#the enormous difference between reading a completed series
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Naomi Novik's incredible, brilliant, stupendous "Temeraire" series
One of the finest pleasures in life is to discover a complete series of novels as an adult, to devour them right through to the end, and to arrive at that ending to discover that, while you’d have happily inhabited the author’s world for many more volumes, you are eminently satisfied with the series’ conclusion.
I just had this experience and I am still basking in the warm glow of having had such a thoroughly fulfilling imaginary demi-life for half a year. I’m speaking of the nine volumes in Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series, which reimagines the Napoleonic Wars in a world that humans share with enormous, powerful, intelligent dragons.
https://www.naominovik.com/temeraire/
If you are like me, this may not sound like your kind of thing, but please, read on! Novik is a gifted, brilliant storyteller, and even if you, like me, had never read a tale of naval or aerial battles that didn’t bore you to tears, you should absolutely read these books, because I have never been so gripped by action sequences as I was by Novik’s massive military set-pieces.
Likewise, if you’re not a fan of dragon fiction — I’m not, though I do enjoy some heroic fantasy — or talking animal stories (ditto), you owe it to yourself to read these books! Novik’s dragons straddle the line between fantasy and sf, with decidedly nonmagical, bioscience- and physics-grounded characteristics. In the hands of a lesser writer, this can be deadly, yielding an imaginary creature that is neither fantastic nor believable.
But Novik’s deft handling of her dragons — variegated in biological characteristics, sociological arrangements, and umwelt — renders them as creatures both majestic and relatable, decidedly inhuman in outlook but also intensely likeable characters that you root for (or facepalm over, or sometimes both — a delicious sweet-sour cocktail of emotions!).
Finally, if you’re not a fan of historical fiction — again, as I am not! — you should absolutely get these books. Novik is an exhaustive researcher with a gift for rendering the people and circumstances of the past simultaneously comprehensible and unmistakably different, making the past “a different country” indeed, but nevertheless a place whose contours can be firmly grasped and inhabited.
In other words, Novik has written a work of historical-military fiction with dragons in it that I enjoyed, despite having almost no interest in historical fiction, military fiction, or high fantasy. She did this by means of the simple trick of being consistently and variously brilliant in her execution.
First, she is brilliant in the themes that run through these nine volumes: the themes of honor, duty and love, and the impossible dilemmas that arise from trying to be true to yourself and others. Captain William Laurence — the sea captain who finds himself abruptly moved into the dragon corps — is a profoundly honorable man, bound by the strictest of mores. Nominally, Laurence’s moral code is shared by his fellow gentlemen and officers, but where most of the world — all the way up to the Lords of the Admiralty — pays lip service to this code, Laurence truly believes in it.
But there is something of Godel’s Incompleteness in Laurence’s Georgian morality, in that to be completely true to his ethics, Laurence must — again and again, in ways large and small — also violate his ethics, often with the most extreme consequences imaginable at stake. Novik spends nine volumes destruction-testing Laurence’s morality, in a series of hypotheticals of the sort that you could easily spend years arguing over in a philosophy of ethics seminar — but these aren’t dry academic questions, they’re the stuff of fabulous adventure, great battles, hair’s-breadth escapes, and daring rescues.
Next, there is Novik’s historicalness, which is broad, deep, and also brilliantly speculative. Novik has painstakingly researched the historical circumstances of all parts of Napoleonic Europe, but also the Inca empire, colonial Africa, settler Australia, late-Qing China, and Meiji Japan.
It would be one thing if Novik merely brought these places and times to life with perfect verisimilitude, but Novik goes further. She has reimagined how all of these societies would have developed in the presence of massive, powerful, intelligent dragons — how their power structures would relate to dragons, and how the dragons would have related to colonial conquest.
The result is both a stage that is set for a Napoleonic War that is recognizable but utterly transformed, a set of social and strategic speculations that would make for a brilliant West Point grad seminar or tabletop military strategy game or an anticolonial retelling of imperial conquest, but is, instead, the backdrop for nine exciting, world-spanning novels.
Next, there’s Novik’s action staging. I have the world’s worst sense of direction and geometry. I can stay in a hotel for a week and still get lost every time I try to find my room. I can’t read maps. I can’t visualize 3D objects or solve jigsaw puzzles. Hell, I can barely see. Nevertheless, I was able to follow every twist and turn of Novik’s intricate naval/aerial/infantry battles, often with casts of thousands. Not just follow them! I was utterly captivated by them.
Next, there’s Novik’s ability to juggle her characters. While these novels follow two main characters — William Laurence and the dragon Temeraire — they are joined by hundreds of other named characters, from Chinese emperors to the Sapa Inca to Wellington to Napoleon, to say nothing of the dragons, the sea captains, the Japanese lords, the drunken sailors, the brave midshipmen, and so on and so on. Each one of these people is distinct, sharply drawn, necessary to the tale, and strongly individuated. I am in awe (and not a little jealous). Wow. Just wow.
Finally, there’s Novik’s language: the tale is told primarily through Laurence’s point of view, which is rendered in mannered, early 19th century English. Again, this is the kind of thing I usually find either difficult or irritatingly precious or both — but again, it turns out that I just hadn’t read anyone who was really good at this sort of thing. Novik is really, really good at it.
At the end of one summer, years ago, I ran into Vernor Vinge at a conference and asked him how he was doing. He lit up and told me he’d just had one of the best summers of his adult life, because he’d started it by reading the first Terry Pratchett Discworld novel, and had discovered, stretching before him, dozens more in the series. It was an experience he hadn’t enjoyed since he was a boy, discovering the writers that preceded him.
As I read the Temeraire books, I kept returning to that conversation with Vinge. I listened to the Temeraire books as audiobooks, downloading them from Libro.fm and listening to them on my underwater MP3 player as I swam my daily laps. Simon Vance’s narration truly did the series justice, and I could only imagine how complex it must have been for Vance and his director to juggle all the character voices, but they pulled it off beautifully.
I normally read pretty widely, but almost always within a band of themes, settings and modes that I’ve specialized in. This can be a very satisfying experience, of course. Last year, I read dozens of fantastic books that were in my wheelhouse, for all that that wheelhouse is an extremely large one:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/01/bookishness/#2022-in-review
But reading against type, outside of one’s comfort zone, yields new and distinct delights. The Temeraire series joins the very short list of heroic fantasy novels that I count among my all-time favorites, along with such marvels as Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos/Jhereg series:
https://memex.craphound.com/2017/10/17/listen-up-you-really-owe-it-to-yourself-to-read-15-vlad-taltos-novels-seriously/
Brust is tremblingly close to finishing the Vlad books, which I started reading as a 13 year old and have been devouring ever since. I can’t wait for the final volumes to come out, so I can binge-read the whole series from beginning to end.
There are so many good new books coming out every month, and it can feel like a disservice to those writers to indulge in backlist reading, but there is a lot to be said for revisiting beloved works of decades gone by. I am so glad to have read Temeraire at last — I haven’t been this excited to read something I missed the first time around since I read Red Mars 12 years after its initial publication:
https://memex.craphound.com/2004/05/28/red-mars-a-very-belated-appreciation/
[Image ID: A grid showing the Penguin Random House covers of the first eight Temeraire novels by Naomi Novik.]
#pluralistic#books#reviews#history#alternative history#alternate history#nautical fiction#aerial combat#napoleonic wars#gift guide#audiobooks#naomi novik
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Well, well, well, if it isn’t the consequences of my actions before me.
I am delighted to announce that Dead Mountain's release, initially slated for Halloween 2023, has been delayed!!!
Wait, what?
This post is enormous, but please take the time to read it. Likes don’t increase visibility to others! Please reblog this to spread the word!
When I started this project, my stance on Werewolf: the Apocalypse underwent a series of evolutions between then and now. In short, Dead Mountain, a chronicle meant to simultaneously provide a game module and queer inclusivity at gaming tables, has grown beyond its original design and size and into something much bigger and bolder than what I initially set out to do. It has become a more significant task than one person can accomplish alone. Of course, I could delay Dead Mountain's release a few months to get it completed, and I will still be releasing it standalone eventually. I could also put it out, but what would come out would fall short of presenting Werewolf in a way I feel does the game justice.
In many ways, nothing changes; it just happens later. In its current form, however, Werewolf: the Apocalypse doesn’t provide a game that fully supports the scale and inclusivity this chronicle demands. The project rapidly ballooned the chronicle into something more resembling a corebook; while fun to imagine, it is more than I initially set out to accomplish. The volume of literature needing redrafts and the need for this to be a single chronicle alone are at odds with each other, and more than one person can write independently.
I plan to reapproach this in a way that has the team excited, and I think this will excite you, too. See the rest below the cut.
As work on Dead Mountain progressed and drew closer to completion, the things I needed to include to make it happen in a way that did its subject matter justice grew beyond its original scope. The more aspects of inclusivity, culture, and story that turned up missing from the newest edition out of the occasional paragraph, the more I came to realize that if I wanted Werewolf: the Apocalypse to represent what good I see in it, I needed to also make the game itself presented in a fundamentally different way than it has before.
I have a challenge to World of Darkness writers:
New players should only have to read for no longer than an hour to start coming up with character concepts.
Every Werewolf corebook put to print is falling short of that goal. It would be unjust to force players to wade through the old literature to explore all the game has to offer, and I think y’all deserve better. The tribes they read about should focus less on everything wrong with them out of the starting gates and provide players and storytellers with something worth fighting for and motivates them to action.
Over the past few weeks, we have realized that the things we need to include to do justice to the subject matter of Dead Mountain have grown beyond the project's original scope. We want to ensure the game is inclusive, culturally representative, and accessible to new players. Given the available core literature released with the latest edition lacking coherent structuring, our writing has had to balloon beyond a typical RPG supplement size to provide a functional game representative of, and relevant to, queer culture. Therefore, we have decided to delay the game's release by one year to Halloween 2024. This extra time will allow us to create a game that meets our high standards and provides an enriching experience for all players, and make Werewolf: the Apocalypse a more accessible game, particularly regarding accessibility to new players and storytellers.
My goal is simple: Nobody new to the World of Darkness and Werewolf with an 8th-grade reading comprehension level should do more than an hour’s reading (10,000 words) to comprehend Werewolf: the Apocalypse well enough to start thinking up character concepts. New players shouldn’t have to wade into problematic legacy literature to get the specifics of Garou society or to seek cultural representation. Storytellers should have guidelines on creating chronicles with their players and interlinking them with stories.
A series of players guides and storyteller handbooks intended to streamline the flow of information to the reader, sorted by Garou ranks, both in terms of gaming power levels and depth of information relevant to Garou of that rank. New players want to know how to make new characters. Storytellers wish to know the kinds of NPCs appropriate to characters of that power and how to run games. This is not a corebook but a series of reference guides intended to keep the depth of the world we all love in the legacy game in an easily navigated format while only revealing the most pertinent information for a given Garou’s rank and a ready-to-go adventure to pair with that game ranking. With each successive release, more information about the world of the Garou, Garou society, their enemies, and the complexity of available storytelling tools will also evolve to grow the game in tandem with players and storytellers.
Book 1: Cliath — Contains enough information for new players and storytellers to get started, focusing on character generation, Rites of Passage, and culture.
Book 2: Fostern — Expanded Garou powers for the ‘citizenry and society (and not-so-nice things that happen in the background that they keep hidden from the cubs and cliath) of the Garou.
Books 3: Adren — Explodes into an anthology of Tribebooks with expanded powers and tribal customs and detailed septs, camps, and factions vital for any Adren fighting for Gaia.
Book 4: Athro — exploration of spirit and history. The secrets that bind society and a more lucid view of what elders in the Garou Nation face, with expanded Garou stats covering both rank 4 and 5.
Book 5: Elder — The Storytellers guide, focusing on world-building and running one's own chronicles in the World of Darkness.This puts all prior ST info in one place with a master index and any extra systems errata needed.
Our small team consists of seasoned storytellers, writers, and werewolf academics working on making Werewolf more accessible to new players. We’ve been researching, playing, or running inclusive Werewolf tables for over 60 years combined, and are self-taught experts in everything Werewolf. Everyone on this project deeply loves the game and sees its inherent value and well-meaning beneath its 90s liberal veneer. Many of us have spent decades perfecting our craft and knowledge of this game, and we want the rest of you to see the Werewolf that we see in the pages.
We are using By Night Studios' edition of Mind’s Eye Theater: Werewolf as a baseline reference for this project. Much work has already been done to bring inclusivity to the game and encourage character investment in the world, and translating that to the tabletop will be a more inclusive baseline to utilize than any other corebook. We will continue the metaplot of Werewolf: the Apocalypse, with a handful of changes to tribes and factions of Garou. Due to the MET systems translations needing to be done, we still have our work cut out for us and plenty of writing to do. This game will be shifting the formatting to prioritize ease of identifying information pertinent to players versus storytellers while prioritizing keeping culture, mechanics, or cross-edition compatibility as best we can with updated sensibilities.
Stay tuned for another post this afternoon to learn more about our first upcoming book in the series!
#world of darkness#werewolf: the apocalypse#dead mountain#werewolf the apocalypse#werewolves#world building#hearthbound
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bird instincts (chapter nine - hawks)
takami keigo x quirkless f!reader (au chilhood friends // characters are aged up 21+)
warnings ~ swearing, petnames, hawks being aggressive + jealous, oral sex (f!receive and m!receive), fingering, cream pie, unprotected sex, degrading names, trauma flashbacks, spoilers about hawks’ backstory from the anime
wordcount ~ 4.742k
summary ~ you and takami keigo grew up together in a shitty hut with terrible parents. he disappeared one day when you were 6, but he never left your mind. the heavens entwine your destinies together, but it’s not a smooth journey you soon figure out.
a/n ~ i honestly didn’t plan for this chapter to be so long, but it was so good as a whole that i couldn’t split it up. i’ve decided to focus on the series a little more, rather than try and upload drabbles everyday! thank you for reading, reblogs + likes are always appreciated.
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"that's real original hawks." you walked towards the handsome blond in a black suit and tie. it caught your attention, his crimson red earrings. you didn't know hawks had his ears pierced. fuck. it made him so attractive. hell, he was attractive full stop. the way his eyes were glued onto you, as if he had blurred everything else around him. tunnel vision. and the way his hand slipped to your waist, pulling you in so he could lower his lips onto your forehead. it made your legs quiver and your heart pulsate even faster than before.
"i'll come up with a better one that's up to your standard next time baby bird. but have i ever told you how beautiful you, and how lucky i am that this is all mine?" his thumb brushed against your cheek, sweeping away the hair that was covering it to lay down a quick peck. you couldn't hide it, your cheeks burned pink as he cooed complements in your ear.
"well...you're looking really handsome tonight, but you're always handsome! so i'm lucky too!" was that the best compliment you could think about? really? babbling a response in a panic.
"oh? you're spoiling me with such kind words tonight y/n, and so many of them." he smirked at your embarrassed and rosy face. his fingers trailed its way from your waist, to your hip, and into your soft hands. "lets go inside, gonna introduce you to my best friend, endeavour. and hey. don't be nervous, you look gorgeous."
you nodded, taking hold of his hand before making your way to the event hall. the path was outlined by a carpet that was almost the same colour as your dress, and bordering the carpet were golden posts that acted as a barrier between the heroes and the media. it was all so grand. cameras and lights flashing, hero names being hollered and an endless wave of cheer around you.
is this how heroes made people feel? excitement, joy, vigour. no wonder kei admired them so much.
as you reached the door to the event hall, hawks pulled his hand away and positioned it so that his hand was on his chest and a gap formed between his arm. you put your arm through his, pressing your chest against his upper arm. an exchange of smiles went between the two of you and before you walked into the hall arm in arm. it was time for the event of the year to begin.
the moment you stepped into the room you were completely drowned in the awe of memorization. your jaw fucking dropped to the floor. the hall wasn't only big, it was gigantic, enormous even. lights beamed across the entire room, not a single dark spot to seen. thousands of tables with a million different dishes and drinks were scattered as far as you could see. and right at the front a stage, where hawks would be later tonight.
"woah." it was the only thing that could escape your lips. it was so amazing and majestic, like straight out of a movie.
"guess it's not everyday you get to experience something like this, i must say they really went all out. spared no expenses." he watched your face as it illuminated with shock and elation. your face was priceless.
"this is so incredible hawks. can we eat the food? oh! and i wanna try a drink. can we? can we really?" you tugged at his blazer, shaking the poor bird side to side.
"you can eat and drink the stuff on the table sweetheart. i'll come with you so that your nerves calm down, alright?" he giggled at your eagerness, petting the back of your head to hopefully calm you down and stop you from shaking him anymore.
"then what are we waiting for? i'm dying to try those giant chocolate covered strawberries." you beamed at him and then dragged him half way across the event hall to satisfy your sweet tooth.
not only were the strawberries in season but they were big and juicy, covered in a thick creamy chocolate shell. and they were never-ending. hawks watched as your face turned into an everlasting ray of smiles, and with each strawberry it grew. he kept close to you so that you had someone to talk to and, most importantly, to keep you safe. god were you beautiful. what he would do to see you this happy all the time.
approaching you was a big, bulky man. his shoulders broad and his face stern. you knew you had seen his face before, it was all too familiar. endeavour. he had the same face as the plushie in your bed. his hair was ruby red and his eyes turquoise blue. a plushie perfect match. he stood in front of you and hawks, his shoulders broad enough the cover the both of you. his eyes glanced past the bird man, fixing his gaze straight onto you.
"woah there buddy, if you stare at her too much she's gonna break down." he jokes, placing his hand on your lower back to ease your nerves. who wouldn't be nervous if a big rock of man started staring at you.
"good evening. who's the girl, hawks?" his arms stood straight by his side, his face stiff. you couldn't tell how he was feeling or what he was thinking, and that was the scariest thing about him.
"my girlfriend, you jealous endeavour?" hawks displayed a grin on his face, pulling you closer to him in order to 'show you off' some more.
"no. though i didn't picture you the type to settle down." he peered over at you once more, scanning you from head to toe. he might as well have been a metal detector.
"i'm y/n, it's nice to meet you. you're the number one hero endeavour, it's a real pleasure to meet you. i'm kinda a fan, well no my friend is the fan, but i still think you're really cool!"
"you're a fan of me too, right baby bird?" he pouted and squirmed as you spouted a bunch of rubbish to fill the awkward space endeavour had created.
"well, thank you for being a fan despite all the punches being thrown at my name currently. she'll keep you in check hawks, don't cause her trouble." he eyed hawks, the kind that your parents gave you when you were about to do something stupid.
"right, right, of course endeavour. why'd you come over? did you miss your buddy?" he nudges the flame hero, poking and prodding at him for a response.
"no i did not miss you, and you are not my 'buddy'. i came to collect you, it's time to go up there." the stoic man pushed hawks' arm away and turned his back on the two of you. he made his way through the crowds of people and tables before disappearing behind a curtained staircase.
"one day he'll admit that we're buddies." he chuckled, straightening his suit and tightening his tie. "but for now, i gotta fly y/n. i'll see you on stage." he cupped one of your cheeks and took you in for a kiss.
"you won't be able to see me silly, there's too many people here tonight."
"trust me y/n i could spot your drop dead gorgeous face a thousand miles away. wish me luck!" he rushed off to the curtained staircase, his wings fluttering slightly as he made his way to the grand stage.
in your heart you were wishing him luck, though really and truly he didn't need it. he'd be fine just the way he was. you couldn't stop thinking about the way his blazer clenched round his waist and the way his white button up shirt displayed the outline of his collar bone. and whatever bottle of cologne he was wearing tonight you were determined to buy a bottle for yourself. it drew you in like a bone to a dog.
you took hold of another strawberry before the lights shut down. excited murmurs spread from every corner of the hall and everyone laid eyes on the main stage. with a little squinting you could make out 10 silhouette figures were standing on the platform. hawks must been amongst the 10. you didn't want to miss a second, and clearly the media didn't want to either with their cameras and notepads out and ready.
head beam lights from below flashed, giving a better view to the 10 shapes. a flicker from the bulbs on the ceiling went off and the whole room was lit with an endless stream of radiant light. claps echoed from every corner of the room, chanting of the hero's names penetrated the air and glasses clinking together in unison. there stood heroes. the top 10 heroes.
amongst the line of heroes were names such as mirko the rabbit hero and wash the laundry hero. amongst the handful of talent japan had to offer was your beloved number two, hawks. he stood proudly with his chest out and wings perked up high behind him. he was facing your direction, even whilst he collected his award and gave his speech his eyes were on you. he really was like a hawk.
but what was he so fixated on? you. and the man next to you who was barely millimetres away from touching your shoulder with his. black long hair tied up in a bun, baggy eyes and a sharp jawline. eraser head. he'd really dressed for the occasion, and that worried hawks. as he spoke to you, laughter left your sweet and pretty lips. but your laugh was his to hear and only his. the thought of another man who could make you as happy as he did irked him deeply.
what lit the fuse to the bomb was when eraser head pulled you in by the waist to move you away from the waiter, that was about to trip and drop a hundred drinks in your direction. you apologised and gave eraser head a big dumb smile, the same kind you gave him during your date. he didn't know that he would feel so enraged witnessing another person touch you, talk to you or laugh with you. what was he so jealous of?
the presenter on stage dismissed the heroes to the event, taking back their awards so that they could be delivered to their hotel room directly. he didn't want to watch another second of it, jumping off the stage with his hands tucked into his pockets. he swerved his way through the mob of people, grumbling to himself and swearing under his breath.
you could smell the faintest scent of his cologne so you turned around, only to face a less than pleasant hawks. his brows were furrowed and his lips were straight, one fist clenched by his side and the other one still in his pocket. you felt your heart in your throat. did you do something wrong? was he angry? you looked to eraser head for some kind of reassurance or confirmation. boy did you set fire to dynamite.
"y/n we're going, now." he took hold of your arm, almost grabbing it.
"b-but why, the real event just started?" you flinched a little, shocked that hawks would behave so aggressively towards you. what the hell had gotten into him.
"we're going and that's final." he started dragging you to the nearest exit, not giving you enough time to pick up your dress so that it wouldn't drag across the floor too much.
"sorry eraser head! it was nice to ━" hawks tugged you closer to him, cutting you midway through your goodbye.
his grip on your arm was so tight you were certain that it would leave some kind of mark or bruise. you wanted him to slow down, you really wanted a break from all the speed walking, but you couldn't speak up. it was physically impossible for you. every time you planned to say something your throat would go hoarse and chicken out on you. no words would leave your mouth.
you were afraid of him in that moment, it reminded you of when your father had beaten you and kei for sneaking out to play one afternoon. you and kei wanted to cry out for help, cry out to express your pain. but no matter how hard you tried nothing came out, it always ended up in silence. you didn't want to put hawks in the same category as that disgusting and treacherous thing you called a 'father'.
hawks took you all the way to his hotel room, which was a penthouse suite with the best view in all of Kamino Yokohama. he tapped his key card on the reader before shoving the door out of the way and throwing you inside of the room. the door closed behind him, loosening his tie and unbuttoning the top of his formal shirt. he made his way to you and your body trembled more and more the closer he got.
"what the hell was that all about hawks?! dragging me out of there with no explanation, i didn't even get to say goodbye to eraser head properly. and then you grab me and take me all the way here, look my arm has a red mark because of you!"
he looked at your arm and seemed to take a step back. you let it all out, all the words that were clogged up from before. you weren't going to stay silent this time, not anymore. what he did was wrong but hawks himself hadn't realised until you started shouting and bursting out on him.
"yeah what i did wasn’t exactly excusable and i'm sorry. but why is saying goodbye to eraser head so fucking important to you?"
"hawks are you hearing yourself?"
"why are you so caught up on him?! just focus on me, that's all that you need. or is it not enough?" he took your hand and placed it on his chest. his heart was pounding to fast and hard that you could feel it through his blazer.
jealousy. the room was plagued with his jealousy. was he afraid of losing you? maybe he was afraid of losing his place in your heart? you never thought hawks was the type to get jealous, sure it was human nature, but he was so confident in himself. on the surface that was.
his body was unsteady from the pent up anger he had hoarded whilst on stage. you knew what he was doing was out of order but somewhere in your heart you understood where he was coming from. the constant fear of the what if. what if you lose the one you hold dearest to your heart? what if you’re so easily replaceable you could be tossed to the side?
tears trickled down his cheek slowly and it infectious, water droplets forming in your eyes as well. it hurt to see him like this. you just wanted him to be his chirpy and cocky self again, you took that side of him for granted. but it was your job as his girlfriend to guide him through his moments of despair. no, not even a job. the bare minimum.
you moved your hand from his beating heart to his face, cupping it gently and lifting his head up to face you. two teary eyed lovers facing the abyss together. you pressed your forehead onto his and let out a little sigh. your big bird was still a baby at heart, and you were going to protect his precious heart.
"i will always need you hawks, there's nobody that could replace you. so please, don't let your fear get the better of you. it's okay to feel angry and jealous, it's human nature, but never forget that i care about you the most. i'm not going anywhere and you're not going to be replaced. you’re enough."
"y/n...i'm sorry, i was just so scared. i hated watching you and eraser head talk, and then when he touched you and you smiled at ━" you cut him off with a deep kiss. that's what he needed in that moment, a piece, a crumble of physical affirmation that you were his.
he was shocked, you never initiated the first move. it was different, like turning the page to a new chapter in your relationship and he wasn't complaining one bit. his hands drew itself to your waist, pushing you deeper into his lips. home. it felt like home to him. he didn't need all the fame or money that he had, hell he didn't even need to be a hero let alone number two. you were enough for him.
"i love you y/n, i'm so sorry for hurting you like that." his lips left yours and his head hung back down again. he took hold of your arm once again, but this time his touch was much more tender. "look at what i've done. i'm a monster. i don't fucking deserve you."
"i forgive you, bird brain. so don't grovelling about it, it's not very hero like y'know." your fingers ran through his golden locks and you laid your head on top of his.
"fuck hero life, i don't need it. why would i? i have you sweetheart and that's more than a bastard like me could ask for." you positioned yourself on his lap, throwing your arms around his neck.
"if you let out another negative comment i will never ever compliment you again, got it?"
"yes ma'am. sorry ma'am."he jumps and turns to look you in the eyes. you were deadly serious.
"i'm glad we're on the same page. i didn't get a chance to say it but congratulations on your award hawks!"
"thanks baby bird, first time anyone has really congratulated me with any sincerity at all." he played with your skirt and his free hand laid on top of your thigh.
"it won't be the last if i'm around! sorry about not having a gift, you got me the dress and a ride but i don't have a thing for you."
"looking at you in this gorgeous dress is more than enough, you have no idea what it does to me y/n."
you felt it. you felt your thigh rubbing against something hard that poked at your soft skin. you knew what it was, and the thought of it made you embarrassed. it wasn't as if you were innocent at all, absolutely not. you had your fair share of lewd thoughts about hawks. it couldn't be helped sometimes, when his pants were just a tad bit too tight you good get a clue or two about the outline of his cock. and you'd be a liar if you said you had never imagined him rubbing his length against your slit.
he looked at your face that was all red, only realising then what was making you behaving sheepishly. "shit y/n, sorry i didn't mean to really."
"it's okay...it's natural. your dick is really hard huh?" you bit your lower lip and unconsciously rubbing your thigh against him.
he picked you up from his lap and sat you on the bed properly, leaning in for a kiss. it was wet and messy, your tongues running around one another. his hand held you by the neck, pressing you deeper and deeper into his lips. your hand was over his clothed cock, teasing it as he pressed a finger against your cunt. "wet already?"
"nghh ━ don't wanna wait anymore, please fuck me daddy." and that's all you needed to do for hawks to make your fantasies a reality.
you turned to the side so that hawks could unzip your dress. it slipped right off you and he left it hanging over a chair. he couldn't take his eyes off your body, you weren't wearing a bra so your breasts were openly on display for him. your skin looked to delicate and soft, thighs and ass plush. perfect in everyway. he kissed his way down your figure. head, neck, chest, stomach, thigh. the slow pace was leaving you on the edge, your red thong soaked in your juices and drip.
your only bit of clothing was ripped off you, hawks' cooing in your ear "i'll buy you a new one princess." his fingers played with your wet fold, a thumb circling against your swollen clit and the two tips of his fingers teasing your hole. you bucked your hips urging hawks to finger you. a grin appeared on his face, "can’t wait? what a slut". the sound of your wet pussy being filled with two of his fingers echo the room. he curves his finger as he pushes in and out of you, reaching your g-spot. and every time he hit the deepest part you'd arch your back, mewling in pleasure and shamelessly moaning out his name. "ahh ━ hawks more, please! wanna cum please hawks!" fuck did your sweet voice make his dick twitch. he fingered you faster. too much for you to handle clearly, grabbing a hold of the bed sheets and letting out even more breathless cries of pleasure. his tongue lapped your cunt and his fingers kept spreading your walls apart, loosening you up for his cock. too much, it was too much for you. your mind was blank from all the enjoyment and the only thing you could think about was hawks playing with your whore of a cunt. he sucked on your clit, making sure to get a real good fucking taste of ‘his’ pussy. you whimpered, arching your back and cumming all over his fingers. hawks pulled his fingers out, spreading them apart to show you the long line of drip and how wet they were. he put his two digits in your mouth for you to taste before running his tongue from the bottom of your slit to the top. "god. you taste fuckin' sweet as candy baby bird."
your legs were trembling, they were weak. you had never had such an intense orgasm, nor did you have a clue that it could feel that good. "my turn." you took hold of hawks' hand, laying him against the headboard of the bed. you positioned yourself between his legs, his cock desperate to get out of his pants. he unbuttoned his blazer and shirt, and you unzipped his pants. your bare skin rubbing against one another made your heart race, a blush running across your cheeks. "take it slow sweetheart, no rush." you nod, taking his boxers off to reveal his red, bulge tip. he was bigger than you had ever imagined, your hand barely able to wrap around the base. you took a breath before pushing the head of his cock into your mouth, enfolding the tip in your wet tongue. hawks groaned and his hips jolted from the sensation your mouth was giving him, watching his pretty girl suck him off made him throb even more. as you moved your mouth up and down his length, you could feel it hit the very back of your throat. it was just so big it started to make you choke, and that was music to his ears. "gonna push it down so you take it all the way, pinch me if you need me to stop." groaning, he took a handful of your hair and shoved the rest of his cock into your mouth. your moans were muffled from the fullness of your mouth, tears running down your face, and your mouth became more and more sloppy and took hawks in. he tugged you off his twitching dick, his face flustered. "y/n lay down on the pillow, gonna put it in okay?"
he flipped you over so that you were the one laying down on the pillow. your legs were spread apart, levered on his broad shoulders. "wanna feel you inside daddy, pretty please." your needy pleas gave him the green light to pound you and drill the shape of his cock into your pussy. he lined it up with your entrance, slapping it on your cunt a few time. he prepped you so well that his entire cock was able to slip in easily. your wet walls wrapped around him tightly, almost milking him. he slammed his hips into you and you could feel his tip kissing your cervix, and he kept hammering your insides. your drenched pussy squelched at every thrust he rewarded your pretty little cunt. you were completely full from him, his dick fucking you dumb and senseless. he was turning you into his personal cock sleeve. you let him infiltrate your every senses, the only thing you could think about was him. "c-cum in me please daddy, give me every drop please!" your arms swung around his neck, trying to keep yourself upright since your legs were becoming weaker as he continued to shove himself into you. "my princess is so well mannered. of course i'll breed you pretty girl." his hand pulled your thigh in so he could reach even deeper, thrusting his cock as his thumb grazed against your cunt. he was giving you the fucking of a lifetime, pussy full and cunt overstimulated. "shit- gonna cum inside of you y/n. gonna fill you up so good."you could feel yourself reaching the limit, moaning, whimpering, digging your nails into hawks's back. his cock pouring every ounce of cum he could muster into your needy cunt. panting, he pulled out and watched the mix of his cum and yours slowly ooze out of you pussy. your insides were painted white.
"did so well sweetheart." hawks fell into your arms, resting his head on your chest.
"you too baby." you pressed a kissed on his head and ruffled his already messed up hair.
"is this the same y/n i know give ME a pet name? i could die happy." he looked at you with eager eyes waiting for an answer, with an underlying feeling of shock.
"well...we're in a relationship so i should start using pet names more often!" you didn't think it that big of a deal but to hawks it was like the world had just granted his every wish, his heart pounding next to yours.
"lets clean up and get some sleep, 'kay? i'll apologise to erase head tomorrow." he got up and headed to the bathroom.
you nodded and followed behind hawks, getting into the shower with him. you took turns washing each others hair and backs, hawks occasionally planting bubbles on your nose. the domestic moments you were having, like drying his hair and vice versa, made you feel like you were on cloud nine. butterflies erupted at the thought of you and hawks behaving like husband and wife.
the hotel had provided you and hawks with a pair of black silk pyjamas. they were so smooth to touchy and easy on the skin. the little pocket on your chest even had your name on it, hawks had the same but just with his name. well hero name. but the clothes were perfect fit. but how did they know you would be staying?
"hawks, why do i have a pair of pyjamas? i mean i'm not a hero nor was i a direct guest." he laid on the bed and you sat beside him, his hand petting your thigh.
"i asked them to get you a pair, pretty cool right."
"okay- but how did you know i would be staying, heck i didn't even know i was gonna stay the night." you poked his chest, your lips pouting.
"bird instinct." you started laughing, how unserious could he be. but it was nice, a change of mood.
"scoot over bird brains!"
he shuffled to the right side to make a little nest for you to lay on. hawks arm stretched out across the pillow, his hand prodding you to come over. you plopped your head on his arm and your face nuzzled in his chest. the light switched off, the blanket wrapped round you and so did hawks. you didn't need city lights to call something home anymore. it was right Infront of you, practically thrown over your entire being.
"goodnight y/n, sweet dreams." he lifted your chin, placing a gentle kiss on your lips, and then your nose, and finally your head.
"goodnight hawks. thank you for being my home.”
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“School for little vampires” fans! Is there any chance at all of reviving this fandom? And I mean not only in terms of popularity but also in terms of the continuation of this show itself. For example, the creation of a film, game, comic book or even anime based on it. And it doesn’t matter if some studio or the fans themselves do it. Since the idea of this animated series itself has enormous potential for popularity. Why do I think so? Okay, here are some facts why:
The main characters are children/teenagers. And this is already the main sign for success. Remember the Disney who decided to cancel the “ Wander over Yonder” not only because of low views but also because the main characters are adults. Well, as we know, in our time, the main success is precisely those cartoons where the main characters are children/teenagers (there are, of course, exceptions, but there are actually quite a few of them). I don’t think it’s worth explaining why these shows are popular because the reason is obvious.
Often, most of the cartoon episodes take place at school. And here is another main bonus to success for the animated series. I think many of us agree that most of the cartoons, films and anime that we all watched were somehow related to school. This has long become a classic. After all, it is in a show about school that most love relationships between characters take place(and this is what we will discuss now)
Love relationships between characters. SHIPS. And there are plenty of them in this cartoon. After all, there is a main couple in this cartoon-Oskar and Sunshine. Well, like in other fandoms, there are various disputes and disagreements over couples, the main ones being OskarXSunshine and OskarXGothetta. That’s it. The presence of a couples in animated series also greatly influences its popularity. Since they are an integral part of discussions in fandom.
Interesting characters with their own personalities. The more the creators of the cartoon show other characters and their character traits, the more interesting the show will be and will attract not only children but also more adult audiences. For example, what I remember most about this cartoon is Stoker and his constant dirty tricks. The show was completely different without him. I can definitely say that Stoker is a REAL troublemaker. I especially like his relationship with Oscar. They often argue and even fight, but I wouldn’t call them enemies either. In a word, they are frenemies✨. And I just love it. There's definitely never a dull moment with Oskar and Stoker! I can say the same about Paulus. Just a real walking comedy. Well, what would a cartoon be without this clumsy old man Van Helsing?? Usually such versatile characters are found in cartoons and anime. After all, it is there that such categories of characters are found: the main character, the quiet one (in this case the main character is the quiet one), the best friend who is secretly in love with the main character, the nerd, the bully, the youngest of all, the oldest of all.
This is a show about vampires. Many people like to read or watch something about vampires. And usually they involve love between a vampire and a human, which is a favorite cliche of many.
In the end, I want to say that this show has great potential for popularity. Well, if you consider that many people like to create anime based on vampires, it’s quite strange that no one decided to just take on the idea of creating an anime about vampire children who study at school. What an awesome anime that would be 🤧
#school for vampires#school for little vampires#oskar von horrificus#stoker#stoker flestcher#paulus#paulus polidori#sunshine polidori#gothetta gothetticus#disney#wander over yonder#my thoughts#I wonder how we can get this cartoon viral?#by creating a fan animation?#start creating trends on Tik Tok??#this reminds me of 2021..#good times
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Sebastian Michaelis x Female!Maid!Reader: College
Summary: At least he can give you one hell of a goodbye before they leave.
Rating/Tags: M (overt sexual references; Phantomhive Manor; major time skip from canon; college-bound!Ciel; Ciel without quotation marks; Sebastian & Ciel; Sebastian & Ciel & Reader; historical inaccuracies; not canon compliant)
Challenge: “160 Collective Drabbles” challenge by BobaPop on Lunaescence Archives.
Notes: I haven’t read Black Butler since 2012, and I haven’t watched the anime, period. However, because I have a friend that keeps up with the series from time to time, I am aware of some plot insanity that makes this scenario completely impossible. C’est la vie.
Tag List: @imaginesfire
College
A hollow sort of hush lay over the enormous house and all its grounds that hot August afternoon. The sun beat down on vacant flowerbeds and through the window panes into empty rooms. If any of the home’s usually raucous staff was there to see, none of them moved, none of them spoke. Their tasks were done, and what else was left but to wait for the inevitable? Wait they must. Being shouted at over their apathy was not much different than being shouted at for their enthusiasm.
Only two servants seemed to have escaped the oppressive moroseness that hung like a sheet over Phantomhive Manor. Hot as it was, sad as it was, they still had work to do. Down the deserted corridor, up the stairs, and inside the bare master bedroom stood the pair: a man, slender and dressed all in black, and a woman in a maid uniform.
The curtains had been pulled back and the window opened in the hopes of letting in some cheer, or at least a breeze. It appeared to be working, for the woman smiled as she watched the man sift through the trunk on the floor.
He lifted his head from its depths with a sigh. “I suppose everything appears to be in order,” he told the woman at his side.
You grinned, pressing your palms together. “That should be the last of it, then! We’re all finished.”
“You say that now. No doubt Mey-Rin will decide to sneak in some last minute token of appreciation and upset things all over again.”
“And Finny will want him to take flowers to remember the place by, and Baldroy will recall how awful university food is and want to send him a whole month’s worth of rations.” A laugh at the expression on the man’s face could not be entirely avoided. “I don’t know where you think you get the right to look like that, Sebastian. I’m the one that has to stay here with them.”
Sebastian, for that was the butler’s name, and the maid’s was [Name], only carded a gloved hand through his messy bangs and collapsed on the end of the stripped bed. “You know that isn’t by my choice.”
“No, but I knew it would be the Earl’s choice from the beginning, even when he said he wanted to leave you here to look after things.” When Sebastian did nothing but continue to contemplate his knees, you lighted down next to him. “Still, I confess myself disappointed. It was nice to believe I might have you all to myself for a little bit.”
A quiet scoff, and then his hands found one of yours to hold between them. “I’m sure that’s why he decided to take me after all. Can’t have the butler having any free time, can we? Not to mention all the extremely useful things for a butler to do on a university campus.”
“Taking out the trash, finding his books at the library, cooking meals at two in the morning while he studies for an exam the next morning…”
He groaned. Giggle though you might have at Sebastian’s predicament, you could see how bone-tired he really was. And who could blame him? Ciel had been running him ragged, changing plans, changing them back, get this, get that, leave him alone, why was Sebastian not at his beck and call immediately? Of course even a demon would be exhausted–or annoyed.
You bumped him lightly with your shoulder. “Hey, cheer up. I’ll be here to keep things running smoothly.”
“That’s the only thing keeping me from ripping that contract to pieces. No soul is worth this. Not even his.” Sebastian said this so dully that you might have believed he was serious, save for his dramatic fall against your side to rest his head on your shoulder and close his eyes.
“Then you’d miss out on seeing me every day,” you said.
The eyes opened up a sliver. “You’re not exactly worth it either.”
“True. I can almost promise the house won’t blow up while you’re away, but more than that…”
“There will be food and holes all over the walls. Garden dead. No clean laundry. Pantry empty. I’ll have to take each blunder out of your hide, you know.”
“That’s more like the Sebastian I know,” you breathed as you caught the smirk on his face. Your fingers danced through his hair for the shortest time imaginable before he twisted away to take your chin.
“In fact, all of these preparations might have gone more smoothly without your mistakes. It’s partially your fault that I’m considering giving my notice,” he said. “I should take that out of your hide now.”
Without further discussion, he pressed his lips to yours–“press” being the polite term for it. Heaven knew it was hot enough already. The two of you were already on a bed, however, and you were splayed across it, head spinning, before anything could be done to stop it. Sebastian’s mouth and other…admirable attributes made for a much better distraction from the warm summer and Ciel’s departure than any nonexistent breeze could. You gasped as you felt Sebastian hitch your skirts up, and–
“Here you two are. I trust you’ve finished the packing if you’ve decided you have time for a lark on my bed.”
You and Sebastian both sat up to find the master of the house--a young man with dark blue hair and an eye patch--standing in the doorway. His hands were on his hips and his usual peeved expression on his face. Ciel had found you in more compromising positions before, though, and his mind must have been too stuck on his upcoming trip to really be upset over such behavior from his servants–especially his only competent two.
Sebastian bowed, a smile not quite making it to his face in time.
“And what is it that you are doing on my bed?” Ciel asked, eyebrow raised.
Sebastian did manage a smile at that. “If I couldn’t get my master packed for university and pleasure a woman at the same time, what sort of butler would I be?”
“More hygienic, I should hope.” Ciel lifted his eye heavenward and shook his head. “Sebastian, come along. I need to go over the wallpaper with you again. I don’t think the red was a good decision. [Name], get this room dressed up again. Why did you strip it? Or do you expect me to sleep on nothing when I come home for the holidays?”
“Yes, my lord,” you said, curtsying as you got a little unsteadily to your feet.
No matter how many times Ciel walked in on you and Sebastian, you could never capture the same indifference as your companion. Too many real human emotions, you supposed. Not that that was going to stop you when Sebastian treated you like that.
“And you can go to the kitchen and help Baldroy when you’re done. I don’t want to hear another word about this going away feast he’s been prattling on about. Something light should do. I want to be situated by nine tomorrow morning, so Sebastian and I will be leaving at dusk.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And close the window. If I’d wanted the place aired out, I would have said.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Serves you right,” Sebastian said in a low voice, as Ciel turned out into the hallway once again. “I’ll see you this evening, for as long as the master allows it. So be ready.”
“Yes, my lord,” you said with a bit of a wicked grin.
Sebastian smirked again, but before any further promises of punishment could come, Ciel was back in the room. “Sebastian!”
“Coming, sir.”
You watched them go, still smiling for as long as you could. Eventually, you would have to go downstairs and be overcome by the rest of the staff’s grief. Eventually, you would have to say goodbye to Sebastian and your master both. But not just yet, you didn’t think. Years of service to the young earl, and you knew he was softer than he let on–well, softer to everyone but Sebastian. He wouldn’t be able to resist the feast once he actually came downstairs for dinner.
And after? After the chores, after the tears, after the packing and repacking and packing again? You still had Sebastian for one more night. For a few minutes anyway. In between changing wallpaper and listening to Ciel complain about the heat.
#fan fic#straw writes#reader insert#second person pov#request#one shot#black butler#kuroshitsuji#sebastian michaelis#sebastian michaelis x reader#sebastian michaelis x you#sebastian michaelis x y/n#black butler x reader#black butler x you#black butler x y/n#kuroshitsuji x reader#kuroshitsuji x you#kuroshitsuji x y/n#black butler reader insert#kuroshitsuji reader insert#sebastian michaelis reader insert
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Would you recommend The Locked Tomb Triology or Rook and Roses more? I have both unstarted in my Audible Library.
OH BOY. I'm slightly drunk and you've basically just activated my trap card.
Okay, these are very, very different literary experiences. I highly recommend both, but for wildly different reasons. I have listened to the audio books for The Locked Tomb, but not for Mask of Mirrors/Rook & Rose, so I can't really compare them. TLT's audio book is very well done, but the narrator does mispronounce one character's name throughout the whole thing, and that drives me slightly crazy. (Nonagesimus: uses the church Latin pronunciation. EDIT: I SAID I WAS DRUNK. IT'S THE OTHER WAY AROUND. No-na-jess-i-mus. Not It's no-na-guess-i-mus.)
The Locked Tomb series is amazing, and extremely rewarding, but it's a difficult read. The prose is dense and full of obscure and sometimes baffling references. The first book is relatively accessible as a science fantasy murder mystery; the second book is actively hostile to you, the reader, and it wants you to suffer on multiple levels. You will suffer on multiple levels. You will need to reread it at least once to actually understand what's really happening. The third book is less hostile, but it's definitely not comfortable. The series is unfinished; book 4 is still being written. Rereading the books is extremely rewarding, because you will miss things the first time around.
If you've ever read Homestuck (at least through the Scratch), then I would recommend the series unreservedly. The author is kind of famously a former Big Name Fan there. It is thoroughly, pervasively queer, but it's not really romantic; you'll see it marketed as "lesbian necromancers in space" but it's fundamentally a story about love, grief, loss, and the violence of colonialism/imperialism. (I draw a lot of parallels between it and Sea of Stars/Saboverse because of those themes.) The books are more appropriately set in the Horror genre than straight sci-fi/fantasy.
(I love the worldbuilding and the treatment of necromancy/magic as a science. Delicious.)
Mask of Mirrors/Rook & Rose is just a hell of a lot of fun. It's basically set in a fantasy eastern European city that was violently colonized by fantasy Italy, and the worldbuilding is fantastic. It also deals with themes of colonialism/imperialism, and at its core is grappling with ideas of identity and diaspora.
That's the high level themes at work in Mask of Mirrors, but I tore through the whole trilogy in less than a week because the characters are delightful, the worldbuilding is extremely tasty, and it's really about a badass con artist doing badass things. There are a lot of queer characters (including a handful of explicitly trans characters, and some implicitly asexual and aromantic characters), but the main romance is het.
(Rook & Rose magic systems are half numerology/scientific principal and half tarot/intuition, and I honestly adore it.)
With the locked tomb, it's kind of a running joke in the fandom that you can get spoiled for all the major plot points and still not have any idea what the hell is going on. With Mask of Mirrors/Rook & Rose, I really, really don't want to spoil anyone because some of those plot twists were so satisfying to experience, and I would've been so upset if they'd been spoiled for me.
Rook & Rose is a completed series, and the third book does wrap everything up pretty neatly. Maybe too neatly, in some ways, but it's still delightful. The books are long, but relatively easy reads (with the caveat that my idea of an easy read is...probably slightly distorted. I read book one in a day and a half. It's 630 pages long).
So, if you're okay with cliffhangers and being emotionally devastated (but in mostly good ways), go for The Locked Tomb. TLT also has an enormous fandom. If you want something with a definitive conclusion, swashbuckling shenanigans, and only mild to moderate emotional pain, and a fandom of like 3 people, please read Rook & Rose.
#locked tomb is also very much about being a devout catholic and a lesbian and figuring out how to reconcile that#and if you're not catholic you might not notice but i will say Nona the Ninth made me WILDLY uncomfortable in the back half#hence:#the catholicism is the point#being one of my locked tomb tags#mask of mirrors is *so* much fun though#and i adore every single character#rook & rose#the locked tomb
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Reaching for Stardust - Part VIII
Read Looking For Space here // Playlists here // Read on wattpad
Word Count: ~3200
Warnings: none:)
A/N: I really hope you guys enjoy this chapter. I love love stories...especially this one <3
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When we got back home, I was dying to talk to Bev and the boys. First, I consulted Bev, who went through a series of facial expressions so profound I faltered here and there throughout the entire retelling of the vacation. I could see the anger there when I told her about Josh’s secret and how he revealed it and her being upset on my behalf was validating. I hadn’t been out of bounds for merely being caught off guard and upset myself about what he’d kept from me. But then the same recognition, relief and forgiveness I had felt was shown on Bev’s face and I didn’t have to worry about her judgment, though I had worried about that quite a bit prior to seeing her. I’d worried that she’d take things to a drastic level. Thankfully, she didn’t and I was able to walk away from the conversation feeling an enormous amount of love from her that melted into the enormous amount of love I felt from Josh.
The boys weren’t coming back from their little Midwest tour for another week so I had to settle for a Facetime call with Jake, the one I was most anxious to discuss things with. I settled onto the couch, eagerly awaiting for him to pick up–when he did, I couldn’t help but grin wildly, the excitement of merely seeing his face enough to override my nerves.
“Hey, you,” Jake greeted in that kind, husky voice that had a natural soothing quality. He squinted, inspecting me through the little screen. “You don’t look that tan.”
I scoffed and looked down at my arm. “I got some color, Jake, jeez. Blame the phone camera for not being able to see my glow.”
Josh tilted his head one way, then the other, still looking at me hard. “Glowing from something else besides the sun?”
“No, I’m not pregnant,” I told him with a roll of my eyes. “And we’re also not engaged yet–technically–if that’s what you’re after.”
“Seriously? I thought he was gonna pop the question during this trip.” Jake sighed. “I mean, come on. You two should already be married.”
“Um, well, I agree,” I began, crossing my legs and beginning to fiddle with a stray thread on one of my socks. No doubt Jake knew I was the one who’d put the barrier up between Josh and I and marriage and I didn’t feel like getting into that then. “But he did bring something else up during the trip. I was wondering if he’d talked to you about it beforehand, actually.”
“What?”
“He had a job interview at a college in Savannah. He thought about us moving there.”
Jake’s brow furrowed and I couldn’t tell if he was just perplexed or a little upset or both. “Really?” was all he said, and then I knew he was feeling hurt. Not the same as the hurt I’d felt–different. Perhaps even deeper. Josh absolutely never kept secrets from Jake throughout their entire lives.
“Yeah. It took me by surprise too,” I told him. “I’m also surprised he didn’t mention it to you. It’s not like Josh to be able to keep his mouth shut for like, anything.”
Jake chuckled softly, then his face fell into a frown again. “I know. That’s very strange. I suppose I’m glad he didn’t tell me and not you but–”
I sighed. “Yeah. I know.”
“He really didn’t tell you anything?”
I shook my head. “No. Nothing until we were right outside the university. It scared the hell out of me, Jake,” I confessed. It was always so easy to talk openly with him–I was grateful for that, for how much our friendship had grown over the years. “Suddenly he drops this bomb and I couldn’t make sense of it all right then and there. We talked more, obviously, and it’s not even like he’s dead-set on moving there but–”
There was a gentle look of deep understanding in Jake’s eyes. “But he thought about it. A lot, apparently.”
“Exactly. I don’t want to live there, honestly. Maybe somewhere else someday. But I’m not ready to leave here yet.”
“That’s completely fair. I don’t know if I feel great about the idea of my own twin being that far from me either.”
I smiled a little. “Also fair. You should talk to him, too. I think he’s got a lot to say to you that he’s been holding back.”
Jake sighed. “I don’t want Josh to hold anything back from me.”
“I honestly don’t believe any of this secret keeping was on purpose. It’s just not in his nature.” I wanted to explain more to Jake but knew those were Josh’s words I’d be speaking. He was the one who needed to bring his twin up to speed on all he’d been thinking and feeling. “So, suffice to say, I don’t think we’re moving anywhere new.”
“That’s good. I’m all for change, but I don’t think I can handle another big one right now.”
“Me either. Except for getting married and buying a house, hopefully.”
Jake smiled. “Hopefully? It’s happening.”
I leaned back, stretching and holding the phone up with one outstretched arm. “Should we all just start a commune? Y’know, buy a big piece of land, all live together because we’re painfully codependent, all of that good stuff.”
“That sounds very Josh-like,” Jake said with a laugh. He looked more relaxed then, though I could clearly see the signs of exhaustion on his face. His undereyes looked darker and his entire face held a kind of sleepiness; I questioned it and he gave a slightly reassuring smile. “Touring is a lot. What we do now is different from how it was before–a few shows here and there in town, a few in Detroit. It’s definitely a bit tiring, but we do really love it.”
“Good. We knew you guys would blow up.” I sat up again, resting my elbow on my knee. “We just miss you. What are we gonna do when you guys are gone for like, a year?”
“There’s breaks. We’ll see each other.”
I loved hearing the assuredness of Jake knowing they’d grow more and more into their success; still, it always felt like a lot to process. “I’m not omitting Josh and I being roadies from the realm of possibilities,” I told him. “This codependency is a killer.”
Jake laughed again. “It’s just love. That’s all it is.”
–
After Josh came home, we talked from beginning to end–again–through his thought process about the job and the move. He talked as if they still held potential for a little while, but when he brought up how he and Jake had actually talked as well between classes, the dismissal of the two things came to light. He didn’t want to move states away and I believed him when he said it–he didn’t even need to reassure me. I could hear it in his voice and see it in his face, this kind of relief that I was sure came from not only finally revealing it all to me in Savannah but also, finally, talking things through with his brother. The bond he had with Jake, as well as with Sam and Danny, always came first in my mind even if Josh didn’t see it that way and I was fine with that. Jake and Danny were processors and held wisdom in their minds even when they weren’t quite ready to share it; Sam, on the other hand, reacted to things quickly and didn’t shy away from the full expression of his feelings. All of them held their own advantages when it came to communication and hard decisions, influential in their own rights.
“There’s so much to think about,” Josh mused. We were sitting on the balcony, watching the sun begin to set; I was studying the way the light hit the leaves, pondering what our next move would be–quite literally–until Josh turned to me and took my hand. “What are you thinking about right now?”
“I’m thinking about how much change might be too much change,” I told him, looking into his eyes. “Maybe trying to buy a house right now isn’t the best thing. There could be other things to focus on. And maybe we could move to Detroit sometime in the future.”
He smiled. “Other things to focus on–like a wedding?”
I smiled back. “Yeah. Like a wedding.”
Once again I found myself mapping the trajectory of our life and all the future choices I could think of in my head; the slight squeeze of Josh’s hand around mine made me slow down. “Maybe we don't have to plan every little thing,” I said, mostly directing that at myself. I sighed and rested my head on his shoulder. “I miss being more spontaneous. Being an adult sucks.”
Josh chuckled, jostling me a bit. “Only sometimes. Besides, we were adults when we met.”
“Kind of. Also kind of silly kids.”
“We’re still that way. We always will be.” Josh bounced up to his feet and took both my hands, pulling me up with him. “Let’s go have dinner on the beach. That’s spontaneous, no?”
It was warm but the air was cooling and would certainly be chilly soon, even more so once we were on the water; the thought of the strong breeze against our skin as the low waves rolled to shore propelled my emphatic “yes.” So we scraped together some sandwiches, chips, a tupperware container of fruit and the six-pack that had been hanging out in the fridge for a little too long. The sun was lower as Josh drove, a half-dome of golden-orange on the horizon as we headed west toward the lake and, by the time we parked the car, a cool, calm dusk was in full force.
Josh led the way down the rocky, sandy bank, through the tight cove of trees and to an entirely empty part of the beach. The sun was far to our left, merely a sliver over the water, and the deepening of the blue sky melted with the calm water, immersing us in a whole world of blue. Josh had returned to that quiet state that unnerved me, but he didn’t look nervous–he looked like someone who was holding in a laugh.
“What’s so funny?” I questioned as we settled down on a blanket. I popped open two beers, handed one to Josh, and prodded the container of fruit open.
“Nothing,” he said, but then he began laughing wildly like I’D said something hilarious.
“Not another secret?” I pressed, actually joking.
“No. No secret,” Josh said with a wave of his hand. He nestled right against my side and took a drink, looking ahead at the water. “We’ll have a better view of the stars here.”
I looked up, past the wispy layer of grey clouds and into the darker part of the dusk where a few stars had begun to shine through. Josh’s weight on me, the darkness and the soothing sound of the water were lulling me into a daze and I knew I could have easily, literally fallen asleep had it not been for Josh abruptly shooting forward to grab his backpack again. It felt like the time he was going to propose–I expected a ring to be pulled from that backpack pocket, but he only took out a pack of cigarettes.
“Really?” I asked teasingly.
He put one between his lips. “Yes, really.” After he lit it, he passed the pack to me but I waved it away.
“We’ll share,” I told him, and Josh handed it to me after he exhaled. The whispers of smoke spun into the air and away while I took a drag; I felt nervous then, my expectations unmet but the knowledge of the upcoming proposal happening sometime, somewhere remained. I did wish many times that I hadn’t been so resistant to marriage. Josh had been ready sooner than I had, but I knew in my heart it hadn’t been much sooner. Sometimes I felt like I’d made him waste all that time with me–why should he have stuck around for someone unwilling to make the ultimate commitment? What had I been so resistant to anyway?
After we ate and drank some more beer, we walked along the shore, barefoot through the cold water. Josh held my hand and we looked for constellations and lone stars and planets–I spotted Arcturus, bright and white, and the Big Dipper above while Josh excitedly pointed out Virgo.
“It’s really incredible,” he said while we paused, both of our heads tilted back to look in wonder at the infinity that lay above us. “All of that–all those stars, planets, galaxies and we’re all here on Earth. There has to be other life out there. I don’t know why anyone says otherwise.”
“Sometimes it feels scary,” I admitted. “Not that there’s other life out there, but just how big all of this is. I don’t think we’re insignificant though.”
“We can’t be. And everything can’t be random.”
I squeezed his hand. “Definitely not. The universe knew what it was doing when it brought you into my life.”
“It did.” I watched Josh bring his gaze down to the water, turning to look past me. “Check out that boat–they’re way far out.”
I turned to look at it and I was a little mystified at how small the distant light on it was, how far away whoever was commandeering the ship was from us; I couldn’t hear the motor, only the sound of the waves and then Josh clearing his throat. When I turned back to him, he’d disappeared from my eyeline–no, he was down on both of his knees and looking up at me.
“Josh–” I began to say but I didn’t know what to say next. My heart sped up suddenly, racing hard in my chest and into my ears, and a wave of dizziness came over me so fiercely that I placed one hand on his shoulder to steady myself.
He smiled. “I’m so very glad I can still make you swoon, darling.” In his hands he held a small black box, so shiny it looked like it was carved from obsidian itself. “I want to do that for the rest of our lives.” Even in the dark I could see the glimmer of his eyes and the flush spread across his cheeks, his own nerves alive as much as mine were, I was sure. “You are absolutely everything to me and I want to go everywhere and do everything with you forever.” Josh took a breath and laughed a little before his slightly shaking hands–the sight of which made my heart swell with so much adoration I felt dizzy all over again–opened the box. I glanced down at the ring but it was a blur; I was too focused on his beautiful face and watching his lips create the next string of words: “I’ve wanted us to be bound together for eternity for so long now, love. Will you marry me?”
I dropped to my knees in front of him, threading my fingers through his hair, pulling him in to kiss. It was just my instinct then–to kiss him with all the love I had in my body, to hold him close enough that he knew I’d never let him go, not caring that the water was cold and soaking my pants. All I could feel was him. Josh hummed against my mouth and I pulled back to finally verbalize my answer: “Of course, Josh. I love you so much.” I kept my hands on the back of his neck but looked down to really see the ring and, when I did, all I could say then was, “Oh my god.”
It was gorgeous and I was speechless as I looked at it. The moonlight cast its glow on the white gold band and the teardrop diamond that was surrounded by tiny blue gems–all of it was perfectly suited to me. I kept gawking and Josh chuckled, then took it out of the box and took my hand, sliding it onto my ring finger as he quietly said, “I hope I got the right size.”
He did. He nailed it. I lifted my hand and gazed at the beauty of it some more, still trying to find the words to express all the gratitude and even surprise. Sure, I’d known the proposal would happen. But maybe nothing ever prepares you for the feelings that come along with it regardless, and from the adoration and the gratitude came a swell of feelings I couldn’t name, but it was all so overwhelming that I started crying.
“Oh, no, sweetheart,” Josh cooed, wrapping me in his arms as I brought my hands to my face, weeping into them and shuddering against his body. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, nothing,” I whimpered, getting the ring wet with my own tears as I tried to wipe them away, but they kept coming. “I’m so happy, Josh. I just–I’m so sorry–sorry it took so long.”
Josh rubbed my back. “Don’t be sorry. Please don’t be sorry. I’m not sorry about it.”
When the tears slowed, I hugged him back, resting my wet cheek on his shoulder. “You’re not?”
He giggled. “No! We’re together and we always have been. That’s what matters.”
I lifted my hand to look at the ring again. “This is too much. It’s too beautiful.”
“It’s just right. It’s just for you. Do you like it?”
“I love it. It’s perfect.”
“By the way,” Josh said, then turned to kiss my forehead. “It’s a lab-grown diamond. No blood spilled for that one.”
I sniffled. That was so him. “That’s good. Thank you. For all of it.”
Josh gently guided both of us back up to our feet. He held my hands, looking down at the impossibly gorgeous ring he’d placed on my finger. “You really like it?”
I watched the diamond sparkle–literally–in the moonlight and the tiny sapphires glow like the water before us. “I love it so much. You could’ve gotten me a twist tie for all I care but, Jesus Christ, Josh–this is stunning.”
He smiled. “I thought for a long time about what it would look like. It reminds me a little bit of the pendant you got me for our first anniversary. That may have influenced my decision making a little, too.”
“You know how much I love when we match,” I told him, taking away my right hand to wipe a few leftover tears away. My heart still felt so full and there was so much inside me I wanted to say, but eloquence didn’t feel possible then. Instead of trying to speak further, I kissed him again.
The lingering kiss over, Josh nuzzled into my neck. “I love you, mama. I’m so happy you said yes.”
I wrapped my arms around him and closed my eyes as his curls brushed against my skin with the same gentleness as the breeze. “There’s no universe in which I’d say no.”
---
Tagging: @kissingthegoat @jjwasneverhere @clairesjointshurt @bizzielisteningtogreta @colorstreammind
If you want to be tagged in any of my fics, you can go here or DM me :)
#greta van fleet#gvf#josh kiszka#josh gvf#josh kiszka x oc#josh kiszka x reader#jake kiszka#danny wagner#sam kiszka#gvf fic#gvf fanfiction#josh fic#rfs#lfs
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'You wouldn’t read a novel in two hours, actor Andrew Scott says. Why would you rush a good story on screen?
With “Ripley,” an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” Scott gets to savor the story over eight episodes.
“Sometimes it’s about the plot and sometimes it’s about the characters,” he says. “I think that’s enormously engaging for the audience.”
Written and directed by Oscar winner Steven Zaillian, the Netflix series lets Scott toy with the lies Tom Ripley tells.
“I don’t think Tom is a natural born killer,” Scott says. “I think he’s somebody who’s very fallible and makes mistakes and we see those mistakes happen in real time. We also see his real talent taking place.”
Scott, the star of “Fleabag” and “All of Us Strangers,” wanted to know how Zaillian was going to make his version different from the 1999 film starring Matt Damon. There, Ripley is hired to persuade Dickie Greenleaf, the son of a shipping magnate, to return from Italy to the United States. The quest, however, becomes far more complicated and deceitful.
“The opportunity to write it and to tell the story in long-form television was a really interesting dynamic,” Scott says. “(Zaillian) had a very strong vision that he wanted it to be in black and white. The idea that the black-and-white (concept) can be married in some way to the way he wanted to teach the audience how to watch this story was very similar to the way we might read a novel.”
“The eight-episode format suited this book,” Zaillian explains. “It allowed me to get into the details of the story and the changing relationships between the characters in a way that you can’t really do in two hours.”
Dakota Fanning, who plays Marge Sherwood, the woman tied to Dickie Greenleaf, says the extra time let her go “toe to toe with Tom Ripley and have a few battles with him.
“It allowed me to create what Marge’s perspective and Marge’s reality is – to see where they intersected and where they diverged.”
Johnny Flynn, who plays Dickie, says Zaillian’s scripts were very precise in terms of story beats. “You don’t need to show too much of (Dickie’s) backstory. He’s just existing in those moments,” Flynn says. “I thought of him as somebody who had run away from his cultural identity because he has a kind of shame around it. He has come to Old World Europe to hide himself in the idea of being an artist in this beautiful place and feed off that. There’s no moral ambiguity around him.”
Scott sees the Netflix adaptation as another artist’s interpretation. “I love the fact that that can ignite something completely different in different filmmakers,” he says.
Anthony Minghella’s film, which also starred Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow, played on Ripley’s desires for Dickie.
In “Ripley,” “I’m playing a very solitary, not necessarily lonely character,” Scott says. “Other people have every right to call him a villain, but I think he’s so complex it’s too easy to call him just a villain. I certainly think he’s an anti-hero. The great achievement of the stories – and this version of the script -- is that we really are rooting for somebody that we shouldn’t. We want him to get away with it, for the most part. We question him…and that can only be because we see ourselves in Tom Ripley.”'
#Andrew Scott#Steven Zaillian#Ripley#Netflix#Johnny Flynn#Dickie Greenleaf#Patricia Highsmith#The Talented Mr Ripley#Matt Damon#Jude Law#Gwyneth Paltrow#Anthony Minghella#Dakota Fanning#Marge Sherwood#Fleabag#All of Us Strangers
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Darkness and The Coffin
This is Part III of my The Rise of the Archon of Sin series, featuring my self-insert MC, Klein.
Part I - The Sacrifice
Part II: The Mourning
Pairings - all brothers x Klein, but Lucifer x Klein is the most prevalent
Warning - lessons 16 & 38 spoilers, slight mention of religion
Note - there will be 2 Kleins in this part (why? Read to know XD), so I’ll use 2 different colors to distinguish between the two of them.
Klein - the Klein we always know
Klein - the other Klein
Last thing, Thirteen makes a cameo
Where am I? Klein asked himself the moment he opened his eyes.
The Overlord found himself lying next to a bonfire on the bank of a dark river. On the sky, there was nothing except the moon, which looked completely eerie and twisted like something from a horror movie. Klein looked around him, and beside the bonfire, he also found many things, from a common thing like a teddy bear to a gold statue of the Egyptian god Horus, all of which seemed old and abandoned.
“Ah, you woke up, good.” Klein turned to the direction of the voice. And standing there was…himself, or rather, another Klein.
“Who are you?” Klein immediately got up and prepared to fight.
“I know that would be your reaction.” Klein said without any emotion. “But you do know me.” He lifted his shirt and showed Klein something.
“Those wounds…you are t-the other me, the one killed by Belphie - Belphegor in the other timeline, no, it’s also my timeline now.” Klein couldn’t hide the surprise in his voice. “Why are you here?”
“‘Belphie’, I see you are already that close to him.” Klein snickered. “As for why I’m here, when that damnable demon butler merged the timeline, you became the only Klein. And I, I was thrown away to this place - the Land of the Dead and Forgotten.” Klein said as he used his hands to signal for Klein to look around. “And when you killed yourself to save Lucifer and the others, your soul was exiled to this place too.”
“The Land of the Dead & Forgotten?” Klein asked.
“Yes, any living thing that dies in extremely special circumstances, like by the Night Dagger or erased by merging timelines, will come here. As for objects, they are simply forgotten by human, I guess.”
Klein looked at Klein while he was talking as he remembered something and got into defensive stance again.
“If you came here and became forgotten because of the merging timelines, you should bear hatred for me, right?”
“Don’t worry. I no longer do.”
“What’s the meaning of that?”
“Here’s in the Land of the Dead & Forgotten, everything will be slowly devoured by the place itself. For living creatures like us, the place will cool all of our emotions & our desires first before eating us. Hatred, anger, greed, desire to find a way to leave this place, however strong at first those emotions and desires may be, they will slowly die down. The place will devour us after we become empty shells with nothing left.” Klein said with an emotionless tone of voice, which he had never changed since meeting Klein.
Klein looked at the other him and he began to realize the fact that Klein had never spoke with any emotion, his voice was always monotone.
“Don’t tell me-.”
“Yes. When I first came here, the hatred I bore for you was enormous. I cursed you and the brothers along with anyone related to the exchange program like every moment I thought of you. However, like after the first one hundred years or so, I lost all of that negative emotion. Gradually, even positive emotions left me. Now, even if someone gives me a gift, I can’t even say thank you with happiness, but only emotionless words.”
“Wait, 100 years?”
“Time flows very different here.”
“Ah, I shouldn’t have asked a question with such an obvious answer.” Klein began to relax and sat down on an old chair beside the bonfire.
Klein intended to say that was his chair but decided to drop it and went dig out another chair from bunch of things near them. After that, things became quite awkward between them.
“Erm, how long have you been in here, like according to how time flows here?” Klein asked.
“10,000 years, from the moment I got thrown in here until I found you in the river over-there and dragged you here.”
“That long?”
“Yeah, I should have been devoured long ago, but I managed to last until now, thanks to the little love I have left for them.” Klein placed his right hand over his heart. “Here, negative emotions and desires will die down sooner than positive ones. But the thing right here have kept me existed for very long, longer than it should have. But I think it will only give me some little more time. When it gets cooled down by this place, I’ll get devoured.”
“Oh, I-.”
“No, don’t say I’m sorry. That’s the last thing I want to hear right now.”
“O-ok.”
Then things started to become awkward again for five minutes.
“Erm, how did you know all of this? I know you have stayed here for a long time, but it’s hard not to wonder when you’re the only one here and you seem to know literally everything without anyone else around to show you.”
“I wasn’t alone. There were a few others. But now there’s only me…and you.”
“Oh.”
After that, the situation became awkward again.
“Do you want to see how the brothers are doing?” Klein suddenly asked.
“I can do that?”
“Yes.”
“Then please tell me how to do that.”
“It’s simple. Go to the river over-there, look at the water and think about them.”
Klein got up and went to the river and as he looked down, images of the brothers began to appear.
The first image appearing was the image of the six younger brothers kneeling beside his body. All resting their heads on either his chest or arms. Some chose to stay silent for the moment, others kept mumbling something audible only to the speaker while holding on to his body.
Tears began to roll down from Klein’s eyes as he watched how devastating the brothers were.
“Here.” Klein gave his counterpart some tissue.
“Th-thanks.”
Soon the image was replaced with another. This one was about Lucifer.
Lucifer stepped inside a coffin shop as a purple-haired girl was going out, making them nearly collided.
“I’m sorry.” Lucifer apologized.
“It’s alright. We haven’t collided anyway.” The purple-haired girl said. “You want to find the owner of the shop, right?”
“Yes.”
“Candy, stop making coffin for a second. There’s a customer.” The girl turned her head back before shouting.
“She’ll be out in a few minutes.” The girl said.
As Lucifer went inside, the girl looked at him secretly, thinking about something before leaving.
After the girl left, a woman stepped out from deep inside the shop to meet Lucifer.
“What kind of coffin do you want?” Candy took out some paper and asked.
“The best you could find.” Lucifer said like the words that just came out of his mouth were what he always believed with strong conviction.
“Did they follow any religion?” Candy asked after noting Lucifer’s words down.
The demon of Pride took a deep breath before saying:
“He was Catholic. Please place a crucifix on the coffin.”
While Klein was looking at his beloveds through the water, the other Klein went to the bonfire. He settled down beside it. His right hand again placed on his chest. He wasn’t sure why but his chest began to feel warmer seeing the relationship between Klein and the brothers. The sole feeling inside his chest, which had been keeping him alive, long had it been dimmed, but just now, it gained a little bit strength to fight against the effect of the Land of the Dead & Forgotten.
Author’s words
It may be a bit confusing to read because I have to write 2 Kleins 😵💫
Tag. @sparkbeast20
#obey me#omswd#obey me mc: klein#obey me lucifer#obey me demon brothers#lucifer x oc#obey me lucifer x oc
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ProngsfootWeek DAY 1 - When and Why did you begin to Ship Prongsfoot? What makes you Ship it?
Sirius/James is without a doubt the ship I have circled back to the most. I have fanfics I wrote all the way back in 2009 for them (all incomplete, and horribly written I am sure, but they are there :P).
I’ve seen it said that friends to lovers is a bit boring, but I beg the differ with these two. Despite the limited page time, I think Sirius and James have quite clear characterisations and are two of the most compelling individuals in the series.
James was a bit spoilt, bigheaded and arrogant, but also charismatic, energic, optimistic, able to find light and humour even in the darkest of moments, steadfast in his belief of right and wrong, endlessly loyal to his loved ones, generous with his wealth, time and own life. He was brash with a cruel streak, but that makes his choice to be who he was (a man who went into hiding with his wife and infant son instead of continuing to fight and ‘hunt glory’) and sacrifices he made all the more compelling. I also believe despite his perceived over confidence he struggled with insecurity at times and used his arrogance as a defection technique.
As the only son of an elderly couple, I believe James grew up loved but longing for stimulating companionship – enter one Sirius Black.
Sirius is not the opposite of James but nor are they simply different shades of the same character (à la Fred/George), but his compliment. Enigmatic, carelessly clever, full of quick biting wit and wicked grins, determined, precise and inquisitive. He had a dark sense of humour and devil may care attitude (concealing a burning sense of loyalty and love for those he cares for). Despite his effort to reject his family, was still entitled and disdainful at times and his moral compass was always a little off kilter. But he fought for what he believed in, no matter the personal cost (and it did cost him enormously). Yes he could be haughty, snarky, apathetic and cruel at times, but he could have so easily have chosen the easy path so many times but he never ever did (even in GoF, he’d successfully avoided capture at the end of PoA and seemingly shaken the Ministry off his tail. He was lounging on a beach somewhere getting some much needed R&R, likely never to be found, but he came back for Harry out of love, loyalty and duty). He also has one of the captivating aesthetics in the entire series… flying motorbike, careless good looks, long hair and a kind of enthralling aloofness (i.e. he is downright sexy 😉).
Together Sirius and James are somehow even more fascinating.
Inseparable, too-clever-for-their-own-good, impossibly handsome boys who are somehow both the most popular boys in the school and complete magical nerds (which I think speaks entirely to their charisma). I completely reject the idea that Sirius is some kind of sidekick to James. My reading is that they are the consummate equals: intellectually, in magical skill and in their leadership of their own school yard gang. They challenged each other to push harder, to be smarter. But they also endlessly supported each other and egged the other on (even when they maybe shouldn’t have). They each have their individual strengths but they never appear to be envious or covetous of what they lack, which I feel is quite unusual in friendships between teenagers, even really close ones (look at Harry and Ron, even they have aspects of the other they are envious of). On a darker note, I think they were entirely too lenient/ forgiving of the others’ flaws and would defend each other to the very end, even when it was S or J in the wrong.
IMO this pairing makes such a fertile ground for fanfiction. Even that first meeting you have this almost Romeo / Juliet-esque aspect with their families on opposite sides of the ideological divide; there’s also that instant connection / meeting your equal / melding of the minds kind of thing going on; and I kind of letting loose for the first time (James letting himself lean into his more cruel arrogant side, Sirius allowing himself to break out of the mould of the Black heir by disparaging the Slytherin house). They would absolutely be the kind of idiots to fake date (or marry) or practice kiss (or more) or try friends with benefits, and then fall in love (or more likely realise they had already been in love this whole time). They’d also entirely be the type to angst over loosing their friendship and try to stop themselves from falling in love/pretend they hadn’t. Or be so obvious about the fact they are already in love with the other (“all people fell this way about their best friends… don’t they?”) that they would go years before realising.
Anyway this got really long so I’m going to leave it here.
#prongsfootweek2022#day 1#prongsfoot#hp#sb#jp#sorry for the rant#this got really long haha#sorry for any spelling/gramma etc issues#tried to proof read but working on limited sleep here lol#long post#my posts
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Hii, I loved your MK latinidad post!
I have a few ideas to share, speaking from my own identity as a Latin American person ((oh also I’m just referring to what's portrayed in the tv series, cause I’ve only read Lemire’s run of the comics so I don’t have much more info to go beyond these two))
I love and crave Latin American MK so much it is unreal :( Yet I’m not satisfied with how the intersection of the cast identities with their characters’ mayyybe is being taken by some people in the fandom space as a fulfilling form of representation.
I mean, it directly ties to a larger set of issues topics that go beyond what we’ve been shown so far in the series (as in, we’re kind of limited to those 6 episodes lmao)
Anyway, going back to the intersection of identities, I think that knowing about the cast’s latinidad it’s like seeing the machinations inside an author’s head. There’s a lot of information that we know about MK’s reality that is never actually mentioned within the canon of the series. By this I don’t mean that nothing can be left to interpretation, but that we’re actually lacking ties to the characters' latinidad within their own world. Like the thing in which we know Steven in his white suit is Mr. Knight but that name is never mentioned in the tv series.
It's obvious, like you said, that these casting choices are a confirmation of the writer’s and Oscar’s interest in portraying Latin American identities. But because of this lack of material representation of latinidad in this particular case, the info about the cast’s ethnicity doesn’t actually build on some new meaning to the show. I believe that we should see it as the founding bricks for something that we will be eventually shown in a hypothetical S2 or any kind of continuation if we ever get one (I cling to these details not to lose hope lol)
Yet, we shouldn’t close the series onto itself. I think that we should rethink the line between what’s shown and not shown (through imagery and background elements as the show uses MK’s surroundings perfectly to scatter around a whole lot of their identities), especially when it comes to such complex and ultra-layered representation. Like, we cannot cherry-pick where we blur and when we don’t blur the line between inside and outside info and meaning. I mean that’s how the wild understandings of DID in real life and as portrayed by the series probably originated.
On an almost completely different note, this all ties to the inherent complexity of Latin American identities. Most times the term Latino on its own is not enough to portray the enormous diversity of it, the complex relationships within all social and private spaces and latinidad and how our identities have either been rebranded by ourselves to “copy an (European) ideal”, how others have rebranded them and created an unnuanced view of latinidad, and how the term itself is not enough to represent what we put behind it. This is like a whole field of study on its own so, yeah, long story short, it’s great to see the beginnings of its portrayal in MK and I love what it brings to the table, even if we have little to work with!
(with this I finish I swear, this turned out way longer than I expected lmao)
I’d love to see Marc and Steven, specially Marc, reconnecting w his Latin American identity through their relationship w Jake… probably bringing some brand new characters or characters from the comic but with Latin background that Jake got to know throughout time (I think maybe Gena Landers would be a great friend for them to bring into the tv series) and that maybe he has this kind of found-family-like relationship with. I think it would be a nice way to talk about Marc’s relationship with his heritage and to separate his latinidad from his mother’s image. GOD if only I had time to do this, I think my life would be fulfilled
Anyway, I can’t wait to read more of your ideas on this! Hope you’re doing fine! :)
Thank you so much for this comment, it is so intelligent and well thought out, I was a little intimated to answer so I hope I did ok. I am well thanks for asking. I hope you’re ok too 😁❤️
I think you made a fantastic point that the line between the actor and their real-life identity and the fictional character they portray is blurry. Paul Rudd being a Jewish man doesn’t necessarily make Scott Lang/Ant-Man also Jewish but Zendaya being biracial does then make MJ bi-racial. Actors are actors and they shouldn’t just be limited to roles that perfectly match their own personal identities. For POC especially, there are simply not enough roles written for POC actors. I joke that there are more MCU characters named Steve than Latino characters with names, but is it really a joke? What makes it blurry for Oscar Isaac and MK is we’re not just talking about his Guatemalan-Cuban ethnicity, but also about him being mixed race. He himself jokes about being ethnically ambiguous but the reason we perceive him that way is because we fail to recognize ingenious features. The Spanish conquistadors and the US government have worked together to genocide, to disconnect “Latinidad” from indigeneity(and in some cases blackness). By creating labels like “Mestizo,” by saying “Latine isn’t a race,” and forcing us to check for ‘white’ on the census, it disconnects us from our history and grants us conditional “whiteness.” Even if MK is never openly confirmed to be Latino, why is the default white unless proven otherwise?
For me, in my heart, it is nondebatable that MK is Latino. Jake’s Spanish, costume, MK’s family and young MK’s is all the confirmation needed. While any explicit reference confirming MK as Latino would be nice, I personally do not need it. MK being Latino is a hill I will die on.
Casting Oscar Isaac as Marc Spector/Moon Knight was a color-blind casting choice. Nothing about how the character was written in the show was changed in order to reflect the character's potential identity. They could(and should) have explored internal and external barriers to mental health within the Latin community, alcoholism and substance abuse, tendencies to look away when it comes to domestic abuse, generation trauma, and the intersectionality of being Latino and Jewish but they didn’t. As much as it pains me to say it, MK is not a Latino story just because the main actor is Latino. It could be, and hopefully they explore those topics in s2, but as it stands, it is not.
On the other hand, Layla is an identity-conscious casting. They didn’t just hire May Calamawy as Marlene Alraune, they rewrote the characterization in an Egyptian context. Calamawy and Diab worked together to create Layla and bring her cultural identity to the forefront. Layla’s passionate about her country, she’s opposed to foreigners exploiting and stealing Egyptian artifacts, she speaks Arabic. They reimagined some minor comic book characters and turned her into the first Egyptian/Arab superhero. She is an Egyptian character.
As fans, we shouldn’t grow complacent with representation, hiring a minority actor isn’t enough. There need to be more stories about POC for POC. I desperately want MK to team up with Robbie Reyes and Gael García Bernal's character and talk shit in Spanish. I want Marc to reconnect to his Latindad through Steven and Jake, and learn to see it in a context outside of his family. I want them to explore what it means to be a Jewish-Latino. I want Marvel to hire Latine writers and actually tell our stories.
In case anyone is interested, Khadija Mbowe has a fantastic video about Color-blind vs. Identity-conscious casting
#moon knight#marvel#marc spector#steven grant#jake lockley#usaigi speaks#layla el faouly#asks#oscar isaac#may calamawy#also anon you're v kind thank u for the ask#moon knight meta#usaigi meta
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— A FAIRYTALE BEGINNING | chapter 3
the winds of change
pairing: Loki / f!half-Asgardian!Reader
word count: 7,511
summary: you share with Loki an experience to not be forgotten and forge friendships that will last a lifetime
in this chapter: more time skips, some lore, some light flirting, Thor showing up at The Worst Time™, very brief and mild violence in the form of someone being thrown to the ground after being rude
author notes: this chapter is sponsored by me watching several episodes of vox machina because my brain couldn't handle more music, and my local coffee shop supplying me with many london fogs
( previous chapter | read on ao3 | series masterlist )
“You need to hold still, little starlight,” your uncle, Sveinn, orders. He’s tugging on the bottom strap for the breast collar of the saddle you’re wearing, each adjustment to the straps causing you to lean into him.
You rumble out an apology and do your best to stop leaning forward as he finishes tightening the straps.
You and Loki arrived in your family’s suite of the palace over half an hour ago, racing hand-in-hand to the pavilion on the far side where you knew you would find your mother and your uncle waiting, Frigga trailing several steps behind you both.
The pavilion itself is enormous, completely open on one side with a few drapes in (what you assume to be) your father’s colour and depicting (what you know to be) his symbol dispersed between a few of the columns that line the side open to the realm beyond. With three wildly different seating arrangements spread around the entire space and plenty of space between each, this is where your aerial lessons begin each day.
Once you’d found where they were sitting, you and the princess begged for your mother to let you take Loki flying, but it wasn’t until Frigga said that she was fine with Loki being on dragonback that your mother finally conceded.
Your mother had consulted your uncle on if they had an actual saddle that was properly sized for Loki (rather than the usual unmoulded leather that stood in for a saddle during your drills) before she disappeared for several minutes and returned with one she believed would work.
Before your mother let your uncle strap the saddle on, Kára made sure she went over the basics of the saddle — the girth, the stirrups, the horn, the leg straps — with you both. Even though the saddle is similar to the ones used for horses, there are enough differences that are unique to it. Only once that was covered did she hand the bundle of leather over to Sveinn so he could strap it onto your back.
“This will be the first time she’s carried anyone. Normally we wait until a dragonling is fifteen, as you know, but since the princess is still young, I think this will work out fine,” Kára tells Frigga and Loki, the three of them over on the lounge chairs sitting as they watch.
You stare down at your uncle silently, listening to what Kára is saying and watching her out of one eye. Her hands are in a tight ball in her lap, her face unwilling to give away anything else.
Sveinn’s dark eyes are trained on the saddle strap he’s buckling and adjusting, but you know he’s listening just like you are since he can’t see your mother at that moment. He’s left his long, flat-grey hair loose today instead of binding it up into several braids like he usually does. How your mother always does.
They’ve told you before what it represents among the Drekasál. How it’s the sign of a Himingarpr, a sky-warrior. A Drekasál who goes to war when called, much as an Einheri or a Valkyrja.
His beard is still bound into a braid though, the end of it resting against the collar of his tunic.
“It will be more than fine, Kára. I have faith in your teaching skills, and your daughter’s own abilities,” Frigga reassures her, putting a hand on Kára’s shoulder and giving her a charming smile. “It’s not all that different from riding a warhorse.” A pause, then, “Well, aside from the fact you’re in the air and spinning around.”
There’s another pause. From the corner of your eye, you can see a flash of something on Loki’s face, but when you turn your gaze to her she just appears to be listening to Kára.
“All set over here, my soul,” Sveinn tells your mother as he stands up, dusting his hands across his trousers. The term of endearment for one's soulmate is one you often hear between your mother and uncle. He might not be your uncle by blood, but the bond between them and the relationship they’ve built? He’s family.
You stand and move over to the chairs, conscious of where your paws and tail are as you move between a pair of divans.
Loki perks up when you draw close and hops out of her seat to meet you. There’s a sensation of a hand brushing against your mind, the mind-link quickly snapping in place. You can speak and be understood just fine in this form, but the mind-link will make it easier to communicate with her while flying.
Are you ready for this? You ask as she brushes her hand against the saddle. Even though she’s tall for an Asgardian her age, she’s still shorter than you in your dragon form, her shoulders only coming up to your withers.
She looks up at you with a smirk. I’m ready.
At the sound of your mother saying your name, your head snaps up and your entire body straightens up, waiting for her instructions.
“The All-Mother and I will wait up here while you fly, and Sveinn will be flying with you. Your Highness, if you would please mount up, same as a warhorse.” At Kára’s words, Loki steps into the stirrup on your left and gracefully swings her leg over, planting it lightly in the right one. Once she’s settled, your uncle shows her how to buckle the extra leg straps that will keep her in the saddle should you perform any hard banks or spins mid-flight. Completely secured into the saddle, she then grabs on to the horn at the front.
“Ready,” Loki tells everyone. Sveinn and Kára nod at one another, and then Sveinn shifts into his own dragon form.
He towers over you, a staggering twenty-seven hands high. He’s not the largest of the Drekasál — even amongst those still living — but he’s still much larger than you are. His pale scales gleam a light grey to you, near-white in the shine of the sun. Your mother has called him golden-scaled, saying he resembles the colour of the palace when the sun is high in the sky.
It’s a complete contrast to her own dark scales, something she once called “indigo”. To you, she just appears to have dark, cold-grey scales. Her dark scales and slightly smaller form make it easy for you to tell her apart from your uncle when they’re both teaching you in their dragon forms.
“Approach the edge of the pavilion, but do not jump off yet,” Sveinn orders. You follow along behind him to the edge, tail whipping slowly and your front talons grip the edge of the scarred stone as you look out over the shining city. Sveinn turns to you and you look up at him, waiting. “This will be different from flying with just a saddle. You know what to do. Trust that.”
“Yes, Uncle.”
“Then fly.” There’s a light tap on your back leg from your uncle’s tail, your signal to jump off. You hesitate for just a moment, long enough that you know both Kára and Sveinn notice, but then you push off the edge and free fall down the side of the palace.
Within seconds there’s a foreign sense of dread creeping along the back of your mind. It takes you a moment to remember that while you've taken this descent hundreds of times, Loki has never done this before. She’d probably assumed you would jump into the air, not free fall down the side of the palace. Even as she quiets her own emotions you can still feel the echoes of them as they’re muffled.
In a snap decision to soothe the fear of your friend, you tell her, Hold on tight. I’m going to level out.
Your wings snap open, pulling you away from the palace as you glide out high over the city. Loki’s own whispered emotions linger in the mind-link for long moments as you glide over and between various buildings, tangled and too faint for you to understand.
In a moment of curiosity, you try to reach a hand along the mind-link to brush against Loki’s mind. A feeling akin to relief washes over you when you realise you can, and you brush your hand against her mental-self’s cheek to soothe her as she had you earlier.
Muted and muffled as her emotions are, you’re not certain of her reaction so you turn your full attention to your flight.
The silence up here is only broken by the sound of wingbeats from you and your uncle who trails behind and above you. Below, you can see the everyday hustle and bustle of Asgard.
Some Asgardians are walking, some are horse riding, and some are in skiffs on the various rivers, but very few are paying any attention to the two dragons that soar above them. There are a dozen Drekasál still in the realm; between the others and the drills your instructors run you through most days, seeing a dragon flying about isn’t too unusual.
Some Asgardians — those who are on street levels high enough — realise you’re carrying someone on your back, stopping and pointing as you fly by. Others — those who are on lower street levels — look up, as if they’re expecting to see you do some of your drills. Yet you just continue to perform soft banks around buildings as you give Loki time to settle into being so high up.
You know everyone looking up knows who you are because of your scales. You’re not just the only blue dragonling in the Realm of Asgard, you’re the only blue Drekasál in the entire realm. Knowing who you are means they know you’re too young to be carrying an adult Æsir.
You spot a skiff rising up — likely to look at who’s on your back — but Sveinn dips down closer and lets his teeth flash. The skiff dives back down into the mass of others along the river. Sveinn stays low for a bit, likely warning off anyone with his presence alone before he rises back up and trails behind once more.
You’ve just banked around the outer towers of the city to head out towards the Rainbow Bridge when Loki finally speaks.
Is it always this quiet up here?
Sometimes some of the skiffs like to race us. Amusement rings with your words, and there’s an echo of laughter from Loki’s side.
Those who challenge a dragon are fools.
The eye-roll she makes is loud enough for you to hear. A laugh rumbles through you as you ask, Oh, are they? So should I be counting you among them?
Not if I turn into one myself, Loki replies smugly.
You’d seen a few examples of her shapeshifting ability over your years spent in lessons, but nothing that had said she would be able to shift into a dragon. To be able to do so she would have to be one of the few natural-born shapeshifters in the Nine. Most shapeshifters use a magical item, but the natural-born ones rarely need such an item.
Can you do that? You ask, looking over your shoulder at her in wonder.
She shrugs, turning her head away to look down at the city below. I haven’t tried, but why couldn’t I? How different could it be from changing to any other form the first time?
You don’t know how to answer that, don’t know just yet how to process that the Princess of Asgard is one of the natural-born shapeshifters, so you look ahead once more.
You’re approaching the Sea of Asgard now, the vast body of water that separates Himinbjǫrg and its all-seeing, all-hearing guardian from the rest of Asgard. You listen to see if your uncle objects to your current route, but when you just hear his wingbeats, you glide down to the underside of the Rainbow Bridge.
Weaving between the gleaming piles, you drift lower and lower until you can relax an arm and let your talons skim the top of the churning waters. Sveinn stays above the bridge itself, visible only when you leave the shade of the bridge.
As you close in on the end, you ask, Are you ready for something faster?
If you only go this fast, I’d rather ride a warhorse.
You let out a low rumble of half-amusement and half-insult, and then dart out and up from beneath the bridge. Rocketing past Sveinn as you ascend, you hear a startled gasp that turns into laughter from Loki. Letting out a roar, you level out and speed for the mountains at the far side of the sea as fast as your wings can carry you.
As you near the mountains, Sveinn’s wingbeats become louder. You know he’s catching up, but for some reason, you feel like you don’t want him to catch up. The desire is impulsive, but unshakeable, so you give in; you know just how to throw him off.
He’s done it to you before, after all.
You bank hard around the curve of the first mountains, the air rushing off your wings making the snow decorating their tops whirl up into a storm with how close you skim to them. You do the same thing around a second and then a third mountaintop, the storm of snow off each one larger than the last.
You bank hard once more, turning completely around the top of a mountain and glide back toward the city. With the fading sound of Sveinn’s wingbeats you know you’ve thrown him off — but only for a few moments. Your eyes scan the streets rapidly, looking for one of the rivers that feed into the sea.
Sveinn’s wingbeats become louder again just as you spot one, a bridge spanning it at the very edge that spills into the sea. No skiffs travel along it as far as you can see, so it’s one of the ones assigned to your drills. Perfect.
Hold on, princess! You fold your wings in, turning into a steep dive not too dissimilar from your drop off the palace at the beginning. Instead of fear this time, you can hear the delighted screaming-laughter from Loki.
If your dragon form could smile, you would be grinning at her reaction.
You shoot beneath the bridge, wingbeats a thunderous cacophony resounding off the walls and mixing with the roar of rushing water.
Down here, there’s not enough room for a dragon of Sveinn’s size to follow.
When you exit the other side you can still hear him, but when you glance up you don’t see him. All you see as you rush along this river are the criss-cross of streets above, the walls of the various buildings, and the Asgardians who are stopping to watch you as you rush by below.
Following the various twists of the river, you head back towards the palace.
You sail under another bridge, emerging out over one of the river pools, a roaring waterfall on the other side. You rocket up the waterfall without slowing down your mad dash, coming above the lower streets of Asgard before levelling out. The path to the palace is clear, and you dart over buildings and across the Rainbow Bridge.
Swinging your head back and forth, you realise you don’t see Sveinn anywhere. You must have lost him at some point while you were racing along the river. A sense of smugness begins to fill you. It’s almost foreign, almost like—
Your head whips around to look at Loki. There’s a self-satisfied smirk on her face that matches the smug feeling that’s echoing down the mind-link. You throw a barb of irritation at her as you realise the desire to outrun your uncle had come from her and hadn’t been born out of your own impulses.
Oh, don’t look so sour, Firefly! We had fun losing him, didn’t we?
That’s not the point, Loki! You used your powers on me. Frigga would —
My mother doesn’t need to know everything I do, Loki snaps, a scowl forming on her face. Your irritation runs higher in turn and her expression changes to an almost-pained look before she looks away. Tentatively, she says, Look, I’m sorry, okay? I just wanted us to have a little fun, but I won’t do it again. You have my word.
You turn your head back around, quiet for a few moments as you try to sort through how you feel about what had just happened.
There’s a sudden absence of Loki’s feelings being echoed to you; she’s cut the mind-link. You can’t help but assume it’s because you didn’t answer her, and despair washes through you. You hadn’t meant to hurt her with your anger, but the last whisper of her emotions had been hurt.
Out loud you call back, “I don’t need your word, Loki. I trust you. I’m sorry I got angry.”
Instead of saying anything back, Loki is silent. Not sure what to make of her silence, or what to say to break it, you remain silent too. You bank around the right side of the palace, ascending and aiming for your family’s pavilion on the upper-left side.
When it comes into view, you see Sveinn and Kára — both in their Æsir form — standing near the edge of the pavilion. For a brief moment, you want to do nothing more than fly away. Avoid whatever conversation is about to happen because of your disappearing act.
You’d run off with the Asgardian princess, after all. Something you’re rather certain you weren’t supposed to do.
You can’t remember if one of them had said that you had to remain with Sveinn the entire flight. It was implied that you should since he came along though. Right?
Kára and Sveinn step aside as you land on the pavilion, your head down as you walk further in so Loki can easily dismount.
“How was it?” Frigga asks, standing up from the couch she was lounging on.
Loki’s words are stuffed with unbridled mirth. “It was amazing, Mamma!”
She launches into her own retelling of the adventure she’d taken with you as she unbuckles herself and steps out of the saddle.
When she climbs down you use your nose to help keep her from stumbling. She smiles, pausing her story and pressing her forehead to yours for a second before returning to regaling her mother with what had happened. Frigga takes her daughter by the hand, smiling down at her as they walk out. Before they leave, you hear Loki ask if she can do this again, and Frigga telling her that it’s a discussion for tomorrow.
Once the doors to the pavilion close, you stiffen. Alone with your family at last, you curl in on yourself.
“I see the princess had a good time,” Kára says lightly as she walks to your side and begins unbuckling the saddle. You make a sound of agreement. “Did you have a good time, my star?”
“Yes, Mamma.”
Kára finishes with that side and stops in front of you, tilting your chin up so you look at her. “Talk to me, little starlight. What’s wrong?”
You look over at Sveinn and then back at her. You see her slowly put together the pieces as you repeat the movement a few times. Your mother laughs.
“We were actually worrying recently that you were a little too passive for a Drekasál. Your uncle had already made a habit of giving his instructors the slip during drill training by your age.” She grins over at your uncle who comes over to help finish taking the saddle off.
“Don’t let her fool you, your mother would shift back to an Æsir mid-flight and scare her instructor when she would suddenly disappear out of the sky!” The weight of the saddle slides off your back and you shake your body, settling the scales that had been trapped beneath it.
“Hey!” your mother laughs out. “It was good practice. For me and for the other dragonlings of my conflagration.”
After listening to their laughter you look at each with one eye, softly asking, “So…I’m not in trouble for running off with the princess?”
“Of course not. You had a little adventure on your own and then you came home. Besides, I would hardly call flying around the city running off.” Your mother smiles up at you, reaching up and scratching the underside of your chin. A low rumble of contentment emits from your chest, your eyes falling half-shut for a few moments.
When the sensation disappears, you return to your Æsir form, staring up at both members of your family who look down at you with gentle love. Your mother scoops you up and settles you on her hip, pressing a kiss to the side of your head.
“What would you say to us bothering your babba, little starlight?” Your uncle asks.
Your face immediately lights up and you turn to look at your mother with wide eyes. Placing your tiny hands on her cheeks, you pout at your mother as you plead with her, “Please, Mamma. I miss him. I haven’t seen him since this morning.”
“You know, I think he could use an interruption.” Your mother winks at you, beginning the trek to her heartmate’s office. “I’m sure Babba will be thrilled to see his favourite dragonling in all the realms.”
◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦
After that afternoon, Loki often frequents your aerial lessons with your mother and uncle. Sometimes your father shows up too, giving tips to your friend since he’s often dragonback during battles.
It’s only a couple of weeks after that first flight that you’re running drills with Loki, something you hadn’t considered until Týr had suggested it one afternoon as Loki was mounting up. Of course, if the princess was going to learn how to fly dragonback into battle, then so would her older brothers Baldr and Thor.
You smile as you wander the streets of Asgard with your mother, out shopping for birthday presents for your father on this beautiful, chilly winter day. His birthday is soon, and you can’t help remembering how much things have changed in the last two years because of his suggestion.
You had met Thor not long after you’d begun your seiðr lessons. Soon after that, you began seeing more of him when your other lessons with the court children near your own age started. Between your currently shared arithmetic, history, linguistics, and weapons and tactics lessons, you see the younger prince often. The addition of him to your aerial lessons meant that (aside from Loki) you saw him more than any of the others.
Baldr, though, is a different story.
The Crown Prince is older than his siblings by a few years, just old enough that his lessons are with a different group of court children.
Like Thor, his skills in seiðr are minimal, limited to whatever his future godhood might be (something to do with light, perhaps), so he’s not in your seiðr lessons either. The aerial lessons are the only time you see this prince outside of the dining hall.
It’s also the only time you see the Drekasál that joins your lessons as his companion — a small and nearly black-scaled drekakona of Asgard known as Ásta.
You’d learnt quickly that both princes dote on and adore their little sister. Their doting had quickly extended to you as well because she called you her friend at the beginning of their first aerial lesson.
You’d never been doted on by anyone outside of your small family before, but you enjoy how both princes indulge Loki’s tendency for small bits of mischief on them. Small illusions and harmless spells are smiled at and laughed at by the brothers.
You grow fond of both her brothers because of those moments. You might have known Thor before, but you’d never really spent much time with him outside of lessons.
And now you’ve somehow befriended all three of the royal children, so now you often find yourself tagging or being dragged along with them on various adventures through the city and palace. You certainly don’t mind, even if you catch the occasional look between your parents and uncle that say they might care that you spend so much time with the royal children.
But it’s nice. It’s different from when you have to spend time with your cousin. He’s often more interested in learning to fight with his battle-axe or recounting tales of various heroes of Asgard (which always ends up with him proclaiming himself the Lion of Asgard, a soon-to-be warrior and hero of the realm).
And while Loki’s brothers like to tell the tales of the heroes of Asgard too, it’s rarely a topic that’s carried for long.
“What about this store?” Your mother asks, breaking you out of your wayward thoughts as she stops you at a glass-front shop. Despite having wandered through half the city’s shops so far, you’ve yet to pick out a present for him. Nothing you’d seen in any of them had really felt right to gift him.
What can someone gift to Týr Hymisson — General of Asgard’s armies and close friend of All-Father Odin — that he does not already have? What could you, a child who has not yet seen fifteen years, give him?
Looking up at the shop’s signs, your face lights up as you spot one that mentions the shop carries magical items.
“Can we look at those, Mamma?” You look up at your mother, pointing at the sign and bouncing. As soon as she says yes, you drag her as fast as you can into the store.
In here the air is warm compared to the nipping chill outside. You do not pause as you begin to hunt for the magical items. Your mother calls out a greeting to the shopkeeper who waves and greets you both from behind her counter.
You quickly begin to glance over several of the items once you find them. Each item has a little card attached to it, a list of items within and the spell (or spells) on it. As your mother takes them off the shelf you tell her about what each of them can do based on the little descriptions.
You find it amusing to see her reactions to a few of them, especially for the raven quill that writes with one’s own blood. Blood magic can be dangerous, but you can’t help but be at least a little interested in how some of it works.
One of the last items your mother takes off the shelf is a small orb with a raging storm inside. You’re both fascinated by how the storm is trapped within the thick glass as you read the card describing it. “It says someone who could wield atmokinetic abilities made it. And it’s not something that you can use, just looks pretty.”
“I wonder which sky god created it,” your mother muses, setting it back on the shelf. Her gaze shifts to something higher on the shelves, pulling it off and handing you the card as she opens the box.
“It’s a crow quill, spelled to always return to its box at the end of the day. It has uru nibs so they never wear down and can use magical inks without potentially damaging the quill’s spell.” You peer in the box, staring at the assortment of differently sized bright silver uru nibs and the long dark feather that lays below them in the pale-grey setting. There’s an ink bottle in the box as well, but when you lift it out you’re not certain what colour it is since it’s so dark. “Colour?”
Your mother glances at it, turning it so the light from outside strikes against the bottle. “Dark red, like a sweetberry.”
“Does Babba like that?”
“I think he would. It’d be a nice break from all the blacks and browns he uses.” You make a noise, unsure if you want to get another colour. Your mother brushes a soft hand against the shoulder of your dress, a smile on her face when you look up at her. “If you want to get him this, we can also get him some other inks. Would you like that, little star?”
You nod your head, and she guides you to the counter.
A quick inquiry as your mother is paying for the quill box lets you know that a shop just down the street sells a wide selection of high-quality inks, both magical and non-magical alike. You and your mother thank the shopkeeper and step back out into the chill just as a familiar laugh races towards you both.
It’s Thor, and there’s someone chasing after him that you don’t recognise. Thor shouts your name as the two boys run by, waving without stopping. The dark-haired boy sounds annoyed when he yells Thor’s name, but there’s a grin on Thor’s face as they keep running down the street.
You turn to your mother, wide-eyed and pleading. “Mamma?”
“Yes yes, you can go, my star. Make sure you make it back for dinner, okay? I’ll be out here shopping for a few more hours if you need me.” She gives you a swift kiss on your cheek that you return before racing off after the boys, yelling for them to wait up for you.
You catch up to them a few streets later, where the boys have collapsed on and beside some dark barrels resting against a tall, grey-stoned wall. You look at Thor, long teen limbs splayed out on the cobblestone of the deserted street and panting with a grin on his face as he greets you. The boy sitting on one of the barrels, elbows resting on his knees, looks up at you with a tight smile and familiar dark eyes.
“Don’t make me chase you so far next time. Why were you running Thor? What did you do?” You ask, hands on your hips and looking back down at the pale-haired prince.
“Ate Loki’s sweetberry tart,” Thor replies, pointing up at the boy on the barrel. You sigh at Thor, a fondly exasperated smile on your face. Despite all the changing he’s done physically in the last couple of years — a deeper voice, a growth spurt that briefly shot him into gangly limbs, muscles that are filling out said limbs thanks to his training — he’s still the same boy you met all those years ago at heart.
“Was it worth being chased halfway across Asgard?”
“He went north along the Rainbow Bridge first, before we came out this way,” Loki tells you, glaring down at his brother. “I should have made him run into a wall.”
“A wall wouldn’t have stopped me!” Thor protests, rolling over and sitting up. He flexes his arms, his grin wide. “I am Thor, God of Thunder! Walls cannot stop me!”
You and Loki both glance at each other. Look back at the godling between you. And then you both start laughing at his declaration.
His recent godnaming by the Weavers of Fate had declared him the God of Lightning and Thunder. Yet, for whatever reason, Thor had shortened it down to just God of Thunder, instead of God of Lightning.
“Your greatest downfall will come from your sweet tooth, Thor.” You sit down on the barrel beside Loki’s. “At least you didn’t fall into one of the rivers this time.”
Thor’s arms fall, a grimace on his face. “Yes, at least I did not do that this time. Baldr hates it when we leave only one of the sweet buns for him.” Thor looks at you, a crooked smile on his face now. “You’re lucky you don’t have to deal with brothers, Firefly.”
Firefly.
It’d started as a simple, offhand joke a couple of years ago by Loki. You’d been trying to transmogrify a pile of feathers into a fire flower you were studying, but somehow they’d become a small army of fireflies. And then those fireflies had decided that they would call your shoulders their new resting place until Loki had helped you change them back so you could try again. She’d joked back then that they probably thought you were one of them, and the nickname had stuck.
Even though they don’t know why it started, Thor and Baldr started using it for you almost immediately the first time they saw you responding to Loki calling you Firefly.
“Baldr might as well be,” you tell him with a smirk. “He’d probably say I’m as annoying to have around as a sister.”
“You’re better than another sibling.” Loki knocks his shoulder gently against yours with a smile. You return the gesture with a gentle knock of your own, smiling at his words as warmth fills your chest and radiates into your arms and clasped hands.
“Thanks, you too,” you reply softly, your gaze on your hands since you can’t seem to look up at the face of your best friend. You feel a little too warm, especially where Loki’s shoulder had knocked against yours. Like you’ve sat a little too close to a fire for just a little too long.
Thor chooses that moment to stand up and look down the street, away from both you and Loki. He says over his shoulder, “Look, there’s a bakery just down the way! I will go see what they have. Would either of you like something besides tarts?”
After a brief debate over what Thor should buy, the thunder godling leaves to go see if the bakery has sweet buns (for him and Baldr) and tarts (for you and Loki). Silence looms in the space between you and Loki now that Thor’s gone. Neither of you takes the opportunity to start up a conversation, so you take the chance to look at him out of the corner of your eye.
You take in this form, admiring how much he still looks like him, even with all the minute differences. The sharper jaw and cheekbones countered with the nose you’ve seen a million times. Dark hair that you’re used to seeing in a braid that hangs over Loki’s shoulder is now barely brushing past his jawline. Lips that are thinner than what you’re used to, but still curled into that familiar smile. Dark-coloured eyes that—
That are staring right at you.
You hadn’t even noticed that you’d gone from staring at him out of the corner of your eye to just full-on staring. You freeze, unsure of what to say but then blurt out, “You look nice like this.”
Loki’s lips twitch like he’s trying to suppress a smile. “I look nice?”
The low rumbling baritone of his words makes you stutter at first. “Y-yeah. I mean, you’ve always looked really nice! And now you look a little different. It’s a good different. You look like you, just… different.”
“What about me is so different, my brave Firefly?”
There’s a strange sensation that breaks out in your chest, almost as if your heart is flipping and beating harder when it shouldn’t. You’re not sure how you’re confident enough to do it (though perhaps being called his brave Firefly has a part in it), but you reach up and brush the fingertips of one hand against his cheek.
With a soft smile, you tell him, “Your jawline and cheeks. They look sharper now, but the shape of your face is the same.” You poke gently against his nose. “This is exactly the same though. So are the shape and I assume colour of your eyes.” Your hand fiddles with some loose strands of his hair. “Your hair is a lot shorter. It’s still soft though, and I would wager also the same colour.”
When your eyes flicker to his mouth you pull away slowly, your gaze moving back up to be arrested by the look on his face.
“You look nice in both your forms too.” You swear that his whispered words cast a holding spell, suspending you both in this moment. You’re not sure at all what the look on your best friend’s face is. It’s mesmerising, captivating in a spell-like way. Yet you’re entirely certain no seiðr has been cast on you, that this moment is something… else.
“Brother! Firefly! I have returned with a bounty of treats for us to share!”
Both of your heads snap away from one another. You hadn’t realised that you’d started to lean back in until Thor practically threw a bucket of ice water over your heads.
Your tongue is tied in knots, unable to form words for several moments. Loki merely smiles at his brother and thanks him as he takes one of the bags his brother is holding, completely unaffected by whatever had just happened unlike you. Regaining your tongue, you thank your friend for the treats as he hands one of the other bags over to you.
You refuse to look at Loki as you dig through the bag, still trying to process what had (almost?) happened before Thor returned as you take out your first tart. More importantly, what had almost happened between you and Loki? What would have happened if Thor hadn’t shown up at that moment?
You bite into your tart, casting aside your questions in favour of enjoying it. The burst of a mildly sweet flavour has your shoulders drop, recognising the taste of the strawberry pear fruit inside.
The three of you move on to talk about nothing and anything as you each enjoy your own treat. You and Loki don’t talk about what might have happened, and Thor doesn’t act as if he’d interrupted anything. In a way, it’s almost like you imagined the moment.
And yet, when you and Loki do look at each other you swear you can see the embers of the look he had earlier still flickering in his eyes. Enchanting, whispering to you to lure you back in and discover what it is that you’re seeing.
You quickly resolve to look at him as little as possible as the three of you continue to talk. Not that that does much for the way your mind replays both the earlier moment and each of the subsequent looks he’s given you.
At some point, you can hear the rowdy sound of other Asgardian youths as they come down the street. It’s not the first group to pass this way, and so none of you does more than glance at them as they approach.
The three of you are laughing over a shared memory when one of the boys first speaks.
“Oi, what do the three of you have there?” The largest boy in the group asks, stepping forward. He’s tall, likely taller than Thor if the prince were to stand up. The most notable feature to you is his warm-grey hair that hangs down to his shoulder, and even that isn’t an uncommon feature here on Asgard.
You all look between each other before Thor addresses the boy. “Just some tarts for us and my brother back home.”
“Who’s tarts?”
“I believe her name was Gertha. She owns the bakery just down the road.” Thor points down the road with his thumb, a wide and friendly smile on his face.
The sudden sneer on the boy’s face is all it takes for your own smile to slip away and coldly tell them, “I suggest you move along and stop bothering us.”
You had hoped that your words would make him leave. Instead, he looks at both brothers with outright disdain on his face and dripping from his voice as he says, “What, are the two of you such weaklings you need the protection of a girl?”
All three of you stand up, each of you insulted by this boy’s words while his friends make various noises and gestures behind him. Hot anger boils in your blood as you step forward with your teeth bared.
No one insults your friends like that. Especially not to your face.
Loki’s hand comes around your front and snakes across your waist, pulling you back behind the brothers. “He’s not worth the effort, Firefly.” Loki’s words are as brittle as thin ice.
The taste of hot iron in your mouth sharpens instead of dulling. His cold tone is one you recognise, and you hate that you do.
“You’re right. He’s not worth the effort of my fist.” You twist your hand, pulling on seiðr threads and making it influence the world around you. The cobblestone beneath the boy’s heels jerks upward, sending him crashing into the pavement.
There’s a sudden murmuring from the other boys, but then your mouth tugs up into a smirk as a familiar wave of magic comes hurtling down the street from your left. You grin with your teeth on display as the boy on the ground stands up, knowing what is about to happen.
His lip is split, and there’s a bit of blood coming from a cut along his eyebrow. The snarl on his face would concern you if you didn’t know, but—
“What is going on here,” your mother snarls, storming up the street. The kiss of her magic — unbound but not a power that can snag on anything as it whips about — has Loki tensed up, shoulder’s tight even though he knows your mother.
After all, a Drekasál’s temper can be unpredictable for most. Especially when it comes to protecting who they claim as theirs.
And your mother’s temper is very well known among Asgardians.
You step around Loki’s arm, staring down at the boys as their faces all change into ones of fear and recognition at the sight of who’s arrived. And you tell her, “He insulted the princes, Mamma. We were doing nothing but sitting here and minding our own.”
The boy you injured blanches at your words, eyes darting from you to your mother as she stares all of them down. You know the shape her eyes have taken, becoming an imitation of the ones in her dragon form.
A warning of the dragon that lurks beneath to those who would dare cross her in this moment. It’s a warning that all Drekasál can give, even if they don’t always do so.
The boy you threw to the cobblestones ducks his head, voice wavering as he says, “I’m sorry, Raven-Feeder. We meant no offence—”
“And yet offence was had if your face is any indication,” Kára interrupts, her tone as sharp as her talons as she gestures to his face. The boy reaches up, cupping his hand to hide the cut on his forehead behind his palm. Your mother is silent for a moment as she glares at each of them. “An apology, from each of you to my daughter and the princes.”
Each of the boys nearly trips over their own feet to apologise before they hurry off.
With them gone, you see the shoulders of each prince relax, a sigh of relief escaping your lungs.
Your mother turns, putting both of her hands on your cheeks as she tilts your face around with a worried frown.
“I’m fine, Mamma.” You put your hands over hers, smiling up at her. “No punches were thrown. I just used seiðr to move cobblestones and make him fall on his face.”
“You would have, if I hadn’t shown up.”
“Of course. Loki and Thor are my friends and those boys insulted them.”
“They insulted you as well, little Firefly,” Thor interjects. It takes you a moment, but you faintly recall how Thor had moved to throw the first punch after the boy had gotten up. Your mother showing up is the only reason that it hadn’t broken out into a fight.
You shrug, pulling out of your mother's hands. “He called me a girl. He wasn’t wrong.”
“You’re training to be a seiðkona. You’re more than just some girl.” Loki’s jaw twitches, a familiar tic of his irritation that you’ve seen several times over the years.
“Aye, my brother is right. You might have even been a valkyrja-in-training for all they knew with that left hook of yours.” You can’t help but laugh at Thor’s words.
“Remind me to show them next time,” you tell him, playfully swinging your left fist at his shoulder. He ducks away, a grin on his face. The matching eye-rolls from both your mother and Loki send you and Thor into a fit of giggles.
“Well I think that has been enough excitement for today. Come along, little starlight. Dinner still awaits us.” Your mother bows her head at both of the princes and then turns away. You pull Thor into a quick hug, telling him you’ll see him tomorrow in class.
Loki’s hug lingers longer, and you plant a quick kiss on his cheek before saying you’ll see him tomorrow. Bright and early as you do most days.
With a smile at both princes, you bound off after your mother, eager to return home to your family.
( next chapter )
@ladydracona
Find the lore notes for this chapter here!
#loki x reader#loki x you#loki x y/n#loki imagine#loki laufeyson x reader#loki laufeyson x you#loki laufeyson x y/n#a fairytale beginning#the prince and his dragon#of fire and of ice#amphi writes
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Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes disappointed the 14-year-old in me
Just finished The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the Hunger Games prequel. I feel like it was totally unnecessary. It wasn’t a perspective that needed development. It felt obvious to me that there was some deeper understanding that Snow had, that Katniss also saw. They saw through each other and understood the messages they gave each other through unspoken words.
What I did like was the hint of a 50 year long sore spot or opposition between Katniss and Snow. It definitely felt implied that Katniss is somehow related to Lucy Gray, but wtf is Covey?? I felt like the creation of this whole new subgroup was really unnecessary for the plot. Like, I get that it ties together the hunting, being out in the woods behind District 12, the songs, the mockingjays, etc., but I don’t get the point of creating the weird new raggedy outcast runaway group. I think it would’ve meant more to the trilogy if Lucy Gray had been proud to be from District 12 and loved her district for the woods, the audience, and character.
It felt like the book kept teasing different plot twists, only for it to be either completely wrong or wholly foreseeable and too good to be true. Like four separate times I thought that Lucy Gray was going to reveal that she only charmed Cornelius so that he would be a more motivated mentor in the games. I didn’t really get what sparked such a deep connection between Lucy Gray and Cornelius, or why she liked him so much (or even trusted him). I also thought Cornelius was going to turn out to be hallucinating or having a psychotic break where he’s created this whole love affair as part of some grader delusion when his family is on the brink of disaster.
Also, they kept talking about how formidable his family line is, and how his surname is an enormous pride for him, but I don’t feel like she gave enough feel as to why. Like, was the Snow family the ruling power before the war? Was I supposed to know that? And speaking of names, I found them really hard to follow. I kept forgetting the first names of everyone.
I’m also not a huge fan of music written out in books. I know it was essential to the plot, but it’s very awkward for me to read and I’m always fighting the urge to skip to the normal text.
The ending was well executed, but only the last, like, 5 pages. It was difficult to get into, then sped up quickly, and had a long lull before an insane fast ending. There were a lot of loose threads. Like the whole it-was-the-plan-all-along-and-it-made-u-stronger trope is overplayed and wasn’t totally necessary here. Also bruh. The evil scientist lady trope was so annoying. There was potential with the druggie school teacher, he could’ve made a villan with more depth and story behind the connection between him and his father.
My impression is that it was definitely written with a movie in mind. Especially with the third person (and because I know the movie is coming this year), it felt like the only reason it was written was because the trilogy was such a success and they felt like it could keep going.
Everything was super obvious, like every little thing about Katniss and District 12 and the people of the Capitol needed to have an explanation. It was a little too much to me that the last names were the same, with the same families having the same occupation. Flickerman, Crane, Heavensbee. I think Suzanne Collins could’ve taken more liberties with the book than she did.
All in all I don’t mean to bash Suzanne or say it was a bad book. I enjoyed it, and I’m glad I read it. It felt like 24 year old me owed it to the 14 year old me. But, reading this ten years after my obsession with this series that catapulted me into a deep love for YA fiction, I feel I could have steered the book in a more fulfilling, deep, and imaginative prequel than what was presented in this book. Really curious to hear what other readers thought.
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‘We risk being ruled by dangerous binaries’ – Mohsin Hamid on our increasing polarisation
by Mohsin Hamid
As we embrace the binary thinking of digital technology the divisions between us are growing ever starker. Can fiction help us imagine a different future?
In 2017, I published my fourth novel, Exit West, and bought a small notebook to jot down ideas for the next one. I thought it would be about technology. I came across an article by Simon DeDeo, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University, discussing an experiment he and his colleague John Miller had conducted in that same year. They simulated cooperation and competition by machines over many generations, building these machines as computer models and setting them playing a game together. An interesting pattern emerged. Rather than constant trading for mutual benefit among equals, or never-ending fights to the death among foes, instead a particular type of machine became dominant, one that recognised and favoured copies of itself, and enormous prosperity ensued, built on ever-growing levels of cooperation. But eventually the minute differences that naturally occurred (or were, in the experiment, designed to occur) in the copying process, as they do in organisms when genes are passed on, became intolerable, and war among the machines resulted in near-complete devastation and a new beginning, after which the cycle repeated, over and over.
I remember being struck by this article. Not because I fully understood what the simulation was or even how it worked. No, I was struck by its similarity to a narrative I had already been feeling drawn to myself: that the rise and fall of human society is not merely something that has happened but also something that will continue to happen, that moments of peak cooperation contain within them the tendency for differences to become utterly intolerable, and that the transition from one societal epoch to the next is rarely a series of gently eliding waves, each a bit higher than the previous one – to the contrary, humanity’s trajectory on the way down is often far more steep than it was on the way up.
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Season 5 rewatch thoughts:
(idk if anyone actually reads these but idc I like writing them lmao)
overall thoughts: this was a shorter season (only 20 episodes) but it didn’t feel like it for some reason and I can’t decide if that’s good or bad lol. the distance between “Redux” and “The End” feels enormous though, and I think it’s bc you can really divide this season into three distinct sections: the cancer arc climax of Redux/Redux II, post-cancer arc (Detour, The Post-Modern Prometheus), and post Christmas Carol/Emily arc, that all have a very different tone from each other. obviously the main overarching theme this season is mulder and scully’s role reversals of believer vs. skeptic, but this season also deals a lot with trust in a way that I found similar to earlier episodes (particularly “wetwired” in regards to “the pine bluff variant”) but where the themes manifest in a different way bc the M/S relationship has changed so much even just from the beginning of the season
msr: redux/redux II is earth-shattering for so many reasons but imo this is the point where i think it’s solidified for both of them that they are IT for each other like there is no possible way they can imagine a future without the other in it. (now I don’t think they think the other feels the same way as they do lol but it’s a confirmation of their own feelings at least) but, coming to this realization is deeply painful especially considering the emily arc, scully’s chip, mulder’s disbelief, and just the weight of their work and the x files in general- made all the worse bc it is impossible for them to separate their work from their love for each other. the ouroboros of it all!! “folie a deux” is the culmination of the horror show of their current relationship, and diana in the following episode further takes an axe to it, particularly for scully. I also don’t think it’s completely fair to say that mulder alone stopped anything from happening in “detour” bc scully also did the same thing in “emily” when she refused mulder’s comfort (understandably, she was probably still pissed at him, but as she told the social worker, she was also keeping him at arms length for her own protection). who knows if things would have been different if that hadn’t had happened, but I think her rejection of him makes their distance from each other in the rest of the season bc of their changing beliefs feel even more isolating. I thought s4 was bad for angst, but whew! also, no hugs this season, and almost no physical affection after the cancer arc except for small moments in “the red and the black”, “all souls”, “folie a deux”, and “the end”.
writing: vince gilligan is a god!!! though he (and tim minear) had a tiny flop with “kitsunegari”. I also love his attention to continuity by having mulder wear a bandage on his finger in “folie a deux”, it makes it even darker when you consider mulder was ~this close~ to dying probably not even a week apart...no wonder he’s so grumpy lmao. I also was very impressed with john shiban in “the pine bluff variant” considering I normally can’t stand his solo writing episodes (like “teso dos bichos” is thee worst episode of the series i’m sorry)
directing: I miss rob bowman :(( but “kill switch” and “the pine bluff variant” were absolute VIBES and I can’t wait for FTF. the non manners/bowman direction was mostly fine, but the only other directors that stuck out to me were chris carter for “the post modern prometheus” and “the red and the black” (where he was imitating bowman i think) and r.w. goodwin for “the end”. also lots of close up shots of mulder’s eyes this season! big fan!
hair: great hair from both of them, and the most consistent (probably bc of FTF) early s4 scully hair and s1/s3 mulder hair is still my favorite tho lol
favorite episodes: Redux II, Detour, Christmas Carol/Emily, Kill Switch, Bad Blood, The Pine Bluff Variant, Folie a Deux, The End
70% worth rewatching imo (surprising bc there were a lot of episodes I LOVED but there was a lot of filler too, probably bc of FTF filming)
individual episode reactions under the cut:
Redux- good, but very exposition heavy
Redux II- literally being shot in the chest would be less painful. Amazing.
Unusual Suspects- Lone Gunman origin story. No Scully :(
Detour- thee quintessential x files episode. iconique.
The Post Modern Prometheus- great gowns, beautiful gowns. Bad story.
Christmas Carol- ahhhh :(((( Scully looks hot tho, and love Melissa reappearance
Emily- Scully :((((((
Kitsunegari- kind of dumb and unnecessary, pusher is perfect without it :/
Schizogeny- okay Lorax killer trees episode…boring
Chinga- fun lil stephen king vibes™️ episode, bored weekend mulder is hilarious
Kill Switch- Scully is bisexual confirmed, vibes>>>>
Bad Blood- one of the funniest episode of the series methinks. obsessed.
Patient X- yikes…mulder is kind of an asshole? role reversal
The Red and the Black- unintentionally hilarious? but also deeply sad
Travelers-boring, almost no M/S, but Mulder was randomly married???
Mind’s Eye- mehhhhh
All Souls- decent, scully catholicism episode
The Pine Bluff Variant- yooooo!! really good and suspenseful!
Folie a Deux- Vince Gilligan has done it again!!!!
The End- screammm so good
#idk i have more thoughts but this is already long enough#re: diana and mulder and her being married i don't think they were#the wedding ring in travelers is just DD being silly and i guess maybe bb mulder wore it so suspects would take him more seriously#txf#txf rewatch#my capitalization and quotations is all over the place sorry
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Wild Hearts Release Date? What Platforms Will Wild Hearts Release On?
Omega Force, best known for their years of hard work on the Dynasty Warriors series, is preparing to release a totally new and exciting adventure called Wild Hearts. With EA's support through the EA Originals program and the developer's entry into a new and fascinating genre, Wild Hearts' original intellectual property is shaping up to be an exciting new adventure.
Wild Hearts Release Date
In 2023, on February 17th, Wild Hearts will finally be released. It's confirmed that the PlayStation 5, Xbox One S, and PC versions of the game will all be available at launch.
https://twitter.com/playWildHearts/status/1626491679346753537
Since this is the case, the turnaround time between the trailer's debut and the film's release should be rather short. Nonetheless, it will be launched alongside a plethora of other games. Must Read About This The Last Of Us Episode 7 Release Date.
Wild Hearts Gameplay
Just a few tidbits concerning Wild Hearts have been uncovered so far. That said, the information provided by EA and Omega Force still allows us to draw certain conclusions. The fantastical game, which has been dubbed the "next great hunting game," is essentially Monster Hunter reimagined for mobile devices.
In this game, you must travel through a map of feudal Japan in search of fantastic creatures. You can employ a variety of tools and traps, such as enormous, scaleable walls and a propeller to jump upon enemies, along with magic and ranged and melee weaponry to achieve this goal.
Even though the game is not open-world, you will have plenty of room to move around in it and use dodging and ducking to your advantage. In other words, the game isn't going for the same serious tone as Monster Hunter. Up to three players can team up in this game.
Further information about the game and its similarities to Monster Hunter was disclosed in a playable demo. While it appears that your standard actions, combat, mobility, and traversal are mostly the same.
the new crafting mechanic where you make contraptions in-match seems to be where much of the extra aspects like traps and new mechanics have been implemented. We witness a variety of bombs and flash bangs here. You Can See About This Harry Potter And The Cursed Child Movie Release Date.
Wild Hearts Official PC System Requirements
But, PC gamers must deal with a more complicated release timetable in exchange for getting the game a little bit early. This is due to the PC version of the game not following the standard practice of releasing at the same time everywhere. That is to say, everyone will be able to access the game at the same moment, but owing to time zone differences, some will play the game later than others.
An official image meeting of both the developer and publisher-recommended and required specifications has been made available. For a complete list of Wild Hearts system requirements.
Wild Hearts will be available for Windows on February 16-17, 2023. On February 17, 2023, it will be available for purchase on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The Active News.Com is the place to go for all the newest news and updates.
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