#i just really needed this moment immortalized in a gifset

[peachygifs]

MELISA ASLI PAMUK and ALPEREN DUYMAZ ERKEGE GÜVEN OLMAZ, EPISODE 6

#melisa pamuk #melisa asli pamuk #melisa aslı pamuk #alperen duymaz #erkege güven olmaz #erkege guven olmaz #erkege guven olmaz edit #egoedit #melisapamukedit #melisaaslipamukedit #alperenduymazedit #turkishedit #turkishdizis #* mine. #* edits. #i just really needed this moment immortalized in a gifset #bruises tw

[starlsssankt]

RE: this gifset

Where do I even begin?

I mean, I'll preface this all with "yes, yes, atrocities committed and countless lives lost and he's a murderous immortal" blah blah blah. I know what the story is trying to say with this character, but bear with me, okay?

One of the things I love about villains/morally grey characters is the reasons behind why they do what they do. I need the nuances, I need the explanations, the whole "why why why" answered. I need to be able to get in their head and reasonably explain the thoughts behind what led to certain actions.

Which is why I cannot STAND it when some shows/books/etc. diminish those complex characters down to one-dimensional "Disney villains". But that's a rant for another day.

When it comes to the Darkling, I think this set shows really well (and it was one of the better scenes done in s2 of the show, let's be honest) how many times he's gone through the same old path, the same old fight, lost more people than anyone can remotely imagine...

I've always head-canoned, of course, that he tried to work "within" the system at first. He tried the peaceful approach, the "let's get more rights for Grisha, let's get them a safe place in society" by whispering in different ears of the nobility/royalty, by trying to orchestrate it as, I don't know, "legally" as he could.

Every single time, it didn't work. It either wasn't enough, or he didn't have the power to truly affect the change he wanted, or whatever the reason, he came to the conclusion that the only language those in current power would understand was VIOLENCE.

(To reference different real life things, you have it with every sort of marginalized group in history, every sort of revolution/rebellion/etc. There are those who work in the "peaceful" way and then those who are more "radical" about it. I firmly believe Aleksander started as the former and after so many (life)times, became the latter.)

The only other being that he knows that is enough like him that he doesn't really fear losing them, is his mother. Until such a point that Alina comes along and ...

Yeah. Another topic for another day.

But even then, ultimately, he does lose Baghra. And in that moment, he feels that overwhelming pressure of being utterly, truly alone. No one else bears what he does, no one else has seen what he has, has endured what he has--so how could they possibly understand?

Of course, after all those lifetimes, of seeing the same thing happening again and again and again-- He cracked, for lack of better words.

I mean, we see in Demon in the Wood how he was as a child, how Grisha lives in general were. Think of any marginalized group in history, and imagine being not only a part of that group, but marginalized even within that group.

That is what he and Baghra endured. Not only were they marginalized because they were Grisha (which dealt with enough prejudice on that fact alone), but they were shadow summoners, which marginalized them even from other Grisha. (Tack on the whole "he's an amplifier" and you get even more distance.)

So of course, after (who knows how many) lifetimes and decades and centuries, after losing friends and lovers and every single person he meets and knows (outside of Baghra) to (and I quote) "sickness, desperation, hate, and time", he's closed himself off from letting anyone in.

What's the point, when he'd just lose them? Why let himself feel anything for anyone else when they'd fall in one way or another, and he'd continue trudging onward...?

And there's the whole "reinvent yourself" aspect he names here, too. Because yes, think about it: He can't just continue in the same line. He has to become an entirely new person. Lies and half-truths that make up one identity after another... To never quite be known by the truth of who you are, to the point even your true name isn't what you're called?

What sort of mess does that do to a person's sense of self? Their identity? He clings to his name tattooed on his heart because he doesn't want to lose who he is-- and I don't even want to think of the mess his head ultimately is in, after doing all of this for literal centuries. (Dude needs major therapy but yeah...)

I mean, has he ever known a moment's peace? Because let's remember:

Grisha (marginalized)

Shadow Summoner (further marginalization within that)

Amplifier (secrets b/c lack of touch, assassination attempts, etc.)

Immortal (literally outlives every single other being save one and then ultimately even does that when Baghra dies)

All those facets of who he is, not a single one of them let him know peace. Prejudiced with some of them by others, literally hunted and killing attempts by others (amplifier)...

I mean, this guy was totally messed up from the get-go. (Again, dude needs major therapy.)

But yeah... ultimately, his intentions were right. And can we really blame him (completely) for shattering after all this? After a past like this? For finally saying "you know what, fuck it. they want a monster, i'll give them a monster to get the result" or whatever.

And I will now end (sort of) this rambling post with the fact that I don't think anyone could have acted the hell out of this character like Ben did. To put forth those nuances and give him depth that even the pages themselves sometimes lacked.

I've said it before and I'll say it one more time here: I love the Grishaverse for a lot of the potential it had. The avenues to really dig in and explore, the nuances and the motifs of light and dark and yin and yang...

I'd kill for some more of that... yeah...

Okay. I'll stop now.

(Sorry this got so long... Oops.)

#headcanon / a name long hidden #about & musings / like calls to like #// it's that time of the night when we decide to RAMBLE about this sort of topic #// forgive the lack of cohesion in this post #// I typed the thoughts as they came to me #// and I did NOT edit #// thank you very much #// long post

[theyilinglaozus]

Link your top 5 sets and tag 5 others creators to do the same

Thank you to the incredibly lovely @baek1nho for the tag! 💖 It was so fun to see what sets you chose, especially as they’re all so very beautiful!

I’m going to follow your lead and keep this to work made within the last year only; so no sets pre 2022 will be showcased here. Think of this tag game as a chance for to talk a little bit about my favourites as an end of the year round up. I've made more gifsets than I thought throughout the year, but still far less than what I have in past recent years.

1 - Mei Changsu and Mu Nihuang; Nirvana in Fire

One of my goals for the new year was to work on changing up my colouring style and experimenting a bit more, and I had a lot of fun doing that in some Nirvana in Fire sets. This was one of my firsts for the show as well as my favourite; as I really liked how the colours were brightened a little bit more compared to the scene itself. It’s one of my more subtle sets when it comes to colours, but it worked out well, I feel. Plus, I just really adore this pairing and this scene between them in the show.

2. One year with Word of Honor celebration set; Word of Honor

Easily the largest set I worked on this year, but also the one I wanted to make sure to dedicate a good amount of time to given how Word of Honor is joint to be one of my favourite dramas. I wanted to celebrate the incredible characters and the strong theme of family carried between them all. The idea to make the characters that leave us greyscale came later, and I know a lot of the notes on the set have people yelling! But, I felt it was important to note how some of these characters’ stories were severed too soon, and how they still left an impact on the lives of those surviving.

My friends over at the Immortal Wanderers discord were incredibly kind and helpful while I was making this, as they would put up with me sharing little gifs and asking questions on ‘should I include this character for this theme, or no?’, especially given Tumblr’s restrictions.

3. Xie Yun and Wen Kexing parallels; Word of Honor & Legend of Fei

I love parallels across media! Especially when it comes to media created from the mind of the same author!

I had so much fun making this, especially since at the time I was watching Legend of Fei, I’d really grown to love Xie Yun’s character. He was so fun and interesting to watch on screen, and Yibo truly brought him to life. It makes me a little sad that I haven’t made nearly as much content for Legend of Fei than what I should, so maybe that’s something I should fix.

But it was such a fun little thing to see how the two characters carried moments in each respective shows that mirrored the other - not through their actions as such, but just through the words they shared to their significant others. It really highlighted some of the tropes that I see Priest carry in her works, and I wanted to create a set that shared them since I hadn’t actually seen that around at the time. I’ll need to get the Guardian at some point and see if I can ever expand on this trend - maybe that’s a goal for next year?

4. Hei Fengxi and Bai Fengxi; Who Rules the World

This set gave me hell. I was constantly struggling with the question ‘did I really download this episode in 1080p, or was I lied to?’ I had to delete the first attempt and come away from photoshop for a day, but when I returned the next day refreshed and ready to start again, I was very happy with the outcome!

My favourite thing about this set is the golden colours. I struggle so much with finding the right balance with that colour sometimes, so when this worked out as well as it did - I felt really proud? When I look back on it now I still smile at the golds, since I think they came out really well!

5. Little Orchid and Dongfang Qingcang Kate Bush set; Love Between Fairy and Devil

My most recent set - and probably the only one this year where I played with any kinds of effects for scenes. I really love how this came out, especially how colourful it was. The typography is something I’m really proud of aswell, as sometimes that can be a bit of a struggle to get right.

Tagging;

@minnarr, @gusucloud, @xiaolanhua, @yesdramas and @bimorgana.

Feel free to ignore if you don’t wish to take part / have already done so! And if you’d like to take part but weren’t tagged, feel free to join in with the fun anyway!

#off topic chatter #thank you for tagging! (: #i know i have a few other tag games to answer too and i promise i will get to them over the course of the week!

[victoriaspriing]

Question tag game :D

I was tagged by @ta0xu thank you so much!!! <3

Name: Joana

Star Sign: Gemini

Height: 1.70cm idk how much that is in feet (5′6 or 5′7 idk idk)

Time: 14:04 

Birthday: 25th of may 

Favourite bands/artists: ooo right now I’m really into conan gray and phoebe bridgers 

Last Movie: idk I’m not really into movies at the moment, maybe it was a liam neeson one cause my mum loves him

Last Show: the sandman, loved every second of it!!

When did I create this blog: oh idk I think it was when I first started uni so back in 2018/2019 not sure

What I post: I make heartstopper gifsets and reblog content from all the media I like watching/reading. I could say that this blog is half heartstopper half multifandom

Last Thing I Googled: “1.70cm in feet” because of the previous question adsfgaha

Other blogs: I have @ithurtsnotolaugh but I haven’t been there in ages

Do I get asks: yup sometimes I do

Following: 133 (I need more blogs to follow)

Average hours of sleep: it depends but maybe 7-9 hours 

Instruments: I have a guitar and I can play one song on it 

What I’m wearing: black leggings and an old nirvana shirt that I have had since I was like 14

Dream job: I always wanted to work in a museum and I think it is finally happening!! starting my masters in museology next month AA!!! and a writer but I don’t see that happening any time soon

Dream trip: really want to go to japan or maybe england 

Nationality: portuguese. born in england raised in portugal, most of my family is portuguese 

Favourite songs: oooh idk don’t ask me favorites asdgdaj. I can tell you the song I have stuck in my head rn: the cut that always bleeds by conan gray

Last book I’ve read: loveless by alice oseman and I’m currently reading norwegian wood by haruki murakami

Top 3 fictional universes I’d like to live in: umm the obvious one is tvdu just cause I love vampires, the harry potter universe cause it has vv nostalgic and comforting vibes and in the loveless universe cause i wanna be friends with the main characters 

I’d like to tag (but no pressure ofc!!!): @swearphil , @narlielove , @sonseulsoleil , @immortals-malec , @skyisverybored

#tag game #sarah thank you so much for tagging me 💞💞

[qqueenofhades]

did you watch lucifer season six and what are your thoughts pls and ty

Ahaha. Yes. Yes I did watch it. Then I cried for a literal hour and attempted to compose myself, only to start crying again when I lay down and kept on thinking about it. Then I had more feelings. Then I slept like the dead due to emotional trauma. Then I reblogged gifsets and had More feelings. Then @buffaluff and @flynnanimal watched it and also required emotional support due to drowning in their own tears. So, uh... we're all fine here now. How are you?

My main takeaway from the final season was the sheer amount of love for the characters, story, and fans that you could feel shining through all the episodes, and which made SUCH a refreshing change. I had feelings in my tags the other day about how a show about the devil was constantly goofy, hopeful, loving, and uplifting, rather than all the grimdark nonsense they could have easily done with it. (As I said, just imagine it as written by the GOT idiots?? NO THANK YOU.) The writing really loved everyone and wanted to give them a proper ending and emotional journey, and it wanted to show the fans that they weren't stupid for having invested six seasons of effort and emotion into this, and just... that is so much rarer than it should be? Compare all the movies and TV shows that treat their fans like the enemy, that want to outsmart them at all costs even if it means changing major plot elements, that ferociously guard spoilers and think that "shock value" means good writing, by throwing hackneyed cliche upon cliche and making everything Depressing, and just... Lucifer had its hiccups and slow points and missteps, of course, but I am SO glad they didn't do that. The entire show consisted of Lucifer slowly but steadily progressing toward being a better man, despite mistakes and setbacks and sometimes a little too much will-they-won't-they. (Season 3 was the only one where I got bored and skipped over the filler episodes with Pierce/Lucifer/Chloe in order to get to the end).

That is an essentially simple premise, but they stuck to it, and they didn't try to create more drama by randomly wrecking what they had already established. I wrote a fic all the way back in mid-season 2 (In Nomine Patris) that ended up predicting quite a few of the future characters who had not yet appeared on the show at that time, including Eve, Michael, and Azrael, and several plot points, including the very major one of Lucifer returning to hell for the sake of his daughter with Chloe. And while this might mean that I am just that good at guessing TV shows (I would like to think this....) it also means that the writers set expectations, followed through on those expectations, and didn't suddenly derail everything or turn it totally on its head just for the sake of cheap shocks. As we can all attest, they certainly caused PLENTY of drama, anguish, pain, and suffering, but they did it in a way that remained faithful to the overall premises of the story and the characters, and wanted to see them become the best versions of themselves. I cried my eyes out at the end and then thought, "hey, I might want to watch the whole series again," which, if you ask me, is the mark of doing your job right. There have been so few TV endings recently where I didn't immediately swear off the whole thing or have to pretend that canon didn't exist, so yeah.

As I said, it was just refreshing to watch something that had that essential deep generosity at its core, where the message is that everyone is worthy of love if they make the hard and painful effort to change and become better, and that even if earthly things feel small next to all this messy celestial drama, they still matter, and that you are loved no matter what. I loved that Amenadiel became God and Lucifer returned to hell as a choice in order to help all the trapped souls be able to work through their guilt and go to heaven. There were obviously certain echoes of The Good Place in that ending; I don't know if it was something they had planned all along or if the success of TGP, another series asking deep questions about life, death, morality, and human nature within the framework of a goofy heaven-and-hell sitcom, influenced it, but either way, it worked so well. Even if it tore my heart out and stomped on it on the ground, it was fitting and oh so lovely to see Lucifer, once the most selfish being in the entire universe, following in Linda's footsteps and becoming selflessly dedicated to helping other people. Just. Chef's kiss.

And of course, Deckerstar. The Hades and Persephone vibes were IMMACULATE this season, and while it did take Lucifer and Chloe the best part of four seasons to get together, they never significantly backslid, never had third-party issues or cheap cheating storylines once they were officially a couple, and Tom Ellis and Lauren German REALLY killed it this season in particular. It was never easy for them and sometimes the drama went on a little too long over the course of said six seasons, but the love story was beautiful and incredibly meaningful and always true to the fact that the actors and characters and writers (not to mention the fans) all loved it so much. They were so much the emotional heart of this, and when they went to hell together in episode 6x03 (where they turned into cartoons because wHAT even IS this show), Joe Henderson said in an interview that this was to give the fans a view into Lucifer and Chloe's future (after) lives post-6x10, and to offer them a basis to write fanfiction. I mean... the showrunner saying to the fans "here, we love you, have something to write fic about!" is likewise pretty shockingly rare. It's again an example of how this show always audaciously poked fun at itself, never took itself TOO seriously, and was always welcoming its fans and the people who loved it to do so, rather than making them feel stupid or taking joy in wrecking beloved characters or plots.

Obviously, I loved Rory, the badass lesbian half-angel goth Deckerstar child straight out of My Immortal (seriously, she was SO edgy, it was amazing), because of the fact that Lucifer's entire arc was always about feeling abandoned by his father and that he was going to have to face it for himself. Dorky Devil Dad Lucifer trying his absolute HARDEST to bond with his daughter was simultaneously hilarious, adorable, and heart-wrenching, and yet again, the Growth. We all remember when he could barely tolerate Trixie touching him, and now we're here. Also, any variation whatsoever of "this is just a brief moment of time that we must be apart, love is eternal and stronger than death and we will never really leave each other" as a line is guaranteed to make me bawl my eyes out. So that was fun.

I got a big kick out of Ghost Dan running around and trying to get everyone to see him, and had feelings about seeing him in heaven with Charlotte and his beloved Pudding Pops at the end. I had feelings about how they handled Ella finding out the truth (or rather demanding to know why nobody had told her) and of course, I obviously loved Maze and Eve and their goth/femme wedding and the fact that they got a good three-season romantic arc (indeed, I wanted more of them). My god, Trixie is SO BIG, she used to be a tiny little nugget. I love that Linda was the moral and emotional rock all along, from the first episode to the very last, and that Amenadiel was Deeply Vindicated when Charlie's wings appeared at his first birthday party. I love how Lucifer in s6 is absolute thousands of light years from Lucifer in s1. And as ever, Chloe was Perfect. I am happy that I spent six seasons with these characters and saw them become better, and that I was never made to feel like an idiot for trusting the writers to end everything in a beautiful and emotional way. Because, well. They did. Sure, maybe I could go back and pick at a plotline here or a detail there, but I don't terribly feel the need to do so? It might not have been perfect, but it was perfect, and I am so grateful that it existed.

#lucifer #lucifer spoilers #deckerstar #anonymous #ask

[veliseraptor]

hgfjhsd can you talk more about your "xiao xingchen has abandonment issues" headcanon? because I had a brief thought about this literally yesterday and now this gifset happened and I need more xiao xingchen angst to cry about and you always have good thoughts

oh man I love this question, thank you!! for giving me a chance to xiao xingchen feelings.

So I’ve talked before about my headcanon about how Xiao Xingchen’s community growing up was pretty small and very tight knit. Not a large group of people, and all of them pretty close to each other, more or less family but certainly a lot of easy intimacy.

And then Xiao Xingchen decides to leave, because he feels like he has to, because he can’t just know that the world is suffering and not try to intervene! He’s going to save it! He’s going to make everything better! And he leaves, and it’s hard, it hurts, and for all his determination and conviction I think it’s a little like jumping into freezing water.

He’s been with these people he knows, in a very small world, and all of a sudden he’s on his own, in a strange world that he doesn’t know and where he doesn’t know anyone. He’s isolated by virtue of being a cultivator (from ordinary people), by being unaffiliated (he’s not part of a sect), and because he comes from a secret mountain and is the disciple of a near-mythical immortal. Then he’s also isolated by the fact that I think people look at him and see someone untouchable (even before he has a reputation - and once he starts getting one that becomes even more true), and also by the fact that he is just kind of weird.

So meeting Song Lan, finding someone who is a kindred spirit, who doesn’t mind his weirdness, who shares his ideals, is I think such a relief to Xiao Xingchen and he latches on pretty hard. And like! It’s not one-sided! But I think there’s a certain clinginess in Xiao Xingchen’s relationships that mostly flies under the radar but is very much there.

(I have additional headcanon about Xiao Xingchen being an unwanted kid before he got picked up by Baoshan Sanren because I like the Yi City trio being all unwanted children, and possibly is that the root of some of this? Sure, if you want to psychoanalyze it.)

An anxiety about ending up on his own again. But now even when he is traveling alone, he has a companion out there, someone he knows he can find and be with and it’s comfortable and easy, they’re in tune with each other. 

And then they aren’t. Then Xiao Xingchen’s involvement with Xue Yang drags Song Lan, and Song Lan’s entire martial family, down into the vortex of death that is Xue Yang on a murder spree. And Song Lan - rightly, as far as Xiao Xingchen is concerned - blames Xiao Xingchen for that, places the guilt on him, and tells him to get gone and never come back.

Xiao Xingchen gives up his eyes as (at least an attempt at) repayment, and walks away from Song Lan, and walks away from home again. On his own once again, and even more isolated than he was before, and with, I think a bit of a feeling that he has to be careful about trying to change that. And also just not really knowing how. Bridging the gap between how other people see him (as an icon, a folk hero), and who he is as a person...that’s a tall order, even for someone more experienced at existing as a social being in normal society than Xiao Xingchen is.

But while he’s wandering around being lonely and sad and hiding himself and Shuanghua, a-Qing basically adopts Xiao Xingchen at first sight and latches onto him fast and hard. And I think Xiao Xingchen is...he’s glad to have her! For sure! She’s good company! But he’s not assuming that she’ll stay for long. He’s not assuming that she’s going to stick around forever, or even for a very long time. He’ll enjoy the time with her while he has it, and when she’s ready to leave then he’ll move on alone again. Or that’s what he tells himself.

Then there’s Xue Yang. Who invites himself home (more or less) and then just kind of settles in and never leaves. And Xiao Xingchen I think keeps thinking, expecting, waiting for him to go, and he can never quite make himself ask the when are you leaving question because maybe that’ll remind him that he should leave, but he should ask, but what if, what if he’s actually here because he doesn’t want to go, and so on and so forth. Even more than with a-Qing, there’s that fear that his new friend is always just one day from walking away. And that fear ebbs away over time, it subsides gradually as he starts to get comfortable.

And then, of course, it shatters. His friend was lying to him all along. Song Lan came to find him and Xiao Xingchen killed him. In that moment I think it feels to Xiao Xingchen like his world has imploded not just because of all the horror of it but because he let himself believe that he had something, that he wasn’t alone, that he had found himself a new community however small and weird it was--

and (at least from his perspective) it was never real. And he fell for it, because he was so desperate to have the company, to be loved. Just as it was his weakness, his flaws, that led to Song Lan’s injury before, now it’s led to his death.

Xiao Xingchen is a very lonely man yearning for a community. But even when he finds a small community of one, or of two, there’s always a part of him that’s getting ready to lose it - just like the first one he lost (gave away), and always misses.

#xiao xingchen #the sad queer cultivators show #lise does meta #i guess??? #aggressively headcanons #thesis: xxc is a little needy and he deserves to be #other thesis: xxc's separation anxiety #blackteaaddict #conversating

[takiki16]

Book of Nile: Getting Together Post-Canon Thoughts

OKAY so I maxed out my tag space on this post talking about the logistics of #book of nile, and then @themoonwheniamlost​ confirmed this as at least 50% of a good idea, so HERE IT IS, copy-pasted and with all the hashtags cleaned out and EXPANDED UPON because screw tag limits!

The thing about #book of nile is that it is very easy to talk about Booker falling in love with Nile - who wouldn’t?  But I need to block out how Nile falls in love with Booker without (1) centering Booker bc that is the OPPOSITE of why i ship this, and (2) without making this about Nile 'fixing' Booker because fixing Booker is BOOKER'S job. 

MORE UNDER THE CUT ABOUT BOOK OF NILE ORIGIN STORIES

SO. HEADING THE FIRST - SAD FRENCH JUDAS adn the very very easy matter of Booker falling in love with Nile.

I kind of like to think that it wasn't QUITE 'love at first sight' for Booker but it was a darn near thing? Because their connection was so close from that very 1st dream where Booker puts a hand to his throat and says 'i felt her die' to that moment they shared in the cave when they realized they were the only two immortals who had comparatively recent memories of their mortal families.  I mean Booker was sort of preoccupied for the whole movie with being Sad French Rat Judas with Copley, but I FIRMLY HEADCANON that he started doing Soulmate Math very soon after meeting Nile and soaking her presence in that first time.  If Andy had Quynh and Joe has Nicky, maybe...maybe after 200 years...Nile is the one Destined for Me?  And then AFTER canon in the secret Youngest Immortals Chat that Booker and Nile Definitely have there is Definite Pining on Booker’s end - think “I love a Noble Princess but am a sad undeserving man with issues so I’ll just hold this here torch from afar.”  AND THAT TAKES CARE OF BOOKER.

Now. HEADING THE SECOND.  NILE. NILE FREEMAN. AND HOW AND WHY SHE MIGHT CHOOSE TO FALL IN LOVE WITH SAD FRENCH RAT JUDAS OVER HERE

...gawd you guys. this is totally the fault of that Matthias Schoenaerts gifset where he goes under someone's skirt, but i am SO TEMPTED to just go whole hog romcom on this?

It was some kind of Bad Anniversary for Nile at some point during the 100 years  (listen, I’m increasingly fond of the 100-year exile as Free Real Estate to focus exclusively on Book of Nile) and Nile is lonely and sad and feeling like crap and ends up secretly visting Booker and getting sloppy drunk at his place because sometimes misery really does love company.  And Booker is an Absolute Gentleman and Practiced Drunk Shoulder to Cry on, and he takes the chair while she crashes in the bed because that’s what you do for the person you’ve been pining for. 

And then the next morning Nile wakes up feeling numb and empty and embarrassed, and when Booker brings her a cup of coffee she leans over and kisses him because she needs to feel something, some kind of connection to the living world. 

And Booker is just !!!!!! OH!!!!!!  I am a Sad Undeserving Man, but Nile Freeman is kissing me and if this is what she wants from me then I can 100000% do this for her even if it is only this once in our whole entire crappy immortal lives.  And THEN NILE QUITE SIMPLY GETS THE BEST LAY OF HER LIFE, because I cannot stretch my imagination to Booker having anything healthy emotionally to offer so soon after canon, but I CAN and WILL BELIEVE that he knows EXACTLY what to do with his mouth and his tongue and his hands and...you know.  Other titty-ban forbidden things. 

And afterwords, when her legs work again and Nile is getting dressed - Feeling Different - she turns around and looks over her shoulder.  And Booker is lying on the rumpled bed with the afternoon sunlight falling just so all disheveled, and he smiles at her and says mon cher, with a LITTLE BIT of sad pining showing through because despite his best efforts to keep his feelings to himself and Not Drag Nile Down With Him he is having Emotions.

Oh, Nile thinks.  Oh.  Maybe...?

And then she goes back to her place and has a SECOND CRISIS, because WTF???  This is SO MUCH of a Whole Bad Idea, she KNOWS what Booker did and what he is, which is Sad French Rat Judas, but she DID have um. A really. REALLY. good time?  And is there anyone else even available for her to date?  And how much does she reeeeallly want to get into this?  And maybe it was just a trick of the light or something?  How much is she willing to bank on how well she knows Booker?  Who, after all, had a wife and kids that he is VISIBLY not coping well with losing even 200 years later?  But also Nile starts running Soulmate Math and thinking...what if...destiny?

So Nile freaks out and doesn’t text Booker for a whole month, and the next time they meet for coffee she can’t stop blushing because whenever she looks at his face she remembers Exactly where his mouth has been and what it LOOKS like in...citrus situations and she’s more nervous and uncomfortable with him than she’s ever been before.

And BOOKER meanwhile is Working On Himself but also thinking FUQ I ruined everything I Took Advantage in an emotional moment and now she hates me and doesn’t want anything more to do with me and is just waiting for a moment to let me down kindly because Nile is So Good.  And she is absolutely right to do so but darned if I say anything before SHE says anything because at this point I absolutely cannot put this torch I’ve been carrying down before she explicitly extinguishes it.

so it’s GREAT (ㆆ ᴗㆆ) 

AND NOT TO START EVERY SINGLE PARAGRAPH OF THIS THING WITH ‘AND,’ but there is DEFINITELY a breaking point after like...a couple MONTHS of awkward stiff meetups whereas before it felt natural - the two youngest immortals sneaking around together and sharing a coping space.  Nile can’t take it anymore and just says LISTEN do you actually like...LIKE LIKE me or do you NOT like me because that was a STUPENDOUS morning and early afternoon and you gave me this Really Intense Significant Look, but also you’ve literally said nothing about it to me since then and I’m cracking under the strain because I won’t do casual relationships when there’s literally only 5 of us in the pool and you’re the only other single one and i have NO IDEA what i”m doing and also dating you would be a TERRIBLE idea due to so many reasons??????

And Booker is like YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT dating me would be a terrible idea but...of COURSE I like-like you???  I just wasn’t sure if I wanted to dump this whole garbage fire of Sad Drunk Judas on your beautiful new immortal life?  I have no idea what I’m doing either but I’m kind of in love with you and in love with the idea that We Could Be Together and maybe eternity Wouldn’t Suck but I didn’t want to say anything because you could do SO much better and I don’t want to stand in the way of that?

Which is SUCH A BEAUTIFUL image to have, because even though at this point Nile can see a century coming on and Booker is 200+ years old, there is a strong flavor of “We, the two youngest in this classroom, are Figuring Out some things?”

I DON’T KNOW HOW TO RESOLVE THIS, but at some point there is a dramatic pause and a removal to a more romantic setting preferrably by the water, and Booker kisses Nile’s hand. In the silence after words.  Very old fashioned and chaste and good - he bows instead of lifting it to his lips - and you all can take things from there.  

#nile freeman #book of nile #sebastian le livre #the old guard #booker #my posts #AS PER MANIFESTO RULES - I HATE IT HERE AND WAS FORCED TO TYPE THIS BY BRAIN DEMONS

[immortalpramheda]

I was tagged by @nathanmillers - thank you! 

1. why did you choose your url?

I wanted something related to The 100 so I chose ‘Pramheda’ because of Becca Pramheda who has the same name as me (kinda with different spelling) and I cannot remember why I chose ‘immortal’ but I’ve had this url for years, don’t really plan of changing it haha

2. any side blogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them

My Star Wars blog @supremeprince-bensolo - I wanted to seperate my 2 main fandoms

3. how long have you been on tumblr?

I joined at the beginning of 2017

4. do you have a queue tag?

Haha no I’ve never bothered to set one up

5. why did you start your blog in the first place?

I joined right before S4 of The 100 because I wanted to become involved in the fandom before the new season started

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp?

When I was rewatching The 100 I just loved this moment of Bellamy smiling 😊

7. why did you choose your header?

Oh I haven’t updated it in ages haha, it’s just a cool space shot from The 100 because my blog is dedicated to this show

8. what post of yours has the most notes?

https://immortalpramheda.tumblr.com/post/631926677018165248/one-single-thread-of-gold-tied-me-to-you - probably my most favourite gifset I’ve made!

9. how many mutuals do you have?

Quite a few

10. how many followers do you have?

I was gonna do a celebration kind of thing but kinda forgot/didn’t know what to do but I recently hit 1k followers! Not sure why so many people follow me but THANK YOU!!

11. how many people do you follow?

204

12. have you ever made a shitpost?

I don’t think so?

13. how often do you use tumblr?

Everyday 😅I like to scroll through when I have spare time. I haven’t been creating as much as I used to though

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog? who won?

Nope. I tend to stay out of drama

15. how do you feel about ‘you need to compare this’ posts?

I don’t know what that is??

16. do you like tag games?

Yes!

17. do you like ask games?

Never really do any tbh, but they do look like fun!

18. which one of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

All of them honestly 💖 But I’m gonna give a shoutout to Iva aka @bellamyblake because she has the most awesome canon url!!

19. do you have a crush on a mutual?

Yeah totally! All the talented people who create AMAZING content!!

20. tags (if you guys want to)

@togetherkru @natassakar @geekyogicheese @bellamyblake @infp-with-all-the-feelings @igotbellarkeforthat @pendragaryen @starsinyourskyes @isweartobreathe @heartbellamy 

#tag game #tagged #about me #again I'm so late to doing all these tag games

[torchwoodfanfests]

Torchwood Bingo 2020 Masterpost

The masterpost is here - browse through every work submitted to the 2020 Torchwood Bingo Fest! You can also find most of the fanfiction in our AO3 Collection. Thank you to everyone who took part in out first ever fest. Your response blew us away; we had a total of 172 fanworks from 32 wonderful participants. Hope you all had a good time, and congratulations to everyone who got bingo!

If one of your works should be on this post but isn’t, please let us know and we’ll add it ASAP.

@shejustcalledmeafish

FANFICTION

To Love a Harkness

Coffee/Coffee Shop

Let’s Do the Time Warp Again

Time Loop, Black and White, Friendship, Secrets

Wrong Face, Wrong Time

Twelve/Frobisher confusion

Kiss, Bang

Bullet wounds

A Soul in Twain

Andy Davidson, Lois Habiba

Just the Messenger

Time Travel, Tarot Girl

Golden Days

Gold

Out of Order

Torchwood One, Prequel/Set Before Canon

Kiss of a Viper

Dancing, Betrayal

I’ve Got a Fascination (With Your Presentation)

Grooming/Bathing, Genderbend

World and Enough Time (Stories From the Loop)

Accidental Marriage, Cold/Warm, Bed Sharing, Plants/Vegetables

Commissioned

Human Monsters

Technician, Free Thyself

Timelord AU

Never Has He Ever

The Hub Goes On Lockdown

@princess-of-the-worlds

FANFICTION

Moments in Grayscale (and Eternity in Colour)

Anniversary, Cultural Differences, Immortality, Gifts, Water, Boeshane

i would’ve followed all the way, no matter how far

Psychic Power/Telepathy, Benign Alien Visitors, Canon-Compliant

silver lining

Fake Dating/Fake Marriage

found you made us in a star

Friendship

sing me like a choir

Kink/Sex Talk/Innuendo

the world is at my feet (i am standing on the ceiling)

Secrets, Torchwood One, Under the Influence (Alcohol, Drugs, Alien Pheromones, etc)

perfect premiere

Red, Pink

@torchwoodbutmostlyowen​

POETRY

Photographs filled with Lense Flares

Rhys POV

@toshsato

FANFICTION

I Don’t Even Know What I’m Doing Tonight

Rarepair

the night-time is the hardest

Bisexuality, Friendship, Healing

I ain’t letting go

Music, Benign Alien Visitors, Dancing, Werewolves and/or Vampires

GIFSETS

Martha Jones

The Resurrection Gauntlet

Backstory, Camping

@iianto-jones

FANFICTION

On Family

Bullet Wounds, Domesticity, Immortality

Our Worlds Move On

Friendship

How Much of It You’ve Got Left

Interspecies Romance

@dinodina

FANFICTION

In Which Ianto May or May Not Be Fully Human

Domesticity, Meet the Family, Canon Character is an Alien AU, Interspecies Romance, Betrayal, Cold/Warm, CoE Fix-It, Mission-Related Trip, Myfanwy

Rosy-Fingered Dawn Flipped the Page of Life

Healing, Flat Holm, DW Companion, Crossover, Rarepair, Under the Influence, Amnesia, The Year That Never Was, Original Character

@aellesiym

ART

Canon Character is an Alien AU

Mary, Canon Divergent AU

Domesticity, Based on a Song of Your Choice

Werewolves and/or Vampires

@cxptained + @agent-harkness

FANFICTION

Burn Me

Immortality

Inside My Mind (Trying To Get Things Right)

Disability

@ultraviolet-eucatastrophe

FANFICTION

You’re gonna heal over (someday)

Doctor’s Orders, Hurt/Comfort, DW Companion Cameo

Take it on trust

UNIT

All some children do is work

Kids

By the green you shall know us

Con-man/Grifter, Green

Keep holding on

Team Bonding

Half-lives

Past Canonical Character Death

A place to start from

Torchwood One

But the blues are still blue

Big Finish Audio or TW Novel Tag/AU, Food, Curtain Fic/Ordinary Everyday Situations and Chores

@agent-sato

FANFICTION

I Know Not Everybody (Has A Body Like You)

Genderbend, Team Bonding, Hurt/Comfort, John Hart, Pining

Off The Grid

Harriet Jones/Mickey Smith

Imposters Among Us

Rhys POV, Human Monsters, Doctor’s Orders, Canon Character is an Alien AU, Under the Influence

@moonlightrhosyn

FANFICTION

For I Chose the World’s Sad Roses

Plants/Vegetables, Therapy

An Exile on Lemnos’ City Streets

Mary

My Favourite Kind of Rain

Gold

The Cordiality of Death, with his Metallic Grin

Canon Character is an Alien AU

@currently-very-asleep

FANFICTION

Ianto’s Funeral

Meet the Family, Dead

@captainawesome242

FANFICTION

It’s the Taking Part That Counts (but the winning is great too!)

Water, Fake Dating

If You Should Fall Upon Hard Times, If You Should Lose Your Way

Mental Health

Who Wants to Live Forever

Immortality

You’re the Better Half of Me (you’re the only half I need)  

Mickey Smith, The Year That Never Was, Weddings, Family

Meet the Family

Public Displays of Affection, Kids, Confessions

@golyadkin

ART

Dancing

Meet the Family

Werewolves and/or Vampires

FANFICTION

What Comes Next

CoE Fix-It AU

@amlaich

ART

Harriet Jones/Mickey Smith

Under the influence

Martha Jones, AU/Canon Divergence

Immortality

@thirteeninafez

FANFICTION

Lost in Translation

Handcuffs

Porcelain Penguins and Other Such Knick-Knacks

Canon Character is an Alien AU

@asarahworld-writes

FANFICTION

hen night

Under the Influence

Gafr Siafft

Kids

@searching-for-arcadia

ART

Genderbend, Dancing

first, you must be buried (to understand light)

Canon Divergent AU, Mission-Related Trip, Exercise

Plants/Vegetables

Bullet Wounds

Ianto’s Criminal Past

The Hub Goes on Lockdown

@horselover107

FANFICTION

Team Tardis

Secrets

Date Night

The Child

Kids, Alternate Universe

Missing

Missing, Nosy Coworkers, Friendship, Future!Fic

Sibling Rivalry

Family

PLAYLISTS

Broken

Mental Health

Coffee: A Janto Mix

Coffee/Coffee Shop

@chandelle13

FANFICTION

Resurrection of the lost

Torchwood 4

Some secrets

Team Tardis, Family and Domesticity

With some help

Character Do-Over, DW Companion Cameo, Canon Divergent AU

Surprise!

Pets, Big Finish Audio or TW Novel Tag/AU

Once a year

Friendship, Curtain Fic, Blue, Comfort

Expect the unexpected

Anniversary, Doctor’s Orders, Date Night, Hurt/Comfort, Boeshane, Missing, Prequel/Before Canon

Things change

Bilis Manger, Canon Divergent AU

Annoyance

Gwen has some of Gwyneth’s powers

Unexpected Events

Pink, Fake dating/Fake Marriage, Undercover/Disguise

@my-random-fandoms

FANFICTION

The Animals Always Know

Pets

The Devil and the Time Traveler

Rarepair

EDITS

Weevils

@mathemagician7

FANFICTION

Returning to Torchwood

Old Friends, Big Finish Audio Tag

Physical Therapy

Therapy

Haunted By You

The Ghost Machine

To The Letter

Clothes, Gifts

ART

Almost Perfect

Genderbend

Mary

@itneveroccurredtomeatall

FANFICTION

Undercover On The Bachelorette

Undercover/Disguise

Black and White

Black and White

Missing

Sabbatical

Future!Fic

Pollen

Sex Pollen

@garknessandbones

COMICS

Domesticity, Secrets

Dreams, Music

@celstese​

PLAYLISTS

Heartache and Pain Tracklist

Diary, Betrayal, Friendship

A Different Doctor (Time Lord Owen AU Tracklist)

Music, Timelord AU, Prequel/Set Before Canon, The Year That Never Was

FANFICTION

Congratulations its a doctor!

Character(s) of Your Choice is/are Trans

Gwen and Rhys garden

Plants/Vegetables, Domesticity

Gwen Cooper gets her groove back

De-Aging/Aging Up, Date Night, Old Friends/Chance Meetings

ART

Clothes/Outfit

Fantasy, Undercover/Disguise

Grooming/Bathing

Bisexuality

@agent-jones​

EDITS

Holiday Celebration

Domesticity

Family

Martha Jones/DW Companion Cameo

Rhys POV

Exposed (NSFW)

Human Monsters/Suzie Costello

Amnesia

Old Friends

Stars

Camping

Torchwood One

@i-really-should-be-writing​

FANFICTION

Surrender my everything

Immortality, Based on a Song of Your Choice

Always With You

Psychic Powers/Telepathy

Lights in the Darkness

Hurt/Comfort, Family

@toshsatos

FANFICTION

poenitentia

Alternate Realities, Interspecies Romance

shining, she was, like moonlight

Anwen, CoE Fix-It AU

roughneck

Undercover/Disguise, Benign Alien Visitors

ART

Timelord AU

Crossover of Your Choice

@samantharyderthelionqueen

FANFICTION

Barbecue

Cooking, Interspecies Relationship

On Romance

Big Finish Audio or TW Novel Tag/AU

Sam’s Vision

Future!Fic, Psychic Powers/Telepathy

Serves You Right

Bullet Wounds

Skeleton-Knapper

Kidnapping

Slow Tango in Saint Lucia

Dancing

The Perfect Present(s)

Gifts

We Catch Aliens

Crossover of your Choice

What Families Do

Authority

ART

“Aunt Mei! Mama and Daddy are being gross again!”

Public Displays of Affection

Lust Flower

Sex Pollen

Myfanwy is Trans!

Myfanwy

“This Time I Won’t Let Go…”

Boeshane, Episode Tag/Missing Scene

Torchwood Said Nonbinary Rights!

Genderbend

Torchwood vs UNIT

UNIT

MOODBOARDS

“FRIENDS” moodboard

Friendship, Based on a Song of Your Choice

Janto blue moodboard

Blue

Towen black & white moodboard

Black and White

@this-is-quite-homoerotic

FANFICTION

Joke’s On Me

Anger

I’m holding tight cause it feels alright, my love, when I’m with you

Cold/Warm, Vegetables

Don’t You Know You’ve Haunted Me For Years:

Gwen has some of Gwyneth’s powers, Gifts, Bisexuality

You Got Me On Edge (Any Minute I Might Jump):

Exercise, Rarepair, Cultural Differences

EDITS AND MOODBOARDS

Blue, Gold

Black and White, Gold

Prequel/Set Before Canon

Clothes/Outfit

EDIT AND PLAYLIST

The Bad Old Days

Music

@hotchocolatedictator​

FANFICTION

Little Green Men From Mars

Green

@violetmessages

FANFICTION

Sustenance

Plants/Vegetables

Clairvoyancy

Canon Character is an Alien AU, The Doctor Meets the Team

Tales from the Filing Cabinet

Mission Related Trip, Flat Holm

the hands on the clock keep ticking

De-Ageing/Ageing Up

#torchwood fan fests #torchwood bingo fest 2020 #2020 bingo fest fanworks #2020 bingo fest masterpost #torchwood fan fests masterpost

[theseerasures]

Conspicuous Media Consumption, 2020

it’s that time of year again! *saddest toot from the party horn*

for those of you just joining us: it’s a “consume a different content every week for 48 weeks of the year” challenge. for a longer explanation, check out last year’s write-up here, and as always, feel free to pop in and ask questions about any and all of this content.

(same disclaimer as last year too: content for this project ONLY here, and not certain...*looks at my billion Sad Cop Lady posts*...hyperfixations.)

(man remember when i was big into X-Men comics earlier this year? better times than these, if only because no one's discoursing about Emma Frost’s woobie/war criminal ratio anymore--her w/w, if you will)

(...i swear at one point i didn’t exclusively like platinum blondes but alas)

Bitter Root (comic, 1 issue finished 1/1/2020): still very cool on a basic concept level, but runs into the Image Comics problem of just not having enough content to keep my interest beyond that. part of that is on me, for picking it up again BEFORE the second arc rolled out, but the first five issues didn’t really follow (or resolve) any cohesive story either, so...meh.

Immortal Hulk (comic, 3 trades finished 1/17/2020): still not gonna be something i care deeply about (maybe one of Bruce’s Hulksonas dyed his hair???), but i do want to give kudos to Al Ewing for sheer consistency in terms of sustaining this level of quality storytelling month by month for more than two years now. working with the dense archive of the Hulk mythos and managing to make it interesting and thoughtful is impressive even if i personally would not expend the same effort.

Disco Elysium (game, finished 1/18/2020): honestly i should have twigged onto what this year was gonna be like when the third thing i drew from the barrel was pure uncut Eastern European flavored depression. i faintly recall people ragging on it for being pretentiously cynical, but i actually thought its core slid more towards idealism than people give it credit for. also gratified that i haven’t heard anything about Robert Kurvitz using slave labor to finish it, which is a thing we have to say about our video games now!!! fun.

Watchmen (TV, 7 episodes finished 1/27/2020): i am a fool who wants to believe in Damon Lindelof and I WAS RIGHT!!! honestly still cannot believe that he pulled off this highwire act with such deft aplomb. might be my favorite TV this year, which is a pretty high bar given how much TV i ended up watching.

On a Sunbeam (comic, finished 2/1/2020): Tillie Walden rightly deserves all the praise for inventive queer storytelling, but i will say that on reread--since i first read this as a webcomic--there ARE some issues with pacing here that clearly come from the foibles of its original intended medium. still just excellent, even if after some plot significant haircuts i was having trouble telling a few folks apart.

Lazarus (comic, 1 trade finished 2/8/2020): it’s so good and i want moooooorrrreee--though obviously Rucka and Lark have the right to take all the time they need. the newer longer issues work really well with the epic prestige drama vibes of the story! i’m into it.

The Good Place (TV, 4 seasons finished 2/18/2020): i’m gonna be super honest: i actually wasn’t a big fan of the finale, nor the last season as a whole. it felt like all of Eleanor’s flaws vanished for a majority of the season, and the Chidi-centric episode where they tried to give a legible justification for why he’s Like This was...i didn’t care for it. still, it’s so good and unique on the WHOLE that we’ll literally never get anything like this ever again, and that counts for a lot.

The Old Republic (game, finished 2/21/2020): it’s an MMO so it will never actually Be Finished so long as the servers aren’t shut down, but i caught up on the content i’d missed in the intervening months. Onslaught thus far has mostly been...kinda bland tbh; going back to Imps vs. Rebs after all the shakeups in the previous expansions feels like a waste.

High Road (album, finished 2/22/2020): someone should tell Kesha not to say that word!! otherwise i was very happy with this album, and happy FOR her even though we don’t know each other. being able to find joy again in the same genre of music you made while you were being horrifically exploited is very cool.

Young Justice (TV, 13 episodes finished 2/28/2020): given how much the middle stuff dragged--STOP KILLING YOUR HIJABI CHARACTER IN HORRIFIC WAYS--i was...actually kinda mad by how the end managed to stick the landing anyway. the day being saved by Vic’s self-acceptance and Violet’s sublime compassion was A+, and even the Brion/Tara switchup was a pleasant surprise, though it relied on me caring about Brion MUCH MORE than i actually did.

Manic (album, finished 2/29/2020): do people still care for/about Halsey? i feel like even That One Song that was on every tumblr gifset ever has kinda faded into obscurity at this point. this album was...okay. i feel like people give Halsey a pass for extremely obvious lyrical turns that they wouldn’t for other folks because of her subject material--which is fine. not really my cup of tea, but i also listened to lots of Relient K this year, so that’s probably a good thing.

Jade Empire (game, 3/10/2020): the only 3D-era Bioware game that didn’t franchise out, and for good fucking reason!!! the Orientalism and appropriation really haven’t aged well, and even beyond that the story was...standard Bioware faire. even my usual “my wife’s a bitch i love her” Bioware type didn’t do it for me, and i just ended up romancing no one. it did make me think a lot about what level of cultural borrowing is accepted nowadays, and why: people still look fondly at Avatar and talk about how ~accurate and respectful it was, for example, despite it being staffed almost entirely by white folks, and the Orientalism ALL OVER the monk class in DND is still fine for some reason.

Alif the Unseen (book, finished 3/31/2020): interesting to have read this AFTER reading The Bird King last year, because it highlights how the intervening years have shifted G. Willow Wilson’s thematic interest and improved her craft. i’m actually quite fond of how her characterization work is rougher here--Alif is extremely flawed to the point of being insufferable, but it makes his development by the end more satisfying. Dina is also just good and i love her

Baldur’s Gate (2 games, finished 5/31/2020): well, having finally finished the series i’m happy to say that it...still doesn’t really do it for me, sorry. any awesome story moments were overshadowed by the EXCRUCIATING inventory management system and the combat (i still don’t know what a THAC0 is and at this point i’m afraid to find out). these games crucially lack the Home Base that later Bioware games were so good about, and that (coupled with the huge cast of characters you can drop off and never see again) really hurts the intimacy for me. by the time we finally did get one it was the Hell Dimension in Throne of Bhaal, and i was just...trying to get through it. (yes, i did just say that about one of the most beloved expansions ever to one of the most beloved games ever.) THIS particular iteration of “my wife’s a bitch i love her” was very good, but the game wouldn’t let me romance her :(

The Underground Railroad (book, finished 6/19/2020): honestly what is there even left to say at this point! it was exactly as good as every critic on the planet said it was, even with my usual aversion to hype. draining and horrifying in turns but still insistent upon a future for Black folks.

Steven Universe (6 seasons and a mooooooviiieeee, finished 7/11/2020): yes, i DID finish the show and almost immediately begin a rewatch. this series is now one of my top five most formative things, and the amount of love and respect i have for it is incalculable. that said: i once again did not love how the central conflict of Future was resolved (just the resolution--i loved the finale just fine). for all of Steven’s breakdown was built up, resolving it with “EVERYONE HUG HIM UNTIL HE CRIES” felt...cheap, especially since up until this point the show had been so good about treating trauma and mental illness with the respect and nuance it deserves. it made me wish some of the earlier, less substantial episodes had been cut so we could spend more time at the end.

What It Is (comic, finished 8/19/2020): y’all i love Lynda Barry SO MUCH. for the longest time i was worried that One Hundred Demons was more a lightning in a bottle situation but every book of hers i pick up makes me feel obscure emotions i didn’t even realize existed. the compassionate way she’s able to describe her child self and how weird and fucked up she was (and still is) is honestly aspirational.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (TV, 5 seasons finished 9/26/2020): so here’s a reversal of what i’ve been complaining about with other shows: i was mostly lukewarm-to-warm about She-Ra, but the later seasons and the finale made me much more into it as a whole. more shows should improve in stakes and overall quality as they age tbh!! i still don’t actively love Catradora (my sole quibble with season 5 actually has to do with the way Adora kept backsliding as a character to make certain Plot/Relationship things happen), but i’m very happy for them nonetheless. i can certainly appreciate a show that will go for High Feeling over tight plot. dark horse standout moments: trees growing everywhere proving that Perfuma Was Right, and Hordak and Adora seeing each other--that weirdly intimate moment of recognition.

Fetch the Bolt Cutters (album, finished 10/7/2020): again i find myself not having much to say that no one else has said. it’s good! once again love it when an artist reclaims something they’d attached with negative affect (anxiety, depression, disordered eating) for better and brighter things.

Solutions and Other Problems (comic, finished 10/25/2020): i was very into Allie Brosh’s ambition with this book, which feels weird to say but i stand by it. it’s cool to see an artist try to make a new medium work for them instead of just sticking to what already works. not all the experimentation was 100% effective, but it was still delightful and occasionally devastating to read, so.

Legend of Zelda (3 games: Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Link Between Worlds, finished 11/1/2020): this was the third time i’d played Ocarina of Time, which made it the nice, comforting groove i settled into before Majora’s Mask blatted me in the face. i’m not usually a completionist Zelda person because...the gameplay in Zelda is bad, do not at me it just is, but i really felt like i HAD to be one for Majora’s Mask since the whole point is to get attached to the banalities of the town. i’m sure nobody’s surprised that i loved it, even if it gave me an existential crisis about how life goes on in the game for NPCs when you’re not there to save them from it, and there’s not enough time to save them all all the time (also not a surprise to anyone: Romani and Cremia gave Personal Feelings). Link Between Worlds...bad. not like in a “this is a bad story by every measurable gauge” way, but i was already struggling with the 2D playstyle shift enough that for the whole story to end with some “yes it’s v sad that Lorule is Like This but trying to steal Hyrule’s privilege is Even Worse Actually” noblesse oblige bullshit left a VERY poor taste in my mouth, this year of all years. i did audibly gasp when Ravio took off his mask, though. i’m currently playing Breath of the Wild in cautious increments; it’s the first time i’ve enjoyed early Zelda gameplay, but if they wanted fully voiced cutscenes i wish they got voice actors who...knew what words sound like.

folklore (album, finished 11/6/2020): my belief that Taylor Swift is Just Fine continues, i’m afraid. i LIKED this album, don’t get me wrong, and respect her constant drive to innovate, but i didn’t love it substantially more or less than any other Taylor Swift album. mostly i’m just tickled by how she thinks leaning into the indie aesthetic means borrowing Vita Sackville-West’s entire wardrobe, though i will admit to feeling Something when she swore in a song. i think it was like. savage vindication?? you go ahead and swear, Taylor Swift. you deserve it.

Shore (album, finished 11/19/2020): do people still care about the Fleet Foxes? i think there was some Drama with Josh Tillman a while back but i don’t remember where the discourse landed with who was being more problematic. it was nostalgic for me to listen to their new album--made me remember being an undergrad who exclusively listened to men who mumbled and played acoustic guitar all over again.

Star Wars (3 movies: original trilogy, finished 11/27/2020): there is So Much bad Star Wars these days that every time i rewatch the original trilogy i’m afraid that they will suddenly be bad, but guess what! they’re not. i love these children and their hot mess stories, i love that Lando doesn’t know how to say his best friend’s name. what stood out to me this time was the way Obi-Wan described the Force in A New Hope, which strongly implied that ANYONE can be Force Sensitive; that obviously faded with each subsequent movie, but part of me does wish they’d kept it.

X of Swords (comics, 22 issues finished 12/5/2020): i am enjoying Hickman’s X-lines!!! not so much here for the Grand Conspiracy or whatever, but the character work and highkey weirdness is fabulous--they FEEL like X-Men, despite all the shakeups in-universe. this crossover is a nice microcosm of all that: grandiloquently all over the place, but still full of cool standout moments and genuine hilarity. ILLYANA DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO SPELL MAGIC.

Fire Emblem (4 games: Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, finished 12/14/2020): this was the thing that i was closest to giving up early on, but i ended up hyperfixating on it instead. that’s a credit to what the gameplay does to my lizard brain more than anything else, because the story and character writing is...insipid. it was very bizarre to witness this franchise blunder around with its animal-people racism allegory around the same time i was getting back into RWBY, and ITS animal-people racism allegory blunders. Awakening was the first time i felt anything for the franchise beyond “teehee red units disappear make exp bar go up and brain go ding,” so i’m excited for more mature storytelling in subsequent games (they MUST get better. they MUST). the child husbandry thing is...very bad tho, and Apotheosis being “challenging” entirely through the game changing all the rules is also bad.

once again no vidya games that came out this year--i’ll probably pick up Spiritfarer or Hades after the New Year, though (or maybe TLOU II! but probably not. sry Laura and Ashley). more TV and franchises this year, which made me feel In Touch with the Children but was also kinda exhausting. nothing was so egregiously terrible i dropped it without finishing! in a year like this that feels almost like an accomplishment

#conspicuous media consumption

[akathecentimetre]

So here’s the thing.

Of course I love The Old Guard. Like, of COURSE I do. It is everything I like and everything you all have gotten used to knowing I like, from found family to unconditional love to the yummy yummy historical tidbits. It’s going to have a truly Great fandom.

But watching it was not, for me, some huge revelatory experience in media because - well, I’ve written it before. Many times, in scattered pieces, across a lot of my fic. And what made me cry last night when I finally watched it was that it’s the spitting image of an epic vampire story that I wrote, over a decade ago, with Rio (@aumerle-that-was​).

Who is now dead. Recently dead. [I wrote a post about her here.]

The Barrens will most likely never make it to publication. It’s huge, and unwieldy, and full of unnecessary crack because I was an 18-19-20-year-old virgin when we were spending the most time on it. But it’s 232,761 words of memories, of laughter, of love, and, as I mentioned in my previous post, of me learning how to write at all.

I miss her. I wish she was still here, to see The Old Guard and love it (GOD she would have loved it). I wish she was here so she could write the most beautiful, unbearable, Italianate fic of Joe & Nicky that anyone could have ever imagined. They deserve a gifset set to her Coldplay “roman cavalry choirs” singing. 

Here’s some tiny images of what we wrote, focusing on various characters (including one called Rio, of no relation; this epic started, if you can believe, as a football/soccer RPF AU). I’ve picked out some character moments rather than historical bits, but fair warning that there’s mention of some nasty/upsetting stuff.

*

It was the need to eat, and the need to live, and the need to go on, and it was, as the last sliver of sun splintered on the deep blue of Capri's sea, utterly unendurable, because he knew that he would, he would get up, he would go on, he would feed, and he would keep living. He would keep living, and the grief and anguish in his mind would keep on with him, the raw, still-bleeding edges of the severed bond breathing with him, and the new fear and hatred he had learned keeping him company with them.

He would just refuse to think, that was all. That couldn't be so hard.

It couldn't.

*

He closed his eyes, and swallowed, shutting down memories and envy and misery at once, and drew a deep, unnecessary breath before he looked out at the Mouth of Truth again. He walked over to it slowly, and put his hand in. "I don't miss you," he said. "And you needed to die." Robin whined sadly behind him. The Mouth stayed open.

*

Things were shutting down, blowing out like lamps at night, and all he could think was thank God, because he didn't want this anymore, couldn't stand it, and he thought it might be his life that was guttering out like a candle, and it was really too much effort to care, because peace.

...but as bad as dying was, it was nothing compared to waking up again.

Fingers were tapping him sharply on one cheek. "'Ey. 'Ey, come on, wake up."

He opened his eyes. And immediately shouted out in a mix of pain, terror, and absolutely overwhelming confusion, because his head hurt so badly he thought he just might have been brained with an axe, and when he struggled into a sitting position it was to the realization that his clothes were soaked with blood, and that just couldn't be good at all. His hands shot to his throat, but when he found that there was nothing there - no torn flesh, no blood, no wound, no nothing - all he could let out was a horrified sort of squeak.

There was the odd laugh again, and it didn't help at all to realize he could feel it now, as if he was tapped into the other man's amusement like some barrel of watered beer left running.

"Very good," the man's voice rumbled, making him jump again, because he didn't just hear it, it was like it was in his ear. "Now then. Follow these regles" - a piece of crumpled paper was thrust into his bloody palm - "and you shall be just fine, yes? Yes. I think you shall be fine." And then the man stood, stepped over him, and opened the door, pushing Rio's nerveless legs aside as it swung on its hinges. "I think I had better go. Too much - commotion. Bonsoir!"

"And fuck you," Rio managed to croak with some vehemence, feeling the amusement fade out and vanish, as though it had never been there at all. If it weren't for the way his head felt and the state of his hands and clothes, he'd have thought he'd dreamed it - got coshed, maybe, and dreamed it. The crumpled piece of paper was telling him otherwise. The slightly-mangled syntax was bad enough without it apparently being straight out of a child's fairy tale.

Never kill when you drink. Never go out in the sun unless you have strength enough. If it is possible, no churches. NEVER TOUCH SILVER. Run from Hunters, do not fight. Be polite when you use your mind, otherwise it will hurt.

Bonds of love are forever.

*

He had got as far as the steps when the world began to shatter, as though cacophony could be made into feeling, sending him in a kind of sideways fall against the stone balustrade, and wondering how he had never known there was this much pain in the world, because it was worse even than the night he had been left to bleed his life out on a London street, worse than silver, worse than anything he could begin to think of as comparison. It was the utter definition of agony, and all he could think was that he needed it to stop, it had to stop, before his mind fragmented and splintered along with it.

It came to him, distant and heartwrenching, that this was what Cruyff had meant by letting go, that he had to withdraw or risk going irrevocably mad, but - fuck, fuck, how could he let go of everything, Cruyff was everything, it was impossible that he should be - imposs -

He fell against the wall, toppled onto his knees, and screamed.

*

“And if you want immortality for someone, the last thing you want is to find yourself becoming a murderer. Unless you're Marco..."  he trailed off with a sigh, and shook his head. "Marco seduced a girl in Babylon --"

"Babylon --!"  Rio gaped.  Babylon didn't even exist any more, God, what sort of timescale were they talking about here?

"He went with Alexander," Gullit said patiently, "and if you want to know more about that, read a book."

*

Gullit bristled and snarled without actually saying anything, giving Rio the distinct impression that the master vampire was more of a real wolf than Robin would ever be. "Go on then," he snapped. "Tell me to my face that you will be able to wake up tomorrow night and do what you have to do. That is all the time I will allow you - and I will know if you are lying."

Rio swallowed.  He thought of silver, and the way it burned even when it wasn't a knife, thought of how it tainted everything, how the thought even of being there one more second alongside that pain was almost impossible.  He thought of how it was now his knife, how he had earned the pain and the ability both, and owned them by name and by right.

He thought, deliberately, of the scars on Ed's body, of the look in his eyes that first night at Stevie's, as though the world were a place of ash and horror and nothing good could even be imagined.

He thought of Gullit, whose sons were dead and had no-one to lay claim to him or who he could be part of but Marco, and who carried on, scarred and limping and casting his damn spells, trying to earn something Rio thought just might be the forgiveness of the twice-dead.

"Yeah," he said then, looking straight into Gullit's dark, hot eyes.  "I could."

"Could you really," Gullit said thoughtfully.  It wasn't, terrifyingly, anywhere near a question.

*

I can make no predictions, so consider this an indefinite promise: you are not going back.

Rio's mind turned into a perfect, careful blank of pure incomprehension.

Back here? he ventured, because if that was it, he really didn't understand, since how not coming back here was anything but good was absolutely and completely beyond him.  How he was supposed to feel anything but thank-you-God about even the idea of never coming back here was apparently a mental leap he was incapable of making.

There was a snort of derision, the horrid sound failing to arouse even a twitch of amusement from anyone. No, Rio, Gullit whispered. He had to live with the possibility of never - that his pain would never end. And now you’re going to live with it too. You’re going to live with the thought that you might never kill Marco... and, due to the extremes of unpredictability this world - and especially Marco - goes to, you’re going to live with the idea that you might never see, or be able to love, Edwin ever again.

He wasn't sure if he was being manipulated, or if it was real, but the sense of something that wasn't even grief – that was beyond grief, was nothing as human as grief – was shocking and immediate and all-consuming.  It was the knowledge that the last memories he might ever be able to make that were his own – even now, as his brain stuttered in a void, he knew that what he had seen here was not his for the taking – the last memories he could truly take for himself would be the look of joy in Ed's eyes, and the clean-cut Roman profile of the vampire who had been able to give and be all he had ever wanted.  The last memory he might ever be able to bring out of his mind in all the days that were his to pass from now until the end of some infinite horror was one of loss.  

It was devastation, wilderness, wasteland, the barrens.

It was exile, and eternity, and Christ! Laurent had given him no such thing as a gift of life, he had given him a curse.

Bonds of love are forever.

And without the ability to love, with only the bonds, with only shackles for his heart and soul worse than those that lay open in front of his mind's eye – with the only thing he had always known suddenly ripped from him and held up to the clear light of unforgiving truth, and shown as worthless, forever didn't seem like any kind of promise at all.

*

He had only recently started getting used to the concept of communicating with his mind, and what glimpses he had gotten of Ruud's had only convinced him that there was more in there than he could ever possibly hope to understand - so he didn't try. But he did know that London was important, and that something was going to happen, so he finished packing very carefully before moving on to Ruud's things, which were still scattered carelessly around the room (a rarity, because normally the captain was as neat as a pin). "You don't deserve this," he heard Ruud say quietly, and he shrugged without looking over his shoulder. "Well. I'm alive, sir." "No you're not," Ruud said - not unkindly.

"I'm here?"

"Yes," Ruud said. He sounded exhausted. "You are. Hooray for you."

*

"Give me one solitary fucking reason why I shouldn't throw you through this wall."

Ruud didn't have the energy to come up with something honest. "Goodwill towards your fellow man?"

He ended up flat on his back in the remains of what had been a parked cab instead, but he was pretty sure it hurt the same amount.

"Fellow man? You don't count," Rio said, sounding horrible and raspy from somewhere off to the side, as Ruud blinked away some interestingly-coloured sparkles and waited for his leg to heal up the nerve-endings enough for things to start being excruciating. "I'm not sure you count as a fucking vampire, you shit."

"No," Ruud grunted, swaying up to a seated position just in time to get punched in the face and fall back again with a broken nose, and the sparkles deciding to take up permanent residence behind his eyelids. "I don't. Tell me how he is."

Rio's skull-face didn't look any better in lamplight and through floating small pinpricks of fake stars. "Sorry, was that you asking for something?"

"Yes," he ground out, lifting a weary hand to his mouth and shoving a crooked incisor back into its place. "And you're going to tell me. I don't care if you feel like disembowelling me, though don't get any ideas - you're going to."

"I'm off disembowelling for the next century, don't worry yourself," Rio growled, and that was the nastiest way Ruud had ever got an answer in his life, and knowing he'd deserved it didn't help at all. "Fuck's sake. How do you think? You left." Right, so apparently git stood for Great Incompetent Tosser.

*

"Like you what?" the man said, getting right to the heart of Rio's inadequacy in the same death-warmed-up voice, and put a shaking hand down against the floor to try and pull his rag-covered body out of the bunk. "He said it would save me. Are you saved?"

Maybe he would just use the hook on Laurent, instead. "Um. Not - really, no." He hoped like hell the man wasn't talking about in the sight of God, because that was one can of worms Rio was never going anywhere near. "He made me, though, too. Just like he did you. So we don't die....yet." Life, Laurent had told him, and hadn't that been a terrifyingly unfunny joke? Rio didn't want to have to use the word 'vampire' among all these living corpses, but he was getting a nasty feeling that between necessary obliquity and whatever arsing terrible explanation Laurent had buggered off after giving, he was going to have to.

He straightened up without the help of Rio's hands, and for the first time Rio could put a face to the voice - he was Rio's height, and big, or should have been were it not for the thinness of his limbs, wrists and forearms Rio could have encircled with two fingers end-to-end, and a broad, now-pinched face which spoke of a starvation perhaps beyond all else Rio had seen, because he knew without even asking this man had not known, at least not consciously, to drink, and yet the strength of the vampire would have kept him from expiring even had he begged for it.

Laurent would have fed him, though. Laurent would have let him know at least what it took to keep going - wouldn't he? Perhaps not, any kind of feeding here was a death sentence to the donor, willing or not, and considering Laurent's one and only set of instructions, Rio guessed that the bastard had just been hoping for the best to work itself out - and in the meantime, what the fuck was he going to do? "Means you're my brother," he said at last, because that was what mattered, in the end, wasn't it, that was why he was here, why he'd ended up in a kind of Hell no-one had even thought of until now, not even the living dead. "An' I'm Rio." He'd first introduced himself as who and what he was so many lifetimes ago that he was amazed it still struck a chord of memory inside him, hearing his voice in the little hut as though he were back in the room in London, wondering why he'd saved a vamp who didn't even have the sense not to kill. "It's - we're gonna be all right. Honest."

#the old guard #writing #the barrens #Rio #RIP <3 #@aumerle-that-was #vampires #long post #written by Caz

[zevons]

what are your thoughts on the old guard movie!

Hello lovely anon! You've caught me on a lazy Sunday where I've done nothing but vacuum, do laundry, and drink a lot of Aperol mixed with various other liquids. Most of them gin. So I have an enthusiastic answer for you. I wish I was better at Analysis and could give you a more meaningful answer but instead you're going to get my feelings and excitement. But whatever.

The short answer is: I really enjoyed it! I like action films and I like supernatural elements and I like Charlize Theron. So it was very good to me.

The longer answer is: all that PLUS the fact that it felt wildly refreshing to have a ‘cynical old warrior finds new faith in the dark and cruel world by training a bright young talent’ story that revolved around two women, and also I’m always into Greg Rucka heroines so really I never had a chance against this story. I’d not read the comics beforehand (I’ve fallen off the comics bandwagon for the past couple years but this was a nice reminder that hey! I should get back up to date because there’s some really good stuff out there) so when I saw a couple gifsets floating around tumblr I didn’t realise it even was Greg Rucka- then I saw the opening credits and immediately had to pause and look up the details. I’m currently living quite a distance away from my very well-stocked public library and am also what they call,,eeuuuh,,, poor, so in order to read the comics I [redacted] but I will say that I did put my eyeballs on them and found them extremely good. A lot of the changes between the comic and the film I thought were well-chosen- particularly the choice to make Merrick a Pharma Bro in the ilk of Martin Shkreli rather than the tattooed vaguely-muscled dude he is in the original- it read as being a lot more relevant. The movie hit the beat of a pseudo 'for the greater good.....but actually money' villain that I KNEW (netflix notwithstanding...do //they// know??) that I enjoyed in a big way.

Also in terms of the comic- the comedic gold of Andy saying that the invention of sports bras is evidence for humanity being worth saving. Full agree.

So the source material is highly enjoyable. In general I'm a fan of the sort of ~dark age of comics~ stuff that is in fact quietly optimistic about the worth of humanity (call it a sign of the times, but I'm currently quite burned out on nihilism. Is it because I'm genuinely feeling quite nihilistic about everything, particularly at the moment? Maybe so!)  

I'm also a massive sucker for historical AUs so giving me a canon where historical AUs aren't AUs at all but are in fact FACT is absolute catnip. I'm currently being murdered to death by the twin powers of work and the Terror Big Bang but once I've flung myself over those hurdles I'm going to jump head-first into the worst kind of self-indulgent history fic. Can't wait!

The story itself I also found really tight. Was it the most original thing I've ever seen in my life? No. But what is, anyways? I've seen some criticism that it was fairly predictable, which I can understand, but which I don't see as an entirely negative thing. Sometimes you're in the mood for a tropey tale. And this scratched that itch perfectly.

Honestly the only plot point I take umbrage with is Andy becoming mortal-for-good (apparently), but really just mostly because 'depowered' is a long-time least-favourite trope of mine. I thought the way it was handled in the film was quite good, actually- the whole scene with the pharmacist! Andy trying to figure what the heck she needs to patch herself up because she's never had to do it before! What is a band-aid! Very good. But the trope will just irk me incessantly so I can't get over it as quickly as all that. But otherwise every beat hit me riiight in the id. Found family, immortality, let's not-get-exploited-by-big-business, been-through-the-wringer kind of stuff: gaahhh. I also looooooooooved everyone's interactions with each other. Catch me crying in the club about the way Andy was so concerned about Booker coming back after he got half-blown up during the raid on the church. CATCH ME FLINGING MYSELF OUT OF THE WINDOW OF MY REMOTE WIZARD'S TOWER ABOUT THE WAY JOE NEEDED NICKY TO BE OKAY IN THE VAN SEQUENCE. There's a limited number of people in the world who could possibly understand what is it to go through this! So they gotta stick together! Even after Booker’s betrayal, he’s still a part of that group and they work with him! It makes his judgement so harsh, as well. Particularly since he's already the most susceptible of the bunch. Joe and Nicky have each other, and Andy's been through actual hell and forced herself to deal with it, but Booker's already borderline unable to handle the pain of his own condition. And so his punishment of isolation is basically the worst thing they could have given him. Oof. (I dig it.)

Also I've for sure rambled about this to friends before- movies NEED to realise that the sure-fire way to make me ship a heterosexual relationship is to Drop Hints but not actually show anything concrete, hence I think Andy/Booker is a gr9 ship. Andy in general is my little black dress for this canon. Andy/Booker, Andy/Nile, Andy/QuYNH??????? THANKS I'LL TAKE THE LOT. The airplane fight sequence would have been a sexual awakening if I hadn't already been so awakened by Keira Knightley pretending to drop the pirate medallion overboard circa 2003. (I'm required by boat-funkin lesbian contract to mention Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl in everything I do. Sorry.) 

This is all disconnected garble with no deeper meaning whatsoever, but that's sort of my thing these days, so I'm at peace with it. Anyways. In conclusion, I'm rewatching the movie with some friends in about 15 minutes, so yeah, I liked it. <3333333333

#the old guard #also sprach sabina #in the morning i'll be irritated that this is the only reply i could give but heyyyyyyyyyyyyooo #Anonymous

[prettywordsyouleft]

Superstitious

Summary: Your bad luck had been your only friend growing up. Now that you’re studying at university, could you meet someone who accepted you?

Characters: Lee Taeyong x reader

Genre: fluff / supernatural au

A/N: Welcome to the first story of Frightful October! Admittedly this happened all too fast. The idea was to use a different idol and more supernatural elements but this literally wrote itself after a gifset of clumsy Taeyong, and I’m so happy with it! I hope you enjoy this!

Word count: 3024

Your whole life had been built up on superstitions.

As someone who had been ill as a child, you had heard many old wives tales given to your parents to nurse you back to health. But since then you had been nothing but clumsy, relatives and family friends would always remind you to be careful.

“You were born with bad luck, you mustn’t make it worse!” your Grandmother had chanted for your entire childhood.

So naturally you became cautious.

You avoided all the common superstitions. At first your cousin had chastised you for being so foolish. No one could have such bad luck just because of a few folklores. But there had been one time where you missed that it was Friday the 13th and came home with a broken arm and a bad case of pneumonia from a simple school trip. From there on, you stayed home on those days. Mirrors weren’t something you allowed yourself to get too close to since you were eleven; only just recovering from what you felt was an extremely difficult adolescence, and you were certain it came from breaking a large mirror in your family home. You never stood on train tracks and cracks, or walked under a ladder, just in case. Umbrellas were rarely used by you, and if anyone opened one inside around you, it would send you into a fizz.  

To counter your bad luck you had every lucky charm and well intended chant incorporated into your life, your keyring sported a rabbits foot, your bedroom door had a horseshoe up the right away, and you would always knock on wood, say bless you when someone sneezed, and admittedly, you carried salt with you always.

You could say you were more than prepared to combat any bad luck coming in threes.

But this made you different. People didn’t like being around you because you were a beacon of bad luck in your little town. Everyone knew about you. Growing up, you were soon blacklisted off of any sporting team, the last to be chosen for anything and those who ended up with you were instantly depressed. Group presentations were something you simply didn’t do; even teachers would rearrange the assignment so you could work on it alone. And if they weren’t doing that to help the students they would set up feng-shui or their own lucky talismans whenever you were in their classes to ward off any bad luck you might produce.

Any misfortunes that happened to the township was blamed on you, and only you. Even your family were spared from being lumped with you, others sympathising with them for having such a daughter. It made you feel less loved by them, and soon you preferred to be alone anyways.

You were used to being ostracised, but it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt any less.

Because you had no one to rely on, you turned to your inner passion. It had been by mistake that you had stumbled upon the world of magic and folklore, studying up further superstitions when you were fourteen, in hopes to find a way to be accepted. Being hormonal and going through puberty had made you especially lonely, and desperate. But instead of finding a magical cure, you found yourself intrigued by supernatural things. You started studying mythical creatures, immortals, shape shifters, and other magical beings. It was like a whole new world, one you longed to belong to. You felt closer to these folk, and hoped to discover them one day. You had tried everything. You had often walked in the forests surrounding your township, even though you ran the high probability of coming home limping from tripping over, only to hope to see some sign of a woodland fairy or nymph, to cross paths with a wolf that held human eyes, or to step into a witches’ coven. It never happened, though you never gave up hope that one day you would meet someone who could accept you and all your bad luck too.

Your favourite thing to study about was witchcraft and you had dabbled in it from time to time, mostly to humour yourself, but sometimes it had been out of desperation again. To find a cure to your clumsiness, or to make at least your parents like you.

And on the night of school prom, to have Oh Sehun somehow fall in love with you and pick you up to take you to the dance.

You knew it wouldn’t happen. Your Grandmother had built it well into your psyche; you were just a really bad apple.

Somehow, perhaps because you had so much time to study due to not having a social life, you won a scholarship to the university you had picked as your choice. Your parents had been hesitant to let you go, unleashing your bad luck on others had always been something they tried their best to prevent, almost keeping you captive all these years. Your township had been tiny; going to the city would be overwhelming for someone like you, so they believed.

You only saw it as freedom. No one knew you, perhaps you could start anew, and not have bad luck there, you had argued. Though deep down you doubted that too. You were destined to carry around talismans and every lucky charm for the rest of your life.

All the same you finally made it, ignoring the party that you knew the township was throwing the same day you left for Seoul. Because the idea of leaving them was something to rejoice yourself. Even though you were scared a lot that day.

You were hyper alert on the train ride to your new home, not allowing yourself to rest even though you had been up since 5am. You had to make sure you didn’t harm anyone else unintentionally. And you had been successful, but it was terribly exhausting too. When you finally made it to your dorms, you pulled out your room information, looking up at the tall building and then back at your number.

#127.

You groaned as you found the stairwell. You hadn’t taken an elevator in your entire life. Instead you were left climbing up twelve flights of stairs with all your luggage. You were thankful when you saw the door number ahead of you, unlocking it and reaching to turn on the light. Nothing changed; the room was still in darkness. Groaning, you went into your tiny kitchen area and turned on the faucet, and nothing came out except and odd gurgle sound.

You promised yourself you wouldn’t cry. Today you had escaped your bad luck in your hometown.

But it was hard to hold the tears back and to grasp onto hope.

Surprisingly, after that night your life did take a turn for the better. For the next month, you had managed to not harm yourself more than usual, and not bother anyone else. You actually got hired for a part time job and kept it so far, all whilst navigating your university life with some success. It had given you a sense of acheivement and confidence to finally be in a bustling environment that no one knew you, and be seen as another student, not the one who everyone needs to avoid like the plague.

But that also blinded you for what was to come next. You had been so focused on yourself, that you hadn’t once expected there to be someone like you out there. You had spent years trying to find at least one other who suffered from bad luck like you. And not one person had ever appeared.

Until your world collided with Lee Taeyong. Literally.

“Ow!” you cried as you found yourself on the ground, rubbing your elbow lightly and then looking around yourself. Your stuff was everywhere, but it was mixed in with more than it should have been. You found the culprit sitting on the ground and rubbing at his own leg too. He laughed sheepishly and got up, holding out a hand for you to take. You reached up for it, but he pulled you up too fast and you struggled to gather your balance in time, both of you toppling back onto the grass. Except you were now on top of him, and blushing profusely.

“Ah, sorry,” he said weakly, laughing again. “I’m kind of clumsy. I didn’t mean to pull you down on me like this; honest it wasn’t a plan or anything. I was genuinely meaning to just help you up, but perhaps I shouldn’t have because now we’re like this and I’m rambling and I should really just stop, right?”

You nodded.

This time you both got up by your own device, the taller boy biting at his lip for a moment and then thrust his hand out for you to take. “I’m Lee Taeyong.”

“Y/N,” you greeted, shaking his hand and looking at all your things on the ground.

Taeyong’s eyes followed your gaze and immediately set to collecting your papers. “I’m so sorry about this. Honestly I am so useless at times!”

“Don’t feel like that, I’m clumsy too. It could have easily been me,” you assured, smiling at how alike he sounded. You were certain you had been more than over accommodating to others in the past when you made a mistake. It almost made you feel bad for Taeyong, but the sting in your elbow reminded you not to grow too helpful towards him either.

If he was clumsy like you, it could be a recipe for disaster.

“I think I’ve collected them all,” he stated, handing you the pile and then glanced down at his watch. He gasped. “Oh I’m late for class. It was nice bumping into you, well I mean not literally, but figuratively, and I hope to see you again and not harm you of course!”

He was off, his words trailing after him and you couldn’t help but giggle to yourself at how adorable he was. Unlike you, he took his clumsiness in his stride, his bubbly nature seeming infectious. You wondered if he was truly as clumsy as he said, and had been ostracised. Shaking your head, you doubted it, with his handsome looks he would still be accepted by others for sure.

You headed off to the library, which was thankfully uneventful for the rest of the walk there, and settled into studying quietly. And then there was a loud ringtone that startled you and the others around you. For a moment you stared, waiting to see who would silence their phone until you realised it was coming from inside your stash of papers. With colour flaring to your cheeks, you fumbled around to find the source of the noise, a mobile phone appearing as you scattered the papers quickly. You all but jumped on it to silence it, answering the call on the unfamiliar phone.

“Hello?” you whispered.

“Oh thank god, that’s you Y/N, right? It’s me, Taeyong. I think you have my phone.”

Getting up and moving away from all the glares, you walked over to the windows before answering him. “Since I answered it in the middle of the library, I think yes, I do.”

“Ouch, I forgot to put it on silent. Stay where you are, I’ll come to you.”

And then the line went dead before you could tell him what floor you were on.

You waited of course, though there were three libraries on campus, and you weren’t in the main one. It was cutting it close to when you would need to leave for your part time job, and it was making you anxious, your eyes abandoning the ancient text in front of you to keep a look out for Taeyong. Eventually you packed up your belongings whilst you waited, and then even your seat when someone came along and the study area was full. You decided to move down to the lobby just in case when the phone rang again.

“Where are you?” he asked with a pant and you sighed lightly.

“If you had of let me tell you before you hung up, you’d have met me by now,” you scolded, surprised with how annoyed you sounded.

It wasn’t lost on him. “Sorry, I have bad luck and now I’m throwing it on you. Tell me where you are, okay?”

You didn’t answer right away, you were stunned. “Bad luck?”

“Yeah, my whole life really. But I promise once I get my phone back you won’t be put out by it again, I’m really sorry. So where are you? My friend Doyoung needs to get to his part time job and for me to give back his phone.”

Without hesitation you told him your exact location and hung up, your chest instantly full of palpitations. Why were you so worked up? Like Taeyong said, once he had his phone, you could simply leave and not be involved in his own fate with Lady Luck again. But it bothered you the longer you thought about it. Was he brought into your world by his or your own luck? Was this a sign to put weight into or not? I mean, just today you had two encounters with him. And whilst the campus was large, who was to say you wouldn’t find him again. Would you be alright then? Or propelled to the ground once more?

A small part of you then remembered a folklore you had read from years ago. Most people think those with bad luck should avoid each other. But not only can they find relief in each other, it can also cancel out their fated luck altogether. It’s important to search for someone with similar characteristics so that the fate can change for the better.

You felt a feeble sense of hope at the thought, rocking on your heels softly as you waited for Taeyong to arrive again. And just when you saw him, you waved so he could find you and was shunted by a passer-by, your footing unsafe yet again. You saw Taeyong speed up to catch you, just in time for you to both fall to the ground. Again.

For a moment you sat still, and then you laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. Taeyong soon joined you, and you both didn’t care that others were staring at the two people sprawled on the floor of the library lobby, laughing to themselves at their situation.

Eventually you got yourself up, this time offering your hand out to Taeyong. You pulled with the right amount of strength for him to just lean in a little too close but not topple you both back over. You shared an accomplished smile.

“I feel like I need to introduce myself properly to you,” you announced, feeling lighter than you had all day. Taeyong regarded you for a moment, before smiling encouragingly at you. “I’m someone who also has bad luck. My whole life really.”

“That was my line,” he quipped but grinned at you all the same. “Who would have thought two people with such luck would cross paths. This could be disaster you know.”

“It could,” you agreed, though you saw the determination build in his warm brown orbs. It made you glad he hadn’t stepped back yet.

“Or it could be something magical,” he uttered, your head nodding softly. Despite only just meeting, he felt compelled to brush you hair away from your face. And you allowed him, considering it was not like you hadn’t been on top of him earlier on. “Hi then.”

“Why are you saying hi again?”

“Because you introduced yourself to me as being my fated partner in bad luck, it only felt right to accept that,” Taeyong stated matter of factly and you couldn’t help but laugh. “Unless-”

“I accept,” you cut in, surprising him somewhat. And yourself too.

“So, Y/N with the origins of clumsy bad luck, should I make it up to you for falling all over you earlier with dinner?”

“Can’t,” you responded airily and he stopped following you as you both started walking to the exit. “I have work.”

“And after work?”

“Sleep?” you suggested, Taeyong’s mind clearly thinking too much. Your eyes widened and you shoved him playfully. Of course you did.

He managed to right his balance just in time, grinning triumphantly at your now cringing face. “You’re testing me.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t be around each other,” you revoked with concern and jumped when he shifted back to your side and took your hand.

“You accepted this fate a few minutes ago.”

You nodded but didn’t remove your hand. His was warm and you liked the feeling. “And I almost made another accident for you just now. We’re doomed.”

“At least if I fall now, you’re coming with me,” Taeyong mentioned whilst raising your linked hands, smiling at you charmingly.

“Is this how you made it through life so far? Grabbing the hands of people so you knew at least someone would come down with you?”

Taeyong blushed lightly and shook his head. “Actually you’re my first. I wouldn’t dream of holding another girl’s hand until now. What if I caused her a rash or something?”

“Taeyong!” you cried, trying to yank your hand free as he laughed loudly.

And just like that you made your first proper friend. Someone who wasn’t scared to be in your personal space, and was prepared to fall if you did.

And over time you did just that. You had countless bruises and scrapes, and he had just as many. But he never abandoned you once, and soon you were kissing those booboos better.

As a child you thought you needed someone who was mythical to be your friend. Someone who had magic within them, who could somehow counteract your bad luck. What you really needed was someone just like you. Who didn’t mind when he got hurt because of your bad luck, and who let you curse him out when it was his that attacked you.

Because Taeyong came to readily love you. Bad luck and all.

________________

Welcome to Frightful October, a collab between myself and @this-song-thats-only-for-you ... this week’s theme is Spellbound! To follow more of the stories check out the links below:

Other stories in Spellbound: Superstitious // Incantation // Love Spell // A Gift

Frightful October Masterlist | Main Masterlist | Request Guidelines

#lee taeyong #taeyong #nct #nct taeyong #nct u #nct 127 #nct 2018 #nct fiction #nct au #nct imagines #nct supernatural #nct scenario #nct fluff #taeyong fiction #taeyong au #taeyong supernatural #taeyong scenarios #taeyong imagines #taeyong fluff #frightful october #frightful october spellbound #prettywordsyouleft writes

[morifinwes]

hi laura!! sorry this is a bit late i barely survived finals week :’) i just woke up after sleeping for like 18 hrs after my last exam fjdns

oooo yes i love yanqing too!! they’re my fav ship apart from wangxian (also jc/lwj w h a t why would anyone do that o.O)

halsey!!!! i love her sm i’ve followed her from the time she released badlands (i was such an emo kid istg that album was everything to me) omg your music taste is so similar to mine wtf??? the other side by ruelle AND mystery of love AND folklore ur taste is exquisite. i’ll check out the other songs i’m sure i’ll like them! (also based on your music taste i recommend u listen to the loch ness monster by matilda mann 10/10 would recommend)

okay today’s questions!

🎀 since i asked about non-canon ships last time, what is your favourite fic you’ve ever read in the mdzs fandom? or a favourite trope?

🎀 tell me about your favourite show(s)/movies other than cql/mdzs! i need something to binge watch over winter break hehe

hope you’re doing well! it’s getting cold where i live so if it’s the same where you live i hope you’re staying warm >.< now that i’m free i will try to send asks more often! - 🍵

hey c!! don't worry, you have to take care of yourself, i'm glad that you finally have more time for yourself too!

sleeping 18 hours after being stressed is valid, after a panick attack i once slept like 16 hours simply because i was extremely exhausted.

i listened to the song and it's!!! so good!! i really like this part of the song: now you've faded, / with no traces, /so who could ever tell. / what you've taken's, / been misplaced / but your name doesn't ring any bells, / since the day that they took you to hell.

halsey is!!! i remember hearing badlands when it came out but i only really got into her mid 2018? i listened to hopeless fountain kingdom then and realized that badlands and hfk where both from the same person!! folklore is @/keepyourlife's fault, annika reblogged a bunch of things and just went crazy over it, so i listened to it. i don't listen to much else from taylor, i like getaway car a lot tho tbh. i saw mystery of love in a wangxian edit on youtube and went !!!!!! over that song, so now i'm obsessed with it.

1. i've got a bunch of favorite fics but _none of them are finished _and ajdkskks i do have some that are finished but i can't remember for the life of me what they're called. so here are five of my favorites: love, in fire and blood by cicer (which i'm recommending to all of my mutuals always) which is a 212K wip of immortal/yp!wwx + war prize au with no rpe/noncon but in the first two chapters lwj is afraid of that happening. it doesn't. then there is this time/universe/dimension travel fic called a song to bring you home by neoserenity, where basically canon!lwj who mourns wwx meets a modern!sick wwx and apparently there is no modern equivalent of lwj? or at least wwx doesn't seem to know one. the updates are sparse but i reread this so often in hopes that updates will appear. an arrow through time by syrus_jones is a young!lwj time traveling to post canon mdzs and pining after "husband" and wwx at the same time and feeling guilty over it bcs he doesn't know wwx is "husband" and then there is the murder of crows by cerbykerby which is a yilingwei sect au. here is a modern office au: hello, IT. have you tried turning it off and on again?* **by overmountainandmeadow, which us just really funny so i've been reading this for stress relief. i actually quote like time travel aus? also just wangxian meeting other versions of themselves is fun!! i have a bunch of modern college au tabs open but i don't actually seek them out, if i see one and like the plot then i'll read it. there are a lot of good time travel aus in this fandom!! also i like it when people get wangxian together earlier than in canon, it's just really fun to see how that would go. i don't remember the name but i think there was one fic where lwj tried to flirt with wwx and wwx just didn't notice? until somebody pointed it out to him i think? that was fun to read because lwj was just so frustrated!!

2. i feel like i forget what shows i watched after i watched them? movies too, though i like to stick to rewatching movies i already know. but here are some shows: dark on netflix, if you have netflix it should be there, it's a german netflix show about time travel and fate and things being really fucked up. basically there is this endless loop of the world apocalypse happening in 2019? 2020? i'm not that sure of the timeline rn but it's either 2019 or 2020!! and jonas, the male lead, wants to prevent it but this shit gets complicated because this is a time loop, everything he has done has been done before him. there are some really great quotes in the show about things, there is a wangxian gifset that actually uses a quote from dark, and that's the one about having three deaths. (i'll probably add a link to the gifset when i find it) also martha, the female lead, seems not that important in the first season but don't be fooled by that. the ending is.... complex and cool and holy shit there is still one thing we don't know and ahdkksks it's a surprise tho so 👀👀. i recommend watching it in german if possible and with subtitles. i've watched a few scenes in english and idk the voice actors don't seen to fit, but i don't know about other languages. the 100 is also a pretty good show but it's.... it has queerbaiting. and to be honest, the queerbaiting is probably the only reason the show made it to a seventh season. lexa, a lesbian, dies and they use her death for the queerbaiting since she gets together with clarke, the lead character. clarke is a character that gets a lot of hate from both fandom and the characters, a lot of unfair hate if you ask me. she has to do a lot of decisions that are just not meant to be for a single human being, @/solntserises and i and a lot of arguements over placing the blame on her or placing the blame on society and the situation itself. clarke basically does what she needs to do, what she needs to do in order to protect her people, her friends, her family. she often just doesn't have good options, and if she has then she deems the risk too high or something too good to be true (which, she often is right about???). after s1 her friends push her into situations where she has to make the hard choice, but if it doesn't work out how they want it to work out they get mad at her. which is not fair. i remember hearing that raven finally understands what clarke goes through in s7? but i haven't watched the season. i gave up the moment lexa died and didn't want to watch past it, but when @/solntserises started we watched the other seasons together.

there is also shadowhunters which is an okay show ig, i've watched vikings until s5 too and i quite liked it, prison break has a lot of cool stuff to offer but i'd be careful watching it in case of any triggers you might have. i don't remember 100% of the plot but enough to say that one of the characters is a pervert and an awful person, so lots of murder, a lot of blood and yeah. the two main characters are brothers and mostly innocent in this but yeah. they break out of a prison y'know.

lucifer is !!! i think it goes after dc comics? so ig it's somehow part of the dceu but they're like.... never mentioned so idk. it's really fun tho!! you probably have heard from the vampire diaries right? yeah well, there is a spin off called the origianls and it's actually really good. it had some times where i was going to call it off but it's fine, legacies is both tvd's and to's spinoff and from the quality it can't really compare, it's still fun to watch and seeing the new generation grow up. (also a lot more canon gays)

for some movies: i don't really watch many but i've watched every movie in the mcu so far, i have the extended special editions for both the lord of the rings and the hobbit trilogy, the half of it is about ellie chu, an asian girl living in a small town with her depressed dad and falling in love with aster flores, and just.... finding herself, finding out what she wants, who she is and trying to figure out where life takes her. the movie is great!! the romance process is really slow and not that much of the main focus, but more of ellie finding her place in the world? the old guard is a fantastic movie that i watched because of @/keiraknigthly, it's really fun to watch!!

i look forward to talking to you more often!! 🥰💞

#C 🍵 #mdzsnetcc #ask #i hope you're staying home and healthy <3

[tinkdw]

The future - and it is showing us this loud and clear

This episode was amazing. After flailing and basically shouting all day I am so happy and so excited that I joined tumblr - the quality of posts today has been excellent, both humorous and inciteful and I LOVE YOU ALL :)

I hope its ok I’m going to tag a few great posts in this to reference as I don't want to go over stuff other people have already meta-d about so excellently!

This episode, titled the future, seems to me to be Dabb basically telling us what he wants for the next part of the show, the “better way” that he wants to take it.

So here are my main bullet points that I will expand on a little below and link those excellent posts to where relevant:

A. Sam 

Sam is clearly portrayed again, recurrently as the researcher, the “brains” of the operation (before you say ‘Dean is so clever though!’ I’m just pointing out Sam’s love of the scholarly side of things and how this is where he fits). Sam’s endgame must now be to head up the MoL/hunter network in this respect.

B. Sam and Dean 

They work so well as a team here, Sam putting a tracker in Cas’s phone while he’s distracted by Dean, researching v whatever Dean was doing (maybe making a pining mixtape along the lines of “all by myself” and “I miss you” “please come home”, BUT they are shown as different people, with different interests, skills and relationships - with Cas for example, & not codependent. Again hammering this home in this episode. THANK YOU DABB, GLYNN & BERENS.

C. THE RECURRING AND CONSISTENT NARRATIVE OF DESTIEL.

This whole episode is one big love fest. We went from one ‘wow I can't believe they just did that!’ to the next to the next with hardly enough time for us to catch out breath! WHAT WAS THIS EPISODE?!

OK, so we have :

1. My Romeo & Juliet / Gaze up Trope Balcony Meta.

2. The Mixtape Meta, another EXPLICIT romantic trope by @drsilverfish.

3. The Dean “keep it” parallels, the first one that came to my mind was Arwen (another human+ / eternal being who decided to relinquish immortality couple):

Aragon: this belongs to you. Arwen: keep it, it was a gift… it is mine to give to whom I will, like my heart.

But also all the other ‘gift’ tropes, the standard romantic trope that when a couple breaks up you return the gifts.... I think Cas wasn’t sure he was going to be forgiven, after Dean’s outburst in the war room, so he goes to return the cassette, but Dean does forgive him nearly instantaneously, which actually makes it even worse that he has to steal the colt straight after...

5. The difference between Sastiel and Destiel again emphasised, more and more this season. I don't think I even have to detail this, just, basically the whole episode shows this.

6. This magnificent gifset by @magnificent-winged-beast which shows the difference between Dean’s angst at actually watching the colt get destroyed and the potential killing of Cas...

Slight aside - Performing!Dean. 

This magnificent gifset that shows Dean’s facade coming down, he doesn't even attempt to make it sound less ‘gay’ when he tells Sam that Cas came to his room, played him and took the colt from his secret hiding place under his pillow, he even looks down before he says it like he KNOWS how it is going to sound but says it anyway. 

source: @yourfavoritedirector.

And Sam doesn't even flinch. YES THANK YOU DABB, GLYNN & BERENS!

4. SO...WHY is Dean still doing everything he did for Cas during this episode and still defending him to Sam even though he appeared pissed and Cas repeatedly betrayed him?

Well, in 12x12 Cas said “I love you”, clearly understood by Dean (and Sam to be directed at Dean). There was no real reciprocation though from Dean, other than Dean family-zoning him and Sam’s fantastic “we are doing this for you, Cas”. 

So regarding Dean, Cas is hurt and believes it isn't reciprocated. Now Dean is pissed and still using the WE card at every turn, so what is a celestial being to do? Cas assumes this is the end, that there is no hope, he returns the mixed tape. BUT Dean says no keep it, this is NOT the end. 

Cas understands that this is therefore not the end, but it is complicated. He explains that he wanted to “come back with a win for you.... for myself”. He wants this for Dean and for himself, this is very important, everything he is doing now and in the future is NOT all about Dean, there is his own agency and morality involved here too.

For Cas, when it comes to it, he wants this reciprocation of his love of course, but right now he has bigger fish to fry and really he wants to protect Sam and Dean and save the world. 

Now, going back to the “what the hell is wrong with you man?” followed by an awkward silence.... and where Cas then goes to return the gift. Yes, Cas feels that he has said his piece in 12x12 and is rebuffed, but meanwhile Dean is struggling with what Cas has said and everything else that is going on. He has a lot on his plate, not only Cas but his own personal history, his deep seated issues that he is clearly working on this season (see all the performing!Dean facade crumbling meta going around), his issues around his mother, the BMoL, Lucifer, the nephilim.... I mean that is a lot for an emotionally healthy person let a lone DEAN WINCHESTER.

Dean is trying to say / show how he feels he’s just rubbish at it, but he's getting better!

“We?” “Yes dumbass, WE.” This is his forgiveness. And it is betrayed just moments later. But does this stop him trusting Cas again? NO.

THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. For their dynamic, to show that they still do ultimately trust each other.

EVEN AFTER EVERYTHING DEAN STILL DEFENDS CAS TO SAM!

Oh, and I just need to add how desperate I am for Sam to turn to Dean soon and just say “No, Dean, this is between you and Cas, stop bringing me into this”. PLEASE I SWEAR I WILL BE GOOD! I mean, how repeated, consistent and out of place it was (I mean, not only to shippers, I think anyone would think it was out of place the way it was portrayed in their personal conversation in Dean’s room) - this has got to be addressed, no?!

 5. A better way

So. What does this mean moving forwards?

Well, firstly, I have moved from being 85% sure Destiel would be endgame to about 95% sure. Lets be real. This episode cements this. Whether you like it or not, it’s happening.

So, what is the better way?

Overall, it seems that Dabb wants to move things forwards. And his key points all season are Free Will, breaking from past repressions and negative influences, moving forwards with what the characters choose and want for their endgame and for sure now endgame Destiel.

I have in the past speculated about quite a lot of stuff, some right and some... still to be seen and some not right, but the overall arc speculation that I saw foreshadowed since early season 12 is RIGHT ON TRACK.

Now, the question is will Dabb go backwards and go to the old, standard SPN ways where probably Dean and Cas will be separated, Cas will be wrong again in his trust in the nephilim - it WILL be evil (rehash of s6 and s8) and he will need to be ‘broken’ from the mind control by Dean in a stronger crypt scene etc etc etc.

Or will he move forwards, onto a “better way”? Will we get another s11 ‘happy ending’? Where it appears all good but there is still stuff going on behind the scenes for s13... Or maybe a not so happy ending but that ultimately will be resolved happily? 

Maybe the baby has it’s grace removed (so glad this is an option it was driving me insane that they hadn't mentioned it by now!) OR it’s not evil at all! it’s the ANTI-anti-Christ, it chose Cas because he is Lucifer’s mirror in that he LOVES Humanity. I mean, the whole point of the show is agency, free will and not being forced to follow the result of your parentage / past ....especially this season with Sam and Dean’s arcs....

Maybe human!Cas, potential hunter Daddies, Cas staying at home calling Dean while he's out on MOTW hunts with Sam being all “Dean there’s poop everywhere, I’m sorry it got on your favourite shirt, but please please come home this is so hard!” “OK babe, don't worry, we’ll be back tomorrow, the case was a milk run!” when actually Dean nearly died and Sammy saved the day and.... etc because really? what are we supposed to think from that motel scene? With Cas smiling all cute and using the world “righteous” when talking about the kids future guardian?! (and Kelly survives if we are going to be extra nice).

Maybe Lucifer will die / be dealt with and it is the MoL that are the big bad next year.....aiding the overall future arc of TFW as leaders of the MoL/Hunter collaboration (Chuck I hope so).

Or will it be a mix of the two?

Well my money is on that it will be a mix....  

DABB IS SHOWING US THE FUTURE Y’ALL. AND THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT.

#spn 12x19 #destiel #the future #supernatural speculation #supernatural meta #episode review #you're killing me 12x19

[troiings]

17. ACE. for the WIP ask please? (Also random but you're the only person on my dash that posts about Sanctuary/Helen Magnus and it really hits me in the feels each time - I miss my immortal genius baby.)

Awww man good ole Helen, i love her. She remains queen of my heart, and Sanctuary still owns me p much. Can’t believe it’s been so long! Def check who i reblog from though, because i’m pretty sure it’s basically the same 2-3 people. I know @leiasbluelightsaber is one of them. @viennainspringtime has been posting some new stuff too, i think? But i’m literally pulling all that out of the air.

I was gonna make a gifset for each ep on its anniversary this year but i got off on the wrong foot with some tech difficulties when Sanctuary for All aired and then i just gave up. Oops.

ANYWAY, that fic is a DA:I one. Female Trevelyan/Josephine! You can pry ace!Josephine from my cold, dead hands, so this fic is about that, but it’s also about ace!Trevelyan, although where exactly she falls on the spectrum is sort of up in the air - she’s never really thought about it because she was basically pledged to the Chantry from a young age, and as a result (and because it was never something that really came up) she just... never thought about it. She might be demi-sexual, for all she knows, but everything’s been pretty chaotic so.

The premise is that Josephine sort of panics after Trevelyan’s duel with Otranto because she had already come to terms that she would just have to deal with her sexuality where Otranto was concerned, Trevelyan just rushed the hell in and threw her world upside down and Josephine’s worried that Trevelyan might expect something she can’t give and regret the decision to save her from ye olde arranged marriage. Just happens to be a happy accident that Trevelyan is ace too.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, allowing herself to glance at their hands for a moment before turning her attention back to Josephine’s face.  She had that look again, the one that had put scores of questions in her mind.

“No,” Josephine murmured.  Then, “Well, yes.  But no.  No,” she finished emphatically, gusting out a breath as her fingers closed a little more tightly around Trevelyan’s. “You have not done anything wrong.”  She hoped the Inquisitor knew that she did not want her to go away.  That it was not Trevelyan’s fault.  “There is something I need to tell you, and… and I wish that I had said it before you confronted Lord Otranto.  My love, I feel as if I have put you into an uncertain position.  I…”

Trevelyan shifted her hand in Josephine’s grip, folding her fingers around Josephine’s so that they were properly holding hands.  After giving the Antivan a moment to collect her thoughts, she gave Josephine’s hand a softer squeeze.  It took every effort to be still and quiet and give the usually collected woman a chance to gather her thoughts, but all she got was a sigh.

“You’re fretting, Josephine,” she finally said, brushing her thumb against Josephine’s knuckles.  “What is it you need to tell me?”

Josephine was still for another moment, deep in thought.  How to say that everything Trevelyan had done for her might have been for naught?  Finally, she gave the Inquisitor’s hand a hopeful squeeze before taking a settling breath.  “I may not have been entirely forthcoming when I said that I might have welcomed the match with Lord Otranto, were you and I not together,” she mustered.  Of this, she was certain, but her voice faltered at the end.  For once, the ambassador was at an absolute loss for words.

#arwen writes #askbox memes #dai #dragon age #inquisition #josephine montilyet #trevelyan #Anonymous