#despite being in her future implied to be a thousand years

[gothamcitycentral]

Hazbin establishes very strong parallels between Charlie and Vaggie’s relationship and Lucifer and Lilith’s.

Charlie being as to Lucifer, the fantastical dreamer discouraged and rejected by the world around them.

Vaggie being as to Lilith, someone who failed their assigned role and were driven out of ‘paradise’ (Heaven/Eden) by someone they should have been able to trust (Lute/Adam).

In their most vulnerable moments Lucifer and Charlie find them, love blossoming between each pair because they defied the norm, Lucifer and Lilith being rebellious in a world of order and Charlie and Vaggie being kind in a world of cruelty.

Though at the same time, Charlie is to Lilith while Vaggie is to Lucifer.

“This kingdom was something she really cared about. Something I care about.”

Charlie acknowledges she is the last thread of the hope her mother gave to Hell all those thousands of years ago. The responsibility to her home Charlie puts on her shoulders is born from the love Lilith had for it. She is directly following in her mother’s footsteps, truly believing her people deserve better and that they’re worth fighting for.

Then there is their partners, the fallen angels who don’t share their love’s connection to Hell. Lucifer saw sinners as horrible people who wasted the gift he went to Hell for giving them. Vaggie always kept everyone not named Charlie a spear’s distance away, treating them as people she tolerated but never trusted for a moment. Despite what Heaven had done, had done to them, they were still thinking like angels.

(Though, these mentalities would change throughout the first season, Lucifer choosing to support Charlie no matter what and Vaggie accepting the hotel crew as a part of the in-group which she wishes to protect)

Lucifer’s distaste for his people, not fighting alongside Lilith’s rebellion and instead agreeing to the exterminations, seems to be why they eventually split, despite the love they held for each other. In extreme contrast, Vaggie always supporting Charlie is what keeps them together despite bumps in their relationship. Vaggie always chose to believe in and support Charlie and that means the world and more to Charlie, who spent so much of her life unsupported.

The show also juxtaposes Lucifer’s parental love for Charlie with Vaggie’s romantic love for her, most prominently with Vaggie starting the reprise of More Than Anything to express her love as Lucifer did originally.

(They’re also just. Charlie and Lilith being these tall powerful demon women with Vaggie and Lucifer being their short and tiny fallen angel loves)

What becomes interesting is during the finale when Lucifer (very strongly, very tastefully) implies he ate out Adam’s first wife before fucking his second.

This seems to based on sexual interpretations of original sin. However, in Hazbin we are very much lead to believe the Fruit of Knowledge is a literal apple. Given that Lilith is said to have also offered the apple to Eve, I doubt the implication is that Luci had any sort of one night stand with Eve. Rather, I think Lilith, Eve, and him were once, or attempted to be, in a romantic relationship.

(Considering Eve was made to be Adam’s lesser and Lucifer and Lilith shared the gift of free will with her specifically, I do wonder if Eve had fallen in love with the two, but was unable to leave Adam. The Fruit of Knowledge being given to her so she would be able to be free and join their relationship, but ultimately resulted in their separation as Lucifer and Lilith were casted into Hell)

Which certainly has implications about the future of Charlie and Vaggie’s relationship.

I think the show has actually set very compelling parallels between Eve and Emily.

Much as Lucifer shared forbidden knowledge with Eve, it’s Charlie’s actions that revealed the hidden truth of Heaven’s exterminations. There’s the specific ‘free will’ which Eve was gifted, which fits with Charlie’s influence giving Emily the ‘free will’ to defy Sera and act against Heaven.

I’ve also talked before about the possibility Emily was brought into existence to fill Lucifer’s place in Heaven. Considering the protective relationship Sera has with Emily, along with her looks of genuine horror at her acting against Heaven, it brings to mind the idea Sera has been fearful that Emily would fall just as Lucifer did for Emily’s entire existence, and as such raised her to be more likely to never stray from Heaven as Lucifer did. Which could add to why Sera hid Heaven’s genocide from her despite Emily being a high ranking seraphim; she couldn’t risk giving Emily a reason to rebel.

Which would be a very striking analogue between the two. Both living replacements for the fallen, born into someone else’s shadow to take their place, intended to be the more docile and proper version of Lilith and Lucifer, less likely to stray from the roles they were created to fill. Though, of course, we know Eve fell to temptation and maybe-probably-definitely left or tried to leave Adam, and that Emily is walking the edge.

(Emily having ties to both Lucifer and Eve seems relevant with how Charlie and Vaggie each have parallels to Lucifer and Lilith. Perhaps in her fall, we’ll see Emily ‘thrive in Hell’ just as Lilith did, and similarities between Charlie and Vaggie to Eve will pop up the more we learn about her?)

What’s also interesting is that Eve ‘falling into temptation’ (choosing Lucifer and Lilith over her preordained role) is what separated her from them. However, if Emily were to choose supporting Charlie’s dream over her place in Heaven, then her falling would be what brought her to Charlie and Vaggie. Thereby their situation acts as a foil to the previous generation’s.

And Emily supporting Charlie is very relevant. In More Than Anything we get the exchange of:

“I’ll support your dream whatever lies in store.”

“And who could ask for more?”

Because Charlie can’t think of anything more she could ask. Charlie’s idea of love and being loved is so heavily based on support and being supported. It’s a part of the conflict in Hell’s Greatest Dad, that Lucifer is being genuine and Alastor manipulative, but Alastor is the one actually providing Charlie with what she asks of him, which Lucifer never has. Charlie shows her love for Hell by believing in them, that they can improve, they deserve safety, and they have worth. It’s why Vaggie’s love is so important to Charlie, because for a long time, she was the only one believing in her.

And what does Emily do?

“I don’t know-”

“Yeah, let’s give him a chance!”

She supports Charlie! She believes and trusts her and argues on her behalf. She’s the only angel in Heaven to have faith in Charlie’s dream. Having Emily in the position of a fallen angel, falling right into Charlie’s arms, Charlie caring for her and nursing her back to health, with her being someone who very deeply believes in her, would be the same conditions that made Charlie fall in love with Vaggie three years ago.

Then for Vaggie, Emily also has a lot of the textbook traits that she loves Charlie for. The overexcited-ness, the care she has for others, even the way she doesn’t pull rank. And what she hasn’t expressed, that being seeing value in Vaggie where she herself does not, it feels natural that Emily would express that in the way Charlie does upon learning Vaggie’s history. We’ve seen her sense of justice and her horror at Heaven’s actions, so her deeply sympathizing with Vaggie would be entirely expected, and would be a very easy way for Vaggie to catch feelings for Emily.

However, there is this:

Which suggests the direction of a jealous Vaggie. I think that works, at least initially, with Vaggie feeling insecure in her relationship with Charlie after Emily falling and being cared for by Charlie in the way she was all that time ago. Those feelings heavily changing however, at the realization that Emily is crushing on her just as much as she is Charlie and how deeply relatable to her Emily’s circumstances and trauma would be.

Then on Emily’s side, not only would she have very much been thinking and focusing on Charlie prior to her fall, once she does, she lands in a very emotionally volatile situation where Charlie and Vaggie are supporting her so much and caring for her so deeply. It makes sense that this would translate to her developing feelings for the both of them.

(Now, this is a bit less definitive, but with Emily’s design, the long hair and dress that covers every inch of her short of her fingers, and Heaven being a stand in the imperialist church, I do read the coming-of-age story the show has set up for her to be one of a conservative christian raised girl striking out of the doctrine she grew up in and finding community in the people her home had demonized, or at least an allegory for such. So having her develop romantic feelings for two ‘vile and blasphemous’ women in a very non-monogamous way would be very thematically relevant I think)

I would say this all works great as an analogue to Lucifer, Lilith, and Eve. Eve being in the unfortunate situation of Adam’s wife but finding comfort in Lucifer and Lilith and falling for the both of them as Emily would as a fallen angel being comforted by Charlie and Vaggie and falling for them. Lucifer seeing Lilith reflected in Eve and caring for and helping her as he did before being parallel to Charlie helping Emily as she did Vaggie. Lilith, initially feeling negativity towards the woman made to replace her bond so closely with her new love, only to realize Eve is falling for her just as much as she is for Lucifer and empathizing with Eve’s situation so deeply, just like Vaggie.

Then, there’s Adam and Lute. I already mentioned that they play parallel with forcing Lilith and Vaggie out of their respective paradises. Their dynamics are built on Adam and Lute punishing, and their domination over, Lilith and Vaggie, because they need to know their place: beneath them. (There’s also the interpretation of that Lute had or has romantic feelings for Vaggie, which is certainly relevant) The show is being very clear with Lute being Adam’s successor I feel, with her taking on his position as leader of the exorcists following his death.

Then, her line: “Your brat is threatening the very foundation of Heaven.” Personally, that makes me think of a sediment Adam would feel towards Lucifer. That’s he is the source of every problem, that he stole his wives (ignoring that Lilith left him before even meeting Luci), and that he destroyed paradise, Eden. Now that Vaggie and Lute’s conflict has seemingly come to a close, I think the show will be shifting to a Lute vs Charlie conflict, much as Adam shifted from Lilith to his hatred for Lucifer.

Now, if the show wants to push a Adam-Eve dynamic with Lute and Emily, what I could imagine is Lute protecting onto Emily in a very one sided way, where she thinks Charlie has ‘corrupted’ the seraphim (threatening heaven’s foundation) and she must personally ‘save’ her, which would very much align with how Adam would feel towards Lucifer’s influence on Eve.

Now, we can tell that Lucifer, Lilith, and Eve’s relationship Did Not pan out particularly well. So I think much like how Charlie and Vaggie have succeeded where Lilith and Lucifer failed, Charlie, Vaggie, and Emily is going to be the successful foil to their attempted relationship. Then for Lute, I think it becomes a question of: does she accept the olive branch Adam did not, does she eventually understand that she is doing wrong, does she accept mercy, or does she continue down Adam’s path, digging her own grave as he did; except that unlike Adam, there won’t be anyone to cry for her?

And y’know, the angel and 3 immortal humans versus the demon/half immortal human and 3 angels serves as a nice counter.

#hazbin hotel #charlie morningstar #vaggie hazbin hotel #emily hazbin hotel #lute hazbin hotel #lucifer morningstar #lilith morningstar #eve hazbin hotel #adam hazbin hotel #chaggily #forbidden fruits #<- that’s the lucifer+lilith+eve tag yes? #lucilith #chaggie #txt

[calypsolemon]

Feeling some kind of way about how Steven sings a beautiful, empathetic song about how his mother's upbringing and his own are similar, about how both their guardians loved them but simply don't see them as capable and believing thats the core of the issue, right before experiencing torturous punishments (which his own guardians would have never done to him), alongside some of the most extreme physical and psychological abuse he experiences throughout the series, all done to him under the pretense that the perpetrator believed he was his mother.

#the way everyone is telling him he's just like his mother #as they repeatedly prove that actually her upbringing and experiences were VASTLY different #but also the way that I dont think he can ever truly understand her because his experience was so different #even though he's trying so desperately in some ways to BE her or embody her and reach out and understand her #not to imply he's innocent at this point in the series but he does approach the situation with a level of naivete about abusive families #which pretty much carries through into future despite him having this experience #because despite this being incredibly traumatizing to him. its different than LIVING under this for thousands of years #its different than essentially growing up under it #btw this is also not to say ''steven had it better'' I just believe steven did not have an abusive upbringing #the nature of his childhood trauma is really different and it gives him mental blocks in relating to that sort of oppressive control

[devildomwriter]

Do you have any info posts about witches in game?

I do now

1. Witches are mentioned the most in season one of the OG game because Mammon is still under the thumb of three of them. He got into trouble with a particularly nasty group of witches, Mammon says it was three, other believe it was up to ten. They tried forcing him to make a pact but Lucifer told them to cut Mammon into pieces instead and somehow in the end he just ended up as a chauffeur/errand boy for them.

2. It’s mentioned Asmodeus once brought a witch home and she turned into a spider to hide from Lucifer but he still found her.

3. In a Devilgram, the Great Witch Maddi is introduced. She is apparently still youthful in appearance despite being thousands of years old and this is due to her power. She stayed in the Devildom and attempted to make Diavolo marry her. She also made Mammon cry once and whenever she visits, Diavolo avoids her and has Satan and Lucifer handle her because she likes attractive men.

4. Another witch mentioned only in season one is Helene. She was a strong witch who was trapped in a painting and villainized after having a relationship with Asmodeus which started a war.

5. Another witch mentioned in season one with some dialogue is Grisella. She created a book that switches bodies and predicted it would help Satan and Lucifer’s relationship and she is described as being their fan. She was later murdered by her helper when she refused to mentor him because she knew her time was coming soon. Her spirit helps solve her own murder before she moves on.

6. In a game event, Lucifer claims there are witches powerful enough to cover the Devildom in snow.

7. Mammon implies that witches are supposed to be able to see the future.

8. Witches are often mentioned as living in the Devildom which is something humans don’t do as Solomon and MC are mentioned as being the first, so witches are considered a separate species/Demi-human. Although in season one they are also mentioned to live in the human world as Mammon got into trouble with those witches too.

9. A witch mentioned only once is Artemisia. Diavolo says he hasn’t visited her in a while and Lucifer declined visiting as he owes her favors after what happened with Mammon.

10. Mammon believes novice witches are easy targets for scams and that he can pay Levi pack this way.

11. In season two Diavolo mentions a witch’s sabbath. He instructs how others should handle a witch who requests a summoning without an application in advance. This implies that demons and witches have contractual agreements and that witches have to request to summon a demon before doing so.

12. Solomon says he associates with witches on occasion.

13. Witches are the ones who let Solomon know when the strange phenomenon in the human world inadvertently caused by MC finally ended.

14. In season three Mammon mentions that once when Asmodeus fell sick a bunch of demons and witches showed up and turned it into a party.

15. In season three Mammon mentions he has to be used to the human world because of always serving the witches. It’s also implied Lucifer doesn’t know the extent of it and if he did he’d probably interfere.

16. In season three, Diavolo mentions doing business in the human world due to demand for magical products by the witches and sorcerers who live there.

17. Cats are a common familiar of witches. We know this because in season three Satan kidnapped a bunch of cats for a cat cafe and Barbatos returned them all to the witches who owned them.

18. Mammon is mentioned as often receiving shady items from witches. I’m season four it’s mentioned one gift was given to him by a witch as congratulations for repaying her.

#obey me shall we date #obey me fun facts #obey me explanation #obey me ask #obey me answer #obey me maddi #obey me helene #obey me witches #obey me mammon #obey me asmodeus #obey me diavolo #obey me lucifer #obey me Solomon

[musings-and-overanalyses]

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind: Why This is My Favourite Ghibli Movie

CW: Major high-school English teacher vibes ahead. Proceed at your own risk.

Nausicaä of the valley of wind is a story of the titular character Nausicaä and her being a bridge between the world of humans and nature to bring peace, thus fulfilling an ancient prophecy.

Nausicaa is the princess of the Valley of the Wind. The film begins with her walking and exploring the Sea of Decay, an area with toxic air, plants and fungal spores. She collects some spores and finds the hard molten shell of an Ohmu (gigantic blue-blooded trilobite-looking creatures), which her people use to make weapons and tools. As the name suggests, the Valley of the Wind is a civilisation that depends on and bases their culture around wind, which one can see through an abundance of windmills and gliders, including the one that Nausicaä rides. They are shown to be peaceful people who do not interfere with the politics of the warring human kingdoms or disturb nature. Nausicaä in particular is shown to have a special gift with animals—from calming Ohmus to having a pet fox-squirrel. As the existence of the kingdom depends on the sea wind that shields them from the effects of the sea of decay, there is a general reverence towards nature and its other members such as the Ohmus, that are often referred to with honorifics.

This was an element I liked: the symbolism goes deep in this film; for example, with the nature of wind—it being the very breath necessary for life is contrasted with its other face, through toxic spores in the sea of decay capable of killing anyone who inhales it.

It is revealed that humans had built The Giant Men, weapons so dangerous—not unlike our atomic bombs as shown through the characteristic mushroom cloud—that the destruction caused by the war had unleashed the fury of the Ohmus, an otherwise gentle species. They wiped out entire civilisations and where they died, the Sea of Decay grew on their decomposing corpses, showing how all life is interconnected and that even in death the rage of the Ohmus, and through them the rage of nature, wouldn't subside. It is then that the viewers find out that this is not some far-off planet, but a post-apocalyptic future on earth.

New species of plants and fungi made the Sea of Decay their habitat—nature and life always find a way. It is implied that the humans lost the war referred to as the Seven days of Fire, but the truth is that it is not a war that can ever be won. Even if you win the war against nature you lose. As the story progresses, we see that the plants and fungi that Nausicaä collected from the Sea of Decay are actually trying to purify the soil and water—nature holds no grudges but only seeks balance.

The seventh of the Giant Men, a sentient atomic bomb if you will, apparently hid underground for a thousand years until the kingdom of Pejite found it for use against their enemy, the Tolmekians. They both remain oblivious to the sheer destruction that can be caused by this Giant Man and they don't care either. Despite the balance between humans and nature being a delicate one, instead of trying to rebuild together, they justify to themselves that the war is necessary for self-preservation and to put humans back on top of the food chain.

In their hubris, the Tolmekians and their princess Kushana believe that with the help of their superweapon they can destroy the Sea of Decay despite knowing that it will trigger the wrath of the Ohmus. The Giant Man however is not complete and hence, though the devastation is great, the final giant man dies and all that is remains to be done is to calm the wrath of the Ohmus.

Nausicaä saves an Ohmu child who was injured by Tolmekian soldiers to lure the Ohmus into a war. She saves the baby Ohmu and sacrifices her own life to calm the sea of maddened Ohmus. The now-calm Ohmu then revive Nausicaä, symbolising the mystical healing power of nature and its ability to support and create life.

Nausicaä is an excellent protagonist, and how the trope of the chosen one is utilised is beautiful and full of symbolism. Right from the get-go, we see her being inquisitive and brave. She is willing to defend her people but not through violence. And it is made abundantly clear that her avoidance of violence is not due to any lack of strength; when she strikes down the soldiers who killed her father, rather than feeling any sense of pride (as one might expect from a character not used to strength), it sickens her. She shows understanding even towards Kushana, whose men took over her kingdom. She sincerely loves and respects animals and plants.

There was a prophecy among the people of the valley of wind that a person clad in blue over golden fields will save their kingdom and bring peace. And towards the end of the film, Nausicaä's clothes becoming blue with the blood of the baby Ohmu she saved and the golden fields being the tendrils of the Ohmus healing her is poetic to say the least.

In addition to a good female protagonist, we also get a powerful female antagonist in Kushana, who starts out as a one-note expansionist ruler, but it is revealed that she lost her limbs and got severely maimed by the sea of decay, motivating her to destroy it once and for all. Proud and arrogant, sure, but she has a motive beyond just wanting power and possesses some form of a moral code. In another story she could be the protagonist bravely defending humanity against the evil, alien-esque trilobites and spores.

It was a unique and meaningful choice on Miyazaki's part to symbolise nature through the Ohmus—alien-looking giant insects—instead of something cute and fluffy. Oftentimes humans care more about the conservation of animals that they find cute (pandas over, say, Panamanian golden frogs), but an animal doesn't have to appeal to human aesthetics to be worth conserving.

Absolutely not to be missed is the breathtaking soundtrack by Hisaishi. There are symphonies, techno music, sitar-like instruments and a child's humming, all elevating every scene to give a moving experience.

Ultimately it is an ambitious story that aims to deal with themes of coexisting with nature, the futility and dangers of war, and of how innocent children who should live carefree lives are dragged into it and made heroes. This film is often categorised as falling into the genre of Solarpunk: a literary and artistic movement that centres around building a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community. Although this film does depict violence and wars, it ultimately shows a peaceful future is possible.

Truly a masterpiece. 9/10.

#analysis #culture #short essays #media #anime #fictional characters #film #ghiblicore #studio ghibli #musings #movies #solarpunk #climate change #nuclear #environmental issues #environment #miyazaki #feminism #review #character analysis #nausicaa #animanga #animals

[kanonavi]

(Spoilers for 4.5 Potion event (just in case lol I know I'm late on this))

At this point, I'm really wondering if we're gonna end up getting some payoff in the future for much Paimon absolutely hates Venti for no discernible reason. Because he isn't the only person she's been kinda standoffish with over the years, but he's by far the most consistent. Like, when you consider the fact that Paimon even warmed up to Al-Haitham by the end of Sumeru, it kinda says a lot about her apparent grudge against Venti by comparison. (And I love Al-Haitham to death, but I'm not about to say he's a ray of sunshine compared to Venti.) (Event interaction-related stuff under the cut)

The contrast to how Paimon treated Diona versus how she treated Venti when they came to the potion shop together was like night and day. I've been going around to all of my friends today and describing Paimon's reaction to them as something like "Diona omg hi it's so good to see you it's been forever how have you been!!! .........And Tone-Deaf Bard." which is obviously a comedic exaggeration, but also not entirely off the mark. And all Venti did was... exist? Try to help Diona out with what she was trying to do? Yes, he's going to get free drinks out of it but he also went truly above and beyond to help Diona find a new ingredient all the way from the middle of nowhere in Dragonspine. If he didn't care about Diona's feelings and what she was trying to do, he wouldn't have done that. (But of course, Venti does care because he's a good Archon and a good person and I love him for that.)

There are genuinely very few things that make me believe in the theory that Paimon is some kind of agent from the Heavenly Principles than the fact that she hates Venti so steadfastly. There's so much evidence that connects Mondstadt and specifically Venti/the Thousand Winds to the old civilizations of Teyvat that the Heavenly Principles once destroyed. For Venti to still exist in the world and let his people make their own choices in the way that he does, of course they and by extension Paimon would hate him. Plus, even if her annoyance with him started with his tendency towards being cryptic, why would Paimon care so much about what he knows? Why does one of his voicelines imply that he doesn't want to tell the traveler things with Paimon around?? It's just so incredibly suspicious.

The scene is kinda funny though when you look at how good Venti is with kids (how helpful and kind he is to Diona despite her wanting to get rid of alcohol, which he loves) and yet one of the most childish characters in the entire game absolutely despises him. Every day I wake up and wonder what in the world Paimon's damage is and if we're going to get a justification for it, or if this is sincerely just what the writers think is funny.

#hey listen! #genshin impact #paimon #venti #Am I biased in this? Yeah of course. BUT ALSO- #I don't even think having her have beef with him is necessarily a bad choice #It's just the fact that it's Venti of all people #He just feels like someone on the less offensive end of the character's we've met #There are so many people Paimon has warmed up to who have come off and also remained more annoying than Venti ever was imo #So it just makes me feel like there has to be some kind of reason for it #And like I guess it's not a big deal if there's no payoff I will just be sad about it :( #maybe today i'll finally make a meta tag... i feel like i should

[dozing-marshmallow]

CHRISTMAS WITH TOTAL DRAMA CHARACTERS(CHRIS, DUNCAN, HEATHER) SCENARIOS

Merry Christmas everyone! So sorry I couldn’t post something Christmas themed sooner, I hope everyone’s been having a wonderful day with family and friends whether you celebrate or not!🎄❤️

CHRIS

Despite the Christmas events he hosted for many networks, Chris didn’t feel he was really celebrating it until he went over to Newfoundland.

Before dinner, you joined him on this tradition that his homeland calls “Mummering” where it was basically Guess Who and Trick or Treat combined.

Needless to say, every neighbour you visited guessed who he was correctly.

He was reluctant to complete the family secret Santa. Originally, you sucked your teeth, thinking he was just being arrogant. However, from that event, you got an insight on the nature of a lot of his relatives- opportunistic.

“Could you lend me a few thousand dollars? What’s a guy like you to lose?", "Could you be the best nephew in the world and pay for the wedding of my best friend’s daughter?", "Could you help me pay off my mortgage?"

No wonder why your husband was barely enjoying himself at the dinner table! These people didn’t see him as a human; they saw him as a big shot wallet.

“Tell me, Chris... Is this how every Christmas goes for you?” you asked when it was just you and him, sitting next to him on the guest bed.

He was as sombre as ever. Sombre!,“Yeah. Told you the rest of the family weren’t important. I only bother to put up with them for my mom. I wish they all drop dead soon though.”

Not on Christmas Day... You couldn’t end the evening like this,“Okay... Is there anything you want to do together to cheer you up before we go to bed?”

“Hm...” the exhaustion shifts in his eyes as he smugly commands,“Tell me how good I look.”

You sigh in annoyance. That, you could do any day,“Really, Chris?”

“Fiiiiiine.” his moping tone of voice settled back,“I suppose raiding the leftover desserts wouldn’t hurt.”

“That...” is an oddly simple request coming from him,“Yet you’re implying you never did it?”

His attention is caught by the room’s door,“I didn’t have anyone I wanted to do it with.”

And unlike the fall of snow, his festive misery had vanished all at once.

“ᴬˡˡ ᴵ ʷᵃⁿᵗ ᶠᵒʳ ᶜʰʳⁱˢᵗᵐᵃˢ ⁱˢ ʸᵒᵘ!”

DUNCAN

Duncan’s dad was very pushy about Church this time around.

And he always found in his best interest to not go anyway.

This time though, you were there with him. So he decided, he’ll go this year.

He was also forced to join the local youth choir that would sing on the streets to raise money for those in need.

As long as he got to wear a mask...

“Not happening.” his dad sneered.

Okay, it wasn’t actually as bad as he thought it’d go.

Though he didn’t want to give his dad that satisfaction so he played sour about coming home. His main motivation was to steal some plates worth of food, give his mother her Christmas present and stuff the stockings of his cousins with bars of coal.

If anyone asks, you didn’t see anything.

His mom knitted him a Christmas sweater in return so obviously he wore it.

He visited his friends back in juvie with you.

It was quite heartwarming, seeing these teens who had done wrong in the past still have tenderness to friends and family, making you wish them a good future post leaving prison.

Besides, if they were Duncan’s friends, they had to have some morals.

Walking back, it was clear that he had room left for mischief and wanted to fill that space by stalling so you would be in front of him and turn around in confusion to not be met with Duncan, but his snowball.

“Hahaha! Nice makeup!”

You brush the snow off your face and feel your own devil inspire.

Let’s give him a taste of his own medicine.

You bent down and rolled up a snowball. Let the fight begin!

“ ᴼ ᶜᵒᵐᵉ, ᵃˡˡ ʸᵉ ᶠᵃⁱᵗʰᶠᵘˡ, ʲᵒʸᶠᵘˡ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵗʳⁱᵘᵐᵖʰᵃⁿᵗ!”

HEATHER

She scrunches her nose at the arrival of Christmas, that season that’s “nothing but noise and shallow junk.”

"I got you a present." you held it out for her.

“Buying my favour when it’s not my birthday, huh?” she looked inside the bag with no anticipation until she saw designer clothes neatly folded. She raised a smile and an eyebrow as she glanced back at you,“Okay, I guess it’s not that bad.”

Seeing her house made you wonder why she auditioned to come on the show.

To her displeasure, you were having fun cutting snowflakes, painting ornaments and decorating gingerbread men with her younger brothers and sisters.

Even more so when you helped her parents prepare the meal.

“We could never dream of Heather helping us out in the kitchen!” her mother claimed, wearing gloves over her manicured hands and a long apron over her expensive attire,“This is a nice change!”

“For sure! (Y/N) should come every year! Maybe our Heather Feather could learn a thing or two from you!” her father would then add on, with a hopeful smile.

With that, she dragged you out of the kitchen by the ear lobe.

“Let’s get out of here. I want something to drink.” she demanded, all ready in her outside winter gear.

Why come home if you’re not going to enjoy yourself?

You’re about to pay for the cozy drinks, but Heather interrupts you.

“I’ll do it.”

After an opening sip and staring at all this pure white showering from the sky, you smirk at Total Drama’s first villain,“So she does have a giving heart!”

Her answer was as cold, but her face was soft,“Don’t make me spill this on you.” the steam from her cup should be the only thing your eyes made contact with,“I just felt nice today. Don’t get used to it.”

“I won’t, I won’t.”

Something about that clarification made her tighten her grip on her cup for a small moment.

Seems like she wanted to give home a chance to fix her a reason for being...this. Generous.

A reason to like Christmas.

However, being with you, peacefully drinking with her, not disgusted or intimidated, was a reason on its own.

“ᵀʰⁱˢ ʸᵉᵃʳ, ᵗᵒ ˢᵃᵛᵉ ᵐᵉ ᶠʳᵒᵐ ᵗᵉᵃʳˢ, ᴵ’ˡˡ ᵍⁱᵛᵉ ⁱᵗ ᵗᵒ ˢᵒᵐᵉᵒⁿᵉ ˢᵖᵉᶜⁱᵃˡ,”

#tdi #tdi x reader #total drama #chris mclean #chris mclean x reader #total drama chris mclean #td chris mclean x reader #total drama island chris #td chris #total drama chris #christmas #merry christmas #merry xmas #happy holidays #xmas #holidays #festive #christmas post #total drama heather #td heather #td heather x reader #heather td #total drama headcanons #total drama scenarios #christmas time #christmas with total drama characters #Sorry for late post #I hope you have a great christmas! #td duncan #total drama duncan

[kiarastromboli]

Unlovable.

Sometimes I feel like I'm impossible to love. As a big extrovert, I've experienced a lot of relationships, often friendly, rarely romantic, sometimes physical. But all my relationships have always ended in the same conclusion, a more or less painful ending.

Often, I was the problem, or at least that's what was implied, and most of the time it was the people in front of me who wanted to end our relationships.

So it made me reflect and wonder what could be wrong with me. Was it my appearance? My sense of humor? My way of speaking? Or maybe my demeanor? Was it because I was too invested in these relationships? Or conversely, not enough?

A thousand questions to which I never really had the answer. Well, except the only answer I've drawn from it is that I'm not lovable.

And by that, I don't mean "oh, I'm a horrible person without a heart." No, what I mean is that I've never really felt truly and concretely loved.

Maybe I'm not meant to be loved, maybe I'm just a passing distraction in people's lives. A nice distraction for a few months to have a good laugh or have fun, but definitely not someone they would project a future with.

Because I'm too unstable for that, I'm too sentimental and too empathetic. I'm not cool enough and too much into wanting to control. I'm too talkative and too self-centered. In short, I'm always too much or not enough.

And for a long time, I tried to prove to the whole world and especially to myself that it was false, that I was lovable. I tried to prove that by getting into romantic relationships with people who didn't deserve all the effort I was putting in. And I tried to convince myself that if I loved them hard enough, our love could count for two so they wouldn't have to make efforts for me.

Yes, I was foolish, but I was mostly desperate, and after years of letting others break their hearts on me and tear my soul apart, I eventually gave up and accepted that if I wanted to be loved, I had to learn to love myself.

And deep down, I always knew it, but I never wanted to admit it because I know that on this earth, if there is one person who hates me more than anything, it's myself. I am solely responsible for my defective heart.

And no, it's neither the fault of the society we live in, nor of my mother who never found her prince charming despite all her efforts, and it's still not the fault of my father who never wanted to accept that the problem was him and not the women he dated. It was entirely my fault and mine alone.

Because no one held a knife to my throat to get me here, it was me alone, looking at myself in the mirror, who decided to see a monstrosity instead of a living being born of a fleeting but real and magnificent love.

Every day, I try a little harder to love myself, even if it's hard. And the irony in all of this is to think that I'm an incurable romantic fanatic of fairy tale love stories in movies, books, or masquerades.

I'm destined to be my own worst enemy and my first love, quite paradoxical when you think about it, which is probably why I love enemies to lovers stories so much.

-k

#writing

[a-treatise-on-velociraptors]

OK. Fuck it. More complaining about Tears of the Kingdom. Massive spoilers this time.

TL;DR: Zelda's dragon plan was bad, placing all their eggs in one basket when preparing for Link to fight Ganondorf shouldn't have worked from a Watsonian standpoint and is annoying as hell from a Doylist one, and while not necessarily undoing her development from BotW, Zelda's sacrifice here sets her up for this circumstantial sisyphean cycle of constantly giving up her own agency and personhood for Link.

The dragon plan itself--turning into an immortal being to guard the master sword until her own time--isn't the part of the plan that wouldn't have worked. It's everything else, not just from a story standpoint but from an in-universe, logistical standpoint. Thousands and thousands of years are a long fucking time, even in a fantasy world where the political and cultural landscape seems to be in a bit more stasis. Despite the fact that Hyrule literally has manifest destiny (which is a lot of, uh, thematic implication that's never really been addressed and that I'm not really gonna go into here), to anticipate that the specific set of events leading to the Sages' assistance of Link would transpire exactly the way they needed to is fucking preposterous. Yeah, you could say that it's a bit of a paradox--all of the pieces were already in place for Link and the Sages to fight ol' Ganny, and Zelda was simply retroactively setting them in motion for the future--but that's also stupid, because it would require the Light Dragon and sky islands to have always been there! And they appeared after the initial encounter with Ganondorf, which not only doesn't make sense as a time travel narrative at all, but also implies that before the Upheaval the sequence of events was still wibbly wobbly enough that shit could have gone down very, very differently! It's like the conundrum of how to indicate to future civilizations that certain areas contain radioactive waste--the this place is not a place of honor shpiel, et cetera. How do you leave the ancient all-powerful artifacts that your sages need in order to enact a plan thousands of years in the making, in places that no one will mess with over the millennia between you and them?

Conveniently drop those structures into place--ancient texts describing them and all--right before the second part of the plan goes off, I guess.

And from a narrative standpoint, I think "Thousands of years of meticulous preparation have gone into this One Fucking Super Special Uberguy of Prophecy Foretold getting to defeat the Big Bad. It is foretold that this Super Special Swordsman will be the Only One who can defeat the Big Bad, so we're all going to put our eggs in the Main Character basket in the hopes he actually will" is just. Dumb. it's just dumb. I was going to add the caveat that 'oh well previous zelda games had the reincarnation cycle' but that was a new edition with Skyward Sword. The reincarnation plotline wasn't a thing until the year of our lord 2011, the game that directly preceded Botw/Totk and was by the same director hmmmmm. Before that we had games like Wind Waker, where Link is just Some Kid who gets wrapped up in Hyrule's ancient dusty business while trying to save his sister. Or Twilight Princess, where Link is just Some Guy who gets wrapped up in Hyrule's current dusty business while trying to save the people from his town. Hell, even Ocarina of Time, where Link is the most predestined to be part of Hyrule's dusty business out of all the 3d Zeldas pre-SkSw, is immediately followed by Majora's Mask, where Link only gets wrapped up in Termina's dusty business because he's trying to find his friend. In all of those, Link feels like a generally normal guy who's blessed with strength because of his courage. Even in BotW, Link is just a guy who was Zelda's chosen knight. He nearly died for her, and when he awoke again 100 years later with no memory of who he was, he still rose to the occasion to stop the calamity he had failed to defeat.

In TotK? Link's the Kirito of Hyrule. He's the Special Guy everyone needs to swear fealty to. He's the Special Destined Chosen One. Their last line of defense will be Link.

As for Zelda's narrative sisyphean torture, it just puts a bitter taste in my mouth that after spending so much time giving herself in her entirety to protecting Hyrule, she has to turn around and do it again in a way that she believes is eternal and irreversible.

In BotW, Zelda activates her sealing magic as a personal last-ditch effort to save Link's life. She loves him (I will go to bat for Botw/TotK Zelink still) and she doesn't want to see him die for her and that's enough to finally activate her power. It's a good narrative beat, I liked it--despite my desire for Zelda to have some agency in the narrative that isn't just in direct support of Link, I'm a sucker for some good ol' "powers emerging in defense of a loved one" trope. It's good shit.

But in TotK, Zelda's only purpose is twofold: 1. To be Link's hype man. To set up the aforementioned Dumbshit Kirito Main Character Plan. To set the idiot ball rolling and hope it makes it to the right spot at the end of this cosmic plinko game. 2. To give herself--her mind, her body, her spirit, herself in her entirety--in order to repair the Master Sword and get it back to Link. "Link! Protect them all!" and "Link! You must find me!" are some of what she thinks are her final words. As far as she's come to know and expect by this point, the only purpose she serves now and forever is to pave the way for Link to do his part.

In the moment, meeting TotK where it is as far as her character goes, this development isn't necessarily bad. It's tragic, yes, but from a purely Watsonian perspective it's not the worst solution to her problem, and is the only one presented to her. But from a Doylist perspective it sucks ass. It's the wet fart of storytelling. So many of us have been begging Nintendo for years and years to give us more of Zelda as a character, give us more of her as someone with her own agency and drive within the plot (no, Sheik doesn't count, Sheik is awesome but still narratively only exists in service to Link), but TotK slid so far backward in that regard. Puts a bitter taste in my mouth. (Spirit Tracks had a better Zelda, and she spends most of that game trying to get her own corporeal form back from the BBEGs.)

#totk critical #totk spoilers #swinging a bat at a hornets nest #i need to set up my wii so i can play ww and tp again i think there's a classic tloz shaped hole in my heart that totk cant fill

[pochapal]

*lights the thermonuclear fuse* tell us about your homestuck/gender relationship

in the year 2019 upon the emergence of popular audience interpretation june egbert in the wake of the homestuck epilogues (2019), i elected to write a 150,000 word fanfiction titled "omelette route", wherein after the events of the epilogues john egbert comes out as a trans woman. also a version of my authorsona is there who is implied through the transfemininity of the whole story to be an eggy cis boy despite also being they/themmed until the final chapter (side note: my authorsona "pochapal" is a legally distinct gender from my boysona "[REDACTED]").

after tens of thousands of words of demented metafictional nonsense hinging around a narrative that both craves and fears the emergence and legitimacy of june egbert's coming out, the story gets unwritten and rewritten a bunch of times by june egbert, by breeze (a splinter self manifestation of june's repressed gender feelings and also her own person), and by the authorsona-character pochapal (who is different from the pochapal (me irl) who also wrote parts of this narrative). the conflicting authors with conflicting wants and desires all circling around the same central kernel of emotional truth eventually culminate in the total collapse of this reality and all realities by a pseudo-vengeful hypergod (red-text calliope) obsessed with maintaining all potential what-if post canon timelines and bending them to remain as recognisably "homestuck" as possible and who therefore has a vested interest in ruining omelette route before it can transition from "unknown fanfiction" to "meaningful influence on the audience's headcanons".

after a very cool very anime final showdown the universe has gone dark and muse!calliope is about to feast on the remains but june and pochapal, the twin beating hearts of this whole affair, remain even past the end of all things. after a deeply dramatic deeply emotional conversation june convinces pochapal to acknowledge the deepest truth buried right at omelette's route core, because despite pochapal's protests, the truth is real and exists, and unless they acknowledge it calliope will continue to have the power and means to destroy omelette route. so pochapal, with the help of june egbert, applies the narrative they wrote onto someone else onto themself and comes out as a trans girl (side note: my transfem authorsona "pochapal" is a legally distinct gender from my girlsona "[REDACTED]").

this final acceptance of the final truth grants omelette route its own pillars of truth relevance and essentiality and june + trans girl pochapal get collective power to write omelette route out of the clutch of post-canon fandom and into its own self-sustaining narrative ecosystem where this intrinsic embrace of selfhood is free to thrive outside of both personal and systemic attemps to deny it. june enters this new self-written narrative copy of omelette route able to be herself in peace and pochapal takes it upon herself to stand guard on a higher observation plane and guard the sanctity of this space to which she owes her own self-becoming from any threats past present and future, finally becoming an author who embraces omelette route and its myriad conclusions.

in the end none of this actually had any direct correlation to homestuck and has in fact dangerously corroded my relationship to and understanding of homestuck for all time. but whatever all that was is now part of me and part of homestuck to me forever so there's nothing to be done about it.

hope this clarifies and explains why i'm Like This.

#anonymous #pochapal talks about gender incident 5 million dead 2 billion injured #very funny that there are so many who don't know the omelette route deeplore because i get to do occasional detonations like this #maybe five other people max are doing it like me #btw don't ask me about what personal conclusions i drew from this experience i literally couldn't tell you #omelette route

[jakesuit0]

Her Parents Review

Outside of one episode, we don’t get to see much of Lady Rainicorn’s past in Adventure Time. The title card gives us a peak at Lady and her parents when she was still a baby. This is the closest we get to a Lady Rainicorn-centric episode in season two, but she barely appears in it.

The opening scene beautifully captures the feeling of breakfast. Gorgeous newborn sunlight blesses the room. Delicious looking scrambled eggs are on the table. The amazing feeling of being stuffed after a big meal and laying down to rest in ecstasy is on display. The scene is sprinkled with some nice additional details. Despite not being able to eat, BMO is included at this breakfast and even gets a serving of food. Jake gives BMO a second serving of food on top of BMO’s still untouched plate at his request. I love that Finn and Jake make sure to include BMO and are finally treating him as an equal member of the family. BMO copying Finn and Jake’s yawning and stretching is adorable. There is also a cute framed picture of Bonnie in a chef hat on the wall.

Jake is meeting Lady Rainicorn’s parents for the first time over lunch. Not much is known about the history of Jake and Lady’s relationship (I wish it was explored in a flashback episode), but this suggests Jake and Lady’s relationship is fairly new. You could argue the parents living so far away (in another dimension) is why this meeting took so long. However, we see in “Lady Rainicorn of the Crystal Dimension” that it’s very quick and easy for any rainicorn to make the trip.

Lady is nervous about the lunch, so Jake invites her parents over. Ideally, they can become friends already by the time Lady arrives. It’s a pretty bad idea. He shouldn’t go behind his girlfriend’s back. And, their first meeting would be a lot less awkward with Lady there. Jake can apparently write in Korean (he knows three languages!) and sends an invitation on a prism gram. Jake somehow gets a response instantaneously.

A new bit of Adventure Time history that isn’t elaborated on much is the mysterious Rainicorn-Dog Wars. Rainicorns and dogs fought for thousands of years. The only reasons given are territorial disputes in the Crystal Dimension. But it’s implied (and later confirmed) that racism was a big factor. It’s nice, albeit random, that the dimension Tree Trunks was transported to is the home of rainicorns. Rainicorns and talking dogs have been around for thousands of years, so before the Mushroom War. This raises the question if Jake’s ancestors are mutated dogs from Earth or if they originate from the Crystal Dimension. Jake being a normal dog in the Farmworld timeline implies the former. 

Finn overreacts and scares Jake into thinking Lady’s parents must be racist towards dogs and will force Lady away from him. It’s weird to assume they have the ability to control their independent, moved out, adult daughter like that. Finn tells Jake that homies help homies (always). It’s one of the most (probably literally the most) iconic and well known lines from the entire series. I wish it came back in future episodes. Finn comes up with a dumbass plan for Jake to pretend to be a rainicorn. What’s the long term plan here? Just pretend forever? It’s obviously not going to be feasible. This is a classic sitcom setup, and it’s cool to see Adventure Time tackle it. Adventure Time can be whatever the fuck it wants and make it work. That includes a sitcom!

Finn and Jake sing a simple, mildly catchy song while decorating the house with rainbows and disguising Jake. I love the cut from the pretty rainbows in the song to the reality of Finn and Jake’s sloppy mess of ketchup and mustard. The parents, named Bob and Ethel, arrive before Finn and Jake are able to clean up. Somehow, Bob and Ethel don’t already know that Jake is a dog. I guess Lady was too nervous to show them any pictures. But, wouldn’t it make sense to tell them beforehand to lessen the shock? Finn and Jake’s act isn’t convincing in the slightest so it's smart for the episode to establish the parents’ bad eyesight. Bob and Ethel have the universal translators from “My Two Favorite People” on, so we never get to hear their real voices. It’s strange that they always wear them, but Lady (almost) never does.

Finn does a cultural appropriation by trying to do a rainicorn cultural dance. It turns out humans are the ones Bob and Ethel are bigoted towards. They assume Finn is Jake’s butler. Jake has to play a rainicorn game with Lady’s parents. I’m not going to even attempt to type out the name of the game. Finn helps Jake pretend he has rainicorn powers, despite the toll it takes on him. It gets to the point of abuse with them taking turns catapulting Finn. Finn’s had enough and wants to stop. It’s partially his fault for scaring Jake and coming up with this plan. He’s even the one who came up with the first way to help Jake’s act. He put himself in discomfort when he held his breath to turn red. However, he had no idea it would go this far. Jake abuses the “homies help homies” phrase to get Finn to keep helping. Jake’s being pretty selfish. That line has a lot of weight for Finn. Jake really should’ve just come up with an excuse to not catapult Finn, like not wanting his butler dead! 

Jake sends Finn to cook a meal. Bob and Ethel misinterpret this as Finn being the meal. They violently attack Finn and have vicious looks on their faces. It’s shocking to see how evil these two characters, who seem so nice, can be. It actually makes a lot of sense. In real life, people who are nice to people like them, can still be prone to unbelievable bigotry. It might be normal in rainicorn society to act this way, and people are products of their environments. This doesn’t excuse their actions. I assume many rainicorns in the Crystal Dimension have progressed past this way of thinking. It's time for old timers like Bob and Ethel to get with the times. I wonder if Lady wanted to eat Finn the first time they met. My guess is no and that kind of backwards thinking was beneath her.

Jake shamefully hesitates for a couple seconds, but then finally stops his brother from being eaten and reveals the truth. Bob and Ethel find out he’s a dog and start worshiping him. Lady Rainicorn arrives and reveals a dog saved Bob’s life during the war. I like that these old, boomer parents are portrayed as being so weird and insensitive to different races. 

Finn, Jake, and BMO have lunch (we get to see TWO meals this episode!) with Lady and her parents. Ethel apologizes to Finn. I’d be so uncomfortable if I were Finn. Bob says they thought humans were “extinct”. We haven’t seen any other humans so far, so this confirms what viewers were already thinking seeing all the nukes in the background. This also means the parents  were fine committing genocide. Thank glob they apologized! They eat soy people, which apparently tastes just like human. Finn takes a bite and likes it. A great, edgy way to end the episode.

Grade: B+

#Adventure Time #Her Parents #Finn the Human #finn and jake #jake the dog #lady rainicorn #finn #jake

[bgallen]

Jack's Lament, Ricky Skaggs, and SOS Antony Blinken

Here we are at the second Friday in October, can you believe it?! I saw on a sign today that we have 74 days until Christmas, which seems equally far away and not far away at all. I have combined a list of mostly music and some other bits. Not too terribly much, but hopefully you are able to find at least one thing to enjoy.

 I would be more than remiss to not mention what transpired last weekend in Israel. And I will share some of the words that Secretary of State Blinken, himself a Jew – his grandfather fled pogroms in Russia and his stepfather survived Auschwitz, Dachau, and Majdanek – shared October 12th in Tel Aviv.

“And yet, at the same time – at the same time that we’ve been shocked by the depravity of Hamas, we’ve also been inspired by the bravery of Israel’s citizens: the grandfather, who drove over an hour to a kibbutz under siege, armed only with a pistol, and rescued his kids and grandkids; the mother who died shielding her teenage son with her body, giving her life to save his, giving him life for a second time; the volunteer security teams on the kibbutzes, who swiftly rallied to defend their friends and neighbors, despite being heavily outnumbered. And we are lifted by the remarkable solidarity of the Israeli people, demonstrated in the long lines of people giving blood, in the hundreds of thousands of reservists who’ve mobilized, some rushing home from abroad, people around the country opening their homes to fellow citizens displaced from the south…..Anyone who wants peace and justice must condemn Hamas’s reign of terror. We know Hamas doesn’t represent the Palestinian people or their legitimate aspirations to live with equal measures of security, freedom, justice, opportunity, and dignity. We know Hamas – instead of promoting the well-being of its citizens – rules repressively and dedicates the resources it has to terror tunnels and rockets. We know Hamas didn’t commit its heinous acts with the interests of the Palestinian people in mind. We know Hamas does not stand for the future that Palestinians want for themselves and for their children. Hamas has only one agenda: to destroy Israel and to murder Jews.”

  Now for the list,  

·       JACK'S LAMENT | Low Bass Singer Cover | The Nightmare Before Christmas | Geoff Castellucci - YouTube, I have yet to tire of this soundtrack. Geoff has a beautiful voice and his ability to maneuver his voice is incredible.

·       Toby Keith - Don't Let the Old Man In (Official Lyric Video) - YouTube, beautiful, beautiful  song…feels more poignant with the cancer  that he’s been facing.

·       The first ever film of Appalachian music (1928) | "Doggett Gap" - Bascom Lamar Lunsford [RESTORED] - YouTube, I do love some mountain music and it’s so incredible to see the first of people playing the music.

·       Ricky Skaggs Will The Circle Be Unbroken - YouTube, this hauntingly, beautiful song is one of my absolute favorites. And Ricky Skaggs on the mandolin is icing on the cake.

·       Relaxing Halloween Music - Pumpkin Jack O' Lanterns 🎃 Dark, Spooky Sounds, Halloween Ambience - YouTube, I do enjoy a good, themed playlist for working. This one is great for background music and not as high on “spooky” as the title implies.

·       How an advanced civilisation vanished 2,500 years ago – BBC News - YouTube, ancient civilizations is a phrase that is music to my ears. The Tartessos, around for 500 years and an advanced society yet, vanished under interesting circumstances. Fascinating short video on current excavations related to why they disappeared.  

·       All the Light We Cannot See | Official Trailer | Netflix - YouTube, I have not read this book but the film itself looks beautifully done – sure to be thought-provoking and heart wrenching.

·       How to Keep a Commonplace Book (And Why You Should) - YouTube, here’s a short video on keeping a commonplace book. A fascinating concept that I am sure some people may already do without having a specific name for it.  

I hope that you have an enjoyable weekend, full of lovely Autumnal festivities. I am headed off on a family vacation this coming Monday and I am very excited!

#us #america #words #music #autumn #video #history #remember #wordstoliveby #fridaypost #weekendpost #listlove

[callsigndragon]

Oh. My. Goodness!!! No Rest For The Fallen Huntress is so incredible!!!! What an opening chapter!!!!

Sorry. Long message. Again...

""I'm not thinking about a puppy, you b-"" - why do I have a feeling that the R.A.B.I.T. is about Penny...

""Hey! What kind of behavior is this? What are you, five?"", ""This is the enemy. It has killed hundreds of thousands of people over the years. You're at Top Gun. The elite. You're here to attack them, not each other. These people around you are your friends. Your family. The people you'll rely on when a Cat-4 Kaiju appears right behind you. So you better act like the elite that I know you are. Am I clear?"" - I love that while it is clear that Jag cares about the cadets and shows affection to them, ("little sheep" is an absolutely adorable and funny nickname for them, btw!) she can still put them in their place and in the right mindset. Beautiful characterisation!!!

"“If you had been the one that was eaten by a fucking alien your brother would have done it.”" - Ice, man, no. Don't be such an ass with your own daughter!!! Ah, love the drama though!!! 💗

""You weren't the only one ordered to stand there and look pretty, little Kaz." He pats your back, looking at your face closely. "Ready to hop in the Gipsy tomorrow?"" - caring and attentive Mav is still incredibly heartwarming. It is nice that Jag has at least someone for a supportive father figure 💗

"“As if I would come back here for any other reason.” You mumble, watching as Reuben, Bradley, Bob, and Javy get close to you to greet and hug you. All of them are glad that you’re back, even if they know and understand how hard it is for you to be here." - so many things in just this paragraph alone!!! Jag's lingering trauma! The Daggers reuniting! Them being happy Jag is there despite the fact she just said there is no other reason she would come back here than Ice's forcing!!! The building internal drama is beautiful! 💗

"You were all close once. Not only you, but the rest of the Daggers too. It got to the point that you could Drift with all of them, as you were really close. Just like you told your students early this morning, these pilots weren’t just your co-pilots; they were also your family. Now? You won’t blame them if they don’t consider you a friend. You ran away the day after your brother died. And even though you tried to keep in touch with them, it became difficult." - this is such a beautiful passage, and the contrast between their lives before and after the accident is so good! I love it!!!

"Kaiser, or Kai, like you all call him, has blond locks, a three-day stubble, and his eyes are the prettiest shade of green you’ve seen. He catches your gaze and winks, smirking when you turn your head." - oyoyoy, oooo, do I sense some possible future competition for Jake??

"“Your mom is the reason why I’m here?”", "“My mom does a lot of things I’m not aware of.”" - I love this!!! The one and only Carole Bradshaw!!! 💗 Aww, I am so excited to find out why Carole was so adamant on getting Jag to come back!!

"“Did I stutter?”" - hahaha, even though he is mean to his daughter, gotta give it to Ice, this is hilarious! I love the way you write him!!

"“I’m not drifting with her.”" - ahhhh, I love, love, love the tension between Jag and Jake!!! 💗 Jag knowing he wouldn't stand up when she came in and then this! The implied history and the promise of future drama are just incredible!!!! It is so exciting!!!

"“Look, Bagman.”, "“Hangman.”, "“Whatever.”" - love that you included this!!!

""Jag, I know working with Hangman is incredibly hard, but it's just one day. One. Day. You'll leave again after that, but we're gonna stay here. Don't make him angry, you won't be the one who has to handle his irascible ass."", ""If you're gonna ignore our existence after this, then leave him alone. We've all suffered enough losses already."", ""Don't get me wrong, we are happy that you're back, but… you don't want to get too attached to someone like you."",""Someone who will not look back to see if the others are hurting too."" - ahhh, such deep cuts!!! Loving this!!!! 😍💗 The drama between the Daggers and Jag that you so beautifully set up when Jag arrived make this even more special!! I love that Bob is the first one to tell Jag how it is! You don't expect him to and when he does it makes it even more serious and significant - I love it!!! And Phoenix coming in to protect him from potentially getting hurt in the future is just so amazing!!! Their bond is so beautiful, and your presentation of it is absolutely breathtaking!!! 💗 And Phoenix also making Jag realise that maybe she's been selfish with her grief and caused more heartbreak when she left!!! Ah, so many layers!!! Love, love, adore it!!! 💗

"“I heard you haven’t piloted a Jaeger in two years. Why so?”" - so intriguing!!! Couple this with the quotes you used for him in the moodboard and character intro pics... So incredible my Love!!! 💗

"“My sweet girl, there you are! I’m so glad to hear your voice again.” She chuckles. If this is going to be a bit bearable, it’s because of her." - awww, yesss!!! The Queen!!! 💗 I am so looking forward to seeing her dynamic with Jag and find out more what's going on with her!

"You’ll do this. For Will. He deserves this." - aww, my heart 🥺

"You don’t want to be that close to someone ever again. Ever." - why do I have the feeling that she will?

"A father, perhaps? It’s a private memory, and it feels like intruding. You let it go and focus on yourself." - so intriguing, but also so lovely that Jag respects his privacy 💗

"He’s looking at you with… tears in his eyes?", "I feel your pain, Jag. I can’t believe you felt Will’s death like that. I'm sorry." - MY!!! HEART!!!!! I love him. So much 💗

"“There are two options here: wanna be the hunter or the prey?”", "His question, rather than making you more determined, triggers a memory. A memory you can't have right now." - nooo! Jake!!!! Why did you ask it that way!!!

"You’re latching onto a memory right when a Kaiju is coming to the city. And you’re the only Jaeger close enough to fight it. Talk about good timing." - talk about good cliffhangers!!!!! Looooveeee it!!!!! 😍💗

And the new moodboards are absolutely gorgeous!!!! 💗

My Darling!!! It is absolutely spectacular!!!! Incredible job melding together these two films/universes!!!! So much drama and heart and sadness and trauma and beauty!!! Love it and I'm so excited to find out what happens next!!! 💗💗💗💗

So many hugs and so much love 💗💗💗💗

(italics anon 💚)

""I'm not thinking about a puppy, you b-"" - why do I have a feeling that the R.A.B.I.T. is about Penny...

I can't either confirm or deny this information.

""Hey! What kind of behavior is this? What are you, five?"", ""This is the enemy. It has killed hundreds of thousands of people over the years. You're at Top Gun. The elite. You're here to attack them, not each other. These people around you are your friends. Your family. The people you'll rely on when a Cat-4 Kaiju appears right behind you. So you better act like the elite that I know you are. Am I clear?"" - I love that while it is clear that Jag cares about the cadets and shows affection to them, ("little sheep" is an absolutely adorable and funny nickname for them, btw!) she can still put them in their place and in the right mindset. Beautiful characterisation!!!

Jag... is an interesting character, to say the least. She is strict with them so they don't make the same mistakes she did. And I can't say more about this

"Kaiser, or Kai, like you all call him, has blond locks, a three-day stubble, and his eyes are the prettiest shade of green you’ve seen. He catches your gaze and winks, smirking when you turn your head." - oyoyoy, oooo, do I sense some possible future competition for Jake??

"“I heard you haven’t piloted a Jaeger in two years. Why so?”" - so intriguing!!! Couple this with the quotes you used for him in the moodboard and character intro pics... So incredible my Love!!! 💗

At this point, everyone and their mother knows I'm a sucker for characters with traumatics pasts. So you can guess that something shitty happened to him.

I'm working on the next chapter but life is getting in the way aaaaaaaaaaaaah

I'll try to post something soon... maybe.

#italics anon 💚 #meiga answers #no rest for the fallen

[death-rebirth-senshi]

Rosaria's questline is so funny they just copy-paste Anastacia from dark souls 1 but she's a goddess/covenant leader instead of a firekeeper

#Lautrec-I mean Leonhard-takes her soul for even more ambiguous reasons #me vs ds3 #I guess Rosaria lacks a tongue to stop her from speaking blasphemy as well? Perhaps that's why they're opposed to the darkmoon blades #They cut off ears not tongues but. #dark souls 3 is so hard to speculate on because it's just like. Everything was a 'long time ago' #in a way that's extremely unclear #and 'time is convoluted' and 'transitory lands' makes it weirder #you can find Elizabeth's corpse even though I don't think you could in dark souls 1 #despite being in her future implied to be a thousand years?? Or at least 200 that's what the crestfallen merchant says #but everything happened in a same kind of vague 'long ago' so what can you even say #dark souls 1 was long ago #other things that happened in between are also long ago #Oolacile was an ancient land in dark souls 1. Now it's even more ancient and legendary #and don't even get me started on wondering how long Gwyndolin has been around #and how dark souls 2 fits into all this #(they just bring Gwyndolin and Anor Londo back for nostalgia damn the lore implications)

[m-aster-of-spinjitzu]

golden power; never wielded

my first work for @ninjago-angst-week! prompt - abandoned (16/08) Lloyd's never known what it's like to share his heart with another, linking two lives together as if one had found the melody to their chorus, now a song in perfect harmony. If he’d always felt like he was invisible; wondered if there was something fundamentally wrong with his inability to touch others’ hearts, then, well, that was no one’s business but his own. Of course, that was before he quite literally fell for someone - the first person, actually - who seemed to care. Of course she was too good to be true. Or, the S8 angst I've been wanting to write about 'game of masks' and the aftermath. trigger warnings - suicidal thoughts, brief mention of implied self-harm, not really a warning but it talks a lot about loneliness. "How did you know?"

"It's an Oni Temple. It's safe to assume that only an Oni could take it."

"No. How could you know that I was part Oni?"

How could you know that I was part Oni?

The question repeated itself in his mind, echoing into the blizzard.

Sometimes, he wondered what would've gone down at the temple if he hadn't been so observant.

Well, he thought bitterly, probably not the temple itself.

The walls collapsing, he'd caught a glimpse of his terrified face as the room filled with swirling inky blackness, freezing him to the bone.

But the real pain came from her words.

Ah. Your emotions. You can't get rid of them, can you?

No, he'd wanted to yell, staring listlessly at the shaking grey semblance of sky.

He'd always felt like he wielded the element of light; invisible, trapped behind a barrier that no one cared enough to break. Isolated; locked away from the world. Longing for - yearning for - a single soul to want to know his heart. Pain that almost felt tangible, bleeding into every motion, every day.

Everyone else seemed to find it so easy - so effortless - simple as breathing, taken for granted like it was ingrained into their bones. Everyone else seemed to have given away a little piece of their heart - to their parents, friends, or lovers.

The fact that his was, and had always been, entirely whole?

He was either cursed, the venom from the Great Devourer passed down to him, or there was something fundamentally unlikable coursing through his veins.

By this point, he assumed it was the latter.

Maybe, if anyone had ever cared - wanted to know him - he'd never have felt like it was pressing down on his chest like a casket; a useless block of ice that no one wanted, not even the unfortunate owner it'd been given.

If no one would know his heart, he'd thought, grabbing a forgotten map, he'd strike fear into theirs - until they knew what it was like to sob into invisible barriers, to gaze upon the world with a weary eyes and a heart heavy with the knowledge that if they vanished, no one would even notice.

He'd realized far too late that he had unleashed an evil that couldn't be controlled - or one that could only be controlled by his- by someone else that had sunk beneath the darkness until no light remained-

He'd escaped from the crumbling casket, energy and eyes blazing - only to find that Har- she'd already escaped with the mask.

The Oni Mask of Hatred.

As they had steered the boat through the river, her sweet smile hiding lie upon lie, he'd thought it was somewhat ironic - two lovers, seeking a literal manifestation of hatred.

He'd laughed bitterly; no mirth in the sound.

After his first crush had - well, literally tried to crush him, he didn't think that this day could get much worse.

Until she dropped him into a contraption that was the stuff of nightmares - leaving the others with a seemingly impossible choice.

He'd wanted to yell, scream, that they should save his mother - he'd hurt enough people over the course of his short life, as evidenced by the grief-stricken orphan yelling a foreign language right in front of him.

I'm the expendable one! Maybe she was right - it was my fault the Serpentine were able to release the Great Devourer. And it took thousands of lives - but never the life of the one who was to blame.

He'd grabbed the vengestone bars, the faint sense of numbness they brought a welcoming relief from the storm of emotions that- he honestly had no clue what to do with.

i could drown, he had thought briefly, fleetingly. what if i drowned and i never hurt anyone again-

you have  a responsibility, even though you've pretty much failed to uphold it so far

"Clotho venge! Clotho decer! Clotho haeed!"

Shoving the thought to the back of his mind, he'd gripped the bars tighter, ignoring the sting of the metal against skin.

If anything, he'd welcomed the sting.

Any pain was better than the agonizing reminder that his heart was, and had always been, entirely whole.

He didn't even realize he was trembling until he heard his father's voice echoing from the vortex.

His father hadn't asked to be bitten by an evil snake, the venom coursing through his veins for years upon years. He hadn't asked to be dumped at a boarding school for bad kids, spending what he had left of his childhood hiding in empty classrooms or yelling empty threats as his classmates snickered.

Against all odds, they'd been reunited. Evil snakes, Fangblades, even Jade Blades - none of it had stood between them.

Just when he thought they might have a future - he might have a- a family - the Cursed Realm decided to curse them all.

His father with imprisonment, him with a life devoid of a father he'd loved, at the end.

Now H- she wanted to resurrect him?

His father had been so much more than the Oni blood in his veins. So was he.

But if he was completely Oni-

Lloyd didn't like their odds. He kind of hated them.

"Clotho venge! Clotho decer! Clotho haeed!"

---

A few chaotic hours later... they'd won? They'd won.

The Sons of Garmadon (he'd always thought the name was kind of ironic - he, the only son of Garmadon, wasn't in their crazy biker gang) had been imprisoned by courageous, if a bit overzealous, taser-wielding policeman.

Ninjago was celebrating - everyone was; he should be, too.

Should he really revel in their victory, though? It was his fault that she'd been able to snatch the last mask, all the safeguards the Oni had put in place practically worthless because of his stupid feelings-

H- Harumi had been thrown in one of the police vans.

"You're right - this isn't me," she'd started, her meekness almost convincing him that she really was the girl he'd fallen for - the girl who'd been forced into a mask she never wanted to wear, but someone who still cared about the world... and- and about him.

"Stop."

He'd cut her off, the venom in his tone surprising both of them.

"Save it for someone who cares," he'd forced out, the hurt welling up his chest almost as painful as their unceremonious descent into the jungle, (the descent she'd orchestrated, he'd thought fleetingly, squeezing his eyes together) unable to believe that this- this liar was the same sweet girl he'd fallen for.

With that, he slammed the door of the van, locking her in - wishing that locking his memories away could be easy.

She'd never cared about him; simply needing to use him as if he was nothing more than the power he wielded.

He watched one of the policemen drive her away, the tired-but-enthusiastic cheers of his teammates nothing more than background noise; static.

Vaguely, he realized that his heart wasn't quite whole - he'd given a piece of it to someone whom he had thought would link theirs together in harmony, the melody to his chorus; what he'd been searching for ever since he'd woken up screaming in a 'boarding school' that seemed more like a prison.

She'd taken more than what he'd given - draining the light from his entire being as if she was the Overlord, stealing his golden power without a shred of remorse.

That failure was practically painless, compared to her-

An almost unfamiliar emotion slowly stated to replace the ache in his chest that he'd grown used to for all those years; it'd become comforting, even. Watching the world go by with a heart that seemed more like a curse, he briefly, fleetingly, wondered if he'd be better off without one.

If there was ever a problem that presented itself to Nya while she worked on the Bounty, she used to joke that it'd be easier to just dump their entire hard dive into the sea.

Destruction seemed to be easier than fixing, he conceded - the van now just a glimmer of bright light; one of the many that made up their vibrant city.

"How did you know?" he heard, yet again wondering how he felt so disconnected from his own role in the memory.

How had she known? 

The whisper of a voice long gone bled into his consciousness, his hands shaking at his sides even as the city celebrated.

Why had he even asked that?

Plastering a smile on his face as he walked over to his teammates, the question repeating itself in his mind, echoing into the blizzard.

FSM - she didn't need to be leader of a biker gang to know that.

Who could ever give their heart - the epitome of human connection; golden power all on its own, albeit of a different kind - to an Oni?

Maybe he wasn't the one trapped behind an invisible wall, built on tears and loneliness and yearning and heartache and a lone question - why? Why could no one seem to look past the cage he felt himself trapped in, observing the world rather than playing a part in it.

He hadn't been a- abandoned by everyone, he realized, a weary sense of clarity and shadowed eyes not sure to accept it or push it into the back of his mind like the hours he'd spent there, as if he'd ever want to have hurt his teammates like he did, the twisted ghost-

He trailed behind his teammates as they sang - horribly off key, his mind pointed out, forcing a small smile onto his face - lost in the figurative blizzard, despite the fact that the sun's rays had only vanished a few hours ago.

If no one would know his heart?

FSM - could he really blame them?

(if you read this far, thank you so much, you’ve made my day:D)

#lloyd garmadon #ninjago angst week #harumi #sons of garmadon #ninjago fic #ninjago #lloyd

[avengershumanresources]

blood 7 - Strange/Stark!Reader

Relationship: Dr. Strange/Princess!Stark!Reader

Rating: M

Warnings: Adult Themes, eventual smut, adult language, implied sexual violence, general violence

Synopsis: Reader is the daughter of the legendary King Anthony Stark, Uniter of Lands, The Iron Defender, and leader of the realm. When the king disappears during battle, hope is lost and he is presumed dead.

When the late king’s uncle, Obadiah, takes the throne until your brother Peter is of age, he quickly arranges a marriage for you with a wicked king in a neighboring kingdom.

With the realms politics in question, and rumors of an upcoming siege to overthrow Peter’s rule before it starts, you quickly learn who is loyal to the crown and who is not.

part 6 - part 8 (coming April 13th)

Masterlist

Chapter Playlist

CHAPTER WARNING: Yee-har, thar be smut afoot in this here chapter. 18+

7- a king

Anthony Stark hadn’t expected all of this to come of his death. He foresaw of some of it.  

Of Obadiah’s imminent betrayal and Brock’s general ambition, but when Wanda had approached him with her vision all those years ago, he couldn’t have understood what it all meant. 

Now, however, he realized the violence that was soon to arrive at his kingdom’s doorstep. It was an uneasy feeling; the responsibility bestowed upon him to put men’s lives at risk. To make widows and orphans because of inter family squabbles. 

But Tony knew that Obadiah and Brock both presented far larger threats in the long term. 

A king who is hungry for power will never stop to consider the least fortunate in his rule. 

It was a mantra Tony had created for himself after his father had let entire villages fall to win back some petty golden toy during the War of the Giants. In the end, the lives lost had been worthless and the giants returned to their mountains with more spoils than they’d started. 

It had made him sick. 

That was the moment Tony decided to be a better man. A better king. He took pride in his unselfish rule and lack of war among those who shared the boundary with his kingdom. By a miracle he’d gotten Brock into line, but Obadiah had gotten a taste of power from his position in the Giant’s War and wanted more.

Rumors turned to plots, and all at once Tony knew his family and legacy was in danger. He had a troubled relationship with the Wakandans after one of his own barons killed their king in a quest for vengeance after the Giant’s War. Steve had volunteered as ambassador with the shadowy James Barnes (who’d long had a positive relationship with T’Challa) and they’d managed to broker a deal benefiting both nations. 

And Asgard. 

That was a whole other bag of complications. 

Odin had long been distrustful of Tony’s first wife, the late Queen Alexandra due to her Vanir lineage. The Asgardians had fought for centuries trying to eradicate what they’d seen as a dangerous race of uncontrollable magic users. 

Odin had been a step in the right direction, after replacing his late father, but the prejudices still remained and Tony’s marriage to one of the few remaining Vanir royals had soured what little relations they’d had. 

Still, in the end, they’d protected you when he so desperately needed help the Asgardians could only provide. To that, he’d offered her hand to the princes, and Odin took the offer into consideration, only backing off when an agreement was made between the two boys and yourself that affections lay elsewhere.

Which brought him to his latest challenge. Your engagement to the monster king, Brock Rumlow. 

The popular story was that he’d had his late wife killed when she hadn’t produced a male heir. Every female baby prior had been fed to the dogs and at last, when her fifth pregnancy had yielded yet another female, she fell mysteriously ill and died a few nights later. Some say a villager found the baby’s water logged corpse shortly after. 

From a strategic perspective, it made sense. You hadn’t been called upon by any serious suitors, often running around the kingdom with a begrudging Stephen on your coattails, and you were still young enough to bare a child or two. 

Brock needed a means of securing trust in the kingdom, and marrying one of its beloved daughters was the way to do it. Not to mention, Obadiah got his army, Peter would be overthrown when he attempted to take his birthright, and both men would share in the mutual benefits of being involved in one of the strongest economies in history. 

It was a clear cut plan for control of the kingdom, and it would have been more than enough for Tony to take action.

Except for one small caveat.

You. 

You’d been born of the same Vanir blood as your mother and even as a days old infant, you had shown the Master Sorceress at the time an insurmountable measure of power. 

It was an old and finicky magic, the woman had warned before your mother’s body had even cooled in bed. You would need trining, but there was no one left to provide. 

The Asgardians had been thorough in destroying the ancient texts and any remaining Vanir had long fallen into hiding, often using enchanted amulets and trinkets to conceal their seidr from those with wicked intentions. 

Your mother had been a victim of such vicious greed. She’d been open with her abilities, sharing a close bond with Orin’s own wife and his young son, Loki. The pair had conspired to learn all the forbidden secrets of the Vanir, and she’d begun to accumulate quite the library of resources from old temples and Asgardian burial tombs. 

Frigga helped her translate and in turn, the relationship with the royal families had warmed considerably until a few days before your birth. 

Things had fallen apart so quickly. The Northern Kree empire had infiltrated the castle after hearing rumors of the queen’s power. Someone had once written that a single drop of Vanir blood was worth thousands in gold pieces. A bandit had gotten through the gates while she labored, he had ambushed her in the birthing chambers and despite putting up an admirable fight- died with a dagger stabbed through her heart. 

The beast had tried to cut it free in front of the midwives. 

The Master Sorceress had only stepped from the room a moment to freshen up her herbal remedies. By the time anyone had made it to her side, she had died, and you’d been cut free of her with that same knife. 

“Your majesty?” Wanda inquired, approaching where he sat by the fire of the rebellion campsite.

“Yes?” He blinked up, returning to the present at hand. The men who were preparing for battle around him. The women sharpening weapons and sewing leather.  

The people he had asked to rise up for the betterment of the kingdom. The people who were prepared to die by his side for a secure future. 

“Master Strange is to meet at my cottage in the hour,” she explained. 

“And what would you advise Master Sorceress?” he asked, an amused expression on his face. “Shall we let him in on our secret?” 

“With less than seven days to the wedding, it might be wise,” she reasoned sardonically. “Natalia has her own mission in securing the support from within. Master Strange is working with Peter and Loki on securing the vulnerable.” 

“Do you think he told him?” Tony looked down at the fire pensively. 

“Who?” 

“Loki,” he clarified. “He and Master Mordo were among the few who knew. They had to have mentioned something to him. He’s- well- I’m not entirely sure what he is to her now, but he’s certainly one of the closest lines of protection to her.”

“Assuming the rune hasn’t already faded, I would think he either told him or Stephen found out for himself, my liege,” Wanda sat down on the log next to time, her gaze following his into the flames. “Her power is what Amora desires. It needs to be concealed until the princess is in safe hands.”

“Then he knows,” Tony decided, nodding to himself. “Amora would have done something stupid if the seidr had broken through completely. Someone is keeping it under control.”

“I’ll find out,” Wanda promised. “Would you like to speak to him?”

Tony made a disgruntled noise at the thought of approaching the sorcerer. House Strange had long served under the Stark banner, proudly riding at the front of the line when called upon for battle. When they sent their oldest to train at Kamar-Taj, Tony had been surprised.

The boy had a knack for strategy and was sharp as a needle point. Tony could have seen the young man easily rise in leadership in the house, ruling his own militiamen and managing the family affairs. 

But apparently he had no interest in it, and in an unorthodox fashion, the assets had been passed to their eldest daughter. 

Granted, in the end, none of that mattered- as the entire family estate had been stricken by a particularly nasty plague. The sole survivor was Stephen, who’d been away at Kamar-Taj when he’d gotten the news. 

He’d rushed home, and in the process gotten sick himself, but with the help of his fellow sorcerers, recovered with the only remnants of the illness remaining in his hands. He often told others it had been a riding accident. Only a select few knew the truth and devastation of his loss. 

Tony had met with the young man on his sickbed, assuring him the assets would remain in the family. That the castle would maintain the property while he fulfilled his obligations to Kamar-Taj. After all, there was no greater calling than to a life of service and compassion. It was the least Tony could do. 

Well, until you had scared off every Master to cross the castle threshold and he’d gotten desperate and asked the boy for a favor.

He should have known better. You were close in age. Equally as ambitious and cunning. For years you’d been sneaking through passages and around the villages at night, often with Natalia at your side. 

Stephen just made it easier, and helped Tony rest a little easier knowing the man would give his life for you, if need be. 

Tony wasn’t dumb. He’d seen it the first night the you had met. 

The sneaking smiles, the conspiratorial whispers in the corners of the ballroom, and when Peter’s cat turned into a lion almost identical to the Stark sigil, Tony knew that one day he might allow that young man to break the oaths he’d made for a single exception. 

“Your highness?” Wanda pried gently for a clearer answer. 

“Yes, I’ll speak to him,” he pinched the bridge of his nose. About a great many things.

(—)

“I somehow don’t believe you just found out about this,” you stated, sitting cross legged on one of the strewn about cushions, a teapot floating delicately from the palm of your hand. 

“I’ve learned a number of thing recently,” he replied dryly. “Like Mordo is alive, and Brock wants to kill Obadiah once you’re wed.”

You lost your focus and the cup shattered on the ground. 

“He what?” you gaped at Stephen while he repaired the ceramic cup with a wave of his hand. 

“It ties into the whole secret magic thing, but it really isn’t an ideal situation,” he explained, setting the cup aside and dropping to the cushion across from you. 

“I guess it’s good I’ve pestered you for your books over the years,” you mused, flexing your fingers in the air in front of you.

“It isn’t the same,” he sighed, watching while you lifted a few other stray objects and paused them between the two of you. “Seidr is... there isn’t documentation. The books were destroyed. Kamar-Taj had a few tomes but the Vanir language is nearly impossible to translate at this point.”

“What about Loki? Or Frigga?” you asked, moving both your hands at once and dropping a feather into his lap with a grin. 

“Believe it or not, I’ve been focused on other issues,” he muttered dryly. “We’re going to have to seal this before you leave.”

“But you said it’s what preventing Amora from taking over my head,” you reminded him pointedly, summoning a small flame from an incantation you’d studied the day before. Extinguishing it between your palms, you looked up at him for a better excuse. 

“But it is also the reason Brock is forcing you into a marriage and so she can control you, and in turn, your power better than you can,” he explained tersely. “She can’t know you’ve gotten partial control over it. Let her underestimate you, but until you can learn to conceal the energy yourself, you can’t risk exposure.”

“So am I being sealed or not?” you asked impatiently, floating a candle from you to him. He took it with an amused half-smile, extinguishing the light with a quick puff of air. “Can you do a... half seal? Hide the energy, keep some of the good parts?”

“Gods, I don’t know,” he groaned, shaking his head while he seat the canclde aside. “This is entirely new territory that I was not trained for.”

“That must mean you’re a terrible Sorcerer Supreme. What fool put you in charge?” you teased, reaching forward and tapping the top of his nose playfully. 

“It’s not my fault you’re a freakish anomaly that’s supposed to be extinct,” he mumbled, pulling a frown while you laughed. “Give me your wrist.”

“Fine, but when this over I demand you help me train properly,” you stated and though he  continued grumbling under his breath about being too old for your games, he agreed. “And Loki helps too.”

“Not part of the deal,” Stephen scowled. 

“Fine, I’ll marry him then,” you smirked back at him. “You still haven’t asked, so I guess when my wedding tragically falls through, I’ll have to find respite with him.”

He pulled you forward, a glint in his eyes that sent a shiver through your entire body. 

“I’m not going to chase after a betrothed woman, it’s bad taste,” he hummed, fingers crawling up your wrist and intertwining with your fingers. “I have a reputation to uphold, even if you feel comfortable hiding away with strange men in dark places.”

“Is that supposed to be a joke?” you whispered, sitting up on your knees and tilting your head.

“Do you not think I’m funny?” he murmured, reaching with his free head and tilting back your chin. A smile played on the corners of your mouth, both of you sizing the other up and daring the other to make the first move. 

“I can think of many things you are,” you lifted his hand and pressed a tender kiss to his palm. “But funny?”

“You laugh at all of my clever wit, don’t try to deceive me princess, I know the truth,” Stephen sharply pulled your hand forward, forcing you to fall into his chest. He held your lower back, gazing down at you adoringly. “You’re trying to hide it, but I see it in your eyes.”

“Do you know what I see in your eyes?” your voice cracked ever so slightly, your hand cradling his cheek, your thumb lightly tracing the sharp features. 

“What do you see?” 

“Strength,” you murmured, transfixed by his opalescent gaze. All at once, it was like you were seeing him for the first time. You could feel the energy radiating off of him, seeing the waves of magic as they ripples through his body. “Devotion to... Stephen you’re beautiful.”

“Or so the stars whisper to the earth below,” his voice was soft, gentle, while his hand guided itself up your arm to your cheek. “But, what the stars do not see is their own radiance, their own ethereal light shimmering across the velvet heavens above. The stars do not know how the Earth worships the very flicker of their existence, tells stories of their magnificence and beauty. The do not know how the Earth finds its meaning in what little time it steals away to them in the night.”

It all happened very quickly after that. 

You peeled at his robes, he worked at your corset, a frenzy of hands and mouths tasting one another in a way neither had ever imagined. 

Discarding the corset, he worked his hands up your blouse, fingers lightly teasing the tip of your nipple until you let out a satisfied moan. Robes loose, you pushed him back against a nearby pile of cushions, climbing between his legs and peppering hungry kisses up and down his neck until he growled, clawing at your hips. 

“If you’re-,” he tired protesting while you pulled away more clothing, pressing his leg between yours and letting out a whimper of pleasure when he shifted in just the right way. 

That seemed to set something off in him. 

He was over you, flipping you to the ground and pulling what little clothing remained between you, your naked bodies now flush. Stephen moved down to your breast, drawing a nipple between his teeth and watching you squirm under him at the incredible sensation. 

“Please,” you mewed, an absolute wreck under him. 

He took his time, moving to the other nipple and repeating his actions until you were begging for any kind of release. 

“Needy are we?” he murmured in your ear, his voice low and so controlled, you couldn’t understand how he could stand it. Goosebumps erupted over your body, and he just smirked, continuing his exploration.  

Teasing a finger at your entrance, he looked to you for final approval before easing the digit into you. 

“Gods,” he hissed, moving the finger at an agonizingly slow speed. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes upon.”

He caught you in a kiss, speeding up his hand below, his thumb searching for the sensitive nub of nerves. When he grazed over the tender area, you nearly shot out of yourself, the sensation feeling downright sinful. 

Pulling his finger out, you let out another whimper, this one of protest at the emptiness inside of you. 

“Are you certain-?” he asked again, eyes scanning your face for any sign of hesitation or doubt. 

“I’ve never been more certain of anything,” you replied honestly. It wasn’t an exaggeration. You’d been a make up to this point, untouched and with no interest in engaging in such outrageous behavior.

Yet with him, you wished you could give more. Your body. Your soul. Your love. What did it matter anymore? He was yours, sitting before you and showing you through his loving car assess and sensations you’d never known before this moment. 

He eased himself in, giving you time to adjust to his length, the member much larger than his single finger. But Gods, did he feel incredible. 

You’d never thought so much emotion and pleasure could occur in a single moment. For this tiny hidden corner of the universe, you felt like your souls had collided and merged. 

It was a far cry from how Nat had told you it was. 

This was- you anticipated each of his movements, raising your hips to meet his as he crashed inside of you. Your brain couldn’t form coherent thoughts and when he started to coax something feral from within your core, you let him lead you through it. 

Pumping in time with strokes to your clit, you clenched your walls around him, pulling a hissed curse from the sorcerer. 

A few more pumps and a final circle around the sensitive area and you felt your orgasm crash over you. 

At first, you thought you’d done something wrong. Did you break something? How did this feel so incredible and overwhelming all at once? 

While you rode out your bliss, you felt his hips tighten, finishing with a final grunt.

You both stated at one another, eyes wide, trying to catch your breath. 

“Have you-,” you started but paused. “Like that before-?” 

It was no secret Stephen wasn’t exactly a virgin. He had his vows but they were against attachment, not sex, and sometimes, as he put it, the spirit needed to be revitalized. 

You’d called him a creep and moved on, but Gods did you understand now. 

“I don’t know what happened,” he blinked, looking thoroughly bewildered. “That’s... I’ve never- my gods, you’re incredible.”

He pulled out, dropping to the ground next to you with a huff. 

“I have a potion,” he muttered, pointing to the table above them. “Prevents pregnancy.”

“And here I thought you were devoted to me,” you poked him in the rib and he just laughed. 

“I am,” he insisted. “However, I’m not devoted enough to end up in the gallows for deflowering a princess who is betrothed to a ruthless king. My apologies, my grace.”

“Hm, I’m sure I can find someone willing to make that sacrifice for me,” you hummed. 

“And a fool he will be,” he leaned up on his elbow. “I still win the day. He would be hanged and I still get my princess.”

“Your princess?” 

“Has it been any other way?” he asked, quirking a brow. “Truly, if I’m mistaken, tell me. I don’t want to sound too over ambitious.”

You considered it briefly. Had it? 

No, you knew from the moment you spied those eyes at the ball welcoming him to the castle that he was your future. You just hadn’t realized what that meant at the time. 

There was no world, no life, where you could live without him by your side. 

The thought sobered you quickly, your upcoming nuptials springing to mind, the spell locking you in your private world, now lifted. 

“Would you have asked my father?” you asked. 

“In another life, we would have been married by now,” he answered earnestly. “I’m a fool for having hesitated and nearly missed my chance at an eternity by your side.” 

“And Brock?” you asked, the name leaving a sour taste in your mouth. Stephen’s expression darkened at mention of the man. 

“I’ll kill him before he touches you,” he vowed. “I will not yield your heart to such a monster, and I will stop this. I cannot risk you leaving my side. Not again, my love.”

You leaned forward and kissed him, soft, intimate, and gentle. Stephen wasn’t a fighter. 

Certainly he could fight, but you knew him well enough to know that violence was a last option after all other options had been tried. And here he was preparing to declare a one man war on your betrothed. 

Truly, the heavens were smiling upon you in this life.

(—)

Later that evening, when Stephen had returned you safely to your quarters, he met with Wanda at her cottage at the edge of the woods to discuss the next steps in the plan. 

When she caught sight of him, her expression shifted from confused to elated to-

“What is it?” he asked, knowing she’d gotten a read of what he’d been up to previously. 

“Do well to conceal your thoughts,” she warned, leading him inside. 

“Conceal what-?” he asked after her, stopping in his tracks when he saw Anthony sitting at her table, sipping at a large horn of water. 

Tony stood up, giving the man a once over, brows raised as he took him in. 

“You couldn’t wait until the wedding night?” he grumbled, dropping back down in his chair with a long sigh. 

(—)

8- a secret

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#Stephen Strange #doctor strange #Doctor Stephen Strange #doctor strange x reader #dr. strange #Dr Strange #Stephen Strange Fanfiction #reader #reader insert #Female reader #stark!daughter #stark reader #princess!reader #fantasy marvel au #fantasy au marvel #mcu #mcu fantastic four #MCU AU #MCU writing #dr strange/reader #dr strange x reader #dr stephen strange x reader #Dr. stephen strange/reader #dr. stephen strange #dr. strange/reader #dr. strange x reader

[shipping-receiving]

“Is there a chance you won’t be okay?”

An Analysis of Hwang Si-mok and Han Yeo-jin’s Final Scene in Stranger/Secret Forest Season 2

Alright, it’s been almost a week, I’m still crying every time I re-watch this scene, and somehow I’ve written 3,500 words about five minutes of this damn show, so here we go:

As with Stranger/Secret Forest Season 1, Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s final scene in Season 2 ended with a farewell meal, complete with soju. On a very basic level, this meal felt significant in a season where Si-mok was subject, more than ever, to interrupted meals or meals he didn’t particularly want to be present for – at least until he was able to have a drink with Yeo-jin in 2x12, and then lunch with her in 2x13.

More importantly, though, this scene is the most loaded scene we’ve ever witnessed between these two characters. That’s saying something for such a nuanced, detail-oriented show, in which two people placing their phones in a storage locker at a detention centre can possess such emotional weight, particularly when played by two actors who make very subtle and sophisticated acting choices.

I’m struck particularly by the way this scene bursts with subtext – things unsaid and unresolved – when Lee Soo-yeon could just as easily have written a neater, more light-hearted exchange that reaffirmed their connection, more along the lines of their final scene in 1x16. There are a thousand other ways their farewell could have been presented to us that would have given a greater or at least a more comfortable sense of finality, even taking into account their character development over this season. This lack of resolution is evident not just from what happened during the scene, but also when the scene happened within the episode itself. The meal occurred after Yeo-jin had been bullied by her colleagues, but before she met her new boss – at this point, it seemed to the viewer that her promotion would likely bring not the pride she experienced in S1, but more challenges and isolation.

More so than the Seo Dong-jae cliffhanger, this scene makes me think that this was written with a future Season 3 arc in mind, one in which Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s relationship will continue to evolve and deepen substantially (whether that will be ‘romantic’ remains to be seen). Considering they’re the core partnership of this series, there was a deliberate withholding of stability in their farewell, rather than an affirmation of it. I won’t go so far as to say destabilisation – because despite their separation, I think their bond is more profound than ever – but at the bare minimum an absence of certainty, when it could have been written otherwise.

Anyway, on to the breakdown:

The scene opens with Si-mok carefully folding a napkin and placing cutlery on it for Yeo-jin, a simple gesture of care that Cho Seung-woo plays with a startlingly gentle attentiveness. Immediately, it signals that there’s been a shift in Si-mok – how he’s able, at least with Yeo-jin, to do something that isn’t just polite, but also thoughtful. The director even snuck in a little clue that Si-mok is thinking of Yeo-jin as he’s doing this – Yeo-jin actually appears at the left side of the frame from the start, as the camera pans over to Si-mok: 

In this shot, Si-mok is visually separated from Yeo-jin by a pillar. This could be read on the one hand as a kind of sectioning out of his mental space – a visualisation of his thoughts of her as he prepares her cutlery – and on the other hand, as a foreshadowing of their impending separation. (I do, however, enjoy the first interpretation more. It reminds me a little bit of her sketch of the inside of his head from 1x06.)

Back to the napkin: if you look closer, Si-mok didn’t fold a napkin for himself – his spoon and chopsticks are on the table next to his bowl – so this isn’t just a matter of neatly setting the table for their meal. In a very small way, he’s anticipating her needs, just as she has done with him in much more demonstrative ways in both seasons (helping him with his headaches being the most obvious one). This isn’t something he’s necessarily actively worked on in the past two years; he’s still the person who doesn’t instinctively say ‘hello’ over the phone, or ask after someone’s kids without being reminded. Yet, it’s a capacity for care that has expanded significantly, at least where Yeo-jin is concerned.

Compare his behaviour with the equivalent scene in 1x16 – back then, he only ordered a bowl of noodles for himself and not for her. Interestingly, Yeo-jin’s comment to Si-mok during that part of the S1 scene was, “Gosh, you haven’t changed one bit,” suggesting that he was, by nature, somehow unable to be considerate to someone else. Just from the opening to the S2 scene, we see that that comment is not or no longer true, at least when it comes to the way he acts around her. In both the S1 and S2 scenes, he was the first person to arrive for their meal; in S1, the first thing he said was, “Why are you late?” and had already ordered his soju and noodles. This time, however, Yeo-jin asks him, “Why didn’t you order something first?” – implying that although she was late again, he was patiently waiting for her to arrive.

There’s also a difference in the way he responds to her appearance. Now, I personally don’t think we can frame Si-mok’s connection with and care for Yeo-jin in conventional understandings of romantic attraction (which is not to say romance isn’t possible for them canonically, I just think it will manifest differently). Nevertheless, I’d say that he responds to her haircut in a way that is probably as close to the mechanics of attraction as we could possibly expect from Si-mok – not just the shock of “oh, you cut your hair,” but lingering looks and nostalgia for when they first met; nothing at all like noticing that she’s wearing lipstick and saying, not so kindly, that it looks weird. In fact, in a direct parallel to this moment in 1x16, Yeo-jin asks him if her haircut is “weird”, and he says, “I just meant it’s different.”

(I think the way he stares at her is not wholly due to being ‘transfixed’, but also because he’s trying to figure out what such a drastic change means, and why now, and whether he has to worry. Basically, his brain is trying to compute; part of his stare is him trying to analyse her behaviour, just as part of it is him revisiting his memories of her from two years ago, and part of it might well be an attraction he doesn’t quite understand or know how to reel in. He does stare at her for an inordinately long time.)

Switching over to Yeo-jin, I really enjoy this little routine of hers when they have meals together – how she narrows down options for him to a series of questions, and even helps him decide on occasion. It never feels like she’s trying to speak for him, but rather that she knows his likes and dislikes. Her question in this scene – makgeolli or soju – is phrased like her question in 2x02, when she asks him to choose between stir-fried octopus and hot pot; when she specifically requests a lot of cabbages, she must be thinking of how he ate lots of them in 2x12. This kind of care comes naturally to Yeo-jin – we’re talking about the person who took in a murder victim’s mother in S1 – but it’s still a form of intimacy, and one that Si-mok is clearly used to as well.

Soon, though, we have our first indication that things might not be so comfortable – not in the sense that their bond has weakened, but that there are fundamental shifts occurring in both of their lives that affect this bond. Si-mok, after a lot more staring, points out that her short hair reminds him of when they first met. (He wouldn’t have needed to take that much time to come up with that simple observation, which makes me think he was trying to choose his words carefully.) With enthusiasm, Yeo-jin responds with, “I haven’t changed a bit, right?” – echoing her comment about Si-mok in 1x16.

Perhaps Yeo-jin had meant this comment sincerely in the moment, but given context, her cheerfulness feels performative. We’ve just witnessed her crying after being bullied by her colleagues, in contrast to the warmth that she enjoys with her old Yongsan team; we’ve observed her changes – a result of maturity, disillusionment, a loss of innocence – throughout the whole season. In fact, she seems to have cut her hair precisely because she feels weighed down by all that has unfolded, just as one might after a break-up or some kind of painful life event. It’s a decision that seems to say: I acknowledge that everything has changed around me, but maybe doing this will make me feel like myself again, or the ‘myself’ of two years ago.

Si-mok, of course, isn’t quite so able to agree that she hasn’t changed. Multiple times this season, he’s observed the changes in her – “You don’t draw these days?” in 2x06, “Didn’t you want to work in police administration?” in 2x08, “You weren’t the kind of person to postpone things.” in 2x12. Now, he doesn’t respond to her question, and instead looks at her in silence, smiling only ever so slightly when she shakes her head playfully (and we know that she can make him smile wider than that). Perhaps he’s even choosing to withhold any judgment of her. But this is a moment, I think, that factors into his decision to ask her that question at the end of this scene.

Next, we have confirmation that Si-mok was the one who asked Yeo-jin out for dinner, just as he had in 2x02 once he’d settled into his new posting. It isn’t clear in 1x16 if it was Yeo-jin who’d asked to meet Si-mok when she found out he was being posted to Namhae, but it’s been affirmed twice this season that he prioritises this time with her (even more so than meeting his own mother). Then, he breaks the news to her that he is leaving for Gangwon Province this weekend.

In 1x16, Yeo-jin finds out that Si-mok is leaving from the special investigation team, without Si-mok being present. At the time, they still think he’ll be sent to the US for training, and Yeo-jin is visibly disappointed. She has the same crestfallen look on her face in this scene, in front of Si-mok. She doesn’t want to be separated from him, and when she asks about his cases, it seems she’d expected him to stay for quite a while longer to see them through. Mind you, Wonju is only about 1.5 hours drive from Seoul (yes, I mapped it), but Yeo-jin still looks like she’s had the rug pulled from under her. Perhaps, in an uncertain time, she’d hoped that Si-mok would be in her life more than the few weeks he’d spent in Seoul.

Yeo-jin’s responses in both 1x16 and 2x16 are a pretty big indicator that she has feelings for Si-mok (whether she’s aware or willing to acknowledge those feelings is another matter). I suppose one could argue that her reaction is simply out of sadness at the thought of being separated from a friend, but based on certain events in S2 – for example, Choi Bit questioning Yeo-jin about her relationship with Si-mok, and Yeo-jin deflecting – I think the viewer is at the very least meant to question whether their bond is truly ‘platonic’. This isn’t the type of show to include superfluous details just to tease their viewers, and in any case, Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s connection has only deepened through the course of this season despite being on opposing sides of the council. It feels like the emotional stakes are much higher this time than back in S1.

As Yeo-jin is absorbing this news from Si-mok, there are a couple of little details here that feel significant to me, but could be nothing: first, the way Si-mok half-holds out his hand as Yeo-jin is pouring her soju, just as he’d held out his hand when she was pouring makgeolli in 2x13. Second, how she pours out a cup of soju for herself first, but not for Si-mok. In any other situation, it might seem impolite – after all, Si-mok is the one who’d chosen the drink – but here it seems that she’s pouring a drink to steady or busy herself more than anything, and she doesn’t drink from it till after their toast.

Following this, Yeo-jin confides in Si-mok that “I never thought the council would end like this. [...] Will the higher-ups be replaced with more honest people while I’m catching bad men out there?” When he replies with, “Why are you talking as if those two are the same?”, it’s yet another of his probing questions, questions she never seems to have an answer to. The Yeo-jin of old would never have assumed that all the higher-ups are dishonest – she has always seen the good in people – but she feels betrayed by Choi Bit, the one person she sincerely respected. Here, she changes the topic rather than opening up, reverting to her most comfortable mode of showing care for someone else by asking Si-mok why he looks so tired. It’s a guardedness that we’re not used to seeing from Yeo-jin; when Si-mok met with Choi Bit at the start of the episode, he describes Yeo-jin as someone who “opens up easily”, even if she doesn’t “blindly trust or respect just about anybody”.

While Yeo-jin is evasive, Si-mok is more willing to be vulnerable in comparison. His openness isn’t surprising, given that Si-mok has shared more about his life and thoughts with her than with anyone else, but it is still heartwarming to see. Instead of brushing off Yeo-jin’s comment, he tells her about his dream of the prosecutors from the Western Office. For anyone else, this might not seem like a significant conversation topic, but for someone who hardly ever dreams (which Si-mok mentioned in S1), it feels like he’s sharing something special with her. This dream, and his factual recounting of it, seems to be a means for his brain to process the traumatic events of two years ago.

Before Si-mok tells Yeo-jin about his dream, there’s a quick insertion here – a lament about seeing your boss in your dreams – that suggests that she is still troubled about Choi Bit, more than she’s letting on. Again, Si-mok doesn’t push her to elaborate, though I think he’s been absorbing all the things that seem off with Yeo-jin since she arrived. Yeo-jin proceeds to analyse his dream in her head, but doesn’t verbalise her interpretation (that Yoon Se-won might be considering suicide, since he went off in the same direction as two characters who have both passed). As she’s deep in thought, Si-mok tilts his head questioningly at her; she says that he probably won’t have time to go anywhere else this weekend, implying that she was thinking of bringing him with her to visit Yoon.

Knowing that Si-mok won’t be able to come with her, however, leaves Yeo-jin resigned. As she announces, “All right, then,” I wonder if this is the moment that she’s choosing to steel herself. The two people she treasures and respects most in her life (Si-mok and Choi Bit) are disappearing from it, and she will have to learn to move forward without them.

Now, we come to their toast. In the corresponding scene in S1, their toast is bittersweet, but has a sense of resolution; upbeat piano music plays in the background as Yeo-jin says, “Goodbye, I won’t be able to see you off,” while Si-mok echoes that with, “Good luck in your new position. Sorry I can’t attend the ceremony.” In S2, the music is quieter, and much more sombre – I’ve been describing it in my head as ‘breathy sad wooooo music’ – even as Yeo-jin laughs and says, a little helplessly: “It feels like we keep repeating this.”

Si-mok, on his part, doesn’t even echo her laugh with anything more than the barest smile. Instead, he says, with a deep sincerity: “Take care, Senior Inspector Han.” As I mentioned earlier, there are many ways that they could have written or played this scene to convey even a little more resolution – choosing different music, or having Si-mok smile along with Yeo-jin, or even giving Yeo-jin a bit more notice of his departure so that she can prepare a gift (as if to say, she doesn’t draw as much these days, but she would for his sake). But the viewer is made to feel all of their reluctance, even sadness at this separation, even if those feelings are hidden beneath pleasantries. “Well, I guess I’ll be okay,” Yeo-jin says, as if there’s a possibility that she won’t be – that this is something she has to recover from in the future.

Si-mok considers her words, her phrasing, her demeanour, tilts his head at her again and says: “Is there a chance you won’t be okay?”

This, above all other lines, shows how much Si-mok has grown in the past couple of years because of Yeo-jin’s influence. Whereas he started S1 cold, guarded, and isolated from the rest of his colleagues, he has arrived at a point where he has cultivated enough of an emotional sensitivity to ask her this question – to show her care, just as she has shown care to him and other people around her. I’d even venture to say that Si-mok feels, himself, that there’s a chance he won’t be as okay with their separation as he might have been two years ago. In 2x05, during the conversation with Seo Dong-jae outside the prison, Dong-jae asks Si-mok: “You don’t feel a tad bit sad even if you’re sent far away, do you?” Si-mok answers, “No.” That doesn’t feel so definitive anymore. There isn’t anything either Si-mok or Yeo-jin can do, given that they both prioritise their careers and understand that these careers follow a certain trajectory, but parting feels a little bit harder this time.

Yeo-jin answers Si-mok’s question as reassuringly as she can, with an adorable smile and shake of the head; she lets out an “ah” after she downs her soju, as if to reorient herself. Yet, her cheerfulness in the rest of the scene – her excitement at the food, her over-enthusiastic chewing – rings empty as the sombre music continues to play in the background. For perhaps the first time in the entire series, there is something about Yeo-jin that seems feigned. Strangely, it is Si-mok’s blank expression that represents the more authentic emotion in this scene – communicating the very resignation that Yeo-jin must be feeling inside, beneath a facade that might read as comical in any other context.

“Is there a chance you won’t be okay?” is, in fact, the last thing that Si-mok says in this whole scene, despite quite a few more lines of dialogue from Yeo-jin. The way he looks at her for the rest of the scene, though, is charged with meaning. It seems to say: ‘I don’t really believe that you’re okay, but I’m going to give you space because I can tell you don’t really want to talk right now.’ It’s not as if Yeo-jin hasn’t confided in him before – their phone call in 1x15 was especially intimate – so it’s not that Si-mok is incapable of listening to her. Still, he respects her choice to deflect, and continues to observe her closely while ignoring the pajeon, even leaning forward right at the end of the scene. This very overt concentration on her is something we’ve never really seen from Si-mok before; even in the rooftop scene in 2x06, which is probably the most loaded scene they share after this one, they’re standing beside each other and rarely make eye contact. Here, his focus on Yeo-jin is palpable.

As much as this scene felt heartbreaking to me (thanks breathy sad wooooo music), it actually left me with a lot of optimism for the development of their relationship in the future. Lee Soo-yeon has said that she has enough material for five seasons of the show, and while I’m not so sure we’ll get as many seasons as that, it feels like she’s pushed Si-mok and Yeo-jin out of their comfortable friendship – planting the question, “is there a chance we won’t be okay?” I wonder if we’ll see something quite different in the third season (which is apparently in discussion!), which surely won’t see them on opposing sides again.

I’ve been burned by enough ships that can potentially be read as ‘platonic’ to know that I shouldn’t hope for any overt romance, but Si-mok is such a unique character and has such a unique connection with Yeo-jin that I’m hopeful that their relationship could be deepened with nuance, even if it doesn’t become romantic in ‘recognisable’ ways. (I have other thoughts on his asexuality/aromanticism that I won’t get into here.) It’s precisely because their connection is built on mutual trust, respect, and understanding that it remains so compelling, and I think this scene promises growth, and some resolution, whenever we see them next.

#tvn stranger #secret forest 2 #stranger 2 #stranger #hwanghan