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lokiondisneyplus · 3 years

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A review of “Journey Into Mystery,” the penultimate Loki Season One episode on Disney+, coming up just as soon as I paper cut a giant cloud to death…

Journey Into Mystery was the title of the first Marvel comic to feature either Thor or Loki. It began as an anthology series featuring monsters and aliens, but Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Larry Lieber were so smitten with their adaptation of the characters of Norse myth that the Asgardians gradually took over the whole book, which was renamed after its hammer-wielding hero(*).

(*) The early Journey Into Mystery stories treated Thor’s alter ego, disabled Dr. Donald Blake, as the “real” character, while Thor was just someone Blake could magically transform into, while retaining his memories and personality. It wasn’t even clear whether Asgard itself was meant to exist at first, until Loki turned up on Earth in an early issue, caused trouble, and Blake/Thor somehow knew exactly how to get to Asgard to drop him off. Soon, the lines between Thor and Blake began to blur, and eventually Thor became the real guy, and Blake a fiction invented by Odin to humble his arrogant son. It’s a mark of just how instantly charismatic Loki was that the entire title quickly steered towards him and the other gods.

But once upon a time, anything was possible in Journey Into Mystery, which makes it an apt moniker for an absolutely wonderful episode of Loki where the same holds true. Our title characters are trapped in the Void, a place at the end of time where the TVA’s victims are banished to be devoured by a cloud monster named Alioth. And mostly they are surrounded by the wreckage of many dead timelines. Classic Loki insists that his group’s only goal is survival, and any kind of planning and scheming is doomed to kill the Loki who tries. But this ruined, hopeless world instead feels bursting with imagination and possibility.

There are the many Loki variants we see, with President Loki, among others, joining Classic, Kid, Boastful, and Alligator Loki. There are the metric ton of Easter Eggs just waiting to be screencapped by Marvel obsessives (I discuss a few of them down below), but which still suggest a much larger and weirder MCU even if you don’t immediately scream out “Is that… THROG?!?!?” at the appropriate moment. And all of that stuff is tons of fun, to be sure. But what makes this episode — and, increasingly, this series — feel so special is the way that it explores the untapped potential of Loki himself, in his many, many variations.

This is an episode that owes more than a small stylistic and thematic debt to Lost. It’s not just that Alioth looks and sounds so much like the Smoke Monster(*), that it makes a shared Wizard of Oz reference to “the man behind the curtain” (also the title of one of the very best Lost episodes), or even that the core group of Lokis are hiding in a bunker accessible via a hatch and a ladder that’s filled with recreational equipment (in this case, bowling alley lanes). It’s also that Loki, Sylvie, their counterparts, and Mobius have all been transported to a strange place that has disturbing echoes from their own lives, that operates according to strange new rules they have to learn while fleeing danger, and their presence there allows them to reflect on the many mistakes of their past and consider whether they want to, or can, transcend them.

(*) Yes, Alioth technically predates Smokey by a decade (see the notes below for more), but his look has been tweaked a bit here to seem more like smoke than a cloud, and the sounds he makes when he roars sound a lot like Smokey’s telltale taxi cab meter clicks. Given the other Lost hat tips in the episode, I have to believe Alioth was chosen specifically to evoke Smokey.

Classic Loki is aptly named. He wears the Sixties Jack Kirby costume, and he is a far more powerful magician than either Sylvie or our Loki have allowed themselves to be. He calls our Loki’s knives worthless compared to his sorcery, which feels like the show acknowledging that the movies depowered Loki a fair amount to make him seem cooler. But if Classic Loki can conjure up illusions bigger and more potent than his younger peers, he is a fundamentally weak and defeated man, convinced, like the others, that the only way to win the game into which he was born is not to play. “We cannot change,” he insists. “We’re broken. Every version of ourselves. Forever.” It is not only his sentiment — Kid Loki adds that any Loki who tries to improve inevitably winds up in the Void for their troubles — but it seems to have weighed on him longer and harder than most.

But Classic Loki takes inspiration from Loki and Sylvie to stand and fight rather than turn and run, magicking up a vision of their homeland to distract Alioth at a crucial moment in Sylvie’s plan, and getting eaten for his trouble. He was wrong: Lokis can change. (Though Kid Loki might once again argue that Classic Loki’s death is more evidence that the universe has no interest in any of them doing so.) And both Loki and Sylvie have been changing throughout their time together. Like most Lokis, they seem cursed to a life of loneliness. Sylvie learned as a child that a higher power believed she should not exist, and has spent a lifetime hiding out in places where any friends she might make will soon die in an apocalypse. Our Loki’s past isn’t quite so stark, but the knowledge that his birth father abandoned him, while his adoptive father never much liked him, have left permanent scars that govern a lot of his behavior. The defining element of Classic Loki’s backstory is that he spent a long time alone on a planet, and only got busted by the TVA when he attempted to reconnect with his brother and anyone else he once knew. This is a hard existence, for all of them. And while it does not forgive them their many sins(*), it helps contextualize them, and give them the knowledge to try to be better versions of themselves.

(*) Loki at one point even acknowledges that, for him, it’s probably only been a few days since he led an alien invasion of New York that left many dead, though due to TVA shenanigans, far more time may have passed.

For that matter, Mobius is not the stainless hero he once thought of himself as. While he and Sylvie are tooling around the Void in a pizza delivery car (because of course they are), he admits that he committed a lot of sins by believing that the ends justified the means, and was wrong. He doesn’t know who he is before the TVA stole and factory rebooted him, but he knows that he wants something better for himself and the universe, and takes the stolen TemPad to open up a portal to his own workplace in hopes of tearing down the TVA once and for all. Before he goes, though, he and Loki share a hug that feels a lot more poignant than it should, given that these characters have only spent parts of four episodes of TV together. It’s a testament to Hiddleston, Wilson, Waldron, and company (Tom Kauffman wrote this week’s script) that their friendship felt so alive and important in such a short amount of time.

The same can be said for Loki and Sylvie’s relationship, however we’re choosing to define it. Though they briefly cuddle together under a blanket that Loki conjures, they move no closer to romance than they were already. If anything, Mobius’ accusations of narcissism in last week’s episode seem to have made both of them pull back a bit from where they seemed to be heading back on Lamentis. But the connection between them is real, whatever exactly it is. And their ability to take down Alioth — to tap into the magic that Classic Loki always had, and to fulfill Loki’s belief that “I think we’re stronger than we realize” — by working together is inspiring and joyful. Without all this nuanced and engaging character work, Loki would still be an entertaining ride, but it’s the marriage of wild ideas with the human element that’s made it so great.

Of course, now comes the hard part. Endings have rarely been an MCU strength, give or take something like the climax of Endgame, and the finales of the two previous Disney+ shows were easily their weakest episodes. The strange, glorious, beautiful machine that Waldron and Herron have built doesn’t seem like it’s heading for another generic hero/villain slugfest, but then, neither did WandaVision before we got exactly that. This one feels different so far, though. The command of the story, the characters, and the tone are incredibly strong right now. There is a mystery to be solved about who is in the big castle beyond the Void (another Loki makes the most narrative and thematic sense to me, but we’ll see), and a lot to be resolved about what happens to the TVA and our heroes. And maybe there’s some heavy lifting that has to be done in service to the upcoming Dr. Strange or Ant-Man films.

It’s complicated, but on a show that has handled complexity well. Though even if the finale winds up keeping things simpler, that might work. As Loki notes while discussing his initial plan to take down Alioth, “Just because it’s not complicated doesn’t mean it’s bad.” Though as Kid Loki retorts, “It also doesn’t mean it’s good.”

Please be good, Loki finale. Everything up to this point deserves that.

Some other thoughts:

* Most of this week’s most interesting material happens in the Void. But the scenes back at the TVA clarify a few things. First, Ravonna is not the mastermind of all this, and she was very much suckered in by the Time-Keeper robots. But unlike Mobius or Hunter B-15, she’s so conditioned to the mission that even knowing it’s a lie hasn’t really swayed her from her mission. She has Miss Minutes (who herself is much craftier this week) looking into files about the creation of the TVA, but for the most part comes across as someone very happy with a status quo where she gets to be special and pass judgment on the rest of the multiverse.

* Alioth first appeared in 1993’s Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective, a miniseries (written by Mobius inspiration Mark Gruenwald, and with some extremely kewl Nineties art full of shoulder pads, studded collars, and the like) involving Ravonna, Kang, and the off-brand versions of Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor (aka U.S. Agent, War Machine, and Thunderstrike, the latter of whom has yet to appear in the MCU). It’s a sequel to a Nineties crossover event called Citizen Kang. And no, I still don’t buy that Kang will be the one pulling the strings here, if only because it’s really bad storytelling for the big bad of the season to have never appeared or even been mentioned prior to the finale.

* Rather than try to identify every Easter egg visible in the Void’s terrain, I’ll instead highlight three of the most interesting. Right before the Lokis arrive at the hatch, we see a helicopter with Thanos’ name on it. This is a hat tip to an infamous — and often memed — out-of-continuity story where Thanos flies this chopper while trying to steal the Cosmic Cube (aka the Tesseract) from Hellcat. (A little kid gets his hands on it instead and, of course, uses the Cube to conjure up free ice cream.) James Gunn has been agitating for years for the Thanos Copter to be in the MCU. He finally got his wish.

* The other funny one: When the camera pans down the tunnel into Kid Loki’s headquarters, we see Mjolnir buried in the ground, and right below it is a jar containing a very annoyed frog in a Thor costume. This is either Thor himself — whom Loki cursed into amphibianhood in a memorable Walt Simonson storyline — or another character named Simon Walterston (note the backwards tribute to Walt) who later assumed the tiny mantle.

* Also, in one scene you can spot Yellowjacket’s helmet littering the landscape. This might support the theory that the TVA, the Void, etc., all exist in the Quantum Realm, since that’s where the MCU version of Yellowjacket probably went when his suit shorted out and he was crushed to subatomic size. Or it might be more trolling of the fanbase from the company that had WandaVision fans convinced that Mephisto, the X-Men, and/or Reed Richards would be appearing by the season finale.

* Honestly, I would have watched an entire episode that was just Loki, Mobius, and the others arguing about whether Alligator Loki was actually a Loki, or just a gator who ended up with the crown, presumably after eating a real Loki. The suggestion that the gator might be lying — and that this actually supports, rather than undermines, the case for him being a Loki — was just delightful. And hey, if Throg exists in the MCU now, why not Alligator Loki?

* Finally, the MCU films in general are not exactly known for their visual flair, though a few directors like Taika Waititi and Ryan Coogler have been able to craft distinctive images within the franchise’s usual template. Loki, though, is so often wonderful to look at, and particularly when our heroes are stuck in strange environments like Lamentis or the Void. Director Kate Herron and the VFX team work very well together to create dynamic and weird imagery like Sylvie running from Alioth, or the chaotic Loki battle in the bowling alley. Between this show and WandaVision, it appears the Disney+ corner of the MCU has a bit more room to expand its palette. (Falcon and the Winter Soldier, much less so.)

#Loki #spoilers #episode 5 #review #Rolling Stone #Alan Sepinwall

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kingofhearts709 · 3 years

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Bill and Ted do a scary movie marathon but then cant sleep

hello yes its no surprise that my first thought was nightmare on elm street so we're going with a 5 movie marathon of THAT up to the 1989 film HAHA 🤙 hope you enjoy!!

A/N: there are some very vague spoilers for the nightmare on elm street series (i mean like VAGUE) and also uhh small warning for like mentions of the slashing in the films?? its NOES i mean 🤷

this came out very kinda cute and idk if that's what you wanted but it's what my brain created 🎸

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Bill and Ted have never done very well with especially scary movies.

Of course, they could handle one by itself, so long as it's followed up by something else lighthearted and definitely not The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

However, the newest A Nightmare On Elm Street was supposed to be coming out soon, and it was Bill's brightest of ideas that they marathon the first five in preparation for the plotline. The last thing Bill remembered happening, vaguely, is an unborn baby and something about a nun. Ted hardly remembered the first one.

Hence, the marathon.

"Dude, we're totally gonna dominate this horror marathon," Bill said as he started busting out the VHS box set, laying them side by side so he wouldn't forget what order they had to watch them in. "I highly doubt that we, as mature adults of modern society, will cower in the face of Freddy Krueger." Bill looked up to see Ted's face scrunched with pension, and immediately started to back away from the whole thing entirely, putting the first movie back down.

"I just...," Ted huffed where he was slumped on their couch, and whipped his head up to look at Bill. "Remember when we saw the first one in the theatre and screamed so loud that the attendant dude had to escort us out?"

"Yeah..." Bill remembered the memory well. They totally missed out on the ending of that movie the first time. Bill shook his head, "But Ted, that was, like, seven years ago. We've totally grown up! I'm sure that it'll be a most excellent experience."

Ted could hear the hope in Bill's voice, so he gave a small huff and a firm, brave nod for Bill to put the tape in. Bill pumped his fist as he inserted the tape, jumping back up onto the couch next to Ted and nearly knocking their popcorn bowl over. Bill suggested they start the marathon around five, considering they were about to embark upon nearly eight hours of monster movie magic. The two had already spent the afternoon together making sure they had easy meals for when they got hungry later.

Ted had almost wished they didn't need the marathon as an excuse to do so, but of course, it was quickly a thought to be pushed to the back of his head.

The opening sequence of the first film began, and soon enough, both Bill's and Ted's eyes were laser-trained on the small TV, Ted giving a jump at any scare and Bill giving a gasp at any gore.

They managed okay through the first one. "The first one's never the scariest, dude," Bill said with forced confidence, though Ted could clearly see him shivering as he set up the next tape. He was shivering too, and he kind of wished Bill would sit closer to him, just to make sure he was actually there, and it all wasn't a dream where Freddy was about to slash open his insides at the last second.

They pushed their way through the second and the third without moving from the couch, and Ted finally chanced a glance over at Bill as soon as the credits started rolling.

Bill was visibly shaking, in a way that made Ted wonder if he was having some sort of horror-induced seizure.

"Dude," Ted said quietly, and Bill blinked as he let out a deep breath and looked over at Ted. "Are you okay?" Bill swallowed as he nodded.

"I'm totally cool, duder," he said assuredly, though his face didn't say the same. "Uh... Snack break?"

"Yeah, dude, definitely." Ted looked up and over at their wall clock to see it was almost ten at night, and they hadn't eaten a single mouthful of anything since their popcorn. "I'm egregiously starved."

Bill nodded as he stood up before stopping completely in his tracks.

"Dude," he said, quiet. "I have a most terrible feeling." Ted swallowed thickly as he watched Bill turn away.

"Dude, whatever joke you're about to pull, I swear, I'll punch you," Ted warned immediately. "Don't."

"Dude, it isn't a joke, I think-" Bill suddenly whipped his body around towards Ted and Ted let out a loud scream as he cowered away from Bill's figure. Bill let out a relieved sigh and Ted slowly uncovered his face to see Bill rubbing at his back. "I twisted my back, dude."

"Oh," Ted breathed out. He shook his head, "Dude, I totally thought you were about to Krueger me." Bill looked at him for a long moment before he started to laugh, and Ted couldn't help but join in.

The thought was so ridiculous, of course, but Ted could never be too sure with the things he'd experienced in life.

"C'mon, Ted, let's eat dinner," Bill huffed as he stretched out a little more before heading to the kitchen to heat up their pre-made spaghetti. Bill returned five minutes later with two bowls of noodles and two forks, passing one into Ted's lap and setting the other on top of the TV before reaching for the next tape.

"Bill, dude, already?" Ted said as Bill slid out the tape and inserted the next (he'd have to remind himself to rewind them all later the next day).

"Ted, the sooner we get through them, the sooner we can be done," Bill reasoned as the fourth movie began, grabbing his bowl and sliding back onto the couch, this time within Ted's immediate reach. Whether or not it was intentional was beyond either of them.

"You make it sound heinous," Ted mumbled, though his eyes were already studying the screen with apt attention.

"Sometimes, my friend, you have to suffer to enjoy masterpieces," Bill mumbled back, mindlessly twirling his spaghetti in the bowl without picking it up.

The fourth movie ended more abruptly than either of them expected, with only half of each of their bowls eaten. Bill blinked into the suddenly eerie and dark room as he abandoned his bowl and fork and dove for the TV to stop the tape. The room went suddenly quiet and Ted didn't dare move.

"One more," Bill whispered despite the fact that they were the only ones there, and Ted listened to Bill insert the fifth and final tape.

"Dude," Ted pleaded, unsure what he was pleading for. Probably for Bill to finish and get back up on the couch so Ted didn't throw himself in a full-fledged panic. They'd already come so far and they weren't about to give up now, but it would help immensely if he weren't alone.

Bill jumped back up onto the couch, thigh to thigh with Ted as the last opening sequence of the night played in their dark living room at nearly midnight.

Bill's closeness was more distracting than ever, Ted almost missing the best and most heinously gorey pieces of the film every time Bill tensed up and shook against him. He's sure he'd been doing the same thing, though Bill didn't seem at all affected by it.

It was strange how fear seemed to literally bring them closer together, and it almost made Ted laugh at the thought that Freddy Krueger could possibly be some kind of ingenious cupid, creating connection through collective terrorising.

However, as he listened to the children sing Freddy's rhyme at the end of the movie, he thought better of that notion because Bill was hiding his face in his shoulder, and he was pretty sure no cupid would do such a thing as to make his best friend cry.

"Bill, dude, you're shaking," Ted whispered quietly. "The movie's over." Bill breathed in as he lifted his head to look at the TV, relieved to see that it was over. He subtly began to wipe at his eyes, and it amazed Ted how this had all been Bill's idea, and yet he was the one most terrified.

"Ted, I do believe," Bill began, doing his best to puff up his chest, "that we are truly the most bravest of all the brave." Ted smiled as he nodded. He would've made fun of Bill for getting scared were it not for the own lingering terror he was still feeling.

"Bill, we are most definitely two of the bravest men alive," Ted agreed with a nod. He paused for a second before adding, "Next time, though, maybe we should just see the new movie by itself."

It took a moment before Bill nodded, and they both collectively said, "Agreed."

Ted did the liberty of turning the lights back on and throwing out their half-eaten dinners, Bill putting the tape pile aside for rewinding later. They both finished and met up at their bedroom door before nodding and heading to their respective beds.

It was quiet as they slipped underneath their sheets, Ted reaching and turning off the bedside lamp, shrouding them both in darkness. Ted could hear Bill's unsteady breathing from the other side of the room, large breaths in and out like he was having trouble calming down.

Ted was having a similar issue, wincing every time he tried to close his eyes and seeing gruesome scenes from the movies behind the lids. He did his best to think about other, less Krueger-y things, but ultimately, it seemed like even through film, Freddy seemed to have a hold on both of them.

After nearly a whole hour of heavy breathing and occasional wincing, Ted finally spoke up, "Dude, I totally can't sleep."

"Yeah, me neither," Bill said instantly, taking another deep breath. "I keep thinking that Freddy dude is gonna get me as soon as I fall asleep."

"Dude, me too." Ted huffed. "You think if we fell asleep at the same time, we'd have the same dream? That way if he does end up coming after us, at least we'll be together."

"Ted, that's total bogus," Bill groaned, rolling over to look at Ted. "He isn't real."

"Yeah, but our brains think he totally is," Ted countered. "So, if we trick our brains into thinking he can't fight the both of us at once, maybe we'll get some sleep." A long silence seemed to stretch before Bill let out a snort, and Ted let one out right after. "Yeah, dude, that's definitely not how it works."

"Nah, dude," Bill laughed. "But your idea would be most outrageously correct within the Elm Street universe." Ted laughed as he watched Bill shake with his own in the darkness.

"Let's try to sleep, Bill," Ted said when the chuckles died down, and he tried to shut his eyes. The images still flashed, however, and he had to open his eyes again. Bill was still staring at him. "Dude, this is most non-triumphant."

"...Hey, Ted," Bill spoke up, voice nervous, and Ted gave him his undivided attention. "D'you... Like, would it be okay if-"

"-we shared the bed?" Ted finished the thought, and Bill let out a barely visible grin. "Yeah, dude."

Since Bill had the bigger blanket of the two of them, Ted was the one to climb under Bill's covers and lay down inches from his face. Somehow, this was far better than sleeping ten feet away from him. This way, Ted could feel him and make sure he was there.

"Hey, dude," Ted said, breath hot against Bill's face, and he managed a smile.

"Thanks, Ted," he found himself saying, and Ted furrowed his brows.

"For what, dude?"

"I would've never gotten through five of the most egregiously gorey and triumphantly horrific movies in cinema without you."

Ted laughed as he hid his face in Bill's chest, and Bill found himself holding him as he did so, until they were just lying there, together.

"And we'll get through the new one together, too," Ted mumbled into Bill, whose breathing had finally gone steady.

This time when he closed his eyes, he didn't catch the flashing images of Freddy Krueger. Instead, he saw the flashing images of Bill and his grin that said there was no way Freddy Krueger could ever best the both of them as long as they were together.

#the king speaks #the king writes #bill and ted #bill s. preston esq.#ted theodore logan #bnt #a nightmare on elm street #freddy krueger #billandted

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marvella15 · 4 years

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Astaire and Rogers Rewatch Part 11: Kisses, Partnership, and Final Thoughts

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made 10 films together. That’s more than Judy Garland and Andy Hardy. More than Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Almost one-third of Astaire’s musical filmography also stars Rogers. That’s incredible by the standards of any decade.

I’ve had a lot of thoughts throughout this rewatch and I’ve distilled some of the larger ones into this wrap-up post. So here we go.

Kisses

It felt important to talk about the kisses and distinct lack of them in their own section. As I mentioned in my Carefree post, Astaire didn’t like big romantic scenes, especially those that involved kissing. He preferred to let the romance happen in the dancing.

But here’s the problem with that:

After he made his last RKO film with Ginger Rogers, Astaire went on to make many more musicals with other leading ladies and he kissed all of them.

Look at 1941’s “You’ll Never Get Rich” with Rita Hayworth. Or Holiday Inn with Virginia Dale and Marjorie Reynolds (though I can’t remember if he kisses Reynolds). Or Easter Parade with Ann Miller and Judy Garland.

Through the rest of his film career, Astaire almost always kissed his leading lady. So what was the hesitancy with Ginger Rogers?

I know it seems like I’m making this all Astaire’s “fault” but… well it kind of was. It’s not like Rogers was stomping around demanding to be kissed. But she certainly wasn’t the one going off with the script with her spouse and coming back to declare for any number of reasons why she and Astaire shouldn’t kiss in the film. On the other hand, he was definitely doing that.

If you’re in any way thinking this was a case of “oh he didn’t like Ginger so he didn’t want to kiss her” let me stop you right there. Because you’re wrong (see my Barkleys of Broadway post as well as the Final Thoughts section here). And maybe it was the opposite.

Now look, I think you could chalk this up to Astaire being shy (which he was) or his newness to the movie business (also true) or simply an unease with romance on the screen. But it feels worth mentioning, again, that he and Rogers had a previous romantic relationship. They’d dated in New York prior to her moving to Hollywood. They also absolutely made out during that time because Rogers wrote about in her autobiography. So kissing each other was familiar territory.

I’ll just cut to the chase. Astaire had only been married for a few months when he and Rogers started making their series of films. By all accounts, he was deeply in love with his wife, whom he had spent two years pursuing. He may have felt that repeatedly kissing his ex-girlfriend on screen while also performing some undeniably sensual dance numbers wasn’t a good idea for the health of his new marriage.

Perhaps there were even lingering feelings between him and Rogers, though it must be noted that she was also married from 1934-1940 (to Lew Ayres). And if you have feelings for someone who is not your spouse, you need to have boundaries. Or maybe it was some combo of this and/or other factors.

In all, the Astaire/Rogers films don’t necessarily suffer from the lack of kissing between the two leads. A strange element to this discussion is the kisses we do get prior to the first “romantic” clinch in Carefree. There’s a peck on the cheek in Gay Divorcee and a comical kiss on the lips by Rogers (and it’s mainly one-sided) in Top Hat. But why not make either of those, especially the first one, an actual kiss??

And if comical kisses were going to be inserted anywhere, they should land in Roberta or Follow the Fleet, the two films where Astaire and Rogers have the snarkiest relationships because their characters have a history together.

Moreover, there are glaring moments where a kiss should obviously be. Such as somewhere in Swing Time. For goodness sake, they joke about not kissing in “A Fine Romance” and then have a scene where it appears they’ve kissed off-screen. Give us the real thing! Which they did, eventually, in Carefree and it’s… pretty lackluster imo. Their kisses in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle and The Barkleys of Broadway look and feel much more heartfelt.

So sure, the Astaire/Rogers films aren’t worse off for not having their leads kiss but they could have sometimes been improved. Shall We Dance’s plot hinges on a secret relationship between the two main characters and yet we never see them actually romantic together. That said, it’s a bit entertaining, if also kind of annoying, how often the plots in nearly every Astaire/Rogers film bend over backward to avoid showing us a kiss.

(my gif)

Partnership

It’s undisputed that Rogers is Astaire’s greatest partner, both in terms of dance and on-screen companion. They play off each other remarkably well, with an ease that hints at their personal relationship. Astaire had spent most of his life partnered with his sister, Adele, so he had learned how to make a lady look good during a dance and put the audience’s focus on her.

But Rogers doesn’t really need his help. She commands the screen so entirely at times that it takes pointed effort to look anywhere but her. Her ability to continue acting (and acting well) in the midst of dancing absolutely sets her apart from not only Astaire’s other dance partners but other musical stars of the day. A large part of what makes her dances with Astaire so enduring is that she sells the romance, rapture, and joy of those minutes with him.

Katharine Hepburn quipped that Rogers gave Astaire “sex” and he gave her “class.” I think a more apt observation may be that he elevated/improved her dancing and she elevated/improved his acting. That makes sense to me since she was more experienced as an actress and he as a dancer.

Doing this rewatch made me even more resolute that every critic who remarks on her lack of technical dancing skills is an idiot. Just look at “Isn’t it a Lovely Day.” She matches Astaire step for step and he’s not exactly going easy on her.

Then there are the romantic duets. Let’s talk about the sexiness of those dances because look. Astaire had been partnered almost exclusively with his sister up until then. He’d had maybe maybe a handful of other partners prior to pairing up with Rogers on screen.

There’s no question he was a talented performer and choreographer but I do find myself asking exactly when and how he learned to look at his partner so seductively. He certainly wasn’t doing that with his sister!

Plus there’s the nature of his dances with Rogers. There is a heat between them that is especially pronounced during the Hays Code era of Hollywood. Even Flying Down to Rio, where they barely dance together, has some steamy moments. “Night and Day” in Gay Divorcee and, to a slightly lesser extent, “Cheek to Cheek” in Top Hat are very obviously dancing metaphors for sex. And Astaire and Rogers get away with it while also not diluting the meaning of the dance one single bit.

Astaire crafted those dances himself specifically for himself and Rogers so he knew exactly what he was doing and communicating and so did she. For a guy who jumped through hoops to avoid kissing his dance partner on screen until their eighth film together, he sure put a lot of tension, sexuality, and deep romance into their dances.

For her part, Rogers again matched him. Although I often commented about how much he smiles and gazes at her while they are dancing, she regularly did the same towards him. They injected softness and genuine affection into those dances. They were both good actors but it wasn’t always acting.

(my gif)

Final Thoughts

Every time I watch one of their films, I discover something new. There’s so much I wish we knew but we never will, like what they’re whispering to each other those times we can see them talking during a dance. Or what rehearsals, which were apparently grueling but filled with laughter, really looked like (“I’ll Be Hard to Handle” in Roberta is the closest we’ll get). Or the many other ways Rogers fine-tuned their dances, adding elements here and there that made a marked difference.

They held each other in very high regard and were extremely fond of one another. Michael Feinstein tells a story about meeting Astaire for the first time. Feinstein was playing piano at a party and Rogers, whom he knew, asked if he’d “met Fred.” When Feinstein replied he hadn’t, she took him over to meet her friend and former costar who shyly but sweetly listened to Feinstein fanboy over him.

Astaire and Rogers remained good friends throughout their lives, with him sending her a very sweet note that she cherished about her performance in Kitty Foyle (for which she won an Oscar) and also gifting her with an ornate travel watch at one point (as mentioned in the “feather dress” section of my Top Hat post). She said he was one of the few men she knew who was an excellent dancer off-camera as well as on. Their affection for one another is evident in their films and it’s one of the many reasons I come back to their movies again and again.

Thanks for joining me for this rewatch! I’ve gotten notes from a few of you and that’s been so kind and also a huge surprise. I was almost certain no one would read these posts lol

#fred astaire #ginger rogers #classic hollywood #old hollywood #fred and ginger #astaire and rogers rewatch

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eponymiad · 4 years

Link

Rating: T Word Count: 4450

The first time Sophos asked the mountain queen to dance, it was his last night in Eddis. For formality’s sake, Eddis would not have declined, but it had taken him most of the night to work up the nerve.

Punctilious in her hospitality, Eddis had arranged a banquet in their honor. His uncle who was Sounis had finally negotiated their release, though Sophos wouldn’t exactly have called it a harrowing hostage situation. The magus, ever a teacher, had made their captivity instructive, and the Eddisian court had been exceptionally kind, if a bit distant.

Grasping for conversation as they danced, Sophos said, “I visited the god of thieves’ altar today. Those emeralds were even more impressive than you made them out to be.”

Eddis laughed, then pressed her lips together. “You can see why the duchess was livid,” she whispered, sounding amused and a little conspiratorial.

“Indeed. I’m surprised Gen made it out alive.”

Her grin faltered, and Sophos worried he had inadvertently insulted her or her court. The lowlanders often painted the Eddisians barbaric, but Sophos had not meant his joke literally. Before he could fumble an apology, however, Eddis’s easy smile returned.

She said, “Oh, Gen prevailed, he always does. Are you glad to be returning to Sounis?”

Sophos blushed. “I have enjoyed my time in Eddis.” He had grown immensely fond of Eddis — both queen and country.

The queen of Eddis was exceedingly kind. Sophos knew that another sovereign would not have been so welcoming of their prisoners. His uncle certainly would not have, and that Attolia had held them in a cell in her stronghold just weeks earlier was proof enough that she, too, thought prisoners belonged in a prison.

Eddis smiled, and Sophos blushed harder as he returned it. He was acutely aware of where his hand rested on her waist, grateful the dance was one he knew well. He thought his nerves might fail him.

“You must be excited to see your sisters again. From everything you’ve told me of them, they sound much like my more…rambunctious cousins.”

“They are troublemakers, if that’s what you mean. I am sure to find my hair filled with twigs and leaves by suppertime the day I return.” Sophos laughed. “I cannot wait to see them.”

Home also meant seeing his father, and explaining what had happened to Pol. The magus was sure to have sent word by now, but Sophos was dreading having to answer questions. The guilt was nearly too much to bear as it was.

Eddis seemed to guess what he was thinking. “I am sorry about your guard captain,” she said carefully.

“I will miss him very much. And I do not…look forward to having to explain what happened to him.”

“I cannot believe your father could blame you for this, Sophos,” she said, even more gently, guessing again at his thoughts.

“I see you have not met my father, your majesty,” he said wryly.

She smiled again, an intoxicatingly slow-spreading one that filled her entire face. “I have, actually.”

“Oh.” He was at a loss for what to say. It was not only his grief over Pol and Ambiades, still fresh and raw, but the concentrated power of her smile that rendered him temporarily speechless. The Queen of Eddis was perhaps the loveliest person he had ever met, and he’d discovered that her more brilliant smiles made it difficult for him to speak. A particular disappointment, as he was eager to talk to her as much as possible.

Sparing him from scrambling for intelligent thought, Eddis changed the subject.

“I hope we will have you back as a guest soon. I expect we will have a ceremony in the fall.”

“For your wedding?” Now that she had no cause to marry his uncle, Sophos had been wondering when she and Gen would marry.

She laughed. “No, I suspect we will have one more ceremony to honor Hamiathes’s gift, and we will of course invite our neighbors to attend.”

Sophos wondered if he might persuade his uncle who was Sounis to bring him. He repressed a shudder at the thought of prolonged interaction with his uncle, but perhaps the magus would make a case for it on Sophos’s behalf.

“I will hope to attend, then, and look forward to returning.” The music ended, and Sophos bowed. “Thank you for the dance, your majesty.”

She returned his smile, inclining her head briefly before turning to her next partner. Sophos returned to his seat, feeling light as air.

Sophos hadn’t realized he’d grown until he was standing in front of Helen, asking her to dance. He found he had to tilt his head now to look her in the eye.

As they danced, they chatted, but Sophos could tell she was weary behind the smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“How have you fared today?” he asked.

“Very well. It was an important ceremony and I am glad to have the company of our neighbors and allies from further away to share it with. Did you enjoy the day?” Her formulaic response left Sophos unconvinced. An expert himself in court niceties, Sophos knew they were easy to wield when more natural conversation was stilted.

He pressed again, as gently as possible. “I did, thank you. But I imagine it must have been a long day for you, especially.”

She hesitated, before letting out a quiet sigh. “Yes,” she said, conceding the point. Her face relaxed at the admission. “I am rather exhausted.”

He sympathized. “I find large events like this particularly draining myself, and I am not anyone nearly as important.”

“I think heir to the throne merits ‘nearly as important,’ Sophos. But yes, they are draining. Frankly…”

He waited, hoping she would speak, but she gave a small shake of her head as if letting the thought pass. He ventured a guess. “A lot of self-important, overly-dressed people?”

Helen’s mouth opened in surprise before she let out a laugh. “That is an…apt description.”

In the short time he had known her, Sophos had begun to suspect the queen of Eddis cared as little for frivolous courtiers as he did. He was delighted, both to have his suspicions confirmed and to have teased the admission out of her.

“Just a gaggle of masks,” he said.

She looked up at him, confused. “A gaggle of what?”

“Masks, from the story of the fox and the mask?” he said, but she shook her head. “Surely you know Aesop?”

“Of course I know Aesop, but I do not think I have heard that one. The only story I know about foxes is the fox and sour grapes. Tell me about the mask?”

Smirking, he told her, “The fox stumbles across a beautiful mask, wrought from gold and inlaid with stones, perfectly molded for a mortal face. Contemplating it, he says, ‘so full of beauty, so empty of brains!’”

“Oh!” She snorted, and slipped into a round of silent giggles. Sophos was unreasonably pleased to have made her laugh.

“Perhaps that one is popular in Sounis because of the invaders?” he said, wondering aloud. The Merchant Empire had been fond of their ornate masks, which were worn by okloi and patronoi alike during the festival months. “I did not realize there might be more stories. I wonder if I know all the Eddisian ones. What are some of your favorites?”

She thought for a moment. “The Astrologer Who Fell into a Well and The Boy and His Nettles are two that spring to mind.”

“Oh, I know the nettles. I have been made to remember that one often by my mother,” he said wryly.

Smiling, she said, “But not the astrologer?”

That one did not know, but the the music came to an end, and it was time for the queen to move on to her next partner. Sophos did not stop to think before he said, “Permit me one more dance and you can tell it to me?”

Helen smiled the smile that Sophos was rapidly discovering buoyed his soul. “Very well,” she said, as Sophos, beaming, led them into the steps for the next dance. “There was a stargazer who spent evenings with his face upturned to the stars, oblivious to all else — the way I’ve seen you do with a book,” she added. Sophos blushed and nodded in agreement. “One night, as he walked through a field, looking up, he fell in a well.” Sophos cringed. “His neighbor came running at the shouts and, seeing the astrologer said, ‘Now you see what happens when you worry over the skies instead of that which is right in front of you.’”

Sophos raised his eyebrows. “Is this an instructive tale about how I should worry less for the magus’s lessons on temple architecture, and more about hunting and sword fighting so that I might be a suitable heir?”

“No!” With the hand already holding his shoulder, she slapped his arm gently. “More a reminder to myself.”

The queen, as far as Sophos knew, did not have a particular interest in the sciences or any other academic subject.

“A reminder of what?”

“Not to make myself sick worrying about the plans of the gods and instead focus on the things I can control.”

Sophos was not religious, did not believe in gods or myths. Despite what Gen had told them as they had camped in the mountain country a few months earlier, the Eddisians were much more religious than Sounisians. That much, at least, had become clear during his two trips. Foreign rulers and emissaries might have attended for the formality of the ceremony, but Sophos had heard the way the Eddisians spoke of Hamiathes’s gift — Gen and Helen had certainly believed in its sanctity. But still, he could see the wisdom in her words.

“Ah. My cautionary tale is A Man with Two Sweethearts, though I rarely heed my own reminders,” he admitted. When her eyebrows shot up her head, he laughed and fumbled as he said, “The lesson is, those who seek to please everybody please nobody.”

“I’d never heard that one either, though the lesson itself is a good one. It might carry a different message to my Eddisians though,” she said cryptically. Changing the subject, she said, “I did not realize there were so many more fables.”

Sophos did not hesitate, did not even draw a breath before saying, “I have a large book of them that was given to me when I was learning to read. I could recopy some of my favorites and send them to you when I return to Sounis, if you’d like.”

“That would be lovely.”

And there it was, the chance he had been waiting for. Sophos had spent his faux-captivity over the summer in Eddis, and this much shorter trip, frantically searching for an opening to write to Helen. He had grown increasingly dismayed as the day wore on that he might not find a good reason. The excitement and nerves pounded against his rib cage in equal measure as they moved through the last steps and the song came to an end.

“Thank you for the dance.” Sophos bowed, knowing it would do little to cover up the blush spreading across his cheeks as he willed his mind away from the rapidly unfolding fantasy that she might respond to his letter, that they might strike up a real friendship, that that might… “It is always a privilege to to spend time in your company.”

She returned his smile with one of her own, the slow-spreading one that was, Sophos was certain, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life. It made his heart sing.

“I will look forward to the Aesop stories.”

“I will get working on them as soon as I arrive home,” he promised.

They had danced nearly every night that he was in Attolia.

They were both a little clumsy in their dancing, both in different ways. Helen was stiff, her soldier’s march no less pronounced in the fluid steps of a dance. Sophos, for his part, had grown taller since regular balls in Sounis, and found it hard to adjust to the length of his gait. But as the days wore on, punctuated by walks in the gardens and, if he was lucky, meals together, they had found their rhythm. By now they moved almost as one.

Sophos had felt something shift, in the way she looked at him, the way she touched him, the way she moved her body in time with his. He may be cow-eyed, but he wasn’t oblivious. As he fspun out further and further, head sick with plans and worries about retaking his country, the sole thought buoying his hopes was that he might come back not to a political marriage but —

“What are you thinking about so hard?” Helen teased, smiling up at him. She smiled at him often, and it still caught him off guard, left him feeling both completely off kilter and as if everything was right in the world. His heart swelled.

“How very lucky I am that you dance with me.”

“Plenty of women dance with you.”

“But none nearly as beautiful as you.”

She flushed then, cheeks darkening, mouth half-open in surprise. “Flatterer,” she said when she recovered.

“Not at all. I am incapable of lying, as Gen has made sure to remind me several times a day.” She shook her head, still smiling. He asked, “Are you looking forward to returning home to Eddis?” He led her into a spin.

She spun back. “Immensely,” she admitted wearily. “I miss my mountains.”

Sophos did not fail to notice that as she had landed back into his arms, her body was a little closer than it had been. Sophos slid his hand around, from her waist to her back, and pulled her even closer.

The music changed and he cursed his luck as he and Helen broke apart. That move had taken all his nerve, and he did not know if he would risk it again.

But the next song was different, and with the drum came the trill of a mountain pipe. Helen glanced over her shoulder at Gen, who was looking at his wife with such a fondness that it warmed Sophos’s heart. It was the first time Sophos had heard a traditional Eddisian tune since he had been in Attolia. He suspected they were avoided since both hands were needed, but the Attolias seemed to be getting into position to dance. Helen looked back at Sophos.

“You know the square dances?”

“Helen,” he said dryly. “I am good for very little, but I do at least know Eddisian court dances. Have a little more faith in me than that.”

She rolled her eyes. “If I had so little faith in you, I would be more worried for the future of our little peninsula.”

“Point taken,” he said, grimacing. As he moved into position, Sophos faltered — he realized that he had not danced the Eddisan dances in years. “We’ll have to see how we fare with the height difference.”

She laughed. “Everyone is taller than me. I barely come up to Boagus’s sternum. It will be fine.”

The dance required partners to grab each other’s hands and Sophos, seizing the opportunity, laced his fingers between hers. That the dance was easier when performed with clasped hands was of little importance to him at the moment.

When it was time for her to spin, Sophos released Helen’s hands as she spun away and back to him, fingers sliding back into his when she returned, the skirts of her dress following suit.

“This dance is the only time I prefer a dress to trousers,” she said.

“I don’t remember this dance being so fun,” Sophos said, just barely holding onto his breath as the music sped up for the next cycle.

“Have you ever danced it with an Eddisian before?” He hadn’t. “It takes practice for it to really flow.”

It was certainly more fun than any of the continental dances at the Sounisian balls, or even the more out-of-fashion dances brought to the peninsula by the last invaders. There was a thrill in the way the pace picked up, quickened your heartbeat and chased the air from your lungs as you stepped faster and faster with your partner, until the only things you could focus on were the tapping of your own feet and your partner’s body, mirroring yours as you tried desperately to keep the pace.

Their fingers unwound only for the last spin, Helen’s hands small in his as he gripped them tight. And as they spun together, Sophos so much larger than her that he thought he might lift her off the ground with his force, their eyes held one another’s. In that moment, Sophos was sure there was no one else in the room, in the palace, in Attolia, and maybe not even the world.

The music ended and they came to a halt, both of them breathless and bubbling with mirth. Pulling one hand from hers, Sophos gently pushed back a curl that had flipped free of her crown, tucking the short strand behind her ear. His hand lingered there, and Helen held his gaze. Sophos was acutely aware of how close they stood. Close enough, he thought, that if he bent down, he could kiss her.

He considered it, his mind running away as he imagined, for an instant, tilting her head up at his and kissing her here, in front of everyone, propriety and the whole court of Attolia be damned.

But he was not so reckless — though he might have been had they been in the gardens alone — and slowly he lowered his hand from her face, their other hands still clasped tight. Never once did she take her eyes off his.

And as he lay in the dark later that night, restless over his journey and the hard, perhaps fatal plan that lay before him, he thought of Helen, of the dance, and of the look she’d given him he had touched her face.

This was not his imagination, he was sure. There was something between them.

Thinking of her, he drifted to sleep.

“Is the dress all right?” Gen asked as he and Helen stepped together. His tone was light, but Helen knew her cousin too well. His hook lay at her waist, blade carefully turned away to spare her dress — or her — any harm.

“It’s perfect, thank you, Gen. And thank you for sparing me from whatever awful gown Aunt Livia would have inevitably chosen.” She would have complied, her worry over the future of her country and the imminent threat of her barons making it easier to say yes than to argue for her own self-interests. Instead, Gen had insisted on handling it. The resulting wedding dress was beautiful, both as simple as Helen preferred and cut with a neckline to show off her tattoos, making clear to those watching that she was still Eddis. She was overwhelmed, as always, for his careful consideration and fierce loyalty. “And the wedding has been lovely. You are the consummate host. Maybe you are better as a frivolous trophy husband, planning parties and selecting gowns,” she teased.

“I told you all, I make a much better figurehead than king. I also told you that I thought you would marry him,” Gen added, gloating, as the dance continued.

She rolled her eyes, but could not stop her smile. “Do you never tire of being right?”

“No.” He grinned at her, and she was glad for it. Eugenides had not smiled much these last few days, not since her barons had arrived and their cousins had begun complaining about his ascension to Annux in earnest.

The last notes of the song faded, replaced with sounds of drums and a single mountain pipe. Before she had time to consider whether she was willing to risk a one-handed dance with Gen, her husband appeared at her side, tugging her by the hands into an empty space with him.

She and Sophos finished the dance with the last spin, as breathless as ever after a square dance, and the music master paused before the next song to allow people to compose themselves. Sophos grinned down at her. She reached up to touch his face, his head ducked to bring it closer to her.

“You look so handsome today.”

She watched his cheeks, already flushed from dancing, turn redder still, the color blooming dark across his face. His blushes were always easy, but he had glowed like the fires of the sacred mountain today, the joy radiating off of him mirroring the feeling threatening to burst out of her own chest.

Helen thought of the first time she’d danced a square dance with him. While he had been in Attolia, she had been so wracked with worry and guilt, over saving her country and manipulating Sophos, that she had not even noticed herself falling in love with him.

But, the night before he had returned to Sounis, they had danced one last time, and she had felt it then. Their bodies had drawn closer and closer like magnets as they’d danced, and when he had held her face, she’d been struck with the thought that she really might like to kiss him.

In hindsight, it was obvious that she was in love with him. But at the time, she had written it off as a reaction to the dancing. That happened sometimes with dance partners, the magic of the music and the movement of bodies against one another sparking a flame that flickered and died with the end of the song.

Well, she thought, as the flame inside her grew brighter and brighter, so much for that.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked.

“How very much I’d like to kiss you.”

He blushed more still, suddenly endearingly shy. “You could.”

They had kissed plenty by now. It had taken ten days from their engagement to assemble their barons in Attolia for the wedding. Sophos had not once slept in his own bed.

“Not when you’re all the way up there, I can’t.”

He stooped low so she could pull him close, and she kissed him, quick and sweet.

Sophos rested his forehead against hers and murmured, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

He kissed her forehead and took one hand in his, his other resting lightly on her back. The music had picked up again, and they began the slower steps for one of the Continental dances.

Helen wiped the sweat from her brow. The fall had not yet arrived in Attolia, and it was hot in the packed courtyard. That her dress was stifling did not help. Gen had been careful in his selection, but there was only so plain wedding clothes could be. It might have been fine had they had the wedding in Eddis, but the layers were oppressive in the lowlands.

Fussing with the heavy cloth of her dress, she said, “I cannot wait to get out of this godsforsaken gown.”

“That’s the best idea you’ve had all day.”

She bit back her grin. “I meant because of the heat.”

“I didn’t,” he said, boyish grin consuming his face. She pressed her own face into his chest briefly to hide her blush.

They were both quiet for several moments. When she looked back up at his face, she could see worry lines on his forehead.

“What’s worrying you?” she asked.

“It’s nothing.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. Sighing, he said, “It seems your barons have been putting ideas in my barons’ heads.”

She closed her eyes briefly in frustration. “The bastards never miss an opportunity for drama,” she said, freely swearing away from prying ears. “I am sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for. You did warn me they were contentious.”

“You do not know the half of it,” she said, thinking of the bloody and nearly-bloody history she had not yet revealed to him. She would have to tell him soon, of her failure to keep her barons in line, and of how their trip to steal Hamiathes’s gift had saved Gen more than it had saved her.

His frown lines deepened and he glanced around. “A conversation for later?”

“For later,” she agreed. Shaking her head, she said, “But there is not much to be done about them, except make sure they stay in line. It’s the epitome of The Lion, the Flies and the Hedgehog.”

“The what?” He looked bewildered.

“The Aesop story. It was one of the ones you sent me! The evil you know is better than the evil you don’t?”

“Oh,” he said, face and voice tinged with wonder. “You remember that?”

She smiled. “Of course I remember. I loved those stories. I hadn’t heard most of them.”

Helen was sure no one had ever looked at her with as much fondness as Sophos was in that very moment.

“I can’t believe you remember those. I was so nervous sending that letter. I had looked high and low for an excuse to write you. When you said you hadn’t heard some of them, I clung to it desperately.”

“I am glad you did.”

“Not nearly as glad as I am,” he said, beaming. “It feels like many lifetimes ago now.”

“Indeed.”

Not even in the beginning of her reign had Helen dared to hope for anything more than a peaceful political marriage. And later, when she had made her peace with marrying Sophos’s uncle, she had lost hope for even that. Her singular focus was saving her country; her wants and needs inevitably fell to the wayside. Such was the burden of being queen.

Then Sophos had reappeared, like something straight out of the Eponymiad, and beneath all the relief and fear and guilt that had twisted together inside her, Helen had felt the first glimmers of hope igniting, that her marriage might be something more than just tolerable. She would at least be marrying her friend, she had thought. Followed immediately by the crashing waves of dread that her manipulation of him to save Eddis would be the end of that too. It had kept her up at night.

But her imagination had not been big enough for the end result: a husband she loved as she loved Sophos. Even now, on her wedding day, it felt surreal that she could be so lucky.

Sophos smiled down at her. “Are you happy?”

“Beyond my wildest dreams.”

Sophos blushed bright red. Swaying in his arms, Helen relaxed.

Crossposted on AO3 here!

#queen's thief #the queen's thief #megan whalen turner #RotT spoilers #rott #I just REALLY love them okay?#and I wanted Sophos/Helen dancing scenes so I gave them to myself #my fic

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dimpledpran · 3 years

Text

#ShowYourProcess

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES — When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

Thank you for the tag @fengqing ! It was very interesting to read through your process! Also huge thanks and special mentions to @lan-xichens @suibianjie @highwarlockkareena @nyx4 @aheartfullofjolllly for coming up with this awesome idea! It is a great way to show exactly how much work goes into making gifs.

I was tagged to show my process for this post that I made for Wen Ning’s birthday. To date, this is the post that I spent the most time on, also because this has the most gifs in a single post. The date stamp shows 7 days between the first scene saved and the last gif exported. Mainly because it was a busy time and I only had time to work on one gif in a day. This is why i started early as well.

Oh and I use Vapoursynth (tutorial) and Adobe Photoshop 2021 (Paid subscription).

1. Planning

I try to plan as much as I can, but it always ends up that my final versions are never 100% what I started out to do. I saw this poem on a uquiz, and thought it was very apt for Wen Ning and decided to use it for his birthday edit. I was still not sure if I wanted to use the whole poem or just 2 stanzas, so I decided to pull as many scenes as possible. I then spent a Saturday fast-forwarding through all the episodes to find scenes that focussed on WN, and saving them.

So this is my mess of a folder once I saved the scenes. I usually save them by which gif I would use them for (1.1 would be Stanza 1, 1st half, and so on), and there some extras in case they don’t work well with the gif or I did not like how it looked. My initial plan was to leave the last stanza as the caption, and so the scenes for those were only saved much later compared to the rest. One of the lessons I learnt while making this was to plan better in terms of the size. Initially I cropped the video to focus on WN, but then I realised that I needed a wider gif (540px) if I wanted to use it as a Base for my gif. So I had to go and re-save some scenes or find alternative ones. I also planned out which word from each line I want highlighted, so that I could choose scenes that were more apt for it.

2. Creating

So I knew I wanted something dark, and probably B&W. But everything else was just me tinkering with buttons and adding effects until I was happy. Since I did not save the same number of frames for the scenes, I always import the scene, make it into a smart object and then choose which 2-3sec portion of it I want for my gif. Sometimes I also do cheat by changing the duration of each frame if I want it to be longer or shorter. I do not know what else to say here as what I did differed even for the gifs within this post. Some had to be edited more to get the colouring to match better, and some seemed alright with minimal adjusting. (Now I know that it could all have been edited better). I just realised that I didn’t even use the B&W filter and just adjusted with Hue/Saturation.

For some gifs, such as 1.1, 2.2 and 3.2, I thought the initial gifs were a bit too plain and missing something, so I added the smoke overlay (on the left half of the right column of images) to give a darker feel. It might not very obvious, but it was bugging me a little that things were empty.

After I am somewhat satisfied with how the gifs look, I save them for web and see how they look together.100% of the time, I am still not totally happy with how things look, so I go back to PS and edit either the colouring or add in certain stuff. In this case I realised I wanted a gradient from B&W to bright colour for the last two gifs (idk how well it came through). So cos of such habits, I always have numerous files saved for one gif.

3. Posting

Once I am finally satisfied with how everything looks, I type out my caption and save it in my drafts. I come back the next day to make sure I am happy with it, and then I immediately schedule/post it. Otherwise the more I look at it, the more issues I would find with it and it will never get posted.

So that is the process. I did not expect it to get so long and wordy.

TLDR; I am a mess with this and I do not have any idea what I am doing. I just click buttons and hope they turn out alright.

I would like to tag:

@suibianjie for this amazing set

@cloudylotus for this gorgeous set!

@sarawatsaraleo for this set (love the colouring here!!!)

@zuyilong for this really cool and interesting edit!

@wuxxxian for this stunning art

@surii for this beautiful set

@claudiablack for this gorgeous set or this

@blinkplnk for this beautiful set or this interesting edit

@bluelightsaber for this cool edit

@eyupdaisy for this cool edit

No pressure at all to do this if you do not want to or have already done one before! Can’t wait to see your process if you choose to do it! :)

#showyourprocess #process #gif making

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thekillerssluts · 4 years

Photo

Will Butler explains how his Harvard degree developed into his second solo album

“Yeah, it’s terrifying,” Will Butler says, pondering how it feels to be releasing music away from the umbrella of Arcade Fire.

“It’s the classic thing about all writers,” he continues. “The creative process makes them wanna puke the whole time they’re writing something, then they read something back and it makes them feel worse, then a year later they read it and think ‘yeah, it’s okay’. It’s a glorious experience, but it really makes your stomach hurt.”

On the one hand Will Butler is well accustomed to this writing process, being a multi-instrumentalist in the Canadian indie-rock band fronted by brother Win - Arcade Fire. But on his own terms, it’s an entirely new process. Butler’s second solo album Generations arrives five years after his debut Policy, a collection that rattled with a ramshackle charm and what he describes now as a ‘consciously very unproduced’ sound. Arcade Fire wound down from their Everything Now tour in September 2018, leaving Butler with the last two years of playtime. Most musicians, particularly those accustomed to big album cycles, set aside their downtime for family or other musical projects. Somehow Butler’s managed to do both while also completing a masters degree in Public Policy at Harvard.

“I went to school for a variety of reasons but there was an artistic side to it too,” he says. “I have always tried to let music and lyrics emerge from the world that I’m in; you fertilise the soil and see what grows. It was a way to better understand where we are, how we got here and what's going on. You know, ‘where am I from? What's going to happen?’” Both of these questions explored in his degree are used as fuel for Generations.

It’s easy to imagine an album by somebody who’s just pursued a Public Policy MSt to form in reams of political commentary, probably set to an acoustic guitar. However, Butler instead engages character portraits soundtracked by a broad range of thrilling sonics. Opener “Outta Here” is shrouded by a monstrous bass that lurks beneath the depths of the instrumentation before bursting out midway through. “Got enough things on my plate without you talking about my salvation,” he screams.

While the cage-rattling “Bethlehem” is mania underpinned by a thrashing guitar and bubbling synths that help lift the track to boiling point.While there’s no current world leaders namechecked or any on-the-nose political commentary across the LP, the angst of its contents is instantly tangible, backed by the intellect of somebody who’s spent the past few years studying the ins and outs of government processes. A perfect combination, you could say.

This fuel was partly discovered through Butler reconnecting with the music that defined his teenage years: namely Bjork, The Clash and Eurythmics. While these influences certainly slip into frame across Generations, they were paired with something of an unlikely muse: “I got into this habit of listening to every single song on the Spotify Top 50 every six weeks,” Butler explains. “So many of them are horrible, terrifying and just awful but there’s something inspiring about how god damn avant garde the shittiest pop music is now. Just completely divorced from any sense of reality - it’s just layers upon layers upon layers - it’s amazing. It’s like Marcel Duchamp making a pop hit every single song.”

We turn from current music to current events. Navigating Covid-19 with his wife and three kids in their home of Brooklyn, a majority of 2020 has been caught up in family time for Butler. “The summer’s been easier because everybody’s outside, whereas in spring it was like ‘it’s family time because we have to lock our doors as there's a plague outside.’” While being surrounded by the trappings of lockdown since his second solo album Generations was completed in March, the album itself wriggles with the spirit of live instrumentation, which at this point seems like some sort of relic from a bygone era."I think eventually rediscovering this album back in the live setting would be amazing - we’re a really great live band, it’s a shame to not be in front of people."

The source of this energy can be traced back to the way the songs came together; they were forged and finessed at a series of shows in the early stages of the project. “It just raises the stakes. You can tell how good or how dumb a lyric is when you sing it in front of a hundred people,” he reflects. “It’s like ‘are you embarrassed because what you’re saying is true?’ or ‘is it just embarrassing?’ It’s a good refiner for that stuff. I think eventually rediscovering this album back in the live setting would be amazing - we’re a really great live band, it’s a shame to not be in front of people.”

Like his day job in Arcade Fire, Butler’s solo live group is something of a family affair - both his wife and sister-in-law feature in the band, alongside Broadway's West Side Story star, and the student of the legendary Fela Kuti drummer, Tony Allen. Together this eclectic mix of musicians conjures an infectious spirit through the raw combination of thundering synths and pedal-to-the-metal instrumentation; an apt concoction indeed for lyrics that are attempting to unhatch the bamboozling questions that surround our current times.

The timing for Butler’s decision to study Public Policy couldn’t have been more perfect, with his course starting in the Fall of 2016. “I was at Harvard for the election which was a really bizarre time to be in a government school, but it was great to be in a space for unpacking questions like ‘my god, how did we get here?!’” he reflects, with a note of mockery in the bright voice.

“I had a course taught by a professor named Leah Wright Rigueur. The class was essentially on race in America but with an eye towards policy. The class explored what was going to happen in terms of race under the next president. The second to last week was about Hilary Clinton and the last week was about Donald Trump. We read riot reports - Ferguson in 2015, Baltimore in 2016, the Detroit uprisings in the ‘60s and Chicago in 1919 - it's certainly helping me understand the last 5 years, you know. Just to be in that context was very lucky.”

As we’ve seen with statues being toppled, privileges being checked and lyrics of national anthems being interrogated in recent months, history is a complex, labyrinthine subject to navigate requiring both ruthless self-scrutiny and a commitment to the long-haul in order to correct things. The concept of Generations shoots from the same hip employing character portraits to engage in the broader picture.

The writing, at times, is beamed from a place of disconnect (“had enough of bad news / had enough of your generation”), from a place of conscious disengagement (“I’m not talking because I don’t feel like lying / if you stay silent you can walk on in silence”) and from a place of honest self-assessment (“I was born rich / three quarters protestant / connections at Harvard and a wonderful work ethic”).

“I’m rooted in history to a fault,” he says. “My great grandfather was the last son of a Mormon pioneer who’d gone West after being kicked out of America by mob violence. He wanted to be a musician which was crazy - he got 6 months in a conservatory in Chicago before his first child was born. He always felt like he could have been a genius, he could of been writing operas but he was teaching music in like tiny western towns and he had all these kids and he made them be a family band and they were driving around the American west before there were roads in the deserts - literally just driving through the desert! He would go to these small towns and get arrested for trying to skip bills and just live this wild existence.”

Butler’s grandma, meanwhile, was just a child at this point. She went on to become a jazz singer with her sisters and married the guitar player Alvino Rey. “The fact that me and my brother are musicians is no coincidence,” he smiles. “It’s not like I decided to be a musician, it’s down to decisions that were made at the end of the 19th century that have very clearly impacted where I am today. The musical side of it is very beautiful, it is super uncomplicated and a total joy to have a tradition of music in our family...but also in the American context - which is the only context I know - it's also these very thorny inheritances from the 19th century and beyond that influence why my life is like it is.

“For me it’s like, ‘I made my money because my grandpa was a small business owner’ or ‘my grandpa was a boat builder and got a pretty good contract in WW2 and was able to send his kids to college’. Both of which are so unpoetic and unromantic but it is an important thing to talk about, that's a personal political thing to talk about; there's horrifying and beautiful aspects there.”

The lament of “I’m gonna die in a hospital surrounded by strangers who keep saying they’re my kids” on “Not Gonna Die” could well be croaked by somebody on the tail end of a life lived on the American Dream. At times, Butler plays the characters off against each other, like on “Surrender,” which chronicles two flawed characters going back and forth played by Butler’s lead vocals and his female backing singers that undermine his memory; “I remember we were walking” is cut up with the shrug of “I dunno” and “maybe so”. “I found having the backing voices there gave me something to play with,” he explains. “Either something threatening to the main character or something affirming to the main character, just providing another point of view.”

Elsewhere, “I Don’t Know What I Don’t Know” explores the feeling of being unsuitably equipped to unravel the complexities that surrounds us day-to-day. “The basic emotion of that song is very much ‘I don’t know what I can do’ which is an emotion we all have,” he ponders. “There’s also the notion that follows that, like ‘maybe don’t even tell me what to do because it’s going to be too overwhelming to even do anything’.”

Some of these portraits materialised in the aftershows Butler began hosting while on Arcade Fire’s Everything Now tour which found him instigating conversations and talks by local councilman, politicians and activists on local issues. “On some of the good nights of the aftershow town halls, you’d feel that switch away from despair and into action,” he says smiling. “The step between despair and action is possible, that sentiment isn’t spelled out lyrically on the record but it’s definitely there spiritually.”

“I learned anew what a treasure it is to have people in a room. Getting humans in a room can be absurd. And we were having from 5,000 to 15,000 people in a room every night, most of them local. I’m very comfortable with art for art’s sake; I think art is super important and it’s great people can like music that's not political. It was sort of like ‘well we’re here and I know a lot of you are thinking about the world and you’re thinking about what a shit show everything is. You want to know what we can do and I also want to know what we can do!’ So I put on these after shows.”"The dream lineup would be to have a local activist and a local politician talking about a local issue because that’s the easiest way to make concrete change."

Butler would find a suitable location near the Arcade Fire gig through venue owners who were often connected to the local music and comedy scenes to host these events. “The dream lineup would be to have a local activist and a local politician talking about a local issue because that’s the easiest way to make concrete change. Arguably, the most important way is through the city council and state government. The New York state government is in Albany, New York. The shit that happens in Albany is all super important so I wanted to highlight that and equip people with some concrete levers to pull.

“In Tampa we had people who were organizing against felon disenfranchisement, like if you’ve been convicted of a felon you couldn’t vote in Florida, and something absurd like 22% of black men in Florida couldn’t vote and there were people organising to change that - this was in 2018 - and you could just see people being like ‘holy shit, I didn't even know this was happening!’

“These were not topics I’m an expert in - it’s like these are things that are happening. The thought was trying to engage, I’m sad to not be doing something similar this Fall, I mean what a time it would have been to go around America.”

Understandably the looming 2020 election is on Butler’s radar. “It doesn't feel good,” he sighs. “I’ve never had any ability to predict, like 2 weeks from now the world could be completely different from what it is today. There was always a one-in-a-billion chance of the apocalypse and now it's like a one-in-a-million chance which is a thousand times more likely but also unlikely. It’s going to be a real slog in the next couple of years on a policy side, like getting to a place where people don’t die for stupid reasons, I’m not even talking about the coronavirus necessarily just like policy in general. Who knows, it could be great but it seems like it's going to be a slog.”

There’s a moment on the closing track “Fine”, a stream-of-consciousness, Randy Newman-style saloon waltz, where Butler hits the nail on the head. “George [Washington], he turned to camera 3, he looked right at me and said...I know that freedom falters when it’s built with human hands”. It’s one of the many lyrical gems that surface throughout the record but one that chimes with an undeniable truth. It’s the same eloquence that breaks through as he touches on the broad ranging subjects in our conversation, always with a bright cadence despite the gloom that hangs over some of the topics.

The live show is without a doubt Arcade Fire’s bread and butter. While Butler questions how realistic the notion of getting people in packed rooms in the near future is, he reveals the group are making movements on LP6. “Arcade Fire is constantly thinking about things and demoing, it's hard to work across the internet but at some point we’ll get together. It probably won’t be much longer than our usual album cycle,” he says.

You only have to pick out one random Arcade Fire performance on YouTube to see Butler’s innate passion bursting out, whether it’s early performances that found him and Richard Reed Parry adorning motorbike helmets annihilating each other with drumsticks to the 1-2-3 beat of “Neighbourhood #2 (Laika)” or the roaring “woah-ohs” that ascend in the anthem of “Wake Up” every night on tour. It’s an energy that burns bright throughout our conversation and across Generations.

https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/interviews/arcade-fires-will-butler-new-solo-record-generations

#Arcade Fire #generations #will butler #interview #hq

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halothenthehorns · 3 years

Text

All in the Family

Chapter 57: Hermione's Secret

Waking up was the worst part of it all. He'd grown up with this disease that took over every aspect of his life, so he knew with painful clarity each step, all the way up to the black-out inducing painful transformation. The blur of memories the next morning often took days to sort through, the strong feelings much easier to recognize of what had been done. If he'd eaten anything, it was even more clear for some reason.

His stomach was empty, his mind lingered in a state of despair, and he was in fact ten times more sore than usual, so he knew something must have happened. Even with his friends there the past few times though, that moment of consciousness where he first opened his eyes into the unknown haunted him. Who had he hurt this time?

His eyes slowly flickered open, taking a shorter amount of time to adjust than others, but not understanding what he was seeing any better at first. There was no roof over his head, the Shrieking Shack could have been a million miles away, but that he was still on the Hogwarts grounds he knew without a second glance. He tried to sit up and groaned in protest, so instead let his head flop to the side miserably, and with growing worry as he found himself on the edge of the lake.

Like all corners of these grounds, it was a spot the Marauders knew well. They'd spent countless hours under the shade of that tree, hid many a things in that bush just over there. The waters were calm, and mirrored back without disturbance his blood-soaked visage, and Peter standing over him.

"You're bleeding," Remus slurred in concern, rolling his head gingerly to the other side as he saw his hand pressed to the side of his head, even though there was a thick stream going all the way down to his neck.

"And you need these," Peter had to use one hand to toss a pile of clothes onto his feet from the school bags that had still managed to follow them along all this time.

"When did you- how-?" He tried to string together while also quickly trying to dress and not fall back down from exhaustion all at the same time.

"Since we were in the dorms," Peter shrugged without really looking at him, and it wasn't to spare his decency Remus knew. "When Regulus' shoes didn't spontaneously come back I thought, well you lot were all worried about the werewolf part which, you know made sense, but I figured you'd appreciate-"

Remus' eyes were still tracking faster than his brain could keep up, he saw Sirius jogging towards them but didn't recognize the look on his face until he'd plowed into Peter, sending him sprawling into the dirt.

"You stay the bloody hell away from him!" He snarled, voice so contorted it wouldn't surprise him if he still had a few of Padfoot's other traits.

"Sirius, wait," Remus tried to get to his feet, to cobble together what had happened while he tried to kill them all. He still remembered the confession, the sting of betrayal fueling Sirius was not alone, but unlike the hothead standing between them drawing his wand, he was trying to keep the two firmly separated in his head just like he had for Sirius this entire time. "It's not him, look at him-"

"Sirius, Remus, I couldn't, you know I couldn't have-"

Sirius wasn't listening, he shot a jet of blue light that made Peter squeal while he spat out a mouthful of dirt. "You left us for dead while you ran and saved your own stinking skin, again!"

Remus caught Sirius' wrist and finally stumbled to his own feet, but Sirius jerked his arm away easily, Remus' hand coming away still slick with blood. He fell back to his knees as much for his own instability as the disgust in himself.

He didn't know what Sirius would have done next, only escalation he was sure, until the only person who could have stopped this stepped in.

"Enough Sirius," James spoke quietly and calmly, he didn't have to do anything more than get Sirius' attention and Padfoot lowered his wand.

Sirius was still shaking all over, it was only with the greatest restraint alive he lowered his wand but still kept a daggering glare. James walked past him regardless, offering his hand to Remus, both wincing as he got to his feet. "Remus, are you alright?"

"Am I alright?" He slurred, painfully aware that was James' own blood soaking through his shirt. "What the bloody hell happened to you three?" It took agonizing seconds to put together, it wasn't computing in his head, why they were injured so badly. They'd learned their own healing charms, equal to Madam Pomfrey's in tandem with learning their Animagus practice for such an event, but none of them were bothering to apply them as they stood on guard waiting for someone else to make the next move.

Remus did, as he twisted on the spot and vomited.

"Oh, Moony-"

"Back off!"

He could barely hear the quarrel between Peter and Sirius erupting again or what James said this time, he felt a hand on his shoulder guiding him away from the puddle of sick, only just being blown away by the wind as his knees gave out and he stumbled into the bush and refused to get up again.

It was impossible to get the image out of his head, where the other four were. He knew he hadn't killed them, he'd know that, but what he'd done to his friends only one step below as far as he was concerned. He'd never hurt them so bad before, not even the very first time where he'd treated them like a free meal. They'd done so much better at defending themselves, only coming off with a few deep scratches and one bite mark across Prongs shoulder he'd shrugged off. It was only the four pinpricks of light across the lake that caught his attention and made them all realize they were surely about to have company that set them into motion.

"Nothing has to change!" Even in the roar of his own ears, Remus could hear the desperation in his voice as he tried to shuffle closer even though Sirius' hand tightened along his wand again. "We can, modify their memory's, make them forget-"

"Ha!" Sirius' sharp bark of laughter had a truly cruel, twisted edge to it the likes of which they'd never heard, not even last month when he'd laughed upon hearing what Snape had tried to do. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? We're not just going to forget though, even if we wanted to I doubt we could! The bloody magic we're tied up in doesn't seem likely to just let us zap a whole chunk of the story out of our heads! Stop trying to pretend you care about, about any of us!"

"Sirius, I couldn't! You guys, you know I couldn't do that-" His voice was rising.

"Tell me you wouldn't." James still hadn't shouted during all of this, he still spoke with the same soft, quiet demanding voice. "You keep saying you couldn't have done it Peter, but you haven't said you wouldn't do it. Tell me the thought's never crossed your mind, that you would never consider siding with Voldemort over us!"

Peter flinched, but if it was because James had used his name or the accusation he suddenly went silent for, they didn't know. Despite the shock of blood loss setting in, the void larger than Hogwarts itself growing between them, he could still see more than anything the shame in his tremoring lips, "I, I couldn't-" Then he clasped his hand to his mouth as he finally realized what had slipped out.

James shook his head, from Remus vantage he looked more disappointed than anything, though all he felt was stunned. "Just, just clear off for a while, yeah? Let us..." he didn't finish, he didn't have to. It was the exact same thing he'd said to Sirius a month ago, when they hadn't been sure if they'd ever speak to him again either.

Only by the now waning light of the full moon could Remus' eyes keep track of his seeming vanishment, as Wormtail likely set out to find the very edge of the perimeter they were trapped in. He hoped he stayed that way the duration of this madness they were traveling through, he didn't know how he was going to look him in the eye again.

Sirius could vividly remember the bloodlust he'd been described having, as he and Remus were about to kill their friend before Harry had stepped in. It had been the most vivid feeling they'd felt in Azkaban, before being quenched by Moony's abrupt appearance. Now he had to stand here and force himself not to go after him again as Padfoot could, to do what he wasn't quite sure, as he crouched down in front of Remus and began tending to his wounds.

"Don't," Remus tried to push his wand away. "Just-"

"Let him Remus," James whispered in the most world-weary voice that could ever exist. "Give him something to do before he tries blowing up the lake again."

The joke fell flat, the sentiment of reminiscing about their past adventures felt like a torture device, but Remus was too exhausted to bother protesting anymore as he slumped uncomfortably against the leaves regardless.

The three remained huddled around each other, not speaking the rest of the chapter, as Regulus' voice finally began echoing across the grounds for all to hear. It was a pathetic laugh James forced out as he heard the chapter title. Hermione's Secret of how she'd been getting to all of her classes had been the most trivial part to them this entire time. The revelation of what it was, a magic beyond them that manipulated time itself, would normally be idolized and drool worthy to the lot of them, but not now.

Another adventure for Harry took place, involving saving Buckbeak and Sirius, but his future son's life didn't seem any more apt for a good ending than his father's right now, as Sirius was forced once more to simply go on the run. As Sirius' parting words praised Harry for making his father proud, James agreed, but it was with a bitter aftertaste in his mouth for what had caused this mess. His friends, whom he loved like brothers, had turned on each other this night, and he didn't know how to reconcile with that.

He wondered abstractly how Evans felt about all of this, what she saw now. Still the arrogant toerag, who blindly trusted his friends and got her killed, left their son in this mess? It occurred to him as he looked around once more, he didn't care. He looked at Sirius, tending Moony's wounds with a tender expression no one but them would ever see, Remus' exhausted eyes sinking closed, a vulnerability he couldn't dare show to any but them. He longed to see Peter hovering over the pair, trying to make the two laugh about what their next prank was going to be while he, James, kept an eye on the grounds for Madam Pomfrey coming to retrieve Remus from the Shrieking Shack like every full moon, but he finally knew what he'd refused to accept since the start of this travesty. Their life was never going to be the same again.

#Harry Potter #fanfiction #reading the books #PoA #Remus Lupin #Wolfstar #Jilly #Sirius Black #James Potter #Lily Evans #Peter Pettigrew #Frank Longbottom #Alice Smith #Regulus Black

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needtherapy · 4 years

Text

soaring, carried aloft on the wind…continued 10

A story for Xichen and Mingjue, in another time and another place.

The Beifeng, the mighty empire of the north, invaded more than a year ago, moving inexorably south and east.

In order to buy peace, the chief of the Lan clan has given the Beifeng warlord a gift, his second oldest son in marriage. However, when Xichen finds out he makes a plan.

He, too, can give a gift to the Beifeng warlord, and he will not regret it.

Part 1: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 … HOME

It’s on AO3 here if that’s easier to read.

NOTES: This story starts out G but will eventually be E for Explicit.

For translations of the entirely fictitious Beifeng language, you’ll have to scroll to notes. I’m only going to translate something that’s not clear in the text. Sadly, there’s just not any other good way to do it on Tumblr!

Chapter 10

The next day dawns with perfect golden radiance, lighting a sky as blue as the eggs of the little brown catbirds that nest outside of the Cloud Recesses. It is too fine a day to spend inside, so instead of the hospital tents, Huaisang takes him and Qingyang to the fighting rings.

“Huaisang, what does ‘sent home without a horse’ mean?” Xichen asks quietly, unfortunately not quietly enough for Qingyang not to hear him. But other than a slight pause in her step, she continues walking, head up, seemingly unconcerned. He hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it. It sounded somehow ominous.

Huaisang laughs. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s what we say. He’s going back alone, with only enough supplies to get him home, and no pay. ‘Without a horse’ is a lot faster to say. Also, he doesn’t get to take a horse, so...” Huaisang shrugs amiably.

Xichen frowns. Huaisang may not want to dwell on the previous day’s ugliness, but Xichen thinks it’s a long way back over the mountains. He’s not sure if it concerns him or pleases him.

“Will he survive?”

It is Qingyang who answers with a scowl. “Undoubtedly. He’s a...gau. Gau marai. They always find their way.”

A painfully sharp rock, one of the many fascinating swear words Xichen’s Orera vocabulary is now in possession of. It’s a remarkably apt description.

Patting Xichen on the arm, Huaisang grins, but there’s iron behind it. “She’s right. He’ll be fine, Xichen. Even if it hadn’t been you and Qingyang, no one is allowed to harm anyone we’ve given sanctuary to. It would be a bad precedent. Don’t worry about it. It’s our way. Look!”

He points ahead of him and Xichen stares. It is not fighting rings. It is a fighting arena. Unlike the two-person circular spaces Xichen is used to training in, the Beifeng soldiers are sparring in twos and threes within a single, enormous rectangle. Fighters dance in a chaotic melee through the space, using each other as screens, blocking around other fighters, and Xichen can’t imagine how they keep track of their sparring partners, much less avoid killing each other. He wants to try it so badly his feet tap in solidarity, and he has to resist imitating some of the better combinations he sees.

“Yes, I am showing off a little, but there’s a purpose, I swear,” Huaisang admits, seeing Xichen’s wide-eyed interest. “After you healed anakau, and after yesterday, we realized it might also be helpful for you to understand more about how our soldiers fight and get wounds. Since we can’t very well send you into battle, this will have to do.”

Xichen listens to Qingyang and Huaisang’s explanations and translations of the different weapons being used: long double-edged jian (iraho), single-edged swords similar to the dao he knows (ipira), curved blades he’s never seen before (ipiramotou), even pairs of daggers (maheti). He tries to pay attention to Huaisang’s dissection of the Beifeng training regime, but he’s too engrossed in watching the fighters.

The Beifeng wield their magic differently in battle, far less often than his people but with far more devastating effects. Xichen is used to the power being a part of him, and it comes through in every swing and block, but these soldiers look like they are creating magic in order to use it. They only deploy it when they have enough time to force their opponent back or when they duck around another sparring pair. Still, when they crook their fingers or draw lines in the air to pull that strange darkness into themselves, the release can send the other person flying, force them down like a heavy weight on their back, or even freeze a charging soldier in their tracks. Now Xichen is even more glad he stopped Damias before he could use this magic against him.

“Would you like to spar?”

Huaisang’s question breaks through Xichen’s concentration, and he feels a pang of loss. After their mother died, the sparring ring is where Wangji and Xichen spent most of their time together, away from memories, away from other people, away from looming responsibility. His hands long to fight, but as childish as he knows it is, he misses his sword, and he misses his brother. He tries to evade the question.

“I do not have a sword.”

Huaisang claps Xichen on the back. “Zewu-Jun, I think we can find you a sword.”

He whistles sharply to a man standing at the edge of the arena, shouting a command when the man’s head turns. Within moments, he is standing in front of Xichen, offering him his choice of jian or dao. They are both perfectly decent weapons, and Xichen’s pointlessly stubborn resistance fades. He picks them both up, considering their weight, and chooses the jian—iraho, he thinks, practicing the word—as it seems the most familiar. He can’t help smiling at the comforting feel of a sword in his hand.

“I do not have an opponent either, Huasiang. Will you spar with me?” Xichen asks, guessing that no one else will be allowed to endanger him, and they have no way of knowing just how skilled he is.

“Alas, I am no soldier,” Huaisang demurs, and there’s a hint of mischief on his face that makes Xichen immediately wary. “Anakau...Elder Brother...will be your opponent. He has been...curious.”

Xichen’s eyes close, and he considers stabbing Huaisang. When he opens them, the arena is empty except for Mingjue.

“I do not think I like you,” Xichen hisses at Huaisang, but he swallows his agitation and ignores the traitorous laughter that follows him.

Xichen stands before a solemn-faced Mingjue, aware of the crowd of Beifeng soldiers milling around the edges of the arena. He debates the wisdom of this idea, but since it was obviously Mingjue and Huaisang’s idea, he doesn’t debate it for too long.

With a polite bow, Xichen raises the sword, leaving the scabbard on. It’s a show of bravado, as only a confident swordsman wouldn’t bother to unsheath his weapon, and Mingjue obviously understands the gesture. He lifts an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth tips up as he draws the ipira from its sheath on his hip—a beautiful sword, Xichen’s expert eye notes. The blade is an unusually dark metal and the handguard is set with a deep crimson stone. Hence the title, Xichen thinks.

Mingjue taps Xichen’s sword, giving him first strike as a master would give his student. For the first time since he’s been here, giddy laughter threatens to overcome Xichen. He’ll take the advantage and see if he can surprise Ipira’orhew Ikira.

Normally in a fight against an unfamiliar opponent, Xichen would spend the start of the bout in defense, watching the person’s feet, their eyes, their reactions. But one of his greatest strengths has always been his speed, and he decides to attack immediately, darting forward and sweeping from low to high in a series of swift opening slashes. Without giving Mingjue a chance to parry or riposte, he spins, forcing a burst of power through the sword and smashing it into the other man’s blade. The strength of Xichen’s magic slams the swords together and sends Mingjue skidding backward.

Xichen doesn’t know how fast or strong Mingjue is yet, but he knows he can not afford to let Mingjue recover or use his own magic, so he chases him, throwing the scabbard as he runs and aiming a hard, flat swing at Mingjue’s midsection, forcing him to block at an awkward angle. Mingjue lifts his sword—his strength is unbelievable—hauling Xichen’s strike up into the air. But Xichen lets the momentum of the sword continue in an arc, and he ducks low under Mingjue’s ipira, angling the point of the borrowed iraho up toward Mingjue’s neck.

It’s a reckless move for a friendly bout, and Xichen doesn’t know why he’s made it. Even against his brother, who is nearly his equal, he would never have risked injury like this. But as he suspected, Mingjue is even faster and more agile than he appears, flipping backward and avoiding the hit. Still, it’s given Xichen a chance to rethink his strategy, and the moment Mingjue is back on his feet, Xichen attacks, this time swiping down and to the side in a pattern of slashes, recognizing that Mingjue will have less power on a lift than he would for an overhead block. It is so good to move, to fight, to use his gift so fully, he feels like flying. He doesn’t even care if he wins.

Xichen looks at Mingjue’s handsome face, relaxed and confident, and changes his mind. He’s definitely going to try to win.

Mingjue sidesteps the last slash—Xichen chides himself for making one too many of the same attack—and finally brings the ipira down in a bone-jarring hack that Xichen only barely blocks. Instead of sliding away as Xichen would have done, Mingjue turns his blade, letting the swords drop between them. A smile flickers in the corners of his eyes as he leans in, forcing Xichen to hold the iraho steady with two hands and all the magic he can manage against the heavier ipira and the stronger man.

This close, Xichen can see every line of Mingjue’s expression, and the hint of a smile turns into a wide grin that inexplicably flusters Xichen. He drops the block and lets himself fall backward, bending at the waist and rolling to the side to absorb the momentum. The sudden release of tension on his ipira sets Mingjue off balance and he staggers forward, but he drops to his knees and spins, crooking his fingers as he moves and throwing up a dark shield between them, blocking Xichen’s jab. Without thinking, Xichen reaches out with his own magic, throwing a golden flame into the middle of the shield. It doesn’t break the magical barrier, but it sinks in slowly, like a stone into honey. Mingue recoils like it stings the tips of his fingers, and now it’s Xichen’s turn to grin at the look on Mingjue’s face.

Mingjue only falters for a fraction of a second before he plants his feet and shoots forward, jabbing the ipira at Xichen’s side, which Xichen easily brushes away, stepping forward into Mingjue’s guard space instead of moving away and using his longer reach to attack. Mingjue’s sword slides past Xichen, and with six quick steps—spin to the side, turn behind Mingjue’s back, swing the sword in a full circle—Xichen brings the edge of the iraho to Mingjue’s neck before he can pull the ipira back to block.

“Do you yield?” he asks, more out of habit and not expecting Mingjue to understand him.

Mingjue’s sword clatters to the ground and his increasingly familiar hands circle Xichen’s waist, slide into his hair, tip his head back, and not even bothering to avoid the sharp edge of the iraho at his neck, Mingjue kisses Xichen in front of an entire army.

Without even the semblance of resistance, Xichen lets him. Not only lets him, enthusiastically encourages him, dropping his sword to twine his arms around Mingjue’s neck, immersing himself in the heat radiating from his body and opening his mouth when Mingjue rubs his thumb against Xichen’s jaw. Mingjue bites Xichen’s lip with a sound between a growl and a moan that cuts Xichen more deeply than any blade, and he stops caring about the cheering crowd and his own embarrassment.

“Xichen?” Mingjue asks against his mouth, and Xichen doesn’t allow himself to think about why his name always sounds different coming from this man or second guess the answer he knows he’s about to make.

“Yes. Ani. Yes.”

Mingjue whistles a series of notes and grins at Xichen, who has no idea what he’s doing, but can’t resist smiling too. He loses track of time in Mingjue’s dark eyes, and only bounces back to reality when Mingjue lets go of him, just long enough to expertly fling himself onto the bare back of the black horse that has suddenly appeared. He extends a hand to Xichen, giving him one more chance to decline.

The part of him that realizes everyone will know where they’re going and, presumably, what they’ll be doing, sounds like one of his father’s lectures on virtue and morality. He stifles it. His father would have given Wangji to this man with no consideration for his feelings or his future. At least Xichen has chosen his fate, and he chooses it again, reaching up and letting Mingjue pull him onto the horse.

#the untamed #cql #mdzs #soaring au #nielan #lan xichen #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #luo qingyang #arranged marriage au #the untamed fic #cql fic #sexy sword fighting

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gerec · 4 years

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Fantasy AU - Charles/Jean

So I started a number of fics that I never finished in time for Rare Pairs Fest, which I’m sort of bummed about because I liked the prompts a lot and the ideas that were starting to form; I just couldn’t quite find the motivation to get them to completion ugh. But I’ve decided to post what I have written of these stories so far, in the hopes that sending it out into wide world might get the Muse excited about picking them up again lol.

Pairing: Jean/Charles, implied Erik/Charles, implied Erik/Raven Warning: Non graphic (non sexual) violence towards an underage character

@lachatblanche‘s Prompt: Charles and Jean have always had a very special relationship, ever since she was young. No matter what happened or who passed in and out of their lives, that bond has always remained strong and unbroken.

Nothing has ever come between them. And, if Jean has her way, nothing ever will ...

Note: The tenses are a little wonky here but it would all get cleaned up in a final edit if I wrote more. :D

-----------------------

Green, they say, is a fitting choice for a bride, representing harmony, and renewal, and the freshness of Spring.

Blue, they say, is an apt pick for the soon-to-be-Queen, to rule at the King’s side bathed in his colors.

Instead it’s the color red that Jean chooses for this long awaited day, the hue of blood, and of fire, and the sacrifices made along the way.

Jean understood that she had a different life once, with a mother and father who loved her, and who did their best to dote on their only daughter. Theirs was a poor but relatively happy existence, in a mud-caked village with a long forgotten name. She could still recall vague snippets of their life together on that farm; her father tending the sheep while her mother worked the loom, and days spent growing herbs and tomatoes in their tiny garden.

And then one day, her powers came, and everything she’d ever known changed in an instant.

“Those are good memories, Jean,” Charles had told her once, after she woke up in tears, crying desperately for parents who were long gone and buried. “It’s alright to hold on to them, and leave the other ones behind.”

But she would never let herself forget, even if she could; the weird angle of her mother’s broken neck, her limp body thrown clear of their overturned cart. Her father’s tear stained face as he cried out to the heavens, calling Jean ‘a wretched witch’ for killing his beloved wife. The villagers’ mocking words as they dragged her eight year old self, kicking and screaming to the pyre, tying her to the stake.

Her father turning away without a word, as they set the wood beneath her ablaze.

She had called out for him then, and also for God; for someone, please anyone, to save her from a horrific fate. Instead they all stood by and did nothing, too afraid to show a little girl either mercy or restraint. It was their hatred, and their terror that stoked the sleeping fire at her core, unleashing the devastation that would engulf everything in its wake.

They found her alone and unharmed on top of the pyre, and the entire village around her reduced to nothing but ashes.

It was his face that she saw when she first opened her eyes, and his brilliant mind that reached out to welcome her in. He looked upon Jean with tender kindness and care, without the judgement of those who had known her all her young life. The relief she felt brought fresh tears to her eyes, for no one – not even her own parents – ever understood what she was, or loved her as he did without fear or reservation.

Don’t be afraid, Jean, he said in her head, as strong arms cradled her gently against his breastplate. I’ve got you now, darling girl, and I promise you’ll be safe. No one will ever hurt you again, I swear it.

Please, she answered, and it was so easy talking this way, without the wasteful inaccuracy of the spoken word. Can I go with you, wherever you live? They don’t want me here…and my father…

Can’t hurt you anymore, he said, his inner voice rough with feeling, brimming with such hurt and anger for the evils of men. She knew that his name was Charles, and he was searching for more people like them, with special gifts that were unappreciated, and often misunderstood. I would have you stay with me as long as you wish, he whispered in her head. Be my family, Jean, and I’ll be there for you, always.

I’ll stay with you forever, Jean vowed, with every fiber of her being. I’ll always be by your side.

She finds him awake in his room late into the night, bottles tipped over on the table and strewn carelessly on the floor. He’s been crying, his eyes rimmed red and shot through with blood, body huddled in a ball on his four poster bed. Jean wants to weep too, seeing him suffer like this, watching him crumble under the weight of such utter betrayal.

It’s a relief that he doesn’t realize the truth of it; that it was three people and not two, that has hurt and deceived him.

“How could this have happened?” Charles asks, eyeing the bottle in his hand, speaking not to Jean but to the quiet of his half empty quarters. “Why didn’t I see it when it was right in front of me?”

Once, he would have seen clearly through Jean’s calm exterior, plucking the gnawing guilt from her thoughts as easily as ripe fruit from a tree. He would see both the conflict and the shame, and catch the barest hint of remorse, hidden behind a wall of steadfast determination. He would see the motive behind all of Jean’s lies and machinations, and know that she did it for him; to protect him from those who would do him the most harm.

“Shh,” Jean says instead, folding him tenderly into her arms, a reversal of roles to the many nights he held her close and chased away the bad dreams. “It wasn’t your fault, Charles. Never yours.”

“I just can’t believe—” He shudders as Jean rubs his back soothingly, resting his head in the crook of her neck. “My sister…and Erik…how could they, Jean? Why?”

His mind is a maelstrom of confusion and pain, his shields non-existent – safe in the presence of the only one left he can trust. There are others of course, like Hank and Ororo, and even the Summers brothers Alex and Scott; but none he loves as he’s always loved Jean, who shares both his vision for peace and his formidable power.

“I have no answer for you,” she says, because she knows he doesn’t truly want one, no matter his words. “And certainly none that will make things right.” She strokes his hair from his forehead and kisses him gently, and lays them both carefully onto the bed. “But you still have me, Charles, and I swear to you – I’ll never leave you, not now. Not ever.”

He smiles, and brushes her cheek with his fingers, and does not stop when she takes his hand and presses it against her breast.

“You’re so very beautiful, my darling girl,” he murmurs, stroking her long auburn hair, eyes filled with an ocean of unearned grief and pain. “We mustn’t. It’s not right,” he adds, after Jean kisses him, slowly, gently, coaxing his mouth open as he lies helpless in her embrace.

But Charles is drunk, and Jean is a girl no longer, and everything that happens next is as inevitable as the sunrise.

#gerec writes #charles/jean #fantasy au #historical au #the imagery spoke to me #of tiny baby!Jean tied to the stake #rare pairs #unfinished #ficlet

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gingermcl · 4 years

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What is a light worker?

If you’re familiar the online spiritual world you’ve probably seen the term lightworker for it has been increasingly used in recent years. The term lightworker was first coined by author and teacher Michael Mirdad in the early 80s. Later, in 1997, Doreen Virtue released the book The Lightworkers Way.

The simplest way to describe lightworkers would be as ones who feel an enormous pull towards helping others. Lightworkers are also called crystal, rainbow, or indigo children, Earth angels, and starseeds. These spiritual beings volunteer to maintain a high frequency for the Earth and commit to serving humanity. There are separate definitions for each of the types of lightworkers listed here and I will discuss. Each type is slightly different. Some people that use these labels do not like being called lightworkers yet may be fine with star seed. This kind of stuff is silly and why I don’t like the use of labels. I don’t like the idea of putting myself in a defined box.

I prefer an umbrella term like lightworker to the specialized terms that divide us further. I see labels as are guidelines and not hard fast rules. Too many individuals see the world as black and white when things are actually typically a shade of gray. At the end of the day each situation and each person is fully unique. This is a good thing and we must learn tolerance. Earth is big enough for all of us to live here together peacefully.Lightworkers are the people that incarnated here to change the world. It is time to act.

Lightworkers often feel greater kindness and compassion towards others from birth – chances are that they’ve helped several animals and other living beings in distress from a very young age. Lightworkers tend to be sensitive and empathetic. Hence they feel sadness and anguish for the misery that dwells in the world. They do best in professions wherein their empathetic nature can be used to assist those in need, like nursing, therapy, rehabilitation, healing, care-giving, veterinary services, etc.

Lightworkers are intuitive and driven by their internal guidance. They can often perceive the emotions and needs of other living beings, which enables them direct their healing powers towards those who need help. They believe in carrying out coordinated efforts to dispel or chase away negative energies and consciousness by using their positive energies and healing powers.

Not all lightworkers realize the nature of their spiritual calling right away. It often takes some intuitive guidance – as well as going through the process of self-realization and discovery – to realize that their mission on Earth is to make a positive impact in whichever way they can. Given that they're faced with the same limitations and obstacles as other mortal beings, this manner of spiritual awakening and tuning into their inner light can sometimes take years for a lightworker. Odds are good the lightworker has always felt different from his or her peers.

If you’ve read about lightworkers and wondered if you could be one, you can only find the answer through introspection. Lightworkers can possess strengths and core abilities in one or more areas of service. Tuning into your inner self will help you understand what your unique gifts are and the kind of lightworker you may be.

The following types may help someone identify where their inner calling lies:

Spiritual guides and healers

Lightworkers who are driven towards serving living beings and the Earth through healing using mental, physical, emotional or spiritual approaches fall under this category. They are often highly perceptive of feelings and emotions in others, and characteristically can alleviate pain and hurt within a few minutes of time spent with people or animals.

Their sensitivity towards pain could often render them fatigued or overwhelmed, and it takes some conscious moderation to keep this tendency in check. Professions such as doctor, nurse, or reiki practitioner would fall under this category.

Psychics and seers

Using their elevated awareness and intuitive powers, one can develop psychic sights to be able to see beyond the material form and illusion. Many lightworkers can predict future events and tend to concentrate their efforts on positive outcomes, with the end goal of world peace and harmony.

Gridworking and gatekeeping

A grid here refers to a unit that connects all awakened hearts and sacred sites on Earth using lay lines. Gridworkers and gatekeepers are advanced lightworkers who specialize in clearing work, their main role being opening of inter-dimensional grid lines to let light and love flow through. Gatekeepers encourage peace, kindness, positive energy, and fairness for all living beings.

Manifestors

Also known as divine blueprint creators, manifestors are a type of lightworker that are expert at channeling their intrinsic energy to attract what they want. Their mission to make the world a better and peaceful place enables them to manifest awakened collective consciousness for humanity.

Guides and messengers

Some lightworkers possess a unique flair for spreading important messages to the world. They concentrate their efforts in areas where their inner light and magnetic presence can make greatest impact on others by communicating messages of love, peace, spiritual awakening and enlightenment.

Motivational speakers, bloggers, artists, teachers, writers, life-coaches; those who strive to serve humanity through their words, actions or work can be categorized as messengers.

Transmuters

Also known as neutralizers, these lightworkers specialize in dispelling negativity, thus restoring neutrality and balance back into the world. Neutralizers may work in favor of the entire collective consciousness, or even help people release or heal negative karma from their ancestral lines.

Dreamers and travelers

These lightworkers can never accept the status-quo, and always strive for new solutions and adventure. They learn to push limitations and manifest light during dreamwork, creating boundless capacity for change along multiple dimensions of the Earth.

Adventurers and ascension guides

Adventurers are always on the lookout for newer possibilities, driven by belief that better things await if one just looks beyond the obvious. Along with ascension guides, they work towards creating higher inter-dimensional possibilities and broadening mankind’s vision for future.

You can be more than one of these. I myself identify with transmutor, guide and messenger, dreamer and traveler, healer, and occasionally a manifestor. I identify most with transmutor and guide and messenger.

The specific kinds of light workers I said I would address earlier are indigo children, rainbow children, Earth Angel, Starseed, and I’m going to add in crystal children. To my knowledge these are the most common, if not only, specific kinds of light workers. They’re the only ones that I know of and the ones that I found information easily about.

Earth angel

Earth angels want to align with pure, loving energy, and by doing so, help others to find their highest self in this lifetime. They want to transcend the problems and heartache, and live in true harmony with the Divine. They have good intentions for themselves and the planet, but often get frustrated with our current state of affairs.

Starseeds

StarSeeds is the umbrella name for a group of people who are said to have been sent here from all areas of the universe to help the Earth and humanity. They are reported to possess psychic, spiritual, and other extrasensory abilities, and are bringers of peace, topplers of corrupt systems, and shifters of dimensional consciousness, now and in the future. Some feel these children have come here on special assignment to assist in this rebirth into a higher dimensional Earth.

Starseed children may be divided into the three categories of indigo, crystal, and rainbow individuals. Star children have chosen specific family and/or parents who will help them develop their natural abilities and heal ancestral lines.

Common traits of starseeds are said to include clairvoyance, claircognizance, clairaudience, clairsentience, the propensity to trip electricity, manipulate the environment with the mind, telepathy, high intuition, heal with energy, detect danger, travel out of the body, act as channelers, and the ability to download information from other planets. Also listed as traits are talents that a great many would still be resistant to believe, including the ability to levitate and teleport.

Indigo children

Indigos get the name from their indigo colored aura. Indigo children began appearing en masse in the 1980s. The indigo aura hadn’t ever been seen before.

Indigo children share traits that include a strong calling to make the world a better place, an innate knowledge of better ways to do things. They are natural “system busters” with a non-responsive attitude toward controlling and/or authority figures, a feeling of natural superiority, and an innate love for nature, plants, and animals. Indigo children are naturally intuitive, have a desire for a fair and just world, stand up (maybe alone) for what they believe in, have an interest in living a life of meaning instead of just making money, are sensitive in both a physical and emotional sense, and regularly have unusual things happen to and around them.

Other Indigo traits have been described as having a high IQ, self-confidence, resistance to authority, “old soul” qualities, sensitivity to chemicals and fluorescent lights, and disruptive tendencies.

Crystal children

Crystal children are another category of human beings known to follow their hearts as idealists in a world limited and troubled by materialists. This means that crystal children are apt to flow with consciousness, rather than forcing their way through life and hardships in search of material success. Their ultimate goal seems to be firmly established in making the world a better place. Like Indigo children, crystal children also exude an “old soul” persona.

Crystal children are the offspring of indigos and began to incarnate in greater numbers at the turn of this century. They commonly have a penetrating gaze, sometimes possess usual-colored and often round eyes; are sensitive, both mentally and physically; suffer from allergies and sensitivities caused by environmental factors; are spontaneous, and sometimes act without thinking through the consequences; love to climb; have a good sense of balance; are natural huggers (even with people they only just met); have no awareness of personal boundaries because they feel connected to all of humankind and, indeed, all living things; are healers and psychics; love music and singing, but hate loud noise; aren’t comfortable in noisy, over-crowded places and suffer from sensory overload; are badly affected by negative events, both in their personal sphere and worldwide; exude love for their family, pets and their friends; and are autodidacts — preferring to teach themselves what they want to learn (rather than what they’re told to focus on).

They appear to function as a group consciousness rather than as individuals and live by a law of oneness. They are advocates for love and peace on this planet” and “are mostly born with access to psychic gifts such as clairvoyance or healing.

Rainbow children

The rainbow children are the third generation of special children that have come to help humanity evolve. The Rainbow children are generally born in the year 2000 and above. The few Rainbow children that are here today are born from early Crystal scouts that were born in the 1980’s. As the name implies, the Rainbow children come to earth with a rainbow aura.

The Rainbow children bring joy and harmony to their families. Unlike the Indigo and Crystal children, the Rainbow child is born to smile, which is accompanied by their huge hearts that are full of forgiveness. The Rainbow child generally recovers from the state of negative emotion quickly. This is also an important key that they hold, emotional mastery. Rainbow children are psychic and have the ability to read people’s feelings. They have strong wills and strong personalities. Their gifts do not stop there. They are known to be natural healers and instant manifesters. It is said that whatever they need or desire they can instantly manifest. The Rainbow children are thought to be the builders of the New World, using Divine will.

I’m an indigo, my son an indigo, and my youngest a rainbow. (Her dad is a crystal and I’m an indigo)

If you feel that you are a light worker you should learn how to maintain the highest frequency you can, protect yourself from negative energies in this world, and work to learn and use whichever type of light work you identify with the most. The world at times feels as if it is being consumed by negativity and we lightworkers need to help uplift the consciousness.

I prefer to say those of us with heart centered consciousness is who light workers truly are. It does seem as if the star seeds are the ones that have woken up. I feel if this video applies to you will probably be drawn to watch it and whatever label you choose doesn’t matter. We are in need of uniting and it’s more important that we live our best life to help the earth and humanity as a whole.

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hellishvu · 5 years

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The Ghostly Figure who Fixed a Broken Heart

— i’ve been hearing too much kckskch halsey. this is rlly cute i find it, i finally found different words besides as, thank god! improvement on my vocabulary :) happy pride month everyone!

☆彡 where yoongi had a recent breakup and you make sure he knows he’s worth it by writing cute compliments.

“Love sucks. Life sucks. I suck. He sucks especially.” Yoongi complains to his friend Jimin. You hovering over his shoulder sighing as the living human you have a crush on just got his heart dump… well more stomped on.

“Yoongi, you don’t suck. You deserve so much better. If you want to you can stay with me if you get lonely.” Jimin offers to show that he cares deeply for Yoongi with a newly broken heart.

“It’s fine Jimin, I don’t feel lonely here.” Yoongi smiles as you float around him doing circles around the living room.

“He’s talking about me!” You cheer as you float towards him caressing his cheek as Yoongi shivers, the touch sending chills down his spine.

“Well I have to go, I got work in an hour but shoot me a text if you need anything.” Jimin waved goodbye as Yoongi closed the door sighing having his alone time.

Yoongi tried to move on, many times, you saw all of them but being cheated on took a hit on his confidence. You always knew you could treat him better well if you were alive. Yoongi decided to do something productive to hide his unstable mindset. A whiteboard to help him write what he has to do, which considerably it usually empty with 2 months ago to do lists were written.

“I’m unlovable. I feel unwanted.” Yoongi presses his head on the desk filled with empty pages and many more scribbles.

You were frustrated as you floated towards the whiteboard in front of him, scrambling to get the marker attached to the whiteboard. Yoongi looks up hearing the marker squeak. Yoongi widens his eyes as he saw words being written by a non-existence figure.

“You’re worth the entire world Yoongi.”

“Am I high? God damn Jimin and his brownies.” Yoongi scratched his head as you yelled at him for not even giving your sentence a second thought.

“Oh come on Yoongi!”

“Yoongi, your eyes hold the galaxy. You don’t deserve to be dimmed by someone.”

“Okay, that was cute. Thank you consciousness.” Yoongi says as he thinks his head is playing games with him instead of a ghost.

“It’s me! The presence you’ve been feeling for the past year.” You floated back to the whiteboard in frustration as you slammed the eraser on the whiteboard smudging the black ink till it disappeared.

Yoongi thought it was time to go to bed once he “saw” writing on the whiteboard. Yoongi got up and quickly changed to his pajamas as you turned away to give him his privacy even though he doesn’t even know your existence. You saw Yoongi snuggle in bed as he fell asleep about a second he hit the bed. Yoongi little snores as you turned off the lamp he had left on, pulling the curtains open to let the moonlight in just how Yoongi loved. You take hints and if only you weren’t dead you would give everything to him.

You laid down next to Yoongi, not even covering yourself in a blanket, not like you could if you wanted to. You turned your head as you saw Yoongi slightly opened mouth as the drool rolled down his mouth causing you to chuckle. You waited till morning leaving another note on his whiteboard.

“Have a nice day, Yoongi. Don’t be too hard on yourself. - Ghost of Apt 108”

You smile as Yoongi rubs his eyes still trying to see if it was his head. Yoongi saw the marker left on his dresser and not at his desk like last night. Yoongi tried to pay no mind to it, as he packed up for a class he had later.

You waited for him to come as hours gone by, Yoongi opened the door. His eyebags obviously showing as he sat down putting microwave top ramen in as he tried not to fall asleep on his couch.

Yoongi rubbed his eyes as he groaned out, pulling out the large textbook that he paid way too much. Yoongi pulled a pencil as you watched him, guessing he would pass out sometime soon. Minutes later you heard snores as you looked over seeing Yoongi fell asleep, his face engulfed into his book. You pulled his hair due to the very uncomfortable way he fell asleep.

“Yoongi wake up.” You touched his spine sending a chill sending him to wake up hearing the beating of the microwave the scent of ramen filling the apartment. Yoongi sat back down slumped in the couch making himself continue taking notes of the well boring subject.

You floated watching the tv and peeking looks at Yoongi still focusing on his notes till you heard a soft hit in the sofa. Yoongi had fallen asleep once again, you decided it was best not to wake up the person that is in need of sleep. You floated up seeing his unfinished notes, the smeared highlighter on his notes.

You pulled a blanket from his bedroom resting it on him before slowly taking his textbook from his laying body and his notes continuing to take the unfinished notes. Yoongi groaned as he turned his body towards the sofa; causing a small heart attack for you

Yoongi woke up to the tv still on showing George Lopez meaning it as still around 4 am, the sleepy baby yawned as he looked down to see the dried up ramen and the notes were... finished?

“Okay, who’s doing this?” Yoongi called out causing you snapped out of fantasy world as he’s finally accepting something is happening and not just his own brain fucking with him.

“I would say but too bad you can’t see me.” You said wanting to prove as you floated up to him. Yoongi stepping back.

“I can see you. Wait. I can see you!” Yoongi screamed making you widen eyes as you floated all around in the room panicking.

“That’s all it took?! For you to see me?” You’ve been trying for this guy to see you for months and saying one sentence makes it happen like magic.

“The whiteboard guy.” Yoongi whispers as he grabbed the whiteboard from the wall seeing it was loosely stuck to the wall.

“You’re the one that did this!” Yoongi pointed at the cute smile face you left for him that day and a compliment about his pretty eyelashes.

“Oh god, it’s like my crush found my diary.”

“Look I can explain.”

“Oh yes explain how a ghost is in love with me.”

“Okay rude! Didn’t need to share my secret with the world.”

“I am your world like you wrote that on-”

“Okay! I get it! Let me die in peace.” You interrupted him mid-sentence making Yoongi sit down snickering like he’s gone insane.

“You’re already dead.”

“I’ve been here since your boyfriend, now ex but I didn’t know I could use or touch things. I was just in the background.”

“Wait so did you know?”

“What?”

“That he cheated on me, we lived together. He must’ve brought someone home while I was stuck at the hospital.”

“He did.”

“So you decided to do nothing to tell me? Didn’t write on the little whiteboard or give me some type of sign?!”

“Yoongi believe me, I couldn’t. I didn’t know I could, you know I would have told you if I could.”

“Do I really know you?” Yoongi grumbled standing up sharply walking towards the bedroom door slamming screaming a “fuck you” to your poor heart.

Days went by, most of them spent trying to have a conversation with him to explain yourself. You would float in front of him trying to do anything a hello could work, but all it lead to was a “fuck off” and he went straight to his bedroom with his cup of coffee at 12 am in the morning.

Yoongi closed his eyes, the memories of his ex-relationship. He should replace him, he should be over him. He cheated on him for fuck sake, when all he did was care for him and almost gave him everything. When he asked you if he was cheating while he was in a hospital, he didn’t want to know. He was angry and furious with the brought up memories. It only ripped his heart out more learning when he was hurt, his ex was fucking someone.

“Yoongi. You don’t have to talk, I did your homework also. He didn’t stay, and I know he hurt you really bad but you’re face to face with someone new. I am here, and if you don’t acknowledge me I will end up going away. It’s now or never Yoongi.” You said floating towards him as he was looking out of the window from his bedside not realizing the situation.

“Yoongi I am disappearing.” You said, Yoongi glancing at your face bringing up your arm seeing parts of your arm vanishing slowly.

“Tell me I’m worth it. Lie to me I don’t care say it.”

“You’re worth every star in the universe. I wouldn’t lie to you.” You said hearing sniffles from Yoongi seeing his eyes glossy raising his head seeing your eyes that he wished were alive. That you could hold him, let him cry on your shoulder to say it will be okay that he could call you his and vice versa.

#bts #bts x male reader #kpop x male reader #bts suga #bts yoongi #fluff #tint of angst

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tessatechaitea · 4 years

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Justice Society of America #3

In this issue: old guys versus monkey monsters! I don't know how this issue didn't win a Harvey.

This comic book might have won a Harvey. What am I? Wikipedia? An adult capable of doing research? No, I'm a lazy, cynical, piece of shit who purports to be a comic book critic but who really just uses the medium as a confessional. And most of my confessions are lies to make me sound cooler than I really am! Which is still pretty cool, actually. This issue begins with an old guy stowing away on an Ultragen train car while suffering from sever cramps or possibly even a heart attack.

Is this a super hero comic book or an Alfred Hitchcock movie?

Now that I'm an older man (not old! Just older!), I don't fetishize old men like I did when I was five. But I'm guessing, at 21, I still had a bit of that zest for old man content. What else could drive me to purchase ten issues of this comic book about old men whose glory days are long past but they keep trying to relive them as their wives sit at home rolling their eyes? The stranger stumbles into Doctor Mid-Nite's offices. I guess he's named that because his medical practice stays open all night? The man has something wrong with his stomach. Judging by the strange colored splotches all over his clothing, I'd say he ate too much chili. Or he's bleeding out from a gut shot. Both are probably pretty painful but I can only speak for one. You'd be surprised which one. No you wouldn't. I was just trying to sound cool again. The mystery man from the end of the last issue was Johnny Quick and, judging by how much I'm now yawning and how my head keeps nodding forward, I'd like to apologize for claiming that revealing his identity would have been more exciting and sold more of the third issue. Len was right to conceal his identity. While the Justice Society were keeping Ragnarok from happening, Johnny Quick got a gig endorsing nutritional supplements on late night television infomercials. He was laughed at by scientists when he tried to figure out why his nonsense formula made him so fast. They were all, "You know that's idiotic, right? We can do actual science tests to find out why you're fast. It's probably the Meta(l)gene, you know?" But Johnny didn't want to hear their scientific mumbo-jumbo (which might make him an ignorant jerk in our world but he lives in the comic book world where science can't explain everything and I sometimes why it even bothers to try to explain anything. I mean, X-ray vision? The power of flight? Helmets that grant magic powers by possessing the wearer with an ancient Great Old One of Order? Batman visiting heaven and Constantine visiting Hell? It's like an Anti-Vaxxer's dream reality come true). Instead, Johnny decided to visit a bunch of religious kooks who deal in utter nonsense every day. Unlike the scientists who needed proof and evidence of how his power worked, they were happy to say things like, "Oh, yeah! Your formula is a magic mantra that focuses your chi!" and "It's a message from God to grant you magic speed powers for being such a morally upstanding human being!" and "What exactly do you want to hear and how much will you pay me to hear it?" So after realizing that his super power came from believing in himself, Johnny Quick decided to tell everybody else to believe in themselves too! Did he invent The Secret? Because, as a narcissist, I understand why The Secret is so compelling! Doesn't everybody want to believe that they themselves are the reason all the best things happen to them and also want to believe that everybody who is poor or sick or devastated by random tragedy did it to themselves like big dumb suckers who just weren't strong enough to believe in themselves?! Obviously the only reason I didn't fall out of a tree and die when I was twelve years old was because I believed so strongly in myself and not because I was just another lucky asshole who somehow survived childhood. That's enough about Johnny Quick for the entire ten issues of this comic book that I own. I'm never fucking mentioning that jerk again. I don't care if he becomes super important to the plot! I'm erasing him from history right now! Although I'll probably still discuss Jesse Quick when she turns back up because she's hot. Oh what the hell. One last parting shot at Johnny!

Maybe if you spent less time trying to find the secret to your nonsense formula and more time trying to find Libby's clitoris, you'd still be together! By the look on Ted's face, I bet he could have helped!

Doctor Mid-Nite arrives to let everybody know that their favorite jazz musician died in his arms last night because he was too blind to save him. Probably. But what he discovered was that the man, Reggie, had signed up to become a test subject for Ultragen! He was locked away with a bunch of half-man, half-animal creatures as Ultragen searched for a drug that could make people youthful again. Apparently what the writer is saying is that corporations are the new Nazis. Maybe that's why I bought ten issues of this comic book! Because I was all, "Yeah! This analogy is so apt! Fucking corporations think they can get away with whatever they want! Where's my current girlfriend so I can mansplain this shit to her?!" I don't want to get too cynical here but what else am I supposed to do when a comic book asks me to just buy into this whole Doctor Mid-nite thing. So he goes blind when a grenade goes off in his face. But he discovers he can still see in the dark because, you know, fuck you and comic books and all that shit. We've already established that science doesn't live here. But I don't have a problem with that! Okay, great! So he can see in the dark but not in the light. His reaction to this is, "I should use this new power to fight crime! I just have to wait until a bank robbery happens in the middle of the night with a new moon perpetrated by a bunch of robbers who forgot their flashlights and whiz bang! I'll have the advantage!" I know, I know! He invents dark glasses so he can see while pretending to be blind. I guess that helps him catch muggers who prey on blind people. And then he created smoke bombs which are conceivably his best idea, creating pockets of dark where he would have the advantage against the criminals. But it's not like his eye-sight based super powers gave him the ability to fight well or gave him invulnerability in case of a lucky shot in the dark or allowed him to protect other people at the scene of the crime from stray bullets fired wildly out of the area of effect of his smoke bomb! Doctor Mid-Nite's whole deal is so implausible that it breaks even my capacity for disbelief while reading super hero comic books. It simply makes me think, "This guy sounds like a bad idea from a desperate writer looking for another big super hero hit." Which is what it was! Which is why it breaks the entire comic book! I'd be okay if it simply made me think, "This guy's an idiot with a dumb idea! It's going to get him killed! Ha ha! That'll probably be funny!" While Doctor Mid-Nite is conferring with the Justice Society about what to do with Ultragen, Ultragen is raiding the his free clinic. Luckily Johnny Thunder just happened to be stopping by, probably to get a check-up on his genie. He gets shot and his genie appears to help when a young girl comes up and is all, "Oh hey! I recognize that genie! It's a Badnesian Hex Bolt!" And the genie is all, "Yes, I am! Do you want me to inhabit you for awhile so I can get rid of this old guy (who isn't that old for some reason? Probably a reason that has to do with me living inside of him?)" I just feel like, with Jesse Quick appearing earlier, this series is headed toward creating a younger JSA so the older members can simply fall into the role of mentors. The Atom, Wildcat, and Doctor Mid-nite head off to investigate Ultragen's experimental laboratory and they make a discovery that causes me to literally kill myself because I was too stupid to call it.

This is Grunion Guy's assistant Pickle Boy. I think I'm supposed to make a naughty joke caption here? Like, um, "What is that guy's pee-pee doing inside that kangaroo?!"

Justice Society of America #3 Rating: Does anybody know how to get blood out of shag carpeting? Also, if a person's will is found written on used tissues (hopefully for his nose), is it legally binding because I don't want to inherit this blog and all of its debt.

#Justice Society of America #DC Comics #DC #Len Strazewski #Mike Parobeck #Mike Machlan

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dcnativegal · 4 years

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Day 55 of Pandemic, & I’m sick

Monday, May 4, 2020. Day 55 of the global pandemic (declared by World Health Organization on March 11th.) We as a planet hit 3,500,000 cases today, and 250,000 deaths. There are many more than that, but the planet doesn’t have enough tests. But then, there was this announcement:

So obviously we’re in good hands. [Sarcasm alert.]

The entire planet has slowed down, such that seismologists can detect the quieting of the earth: less shuddering of industry, cars, construction. Check out the drop in electricity usage:

Here’s a bit of perspective from Instagram:

The Lesbians of Paisley have been fertile ground for viruses. Valerie is nearly recovered from the viral pneumonia she was diagnosed with on March 26 at the emergency room at Lake District Hospital. She’d begun to feel feverish and achy, with violent coughing on March 15th, 2 days after what turned into my last day in my office at the hospital’s primary care clinic, and a day and a half after we’d dined with our friends Toni, Al, Bonnie and Bruce in person, sans masks. We began 100% isolation from the outside world the minute she felt sick. She recounted the ER adventure to a friend thusly: We drove in and they have organized a system that resembles getting on a [military] base after 9-11. We sat in the pickup at the checkpoint until a somebody in protective attire had taken my temp and saturation levels and asked a bunch of questions. Then they slapped a red sticker on the dash, told us to park in the ER lot and "don't get out of the pickup." Five hours later I had donated blood and been CAT scanned. I had two pneumonia shots that were current and two flu shots, also current. They checked the blood against 14 different virus strains and came up blank. The chest showed white lungs and my saturation levels were iffy. So they used one of the tests they had been sent, gave me antibiotics (just in case) and sent me home. Took me three days to sleep off all that fun.”

Me and Griffey the poodle waited in the pickup for her. At every sound, he got up from the passenger’s seat and looked at the ER entrance where she’d disappeared. No Valerie? Back to sleep. I walked him 3 times. Hope, her RN daughter, told us that her flow through the ER was great practice in maintaining distance and perfect hygienic process through the CT scan, taking blood, even pushing her food on a tray to her. Lake Health District Hospital is prepared, and still, technically speaking, zero cases in the county.

I was so anxious about her health, her ability to breathe, that I gave up all thought of working from home. I listened to her breathing and coughing, brought her tea, and finally, asked her to write out her last will and testament. She did, and put it away. I figured, her kids are wonderful and won’t fight about stuff but, better for her to express her wishes, even if the paper wouldn’t be legally binding.

Apparently, I get the FrankenDodge (the pickup which has hit one too many deer and who’s grill is sewn together by wire). I’ll take it but I’d much rather have her.

We waited 10 days for the nasal swab results. While we waited, she got better. Never had that cytokine storm, nor that respiratory crash. Storms and crashes; pretty apt words for the medical horror of end stage COVID-19. Once her test came back negative, despite the warning of her PCP who says that nasal swabs miss between 30 and 47% of positive cases, I was able to go to town on the 10th of April, get some software downloaded onto the computer so I could work from home, and hit Safeway while wearing a mask. I also dropped off one of Valerie’s homemade masks to a friend, along with some toilet paper illustrated with Trump’s kissy face. The moment of levity was greatly appreciated.

I started feeling lousy six days after my jaunt to Lakeview (April 16th). Cough and release of gook high up in my chest. Headache. No fever. Who knows if I have COVID-19. We listen to a British gentleman, Dr. Campbell, daily, as he reviews what’s going on globally, and he interviewed a woman who had exactly my illness course, before she moved on to fever and gastrointestinal symptoms. She never got tested. Too much hassle. Which is so ridiculous, criminal really, and in the USA, a direct result of American hubris and incompetence. Fine. Anyone with any symptoms of any illness is isolated until we have a vaccine and treatment, is my prediction. I’m still feeling shitty, though better. Started taking antibiotics just in case and in the hopes of recovering SOMEDAY.

My son Jonah and his girlfriend June escaped just in time the terrible plight of New York’s COVID19 deluge of infections and hospitalizations. They’ve been in Baltimore at June’s mother’s beautiful home. He spent his 26th birthday in the basement because they were still in quarantine. See adorable picture, below. Now they’re allowed upstairs, enjoying the quiet. Apparently, writing and directing music videos is not an essential service during a pandemic, but he’s writing pitches and living off the most recent lucrative gig with Kesha, thank goodness.

One of the most moving things that is happening in the USA during this time is the 7pm clapping ritual for medical workers and first responders in New York City, in all the boroughs:

There’s a firefighter in DC who’s going to hospitals and nursing homes to play the bagpipe.

That’s where my daughter Clara lives, in DC, but right now she’s staying with a friend in Laurel, MD, since her group house dynamics are stressful and had a symptomatic guest at last report. She’s working from home to make sure the Latinx school children are getting the tutoring they need now more than ever. We worry about her husband Jose and his country, Guatemala, since there are COVID-19 cases down there, and refugees seeking asylum are being dumped there, with and without the virus. Over 700 cases in Guatemala as of today. We hope he will get to the USA this year. However, Trump referred to it as a shithole country, which doesn’t bode well.

My sister and her husband are well, thankfully. They work fulltime from home in the company of Pepper the cat and Darcy the chocolate lab. Yuuki, 25, stays there, too, mostly in their room; they are out of work and applying for unemployment. Kohji, age 28, works from home in DC and makes more money as a web designer than I ever will after 34 years as a social worker, but who’s counting. (I remember well the admonition of a field instructor back in 1987: don’t go into social work for Power, Pay or Prestige.) His girlfriend is probably out of work; she works for a nonprofit that plants trees in DC. Probably not essential work right this very minute. Makoto, 23, is out of quarantine and looking for something to do; he’ll be a senior at the University of Delaware this fall. As far as I hear on Facebook and email, the rest of the folks with whom I share DNA are well. So that’s good. I worry about my Aunt Mary Lee who is 87. But she says not to: she’s fine and her ritzy retirement community in McLean, VA is on “lockdown.”

Psychologically, in the experience of quarantine and ‘social distancing’, there’s me, and then there are my clients.

My moods go up and down, but a little further down than usual. The terror that Valerie might die of COVID-19 has passed, but I figure I will always need therapy. I have “Facebook messenger” video chats with my therapist, Darcy of Bend, every other week now, which helps. Having ‘Generalized Anxiety Disorder’ and a tendency toward major depression, I find therapy to be a corrective. A bimonthly tune up. Without it, I naturally veer toward negativity and neurosis, and a hypervigilance that served me well when I was a child, but is exhausting, overwrought and over-thought as an adult.

Psychologically, Valerie is always fine. Seriously. She was once told as a young woman by a therapist who’d tested her with the MMPI (the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) that she was outrageously and puzzlingly normal. Now that she’s feeling mostly well again from the pneumonia, she’s been tearing up the joint, fixing the sump pump that apparently keeps this little house from drifting down main street on the wetlands it’s built on. Digging out the leaves from our irrigation ditch, chopping and clearing the wood from our front yard.

The BEFORE picture:

The AFTER Picture.

And this happened one morning in March. Just a cattle drive past our front door.

Valerie’s planning a garden at her daughter’s place, which has a deer-proof fence and lots of sun up on the hill above us. A delivery of horse manure is scheduled, and the garden bed has been rototilled. Val’s granddaughter Jessica and her husband Alan are living up there now, working from home for their Portland-based gigs. They’re almost finished the 14-day quarantine since they moved down here. The new normal: anytime anyone leaves one locale for another, they disappear into strictest quarantine, not to leave their abode. Groceries are delivered to the doorstep. A recent day turned out to be Jess’ 25th birthday: I’d bought a canvas bag with a picture of a pug on it, like her dog Archie, and Valerie found something gluten free flour mix with fresh jam to give her. Birthday gatherings are suspect at the moment.

Here’s a lovely idea for quarantined birthday celebrations:

What a kind and generous offer.

Even in isolation, Val and I do socialize, on zoom. The one pictured below is church.

We ‘visit’ with our fellow parishioners from St. Luke’s on Sunday evenings. Then we say Compline together, from the Book of Common Prayer. My favorite prayer of all time is this one from that service.

Yes, shield the joyous. Because joy is fleeting.

Our writers’ group, Easy Writers, ‘meets’ on zoom every Monday now. I wrote this bit about my yarn for the prompt, ‘write something in your home that means a lot to you.’

I am doing a great deal of crochet and a little knitting.

Yarn is my comfort and my joy. It is the raw material I create blankets and scarves and hats with. My tools are hooks and needles made from wood and plastic and metal. My fingers are also my tools.

Some of the yarn is like cotton candy: spun mohair from a goat is said to have a ‘halo’ or ‘aura’ because of the gentle cloud of color you can see an inch or two away from the spun thread. Some yarn is like twine: you can see every string of ply. My favorite is merino wool and single ply. A unity of color that will not split. All for one and one for all, the fuzzy stuff is twisted and bound into a single string of strength…

My clients are stressed out. The pandemic adds a layer to the stress they were already experiencing. I listen and knit, from within the cocoon of the yarn room which my folks can see behind me. One of my clients wanders about with her phone in her hand while I get slightly dizzy. I like this kind of counseling since I get a glimpse of my clients’ homes. Reminds me a little bit of being a geriatric care manager. You can tell a lot about a person from their home. From my home you can tell that I have a lot of yarn, and I work multiple projects at a time because there are piles of them alongside my recliner.

One of the sad weights of being present for my clients is their level of estrangement for most if not all social connections, especially people with whom they share DNA. And every single one has what is called in the mental health world “complex PTSD” from multiple traumatic experiences. I sit with them, on the phone or via video. I hope to model for them what Carl Rogers called ‘unconditional positive regard.’ I breathe deeply to release my own distress at their sadness. We explore one tiny step toward reducing their isolation, the sense of trust. All during a pandemic where other people could be carrying a potentially deadly virus.

It’s no wonder I’m pawing mohair out of screen for my own comfort.

Sometimes I email clients links or articles on how to keep their spirits up, or about good things that are happening instead of the dire predictions they’re listening to or watching. There is much to share that is hopeful. I sent one to a client on creative ways to care for everyone and she shot back:

“I believe this is Liberal rhetoric.

Esp the paragraph below:

This current emergency provides the possibility for a new emergence—the birthing of a truly civil civilization dedicated to the well-being of all people and the living Earth. “

Oh well. We can’t have a truly civil civilization dedicated to the well-being of all people, now can we?

Sigh.

Brilliant writing is being penned right now, since the entire planet’s human inhabitants are barely one degree of separation away from this virus, which is apparently ‘barely alive’ and therefore hard to kill, as it spreads onward to make millions miserable and hundreds of thousands die.

I’m saving articles from The Atlantic, The NY Times, and the Washington Post, and following a historian named Heather Cox Richardson who writes a daily blog called Letters from an American. In a recent post she writes:

“The big news … has been the ‘protests’ of state governors’ stay-at-home orders and mandatory business closings to try to contain the novel coronavirus …These protests are a classic example of trying to control politics by controlling the national narrative. The protests are backed by the same conservative groups that are working for Trump’s reelection. …These are not spontaneous, grassroots protests. They are political operations designed to divert attention from the Trump administration’s poor response to the pandemic. Even more, though, they are designed to keep the American public divided so that we do not protest the extraordinary economic inequality the pandemic has highlighted.

These protests have diverted the national conversation by turning a national crisis into partisan division along the lines the Republican Party has developed since the 1980s... The change of subject protects not just Trump but also the ideology at the heart of his Republican Party. Since 1981, Republicans have argued that the economy depends on wealthy businessmen who know best how to arrange the economy—the makers-- and that it is vital to protect their interests. Under their policies, wealth in America has moved upward. The pandemic has highlighted how these policies have removed economic security for ordinary people. They cannot pay their bills, and they might well turn against an ideology that uses our tax dollars to bail out corporations while they must risk their lives to pay their rent.” [Emphasis mine]

I am so glad someone smarter than me can reveal the interconnections of what’s going on politically.

There is food for thought on Facebook and Instagram: in the guise of a rewrite of Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese, this poem.

Mary Oliver for Corona Times (after Wild Geese)

by Adrie Kusserow

You do not have to become totally zen, You do not have to use this isolation to make your marriage better, your body slimmer, your children more creative. You do not have to “maximize its benefits” By using this time to work even more, write the bestselling Corona Diaries, Or preach the gospel of ZOOM. You only have to let the soft animal of your body unlearn everything capitalism has taught you, (That you are nothing if not productive, That consumption equals happiness, That the most important unit is the single self. That you are at your best when you resemble an efficient machine). Tell me about your fictions, the ones you’ve been sold, the ones you sheepishly sell others, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world as we know it is crumbling. Meanwhile the virus is moving over the hills, suburbs, cities, farms and trailer parks. Meanwhile The News barks at you, harsh and addicting, Until the push of the remote leaves a dead quiet behind, a loneliness that hums as the heart anchors. Meanwhile a new paradigm is composing itself in our minds, Could birth at any moment if we clear some space From the same tired hegemonies. Remember, you are allowed to be still as the white birch, Stunned by what you see, Uselessly shedding your coils of paper skins Because it gives you something to do. Meanwhile, on top of everything else you are facing, Do not let capitalism coopt this moment, laying its whistles and train tracks across your weary heart. Even if your life looks nothing like the Sabbath, Your stress boa-constricting your chest. Know that your antsy kids, your terror, your shifting moods, are no less sacred than a yoga class. Whoever you are, no matter how broken, the world still has a place for you, calls to you over and over announcing your place as legit, as forgiven, even if you fail and fail and fail again. remind yourself over and over, all the swells and storms that run through your long tired body all have their place here, now in this world. It is your birthright you be held deeply, warmly, in the family of things, not one cell left in the cold.

-Adrie Kusserow

Not one cell left out in the cold. Yes.

There is so much to be grateful for. I have a place to live, and even while paying off my bankruptcy debt, I have plenty. Enough that I can make small donations here and there. Here’s one cause I found: supporting foster children who were in college and now have no place to go. (Terrible visuals for the logo: it’s “Together We Rise.”)

Soon, the nights of below freezing temperatures will pass, and both Lesbians of Paisley will be healthy at the same time. Perhaps I’ll get my Tricycle-for-Grownups serviced and toodle around for exercise. Perhaps the Stitch & Bitch knitting/crochet gatherings will resume, maybe in a park for physical distance and social connection.

And maybe I’ve already had Covid-19, and so has Valerie. Looks like 50-70% of all the people on the planet, not quite 8 billion humans so maybe 4 to 6 billion people, need to catch this thing in order to give our species herd immunity. Or WILL catch it because we have no way to stop it, only to slow the infections so that health care is not overwhelmed. We live and Love in the Time of Coronavirus, to paraphrase Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I maybe a libtard, a snowflake, a lily-livered liberal, who’s heart bleeds. But I agree with this sentiment, found on Facebook, our American ‘commons’:

Love absurdly and abundantly, my people. And wash your hands.

#covidー19

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365daysofsasuhina · 5 years

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[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Two Hundred Nineteen: Genius ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata, Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi ] [ SasuHina ] [ Verse: A Light Amongst Shadows ] [ AO3 Link ]

Why is it she’s surrounded by geniuses?

Sure, one of them...isn’t exactly her best friend. Hinata knows why Neji hates her. All she can do is hope that when she gets older, she’ll have a chance to change things for him. For all of the branch Hyūga clan. But, for now...she’s powerless. Stripped of her title and abandoned to her genin team by her father, having been deemed a failure. She can no more help Neji than she can help herself.

...she’ll never bear the title of genius, she tells herself. She’s just the quiet little nobody dragging her new team down. Naruto will never benefit from her few and far between talents. All she wants is to be recognized by him...but what can she do?

And then, there’s the third member of their new triad. Uchiha Sasuke, another proclaimed genius. Quiet, almost aloof...and hyper focused on his own goals.

Their team feels so...disjointed. Naruto and Sasuke are almost always arguing, and Hinata’s quiet, soft attempts to try to bring peace are almost always ignored. Their first training session with Kakashi was...disastrous. Naruto went in with no sense of planning or teamwork, and almost immediately was put out of commission by Kakashi. Sasuke, though highly skilled, also went at it alone, using Naruto’s antics as a distraction. And Hinata’s attempts to free Naruto landed her in a one-on-one with Kakashi, her feeble attempts at Jūken holding up for a few seconds before she, too, was incapacitated.

Overall...it wasn’t pretty. And yet, after realizing what they were missing, he allowed them to pass...if only by the skin of their teeth.

And now, they’ve been buried in D-rank missions to their ears. Hinata’s prior hinting that maybe more actual training than just slaving away on assignments might help has finally been taken seriously. Their entire week has been nothing but hours spent at the training grounds, trying to find some semblance of strategy to work together.

So far...there hasn’t been much progress.

Sasuke’s attempts to make himself the unspoken team leader have gotten Naruto all in a tizzy, insisting that he should lead. The constant arguing has made them sloppy, too busy correcting each other and nitpicking to spend time actually running through drills.

As yet another fight breaks out, Hinata sighs, shoulders wilting as she stands beside Kakashi. He, too, looks rather unimpressed. “Boys,” he then cuts in, drawing their looks as they each grasp one another’s shirt fronts. “I think you’re forgetting something.”

“...what?”

“Neither of you are team leader. That title would fall to me. As it stands...neither of you are anywhere near qualified to lead a squad. Hence you being little genin, and not chūnin.”

Both then stiffen and puff up, vying their case for being second in command.

“I don’t think so. You’re both far too busy giving each other a hard time to even pay your task any attention. If anything...Hinata is the most qualified for me to turn to.”

...that shuts them up.

Jolting in surprise, she stutters, “M...me? B-but I -?”

“Have a level head, listen when the squad leader speaks, and do your best to follow through the drills. The only reason you ever stop is because these two keep getting in your way. I can’t even judge your abilities yet because you’ve had no time to show them off. There might be a genius just under the surface, but these knuckleheads keep wasting time.”

Kakashi folds his arms, giving the boys a pointed look. “If it were just you two putting yourselves out, I’d just leave you to it. But you seem to be forgetting something very important: this team isn’t just about you. You have to form a cohesive unit. Your arguing is bad enough between the two of you...but you’re dragging Hinata down. Both of you.”

Eyes wide, Hinata just...stares. She’s...never had anyone speak about her like that before. She has always been the burden. The slow one. The person inhibiting the progress of others. Hearing Kakashi praise her - even so indirectly - brings a small flutter to her chest.

At their sensei’s chiding, Sasuke and Naruto give each other cool, appraising looks. While it’s clear they haven’t exactly resolved things between them...they seem to take Kakashi’s words to heart. “...so what are we supposed to do?” Sasuke asks. “How can we just magically get along?”

“Well, I was hoping some missions would help with that. Give you all the same goal, and see how you worked to meet it. But even then you were too busy nagging each other to really get the work done as well as you could have.” Kakashi rubs his chin thoughtfully. “...I think we need to go over our strengths and weaknesses. A good team has a balance. Where one person might be lacking, another steps up to cover it.”

His arms fold. “Sasuke, you have a good eye for detail, and a mind for strategizing...decent techniques and power. But you’re also too absorbed in yourself to pay attention to the movements and needs of your teammates. Hinata’s mindfulness might help you learn to keep tabs on the rest of your squad. Naruto, you’ve got decent power...but you don’t think ahead. You need to slow down and examine your surroundings first. You might not like it, but you need to listen when Sasuke comes up with a strategy. His strength will help cover your weakness. And Hinata.”

“Y...yes?”

“You have the greatest powers of observation. Even if your Byakugan is still in its beginning stages with distance, you can see what your team can’t. You’re their eyes. You can tell Sasuke what you see, so he can plan, and Naruto can help execute. But you’re not putting your best foot forward. You’re hesitating. You take a step back when you should take a step forward.”

At that, the little Hyūga flinches. That’s...exactly what her father always chided her for. Being indecisive. Lacking conviction. Initiative.

...but his constant beratement only made her less sure of herself. Less apt to take risks, or be assertive.

Eyeing her carefully as the boys do the same, Kakashi suggests, “...in order to help cover you...Naruto and Sasuke need to do something for you.”

“We do?” Naruto blurts, earning a sock in the shoulder by his rival.

“You two...need to work on Hinata’s confidence.”

“...how do we do that?” Sasuke asks, a brow perked.

“Encouragement. Help. Advice. Hinata’s skittish for a reason. Reach out! Find the reason behind it! And start to counteract it.”

Confusion crosses both boys’ faces. Across from them, Hinata wilts. “T...that’s not -?”

“You haven’t been given a chance to show your true potential,” Kakashi cuts in, waving a hand. “I think...you’ve been so concerned about measuring up to someone else, you haven’t done so with yourself, hm?”

...she doesn’t have a rebuke for that.

“...all right. I’m going to go bring my precious little students some lunch,” Kakashi then announces. “While I’m gone...why don’t you three discuss what we learned today, hm?”

None of them answer as he disappears. For once...all three are quiet, mulling things over.

Naruto folds his arms, seated on the ground and pursing his lips. “...guess I do kinda rush into things, huh?”

“Yeah, you do,” Sasuke agrees, earning a glower. “...and...I try to take the reins too much. I guess...I just feel like I have ideas we should use.”

“But you don’t, um...communicate them to us,” Hinata offers softly. “You always g-go at things alone.”

“Well...Naruto ruins things with his rushing, and you…” He gestures vaguely. “Every time I turn around, you’re flinching.”

“S...sorry.”

“See? That’s what I mean. Don’t apologize for it, Hinata.”

“Don’t mind him, he’s just a jerk,” Naruto offers behind a hand, getting socked again. “Ow! Hey!”

“I’m trying to be serious! Look...you don’t have to be so timid, Hinata. We’re not gonna yell at you if you do something wrong. Mistakes in training aren’t fatal. You just have to try again until you get it right.”

Her head ducks. “...I...g-guess you’re right. I just, um…” She glances aside. “...that’s not...how we do things at - a-at home. It’s very...strict.”

“Well...this isn’t the Hyūga compound. If you need help with something, just ask us. Or Kakashi. The point of training is to work on what you need to improve. Why would we try to make it harder for you? If we’re gonna be a team...then we have to work together. That means in training, too.”

Sparing a glance up, Hinata dares to meet Sasuke’s eyes. Unlike her father’s, there’s no disappointment in them. No malice. Just a hint of exasperation as she hesitates. “O...okay.”

“Besides, you’ve got some really cool abilities, Hinata-chan!” Naruto pipes up with a grin. “The way your eyes can see through stuff! And behind you! Even Sasuke can’t do that!”

A hint of a cool pout overcomes Sasuke’s face, but he doesn’t comment.

“And that taijutsu stuff you were doing with Kakashi-sensei - with the chakra? That was so cool! Does it really make somebody unable to use chakra?”

“Um...y-yes, for a little while. That’s the Jūken style of the Hyūga clan.”

“If you get better at that, imagine what that’d mean! You’d just have to hit ‘em like ‘blam blam blam’! And then they’d be at your mercy! How badass is that?!”

Color floods her cheeks. “I...I-I still need more p-practice, though…”

“Well, that’s what we’re here to do,” Sasuke offers. A grin curls his lips. “I’d like to spar with the Jūken sometime. My taijutsu needs a little work...and that way there’d be more risk for me to work on my blocking and dodging.”

“Me too, me too!” Naruto insists. “I wanna see it!”

“Having a Hyūga on our team should be pretty useful. Even beyond the Jūken, like Kakashi said...your eyes might be almost as good as mine,” Sasuke offers with a hint of a grin as he lightly teases her.

“You never even use the Sharingan!” Naruto cuts in squinting.

“Not yet. I haven’t needed to,” the Uchiha evades.

“All right, all right...I think that’s enough talking for now.”

The trio turn to see their sensei behind them, holding out three bento boxes. “Sensei!”

“Sounds to me like you made some good progress...so consider these your reward. I’ll give you the rest of the day to think on it...then we’ll see how things go tomorrow, hm?”

“O...okay.”

Rather than leave, the three just sit and open their lunches. “Hey, hey! Hinata-chan, can I trade you some fish for my vegetables?”

“I know you don’t like them, b-but you really should eat them Naruto-kun,” she chides in reply. Looking to Sasuke, she then offers, “Sasuke-kun, do you want my tomatoes?”

He blinks. “...how’d you know I like tomatoes?”

“Cuz Hinata-chan pays attention! Duh! And I thought you were a genius, teme - maybe Hinata’s smarter than you!”

Smiling softly, she adds, “L-like you said, maybe my eyes are as good as yours, ne?”

Still looking surprised, Sasuke hesitates a moment. “...yeah, sure. Here, you can have my plum jelly...I don’t like sweet stuff.”

“O-okay!”

...maybe they’ll get this whole ‘teamwork’ thing figured out.

.oOo.

More team seven!Hinata. I'm really starting to like this AU, as cliche as it is lol - though trying to figure out how to get things to fully mesh is a little difficult...hence them talking it out this time! In all honesty, team seven in canon doesn't really seem to have much, uh...balance? Just three mostly physical attackers. Team eight, by comparison, has a lot more...variety. They're all trackers, sure...but you've got Kiba with medium range attacking, Shino with recon and subversive attacking, and Hinata with her Byakugan and close-up taijutsu for chakra blocking. I dunno. Team seven just seems very weighted to me, but then again I'm very poor at writing combat so maybe I have no room to talk xD So envisioning how to have these three work as a unit is a little tough too, tbh. Aaanyway...it's super late so I better go - thanks for reading!

#sasuhina #uchiha sasuke #hyūga hinata #uzumaki naruto #hatake kakashi #a light amongst shadows [ canon verse ]#365daysofsasuhina

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