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mochie85 · 2 years

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Can you do one were for some reason, Loki and the reader have to do manual labor (like chop wood, milk a cow, using a hand pump and carrying buckets of water, stuff like that) and by the trope of ignorant alien boyfriend reader makes fun of him (in a good way) and is fluff and have some mutual pining

Foraged

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A/N: Did I do some research while writing this fic? Absolutely. Did that research include watching Bradley.Thor on TikTok? Yes. And No, the irony was not lost on me. 🤣 I hope you like this Nonny! 🥰 Thank you for the request. Keep them coming.

Word Count: Almost 2k Warnings: Fluff Dividers by: @firefly-graphics

The weather was sublime. The warm afternoon breeze blew the fragrance of the wildflowers all around you. The serene view was marred only by the sound of complaints and grumbles from the god behind you.

“I can’t believe we’re stuck out here.” He mumbled to himself.

“Oh, come on Loki. It’s not so bad.” You smiled at him. He looked at you, the sun highlighting your silhouette in front of him. The only saving grace from this mission was that he got to do it with you.

“The sooner I can get back to modern civilization, the better.” He croaked.

You two were in an isolated masia in the middle of Catalonia. A safe house that was set aside for agents, and Bruce – whenever he needed his space to calm down. You spotted a few cows grazing along the western slope. And there were chickens in a large coop in the back of the house. You didn’t know if someone came to maintain the livestock, or if they were wild and set free from a time when this was used as an actual farm.

As stocked as the masia was, everything was either expired or inoperable. The faucets had run dry. The electricity was suspicious, to say the least. It seemed almost forgotten and in disarray by the time the two of you arrived.

“I sent the signal. The team should be intercepting it soon and then they can collect us. But until then, let’s see if we can find something to eat. Who knows how long we’ll be here.” Loki rolled his eyes.

“Do you think you can chop wood for the fireplace while I forage?” You asked him. He nodded.

“Will you be ok, by yourself?” he asked anxiously.

“Awe. Are you worried about me?” you teased. “I’ll be fine. I should go make use of the daylight before the sun sets.” You staggered off, giving him a reassuring pat on his shoulder.

You didn’t wander far. Only a minute into the sparse woods surrounding the ranch, looking above for any type of fruit you can gather. You found some edible mushrooms and berries. You were lucky to spot a pear tree with ripe fruit.

Birds sang from the trees and small woodland creatures scurried about the medieval plants. You didn’t want to try your luck at hunting. But you did hear a stream nearby. Maybe you can go fishing - if your stay ends up being longer than expected.

As you came back around the clearing, you heard the deep thud of wood falling. And the low growl of Loki’s voice. You watched as Loki raised his arms to swing an ax down. Bringing a cutting blow to the poor log below him.

You almost dropped the supplies you were carrying at the sight of his bare chest exposed in the sunlight. Each line, defined and strong, rippled as he reached for a new piece of wood and placed it on the chopping block. You would’ve never known the distinction of his muscles, the strength those arms had, under the many layers he usually wears.

His grunts and panting timed with the rhythm of his swing. He had a hard time with one particular log, “Come on. Open for me.” He brought the ax down with formidable grace and split that stubborn log into two. “Atta girl.”

You took a deep breath and hid behind a tree. You bit down on your lip to keep from screaming as you closed your eyes and prayed to any higher power that will listen to you. Gods, save me from these wicked thoughts. Calm my nerves before I wreck this man and make a fool outta myself.

“What are you doing?” Loki said as if he were answering your prayers.

You screamed at the surprise appearance of Loki next to you. The pears you had in your arms fell to the ground. You noticed that he had put his shirt back on. Your eyes raked him once over.

“Nothing. I was just taking a break.” You lied. Loki bent down and helped you gather the berries and fruits that had fallen.

“You got quite a haul here.” He noted. Walking in step with you back to the house.

“Yup. Yeah, and you managed to get a decent amount of wood for the fireplace, I see.”

“Do you think that pump over there by the side of the house might work?”

“If the well isn’t dried up. Let’s see.” Loki handed you the fruit he had picked up and sauntered over to examine the water pump.

Inside the house, you dropped your foraged goods on the kitchen counter. You found large tin buckets by the entrance and brought them outside to help Loki.

The pump had gone dry. Loki flushed the handle repeatedly getting no luck. You stepped in to help, grabbing the handle. “I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong.” He said as he peered into the spout.

“I wouldn’t put my face…” It was too late. The water had decided then to make its appearance and shot straight across towards Loki’s face, drenching him. A look of shock and a gasp tore through you as you covered your mouth, trying not to laugh.

Loki stood up slowly, his lips thinning in anger. His finger held up, warning you not to make a sound. “Don’t you dare say a word!” Loki snarled. Your amusement peeled away at his resolve as he listened to your melodic laughter.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry! Please, don’t -” but you couldn’t stop laughing anyway as he flailed his hands in your direction. Small drops of water flicking you wet.

Loki lifted the hem of his soaked shirt up and over his head. The lean muscles you spied on earlier making a full appearance. His lithe shoulders were wet from the water. Loki took that same shirt and wiped his face, his arms, and all along his chest. You watched him, quietly leaning on the pump.

“Enjoying the view?” he said realizing he had an audience. He threw his shirt at your face.

A heady mix of his scent and cologne flooded your senses. You hoped that his shirt hid the dark blush covering your face. “And so what if I am?”

Loki only shook his head, hiding the smile that formed. “Move over, you dangerous creature, and let me pump. Hold the buckets,” he instructed.

“I’m sorry for laughing.” You said. Loki only rolled his eyes. His embarrassment already gone after seeing your suggestive stare.

He kept his shirt off as he brought the full buckets inside the house.

Later that night, the both of you had sat down, knee to knee, in front of a roaring fireplace. Eating all the things the two of you had gathered.

Loki had ventured out with you after your water fiasco, a basket in hand, to the chicken coop and tried to pilfer some eggs. He had no such luck as the hens kept trying to peck his hand away. You were lucky to grab some with gentle coaxing and a hypnotizing trick your grandmother taught you.

“Do you think you’ll have better luck with the cows?” you asked slightly teasing.

“Can you even wrangle one?” he asked doubtfully. You took that as a challenge and set forth to corral the nearest cow you could find.

Calming her, soothing her, you whispered to Loki, “Keep her occupied and calm while I collect her milk.”

“How do you propose I do that?” he asked aloud, wide-eyed.

“Shh. Just stroke her head. Talk to her.” You made your way behind her slowly. Patting her along the way till you were able to bend down with a bucket and start milking.

“Hello…ma’am,” Loki said with gawkiness, patting her on her head. You started to giggle. His awkwardness was endearing.

You laughed about it that night over dinner. You had cooked the mushrooms and made sunny-side eggs with butter churned from the milk you extracted. Loki’s seidr helped tremendously and saved you both from aching elbows and arms. You were always in awe whenever he used his magic.

And for dessert, berries with pears.

“This is delicious, darling.” He commented. “I’m so glad to have been stuck with someone as skillful and clever.” You flushed at his comment. “Tony could never.”

That’s when you started laughing. “No, he couldn’t.”

“Where did you learn such skill?” he asked.

“I grew up on a vineyard with my grandparents. My grandfather was a vintner and sold locally. He taught me a little bit about plants and foraging. But my grandmother loved animals. She kept a few chickens and goats. A cow name Lulubelle.” You sighed at the memory. “I miss them terribly.”

Loki stared at you. He felt awed that you would share such a precious memory with him. “What about you? Where’d you learn to chop wood?” you asked, remembering the scene from earlier today, heat crawling up your spine.

“Is that so surprising? For a prince to know his way around an ax?”

“Honestly. Yes. I didn’t picture you using anything other than your seidr.” He laughed at your candidness.

“It was part of training, to be with the Einherjar. You needed to be able to survive and build a make-shift shelter. Living off the land. You’d never know what kind of situation or planet you’d find yourself in.”

You nodded in understanding.

“It was one of the ways a fellow soldier could help the regiment overall. At times, Thor would always show off and split the wood with his bare hands.” Loki shook his head as he rolled his eyes. You laughed at the thought of Thor trying to impress his fellow troops.

Loki looked up at the sound of your laughter. He loved the musical tone it had. He loved the fact that he could make you sound like that. His errant thoughts ran away from him and he started to wonder what other sounds he could persuade you to make.

As if you could read his thoughts, his teasing eyes, and his inviting smile, you slowed your laughter to a quiet giggle. Turning away to hide your face, Loki grabbed your chin to stop you.

He leaned in close, brushing his lips on yours. His breath was sweet from the berries he just consumed. He paused for only a second, waiting for you to turn or to stop him. When you didn’t, he pressed further. Enveloping your lips fully in his. As you drew in his top lip, you ran your tongue along the length of it, hearing him whimper.

He pulled you closer to him, sitting on his lap. He placed your thighs on either side of his strong hips. Your hands delighted in the taut muscles under his shirt. Finally being able to touch what you glimpsed earlier.

Static from the radio reached both your ears. Steve’s warm voice echoed through the receiver. You pulled away to reach for it, but Loki held you firmly in place and pulled your chin back towards his lips.

He devoured you.

Loki ignored the transmit as if he knew he didn’t have much time left.

“Signal received. I hope you both are ok. The extraction team will be there in a couple of hours.”

“Well, darling. We don’t have much time left together. What would you like to do?” Loki said panting on your lips.

You kissed him back with as much fervor and proceeded to lift his shirt.

All Taglist:

@alexs1200 @britishserpent @huntress-artemiss @mishief2sarawr @user13cabs @lokiprompts @lokisninerealsms @lokisgoodgirl

#request #requests are open #answered #loki fanfic #loki x reader #loki x you #loki x y/n #loki imagine #loki laufeyson #loki fluff #mcu #marvel fanfic #loki fandom #lovely readers #anonymous #mutual pining

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wickedsrest-rp · 1 year

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Name: Boyd Adkinson Jr. Species: Hunter (Warden) Occupation: Bartender at the Wormhole Age: 36 Years Old Played By: Knifes Face Claim: Oliver Jackson-Cohen

"I may be down, but don’t count me out just yet."

Born and raised in Gatlin Fields, Boyd grew up with sheep shears in one hand, and an iron blade in the other. When he wasn’t tending to the flock on his family farm, he was learning from Boyd Sr. just which fae were merely a nuisance, and which were a true threat to house and home. As a teen, he started offering his services as a side job. Sometimes that meant ridding a chicken coop of a leprechaun infestation. Other times, he would be keeping a gremlin from tampering with farm machinery. His folks wanted him to keep up the family business, but someone had caught his eye.

Boyd and his high school sweetheart were head over heels. Like a lovesick puppy, he’d follow her to the ends of the earth. She was due to relocate with her family—her dad had been reassigned to a new office—and Boyd picked up and moved right along with her. When her family settled into Cheyenne, Wyoming, Boyd was right there with her. He found work easily enough, coming from a farming background, at a local ranch. There, he took an interest in the rodeo scene. It wasn’t long before he was bulldogging at county fairs and working his way to making a name for himself.

It didn’t take anyone by surprise when Boyd and his sweetheart married. The first few years were bliss. She came out to every rodeo she could to support him, and he did his best to call and come home whenever he could. But a rodeo man doesn’t stay in one place for long. As he moved from rodeo to rodeo, he brought back the side business of hunting nuisance fae for farmers in the areas he traveled. He even worked out a new technique of taking down bigger species using the same moves he would to take down a steer. His rodeo and hunting careers soared while his marriage, just a few years off the ground, faltered. Love took a backseat to his flourishing career. Just as the wedding was no surprise, it didn’t surprise anyone when the divorce was filed either.

Boyd Adkinson Jr. became somewhat of a name in the rodeo scene. For years, he did alright for himself, winning saddles and trophies, and basking in it all. But bulldogging takes a toll on the body, and eventually Boyd started to hit a wall. How many more injuries could he take without grinding his career to a halt entirely? He’d broken too many bones to count, and had near constant aches and pains. For being in his 30s, he felt decades older. The passing of his mother only solidified his need for a break. His father couldn’t manage the farm all by himself. Boyd went back home to help his dad, and pick back up where he’d left off. He’d forgotten just how prominent the fae problem was in Wicked’s Rest. When his father passed a year later, it sealed his early retirement. Cutting back focus on the farm, Boyd threw himself deeper into the hunting business. Where he had only focused on nuisance fae in the past, he started going after bigger and badder quarry now. If the rodeo taught him anything, it was that he could handle his own. Or he thought he could.

He was keyed up from a job, and adrenaline coursed through him. When he heard a gasp from behind him, he didn’t think. He just took the blade in his hand and acted. But they weren’t a foe. They weren’t a fae. They were human, and he had just broken the unspoken law. He killed an innocent human in a blind panic. The Allgood pit had been an obvious choice, and no one was onto him yet. But now, every time he closes his eyes, he sees the shock and the terror on their face. He can’t escape it. There was a police report filed, and it could be a matter of time before they tie it back to him. He’s lost sleep, and it’s starting to feel like he’s losing himself, too.

Character Facts:

Personality: Regretful, enigmatic, reflective, empathetic, amiable

Boyd lives in Gatlin Fields on the family farm, though much of the land has been leased to adjacent farms.

He has a handful of chickens, a treeing walker named Sam, a barn cat he calls Cat, and his former rodeo horse, Roach.

He’s been driving the same 1990 Ford F-250 for years and repairing what he can to keep it running. It’s seen better days, but it’s still kicking. Sam can often be found hanging out the passenger window.

His weapon of choice is a WWI style iron trench knife, handed down to him by his grandfather. It currently sits buried in his sock drawer following the incident.

While he isn’t the best cook, he’s always making something for himself. His pantry is always stocked with Oatmeal Cream Pies.

#retired

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indigowallbreaker · 1 month

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@bartolomamba asked:

Which minigame or like mini active action is your favorite? Which kid would you adopt first assuming you suddenly wished for a kid from Pelican Town? Favorite krobus head canon Opinion of the witch? What's your Wizards backstory theory?

Excellent questions! Let's break this down--

Which minigame or mini active action is your favorite?

If it counts, the fishing minigame. It's fun and in the end you get a fish AND fishing exp!

Which kid would you adopt if you suddenly wished for a kid from pelican Town?

Love the qualifier here lol thank you. Um I guess Jas? She likes reading and pretend play, both of which I am great at. We'd get along alright.

Favorite Krobus headcanon?

Hmm I don't really have many. My favorite thing about him right now is his "human disguise" he wears when going to the movies. I hc that he stole each item from someone in town or found them in the garbage. So there's the potential for him to be walking with you to a movie and Kent sees him and is like "I could have sworn I threw out that old coat..."

Opinion of the Witch?

She puts me in mind of a cartoon villain from a preschool show or something. Like she does these "bad things" like "cursing" your chicken coop. Except oh snap, she gave me a black chicken that makes profitable items? The horror of it all~ (thanks Miss Witch)

What's your Wizard backstory theory?

idk if this counts as backstory per say but I like to think that when Linus first settled in the valley to live off the land, the Wizard tried to dissuade him. He tried to explain that the magical energies here are more heightened than in other places and maybe you should try living peacefully anywhere else instead, off with you.

But Linus put his foot down and stayed in the Valley. The Wizard kept an eye on him, and did occasionally step in to stop Linus meddling with things that appeared natural but were actually wicked in nature, but mostly Linus held his own and earned the Wizard's respect. And now they're bffs.

Thanks for the questions!! These were new and different! Exactly what I needed <3

#stardew valley #stardew #mine #bartolomamba #thanks again!!!

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mackerelphones · 2 years

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Ozma of Oz, the Third Oz Book and Source Material for Return to Oz

This continues from my previous post about The Marvelous Land of Oz. Please consider reading that one first.

Ozma of Oz, the third Oz novel, published in 1907, shows that L. Frank Baum had no talent for titles. The previous title, The Marvelous Land of Oz, is generic to the point of being meaningless. Since it is about the rise of Ozma of Oz, if anything, it should be the book bearing that name.

The title Ozma of Oz is also comically misleading: only the final two chapters of the twenty-one present in Ozma of Oz feature the Land of Oz, and our favorite transgender princess, Ozma of Oz, is not the protagonist. However, Ozma of Oz is abbreviated. Given its length, the somewhat more accurate full title seems more sixteenth century than 1907. It is Ozma of Oz: A Record of Her Adventures with Dorothy Gale of Kansas, Billina the Yellow Hen, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger; Besides Other Good People Too Numerous to Mention Faithfully Recorded Herein by L. Frank Baum the Author of The Wizard of Oz, The Land of Oz, etc.

Ozma of Oz is also much better than the previous two books. 👀

According to the Author’s Note, Baum’s readers wanted more Dorothy. So she would be the protagonist of every Oz novel until the seventh, The Patchwork Girl of Oz. It may be relevant to mention that Baum likely intended to end the series with the sixth book.

Dorothy Gale is aboard a passenger ship sailing for Australia with Uncle Henry when a terrible storm blows her into the sea, where she clings to life in a floating wooden chicken coop that also blew overboard. Compared to the house being carried away in the first novel, this is more distressing because it seems more realistic—houses do not spin around intact inside a tornado, but a storm could blow a child into the ocean. Dorothy and the one surviving hen, Bill, wash up on the shore of a strange foreign land. Dorothy quickly realizes this is a “fairy country” or “fairyland” like Oz because Bill can talk there. (Note that in the novels, Oz and the other fairy countries are real and not dreams.) Being an unimaginative stick-in-the-mud, Dorothy says Bill must be named Billina because “Bill” is a boy’s name, Billina says she doesn’t care, and then they set out into the wilderness.

Dorothy learns from a robot named Tiktok that she is in a country called Ev on the other side of the Deadly Desert that surrounds and isolates Oz. (Tiktok was constructed by Smith & Tinker, not ByteDance.) The King of Ev was a cruel man named Evoldo. Tiktok, not being alive, was the only of Evoldo’s servants he did not beat to death. After his reign of terror apparently depopulated much of the land (he killed a lot of people, and almost nobody seems to live in Ev), Evoldo sold his wife and children as slaves to the Nome King. Later, remorseful, Evoldo killed himself. This is a lot darker than the previous books! Ozma of Oz, along with fan favorites the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion, as well as the new Hungry Tiger and Oz’s twenty-seven-man army, arrive in Ev in time to rescue Dorothy and Billina from the local dictator, Langwidere. From here, Dorothy joins Ozma on a journey to free the Royal Family of Ev from the diabolical Nome King, Roquat of the Rocks.

(Wikipedia claims that the Nome King is named Roquat the Red, but he only takes on that name later, presumably because he becomes so consumed with rage that he turns red.)

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz drags on for a number of chapters that seem limp and dull after the climactic battle against the Wicked Witch of the West. Ozma of Oz has a brisk pace from start to finish. Also making Ozma of Oz more appealing is much tighter writing, with little of the rambling vaudevillian repartee of The Marvelous Land, and a more focused plot than either previous title. There is a degree of mystery and suspense as Dorothy and Billina figure out where they are and what has happened, even if this takes the form of an exposition dump from Tiktok. When Ozma does appear, she is on a mission closely related to the backstory Dorothy and Billina have already discovered. Then Dorothy, Ozma, and their various friends march directly for the Nome King’s lair and complete their mission. Then, after a happy ending, Dorothy teleports to Australia, and the novel closes—no slogging on after the climax. The earlier novels are also weak on plot. Baum’s main interest is not plot but providing a gallery of strange ideas. These are also present in Ozma of Oz, but in a context of constant forward narrative momentum building to a climax. Baum’s previous style is not bad, but just a different approach. However, modern readers would likely find it duller than the more involved, and more perilous, adventures in Ozma of Oz.

Some of these changes must be attributable to Baum’s skill improving with practice. Some of it also may reflect that Baum wrote The Marvelous Land as the basis for a stage production, whereas he wrote Ozma of Oz just to be a good book. A novel can only benefit if the author values words for their own sake, instead of imagining a play or, nowadays, movie they would prefer to be creating.

This is not the only time John R. Neill draws Dorothy with a halo.

Neill’s illustrations are less extensive, no longer appearing on almost every page, but are much more impressive. The book has a colorful inside-cover artwork showing the major characters as spectators and performers in a circus. Chapters open with text bleeding into color illustrations, and the reader is spoiled with forty-one full-page, full-color pieces that bring the world to life, or cartoon life. The linework is solid and the colors often limited, and partially falling outside their outlines, in an alluring way that recalls the look of contemporary newspaper comics.

Each chapter opens with an illustration that partially overlaps with the text. The writing and the pictures are almost literally intertwined.

Dorothy wound up number one.

Dorothy chatting with the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow. Neill has learned how to draw them cute instead of scary.

For better or for worse, Neill’s artwork has lost much of the creepiness suffusing The Marvelous Land. Though the Wheelers are still pretty damn creepy. The Scarecrow now appears genuinely cute, and the relatively realistic Art Nouveau character designs feel less stiff and more approachable.

The Scarecrow.

Dorothy pleading for entrance into the Nome King’s lair. On the right are the Scarecrow, Ozma, and the Tin Woodman.

The only misstep, which would color the rest of the Oz series, is that Neill’s interpretation of Dorothy radically departs from Denslow’s. Denslow draws Dorothy as a little, almost toddler-like girl, with two brown pigtails and a modest calico dress. This original Dorothy exudes the innocence of childhood and a sweet simplicity. Here is the Denslow version of Dorothy chatting with the Scarecrow:

Neill’s Dorothy looks several years older, and given the time between the books’ publications might well be. This Dorothy is an almost ridiculously beautiful girl with short blonde hair, seemingly wearing full makeup in addition to her pearl necklace.

Look at that illustration. Dorothy is clearly highly distressed over the mortal peril she is facing.

The character design is quite a departure, and not for the better. As a protagonist, Dorothy is more appealing as a relatable anchor to the real world no matter how strange her environs. Instead of a normal kid, the heroine has herself become an idealized fantasy. A much more modest kid would also be an interesting contrast to Ozma, who is supposed to be an idealized fairyland princess. Also odd is that Neill has decided Ozma is brunette, when she was blonde in The Marvelous Land. If, for aesthetic reasons, he wanted one girl to be brunette and one girl to be blonde, why did he not just keep Dorothy brunette and Ozma blonde?

Rarely, the illustrations fall short of the visuals Baum’s writing suggests. In particular, Neill does not realize the jeering Nomes as interestingly as Baum describes them: “Whatever the creations [the Nomes] might be they seemed very like the rock itself, for they were the color of rocks and their shapes were as rough and rugged as if they had been broken away from the side of the mountain. They kept close to the steep cliff facing our friends, and glided up and down, and this way and that, with a lack of regularity that was quite confusing” (157). The writing suggests a gloomy cliff face squirming, as though alive, with a swarm of jagged stone-like beings. But Neill draws the Nomes as rather banal, furry elves, curved and round rather than jagged like rock.

Walter Murch and crew lifted most of the material for the (awesome) 1985 almost-horror movie Return to Oz from Ozma of Oz, also incorporating scenes and concepts from The Marvelous Land of Oz. The film’s premise of the Nome King attacking the Emerald City originates in the sixth Oz novel, The Emerald City of Oz. The Nomes in this film are literally stone, moving freely in the rocks throughout Oz, certainly a more striking visual than Neill’s illustrations and closer to Baum’s description. A few of the features Return to Oz takes from Ozma of Oz include Dorothy and Billina riding a chicken coop in a storm and washing up in a desert; the Wheelers and their threats over an allegedly stolen lunch pail; Dorothy escaping the Wheelers with a key to find a long deactivated Tiktok, who bears a plaque on his back that says “Thinks, Speaks, Acts, and Does Everything but Live” (55); Tiktok fighting the Wheelers with the lunch pail and taking one prisoner; the prisoner leading them to a princess of a desolate country; and the princess sitting around a hall of mirrors strumming a mandolin and changing her head instead of her clothes, keeping dozens of severed human heads in cabinets locked with a ruby key that she wears on her person. It’s disturbing. Of course, Return to Oz also features the Nome King, who, like in Ozma of Oz, puffs a pipe he lights with a hot coal while forcing Dorothy and her friends to play an unfair game to (in an abstract magical way) end their lives, one by one.

Baum’s version is both softer and darker, in different ways. In Return to Oz, for example, the head-swapping princess is named Mombi. She closely resembles Langwidere from Ozma of Oz but has a similar role to the Mombi of The Marvelous Land of Oz insofar as she hides Ozma away. In the end, all the women this version of Mombi beheaded are restored to life, while she is allowed to live but without her magic powers.

In Ozma of Oz, Langwidere is a “dangerous lady,” as the Scarecrow puts it (111), a surviving relative of Evoldo who has become a despot whose incompetence is matched only by her decadence. Like the film’s Mombi, Langwidere announces she will eat Billina and locks Dorothy in a tower, intending to keep her there until she can take her head for her collection.

However, Langwidere is too selfish and lazy to be a genuine threat to Dorothy. Langwidere immediately supports Ozma’s bid to free her relatives from the Nome King, “For if they were restored to their proper forms and station they could rule the Kingdom of Ev themselves, and that would save me a lot of worry and trouble. At present there are at least ten minutes every day that I must devote to affairs of state, and I would like to be able to spend my whole time in admiring my beautiful heads” (112). Baum does not directly address where Langwidere attains her dozens of heads. Considering that she tries to take Dorothy’s head, albeit in a trade, one would assume Langwidere has gathered them from large number of women and, apparently, children, a nightmarish idea with nightmarish implications. Unlike the film’s Mombi, this Langwidere faces no comeuppance. Her misdeeds are largely left to the reader’s imagination.

In contrast to Baum (perhaps) taking a darker approach, consider the Wheelers, a tribe of beings with wheels for hands and feet. The wheels are “of the same hard substance that our finger-nails and toe-nails are composed of” (44), pretty freaky. After Dorothy and Billina find an ominous message reading “BEWARE THE WHEELERS,” the Wheelers attack. Return to Oz faithfully depicts the Wheelers’ terrifying behavior: “Looking over her shoulder as she ran, the girl now saw a great procession of Wheelers emerging from the forest—dozens and dozens of them—all clad in splendid, tight-fitting garments and all rolling swiftly toward her and uttering their wild, strange cries” (46). The film even mirrors Dorothy’s dialogue with the Wheelers.

“We’ll get you in time, never fear! And when we do get you, we’ll tear you into little bits!” “Why are you so cruel to me?” asked Dorothy. “I’m a stranger in your country, and have done you no harm” (47).

Dorothy’s reply is so innocent it is almost heartbreaking. I had assumed Return to Oz was being darker than the source material with these lines:

WHEELER: You have to come out sooner or later! And when you do, we’ll tear you into little pieces and throw you in the Deadly Desert!

DOROTHY: I haven’t done anything to you.

But no, it’s all there in the book.

However, unlike in the film, Dorothy later learns that there is more to the Wheelers. Tiktok claims, “They try to make folks be-lieve that they are ver-y ter-ri-ble, but as a mat-ter of fact the Wheel-ers are harm-less e-nough to an-y one that dares to fight them. They might try to hurt a lit-tle girl like you, per-haps, be-cause they are ver-y mis-chiev-ous” (66–67). (Baum writes all of Tiktok’s dialogue in this way to convey his robotic voice.) A Wheeler later admits his people have assumed cruel personas as a form of self-defense: “I’m not really bad, you know; but we have to pretend to be terrible in order to prevent others from attacking us” (80). Given that their neighbor was the wicked Evoldo, this seems like a reasonable precaution. The Wheelers themselves wrote “BEWARE THE WHEELERS” to scare off possible invaders.

Reprimanded for being “im-pu-dent and dis-a-gree-a-ble” (82), the Wheeler promises his people will reform. Some of them do, as in the ending, Wheelers also celebrate the return of the Royal Family: “The people shouted their approval fifteen times, and even the Wheelers, some of whom were present, loudly promised to obey the new King” (253). In the novel, when the captive Wheeler promises to behave, he means it, but in the film, as the Wheeler rolls away, he cackles, repeating “behave.” The audience understands this guy is going to do anything but. In Return to Oz, the Wheelers are cruel monster-people who serve Mombi and, in turn, the Nome King. The Wheelers remain malevolent, if pitiful, and seemingly vanish when Oz is restored. In comparison, Baum shows the Wheelers humanizing nuance.

Of course I have to talk about the Nome King. While Mombi and Jinjur do not seem evil per se, the Nome King is the single most malevolent force in Baum’s Oz novels.

The Nome King is the central antagonist of Ozma of Oz, which should really probably be entitled The Nome King. Baum devotes eight of the book’s twenty-one chapters, a little under a third of the total pages, to the battle against him. Not obviously menacing, the Nome King is a short, fat, bearded man whom Dorothy identifies with Santa Claus. The Nome King’s first lines of dialogue quote The Night Before Christmas (suggesting the Nomes are aware of Christianity). However, the Nome King’s jovial demeanor is a front for his greed and cruelty. The tone is set when, right after welcoming the comparison between himself and Santa, the Nome King has this interaction with Ozma:

“Your Majesty,” said she [Ozma], “I am the ruler of the Land of Oz, and I have come here to ask you to release the good Queen of Ev and her ten children, whom you have enchanted and hold as your prisoners.”

“Oh, no; you are mistaken about that,” replied the King. “They are not my prisoners, but my slaves, whom I purchased from the King of Ev” (165).

Dorothy and Ozma attempting to negotiate with the Nome King.

The Nome King, totally amicable, proceeds to counter Ozma and Dorothy’s arguments that what he did was wrong. “Cruelty,” the Nome King says, “is a thing I can’t abide. So, as slaves must work hard, and the Queen of Ev and her children were delicate and tender, I transformed them all into articles of ornament and bric-a-brac and scattered them around the various rooms of my palace” (168). Afterward, the Nome King shows off his enormous, well-armed military and industrial operations, which notably use electricity, and demonstrates that his magic is so powerful that Ozma, Dorothy, and their friends are literally incapable of hurting him. Chillingly cheerful, “his eyes twinkling merrily” (173), the Nome King challenges Ozma, Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and their twenty-seven-man army to a game. He hates Billina, ignores the Saw-Horse, and wants the Cowardly Lion and Hungry Tiger to just leave lest they break his various treasures, so they are not included in the challenge:

“You shall go alone and unattended into my palace and examine carefully all that the rooms contain. Then you shall have permission to touch eleven different objects, pronouncing at the time the word ‘Ev,’ and if any one of them, or more than one, proves to be the transformation of the Queen of Ev or any of her ten children, then they will instantly be restored to their true forms and may leave my palace and my kingdom in your company, without any objection whatever. It is possible for you, in this way, to free the entire eleven; but if you do not guess all the objects correctly, and some of the slaves remain transformed, then each one of your friends and followers may, in turn, enter the palace and have the same privileges I grant you. […] If none of the eleven objects you touch proves to be the transformation of any of the royal family of Ev, then, instead of freeing them, you will yourself become enchanted, and transformed into an article of bric-a-brac or an ornament” (173–174).

Ozma agrees, against Dorothy’s advice, because she refuses to surrender and because she underestimates the difficulty of the task—the Nome King’s palace is enormous, and every room is packed with bric-a-brac. There follows more than a day of suspense as Dorothy and the others’ numbers are winnowed down one by one, all the while the Nome King merrily puffs on his pipe and laughs at them and Dorothy realizes they are all his prisoners. The sequence is effective mostly because of the Nome King, who is scary in that he seems to just be a rich sadistic sociopath. When his steward is angry that he is doing this instead of enchanting Ozma’s party all at once, the Nome King tells him outright that he is playing the game because it is “more fun this way” (192). The Nome King also becomes explosively angry the second he encounters adversity, eventually ditching his friendly act and “roaring” at Dorothy “like a savage beast” (227). And when he loses the game to Billina, the Nome King simply summons his army because he never really meant to let them leave. After all, each captive is another treasure for him. It teaches kids the valuable lesson that politeness and virtue are not the same.

After a battle against the Nome army, Ozma, Dorothy, Billina, and the rest of the crew, including all twenty-seven soldiers, escape by exploiting the Nomes’ weakness: eggs. “Don’t you know that eggs are poison?” (207). More specifically, the Scarecrow chucks an egg into both of the Nome King’s eyes, which would also work on me even though eggs are not poison to humans. With features like this, Baum maintains a sense of humor despite how frightening the situation becomes, as well as just his typical gags: “When the bell rang a second time the King shouted angrily, ‘Smudge and blazes!’ and at a third ring he screamed in fury, ‘Hippikaloric!’ which must be a dreadful word because we don’t know what it means” (226–227).

The Nome King is not, however, as scary as he is in Return to Oz. A single egg also has a rather more dramatic effect on him there than multiple do in the novel.

Ozma of Oz concludes with Dorothy returning to Oz with all her friends, including Tiktok and Billina, where she spends “several very happy weeks” (263). The Nome King is last seen on page 254, waving his fist at Ozma’s entourage as they cross the Deadly Desert back to their homeland. Dorothy catches up with all the characters—except Mombi, since who cares about her. The Woggle-Bug is apparently the president of the new College of Art and Athletic Perfection, and Jinjur is happily married to a man she abuses.

Neill shows Jinjur’s military hat hanging up behind her.

At last, learning that Uncle Henry is alone in Australia, grieving his niece, Dorothy returns home using the power of the magic belt she stole from the Nome King. However, she does not repeat her mistake with the silver slippers from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. This time, so that the belt can retain magical potency, Dorothy leaves it with Ozma, who will use the belt’s power to check on Dorothy every Saturday and instantly warp her back to Oz in response to “a certain signal” (267).

While it is an enjoyable read, Ozma of Oz is less effective emotionally than Return to Oz. There are two reasons for this.

The first is that the Oz novels, at least thus far, are just not very emotional. The characters rarely seem to particularly care about what is going on or the peril that they are in. This may make the stories less distressing to children, but this also renders allegedly happy or triumphant moments underwhelming, because there was no sense of adversity or sadness to compare them with. Baum does emphasize that Dorothy is “trying to be brave in spite of her fears” (199), but this only occasionally comes through. Rather than saddened or distressed over her plight when facing the Nome King, Dorothy seems how almost all Baum’s characters usually seem, lackadaisical or even slow-witted: “Dear me! I wonder if Uncle Henry or Aunt Em will ever know I have become an orn’ment in the Nome King’s palace, and must stand forever and ever in one place and look pretty—’cept when I’m moved to be dusted. It isn’t the way I thought I’d turn out, at all; but I s’pose it can’t be helped” (200–201). It is difficult for a reader to care about characters who do not seem to care much about themselves or each other.

Compare Dorothy and Tiktok’s relationship in Ozma of Oz to their relationship in Return to Oz. In Ozma of Oz, Tiktok considers himself Dorothy’s slave: “I am the slave of the girl Dor-oth-y, who rescued me from pris-on” (132). Later, in the Nome King’s palace itself, Tiktok insists he has to make his guesses before Dorothy because “the slave should face danger before the mistress” (196). Dorothy never seems to particularly care about Tiktok one way or another. The climactic scene for their relationship occurs when Tiktok stops functioning before making his final guess inside the Nome King’s palace, so the Nome King sends Dorothy in to wind him up (Tiktok is a clockwork robot and hence relies on three keys being fully wound to think, move, and talk). When she finds him, Dorothy winds up Tiktok, who wishes he was better at guessing. Both seem rather sad, according to the narration (Dorothy speaks “sadly”), but Dorothy tells him, “if you fail I will watch and see what shape you are changed into” (200). Tiktok then touches a yellow glass vase, says “Ev,” and vanishes, Dorothy unable to see what the Nome King turned him into. Instead of hopeless, though, she barely seems to care, like she is on sedatives and cannot think properly.

In Return to Oz, meanwhile, Tiktok is Dorothy’s friend, not slave, whom the Scarecrow left to protect her if she returned. It helps that Dorothy is still a simple country girl, instead of the Neill Dorothy who appears to be an aspiring model. Their mutual concern for each other seems more believable in part because Tiktok and Dorothy are allowed more interactions, and in part because Tiktok seems essential to protect her in the dangerous Oz of the film. In Ozma of Oz, the titular princess/queen turns up with many other whimsical characters so that instead Tiktok rapidly recedes into the background. And consider Tiktok’s scene in the Nome King’s palace. In Return to Oz, this is Dorothy’s final temptation by the Nome King, who offers to spare her and send her back to Kansas. Going in after Tiktok is a selfless, courageous deed. Then Dorothy discovers that Tiktok is already wound up.

“It was my way of getting you in here,” says the movie’s Tiktok. “Pretend that you are winding me up anyway. I have an idea that may save us. I have one guess left, and if I guess incorrectly, you can watch and see what I am changed into. That may give you a clue.” This is much more interesting: Tiktok is being clever, tricking the Nome King, and trying to help his friend, knowing that he himself will likely fail to guess correctly. Dorothy and Tiktok seem to genuinely care for each other here: Dorothy hugs Tiktok goodbye, and Tiktok, in a moment that might be a bit overboard but I love anyway, cries what looks like windshield wiper fluid. In comparison, in Ozma of Oz, Dorothy and Tiktok seem like clueless doofuses (Dorothy survives literally by a lucky guess, though unfortunately that also happens in the movie), and Dorothy does not seem to waste time feeling sorry for her self-identified slave.

Watching Tiktok’s crying scene in the film, I considered the only crying scene in Ozma of Oz. The Scarecrow scolds one of his soldiers for weeping over the loss of the Tin Woodman:

One of the generals began to weep dolefully. “What are you crying for?” asked the Scarecrow, indignant at such a display of weakness. “He owed me six weeks back pay,” said the general, “and I hate to lose him.” “Then you shall go and find him,” declared the Scarecrow. “Me!” cried the general, greatly alarmed. “Certainly. It is your duty to follow your commander. March!” (183)

Instead of affection, Baum has military hierarchy, a rejection of vulnerability, and a joke about the characters’ financial pettiness. The Scarecrow doesn’t seem to care that his beloved friend the Tin Woodman might be gone forever! Why does Baum value a joke about bureaucracy over, say, the Scarecrow expressing sadness over his friend? There would be room for both. A display of sadness or compassion would make the reader happier when the Tin Woodman is later recovered, as well, because it would have felt like a genuine loss being recovered. It would have felt, in other words, like what happens to Tiktok in Return to Oz. Instead, this is all the Scarecrow says of the matter: “Poor Nick! I wonder what has become of him” (243). Did Baum forget that the Scarecrow loves the Tin Woodman? Apparently not, since Baum is convincing in showing the Scarecrow’s joy upon the Tin Woodman’s recovery: “The Scarecrow had fairly thrown himself upon the bosom of his old comrade, so surprised and delighted was he to see him again” (250).

The second reason that Ozma of Oz is a less affecting story is that it demonstrates a rather medieval hierarchical morality that is difficult to empathize with. To begin, Dorothy, Ozma, and the others are on a quest to free Evoldo’s family from slavery to the Nome King. Baum seems to assume that the ascension of Evardo Fifteenth to the throne of Ev is a happy ending. But is it? Langwidere is completely horrible, Evoldo was explicitly a serial murderer, and aside from giving these two power, the system of laws they uphold is obviously unjust, including, as the Nome King mentions, that the monarch can never be wrong, so whatever he does is right (165). They are no better than the Nome King. The problem is the very form of government, not which prince is in charge. We can’t all be so lucky as to have benevolent child dictators like Ozma. Yet Ozma restores the Ev monarchy without any further concern. What, does Ozma not want to set a precedent that would see her relinquish power to the people? This might obviously be reading too much into a fairy tale, yes, but let’s do it anyway.

Tiktok maintains that the Nome King’s actions are not immoral, given that he bought the slaves fair and square from Evoldo so that it was Evoldo alone who did wrong (129). Furthermore, as mentioned above, Tiktok makes a point that he is Dorothy’s slave. While this likely reflects Tiktok’s previous life under Evoldo, Dorothy never objects or seems to particularly care. And reconsider the Wheelers. Scary enemies when they do not obey the Ev monarchy, they gain sympathy in the ending specifically as, in a celebratory scene, they “loudly promised to obey the new King” (253, emphasis mine). Obey the king! Obey! Even though the last few were so awful no ethical person should have obeyed them.

It is as if the Nome King’s real crime is that he enslaves royalty, as opposed to non-royal beings, like Glinda the Good does the Flying Monkeys (it’s only evil when the Wicked Witch of the West does it). The rightness and wrongness of an action, except for the reckless disobedience that gets Dorothy to Ev instead of killed in the opening chapter, depends on whether that action supports or disrupts a monarchist hierarchy.

Despite all this, Baum also shows disrespect for monarchy, having Dorothy refuse to show the very unsympathetic Princess Langwidere any deference:

“I thought some one of importance had called.” “Then you were right,” declared Dorothy. […] “Stop—stop!” commanded the Princess, with an angry flash of her splendid eyes. “How dare you annoy me with your senseless chatter?” “Why, you horrid thing!” said Dorothy, who was not accustomed to being treated so rudely. […] “Tell me,” she [Langwidere] resumed, “are you of royal blood?” “Better than that, ma’am,” said Dorothy. “I am from Kansas” (95–96).

The struggle with the Nome King is exciting, but, under the hood, we have a royal rescuing unsympathetic royals from another unsympathetic royal. Even this could be engaging, say if Dorothy was in a sort of Escape from New York scenario (save the president, even though he sucks). Perhaps Dorothy is simply too childish to realize the politics of the situation she finds herself in. That could be interesting. But the idealized fairy tale dictator, Ozma, suggests that Baum intends the scenario to be taken at face value. The issue is that Baum buys into his monarchy fantasy. He assumes the reader will feel particularly bad for the Royal Family of Ev, despite clearly showing why the monarchy should end, even if it is also heroic to liberate slaves from the Nome King regardless of the moral character of the enslaved people. Maybe my politics are just screaming, “HAVE THEM FREE JUST NORMAL PEOPLE WHO ARE ENSLAVED, WHY A BRUTAL ROYAL FAMILY, AAGGHH” too loudly for me to focus. Having Dorothy instead rescue her beloved friends in Return to Oz was a wise move. Like The Marvelous Land of Oz, Ozma of Oz is full of tensions as interesting as the story itself. Unlike in The Marvelous Land, however, they are definitely not more interesting than the story.

The fourth Oz novel is Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, probably the strangest one so far and certainly the most violent. Please read my post about it too. Thank you for reading.

An illustration of Dorothy returning to Uncle Henry ends the story.

#ozma of oz #wizard of oz #return to oz #dorothy #nome king

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111winks · 1 year

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Wicked is my life, not just a phase mom

In the meadow they lie awake or sleeplessly walking

Draining themselves of energy that wasn’t there

The chickens slept in the coop and waited

The supermarkets empty because their value - nothing nutritional at all

I felt nothing and everything all at once

So much to say but nothing at all

Afraid to speak because maybe to be alive to born that was the holocaust -

If I could hold a mirage of all that I am and become

Would he still manage to look at me the same

The called me a beast

But you were worse

I still don’t care though

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sebsxphia · 1 year

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Ooh Sebbie, I just had another wicked cute thought pop into my head (lol).

So knowing Rhett, he's probably grown up around big dogs, especially dogs that were made for cattle herding. Royal even adopted the family's Rottweiler, Diesel, to help with the cattle herding. He's a big tank, loveable, but "dumb as a brick" as Royal jokingly puts it.

The only small dog Rhett's probably been around long enough is Cecelia's little squish-nosed cocker spaniel, Ruby. Even then, she'll run outside and jump in the truck, chase the cows or the critters in the yard etc.

So imagine yours and Rhett's surprise when one day, an elderly neighbor is out of town and her little chihuahua dog, Pinky, is in need of watching. Rhett's probably not crazy about the idea seeing as Pinky is so friggin tiny and she's wearing a little pink sweater. He's afraid somebody's gonna give him so much shit for it when he gets home, but Amy ABSOLUTELY LOVES PINKY and he has to constantly remind her to quit feeding her table scraps when nobody's looking.

Oh but it gets better. Pinky is the first to jump in the truck with Rhett, she fits perfectly in his baseball cap and in the morning she'll herd the chickens into the coop. And the best part is? None of the Abbotts have to worry about rats in the storehouses anymore, Pinky's a natural born ratcatcher (lol).

oh this is so so cute to think about my love!!! 🥹 everybody thinking the big, bad, strong cowboy likes big dogs, but actually he’s seen around town carrying pinky in his baseball cap most days and tucked under his arm. secret softie rhett abbott makes my heart swoon!!

thank you so much for this sweet thought my love!! 💌

#💌you’ve got mail #auroralightsthesky #rhett abbott

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keefwho · 10 months

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July 18 - 2023 Tuesday

7:25 AM

My friend complains about how she often gets creepy guys that are entitled to her attention and end up being total weirdos about everything. I know it impacts how she feels about herself and I don’t blame her. The closest thing I’ve experienced is being treated in a similar way from people that just want my art or think I own them attention in a professional sense. I hardly let these people get to me because of how I can close myself off but that comes at a cost. I’m realizing how brave it is to be in this kind of situation and still have the capacity to care like she does. Being closed off like I am avoids harmful feedback like this but makes it harder to accept the positive things too. Which is SHIT because I hate giving people power over me.

5:05 PM

I crave deep connection and the only person I can get that from is busy lately. It’s hard trying to connect with people in general, especially when I don’t have a grip on who I am. If I don’t try REALLY hard, talking to anyone feels almost pointless. And that makes me feel isolated because it feels like a bad thing that I can’t related to very many people, even though I know the core cause and that I AM able to make it better. It doesn’t help that I only have virtual contacts and never leave the 4 walls I find myself confined to. I don’t think any human is meant to put up with what I’ve put myself in for so many years.

5:27 PM

It’s nice to remind myself that it’s okay to feel sorrow at things that aren’t made up. A lot of my despair comes from my own untrue thoughts, but some things are real. I feel sad that I have nowhere to go, that I’m cooped up here. I’m sad that my bestie is so busy and doesn’t have time to hang out or pursue her own hobbies like she wants. I’m sad that I had a shit childhood that contributed to how seemingly broken I am now. It’s okay to be sad at things like this. They are real. This was triggered by watching a stream of a game where this girl was crying because she was not allowed to leave the house for her own safety. But she had her father and toys, but it wasn’t enough. It reminds me of all the times I would be alone with my own toys. And sometimes mom would play with me but too often I was alone wanting someone to share the fun with. I learned to cope but I don’t want to cope anymore. I want to share and I want to love.

10:44 PM

Today went okay but as usual my core issue is lacking that self perspective and thinking too much about certain things. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to be conscious that I am a constant living, thinking person and so are the people I interact with. Maybe it’s being confined to this room having such strong routines. It’s easy to lose yourself when you pre-define everything you’re going to do and berate yourself for breaking protocol.

Anyways for breakfast I had bean with bacon soup and a grilled cheese. Shortly after eating I had unrelated tummy cramps that delayed me from doing my usual morning art stream on time. My warmup sketches were impacted as well. I did do a short stream brought on by my bestie asking if I was going to today because she would watch. My tummy was mostly better at this point so I gave it a try and was able to for about an hour. This meant I slacked on commission time today but I can afford to atm. For a bit I relaxed until I felt a little better and took a shower. I had a wicked nut and enjoyed the mist feature of my showerhead as it turned my bathroom into a sauna I baked in for a bit. Out of the shower I decided to clean up a bit like I hadn’t earlier and took my trash can out to be hosed down before wiping it down with bleach. Can’t have dirty garbage. The process was filthy though so I took another brief shower and changed clothes. For lunch I made a chicken burger but didn’t overcook it this time. I freeze all my perishables including bread and cheese and for some reason I always feel the need to fully cook them all. I usually do this by cooking the patty, assembling the burger, and putting it back in the pan with a lid over it to bake it essentially. Normal it results in a bun that is too hard and some of the flavor gets fucked up. Well today while the patty finished, I put the buns in just to get toasted, put the patty on one after that, and let the cheese melt on top before finishing it. No burnt buns this time. Today’s request and world work were done in my friend’s server again. Sometimes I want to shake it up but I don’t know where to go. Today in particular I wasn’t feeling like hanging out there but I was alone enough to try anyways. I know when I feel like that though, that I’m not there for the best reason and I tend not to connect with people. Afterwards I was hoping to hang out with my bestie soon and was trying to find a way to spend my time. I was watching Twitch but felt very sad about my current circumstances. But it was sad in the way that made me want to do something about it instead of pity myself or let myself be pitied by others. For awhile though I let myself sulk because I feel like I needed that wholesome sadness. Midway through I was checking my favorites on e621 out of boredom and succumbed to my lustful desires. Even though I already nutted earlier, I was gonna do it again and blow myself this time. Just to feel something honestly, I did this for the distraction. It turned out to be a bad idea though because I had pulled my back slightly a few days ago doing this same thing but this time I pulled it way harder. I almost thought I was gonna need a doctor. My friend was also chilling in VC while I did some of this so I was missing that quality time for some BLOW. I streamed myself playing Mother 3 while she did some LinkedIn stuff and worked on producing a pattern for her fursuit head. We discovered this pony show that she was shocked she didn’t know about so hopefully we can try watching it someday soon.

Sometimes I know what it takes to force myself to get perspective but sometimes I’m scared to become aware. Sometimes it’s easier to just go through the motions even though I know it’s bogging me down and ruining my life. It’s easy to lose and thats what makes it appealing. With this journal though I try to force myself to write about my day and evaluate how it went. Like, I really did all this and am now reporting it. I was there making decisions and experiencing the outcomes.

What could I have done better today? This morning my tummy hurting caused me to slack a lot but I can’t blame myself for that too much. I still pushed through it and did what I could. I guess instead of joining my friend’s server I could have tried to find someone else to talk to? Or I could have chilled more on my own. I really don’t know what could have been better, it seems like I was fucked either way. Maybe I was lacking that much needed perspective to feel right doing anything at the time. I think I should have avoided nutting a second time, I did it for the wrong reasons. Maybe it is good sometimes to engage in those distractions but in this case I physically hurt myself because I didn’t prepare right. Other than that things felt a little out of my control. All I really want to do is spend more time with my bestie but I’m having to accept that it’s not possible right now. And the only reason I want that is because I can’t find anyone else that fulfills me socially right now. EVERYONE is a drain except for her and my best friend, but he’s always busy and in a different time zone. It seems like the key is to find more people that I don’t have to put up with. People that build me up for once. It almost seems impossible to find them.

Tomorrow I’m going to keep focusing on reminding myself to look at myself and practice thought defusion techniques some more. I’ll probably write about that because sometimes I have trouble deciding if a thought needs to be defused or not but there are some criteria to check off that determines if a thought may be helpful or not.

#journal #diary #power #sad #lonely #socializing

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weirdopponent · 1 year

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When she enlisted, Regan thought - she didn't know what she thought. She was there, when the Emperor took her seat. She was there, numb, tired, wondering what use a little girls' words would have for her, what she would gain from a war that wasn't hers. Regan's thought about it a lot since then. She has a list in her head of questions she would ask if she was the right person.

Regan was a butcher. The death throes of men are similar to those of pigs.

Generally speaking, war is boring. This is the first thing Regan learned. She isn't on the front lines, and she isn't a strategist. And if she was, she scarcely thinks that would change the fact. Rumors would have you believe Emperor Edelgard is a suspicious creature who scarcely trusts her own chair, let alone her generals. Regan would never know the battles for the war. And battles scarcely come her way. It's monotonous. It's empty.

Another thing she learned is that Faerghus is not as desolate as the nationalists would have you believe. About half of the propaganda she's seen so far tout it as a frozen wasteland rife with barbarians, that Adrestia can bring the finer things to its people, if they'd only come under her wing. The nearest town is wary of them. But Regan has more in common with the young man holding a chicken by its neck and a big knife in the other hand than she does with the child on the throne.

It is cold, though. It is terribly, terribly cold. The flowers that spring up here must be hardier than the feisty things they cultivate in Leicester, or the large bright flowers that unfurl only in the hot sun back home. Regan has a favorite - they are small blue flowers that grow in clusters. She doesn't see them in the forest, but the young man with the chicken coop has a sweetheart with a garden. They venture out into their homelands' cold spring with bare arms, and Regan wonders why.

She doesn't have a good reason for enlisting. If she'd been born richer, she would have been a painter. Her cheap paper curls under her cheap watercolors, and is covered in small blue flowers. If she trusts the words of a girl who is more likely a liar than an idealist, maybe her daughter will get to live like that. Regan sighs. She leans against a tree. Wishes she had a cigarette left.

She doesn't know why she is here, in an evergreen forest, in a hastily constructed waypoint. She sees only the trees. And -

Regan jolts, looks closer at the shadows, at how they choke out the new greenery, the stubborn snow. Jagged lines stretch out like a farmer's repurposed scythe, or

perhaps a wicked crown, leading to - to a hart. A stately young man with an unseasonal rack. Red as the flag. Regan's hand twitches, she wonders at her bow. But -

The hart leans back. It looks at her with sweet brown eyes. Regan remembers the first piglet she ever held, and the first man she ever killed. She hesitates. She always hesitates. She cannot help hesitating. It will be the death of her.

It is so quiet between the two of them, even the birds do not sing. In Enbarr, when Ionius' family was slaughtered, the city was shocked into vigil. The silence is like a mourning, until a branch snaps, and the hart is startled into flight. It bounds back into the rich green shadows, and Regan wonders - she wonders why the birds are silent.

She is facing the forest, so she doesn't see the danger. There is a clamor behind her, a shout and the sound of swords being drawn.

The beast is shrouded in furs, black and blue and white. Its hair is long and lank, and covers its face. There is - fuck, it's drenched in blood, the steel tip of a lance slick with it. The steel tip turns down, and is driven through Edmund's stomach. Edmund is 19. Regan only watches, frozen. A red hart faces a butcher.

She has an advantage, maybe. If the beast does not look for her, perhaps it will not see her. Regan's bow is sturdy, but her aim has never been the best, and the beast moves erratically - not unlike an injury, or something like an injury. If she could just get a better shot - Regan steps forward, right into a twig.

The… thing… it turns to face her. It snarls, its mouth levering open with some amount of difficulty. She cannot - Regan's never seen anything like it, skin so gray and sunken, so many stitches on someone still living, still shaped like a human. Such a fog in its mismatched eyes. She hesitates. She always hesitates. She cannot help hesitating. It raises an arm and throws its lance.

It hits.

#frankenstein au (wip)#wip #fire emblem three houses #feth #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #he only appears a little bit lol #since this parts mostly from a minor ocs perspective #lol when i was writing this i asked ren if regan should die or live and he said die and then got UPSET AT ME when i killed her!!!!!!!!#it was so silly. i was honestly kinda proud since i figured that meant i made her likable in the brief time you get to know her #i dont think the death n violence in this is so bad as to warrant an entire tag community or otherwise

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rottingcorps3s · 2 years

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“Kate McCannon” - A.M.

Arthur Morgan x Original female character

A dramatic story telling of Arthur and his late lover.

Inspiration: Kate McCannon - Colter Wall

Rating: 16+

Warnings: Murder, descriptions of murder, implications of hanging, anxiety, cheating, angst, teeny amount of fluff, cussing, implied sexual content, imprisonment, talk of dead mother, nail biting?, this is not proof read because who has time for that? THIS DOES NOT HAVE A HAPPY ENDING...enjoy :3

Word count: like 1.9k ish

A/N: This has previously been posted on Ao3 and I’ve been wanting to start posting here, so please, enjoy! Please feel free to leave any feedback, or compliments and I will graciously eat them up.

My Ao3 account: rottingcorps3s

“Well, the raven is a wicked bird His wings are black as sin And he floats outside my prison window Mocking those within,”

The skin peeling away around his nail beds quickly became the most interesting thing in his day-to-day life. His nails were almost nonexistent as he had chewed them down to small nubs. The nail-biting was a newer habit, one that started up almost immediately after he was locked behind the four concrete walls. He halfheartedly slouched against the wall, with no regard to any future back problems as he knew his time was limited, he was just unsure of how long. The damp room was barely illuminated by the early morning sun if you could even consider four concrete walls, a square window no bigger than 12 inches on each side, and a heavy metal door, a room. It was quiet that morning, more than usual. His stomach churned at the lack of, anything. At the lack of any life around him. No early morning songs from the birds, no clopping hooves of nearby horses, and not a single person or evidence of one either. And it stayed like that, for hours. He didn’t move a muscle; he didn’t have the energy to. His thoughts were the only thing that was keeping him entertained as he rotted away in the cell; praying for his last day to come sooner rather than later. The sound of wings flapping instantly drew his attention over to the ‘window’. A small black raven stood on the edge of one of the bricks on the other side of the bars. He knew almost immediately after looking over that the raven was a sign; a promise you could say.

“And he sings to me real low It's hell to where you go For you did murder Kate McCannon,”

He let out a deep sigh, one that expelled his entire lung capacity in one breath. He struggled to keep away the thoughts that ate him up, ate at his mind like a damn parasite. The creature let out a squawk; almost as if it was mocking him as it knew. Hell, he wouldn’t be surprised if the fucking thing did know something, the news spread from here all the way to Timbuktu like wildfire.

Fire.

That’s all he felt. Just pure, unbridled rage that spread like a damn wildfire. The same rage that seemed to absolutely consume him the day he pulled his gun out on her. He remembers everything about that moment. The smell of gun powder, blood, and sweat. The taste of his tears as they streamed down his face and into his mouth. The sound. The sound she let out, the sound of the gun going off…the sound her body made as it hit the ground.

“When I first met Tom McCannon I was working in the mines Said he had himself a dark-haired daughter With long, green eyes,”

They met because of her father. He had just started working for the older widower and his daughter who needed help with the chores on their farm. He had typical farm hand duties; milk the cows, bail the hay, feed the horses, and everything else in between that the older man could think of. He was able to help with things that were long overdue for an upgrade. He had completely rebuilt their chicken coop the prior week and had started fixing up the cow barn the day she walked in. The interaction came straight out of a storybook. His breath hitched in his throat as she appeared from around the corner, a metal pail in her hands as she approached one of the cows. The typical love at first sight mumbo-jumbo. She had yet to notice his presence, her focus was 100% on setting up her milking station. His voice trembled as he broke the silence with a simple hello, her figure jumping back and slamming into the wall behind her. Her emerald, green eyes were wide as she looked up at him, full of fear that quickly disappeared once she realized who he was. She returned the previous greeting followed by a string of apologies for her ‘outburst’.

“And when she and I did meet She was bathing in the creek Prettiest girl in the whole damn holler That ain't no lie,”

She was the prettiest thing he had ever laid eyes on from that day forward. Their relationship blossomed faster than a field of wildflowers. Her days used to be filled with nothing more than the sound of the farm animals and boring chores. She and her late mother took care of most of the work, and once she had passed, it became her responsibility. It took her weeks of 12+ hour days to convince her father to hire some help as it was all becoming too much for her, and ‘how am I going to find myself a husband when you have me working myself into the grave’ is what she used to convince him.

Then Arthur came along.

“So, I went a courtin' Kate McCannon Got me a job and I quit my ramblin' and Every day I'd save A quarter of my pay,”

After the constant hounding, her father finally paid to put an ad in the local paper. Something along the lines of ‘great pay: farm hand desperately needed,’; he stopped reading the second he saw the words ‘great pay’. He showed up early morning the next day, which seemed to work out perfectly as his daughter was gone for the day and he started work immediately with little to no questions asked. The older man was kind, telling him that he could stay in the extra housing they had behind the main house, letting him know that if they like the work he does, and if he’s willing, he could stay here long term.

Looking back at it, he wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or a curse that their schedules never seemed to line up. Most days she was awake before the sun was even up and was long gone into town by the time he was starting his day. And at the times he was finishing up, she was practically running into her house to get cleaned up and settle down for the night.

From the first day they met, they started working together. He progressively started waking up just a little bit earlier in an attempt to match her schedule to maximize the amount of time that was spent together. When she would milk the cows; he would shovel the cow poop. When she was gathering the eggs; he was throwing out the chicken feed. When he had started fixing the barn's roof, she was beside him, handing him nails and passing him sheets of wood. The interactions did not go unnoticed by her father, but luckily he chose to keep his nose out of her relationship with the man.

“I could buy a diamond ring Lord and one day I come home to find My darlin' angel's not inside,”

Months had passed since he had arrived and started working for them. She had progressively started moving some of her things into his cabin on the property, hanging around more often, staying until the early hours of the morning just talking and watching the stars, and staying the night with him some nights. He showed her parts of his heart that had yet to see the light of day; her feelings equally reciprocated as she told him things and quirks about her mother. He was almost 100% sure that they would be carbon copies of each other if he had the opportunity to meet her, a lot of the things she would tell him were things that he had noticed her do, or she would act a certain way that would scream that she had picked it up from her mother.

He had arrived home after spending the past few days looking for a bounty that took a lot longer to wrangle than he had anticipated, and he was prepared for a good scolding when once she returned. His boots hit the wooden floor as the door flung open; the cabin completely empty and she was nowhere to be seen which he found odd considering it was around the time she was prepping dinner. He shook the thought off, choking it off to her being in the main house with her father since he had been gone longer than expected. He discarded his satchel onto a nearby chair as he entered the small building, looking for clues as to where she may have gone off to. A sweater of hers that hung in the far corner of the room was missing, his instinct telling him she must’ve been outside, possibly on a walk as she tended to wander around at the end of the day.

“So, I made for the creek Where she and I did meet And found her with some other lover,”

He hurried in cleaning himself up, throwing off his tattered coat and replacing it with a newer and cleaner one. He was gone out the front door just as fast as he had entered and started making his way around the property. Much time had passed since he had first walked onto the front steps of the old man’s property. It had just been a little over a year now and if he could tell past Arthur that landing this job would give him a home, a stable income, and a woman?? He would’ve spit right in his fucking face.

The late afternoon sun was just beginning to set, the sky was a pretty mix between orange, yellow, and even a little pink and purple mixed in. He smiled to himself at the sight and set off to hunt down his woman. He walked along the trail that he typically found her on, but she was nowhere to be found. He tried the horse barn, over by the chicken coop, and had even knocked on the door of the large farmhouse and questioned her father about her whereabouts. He suggested the same places, but also included the cow barn, as he knew she had been spending most of her time out there that day. He nodded simply and said his goodnights before setting off for the second barn. He walked quickly, the gravel under his boots crunching with each step he took as he approached. It was quiet, which was unusual, as she had a habit of quietly humming and singing to herself whilst she worked. His eyebrows furrowed together as he heard a familiar noise of hers, a small gasp and groan that he knew belonged to her as he had heard it many times before. His initial thought as he flung open the door was that she hurt herself, maybe fell down the ladder and sprained her ankle, could’ve even broken a bone.

He wishes he wouldn’t have opened the door that day. The sight he was met with will forever be engrained into his eyes. The sight of her with her hands on another man, touching him the way she had touched him once before. Making noises for another man that she had only ever made for him. God, it makes him sick to his stomach at the thought of it. His body reacted much faster than his mind was able to catch up. He had unholstered his gun at the speed of light, aiming it at the pair who had jumped apart. His emotions took over as hot tears fell down his face and into his mouth, the saltiness of the tears only adding to the pain. She had begged him to not shoot her lover, attempting to stand in between the pair, but it took her a moment to realize that he was not in fact aiming the gun at the other man…

He was aiming it at her.

“And I put three rounds into Kate McCannon.”

#arthur morgan #rdr2 #arthur morgan x original female character #angst #sad ending #arthur morgan fanfiction #arthur morgan fic

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