Sigh.

Meanwhile, the bounty hunter and the newly liberated HK droid discover the zombies are hiding INSIDE the Tauntauns, a la Aliens and it's gross, and now we have zombie tauntauns, too. Turns out the HK droid hates the Sith too! But the bounty hunter got sprayed with tauntaun spit so now he's infected. Good thing droids can't get this... right?

Scabrous tries to kill Zo but not!Qui-gon makes a dramatic entrance and stops him. Not!Qui-gon gets murdered while Zo watches in horror and... I guess he really has more in common with Qui-Gon than I initially thought!

Scabrous transforms into his final form, but the orchid wakes up just in time, and Zo tells it to grow while she starts going to town on the Scabrous and slaughters him with his own sword. It doesn't take, so she switches to her brother's lightsaber, which does better, since it actually cauterizes.

She climbs out of the pit after Scabrous is dead, only to find the rest of the zombie horde waiting for her. The bounty hunter and droid rescue her, but they're attacked by the academy's perimeter cannons, so everthing gets worse fast. The droid jumps out and turns to the lasers on the tower, destroying everything - including the orchid if it's still alive? I'm a little fuzzy on the details here. Fortunately, the mechanic is flying the plane and he's okay.

Zo goes into the trophy room, only to find that the bounty hunter is now a zombie, but he locks himself in a cage before he turns and tells Zo to send him out the airlock, which she does--along with the entire grisly contents of the room, and a last zombie stowaway. FINAL GIRL VICTORY.

Zo returns to Jedi Greenhouse Planet, traumatized but alive. Turns out the guy who we thought was dead in the bounty hunter attack at the beginning of the book is actually alive, so that's good. There's a new orchid waiting for her:

You were with my seed-brother, the orchid said, arching toward her. Is that true?

Yes, I was, she told it, and thought about the voice of the first orchid, the one that she still heard in her mind. I still am, in a way. He saved my life.

Really?

Bennis smiled again, the indulgent smile of a proud parent, and gave the orchid a small pat.

D'awwww. Wait, so the original orchid isn’t really dead? She can still hear him even though it’s gone and they’re separated? Did I miss something in the tumult of the finale?? Or is Zo being metaphorical here?

Also, I’m so curious how the Jedi just... got another orchid so quickly. In our world, orchids can be clonally propagated in HUGE batches, so the AgriCorps could potentially be churning these things out at a massive rate. This raises WAY more world-building questions that this book is NOT going to answer, and it frustrates me, but I doubt the author knows much about actual orchids, so... *shrugs*

But cuteness aside, Zo decides she'd rather study on the Jedi Temple at Coruscant (the mechanic will take her) because she has too much PTSD. Also, this means that if anybody else tries to kidnap the new orchid, they won’t get Zo! I don’t know why the Jedi are even raising these orchids, given that they’re in demand on the Sith black market. Didn’t Zo explain they were the critical ingredient for an awful zombie plague?? DID NOBODY LEARN FROM THIS EXPERIENCE??

This is supposed to be a happy/hopeful ending, and it kinda is, but Zo apparently doesn’t know / the author forgot that the Jedi Temple was destroyed when Corsucant got sacked eight years earlier (as Trace tells us in his introductory scene)... which means she's walking into ANOTHER haunted temple nightmare and doesn't realize it yet. We'll call it.. Red Harvest II: Coruscant Nights, or maybe just Blue Harvest. How about that??

Frode would be waiting for her with the ship, ready to take her back to Coruscant, and whatever might be waiting for her there. The mechanic would be good traveling company, she sensed—there was a low-key air about him that bespoke dozens of untold stories, events that had made up his life and taken him to the unlikely destination of Odacer-Faustin. She felt herself already beginning to trust him.

Wow, I was not expecting this dude to survive, but okay. Also, he got tagged in the beginning as kinda greedy (scuttling the engines of the other bounty hunters to sell) and kinda lazy/stupid/opportunistic/desperate (for ending up as the mechanic for Sith Hogwarts in the first place). But okay, whatever, I guess.

And the moral:

The future was scary, but you couldn’t avoid it, anymore than you could outrun the past.

OR  A MASSIVE ZOMBIE HORDE, AM I RIGHT??

Wow, that was a trip.

I feel like this was better than I had any right to expect from the premise, but still felt like a B-grade horror movie. I like the tantalizing hints of what world-building we do get, and I think this novel is excellent fodder for future horror/Halloween fics. Otherwise, I’d skip this unless you are a “must read everything in Legends” purist, enjoy Sith shit, enjoy watching Sith die in horrific ways, and/or a diehard plant nerd like me.

RANDOM TRIVIA: Wookiepeedia says the first draft had a character named  "Middish Sunblade, modeled after Holden Caulfield, but Sunblade was removed from the rewrite because he was whiny and nobody could stand him," which is just too true and too funny for words. Also, an actually-in-character Holden Caulfield expy would last approximately 30 seconds at Sith Hogwarts before being stabbed... I’m just saying.

Gonna take a page out of the other anon's book and ask you to do all the harry potter questions...

so this took forever, but i’ve finally finished them all (and of course pasting them fucked up the formatting fml) Amortentia: Talk about 3 things you love. 

- I love languages, I love being able to see into someone’s soul by talking the language of their heart. I love the different sides of my identity that emerge with different languages, how you can only see fragments of my whole soul without comprehension of each language that forms a part of my heart.

- I love the LGBT community, love feeling free and whole and myself. I love seeing people realise who they are and seeing unabashed, queer love in the face of a world that does not want us. I love seeing that we are stronger together and that no one can take our identities away, no matter how much they try. I love seeing boys fall in love with boys and girls fall for girls for the first time. 

- I love the pure, unadulterated joy of learning, of education and finding out something new. The feeling of discovery and the sensation of having accomplished something when you understand a new concept is incomparable.

Ageing Potion: imagine yourself 50-60 years from now. how would you like a typical day to go? where do you see yourself? 

In fifty years, my body would be my own, covered in marks from misadventure and splashes of colourful memories. At 61, my kids would be grown up and moved out, my house would be filled with a different kind of sound, with puppies and bunnies and any other pets that fit. I hope I’d have a man to share this life with, we spend our weekends baking and devising obstacle courses for the pets to fall over, getting calls from our kids on how to be an adult (as if we’ve figured that out, even at our age). My sisters still haven’t let go of the habit of calling me a kid, and I try to see them when I can. The seasons change, the leaves fall, and I spend them all, content.

Alihotsy Draught: name and write about a few topics you’re really passionate about. 

Oh god we already did things I love though

Lets go specific instead and say fictional characters/ships

Drarry - The lion and the snake clash together, fire and ice raging a passionate war against each other, until they manage to blend their voices into one harmony. 

Wolfstar - the dog and the wolf, the moon and the star. Something poetic about their love. Sure, they’ve pushed against it, shouted angry words and slammed doors, but through it all, they gravitate back to each other. 

Ballum - by all accounts they shouldn’t work. A criminal and an aspiring cop, they’re a recipe for disaster, doomed to fail. But no-one, not even them, thought that they would become their own priority, above parental expectations, above the world they grew up in. they hold on tight, breathe each other in, relish in their found family. 

Antidote to Veritaserum: what is the biggest/most memorable lie you’ve told? 

I genuinely can’t think of one at all?? Oh lol not a lie but lie by omission i guess?? The fact that my gran still thinks i’m cishet lolll

Babbling Beverage: what kind of person are you when you’re drunk/hyped up on caffeine? 

I’m so fucking affectionate and talkative, i wanna cuddle everyone and I will absolutely tell you my opinions on/feelings about people. I’m a drunk disaster, but a fun drunk disaster. I also find a lot of things funny when drunk, and buy lots of presents for people.

Barufflo’s Brain Elixir: if you could master one skill instantly, what would it be? 

Right now the goddamn Russian language so my degree would be easier lol. I’d love to be able to whistle actually, or draw. 

Bloodroot Potion: describe a time you felt heartbroken. 

Well we’re gonna stick with creative writing so: I had a dream about us, both in matching suits. We were dancing at sunset, holding each other close as the songs played on. I woke up happy and content, and then I remembered that you weren’t mine anymore. You’re dancing with someone else while I sit, sobbing in my bed, longing for what should have been our future. I went through my room, finding every little thing that belonged to you, and put them to one side, in case you ever wanted them back. Holding on to the hope of one last conversation I guess. I miss you, and I hate you. And I love you. It hurts so much, like my heart stayed with you and I won’t last long without it.

Bruise removal paste: after you were heartbroken, what healed you?

The first time, it was love from family and friends and eventually falling in love again. And time. Now, i don’t know what’s gonna finish healing me, but love from other people and the promise that I’m worth more has done a lot to get me there.

Burn healing paste: are you cautious or are you impulsive? 

Both I think? I think I could do with being a lil more spontaneous though.

Calming Draught: what do you do on a rainy day?

I like to sit with a cup of tea or coffee, legs under a blanket, watching TV or writing or reading.

Caxambu: Style

I don’t think I have a recognisable style that can be described as anything other than gay. 

Borborygmus Potion: what’s your favorite food?

Right now I could really go for roast dinner tbh.  Confusing Concoction: What do you struggle most with? 

Prioritising myself and believing in my own worth. Cough Potion: What do you do to get better when you’re sick? 

I sleep a lot, and I like to eat chicken soup and have lots of warm drinks. Cure for Boils: Write about three pet peeves. 

People NOT WEARING HEADPHONES Hypocrisy Not respecting personal space Death potion: If you were told you were going to die in 24 hours, what would you do? 

Depends if I knew the cause of death/if i was infectious or not. If I wasn’t infectious I’d visit as many friends and family as possible, and probably get drunk. Deflating draught: Would you call yourself arrogant/modest? 

I like to think I’m modest but then again I don’t think that’s a super modest thought. Developing Solution: What’s the best photo you’ve taken? Which one’s your favorite? 

I took a nice one of my uni room, and some good ones at pride. Dogbreath Potion: What superpower would you have and why? 

Shapeshifting because my god would that make being trans more bearable. Doxycide: are you more clean or messy? 

Messy, but I do like to clean sometimes. Dr. Ubbly’s Oblivious Unction: are you critical of yourself? if you are, how do you want to work on it? 

Yes I am, and I try to work on it by talking to myself as I would to a friend or my puppy. Draught of Living Death: How would you like your funeral to go?

I’d like it to be a reflection of me, but equally I’d want it to be good for the people I’m leaving behind - I’d like Bye Bye Darling to be one of the songs though. Draught of Peace: What relaxes you? 

Watching familiar TV, listening to dodie, Maisie Peters, Orla Gartland, the puppy sleeping on me, hugs from friends. Drink of Despair: What’s your biggest regret? 

Not breaking up with my exes sooner, it would’ve been so much less painful and better all round. Drowsiness Draught: What’s your bedtime routine? 

So after my sister and dad go to bed, I stay down with the pup, take her out to the loo, and then sit on the sofa with her sleeping for a bit. Then I put her to bed and tidy a bit, I go up to my room and get into pjs, brush my teeth and wash my face, I put on my dim fairy lights and put on a chill playlist, then sleep.  Elixir of life: Would you rather live five ok/mediocre years or one incredible year? 

I think it kinda depends, like it its five mediocre years where each day is mediocre, then definitely one incredible year. Elixir to Induce Euphoria: What makes you feel alive? 

Dancing, love, running with the pup. Essence of Dittany: what’s the worst scar you currently have?

I scar quite easily, but they also fade quite well - at the moment I have one on my elbow from catching it on chicken wire. Exploding Potion: Do you like fireworks?

Yeah! They’re super pretty - I prefer the ones without a bang though. Fatiguing Infusion: Describe a recent/memorable dream.  

I had a dream about being physically back at uni, it wasn’t super eventful but it was really calming and nostalgic. Felix Felicis: Do you believe in luck?

I guess?? Flesh-Eating Slug Repellent: How do you keep bad thoughts away? 

Antidepressants lol. No but if I’m anxious I’ll write out everything I’m stressed about to get it out of my head. If I’m depressed I try to distract myself. Forgetfulness Potion: What is your favorite memory?

Maybe my first time getting drunk, it was the cast afterparty for my favourite show and it was so fun being able to chill with all my friends and being treated like an adult. (Plus it was fucking hilarious watching everyone come to the set strike the next day where most people were hungover as all hell)

My first gay night out was also pretty memorable, if only for the amount I drank lol. Fungiface Potion: What’s the greatest prank you’ve pulled? 

Legitimately don’t know if I ever have pulled one? At school we once turned our whole classroom backwards, and at uni my friends and I spent about two years putting any spam mail we got into our friends pigeonhole after he proudly told us how empty he always kept it. That was fun. Gregory’s Unctuous Unction: Describe your best friend(s).

Okay we’re gonna go for 3 people (all of whom have featured in poems of mine) - I started off writing about 5 and then got bored (and also vaguely embarrassed about calling people best friends) so we’re going down to three I’m also gonna make it vague ish So the first is a friend I’ve known for ten years and we’ve been equal parts immature and grown up throughout those ten years - last time I saw her we went to a inflatable park and then to spoons. She’s funny and sweet and chaotic and a lot shorter than I think (she used to be a head taller than me but hasn’t grown since we met, so even though we’re the same height neither of us quite believes it). She’s talented and reliable and So very committed to being a good friend (she drove to pick my ex and I up from a festival so she could meet him and took a 3-4 hour train to come celebrate my 21st). The second is possibly the first friend I made at uni because we bonded over being terrified of going to Russia and now we communicate almost solely through animal crossing. I love her, she’s hilarious, about as much of a mess as I am and an incredibly sweet person. She’s the first person I text in a crisis because she knows the exact right balance of taking the piss and actually helping and is always available to talk in foreign when I need to forget about the people I’m with or avoid an ex lol. The third is one of my favourite people at uni, he’s super supportive and understanding but also the best fucking person for a night out or a laugh. I used to think he was intimidating but honestly he’s just so sweet and has always made me feel welcome in my new year groups and always makes sure I have someone to pre with. Hair-Raising Potion: What scares you?

Fucking clowns man. Also not living life to the fullest, I’m really trying to put myself first nowadays and make sure I’m not staying in bad situations out of anxiety. It’s definitely helped me feel better about myself and have more energy to think about other people as well. Hate potion: If you had to name your worst trait, what would it be? 

Either stubbornness or being too self-sacrificing. It’s not a good combo tbh. Herbicide Potion: do you have a green thumb? 

I have owned (1) plant and I think I killed it so no. I am absolutely terrified every time my dad asks me to water the garden because I feel like I can only over or under water. Hiccoughing Solution: what’s the funniest thing that’s happened to you? 

Funny situations involving me tend to end in injury, maybe when I fell over the tennis net that didn’t even come up to my knees and got stuck in it?  Or when I fell over skiing and couldn’t get up because I’d done a roly poly which ended up with my skis trapped under my back.  Invigoration Draught: how do you wake up in the mornings? 

Lately my sister brings the puppy up to wake me up which is nice. Invisibility Potion: What would you do if you were invisible for a day? 

Ooh that’s a good question, I think I’d probably take a bunch of photos of me holding stuff and probably scare the shit out of my family. Jawbind Potion: Are you talkative? What do you like to talk about? 

Yes, very. I like talking about anything and everything, I love finding stuff out about people, which is part of the reason I do so many of these things. Laugh-Inducing Potion: Tell a funny story.

I am not a very funny person. I don’t have many funny stories!! When I was younger and my mum would get milkshakes and stuff, we were only allowed a glass each (I have 3 siblings) so that we each got the same amount and my sister was being sneaky, tried to drink from the carton to cheat the rule, ended up drinking mouldy milk. Karma. Mandrake Restorative Draught: How long can you stand still? 

Probably quite a while, I’ve never thought about it to be honest. Manegro Potion: How do you like to cut your hair? I cut mine myself, I usually leave the top a few inches long, and the back and sides are usually tapered from a 3 to a 1. Mopsus Potion: What do you want to be doing 5 years from now? 

Hopefully be working in translation or LGBT activism, living with a flatmate or partner. I’d like to have had top surgery and be acting or stage managing again and playing tennis and maybe football again. Muffling Draught: Favorite genre of music? 

Idk, indie pop maybe? Or alternative? Oculus Potion: would you rather see the distant past or the distant future?

Distant future. Pepperup Potion: what makes you feel alive?

Sport, playing with the puppy, talking to friends. Polyjuice Potion: If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I would remove my chest lol.  Quodpot Solution: What’s your opinion on sports (are you a fan of any specific teams/sport)?

Tennis is my favourite sport, I also like football, judo, rounders, swimming, sailing and skiing. Rat Tonic: Do you have any pets? 

Yes! I have a tiny bunny called Teddy, two chickens called Miss Sussex and Babs and a boxer puppy called Pickle. Shrinking Solution: How tall are you? Do you like your height (why/why not)?  

I honestly don’t know, I think I’m 5’ 3” ish?? After 5’ I just kinda stopped paying attention. I’d like to be taller because it would help me pass better, but I also kind of like my limbs the way they are?? Like additional muscle from T is already making tennis weird to adjust to so I don’t wanna make that worse tbh. Skele-Gro: What helps you feel better? 

Hugs, alcohol, chocolate, familiar TV, reading my favourite books. Sleakeazy’s Hair Potion: Describe yourself in 6 words or less.

Queer, loud, chatty, empathetic, caring, stubborn. Veritaserum: What is one truth you’ve wanted to get off your chest? 

I wish I had broken up with my exes sooner/not got together with the last one at all. We weren’t a good fit and I like to think we’d still be friends otherwise. Volubilis Potion: Can you/do you like to sing? 

I love to sing, I’m decent but struggling to adjust to my voice drop tbh. Wide eye Potion: What time do you usually go to bed? 

12/1am, depends on when I take the dog out. Wolfsbane: What’s the biggest change you’ve experienced in the past year? Going on testosterone!

hey idk if your still doing the writing prompt thing, but can you do one for bellarke?

Hey anon! Sorry for getting to this late, I’ve been doing a ton of schoolwork recently. I’ve been obsessed with the 100 and bellarke for a couple years now, so this was a nice change of pace from my normal content. Hope you enjoy, and I will be sending my therapist bills to you ;)

In the end, even stars must eventually die.

Clarke had been organizing the newly elected leaders of Sanctum and instructing them on the responsibilities of their roles. Raven was revamping the radiation shield surrounding the sanctuary and manufacturing more mobile stations to eventually expand it as the population grew. Murphy and Emori were somewhere in the Prime’s compound making that same population grow, while Indra, Octavia, and Diyoza were instructing Sanctum’s Wonkru-infused guard in hand-to-hand combat to further their skills. Gabriel, Niylah, and Jackson attempted to establish a larger hospital amongst the buildings of the sanctuary, while Gaia had taken it upon herself to create a history of the settled moon for posterity. Madi and Hope (reluctantly) were finally taking part in normal activities like school, while Bellamy, Echo, Miller, Jordan, and a dozen of Sanctum’s residents combed the nearby woods for supplies and isolated Children of Gabriel cells.

After Wonkru’s slow integration with Sanctum’s citizens and the downfall of the Primes, Clarke was beginning to imagine for the first time that they might finally be ready for peace. Russell Lightbourne had been exiled by demand of the people, realizing that a slow and sure death was a fitting punishment for one who had been running from it for so long. Octavia’s disappearance into the temporal anomaly along with Diyoza and her daughter’s reappearance had been enough of a headache for Clarke, who was now dealing with rebuilding a once-functioning society. The elected leaders, though they meant well, were very new to their positions and needed careful guidance. If left to their own devices, Clarke was almost certain Sanctum would starve or be embroiled in another war by the year’s end.

With an involuntary huff of frustration, she plopped down on the chair that headed the large table and rubbed her temples slowly. One of them, a native to Sanctum, droned on about the seasons on the moon and the traditions that came with the first harvest of the year, most of which had been centered on the Primes. In her mind, Clarke’s thoughts drifted outward beyond the meeting hall towards the woods, where Bellamy was undoubtedly trekking with the scouting party. A small smile flitted across her lips as she imagined him enduring Jordan’s growing love of corny jokes, which he had learned from book discovered in Sanctum. In her mind, she could almost picture both Bellamy and Miller rolling their eyes at the end of each punchline.

In the intervening months since the collapse of the temporal anomaly, Bellamy and Echo had slowly drifted apart. There was no big fight, no public declaration, but it soon became apparent to everyone that they had decided to call it quits. Both Echo and Bellamy separately told Clarke that they had just realized they were too different, their outlooks on the world too disparate. Despite their split, both remained friends and continued to build the sanctuary alongside Clarke and the others. Despite herself and the friendship she shared with both Bellamy and Echo, Clarke had felt a surge of hope when she pieced it together. Inwardly, she chastised herself over these feelings, that a relationship that appeared to make Bellamy happy had failed, but she could not help it. Sometime over the past several years, she had fallen in love with Bellamy Blake.  

While she could not point to a single moment that caused it, Clarke remembered vividly how she came to the realization. It was over a year into her isolation with Madi on Earth, when they had just gotten done with a fishing excursion. Like a ritual, Clarke had retreated to the rover and was beginning to set up the equipment to initiate her daily radio call towards the Ring. Madi had followed her to the rover and began watching her with a curious expression.

“Clarke,” She asked in Trig. “Why do you still do that?”

“Do what?” Came the muffled reply as she leaned forward to grab a particularly uncooperative cable.

Madi eyed her efforts with slight exasperation. “Call him. You said it’ll be a few more years before the ground is livable for everyone, and he hasn’t responded to any of your calls so far.”

Clarke paused before answering. Though she had assured Madi otherwise, there remained a possibility that Bellamy and the others had not been able to make it to the Ring. Or worse, that they did exist up there and were never able to come back down. The thought of never seeing Bellamy again haunted her nightmares. Oh, no. “I have to hope that h-they can hear me.” She responded finally, earning an raised eyebrow from the small girl. “It’s important to have hope. Besides,” She added teasingly. “If I don’t give them directions, they’ll completely miss us and I’ll be stuck alone with you forever.” Madi rolled her eyes and began walking back towards the camp.

“Whatever,” She called over her shoulder. “Say hi to Bellamy for me.”

Clarke’s heart lurched, the realization hitting her like a ton of bricks. It wasn’t the group she was desperately trying to reach, not entirely. Though she missed them terribly, it was Bellamy that she tried to contact each day. The thought of hearing his voice on the other end had been the only thing that staved off the nightmares, the image of him suddenly appearing enough to quell the despair she had gathered in her heart. Reaching back in her memories, it had always been Bellamy that she reached for when the situation turned sour, whenever they needed to face some great threat, it was always his hand that she grasped tightly like a lifeline. Through all the trials and heartaches, he had remained a constant in her life since their arrival on the ground.  Now that he was gone, Clarke was desperately trying to keep him alive in whatever was she could.

She loved him. Damn it, she thought. Love was a weakness. In the distance, Madi was cursing in Trig as the fish she was holding slipped from her grasp and landed on the ground. A small smile spread across Clarke’s face as she beheld the tiny warrior, who was angrily dusting off the fish with a rag. Warmth filled her heart and with it, the knowledge that she would fight to the death to defend Madi from whatever danger the future might hold. The strength her feelings caused Clarke to think again of Bellamy and the love she now realized coursed through her veins. Perhaps love was not weakness after all, she thought distantly.

Clarke’s memories shifted to the months following the fall of the Primes. With Bellamy and Echo no longer together, the former had begun spending most of his free time around Clarke. It wasn’t until Madi and Octavia separately pointed it out that she realized that he may feel the same way about her that she did for him. That revelation, Clarke remembered, had nearly knocked her off her feet. After all the things she had done, after everything that had happened to both of them, she still found it hard to accept when good things happened. The thought of Bellamy actually loving her back was reminiscent of the daydreams she used to have during her time with Madi.

Despite her knowledge of his supposed feelings and their near constant proximity, the two of them had been dancing around each other for the past several weeks. It was that sweet, sweet tension before one of them decided to take the final leap and openly state their feelings. Though they had already waited so long, Clarke could not deny the appeal of the buildup. Her thoughts constantly strayed towards him, her heart pounded furiously inside her chest whenever he was in the room, and he filled her every dream. She nearly kissed him yesterday when they had been sitting outside the compound watching the sunrise, seeing how the light caught his eyes and the way he seemed to instinctively lean into its warmth. It was maddening. Beautifully maddening.

Clarke was ripped out of her memory by a question fielded to her by one of the elected leaders, causing a flash of irritation. As she gave her answer, a sudden drop in her stomach preceded a loud alarm blaring across Sanctum. After years of constant fighting and danger, Clarke and the others had developed almost a sixth sense for when trouble was around the corner. While she ushered the leaders out of the room and rushed to see what the problem was, her heart began to clench in a way that told her everything was not right. Something was wrong.

She saw him before they managed to tell her.

A motionless figure was being carried by the remaining scouting party, covered in what appeared to be Bellamy’s coat. Looking around, Clarke could not see the coat’s owner, scouring the small crowd that had gathered around the returning group. Worry turned to panic as her breaths began coming out in short rasps, eyes still scanning the crowd. Octavia was there, so was Echo and Miller. Jordan was being carted away by two of the scouting party, looking slightly bloody and bound for some reason. Where was Bellamy?

Octavia walked slowly over to her, looking like someone had hollowed out her body and taken away her spirit. Tear-streaked cheeks lifted and bloodshot eyes found Clarke’s. A dull feeling appeared in the back of her head, her neck soon stiffening in panic to appear frozen as Octavia took a breath.

“Clarke,” She rasped, her voice sounding hoarse. Like she had been yelling. “Clarke, something happened.” The look on her face and the flat tone in her voice sent chills down Clarke’s spine.

Realization it her. No. “Octavia?” Her voice trembled, as her vision became blurry.

It had happened so fast.

Unknown to them, the influence of the Primes still ran deep in Sanctum. As part of the Adjustment Protocol, several members of the Sanctum populace had been indoctrinated to be loyal to the Primes. Quietly, over the past several weeks, they conspired to assassinate the new leadership and seek out the exiled Russell Lightbourne. The scouting mission had been suggested by one of the agents as a ruse to kill Bellamy, Octavia, Echo, and Miller. Jordan, it seemed, had been forcibly converted to their philosophy during his time recovering from his stab wound. Without warning, the loyalists turned on them once they had gone far enough from Sanctum, intending to kill them quickly and quietly.

Only the honed instincts of the group saved them, having sensed the movements of their would-be assassins only milliseconds beforehand. While Miller fought a crazed Jordan, trying to calm him down, Bellamy, Echo, and Octavia engaged the remaining party. In the chaos, one of the loyalists had thrown a knife at Miller. Without hesitating, Bellamy had jumped in front of the knife, hitting him squarely in the chest. This enraged the others, who quickly finished off their attackers and subdued a stunned Jordan, who seemed despondent after Bellamy’s actions. Octavia numbly told Clarke how she was with him as he died, having only a few precious seconds before the light left his eyes forever. The last words on his lips had been her name. That was too much for Clarke, who blinked back tears and shook her head furiously, refusing to believe this was all real.

He couldn’t be gone. Not now. Not when they were finally seeing what peace looked like.

Her throat constricted and she couldn’t speak. Her heart felt like it was being forced apart by hand, each half held by icy cold fingers. Wordlessly stepping away from Octavia, who still appeared to be numb, Clarke desperately made her way through the crowd towards where she guessed the body had been taken. Before long, she found herself standing in the hastily constructed medical wing, with both Jackson and Niylah looking at her worriedly. In front of her laid the long covered body of Bellamy Blake.

With shaking hands, Clarke removed the coat that covered his face and fell to her knees at the sight of his lifeless face. A strangled sob escaped her lips as she beheld him, the expression on his face strangely blank without the worries and burdens that she normally saw on it. One of her hands found the front of his shirt while the other came to rest on his cheek. Tears streamed down her face as she let out a wail, the sound of her heart breaking into a million pieces. She never got to tell him. Never got to tell him how much she loved him or live the life that she had finally dared to imagine with him. As Jackson and Niylah slowly left her alone with what remained of Bellamy, Clarke felt the despair that she had kept at bay all these years start to creep back into her heart. All was lost, and now she was alone. Alone against the growing darkness.

Madi found her hours later, still clinging to Bellamy with white-knuckled hands. Her bloodshot eyes staring blankly at his face, as if the sheer power of her gaze could somehow bring him back. A small hand carefully covered the one she had gripping Bellamy’s shirt. Clarke did not look at her, never taking her eyes off the face that would never smile again for her. Another one found Clarke’s shoulder, bigger and with more weight. Octavia had walked in and sat down beside her. Despite herself, Clarke found her gaze pulled toward the younger Blake sibling. A stab of pain flashed in her chest. The only Blake left.

While Octavia’s eyes were no longer red with grief, the expression behind them was reminiscent of how she appeared after Lincoln’s death. But she had grown, had faced her demons and defeated them, and now she looked at Clarke who seemed to be empty inside.

“I know that look.” She said carefully. “You can’t give up, Clarke. Not now.” Madi’s hand squeezed tighter as if to punctuate her Octavia’s words.

Clarke looked back at Bellamy, fresh tears streaming down the familiar paths on her face. “He’s g-gone.” She choked, her voice shaking. “Gone, Octavia. And I n-never…“ She couldn’t finish her sentence, but both Madi and Octavia understood.

“He knew, Clarke.” It was Madi that spoke this time, her voice cutting across the air like a bell. “He knew. We all did.” This statement did not comfort her, it only reminded her of all the wasted years.

“Look at me.” Madi’s voice rang again, its tone causing Clarke to meet her eyes. “It’s important to have hope,” She reminded her. Those words stomped on whatever remained of her heart, echoing in the chamber it used to reside in.

“He wouldn’t want you to give up.” Octavia added, forcefully this time. Almost enough that Clarke believed her.

In the end, all stars eventually die. Even the brightest, most extraordinary light in the sky must one day fade away. And all that will remain is the dark promise of an empty night, forever stretching beyond the world towards the infinite horizon.

Hi! you said you only like particular types of Kylux, do you have any stories to recommend? How do you feel about gingerpilot, hux/rose (hose?) and hux/cardinal?

It’s actually been a few years since I shipped kylux. My absolute ultimate Star Wars OTP that has consumed 50% of my waking thoughts has been gallirae, which is such a teensy Imperial rarepair. Even with it being so teensy, just myself and some friends, I haven’t run out of ways to explore it. There’s so much untapped potential. I’ve shipped it for longer than I shipped kylux. Rae Sloane in particular succeeds at being the villainous archetype that a lot of people including myself had to work to transform Hux into. An ambitious, talented, career officer and underdog with reasons to passionately defend the system and other reasons to doubt or resent it. 

Back when I was more kylux-exclusive, once I got into the idea of creating my own content, I was very fixated on that and found other fic to be somewhat distracting. Also lately my attention span when it comes to reading fanfic has drastically improved. (Going back on ADHD meds has... been part of it). So back in the day, I noticed plenty of cool stories, including stuff friends of mine wrote, but struggled to read it. My impression of fandom was more the stuff that wound up on my tumblr dash. Plus I did a ton of RP. There’s probably a lot of really good kylux fic out there that I never got around to reading, also a lot of good kylux fic I read but forgot. I didn’t keep good records on AO3. I just now checked my bookmarks list for you and the kylux fics on there? I do not remember anything about them and I really did read them ages ago. I don’t even have enough links to fics my old fandom friends wrote. I really just wasn’t much of a content curator. 

I think my ideal kylux (The Fic I Never Truly Wrote) would be something with a truly sci-fi, fantasy, or paranormal plot. Something besides romance is going on, danger and intrigue especially coming from extraordinary sources. There’s a whole chunk of worldbuilding, intrigue, suspense or danger. Kind of action-adventure buddy-dramedy-ish (I said kylux isn’t like ineffable husbands in personality but that doesn’t mean they can’t be thrown into slightly alike plot circumstances).

That being said. There’s one kylux fic I still remember liking AND remembered enough identifying info to find it again on AO3 (there’s a couple of others that I just... FUCK... I can’t remember the author or fic name even though a lot of other stuff is really clear in my mind. Sorry. I was depressed and disorganized for the past few years). I’m not saying this one’s the best of everything I’ve read, or exactly what I might have been looking for. But I remember it. It’s quite old by sequel trilogy fandom standards. Also if it turns out to have been right about Palpatine possession being the endgame thing, that will be neat as heck.

Saint by @ofcorsetstrash​ lol I think I’ve told them once before that this is inexplicably one of my favorite fics (not that it’s inexplicable because it’s not good but that I read it very early on and it remained memorable with how huge the fandom got) it just resonated with me maybe I really liked the way it represented mental conversations with use of text formatting, that’s something I did in one of my first fanfics and it’s a very cool and vivid technique.

Also there’s these fics my best friend Mads @honeypothux wrote a while back: 

Seasons Greetings From the Solo-Organas -- a holiday comedy with a cool background element of a modern AU with Star Wars infused history (I’m a sucker for modern settings that are like what medieval fantasy is to medieval Europe -- very similar normal everyday life, very different geopolitics and history. It has the same intrigue for me as magic realism.) 

When the Crypt Door Creaks -- sadly unfinished but it’s young adult Kylo and Hux in a haunted Disney ride adventure. The Haunted Mansion itself. A lot of cool ideas, reminds me a teeny bit of a Henry Selick animated film. 

And the ones of mine I like:

Flashburn -- very very weird context for this one, fandom got obsessed with tentacle rape for a brief while and I found it squicky and started a fic to work through that squick by taking the idea seriously, but it’s not at all explicit, it’s about as implicit as you can get without actual ambiguity. Rated T but check the warnings. It’s more about Kylo and Hux discovering ways to not hate each other. 

Our Wicked Home -- maybe my favorite kylux fic I’ve written. Senator Hux returns to the abandoned Arkanis Academy as part of a truth and reconciliation, alongside his Jedi bodyguard Ben Solo. Hux doesn’t have a bad relationship with his family in this (and his parents were happily married), and it’s hard for him to cope with having nostalgia for a place where there was so much suffering.

Memory of Snow -- quiet alpine angst post-canon with hermit Kylo finding outcast Hux has tracked him down 

Moving on: 

How I feel about gingerpilot? Never really felt like my thing. 

Hux/Rose? I have never seen it called Hose that’s hilarious omfg. I didn’t passionately love it at first but my pal @tobermoriansass got me into it. I definitely don’t ship it in all possible configurations. Not as a cutesy sort of ship, definitely. Something raw and rotten and intense. I have a half-finished Hux/Rose fic that I wrote for a fic exchange. Still feel guilty about not completing it. But I kind of gave myself a writing injury trying to finish it, pushed myself too hard. I’ll come back to it when I’m ready. 

If you want a smut rec here’s a wild ride of a Finn/Rose/Hux weird alien psychic bond threesome 

Hux/Cardinal? I haven’t read Phasma yet, just had other people tell me about it. I’d kind of like to ship them as brothers. This is mostly because I don’t like canon Brendol Hux having no complexity in his relationship to his son. I think he was once an interesting character who could have been even more interesting and who can’t be interesting when he’s too repulsive to linger on for long. So having Cardinal and Armitage develop a strong brotherly bond adds to a complicated family backstory. Deep down I want to do a Fullmetal Alchemist AU for them where Cardinal is the disembodied suit of armor brother to Armitage the shrimpy irascible genius, though they’re far less heroic than the Elrics. 

Ummmmmm

I think that’s about it except that one major reason why I don’t read kylux is that I’m absolutely obsessed with my OC of his mom and I so vastly prefer the universe where she exists because she’s like a weird overpowered feral ocean witch. If only canon had invented her instead of me. 

OH ALSO I FORGOT THANK YOU FOR THE QUESTION ANON YOURE VERY LOVELY HOPE YOU ENJOY THE FICS I JUST GOT SO FOCUSED ON ANSWERING I FORGOT I WAS VERY HAPPY TO GET YOUR ASK LOL

For posterity; Grand Summoners X KLK Collaboration Limited Time Side Story

Spoilers ahead for Kill La Kill itself, the Side story in GS, and shockingly Kill La Kill: If. An overview of a story only available for a limited time.

It may be surprising to many, if not practically all fans of the show, that Kill la Kill: if was not the first video game story to star a certain pair of scissor crossed sisters (that I might care too much about and will continue to obsess over any and all content for, which led me to downloading a gacha game and grinding for days to level them and their equipment for no other reason than it was them.), and a handful of their closest compatriots/equipment options. Kill La Kill was featured in a (relatively) short crossover story in Good Smile’s mobile game “Grand Summoners”. In it you could (eventually when the event was rerun and all content was put out on the NA version) spend Gems/”alchemy stones” to “summon” Ryuko, Satsuki, and Mako as units. Senketsu, Junketsu, Guts, Mako’s two star fight club uniform, Mako’s brass knuckle, Ryuko’s scissor blade, Bakuzan, Mako’s fight club baseball bat, and the completed Rending Scissors (titled “The Snippity Snips” for some as yet unknown, but probably awful, reasons) as support “Equips” that can be carried by any unit with compatible sized/typed slots. Sukuyo Mankanshoku’s croquettes also featured as a consumable item that dropped as mission loot for minor stat buffs if consumed by your four unit squad before any mission. (Equipment refresh 2% faster, base skill refresh 2% faster).

While the stats themselves are interesting as they provide direct numerical valuation of everything listed above in terms of what they can do Offensively, Defensively, etc the story itself is the focus of this post. Because it turns out that out of everybody that knew about it nobody else cared enough to preserve it in whole. (And as I have learned from experience, if you like something save it. Before you wake up one morning and find 1/3 of it has been deleted off the face of the earth) And it could only be accessed for a limited time before it was removed, and again basically nobody seems to either know or care that it actually had more than just pixelated cameos at all. (KLK game marketing tho, for real. Twice now.)

So I present a record for the Library, Grand summoners X KLK, a “too long, I can’t read it anymore anyway, so tell me what happened”; I got you.

(”Stickers” were given for log in streaks that you can post as the only form of communication in multiplayer modes/lobbys.)

The story opens with two of the GS main characters, Rayas and his possible love interest(?, that is at times vague) Mira, out hunting a monster that purportedly had a vitality so high it was unkillable. Upon finally finding the thing the monster hunters as a group had corralled into a forest they are interrupted by a flash of white light. That drops Ryuko, Satsuki, and Mako in full combat readiness between them and the monster.

(Lower right stickers are Rayas and Mira. Our characters on this wild ride.) 

Confusion ensues all around.

The monster runs off to escape, but not before Senketsu (and Satsuki somehow) could "feel” the monster was empowered by Life Fibers. Ryuko blames Satsuki and becomes suspicious of her involvement because of their presence there. (Ryuko constantly tries to pick up the fight they, per Mako, had been having before they got dragged in. What fight? No idea. Fight club Mako is there, but the post fight club Ryuko and Satsuki are not. Except Ryuko can be upgraded to full Kisaragi. How? No idea.) Satsuki refutes being responsible. She also talks down to everyone. (For reasons somewhat unknown.) In KLK fashion the conversations that follow dip into the absurd. Satsuki's text font is so large at times her lines broke the speech box (though this seems to have been fixed in the cutscenes that can be downloaded today as record provided for beating it while the event was on), before going off in search of answers/on the hunt. Ryuko insults the kinda gary-stu mc by calling him “a geezer” (He claims to only be 25 in shocked response), demands he not gawk at her by minding his own business, and ran off after Satsuki. Mako follows Ryuko to keep from being left behind.

Leaving the GS MCs to give confused ellipses laden speech not sure what just happened, and this continues throughout the story.

(Interesting line from them though, the girls officially have 0 magic in full Kamui. So life fibers confirmed as entirely nature/science/organic based/origin? If this story has any weight.)

Also apparently Satsuki is so in tune with/knowledgeable of Fibers she can sense them. Or maybe Junketsu could. It isn’t specified how Satsuki is picking up what Senketsu is without being able to hear him. The “Life Fiber resonance” as it is called guides them either way. The chase leads deep into a forest/jungle full of dense vegetation (which in the missions slows them down leading to loads of fights against mobs of fiber altered orcs, monsters, and human bandits that get stronger the further they go. All controlled by life fibers.)

Ryuko doesn't know what the word vegetation means.

Mako took a nap as they waited for the GS MCs to catch up so they could get some answers as to where they were, and what they could be facing, after Satsuki points out they are not on Earth.

Between remarks during the missions themselves and in the cutscenes the cast attempts to figure what the Fibers are doing when they link up again. They figure life fibers can't break space or time (when weak, or not an OLF, as we learn in KLK: if) so no teleporting or time travel without magic at that time. So chase is deemed possible, but “so long as a single cell of a randomly infused organism exists the whole can regenerate” leading to more grueling fights the deeper they go toward the “source”. Over the same missions Ryuko butts heads with Mira, pointing to a dislike of tsunderes, as she hates when people are not upfront with her. Cast notes that they have similar voices as they argue eventually, but over time they find common ground to drop hostilities after the discussion.

When they reach the big monster again the GS MCs offer to fight it first, they are obliged. Ryuko actually wants to fight Kaiju though to the point she is actively looking forward to fighting giant monsters. Mako from the beginning thinks “Monster Land” is a theme park as she roots everyone on (she is a support character with buffs/healing equipment). Satsuki wishes to see how “magic” works, and if its effective. During the missions leading up to and including the boss fight Ryuko is confronted on if she would do “what it takes” as things ramp up in seriousness, to which she confirms that she has no issues killing targets to win if necessary. As you go through missions which involve mowing humanoids down by the dozen.

(Did not expect that, but given her life it's reasonable to expect that no Kiryuins have truly clean hands. I don’t suspect she has actually killed anyone before. Though that might not be for lack of trying, or simply lack of caring for opponents after any particularly nasty beat downs that may or may not have been shown to us when she reached high school in flashback.)

The first main boss (of two) is a giant quadrupedal demon like monster (”Betelgeuse” model in game colored differently) with spines on its body, altered seemingly loosely based on Senketsu. They share Yellow Orange “eyes”, some shapes, majority body coloration, and it possesses red clawed feet/hands/spines. Guarded by three dire wolves. (battle oddly enough took place in a desert canyon map, not forest as the cutscenes show they should have been in. Probably just a copy paste of the boss's regular arena.)

Once it is weakened/dropped Ryuko uses Sen'i Sōshitsu, but Senketsu fails to absorb the life fibers in it. The cast notes they see strings beyond the edge of the screen (which we can’t) and corpse though, which (likely) led from it to the true final boss that appears from there shortly afterword.

The final boss was a giant green bipedal monster with a vertical mouth that splits its face, which is based on a bright red boss in the main story (Beta-3), which was artificially created by one of the in game story factions through magi-tech. So one of those surviving living war machines likely got picked by Life fibers as a host in this new world they found themselves. It was powered by “Magically enhanced Life fibers” of some sort. (The battle itself was particularly difficult because the character's “top” ability, “Arts”, are powered by a substance called “Battle Ether” that is generated while in combat by using base moves. In this battle there was a substantial decrees in Battle ether production, likely trying to mimic the monster absorbing all free energy around it. Both Bio, or magically.)

This was also another boss fight that took place in an arena that shouldn't be there as it was inside a lab like structure full of green circuit looking lines over all the surfaces. Again likely because that was the “original” boss's arena. Once it is defeated it drops to the forest floor and reverts into a pile of fibers like the OLF in the show when its core got cut, just red instead of orange.

Mira and Ryuko have a moment ribbing “Ms. President”. Rayas just wants to know what is going on. (He won’t really understand it all.)

Satsuki can somehow read/anticipate people's wills, and life fibers exhibit a will through “vibrations in their strings” (Banshi vibrate? Wut.). She reads the vibrations by stabbing her sword down into the mass and holding the hilt.

Satsuki proclaims the life fibers were made to “fix seams” and somehow activates the monster's magic-infused life-fiber corpse to repair a hole in space and time itself. The monster was figured to be what likely dragged them all there in the first place through that hole to provide fibers from their Kamui it wanted. The hole in reality is propped open until they all passed through back to their own world where it is fixed permanently. After which the GS characters proclaim them immensely brave for literally running into a hole in reality without any hesitation.

Thus ended the Side Story.

Not sure who who wrote the script so its hard to tell how much of their given words are “true to cannon”. But it was credited as involving Nakashima who was directly on hand to make the first long explanation promo video on the JP YT channel. Who honestly knows at this point. But time wise it must have been made during production of KLK: if, which leads back to some very interesting consistent points.

Per KLK if: Life Fibers can in fact fuck with space, time, and reality itself. Though this is a power Satsuki was unaware of, (consistent with GS side story) even if she was the catalyst for initiating it in IF’s case through Junketsu's link to the OLF. Junketsu being Ragyo’s original “final” Kamui this was likely a function Ragyo prepared for her life after Earth. It would explain why she was so willing to give up the planet and everyone on it instead of seeking to rule it at least, she could literally just create her own reality and be its true god. Per how KLK: if ends by dumping “existences/minds” back to true reality at different times through the flashes of white light, with only the faintest of memories in the strongest of minds involved, they also very likely explained how this GS story can both feature fight club Mako and not change official “canon”. Or at least I thought it couldn't, before If once again set down that Life Fibers are the most powerful force in existence basically making up the “fabric of reality” itself on a whim.

Is the GS story retroactively canon if IF is canon?

Did Nakashima use the GS story as a test bed for KLK:IF ideas he had in the works?

Will we see more reality hopping for even more spin off stories?

Can these two finally have a happy reality as a couple?

:Shrug:

If you want to see all almost 30 minutes of prerendered cutscenes that remains for yourself in all their limited animation, and honestly somewhat questionably translated/proofread, glory I recorded them and threw that here: https://youtu.be/s3FneXNL8eQ

(Apologies for any sounds on top of the game’s already exceptionally loud music. I have never recorded from android before, I have no idea how to mute mics in the Google games app thing, and it picked up some air con being funky near the middle for a sec.)

Peaky Match #247: Freddie Thorne, Alfie Solomons, Esme Shelby

This is a result from the Who’s Your Peaky Match? quiz. The content is under a read more to prevent spoilers for those who haven’t taken the quiz yet.

Give And Take

You have a wonderful and mutually supportive relationship with your partner. Together, you and your partner are building something that you think will last and grow in a healthy way, setting boundaries and helping each other through rough times in life. You’re not afraid of asking for what you need or getting your partner’s help with some part of your own business, whether it’s to do with crime, politics, or family. Trust and communication are ultimately the cornerstones of your relationship, and that’s why you two have been able to last for so long, despite all the drama in Birmingham.

Family First

To you, nothing is more important than the group of people that are closest to you. Since this is the 1920s, that’s probably your family, but in some circumstances, this could be your found family, your group of friends, or your community. You cherish the shared traditions, memories, and inside jokes that you have with the people you love, and you fight really hard to keep them all safe and happy.

Examples: Polly Gray, Luca Changretta

Paper & Brain

Your greatest strengths are your ability to strategize and your analytical mind. While others may question your decisions, you are playing a long game and you’ll see it to the end. Your skills may show themselves in business, academia, or even the arts; ultimately, your talents are not confined to one specific job. If you don’t already have a good education, you make sure to get yourself one, because you want to have as many mental tools at your disposal as possible. Nobody wants to play chess with you, but everyone feels a little safer if you’re on their side.

Freddie Thorne

(post-WWI AU)

Over the course of the war, you set up a massive network of loosely connected leftists, to hide conscientious objectors, communists, and the like from London police. Your near-eidetic memory and fierce personal honor towards your friends are sometimes the only things holding the network together, and this inspires fierce loyalty from your friends, enmity from the Met, and awe, apparently, from Freddie Thorne. At first, you’re suspicious of the Peaky associate, but after a while, you’re so charmed by his rakish charm, nimble mind, and genuine goodwill that you acquiesce to a long courtship.

Unexpected Bonus: You’re not the only one who can play the long game. On your first official date, Freddie brings you a used copy of Coriolanus that he picked up at a secondhand shop. Though it’s not your favorite Shakespeare play, you’re taken with the little actor’s notes in the margins, and Freddie brings you books every now and then. The morning after your first kiss, the time after he disappears for a few days, evading the police, the conclusion of a successful strike. When you finally start stacking books on the floor, he casually suggests that you two move in together, for the sake of better shelf space. You give him a look and he breaks out into a smile that destroys any possibility of the book pileup being a coincidence.

Alfie Solomons

(post s2 AU)

You have an absurdly prodigious talent for fucking about with numbers, more than one powerful corporate titan on your tail as a result, and a family to protect. Alfie Solomons has a rapidly expanding territory in need of a cash infusion, a “meh” approach to the law, and plenty of security forces at his disposal. It’s a great business deal on paper, but in person it’s even better; the both of you start flirting with such shamelessness that Ollie actually blushes and tries to manufacture a reason to leave the room. There’s just something completely infectious about Alfie’s shit-eating grin.

Unexpected Bonus: Alfie doesn’t do normal dates. They’re all at one end or the other of the spectrum of wild dates: either ridiculous with some element of business, violence, or deception involved, or lazy and domestic and private. Exhibit A: Alfie pretending to be a Gentile to get into a private poker game, getting endless tips from you (you’re counting cards, obviously), and making half a dozen offhanded comments to the various lords there that could certainly be taken as insults if thought about in the right light. Exhibit B: Alfie frying up eggs for breakfast-as-dinner, not bothering to put on pants, then flopping down on the bed afterwards and arguing with you over the finer points of Sun Tzu till he falls asleep.  

Esme Shelby

(pre-s1 AU)

When the owners of the Black Patch try to evict the Romani community there, Esme recruits you to defend her and her family. As a hotshot lawyer, this definitely isn’t your first eviction case, but it’s the first case you’ve had in a long time that makes you really care, the money aside, the victory aside, about whether or not you lose. Maybe that’s because you’re so drawn to Esme, her fiery confidence, the precision of her most vicious speeches, the intensity of her loyalty. When you win the case, she asks you to dinner with you then and there.

Unexpected Bonus: You warn Esme you have no experience with horses, but she’s adamant that if you’re gonna be together, you need to know how to ride at least a little. Somehow, this turns into a whole trip to the French countryside, borrowing a couple mares from her second cousin, and getting completely lost. Turns out she can navigate by the stars, and she takes good care of you. It’s maybe one of the most terrifying things you’ve ever done, basically putting your life in her hands, but so worth it. You tell her this on the last night, curled up by the fire, holding her, and she tells you that she trusts you, too.

To read more imagines like this, feel free to peruse the masterlist.

If you enjoyed this quiz/these imagines, I’d love it if you could send an ask, leave a comment, or reblog. I’m curious to see if you thought your matches suited you!

I’m also especially curious about what you did and didn’t like about this quiz. I’m very open to feedback. I plan on writing another quiz once season 5 is done which will match you with a season 5 character, so I’m looking to improve here.

I did this meme for Adelie on a whim and to link to her Refsheet page. There is hints towards spoilers for "The Moonlit Path" but none for "A Glimpse Beyond the Illusion."

There is some content warning of general malice and mentions of murder.

Elite Adelie

Basic stats:

Name: Elite Adelie

Gender/Pronouns: Agender she/her

Height: 8 ft with crown

Species: Other-Merged Hirudian Elite

Domain: The Firmament

Sexuality: Undefined

Romance: Undefined

Birthday: Dec. 12

Age: 260

Occupation: She is the Hirudian Elite that oversees all efforts outside of the sphere of Hirud and Light's Landing. Her wing of the military goes off-world to other planets to reap their resources. Her civilian forces mine the asteroid belts and guard them heavily. With her lab nestled in space rock, she is close enough to oversee the extraction processes. However, there is a large facility of hangars on Hirud that is incorporated into her domain. She occupies her time mostly with her experiments with the Other, sapient alien species, and her Liberated.

Weapons: Like all other Elites: innate control of the parasite in nearly every form. This includes her own, the metal plates that form the shell of her body can be molded into weapons she can control tele-empathically. She can, and does, use the Liberated parasite to force Liberated to fight for her- even if they don't want to.

Personality: Aloof, haughty, fickle. Adelie is the highest rank within the Great Hirudian Empire and she knows it. All other beings are below her, beasts or ooze. Adelie likes total control and will do whatever is needed to gain it (even ally with another Elite). Even her experiments are Liberated. She "loves" her experiments, like a person does with pets. This includes her Warlord Gresham. She has raised him from a kit. She indulged his worst impulses and encouraged him to follow through with them. She rewards him for his malice- in a way, she finds it cute.

OC Question Meme

1. How easy is it to make them angry? Do they show their anger or hide it? Extremely easy. Adelie likes everything to be exact to her mysterious specifications and she becomes irritated by anything that does not meet those specifications. Due to the immobility of her face and lack of vocal voice, it is difficult to see or hear her emotions, but it is easy to feel them due to her tele-empathy. She may kill you or take over your Liberation to do her bidding regardless. (In the case of Gresham, she loans him out to other Elites as she knows that is what hurts him most).

2. Do they believe in soulmates? Maybe she did, before becoming an Elite and essentially immortal. Her understanding of companionship has been twisted by her access to extreme power and merging with the Parasite. It has made her manipulative and view others as pawns, beasts, or ooze. Other influence has further twisted her view of the world causing her to lose touch with feelings. The closest thing she feels to “love” is akin to a human’s love for pets, including all the horrible aspects that crops up (breeding for specific traits for aesthetics/the hell of it to the detriment of the being’s health). Gresham is the perfect example of this.

3. Do they have any pet peeves? Disobedience. Disorderliness. Chaos. Anything that is outside of her expectations. While she is familiar with the drawbacks of many of her monsters (such as drool or blood in unsightly places), she prefers sterility. For Gresham, she just holds his jaw shut in her presence. Most others are stored in appropriately sized glass terrariums or aquariums for observation.

4. Do they have a happy place? Somewhere to go to in their heads when they need to relax? Adelie probably does not feel happiness in the same way a mortal could. Such a long life and access to such power and information leaves Elites numb to most emotions. She passively watches her newest experiments when she needs a distraction. She does this by passively accessing the Hirudian collective conscious to access the Parasite’s hivemind (not HiveMind) to watch through janitorial swarms.

5. At what stage of their life were they the happiest? Probably right before Ascension. The process requires being entirely in tune with one’s parasite and exerting one’s will beyond the parasite’s needs. It requires a lot of stubbornness and ambition—typically one ascends when they are at their most powerful, confident, and sure of themselves and thus, typically at their happiest.

6. At what stage of their life were they the least happy? Probably around when she realized that she required the starlight to live initially. Prior to infection, Hirudians are your typical organic-based organism, they don’t naturally require sunlight to function. It is a common frustration when becoming speakers to learn how to be purely diurnal and not require assistance with getting home before the star sets. It is a typical time of mourning of their lives that they have “lost” in the dawning of the new life they face (like many great shifts in life). Perhaps this is what spurred Adelie to become the Star Shunner? It is much easier to protect oneself from the light, than it is to require it.

7. At a bar/tavern/pub are they more likely to buy someone a drink, or have someone buy them a drink?

Adelie is more likely to buy someone else a drink. She cannot drink anymore and lacks a mouth. As for interplanetary negotiations, an expensive drink and hospitality goes a long way. Despite Adelie’s beliefs of her superiority, she knows you catch far, far, far more flies with honey. Or champagne.

8. Have they ever broken any bones? If yes, how?

Ascension is a bloody violent process where the mechanical form tears through the flesh then crushes the organic body under its metal weight. Deep in Adelie’s core, her organic body remains, crushed and unrecognizable by every means. Yet, it is still alive. It will still live long after her “ending” as well.

9. Do they have any memories/experiences they would rather forget? Not really. She does have the ability to remove harmful memories as needed. Also, her long life has numbed her to most of her memories and feelings.

10. What is their favourite memory from their childhood? Her long life has numbed her to most of her memories and feelings.

11. Do they have a “type” they are usually attracted to? Bestial, mutated, and as changed from their natural form as possible. She tends to pick larger specimens, breeding them into a much larger form if needed (usually artificially except for Vactyr).

12. Do they have any favourite possessions? Probably Gresham. He is her show pony, a prime example of her skill in bioengineering and in raising a horribly loyal war machine. He is a monstrous titan that is wrapped around the smallest finger of her smallest hand; he is utterly under her control under his own will—Liberation is just a cherry on top.

13. Do they have any tattoos? If no, would they ever consider getting one? At her present form, she is incapable of receiving tattoos. Not that she would want one anyways.

14. Do they have any piercings? If no, would they ever consider getting one? At her present form, she is incapable of having a piercing. Not that she would want one anyways.

15. What is their dream house like? They already live in it. An isolated asteroid containing all her active experiments and a handful of personal servants to assist her.

16. What is something about them that people would not expect just by looking at them? She is a lot more reactive emotionally than she looks, and her mind is a lot more active than she seems. Adelie is focused on her experiments far away while also handling matters requiring her attention.

17. How good are they at choosing gifts for others? In terms of impressing a potential business partner, she is exceptionally good at selecting things to do and give that feel extravagant and luxurious. However, for those she “cares” about, the gifts are not quite gifts. She will only give something that will benefit her. For instance, she rewards Gresham with the opportunity to torture others to his content for being a good Warlord.

18. Do they have a certain skill that they are particularly proud of? She can survive in the dark, unlike the rest of the infected Hirudians. She can somewhat controlthe Other, as much as one can at least. Her military wing is also running tightly and without direct need of her control; much unlike the crust, which is a mess and is out of control. (Adelie and Argiope have some tension between them)

19. How would a stranger they just met describe them? Intimidating, ethereal, alien. Interacting with an Elite is much like interacting with a biblical angel. Only, they are okay with you being afraid.

20. How would a close friend they have known for a long time describe them? Stuck up, aloof, perfectionist, a bitch, etc. The other Elites do not like her, but honestly, the Elites do not like each other overall.

21. Do they have any personal insecurities? Not really. She is comfortable in the fact that her minions will not revolt and issues in the home world do not bother her much at all.

22. What is their highest physical stat? (Strength, stamina, defense, speed, etc.) and their highest non-physical stat? (Intelligence, perception, charisma, luck, etc.)? Physical: Stamina. She is a machine infused with the mysteries of the universe- there is not anything that could stop her if she really wanted something. Non-physical: intelligence.

23. How would they react to finding out someone lied to them, even if it were for their own safety/well-being? She would get the truth out of you. Lying shows too much free will and that will not do.

24. Do they prefer cold weather or warm weather? Adelie does not really mind any temperature but keeps her lab cold.

25. How easy is it for them to say, “I love you”? Easy, too easy. It is as sincere as an abusive pet parent saying I love you to their pet though.

26. How easy is it for them to tell someone about their worries? Others would be able to feel her worries around her, there would not be really any question of what is bothering her. Adelie probably talks to herself in her lab.

27. Have they ever witnessed someone die? She has killed people in unique and messed up ways. So yes.

28. Are they ticklish? No.

29. How high/low is their pain tolerance? Exceedingly high. She is a machine at this point.

30. Is there something they secretly wish they could do but are too afraid to? Probably take a vacation. Adelie is a bit of an introvert and the Hirudian collective consciousness is probably low-key torture.

31. Are they a messy eater or a neat eater? Adelie is currently incapable of eating like an organic being. Mysteries of how Elites consume resources has not been determined yet, but Adelie is probably neat with the process.

32. What moment of their life made them feel most unloved? As she is so detached from every other being, Adelie probably does not feel very loved as is. Everything around her is either working against her or is a servant of hers. Not that she cares.

33. What moment of their made them feel most loved? If she paid attention, it would be in how Gresham adores her and cares for her. But she does not care.

34. Which of the senses would they hate to lose the most: vision, hearing, smell, taste, or touch? I have good authority to say that she will probably hate it when she loses pretty much everything.

35. Are they good at small talk? Adelie does not engage in small talk; she will steer such conversations back to important matters.

36. If they could ask anyone one question and get the absolute truth, who and what would they ask? She would ask the “powers that be” if her trust in the Other will betray her someday.

37. If they had the chance, would they prefer to travel to the past or to the future? If she knew what is in her future, she would go into the past.

38. Who had the biggest impact in their life, both positive and negative?

A mix of the parasite and the Other. She became an Elite due to the parasite and became more powerful through merging with the Other.

39. Would they rather life a life always surrounded by people, or always alone? Always alone.

40. Is there anyone or anything that immediately instills fear in them? There is a moment in the story she feels terror for the first time since she became an Elite—It’s when Gresham chooses to stay with her.

Paper Mario: The Origami King folds the usual RPG tropes into knots

Enlarge / The origami theme adds quite a bit of physical depth to Paper Mario‘s beautiful vast environments.

Of all the spin-offs Mario has starred in over the years, the Paper Mario games (and the related Mario & Luigi series) most ably expanded the character past his basic platforming roots. The familiar characters, locations, and items are still there in Paper Mario titles, but they’re supplemented by completely new settings and situations that often wouldn’t feel out of place in a traditional Japanese RPG. And even the familiar Mario characters get new life in these games, revealing rich interior lives and characterizations that the simple save-the-princess-again plots can’t hope to match.

Paper Mario: The Origami King continues this tradition, telling a cheesy-but-engaging, family-friendly story with verve and charm. But it messes with the series’ usual RPG trappings so much that it’s still finding its footing even as the final credits roll. As a complete package, Origami King often feels like a mishmash of original ideas—some good, some mediocre—which never quite come together as more than the sum of their parts.

Into the fold

As often happens in Mario’s RPG titles, King Bowser has been pushed (and folded) aside in favor of a more interesting antagonist for Origami King. This time around, that antagonist is Olly, a floating, folded being imbued with the usual ill-defined, plot-moving magical powers. Olly gives off some not-so-subtle racial supremacist vibes in loudly announcing his desire to transform the flat paper denizens of Paper Mario‘s kingdom into thicker, folded origami versions of themselves. And if those folded versions become zombie-like automata beholden to Olly’s will, it’s all the better for his new world order.

Olly starts things off by transforming Princess Peach into an extremely off-putting origami-fied version of herself, then tops himself by wrapping her castle in a series of colorful streamers and lifting it away to the top of a volcano. He also goes about converting many of Bowser’s minions into zombie-origami folded soldiers, leaving the remaining flat-paper versions of Bowser’s minions happy to help Mario in an enemy-of-my-enemy kind of alliance. With the help of Olivia, Olly’s non-monomaniacal origami sister, the crew has to trace all those streamers to their source and convert them to confetti to free Peach and the Kingdom.

It’s not exactly Shakespeare, but the family-friendly, magic-infused plotting hums along with the requisite number of twists and red herrings. The quest takes you through the usual settings (desert, ice, water, forest), each filled to the brim with highly animated and talkative characters—though their motivations tend to be as paper-thin as their appearances. What seems like a straightforward task in each area inevitably expands into a telescoping series of required subquests; each presents a barrier to the final streamer-busting goal, and each is more ridiculous than the last.

Bowser is folded into a harmless sandwich board early in the proceedings.

I love what you’ve done with the place. Is that new wallpaper?

You’ll be using these fun origami-arms to uncover all manner of hidden secrets—but only in preset “Magic Circle” locations.

Get used to this scene. You will be seeing these kinds of enemy-shifting puzzles a lot.

Olivia can gain new powers to fold into powerful vellumental shapes. But she’s extremely limited in when and where she can use them.

The writing is pretty sharp, mixing light character growth with a healthy heaping of hijinks (and some genuine laugh-out-loud meta moments for adults). The game even squeezes in its fair share of lightly affecting character moments focused on the power of personal sacrifice. (Saying more would spoil too much). What Origami King lacks in depth and complexity, it makes up for in joyful silliness.

Round and round

Even for a series that’s always been content to ignore many RPG gameplay tropes, Origami King is not a traditional RPG. This comes through clearly in the game’s battle system, which is more about spatial-relation puzzles than the usual turn-based affair.

Origami King‘s battles all take place on a segmented circle, cut into radial and lateral slices like a Star Wars chess board. Mario stands on the hub in the center for the vast majority of these battles, while enemies arrange themselves around the “squares” on the round board.

Before each turn starts, Mario has the opportunity to move those enemies about, either by rotating one of the board’s circular sections around the central axis or by shifting a slice laterally. The goal of these moves is to line enemies up either in nice straight lines (for successive jumping) or 2×2 blocks (for easy bashing with a hammer). If you can get everything neat and tidy, you get a 50 percent attack-damage multiplier, which is often the difference between an easy one-turn fight and a drawn-out back-and-forth battle.

Even spatially challenged players could probably eventually shuffle their way through most of these arrangements. But Origami King adds additional challenge by introducing a short time limit and a finite number of moves for each puzzle. This turns what could have been a relaxing and intriguing puzzle game in its own right into a stress-inducing, white-knuckle fight to decipher visual chaos under strict conditions.

The game does throw players a few bones: it gives you the option to spend earned coins on extra time and/or one free rearrangement move (and Origami King always throws you plenty of extra coins to make these hints accessible). But it’s hard not to feel like a failure when leaning on these crutches. And while the enemy-shifting puzzles start out simple, by the end I was spending multiple minutes at a time staring at cluttered boards before giving up and going for the hint.

After a while, rather than trying to kill every last enemy, I found myself relatively eager to avoid as many of these battles as I could. That’s partly because the rotational puzzles started to get annoying. But it’s also because the game doesn’t really offer enough reward to make the hassle worth it.

Origami King‘s boss battles do mix things up by placing a powerful foe at the center of the rotational board and Mario on the outer ring. Here, Mario has to arrange arrows and power-boosting attack icons on the board in order to position himself perfectly to do damage to the boss.

These fights are by far the most engaging and clever in the game, each with its own twist that requires new tactics to get through the boss’ unique and evolving defenses. I wouldn’t have minded a bit if the traditional battles looked more like these varied and improvisation-filled boss fights.

For a game made almost completely out of folded paper, Origami King has some breathtaking scenes.

Don’t be scared, Kamek is here to help this time around.

One of a seemingly endless array of mini-game that Origami King throws at the player.

There’s a lot going on here…

Level up?

Unlike most RPGs, battles here don’t grant you extra experience toward leveling up your characters with more powers and new skills. Instead, battles only reward you with the same coins that can be found in copious quantities just by looking for hidden and not-so-hidden items on the map. When you can get literally thousands of coins from a single question-mark block, going through the motions of yet another puzzle-battle for a few hundred more can feel like a waste.

The closest thing Origami King has to a leveling system is a set of origami hearts, which raise Mario’s health and power in conjunction at preset points. You can also convert your not-so-hard-earned coins into more powerful boots and hammers, all of which eventually break and need replacement after too much use. By the end of the game, though, I was absolutely overloaded with more ultra-powerful weapons than I knew what to do with, making the whole pseudo-leveling system seem moot.

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Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: A Conversation With Lana Del Rey. On the eve of her fourth album, the pagan pop star sounds more content than ever. How did she get there? Interview by Alex Frank for Pitchfork. Famous artists are notoriously late, but when I arrive about 20 minutes early for an interview at Lana Del Rey’s Santa Monica studio, she is ready for me, offering a handshake and a smile. It is the week before her new album, ‘Lust For Life’, will be released, but she seems unhurried and relaxed; when I ask if she’s been busy in the leadup to such a big day, she says “no” with a laugh, as if she knows she probably should be. She is not dressed like the glammed-up mystic you see in music videos and photographs: her hair, long and brown, is tied functionally behind her neck, and she is in a white T-shirt and blue jeans, with cream canvas sneakers and white ankle socks on her feet. Right away, she invites me through a side door into the inner sanctum where her brooding songs are created. For Lana acolytes, this is a mythic place. She has recorded here since 2012’s ‘Born To Die’, her major label debut. It is a beautiful room filled with sun coming in from a skylight and two windows, the opposite of the average dank music studio. It looks a bit like how you’d expect Lana Del Rey’s workplace to look: vaguely and warmly retro, with dark wood cabinets and a mid-century-looking painting with interlacing geometric shapes hanging on the back wall. In the center of the room is a scratched-up leather club chair with a Tammy Wynette album cover facing it. (“I always have Tammy there,” she says of the country singer best known for her ode to everlasting devotion, “Stand by Your Man.”) This chair, and not the actual booth in the front of the room, is where Lana sits to record her vocals. “I get red light fever in the booth,” she says. She likes that the studio is by the beach, where she’ll sometimes go to listen to mixes of songs on her iPhone. The studio is owned and operated by Rick Nowels, her longtime producer. He has come down today to listen to the album with us, a pair of sunglasses firmly on his face. Nowels has more than 20 years on Lana, who is 32, and he inhabits something of an uncle role, making the songwriter a bit bashful when he sweetly refers to a ballad called “When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing” as a “masterpiece” for its lyrical message about the importance of finding ways to have fun, even in the Trump era. Gearing up to record what would become ‘Born To Die’, Lana had met with a number of producers who all tried to tell her what she should or should not sound like, with some encouraging her to ditch the breathy vocal style that would become her signature. When she finally met Nowels, he didn’t want to change a thing. “I went through a hundred and eleven producers just to find someone who says ‘yes’ all the time,” she says. “Everyone is so obsessed with saying ‘no’—they break you down to build you up.” Lana is a studio junkie—’Lust For Life’ is her fourth album in about five years. She says a day that she works is better than a day that she doesn’t. Nowels tells me that even though the new album isn’t out yet, she’s already making new music. “If I get a great melody in my head, I know it’s a gift,” she says. As we sit down to listen to ‘Lust For Life’, she is clearly at home: Like a good host, she offers me her comfy leather singing chair and instead curls up on a blue velvet couch nearby. She has a familial rapport with not just Nowels, but engineers Dean Reid and Kieron Menzies, who she credits again and again for making her work better, and the four of them ruminate on mastering, making jokes about Lana’s perfectionism when it comes to the final cuts of her songs. The album, like all of her work, is fastidiously and emphatically Lana in its sound and atmosphere: a haze of lazy pacing and flowery melodies, conjuring a foreboding backdrop for lyrics about summer and antique celebrity icons and dangerous, dissatisfying relationships. Front and center in the mix is her voice, which has a crooner’s tone and an especially wide range, from deep and low to high and sharp. Most pop stars rely on reinvention to retain relevance, but her output is remarkably consistent. She says her main criteria is whether or not a song sounds like it will transport listeners to somewhere else in their minds. On each album, the skeleton remains more or less the same while she infuses her work with stylistic elements from different genres, from rap to rock to jazz. ‘Lust For Life’ draws from folk and hip-hop, two genres that she says she loves because they both privilege real storytelling. The new record is a departure in key ways, though. In the past, Lana has become famous for themes that are, at times, hopeless: toxic romance, violence, drug use, despair, aging, death. This isn’t to say every song she has ever recorded is a downer, or that she hasn’t displayed a knowing sense of humor about her reputation. But her relentless obsession with the dark arts is a reason why her fans love her with an almost religious fervor; she’s had issues with people breaking into her house. “They want to talk,” she says chillingly. Her menacing themes have also led to resistance at certain moments from larger audiences who, perhaps trained to think of pop music as a tool of empowerment and empathy, just can’t face her nihilism. While ‘Lust For Life’ certainly has its share of grim moments, it is not as much of an avalanche of gloom, and perhaps offers signposts to a happier future. At times, Lana even approaches uncomplicated joy, like on first single ‘Love.’ The album also contains some of her first songs that deal with a universe larger than the tangled intensity of one-on-one relationships—there are tracks intended to be balms and battle cries for trying times, which, like many Americans, she found herself fretting over constantly during the 2016 election campaign. And for the first time on any Lana album, she’s also opening the door to a number of guest vocalists: A$AP Rocky, Playboi Carti, the Weeknd, Stevie Nicks, and Sean Ono Lennon on a Beatles-referencing song called ‘Tomorrow Never Came.’ “I FaceTimed with Yoko, and she said it was her most favorite thing Sean’s ever done,” Lana says.

After listening to the album, Lana and I peel off to a small office on the other side of the studio for our interview. Before we begin, she pulls out her iPhone to record the conversation along with me, a defensive move she’s taken up after years of feeling manipulated and harangued by the media. When answering questions, she is at turns thoughtful and strident, seriously considering topics like her attempts at a brighter life and how Trump has affected her love of Americana, and also entirely unafraid to bat away questions she finds boring or irrelevant. At one point, she laughs so hard at a silly sidebar in our conversation that she has a coughing fit and has to take a break. She says she binge watches ‘The Bachelor,’ and that while all of her friends now call her Lana—not Elizabeth Grant, her birth name—her parents are the two people who do not. She is wry about the new song ‘Groupie Love,’ in which she writes herself not as the star but in the role of a worshipful devotee: “Old habits die hard—I still love a rock star.” When I ask her if she is bothered by TMZ dating rumors, which have recently speculated about her relationship with rapper G-Eazy, she gives an unexpectedly goading answer: “They’re usually true. Maybe where there’s smoke there’s fire.” Which is to say: She’s kinda regular, not the hardened artist we’ve heard in her songs, but someone, it would seem, who likes to hang out and chat about life and music. Talking about good times brings up memories of rough ones, and when the conversation veers towards rocky terrain, she reveals an artist-and a person-at a pivotal moment. — A few years ago you were singing lyrics like ��I have nothing much to live for,” and now you’re smiling on the cover of ‘Lust For Life.’ How’d you get to a happier place? Lana Del Rey: I made personal commitments. — Commitments to what? LDR: Well, they’re personal. [laughs] I had some people in my life that made me a worse person. I was not sure if I could step out of that box of familiarity, which was having a lot of people around me who had a lot of problems and feeling like that was home base. Because it’s all I know. I spent my whole life reasoning with crazy people. I felt like everyone deserved a chance, but they don’t. Sometimes you just have to step away without saying anything. — Your past albums often presented a claustrophobic universe made up of just you and one other person, but all of a sudden it’s like you’ve got your eyes wide open and you’re looking at the world around you. Developmentally, I was in the same place for a very long time, and then it just took me longer than most people to be able to be more out there. Being more naturally shy, it’s taken stretching on my part to just continue to integrate into the local community, global community, to grow as a person. Also, getting really famous doesn’t help you grow with the community. It’s important to have your own life. It’s hard with how accessible things are. Hacking? E-mail is just a no for me. I do a lot to make sure I don’t feel trapped. — Your fans are famously obsessive. Do they ever cross the line? They fucking have. Someone stole both my cars. All the scary shit. I’ve had people in my house for sure, and I didn’t know they were there while I was there. I fucking called the police. I locked the door. Obviously, that’s the one in one-hundred-thousand people who’s crazy. But I [had a hard time sleeping] for a minute. — Fame can be isolating, but you are making a real effort to not let it be. It’s going to be isolating. Period. Unless you stretch past it. But it takes so much footwork. Getting over the uncomfortability of being the one person in the room who everyone recognizes. The last few years, I’m out all the time: clubs, bars, shows. For years I was more quietly in the mix, always through the back door, do not tell anyone I’m coming. And now I’ve relaxed into it where I’ll just show up. I don’t need a special ticket. I’ll just go sit wherever. It feels a little more like I’m myself again. — If you’re happier these days, what do you think when you hear an old lyric from an old record, like, “He hit me and it felt like a kiss,” from ‘Ultraviolence’? I don’t like it. I don’t. I don’t sing it. I sing ‘Ultraviolence’ but I don’t sing that line anymore. Having someone be aggressive in a relationship was the only relationship I knew. I’m not going to say that that [lyric] was 100 percent true, but I do feel comfortable saying what I was used to was a difficult, tumultuous relationship, and it wasn’t because of me. It didn’t come from my end. — Now you want to present a different face to the world on ‘Lust For Life’? No. I don’t care. I would just say I am different. And even being a little bit different makes me not want to sing that line. To me, it just was what it was. I deal with what’s in my lyric—you’re not dealing with it. I was annoyed when people would ask me about that lyric. Like, who are you? — Do you think you romanticize danger in your music? No. I don’t like it. It’s just the only thing [I’ve known]. So I’m trying to do a new thing. I never wrote better when I had a lot of turmoil going on. ‘Born To Die’ was already done before any of the shit hit the fan. When things are good, the music is better. I’m trying to change from the way I thought things were gonna be to what I feel like they could be, which is maybe just brighter. — But, even with some new perspectives, ‘Lust For Life’ is still very melancholy at moments. If you make sad music, which you’ve done for so long, does it necessarily mean you’re sad? Yeah. I think for most people, regardless of what they say, it’s probably a direct reflection of their inner world. With my first record, I didn’t feel upset. I felt very excited, and then I felt a little more confused. — After the release of ‘Born To Die,’ you faced a lot of criticism, partly around the issue of whether you were or were not authentic. Do you think of yourself as authentic? Of course. I’m always being myself. They don’t know what authentic is. If you think of all the music that came out until 2013, it was super straight and shiny. If that’s authentic to you, this is going to look like the opposite. I think that shit is stylized. Just because I do my hair big does not mean I’m a product. If anything, I’m doing my own hair, stuffing my own fucking stuffing in there if I have a beehive. Music was in a super weird place when I became known, and I didn’t really like any of it. — Did you ever feel like the criticism had a misogynistic bent? No. Women hated me. I know why. It’s because there were things I was saying that either they just couldn’t connect to or were maybe worried that, if they were in the same situation, it would put them in a vulnerable place. — You weren’t singing empowering things. No, I wasn’t. That wasn’t my angle. I didn’t really have an angle—that’s the thing. — Have you noticed that all songs on the radio are bummers now? That Lil Uzi Vert lyric—“All my friends are dead”—sounds almost like a Lana lyric. There’s been a major sonic shift culturally. I think I had a lot to do with that. I do. I hear a lot of music that sounds like those early records. It would be weird to say that it didn’t. I remember seven years ago I was trying to get a record deal, and people were like, “Are you kidding? These tunes? There’s zero market for this.” There was just such a long time where people had to fit into that pop box. — With all the flak you’ve received over the years, particularly after ‘Born To Die,’ some people would have thrown in the towel. But you doubled down and made an even more fucked up, almost hyper-Lana record with ‘Ultraviolence.’ I so double downed. [The early criticism] made me question myself- I didn’t know if it was always going to be that way. You can’t put out records if 90 percent of the reviews in places like the Times are going to be negative. That would be crazy. It would have made sense to step all the way back, but I was like, Let me put out three more records and see if I can just stand in the eye of the storm. Not shift too much. Let me just take some of the [production] off so you can hear things a little bit better; I thought people were maybe getting distracted. I did the same thing with ‘Honeymoon.’ Everyone around here heard it and was like, “It’s a cool record, but you know it’s not going to be on the radio, right?” And I was like, “Yeah. I told [record executive] Jimmy [Iovine] when I signed, ‘If you want to sign me, this is all it’s ever going to be.’” I was just so committed to making music because I believe in what I do. All I had to do was not quit. — So that ‘Ultraviolence’ woman who is so swept up in turmoil- is she still there on ‘Lust For Life’? We’ll see. That’s been my experience up until now, but, like, I’m trying. — Some of the sparer, really heartfelt songs on ‘Lust For Life’ reminded me of the ‘Ultraviolence’ song ‘Black Beauty.’ That’s a sad song. In that song—[sings] I keep my lips red like cherries in the spring/Darling, you can’t let everything seem so dark blue—that’s a girl who is still seeing the blue sky and a putting on a pop of color just for herself. But this [other] person—it was all black for them. And my world became inky with those overtones. [At this, Lana begins to cry, and we pause for a moment.] — What made you cry just now? In that moment, when I said “pop of color,” I was connected to that feeling of only being able to see a portion of the world in color. And when you feel that way, you can feel trapped. — Are you seeing the world in color now? [sighs] I don’t really know how to describe my perspective at the moment. — But you’re trying, and that’s what ‘Lust For Life’ is about? It’s not. I don’t know what it’s about. I don’t know what it is. — Is the album a way of saying that you at least want to be happy? No. It’s just that something is happening. — What makes you happy? I’m really simple. I love nature. I like hikes. Being by the water- I don’t always get in. I love the elements. Playing an outdoor festival. Love that feeling. — What bums you out? Feeling like going backwards. — Is there a storyline to the album? Yeah. — What’s the story? You have to figure it out. — Just a few years ago you were saying you didn’t care about feminism, and now you are writing protest songs and meditations on war and peace. Because things have shifted culturally. It’s more appropriate now than under the Obama administration, where at least everyone I knew felt safe. It was a good time. We were on the up-and-up. Women started to feel less safe under this administration instantly. What if they take away Planned Parenthood? What if we can’t get birth control? Now, when people ask me those questions, I feel a little differently. The reason why I asked Stevie Nicks to be on the record is because she changes when her environment changes, and I’m like that as well. In ‘When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing,’ I wrote, “Boys, don’t make too much noise/Don’t try to be funny/Other people may not be understanding.” Like, Can you tone down your over-boisterous rhetoric that isn’t working? ‘God Bless America - And All the Beautiful Women in It’ is a little shoutout to the women and anyone else who doesn’t always feel safe walking down the street late at night. That’s what I was thinking of when I wrote, “Even when I’m alone I’m not lonely/I feel your arms around me.” It’s not always how I feel when I’m walking down the street, but sometimes in my music I try to write about a place that I’m going to get to. — Do you feel unsafe? I feel less safe than I did when Obama was president. When you have a leader at the top of the pyramid who is casually being loud and funny about things like that, it’s brought up character defects in people who already have the propensity to be violent towards women. I saw it right away in L.A. Walking down the street, people would just say things to you that I had never heard. When people asked me the feminist question before, I was like, “I’m not really experiencing personal discrimination as a woman. I feel like I’m doing well. I headline shows just like the Weeknd does. I got tons of women in my life, love women, support women.” I just felt like, Why don’t we talk about the music first? I can tell you that what I have done for women is tell my own story, and that’s all anyone can do. — Is it harder to be romantic about America when Trump is the nation’s biggest celebrity? It’s certainly uncomfortable. I definitely changed my visuals on my tour videos. I’m not going to have the American flag waving while I’m singing ‘Born To Die.’ It’s not going to happen. I’d rather have static. It’s a transitional period, and I’m super aware of that. I think it would be inappropriate to be in France with an American flag. It would feel weird to me now- it didn’t feel weird in 2013. All the guys in the studio—we didn’t know we were going to start walking in every day and talking about what was going on. We hadn’t ever done that before, but everyday during the election, you’d wake up and some new horrible thing was happening. Korea, with missiles suddenly being pointed at the western coast. With ‘When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing,’ I was posing a real question to myself: Could this be the end of an era? The fall of Rome? — Nostalgia can be really corny when it’s not done well, and you’re all about nostalgia. How do you try to get it right? I know I walk the line sometimes. [laughs] I saw comments that people said about my little ‘Coachella - Woodstock in my Mind’ song. I write that title and I’m like, OK, I know I went there. But I think it’s amazing. It’s on the nose. It’s so on the nose. But sometimes things just are what they are. I’m at Coachella for three days, and North Korea is pointing a missile at us, and I’m watching Father John Misty with my best friend, who’s his wife—that’s all I’m literally saying. It’s just like, Yeah, I’m a hipster. I know it. Got it. — You mentioned working with Stevie Nicks on this album, what was it like recording with her? She came in straight off a plane from her last show of like 60 cities, which I was actually supposed to open for. She had asked me, and I was like, “Oh my god.” But I couldn’t because I don’t want to do a 60-show tour. She flew through the door. Blond highlights, rose gold glasses, gold-tipped nails, rose gold lipstick, gold chains, gold rings, black on black on black. Very stylish. And meanwhile, I looked like a housewife of 15—flannel on flannel, because it was a cold night. And I was like, Why did I not dress up for Stevie Nicks? At the end of the track, she sings, then I sing, then she sings. I was kinda embarrassed. I was like, “I sound so little compared to you.” And she was like, “That’s good, you’re my little echo.” And I was like, Stevie called me her little echo. It’s a stupid little thing, but she was very nurturing in that way, and not belittling of the fact that I had a more breathy voice. Which I wasn’t even aware of until I was shoulder-to-shoulder on a track with someone with less air in their voice. I felt a little more exposed in that moment. But she was like, “That’s you. You just be you.” — Speaking of musical icons, can you tell me about performing at Kim and Kanye’s wedding party? It was a surprise for Kim. I hadn’t met her. I sang ‘Young And Beautiful,’ ‘Summertime Sadness,’ ‘Blue Jeans.’ Kanye requested ‘Young And Beautiful.’ The girls—the Kardashians—were so nice. There was only one front row, just them, right there. They were living for it. They started playing Kanye and Jay-Z records for the rest of the thing and it rained and everyone was just up dancing in the rain. I stayed for like 40 minutes and then I left. — People have made a big deal about that necklace you are selling that seems to have a coke spoon. Is it a coke spoon? Yeah. It’s funny. I have a flask and a lighter as well. I don’t do coke. — You’ve said in the past that you weren’t drinking either, and yet it turns up in your music. Do you drink now? No comment. — You sing about drugs and alcohol a lot. Not on this record. I well used to do a lot of drugs, but I actively don’t now. — What kind of drugs did you do? No comment. [laughs] But I think the coke spoon is kinda funny. I’m just like, Whatever. I don’t think it’s going to make anyone do coke. — Are you conscious of when you walk right up to a taboo in your work? Not really. That’s the one thing I don’t have my finger on. I am there, but there are times I don’t really know it. There’s certain stuff that I think is kinda dope that I know other people might be like, Okayyyyy. — Like singing about death? That’s real life though. Super real life. — You got a lot of shit for saying “I wish I was dead” to a journalist a few years ago. Fuck that guy, though. I didn’t think he would print it and make it the headline. I was having a really tough time. I had been on the road for a year. I was really struggling. I was just stupid, I was like, “I fucking want to die.” Maybe I meant it. I don’t really know. — Which of your albums is the most autobiographical? All of them. The last record- I listen to a song like ‘Terrence Loves You,’ and I just really feel for myself at the time. The person I’m singing about���[sings] You are what you are/I don’t matter to anyone—did I really just say I don’t matter to anyone? That’s fucking crazy. — Did you feel that way? I guess so. I sang it. — What makes you feel proud? My records. I love my records. I love them. I’m proud of the way I’ve put parts of my story into songs in ways that only I understand. In terms of my gauge of what’s good, it’s really just what I think. I have an internal framework that is the only thing I measure it by. My own opinion is really important to me. It starts and stops there.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: A Conversation With Lana Del Rey

On the eve of her fourth album, the pagan pop star sounds more content than ever. How did she get there?

Famous artists are notoriously late, but when I arrive about 20 minutes early for an interview at Lana Del Rey’s Santa Monica studio, she is ready for me, offering a handshake and a smile. It is the week before her new album, Lust for Life, will be released, but she seems unhurried and relaxed; when I ask if she’s been busy in the leadup to such a big day, she says “no” with a laugh, as if she knows she probably should be. She is not dressed like the glammed-up mystic you see in music videos and photographs: her hair, long and brown, is tied functionally behind her neck, and she is in a white T-shirt and blue jeans, with cream canvas sneakers and white ankle socks on her feet. Right away, she invites me through a side door into the inner sanctum where her brooding songs are created.

For Lana acolytes, this is a mythic place. She has recorded here since 2012’s Born to Die, her major label debut. It is a beautiful room filled with sun coming in from a skylight and two windows, the opposite of the average dank music studio. It looks a bit like how you’d expect Lana Del Rey’s workplace to look: vaguely and warmly retro, with dark wood cabinets and a mid-century-looking painting with interlacing geometric shapes hanging on the back wall. In the center of the room is a scratched-up leather club chair with a Tammy Wynette album cover facing it. (“I always have Tammy there,” she says of the country singer best known for her ode to everlasting devotion, “Stand by Your Man.”) This chair, and not the actual booth in the front of the room, is where Lana sits to record her vocals. “I get red light fever in the booth,” she says. She likes that the studio is by the beach, where she’ll sometimes go to listen to mixes of songs on her iPhone.

The studio is owned and operated by Rick Nowels, her longtime producer. He has come down today to listen to the album with us, a pair of sunglasses firmly on his face. Nowels has more than 20 years on Lana, who is 32, and he inhabits something of an uncle role, making the songwriter a bit bashful when he sweetly refers to a ballad called “When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing” as a “masterpiece” for its lyrical message about the importance of finding ways to have fun, even in the Trump era. Gearing up to record what would become Born to Die, Lana had met with a number of producers who all tried to tell her what she should or should not sound like, with some encouraging her to ditch the breathy vocal style that would become her signature. When she finally met Nowels, he didn’t want to change a thing. “I went through a hundred and eleven producers just to find someone who says ‘yes’ all the time,” she says. “Everyone is so obsessed with saying ‘no’—they break you down to build you up.”

Lana is a studio junkie—Lust for Life is her fourth album in about five years. She says a day that she works is better than a day that she doesn’t. Nowels tells me that even though the new album isn’t out yet, she’s already making new music. “If I get a great melody in my head, I know it’s a gift,” she says. As we sit down to listen to Lust for Life, she is clearly at home: Like a good host, she offers me her comfy leather singing chair and instead curls up on a blue velvet couch nearby. She has a familial rapport with not just Nowels, but engineers Dean Reid and Kieron Menzies, who she credits again and again for making her work better, and the four of them ruminate on mastering, making jokes about Lana’s perfectionism when it comes to the final cuts of her songs.

The album, like all of her work, is fastidiously and emphatically Lana in its sound and atmosphere: a haze of lazy pacing and flowery melodies, conjuring a foreboding backdrop for lyrics about summer and antique celebrity icons and dangerous, dissatisfying relationships. Front and center in the mix is her voice, which has a crooner’s tone and an especially wide range, from deep and low to high and sharp. Most pop stars rely on reinvention to retain relevance, but her output is remarkably consistent. She says her main criteria is whether or not a song sounds like it will transport listeners to somewhere else in their minds. On each album, the skeleton remains more or less the same while she infuses her work with stylistic elements from different genres, from rap to rock to jazz. Lust for Life draws from folk and hip-hop, two genres that she says she loves because they both privilege real storytelling.

The new record is a departure in key ways, though. In the past, Lana has become famous for themes that are, at times, hopeless: toxic romance, violence, drug use, despair, aging, death. This isn’t to say every song she has ever recorded is a downer, or that she hasn’t displayed a knowing sense of humor about her reputation. But her relentless obsession with the dark arts is a reason why her fans love her with an almost religious fervor; she’s had issues with people breaking into her house. “They want to talk,” she says chillingly. Her menacing themes have also led to resistance at certain moments from larger audiences who, perhaps trained to think of pop music as a tool of empowerment and empathy, just can’t face her nihilism.

While Lust for Life certainly has its share of grim moments, it is not as much of an avalanche of gloom, and perhaps offers signposts to a happier future. At times, Lana even approaches uncomplicated joy, like on first single “Love.” The album also contains some of her first songs that deal with a universe larger than the tangled intensity of one-on-one relationships—there are tracks intended to be balms and battle cries for trying times, which, like many Americans, she found herself fretting over constantly during the 2016 election campaign. And for the first time on any Lana album, she’s also opening the door to a number of guest vocalists: A$AP Rocky, Playboi Carti, the Weeknd, Stevie Nicks, and Sean Ono Lennon on a Beatles-referencing song called “Tomorrow Never Came.” “I FaceTimed with Yoko, and she said it was her most favorite thing Sean’s ever done,” Lana says.

After listening to the album, Lana and I peel off to a small office on the other side of the studio for our interview. Before we begin, she pulls out her iPhone to record the conversation along with me, a defensive move she’s taken up after years of feeling manipulated and harangued by the media. When answering questions, she is at turns thoughtful and strident, seriously considering topics like her attempts at a brighter life and how Trump has affected her love of Americana, and also entirely unafraid to bat away questions she finds boring or irrelevant. At one point, she laughs so hard at a silly sidebar in our conversation that she has a coughing fit and has to take a break. She says she binge watches “The Bachelor,” and that while all of her friends now call her Lana—not Elizabeth Grant, her birth name—her parents are the two people who do not. She is wry about the new song “Groupie Love,” in which she writes herself not as the star but in the role of a worshipful devotee: “Old habits die hard—I still love a rock star.” When I ask her if she is bothered by TMZ dating rumors, which have recently speculated about her relationship with rapper G-Eazy, she gives an unexpectedly goading answer: “They’re usually true. Maybe where there’s smoke there’s fire.”

Which is to say: She’s kinda regular, not the hardened artist we’ve heard in her songs, but someone, it would seem, who likes to hang out and chat about life and music. Talking about good times brings up memories of rough ones, and when the conversation veers towards rocky terrain, she reveals an artist—and a person—at a pivotal moment.

Pitchfork: A few years ago you were singing lyrics like “I have nothing much to live for,” and now you’re smiling on the cover of Lust for Life. How’d you get to a happier place?

Lana Del Rey: I made personal commitments.

Commitments to what?

Well, they’re personal. [laughs] I had some people in my life that made me a worse person. I was not sure if I could step out of that box of familiarity, which was having a lot of people around me who had a lot of problems and feeling like that was home base. Because it’s all I know. I spent my whole life reasoning with crazy people. I felt like everyone deserved a chance, but they don’t. Sometimes you just have to step away without saying anything.

Your past albums often presented a claustrophobic universe made up of just you and one other person, but all of a sudden it’s like you’ve got your eyes wide open and you’re looking at the world around you.

Developmentally, I was in the same place for a very long time, and then it just took me longer than most people to be able to be more out there. Being more naturally shy, it’s taken stretching on my part to just continue to integrate into the local community, global community, to grow as a person. Also, getting really famous doesn’t help you grow with the community. It’s important to have your own life. It’s hard with how accessible things are. Hacking? Email is just a no for me. I do a lot to make sure I don’t feel trapped.

Your fans are famously obsessive. Do they ever cross the line?

They fucking have. Someone stole both my cars. All the scary shit. I’ve had people in my house for sure, and I didn’t know they were there while I was there. I fucking called the police. I locked the door. Obviously, that’s the one in one-hundred-thousand people who’s crazy. But I [had a hard time sleeping] for a minute.

Fame can be isolating, but you are making a real effort to not let it be.

It’s going to be isolating. Period. Unless you stretch past it. But it takes so much footwork. Getting over the uncomfortability of being the one person in the room who everyone recognizes. The last few years, I’m out all the time: clubs, bars, shows. For years I was more quietly in the mix, always through the back door, do not tell anyone I’m coming. And now I’ve relaxed into it where I’ll just show up. I don’t need a special ticket. I’ll just go sit wherever. It feels a little more like I’m myself again.

If you’re happier these days, what do you think when you hear an old lyric from an old record, like, “He hit me and it felt like a kiss,” from “Ultraviolence”?

I don’t like it. I don’t. I don’t sing it. I sing “Ultraviolence” but I don’t sing that line anymore. Having someone be aggressive in a relationship was the only relationship I knew. I’m not going to say that that [lyric] was 100 percent true, but I do feel comfortable saying what I was used to was a difficult, tumultuous relationship, and it wasn’t because of me. It didn’t come from my end.

Now you want to present a different face to the world on Lust for Life?

No. I don’t care. I would just say I am different. And even being a little bit different makes me not want to sing that line. To me, it just was what it was. I deal with what’s in my lyric—you’re not dealing with it. I was annoyed when people would ask me about that lyric. Like, who are you?

Do you think you romanticize danger in your music?

No. I don’t like it. It’s just the only thing [I’ve known]. So I’m trying to do a new thing. I never wrote better when I had a lot of turmoil going on. Born to Die was already done before any of the shit hit the fan. When things are good, the music is better. I’m trying to change from the way I thought things were gonna be to what I feel like they could be, which is maybe just brighter.  

But, even with some new perspectives, Lust for Life is still very melancholy at moments. If you make sad music, which you’ve done for so long, does it necessarily mean you’re sad?

Yeah. I think for most people, regardless of what they say, it’s probably a direct reflection of their inner world. With my first record, I didn’t feel upset. I felt very excited, and then I felt a little more confused.

After the release of Born to Die, you faced a lot of criticism, partly around the issue of whether you were or were not authentic. Do you think of yourself as authentic?

Of course. I’m always being myself. They don’t know what authentic is. If you think of all the music that came out until 2013, it was super straight and shiny. If that’s authentic to you, this is going to look like the opposite. I think that shit is stylized. Just because I do my hair big does not mean I’m a product. If anything, I’m doing my own hair, stuffing my own fucking stuffing in there if I have a beehive. Music was in a super weird place when I became known, and I didn’t really like any of it.

Did you ever feel like the criticism had a misogynistic bent?

No. Women hated me. I know why. It’s because there were things I was saying that either they just couldn’t connect to or were maybe worried that, if they were in the same situation, it would put them in a vulnerable place.

You weren’t singing empowering things.

No, I wasn’t. That wasn’t my angle. I didn’t really have an angle—that’s the thing.

Have you noticed that all songs on the radio are bummers now? That Lil Uzi Vert lyric—“All my friends are dead”—sounds almost like a Lana lyric.

There’s been a major sonic shift culturally. I think I had a lot to do with that. I do. I hear a lot of music that sounds like those early records. It would be weird to say that it didn’t. I remember seven years ago I was trying to get a record deal, and people were like, “Are you kidding? These tunes? There’s zero market for this.” There was just such a long time where people had to fit into that pop box.

With all the flak you’ve received over the years, particularly after Born to Die, some people would have thrown in the towel. But you doubled down and made an even more fucked up, almost hyper-Lana record with Ultraviolence.

I so double downed. [The early criticism] made me question myself—I didn’t know if it was always going to be that way. You can’t put out records if 90 percent of the reviews in places like the Times are going to be negative. That would be crazy. It would have made sense to step all the way back, but I was like, Let me put out three more records and see if I can just stand in the eye of the storm. Not shift too much. Let me just take some of the [production] off so you can hear things a little bit better; I thought people were maybe getting distracted. I did the same thing with Honeymoon. Everyone around here heard it and was like, “It’s a cool record, but you know it’s not going to be on the radio, right?” And I was like, “Yeah. I told [record executive] Jimmy [Iovine] when I signed, ‘If you want to sign me, this is all it’s ever going to be.’” I was just so committed to making music because I believe in what I do. All I had to do was not quit.

So that Ultraviolence woman who is so swept up in turmoil—is she still there on Lust for Life?

We’ll see. That’s been my experience up until now, but, like, I’m trying.

Some of the sparer, really heartfelt songs on Lust for Life reminded me of the Ultraviolence song “Black Beauty.”

That’s a sad song. In that song—[sings] I keep my lips red like cherries in the spring/Darling, you can’t let everything seem so dark blue—that’s a girl who is still seeing the blue sky and a putting on a pop of color just for herself. But this [other] person—it was all black for them. And my world became inky with those overtones. [At this, Lana begins to cry, and we pause for a moment.]

What made you cry just now?

In that moment, when I said “pop of color,” I was connected to that feeling of only being able to see a portion of the world in color. And when you feel that way, you can feel trapped.

Are you seeing the world in color now?

[sighs] I don’t really know how to describe my perspective at the moment.

But you’re trying, and that’s what Lust for Life is about?

It’s not. I don’t know what it’s about. I don’t know what it is.

Is the album a way of saying that you at least want to be happy?

No. It’s just that something is happening.

What makes you happy?

I’m really simple. I love nature. I like hikes. Being by the water—I don’t always get in. I love the elements. Playing an outdoor festival. Love that feeling.

What bums you out?

Feeling like going backwards.

Is there a storyline to the album?

Yeah.

What’s the story?

You have to figure it out.

Just a few years ago you were saying you didn’t care about feminism, and now you are writing protest songs and meditations on war and peace.

Because things have shifted culturally. It’s more appropriate now than under the Obama administration, where at least everyone I knew felt safe. It was a good time. We were on the up-and-up.

Women started to feel less safe under this administration instantly. What if they take away Planned Parenthood? What if we can’t get birth control? Now, when people ask me those questions, I feel a little differently. The reason why I asked Stevie Nicks to be on the record is because she changes when her environment changes, and I’m like that as well.

In “When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing,” I wrote, “Boys, don’t make too much noise/Don’t try to be funny/Other people may not be understanding.” Like, Can you tone down your over-boisterous rhetoric that isn’t working? “God Bless America - And All the Beautiful Women in It” is a little shoutout to the women and anyone else who doesn’t always feel safe walking down the street late at night. That’s what I was thinking of when I wrote, “Even when I’m alone I’m not lonely/I feel your arms around me.” It’s not always how I feel when I’m walking down the street, but sometimes in my music I try to write about a place that I’m going to get to.

Do you feel unsafe?

I feel less safe than I did when Obama was president. When you have a leader at the top of the pyramid who is casually being loud and funny about things like that, it’s brought up character defects in people who already have the propensity to be violent towards women. I saw it right away in L.A. Walking down the street, people would just say things to you that I had never heard.

When people asked me the feminist question before, I was like, “I’m not really experiencing personal discrimination as a woman. I feel like I’m doing well. I headline shows just like the Weeknd does. I got tons of women in my life, love women, support women.” I just felt like, Why don’t we talk about the music first? I can tell you that what I have done for women is tell my own story, and that’s all anyone can do.

Is it harder to be romantic about America when Trump is the nation’s biggest celebrity?

It’s certainly uncomfortable. I definitely changed my visuals on my tour videos. I’m not going to have the American flag waving while I’m singing “Born to Die.” It’s not going to happen. I’d rather have static. It’s a transitional period, and I’m super aware of that. I think it would be inappropriate to be in France with an American flag. It would feel weird to me now—it didn’t feel weird in 2013.

All the guys in the studio—we didn’t know we were going to start walking in every day and talking about what was going on. We hadn’t ever done that before, but everyday during the election, you’d wake up and some new horrible thing was happening. Korea, with missiles suddenly being pointed at the western coast. With “When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing,” I was posing a real question to myself: Could this be the end of an era? The fall of Rome?

Nostalgia can be really corny when it’s not done well, and you’re all about nostalgia. How do you try to get it right?

I know I walk the line sometimes. [laughs] I saw comments that people said about my little “Coachella - Woodstock in my Mind” song. I write that title and I’m like, OK, I know I went there. But I think it’s amazing. It’s on the nose. It’s so on the nose. But sometimes things just are what they are. I’m at Coachella for three days, and North Korea is pointing a missile at us, and I’m watching Father John Misty with my best friend, who’s his wife—that’s all I’m literally saying. It’s just like, Yeah, I’m a hipster. I know it. Got it.

You mentioned working with Stevie Nicks on this album, what was it like recording with her?

She came in straight off a plane from her last show of like 60 cities, which I was actually supposed to open for. She had asked me, and I was like, “Oh my god.” But I couldn’t because I don’t want to do a 60-show tour.

She flew through the door. Blond highlights, rose gold glasses, gold-tipped nails, rose gold lipstick, gold chains, gold rings, black on black on black. Very stylish. And meanwhile, I looked like a housewife of 15—flannel on flannel, because it was a cold night. And I was like, Why did I not dress up for Stevie Nicks?

At the end of the track, she sings, then I sing, then she sings. I was kinda embarrassed. I was like, “I sound so little compared to you.” And she was like, “That’s good, you’re my little echo.” And I was like, Stevie called me her little echo. It’s a stupid little thing, but she was very nurturing in that way, and not belittling of the fact that I had a more breathy voice. Which I wasn’t even aware of until I was shoulder-to-shoulder on a track with someone with less air in their voice. I felt a little more exposed in that moment. But she was like, “That’s you. You just be you.”

Speaking of musical icons, can you tell me about performing at Kim and Kanye’s wedding party?

It was a surprise for Kim. I hadn’t met her. I sang “Young and Beautiful,” “Summertime Sadness,” “Blue Jeans.” Kanye requested “Young and Beautiful.” The girls—the Kardashians—were so nice. There was only one front row, just them, right there. They were living for it. They started playing Kanye and Jay-Z records for the rest of the thing and it rained and everyone was just up dancing in the rain. I stayed for like 40 minutes and then I left.

People have made a big deal about that necklace you are selling that seems to have a coke spoon. Is it a coke spoon?

Yeah. It’s funny. I have a flask and a lighter as well. I don’t do coke.

You’ve said in the past that you weren’t drinking either, and yet it turns up in your music. Do you drink now?

No comment.  

You sing about drugs and alcohol a lot.

Not on this record. I well used to do a lot of drugs, but I actively don’t now.

What kind of drugs did you do?

No comment. [laughs] But I think the coke spoon is kinda funny. I’m just like, Whatever. I don’t think it’s going to make anyone do coke.

Are you conscious of when you walk right up to a taboo in your work?

Not really. That’s the one thing I don’t have my finger on. I am there, but there are times I don’t really know it. There’s certain stuff that I think is kinda dope that I know other people might be like, Okayyyyy.

Like singing about death?

That’s real life though. Super real life.

You got a lot of shit for saying “I wish I was dead” to a journalist a few years ago.

Fuck that guy, though. I didn’t think he would print it and make it the headline. I was having a really tough time. I had been on the road for a year. I was really struggling. I was just stupid, I was like, “I fucking want to die.” Maybe I meant it. I don’t really know.

Which of your albums is the most autobiographical?

All of them. The last record—I listen to a song like “Terrence Loves You,” and I just really feel for myself at the time. The person I’m singing about—[sings] You are what you are/I don’t matter to anyone—did I really just say I don’t matter to anyone? That’s fucking crazy.

Did you feel that way?

I guess so. I sang it.

What makes you feel proud?

My records. I love my records. I love them. I’m proud of the way I’ve put parts of my story into songs in ways that only I understand. In terms of my gauge of what’s good, it’s really just what I think. I have an internal framework that is the only thing I measure it by. My own opinion is really important to me. It starts and stops there.

http://pitchfork.com/features/interview/life-liberty-and-the-pursuit-of-happiness-a-conversation-with-lana-del-rey/