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#there’s also harry’s thing in shadow hunters (
jar-of-ectoplasm · 8 months
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tf2 mercs as horror characters and why i think so
sooooo i know this isn't what i've been telling you guys i was gonna post BUT i'm uninspired and i re-listened to welcome to horrorwood (ice nine kills) and it got me thinkin about this
i'm gonna start out with the mercs that i have the most solid reasoning and then it'll slowly turn into bullshit
it's pretty similar to an old jojo post i made a while ago
pyro:
OBVIOUSLY i'm gonna make pyro the miner/harry warden (from my bloody valentine) because they're both silent stalking freakos with gas masks
i also think it's pretty fitting considering valentine's day is all lovey-dovey and cutsie and pyro-vision is pretty much the same way
i could also see pyro being the thing (from the thing) because of the mystery draped around pyro's identity/what they actually look like and i just love that movie so damn much
spy:
PATRICK BATEMAN PATRICK BATEMAN ARE WE SERIOUS???? they're both sophisticated homicidal dickheads i personally think it's a perfect match
psychopathe francais coming to all theaters right now go buy a ticket
medic:
oh medic you silly guy you
i have two visions for medic, one of which is herbert west (from re-animator) because DUH mad science
BUT (even if it's a bit of a stretch) i think medic would go perfectly with pinhead (from hellraiser) because 1) medic did sell his soul to the devil so the whole demon thing works out, 2) medic is a sadistic freak and 3) i just think it would be sexy alright
demo:
demo wouldn't be a horror villain he would be ash williams (from the evil dead) because i just can't see demo being a serial killer (even though he technically is) he's just too silly for this world and he deserves a silly character to go with it
soldier:
in a similar manner to demo, solider can and will not be given a deep brooding character because he is simply too silly. soldier is one of the werewolves from what we do in the shadows (the movie not the show) because my heart tells me and by god my heart is correct
sniper:
i didn't have very many ideas for sniper but i think the best fit for him would be the collector/asa emory (from the collector series) because in my opinion, sniper's weird hunter-like relationship with the people he kills kinda reminds me of how the collector functions with all the traps and the games he plays with his victims [not like jigsaw though, it's different] (granted i haven't seen the movie in a little bit, cut me some slack)
heavy:
honestly i could see him as being any of the big, silent killers in film (jason voorhees, michael myers, you know the drill) but i think it would be funnier if he were frankenstein's monster and medic was dr. frankenstein
scout:
he is being difficult but it's not because i don't have an idea for him, i have too many ideas for him. i think it would be really silly if he was norman bates (from psycho) because he's a momma's boy, but i could also see him being anton tobias (from idle hands) because he's silly and dumb but i could ALSO see him being billy lenz (from black christmas) because he's a depraved little freak
engineer:
he is giving me the most trouble. i want to keep his southern-ness but i also don't wanna dumb down his character because i love engineer. honestly the only characters i could give him that do him even a little bit of justice is bo sinclair (from house of wax) or tinker sawyer from the god awful texas chainsaw 3 (which i love with all my heart)
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Full Masterlist
Updated: 12/18/23
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💥 Attack on Titan:
Attack on Pranks
→Attack on Pranks: Chapter 1 (The First Task)
→Attack on Pranks: Chapter 2 (Keep Running)
→Attack on Pranks: Chapter 3 (How it All Started)
→Attack on Pranks: Chapter 4 (Showdown)
Attack on Titan Short Story Collection
→Attack on Titan Short Story Collection: Fireworks
→Attack on Titan Short Story Collection: Towels
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💥 Kengan Ashura:
Muscle Heads: Ohma x Raian
→Chapter 1: Shut up, Raian
→Chapter 2: Off His Ass
→Chapter 3: Naughty
→Chapter 4: FishFace
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💥 Dragon Ball:
A Serendipitous Future
Goku Black x Reader: Forbidden Fruit
→Chapter 1: The Flames of Destruction
→Chapter 2: The Game Begins
→Chapter 3: Blink of an Eye
→Chapter 4: Cat out of the Bag
→Chapter 5: The Room
→Chapter 6: Chained Freedom
→Chapter 7: The Calvary Arrives
→Chapter 8: The Curse of Immortality
→Chapter 9: Hate Me Not
→Chapter 10: Victory
→Chapter 11: Zamasu’s Revenge
→Chapter 12: Hidden Treasures
→Chapter 13: The Wolf
→Chapter 14: Infiltrator
→Chapter 15: An Unlikely Allegiance
→Chapter 16: The Forest
→Chapter 17: Red Lights
→Chapter 18: Reunion
→Chapter 19: Even Nightmares Dream
→Chapter 20: The Pact
→Chapter 21: The Ritual [SMUT]
→Chapter 22: Back Again
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💥 Baki:
Not Really Katsumi
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💥 One Punch Man:
Mayhem
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💥 Friday the 13th/Halloween:
Friday the 13th Oneshots: Michael x Jason
→Chapter 1: Handful
→Chapter 2: Halloween Headache
→Chapter 3: You Make Me Go Crazy (SMUT)
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💥Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit:
The Elf and the Elk
Red of Rivendell
Mischief
→Mischief: Chapter 1
→Mischief: Chapter 2
→Mischief: Chapter 3
→Mischief: Chapter 4
→Mischief: Chapter 5
→Mischief: Chapter 6
→Mischief: Chapter 7
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Works In Progress
If there's anything in particular that you want to see posted, just comment on this post or shoot me a DM, and I'll try to get that one out a bit faster! If you have any questions also feel free to let me know. Some of these were written a while ago and forgotten about but I hate leaving things unfinished.
💥 House of Wax/Halloween:
You Look Like Me (And I Don't Like It): Bo Sinclair x Michael Myers
💥 Friday the 13th/Halloween:
Sharp Love: Jason Voorhees x Michael Myers
Friday the 13th Oneshots: Michael x Jason-Chapter 3
💥 The Collector (Asa Emory):
On Your Own: Professor!Asa Emory x Reader
Never Kiss a Stranger At the Bar: Professor!Asa Emory x Reader
Wrong File: Professor!Asa Emory x Reader
The TA: Professor!Asa Emory x Reader
💥 Hannibal (NBC):
Symphony of Murder: Asa Emory & Hannibal Lecter
💥 Slasher Harem:
House of Horror: Brahms/Asa/Michael/Jason/Harry/Pyramid Head/Bo/Thomas/Ghostface/Jason x Reader
💥 Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit:
Gold and Brown: Lindir x Legolas
Elven Encounters
Taste of Revenge
The Three Hunters: How it Should Have Been
💥 Mo Dao Zu Shi:
No Choice But the Wrong One: Xue Yang x Reader
💥 Banana Fish:
Cold Blue: Frederick Arthur x Reader
💥 Baki:
To Love a Monster: Yujiro x Reader
Triple Doom: Implied Mouth Triplets x Jun Guevaru
💥 Attack on Titan:
Attack on Titan Short Story Collection-Body Swap
💥 Kengan Ashura:
The Shadow That Never Sleeps
Muscle Heads: Ohma x Raian-Chapter 5
Kengan Ashura Oneshots-That's Not a Swimsuit: Ohma Tokita x Reader
Strong, Stronger, and the Strongest: Ohma Tokita x Lihito x Kure Raian
💥 Dragon Ball:
Goku Black x Reader: Forbidden Fruit-Chapter 23
The Devil's Promise: Goku Black x Reader
💥 Record of Ragnarok:
Cherrypop: Buddha x Reader
💥 Toriko:
55 Days to Tame the Beast: Zebra x Reader
💥 Sherlock Holmes (BBC):
The Untold Tales of a Second
💥 Squid Game:
All I See is Pink: Pink Soldiers x Reader
💥 Harry Potter:
Pranking Severus Snape
Mercy for the Brave: Severus Snape x Reader
💥 Marvel-Loki:
Not So Cold: Loki Odinson x Reader
💥 How To Train Your Dragon 3:
DragonSlayer: Grimmel x Reader
Betrothed to a Killer: Grimmel x Reader
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lewis-winters · 21 days
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please please PLEASE tell us what you think the easy boys' dnd classes would be! i agree with dick being a paladin and nix being a rogue 100% but i'd love to know what your take would be for everyone else!
Caveat: I'm not as well-versed at DND classes just yet (mostly because I haven't actually encountered a lot of them, and I've only ever played in 5E) so these are probably not the most creative of builds but I did my best! Also! These are classes, not DND races! Just assume everyone's a variant human... and also that everyone has the Soldier's background... Also don't come for me about which edition rules or game source I'm going by, we're playing it fast and loose, everyone.
I did say Dick was an Oath of Redemption Paladin-- mostly as a joke, because of the whole healing-Blythe's-combat-blindness thing. But now that I think about it, it doesn't really fit him very well. Something about Dick could drive him to be very vindictive, I think. He's definitely very petty. Story-wise, since he's so young in-show you can explain this away as a young Paladin picking a path and learning the ways and the discipline that comes with it... But he can also very well be Oath of Devotion Paladin, since Dick is very big on honor and duty. I also see him being Oath of Glory, mostly because something about Dick always strives to be the best, and that man has a lot of self-discipline.
You know who else is a Paladin? Ronald Speirs.
Listen. I know people would automatically think: oh, Ronald is a Rogue. And while that's what I think Ron would like to think of himself as (and maybe he multiclasses-- though I have no idea how that'd work), this bitch is a fucking Paladin through and through. Oath of Vengeance? maybe, but not quite. Oath of Conquest? oh, yes, that fits very well. Listen, a Paladin does not garner divine power from their Faith in their god-- that's a cleric. No, no, a Paladin garners divine power from their devotion. Try and look me in the eye and tell me Ronald Fucking Speirs wouldn't have the ability to divine smite someone simply because he has strong opinions about something. You can't. Did ya'll just forget *points at the interrogation scene in episode 10.* GIRL. He can multiclass, of course, but I feel like he's like. Locked the fuck in, ya know?
Or if you really wanna lean into the strange-and-off-putting vibe, we could borrow from Critical Role and he could definitely be a Blood Hunter. Ronald would be the kind to become a Blood Hunter. Order of the Lycan, because he's from DOG company, and I like to think I'm funny, but also that'd play excellently with both the almost animal-like way he moves and thinks + his care for easy as a whole (pack).
Ron could also be a monk. But I like him better when he has a weapon in his hands.
Lewis is a rogue though, and mostly because he's an Intelligence Officer, but also knowing his family background, it fits. I do love the idea of him being an Arcane Trickster, mostly because in my mind he could definitely multiclass as a Shadow Sorcerer (because let's be real, New Jersey would be the type of place to house a Shadow Sorcerer bloodline) because of his Nixon name + Charisma, which he has in spades. But only until like... level 3 or 4 because Lew would be the type to forgo magic-- since it's not something he can precisely control + it's his bloodline, so it's not like he worked for it-- to opt for something he can control and work toward perfecting. But another subclass he could fall under is Inquisitor Rogue. That's literally his job description.
Or Lew could be a College of Whispers Bard! That'd be fun, too, especially since Nix doesn't do much combat, but he would have a ton of Bardic Inspiration.
Wouldn't it be so funny if tiny Harry Welsh was a Path of Wild Magic Barbarian? I think it would be funny. Idk if it would fit, mostly because I think he's a Fighter, but it would be so funny.
David Webster, this bitch would be a College of Lore Bard for sure. But I did think for a bit that he might've been a School of Evocation or Order of Scribes Wizard (who multiclassed Bard), just for the high intelligence, low wisdom joke. It would be so funny if he was School of Evocation though-- can he cast spells? Yes? Gracefully and subtly and with finesse? Oh, gods no. He's a mess.
Web and George Luz are probably the only Bards in the whole company. George could be either College of Eloquence or College of Swords........ but if you want to up the angst potential, how about College of Spirits Bard? Oh, he watched his friends die in front of him? Let's make his survivor's guilt WORSE by making him have the ability to talk to ghosts!!
Shifty Powers, obvious. Ranger, of course, and in numerous subclasses, too. Though I did toy with the idea of him multiclassing as Arcane Archer, but then I figured that's more for Earl McClung, ya know (because, historically, he was a better shot than Shifty-- even Shifty says this)? The class in itself is fairly weak though, so I imagine Earl'd multiclass Arcane Archer (Fighter subclass) with a Ranger, though what kind of subclass is still up in the air for me, too. Truthfully, much like Shifty, he could be any, so take your pick. I'm partial to Horizon Stalker; but Hunter/Monster Hunter would be good, too. Also? Just imagine casting Arcane Shot on a gun instead of a bow-&-arrow. Magnificent.
Shifty and McClung could also be Circle of Land Druids, but then they wouldn't be as proficient in combat, so we'll stick with Ranger.
Eugene Roe could be a Life Domain Cleric, of course. But I feel like that's a bit too obvious. Grave Domain Cleric, maybe? Way of Mercy Monk sounds more appropriate for his character, since he's easily the kind of character to strive for inner spiritual balance, the way monks do-- let's just pretend he focuses more on healing than he does combat. Though both these classes do have the abilities to go on the offensive.
Ralph Spina strikes me as a non-magic user healer, though, so I think he'd be a Thief Rogue with a focus on the medicine skills + an extensive Healer's Kit, since thief rogues have like... more object interaction (I think?) per turn than anyone else. Though that would also fit Eugene, too, if you want non-magic user!Eugene, since he's often described as having a sixth-sense for when people need him, then appearing outta nowhere + the whole scissors thing. And the looting for supplies.
Carwood Lipton could go like... 3 ways. Fighter, Cleric, or Monk. I'm partial to him being a Light Domain Cleric, though, since that's the first thing that popped into my head. He could multiclass as Bard too, for the Bardic Inspiration, but idk, there are other subclasses that have the Suggestion spell in their back pocket, and he would use that extensively in Bastogne to keep morale up.
Malarkey is a Wild Magic Sorcerer. Mostly for the angst potential. Can you imagine him losing control of his magic when Skip and Penkala die? I know I shouldn't torture this man, but alas, it's just too good.
I also think Joe Liebgott would be a Divine Soul Sorcerer, though. That literally popped into my head first thing the second I saw this ask. He'd have some Healing Word by Level 2, and I think that works best for scenes like the one where Tab gets stabbed and also the one where he's comforting Tipper.
I can't shake the image of Artillerist Artificer Pat Christenson, Skip Muck, and Alex Penkala out of my head. They're on machine guns and the mortar rounds, respectively, so it fits for me.
......... an evil part of me wants Buck to be some sort of Warlock, he just hides it very well? But, again, that's mostly for angst potential. Realistically, he'd be a Fighter and/or a Barbarian. But a Warlock in the Military, though, wouldn't that be something? Of course the military would never allow it, because the Patron would take precedence above all else, but who says he can't hide that by claiming to multiclass as a Wizard? Idk how that would help in any way the plot, but the vibes are immaculate.
Everybody else, though, to me are either Artificers, Fighters, Barbarians, Clerics, or Monks, of course with multiclassing in between!
......... uh. yeah! that's it!
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tyrantisterror · 1 year
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I Am A Shadow, the True Self: On the Complicated Relationship Between Two Wizard School Stories
Ok, so, I’ve joked about this a lot, explained a bit of it piecemeal over some trivia posts, and just danced around the issue in general, but the events of this month have made me feel it’s finally time to just address it outright and completely.  We’re going to talk about the relationship between my wizard school novel series and the far more famous one written by the Trans-Hunter General of Britain.  Along the way I’m going to talk about archetypes, formative fiction, being betrayed by the author of said formative fiction, and probably some petty jabs at the world’s favorite magical boy.  So if you’re down for me rambling about Wizard School Mysteries some more, or just want to hear me be a bit bitchy about Harry Potter, read on dear friends - and fear not, I’m not putting any WSM spoilers in this one.
Why A Wizard School Story?
It’s a valid question.  Wizard School Mysteries began life more as a Scooby Doo pastiche than anything - well, Scooby Doo, Persona 4/5, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer really.  I wanted to do a story about teenagers solving mysteries, because that’s a fun genre that many of my favorite stories belong to.  I knew that I wanted to have real monsters in mind, and, looking at most of the examples of the mystery solving teens genre that I enjoy, I noticed that the vast majority of them are contemporary - i.e. set in the present of whenever they were published.  So it felt like a way to avoid covering ground that my most favorite examples tread would be to set it outside of modern times, and, well, I have this big medieval fantasy setting to play around in.
But that’s where the problem comes in.  If you do a mystery solving teens story in a setting with monsters and magic from European mythologies, you’re going to get compared to Harry Potter.  Hell, even fucking Persona 5 got compared to Harry Potter, and that was just because it had main character with messy hair and glasses.  Harry Potter is such an omnipresent franchise in the current pop culture landscape, there’s no escaping it if you’re even the slightest bit in its orbit.
I don’t think this is fair, mind you.  Contrary to popular opinion, Harry Potter did not invent the concept of a magical school.  It did not invent the idea of using a magical school as a setting in a fantasy novel.  It did not invent using a magical setting as the main setting of a fantasy novel.  It didn’t even invent focusing on students at a magical school as your main characters in a fantasy novel.  The only reason Harry Potter is treated as synonymous with magical schools is because it made a shitload of money.  It’s popular, and so everyone assumes anything similar must be ripping it off, which likely scares a lot of people off of using the wizard school concept themselves for fear of being called a knockoff, which in turn perpetuates Harry Potter’s unofficial ownership of what was once a very common trope.
So what can you do?  As I see it, I had three options.  First, I could have just scrapped the idea and allow Harry Potter to continue its undisputed ownership of the magical school concept.  Option two, I could have just written my story under the pretense that Harry Potter didn’t exist, never addressing their similarities in text, and likely have it be written off as a ripoff anyway.
But then there’s option three: take the fact that people expect a post-Harry Potter wizard school story to imitate Harry Potter, and use it to your advantage to anticipate what your audience expects and subvert it - which, when writing a mystery, is actually pretty useful.  I like option three, and obviously it’s the one I chose, because I’ll be damned if I let Harry Potter own this trope, but I’m also mischevious, and if I can use people’s belief that Harry Potter owns the trope to fuck with people, then trust me, I will do it.
The Joy of Archetypes
One thing that my writing has probably made apparent by now is that I love archetypes.  Just love ‘em.  Love archetypes, love tropes, love stock characters and plot-lines and all these other recurring narrative ideas and tools that appear again and again in fiction.  I’m fascinated by how these ideas are modified and repurposed by different authors, how the same basic character can become countless variants all with their own specific meaning and personality depending on who wrote them and what story they were meant for.
Retelling old stories in a new way is how fiction began and how it survived in the days before the written word.  It’s a long and proud tradition of humanity, and I love how, if you chart the evolution of archetypes and the like, you can see a sort of conversation between different authors and even different eras of humanity.
Take Arthuriana for example.   There are so many different takes on King Arthur just in the middle ages alone, and while the same basic plot beats and casts are retained between them, how those beats play out and the role those characters have to play change depending on which author is telling the story.  Is Gawain Arthur’s best friend, or is it Kay, or Lancelot?  Is Lancelot the strongest knight, or is Galahad?  Is Morgan le Fay an ally or an enemy?  Is Guenevere kind or a shrew?  It all depends on who’s telling the story - what they liked from the versions that came before, what they disliked or wanted to change, and what they wanted their version of that story to mean.
As a writer, I want to join that conversation, to contribute what I can to it and see what others end up saying in response.  And I personally feel that no author has the right to have the final word - there should always be room for more King Arthur tales, and by the same token, there should be room for other wizard schools.
So, whats the conversation I wanted to have with Harry Potter?
Harry Potter Gallant
A part of me wishes I could be one of the cool kids who never liked Harry Potter and always knew JKR was a piece of shit, but alas, I, like many in my generation, was in fact a fervent and passionate fan of it.  It wasn’t just a popular thing when I grew up, but a popular thing that was tied to so many deeply personal memories.  I remember my  mom giving me the first book when I was in sixth grade and encouraging me to read it because I’d relate to Hagrid (I did).  I remember my dad taking me to see the movies and loving them so much that he’d initiate marathons of them at home with me during the holidays.  I remember brainstorming Harry Potter fanfic ideas with my sister. I remember having long conversations with cute older goth girls in Slytherin ties in high school because they wanted to talk about Harry Potter with someone.  And I remember big midnight release parties at Barnes & Noble, where people cosplayed as characters and I got to wander around a bookstore after hours with a dragon puppet on my shoulder.  A great deal of my adolescence was shaped by this series - it is, to an inextricable degree, a part of me.
And while I come to bury Harry Potter, not to praise it (for the evil that children’s book authors do lives after them, oh how it lives), I would be dishonest if I didn’t admit there are parts of it that I still find laudable.  It had this setting where all these creatures from different mythologies existed at once, often residing in the countries their myths hailed from, and that was neat and clever (I mean, she fucked this idea up royally in execution, but the concept is still fun).  There was some very snarky narration and fun humor, but it also had enough flexibility to make things feel real and perilous when the need arose.  The Hogwarts house system is this ingenious toyetic idea, and I was far from the only person who liked mulling over which house I thought I’d belong to - and this idea was so good that countless other young adult novels tried to cram it into their story regardless of whether it made any sense to *cough*Divergent*cough*.
It had characters I loved, like Luna Lovegood and Hermione Granger.  Remus Lupin was one of the reasons I entered the teaching profession.  There’s the subplot of saving Buckbeak, a big friendly monster who is wrongfully written off as a dangerous creature and sentenced to death, which tugged at my monster-loving heart, and the scene where they set the dragon loose to destroy capitalism in the last book.  And there’s Hagrid, the large, oafish, cumbersome man who nonetheless has a soft spot for weird animals that other people write off, and who I related to on all those points.  A lot of things I loved and maybe could still love... in isolation, at least, from the rest of it.
Perhaps the most important thing about it was the fact that Harry, ostensibly at least, was a pacifist.  The seventh book makes a big deal of the fact that Harry’s signature combat spell is the one designed to disarm people rather than hurt them - I’m pretty sure I’m paraphrasing the book when I say Harry is defined as a person who prefers to make violence stop rather than inflict it.  That was huge to me at the time. 
I was very tender-hearted when I was a little kid.  I didn’t like violence most of the time, and preferred thinking of stories where heroes help and befriend people rather than hurt them.  I had to create my own, mind you, because when I was a kid there weren’t any stories aimed at boys where the heroes solved their problems with something other than violence.  A male hero, pop culture told me, is someone who yells and frowns and beats the shit out of people. 
My fellow boys agreed with that, and when they found out I wanted to play pretend about characters who act friendly and try to take care of each other, well, I got bullied to low fucking hell for it. The tenderness was literally beaten out of me over the course of several years, and eventually I learned to stop worrying and love violence, because I might not survive if I didn’t.
Harry Potter didn’t come soon enough to reach me before I grew my callous, but deep beneath it, hidden from the world, what remained of that tender-hearted boy finally saw a hero who reflected himself.  Here was a boy hero who stops fights rather than “wins” them, a boy who just wants to be nice.
We later got characters like Aang and Steven Universe, quite a bit after I had grown out of being a boy and a teenager and into adulthood, but Harry Potter was the first of them.  And even now there’s a part of me that gets really pissed at how people hate these characters specifically because of their pacifism, because HEAVEN FORBID a male hero doesn’t want to kill people.
...
So yes, Harry Potter affected me in some positive ways.  It left a deep impression, one that even now I can’t fully shake off, and one I can’t deny has impacted my own writing.  I mean, it was so important to me once that when I wrote my first book, I specifically compared its word count to the first Harry Potter book - once I reached/exceeded that book’s length, I knew I had actually written a novel instead of just a big short story.  Loathe as I am to admit it now, I wouldn’t be here without those wizard books.
...but all this said, there’s a reason I’m loathe to admit it.  Quite a few of them, in fact.
Harry Potter Goofus
I’m not going to list all of Harry Potter’s sins here, both because it would take way too long, and also because a bunch of other people have done it already. I mean, just check out that video by Shaun that people paraphrase whenever the topic comes up - no, seriously, check it out, I think it actually teaches a lot of lessons on how to do world-building by showing how Harry Potter fucks it up. And if that’s not enough for you, there’s a truly exhaustive 10 hour breakdown by Lily Simpson that’s also well worth a watch if you’ve got the time.
Or read that famous 4Chan greentext:
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Harry Potter is filled with all sorts of bad, problematic shit because (spoilers for the next section) its author is a massive closet-fascist bigoted shithead.  And because I’m American, she can’t sue me for writing that!  But in addition to all its far more serious problems, there are some, well, quibbles I have with the series, some of which I had even when I was a big fan of it.
One of my first issues stems from the toyetic four houses, because even as a kid - in fact, especially as a kid - I knew that if you put a bunch of kids into arbitrary groups and tell them that those groups are going to be their friends, the first thing those kids are going to do 90% of the time is find a kid in one of the other groups and be friends with them instead, because kids don’t like to be assigned friends.  If teacher puts you in a group, it’s because they want to keep you from the people you’ll cause a ruckus with, and kids LOVE to cause a ruckus.  Yet rule-breaking Harry Potter doesn’t make a single friend outside of Gryfindor until book fucking five?  Bullshit, says I!  Absolute bullshit!
“But TT,” you might say, “The common rooms only allow students assigned to those rooms in!  How can they hang out with friends from other houses if their teacher-assigned hangout location is gated off?”  Kids don’t stay in assigned locations!  Those little fuckers would be camping in stairwells, hiding in basements, going on the roof, and generally getting in places the staff would rather they not know about, much less explore.  Why are Hary, Ron, Hermione, and the Weasely twins the only young people with the desire to get into some shit in this school?  Where’s the spirit of youthful rebellion?  Are British children actually this fucking domesticated?
And let’s expand on that, actually.  Our main trio go on adventures, sure, but where are the fucking shenanigans?  You’ve got a bunch of pubescent kids in a location where they outnumber the adults several dozen to one, and they’re also all gifted with the ability to warp reality to their will, albeit imperfectly.  Why don’t they do more stupid shit?  As my sister once pitched to me, there should be, like, scenes where wizard teenagers enchant shopping carts to fly and ride them off the roof, except one of them fucked up the charm and just plummets straight down.  Remember how the Prisoner of Azkaban movie had those wacky little mini-scenes of kids, like, eating candies that made they make animal noises?  Shit like that would be so damn common in a wizard school.  Where are the fucking hijinks?
Well, part of the reason there’s so few is because Harry Potter is a very focused narrative.  That’s generally considered a good thing - if a story meanders too much it risks losing the audience’s interest, especially in this day and age where we try to binge long-form stories as quickly as possible.  Audiences don’t like to have their time wasted, and the less focused your story is on its main conflict and characters, the more it risks people tuning out because they feel the story has lost its plot. 
Harry Potter is structured in such a way that makes meandering difficult - from top to bottom, its setting and conflict are shaped to serve one character and one character alone, that being Harry Potter himself.  Voldemort, the main antagonist, is inextricably tied to and obsessed with Harry Potter, as the plot heaps reason after reason for him to need Harry Potter’s death before he can do anything else.  And Harry is tied to Voldemort in the same way.  And because the other villains work for Voldemort, their plans revolve around Harry as well, and when other characters get caught in the crossfire, they flock to Harry, because circumstance has built things to make him the one to solve everything.  By building everything so thoroughly around the protagonist, you make it very hard to diverge into things that are irrelevant to his journey.
But the downside of that is that, well, the setting and conflict revolve around the protagonist, and as such they break down when you analyze them outside of his story.  Why is every player in Quidditch basically just buying time until the Seeker gets the snitch?  Because Harry is the seeker and has to be most important always.  Why is the conversion rate of wizard money so fucking stupid?  Because the books were meant to grow with Harry, so in the beginning the world was whimsical and nonsensical because that’s how it feels when you’re eleven, but then as things got more serious we were just kinda... stuck with those bits.  Why is Hermione, a person defined by her intelligence, not in the house whose whole thing is about being smart?  Well because we need to keep her and Harry on the same team so Harry’s victories are hers too, obviously!  It’s Harry, Harry, Harry, all the time, forever, to the detriment of the world he lives in.  There’s a lot of reasons the Fantastic Beasts movies are shit, but one of the big ones is that the wizarding world of Harry Potter just... can’t support stories that aren’t about Harry Potter, by design, because there’s all this baggage built into it purely to facilitate the story of the world’s most special wizard boy.  And it’s why Harry is impotent to correct the systemic justices in this poorly written world he inhabits - because those injustices don’t revolve around him, and, being in a focused story as he is, he can’t meander into them like other heroes might do.  He’s got a wizard hitler to stop, after all.
One more quibble before our next section: Hogwarts is, like, one of the most hideously ill-managed schools in all of fucking fiction, a nightmare for students and teachers alike.  I’m not just talking about the fun life-threatening peril, which is obviously bad for people to live through but is required to have a fun adventure story, but about how teachers like Professor Snape can openly abuse the students to such a degree that one of them fears a teacher more than the witch who tortured his parents into insanity.  But it sucks for teachers too - poor Hagrid, a man with the wizard equivalent of a GED who’s been forcibly kept from using magic most of his life and treated as a second class citizen because of his heritage, is thrown to the fucking wolves as a first-year teacher without so much as a unit plan to work off of, and given no support or safety net when the dickwad parent of one of his students decides to sue him for a problem that was said dickwad’s shitty son’s fault.  Each year a new charlatan or murderer is hired to be a defense against the dark arts teacher because the position is cursed and no one gives enough of a find a way around that.  It’s a nightmare, an absolute nightmare, and as a person who works in the education profession I cannot think about Hogwarts without shuddering in secondhand anxiety.
JK Rowling Is A Bitch-Ass Motherfucker Who Pissed On My Fucking Life
I’m thinking about those nostalgic memories I had, specifically the older girls in the Slytherin ties.  You know why they liked Slytherin?  Not because of the characters in the books, that’s for sure, every Slytherin in Harry Potter is a fucking asshole.  But you know what Slytherins are?  Goth-coded.  They live in the dungeon, their symbol’s a snake, they like dark magic and skulls and everyone else in the school hates their guts.  The characters as written may act like snobby rich pricks (because they are), but they has the aesthetic of the freaks and the geeks, the social misfits, the goths, the punks, the oddballs.
That was a point of appeal to Harry Potter.  It had something for the kids who felt weird.  I mean, that’s the escapist fantasy of being Harry Potter himself - in the mundane world, he’s a mistreated kid with a shitty life, but then he’s whisked off to a fantastical world where he’s powerful and important and all the bullies who picked on him were wrong.  People love Hogwarts - enough to make it The Only Magical School 90% of People Know Of - because it’s a haven for misfits.
Or it was, anyway, until its creator pulled off her mask to show her true TERF colors.
Again, I’m not going to list J.K. Rowling’s sins here, there’s a billion youtube videos for that if you really need them litigated for you.  The cool kids who always hated Harry Potter can point to the ansemitic caricature goblins, the sheer fuckery of the race of elfs who are genetically predisposed to enjoying being slaves, the racist names given to non-white characters, the clumsy and poorly thought out way Rowling handled non-European mythical beasts, et fucking cetera, and say, “You should have known!  The signs were there!”
And yes, hindsight being what it is, they certainly were there.  But it didn’t make the turn less of a shock, unfortunately, and it doesn’t make it sting any less to see her sink further and further into frothing hatred for groups of people who are majorly oppressed.  It doesn’t make it hurt any less that last week, when a trans teenage girl was fucking murdered, the New York Times decided to run a piece on why Rowling’s transphobia is, in their view, unjustly maligned.  It doesn’t make the audacity of this fucking monster claiming she’s the real victim when the people she maligns are getting fucking murdered while she faces no repercussions beyond people rightly calling her a bigot.
Rowling’s most famous villain, Professor Umbridge, is a woman who believes in strict social hierarchies and orders, refuses to bend for others, and is utterly self righteous about it all.  As the story progresses, she ends up unwittingly becoming a staunch ally and servant of the rising fascist movement in her government, helping the forces that earlier she claimed to oppose because they happen to hate the same people she hates.  If you read Rowling’s books, you can feel the sheer hatred she has for this bigoted character she made.
And now Rowling tells us that the social construct of gender is universal and inescapable, that anyone who steps outside of it is a criminal and a monster, and she literally thanks people who fucking openly identify as fucking fascists because those people agree with her when it comes to hating the people she hates.  Rowling has become Umbridge.
I adored her stories.  I looked up to her.  The betrayal cannot be understated.  I’m furious.  I’ve been furious about this for years, and it feels like every week this bigot does some new horrible transphobic thing just to remind me of how utterly she has turned against the freaks and the outcasts to whom she once gave shelter.
Harry Potter is a big part of me and it is poisoned.  I can’t enjoy watching those movies with my dad anymore - not without Rowling’s bile seeping in the back of my mind.  I can’t enjoy the story of the boy wizard who refused to kill without seeing how he also refused to help, how the world around him paints non-white people in racist caricatures, how the gender essentialism of its creator peeks through cracks in the wallpaper and exudes toxic spores of her malign influence.  I was molded by this story and the parts of me it made are now broken beyond repair.
I can’t let that fucking woman have wizard schools.  She doesn’t get them.  Not without a fucking fight.
In Closing
My goal in writing Wizard School Mysteries was not to make a Harry Potter parody.  It was always the intention to make my own take on a mystery solving teens story, one that you should be able to enjoy if you’ve never read, seen, or even heard about any Harry Potter bullshit of any kind.  But I knew the comparison would be made - that, whether I liked it or not, Harry Potter owns the concept of wizard schools, at least for the time being.
But it might not own them forever.
And even if it does, well, fine!  So be it!  Perhaps my story will never escape Harry Potter’s shadow.  Who cares?  Hell, why not use that - why not poke a little fun at the cultural monolith, and maybe use its own well-known narrative as a way to give my own a little punch? 
I’m under no delusions here.  I’m a self-published author.  I’ve sold about a hundred copies of each book I’ve made, give or take, and suspect less than half of those sold copies were read.  I won’t be dethroning Rowling in my lifetime, if ever.  This isn’t David vs. Goliath so much as an ant vs. an industrial lawnmower.  But if Wizard School Mysteries is doomed to be Harry Potter’s shadow, then let it be a shadow in the vein of the Persona series (which, honestly, WSM takes a LOT more from than it does Harry Potter).  It is the shadow, the true self, and it aims to give Harry Potter one hell of a tough and thematically potent boss fight before its work is done.
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michi-tala · 1 year
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How would D, Alucard and Aizawa celebrate their s/o’s birthday?
It’s not my intention to brag but my birthday is coming up soon and it made me curious about how these three men would react.
🎂Your Special Birthday 🎂
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📍So believe it or not, I did some research for this one. I don't know which generation (better 18 or older gen z😁) you are. Also I'm a total outlier. 
Defined outlier: noun
something that lies outside the main body or group that it is a part of, as a cow far from the rest of the herd Aka someone who stands apart from others of his or her group, as by differing behavior, beliefs, or religious practices:
🤬And an angry one at that…
🧩 Anyrate now comes the writing part. This is a challenge too as not sure what you like, so throwing provebal darts at Alucard and he cheats.😵‍💫
⚜️ •Vampire Hunter  D
⏳️This scenario is different as in the future of Earth, 12,000 years after a nuclear war destroyed most of civilization..
D would be about seeing the unique and mysterious aspects of this future:
•He would take you to forgotten Noble flower gardens with the rarest plants and flowers that won't try eating you for a meal.
•Exotic and mostly safe animals..ones that most humans have never seen, let alone be able to touch some.
•D playing a wooden flute he crafted with his vampiric nails. It probably has a carved pattern. And can this man play beautifully or not?  
•Better yet he would sing some lines from a Noble song called song of D. Yes D has a song which almost forgotten by nobles about Sacred Ancestor's only success, D.
•Perhaps acquiring season sensitive fruit to create a fabulous cake or favorite dessert.
•Most things are well in D's grasp though flying a Noble ship to Jupiter and visiting a vampire base is a No. He doesn't trust you will get back in one piece. (And yeah the cannons can still hit Earth from Jupiter)
•Romantic things like holding hands, delicate kisses and body massages. But you are in the mood for some rough birthday sex fun, he's game too.
It's all about you on your birthday…
❤️‍🔥
⛩️ •Shouta Aizawa 
•Shouta is too busy between you, teaching and underground hero business. So…
•Hizashi Yamada is his loud wing man. Instagram and tik tok fueled announcing your birthday. Hizashi creates what the rest of the world gets to see of you on your special day.
•Small group of hero friends party with such gifts as self care sets, mini candles, plushies or something like the box of emotions. 
•Maybe a click and grow Smart garden so both of you save money and eat more healthily.
•Perhaps Airtight cold brewing iced coffee maker for your coffee fix and his too..
•themed party other than hero if you wish. Perhaps traditional Japanese dress. Traditional music and food. Or Harry Potter ( Shouta as Snape would be amazing and hilarious).
•If a 'night owl' the small party goes late into the night..
💖
🛡 •Vivode Vlad
It's the 1400’s so it's about having a ball in your name..
•The best food you love and dancing till early hours of the morning. You are the most beautifully dressed and Vlad matches his dress clothes to compliment yours.
•A birthday announcement by Vlad and all in the ballroom wish you a happy birthday.
•Gifts of one of a kind jewelry, fabulous clothes of silk and velvet. Egyptian perfume and such.
💞
🍷No Life King
•A themed night as a private masquerade party of two. Perhaps a pianiste or violin player for classical music.
 •A fabulous Romanian meal cooked by thee Vampire King. The dessert is to die for. He even eats a small amount of the meal he cooked.
Just remember he's going to be hungry for your blood..
•You see him with all the polished aspects of the perfect gentleman.  How you and he glide across the dance floor via his shadows.
•If warmer months stroll under the moon in the Hellsing rose garden. If colder than probably the beautifully crafted arboretum on Hellsing grounds.
•And the rare experience of Alucard singing to you. It's part of becoming a vampire, a beautiful and seductive voice. Singing well becomes another vampire trait like vampiress coos and male vampire rumbling purrs.
• You will be ready for bed when the sun is beginning to just come up.
A sunrise that's pale to the color of his eyes..
🧩
Footnotes:
Gen z
Millennials
Zoomers & Millennials 
Gen X
@amikartest @artsy-jandi @three-of-crows @alucardownsmyass
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Masterlist
These are all the fanfics I’ve written in one convenient location. I hope that maybe you’ll find something you like or you find something that resonates with you.
All of these will be split into categories (fandom and then character) and I will update after each fic I post.
Currently I have written fanfiction for Marvel, Harry Potter (only Golden Trio and Marauders Era), Shadow and Bone, Bullet Train, Beauty and the Beast (2012 TV show), Kick Ass, Anna Karenina and Kraven The Hunter. Kick Ass, Anna Karenina and Kraven The Hunter are under ATJ characters heading as I have only written for Dave Lizewski, Count Vronsky and Sergei Kravinoff who are characters played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson (ATJ).
I do not give permission to anyone to repost or translate any of my stories. I also do not give anyone permission to feed my stories through AI or to be posted to any third party website or app. If anyone sees any of my work posted anywhere but here or my AO3 (simplyreflected), then it has been posted without permission.
Updated 10 February 2024
MARVEL
MCU Movies
Steve Rogers/Captain America
Birthday Date with Steve Rogers - Steve takes you on a date for your birthday
Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver
It’s Been So Long - it’s been a while since the last time you saw your friend, Pietro. He comes to visit you.
Let Me Help You - You get a message from your abusive ex’s friend and it triggers some bad emotions. Thankfully Pietro comes by and comforts you.
I Don’t Know What You See In Me - You have a bad day and can’t stand the sight of yourself, so you hide in bed, under the covers so you have no chance of seeing your own reflection. That is until Pietro finds you.
Sing Me to Sleep - one time Pietro sings you to sleep and one time you sing him to sleep
Fairy Lights - Pietro sets up a date for you and him inside Avenger tower.
Clint Barton/Hawkeye
Dandelions - Clint is away on a mission, so you think back on your time with him
Tony Stark
We Have An Announcement - you and Tony get engaged and have to tell the rest of the team
Loki
I’m Not Going to Kiss You - You want to get up, but your boyfriend, Loki, has other ideas.
Thor
Dance With Me - at a ball in Asgard, Thor asks you to dance.
Multiple Avengers
Christmas With the Avengers (Pietro, Wanda and Peter Parker) - you go on holiday with Pietro and Wanda before going back to the compound for Christmas with the Avengers.
Daredevil
Foggy Nelson
I’m Always Here For You - While out with Karen, Matt and Foggy, you get some unwanted attention from someone at the bar. As Matt goes to deal with it, you go to your boyfriend Foggy
Punisher
Billy Russo
Oh No, You’re a Morning Person - Drabble about waking up in Billy’s apartment
HARRY POTTER (GOLDEN TRIO ERA)
Fred Weasley
We’re Finally Alone - The two of you never get to spend any time together thanks to Umbridge’s rules, but you finally found a way to be alone together
Remus Lupin
I’ve Got You - you’ve had a long day. So when you go home to your roommate, Remus Lupin, he is more than willing to comfort you.
Sirius Black
What’s Wrong With Me? - You've just broken up with your ex. You go to your dad because you need comfort and to know there's nothing wrong with you.
Minerva McGonagall
Tough Day - You had a tough day and go visit your mother, Professor McGonagall to spend some time with her.
James and Lily
I’m Proud of You - Someone connected to your ex contacts you and it triggers some bad emotions, but thankfully your parents called at the right time and came to help you through it.
Sirius and Harry
Trinket - You and Harry have finally moved in with Sirius and he finds some of your parents things that weren’t destroyed and shows them to you.
HARRY POTTER (MARAUDERS ERA)
Marauders
We’re Here For You - you’ve been in a bad mindset after seeing your ex, but the Marauders are there to cheer you up
Poly!Marauders
Outdoor Concert - You and your boys go out to an outdoor concert you’d been planning to go to for ages.
James Potter
You, Nervous? Doesn’t Seem Possible - You want to ask James out, and James wants to ask you out. Will one of you finally ask?
Being Around You Makes Me Feel Better - insecure and autistic!reader.
Family and Loved Ones - James thinks on life with his wife and child.
Cinderella Moment - it’s time for the Yule Ball. While walking down the stairs to meet your date, you have your Cinderella moment.
Porch Swing - When James comes home after a day of Auror Training, he finds you on the back porch.
Wrong Number - You get stood up on a date and opt to call your friend to come have dinner with you, except you call a wrong number.
Pumpkin - Spending the day with your friends, James decides to take photos of you with your camera.
Nook - After a long day, you hide in your special nook. You’re found by your friend James Potter.
Sirius Black
Rescue Me - When a guy starts hitting on you and getting creepy, you try to get the attention of your friends to help.
Peter Pettigrew
I’ve Been Wondering - After your day doing your OWL exams, you and your friends head over to the Black Lake. As they go into the water, you stay with Peter and he asks you something.
Lily Evans
Confession - You’ve had a crush on Lily for about two years. She’s spent the last couple of months holding your hand or linking arms with yours when she’s with you, but hasn’t been doing it with others. You finally ask her about it.
Poly!Jegulus (James and Regulus)
It Seemed Like You Needed a Hug - One of your abusive ex’s friends talked to you before going back to them. It triggers some bad emotions, and instead of going to get food or going to your classes, you end up hiding and inside your own head until James Potter and Regulus Black find you and comfort you.
Poly!Jily (James and Lily)
Do You Feel Better, My Love? - You get a message from your ex and you spiral into a panic attack. When your partners come home, they find you in the middle of a panic attack and help you through it.
Fireplace - After a long day, you go home to your loves and spend the evening together
Jily
5+1 - five times James surprises Lily and the one time she surprised him
Platonic Prongsfoot and reader
Did You Plan For This To Happen? - you get thrown into an abandoned classroom, but there were already two others in there and they just want to help.
SHADOW AND BONE
Tolya Yul-Bataar
Do You Feel Better? - You and Tolya are walking around the port the Volkvolny stopped at and you see your ex. It throws you into a panic attack and Tolya helps you through it.
Alina Starkov
Your Voice Is So Beautiful - During some alone time at the Little Palace, you get lost in singing until you’re interrupted by the Sun Summoner.
BULLET TRAIN
Lemon and Tangerine
We’ll Take Care of It - Your ex contacts you as you’re spending time with your brothers and they notice as your mood changes. They decide to help you.
Tangerine
Rainy Day - You and Tangerine finally have a day off at the same time and even though it’s raining you spend it together
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (2012 SHOW)
Vincent Keller
Lucky Encounter - You had left work and on the way home, spotted your ex who saw you and tried chasing you.
ATJ CHARACTERS
Dave Lizewski
“I’ve Got You” - Kick-Ass saves your life and stops you from being mugged, but it makes you think about the crush you have on your friend, Dave.
“Wait, You Love Me” - You and Dave have a study date and you accidentally blurt your feelings for him.
Picking - You and Dave spend time picking apples, however, theres one you can’t reach, so you ask Dave for a little help
Saving Dave - While out making sure everyone is safe, you see someone who needs help.
Count Vronsky
Soothing Touch - You had a bad day mentally and when your husband finds you, he helps you through it by just being with you.
Sergei Kravinoff/Kraven The Hunter
Fire and Ice - You were the Ice (cold towards everyone) and he was the Fire (trying to melt your ice).
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theficpusher · 2 years
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Set Sail With No Compass by zarah5 | M | 4778 Pirate AU. That's it; that's the summary.
A World Full of Shadows | E | 17979 When Harry Styles crashes back into Louis' life after a year apart, he knows chaos is about to ensue. As they embark together on their quest for revenge against the most well known pirate hunter of all time, old feelings come creeping back and Louis must fight to control them. There's also the small matter of fact that the last time he saw Harry he abandoned him on an uninhabited island and left him for dead. Whoops?
why take your life when you give it so willingly by we_are_the_same | M | 19079 Well, at least things can’t get much worse. Louis squints to avoid the harsh glare of the sun reflecting off of the waves. He doesn’t need to look around to know how dire his situation is: there is nothing but open sea around him, the remnants of his ship have long since disappeared, and by now it’s really not a matter of survival, but of what will kill him first. Will it be the wound on his abdomen, festering and throbbing? Will it be dehydration, made all the worse by the vast expanse of water surrounding him? Or perhaps it will be some sea animal, taking him for easy prey. ☠ ☠ ☠ When Louis Tomlinson, Captain of The Rogue, ends up adrift at sea after Captain Cowell attacks his ship, he is surprised to find his enemy, Captain Styles, coming to his rescue.
Sail Across Me by iwillpaintasongforlou | E | 21706 Harry is a prince that is about to be forced into marriage against his will and running away to sea seems like a much better option. Louis is the captain of the infamous pirate ship The Rogue and he has a thing for helping defenseless creatures. Especially when they're as pretty as this one.
Lead Butterfly by LadyLondonderry | M | 32995 Dawn breaks on a cloudy bleak morning sky. Salty mist sprays up with the swell of the waves and buffets all of the lonely sleepy ships that drift as their sailors sleep on. The Lady Charlotte dips and rises as it moves through the mist in the hopes of a clearly sky. The black flag flaps lazily from the highest mast, the emblem of the sparrow only a shadow from down on deck. When the ship Harry lives on is boarded and overtaken by the crew of The Lady Charlotte, he thinks it’s going to be the end of the line. What he’s not expecting is to be brought onto the ship and provided safe passage. At least, as long as no one finds they’ve mistaken a common pirate for a noble.
In Your Black Heart (Is Where You'll Find Me) by graceling_in_a_suit | E | 35954 Louis Tomlinson has been lying for five years. His crew sees him as a pirate, a Captain, and an alpha; only two of those are the truth. He was content to let the illusion go on forever, but an omega named Harry Styles just had to join his crew and get his warm-vanilla stink all over Louis' best laid plans. Or: the story of The Captain and The Carpenter.
Ace of Spades by allwaswell16 | E | 78342 Living as a sheltered omega in a farming village has not prepared Harry for life aboard the most notorious pirate ship to sail the Atlantic. Or Louis is a pirate, Harry is his captive, and no one is who they say they are.
Resist Everything Except Temptation by Lis | E | 100116 The lethargic sound of heels clicking against wood resonated across the sea. Footsteps descended the staircase, every assured step creating a menacing aura as it grew closer. Perspiration gathered along Louis’ palms as the rhythmic sound halted in front of him. “Captain,” Malik greeted. Louis watched out of his peripheral as Malik’s boots shuffled back a few steps. Sweat matted the hair along the nape of Louis’ neck as he waited for something to happen. He felt as if a sharp blade was twisting his gut as the silence became tangible. There was a metallic slide of a sword being pulled out of its sheath, the sound startling Louis out of his cocoon of sterile shock. His shoulders jumped as the tip of a blade flattened underneath his jaw. Louis’ distorted reflection stared back at him in the polished metal. Engraved rose petals twisted his appearance as they crawled up the length of the sword. The sword lifted and took Louis’ chin with it. Standing in front of Louis was Captain Styles. OR The one where Louis is the commodore's son who is forced to become a part of Harry's crew when he is captured.
Swim In The Smoke by whoknows | E | 101778 “What about this, Captain?” Liam asks, nudging the boy kneeling between their feet with the toe of his boot. The boy hisses and swipes at him, slurring out something unintelligible around the makeshift gag Niall had to stuff in his mouth. He misses by a mile and tries again, just as ineffectively. Harry looks down at him, at the way the sun streams over his face and shoulders, at the way the gag stretches his mouth, lips pink and chapped. He’s lithe and pretty, smudged all over with dirt. They had found him tied up below deck, mostly unconscious, next to a barrel full of gold. He’s clearly a prisoner, but there’s something familiar about him, something that niggles at Harry’s brain. Something he can’t quite put his finger on. “Put him in my cabin,” Harry decides, turning back to deal with the rest of the loot. The boys screams out jumbled curse words at Harry’s back, muffled by the gag, and Harry can’t understand any of it.
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greyskywrites · 1 year
Text
Brother of the Moon V.
As a Hunter
5.8k | kofi | ao3 | tag
Margaret
The world drops out from beneath Margaret’s feet. For a moment she can’t speak, can’t move. It takes effort to remember how to breathe. “Father is dead?” she asks, her voice strange to her own ears. “How?” He was aging, yes, but not old and he was never particularly frail. She would have half expected him to draw sword against the Angel of Death.
“His heart, near as the Sun surgeons can guess,” Harry says. “He was fine one moment and down the next, as though an elf shot him.”
“Worked himself up into one of his rages,” Marcus says. “Suppose his heart finally burst.”
Margaret winces.
“When we met him on our way home—since we weren’t expecting him to be traveling,” Harry says, with a note of reproach, “he tells us this wild story that you’ve run off with some monk to marry a lord in the north and that this monk detained you in Hawbend when Father sent one of his men after you.”
Margaret gives a cold and sharp laugh, her head beginning to clear and come to focus. She thrusts out her arm, dragging the sleeve up so they can see the thin white scars. “No one detained me,” she says. “I would not go back. But for Brother Eadwin, I would be dead.”
Marcus pulls back from the scars, or else the look on Margaret’s face. Harry just gazes at her, his arms folded, looking terribly like their father. Margaret can’t quite reckon him dead, half of her expects this to be a trick, or else a dream. How could his heart simply stop? That sort of thing only happened to other men.
“Is that the only reason you agreed to this?” Harry asks. “Because if it were, then home need not be so frightful, now.”
“I do not intend to grow old and rot away to dust in Grenacre,” Margaret says, with more force than she imagined she had in her. Harry does not frighten her the way their father did. “If I leave this place now, in this way, no man will ever ask for my hand again. They’ll say to themselves, well, the fickle bitch has already run back home once.”
Harry’s mouth twitches to hear her speak like that. Any coarse language she knows, of course, she learned from her brothers.
“Is this what you’ve come all this way to do?” Margaret asks, summoning up her anger. “Come all this way to fulfill our father’s wish to keep me locked up like a songbird he can’t even abide? Have you looked at this house, at these lands? What possible better match could you arrange for me than this one?”
“That is the question, isn’t it?” Harry asks. “Why did Wulfric Seward even know your name?”
“Oh, he didn’t,” Margaret says, airy as she circles past the window. “That is another thing for which I can thank Brother Eadwin. Seems he’s looked after me more competently than you have.” That will fester under Harry’s skin for years.
“Just who are you, that you bring my sister here for Lord Wulfric?” Harry asks, looking to Eadwin still at the door.
“I am Lord Wulfric’s spiritual counselor,” Eadwin says in a cool voice. “And his liaison between the estate and the abbey.”
“And for what reason do you find yourself lurking here now, listening in on family business?”
“Lady Margaret asked me to come,” Eadwin says. “Lest someone should try to force her will, as they did in Hawbend.”
Margaret can see her brother stewing on that, and let him stew. She’s so angry she feels she could spit fire. She was just beginning to find her way here, and now Harry’s come to complicate everything. “I suppose since you’re here,” she says, cold, “you can stay until Lord Wulfric returns. I’m sure he’ll be interested to meet you.” He will want to calculate what sort of sons she will bear.
Margaret stands with her back to the window, arms folded and her shadow looming dark on the floor. Of all the blasted indignities, to have her brothers come trying to collect her home now. Oh, she could tell them just what sort of woman she is, if they want to ruin her reputation anyway. “He’ll also be interested to talk to you about my dowry,” Margaret says, “since Father didn’t see fit to send it with me. The terms he set were terrible, of course, I should think you’ll have to improve upon them.”
Harry’s lip twitches again as he moves to face her. “As I find myself in the position of being Lord Beckett now, I don’t see why I shouldn’t call you back to Grenacre anyway, if the terms are so poorly set as to be disgraceful.”
“I will make your life a hell,” Margaret replies evenly. This was always the way of their arguments as children: the only way for Margaret to win was for her stubbornness to run out Harry’s patience.
“My lady,” Eadwin says, “Lord Wulfric has returned.”
Margaret gives Harry a thin smile, and pulls herself away from the window. “I should greet my lord,” she says, in the same high false voice she always used when they made her play princess in their games. She thinks: is this not what you wanted? Is this not what you and Father always wanted me to be? She turns. “Brother Eadwin, will you accompany me?”
Eadwin nods, and opens the door for her.
The wind is roaring through the trees when they go out on the steps, and it tugs fiercely at Margaret’s skirts and shawl. Wulfric seems to be in good humor as he swings out of the saddle and hands the reins off to a stableman. Margaret greets him with a smile. “Was it a good ride, my lord?”
“Yes,” he says, and kisses her cheek. Margaret manages not to shrink away. She thinks that her knees ache. Wulfric looks at her face. “You seem pale, has something happened in my absence?”
“My brothers Henry and Marcus are here,” Margaret says. “They tell me—” Her voice catches in her throat a moment, the reality still impossible. “They tell me our father has passed unexpectedly.”
“Ah, I am sorry to hear that,” Wulfric says, with no particular passion. “Is one of them Lord of Grenacre, now?”
“Yes, my lord, my brother Henry. Shall I introduce you to them?”
“Yes, I think I should meet my betrothed’s own kinfolk.” He looks past her. “Everything alright, Brother?”
“Yes, my lord.” Eadwin is a shadow, a watchful crow at Wulfric’s shoulder.
Wulfric makes it clear to Aethelric that he will be unwelcome. Aethelric smiles serenely and says he’s off to find the hearth girl. Margaret feels almost bad for him, but not quite.
Harry and Marcus are perfectly cordial, as is Wulfric. It reminds Margaret of dogs meeting for the first time, judging each other by eye and scent, deciding whether or not to growl. Margaret hangs back by the window. Eadwin stands at the opposite side, arms folded, watching in stony silence. She wonders how often people—how often Wulfric forgets he’s there.
She wonders if she’s the only one in the room that could never forget.
Wulfric insists that Harry and Marcus must stay for a few days, see the estate that their sister will soon be mistress of. Margaret wishes he wouldn’t—she doesn’t know how she can get a moment alone with Eadwin if she has two of her own brothers lurking about. If it were Felix, she could abide it. Felix would understand, would keep her secrets. Only Felix thought she ought to be allowed to be a knight, sometimes.
“My lord,” Margaret says, when there is a lull in the conversation.
“Yes?”
“I should like to go to the church, to pray for my father. If my absence will not be an inconvenience.”
“No, no, of course you must go,” Wulfric says with a nod. “Brother Eadwin, if you will take the lady.”
Harry and Marcus, who have never been much given for prayers, blessedly do not volunteer to come along.
Eadwin glances at her as they step back out into the wind. “That was a clever little trick.”
“It was either that or grow fangs and claws and begin to tear my brothers apart.” Margaret lets out a breath. “I don’t know whether to be relieved that my father is gone, or furious at the rotten luck of my brothers being here now.”
“Do you really wish to go to the church?”
“I think if I were found not to, it would make Wulfric suspicious.” She glances at him. “At least I can speak to you at the church.”
Eadwin nods. “That you can.”
#.
Eadwin
Eadwin keeps to the back of the sanctuary as Margaret makes an offering for her father’s safe passage to Paradise. “I would rather he be there than a ghost to haunt me,” she says. They sit out in the entry hall to to talk, so as not to bother any other worshipers. They are visible to anyone passing by, they keep properly distant.
Every boy that comes through on some chore or another slows his pace just a little to look at Margaret, but blessedly she is too caught up in her thoughts to notice, or Eadwin would have to give more than a stern look to chase them off.
The slimmest edge of the paper is visible in Margaret’s bodice, and for a moment Eadwin imagines writing the poetry right onto her skin, drawing a pen against flesh to write an adoration. He imagines the ink smearing between them, marking them both. Some tangible evidence, if only that wouldn’t be so dangerous.
He imagines her hunting again, those clear gray eyes training an arrow through the heart of a stag. Riding back to camp with it draped over the back of her horse.
“I just can’t believe he’s dead,” Margaret murmurs. “I feel almost as though I killed him. Part of me wishes I had.” She looks at him. “Should I atone for that?”
“A man who drives his own child to wish for death rather than return to him is not a man who needs to be atoned to, my lady,” Eadwin says. “Not to my way of thinking.” He had never made any offerings for his father. Hadn’t even told his brothers here when he received the news.
Margaret looks at him, those gray eyes searching. “Your father, has he passed?”
Eadwin nods. “Some ten years ago, now. He drowned.” They had found his body in the black mud of the Penbreak, pale and swollen, after he had been missing for three days. Drowned because of the drink, they said, though that could not account for his broken bones. Osgar had been much better at making enemies than he had at making friends.
“Did you ever see him again after you left?”
Eadwin shakes his head. “I wouldn’t go anywhere near home while he lived. And because of my work here, I’ve not been back since.”
“What of your mother?”
“She still lives, so far as I know.” He wonders what she’s like, with Osgar a decade gone. In his memory his mother always snaps when she’s frightened, and she is very often frightened. She would be seventy-five. It is possible she still brews beer. Possible, also, that his sister Fortune has taken that over. News comes infrequently to him in Eagletop, but he thinks she has a second husband, after the first died of the same fever that took Prue, their youngest sister. He knows she has children, and that she was raising Prue’s daughter.
Margaret is fidgeting with her prayer beads, keeping her hands busy. He thinks of her anger at her brothers, and supposes they must not frighten her much. Easy enough to see the resemblance between them—he imagines Wulfric must be pleased to see the broad shoulders, straight backs, and in particular the self assurance with which the younger Henry Beckett carries himself. “How are you doing with the children, my lady?” he asks.
“Oh,” Margaret murmurs, “well enough, all things considered. Wulfwyn, the poor girl—I asked the nurse if Lady Anna’s dresses were still about, if Wulfwyn could be allowed to choose a few to keep as they were for when she grows, and the rest cut into new dresses for her. It seems a terrible waste to just put them away somewhere to be eaten by the moths.” She rubs the rose medal between her fingers, staring into the distance. “I think her father sees her as a plaything. So long as she pleases and amuses him, he’ll be good to her, and when her temper clashes with his then he says she gives him only grief. It will be hardest for her when he chooses a husband for her, I think. If she doesn’t learn to hold her temper, he will want her married sooner than later.”
“And Everard?”
Margaret sighs. “I won his heart by being kind about his little dog. He says Wulfric kicks her if she gets too near, so she hates and is afraid of him. I told him so long as she was well behaved, he could always bring her to sit by my fire. He told me he likes stories about knight—and I suspect he’d be better suited to writing them than acting them out. I said I would read to him this evening. And Mildred—well. Mildred is five.”
Eadwin nods. “You’ve become acquainted with Cheese, I take it?”
“I thought I hadn’t hear her right, at first,” Margaret says with a smile. “Why on earth did she name her doll that?”
“Because she is five, and it made her mother laugh.” He should have done more for Lady Anna, while she lived.
“My dolls were all named after knights and heroes and battle queens,” Margaret says. “My queens rescued my knights as often as the other way round.”
“She brings the doll to all her lessons,” Eadwin says. “I would say Cheese is one of my best students, but I am reliably informed by Mildred she is in fact very naughty and never says her prayers or practices her letters.”
Margaret laughs and rubs at her eye for a moment. “Heavenly Mother,” she whispers, “if it were just the children I wouldn’t have a fear in the world.”
Father Algar appears, having apparently been told that Lady Margaret is in the church. His eyes flick between them for a moment and he approaches. “My lady,” he says, “can I do anything for you while you’re here?”
Margaret smiles weakly. “No, Father, I only—my brothers came, to tell me our father has passed. It is enough comfort to be here.”
“May his road to Paradise be a soft one,” Father Algar says. “Would you like us to sing a mourning song for him?”
“They will hold his funeral in Grenacre, I should think,” Margaret says. “But thank you, Father. If you would say a prayer for him, that would be enough.”
Algar nods. “Of course, my lady.” To Eadwin he says, “Brother, I would like to speak to you after mass.”
“I will be ready, Father.” He wonders if he’s done something, or if some trouble has come up.
Margaret does not wish to hurry back, and they linger long enough for Marcus Beckett to make an appearance. “Wanted to make sure you hadn’t gotten lost,” he says, pausing to make a sign of prayer to the shrine of Saint Luce which stands in the entry hall. “Are you alright?”
“That’s a fool question to ask,” Margaret says, without any fire.
“I suppose so,” Marcus says.
“Where’s Harry?”
“With your husband-to-be, hashing out the details of your dowry.” Marcus grimaces. “They had no need of me, and if I had to spend another moment with that man giving me the same wretched smile our father always gave to guests I was going to carve it off his face. I don’t know how you can abide it.”
“I have been made to abide a great many things,” Margaret replies evenly. “Are you going to stay, then?”
“For a few days. Harry wants to go back to Grenacre for our father’s funeral, and then he’ll probably drag Felix and Theadora both here for your wedding. I brought you a horse, thought you might like to go for a ride.”
Margaret’s mouth presses into a thin line. “I suppose I can’t stop him.” She brushes out her skirts and stands with a sigh. “I’m sorry for keeping you so long, Brother.”
“It is no inconvenience, my lady,” he says, rising with her. “My duty is to see to the needs of all my lord’s household.”
The corner of Margaret’s mouth pulls up just a little. “That seems a great burden to carry indeed. Will you come to dinner?”
Eadwin nods. “Yes, my lady.”
He goes with them out through the churchyard, watches Margaret pull herself up into the saddle. She makes no complaint of the wind, which has died down only a little. “Where would you suggest, Brother?” she asks. “For a short ride?”
“Out along the fields,” he says, gesturing. “The hedgerows will guide you back, and there will be fewer tree limbs to fall and frighten your horses.”
Marcus thanks him and they set out, speaking between themselves and their words lost in the wind well before they reach Eadwin’s ears.
He catches one of the young brothers, tells him to inform Father Algar that he will not be at dinner, and returns to the castle.
If Aethelric did indeed find the hearth girl he’s done with her now, and being still unwelcome in the company of Lord Wulfric and the new Lord Henry he is sitting in the stables, drinking. Eadwin finds him only because he asks a servant.
“What do you want?” Aethelric grumbles. His mood is curdled, but there’s not yet straw in his hair so the day might yet be salvageable.
“You might allow yourself to be at least a little sober by dinner.” Eadwin takes the bottle from him, and Aethelric lets it go without much fight, which is a good sign.
Aethelric sighs, putting his head back against the wall of the stable. “What I don’t understand, Brother, is why you’re going to help Wulfric ruin another perfectly good woman.”
Eadwin sets the bottle aside, conscious of the work of the stable boys mucking out stalls. “I know you were always on good terms with Lady Anna.” Even though she scolded him more fiercely than anyone in the house, which was an equation Eadwin could never really make sense of. But then, he supposes, Aethelric has always been fond of pestering him as well, so perhaps it’s some perverseness in his nature. Wulfric doesn’t scold, he only bellows about what a worthless drunken layabout and whoremonger his younger brother is, and Heaven’s Queen be thanked that nothing has happened to Wulfric to leave Eagletop in Aethelric’s hands.
“I know she was my sister by law, but she was properly like a sister,” Aethelric says. “And every year in this rotten place she got a little smaller. And that woman—” Aethelric gestures vaguely outside, as if he believes Margaret to be lurking in the horseyard. “—that woman finds Wulfric repugnant. I can see it in her eyes.”
Perhaps the worst thing about Aethelric is that in spite of his habits, he’s always had a keen eye for people. If he weren’t so fond of the drink, he could make himself quite dangerous.
“And you,” Aethelric says, “you know it. And you know she ought to. And yet you still brought her here.”
“If that’s your measure of the situation, you could stand to be a little kinder to Lady Margaret.”
“Kinder?” Aethelric asks, his brows rising. He draws up one of his knees, slinging his elbow across it. “Kindness would be chasing her out of this place with a torch and a whip, before we let Eagletop rip the guts out of her. If you mean I should be sweeter to her, now that’ll just make her think she could survive here, and she won’t. Worse, it might give her ideas that are just a little too dangerous for me. No, better no man here be too sweet to her.” Aethelric’s head is beginning to list to one side, and he gives Eadwin that stupid smile again. “You could stand to be a little sweeter to me, Brother.”
“Forgive me, my lord, but I have never once thought you were worth the trouble.”
Aethelric laughs. “I suppose I can’t blame you for that.” He fumbles upward for a grasp on the stable door and pulls himself up. “Lady Margaret, though—if she were promised to any other man in the world but my brother, she might almost be worth the trouble.” He cups his hands in the air, before his chest.
Eadwin smiles thinly. “Not every thought needs to be shared with your spiritual counsel, my lord.”
#.
Lady Margaret and her brother return to the castle shortly after the rain begins. They are only a little damp, and Margaret goes up to her chambers to put on fresh clothes. Marcus Beckett goes to mutter something to his lord brother, and Eadwin keeps by the fire while Wulfwyn does her stitching and Everard his reading. Mildred is under a table, playing with her dolls.
Yes, if it were only the children, Margaret need not fear anything, because all of the children have a little of Lady Anna’s mild temper in them. What has troubled Eadwin since Wulfric sent him out is the implication that Lady Anna was impious, which he never took her to be. She was perhaps not so ardent about her faith, but it was at her request that Eadwin has taught her children their prayers and stories, and at her will that the children have always been brought at least once a week to mass, even when their lady mother was ill, and after her death.
He wonders what excuse Wulfric will manufacture for his failure to produce the sons he wants if Margaret’s children resemble these ones, because he is certain of one thing: Wulfric will never place the blame upon himself.
“Brother Eadwin,” Wulfwyn says, clearly bored of her embroidery. “Do Rose churches do things much differently than Moon churches?”
He supposes she must have heard that Margaret grew up with the Roses. “Do you remember what the Order of the Moon says is the surest way to our Heavenly Queen?”
Wulfwyn senses that this has been turned into a lesson and gives him an appropriately annoyed frown. In an altogether unflattering impression of his own diction, she recites, “Union with the Queen of Heaven is achieved through the bypassing of the ego or self, which we only imagine separates us from Her.”
Eadwin smiles faintly. “Which means?”
She drops the impression. “We are all of us connected to the Mother, but sometimes we need help to know it, so we can hear Her will and try to understand Her mysteries.”
Eadwin nods. “The Order of the Rose doesn’t disagree, but they place a greater importance on the Queen’s Creation. They say it is their duty to care for all things that live, an echo of Her love. Through care for others and the cultivation of beauty, they honor the Queen of Heaven with their labors and gratitude.”
“Is that why she gave me Mother’s jewelry?”
“She gave you your mother’s jewelry because she felt it belonged to you,” Eadwin says. “But I think it was still an act of love.”
Wulfwyn falls quiet, perhaps troubled by the notion that a stranger could act lovingly to her. “Mildred ought to have something, don’t you think?” she asks. “But—she’s only five.”
“You can choose a few pieces to set aside for her, to give when she’s older,” Eadwin says.
“Will she even remember Mother?”
“Not as well as you do,” he says. “You will have to tell her stories.”
“Brother Eadwin,” Everard says, very clearly having not being doing any reading for the last few minutes. “Did you bring Lady Margaret here because she’s so kind?”
He thinks: I brought her here because I was tired. “I took that into consideration.”
Aethelric has returned from a lengthy period of isolation in his chambers. He’s not properly sober, but he is washed and combed and freshly dressed. He greets Margaret’s brothers politely enough, and Wulfric watches him like a master of hounds prepared to strike an unpredictable cur.
Margaret, when she appears, is dressed in sea blue. Wulfric has gifted her a new hairnet—one of the few things that can be made quickly, Eadwin supposes—and it glimmers in the firelight, freshwater pearls adorning each joining place. She looks, properly, like the lady of a house such as this. As in her father’s house, she carries herself well, with a straight posture and a lifted chin. Her smile comes a little easier here, though it has a hollowness to it. She speaks to her brothers, to Wulfric, and after a moment she comes over to the fire and Everard gives up all semblance of doing his reading.
Margaret sits beside Wulfwyn, looking at her embroidery. “You have a steady hand,” she says. “I always hated my embroidery lessons. I was too impatient.”
“I hate them too,” Wulfwyn confides. “I keep pricking myself with the needle.”
“You’re better at it than I ever was,” Margaret says, which might be flattery but it pleases Wulfwyn. Margaret gives Eadwin a small smile and gestures Wulfwyn’s embroidery. “These are daffodils, yes?”
Wulfwyn nods. “They grow all over, first thing in the spring. You missed them, though.”
“I shall be pleased to see them next spring,” Margaret says. She looks to Everard, who has his arms fully across the pages of the book. “What are you reading?”
She handles them well, Eadwin thinks. If only Wulfric placed any real value on how well she can speak with them, make them feel cared for. If only he valued the notion that his children felt cared for at all. He half listens as Everard tells her about the book, a collection of myths concerning the Queen of Heaven and her angels, their major variations according to place and religious order, and commentary from church scholars. He’s watching the lock of hair intentionally left loose on Margaret’s cheek, curled and gleaming.
“That seems quite a lot for your age,” Margaret says.
“Brother Eadwin is helping me.”
“I’m glad,” Margaret says, smiling.
The dinner itself is almost peaceable. Margaret sits at Wulfric’s side, Aethelric on the other and Eadwin just beyond. Lord Henry and Marcus take up the opposite side of the table, and the children sit wherever they will. There is talk of wedding preparations, of the funeral they will have in Grenacre. The point of tension comes when Henry asks if Margaret will come back for their father’s rites, and the answer is no. “He would have dragged me back by my hair and disgraced me before the entire realm,” she says. “I will pray for his soul here in Eagletop.”
“Flaming angels,” Aethelric almost shouts. “I wish I could have done that. Wulfric, you should have sent me off to marry some foreign woman when our father died.”
“For the love of the Blessed Mother and all Her saints be quiet,” Wulfric snaps.
Aethelric’s mood for humoring politeness has apparently run out. He leans around to speak directly to Margaret. “I turned up piss drunk and half dressed midway through the rites, I wouldn’t be surprised if the brothers still talk about it. Do they, Brother Eadwin?”
“When they are warning the younger ones about you, my lord,” Eadwin says, dry. It is mostly truth—Father Algar is very keen that none of the boys get too friendly with Aethelric.
Aethelric laughs. “Good. Someone ought to learn from my mistakes.” As things are cleared away, Eadwin excuses himself to leave. He will be expected at the church, to make ready for mass. Margaret asks her brothers if they will come, and they say they will. The night is clear and cold.
The church is lit, and mass is performed. Wulfric is in attendance once again, seated between Margaret and Henry. He has brought his children this time, either at Margaret’s request or to give a certain impression to her brothers. He does not linger to ask anything of Eadwin this time. He watches them leave, watches Margaret use her brother to put distance between herself and Wulfric.
As the sanctuary is tended to, he goes back to Father Algar’s office. “You wanted to see me?”
“I wanted to tell you I have handled the questions about the bloodstain on your clothes,” Father Algar says. “Since in your absence rumors were likely to run rampant.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That while you were away you saved the life of some poor soul who otherwise would have lost it. That is all they need to know.”
Eadwin nods. “Anything else?”
“I have asked Sir Laure and Sir Eva if they would consider staying for a time,” Father Algar says. “Until the wedding. I said there was a possibility that Lady Margaret may not want to go through with it—a possibility they seemed curiously prepared for,” he adds, giving Eadwin a pointed look.
“On what are you basing that assumption?” Eadwin asks, suspecting he knows the answer.
“On the grounds that I am going to ask you to persuade her not to.” Eadwin lets out a breath. “Father—”
“You’ve made this mess, Brother, I am asking you to do something to clean it up. It will be better for everyone if she does not go through with this.”
“Her brothers have already tried, she refuses to go back to Grenacre.”
“Then persuade her to a convent,” Father Algar says. “You shouldn’t have to do much to make it seem more appealing than remaining where she is.”
“I do not think she will accept that, Father.”
“And why not?”
Eadwin thinks for too long on how to answer. “Father, I do not believe she will go anywhere she cannot see me. I think that is the primary reason she has insisted on keeping this course.”
Father Algar closes his eyes with an expression that says he is employing a great deal of restraint in not reaching across the desk to throttle Eadwin. “Saints grant me patience,” he mutters.
“I will try,” Eadwin says. “I will say everything I can think to say, but I will not force her hand. I am afraid of what she would do if I tried.” And it will have to be done in the brief moments when he can speak to her alone, when she will not want to hear a word of their parting.
Father Algar lets out a low breath and he nods. “Then we shall have to pray that that is enough.”
#.
Margaret
She has kept the paper against her breast all day, even after her change of clothes. She has felt its folded edges softening against her skin, has thought of Eadwin’s hand penning it in the dark and caressing her in the sunlight. It has lent her strength and solace every time Wulfric has laid a hand on her shoulder or kissed her cheek. It has burned at the edges of her mind since she read the first few lines, and realized what it was.
Now she has sent away the maidservants, and there is only her in these chambers, and a candle, and this paper. She unfolds it carefully, her ear sharpened for any sound, though she has said she does not want to be disturbed until morning. Eadwin’s handwriting is plain and unadorned, but smooth. The black ink stretches in slim lines, like arms reaching up to Heaven and down to Paradise.
As a hunter my Queen comes riding, with hair of burning sunlight and eyes of silver dawn. Into the dark trees She comes a-riding to claim me for Her prize.
On stag’s hooves I fly from Her, not of fear but for the chase. Her hounds will rout me out, Her hands will hang my hide.
This crown of antlers is of Her make, I wore it not before, but as a hunter She comes riding and I the hart to fall.
My Queen will level Her arrow, the shaft runs straight and true, and for the chase I will leap, willingly, into Her view. My Queen will loose Her dart to fly and for Her, and Her alone, I will let it strike.
As a hunter my Queen will come to me and Her hands will cut me open and take out my arrow-struck heart.
Let Her drink my life’s blood, let Her eat my flesh, let it redden Her lips. Let Her suck the marrow from my bones and dress Herself in my skin, for I give my life to Her, to keep as She wills and in the belly of my Queen, I will be reborn.
And in the trees so dark and dim I will place the antlered crown upon my head and I will be again the prize When as a hunter my Queen comes a-riding.
Margaret lets out a breath, tracing the words with her fingertip. She bites her lip with a smile as she reads in the belly of my Queen, a twinge running through her. She reads it perhaps half a dozen times, committing as much of it as she can to memory, because she knows it will not be safe for her to keep this. The description of her hair and eyes is too specific, and she cannot believe that someone here would not recognize Eadwin’s hand.
She touches the paper to her lips, whispering, “For her, and her alone.”
#.
Eadwin
He meets her at the shrine the next morning. She has not brought the children with her.
Margaret is pouring water into the basin at the feet of the Mother when he arrives, and neither seeing nor hearing anyone about, she pulls the poem from her bodice. “It is beautiful,” she says, handing it to him. “I thought of it all night. But I wonder—if there is just one line you could add for me.”
He opens it to read the single line she has written in.
My Queen will level Her arrow, the shaft runs straight and true, with falcon feathers fletched
He considers it in silence for a moment, and looks up as he folds the paper into it already quite worn creases, taking her in. He doesn’t know what it means to her, but perhaps he doesn’t need to. Perhaps he only needs to know that it does mean something. “Yes, my lady, I can do that.”
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writing patterns
[list the first line of your last ten fics and see if there’s a pattern.]
tagged by @cealesti
i'm going with posted fics only because otherwise i have to track down what i've been working on and... no. there's been a lot.
Sometimes, To Kill Superman - DC
All six thousand, eight hundred, and ninety-seven of Lex’s computers had managed to tell him the same thing.
2. When We're Alone - HP
Dr. Riddle had always been a curious man.
3. once isn't enough - DC
Bruce Wayne—billionaire, beloved child of two doting parents—had been born with a smudge of ink across his ribs.
4. the three worst ghost hunters of all time - TMFU
“We have a problem,” Waverly said.
5. It's Never Too Latte - HP
Tom and Lucius had been told before that they had an unhealthily co-dependent relationship.
6. How many Horcruxes does it take to seduce a Harry? - HP
“Shut up,” Cup hissed, at the same time that Ring attempted to smother Locket.
7. Memento Vivere - Original
Aidan woke slowly, painfully, and a little frustrated, in in a dark room on a bed, and continued faking sleep whilst peering about the room through his eyelashes.
8. the gentleness of violence - Hannibal
Will blacked out when he hit the water and didn’t wake up until much later, lying slick with sand and blood on a beach and surrounded by paramedics.
9. Earth Is A Playground For Those With Power - Good Omens
The lift stopped.
10. one lone crow doesn't make a murder - SOC
It was all an unhealed wound in the end.
...and that takes us up to april 2023! it's been slow for a while. my bad.
also wow they really are all scene setting! but there we go
@duplicitywrites @callmelyrae @whotooklortan @shadow-of-the-eclipse & anyone else who wants to do it! as always if you want to be tagged/have been tagged and don't want to be let me know :3
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burn-corpo-shit · 5 months
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Low Effort Review -
Spider-Man 2 (Game, 2023)
The sequel to Insomniacs Spider-Man definitely scratched my itch for more of their world but left me wanting so much more. The cast I felt did a good job with the voice acting. The writing could be stronger. Harry and Peters relationship could’ve been fleshed out much more, you could definitely feel their bond but the player doesn’t build up a significant attachment to Harry for the emotional beats to really hit you. The game could’ve been MUCH longer. The gameplay is absolutely phenomenal, the fast travel is fantastic, the new web tight rope is my favorite thing to use. I love doing random crime activities and running into the other heroes in the world, makes it feel more alive. It would’ve been cool if you could also just run into them while swinging around the city. Switching between Miles and Peter is really cool but I don’t really like how they’re always close by the other. I think with traversal being as easy and fast as it is, they would’ve benefitted from how GTA handled it, where the characters are in different areas of the map. This games end sequence gave me major “Spider-Man: Web of Shadows” vibes and I’m all for it. The map extension is also fantastic. There’s a lack of police presence in this game, no doubt from the backlash from the first game, while I agree, Spider-Man helping the NCPD put up Big Brother watchtowers all over the city in the first game was weird, the complete lack of NCPD presence in this game is strange as well.
Favorite characters: Peter, Harry, Miles and MJ are a given. Flint Marco, Quentin Beck, Martin Li, Hailey, Danika, Genke and Rio are an awesome supporting cast, I was so happy to see Miles’ supporting cast return. Black Cat cause I’m a Felicia simp 🖤💜
Favorite side missions: EMF challenges, Howard.
Favorite boss fight: Sandman
This is a spoiler warning:
Favorite part: MOTHERFUCKING HARRY OSBORN AS AGENT VENOM, Venom biting Kravens fucking head off, playing as Venom. Black Cat’s chase.
Minor gripes: why are symbiotes and hunters still causing problems in the city after I’ve finished everything? Why did I spend 3 hours getting all the underground caches in the Miles game if they’re just gonna say ”there’s still more in the city you need to find them”? Felt like a lazy way to explain a collectable. MJ as Scream just doesn’t work for me, felt like a throwaway boss fight, also why introduce Scream and not any of the other stmbiotes? cool design tho. Still no closure with Yuri’s story, with the lack of content it’s kind of annoying that they’ll hold off on her until DLC/the next game. No social media tab. No podcast tab. Not even showing Silk’s face is a crime. She could’ve been incorporated into the story like Miles with the first game and we could’ve gotten a different end credits scene. The boring and pointless Spiderverse crossover. No cameos. A note from Wong, the Baxter Building and a handful of references doesn’t really count to me.
Major Gripes: the severe lack of content, seriously I think this game has less to do than the first one did. The story could’ve gone on for SO much longer. Even when doing all the side stuff in between, the last few missions just came out of nowhere. We should’ve had more time with Kraven, we should’ve had more time with Venom. The game seriously lacks side villains. Sandman’s gone in the first act, 3 villains are killed off screen, and like maybe 2 villains are in side quests. Norman can’t be so stupid as to think the Symbiote was actually good for Harry after he saw with his own eyes what Venom is, right? RIGHT?! I get it, he needs to become Goblin and I want him to, but I feel like this is lazy writing. Could be better. WTF is up with the suits in this game? The lacks of suits is hurting me. The new suits are sub par, most of the old suits are gone and the movie suits take up most of the slots. Don’t even get me started on Miles’ walking Addidas ad. The movie suits should’ve taken up one slot, we should’ve had all the suits from the previous 2 games.
Dumb shit I thought of: just let me get to the Statue of Liberty ffs. People hated the MJ missions, so Insomniac put in MJ missions, I found it amusing. I didn’t hate the MJ and Miles missions in the first one and I enjoy the upgrade she got for this one.
Platinum Trophy (100%) achieved.
I pre ordered the deluxe edition of this game.
Definitely gonna replay the story a few times.
Looking forward to the DLC and the next game.
6/10 (originally 7/10 but after reflecting more, 6/10 feels better.)
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ansixilus · 5 months
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Topsy turvy purple and red
Teen Wolf crossover fanfiction.
Stiles Stilinski has a pretty good life. His dad is the sheriff, his mom is a beloved pillar of the community, his family is respected old money with a big old house out in the preserve, and sure he and his best friend Scott might be kinda geeky losers a little bit but they're not bullied too bad, and they're on the lacrosse team even if they don't actually play much, and this is senior year anyway which is kinda bittersweet but most of the stupid jock-nerd built dynamics are supposed to die with high school, right?
And then there's the new guy, and he must have had to repeat a year cause he does look a little older or maybe that's the sexy five o'clock shadow talking, and he's kinda contradictory because he's hot as hell and he's got the bad boy biker vibe down pat, but at the same time his family have a reputation as gypsy types so some of the popular people scorn him as low class trash which, what? but he also tries to be something of a loner so he kinda avoids the A-crowd anyway so maybe Stiles has a chance with him? Oh, right, the gay awakening bit, yeah Stiles is apparently gay or bi or something because he's definitely got it bad for Derek Hale, so that's a thing he's gonna have to deal with.
And then a stroke of luck, when Stiles and Scott run into Derek in the preserve, and he's actually kinda quietly nice under the bad boy look, so befriending him is easy maybe a chance at no shut up brain so the three of them can keep each other company and Stiles can even do his mom proud by helping embrace (heh) a new member of the community, and his family is actually pretty nice too, and close-knit, and pretty big with two sisters and parents and aunt and uncle and little cousin all under one roof, and is Stiles imagining things or are they all slightly afraid of something, like illegal aliens who think ICE is ready to come for them or something?
So yeah, Stiles' life is looking pretty good...
Until something big pounces on and bites Scott in the preserve and Derek tries to defend them, which is kinda nice to see his man his friend being badass and trying to protect him them like that, but what's going on with the fangs and the claws and why the hell are there sparks of lightning coming from Stiles' fingertips? So yeah, "werewolves are real and your new boyfr friend is one and your best friend was just bitten by one" is already a hell of a shock. Running home with a rabid werewolf chasing them and his freaking mom stepping out onto the porch and summoning a small army of freaking skeletons out of the flower boxes and front lawn to fend off that rabid werewolf and looking like a total badass, all calm and composed, while she did it was plenty more than just a cherry on top of this weirdness overload.
So yeah, his best friend is now doomed to turn into a werewolf, and it turns out Stiles' mom comes from a long line of magic wielders, and that uncle-type guy who visits a couple times a year isn't just a family friend but is also an ancient being from another world who came here with his family's ancestors a few centuries ago, and now that Stiles' power is awakening (or more like now that they actually know he inherited it, and yeah he'll agree that if he'd been told he could have magic and then it turned out he never did that would have sucked royally so he can understand why they didn't warn him) anyway now that he's a wizard (heh) he needs to be trained in how to use it so he doesn't accidentally electrocute anyone or set Mr Harris on fire next time he's a dick in Chemistry.
Okay, so now he's got magic to learn to use, and Scott has werewolf lessons to deal with, and there's still the looming threat of the crazy werewolf who bit Scott and apparently chased the Hale family here, and now there's a new girl too and Scott's fallen head over heels for her, and wait Derek what do you mean that she's the daughter of a monster hunter family so her parents probably want to kill all three of us?
Okay, so maybe the struggle to survive senior year is a bit more literal than Stiles wanted.
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huntunderironskies · 11 months
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How would Hunters even find a spirit that does not have the Manifestation Materialize?
Do you mean specifically Hunters in Darkness...? :0c I was assuming that based on the context and the fact I've admitted to being the Hunters in Darkness guy in the few smaller CofD communities I'm in but if you or anyone else want to know about other Tribes give me another ask or just tell me in the comments and I'll reblog this and add on more details! If there's a specific Tribe you want just namedrop one and I'll focus on them.
So Hunters in Darkness are very obsessive about their territory. One of the characters I have (the mentor of the guy in my avatar in fact!) treats her territory as being a packmate in and of itself. Which means by proxy he does as well since he learned from her. This means they're going to be highly attuned to changes that might escape another werewolf. If a spirit's messing around where they shouldn't be (it's not worth chasing down spirits that are just doing ordinary spirit things, they might be kind of terrible at times but you don't want a reputation for being unreasonably heavy-handed) then there will be ripple effects.
If a fire spirit is just going around doing what it should-- hanging around regular fires, maybe strengthening one here and there when it'd be natural to do so, they're not going to care so much.That's the world operating it as it should. It might lead to some eventualities like a person's house catching on fire, but that's just nature taking its course.
But if it's acting out, there's going to be some ecological oddities. Keep in mind a spirit's primary impulse is to spread its Influence. They're not stupid but it's hard to resist a chance to do that because that's how they eat. Way too many arsons going on, fires that go totally out of control too fast, and so on. That's going to be their first clue that something's off if there's a spirit that isn't manifesting or trying to escape to the Flesh at any point.
So, the first complicating thing for the spirit is that werewolves can project their senses into the Shadow and Twilight while still in the Flesh if they focus. This does include their sense of smell which can make tracking easier. The problem is more making sure they can set up an ambush and pin the spirit somewhere it can't as easily fight back.
Resonance is a big deal here, if they can isolate the spirit from its Influences then that means...no Influences. Meaning their biggest power source is cut off. Easy prey from there. Also easier said than done. A good Hunter in Darkness cultivates parts of their territory to be perfect killing fields and that does mean areas where they know that a spirit can't fight back properly due to lack of available Influences.
Splitting up the pack here is potentially viable as a tactic. Irraka can help here as they're consistently advance scouts, and would be able to harry a spirit elsewhere, though I'd argue Cahalith are also a good option. Hunter in Darkness Cahalith are more subtle, they are loud moving targets but less often than other Gibbous Moons. A smart Irraka or Cahalith drives their prey into a better location for the rest of their pack so the Rahu can strike the killing blow. This would be mostly done by hit and run tactics. Ideally you want the target to not feel safe in their usual habitat.
A spirit without the Materialize numen (and Twilight Form by proxy AFAIK) isn't safe just because they can't appear in the material world without crossing over, after all. They have to exist in at least one world, and they might be able to slip through in an area with their Influence being stronger, but that area has to be hospitable to them in that it has the Open Condition, which requires that it is resonant with one of their Influences. This lets a smart werewolf make sure that a spirit is cornered in an area they can't escape (and if they have access to Elements, they can make sure it's inhospitable. This is why Ithaeur can be scary.)
Or they could just use Shadowcall to force the spirit into the material world whether it wants to or not, that's an option that cuts the Gordian knot. Rites are not as flashy as Gifts but they are very useful.
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thelavendersquid · 1 year
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About Me
Hello hello 👋 I’m Emily - she/they, 21. I’ve been a silent lurker/observer in the tickle community for a good few years now, and now I’ve finally started to embrace my love of/special interest in tickling so here I am with my very own blog. :) I would love to make some friends with the same interest! Here's the thing about communicating with me though - we need to talk about something. I get easily overwhelmed by private messages especially if it's just something like a hello. So we can skip the small talk, just jump right in to whatever you want to talk to me about. It’s more likely that I'll respond if you do. :) And I love questions! Send me asks if you’d like, or jump into my DM’s with a question! Doesn’t matter how random, random is my favorite. My response times can be anywhere from minutes to weeks depending on how busy my life and overwhelmed my brain is - and with that said, I don't attach any meaning to how fast or slow someone messages me back, so please don't feel pressured to respond quickly or to apologize if you don't!
I also have interests besides tickling! (Although there is certainly overlap with these things and that). Here are some fandoms I'm involved in/media I like. I’ll bold the ones I’m currently obsessed with and try to keep it updated.
Critical Role - The Mighty Nein
What We Do In The Shadows
Good Omens
Lucifer
Sander's Sides
The Good Place
Sherlock
Six of Crows
Simon Snow Trilogy
Harry Potter - Marauder's Era
Loki (the Marvel show)
Hazbin Hotel
Most Disney movies
Avatar: The Last Airbender
But I'm not picky when it comes to tickling - fun fact, 99% of the time when I start watching a new series, it’s because I’ve spent the prior few weeks/months reading tickle fics with those characters and going from knowing nothing about them other than that they’re ticklish, to knowing enough to be intrigued to see more 😆 So you can pretty much come into my asks/inbox to talk about tickle ideas or head cannons for literally any fandom or characters and I'll be happy to hear and talk about it.
Also! I’m a writer! I’m currently working on a book - an urban fantasy adventure exploring the good the bad and the ugly of laughter, accepting and befriending all the parts of yourself, and discovering where you fit into the world.
My OC’s include a walking disaster laughter magician, a serious ghost terrified of laughter, an orphaned werewolf, an overworked guardian angel, a pick-pocket faerie, a a soul-artist ghost hunter, a sentient shadow, a literal tickle monster, and a demon in charge of Hell’s rehabilitation program. I would LOVE to tell you more about any of them! I share posts that remind me of them (and occasionally snippets of my writing) with the tag #my OCs
Also! I love and collect goofy jokes and bad puns - so if you'd like to share one with me PLEASE DO. I keep a list.
Back to tickling, I’m also fascinated by the science side of tickling - the physiological and psychological reaction and effects and all that great stuff. The entire phenomenon fascinates me. If you’re interested in that aspect of tickling too let’s be nerds together.
Oh and you can send me pictures of your animals anytime and we will be friends immediately if you do.
Ok that's it! Thanks for being here! 😄
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think think think- Descendants...monsters
Uma; sea witch/goddess (not alot of change i know but its just-more obvious!) Harry; vampire, son of the infamous Dracula in fact  Gil; human! monster hunter-oh shit wait (werewolf) 
Mal; fairy/fae...duh Evie; witch, duh Jay; Jinn (demon) Carlos; Frankenstein type monster, he’s all stitched together like a fine fabric. 
Ben; Human?...kinda? maybe? sometimes off bout him tho, sharp teeffies Audrey; human, also kinda? has some weird aftereffects from her fairy godmothers spells on her mom (has attribute for nature magic)  Jane; fae/fairy! Chad; Human Doug; dwarf...cuz like duh? Lonnie; human....kinda-dragon like tho (blessing from the ancestors) 
Dizzy; half human half sprite (fairy/elf/thing)  Celia; shadow witch the twins; half humans half mer (its why they dont talk, voices are intense) 
idk i had ideas!!!!!
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starlsssankt · 1 year
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TAG 9 PEOPLE YOU WANT TO KNOW BETTER
favourite colour(s): black, purple, dark blue, hunter green
favourite flavour(s): Sweet. I love sweet things.
favourite genre(s):  fantasy, romance, angsty things... Love when the romance is more a subplot though... but definitely fantasy. Not too big on sci-fi, because of the science part of it, and I do lean more towards a love of romantasy ;)
favourite movie(s): Um... I don't really know? Disney movies. Star Wars. Titanic is one I can watch all the time, no problem. Harry Potter movies are another that I can just... put on and enjoy for any reason. Oh and Hunger Games.
favourite series: TV series? Book series? What are we talking about? If it's TV... I was a huge SPN fan for a long time. Also The Originals. TVD and Legacies was... okay, but not comparable to Originals. I'm really enjoying catching up on Grey's Anatomy, and watching Yellowstone. Wednesday was also a fun one, and House of the Dragon gave me what I loved about GOT--Targaryens and dragons. hah. And of course, Shadow and Bone.
If it's about a book series you want to know... ACOTAR, Grishaverse, FBAA world are probably my top ones right now. I'm enjoying others, a few standalone things, but I do love the Mortal Instruments and all of those books. I'm just... very behind on them oops.
favourite music: Taylor Swift probably gets the most use, but I generally like country (think 90s-2000s country, like when I was growing up) mostly for the story telling of it. Rock is good, too, but I'm a little more picky there. Classic rock you can't go wrong with hah (and I blame SPN for a good chunk of that, not to mention my dad).
last song: Whatever was playing at the end of s2e5 of Yellowstone in the credits, if I'm being specific. I had my Alexa shuffling "top country" earlier this morning. That was the last of it, but I couldn't tell you what the song itself was.
last series: TV series? Yellowstone. Book series? (that I read or finished?) Read (because I still have more to go) would be the Never After series from Emily McIntire. Finished would probably be up-to-date on FBAA (just not the latest prequel one, ALITF).
last movie: I honestly don't know. I don't watch many movies... Probably Star Wars when it was on TV.
currently reading: Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. Will probably also start Kingdom of the Cursed by Kerri Maniscalco soon. And when I only have my phone on me, not an actual book, I'm reading Glint by Raven Kennedy.
currently watching: Right now? Yellowstone.
currently working on: Trying to find a new job, trying to awaken and figure out my characters for my novel(s), trying to get the muse cooperating on my RP blogs to write them and work on drafts...
ᴛᴀɢɢᴇᴅ ʙʏ: @yetfierce
ᴛᴀɢɢɪɴɢ: @ anyone who wants to (and hasn't)
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the-nerd · 2 years
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Guys we are back to business, and We are coming hard.
The first thing of all the poster is super cool, I want it for my room and although there will only be three chapters this third season I think it will give to talk a lot
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God this is like Harry Potter every time he commands in a new poster it is darker than the previous one.
And worst of all...
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What in the mother titan's name happened to hunter's hair?
I'm going to assume that this is like a kind of action that Hunter is going to take in one of the three episodes to be able to separate from Caleb and feel like himself, as many people had theorized that maybe Hunter was going to dye his hair red to feel the same only that to the extreme there is nothing left.
or... Flapjack has ripped off his lock of hair already.
Let's get into it, from left to right...
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What strikes me a lot about this poster is that at no time is there any allusion to the collector, so I think that, in the end, the main antagonist is going to be Belos. And I find it very curious how they have made Hunter look in the shadow of Belos.
Another very curious detail is that Flapjack is perched in a tomb, so I think we are also going to focus a lot on the past of the city and especially on the relationship between Caleb, Philip and the witch.
And it's also very important that they put Willow and gus on the same side, because I guess that will also be a very important part where we're going to focus also on the relationship that the three of them have, focusing on Willow and Hunter because she's the one who's closest to him on the poster.
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On the right we find Camila, a vee and Amity, it makes me very funny as in the poster they put Camila with a baseball bat prepared to give you a beating if you mess with the children so she will also have a relevant role in this season, Vee if it is true that it comes out very dark.
And of course in the middle of everything is Luz always illuminating the way.
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