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world-of-fire-and-flight · 2 years

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Masterlist

Here’s where you’ll find the links to all of my prompt fills, snippets, and other writings. Happy reading!

World of Fire & Flight masterlist

Drabble Challenge Masterlist

Posted on Tumblr

Sick Forest:

Warnings: attempted murder, almost character death, suicidal intentions, allusion to past suicidal thoughts/intention/tendencies/ideation, blood, violence, murder, attempted murder, minor character death

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Beneath the Ice

Warnings: war, death, drowning

Trick or Treat

Electrifying End

Warnings: attempted murder, injury, electrocution, hospital setting

Part of the BPM universe (another one of my WIPs)

New Threat:

Series Warnings: injury, blood, mild cursing, medical scenario, character self-depreciation, anxiousness, grief; allusions to murder, violence, graphic murder, and character death

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Why You Love Me

Warnings: general talk of injury, healing, passing out

Set before Electrifying End, but not necessarily a prequel or anything, just in the same universe

Part of the BPM universe (another one of my WIPs)

Mirth’s Ebenezer series masterlist

Series Warnings: some violence, rendered unconscious/sedation, technically forced drugging?, robbery, manipulation, hostage situation, swearing, some verbal fighting, intimidation, implied threats, threats, self-worth issues, confidence issues/self-esteem, court proceedings, interrogation

More to Fight For

Warnings: Violence, murder, blood, descriptions of murder and violence

Ice Cream to a Gun Fight

Warnings: off-page character death, manhandling, kidnapping (in a sense?)

Visitation Rights

Warnings: minor violence, language, fluff, about 2.5k words

Circus of Her Mind

Warnings: Major angst, character death, lots of death, emotional trauma, violence, destruction, depictions of battle/battle imagery, quasi-betrayal, graphic realization of character death, grief, medical scenario, injuries

Part 1

Part 2

Love Letters series masterlist

Series Warnings: betrayal, manhandling, violence, physical assault (in the form of hand-to-hand combat) and physical violence, gunshots/gun references/being shot at, threats, dangerous situations, emotional distress, gaslighting, intimidation, kidnapping, restraints, blood, torture (to a degree), manipulation

Better Listener

injury, medical scenario, referenced violence/past violence, reference to past torture, blood reference, stabbing reference, taken hostage, restraints, emergency surgery and medical treatment (so technically it's noncon surgery but it's life or death so....), near death experience, almost dying, threat of torture, implied threats, profanity

The Museum Job

Warnings: (none, except maybe a snarky hero at the expense of Villain's pride) This is mostly a fluff piece

The Lair in the Woods series masterlist

Series Warnings: Nearly freezing to death, unedited, medical scenario, invasive use of healing powers, reference to near-death experience (hypothermia/nearly freezing to death), past medical scenario, recovery, lying/manipulation, fear

Eurydice

Warnings: verbal fight, character death, depiction of passing into the afterlife, violence, stabbing, blood reference, Death (a character) is blunt, grief, reference to war and battle, anger, reference to self-sacrifice, past character death, death reference and discussion, mention of self-sacrifice, begging, humility and feeling dejected, reference to murder/past murder, reference to child death (no child characters were killed in the making of this chapter…I just mentioned that there are children in Death’s realm) Part 1 Part 2

The Problem with Immortality

Warnings: Injury, loss of consciousness, decomposing/deteriorating body, reference to blood, medical scenario, argument, slight betrayal, some swearing

Need A Hand?

Warnings: Warnings: Injury, reference to past physical assault, reference to past violence, medical scenario

Frenemies

Warnings: stress, burn out/over exhaustion

Pink Roses

Warnings: None

FROM MY WEBSITE

The Prisoner

Last Line Tag (Tumblr post)

The Light Keepers

Warnings: zombies, apocalypse, nightmares, character death

Find the Word Tag (comfort, memory, silent, and lightning excerpts)

Last Line Tag (ft. Tumblr's own verkja and cryptidwritings)

Creature of Unknown Origin

Warnings: death, violence, “monsters”, occasional tooth-rotting fluff

Friday Kiss Tag (sneak peek/this is a tumblr link)

Find the Word Game (warrior, wander, writhe, weight excerpts)

Together for the Holidays (a Creature of Unknown Origin story)

#masterlist #prompt fill #amwriting #write freely write passionately #writeblr

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shinysoroka · 3 years

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Prompt: Tony comforting Thor after Jane breaks up with him.

“You wanna talk about it?”

Thor does not react right away. When he does, he looks up slowly, as if waking up from a dream. The cheap, cracked screen in his hand throws an unnatural shade of pale upon his face. It is the only source of light in the spacious living room blanketed fully in thick, evening shadows.

“About what?” he asks.

Tony stops fumbling for an elusive switch as his eyes start to get used to the crepuscular gloom. “The Onlooker is at it again. They staked out you and Jane at the park this morning. Ten minutes later the whole Internet is screaming about how you two broke up.” He pulls out his own phone where an unrolled Twitter thread is capped with an obnoxious-looking headline. “I thought it was the usual tabloid nonsense. Then I found you looking at old pictures in the dark and well… you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure it out.”

Thor lets out a weak, noncommittal smile, reserved for references that flew right over his head. Tony leans against the ebony door-frame with a frown. “Was it that bad?”

Thor shakes his head, clicking off the bright screen. The city lights gradually trickle in as he runs a hand through his hair. “Not at all, it was quite amicable. We might even keep our friendship in the long run. I think.”

Tony lets out a soft chuckle at the thin strand of hope weaving the words together. “Is it because of the Stones?” he asks and gets another vague shrug. “Give the girl a break, sunshine. You have two years of quasi-domestic bliss and then suddenly you tell her you must leave on some magical space quest for God knows how long. I would be a little peeved if I was in her shoes.”

“It’s not just the Stones. She came to meet me with the very same purpose.”

There is no bitterness in his voice, even when his mouth quirks in an ironic smile. For a moment, Tony is stumped until the full picture comes into focus and he breathes a deep, commiserating sigh. “You mean she broke up with you? Not the other way around?”

Thor gives him a hesitant nod before leaning back against the padded leather. “It was a mutual decision,” he says. “We just made it for different reasons. I’ve done nothing but look for the Scepter for the past year, she’s done nothing but work. Even when we share the same planet, life pulls us in opposite directions.”

“That’s me and Pepper most of the time. We still managed to make it work.” Tony drops heavily on the opposite end of the couch taking in the skeptical look of the blue eyes. “Trust me, whatever is going on between you is just a temporary setback. You’ll find those Stones, come back and you crazy kids will fall back into each other’s arms. I’m willing to bet on that.”

“It’s not that simple.” Thor's tone remains level but the ironic smile fades. “She poured her heart and soul into her dissertation. The Einstein-Rozen Bridge is the most important discovery of the century. It might earn her the Nobel Prize someday. But no matter how much attention her work gets, it all circles back to the same thing.”

He pauses, as if at a loss for words which devolve into a dejected laugh. Confusion becomes utter irritation as Tony stitches together the last pieces of the puzzle and drags a tired hand over his face. “I see,” he grumbles. “Thor Odinson, everyone’s favorite alien curiosity. She could develop an immortality elixir tomorrow and all everyone would talk about is how cute she looks as your girlfriend.”

Thor nods as their eyes meet in the distant neon glow. “I cannot imagine how much frustration that brings. And how long it would take to become resentment. I think that is why she decided to walk away. So that we wouldn’t have to find out.”

A string of past experiences tell Tony the answer is close to three years. “Ah, Christ,” he mutters and reaches out to clasp Thor’s shoulder. “You know it’s not your fault, right? You landed on a planet with highly questionable standards.”

“It still does not feel right. This is the second time my shadow has grown too vast for those around me. I believe you would call that a pattern.”

“Jane is not your brother, sunshine. That girl is smart enough to see the bigger picture.” Tony stretches his arms, sending cracks down his spine, and springs back to his feet. “Come on, get your coat! I am not letting you spend your last night on Earth sulking in a corner.”

He watches doubt flicker across the blue eyes. “I appreciate the offer, Stark, but I am not in the mood for revels. Music and liquor are the last things on my mind.”

“Who said anything about revels?” Tony throws a heavy winter jacket over his shoulders and rummages inside its pockets. “There’s this dingy cinema in Brooklyn that runs marathons every Thursday and no one has stopped them yet.” He grins, fishing out a crumpled, glossy brochure where two cloaked figures cross glowing swords. “Before you part ways with humanity, you should get to know the greatest gift it has to offer. Star Wars.”

#thor #thor odinson #tony stark

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xiyao-feels · 3 years

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Nie//yao (MDZS)

So NMJ/JGY is actually getting two versions, because my read on them is wildly different for MDZS vs CQL.

In MDZS I...don't ship it? I mean, there just doesn't seem to be to be anything there at all of a romantic or sexual nature. It's not that they don't care about each other, they clearly do, but it's in a way that is...NMJ as substitute father, JGY as substitute brother, and heavily, heavily inflected by their (current and then former) relationship as superior and subordinate.

Putting this behind a cut because a) it's me explaining at breath length with quotes why I don't think they have a romantic or sexual relationship and I don't want people to have to see that unless they want and b) accordingly it is REALLY LONG and I also don't want to clutter people's dashes, so.

Actually backing up a step, I don't see MDZS NMJ as being attracted to anyone, that's not really specific to JGY. I tend to read him as aspec, tbh. So theoretically he could have romantic feelings about JGY without being attracted to him—I think he may have some quasi-romantic feelings for LXC, though I don't think he conceptualizes it that way—but... honestly, it's not really clear to me that he even likes JGY as a person.

I'm not saying he doesn't like JGY! He clearly does, at least before MY tricks him and flees. But it doesn't seem to have anything to do with MY's personality, as opposed to like—MY being really competent and conducting himself well.

Some quotes about what exactly NMJ values about JGY:

'Nie MingJue interrupted him, “I promoted you not because I wanted you to give back anything out of gratitude. I simply thought that you should stay in this position, since you are capable enough and your conduct is to my liking. If you really want to pay me back, just kill a few more of those Wen-dogs on the battlefield!”'

'After [Meng Yao] left [for Langya], Nie MingJue switched to another deputy. Wei WuXian, however, felt that the new one was always a few beats slower. Meng Yao was an unusually clever talent. He could understand what wasn’t said, and perform to the best with the simplest orders. He was efficient and never slacked. Anyone used to him wouldn’t be able to refrain from comparing him with others.'

'Nie MingJue was never close to people. He rarely opened up to anyone. Though he finally managed to obtain a competent, trustworthy subordinate, whose character and capabilities he approved, he found that the subordinate’s true colors were nothing like what he had thought they were. It was only natural that his reaction was so extreme.'

'Wei WuXian had once found it strange as well. Ever since Meng Yao betrayed the QingheNie Sect, the relationship between Nie MingJue and him hadn’t been the same as before. Then why did they later become sworn brothers? From his observations, aside from how Lan XiChen brought it up, having always hoped that the two would reconcile, the most important factor was probably the gratitude of saving his life and writing the letters. To be precise, in his past battles, he had more-or-less depended on the information that Meng Yao sent over through Lan XiChen. He still thought that Jin GuangYao was a talented person whom one would rarely come upon, and intended on leading him back onto the right path. However, Jin GuangYao wasn’t his subordinate anymore. Only after they became sworn brothers would he have the status and the position to urge Jin GuangYao, like how he disciplined his younger brother, Nie HuaiSang.'

Jin GuangYao spoke with dejection, “But, Brother, didn’t you hear what he said in the oath? Every sentence meant something more. ‘Face a thousand accusing fingers, be torn from limb to limb’—this was clearly a warning for me. I… I’ve never heard of such an oath before.”

Lan XiChen replied in a gentle voice, “He said ‘if one were to think otherwise’. Do you think otherwise? If not, then why should you worry over it so much?"

Jin GuangYao, “I don’t, but Brother has already decided that I do, so what can I do?”

Lan XiChen, “He has always cherished your talent, hoping that you would choose the right path.”

You might notice a recurring theme here: there's a lot of focus JGY's competence and conduct. But anything about who JGY is as a person? Not so much.

They clearly had a good superior/subordinate relationship going on, albeit one in which NMJ was missing a lot of context (see just behave well and show people up, plus the you're missing a solid foundation thing). But it does seem to be basically professional. WWX describes them as conversing "peaceably, even impressively" in contrast to "his future self, always being scolded by Nie MingJue" and "those jokes of how 'LianFang-Zun fled whenever he heard that ChiFeng-Zun arrived,'" and.... that's kind of it. The closest we get to them as friends is them talking together with LXC after NMJ tells MY he will give him a letter of recommendation and send him to his father; as WWX describes it, "The three chatted back and forth, at times serious, yet at times light. The conversation was much more relaxed than when they had been in the living room. Listening to their chatter, Wei WuXian often wanted to get a word in as well, yet he was unable to do so."

That's definitely not nothing! But it's also the most we ever get, only shows up the once, and is explicitly contrasted with their conversation from earlier. Moreover, I'm pretty sure LXC's presence is a necessary part of things; NMJ tends to respond differently to LXC than to other people (even just earlier in this chapter, we're told that while "Nie MingJue had never been one for humour," "in front of Lan XiChen his expression eased"), and WWX explicitly notes LXC's conversation skills in the context of this conversation: "At this point in time, their relationship really isn't bad. Zewu-Jun is actually quite good at holding conversations, so why is Lan Zhan so bad at it?"

In addition, I'd say that looking at the early part of that conversation is quite telling; while LXC and MY are sitting together as equals, MY stand up at once the moment NMJ interrupts, and doesn't sit even after NMJ tells him to do so (I think he probably does take a seat at some point, but the narrative doesn't actually tell us when). Moreover, MY seems to be worried that NMJ will be offended by a possible lack of gratitude on MY's part ("Sect Leader Nie, if you heard everything, then you should've also heard me say that..."), and the only objection he expresses to leaving is precisely that he owes NMJ a debt of gratitude, not anything to do with, like, missing him. To me all the evidence suggests that while they had a close relationship, it was not a /personal/ relationship, but fundamentally one of superior and subordinate.

(For a close read of the scene where NMJ, LXC and MY are talking together, I highly recommend @confusion-and-more's post here)

Moving on, let's look at after JGY becomes JGY. They don't seem to particularly spend time together with each other, certainly not for the sake of it. There's a brief moment at the Flower Banquet where NMJ asks JGY why he's wasting his time with XY (who has not at this point in time committed his crime, he just has a reputation), but after JGY makes his excuse and scurries away, NMJ turns away and doesn't seem to seek him out or even pay him any particular attention for the rest of the scene; he only shows up once more, and that's following WWX. (And although JGY-as-replacement-NHS would be a post all on its own, I do think it's interesting to note that the exchange about XY is immediately followed by LXC and LWJ coming over, described in a way that highlights both their impressiveness and their status at brothers—their Twin Jade-ness, one might say.) During the guqin scene, NMJ only speaks once, and it's to address LXC—to protest the inappropriateness of LXC leaking exclusive Lan techniques. When JGY shows up to play the guqin for him the first time, NMJ asks JGY "what did you come here for," which suggests that NMJ is not generally expecting JGY to come by without a specific, concrete reason. The closest they ever seem to get after JGY becomes JGY is during these guqin-playing sessions, and as WWX describes it, "when playing the guqin, the way that the two conversed and got along even had a hint of the peace they had before they fell out"—which is certainly better than there being no peace at all, but which I think suggests there's still at least some tension, given that it's only a "hint."

Now, NMJ certainly cares about JGY, both in the sense of desiring his well-being, at first, and absolutely in the sense of being emotionally invested in him—even after his death, as a fierce corpse his only desire is to kill Jin Guangyao. But while they had a close superior-subordinate relationship—certainly NMJ seems to have felt close to MY—at no point was it a close personal relationship, and I don't think that NMJ even liked JGY (or MY, I'm using the name expansively) as a person, let alone was in love with him.

But mostly so far I've been focusing in NMJ's feelings. What about JGY? Is /he/ in love with NMJ?

Once again, I just don't read him that way. This isn't to say he didn't care for NMJ—he absolutely did! He goes to quite significant lengths to save his life from WRH in the Sun Palace, including quite a lot of risk to MY himself—I analyze that in a lot more depth in the first part of my post here, if you're interested, though I will also note now that he specifically sent for LXC to help NMJ. (You'll have to scroll down some; I'm responding to someone else's post.) Afterwards, he kneels to NMJ and apologizes, I think sincerely, for hurting him and for invoking his pain about his father's death. He certainly conceives of himself as owing a debt of gratitude to NMJ for recognizing him, and he's so overcome when NMJ offers to send him to his father with a letter of recommendation, saying that he didn't promote MY so that MY would owe him, that he quite remarkably can't even find words. NMJ meant a lot to him, and so did NMJ's not defining him in terms of his birth—until he did, of course, at the stairs kick incident. But as far as I can tell, there's nothing to suggest he has /romantic feelings/ for NMJ, and frankly—how can I put this—it does not at all surprise me that JGY isn't in love with someone with a violent temper who is noted at least twice to react to people explaining themselves when he is angry with even more anger, and that's even without the thing where he nearly killed JGY on multiple occasions and called him the son of a prostitute.

No, I think JGY's emotional journey with NMJ goes through three stages: first, he's deeply grateful to him and respects him a great deal, although he's also aware of NMJ's lack of awareness of certain social realities (see: the teacup scene, NMJ yelling at the other Nie cultivators about their treatment of MY and telling MY not to worry as long as his conduct is upright); second, after Sun Palace, still gratitude and respect but also a mounting frustration with his lack of awareness of the implications of JGY's social position and his hypocrisy re: acceptable violence; finally, after the stairs kick when NMJ kicks him down the stairs, almost kills him, and tells him what else can be expected from the son of a prostitute, he is completely done with NMJ, but is still very much scared of him. The gratitude, I've discussed; the frustration, I think is fairly obvious in the speech he gives back to NMJ at the stairs. But I think the fear is often undervalued, so I'm going to pull a bunch of quotes again:

Meng Yao shrunk immediately after his previous outburst. Watching Baxia slash toward him, he sprinted off at once, scared lifeless. Of the two, one striked with madness and the other fled with madness. Both staggered, still soaked in blood. In such amusing circumstances, as Wei WuXian chopped at the future Chief Cultivator, in his heart he split his sides laughing. He thought that if not for how Nie MingJue was under heavy injuries and lacked spiritual power, Meng Yao would probably have been dead already.

Baxia’s strikes were so menacing that Shuoyue had to unsheath. Lan XiChen stopped him, half to support his figure and half to block his attacks, “MingJue-xiong, calm down! Why bother?”

Nie MingJue, “Why don’t you ask what he did?!”

Lan XiChen turned around to look at Meng Yao, his face was full of terror. He stammered as if he didn’t dare speak.

Nie MingJue remained silent, while Baxia and Shuoyue continued. Meng Yao took a glimpse at the glares from the clashes of the saber and the sword, his gaze full of fear. After a while, however, he still took a step forward. He kneeled to Nie MingJue.

A moment later, Nie MingJue still raised his saber. Lan XiChen, “MingJue-xiong!”

Meng Yao shut his eyes. Lan XiChen also tightened his grip on Shuoyue, “Please excuse…”

Before he could finish his sentence, the silver light of the blade slashed down violently, onto a boulder on the side.

Meng Yao flinched from the thunder of the boulder splitting apart. Looking over, he saw that it had been sliced into two halves, from the top to the bottom.

Jin GuangYao nodded. Xue Yang had been infamous ever since he was young. Wei WuXian clearly felt Nie MingJue’s brows knit even tighter. He spoke, “Why are you wasting your time with such a person?”

Jin GuangYao, “The LanlingJin Sect recruited him.”

He didn’t dare to protest any further. Excuse being that he needed to care for the guests, he scurried to the other side.

[part of his speech to NMJ at the stairs] You think that I should be afraid of nothing? Well I'm afraid of everything, even other people!

Within the temple, three people called Nie MingJue’s corpse ‘Brother’ but the three tones were drastically different. Jin GuangYao’s face was full of a drowning fear. His entire body began to shiver. No matter dead or alive, the person Jin GuangYao was most scared of was none but this sworn brother of his whose temper tolerated no evil. As his body shivered, his hands shivered as well, and the bloody guqin string he clutched tightly in his hand also began to shiver.

Clenching his teeth, Jin GuangYao struck a few acupoints of his arm. Amidst the dizziness that came from a loss of blood, he suddenly saw Nie MingJue walk a step towards him, his eyes locked on him. He was immediately half-dead with fear.

Collapsed beside Lan XiChen, Jin GuangYao saw this scene as well. Whether because the bleeding and the pain intensified at his arm and stomach or from some other reason, the glisten of tears could be seen in his eyes. But before he had a chance to catch his breath or lick his wounds, Nie MingJue turned around after he pulled his fist back and stared hungrily in his direction.

The harsh, stern expression on his rigid face held a sense of judgement that was no different from before he died. Even his tears had been scared away as Jin GuangYao turned to Lan XiChen for help, his voice trembling, “Brother…”

I think the stuff with, you know, handling NMJ's fierce corpse and hanging onto his head is often viewed as evidence of JGY's continued emotional investment in NMJ, but... I don't really think so? First of all, NMJ's fierce corpse is completely obsessed with killing JGY. I'll spare you another round of quotes on that because this is already ridiculously long and because it's not at all subtle—it's all over the temple chapters, take a look! And second of all—well, there's ways of getting information from a corpse. In this case, NMJ's resentful energy is so strong that without the protection of his body, papernan WWX is actually sucked into NMJ's memories against his will! Sure, maybe no one would risk it, and maybe no one who risked it would survive, but especially given that NMJ's fierce corpse is completely obsessed with killing JGY, that's a heck of a risk to take. And look at the description of the protections around NMJ's head:

Suddenly, Wei WuXian noticed that one of the shelves were blocked by a curtain. The curtain was covered in sinister, blood-red runes. It was a talisman of forbiddance, one of extreme power.

Jin GuangYao walked over and lifted the curtain.

For a split second, Wei WuXian thought that he had been exposed. After the faint firelight made its way through the curtain, he found that he was enveloped in a shadow. A circular object just happened to be in front of him.

Jin GuangYao stood still, as though he was staring into the eyes of whatever was inside this shelf.

After a moment, he spoke, “Were you the one looking at me?"

Of course, there couldn’t be any response. He was silent for a while, then let down the curtain.

Wei WuXian quietly attached himself to the object. Cold and hard, it seemed to be a helmet. He then turned to the front. As he had expected, he saw a pallid face. The one who sealed the head wanted it to see nothing, hear nothing, speak nothing, and so incantations had been crowded onto the waxen skin. The eyes, the ears, and the mouth were all sealed tightly shut.

There's containment, it's suppressed to all hell and back, and JGY quite justifiably expects it to be murderously obsessed with him, but to me it doesn't suggest a reciprocal obsession—just more fear.

I'll also note that as a strategy for containing the information about his own involvement it's a very successful operation! It failed in the end /eventually/, but the failure needed:

someone who could successfully break into his private treasure room and escape without being caught

who could also perform Empathy or a similar tecnnique on NMJ's head and survive it

who could successfully recreate from memory the altered Empathy song

whom LXC would be willing to listen to

That's a heck of a tall order!

As to being done with NMJ after the stairs, well, listen to what he says to LXC:

[...]

Jin GuangYao, “It’s not that I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong, but that sometimes I really can’t help. Nowadays, I have it bad no matter which side I’m on. I have to ensure that I’m on everyone’s good sides. I wouldn’t care if it were someone else, but have I mistreated our eldest brother in any way? Brother, you heard as well. What did he call me?”

[...]

Jin GuangYao was almost sobbing, “If he could say such a thing when he was angry, then just how does he think of me on a daily basis? Is it that because I couldn’t choose my background, because my mother couldn’t choose her fate, I’ll have to be humiliated by others throughout my whole life? If so, then how is Brother different from the people who look down on me? No matter what I do, in the end, just a sentence and I’m ‘the son of a prostitute’.”

And then of course there's what he says to LXC, in his speech to him at the end: "You, on the other hand, ZeWu-Jun, Sect Leader Lan, are as intolerant of me as Nie MingJue—you refuse to spare me even a single breath of life!"

So—wow, this got very long—I don't ship them, and although I think they have very much mattered emotionally to each other, I don't really see them as ever having been in love with or attracted to each other.

A couple of end notes:

In MDZS, NMJ isn't the first (non-MS) person who recognizes MY's worth, although he is the first person to promote him; by the time NMJ promotes MY MY has already met, rescued, and exchanged intimate confidences with LXC, who respects him greatly and thinks he is highly talented (see again the conversation in Hejian which NMJ overhears/eavedrops on).

I've seen people talk about them not understanding each other, but while NMJ certainly doesn't understand JGY, it's not at all obvious that the reverse is true; he generally seems to understand him pretty well. I think he has two surprises overall: first, that he wasn't expecting NMJ to say he didn't promote MY so MY would owe him, and volunteer to send him to his father with a letter of recommendation—and second, he wasn't expecting NMJ, who for all his flaws did seem to ignore JGY's background in good ways as well as bad, to call him the son of a prostitute.

I definitely don't read the coffin at the end as romantic. Or I mean, uh, there's the romance of an obsessive stalker-murderer finally getting his victim, and that's not nothing (unironically; look, I'm a Hannibal fan), but I don't think it's usually what people mean. This is a shitty end for JGY, part of how thoroughly he loses and is destroyed. I think to some extent it might be that he doesn't want LXC to be the one who killed him, and to some extent it's an act of defiance—now that he has nothing to lose, not even his life, he's going to go out fighting. I would expand on this but this post is ridiculously long and I have way too many quotes, maybe I'll do it in a separate post later on—but if you look at the description of it in the text, plus the subsequent description of it in the coffin...yeah. JGY didn't want to die, he didn't want to be engaged in a mutually destructive thing with NMJ; he wanted to leave NMJ behind in the past, and move on. It's not, for him any kind of fulfillment, is my read.

All quotes are taken from the Exiled Rebels translation: ch 48-50 for everything about NMJ and JGY's past relationship, ch. 47 for the description of JGY's containment measures for NMJ's head, and ch. 106-108 for the quotes about JGY's fear of NMJ's fierce corpse. The description of JGY going into the coffin is at the end of 108 if you want to have a look, and there's more in 109 and 110 about the difficulty of sealing NMJ's fierce corpse/its power and violence.

#ship meme #ship negativity #this is so goddamn long #how many quotes can I fit in one post? dear god #also there's no way the coffin is actually staying shut for 100 years see ch. 113 #also I didn't want to rely on material that isn't in the final text but if you do look at the scene of JGY cutting NMJ's head off #the same theme of NMJ's fierce corpse's murderous obsession + JGY's fear are very much there #also I'm not sure I'd call it a notp exactly? like obviously I don't see it but there are versions of it I can kind of enjoy #but I figured I was being well by all accounts it doesn't make sense enough that I wanted to circle it as like. a warning XP #we can't change places #anger burned in his heart #more than one tag could contain #long meta

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tobiasdrake · 4 years

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Quasimodo and Esmerelda

“Quasimodo should have gotten the girl in the end,” says many bad takes on Disney’s Hunchback rendition. “Quasi got screwed!”

Uh. Yeah. That’s the point. I mean, not that he got screwed, that’s just romantic entitlement speaking. I mean the unreciprocated affection is the point. It’s common in writing for the villain to serve as a dark parallel to the hero, demonstrating what they might have become if they’d taken the wrong road in life. Let me explain.

Scar, for instance, is the living fulfillment of Simba’s establishing character song, “I Just Can’t Wait to be King”. Throughout that song, Simba demonstrates a shallow understanding of leadership, wherein he gets to have everything, everyone has to respect him, but he has no responsibilities to fulfill. He just gets to lay about being awesome while everyone loves him.

This is literally a child’s comprehension of what it means to rule, and Scar lives that comprehension when he steals Mufasa’s throne. Scar is everything that Simba, with his childhood sense of entitlement and narcissism, thought he wanted to be. Scar is everything that Mufasa worked very hard to keep Simba from growing up to be, in fact.

And although Simba does spend many of his years living that responsibility-free life under the bad advisement of Timon and Pumbaa, once the crushing weight of responsibility finds him and his father reminds him of what that means, Simba returns not just physically but emotionally so that he can become the kind of successor to Mufasa that both he and Scar had failed to be up to that point.

Scar is the physical embodiment of Simba’s entitlement and egotism, which must be defeated by responsibility and compassion in order for Simba to truly become a great ruler.

Circling back to the Hunchback, Quasimodo has the same sort of relationship with Frollo. What Frollo shares with Quasimodo in the beginning is repression and isolation, culminating in a strong desire for the sexy lady at the festival.

Where Quasi is isolated by Frollo, Frollo too is isolated by Frollo. Frollo cages himself in a cathedral with bricks made of disdain and contempt for humanity, particularly the Romani, but he is only marginally better to people that he doesn’t consider to be ethnically unsavory. Quasi is physically trapped high above the people, while Frollo elevates himself to a similar height so that he can look down on the people beneath his feet.

What does this have to do with “getting the girl”? Well, remember what I said about the villain showing what the hero may have become had he taken a different path? Frollo super wants to bang Esmerelda, and he expresses this desire through domineering malice.

From that moment forward, everything for Frollo is about her specifically. His malice towards the Romani is business as usual, but he’s specifically after Esmerelda. He wants to bang her so much that he actively despises her, accusing her and blaming her for his attraction to her. Which is some solid political commentary on Toxic Masculinity, right there. To Frollo, actual dialogue, “She will be mine or she will burn.” He wants her either dead or in his bed, and will accept nothing else.

Quasimodo also super wants to bang Esmerelda. And like Frollo, Quasi has to deal with the idea that a woman he desires isn’t actually into him in that way. Quasi and Frollo both run headfirst into the brick wall of Esmerelda’s consent, and Quasi too becomes bitter and dejected because of it. He refuses to help the Romani if he can’t hook up with Esmerelda. “She already has her knight in shining armor and it’s not me!”

In this moment, like Frollo, Quasi measures the worth of Esmerelda’s existence on whether or not she’s willing to make his penis happy.

But that’s where Quasi, like Simba, takes the better road. In fact, Disney took great care with this moment to have Quasi himself make the choice to go. He doesn’t say anything. The stupid intrusive Gargoyles don’t even say anything. Laverne just hands him his coat and Quasi consigns himself to go, with nothing but the words, “I must be out of my mind,” to explain his change of mind.

Because Quasi knows that measuring Esmerelda’s existence on whether or not she’s willing to make his penis happy is wrong. He became Frollo in that regard just for a moment because he was angry, and because the actual Frollo had just shown up and scared the shit out of him. It’s easy to be Frollo. It’s easy to hate women for not having sex with you. Far easier to hide from women that you like who don’t reciprocate that particular affection than it is to be their friend and weather that desire inside of yourself.

But that’s a terrible way to live. From the mere act of dabbling in being Claude Frollo, Patron Saint of Incels, Quasi convinces himself that he doesn’t want to be that guy. He wants to be the guy that makes correct decisions regardless of whether or not there’s a sexy Moral Dessert at the end, and who forms healthy friendships with women regardless of whether or not he wants to bang them.

How they respectively respond to their affections being unreciprocated is what makes Quasimodo the hero of the piece and Frollo the villain.

I mean, that and the Romani genocide. Quasi isn’t about that, though he is briefly willing to enable it through inaction when he’s mad at Esmerelda for liking Phoebus. But the point is, Esmerelda not hooking up with Quasi isn’t a bug. It’s a feature.

#the hunchback of notre dame #disney #quasimodo #frollo #esmerelda #simba #scar

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animefan-overran · 4 years

Text

Pokecafe (Rocketshipping)

****PART TWO**** (RATING: CUTE/FLUFF)

“C’mon everyone, move faster!” Bonnie demanded leading the way to the kitchen. She was so excited to get a tour of Cafe Le Ha, she could hardly contain herself.

“Yeah, we’re coming,” Clemont huffed, annoyed at his sister’s impatience, trying to keep up with her. Ash and Serena were trailing behind as well, they’ve never seen Bonnie walk so fast in their life.

“Finally,” Bonnie breathed, making it to the kitchen door. Placing her hand on it, she started to push it open.

“Bonnie, you have no idea if they’re even ready for us to come back yet!” Clemont lightly scolded as he caught up with her.

“But they’re expecting us, so we should be fine,” Bonnie reasoned.

Opening the door to the kitchen, Bonnie’s eyes and mouth immediately widened. She couldn’t believe that she got to have a tour of this place. She instantly took notice of a giant island that was used for chopping and preparing food smack dab in the center of the room. To her left, Bonnie saw a beautiful clear double door fridge that boasted the most delicious looking ingredients. Next to the fridge were three giant ovens, each baking it’s own unique treat.

“Wow, this place is so cool,” Bonnie gasped as the rest of her friends caught up with her.

Jessie was over by the island cutting some Pecha berries trying her best to act normal. Removing herself from her present task, she quickly looked up and saw the kids. “Why hello, I hope you all enjoyed your meal. Now you get to see where it all comes together,” Jessie held her hands out to gesture the kitchen.

“Well we’re excited to be here,” Serena said.

“Yes, well why don’t we start off with meeting the head chef?” Jessie asked as she walked over to a figure huddled over by the stove, stirring what seemed to be a tomato bisque.

The chef turned around only to reveal that it was in fact a Wobbuffet standing on a ladder.

“Wobbuffet!” Wobbuffett waved.

The quartet gasped in disbelief. How could a pokemon be such a good cook?

“Wow, I’m interested to know how you guys even understand him when he gives out orders,” Clemont said in the most curious manor.

Jessie smiled Perfect she thought everything is going according to plan

“Well, I’m gonna actually let you guys in on a little secret,” she started “You see my uncle is an inventor. He’s always coming out with a new gadget every couple of weeks, and sometimes he asks me to test them out.”

All of a sudden, James made his way out of a back room connected to the kitchen, wheeling out a giant box like contraption.

“You see, Wobbuffet has certain regular commands that we don’t need a translator, but when there’s something special that he wants us to do, he enters the box, and voila! It translates what he says for us!” Jessie exclaimed. “Wobbuffet, would you be so kind as to show our guests?”

Without wasting any time, Wobbuffet stepped into the box, and started to speak.

“Welcome to Cafe Le Ha’s kitchen. We are so honored to have you here!” a semi electronic sounding voice sounded from some speakers that were attached to the contraption. Little did the kids know that this was no invention at all, but instead a dazzled up box with a secret compartment for Meowth to hide in, so he could translate everything Wobuffet was saying.

“Wow, science is so amazing!” Ash cheered. “I wish we had something like that to talk to our pokemon with!”

“I was just about to say that too,” Clemont agreed. “This truly is a scientific breakthrough! I would love to meet your uncle someday, as I myself am a fellow inventor.” Clemont boasted as he pushed his glasses firmer on his nose.

“Yes of course,” Jessie nodded “I can go get his contact information now actually!” and with that she walked out of the kitchen. She could not believe that this plan was working out so perfectly. Those twerps will believe anything she thought as she marveled at her genius for coming up with and thinking out everything. Just one more part needs to work out, and Pikachu will be ours!

When Jessie left the kitchen, it was time for James to enact the final part of their plan.

“Well, we’ve been testing this contraption out for a couple of days,” he exclaimed “Why don’t you try it out on your pokemon?” he offered pointing to Ash’s Pikachu “What about starting with that Pikachu of yours? He looks like he has a lot to tell you.”

Ash looked at his Pikachu “What do you say bud, do you want to try it out?”

Pikachu’s face spraked up. “Pika pi” the yellow mouse squealed as he jumped off of Ash’s shoulder and into the translator. As soon as the door closed, a locking sound was instantly heard, which sent the kids into confusion.

“Um, why did the door just lock?” Serena asked, starting to get a little scared for Pikachu.

“Oh, that’s because I pressed this button,” James said bluntly as he showed the kids a remote that he had been holding in his pocket.

“Wait, something’s going on here!” Ash started to shout a little “I want Pikachu out of that box now!”

With those words, Jessie came running back into the kitchen just in time for the getaway “I’m afraid we can’t do that twerp! Because we want your Pikachu” she couldn’t contain her excitement any longer “So you can prepare for trouble!” Jessie said.

James smiled, and pressed a second button on the remote that was responsible for controlling the tiles in the floor. Instantly, it separated in two only to reveal the famous Team Rocket hot air balloon, which scooped up Team Rocket and the translator, and started to float away.

“Hm, and make it double,” James chimed in. By now Jessie and James had ridden themselves of their disguises, and Ash and his friends were no longer oblivious to the situation at hand.

“Team Rocket!” Serena shouted

“We should have known it was you guys! Give Pikachu back!” Ash broke out into a full sprint to catch up with them.

“No can do, twerp! We don’t willingly give things back,” Jessie shook her head.

“Yeah,” Meowth added coming out of the translator, “Besides, when we give this Pikachu to the boss,” James stepped in to finish the sentence “We’re gonna finally get that big fat bonus that we rightfully deserve,”

“We’re gonna be rich!” The trio sang in unison.

Ash finally caught up with the balloon, and was quick to call out Froakie and Fletchinder.

“Ok guys listen up. Fletchinder, I need you to take Froakie and sneak up to that balloon. Froakie, when you get up there, use your best cut attack to pop it. When you guys come down, grab the translator from the balloon. Pikachu is in there” Ash commanded.

Within seconds his pokemon were up in the sky, putting the plan into action. Ash untensed at their perfect execution, putting a giant gash in Team Rocket’s air balloon, and retrieving Pikachu, with little hassle.

However, where one group of people were relieved, another grew more frustrated.

“Ugh, why don’t we ever take into account that twerp’s other pokemon!” Jessie sighed.

James shook his head “It’s ok, we’ll get em next time, but until then,”

“We’re blasting off again!” Team Rocket shouted as they went flying away.

************

“Butt-er-free!” Jessie woke up to the pokemon munching on a sitrus berry. She looked around to find herself in the middle of a meadow filled with millions of wild flowers.

She rubbed her eyes, unsure of what just happened, then it all came flooding back. Her brilliant plan, the poke cafe, the twerps ruining the day again. She was certain that this time, everything would work out. She curled her knees into her chest and sat in a quasi-fetal position; she was never one to cry, but presently holding tears was a challenging feat. A rustle of the grass behind her prompted Jessie to turn around, where she saw her blue haired partner.

“Hey, there you are!” James smiled running to her “Meowth and I were looking for you…” James sat down next to Jessie, taking notice of her slumped frame “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong glum chum?” he bantered, nudging Jessie with this shoulder.

“James, you know I can’t take you seriously when you say that,” Jessie giggled a little.

“Why do you think I said it?” James winked “But seriously what’s up?”

Jessie picked a flower from her side and started to tear off the petals one by one “Well, it’s just that I really thought that this was going to be the time that we caught Pikachu. I guess I just wanted us to have a victory... especially because you and Meowth were so dejected when we first started this plan. I don’t like seeing you like that…” Jessie blushed a little.

“Wow, I didn’t know you felt that way,” James confessed “To be honest, I really don’t like seeing you upset either. Actually, my favorite Jessie is the one that gave us that little pep talk.” James stopped to watch Jessie closely, her cheeks donning a brilliant shade of scarlett. “In fact,” James continued “I would even go as far to say that your confidence and persistence is downright hot,” James scratched his head, and looked at the sun that was barely sitting on the horizon.

Jessie’s eyes widened, her body twisting to face James. “You really think that?” she smiled.

“Yeah,as of late, it’s all I can think about” James replied “What guy wouldn’t find your confidence hot?”

Jessie chuckled a little, and leaned on James’s shoulder “Well, if you find it so hot, maybe I’ll have to give you guys pep talks more often.” she winked.

“I guess you will,” James said, as they both pulled closer into each other, and watched the vibrant sunset fade into night.

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sassy-postal-shipper · 4 years

Text

Meet Sleep

Summary: Sleep is summoned for a Vine. Creativity comes to invite him, as if they could order him around.

Warnings: Body Horror, abstract imagery

AO3

///

Sleep never often played in the vast expanse of Thomas' mind. He often just went to the King in order to find something to work on when Thomas was asleep. Thomas liked to dream even more now, which gave Sleep a lot more to do at night.

He carried on that way for years, never desiring anything but Thomas' pleasant slumber.

One night, as Sleep began to make a new dream out of garlands and light, he felt a bump from Creativity, outside of the creation of a dream.

- Inquiry. -

"Sleep, join us!"

- Confusion. -

"Thomas is making stories and sharing them."

- Curiosity. -

"He wants people to see his relationship with you. Please come see."

- Shock. -

Sleep knew that he and Thomas had not always gotten along, despite his holding Thomas' best interests at heart. He wanted Thomas to rest and recharge after being awake. University was a necessary thing, but Sleep had not been allowed to do his job then. Even now, Thomas was pouring energy into his workplace, community theater, and those short videos that he enjoyed making.

Why would he want Sleep to be a part of that?

- Disinterest. Hesitation. Disbelief. -

Sleep was still quite nebulous, but Creativity wasn't. They stood side by side, black and white, and they called for his attendance once again.

"Please. Thomas is excited for this."

- Disbelief. Insult. Suspicion. -

Sleep turned away, aghast at what the Princes suggested. Sleep would be present when he wasn't needed, only desired, over something aside from Thomas resting? That wasn't what he existed for.

"Sleep, come on."

- Resentment. Rejection. -

The Prince closest to him jumped back, horrified. The other Prince growled in response, brandishing a weapon.

"Don't do that so easily, Sleep. We can cancel you out."

- Amusement. -

"Don't make fun of us! We help make Thomas who he is and you can either be a part of it or be... Neglected here!"

Sleep felt a terrible amount of amusement build up inside of him. It was more than he felt in any dream or nightmare that had Thomas crying out for the respite of dreamless Sleep. He remembered each growth period of Thomas, dreams without form and dreams that Sleep controlled before true Creativity came along. He had helped create each Side, only younger than Self-Preservation himself.

- Amusement. Incredulity. Insult. Power. Resentment. Dejection. Enjoyment. Revelation. -

The Princes drew up a shield, but Sleep could not be contained.

He was every Nightmare and every Dream; he was Night and the Moon, casting Shadow on the bright light of Thomas' life, one that Thomas returned to so often, even when his boy, his love, his Thomas had left him for longer than his body could handle; and Sleep had welcomed into his translucent embrace every time; for those quick naps or the death-like masque of deepest slumber, Sleep wouldn't trade anything in the World.

And yet, these lowly Princes dared to deft him?

The first laugh that Sleep ever let out ripped out with such force that it tore itself out of his quasi-plasma body, strands of his cloud-like shape fraying further as more spiels of laughter escaped him.

It was not painful, but wouldn't such amusement be accompanied by despair and pain? Thomas had always wanted such detail in dreams. Sleep gave in, and that was when it happened.

His love could feel pain.

Sleep felt himself fall into form. The new bones and sinew that held the corporeal image of Thomas fell into line, muscle and tendon growing out from the incomplete skeleton where bone marrow had not yet been properly contained.

Skin and nerves were something else entirely. Sleep now understood what "itch" was and the undying urge to scratch the offense sensation away, but the nails had to be perfect, so they grew in quite slowly.

The laughter that escaped him finally had an originating point, from deep in his open chest where a heart began to beat and his small but inflating lungs quickly resumed a human capacity that wheezed out laughter with each contraction of his newborn muscles, especially from the one underneath his lungs that jumped and rolled against the bases.

To have vision and something inside of him interpret the Princes in front of him was amazing. As Sleep settled into his body, naked and new and unused to sensation, his laughter quieted, Sleep now breathless for the first time in Thomas' entire life.

"... What?"

"Sleep... Is that you?"

Sleep stared at them, his silver eyes eager and acutely aware that he would have be grow accustomed to his shaky alliance with Creativity.

"Yes."

The vibrations in his new larynx felt amazing.

"Does... Are you going to help us?"

"Not you. Thomas."

His Thomas' name, from physical apparatus to phonation, was intriguing to say. His tongue lightly bounced down from the roof of his mouth; his lips pressed together and reverberated while all of the air passed through his nose; the strange tingle that came from hissing out the last sound of Thomas' name... Sleep had definitely chosen a good form to take.

"Well, you need to come to the Mindscape, then."

Sleep felt a strange sense of annoyance, and as he chose the clothing with which to present himself to Thomas for the first time, his personality flowed into clothing. In particular, on his person formed sunglasses, a leather jacket, and a shirt that were from those dreams of Thomas dancing in Grease and Footloose. He was bitter but clingy, flamboyant and insistent, and quite energized, if the iced coffee in his hand meant anything.

He was powerful, and Thomas could desire him or not; it was all Thomas' choice, and Sleep would always be waiting for him.

"Bitch, let's go."

Damn, coffee was good. He'd have to get more later.

#remy sanders #sleep sanders #fanfiction #sanders sides #thomathy sanders #thomas sanders #roman sanders #remus sanders #tw body horror

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maletfs · 4 years

Photo

The trek through the valley had reminded him of how unfit he was. How weak. A meagre man treading the wilderness on twig-like legs, swinging his atrophied arms about like a small boy on a school trip. His flat bum tucked in a pair of jeans three sizes too big. His concave chest concealing lungs unused to physical activity. His beardless face lacking any resemblance of manliness.

But all of those truths would soon become lies. Not because, standing naked in the middle of a mountain river, pneumonia would soon be knocking on his door. Nor because he was about to, in the fashion of dejected Shakespearean lovers, drown himself amongst the weeds and reeds. But because this corner of the river, hidden deep within the valley, held a powerful secret.

Sean stood, still and stoic, goosebumps crawling up his spine, and hoped. He hoped his years of research hadn’t been a waste of time and youth. He hoped that he wasn’t making a fool of himself, standing exposed for an unseen audience used to gullible men visiting these waters. More than anything, he hoped what he was about to attempt would actually work.

He took a breath of cold air, closed his eyes, and said the words.

“I wish I was a muscle bear: tall, strong, and hairy. I don’t want to be a twink anymore.”

The words didn’t echo through the woods, repeated by ancient sprites or magnified by mystical powers. They simply floated in the chilled air for a fraction of a moment before dropping into the gelid waters.

He opened his eyes and found the world exactly as he had left it. The trees and ferns danced to the rhythm of the wind, the river flowed of its own volition, and he was still a twink. Not a single extra pound of flesh or muscle, not an ounce, not a dram. His body stood as it always had, only a lot colder.

Sean started sobbing. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know anything anymore. He just stood there, the mountain waters stealing all his body heat, and cried. He wrapped his arms around his skinny frame and, as he felt his ribs sticking out from his sides, cried even harder. He hated this body so much, but all he could do now was cradle it as reality kicked him in the throat.

And then he felt it. Under his hands. His ribs were sinking deeper into his body, becoming less noticeable. He grabbed with his hands and fat followed, little love-handles that were not there a minute ago. His fingers travelled over his chest, his forearms, his back and his neck; and wherever they visited, they found a soft layer of fat, thin without a doubt, but thickening with every second. Even his legs were padding up, as the cold sting of the water subdued.

An itch on his chest brought his attention to a little patch of hair above his sternum. It was like an invisible seamstress was sewing the hair from within, each hair pushing out delicately. They spread over his bare chest like grass over hills, his nipples two fairy rings left untouched, and down towards his bushier crotch, forming a tantalising happy trail.

He frowned as he watched his member though. It looked like the skin around the base was developing, pushing his flaccid penis upwards and closer to his tummy. He tentatively touched it with his hand but the sensation was rough and dry. He thought it was maybe an allergic reaction until he caught sight of the palm of his hand, where he saw black pads of coarser skin. He examined them, noticing how similar they were to animal paw pads, and wondered what could have caused them. He tried to scratch them off but his nails were growing longer and sharper than usual and he feared he might hurt himself.

This wasn’t what he wanted. It wasn’t what was supposed to happen. Every legend and myth he had read about this corner of the world told him that wishes came true to those who asked. But Sean hadn’t asked for...

...oh. Maybe he had.

He panicked. Fight or flight kicked in, and since there was nothing but weeds and ferns to fight - none of which culpable for his predicament - he fled. He turned around and started for the riverside but, before he took a second step, he fell face-first into the waters.

Now, panic and water are renown as bad companions. When one’s motor functions are overridden by stress and fear, the simplest of actions - such as, let us say, stopping oneself from drowning, - can become painfully difficult to achieve. For Sean here, this was thrice as difficult, considering that a) as he opened his eyes underwater, he found his legs covered in a thick layer or dark, shaggy hair, which only added to his already building panic, and b) his still increasing mass and expanding frame made gravity and momentum behave in new and seemingly erratic ways.

When he finally succeeded in rising from the freezing waters, Sean was much changed. The thick layer of fat that had been added to his entire body had expanded beyond normality, turning into dense blubber that, combined with his brand new pelt of dark, thick fur, made the quasi-arctic temperatures feel like a summer breeze. His growing nails had developed into full, retractable claws, happily nestled in his bearish paws. And above his massive rear poked a little, fluffy tail.

He stood there, paralysed by the new sensations invading his mind. His bodily awareness was going haywire. His lower muscles felt compressed and heavy as they supported his multiplied body weight. He tried something as simple as wiggling the toes in his forelegs and immediately regretted. First, because he realised he now had forelegs as opposed to arms; second, because he felt his murderous claws rasping against each other; and finally, because he was growing aware of the size and strength of his flexors and triceps.

But part of him, a little corner of his stress-ridden brain, actually quiet enjoyed the feeling. It was new and unlike anything he had experienced in his life. He had always wanted to be a bear because he wanted to feel with a bear’s body, and know what it felt like to be big and strong. Well, now he knew. And it felt amazing! His voluminous chest and upper back made him incredibly aware of his own breathing and the tension going through his new muscles. His mouth felt like he had just visited the dentist and had his denture fixed, the new size and shape of his teeth making it awkward to grit them. But he also felt his new, elongated tongue exploring his muzzle, his snout breathing in the cold air and sending waves of information to his brain.

Overwhelmed by the avalanche of sensations, he dropped back into the water, his massive rear lying on the riverbed, and started examining himself. He did it one bit at a time, sequencing each new sensation so as to feel them more sharply: his new claws, his toes, his paws, his arms, his chest, his sheathed member, his ass... He spent a particularly long time exploring these last two, although the cold water only allowed for so much experimentation.

As he kept exploring each new part of his anatomy - his hind legs, his neck, his muzzle, his tongue... - his panic receded and slowly mutated into first curiosity, then fascination, and finally joy. His human mind, always muddled by depression and self-hate, was now much more interested in the simple pleasures of wiggling toes and sniffing the pine-scented air. A kind of contentment slowly took over his thought process as he realised that, after all his years of hard work, after all the sweat and tears, he had finally done. He had succeeded. He’d done it. He was a twink no more.

He was now a bear. Tall, strong, and hairy. And he kinda loved it.

#Animal Transformation #Long Story

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theoneandonlylittlebird · 5 years

Text

Grief: healing a heartbreak

@klairasleeps

You asked how to heal a broken heart. I saw your post and I wanted to reach out. If I can provide any solace, any respite, I want to. Not just to you, but because we’re not going through this alone. How many heartbroken tumblrs might see this and think, yeah, me too??? I don’t know how to heal a broken heart, but I do know how to share. So, I don’t know if I can comfort you at all with this, but here’s what I’ve learned about my own grief:

The 10 Minute Plan:

If I can make myself do something- ANYTHING- for ten minutes, I can get through the day. One set of ten minutes at a time. I never said without crying while I do it.

Other people don’t always help:

- even when they’re well intentioned. I have demanded of myself that I reach out when I need to because I had to ask people not to call me. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t want to retell my tale over and over and over again... For me, the bleeding slows down and starts to scab over if I can get away from thinking about it even for a little while, so having people calling me to say “Hey, hows that really wrenching, god awful and super painful heartbreak going for ya?” isn’t all that helpful. I’ve had to learn to stand up for myself and say so.

Yes it hurts that bad and there’s NO SHAME IN THAT:

I catch myself calling myself the P word (pathetic) for being a weepy, sad, dejected sack of bad company- you see how this goes? And that’s all a crock of shit. There is no dishonor whatsoever in having loved so much, so deeply, that losing it is unbearably painful.

I don’t want your advice except when I do:

Everyone has opinions on what you should be doing to “get over it,” or how to manage the end of a relationship. Well. Some are great! Ok, that’s awesome. And some are not great. Don’t use those. But there are times when I just don’t want to hear it good, bad or ugly. “I”m not looking for advice,” is hard to say, but when I ask people to just listen, or to change the subject, most of the time they do. My people are great and really care and really want to help, so steering how they help me helps us both. That’s what I think. Take it or leave it.

Don’t tell me what a piece of utter shite my ex is:

People seem to be under the mistaken impression that insulting the person I’m so deeply in love with that I can’t bear to lose them is a great way to make me feel better. Doesn’t work for me. I LOVE THAT PERSON. The insults people think are so craftily designed to cast blame on them for the end of the relationship and thus exonerate me from whatever pain I’ve got really just make me feel like I have to defend my love and that they think I have poor judgment in people. I don’t. I LOVE and as above, there’s no shame in that. Besides, this kind of wracking-sobs heartbreak doesn’t apply to situations (for me) in which I left a crappy situation because I wanted to get the hell out of dodge. I don’t sob endlessly for those pricks. No, I’m sobbing because of what it could have been if only...

Oversimplifications and platitudes, HARD PASS:

Time will make it better... I effin’ know that and it doesn’t make me feel on inch better right now. Not one ever-lovin’ inch. They’re just fill-in-the-blank. No. Actually the situations that led to the demise of my previously happy relationship are complex and very real and deep to me, you can’t sum them up in a sentence. You weren’t even there. Listening and sharing about what you did for your own heartbreak, what worked and what didn’t:

OMG that was the friggin’ best. I know you were listening when I told you I was hurting. “When I felt that way, I X-ed and it helped.” I don’t know why this works, but it’s different from the whole “advice” thing. I don’t feel like I’m being told what to do or how I should manage something or how I should cope. An example from me... “I am really miserable about the loss of this person I treasure and deeply love so I have committed to working on my health by going for walks every day, even when I don’t want to. I feel better when I actually do it.” I have no idea if this will help/support anyone else in this situation, but I never said anyone SHOULD do that thing, just that it’s supporting me. These conversations make me feel like the person has empathy rather than pity. Please, work that shit when I ask for it.

Self-care:

You know what? See the Ten Minute Plan above. When I find myself paralyzed by grief, I start running down the list of things that might get me through the next ten minutes until I find something I might even consider doing and then I do that thing. It’s self-care. It might be, in my case, taking a shower, doing some of the dishes but promising myself I don’t have to do the whole job because who gives a frilly godsdamned? It might be a video game or going to get the mail because that will get me outside in my yard. It need not be extravagant or take a long time, it just needs to be something I’m willing to do other than sit and cry.

Speaking of sitting and crying:

Sometimes I do that shit. And that’s totally cool. I’ve made it cool that if I really, really need to be doing that, that’s what I’m doing. Doesn’t matter when or where, I get that. I get to do that. I also get to leave places when I need to leave and I get to stay home when I don’t want to go. It’s part of a promise I made to myself to take care of what I need.

Taking care of what I need:

My process is legit. What I’m feeling is fine. How I manage it is fine. (Note- danger to self or others isn’t fine, that’s not what I’m talking about, if you’re in that space get pro-help.) I have exempted myself from my own judgment (and everyone else’s) about how I work through this really hard, really awful and achingly difficult thing that I don’t have a choice about going through. Part of my process is using what I learned in therapy all those years ago- I use ACT specifically, but other stuff too- because I am able to remember what digging myself out of a hole was like when I succeeded before. Some stuff works better than others, some moments are easier than others. My point, to myself, is not to judge my own process because that doesn’t help me.

Climb out when ready:

One thing I am quasi-religious about doing is not standing in the way of my own progress. For example, if I have a good day, to acknowledge it as such and not beat myself up for clearly not having been invested as much as I should have been in my relationship because I’m not wrecked every single froggy moment. Yeah, my brain says that shit to me. But I choose not to listen and instead to be grateful for the good day and actively praise myself for whatever strength it took for me to execute said good day. Doesn’t have to be all day, either, I get praise for a good ten minutes too.

Closing thoughts:

I have no idea if any of this will be helpful to anyone else, but writing it helped me. I am not giving any advice (except the part about getting pro-help when you do need it, because, obviously) and only offer this as something that might sooth so you know you’re not alone. I hope others will add what they do for themselves because then I’ll know I’m not alone either.

#grief #heartbreak #loneliness #rejection #sadness #broken heart #I hope this helps Klaira #I hear you

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apassionateman · 5 years

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Defining moments...

My story begins at the age of 6 years old, just over a month to my next birthday.

My first defining moment in life occurs during an early week regular piano lesson in the spring semester, my teacher turns to me while I practice Ludwig Von Beethoven's Sonata No. 14 in C♯ minor (Quasi una fantasia), Op. 27, No. 2, [aka Moonlight Sonata] squawking, "Are you a complete moronic idiot? How can anyone butcher Beethoven's creation so hideously? Just leave!" Wide-eyed with disbelieving shock, I silently pack up my books and with complete dismay, walk out. Although, not fully comprehending what or how I "butchered" the melodic flow while playing.

When my mother arrives to pick me up, she already knows. Getting into the car still thinking, “What happened?”, running through my mind repetitively. I simply tell mom, "I want a new teacher." and get a resounding "No!" as response from mom. “Well then, I don’t want to practice with her till after Friday’s recital, cause I know I’m ready.”

Sure, there were plenty of previous times of “name-calling” and “invalidating” comments about me being the odd-ball kid yet never from someone I look up to and admire. Nowhere during this entire experience did anyone ask, “How I felt.”

Friday evening arrives and there I am sitting front row waiting as the emcee introduces me. With sheet music in hand I climb the 5 steps to the stage, bow to the near 500 in the auditorium and sit in front of my first Steinway grand piano. I place my sheets beside me not the lyre, take a deep breath, close my eyes and begin...

Moonlight Sonata [an internet rendition]

I finish to a standing ovation, including my teacher. Bowing to the audience, I return to my seat and hear, “I knew you could do it.” from my teacher. “Yes, I knew I could play it as originally created in 1802 as well.” Yet once again, not what my expectations need to hear from my musical mentor... Dejected, I sit quietly for the remainder of the recital.

#life altering events #invalidation #Defining moments

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thesinglesjukebox · 5 years

Video

youtube

MARK RONSON FT. LYKKE LI - LATE NIGHT FEELINGS

[6.14]

Fortunately, the Jukebox offers feelings 'round the clock...

Ramzi Awn: A veritable next-level bop. Lykke Li delivers the performance of her career and Mark Ronson finally proves himself on "Late Night Feelings," conjuring up the best of Expose with skill. The single manages to pull off the sunkissed-songbird-on-coke routine surprisingly well, and the vibes are just the cherry on top. With echoes for days, Ronson and Li nail it --down to the last vocal breakdown. [9]

Scott Mildenhall: A bold choice after the torrential downpour of "Nothing Breaks Like a Heart": a persistent mist with a hint of drizzle. It's a more lingering melancholy, but perhaps also one with more localised impact. Lykke Li's customary vocal amalgams are given to this kind of intimate plea for intimacy, and they sit comfortably with its flittering dejection, but they could also go harder -- if this is the headline for an album of "sad bangers", someone perhaps should have given The Magician a call. [7]

Alfred Soto: Lykke Li's mild voice isn't up to Mark Ronson's ideas about forward motion, which themselves outpace Ronson's beats (trop house accents? really?). Better vulgarity than this polite thing. [5]

Vikram Joseph: A song called "Late Night Feelings" should at least attempt to build atmosphere; a song with Lykke Li on it shouldn't make her sound this interchangeable. Mark Ronson is so unmemorable at this point that it's no wonder I keep confusing him with the guy that wrote that book about being publicly shamed. [3]

Iain Mew: At a time when the producer-guest singer carousel spins ever faster and ever with less direction, it's nice to hear a song where the two people's sounds are such a natural fit. Even if the disco touches are strangely muted and Lykke Li does more gesturing towards feelings than exploring them, she inhabits and breathes life into the aesthetic in a way no one has since Bruno Mars. [7]

Ian Mathers: Ronson's ostensible value proposition is so "retro" and "tasteful" (both, of course, terms that can be taken as virtues or vices) that it's surprisingly easy to treat him like two different acts, one that consistently puts clever spins on the sounds of the past and the other of which feels uncomfortably out of touch... even though the gap between those two extremes doesn't actually stretch that far. Better performers than Lykke Li have been rendered fairly anonymous by the process, but really we're here for the feather-light quasi-disco groove of the chorus, and she does just fine there. This one lands just on the right side of the gap for me, but check again if it blows up "Uptown Funk" style. [6]

Will Adams: For a producer whose biggest hits are defined by their bombast, this is a surprisingly adept attempt at tasteful disco. The steel pans in the distance distract, but Lykke Li's sprawling vocal and an unexpected (but welcome) tempo shift make this worth revisiting. [6]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#Mark Ronson #Lykke Li #pop #music #music review #writing

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romvnova · 6 years

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Owen Grady Collection: Like Father, Like Daughter

Owen winced at every sound the percolating coffee maker made, glimpsing over to the Airstream’s bed where Claire and Maisie were cuddled together in sleep. He glimpses back at the coffee pot, cussing at it under his breath. Had it always been so damn loud? He wasn’t trying to wake either of them up though he feels the pressing need to speak to Claire about Maisie and address his concerns of their quasi-daughter with her. He has a few that itch at him in particular and the longer he puts off addressing them the more concerned he grows. He’s not a psychiatrist, it was true, which was precisely why he thought taking Maisie to one was in everyone’s best interest. He was afraid that by indulging her and soothing her every time she had nightmares they were creating bad co-dependency habits. She needed the tools to deal with her PTSD that Claire and him couldn’t provide her with. They were her support system, yes, and Owen was well adapted to dealing with PTSD even before Lockwood Estate and the Isla Nublar incident but everyone was different; and he was a grown man. It only made sense to him that children suffered from and dealt with it differently than adults would. The only problem was, trying to isolate Claire to speak to her with it. Since discovering Claire’s pregnancy she cut back on helping with the cabin — largely at Owen’s request — though she was stubborn as she’d ever been and still helped him with things. She spent more time at the Dinosaur Protection Group Headquarters again, still volleying for their rights and protection.

There was one day Claire’d taken off and Owen surprised Maisie with an impromptu fishing day in the lake behind the almost finished cabin. He’d caught a massive large mouth bass that he’d been looking forward to cooking for dinner. Maisie’d started to cry and went into hysterics so bad that Owen ended up putting the fish back into the lake and spent a solid half hour holding her, smoothing his hand down her hair until she finally composed herself.

Needless to say, he had to drive to the market now to buy fresh, pre-cut meat fish or otherwise. He hadn’t told Claire about that yet. Partially because Maisie’d asked him not to and Owen’s loathe to break the girl’s trust in him; but also because he didn’t want Claire to worry too much. Stress wasn’t good for the baby and Claire had plenty on her plate with the escaped Isla Nublar dinosaurs roaming around the United States and trying to garner government support to relocate them to Sanctuary.

He pours himself a mug of steaming coffee as the sheets rustle and he glimpses over to see Claire cautiously rise from the bed. “Go back to sleep baby.” Claire coos to Maisie and Owen watches as she leans down to drop a kiss to the girl’s head, tucking the sheets around her shoulders. It’s such a mothering gesture that Owen can’t help the proud smirk that tugs at the corners of his lips. He pulls a second mug down from the cabinet and pours coffee and creamer in it for Claire as she moves towards him, coming to stand behind him. She wraps her arms around him and presses herself against his back, laying the side of her face against his back as he takes a sip of coffee from his mug.

“This baby’s definitely a Grady.” She murmurs and Owen barks out a laugh.

“I’d hope so.” He teases her.

“I meant because this baby’s making me hungry all the time.” Owen could almost hear Claire rolling her eyes at him. Despite his sarcastic response to calling their baby a Grady as opposed to Dearing-Grady as he’d taken to filled him with an elation that felt like it was egotistical. It probably was.

“I thought we were going to hyphen your maiden name with my name?” They’d been discussing a courthouse wedding ( amidst arguing who proposed to who because Owen swore he proposed but Claire is eager to argue that she proposed to him ) and having a small, family-only ceremony officiated by Owen’s preacher father just so they could have a ‘wedding’ and their family members wouldn’t feel dejected by the courthouse marriage.

The one thing the two of them were on agreements on was that they didn’t want a big wedding. Neither of them particularly cared about a big ceremony.

“I changed my mind. Especially since we’re going to hyphen Maisie’s name with Grady…it might cause too much confusion.” Claire explains and Owen nods, holding out her mug of coffee for her. Her arms unwind from his waist and she takes it with a soft murmur of gratitude.

It seemed like Owen’s opportunity while they were already talking about Maisie.

“I was thinking we’d take her into the city, get her some IHop for breakfast,” Owen says, taking Claire’s hand and leading her out of the RV, to the lawn lounge chairs they’d put out by the fire pit. “While we’re on the topic of Maisie,” Owen broaches taking a second sip of coffee. “We need to think about enrolling her in school. Her education was obviously a priority of Benjamin Lockwood’s because he had a whole fund just for her schooling. We can ensure that she gets into a high end private school like Iris wants,” A school that neither Claire or him could afford without Lockwood’s education fund for Maisie. “but I definitely think she should be around kids her own age. Start socializing beyond her own small bubble. She did well with Karen, Scott and the boys.” Owen watches Claire, feeling relief as she nods in agreement.

“I’ll give Iris a call and see if there’s any school she recommends Maisie should go to and see if I can get us an appointment to talk to someone in charge that can enroll Maisie.” Claire begins to plan and Owen decides that she’s got the matter handled. Claire always had been ‘get shit done’ and Owen’s confident that as long as she’s spearheading the effort that the Superintendent of whatever school Iris chooses won’t stand a chance. The sooner they can get Maisie integrated into society, the better.

“Which brings me to my next point,” Owen rubs his calloused fingers over the facial hair on his chin, taking another sip of his coffee. “I think we should seriously consider getting Maisie in to see a psychiatrist.” Owen inhales deeply and lets it out. “She went through a lot in a single night that most people don’t even go through in their entire lives. During my time with the SEALS,” He doesn’t speak of it often. Partially because he can’t and partially because he doesn’t want to. “part of our debriefing after a mission was a series of therapy sessions. I’m not saying that our support doesn’t help her but she needs to be given the tools to work through her PTSD. Tools that you and I can’t give her.” He takes an unsure breath and takes another sip of coffee. “Letting her crawl into our bed with us every time she has a nightmare isn’t helping her cope, Claire.”

“Owen…”

“Look, she’s eleven years old, Claire. It’s forming unhealthy amounts of dependency and you and I both know Maisie’s extremely independent.” Evidenced by her eagerness to run off into the woods for hours on end.

Claire is quiet for a long moment and Owen spares a glimpse at her to see how she’s reacted to his words. Her face is thoughtful, her mug cradled between her hands, close to her lips.

“You know a bit more about psychiatrists than me, so I’ll handle the school and you handle the therapists?”

“Of course.” Owen replies, eager to help her shoulder the responsibilities.

“Do you think she’s going to take the news well?” Claire asks him and for a moment Owen isn’t sure if she means her pregnancy — because they still have yet to break the news to Maisie out of Claire’s uncertainty on how to approach it delicately in case she doesn’t take it well — or school and therapy.

“I don’t know.” Owen replies, remembering the hysterics she went into when she realized he hadn’t intended on returning the bass to the water. “Maybe we should start with school and follow up with therapy, just in case.” Out of the two, he seems school as the discussion that will garner the better reaction from Maisie.

It turned out Owen had been right. Maisie had taken to the prospect of going to school and meeting people her own age rather well. Her reaction to the therapist hadn’t gone over nearly as smoothly. She hadn’t openly protested or caused a scene but the way she speared her stack of pancakes and grown quiet had told Owen all he needed to know.

He hadn’t even realized how tense he’d been until he felt Claire’s hand rubbing up and down his back.

“I’m not broken.” Maisie eventually spoke up, scowling at her pancakes she was pulverizing with her fork.

“Broken? Why would you think —?” Claire speaks her words trailing off as Owen interrupts.

“No one thinks you’re broken, Maisie.”

“Then why’re you making me go to a therapist? Aren’t therapists where they send you when they think there’s something wrong with you?” Maisie has tears in her eyes and Owen is torn between calling it off because he’s hurt her feelings and between holding his ground on it because he feels it’s what’s best for her. He feels the familiar weight of stubbornness settling into the set of his shoulders.

“No.” The word is gruff and low as it falls from betwixt Owen’s lips, eyes scanning the busy pancake diner.

“No, no. That’s not true.” Claire seeks to assure the young girl sitting across from them.

“Yes it is.” Maisie argues and Owen recognizes the stubborn streak immediately as she mimics how he sits: shoulders steeled and arms crossed over her chest.

God, Maisie was his definitely his daughter. Not biologically but definitely where it mattered.

Like father, like daughter.

Owen doesn’t miss Claire’s heavy sigh and the subtle press of her hand against her abdomen. Would Maisie have been aware of Claire’s condition and the atmosphere at the table wasn’t so tense Owen might’ve made a wisecrack about how the Grady stubborn streak ran deep. It ran so deep that even Maisie had began to emulate it.

Claire ended saving breakfast by stepping in to compromise and suggested that Maisie should go and have an assessment session done to see what a professional recommended and that they, as a family, would decide together ( she put a lot of emphasis on that to ensure that both he and Maisie was aware it would be a decision made by the three of them and not just two ). Eventually, Maisie and Owen relented and agreed to Claire’s terms.

#clawen is trying their best at being new parents #owen grady collection #jurassic world #jurassic world fallen kingdom #jw #jwfk #spoilers #owen grady #claire dearing #maisie lockwood

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Vikings Season 6 Part One Recap: Making Kings, a Kattegat Killing, and the Rus Threat

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This article contains spoilers for Vikings season 6 part one.

Season five of Vikings saw Ivar’s dreams of rule, romance, and Godhood collapse around him like a volcano on Floki’s head. Defeated by his band of brothers, betrayed by his wife, Freydis, the tyrant was forced to disguise himself as a peasant and smuggle himself out of Kattegat in the back of a merchant’s cart.

We left our heroes (a relative term in the topsy-turvy, strifey-knifey world of Vikings, admittedly) ready to begin the task of rebuilding their lives and their stronghold of Kattegat, all the while standing in the rising dawn of a new era of exploration, and contemplating, for the first time in a long time, the promise of peace. It was too good to be true, wasn’t it? Vikings season 6 part 1 wasted little time in raising the stakes and turning up the heat. In anticipation of the final batch of episodes, scheduled to drop on Amazon Prime on Dec. 30, let’s remind ourselves of the events leading up to one of the most gut-wrenching mid-season finales the show has ever produced.

Ivar’s Far, Far Away

A dejected Ivar makes his way along the Silk Road. He and his bodyguard Vigrid are captured by the Kievan Rus and taken before Prince Oleg the Prophet. Vigrid is tortured and killed, but Ivar is spared when Oleg learns of his past status as King and ‘God’. While they are kindred spirits in many ways – both have a pathological thirst for power, both were betrayed by women and responded with murder – Oleg relishes Ivar most of all because he realizes he might be useful when the time comes to retake the Rus’s ancestral lands in Scandinavia. Ivar, in turn, wonders how the mad Prince might prove useful to his festering ambitions.

Ivar and Oleg take their knife-edge bromance on the road, travelling to Novogrod to meet with Oleg’s brother, Askold. Oleg wants to retrieve his nephew Igor, who is heir to the throne and therefore the nexus of power in the region. In a characteristically awful yet expedient move, Oleg poisons Askold and takes off with Igor. Dir, Oleg’s other brother, tracks Oleg down attempts to arrest him for murder and kidnap. Oleg escapes his fate by giving a demonstration of his prophetic powers. He not only reveals to all assembled that Dir has a secret wife, but produces her, like a rabbit out of a hat. Dir, wary and superstitious, lets Oleg go free. Never one to let bygones be bygones, Oleg swiftly orders that his brother be attacked, imprisoned, mutilated and bound up like a junkyard dog.

Meanwhile, a warm bond – part-fraternal, part-paternal – is developing between Ivar and Igor. Ivar feels sorry for the captured heir and wants to help him. The duo release Dir, and Ivar promises to help liberate Igor and depose Oleg when the time is right.

Tensions build between Ivar and Oleg. When Ivar discovers Oleg is raising an army to sack and conquer Scandinavia, Ivar accuses him of using him as a puppet, a vassal. Oleg later introduces Ivar to his new beau, Princess Katia, who is a doppelganger of Ivar’s dead wife, Freydis. The resemblance is so striking that Ivar suspects both that she might be the real thing, and that Oleg is up to something. Oleg and Katia force Ivar to watch them making love on their wedding night.

Kattegat After Ivar

Bjorn decides against executing Ivar’s followers and their leader, White Hair, and banishes them instead, leaving their ambitions to ‘Make Kattegat Great Again’ thwarted.

Bjorn asks Ubbe, Lagertha, Torvi and Gunnhild to act as his counsel, a little sliver of proto-democracy in these feudal, quasi-monarchistic times. Only Gunnhild agrees to serve. The rest have bigger, or at least other, fish to fry. Torvi and Ubbe wish to sail to Iceland. The recently returned Kjetill tells them that Othere – the fabled explorer and discoverer of lush and verdant lands to the west of Iceland – awaits them there. Lagertha wants to return to her old homestead and live out the rest of her life as a humble farmer.

Word reaches Bjorn that King Harald needs his help. Olaf has invaded Harald’s kingdom of Vestfold and taken him prisoner. Bjorn agrees to help, leaving Ubbe in charge, and sending his children Hali and Asa to stay with Lagertha. Before he leaves he has a bout of passion with Ingrid, his wife Gunnhild’s servant. Bjorn convinces Kjetill to join him on his rescue mission, and while in each other’s company Bjorn learns of Kjetill’s Icelandic blood-lust, which makes him deeply suspicious of the burly emigre’s connection to Floki’s disappearance.

Olaf Won’t Let Him go, Let Him Go…

Once in Vestfold, Bjorn hatches a plan to swim into the harbor and surprise Olaf and his troops. Unfortunately, King Olaf has anticipated this move, and has already taken the liberty of adding oil to the water, which he proceeds to ignite, causing mass casualties, and Bjorn’s retreat.

Olaf and Bjorn eventually meet to discuss their stalemate, whereupon Olaf reveals his grand plan. He wants all of the region’s earls and Kings to elect a King of all Norway, and he wants it to be Bjorn. There’s some constitutional wrangling, before the election proceeds. Harald is the surprise victor. It’s not a surprise to the audience, who have just watched Harald spend his short election campaign selling patently false, irreconcilable promises of land and riches to the other voters and candidates should they make him King. Kjetill helps to spread the word (and the lies), as he’s been promised King of Iceland.

Bjorn flees Vestfold on a tip-off from a suddenly conscience-struck Kjetill, who has discovered that Harald wants Bjorn dead on the (probably entirely correct) grounds that Bjorn would never bend the knee for him long-term. Kjetill and Bjorn are rescued from certain death by the outlaw Erik, who speeds them to safety on his boat. King Olaf is imprisoned when refuses to acknowledge Harald’s title.

Hvitserk and Lagertha – A Tragedy on Two Fronts

Hvitserk is hitting hallucinogens and intoxicants pretty hard, which precipitates a torrent of haunting images. He sees the seer, his hated brother Ivar, and experiences painful and terrifying visions of the murder of his girlfriend, Thora (burned alive on Ivar’s orders last season) and the slaying of his mother, Aslaug (dispatched by Lagertha in season four). Ubbe, temporarily in charge, nominates Hvitserk to head a trading expedition along the Silk Road, but when Hvitserk misses the boat, thanks to his re-discovered fondness for drink and drugs, Ubbe can barely contain his disgust. News comes back from the Silk Road that Ivar is in Kiev. Hvitserk doesn’t react well. He has vowed to kill Ivar. The thought consumes him, and twists his perception of reality.

Away from the city, Lagertha’s cosy retirement isn’t going according to plan. She’s forced to train nearby villagers in the art of war to repel incursions from White Hair and his followers. White Hair attacks again, and many villagers perish, including Bjorn’s son, Hali. Gunnhild has a vision of the tragedy, and immediately sets off to Lagertha with some shield maidens. Gunnhild lends her weight to repelling the attacks. During the next assault, White Hair and Lagertha face each other, one-on-one. After a gruelling battle, Lagertha kills White Hair, but is herself gravely wounded. She decides to return to Kattegat, setting off on her own by boat.

It’s raining when she arrives, and most of the town is attending a feast. The only person she encounters on the deserted streets is Hvitserk, which is unfortunate for them both. Hvitserk is out of his mind on hallucinogens and thinks Lagertha is a serpent incarnation of Ivar. He duly stabs her to death, thereby fulfilling the long-ago prophecy of the seer that Lagertha would be killed by a son of Ragnar.

When Hvitserk’s rather obvious part in Lagertha’s death is uncovered, Bjorn puts him on trial. He’s initially sentenced to death, but Ubbe intercedes on his behalf, and he’s banished instead. The exiled Hvitserk finds himself on the Silk Road after all and, inevitably, back with Ivar, where he’s welcomed by Oleg for his assassination of the great shield maiden Lagertha.

Ubbe and Torvi set sail for Iceland. There Ubbe meets the renowned Othere, the man who claims to have discovered a new world to the west. Ubbe learns that Othere is really a Christian called Athelstan, who came upon the dying Othere and assumed his identity. Ubbe wants Othere sacrificed to the Gods, but Torvi points out that this would be a rather hypocritical move given his own history of baptism. Torvi gives birth to a baby boy, whom the couple name Ragnar. Lagertha may be dead, but Ragnar lives on.

Tsar Wars: The Exile Strikes Back

Oleg’s incursions into Viking land are troubling enough to usher in a truce between Harald and Bjorn, who realize they must come together to face a threat that is bigger than their personal and ideological differences. Unfortunately, when they call for other earls and kings to stand with them in battle, only Thorkin agrees to join them.

Friction abounds in Oleg’s camp. Igor openly defies his uncle, prompting Oleg to threaten his life. Katia tries to seduce Ivar. Though he refuses, he learns that Katia is deeply unhappy with Oleg, and hence a potential ally in the interfamilial treachery to come.

Ivar serves as strategist to Oleg. They head for battle and through a blend of cunning and superior numbers manage to breach Bjorn’s fortifications. A vicious battle ensues. Harald and Gunnhild appear to fall in battle. Bjorn, distracted on the battlefield, receives a seemingly fatal blow. It comes from Ivar. Bjorn’s forces are defeated, and Bjorn himself is slain.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Now all that remains is to wait and see what fate has in store for the sons of Ragnar, and Viking civilization itself, in the final ten episodes.

The post Vikings Season 6 Part One Recap: Making Kings, a Kattegat Killing, and the Rus Threat appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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queenscharacters · 4 years

Note

"I'm just so humiliated..." Renata to Marco

Marco wanted to comfort her. He really, truly, sincerely wanted to wrap his arms around her and remind her that her parents were wrong. He was her safe place. He was who made her happy. And it was only his love for her that was priceless. He just couldn’t right now. If Renata was embarrassed, then he was mortified. He was a 35 year old man and somehow, some way, he felt like he was a teen again. The only time he had experienced shame so heavy and painful like this was in his younger years.

He couldn’t help it. If Marco was actually a man to be proud of, then there would be no issues in the first place. Her parents would give them their blessings, Renata would choose him without hesitation. They could be together happily and without any stress. As she said, though, things weren’t that simple. Marco was just so acutely aware of how he was not that man, was never that man, nor would he probably ever be that man. He didn’t know how to be the boyfriend that parents wanted to meet. He had never been one. He was convinced it just wasn’t in his cards.

And, before Renata, he had been so okay with that. To an extent, he was still okay with that. Marco accepted who he was - he could even say he liked who he was. The sad reality was that Renata needed him to be more than that and, whether she wanted to say it or not, they both knew it. Accepting that was more painful than Marco had ever been anticipating, so it was a few moments before he could find words.

“You don’t deserve this.” His voice was quiet, sad, and almost dejected. It was also matter of fact. He was used to living a rough life. He was meant for it, it was what he deserved. But Renata? There was a reason she was who she was. She deserved nothing but the best and it was so evidently clear that the best was not him. Marco didn’t want to upset her more, though, so he just continued softly, “I’m sorry.”

He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. It wasn’t much, but it was all he could offer. He knew the possibility of him dissolving into tears the second he hugged her was a very real and probable possibility. He was so used to letting everything out with Elio when things became too much, like right now, but Renata was not Elio. He didn’t want her to have an even lesser opinion of him because she could see how weak he really was.

“He is right, though.” He finally said when his voice was steadier. “These glasses do make my eyes look too big.” He chuckled. He both wanted to distract her, but also make it clear he wasn’t prepared to talk about what just happened. It was something that would probably haunt Marco for the rest of his life and he needed to process his emotions more before he could discuss them. He offered his quasi-girlfriend a half smile. “Do you want to go get some street food or do you want to just go home and take a bath?”

#longer than i expected and honestly? i dont mind i love him #ch: marco rivera #marco and renata #ask marco

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sam-oflaherty · 4 years

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It’s been a while. So here’s a short story.

It’s something I wrote long ago as a rambling, poorly thought out, quasi-autobiographical piece. It’s called the Wizard and the Wandering Man, or something.

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CHAPTER 1:

To find oneself on the floor of the aisle

The hum of refrigeration and fluorescent lighting didn’t sound very gentle to him. In fact, he found its insect-like incessancy rather agitating. His state of mind was already relatively unstable.

There was no music – not even the elevator kind. The hard linoleum floor was uneven at the joins and polished to look like marble. And save for the rattling shadow of his trolley, it reflected the artificial lighting with a brightness that made him squint and think of waking up late, drunk, and hospitals, and death. This, inevitably, led him to ponder his own hopelessness. Confusion, self-doubt and rage – directed at himself and the world around him – murmured alongside more practical wonderings. Things like the unnerving realization that he was almost entirely alone in there.

He was just one of those kinds of people.

His moustache was thick, dark and heavy. It dominated the lower part of his face and had even caused, on a couple of occasions, the recently introduced to adopt what could be best described as a Mediterranean accent while talking to him. If it were not for a pair of piercing green eyes, rimmed with dark, long and almost straight lashes that glistened with tears when he yawned or spoke with uncomfortable frankness about his feelings, one might not have noticed that he was, in fact, beautiful.

“Call me Ismael,” he said to himself as he passed the frozen fish. Then he suddenly realized the narcissism of the act, especially considering his solitude. It then occurred to him that he disliked frozen fish simply because it didn’t smell like fish. It worried him for a few more seconds. He passed the loaves of hardening bread, the bundles of wilting flowers and packages of weeping spinach. The cereal aisle was all bright colours and calls-to-action veiled in invented health benefits. He thought for a moment whether the extravagant sugar content in some of them actually caused the labels to shine with enchanting radioactivity.

A couple of deep and thoughtfully miserable breaths whistled through his moustache. He was wandering. Brooding, breathing, and wandering. He wasn’t necessarily lost in there. He knew where he was. But he had no aim. He had touched various things on his journey, even picked up a packet of gnocchetti at one stage and held them to his nose. But his trolley continued the same, weightless rattle over the linoleum joins.

“Ah! There you are.”

At this unexpected interruption of his melancholy one corner of his moustache jumped upwards, quizzically, along with the opposite eyebrow.

A Wizard shuffled toward him, one crooked arm raised, suggesting he wait there. A Wizard? He wondered why such a name had been occurred to him above anything else. He lowered his eyebrow, then his moustache too, and squinted to get a better look at this Wizard before it came too close. After a quick appraisal, he soon decided ‘Wizard’ was not such an outlandish deduction.

He saw street darkened feet, wrapped in straps of worn leather and buckle. He saw a nondescript grey robe – although it was too heavy and stiff to billow dramatically like in the films. He saw a long, once white beard dipped in ash and beer. And most of all, he saw a hat. The brim drooped and shadowed the Wizard’s soft, wrinkled face and hid the brightness (or madness) in his curiously large eyes. The pointed top was bent to one side. It was a ridiculous wizard’s hat – but one that did not seem so ridiculous on such a man.

He must have just been one of those kinds of people.

“So how have you been doing?” The Wizard spoke with disarming familiarity. He had a thick, closed accent that revealed nothing more than untraceable origins and innumerable influences.

“OK. I suppose.”

“Good. Good. So, old friend, how is it…”

“Hey. Hang on. Who…?” The moustache and eyebrow sprung back into their interrogative positions.

The Wizard simply ignored his question and carried on, uninterrupted. The moustached victim looked around, embarrassed, wondering whether anyone else had noticed this character. But he saw no one else. He decided the Wizard was quite clearly insane. And you never can be too careful with crazy people. Best to hear him out for a bit.

It turned out most of what was said that day made perfect sense. The Wizard was full of friendly chatter, rude proverbs and an impressive array of wisdoms. He spoke constantly, frankly and captivatingly as he led his bewildered companion around the aisles.

The Wizard never actually touched any of the items on the shelves. Nor did he ever place any into the rattling trolley. Instead, with a gnarled and sun spotted hand hooked under his new friend’s elbow, he made small gestures – the vague indication with a crooked, hook-nailed finger, the raised eyebrows and slight upward inclination of the head – and encouragements to his confidante to pick things up himself. The trolley’s rattle softened to a faint tap under the weight.

All the while they chatted – rather one carried on croakily and the other listened and let himself be led – in a dreamy, casual way that beguiled any suspicions the latter held initially. They covered everything from broad concepts of life and death to the just as important minutiae of newspaper prices and the strangely pleasurable feeling aroused by inducing cramps into the bottom of one’s foot.

Abruptly, the moustached man experienced a moment of what he thought was mental clarity and independence of thought. He laughed at the Wizard. He swore at the Wizard and degraded him for the hobo he was. At this outburst of cruelty on his partner’s part, the Wizard wandered off. He waved a hand nonchalantly past his ear as he departed, mumbling something about “get some liquor.”

The trolley ceased to sound when the Wizard left. One wheel, higher than the others, continued spinning, expectantly, slightly off the floor. A reactionary gap opened up just below its pusher’s moustache. He was immediately assailed by a feeling of whose main ingredients could be recognized as confusion, querulousness and outright rage. (Rage was kind of his thing). Within seconds, confusion proved to be the strongest flavour. Sure, this Wizard was probably a hobo. Maybe both. But why was he so cruel?

Then, with nonchalance and a ‘humph’ at the ridiculousness of the situation, he started to carry on his way. It was a vain attempt to shake off the shame caused by his own cruelty. And a sign of sincere, unexplainable regret.

The realization of this regret began to overwhelm him. He stopped abruptly again – after just three or four steps this time. The one, raised wheel spun momentarily, then stopped.

“Fuck.”

With a sigh, he sat down on the cold, hard, shined-to-marble linoleum floor. The artificial light was not so bright down here. He crossed his legs and rested his elbows just above the inside of his knees. He rested his face in his hands. The pressure squashed his cheeks into his teeth.

He realized he was hungry. Hungry for something delicious. He had intended to pick up a couple of microwaveable dinners – he once tested his culinary talents with reasonable success, but laziness and self-pity (and a predisposition of character in which one flaw inflates the other and vice versa) meant beans on toast and other basic, unsatisfying and bad-for-the-soul concoctions had made up most of his diet for the last few years. It was not just a question of what to cook – it was a question of how. He seriously doubted his ability to boil an egg at this stage.

If it weren’t for his moustache right then, one would have seen his lower lip tremble. Only the dimpling of his chin belied any emotion more profound than the blank look in his eyes.

Then, with a rustling of leather on linoleum and wool on old skin, the Wizard wandered past. He carried a bottle of Irish whiskey and a larger bottle of red wine. The man on the floor caught half the label – Campo Viejo… Spanish, he decided.

“So, I was half right” he said.

The Wizard stopped. “Of course. But half wrong too.”

“You’re not just a Wizard, or a hobo. You’re a drunk.”

“Ah.” The Wizard looked away from the pitiful source of this malice, which still sat cross-legged on the floor. He gazed into the middle distance (in this case much shorter than usual, as the distance to the opposite shelf, covered in tinned tomatoes, was not very far). His lips wavered as though he was about to say something. And then he did.

“C’mon” he said, looking the moustached man in the eye. He cleared his throat in what might have been an involuntary expression of awkwardness and continued. “Look at your trolley. You’ve everything you need. And you know how.”

At this, he received a blank, dejected look.

“Oh dear. Alright then, my friend. I’ll help you if you like.”

A twinkle of brightness flickered through the doubt and despair that cloaked the eyes of the man on the floor of the aisle. His moustache began to thin and stretch into an apprehensive, bushy smile.

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