#and i would say the presence of it might be sort of cyclical but i do believe listening to only sad music will keep you in a perpetually

[preyforthewicked]

11.

Our first fight and breakup was fueled purely by his intense paranoia and a dash of shame. It was like he wanted something to fight about. Maybe he did; maybe his subconscious felt that if he had a more concrete reason to put a stop to our activities, something to point to in his head that labeled me a bad “girlfriend” (as if that term even applies here), then he could end things for good and truly repent at the feet of God.

Spoiler: fighting and breaking up became a cyclical thing for us. It was always him doing the breaking, and the subsequent mending. He couldn’t stay away. He didn’t have any adult friends he was close with; at the end of the day, I was his only friend. Boobies were a big plus.

Our evening began as it usually did, he in the living room and me in my room with the door open (it made it less suspect if we weren’t in the same room), chatting via Gchat. He’d experienced a sudden death in the family and would soon be off to bed in order to catch an early flight home the next morning for the funeral. 

My mom came in, walking to my room. She asked me if I wanted to ride to the airport with them tomorrow to drop David off. I said sure, half because it would mean being in David’s presence a bit longer, and half because I hadn’t gotten off the property in weeks if not months; a van ride down the Pan Am would be a welcome change of environment. She bade me good night, see you in the morning, and left. 

The angry chats came in a sudden deluge.

He said it was so stupid of me to say yes. Wasn’t it obvious what that looked like? My parents might start getting ideas about our relationship, might cultivate suspicions that I wanted to come along just to be close to David. I tried to reason with him, saying how I’d sit all the way in the back of the big van and totally ignore him, just look out the window and listen to music, putting on the somewhat honest appearance that I was simply happy to be out of the house. But he wouldn’t hear it. His paranoia was in overdrive, redlining. If even the faintest idea that I had a crush on David entered their minds, we were finished. 

He beat them to the punch. He told me it was over. I was too immature to be in this relationship, too blind to the risk and danger I actively put him in by being in love with him. He slammed his Macbook closed and stomped out.

I didn’t sleep that night. Through tears, I put together a playlist of breakup songs like Colorblind by Counting Crows, Jar of Hearts Christina Perry, If it Means a lot to you A Day to Remember, Happy Ending MIKA, Mr. Brightside The Killers, You Could be Happy Snow Patrol, Without You Three Days Grace, and Dreaming with a Broken Heart John Mayer to name a few. I piped it on repeat through my headphones as I read back through our chats and emails before deleting them one by one. I was supposed to have deleted them already – one of our rules was to “burn upon reading,” just in case anyone got nosey enough to poke around in my saved Gchats – but I am a sentimental person and have a penchant for squirreling away information like chat logs. It would only hurt to save them now. Why would I ever want to look back at this and be willingly reminded just how much I missed him?

I wrangled up any physical artifacts of him and us as well. I had a gray t-shirt of his, a nearly empty shampoo bottle, and a bracelet I’d made to signify our relationship. I shoved them all into a trash bag and crept out to the bin to dispose of the memories.

My already small world closed in on me. I disintegrated. The pain in my head, in my soul was unimaginable. I did not know how I would continue on as if nothing had happened, to address him in front of my parents as if he hadn’t just destroyed my heart. At least he was leaving tomorrow – that left me some time to sort myself out. But once he got back and I saw his face, smelled his scent… How on earth…? 

Once I’d scoured every last corner of my laptop for traces of him, I opened Microsoft Word to express and hopefully numb the pain with words. I wrote about fictional characters experiencing intense and overwhelming heartbreak. I wrote about a girl who was consumed by hopelessness, life sapped of all color and meaning. I wrote a sequence of events, starting with a fight, in great detail that mirrored exactly what had happened, except from the third person, as though I had dissociated from the experience and the only way for me to process what was happening was to write it out from the perspective of someone else.  

At 2 AM, I was tearstained and exhausted, but sleep eluded me. It seemed fitting, this sudden insomnia, like my body was punishing me on his behalf. It was my fault, after all. I drove him away. If I hadn’t been so stupid, so blind, I’d be blissfully asleep dreaming of him. Instead, I walked quietly out to the dorm stairs and stared down the length of the property in the direction of his room. Curiously, his light was still on. I longed to go to him, to apologize and make it up. Our love was forever – how could something so ridiculous be our demise?

I stayed put. I figured it might only make him angrier if I snuck down to his room in the middle of the night. What would my parents think of that if they found out?

I curled up in bed and put on a movie, though I barely registered the actors moving across the screen. My mind was churning and churning, a black hole sucking me eternally inward, away from all light.

I was still awake when I heard the first stirrings of my parents. I let some time go by before I zombie-walked downstairs to meet them in the kitchen as they scrambled up a quick breakfast. 

“I’m not feeling well,” I told my mom. I’m sure I looked the part after the night I’d had. David walked in, we met eyes for a split second; my stomach clenched. His expression was unreadable. “My tummy was upset all night and I just want to take it easy today, get some sleep. I can’t go to the airport.”

My mom understood, asking if there was anything she could do to help me feel better. I said no, wished them safe travels, and with my heart in my throat desperately avoided David’s eyes, which I was convinced were on me as I walked back to the dorm.

I threw myself back into bed, tears in my eyes. This was impossible. I couldn’t survive this. 

My iPod touch buzzed with a new email. My heart jumped out of my chest when I read the sender’s name.

From: David

Can you get on Skype? I really need to talk to you.

Heart throbbing, I re-downloaded Skype and logged in. An IM was waiting for me. 

David: Hey

I was cautious. I did not get my hopes up that this was anything positive. I wondered if I was walking right into another lecture on how I was still such an idiot. I kept my tone almost painfully neutral.

Me: Hi

David: I’m guessing you got my email?

Me: Yes

David: How are you?

Me: I stayed up all night last night. I’m tired. And I won't lie to you – I'm not good. 

David: I thought you might stay up. Well…I’m not good either. Far from it. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.

Me: About what?

David:…your brother isn’t up yet, is he?

Me: No, I'm pretty sure he isn’t. It’s too early. Why?

Steps resonated from the stairs. The front door opened, closed. Footsteps in the living room. Silence.

David: can you come out here for a minute?

Jesus Christ. It was him. He was only a few feet away and asking for my presence in a way he never had before. 

I hoped I wasn’t misinterpreting his IM tone; it seemed he wasn’t mad anymore, and was even perhaps sad. I gave it a chance. I tiptoed from my room to face him.

He was standing there, hands in his pockets, the perfect picture of patiently waiting. He didn’t say anything. He only took two quick steps towards me and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me flush against his chest. He lightly kissed the top of my head. Then he spoke, quiet enough for my ears only.

“I’m sorry about last night. I…I overreacted. My anger took hold of me and made me think things and say things I didn’t mean. I’m sorry,” he murmured into my hair. My heart was thumping so hard in my chest. Was he saying what I thought he was saying?

He continued when I didn’t respond.

“Will you forgive me and let me fix the hurt I’ve caused you?” he whispered, inclining his head to meet my eyes. I could barely breathe. I could have asked him to pinch me. This was everything I wanted. 

I accepted his apology. He held me tighter, twin smiles blooming on our faces. All was right with the world. The black hole receded. 

He let me go, whisking himself off to the airport. I fell into bed and got some much-needed sleep, dreaming of when I’d get to see him again.

#preyforthewicked #sexualabuse #autobiography

[journalxxx]

By Hook or by Crook (2)

May 1st, 2270

“Hello, Izuku.” “Hi, dad.” Izuku hadn’t exactly been dreading this conversation, but he hadn’t been looking forward to it either. He’d hoped his mom would do all the talking, having to break the news to his friends had been hard enough. For him. Most of them seemed to have gotten quite the kick out of it. “How are you? Your mother told me you’ve been having a rough couple of weeks.” “Mh.” “Still upset over that visit?” “Mh.” “Speak, son. Sulking doesn’t translate well over the phone.” His father chided gently.

Izuku sighed. “The doctor said I’m never going to get a quirk. I’m sorry.” “Whatever for? It’s not like you have any choice in the matter. Quirks are innate, surely you know that.” “Yes, I do.” Izuku said, staring at the paused frame of All Might’s debut video on the computer screen. The reflection of his own miserable face was superimposed with the triumphant silhouette of the hero. “But I’m sorry anyway. You have such a cool quirk… and mom’s useful too. I could become a great hero with one of them, but I’m never going to get any.” “Again, that’s none of your fault. And I wouldn’t be so sure of that anyway.” “Uh?” Izuku gulped, gripping the phone tightly. “Y-you don’t think I’d make a good hero?” “No, that’s not what I mean.” His father chuckled. “I mean that I wouldn’t lose hope just yet. You’re very young, there’s still plenty of time for your quirk to manifest.” “But the doctor said that all quirks appear before one is four years old. And I’m four. And I have the extra toe joint-” “Tsk! Some doctor they assigned you. As if one could unerringly guess the nature and development of something as unpredictable as a quirk with a single test. An x-ray, of all things. Ancient technology.” “The doctor said there was a study...” “I have an extra toe joint too, you know.” Izuku’s father laughed hearing his son’s surprised gasp. “Studies like the one your doctor mentioned draw conclusions based on the analysis of hundreds, thousands of cases. Those conclusions may hold true for the majority of them, but there are always outliers. Having that oh-so-precious joint and a quirk is indeed rare, but not unheard of.” “B-But…” Izuku’s eyes burned with the feeling of impending tears. He hadn’t expected his father’s reaction to be like this. No one had even remotely doubted the validity of the doctor’s opinion. No one. It almost hurt to hope. “I’m also too old…” “My own quirk didn’t show until I was… fifteen? Maybe sixteen. Way older than you are, anyway. Another important point to consider, don’t you think?” Izuku sniffled. Then cried, quietly. His father remained silent as the boy let the tears flow freely, wiping them on his arm now and then. There was a tangled ball of emotions deep in his chest, that he couldn’t quite unravel. After a couple of minutes though, the sobs abated and he felt better. Better than he had been feeling before his mom handed him the phone. “...Do you really think the doctor was wrong?” “You shouldn’t believe everything doctors tell you. My personal physician keeps calling me ‘the peak of biological and anthropological evolution’, but that’s because he’s been fishing for a raise for years. Clearly you’d expect a Darwinian champion to be able to walk under the sun without protection for more than five minutes without turning into a peeling tomato.” “Uh? Does that really happen to you?” “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that I’m albino? My skin is very sensitive to sunlight, and it burns easily. I have atrocious eyesight too.” “I didn’t know that.” Izuku winced in sympathy. “I’m sorry. That sounds terrible.” “Not nearly as much as you think. I have plenty of skills and tools at my disposal to compensate. It isn’t an inconvenience at all these days, although it did cause me some grief when I was a child.” His father’s tone got softer. “Sometimes it does feel like our bodies are our own worst enemies, doesn’t it?” Izuku hummed in assent, very much agreeing with the sentiment. “I’m happy it doesn’t hurt you any more.” “And I’m glad you didn’t inherit this nuisance from me.” A sudden thought made its unwelcome way in Izuku’s head. “If… If I didn’t inherit your skin and eyes… maybe I won’t inherit your quirk either…” “Izuku.” His father’s tone was kind but firm. There were times when his presence, even just through his voice, felt way more real and solid than that of many people Izuku habitually shared a room with. “Your ability will emerge one day, I’m positive of that. Just give it time and don’t agonize over it.” Izuku nodded, even though he realized that wouldn’t translate well over the phone either. “...Okay.” “Now, what else have you been up to in this past month, other than brooding over a criminally incompetent diagnosis?” Not much, honestly, but Izuku told him anyway. As he kept chatting, his heart grew lighter than it had been in weeks. Mom did always say that his father was a good listener.

July 1st, 2272 “They were talking about it on TV yesterday. It’s an old incident from some years ago, before All Might met Nighteye!” “I see...” “Not many people know about it, because there’s no villain involved, and villains make all the stories more interesting! But it’s a great story nonetheless!” Izuku rattled on enthusiastically, taking advantage of his father’s unresponsive compliance. “Uh-huh...” “So this boy was having some big troubles, I think, and he jumped into a river because he didn’t know what to do about them. But luckily All Might was around! Do you know what he did?” “He offered to cover all the expenses for the years of therapy the boy would need afterwards?” “Uh… They didn’t say that on TV. I don’t know. I think he just rescued him from the river.” “That doesn’t seem to address the underlying problem.” His father commented icily. “Daaad, you’re ruining the story.” Izuku chided him. “Anyway, the funny part is that this boy had a quirk that could turn water into vinegar, and he activated it in a panic while he was drowning.” “Mh. A peculiar quirk...” “So All Might got all drenched in vinegar when he dove in to save him. He made this very silly face in front of the cameras, it was great! And when the boy apologized for causing trouble, guess what All Might told him?” “I’m sorry I’m the living embodiment of this unfair, hypocritical society that has driven you to the brink of despair?” “No. He said,” Izuku continued, breezing past his father’s petty remarks with practiced ease, “It is I who should thank you. My skin’s looking ten years younger now.” “Oh my God…” The man groaned, and a loud thunk-crash noise accompanied his words. “Oh, come on!” Izuku giggled, covering his mouth with his free hand. “It’s so funny!” “Just because they’re called ‘dad jokes’ doesn’t mean I’m legally obligated to laugh at them.” “But it is funny! All Might’s the funniest! Did you know that he just wrote a joke book? It’s called All Might’s Gags and Jokes: A Compendium. It already has amazing reviews! They say it’s warm and relatable and cy.. cyclical…” “He wrote a joke book. A veritable Renaissance man, this one...” His father muttered. Izuku heard something clink in the background. Probably the pieces of whatever his father dropped. “Mom says she’ll buy it for my birthday!” Izuku added, swinging his whole body on his chair in sheer excitement. “That is such a poor use of your remittance. I’ll need to have a couple of words with her…” “It’s for my education!” Izuku enunciated with solemnity, straightening his posture. “There’s a whole chapter of American puns and word plays! It will help me learn English!” “If you want to learn English on your own so soon, please choose a decent source. Start with basic grammar and alphabet books, watch some subtitled shows and movies to get the hang of the correct pronunciation-” “I’m learning a lot from All Might already! The catchphrase he used when he was in college in California was I am here! When he’s surprised, he says Oh my goodness! When he doesn’t believe something, he says Nonsense!” Izuku parroted, taking great care of imitating All Might’s confident, surprised and disbelieving expressions respectively. They would be lost on his father, but he needed to practice them anyway. “If that’s a good American accent, I’m the next Symbol of Peace.” “Dad.” Izuku said, suddenly very serious. He had a very important question to ask, and it had been a long time coming. “Why do you always make fun of him? It’s like… It’s almost like you don’t like him at all.” The words sounded so wrong he almost wasn’t brave enough to say them. Izuku would have been mortified if anyone had moved such an accusation on him. “I suppose he has a sort of… charisma about him.” His father admitted ruefully. “I can’t say it strikes any chords with me though.” “Are you just jealous of him?” Izuku asked shrewdly. “Kacchan also talks a lot of trash about All Might, but it’s obvious he’s just jealous. It’s all right if you are, though, I mean, he’s so-” “I’m this close to hanging up, Izuku.” “But- but how can you not like All Might?! Everyone likes All Might! Boys and girls, children and grown-ups! From age 0 to 100!” “...I guess I just don’t fit the target demographic then.” Izuku huffed. “You’re so boring, dad.” “Says the one who’s been talking my ear off about the same topic for the last forty minutes.” The boy frowned, nibbling at his lip. “...Sorry. Am I annoying you?” “I’ll admit I may have hit my monthly tolerance limit of All Might trivia. Don’t worry about it though.” Izuku did in fact stop worrying, his father’s amusement clearly detectable in his voice. “I think I’ll be able to bear with your unabashed enthusiasm until you hit your mandatory disillusioned teenage phase. Then we’ll see if that obnoxiously cheery act of his will still resonate with you.”

June 2nd, 2274 “His normal body temperature is about two degrees higher than the average. Around 38-39 °C.” “And what can you deduce from that?” Izuku’s father goaded. The boy stared at the scribbles in his notebook in deep thought. “Uhm… that it’s difficult to tell if he has a fever or not?” His father laughed, but not unkindly. “I wouldn’t think so. You just said yourself that that is his normal temperature. Therefore, I wouldn’t call Endeavor’s doctor unless his thermometer read more than 39.5 °C, probably.” “Right.” Izuku nodded. That was obvious, wasn’t it? Why hadn’t he understood that on his own? His father didn’t seem to mind his blunder though. “Try again.” “I think…” Izuku’s eyes were just about to bore a hole into his rough sketch of the hero’s costume. He gave up after the silence started to make him uncomfortable though. “...I don’t know. What can I deduce from that?” “Hm… You did bring up an interesting point. Do you know how fever works, Izuku?” “Yeah. Your body temperature rises when you’re sick. If it rises too much, you can get in serious trouble, you could even die. It never really gets that bad though.” “But why does it rise? What does your body accomplish by doing that?” “Uh…” Izuku frowned. He was sure he’d read or heard something about that, but the details escaped him at the moment. “To help you fight off the sickness, right? You feel worse at first, but it actually helps you get better.” “Exactly. Most bacteria and viruses that infect men thrive and multiply optimally at around 37 °C, which is the average person’s normal body temperature. But the growth of these microorganisms is hindered when the environment gets too hot. That is the principle that makes fever useful for humans. As your body gets hotter, it debilitates the invasors, so that your immune system can remove them more easily.” “..Oh.” It was a pity that his father called him only once a month, Izuku could have easily listened to him for hours every day. He always had so many interesting things to say about so many different subjects, and he always exposed them so neatly. “So. Can you deduce anything new now?” “Uh, uhm… He… I guess he...” Izuku snapped out of his reverie. Right, this was a conversation, not a lesson. He went over the new information in his head as quickly as he could. Higher temperature than normal... Fever... Microorganisms... Immune syst- Oh! “He heals quicker than- no, wait! He doesn’t get sick at all! Because he’s always too hot for the microorganisms! They can’t grow in his body!” “Excellent reasoning!” His father’s warm praise made Izuku’s chest swell with pride. “Obviously he isn’t completely immune to any and all infections, there are lots of exceptions to the mechanism I just explained to you. But yes, I do believe it’s safe to assume that our esteemed Flame Hero suffers from the occasional seasonal maladies far less often than the general population, if at all.” “That’s so cool…” Izuku immediately added the new data to his notes, almost breaking the tip of the pencil in his enthusiasm. “Is that what you wanted me to deduce? Or did you explain that just because I brought up the fever thing?” “I was actually thinking of something else. But, on second thought, it may be too technical a topic for an eight-year-old.” “...Can you tell me about it anyway?” “Of course.” Izuku would never not be grateful for the patience his father had, never denying him any clarification on anything. He was just about the only adult who never got tired of his questions. Even his mom sometimes hid her fatigue behind a mildly insincere I don’t know. “High heat isn’t exactly conductive to the activity of human cells either. That’s one of the reasons why you feel exhausted and achy when you have a fever, your body struggles to keep doing what it’s supposed to do above its normal temperature range. But Endeavor not only is at peak condition at 39 °C, he can also withstand open flames with a much higher temperature. This suggests that his cells must be fundamentally different from the average person’s on a biochemical level, that his quirk must provide some particularly efficient cellular mechanism to prevent heat damage. One example might be some dedicated enzymes to protect proteins from denaturation, but now I’m entering mere speculation.” A pause. “Did you follow me?” “...Kind of.” Izuku said, kind of lying but not entirely. He had followed most of that. He scrawled and circled a couple of terms he hadn’t grasped - Biochemical - Enzymes - Denaturation - on the page. He didn’t want to waste his father’s time by asking him to explain the meaning of words he could easily look up later on his own. “The gist of it is that Endeavor’s Hellflame has at least two facets. Not only ‘creating fire’, but also ‘not incinerating himself’. The first trait would be a fatal liability without the second.” “Got it!” Izuku cheered. Now that he had understood completely. “You sure know a lot about quirks, dad! Like, a lot! About anything, really!” “For the sake of intellectual honesty, it must be said that it isn’t difficult to impress a primary schooler.” His father laughed. “I’m just older than you.” “How much older?” Izuku asked, realizing for the first time that no one had ever told him his father’s age. “Oh, by a lot. Centuries.” Izuku cackled. “You can’t be that old. You still go to work. Our neighbors are 80 and they’re already retired.” “I do try to keep a youthful outlook on life. But yes, quirks fascinate me quite a bit. And they make for the perfect topic to distract you from your incessant yapping about All Might.” “Speaking of All Might-” “No, I-” His father sighed theatrically. “I just walked into this one, didn’t I?” “Yep.” Izuku grinned. “What about his quirk? Do you know anything about it? He never gives straight answers when people ask him about it…” “That may be the single sign of intelligence he’s ever displayed. The more your enemies know about your quirk, the easier it is for them to find your weaknesses. I’m surprised the other pro heroes aren’t as reserved.” “I wonder why All Might does that, though. His quirk is… pretty obvious.” Izuku pondered. “It just makes him strong. Very strong. Like, the strongest ever. But that’s it.” “Allegedly, yes. But as you noticed yourself, if raw power was all there was to it, there would be no reason to skirt around the issue in interviews, no?” “So there must be something else… What do you think it might be?” “I think it would be no less than cruel to deprive you of the thrill of carrying out your own research.” Izuku let out a dissatisfied moan, and his father chuckled. “You are already so very proficient at it. Your mother told me you’ve already filled a whole notebook with hero and quirk analyses.” “Oh, ehr… It’s just stuff I read here and there…” “Mh, I’ve heard enough of your ‘stuff’ to know that there’s more than random factoids in that head of yours. In fact…” Izuku felt his cheeks warm for the compliment. “I think you’ve gotten old and judicious enough to be trusted with my emergency number.” “Uh? What emergency number?” “It’s a phone number I’ll always answer to, on any day and at any hour, in case you may find yourself in a bad situation. Hopefully you’ll never need it, but better safe than sorry. Now…” His father’s voice raised slightly, drowning out Izuku’s impending interruption. “Can I rely on the fact that you are aware that desperately wanting to tell me that All Might saved a kitten from a meteor does not qualify as an emergency?” Izuku pouted. “I know what an emergency is, dad.” “Good. Ask your mother to give you the number then. Don’t save it on your phone or write it anywhere. Memorize it, and be responsible with it.”

December 3rd, 2275 Sorry for the long silence. I had an accident on the job and I won’t be able to speak clearly for a while. We can talk with the included devices. Use your ring finger to activate them. Usual days, usual hours. Hisashi That short note held the first words Izuku had received from his father in the last five months. The first month he hadn’t phoned, Izuku had felt slightly disappointed, but understanding. His father was a busy man, surely something very important must have been requiring his full-time attention. It was fine, Izuku was confident he could manage to sweet-talk him into a double-length call the following month to make up for that. The second month, he had started to worry. His mother hadn’t heard from his father either. It was unprecedented not to hear from him for such a long time. Since Izuku could remember, his father had never skipped one of their monthly calls. They often talked on the first day of every month, and he kept trying to contact them exactly once each following day if his calls were missed. He never failed to reach them past the third day. He always called from a hidden number, so trying to get hold of him was not an option. The third month, Izuku’s mother had decided to use the emergency number. She hadn’t been able to get through to her husband, but the polite colleague of his who had picked up had reassured her that he was indisposed but overall fine, and would get in touch with them as soon as possible… which could still take a while. Curiously, the coworker had also instructed them to collect a sample of their fingerprints and send them to a specific address. Izuku had been mystified by the request, but his mother had readily agreed, commenting that it was “not the strangest thing Hisashi’s ever asked for”. The silent wait that followed had been a little uneasy, but not harrowing. Izuku and his mother reread the message a couple of times before opening the box they’d just been delivered. Inside were only the two mentioned devices with their respective chargers, snuggled among waterproof packaging and stuffing. They looked very much like ordinary mobile phones, except they had no buttons or ports on any side. Some quick experimentation proved that they could be turned on simply by pressing the indicated finger on the touchscreen. The display showed a very minimalistic chat interface, with a fixed red dot on the top left corner. No amount of tapping on the screen could bring up the virtual keyboard though, which was puzzling. There was no way to access the rest of the phone’s functions, if it even had any. It was the third day of the month, so technically still within the familiar communication window. Izuku kept poking and prodding at the buttonless phone for the whole afternoon until eventually, shortly after dinner, the red dot at the top of the chat became green. A minute later, a message popped up. Hello, Izuku. Izuku almost dropped his cup of hot chocolate in excitement, which was quickly replaced by frustration because he still couldn’t type anything in any way. How was he supposed to- Speak. I can hear you. “...Oh! Nice!” Izuku exclaimed. “Hi, dad! How are you? What happened?” I’ve been better. I got decked by a hysterical ape. Izuku frowned. “That’s not funny. Mom and I were very worried.” That wasn’t really a joke. What? What even- “...How? Did you break into a zoo or something…?” Sorry, you’re right. Let me rephrase. I had a violent disagreement with a brute. “Oh…” Izuku was about to ask for further explanations but he waited. The three bouncing dots at the bottom of the screen signalled that his father was still writing. We will have to communicate like this for a while. I hope it isn’t too much of an inconvenience for you. Judging by how long it took him to type even the shortest messages, Izuku thought it was going to be much more of an inconvenience for his father. He felt sorry for him. “No, not all. Is it… is it really bad? Shouldn’t you come home so we can help you get better? It sounds like you won’t be able to work anyway…” I’ll receive better medical treatment here, and I can still get some work done while I recuperate. Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll recover fully sooner or later. Izuku picked at the lint of his blanket, choosing his words carefully. “You could… come home anyway. Even if you could work. When you’re feeling a little better. So we could spend some time together.” The three bouncing dots reappeared, but Izuku kept talking. He already knew what his father’s answer was going to be, but he wanted to take advantage of the delay to get a few more words in. “Some of my friends have parents that work far from home too. They’re away a lot, but… they do come back to visit sometimes. Usually for the holidays. At least… At least once.” At least his friends had actually met their fathers once in their whole lives, Izuku completed only in his head. You know how things stand. My job doesn’t afford me this kind of free time. “...What do you even do that won’t let you ever do anything?” Izuku muttered, out of sheer petulance. That was another familiar point of contention, to which his father replied with the same, word-for-word justification he always used. Every detail concerning my activities is classified by the government. We’ve been over this. Don’t be childish. And that was usually the end of it. Any further questioning after the ‘classified’ thing invariably turned Izuku’s father into a slippery wall of smooth deflections. But, considering the current situation, Izuku felt like he could get away with a little more nagging, if he played his cards right. “I know you can’t say anything. But how about…” He physically leaned forwards, trying not to let his tension seep through his voice. “How about I try to deduce something? About your job. Just… for fun.” No new message showed up, not even the typing dots. Izuku decided that it was as much of an approval as he was going to get, so he started to voice his thoughts as they formed. “...Your job is classified by the government. So it’s important, very important, so important that other people can’t know about it.” When he was very young, Izuku had obviously interpreted it as irrefutable proof that his father must be some sort of secret agent. He had exposed his conclusion to Kacchan and his gang once. They had… not-so-respectfully disagreed. Izuku had never brought up the matter with them afterwards. “Your note said that you got hurt on the job. So someone you know from work punched you so hard that, even after five months, you still can’t talk well.” Izuku paused. That was… a scary idea. It dawned on him, for the first time since the beginning of this whole ordeal, that his father may have really dodged a bullet there. What kind of a brute could possibly want to injure someone that much…? Surely a criminal… A villain, maybe…? “Your job is dangerous, and it leaves you almost no free time. It also pays well.” That last item was admittedly a shot in the dark, Izuku didn’t really know much about money handling. But he had noticed that his mother never denied him a gift or a treat on the grounds of its cost (his vast collection of All Might memorabilia was a testament to that), like so many of his friends’ relatives were wont to do. She didn’t need a job herself, and Izuku remembered overhearing a conversation she had with Kacchan’s mom where she had said that they were ‘well provided for’. “You know a lot about a lot of stuff, especially about quirks and heroes. You know a lot of things about quirks and heroes that I couldn’t find anywhere on the internet.” Izuku paused, racking his brain for anything else that stuck out. Before he could come up with more points to make, his father finally wrote back. You sure put some thought into this. I’m impressed. The lack of reprimands was an encouragement in its own right. Now came the hard part. These were all facts that he already knew, now he had to put them together… and no matter how much he tried to come up with different possibilities, there was only one explanation that rang true in Izuku’s mind. “Dad… are you some sort of… undercover hero?” Izuku waited with baited breath for the dancing dots to turn into a complete message. Definitely not. ...Aw, shoot. Although I guess I do happen to deal with heroes quite often in my line of work. Izuku gasped. That was the first real piece of information his father had ever shared with him about his job! And wow, he worked with heroes! And whatever support he lent them had to be pretty vital if he was always so busy and tight-lipped. “So you’re like… a policeman? An informant that tracks down villains for the heroes to catch? Or an engineer bound by trade secret? Or-” Enough, Izuku. I’m supposed to be resting. I don’t think being given the third degree by my own son counts as such. Izuku deflated. So close to the truth, and yet so far… Maybe he could manage to get some other clue out of his father later. But… there was one more thing he simply had to ask. “...Have you ever met All Might?” I’m just going to ignore you after this. Well, it had been worth a try. Izuku finally relented, reasonably satisfied with the result of his investigation. “Okay, okay. Sorry. No more questions. And no All Might stuff. Not that I have much to tell you about him. He hasn’t really been around lately.” Hasn’t he, now? Uh, odd. It wasn’t like his father to miss an opportunity to dodge All Might gossip. Izuku supposed there’d be no harm in taking advantage of this atypical spark of curiosity. “Yeah. It’s been like this for a few months. Rumors say he’s abroad, working on some large scale mission. Something very secret, that’s why there are no articles on him in newspapers from other countries either.” I wasn’t aware of this. That’s very interesting. Although I couldn’t imagine anyone less suited to hushed-up operations. Izuku couldn’t help but snort. In light of the recent revelation, he wondered if his father was so unapologetically critical of All Might because he had worked with him and they hadn’t gotten along… which seemed kind of impossible. How could All Might be the unpleasant type of coworker? Or maybe his father really was just jealous because he couldn’t work with All Might often enough. A sudden thought occurred to the boy. “...Sorry, I guess you don’t want to hear about hero stuff now that you’re, uh… on forced vacation.” Actually, I’d love to. I’ve been a little out of the loop lately, I need to catch up with the news anyway. Fire away all the information you have. Izuku smiled. “Even about All Might?” Especially about All Might.

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #izuku midoriya #deku #all for one

[vampiresuns]

A Songbird Sings, The World Could End | Part 2

✴︎ A SONGBIRD SINGS, THE WORLD COULD END: PART 2 ✴︎

2.3k words. Now in the Magical Realms, Leon and Anatole decide to work together trying to keep the Hierophant’s realm standing for as long as possible. Leon is upset at their own feelings, and the Hierophant reads him for filth.

Leon (He/They) is @apprenticealec​‘s. This fic is best paired with Honest, by Joseph.

You can read Part 1 here.

Leon had air magic.

Leon could cross distances quicker than the average person, if they so desired. It happened to be that he desired such a thing now — in a game of miscalculations, neither Anatole nor him aligned their timing, emotionally overwhelmed and with their own priorities in mind. 

When Anatole spoke to him, something old and angry had snapped in Leon, there to tell him Anatole was just like everybody else, sitting on his high horse with his duty, eventually leaving him alone for reasons which just didn’t make sense. Rage in Leon was vast, more accessible than grief, and for a moment it terrified him. It terrified him to see himself give Anatole, his Anatole, the cold shoulder, even if another part of him thought he deserved it. 

Yet there was another part of him, a part tender and open, starved for Anatole’s presence, following him like religious people in Vesuvia followed the various chimes of the City’s many temples. It was the part of him that had made him go after him that night Camia had gone to the market, travelling all day to drop himself at his door. It was the part of him that had cried and crumbled in front of him, because he knew he would listen. Anatole never said a word he didn’t mean, Anatole never did anything half-way. 

It was the part of him who touched him under the starry nights in Camia’s hut, trying to commend the shape of his face to memory — the softness of his lips, the slope of his nose, the light change of texture in his scars. The way his cheeks filled when he smiled, or the way his throat vibrated when he laughed. That part of him, against all odds, rose against the other and said: “You’re wrong. He loves me, and if the world ends, there will be no world for him to love me in.”

It was just as paralysing, albeit in a completely different way. He was still angry at Anatole. He was still upset he didn’t tell him any of this before, or that he assumed so many things about Leon’s own feelings — granted, Leon hadn’t said anything too, but that didn’t mean Anatole could just assume when Leon had done all those things, when he had given himself so willingly. This specific source of terror came from losing him, and the horror that followed as they stood in an empty hallway, thinking they might have lost him anyway. It propelled Leon forward like he was fighting for his life. He couldn’t let Anatole think he didn’t care. Leon knew they would not be able to live with themselves if that happened.

Leon did not know what the hell Anatole saw in Vesuvia, or in any City, ever. They were all people just trying to survive, with their momentary distractions, and Leon doubted they stopped a second of their days to actually consider Anatole at all. He couldn’t even say Anatole did it in some sort of saviour-complex stunt, because it would be both wrong and offensive to Anatole as a person.

He didn’t understand; right then he was feeling too much to keep track of his thoughts, but even in this overwhelming fog he found himself in, he realised that even if he was right, and Anatole was insignificant (even if thinking it felt wrong), he would not forgive himself for becoming a reason why he felt that way. He would hate Anatole thinking he didn’t deserve all the love in the world, thinking that it is wrong of him to care. Even if Leon sometimes thought he cared too much about things Leon did not comprehend.

The realisation that he loved him too much to not do this, all of it, with him, that pulled Leon forward. It was Anatole’s voice in his ears saying that the point of having a future was to live it with Leon. It was that Leon not understanding why he hoped and dreamt what he did, deep down those hopes and dreams weren’t stupid to Leon, because they were Anatole’s. Leon could forgive the world, maybe, because Anatole existed in it.

That’s how he ended sitting on Anatole’s stomach after throwing the two of them into his gate, the gush of wind from his own magic shutting the door behind them, making the gate inaccessible without Anatole to open it from outside.

Anatole thrashed underneath him, and Leon moved as soon as he realised that he couldn’t breathe. 

Not far away from them, Fishraya gently flew closer to the ground so she could let Antu down safely. It was the first time he did not puff and hissed at her. It wasn’t nothing Fishraya had done to make Antu on edge near her, he had always been scared of Fish’s size. He tended to be scared of things which were bigger than him and could grab him from above without giving him a chance to fight back. 

“Why did you do that?” 

“You gave me no choice!”

“What the hell are you talking about, Leon?”

“Well, arguing you isn’t getting me anywhere — don’t groan at me that way, I’m still upset at you —”

The sound of disbelief and indignation that escaped Antole’s mouth would’ve made Leon laugh in any other circumstance. “Upset?!”

“Please just let me say this, Nana,” the plea in Leon’s voice was so tangible, Anatole couldn’t do anything but to let him speak.

“I don’t understand you. Sometimes I think I do, but then I realise that I don’t. I don’t understand what it is about your job, your place in society or whatever else you call it that makes you do these things. I don’t because I never had anything like that, and sometimes I think we are so different we’re not going to work out…” Leon paused, a knot in his throat as he came closer to Anatole, his hands resting on his face. He tensed, but he didn’t push Leon away.

“Please tell me there’s a but there. I can’t handle collapsing realms and emotional overcharge.”

“If you have to do this, then take me with you. I don’t understand why you’re doing this, but I know it’s important to you.”

“You can’t just say those things and—”

“Yes, yes I can.”

“You’re terrible. You’re being terrible right now.”

“Why, thank you.”

Anatole shook his head. “I think I hated arguing with you, even if the conversation will have to wait.”

There was a rumble from the forest behind them that pried Anatole away from Leon’s touch. 

“I don’t think we have time to go retrieve my family.”

“I wouldn’t risk it either.”

“It’s just you and me, then?

Leon paused, turning to Anatole’s direction, and smirking.

“Just us, we’ll make it work. What direction is the Hierophant’s realm?”

“East.”

Fishraya was already onto Leon’s train of thought, carrying Antu into that direction, as her magician took Anatole’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “Have you ever felt what it’s like to run with the help of air magic?”

“No?”

“Well, you’re about to find out.”

✴︎ ✴︎ ✴︎

Anatole had never seen The Hierophant’s temple so desolated. The old Ram was waiting for them, surprise overtaking his features as he saw Anatole arrive alone with Leon.

“I was expecting a bigger entourange.”

“A mishap,” Anatole said.

The Hierophant simply took a drink from his glass of wine, smiling. “Lovers' quarrels are easily resolved with a common cause. Welcome to my realm, Leon, or whatever is left of it.”

The Hierophant excused himself — he suspected he couldn’t help them much to slow the process of decay, as he needed to concentrate the remains of his power in aiding Alec and Lucio, but if he was not needed, he would turn to aid them. It would be only Leon and Anatole, they’d have to be enough, the weight of it making both of them feel like their skin was being pricked by something invisible. Anatole hated the sensation, but powered through it: in the face of incommensurable tasks he did what he always did, steel his heels, divide them into chunks, building up strategy until he had a fully formed picture.

He would do the impossible twice, or at least, he would try.

After some awkward lingering he turned to Leon. There was work to be done. The plan was simple: they would use wards. It would at least buy them time to protect the realm from falling. The longer it stood, the longer others would take to be taken, the more time Alec would have.

“Let’s just hope Valdemar themselves doesn’t make an appereance,” Anatole grimanced.

Their wards were different in structure but they’ll have to do. They fractioned the territory, so they would go at it quicker, sometimes the Hierophant coming to them to chat. Breaking Valerius’ chains and his willingness to set things on track gave the Hierophant some of his strength back; a “Not so bad place to start” as the Ram himself said. 

“The intention was in the right place. Sometimes you need a little push to turn a situation… upright.” 

Anatole ignored the pun with the exasperated fondness only someone who had a close relationship to someone else could have.

However, the Hierophant’s main focus this was on Leon. Except for a couple remarks to Anatole here and there, he followed Leon with his eyes, and struck him in conversation when it did not seem to interfere with his work. For example, when he paused his own tasks to feel Anatole’s magic around them.

“His magic is stronger here. Not the strongest but stronger,” the Hierophant said, sneaking up on Leon. “I assume so it would be in the realm of your patron. May I guess?” 

“Sure,” said Leon. 

“A knighthood, swords.” 

“You already knew.” 

“Yet, you entertained me.” 

“Why?” 

“Why what, child?” 

Leon’s brow quirked in amusement. “I am not a kid, am I?” 

“Next to me, you are. I am older than you will ever be, even if right now, I could die. You asked why. I asked what reason you seek.” 

“Why would it be stronger here or there? I don’t really believe in all of this to begin with.” 

The Hierophant laughed. “It’s less about belief, and more about fact. Humanity is cyclic, and as complex as simple as the answer you seek: those of us who come in contact with someone who is loved by our beneficiaries, become partial to them.” 

The Hierophant paused, taking some drinks from his glass. Leon stood there in silence, not daring to ask if his love was that obvious. The Hierophant cleared his throat. “That, and he is actually incredibly adept at the magic he himself has chosen, but,” a smile, “pride and true humbleness coexist in him. He’d make a great beneficiary of my own, alas. If you excuse me.” 

Leon got back to work, layer after layer of magic, he felt his and Anatole’s merge in a single thing, seamless, welcoming each other home. Leon’s head was swimming with thoughts, but at least their hands were busy.

Home, they thought: was Anatole home? How many homes had they lost? Themselves and him, both. Leon was abandoned, found, abandoned and found, he himself living in a constant wheel of being lost and returning someplace for the sake of some faces.

When words failed him, Leon acted. He didn’t know what Alec was doing with Lucio, he didn’t know what Alec was doing, period, but if he could give her even five more minutes, he would. He didn’t know what Anatole saw in the world to make him so in love with it, but if this would give him a chance to live in it, then he would. He didn’t know how Camia woke up every morning and decided to live on, to carry forward a destiny she had had to fight for, so the people who were called to protect her didn’t take it from her. If he could give Camia one more morning, he would. 

He even thought of Jamil, and as much as he still hated how he didn’t say goodbye that one time, for once he thought that maybe goodbye wasn’t needed — it was a see you soon. Alec needed him, as Alec needed Leon now, even if she didn’t know nor remembered. If Leon could give Jamil one more catch up, one more smile upon seeing Camia’s hut in the horizon, he would. 

The feeling was disgusting, it disgusted him, and yet he didn’t want anyone to pry it away from his hands ever; if someone tried, he’d bite them. 

Maybe this was how Anatole felt, all the time. Maybe it was the reason why he tattooed Love Conquers All on his chest. He groaned; if Anatole made him love the world, he was going to spend the rest of his life making his impossible for it. No, he would not think of the implications of that, of spending the rest of his life besides him.

Damn him for throwing him into things he didn’t understand. Damn him for making him like it. 

When he was finally done, he found Anatole already waiting for him, sitting on some steps. Leon sat with him, neither of them saying anything for a moment. 

Leon broke the silence first. “What are you thinking about?”

“My family has a vineyard not unlike this one back in Balkovia.” 

Leon hummed. Their next words came out of his mouth before he could stop them, let alone make sense of them. “I was born in the Fennekh desert, I think. I don’t know. I used to speak Zadithi. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

Silence fell between them again. This time, Anatole broke it, his voice watery as he spoke. “I’m sorry about the way I acted earlier. I shouldn’t have exploded like that on you.” 

“You didn’t explode, you just talked,” Leon laced their fingers together, bringing the back of Anatole’s hand to his lips. “That’s what you do when you’re overwhelmed. Or nervous. You talk.” 

“Still. Are you still upset with me?” 

“Are you?” 

He sighed. “I am upset that it all had to be this way. I keep feeling like I could’ve done better, but I didn’t, and now we’re here, and perhaps we would be here anyway. Now answer the question, Leon.” 

“I am, but not at what you think.” Leon exhaled, finding that tendril of courage now in his heart, a tendril warm like the rays of the sun on his skin. “It upsets me more that you would assume I don’t love you back, or that you don’t matter to me.”

Leon sighed. “It’s all very mushy and disgusting, but I suppose it’s—“ 

Anatole’s lips had found his own, and they were kissing him like he was his anchor to this world, with an intensity and a passion so unyielding it made Leon want to melt at the realisation he was its sole depositary. Leon couldn’t finish his sentence, nor he remembered how he wanted to finish it. 

Anatole, like him, had a hunger more ravenous than most, a hunger for something undetermined and overwhelming that Leon knew too well. 

When Anatole kissed him like this, Leon felt like that hunger might finally satiate. When Anatole kissed him like this, Leon felt like it would all turn out alright, even if somewhere around the edge of the realms, one of their wards had begun to break.

#the arcana #oc x oc #my writing #lucio's route #dani's ocs #leon #aelius anatole #coincidence lovers #alright i've given this two reads to make sure it's alright and correctly edited this time #if i find one typo i will yell

[mwolf0epsilon]

Sammy Joey and Norman explores a haunted location and things get crazy?

Summary: They say children can sense the supernatural almost as effectively as animals can. In Norman's case he's not a child, far from it, but he can recognize the familiar unsettling feeling of malicious intent hanging in the stale air of the theater... The same kind that clung to his childhood home since he could remember.

Some thoughts I had about the world of BatIM. Short but sweet is the way to go sometimes.

---

[[MORE]]

     It took a couple of months for Joey to get bold with his business investments after Henry left. A full set of months of both the music director and projectionist fretting over a lot of the workload, since the new hires were often left without much direction whenever Drew holed himself somewhere to plot. Then one day the tiny studio was bustling with activity, art department in full swing working on comics and cartoons, and that devil of a man was talking about expansion.

Norman had immediately seen that what could follow such plans could only be a disaster waiting to happen, while Sammy and Wally were more concerned with the time they'd be spending cleaning after their boss's overly ambitious plans.

The studio was a fairly small building adjacent to an abandoned theater that had once been a popular spot. When shit hit the proverbial fan, however, and the economy collapsed... Well, a lot of businesses took a terrible hit.

The once proud theater had been reduced to an empty husk in need of both renovations and an owner that knew what to do with it. And Mr. Joey Drew thought himself that sort of gentleman. Far from it, Norman knew, but who was he but the projector repairman? A nimble set of hands and occasionally a heavy labourer?

"Think of all the space." Joey insisted. "The studio will need a lot more people to reach success, and surely we'd need space for them to work in."

"Can't argue with that, but I'm just one guy..." Wally had interjected. "How am I supposed to clean two whole buildings in a day?"

"You'll manage, and you'll get paid double for it."

"What about me? Am I going to be thrown into some office to write and record an entire studio's worth of silly songs?" Sammy asked.

"You'll have your own department, with a band at your beck and call, and a lyricist to spiffy up your tunes with some pretty words to play on the radio."

"And myself? What could yous go an' offer me t'butter up such a deal?" Norman knew he'd already lost this executive decision, but he liked to see how far he could extend Joey's generosity.

"A whole closet, full of projectors, spare bulbs and tools, rather than one burnt rag to work with. Some thick gloves in your size, to ensure you don't end up with fried fingers as often."

In the end, none could really argue with Drew, and neither of the three could help but fall into the temptation of such improvements to their working conditions.

So really, when Norman was invited to look at the theater with Joey and Sammy, he knew immediately that their hubris would bring them nothing but just desserts. Because something was definitely off about the damn thing.

They say children can sense the supernatural almost as effectively as animals can. In Norman's case he's not a child, far from it, but he can recognize the familiar unsettling feeling of malicious intent hanging in the stale air of the theater... The same kind that clung to his childhood home since he could remember.

His Nanna told him once, long ago, that Poppop hadn't moved on after he'd been put down. He'd remained, sitting in front of his beloved piano just... Watching. What exactly, she did not know. The piano? The household? The wife who'd relented to his merciful request?

Nanna had taken to appeasing him gently, loving a presence that felt suffocating and cruel to Norman, but that wished her no ill will. The same could not be said for the rest of the family.

Many nights the children awoke to an apparition of a large man with empty eyes trying to choke the air out of them. Many nights he crawled into his patents' bed, wailing and aching, with a bruised neck and terror in his heart.

In the morning Nanna would be seated at the piano, face hidden in her hands, begging quietly for her husband not to kill the little ones. Norman never understood how she could keep hurting herself by appealing to the inexistent good nature of something so blatantly apathetic.

The theater might not feel as cold and calculative as what he'd come to know as Poppop's hateful glare, but the projectionist could feel several disembodied eyes on them as soon as they entered. The sadness and desperation of their gaze freezing the blood in his veins.

He'd glanced at Sammy, observing the smaller man break into a cold sweat and going so far to cross himself and utter silent prayer when he thought no one was watching. The drop in temperature must have been noticeable if he could sense something off just as acutely as Norman himself.

Joey, however, did not seem to notice. If anything, he took in the decrepit sights and his face lit up with a smile.

"It's perfect."

They were doomed from the very start.

-

The Projectionist's nightmares were bothersome whenever it fell asleep. Often nothing more than visions of needless violence and fear that distressed it to the point it avoided nodding off as often as possible.

But, sometimes, there were stranger ones that it couldn't quite understand. Dreams where a tall man with a pickaxe lodged in his left eye stared at it with a certain interest.

There was an older lady too, one that looked at it with pity, and that told it to wake up and move, before the myriad of spirits took it to the pits of hell to suffer some more.

The Projectionist would wake up, urged to move, and just barely escape the grasping hands of the Ink that were trying to pull it down into the well of screaming voices.

The two people in its dreams would fade into the back of its mind, but certain sensations would bring them back.

Terror and rage evoking the figure of the man with one hateful eye, the one that looked to want to be anywhere but there. Peace and comfort reminding it of the woman with the concerned sad eyes and loving voice, the one that would sometimes put a hand to the face of the projector without so much as a hint of fear.

In a haunted studio, it was only fair that ghosts fought other ghosts to ensure the soul of a fragmented family member had the chance to one day pass on... Not that a beast like the Projectionist had the capacity to understand this.

If anything, it was more clueless to the paranormal than the Prophet that still crossed himself instinctively whenever the pipes cried too loudly. It simply liked the dreams that didn't make it want to cry, the ones with the nice lady that made it feel like a child cradled safely against a warm bussom during a stormy night.

Outside of this cyclical hell, their tormentor remained oblivious to what he'd wrought upon others long before he'd thrown them into the machine. Not once associating the disastrous rebellion of his own alchemical concoction with the influences of the other side. For all that Joey Drew believes in higher powers, he did not believe in ghosts...

#eps writes: #bendy and the ink machine #batim #norman polk #sammy lawrence #joey drew

[templeofshame]

Found Footage and the Juxtaposition of Hope & Despair in Tape 6

This is Phil at his most found footage: choppy, with static and shaky, awkwardly-angled camerawork. It ever offers an explanation for why it exists on film (perhaps on an unknown tape, as per the title) without an implicit vloggerish approach; it stands out from other weird!Phil vids in that. Phil establishes himself as tasked with recording a surprise party, which gives us a home video angle.

But functionally, the work of fragmented, apparently nonlinear storytelling we get from Tape 6 isn't so different from other weird!Phil vids like The Silver Button. I'm not well-versed in found footage film, but the nonlinear nature stands out to me as not typically how film works (unless some person or force is going back and forth and recording over pieces). So I'm thinking that it might be somewhat unusual to have found footage storytelling that is non-chronological in this way.

As soon as we get Phil's character and the basic situation, we also get a sense that the character doesn't really know what he's doing in terms of filming, and various found footagey elements are a result of technical difficulties and just his lack of skill. Just eight seconds in, he cuts out mid-sentence and comes back in mid-sentence, talking about it working. This sets up a sort of status quo for the format, without anything sinister going on. Our cameraman just wants to show us a Twister beach towel and celebrate Tim's birthday. But the next time it cuts out, we get some trademark weird!Phil voice distortion and the ominous contrast of "I don't think I want to play this game anymore."

The quick jumps between "normal" cheery Phil and Ominous Phil where something is Clearly Going On is classic weird!Phil. It's a thing he does often and well, and while in some vids he physically illustrates the difference with costume changes, face markings, or a different accent, here (as in some others) it's all in his performance. Here we get both Ominous Phil and what may be "normal" Phil, later on, not enjoying the "awesome" time he predicted, but crying and upset over Carl (not one of the generically named friends mentioned earlier). The contrast of Phil's hope and his darkness (even just in shots of him biting his own arm) is where the heart of this lives for me.

It's worth noting that Phil uses four fairly generic masculine names in Tape 6 (he does tend to use them, including the ones here, in other vids as well), and three of them seem to me to be implied to refer to the recipient of the surprise party. Initially, we're told that the surprise party is "for Jack." Then we hear that, "only Tim's party can have a Twister beach towel" and "when Sam walks in, we're all gonna jump out like, 'surprise!'" The effect of this is, I think, lightly disorienting; we can't quite get a handle on who occupies this world with our cameraman, and when he cries about "Carl," I'm not sure if this is a new person or another name for Jack/Sam/Tim. Anyway. Back to something that resembles chronology.

For the first half of the video, we don't have any sense of what went wrong or where the glimpses of voice-distortion Phil and or Phil's despair come from. But the surprise party setup does lead to it, albeit a little hazily: Phil (as Jack or Sam maybe? He seems to be playing at least two characters at this point, as we move into the voice-distorted temptor and the tempted) receives a tiny present. With instructions.

The words "surprise" and "instructions" are highlighted by their repetition in this section. (Earlier, this is perhaps foreshadowed by the repetition of “I can’t get it to stay”; like with the choppiness and static, it gets introduced innocuously as camera difficulties before it gains ominous undertones.) Later, we get similar repetition plus more voice distortion on "Open it," "No," and "I can't." The latter repeated words are the focal struggle in the video (and "no" is interesting because it's repeated both in refusal to open the box and earlier, as a generic expression of distress), and "surprise" is a concept that gets a lot of focus in the setup and is built to as a turning point, so "instructions" is the one that seems the least intuitive to me. The repetition here seems to stress the importance of the fact that Phil was warned, but the choice of the specific word "instructions" is also interesting; as opposed to a warning (which is how I would interpret the text on the box), he calls in "instructions," which implies that it's instructing him on how to do something. How to destroy the world, or how to save it? We don't know who wrote the instructions or why. ("Instructions" could also imply that someone is telling him what to do. But they don’t actually say to open the box or not, just what will happen if he does.)

"Opening this box marks the beginning of the end. If you open this box, the entire world will be destroyed." It's another scenario where the fate of the world is in his hands for no apparent reason, where a simple action could have apocalyptic consequences. In this case, he's explicitly warned of that. And in this one, he calls it out more directly than most: "That's a lot of responsibility." Where in vids like The Silver Button and Sebastian: Universe Defender, he stumbles into destructive situations fairly naively (even with a similarly explicit warning in Sebastian), here Phil says no. Several times. This feels more along the lines of The Basket to me, in terms of showing internal conflict and acknowledging responsibility (albeit here it seems foisted upon someone innocent rather than The Basket's deeper entanglement), but also in the way the opposing points of view gradually bleed into each other, so the dark and light of Phil seem to speak in one voice. And the last word before Phil opens the box is "no." The verbal opposition is still there, it just loses real meaning along with control over Phil's actions.

And there's our moment of truth, with new visual distortions, the presence of a toy creature, and a return to the biting we saw in a briefer clip earlier. This seems to me to be the time that clip was from, now earned with the opening of the box. Without the hat, wrapped in a sheet, is another Phil, looking disoriented and lost rather than feral. And now that we have a sort of explanation (such that it is in the world of weird!Phil) for what's gone wrong, we cut back from the chronological nightmare to our cheerful cameraman, getting ready for the surprise. He's beaming and waving to the camera as it cuts out for the final time.

The choice to bookend the video with the optimism, to give it a cyclical structure without any illusion that the story itself is cyclical (at least to me it's very clear that the ending takes place earlier and cameraman Phil is definitely not going to have a great party afterwards), really works for me. It brings it back to that heart in the contrast, in the hopeful expectations and the destructive reality. Phil's hope and positivity at the end mean something different than they did at the beginning, even though the situation being set up is the same. He doesn't know anything more than he did, but we do. And going back to that after the dark side feels like going home to a safe place that just... can't be safe again. It feels right, but also just wrong in a satisfying way that feels right.

#weird!phil analysis #amazingphil #phan meta

[jinruihokankeikaku]

hi :D could you do a session analysis of my 6 person session - we have a Prince of Void (P), Knight of Time (D), Heir of Space (P), Rouge of Light (P), Bard of Heart (D), and finally, Witch of Light (D)

I certainly could ^^^^-^^^^ Session Analysis #2!!!!!!!! Here we go…

Player Lineup

Prince of Void

Active Destruction Class; Actual-Introspective Aspect

Knight of Time

Active Defense/Service Class; Actual-Culminative-Conclusive Aspect

Heir of Space

Passive Manipulation Class; Actual-Expansive-Explosive Aspect

Rogue of Light

Passive Appropriation Class; Actual-Associative Aspect

Bard of Heart

Passive Destruction Class; Personal-Introspective Aspect

Witch of Light

Active Manipulation Class; Actual-Associative Aspect

Session Outlook

Space and Time Players present? Yes, so you’re not doomed off the buckle. That’s a start.

Active-Passive Balance: You’ve got a 50/50 split here, which is pretty much ideal. Functions-wise, you’ve got 2 Destroyers, 2 Manipulators, an Appropriator and a Defender, and no Creators or Investigators. More on how this comes into play later.

Aspect Balance: 5 Actual : 1 Personal : 0 Cyclical; and 2 Associative : 1 Introspective : 1 Culminative–Conclusive : 1 Expansive-Explosive. Setting aside the necessary Time and Space Aspects leaves you with 2 Associative to 1 Introspective, and 3 Actual to 1 Personal, with no Cyclical Aspects (Doom, Life, Time, Void) whatever. This doesn’t say a whole lot on the face of it about your session, but it does mean that your player’s powers are going to be concentrated in a particular domain (in this case, the physical / epistemological rather than realms of faith or ideology). Also, you’ve got two Light players and a Void player (who belongs to a Destruction class, and will therefore ghost Light). Information overload and an abundance of not-necessarily-relevant stimuli seems like a real possibility.

Possible Events

Let’s start out with the biggest warning sign – 1/3 of your Team are destroyers, and your only player in a non-Actual Aspect is the Bard, the biggest wildcard there is. Expect a lot of identity crises, and few ways if any to shortcut interpersonal relations, due to the absence of Cyclical and Personal aspects (with the exception of the Bard, a Class better suited to uhh… problematizing… than to problem-solving. With that in mind, here are some…

…notes on individual players…

Starting with our Prince of Void:

The “destroyer of nothingness” will ghost Light at first; they’ll be someone who destroys the Void within themselves and others, desperate to ensure that nothing is kept secret, and desirous of complete knowledge of their Session and their particular role in it. Like any Prince, they’ll be well-intentioned but also a bit self-important, and they’ll likely draw a lot of attention to themselves from the start. They may be deeply uncomfortable in solitude or in situations lacking in stimulation, and consequently attempt to involve themselves in situations that they needn’t necessarily be involved in. Keep an eye on this player, because destroying through the power of the Void (which is often associated with the Furthest Ring and its denizens) is a game-changing ability indeed. In order to wield it with forbearance, and for the good of the Session, rather than for selfish aims, they’ll need to learn to look within themselves without fear, and become comfortable on their own.

Then there’s the Knight of Time:

A Role shared with a canon protagonist, and certainly a powerful one, the Knight will actively defend and serve the Alpha Timeline and the Space player through their skillful use of time travel and the exploitation of closed temporal loops. They’re unlikely to get along with the Prince of Void especially well, and since they both belong to Active classes it’s quite possible that these disagreements might… escalate. However, the Knight will be an invaluable asset to the Heir of Space, who will not necessarily be especially focused or directed early on, and whose survival is crucial to the Session’s success. Their presence in the session means the session might be “short on time” also, so keep that in mind. While the deficit is unlikely to be as pronounced as that of the Beta kids’ session, given the number of additional factors goin on there, it’s still going to be a notable one.

The Heir of Space

Your Space player, as noted above, is likely to be a bit scattered at first, having almost boundless creativity but little interest in following through. They’re unlikely to progress through the game very quickly despite the formidable power within them, and so their relationship with the Knight will be crucially important during the Game’s trials. Once they have completed their quest and realized what they might become, however, they’ll become tremendously powerful, warping space by their very presence, and, at the height of their power, Becoming Space Itself, nigh omnipresent with the ability to teleport virtually anywhere at any time. Their less-than-urgent initial attitude toward the game might frustrate some of the Session’s more Active players, like the Prince and the Witch, and it’ll be important for them to balance their spacious, omnidirectional thinking with directed action towards victory in the Session. They’ll probably get along well with the Bard at first, until the Bard inevitably faces a crisis of Heart and, well, changes things…

The Rogue of Light

One of two Light players in your session, the Rogue is going to be a rather shy player at first, likely looking up to the Witch as almost an authority figure, when it comes to matters of intellect and communication. They’ll likely have a strong friendship, in which the Rogue will be the less assertive figure; indeed, the Rogue might have unexpressed romantic feelings towards the Witch, or maybe look up to them as an older sibling? There are a lot of ways in which this relationship could manifest, but they’re going to be real close; the Rogue will have to step out of the Witch’s shadow eventually. They may also have a tumultuous relationship with the Prince, as both will sort of vacillate between embracing and fearing Light by turns. Because the session will functionally have 3(!) Light players in the beginning, the Rogue will play an important role in the Session due to their duty to rebalancing/redistributing Light, and may play an especially critical role in the Prince’s development from an over-embracing/inverted Light player to a healthy and well-balanced Void player. This could bring them closer together, or pull them apart, depending on the circumstances.

The Bard of Heart

Ah, Bards. Bards, as Calliope states in Act 6, are wildcards, capable of making or breaking a session, and our Bard of Heart is no exception. Bards are avoidant personalities at first, trying to hide from their Aspect by ghosting their opposite. However, while a Prince of Heart would ghost Mind by over-embracing it to the extreme, acting like an especially intense and unhealthy Mind player, the Bard of Heart will just act like a rather… chilled out Mind player, maybe posing as a shy or insecure, somewhat nerdy scholar. Their closest friend at first will likely be the Heir of Space, who will share some of their… spacy, less-than-confident tendencies, but this relationship will face some tribulations when the Bard’s Bardic Crisis inevitably arrives. The Bard will probably get increasingly caught up in inaction and overthinking, before eventually snapping and embracing Heart, becoming an intense personality with self-aggrandizing or self-centered tendencies that may push away the Heir, and perhaps everyone else. When they’ve fully embraced Heart, they’ll induce by their mere presence decay and chaos in the relationships and identities of everyone around them, which will cause plenty of drama that the newly self-aware Bard will be all-too-eager to fuel. In order to maintain a healthy and balanced manifestation of Heart, they’ll have to learn to navigate the chaos rather than merely embracing it whole-Heartedly, perhaps by wielding their newfound strong sense of identity and showmanship as a weapon against the various trials the game throws at them.

And finally, the Witch of Light

Our second Hero of Light is the extremely Active and dynamic Witch class, one who bends the rules of Light and forces Light to change to suit their purposes. With both the Prince and the Rogue in play, and manifesting Light in their own ways, the Witch will have an abundance of fuel for their experimentation with knowledge, awareness, and attention, and they’re going to be a tremendously powerful and influential player in the session. They’re going to be extremely fortunate without even trying, climbing the Echeladder with ease, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they wind up being the first player in the Session to Ascend to the God Tiers. Witches tend to be fearless and have an easy confidence about them, and their powers will be among the flashiest in a Session – in the case of a Witch of Light, this might be very literally the case, with the Witch creating luminescent and distracting displays and perhaps even wielding lasers as a weapon. Their challenge will be to allow their fellow Light player some space to work with their Aspect as well, as the Session won’t do well to have so much of its vast store of Light concentrated in the hands of one player. They should remember that just because they can command everyone’s attention, and access stores of knowledge that other players might not, doesn’t mean that they should – they’ll have to learn that the Rogue has as much to teach them as they have to teach the Rogue.

Some Closing Notes

Your Session’s outlook isn’t terrible, but there is a real imbalance of the Aspect wheel at play here – taking into account the Prince’s ghosting behavior and the Bard’s inevitable crisis, your Heir (the most crucial player to the Session’s success!) will be alone on their side of the Aspect wheel. The Knight and the Heir will have to stick together and play the role of co-leaders, avoiding the drama and chaos that the Bard and the Witch are likely to produce. Whatever the case, this Session is sure to be dynamic and far from boring – godspeed!!

~ P L U R ~

#session analysis #fansession #Homestuck #Classpect #Bard of Heart #Witch of Light #Rogue of Light #Prince of Void #Heir of Space #Knight of Time #ask #pinkietoee

[deathduty]

Child || Solo

WHILE DEIRDRE’S MOTHER IS VISITING, and after THIS.

Deirdre's legs grew long first, tall and thin. Like a newborn deer, she stumbled around any patch of uneven land. Her legs quivered as they struggled to keep the rest of her steady. Her knees turned thick and hard under the constant scraping. Bruises melded into the paleness of her skin until purple was simply an undertone.

Her mother had grown gradually, like the swell of an orchestra. She blamed Deirdre’s choppy growth on her father. She should have known better, looked harder. Except this was not guilt, or ownership of something, it couldn’t have been with the way her eyes bore into Deirdre every time she fell over. Her daughter was clumsy. There was no father to blame.

Just the child.

Deirdre had been meaning to fix the odd shrieking that her door gave off every time it was closed slowly. It sounded a lot like a wounded animal losing its voice to give one last plea for help, which she might have enjoyed if it wasn’t for the way the sound sliced through her house. It also never was much of a problem unless she was sneaking into her own house, a thing she’s never done before.

“There’s a joke here about watching my daughter sneak into her own house, but I’ll let you make it,” her mother, Siobhan, smiled. She was leaning against Deirdre’s kitchen island, against her marble countertop just barely in sight from the entrance. Deirdre figured she must have done this deliberately, so that her curiosity to see what her mother was up to would propel her into the kitchen. 

And it did.

Without being asked, she stood at the threshold between her great room and the kitchen, where decadent hardwood turned into cold tile. And like always under the gaze of her mother, or merely in her presence, Deirdre felt herself shrinking. She opened her mouth to work out that joke about the sneaking in, but the words jammed in her throat, begging to be swallowed down with an audible gulp instead. 

“What--what--” What are you doing here? It was the middle of the night, and there was no one who hated eating after 6 P.M. like her mother. But Deirdre couldn’t say that either and blubbering around like a child didn’t appeal much to her so she swallowed that too and waited for her mother to offer up an explanation. 

Instead of words, Siobhan stepped aside. On the island, revealed by her movement, was a piece of paper. Deirdre knew the stationary. Her face turned pale, almost the same fairness as her mother. She tried to account for all of Morgan’s letters, all she knew to be tucked away in the safe behind the lackluster painting of a beach. She tried to account for her own, those she knew to be hidden well in the safe under her workbench in the shed. 

Deirdre inched closer but Siobhan’s voice halted her.

“It would seem like you have an admirer, actually. Though not much of an interesting read.” The older banshee shifted again, sparing a glance at the paper from over the tip of her nose. “I was looking around for that knife your great-great-grandmother gave you and that was what greeted me.”

Deirdre didn’t move. She tried to account for the letters she knew she’d stored away safely, where this sort of thing couldn’t happen. Behind the painting of a beach at night, behind a shore of a different world where the stars were bright and plentiful and the ocean waves were calm and cyclical. There were two letters. Were there still two letters there?

“Well,” her mother hummed, pulling a knife from her side with the same grace and ease that Deirdre did. “I could do you a favor---” she smiled, stabbing the knife into the letter, letting the sound of cracking marble ripple between them. She pulled a lighter from her pocket next, and flicked that open. “---and just spare you having to read it. Fates, it’s such degrading stuff.” Siobhan pressed the lighter to the end of the letter. Her eyes were set on the flame, not her daughter. “Let me get rid of it for you.” 

Deirdre, propelled by something monstrous to which she could not put a name, dove forward. She shoved her mother aside, tried to pull the knife out with one hand and stamp the flame out with the other. 

She heaved. The charred remains dangled off her throbbing fingers. The beginning of the letter was still readable, it was only near the end that the ink smudged and tearing and burning morphed the sentences. This was not one of the two she already had. 

“What are you doing?”

Deirdre spun around, clutching the letter to her chest, afraid her mother would rip it away. 

“Look at yourself, child.”

And like the child with the long, thin legs that didn't know how to keep her upright, Deirdre tumbled backwards. The cold tile slamming into her backside was more welcome than her mother's withering gaze. Her mouth quivered, and she worked around more words that had to be swallowed away. 

She imagined herself as that child, dwarfed by her mother's height and skill. When words would tumble out of her mouth without thought, and with a whimper she'd ask "are you going to hurt me?" But Deirdre could imagine the answer to that too. There was nothing more unforgivable than hurting a Fae, and her mother respected rules so greatly.

She might have held her daughter's hands steady against rods of cold iron to teach steadiness, or held her head under water to teach perseverance, but never once hit her. And she didn't need to hurt Deirdre to get her messages across. 

“Have you considered this is why you couldn’t activate that poor banshee?” Siobhan sighed. She glanced down at her daughter, decidedly refusing to move to her level or even tilt her head. "Can you imagine anything worse than never being given your gift? And can you think of a greater betrayal to who we are than not fulfilling your duty?" She turned her eyes to the bed of her nails, more intriguing a sight than her daughter quivering on the floor. "You are still such a child, aren't you?"

Siobhan picked the knife up from where Deirdre had haphazardly discarded it in her attempt to protect the letter. She tossed it between her hands, hovering over her daughter’s legs, something she’d finally grown into.

But she’d never hurt her. Deirdre believed that, even if her body didn’t.

Deirdre could remember nights spent with her cursed legs tucked under her, head pressed against the wall as their orange kitchen light streamed across scarred marble flooring. The light caught in every indent, drawing attention to each mark. She could remember trying to count them as her mother and great-grandmother's hushed whispers filled the air. She was supposed to be asleep, but she had so much trouble sleeping between nightmares and panic.

"I hate children," she'd say, "so red faced, screaming…helpless. Without you, I’m not sure how I would have managed through Deirdre."

Her great-grandmother would laugh in that wheezy way she did, as if she took too much air into her lungs and needed to cough it out. Her voice was deep and hoarse, like a woman who smoked too much despite having never touched a cigarette in her life. "Children are children. What are you going to do?"

"I hate them," her mother repeated. "Demanding. Selfish. Ungrateful. Insufferable."

Her great-grandmother, without fail, would always ask, “what of your own?”

And her mother, equally without fail, would always respond, “perfect, but still a child.”

The marble's scars always seemed larger then, deeper. Splitting apart and sitting silently on the verge of cracking apart. She knew they were the same marks, but under her mother's venomous tone, everything became a canyon. She never could if her mother knew that she sat there, listening to them, or if she didn't care either way. 

What she couldn’t remember was when her mother had left, and when exactly she’d taken from being half sitting up to curled up on her cold tile, a charred letter sitting in front of her. Or when, exactly, her great-great-grandmother’s knife had found its way into her shoulder. 

She laid in her blood, looking out across her immaculate floor. She missed the scarred marble of her home. There was nothing to count here.

“Why are you crying?”

“I’m---I’m---” Deirdre, 8, knew better than to blubber like some child. She hadn’t cried this much since she was a baby. The taste of salt dripping into her mouth was odd, but she couldn’t help it. Unable to speak without floundering, she didn’t dare try. 

“You’ve been given such a great gift,” her mother reached up, a sharp smile was her attempt at comfort. She held her daughter’s face steady and rubbed away her tears roughly with her thumb. “Why are you crying? No one can love you like we can. No one can understand you like we can. No one else matters. And now you’re just like your mother.” Siobhan pulled back. The sounds of Deirdre’s  chéad scread thumped on from behind her bedroom door made of marred wood. For the first time, she heard her mother’s voice turn sharp---dissolved into the crude echo of a stranger. “What else could you want? Everything you need is right here.”

#wickedswriting #THIS HAPPENED A WHILE AGO #dont look at this either #also don't ask me why its so long #LOOK....LISTEN!!!!!!!!!!! #ilu #solo #child #abuse tw

[ishgard]

39 for... The Ship.

(Send me a ship and a number and I’ll tell you…)

39. - Who initiated the relationship? Who kissed who first?  When did they realize they were in love?

First, things change a bit depending on all sorts of various circumstances - different verse/au’s, etc., also I’m an absolute slut for re-examining different scenarios in which a pairing might finally confess/kiss/etc., over and over because it always delights me. Plus I like to leave room for whatever canon might give me to build off of. But, I’ll go over some of the constants that are typically shared across all of them. Buckle in, kids, this is gonna get wordy.

Actually, best to probably start with ‘when they realized’. For Ahru it almost always kind of starts one night by a campfire when she’s on watch. She had taken the mask he’d thrown at her feet that day in the Burn, and on this night pulls it out. She looks between it and his sleeping face, puzzling over the fact that this is, indeed, the same man. It’s fairly early on in their times traveling together, and less a realization that she’s in ‘love’ so much as a subtle realization that there is some attraction.

Throughout their travels, more and more, she realizes how much she trusts and can rely upon him in all manner of affairs - and this isn’t to say she can’t do that with anyone else. (I feel like sometimes I put such emphasis on this that the Scions and her other friends feel ostracized, which is not the case at all.) It’s simply different in the sense it all feels very personal to her, very outside the norm of the rest of her relationships.

She has responsibilities and certain struggles when it comes to the others, that she feels less inclined to be so uptight and stiff about with herself when she’s with him, humorously enough. This is in part a result of personal growth throughout 4.X/SHB story - she’s learning to trust and rely on others in general, and the timing with Gaius played into that perfectly. Another big thing for her along these same lines is how easily she sleeps around him.

Sleep is… a big thing for Ahru. She’s always struggled with it almost all her life, and the traumas and nightmares her journeys have left her with only make it more trying. This is, again, something she’s been getting better with, but it’s still difficult, especially when she feels like she must always be ready to run off and fight, or protect those around her.

With Gaius, she’s surprised to find how easy it is for her to acknowledge that he’s on watch, and she can rest. Which does wonders for her spirits of course; who wouldn’t feel more content and happy around someone who puts you so at ease? And it’s something he does so effortlessly, hilariously enough - just he, himself, this stern yet passionate man who in many enough ways is both her mirror and her opposite. And that’s kind of the realization that puts it all into perspective.

They are so very different, but they’ve both burned alive and survived, they’ve both been dragged down into cinders and ash and rose up in defiance, forged themselves anew - and it made them better. She begins confiding in him more, seeking his counsel, and finds enjoyment in talking about any little thing with him. Debating subjects of politics and primals, hashing out old wounds and offering as much comfort and consolation as she receives in turn.

She loves his rationality and wisdom - he can at times be stubborn and hot-headed (always a bit of a surprise, tbh, but she loves that too) but he’s not often driven by impulse, which is anchoring for her. (I could really ramble on about things they specifically love about each other for way too long though.)

(this is long lemme break the word wall with something soft)

For Gaius, there was always some measure of acknowledgment - I just really thrive on the idea that even in ARR he had his eye on her and was intrigued to a degree not typical of him. He wanted her at his side, enough to ask her to join him after she’d killed some of his best and most loyal - which… there’s a lot to unpack there, really, but that’s big digressos. There was, on some very base level, attraction, but dismissed out-of-hand in his pursuits.  (only to come bite him in the ass with a good ‘Oh.’ later)

Seeing her again in the Burn was unexpected, but something he’d been prepared for. I think he always knew one day their paths would cross again - I don’t think he knew she would be there at Seiryu’s Wall, and his statement “We will meet again, Warrior of Light.” was certain - suggesting a previously held sentiment. 

Traveling together, fighting alongside one another, he sees clearly how much she’s changed, how much she struggles - and perseveres. She’s determined, and has such unwavering strength of character despite how much she has struggled and fought with herself. (“You have suffered enough, and warred with yourself, it’s time that you won.”)

He gets to learn more about the woman she is beneath the mantle she now wears, and just what those responsibilities have done to her - and he helps her remember a bit who she used to be, who she still is. Because he starts to bring it out in her - more of her light-hearted teasing, her mischief and levity that he, normally, would dismiss - but ultimately finds endearing.

He’d already long acknowledged her as a warrior, as an individual worthy of his offer to stand alongside him - of course only to realize it was, all along, he who was unworthy. To rule, to lead…

He committed countless, unforgivable transgressions in his past, and lives only for revenge - and she sees that. She understands that - and she forgives it. She can’t wipe it away, she can’t make it better for anyone else in the world, but as they travel together she comes to desperately want him to seek and find something more in life apart from his revenge.

And it’s her. Of course it’s her. He finds a similar ease in her as she does him; the ability to smile and laugh, just a little. Even if the world tells him he doesn’t deserve it - even if he doesn’t - she wants him to, and he does. It’s slight and subtle and in a way that is his own, but it means something. She lightens him - the give and take is cyclical between them and without tally.

When he realizes, it’s… kind of something he already knew. Something that took the back-seat to saving the realm and his reluctance to allow himself anything beyond revenge. But he’s not one to beat around the bush and act a fool, he’s much too old for that. Ahru, on the other hand, is historically bad at allowing her heart to love whoever it’s screaming at her to open herself up to. She buries herself in work and distractions - but it’s different this time. She’s different - and she is so very tired of running and by now she knows how easy it is to simply be and rest in his presence.

So it’s rarely a case of one party making a particularly grand sweeping confession or kissing the other unawares. (Though, I’ll admit in some of my many imagined scenarios I am especially weak to the idea of Ahru ACTUALLY being the first to make a move. She’s not shy by any stretch of the word -  except when it comes to being honest about such feelings perhaps - so her finally taking the first step while holding such strong emotions inside herself is Big Progress.)

Typically though, there’s a mutual discussion - which, maybe doesn’t sound like riveting romance material. But it’s heartfelt and it’s true, it’s calm and easing. For Ahru’s part, sometimes there are tears as she breaks through her own walls to tell him that; against all odds, all she wants, so very simply, is to be with him.

Sometimes this happens after they’ve already been intimate - there’s attraction between them already, there are feelings they’ve both had yet to name, and they look at each other and they both know. They know in the way they say each others names, the way they fall into easy patterns both on and off the battlefield, the ways they confide and trust in one another. So they throw together their bedrolls and they fuck it out - but there’s far more emotion there that can’t be denied. However, there’s still a war or some conflict or other that needs dealing with, so there’s no time to hash all that out yet -

No time, there’s never any time - until they make it. And they do. They go on to carve out moments for themselves, even if no one else understands, even if in worst case scenarios no one could possibly accept. They find peace with each other, and it’s something neither of them would ever take for granted.

…Anyway if you read all of this I love you and… I’m sorry? thatwassomuch :’‘‘D

#averysleepyfrog #WHOO #thank you so much! #forgive me for the word vomit #these are the things that sustain me #(let us find the answer together) #answered prompts #so long tumblr is trying to fuck up 'formatting' #there's no formatting tho stop making my paragraphs wonky

[whoareyouandwhyshouldicare]

To all my fellow LoVe shippers who are feeling down I have one thing to say.

I can’t make the last 8 minute of season 4 disappear but I can recommend some really great LoVe fanfiction that will make you feel at least a little bit better. So without further ado here are a few of my favorite LoVe fics!

A Hard Habit to Break  by  mskatej   Nothing gets Veronica over her failed relationships better than Logan Echolls.    

...And Long For You  by  AbsolutelyIris It was moments like those Veronica wished she could be like Lilly- storm into his house and curse and yell and damn him to hell before demanding he fuck her...and like with Lilly, he would gladly, if reluctantly, do so.      

 “Any Love Is Good Love, Baby”  by wily_one24   Apparently, Hollywood was wrong, the devil did not wear Prada, the devil wore butch black boots and tiny little skirts.                                

The Best (and Only) Kept Secret in Neptune  by  vixleonard Even when they hated each other, Logan and Veronica just couldn't stay away from each other.                     

The Burdened Vessel  by  vixleonard   Veronica needs a favor only Logan can help her with.              

Every Belt That Ever Hit Someone (Is Still Made to Hold Something Up)  by igrockspock   Logan doesn't get any votes for Most Changed at the ten-year reunion, which is bullshit when you think about it.  In the past ten  years, everything in his life has changed.  He's joined the Navy, dated a pop star, and figured out that Dick Casablancas can occasionally behave like a real human being.  Only one thing hasn't changed: he's still in love with Veronica Mars.  Oh, and he's suspected of murdering his girlfriend.

"Fear and Loathing in Neptune"   by wily_one24 Veronica Mars was going to get herself laid. Series  Part 1 of Any Love  

A Fine and Endless Cycle  by kartography A freshman year at Hearst and the cyclical nature of love                                         

Fireworks by AliLamba Veronica is technically not a virgin, and awkward results ensue. An AU version of LoVe's first time.                

For the Sake of a Friend by jacedesbff   What if Logan and Veronica were involved in a secret relationship throughout the events of Season 1?     

The Game of Trust  by Kantayra of Yore (Kantayra)   This time Veronica really did trust him, and she knew how to prove it...    

Getcha, Getcha, Getcha, Getcha  by  Kantayra of Yore (Kantayra) Veronica and Logan prank each other. Really, it's shameless the way they flirt...  

Give Me The Ocean  by scandalpants   Post Season 3 AU.  Veronica decides what she really wants.  Spoiler: it's not Piz.                                              

Home Is Where The Heart Is by: lv63   AU preseries and forward, begins in season 1. this story is all about veronica and her friends. angst, mystery, humor and romance, LoVe and MaDi. summary in prologue. 

I Hate You Because by: SilverLining2k6   Mid 1X3 - Meet John Smith.    Logan, Veronica, a pool, snark, and a made up drinking game.

i knew you were trouble when you walked in  by youcallitwinter   And, it's just—  Logan had always been her intense high-school romance, sure. But she had, somewhere along the way, in some secret corner of her mind, convinced herself that was all he was; a high-school romance. Explosive, powerful, passionate, and bound to burn itself out eventually

(Im)Perfection  by  AbsolutelyIris The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.                

In a World by: my shangri-la   A/U! Exploring the 'what ifs' that could have happened if Lilly Kane hadn't been murdered, and her secrets – and others – had come out anyway. Pairings: Lilly/Logan, past Duncan/Veronica, eventual Logan/Veronica. (Story begins with Lilly as a senior, the rest are juniors.)

In the kind of world where we belong  by  Anonymous  There was always something missing.  A Lilly Kane sized hole in both their hearts.  Instead of going to see Aaron Echolls on October 3rd Lilly decides to comfort a friend and their lives change forever.A very smutty OT3 take on what might have happened if Lilly had lived.

Kid Things  by sowell   5 years after graduation, Logan comes back to Neptune to ask Veronica for help.                      

King of Mars  by: HGRising   AU. In which everyone has a story to tell but not everyone gets the chance. And, things make more sense from a different perspective. Ever wonder why Veronica Mars was Lilly Kane's best friend? There's redemption for some and condemnation for others when the secrets come out. And everyone's got a good one.

Landmine  by  AbsolutelyIris It needed to be forgotten, and quick.             

The Long Way Home  by  AbsolutelyIris   "We should take the long way home." 

Matching Pink Bikinis  by  Anonymous Veronica and Lilly wear matching pink bikinis to Logan's for a pool day.  This is pure threesome smut, folks.                

Pink Lemonade (Logan/Veronica/Lilly)  On a trip to Honolulu, Lilly manages to bring Veronica out of her pink, frosty shell. Spoilers/Warnings: This is a threesome fic and therefore includes some femslash.        

Playing Hide and Seek With the Truth by: jenwin23   Continuation of the Truth series. The kids go back to school. Old issues remain while more secrets will be revealed, relationships will change and lives will crumble.

The Real Thing by: Josielynn   AU. Logan and Lilly are off again/on again. Duncan is dating Meg. Veronica was never friends with Lilly. Logan sees Veronica in her soccer uniform and wants to date her.

Scotch on the Rocks (A FanFic Tribute)  by kmd0107   A long time ago...there was an incredibly hot LoVeLy trilogy fic (Pink Lemonade & Sex on the Beach) started over on Live Journal that never got its third part.  This is a tribute to what that might have been.   Logan POV of the evolving sexual and emotional relationship between himself, Veronica, and Lilly.              

Scourging Fire, Blazing Soul  by Nerdyesque   What if Veronica didn't grow up with the 09ers, but came into their lives prior to Lilly's death? How would her presence affect Duncan, Lilly, Logan, the Kanes, and the Echolls? Also, who is Veronica without Keith Mars' loving protection?      

Sex on the Beach (Logan/Veronica/Lilly) NC-17 Lilly's chapter in my Drinks Series. Nobody wants to talk about what happened in Hawaii, and it's driving Lilly crazy. How could she possibly make what happened less awkward? By making it happen again, of course!        

Some Truths Hurt by: jenwin23 Jumping off point: V gets Duncan's journal in Echolls' Family Xmas. AU from there but many canon events happen too. All characters in the VM-verse make an appearance, but it is a LoVe story. In script format-but give it a try, it's well written.

The Third Kane by: Mac-alicious   Lilly, Duncan and Veronica Kane rule the social scene in Neptune. The three are loyal and inseparable. They once believed there was nothing that could come between them. They didn't count on Logan Echolls.

Time, Make It Go Faster Or Just Rewind  by  kmd0107  Logan being ‘the real-Logan’ is so familiar that she almost can’t help but give in to it, even if it’s just a one night pass.   She’ll embrace this moment out of time and the walls and armor can go back up tomorrow.AU from 1x4 Wrath of Con              

Truths Too Big to be Told  by: jenwin23 Sequel to Some Truths Hurt. It's summer time and more than the weather is hot. Neptune is embroiled in class warfare, Veronica is looking into the mystery of another dead girl, the fallout from Lilly's case continues, and more secrets will be revealed.

I’m also throwing in some of my favorite MaDi (Mac and Dick) fics because Dick needs a hug too.

The ABCs of Mac and Dick by: jenwin23   The ABC challenge with Mac and Dick. Created for Madi lover at VM Santa 2010 at livejournal. Cross-posted. In letter order, not in chronological order.

Bodycount by: BIFF1   Cassidy and Mac meet a little earlier and a little blood-lust gives him an entirely different problem when it comes to forming a real relationship with Mac. AU with MAJOR season two SPOILERS! Mac/Cass, Mac/Dick, Mac/Cass/Dick

Casablancas Kryptonite By: BIFF1   "You just don't get it. She's like kryptonite or something." Dick looked at his brother and thought about those blue eyes that cut and the way her mouth twisted around insults. Yeah maybe she was kyptonite. Casablancas kyptonite because isn't he just as weak.

Casual? By: BIFF1   It's just sex. Casual sex. no attachments, just good hot sex. But that was the summer and now school is about to start up again and Veronica's back from Virginia and can tell that something is up. They can stop, no problem...

The Charm Bracelet by: DalWriter   Future Fic. Who Knew Prince Charming Would be Dick Casablancas? Mac reminisces as she looks at a charm bracelet Dick gave her.

Commitment Buffers by: BIFF1   Dick and Mac live with Logan and Veronica in their attempt to have some sort of commitment buffer between them. Only problem with the arrangement is that Mac and Dick tolerate each other at best which is a big improvement as far as their concerned. However living in such close quarters may prove difficult when it becomes obvious that they may actually sort of like each other.

Dark Day by: BIFF1   It's Cassidy Casablancas' birthday and the two people closest to him are falling apart. She just wants to hide away from the world for the rest of the week, just drink and cry and be with someone who gets it and no one gets it more than Dick. Not as angsty as it sounds, promise. Now complete with happy ending!

Electrify by: BIFF1   A guilt trip from Logan has landed Dick in a crowded tent with Mac. With a lightening storm raging outside he can't sleep and it appears neither can she.

Rendezvous by: BIFF1   A collection of one-shots. In which Dick and Mac are forced together by fate or friends and hook up. Because I apparently really like writing them hooking up.

Secret Santa By: BIFF1   Saw this homemade sweater from hell prompt from VMficRec. It's a November challenge but I couldn't help myself. Just some fun when Mac pulls Dick's name for Secret Santa. She figures a six pack and porn until he makes a big deal about not wanting anything handmade. She can't really help herself, she spends the month knitting Dick a sweater.

#veronica mars #LoVe #Logan Echolls #logan x veronica #fanfiction #fan fiction #season 4 fix it #veronica mars fanfiction #fanfic #logan deserved better

[palegengarsiloved]

Buddhism, Existentialism, Dark Souls

Fromsoft's games revolve around a core idea, one that other Japanese auteurs like Hideo Kojima, Fumito Ueda, Yoko Taro also touch on: the cycle of life and death, the suffering inherent in that natural system, and the connections we can still form and the meaning we can still find within them. It's obviously rooted in Buddhist and Shintoist beliefs, as well as other East Asian philosophies that acknowledge the supremacy of nature (and natural processes), accept the impermanence and imperfection of the world, and yet (therefore?) also the beauty found therein. First, how do other forms of media try to communicate these ideas? In traditional East Asian visual arts, humans are oftentimes either ignored or viewed as very small, distant figures, entirely dwarfed by nature. Early Buddhist art avoided human depiction at all, using instead icons like wheels and lotuses/cherries to communicate ideas of the cyclic nature of the world and the impermanence of the moment (it's argued that human depictions of religious figures only came into prominence after the whole Greco-Bactrian thing where Greeks set up shop in what is now Afghanistan/Pakistan and started carving gods-as-people, and I mean, you gotta compete with that seductive reification of divinity). Shintoist poetry is brief, fragile, incomplete, often summoning a brief moment of nature ("this dewdrop world / is a dewdrop world / and yet, and yet--"). Kurosawa's deep love of rain and bamboo, Ozu's pillow shots of landscapes and rooms devoid of people. All of these use tools unique to their respective mediums to manifest a sensation or emotion into the audience: Ozu focusing on an empty street for 10+ seconds wouldn't be possible in painting or sculpture; architecture's capacity towards grandness and sense of proportion to a person inside it can't be communicated through photographs. Think about the tools unique to video games, now. Think of all the ways you interact with a game: user interface, input controls, gameplay loops, level design, etc, and how those connect to create a totality of experience. All of these drastically affect the interplay between audience and art; think of if a Jeff Koons balloon animal sculpture were installed in some small garage versus a giant New International-style skyscraper lobby. (Imagine if Dark Souls was presented as a visual novel or whatever genre Undertale is.) Now think about how Dark Souls approaches each of those tools. User interface and item management is one that is quite clever: you are given an item, and you have zero idea of what it is, so you find a brief safe moment and take a look at its item description. It's vague and honestly impenetrable, with a little bit of equally-impenetrable lore on it. You only have one so far, so you're afraid to use it, but you have the feeling that not only could it be useful, but perhaps even necessary for some encounter. You see that you can carry up to 99 (and store 600) of them, so maybe there'll be more later? You know that you've picked up stuff that you thought might be one-off and found more later, or a merchant who sells it. Fuck it, might as well try it out - after all, this user interface is almost begging you to think about the lore meanings, the possible item use, and exploring for more of them, or how/where you could best use it. It's designed so that you acknowledge the rarity of it, but also are assured to not to worry too much about it and just try it out for whatever benefit you can get in this dangerous world. What's the worst thing that happens - you die and waste it? You've lost thousands of souls (the precious in-game currency) before, what's one lightning paper or green blossom whatever? You know this game is famously difficult; "It's like Dark Souls" is industry shorthand for "It's a fucking hard game" at this point. Might as well try something new in this brief cycle you have before the next inevitable death. That leads me to the next tool: the corpse-running / death mechanic. You'll die a lot, sure, but then you'll learn more, have the opportunity to think about what you might be doing wrong or not seeing, maybe even find a shortcut or trick or use a different item this time to make it easier. It's another ostensible punishment that's actually an opportunity for you to get better at the game, and to think about maybe using that one item for a boost or trying out a different weapon, but also it starts teaching you something very important to the series plot and themes: it's okay to die - natural, even. A part of life. It's not a waste any more than anything else in life is a waste - the only waste is if you don't learn from it, appreciate it, bask in the purifying fire of failure to find yourself in something close to Zen gameflow. Even then, it's not the game disrespecting your time; I would say that it's the player disrespecting their own experiences, discarding any outcome other than an easy victory as a waste, as pointless, as if progress is the only marker of a life well lived. Resisting death, panicking, generally facing it in an undignified manner... all of these are counter-productive. To do so is to miss the philosophy of why there isn't an instant boss restart button! The brief little life as you scurry to your undistinguished death is, perhaps, the point. I mean this in a game sense, too. If you are deeply reluctant and fearful of death, you won't have as much success exploring dangerous and unfamiliar areas. Once you accept that you might lose some paltry number of souls in exchange for new items, new shortcuts, new areas... the game becomes less of a hostile slog and more of this world that you want to explore and understand. Yes, there'll be some suffering; that's to be expected. But there's still rewards you can find, NPCs you can ogle, vistas you can enjoy. Kind of a blunt metaphor, huh? That leads to the level design. By that I mean not only shortcuts and verticality/horizonality, which are ingenious from a design perspective, but in how the levels evoke two major things: one is the lived-in nature of the world; the other is how small you are in comparison to it. Cathedrals are prominently featured throughout the games. Historically they were specifically designed to make laypersons feel small in the presence of divinity, to make their eyes look upward, and to contemplate the sheer power (physical and social) necessary to create these things. Think of how small you are, then, that there are even greater powers in nature that can make these monuments to humanity fall. As for the lived-in aspect, think of how strange the items you find are, how fragmentary their lore, and yet how they start to fit together, even from their placement in the world. (Why is a Choir investigator-assassin hiding out in the School of Mensis? Why does he drop sedatives?) There's this giant world taking place around you and you're so unimportant that no one really bothers to tell you anything more than vague prophecies and allusions. Anyone who points you somewhere concrete sees you as the pawn you are; you're also literally smaller than many other NPCs (Non-Player Characters) to illustrate this point. The NPCs are yet another way that the game acutely communicates its existential ideas to you. Everyone in the Dark Souls world is cursed to not die, but rather turn Hollow – that is, to lose their minds in lieu of death. The only way to fight against this curse is to commit to a purpose and use that willpower to stave off insanity. This is strongly absurdist in nature, as a cursed undead either completes their goal and then, newly purposeless, goes insane, or the goal is unfulfillable, and the goal-seeker is doomed to an eternity of Sisyphean torment. Some NPCs appear broken under this will, crestfallen or twisted or gleeful upon recognizing the sheer injustice of their burden; some soldier bravely on; some offer unconditional kindness; some perform a mixture of all three. There are startlingly few characters in this game, each almost hidden by the landscapes, and each clearly dwarfed – both literally by the environments they are lost in, and by the staggering difficulty of the tasks they took up. It’s almost easy to attack all the NPCs you come across, as you’re conditioned to be fearful of any other entity you encounter; many players kill a certain peaceful demonic entity because they’ve slain so many similar-looking monsters defending her. It’s easy to miss these connections, and the game makes no effort to protect them. It’s the hedgehog’s dilemma: can you let down your guard towards someone who very well may hurt you, in a world that has done nothing but hurt you? Will others do the same? The multiplayer component of this game adds a corollary to this social experiment: there will, inevitably, be those who seek to invade and destroy you, those who will defend and avenge you, those who will help you, and those who will dabble in all three. You see every day in real life: the wounded lashing out in pain, the happy few just trying to help others along the way, the people who want to create some sense of justice in an indifferent universe. Oftentimes, one human will try out all three roles in their life. Why do we do this? Perhaps it’s how we work through the cosmic injustice of our existence, in a form of primitive dialogue that we need to act out. The human condition, after all, is reconciling oneself with the fact that we, and everyone we know, are fated to someday die. That's where the plot intersects with the gameplay and themes to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. The directive you’re given at the beginning of the game is to extend the Age of Fire, the era you are currently living in; you are told that this is because with Fire there’s light, and time, and the creative spark of divinity on high. However, it turns out that unnaturally prolonging the Age of Fire is actually pretty bad, and results in all sorts of upheaval and foul consequences (including, possibly, the undead curse itself, unless you believe a certain scholar in DS2…). We learn as we venture through this game and interface with its mechanics that death must be a part of life and dark must accompany light. We also know that something can arise out of nothing (as we know there was a “time” before the Age of Fire; think pre-Big Bang), so it turns out that even if you don’t extend the Age of Fire, the larger cycle of death and rebirth perhaps never ends. In any case: fighting against this inevitability, fighting against the possibility of pain and loss caused the Gwyn, the Lord of Fire and Light, to ultimately sacrifice and thus lose everything he defended in tragic irony; similarly, trying too hard to lean into the turn caused Oolacile/New Londo/Farron Keep to be lost in the Dark forever. By dying over and over in-game, by investigating the subtle hints of lore found in the items and the sparse dialogue, and by witnessing the sad existence of these once-great powers of Fire that have long-since shriveled up under the infinite and inescapable wheel of nature, you begin to internalize the themes these games try, through all the tools at their disposal, to make you feel. You can live, however briefly, and value it, but also learn to let it go. You can love nature and respect its impersonal processes, understand that ultimately it will reclaim us, and find some comfort that the end isn't necessarily the end. There will be suffering, but there will be moments of total (if brief) triumph. There will be moments of tenderness with NPCs that can only be generated by a video game world where life is immensely fragile and nothing but the curse of insanity permanent. Will you allow yourself to try and help them, knowing how difficult and obtuse it will be, and how little it might seem to matter? Will you extend the Age of Fire to uphold the lie, because this Age is the only thing you and the rest of the world has ever known? Will you be brave – or perhaps, human – enough to reach out to others in this brief moment before the end of the world, and when the time comes, to let the Age of Fire fade? Can you live, and perhaps just as importantly, die with dignity? The totality of the experience gets the player to directly feel these themes in a way that can't be done in other media. By showing - through the death mechanic, NPC quests that can permanently be failed or missed, unforgiving and vast levels with tons of secrets and shortcuts, obscure item descriptions and the resultant need for exploration and player-driven introspection and experimentation, and not by telling through cutscenes, everything works together to evoke a mood that the player directly feels like they're helping create. The sheer unity - the, ahem, ludonarrative assonance - of the design is beautiful to consider on an intellectual level but also satisfying on an interactive, practical level. You have fun not despite these things, any of which alone may be disheartening, but because together they're so thematically consistent. Taken by itself the corpse run mechanic might be considered unnecessary or anti-fun, but when placed among the larger picture it not only makes sense but makes the player consider that there might be something they're missing, that there may be more to explore elsewhere or some item that will help, because the game is so mysterious and rewards exploration and experimentation so much. This is in addition to how much it reinforces the themes of the game! I could expand on about how such well-executed unity of purpose and audience-medium interplay makes it high art, like, true fucking Michaelangelo's David type shit, but I don't want to get swept up in the hype, so I'll leave you with a classic Dark Souls quote: "therefore try tongue but hole"

#darksouls #dark souls

[shadowsong26x]

EPIX/Rise of Skywalker Reaction Post

So, I got back from seeing EPIX this morning, and I figured I should get all my thoughts down!

Everything spoilery is behind a cut, and this post is also tagged with the spoiler tags I’ve listed here. If you want me to add any additional tags, let me know and I will to this and any future EPIX posts.

Okay, so, before I really get into this, I should mention two relevant contextual things that probably strongly impacted my feelings on this movie.

I’m not super-invested in the sequel trilogy. I love (most of) the characters, I’m not really into the story that’s being told with them.

Given where TLJ left us, I went into the theatre expecting something between A Trainwreck with Some Delightful Moments and A Delightful Trainwreck. Basically, it was going to be a Hot Mess and I knew it, but I was pretty sure there was going to be something to love, even if the film as a whole didn’t delight me (which, honestly, is even where I stand with TLJ, which remains my least favorite film of the series). And, you know what? I got exactly that. A Sometimes-Delightful Trainwreck. I’d say it’s even towards the upper end of that Delightfulness scale.

All right, moving on to actual thoughts. I’m trying to focus on the positive here, mostly because I did overall enjoy this movie, but I also had some Problems with it.

I’m gonna talk about Kylo Ren first, mostly because I want to get this out of the way. I will say that--when I first saw TFA, I thought I could be interested in this character. I thought they were gonna maybe go the burnt-out gifted kid route with him, which would be hella interesting to explore for the child of Heroes like Han and Leia, and the Legacy he had to live up to. Obviously, they didn’t, and while the direction they went is certainly topical, it’s not super engaging, at least to me. I know it is to some people, and far be it from me to harsh anyone’s squee, but he basically doesn’t do anything for me. I personally don’t find him particularly interesting or intimidating.

Basically, I don’t particularly care about Kylo Ren. (I don’t know if I’m quite at the point where, as my roommate puts it, I aggressively Do Not Care, but the Not Caring is definitely a thing.)

Anyway, that disclaimer aside--his arc was okay, I guess? I mean...I think my general feelings on the subject are not that it felt phoned-in, exactly, but that it was mostly there because the writers thought it should be there, rather than it flowing organically from the character(s) involved. It also felt rushed, but that goes back to a problem with the movie as a whole that I will get into later in this post. But, given that, the actual beats that were involved in said arc I thought were effectively done. The bit with Han in the wreckage, in particular, was nice.

As for that Kiss though.

...I mean. I’m actually kind of pleased that the end of the film left the romantic threads dangling? It gave me plenty of OT3 feels (though I felt like, especially in the first third or so, the film was leaning more towards Rey/Poe and Finn/Rose, but there was some later stuff that seemed to hint at the full OT3 with a question mark on where Rose stands.)

But I do have a problem with the fact that the only on-screen kiss between Major Characters was between Rey and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo. That being said, I can backfill/justify it in that...you know how some people headcanon that Luke’s initial crush on Leia was some sort of “There is a Connection Here that I Cannot Name and it’s probably supposed to be Romantic given our ages and genders and presumed lack of other relationship so let’s go with that?” Between something like that and the fact that he just gave up his life for her in a very literal way (side note: the Force has always been New Powers as the Plot Demands; but the healing thing was a) if not actually in a canon novel at least strongly implied and b) ALL OVER fanon so even if I had a problem with Random Force Powers suddenly occurring I wouldn’t have an issue with this one; the Force Diad thing was ~handwave plot device~ sure fine whatever). ...anyway, given all of that, I can backfill it to a way where I don’t hate it (i.e., if he’d lived, I don’t think it would’ve been followed up on very much/they would’ve settled into a non-romantic relationship of some kind, whatever that might’ve been). Except that it’s the only one, which kind of leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Then again, he did immediately die, so...yeah, I can live with this. I don’t like it, and I don’t think I ever will like it, but I don’t hate it either and it’s not a dealbreaker for me.

Most of the other problems I have with this film come down to structure and pacing. In that, thanks to where TLJ left us, this move had to do so much to bring the story to any kind of cohesive end, and not enough time to do it in. Trying to squeeze too much plot into too small a space.

(I actually had the same problem with ROTS initially--although that was more due to the PT having pacing issues as its Primary Narrative Flaw; TPM was way too slow; AOTC actually had good internal pacing but couldn’t quite make up for it; and then ROTS was as a consequence of that really rushed. Meanwhile, with the ST, I feel like the writers are relying on “it’s all there in the manual” a little too much, so not really...trying as hard, if that makes sense? To make it all connect within the film, I mean, as opposed to depending on people going into other/outside/supplemental material to connect the dots (still not as bad as the Prisoner of Azkaban movie on that front, but it’s still Bad; and, like, all film versions of novels leave some stuff out, just look at the LOTR films; but POA left out a key plot point and that--is a rant for another post. Back to EPIX). It’ll be interesting to see what kind of deleted scenes come out, or if it’ll grow on me in future watchings. Not that it’ll ever become a favorite, I don’t think, but it might improve in my eyes.)

Anyway, basically, a lot of this felt rushed or like...introduced but not really addressed/wrapped up in any kind of satisfactory fashion? Kylo Ren’s arc in particular, as I’ve mentioned before, plus the Threepio stuff felt rushed and non-consequential, and also with Rey’s arc to an extent (it...again, all the beats worked for me/I thought it was fairly effective, but it really needed two movies to pay off as well as it could have). ...I mean, there are more plot threads I could probably mention here, but those are the three that stuck out the most.

Also, this movie needed More Rose :( I LOVE HER and she was barely here!!!!!

Another thing I would’ve liked to see is...okay, I really liked the Overlapping Voices bit, but it would’ve been nice to have more Presence from the ghosts? Like...there’s a bit at the end of season 1 of Sailor Moon where she’s in the Final Battle, the other four have died (or just been left behind, if you’re watching the English dub), and their ghosts show up and place their hands on hers and lend her their strength? A visual cue like that would’ve been great and helped the arc feel more complete. Especially since Palpatine had all of his predecessors/Sith ghosts backing him in a more visible fashion. But, then again, that’s a Personal Taste thing and while it would’ve, IMO, made that moment better, not having it doesn’t make it worse, if that makes sense?

(Also, the credits moved too fast for me to track, but I definitely saw Qui-Gon Jinn listed, though I don’t recall hearing him, and I definitely recognized Anakin/Hayden Christensen and Mace/Samuel L. Jackson and Obi-Wan/Ewan McGreggor (and Alec Guinness I’m pretty sure?) and obvs. Yoda/Frank Oz when actually listening, but I couldn’t identify the other voices--anyone have the full list? Was Ahsoka and/or Kanan and/or Ezra involved, or was it restricted to movie-only Jedi?)

But...yeah. Apart from the Kiss being very ....:/ for me, most of my identifiable problems with the film is stuff like this.

I think the other thing I want to talk about in detail is the Rey Palpatine reveal.

So, up until this movie, I was actually in my corner flying my tiny but determined Rey Kenobi flag, and the more I think about it, the more I like Rey Palpatine for some of the same reasons? Like...I don’t remember everything I’d thought through about Rey Kenobi, but it had to do with the cyclical nature of Star Wars, and bringing it back where it started--and we get that with Rey Palpatine, in a nice arc, healing some of the damage her grandfather did, both to this family and to the galaxy as a whole.

That being said--those of you who know me and my fic projects know I’ve been writing a child (daughter) for Palpatine for quite some time now, and I have no intention of stopping, lol. Am I going to take this/Lavinia’s (presumably) half-brother into account in future projects? ...probably not. But I am looking forward to/hoping we get a novel or something about him and Rey’s mother. Because that is actually a story I’m interested in--why canon!Palpatine chose to have a kid, and how said kid managed to break away and got to this point. [...y’know, I actually think Rey Kenobi’s background/thread of descent would be less interesting to me? Since I subscribe to the idea that a) Korkie Kryze is Obi-Wan’s biological son; and b) Obi-Wan had many Friends With Benefits throughout the galaxy and figuring out exactly which one Rey descends from carries less weight for me.]

...okay, I think that’s all the Detaily Bits I want to get into, so here are some bullet points of things that really stuck out to me, in no particular order:

Bawled like a baby re: everything involving Carrie Fisher. Just...yeah. Miss you Space Mommy.

LANDO! I loved his entrance, I loved him adopting Jannah at the end, I loved all of it.

Chewie’s fake-out death was also actually pretty good/well-handled. I mean. First Boom happens and I’m like DDDDDDD: but then I remember how people reacted to his death in Legends and I’m like would they really do it and then DELIGHT.

HUX. Okay. I never really cared about this dude before, and honestly I still don’t really care about this dude but at the same time, those of you who know me know I have a Thing for double-agents and defectors and I LOVE THIS WHOLE ENTIRE PLOT THREAD. I LOVE THIS SHITHEAD TURNING TRAITOR FOR THE MOST VENAL REASONS AND STILL BEING A BAD GUY/EVIL/AN UNREPENTANT JACKASS. THIS WAS PERFECT.

(Also Finn shooting him in the leg instead of the arm as requested was DELIGHTFUL)

SPEAKING OF DELIGHTFUL gotta love Zombie Skeev Palpatine Unliving His Best Afterlife. Was he as Delightful as he is in ROTS or ROTJ? No. Did I still enjoy every minute of his scenery-chewing nonsense? You bet your ass. So happy, Ian McDiarmid looked like he was having tons of fun and honestly what more could I have asked for?

The whole scene on Ahch-To was just *chef’s kiss.* Use of Yoda’s theme with the rising X-Wing, Luke being snarky and kind and beautiful, him emerging from the fire with the saber...just loved it.

LEIA HAD JEDI TRAINING AND HER OWN LIGHTSABER. BB!MARK HAMILL AND BB!CARRIE FISHER’S FACES.

LEIA TRAINING REY. REY CALLING HER ‘MASTER.’

USING THE BOND TO ARM KYLO REN okay like I said I have Mixed Feelings about the arc as a whole but that moment was SO COOL.

Poe’s ex-girlfriend was pretty great, ngl.

JANNAH AND EX-STORMTROOPERS YESSSSSSSS

HINTS OF/SHREDS OF EVIDENCE FOR FORCE-SENSITIVE FINN GIVE THEM TO ME NOW.

D-0 was pretty cute!

All of the Badass Finn.

Also that MOMENT where Finn runs up to Poe like “I NEED TO TELL YOU A THING” and Poe is all “I NEED YOU TO FIGHT WITH ME” and Finn just interrupts himself to thank Poe and they have that “General” “General” moment and it’s SO CUTE I’m love it.

The entire thing at the Lars farm at the end. Just. Burying the lightsabers, seeing the twins’ ghosts, claiming the Skywalker name, Rey having her own saber now. This movie was a Hot Mess but it definitely ended on a high note.

...that’s pretty much what I have for right now. I will probably have more thoughts after discussing it with other people/seeing it again (because I will be seeing it again). But overall...do I like it? Well, it’s Star Wars, which I love and which frankly always has some Super Dumb and/or Frustrating Stuff, and the things I disliked weren’t bad enough to Ruin It for me, so yes, I liked it. Is it my favorite Star Wars/good for a Star Wars movie? ...not really, no. It did have some gorgeous moments, but it doesn’t really hang together. Like the rest of the ST, it relies way too much on It’s All There In The Manual and, between that and the fact that TLJ didn’t do the work necessary to set it up, the movie felt rushed and a little bit...I don’t want to say hollow, maybe shallow is a better word? I mean, I know this is Star Wars and It’s Not That Deep (but the ground is soft and I’m ready to dig or however the quote goes), but this felt particularly shallow even for Star Wars. Like...cotton candy, fairly good/tasty but a little bit prone to melting away and with very little substance holding it together. On that level, I’d actually probably rank it around Solo (which, let me say, I really like)--so, better than TLJ, but still A Hot Mess of a movie. But I enjoyed myself, and I think overall my feelings are middling-to-positive on it. Even if...honestly, even like less than four hours after the movie ending, I’m already forgetting like half the plot points...? Like I said. Cotton Candy.

What did/do you guys think?

#star wars spoilers #sw spoilers #epix spoilers #episode ix spoilers #spoilers #star wars epix #star wars episode ix #epix

[bewitching-elizabeth-olsen]

Press: Elizabeth Olsen Opens Up for Who What Wear's September Cover

  Gallery Links:

Studio Photoshoots > 2019 > Session 006

Studio Photoshoots > 2019 > Session 006 – Behind the Scenes

  WHAT WHEN WEAR: A loose linen blouse. An untouched plate of madeleines. An empty French bistro in the Valley on a Tuesday at 4 p.m. These are the poised circumstances under which I spend an afternoon attempting to better understand one of Hollywood’s most discreet young celebrities: Elizabeth Olsen.

The 30-year-old actress’s identity doesn’t seem like it would lend itself to much mystery. Since 2014, Olsen has starred as the Scarlet Witch in Marvel’s superhero movie franchise—one of the most-watched film series in entertainment history. (This summer’s Avengers: Endgame quickly became the second-highest-grossing movie of all time.) It’s a role she’ll reprise later with WandaVision, a Disney+ spin-off series about her superhero character coming spring 2021. In the meantime, Olsen executive produces and stars in Sorry for Your Loss, a drama series following Olsen as Leigh, a young widow struggling to deal with the sudden loss of her husband. (The show airs on Facebook Watch, and its second season premieres October 1.) By any objective measure, business is booming for Olsen, the younger sibling of Ashley and Mary-Kate, who long ago reached a level of fame so behemoth they no longer need a last name. The Olsens are as much American royalty as the Kennedys or the Rockefellers. I should know everything about Elizabeth Olsen.

And yet, as soon as she walks through the door of Petit Trois (the setting she chose for our interview) and introduces herself to me, it sinks in how little I do know. “I’m Lizzie,” she says with a jumpy half-hug, half-handshake—though the awkwardness is entirely my fault. I’m caught off guard that the young starlet lives just outside of L.A., around the corner from where she grew up (I would have pegged her for more of a hip Eastside girl), and I never knew she went by the cozy nickname. “Thanks for coming to the Valley,” she says, smiling.

Following behind two heavy-hitting child stars turned esoteric fashion moguls, Olsen, who decided at a young age to pursue a career in acting (and obtained a degree in it from NYU), had prodigious shoes to fill. Her on-screen breakout, a critically lauded lead in the 2011 Sundance hit Martha Marcy May Marlene, suggested that Olsen would be taking a cleverly divergent route from her older sisters—one of a risk-taking indie cinema darling. Some of her filmography still reflects that identity—roles in quirky small-budget dramedies like 2012’s Liberal Arts and 2017’s Ingrid Goes West.

Maybe that’s why, even after all the Marvel movies, which are about as commercial as they come, I still see her in that light. Or maybe it’s Olsen’s enigmatic personal life, almost laissez-faire approach to style (“A combination of suburban mom meets little boy,” is how she describes it), and overall serenity of manner that create the sort of intrigue that independent film girls tend to have.

Her current project, Sorry for Your Loss, certainly has some of that indie energy, simply because Facebook Watch is still a new and unknown content platform. Olsen admits that selling the show to Facebook felt like a scary move in the beginning since most audiences don’t know that watching TV on Facebook is a thing at all. Moving into season two, she’s still figuring out the best way to spread the word to audiences. “There is no precedent, and that can be really challenging,” Olsen emphasizes. Still, there are major pluses to the marriage of television and social media, especially for a show that addresses a topic as personal and underrepresented as grief. “The show living on Facebook has been interesting because of the dialogue people get to have about their own experiences with grief and loss on the platform,” Olsen says.

The actress is looking forward to audiences’ feedback on season two, which finds Leigh “taking big swings, making big mistakes, and trying to figure out the balance.” As Olsen says, “Grief isn’t something that you ever just shut a door on or move forward from. It’s very cyclical.”

Olsen, however, will not be participating in these conversations with fans herself, because—ironically—she’s not on Facebook. She didn’t have a trace of social media presence until 2017. She finally downloaded Instagram shortly after the release of Ingrid Goes West, in which she pulls off playing a very convincing L.A. influencer. In contrast to millennial celebrities who use social media to speak about everything from beauty products to social justice, Olsen doesn’t feel the obligation to be any sort of influencer, politically or otherwise. “If I like blending into a wall, screaming from a stage isn’t something that would help me enjoy my life,” she says. “Sometimes I just don’t want to be part of a conversation because I don’t want anyone looking my way.”

As it turns out, privacy and stability inform everything about Olsen’s life—from how she dresses to the roles she chooses—more than any desire to seem “cool.” She lives in suburbia with her fiancé, musician Robbie Arnett, where she enjoys cooking, eating, and dabbling in interior design. “I love food more than I love anything that has to do with clothes,” she says, starkly contrasting her stylish sisters. (Though the actress is more of a beauty girl—she currently serves as a global ambassador for Bobbi Brown Cosmetics.) Categorizing herself as an “obsessive, detailed perfectionist” beset with a heavy dose of social anxiety, Olsen prefers poring over moldings and wood stains than obsessing over how her body looks in a dress and which angle she should pose in.

Transforming into a character—wearing costumes, acting on camera—puts the performer right at home, but photoshoots and red carpets, which give her no role to disappear into, are a source of great distress. “I don’t like standing out in a crowd,” she tells me just after ordering the dainty plate of madeleines. Our server also named raspberry tarts and pains au chocolat on her list of available pastries, but down to her desserts, off-screen Olsen likes to keep it simple.

“At 30, I feel like I’m finally getting to an age that was meant for my personality,” the actress says with no ounce of irony. “Just domesticated. A homebody.” I introduce her to the term JOMO: the joy of missing out. “Yeah… that,” she confirms. “I never feel bad about not leaving my house.”

Quietude feels inherent to Olsen’s personality, but it’s also something she learned from her family. She tells me her parents have had the same group of 10 friends their whole lives; so have her older sisters. Like other famously private Hollywood families (the Coppolas, the Fondas), the Olsens justifiably keep their circles tiny and exclusive to those with whom they have history—those they can trust. “I don’t have too many friends that I’ve met through work,” Olsen says. “I care about privacy. I don’t have a desire for people to speak about me.” Bottom line: Lizzie Olsen is not particularly interested in fame.

Ultimately, no matter how superhuman she appears on the big screen, Olsen values a fairly normal life: She wants her pastries from Petit Trois, where everybody knows her; she wants her white button-downs and her stable paychecks from Facebook and Marvel (most of which she’s been tucking away in savings to prepare for a family, she says). “Maybe I think about things too rationally, but my career goals are longevity and stamina,” Olsen tells me. “Working steadily, feeling challenged, and just kind of hunkering down for a bit.” One day, that paycheck might come from a less visible job; Olsen says that later in life she’d like to go back to school for a degree in architecture, interior design, or landscaping. “I’m interested in the new science of irrigation and water conservation in California,” she shares. “I could be someone who’s lived multiple lives, multiple careers.”

Before heading out, Olsen packs the six madeleines, which have all gone untouched, in a to-go box for later, when she’s home, to savor in her quiet, happy place. “The next career could be a lot more private,” she says. “Maybe. We shall see.”

Press: Elizabeth Olsen Opens Up for Who What Wear’s September Cover was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

#Elizabeth Olsen #Avengers #Scarlet Witch #Avengers Infinity War #Avengers Age of Ultron #Captain America Civil War #Kodachrome #Ingrid Goes West #Godzilla #Sorry For Your loss

[sirius]

Chaos Theory Part 7

Pairing: Cedric Diggory x Reader, Harry Potter x Reader, Draco Malfoy x Reader 

Warnings: Swearing 

Word Count: 6631

A/N: Righteo I am back from holidays and am presenting y’all with Chapter Seven!! As I said before, things are going to be moving along quickly now that I have most of the characters and their backstories away so yeah. Not sure when Chapter 8 will be released at this point so stay tuned! p.s. if you’re Russian or know Russian...i am s o r r y google translate is the worst. just another reminder, just because shawn mendes is my cedric diggory, doesn’t mean that this is my gif. its not. :)))

Chapter Seven:

You’d think that - with such a huge secret to hide - your friends would be better at lying.

Today marks the third consecutive day you’ve walked in on a conversation that has abruptly come to an end, and to say it’s irritating would be the understatement of the century. It’s...grating, being cast into the shadows by your own best friends. It makes you feel like you’re standing on the outside peering in on something that is rapidly growing bigger than anything you can handle.

You’d hoped that when the Beauxbaton and Durmstrang students arrived last night, they would have dropped the cloaked secrecy and the furtive glances and left whatever was happening over the holidays behind. But they continue their murmured conversations when they think you’re not paying attention like they’re conspiring against you, and it has you wondering what you’ve done to warrant such behaviour.

You’ve thought about confronting them, but you’re afraid you might scare them away. You’ve even tried to pry, but they know you too well; Hermione has always caught on and Ron and Harry never elaborate. It genuinely feels like you’re stuck in a loop like a dog chasing its tail, going round and round without achieving anything or finding any answers.

Your feelings of hurt and anger come screeching to a halt when you realise you have secrets of your own. Your investigation into the anonymous letter you received over the holidays has trailed off into dead ends and cold leads, for neither you nor Hermione knows what the strange snake symbol on the back of the photo means. Hermione pointed out that the snake eating itself is called an Ouroboros, and symbolises the cyclical nature of life. Alternatively, she offered the theory that it could represent how we all eventually become our own destruction, but you’re not sure how that relates to you and Cedric...

Still, it’s a secret you’re keeping shielded from Ron and Harry, and it will remain that way for now.

So when you come down the stairs from the girls dormitory and into the Gryffindor common room early Saturday morning, you try to keep calm, composed and unsurprised that Ron and Hermione’s whispered conversation has trailed off into an awkward silence. You swallow back your frustration and plaster a smile you hope looks natural.

“Morning,” you chirp, cheerily.

“Morning, (Y/N),” Ron and Hermione say in unison. You settle onto the arm of Ron’s chair and he reaches up to softly pat your head.

“Where’s Harry?” You ask, glancing around the room curiously. There is a beat of silence, hesitation hanging heavy in the air.

“Gone for a walk,” Ron finally says, “He’s been worried about Si- er - Snuffles,” Ron quickly corrects himself as a group of guffawing third years stroll past him.

“Yeah,” you sigh as you recall Harry telling the three of you about his most recent letter to Sirius, “You think Snuffles will be able to tell Harry’s lying?”

“Oh, of course,” Hermione says, “Snuffles is far too clever and he knows Harry quite well. I don’t know why Harry even bothered trying to lie to him.”

“He just doesn’t want Snuffles to worry,” you reply, softly, understandingly, thinking of the secret pin board hanging on your wall with an irritating pinch of guilt, “He doesn’t want Snuffles to get sent back to - ah - the kennel just because of him. And, honestly, if I were in Harry’s position, I would have done the same.”

“If you were in Harry’s position,” Hermione snips, composedly, “You wouldn’t be so stubborn!”

“Are you sure about that?” Ron asks, glancing uneasily at you. You rub a bead from your bracelet between your fingers, nails grazing across your wrist.

“What are you two on about?” You ask, impatiently, glancing between the two of them and gulping back the irritation climbing up your throat.

Ron’s mouth falls open to explain but he doesn’t get a chance to. He’s interrupted by the portrait door, which swings open with a low groan and reveals a thoughtful Harry Potter, looking pensive a little unhinged. When he spots you, he flashes a small smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Morning,” he greets, walking over to the three of you, “You guys ready for breakfast?”

You all nod in agreement and follow Harry out of the common room, heading toward the Great Hall. Ron and Hermione stride ahead, keeping a fair amount of distance between them as they begin to argue. Not wanting to be the mediator to one of their many fights, you decide to hang back with Harry. At least you’ll be able to chat with him alone for the first time in over a month.

“So...” you begin, slowly, “I’ve noticed that you're-you haven’t been yourself. Are you worried about - you know - Snuffles?”

Harry glances uneasily at his feet, raking a hand through his hair. It bristles rebelliously, standing atop his head like an electric shock.

“Yeah - I mean - I know Snuffles can handle himself but I just...” Harry tugs his bottom lip between his teeth as he tries to string his words together, “...He’s the only real family I have now. And if I could - if I could just move away from the Dursley’s and live with Snuffles forever I would, y’know? But I don’t want to lose him like I lost...” Harry trails off into silence, fidgeting with his glasses.

You smile softly at him, leaning into him and looping your arm through his. He stiffens at first, which you find odd since you’ve always been the affectionate sort and Harry has grown accustomed to your random acts of affection, but then he relaxes into you and you let it slip your mind. You breathe in the smell of mint and tea, visualising the way the scent blossoms in your lungs like spring flowers in a vase.

“You know, Snuffles isn’t your only family,” you say, softly, carefully, with as much authenticity as you can muster, “Hermione, Ron...me. We’re your family too, always. We’re just as annoying as family, anway...”

Harry chuckles, the sound rumbling softly from the back of his throat in that way that always made you smile, “Yeah, I know. Thanks, I guess.”

“‘Thanks, I guess,’” you echo, poking him in the side and laughing as Harry recoils, “You are such a dork.”

You rest your head on Harry’s shoulder as you stroll down the hallways, smiling as the two of you slip into a comfortable silence.

For a few lingering moments, everything feels normal, like there isn’t a huge, gaping hole filled to the brim with all the things you have left unspoken. You miss these moments with Harry, where it had been the two of you without the invisible presence of something ominous looming over you. After all, Harry had met you first, in Flourish and Blott’s years ago, before Ron and Hermione and three-headed dogs, large Basilisks and soul-hungry Dementors. It had been you and Harry and an awkward encounter in a bookstore that had left a promise of friendship in the air and a goofy grin on your face.

You close your eyes, capturing this feeling in an imaginary jar like a mad lepidopterist catching butterflies.

As you approach the Entrance Hall, Harry clears his throat, puncturing the silent bubble that had formed around you.

“So - um,” Harry begins, awkwardly scratching his neck, “Can I - Can I ask you something?”

You lift your head from his shoulder, staring at him thoughtfully, “Of course, Harry.”

“Right,” he plays with his glasses again, fingers fumbling around the frame, “Right, well, uh, so there’s-there’s this girl-“

“-Ah, a girl,” you grin teasingly and Harry flushes, “Do tell.”

“Right. Yes, well this girl, well I really like her and I’ve-I’ve liked her for a while now but I – I think – no – I know that she likes someone else... so what do I do?”

You knit your brows together, carefully turning Harry’s words over in your mind, “I would just talk to her, let her know how you feel. Does she-can you tell she really likes this person?”

“Yeah,” Harry sighs, sadly, his shoulders slumping a little, “Yeah I-yeah. She definitely likes this guy...”

“Oh,” you mumble, squeezing his arm, “Well, in that case, I think it’d be best to...um...not say anything for now. At the moment, I think you should just be yourself and support her and if she’s clever enough, she will catch on at some point...” you lick your lips and tug your bottom lip, “But don’t give up! Just because you can’t say anything now, doesn’t mean you won’t be able to later.”

“Uh-yeah,” Harry nods and swallows. You watch him expectantly, waiting for him to elaborate and intrigued by the blush staining his cheeks, but he remains silent.

“Well?” You prompt, brows raised, “Are you going to tell me who this lucky girl is or are you going to leave me hanging?”

“Um...” Harry glances away, clears his throat, “Just a...uh...a girl. She’s a girl.”

You snort a laugh, slapping his shoulder playfully, “You already told me that. For real, though, what’s her name? Is she in our Year? Is she a Gryffindor? Ooh, do I know her?”

“I-I think so - I mean - yeah, well ” Harry stammers, cheeks crimsoning, “She’s...um...she’s–”

“(Y/N)!” calls a familiar, masculine voice from somewhere ahead of you, and you beam brightly, spotting your brother as he approaches. An impressively tall and handsome Durmstrang student strides beside him, piquing your interest as they draw closer.

“Good morning, Luke,” you grin archly, sliding your arm out from Harry’s. Luke ruffles your hair playfully and laughs at your disgruntled expression.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Luke teases, grinning, “You know you’d be lost without your full dose of Lukas Arden love. Hey Harry, my man.”

Luke turns to Harry, smirking as he raises his fist and swoops in for a fist bump with Harry. They briefly exchange pleasantries, joking and laughing as they usually do, but your attention is drawn to the Durmstrang student currently eying you like a wolf observing its prey.

He’s handsome, deceptively so; all chiselled features and all kinds of razor sharp edges. His dirty-blond hair is trimmed neatly and sleek, and he has these eyes, eyes that contain the same frenzied chaos of a collapsing star; grey-blue irises that dance and swirl around pupils that could suck you in like a black hole. He reminds you of crisp, paper bills and the cool edge of a blade; wealthy, businesslike and lethal, and there’s something ominous about him that screams trouble, something you can’t quite pinpoint.

“By the way, this is Kazimir Volkov,” Luke begins, gesturing toward his Durmstrang friend, “Or Kaz. Kaz, this is my sweet, little sister, (Y/N), and her best friend Ha-”

You roll your eyes in exasperation, “By ‘sweet, little sister’ he obviously means the superior sibling.”

“Vell, obviously,” Kaz says, his husky accent rolling off his tongue and flowing from his lips like a smoke signal. He takes your hand in his and places a delicate, tender kiss to it, “You cerrtainly arre the krasiveye”

Kaz gently releases your hand, locking his gaze on yours. You’re temporarily taken off guard, heat rising into your cheeks as he gazes up at you with startlingly blue eyes. Kaz’s eyes finally flit away after a long moment, glancing at Luke, who smirks and gives a small shrug.

“Well, you’re not wrong.”

“Hang on, I think I’m missing something here,” Harry chimes in, brows knitted in mild confusion, “Krazavee?”

“Krasiveye,” Luke corrects, “It means ‘Prettier One’ in Russian.”

“You speak Rrusskiy?” Kaz asks, impressed.

“The Arden Children know many languages,” Luke explains, winking at you, “As you probably already know, Harry, (Y/N) is fluent in the Romance languages; Italian, French, Spanish. And I chose to study some of the more...difficult languages. It’s a family requirement.”

“Our father wanted us to learn different languages, including Latin,” You finish, not missing the way Luke bristles at the mention of your father, “Call it tradition.”

“Vell, it’s a pleasurre to meet other akademics,” Kaz remarks, smirking coyly at you.

“So Kaz,” you begin, awkwardly tickling the itch in your wrist, “Are you going to put your name in the Goblet of Fire?”

“I have niet interrest in selfish vanity zat zis tourrnament endorrses,” Kaz says, in a dismissive kind of tone, “I’m morre interrested in explorring new places and meeting new people,” Kaz stares pointedly at you and smirks.

“What about you, Luke?” Harry asks, and Luke smirks.

“I don’t need to enter some competition to know I’m a champion,” Luke replies, smugly, lips curling into a teasing smirk.

“Humble as always,” You snip, sardonically, rolling your eyes at Luke, “Anyway, Ron and Hermione are inside having breakfast and I think we’re going to go and visit Hagrid later on today so Harry and I better-“

“Harrry?” Kaz asks, arching an eyebrow and eying Harry with mild interest, as though really noticing him for the first time, “As in Ze Harrry Potterr?”

Harry nods, gaze flicking to his feet. Kaz’s smirk stretches sharply across his face.

“Ve have hearrd many interresting zings about you back in Rrussia. You arre something of celebrrity herre, da?”

“Um....” Harry mumbles, shrugging, “Yeah I-I guess.”

“Harry’s very modest,” Luke remarks, giving Harry a playful punch in the shoulder, “He’s like a rockstar around these parts, except with less drugs and more groupies.”

You frown at your brother as Harry flushes, cheeks as red as a freshly-plucked red rose. There is a beat of silence where you can feel Kaz’s curious eyes raking over you. You don’t meet his eye, instead choosing to stare at a loose thread on Harry’s shoulder.

Nearby, Cho Chang and her Ravenclaw friends walk past, her friends giggling girlishly and blushing when they spot Luke. Luke grins, winking and waving as they pass, but his eyes follow Cho as though drawn to her like a magnet. Cho glances at him and blushes, smiling gently at Luke. 

You tilt your head curiously, feeling the way your grin fills out across your lips.

“Anyway,” Luke suddenly blurts, “We had better-“ he jabs a thumb in the direction of his friends, who loiter with other Durmstrang students behind Luke and Kaz in the distance.

“It vas pleasurre to meet you both,” Kaz says, nodding to both you and Harry.

“You too,” you and Harry mumble in unison, and Luke snorts a laugh.

“Later, you two.” Luke gives Harry a cheery salute and ropes you into a one-armed hug, squeezing tightly. He laughs when you squirm, muttering curses into his chest until you manage to pull yourself free and rearrange your clothes.

Both of you watch Kaz and Luke return to their friends, Luke’s casual saunter looking embarrassingly lazy next to Kaz’s long strides.

“Well that was...interesting,” Harry notes, his eyes following Kaz as he leaves.

dYou open your mouth to agree but stop when you spot Noah Underwood from across the room. With a shock, you realise that he has been staring at you for quite some time, and he nods toward the courtyard, silently indicating for you to follow him. Reluctantly, you break away from Harry.

“I’m sorry Harry,” you murmur, giving him an apologetic look and ignoring the sharp sting of guilt in your chest, “Can we continue this discussion later? Something has just come up.”

Harry’s mouth flaps open, looking both stunned and oddly relieved.

“Yeah, sure. Sure, thanks for - er - for listening.”

You flash him a warm, gentle smile, “Anytime, Harry. I’m always here for you.”

With that, you break away from him and follow Noah toward the Courtyard, fixing a polite smile over your feelings of unease.

As you approach him, you can’t help thinking how odd it is, given that Noah has been so careful to avoid you over the past month or so. You’ve hardly spoken outside of The Howler meetings, only communicating when absolutely necessary, and even then he’s been coldly distant. But as you draw closer to him, you notice that there is a specific look about him; a touch of unease chipping the edges of his carefully arranged mask. It’s both unnerving and intriguing at the same time.

You step out into the Courtyard and are immediately met with a cool exhale of autumn air, tangling in your hair as ribbons of sunlight caress your cheeks.

“Morning Noah,” you smile, trying to swallow back your nerves, “How are-?”

“-I want to help with your investigation,” he interrupts, glancing at his feet.

You stare at him, bewildered by his request, “What? - I mean - Why?”

“I still haven’t found who stole my camera,” he explains, “And I really need to find it.”

“Why?”

Noah squints, furrowing his brows in equal parts confusion and offence as he folds his arms over his chest, “Why is it an issue?”

“It’s not,” You blurt, fiddling nervously with your bracelet, “I just-I-I don’t understand why you want to help me when – well – one, we don’t know each other very well and, two, you’ve been avoiding me for over a month.”

Noah scoffs, the corners of his lips quirking as though he’s trying to smile but doesn’t know how to, “That’s what I do. I avoid people, it’s nothing personal.”

You nod, nails scraping across the skin of your wrist, “Okay, well, that’s fair, but that still doesn’t answer my question.”

Noah licks his lips and considers you for a moment like he’s silently deliberating something over in his mind. It’s unnerving, having his dark dark eyes study you so intensely, as though he were peeling your flesh from bone and unstitching your thoughts, watching your secrets unspool into his hands and pin them down with razor-sharp needle points.

In the distance, a crow caws a low, gurgling noise that echoes through the silence, seconds feeling like hours under the intensity of his stare. Finally, after a long, uncomfortable pause, he concedes with a sigh, licking his lips and staring at his shoes.

“That camera was given to me by my sister, Maia,” Noah murmurs, so softly you can barely hear him, “It’s one of the only things I have left of her.”

A heavy, metallic-like ball of guilt hangs heavy in the bottom of your stomach as you chew the inside of your cheek, tongue swirling over the bite marks as you repeat the pattern.

“Right,” you mutter, heat rising to your cheeks, “I’ll-erm-talk to Hermione.”

Noah nods, his expression a blank canvas, before he leaves, abruptly. You watch him curiously, his robes billowing out behind him, his head ducked and his posture slouched like he’s trying to shrink into the tiniest of shadows. He makes you feel like you’re a villain every time you talk to him and you can’t help but wonder why...

The hairs at the back of your neck raise, a shudder crawling up your spine like a ladder. Goosebumps prickle your skin, sending chills throughout your body as you become aware of someone watching you.

You spin around, searching the courtyard, scanning every corner. Steeling your spine and squaring your shoulders, you clamp down on your fear, gripping the sides of your sleeves with fierce determination.

“Who’s there?” You ask, hating the way your voice trembles ever-so-slightly. You’re met with complete silence. You wait a moment longer, eyes squinting as you survey the area. A crow lands on a branch nearby, flapping its wings as it caws. It looks at you, cocks it’s head like it’s sizing you up, clips it’s beak like hungry, snapping jaws.

You exhale a shaky sigh of relief and whirl around, leaving the prickly feeling of paranoia behind in the courtyard as you make your way toward the Great Hall.

***

When you tell Hermione about your latest encounter with Noah in the library after lunch, she doesn’t even sound surprised.

“Interesting,” she muses from behind a large, dusty copy of A Brief History of House Elves, “Did you ask why he wants to join?”

You bite your lip a little too hard, tasting the metallic tang of blood on your tongue, “He still hasn’t found his camera and-and it was a gift from his sister.”

“Oh...”

“Yeah...”

A beat of contemplative silence passes, stretches, lingers. In the distance, Madam Pince hushes a group of giggling Ravenclaws gushing over a brooding Viktor Krum.

“Seems odd that he wants to help when all he’s getting out of it is his camera,” Hermione finally murmurs, regarding you over the top of her book.

“I know,” you sigh, pushing away The Registration Act for Magical Beasts Volume VI “But I-I can kind of understand him because...well...” your fingers find the bracelet hugging your wrist and plays with it, “If I ever lost this bracelet...”

Hermione’s eyes snap up to you from her book for the first time since you both arrived at the Library and her expression softens, “(Y/N)...”

“It’s okay,” you say, nonchalantly, as your fingers drift to a loose thread on the hem of your corduroy mini skirt, “No big deal.”

Hermione nibbles her bottom lip thoughtfully, internally weighing her options. Finally, she nods, “Okay. I mean, he can’t see the pin board but he can help. The more people involved in this, the better.”

You recognise her thinly-veiled suggestion and work your jaw, “No. Harry and Ron are not getting involved in this...”

“Why?” Hermione asks, briskly, “We’ve always done things together as a team. Why should this be any different?”

“Because it’s not about Harry or Hogwarts or saving the world,” you snap, earning a glare from Madam Pince, “This was sent to me, making it my problem. It’s personal. We worked as a team for Harry and for the safety of others. I need to do this to protect Cedric!”

Hermione falls silent, her expression softening once again. Her eyes move over you carefully, sympathetically, as though she were trying to stitch you together. You avert your gaze, cheeks burning. You hate it when she looks at you like that.

“I’m just...I’m going to go and get another book,” You mutter, tearing yourself away from the table. Hermione doesn’t say anything as you leave, and you’re not sure if that’s a good thing or bad thing.

You dash into an aisle and exhale a trembling sigh. Involving Harry and Ron would only create more problems. Whoever had sent this had made it personal, which was why they had dragged Cedric into it. They were reaching out to you, and whatever they want can’t be good. Harry has been through enough, he doesn’t need this.

“Something on your mind, Arden?”

You roll your eyes, working your jaw as you recognise the familiar, annoying drawl addressing you from behind.

“And why would you care, Malfoy?”

Draco Malfoy chuckles bitterly as you turn to face him, fingers clenched into white-knuckled fists by your side. He’s leaning against a bookshelf, arms crossed over his chest as his pale blue eyes sweep over you lazily.

“I don’t,” He sighs, lifting himself off the shelf and sauntering toward you, “Personally, I care more for that big oaf of a half-giants Blast-Ended Skrewts than I do about your childish dilemmas.”

You roll your eyes, again, “I prefer you as a ferret. At least then you knew to keep your fat mouth shut if you didn’t have anything nice to say.”

Draco’s nostrils flare, eyes glinting, “You seem more insufferable than usual, did you have a fight with your boyfriend?”

“Maybe I don’t like it when people are rude to my face,” you snap, coldly, “Have you ever thought of that?”

“It’s not that I haven’t thought of it,” Draco snips, “It’s just that I don’t care. At all.”

Your teeth clamp down on the inside of your cheek, biting hard enough to draw blood. This ruthless, verbal tug-of-war between the two of you could last a lifetime and you still wouldn’t have moved anywhere. Calmly, composedly, you straighten your spine and square your shoulders, releasing a heavy, exasperated exhale.

“Listen, Draco, I’m kind of going through a thing right now and I just - I just don’t want to argue with you. Please, just go...”

Draco arches an eyebrow, considering you shrewdly, “So you did have a fight with your little boyfriend?”

Angry tears prick your eyes and you spin around, storming down the aisle, trying to keep as much distance between you and Draco as possible.

“Arden!” Draco snaps, his voice hooking around you like a lasso and rooting you to the floor. You hear him approach you but you don’t dare to spin around, feeling a familiar sting in the back of your eyes, “Did you ask Underwood about the photo?”

You turn to face him and are immediately alarmed by how close he is to you. He stares down at you in mild interest, cold eyes suddenly brimmed with something strange, foreign almost, a look of mingled intrigue and curiosity and...concern? Guilt? You’re not sure, but you find it odd regardless.

“Yes,” you murmur, your thumb rubbing soothing patterns on your wrist, “He denies that it’s his photo.”

A course, indignant scoff scapes up the back of Draco’s throat, “He’s lying, Arden. I know it’s his photo-“

“-Why are you telling me this?” You blurt, interrupting him. Draco narrows his eyes on you as you continue, “Are you deliberately trying to mislead me for your own entertainment? Because it’s not just about me it’s about Cedric, too-“

“Ah, the boyfriend,” Draco huffs, expression contorting into a look of venomous disdain, “Of course it’s about him!”

“Well, why wouldn’t it be?” You snap, angrily, “He was in that photo, too, meaning he’s been dragged into whatever mess this is that I’m dealing with. So if you have one decent bone in your body, you will realise that and you will stop trying to antagonise me all the fucking time-!”

“-(Y/N)!” Hermione’s voice whispers from behind, and you whirl around, spotting an incensed  Madam Pince. She raises a skeletal finger to her thin, pursed lips and hushes you and Draco from across the room.

You wince apologetically at her and turn back to face Draco, finding that his expression has darkened, blue eyes glaring at you like the angry tip of a merciless wand.

“Fine,” he snaps, coldly, “But just so you know, you can’t trust Noah Underwood. He’s a liar.”

“And how am I supposed to trust you?” You hiss, angrily, “All you’ve ever done to me and my best friends is bully us.”

Draco slides his tongue across the cushion of his bottom lip, taking it between his teeth. The action only adds to your anger, and you grind your jaw from losing your temper again.

“You can’t,” he finally says, “But I don’t like to waste my words.”

“Waste your wor-what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

But Draco is gone before you can get an answer, sidling down the aisles and toward the exit. Your eyes follow him as he leaves, wary and offended and outraged and a little intrigued, maybe a little curious. Why had he taken a sudden interest in your life? He’s never cared in the past, why should he care now?

Hermione approaches you, cowering under the weight of five large books. She heaves them onto the bench and irons out her top, straightening her skirt with a sigh.

“What was that about?” She asks, warily.

You work your jaw, asking yourself the exact same question.

***

Harper Shacklebolt is the only person in the Newsroom when you go there later on in the afternoon.

She’s sitting at her desk, leafing through a stack of papers with her brows furrowed in thought, her hazel eyes narrowed in concentration. She doesn’t notice you at first, far too involved in whatever she’s reading, but then you clear your throat and she startles, scrambling to collect the pieces of parchment and drag them into her top drawer.

“(Y/N)!” She gasps, shoving her drawer closed, “What are you doing here? It’s Saturday and the feast will be starting in a couple of hours.”

A page of parchment floats to the ground from her desk and you pick it up, glimpsing at the initials ‘O.W.’ scribbled in barely-readable chicken scratch on the bottom of the page.

Harper snatches the page from your grasp and stuffs it into the draw.

“I wanted to submit my Halloween article in for you,” you smile, trying to set her nerves at ease as she struggles to force the drawer shut. You thrust the two-page article onto the table and Harper picks it up to read it, narrowing her eyes and skimming the page.

“Great,” she snips, dismissively, “Thank you. Now if you could please leave, I have other matters to attend to.”

You nod and wheel around, biting your bottom lip to stop yourself from grinning as you stroll down the corridor.

So, Harper has a secret pen pal that she doesn’t want anyone from learning about. Harper has always been ambitious and hard working, throwing herself into the Newsletter and her school work and losing herself in it. Perhaps it has something to do with her father...

“Oh!” You gasp, nearly running into a broad chest. You peer up and immediately feel a prickly heat bleed into your cheeks.

“(Y/N)! Sorry I startled you,” says the melodic voice of Cedric Diggory, “I was just on my way to talk to you!”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Cedric slides his teeth across his bottom lip, “I wanted to know if you had a moment.”

You feel your lips stretch on their own accord, curling into what you hope is a soft and natural smile, “Of course! What’s wrong?”

“Well,” Cedric behinds, scratching the back of his neck, “There’s nothing wrong per-say, I was just wondering if you’d like to come for a walk with me...”

You take his hand and interlace your fingers, silently accepting his offer. Cedric grins and the two of you amble down the corridor, heading toward the Courtyard.

“It feels like we haven’t hung out in ages,” You remark, swinging your joined hands together.

“I know,” Cedric sighs, “I’m sorry. I don’t know about you but homework has been intense.”

“I know!” You agree, “Though I’m sure it’s worse for you...being a seventh year and all.”

Cedric shrugs, a sheepish smile creeping across his lips, “Yeah, there is a bit of pressure, but It’s good to have something - or someone - to focus on.” He glances shyly at you, and you feel heat spread across your cheeks.

“Is that what you say to all the girls?” You ask, flashing a simpering smile.

“How could I?” He grins, “The only girl I can possibly focus on is you.”

He winces and you bite your bottom lip, tucking it between your teeth.

“Sorry, that was corny. You have a way of bringing out the cornier side of me...”

“I never said that was a bad thing,” you giggle, “I find it endearing,”

Cedric flushes, and your heart swells, brushing painlessly against the wall of your chest.

You and Cedric lapse into a comfortable silence, your hands locked together in a warm embrace. It gives you time to silently tame your heart, reining it in from where it's floating around haphazardly in your chest.

“So...” Cedric beings, slowly, “I-I want to tell you something...” You glance up at him, curiously studying the way Cedric chews his bottom lip nervously before he continues, “...I-I put my name in the Goblet of Fire.”

You come to a stop, still holding Cedric’s hand. A tight, tense knot of nervous energy tugs inside your chest.

“O-oh,” You stammer, furrowing your brows, “Isn’t-Isn’t it dangerous?”

“Yeah,” Cedric shrugs, “But the champions will be protected. They’re a lot more safeguards this time round...”

You nod, understanding but not even feeling a tiny bit relieved, “Okay.”

A beat of silence passes between the two of you.

“Are you mad?” Cedric asks concern bleeding into the blue of his eyes. You meet his gaze and you untangle your fingers from him, resting your hands on his shoulders.

“Of course not,” You say, giving him what you hope is an encouraging smile, “I am so proud of you, and I always will be...”

Cedric smiles and takes your hands in his, holding them to his lips. He begins to press gentle kisses onto your smooth skin, like he’s trying to memorise the way you feel on his lips, kisses trailing down your palm and onto the inside of your wrist. A strange, unfamiliar feeling of warmth splutters in the pit of your stomach like you’ve drunk too much butterbeer or you’ve inhaled pure sunlight.

“I know,” he murmurs, smiling, “And that’s what I love about you.”

“What you love...?” You breathe, voice gentle on your lips. Cedric beams.

“Yeah,” Cedric’s smile fades as he gazes into your eyes, “What I love.”

The two of you continue down the hallway, your heart humming like the strings of a harp.

***

Cedric walks you to Hagrid’s hut and you peck him on the cheek as he leaves.

You’ll never tire of his reaction; all flushed cheeks and goofy grins that has your heart soaring like a kite in your chest. You’re practically floating when the gigantic, wooden door swings open, revealing a beaming Hagrid.

“(Y/N)! I was jus abou’ ter find yeh,” Hagrid says as Fang bounds out the door and leaps up to lather your face in sloppy kisses. You stagger backwards, giggling as Fang excitedly licks you before Hagrid barks at him to drop.  Hagrid ushers you inside and Fang follows, wagging his tail excitedly, “I - er - wanted ter talk ‘bout summat without the other three knowin’, if yeh don mind.”

“Not at all, Hagrid-“ you start to say but trail off into a stutter as you goggle at Hagrid’s attire. He was wearing that horrible hairy suit that looked like he had just skinned a bear and tried to sew it together, and his thick hair has been tackled and tamed into what looks like two very bushy ponytails. You gawk at him, speechless for a moment, before you clear your throat and compose yourself, “I’ll-I’ll put the kettle on.”

Hagrid beams at you as he leads you into the one-roomed hut. You wander into the kitchen and heave the kettle onto the large stove top, where a large cauldron bubbles and boils away. Hagrid retrieves a large plate of rock cake and places it on the table excitedly. He then stumps around to his bedroom, rattling the plates on his shelves.

“So, what’s the special occasion?” You call from the kitchen. Hagrid stomps back into the kitchen and helps you pour the boiling water into a teapot.

“Jus wanted ter make sure I’m looking me best,” Hagrid says, his cheeks burning beneath his thick, wiry beard, “Its a special occasion!”

You retrieve five teacups and plates and set them on the large coffee table before taking a seat in one of the comfortable armchairs beside the log fire, cocking an eyebrow at him and studying him shrewdly, “Is there anything else you want to add?”

Hagrid lumbers toward the lounge room, brandishing the large teapot, and drops into his oversized armchair.

“Tha’s what I wanted ter talk ter yer abou,” Hagrid mumbles, glancing at his giant feet, “See, I met a - er - someone-“

“Madam Maxime, you mean?” You ask, sipping your tea, though it’s more of a statement than it is a question. Hagrid gapes at you and you snort a bubbly laugh, “You’re not exactly discreet, Hagrid.”

“Righ’...” Hagrid trails off sheepishly, eyes darting between your grinning face and his feet, “Yes, well...Madam Maxime...She’s a wonderful woman an I-I wan ter impress her...”

“That’s why you’re all dressed up,” you grin, watching as Hagrid’s cheeks glow, “To impress Madam Maxime...”

“An for the Feast!” Hagrid adds, hastily, and you chortle, nipping your bottom lip.

“You don’t have to do much to impress her, Hagrid,” you remark, smiling fondly at your friend, “Just be yourself and talk to her, you’re impressive enough. And if she doesn’t like you, then you know it’s not meant to be.”

Hagrid beard twitches into a broad grin, his beady, black eyes glittering like obsidian, “Well tha’s nice of yer ter say but what do I say ter her?”

You shrug, thinking back to what you and Cedric talked about at the Quidditch World Cup, “Talk about your interests! Find common ground! Ask her what she likes, what Beauxbaton is like, what France is like. People like to talk about themselves so ask her lots of questions.”

Hagrid listens avidly, taking mental notes with keen interest.

“And take her on a date!” You suggest, smiling, “Even if it’s just a walk around Hogwarts, you’re still spending time with her.”

A contemplative silence passes between the two of you, in which Hagrid seems to be absorbing all this new information like a sponge.

“You know,” you begin, slowly, “You’re the second person who has come to me about this topic, the first being Harry.”

Hagrid’s brows nearly graze his hairline, “Oh so he finally told yeh, did he?”

“Told me what?” You ask, brows creasing, “Hagrid, do you know anything about what’s going on between Harry, Ron and Hermione?”

Hagrids mouth flaps open, spluttering on his words, “Erm - well - Er -yeh see -”

Knock, knock, knock.

Fang leaps to his feet and scampers to the door, barking loudly at the visitors. Hagrid moves to get out of his chair but you beat him to it, springing to your feet.

“I’ll get it,” you say, walking towards the door.

You pull it open and find Ron, Hermione and Harry standing on Hagrid’s doorstep patiently, confirming your suspicions. You greet them with a smile and a happy ‘Hey guys’, stepping aside to let them in.

“I thought we were supposed to meet in the Entrance Hall,” Ron says, patting your head as he passes, “We were waiting for you...”

“Sorry,” you mumble, catching Harry’s eye, “I was...in the area so I thought I’d just head straight to Hagrid’s. Honestly, I thought you’d already be here.”

Ron gives you a quizzical look as Hagrid stomps toward them.

“Hello, yer three,” Hagrid cheers, pouring them cups of tea, “Bout time you visited. Thought you’d forgotten where I live!”

“Sorry, Hagrid,” Hermione apologises, quickly, “We’ve all been really busy-” Hermione falls silent, stopping so abruptly, Harry and Ron nearly crash into her. Ron starts to complain but stops when he sees Hagrid, and you have to stifle a laugh at their identical expressions of shock and surprise, gawking at Hagrid.

“That a new look, Hagrid?” Ron asks, and Hagrid beams.

“You like it? I’m tryin’ summat different,” Hagrid says, gesturing to his hair.

“O-Kay?”

Hagrid ushers the four of you into the comfortable armchairs and you enjoy the rest of the afternoon with Hagrid, ignoring the pang of hurt that twinges in your chest whenever you remember that Hagrid knows more about your situation than you do.

***

Cedric Diggory’s Name is plucked from the Goblet of Fire, and the entire Hufflepuff table roars with cheers and applause. 

You can’t help but beam with pride as Cedric’s gaze catches yours from across the rows of tables and he grins this dazzlingly beautiful grin, soft lips pulling back to reveal a perfectly straight row of gleaming white teeth, and you know in that moment that this is his special smile, one he keeps just for you. 

The uproar continues, stretching, echoing across the Great Hall, their joy and excitement so contagious that you, too, leap to your feet and cheer alongside the Hufflepuffs. When the applause dies down, Dumbledore begins to speak again, smiling broadly as the hum of excitement buzzed in the air, like bumblebees on a spring day...

“Well, that was exciting,” you murmur in an undertone to Harry. You spot Ron’s slightly disgruntled expression and jut your chin at him, “Whats wrong with Ron?” 

“I think Ron is still in disbelief that Cedric is Hogwarts Champion...” Harry mutters back. 

“Why? Because he thinks Hufflepuffs are all dumb because they’re the only people who have the courage to value kindness over everything else?” 

“Nah, He’s still bitter over Cedric catching the snitch last year...”

You roll your eyes at that, shaking your head, “Honestly, he can be so childish sometimes. Are you still ‘bitter’ about last year?” 

Harry shrugs, “Not really. But I...” Harry pauses, falls silent. You narrow your eyes on him. 

“What are–?” you begin to ask, but you stop when you suddenly see the Goblet of Fire flare. 

Sitting on the jewelled box like Baal perched on a throne, The Goblet bursts to life, a long, red tongue of fire shooting from the centre, offering up from its fiery depths a fourth champion worthy of the tournament.

Dumbledore gapes for a long moment, shocked. He approaches it warily, pulls away the piece of paper, and stares.

A stunned silence suspends in the air, heavy with tension and seemingly unanswerable questions. No one really knows what to say or do except stare at Dumbledore and hope that there is some sort of explanation for what has just happened-

Dumbledore finally reads out the fourth champion, and an invisible hook yanks your heart up into your throat.

“Harry Potter.”

This isn’t going to end well.

***

@marauderskeeper @weaselby418 @acciorinn @hervench @harrvjpotter @harrvjpotter @depressed-octopods-art @romanofftasha @moonpeachs @em-loser @steph-fowlie @lilulo-12 @randomfangirl17 @asofslytherin @seunlight @elsie2018 @hylianhighlander @bernadineisreborn @lousimusician @randomoutsiders @smalldork  

if i’ve missed you, i’m sorry! pls let me know in the replies or by message. ily

#cedric diggory x reader #harry potter #draco malfoy #draco malfoy x reader #harry potter x reader #draco malfoy imagine #harry potter imagine #cedric diggory imagine #cedric x reader #draco x reader #harry x reader #draco malfoy fluff #harry potter fluff #hp #imagine #fluff #cedric diggory fluff #draco imagine #georgie writes #chaos theory

[daresplaining]

i finished both mark waid's runs on daredevil and i have to say: that was one hell of an ending. but it also makes me even more upset about soule's run. it seemed to me matt was finally making progress and was gonna enter a new chapter in his life where he didnt have to hide from anyone or anything. and then soule just sort of undid all that. what do you think would've happened to matt kirsten and foggy if things weren't reset so to speak?

    Yes, that broke my heart (I’m not ashamed to say I cried when I read the first issue of Soule’s run because of this). Matt’s character development throughout Waid’s run was some of the most powerful and emotional work that has ever been done with Matt (and that’s saying something!), and while emotional stagnation and retcons are an unfortunate side effect of decades-long comics like Daredevil, I really hoped that work would carry over. Instead, it’s all pretty much gone now– Matt’s positive attitude, his public identity, the relationships he cultivated during that run and his willingness to open up to the people close to him– and even worse, the mind wipe damaged all of his relationships, some of which had been built up through literally hundreds of issues of character development. Natasha Romanov no longer knows he is Daredevil. Peter Parker no longer knows. Ben Urich no longer knows. His own mother no longer knows.

    I know perfectly well that new runs typically start with a challenging of the status quo created by the previous run. I knew Daredevil volume 5 was not going to just be a tale of well-adjusted Matt being well-adjusted. But the fact that such a brilliant and game-changing era of the comic could be erased like this absolutely guts me. I wrote about this way back when Soule’s run was just starting, and it hurts just as much now, with Zdarsky picking up firmly where Soule left off. DD is cyclical. Matt has gone from happy to broody to happy before, he has destroyed his relationships and rebuilt them again and again, he has had mental breakdowns and recovery stories many times. I have to believe that the work Waid, Samnee, and Co. did will be reflected by a creative team sometime in the (hopefully near) future. But it does really hurt when you’re experiencing that loss in real time. Given the presence of the Netflix show these past few years on top of everything else, and having now seen the first issue of Zdarsky’s run, I have to say– I’m really sick of dark and broody. Beyond the greatness of the sensory writing and the gorgeous art, the new creative team has not won me over yet.  

    When Waid’s run ended, I was looking forward to further exploration of Matt’s life with a public identity. I love the first scene in volume 4 #1 when he is acting as a civilian consultant for the cops, and I really wanted to see more of that type of thing. After all, with people knowing both who he is and what he can do (his hypersenses were previously a secret), you’d think he’d be getting requests like that all the time! Having a public identity completely changed the way he approached superhero work, and would have also complicated his relationship with the public and with law enforcement, and there was a lot more to explore in that area of his life. Along those same lines, I think we would have gotten to see more of the negative side of having a public identity: namely, the fact that supervillains knew exactly who he was and where he lived, and also knew his weaknesses. Soule explored this a bit, which I appreciated, but I would have liked to see Matt contend with this sort of thing without having it immediately drive him back to New York. Frankly, I was surprised that this problem didn’t really come up in volume 4, since it was the first thing that came to my mind when Matt went public. 

    We also would have gotten to see more of the fallout of the Owl exposing all of Matt, Foggy, and Kirsten’s secrets– and in particular, the reaction to Foggy’s death having been faked. That would have been a compelling story on the civilian side of things, and would have challenged the future of the McDuffie, Murdock (and eventually Nelson?) law firm. On top of that, I’m sure Foggy’s cancer narrative would have continued, and we would have gotten to see him trying to ease back into his life again. I would personally have loved to see his family, who were weirdly absent throughout his cancer treatment. At the very least, they deserved the opportunity to yell at Matt for making them think Foggy was dead, and I am dying to someday get further development of Foggy and Rosalind’s rocky relationship. Also, I miss Candace. (Sidenote: Candace needs to meet Mike. I’m going to keep saying this until it happens, dammit.) On the subject of family, we would have gotten to see Matt’s autobiography get published (!!!), which would have kept Kirsten’s father in the picture and allowed for more exploration of that family dynamic. And of course, the “Original Sin” tie-in marked a huge step forward in Matt and Maggie’s relationship, and I was really hoping Maggie might become more present in his life after that point. If Waid’s run had continued, I think we might have seen more of her in future issues. 

    I also feel like the story would have continued to build toward the future Waid presented in the 50th anniversary issue. We saw this already with the introduction of Jubula Pride (who is the main antagonist in that story), and heck, we might have gotten to see Matt eventually become mayor of San Francisco. He might also have married Kirsten (Matt’s wife is left nameless in the 50th anniversary issue, but Kirsten seems like a fair bet). And he would have faced more emotional hardship and overcome it– which isn’t the most insightful prediction, but it’s what I’ve got. Waid was very good at surprising me during his run, and I’m sure that would have continued.

    Stories and characters being traded off from creative team to creative team is one of my favorite aspects of superhero comics, since it is such a unique form of storytelling. I’m not saying I would have wanted Waid to stay on Daredevil forever. But I want his, Samnee’s, Rodriguez’s, Wilson’s etc. work to have mattered, and I would not have said no to maybe a few dozen more issues by that creative team.

#Daredevil vol. 3 #Daredevil vol. 4 #Daredevil #Asks #Commentary #Adventures in Continuity

[sweet-star-cookie]

For the ask thing: 15 and 22

HELLO I ALMOST FORGOT TO POST THIS OOPSI’m so sorry I wrote way too much again RIIIIIP

15. An OC that is hard to draw / write / RP

Hmm… that’s an interesting one! Drawing mycharacters consistently isn’t as hard for me as itused to be since I finished art school and gotmy skills up, but that doesn’t mean I don’t havea hard time! As for writing, I find villains moredifficult to write in general, because I’m muchbetter at creating protagonists instead. Theideologies and general demeanour of a “goodguy” come more naturally to me, but I do enjoythe challenge of trying to write a good villain! Ironically however, I have one character who has given me trouble in both aspects before, and that would be Snowy here (I love my owl son though fgfdghsdga). 

His design (aside from his armour) has changed quite a bit over time, because of both style development and the fact that he ages throughout his story. Getting his face right was the biggest challenge at first, as the original version of him ended up very close to other characters I’d made at the time. Theimage you see here is the one I am satisfied with as far as his aged up versions are concerned,but it’s all very much in development still.

Speaking of which, writing him is another interesting challenge. A character like Cassie iscloser to what you’d think a typical young fantasy adventure protagonist would be: upbeat,colourful, extroverted, a go-getter. Snowy, on the other hand, is much more reserved, level-headed and methodical. That’s not to say that I’d want Snowy to be any different though, andthat’s also not to say that he isn’t motivated either. The challenge comes in understanding howhe would react to certain things, including his motivations. He shares the “silent sufferer” trait that I have whenexperiencing trauma, but he does not possess the same rampant anxiety as I do, so I oftenhave to re-write scenes based on that. He’s not one to immediately panic or have extreme emotional reactions to things, at least not on the outside.

His backstory shaped this in him; he grew up knowing it was best to keep his head down andwork through the pain, but that gets much harder for him to do later on as the stakes gethigher. Even the strongest warrior can only deal with so much when people’s lives are in peril 9times out of 10, much less a young recruit like Snowy. He may not have rampant anxiety, but he does have rampant heroism like hisfather, finding a problem to solve wherever he goes, whether he can solve it or not. But unlikePrince Arvais, he doesn’t do it for the sake of flourish or fame, and therefore doesn’t care muchfor the spotlight. His inherent desire to help does wear on him as he learns of the realities ofbeing a knight, and his wings carry a lot more societal weight than he first realized. I can definitely relate to certain aspects of this setup, but if I were in this situation I would react very differently, and that’s what I have to consider with Snowy’s character.

Another challenge comes in not making him boring either. As I said earlier, having a morereserved character doesn’t always lend itself as easily to an interesting protagonist, but I knowit can be done. It is possible that the other characters with more outward personalities mightseem more interesting than Snowy anyway, but as long as I still give him a well-developed andwell-rounded character, he should do just fine. ;u; I want to do him justice as best I can, even if it requires more re-writes than usual.

22. An OC you didn’t expect to love

Honestly I love all of my OCs by default, but there is one that I wasn’t expecting to getattached to as much as I did, and that would be my boy Scorpio here. :D

I already loved him for his design and concepts of course, but the more I developed hisbackstory in relation to Ophiuchus and his dynamic with Cassie, I ended up making him a moresignificant character than he was in earlier drafts of the story. I am a sucker for the “edgelordmeets the cinnamon roll” dynamic and his slow transition from reluctant mentor to protectivefather/older brother with Cassie is so fun to write. :’D

He’s actually a bit hard to write too, as, like Snowy, I have to really think about how he wouldreact to certain things with a more reserved personality. But in Scorpio’s case, the contrast in personality between him and Cassie lends itself to a lot of good character moments, especiallywhen she can break down his walls a bit and show the lesser-known parts of his personality.Scorpio’s actually a bit of a prankster when in the right mood, so you can be sure he andCassie bond over that once she gets to know him (probably pranking Aries like Capricorn does,or Libra like Gemini does).

I also love writing the initial encounter stuff too, so I think having both is really what made mefall in love with Scorpio’s character as a whole. How he reacts to meeting Cassie does tie intohis connection with Ophiuchus, but that isn’t apparent until much later. Both Cassie’s Starglassand the one that Ophiuchus had give off the same “aura”, so before Scorpio even sees Cassiehe assumes hostility, sensing its presence. But on first impression, one assumes that Scorpiois hostile simply because that’s who he is, a stone-faced scorpion with a deadly glare and evendeadlier weapons. Taking one look at him would give anyone that impression, and Cassie isunderstandably terrified of him at first. This is amplified even further when she finds out he isher mentor, and thus the dynamic begins.

I really enjoyed the idea of Scorpio mentoring Cassie, as that gives Scorpio’s backstory acyclical nature. Ophiuchus was once Scorpio’s mentor, so having a similar job passed to himwith something as important as the Starglass, you can bet Scorpio’s got some extra baggagewhen it comes to that. Scorpio is also on the younger end of the spectrum in terms of agecompared to the rest of the zodiac (in his 20s, I’d say), so even he has some learning to dowhen it comes to teaching others. His zodiac companion, Scutum, was initially assigned to himas a sort of mentor in his early days as a sign as well, and it wasn’t all smooth sailing either.Despite his cool demeanour, Scorpio’s origins paint him as a lot more volatile than one mightthink. Though in the timeline of this story, that volatility only really shows in moments of trueperil, which is definitely present in the final climax. I’ve been fleshing out that part again lately,so it’ll be cool to have it come to light eventually. :’D

#i was totally ready to post this yesterday but tumblr mobile was being a butt as usual #thank you for the ask though!!! :'D #you're the only one who ever sends them but i appreciate it so much <3 #sorry for the word dump but i hope it's interesting at least c': #uncertainty5 #ask #my OCs #Snowy #Scorpio #Starglass Zodiac #Feather Knights

[jinruihokankeikaku]

Hi, would you mind talking about a session with a Knight of Space, Seer of Time, Prince of Life, and Sylph of Blood? Thanks

I wwouldn’t mind at all!!!!!!!! Here’s our third Session Analysis…

Player Lineup

Knight of Space

Active Defense/Service class; Expansive-Explosive-Actual Aspect

Seer of Time

Passive Information/Knowledge class; Culminative-Conclusive-Actual Aspect

Prince of Life

Active Destruction class; Expansive-Explosive-Cyclical Aspect

Sylph of Blood

Passive Creation class; Associative-Cyclical Aspect

Session Outlook

Space and Time players present? Yep, and none of them are destruction classes, so that’s a good sign. Your Knight is also your Space player, which presents complications but isn’t necessarily a bad thing (more on that later).

Active-Passive balance: 50/50, which is just about ideal. The Class lineup is especially strong here.

Aspect balance: 2 Expansive-Explosive : 1 Culminative-Conclusive : 1 Associative : 0 Introspective; 2 Actual : 2 Cyclical : 0 Personal. You’ve got two thirds of the Sources covered, and three quarters of the Directions, which is great for a four-player session. No Personal Aspects simplifies things, but also limits certain strategic lines; nonetheless, I think this is a strong lineup also.

Possible Events

Your Knight of Space is going to have a hard task ahead of them, on account of the fact that Knights are usually tasked with protecting the Space player. In this case, they’re going to have to protect themselves, although the presence of the Sylph of Blood will make this much less difficult than it might otherwise be; the Sylph will heal the bonds between members of your team, and help avoid an excess of interpersonal conflict. Now for a few comments on the individual roles…

Starting with the Knight of Space, naturally…

Space players usually start out rather isolated before meeting the rest of their team. Knights often project a façade in their struggle to cover for a perceived inadequacy with their Aspect; in this case, the Knight might fear that they’re too set in their ways, that they’re unimaginative, stagnant, or lack creativity, and might come up with some bizarre ideas in their attempts to prove that they’re inventive. The ideas, while bizarre, won’t necessarily be bad ideas, as the Knight of Space is an inventive role, well-suited to improvisation and planning for any eventuality. Their relationship with the Seer, the Session’s Time Player, is unlikely to be especially fraught despite the Opposition of their respective Aspects, due to the fact that they’ll likely learn early on how valuable they are to each other. The Knight, at the height of their power, will be able to arm themselves with Space in service to Space, teleporting and folding reality with ease, and perhaps enlarging their weapons to deal devastating blows to underlings and Dersite Royalty. They’ll need all the help they can get in terms of survival, though, as the dual tasks of winning the game and protecting the team / the integrity of Space/The Medium are likely to wear down on just about anyone.

Then there’s the Seer of Time…

The Seer of Time is one who is taught about, and eventually teaches others about, the nature of the Timeline(s), death, narrative structure, music, and decay. As the Hero of one of the two essential Aspects in the session, they will inevitably play a role in its ultimate success or failure; they are responsible for maintaining the integrity of the Alpha timeline, and ensuring that the team doesn’t inadvertently doom itself. I think a Seer is rather well-suited to this role, as along with the ability to travel through time (shared by all Time players), they’ll also be driven to understand time, and might even, post-Ascension, be able to “see the ending” ahead of time (though reckoning out the steps to get to that ending, or to avoid it, will still be an issue). They could do great work in conjunction with the Knight, helping guide them along their path of discovery as a Space player. Seers do, however, have a tendency to be impressionable, and in their process of research and investigation, they are likely to come across some outside force, real or imagined, that could lead them down a self-destructive path. For example, they may become convinced that the session can’t be saved, and take drastic action as a result, when in fact there is yet hope. However, so long as they stick with their team, I think that kind of worst-case scenario is unlikely.

The Prince of Life

This is a player who’s going to struggle a great deal with themselves, and that struggle might risk spilling over into the team as a whole. As I discussed in my full analysis of the Prince of Life as a role, they’re almost certain to be repressed or held back in some manner, adhering to a set of rules out of habit or compulsion, without actually believing in them. How will this impact the events of the game? Well, as with either of the Destruction classes, their initial “ghosting” of their opposite Aspect is in fact an unhealthy projection/avoidance of their real Aspect, and when they make this realization, they’re likely to behave in a volatile or destructive manner. The Prince’s raw power in combat and ability to remove obstacles is counterbalanced by the inherent liability that they pose to their session. It will be important for the players, especially the Sylph, to watch out for the Prince, to sort of, well, control the damage. I imagine the Prince would, initially, get along best with the Seer, as both will likely be organized and systematic people at first, but once the Prince finds themselves liberated from their old ideas, their old sense of Doom, they may inadvertently damage this relationship and find themselves more isolated. The challenge here is for them to survive ‘til the confrontation with the Black King, where their ability to “Destroy Life” will be tremendously valuable, and to do so without any collateral damage along the way, because a 4-player session can’t really afford to lose anyone.

Finally, the Sylph of Blood

This player is the reason this team has such a strong chance of success. The Sylph of Blood “heals, nurtures, or passively creates bonds, promises, and cooperation”, which is exactly what this team needs. While the other players are unlikely to trust each other much, the Sylph’s mere presence (and, okay, probably deliberate meddling) will serve to draw them together, and to acknowledge their common goal and purpose. The Sylph is just about the only player here capable of addressing the challenge that the Prince will pose, by reminding them that they have somewhere to turn when their previous structure of rules and beliefs collapses. When the Prince feels like they’ve been cut loose, and inevitably overreacts, the Sylph will have the capacity to bring them back into the fold, as it were. I say they’ll have the capacity, because whether they will is still an open question. Sylphs are often taken for granted by their teams, and the other players’ not acknowledging the Sylph’s role in the team’s success could present a source of tension. On the whole, however, the Sylph’s powers (supernatural and otherwise) are going to compensate for a lot of the team’s weaknesses. If the Sylph dies, inverts, or otherwise is incapable of fulfilling their Role, the Session’s odds of success will diminish drastically.

~

I hope you found this analysis interesting and/or informativve!! I think this session defin8ly has a strong outlook, but it’s a8solutely crucial that each player survvivves, as each role is rather dependent on each of the others. If you have any other questions, do let me knoww!! Thanks for the ask ::::)

#Homestuck #session analysis #fansession #Sylph of Blood #Prince of Life #Knight of Space #Seer of Time #Classpect #ask #anon