#if it has know that it is not my intention to redo or copy or similar

[cascader]

smile! a jilytober "drabble"

for the @jilytoberfest drabble prompt "smile!" except it's 1.3k words. read on AO3 or below!

“Smile!” 

“Oh!” exclaims Lily, her voice cracking a smidge. She’s blinking rapidly, as he is, in a futile attempt to recover from the bright flash. “I wasn’t ready…”

“Yeah, mate, er, maybe a redo?” James asks. He’s abruptly grateful for his skin not betraying his fluster. “Prefer my right side and all. You know how it is…”

“Sorry, but I can’t,” and to his credit, little Michael Fields does look apologetic as he waves away the last of the orange smoke that accompanied the camera’s flash. 

“You haven’t even added the developing solution,” Lily points out. 

 “I’m under strict orders from Editor Pettigrew—” 

“He’s got you calling him Editor Pettigrew now? Merlin, when I suggested he take up a hobby…”

“—that we take only one photo per feature,” Michael barrels on. “He said something about one of his mates scaring a first-year into a photoshoot?”

James’s scowl deepens. “Sirius has got to ruin everything for the rest of us, doesn’t he?”

Lily rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. “Don’t act like you don’t love him for it.”

Michael shakily siphons developing solution out of a vial with his wand, coating with it the two copies of the photo he’d taken.

“He did give us permission to give the subjects an original copy,” Michael says, clumsily flicking the solution back into its bottle. Bright blue splotches of it stain the ground at his feet and the sleeves of his robes.

Michael’s eyes dart down to the two copies of the photo, and his eyebrows raise almost imperceptibly before he schools his expression back to its — presumably Editor-Pettigrew-trained — careful neutrality. 

“I actually think it’s perfect,” he says. “It’ll go nicely with the article, that is.”

He clears his throat and stows his copy in his bag. 

“Ah, yes. The mysterious article that Editor Pettigrew won’t tell us the angle for,” Lily says. 

“What d’you mean, angle?” James questions. He slides his hands into his pockets. “I thought it was about new Head initiatives? All his questions were about what it’s like working with you.”

Lily frowns. “Pete asked me barely anything about that. He did ask me for my favorite sandwich and to rank your relative strengths in every Hogwarts course we’ve ever shared, though.”

“You’ll see soon enough,” Michael says cryptically. “I think it’s a great one.”

James looks like he’s about to push it, but Lily rests a hand gently on his elbow, and he stills. 

Michael seems to hesitate with the remaining copy of the photo, eyes flicking from James to Lily and back to James again.

He squares his shoulders and hands the photo quite pointedly to Lily. She holds the still-drying image gingerly between two fingers, eyebrows furrowed. 

“Thanks for your time,” he says, already scurrying off. “The Hogwarts Post appreciates it!”

“They follow Pete like a cult, I swear,” scoffs James, who’s turned to watch Michael’s hasty retreat down the corridor. “Don’t you think, Lily?”

“Lily?” he prompts again, turning back to look at her. She’s faced away from him now, staring intently at the photo in her hand.

He takes a cautious step forward, and then another, until he’s hovering at her back, well into her space. He can see easily over her shoulder — over her head, even — to the photo in question. 

Its colors haven’t yet deepened into full force, but the image is still clear. It’s them, in the moment before Michael had yelled “smile!” and set the camera’s flash off. 

Michael had asked them to think of a pose for a joint photo, and James had suggested a piggyback ride, and Lily had suggested that specifically she give him one, since she was so used to helping him in their Head duties all term. Lily had laughed at her own teasing, had turned to him to watch his reaction, and he’d laughed too. And he’d smiled, just looking at her as she looked back. 

Then: “Smile!”

Michael had done a good job. Peter would be proud. 

In the photo, they’re standing quite close. Close enough that he’s almost embarrassed that someone else bore witness to the moment, though James hadn’t realized the full extent of their proximity at the time. Lily’s fingertips hover mere centimeters away from him. James startles as, after several seconds of no movement in the image, he’s reminded it’s a magic, not muggle, photo. As he watches, her fingers flex closer to his, like they can’t help it, pausing a hair away. He hadn’t known that. Hadn’t seen it at the time. 

They’re close enough in the image that her eyes flicker back and forth between his. She’s smiling brighter than almost anything he’s ever seen. She looks happy. She looks… adoring.

He has to force himself to look at his own image, and he’s less shell-shocked by what he sees there. He looks in love. Sirius always said he was obvious.

The picture looks… intimate. 

Still standing behind her now, still silent, James reaches with his left hand for hers. When he’s centimeters away, in an echo of her movements just minutes before, he pauses. And then — he doesn’t even mean to — his fingers flex for hers, pulled forward by years in the making. 

Lily shudders. He can feel it, see it, hear it.

Her hand is shaking, still holding the image, as she drops it towards his. 

When their fingers touch, James’s eyes close. He can’t help it. Her body is warm. She’s standing still, even as her hand still trembles. He rests his forehead on the top of her head. She tilts back into him. Her hair smells like coconut. When he was younger, he’d always imagined it smelled like strawberries.

“Oh,” Lily says, so softly it sounds like a breath.

“Oh,” James echoes. He wraps his other arm around her front. She drops her bag onto the floor and grips his right hand in hers. 

James takes a deep breath in.

______

“Hot off the presses!” Peter shouts, entering the room with a swagger that only this school newspaper, of all things, gives him. “Get your Hogwarts Post here!”

Folded awkwardly into an armchair, Sirius grumbles, “He couldn’t have come up with a cleverer name than that, really? And it’s still given him this much of an ego?”

“Be nice,” Lily chides absentmindedly, thumbing through her Charms textbook.

Sirius rolls his eyes. 

“Here you go, you lot!” Peter exclaims, chucking a copy at Sirius and dropping one into Lily’s lap with rather more grace. 

“None for me?” James asks mildly.

“We’re low on copies. Printing problems. You can share,” Peter says, before whisking off to a group of third-years.

Now James rolls his eyes, and maybe he’s about to agree with Sirius on how Peter’s newfound power has made him mildly intolerable, but Lily interrupts him with a gentle elbow to his side.

“Look,” she says softly. “It’s us.” 

Indeed, when James glances down at the newspaper, the first thing that catches his eye is the photo in the bottom corner of the front page. It’s the one from all those months ago — the one they’d thought was bad, and then thought was revelatory. He’d almost forgotten about the promised bizarre article.

But it’s not bizarre at all, James thinks. Partners in Life, Love, and Leading: Potter and Evans Embody School Strength in Times of Trouble.

“Guess he took that tip you gave him on alliterative headlines to heart, Evans,” James mutters, scanning down the rest of the article.

Lily laughs. Her fingers trace down the column of the article — their article.

“Looks like everyone else knew a lot more about our hearts than we did,” she says. 

James presses a smile into her shoulder, snuggling into her side. “We needed some help to get here,” he admits. “But I think we’ve got the hang of it now.”

#jily #jily fic #jilytober #jilytoberfest #jilytober drabble #lily evans potter #james potter #hana writes #jilytober fic

[ac-goddess-of-destruction]

LOOK OUT FOR THE LITTLE GUY

I've read the book (it's a really nice read, if you have the time and interest to read it, do it. You won't regret it.). Anyway, I've decided to compile all the mentions of Scott and Hope's relationship present in the book for those who won't read it for whatever reason. Warning: This is a LOOONG post (there are two full chapters of the book in here!). ALSO, all the credit goes to the writer(s) and all the people involved in its making. I literally just copied chunks of it and put it.

DEDICATION

TO MY TWO FAVORITE PARTNERS: HOPE AND CASSIE, THIS ONE’S FOR YOU!

INTRODUCTION

(Scott fills the readers in on all the events he was present from the first Ant-Man to the Civil War and then Endgame)

“That’s when—thanks to Thanos—half of all life in the universe disappeared. So no, no peace on Earth or anywhere else. I wasn’t around for those five years of missing people (you’ll find out why soon), but I came back just in time, jumped to a different timeline, fought, like, every bad guy in the universe on a field in upstate New York, helped the Avengers stop Thanos, and put all the people back where they belonged. Including, last but not least, putting my precious Hope back together with me!”

REDOS & REDON’TS

“I was five years behind the rest of the world just trying to process it. Then it suddenly got super-personal. As I soon came to learn, my newly adopted family—Hank, Hope, and Janet—were also no more.”

MAKING YOUR HOUSE ARREST…A HOME ARREST

“One advantage of having a house decorated “bachelor-style” is that there’s just about nothing for you to break or stain, and even if you do, no one will care. I didn’t have Hope around to disapprove of my mess (which, I have to admit, gave me a slight twinge of sadness every time I made one). So instead, I leaned in to the other “special girl” [Cassie] in my life and gave her every inch of grubby floor I could.”

[THE FREEDOM PARADOX]

“Under normal conditions, all day long I have nothing but options. I can basically fly (well, at least while riding an ant or catching a ride with Hope).”

Q: Besides having wings, is the Wasp suit the same as the Ant-Man one?

A: First of all, I’m going to pause on that “besides,” because I’ve still never gotten agood explanation from Hank about this obviously glaring injustice! He always mumbles some tech gibberish about “lift/drag issues,” and then suddenly he “has a meeting.”

But there are two main differences between the Wasp and Ant-Man suits that I’m aware of. One are these wrist- mounted gauntlets that can fire powerful blasters, which Hope has used in some key battles. The other difference, which I admittedly don’t fully understand, is a more intuitive—as opposed to manual—control system. Basically, I have to use buttons to change size, whereas Hope can just control this feature with her mind.

This allows her to amplify her strength. And, considering how strong she is at normal size, let me just say: Do not mess with the tiny Wasp!” - FAAMQ [Frequently Asked Ant-Man Questions]

ANT, INC.

(Scott is recounting the events of the 1st Ant-Man)

“So Hank started me on regular training sessions with my tiny future colleagues. (For the record, this was already on top of daily, physically exhausting combat training sessions with Hope. But that I didn’t mind as much, because, you know, getting to be with Hope!)”

“To really get through to ants, Hope and Hank had taught me that you have to maintain this extreme, almost meditative level of focus on precisely what you want to say to them.

Easier said than thought!

(...) Fortunately, Hope got to the heart of my problem. She helped me figure out that I couldn’t focus because ultimately I kept thinking about Cassie. So, like the martial- arts master she is, Hope showed me how to turn that from a weakness into a strength: to use that burning concern as a laser beam to focus my intentions, and block out everything else.”

“I climbed out of the mound, dejected and feeling like a failure. Definitely letting that mind of mine wander again, back to all the usual places. Hank is going to send me back to jail. Hope will never love me. I’ll never get to see Cassie again!

When I walked back into the lab, full-sized again, Hank as always had the perfect words for my current state of mind: “What the hell are you doing here?”

Fortunately, Hope was a little more sympathetic. Even though she still had her doubts about me, she also reminded her dad of how his early experiments with the EMP were huge fails.

(...) She counseled me on how to present myself as more than just not a threat—as someone who they willingly followed because I “got them.” Ants, just like people, respond better to direction from someone capable of seeing their perspective.

I hit the shrink button again and climbed back into the Hill, pondering Hope’s challenge.”

ANT-MAN & THE WASP: SECOND DATE, OR SECOND CHANCE?

(Entire chapter)

SOME COUPLES HAVE A “meet-cute.” Some meet online. Many more meet at a bar than is really advisable.

Hope and I had a meet-weird.

And I don’t mean just how, the first time we laid eyes on each other, I was waking up in her father’s bed, surrounded by a brigade of sentry ants prepared to devour me like a giant bread crumb. Or that we got to know each other’s “vulnerabilities” through weeks of brutal martial-arts training. Or that the first time we shared a tear, it wasn’t after an argument or a sappy movie. It was over the death of a half-inch-long insectile colleague named “Ant-thony.” (RIP wherever you are, little guy!)

And the way we originally met…? Let’s just say, how many relationships have you had that began with you breaking into your (future) partner’s dad’s basement to steal a piece of secret technology?

At least there was one way in which our relationship was typical: We had a little “difficult patch” and broke up for a while. But even then, the way we got back together was…okay, once again, weird. I want to share the story with you, because it kind of leads to later events with the Avengers. But one thing I’ve learned about being in a relationship (sometimes the hard way!) is that two different people can experience the same thing together…in two entirely different ways. So to make sure I’m getting the story straight, I’m sitting down with Hope to hear, and share, her take on what happened.

It all started right after our Pym Tech heist, when I was recruited by some Avengers to go fight some other Avengers. (See? It’s not just couples who have breakups.) Unfortunately, in doing so, I kind of borrowed the Ant-Man suit and took it to Germany without asking permission.

Hope has quite a different take on this. As she recounts it, “My father and I had just begun to trust you, and to think of you as someone who could possibly join the tight- knit circle of what we Pym/Van Dynes had devoted our lives to. In my mom’s case, what she’d sacrificed so much of her life for. And besides trust, I was starting to develop some…non-professional feelings for you, too. And then you went and betrayed everything.”

That perspective explains why Hope (and Hank) cut off all ties to me for the next two years while I was put under house arrest for acting as an “unregistered Super Hero” in that intra-Avenger fracas.

Still, you know me! I prefer to focus on the positive. Like Hope’s and my emotional reunion when she came to spring me from house arrest to help her and Hank.

But as before, Hope says she experienced somewhat…different feelings during that reunion. In her words: “Disgust. Did you spend the entire two years in that bathrobe? And also, disgust on a deeper level. Seeing you again, remembering you in Dad’s suit, and what you had done with it, it brought up all kinds of complicated feelings I’d been trying to put behind me.”

Fortunately for both of us (and eventually, the world) Hope doesn’t let any feeling get in the way of a mission. Especially one involving her mother. Janet Van Dyne, wife of Hank, formerly known as The Wasp, had been trapped in the Quantum Realm for decades, but she had recently found a way to contact us. And now we were going to try to find her by going back into Hank’s Quantum Tunnel.

Except to do that, we needed a key component, and the only way we could get it was from this sleazebag underground tech dealer named Sonny Burch. So we set up a meeting with him to buy it. Only, during that meeting, Burch figured out who Hope was and double-crossed her to steal Hank’s lab, which had been shrunk down to the size of a suitcase.

Hope, again, remembers this a bit differently. According to her, “There was no ‘we.’ It was me alone at that skeevy hotel bar with Burch and his cronies, then suddenly I was fighting them off alone, then you showed up too late, then you let that glowing woman named ‘Ghost’ run off with the lab!”

I’m not sure this is a completely fair assessment. But I can see why Hope felt that way, because at that point, she was still very untrusting of me. Our first meetup in two years, and the first thing I do is put her dad’s life’s work in jeopardy—for the second time.

Scott “glass half full of Pym Particles” here again: We got the suitcase lab back!

However, Hope reminds me, “Actually, before that, we got captured by Ghost—who was only going to let us go if we healed her quantum energy problems by killing my mom!”

Obviously, that was unacceptable, so we managed to escape, got the tunnel working again, and even, finally, got into direct communication with Janet Van Dyne. What a relief!

Again, though, from Hope’s POV, “relief” wasn’t what she was feeling. She reminds me that it wasn’t exactly direct communication, as—thanks to a bizarre property of the Quantum Realm—Janet was actually speaking through me.

As she puts it, “Can you imagine anything more disturbing than hearing your long-thought- to-be-dead mother’s words coming out of your ex-boyfriend’s mouth?”

Honestly, I can’t. And I’d really rather not try.

But still, we’d actually found Janet! And now the only challenge was figuring out how we could get into the Quantum Realm to rescue her.

Here, too, Hope remembers a few more complications. “There was also the fact your prison buddies had ratted Dad and me out, getting us arrested by the FBI. Plus Ghost still had my dad’s stolen work.”

Of course, she’s right, and that was a really rough road. I don’t mean to downplay it. I think it was just that, because Hope and I had survived tougher scrapes, my confidence in us—a confidence that I understand she wasn’t quite feeling at that point—was keeping me going.

And this is where I’m really glad I asked Hope to join me for this, because what she says next is a bit of a revelation to me…

“Scott, you don’t know what it was like growing up with Hank Pym as a father…seeing how important all of this was to him…feeling how he lived and died over every breakthrough and setback. And here we were, on the cusp of losing all of it.”

She’s right. I really had no clue about how deeply all this cut for her until now. Both Hope and Hank play things so close to the vest, sometimes it’s hard to see how hard the disappointments hurt them where it counts.

But to get back to the story, I definitely owed Hank Pym a “Get Out of Jail Free” card, so I used some of my old ex-con skills to bust us out of FBI custody. Then we took on Ghost, endured a seemingly endless series of car chases, and battled back and forth for possession of that shrunken lab all the way to San Francisco Bay. That’s where I used the suit to go giant and snatch Hank’s lab back once and for all.

As I talked about briefly before, using Pym Particles to turn gigantic takes a toll. Although I successfully grabbed the (then, to me, minuscule) lab, I also lost consciousness and plunged into the bay—where the World’s Greatest Super Hero rescued me from a watery grave.

Hope seems okay with this description.

Then, after a tiny-hair-raising expedition into the Quantum Realm, Hank managed to get Janet back out. Whew! All’s well that ends well.

Right?

At this point, Hope remains silent for a minute. Then, slowly and carefully, she speaks. “I spent that day in absolute terror about my mom.”

She continues, “And that was on top of all the tough stuff we’d been through. Someone always going to prison. Multiple sociopaths trying to kill us, sometimes at the same time. And then, having my mom come back from what we thought was the dead after three decades? I know I act like nothing fazes me, but it was a lot.”

She’s right. It was. And here’s what I’m telling Hope, and what I also want to tell you, about whatever you’re going through—on the inside or outside. Whether it involves glowing quantum ladies or not:

You don’t have to deal with this alone.

In a strange way, I think that insight might be part of how Hope and I eventually managed to patch things up. I had broken her and her Dad’s trust, massively. But during all this we found a way of connecting again.

You see, Hope didn’t share a lot of what she was going through at the time. In fact, I’m just finding out about a lot of it right now, as I write this!

But as the two of us dove back into the fray together, part of me was working twice as hard to show her how dedicated I was to her and her dad (and mom)—to prove how much they meant to me. I’d like to think that just enough of that “being there 200 percent” got through to her.

And since I don’t see Hope shaking her head “No,” I’ll keep going and conclude with one more thought:

“Being there 200 percent” is something we all can do for each other, no matter what kind of relationship we’re in. Or what relationship we’re trying to mend. I managed to prove to Hope that she wasn’t alone, because I was there—and not going anywhere.

And on this point, Hope says our stories are in perfect alignment.”

SIDE BY SIDE SUPER HEROING WITH YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER

(Entire chapter)

“OKAY, SO NOW HOPE and I were back together, for what seemed like the long haul. Which meant we were now facing one of those paradoxes of life: Sometimes you fight the most with the one you love. But what if you’re also simultaneously fighting Super Villains?

Clearly disregarding the time-tested maxim “Don’t date at work,” I’ve come to appreciate both the perks and pitfalls of this lifestyle.

Confusingly, though, those perks and pitfalls often go hand in hand. To illustrate what I mean, imagine working, very closely and on a daily basis, with the person you’re most attracted to in the world. And then, during that work, seeing them at their very best: strong, steady, steely under even the most terrifying conditions. Always cool-headed and mission-focused. And to top it all off, bringing all those qualities to the service (and usually, life-saving) of others!

Sometimes it takes more than Super Hero strength to not feel overwhelmed by a gusher of love and admiration.

And when you do find yourself with them in a moment of respite, especially if it happens to be in a beautiful location (hey, Super Villains like to get outside sometimes, too), it can get very confusing. Part of your brain is screaming, “Remember why you two are here together,” while another part is murmuring, “Hey, couldn’t we just steal a moment to enjoy this nice place we ended up together?”

To say nothing of those situations when you’re trapped with them in a very small space and are reminded of just how darn good she always smells.

And that’s one of the good problems!

A larger complication in this perpetually unbalanced work-life balance is what I call fighting other battles. Perhaps this rings true in your relationships as well? You’re yelling and screaming at each other over the stupidest thing, and often it’s not until later that you realize that all that rage was not even truly about that thing! It was about a completely different stupid thing that you were annoyed about earlier, but which never got resolved.

The dangerous part is when that pent-up unfought fight spills over into the actual life-or-death one you’re currently engaged in. “Oh, so you can aim that reducing disc right at an oncoming military transport vehicle, but you can’t toss a T-shirt into the laundry hamper?” “Oh, so you’ll take three punches to the head from a mercenary but you’re afraid to try one bite of my world- famous ‘Chili Dog Meatloaf’?”

The good news is, there’s a quick way out of any of these intertwined battles. It’s by reciting a set of words so devastatingly powerful, even Doctor Strange has nothing that competes.

Those magical words? “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

Another anxiety I’ve felt in all my relationships, but which takes on a sharper hue on the battlefield, is one I call exposing your true self.

And I don’t mean that alter-ego/secret identity game. Let’s face it: Ever since Tony Stark straight-up announced to the world, “I am Iron Man!” that whole move has lost its subversive cool factor. Nowadays, the only reaction I get from clearing my throat, retracting my helmet, and proclaiming in a deep, rich, dramatic baritone, “I am Ant- Man,” is, “Noted. And would Ant-Man like curly fries with that?”

No, what I’m talking about is revealing your worst traits to the last person you’d ever want to think any less of you.

For me, that worry comes up around the issue of showing fear around Hope. Which I know, on an intellectual level, is just silly. Maybe it’s a hero complex (yes, even actual heroes get them). But for me at least it’s real, and it’s a constant struggle.

And what’s odd is, it’s not really even my biggest problem. I’m fairly proud of the fact that—whether facing down one half of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes or the Universe’s Biggest Threat—I don’t scare that easily. But Hope doesn’t even seem capable of fear. It’s like the woman was born without an amygdala. Or maybe she’s just trained it out of herself, with that same steely drive and determination that first made her a hero and now has made her a business leader.

Either way, the upshot is, when I get even just a little bit scared, I get more scared of Hope seeing me scared. If that was confusing to follow, imagine trying to keep a handle on it in the middle of a fight.

Sometimes in the heat of battle, I can’t help but stop and think, “She likes me?” This usually happens right before I get knocked unconscious.

Another challenge to my sense of combat-time couple zen is temper. When all your senses are locked onto defeating your foe, you don’t have a lot of mental gas left in the tank to choose your words carefully. So what happens when the two of you have a plan, but it’s swiftly going wrong? Or even worse, when the plan is still good but one of you forgot or screwed up their part? And the bad guy is using that advantage to close in!

There was this one time when the two of us were cut off from out resizing controls, a set of mechanical gears were getting to chew up, and Hope felt, correctly, that we could have escaped the situation more easily had I loaded in the magnetized grappling hook rather than the unmagnetized one.

However, Hope chose to express this sentiment in language… so colorful, it informed me that she indeed know a four-letter would besides “can’t.”

Now, in even the most benign situations, the tendency in a couple is to lash out, because you know the other person can “take it”. You feel, as it were, safe.

But in battle, you’re literally the opposite of safe.

And you know that expression “Watch out or you might say something you regret”? In the civilian world, that’s of course great advice, along with “Never go to bed angry.” You really do never know with 100 percent certainty if you might never see a loved one alive again. But for romantically connected Super Heroes, there’s a very high statistical chance this is the very last thing you ever say to them!

Long story short, Hope and I obviously survived that near-metal mastication, as did our relationship. It just takes some getting used to, that idea that you have to fight to preserve both at the same time.

Another layer to that self-consciousness, which might be unique to me but I suspect really isn’t, is that additional meta-fear of letting her dad down. Nowadays I think I’ve proved myself to Hank Pym as a proper heir to the Ant-Man suit. But in a funny way, having earned his approval, now I feel even more anxious about losing even a drop of it. Maybe because it was so hard-won, or maybe because I’m starting to see him as a role model for the kind of hero I want to be.

Now obviously, Hope is in every possible way her own person who makes her own decisions. But somehow, subconsciously, there’s still a part of me that feels like I’m living on a borrowed time. Like one day, I’m going to screw things up too much, and Hank is going to swoop in (likely ferried by a river of ants) and say, “Nope. This phase of the ‘experiment’ is over.”

So that, along with the other stuff, translates into a kind of perfectionism I try to hold myself to all the time, which is completely unrealistic. And going completely impossible to remove from the ongoing soundtrack of “You don’t really deserve this, Scott” that lives in my brain 24/7. Even though I’ve bounced back countless times, there’s a still a live, burning piece of me that sees myself as no more than convict/divorcé/absentee dad. It takes more mental energy than I’d like to quiet that voice, or at least convince it that others don’t see me that way. And when things sometimes go south with Hope, as they do in all relationships, I can hear it shouting, “You see? She knows you’re still no go at the core.”

It also doesn’t help when I remember how happy my ex Maggie is with her new guy. That accusatory voice now switches over and starts asking, “Are you just standing in the way of Hope being much happier with another guy?”

Now the good news is, having lived and loved through this rocky terrain, I’ve found some bright spots as well. One is that Hope and I—like most couples who’ve been together for a while—have a secret language. Shorthand, absurd names, shared references, and inside jokes that can be as helpful in situations with no time to spare as it is annoying when we play Charades with friends. Cracking those jokes can also be critical to boosting each other’s morale in moments when all seems lost. On the other hand, an inopportune but uncontrollable snicker can also be the thing that fatally gives away your position.

Along these lines, we’ve also developed a pretty keen talent for anticipating the other’s move. No, not the way you’re undoubtedly thinking—on the dance floor. There’s no hope for me there. But when we’re locked in combat, even a telepath couldn’t keep up with the speed of our nonverbal communication.

And as unbelievable as it sounds, taking on evil can be a really helpful form of relationship building. Love experts say that for a couple to stand the test of time, they should have an “indoor hobby” and an “outdoor hobby”. Fortunately, when you’re going on high-stakes missions, you often get both of those things in one afternoon.

Heroing it up together also helps with your sense of relationship chill. Put simply, after a long day or week or quantum half-decade of battling baddies, the two of us just come home and collapse of the sofa. Which is heaven. We get to do normal couple things, like disagree over who’s killing the plants faster. Hope gets to let guard down and get extremely, almost frighteningly passionate over who needs to go home from Dating-Show Island. I get to see her actually, atypically, be bad at something. (For example: When we play a video game together….well, let’s just say that Hope would probably better mowing down zombies in real life—not like that would ever happen!)

But the main saving is, we’re just too exhausted to argue about anything. Which I admit doesn’t help with the “unresolved issues” point I made above. But it’s a nice feeling to come home and settle into. It makes out humble, slightly stained sofa feel more secure than even the Raft prison.

And that feeling is just one example of how what Hope and I do together helps us appreciate couplehood. There are soooo many “troubled loners” in our profession, on both the good and evil side, it almost seems like a job requirement.

By contrast, Hope and I balance each other.

She’s calm, I’m alert. She’s sky, I’m earth. She commands, I obey.

But all these perks of being “heroes with benefits” pale next to the biggest one of all. The greatest advantage to being lovers and fighters is that it gives you a true sense of life’s priorities. A lot of the time we Super Heroes don’t exactly see the people we’re saving; we have to just to hold the idea in our heads, abstractly. In our case, we see what’s at stake every moment, and then Hope races me into the house, wins (of course), flashes me that incredibly hard-won half smile, and a light in my heart comes on and recharges all my batteries at once.

Put simply, every day the two of us come back home together, in one piece, is a miracle, a precious gift. The most precious gift, to which no super-power granted by serum or gamma ray or technology could compare.

And when you’ve got that, you are the most literal definition of invincible.”

FROM BEGINNING TO ENDGAME

“Okay, so as I was just recounting last chapter, I wasn’t actually around for the Blip myself. But I got filled in on what had happened by Nat and Cap. And now our next move was to go crash Tony Stark’s cabin in the woods with my idea for fixing things: using the Quantum Realm to bring everyone back.

(…) Then again, what if it didn’t work? What if I unleashed the cruelty of getting everyone’s hopes up in an already unbearable time, only to squash them for good? What if I failed the Avengers—and Hope?

(…) I made a final emotional plea to Tony: “I know you have a lot on the line. You have a wife, a daughter. But I lost someone… very important to me. A lot of people did. And now—now we have a chance to bring her back, to bring everyone back, and you’re telling me that you won’t even—

Tony interrupted, “That’s right, Scott: I won’t even. I can't.””

(Scott is recounting the Battle at the Avengers Compound after Thanos and his Army raid —post Smart Hulk Snap)

“And… could it be? My giant heart skipped a beat at the sight of a very familiar pair of mechanized wings.

Wasp wings.

Our second snap had brought back millions.

And yet at this moment, it took only one of them for me to finally feel like my world had come back. Hope and hope together, a sight so beautiful it seemed to gleam straight into my tinted helmet.”

“To Cap, though, that was just my next assignment. He told me to get the van tunnel working, and they’d get the Stone to me.

(…) And then I felt a hand on my shoulder. Hope was by my side. As always. And suddenly the path felt completely clear.

We gave each other a look, a with one mind we went tiny, and we went for it.”

GO BIG, THEN GO HOME

“I hit the regulator button and BOOM! Big Me. (…) What I didn’t expect was that I would suddenly feel off-balance. I began to teeter, which is the last thing you want when you’re in a position to squash tens of millions of dollars’ worth of equipment plus an amazing woman you really, really want to love you.

Even worse, on the inside I was flailing for emotional balance.

(…) what if I let down Hope, and Hank?”

REGRETS? I’VE HAD A TON

“A lot of people have asked me how I managed to ruin a perfectly good marriage with Maggie. Well, I’ve given this a lot of thought over a lot of time, and I’ve finally come to understand what my biggest mistake was in this case.It was sharing with my life partner everything. Not just my own “plans” regarding VistaCorp. That was more like the final straw in a lot of “strategic miscommunications” on my part.

(…) But then of course I wouldn’t be with Hope.”

“Another bad move buried inside a good move was how I handled the big airport fight in Germany.

Nor—and this is still painful—do I completely regret doing this in secret from Hank and Hope, with equipment I stile from them. In fairness, there was just no way I could have told them. If they were caught and questioned about it—and admitted they knew what I was up to and didn’t stop me—they’d be liable as accomplices. Which would extra piss off Hope because she prefers to think of me as the accomplice.”

ANT ON THE WALL

“Q: Will you marry me?

A: What a sweet note! I’m so flattered, but I’m also still definitely with Hope.

However, I will print this out for the next time we have a fight and she makes me sleep on the Ant-Couch.” – FAAMQ [Frequently Asked Ant-Man Questions]

FROM ANT TO MAN

“Q: What was the Quantum Realm like?

A: (…)  to be fair, I only spent what felt like five hours there, most of them focusing all my attention on trying to escape and screaming, “HOOOOPE!””  – FAAMQ [Frequently Asked Ant-Man Questions]

SUNDAY IN THE LAB WITH HANK

(Not LangDyne but so wholesome)

“And then, only then, did Hank Pym drop his ultimate bombshell:

“Actually, son, seems like you’ve picked up on it [using the suit] pretty well, too. Other than Janet or Hope, there’s no one I trust more with my tech.””

“Q: Would you be willing to auction off a date with you for our charity?

A: How flattering! I do like to help out whenever I can for a good cause. I’d love to.

However, just some fair warning: Beyond the fact that I’m still with Hope, I am lousy on a date!”  – FAAMQ [Frequently Asked Ant-Man Questions]

SIZING IT ALL UP

(The bit Scott is reading at the beginning of Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania)

“What can I say? Sometimes you just get lucky. I’m lucky I met Hope Van Dyne. I think you know who she is by now. She’s taken back her dad’s company. Now she’s using the Pym Particle for global change. A lot of people say they want to save the world. But Hope—she saves it every day. Reforestation. Affordable housing. Food production. She’s not wasting a second.

I still can’t believe it; none of this should have happened. But it did.

One thing I admire most about Hope and her work is how she’s not sitting back, wondering how bad things could have gone differently. She’s taking charge and making change. Hope is racing ahead to fix future things now. She’s moved on in a way that I’m still struggling to do.

And don’t get me wrong: It’s not that I’m trapped in negativity. Sure, our planet will continue to face threats and problems. But on the whole, it’s a pretty good world. I’m glad we saved it.”

(Not LangDyne stuff or references but really nice bits that some people need to hear from someone, even if it is from a fictional character)

“You are in this place and time for a reason, and no one else is. And so—when that next uncertain, unlikely, “impossible” step is revealed to you—I urge you with every particle in my body, Pym or otherwise, to turn that “Why me?” into a “Why not me?””- Chapter “Introduction”

“Well, you know the old cliché “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”?

That cliché wants to force you to create your next move out of what you’ve been given. But there’s one very important word in there that’s often ignored: YOU.

In other words, forget the lemons. Life has already given you a you that’s like no other. And that’s what you’re better off making stuff out of.” - Chapter “Redos & Redon’ts”

“Tears are acidic, which means they dissolve stuff. But not just chemically—spiritually. They don’t dissolve your strength. They dissolve the glue that keeps you sealed into an earlier version of yourself.” - Chapter “Redos & Redon’ts”

“You are so much more than who you “were.”

Especially as you get further away from what shaped you in the past. You aren’t limited by who you are. Or at least the way others describe you.

You are what you can do. To rebuild is to take what you know how to do—no matter how unconventional or questionable that skill might seem to you now—and figure out how to do it differently. How to use it to take your life in a new direction. A better one.” - Chapter “Redos & Redon’ts”

“Maybe this was just the quantum physics talking, but I saw that I was always a different me, depending on when I was observed.

And that—more than any of Bruce’s devices—gave me the clarity to find my way to the right me.

But take it from me: You don’t need to experiment with quantum physics to get that insight for yourself. You already contain so many more versions of you than you can imagine. You just to locate them, accept their benefits and liabilities, and turn those into the best mixture of yous possible. Because that’s the you that the world needs now.

You’ve got it all inside you. You just need to learn to let it out.” – Chapter “Ages Of Lang”

“(…) regret traps us. Introspection frees us.” – Chapter “Regrets? I’ve Had A Ton”

“I want to tell you something important: You, in the exact life you’re right now, can be a hero, too.

(…) you may not have super abilities, but you definitely already have two incredible powers: a heart to care, and a voice to speak out. All you have to do is learn to use them.

First, heart.

(…) A little friendly human interaction—even something as simple as a smile or a compliment on their funny T-shirt—is a way of saying, “I see you, and I don’t take you for granted.”

(…) The good news is, you don’t need Pym Particles to instantly make someone feel bigger. Just like you can use your heart to join forces with the little guys, you can use your voice to join them on the battlefield.

To be clear, I’m not necessarily saying suggesting you jump in and meddle in someone’s life! People’s boundaries are critical and fragile, and they need to be respected.”

(…) We humans have gotten used to ignoring, overlooking, or flat-out denying the signal that says, “I’m in a bad place”, but it’s often in our faces. And there’s no hiding it.

So when you detect that signal, that’s your time to move.

(…) Don’t just go for the “is everything okay?” because that’s the megaphone problem again. It might just trigger them to redouble their emotional armor and retreat further into their lonely smallness.

Instead, try something like, “I’m here if you need me.” Nine times out of ten, they won’t actually take you up on the offer. Honestly, what they’re most likely to pick up on are just those two powerful first words: “I’m here”. Just that reminder, that they’re not alone, can make someone feel like they’re giant enough to the challenges ahead.” – Chapter “Look-Out-For-The-Little Guide”

1.TIME MATTERS

“(…) There is no time but the present! Everything you want to do, everyone you want to be, and everyone you want to be with—chase all that down today!

Don’t wait, because trust me, none of it will wait for you.” – Chapter “A Letter To My Daughter (That For Some Reason You People Are Also Reading)

2.SIZE MATTERS

“(…) We spend so much of our time operating in fear of other people—their judgment, their regard, their powerful emotions. But at the end of the day, they really don’t have the power to make or break us—no matter how they may act when we’re all the same size.

(…) Seeing the world at tiny scale makes a person truly appreciate all the tiny things—the things we too often overlook. It makes me mindful of the infinitude of miracles holding everything we care about together. It’s enough to make me truly grateful.

And trust me: Gratitude can give you more strength and energy than any power source in the galaxy.” – Chapter “A Letter To My Daughter (That For Some Reason You People Are Also Reading)”

3.SIZE DOESN’T MATTER

(…) Never let yourself get defined by anyone else’s notions of how “big” or “small” you are in their eyes. You alone decide your size, with or without a fancy red size-changing button.

And that also means you—and nobody else—are in charge of deciding when to make yourself “big” or “small” in any given situation. Be big when speaking up against an unfair boss, a disrespectful partner, and an unjust government or corporation.

And also: Be small enough to admit fault, as well as what you don’t know or need to learn.” – Chapter “A Letter To My Daughter (That For Some Reason You People Are Also Reading)”

“You never really know which moments of your life will turn out to be the best ones that mean the most. So you might as well embrace all of them!” – Chapter “Sizing It All Up”

“(…) we humans—all humans—have been given this very unique power to mentally liberate ourselves from our present moment. So what do we do with that? That’s the cool part. We’re all ultimately the authors of our own story. Of course I don’t mean we get to determine our own outcome. But we do get to decide something ultimately even more precious:

What every beat of our story means.” – Chapter “Sizing It All Up”

“You might say we all have an origin story, and that story is always being told.” – Chapter “Sizing It All Up”

“Now just to be clear, having our lives mean something isn’t the same as having it all make sense.

(…) Because what I’ve learned is, it’s not up to other people or forces to “make sense” for us. We have to make it ourselves.” – Chapter “Sizing It All Up”

#langdyne #scott lang #hope van dyne #ant man #the wasp #ant man and the wasp quantumania #ant man and the wasp #look out for the little guy #scott x hope

[inkofamethyst]

January 2, 2024

So what defines "her"?

"her" is assertively feminine, doe eyes with a scheme behind them. "her" inserts blackness into atypical spaces. "her" is intellectual, academic. "her" is curious, ready for adventures. "her" is green, black, cream, brown (and burgundy, and goldenrod). "her" is dainty flats and hefty boots. "her" is pleated trousers and collared blouses. "her" is vintagey purses and hair ribbons.

I really like my "vision board of sorts." This was an excellent exercise in seeing what speaks to me now and being intentional about what I select in response to that prompt. Instead of a broad collection of outfits I want to copy, I think I've curated a mood that I want to emulate through symbiosis of clothes, hair, and beauty (I'm a degree-wielding biologist and can use "symbiosis" however I want, thank you). And I think that's more personal. We'll see how well I manage to reflect it. Since I'm on a savings kick I may not be able to invest much into this project until my emergency fund and travel fund are done, but I'll do what I can with the plenty that I own (maybe I'll follow the advice I gave my sister though and do a planned fun purchase <$30 once or twice a month for whimsy earrings or depop shopping). And maybe it's for the best, as it's almost never a good idea to buy new clothes after reevaluating one's style anyway.

Four years later, I believe the Cute Campaign has reincarnated. I seem to be a person of cycles, huh. From fashion manifestos to learning new instruments, certain life events seem to group together with others in familiar ways.

Ages ago I might've mentioned how I felt kind of weird about buying so many sleeveless mock necks because they were probably just a trend, but I consulted the depths of my pinterest boards to construct "her", and I now retract that statement because I've actually loved that look for years but have just never found any in stores or affordably online (not for a lack of trying). So, really, I'm just taking advantage of a trend to nab items that will likely receive years of wear and care (until I get comfortable sewing knits, that is--then it's sleeveless mocknecks all summer baby).

It does sadden me a lot that I have to leave home again, actually. I mean I'm sure living here all the time could become incredibly grating, maybe, but right now it just feels like love. I know I am loved even when I am far away from but it feels so close while I am here, like a warm blanket against my skin (as opposed to knowing that the blanket waits for me on my bed while I'm out and about during the day, just to extend this metaphor). I didn't really experience homesickness while I was away after those first few nights in my apartment, so I thought leaving would be easier this time, but it's not, not really. My new city does not feel like home, my new school does not feel like home. I hope that they do, one day. Because I hate how the last few days of being here are marred by my looming departure.

(I think that maybe part of it is a lack of community and creative outlet there. I don't have my sewing or my friends or my instruments. So I feel insular and antsy.)

The Winter King is an adult romantasy, the first I've ever read. The.. "adult" bit is admittedly new to me, uhm, so we'll see how I feel about it as I get further in. It certainly fits the angst I said I was looking for, no doubt about that.

Today I'm thankful for the absolutely darling necklace my mother gifted me to wear with the formal gown I thrifted. It's the literal perfect shape for the neckline and matches the shoes I intend to wear with the gown. Now I just need to figure out how to go about hemming the dress a few inches (...might pay a tailor to do it bc I'm scared).

Today's goals: complete alterations (2(?)), pack, redo the skirt waistband (UGHHH (the skirt is rly cute but I measured something wrong when cutting out the waistband and made it too small)), wash clothes. Maybe watch PJO. [edit: did not complete all but did complete other things and I spent a few hours shopping with my sister which was fun and I also made a simple but delicious dinner for my fam]

happy new year :)

[ratscabies]

How does a money bowl work?

everyone who makes one is probably gonna make theirs a lil differently, but this is what I did for mine:

a base of rice for abundance, salt for protection, and a touch of sugar to ensure that money comes to me through "sweet" means (aka hopefully not through, like, my mom dying and me collecting her life insurance lol)

sprinklings of basil for wealth, prosperity, and abundance; rosemary for prosperity and wisdom; and sage for wisdom - I wanted to include some herbs associated with wisdom in addition to money because I want to encourage smarter spending habits in myself

I printed out a copy of a credit card bill showing my balance on it, and I cut it up into little pieces while envisioning myself paying it off and being free from credit card debt. I added the shreds of this credit card bill into the rice base

bay leaves - both some ripped up to mix in the rice base, but also one with a sigil I created to represent an affirmation about money flowing to me and a few with words like "financial stability," "wealth," and "abundance" on them since bay leaves are associated with manifestation and wishes

cinnamon sticks for attracting wealth and material stability - I added four since it's a number associated with reliability and stability (I know eight is often a number associated with wealth and money, but I did not feel like adding eight cinnamon sticks into my jar lol)

gemstone chips of pyrite ("fool's gold") for wealth and prosperity; tiger's eye for confidence and success; amazonite for personal prosperity; aventurine for good fortune and material wealth; and clear quartz for general good vibes and as an amplifier for the other gemstones

eight coffee beans to encourage rapidity and amplification of the spell (here I did eight since the number eight is associated with money, and the beans are small enough that it didn't feel excessive like it might have with the cinnamon sticks lol)

handful of various coins from my wallet

a small piece of paper with some affirmations written on them as petitions, folded up, hopefully to be manifested - I can add more petitions and affirmations as time goes on and as my goals change

I put all of this in a clear jar that I had sitting around

around the neck of the jar, I wrapped a green string of yarn (green to represent money) and attached a folded piece of paper to it - the outside of the piece of paper has a dollar sign, and the inside of the folded piece of paper says "financial stability and abundance," again with the sigil for money flow that I created

I did not put a lid on the jar - I want it to be open to encourage money flowing in and out

I put it in a part of my room that I pass by every time I enter and leave, so I can notice it, give it mental energy and remember my goals, and throw any change or cash I get into it or take some out as needed, again to represent money flowing in and out

I know some people redo their jars at the beginning of every month to recharge it and keep things fresh

oh yeah, as I created the jar, I used a stick of cinnamon incense to cleanse everything and charge my components with my intentions

and yeah I think that's it!

sorry it's excessive but I'm extra

[icharchivist]

honestly this just shows again that wmtsb is SO GOOD, because i feel bad for everyone involved. sandy and belial and you even made a case for lucilius. theyre all such poor meow-meows. not to mention lucifer. and beelzebub is also here, ig, being gay and homophobic about it, hope he manages to sort that out for himself

dFMKJDF NO BUT RIGHT COMPLETELY!!!

wmtsb is truly peak event, i do really feel bad for everyone. And well i can understand the "anyway my life catastrophically suck and i'm going to put the world through an apocalypse to cope" that most of them have going on (Lucifer is the only one basically just begging them 'please just all go to therapy" in the meantime).

they're people who were created by the whims of fate, abandoned to their own device, and tried to cope with what it meant to have a purpose (or lack of), to exist for a reason.

I do also feel bad for Bubs but in his case i do think wmtsb didn't really do a good job fleshing him out until later in his raid quest. Because in a sense he's in a similar situation than Lucilius, he's also a clone, I think it's also implied he has Shalem's memories but he probably doesn't remember them as clearly as Lucilius does. So it explains why Bubs was the only astral to support Lucilius's actions, because while he didn't grasp it as much as Lucilius did, he felt the same groundwork as Lucilius did.

It's interesting in that sense that therefore Lucilius and Beelzebub has two drastically different God Complex. Lucilius wants to take down the God that made his life a joke and destroy the world He had created, and to redo it all mostly out of spite toward God. Beelzebub meanwhile genuinely believes he is owned to rule over all of the skies. Destruction is a means to an end. for Lucilius, Destruction is The End.

And i think it's even more interesting considering on one hand one is the clone of Sahar, the one who's desperately trying to follow what God wanted and who is set to destroy the Otherworld for his God after all, while the other is the clone of Shalem, who rebelled and questioned God's intentions so much so she got locked away.

(and also probably, is the reason why Lucilius has stronger memories than Bubs. Sahar lived longer than Shalem because Shalem got locked away, meaning Lucilius had more of the scope of Sahar's despair to take from compared to Bubs).

And it's ironical because Lucilius and Beelzebub both are rebelling to prove their Free Will, but in a sense they still copy their originals without even realizing it. Lucilius's destruction to get the eye of the Omnipotent on him, Beelzebub's rebellion as to challenge the God for his own gain, reflects Sahar and Shalem's storyarcs as well.

So the thing is that i feel like Bubs doesn't have a place anywhere. He's not as lost as Lucilius, his original isn't even here anymore (and wouldn't return until after Bubs had been locked away by Cags), he doesn't belong with the Astrals but he doesn't belong with Lucilius either. He relates to Lucilius, but their differences is creating a major divide between them.

And it's even further illustrated by Beelzebub becoming half Primal, and the time he had spent in the Otherworld.

First, the Primal thing, wheree Beelzebub was completely torn to shred by Otherworldly beings after a mission Lucilius sent him on, only to come back to see Lucilius make experiment on him out of pure scientific curiosity, to "save him", making him half primal, which as we know, ended up being Bubs's downfall as Cags could therefore lock him away. Beelzebub didn't ask for any of this, Lucilius didn't save him out of compassion, and the process was described as a torture, and there is this foreign body on Bubs that he has to cope to deal with.

He can't help but love Lucilius as well, he's the only person who understands him, but he has to curse Lucilius for even being in that state. and i think it's why even more Bubs is dedicated in becoming the King of the skies, to not be belittled by Lucilius having made him "lesser".

Meanwhile the Otherworld thing also is pretty horrifying like. Those beings torn him to shred, those beings are the only thing that could kill a primal which he half became, and he was locked in the Otherworld for thousands of years having to fight them to survive. This, also, is pretty horrible to imagine.

and once again an interesting way to compare them to Sahar and Shalem. Because while otherwise they copy their originals, after the failed Civil War, Lucilius ended up in limbo, the same way Shalem has been unconscious for thousands of years, while Bubs was doomed into fighting the Otherworld, like Sahar was doing for thousands of years. I think it's such a neat detail.

In a sense, everyone in wmtsb is doomed by the narrative, doomed by fate, and it extends to Beelzebub still. The problem with Beelzebub is that instead of exploring it into wmtsb itself they locked his story in HL raid quests super late in the story that most people have a hard time unlocking and that's awful.

I feel like Bubs might have less of an emotional plotline in general, but it still ties him back to the thematic of the wmtsb gang in a way that's bonechilling. They're all fucked, they're all tragic, and all of this wouldn't have been happening if Lucilius and Beelzebub hadn't been suffering from being clones to start with.

But yeah adding to that layer too, Bubs is also part of the "doomed by his crush on the Luci-gang" thematic that affects literally everyone in this saga. Luci brainrot disease make you act unwise (apocalypse)

I still feel bad for Bubs because of that though.. though disclaimer i didn't read his quest fully, i only saw bits of some scenes on Twitter so maybe there's even more to help out on his reading there. But, he's still fucked, and wmtsb is still a masterpieces.

(but that said i still agree with the gay and homophobic, rip Bubs you did your best)

#ichareply #ichafantalks gbf #ichablogging wmtsb #anonymous

[lordbelacqua]

Otherwise, such a gift will slip through your fingers, like a shard of ice melting in a closed fist.

A Shard of Ice, Andrzej Sapkowski

#read the tags if you are a witcher content creator please <3 #the witcher books #the witcher #yennefer of vengerberg #witcheredit #witcherladies #thewitcheredit #yenneferblog #thewitcherdaily #emorfili #userava #witchersdaily #*** #i have a few things to say i would appreciate if you read #this is my first witcher gifset and i dont follow many witcher content creators #so im not aware if a similar gifset with similar blending/concept has been made #if it has know that it is not my intention to redo or copy or similar #i love yennefer i love shard of ice and i thought this was a nice idea to manifest #i also dont know who to tag so bear with me #this is much easier in the hdm fandom!! #but witcher stans follow me!! #also dont mind that i changed the quote a bit in the last gif #im glad one of my best gifsets is about one of my favorite characters ever #the idea behind this is what yennefer said herself - the power she wields as a sorceress is something she paid with everything she had #and yennefer realizing what she paid with would later mean everything to her makes the gift she got less important #and the concept of that is very sad but the quote goes with every day life i think #if you want something great then you have to reciprocate #and be ready for a sacrifice #ty for reading all that <3

[willowcrowned]

hey completely apropos of nothing you should talk about how you'd fix the prequels :)

you know what I SHOULD

SO. If given the chance I would actually remake the prequels TWICE. In the first version I would just redo the individual movies, but keep the overarching plot beats the same, which I will admit is just an excuse to make Phantom Menace good by giving Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon coherent and thematically relevant emotional arcs (or, like, any arcs at all). I don't have thoughts about how I'd do this for the other movies, because at the end of the day I care about them much, much less than I care about Phantom Menace.

Version 1:

Essentially, I would set up Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon's relationship in TPM as a sort of... microcosm of the Jedi Order, replete with all its failings.

Both Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are Very Good Jedi (albeit in different ways), but maybe—maybe they're not very good people. Qui-Gon is unattached, devoted to the Force, devoted to remaining Fair and Just and Unbiased, and he's trying to make Obi-Wan that as well. But in doing so, he alienates Obi-Wan when Obi-Wan needs companionship, or praise, or just the confirmation that he's not a bad person for failing occasionally. When Qui-Gon dies, he leaves behind an Obi-Wan who doesn't understand what he did wrong (because he didn't do anything wrong—but Qui-Gon never told him that).

I think eventually, on Tatooine and after Anakin's fall, Obi-Wan understands what Qui-Gon was trying to do and why, and he doesn't... forgive him, because it's a hard thing to forgive feeling unloved for that long, but he does move past it, and accept that he cared about Qui-Gon anyways.

At the end of it, there's a comparison drawn between Qui-Gon, who didn't let himself care enough, and Anakin, who let himself care too much, and Obi-Wan, who managed to muddle his way through the middle ground.

This version of the prequels ultimately becomes Obi-Wan's story, which doesn't make it better than George Lucas's (the goal of the second way I would remake the prequels), but it does make it more interesting to me.

The SECOND version is the version that my writer brain wants, which is... not starting entirely from a clean slate, because I'm keeping the personages of the prequels, but completing undoing the phantom/clones/sith beats and creating a new trilogy.

Anyways, this bit is copy-pasted directly from where I typed it out on discord last night for rachel

Version 2:

We start at the beginning of the clone wars with anakin who’s not yet knighted but mostly on his own and in this very tense position with Padmé where they both clearly are in deep love and lust with each other but can’t consummate it or w/e due to Anakin’s duties as a jedi and the war. Also he clearly has this mentor/mentee relationship with Obi-Wan, but Obi-Wan is very noticeably absent. We’re also introduced to Ahsoka and anakin’s men, the former of which he’s just meeting and the latter of which he clearly has a good relationship with already. Something happens in the middle obvi + at some point anakin goes to obi wan seeking guidance and affirmation, and it’s clear that obi wan knows what he wants but is trying to be A Good Jedi about it and just sort of. Leaves anakin out in the cold. At which point anakin goes to palpatine, who actually seems warm and comforting and tells him to follow his heart in a way that at first glance seems grandfatherly and a bit naive but well-intentioned but upon rewatch is very clearly him trying to drive a wedge between anakin and obi wan. At the very end of the movie Anakin gets married to Padmé (with some sort of “love conquers all” rationale) and in doing so accidentally somehow gets all his men killed. He’s still so on cloud nine about being married he manages to get through it, which causes the Jedi to knight him, but the last scene is him mourning. This sets a pattern for the rest of the trilogy, where Anakin makes larger and larger personal betrayals up until the end of rots, where he betrays obi wan and Padmé and the Jedi.

The second movie, is which I have even less of a jplot for, ends in ahsoka’s death. Crucially, this has to be something that the Jedi advised him to do (not like. Leave her to die, but something something greater good) that makes it clear that (a) anakin is not the kind of person you should trust to run a war and (b) the Jedi are kind of fucked up, man. Like let’s address the child soldier thing from a watsonian perspective. Also this is the movie where we start to dive into anakin and obi wan’s relationship, so you get the master/padawan parallels and contrasts between obi wan and anakin and anakin and ahsoka. Also Palpatine is there, providing a model and a contrast for how anakin interacts with obi wan and ahsoka, and he is still not immediately identifiable as the main villain.

The THIRD movie we have Padmé getting pregnant and going all baby crazy ‘let’s set up a house back on Naboo in the middle of a war in which we are both major participants’ BUT since it’s been clear from the beginning that they both view themselves as, like, Romeo and Juliet but Better, it completely tracks. Make her crazy from the beginning!! This is the movie where we bring in some flashbacks to anakin’s slave backstory, especially drawing direct parallels to the way Palpatine’s coercing him into sketchier and sketchier shit, BUT there’s also a contrast that makes it clear that Anakin (a) could walk away because he’s not bound to Palpatine and (b) won’t walk away because he doesn’t know how because both Palpatine and the Jedi taught him only to obey orders. The movie still ends with the Jedi purge + anakin killing more kids + mustafar + him choking Padmé until she’s almost dead. Padmé’s impassioned ‘there’s still good in him’ is framed mostly as her being delusional, even if she’s right, bc her faith in anakin is mostly selfish (she refuses to believe that he’s bad bc then her dream was only ever a dream and it CAN’T have been her love was REAL) as opposed to Luke’s selfless belief (he just… knows that Vader is hurt and hurting and believes everyone deserves the chance to do better). The trilogy still ends on the shot of twin suns, because that fucks and is objectively correct

Also key to this experience is the fact that it, despite being closer in tone to a Serious War Film, still has lots of fun, lighthearted moments, especially in the first two, because This Is Star Wars God Damn It, and it should be fun

Anyways, the great thing about remaking the prequels is that they don’t even have to be good, they just have to be better than Lucas’s attempt, which I feel I feel I could succeed in. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk

#reminder that #willow's prequels opinions #is the tag to avoid if you don't want to hear me whine about how the prequels are bad #which. they are. #they're not even films they're just a series of images on a screen that happen #some very compelling images it should be said #but still. they have maybe one coherent narrative and emotional arc between them. maybe #keep me company while i write

[magicalgirljeririn]

I’m not really back or anything but with the announcement of the new Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch comic in Nakayoshi I am going to upload and post a large chunk of my color scans of mmppp from Nakayoshi magazine that I used on my old mmppp manga image achieve I ran in the mid 2000′s. Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch is perhaps my favorite manga ever (or the one I was most obsessed with might be the better word) and so I am super excited about the announcement.

Honestly, I do not know when I will be back for real as I put this blog aside for time reasons then covid happened (I actually had more responsibility during covid than I did pre-covid shutdowns and misc.). Although, if I do, I might redo some magazines because they are not up to standard for me and I might of recieved a better copy between posting a few years ago and current day.

I’d like to thank everyone who has been continuing to follow my blog and those who are just liking and reblogging my scans because my whole intention of this blog was solely to spread the images so myself and others can more easily track down images from much of our beloved series.

[ladyswillmart]

So I decided to redo Brenwy’s backstory and change a few things around quite a bit. First off, obviously he’s an Altmer now, which is actually a character race I don’t think I’ve ever really played before? I found my old RP notes back when I was playing Oblivion and I guess I got re-inspired! I realized what I really wanted to do was make a character from Shivering Isles proper, which I might just reinstall (I’ll have to buy/download a new copy though, I have no idea where my discs are...and this laptop doesn’t even have a CD drive anyway!).

I’ll do a more formal write-up here at some point, but his story goes something like this:

Brenwy Tyne (which is, in fact, a practical truncation of his full name; when written in full, it spans several column inches and even more familial generations of impenetrable Aldmeri pretension) was born in Alinor, on the Summerset Isles. Of this he is reasonably certain, to a degree where he is comfortable divulging this information to most strangers. He also knows that he ended up in the Psijic Order, at what he noted as “a typical age for monastic induction”. And he clearly recalls that shortly afterwards, he was involved in an accident while his group was trying to mend a potentially catastrophic breach in the fabric of time-space, which ended with the youth getting pulled into the hole and falling outside of the time corridor entirely.

His comrades recovered his body several hours later and several yards from the scene of the accident—alive, uninjured, but nevertheless grim. Brenwy was a gibbering wreck, as if he was unable to comprehend who, where, what, why, or most importantly, when he was. Moreover, he was fully dressed in what was obviously the traditional, rune-woven kit of the Psijic scholar, but its color and style did not match any previously known uniform specification on record. In any case, he was hauled back to Artaeum, where he spent several uneventful weeks in the island infirmary. His recovery seemed to be nearing completion, but one morning, when the matron walked into his room to deliver the usual breakfast, she greeted naught but an empty bed, done up as if the former occupant had no intention to return.

In reality, as if led by instinct, Brenwy used Artaeum's portal to Oblivion to navigate to the Shivering Isles, where to his surprise, he was welcomed by the residents of New Sheoth as if he’d never left.

Ah yes, well, now all things fall into place, right? Like some great cosmic jigsaw scattered to the four complex axes of the galaxy, pieces tumbling together as if gently guided by some great unseen hand—here Brenwy served as the House of Mania’s court horologist and even ran a small shop in Bliss. But when? Now? Yesterday? Tomorrow? And for how long?

Unfortunately, we’re left with little time to ponder confusing things like the color of one’s eigenstates or the shape of one’s navel: The Mad God Sheogorath, for some reason, has just selected the lad to act on his behalf as an envoy-scholar (“...or plenipotentiary, because I know how very fond you high elves are of excessive syllables”) to Tamriel for inadequately articulated reasons and a period of time he deigned to describe only as “you’ll know when you’re—we’re finished”.

Anyway, the year is now 2E 582, numbers that hold little relative meaning for Brenwy but at least it’s something to write on documents...

#elder scrolls online #eso #long post

[sally-mun]

(Sorry anon, Tumblr screwed up my draft of your ask, so you’re a screenshot now.)

I hope you realize what you’ve done, because this is going to be a VERY long story. Get a drink and strap in.

Before I can get into this too deeply, we first need to talk about Ocarina of Time. There are a lot of issues I had with OoT that I was VERY excited to see were later addressed by Twilight Princess, whether it was an intentional link or not. There are a handful of things involved here, but for me the biggest one by far is the Temple of Time.

Waaaaay back in the late 90′s/early 2000′s, the internet was still relatively young and, in a way, more simple and innocent. The standard for using it largely boiled down to, “I like [x], so I’ll search for [x]” and just seeing what mess of crap you ended up with. I did this mostly with Sonic and anime stuff, but every now and then I’d do it for things like LoZ as well. One of the sites this brought me to was called The Odyssey of Hyrule, which at the time utterly blew my mind with its content. It was a hotbed of Zelda oddities, glitches (some of which I now see often in speed runs), hoax debunks, and most importantly for this discussion, screenshots from early builds of the game.

We can probably trace the origin of my fixation back to this screenshot:

Those of you that know Ocarina of Time well can probably tell right of the bat that this is not an area that appears in the final game. The website posited that this was perhaps an area behind the Temple of Time, since the setting elements all look the same and the camera appears to be in a fixed location. After all, when you look at the building from the front, there’s a clearly visible path running along the side, and it does appear that the fence has a “gate,” although we can never open it.

See it there, behind the second gossip stone from the left? There’s a gap on either side of that bit of fence, right where the path happens to be. The rest of the fence on the right side doesn’t have gaps like that, suggesting that this bit of fence wasn’t originally there and the path was once traversable; my personal hunch is that the “gate” is actually a copied instance of the smaller bit of fencing on the left to save themselves the headache of redoing the fence entirely. The gossip stones, if they were originally there at all, were probably supposed to start from the far right wall instead of the left, which would also open up access to the path.

The longer this stewed around in my brain, the more it drove me absolutely crazy, because I realized that this could possibly explain a lot of seemingly disparate elements. For example, there’s a peculiarity in the Temple of Time that’s easy to miss if you’re not taking your time and paying close attention. After you remove the Door of Time to gain access to the sword chamber, the initial view of said chamber is actually much smaller. It’s especially easy to see when you switch to first-person, because you can more easily see how close the walls are on the left and right.

(My apologies for the shitty quality of these pictures, I took them back before we had decent digital cameras. I’ll get better ones when I post this as an actual article on my other blog.)

As you run into the chamber, the tight walls abruptly disappear and give way to the massive chamber we’re all familiar with. In fact, if you take your time and walk forward through this hallway, you can easily see the moment when the room changes from small to large before your eyes.

When comparing this oddity with the beta screenshot and the website’s suggestion that the path may have allowed you to go behind the temple, I became convinced that something else was supposed to happen back there, but was cut from the game for one reason or another. My guess is that the sword chamber really was originally very small as it first appears, and the larger chamber was a separate area behind it, which was used for... well, what? It obviously wasn’t something small and simple, like a chest with a heart piece; not for a room that grand. It was clearly for something big, something important, because it had to have a large enough scale of work that the designers looked at it and realized they couldn’t finish in time. After a LOT of mulling it over, I became convinced that it was most likely the entrance to the Light Temple.

You see, something else that always struck me as odd was the fact that you’re just given the Light Medallion as soon as you become an adult. You do absolutely nothing to earn it; it’s all part of the same cut scene that plays after you remove the sword for the first time. You meet Rauru, the Light Sage, pretty abruptly as he infodumps about what’s going on, and then he just forks over the Light Medallion without hesitation.

From a narrative perspective, it sticks out to me because Rauru is the only person you do not interact with at any point in the game. You don’t meet him at all as a child, and as an adult you only see him within the Sacred Realm. All of the other sages are people you have both a child and adult connection with in some way, and it’s up to you to awaken them to their powers by ridding their respective temples of evil. Why would they just skip that process with Rauru?

Perhaps they never meant to; maybe you were supposed to go through that same process, but the Light Temple got cut. When you’re designing a video game, there’s a practice that’s recommended before you start actually building it where you make a list of all the elements you want included, then you organize it by importance, and then you cut it in half. The top half is the one you focus on first, because it’s stuff you absolutely positively have to have in the game in order for it to work. The bottom half is stuff you get to include if you have enough time, and it’s added in the order you listed it because top items are more critical. It could very well be that the Light Temple was either on that second half of the list, or it was never on the second half at all but development time simply ran out and it got bumped.

Either way, at some point in the process I think they realized they weren’t going to be able to complete the Light Temple, so they blocked off the side path and expanded the sword chamber to eat up the extra space. After all, you can see how long the building is from the outside, so it wouldn’t make much sense for it to be a reverse Tardis and be smaller on the inside. Once the back path was removed, I imagine they reworked Rauru to reduce his role; my head canon has always been that he was some kind of high priest who oversaw the Temple of Time, since it IS essentially a church. I mean, just look at that garb. He certainly appears to be some kind of holy man.

Having him as a priest at the Temple of Time that you could actually meet and talk to as a kid would’ve finally made his presence make sense. It would explain who and what he is at all, since he just kind of appears out of nowhere as the game currently stands, and it would’ve aligned with the other sages insofar as meeting them when they don’t realize their powers, then saving them as an adult and awakening them as a sage. In fact, Rauru disappearing from the Temple of Time would’ve been the game’s first big red flag that something has gone terribly wrong in the last seven years, versus having to go outside to see all the decay and the dark energy around Death Mountain. Furthermore, each sage is someone that the game explicitly positions as a person that makes sense TO be each temple’s respective sage, and to me, a priest from the Temple of Time is the obvious choice for the Light Sage when you consider that the Light Temple is probably part of the same building.

Speaking of the Temple of Time, it has a lot of clues of its own that it may have once doubled as the Light Temple. For one thing, consider the songs that warp you around the game: The Minuet of Forest takes you to the Forest Temple, the Bolero of Fire takes you to the Fire Temple, the Serenade of Water takes you to the Water Temple... but what song takes you to the Temple of Time? It’s not a song with time in the name anywhere, it’s the Prelude of Light. This would make perfect sense if the Light Temple was supposed to share space with the Temple of Time, right?

Another clue is the warp points themselves. Each time you warp to one of the temples, you land on a large pedestal bearing the Triforce. However, there’s another image overlayed on them too: That temple’s medallion. If you play the Prelude of Light to warp to the Temple of Time, the pedestal you land on features the the Light Medallion, as though this is where you were supposed to have earned it.

I later discovered that this is even more prominent in another old beta screenshot, which is much more heavy-handed with the symbol on the pedestal.

Something else to consider is the fact that the Temple of Time is actually where you acquire the Light Arrows, the final item that you need before you take on Ganon at the end. Like the medallion before it, the Light Arrows are again just given to you without requiring any work. The other temples all have a critically important item inside that you must obtain to not only finish the temple itself, but that is then needed in other areas in the game. Doesn’t it seem like you’d have to complete the Light Temple to get the Light Arrows, and they’d follow the same pattern of being used to finish the temple and then go on for further use elsewhere (namely, Ganon’s Castle)?

Getting the Light Arrows last also lends credence toward the idea that the Light Temple was in fact lower on the development list, because it would’ve necessarily been the last temple you visited in terms of game progression. They’re not going to give you the ultimate holy weapon early on in the game; they have to save that for the end so you don’t blow through the rest of the temples without a sweat! Additionally, the Light Temple being last would only increase the tension of wondering where Rauru went, since each time you warped between the past and the future you’d have to pass through the Temple of Time and note once again that Rauru is missing.

If it were me making the priority list, the temples would be listed in the same order that you play them in-game, because obviously you need to go through [dungeon 1] before you can go through [dungeon 2] or [dungeon 3].* In this particular instance, chronological order and order of importance happen to be the same thing, and if the development team used the same reasoning, then yes, the Light Temple would be much lower on the list than the others. It’s entirely within reason to think that they had planned for it, but realized they weren’t going to have time to fully implement it, and instead blocked it off and handed over the items you would’ve obtained there so they could focus on getting other, more critical things done.

It’s also worth noting just how much infodumping happens at the Temple  of Time. As the game currently stands, there’s very little to actually do at the ToT, but there are many long conversations that take place there. You talk to Zelda, both as herself and as Sheik, you talk to Rauru (as that technically happens while you’re at the ToT), and even Ganon monologues a bit there at the end. You end up spending a LOT of time spent standing around while other characters pelt you with information in this particular location. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t have been any big conversations here, but rather that I feel like there are more than there probably should’ve been. Some (possibly most) of that information could’ve been obtained more gradually and actively if the Light Temple had managed to be a thing.

And look, I’m not saying that what we ultimately got in the game doesn’t work; there’s nothing specifically wrong with the way Ocarina of Time handles the Temple of Time. I agree that getting the Light Medallion and Light Arrows in the ToT isn’t completely out of nowhere since the ToT is connected to the Sacred Realm. I’m only saying it doesn’t come across as the original  design to me; as far as I’m concerned, it clearly, obviously screams that what we got was a back-up plan. It works just enough to make sense, but it would work so much better if they did it this other way. Everything just clicks together a little more snugly when you consider that there may have been a sixth temple. It’s not that what we got doesn’t make sense, it’s just that I believe these ideas make more sense.

This topic is something I used to go on and on about back in the day, to pretty much anyone who would listen to me. I was met with about as many different kinds of feedback as you can imagine; some people agreed that I was on to something and had maybe solved a mystery, whereas others thought I was reading way too much into details that just don’t have that deep of a meaning. Unfortunately, it’s obviously not something I could take that far in an argument because there was no way to prove my hypothesis. It’s all just a guess, and even though I think there’s some pretty strong evidence to back it up, in the end I have no way to actually verify it. Sure I could contact Nintendo, but I highly doubt they’d tell me anything one way or the other.

SO NEEDLESS TO SAY when Twilight Princess eventually came along and had a Temple of Time that was a for-realsies playable dungeon with monsters and puzzles and items to collect, I went through the fucking roof.

At the EXACT moment that I realized that this is what the game was giving me, I literally screamed and shouted and cheered because I felt so... vindicated, in a way? It felt very strongly like a soft confirmation of what I’d been saying for all these years -- ESPECIALLY since the Twilight!ToT ALSO makes heavy use of the Light Medallion symbol. I feel like that’s about as clear of a connection as you can get.

Like, I know the Temple of Time being playable in Twilight Princess doesn’t absolutely confirm that it was supposed to be that way in Ocarina of Time, but it gives me that vibe because it feels like Twilight makes a point to ‘right’ a lot of ‘wrongs’ present in Ocarina. It gives me the sense that they were making up for some of the things they didn’t (or couldn’t) do the first time around. The fact that they were willing to delay the release of Twilight Princess just to make sure everything was just right also gives me that vibe. They could’ve just cut things again, but this time, they wanted to make sure everything was there, and that it was good.

One other thing I’d like to mention before completely moving on from this topic is something that I admittedly can’t confirm, but it’s another point that’s been on my mind: Back when I was playing Twilight Princess for the first time and I was screaming about the Temple of Time, a guy I knew back then mentioned to me that the ToT that we see in Twilight is, canonically, the same ToT that we see in Ocarina. He said that he’d heard somewhere that the Ocarina world map actually fit perfectly when overlayed against the Twilight world map, and the major world features/locations from Ocarina of Time lined up exactly with landmarks and ruins in the Twilight Princess world. I did attempt to look this up for myself before writing this post, but most of what I found was a big mess; I may attempt to line the maps up myself sometime if just to be able to better wrap my brain around what might (or might not) work here. What I can definitely say, though, is that the idea is at least supported by the theme of the series in general, given that it’s based around the notion of history repeating itself. Zelda games reference other Zelda games all the time, so it’s far from unheard of.

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier the Light Temple isn’t the only thing that makes me feel like Twilight Princess is trying to make amends for things that were missed in Ocarina of Time; it just happens to be the one I was most prominently fixated on. Another big thing that Twilight Princess appears to be rectifying is the City in the Sky. Going back again to my old stomping ground The Odyssey of Hyrule, there was another beta screenshot that got a LOT of attention back in the day, because it 1) was an animated gif, 2) involves the Triforce, and 3) appears to be some kind of ‘Sky Temple,’ as it was known.

(Once upon a time that gif was reasonably sized, but since computers have roided the fuck out since the days of Windows 95, I realize it’s not the biggest or clearest thing in the world and I apologize.)

As I recall there were a couple of other screenshots that appeared to also be from this alleged Sky Temple, but sadly I don’t seem to have any of them myself, and although The Odyssey of Hyrule technically still exists, it looks like its images are all broken. In any case, the question of whether or not Ocarina of Time was supposed to have a sky temple was a HUUUUGE hot topic among Zelda sites for years. So many people spent enormous amounts of time and energy trying to find the so-called Sky Temple, largely because there was a sizable sect of the fanbase convinced that the Triforce HAD to be hidden somewhere in the game. Amazingly enough someone did eventually find the Triforce obscenely hidden in the game files (I wish I still had the pics of that, the amount of glitching needed to get to it was insane), but nothing was ever ultimately discovered about the Sky Temple. It just became one of those bits of gaming folklore that got passed around from person to person over time.

Which, of course, is why the inclusion of the City in the Sky in Twilight Princess, much like the expansion of the Temple of Time, feels a lot like Nintendo is making up for something they may have intended to do but were unable to complete.

Not gonna lie, when I played this area for the first time I couldn’t help thinking that the small glimpse in the gif above feels like it could feasibly fit in here, and it was just the coolest feeling of, “I knew it!”

Another thing that really bugged me about Ocarina of Time (and in fact still does to this day) is the fact that, even after you beat the Water Temple, Zora’s Domain remains frozen. I never understood how this could be, since every other area reverts back to its original, beautiful form after you defeat the evil in the associated temple. Not Zora’s Domain, though! It’s thoroughly unsatisfying to have gone through what is arguably the most hated temple in the game and not have a full reward for your efforts.

This, again, is something it seems Twilight apologizes for; not only does it actually replicate the original problem of the Zoras getting frozen, but IN THIS ONE YOU ACTUALLY THAW THEM OUT!! And not only that, you thaw them BEFORE you even do the temple! That alone feels like Nintendo practically coming out and saying, “Yeah, we messed up, our bad. Here, have the restored Zoras right away as our apology.” It was such a huge mental release to see that ice melt and the Zoras come back to life! My brain was finally able to let go of a frustration I’d had for years!

My last one isn’t so much something that I felt was supposed to be in Ocarina of Time, but rather something I just plain wanted to be there. I was always sad that, even though you do technically get to enter Hyrule Castle, you don’t really get to go in there. You get an extremely limited and very linear track to follow, and at best you just get glimpses of some of the other areas that probably would’ve been really cool to explore had the game been designed that way.

I always felt like the fact that you didn’t get any real exploration of Hyrule Castle upset some of the balance in the game, considering that you do have to fully traverse Ganon’s Castle as a solvable dungeon. Being able to get a thorough sense of what Hyrule Castle was originally like before evil fell would help reinforce just how much things had changed in the seven years that Link was in the Sacred Realm, especially since that contrast is such a strong theme everywhere else in the game.

So, much like my reaction when I realized I was actually entering the Temple of Time as a level, I had a very similar reaction when I realized I was getting Hyrule Castle in the same way.

I may not have freaked out quite as much, but DAMN if that wasn’t another enormous payoff for me! Getting to really look around inside of Hyrule Castle, and furthermore in a version that’s really able to convey the scale and grandness OF a castle, was an absolutely magical moment of overdue gratification.

What’s even better is that Twilight Princess almost gives you a sort of a fake-out in this regard, since at the very beginning you kind of go through Hyrule Castle but, like Ocarina of Time, it’s extremely limited and linear, so it seems at first like they’re going to do the same thing.

I remember playing this for the first time and thinking, “Well, at least I’ve gotten a little closer to seeing inside of Hyrule Castle, but I really wish they’d just friggin’ let us ACTUALLY go in.” IMAGINE MY CHAGRIN when later on that’s exactly what I ended up doing~ I’m sitting there fan-screaming and the game is going “AH HA I GOTCHA!!”

Soooooo yeah... This ended up being an extremely long post and probably way more than you were ever interested in knowing, but, yeah, I think that’s why Twilight Princess felt like such a bookend for me. Even though I did technically have the original LoZ as a child, my life as a Zelda fan really began with Ocarina of Time, and that game left me longing for several very specific things that Twilight Princess later fulfilled. I’ve never had so many large unresolved issues with any other game, and the fact that Ocarina of Time was the Zelda game that I ‘imprinted’ on, those issues left a very deep impression on me. Having Twilight Princess essentially go back and ‘fix’ those things was incredibly psychologically calming for me, and I think it’s a major reason why I haven’t particularly sought out other Zelda games in the last 12 years. Twilight Princess gave me the things I’d been looking for since 1998 -- a decade of hemming and hawing finally resolved.

I honestly feel like playing Zelda games may be different for me in some way now as I move forward, because I won’t have a part of my brain mentally searching for a way to fill those little voids in the back of my head. I have both Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild, which as I said in that other post I’ve actually never tried out, so I guess we’ll find out how I relate to them whenever I finally decide to take that leap!

If you actually made it to the end of this post, THANK YOU SO MUCH and I hope you enjoyed it~

*Fun fact, this isn’t necessarily true when it comes to the Fire and Water Temples. The game wants you to do Fire first, but it’s completely possible to do the Water Temple if you want to!

#I TOLD YOU THIS WAS GOING TO BE A BIG ONE #Legend of Zelda #Ocarina of Time #Twilight Princess #anonymous

[thewritewolf]

Two For Two Chapter 18: Close Call

A team of four enemies might be a little too much for our heroes to handle... especially with the elemental powers each of them possess.

@ladynoirjuly2020

Enjoy!

First Chapter | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Read on Ao3

“Okay, Hawkmoth is definitely getting some extra power somehow,” Dragonbug said as she did her best to hold off what appeared to be a person made out of fire and a living whirlwind.

It was a frustrating combination - the whirlwind was scattering embers from the fire akuma, leading to a blaze that was slowly spreading across her city. A glance at the scene around her - all fire and smoke and heat haze - was enough to make her grateful once again for her miraculous cure. Soon enough, neither of them would be able to breath in this arena, let alone fight in it.

“Four akumas seems like an awful lot,” Snake Noir replied as he tried to stay ahead of two more enemies. “Do you think he’s been doing his homework? Or did he just find a new magic crystal or something in his cereal box?”

One of his opponents was similar to Stoneheart in that it looked like a person made out of boulders. The main differences were that this one was more the size of a large person rather than a giant, and it lacked a face. The other looked like a rolling tidal wave with a giant human face in the seafoam. As much as she would hope the water would cancel out the fire, it was doing a great job avoiding being helpful, instead constantly striving to slam into her partner.

“Only two of them are akumas,” Dragonbug corrected, using her yoyo shield to block a heat blast and getting a little singed anyway. “I think the earth and air ones are amoks.”

“Great, so Hawkbutt still has help. At least I feel better about this!” Snake Noir slammed his baton full force into the earth amok’s side, sending it flying into one of the burning buildings.

As glad as she was that they’d managed to get all the citizens out of the area before Hawkmoth’s crew arrived, she also recognized a losing fight when she saw one. And seeing the building collapse into a hellish blaze reminded her that they still had options.

“Chat, follow me!”

Latching onto an as-of-yet intact piece of masonry with her yoyo, Dragonbug pulled herself away with the wind roaring in her ears.

Or so she had thought, until she realized it wasn’t the usual wind whipping past her, but the living whirlwind assaulting her. She was being battered all around, her grip on her yoyo slipping as she held on for dear life.

It ended in an instant. There had to be something solid inside the air amok, otherwise Snake Noir’s baton extending into it at max speed would’ve done nothing. With a nod of appreciation at her partner, she pulled on her yoyo and they both got out of there.

A few streets over and they leapt through the windows of an abandoned office building.

“Over here!” Snake Noir grabbed her hand and pulled her into a bathroom. He let go of her and rushed into one of the stalls. She took the one next to his.

“Longg, Tikki! Divide!” Longg’s powers left her and for a moment, Ladybug stood in the bathroom stall. It didn’t last long before she called off that transformation as well. “Tikki, spots off.”

While the kwami looked up at her expectantly, she heard Chat go through the same process, less than a meter away from her.

“Sass, Plagg! Divide. Plagg, claws in.” Whoever it was behind his mask addressed her. “So, my lady. What’s the plan?”

“Well, the red potion for Tikki and Plagg, for sure. I'm not sure what else we should use, though.”

“‘Cause of all the fire, yeah, I figured.” There was a pause. “Wait, does that mean…?”

“Yes.” Marinette looked into her kwamis eyes and saw some surprise, but also steady resolve. “I think it’s time to use two potions at once.”

“Well,” Tikki said with some uncertainty. “You won’t have access to both at the same time, I think.”

“How would we use both then?” The boy who was Chat asked. “Is it wasted?”

“No…” Sass said. There was a hint of worry in his voice, but Marinette couldn’t figure out why. “You’d have to either turn off your primary miraculousss or redo the unification.”

“Sounds easy enough.” Marinette nodded. “Got it, Chat?”

“Y-yeah,” he said. Before she could wonder about his uncharacteristic nervousness, he pushed on. “So, second potion. What are you thinking?”

“Well… ideally we’ll be beating the fire akuma with the red potion.”

“It might be good to take out the water guy at the same time,” Chat added. “That way, we can put out some of the fires.”

“And if I’m right about them being the two akumas-”

“-which you no doubt are, knowing you-”

“-then that means we can focus on the mindless monsters afterwards. So maybe something that gives us some leeway. Flight again?”

“No orange?”

“If its true that Hawkmoth is copying the potions we use, then I’d like to keep that in the bag for now. I think we can manage with the others.”

“Spot on as usual, my lady. Ready to feed the kwamis and suit up?”

A smirk crossed her face. “Always.”

-----------

Snake Noir was working hard to keep the whirlwind and boulder monster at bay for his lady. Teaming up on the fire guy had ended up in disaster, but a quick reset and a change in strategy later and things were going a little better now. Even if he felt the loss of having more allies now more than ever.

Against his better judgement, he snuck a look over his shoulder toward Dragonbug while his opponents were still reeling from one of his attacks. Black covered her hands and feet, with bright flame markings ending the soot-like marks at her wrists and ankles. A scale pattern had replaced her usual suit texture, and gleamed like hot embers. He caught a look of determination as he saw through the blue tinted visor of her new helmet.

Then she swung her sword turned axe, its blunt side sweeping against the water monster and splashing the fire guy with a sizzling hiss. His attention was pulled back to his own fight just in time to dodge a rocky fist.

In comparison, his suit hadn’t changed all that much - instead of his smooth black leather, his suit almost looked like bronze. Tufts of tawny fur edged the cuffs of his gauntlets and boots, and a whole mane of it surrounded his head - a head which was now completely covered in something similar to a motorcycle helmet.

Which was topped with cat ears, naturally. A perfect match to the lion’s tail that had replaced his leather belt tail.

In this fight, the tail was less useful than the ears, which often gave him his only warning about when an attack was coming in. Sure, he didn’t need much help when it came to the rock monster since it telegraphed its attacks in what felt like hours ahead of time. But that wasn’t the one he was worried about.

No, what he had to listen for was the whistling wind that rapidly built to a howling gale as the air amok tried to slam into him. There was never much time to evade since it came so quickly, but the trade off was that it didn’t hit all that hard.

The problem was that the rock monster did pack a punch and being hit by the gale stunned him long enough for the boulder fist to wind up and hit him, something he’d figured out the hard way. Thank all the kwami for Second Chance or this battle might have been over already.

All that to say, this fight was on a razor’s edge but only for him. He was struggling to make any offensive moves, but then again, he didn’t really need to.

“Found you!”

The eager shout from his lady saw him look back just in time to see a splash of water reveal a necklace around the fire guy’s neck, buried in flame. But while she was busy rushing for that, he caught a glimpse of something in the water akuma as it took a moment to recover. Something weirdly shaped located at the core.

On the bare-looking akumas and amoks, odds were that it was the source of their power. He waited and listened, staring intently at the rock monster as he positioned himself just right.

The whistling started just where he thought it would, but even then he waited, tensing all his muscles, until the howling gale were nearly on him then-

He threw himself to the side with as fast as he could, at the very last possible second. The living whirlwind breezed past him to slam into the stone beast, staggering it back a step and stunning the wind as well. The two of them distracted briefly, he whipped around and ran.

As he approached, Dragonbug was making desperate grabs for the now freely dangling necklace, but the fire akuma was keeping just out of reach. The water akuma, trying to support its ally, was too focused on Dragonbug to notice him. At least until his baton was slicing through it. It connected with something solid which shattered satisfyingly.

The water creature began to shrink in on itself as it transformed back into a human. The sight of which must have surprised the fire akuma and uncertainty flickered in its flames. A moment of hesitation, but more than enough to give Dragonbug the upper hand as she lunged forward and yanked the necklace off it. A swift punch shattered it and the fires coating the person extinguished.

Two purifications later and two citizens in The Last Airbender cosplays stood blinking in bewilderment on the battlefield. Trusting Dragonbug to fix things, Snake Noir returned to the remaining amoks who were even now barreling down on them.

“Water Dragon!”

A sudden rain, like a tropical deluge, fell all around them. The fires were extinguished, leaving the area much colder and darker than before.

“Chat, come on! Get the civilians out and swap out!”

After blocking a swing from the rock monster and dodging the whirlwind, he nodded and scooped up one of the civilians. Dragonbug got the other and they escaped the area. The whirlwind seemed to be playing it safe now, since it didn’t chase after them.

The four of them landed on a rooftop, where they dropped off the civilians.

“I’m super sorry about all this,” the woman wearing a Water Tribe cosplay said. “I didn’t think an argument would be enough to cause… that.” She gestured toward the scorched section of the city, now dripping wet.

“Just an argument turned you into such powerful akumas?” Dragonbug’s eyebrows rose.

“Well, it was a pretty heated fight,” the man in a Fire Nation outfit said with a smirk. Snake Noir chuckled appreciatively.

“Any clue where the… control thing for those things are?” Snake Noir tapped his chin in thought. “It’ll probably be something tied to your fight.”

The man and woman glanced at each other, then patted themselves down.

“Uhh… Do you have that wood leaf?”

“The one painted to look slightly burned, like Aang had practiced firebending on it, right?” The woman shook her head. “No, I don’t. Do you have the glowy crystal, like from the cave of two lovers?”

“Nope,” the man replied, popping the ‘p’. He turned to the two heroes. “Looks like you’re after a crystal and a wooden leaf.”

Dragonbug tapped her chin. “I bet the leaf is lightweight, huh?”

“Oh for sure,” the woman said. “It kept getting blown away by the fan.”

“I see…” Dragonbug took out her yoyo and jumped up onto the roof ledge, Snake Noir following her lead. “Thanks for the help, you two!”

Snake Noir waved at them as he jumped off the roof after her. “Stay out of trouble!”

“I’ve got-” Dragonbug stopped when Snake Noir’s bracelet let out a shrill beep. “Take care of that first and meet me at the amoks. Just follow my lead and we should have this one in the bag.”

“I never doubted it for a second.” He gave a quick bow and dashed off.

----------------

“Perfect timing, Chat,” Dragonbug said as she engaged in an aerial duel with the living whirlwind and nimbly dodging the occasional thrown boulder from the rock monster.

Snake Noir’s emerald green wings carried him into a flanking position, no doubt intending to help her beat up on the wind amok. But she had different plans. It had taken her a while to figure out which piece of floating debris was the leaf in question, but once she saw it she had refused to take her eyes off of it. All she had to do was wait until-

Now!

“Wind dragon!’ A gust of wind, even stronger than her enemy but very short lived, blew straight at the leaf… and right into her partner.

Although he was surprised at the sudden attack, it all clicked for him once the leaf smacked him in the forehead. A quick punch shattered it and the winds finally died down around them.

The purification must have been the final straw for Hawkmoth and Mayura, since they retracted the feather from the rock monster’s amok after a moment of hesitation. The feather slipped from between the monster’s fingers, causing it to drop the crystal the cosplayers had mentioned. Despite its best attempts, the feather didn’t get away either and it too was purified.

“Lucky Charm!” A first place medal landed into her hands and a smirk crossed Dragonbug’s face. She immediately tossed it back into the air. “Miraculous Ladybug!”

Dragonbug put her hands on her hips and watched with satisfaction while the city was mended before her very eyes. Snake Noir stepped up to her with a smile and a raised fist.

“May I interest you in a ‘pound it’ for a job well done?”

She pretended to consider it for a moment before nodding and returning the fist bump. “You may.”

#Miraculous Ladybug #Snake Noir #Dragonbug #Ladynoir #Ladybug #Chat Noir #LadynoirJuly2020 #ml fanfiction #my writing #Two For Two

[obligatorylangblrblog]

What Intentional Language Study Actually Looks Like

I have the great privilege of being partnered with/living with a pretty fantastic German teacher who is endlessly patient with me. In an effort to be more organized with my language learning, I stumbled onto the graphic below in a reddit post and she helped me turn it into concrete actions I can take when I want to put in the time. I wanted to share it with Langblr because I’m grateful with the inspiration it provides me and I hope if people have concrete steps they can take then more people will post in this tag to keep me inspired! Selfish I know. :P

(Click on it to enlarge it, it’s easier to read that way)

Language Course/Language Grammar Study

For people looking to learn using completely free materials, this is the section that will be the hardest from what I can tell. 

Her recommendations for me were to use a book we have on German Grammar Drills she found for cheap at Half Price Books. Each section opens with a little bit about the grammar rule in question and then is followed by several exercises. She recommended I take notes on the grammar section as if I was trying to explain it to someone else. Then perform the grammar drills on a separate page or make a copy so that I can redo the drills later if I need. 

We also have other books on Verb, Pronoun, and Proposition Drills that she’s picked up over the years and she recommended a similar course with them. 

After doing the exercise, she recommended using a German graded reader (mine is Cafe in Berlin), a song, or a German book and looking for examples of the grammar rule in action. I can copy the sentence, underline the relevant part and label it. 

After that she recommended producing sentences with the grammar rule itself either with vocabulary I’m learning or as a part of language journaling - where you journal about your day in another language (maybe using a site like lang-8 or by hand).  Language Core Vocabulary

Here again I’m very lucky because my partner found a frequency dictionary at Half Price a while back and it is unendingly helpful. But frequency word lists can also be found for free online. 

Here I’m slowly working through making flash cards both digital and physical for the first 1,000 most common German words. 

I am also collecting words from my reading/listening practice and turning them into flashcards too. 

She will occasionally give me vocabulary lists for related topics when I ask her to. They’re usually related to conversations we have the most frequently. And I turn those into flashcards too. 

Basically, make flashcards and review them.

Making labels for things in your house in the target language helps too.  

Reading Practice

I have a graded reader I’m using called Cafe in Berlin. It’s an ebook and it’s fantastic. I highly recommend looking for something similar in your target language if possible. 

We also have some German children’s books that I’ll be using eventually. She got me The Little Prince in German for Christmas since it was a text I’d read in English and French. 

My goal is to someday be able to read through Siddhartha in the original German as it’s one of my favorite books. 

I also use German news sites to get used to reading that style of writing in the language. I’ve got a few German comic books on my wishlist. 

Basically find texts in your target language that aren’t super outside of your level. Note grammar rules used. Write down vocab you don’t understand well and add it to your vocab system. Review it when you do your vocab time. 

Listening Practice

If you’re studying a fairly well used languages, a lot of times the government of the country most associated with the language will put out learning materials for free online. Germany is amazing with this and is honestly the best out of any language I’ve studied. 

One series I’m using for listening practice is called Nico’s Weg that follows a guy who speaks next to no German (with an inexplicably perfect accent) who lost his bag and his passport when he came to Germany and his trials and tribulations to get the bag back and reunite with his aunt who he came to visit. It’s kind of bizarre but it covers a lot of good ground. It’s got German subtitles and people speak slow so it’s perfect beginner’s practice. 

Try to find a graded video series in your target language. It might take some googling but many have them. 

I also will use News in Slow German when I’m slightly further along since being able to listen to that kind of information is important in a language. 

For my french, I found Le Petit Prince on youtube as an audiobook and I’ll be using that to review. Look for children’s audiobooks, especially classics, on YouTube. 

My partner is also a big fan of song dissection where you listen to a song through and try to write down as many of the lines as you hear them. Then look the song up and try to sing along with it as you’re able. 

With all of these, translate the words you don’t know and add to vocab. 

Speaking Practice

Here I’m very lucky, I usually just strike up a conversation with my partner and see how long I can last. 

But for reviewing French where I don’t have a conversation partner anymore because of my mom’s stroke, she recommended reading aloud. 

For people who are further along, she recommended finding questionnaires (her suggestion was specifically for RPG characters and the like) and answering them out loud as if someone has just asked you it as a question. 

Another option is to read a text and have an imaginary conversation with someone about it out loud. You could ask a character questions, perhaps make up their answers. 

The point is to practice spontaneously producing the language out loud. 

Conclusion

I hope this helps other people like it’s helped me. So often language learning just felt so vague and I had no idea what to even do. Having concrete actions like this along with how much time to spend on it and what to focus on has made a big difference. 

#langblr #langspo #studyspo #how to study a language #studyblr

[euphoriacrossing]

I hope tomorrow is better. It has to be, right?

My day has been spent crying and mostly asleep. It's just trivial nonsense, but everything is getting to me. I have even considered not naming my island "Euphoria" after deciding for sure over a week ago because I don't believe I can FEEL that anymore. It's stupid, I know, but things just aren't good lately.

I could have really used the game early. I cried when I heard others were getting to play today because I've been waiting so long, and my luck has been so bad, I could have used that kind of pick me up early but it's just my luck not to get it. And it's not that I don't want those who have it to enjoy it, it's not that at all, but i won't lie about being jealous because i really needed something like that today and so of course it wouldn't happen for me. It's not about anyone else OR their enjoyment of the game, as I have seen so many people posting that jealousy about it implies we don't want them to enjoy it, it's not like that. Jealousy is selfish, like it's about me, not them. Though I should be more afraid to say I feel this way I guess, but I know a lot of people feel similarly and hell, everyone gets jealous sometimes. Sometimes you have to be self-centered, especially when things get bad, or you wouldn't survive.

I was very excited for the game this morning but as things got worse, my excitement faded a bit. And now I am only moderately excited because it feels like it will never come, at least not before more bad things do.

I'm simply trying to hold on to hope here. I hope things will be better once the game comes out. There is I suppose a strong possibility they will be. But there is a whole day until then and a lot of shit can happen in a day.

I have to redo my journal pages because I stenciled the word "island" incorrectly. >.> and I never liked the title page anyway, so I'm gonna redo that one. I think this time I will make them match instead of going for a totally separate look for each of them. I'm anxious I won't finish them before tomorrow night, BUT I have the time so I'm gonna try not to worry too much. As long as the cover is done and i have some paper in it, it's more than functional, and I can do the pages at a later date, I'm just worried with the game out i won't do anything else. But yeah, I will finish them sometime for sure.

And I guess I am going to name my island Euphoria because it's a little late now, it's on my journal's back cover. I mean granted I can scrape those stickers off and name it something more suiting, like gloomily (I just made that up for an example but feel free to use it if it speaks to you!) or something. I am hoping that tomorrow might be a better day though and that these feelings will pass and when I FINALLY get to play, I will feel excited and euphoric perhaps and then it will seem like the perfect name once more. And I mean, it goes so well with the aesthetic i have in my head. So yeah...

We're in the homestretch now, though. If you feel like everything has been crashing around you and it's possibly because it HAS given the current state of affairs, just realize we're SO close to a distraction of the BEST kind. Less than 24 hours and we're there. Hold on, please, and maybe, just maybe (definitely) it'll will all have been worth it.

It seems like my sister is finally getting excited too. Maybe I'll help her to figure out a name for her island tomorrow... maybe I'll do a page in my journal for hers, my "neighboring island of ___". She isn't the type to prepare for a video game much in advance, so I usually help her think of names for places and her characters and stuff. I was (though keyword is was) the writer in the family so coming up with fictional names for fictional persons, places, and what nots is kind of my thing.

I'm also very excited to play with my sister. I might not get to until Friday because she goes to bed at night, so I might can persuade her to get the tutorial part of the game done (i assume there is a tutorial-ish part... the part where you arrive and then maybe they teach you to craft and whatnot... i am only guessing, though) before she heads to sleep tomorrow but we probably won't be playing long. Still, I like playing games "with" her too. Like where we both have separate copies but we're going through the same steps together, like we played the first part of sword (her) and shield (me) like that and such, to me that is kind of like the opposite of when we had to trade the controller back and forth to play one single player game on gamecube or playstation, and we did that with Animal Crossing as kids so it's extra cool to each have our own game, we never did until New Leaf (we shared a Wild World cartridge) but it was major fun when we did New Leaf like that. We would play New Leaf together for hours everyday shortly after it came out (I think it came out in June, and we got ours on my birthday July 2nd... her birthday is the 8th but my dad let her have New Leaf, and I think she got a new DS, early so that we could play together so we unlocked everything at the same time pm and all that) either doing separate things or together through wireless multiplayer. I hope there are minigames because we laughed so hard playing the games on Tortimer's island together.

Okay, yeah, now I feel a bit better. It will be fun. Things always are with my sister.

And hopefully if any of you want to play with me, you won't mind including her. She's a bit shy, and doesn't socialize with others a lot, but I am hoping to use New Horizons to change that and help her learn to socialize more online with other people. She is constantly at home due to being disabled, even more than myself and I pretty much online leave for dr's appointments, but while mine are frequent, for her that means she leaves the house every six months or more sometimes. She has a couple of friends who call her occasionally, and I think semi-recently she's been playing CTR online but I feel she could benefit from more social interaction. I hope I can get her to participate some in online play with me and some others. Maybe just my closer friends at first, but then who knows? We'll see how all that goes eventually, though.

But I am gonna go try and prepare Mayfield (New Leaf town) for my departure. I feel a little sad leaving my town behind, but it's easier since it's new than it would be if it was my original town on there. I feel almost sad leaving Pocket Camp, too, I can't see myself playing it much probably ever again once New Horizons releases because I had basically quit for good with no intentions of going back until I started getting so impatient for New Horizons and needed a distraction. So while both New Leaf and Pocket Camp are still THERE, I can't see myself going back to either for at least a good while if ever. And when you have characters you bonded with, it's hard to leave them I guess. But New Horizons await somewhere out there and they are bound to be better than before, combining all the best features of both games in better ways than the past games have, I hope once I start playing I won't feel bad for "leaving".

Anyway, those beetles won't farm themselves. (Will there be beetle farming in NH? I love it so much genuinely, not just because it makes sooo much money, but I think it's fun. Hopefully there is some way to do something similar. We'll see.)

#personal #depression #mental illness #anxiety #Animal Crossing #ACNH #New Horizons #long post

[bzedan]

A Long Time Ago, I Painted Some Murals

I can’t remember how it started but in high school, I spent two summers painting murals in the town I grew up in. The downtown, a couple-block-long strip of half-empty shops when I lived there, was home to a place called “Mural Park.” It was an empty lot created when fire gutted whatever building used to be there. It was a couple of benches and some plants, a totem pole nominally about the local, long-dead, timber industry, and murals that were about 25 years old. When I was about fifteen a painter decided it was time to redo the murals and enlisted local teens to help her. She was funded by the local Optimist’s club, a group that I still can’t tell apart from Rotary. Somehow, I got involved.

To say I was an aimless teen sort of misses the mark but then, as now, I did sort of simple-mindedly and cheerfully go forward with the things I liked to do without any larger goals. I legit do not remember how I ended up on the mural painting team. I think I was just generally known as “arty” and okay at painting, a decent enough candidate for the job. What had to have happened was that one of the sainted teachers who tried to keep me from wandering off academic cliffs pointed my little idiot head in the right direction and off I went. It’s not like I worked since I wasn’t allowed to have a job, and volunteer work was the sort of thing you wanted to show if you were the first person in your family to go to college. Plus I liked painting. 

There were three walls in Mural Park, in a logical sort of shape outlining the business that used to be there. The back wall we weren’t touching, it was to be sealed so the faded, 1970s-era mural of loggers could be preserved as a sort of testament of time. The intent was that we would do the first wall one summer and then a fresh group of kids would do the other wall the next year. The town desperately wanted to remain relevant, it’d stopped being a timber town before my memory and was still decades off from leveraging its Walmart and placement off the highway into a transformation to the kind of place split harshly between a bedroom community and the townies who ran the service industries.

I can’t remember the other two kids very well. One girl I know was kind of a flake because it is sweaty, boring business to paint murals and my memory is supported by the copies of our timesheets I for some reason still have that show she worked maybe a fourth of what the rest of us did. The other girl I wanted to be friends with but she was on a different life path that involved owning a beautiful old beater of a car and going to raves. She was the first person I knew who didn’t shave her legs and I desperately wanted that freedom. She also had a bright orange fur skirt and I skipped a class once with her when we ended up on the same outdoor trip. I will never find her again because when women marry they change their names and even she must have fallen in line with that convention.

Painting murals was something I was made to do. I could and would happily sit for hours, copying the squares off of a gridded guide onto a wall too textured to easily paint. I learned landscape painting techniques that were basically Bob Ross methods writ large, slapping happy trees and rocks across a wall that was something like 20×100 feet. Whether I’m building spreadsheets or running catering, the constant in my life has always been that I love a straightforward task of moderate skill that I can just doggedly pursue to completion. Mural painting is that, with a bonus of getting to climb off the scaffolding sometimes and see how everything falls together in a way that’s unclear when your nose is right up in it. Not to be too fancy about it but that’s a luxury difficult to come by in any other task.

Again, this was over twenty years ago, so I don’t know why or exactly how, but the next year it was just the head painter, Joy, and me, as far as I remember. Most likely it was because I didn’t have anything else going on and everyone else did.

Here’s something about Joy. She was primarily a porcelain artist. She painted realistic-enough scenes on porcelain, things like flowers and landscapes. Once she painted some eagle or something on a vase and it was given to someone important in Russia by a diplomat or something. She had a picture of the ceremonial hand-off in her house.

She also took vision baths where she dreamt up some of the designs for a pack of oracle cards. She was the first totally vibe-and-energy based belief system person I ever encountered and I ended up with two VHS tapes from her that are just sermons about energy over really wild visuals that are a mix of animation styles. She smoked thin black cigarettes and bleached her greying hair so it would have more body to it. “It raises the scales on the hair shaft, so it’s thicker” she explained one day as we took a break from painting.

I went to Joy’s house a lot. The second year of mural painting I was involved in the preliminary process. The original mock-up of the final wall painted on a piece of foam core in her studio, the individual studies of trees and rocks and techniques. I learned she was one of those people who mixed her colours completely before adding them to the painting, and she kept marvelling over how I just let them mix in the process of painting, “like impressionism!” I knew just enough art history to be flattered and know she was kind of wrong.

The relationship was something like journeyman/apprentice, except as an adult I know Joy wasn’t anything like a journeyman mural painter. But she did have experience painting and knew how to manage a project and I was grateful to learn. When the second mural was done I ended up getting drafted by her to manage some award program she ran for the Optimist Club. 

I would take my bike from where I stashed it at a friend’s house and go do things on the computer for her like make certificates and write letters and update tables. I got school credit for it as an independent class, one of several ways my high school dealing with a generation of students they were trying to placate until graduation. A few years after I left, the administration ended up implementing the education reform we’d protested against anyway. But until then I spent the majority of my last chunk of high school in weird, self-guided courses.

The important thing was, twice during all this, I got a $200 “honorarium” from the Optimist Club. Somewhere in my old high school notes, I saw that the first time I spent part of it paying my way to state theatre trips and lent the rest to my dad. The second time I opened a bank account with it and paid the first fees for the college that accepted me. It was the only college I’d applied to since they waived their application fee.

A lot of years later, my sister got me to come visit before the park was demolished to build a new, modern park space that fit the city’s updated image. She told me how the park had been a touchstone for a bunch of kids in the area, kids she’d grown up with who all still mostly lived in town. They’d apparently been vocal about the demolition of the old murals and indignant that no attempt to find the artists and invite them back had been made.

“It’s not like you’re hard to find.” My sister shrugged, scowling.

It was weird. I’d forgotten about painting the murals. I remembered vaguely how I had thought, at an excited 17, that I’d come back in 20 years and get a new group of teens to paint the walls. The idea I’d be able to leave the town and never look back hadn’t been a possibility even worth considering. Everyone came back, or at least stayed nearby. That work I’d done as a teen had been a part of a different generation’s lives and held more meaning to them than it ever did to me was weird and strange and nice. 

It’s nice that I learned how to paint landscapes and be an administrative assistant for Joy. It’s skills that I leveraged in college to work as an assistant to a professor and that’s something I used to slowly chip my way out of the service industry and into my first pure office job by my mid-30s. It’s nice that the $200 I got a couple of times for what these old timesheets say is hundreds of hours of work gave me a way to get out and never look back.

But mostly it’s nice that something I did meant something to other people, even if my nose was too close to the work to see it at the time.

This post was originally published on my Patreon. Patrons get early access to posts and their support keeps me going on a lot of levels. Thanks,y’all!

The post A Long Time Ago, I Painted Some Murals appeared first on B.Zedan.

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2Ko4xdJ via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress

[the-ember-in-your-eyes]

Beginning with Witchcraft: pt1

So, for a lot of people who want to begin with witchcraft, everything is a confusing mess and you don’t know where to start. Especially online. For these people (yes, also for you) I am making this series of posts. They give a start and offer a hand to take while you discover your own Path in this side of life. 

Small disclaimer: I try to keep this guide insclusive, so it won’t be centered around one faith (such as Wicca). If people are interested I will make a Wicca related post, but the main theme won’t be that. If you are Wiccan, you can still enjoy this though!

This is by no means a definite list or guide: you don’t have to follow this lead, and I don’t know everything either. Also important, I make mistakes too, and all of this is based on my own experience. Take this information as you wish, and discard it if it is no use for you, I don’t blame you.

Most important in this is that you do what feels good for you, what makes you feel empowered and what helps you in your craft. (Yes, this might mean stepping out of your comfort zone now and then, but that isn’t a necessity).

Without further redo, read on to start the first part of this guide!

As a starting witch, the question I asked myself most often was, “Where do I start?” My friend, who is starting to get interested into this too, has the same question.

In my opinion, this are the basics in witchcraft:

Bending energy streams to your will and intent

Bundeling your spells, signs and other magical recipes

and Keeping track of your discoveries

The energy one is what makes the magic. I believe all spellwork, potions, spelljars and other magic is a way of converting your intent and using energy to do so, to make happen what you wish to happen. I know this sounds very vague, but that’s because it’s the umbrella factor. Intent is everything. Intent guides the Magic/Energy.

To do so, I believe it helps to find what you believe harbors the energy that brings on the Magic. Some believe in a God, Goddess or a whole Pantheon, others believe in Fairies with these powers, or in wandering Souls. What you believe to be the manifestation of the energy you’re going to manipulate is important, but it doesn’t have to be the same for everyone. Live and let live people, everyone’s experiences are different. 

Once you figured out where your Magic or Energy comes from, it’s important to get a bond with that source. Pray, talk and offer to your Deities, Spirits or Beings. Establish a connection witht them.The best times to do this is during the Sabbats and Full or New moon, but -especially when you get more comfortable with them- you can do this always. Maybe you grew up with a faith, and you know you can always talk to that God/dess. It’s pretty much exactly like that.

Since you’ve dived into witchcraft you probably have seen or heard all these nice spells, potions, curses and other recipes for Magic. Good! Be curious and read up on all of that! When you find something you think is usefull, save it. Write it down, type it out, copy it to a document, take a screenshot, reblog it, whatever works for you. But do save it. And then, when you feel ready or when the time is there, use it. Do as the recipe says and discover if it works for you.

This leads me to the last point. Keeping track. Get yourself a notebook, a folder or a document reserved for your Magic. Write down everything you learn and your discoveries around certain spells and recipes. Write about your Deities/Spirits/Beings and keep track of what they like in terms of offerings, conversations, what they are like, what their strenghts are, all about them. Write about the Sabbats or the moon phases or gems/crystals or sigils or spelljars or runes or tarot, whatever has your interest. It doesn’t need to be neat or organized. This is solely meant to give you a hand, to prevent you from repeating past mistakes and to keep learning without forgetting everything all the time.

If you want to give yourself a task to guide you with this part of the process, here are some suggestions:

Find a way to Keep track. Read up on Grimoires, Books of Shadows and Light and find a way that suits you. Be in online or old-fashioned and handwritten. Get yourself a pretty notebook if that is your thing, or spend some time trying out and finding a nice font to use in your document if you prefer that.

Find the way you believe the Energy manifestates for you. Browse through God/desses or Pantheons, read up on Spirits and Souls and Beings, and try to see for yourself with whom you connect. Then learn about them. Don’t be afraid to switch if you find someone that fits you better (but don’t just abandon anyone, always be polite!)

Browse through the witchcraft tags on various social media platforms and try to pick some stuff you want to learn about. Plants, cooking, spirits, curses, tarot, palmistry, predicting the future are some (not nearly all!!) of the most common subtypes of witchcraft, and you don’t have to limit yourself to just one or two. Find what interests you and start there, branching out and continuing to learn.

Congrats on reaching the end of this long post, best of luck and I hope to see you in a later part of this series!

* AL *

#witch #witchcraft #craft #magic #magick #magical #baby witch #beginner witch #witch tips #witch tip #witchy #grimoire #book of shadows #bos #AL teaches witchcraft #male witch #wicca #wiccan #not wiccan

[ariianas]

ˢʰᑫ ᶦᶰᵗᵉʳᵛᶦᵉʷ ﹔𝕒𝕣𝕚𝕒𝕟𝕒 𝕘𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕖 !

❝ so you are famously known for not only your grammy winning music, but also your ability to fall in and out of love. your boyfriend, shawn mendes, has abruptly abandoned your joint tour just as rumors surface of your ongoing relationship with 1d alumni, liam payne. what are you doing to keep yourself positive? and what exactly is going on with liam and shawn? ❞

❛ whew, okay, i should’ve known the hard-hitting questions were coming first. trying to get the hot scoop, man ? can’t blame you. but, uh, i do the same thing to stay positive during ... you know ... the million times a month when my life hits the fan. lots of comfort food, surrounding myself around these brilliant, amazing people i call friends n’ lay up with piggy n’ the gang. what else could a girl possibly ask for ? oh, i know, a suave answer to get my tiny ass out of this question. uh, literally days after my divorce with gregg was finalized, i ran into my little crumpet liam. we instantly hit it off, which had much to do with me droolin’ over his accent, mind you. then he ghosted for personal reasons, n’ a bitch wanted to hop on the first man she saw. lasted a good two days later, of course. shawn came along ‘n ruined everything ─── but in the best way possible. so, yeah. ❜

❝ consider the rumors about sofia carson are true. do you think you were inconsiderate of her feelings because your own marriage was wrecked due to another woman? ❞

❛ oh gosh, not a day goes by where i haven’t heard sofia’s name. can y’all leave the poor girl alone ? i don’t even know the girl, ‘n i’m feelin’ super bad for her right now. that’s rough. but, uh, do i think i was inconsiderate ? fuck yeah. are you not listening, dude ? as i said before, my main priority after leaving gregg was living as recklessly as i possibly could. and, well, uh, some may say that i took that a little too far. look, any inch of consideration that i felt instantly flew out the window once i really got to know who shawn was. which was, mind you, by like the second day of us speaking. n’ to clear that up, i never had the intention of stealing shawn away from her, or whatever they were at the time, but it just happened. i spruced up his life n’ he did the same for mine, simple. ❜

❝ your critics have stated that your music is becoming too generic. your song, 7 rings, blatantly copies the flow of another artist. what do you have to say to the people that are questioning your artistic integrity? and why are you so afraid to say you pulled inspiration from others? ❞

❛ this again ? i really want people to stop this whole ‘ she copied so n’ so, ’ or ‘ this sounds exactly like …. ’ bullshit cause music n’ beats are universal. literally every song, pop, at that, would sound the absolute same to anyone who isn’t all techy with production n’ all that jazz. plus, why would i be afraid to admit something so simple ? everyone has to start somewhere, man, n’ there’s no reason for me to shy away from that. you know ? it’s like adding fuel to the fire. no bueno, my friend. either fuckin’ way, man, 7 rings is a banger ─── buy n’ stream it, folks. mama needs to feed her dogs tonight ! ❜

❝ let’s talk about some of the other men in your life. for instance, joe keery, who infamously publicly defended your honor during the cheating scandal between camila and your ex husband, gregg. it seems you have a history with somewhat problematic behavior. do you think you’re manipulative? do you feel bad for what occurred between you and keery and how his tweets destroyed his friendship for many months? and don’t you get a sense of your actions repeating themselves? ❞

❛ y’all really made sure to hit all the bases here, huh ? the only interview that has done their research has me spilling out my guts. thanks guys ! but, uh, did he really come to my defense ? can someone pull up the tweet for the love of science ? i need visual proof cause now i’m feelin’ bad for tell him to buzz off the other day. joseph, if you’re seeing this then i’m sorry ! let’s be friends again ! now, to get down to the nitty gritty since i know this is the tea everyone’s looking for. am i manipulative ? of course i wouldn’t say that, but i will say that i’d stop at absolutely nothing to get what i want. so, if that’s your idea of manipulative then there’s your answer. as for joseph, i definitely feel bad. i mean, let me not act like ghostin’ him was easy cause watching his reaction when i told him actually ruined me. he was just this precious ‘lil awkward bean who deserved the world n’ still does, which is why i’m happy he ended up with madelaine. she will definitely give him more than i was able to, so, i wish ‘em nothing but the best. so yeah, if i could redo the entire joseph scenario then i would. for sure. but you know what’s scary ? i wouldn’t have seen it that way unless you would’ve brought it up. that means shawn would be joe n’ liam would be gregg ….. yeah, no, i don’t wanna play this game anymore. ❜

❝ it’s been rumored that you were pressuring shawn mendes to have a baby with you. do you honestly believe you’re ready for parenthood? and describe your relationship with your other boyfriend, liam payne’s son, bear. do you think your desire to have a child with shawn stemmed from your jealously over liam’s relationship with the mother of his child? ❞

❛ pressuring ? is that what you call it ? i, excuse me, was just throwing things out there n’ maybe, just maybe, it was aggressive as hell. am i ready for parenthood ? definitely. i feel like knowing that another life literally depends on me n’ my actions would be enough to finally snap me out of my shit. but to be honest, i would answer that except i don’t have a relationship with bear. it might be crazy to hear considering liam and i had a thing for months, but i thought it would be weird as hell from cheryl’s position. like, coming around n’ seeing this little stick figure with your child ? nope, i’ll spare myself from that scandal. also, jealousy ? what’s that ? have never, can never, will never experience that emotion in my entire life. thanks. ❜

and with that, my friends, it’s a wrap ! hopefully i didn’t say anything to offend anyone, i’m literally just telling my side of ... everything. whoever doesn’t like it could suck a fat one, preferably in my honor cause i haven’t gotten action in weeks. sorry. too much information ? ariana, stop talking !

#shq;task #....i was sO EXCITED ABT JAY #THT I FORGOT TO DO THIS ?????? #I'M GOING 2 SLEEEEEP :))))))