#think we all have a love / hate relationship with his canon hair both comic and series
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hello! i’m love your post and arts so much! I look at your posts after a hard day and my mood immediately changes to excellent. can I ask a couple of questions?
which pairing with Ethan do you prefer?
and… can we get to know you better? a little biography?
Thank you for your time! I'll be waiting for new arts! (sorry if i made mistakes, my english is not so good. im russian)
i like basically every ship with ethan! it mostly depends on the mood im in, but if im being honest, mithan, winterfield, and wintersberg gets frustrating to think about because they all dont treat ethan well canonically... lethan is fun because they have never met and i can make my own assumptions!
i used to like wintersberg the most and i still do like it, i just have expanded my horizons to other ships as well...., its mostly like a punchline to me though. they have the funniest potential which is why a majority of their posts is just joke comics. i do not like how people try to erase how karl is arrogant and egotistical tho. thats like removing the flavor.... the way karl acts is just very funny to me, hes so lame in a good way and i like how everytime he talks to ethan it sounds like hes twirling his hair and kicking his feet. canonically speaking, karl was very much in the wrong for trying to use rose and not elaborating and i will die on this hill. ethan is not in the wrong for being disgusted and angry that karl would ever try and propose that in the deal. karl is very arrogant so when ethan says no to him it makes him mad and he tries to use fear to get ethan to take his deal (kicking his chair and warning him) i like karl, i like how messed up and arrogant he is but i dislike how people try to portray him as a nice guy. however, in a AU where everythings the same except he doesnt try to use rose i do enjoy the dynamic they could have, especially if the teamed up (not with the deal where they use rose. ethan wouldnt agree unless karl never involved rose in the first place). karl is just a very entertaining character and i like him a lot, hes funny and his personality can be extremely hilarious
mia and ethan is pretty tragic and thinking about it too much makes me a bit sad, imo in a reality where ethan survives re8, he needs to divorce mia. im not saying ethan needs to hate mia and never talk to her again i just dont think they should be so intimate together because of her behavior... please do not take this as anti mia. they loved each other dearly but it wasnt healthy. their relationship was kept afloat by lies and mia doesnt change even though she deals with the consequences of her own actions in re7. she actively tries to hide her past from ethan and is mostly focused on trying to move on and have a normal life even if ethan will have to live the rest of his life in the dark.
she loves her family so much, shes very afraid of them leaving her so she hides all the bad things in the hopes that they wont leave. its selfish, its human, its real, her character is so amazing and i love her. she doesnt learn from re7 and hides important information from ethan again. i geniunly think they should have gotten divorced after re8 if ethan had survived. its tragic and its sad but they love each other so much. it sad because they both geniunly love rose so much but they themselves shouldnt be together. its just sad to think about it. whenever i draw them it usually takes place before re7. they should have divorced on good terms and shared custody of rose.........
ethan and chris is also frustrating to think about... chris is a major jerk in re8, whenever i draw it, its under a unspoken AU that chris did not behave the way he did in re8. his weird behavior in re8 is probably for a meta reason imo. capcom wanted to set up a twist villian so they make chris very vague and unesscarily cruel. while its frustrating that they turned chris into a jerk for the sake of a twist, it still happens in canon and i will forever roll my eyes whenever i see him on screen. he did what he thought was best but imo, execution matters more than the intentions. same applies to mia. they both did things that hurt ethan because they thought it would be the best but in the end they just hurt ethan.
all the ships ive discussed with people ethan has met canonically just makes it look like i dont even like the ships... LOL ... ethan just has horrible luck with the people he meets i guess... but i do enjoy the ships and drawing them, but again all of them come with the canon baggage that ends up making me sad because everyone treats ethan poorly whether they had good intentions or not
which is why leon and ethan is the most fun to draw without getting stressed... LOL... they have never met but just drawing what i think their dynamic would be like is very fun.
please dont take this post personally, this isnt a post declaring why ur fave ship sucks, this is just my own personal preferences and in the end i draw all of them anyways
if i had to rank the ships based on drawing silly comics it would be
wintersberg
mithan
lethan
winterfield
wintersberg has the funniest potential just because of karl and mithan can be funny if u water it down to "i love my wife so much" and said wife comes home with suspicious amounts of hard cash
i enjoy making joke comics far to much
if i were to rank the ships based on how healthy they would actually be for ethan it would be
lethan
winterfield, mithan, wintersberg (no particular order)
sorry 😭
leon and ethan have literally never met but imo it would still be the healthiest because ethan gets to start new
the three other ships r all unhealthy in some way, at least canonically without changing much about the characters (i do like winterfield but just because of how chris behaved in re8 it knocked them down)
i cant even rank them on personal preference because my opinion changes so often 😭 it changes based on discussions i have with my friends or recent art i see that inspires me... me and my friends recently had a discussion about mia and ethans relationship which made me very frustrated and sad with mia so i defiently wouldnt be drawing them anytime soon... meanwhile i hvae been talking to a friend who really likes winterfield often so the conversations we have give me art ideas and i end up drawing it more. if a friend of mine really enjoyed wintersberg or lethan and talked to me about it often id probably start drawing it more, the joys of being a multishipper
it changes a lot based on how im feeling and if im in the mood to draw something funny or something serious
sorry u asked a really simple question and i responded with a essay
and a little bit about myself is that i go by crumb, i am 18 and i go by all pronouns and prefer it/its
im vietnamese and live in texas
i made this tumblr acc solely so i could post my ethan art and im a re7/re8 girly so if ur here waiting for me to draw the re1-re6 characters im sorry u should probably expect nothing
i also make personal animations sometimes which u can find here
thanks for the ask and sorry for the rant!
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Some of My TMNT Hot Takes (PART 2) 🔥
Warning: More Opinions
Part 1 Here
I don’t like that in Mutant Mayhem Donnie is not a “science guy” but instead is more of an anime and pop culture geek. I’m not against him being an anime fan (I love anime too) but I wish we saw more of his science and being a tech genius side instead of him just liking stereotypical “nerdy stuff”. If that makes sense.
I don’t like the Punk Frogs (any version).
The 87 crossover episodes in the 2012 series (as much as I did enjoy them & are great episodes) should not have happened. They leave no real impact or development to 2012’s overarching story and just waste time. These episodes could’ve covered more important things that 202 was desperately lacking like like character exploration and character dynamic development. It was just nostalgic fanservice. The arc in S5 specifically would’ve work better as a movie instead of a 3-4 episode arc in the (most likely non canon) final season.
Shinigami being Mikey’s second love interests ruins her character a bit (for me personally). That was a pointless decision that did NOT need to happen. She would’ve been our first recurring female character to not be a love interest, but nope!
People are allowed to like/ship Donnie x April in ROTTMNT (this is coming from someone who’s not crazy about April being shipped with the Turtles).
I ship Yuichi with 2012 Leo more than Rise Leo (still ship Rise Leoichi, but I just think 2012 Leoichi is way more interesting, plus 2012 Leo deserves a good love interest).
The humans in Mutant Mayhem look ugly af (I know that was probably an intentional design choice but still. It looks bad.)
I hate Raph x Casey (any ver). I’ve stated in part one that I don’t like Raph (any version) being in a romantic relationship with human characters and yes, that meant him with Casey. Not only that but Raph and Casey being a couple ruins their whole dynamic and iconic friendship I love so much. I’m all for friends to lovers but they are a line that should not be crossed. Not every friendship needs to turn romantic.
2012 Karai’s hair looks bad.
Fans often over exaggerate Rise Donnie’s character and badly mischaracterize him in fanfics and fan comics to the point it makes him feel like he’s an entirely different character.
Shinigami should have been revealed to be a villain.
Rise Donnie was just as mean to his brother as fans claim 2012 Raph was to his. Yes, they both do love their families and I’m NOT saying either of them are abus!ce (they’re not), but fans praising Rise Donnie for doing similar things fans criticize/hate 2012 Raph for doing just makes them hypocrites.
Venus does NOT need to be in every iteration of TMNT. It gets kind of annoying when fans keep on saying that she should be in all the other iterations when in truth her presence would not make sense based on the already established canon story. The only (recent) version of TMNT where I think her being included would’ve fit the best and deserved to make her comeback in is ROTTMNT.
The side plot of 2012 Karai being mutated and later getting brainwashed by Shredder was a waste of time and the most boring arc in the series.
2012 April, Donnie and Casey being in a poly relationship does not fix anything with their problematic dynamic and massive flaws with one another. I'm not saying you can't ship all three of them together, you do you! Idc But in reality their relationship would be a train wreck, that's why I personally don't ship 2012 Capriltello.
Renet is probably one of the most powerful allies the Turtles have in the 2012 series.
Rise Donnie would NOT hate 2012 April. He’d go crazy over her psychic powers and want to study them to help her explore them more.
From what I've seen so far, Leo x Usagi seems like the only GOOD ship in the 2003 series (this hot take might change tho).
Raph had the best character arc and development in the 2012 series and changed the most out of the four brothers. Next would be Leo. With Mikey and Donnie have little development (or none at all sadly).
#hot take#tmnt#teenage mutant ninja turtles#mutant mayhem#tmntmm#tmnt 1987#tmnt 2012#rottmnt#rise of the tmnt#tmnt 2003#tmnt leonardo#tmnt raphael#tmnt michelangelo#tmnt donatello#april o'neil#casey jones#tmnt karai#tmnt shinigami#renet tilley#venus de milo#yuichi usagi#usagi miyamoto
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I don't know that much about superboy so forgive me if this is a silly question but what's the deal with Magdalene Visaggio?
not a silly question, dw!! if you haven't read many kon comics it probably doesn't look particularly noteworthy but OOF. OOF.
the tl;dr of it: despite being paid to write him once, she also hasn't read kon comics and it really, really, really shows. i'm talking geoff johns levels of flagrant disregard for the existing character - maybe even worse than geoff? which i say only because i know geoff did read sb94 even if he didn't act like it. but that's off topic; this isn't a geoff hatepost. this is a magdalene hate post.
under a cut for length, lets goooo!
so we start out with her canonizing supermartian. already off on the wrong foot - that's a ship out of yja the tv show which is a completely separate continuity from main comics and a completely different kon than main continuity kon. despite supposedly knowing that, she still shoves them into a relationship in main continuity, despite them never having actually interacted on page in main continuity.
she then goes on to characterize kon as angry and entitled and uncaring, and also in high school again. not only does she directly contradict all of his preboot existing characterization (which is important because kon-el never got reset during flashpoint - he was in another universe and thus dodged that bullet. current kon-el is canonically the same kon-el as pre-flashpoint/postcrisis kon-el.), but also she directly contradicts both young justice (2019) and superboy: man of tomorrow, which are in current continuity, leading one to really wonder if she has read a single comic kon appeared in at all. it's also worth noting that the asshole with anger issues characterization is, once again, much truer to the young justice animated tv show than any comic kon.
also worth noting is that the infamous red hair dye streak? well, uh...
yeah..............
on her twitter, she once said something about kon-el not being a good name because it's "still a name someone else gave him", called him "the jason todd of the superfamily", and insisted that the meaning of a trans narrative is "burning down your life and reevaluating your place within it":
kon-el is a name gifted to him to signify his acceptance into his family (superboy (1994) #59) and he was so overjoyed to receive it that he cried. overall, the superfam are very supportive and loving, and introducing strife just to make him run off and live with jinny hex instead of them just because she thinks one can't transition and retain previous relationships is... not it, lol.
her pitch also contained some outrageously egregious christianity bullshit, like villains named "saint", "shepherd", and "savior", as well as direct comparisons between clark and jesus christ. this is... sorry i really just have to say this is Fucking Cringe. i guess the more polite way to put it would be "incredible gauche" (considering the jewish origins of the superfam) but i just can't call it anything else. This Fucking Sucks Dude. i won't even get into the weirdness about genetic bullshit she leans into by introducing kon's "brother" who's also part luthor, part superman, but "luthor-dominant" (lol?) (do you know how genes work even a little bit).
she has quoted the one panel from reign of the supermen where kon says "don't ever call me superboy" a few times, claiming it's the first thing he ever said and no one listened. to me this essentially reads as her going "i've read one of his appearances and i would like to throw out the like 200 issues of character development he had since then in favor of making him my own self-insert to explore MY transition and religious trauma".
basically she doesn't seem to know how to write a story that's not about herself. as a trans person with a positive relationship with my given name (because as a first-gen kid of two diasporic immigrants, it provides an important tie to my family's cultures, to me) and with trans friends who involved their parents in picking new names and so on and so forth, i honestly find it very reductive and white to insist there's only one trans narrative and only one good way for trans characters to be named. i also find her putting her own christian religious trauma into a superfam story off-putting and . well. fucking cringe. i understand and respect that that is her story, but it sure ain't universal and i won't be able to respect her as a writer until it becomes clear she gets that.
#answers#noon-shadows#i feel like i'm still forgetting something i wanted to mention which is ridiculous bc this is already so long#but oh well maybe if i remember i'll come back to add it!#kon
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~Metal Family headcanons~
These are like my... general hcs)? which means I didn't include my main hc that Glam, Ches and Vicky are polyamorous, married and started dating after Glam met Vicky, and absolutely everything that implies for the kids and the relationships between each member of the fam. Maybe I'll make a separate post for that or maybe not! Who knows lkfwnlfqnf
Glam
Bisexual
Glam has constant nightmares and ocasional night terrors ever since he ran away home and is an active sleep walker. Ches helped him through the worse ones when they were younger, and learned how to deal with them, always preferring not to wake him up but being with him until the episode passed. Vicky has learned how to deal with them, though she normally asks Ches for advice with it cuz she comes out short sometimes.
He has PTSD. I bet it's diagnosed too, he takes medication and goes to therapy, it doesn't mean he still doesn't have his bad days anyway. He's trying to get better.
Glam has talked to Vicky about his past, his father and his family. This is a direct contradiction of Alina's confirmation that Glam doesn't talk about it with anyone but man FUCK THAT. We love good communication in this house, Vicky tries her best to help him, but there's only so much she can do to help.
Glam enjoys gardening, cooking and making models, he also likes doing his make up, painting his nails and dressing up in fancy, extravagant clothes even if he has nowhere important to go.
He likes taking care of everyone's hair, and constantly helps Vicky brush her hair cuz there's so much of it, Dee when he gets stressed over how tangled it can get, buys Ches hair products so he actually takes care of it, and chases Heavy so the kid actually washes, untangles and brushes his hair.
This one is kind of weird, but I refuse to think any adult in the family is unarmed at any time. Glam owns a taser and pepper spray. They're bright pink and sparkly.
This man cried his eyes out while watching Coco. He's hell to watch movies with cuz he talks and predicts what's gonna happen during the movie, judges them with scores at the end and all.
Vicky
Also bisexual!
Vicky's the one who does everyone's laundry most of the time. She prefers it that way since she's the only one that knows how to wash their black clothes so the colors stay vibrant. (This is based on my gf shaming everyone but Vicky cuz their black clothes always look so muted and almost gray, but Vicky's whole outfit is always the same vibrant black colors, so we decided that neither Glam or the kids know how to wash dark clothes)
She has anger issues, if it isn't obvious. I think she also has PTSD, mainly survivor's guilt due to her surviving the accident her brother died in. She blames herself and cannot bear to talk about it, in some sort of deep denial. If she can't remember, it can't hurt as much, right?
She has scars on the right side of her back and her hip, from the road rash she got on her brother's accident, she never treated it due to grief and it scarred badly. Apart from that, the scar of the caesarean section from Heavy's birth. She doesn't really mind both of them, they happened, nothing to do about them.
She likes watching boxing competitions, brawling matches and motorcycle repairing on TV. Loves doing BBQ's and going to the pool. Also an enjoyer of teasing her kids, kissing and loving her husband at random times, spending time drinking and bonding with Ches and bragging about her family and punching anyone who thinks they're not that cool.
Not particularly a fan of make up, skirts and dresses or any traditionally femenine-perceived stuff. But has been making exceptions due to Glam and Ches being unashamed of being seen as femenine, and actually rocking the looks. The internalized misogyny is kind of slowly dissapearing.
Apart from the guns she carries in each arm (I mean her biceps, have you looked at the size of those?? She strong) she has brass knuckles on her at all times. Glam gifts her new ones sometimes, she loves having multiple choices to punch people teeth in.
Loves horror, thrillers and action movies. Falls asleep during rom-coms and dramas. Ironically, loves gossip and talking shit about people. Enjoys hearing Ches talks about the gossip going on in the nursery home even if she doesn't know who the hell he's talking about.
Rest of the family under the cut!
Heavy
Heavy is a trans boy! He doesn't know his sexuality yet though, he's still figuring himself out. When he's older, i think he definitely dated some men but had better luck with girls.
Heavy has had innocent crushes on some girls on his class before, but they never turn into anything more cuz he's not the best at expressing himself. He follows the bother-the-girl-to-death-until-she-hates-you gimmick, and unsurprisingly, it doesn't work.
I'm sorry to break this to u but Heavy totally had an among us phase, and uses so much reddit and twitch slang... You know he does.
Likes bullying and teasing his brother to death. You know that when Dee had his first romance, Heavy was ALL up in his business being a tease and a bad attempt at a wingman. He means well tho.
He's not squeamish at all. Also has great pain resistance. This kid has picked cockroaches with his bare hands and loves cats, of course the cats have scratched him. He's tough!
Grows up to be the charming himbo he was always destined to be.
Dee
I hc him as demisexual. Kind of inherited his dad's tastes for the takes no crap, intimidating but pretty kind of people.
Can't cook. He tries but he can only do basics like rice, cereal, chicken nuggets or eggs. Complicated meals always burn or don't taste like anything at all. It drives him crazy.
Dee was a quiet and very well behaved toddler before Heavy was born. He never threw tantrums or got whims. After Heavy was born though, and despite the fact he understood his brother was small and needed special care, he started craving attention often and cried and got mad at little things. Typical jealousy of the oldest sibling.
The first time Dee fell in love with someone, he didn't recognize it was love at first. He just thought his interest on the person was born out of curiosity and aesthetic attraction, but as soon as he realized he seeked validation and companionship, that he liked seeing them smile, that he wanted to protect them, that he yearned for more time alone with them and that he wanted more than what just a simple friendship implied, it was an instant 'oh hell no'. He wanted those feelings to get the hell away, but unfortunately, they were there to stay.
Canonically likes MLP, psychological and horror anime like Death note and Hellsing, so I'm deciding he also watched Death Parade, had a FNAF phase, is very into The Walten Files. This guy enjoys any kind of specially dark ARG's and knows a ton of lore of real crime, unsolved cases, ghost appearances and other stuff. Doesn't believe in the supernatural, but sure is entertained by it.
He's a mess at romance. Flirting? His attempts at compliments are hardly flattering. Giving gifts? The best he can manage is jewelry and you can kind of tell he asked his dad for help. Dates? He's so nervous he's silent for most of it, but begins getting comfortable and having fun if his partner really knows how to get him down from his negativity cloud.
Ches
Pansexual.
He's very good with kids. He has the patience of a saint and he's laid-back, chill and fun but still is an authority figure who knows how to put limits. Sure, he's gonna let the kids light up a house on fire BUT hey, now they know everything about fire precautions, burns and how to treat them AND how to get away with arson. What an educational evening, am I right?
Due to certain info from the "Goodbye" official comic, I headcanon Ches as depressed. I don't want to elaborate a lot 'cuz of spoilers, but... God, everything related to his mom fucking hurts, man. How did he deal with all that?
Ches has been Dee and Heavy's babysitter so many times he cannot count them with all his fingers. He learned how to put those kids to sleep almost immediately (Sing Bon Jovi's "This ain't a love song" and any cheesy love song in a slow lullaby style and they're out), which movie were their favorite as kids (Heavy loved 'Monsters Inc.' and Dee never looked away during 'Meet the Robinsons'), how to console them after nightmares (Heavy needed reassurance, sweet words, and to be with someone until he fell asleep again. Dee just had to be tucked in, get his nightlight turned on and kissed in the forehead). He practically raised those kids along with Vicky and Glam.
More than once, Dee and Heavy have slipped and called Ches "Dad". Ches immediately gets his shit eating grin on and answers "Yes, son?" and does a couple of dad jokes just to mess and embarrass them. He's actually very flattered and surprised at how proud of himself he is for being a father figure to both kids.
Has a scar on the left side of his forehead due to a bottle his mom threw at him when he was younger, around the time he met Glam. He hates the scar with passion, it's a permanent reminder of the fact she never cared, that's why he always keeps it covered with his headband. Gets sad about it sometimes.
Ches likes to spend his time with a group of grannies of the nearby nursing home. He genuinely considers them his friends and gossips and hangs out with all of them on weekends. Bingo, billiards, walks in the park, soap opera marathons, you name it. I even designed them, gave them names and backstories... God, i just love the concept too much. I'll make some art about Ches and his granny gang FOR SURE, you're NOT ready for them.
Carries a pocket knife on him at all times. This man grew up on a bad neighborhood and absolutely knows how to defend himself, he can be intimidating when he wants to be and will pose a threat if needed. He's fucking terrifying when genuinely mad. Just cause he looks harmless doesn't mean he is, darling.
That would be all!
#metal family#glam metal family#ches metal family#victoria metal family#chess metal family#dee metal family#heavy metal family#metal family glam#metal family victoria#metal family dee#metalfamily#metal family heavy
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10 Anti LO Asks
1. Are death gods like a class lower than Olympian gods? Minthe says that Hades can buy all the suits in the world and still stink of death and Apollo refers to Thanatos as Poor Man’s Heremes and also reeks of death. Do they smell bad, or do people just hate them for existing? You’d think they’d be a little more fear controlling death/underworld
2. for the person saying "come on, persephone being a self insert isn't bad" completely misses the point. As a young writer I used to have self inserts until I realized that my favoritism overshadowed the narrative and didn't allow for my characters to experience consequences or be in the wrong. This is how creator's pets get made, and no one likes those because they ruin the story and take away attention from other (more interesting) characters! (1/2)
We are clearly seeing this in LO. Persephone is essentially a perfect little goddess who keeps getting powers, is probably going to be revealed as one of the strongest goddesses, and her issues (sans the two giant ones we know what it is) almost never personally affect her. No one gets angry at her in a meaningful way unless the narrative wants us to demonize them, and when they suddenly "see the light" and go to her side, they're rewarded! THAT'S why persephone as a S.I is bad
3. Ok. I think Daphene and Thanatos are the best ship. I would read this story...also,Thanatos is the grim reaper...how metal would be if he take down LO Apollo and LO Hades? Yes, I'm aware this would be impossible in the.original myths but HEY why not? RS is not caring for the source material
4. RS’s writing is such a mess of contradictions between actuality and intent it’s hilarious: 1) Hades is supposed to be seen as a good guy yet is portrayed as a tyrant who somehow still manages to be a Gary Stu. 2) Persephone is simultaneously overpowered (fertility goddess powers) and powerless (is just a college kid) to the point where she’s viewed as a spoiled rich brat living consequence-free and destitute young woman left with no options but to marry to get out of trouble
3) Artemis is supposed to represent a separatist feminist yet is depicted as foolish, British and out of the loop for humorous effect by the poss poor excuse of a comic which calls itself ‘a feminist feeling’. 4) The lack of time skips coupled with RS’s need to give HxP as many ‘cute’ moments as possible makes the comic’s progress feel slow for the reader when it’s actually progressing at breakneck speed if you go by the character’s timeframe.
5) Wants to treat SA with nuance and sensitivity (RS almost manages to do it at first) but then uses Persephone’s rape as trauma porn, a means for pushing her closer to Hades while reminding the reader of his differences from Apollo and a means of furthering the side plots (Artemis’s descent into depressed confusion, Eros and Psyche’s romance, Hera’s quest to get the mains together).
5. i genuinely do not want to see whatever reason rachel thinks up to have zeus and demeter not like each other because it's either going to be a "shock" incest twist (unlikely) or it's going to be something akin to how she made apollo to persephone and maybe zeus stole her "fertility" and thats why she couldnt have persephone naturally and why demeter isnt a fertility goddess but persephone is. like no writing choice is good in this so i guess brace for the worst from her in this regard.
6. i honestly get sad looking at old LO art because not only is all the charm gone, but the colors also got way worse. hades used to be this subdued, rich dark blue with icy blue hair while persephone was a nice shade of pastel pink with magenta hair, but now theyre all one shade of neon. there used to be choices put into the art but now its just lazy. like hades looks like a blue highlighter, and persephone like her personality is only one nauseatingly bright shade and thats it 😞
7. i feel like if at least the writing in LO was good the art would excusable, you know what i mean? and the same can be said in reverse, but both are just so bad (or was never good to begin with) that it just seems inexcusable? like at least put effort into one, not half assing at best for both.
8. i mean for all we know bc thats how how psyche normally looks the braids are just a nymph disguise that basically pops away once shes human looking again. regardless the whole thing is nasty once you think about it and idk what we expected from a white woman to begin with. she thinks persephone revolving her whole world and being dependent on hades is feminist and making a canon bi god a r//pist is groundbreaking too like ....
9. lets add to the psyche is black-coded discourse: anyone want to mention how nasty it is she was literally sold off to a WHITE MAN for eros to save her from (ignoring the fact he proceeded to lie to her while having a sexual relationship), made her loving parents into abusive assholes, and psyche just happens to be the only character who is illiterate despite being a princess? the whole thing reeks of internalized racism on rachel's part, and her now giving her braids kinda makes it worse, tbh.
-----FP Spoilers-----
10. Is it me? Or in the fast past episode were they showed one of the muses Polymnia (or Polyhymnia) they mixed her with Clio??? Because Zeus calls her "the goddess/muse of history" but Polymnia is acutally the muse of hymns, CLIO is the muse of history, how did they get that wrong? Her name literally means "a lot of hymns"! And why is there a muse in this??? Even she says that she shouldn't be there because she doesn't work in anything similar to law, did Zeus really asked her to make a POEM in a TRAIAL??? For what exactly? Make Persephone look bad?
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"I speak fluent English, French, German and bullshit"
"Do you think cinnamon rolls have a separate life before we eat them?"
"Rowan, can books fly?"
"What if every star in the sky represents a soul that departed from the world? I wouldn't mind ending up there"
✦-✦-✦-✦-✦-✦-✦-✦-✦-✦-✦-✦-✦-✦
Name: Ara Annora Rose Black
Nicknames: Ara Bear, annoying bitch, black, cursed kid
Gender: Female
Age: 16
Sexuality: bisexual
Alignment: Chaotic neutral
Blood status: Pureblood
Date of Birth: 18th February 1973
Ethnicity: French/British
Nationality: British
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In front of the students of Hogwarts, she's the infamous curse breaker; a person not to be messed with. But in the eyes of her friends, she's the silliest and idiotic Ravenclaw known to kind. A girl with a dark past but huge ambitions, a sharp mind and a knack for attracting trouble, she's a chaotic person. But will she be able to find her brother and save Hogwarts?
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Personality:
Brilliant: although she can be a tad bit daft at times, she's rather smart, and can solve problems quite efficiently. If she understands the concept, nothing can stop her.
Stubborn: she's pretty adamant when she wants to achieve something. She doesn't stop until she reaches her goal. It comes as both a blessing and a curse
Sarcastic: she can hurt you when she wants to. Her sarcasm is rather brutal, and she always regrets saying anything rude. She really doesn't filter what she says before saying it.
Musically talented: she can sing, and play many instruments, including the guitar, piano, saxophone, flute and drums
Short tempered: she really can't control her anger. She gets pissed off rather easily and it gets on everyone's nerves. It's all a part of her defense mechanism
Kind: she's the person who acts like a bitch but actually cares for you, and looks out for you. Don't worry, she's got your best interests at heart
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What are her likes?
chocolate, cinnamon rolls, her Ravenclaw jumper, astronomy, her friends, coffee, old books, reading Shakespeare, singing, playing music, dueling, messing around with Tonks, Tulip and Jae, and sleeping
What are her dislikes?
being woken up, strawberries, Tonks eating her special banana ketchup sandwich, dungbombs, Mrs. Norris the dumb cat, when someone tears a page out of a book, and History of Magic
Where does she live?
Tonks Cottage, London, with Nymphadora, Andromeda and Ted
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Appearance:
Hair colour: Black
Eye colour: grey
Skin Tone: pale
Height: 6'0
Weight: 118 lbs
Build: thin and lanky with a slight slouch. She eats a lot of junk food but it doesn't show because of her "good metabolism"
Aesthetic: astronomical, academia and grunge (?)
Inventory: her wand, a half eaten bag of chocolate chips, a old family heirloom time turner (that's rather faulty), black finger-less gloves and Moonshine the baby kneazle
Face Claim: Steffy Argelich
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Magic
1st wand: Ash wood, 12 1/2 inches, phoenix feather core, great for transfiguration, nice and swishy
The ash wand cleaves to its one true master and ought not to be passed on or gifted from the original owner, because it will lose power and skill. This tendency is extreme if the core is of unicorn. Old superstitions regarding wands rarely bear close examination, but I find that the old rhyme regarding rowan, chestnut, ash and hazel wands (rowan gossips, chestnut drones, ash is stubborn, hazel moans) contains a small nugget of truth. Those witches and wizards best suited to ash wands are not, in my experience, lightly swayed from their beliefs or purposes. However, the brash or over-confident witch or wizard, who often insists on trying wands of this prestigious wood, will be disappointed by its effects. The ideal owner may be stubborn, and will certainly be courageous, but never crass or arrogant.
2nd wand: Ebony wood, 13 inches, dragon heartstring core, brilliant for dueling, very flexible
This jet-black wand wood has an impressive appearance and reputation, being highly suited to all manner of combative magic, and to Transfiguration. Ebony is happiest in the hand of those with the courage to be themselves. Frequently non-conformist, highly individual or comfortable with the status of outsider, ebony wand owners have been found both among the ranks of the Order of the Phoenix and among the Death Eaters. In my experience the ebony wand’s perfect match is one who will hold fast to his or her beliefs, no matter what the external pressure, and will not be swayed lightly from their purpose.
Boggart: herself, but as a death eater
Riddikulus form: being surrounded by friends, who have her back
Patronus: Black Raven
As a patronus a black raven represents knowledge, they carry intelligence and quick wit, matching perfectly with Ravenclaw. You find extreme comfort in those with intelligence and knowledge of past events, and how to handle new things calmly and with poise. You tend to have some moments of a delicate, sensitive side that comes out of them in times of fear or sadness. You tend not to always a leader, but a follower because they know that others may have more experience or wisdom than them, but if you know you are the most intelligent, knowledgeable or wise, you take the reigns and lead the way. In the same way the owner of this patronus will give up leadership, to a wiser leader, they will do the same in a multitude of different situations. Despite this, you are very brave and cunning, but in other areas, when you do take leadership, you are a strong-minded and focused leader, you never let you guard down, even if you are scared or confused. You carry an extreme amount of knowledge with you at all times, waiting to find a use in the correct situation. This patronus matched with Ravenclaw, means that you are able to think of creative and innovative ideas for the better of the team, even when you are not the leader.
Patronus memory: When Andromeda and Ted accepted her as their own daughter. She realised that she did have a family who loved her and cared for her.
Animagus: a small Black Raven
Amortentia (what they smell like): old books, chocolate, a tad bit of cinnamon, coffee and lavender
Amortentia (what they smell): a library, petrichor, grass, cinnamon, and a very strong woody cologne
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Magical Abilities:
Legilimency and Occlumency:
Legilimency is the act of magically navigating through the many layers of a person's mind and correctly interpreting one's findings. A person who practices this art is known as a Legilimens. Muggles might call this "mind-reading," but practitioners disdain the term as naïve. The opposite of Legilimency is Occlumency, which is used to shield one's mind from the invasion and influence of a Legilimens.
Occlumency is the act of magically closing one's mind against Legilimency. It is ancient, and has existed since medieval times.[1] It can prevent a Legilimens from accessing one's thoughts and feelings, or influencing them. A person who practices this art is known as an Occlumens.
Favourite spells: Bombarda, Legilimens, Expecto Patronum, Reducto
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School:
Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw
Organizations joined: Hogwarts, Circle of Khanna, The Order of The Phoenix
Apprenticeships: worked as an intern at the Ministry of Magic for a while, and helped Madam Pomfrey in the Hospital Wing with Chiara
Professions: Auror for a while, took a break after a bad injury and ended up teaching at Hogwarts for a year, and then became an Alchemist.
Best Subjects: Transfiguration, Potions, Flying, Charms, Astronomy and DADA
Worst Subjects: Herbology, History of Magic, Divination.
Extra curricular activities: Keeper of the Ravenclaw Quidditch Team, sometimes tutors first years
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Relationships:
Fuck her blood family, she's a part of the Tonks family now
Edward "Ted" Tonks
He might not be her father, but he sure is her dad. Muggle born Ted taught Ammie how to mess around with muggle tools, and introduced her to muggle movies and other random trinkets. He thinks of Ammie as his own daughter, and was the one who taught her how to ride a bicycle
Andromeda "Meda" Tonks (née Black)
Andromeda took in her niece when she had nowhere to go, treated her like family, and protected her from all sorts of danger. Provided love, care and support to Ammie during her traumatizing times. She was considered as a blood traitor, but that didn't stop her from saving her little niece
Nymphadora "Dora" Tonks
Ammie's sister, and best friend. Stood by her side for everything and supported her all the way. Provided comic relief and loves Ammie to death. With a stupid sense of humor, and a knack for creating mischief, she's Ammie's most beloved person
Jacob Black
The one who started it all. The idiot who got himself stuck in a portrait. All of this garbage began with him, and Ammie never lets him forget it. Very protective of his little sister and hates everyone for some reason
Misc family members: Sirius Black, Regulus Black, Walburga Black, Orion Black.
Friends: Rowan Khanna, Ben Copper, Bill Weasley, Penny Haywood, Nymphadora Tonks, Talbott Winger, Badeea Ali, Tulip Karasu, Jae Kim, Chiara Lobosca, Charlie Weasley, Barnaby Lee, and Liz Tuttle
Closest Canon Friends: Rowan Khanna, Nymphadora Tonks, Talbott Winger, Tulip Karasu, Jae Kim and Badeea Ali
Closest MC friends:
Alvina Arcane-Zheng ( @oneirataxia-girl)
Celeste Wheterstead ( @bananascrackersnuts)
Tessa Reed ( @hphm4ever)
Adel Young (@adellovesrowan)
Matthew Luther (@hphmmatthewluther)
Cato Reese (@catohphm)
Niky Dona, Sabina Ivylash and Persephone Palerosine (@nikyiscreepy)
Night Nur Rhea (@night-rhea)
(I don’t have much friends... Just lmk if your MC wants to be friends with mine)
Love Interest: Talbott Winger
Dorm Mates: Rowan Khanna, Tulip Karasu, Badeea Ali and Skye Parkin
Rival/ bestie: Merula Snyde
Enemies: Patricia Rakepick, R, The Wizard in White Robes
Pets: a female black kitten kneazle named Moonshine
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Trivia:
- Has a stuffed bear named Sir Boo Boo
- Really likes Indie Rock/Pop
- Ended up being in a band with Jae and Tonks by accident
- Pretty much hates the world in the morning
- Gets good marks in Divination by making up really tragic stories
- Can’t stand tea
- Fluent in French
- McGonagall claims to hate her, but she really thinks Ara’s rather daring
- Sings in the shower
- Annoys the heck out of Andre with her questionable fashion choices
- Stupid sense of humor
- Laughs like a witch
- Quotes Shakespeare when drunk
- Can skateboard like a pro
- Weird handwriting
- Messy yet organized
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I ask this both for Baron Dark, Ariandel and SkekSo !
Give me a character and I will answer:
@ben-the-hyena
Oh boy a triple feature! :D Here we go, folks!
Under a read more cause its going to get long but each listed character will be split apart evenly!
First up is Baron Dark!
Why I like them: He is just bombastic in personality! He lives loud in his actions and words, participating in most of the action himself while also showing he is a threat and menacing altogether! I also like that he is one of the few villains that shows he cares for his crew as a “family” (at least for most part of the series before being overtaken with obsession to have power more on his own). Given the dynamic we are given from the show, its obvious he cares and treats them all on a level of respect as well, something so rare to see nowadays! And I also enjoyed that his reasons to take over and do the shit he did in the series, “Because I can!” is just as refreshing and fun to see in a villain too!
And again, his design is a top tier design I love overall! Its menacing, powerful, and outright amazing! Definitely adds to the character and how well he works in effect to keeping my attention! Like just look at that design! And his VA did a wonderful job of adding to that charm that is just delightful to see in his personality!
Overall, he is totally a villain I would love to see more of in the future!
Why I don’t: I say my dislikes often fall on the usual tropes of a kid’s show of the 90s. He talks too much when he could be doing things himself and falls victim to the typical “I am too powerful” but doesn’t think of the obvious steps ahead that will be his downfall. But honestly, its so small I don’t find it jarring or that bad to be in the way! It was the 90s and aimed at kids at the time, so we can’t expect TOO much out of that xD
Favorite episode (scene if movie): Oh man, that’s a tough one cause every scene/episode Baron is in he totally slays it! Its either a tie from the first episode to the very last one cause the stakes of start and finish are so well done, I love it all!
Favorite season/movie: Obviously, the TV series is the best version of him! The comics sucked and turned him too OOC from what was initially given! Like how does one go from point A to be Z so freaking fast? xD
Favorite line: “Because I can.”
Yeah, not gonna lie this was indeed my favorite line of his xD
Favorite outfit: Honestly, the outfit he gains near the end of the series is by far my favorite! Its like a mix of the Bejeweled Catacomb Saints and Mictlantechutli put in one and its befitting of the Baron given his gain in power!
OTP: Baron and Cyborn are my OTP and are married, fight me.
Brotp: Definitely Brotps with the rest of his henchmen though I see them more being like his adoptive children!
Head Canon: Baron is of indigenous background! I also like to headcanon that the white tuft/strands in his hair are truly his and have been there since birth!
(I have so many more HCs for him but I will keep it short cause it can go all day x’) )
Unpopular opinion: Don’t think I have one, at the moment at least.
A wish: To have gotten more information/lore on him and the entire cast, honestly! I would have loved to see more of his character explored and what more he could have had to offer as a series main villain! Hell, the whole damn series had so much to offer! And just the relationships he has with the others and what more he could have done post season and before! So much potential there to be explored! I honestly would not be objecting to a reboot/revival or continuation of the series!
An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: Though with that said, if a reboot does come around, don’t turn it into the mess of current cartoons we have. Not that they are all bad but most of them have been very disappointing in keeping my attention and liking. Keep the same type of messages it had before! It worked beautifully as it did then and still does work now! I’d love to see the same formulas used while also updating it to be more gritty and mature like they did for Castlevania! Just... Don’t turn it into a cringe worthy mess that will ruin Baron and all the characters in the series! Don’t do what the comics did!
5 words to best describe them: Charmingly evil, badass, fun, conniving bastard, and menacing.
My nickname for them: Mega dork (affectionately speaking)
Next is Ariandel!
Why I like them: Oh boy, there is a lot to say in terms of why I like him but I will try to keep it short and simple for time purposes!
His design is top tier for me! Like a rotting skull like face? Check! A monstrous body much like a bird’s? Check! And to add he is a giant Corvian, which are one of my favorite enemies in Dark Souls III!
His personality also differs from the usual loud, bombastic, and proud characters I tend to gravitate for. Instead, he’s withdrawn and rather sad to look at and hear. You know he’s going through a lot but don’t know exactly what it is. In game, one can sort of get hints as to what has gone on behind the scenes but at the same time, its still vague and hard to really pinpoint what really did happen. So he has that air of mystery to him that I honestly adore in many characters as it leaves room to explore deeper into their lore! But I also find his personality relatable as well as sympathetic.
But that’s just me, I can gush about him all day but I will cut it short here x’)
Why I don’t: To be honest I don't have any reason not to like Ariandel other then the small fact that he followed Friede and let the Painted World rot in such a terrible state. But that is so minor of an issue to me to really make a difference, lol. I adore this giant bird man!
Favorite episode (scene if movie): I have to say the scene where he ultimately snaps and breaks out of binds after seeing Friede's lifeless body before him is my favorite scene of his. The amount of pain and anguish heard in his scream and the way he moves prior and after; I can very much relate to that feeling. Sometimes, actions truly convey the emotions better in the most powerful means necessary. And this scene alone truly nailed it.
Favorite season/movie: He's only ever seen in the Dark Souls III DLC, so obvious answer points to the DLC!
Favorite line: "When the Ashes are two, a flame alighteth. Thou'rt Ash, and fire befits thee, of course..."
Favorite outfit: Uhh, he doesn't really wear any clothes save for his cape? So I guess the cape does him well as he is, though I always draw him without it xD
OTP: To be honest, I don't ship him with any canon characters within Dark Souls. Friede does not deserve him..
Brotp: Ariandel being best friends with the Ashen One is my ultimate Brotp! Just think of how much of a valuable ally he could have been!
Head Canon: I know his origins are debatable, as either theory I have for him can be plausible but I often lean more towards the idea of him being half Giant and half Corvian! IDK why but I just like it a lot more x’)
Unpopular opinion: While Ariandel is partly responsible for what happened to the Painted World, I still feel he was manipulated overall and probably at one point did have a change of heart before being forced into complete isolation. He plays more the role of the willing/unwilling accomplice then the actual perpetrator of the crime.
A wish: He could have had a happier ending without having to die for Friede. I know, its Dark Souls. Such a thing is expected to happen in the Soulsborne series but its a wish, right?
An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: That anything beyond the infatuation he had for Friede took place. Just.. No. He loved her but never could ever have her in that sense and never did. Just no, she is horrible to him.
5 words to best describe them: Sad, lonely, birdman, withdrawn, and tragic
My nickname for them: Papa bird
And lastly for skekSo!
Why I like them: I think its as obvious as the case for Baron Dark. I like evil, smug bastards that shine through their wickedness and don't usually hold back. In the case of skekSo, I actually didn't care for him at first but then after my second viewing of the show, I started to like him more and enjoy his villainy! He's selfish, arrogant, vain, and conniving and I love it!
Added that his design is really appealing to the eye and how he carries himself out, I gotta say he's one of the few villain characters from a show that makes the turn around for me to like them instead of hate them more. Also, his voice. Can NOT go wrong with that voice cause DAMN, its good and shows just how powerful a villain can be with a voice like his. And those eyes. Oh man, those eyes!
Why I don’t: Despite his villainy being the main point that caught my attention, its also a part of his downfall too. His constant greed and arrogance pushed him too far into doing what he did and ultimately cost him everything in the end; including loyal allies that end up dying for him in the long run. I hate how easily and quickly he changes his mind when actual logic is put into perspective of his plans and how quick he is to dismiss someone else when they don't please him anymore or things don't go his way for the smallest things.
And yes, that is part of his character, I know that. That is what makes him as scummy as he is and why I love how trashy he is. But I also can't ignore just how easily he pushed skekVar away and believed skekSil despite knowing just what a lying bastard he is. IDK, it just feels too obvious but at the same time, it is what it is and I am not upset about it in the least x)
Favorite episode (scene if movie): Honestly, I enjoyed all the scenes with him in the show but mostly in particular with his interactions with skekVar, especially towards the end of the series. It showed a peak part of his vulnerability in his character that honestly I doubt he ever shows to anyone else. He spends most of his time pushing others around and making them fear him but with skekVar there is a sort of mutual respect going that really speaks out in a different way. Maybe I am just reading too much into it, but I always did enjoy how they interacted with one another!
Favorite season/movie: Well, skekSo didn't get much screen time in the movie other then him dying and turning to dust so.... Definitely enjoyed him more in the show then the film xD
Favorite line: "NOOOOO!" (Yes, this scene is still very infamous to me for personal reasons but the way he carried out his "no's" cracked me up each time xD)
Favorite outfit: Honestly, the main outfit he wore throughout the show. It's just so regal and goth, I love it! And as a goth and fashion enthusiast myself, I am all up for the style he has! The battle armor he wore near the end made it a tad more laughable to be honest.
OTP: I started shipping him with skekVar but ended up with an OT3 of skekVar and skekZok. So now all three of them live in a happy relationship with each other in my noodle~
Brotp: I see him being on neutral terms with skekMal!
Head Canon: I feel that even in the show it wasn’t seen or given, but he did feel a lot of remorse and regret after the loss of skekVar. He seemed very close with him and spoke with skekVar with more trust then he did the others. Perhaps in secret he did mourn the General’s loss.
Unpopular opinion: Does this count as an unpopular opinion? I know most people see him with just a few strands of hair but I tend to see him with a head full of long flowing white locks he keeps hidden beneath his clothes. It adds to the extra layer of vanity for a proud Emperor such as he! He looses it over time the darkening consumes him and withers down his health.
A wish: To see what he was like as an urSkek prior to being split up into a Skeksis and urRu. Yeah, I know people don't care or like the urSkeks all that much but honestly, I would LOVE to see more urSkek lore and see what it was that made SoSu so special among his peers. It was said, after all, he had a voice that could move the stars but was conflicted and consumed with darkness. Honestly, I want to know why and who he was prior to all of this mess! SkekSo even says in the show he still has nightmares of the life before so I wonder, what they were and how it was! So much potential here, man!
An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: I don’t think I have any of these to be honest? At least with skekSo. Not that I can think of on top of my head now.
5 words to best describe them: Proud, absolute piece of shit, pretty, conniving, and menacing.
My nickname for them: Stupid idiot
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Lasabrjotr Chapter 77: Like a Good Old-Fashioned Barn Raising
Chapters: 77/?
Fandom: Thor (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: pg
Relationships: Loki x Reader
Characters: Loki (Marvel),
Additional Tags: Post-Endgame: Best Possible Ending (Canon-Divergent), Party Time
Summary: Buridag begins!
Loki was awake long before you were, getting preparations ready, loose ends tied up, last minute orders sent out. He allowed you to sleep until you woke on your own, having removed his little illusory alarms from you some time ago.
Sometimes flower petals still rained upon you, and perfume rose from your footsteps, but no more snakes in the bath.
So you rose slowly, stretching and yawning the grogginess away at your own pace. Time was very hard to tell by looking out windows at this time of year, but when Loki entered the room carrying an egg sandwich, a little pile of fresh potato chips, and a glass of coffee, you placed yourself firmly within brunch territory.
Loki flicked on your sunlamp, gestured at the chair, and handed you your brunch once you'd taken your seat.
You munched your food and absorbed your light while Loki laid out the day's plans. You'd get dressed in a ceremonial outfit that included your armor and helmet, and join the parade that was gathering even now.
They were initially going to put you on Sleipnir. You had asked them not to. Sleipnir was magnificent, but you had no connection to him, nor to Leynarodd, who was the second choice. Your sweet, stout, shaggy little Acorn was who you preferred, a horse that belonged to no one initially, but who had formed a trusting bond with you.
Your clothing was, predictably, green, the underdress and apron a dark mossy color, hemmed on all edges with fine gold braid, embroidered with stripes of delicate knotwork, and your mark, also in gold. Over the top of this went your quilted tunic, in it's shimmering jade, and then your armor; the breastplate, the tassets, the bracers, pauldrons, greaves, and poleyns, though the last two were not visible. They went on over the leather trousers you'd been given to wear under your dress. They were sleek things, made of tough black leather, pleated in diagonal patterns, just like something Loki would wear. You thought the pleats had the advantage of putting more leather between you and any danger, and were flexible as well.
There were actually places where your familiar oval brooches could be fastened, your strings of shining beads strung between, your chatelaine dangled. Your belt was tooled leather and brass findings, hung with a leather purse, your Yggdrasil phone case, a small drinking horn carved with your mark, and of course, your knife. A little burst of deep pink against all the gold, green, and black.
You wore a minty-green velvet cape, a gift from Andsvarr, and your beautiful helmet to top it all off. You truly looked like something out of a fantasy novel, someone who looked like they should be standing next to the legendary figure that Loki currently cut.
He looked enormous, with his many asymmetrical layers, and molded shoulder guards, his billowing cape and hair spilling from beneath his magnificent curling horns. He shone with nornbein, and his cloak, shot with silk, shimmered subtly.
“You're so beautiful.” you mumbled. Loki smiled, and leaned down to adjust your cape, cheeks dusted with pink.
“Thank you.” he said, “I make every attempt. Though I think I will fade into the background under the power of your radiance.”
Warmth rushed to your face.
“Um, I know we've got to hurry and get Acorn, but I want to ask you a favor, Loki.”
“Anything. Tell me what it is and I'll make it so.”
You took a deep breath.
“I need you to stop trying to impress my father.”
The pink on his cheeks transformed into bright red.
“Ah. Yes, I rather hashed that, didn't I? I apologize. I thought that was still standard procedure, but your father, uh, explained otherwise.”
“Mhm, I'll bet he did. Look, I know you wanted to surprise us, but when it comes to things like that, you really oughta run it by me first. I could have told you that wouldn't work out the way you thought it would. You know, saved you from being chewed out like that. You can let me save you sometimes too.”
“ Like with the Huldra.”
“Kinda. Dad's not as bloodthirsty as she was, but he's a lot more stubborn.”
“Like father, like daughter, hm?” he teased.
“You have not seen me be stubborn yet.” you warned, and he gave you a quick smooch.
“A blessing, I'm sure. Very well, I agree. Surprises get run by you. Anything to save me from another tongue lashing. That man truly does not hold back.”
“I mean it though.” you persisted. “I'm not saying that you can't have any surprises at all, but talk to me about big stuff like that. If it's something that Asgardian law or custom would demand, but would be insulting to a human, we can maybe hash out an alternative that would satisfy both. That's the point, isn't it? Please, I really don't want to deal with anymore trouble between you two. Don't get hung up on impressing him, he has every reason to reject it, and he will. No more gifts, no toasts, no calling attention to him in public, nothing. He hates being the center of attention. Just let him be a guest, and see, without interference, that his little girl is doing fine on her own.”
“I really didn't mean to make him so angry.” Loki said, a little crestfallen. “And the more I tried to explain, the angrier he became. I just wanted him to know how much I value you. I wanted you to know too.”
“Material culture is different where I'm from. There are places in the world where that would have been understood and appreciated, but we've stopped doing it. In the same vein, fathers don't make all the decisions for their daughters anymore, so you don't actually need his approval. But...I need you to understand, it's not just that you took away his child, though that's bad enough. It's that I'm the only family he has left. My grandma only had one kid, and that was my dad. And she's dead, and so's my granddad, before I was even born. And then my mom died, and Beth too, and so I'm all that's left for him. And I have this giant Sword of Damocles hanging over my head all the time, and he's had to worry about that for my whole life. Most of the women on my mom's side all died from this, but occasionally, rarely, there's one that doesn't. I'm starting to hope that might be me. Maybe the magic is protecting me. But he's not going to be able to accept that so easily. I'm all he had left, and you took me away. That's all that's going to be important to him. You didn't even have to do the things you did in New York, this is the worst possible crime you could commit, in his eyes.”
Loki heaved a sigh of remorse. “And I cannot even return you to him. It seems there is one more thing I cannot set right.”
“The best you can do is make sure I'm okay. And don't bother him anymore. And maybe let him come visit more often. The more he sees me living my life and being fine, the more confidence he will have that I'm actually safe here.”
“I shall endeavor to help you thrive.” Loki promised.
“All right, so if that's settled, we should go get our horses.”
******
Acorn was, like you, a bit overdressed in your opinion. Long tabbards and blankets covered her from nose to rump, green and gold, embroidered with oak leaves. They were so long, they almost brushed the ground. Ribbons were braided into her wild mane and tail, and bells jingled with every movement. Like you, she could barely be seen under her splendor. But she was probably warm, and happily accepted a carrot from your hand. Placid as always, she let you up on her back, and fell into step behind Leynarodd, who likewise, followed up behind Sleipnir, whose hooves still rang like bells even over the thin layer of packed snow that covered the recently cleared streets.
There was a whole procession of people-this was a parade after all, and Thor, on Sleipnir, was preceded by the twin Valkyries, carrying Asgardian banners, as well as several musicians, and Beli, who chanted an ancient epic on the exploits of Buri.
Saga had translated the chant for you a while ago, and it sounded something like the sensationalized, self-aggrandizing boasts of pharaohs, or Mesopotamian kings-the kind that claimed to be rulers of the world, or rulers of the heavens themselves, to have battled armies of demons, killed giant lions with only a stick-that sort of thing. But when Beli called out those verses in such an ancient dialect of Asgardian, the words themselves felt powerful.
Thor followed slowly, Sliepnir plodding along, both of them absolutely huge. Loki and Leynarodd came right behind, only slightly smaller. And then you and Acorn, almost comical in your stature, diminutive by comparison. You were keenly aware of it, but either all of Asgard was too polite to say anything about it, or they simply didn't care.
The human guests, corralled in roped off areas, whooped and cheered when when you passed. Behind you, more musicians played, and a circle of Seidkonas walked in silent dignity. Then came more banners, the rest of the Valkyries, representatives of each noble house and guild, and the rest of the Aesir in Asgard, provided they didn't already have another position in the parade.
After them, the gathered Asgardians began following, lengthening out the procession, bright balls of magical light bobbing overhead. The sun had barely peeked over the horizon, and would be slinking away in a mere three or so hours, so the mage lights sparkled everywhere. Helpful Einherjar herded the humans to the next specially roped off area, so they could follow the parade as well; you caught a few amused faces at the playful rowdiness displayed by celebrating humans.
That was just how humans were when they were excited about something. Humans loved to holler, to jump, and dance, and clap. Some of them were even trying to keep time with the music.
You weren't actually able to pick out your father or Tara in the crowd, nor anyone else you knew, so you just kept your head forward and your back straight, trying to look as dignified as you could.
You'd only ever seen a few of what you considered 'proper' parades: in a small town a parade mostly consisted of people waving from the backs of neighborhood pickup trucks and tractors, maybe decorated with balloons or paper chains, blasting music from dusty old speakers. In the autumn, there might be pumpkins and corn stalks, and usually hayrides. But never anything like this spectacle.
As you got closer to the construction site, the apprentice mages responsible for all the floating lights started throwing sparks from their hands, like colorful sparklers. The gathered Asgardians began lining up in their designated areas, ready to play their part. The foundations had already been dug, and everything that needed to go into them was already there. All that remained was the pouring.
Thor, Loki, and yourself dismounted as close to in unison as you could manage, the horses carefully lead away to a temporary enclosure. You headed to the stack of decorative bricks, and took your place among the Asgardians there, while Thor gave the order for the cement to pour.
While this went on, Beli gathered his students and skalds in front of the Huldrastone to recite a modern epic. Within the first few verses you realized that it was about the Huldra's attack, and your confrontation with her.
Of course, the poem was much cleaner and more elegant than the actual events had been, but certain things had still been included. Your ears burned beneath your helmet when Beli reached the part where you had 'bestowed upon the fallen prince, a gentle sacrificial kiss, knowing that to trade life for life would grant him breath once more.'
You had finally spotted your father and Tara in the crowd; he crossed his arms and glared upon hearing the verse, while Tara gave you a cheezy grin and thumbs up.
As the poem reached its conclusion, the cement finished pouring, and a new recitation began. As Thor and Loki knelt and began scratching ritual runes into the wet cement, Beli's current group of student came forward and began telling the story of Beli, while apprentice mages illustrated the words with colorful, stylized illusions.
There were harrowing battles against huge stone people, the construction of the original Bifrost, which at that time connected a fleet of alien ships to one another. The illusions showed the gathering of construction materials, the building of a platform in space, and the grand revelation of the crystalline platform upon which Asgard slowly grew. Mountain and plain, river and ocean, building after magnificent building rose into the sky. Their ships captured and carved an asteroid, then set it in orbit as a bright new moon. All this was accomplished by the use of a glowing, icy blue cube that was difficult to look directly at. It was compelling though; it caught and held your attention with its beautiful, sparkling light.
You knew what that device was: you had learned about it in your lessons with Saga. It was the object known as the Tesseract, a four dimensional creation meant to house the incredible energy of an Infinity Stone. Perhaps that was why it was simultaneously fascinating, yet hard to perceive. Your curious human brain was drawn to its uniqueness, yet equally unable to fully fathom it.
That device was the key to Asgard's existence and eventual success. It was unthinkable to you that Odin had just lost it on Earth, as Sagas histories had proclaimed. It must have been a terrible loss.
Thor and Loki completed their carving, and began the process of imbuing the foundations with divine power. Goosebumps rose on your arms, and there was a pricking in your sinuses, like you were about to sneeze. There was almost a flavor to it.
The actual blessing didn't take nearly as long as the rune carving ritual, and soon, the two brothers stepped back, to allow others to begin their work. More mages worked a spell together that lifted the water out of the cement, drying it within moments. People came forward with wires and pipes, floor and wall supports, insulation, hammers, plaster, bricks, and mortar. In rotating lines people laid flooring and installed fixtures, scraped grout and assembled frames. Every now and then youths moved through, sweeping up dust, always away from you.
It suddenly became clear that that was why you were so far back in line, why you'd been assigned a decorative brick, something that would be placed near the very end of the construction. There would be no dust then. Gratitude swelled in your chest, but you said nothing. There was singing now, simple, repetitive melodies that sounded like work songs.
Every hour, volunteers carted huge, heated cauldrons around the lines and groups of human spectators, dipping out hot drinks like witch's potions, and it was possible that there was a simple sort of magic in things like hot chocolate, strong coffee, and buttered rum on a cold day.
The building went up faster than you thought possible, the widows, doors, and lights being set into place as auroras began ribboning across the sky.
Finally, there was one brick left. You lifted it up, as the singing seemed to intensify, scooped some mortar from the pail, and fitted it all into the only remaining slot. Giving the brick a light pat to make sure it was secure, you turned back to the assembled crowd.
“We did it.” You said, and the cheering began.
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[Ficlet] Take a Chance on Me
...Hey, I said I might add onto the ficlet I did of how Carewyn joined the Slytherin Quidditch team for a game back in her third year! >>; This is based on Quidditch Season 1 Chapter 6, AKA the major plot turn before MC, Orion, Skye, and their house Quidditch team’s first match. (In this case, Slytherin VS Hufflepuff!)
For those of you who didn’t read the last ficlet and want to just jump into this one -- Carewyn (soon to be “Mama-Bear”) Cromwell is a third year Slytherin, with Orion, Skye, McNully, and Rath all being one year ahead of her. This will also be the only Quidditch match Carewyn plays until the tail end of her sixth year, which you can read about with this Quest of the Quidditch tag I made! Also as a note, since there is some art under the cut -- Orion, in my canon, doesn’t look the way he does in the game until his sixth year or so (namely, with his facial hair), hence why he looks a bit more boyish in how I drew him! (It is amazing how much younger Orion looks without the stubble!!) And yeah, even if Carewyn and Orion eventually become a couple post-Hogwarts, their relationship won’t really be explicitly romantic here, even if the strong platonic chemistry will definitely be there. 😊
Hope you enjoy! 💚
x~x~x~x
The Slytherin VS Hufflepuff Quidditch match was scheduled for the first weekend of November. With less than a week remaining, both houses were getting very excited -- Carewyn could tell her friend Penny Haywood was having trouble knowing whether to be more thrilled for her house team or for Carewyn.
“Well, there are a lot of people who don’t make the team on their first try!” Penny had said to Carewyn when she learned the news. “Gosh, Carewyn -- I know you’ll be flying up against my team, but...watching you play in a real Quidditch match will be even more fun than just watching one with you!”
Charlie and Andre were also thrilled.
“I knew you could do it, Carey!” said Charlie, beaming from ear to ear. “C’mere!”
He looped an arm around her neck and squeezed her against his side in a hug.
“Mm, I can’t say I knew, given Orion Amari’s reputation,” said Andre, though his face still broke into a grin, “but I’m glad that however odd he is, at least he can see raw talent when it’s placed in front of him! It’ll be so much more exciting to have you on the Pitch too, Cursebreaker.”
Though inwardly hating the nickname, Carewyn still gave them her best smile. “Thanks...”
~~~
The first couple of Slytherin team practices were largely based on teamwork exercises, so as to “strengthen the bond” between Carewyn and the rest of her teammates. She knew her fellow Chasers Orion and Skye already, of course, but Orion wanted to make sure she was likewise on good terms with their Beaters -- a pair of muscular seventh-years called King and Shacklebolt -- their very tall sixth-year Keeper Crockett, and their pretty seventh-year Seeker, Anika Lucky.
If Carewyn’s petite height and lack of muscles weren’t noticeable before, it was comically apparent when she stood alongside the rest of the Slytherin team -- even Skye, the smallest of them, still towered a good ten inches over 4′9″ Carewyn. Fortunately, although most of the Slytherin team gave Carewyn a slightly confused side-eye when she first arrived for practice, they all reacted a little differently after Orion challenged the team to break his record of balancing on their brooms (2 hours, 52 minutes and 31.2 seconds, according to McNully), and Carewyn was the only one who kept up with Skye all the way up until the end.
“And then there were two,” sighed Shacklebolt rather tiredly, when he finally had to give up and sit back down on his broom, massaging his leg.
Crockett looked at Orion with something of a weak smile. “Come on, Orion...maybe we should call this off. We can’t exactly break the record for balancing on one leg together when most of us are sitting down...”
“Ah, but if one of us breaks the record, then we all break the record,” said Orion with a smile.
Skye crossed her arms from her position balancing on her broom. “The one who breaks the record will get credit, though, right?”
“A victory for one is a victory for all,” Orion said mellowly, “and for that, we should celebrate on behalf of that one.”
Carewyn opened her eyes. She’d been keeping them closed and singing songs in her head, to try to help her ignore how much her leg was hurting and how much time was passing. When she glanced at Skye, she noticed a line of sweat appearing on her brow.
“...How close are we to our goal, Orion?” asked Carewyn.
“Only time will tell,” answered Orion.
Skye frowned sourly. “Right -- that was Carewyn’s question: tell us the time.”
“The moment is near,” said Orion with a twinkle in his eye, “but who’s counting?”
“MCNULLY!” Skye bellowed up at the stands in exasperation. “YOU’D BETTER BLOODY WELL BE COUNTING UP THERE, OR I SWEAR I’LL BEAT BOTH YOU AND ORION BLACK AND BLUE!”
The Beaters both sighed and shook their heads.
“Here he goes again,” muttered Shacklebolt.
“I think he’s gone even deeper into his own head since becoming Captain,” King agreed under her breath, sounding both rather tired and slightly amused.
Carewyn turned to Orion, her almond-shaped blue eyes becoming a bit more serious.
“Orion, a Niffler is able to chase gold so well because it can smell when it’s close,” she said in an oddly stern voice. “It’d probably be a lot easier for Skye and me to reach our goal if we also knew how close we were to it.”
The other Slytherins all blinked at the tiny third-year, taken aback by her assertiveness. Orion, however, only grinned.
“Is not the journey a kind of treasure in itself, however?” he said. “After all...you and Skye have united so well in this endeavor, despite your apparent differences.”
“Yes,” granted Carewyn, her voice staying rather firm, “but if you want both of us -- and therefore all of us -- to break the record, then it stands to reason that both Skye and I should be of the same mind. And Skye and I would both like to know how close we are to bringing our team victory.”
“Right,” said Skye, a bit more impatiently. “So will you go ask McNully how much time is left already?”
Orion’s black eyes sparkled with mischief. “It’s so fascinating, how full of fire you both are, and yet how differently colored your flames are.”
He looked up at the stands. When he caught McNully’s eye, he threw up his fist into the air in silent celebration.
“That’s it?!” said Skye eagerly, sounding immensely relieved. “A new record? Finally!”
She immediately sat down -- Carewyn, however, did not, and she was glad of it, for sure enough, Orion turned back around with a grin and said,
“McNully’s just informed me that we’re in the final countdown!”
The team all covered their faces with their hands. Skye’s mouth dropped open.
“What?!” she yelped. “Are you kidding -- I wouldn’t have sat yet!”
“Why did you?” Orion teased good-naturedly. “I thought you wanted to be the last one standing.”
Skye looked like steam was coming out of her ears. Carewyn fixed Orion with a rather reproachful look.
“Orion, that wasn’t nice!” the much smaller girl scolded him the way she sometimes did Jacob when she was little. “Skye really had her heart set on beating your record.”
Orion’s amusement actually dimmed slightly. After a moment, his expression turned a bit softer upon both Skye and Carewyn.
“Fortunately she did beat it,” he said, gesturing to Carewyn still balancing on her broom, “through her student.”
Carewyn raised her eyebrow, looking from Orion to up at McNully in the commentary box. “So the record has been broken now?”
“Indeed,” said Orion with a proud smile, exchanging a nod with McNully. “McNully-confirmed. Congratulations, team -- we did it!”
The team all breathed a sigh of relief, except for Skye, who still looked sour.
“Carewyn did it, this time,” she said begrudgingly. “Congratulations, Carewyn.”
Carewyn lowered herself back down onto her broom, averting her eyes and massaging her burning thigh. “Thanks.”
She was proud that she was able to prove herself, after it’d taken her three whole hours just to figure out how to even balance like that in the first place...even if she didn’t love the fact that Skye was clearly bitter about it.
“I must admit, though, Carewyn, I’m a bit disappointed,” said Orion. “Not once in all that time did you share any of your meditation songs with us.”
The team, including Skye, once again turned to look at Carewyn, surprised. Carewyn flushed.
“Well, you said I could do it whenever we meditate together, as in the two of us,” she said rather huffily, closing her eyes and putting up her nose. “I didn’t want to break anyone else’s concentration.”
“A kind thought,” said Orion. “But perhaps next time, we can see if it actually helps our team’s focus. We’ll need all the focus and teamwork possible, in our match against Hufflepuff.”
~~~
The Slytherin team soon found themselves very happy with Orion’s choice. Carewyn not only was a very talented Chaser with excellent speed and aim, but she also seemed to know just how to talk to Orion on his terms and keep him a bit more grounded. And when she did end up singing during their practices, it actually turned out to be kind of a fun way to pass the time too. The players who’d been born in magical families like Skye in particular found it interesting to hear Muggle songs they’d never been exposed to before.
“If you're all alone,
When the pretty birds have flown,
Honey, I'm still free --
Take a chance on me!
Gonna do my very best,
And it ain't no lie --
If you put me to the test,
If you let me try...”
Carewyn did notice, however, that their practices were being watched -- and not just by Murphy McNully, either.
“It’s not abnormal for other teams to want to get a peek at new players before a match, so they can get information they can use while building their team strategies,” McNully told her. “Most opposing players try to be subtle about it, but Ulrich Dylan -- that’s Hufflepuff’s Captain -- is not. Ravenclaw’s whole team isn’t either...especially Erika Rath -- she always makes it a point to get a good look at any new opponents. And well, admittedly, there’s nothing banning them from coming to watch our practices, so I guess they don’t feel the need to hide it.”
Carewyn considered this. “...Maybe they see it as a way to intimidate us too -- you know, being so confident in letting us know that they see us, and that they’re judging us.”
Kind of like how I felt a bit intimidated by Orion, while he was watching me fall off my broom for three hours.
McNully nodded. “Not a bad theory! Ravenclaw in particular has already won the Quidditch Cup two years in a row, so they definitely have some cause to be confident. Just with their current line-up, I’d say there’s a 38% chance they’ll win the Cup again.”
Considering that was well over 1/4, Carewyn didn’t like those odds. Seeing the frown on her face, McNully smiled.
“Don’t worry, Carewyn -- we do have one ace up our sleeve, when it comes to strategy. Only Slytherin knows how to do the Thimblerig Shuffle properly, as of yet -- therefore if we use it, I’d say we stand a 87.3% chance of throwing Hufflepuff off their game.”
Carewyn smiled. “That’s great!”
“Glad you agree!” said McNully. He then rubbed the back of his neck a bit awkwardly. “There’s...just one thing: Orion would have to actually use it, in the match. And well, we both know Orion -- the odds of him using it don’t go above 43%...” His face then burst into a smile. “...buuuut I’d say if you put in a good word with him, he might be more willing to listen!”
Carewyn looked confused. “Why me? You’re Orion’s friend too, aren’t you?”
“Of course! But Orion and I are still very different people. We have trouble speaking the same language sometimes. Honestly, I’d say I only understand what he’s trying to say about 72% of the time,” McNully added under his breath. “But you and he already seem to have a good rapport -- I reckon you bringing up the Thimblerig Shuffle to Orion would improve his odds of using it by a good 10%!”
Carewyn still wasn’t entirely sure, but she gave McNully a reassuring nod. “Well, I’ll try, anyway.”
~~~
Carewyn asked Orion to meet her before practice. She wanted to make absolutely sure that none of the other team’s players would be listening in. When Orion saw her approach, he smiled broadly.
“Greetings, Breaker of Records,” he said amusedly.
Carewyn frowned. The nickname reminded her unpleasantly of Andre’s “Cursebreaker” moniker for her.
“Hi, Orion...thanks for coming early.”
Orion seemed to notice the shift in her expression -- it made his eyes soften slightly, becoming a bit more serious.
“We’re members of the same Quidditch family now, Carewyn,” he said gently. “Therefore my time is our time...and we can always find time to find balance together.”
Carewyn smiled slightly, feeling a bit reassured. “...Well, it’s less about balance and more about...well, about the match against Hufflepuff.”
“I think those two things are very much entwined,” said Orion.
“In a way, yes...but well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’ve had a lot of company in the stands, while we’re practicing. Like Hufflepuff’s Captain.”
Orion nodded. “I have seen him.”
“Well, McNully thinks he’s been stopping by to get a good look at me, and the rest of the team,” said Carewyn seriously. “That way he can use whatever information he can get about us in his team’s strategy. And...well, I know you don’t think strategical skills will determine our path...but it seems like we should use all of the strengths we have to our advantage, right?”
Orion crossed his legs around his broom so that he could actually take his hands off of it and cross his arms idly over his chest.
“I agree,” he said quietly, but it seemed clear he was waiting for her to reach her conclusion, rather than being completely onboard.
“Well,” Carewyn plowed on, “right now, we’re the only Quidditch team who knows how to do the Thimblerig Shuffle -- you know, the move McNully made up?”
Orion nodded slowly. “I remember. Quintessential McNully -- magical in its complexity, and complex in its magic.”
Carewyn gave a nod of her own. “It’s really a very clever move...it would definitely throw Hufflepuff off-balance, which could only help us out. And well, considering McNully’s your friend, I reckon it would mean a lot to him, if you considered using it.”
Orion raised his eyebrows rather coolly. “You clearly have been a very good friend to McNully already, speaking on his behalf. Though I don’t know if I appreciate him using the Slytherin team in a strategy to coax their Captain to his way of thinking.”
Carewyn felt her gaze slipping down to her broom, but she tried to hold her ground. “I really don’t think McNully was trying to pressure you, Orion. I think he just really wants us to win -- you to win. Planning things out is just how his mind works...and he is pretty good at it. I learned a lot about Quidditch from him.”
“You and McNully do both enjoy your plans and strategies,” said Orion.
His face then spread into a wryer smile.
“I, however, have a different strategy in mind -- the absence of strategy.”
Carewyn wanted to be surprised, but she wasn’t. It still didn’t make the lump that settled into her stomach any less heavy.
“...Then...you have no plan at all, for us to win?” she asked, a bit shakily.
Orion’s black eyes twinkled. “Indeed. Let me show you.”
Within seconds, he’d easily leapt up onto his broom, so that he was balancing on it. Rather than before, though, he used both feet and actually surfed on the back of it, as if he were on a surfboard soaring through the air. Unlike a surfer on ocean waves, however, Orion was able to go completely upside down and around, balancing perfectly as if he and his broom were one and the same.
Carewyn found herself unable to tear her eyes away. Orion did, in fact, look pretty damn cool.
Her eyes were as wide as dinner plates as she followed his zigzagging moves around the Pitch -- and little by little, she found her lips spreading into an awed, open-mouthed smile.
Her reaction made Orion grin.
“Inspired Broom Surfing!” he called down to her. “That is its name, and that is what all shall call it.”
“Did you...did you invent this yourself?” asked Carewyn, disbelievingly.
“It’s the product of inspiration, not invention,” said Orion. “I thought of it, and so I do it.”
He looped in several circles over Carewyn’s head with apparent ease.
“Surfing the skies distracts the competition. They, too, shall wish to surf like this...”
He weaved in a tight “S” shape that reminded Carewyn of a figure skater on ice.
“...and yet, it also showcases one’s individual talent, and magnifies it! For most Quidditch players, even the best, never take the time to become one with their brooms -- but you can be an exception.”
Carewyn’s eyes and smile were very bright. ‘So you can psyche your opponent out, just with your confidence! And because you’ve got both hands open to hold the Quaffle, it’ll be harder for the opposing team to steal it too!’
“That’s...it’s brilliant, Orion!”
The praise definitely seemed to boost Orion’s ego. He flew completely upside down in a circle before coming to a stop beside Carewyn, grinning broadly.
“Would you like to learn?” he asked.
Carewyn looked down at Orion’s Cleansweep and then down on her old rundown Shooting Star.
“I definitely won’t be as good as you,” she said as offhandedly as she could.
Orion’s black eyes sparkled. “We’ll see about that. Now come -- balance first.”
Carewyn followed his lead, balancing on her broom the way he did.
“Forget technique,” he instructed, “forget form. Just be one with the broom.”
Carewyn started off slow, trying to weave. There were one or two points she felt like she was going to fall off, but she just managed to sweep her broom around enough to catch herself. Orion meanwhile swept around her in spirals to observe her.
“Do not broom surf with intent. You should only ever do this when the feeling is right, not when logic dictates.”
Carewyn sped up a bit in her weaving, tilting her broom up so that she hovered a bit higher. She then tried to aim herself toward the hoops -- she charged ahead, and then looped back around in a “j” shape. Orion followed, shimmying around her.
“Good,” said Orion. “Good -- let go -- ”
Carewyn urged her broom a little faster and Orion took off after her. Soon they were weaving around each other, Orion coming up and over her. Carewyn brought her arms up on either side of her to help her shift balance as if she was on roller skates, and she soon found herself laughing. This was fun!
“How...how am I doing?” she asked as she tried to catch her breath.
Orion’s smile was broader than Carewyn had ever seen it, so much so that it made his black eyes squint slightly. “You look like you’ve been broom surfing like that your entire life, Carewyn Cromwell.”
They finally came to a halt in the middle of the pitch. Orion nimbly leapt back down onto his broom in a seated position again -- Carewyn took a bit more time to gradually lower herself back down.
“Hufflepuff will not be able to take their eyes off you,” Orion said confidently. “And it’s while they are distracted that we will be able to rack up points.”
Carewyn adjusted her ponytail as best she could with one hand.
“It really is brilliant, Orion,” she said kindly, “but...well, isn’t that a strategy in itself, that I’ll distract the Hufflepuffs, while you and Skye score points?”
“To some, perhaps,” said Orion. “But all of it will only be if the time and feelings are right. I don’t believe in planning things out too far ahead. None of us are Seers who can divine the future, so can we truly know whether any plans we make will fit in with how that future will take shape?”
“No,” granted Carewyn, “but that doesn’t mean you can’t make a plan and hope for the best anyhow. Or better yet, make a back-up plan, just in case things don’t go the way you want...”
Orion raised an eyebrow. “You and McNully believe Hufflepuff’s Captain came to watch our practices so as to make a strategy, correct? It stands to reason, then, that he’s channeling the Demiguise as best he can.”
“The Demiguise?” prompted Carewyn.
“Trying to predict our own strategy in the upcoming match, through watching our interactions and team dynamics,” said Orion simply. “If, however, we go in with no strategy, there’ll be nothing for Hufflepuff to latch onto. That mystery works in our favor.”
“But it also might make it harder for us to fly as one team,” Carewyn pointed out, trying to mirror Orion’s level tone but not quite succeeding due to her sincere concern. “I can Broom Surf now, Orion, but I can’t do it as well as you. Only you will likely ever be able to do it as well as you do...because no one could be exactly like you. And well...no one else sees the world quite like you do, either. It’s brilliant, really,” she added quickly. “It’s cool that you don’t act how people expect you to, or see the world like everyone else does. But...I don’t know, I guess it’d be a lot easier for the rest of the team to be on the same page as you, if you choose a book that you can read together. If that makes sense.”
Orion considered Carewyn for a moment, his unreadable black eyes trailing over her face.
“It does,” he said at last.
He looked up at the stands.
“It appears that our ‘guest’ has arrived,” he changed the subject dryly.
Carewyn looked up. Sure enough, she saw the very tall, broad-chested Hufflepuff Quidditch Captain, Ulrich Dylan, confidently striding across the stands and plopping himself down. He rested his arms on the edge of the stands as he stared down at them. Carewyn’s eyes narrowed up at him.
“As has the rest of our team,” added Orion a bit more pleasantly.
Sure enough, the rest of the Slytherins -- Skye in front -- flew out onto the pitch to join them.
“Hey, Orion,” greeted Crockett brightly. “Hey, Carewyn. Looks like you’ve both got a...‘broom with a view?’ Eh? Get it?”
Carewyn couldn’t help but wince, even though she tried to smile.
“Will you lay off with the puns?” said Skye, rolling her eyes exasperatedly. “You stretch farther with those than I do trying to reach the Quaffle...”
“But it’s part of what being Keeper is!” Crockett said playfully. “Everybody knows that...and you know I’m a Keeper! All the ladies say so.”
“All the ladies except us,” said Lucky, who’d covered her face with her hand.
“And we have to be subjected to your jokes,” added King with a roll of her eyes.
Skye shifted gears as she looked at Carewyn, offering her a determined look. “Ready for practice, Carewyn?”
Carewyn forced herself to look away from the Hufflepuff Captain in the stands, giving Skye a confident nod. “Mm-hmm.”
“The time has come for our time,” said Orion serenely. “Our first exercise will be helping each other through sabotaging each other. Our Beaters and Seeker will play as opposition to our Chasers and Keeper, so that we may practice saving and blocking goals.”
Carewyn looked at Orion with a teasing smirk. “Sounds like a plan.”
Orion smiled very wryly at her in return.
~~~
Orion asked the rest of the team to stay after practice for a team meeting. The team waited around so long for the meeting, though, that they soon occupied themselves with idle conversation. Hufflepuff’s Quidditch Captain had left over fifteen minutes ago, and Carewyn was glad to see him gone.
Skye stretched her arms over her head and sighed tiredly. “Ugh...I’m going to give Orion a good smack for this. Asks us to stay after for a team meeting, and then completely forgets to start it...”
“You shouldn’t hit him,” said Carewyn reproachfully, her voice coming out a bit whiny despite her best efforts.
“Ah, come on, Carewyn, I don’t mean it like that,” said Skye with a shake of her head. She smiled. “So anyway -- what did I miss before? What were you and Orion doing here so early?”
Carewyn took her hair out of its ponytail, looping the red scrunchie around her wrist so she could redo it. “Orion taught me how to do this Quidditch move he created -- it’s called Inspired Broom Surfing...”
Skye grinned. “Ah yeah, that thing! I reckon Orion sees it as a future signature move for him, as a player. Don’t know if I’d go that far, but hey, it’s a fun way to waste time.”
“I don’t think it wastes time,” said Carewyn, frowning slightly as she put down her now much tidier ponytail. “I think it’s rather brilliant, actually. If we’re going to beat Hufflepuff, I reckon us looking confident and fearless to the opposing team would be pretty helpful.”
“The only thing we need to defeat Hufflepuff is Parkin’s Pincer,” Skye said confidently. “They might expect it, but they can’t stop it.”
Carewyn frowned. “But...if they do expect it, then they could still make a strategy to counteract it, right?”
“Not when we do it perfectly,” said Skye. “And you and Orion both know how to do it perfectly -- I’ve made sure of that.”
Carewyn couldn’t help but disagree, but decided not to push the issue. Instead she sighed.
“Well, I guess in the end, it’s really up to Orion -- he is team Captain. I guess I just wish he’d consider making more of a plan...I mean, I always feel better whenever I’m doing something difficult, when I know I’m prepared and I’ve planned ahead.”
I don’t think I would’ve been able to deal with the Ice Vault at all, if I hadn’t practiced Incendio with Bill first. And it felt good knowing that he and Ben were there to help me too, since they both knew the spell really well.
Skye’s face became a bit more serious. “Yeah, that’s really not Orion’s style.”
She brought a hand onto the smaller girl’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
“Don’t worry your little red head about it, though,” she said with a smile. “Orion may be a weirdo, but he’s been known to make the right call, when it counts. You just focus on being a smashing Chaser, and let us more senior players worry about it. Nobody will be expecting the newest player to make any major decisions during the match anyway -- ”
“That’s it! That’s what we’ll do!”
Everyone gave a start.
Orion, without anyone noticing, had settled himself overhead on his broom, sitting on it as if it were a swing. As he leapt back down to the ground, however, sweeping his broom out from under him with a flourish, he was grinning as excitedly as a kid at Christmas, his eyes on Skye and Carewyn.
“Orion?” said Carewyn, startled. “When did you -- ?”
“Is the meeting finally starting now?” asked Lucky.
Orion brought his broom up onto his shoulders behind his head, still grinning broadly. “This is the team meeting. I simply stand back and observe my teammates interacting in an unstructured setting.”
Skye wrinkled her nose in revulsion. “Orion! Most people call that snooping!”
“I prefer the term ‘discovery,’” Orion said smoothly. “And sure enough, it put a spotlight on your idea...”
“My what?”
Orion turned to the rest of the team, his broad smile never shifting.
“My teammates, we shall do the unexpected, to win our first House match. Hufflepuff, as well as everyone else, expects me to make the big decisions -- but instead, our newest player will.”
His black eyes and white smile were both gleaming with determination as he turned to Carewyn.
“In this match, Carewyn Cromwell will call the shots.”
Everyone on the team was so taken aback that they all stared at Carewyn, and then Orion, and back. Carewyn herself had lost all of the color in her face.
W...what?
She couldn’t do anything except gawk at Orion in disbelief. She looked around at the rest of the team helplessly -- Skye looked almost more horrified than Carewyn, as well as angry.
“What?! Orion, are you mad!?”
“Not in the least,” said Orion breezily. “I’m quite content with my decision.”
“Orion -- you can’t be -- ” started Shacklebolt.
But the Quidditch Captain had already turned around, his lips upturned in a rather proud smirk as he rested his arms over the broom on his shoulder.
“Our new leadership will not be discussed outside of the Changing Room,” he said levelly, “lest our opponents catch wind of it. And when next we fly and Ulrich Dylan’s eyes are on us, we will practice as we always have.”
He glanced over his shoulder at Carewyn, his black eyes twinkling.
“You sang your commitment to us yourself, Carewyn. And now...we’ll take a chance on you.”
By the time Carewyn recollected herself enough to try to argue, Orion was already gone.
#hphm#hogwarts mystery#my writing#my art#quidditch#orion amari#carewyn cromwell#skye parkin#murphy mcnully#charlie weasley#andre egwu#penny haywood#yay more bb!Carion#they truly could've been such a 'power couple' if they'd been able to fly together on the same team longer#'power couple' in the platonic sense at first but then eventually lbh totally not#if bill and carey were the 'papa bear' and 'mama bear' of their friend group in carewyn's canon#then if carey hadn't been so obsessed with the vaults and she and orion were able to play together they would've parented their teammates#oh well at least they do both become parents as adults <3
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Lets Talk About Mimebomb
I used two images here because both are priceless and I didn’t know which I wanted to use more. Let me start with Mimebomb, using the Carmen Sandiego Wiki to break them (mimebomb is non binary fight me) down as a whole, starting with appearance and personality (Excluding the comments around his action in the show, please bear with me once more as I do this).
Mime Bomb is a thin, red-haired young man (*Cough*) who looks like a stereotypical mime. He (*They*) wears a grey and black striped shirt, black beret, white gloves, black spandex and black shoes. His (*Their*) makeup consists of white face paint, black face paint around the eyes and on the brows, and a light red shade of lipstick.
So I wanna talk about Mimebomb without their makeup first. We see that they are not meant to be an attractive character, and I appreciate that Carmen Sandiego created characters like that. But I digress, red headed males are stereotypically either super hot or super not. And they really tried to go with super not. But failed because I love them anyway and so does most of the fandom. Now, the mime get up is a very strange choice to me, seeing as people are more scared of clowns than global warming, and mimes are very similar to clown, but I don’t think it’s a fear tactic. But more of a ‘hey even Mimes can be cool yall’.
For personality we do not have a lot to go on as some of the other but we still have SOMETHING, I was forced to reference the books for this so please, if you have no read “Clue by Clue”, check it out.
Mime Bomb has been described as quiet by El Topo and weird by Tigress. Mime Bomb is seen as an opportunist, immediately tattling to V.I.L.E Faculty when witnessing Carmen stowing away on the graduate mission during her holdover year, and secretly hiding a rare stamp in Detective Chase Devineaux's coat when he was on to him. In the Clue by Clue novel, Mime Bomb is said to be skilled in symbiology and cryptanalysis according to Professor Maelstrom. He is also prone to avoiding fights or physical contact when possible. When fighting Sheena in the Who in the World is Carmen Sandiego novel, she easily beats him while he is distracted. When offered a helping hand to his feet by Black Sheep, he declines with a shrug and silent nod. In Clue by Clue, when Le Chèvre and Tigress are fighting Carmen, he stands off in the sidelines and shadowboxes rather than assisting.
Now, let us begin on what I have brought to the table.
Mime Bomb is seen as an opportunist
I have to begin by defining the term ‘Opportunistic’ using the Webster's Dictionary, Opportunistic meaning “exploiting chances offered by immediate circumstances without reference to a general plan or moral principle”. And dumbing it down for myself “They take what is best for theirself rather than the people around them.”
Right, so.
Mimebomb being opportunistic is CANON and shown MANY times.
I will draw your attention to every time Mimebomb has turned Carmen or who ever into the Faculty for not following the rules. I would have loved to stated that this is a ‘teacher pet’ thing but I was surprised when I realized it wasn’t. The Faculty really doesn’t like Mimebomb and are very sarcastic towards them, constantly underestimating them and using them as the butt of the joke!
And yet we see them completing missions successfully and with finesse, other messing up the mission they set up so carefully and thoughtfully.
Mime Bomb is said to be skilled in symbology and cryptanalysis
Cryptanalysis is the art or process of deciphering coded messages without being told the key.
While Symbology is the study or use of symbols.
This is very telling. Mimebomb studying codes and symbols can allude to selective mutism or even mutism.
Personally, I prefer the former, Selective mutism is a childhood disorder in which a child does not speak in some social situations although he or she is able to talk normally at other times. And this can form in adults too. But the implications that they let if form how they preformed in school/college? Amazing, they made a choice and stuck to it for SUCH a LONG time. That commitment is amazing.
This is also useful to more historical based mission or where it may lead into hieroglyph or other symbols. I’m willing to wager that these talents are why DOCTOR BELLUM brought Mimebomb on the hunt for an artifact. Because they would know some of the writing and symbols.
He is also prone to avoiding fights or physical contact when possible
Mimebomb being physically weak is not an accidental detail.
Far from it! I think addressing that a male character who is more brains than brawn is a detail that needs to be pushed, and as off as Mimebomb is, they are the perfect example of this. They are not masculine and are easily taken down by Young Blacksheep, Chase, and other characters. Mind you it’s halariauous but PLEASE-
You are KILLING their JOINTS.
I have a feeling the avoiding physical contact is a very... Self protecting action that I feel would have to be more touched on in a headcanon post rather than an analysis post. The best I can come up with is the speculation that Mimebomb refuses to let people become close to them.
When offered a helping hand to his feet by Black Sheep, he declines with a shrug and silent nod
This, this the most telling thing EVER.
Mimebomb refuses a helping hand.
They do not work well with others and when they are offered help, the refuse it. They have a self serving bias. A self-serving bias is any cognitive or perceptual process that is distorted by the need to maintain and enhance self-esteem, or the tendency to perceive oneself in an overly favorable manner. It is the belief that individuals tend to ascribe success to their own abilities and efforts, but ascribe failure to external factors. When individuals reject the validity of negative feedback, focus on their strengths and achievements but overlook their faults and failures, or take more credit for their group's work than they give to other members, they are protecting their ego from threat and injury.
Mimebomb protects themself at all cost, and that makes me wonder, why?
Because they know that they can’t accept others help or their comforts. And they are fine with it. They are okay with being alone.
he stands off in the sidelines and shadowboxes rather than assisting.
I feel like this was originally supposed to be a one off joke rather than an actual trait or habit. But... If you know me by now, I can twist this on it’s head so fast, it’s not even funny. But I can’t here, I can’t except maybe they do this to encourage others? I think when they do work in a team, they do try their best to support who they are working with unless its an annoying slime ball like Neal the Eel (Not hating on Slimebomb, I just noticed they work better as comical enemies rather than a relationship, and i love that)
Now, there was no abilities category in the wiki, and I found this interesting, so i drew from the Trivia section of the page and found out... A lot really, that is interesting. But only one of them made and impression on me and it’s the one I want to focus on for a paragraph or two.
Mime Bomb is actually classified by A.C.M.E. as insane; given he is locked up with Maelstrom in a loony bin. considering he NEVER speaks (by choice), makes sense.
I’m going to take a second to define the term “Insane” using “Wikipedia” rather than a dictionary.
“ Insanity, madness, and craziness are terms that describe a spectrum of individual and group behaviors that are characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns.”
Hmm....What abnormal pattern are we looking at here. Selective Mutism. The mime outfit doesn’t help. I’ll make note that the official wiki says it’s choice that Mimebomb doesn’t speak, but doesn’t give us a reason why, speculation and theories are in store here and I will reference my V.I.L.E Operative headcanons.
In the end, Mimebomb was and still is one of my favorite characters in the whole freaking show. I enjoyed ever second of them on screen, every caper and ever wacky highjinx.
I’d watch the whole show again just to see them being the awesome character they are.
As usual, requests are open and please!
I love when requests come in!
Stay tuned for the next one y’all!!
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do u have any reccomendations for how to read only comics involving rictor and shatterstar?? i used to be into marvel comics so i am immune to the usual comic shenanigans but i would like to learn more about these boys
here is a guide to reading xmen comics for rictor and shatterstar, my favorite canon comics couple! they were the first on-panel gay kiss in a marvel comic! they’re very special to me!
OKAY SO... ok. for anyone else using this, here’s a standard disclaimer that obviously there’s gonna be a lot in these that just absolutely sucks because 1. the 90s, 2. comics are an extremely cishet white male dominated industry. i do not vouch for everything written in these comics, but i think the gaycoding that eventually gets canonized is worth wading through a lot of stupid bullshit and very ugly art.
quick backstory on these two: rictor is a mexican teenager who was kidnapped by an anti-mutant terrorist group and was rescued by x-factor (the original 5). he hung around their auxiliary teen group the x-terminators for most of x-factor, being a delightful little punk (wearing a sleeveless leather vest a lot of the time!) and hanging out with boom-boom (who i love) and then got put into the new mutants for a very short time (where he had a thing with rahne/wolfsbane), before it was dissolved and transformed into x-force when rob liefeld took over the title. rictor hates team leader 90sdude cable because he thinks cable killed his dad in front of him. he tends to be the snarky asshole on the team.
the first part of this article has a lot of little rictor moments i’m not covering here. if you want the full rictor experience, check out x-factor (1986) and !x-terminators! x-factor starts very slowly but it picks up and improves when the simonsons take the helm.
rictor left the team. shatterstar was introduced by liefeld - he’s an Emotionless Warrior Guy Who Loves To Fight from mojoworld (a planet run by a despot who produces tv. it’s Commentary), where he was forced to be a gladiator from birth and doesn’t know a lot of earth customs and doesn’t have emotions (or rather, he represses them).
x-force (1991) feel free to read through all of it, but in case you just want to skip to these two, all of these issues have one or two good little Moments - just do some skimming. i tend to focus more on rictor than star in this era because star is made more interesting than Emotionless Warrior Guy by butting up against rictor:
13-16 (rictor rejoins his old new mutants friends)
19, 21-26 (the first phase of their relationship where they don’t really get along. in one of these issues rictor stares at star’s ass. big moment of star being autism-coded in here too)
29-30 (rictor drives shatterstar around and they seem to get along better, you get to learn a bit about star’s past, adam-x the x-treme is there)
32-33 (just some little moments of them hanging out, a couple good rictor lines)
34 (VERY IMPORTANT - rictor backstory issue! AND this has the first big Subtext moment: shatterstar reveals he learned spanish from tv so he and rictor can have “conversations of a highly -- personal nature” HELLO?)
35 (some little moments where you can see star and rictor are now Friends and star is affected by that friendship)
39-40 (more good friendship - rictor asks if star has been watching dating shows and they just seem close. rictor also has gotten a haircut! we learn shatterstar’s mojoworld designation! they ride some motorcycles!)
43 (VERY IMPORTANT - the two go to a club. rictor tells star he’s a virgin then asks him if he has a dick. i am not kidding this literally happens. star learns what sexual attraction feels like and says ‘i don’t know what emotions im supposed to attach to that’, and rictor tells him he’ll help him learn.)
44 (VERY IMPORTANT - rictor leaves the team because he doesn’t want to have the team communicate telepathically (VERY interesting for a character who is eventually revealed to have been a closeted gay man). shatterstar begs him not to leave - “you’re my best and only friend.” rictor tells him that if he ever needs him, he’ll come back.)
cable (1993) #22 (follows up directly on rictor leaving the team - star accompanies rictor to the airport and has a lot of Feelings and has great hair. “julio. one last time. please, change your mind. what am i going to do without you?” oh so you’re dependent on your best friend who you’re in love with? oh?)
45, 47-48 (star’s weird biology, star brings up rictor as his emotional touchstone in a situation where he isn’t relevant at all. also, a plotline where tabby gets treated terribly by her friends and the narrative!)
49 (VERY IMPORTANT - star wanders around at night wondering why rictor hasn’t contacted him yet. he goes to the club he and rictor went to in #43 and turns down a girl who hits on him. he thinks “i miss julio...” (in an earlier issue, rictor tells cable not to call him by his first name - “only my mom calls me that”), then beats up some homophobes in an alley. I AM NOT KIDDING.)
51-52 (51 has more weird star biology. 52 has two pages of star and james talking that is a nice look at star’s developing emotional state - the rest of 52 is a fight with one of marvel’s extremely fatphobic villains, just a warning to skip the rest of it. although the letter page of 52 has someone go HEY ARE RICTOR AND SHATTERSTAR IN LOVE? thank you roeland looman from the netherlands)
54-56 (the start of shatterstar’s weird bad benjamin russell backstory that is quickly forgotten, disregarded, and uncared about by everybody. BUT in 54, there is some extremely loud subtext where star’s feelings for rictor are explicitly compared to a het romance subplot!)
58 (star is very chill and flamboyant for like two pages, it’s great)
59-61 (VERY IMPORTANT - rictor returns because star Needs him in the midst of his identity crisis!! it’s so joyful and sweet for them both, and the subtext is so LOUD here - there’s just. so much going on, i won’t describe it all, but it’s very good content and their emotionally intimate relationship is very apparent - really excellent gaycoding. the weird shatterstar backstory wraps up circuitously and to no great effect, but the art in the last issue is very nice, and rictor’s plain and uncomplicated concern for star is great.)
63-65 (some little moments - shatterstar and rictor time travel and beat up some nazis, star has a lovely conversation with siryn,)
x-force/cable ‘97 (the team goes to asgard! the important thing is that star says some goofy “ah... warriors...” things, and then rictor teases star for liking delivery pizza. it’s very charming)
67 (they hang out with tabby in a van. shatterstar has pigtails!)
70 (VERY IMPORTANT - rictor and shatterstar exit the team together to go take down rictor’s crime family in mexico! they seem very devoted to each other. shatterstar’s hair is all the way down!)
post leaving x-force:
76 (VERY IMPORTANT - ricstar return for one issue - rictor gets held captive to force shatterstar to fight domino!)
x-force annual 1999 (VERY IMPORTANT - ricstar get their own story about what they’re doing in mexico! shatterstar has an ugly little goatee, but rictor looks great! they choose to share a room rather than sleep separately and then it kind of feels like they shared a bed! rictor has learned star’s alien language! they genuinely just seem so close and comfortable with each other, it’s incredible.) (if you’re using RTO, it’s within the rest of xforce’s issues)
they’re both in comics limbo for the first half of the 00s besides a couple random flavorless appearances. shatterstar at some point goes back to mojoworld to help with the war against mojo. then we hit peter david’s x-factor run in 2006, known as x-factor investigations (xfi). this directly follows the “house of m” event - what matters is that the vast majority of mutants have been depowered by the scarlet witch. rictor is one of them.
rictor is a main character of the team from the first issue (the series opens with him about to attempt suicide), so if you wanna read the run you can start from the beginning. x-factor is... well, there are worse-written comics. it’s an okay read, but i find PAD’s writing insufferable a lot of the time (he writes multiple man as a pretty blatant self insert, and literally every girl on the team wants to fuck him at some point or another). i read the whole thing and it’s decent comics, but you might want to skip to the ricstar.
PAD canonizes ricstar, which is great! but unfortunately: 1. he writes star as “slutty bisexual just can’t stop wanting to fuck people besides his partner who is uncomfortable with that!”, which is biphobic and sucks hugely, especially since it feels so different from xforce original shatterstar (see this post). rictor also just seems so annoyed with him all the time, which also sucks - they’re best friends!! let rictor like his boyfriend!!
anyway. if you choose not to read all of xfi, here are the ricstar highlights:
first issue of xfi for rictor's horrible mental state after m-day
14 (jamie implies that star would be jealous of rictor hanging out with quicksilver)
43, 45, 49 (star reappears!! he’s mindcontrolled, but it gets fixed, and he and rictor have the first ever on panel gay kiss at marvel!! yaaaay!! then they talk about their relationship a little)
after issue #50 it changes the numbering, so if you’re using RCO youll have to go to xfactor (1986) #200 to continue
200 (SHATTERSTAR FIGHTS THE THING!)
continue to read between here for star apparently being unable to stop kissing people. sigh. star sleeps with adult layla, which... sigh. whatever
207-208 (rictor and shatterstar semi-resolve the stupid biphobic plotline, resolve to work on their relationship, rahne discovers them (she and rictor had been sleeping together earlier in xfi), rahne is pregnant and homophobic, rahne and star fight, star is a delightful bitch)
209 (shatterstar on a pirate ship. that's it)
210 (rictor confirms that he is gay and it wasn’t legit when he’s been with women. there’s a moment where it's like "oh star makes rictor laugh" which is epic)
211-212 (star is said to be frustrated about rictor and rahne, rahne’s baby’s actual dad is revealed)
213 (rictor and rahne mostly resolve their shit)
216 (star and monet hang out, star thinks monet tells him to pee on rictor, spiderman is there)
217 (there’s a joke about the longstanding theory that longshot and star are related, monet is revealed as muslim in a very dumb way)
220 (star and rahne have a pretty nice conversation about their relationships to rictor and rahne’s faith. rictor does an offscreen internalized homophobia)
221 (star and rahne continue to hang out but it’s not as good as the previous issue.)
222 (oh my god, rictor cares about shatterstar being hurt! rahne owns up to how she kind of treated rictor like shit!)
pop over to avengers: the children’s crusade (a young avengers miniseries with good ol’ billy/teddy and i like it! but if you don’t want to read the whole thing - rictor and shatterstar appear in #6, and rictor is the first mutant to be repowered! they’re more tender with each other over their five page appearance than they are in xfi, so it’s a balm)
225-226 (PAD decides the first thing rictor does with his powers is be a scab [DEEP SIGH], rictor and shatterstar discuss rictor getting his powers back, the biphobic plotline is resolved again kind of in a very PAD-y way)
235-236 (shatterstar gets to be the main character of a mini arc. fights a mojo guy)
238 (ricstar go with rahne to help her find her son)
242 (they find her son. not as important imo)
248 (oh my god... they joke together :) they like being around each other :) also shatterstar goodboy moment. then in 249 rictor’s life is spared bc of shatterstar’s goodboy moment)
259 (SHATTERSTAR’S CRAZY CONVOLUTED BACKSTORY THAT ACTUALLY MATTERS TO HIS CHARACTER! YAHOO! and star has a cute little bob)
after xfi wraps up, there’s a couple years of limbo before they appear in secret warriors (2017) #2-3 (end of #2 and most of #3), which is a big crossover event or something. i don’t know, it’s an inhumans comic, and as an xmen person i am contractually obligated to roll my eyes at the inhumans. ricstar both have mustaches, star doesn’t speak, and rictor has the ugliest costume ever (green tracksuit with no socks??) (tabby also has a terrible costume). it’s just more inhumans trying to be a match to the xmen and utterly failing to not look & act like total jackasses (except, of course, for kamala and moon girl). rictor’s jokes that daisy johnson should get more original powers (she also has seismic powers - rictor predates her!), and then daisy blows up the xmen’s jet. while it’s in the air. this is a very neat summary of most mutant-inhuman relations.
now we enter the current era of “on again off again” relationship limbo.
rictor appears next in iceman (2017). in #9 he states that he and star have apparently broken up offscreen! and then he hits on bobby! sina grace is a cool person but this writing decision is so... aghhh. the next issue he and bobby go out on a date and he’s immediately like “yeah i only have my eyes on star”, so it seems to be more “it’s complicated” than “we’re broken up for good.” he sticks around to help out with a mission in #10-11.
they’re on again in new mutants: dead souls, where rictor is a part of the team and he’s hilarious and has so many great lines! shatterstar also makes a couple cameos throughout and they’re all super sweet! they seem very domestic and comfortable and happy, i love their dynamic in this. my favorite shatterstar panel ever is in #6, where he is making rictor pancakes and is only wearing an apron. please ignore all the big plot things that happen at the end of this, especially everything with karma. they are stupid, dumb, and do not matter.
related to nm:ds, rictor appears in multiple man #1 as part of that team and looks very very cute. and he isn’t whitewashed like in nm:ds!
off again in the shatterstar (2018) miniseries. i have a lot of mixed feelings about this because i LOVE all the rictor stuff, the first issue codes shatterstar as autistic in a very characterful way, it doesn’t whitewash rictor for once, and the covers are GORGEOUS! but it also attempts to retcon a ton of star’s emotional backstory AND arc set out in xforce, casting a black woman as his emotionally manipulative ex. also star is a landlord (ew). my advice with this one is to treat all the flashbacks as not-really-canon since they suck.
star appears in extermination (2018) #3-4 and gets mind-controlled into trying to kill the time-displaced teen o5 (timetraveling baby cable is trying to put them back where they came from), and the art looks great and i feel really bad for him. rictor makes a follow-up cameo in uncanny x-men (2019) #9-10, where you can see that he’s at the school in order to visit shatterstar since he’s with cecelia reyes. he then goes to fight nate grey/x-man, where he gets sucked into the age of x-man pocket universe/event.
around half the xmen get trapped and brainwashed in that pocket universe where there is no love or family, merely friendship and comradery (it’s an attempt by nate grey to ‘fix’ the xmen by getting rid of all the soap opera stuff - it’s a bit meta wrt how xmen are the soap opera superheroes). there are a couple different titles for this event: rictor appears in age of x-man: x-tremists #4-5. people have mixed feelings about this title due to the gay characters (northstar and iceman) enforcing no-romance laws that very intentionally parallel anti-gay laws from real life, but rictor is just chilling and running an illegal romance movies theatre, and then he gets drunk and then starts a riot and he’s just delightful in this.
everyone outside of the pocket universe thinks everyone who disappeared was killed. shatterstar is part of the team in x-force (2019) (there are two 2019 x-forces: this is vol 5, written by ed brisson) who are trying to track down young cable (baby cable, or “bable”), who killed older cable, who formed good old 90s xforce. boom-boom is the best part of this entire run, hands down. the art is expressive and interesting but i Hate how they draw warpath (the one time he’s free from comic book limbo!). shatterstar is in full “i only like fighting please let me fight i am a difficult asshole” mode, and talks about grieving rictor in #7 and #10. this is never really resolved since age of x-man is thrown over for hoxpox (BIG status quo changes & current era of xmen comics), but aside from my little ricstar heart i can’t really mind.
rictor is currently appearing as part of the team in excalibur (2019), and has been very... cozy... with apocalypse. at the time of writing (halloween 2020), it’s very heavily ambiguous what exactly their relationship is besides “intense” and i still have no clue what to think about it. he and star have been stated by the writer to be exes, but i also know tini howard is a ricstar fan so im holding out for good things! and it’s cool that rictor is getting a ton of focus and a lot of powering up. i remember reading xfi #1 and being amazed at how rictor described how soul-deep his earth powers were and wanting more of that, and excalibur has that for him in spades. (i am still withholding a lot of judgment wrt rictor’s writing in excalibur until i see how things pan out)
after reading to excalibur #12, switch over to x-factor (2020). read the first three issues because i love northstar and prodigy and rachel. please ignore a couple cringe comments towards poor daken. shatterstar appears in #3, trapped on mojoworld, getting traumatized, and breaking my heart as i write this. that last data page... free my boy!!!!
after x-factor #3, read x of swords: creation. more rictor and apocalypse being Close. after that, read x-factor #4 for apocalypse being very Attached to rictor, and then rictor looking very good and freshly resurrected. then continue reading excalibur. in may, x-factor is going back to mojoworld!!
that’s all there is so far! i think within the next year there will be even more content for us, and im very eager to get to that content. i will update this post as things come out.
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Kylux and the Queer Literary Tradition
So, I have seen a lot of people talk about Kylux in terms of queer fetishisation or even labelling it a “crack ship”.
The discourse has somehow made Kylux out to be this straight-girl fantasy where two men are simply shipped because they are white and handsome. Such an unfavourable interpretation completely takes away from many Kyluxers being queer and/or poc themselves as well as shaming straight people for seeing queer potential where it’s not canonically stated to be. Since the comic came out, there has been much elation because it finally “confirms” some of the things that appeal to Kyluxers, therefore justifying the ship. I don’t think, however, that Kylux has ever been anything but rather conventional in its queer subtext. Kylux falls in line with a long tradition of homoerotic aggression between two men. I will try to put this into words as eloquently as I can.
First, let’s talk about how Kylo Ren/Ben Solo and Armitage Hux are queer coded on their own before moving on to their relationship.
Armitage Hux is almost comically queer coded. The act of feminising a villain to subtly convey to the audience that he is gay and therefore “morally reprehensible” has been a practice since the Hays code era (in some respects even before that -as the Victorian Age marks the beginning of our modern understanding of gender and subsequently, its subversion). He is seen to be physically weak, petty, moving and snarling and “bitching” in a way society would stereotypically ascribe to women.
His British Accent, at least from an American point of view, already marks his sexuality as ambiguous. This is not helped by the fact that he speaks in an abnormally posh way, alienating himself from the common people.Hereby, the movies draw a well-established line between decadence/queer and pragmatic/heteronormative.
In the “Aftermath” trilogy Brendol Hux states his son to be “weak willed” and “thin as a slip of paper and just as useless”, robbing him of his masculinity – no matter how ridiculous of an endeavour this is when talking about a four-year old boy. Hux is very early on criticised for not fitting into a socially expected form of manhood. This is especially evident when one compares him to his resistance rival, Poe Dameron. Now, Dameron has his own set of queer coding, but he is shown to be what is commonly viewed as “acceptably queer”. He is masculine, trained and proactive. When he ridicules Hux at the beginning of The Last Jedi, there is this juxtaposition of the helpless, feminine villain and the dashing, superior male hero. Hux is supposed to be judged as vain and arrogant while Poe takes risks and although reckless, is somehow to be admired. Further, Hux is constantly abused. He is thrown into walls letting out high pitched screams, runs away in the face of danger (as seen in the recent comic) and is pushed around by his own subordinates. His strength lies in being cunning and calculated, not stereotypically masculine virtues.
Hux’s destructive powers, his monstrosity so to speak, also follow a long-standing tradition of queer villainization. Harry Benshoff’s The Monster and The Homosexual articulates this as follows:
“[...] repressed by society, these socio-political and psychosexual Others are displaced (as in a nightmare) onto monstrous signifiers, in which form they return to wreak havoc […]” (Benshoff 65).
And what other, than a socio-political Other, is Armitage Hux - the Starkiller?
Kylo Ren/Ben Solo, too, is touched by the mark of queerness. It is no coincidence that despite his raw power and muscular physique, Kylo Ren has not been adopted by hegemonic masculinity in the same way Han Solo has, for example. When the logical is traditionally seen as masculine, the realms of pure and unfiltered emotionality is feminine. And Kylo Ren is unrestrained in his vulnerability, his tears, his pain – People make fun of the dramatic ways he gives words to his feelings precisely because it is regarded as weak, as whiny, as “womanly”. His long curly hair, full lips and dress-like costume only strengthens this impression. Kylo Ren is an amalgam of masculine aggression and feminine expressiveness. Some of his outbursts even remind of the pseudo-illness of hysteria. The gendered lines are blurred and unclear in Kylo Ren, diffusing any efforts to appease the binary. Benshoff describes this as a form of queer existence which does not only constitute itself in opposition to what is considered normal but “ultimately opposed the binary definitions and prescriptions of a patriarchal heterosexism” (Benshoff 63).
Both are not easily categorised. They are patched up by multiple, gendered signifyers. Kylo Ren’s masculine body in contrast to his femininized fashion. Hux’s slender body with his stiff and masculinised military get-up. Hux’s toxic tendency to avoid showing his emotions while also being shown as weak, womanly, cowardly. Kylo Ren is an excellent warrior, yet simultaneously being prone to emotional outbursts. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s famous work Monster Theory (Seven Theses) elaborates upon this further, while acknowledging that queer figures are most commonly depicted as the monstrous Other:
“The refusal to participate in the classificatory “order of things” is true of monsters generally: they are disturbing hybrids whose externally incoherent bodies resist attempts to include them in any systematic structuration.” (Cohen 6).
Nonetheless, many queer people feel empowered by these figures. Lee Edelman theorises in his polemic No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive about the nature of queerness as a force of cultural resistance. According to Edelman, the queer must always refuse societal expectations of a perpetual future and embrace the death drive instead. In this sense, queerness stands in direct opposition to futurity as it negates any meaning in sexual reproduction and marriage (cp. Edelman 13). When Hux destroys planets, when Kylo Ren proposes to burn it all down “The Empire, your Parents, the Resistance, the Sith, the Jedi”, they are not merely killing the past. They are also negating the worth of categories that make up future and present alike. They are resisting the heteronormative values of production.
Now that we have the puzzle pieces that illustrate how Hux and Kylo are queer figures in on themselves, it might be interesting to examine how they work together.
In her text “Epistemology of the Closet”, Eve Sedgwick talks about a common gothic trope where two men are caught in a feud full of mutual hatred. In this case, both men are mirror images of one another, making them especially vulnerable to the other’s advances: "[…] a male hero is in a close, usually murderous relation to another male figure, in some respects his 'double', to whom he seems to be mentally transparent."
Kylo and Hux are very clearly mirrors of one another. Aside from the gendered oppositions I have already illustrated, they are each other’s double in every sense of the word. Born on opposite ends of an age-old war. Both caught in complicated relationship with their fathers whom both have killed out of opposite motivations (loving them too much vs. hating them with a passion). They represent the opposite ends in the binaries for logic vs. spirituality, restraint vs. wildness, control vs. sensuality, technology vs. nature etc.
This shot from The Last Jedi shows both of them mirroring each other visually, henceforth strengthening this impression.
They are "mentally transparent" to each other, because they are different sides of the same coin which Snoke tossed around to his whims. Even their aggression takes on erotic forms. It is hard to deny the homoerotic implications in choking another men to make him submit, forcing him onto his knees. The breaching of personal spaces and looming over each other, the obsessive need to prove one’s own worth to the male other with which one is engaged in a homosocial bond:
“The projective mutual accusation of two mirror-image men, drawn together in a bond that renders desire indistinguishable from prédation, is the typifying gesture of paranoid knowledge.” (Sedgwick 100).
And through all of this, I have not even talked about the collaborative potential between the two of them. Their instinct to protect one another despite insiting the opposite. How both of them could overcome their trauma by engaging with the other, who suffered so similarly under family obligation and Snoke’s abuse.
Works Cited:
Benshoff, Harry: “The Monster and the Homosexual.” In: Harry Benshoff (ed. and introd.)/Sean Griffin (ed. and introd.): Queer Cinema, the Film Reader. New York: Routledge 2004. Pp. 63-74.
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. "Monster Culture (Seven Theses)." Jeffrey Jerome (ed. and preface) Cohen: Monster Theory: Reading Culture (1996): 3-25.
Edelman, Lee. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. ,2004. Print.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky-Sedgwick. Epistemology Of the Closet. Berkeley, Calif. :University of California Press, 2008.
#Kylux#Armitage Hux#Kylo Ren#Ben Solo#General Hux#Hux#Benarmie#Kylux meta#sw#sw meta#sw analysis#tfa#tlj#long post#long text#hux comic#huxlo
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Do you have head cannons for both Cyrus and Tomyris?
Oh my, do I ever! I have soooo many head canons about these two, you have no idea, lol.
Cyrus:
Addicted to gardening. Like, gardening is like crack for Cyrus, lmao. I like to imagine his palace as having vast courtyards and pavilions of gardens, adorned with fountains and colorful tiles and full of as many plants and tree species as Cyrus can get his hands on. (The real-life Cyrus the Great was very fond of gardening when he was not on his military campaigns, after all. And, Persian gardens are so pretty. I would like to put a miniature version of one in my backyard someday if I could, lol.)
He loves meticulously doing his makeup every day. (Take a close look at Cyrus’ in-game model, and you’ll notice that he’s wearing quite a bit of eye makeup compared to the other male leaders. In fact, if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll have noticed a pattern to how I draw the leaders’ eyes when I draw them in my cartoony style. All female leaders I draw with eyelashes, while all male leaders, except a few, I draw without eyelashes. The few male leaders that I draw with eyelashes (Cyrus and Hammurabi being two of them) are the ones that wear eye makeup. The bigger the eyelashes, the more makeup they’re wearing. In my Court Festival comic I posted a while ago, I gave a tiny bit of eye makeup to Alexander and Matthias (which I usually don’t do) to show how they’re more dressed up for the court festival compared to their everyday looks.)
His favorite word is “surprise.” (This should not be a surprise, honestly.)
To the surprise of the other leaders, he has quite a good singing voice. He doesn’t like to sing in front of other people, though. I like to imagine him wandering around his palace gardens sometimes, singing to himself, and then he’ll turn around and discover Catherine de Medici or somebody has been secretly listening to him, lmao. And then he gets embarrassed and runs inside and hides.
Loves playing pranks on the other leaders. All. The. Time. Cyrus is the unchallenged master of surprise pranks, tricks, and practical jokes.
His favorite flower is the purple snapdragon. (Is this because this is also my own favorite flower? Haha, maaaayyyybeeee…Also, according to Wikipedia, the snapdragon represents deception. Perfect for somebody who loves playing practical jokes on people.)
Favorite color? Purple, of course. Gold is his second favorite.
Tomyris:
Loves taking care of all her horses. They’re like children to her. (Also, if all the Civ leaders are immortal in-game, there’s no reason why Tomyris’ horses can’t be immortal as well, right? I like to imagine them being immortal too, lol.)
Very good at archery. You know the thing where you put an apple on someone’s head and then shoot it with an arrow without hitting the person? Yeah, Tomyris can easily do that. Like, in her sleep.
I imagine Tomyris as being an all-around very motherly figure who can and will kick anybody’s ass to protect those she holds dear. Unfortunately, she comes off as kind of cold when you first meet her, but, once you get to know her, you can just tell that she’s very kind-hearted and protective.
She takes very good care of her hair. We may only see Tomyris wearing braids in-game, but I like to imagine her frequently trying out different kinds of hairstyles. You know English Eleanor’s fancy wrap-around double braid hairstyle? Tomyris definitely helped her out with that.
Hates getting surprise pranked. Unless, UNLESS, the prank turns out nice in the end for her. (More on why this is important down below, lol.)
Her favorite flower is the yellow rose. (I associate the color yellow with Tomyris, as her in-game outfit and the Scythian civ main color are comprised of dark yellows and gold. Also, according to Wikipedia, the yellow rose represents friendship, intense emotion, undying love, and extreme betrayal, which I think sums up both Tomyris’ agenda and her relationship with Cyrus quite well.)
Her favorite color is gold. Navy blue is a close second.
Both:
They are both skilled polo players. (The sport of polo is believed to have originated from equestrian games played by nomadic Iranian peoples (the Scythians were Iranic), and the current form of polo played today was invented in ancient Persia, being one of their national sports and played extensively by their nobility.) Tomyris is a little better at polo than Cyrus is, though, given that Tomyris rides her horses all the time, haha.
They’re both fashionistas and very style-conscious, ‘cause why not, lol. Cyrus is the more fashionable of the two.
Both of them like the color gold, although Tomyris likes it more than Cyrus does because it’s her favorite color. Gold is Cyrus’ second-favorite color, as stated above.
My Cyrus x Tomyris ship:
It’s a total rival ship. They hate each other, but they love each other, lol. (I once saw this little ship dynamic drawing someone made online of two characters, each looking at each other with these funny lovey-dovey faces, but then each character is also holding a knife behind the other character’s back. I saw that and thought, “yep, that’s definitely Cyrus x Tomyris. No question.”)
Cyrus simps for Tomyris hard, but Tomyris is a total tsundere about it. (Deep down, very deep down, she thinks he looks cute, though. She can’t admit that out loud to anybody, however, for fear of ruining her pride.)
Cyrus has been working very hard to formulate the perfect prank to get Tomyris to at least stop totally hating him. He may be approaching this relationship fix at the wrong angle, though…Tomyris hates practical jokes, after all. (Ah, but he keeps telling himself, “oh, I’ll make the perfect prank with a happy ending that will make her fall head over heels for me! Yes, yes!” Poor guy.)
Every once in a while, Tomyris will go and spy on Cyrus singing to himself. (She hates herself for doing this, lol, but Cyrus and his singing voice is, oddly, like a siren song to Tomyris.) When Cyrus inevitably notices Tomyris watching him and he runs away, hides, and blushes from embarrassment, Tomyris can’t help but think that it’s cute when he does that, lmao. Cyrus would one day like to work up enough courage to openly serenade Tomyris, but he is just too insecure about his voice to do so, and he doesn’t think Tomyris would enjoy his singing enough. Ah, but Tomyris already secretly listens to him singing and she definitely wouldn’t mind being serenaded! Oh, the angst surrounding these two, lol.
#civ#civ vi#civ 6#civilization#civilization vi#civilization 6#cyrus the great#tomyris#cyrus x tomyris#ask
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Flower Person
Fandom: The House in Fata Morgana
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationship: Maria Campanella/Iméon
Summary: Iméon wasn’t the kind of person to care about flowers and she never liked receiving these as gifts, but could she really refuses it when a pretty blond woman she doesn’t know show up on her doorstep with a bouquet of lilies?
[Femslash February 2021 Day 24: Lily]
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Link on Archive of Our Own
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Notes: So, I admit I actually tend to headcanon Iméon as being nonbinary/trans masc, which wouldn’t really fit a femslash event, but well as far we know in FataMoru canon she still identifies as a woman. Another headcanon of mine is that Iméon does remember her past life even after being reincarnated (which is what happens in the short story ‘Tír na nÓg’), and I wrote the fic with that in mind. Also I know Iméon likely just goes by ‘Noémi’ in the modern era, but… weh, I’m too used to refer to her as ‘Iméon’ lol.
This takes place after Reincarnation so spoilers for all the games, and there are also brief references to the short story ‘Girl Hunt Girl.’ (If you don’t know about it, it’s just a very short post-Reincarnation story where Iméon meets Ceren in Paris by saving her from a conman.) And warning for slight drinking/alcohol, I guess.
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Iméon had never been a flower person.
It wasn’t like she hated them or anything, but she couldn’t really unsderstand what people found so captivating or pretty about these plants. They smelled nice, sometimes, she supposed — but that was the extent of the qualities she’d gave them.
She had told as much to Michel once when they stopped by a flower shop so he could buy a few roses for his wife — the fact this guy ended up getting married was still mind-boggling to her even months after she’d learned that fact — and he laughed, saying he used to think the same ‘back then’ but that now he couldn’t help but love them. He hadn’t explained to her how this change of heart happened, but Iméon could guess pretty easily it was also a courtesy of Giselle.
In any case, that was also why people never offered her flowers as gifts, either — the only time she could remember this happened was when she was maybe eight or so and her grandma had given her a bouquet of hydrangeas. Iméon had never been able to tell the absentminded sweet old lady that she couldn’t care less about those flecks of blue-purplish petals and she’d unfortunately had to keep them in her room against her will until they withered.
Tonight, however, would mark the second time of flower-offering she’d received in her life, because the first thing she saw upon opening the door after it rang twice was a huge bouquet of lilies, followed by a turf of messy, short blond hair and a pair of clear green eyes that popped out just barely above the white bell-shaped plants.
“So, okay, here’s the thing,” her visitor started, trying to speak clearly in spite of the enormous gift in her arms that was camouflaging almost all of her upper body. “That’s kind of a long story, but bear with me. There’s this dude where I work — a client — who sort of got a crush on me. Not, like, the creepy kind, but still pretty annoying. He hit on me a few times, and despite me trying to fucking tell him subtly, ‘Hey, dude, not interested, let it go,’ he brought me this tonight upon seeing me. I thought at first about throwing it away in the trash cause flowers are not my thing, you see? But then my boss — I mean Giselle, you know her too, right? — threw a damn fit, ‘bout how it wasn’t nice for him and those were such beautiful flowers or something, so I was like ‘then take them cause I don’t want this’ but she refused cause Michel is allergic to lilies or something and — who the fuck even is allergenic to goddamn lilies? Anyway, after that I—”
Iméon blinked incredulously, trying to makes sense of why there was a short irritated blond woman with a thick Italian accent she didn’t know in front of her who kept rambling on and on at her at eight in the evening. She seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t recall why — where had she seen her before?
“—asked my stupid childhood friend cause of course she’s the kind of gal who’s into flowers and stuff, except I forgot she was in Amsterdam to introduce her creepy boyfriend to her parents, but as a result the only person left was fucking Jacopo and I sure as hell wasn’t going to show up to this dumbass’ door to give him some lilies — and then it hit me; ‘Oh, there’s this chick who’s friends with Michel and Ceren and doesn’t live far away, so why not check her out!’ And so here I am.” She finally stopped and breathed in deeply. “So. Yeah. Want some lilies?”
The names of Michel and Ceren awakened Iméon’s memories and she realized it was, indeed, because of these two that this woman was familiar to her. More than a year ago, she had met Ceren by coincidence and helped her out of some trouble and since then they’d become good friends, and she managed to meet Michel again a few months later. Seeing her old friend from a past life neither of them should remember had been quite a shock — though a pleasant one — but discovering that somehow he’d gotten married to a bubbly lady and now lived in the same building as the goddamn little witch who’d messed around with them had been quite confusing. And to top it off, apparently Michel also knew Ceren because she herself was friends with said little witch. Fate really was a funny thing.
In any case, about three weeks ago she’d briefly gotten introduced to this woman by Giselle, but it had been a five minutes meeting so the encounter had quickly left her mind. If she recalled her name was… Martha? Marianne…? Mar—
“Oh, Maria,” she suddenly said out loud, snapping her fingers, and the woman frowned at her.
“What?”
“Your name. It’s Maria. Right?”
“Wait, you only now remembered who I was?”
“Yep.”
“Maria is like, the less forgettable name in the world? How did you do to forget that?”
“Sorry. I’m just not good with names. And faces. And people.”
A big silence propagated between the two of them, and then Iméon cleared her throat.
“You know… if you wanted to ask me out on a date, you could’ve just… said that. Or ask Michel my number or something.”
Maria arched an eyebrow at her, looking genuinely surprised. “What? Wait, no, that wasn’t… it’s not what it’s about.”
“No?”
“If I wanted to ask you out, I’d just do that. I’m not the kind of person to make excuse or beat around the bush.”
Iméon literally knew nothing about this woman, but somehow she could believe that.
“Oh. Okay. So it’s… really just about the lilies.”
“Yeah.” Maria marked a pause. “It did sounds less weird in my head when I thought about coming here. But I’m just, uh… a bit desperate to get rid of these.”
Iméon hummed thoughtfully and crossed her arms. Desperate was indeed quite an apt descriptor — her hair was all disheveled, her clothes unkempt and she appeared out of breath, as if she had run left and right for a long time to try to get someone who’d agree to take in the huge bouquet.
Iméon wasn’t a flower person, but… she didn’t mind accepting a few lilies for this one time.
“All right. I’ll take it,” she conceded, and Maria seemed so relieved to hear that it was almost comical.
Iméon gathered the flowers into her arms, the soft perfume tickling her nostrils and the petals brushing her cheeks, and then she turned around towards Maria once again. She was clearly about to leave and go down the stairs, but somehow Iméon felt a tinge of pity for her to have to yet again hurry to go home, so she grasped her wrist.
“Hey, no need to rush out of here. I was just about to eat something, so… Wanna have dinner with me?”
“What? Really?”
Iméon flashed her a smile. “Sure. I mean, you’re a friend of Michel, so I’d feel bad to just let you go home like that.”
Maria stared at her in silence for a while, as if hesitating, then returned her smile. “Oh well. Not like I had anything else to do anyway.”
And so the both of them stepped into the small two-room apartment together — the inside was a mess, to be honest, with various clothes and papers laying around, but Iméon didn’t care in the least and neither did Maria apparently as she threw herself on the couch without eve asking. Iméon somehow managed to install the lilies in an empty jar on the table, then tranquilly started to prepare their meal. The dinner only consisted of a quick reheat from yesterday’s leftovers and Iméon had always been far from being a super good cook, but it didn’t matter much as the room quickly got filled with cheerful chats and laughters. They talked about their common friends and then their jobs and movies and Maria’s home country, and while Iméon wouldn’t reveal too much about herself and was careful to keep her walls up even once they added a few beers in the mix, she had to admit she felt quite comfortable with this woman whom she couldn’t even remember the name a few hours prior.
Maria was a fun and easygoing person to talk to and despite her crude words and rough attitude she had a smile as bright as the sun, and it just felt nice to be around her.
“So you’ve only moved in here recently?” Maria asked.
“I don’t like to stay in a same place for too long. That’s just not in my blood. I travel a lot too, went to a bunch of different countries…”
“Hmm. I get that. I traveled around quite a bit too before coming to Paris.” She sighed, then stared vacantly at her beer. “I wonder if I should try going moving somewhere else again. I mean, I like it here, but…”
Maria fell silent, suddenly looking surprisingly melancholic. But in a way, Iméon felt she could understand that. She herself had spent most of her life jumping from a place to another ever since her parents kicked her out of the family house, and she liked living that way, but occasionally she wondered if it wouldn’t be best to find somewhere to truly settle in and call home. Maybe she envied Michel’s stable life a little bit for having this, or Ceren’s airheadness for never even questioning what the future might held in for her.
In that sense, she got the feeling Maria was more similar to her because of that. Weird, given she’d basically been a stranger to her only a few hours ago.
As Iméon was still lost in her thought, Maria abruptly rose up from her chair, almost knocking over the lilies from the table. “Oh, wow, fuck! I didn’t realize it had so damn gotten so late! I should go now.”
Iméon looked at the clock, and it was indeed already past three AM. She also had not noticed the time flee at all.
“You sure you don’t want to spend the night here?” Iméon asked while Maria hurriedly put on her coat. “I mean, we did drink quite a bit, and there’s no metro at this time…”
“Nah, it’s fine. I’ll call a taxi or something. Ugh, and tomorrow I have to work… I’m going to be a fucking mess and Giselle’s gonna have my head.”
“Giselle?” Iméon repeated, because she didn’t know Michel’s wife all that well but somehow she couldn’t picture her as the kind of employer who’d got angry at anyone.
“Yeah, she seems all cute and sweet like that, but she’s actually fucking scary and ultra perfectionist at work. Don’t let her fool you.”
“Huh… I’ll remember that.”
Maria grabbed her last beer and gobbled up all that was left of it in one shot, before quickly heading towards the door. She stopped her pace on the doorstep, however, and turned around towards Iméon.
“Thanks for tonight,” she said, smirking. “It was fun. Let’s do this again.”
“Sure. No problem.”
Maria stared at her, seemed to hesitate, then finally leaned forward and kissed her. It was a pretty brief kiss, lips only brushing against each other, but Iméon still hadn’t really expected it and she blinked back at her when she pulled back.
“I thought the bouquet wasn’t an excuse?”
“It wasn’t,” Maria argued. “That was just as thanks for the meal. Now, I really have to go, so see ya!”
She waved at her with a smug smirk, as if she was quite proud of herself for what she had just done, and then disappeared in the stairs. Iméon still felt pretty confused, but she was much too tired to try to think more about it.
So she got back inside her place, locked the door, and found herself face to face alone with the big bouquet of lilies.
For a brief second, she felt kind of bad for the guy who’d bought it for Maria in the first place, and it was kind of annoying she’d have to keep that bouquet until it wither away like her grandmother’s hydrangeas, but…
If it meant she’d get to have a fun evening dinner and a kiss from a hot Italian woman, maybe it had been worth it.
#The House in Fata Morgana#FataMoru#Maria Campanella#Imeon#Noemi Castagnier#ImeMari#Femslash February#Iméon#Noémi Castagnier#Imeon FataMoru#IméMari#MariIme#Fata Morgana#Femslash February 2021#Femslash Feb 2021#Connan's Fanfics#Connan's Posts#Imeon (FataMoru)#Maria x Imeon#The House in Fata Morgana Fanfiction#FataMoru Fanfic#イメマリ#Imeon (The House in Fata Morgana)#FemFeb#Novectacle#ファタモルガーナの館#Maria FataMoru#Imeon x Maria#FataMoru Fanfiction#Fata Morgana no Yakata
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My THOUGHTS on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker SPOILER REVIEW
Tessa Netting
I agreed with so much in this video I needed to put down some quotes:
Adam Driver is perfection. The way he acted differently and made us understand and love Ben Solo without saying a single word is incredible.
I love that all it took was for Ben Solo to hear that he was loved. Leia calling out to him. Rey telling him that she wanted to take his hand, Ben’s hand. And Han forgiving him and telling him to come back home.
Ben Solo running into battle in order to save the woman he loves in his good boy sweater with just a blaster is the most Han Solo shit.
I love that Reylo is canon. I can’t believe that my crack ship from Force Awakens is canon. What universe is this? God bless.
I love their kiss. I love Ben’s little smile after the kiss.
The lightsaber battles in the sequel trilogy are so much better than any other lightsaber battle.
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Rey being a Palpatine makes it feel like according to Star Wars women can only be powerful if they’re related to a powerful man.
Rey Nobody is a superior Rey.
I hate that Luke and Leia knew that Rey was a Palpatine this whole time and were like fine with training her but then they gave up on Ben. You’re telling me that Luke and Leia had more faith in the granddaughter of Palpatine then their own son/nephew. I refuse to believe this.
Rey should not in anyway feel grateful for being abandoned.
I hate that Kylo fixed his helmet. I couldn’t see Adam Driver’s face and I felt like it was a step backwards in Kylo and Rey’s relationship.
I hate that they didn’t show us the vision of Kylo and Dark Rey on the throne.
I hate that all the Jedi’s were calling out to Rey when Ben was just like in the pit. Like Anakin talk to your grandson.
I hate that Rey and Ben didn’t team up and kill Palpatine together. When they both lifted their blue lightsabers, I was like oh shit here it comes. And then nothing? They just got defeated immediately. And Ben just got thrown into a pit. Why didn’t Rey and Ben the literal “Last Skywalker” rise together. Rise Skywalker. And instead of Rey crossing both lightsabers Rey and Ben cross their lightsabers like they’ve been doing in every single promo image. You think that they’re against each other but them actually crossing their lightsabers in unity.
I hate that Ben didn’t get to say anything to Rey after he was redeemed. He literally had no lines after becoming Ben Solo. He could have at least said be with me when he was putting his life force into her.
I also hate that Rey had no reaction to Ben dying. No one honors him. No one remembers him. No one like even mentions that he died. There is no acknowledgment of his death. Darth Vader got a funeral Ben Solo gets nothing.
I hate that Ben didn’t kill his fellow students at Luke’s Jedi’ academy but you wouldn’t know that unless you read a comic book.
I hate that Rose was completely screwed over, ignored, and written out of this movie.
I hate that Finnpoe was not endgame. I hate that Finn just like screamed after Rey this whole movie. It’s like they erased his whole arc and personality. Finn Rey is busy go talk to your husband.
I hate that Rey’s hair was in buns again.
I hate that this movie felt like two movies crammed into one.
I hate the ending. Rey is not a Skywalker. Why does she say Rey Skywalker? Why not anything else? Why not Rey Solo? Han was like a father to her, Leia was her master, Ben was her soulmate. The whole Solo family meant so much to her, so much more than Luke. Or even better just answer Rey. Just Rey.
I hate that at the end of the Skywalker saga all the Skywalkers are dead. Where is the hope? Why am I so sad? I shouldn’t feel sad. This should be like a culmination, a conclusion. And I just hate that this is the last movie. The story doesn’t feel complete for some reason. This doesn’t feel like the end.
I wanted Ben to be redeemed earlier in the movie so that we could have more time with Ben Solo.
I wanted a Ben and Anakin moment.
I wanted Ben Solo to pilot the Millennium Falcon.
I wanted Rey and Ben to have a happy ending.
Ben Solo was named after Leia’s only hope. In TLJ Rey said that Ben Solo was their only hope. Ben Solo is hope. Without that hope like what was the point? Also why does redemption have to equal death? I want to see forgiveness and atonement. Ben over coming his past and making up for it the rest of his life. Seeing him actively make the galaxy better. And love being strong enough save him.
There are so many people that relate to Ben’s story and if you’re feeling like really heartbroken about how he ended up I want you to know that you are worth loving and worth saving.
#star wars#tros#the rise of skywalker#ben solo#reylo#tessa netting#not my video#tros spoilers#swfan#ep ix#reylo epix#video#sw video#rbv#epix etc#sw!
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