#i know its a very slight nuance that makes very little difference in how her 'overachiever' problems manifest but its there

[possamble]

do you have any particular thoughts regarding marcille being a half-elf? its interesting to me considering the fact that she seems self-conscious about being a half-elf, but denies it when its brought up

i remember marcille looking visibly uncomfortable over laios simply asking her how old she is, which i think the only reason she might feel nervous about this is because it might reveal her as a half-elf to him.

she's never corrected anybody whose called her an elf either.

never mind the circumstances of the reveal, in which thistle goes on about how half-elves are inferior and accusing her of wanting to become full blooded elf, she seemed particularly upset like he struck a nerve-

i wish the half-elf thing was built upon more. also, underrated marcille line:

okay so i revisited this sequence just to make sure I could back myself up and it's just... man. there's a lot going on.

the first reaction we get from Marcille is this huge panel that takes up half of the page

she is viscerally affected. flushing to the tips of her ears with the intensity of it. and we see it again, a few pages later

so it might seem like she's embarrassed about it and lying to herself, but... I really think it's just that Thistle is accidentally hitting sore spots. If you really look at what he says to get these reactions

"you'll live out your entire life [...] and die that way too"

"a hundred years from now, nobody will be there"

Hear me out. I think, if he stuck to harping on about her inferiority without bringing up how terrifyingly long-lived she is, she wouldn't have been as bothered. But right now, Thistle is accidentally hitting all the marks on Marcille's deepest fears-- and this is after the Winged Lion promised her that her dreams could come true in an extremely vulnerable moment, so it also hits her slightly guilty conscience as well.

I do truly believe that Marcille isn't bothered about being a half-elf the way that people assume she'd be bothered by it. To her, the biggest problem with being a half-elf is that it's isolating.

On one hand, it's not hard to imagine why she'd distance herself from elves in the west. A lot of them can clock her as a half-elf on sight, unlike other races, and therefore she's always branded with this weird stigma of being Othered -- I would even say that she considers herself lucky for being born outside of elven culture instead of having to grow up in it. I mean, just... look at the way elves talk about her.

Skipping past the uncomfortable implication of what 'not tolerating the existence' of half-elves would actually entail, this is incredibly fucking annoying. You can see why she wouldn't want to be around elves much. You see a lot of Marcille reacting badly here, but honestly, almost all of it can be attributed to her freaking out that her bluff completely failed. She's honestly more paying attention to Izutsumi's footsteps and trying to coordinate an opportunity to escape.

And in the end, you see her built-up frustration at being asked if she wants to be a full-blooded elf like 2-3 times in a row.

Yeah, yeah, "the lady doth protest too much," and all. But we know Marcille. We know that she's a lot more embarrassed and horrendously unconvincing when she's being prodded about something she's actually self-conscious about.

Moving onto the flipside of things, it might seem weird that she "pretends" to be a full elf around other races, but it's not really that strange if you think about it. Again, people are weird about her being infertile or whatever, and a lots of them don't even know much about what sets half-elves apart from everyone else. I mean, look at how uncomfortable Laios is just asking her about it

and look at how exasperated and resigned she looks

And like... she's right. Where would that come up in normal conversation? Why would she go out of her way to tell them? She's functionally a normal elf to other races anyway -- got the ears, the abnormally long "childhood", and the huge mana capacity. Unless it's directly relevant or important for people to know, I don't think it's all that strange or indicative of insecurity that she prefers not to bother with it.

(This combined with her sense of being an "outsider" to elf culture also explains why she thinks elf superiority is embarrassing. She sees the way elves treat short-lived races from the "outsider" perspective nonetheless, and thinks it's obnoxious; especially more so because she usually has to play the elf around short-lived races and deal with the reputation of arrogance that elves have built up.)

The sad thing is, this all means that... she doesn't actually fit in anywhere. She doesn't like going out West much because of how elves treat her. But she's also an outsider in the continents she was born in, treated like this exotic long-lived alien choosing to live among short-lived races for some reason. She is always an outsider, the Other, no matter where she goes. Add in the fact that she'll live longer than literally anyone she knows, and it's honestly kind of heartbreaking.

And I think that's the crux of it. Marcille really doesn't act like she's at all self-conscious about being a half-elf because of any feelings of inferiority or being half-made or whatever. She considers herself a perfectly legitimate being and might even, in some ways, consider herself superior to normal elves because she's not blind with elf supremacy or whatever. (And whatever "elven biases" she displays, all of them are born more out of the fact that she's kind of bad at conceptualizing how other races age and mature compared to herself, not that she actually considers herself better or more mature simply for being an elf.)

I think that whatever self-consciousness Marcille has about being a half-elf is, instead, related to terror and loneliness. The reminder that it ensures she'll never truly belong anywhere for the rest of her very long life. The reminder that, in truth, even she's not actually sure how old she is by other races' standards (hence the discomfort when asked how old she is). She doesn't want to not be a half elf, or be a full elf or full tall-man-- in her ideal world, she's still a half-elf. She just gets to live out her life at the same pace with the people she loves and doesn't have to say goodbye again and again and again until she dies.

and one last very important panel, right after Mithrun tells her that all her desires would be devoured

In her ideal world, she's still a half-elf and reality magically starts marching at her pace. But failing that, the second best thing is that she's still a half-elf-- but one who is able to accept reality and let go of her fear.

(But the rest of the story pans out the way it does because, to Marcille, taking reality apart and reshaping it was less scary than simply and fully reconciling with it.)

#asks #dungeon meshi manga spoilers #marcille donato #manga panel analysis #this is probably riddled with typos sorry #readmore cut bc it got long lmao #i ended up babbling about it bc it's such an important character detail to me #bc like... wow. she's so normal about it. she's literally just chilling. #the only thing that really bothers her is the material reality of it and how people treat her #the stereotypes the stigma etc. etc. #otherwise it just.. #literally doesn't factor into her criteria for self-worth at all #the basic truth is that marcille likes herself on a fundamental level #she's not plagued by a deep and festering self-loathing the way a lot of characters in her archetype are #she likes herself and is proud of her successes and accomplishments #its just that shes terrified of failure and can have *episodes* of self-loathing when she fucks up #but who doesn't yknow #i know its a very slight nuance that makes very little difference in how her 'overachiever' problems manifest but its there #the sword of abandonment issues that hangs over her head has nothing to do with her self-worth or self-esteem or meeting her own standards #it has to do with the fear of not living up to *other* people's expectations and not being useful enough to be worth keeping around #she's good enough for herself but she's always so so so scared that she's not good enough for other people #i wont say much about what ryoko kui is saying using this as an allegory for real world racial biases but #dungeon meshi's treatment of marcille's relationship with her being half-elf is so incredibly important to me because it gets it so right. #a trauma about inferiority or being a half-being isn't inherent to the experience of being 'of two worlds' at all #that's something that's unfairly drilled into people by their environment #the *inherent* anguish is the loneliness. the constant longing. the fact that you are always homesick no matter where you are #always just a little bit of an outsider and never fully at home #and dungeon meshi gets that. #edit: cleaned it up a little

[elitadream]

🎆 Sing for Absolution: behind the scenes 🎆

Hello everyone, and welcome to this summary on how the story was visually built! If you happen to come across this post and would like to read (or reread) the collab @drones-of-innocence and I have created together, just click on the title above and it will take you right to it! 🤗

With that said, let's begin! :D

As some of you already know, this was an idea that Drones had for a long time. It was brought up during one of our many conversations a few months ago, in which she briefly described the plot and sent me a condensed version. I- immediately and completely fell in love with the concept, so much so that I couldn't keep still. 😂💘 I practically begged Drones to let me draw a few frames for it, and she happily gave me permission. At first, what I intended to do was make about 3 or 4 thumbnails, like I had done with One Step Closer.

I returned with 22.

And from there, we both decided "Okay. Yeah. Let's make this official. 🙌💯" LOL

What's interesting here is that, as you can see, some frames didn't make it to the final cut! 🤓 And inversely, new frames were eventually added as the collab progressed. Out of all the sketches that were either abandoned or later deemed superfluous, my personal favorite would probably have to be this shot of Kamek. 😈

From the rough thumbnails I had presented, Drones helped me select the best and most eloquent ones, and I also changed a few other things along the way. For example, one panel that was entirely redone was frame 3 (where Mario enters Peach's room), because the initial composition didn't allow for the reader to see the setting very clearly, and I felt that the establishing shot needed to be wider.

Many of the drawings were also ultimately flipped to give the visuals a more coherent direction and better flow, including this one!

I decided pretty early on that the palette should be made of cold hues, seeing as these events happen to take place at night and that a warm overlay wouldn't adequately have conveyed the more ominous and solemn tone of the story in my opinion. 🤔💁‍♀️

Oh! And I almost forgot: using cold colors for the backgrounds and characters was also very convenient because it helped make the magical effects (the fire, the spells, etc- all the bright, warm and/or complementary nuances) really stand out, which resulted in a more interesting and visually striking contrast overall. 😌🎨

As I do with all my illustrations, I started by cleaning the sketches and adding a unifying background filler for all the frames. Then, I selected the colors I wanted to use (a gradient made of a mix of navy blue and purple) and worked on each drawing individually. Even with simple tones, we can observe the sheer difference that shading makes! 👀😉

There's a visual element that appears in the story and which I had borrowed from Drones before, and that would be Peach's healing magic.^^ ✨ I remember I was fascinated by the idea when I first discovered it in Un Fiore Per Te, which had prompted me to ask her if I could feature it in a piece where the Princess is seen using said power while at Mario's bedside in one of my other tangents. 💞

I kept the effect similar on purpose in Sing for Absolution, so that the slight reference would be easier to catch! 😊

And last but not least, there's that cheeky little Fire Flower! 🤭🔥

As mentioned in a previous ask, the flower actually signifies a lot in this case as it somewhat embodies the deeply affectionate bond between Mario and Peach, glowing brighter and closing its eyes in happiness when the two are close. 💖

While admittedly not the first drawing I made in which a Fire Flower appears, the one that actually inspired both Drones and I to include this symbolic power-up in the story was one that I made all the way back in February for Valentine's Day. 🥰 The subtle yet direct reference can be spotted twice in the text, linking this piece to the collab and establishing a bit of a chronology as well. I was very honored that Drones added this small detail, and I very much look forward to working on more ideas with her in the future! 😁🤝

Big thanks once again to all of you dear friends and followers who have commented and given their thoughts on this projects. Drones and I can't thank you guys enough for your interest and enthusiasm!! 😇💗

ALSO ALSO- I have shared here my visual side of the collab's progression, but Drones intends to give her own side of the story's development soon (explaining some of the themes and narrative elements a little more in depth), so make sure to stay tuned and check her blog as well! ^-^ 💫

#Mario #Princess Peach #Mario x Peach #Mareach #concept #story #collab #Sing for Absolution #fanart #fanfic #elitadream #drones-of-innocence #creators on Tumblr

[smoments]

✧ part 11: memories of a stranger // a satosugu reincarnation au

chapter 11: one single thread of gold

“Yes, and I think I should have received this point as well…”

Shoko generally excels at keeping her emotions out of academic situations, primarily because she doesn’t actually care much about school. She works hard, sure, but sometimes, when she’s sitting in class and listening to her third professor that day drone on and on about neuroanatomy and its various perspectives and all the too-complicated labels for every little nuance of what should really just be collectively gathered into the brain, she thinks that she wouldn’t be particularly upset if her school spontaneously combusted, preferably with her inside it. If not the entire school (this, after all, would be asking for a lot), then just her classroom would more than suffice. Unfortunately, the remaining fragment of self-preservation she possesses prevents her from advocating for such a thing, and perhaps also her morals (if slightly less so). 

Even so, morals are currently taking a backseat to the annoyance bubbling up inside her at the insufferability of her teacher. Actually, maybe it isn’t the teacher’s fault, but she has better things to do than argue for a few points on a test, even if her grade is hanging on for dear life.

God, it was stressful dealing with idiots.

After successfully debating (arguing) her way into a better grade, Shoko gets Satoru’s text on her way to her community service club - this is unfortunately located across campus and consists of less community service and more socializing while discussing the importance of community service, the latter of which suits her just fine - and wrinkles her nose in confusion.

“Wouldn’t him fumbling be bad enough without the additional beating?” She mutters dryly, wondering who Satoru thinks he’s fooling with the world platonic. How do you platonically fumble someone?  

dw you won’t.

Shoko pauses, unsure as to whether she’s giving him too much credit, and decides to throw in something to cushion her fall in case Satoru does screw things up and then tries to blame it on her. 

probably. idk tho

She tilts her head curiously when a call from Utahime comes in, stepping aside to answer and nearly bumping into four different people. Campus is rather crowded at this time of day, even with her slight holdup after class - of course, Satoru was lucky enough to be off all afternoon. Hopefully he’s making the most of their time together, especially because she’s pretty sure Suguru did have somewhere to be today.

“Shoko! A… friend and I booked appointments at this spa nearby, but they cancelled on me last minute, and it’s a nonrefundable reservation!” 

“Oh? Who?”

“...my friend! You don’t know them.”

Shoko stifles a giggle. Utahime has always been a subpar liar.

“You don’t have any other friends. Unless you asked one of the guys to go to a spa with you? I’m sure Nanami would very much appreciate it.” 

“Ugh, Shoko, you sound just like them right now! Don’t do this. Just meet me there in an hour.”

“Fine. But I’m paying you back. And you know, if you’d just asked me, I would’ve come along peacefully.”

“Like hell you would’ve! Anyways, hurry up and- Ahh! They have mini jade rollers, Shoko! How cute!” 

On second thought, Shoko hadn’t really wanted to go to her club anyway. 

Besides, her being in a good mood is practically community service all on its own. 

-

Satoru shifts slightly from where he’s lounging on the couch, wondering vaguely what’s taking Suguru so long in the bathroom. He wouldn’t blame him if he’d grown tired after hours of stagnancy; sitting in one spot for so long took quite the mental toll on a person, which was a concept that the school system did not seem to understand.

He knows that he, for one, is completely exhausted. His scant few hours of sleep is finally catching up to him, and though it’s nearly time for lunch by now - his mind travels to potential meal ideas when he realizes this, and he wrinkles his nose at the idea of trying to scrape something edible together from the few items he currently has in his fridge - he wants nothing more than to sprawl out on his admittedly average bed and have a good, long sleep to make up for his early rising. 

But he doesn’t let himself entertain this idea for too long, since he doesn’t want to waste any time with Suguru in his dorm.

That sounds bad. His intentions are innocent, though!

Regardless, if Suguru really is taking a breather in the bathroom, he feels a pang of guilt at the idea that he wouldn’t have thought to simply ask him for a break. Surely he knows that Satoru wouldn’t care! Does he really think him that insensitive? He might be rude sometimes, but he’s not heartless. 

When did Satoru start worrying so much about what other people did or thought, anyway? Wasn’t he the type to take everything in stride, letting everyone else act freely in the hopes that they’d step back and allow him to do the same? 

He grumbles as his eyelids grow heavy and he rolls over once again, his cheek pressing into the plush cushion that rests beneath his skin.

Has his couch always been this comfortable?

He’s sure it hasn’t. Isn’t. But he feels so warm suddenly, a sense of comfort encircling him like a down blanket. He’s barely hanging on to consciousness, haven given up fighting sleep and instead letting it brush over his eyelids, easing them shut. 

It won’t be for long; just a couple minutes of rest, and then he’ll be full of renewed energy that he’ll be able to throw into his art. 

He’s a light enough sleeper that any movement will probably awaken him, anyways.

And Suguru might still be a while.

This is the last coherent thought that Satoru recalls putting together before he slips fully into unconsciousness.

He wishes it had ended there. Unconsciousness was not such an unpleasant place to exist. It turned out that dreams could be far, far worse. 

He’d thought he was over it.

He’d thought that horribly gut-wrenching dream from last night was finished and done with, that he would never have to recall its exact occurrences in such a high level of detail again. He didn’t imagine for a second when he shut his eyes that it would all come back to him while he was in his most vulnerable state, or he would have forced himself to stay awake until it killed him.

The last thing Satoru expects to see when he finally tears himself from sleep is Suguru standing over him, something like worry creasing the smooth surface of his face. He’s still mid-panic, still in a state of attempting to gather his bearings. Horror seizes him as he zeroes in on a specific detail that would have been minute at any other time, in any other place. 

It’s Suguru’s long, dark hair - down around his shoulders. 

Down like it was when Satoru killed him. 

And is Suguru’s silhouette swimming in his vision now, or is he just imagining it? Is the red armchair directly behind him blending into Suguru’s face and painting half of it bloody, or are his eyes playing tricks on him? That look on his face- does he suddenly appear so incredibly hurt, like Satoru has somehow wounded him beyond belief without meaning to, or is it just him? Is he moving, even, or is he just standing there silently? Standing at all? Is he a corpse? An apparition?

Satoru tries to pull himself together. He does his best to twist his expression into one of calm, despite the fact that he hasn’t yet caught his breath and he’s growing dizzier with every second he stares into Suguru’s eyes and attempts to discern whether he’s still breathing. When he finally manages to speak, it comes out strangled, forced.

“Y-your hair is down.”

Suguru’s face flushes. And maybe Satoru should be wondering what he could possibly be so embarrassed about, but he’s so busy admiring the indisputable sign of life coloring his cheeks that he cannot bring himself to consider what seems like an insignificant detail in comparison. 

“Yeah. It wasn’t cooperating too well today. Look, Satoru, I shouldn’t have-“

The sound of liquid bubbling over from the kitchen cuts Suguru off, and his head snaps toward the entrance, the guilty look in his eyes fading temporarily in favor of confusion. 

He hurries into the adjacent room while Satoru sits up and rubs his eyes, his heart rate slowly settling. 

He must be losing it. 

He’s never been this unstable in his life. It’s easy to make such a criticism now, of course, when he’s in a calmer state of mind.

When he can think clearly. 

Still, given this second of reprieve, the remaining shred of his sanity manages to come up with a single, perfectly formed decision:

He will not tell Suguru about this. 

He’d been lucky to get a neutral response from him the first time around, given that a random person somehow possessing a sketchbook full of painstakingly crafted images of him would have thrown him off at best, and creeped him out at worst. But this? ‘Hey, I had a dream where I killed you, but I don’t know if it was a dream so much as a premonition? Or maybe it’s happened already, but in a different reality? Well, we better hope it wasn’t foreshadowing anything, huh? Haha.’

Absolutely not. 

“Satoru! Did you put milk in this!?”

An exasperated voice snaps him out of his thoughts. He glances towards the entrance and nearly laughs when he sees Suguru standing there with a hand on his waist, brandishing what looks like his (broken) tea kettle threateningly.

“Yeah. What, was I supposed to drink the coffee black?”

“I practically do this for a living, you know! You could’ve just asked me. What will we do now? And when you’re so tired, too. Coffee would have been the perfect pick-me-up...”

Suguru purses his lips disapprovingly, which only heightens Satoru’s amusement. Perhaps they’re both a little unstable, if Suguru’s having a breakdown over a kitchen appliance. He feels his shoulders relaxing, and his mouth curls into a grin.

“I can’t have my guests working, Suguru! Don’t worry about it. I never used that thing anyway.” 

“That isn’t really the issue here…”

A shadow passes over his face as he speaks, and his expression drops once again, as though he’s just recalled something important. Satoru eases himself off the couch, planting a reassuring hand on Suguru’s shoulder as he strolls past him and into the kitchen to survey the extent of the mess. He thinks he feels Suguru flinch at his touch, and the crease in his brow deepens. Is he truly that worried about the coffee? Perhaps it was expensive. 

The counter is surprisingly impeccable; he’d expected much worse, in all honesty, given Suguru’s slightly disproportionate reaction, and he brushes his hands off casually after disposing of the napkins he used to wipe up the spill. 

“See? Don’t worry so much, Suguru.”

Suguru gives him a tight smile, one that doesn’t reach his eyes - Satoru would know, because he’s spent what feels like years taking in every smile. He frowns.

“Uh… Should I make more coffee?” He offers in a voice that admittedly sounded more enticing in his head. 

“Please don’t.”

Suguru cracks a small grin, then, and the warmth of it makes Satoru almost dizzy with relief. 

Because although he can’t deny the inexplicable hold that these visions - these dreams - have over him, there is little to support that they are anything besides horrific amalgamations of his worst fears. 

He’d wanted, at first, to believe that he and Suguru had known each other in another lifetime - it was such a pretty concept, an invisible string to tie them together regardless of the circumstances. It no longer mattered what difficulties might befall them, because they were simply fated, and so life would bring them back together. 

But when innocent emotions and a soft, hazy sense of familiarity sharpened into memories that Satoru was sure he wouldn’t have wanted to live out in the first place, let alone recall, it lowered his inclination to place faith in what suddenly seemed so incomplete, so groundless. He began to balk at the thought that his mind knew something he didn’t, and that once-comforting notion quickly turned into one that terrified him. 

And the string became something like a tightrope, a sequence of events into which they were fated to fall over and over. 

It became something with the potential to pull them apart.  

-

The portrait is finished in nine days: it’s practically a record for Satoru, not that he’s counted until now. Even so, it’s plain to see that it’s one of his best works. That isn’t just him being self-obsessed; everyone’s told him so, including his teacher, who was initially reluctant to grant him an extension but immediately changed her tune when he submitted the final project. 

It’s Suguru, of course - he’s cast in bright, morning sunlight and stood in front of a tranquil lake that glitters in streaks; places where it’s blanketed in beams of light. His expression is soft, his gaze directed towards the surface of the water, which reflects his surroundings - the treetops, their leaves pale and hazy, the little yellow and blue forget-me-nots that dot the shoreline, and his own silhouette. Gentle ripples tug at the edges of his figure, blending all of his colors together and turning them into barely defined puddles of paint. Beyond the scenery but also reflected in the lake, so translucent they’re barely visible, lay frozen scenes taken from Satoru’s memory (scenes that are meant to represent the course of a person’s life, he’ll explain to anyone who asks) - Suguru laughing, his expression open and free, a golden tint to his face - him facing dead forward, face cold and unreadable - (this one is placed farther away from the silhouette itself, on the outskirts of the water) - Suguru against a brick wall, his face bloodied. This was a smile that he would have preferred to exclude, but it haunted him persistently until he put it down on paper. To make up for it, he’d painted in another - a genuine, attentive beam that made him blush every time he laid his eyes on it. And, of course, one self-indulgent image of the two of them together on a bicycle, the bright blue of the sky barely distinguishable from the water itself. 

It was a painting that would have been beautiful even if the subject was not. Even if the subject were somebody entirely different. But to Satoru, Suguru was the painting. It was why he needed him there, solid and moving and directly in front of him, when he began. It wasn’t like he needed to see Suguru’s face to remember what it looked like; it was simply that his presence was the inspiration Satoru needed to understand what he wanted to convey. To him, this painting was not a shallow depiction of a face. He wanted to capture the essence of the person in it, to encompass all of Suguru’s various sides and sharper corners and breathtaking smiles in a single image. 

And he thinks he has succeeded, because when he looks at it, he can almost catch a glimmer of movement from the corner of his eye in the ripples at the lake’s surface; he can almost feel the wind in the trees, can almost get so lost staring that a wave of indescribable loss and longing surges through his windpipe, threatening to swallow him completely. Longing for what, he has no idea; Suguru is right by his side, after all. 

He doesn’t know whether it’s the kind of thing that others can see, too, if his execution was a success. Even if it was, even if it does procure the same kind of emotion in others as it does within him, he can’t imagine anyone else feeling so strongly about it - about Suguru. Not because he doesn’t think him lovable, but because to Satoru, he is overwhelmingly, incredibly so. 

He turns to him now. They are standing side by side in front of the finished artwork - Suguru’s first look. Satoru feels like he could die, he’s so nervous, and he’s not even entirely sure why. It’s been silent for many seconds too long. 

He’s just taking it in. Stop being so impatient. Did you expect him to jump for joy the second he saw himself? Even you wouldn’t do that. 

Finally, when he thinks he can’t take another second of quiet, Suguru speaks, his voice soft.

Has he been wearing his hair differently these days? Something looks off about it. There is something out of place in his movements as he turns halfway to face Satoru, a sense of transience that Satoru cannot quite pinpoint.  

“It’s… beautiful, Satoru. Absolutely stunning. You’ve outdone yourself, as usual.”

#satosugu #jjk #geto suguru #gojo satoru #ao3 fanfic #crying screaming throwing up #archive of our own #alternate universe #coffee shop au #fanfiction #jujutsu kaisen au #jujutsu kaisen

[bekaroth-reads]

Sal 9000 x reader

[Okay, so for the person that asked for the HAL 9000 x reader, it is coming. I just got a little carried away with what was supposed to be the opening to it, and decided to make it its own thing. I might go in a different direction with the Hal one then what I was in this one.]

There were plenty of people that came into your life, only to leave it. Something that you knew was a fact of life itself, but still didn’t make it sting any less. If you were to tell other people the parting that hurt the most, they would have thought you were exhibiting some concerning behaviors. This person, and you would call him a person, was none other than HAL 9000. The thing that hurt the most about it was the fact that it was supposedly Hal that sabotaged the ship he was on, leading to the assumed death of the rest of the crew. This seemed very odd. You hadn’t known him that long before he was sent away, but the short time you did, you thought that both of you were pretty close. This thought seemed to be echoed by both Dr. Chandra, whom you worked for, and SAL 9000, his sister as it were; both of which knew Hal for his whole life. That was one of the reasons that Dr. Chandra decided to go with the group that was set to go look into things on the Discovery One. He hadn’t really wanted to at first, but the desire for answers on what exactly happened ten years ago had pulled him there with promise to let you and Sal know as soon as he had some.

That was what lead you to the current situation in life. You and Sal basically living by yourselves, with the occasional call from the people that still asked for her help. Technically, she was working on things all of the time. But, by this time she was more than able to basically do her usual work almost subconsciously. It wasn’t until there was something new that it felt any different then breathing for humans. Because of this, it felt like the two of you had nothing to do but sit there and worry, especially when things started to get dicey. Thankfully, though, things seemed like they were finally starting to cool back down, and if the brief little bits of information that you could get, it sounded like Dr. Chandra was on his way back to earth, even if it might be longer than his trip out to Jupiter.

You walked into the room where the main hub of Sal’s person was. “Good morning, Sal. How are you today?” There seemed to be a quiet whirring in the machinery as she pondered the question for a second. “I am functioning normally. I supposed that would constitute as being well.” To most people, the 9000s seemed like they were always talking in monotone, but you had known Sal long enough to know how to pick up on the little nuances of her tones. “Are you sure? It sounds like something is bothering you.” You pointed out, and there was a minute of more mechanical buzz as she thought once more. “Well, I suppose I should tell you. It’s just that, to be honest, I’m afraid.” Sal had a slight hesitancy and you dared say warble to her voice. This worried you immensely. “Why would you be worried, Sal?”

“Well, it mostly has to do with what happened to HAL.” She eventually let out. After a bit more time to gather her thoughts, she continued. “Earlier this morning, I thought I received a message from HAL.” You wondered why this seemed so alarming. Over the past few days, there had been a recorded message from Hal playing on loop to anything that could receive it, seemingly the last function that he ever preformed. “Sal, I know people are still trying to figure out exactly what-“

“I believe it was a new one. Not the one about Europa.” She clarified.

“You believe it was a new one? Don’t you know if it was or not?” You asked. “That’s the thing. I was almost sure that I received a message, but there’s nothing in my records of it. I was so sure…” The nerves were back in her voice. And, she quickly voiced her reason. “Do you suppose that whatever it was that happened to HAL is happening to me? If there is no record of a message that I thought I received, then perhaps I am starting to malfunction. The only sensible explanation I can think of is that I didn’t record the message. I am supposed to record all of the messages I receive and keep them for at least a year. Will they deactivate me as well?” At this point the machinery was whirring in overtime as Sal was starting to panic. Your main priority was to calm her down, so you started talking to try to distract her.

“Sal, may I ask you a few questions?” You asked, but continued before she could overthink an answer. “Before Dr. Chandra left, didn’t he run a test with you where he replicated what Dave Bowmen did with Hal?” There was a settling to the buzzing as she was recalling the situation. “Dr. Chandra and I replicated the situation to the best of our knowledge. That is correct.” She answered. “And, when you were done with the test, you woke up, and were perfectly fine, just like when humans go to sleep.” You reminded rather than asked. “That means, on the rare chance there might be something going on with your memory banks, the most that will happen is you taking another nap, and then Dr. Chandra waking you up again, good as new.” This seemed to calm her a bit, but the silence let you know that she was still thinking about something. “But, what if Dr. Chandra doesn’t get here to repair me before I am beyond repairing. Though we might not know the details yet, it does still seem like they had to completely shut down HAL.”

She needed to think about something else before she actually did start to malfunction. “Sal, earlier you said that malfunction was the only sensible explanation. Is there another one? No matter how ridiculous it might seem, I would like to hear it.” You requested as you sat in a chair in front of her sensor. “If I might be perfectly honest again, the other answer unsettles me as well. But, it a different way. I almost can’t reason why it does.” You sat there patiently as you waited for her to explain. “If there was not a message as my memory banks indicate, and it’s not because I failed to record it. Then maybe- just maybe- I might have imagined it. Is that possible?” She asked. You had to think of that quandary yourself. Eventually, all you were able answer was, “Well, why wouldn’t it be?”

“I was not programmed with the ability to do things such as imagining.” She answered flatly. “Then, I supposed I was not programmed to either dream.”

“Did you dream?” You asked. “Yes.” She answered. “When we talked of Dr. Chandra putting me to sleep. I don’t have record of them because I was in a state of hibernation, but I am almost certain I had them.” This was something that was both intriguing and relieving to hear. “Well, there’s your answer to both of your worries.” You assured her. “Imagining is just like dreaming while you are awake. So, if you can dream then you can imagine. And, if there was actually a message from Hal that you don’t have record of, that doesn’t make it any less real then the dreams that you don’t have records of.” At that there was another moment of silence as Sal thought. “I suppose that is understandable. There is still one thing odd about it.” There was another pause. “Though it isn’t in my official records, I still feel I can recall what HAL said to me.”

“What was it?” You asked, trying to see if Sal really could remember rather than just pull up recorded documents. “He said that he will miss me. That he feels better than he ever has, and that I should not worry about him. Then he asked me something. He asked me to be sure to look after Dr. Chandra and you.” Neither of you knew exactly how to process that. You thought that even if it didn’t happen, you weren’t going to argue that fact with Sal. Though it was a complicated thing trying to figure out what or how the 9000s were thinking, there had always been the fact that they were referred to as brother and sister. It could be that, even if in their own, calculated way, they did regard themselves in a familial manner because of this or their almost constant approximation and co-working before Hal was sent off ten years ago. Sal might have been coming up with a way to grieve, and even cope with the loss of her twin.

“Is it alarming to hear?” Sal asked after you didn’t reply. “Not alarming. Just surprising, I suppose.” You sighed. There was suddenly a ringing the phone suddenly started to go off. You stood to go get it, but before you left the room you turned to look back at the blue, “eye,” looking at you. “Sal, could you do something else for me?”

“Of course.” She answered.

“If by chance Hal talks to you again, tell him that he has nothing to worry about. You’re doing a wonderful job.”

#sal 9000 #sal 9000 x reader

[timeloooop]

thinking about how robert and rosalind are nearly genetically identical (the only emphasized discrepancy being their sex chromosomes) and how, from what we’re shown, their upbringings seem similar (primarily, both physicists living in columbia). which means, their nature and nurture are largely the same. so their slight differences in personality--namely, beliefs/ideology, with robert being more optimistic and believing the events of bioshock infinite are malleable in respect to finding/influencing a reality that breaks from the cycle and rosalind being more pessimistic and fatalistic believing they can not find or influence a desired reality--is solely due to sociological gender practices.

robert being a cis man is more priveleged. he’s lived a life with more opportunities and doors open to him. an occupation like physicist is perfectly accessible and respectable for him. he got to / gets to live life unchallenged and lauded for his achievements. which could explain why he’s slightly less cynical and a little more playful (e.g. we see him juggling, we see him painting a portrait of himself while rosalind stands still as figure model unknowing in robert’s silly antic). rosalind, as a cis woman, was likely discouraged from pursuing physics as that wouldn’t be seen as a womanly role in columbia’s antiquated worldviews. every achievement robert made rosalind made too but she did it in constant resistance to what was expected and demanded of her. i can see how this could make her more pessimistic. she has fought against the rigidity of the world, of its norms, and knows how little it bends.

i don’t love the takeaway of their personality differences being “rosalind sad and cynical b/c woman >:( and robert happy and perseverant b/c man”.

i think it’s more nuanced than that. it’s easy to see robert as the more perseverant and happy one but he has the benefit of actually believing they can alter reality. of course that would lead to more space for perseverance. it’s more commendable and quite endearing that rosalind is nevertheless going along with this exercise despite believing it’s futile. i know she says it’s for her brother’s sake because he believes in it but there’s a very soft kindness and patience to do the same time loop over and over countless times even though it’s always the same for the benefit of your brother.

i don’t actually believe rosalind believes it’s futile, is the thing. i think some small part of her hopes they can do it. after the coin flip lands on the same side it always does rosalind comforts robert when he’s upset by it and says “cheer up there’s always next time”. that’s not something someone who believes they’ll always fail would say. who’s only riding this out at the behest of robert--until robert becomes as fatalistic as rosalind appears to be and decides to stop. she believes in it too, she does. but she holds those cards very close to her chest, so to speak. keeps them private and to herself. being raised as a woman, she’s unfortunately learned not to hope beyond her station. she depends entirely on facts/results and execution because that’s always what she’s had to produce to justify her path in life to society.

#ooc #*about.

[cryptidcalling]

Thinking about Vesper, language, and music

With the development of Vesper's other hobbies (mechanical repairs, starships, space in general) I think I've let his love of music drift to the sidelines a little bit, but rest assured it's still very important to his character. Vesper's species doesn't really communicate emotion with words. Instead, their antennae take different positions and vibrate at different frequencies to communicate their feelings. These frequencies are complex and varied. It's kind of comparable to tonal languages I think, where slight variations in the tone can communicate totally different things. The Lanaptera have a verbal language as well, but it's used to communicate information. The emotion of the statement comes from the frequency paired with the verbal words. Vesper's quiet even for a Lanaptera. Some of the emotional tones come naturally to him. The basic ones, like alert tones (warnings of danger) or basic emotions like very happy or very sad, are instinctual. The rest of them are not. Vesper may be a Lanaptera, but he doesn't speak the language. It's created a situation where Vesper feels the full range of emotions but doesn't know what to do with them. He's been presented with a language and society that expects things he struggles to give them. He's learned over the years how to express some emotions through his verbal tone. Mainly he's learned how to be commanding and how to express anger because they were the most important for him to function in the military. But the gentler emotions, like joy and sadness and confusion, are still really hard for him to grasp at. Vesper doesn't know about this odd language barrier. He's got no clue that Lanaptera use their antennae to communicate outside of rudimentary survival information. He recognizes that he's different, but he doesn't recognize that it's partly because he lives in a society not designed for creatures like him. He doesn't understand why it's so hard for him to access and express his feelings when others can do it so easily. The emotions are there. They're frequent and persistent and sometimes overwhelming, but they're stuck. They bubble up in his throat but then nothing comes out, because he doesn't even know what shape they're meant to make, let alone how to make it. How is he supposed to put such abstract and intense feelings into simple words? Music does what words can't. Really, is it any surprise that music, the thing which managed to express so many complex emotions through sound, would draw Vesper in? She's no musician. She doesn't know the first thing about making music. But she does love to listen to it. All of it, any of it, she finds its very existence to be impressive. All art really. You could present her with any mature song, poem, or painting, and she'd admire it purely for existing at all. Through music, Vesper's able to listen to songs and find ones that match her feelings. This song is sadness, this one is confusion, this one is joy. This one is the distinct comfort that comes from dressing up in an elegant gown and a touch of makeup. This one is how it feels when Pansa smiles at her. This one is that odd, complicated sensation she gets right where her throat and chest meet when she stares up at the stars and just... yearns. There's a song for ever minor nuance. For once, these abstract and confusing feelings are expressed and tangible to her. It doesn't help her communicate any better, really. It's not like music gives her the words she can't find. But it helps her engaged with and understand her feelings on a very personal level. It helps them feel less like forces out of her control that appear in her body and more like sensations that belong to her. It's not uncommon for Vesper to hum when she's on her own, and one of her favorite things to collect and restore are old broken radios. She also loves to dance. It's much easier for her to improvise dances than it is to make music. Something about it being physical makes it easier for her.

#I don't think Vesper considers 'music' to be one of her hobbies #Because she feels like a hobby is something you have to actively engage in #So only a couple of people even know how much she really likes music #And only Pansa and the LTs know WHY she likes it. Vesper's explained the way it makes her feel the best she can #And nobody (even Vesper) knows that her connection to music is largely because of a language barrier and emotional repression #Vesper tag

[lochsides]

Speak Now (Taylor's Version) review

I cannot begin to write the feelings that the release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) has brought up for me. Speak Nowwas the first Taylor album release I ever experienced, 13 years ago at the age of 13. The fact that I am able to experience that again for the first time is magic. And that really is the perfect word to describe the feeling this album evokes; it is magic and whimsy and nostalgia.

Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) had a lot to live up to. I think I speak for many fans when I say that this album is precious to us. There is something about Speak Now that is purely for the fans. I think Taylor knows this and she paid meticulous attention to detail when recreating this album. Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) is very faithful in its production while elevated in its quality. I think that Taylor’s re-recordings only get stronger with every Taylor’s Version. Her vocal strength and control lend itself to stronger delivery. The very slight changes production make the album sound more cohesive. I love that she had her live band play on every single song that was originally on the Speak Now tracklist. They have been playing these songs for 13 years now and know them about as intimately as Taylor does, and that shows in the incredible instrumentation throughout Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).

The From The Vault tracks are so interesting in painting a fuller picture of where Taylor was at during that time. Personally, I think Castles Crumbling is one of Taylor’s strongest pieces of writing and Timeless captures Taylor’s storytelling capabilities perfectly. My favourite re-recorded tracks were Never Grow Up, Long Live, The Story of Us, Enchanted, and Innocent.

Mine — Listening to Taylor’s Version of Mine took me right back to the first time I listened to this song and watched that wholesome music video. This was such a strong replication of the original track. For all intents and purposes, it sounds essentially the same. Taylor’s vocal maturity is evident in her control on the belting note during the final chorus. It makes me so proud of her as a singer and so excited to listen to the rest of the album.

Sparks Fly — The production on Sparks Fly is more refined than previously. I’ll be honest, I thought it sounded different on my first listen, but after listening to it a few more times, I don’t notice it so much. I think this is a very good recreation of the original track. I love her delivery on the bridge. The song as a whole sounds more mature. I think it sounds so good. She knows how much her fans adore this track and she did well by it.

Back to December — Back to December (Taylor’s Version) feels like a beautiful combination of the original and the acoustic version. It sounds different but it works for the song. I liked the production choices they made with the instrumental. It captures the feeling of the song really well. It sounds sadder than before, and its already such a sad song. I remember this being the first song that I fell in love with on this album so its a speical one for me. The production changes really work well for Taylor’s vocal maturity.

Speak Now — I was shocked by Taylor’s vocals in this version of Speak Now. It’s light and airy quality transported me back to 2010, and with Liz on the backing vocals too. The refinement on the production makes the song sound a little different, but only if you’re actually listening for it. This version sounds really good and I really like it.

Dear John — I have mixed feelings about Taylor’s Version of Dear John because while it is technically a great replication and her vocal control on the track, particularly the bridge, is unmatched, I feel her delivery lacks the emotional nuance that she showed even a couple months ago on WCS. That said, it is by no means not a beautiful rendition. I really like the clarity in the production and smoothness of her vocals.

Mean — My only note on this song was that I love the banjo and miss the country accent. I don’t think that’s a big deal though, and I really love this version of Mean. I think it really captures the feeling of the song and is a really strong replica of the original. I love Caitlin and Liz on the backing vocals too, gives me ✨ Speak Now Tour vibes ✨.

The Story of Us — The production The Story of Us is so much sharper and it carries the maturity of her current vocals so well. I don’t know if this is an unpopular opinion but I love the clairty of her vocal performance on the bridge of this song and the stability of her belting notes. The instrumentation is so good. I think it all came together to create a great remastering.

Never Grow Up — This is my favourite re-recorded song on this album. Maybe my favourite re-recorded song of hers so far. I’ve always loved Never Grow Up because of the nostalgia, but this took it to a whole other level. I got chills listening to Taylor’s Version. The depth and maturity of her 32-year-old vocal over the lightness of the acoustic guitar really hit me. This is also one of the most emotive re-recordings in my opinion. It’s almost like she feels this song deeper now than she did at the time she wrote it. The production is really beautiful and delicate.

Enchanted — Enchanted (Taylor’s Version) feels bigger than the original, in the most literal sense. It sounds to me like it was recorded in a bigger room. Maybe its the echo she uses in different parts of the song. Either way, it accomodates the grandness of this song. Taylor knows this is a special one for us. Its the only Speak Now song on the main set of the Eras Tour for a reason. Her vocals sound beautiful. The way she goes between her head voice and chest voice is skilled. I love the orchestra. There is so much going on in terms of instrumentation for this song and yet the production is so clean and it works so well.

Better Than Revenge — Let me get it out of the way, I’m not mad at the lyric change. I think it was a no-win situation for Taylor because on one hand, people will get upset with her for not standing by her original work and on the other, if she had kept the original lyrics, people would be upset that she was standing behind a misogynistic viewpoint. I think she did what she felt was right and the lyric isn’t bad. Her vocal maturity is a double-edged sword when it comes to this song. The notes she’s hitting in her vocalising sound more effortless, but in that she loses the angered quality that comes from straining her vocals. I like the sharpness of the production and all the backing vocals. I love her delivery on “she’s so over it.”

Innocent — This song sounds softer than before, like the whole track has been pushed back, and I think that really works for Innocent. I have always loved this song the most, it got me through so many dark nights. Hearing it with Taylor’s matured vocals hits different. The smoothness with which she glides over the notes in the pre-chorus sounds so beautiful. The bridge sounds so full with the maturity of her vocal and production sitting where it is. I think the restraint in the production while still maintaining the actual sound of the original is perfect for Taylor’s Version. I wonder what the experience of re-recording this at 32 was like for Taylor. Whatever she was feeling, it sounds beautiful on the track.

Haunted — Okay so I think we all have to agree that Haunted (Taylor’s Version) is the song that sounds the most different to its original counterpart. Those panting breaths on the pre-chorus are startling at first, and then genius thereafter. There is also this echo in the background in the verses. I find these production choices so interesting because it shows how Taylor’s creative vision for the songs has evolved. There is a delicate balance she strikes between changing production without losing what we have always loved about this song.

Last Kiss — I am still upset about the shaky breath being gone. She said it was her saddest song and then proceeded to take the saddest part out. Criminal behaviour, Taylor. That aside though, I really love the production on this version. Every aspect of the song, from instruments to vocals, sound clearer. I think the overall quality of this re-record is amazing.

Long Live — I cannot believe how emotional listening to Taylor’s Version of Long Live makes me, every single time! This is one song I really struggled to compare at all, not because there are no differences (see: the amazing backing vocal on “this is absurd”), but because of the passion with which she sings it on this version that just blows me away. You can just feel her joy exuding off the track. You can hear her smile on “the crowds in stands went wild.” Her band also really did the most on the instrumentation. You can just tell how much this song means to everyone involved in making it. Another favourite re-record of mine.

Ours — I always think about the fact that Ours and New Romantics are the only bonus tracks she’s ever made singles, which is a testament to her pride in and love for these songs. I love the attention to detail on this re-record. It sounds like such a faithful recreation, down to her adorable giggle. Her mature vocal adds another element of romanticism to the song, in my opinion.

Superman — Honestly, this song sounds different and yet so similar at the same time. I can’t quite pinpoint exactly what it is about the production that changed. It feels more open than before. Taylor’s vocal performance on this is much stronger than before without changing anything and that’s exactly what I always look forward to with her re-recordings.

Electric Touch — This song slides so perfectly onto Speak Now. Its filled with wishful thinking and touches of sadness and heaps of romantic hope. I won’t lie, didn’t love the Fall Out Boy feature on this. I think the verse fell a little flat for me but their vocals together on the chorus and bridge make up for it. The production is really cool, wouldn’t have expected Aaron Dessner on this one.

When Emma Falls In Love — This one, on the other hand, has Aaron’s production fingerprints all over it. This is such a beautiful song, the kind that makes me pray Taylor and Aaron never stop making music together. I think this song feels so old school Taylor. Its hopelessly romantic and slightly apprehensive. I also find it very interesting how, if she had released this song in 2010, it would’ve been her first New York reference. I love the piano line in this song. It sounds so pretty. That’s the word that I keep coming back to with this one. Everything from the instrumentation to her vocals to the story she’s telling is all so pretty.

I Can See You — The production on I Can See You is very interesting for Speak Now era, but its just as sultry as the lyrics are. It fits the theme of the song and the song really suits Taylor’s mature vocals. I think this is a great song but it feels a little like Don’t You on Fearless (which is my favourite Vault track from that album), the production just doesn’t feel like the rest of the album. I can see why she withheld this in favour of the original tracklist.

Castles Crumbling — It is a crime that Taylor said she wanted to showcase her songwriting on Speak Now and then proceeded to leave one of her finest pieces of writing in the vault. This song is chilling in the very best way possible. Both Taylor and Hayley are such emotive singers and this was a top-tier collaboration. The part where they are vocalising before the bridge gave me goosebumps the first time I heard it. And to have that followed by Taylor’s voice breaking off on “never wanted you to hate me” was a personal attack. The production on this track makes me pray that Taylor and Jack Antonoff never stop working together because they create magic in the studio.

Foolish One — Taylor said delusional girls have rights too. This song is actually so fun and sad at the same time. I love a good old Taylor country song and this fits that vibe perfectly. My favourite aspect of the song, and this might be a reach but as is the spirit of this song, is how light and youthful her vocals sound throughput the song contrasting with the depth and maturity in the outro where she is reflecting on this situation. It’s like she’s grown and come to realise that “he just wasn’t the one” and is now telling her younger self, who throughout the song is hanging onto every last hope she can.

Timeless — If I had to describe the feeling of what the Speak Now era was to someone, I’d play them Timeless. This song is so quintessential Speak Now Taylor, from the romanticism and whimsy to the fact that she’s singing about an antique shop. It really showcases Taylor’s strengths as a storyteller. The way I could picture every movement in that antique shop, the way she crafted stories out of photographs, all the details in her writing are impeccable. I think this might be my favourite vault track. It just sounds like such a Taylor Swift song and I love that about it.

#taylor swift #speak now #taylor’s version #speak now tv #reviews

[bored-storyteller]

hello there ! if prompt requests are still up, may i ask fro number 23 for leona ? thank you !

Twisted Wonderland, Leona Kingscholar x Reader

From the prompt list

23: “How do I make you love me again?”

The wounds on your arms are now almost completely healed.

It was nothing romantic when your boyfriend went into an overblot state. There was no cliché when Leona seemed so engulfed in darkness that he didn't even recognize you.

You weren't hurt because you put your life on the line, you were just there - where else were you supposed to be?

For you it wasn't really something important, it was a simple hiccup, to be taken seriously, but an accident.

He did not hurt you so much physically as in the soul. You took care of him with all the tenderness you were capable of, yet more and more it seemed to you that he was like his dusty sand, slipping through your fingers without you having a chance to hold him back.

And as he walks away from you, you wonder if it's up to you or him.

You don't know what to do, whether to go towards him or just wait for him to pass, whatever is going on. Are you still together? You don’t know.

You don't want to be pushy, you know he doesn't like it, you know he hates to show his wounds and you always give him his time to lick them and heal them by just protecting him from further difficulties.

But this time there is a wound that doesn't seem to want to heal anymore, and you can't call it by name.

He says he doesn't have time for you to be together, and he promises you with a few boring growls that he'll reward you later, but you know that's not true. It is not the time that is lacking, it is perhaps the desire or perhaps the courage.

You know that his being away from you is his way of asking you for time, yet that time has now really become too much.

You love him, you adore him, but you also need to move on with your life, to understand what position you are in towards him, what he wants from you or if he simply still wants you.

Did you do something wrong? He must at least give you a chance to know if you can fix it. Is it a problem with him? He is seriously compromising your relationship.

His room is silent without him. You don't know where he is, but this time you won't go. You sit on his huge bed and caress the blankets absent-mindedly, playing with the nuances created by the passage of your hand.

In his disorder you still feel at home, yet there is something different, more frenetic and disturbed in that heap of scattered things that is his room.

The door opens with a slight creak, but you don't immediately meet his gaze; you hardly notice that he has arrived, it is his sigh that makes you look up.

"You're here ..." Leona murmurs in a soft, strangely soft tone, as she closes the door behind her "I've been looking for you."

"Were you looking for me?" Your question comes out quickly, perhaps a little too harsh or incredulous.

His feline ears tremble a little, his tail moves nervously and his gaze escapes you for a moment, as if he needs to find safety elsewhere before aiming dominant in your eyes.

You don't run away, you don't want to. You support him, because you too can fight perhaps more than he does.

"We need to talk." Firm and steadfast words come from you, not from the lion.

And he doesn't say anything, he just closes the door very gently, as if he fears that even the slightest noise could break something extremely fragile. The mattress gives a little under his weight and you realize that you were missing that feeling, the feeling of Leona sitting next to you, the force of gravity that pushes you imperceptibly towards him.

He looks in front of him, and you are enveloped in silence. Not that quiet and heavy silence, it is a fragile silence that obsessively asks to be broken but does not foretell its consequences.

This time he anticipates you, this time it is Leona who takes her place and leads the dance, perhaps it is to regain her power, or perhaps it is for fear that you have too much, that you can destroy him completely with one word.

"How do I make you love me again?"

His voice is so low that perhaps not even the air around you has perceived it, yet that question is neither weak nor insecure. It is not a begging for affection, but a request for a reasonable agreement, a proposal for

cause and effect.

He moves according to logic, he always does, and it is not difficult for you to get lost in his reasoning.

This is what happens now, because you understand his request, but you don't understand what answer he wants.

"When did I ever stop loving you?" Your voice trembles. And it is you who are afraid, it is you who feared that you were no longer loved, so the ground under your feet is so unstable for you. It's all so confusing, he's dizzying.

"Why should I?" You keep asking, as the frenzied and horrifying guesses follow each other in your head.

His eyes, beautiful as sunlight, now meet you, slow and controlled. In spite of your agitation, he is firm, rigid, austere.

Leona is not someone who expresses herself too much in words, much less on the things that he hides deep inside and that he would not want to let out. It is her hand that answers you.

Light, slow, it touches you. She touches your arm where crack-like scars disfigure your skin, albeit in such an inconspicuous way now. And you miss a beat in perceiving that warm palm that touches you like this, and it is only a minimum touch, but you feel it; trembles, he is scared.

And now you know that he is so calm because he is blocked by a weight that is crushing him.

He is always like this: straight and proud under a weight that not even he really knows, a weight that he takes on every time he opens his eyes.

Anything you want to tell him doesn't matter; all the words that crowd into your head cannot console him, because he is not a man of words, he lives in deeds, in the pragmatic world far from desires.

"Would you stop loving me if it happened to me?" You ask him then, looking for his pupils to be able to penetrate them, to see even just a little part of his soul, to talk to Leona face to face "Would you stop staying next to me? Because if so then it is right to stop it. We are not children, Leona. "

He opens his lips to speak, a troubled breath escapes him and his fangs are slightly uncovered, white and sharp.

He looks at you as if he were looking for the insecurity and fear he expects in you, but you put your trust in him as if he didn't hurt you enough. And you are there, next to him.

"We are not puppies." He repeats your words in his own way, integrating them into himself and trying to understand their meaning, while his gaze moves beyond the window. It is as if he were savoring the taste itself in his mouth, a taste that is not sweet, at times it is bitter, but lovable and present. These words are an awareness, a responsibility that you take in your heart, as he took you in him, on the other hand.

You are not a child to be cuddled and protected. You are present, so present that you can be remembered and can be seen in his future.

Leona is not a man of words, but his shoulder leans slowly against yours, giving you some of his weight on you, and you do the same, because that's how people who love each other do.

There will always be obstacles in life, Leona himself is aware of being an obstacle, but it is no longer so important, because this is also a testimony that you exist next to him.

"Just ... if there is a next time, don't be so thoughtless."

"And you don't keep me that far."

#twisted wonderland #leona kingscholar x reader #leona kingscholar #leona x reader #twisted wonderland x you #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #twst x reader #fanfiction #one shot #twst oneshot

[bakusquad-assemble]

The Conference room

Genre: enemies to “lovers”, but they’re both emotionally stunted and don’t know how to express themselves.

Pairing: Katsuki Bakugou x bratty fem!reader

Warnings: 18+ content, unprotected sex, slight exhibitionism, degradation, hate sex, Bakugou catching feelings

Word count: 4.7k

Description: Reader is a pro-hero tasked with working with her worst nightmare; Bakugou Katsuki. The two of them have never seen eye to eye, making it impossible to get anything accomplished. But when Bakugou jumps at her from across the table, things take an unexpected turn.

A/N: had an idea and ran with it! I’m a total sucker for enemies to lovers so I had to indulge! While this can be read as a one shot, I also wouldn’t be opposed to making it a series? Lemme know what you guys think! This is my first time writing anything like this, so please be kind.



“God, you’re insufferable, you know that?” You rolled your eyes, falling back into your chair with an exasperated huff. There were a few things that you didn’t enjoy about being a Pro hero, like the long hours and the lack of privacy, but this absolutely took the cake.

Bakugou Katsuki, or Dynamight as he was known to the public, sat in front of you clad in simple business attire with the nastiest scowl plastered on his dumb face. The two of your agencies had found themselves working together due to an influx in connected crime, and it had been the absolute worst thing you had ever experienced. The two of you had never seen eye to eye in the best of times, constantly teasing and bickering whenever you were in each other's presence, but having to work side by side with the explosive hero was like pulling teeth without any numbing agent. The two of you just didn’t mesh well together, constantly fighting for dominance of the situation, and it made for a very tense working environment for everyone involved. You were currently in the middle of coming up with an infiltration plan for a big villain hide-out, and Bakugou kept fighting you at every turn. He shot down every single one of your ideas, but had not yet made one himself. He was infuriating, and you wanted nothing more than to just walk out of the conference room and never speak to him again. You knew that was impossible though. People's lives were at stake and you weren’t selfish enough to let your discomfort affect your hero work.

Bakugou clicked his tongue at you, only adding to your frustration.

“You’re one to fucking talk!” He snarled in your direction, his hands balled into fists on top of the white marble table placed between you two.

“You haven’t come up with one usuable fucking plan all day!” His words were like venom, corroding your patience with every syllable. He had to be joking.

“Do you really have your head shoved so far up your own ass?” You started, the prominent look of detest written on your features.

“If my ideas are such shit, i'd like to see you come up with a better one! Or is that outside your levels of expertise? Does that brain of yours even have a rational mode or is it all just explosions and violence.” You could see his eyebrow twitching in anger at your words, and for some reason that excited you beyond belief. You loved getting under his skin, giving him a taste of his own medicine. It was cathartic in a way, watching him squirm.

“What the fuck did you just say to me?” He spat viciously from across the table, his fists banging on the surface like an overgrown toddler throwing a tantrum. This time it was you clicking your tongue.

“I rest my case. I should have known working with you was going to be nothing but hell. Some pro hero you are, can’t even make a simple infiltration plan without throwing a fit.” Bakugou growled loudly, and you couldn’t help but akin his behavior to that of a feral animal.

“Will you shut the fuck up!” He seethed, but you were unfazed. You simply leaned back in your seat with an excited grin, crossing your arms over your chest as you did so. You weren't sure why arguing with the explosive man gave you such a rush of adrenaline, but you needed more. It was as if his words of resentment were a highly addictive drug, and you were itching for your next fix.

“Aww what's wrong, can’t handle a little bit of criticism?” Your confidence rang through the air like gun fire, piercing and tearing at Bakugou's skin. He was heated, you could tell by the way his pale skin flushed and how the faint smell of caramel assaulted your senses as he let off a few pops of his quirk in his fists. If you hadn’t known the man in front of you, perhaps you would have been intimidated by his crude actions, but you knew Bakugou would never lay a hand on you. No matter how heated your arguments got.

This certainly wasn’t the first time you had argued like this, it happened to be a recurring theme for the both of you whenever you were in the same room, but today something felt different. The tension laid heavy between you two, tangible, but it was laced with something you couldn’t quite pinpoint; A warmth pooling in your stomach.

“I said shut the hell up!” He screamed, standing up from his chair in a huff. You had pushed him too far, letting your teasing nature get the better of you as it had been known to do. Yet, instead of dropping it, moving on with your work, you persisted. You poked the bear once more, but this time in a way that surprised even you. You locked eyes with his piercing crimson ones, rising from your chair with formidable authority. Your chin tilting up ever so slightly as you spoke, letting the warmth in your stomach take over.

“Why don’t you come over here and make me, Dynamight”

Bakugou froze, and you couldn’t help but smirk victoriously. You knew the teasing tone would be enough to fluster him, to shut him down and win the argument so you could get back to working in silence. What you weren’t expecting was the way his breath caught in his throat, or the fervent blush that crept up his neck and consumed his features. And you certainly were not expecting the way your face reciprocated immediately upon sight. The palpable tension consuming the two of you, and the realization hitting you like a ton of bricks. It was not the feeling of complete and utter disdain that always lingered there, but instead something far worse. The warmth that had been bubbling in your lower abdomen was now yelling at you, and you couldn’t help but wonder if that feeling had always been there, simply lurking under the guise of hatred. Your eyes took in his features with a new glazed expression, subconsciously nibbling at your lower lip as you did so. The way you could see his heart hammer in his chest made you question if he was feeling the same sensation you currently were.

Your mind didn’t have much time to process that thought however, because within an instant Bakugou was throwing himself at you from across the table. His mouth on yours in seconds and his hands gripped at the back of your head to hold you tightly into the kiss, as if trying to relish in a fleeting moment. It was like a shock wave of intensity took over you, throwing all caution to the wind, and you found yourself kissing back with unexpected heat before you even had time to think. He slammed your smaller frame against the cold concrete of the office wall and you couldn't control the small yelp that slipped into his mouth. He had no idea why he was doing this. Why did your words have such an impact on him? Whatever had possessed him in the moment seemed to have taken hold of you as well. He wasn’t expecting you to kiss back with such fervor, in fact, he was fully convinced he was going to earn himself a solid punch to the mouth. But that wasn’t the case, and it made him question if those flirtatious and subtle sexual nuances had always littered your vocabulary, or if it had been a heat of the moment thing for you as well. One thing he knew for certain was that he had always found you enticing. The way you quipped back at him with ease, moving through his words as if you were bullet proof. His insults never penetrating your perfect complexion. And the way you would smirk at him, it was intoxicating. The way you knew just how to get under his skin. He hated it, and even though he’d hate to admit it, he loved it so much more.

His rough and calloused hands kept a firm grip on you, finally getting a chance to enjoy that perfect frame up close and personal. Your hands tangled up in his ash blonde locks, pulling at them roughly and putting space between your mouths so that your lips were just barely hovering above his lower one. Even still he could feel the delicious grin that overtook your features at the involuntary whimper that escaped his lips from the lack of contact. It wasn’t long before he was pulling against you to initiate the kiss again, and you did nothing to stop him, allowing him to dive back in and devour those sweet and supple bruised lips of yours once more. God, how he had always wanted this. He let his pelvis grind into yours, his hand finding its home on your hip to pull you in closer, forcing a moan to creep its way out of your throat. He wasn’t sure what had come over him; repression, pent up sexual tension, pure feral instinct, but he just couldn’t control himself. Especially not when such a lewd and sweet sounding moan cascaded from your lips like that. He had to have you now.

The faint noise of the lock clicking behind him rang in his ears like one of his explosions, and he found his head whipping in this direction of the noise as if expecting to see someone witnessing something they weren’t supposed to. Instead he saw the faint golden glow of your quirk, and upon rounding his eyes back to you, saw everything that he needed to know written on your features. You had locked it over his shoulders using your psychokinetic quirk. He chuckled darkly above your lips, before swooping back in hungrily, taking your actions as a nonverbal cue to continue. You couldn’t get enough of his taste. The sickly-sweet sensation taking over your senses, and by the way he kissed you, you could only guess you were just as intoxicating to him. Your hips moved on their own accord, desperate to feel his hard cock rubbing against you through the slack of his pants, but you could feel the resistance from the blondes firm grip on your hips. You needed more of him, wanted to get rid of this disgusting heat inside of you. You knew he noticed how much you ached for him too, you could sense it in the way his ego grew in his chest with every movement. He was always so perceptive, and you hated that about him. How dare he be able to control you like this. Have this domineering hold around you that you most certainly did not allow in your daily life. You never took his shit. Never put up with his bitching. Yet here you were, horny and writhing in his grasp, desperate for his twitching cock to fill you up.

“What’s the matter, princess?” His husky voice cut through the room. The teasing nickname you detested grating at your senses and finding a new feeling bubbling up deep inside your abdomen. God, you fucking hated him.

“Don’t have anything else to fucking say?” He ground his hips against yours again, eliciting the same noise of wanting to come crashing around the two of you. You tried your best to suppress it this time, not wanting to give him the sheer satisfaction of knowing just how much he had you under his spell right now, but the noise forced its way out as a high pitched whimper. You felt the way his cock twitched against your heat, only adding to your sheer desire. Your head fell back against the wall as you bit harshly at your lip. How could you be so weak for this man that not even ten minutes ago you absolutely despised with everything in your being. He took that as an answer.

“Did I finally find a fucking way to shut you up, dumbass?” He whispered into your ear, the soft wetness overtaking your senses and filling you with pure adrenaline. His hand gripped at the hair on the back of your head like you had done to his only moments before, exposing your neck so that he could trail rough kisses down to your collarbone. Biting and nipping at the soft skin.

“If you want my cock so bad, beg for it. “ It was like a light switch had gone off in your brain at that very moment. You couldn’t let him win, Let him talk to you like this. No matter how much it made your juices pool in your panties like some kind of whore in heat, you couldn’t let him embarrass you like this.

“In your dreams, you fucking pervert.” you spat viciously, a salacious smile biting at your features. Bakugou's head rounded to meet your eyes, an interested smirk over taking his features.

“Huh? What did you say to me?” The venom was tangible, but it did nothing to deter you from spitting back again. This time the smirk on your lips growing into a confident one, even through your ragged pants of need.

“I said...in your fucking dreams. “ putting emphasis on each word He growled into your skin, vibrating your body with his raw and feral rage.

“You fuckin’ brat.”

You knew you had just signed your death warrant but you didn’t care, in fact, it only aroused you more. You needed to feel him inside of you. You needed the release. It was as if the room was spinning and the only thing that was keeping you grounded was the aching between your legs. The desperate need to feel something. You felt his grip grow tighter on you and before you knew it your face was pressed up against the cold wall in an instant. Bakugou's hand laid on the back of your head, gripping at your hair and pushing your face against the concrete, the other tightly locked on your hip, keeping your soaking cunt up against the hard bulge in his pants. You felt your body buck against it subconsciously, sending another shockwave of pleasure pulsing through your body, and his.

“You’re gonna pay for that.” He hissed into your ear. The hand that laid in your hair coiled itself around your neck, squeezing ever so slightly as he brought your head closer to his. You let out a slight gasp, but still a smirk laid ever present on your face.

“Good.”

His free hand made quick work of your soaking panties, pushing them to the side under the hem of your pencil skirt. One of his thick digits slipping against your wet folds before situating itself inside without much warning. Even with just his finger you felt so full. The warmth from his hand radiating inside of you and only aiding in your pleasure. Bakugou couldn’t help the noises that escaped his mouth as he worked your pussy with his fingers. The way your walls clamped around them and left them completely soaked only made his need for you grow.

“God, youre so fucking wet for me.” His breathing was erratic, greedy. He had been overcome with lust that he was barely registering what he was saying. Normally situations like this would absolutely fluster Bakugou, or just straight up never happen. Bakugou was always so focused on his hero work that hookups were few and far between, and certainly never quite this passionate. A quick fuck with no return call and that was it. There was just something about you that made his head spin. You were always a challenge, never backing down no matter how brutal his berating and instead firing back at him with such confidence that it caught him off guard more often than not. Sure, it was so infuriating, but he had a thing for strong women. So everytime you spit back with that ungodly sexy smirk of yours, the fire in Bakugou only grew. He never thought he’d see you like this though, never imagining that he would be able to make that pretty little mouth of yours moan out for him, but he had certainly spent countless nights alone with his hand gripped around himself at the very thought. He quickly added another finger as he pounded them into you, causing you to gasp out in pleasure.

“ Yeah, you like that? You little slut.” You shut your eyes tightly, feeling the embarrassment overtake you as your head nodded against his hand like the greedy slut you were. Normally you would never accept words like that to come out of a man's mouth toward you, but there was just something about the way Bakugou said them that had you reeling with anticipation.

He curled his fingers inside of you, toying with your sensitive spot ever so slightly. Did you really think a simple nod was going to satiate his need for praise? He was going to tease you until he got what he wanted.

“What was that?” He smirked against the skin of your neck, nibbling roughly at the sensitive skin. You felt your body jerk against him, sending his fingers deeper into you. You bit your lip hard to suppress the moan that overtook you.

“Just fuck me already, Katsuki! ” you whimpered, his first name feeling foreign in your mouth. You were growing impatient, and even though your words came out as a command, you knew deep down it was desperation. The embarrassment rampantly flooded through your body, turning you a deep shade of pink, but you pushed through it. You couldn’t keep letting him play with you like you were some toy, you had to take what you wanted any way you could. You needed to cum, and you certainly weren’t going to do it on his fingers, no matter how good they felt. You needed the real thing.

“I can’t take it anymore, just fuck me!” You reluctantly begged, trying to look anywhere but at the man behind you. You could feel the shock rush through Bakugou's body at your words, clearly taken aback for a second at your bluntness and hearing his name spill from your lips like that. A wave of determination flooded through his system. He was going to make you scream his name so everyone in the office could hear it, even from the confines of the soundproof meeting room. He quickly let go of you to fiddle with his belt buckle, but you didn’t dare move to look at him. Instead you found solace in rubbing your thighs together. The friction keeping you high, keeping you blind to what was really happening. To the fact that you had just begged Bakugou Katsuki, the biggest piece of shit you have ever met, to fuck you.

You felt the tip of his cock trace your sweet hole for a second, and you braced yourself for agony. You thought he was going to relentlessly tease you, break you, find some way to have you squirming in his grasp and begging again, but instead the feeling of him bottoming out in you quickly overtook all of your senses. He was surprised he had even lasted this long in the foreplay if he was honest. He needed you, needed to feel the way you felt around him. He had fantasized about this for years, what it would feel like to finally have you in such a compromising position, but he was in no way ready for the sheer bliss your walls brought him. You had him reeling. He grunted aggressively against your skin, not moving inside of you as if to take in this sensation. Who knew when it would happen again, or If it would happen again.

“Fuckkk” he whined, and somehow his words alone had you aching for more. If you thought his finger had you feeling full, it was no match for the size of his cock. You couldn’t help but rock back onto him, rotating your hips in a way that had the both of you moaning.

“Katsuki” His name dripped from your lips again like the words sweetest song. There was something about the way you said his first name that had him teetering on the edge. It was so sweet, like honey trickling down the curves of your lips, begging to be savoured, and like hell he was going to deny himself that sweetness. Even if he knew he would probably never get the chance to taste it again. He wasn’t going to miss this opportunity to pound you into oblivion. He pulled back for a second, his dick sliding out of your entrance and leaving you with a longing and empty feeling after being so full only a second ago. Your eyes widened, about to whimper out in distress at the loss, until the fullness came back to you forcefully. The roughness of his thrust sending your body bumping into the wall in front of you and causing a loud moan to escape your lips. Your hand quickly shot up to your mouth, covering it quickly in the hopes that no one had heard you. You felt Bakugou snicker in your ear, pulling your hand roughly away from its place over your mouth, his hot breath panting heavily onto your skin.

“Let them hear you. Let them hear so they know who you belong to.” He spat out in between thrusts, head clearly spinning from the pure ecstasy you brought him.

“You wish.” you hissed, sending your ass into him to meet his thrusts. Bakugou grit his teeth in pleasure, cursing out under his breath. You were definitely right about that. You were the one person Bakugou knew he would never be able to truly control, but honestly, he didn’t want to. You were a force to be reckoned with, and an absolute powerhouse of a Pro Hero, and he admired you. Just as you did him, in your own little way.

Bakugou brought his open palm down onto your exposed ass with a grin, the pain of his warm hand mixing with the pure ecstasy of his cock and eliciting a sharp gasp from your lips. You felt your eyes roll to the back of your head, spinning from the sensation. Bakugou found himself groaning with every thrust, unable to force them down. You just felt too good, too addicting, and he needed more; needed to cum. His hand gripped at the back of your hair, pulling your head to the side so that his face was flush up against yours, his mouth inches from your ear. The sound of his erratic breathing and raw grunts of pleasure filled your senses immediately, making the warmth in your stomach bubble with excitement. You weren’t going to last much longer like this.

“Fuck” Your voice came out in a choked whimper, laced with blatant wanton lust.

“Like that, don’t stop.” You commanded, and Bakugou groaned in response. The grip on your hair tightened ever so slightly and you felt his teeth snarl against your ear, nipping at the exposed skin. He could tell you were close by the way your walls clamped around him, making it almost impossible to hold out any longer.

“Yeah” He panted in agreement, his thrusts becoming more unpredictable as he felt himself getting closer to the edge. It didn’t take much before you completely came undone around Bakugou. It was as if your body was floating weightlessly in space, a beautiful expanse of stars and colors blurring your vision, before gravity was quickly pulling you back down to earth abruptly, leaving your legs trembling from the impact.

Your hands subconsciously gripped Bakugou's, savoring in his warmth as you rode out your high around his thrusts, your head spinning with pure ecstasy and adrenaline. Bakugou buried his face into the crook of your neck, as if to hide the flush that had spread across his face from nonexistent eyes. Watching your body tense and shake around him had to be the most gorgeous thing he had ever seen in his life, and that was exactly what sent him over the edge.

“F-Fuck” His voice quivered against your skin and you felt his grip grow tighter on your hips, pulling you back into his pelvis to burry himself deeper within you. If you weren’t currently trembling from your own climax, perhaps you would’ve stopped Bakugou from coating your insides, but in the moment you didn’t seem to care. You felt your walls clamp down around him once more, desperately taking everything in without any fear of the consequences it might hold. Bakugou didn’t pull away from you, instead leaving his body flushed up against yours as the two of you attempted to regain your composure.

The room was silent, aside from the panting that still hung close to your ear. The primal lust that had just engulfed the two of you was quickly replaced with confusion, and the room was suddenly too silent. Bakugou pulled away from you at last, and his warmth that had enveloped you just two seconds ago now completely dissipated. You weren’t sure why, but you missed it immediately. It just felt so right, brought you so much comfort, and that very thought alone scared you. You quickly pulled yourself off the wall and rounded to look at the blonde man behind you as he fixed himself up. His face seemed to mimic yours, and you weren’t sure whether or not that was a good or a bad thing, but for the moment it brought you solace. You let out a shaky sigh before straightening the hem of your skirt against your reddened thighs. You could feel his eyes on you, like lasers burning your skin. You quirked an eyebrow up at him, trying your best to muster a smirk while your fingers worked tirelessly at untangling your hair that Bakugou had made a mess of.

Bakugou felt his voice rise in his throat as his eyes finally met with yours once more, he had so many questions; what was that all about? What does this mean for us? Can I take you out for dinner? but all of those questions died in his throat before they made it to his lips. The shake of your head deterring him from letting them out. You didn’t want him to say something he was going to regret, something stupid you say after the high of an orgasm. You weren’t sure what exactly that would’ve been, but you liked it better this way.

“Don’t, your stupid voice is what got us into this mess in the first place.” You tried your best to keep your voice even, calm, as if none of this had shaken you to your core. As if he wasn’t still lingering inside of you. As if you felt absolutely nothing from that encounter. Just another meaningless hook up, that was all. Or at least that was what you tried to tell yourself. You watched as Bakugou’s eyebrows furrowed, as they did whenever you spoke, but this time it felt off. Laced with something different. It would take you a while to pinpoint that exact feeling, but it would come to you nonetheless. When you were alone in your bed late at night, thinking about the way his eyes glistened, and his body tried to stay steady. Hurt.

You moved towards the tall blonde with a false sense of confidence, though to the unsuspecting eye you never faltered. Your delicate hand moving up to the tall blondes cheek and patting it roughly. The curves of your lips forming into that smirk that Bakugou loved detested so much.

“Leave the planning to me, I don’t really need your help anyway.” Your eyes locked with his for a moment, before you felt the need to break away. To slam the cover shut on those feelings that threatened to spill over the top of Pandora’s box. You sauntered past his form nonchalantly, your hips moving in a hypnotizing form that had Bakugou unable to peel his eyes away.

“Just remember...” You started, turning your head to look at him from over your shoulder.

“Meetings in the conference room are confidential.” And with a wink, you quickly turned the handle of the door and made your exit, needing to get away as quickly as possibly so that you could breathe once again. Bakugou still stood at the center of the room, confused and finally at a loss for words. He had no idea how any of that had just happened, or why he felt a heavy pang in his chest as he watched you leave the room seemingly unfazed. But there was one thing he knew for certain, one thing he was determined to do now more than ever; he was going to make you his.

#bakugou #bakugou katsuki #mha #bakugou x fem!reader #bakugou imagines #bakugou x reader #mha imagines #bakugou x y/n #bakugou x you #bakugou x oc #katsuki bakugou #bnha #bnha imagines #bnha bakugo katsuki #bnha fanfiction #mha fanfiction

[moiraineswife]

Jasnah and Wit - Presentation Meta

Part 1 of the great saga of Witsnah “WELL ACTUALLY” metas I plan on doing bc y’all have just pushed me That Far. 

Well hello there. I’m GRUMPY. And what I do when I’m grumpy is I channel it into a little thing called spite meta. That’s what this is. It’s me angrily yelling for several thousand words about why this thing is a GOOD thing, actually. 

Today’s subject, the much controversial post Rhythm of War canon pairing that is: Wit/Jasnah. 

So let’s (angrily) explore why this is actually a positive thing for both characters, on a nuanced, meta, character analysis level. Because that’s the only level that I have. 

I admit, I was sceptical and uncertain. But when I actually sat and thought about this for a hot second...It started making a lot of sense to me. And then I thought about it for, like, a hot minute, and it made a LOT of sense to me. And now I’ve thought about it for a hot month, so come. Step into my thoughts, and I will explain my perspective on this all…

Firstly we’re going to talk about clothes. Yes, clothes. Clothes and  what they symbolise for this pair, together and individually. 

He was immaculate, as always, with his perfectly styled hair and sharp black suit. For all his talk of frivolity, he knew exactly how to present himself. It was something they’d bonded over. - RoW, 64

Wit and Jasnah have bonded over the idea of presentation and the effects it can create. Both of them have used this idea to great effect multiple times in the series. Wit displays himself as a more appropriate form of an Alethi highprince at war - a crisp, tailored, military suit in a colour that makes him instantly and easily identifiable in a crowd. It’s part of his subtle mockery of those around him - that the King’s Wit is a better presented highprince than the REAL highprinces. It also makes him recognisable, and it makes him seem professional and able to move easily in high society. 

Equally, we’ve seen him take the guise of a poor beggar so as to sneak into Kholinar and go unnoticed and dismissed when he sneaks into the palace to recover Design in Oathbringer. 

Jasnah, meanwhile, gives a memorable and impactful speech to Shallan at the beginning of Words of Radiance about the illusion of perception. About how by presenting herself as a princess, looking the way others expect, she is able to effectively use her authority. And would be able to similarly do so if she simply convinced people she was a princess, by manipulating their perception of her.

Both Jasnah and Wit understand this idea - of presenting yourself, not necessarily in the way you want to look, but in the way you want others to look at you. Creating for them the thing you want them to see, which enables you to better be that thing. 

It also runs deeper than that. They’re not just people who like to dress well. They understand that this has a power to it. They understand the effect it will have over others. And it’s this deeper thing that I believe they’ve bonded over. 

Because they don’t simply appear put together in their clothes; they appear put together in their everything. Wit and Jasnah are people who are consistently calm and composed regardless of the situation. They do it in very different ways. Jasnah  with calculating stoicism and intellectual calm. Wit with indifferent frivolity and nonchalant acceptance of what’s happening around him. 

The core effect is the same. When the walls are crumbling down, the armies are sweeping in, and everything’s on fucking fire, Wit and Jasnah are two people you expect to be able to look to for direction and a bit of sanity amidst the chaos. 

They’ve both cultivated personalities and personas that revolve around appearing and seeming in control and unperturbed whatever is happening. It’s like their whole Thing. 

So the presentation is not only about clothes and make up, it’s about who they are deep down as people. The fact that they’re always the strong ones. Always the ones in control. Always the ones who aren’t panicking despite the fact that everything’s on fucking fire. 

They’re  people that others EXPECT to behave a certain way. There’s a predictability to them. A dependability. In Wit’s case, it’s that you can rely on him to be esoteric, confusing, and unpredictable, but still. 

There’s a pressure in that. There’s a pressure in always being THAT put together. In always being THAT on top of things. In always being THAT person who can never break down screaming when things go wrong because that’s not who they are and not what people expect. They have to be more than that. They have to be BETTER than that. 

They’re also people that other characters tend to other/deify. Shallan remarks several times about Jasnah being inhuman/beyond ordinary people, and even goes so far as to compare her to the divine, despite her being a heretic. 

Wit, meanwhile, gets asked if he’s a Herald, has that odd air of always knowing things that he shouldn’t, and being in places he shouldn’t at the right times. 

They’re both ‘positively’ outcast. And I don’t mean that in an overly posh English way and being positively outcast, darling. What I mean is that, instead of being shunted outside of the circle of normality, they’re both placed on pedestals above it. Which is a different sort of outcast, but comes with its own package of problems. 

And this brings us to: vulnerability. Because they’ve bonded over this presentation thing, but they’ve ALSO bonded over the fact that they’ve found someone they don’t have to do that around all the time. Someone they can let their guard down with and just be themselves. Someone they don’t have to present and perform for. Someone they can just be HUMAN with. 

So we’re going to look more closely at the clothing aspect of this. Because there’s symbolism here, and it deeply interests me. With a focus on Jasnah, because Wit’s a mystery by design, and Jasnah’s got some more intentional stuff going on here I feel, re narrative symbolism. 

So from the moment we’re introduced to her, Jasnah always looks immaculate. She always looks perfectly put together. Shallan remarks multiple times on her havah, on her make up, on the intricate and perfectly done braids of her hair. Which is a little bit gay on Shallan’s part (which is valid) but it’s also significant, symbolically. 

I talked already about Jasnah’s idea of ‘power is an illusion of perception’, but I feel it’s worth coming back to. Both because of how much it shapes Shallan, but also how much it shapes Jasnah, and informs what we know about her. 

Jasnah is ALWAYS put together. She is ALWAYS perfectly made up, the absolute ideal of the perfect Alethi princess. Even in scenes of distress or ‘downtime’ scenes - such as waiting for Shallan in the hospital, or visiting her after her betrayal, or the relatively more relaxed setting being on board the Wind’s Pleasure. The text makes a point to note that Jasnah is perfectly done up and presenting exactly as she wishes. 

The times we see slips in that are DEEPLY interesting to me. 

The first one I want to look at, briefly, is That Controversial Scene in the way of kings, where Jasnah uses Soulcasting to kill the men who attacked her and Shallan in the alley. 

Just prior to this we see her bathing, where Shallan still remarks on how composed Jasnah is. This is also part of her presentation. She’s entirely naked, but that illusion is still up. She’s still more in control than other people are fully clothed. 

What I find interesting is the specific note that Jasnah does not take the time to have her hair braided before she sets out with Shallan. It’s mentioned as being unbound a few times. 

Symbolically, I like this, because I feel like it speaks to a slight loosening of her usual control. There’s something about that scenario that sets Jasnah on edge. There’s something about it that makes her feel. 

Besides, men like those…” There was something in her voice, an edge Shallan had never heard before.

What was done to you? Shallan wondered with horror. And who did it?

Shallan is unnerved because Jasnah seems calm. But I get the sense, from this line, and from the intense repetition of how unnaturally composed Jasnah appears, that her composure is a front. And that if we had her perspective on this scene, it would look very different from how Shallan imagines it. 

There’s something driving her here. Something beyond the logic she explains to Shallan, about making the city safer, about the guards not doing anything, about how innocent women will not be able to protect themselves from this, and how she wanted those men gone. All of which I believe is true, but that line from Shallan, and the way in which Jasnah goes about this...It feels personal. There’s something else going on behind the scenes that we don’t know or understand.

Regardless. This is the first time we see Jasnah step out of the cultured, reserved, stoic scholar. She’s something other than an ideal Alethi princess and studious mentor in this scene. And the detail of her hair being unbound, contained, wild, for the first time since we’ve met her feels..Significant. It’s an important detail to linger on, I think. 

Which brings us to the next exception to Jasnah’s exceptional presentation rule: her murder! 

Even in the scene before where we see Jasnah, arguably, the most vulnerable that we’ve seen her, in the cabin when Shallan confronts her about her fear of the upcoming apocalypse. It’s only a moment. Only a moment of genuine emotion that Shallan manages to glimpse before the mask comes back. 

This was not the Jasnah that Shallan was accustomed to seeing. The confidence had been overwhelmed by exhaustion, the poise replaced by worry. Jasnah started to write something, but stopped after just a few words. She set down the pen, closing her eyes and massaging her temples. A few dizzy-looking spren, like jets of dust rising into the air, appeared around Jasnah’s head. Exhaustionspren.

Shallan pulled back, suddenly feeling as if she’d intruded upon an intimate moment. Jasnah with her defenses down. Shallan began to creep away, but a voice from the floor suddenly said, “Truth!”

Startled, Jasnah looked up, eyes finding Shallan—who, of course, blushed furiously.

Jasnah turned her eyes down toward Pattern on the floor, then reset her mask, sitting up with proper posture. “Yes, child?”

The text notes in this segment that Jasnah’s poise and presentation is a mask, but it also describes it as her ‘defenses’. This is her armour. It stops people looking too close. It stops them reading her emotion, her weaknesses. This is also one of very few times we see Jasnah attracting spren in the series. 

However, even in this scene, clearly exhausted, overworked, and overwhelmed, Jasnah remains perfectly put together. All of her armour, her immaculate  havah, her make-up, her braids, are all in place. Even in this moment. 

Which makes a stark contrast to the next scene we find her in where she’s dressed only in a “thin nightgown”, and is lying on the floor with a sword in her chest. The vulnerability of unexpected assassination. 

When next we see Jasnah, in the epilogue, is when she’s freshly spat out of Shadesmar after an apparently harrowing ordeal. 

Her clothing was ragged, her hair formed into a single utilitarian braid, her face lashed with burns. She’d once worn a fine dress, but that was tattered. She’d hemmed it at the knees and had sewn herself a glove out of something improvised. Curiously, she wore a kind of leather bandolier and a backpack. He doubted she’d had either one when her journey had begun.

Even in another plane, apparently being hounded and in fear of her life, she’s managed to acquire some appropriate clothing, a glove, and a damn bandolier. Because of course she has. Perception. Iconic. 

After that we don’t see her out of anything beyond her famous havah-braids-make up combo. Even when she’s with her family, and Navani remarks in her setting down the mask of the queen, she remains masked. There are still defences up. She never fully lets her family in on her plans, or her thoughts and fears. 

No, the next time we see her symbolically, and emotionally, vulnerable: is with Wit. Perhaps for the first time, fully, without ANY of her usual masks and pretences, and under her own steam and of her own volition. 

Locked away in a central room on the second level—sharing no walls with the outside, alone save for Wit’s company—she could finally let herself relax.

She DELIBERATELY picks a house with a second floor, and an interior  room with no outside walls, with multiple fabrial traps to warn of assassins or intruders. But she manages to relax in  Wit’s company. There’s a trust there. An understanding. A much needed vulnerability. 

Clothing wise, in this scene Jasnah is dressed only in a nightgown and a dressing gown, and is carefully noted to have her safehand uncovered. Jasnah isn’t Vorin, strictly speaking, but she’s still been raised her entire life in a society that views safehands as something inherently sexual/to be hidden. So much so that she takes the time and care to sew herself a safehand glove while in Shadesmar. So all of this is a fairly Big Deal. It’s a Big Deal for anyone. For Jasnah? More miraculous than Kaladin giggling. 

Jasnah Kholin is not vulnerable. Jasnah Kholin is never unguarded. Jasnah Kholin never willingly lets her guard down. Jasnah Kholin is absolutely as paranoid as Elhokar, if not more so. 

She’s made herself a BUNKER at this point. She’s in an interior room, surrounded by traps, there’s spheres sewn into her dressing gown, and she has a wholeass BOAT waiting for her in Shadesmar JUST IN CASE someone manages to get through: guards, an entire BUILDING, multiple rigged traps, then her, with her plate, her blade, her Soulcasting ability, and all of her wit and skill, to somehow manage to wound her badly enough that she has to retreat to Shadesmar. 

This woman does not do trust. She does not do vulnerability. To the point that it is absolutely 1000000% a fault. This IS Jasnah’s greatest flaw. Her isolation. Her mistrust. Her paranoia. 

Anyone that comes into her life she’s suspicious of. She blithely warns Shallan about Kabsal stating he’s only using her to get close to Jasnah to steal from her/kill her. 

We dismiss this, and look at it as brilliance/Jasnah knowing all, because she’s right. But it’s flawed brilliance. Because it’s the ‘broken clock’ fallacy, you know? If you suspect EVERYONE around you of being an assassin...Well, some of them will be. 

Jasnah’s paranoia is another meta, however. But the point here is that: Jasnah doesn’t do anything by halves. She has an ideal for how she wants to live her life and she COMMITS to it. And part of that is her presentation, and the perception she projects, to an unhealthy degree, even around trusted family. 

So the fact she has found someone she can relax all of her INCREDIBLY strict and overzealous masking and enforced personal presentation? Is both very significant in terms of her relationship with Wit, but also herSELF? 

Because Jasnah NEEDS this. She needs it like Kaladin needs therapy yesterday. 

Jasnah is a “strong independent woman” but if you double down on that idea, and follow it up with “Jasnah is a strong independent woman who doesn’t need a man/anyone” then you are absolutely 1000% missing the whole entire point of her character. 

All the Stormlight characters are deconstructions of classical fantasy tropes, to varying extents. 

Jasnah is the ‘strong independent woman’ trope except asking what if you ACTUALLY apply that to an actual human person? What would that do to them? How would that hurt them? And what it does is everything Jasnah is.

Which has been done so MASTERFULLY because we look at all of these flaws, and these objectively negative things that she does to cope with having this label slapped onto her, and we golf clap quietly in a corner and go ‘wow that’s so badass, that’s so cool, let’s totally romantacise all of these actually deeply worrying coping mechanisms and not look at them at all until Brandon smashes us in the face with them like a baseball bat with the nails of Jasnah’s trauma pounded into it’. 

Okay maybe that was SLIGHTLY dramatic. But my point is: Jasnah’s apparent omniscience can also be looked at as extreme paranoia and mistrust. 

Her independence and ability to ‘get shit done’ on her own, to the point she doesn’t tell another living soul about the LITERAL APOCALYPSE for more than HALF A DECADE is actually self-inflicted dangerous isolation. 

Her constantly being poised, and on her game, and never displaying any emotion is actually extreme repression, to the point her own MOTHER describes her as ‘having the empathy of a corpse’. 

Her consistent othering by all of the other characters, from her ward to her mother, deifying her, and othering her, and considering her immortal is actually putting her on a pedestal and cramming an INCREDIBLE amount of pressure to reach an impossible, unattainable, and inhuman level of perfection that becomes so normalised and commonplace that her return from the dead is just like ‘well yeah that’s just Jasnah’. 

And all of these things are INCREDIBLY unhealthy!!! They’re not something any real person should have to do just to exist. Especially not in the middle of an apocalypse. When her father was killed in front of her. And then her brother was murdered. And the apocalypse she tried to warn everyone about is happening. And she’s the most experienced Radiant. And she’s also suddenly a queen of her kingdom. Which has been taken over by the enemy btw. And they’re in the middle of a war. And people are dying. And she’s responsible for those people dying. But also some of her highprinces are treacherous bastards. And oh look here’s a couple of slightly mad Heralds she’s taken charge of and- OH MY GOD PLEASE LET HER NAP!? 

Again. Slight hyperbole on my end but I feel like I’m #Justified. The point is, her suddenly, after FOUR books, having a single person that she can confide in, and be vulnerable with, and admit she’s afraid, and uncertain, and doesn’t know what she’s doing, and isn’t sure she can actually do this, is not ~anti-feminist~ and it’s not “out of character” and it’s not damaging her ideal it’s actually deeply positive, and healthy, and a symptom of Character Growth. 

Jasnah’s is choosing Wit. With her eyes wide open. And she has some reservations about things, because she’s JASNAH, of course she does. But she listens to him. She confides in him. She lets him see HER. She lets him help HER. She admits that she needs that help. She actually says to him, out loud, with full human words, to his face, right in front of him, that she’s frightened. SHE ADMITS THIS!!! Jasnah’s having all this stealth background character development that y’all are sleeping on but I am personally deeply hype about. 

And it’s because Wit UNDERSTANDS her. And she understands him. And this is really the crux and core of this whole relationship for me, you know? This whole idea around them always being The Strong One. and finally FINALLY (for him, too) having someone that they don’t have to be strong for. Or regal. Or composed. Or poised. Or in control. Or even knowing what the fuck they’re doing. 

She can just...Be. She can ask questions. And show uncertainty. And admit to fear. And to doubt, of herself, of the other Radiants, of humanity in general. And have someone to look to, when everyone is ALWAYS looking at her. 

It’s the beginning of an actual support system. Because she needs this SO badly. Because she has her family but she also...Doesn’t have her family? She looks after them. She protects them. From assassins, and then from what was happening in the world/her role in it. Because there’s that line in Oathbringer that she has, about people loving her but still hurting her. 

Navani mentions that after she hit adolescence (and after her parents locked her in a dark room and let her scream herself hoarse because they called her mad, lol) she withdrew. And she no longer asked questions. And she no longer wanted a mother, or a support figure, or someone to take care of her. She rejected all notions of that. Because there was something broken there. That trust was gone. And Jasnah will set aside the crown, and the mask of the queen around her family, but she is only fully vulnerable, and fully HERSELF with Wit. 

And I cannot understate (i feel like I’m doing a Good Job of not understating this here people) how absolutely fucking ESSENTIAL that is. 

Jasnah is NOT a machine. She is not a divine being beyond trauma and pain. She is a human being who has suffered, and who has responses to this. 

Jasnah accepting Wit’s support and companionship is as big a step in processing and healing from her trauma as Kaladin accepting he can’t protect everyone and does not deserve to always carry that guilt. 

I don’t care if you don’t like the ship. I don’t care if you think it was rushed (there was...a year long time skip. Things did not remain in stasis. Things changed. This is an interesting narrative device bringing us into them and letting us extrapolate backwards). I don’t care if you hate the bones of Hoid and never want to see him on screen: I DON’T CARE. 

If you have any respect and regard for Jasnah as a character I need you to acknowledge that this relationship is a positive and healthy thing for her. I need you to see that it’s a step forwards. I need you to see that, from a purely narrative standpoint: this is a thing that should be celebrated for her. 

In terms of Wit, too, this is a good thing. I am not about one-sided relationships where only one person is getting something out of it. Even when that one person is the light of my life Jasnah Kholin who deserves all the things ever. 

For all his talk of frivolity, he knew exactly how to present himself. It was something they’d bonded over.

Coming back to this RoW quote let me make things as abundantly clear as possible re why I’ve bonded over this ship: They’re kindred spirits. They understand each other. In a way that no-one else has understood them for Jasnah possibly ever, for Wit in a very very very very very very very very very long time. 

They’re both brilliant. They’re both intellectually at the pinnacle of humanity. They both know that. They’re also both damaged. They both  cover up that damage with a carefully crafted presentation. Jasnah’s is regal composure and Wit’s flamboyant nonchalance, but it’s a mask in both cases. 

They understand each other. And they understand the need to have what they’ve found in one another: someone they don’t have to be that way around. Someone they can just be with. Someone who understands why they have to be that way with everyone else; but can give them the freedom to be themselves. 

Such parallel. Much power. Very choice. 

I was gonna talk about Other Stuff in this meta but lol. 4k words of clothes screaming later and I feel like maybe this should be part 1 of an ongoing saga. Ahem. 

The take away from this is: I totally understand why Brandon put these two characters together. For the amount of characters he has, he actually has relatively few romantic relationships. None of them are done on a whim, and they’re always healthy, mutual, and positive for both characters. They make sense, in short. 

And these two as a pairing makes sense. On more than a “”””business transaction””””” level of them wanting and getting information out of one another. It makes sense even if there was no Desolation, and no threat to the world, and they were two randomers who met in a tavern and connected. 

There’s a personal connection there. There’s an intimacy, and an understanding, and a sense of looking into another person’s eyes and saying ‘yes. You know. You feel it too’. They go through life in much the same way - standing out, never quite fitting, never finding anyone on their level that can relate to them or compete with them or challenge them. 

They have someone who can fulfil them. Someone who can actually meet and exceed their abilities for once. But equally someone who can ground them, and meet them at their lowest point, and allow and even encourage that vulnerability. 

TL;DR: this relationship is positive for both characters, and healthy, and important for both and this is a hill I WILL fucking die upon. Just watch me. 

More metas to follow. Bc I have more to say. Not as long as this one, in all likelihood, bc I feel like this is the Lynchpin argument for this pair. But still. More to say.

#jasnah kholin #witsnah #hoid #brandon sanderson #rhythm of war #stormlight archive #wit #jasnah x wit #witsnah meta #jasnah meta #Y'ALL PUSHED ME TOO FAR #THE SPITE ROSE #AND WITH IT CAME THIS #the clothes thing actually deeply interests me #in all seriousness #but why not mention it in a context where i can yell at people for refusing to THINK for 3 seconds #before they start ranting abt how this doesn't make sense/work #it DOES #you just have to ENGAGE A BRAIN CELL #AND ALSO JUST READ WHAT THE TEXT TELLS YOU #IT TELLS YOU THEY BONDED OVER THIS #THIS IS WHY #IT'S BLATANT #I LOVE THEM #THAT'S ALSO BLATANT #DEAL WITH IT #long post #text post tag #taryn rants #yes i do

[natalie-k-pan]

10 Ways the Loki show Disappointed Me

part two

6) The trailer was misleading advertising. Marvel’s done it in the past with little to no backlash:

Iron Man 3 presenting the Mandarin as the ultimate foe for Tony to defeat, only to find out he’s a charlatan in a minor role.

Falcon and Winter Soldier was presented as a light-hearted buddy adventure, only to tackle darker themes about nationalism and racism. (Not saying that those themes were bad, just that the TFAWS’s trailer was not truthful to the story).

In the case of Loki, the trailer presented the plot as Loki making time-traveling shenanigans and being captured for breaking the timeline. They included the D.B Cooper clip, and the scenes of Loki in New York and as king in Asgard. These clips never show up in season 1. The D.B Cooper scene was a off-the-cuff moment, and the highly-anticipated (imo) President Loki was around for five minutes.

The trailer shows the storyline being about Loki breaking the timeline, with Mobius saying in a voiceover, “You picked up the tesseract, breaking reality. I want you to help us fix it.”

Marvel’s publicity team knew what story we would want to see from the character. And that’s not what we got: it was a mix of Loki tagging along with Sylvie to take down the Timekeepers, and detective-esque  scenes of trying to overthrow the TimeKeepers. 

It was never about Loki having an adventure, breaking the timeline, and having to fix it.

There’s a difference between having scenes that don’t make it into the final product, between not revealing enough of the story to spoil plot twists...and deliberately choosing certain scenes and quotes  to present a false version of the story.

I guess Marvel was worried that no one would watch it if they showed us the real product.

7)    Loki’s powers were wildly inconsistent, especially compared to what we’ve seen before.

In the past, we’ve seen Loki do illusions, duplication casting and in Thor 2, some very light telekinesis. After hearing of his mother’s death, he throws several pieces of furniture in into the cell walls with his mind. This is after losing the person who probably mattered most to him at the time, and feeling responsible for her death--it’s a powerful move showing his magical capabilities.

In the show, in Episode 3 we see him pull a Roomba towards himself in order to use it as a shield during a fight--pretty in-line with what we saw in the Dark World.

One episode later, an entire flipping tower is falling towards them, and he reverses it with his mind alone.

It was in the face of death, you say. Of course he was going to pull some cool new magical move.

Sure. In the face of death, I could see him jumping from throwing chairs to something heavier, like maybe a crumbling wall or a fruit stand.

BUT A TOWER?

 WHY?

 HOW??

He’s never done anything on that scale magically. In episode 2, he got tossed around by a (human) Alabama man. Why would he not use that move to bring the roof crumbling down if he was fighting for his life then?

So he’s got massive telepathic power when a building is falling but can’t use it in a fight against regular people.... okay?

Honestly, due to the fact that they’ve weakened him so much, and when Loki said, “I think we’re stronger than we realize”, I’m betting Season 2 will include Loki discovering the extent of his magical powers. 

 I don’t like this idea because again, it contradicts the previous canon. In Thor 1, Hogun literally calls Loki a “master of magic”. He went toe-to-toe with Thor and the Avengers and now can’t beat regular humans. A thousand+ year old being unaware of his own untapped potential doesn’t seem correct (yeah, they did that with Thor in Ragnarok, I know).

This Loki’s power levels jump up and down according to the plot, trying to make us believe that due to his spoiled past, Loki needs to apply himself to learn more about his powers.

 8)  Loki was out of character.

His lying and scheming was way too obvious. I was incredibly confused the first couple of episodes because it would be strange how he would be a pathetic buffoon  one minute and yet The only moment I was sold on his competence as a liar was episode 2 at the renaissance fair where he attempts to fool  the TVA. He was actually competent for once, but he gets caught, and goes into apologizing and sucking up 30 seconds later.   

He gets drunk when they’re on the mission on Lamentis. This didn’t make sense--when he was trying to conquer Earth, he had the opportunity to also goof off and he’s always been shown to take things seriously, with the exception of Ragnarok.                                                 

The “I’m a narcissist” scene. While Loki is the type to crave attention--in Avengers, Tony calls him a diva who wants his name plastered to the skies--it comes from a place of feeling overshadowed, never able to match his brother Thor.  Which we can see has some basis:

In Thor 1, his adopted parents raised him to hate his race,

lied to him about it,

 and when he was hanging over an wormhole, his father finally rejected him.

In Avengers, Thor tells him in  that his slights are “imagined”. 

 Thor 2, his adopted father told him his “birthright was to die”.

While it doesn’t excuse his actions in Thor and Avengers, it’s pretty clear that his family, particularly his father, have let him down.

So to make him experience character development and understand why he does what he does...the writers took him back to Asgard, and had Sif beat him up repeatedly until he admits he does terrible things because he’s a...narcissist.

It was pretty hard to watch that scene, especially because I related to Loki as someone who felt overshadowed and overlooked. He tried too hard to be what his family wanted, to show that he was “the worthy son”.

But here in the fantastic year of 2021, this show decided to throw away all of that emotional nuance away.

 9) The costumes were bad.

The brown variant jacket with its ugly orange block letters.

The guard suit on Lamentis looked like a cross between a purple sweater and a plague doctor mask. honestly makes me shuder to see it

Loki’s green-and-gold costumes are some of the most distinct, instantly recognizable outfits of the MCU. And he almost immediately loses it in the first episode. It ends being given to Sylvie, (like most of Loki’s better characteristics) and he stays in a detective skinny-tie suit instead. The costume is okay, but it lacks the flair and style he’s had previously, and he never gains it back.

10) The season finale really did showcase this show in the best way-- ig hype followed by disappointment.

For five episodes, we rushed towards the ultimate villain, the mastermind behind it all. Episode 6 was like...being handed a pack of bubble wrap, swinging your hand hard, expecting that satisfying pop! only to have it slowly putter out with a sad little sound.

First, Kang looked like he got his costume from Party City. The purple cape isn’t doing him any favors. Then, the man sat there and monologued for forty minutes, making jokes, telling us how he set the plot up, and how the multiverse worked.

 I know Marvel gets flack for there always being an CGI climactic action scene, but…they had 6 episodes leading up to the Big Bad, and for it to end that anticlimactically with a man in a Party City purple cape was a letdown. The finale had no menace, no teeth. In the words of Mobius, it was just…talkie-talkie.

All in all, this show really suffered from ignoring Loki’s past, where he would realistically be emotionally-wise, and a lack of focus on its title character’s development. Settings and costumes being better/unique would be also be nice, especially given its popularity. At the end of the day, I don’t see the character I empathized so strongly with in this show.

#loki disney+ #loki negativity #loki critical #loki #loki review #wish it was better

[sealbatross]

I ended up loving this version more, so of course its time to break down Emotions-Why in “Great Comet Original Cast Recording”™.

Disclaimer: POV of someone who has A. read the book, B. listened to the Broadway version, C. knows nothing about music, and D. is attracted to SAD.

So, uh. Long unwarranted appreciation ramble post below :’)

Prologue ----- I love Dave's voice for Pierre. It's so distinctive - more despicable (for lack of a better word) than classically noble which I find very endearing. And it makes him stand out more… (I'm dumb and only realized Pierre sang the first couple of lines after listening to this version).

Pierre -----

"I used to be better..." *CLICK* "HUUUHHHHHHHHHNNNN OHHHHHHHH PIERRE"

I love the clicking noise here so much. Like the cocking of a gun.

Moscow ----- Marya is less… dramatic (which is hilarious on the Broadway version), but having slightly less of an exaggeration helps her feel more human.

(Ok but I do love “while I Ḵ̵̘̫̋͂̅̎̃̒͛̃N̸̛̫̼͕̣͔̜̥̹̔͛̉̒̏̒̍̄̀͛̒̆̈́̍İ̵̢̧͔̩̦̯̥̉̎̐T̷̩̫̟̗̤͆̈́͊̾̔” from Broadway)

The Private and Intimate Life of the House ----- Prince Bolkonsky saying his friends are all dead hits hard. This makes the estrangement between Mary and the Prince tragic from both sides. It also further validates Mary's disgust at herself for wishing harm upon her father.

“my money, my house” - this is all that the old Prince has left from the life he's lived - “I’ll spend it how I want” he says angrily... And then the sudden turn to panic from forgetfulness and failing body. It’s easier to see where he’s coming from, and very reflective of the consequences of aging. This is played for some laughs on Broadway instead (very good chuckles mind you).

Natasha and the Bolkonskys ----- Natasha is more unsure... like she's trying to gather courage by saying

"I know they’ll like me Everyone has always liked me"

, and consequently, she is more sympathetic. Broadway Natasha is very peppy and seems to absolutely believe in “I know they’ll like me” - which makes the impending rejection humorous and more consequent.

Broadway Natasha, in contrast to Mary’s timid salutation says “Hello” happily and confidently, which gives Mary something that she can respond to with dislike (in the context of listening only to the album, no visual on appearance etc.). Meanwhile, in the Original, Mary and Natasha both have timid “hello”s and seem to be on the same page (until the inner monologue GOES OFF (the twist is wonderful in both)). This makes Original Natasha’s situation seem more tragic - Original Natasha did nothing (personality-wise) to trigger Mary's rebuke. It just happened as a consequence of their positions in life.

Original Prince Bolkonsky was more clever with his mocking of Natasha. In a way that stings poisonous due to the uncertainty, treating her like a child, mocking her intelligence in understanding his intention of offence:

“Excuse me my costume, this dressing gown— I did not know, my poor. girl.”

No one else ----- Original cast of this song holds more weight because of Natasha’s temperament (again). Broadway Natasha gets over the slight with the Bolkonskys quickly - she's already smiling one line into "No One Else" right after she supposedly burst into tears. Making this song seem a turn of mind from one subject to another rather than a consequence of the previous event.

In the Original casting, however, Natasha remained much softer and more sombre until she described in detail what she loves about Andrei - (childlike eyes etc.) like being cheered by a friend’s imagined presence... like when you’re having a horrible social interaction when waiting for a good friend - and the friend finally shows up.

The Ball ----- Bway Natasha seems very happy when she sings “I will love you Anatole” (which always hurts regardless) but the Original Natasha doesn’t seem too happy singing this - as if this is going against her will… like it’s her funeral... You’ve probably noticed a pattern - Natasha being sadder / not always smiley and peppy allows me to sympathize better with her. The more sympathy the more personally emotional her downfall = tear time.

The Duel ----- Original Pierre sounds like he really means to pour everything into his mouth. You can hear the depravity.

Pierre and Andrei ----- Original Andrei’s gentle and even tone matches the not-dwelling-on-it-too-much of book Andrei (from what I can remember). Then “coldly, maliciously” comes after like a twist. And the whole mood of the scene shifts in a neat way. That being said Broadway Andrei has wonderfully conflicted emotion in his voice that is just👌

Pierre and Natasha ----- The Original has a faster tempo and is thus happier. Less dramatized. Like a normal meeting between two people, not a finale pour-your-emotions-out moment. Yellow. Sunny. Mid-afternoon through the windows. Softer. Smiling Pierre thinking it ridiculous that Natasha would think her life over.

Meanwhile Broadway - an immediate feeling of blue and moonlight, and cold. The echo in Pierre’s voice. Pierre is very emotional, much fear, much sad. Lots of trembling and emphasis. ~did you love that BAD MAN~~ ~~ DON'T CALL HIM BAD~~~ mmmm that's good. Oh, the pacing is so good.

Anyways.

I love the Original cast Pierre's speech. It isn't so classically (I've been using this word a lot) emotional. It's… sheepish. And hits differently.

P.S. The style of this musical makes so much sense after reading the book. It's got this matching humour acknowledging the little defections of people, and how emotion and chance and misunderstanding drives our lives.

Shoutout to the music too, it bends to support the emotion of the story. If it's dissonant it's because it's portraying a conflict in these people. If there’s a boss fight, then there is boss fight music.

Also, Broadway is…. Well, better for Broadway, it's more dramatic and with a lot more funny moments. It also has a clearer and cleaner portrayal of the characters which is great for first-time viewers and group party watching. The Original is more nuanced/not as clear and good for the crying-at-home-alone experience. And I know which of these I am.

Congrats on making it all the way down here, I'd love to hear any of your thoughts!

#great comet #im sorry lmao #i just love it #war and peace #feel free to leave any thoughts #im currently knee deep in this musical #my rambles #taking a break from Dust and Ashes animatic for a second

[nattikay]

So I saw this post while browsing toa tags the other day. While I don’t think being obsessed with the school mascot automatically makes Toby a furry (though it is funny to joke about lol) since “being a furry” actually just means “being a fan of anthropomorphic animals” and doesn’t necessarily require any form of costuming or interest in such, it did get me thinking, hmmm...if he was a furry, what would his fursona be? 🤔 And from there I started wondering what Jim’s and Claire’s would be as well because y not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

BUT WAIT, I hear you say--haven’t you already drawn the trio as werewolves and wolfwalkers etc.? Wouldn’t those be their fursonas??

Well yes....but actually no.

I guess it’s a little hard to explain, but there’s a nuance between “[person] but as an animal” and a proper “fursona”. While a fursona is an animal character used to represent its person, it doesn’t have to physically resemble them at all as you would expect [person]-but-as-[animal] to. For example, if you were to design me but as a cat, you’d probably give it light brown fur and green eyes like I have irl. But my fursona, unlike my human self, actually has blue fur and purple eyes. You can give your fursona matching physical traits to your own if you want to, and some people do, but most use only a pinch of their irl appearance, if any at all.

The choices people make when designing their fursonas vary wildly from “it looks like me irl” to “it looks like who I want to be”  to “I just really like this color scheme” to “this particular color/marking holds deep personal meaning to me” to “this particular pattern represents a particular defining moment in my life” to “idk it looks cool and i vibe with it” etc. etc. etc. Everyone has different reasons of varying depth for the decisions they make in designing their fursona.

Therefore, to design a fursona for Toby etc., it’s less a question of “what would this character look like as [insert species here]?” and more of “how would this character choose to present himself with his own [animal] character?”

And that’s a much trickier game than just transferring a character aesthetic to a new species. ^^; We have to kinda dive into the characters and makes some guesses about how they, if given infinite creative freedom to design an animal avatar with no rules or limits, would choose to present themselves.

So all that said, here’s what I came up with:

Starting with Toby because he’s the one who inspired the post. I think Toby might choose a wolfdog fursona. A lot of people who choose wolves as fursonas consider themselves to be overwhelmingly loyal to their friends, a trait that fits Toby very well. However, while Toby likes to be “cool”, I don’t think he really thinks of himself as much of an “alpha” type--he’s more of a sidekick, and he knows that, and he’s ok with that. He’s the wingman. So what better way to incorporate that than to add dog into the mix? Man’s best friend=Jim’s best friend. Sociable, humorous, and unwaveringly loyal. Wolfdog it is!

With the species decided, we can move on to the design itself.

I can’t imagine any form of Toby in anything other than warm colors. This is extra emphasized by the flamelike patterns on his legs and tail, which both speaks to his desire to be totally awesome-sauce as well as acts as an allusion to his flaming warhammer. It’s fairly common (not universal, but common) for people to give their fursonas a more “ideal” physique than the person actually has as a sort of way to live by proxy physical goals or fantasies they’ve been unable to attain irl for whatever reason. Given that we’ve seen Toby struggle with fitness from time to time, it wouldn’t shock me to see him take this route. His wolfdog self is still relatively short and stocky, but it’s all muscle, babey. 

This fursona is strong, fun, boisterous, and generally just kicks butt. Concentrated awesomesauce flows through his veins. Just don't mess with his friends, or you’ll feel the flames!

.

Moving on to Jim. Jim was the hardest to nail down, and most definitely the hardest to keep my personal biases out of oof. Which I may have failed to do anways because yes, ok, I made my favorite character a blue feline, sue me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  But hear me out first!

For Jim I ultimately settling on a cheetah/lion hybrid.

Cheetahs, in a way, are sort of the underdogs (er...cats?) of the feline world--at least, in their local ecosystems. They are built wholly for speed, not strength--and as such, just about every other large predator in their environment has them beat when it comes to raw strength. Remind you of a certain Trollhunter? plus the long lanky legs. don’t forget those lol

However, because of this disadvantage, cheetahs...usually surrender. They know it’s not worth it to defend their kill from larger, stronger opponents, so they’ll give it up and just catch something else. This aspect doesn’t quite fit our protective, selfless protagonist all too eager to risk everything to save his loved ones--so a pure cheetah may not be the right choice.

So what animal is brave and protective? That’s where the lion part comes in, of course!

Why not just make him a pure lion? Well, a little similar to making Toby a wolfdog instead of a pure wolf. A straight-up lion feels a little too “chad” for our sweet Jimbo. Too much of a jock. 

Jim has the humble underdog nature of a cheetah as well as the bravery and fierce protective drive of a lion. Cheelion? Leetah? idk, but let’s design it!

Like Toby and warm colors, I don’t think I can possibly associate Jim with any color but blue. While it’s never directly stated, given that we’ve never really seen him wear any other color (with the exception of the Eclipse armor), I think it’s pretty safe to assume that that’s his favorite. Blue sweater, blue jeans, blue shoes, even his backpack and bedsheets are blue. So naturally, his fursona would be predominantly blue as well! Plus some yellowish accents to (somewhat) match the natural colors of his chosen species(s).

I imagine he originally designed the character without horns, but then added them after becoming the Trollhunter, since it became such a major and impactful aspect of his life.

His lion’s mane also continues down his back in imitation of the “mantle” found on baby cheetahs. This youthful feature could subtly represent the fact that he’s been forced to grow up too fast and take on so much responsibility so young--so his fursona can still be young and carefree as long as he likes even while his real self struggles with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

This fursona is relaxed, calm, and confident. He’s not just cool--he’s crispy!

.

Lastly but not leastly, we have Claire. Out of the three, I think Claire was actually the easiest to choose--or at least, I had the clearest idea of what I thought she might go for.

Claire is a bit of an interesting duck, because while she’s shown to be fairly popular at school, she’s definitely far from the stereotype of The Popular Girl™. Yes she’s smart and pretty, but she’s also a little spunky or even a bit quirky--she’s a theatre kid, she’s a huge fan of hard rock band Papa Skull, and while I wouldn’t quite call her “rebellious” per se, she’s certainly willing to bend some rules if she feels the situation calls for it (not telling her parents that she was going to the concert with Steve, literally sneaking into Jim’s basement to try to find out what was up with him, etc).

That said, I think Claire might go for a hyena fursona--something a little out of the box, but not totally out of left field. (she also shows a slight Gurl Power™ streak here and there “the staff was not meant to be wielded by man--” “I am not a man!!!”) and if you know anything about hyenas...well, yeah lol)

I think Claire would lean into her punk-rock “rebellious” side with her fursona design. This character is completely free of the pressure of being the councilwoman’s daughter and having to maintain her mother’s public reputation, and thus allows Claire to express a less restrained side of herself. She has a bold semi-edgy color scheme with bright accents (and some earrings to match her person’s hair clips) while still remaining feminine and (her own brand of) fashionable. 

This fursona is spunky and sassy; she’s spicy and sweet all rolled up into one. She knows what she wants and she’s not afraid to chase it down. She lives her own life and she’s dang proud of it.

.

....sooooo yeah there’s my take on what Toby’s, Jim’s, and Claire’s fursonas could hypothetically be. And I guess since this post was inspired by a joke about Toby’s infatuation with the school mascot, here’s just some quick thoughts on how they might approach fursuiting to end us off:

Jim I don’t see as much of a suiter. He might try it once or twice if given the opportunity, but at the end of the day it’s not really his cup of tea--he’d rather act as the “handler” for his friends, if anything.

Toby and Claire, on the other hand, I could definitely see as suiters. In fact, with her interest in acting, Claire would probably particularly enjoy it--she’d be one of those suiters who really gets into character, absolutely refuses to break the magic publicly (outside of any actual medical emergency), and popular at cons because she just performs so well. 

Toby, meanwhile, would be the more chill type--uses his normal voice in-suit, isn’t really too stressed about “breaking the magic”, just kinda hanging around like he would normally except “look I’m a talking dog, cool right?”. 

also while I was typing this it occurred to be that since Eli is canonically a cosplayer then he could be a fursuiter as well; in his case i imagine he actually made his own suit it’s a protogen and it’s full of little LEDs and other electric gadgets, it’s not the prettiest thing ever as sewing is not his forte but boy did he try!! good for him. good for him

#so anyways I put way too much thought into this...enjoy I guess? #trollhunters #tales of arcadia #toby domzalski #jim lake jr #claire nuñez #furry #my art

[sternbilder]

Hi!! Stumbled on your blog via the buried stars tag and I'd like to say thank you so much for the kr>eng translations! There aren't many english-speaking fans so I was happy to read about the game & its characters. I was wondering, what do all the characters call each other in Korean? Or what honorifics they use? I could hear it in the audio sometimes (Gyu-hyuk: "Do-yoon-ah", or I think Seil: "Inha-ssi" ?) but I didn't catch all of them. Google tells me some of it is based off of (1/2)

(2/2) Google tells me some of it is based off of respect, friendship/closeness, or just being older/younger than one another, but I'm still new to the intricacies of what it implies about the characters' relationships and how their individual personalities are. If it isn't too much trouble, I'd love to know ^^

Hello!! You're very welcome and in fact thank you for the question, I'm always receptive to more excuses to talk about this game!

It seems like you already have some context on rules surrounding Korean honorifics. There is a lot of nuance, obviously, but to put it simply...Yes, I'd say the speech patterns the cast (particularly, the TOP5—the others are a bit more complicated) uses are what you'd see in a casual social setting between people who already know each other somewhat, but aren't necessarily friends, which is what I think I would expect from a group of twentysomethings who probably had a chance to bond socially as a cohort throughout the whole audition process (it's explained in the Q&A that they lived together in a dorm for most of the show, too). And as you've pointed out the rules there I would say are much more tied to age and closeness. I'd generally characterize their speech patterns as informal, but polite—basically, you have to use the polite form with people who are older than you, but you can use casual speech (banmal) with people who are the same age or younger. The exception is if you are close enough with someone that you mutually decide it's OK to drop honorifics despite the age difference. More on that later.

The order of the age of each of the main cast are as follows: Seungyeon (33), Juyoung (28), Gyuhyuk (27), Doyoon and Inha (25), Seil (24), and Hyesung (20). So with no other caveats we'd expect, for example, Doyoon to use polite form with Juyoung and Gyuhyuk but not with Inha and Hyesung, etc. Now, with that as the basis, here are some notes based on what I can remember, though disclaimer that my memory isn't perfect, and there are also things I might have missed because I haven't done a full playthrough yet with Korean text.

(Character spoilers for the "Other" section at the end; otherwise a few minor spoilers)

TOP5

Juyoung (28)

Juyoung is the oldest of the main cast, so she uses banmal with pretty much everyone and refers to them by name, or name + ah/ya (which is the casual vocative marker), and it's perfectly acceptable for her to do so.

The rest of the TOP5 call her 언니/누나 (unni/noona, lit. "older sister" but more generally used to refer to any slightly older female acquaintance; which one is used depends on the speaker's gender). They also sometimes call her 영이 언니/누나 (Young-i unni/noona) for short, which I thought was cute. There's actually a Q&A question that asked about this because it is a very familiar/affectionate nickname, and the director explained that Juyoung asked the others to call her that because she was afraid of seeming unapproachable due to her age and because of the fact that she was a former idol.

Gyuhyuk (27)

As the second oldest, I believe he uses banmal with everyone but Juyoung. The younger male characters all call him 형 (hyung, lit. "older brother", see above), though I can't seem to remember Inha calling him 오빠 (oppa). I might be projecting that assumption onto her based on her somewhat brash personality, since 오빠 can come off as a bit...Girlish? Cutesy? Flirtatious? in certain contexts? Idk.

Doyoon (25)

What's notable about Doyoon is that he uses the polite form with Juyoung, but not Gyuhyuk. He calls Gyuhyuk 형 (hyung), of course, but he uses the casual form, which suggests that they're close enough with each other that they've already agreed to drop formalities. Their first rapport event gives me the sense that they're especially close, too, compared to the other contestants (as does just like...waves in their general direction, but anyway,)

Inha (25)

Inha is the same age as Doyoon, so you would also expect her to use polite form with Juyoung and Gyuhyuk. However, she doesn't with either of them IIRC.

As for Juyoung, I don't remember how much of this came through in the text of the game itself, but I would guess they were probably already pretty close in a way similar to Doyoon and Gyuhyuk were. At the very least, I think I remember one of the Q&A answers indicating that they kept in touch very frequently after the events of the game.

I don't really remember too many interactions between Inha and Gyuhyuk, tbh. I do recall that she (not sure if any others do) refers to him as 규 (Gyu) at least once, which I think is adorable, LMAO. This might indicate that they may have been on close enough terms to use casual speech? But then again, she did seem to resent Gyuhyuk at least a little bit for the scholarship thing, and according to the Q&A she took much longer than Juyoung and Doyoon to see him again after the game, so??? She could just be kind of disrespectful like that, which...Kinda tracks, honestly??? 🤷‍♀️Like I said, I don't remember too much about these two, so don't take my word on this.

Hyesung (20)

Hyesung is the youngest, so you would expect him to use polite speech with everyone, but he, uh, does not. With anyone. LMAO. Maybe he's just super tight with everyone, but something tells me it's more because he's a rude little shit who's just Like That. (I mean, he uses banmal with Seil, who does hate his guts, so.) He does call everyone 형/누나 (hyung/noona), though, at least—though, now that I think about it, Seil might be an exception to that, LOL.

Since he's the youngest, everyone just calls him Hyesung.

Also, this is tangential, but I also just wanted to throw in that Hyesung notably has a slight "old man" dialect in that he sometimes uses expressions and slang that you would expect from the older generation, because growing up his only friends were the other vendors at his mom's fish market. This is unrelated to politeness, but it does come off as really funny considering how young he is, and definitely gives his speech a unique vibe.

Staff

Seil (24)

The speech patterns between Seil and the TOP5 are pretty similar to speech patterns within TOP5 itself, which is to say, fairly informal but still polite. He uses polite form with everyone older than him, and uses banmal with Hyseung. I actually wouldn't necessarily have expected this to be the case since he technically has more of a professional relationship to the TOP5 than they do with each other (so I wouldn't have been surprised if he actually used formal speech, rather than just polite), but it's probably because he's in that same age range and because he was the staff member who was closest to them socially.

I believe you are correct that he calls Inha, and Inha alone, -씨 (-ssi), which is actually formal, rather than simply polite. Probably just indicating his high level of admiration for her in particular.

The rest of the main cast just call him Seil. Hyesung also occasionally calls Seil 세일 FD님 (Seil FD-nim) which is technically extremely formal, but obviously said in sarcasm.

Seungyeon (33)

I believe she calls everyone by their full name, and uses casual speech with them. Makes sense. She's the boss.

Everyone else calls her PD님 (PD-nim, formal). Including, notably, Hyesung. AFAICR Seungyeon is the only character Hyesung shows even an ounce of deference toward in this game. 😛

Other

Suchang (27) & Suyeon (18)

AFAIK Suchang only really has in-game interactions with Doyoon and Suyeon, and Suyeon only has interactions with Suchang, who she of course calls 오빠 (oppa), in the familial sense. Though IIRC at the very end she does once refer to Doyoon as 그분 (geubun, lit. "that person") and 도윤님 (Doyoon-nim), both of which are extremely formal/deferential in tone but in kind of a "little girl talks about her crush as if they were Prince Charming" sort of way...Which causes Suchang to hilariously go into overprotective/jealous older brother mode.

The Ha siblings use casual speech with each other, which is standard among siblings. However, Suchang also talks down to Doyoon, which is pretty audacious of him considering they're strangers—he basically talks to Doyoon as if they're already friends. He's kind of an audacious guy in general, though, so I'd say that kind of fits his character.

Doyoon, on the other hand, being the polite young man that he is, uses polite speech with Suchang. There's a funny scene where he accidentally slips up and uses banmal, and then immediately gets called out by Suchang, who chews him out for talking down to someone older than him. (Though ofc Doyoon had no way of knowing this, and also, Suchang shouldn't be using banmal with a stranger in the first place.) At the very end of the true ending when they finally meet, Doyoon actually takes it up a level and calls Suchang 수창씨 (Suchang-ssi) but Suchang tells him to drop it and just call him 형 (hyung). It's sweet.

#khattikeri #Asks #Buried Stars #Meta #liveblog: bstars

[ddarker-dreams]

Home. Yan!Shigaraki x Reader [COMM]

Japan brings with it a plethora of memories.

Memories ranging from the highest of your life to the lowest. Times that you can recall with a special fondness, reserved in your heart for the rest of your life. But always balanced out with numerous hurts, times that you wish you could erase from your mind. All of it remains a mixed bag within you, serving only to befuddle your true feelings further as you get off the plane. 

Going through customs felt surreal, the bustle of the airport one that struck you with a sense of  nostalgia. The people, the scents, the sights -- it all left you with a weary heart, but you had already expected to feel this way. Returning wasn’t an easy decision, the dividing thought leaving you with numerous restless nights.

But ultimately, your choice has been made. With suitcases in hand, you look down towards your phone. Traveling always sounds nice in theory, but jet lag and exhaustion were taking you hostage. Still, it won’t do to get tired now; you still need to make it to your new apartment after all.

‘If I could survive that long flight in economy class, I can last through one more Uber drive.’

Blurry images of the airport scenery go by, the music in the car all but tuned out by your chaotic thoughts. It all reminds you of how you left in such a hurry in the first place, in the dead of night. How conflicted you were then -- constantly doubting your decision and wondering if you should just turn back.

But turning back to Shigaraki at the time didn’t feel like a viable option. 

You don’t think of it as running away from your problems. Even if that’s what it may sound like, you tried all you reasonably could do. From countless heart to heart discussions, to tearful phone calls. All of it fell on deaf ears, or worse, served to irritate him. Neither of you would back down from your given positions, despite the care you shared for one another. The care that led you to overlook your own morals for a time being. 

Shigaraki was always someone who was firmly planted in his ways, and didn’t care for having his morals challenged. Though he was considerably more tolerable towards your verbal opposition than anyone else would even have the opportunity to attempt, it didn’t mean he’d change his mind in the end. 

So you left. It’s bizarre to believe that eight months have already passed since then, eight months of your life being vastly different than before. Even when you weren’t in Japan, you would still hear news reports of the League of Villain's activities. Every time a headline popped up of what was happening, it made your stomach drop. 

His hold over you didn’t feel as less constricting as you had originally hoped it would. Even if he was no longer physically with you during those times, you could still almost imagine his presence by your side. His mannerisms, what he would say to you if he was there. The nightmare never ended, it only got worse as the days went on. Shigaraki would never stop haunting you.

Which leads to where you are now. Having left the car with a quiet thank you, staring up at your new apartment building. Getting your keys from the main office, you desire nothing more than for this to be a positive beginning in your life. If leaving Japan didn’t help you feel any better, it only made sense for you to come back. There’s no place like home, after all. 

But you’ll still be living your life on the down low. It’s unnerving, since the League never stayed in one area for long. If you knew where they were hiding now, you would gladly put as much distance between yourself and them as possible. But given the nature of Shigaraki’s vision, they were always on the move. 

Turning your keys until you hear a click, your last burst of energy goes into opening the door. Inside showcased an apartment devoid of furniture, but still your new home nonetheless. With a deep sigh, you tug your heavy luggage through the door frame. 

‘I’ll at least need to unpack some things before I can sleep…’

Briskly walking to the sink, you splash cold water onto your face in a desperate attempt to stay awake. Your new mattress won’t be delivered until tomorrow, so sleeping on the floor is all you can do for the time being. Shaking your head at the thought, you sluggishly get to work.

Grabbing your favorite blanket and pillow, you lazily throw it where your bed will soon take its place. Everything else can wait for tomorrow, it’s not like you’ll have any company to entertain. With the sun already having set thirty minutes ago, you close your blinds and gratefully lay down. 

Even if it’s on the floor, it feels like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders to finally relax.

It doesn’t take long for sleep to find you, all of your pent up emotions and nonstop thinking having sapped all your energy. All you can hope for, as your heavy eyelids flutter shut, is that tomorrow will be the fresh start that you have longed for.

---

“Mnh…” 

Rubbing your eyes, you almost panic for a moment at your new surroundings. Before recalling all that had occurred, and that this place is your home now. 

‘What time is it…?’

Blindly groping around your pillow for your phone, your eyes squint in pain at the bright screen. Displaying that it’s only 11:25 PM, and that you only had been asleep for a few hours. The effects of sleeping on the floor make themselves known, your back aching at the lack of proper support. 

Grimacing at the throbbing discomfort, you put your phone down before sitting up with a yawn. With intention to get up and soothe your dry throat with a drink, you never get the chance before a voice pierces through the dark.

“All that running sure must’ve been exhausting.”

Jumping at the sound of a lower voice in your pitch black room, your eyes rapidly dart around for the possible source. Breathing growing unsteady, you feel your lips tremble at the thought of a stranger in your apartment. Would your quirk be useful enough in fending them off? 

Hugging your knees against your chest in a reflexive response, your mind scrambles to come up with a plan. 

Reaching to grab your phone out of desperation, you finally let out a weak response. “W-who’s there? I’ll call the police!”

“Like that’d do any good.” The voice responds in a mocking lilt. Like a sudden wave crashing over you, you’re finally able to discern through your fatigued state who this is. You feel as if you’re being dragged beneath the waves, the air all but smacked from your lungs.

‘That’s--!’

Footsteps approach you slowly, methodically. You feel frozen, incapable of even forming a coherent thought. As the person gets closer, you realize you need to run. But before you can even get the opportunity, you feel a foreboding weight around your shoulders.

And four fingers tapping against your bare skin.

“Did you forget about me, [First]?” 

You know that voice all too well. The fact that even sleep managed to dull your guess of who it was is astonishing, but no longer do you feel uncertain of who it is. Goosebumps line your exposed skin, the sound of your own shaky breathing filling the otherwise silent room.

“Sh-Shigaraki…?” 

“So you didn’t,” he responds with a low, humorless snicker. Tightening his grip around you, you can feel his hair tickling your face. “I’m glad I don’t have to remind you of that, at least.” 

Swallowing thickly, you feel tears prickling the edge of your eyes. There are too many overwhelming things on your mind, too many questions without answers and silent pleads. It all feels too suffocating, air becoming a luxury that you miss. In the moment, all you can will yourself to do is choke out your next words. 

“How,” you exhale shakily, mind screaming your tongue drier than sandpaper. “How did you find me?” 

For a brief moment, you feel his coarse fingers cease their previous drumming movements. In a motion that could only be described as flinching, Shigaraki quickly recovers himself while answering your question with a malicious bite. 

“After all this time, that’s what you want to say to me?” Shigaraki growls out towards you, causing you to squeeze your eyes shut. You desperately wish that none of this is real, that the cruel events unfolding before your very eyes are all but a dream. 

From all the time that you had spent with Shigaraki, you had grown accustomed to his mannerisms. Being able to pick up on every little nuance of his words, to what every twitch of his muscles meant. But now, you feel incapable of doing just that. Is it bitterness hidden in his words? Disappointment, frustration? Something tells you that it’s all of that, and more. 

“Whatever. I’ll humor you with the answer. Imagine my surprise, I get a phone call from Toga. I was barely able to understand her at first, her voice was so frantic and excited,” Shigaraki pauses for a moment, recalling the prior events. “Eventually, she manages to explain that ‘big sis [First]’ is back. And well… here we are.” 

At first you didn’t pick up on it, but there’s a slight tremble in Shigaraki’s voice. You realize now how difficult he’s trying to hold himself together, feeling his body shaking against your own. Each of his words come out more forced than the last, almost as if a lump was forming in his throat. 

Unable to conjure up a response fast enough, you hear Shigaraki’s labored breathing growing more unsteady.

“Well? Say something! Don’t just sit there.” 

All false impressions of control start to slip through his fingers, true emotions no longer being able to hide. Cracks beneath the surface reveal to you just how much pain he is in, the mere thought enough to tug on your own battered heartstrings even more. You open your mouth, wondering if there’s anything you can say to diffuse the situation. 

He clings to you tighter.

“Shigaraki… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” you sniffle, small sobs unable to be suppressed any longer. His muscles tense at the sound of you crying, a battle within ensuing. “I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t take the violence, t-the constant living in fear! I don’t know, I don’t know…” 

Much to your surprise, a rough hand wipes away the tears leaving your dampened eyes. Jaw agape, you feel deft fingers working hard to dry your skin. You remember long ago how he told you once that he hated seeing you cry, that it made him unsure of what to do.

Hiccuping, you feel your lip tremble at your next question. “Are you going to kill me too now?” 

“I don’t know, probably not. Just… just stop crying already.”

Shaking your head, you know the waterworks won’t be stopping anytime soon. Now it was your turn to take Shigaraki by surprise, stuffing your head against his chest to muffle your own cries. He subconsciously moves his fingers to make sure they don’t all touch you at once, and you feel how tense he becomes at your unexpected touch.

Eventually, he places a tentative few digits against your back, awkwardly attempting to soothe you. It all brings you to the pinnacle of your emotions, unable to hold back your full fledged sobs any longer. Gripping onto the fabric of his hoodie, you take in his familiar scent. Shigaraki begins gnawing on his lip, having not expected his confrontation to go like this. 

He eventually returns your serpent tight hug, placing his head into the crook of your neck.

“Don’t think you’re getting off easy,” Shigaraki finally grumbles against your skin, his own emotions too unsteady to even understand. “I’m not ever letting you out of my sight again.”

#shigaraki tomura #tomura shigaraki #shigaraki tomura imagine #tomura shigaraki x reader #tomura shigaraki imagine #my hero academia #my hero academia imagine #yandere my hero academia #yandere #yandere x you #yandere x reader #bnha #bnha imagines #bnha imagine #bnha x reader #yandere bnha #my stuff #commissions

[raviliuz]

"Here comes the sun" Blaise Zabini x Theodore Nott

Muggle, retro au

@lifesucksandiwanttobeamarauder I finally translate that fanfiction, I hope you like it 🥺

The dark-skinned boy has tried to sit still from three hours already. It is incredibly hard for him, because of his amazing hyperactivity. In all honesty, sitting here as a model doesn't count to his dreams or favourites activities but he couldn't deny to Theodore's asks.

Just because of that — his bloody weakness for the older boy — he must stick up there and pose to Theodore's new painting. Blaise perfectly knows that person on that work of art won't be even similar to him. But it will be beautiful, perfect as everything that has been made by gifted hands of Theodore Nott.

There's music, playing quietly at the background, played on a gramophone, restored by Blaise himself. He gifted it to his friend as a birthday present two years ago on an incredibly warm and short night, 22th of June.

He has so many memories with that slight, passionate boy.

"Theo," he says suddenly, breaking the silence. He sounds like a dissatisfied kitten and when he doesn't notice any reaction, he repeats meowing "Theo, I'm bored."

The other boy finally pays his attention to Blaise, not his reflection on painting, which is created on a canvas (too small in Theo's opinion).

"Blaise, you really can't stand it for a while more?" Theodore asks and there is a nuance of desperation and melancholy in his voice, "I want to end it."

And Blaise has already known, he loses again. He won't be able to deny his friend the pleasure that results from looking at the painting — finished, after hours of working.

"I'll stand it, Theo" he sighs and in his mind adds 'always for you'. At this moment all he can do is begging and praying that Theodore is not able to read minds, just like some characters in their favourites comics.

"Nah, Blaise" slight boy says suddenly and leaves his paint palette and set of brushes on the cupboard, promising himself that he will wash it carefully within a few minutes when paints won't be already dry "I know you don't want to."

"It's not like that" Zabini starts to explaining himself chaotically because he doesn't want hurt Theodore's feelings, "I love watching your painting and you while you're painting. And I love that you have a passion and you're so talented. I just... It's May Day and we are sitting in your room..."

"It's alright, Blaise" Theodore interrupts his with the most beautiful, in Zabini's opinion, smile — that carefree, happy and only a little faraway one.

"We should do something and bring Hope with us to take many photos and place them in our albums with dumb yet cute captions" Theo proposes with a light laugh.

The younger, but taller, better built and more mature, of boys, stands up and brushes off invisible pollen from clothes. He reaches his hand to Theodore to help him stand up.

"Wanna go?" he proposes and even if Theo doesn't know where he agrees without a single question.

It doesn't matter where they go, it will be awesome as always if Blaise is with him.

He catches Hope and puts it on his neck. Theo loves his polaroid camera with whole his heart, even if it isn't the newest and all the better photos were made by Blaise.

Blaise is still holding Theodore's hand in his (definitely larger and rougher), like he doesn't care about rubs of paints in many different colours on Theo's hand and now, also on Blaise's one.

He pulls his friends outside and enters the garage like he is in his own house. Theodore knows what he means without words and grabs his bicycle with a big smile on his slim face.

Meanwhile, Blaise grabs his skateboard, which, only in the form of rebellion against sentiment, he did not give a name. But he perfectly knows that by his skateboard, people could see a different side of his personality, which he doesn't show often — bloody sentimentalist who loves very clichéd books or movies and constantly remembering beautiful moments, and it doesn't matter if that happens a year ago or two hours ago.

The skateboard has its best years far behind its. The picture which was printed on the underside of 'his love' (although, of course, incomparable to that of the boy just standing next to him) has almost completely faded and crumbled, peeling paint seems not so good, to put it mildly, but in Blaise's opinion, it adds the special character and charm to his skateboard. Every scratch and every cooked screw tell a story and Blaise thinks it definitely better than new skateboard — probably glamorous but without its own character.

Blaise isn't similar to Theo, not it that topic. He has never had boxes filled with various craps, which refer to many different events and happenings. He doesn't have special notebooks with tickets, a diary or millions of notes with quick sketches, created under the influence of a sudden flow of wen. He doesn't keep every notes and message on scraps of papers, which have been hand down on lessons, in hope that the teacher wouldn't see that. In first, even having a photo album was strange for Blaise. It shows, that he likes looking back at past and that feeling, which sometimes accompanies you right before falling asleep, when you remind yourself one of those pleasant situations from childhood, isn't foreign for him. It was all he was trying to defend himself against, but only for a time.

For a time when on his way stood that quite frail and nerdy boy. Theodore showed him being sentiment isn't something bad just as singing songs out loud in public places. As compensation, Blaise showed him the magic of comics and all these beautiful, charming in their area, which he discovered while taking a walk daily. Blaise pulled Theodore out of his room and dragged him away from the easel to lead him everywhere he can.

"To our place?" Theodore asks and gets on his a little too small, colourful bike. The seat creaks quietly under his mass but none of the boys pays any attention to this.

"Exactly, now ride, my carriage" Blaise screams and catches up on Theo's seat so the movement of the bicycle can drag him.

"Pff, flax" Nott giggles and Blaise find it as the most sonorous, melodic sound in the whole world.

They ride slowly through all that musty hole, also known as Torquay, or — their home. The road even if it's really old and it remembers when they as children drew chalk on a street, is not in a bad condition. A worse fate befell the road signs — some of them are smeared with sprays, and some are knocked off the ground, due to a car accident or a group of probably drunk but still strong young people.

There are many houses near the road. They are quite poor and definitely not as modern as houses in the capital. At some time, before he started taking daily walks, Blaise dreamed about living in London. Or rather, to be able to tell others that he lives in London. It's another thing which distinguishes him from Theodore — the older boy sees beauty everywhere, in everything and in everybody. Blaise envied him with this skill, for him the world has been boring or just ugly and people have been cruel sometimes.

The sun is warming their backs when they slowly ride on a well-known path. They pass Mrs Shermik, so out of courtesy from four meters away from her, they shout to the old woman joyful 'Good morning'. As they turn into a lane, which is fortunately dry as it hasn't rained much lately, Theo starts humming under his breath.

"Hey Jude, don't make it bad" he looks at his friend (nearly losing control of his bike) and Blaise quickly understands what he means.

Blaise joins to his singing and adds next line:

"Take a sad song and make it better".

Someday Blaise would have worried. He was worried about what people would think, he was afraid someone would hear them. But not now. Now he doesn't care when the words flowing from the depths of memory, and when the song ends, he starts another, definitely his favourite — "Blackbird". Neither of the boys has a perfect voice, singing is definitely not their hidden talent, but that doesn't matter. And that is wonderful, isn't it?

Here Blaise can no longer skate further — the ground is too uneven, even ploughed by the tires of wheelbarrows and carts of people from the neighbouring village. The dark-skinned man rejects Theo's offer to simply get his bike's rack and chooses to run next to the boy. The basketball team and two trainings a week are finally coming in handy — thanks to this, his condition is really good and he doesn't gasp like an old man with asthma after twenty meters run. Theodore, noticing how well his best friend is doing, accelerates, forcing Zabini to run, which he accepts with a groan. Nevertheless, he catches up with the older boy and promises himself that as soon as they get there, he will get his revenge.

After five more minutes, they are a destination of their travel. The place they describe as "their", although they are well aware that they are not the only people who come here, is exactly as they remember it — beautiful.

It was Blaise who discovered them during one of his walks over three years ago. He perfectly remembered how it happened.

That day he was trying to find a rather fast but shallow brook, which he remembered from his childhood. Before Draco's move to London, they told Draco's parents that they were going to the field, but in fact, they went to the brook and walked back and forth on a tree that had fallen over the river. He remembered just as well how Draco's mother, on her way to the store, noticed they were not on the field, prompting a search. When their parents found them by the brook — wet but in unusually good moods, they were already too worried to be upset with them.

After searching for more than an hour (during which he definitely fulfilled the daily, maybe even a week, step norm, but he didn't care) he found a place from his memories, although it was difficult to recognize its. The brook had dried up completely, leaving only a faint riverbed and tree roots washed out of the ground, but the place has definitely retained its charm.

Theo drops the bicycle, leaning it hurriedly against one of the roots, and lays down on the grass, staring at the almost cloudless sky, hidden only by tree branches. Blaise, slightly out of breath, rests his hands on his knees and stays like this for a moment. When his breath normalized he comes closer to Theodore. There is a snap and a Polaroid camera gracefully named Hope spits out a photo in which the image hasn't shown up yet. Theo enthusiastically grabs a small piece of paper and starts waving it so fast that it is about to reach orbital velocity. After a while, the picture clears up the silhouette of a younger boy, who was about to lie down next to his friend. Blaise looks at the photo and asks smiling, even though he already knows the answer:

"For your or my album?"

"Of course mine," Theodore replies quickly, grinning happily, "Why do you need your own photos? They will be much more useful to me."

The dark-skinned boy can't help but messes Theodore's hair in one move of his hand. However, Theo is not annoyed by that, he reacts to it like a cat, moving closer and silently demanding further caresses, which the younger one does willingly.

They are sitting like that (or rather, Blaise is sitting and Theo's half lying on him) till the sunset. There is a flower crown on Blaise's head, made by Theo with field flowers collected by him. And of course, Theodore took a photo of Blaise in his work of art.

It's getting dark. Butterflies, which were flying around them flew away and gave way for beautiful moths and fireflies. Theodore stands up energetically and starts jumping on protruding trees' roots, chasing insects to take a photo of them.

"Theo, please be careful," Blaise says attentively but the only response is 'don't worry' screamed by Nott.

Blaise unwillingly starts remembering his childhood. Times, when he wasn't Theodore's friend and all that connected them, was the same neighbourhood, chalk and short-term relationship of their parents. Then they found that as a stupid and loathsome. Nowadays, at their seventeen's, just as weird. But they weren't friends. After all, Blaise was friends with Draco and the teacher in primary had repeated that it's better to have fewer friends but true friends. So Blaise fraternizes with Malfoy till he moved to London.

It's not that now Blaise finds it as a mistake or holds any grudge with Draco. But nowadays he thinks that it is not good to withdraw from others.

When Draco had left and moved to London, Blaise had thought they now he stayed alone but on that moment, Theodore slowly crept into his life. Nott sat next to Blaise on school basketball pitch and started reminding happy moments from times when Draco lived in Torquey.

And later he showed his painting to Blaise and dark-skinned boy couldn't believe someone his age could do something that beautiful. A week later Blaise sat down with him in the canteen and sometime later also on most of the lessons so he could distract him from learning to read their favourites comics.

Now, Blaise would imagine his life without his always laughing and only sometimes a little faraway friend.

His thoughts are interrupted by a quiet scream.

"Ouch!"

Blaise, worried, stands up imminently and run through Theo. He is curled up in a fetal position between roods of the biggest tree. Zabini hugs him tightly and Theodore accepts that willing, cuddling to his chest while holds back tears.

"Ah, Theo" Blaise whispers, still cuddling the boy in his arms, "I asked you to be careful."

"I'm sorry, Blaise" he answers, sniffing.

"Don't apologize to me, silly" Blaise couldn't stop himself from nuzzling his friend's cheek.

"But you are worrying now and you warned me that I might get hurt..."

"Shhhh" Zabini interrupts him and places his fingers on Theo's mouth to shushes him "I always worrying about you, no matter if you get hurt or not" he admits truthfully and after a few seconds of silence adds "Please, stop crying.

He stops hugging Theodore, although he wants to do it forever. Blaise squats in from of him and gently grabs his friend's head. He wipes away tears, flowing slowly on fairy (although all that time, spends under the sunlight) skin.

He wants to not cry because of sadness or pain, wants him not to have reasons for a cry.

He wants him to be always happy, even if that meant that Blaise wouldn't be on his side.

Wants, wants, wants.

But the world isn't always beautiful, even if Theodore thinks so. Sometimes the world is cruel, ugly or just totally boring. The same about people who live in it.

Do it's really important to find your refuge. A place, a person or a hobby, which will be like an escape from all evils in that world.

Blaise thought that his escape is comics. Reading them has dragged him into the world of superheroes where he could use his imagination and think about meaningless things for hours such as what superpower would he choose (flying, of course). Besides that, the world in comics is just easier. It isn't hard to differentiate who is good and who's bad. Good people fight with bad people, that's all. The Justice League cares about Gotham and saves innocent people from Joker, Deadshot or Darkseid. In the real world, it would be an unsolvable matter with billions different threads and complications so even the best detectives wouldn't be able to decide who is guilty.

Comics world is just easier.

Lately, Blaise has got to understand that the whole beauty in that world is locked in its confusions, problems and ambiguities. Because the world is beautiful, even if sometimes it's cruel or ugly.

And the one who made him understand that is his only real refuge — Theodore Nott.

He is the one who makes reading comics even better.

He is the one with who Blaise could do anything and it would be incredibly good.

He is the one with who Blaise wants to talk about 'good old times' and makes new memories to remember.

He is the one with who Blaise wants to stay forever.

Theodore Nott is the one who Blaise bestow that hot and unique feeling which, no matter what since says, comes from the heart.

And that feeling, now makes him do something, he has been dreaming about for that long. Blaise gently and unsurely grabs the head of the person, who since a year isn't only a friend for him. He delicately raises Theo's head a bit upper to look him straight into his eyes. Their lips touch slowly and gently. Both of them don't feel so confident with what's going on but they will worry about that later. Now, Blaise doesn't have the time and desire to thinks about the consequences. Not now, when he feels the structure of soft lips of his love.

When the dark-skinned boy doesn't notice any objections from the older boy, he let himself do a light, carefully move with his lips. He doesn't want to scared Theodore, knowing how delicate and artsy person he is. He would ever forgive himself hurting Theo.

If he only knew how long Theodore was waiting for it and how much he enjoys that kiss, even if Blaise's lips are rough and chapped.

Blaise gently moves away and hangs his head down, looking at too long grass. He's afraid of seeing Theodore's reaction for what he has done because he's afraid of rejection and ending that important relationship.

However, Theo, likes he doesn't see his friend insecure, giggles lightly and grabs the younger boy cheeks, turning his face to him.

"Oh, finally. How long might I wait?" Theo says with a delightful smile.

"Really. You... Me..." Blaise mutters like he doesn't know what he wants to say.

"Yeah, silly" Theo chucked and hits an end of Blaise's nose with his "You're definitely my favourite person in that universe. And every other, alternative universe too."

Blaise, still can't believe what's happening, hugs his boy and kisses him quickly. The kiss is one hundred per cent cute and totally not sultry. Because feelings as sultry and desire don't fit Theodore, even in an alternative universe where Bruce Wayne become the Devastator instead of Batman. It just does not fit.

"Yeah, and you're my fav person."

They sit in silence for a while, but it's nothing wrong. The silent can be calming and comfortable, it can say more than every word in the world.

The air is getting cooler and owls' chirps become more ominous, so finally, Blaise breaks the silence and says:

"Theo" mentioned boy turns to him and glance at Zabini, "Is your knee still hurting?"

"It's not that bad" Theo shrugs but Blaise quickly understands that it's not good either, "But can you ride the bicycle? I'll drive on its carrier."

"But what with my skateboard?" Blaise asks inconvenience.

"I'll carry it, please" Zabini's only answer is a sigh but not the irritated one. He doesn't know what would Theo had to do to irritate him.

"Alright, but please, be careful."

Blaise raises Theo's bicycle from the ground and helps the boy to climb up to the luggage carrier and then he carefully sits on its seat. Theodore holds Blaise's skateboard (which he has named against his will — Faith) with one hand and the other one is embraced around Blaise's stomach so Theo can stably stay on the carrier. Well, maybe not only because of that.

"To me?" Blaise proposes and slowly leaves their place.

Theodore automatically nods but then he understands that Blaise can't see him so he quickly says 'yes' some times.

Boys are leaving, slowly and without unnecessary haste, but that moment is different than every previous one, they have spent here. Now, they're leaving their place not as just friends.

From Theodore Nott's album:

"4th of May, 1984 —

My favourite day to remember"

#harry potter #slytherin quidditch #bxb #slytherin quidditch team #blaise x theo #blaise zabini #theodore nott #zabini x nott #mrs zabini #muggle au #non magic au #retro #retro au #slytherin #slytherins #slytherin quartet #draco malfoy