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monoposting · 1 year

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Replaying the LN1 dlc chapters again because I love to suffer!! Time for some thoughts and observations on the Lady and the Residence chapter as a whole.

(Please keep in mind that I am only making observations about what I see as I play the game! I missed a lot of external content and fandom activity so please don’t be rude if I say things that are considered obvious.)

I like how it’s immediately obvious that this area is much more lived in, and despite the mess of books on the floor it seems otherwise very clean compared to the rest of the maw! The hearth is still glowing with embers, and clearly sees frequent use. Books are left open near comfy chairs, or set aside for later reading and sorting as if someone got halfway through picking up the mess when a book caught her eye.

About that hearth: it’s goddamn COLD in the Residence. Despite the luxury here compared to the rest of the Maw, RK’s breath fogs up in the air in several areas. I’m not sure if that’s meant to be a side effect of the Lady’s presence or just an unfortunate reality of living in a big metal boat?

The ladders and stepstools are perfectly sized to allow kids like RK to get around with relative ease. Same for the stairs. There’s no real struggle to use them as intended. The Lady is more petite than many of the Adults in this world, but not THAT small. It’s almost like this place was designed with children in mind, to an extent.

Similarly, there’s places that are intentionally difficult for kids to get to on their own. The secret room behind the bookcase for one, or the hall of broken mirrors. It feels like there’s a defined “safe area” where those hypothetical children can roam, and as long as they don’t touch anything they shouldn’t it’s actually VERY safe???

Which brings me to the Lady herself.

I’d forgotten that when we first pass her, she’s playing her song on a music box. That detail certainly feels different after playing LN2

Dolls. There’s SO many dolls! Shelves full of them, carefully lined up in rows. More on that in a bit

The Shadow Children. God I have so many thoughts about them but no idea where to start??? I forgot about their dash move, which is a) annoying, and b) really cool! I’m not sure if it’s more like a temporary speed boost, or a baby-steps version of the way the Lady can appear out of nowhere. Plus they sound like they’re having a good time, and a lot of the time they don’t even really attack until you point the flashlight at them (or provoke a different Shadow Kid near them). They just kinda stand there menacingly until you get too close? I have to wonder how they came to be. Might make another post on this later with more details about their behavior and some thoughts I’ve had about them.

The above two points plus some other environmental clues lead me to believe that the Lady might actually want to be a mother? Which is a fucked up desire in the LN world already, before you even think about the fact that she feeds children to the Guests on a regular basis. But… the dolls treated with such care, and the way the Shadow Children are given porcelain masks to match her own and allowed to roam her Residence, and the fact that many of the library shelves are made accessible to someone RK’s size even though the books are LITERALLY their height…

It’s possible that the Lady’s problem with mirrors (and her appearance) is about more than just vanity. Like, it’s one thing to be upset that you aren’t beautiful and can’t regain your lost youth. It’s another thing to resent your appearance and age because you wanted to do more? If you wanted to start a family, and raise children of your own in as much luxury and warmth as you could offer, and now that you’re at the end of your life you have nothing to show for it but corpses and shadows and sagging skin…?

I think this adds another layer of complexity to her character. Don’t get me wrong, she’s still definitely not a great person (and who would be, surviving in this world?) and I like Evil Women as much as the next guy, but… vanity and greed and a genuine desire for companionship or family are NOT mutually exclusive. She can be self-obsessed and okay with doing terrible things and STILL be upset that she doesn’t have any children of her own to pass her Fucked Up Cannibalism Boat down to.

Of course there’s also the idea that she DID have children and none of them lived, but that’s another concept entirely.

On a lighter note! She likes tea :]

She also seems rather forgetful, at least with her belongings? She’s the type to sit down with tea and a book, then just kind of get up and leave the teapot on the bookshelf if something else captures her attention.

That being said her security measures are SIGNIFICANTLY more refined and clever than any of the others in the Maw. She’s pretty damn intelligent! She might just also be scatterbrained at times.

It probably isn’t meant to be funny but. The big portrait over the stairs. She’s just doing the Mona Lisa pose but backwards. Babe?

Side note. There’s SO many paintings around and WHERE are the artists? Did the Lady paint them herself? Is there some wandering Painter that goes around making dozens upon dozens of portraits for the monsters of this world? Has someone made that oc? I want to see them

Globe :]

The huge grandfather clock ALSO feels very different after playing LN2. I doubt that one was as much of an intentional callback when they were making LN2 tho? Clocks are just always sort of ominous

Never noticed before but the decoy book doesn’t have a big eye design on the cover! I never bothered to look at the decoy much before

Why does the secret bookcase door have skid marks in FRONT of it? You push it BACK to open it. What

I really like how RK will carefully set a Flotsam bottle down so it doesn’t fall over, but if they’re carrying one of the Lady statuettes they just. Open their arms and watch it drop directly to the floor.

I could definitely read into the idea that the Lady made a mechanism where the only way to enter one of the wings is to BLIND THE WATCHFUL EYE. I could read a lot into it. I could also find meaning in the fact that the wing hidden behind this puzzle has several statues of faceless children in it. Maybe a post for another day but probably not <3

Spiders :] in all seriousness! The presence of spiders and cobwebs generally means this wing has gone untouched for quite a while. That’s in pretty sharp contrast to the way the rest of the Residence feels like a home. A weird home, but still.

I am currently assuming that there are bedrooms behind those green doors we pass at the very start of the Residence chapter? Because we only really explore the huge library and gallery areas.

Might replay that part of Six’s route later to knit together a mental map.

Forgot about the little shrine of lady statues inside the wall. Who’s leaving offerings? The Lady herself definitely can’t fit in there. Is it the Shadow Children?

Speaking of them again. They kill you by rushing INTO your body and seemingly possessing you??? I want to know more about them PLEASE

May or may not be a child or doll in a birdcage near the end of the Shadow Kid section. The cage is open but the figure inside sits motionless. Reminds me of the end of Six’s route, where she’s ripped open the doors of her prison but can’t actually go anywhere. She’s forced to sit and wait for some outside force to act on her again.

Piano :]

That fucked up little moment where the Lady herds RK into a room where there’s a mirror waiting, just the right size for them to pick it up and fight her like Six does… except it’s already shattered. They never had a fighting chance. All the doors were already closed and locked before they could see the sun.

That’s all for now! Leave a little like if you read this far <3 I appreciate it!!

#also if you wanna talk about these games feel free to @ me or something #I don’t have any other friends in this fandom yet so #it’s just me and my thoughts at the moment :) :) :)#monoposting #little nightmares #ln the lady #long post

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vvitchering · 1 year

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After ep thoughts for the pirate (deragatory)

Haha guys remember when this show was about Din Djarin

I guess now that we’re in the second half stretch I can stop hoping they’re going to magically somehow turn the show around and have it get good again. Pacing still sucks but I did actually think this episode flowed better than the rest of this season has, which isn’t saying a lot, but it’s something.

I was REAL scared this was going to be another ep where it focused on characters we don’t give a shit about the entire time again but Din actually was on screen and did something for a little while! (Sad that that’s something I have to mention as an unexpected positive, though)

I’m really happy the show brought the covert to a safe planet and Karga’s offer of land to Din has come full circle. Even though it’s not Tatooine, my wish for a safe home where they can live like people again was granted so that’s really nice! I wasn’t super shocked Paz backed Din in going to help, he does owe him one. But that was nice to see too.

And I guess we are committing to ignoring the final detail they haven’t walked back yet from s2, Din having the darksaber. I would REALLY like to know why the armorer has now TWICE praised and rewarded Bo for things she ripped Din a new asshole for previously. Din destroyed his entire life to rescue a foundling? Excommunicated, no trial, no explanations, get out. Bo is there when they rescue a foundling? She’s a national hero. (Never mind that Din was once again the one who actually physically saved the kid) Bo takes her helmet off? Oh well she walks both worlds! Thank god we have been sent someone who can do that finally for the first time ever!!!!! (Are you fucking kidding me)

Not only have they IGNORED the character building goldmine that is Din’s journey from apostate to redemption, they’re just handing everything that’s rightfully narratively his to her. I won’t be shocked if they suddenly decide it’s fine for him to hand over the darksaber before the end of this season too. Why tf not.

I’m still not enjoying these episodes. I can’t for the life of me figure out why all of this is happening in this show. They’ve solidly set aside their main cast in favor of side characters and overarching plots that have very little to do with anything we care about in the context of this show. The Mandalorian’s strength has always been in its ability to tell a Star Wars story without relying on its audience knowing or caring about the wider universe. That’s what gained it such a huge audience in its first two seasons. Now it’s getting weighed down by the weight of a narrative that feels foreign because it’s suddenly had 80 tons of lore shoveled on top of it.

This show succeeds when it’s about characters and their journeys. Not only has it completely veered off of that, it’s few attempts to refocus back on it’s characters are feeble and stuck on the wrong people. Which isn’t to say characters like Bo-katan don’t deserve the spotlight, but they’re so show happy they could easily give her her own show. Why did we need to lose the title character of this show to lift her up? Why did we need to burn everything this show has worked up to to force in lore and wider universe stuff that have never meant anything within this context? The darksaber being in Din’s hands is the last detail they haven’t retconned from previous seasons. Like?????? Hello????

I’m aware the events going on in the background of the show will eventually effect the lives of the characters, but it’s so puzzling to me why they’ve completely gutted the character focus and switched to such a disjointed “we have to show EVERYTHING GOING ON RIGHT NOW” plan. I fell in love with this show because it was about characters making their way through the universe. Now I tune in every week praying the Star of the show gets at least five minutes of screen time. I don’t care and they haven’t done anything to make me care.

#Mando critical #the mandalorian #the mandalorian spoilers #Mando s3 #Mando s3 spoilers

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pjsks · 1 year

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A Silent Voice Blog Post

No because y’all don’t understand how HEATED I get about this movie. Yes, it has an important message. Yes, it reflects the unfairness of the world and how some people never get the karma they deserve. Yes, it reflects real-world mistreatment of people with disabilities in school settings. Yes, it reflects the effects of bullying on all different parties including bullies themselves, victims, and bystanders. I’m not going to lie, I hate everyone in this movie except for Shouko herself.

Moral of the story: Shouya was an asshole, but he has repented for his wrongdoings and continuously tries to atone for his past as a bully. Shouko deserved so much better in her life. Naoka was also an asshole, but at least she owns up to it and is trying to do better.

Miki though… Miki is a piece of WORK. Like, yeah, Naoka and Shouya were more awful in comparison when you look at physical events, but I literally hate Miki so much. She victimized herself to get out of situations where she was the perpetrator or extremely involved. She never lifted a finger to help Shouko at all. She was a huge bystander for the rest of the time. And then she had the audacity to pretend that she never did anything wrong and that she’d been good to Shouko her entire life? Pleaseeeee be so for real. My blood boiled so much whenever she came on screen. Hating Miki is like my whole personality at this point. She’s an ableist, narcissistic little pick-me and she never acknowledges her own flaws throughout the entire movie and never develops as a person, unlike Shouya and Naoka.

To be very honest, this movie was never an enjoyable experience for me because there was always an underlying discomfort in watching the dynamics between these characters. I would say it was very well done in that sense, because they accomplished what they were trying to accomplish by writing them like that. It wasn’t meant to be a feel-good happy movie. It was meant to show the ugly side of humans and how people can change from awful behavior and mentalities. I still would not watch it again though.

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radiantlyrey · 1 year

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Thoughts on Uprising Episode 5, Identity

- Beck continuing the trend of getting into trouble with Wrong Place, Wrong Time stuffs. poor kid…

- love that Tron is in this episode more, being the same Grouch as always.

- the disc theft is……. Interesting. We know from Legacy that there is such thing as a forged disc (Zuse mentions it in the list of things Sam needs to get to the Portal); perhaps stolen discs is where those come from? And stray programs are mentioned in Legacy as well, though not expanded upon. Honestly, TRON is FULL of Unexplained Worldbuilding Things that I would give my right hand to know. UGH

- stray programs are such an interesting concept. Like the disc is the program, apparently?? It’s like…. well actually thinking about it, it makes sense?? Kind of???? The program is made of fairly basic code; the disc holds that code and its log of activities, while the body is just a physical manifestation of the code itself. Unlike Users/humans, whose code is an inherent part of them/us, and thus can’t be memory-wiped by swiping an activity log. It’s interesting as fuck, is what I’m saying. Like the philosophical implications of the program being the disc and not the physical person—so Interesting!!!!!

- also the glitches are scary as Fuck. One moment you know what’s going on and then the next you don’t know anything?? Terrifying. And well portrayed by the episode, too, with the fisheye effect on Beck’s closeups and the general blurriness from his PoV.

- could have sworn Cobol was voiced by Ron Perlman, but it was some person I’ve not heard of instead. Doing one heck of a Perlman impression, tbqh.

- Lux is EXTREMELY INTERESTING TO ME. Siren who’s gotten caught up in the black market?? INTERESTING. Also she’s a whole hell of a lot more principled than Cobol, because when she sees Tron it’s like everything changes for her. Also the shaved head is just badass looking.

- meanwhile, a three scene B plot with Zed and Mara!! That took up like six minutes of episode time. Like okayyyyy. Turns out I didn’t need to be so worried about Zed joining the anti-Renegade taskforce, because it turns out Mara kind of guilted him into doing the right thing!!! Good for him I guess.

- Also someone commented on my last commentary post that Bartik here and Bartik in Legacy are the same character/program, and uh. Wonder how THAT happens, because damn. How does one go from happily helping Clu’s forces to hoping a revolution against Clu can be sparked into existence???? Color me intrigued as fuck.

- love Tron’s comments about Beck being his friend at the end there. Especially the bit about trusting someone as a friend and being betrayed, bc from what I know of later episodes, that could be like three different programs!!!! (Clu, like Beck assumes; Dyson I have heard was a friend turned enemy; and then Cyrus as well!! Again I have not watched the whole series and my last dip in was 10 years ago, but from what Discussion I have seen I am making some Assumptions.) also love the comment that he “made the right choice this time”, because that is just dripping with implications that I imagine pay off in future episodes…..

- other details: Purgos as the name of the black market district is interesting, with the obvious name tie to Xtian (or at least Catholic) Purgatory; wonder what the creators meant for us to take from that… // Galt was an interesting one off character; total sleazeball of course, but interesting nonetheless // ngl when they were surrounded by all of Cobol’s goons, I was kinda cackling because like. It’s Tron. Even scarred all to hell he’s gonna kick most of y’all’s asses.

- I am probably gonna watch this episode again with captions on so I can get helpful juicy deets for my TRON horror story fic idea. I gotta do some brainstorming on stuffs tonight for sure.

- that said the brainstorming might have to wait bc the next episode has Paige Backstory and also QUORRA sooooooooo…….. yeah

#tronblr #tron #tron: uprising #skye liveblogs things

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crapmagak · 1 year

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Engage Drip Marketing: Yunaka

This one’s a day late. Wanted to get some personal writing finished first.

I figured we’d get the remaining royals first, but instead it seems like we’re getting Yunaka first. In terms of design, I’m kind of dispassionate. Like, I’m used to the overall style of engage characters, so she seems like nothing new. And as dumb as they are, side waist windows is such a niche design choice that I appreciate the novelty. Also, oh look, a short girl that doesn’t look like a baby, mostly thanks to booba. I do unironically like that shade of red/ purple they used for her hair though.

Now, for the intro tweet…

Yunaka is a strange girl you meet during your travels. She's bright and active, and gets along easily even with people she's just met thanks to her good vibes.

And the Cutscene tweet…

Yunaka is trying to find something she dropped. Maybe these two nice people will help her.

Yunaka: "How could I mess up like this..."

Alfred: "You there."

Yunaka: "Huh?"

Alfred: "What are you doing crying in a place like this? Is something wrong?"

Yunaka: "...Yi-"

Alear: "You must be in shock. Sorry for suddenly talkin-"

Yunaka: "Yipee! Help is here!"

So, at first glance, she seems to be your typical cute and plucky thief girl. Considering the cutscene takes place at night, I think we’ll end up recruiting her after the night village map. The presence of Alfred makes me confident of this.

Of course, the juicier stuff is shown off in the crit clip…

Yunaka's starting class is Thief. Good at picking locks and dazzling enemies with swift moves. Uses daggers, capable of poisoning enemies with them.

Not gonna lie. When Yunaka’s voice went deep and cold for her crit quip, she shot up from a 4/10 to a 9/10. Also, the gold plating on her legs looks dope. If Yunaka turns out to be like a gremlin version of Charlotte from Fates, she may end up being one of my faves.

As for the clip itself, it takes place in the ruins chapter, so nothing new here. However, another tweet I don’t feel like copy and pasting did shine some light on how daggers will function. Not only are they 2 ranged, but they inflict the poison status, which works differently, again…

So in old dames, poison worked like in more typical jrpg’s, dealing a little bit of damage and wearing off in a couple turns. This meant it was about as dangerous as a gnat when integrated into Fire Emblem gameplay. In fates, it shaved off 10% of your health after combat. That doesn’t seem like much, but if you weren’t careful it could fuck you up fast. Especially if a unit was surrounded by multiple enemies that could inflict it.

In Engage, poison seems to be a stackable defense debuff, and one that doesn’t go away on its own. Since we don’t exactly see how much your defense is affected, I can’t really say what my thoughts are. This could be op/ frustrating, or this could be largely irrelevant. Only time will tell.

Honestly, though, I feel like status effects just don’t work in Fire Emblem. Even in typical jrpg’s status effects are hard to do right. If they aren’t punishing enough, they might as well not even be there. If they’re too punishing, they feel unfair and unfun. And a lot of them limit or take away your control in some way. And in Fire Emblem, where so much happens each turn, where merely one or two rounds of combat can mean life or death, where the mere act of position of unit affects so much, any act of taking the players control away can put them in unfair positions. Easier to manage and understand stat changes could make this work though, as long as it’s easier for the player to know what those changes will be ahead of time.

#fire emblem #fire emblem engage #Yunaka #Please turn out to be gremlin Charlotte!

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darkdeadlylove · 2 years

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The Rogue Prince Chapter 3

Ao3 Link // Masterlist // Wattpad

Daemon Targaryen x OC (Ellaria Ambrose)

Disclaimer: This is more of an AU. This is nothing at all like the show or book. I am mostly taking the characters and putting them into another situation. This has very little game of thrones lore and I will probably get a wrong or have misinformation. If you don’t like that, don’t read.

Summary: I was meant to marry the thing and become the next queen. That's what I was meant to be doing here. Become queen and bear more heirs, that was it. My whole life planned out by my father wanting to be a united front with the Targaryen's. What no one planned for was Daemon. It is hard to plan for chaos. It’s even harder to plan who you fall in love with? Daemon has a bad reputation. One he has earned and is proud of. That should be enough to make me stay far away from him and in the safety of who I supposed to be wed to. Too bad, I couldn’t help myself.

Series Trigger Warnings: Age gap, violence, arranged marriages, cheating, love triangles, lose of virginity, cnc, just all around bad ideas.

Chapter Triggers: Daemon being an asshole

Daemon

I left her standing there in shock. She needed to learn. She needed to learn that she was not welcomed here. She wasn’t wanted here. She wouldn’t be earning my blessing for marrying the king and gaining Aemma’s spot as queen. I didn’t care if it had been a couple years and the kingdom needed to move on. She was the rightful queen and always would be, not this little girl. She had no right to think she could be the queen and just take her place like that. Stand where Aemma stood. Sleep where she slept. She had no rights. And she was going to learn that.

I was walking back to the castle when somebody stopped me. I didn’t realize I had watchers. I wasn’t surprised to see that it was none other than Rhaenyra. I knew she was upset, maybe more than me, about the new girl’s presence. I didn’t bother to really learn her name. It wasn’t going to be important. I would make sure she knows she less than nothing to me.

“Is that her?” She asked looking back to where the girl stood. “Is that who my father is suppose to marry?” I scoffed softly as I rolled my eyes. “Apparently so. He is supposed to marry her not too long from now.” I turned back at her with a mischievous smile. “If she makes it that long.” Rhaenyra smiled as she looked at me. She could tell there was something behind my eyes. Rhaenrya and I had a bond unlike other uncles and nieces. It wasn’t inappropriate as others thought. I was just fond of the child. She reminded me of myself at that age. She had a fire behind her eyes just like me. That’s why even though she had been named heir, I don’t really want to kill her. I want to keep her around for a bit. Maybe some of my power hunger settles just to see what she would do with the crown on her head.

“What do you have in mind, uncle?” She asked, tilting her head to the side. “Or should I say, what are you planning?” She asked the second question in High Valyrian. A language she and I speak sometimes to hide what we really are saying. You never know who is watching you and not many spoke the dead language so it was a good tactic to use.

“I will make sure she goes back to where she came from with her tail between her legs. I will make sure her life is a living hell and she will regret the day her father tried to marry her off to the king.” I spoke back to her in the same tongue. I was ready for the plan to go into effect. I couldn’t wait to have that poor girl crying as I pushed her back in the carriage and sent her back to where she came from. She didn’t belong here and that was what she was destined to learn.

❤️~❤️~❤️

Rhaenrya was on board with my plan to make the new girl’s life a living hell. Of course she was. This girl was supposed to replace her mother and was yet barely older than Rhaenyra. It was a damn shame. He couldn’t believe his brother had agreed to this mess. He thought he knew his brother better than that. He was so madly in love with Aemma. He didn’t think that he could even bring himself to find himself someone new. Of course duty came before that and a young queen would look more fertile for heirs. I can’t deny that. He needed more. He needed a boy. We all knew it even if we didn’t say it out loud.

She arrived at dinner that night with her friend in tow. The one who had came with her. I knew it wasn’t her sister. The other girl had raven black hair while the rest of the Ambrose’s had sandy blonde hair or the golden that the girl my brother was meant to marry had. I wondered if she had told her friend about what had happened in the garden between us. If she told her about what I had said to her. By the way, she is avoiding my eyes, I could tell she didn’t.

I looked over at Rhaenyra with a wicked smile on my face. This was going to be a fun little dinner. We were in the middle of eating. The dinner had been filled mostly with small chatter. The girl didn’t say much as she sat next to my brother. She was a shy little thing. Poor thing had no idea she had just walked right into the lion's den.

“So, how old are you?” I asked facing her so she would know I was speaking to her.

She looked at me nervous as she took a deep breath. My brother looked over at me in questioning look, but he didn’t say anything. “I have had eighteen name days, sir.” She said softly.

“Wow, that’s mighty young.” I say. My brother is already giving me a cautionary look like I would actually take it as a warning. “How does it feel to already being married when you just started to bleed?”

Her cheeks turned red at my words. She couldn’t believe I had openly said something so vulgar. She opened her mouth and slowly closed it again looking down. My brother looks at her reaching to hold her hand. “Daemon, stop.”

“I am just asking the girl some questions. I want to know how she truly feels and her true intentions.”

“I don’t think right now is time to question her intentions.” He snapped back at me.

“It is an honor,” she said before I could retort back. “It is an honor to marry someone as great as king Viserys. I can already tell he is going to be a great husband.”

I couldn’t help, but roll my eyes. She was lying through her teeth. She barely knew the man. He could be a horrible man, but she was still trained to say what an honor this was. “Yeah, I guess it would be a great honor, not having to worry about anything. I know your father’s house was doing horrible. He needed something to elevate his position. So why not marry off his young daughter?”

“Daemon!” Viserys yelled with a stern tone. He wanted me to stop. I could tell I wasn’t just embarrassing the girl. I was embarrassed by him too. I didn’t care. I loved to see how dark I could make those girl’s cheeks. It was thrilling to see how dark they were. Also the shock on her face. She didn’t know about her father losing power and basically selling her off to regain that and more. She couldn’t have by the look on her face and how fast she wanted to get up. She was too easy. This was going to be fun. “I am sorry, my king, but I think it would be best if I retire for the evening. I am very tired.” She was faster than he could speak as she left out the door.

I chuckled watching her fast feet as she fled out of there. Viserys glared at me as I tipped my drink and took a long drink. Satisfied.

#daemon targaryen #daemon targaryen fanfic #daemon targaryen x oc #daemon targaryen smut #house of the dragon #house of the dragon fanfic #house of the dragon x oc

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biceratops7 · 1 year

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Unsolicited opinions on Matilda the musical the movie

I hope I’m not the only one who wasn’t too impressed by the movie adaptation of Matilda the musical. Don’t get me wrong I liked it! But I really wanted to love it and just couldn’t, here’s why:

(Disclaimer I AM gonna be comparing this to the Danny Devito movie even though it’s not a remake, I just think the movie was ultimately a superior telling and handled many of these elements better)

It felt more like a series of very well done music videos than a coherent movie. There were pretty significant pacing issues in my opinion. For example establishing Matilda’s home life and status as an abuse/neglect victim, introducing us to the library, and sending her to school all happened in the first 15 minutes. And even that was crammed in with two musical numbers that didn’t do much to help get those points across

I’m so glad this wasn’t afraid to be bright/ colorful and unrealistic where it counted, but I think sometimes they valued the spectacle more than what would actually fit for the scene. “Quiet” is meant to be… well, quiet. I think seeing Matilda simply just stand and calm herself down was much more affective than floating away from a tornado in a hot air balloon.

Matilda doesn’t seem to go through much character development, and it’s hard to get invested in her as a real child. There’s a sense in the old movie that she has to learn she’s deserving of love and care, and it takes a good chunk of the movie with a lot of uncomfortable moments and tears to retaliate. Here she’s busting out revenge pranks in the first 15 minutes. Also apparently in the new version Matilda is… psychic?? Idk if that’s in the book but that was a little much for me. She seems very sure of herself right off the bat, and correct to be so cause she essentially defeats miss Trunchable by herself with very little help from her classmates. She’s just a bit too perfect and her home life doesn’t seems to really have tangible ill effects internally

#Matilda #matilda the musical #biceratops

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rigelmejo · 1 year

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Its not much but its honest work ToT

Yesterday I read:

1 chapter of hanshe (I’m extensive reading, which is artificially easier than usual since I’ve read this before so even if I ‘forgot’ words, I honestly know them somewhere in my brain so they come back easily when reading)

2 chapters of Granting You a Dreamlike Life (eirenical’s translation reminded me ToT! Honestly if it weren’t for hanshe’s author’s writing being SUPER familiar to me, I think GYADL author actually writes a bit easier to read. The difficult part is the unrecognizable words I Actually have never studied before, unlike hanshe, so I have to put in a bit more effort to figure them out)

1 chapter of Journey to the West Vernacular. Easiest version I’ve ever read of this story, it feels like a graded reader. But has a slight style to it which makes it enjoyable. Easier to read than GYADL, but again hanshe is artificially easiest since somewhere in my brain I have all the words in it stored ToT.

0.5 chapters of ‘Liu Li’. So I had a link to Liu Li, Love and Redemption’s novel. Well. That link was apparently fanfic, I read a few paragraphs and oddly sects were being called businesses...then Ling Long said she got a job... then Sifeng showed up in a western style suit with GLASSES. And I was like yep this is definitely definitely the WRONG story lol. I actually have the print version of Liu Li in my house but its in a box right now ;-;. So yeah... I’ll need to go looking for this novel again lol, somehow I’d saved a fanfic last time I bookmarked it.

Honestly yes, I still just want to extensively read Guardian. But who knows when I’ll get the bravery to try that again. I also tried reading some japanese detective novels translated into Chinese (since that was what was popular in the section of a site i was browsing through). But um... seeing hanzi that represent japanese names just fried my brain way too much and I bailed after 1 paragraph. (Truly: I saw Tokyo written in hanzi in the first sentence, and my brain pronounced it the chinese hanzi way and it just hurt my brain to think about i don’t even know why).

Yesterday and today I listened to:

Final Fantasy VII lets play in japanese, I found a new lets player I like. She cosplays sometimes for them (for IX she dressed as zidane!) I used the closed captions on youtube so I had some japanese subs. It was artificially easier since I’ve played the game in english, so I could guess what words meant what. That said - I think that makes learning from it easier. I think that means if I just relaxed and watched a lets play of a game I’ve played, I’d pick up a lot of words from context that otherwise would be too difficult to learn as quickly. I know whenever I check out Kingdom Hearts cutscenes I can figure out words easy (cause I know that game by heart lol)

Midnight Diner condensed audio (I found a lot of japanese audio lately). I could catch bits and pieces of things said, which I honestly consider a success considering how hard it was to watch IN japanese only last time I tried. I did not follow what was going on, but just catching some bits of dialogue meaning was cool!

Final Fantasy X condensed audio. This is proof that (somehow) I could learn some new words from audio-only resources in japanese, specifically if they’re media I’m already familiar with. I know the scenes and characters SO well I have figured out a few words just now listening as I work. And I can tell what scene I’m hearing fairly easily (music cues and sound effects same as in english, actors have the same ‘vibe’ even though they’re japanese VAs), which makes guessing words easier since I know the topic. And then, I find recognizing words I ALREADY know easier (since I know the scene’s context I can expect them) - which is good review for me and helps improve my listening comprehension. Also I finally really hammered in soshite - and, dakara - because, oyaji - dad/pops, sekai - world, dekimasu - can! (also its so cute Lulu uses ‘anta’ when I’ve only otherwise heard anta used by yakuza in the Yakuza games ToT). Anyway just notes for me personally: I think its really cool to see that I can pick up NEW stuff and make improvements just listening to audio. Because I would have thought that ‘too hard’ to do at my level.

Alice in Wonderland in Japanese, read-listened in DuoReader app. Well. I did 5 pages. It was hard. I read a LOT of hiragana without kanji to help me as a crutch. Japanese and English have such different sentence structure that the english text did not help with comprehending the audio much lol. So I mostly followed the japanese text with the japanese audio. I do feel I learned some stuff. It was brain frying though. Although, I suppose, Listening Reading Method often does make me feel exhausted. Its a very intensive study method.

Can you tell I’ve been listening to a lot of japanese?? Studying japanese feels so much like I’m jumping in an ocean and going ‘LETS SEE ALRIGHTY’ and then treading water randomly to see if I’ll float or find any islands or drown. But when I use reading resources (because I did jump into trying to read Alice in Wonderland in japanese yesterday with audio), I find myself so reliant on kanji (based on my hanzi knowledge) that it really hinders my ability to pick up new hiragana words. I find this whole past year I’ve been a lot more successful doing mainly audio focus on japanese. But audio focused lessons also mean a lot more unknowns unless I’m using full on english-japanese sentence audio.

#rant #progress #lol i will do no studying for weeks then read 4 chapters in a night

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emara · 2 years

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tweeted this already but i’m feeling extremely unhinged and vulnerable atm, as illustrated in vivid detail below the cut

began reading orv like two weeks ago bc my brother was like ‘can you please read the novel faster so i can find out what happens next [after the latest webtoon update]’ and what am if not an older sibling so I Was Like Okay. biggest mistake of my life. (also the juxtaposition of me reading orv out of love and indulgence, technically, and the inherent thematic grounds of it are not lost to me and i think the hindsight is what makes everything more potent here)

so yes, i’m not too far ahead actually. i’m @ ch 100 something. i actively seek spoilers bc that’s how i keep myself interested in things. i didn’t actually think i’d like it as much as i do atm. and well.

i can’t extrapolate on how i’m feeling about what’s going to happen but i do want to talk about how i’m feeling on what has already happened and like. GOD. HAVE THINGS HAPPENED.

kim dokja. he’s soooooooooo i think it’s impossible to talk about him isolated from all the people who make him who he is bc he is just That person, see? dokja with sangah on the subway, w gilyoung and hyunsung. dokja who is like ‘i’m only keeping them alive to earn coins and keep my reputation blessed in front of all the constellations’ but also, regardless, still does his level best to get them all through the multiple qualms they find themselves in -- dokja who’d rather it be him than them, if it does come down to choosing not just bc he understands where joonghyuk went wrong as the protagonist but also bc he values companionship (??) he is such a tightly wounded character that it’s kind of like..... tbh.... like a thread unravelling the more time we spend in his presence. orv is written in undeniable detail and the character development happens in such little spoons of progress that it’s kind of.... u don’t even know when this character went from being person A to person B (case in point: jung minseob and lee sungkook who went from begrudging acceptance of dokja to bold admiration before the signs became obvious)

and he just has that kind of effect on people. most people who agree to be with him end up actually, honestly, liking him. i can’t put into words or unpack his character properly enough to unspool why i think that is but just know that i see it, i see the diplomacy and the kindness and i see why he, as a figurehead, is well-liked (i think the attribute king of no killing actually suits him sooooo much).

also the way he is just. resourceful, smart enough to be reliable, understanding what he can do and what he can’t do. i have neverrrrr been good at describing characters as i see them in my mind and i am not going to be good at it now but i really like dokja a lot? as a reader and as the protagonist of the novel that i’m reading, he’s just as easy to identify with as he is to admire.

i also think a lot about him with gilyoung and yoosung. i think a lot about how he does actively care for them, how much they trust him. it’s just. neat. the effect he has on these children and all.

(i keep thinking about that one scene in the chungmuro station scenario where they had to survive the night -> how joonghyuk took the last hidden green room after dokja promised to keep gilyoung safe, how they said at the same time: give me the child / take the child at least. i think about that a lot.)

and then with yoosung too, more as the catastrophe than as the child. even as the child though, when she asks him to kill her and he says no. when her future self climbs out of the meteorite as a catastrophe, even then. he refuses to kill her and it means so much to him bc all she ever wanted to do was live. i can’t even begin to think about dokja and yoosung bc it makes me want to DIE.......

(i also think about the younger yoosung watching her older self wreak havoc and understanding that this is why people wanted her dead, understand what it meant when she asked dokja if she was going to grow up into a bad person and how he’d replied to it. I KEEP THINKING.)

(also the anger.... me @ me ‘yoosung’s anger at joonghyuk is so interesting bc that means whether it all goes right or whether it all goes wrong, dokja could also just as easily be at the other end of it’ and hmm... it’s interesting! something about how fathers and daughters, maybe.)

i also cannot think about han sooyoung for too long or i go into self destructive blank extremities like wdym (AND THIS IS A MAJOR SPOILER) like wdym. she loved dokja more than the world. fuck off. i actually won’t talk about han sooyoung at all until i reach that point in the novel just bc i will explode if i don’t have all the facts (which i do, which are: she loves him)

same goes to yoo joonghyuk. isolation is a disease luv [i actually have a lot to say about him but once again, i’d rather wait for all the facts] [i love how he and dokja are going until now though. it’s very. fascinating] [“you killed my companion” = bro glaring daggers at him every second dokja was alive. yeah. potent]

anyway.

#i want to DIE effective IMMEDIATELY #orv spoilers #orv #log

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starlene · 2 years

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Assorted thoughts about Så som i himmelen in Säffleoperan, Säffle, Sweden.

The first act was one of the best I’ve seen in Så som i himmelen so far, directed here by Mattias Palm – but unfortunately, the second act lost me a little. Nothing wrong with it, per se (except maybe for the very end), it just didn’t bring anything especially new or delightful to the table the way the first act did.

The first act had some brilliant character moments and really effective ways of finishing songs/scenes and moving from one scene to the next. It’s hard to put it to words why I liked it, I just think it had a very good flow.

The most hilarious Fråga Arne I’ve seen so far: they took the “Daniel is the only person who understands that they’re in a musical, and it terrifies him” thing they did in the Helsinki production and really ran with it.

Arne’s shop had some real products available. Daniel bought two bags of soup mix and a box of potato powder, I assume to make the soup last longer.

Speaking of Daniel: Andreas Hoff was really good in the role, I think 8/10 or 9/10. Lovely voice. He really emphasised Daniel’s socially awkward side, I think to the point of it becoming slightly parodic – but it’s okay, because as a whole, he understood the assignment and made the character extremely likable.

The problem with this Daniel, though, was his apparent tuberculosis. Sure, I don’t know much about heart diseases – maybe there is some real heart-related condition out there that makes you cough up blood, like Daniel did in this production. But in fiction, that’s so often used as a sign of tuberculosis, I really wish they didn’t do it here.

This Daniel was also very much visibly ill from the get-go, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, yeah, it’s certainly canon that his condition is serious. But on the other... I think we’re supposed to think some of the people in the choir might suspect there’s something wrong with his health, but only Lena figures out how serious it is – but this Daniel was so ill, you’d think everyone would be extremely worried about him. He’s still supposed to be healthy enough that he can genuinely enjoy his months in Ljusåker, and I’m not sure I got that from this production.

The very end was confusing because Big Daniel looked, frankly, terrified and upset when Small Daniel and Medium Daniel arrived to take him to the other side. Instead of the usual vibe, that Daniel is done with his goals in life and feels melancholic but ready to move on, the kids kinda dragged him away backwards and unwilling, or that’s what I got from the scene. The back of the stage being lit up in hellish orange tones didn’t help in the least.

I liked how they did Stig here. Daniel Sjöberg had the right sort of authority for the part, I really enjoyed his subtle way of handling the first scene, and I liked how they underlined him being jealous of the way Inger and Daniel interact with each other. The character is always confusing to me (why on earth is he so upset about having sex with his wife when they’re both into it?) but he had the exact right vibe here – something I always missed in the Helsinki production, so I’m extra glad to see it.

Overall, a very good production, but not without its problems!

Also, here’s a little complaint I have about Så som i himmelen in general:

There are a couple of confusing things about the book of this musical, and this time, I realised I’ve had it with Lena’s surprise pregnancy near the end.

When we interviewed Fredrik Kempe for the podcast, he told us it’s meant to be interpreted like this: Lena and Daniel have sex for the first time after På grund av dig, and immediately afterwards, Lena just gets this feeling that she’s pregnant now. According to Kempe, it’s based on something that happened to someone in the original creative team. And I mean, cool, it must’ve been magical and powerful to experience a feeling like that in real life – but it doesn’t make sense in the musical, since it’s not explained at all. Pregnancy tests exist because the vast majority of people do not ever experience a feeling like that, so it’s not exactly relatable. :P

Instead, as it is, the pregnancy just serves to amplify the tragedy of Daniel dying, which I think is beating a dead horse. The ending would be impactful enough without it, and then some.

What’s more, having a baby on the way kinda messes with Daniel’s arc, since he’s supposed to be able to let go of everything by the end. He knows Lena is strong and will be okay, but having lost his parents young himself, I wonder if he would feel so about the baby.

Oh well! In my personal headcanon of this musical, Lena announcing the pregnancy simply does not happen. Or if it happens, it means either that a) it was not their first time, or b) the baby is not Daniel’s.

Here’s to hoping the next production simply gets rid of this detail.

#Så som i himmelen

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anthonysstupiddailyblog · 2 years

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Anthony’s Stupid Daily Blog (208): Sun 9th Oct 2022

I was delighted to see that Bray Wyatt returned to WWE at last night's Extreme Rules pay per view. It's sad that any time this guy got a decent amount of momentum and fan support (Which was a lot of the time) Vince McMahon would always decide to clip the poor guys wings by feeding him to John Cena or Goldberg. Hopefully this time around HHH will do a better job of booking him and utilizing him to his full potential. As mush as I want to see him pushed to the top I don't want to see him take both belts off Roman Reigns though I'd be fine if he took just the WWE Championship from him as I want Roman to hold the Universal title for at least another two years so that he'll beat Hulk Hogan's 1st run and become the third longest reigning champion in WWE history. V1 from OSW Review suggested Bray should beat Brock Lesnar clean in his first match back which I am 100% all for as this would get him over huge, then they could have him beat Reigns for the WWE Championship and begin a lengthy reign with that belt to try and undo all the damage Vince did to his character.

Saw the video of Michael J Fox at a convention this past week and it was a bit tough to watch. His Parkinson's disease has really started to take effect. Whatever drugs he was taking were doing a good job up until now of controlling the symptoms so they were less noticeable in terms of his shakes but now it's like he's being pulled back and forth by invisible ropes. I can't imagine the discomfort the poor guy has experienced over the last 30 years. From what I've read on Twitter after the Q&A Fox also had to stand at a table while being held up by various helper in order to try and sign as many autographs as he could which seems like a really cruel thing to talk someone into doing. I hope that he managed to have fun during this appearance but you can tell the poor guy was feeling the effects of his awful disease. Hopefully a cure is found for Parkinson's as soon as possible The back of the toilet has started to leak again whenever it flushes. I told Mam this and she flushed it in order to investigate for herself and a big pool of water appeared on the bathroom floor as a result mam went to the kitchen to get some tools and in her frustration she said "I don't know what you've been doing to it". I was taken aback by this because although I can understand her frustration since she's the bill payer in the house but I can't imagine what the fuck she meant by this. "What have I been doing to it?" Well it's a toilet so there's really only two options. I love my Mam to death but she has a nasty habit of assuming that when something's gone wrong that me or one of the kids has done something deliberately to cause it. After we stopped the leaking in the bathroom things got worse as we went down to the kitchen and saw that the ceiling was leaking. The last thing we need amid the threat of rising bills is the fucking kitchen ceiling falling in. I put a towel on the kitchen floor to catch the drips and we resolved to figure this out in the morning as we were too tired to get into it tonight. However I went downstairs later on and the drips had stopped so maybe a tiny bit of water from the bathroom had dropped down onto the kitchen ceiling and now the toilet's fixed we might not have this issue again.

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donaweasley · 3 years

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What If

Pairing: Loki x Fem! Avenger! Reader

Plot:

A silly game of “What-Ifs” between two friends eventually leads to the realisation that the future, if spent together, may not be as bleak as they had anticipated it to be. A dialogue-based best friends-to-lovers cliché.

Warnings: Relationship angst, too many dialogues, long read, happy ending!!!

Read time: ~28 mins

Author's Note:

It's a long read with far more dialogues than can be deemed healthy. The reason is, I didn't want their arc to feel rushed. It had to be cooked slow. Another reason is that, I can't help hearing my characters, and it triggers a flood of dialogues! I'm trying to work on controlling it. 😬 Hope you enjoy!

Now has a sequel: Their Little Secret

“C’mon! You’re breaking the rules now,” Loki casually waved his hand at his best friend.

“I’m not. There’s nothing to answer really,” (Y/N) replied with a shrug.

“There must be something on your mind!”

She pretended to think for a second, and shook her head.

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

It was a usual night in the compound. It was just another night when one of these two friends had called the other in the middle of the night for some midnight snack. It was just another of those happy times when they had tiptoed into the kitchen like thieves because...no, no one would mind some missing nachos or ice creams, but because it was fun!

It wasn’t easy for Loki to open up to someone, let alone to allow the other person in. Neither was it easy for (Y/N) to trust somebody, given her past, especially when that somebody was infamous for betraying almost everyone, at every step, not to mention his attempts at ruling Earth and causing massacre.

But time is a healer and a magician.

And here they were now, looking at the moon-washed night life through the west-facing glass wall, and playing a game of “what-ifs”. One would say that it was silly and immature; some would even call their talks gibberish. But when the night was so relaxed and carefree, why wouldn’t they be?

The pale yellow orb hovering above the western horizon cast a soft ray of light through the glass wall. Oblivious to its movements across the room, Loki and (Y/N) were wrapped in a thin blanket on a couch, their feet resting on two separate pouffes.

It had all started with a silly question, something like, “What if you weren’t stuck in this building tonight?”, or something along those lines; they didn’t even remember correctly anymore.

One question led to the other, and soon they found themselves tangled in a game of questions that would have been enough to create an alternate reality. But eventually, they found themselves, not answering with imaginary scenarios, but debating over one particular question:

“What if you find the love of your life tomorrow?”

This question was posed by Loki, rather theatrically, amidst the many others that had tossed different possibilities of their near future. And it was here that (Y/N) refused to play along anymore because, as she stated, it was “the most silly question ever”.

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

“So, you claim that my question is even worse than your ‘What if you were a Jotun cat’? What kind of a question is that anyway?” Loki teased.

“Of course, it is. Undoubtedly!” With one wave of her hand, (Y/N) dismissed his appeal.

“And how is that even logical, may I know?”

“C’mon, this entire game is out of the boundaries of logic,” she claimed. “Your behaviour is like that of a cat. Don’t make that face; it brings you closer to being a cat. And...a Jotun cat sounds cool!”

Loki sighed. “And my question is ridiculous! If the game is beyond all reason, then...” he shrugged, “say something...weird, and move on!”

“Fine! If I-if... If I meet the love of my life tomorrow,...I’ll stab him. Or her. Or them. I don’t even know.” She huffed.

“Ouch!” Loki made a face, ”Didn’t see that coming. I would enjoy the stabbing part though. Thank the Norns, you never declared your feelings for me!”

She looked at him sideways with a stern face. Loki noticed the irritation simmering just beneath her skin, ready to burst out at the next prodding.

“Hey,” he placed a hand on her arm, “what happened? Was it something I said?”

She turned her face away. But Loki wasn’t giving up that easily.

“(Y/N),” he gently tugged at her arm, “look at me.”

When she finally turned towards him, he held her by the shoulders just to make sure that she couldn’t move away again.

“Now, you’ll tell me everything. What happened?” He inquired again. “I thought you were having fun.”

“It’s nothing Loki, it’s just that...you know I don’t like discussing my non-existent love-life. It’s...it kind of makes me...sad sometimes. Especially in a setting like this!” She waved her hands at her surroundings. “I mean, look at it, a full moon, a silent night, blankets and… It just leaves me with this reminder that I’ll be alone all my bloody life!”

Loki’s hands slowly retracted from her form and folded themselves on his chest. And just like that, they both found themselves staring out of the window.

“I’m sorry,” Loki’s voice audibly reflected the guilt that had formed within, “I never intended to...”

“No, you shouldn’t be. It’s...I overreacted. I’m sorry, Loki. I just ruined the mood. Shit! And it’s not my hormones, mind you!”

“I know,” Loki chuckled. “And you did not ruin anything. It’s natural to feel, isn’t it?”

She looked at him with a raised brow, “Somebody’s learning!”

“Somebody’s got a good teacher,” he smiled.

“Aww!! I love it when you acknowledge my awesomeness!” She wrapped an arm around him, pulling him in closer, and pinched his cheek.

“Ugh! Let go of me! Let...go!!”

The room was filled with (Y/N)’s cackles and Loki’s threats as he wriggled out of her grip.

“Do that one more time, and I’ll stab you!”

But it wasn’t enough to stop her chortles.

“Would you now?” she teased, and raised her hands again in a faux attempt at squeezing his cheeks.

He swatted them away.

“Stop it!” He warned again, only to emanate snorts from her.

But the next second, his voice changed into a compassionate one, “Why do you think you’ll be alone all your life? How old are you anyway? 80? 90? Isn’t that supposed to be old in human years?”

Once again her cheerful mood fled behind a thick curtain of annoyance. But this time she did not look away. She simply rolled her eyes, and pulled her legs from the pouffe to sit cross-legged, and shifted to face him.

“No, I’m not that old. But why are you suddenly so interested in this topic?”

“Because suddenly, you seem to have found an interest in getting annoyed.”

“Then don’t annoy me.”

“Not in my nature, I’m afraid.”

She couldn’t decide whether to hit him or laugh at him.

“Loki-” She curled her fists and shut her eyes.

“I’m listening, darling,” he smirked.

Of course, she knew how stubborn Loki could be!

Who else would know that better than me?

“Okay,” she placed her palms flat on her thighs, “the thing is...I can never make a relationship last more than two years. I waste my time trying to establish a...a proper, long-lasting relationship - something permanent - and end up with a heartbreak. Every. Fucking. Time. I’ve given up. I’ve had enough! Now, even if anyone makes a move, or if I’m interested in someone, I just remind myself that it’s not gonna work! I just don’t put any effort anymore.”

Loki hummed in response; his eyes were focused on her as if he was trying to decipher a mystery.

“And,” she continued, “given my current ‘job’,” she air-quoted the word, “I’m more sure than ever that no one will last more than two months now!”

Once she voiced the storm in her head, her eyes softened and she looked down at her lap. Through hooded eyes, she stole a guilty, fleeting glance at her friend, who seemed to be musing about something really serious. His eyes were strained on the carpet, while his chin rested on a fisted hand balancing itself on his thigh.

For a long moment neither said anything. Only the distant buzz of the sleepless city floated through the air and filled the room.

It was Loki who disrupted the silence with a long and heavy sigh.

“I knew that Midgardian men were impatient, narcissistic-”

“Look who’s talking,” she smirked as she interrupted him.

He gave her a quick deadpanned stare before resuming, “-imbeciles, but I was beginning to think that they have good tastes in women. It’s disappointing, not surprising though, that they have proven me wrong.”

A small laugh almost made its way to its escape, but she pushed it back. “You think so?” She quipped.

He shrugged, “From what you’ve said, there is no reason to think otherwise.”

She sat a little straighter. “Really? Do go on!”

Loki immediately noticed the effect that he had planned for. Without giving away the joy of his small triumph, he continued, “Indeed! Look at you! You’re an amazing woman! You’re brave, witty, independent...smart...excellent with knives! And that’s my favourite thing about you, by the way. ”

Feigning offence, she exclaimed, “And I thought your favourite thing about me was that I tolerate all your tantrums, and keep up with your shenanigans.”

“I don’t throw tantrums, darling,” he pushed the accusation away with his silky tone, “and don’t tell me that you take no pleasure in the havoc that we wreck together.”

At this, she could no longer suppress the evil grin that spread across her face, “I do love a bit of chaos. It’s fun.”

“To think of it,” Loki added excitedly, “had you been on Asgard, you might have been the Goddess of Chaos!”

“Oh! Thank you!” She replied with a dramatic wave of her hands.

Both laughed at the way their words were unfolding.

“Thank you, Loki,” (Y/N) said after their little whirlwind of laughter had calmed down, “I guess I needed to hear something nice about myself. It’s been a long, long time since I heard it.”

“I meant every word of it,” he replied in a solemn tone that made something flutter in her chest.

Was it gratitude? Was it joy? Was it love for her best friend?

It was hard to tell. It seemed to be everything at once.

She simply smiled at him. “Even the ‘Goddess of Chaos’ part?”

“Especially that part,” he asserted, and she laughed.

“You’re the best, Loki!” She gave him a half hug.

“That, I definitely am. But you’re not too shabby yourself. And you should never ever be sad for someone else’s failure.”

“Alright, I get what you’re trying to do here,” she landed a playful punch to his shoulder. “I’m fine! Really! I just got a little carried away.”

“No, I really mean it,” he tried to assure her. “You are one of the most magnificent women I have known! And mind you, I’m rather picky in these cases.”

She laughed, “Of course, I’d know that! ... Loki, it’s...it’s alright. Some people just don’t have it in them to sustain relationships no matter how wonderful they are. I’m okay with it.”

“Come on! A narcissistic God is showering you with genuine compliments! And you’re still not convinced that it’s not your fault but of all those who failed to keep up with you?”

She tried another attempt at convincing him, “It works both ways.”

“Norns! I can’t believe you’re so foolish!”

“Enlighten me, please,” she drawled.

“I believe I have already established the fact that you are phenomenal.”

When she giggled and nodded, he carried on.

“Good. Now, your job, as you put it, shouldn’t be a hindrance in your relationship. You’re doing the marvellous job of being a guardian to thousands of people. People you don’t even know! How many would put their necks out there to do it?”

“C’mon, Loki, when duty calls, you have to leave everything behind and just go! Who’d tolerate that for days? They will snap one day.”

“I’d never do that!” Realizing his mistake, he quickly corrected himself, “What I mean is, had I been in their place, I’d have never done that.”

“That’s because you’re on the team,” she argued. “So, it’s normal to you.”

“No, it’s not because I’m on the team. I’d-” He sighed. “Fine, why don’t you try finding someone from this field? Stark’s parties are a great place to hunt humans.”

“‘Hunt humans’?” She snorted, “I like the sound of that. Nay, haven’t found anyone. Besides, mixing professional and personal life can be fatal. You never know when your personal life might get jeopardised because of a mission gone wrong. Y’know, the usual blame-game and all. I hate all that!”

Loki brooded over her words for a few seconds before asking, “I don’t get it. Why would it be fatal? I mean, look at us,” he gestured in between them. “We have a perfect understanding. We’d never blame the other for any petty thing. Or-or let it affect our friendship.”

“That’s because we have the perfect understanding, Loki! You said it yourself. It’s a rare thing that we have. And I can’t expect it to be with anyone else. They’re not you, Loki.”

“They’re not us,” he corrected her.

Joy seeped through his senses as he watched her face brighten up at his words.

With a nod, she continued, “You see, all that spark, excitement, promises - these sound really great at the beginning. As time passes, as the real world pushes in, love moves to the backseat. Love is not enough. There comes a time when you have to balance everything together, and love becomes one of those things. It becomes a chore.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow you,” Loki stated with a frown. “That sounds so sad!”

“It is!”

“Well, it shouldn’t be! Loving you shouldn’t be a chore! Let’s say...hypothetically...if I’m in love with you, then you’d be my passion. And passions never become a duty, not even in the worst of times. Instead, they help us breathe when everything comes caving in. You’d be my...my moment of peace in a war. How could I not be tempted to embrace this beautiful moment?”

“Unfortunately, Loki, that’s not how it works. See, when you have a lot on your plate, say your job, your dreams, your daily life and all the pressure that comes with these, you’ll find less and less time for your loved one. Things get hectic and eventually frustrating. You won’t be able to keep that flame alive even if you want to. And one day, you’ll come to realize that you have distanced yourself from your moment, even if you never wanted to. But it’d be too late. There’d be no going back.”

“I’d never distance myself from you! I mean, from my moment. I’ve been a king, and I know how taxing royal duties can be. Sometimes, it seemed like a luxury to get even a minute to myself.”

“See? So, how could you have found time for me?”

“I would have, darling. Not plenty, but whatever little time I’d have gathered, I’d have made them memorable. For you. For us. And maybe we could have gone on long rides occasionally. Rekindle the old flames? Or-or we could have gone on visits to other realms...for political reasons, of course, but could have taken the opportunity to spend a small vacation with each other. What do you say?”

Painfully tempting images of a life that could have been floated in her eyes.

“And what if we came back to Earth, and I got involved in...say, a job that was all hectic and left me all frustrated, and with little time for you?” She shrugged.

With a sigh, Loki shifted to face her fully. “We will take care of each other, (Y/N). If one gets low, the other pulls both up. And I know that together, we can do anything! I believe in you more than I believe in myself.”

She smiled brightly as she acknowledged, “That is...that sounds doable, yes.”

“You’re special,” he placed a hand on her cheek, “and you need to be treated in the most special manner. One that befits my queen.”

A moment passed between them as they looked into each other's eyes, both seeing the same beautiful picture.

His queen!

My queen!!

Wait, what is he...?

Damn! What am I doing! What will she...!

Loki cleared his throat as he abruptly pulled his hand back to his side.

“I’m sorry, I...”

“No, it’s okay,” she cringed at the way the words squeaked out of her. Clearing her throat, she continued, “We were just giving examples.”

“Yes, just examples,” he agreed.

“It’s fine! I understand.”

“Great! It’d have been quite...awkward...otherwise.”

“Oh no! It’s...uh...totally fine. We’re best buddies!” She gave his arm a light punch.

“Right!” He nodded, and focused his gaze on the floor.

After taking a minute to calm his heart, he wore his witty persona back.

“See, having a relationship is not at all tough. All you need is a good partner. And I’ve proved myself right again! No, wait. There’s something you mortals do. It’s...uh...about throwing something...”

“Goblets? We don’t do that. It’s you-”

“No, not throwing, it’s about dropping something...after you have proven a point...”

“...Mic drop?” She chuckled.

His eyes lit up.

“Yes! ‘Mic drop’. So, as I was saying, all you need to have a happy and successful relationship is a good partner. Mic drop!” He concluded as he mimicked the action.

She sighed. “There’s just one tiny problem. I’d probably never find the right person. The ones that flirt with me, don’t understand me, and the ones that understand me have friendzoned me.”

“I’ve never friendzoned you,” Loki quickly replied with a frown. “J-Just clarifying...in case you were talking about me.”

“Of course, I’m talking about you, you big oaf!” She flicked his arm.

“Hey! You friendzoned me.”

“No…? It was you! Well, yeah, I never tried to flirt with you or anything but...anybody could see that you were being just my friend.”

“I can say the same about you,” Loki playfully accused.

“Whatever,” she shrugged.

A thought started playing in her mind. And a couple of seconds later, she decided to say it aloud, “I...umm...Just curious...y’know, don’t take it in any other way. Did you ever think of flirting with me?” She put forward each word very cautiously.

Loki furrowed his brows, and opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, she warned him, “Be honest!”

Immediately, his confident attitude changed into a helpless one. “Yes, I did. Maybe once. Or twice. But that was all! I assure you!”

She could hardly contain the amusement that was bubbling inside.

“What’s so funny about it?” Loki asked with furrowed brows.

“Nothing,” she shook her head as she tried to hold back her laughter, “nothing at all. It’s,” and then she lost it, “I’m sorry! It’s funny! I don’t know why, I find it funny hearing from you!”

“Look who’s laughing!” He said wryly. “I could clearly hear your thoughts the first few days after I stepped into this structure. Every compliment that your little mind cooed at my divine persona. And may I dare say that not all of them were decent.”

Her hysterics were long forgotten as her face went red at the comment.

“How dare you invade my mind?” Her hand had balled into a fist, ready to hit his arm when he caught it.

“I didn’t invade it, darling. You were practically shouting inside that pretty head of yours. I could have heard it from the other side of the planet!”

“That was a long time ago,” she refused to meet his eyes. “I make better choices and better decisions now.”

“Do you?”

She opened her mouth to speak but closed it without uttering a syllable, and crossed her arms.

Loki nudged her with his elbow. “Hey, it’s fun to tease you. Don’t be a spoilsport.”

“I hate you,” she peeked at him through the corner of her eye.

“What can I say,” Loki sighed. “Alright, if you say so.”

She smirked as she glanced at him sideways.

Loki cleared his throat in a not-so-subtle manner. “So, the next time Stark throws a party, I’ll find someone for you.”

Immediately, she face-palmed, and groaned, “No.”

“What?”

“Please drop this topic. And you’d probably find me a psychopath, anyway” She joked.

“That hurt!” Loki exclaimed with a hurt look masking his humour, “do you think so little of me? Can’t I find a proper partner for my best friend, my darling?”

“No, it didn’t hurt. Don’t fake it. I know you better than anyone.”

“No, you don’t. You-”

“I do. And...I’m fine, Loki” she reassured him, “being with myself, with the people here, being with you.” She gently bumped her knee into his.

“Will these be enough?” His tone had left the playfulness behind. “Will I be enough? For all your life?”

She shrugged, “I think so. You...stick with me all the time, you understand me, you...make me feel good. What more could I want to be happy?”

“You know what more you are missing. A friend can never touch the boundaries of what a lover can give you.”

“I don’t need a lover. Just be with me all my life, and I won’t need anyone else.”

He gave her hand a light squeeze. “I will. I promise.”

Her playful smile was back. “Thanks for all the pep talk, my dearest God. But turns out that I’m better off alone. Now can we please go back to the game? It’s my turn to ask you.”

“Alright,” he smiled back, “if you say so.”

“Stop saying that!” A defeated sigh left her. “You won’t be convinced, will you?”

“Probably not. Because I know that this will gnaw at you again a few days later. I know you’ll be sad again. And that I won’t allow on my watch.”

“God!”

“Right here, listening to you!” Loki quipped.

Rolling her eyes, she muttered, ”Damn you!” And proceeded to put forward a proper argument.

“The reason why I’m avoiding a new relationship is because I don’t want another heartache. I can’t handle breakups. That’s why I’m...”

When Loki didn’t make another attempt at dissuading her from her arguments, she added, “I just...try everything to avoid a heartbreak. Because when I get one, I lose control over myself.”

“Yes, I’ve seen. Once.”

“Then you must have noticed how vicious I become. Sarcasm drips from my mouth all the time, I say things that I shouldn’t, I...I hurt people. And in turn, I hurt myself. I yell at those who want nothing but good for me. But...”

“But being mean seems to be the only way to mask the pain,” he finished her line.

“It does, yes!”

She looked at him, and into his eyes that silently spoke of the pain that was resurfacing. She remembered something.

“You and I are so...alike!”

He nodded with a smile. “And maybe that is why we understand each other more than anyone ever could. … But we’re more than just being alike, if you think about it.”

She noticed how his voice gradually rose from its usual calmness to an excited tone, and his hands moved with his words.

Loki continued, “You point out my mistakes but don’t accuse me like everyone else does. You show me what’s right. And there’s this-this thing about you, which is so scary...the way you make me do all the things that you want. I-I mean, I am the God here! But you…a mortal...how can you have so much power over me?”

He sighed as his voice dropped to a compassionate tone, “You make me happy, (Y/N). You’ve taught me to forgive when I can, to forget what I can’t fix.”

“Don’t always do that,” she interrupted with a smirk.

His evil smile made a brief appearance before he resumed his warm note, “I like being with you. No...I love being with you! You make me feel good. You make me feel...I don’t know.... You make me feel…”

“Complete?”

“Yes!” He observed her, “You complete me.”

For yet another time, silence enveloped them. The only difference was that this time, it was comfortable. Even in their hushed moments, they could hear each other, know what the other wanted to say.

After a while of exchanging quiet stares, (Y/N) spoke, “All this time I believed, but now I know for myself, that you are indeed Silvertongue!”

Loki looked at his lap and laughed, but in the pale light of the setting moon, she noticed the pink that had crept up his ears and cheeks.

“I meant every word of what I said,” he reassured her once again that evening.

“I know, Loki.”

Loki watched her as she shifted to a kneeling position, and leaned towards him. He felt his face becoming hotter as she supported herself on his shoulder with one hand, and placed a soft kiss on his cheekbone.

As she settled back, her lips tingled with the memory of Loki’s skin on it.

They had been best friends, yes, but she had never allowed herself more than a quick hug because she knew that Loki wasn’t someone open to random touches. And she wanted to respect that. Always.

But this peck felt right. It felt necessary. And it felt...different.

What happened next wasn’t guided by logic anymore, but only by their senses.

Loki put his legs back on the pouffe, and scooted a little closer to (Y/N). Taking the cue, she shifted so that her leg was stretched out, and back on the pouffe - not on hers but his - and sat close to him. He arranged the blanket so that it covered them both again.

Another stretch of silence enveloped them. To them, the moment was beautiful. To Loki, who had never experienced anything similar before, it was precious. If he could stop time, he would have done it right then and there.

“Why haven’t you found anyone yet?” She asked him.

“Royalty has its disadvantages,” he replied without taking a moment to think.

She leaned back slightly to get a good look at his face, “Didn’t you ever find anyone from the royal...uh...what do you call it? Of royal blood?”

Loki laughed at her naivety. “Can’t say I didn’t. But none of them were the one. Besides, most people chose my handsome brother over me. And if anyone chose me, well, it was mostly because of my royal title. None of them were real.”

“That’s awful! I would never have done that to you! I’d have chosen you for the wonderful being that you are. But, I get it; happens on our planet, too.”

“Everywhere,” he asserted.

“So...who do you think is the one for you?”

He looked down at her face, which was mere inches away from his. For the first time in months of their friendship, he felt something swell inside his chest at the closeness.

“I still don’t know,” he whispered, “but I think the Norns might have started giving me clues.”

He didn’t need to explain, obviously. All the tension that had been building up throughout the night had placed them both on the same page.

Without thinking, Loki moved his wrist so that his palm was facing the ceiling. And instinctively, (Y/N) placed her hand in it, their fingers closing around each other.

"It's odd," she announced after a while.

"Indeed."

"It's weird. I mean, what were we even thinking!" She huffed, although she was still clutching his hand, as was he holding hers.

"Exactly what I was thinking. You and me?” Loki laughed nervously, “Come on!"

"Yeah!"

"Right".

Silence, their faithful companion for the night, visited them once again.

"Could it be? You and me?" Loki’s voice was a little more than a whisper, and bordered on the edge of confidence and doubt.

"Doesn't sound so bad. Not after all these... Talks?" She whispered back.

"Right!"

"Right."

And once again, they fell quiet.

The strangeness of the moment pushed them both into a whirlpool of thoughts. From acquaintances to partners to friends to best friends to...lovers?

Can this even be possible? What if it’s just a passing phase? What if everything goes back to normal tomorrow? Will we still be able to talk normally? But… This feels right. Just...right.

With a sigh, (Y/N) put her head on Loki’s shoulder.

"I don't want to rush into anything and ruin what we have," she confessed in a hushed tone, eyes staring into the night outside.

"Neither do I. You're the only one I have."

With a raised brow, she looked up at him.

"And Thor," he corrected himself with a small smile.

"Glad you remember him "

"Shut up.

Slowly, hesitantly, Loki put his free hand around her. Unsure of the appropriateness of the action, he kept his arm loosely hanging around her frame.

He waited for a while. Had Loki looked at her face, instead of looking straight ahead in fear, he would have noticed the small smile that had formed on her lips.

When she didn’t flinch or protest, he began to rest his arm properly but gently on her. He even went ahead and made the slightest possible effort to pull her closer to him.

The smile that had started forming on her now spread wide enough to turn into a grin. Its reflection was found on Loki’s face, too, who could finally muster the courage to look at her, although he was equally worried that she would be able to hear his heart trying to hammer its way out of his chest.

With every minute that passed, Loki became more baffled, for he couldn’t decide which moment he’d frame and hang on the wall of his heart as the most precious one.

"Are you feeling hot?" She asked without looking at him.

"A bit, yes. You, too?"

"Quite a bit, actually," she gulped.

"Is it normal?"

"I guess, yes. Totally! Had we been cool about it, it'd have meant that there's no spark between us. It’d have felt awkward, wrong."

"So, you agree that there's a spark between us?" He didn’t even attempt to hide the mischievous smirk that shone on his face.

"I had always suspected," she nodded.

"Hmm. When was the last time we went out for dinner?" He asked.

“Probably last month...or was it-”

(Y/N)’s head snapped up to look at him. She could barely put a lid on her excitement.

"Are you proposing to take me out on a date?"

"Well, if we are going to do this, then I'd like to court you properly."

She felt like she'd burst out of sheer excitement.

"If you'd agree to it, that is" Loki clarified.

Taking a large breath, she replied, "I'd love it."

The night was going better than either had expected. Who would have thought that a game of weird questions and a few confessions could change their lives!

(Y/N) put her head back on his shoulder, and let her body slump against him. He held her confidently this time.

“It still feels weird though,” she declared.

“It does, yes, but...maybe this is...right?” In a long time, Loki was hopeful about something, and he wasn’t going to let it slip away. No.

“I hope so.”

“Me, too.”

“Just so you know,” she sat up straight, “Thor is handsome, yes, but you are devilishly charming. You’re intelligent, well-read, witty, sarcastic, great at combat...uh...”

“Go on,” Loki smirked, earning a playful glare from her.

“You are,” she continued, “seductive! And who can resist a sorcerer who knows his way around everything!”

The evil smile that Loki had put away found its way back on his face. “As far as I remember, I did nothing to seduce you. I wonder what will happen if I try...”

“Shut up, Loki! You know I give away raw compliments. I didn’t really mean...I didn’t think...”

He laughed heartily at the furious way she was blushing.

“I was only pulling your leg. I had imagined you to be wise,” he clarified.

“I am! It’s just... I was...” She shook her head.

“So,” Loki resumed, “you think I’m devilishly charming?”

“Drop the topic, please!”

“You can’t resist my sorcery, ha?”

“Please change the topic! Forget what I said!!”

Loki laughed as he continued teasing her. It wasn’t going to be an easy ride, she realized, with the God of Mischief, but it was going to be the best ever!

“(Y/N)?”

“Hmm?”

“I know it was your turn to ask but, what if...you and I are indeed meant to be together?”

She smiled as she rubbed her cheek on his shirt, “I think we’ll have a gorgeous future together. And...I’d love that more than anything else.”

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

The next morning...

“Morning, Wanda-”

“Shh! Shh!!” The red-haired witch silenced Natasha, and pointed towards the couch.

Curious, Natasha’s eyes followed the direction that Wanda’s finger was pointing at.

There, snuggled in a blanket, fast asleep, sat (Y/N) and Loki, their legs spread on a pouffe, tangled with each other’s. Loki’s arm was wrapped around her shoulder while she was holding his waist. Her head lay on his chest and his on hers.

“Aren’t they cute?” Wanda whispered.

Before Nat could reply, Tony’s voice cut the conversation.

“Who’s cute?”

This time, both the ladies shushed him, leaving a perplexed expression on his once sleepy face.

When they pointed towards the couch, Tony huffed, “These two! God knows what’s taking them so long to realise! They’re just so-” His face lit up. “Know what? I have an idea! I’ll make them confess. Who’s up for it?”

***

Now has a sequel: Their Little Secret

And...a song for keeping the feelings floating...💕

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feanorianethicsdepartment · 3 years

Note

Alright, I read your recent post and need to know - what is your interpretation of Maglor’s relationship with the twins?

askjdhslkjag my biggest self-inflicted problem in this fandom is that my take on maglor, elrond, and elros' relationship is so intensely detailed and specific i am forever tormented by none of the fic i read ever quite getting it right (from my perspective; i’ve read plenty of fic that presents a good interpretation on their own terms, it’s just never mine.) it’s simultaneously way darker than the fluffy kidnap dads stuff and nowhere near as black-and-white awful as the anti-fëanorian crowd likes to paint it, it’s messy and complicated and surrounded by darkness, and yet there’s also a sincere connection within it which mostly serves to make all those complications worse. angry teenage elrond is angry for a great many reasons, and the circumstances around him being raised by kinslayers account for at least half of them. there’s lots of complexity here, and i don’t see it in fic nearly as often as i’d like

(warning: the post... feathers? i already have an internet friend called faeiri this could be awkward - anyway, the post she’s talking about includes the line ‘everyone is wrong about kidnap dads except me.’ this post follows on from that in being as much a commentary about why various popular interpretations of both how the kidnapdoption went and the way people subsequently characterise the twins just don’t work for me as it is a setting out of my own ideas. i’m not really interested in getting into discourse here, i’m just trying to get my thoughts down. i’ve read fic with these interpretations before that i’ve liked, even, don’t take this as a Condemnation, aight? also this turned out long as hell, so i’m putting it under a cut)

i can never buy entirely fluffy depictions of kidnap dads

which isn’t to say i don’t read them! sometimes all i want is something sweet, for these kids to get to be happy for once. it’s not like i think their time with the fëanorians was completely devoid of laughter

it’s just. the pet names, the special days out, the home-cooked meals, it can get so treacly it stops feeling like the characters they are in the situation they’re in and turns into Generic Found Family #272

it soaks out all the complexity - which is the thing i am here for - and acts like oh, these kids were never in any danger, they were perfectly happy being abducted by the people who murdered everyone they knew, there’s nothing possibly questionable about this relationship at all

and... yeah. that’s not the characters i know. that’s not the context i know they belong to

i just can’t forget the circumstances that led them to meet

rivers of blood, the air filled with screams, a town ablaze, a woman choosing to die. every interaction the three of them have is going to proceed from that nightmare

(sidenote: i tend to hold it was maglor that raised the twins, with maedhros looming ominously in the background not really getting involved. it’s mostly personal preference, i’ve been in and out of the fandom since before this kidnap dads thing blew up and when i joined that was a perfectly standard reading)

(also the cave thing was a dumb idea, old man, if only because it implies beleriand had streams safe enough for children to play in at that point. the way it separates the twins from the third kinslaying is also something i don’t particularly vibe with)

probably my least favourite angle i’ve seen on the situation (edged out only by ‘maglor was actively abusive towards the twins’ which no no no no no no no no NO) is the idea that maglor (and/or maedhros, append as necessary) took the twins specifically to raise them

like, i get where it’s coming from, but it makes maglor come off as really creepy

(i have read fics where it is indeed played off as really creepy, but that’s not a maglor i have any interest in reading about)

(’mags 100% bad’ is just as facile a take to me as ‘mags 100% good’)

even if you’re saying maglor took them in because they had no one left to take care of them - i highly doubt they were the only children the fëanorians orphaned at sirion. idk, it always makes maglor seem much less sympathetic than i think it’s meant to

i prefer to think of it as more... organic? something that evolved, not something that was preordained. them growing closer gradually, the twins finding an adult who might maybe be on their side, maglor becoming invested in them almost by accident

and then the twins are so comfortable with the second scariest monster in amon ereb they frequently sass him off and maglor’s gotten so used to not hurting them he’s not even thinking about it any more. no one’s quite sure how it happened, but they’ve made a Connection

‘wait aren’t they a murderous warlord of questionable mental stability and a pair of terrified small children who’ve lost everyone they ever knew? isn’t that kinda fucked up?’ yup! that’s the point! complexity!

another idea i don’t like is the idea that maglor was an objectively better parent to the twins than eärendil or elwing

other people have talked about this already, i won’t rehash the whole thing. i will say that while i don’t think elwing was a perfect parent - someone so young, in such a horrible situation, i wouldn’t blame her for screwing up - i do think she (and eärendil) did the best by them they possibly could

this is one of the few things they have in common with maglor

something i come across now and again is the idea that sure, elwing and eärendil weren’t abusive or horrible or anything, but they were a couple of basically-teenagers with so many other responsibilities, there was only so much they could do. maglor, on the other hand, is an experienced adult who could take much better care of the twins

and...

first off, it’s not like mags doesn’t have a job. he’s a warlord, he has a fortress to help run, military shit to handle, lots of other stuff that needs to get done to stop everyone from starving or getting eaten by orcs. i feel like sirion had enough of a government there was plenty of opportunity for elwing to take days off and play with her kids, but in the fëanorian camp nobody really has the time to chase after a couple of toddlers, least of all one of the last points on the command network. they just don’t have the people any more

(seriously, the twins getting a formal education with tutors and classes and shit is a weirdly specific pet peeve of mine. this is a band of renegades, not a royal household; if there’s anyone left with those kinds of skills they almost certainly have more important things to do)

more than that, though - well, a quick glance through my late stage fëanorians tag should tell you a lot about what i think maglor’s mental state is like at this point. he is so accustomed to violence death means nothing to him, he’s lost most of his capacity for genuinely positive emotion to an endless century of defeat and despair, he hates everything in the universe, especially himself, he’s only able to keep functioning through a truly astounding amount of denial, and he covers it all up with a layer of snark and feigned apathy, which he defends aggressively because he’s subconsciously realised that if it breaks he’ll have absolutely nothing left

(maedhros, for the record, is... i’d say more stable, but at a lower point. maglor may interact with the world mostly through cold stares and mocking laughter, but at least his mind is firmly rooted in the present)

(on the other hand, at least maedhros lets himself be aware of what they are and where their road will lead)

which... this doesn’t mean maglor doesn’t try to be kind to the twins, or rein in his worst impulses around them

there’s just so little of him left but the weapon

he stalks through the halls like a portent of death and gets into hours-long screaming matches with maedhros and has definitely killed people in front of the twins

not even as, like, a deliberate attempt to scare them, but because when you solve most of your problems by stabbing them it’s pretty much a given that people who spend a lot of time around you are going to see you do it at least once

and sometimes, he curls up in an empty hallway, and weeps

... suffice it to say i don’t think elwing’s the more preoccupied, or the less mentally ill, parent here

just. in general, the fëanorians aren’t cackling boogeymen, but they’re not particularly nice either

no one has the energy left for that. not these isolated and weary soldiers at the end of a long losing war and the beginning of the end of the world. they don’t really bother to guard the kids against them escaping. where else are they going to go?

the sheer despair that must have been in the fëanorian camp after sirion, the knowledge that the cause cannot be fulfilled, that they are utterly forsaken, that they’re really just waiting to die -

it can’t have been a happy place to grow up in, under the shadow of loss and grief and deeds unrepentable, and the slow march of inevitable defeat

they would have had a better childhood if they stayed in sirion, raised by people who knew how to hope

but that isn’t the childhood they had. and despite everything i’ve said, i don’t think that childhood was an entirely awful one

yeah, see, this is where the other side of my self-inflicted fandom catch-22 comes in. just as much of the pro-kidnap dads stuff comes off as overly saccharine and simplified to me, i find much of the anti-kidnap dads stuff equally simplistic in the opposite direction

the idea that maglor and the fëanorians never meant anything to elros and elrond, that they had no effect on the people they became at all, that it was just a horrible thing that happened when they were children, easily thrown in the rear-view mirror...

that’s even more impossible to me than the idea that life with the fëanorians was 100% fluffy and nice

like, i’ve seen the take that elros and elrond hated the fëanorians from start to finish. they were perfect little sindarin princes, loyal to their people and the memory of doriath, spurning every scrap of kindness offered to them and knowing just what to say to twist the knife into the kinslayers’ wounds

... dude. they were six. hell, given their peredhelness, mentally they could easily have been younger

what six year old has a firm grasp of their ethnic identity? what six year old is fully aware of their place in history? what six year old would understand the politics that led to their situation?

don’t get me wrong, i can see hatred in there. but something else that doesn’t get acknowledged alongside it often enough is the fear

some of the stuff i’ve read feels like it gives the kids too much power in the situation. they’re perfectly happy to talk back to and belittle the people who burned down their hometown and killed everyone they ever knew, like miniature adults who don’t feel threatened at all

and, like, six. i can see them going for insults as a defensive measure, but it is defensive. it’s covering up fear, not coming from secure disdain

(and a lot of those insults sound, again, like things an adult who’s already familiar with the fëanorians would say, not a scared child who’s lost almost everything. why would a six year old raised by sindar and gondolindrim know what the noldolantë is, let alone what it means to maglor?)

(... i’m just ranting about this one fic that’s been ruffling my feathers for five years straight now, aren’t i)

i mean, i write elrond as the world’s angriest teenager, who snipes at maglor pretty much constantly, but the thing about angry teenage elrond is that he’s angry teenage elrond

he’s spent long enough with the fëanorians he has a pretty secure position within the camp, and he knows that maglor won’t hurt him from a decade and change of maglor not, in fact, hurting him

but as a small and terrified child abducted by the monsters his mother had nightmares about? he fluctuated wildly between ‘randomly guessing at things to say that wouldn’t get him killed’ ‘screaming at maglor to go away in words rarely more complicated than that’ 'desperately trying not to do or say anything in the hopes of not being noticed’ and ‘hiding’

(and i don’t think the twins were never in any danger from the fëanorians, either. quite besides the point that before they started orbiting maglor nobody was really sure what to do with them... well, they wouldn’t be the first children of thingol’s line the minions took revenge on)

(fortunately for them, maglor did, in fact, take them under his wing. by this point even their own followers are shit scared of the last two sons of fëanor, nobody’s going to mess with their stuff and risk getting mauled. tactically, it was a pretty good decision for a couple of toddlers)

more to the point, i feel like a child that young, in a situation that horrible, wouldn’t reject any kindness they were offered, any soothing touch in a universe of terror

in a world full of big scary monsters, the best way to survive is to get the biggest scariest monster possible to protect you. that’s how elros rationalises it when they’re, like, eight, mentally, but at the time they were just latching on to the only person around them who seemed to care about them

that’s how it started, on their end. two very young very scared children lost in a neverending nightmare clinging tightly to the lone outstretched pair of hands

as for maglor...

i’ve called mags evil before, but i see that as more of a... technical term? he is evil because he did the murder, he remains evil because he won’t stop doing the murder. hot take: murder bad

but that doesn’t make him, like, a moustache-twirling saturday morning cartoon villain. he is deeply unhappy with the position he’s in and the person he’s become, and he’s always trying not to take that final step over the edge

it’s not that i can’t see a maglor who is abusive or manipulative or who sees the twins more as objects than people. it’s just that that characterisation is one i am profoundly uninterested in. i do occasionally read fic with it, but it never enters my own headcanons

horrible people can do good things!! kinslayers can do good things!! the fallen are capable of humanity!! people can do both good and evil things at the same time, because people are complicated!! maglor is not psychologically incapable of actually taking pity on these kids!!!!

it’s... again, complexity. the fëanorians straddle the line between black and white, which is a lot less sharp in the legendarium than it’s sometimes characterised as. it’s what draws me to their characters so much, why i have so many stupid headcanons about them. pretending they fall firmly on either side of the line is my real fandom pet peeve

and, like, this moment? this sincere connection between a bloodstained warlord and two children who will grow up to be great and kind in equal measure? i may not entirely like the direction the fandom’s taken it recently, but that beat, that relationship, it still gets me

so no, i don’t think elrond and elros’ years with the fëanorians were an endless cavalcade of abuse and misery. i think there was love there, despite the darkness all around them

an old, tired monster, and the two tiny children it protects

maglor never hurts the twins, not ever, not once. his claws are sharp and his fangs are keen, if he so much as swatted them he’d rip them in half. instead he folds down the razor edges of his being, interacting with them ever so carefully. he has nightmares of suddenly tearing into their skin

seriously, the power differential between them is so great, maglor so much as raising his voice would break any trust they have in this horribly dangerous creature. fics where he does corporal punishment always get the side-eye from me

the mood of their relationship is... i find it hard to put into words. melancholy, maybe, like a sunny afternoon a few days before the end of the world. three people who’ve lost so much finding what respite they can in each other as the world slowly crumbles around them

there are times when it feels like the three of them exist in a world of their own, marked out by the edges of the firelight. maglor telling stories of the stars, elros giving relaxed irreverent commentary, elrond getting a few moments to just be, all their troubles kept at bay

they are the last two lights in a world sunk into darkness, the last two living beings he does not on some level hate. he will tear his own heart out before he sees them in pain

he teaches them to ride, he teaches them to read, he gives them everything he still has left. the twins should never have been in this situation, maglor probably isn’t entirely fit to take care of them, but it is what it is, and they take what love they can

(maglor depends on the twins emotionally a bit more than any adult should rely on any child. he’s still very much the caretaker in their relationship, but that relationship is the only one he has left that’s not stained by a century of rage and grief. he’s obsessed with them, maedhros tells him frequently. maglor’s standard response to this is to try to gouge maedhros’ eyes out)

(that particular darker side to their relationship, where maglor’s attachment to the twins turns into a desperate possessiveness - that’s not something i think i’ve ever seen in fic. which is a shame, it feels much closer to my own characterisation than the standard ways this relationship gets maleficised. darker, in a different way than usual. horribly compelling in its plausibility)

however you want to read it, i don’t think you can deny this is a relationship that defines elrond and elros’ childhood. they were raised in the woods by a pack of kinslayers, the text is quite clear on this

but i’ve seen a lot of talk about how elros and elrond are only sirion’s children. they are completely 100% sindarin, they love and forgive eärendil and elwing thoroughly and without question, they identify with doriath over - even gondolin, let alone tirion. the fëanorians - the people who raised them - had zero effect on the people they grew into and the selves they created

and that, more than anything else, i find utterly unbelievable

look, i get what this is a reaction to. a lot of the kidnap dads stuff paints the fëanorians as elrond and elros’ ‘real’ family, and i’ve already talked about what i think of the idea that maglor-and-possibly-also-maedhros were better parents than eärendil and elwing. i think it’s reductive and overly optimistic and just a little too neat

but to say instead that elrond and elros held no great love in their hearts for maglor, no lingering affinity with the fëanorians, no influence on their identity from the people they grew up around, none at all? that after it happened they just left it behind and resumed being the same people they were in sirion?

that strikes me as just as much an oversimplification. it sands down all the potential rough edges of their identity, all that inconvenient complexity that stops them from fitting into any well-defined box, and replaces it with a nice safe simple self-conception i find just as flat and boring as declaring them 100% fëanorian

we can quibble over who they call ‘father’ (i personally find that whole debate kinda petty) but denying that it was actually maglor who was the closest thing they knew to a parent for most of their childhoods, and that that would, in fact, affect the way they thought of themselves and their family, elides so many interesting possibilities out of existence

(i’m not even going to get into the most braindead take i have ever heard on the subject, namely that because their time with the fëanorians was such a small fraction of elrond’s total lifespan it was like being kidnapped for two weeks as a toddler and had no greater significance than that. do you not understand what childhood is????)

like, i tend to think of elrond as a child as being very loudly not-a-fëanorian. elros is more willing to go with the flow - hey, if the creepy kinslayer wants kids, elros is happy to play into that in order to not be murdered - but elrond is very firm that he’s not happy to be here and he doesn’t belong with them

(this is after they get over their initial terror, of course, when they’ve realised they won’t be fed to the orcs for the tiniest slight. even so, elrond only really gets shirty about it around people he’s comfortable with, whose reactions he can reasonably guess at. naturally, the first person he does it to is maglor)

elros calls maglor their father exactly once, when they’re... maybe early preteens? this is because elrond hears him do it and immediately loses his shit. they have a dad, elrond says, in tears, and a mum, and any day now their real parents are going to come to pick them up and take them home

... right?

it gets harder to believe as the years roll on, as their memories of sirion fade, as they find their own places within the host, as maglor watches over them as they grow. elrond still mentally sets himself apart from the fëanorians, but it’s more of an effort every year. life in the fëanorian camp is the only one he’s ever really known. he can barely remember his mother’s voice

then the war of wrath starts, and the fëanorian host drifts closer to the army of valinor, and the twins come into contact with non-fëanorians for the first time in forever, and it becomes clear just how obviously fëanorian elrond is. he always insisted he wasn’t like the kinslayers at all, but he dresses like them, talks like them, fights like them

the myth cycles the edain tell are almost completely unfamiliar to him, he barely remembers the shape of the songs of lost doriath. even these sarcastic commentary and subversive reinterpretations he made of maglor’s stories - those were still maglor’s stories! he’s been trying to guess at the person he was meant to be, but it’s growing nightmarishly blatant how little elrond ever knew about him

instead, the people he was born to are as alien to him as the orcs of morgoth. he is a fëanorian, through and through

... yeah, elrond (and/or elros) having an absolutely massive identity crisis upon being reintroduced to his quote-unquote ‘true kin’ is another angle i’d love to see in fic that i don’t think i’ve ever come across. all those potential grey areas around who they are and who they’re supposed to be sound utterly fascinating, and i think it’s the complexity i hate to see elided over the most

i really, really doubt they could effortlessly slot back into being eärendil and elwing’s children. not when they’ve been surrounded by, lived alongside, been raised by the people who were supposed to enemies for most of their lives

they just don’t fit into that box any more. they can’t

speaking of eärendil and elwing, while i do agree that they both (especially elwing) get a lot more flak than they deserve, i don’t agree that therefore elrond and elros were never the slightest bit mad at them and fully forgave them for everything with no reservations

because, well, they were left behind. elwing had no other choice, but they were still left behind; it led to the world being saved, but they were still left behind. all the best intentions in the universe don’t erase the weeks and months and years of waiting, of a hope that grew thinner and frailer until it finally quietly broke

that’s a real hurt, and a real grievance. even if the twins rationally understand that their parents were making the best out of their terrible situation, you can’t logic away emotions like that. it’s perfectly possible for them to know they have no reason to resent eärendil or elwing, and yet still harbour that bitterness and pain

(i did write a thing once where elrond loudly rejects eärendil as his father in favour of maglor, but something i didn’t add in that i probably should have is that elrond later regretted doing that)

(not like, several centuries later, when he’d grown old and wise. two hours later, when he’d calmed down. but he was still legitimately angry at eärendil, because the one thing angry teenage elrond was not lacking in was reasons to be mad at the adults around him, and before he could figure out if he had anything less furious to say the hosts of the valar left middle-earth behind)

(it’s another element to the tragedy of the whole thing. in that particular story, which is mostly aiming for maximum pain, the only thing elrond’s birth parents know about their son for thousands of years is that he hates them)

(and he doesn’t, not really. you can’t hate someone you’ve never known)

not that i think they couldn’t ever make up with their parents! fics where elrond and his birth parents work past all the things that lie between them and form a functional familial bond despite it all give me life. i just don’t like the idea that there’s nothing difficult for them to work past

i don’t like the idea that elrond and elros would naturally, effortlessly identify with the mother they last saw when they were six and the people they only vaguely remember. i can see them doing it as a political move, i can see them going for it as a deliberate personal choice, but i can’t seeing it being immediate and automatic and easy

no matter how great a pair of heroes eärendil and elwing are, that doesn’t change the fact that to elrond and elros, they’re at most a few scattered memories and a collection of far-off stories. and so long as the twins stay in middle-earth, they’re never going to draw any closer

compared to the dynamic, multifaceted, personal, and deep bonds they have with the fëanorians - who, and i know i keep saying this but i think it gets tossed aside way more casually than it should, are the people who actually raised them, their birth parents must feel like a distant idea

and that’s why i can never buy interpretations of elrond as 100% sindarin, a pure son of doriath, with no messy grey areas or awkward jagged edges to his identity. given everything we know about his life, it seems almost cartoonishly simplistic

honestly it seems like a narrative a bunch of old doriathrin nobles trying to manouevre elrond into being high king of the sindar or something would propagate. it's neat and nice and tidy, something that’d be much more convenient for everyone if elrond did feel that way

but i just don’t see how he can. this narrative is easy and simple in a way real people never are, it ignores all the forces pulling him apart. elrond being uncomplicatedly sindarin with the life he lives and the people he's close to - that doesn’t make any sense to me

which isn’t to say i think he’s 100% noldorin, from either a gondolindrim or a fëanorian perspective. (i find it a little more believable, given, again, who he grew up around and who he hangs out with, but it’s still a bit too reductive for my tastes.) it’s also not to say i couldn’t believe an elrond who made an active choice to emphasise his sindarin heritage

it’s not how i think of him, but it works. i don’t have a problem with other people interpreting the complexities of the twins’ identities differently

i just have a problem with people acting like it doesn’t exist

in general i think there’s a lot untapped potential that gets left behind when you declare the twins, separately or together, as All One Thing

they’re descended from half the noble houses of beleriand, and they have deep personal ties to most of the rest. they belong to all of the free peoples even the dwarves, somehow, probably and i feel like that was kind of the old man’s point? so many peoples meet in them, to say they wholly belong to any one species is probably an oversimplification

they sit at a crossroads of potential identities, and rather than narrowing down their worldviews to one single path, they take the hard road and choose all of them. that’s what you need to do, if you want to change the world

and, to bring this back to my ostensible topic, in my estimation at least this mélange of possible selves does include them as fëanorians! it’s not overpowering, but it’s certainly there, and the adults they grow into long after they’ve left the host still bear influence from their childhood

nothing super obvious, nothing that wouldn’t stand out if you didn’t know what to look for, but there’s something almost incandescent in how fiercely elros reaches out for his dreams

there’s something almost defiant in elrond’s drive to be as kind as summer

as for who they publically claim as their family... honestly, it depends. while it’s usually more tactically prudent for elros to connect himself to his various human ancestors, on occasion he does find a use for his free in with the elf mafia, and elrond, code switcher par excellence, is famously the son of whoever is most politically convenient at the moment, which is rarely, but not never, maglor

(in the privacy of their own minds, well, eärendil and elwing may have been the parents elros was supposed to have, but maglor was the parent he actually had, and elros doesn’t particularly care to mope over what might have been. elrond, for his part, figures that after all the shit maglor has put him through, the least that bastard owes him is a father)

but honestly? i think before any of their mountain of identities, before thinking of themselves as sindarin or gondolindel or hadorian or haladin or fëanorian or anything, elrond and elros identify as themselves

they are peredhil, they are númenóreans, they are whoever they make themselves to be. that’s how elrond finally resolved his identity, figured out who he was and found something past the pain and the rage

he wasn’t doriathrin, or gondolindrin, or falathrin, or fëanorian, or whatever else. he was elrond, no more and no less

and that person, elrond, could be whatever he chose to be

... elros came to a similar conclusion, with much less sturm und drang that he’s willing to admit. being able to go ‘hey, i can’t possibly be biased towards any one of your cultures, because i’m descended from all of you and i was raised by murderelves’ makes it a lot easier to unite people around your personal banner, turns out

the stories other people tried to force on them shattered into pieces, and the peredhel twins were free to shape themselves into anything they could dream of

and as the new world struggles alive, these lost children of an Age of death begin to bloom into their full glorious selves -

i just. i love the poetry of that. despite every single shadow that hangs over their past, despite all the clashing notes pulling them apart, they harmonise it all into a greater, kinder theme, determined to make their world a better place in whatever way they can

they fail, of course, but so do all things. the inevitable march of entropy doesn’t diminish the long millennia they (and their descendants) held onto the light

and their growing up in the fëanorian host definitely had a huge effect on the noble lords they became. you can see it in elros’ loud ambition to create a land of happiness and hope, elrond’s quiet resolve to heal all the hurts inflicted by this marred reality

it wasn’t a perfect time by any means, but neither was it a nightmare. it was what it was, a desperate existence at the edge of a knife where, nevertheless, they were loved

even after years upon decades upon centuries have passed, it’s hard for the wise king and the honourable sage to separate out and identify all the conflicting emotions swirling around their childhood. they never knew eärendil or elwing, true, but they also never really knew maglor

not as equals, not as adults, not as people who could truly understand him. he disappeared into the fog of history, leaving only childhood memories of razor-sharp, gentle hands

it’s messy and it’s complicated and getting any real closure would be like shoving their way through a thornbush with bare hands even if elrond could find the shithead, and yet at the core of it all, there is light. not the brightest of lights, maybe, but an enduring one

that contrast, above all, that note of warmth amidst the shadows, is what fascinates me so much about their relationship. three screwed up people in a screwed up world, finding a little peace with each other

and the fact that somehow, it does have a good ending - the children grow up magnificent and compassionate and just, they become exemplars of all their peoples, lodestars of the new world born out of the ashes of the old - that makes it seem to me like this relationship must have contained some fragment of happiness

but, fuck, all the darkness that surrounds that love, all the tangled-up emotions its existence necessitates, all the prefabricated self-identities it can never slot into - nothing about it is simple, nothing about it is easy, and i find that utterly enthralling. especially how, despite everything, that flickering light never goes out

well, i don’t think it does, anyway. my take on this relationship is both complicated enough no one else ever quite gets it right and well-defined enough every single ‘error’ in other people’s interpretations sticks out like a kinslayer in rivendell

it is an entirely self-inflicted problem, i will admit. other people are allowed to interpret those complexities differently from me, and it’s entirely my own fault i lack the :waves hands around nebulously: to write my own hypothetical fic on the subject at a pace faster than glacial

still, though. i do wish there was more fic out there that engaged with these complexities. a lot of the common fandom interpretations of this relationship just sweep it all away

#ask #my terrible headcanons #elros #elrond #maglor #elwing #earendil #feanorians #niphredilien #yellow feathered faerie #putting your old url in the tags for archival purposes #post nyanyannya askbox clearout #ironically it turned out almost as long as the songfic that clogged up my askbox in the first place #and it is DONE #fuck this took forever to write #stayed up late just to get it out the door so i don't have to think about it any more #this is a long ramble and i'm pretty sure the end is just me repeating myself ad nausem sorry #i'll admit to a certain pro-feanorian bias in my interpretation #but i also don't want elros and elrond to just. live in a neverending horrorshow for decades #the silm's cruel enough we don't need that #narratively i feel like elrond being All Of The Elves is a good mirror for elros being All Of The Humans #but it didn't really fit the angle i was going for #bleck #let's see how many followers i lose for this

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