#I MISSED DRAWING GREEK MYTH STUFF SO MUCH...... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

amjustagirl · 3 years

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Chapters: one. ~ two. ~ three. ~ four. ~ five. ~ six. ~ seven.

Wordcount: 3k

Summary:

Akaashi Keiji catches glimpses of another life in his dreams. He dreams of fields of endless gold, of constellation of stars that light up the night sky. He hears the echo of birdsong in her laughter, her song to the gods in the wind.

(Loosely inspired by Kimi No Nawa)

Masterlist link here

AO3 link here

Author’s note: This fic is a little different from my usual work, so I’m a little nervous about publishing it. If you do like it, would love if you leave a comment / reblog / anything!

If you’d like to be included in the taglist, do drop me a msg/ask!

The first time it happens, Akaashi is in his third year of university.

The upside of staying in Tokyo for university (his mother cried when he got into Waseda, her alma mater) is that he sees his family almost every weekend for cosy family dinners. The downside of staying in Tokyo for university is that he really has no excuse when his parents insist on carrying on Hatsumode, the first prayer of the new year, at the crack of dawn at the shrine close to their home. It’s not that he minds the tradition per se, but he did just spend all night rushing his projects just so he could adhere to the unspoken rule that no work should be done during the New Year holidays and spend some time flying kites with his little cousins.

Still, there is something magical about starting the New Year watching dawn break and the world awaken from its slumber just as he reaches the summit of all twenty six steps to the top of the shrine, shrouded in the bare branches of the wisteria trees. He tosses coins into the box, drops into a deep bow twice, chin at waist level, clapping twice before bowing a final time. His mother buys far too many omamori, presses at least half of them into his unwilling hands when the omikuji he draws has a great curse scribbled on it. He’s not superstitious, so it doesn’t bother him, but he knows his mother is, so he does accept the omamori with some grace, though he draws the line at the love charm she tries to sneak into the pile.

‘Mum, I’m too busy at school for a partner’, he tells her firmly. ‘Why don’t you pass it to Yuji-kun, he’s already started work, but hasn’t found a girlfriend from what Oba-chan tells me’. His elder cousin shoots him a particularly malevolent glare that he meets with a placid smile as his mother diverts her attention to him instead.

The faintest shiver runs up his fingers when he deposits the old charm he found in the corner of his closet, grey and faded with time, in the koshinsatsu osamedokoro, the omamori drop off open only during the first day of the New Year. The shiver turns into a ripple of cool water racing up his wrists and roars into an tsunami of dread when the attendant tells him all deposited charms will be burnt in the ritual fire in a fortnight’s time, but he writes it off as a symptom of his lack of sleep and starts to turn away.

There’s a sudden echo of a nightmare of raging flames that prompts him to swivel around to snatch the omamori and stuff it back in his pocket, muttering apologies to the shocked attendant. Later, when he has time to process his impulse, he’d find it strange. In the meantime however, the festivities wait for no one, so he distracts himself by eating far too much dango and mochi in between rounds of tossing kites up to catch the wind. His uncles slip him full cups of sake and sweetened rice wine to his mother’s disapproval, which in hindsight he should have heeded, as he stumbles to bed that night, head heavy with alcohol.

That night he dreams of a girl with curly hair, lying in a field of endless gold - daffodils to mark the dawn of spring.

‘Also known as narcissus’, he hears himself say, hears himself narrate the myth of a man so entranced by his own reflection in the water that he lost his will when he realizes he cannot have his object of desire. A girlish voice lilts teasingly – ‘the flowers are too pretty to be ruined by your obsession of stories written by grumpy old men’. He wakes up with the ghost of laughter on his lips, but there’s a lingering sense of loss budding in barren soil of his heart.

It does prompt him to pop by the florist near his parents’ house to order a bouquet of daffodils for his mom to be delivered on the first day of spring. He’s accustomed to the old couple running the shop, so he pauses just for a second when he walks into the store to find a new girl at the counter. She must not be used to customers yet, dropping the bouquet she’s working on when she notices him.

‘Hi’, she stammers, cheeks pink. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I’d like to make an advance order for daffodils please.’

‘For spring?’ she asks, and he nods, writing down his parents’ address when prompted. ‘That’s a good choice!’

She waves him off with a cheerful – ‘please come back again’, and he does not notice that there are stars in her eyes.

His mother drags him back to the shrine on the third day of the holidays, and he obliges her, ever the dutiful only son, even though the frigid temperature makes his breath puff up into clouds and the tip of his nose turns numb. The old omamori is still snug in his jacket pocket, and as his fingers brush against it, he can feel the threads of the charm unravelling, the fabric almost fragile in its worn, threadbare state but he does not attempt to dispose of it again.

‘What are you going to do once you’re done with your degree, Keiji?’ His mother asks, when they stop by an old teahouse for a cup of steaming genmaicha, the aroma of roasted rice tea warm against his cold nose.

‘I intend to apply for a job at a publishing company after I graduate’, he tells her seriously, and she nods, encouraging him to continue. ‘I’m hoping it’s something to do with my major, preferably Japanese literature, better yet if it's poetry, but in this market, I’ll take what I can get’.

His mother nods, smiling at him fondly. ‘I remember you used to be obsessed with Shakespeare and Greek myths when you were younger, all the way through high school, and your father and I thought that you’d end up majoring in that in university. You really surprised us when you chose to major in Japanese literature instead.’

‘I don’t know why, to be honest. Maybe I had a good Japanese literature tutor?’ He laughs, fiddling with his teacup.

‘Mm I don’t think so though. I remember you complaining that Raku-sensei was so dull he caused everyone to fall asleep.’ He shrugs, and though she stares at him curiously, she does not pursue the line of conversation any further.

That night he dreams of waking up in an old wooden house, shivering in a thick futon, the smoldering embers from the irori, mere inches from his face. It’s so very different from his childhood bedroom filled with modern appliances and walls of books neatly shelved in alphabetical order, but he doesn’t notice that in the dark. Instead, he reaches for his phone to check the time, bolting awake because that can’t be, he never misses his alarm, mentally calculating that he must leave the house in exactly fifteen minutes to make it in time for practice when a little boy bursts through the door.

‘Nee-chan’, the little boy whines. ‘I’m hungry. Time for breakfast’.

Did he just say Nee-chan? Scratch that - since when did he have a little brother?

He scrambles out of bed, groping his way in the dark to the washroom. The cold water should wake him up, but when he looks up at the mirror above the sink, the face he’s staring at does not belong to him. No - it belongs to a dark eyed girl with curly hair - but it doesn’t make sense, shouldn’t make sense, because when he reaches a trembling finger to poke at the mirror, he is she or she is him -

The ensuing panic and confusion makes him jerk out of his dream, but when he rushes to the washroom to check that he’s still himself, he is relieved to see that it’s still him - Akaashi Keiji, with dark circles around his eyes, staring back in disbelief.

He chalks his strange dream up to the stress he carries around from trying to clear all his course work so he can audit additional classes over the next term.

Except the dreams don’t stop, not even when he moves back to the university dorms. He keeps waking up drenched in cold sweat, clutching at his arms even though they’re clear of the scratches he sees in his dreams, red and raw and stretching all the way up his elbows.

‘Be kinder to Hana-chan, Keiji-kun’, he hears the call of the same girl in his mind and he shudders, unsure whether the disembodied voice floating through his mind is a memory from his dream. ‘She’s going through an awfully tough time’.

‘It doesn’t give her the right to hurt you like that’, he can hear his faint disapproval.

‘Never mind that, it’s not a big deal. What are we reading today – don’t tell me it’s anything like Hamlet. That was horrendously depressing.’

‘Midsummer’s Night Dream? It’s a romantic comedy at least.’

‘Only a nerd like you would read Shakespeare in high school – and it’s not even in Japanese!’

‘Hush – you don’t get to complain when I’m reading it out to you.’

‘What on earth is going on’, he mutters to himself. The copious amounts of frigid water he splashes onto his face is no antidote to this madness.

‘Sato-san, are you feeling alright?’ he asks his grimacing classmate in concern, lines of pain etched onto her face.

‘I’m fine, Akaashi-kun’, she manages to spit out, clutching her stomach with white-knuckled hands. ‘It’ll pass in a bit, I hope’.

‘Are you sure you’re fine? I could help you to the nurse’s office if that helps’.

His classmate shakes her head, a blush staining her cheeks. ‘It’s just that time of the month. I apologise if that’s too much information to be polite’.

Ah. But somehow even though he has no sisters, and his female classmates in high school were oddly reticent about their periods (strange, considering it is part and parcel of being a mammal for far more than a millenium) the steps to deal with this particular conundrum come to him so naturally it’s almost as if the answers were presented to him previously in a dream.

‘Here’, he passes Sato-san painkillers, chocolate and a hot water bottle he’d managed to talk the university nurse into loaning him, and Sato practically whimpers in gratitude.

‘You’re a lifesaver, Akaashi-kun’, she tells him and he nods, content that he’s solved the problem so efficiently.

That night he wakes up in her body again. The room is dark, save for the sliver of white light between the blinds that allows him to discern the growing crimson stain between her legs.

‘Don’t you know all women have to deal with this nonsense every month? But I’ll tell you a trick - painkillers, chocolate and a hot water bottle will make you feel as right as rain’, he hears her voice declare in his mind, and he startles awake to find himself back in his own bed, blessedly clear of any bloodstains.

It must be a dream borne out of what happened today, he tells himself firmly and shrugs it off. The rest of his slumber is thankfully shorn of dreams.

But then these dreams start to crash into his sleep like a series of never ending waves, and he’s a short hop, skip, jump away from falling off the cliff into a distracted madness, the rate his sleep keeps getting disrupted. He keeps waking up in her body, it makes him feel like a creep, wearing her skin like an ill-fitting glove, and he decided does not think about how strange it feels to have twin lumps of flesh in front of his chest (his mother raised him to be a gentleman, after all).

The contents of these dreams are relatively cyclical. He wakes up at dawn, puts on her school uniform, makes breakfast for the little boy - Toya-chan over the primitive hearth before rushing to school through dirt paths lined with trees. His - or rather her classmates stare at her with a mix of condescension and apathy, and her hours in school are spent in a lonely silence, save when Hana-chan gets up in her face and screams absolute nonsense about staying the fuck away from her, which seems a little dramatic considering she’s the one doing the confronting, but it’s just a dream, so he keeps telling himself. It’s not like he can change anything about it.

‘Does it bother you? That you’re alone?’ he asks her one day.

‘Not really. I have you and Toya-chan, don’t I?’ she responds.

‘I suppose’, he says, voice trailing off.

He catches glimpses of sun drenched afternoons spent in fields of flowers, glances of dusky evenings spent in the forest basking in the light of the setting sun. He agonizes over stacks of homework, digs for mushrooms in the damp earth, climbs through wire fences to scavenge for eggs in neighbouring farms.

‘Aren’t your parents worried about you and Toya-chan?’ he can hear himself question her one night.

‘My mom is dead and my dad can’t be home often, he works on construction projects around Sapporo. He sends cash to me and Toya-chan, and it isn’t always enough, but he tries his best ’, she answers, her voice feather light.

‘I’m sorry’, he tells her a little awkwardly, thinking about his happy family and wondering how it’d feel like to have them torn away from him so early on in life.

‘Don’t be’, she replies, ‘Sometimes I wonder if it’s better to have good parents who’re dead or absent rather than horrible parents who’re still alive’.

He jolts awake again, relieved to find himself back in his bed. It’s barely four in the morning, but he’s not going to be able to sleep after that, so he resigns himself to using the time to get cracking on his college assignments anyway. But he makes sure to call his mother once day breaks and he’s sure she’s returned from the market with groceries in tow, telling her awkwardly that he’s just calling to catch up and hopes she’s been well and ok bye mum I love you very much, heart pounding when he hangs up abruptly.

He has a standing appointment on the first Thursday every month to meet Kenma for coffee at a café a stone’s throw away from Waseda. They both order black coffee, which is strange for Kenma considering his legendary sweet tooth, but he knows Kenma too well to know that the ridiculously successful game streamer is only drinking coffee to stay awake, the shadows under his eyes deeper and darker than those under Akaashi’s own eyes.

‘Doesn’t Kuroo-san nag you go to bed at a decent time?’

Kenma doesn’t even bother to flick his eyes up, busy gulping mouthfuls of the bitter liquid. ‘Speak for yourself. Not sleeping well either?’

Akaashi shrugs his shoulders helplessly, stirring his coffee. ‘Mm. ‘I’ve been having strange recurring dreams and it’s been affecting my sleep’.

Kenma merely hums in reply, and Akaashi finds himself spilling out the entire weird series of events – though to be absolutely accurate, his dreams aren’t real so they can’t be termed as events, but they’ve been haunting him for the past month so they might as well be at this rate. He explains about finding himself in the body of a high school girl with curly hair and a dimple on one cheek, how he’s lived her life enough in the past month that he can map out her days with startling certainty, how he knows it’s not real – it can’t be real, but his dreams glimmer with such vibrancy that they feel real.

‘Am I going crazy?’ he asks.

‘I highly doubt it’, Kenma says, tapping his chin in thought. ‘Maybe it’s like one of those exploration video games where you have to take your time to discover its world to figure out the narrative the game is feeding you.’

Trust Kenma to relate everything to video games.

‘That was singularly unhelpful’, Akaashi says dryly as Kenma chuckles quietly in response.

He is almost afraid to fall asleep again but his eyelids are weighed down by weeks’ worth of sleep deprivation and soon he finds himself again in her body.

It’s a clear winter’s night. He’s huddled under a thick blanket to shield himself from the bitter cold, watching the embers in the hearth glow yellow and gold.

‘It’s late. Can’t sleep?’

‘Mm’ he replies. ‘Wondering what tomorrow will bring.’

‘You’re overthinking again, Keiji’, she chuckles. ‘Tomorrow’s going to be just another day. You’ll wake up back in your warm bed at the crack of dawn for volleyball practice, attend classes in your fancy private school, and play even more volleyball with your beloved Bokuto-san’.

He rolls his eyes heavenwards at her words and her laugh this time is loud, bright.

‘You know I only speak the truth. Now, since you need to wake up ridiculously early tomorrow, why don’t I tell you a bedtime story so you can fall asleep.’

‘I’m not a child’, he replies dryly, but does not object when she starts to narrate the tale of a princess exiled from the moon, who is raised by a humble woodcutter and his wife to become a renowned beauty, with five suitors seeking her hand. ‘That’s mean of her’, he mumbles as she describes how the princess rebuffs her suitors by setting them impossible tasks, drifts to sleep as her voice softens as she describes how the princess falls in love with the Emperor, but breaks both their hearts because she knows she must return to the moon someday. He’s fast asleep when she reaches the ending where the princess leaves all her memories on earth with tears in her eyes, gifting the emperor with an elixir of immortality which he burns, because he declares life isn’t worth living without her.

‘Goodnight Keiji’, she says, her voice shimmering in the still night air.

For the first time in a long while, Akaashi wakes up at peace.

Taglist:

@1tooru @animeflower26 @kageyamakock

#hq #haikyuu!!#haikyuu #hq imagines #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu writing #hq writing #haikyuu angst #haikyuu romance #akaashi keiji #akaashi keji x reader #akaashi x reader #akaashi keiji x y/n #haikyuucreations #akaashi headcanons #akaashi angst #haikyuu fic rec #haikyuu scenarios

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kaiparker-avengerssmut · 3 years

Text

Their Doll 4

Y/n Stark

B.Barnes x Reader, S.Rogers x Stark!Reader

series synopsis: y/n Stark, all records of her non existent, and yet Hydra still find her. When she is kidnapped by a certain super-soldier and no one believes her, she finds herself searching for unexpected familiarity in her not-so-distant past.

Series Warnings: smut, violence, torture, swearing

Chapter Summary: the avengers find some stuff out about y/n

Warnings: swearing

A/n: The timeline in this has been altered, as there I things I wanted to include but I also wanted this fic to follow the storyline/timeline of Winter Soldier and Civil war.So for purposes of this fanfic, Peter Parker was discovered by Tony at a much younger age - when he was bitten - and has been an intern with him since, almost like a protégée.(For the purposes of this story Peter was bitten much younger too - more like when he was 9 or ten rather than 14/15)

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

"SO there's some weird HYDRA girl locked and sedated in my basement? Cool, don't want to know." Tony dismissed, not looking up from his white mug as he tipped a generous amping of sugar into his black coffee. He swirled the liquid in the mug and turned around, leaning against the counter as he raised the drink to lips lips and took a sip before sighing intently. Bruce frowned, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Tony, I don't think you get it, I ran a DNA test and-"

"And she's probably some innocent girl that went missing years ago and was never found? I get it, I feel bad for her but at the end of the day she has nothing to do with me." Tony dismissed, pushing away from the counted to deposit his now-empty mug in the sink. He turned the tap on, rinsing out the cup before carelessly placing it on the drying rack.

"Just, please, come and see her. You won't regret it, and if you do - dinner's on me?" Bruce suggest, arms outstretched in welcome. Tony rolled his eyes, before scoffing.

"Yeah, no. I'm good. Catch you in the lab later though?" Tony was quick to deflect, exiting the room with so much as another glance. Bruce's hands feel to his side with a slap as his shoulders sagged in defeat.

...

Bruce nervously paced the lab, desperate to tell someone his horrifying discovery. The click of the door made his head snap up, a smile of relief spreading his on lips at the sight of Nat.

"Nat, finally." He sighed, walking towards the scowling girl.

"What did you need to tell me Bruce? You sounded pretty urgent when you called." She pressed, crossing her arms over her chest and raising a brow. His smile faulted, his gaze dropping to his hands where he fondled with a biro pen.

"I- uh. I made a... discovery about y/n." Bruce confessed, finally meeting Nat's eyes.

"Go on.." Nat prompted. Bruce took a deep breath, chewing on his bottom lip nervously. "Bruce-" she started.

"Y/n isn't entirely human-"

"Well we knew that much."

"It's what she is, that's shocking. Looking threw all her blood tests and whatnot - it's showing she has an ability to manipulate minds when she s-sings. It's like a certain note her voice forms that can control the minds of people around her."

"So what is she?"

"I don't know, there's not really a name-"

"A siren. She's a siren." A third voice joined the room, and both the avengers' heads snapped round to the direction it came from. In the door stood Steve, shoulder leant against the frame and ankles crossed.

"Who's watching y/n?" Nat asked.

"Clint. Anyway, my father - he used to read me a story when I was a kid. The Odyssey, I believe it was called. It was a Greek myth about a bewitching girl who lured saloons in with her voice so she could feed off them." Steve continued, pushing himself off the door frame and walking further into the room.

"There's no way that's real, though." Nat dismissed, frowning heavily at his words.

"No, no. He has a point - I mean, look at Steve. Look at me." Bruce said, gesturing to himself and Steve. "We shouldn't be possible, but science does some crazy things. Y/n was with HYDRA, right?"

"Yes, but-"

"Well, what if they did this to her. We know she was taken when she was young, so what if they did so to experiment on her?"

"I should go talk to her, you know - girl on girl. She seems to like me, maybe she knows what she is and she might open up to me, if I ask nicely." Nat suggests, walking out the room when she was met with no protests from the two men.

"There's something else I should mention." Bruce started fidgeting again, which man Steve's brown knit together.

"What is it, Bruce?" The super-soldier prompted. Bruce continued to fidget, not looking up from him hands as he spoke.

"Are you aware Tony used to have daughter?" Bruce asked sheepishly.

"Tony had a daughter?" Steve said, brows now raised with genuine shock. He knew of Tony's...escapades from before he was with Pepper, but he couldn't see Tony as the type to actually keep a child from just a one-night stand.

"She was adopted, some kid he found on the streets with no parents. So he took her in, raised her and then she just disappeared. Many people have forgotten she existed, and those that remember her are all under the impression that she is dead. I thought so too, until..." Bruce paused, flipping through some papers on his clipboard until he found what he was looking for. "Until this." He finished, handing the board over to Steve.

In Steve's hands was proof that matched y/n's DNA to that of Tony's adopted daughter.

"Well that explains the name, and her hesitation to tell us who she really is." Steve frowned, eyes scanning over the paper repeatedly. Bruce hummed in agreement, taking the clipboard back from Steve when he held it out for Bruce to take. "Do we tell Tony?" Steve asked after a moment.

"He doesn't want to know, I've tried telling him but he doesn't care." Bruce told Steve and Steve pressed his lips together as he thought. "I do think we should wake her up though. If she's Tony's daughter there can't be anything that's more dangerous about her than you expect her attitude." Bruce said and Steve nodded, suppressing a laugh.

"I'll tell Nat to wake her up." Steve said as he exited the lab.

...

The steam from the shower engulfed me, my hands running through my hair and brushing out the tangles lightly. As I scrubbed the shampoo from my scalp, I hummed a small tune - thankful to be somewhere noisy enough that I wouldn't risk affecting anyone with my powers. After waking me up Nat told me to clean up and get changed before handing me a pile of clothes and telling me that she would meet me at my room in half an hour to take me to meet the rest of the team.

Shutting the water off, I slid the glass door open and my feet padded onto the thin bath-mat. The towel wrapped around me as I patted my hair dry with another one, looking over my scarred figure in the large mirror opposite me.

A large scar spanned the width of my stomach, smaller remnants of cuts littering my thighs that were joined by one larger one from where I was once stabbed. Looking at myself over my shoulder, I observed the large scars that spanned over my back, the layers fading at different degrees from their varying ages. The memory of how I got them brought tears to my eyes, which I was quick to blink away and focus back onto what I was doing.

Pulling the large sweatshirt Steve had lent me over my head, I left the large bathroom clad in a pair of leggings and some socks I borrowed from Nat. I brushed my fingers through my wet locks, detangling them. I threw the towel onto the bed in the room I had been assigned and plopped down next to it, taking my time to survey the room I barely got a look of earlier.

The door to the en-suite bathroom I just exited sat on one side of the room, accompanied by a big closet and a dressing table. A chest of draws was propped next to the king sized bed the sat in and the free corner housed a small kitchen. It had a stove, fridge-freezer, sink and a few cabinets. On the side sat a kettle, toaster, blender and some chopping boards.

A sharp knock on the door bought me back to my senses, making me perk up a little at the sound of Nat's voice.

"You feeling okay?" I nodded. "Good, well Steve and Bruce want you to meet them in conference room 4. I'll take you." She quickly added the last part in seeing my scared face.

As we walked down the halls we chatted, talking about our pasts and finding out that we were fairly similar - we were both forced into the bad things we did, we both found a way to redeem ourselves, neither of us have ever had a boyfriend and we both love chicken noodle soup.

"Well, this is it." She announced, pointing at a door to our left. I nodded, going to open the door before pausing and turning around.

"Thank you. For taking me with you, for giving me this chance, for hiding me from HYDRA - thank you, really." I spoke softly, giving her the friendliest smile I could muster.

"No problem. I couldn't live with myself if I knew we could've helped you. Everyone deserves a second chance."

"I genuinely can't thank you enough - you saved me." I said, quickly swiping away the threatening tears with the heels of my hands.

"I was nice meeting you, y/n."

"You too." And with the last words said, I pushed the door open, walking into the room and being instantly greeted by Bruce and Steve.

"Hey, y/n, why don't you take a seat and we'll get the introductions out the way?" Bruce suggested and I nodded shyly. I took a seat next to Steve, who appeared to shuffle slightly away from me but I couldn't be sure.

"So, another midgardian?" a bulky man with shoulder length blonde hair and a red cape clipped to his shoulders broke the silence. He was clearly the God I'd been hearing about - I mean how much more of a costume does he need to look like Thor?

"Yes, we think so." Bruce confirmed. I frowned at this. Midgardian? What the hell was a midgardian?

"We think she's been tampered with, like me," Steve elaborated, "but as far as we know, she is of this earth." Steve spoke and Thor nodded. "We are keeping her safe from HYDRA." Steve said to break the silence as they all stared at me with funny looks. I kept my eyes cast down now, cheeks hot with embarrassment after feeling so many eyes on me at once.

"Does she-" I interjected the second I heard another voice. I stood abruptly, pushing me seat back and wincing at the screeching noise it made before resuming my angry face. I slammed my hand down the table as I stood, catching the attention of everyone sat at the table.

"If even one more of you refers to me as 'she' rather than just fucking talking directly to me I am going to end up sirening one of your asses!" I demanded, seething with anger. A grin broke out on Thor's face.

"Atta girl, I like this one already!" He laughed and I sat down again, smiling contented ay his compliment.

"She's got Tony's patience, all right." Another man remarked with a smirk. Steve simply rolled his eyes as common menus about my attitude were thrown around the room. Finally, someone addressed me. It was a woman with Blonde hair and kind eyes. She looked motherly.

"Hey, I'm pepper." She smiled kindly and I quickly reciprocated it. They went around the table - the man who had commented about my patience was called Clint, the blonde man was was indeed called Thor and obviously I'd already met Bruce and Steve.

"I'm y/n." I returned and she repeated my name in her beautiful voice, almost as if she was testing how I'd felt in her mouth.

"Y/n. A stunning name for a stunning lady." Thor commented, boyish grin still in place and I gave him a sheepish smile.

"Oh, cut it out big guy - you're like, a billion times her age." A voice came from the door and we all turned to find out who it was.

"Tony. I wasn't aware you'd be joining us." Steve said in a monotone voice and Tony gave him a tight smile.

"You don't get everything your way, Capsicle. Now, who's this?" Tony said, stuffing a mouthful of blueberries in his mouth before stuffing the bag of food in his back pocket and motioning to me with a nod.

"Tony, this is y/n," Bruce said moving out the way from where he was standing so Tony could see my face. The man's eyes widened instantly as the recognition sank in. "Y/n Stark."

#smut #captain america #winter soldier #winter solider fanfiction #captain america fanfiction #steve rogers x reader #steve x bucky #steve roger fanfic #steve rogers #steve rogers smut #steve Rogers image #bucky barnes #bucky barns x reader #bucky barns imagine #bucky fanfic #bucky x you #marvel fanfic #marvel smut #marvel

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seeminglyseph · 3 years

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trying to address my brain fog by reading about greek mythology. I’ve found I can watch very few videos on the subject because of the absolute surety people will say absolute bullshit without any acknowledgement of how much we don’t know, how much history and mythology is missing, and do not at any point acknowledge the holes in their research. I swear I hear the words “Persephone only had one myth” and I go a little crazy.

though that being said I do find ganymede really interesting and I know what he’s supposed to represent and that he’s the very root of the word ‘catamite’ but... as his exact age is not directly addressed I can make him a really young looking twink, and technically since Zeus stopped him from aging physically he could be any age. Honestly I like the idea of a ganymede who has grown old in mind and cynical about the world. also helps that there are a few stories where Eros cheats him though I haven’t read the full writings, it could be interpreted as a frustration with Eros inspiring Zeus’ attraction. (though it is interesting to try and think of what the most beautiful mortal should look like. I think the main descriptions are like... ‘young, prince, shepherd, fair haired, so fucking pretty’ I’ll have to look at some greek male models to try and get an understanding for a good face structure. I need to do that regardless because there are far too many greek gods with button noses and tiny chins in modern art. though I admit I have some trouble translating the completely straight bridge into art. I keep thinking ‘it must dip in from the brow’ but nay tis not the case in a lot of art so hopefully I can find some references from multiple angles.

also I have to get better at drawing curly hair because also there are too many greek gods in modern art with straight hair (though admittedly it’s easier to draw ‘cause it’s got no texture or definite shape, you can ignore straight hair for the most part when you’re drawing, and hide a lack of skill easier.) I also need to learn how to draw beards because I do appreciate that most adult male greek gods were drawn with beards. you know to symbolize their strength and masculinity and stuff. but they are hard to draw and I need to figure out different styles for different gods. I think it’s mostly Dionysus, Hermes and Apollo of the main gods that don’t have beards entirely to emphasize their youth and beauty (hence Dionysus losing the beard when adapted to myths where he’s a younger beauty, old old Dionysus had a beard and represented a lot more than I can ever hope to know because of the nature of time and the loss of information. I am giving him horns back though)

I need to sort through the headwear that set the women apart. Hera and Persephone both have a sort of diadem which makes sense since they’re queens, Aphrodite has like a band holding her hair up, Athena has a war helmet.... I know everyone had shorthand clues for less detailed art (trident, hades’ dual headed spear, zeus’ lightning, hermes’ hat so on...) so I want to find a way to keep those things in the character designs somehow. it’s hard sorting art sometimes because so much has been mislabeled and so much art the online source has since been deleted and ‘all pottery art looks the same’ and it’s like ‘here’s zeus reigning as king’ and it’s hades but he’s in a throne so like assumptions were made. And everyone thinks modern aesthetics should effect ancient hades, yes he was dark robed and mysterious but he wasn’t the weird skinny goth of the brother kings. he just like.... doesn’t have as many myths and was faithful to his wife. Didn’t need a story about why you should respect the god of the dead, whether you feared him or not doesn’t matter in the end when he takes possession of your soul.

In general I need to do so much research on poseidon, poor guy I know like none of his myths.... but I’m landlocked and afraid of the ocean so it kind of adds up. even the myths I do know are confusing because like where DO cyclops come from? fuck the illiad and the odessey are so long and require so much active thinking while reading to translate the sentence structure. And the books that summarize or retell myths in a modern language tend to...leave me feeling like I heard a second or thirdhand story and since they aren’t exactly essays with sources and footnotes I end up like ‘okay where is it that Zeus makes the decision to make Zagreus his heir?’ all I can find is that he was made heir and held the lightning bolt which enraged hera, but I swear there was a particular reason Zagreus was put on the throne and now I’m wondering if it wasn’t just ‘Zeus had a shiny new kid and was tired of people threatening to overthrow him so he made the kid the heir to shut everyone up’ trying to find stories about how zeus and demeter ended up having a child indicates that it was definitely rape but like..... it just goes back to demeter taking her daughter back not how zeus came to have sex with her in the first place? though sometimes it’s interpreted as the snakes? Zeus turning into a snake to have sex with both Demeter and Persephone gives me a feeling one myth got split into two but it’s hard to do research when you are....... not a researcher. and doing it casually with various websites that have archives of data and images. I don’t even know where to start looking into academic essays.

ahhh I know there’s shit talking about having things of cultural significance written down and colonialism but not knowing linear b or what happened in the dark ages is probably going to be my villain origin story. ‘hi yes I invented time travel to figure out the mythology that got lost’ like especially when it comes to trying to split off the christian influences (sorry norse mythology, it’s almost impossible to count what all the christians wedged in there sometimes)

also my knowledge of the heroes is really limited I found the gods way more interesting but I do need to figure out all the stories of like theseus and heracles in order to get the fullest story of the gods. I know the bare bones of heracles but I swear there was a prophecy he would overthrow his father but all I can find is the prophecy about metis’ hypothetical future son. which would be interesting to work with because as far as I’m aware you can’t actually avoid prophecy and if you do something to prevent a prophecy from happening it actually causes the prophecy to happen, right? and last I checked metis was still alive in there, acting as Zeus’ advisor and having forged Athena’s armour.

there’s so much information I need to learn before I start figuring out what to disregard to make up my own story... people are gonna complain about my Dionysus but I do not care, I liked him when he drove people mad for not respecting him and was a god of undesirables.... y’all can think the guy on my calf is there to get wasted but it is my own tiny declaration of rebellion. (I have in my head this idea of Hellenization of Dionysus being a plot point. since Zeus had already decided Dionysus would be the god of wine and relief from stresses, I see Dionysus returning to mt olympus grown and more serious than what zeus wanted with horns that both reminded him of Zagreus and of a more serious and dangerous kind of god. So his horns are broken off and he’s influenced to function among the olympians in a more agreeable fashion until you know... a return to sorts. It’s not a fully planned story and it’s is partially inspired by the lyrics ‘they broke your throne/they cut your hair’ and so on. maybe I am very angry and projecting that anger onto Dionysus but I like it... there’s so much work to do before I can even think of publishing a finished product in some form that my little fictional universe of greek gods can adapt to what I emotionally need in a story being constructed in my head?maybe it’s cathartic to be angry at a dad who is a fictional representation of the king of the gods and not dead in a small box in my parents room.

Also I feel like Dionysus is one of those gods who’s been ‘prettied up’ so much he’s almost unrecognizable and combined with the myths about him being raised as a girl it’s a really relatable idea to have him be forced to perform a version of himself that is untrue to gain approval from his family, but burning up with anger and pain inside until.... I guess in the fictional universe I am creating he starts a rebellion and a new war of the gods? which means I have to research each god thoroughly to figure out whether they’d be with Dionysus or Zeus. (kind of where Ganymede comes in as another man forced into a role of perpetual youth for the enjoyment of others, comes in as a co conspirator. like I know sometimes he’s also the constellation aquarius but I’m thinking... what better ally for the god of wine than Zeus’ official cup filler? I think they would have an ability to connect.)

#just rambling endlessly about greek mythology again #seph talks greek myth #obviously all my observations and interpretations are on a fictional level #the muses are not speaking the truth through me I have an idea and a passion and I want to work with them #my story is not intended to fit in with mythology as being just as true it's a fanfic #and besides that it's in such early stages it'll probably be 2030 by the time anything's collected or created enough to publish #definitely put some 'inspired by' on it #but I want to do proper research... which when I have money and the plague passes may involve me taking as many classics courses I can #which is disappointingly not a lot but one day maybe I'll be able to travel for an education

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morannegg · 4 years

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93 - I’m telling you, I’m haunted. (Logan and Virgil)

@mystic-voyager

“I’m haunted.”

The words were spoken with a… Surprisingly subtle lack of care, floating through the air for a few precious seconds as Logan processed the statement Virgil had just made. Perhaps the hesitation in forming a reply came from how sudden the words had been- Or at least unexpected, considering it was only early in the morning and Logic had not even moved past the task of finishing his coffee yet.

More likely, however, was that its origin lied in the scientifically improbability of the truth in said words.

As soon as the man managed to gather his thoughts and adjust his tie, Logan straightened up- Refraining from even letting out a sigh at the amount of conspiracy theories Virgil must have been watching last night to conclude he was haunted- and pushed his glasses further up his nose, rubbing the morning sleep out of them. “I must consider such things impossible, Virgil. I am presuming you intended to inform me that ghosts- which aren’t real- have been pestering you an unhealthy amount, and as much as I enjoy conspiracy videos myself…”

He let the silence linger for a moment, watching as the purple side neatly tucked his pale hands into the pockets of his pyjama’s before continuing. “... There is no such thing as true ‘haunting’. Be it the haunting of a location, item, or person.”

Something flickered across Virgils eyes for a moment, before the embodiment of Thomas’ anxiety let out a flat huff and moved to brush past Logan. Unsurprisingly, he reached for the pot of coffee, fiddling with the cabinet to procure a cup.

Logan was grateful for the fact that Virgil appreciated the beverage as much as he did, truly. Before he joined the light sides, the minimum amount of cups to be made with the coffee machine always required Logan to down an unhealthy amount of the stuff, or- Somehow worse- waste perfectly fine coffee altogether, with Roman being such a tea-heretic and Patton usually starting his day with hot chocolate of all things. He’d tried lecturing him on the amount of sugar he’d consume with such a schedule, but well.. He did have to hand it to the Moral side- Surely the amount of caffeine Virgil and Logan pumped into their systems wasn’t healthy for Thomas either.

Of course, Deceit occasionally fancied a cup of coffee- But he had joined after Virgil had, and the days where he did drink the coffee were few and far between, so he usually made his own.

As for Remus, no one really knew for certain what he drank. Logan did not wish to speculate.

So as he eyed Virgil pouring the last of the coffee into his own cup- A mug gifted by Patton with a Humpback painted onto the side alongside some positive message regarding whalesome love- he relaxed slightly, opening himself up to further comment. Still, it took a few seconds before Virgil continued, clearly aggitated by.. Something. Perhaps Logan’s attempt to debunk his conclusion in the most Logan-way possible- Or perhaps whatever had kept him up all night, if not conspiracy theories. Certainly it must’ve been something, judging by the bags underneath his eyes.

“Look, Lo. You know that, and I know that, but if telling that to the ghost in my room would have worked, I doubt I’d have to come downstairs and inform you that I’m haunted.” His voice was a low, tired grumble- Much akin to a college student being informed that they have yet another series of tests in two days time after already being pushed to the mental edge.

Logan shook his head in a calm manner, stepping forward. As one hand reached out to push the sugar and milk set a little closer to Virgil, the other aimed to draw soothing circles upon the thin back of his friend. He pursed his lips slightly, frown burrowing in concentration. “Very well, then. Why don’t you tell me in detail what happened?”

-----

And so he did.

Virgil had explained the issue as well as he could- Of how something had been sneaking in and out of his room at night, repeatedly, and how items had gone missing- hoodies, scarves, even socks.

And a left slipper, apparently.

He told him how everytime he tried to investigate, the supposed ghost just… Was nowhere to be found, as if there truly was something incorporeal floating around. Logan, at this point, had already summoned his Sherlock hat, having sent John Patson to question Roman if he had seen anything odd. After all, his room was closest to Virgil’s.

Not that that had helped them in anyway. Roman was- apparently- in one of his moods, and far too busy focusing on his next grand idea to spare Patton more than a few words. Which, even more so, were spoken quite hastily and overflowing with excitement, to allow the creative side to get back to work as soon as possible.

Dee wasn’t of much help, either. The colder temperatures truly weren’t suiting the side in any shape or form, causing him to drowsily nap in his room whenever Patton was too occupied to warm him up. Remus they couldn’t even find- Likely busy in the imagination, according to Roman.

Which brought them to their current situation.

Hiding in Virgil’s closet with the anxious side certainly hadn’t been something Logan had been expecting to do ever again- truly, all of them were fairly done with being in any kind of closet ever since Thomas finally came out of it- but luckily, this one was far more literal. And spacious. Through the gap, Logan held a good view on the glow-in-the-dark stars he had helped Virgil put up on the ceiling- all with proper constellations, naturally.

As far as stakeouts went, this one was fairly pleasant all-together, really. Whilst they had initially decided against bringing snacks, apparently Patton was quite against the idea, having hidden a small batch of cookies in the closet for the duo. They were gone before they’d even started discussing the third constellation they could spy from here- In hushed voices, naturally.

In fact, it was so pleasant that they nearly missed that all-defining moment.

“No, see, the Greek were quite biased- The names of the constellations usually came from their myths and heroes, and a whole fourth of them starts with a C. It’s truly a bit- if I may- overkill, to-” And just like that, he was cut off- Virgils hand suddenly shooting up to cover his mouth, holding up a barely-visible finger in the dark. At first, Logans eyes widened at the gesture- But then he too caught on to what the other side had picked up on.

The door!

The creaking sound rung through the air like nails on a chalkboard. Whilst the atmosphere had quickly eased between Virgil and Logan earlier in the evening, just like that it tensed up again. In spite of his earlier claim regarding the existence of ghosts, the teacher felt a cold shiver snake its way up his back. That must be the doing of being in Anxiety’s room- Although Logan did notice that Virgil was doing his best to keep it from affecting him too much.

He felt the cold air as he sucked in a sharp, quiet breath- Felt the hairs on his forearms prickle as they stood up, felt his muscles tense. Somewhere beside him, he vaguely registered Virgil reacting in a similar way- If not through visual means, then through the simple spike in pure thrill radiating from him. Of course, it made sense to Logan.

Virgil was anxiety. He was fight or flight. He was Thomas’ natural ability to react to what’s unknown and potentially dangerous. It made all the sense in the world that he’d tense up. If Logan already had this strong a reaction due to simply being in Virgil’s room, then he barely even wanted to know what the other side himself was going through.

Instinctively, he reached up to draw circles onto Virgil’s back again, attempting to calm him, whilst his eyes flickered over to the crevice in the door again. They waited. Silence lingered. And then, soft footsteps pressed against the wooden floorboards, as the chills got colder.

The duo in the closet held their breaths as the footsteps drew nearer. Logan could almost taste the tension in the air as his heart pounded against his chest, drumming in his ears. Or maybe that tension was just the dryness of his mouth. It didn’t matter much anyway, as the footsteps suddenly halted- Followed by a soft sound of rustling paper, and then silence.

Until Virgil tore away, at least.

Logan tried to reach for him, grab his wrist and drag him back as a warning cry fought to be let out- But it was already far too late as Virgil burst out of the closet, Logan stumbling after him as the door suddenly gave way. Yelping, Logic tumbled down- Bumping against Virgil and taking him down with him. The Anxious side cried out in a string of words that likely would not be Patton-approved if he had heard them, hurriedly trying to gaze around as Logan pushed himself back up with a startled gasp.

There was nothing.

“That’s impossible!” Logan exclaimed, rushing to the still-open door. Virgil scrambled after him, hurling around the corner after the logical side. “I’m telling you, I’m haunted!” He called out after him, turning his head to find a trace of the ghost.

“There is no such thing as ghosts!” Logan yelled as they ran, gazing at the different hallways as they reached a split. In spite of himself, he suddenly wasn’t as certain anymore. “Yes there is, it was just there!” Virgil inhaled deeply, trying to catch his breath as the friends halted.

Logans eye twitched. There was no such thing as ghosts. There was no such thing as ghosts! Despair laced his features, however, as he saw no sign of anyone either hallway- Turning around to try the other side with a defiant cry.

“Falsehood!”

-----

Remus held his breath from atop the closet as the duo rushed out the door, Virgil’s Tim Burton poster clenched between his teeth as his limbs were busy keeping his body up and out of sight- Plastered between the wall and the ceiling in a way not-too-different from Virgil whenever he got truly startled.

Was it really worth it?

Remus’ ear twitched as the cry came from the hallway. “Falsehood!” And he just barely spied the two rushing by again, poster still in his mouth.

Definitely.

#Writing prompt #Virgil Sanders #Logan Sanders #Deceit Sanders #Patton Sanders #Roman Sanders #Remus Sanders #Thomas Sanders #Sanders Sides Fanfiction #Fanfiction

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melissawyatt · 5 years

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Answering the Critics of Tarsem Singh’s The Fall

(Previously appeared on my old tumblr. Reposting revised version by request:) A couple of years ago, I fell head-over-heels in love. With a movie. Specifically visionary director Tarsem Singh’s 2006 labor of love, The Fall. The first time I watched it, I was swept away by the visuals but confused by the story itself. Was it good? I wasn’t sure. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I sat down to watch it again and this time, I realized that it was a film told in the language of symbols. Once my brain unlocked that, the film absolutely blew me away. It rocketed to the top of my favorites list, which is saying something considering my top ten hasn’t changed in about twenty years and most of the films on it are more than sixty years old. I hadn’t been so transported by a modern film in years.

Not only that, but it has changed the way I view my role as a writer and storyteller, a quantum shift. (I’ll write more about that in another post later.) Needing to connect with the opinions of others, I searched out reviews on-line and was staggered by how poorly this film had been received by mainstream industry critics. At the time, it had only a 59% aggregate rating on Rotten Tomatoes (the rating has since climbed to 61% but only because some negative reviews have been deleted,) ranking it significantly below such cinematic treasures as Talladega Nights and Jackass: Number Two.

So I began to carefully read the negative industry reviews in an effort to understand what it was that the people paid to professionally understand film did not, in fact, understand about this particular film. And what I discovered was this: they are Philistines. Yeah, I’m sorry, but they are. There’s something very wrong when people who make a living watching movies almost willfully misunderstand a film that is all about understanding, provided you have a basic grasp of the universal language of symbolism and metaphor and creative narrative structure. And you would think a film critic would have something of a nodding acquaintance with those things.

What follows is my defense of the film against the most often-cited issues raised in those reviews. If you haven’t seen the film, this won’t make much sense. If you have and didn’t like it, maybe it will inspire you to try again. In any case, spoilers abound.

What you have to understand about this film first and foremost is that it is a testament to the power of storytelling. You can’t go in expecting realism--even the sort of realism that often grounds fairy tales and fantasies. You know why? Because stories aren’t really real. They’re how we help ourselves understand reality by turning it on its head in a space removed from ourselves where we can safely examine it.

So we know this is a story about stories. We also know that stories function through the language of symbolism and metaphor. This is how storytellers connect their own thoughts and feelings to those of their audience through shared experiences. I can tell you that a man is like an oak tree and you will understand that I don’t literally mean this man is an oak tree. But because, like me, you have also seen an oak tree, you will instantly have a feeling about this man that I want you to have. That is the language of story.

The best stories add to this a language of their own and require the audience to learn that language in order to participate in the story. This film is such a story and one of the criticisms stems from those who were either deaf to that language, weren’t aware that they were expected to pay attention to it, or were too impatient to do so. These are the critics who found the film to be “empty eye candy” when, in fact, it speaks a rich, symbolic language.

It’s not a difficult or obscure language and the storyteller (director Tarsem Singh) helps you to understand, if you are willing to participate. And because there is a theme here of shared storytelling, it is right that you should. The storyteller even tells you so with the defining lines of this film: “It’s my story,” the hero says. And the heroine counters “Mine, too.” It is a compliment he is paying you as well as a hearkening back to the very roots of story: the audience is part of the story.

In film, the storyteller makes use of images, visuals that help him connect the intent of his story with his audience. But that still requires willing participation. It still requires that you understand the language not just of words but of the things that he will show you.

So the director uses the camera in many different ways to direct you to see what he wants you to see and feel what he wants you to feel. In this film, our director/storyteller uses his camera as an open door into his vision. But he does not abandon you in this world of his. He stays with you, telling you what to notice. He even tells you he understands that you will not get all of it by making his heroine someone who barely understands the language around her. Like her, you will learn. But you have to listen to him and you have to remember.

Perhaps most importantly, you have to step away from the conventions of more realistic films and back into that language of story. Because in the real world and films that try so hard to ape it, randomness occurs regularly. But in symbolic story, nothing is random. Everything is important. And so it is, here.

Because we are in the hands of a virtuoso visualist, the wealth of symbolism contained in this film can be overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the images. That is a valid criticism but it’s what we call a high-class problem with a simple solution: watch it again.

At heart, this is a love story, but it is also a passionate love letter to storytelling. We are told this right up front, when our heroine Alexandria writes a love note. But love does not always lead us where we intend and like a butterfly, her note flutters through an open window and into unexpected hands.

Alexandria’s love note will appear again throughout the film, a reminder of its strength and power. And we will see her take up her crayons again later, as she literally tries to draw the hero out of his unhappiness. There is power in her creative expressions as there is power in story.

But back to those opening scenes. Everything is important and a potential symbol, and that includes Alexandria’s seemingly uninteresting costume. Notice that she wears a gray sweater and because her left arm is in a cast, one arm of her sweater hangs down. What does that remind you of? Maybe nothing just yet but keep paying attention.

When she meets Roy, the accidental recipient of her love note, she shows him her box of treasures and the first thing he draws out of the box is a small elephant. While elephants are universal symbols of good luck (you knew this, I hope), they are particularly so in India, where they are identified with water, of the greatest importance in a hot, dry climate. Water is the stuff of life. The Hindu god Ganesha is represented with the head of an elephant. He is the remover of obstacles.

As Roy begins to tell Alexandria his “epic tale of love and revenge,” he has stranded his characters on a desert island, a hot, dry place surrounded by water. (Deserts figure largely in this movie. The first shot we see in color after the black and white title sequence is a palm tree, indicating an oasis in a desert.) But the hero of Roy’s story, the Masked Bandit cannot swim and must be rescued by an elephant.

And so we have Alexandria, the baby elephant with her gray sweater sleeve trunk and her stubbornness, which we will see later. Obstacles do not get in her way. Alexandria arrives to save Roy from his desert island of despair.

See how easy this is once you think about it for a minute? And it’s all there, presented to you like the treasure box Alexandria carries. You only have to care enough to root through it and see what’s inside.

Let’s try another one: butterflies. Because they change from their earthbound caterpillar form to winged creatures of the air, butterflies are symbols of the soul. In the classical myth of Cupid and Psyche, Psyche is often symbolically connected with butterflies and her name is the Greek word for soul.

And this film is full of butterflies. One of the most often mentioned sequences is the transition from the iridescent blue butterfly to the Butterfly Reef where the bandits are stranded. But that is so much more than merely a cleverly beautiful camera trick. It’s deeply symbolic. Butterflies everywhere. Souls everywhere. Souls in peril.

Because that is what’s at stake here. Later on, it will be said outright, but for now, the storyteller is building intricate layers of symbolism so that when he comes out and tells you “Here is a soul in need of saving,” it will have the added depth of meaning and connection that art brings to life. By asking you to participate in “collecting” these symbols, the storyteller places his story into your hands through your shared understanding. You and the storyteller are collaborating. At that moment, it becomes yours as well as his.

But we’re not done with the butterflies. When the villain of the piece, Governor Odious, presents a rare butterfly to Darwin (one of the company of bandits), the butterfly is stabbed through the heart, and we learn that Roy’s heart has been stabbed through in much the same way.

Darwin himself wears an outrageous fur coat. Considered more carefully, the pattern of “eyes” on his coat mimics the defense mechanisms of certain butterflies.Later on, when Nurse Evelyn appears in the epic, she wears a gasp-worthy costume that again, can overwhelm with its artistry so that you might miss its symbolic importance. The fan-like screen of her headdress resembles a butterfly, and Darwin even gives voice to this. “Just like a butterfly,” he says.

But she is only “like” a butterfly. She is faithless, without a soul. Even in the “real world” hospital sequences, her caring is only superficial. The clue to this is when she can’t be bothered to retrieve Alexandria’s note when it goes astray.

When Alexandria stands before the bathroom mirror, she draws a butterfly on her belly rather than putting the lipstick on her cheeks as Nurse Evelyn did earlier, identifying with the soul rather than transient human vanity. (That scene is framed to perfectly reference the vanitas motif in classical paintings.)

Oranges are another heavily used symbol. Oranges are loaded with vitamin C. Vitamin C promotes healing. Oranges are delivered by the crate-load to the hospital, this place of healing, surrounded by orange groves, where Roy and Alexandria have come to recover from their falls. Other patients are seen consuming the oranges but never Roy because Roy is not healing. Alexandria, already associated with bright and hopeful things like butterflies and elephants, is such an exuberant messenger of healing that she throws oranges about. She has herself emerged from the very groves where oranges grow.

Let’s move on to another problem some critics had with the film.Other films have employed the conceit of having a real world frame story where one character tells another a story that takes place in a fantasy world. If you go into this movie thinking “Oh, this is going to be like The Princess Bride (or some similar film),” you will be confused. You might think that the epic sequences don’t make sense. That the epic doesn’t stand alone as its own story. That the epic, in fact, is not a very good epic.And you’d be right. But you would also be missing the point. The epic isn’t meant to be its own story. It isn’t meant to make sense. It isn’t meant to be—well—an epic. At first, it is just a bunch of nonsense this unhappy man is pulling out of the air to entertain this little girl. From Roy’s perspective, it begins as an idle diversion, develops into a manipulative tool and ends as a warped and dangerous weapon.

What you need to remember is that Roy is not a storyteller. He is a broken, desperate man. Physically and psychologically wounded, in pain and clouded by morphine, he strings together seemingly random elements from his “college man” background. His words grow into the vivid, sweeping images, colored by Alexandria’s imagination and her own experiences. The inside lid of her treasure box is the handbill of her imagination.That is what sets the structure of this film apart from those with which it is most often compared. The real world story and the epic are inextricably linked. They inform on each other. The epic reflects what is going on in Roy’s battered mind. As he falls apart, so does the epic.

Another frequent criticism is the five bandits and their lack of development as individual characters. This is an outgrowth of not understanding the role of the epic in the larger story and that the five bandits are not individual characters but instead represent different aspects of Roy’s fractured psyche.

Without realizing he is doing it, Roy reveals a great deal about himself through them.First, there is the Masked Bandit, who is of course the dashing hero Roy wishes he could be, who he tried to be. It’s a fantasy he can’t sustain when later in the epic and in the real world, Alexandria puts him too firmly in the position of hero and the Masked Bandit crumbles.

Then we have the Indian who has lost the only woman he has ever loved and has vowed never to look at another woman again. The Indian represents Roy’s broken heart.

Next is Luigi, the explosives expert, who represents Roy’s suicidal tendencies, which ultimately prove to be impotent. Note that Luigi’s bombs never go off until the end, when he still does not achieve the release Roy sought through suicide.

Otta Benga, the escaped slave, is Roy’s desire to escape the physical bondage of his disability. He loses his brother, his other half, in the way that Roy considers himself, as a paraplegic, half a man.

And then there’s Darwin. Darwin is Roy’s calmer intellect, his kindness and ironically, his spirituality. Among the bandits, he is the only one without a weapon. He stops Luigi from blowing open the door of the castle with a more thoughtful solution. He is the one to invoke God when the Masked Bandit attempts to execute Evelyn. And he is the one, through the Mystic (who represents Alexandria), to warn that swallowing the morphine tablets was a mistake. He is Roy’s voice of reason and he is the first to go when Roy starts killing off the bandits. In his final desperation, Roy must silence that voice. Darwin is the side of Roy we care about, the Roy we hope will win in the end.

So no, the bandits are not developed as individual characters because they are not individual characters. Like the epic itself, their function is to help you understand Roy.

The film takes the storytelling conceit to another level by allowing Alexandria to alter the epic. She is no passive listener or static receiver of story. She participates. She exerts her own influence over the story, at first in small ways and without understanding the significance, such as stating that she doesn’t like pirate stories and so Roy turns it into a story about bandits (inadvertently supplying him with a term and concept he uses later for his own purposes. “Be a good bandit.” Steal for me.) Or when she pushes for romance and kissing when Roy, heartbroken and betrayed, doesn’t want them. And going so far as to change the main character from her father (who she informs Roy—in the poignantly matter-of-fact way of children—is dead) to Roy, with whom she has fallen in love. Roy becomes her hero, though he is so wrapped up in his own misery, he misses the significance of this moment until it is too late.

Later on, when the story takes a turn that is too dark for her, Alexandria alters it in the most dramatic way, by inserting herself into it. At first, she makes a heroic effort—even so far as dressing herself in her imagination in the same costume as her hero—and it seems as though she might succeed. But even this stubborn little Ganesha is powerless when Roy succumbs to the three real morphine tablets he has swallowed (along with the placebos.) She can’t waken him and she must walk away.

This is where the epic shifts from the idea of shared storytelling to a battleground where the two of them fight for control of the ending. After her second fall, when Alexandria pushes Roy to finish the epic, he turns it into a weapon, using it to strike out at her and make her understand why he feels he needs to die, to kill the hero image of him he has unwittingly helped build in her mind. Her influence has become so strong, he is aware that she can alter not only the story he has been spinning for her but his own choices. He tries to silence her. In the epic, she is gagged and in the hospital, he speaks over the things she tries to tell him. But she has also become aware of the true nature of the epic and what is really at stake and she will not give up. Note here that the tables have been turned and it is Alexandria in the bed and Roy in a chair by her side, the storyteller roles reversed.

And that is what this film is telling you. We connect with each other through story and story can be more powerful than we can guess. There is a great responsibility we take on when we invite people into our stories, regardless of our agenda. Roy did not begin his epic believing or even hoping that Alexandria would save him by changing the course of his own story. But that was the unpredictable risk he took by letting her in.

Is it a perfect film? Of course not. There is no such thing as any perfect work of art. But you don’t look at the Mona Lisa and say “The perspective of the background on the left does not match the perspective of the background on the right. This thing is crap!” No. Why? Because you are transported by the creative power of the rest of it. And maybe you are even a little touched by its flaws. Perfection is achieved by machines. Flaws are human. Humanity is who we are, and that is beautiful.

So some of the writing is clunky, some of the supporting performances awkward, and something is a bit off in the climactic sequence. The most troubling problem is that of Roy’s motivation. The reason for his great despair is not established well enough to support the ultimate resolution. But I believe these flaws are born out of the creative passion of the storyteller, and I will take flawed, risk-taking passion over carefully calculated flatness or a string of polished CGI tropes any day. Beyond the justly celebrated dazzling imagery of this film, what it gets right is loving, generous, and human. It is a rare and unusual combination of flamboyance and bombast alongside tender intimacy. It is a love note in astoundingly beautiful gibberish that will reward you over and over if you take the time to learn its language.

#the fall #the fall movie #the fall 2008 #tarsem singh the fall #lee pace #tarsem singh #the fall 2006

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itsallabigmess · 5 years

Text

Of Charms and Threads

A/N: Listen up, beautiful people: Jackson Wang! This amazing human being is my ult bias. I fully blame him for my high expectation in men - and in relationships in general.

If you read any of my other fics or visited my blog you are very aware that I’m a slut for fluff and corny stuff. So all the cuteness is elevated to a 100 in this scenario. You’ve been warned.

I had the idea for this fic after contemplating how much I need a vacation (from life). It’s a mixture of AUs and I had to do some light research, which was fun. So was writing this story.

Once again, it’s poorly revised -- I’m really bad at revising my stuff -- so I apologize for the many absurd mistakes you’ll find.

A massive thanks to everyone who have been reading my stuff, liking, reblogging...

And oh, if you want to read any of my other scenarios, I have a masterlist link on my blog. A.

It took you a few seconds to realize that the buzz you were hearing was not the alarm on your phone, but the bell from your front door. You stumbled from the bed, your legs stuck in the sheets almost making you fall. There was a package for you, the delivery man said, giving you something to sign before handling you the small box he was holding. You tried to be polite, smiling and wishing him a good day but only after checking yourself in the mirror you understood the funny expression the guy had on his face.

You took your time on the shower, preparing yourself for the things you had to do that day. You finally saved enough money to give yourself a nice trip. And after months or researching you finally chose your destination: Greece. The place that seemed to have the perfect combination of everything your mind was craving good food, beautiful beaches, a lot of history, and maybe a bit of magic. Even though you were poorly trying to convince yourself the last part had absolutely nothing to do with it.

It was late in the afternoon when you came back home, dropping the shopping bags by the door, glad that you could find everything that was on your checklist. And after you prepared yourself some nice dinner, you finally gave attention to the package you received. You knew exactly what it was and who sent you before opening it. But still, there it was, a small card with your mother’s handwriting.

Hope this will ease your heart’s torments. But don’t forget, love always comes from one’s inside first.

“Yeah, mom. Thanks,” you mumble rolling your eyes, throwing the card over the coffee table.

Inside the box, there was a small book of spells, one you remembered from your childhood, your mother never let you get close to it when you were a kid, even though she used it constantly. The book was passed from generations in your family and now, apparently, it was your time to have it.

It smelled as old as it looked, his pages yellowed with time. Somehow, all the different writings and drawings were completely visible. It was filled with charms, incantations, and recipes, written by the women of your family.

You always ran away from it. Magic. It was much more visceral. More real than the books and movies you grew up with. There wasn’t wands and flying brooms. No magical creatures or making things disappear in thin air. Which was maybe why from a very young age you didn’t see the fun of it. And yes, you used it every now and again when you were filling sick or wanted to make your hair grow faster. But witchcraft, even though was in your blood, never really made part of your life.

A few weeks back, you visit your mother in your hometown, and after a few too many glasses of wine, you confessed how lonely you were feeling. You were in your mid-twenties and had never fallen in love before. You had relationships, but they didn’t last long, you never being able to fully correspond to the other person emotions. It never bothered you before. Your mind was always focusing on your studies and then work. But now, you just felt empty. Like a part of you was missing. And seeing all your friends being happy with their significant others, getting married, wasn’t really helping. At first, you decided to take this vacation to convince yourself that maybe that was all that you really needed: some time off from routine. But even though you were thrilled with the trip, something in you kept telling you that it was not enough.

So, your mother decided to send you the book. “Take it with you on your trip and use it wisely,” she texted you as soon she delivered it the post office. Now that it was in your hands, you chuckled alone, feeling incredibly goofy.

You skimmed the pages until you found the one that had the spell you were looking for. A spell to attract your soulmate.

With the word soulmate shining at you, you remembered this story you heard in one of your first classes when you started college. A Greek myth about how humans used to be almost perfect beings, man and woman together in the same body. Zeus, angry at those humans for wanting to be equal to the gods, cut them in half so they would walk on earth with the curse of always missing the part that was taken from them.

You bit your lip, putting the book over the coffee table. Feeling a strange tingle on your body, you held your legs over the couch. Was your destination choice for the trip, not a coincidence?

If you were going to do this, might as well do it with purpose. You spent your first day in Athens, visiting museums and archaeological sites, heading to the Aphrodite temple last. Maybe doing your chant in the house of the goddess of love would help to speed things up. The sun was almost completely down and only a few people remained at the place. You tried to find a spot outside the temple where no one could see you and started to remove from your backpack all the things you have stored the night before. In a small bowl, you put some water, a few drops of your favorite perfume, a string of your hair you just removed, and some petals of miniature rose. Simple enough, you thought, wrapping the bowl in a red scarf. You read the lines of the book again, just to make sure you memorized it.

You waited until it was five minutes before the visitations would end to come back inside the temple. Crouching in what appeared to be the exact middle of the temple, you placed your backpack in your front so it may look like you were searching for something inside of it, and unwrapped the bowl, putting the scarf around your neck. You looked around, but nobody seemed to notice you, the remaining few people too occupied looking for the best angle for their selfies. You dipped your fingers in the bowl, bringing them to your forehead, chest, wrists, and ankles, while you recited the words, asking the winds to show you the way to the part that was missing from you.

You repeated the action a few times before someone else’s voice distracted you. A look over your shoulder and you saw a guard coming in your direction. You closed your backpack and put it your back, and held the bowl close to your body, not having much else to do with it.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak Greek,” you told the guard as he stopped in front of you.

He gave a good look at you and the bowl in your hands, before giving you a likable smile. “You’re not the first to come to ask Aphrodite to bring you love,” he said with a strong accent. “Visitations are over. You need to leave.”

You looked down, feeling your cheeks burn in embarrassment as you passed by him, mumbling your apologies for the disturbance.

You were in the tub, back in your hotel room, water covered with the rose petals you still had with you and lavender, plants usually used to bring love and sense of peace. You wondered if you should, would feel any different. If it worked, shouldn’t you have a new sensation in your body, feel the heaviness of your heart dissipate?

Or maybe it didn’t work. Because it was stupid after all.

It was illogical, you thought, wanting to find your soulmate at such a young age. Especially if you weren’t even sure if soulmates really existed.

Lying in bed, you tried to brush away those thoughts, deciding you should continue to focus on yourself, and in having fun and enjoying your next days of vacation. You did spend a lot of money on it after all.

Instead of making reservations in a hotel, you decided to rent a small studio in your next destination, Santorini island. The owner of the place, a woman in her forties called Maria, was kind enough to pick you up at the airport, giving a few tips on where to go and what to do on the way to the place where you were staying, even giving you cards of people who could give you tours for a decent price.

Maria gave you the keys of the studio, and wished you a nice stay, leaving you behind mesmerized by the amazing view from the balcony, the sensation you could see almost all of Santorini and the sea surrounding it from there.

You took a quick shower, changed clothes and decided to walk around to get familiarized with your surroundings, takings photos every few steps, already in love with the island. When the night came, you sat in a small restaurant on your way to the studio, accepting the recommendation the waiter gave to you.

There was traditional music playing somewhere in the nearby square, and you followed the sound after you finished your dinner. A few older men were sitting and playing while people surrounded them, some singing and clapping, some dancing along. You were taking a few pictures when you felt someone bumping into you, cold liquid sliding down your body.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” the man who had just give you a beer bath started to apologize, sounding embarrassed at the mess he made.

It took you a second to get out of your surprise state, barely looking at him, more preoccupied with your camera. “It’s fine,” you finally said, putting the camera inside your backpack.

“I swear it was an accident,” he insisted.

“It’s okay,” you looked at him, trying to not sound mad “It happens. No harm was done.”

You started walking away, trying to wipe off the drops of beer you could still feel in your arms when you heard him call for you again. A look over your shoulder and you could see him doing a small run catch up with you “Wait! Maybe you should take this,” he offered the button shirt he was wearing, making you frown at him, confused. “Ahm… your shirt is a bit transparent.”

You looked down only to see that your lace bra was completely visible through the white wet shirt. “Shit!” Your hands flew to cover your breast, as you looked around quickly to see if anyone had noticed. Gladly, you still had your red scarf with you, and you soon wrapped it around yourself.

“I’m really sorry,” he apologized again.

“You already said that,” you snapped back, walking again, faster this time, feeling completely annoyed.

“Still. I’m Jackson, by the way” he said, still following you, but keeping his distance. You didn’t say a thing, holding the straps of your backpack as it would help you to walk faster somehow, looking straight away. “My friends don’t know how to drink without making fool of themselves. Or a fool of me, apparently.”

“Look,” you said, turning abruptly to him. He seemed surprised for a second. “I said it was fine. I would really appreciate if you stopped following me now.”

“I’m not following you. Just keeping you company.”

“Thanks, but I’m fine by myself,” you gave your back to him again, feet moving quickly.

“Are you sure? You do seem a bit lost,” he stayed in his place, hands shoved in the front pockets of his pants.

“I’m not lost,” you mumbled to yourself, waiting to turn the corner to check the directions on your phone. He didn’t seem to continue to follow you, which was a relief. Not that he seemed dangerous. Somehow, he really sounded concerned if you were okay. But still, you didn’t know him, or anyone in the country for that matter, and really didn’t want to have a strange man knowing where you were staying alone. Maybe you should have looked for a protection spell instead of a love one. It would probably be way more useful.

“Have a good night, stranger,” you heard him shout far way back, a prickle in your ankles as you turned around the corner.

Hiking seemed like a good idea for your first day in Santorini. You left early, with the sun still rising, wanting to avoid dealing with the summer heat, even though you knew you didn’t have much of a choice. The hike could be made in a total of 3 hours, as you learned by researching about it, but you were in no rush, wanting to do as much sightseeing and take as many pictures as possible.

You didn’t hire a guide, knowing that if you started the path in the right place, all you needed to do was follow the signs. In any case, you just might as well ask for directions, surely you wouldn’t be the only one in the trail.

An hour later you finally stopped in a villa to drink some water, glad that it wasn’t as hot as you expected. You sat by the white wall that gave you the view of the ocean, taking a few minutes to catch your breath and take some pics of the sea of white walls that made formed most of the houses of the island. Your feet started moving again back on the trail, the sun giving all his attention to the back of your neck, as you heard some steps behind you.

“Hello, stranger,” Jackson smiled when you turned your face in his direction.

“You again,” you said blankly looking at him up and down. He looked casual, wearing shorts, a black tee, and snickers, traces that he didn’t have enough sleep still on his face, his cap a reminder that you still needed to buy one for yourself. “Where the hell did you came from?”

“I’m staying at that hotel back there,” he pointed over his left shoulder. You didn’t follow his gaze “Saw you passing and decided to say hi.”

“Hi,” you said with a little wave of your hand after noticing that his eyes were fixed on you, which was a little worrisome since you both were walking up an uneven trail. He seemed satisfied, eyes now down.

“I felt bad for leaving you to walk alone last night,”

“Why?” you raised a brow at him “You don’t know me.”

“Oh right, you didn’t give me your name last night,” he snapped his fingers, throwing his head back as if he had just remembered something.

“So, you think that just by being aware of a person’s name you already know them...”

“No, but it’s a good start,” he gave you his easy smile, the one that apparently was constantly in his face. “So…?”

After a long heavy sigh, you finally stopped walking and gave him your name, he extending his hand to shake yours and repeating his own, as if he was meeting you in a formal situation that didn’t fit neither you or the place, the seconds of silence that followed starting to make you feel embarrassed.

“I should keep going,” you said apologetic, adjusting the straps of your backpack. You started to walk again, distracted with a new thought in your mind when you felt Jackson walking by your side again.

“You really need to stop following me,” you sounded way less angry than you did the night before.

“Not following. Keeping you company, remember? You are making the hike to Oia, right? Why not do it together?”

“You, making the hike?” you sounded skeptical. “Shouldn’t you at least have some water with you?”

“I can buy some on the way,” he shrugged.

“Aren’t your friends going to miss you? It’s a long walk.”

“Doubt it, they are all passed out because of last night. Besides, I spend way too much time with them already.”

There was no excuse you could find to give him not to keep you company, no matter how hard you tried. You were also certain that nothing you could say to him would make him go away, so you just kept walking, avoiding looking at him, knowing he wasn’t doing the same.

But Jackson stayed quiet most of the trail, which was nice, mostly because you were too busy focusing on keeping breath steady during the ups and downs, even though you were walking in a slow pace – you shouldn’t have skipped the gym. But also, Jackson was cute. Really cute. There was something pleasant about the way he smiled, the way he talked. You didn’t figure out what was it yet and wasn’t sure if you wanted to.

He didn’t mind to stopping every now and again when you wanted to take photos, even offering to take yours. And as the hours passed, even though you didn’t share enough words that weren’t about the view, you felt used, comfortable even, with his presence.

You both dropped in your chairs after finally arriving at the end of the trail many hours later, resting by the shadows of a lounge place that allowed any visitor to use the pool if they bought some drinks and food. You both decided to have lunch there, your stomach growling as you looked at the menu.

The pool was tempting you, feeling almost desperate to have it’s the cold water on your warm skin. Gladly, you had prepared yourself – as always - and were wearing a one-piece swimsuit under your clothes.

“I’m going for a dip,” you told Jackson, as you get rid of your sneakers. “Wanna come?”

“No, I’m good.”

“Mind keeping an eye on my things then?” you asked, smiling at him when he told you to not worry about it.

Jackson watched you carefully as you walked to the pool, eyes resting on the vivid red lines contouring your ankles. When you told you were going for a dip, he imagined you would just jump in the pool. But curiously for him, you entered the pool slowly descending by its stairs, keeping yourself close to the borders until you got to the other side, diving and then resting your arms over the edge where you could look to the ocean in front of you.

He took a photo of you with his phone, mesmerized by how nicely you fitted the view., how distant your mind seemed to be.

The lazy hours you both shared after lunch were spent by getting to know each other, you feeling a bit guilty for sharing so much time with someone and only being aware of his name. Jackson was more than willing to know you better, asking about your life, where you lived, what you did. It was oddly easy talking to him. Like you were old friends that were catching up on all the time lost, sharing every detail that came in mind, you could swear you even knew each other’s mothers birthday as the night arrived.

You shared a cab after giving up on hiking back. Jackson tried to convince you to go for dinner with him later, but all you had in mind was the comfy bed that waited for you. He complained – a lot – when the cab stopped first at his hotel but calmed down when you exchanged phone numbers and you promised to text him as soon as you got to your place.

The red lines in your ankles didn’t stop to tingle since you came back, and as you took your shower, you wondered if they were consequences of the spell. As if it had bounced back, the marks being a punishment for dwelling with magic when you were not used to doing so.

Jackson texted you back when you were already in bed, saying how much he has enjoyed your company, and how he was expecting to see you again. You smiled at the message, biting your lip when you realized that, for some reason, you felt the same.

With heavy eyes and tiredness washing over your body, the last thing on your sight before everything turned to black was the spellbook resting on top of your suitcase.

Running as fast as you could, your legs still tired from the day before, you arrived late at the marina. You still lost a few more minutes trying to find the right boat that would take you on a tour around the island. After the guide showed you where you could keep your bag, you approached the front of the boat where the other passengers were, amazingly not surprised by the fact that Jackson was there too, his infections laugh easily finding its way to your ears.

“Well, who’s following who now,” he teased, getting up and walking towards you as soon as he noticed you.

“And here I was thinking it was called keeping company,” you winked at him, blushing after he gave you a quick kiss on your cheek.

Jackson introduced you to his friends, you already feeling familiarized with how much he talked about them the day before, they all very welcoming, offering some of their beers and asking you to sit with them. Jackson made sure to sit by your side as the boat started moving, a whisper in your ear to tell you how glad he was that you were there.

The boat was taking you on a tour around the most beautiful beaches of Santorini, as it was announced, and twenty minutes later you arrived at the first stop. Not necessarily a beach, since there was no sand, only rocks, but it was a place where people could do some diving and snorkeling. With your camera in hands, you watched amused as people started to jump from the boat, Jackson’s friends screaming at each other as if they were in some form of competition.

After escaping from of his friend’s grip, Jackson looked around trying to find you, only to realize that you were still sitting at the same place, your chin resting in one of your knees, eyes focusing in something that was not there.

“Aren’t you coming?” he asked, now standing by your side without you realizing, water dripping from his body.

“Uhm… no, I’m good,” you smiled weakly, a hand above your eyes so you could see him properly. You obviously still needed to buy a cap.

“Why not?

You thought for a second before answering. “The water must be cold,” the excuse sounding too weak for anyone to believe.

“Well, as someone who was just in there, I can assure you it’s not,” Jackson sat in front of you, eyes squinting “You don’t know how to swim, do you?”

“How do you…?” you started to ask, eyes wide open, not remembering including this information in your previous conversation.

“Yesterday at the pool, you stayed close to the edge all the time.”

You had to remember yourself to close your mouth, biting your lips for a second “Very perceptive of you,” you said looking down, your cheeks burning.

“Are you blushing?” he asked in a chuckle as he sat a bit closer to you.

“No?” you tried to brush it off without much success. “I do just fine at pools or even in the beach, as long as the water doesn’t go above my chest.”

“Ah, I see. Why don’t you come with me? Pretty sure I can handle both of us.”

“What? No, Jackson. Go on. I’m fine here, seriously.”

“Are you really going to spend the entire tour sitting on this boat?

“That’s the plan. I can take nice pictures from here.”

Jackson glared at you, his expression hard to read. “I’m gonna stay here with you then,” he said, making himself comfortable by your side.

“Jackson don’t be silly.”

“I’m not. I was planning on working on my tan, to be honest. I’ve been very pale lately,” he said looking down at his own body, you feeling incapable to not look – again – at his athletic shape.

“Jackson...”

“Besides, I would feel very bad for leaving you alone here in this sad, lonely boat, as I swim through the most beautiful beaches of Santorini,” he shook his head while overemphasizing every single word.

“Are you really trying to make me guilty?”

“Maybe” he smirked, “Is it working?”

“A little bit…”

Jackson got up in a jump, hands brushing his own hair back before he offered his palms to you. “Come, let’s have some fun,” he smiled that big smile of his to you, making your heart flutter. “Just trust me, okay?”

He jumped first but waited for you by the mobile stairs at the side of the boar. You bit your lip, eyes moving from him to the water, then to the stairs, and your surroundings, as if you were trying to find someone to hold you back, regretting coming to a tour that didn’t fit you. Jackson waited patiently, giving you an encouraging look. “Don’t worry. I got you,” he said, his hand moving away from the wet hair that kept falling on his eyes.

You took a deep breath, finally stepping down the stairs, arms wrapping around his neck as soon as your body was in the water, he hugging you back, making sure you locked your legs around his waist. “Better than the boat, hum?” he asked in a tease.

“Can’t believe you convinced me to do this,” you mumble, body shaking as you got used to being this close to him.

“Me neither!” the funny expression on his face making you laugh.

You loosened your grip around his neck as you felt more comfortable, but Jackson didn’t let you go, as he promised. He stayed close to the boat though, maybe to show you that you were not only safe but could go up again at any time.

It was easier on the third stop, the boat stopping close enough to an island for you to jump in the water and still be able to walk until you got to the land. That didn’t stop him to be by your side, you two ignoring his friends to explore the place, finding nice spots to enjoy a bit of conversation under the trees shades before going back to the water.

You had lunch with his friends when the boat took you to a different harbor, the boys looking too red as if none of them were used with being under the sun for long. You laughed between bites as they teased each other, especially Jackson, for abandoning them for you. Not that it wasn’t understandable – their words, not yours.

The last stop of the tour boat was near a cliff, where people could watch the sunset a privileged view only a few people had the chance to witness. You didn’t notice when it happened, but there you were, body leaned against Jackson’s, his arm over your back, his fingertips going up and down on your shoulder, as you watch the blue sky turn to shades of orange and yellow.

Is that how it feels like? To fall in love…Shouldn’t be harder, take longer? The lines on your ankles haven’t prickled the entire day, but you felt your entire body static every time he touched or looked at you.

“Am I bothering you?” he murmured close to your ear.

“No. Why would you think that?”

“Well, something must be, you are doing that thing again.”

“What thing…?” you frowned.

“You do this thing where your eyes become foggy and your mind seems elsewhere.”

You sat straight up, staring at him with mouth open. “Jackson, you weren’t even looking at me!”

“It was just a feeling,” he shrugged. “I saw you doing it earlier today and yesterday when you were in the pool, so I just figure you were doing it again.”

You looked at him incredulously, eyes wide open. It was odd, in an amusing way, realizing how Jackson was picking up on details of you most people really don’t care. You shook your head, laughing with yourself, and resting against him again, his inquisitive eye on you. “I’m not bothered, Jackson. I’m just… glad. It was a nice day.”

“I was a nice day,” he repeated, smiling. “It deserves a picture” he shuffled a bit to take his phone out of his back pockets, taking some photos of the sunset, then turning the camera to selfie mode so he could take a picture of you two. Smooth, you thought as you inclined your head to rest on his shoulder, he tilting his own head closer to yours. He hid the phone again, dropping a small kiss on the top of your head as you continued to watch the sun disappearing in the horizon, feeling your heart beat a little too fast as he pulled you closer. It was nice to feel that his own heart was at the same pace.

"Do you have any plans for tomorrow?" Jackson asked when you stopped by the stairs that led to your place. This time you’ve allowed him to walk with you, your fingers intertwined, he not being able to keep his touch away from you. "Probably, but what do you have in mind?" “I heard about this wine tour,” he gave you an uncertain look “and I thought maybe we could go together.” You tilted your head to the side, smiling foolishly. "Are you trying to get me drunk?" "I could never!" He put a hand on his chest, looking at you as if you had just offended him you the worst possible, only relax his face a second after "But that could be a side effect on the both of us." You giggled at his overreaction, this scenic side of him not failing to amuse you every time you had a chance to witness it – and you had a lot to see through the day. You didn’t even have to think before agreeing, anxious to spend another day with him. "Can I meet you here at nine?" he asked, playing with your fingers in the hand he was still attached to. "Isn’t that too early to start drinking?” "We’re on vacation, it’s never too early to start drinking,” he stated, “But I was thinking we could go for breakfast before." "I’ll be ready at nine, then,” you nodded, eyes drifting to your connected hands, the sensation that all heat of the day was now burning inside your chest. "You're gorgeous. You know that, don't you?" He said, getting you off guard, probably noticing your flushing. “You’re not so bad yourself,” you said, biting your lower lip, an appropriate compliment failing to fall from your lips as if no words were enough to describe how striking he was. "See you tomorrow," he inclined to give you a gentle kiss on the cheek, sliding over to kiss you again, closer to your lips, staying there a second too long before his free hand cupped your face, your lips meeting his. It was soft, salty, as you could still taste the ocean in him.

Kisses shouldn’t feel like this, you thought. Like nothing mattered before. Like you knew your life would depend on it from now on. "I'm sorry," he broke the kiss, resting his forehead on yours, recovering the air that left his lungs. "I shouldn't have... I mean I wanted to, but..." "Jackson, it's okay,” You said softly, your hand moving up to touch his face too. “I... I wanted it too." "You did?" a breath of relief coming through his mouth. "Yes. I mean, I think that after the day we had I would feel quite offended if you didn't even try to kiss me." He chuckled, moving his face back so he could look you in the eyes "I've been wanting to do it since the first time I saw you." "Oh you mean the night you spilled beer all over me and stared at my breast?" "When you say it like that it makes me sound so unromantic," he rolled his eyes, making you chortle. Jackson caressed your cheek with his thumb, his big doe eyes saving every detail of your face "Can I kiss you again?" You nodded quickly, yearning to taste him again.

Most of your night was spent thinking of Jackson, your fingertips lightly touching your lips as if it could bring back the sensation. But you figured Jackson wasn't your soulmate. He couldn’t be. That's why those damn red lines appeared on your ankles. The spell hadn’t bounced back. In fact, it was giving exactly what you asked to. To show the way to the missing part of you. And the tingling you felt every time you spent time with him was a sign that you were with the wrong person. No matter how hard you wanted it to be otherwise. Because you liked him. Like you never liked anyone else. Nobody ever made you feel like your entire body was about to combust just by looking at you. Nobody ever made your heart skip a beat every time you were touched.

He noticed, during your walks through the vineyards, that your mind was elsewhere, your expressions giving you away. He asked you more than once what was happening. You always brush it off, glad that after a while you could use the wine as an excuse. Jackson was a summer fling and so you should treat it like it. Have fun, enjoy his company while it lasted. Cause, in the end, it was all you could do. Maybe you should’ve just ended it. Whatever it is that you were doing. God, it’s been only a couple of days. And still… still, you were not ready to say good-bye.

So that’s what you were going to do. Be completely egoistic. Enjoy every second you still had. Finding your soulmate seemed so irrelevant when you had Jackson looking at you.

"I have a question for you," he said, you two walking around town, holding hands, as you did for the past week. Your vacation was almost over and you decided to do some shopping around the island. "Apparently there's this beach where people usually go swimming at night when there's a full moon, which happens tonight."We don't need to go too far into the water” he rushed when you raised a brow at him “and I'll be holding you all the time." He stayed a few moments in silence, waiting for an answer, as you looked at the miniature boats aligned in the shelf of the gift shop. "Or maybe we could just sit by the sand and laugh at people making fun of themselves."

"We could do that,” you said, turning to him, embracing him by his neck and giving him a quick peck, “or we could buy some wine, some food, go back to my place, and watch the sunset from the balcony,” another peck as he holds you by the waist “Have I ever mentioned that I have a Jacuzzi?” you gave him an innocent look.

There was still an hour until the sundown when you two arrived at the studio, Jackson being even more surprised to see the jacuzzi was actually located in the balcony. You never used it before, not being able to turn the damn thing on. Jackson figured it out in a minute. You went inside to change your clothes and came back wearing only one of your sets of black lacy underwear.

You were gonna going to miss that. The way Jackson looked at you. Like you were the most amazing thing he had laid his eyes on. He was already inside the jacuzzi when his expression going from surprised to hunger in a split. But he kept his eyes on your face, reading you as you got closer, getting up and offering his hand to help you enter.

Sex had always been something trivial for you. Never associated with passion, only to lust. It was just an itch you needed to scratch, your past partners understanding that and never asking more – at least not of sex itself. And now, even that was different. You felt nervous, walking towards him, a new kind of desire building in you.

“You’re oddly quiet,” you noted, entering the tub, trying to distract yourself from your own jitters.

“And you’re stunning,” he uttered, his hands bringing you closer to him, his lips finding yours like magnets. He kissed you slowly, tenderly, with his arms doing the best they could to keep your bodies glued.

You parted the kiss and moved away from him slightly, Jackson looking at you confused. You smirked, pushing him back with both of your hands on his chest, making him sit, so you could position yourself on his lap.

“You had all this planned out, didn’t you?” he asked in a smile, his hands squeezing your hips.

“It was more like wishful thinking,” you giggle, as you caressed the hair on the back of his head. “I want you, Jackson,” you said matter of factly, starting to lose yourself in his round eyes.

“You already have me,” he whispered, pulling you for another passionate kiss.

You didn't want to talk tonight. You did enough talking already. You wanted to feel him, touch him. Discover every inch of his body. Your hands slid to his shoulders, then chest, abdomen, until you found his bulge. You started to caress him, a groan coming out of Jackson's mouth when your hand touched him under the thin clothes that were still between you. "You need to take this off" you uttered, getting on your knees to give him some space to remove his shorts, going back on your action as soon as he threw it to the ground. He let go of your hips to remove your top, spreading sloppy kisses all over your collarbone and chest until he reached your nipple, filling his mouth with your breast.

A loud moan came from his mouth when you slid him inside of you, moving your hips fast, you sure we would leave a mark on your ass considering how strongly he was squeezing it.

"I can’t handle any more" he growled, lifting you both up, your legs attached to his hips. He took you inside, pressing you against the wall, kissing you messily before dropping to the bed a few seconds later, lifting one of your legs to rest on his shoulder, his lips, tongue finding you clit with no trouble as your hand goes to the back of his head, pulling his face against your core.

He stayed there even after your climax, giving small kisses to your inner ties, the lower part of your belly as if he was giving you time to recover. Jackson crawled over you, his warm body covering yours, getting rid of your shivers. One of his hands brushed away the wet hair that was glued to your face, the tip of his fingers sliding through your lips.

"I'm so glad I finally found you" he whispered before his mouth was on yours, as he started to move slowly inside of you.

You woke up in the middle of the night, the cold breeze coming from the window giving you chills. You got up to put some panties and a large shirt and went to the kitchen to drink some water. You stopped at the doorway, glass in hand, looking at Jackson and smiling at the image of him, chest going up and down in a slow steady rhythm, his naked body being illuminated by the moon.

To hell with soulmates, you thought. Jackson was the only one you ever wanted.

That when you saw it. The red lines around his ankles, same as yours.

Blinking once, twice, imagining you were seeing things, you got a bit closer to have a better look. But there they were. His lines, not only matching the ones you had but going from his ankles to yours, connecting you two. You started to feel your heart race, dizziness taking over you. You did this to him. He was the one that came to your call. And now he was attached to you.

You sat outside in the balcony, eyes burning as the tears started to form. How could you be so stupid? You shouldn’t be messing with magic, even if it was part of you. You never fully embrace it, and now was dealing with the consequences, your charms becoming the curse to another. You heard Jackson calling your name inside, his voice horsed with sleep, he soon found you sitting by the small table, shaking as the tears ran down your face.

"Hey, what are you doing here? It's cold!" He approached you, wrapped around a blanket. He must have felt how tremulous you were. Just like he always seemed to know when your mind was somewhere else. Because you caused this to him. You bonded him to you.

"What's wrong?" You didn't want to look in his eyes, turning away when he tried to touch your face.

“Please, tell me,” he begged, crouching in front of you, both of his hands on your knees. “Was it something a did?”

“No,” your voice trembled, a knot on your throat. You had to tell him. He deserved to know. “I did something...” You tried to look at him, only to sob even harder.

“Hey, it’s okay. You can tell me,” he tried to assure you, squeezing lightly your knees. “It couldn't have been something that bad.” "I don't know where to start," your voice trembled. "Well, let’s go inside first, and then you can start from the beginning." You told him, because what else could you do? It took you some time for the sobbing to stop and your voice became steady enough. Jackson waited and waited, sat with you in bed, holding your hands and playing with your fingers gently.

You did start from the beginning. From your childhood, from your mother telling you had magic in your blood. You figured it was the only way he would maybe, maybe, believe in you. Your tears came back when you told him about the spell, about your visit to Aphrodite’s temple. You felt him squeezing your hand a bit tight when you told how lonely you were feeling, how much you felt like a part of you were missing. And when you finished, there was only silence.

“How do you know?” he asked after a while, voice sounding calm. “How do you know that it worked?”

“Because of the lines” you lifted one of your legs to the bed, a hold on your ankles as if you wanna hide the red marks. “You can’t see it, but there are this red lines going from my ankles to yours.”

“Threads.”

“What?” you looked confused.

“The right term is threads. I can see them too,” he gave you a lopsided smile. “You know, my mom always told me this story... that after she met my father, she started to have these dreams where they were connected by red threads. After they got married she told it to him and my father confessed to her he used to have the same dreams…”

When he saw how puzzled you looked, not making sense of his words, Jackson couldn’t contain a chuckle. He brought his free hand to your face, sweeping away the tears that remained in your cheeks. “They are called red threads of fate,” he explained, “According to legend, the gods tie the ankles of those who are destined to be together with an invisible red cord.” "Jackson…"

“I knew I there was something about you…”He interrupted, looking at you lovingly” That silly night. Before I actually spoke to you... I’ve seen you a bit earlier and I just couldn’t keep my eyes away. I wish the first time we talked didn’t involve me spilling beer all over you, but you know my idiotic friends, “He giggled “I only saw your threads the day after… at the pool.”

You were trying to digest what Jackson told you, repeating his words on your mind. Could it be, that Jackson and you were really meant to be? That you didn’t curse him like you were so certain you did? “Where’s the book?” he asked you, seeing how you still were lost in your own thoughts. “The one with the spell?” You pointed to your luggage on the room’s corner. Jackson asked if he could get it and after you nodded, he gave your hand another soft squeeze.

He sat in front of you again, book in hands, asking you to show him the spell. “Read it again,” he asked you softly, turning the pages to you. “Out loud.”

You did, looking at him right after as if you were expecting him to explain it to you.

“You really aren’t good at being a witch, are you?!” he joked, “The spell says to show you the way to your soulmate…I know nothing about magic but wouldn’t you need something from me to make me fall in love with you?”

“I… guess…?” you stammered, surprised by his question.

“And did you do any spells after meeting me?”

“No. But Jackson...”

“When was the first time you saw the threads on yourself?”

“The morning after the spell,” you recalled your second day of the trip, still in your hotel in Athens, seeing the red marks on your ankles when you were showering, not making a big fuss out of it.

“Which from what I remember, was the same day I got here. That’s when I first saw mine.”

“Jackson, I...”

“Can you stop being so stubborn?” he cupped your face, giving you a peck to shut you up. “You didn’t curse me or whatever awful thing you thought you did. You just helped us to find each other.”

“Then why didn’t I see the threads before like you did?”

He thought for a second before speaking again.“Maybe because tonight was the first time you completely accepted your feelings for me.”

You were silent again, eyes shifting from the open spell book at your side in the bed, to your hands open in your lap, Jackson caressing one of your palms. Your head was a mess, and you couldn’t understand why was that way. Why it was so much easier to believe that you had damned Jackson than it was to believe in this story he told you. Why can’t you believe in his mother’s story when he didn’t seem to care about you telling him you were a witch. Why couldn’t you believe that you were destined to be together? You wanted so much to find love, to find your soulmate, that now that it, him, was in front of you, touching you, it was so hard to accept it.

“Why are you dealing with this so well?” your thoughts came out in a whisper, eyes down, somewhat afraid to look at Jackson.

“Because you’re not the only one who felt that a part of you was missing. I can be very insecure by the things in my life... but I look at you and everything makes sense.”

Jackson closed the book and put it back in your luggage, the smell of its old pages flying in your direction. Coming back to you, crouching down so you could look at him without lifting your face, he held both of your hands, a long sigh coming out of his mouth.

“I understand if this is too much for you,” he said, voice low and soothing, you certain he could feel the disarray that was your thoughts and feelings. “And I will give you all the space and time you need to think about it. I’ll be waiting for you when you’re ready.”

“That’s the thing, Jackson. I don’t want you to go anywhere,” you exasperated, the memories of all the times your threads tingled every time you left his presence coming clear now. Not a sign of a curse, but a proof of that you should be together, “I’m just scared,” you could feel the tears starting to form again. “I never felt like this before. I didn’t even know I was capable to feel this much.”

“I know,” he stroked your face, a sweet smile towards you “I feel the same.”

You inclined towards him, wrapping your arms around his neck, hugging him as tightly as you could. Jackson got up, carrying you with him, strong arms around your middle, to sit in bed with you on his lap. You stood like that for minutes – hours? – silently comforting each other. It was always easy to be around Jackson. Now you were finally understanding why.

“What are we gonna do?” you asked, your face still buried in his chest as he ran his fingers in your hair “I'll be leaving in a couple of days.”

“Good thing we live in the same country. We can make it work. We’re soulmates after all.”

You lifted your face to look at him, “You promise?”

“Should we find a spell to make sure?” he asked jokingly, pleased to see that you were finally able to smile again.

“I think a kiss is enough.”

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deathofamemer · 4 years

Note

✨ 💕 💔 💢 all of them

✨ what draws you towards your hyperfixation? what is interesting about it?

lego movies: there’s just something so lively and fun about them... the world they exist in and craft throughout the four warner brothers lego movies is fascinating and complex and has a lot of nuance to it that makes rewatching the movies a delight just to catch little things that got missed the first time around! the characters are vibrant and lively and there’s not really any who fall flat (outside of the lego ninjago movie but the main lego movies are my focus), there’s a lot of tropes that i personally enjoy (particularly the meta stuff, i love meta humor), and the style itself is gorgeous and unique. using CG to mimic stop motion? that’s genius, and it makes for a beautiful set of films

danny phantom: danny phantom as a series is just a bundle of a trillion of my favorite tropes and the amount of content that can be created from it is truly overwhelming. part of the allure of danny phantom is actually the fandom, for once, because while it’s not free of issues, there’s a sense of continuity. there’s a lot of widely accepted fanon in there, including whole fandomwide ocs, and it’s really something spectacular. i’m a sucker for the supernatural and superheroes, and danny phantom mingles the two nicely.

greek mythology: greek myth is one of those things that just perfectly slides into the academic portion of my brain, tbh. it’s a vast mythos with colorful characters and epic stories and quirky anecdotes and scraps of information spread across history, and the fact that it can be collected and looked at and interpreted even today? it’s super interesting and good. for a mostly dead religion, it’s still fairly ubiquitous in society, and i love seeing all of the variations on each story, seeing what various places thought were fit to keep or discard.

pokemon: pokemon, as a franchise, is immensely soothing. you get to raise animals and befriend them and play with them, winding your way through the countryside, facing challenges and stopping strife. the characters are memorable, the pokemon designs are generally really appealing, and the lore is crafted in such a way that it feels like something you could examine for a long time. there’s a lot of heart in it, and it shows.

💕 tell us about one of your favorite characters and why you like them!

lego movies: you’re expecting me to put rex, aren’t you. i’ve given my diatribes on rex fucking dangervest enough, i’m talking about my original fave, gcbc. gcbc is a charming character with a neat concept, embodying the lego minifigs with two faces as a single character, providing some of the only positive DID representation i’ve ever seen. liam neeson’s voice acting for them is really stellar, and back in 2014/15, i read all of the gcbc-centric fics i could get my hands on. they’re just interesting to examine.

danny phantom: i’m betting you’re also expecting me to talk about danny’s evil future self because i’m a predictable shit, but NO i refuse. clockwork is one of my favorite fucking characters of anything ever, because he embodies the whole ‘father time’ concept in a neat way, transitioning from child to adult to elder as a constant cycle. he’s also clever and witty and makes a good mentor, showing consequences for actions without forcing danny’s hand. clockwork is just great, honestly,,,

greek mythology: everyone in greek myth is terrible all the time, but dionysus is really fun? he’s a male god who got raised as a girl, so like, trans rights, he’s equal parts party god and brain ruiner, he’s got a million conflicting portrayals that make him fun to examine, and he’s actually one of the oldest gods in the pantheon in terms of historicity. there’s more to him than meets the eye, for sure, and his myths are fun.

pokemon: i really love zinnia... she’s a badass dragon lady who’s super lively and fun, she kicks ass and knows she does, she nearly wrangles rayquaza themself in order to save the world... god i just adore her

💔 tell us about one of your LEAST favorite characters and why you dislike them.

lego movies: lord business don’t even fucking look at me i swear to god, capitalist ass bitch, abusive boss supreme, tyrannous dickmunch,

danny phantom: it’s kind of hard to place least faves? if i have to choose, though, probably gregor. he’s a one-off asshole liar trying to get into sam’s pants, gregor gets no rights.

greek mythology: HEY ZEUS QUIT BEING A DICK, YOU TOO KRONOS, AND GAIA—

pokemon: hey. hey ghetsis. hey lusamine. look at me. be better parents. fuck you

💢 what do you NOT like about your hyperfixation? is there something you would want to change about it?

lego movies: tlm2 was weaker than the first due to the change of directors, i’m happy that we got rex and watevra and mayhem, they’re all fun and great, but the characterization of everyone is really fucking off and emmet gets treated like shit when he doesn’t deserve it. my rage over rex’s fate is well documented, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. i think often about a hypothetical tlm2 that actually resolved things and kept people in character and featured gcbc for more than 5 seconds

danny phantom: butch hartmann can suck my ass AND DO NOT FUCKING TALK TO ME ABOUT LIVIN’ LARGE AND PHANTOM PLANET THOSE TRAIN WRECKS DO NOT EXIST IN THIS HOUSE

greek mythology: why did the ancient greeks like incest and rape so much what the fuck is your goddamn deal guys just chill out and suck a dick that isn’t your cousin’s

pokemon: i’m very fucking angy about the pokemon company trying to wring money out of people with swsh, everyone i know who’s played it has enjoyed it but the fact that there’s expensive dlc for a pokemon game like this, that you can never have all of the pokemon in the game, the fact that even one game is the cost of a double pack for the previous ones, it irks me deeply

#answer v #i have a lot of feelings all the time always #infectois

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astraltrain · 4 years

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who's the biggest crybaby and who's the biggest nerd. these are important questions i need 2 know reina

ok i answered the biggest crybaby one here yeah thank u for asking bmo ily

who's the biggest nerd

jackie. jackie jackie jackie this boy is a nerd!!!!!!!! bro he LOVES marvel/dc and has read SOO many of the comics and shit, he loves cool electric stuff and breaking/making things and recycling stuff to make cool new inventions, he loves his instruments especially his guitar, he loves space and greek mythology and could tell you sooo much about it if you asked. sometimes when henrik's insomnia is kicking up jackie lies in bed with him across his legs and recites entire greek myths from memory. no i'm not projecting onto jackie shut the FUCK up-

henrik!! he lovessss learning things, always has a book on him and enjoys reading so so much. while jackie has extensive knowledge of several certain subjects, henrik knows incredibly random facts about some of the strangest things. ask him who built mount rushmore and he'll tell you exactly but ask him where it is and his first response will be canada

chase. this dude is a nerd for harry potter, star wars and horror movies, especially zombie ones!! his favourite is dawn of the dead (1978) and he's seen that maybe a hundred times? he loves harry potter cause he met stacy through those books, they met after the first book came out and bonded over it. star wars he just loves cause he's a nerddddd he's a NERDD

marvin. he's mostly a magic nerd, knows a shitton about it and spends a lot of his time searching for new spells. also a languages nerd which connects to his magic as languages are what controls his magic, and he can speak a ton of languages, not completely fluently but he knows the basics. has like five language apps on his phone like a NERD

anti. has adhd to the max and has had a few hyperfixations. back when he was with jack he really loved some things, mainly star trek and the metal gear games. now that he's a prick he pretends he's never had an interest in anything before, but sometimes he maybeee watches a few episodes of the show and misses jack a little bit or maybeeeeeee he watches silent walkthroughs of a metal gear game and misses jack a little bit and maybeeeeeeeeeee he tries to push down his interests but still dapper sometimes catches him staring into the window of a game store and wonders what he's looking at. anti can mayhaps tell you the storyline of every star trek episode but the only person who knows that is jack and if anti has anything to say about it he'll take it to his grAVE-

dapper. dapper doesn't have much to be nerdy about tbh, he doesn't get much to do but play with his toys and read the few books anti gives him and draw and stab things. he likes the stars though and he wishes he knew more about them. all anti will tell him is that they're "big balls of fuckin' gas" despite the fact that anti definitely knows a lot about space given his old love of star trek uhhhh

#hgcdhgff this was fun to answer #ask #beebmo #ego hcs

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missfinefeather · 5 years

Text

Solidad

Have you ever been so mad you literally tilted the universe just to throw someone out of it to teach them a lesson ?

MissFinefeather

*looks at you menacingly*

Solidad

Why ?

What did I do ?

MissFinefeather

I'm joking...

mostly...

Solarn

Honestly, if the text parts piss you off so much, you should skip them. The comic is still entirely comprehensible without them.

MissFinefeather

Well, kept getting requests to drop everything and do them

Solidad

They're a big draw of the comic

Some of them help with comprehension but they are mostly unnecessary

a few things might make a bit less sense without them

Solarn

There will be some references that'll go over your head, but most of the stuff in them will also be in the comic in one form or another when it becomes relevant.

Solidad

especially everything relating to YISUN and PREE ASHMA who are pretty important

not that much

but they come up

MissFinefeather

Also people could have like, summed them up for me...

Solidad

The writing of those is a big draw

Solarn

I think the biggest problem might be the format. They're essentially in-universe myths, told in a very deliberately mythological fashion.

Solidad

That's why I and a lot of other fans love them

Solarn

So if that helps, read them as you would read like, the Bible or a book on Greek mythology.

MissFinefeather

Okay so... it's a big draw so, people would want to see me read them, even though if I'm complaining the whole time about my eyes hurting

Maybe, I'll get used to it?

Solarn

Nah, if they're making you suffer, they're not worth it.

Solidad

Do you think you could get some kind of automated text reader ?

that might help you

MissFinefeather

I amI have been

Still have to read along

Or I'm not going to understand what it's saying

Solarn

Soli, do you want an automated reader to try pronouncing PREE ASHMA or YIS-VOYA?

Solidad

Fair enough

Solarn

Or the names of the commenters in one of the comment-based stories?

MissFinefeather

It doesn't matter. I'll be doing it anyways apparently, so um. I'll stop bitching eventually

Solidad

Yo, health and comfort first, us second

don't hurt yourself just for that

Solarn

Seriously Miss, we're not going to be bothered if you decide to give the textwalls a pass.

Solidad

If it's really too painful for you, don't worry about it

MissFinefeather

Well, if it's one of the lead draws of the comic then I kind of have to cover it

Solarn

It's not worth your health or your enjoyment of the comic otherwise.

Or maybe you could cover them on your own time, like, save the text, and then read through it when you feel up to it and post your impressions.

Solidad

That sounds like a good idea

especially for the walls of text

it's basically what I did when reading the comic

Solarn

It's what I did (sans the "post your impressions" part obviously) when I read the comic.

Mostly because I didn't realize there was text for a good ten chapters or so.

And by that point, going back through all the pages and reading everything felt like a chore and I wanted to go on with the comic itself.

MissFinefeather

Yeah, that's actually mostly why I'm angry about it. I mean, I'm fine with suffering. I do that for the epilogues already. It was just, INCREDIBLY disappointing I'd have to do it with this comic, considering it was so cool and inviting before and then I find all this stuff I have to slog through...

Solarn

Anyway, my point is: there is nothing that will burn you out quicker or make it more certain that you will grow to hate a comic you might otherwise like than forcing yourself to liveblog something you hate that's connected to it.

And no one wants that.

MissFinefeather

I wonder if I should make a poll to see what the fanbase of this comic thinks on the matter

Than again, the only readers could just be you two xD

Solarn

I'm sorry that I was one of the people who pressured you on this. I didn't even consider that you'd have trouble with it.

MissFinefeather

No, I'm sorry I complained so muchI should have been a lot more forward and honest about my feelings on the matter

Solarn

It's okay to complain. Honestly. If it bothers you, it bothers you.

Solidad

Yeah, sorry 'bout that

Got caught up in the excitement of a K6BD liveblog

#k6bd2 #Missfinefeather Liveblogs #Missfinefeather reads Kill Six Billion Demons #Kill Six Billion Demons #webcomic #webcomic liveblog #blacklist Misfinefeather

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the-zodiacs-written-in-the-stars · 5 years

Text

Writer’s Month Day 19: Mythology

Set in about chapter 3ish or so, time-wise!

Mythology had always fascinated Angelique. For most her age, it came from TV, growing up around Disney's Hercules and shows like Xena. Angel however, she had gotten her passion for it from something else entirely. Her papa worked as a curator at the Louvre. It had always been Angelique's favorite place in all of Paris. The Louvre. She loved visiting her papa at work. And she still remembered, when she had been really little and the only child still, for just how long her papa would entertain her. He would give her private tours in his time off and even during his lunch-breaks when she was lucky. The paintings were pretty, but what had always fascinated her the most were the statues. The renaissance statues of ancient heroes. She would sit in front of them for hours, staring in awe at every detail and listening to her papa tell her the stories behind it.

Her parents had mistaken that interest for her wanting to become an artist. Her mamma had been incredibly excited about it – Adelheide had always been an artistic soul and she had thought she would get to share her passion with her daughter too. Especially considering the bond Angelique shared with her papa over the museum-visits so she too wanted something of her own. She tried a lot, tried teaching Angelique to draw and paint and sculpt, and then she moved on to photography – and that was where they figured it out. Angel hated being behind the camera. But in front of it? Twirling, posing, just like the amazing statues. She wanted to be immortalized posing in fun dynamic ways just like the statues. She loved modeling.

She was sixteen when she took her first modeling gig, after a lot of begging with her parents. Much to everyone's surprise, she blew up. Then again, she was a delicate, very fair white-skinned blonde with large, blue eyes. She was what sold. All too soon, France loved her. Then, Europe loved her – and then the US did. At nineteen, Angel moved to Los Angeles to work for Gold Standard.

“You've been even more chipper than usual, Liebling”, murmured her boyfriend. [German: darling]

He had rolled onto his side to wrap his arms around Angel's waist and keep her in place where she sat on the edge of their bed. She smiled softly as she turned to look down at him while he, in snail-pace, crawled up to rest his head in her lap. Gently, she started running her fingers through his wild ginger curls as Sebastian looked up at her with sleepy, bright eyes.

“Did I wake you, mon amour?”, asked Angel softly. “I'm sorry. You should sleep some more.”

“How can I when my girlfriend is looking radiant like a goddess?”, asked Sebastian.

“I look like always”, laughed Angel confused while tying her favorite bow into her hair.

“Yes. Like I said. A radiant goddess”, confirmed Sebastian.

He smiled and buried his face in Angel's stomach while she laughed even louder. “You're such a charmer. Come on, I have to go to work, you have to let go of me.”

“...Can't I just come with you?”, hummed Sebastian. “I love watching you pose. You look so happy and excited when you do. Pretty please?”

“Basty”, laughed Angel and shook her head. “You know you can't. Company secrets and all. No one is allowed to see it before it is all done. Besides... you have work to go to too?”

“I know”, sighed Sebastian. “But it's not nearly as exciting as spending a day with you, my love.”

“Truly, truly cheesy”, commented Angel and flipped his nose.

He grinned up at her. “Okay, fine. You're right. I'm meeting Mel for breakfast.”

“See?”, chimed Angel and reached for her pearl-earrings. “Have a good day, Sebastian.”

“You too. I'll see you tonight”, replied Sebastian and kissed Angel's cheek.

With a spring in her steps did Angel leave the apartment and head to work. She got six drinks from a café on her work there and left one coffee with the receptionist, who always had a smile for everyone. Upstairs, she first went to visit her best friend Joss. Every morning, after waking up, Angel quickly texted Joss to ask for the preferred pronouns of the day.

“Looking grumpy as ever, my dear”, chimed Angel and kissed Joss' cheek.

“Mh?”, grunted Joss, blinking a couple times. “Been here for two hours already. Got to settle a dispute between Lizzy and Aline about color-schemes. Had to navigate... three galas for Miss Gold. So yes, the day started off irritating enough to make me grumpy.”

“Good thing I brought you your favorite tea then”, smiled Angel, handing it to her. “Join me?”

Joss looked contemplative for a moment before he decided that he might as well check in on the biggest project they currently had. With the tea in one hand, Joss got up and followed Angel toward the shooting, where Noxia was already in the middle of barking orders and setting everything up for today's shoot. Angel stopped in front of Noxia and handed her a pitch-black coffee.

“Here. So there will be less yelling”, smiled Angel, kissing Noxia's cheeks.

“...Thank you”, grumbled Noxia. “Go get changed. And make-up. Shoo.”

Angelique smiled knowingly at her before making her way into make-up, handing the next cup off to her make-up artist. Now there were only two left, one for herself and the other – for her partner.

“Coffee”, groaned Tony relieved as he sank into the chair next to her. “Blessed coffee. Thank you.”

“You're a very bad Brit”, noted Angel teasingly. “You should drink tea.”

“Coffee is one of the few things Americans do right”, stated Tony seriously. “Few.”

“So snarky. Comes into our country, takes jobs away from hard-working hot American models and then complaining about the country”, noted Noxia very dryly. “Typical Brit. Get changed. Go.”

Tony offered her the most dazzling smile and very slowly took a sip of his coffee. Joss chuckled as he came to lean against the vanity and waiting while Tony and Angel hurried off to get into their costumes. Gorgeous, well-fit classic Greece style but made of fur. Angel looked at herself in the mirror, smiling at how powerful she felt like that, with the silver tiara.

“Artemis and Apollo were always my favorites, you know?”, commented Tony from the changing room next to her. “I don't know, the sun and the moon as siblings, actual siblings who also share something – the realm of celestial bodies and also both being archers. I always liked that. All the other gods were always so... so all over the place, with no real connection or sense to their realms.”

“I always liked the duality of Artemis and Apollo”, tagged Joss on when the two joined the others again. “The strength of the female moon, the softness of the male sun.”

Angel and Tony took their seats again to get their make-up and hair done. “I guess Artemis and Apollo are pretty cool. Though personally, I always loved Poseidon the most. I've always been a fan of The Little Mermaid and living under the sea.”

“Yeah, that checks out”, confirmed Tony when he side-eyed her.

Joss smiled at them with a thoughtful look. He had to admit, he had always found the Greek gods interesting too. Now even more than before. His fingers round his cuff-link, the one with the Gemini gem on it. Gemini, the former companion of Athena. The gods used to just be stories Joss found interesting because they mirrored a different culture than the one he had grown up in – and in a way, he had liked to dive into a different culture, put a new paint-job on his soul to distance himself from his family and those who had turned their backs on him. But now he looked at the gods with different eyes. They had just been human. Humans, who had bonded with aliens to gain their special powers and abilities, fighting evil and turning into the stuff of legends. Over the millennia, the Zodiacs had bonded with so many heroes throughout different countries.

He watched how Tony and Angel, in full make-up and costume, got ready for their shoot and he watched them. Artemis and Apollo. There was something so fierce and authentic to them that it felt more like a window into the past. Artemis and Apollo were not just myths, pieces of fiction, they had been real people. And Joss found himself wondering, had they looked anything like Tony and Angel, or entirely different? What had the been like, their personalities and life? There was so much to learn and so much to see, not just the present and the past, but also the future.

#writersmonth2019Story: Written in the Stars #Project: Written in the Stars

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mysticsparklewings · 5 years

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Lore Olympus (Mermaid Marker Test)‪

So my IRL friend introduced me to this AMAZING comic the other night, called "Lore Olympus," which is sort of a retelling of the Greek Myth of Persephone being kidnapped by Hades: www.webtoons.com/en/romance/lo… I read the whole thing in about two hours. If you like Greek Mythology or even just rom-com comics with super pretty art styles, please go check it out and support it! It updates on Saturdays and is still on-going! So since my friend was fangirling, and then I was fangirling, and we had to wait a whole week for the new chapter/installment, I sketched up a piece of fanart of Persephone and Hades just looking at each other cutely, in outfits from a couple of later chapters. I didn't color it right away because I had just ordered the entire collection of 32 Jane Davenport Mermaid Markers off eBay (For $30 after a $10 off coupon, I might add; had I purchased the individual sets off of Amazon that same night it would've been about $60!) and I was half-waiting for them to come in, half testing my patience to see if I could wait or if I would just cave and color it with colored pencils or alcohol markers before then. Luckily, I held out and they came in that Thursday. So I got to priming and swatching as quickly as possible! Calling them Mermaid "Markers" is a bit misleading; as they're essentially water brushes pre-filled with water-soluble ink. But I kind of understand why they're called that, as the "Mermaid" part insinuates their relationship with water, and they are more like markers that straight-up watercolors, in the sense that you don't technically need water to use them. Still, I think a more accurate name might've been helpful to people that have never heard of these before and have no idea what they're actually going to be like. Fortunately, I had seen these floating around and in a video before considering purchasing them, so I knew pretty much what I was getting, how to prep them, and what to do with them already, and at that point I wasn't even sure I'd want them. But after getting a set of Viviva watercolor sheets back in December and then the Arteza Woodless Watercolor pencils for my Birthday last month, the Mermaid Markers finally piqued my interest enough to want to buy them. I actually felt very lucky to find the eBay listing that I did, as $40 for the whole lot, in new condition (all the boxes still had their little round tapes intact and undisturbed, as well as their sealing rings, which I'll talk more about in a second) was already a great deal compared to buying the individual sets, before I even knew that I had the $10 coupon. Honestly, I was so sure someone was going to buy it before I had the funds, but luckily I was able to buckle down on some commissions and took the opportunity when it presented itself. The only issue I had straight out of the box was that, for some reason, my "Byron Bay" in the 12 set is miraculously missing its label. The best I can figure is it was just a factory oversight, as, like I said before, the boxes were still sealed and the sealing rings on each individual "marker," totally undisturbed, and there is no evidence there ever was one on the marker at all (no lingering bits of adhesive, etc.). It's not a huge deal as it was only one marker, the color names are all available online, and the solution is just as simple as either writing the name on the marker (which is what I've done for now) or printing out a new label. It'd be different if it had been multiple markers, making it difficult to tell which was which. It did take a little while to properly prime each marker; each one had a yellowy-green sealing ring between the screw-on brush tip and the squeezable ink cartridge that had to be removed and some gunk in the brush tip to preserve the shape during shipping, which you just gently wash off in water. And I will note here that it is important to make sure you screw the brush tip portion all the way back on! I had done quite a few and been left with a slight gap between the two sections before one went all the way down with less effort, so I had to go back and use a gripper like you would use to open jars to be able to turn the others the rest of the way down. I think this is important to mention because the one complaint I've seen over, and over, and over again in the Amazon Reviews is about them leaking, and I think in some (but not all) cases this might have been the problem! If one of them hadn't gone on with less effort, I wouldn't have known the difference! The other thing of note, the instructions/tips in each box specifically mention to store them with the brush tip up! Because I'm paranoid, I'm being extra cautious about this, but I suspect in a few cases this may have also been a problem causing leaks--as in people were storing them horizontally or with the brush tip down. I'm not a huge fan of the thin plastic boxes, but it's not a huge deal (as Copic markers use the exact same packaging). I think I would like to procure a case or stand to keep them all together in, though. I've been looking, but I want the case to naturally fit with keeping them upright and be able to sort them in whatever order I like. (Because I have to keep my art supplies organized or my entire world will fall apart). Now, when it comes to the drawing itself, I almost immediately ran into an issue with the line art. I didn't want to do just black, but the watercolor nature of the Mermaid Markers means that water-based ink will run when they touch. The only guaranteed water-proof liners I have are Copic multiliners in black or cobalt. That would've worked for Hades, but not Persephone. (The comic is very color-oriented for the character designs, so it just seemed more natural to do it this way; And besides, I use black lines all. the. time.) So I had to figure something else out. Originally, I tested both my Prismacolor and Polychromos pencils to see what water did to them (as I did plan on using a regular water brush with these to help with blending and stuff), and either one would've worked, as you had to be trying to pull the pigment out like I was to really get noticeable results, especially with the Polychromos, which are advertised as being water-resistant. I almost used them, but then I looked over and remembered: I have Dr. Ph Martin inks! In a variety of colors, that are supposed to be water-proof and lightfast (not that that means that much in this situation since most watercolors aren't lightfast anyway) when dry! So I got really crazy and broke out my dip pen and did the lines with that in red-violet, blue, and violet. Veeeeeeery carefully. Then I set it aside to dry for a couple of hours. (For the record, the red-violet lines are a couple shades darker IRL, the scan lightened them and seemingly them alone for some reason.) In hindsight, I might have done better to let it dry for a full 24+ hours. I say that because, while the ink was definitely dry enough to open and close the sketchbook with no issue, there were a few spots, particularly with the blue, that did bloat/bleed a little after I started going in with the Mermaid Markers and some water. Mind you, I wasn't like, drowning those spots with water or anything. Fortunately, I was able to sort of "push" and move the color around so that it didn't ruin anything. Beyond that, the pigment just willingly pulled out about as much as the colored pencils did when I was testing those, but that wasn't a huge issue since the characters are monochromatic and I was able to use it to my advantage. However, that definitely would've been an issue if I had lined with a color that didn't blend with the fill-in colors. So I will be more cautious of that sort of thing going forward. The Mermaid Markers themselves were actually kind of fun to work with, aside from the slight learning curve, since watercolors, in general, are mostly unfamiliar territory for me. The biggest issue I had was just trying to blend the right purple for the background, but that has more to do with my inexperience and the overall color selection. In general and just swatched out, the entire color collection of all 32 Mermaid Markers has a really interesting color family, with a number of shades that I think are fairly unique. (Or at least they seem unique to my eyes that are more familiar with color pencil palettes). The tradeoff is that there are some shades that are pretty, but might be a little "off" from the colors I'm used to working with. In this case, there is a muted lavender color called "Jellyfish" that I was using primarily to fill in the heart. However, it was a bit on the warm/pink side for my liking, including pairing with the "Deep Sea" darker purple, which was more of a neutral, maybe slightly blueish purple. It turned out okay with my attempts to "cool it down," but I still have some things to learn with watercolor, and until I really get the hang of it, I know the slightly unusual color choices with these might be a bit of a challenge to work through. The other thing is there are two "specialty" sets of the Mermaid Markers; one called "Celestial Sky" and one called "Shimmering Sky," which are metallic and glitter effects, respectively, and meant to be shaken up before use a bit like paint pens. The effects for both sets are really beautiful, I just wish there were more colors! There are only 4 of each; the Celestial Sky is more neutral/traditional metallic colors, and the Shimmering Sky colors are two pinkish and two blueish colors that look like they would pair well with the "Shipwrecked" set of 6. This isn't necessarily a bag thing--I want more colors of a product I like. I just thought I'd point it out while I was on the color thing. Still, they blended really nice and smoothly, and fortunately, they didn't argue too much with me when I made a mistake and tried to take some off/lighten it, etc. Once I was done coloring, I obviously went back and did Persephone's little leaf crown and outlined the butterflies on either side of her head with gel pens. Surprisingly, the pens went over this noticeably easier than the Arteza Woodless Watercolor Pencils, which I found odd. I did have to do a bit of tapping, but I pretty much always expect that no matter what I'm working with. Not sure what to make of that. (Though if I had to guess I suspect it had something to do with the fillers used in the pencils). I tried to use the glittery Mermaid Markers to give Hades a bit of pink blush and Persephone a bit of blue blush, but while Hades' worked out pretty okay, I think the blue was just too dark for Persephone as it didn't really blend out properly and, as you can see, to keep it from looking like she was bruised or I'd made a massive mistake, I ended up lifting most of it off entirely. But, at the very least, some of the glitter is still there so when you see it in the light it still sparkles a bit to tie in with the glittery gel pen I used for the crown. The only real thing I'm truly not happy about is that between the sketch and inking, Persephone's face slimmed down/got a little more angular than what I wanted. In the comic, she usually has a very round face to me. But it's not the end of the world; the art style is pretty fluid most of the time (which ends up adding to its charm and really lends itself to the characters' expressiveness) anyway, so drawing the characters "accurately" can only go so far, I think. (Compared to something where the characters are pretty much always 100% on-model, anyway). I think it did turn out very sweet though And now if you'll excuse me, I'll be waiting with bated breath for the next chapter to go up. The second-to-last one was a major plot doozy! ____ Artwork (c) me, MysticSparkleWings Lore Olympus & Characters belong to Rachel Smythe ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

#loreolympus #mermaidmarkers

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franeridart · 6 years

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would it be possible for you to draw the three bakusquad couples hanging out together? (bakushima, kamijirou, and seromina)

Anon said:could you maybe draw some seromina? i feel like the ship doesn’t get enough love and they’re really cute together

I’ve had a comic about all three ships drafted for an age, maybe I’ll finally finish it later today!! :0

Anon said:Love your Bakushima stuff! It keeps me going through the hell I am in ;w;

Thank you!!! I’m sorry you’re not currently in a good place tho, anon ;^; I hope all the best will come your way soon!

Anon said:so i checked your FAQ and it doesn't mention anything about commissions, which i suppose maybe links in with the whole no requests thing? anyway, feel free to ignore this ask if you don't and never will do commissions but know that i'm here with my wallet open if you ever do lololol

Thank you so much for the interest??? Commissions are an idea that I’ve been tossing around in my head for the past month or so, actually - I’m not promising anything, but I might actually open them soon enough!

Anon said:Who is bottom, Bakugou or kirishima

This isn’t that sort of blog anon!!! No n//sfw talks around here

Anon said:You got any kaminai angst hc?

This is also not that sort of blog!!! No angst talks around here either! sorry to disappoint both of you, tho I would have assumed that was actually pretty obvious from the blog itself hahaha

Anon said:i love your art so much but there's something about the little chibi extras that make me want to squee and cry at the same time, they're sO CUTE

THANK YOU!!!!! Drawinf chibis has always been one of the most relaxing things for me, those extras are always 100% self-indulgence so knowing you like them makes me really happy!!! :D

Anon said:I just want to tattoo one of your kiribakus drawing on my back, can i?

I don’t know why you’d want to do that tbh hahaha

Anon said:Idk if you're into greek mythology but if kiribaku were put into the eros and psyche myth who do you think each one would be?

Hmmm to be honest I can’t say I feel like they fit either particularly well, but if I had to pick Baku would be Psyche and Kiri Eros, I feel :0

Anon said:Hi!!! I love your art sooo much!! Especially those comics where the bakusquad are turned into babies! SO CUTE I WAS DYING. Do you think you’ll ever do it again?

Ahhhhhhhh thank you so much for liking those, anon!! I don’t think I’ll ever pick up te exact same idea again, tho ;^; sorry, maybe a variation of it but not that same one

Anon said:I miss your Haikyuu fanart, particularly your BoKuroo stuff. The next season needs to happen.

!! well, I can’t say a new season is gonna change much as far as my content output is concerned, sadly - I’m also following the manga, after all haha

Anon said:I shall always reblog everything you create. They are all masterpieces.

AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!

Anon said:What post was it please share im in need

I’m sORRY it was a long long time ago and I never properly tagged it orz

Anon said:The poke thing.... OMG YOU KILL ME WTFFFF. So fucking cute, blasty baby. Your art make me so happy u dont have an idea! (In a manly way obvly haha) Thank u so much♡

!!!! thank you for liking it, anon!!!!!

Anon said:Okay last night at like 4am I looked at one of your fluffy kiribaku comics, and I don't even remember which one, but I saw it and began c r y i n g and I only remembered now

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh man I didn’t mean to make you cry??? Thank you for liking my stuff that much, tho!!

Anon said:Do you have any tips on how to draw hands and feet? I'm tired of drawing people with what look like claws and hooves

Somewhere in my #tutorials or #art tips tag there should be something about hands I did a while ago? But honestly anon the only real tip I can give you is to use a lot of references and draw them a lot, which sounds useless but it’s really how I’m learning how to draw them orz

Anon said: your art is so absolutely phenomenally unique and just, GORGEOUS. it makes me so happy and it makes me smile and just. i love it so much, thank you for sharing it with us

SOB thank you SO MUCH seriously oh my g o d ;O;

Anon said:lol anon from a previous ask about the lack of noses, I appreciate the detailed explanation. I thought I was going to get a simple "because I don't feel like it" which is cool too, I still appreciate the time you took to answer me

It’s okay! I have reasons for everything I do with my style (tho most of it boils down to I’m a very lazy person haha) so I don’t really mind that sorta questions! :D

Anon said:Did I ever tell you how much I fucking love you, and your art ❤️❤️❤️💗💖💓💞💘💕💝💗💓💖❣️💕💘💓💞💝💓💖💘💓💘💘💕

AAAHHHH THANK YOU!!!!

Anon said:You are honestly one of my favorite artists ever just because of your art style and because you're pretty much exclusively a kiribaku and bakysquad artist!

I do tend to draw a ton for that specific group right now, don’t I hahaha I’m glad you’re enjoying it!!!

Anon said:Consider this: Bakugou with glasses

oHO but I already did consider that :D

Anon said:I just wanna say thanks love for providing me with bakushima fluff it’s quite rare to see art of it so your my Bakushima fluff supply love ya!

I’m glad you’re enjoying it! Is it really rare tho? I feel like all the krbk I see around is fluff hahaha

Anon said:Dude, dude, DUDE, I LOVE YOUR ART SO MUCH AND I LOVE YOU AND YOU'RE AMAZING AND I'M NOT EVEN IN THE BNHA FANDOM ANYMORE (I wasn't a big fan of the protagonist) BUT I ALWAYS COME BACK TO YOUR BLOG!

HOLY HECK THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anon said:I really hope that season 3 means we'll see hardened!kiri and the third years being animated.

Awww I really don’t think so, anon ;^; my guess is that Eri’s arc and the Big Three will be the beginning of s4 :(

Anon said:wait pls list some amazing blogs that you like im so curious to know where you draw inspiration from also I LOVE YOU

Ahhhh I love you too!!!! And if we’re talking about blogs that inspire me then !!! taro-k, motekill, sunflower-squad, itsdanfango, oikws, jeanrydeart, syblatortue (blog’s n//sfw, blah blah, you know the drill) camilleto, kimoidane, naeuri, l1ng, seventypercentethanol, natroze, andatsea, and that’s, just, the first I could come up with and only a minimal part of them seriously there’s so many great artists on this site orz

Anon said:Hey there! Firstly, I love your art it's stunning. Secondly, what are your fav ships from bnha aside from kamijiro and kiribaku? personay I enjoy todomomo and dekuraraka :))

OH thank you!!!!! And I’d say erasermic and most of any combination between the squad kids, really hahaha

Anon said:I have never even though about the noselessness (what is english language) of your art :D My brain has just slide aside that fact and after reading the anon's ask I went: What? They don't? Oh, they don't :D Your style is so expressive :D I love it

HECK thank you SO MUCH !!!!!!

Anon said:hey fran I would DIE for u

pLEASE DON’T DIE

Anon said:Would you draw Erasermic?

Hell yeah I would, after all I already have in the past hahaha

#fran answers #replies replies replies #hope you all have a nice day btw! today's nice here!!#the sun's high and i'm feeling g o o d #:D #anonymous

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racke7 · 6 years

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Moekuri

Alright, so by nobody’s popular request. Moekuri: Adorable Tactical SRPG.

It’s an interesting kind of game. You start out being able to choose a classification for your own character, and after that you’re basically unleashed upon the world to become the pokemon-master a summoner.

You catch monsters, you train monsters, but most importantly: you customize your team of summoned monsters into an unstoppable force of perfect synergy.

As a summoner, depending on what specialization you picked at the start, you will learn new abilities and skills as you level (abilities and skills that you can pick and choose from). Your monsters will learn new skills but no new abilities.

The monsters have different abilities, different elemental types, different skills, and wildly different ways to be utilized by a summoner.

The strategic aspect of this game are really quite top-notch, even if the camera (and the inability to play full-screen) could do with some work.

Now, having said that? Moekuri is a game designed around much the same idea as the pokemon-mod “Moemon”. AKA, the monsters you capture are cute girls, and together you shall emerge victorious.

As such, there’s an expected level of lewdness in imagery that I’m not going to argue against (and will not be bringing up here). Whether the cute girl is barely dressed or wearing full combat-armor, at the end of the day it’s a cute girl and as such thematically appropriate.

Going from there however, we run into my first real problem with the monsters.

They’re horrifically inconsistent. Not just in drawing-style (which is fair enough, I feel like they might’ve lost a lot of their budget trying to commission 150 artworks for characters that the player might never even see), but in character-design.

First off, as a disclaimer: I’m not an artist, I’m a writer and haven’t really tried drawing in literally a decade. The fact that I’m still noticing a clear difference should be a worrying sign, but again I’m not an absolute authority on the subject of drawing cute monster girls.

So, let’s start off with an example of a really good one.

The Skeleton. The drawing-style is a bit awkward, and I sympathize profoundly with its hand, but as far as design is concerned? This one is brilliant. The white shawl-thing that reminds us of the ribs, the zipper for the spine, the white stocking-holding-things reminding us of the skeleton’s thigh-bones. And it’s shown to stand underneath a starlit sky, implying some form of darkness (which is its element).

The chibi-version in the corner is what it looks like on the field, and thanks to the very solid design-choices it’s a very non-cluttered and very elegant kind of picture.

Overall? It’s a very well thought-out design, and I’m very much enjoying it.

Compare this to the raijuu.

The Raijuu. Again, the drawing style is a bit awkward, mainly in the proportions. Still not a terrible image, and with an elegant kind of design that translates well into the chibi-format.

However, there’s nothing in this image that implies anything whatsoever related to the girl being a raijuu, other than the fact that that’s what it’s called.

A raijuu is a beast that descends from the sky in the form of lightning. Generally it’s assumed to be a wolf-like creature, sometimes with some form of wings (which the hair-clip might be referencing). Certainly, the long ponytail of the girl could be related to the long tail of a raijuu, but it could also be implying a lot of other things, and feels very much like a stretch.

So there’s no signs of this girl being either a raijuu (a wolf-like beast related to lightning), or to give her any kind of signature towards lightning (which is her element). So despite of how very streamlined and elegant the final chibi-version ends up looking, the lack of signature design leaves it unable to capture any kind of “raijuu“-like spirit.

I could bring up more of these clear issues with character-design (there’s 150 pictures, that’s a lot of room for mistakes), but I’m going to settle for one more.

The Selkie. Which is something like a seal-mermaid in legends, where fishermen steal their pelts and force them to remain with them forever on land. There’s again some signs towards an inexperienced artist being the creator, but the chibi-version comes together in a fairly uncomplicated manner.

I’m... not even going to try to figure out how this particular design was thought of, considering what she’s supposed to be, because I have no idea. Though I will applaud the fact that we can see an iceberg in the background, clearly implying her element to be ice (which it is).

A lot of it can probably be summed up to the game being Japanese in origin, meaning that the artists are Japanese as well, something which likely limits them rather thoroughly in figuring out what they’ve been asked to draw.

(It’s admittedly also a possibility that this fault lies at the feet of the translators, but I kind of doubt it.)

The Naiad. A somewhat obscure creature of Greek mythology, they’re water-nymphs who frequent small fountains, wells, and springs.

Now, knowing the origin of the name, it becomes somewhat obvious that the background includes reflections of sunlight across water. But it’s an extremely tiny portion of it, and she doesn’t exactly look otherwise water-implying beyond the fact that she’s wearing a blue shirt and ribbons.

As a result of this, the chibi-version again doesn’t really manage to capture any kind of “naiad“-like spirit, though considering how human-like nymphs are supposed to be, I won’t argue about it.

In comparison, we can see how blatantly obvious it can be when the artist knows what they’re drawing.

The Tengu. A crow-person and an omen for bad weather, usually depicted with a big nose.

Even missing the big nose, she’s wearing clothing that’s generally seen in tengu-related artwork, has crow-wings, and is swinging around fans that’s creating an obvious wind.

The chibi-version ends up looking a little bit cluttered thanks to the red-white stripes on the rope tying her hat under her chin, combined with all of the other minor details.

So, interestingly enough, the very detailed and obviously accurate depiction of a “cute tengu” is hindered in it’s “chibi-version” by that very same attention to detail.

There’s another example of knowing what they’re drawing though.

The Sphinx. A winged lion with a human face, generally associated with Egyptian mythology, though it often makes an appearance in Greek myths.

Excellent design, VERY well-executed drawing-style. The wings are there, the cat-like eyes, the lion’s tail and ears, the Egyptian jewelry and haircut. On top of that, the background is filled with bricks and faded-out browns, easily implying that her element is earth (which it is).

Despite this attention to detail, it still remains remarkably uncluttered in chibi-version, thanks in large part to the choice of very smoothly blending colors and large “blank“ areas of only a single color.

If every monster was like the sphinx, I would’ve ended up feeling guilty over buying Moekuri on a sale. It’s amazing.

Still, this isn’t so bad. A few monsters are well-made, a few of them not-so-well-made. Why is this causing me to rant about it?

The Peri. A winged spirit, known for its beauty, from Persian mythology.

It’s well-drawn, the design is consistent with what it’s supposed to depict, and the chibi-version isn’t too horribly cluttered.

In the game, it’s a fire-creature and the red background and bright lights can be seen as hinting towards that.

Pay attention to the saturation of that image.

The Kou. Supposedly somehow related to the Qilin (either too obscure, or too badly translated for me to find anything about it).

This is a fire-creature.

As you can see, with the two fire-creature side-by-side, there’s just this... blatant lack of “these two things belong together“, despite how they share an element.

The extreme differences in saturation just makes it all the more blatantly obvious that the artists likely had very little in terms of oversight/guidance in finding a common theme. And it just kind of... pisses me off a little bit.

Mainly because in any work you do, you kind of need to gather everything together so that it all meshes well together. And despite how solid the strategical parts of the game is, when it comes to character-design, sometimes this game really falls flat (despite how it’s literally designed entirely around the idea of capturing and surrounding yourself with cute girls and emerging victorious from countless battles).

(I’m still not clear if they tracked down artists for stuff they’d already made, or if they commissioned the art from the get-go, and I must admit to some curiosity on that side of things.)

#moekuri #video games #rants #art #i really need to capture the sphinx. i might run a party of Dark/Undead with no need for Earth - but i need it #laughing

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zenosanalytic · 7 years

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Discovery: Lethe II

Ok so, first off, I just want to say that this was Everything I ever wanted Trek to be :|

Intimate, ambiguous, detailed examinations of non-human cultures

POLITICS >:] >:] >:]

diplomacy as heroic and dangerous

A Starfleet and Fed where Feelings and mental health are just as important and valued as strategic or tactical concerns.

relationships and The Personal tied directly to principles, institutions, and larger events

exploring relationships, personalities, ethics, and what it means to be alive in the World through symbolic, fantastical situations

positive, life-affirming, sympathetic, casual sex portrayed without objectification or exploitation

tortuously sympathetic villains

damaged people behaving badly and portrayed with nuance and sympathy

Trauma affecting people, affecting the World through people, and people dealing with Trauma in various ways with various levels of success and healthiness

AMANDA!

Sarek being a bad Dad

Sarek being locked in a glass-case of Emotion

People being called out on their Shit

Science officers being all “Fuck it; let’s get Weird!”

Concise, confident, tight sci-fi writing. For example: the basic idea of the mind-meld-machine is established clearly and crisply, and doesn’t degenerate into technobabble, or rely on magic disguised as tech(quantum! nano! tachyons! etc, etc). Everything clinks together, everything runs smoothly, nothing snags, contradicts, or confuses

This ep really impressed me with how incredibly savvy the crew making this show is, and how much they think about how the fanbase will potentially be reacting when they see the eps. There were moments in previous eps like this, but Lethe is repeatedly fan-conscious, and without ever endangering the 4th wall. The “Disco” sweats can be explained -it’d be easy for NBC to promote “Disco” as the preferred nick in the fandom without seeming to- but the writing for Ash in this ep, and how it interacts with the theory that he’s Voq, is just so obviously aware that people would suspect this.

The rest of this got kinda long, so I’m putting it under the cut.

Catching Ash

When Lorcas says “you fight like a Klingon”, Ash responds not by joking or treating it as a compliment(which you might expect given his ingratiating lie about his kill count), but by trying to explain it away and apologize for it, like he was worried by the comment, and in a way -“Klingon guards beating on me for 7 months, I was bound to pick something up”- that emphasizes his awareness and toughness; calculated to appeal to the sort of person Lorca has shown Ash he is. The things he says to Burnham about loss and death; the potential irony of having him, twice in the episode, emphasize and explain humanness; the way his concern for Burnham conveniently ingratiates him to Lorca(by following his orders over the mission) and builds an emotional bond with someone Lorca obvsl considers an asset; all of these have both innocuous and foreboding interpretations. There are even these little subtle touches to his performance that aren’t entirely out of the realm for a human, but oddly Klingon-aggressive: how he hits the table to emphasize the here-and-now when talking to a stranger; his sarcastic dismissiveness towards Tilly and Burnham’s discussion of her emotions. And then there’s his speech about death, failure, and loss to Burnham, something that could have easily come out of the mouth of a Voq trained to act like a human.

Even the title of the episode can be read as playing into this. Titles so far have been thematic; sometimes even used in the episode themselves. Lethe, of course, is the River of Forgetfulness in Greek Myth, on the shores of which the Dead leave the memories of their former life. But who is “Crossing the Lethe” here? Who is doing the forgetting; who is putting their past life behind them? The ep is about Sarek and Michael’s memories and bond, not the denial or loss of them. The final scene in sickbay establishes that Sarek has not forgotten the Meld which saved him in the nebula anymore than the past which binds him to Michael; he lies to avoid the shame of his betrayal, of facing the harm he’d done to Michael(a person he loves), and all the emotions that act and knowledge dredges up in him(not a terribly Vulcan way to behave, lying to avoid consequences).

The point of Michael’s role in all of this is that she hasn’t forgotten any of it. Nor has Lorca forgotten or placed anything behind; his inability to forget and refusal to heal is the engine of his subplot, of his trauma, and of his villainy, in the ep and in the series as a whole. Lorca’s attachment to the Pain he has Chosen drives him to manipulate a friend, to abandon her to torture and degradation, to push, manipulate, and oppress his crew, and to sleep with a phaser under his pillow at night.

But, if Ash is Voq, all this talk about his humanity and about what is is to be human, is a rejection of his Klingonness; a kind of forgetting. It is the final step in a deliberate, decisive setting aside of his past life for the sake of his mission to save and unify the Klingons under T’Kumva’s philosophy. And there’s another aspect to Lethe, too, which could potentially play into this; lethe also means “concealment”, and is the negated element within the Greek word for truth, alethia(lit. “unconcealment, unoblivion, unforgetfulness”). Lorca and Sarek are both concealing and dishonest in this episode but, if Ash is Voq the Torchbearer, it would also apply to him as well. It’s a very nice meta-element to the ep, a kind of non-subplot-subplot, and their deliberate cultivation of it shows an awareness of and desire to engage with the fandom which I appreciate.

Ok, so WOW; that’s a lot of text!, but I’m not done yet.

Our Faces, Our Selves

This ep had some truly great Tilly moments. The gesture she does when she says “personality” was Endearing and characterizing as Hell. Whether it was written in or if Wiseman added it herself, it’s a wonderful example of the non-aggressive physicality her performance has displayed so far. Also -though technically a Burnham moment as well- the contrast between her natural stride and the precise form Michael runs in was both Fun and Great. “Computer, green Juice, extra Green”; Perfect u_u “*whispered* computeraddsalsa... Ohmygod you are so scary!” Magnificent u_u u_u “Oh Kaaay >:|... He actually is, though.” Majestic u_u u_u u_u

The intent to make Cadet Tilly the “Emotional Heart” of the show is extremely obvious, but it actually works because of just how well executed in basically every respect(even something as small as allowing her face to be blotchy and blemished invites audience attachment) it is. And because her personality is basically that of a puppy-dog, and puppies aren’t terribly subtle either, the obvs intent doesn’t grind up against her characterization, or Wiseman’s performance. Her humor is effortless, natural, youthful, and casually disarming. The interlocking web of support between her and Burnham -Burnham teaching her the discipline of excellence and pushing her to pursue it; Tilly engaging her emotionally, sometimes even pushing, without being disrespectful- is convincing, earned through time and interaction, and endearing. That she is simultaneously in awe and protective of Burnham, yet cognizant enough of her weaknesses, and at ease/trusted enough with her, to prompt socialization when she balks out of anxiety, awkwardness, and shame, is entirely believable. And her FACE! The ways Wiseman uses her face, the subtle little things she does, in this episode are just... So Wonderful. I kinda feel like going back over the previous eps just to see if I missed similar work in them.

Frain’s face work as Sarek in this ep is equally impressive. We see more of it in the third contact, but for some reason it’s the stuff in the second contact that stood out most to me. At that point it hasn’t yet been made explicit that Burnham has an incomplete understanding of the event and Sarek’s reactions to it but here -in the minor hesitation and stony, unnatural setting of his jaw and torso as he too slowly turns away from the director; his blinking look and respectful nod to Michael; the blink-and-you-miss-it shaking of his jaw and lips; his emotion-controlling intake of breath before he breaks the bad news; his gulp and the tension in his eyes as he looks at Amanda, the pleading tone as he offers his dishonest explanation; the sorrow on his face and shameful lowering of his head as Burnham asks to leave- we see the first signs that things aren’t as they appear.

And then the third contact. In the initial struggle with Burnham his eyes are particularly important, though the angle obscures them somewhat so this is mostly done through blinking. When she asks “is it worth dying over” there is a flash of stubbornness -he opens his eyes wider, raises his head to look at her straight- followed immediately by a lowering blink and assessing rove of his eyes over her face. As she says “let me in” he blinks and looks down, considering. As he says “I never lost faith in you” he rapidly blinks two or three times, then squints. Finally there’s this little tongue-flick he does on “I will show you”, a mannerism usually associated with consideration or nervousness, that just really stood out and sold his discomfort to me.

Then his talk with the director! When Frain says “Acceptance with honors is her due” there is this wonderful chain of expressions, starting with a raise of the eyes and forehead on “Acceptance” and ending with a slight clench and drawing back, then jutting of the jaw on “due” that just screams pride, assurance, and arrogance. Sarek knew that, by the logical terms of Vulcan society, Burnham had more than earned her place. Then the blinking drawing back of his head at encountering the Director’s racism; his contained, hidden affront at not just the personal insult to his child, and thus to himself, but at the illogic of the Director’s bigotry, yet obviously too common and accepted to challenge publicly if he can voice it so openly to someone of such high social rank. So Sarek dodges the subject; moves it back away from race and the personal onto ideological grounds, hoping to turn the situation around by trapping the Director in the essential contradictions of his position while subtly seeking to defuse his anti-human bias by dehumanizing Burnham via discussing her as a work rather than a person. His face conveys this too; he turns and dips very slightly it to the left, looking partially side-eyed and from under his brow at the Director, conveying cleverness but also a self-satisfaction, as if he’s looking both at the Director, and above him at his vision of wedding Human and Vulcan cultures. The Director out-maneuvers him by turning his argument around; bringing Spock into the discussion. At “Twice” Frain snaps his head up, as if struck. Questioning Spock’s relevance his head shakes, his eyes tighten. At “Non-Vulcan” Frain gives an almost relieved negation, shaking his head, closing his eyes with brows angled down, saying “Spock is” only to be cut off by “Half-Vulcan”. Then the deepest cut; the Director, smirking, goes on to call Spock “another one of your Experiments”, not only insulting him by dehumanizing his children, but also through sarcastic irony; the Director’s tone and face expresses a suspicion Sarek is emotionally attached to them, thus his statements are also mocking these “unVulcan” feelings Sarek might have for them. And then Frain’s wiggle of the lips and blank eyes at “not-quite-Vulcans” just... DAMN!

Ok that bit was... also very long, so I’ll stop there X| But, like I said, EXCELLENT face work, both enough to convey to the humans watching his feelings, and the sort of Vulcan disciplined suppression Trek fans would expect, and I was really impressed by it. But before moving on, I just want to point out a clear but subtle irony here. Green’s performance as Burnham is far more controlled in her reactions to witnessing this racism and anguished betrayal, keeping it mostly to her eyes, and the ever-present tension between her brows. The rest of Green/Burnham’s face remains disciplined and contained in a way Frain/Sarek’s does not, nor that of the Director. Basically, her self-possession out-Vulcans both of the Vulcans present, disproving the Director’s racist arguments. Just really excellent physicality in this ep, even on the smallest details.

Sympathy for the Devil

This was a really great ep for Lorca, too.

I feel like it’s pretty clear that Lorca’s the central villain of Discovery(as much as any one person is “The Villain” rather than nebulous concepts like “misunderstanding” and “arrogance” and “cultural chauvinism”), but he’s a very well and ambiguously written, sympathetic villain. That, inevitably, invites the audience to sympathize with him and forget that he’s the villain. With the Tardigrade set free and Spore-Drive Displacements no longer getting top-billing it’s been awhile since the audience has seen him directly harm other people. It’s been two weeks since we saw him goad his crew by playing the anguished, fearful, dying screams of human colonists over the com. And last week we saw him being friendly with SF Command, being captured, having his weaknesses taken advantage of to torture him, and seeming to think his way out of a terrible situation with insight and daring. We also saw him betrayed by Mudd, and learned his tragic backstory. All of this invites sympathy, and the forgetting of his past misdeeds.

And at first the ep reinforces that. We see him testing and extending his trust to Ash, showing concern for Burnham, risking his ship to both save a long-loved character(Sarek) and protect the protagonist, and finally reconnecting with an old friend through nostalgia and positive, respectful, mutual affection.

But under all of this -except re: Burnham and Sarek- there is a disturbing tremor. The angry, cold and calculating way he crushes that cookie; his private order to Ash; how quickly and masterfully he makes his meeting with Cornwall about their friendship, then escalates its intimacy, step by seducing step. And, just as inevitably, that tremor eventually explodes into a quake that shakes it all down. Rather symbolically(this series LOVES symbolism ^u^) it is Cornwall’s tracing of his scars which triggers his breakdown. In an instant his facade of control collapses, and Lorca goes from driven and in-control to a shaken man on the edge of breaking, sweat-sheened and begging not to lose his ship.

His trauma, in itself, only sympathizes him more of course, and how he deals with it -suppression and bluster when he can hide it, frantic deal-making and pleas when it is revealed- does so as well, to a point. Lorca is revealed once more as a manipulator, but he hasn’t yet harmed anyone. His renewed professions of concern and respect for Burnham sound like Sarek’s manipulations in reverse, but it takes the last scene -the camera panning to focus on his phaser after Lorca had abandoned Cornwall to the Klingons, paraphrasing her own words to justify it to Saru, the audience knowing that she was the only person who knew how far he had fallen and could remove him from command- to retroactively make them, and his scenes with Burnham at the start of the ep, Sinister. By casting aside an ally, friend, and lover the moment she became a threat to his power and ambition, the show reminds the audience of just how villainous and dangerous this tormented man truly is.

There’s a lot more to talk about here -I particularly think this was a very insightful episode about how this show conceives of Vulcan culture- but I think I’ll give the other issues their own posts.

#Star Trek #ST: Discovery #Lethe(Episode)#Lieutenant Ash Tyler #Sylvia Tilly #Sarek #Captain Gabriel Lorca #zA's Outside Viewing #zA's Trenchant Literary Criticism #TV Shows #Acting #ST: Disc Theories #ST: Disc Analysis #analytic posts

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