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swimmingleo · 3 years

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Harry Styles and Two Loves - A love that dare not speak its name.

‼️Disclaimer I am in no way an English literature expert or student for that matter and can barely organize my thoughts but I’ll try my best. If something doesn’t make sense or is regretful thinking please tell me‼️

Basically Harry is a fervent reader that does not limit himself to Buk*wski and Mur*kami though for some reason he loves to bring up those dudes. Queer literature seems to play a big role when it comes to his inspiration and I love that about his music. A good example is his Shakesqueer Sweet Creature madness. But another one that I hold close to my heart are the parallels he draws with Alfred Douglas’ poem, Two Loves.

Here is the full poem. Give it a read if you can because I won't break it down verse by verse for this post sorry :(

To make it short, the poem is about the narrator (let's say Douglas) wandering in a garden where he meets a young man that turns out to be his lover. For context, Alfred Douglas was very much queer and in a romantic relationship with Oscar Wilde. Both developed their own coded language to express their love and ''sexual tendencies'' through their art (been this way foreverrr will we ever leaarn). However they were not always so sneaky about it and Two Loves in particular was so in your face that it was used against Wilde to prove his homosexuality in trial. He did get away with it this time. Here is his defense. Blueprint of denials. No iPhones at the time.

In Two Loves, two different personifications of love introduce themselves to Douglas and his lover:

The first love is loud and cheerful and sings about pretty women and men that love the said pretty women.

The second love is discreet, almost erased by the other’s presence but is beautiful and draws the attention of the narrator.

Obviously the first love is Heterosexuality, the one that is openly praised by society and the second is Homosexuality who is bullied into silence by Heterosexuality if he tries to speak. The poem ends with Homosexuality saying "I am the love that dare not speak its name." Yeah. And isn’t that the story of H’s career.

HS1 opens with MMITH which ends on "We don’t talk about it, it’s something we don’t do". And from there follows SOTT, "We don’t speak enough". And right after we get the very loud, very explicit and very well documented Carolina. So far the album narration goes "There is something painful going on but we can’t talk about it, I say ‘we’ because there is a you and I and yeeEEAAH THIS GIRL I MET ONCE GETS A WHOLE SONG THE WORLD DESERVES TO KNOW HOW GOOD SHE FEELS FOR A LADDY LAD LIKE ME ALSO HER NAME IS TOWNES YOU CAN CHECK FOR YOURSELF SEE IF SHES REAL I LOVE REAL WOMEN AS IN WOMEN THAT EXIST". Heterosexuality is loud and sings about pretty women right.

But then, THEN we get Two Ghosts. Which is the center piece of this whole post. I mean, the title... Two Ghosts//Two Loves Two hearts in one home ? Sick.

The parallel that hits the most is the physical description that is made of Douglas’ lover and of Homosexuality (which are technically two different characters in the poem).

Douglas’ lover / Homosexuality

Same lips red / Same eyes blue / Same white shirt

Red were his lips / His lips were red / His eyes were clear as crystal / His large eyes were strange with wondrous brightness / White as the snow / His cheeks were wan and white

In Douglas’ poem, it is meant to be understood that the young boy he meets first, his lover, is related to Homosexuality through their physical appearance. Douglas’ love is therefore inherently queer. With Two Ghosts, I’ve always wondered why Harry chose specifically to point out a white shirt as it comes across a bit generic and not really personal yk? But if you compare it to Two Loves, it checks out the recurrent descriptive color scheme: red, blue and white. In both works, red are the lips, blue are the eyes, and white is the ~envelopp. RIGHT. I suppose Harry didn’t feel like describing his lover with pale white skin since it’s brown with lemon over ice when under summer skies so he went with a plain white shirt instead.

I’m not going through a whole analysis of Two Ghosts yet I can safely say that it deals with unspoken words. Not saying things is a recurrent theme in H’s songwriting but within the album, Two Ghosts is the first song that deals with it through the undeniable prism of romantic love. Right before with Carolina, H had no issue being straightforward and wanted to "scream and shout it out", but with Two Ghosts he’s tongue tied and doesn’t say what he really means. Communication issues go on with the following track Sweet Creature, btw may I just:

But oh, Sweet Creature (!), Sweet Creature

Would he […] cry "O sweet creature!", Othello

I cried "Sweet youth…, Two Loves

Queer Literaturry is going wild(e).

Expanding this post with Sweet Creature allows me to speak about the garden metaphor. In lyric poetry, the expression of emotions is often done through nature. It is a process that Harry seems pretty fond of when singing about love (ie Olivia, Adore You, WS, Canyon Moon and Sunflower are good examples) but it’s way more subtle with TG and SC. In Two Ghosts, nature is the moon, and in Sweet Creature it’s the garden.

Would you look at that, Two Loves happens to combine both:

Moon dances over your good side and this was all we used to need, Two Ghosts

Running through the garden oh where nothing bothered us, Sweet Creature

Flowers that were stained with moonlight / Alone in this fair garden, till he came unasked by night, Two Loves

For Harry, the night is where the moon enhances his lover’s beauty, when it’s just the two of them and they need nothing more than each other. The garden is where they run (free?away?), once again alone, unbothered. For Douglas, Homosexuality took form and began to occupy the garden at night, while Heterosexuality who thrives in the golden light (um I- nvm) wasn’t paying attention.

It is also interesting to note that Homosexuality is associated with the night but also with death. And he’s super pale. So like… A ghost ? ANYWAY.

The garden in Two Loves is where love happens, it is a piece of heaven. It’s elevated on a hill and untamed with flowers of various colors growing everywhere. There is sunshine and moonlight, there are "pools that dreamed" and by pools I assume the author means vernal pools which are habitats where flowers grow and oh look over there:

Nice ruffles on that white shirt by the way. Very Victorian.

Two Ghosts, 2017 Mularry so true

So yeah. I don’t want to go into full analysis mode but I find it all interesting. Once again, Two Loves holds a great significance regarding the Oscar Wilde’s lore, and Harry is probably very familiar with anything Wilde related (don’t even start) and by that I think about the Carnation business.

I’ll just conclude with that quote from Maurice by E.M Forster whom I love very much:

"I am an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort."

#song analysis #idk if it has been widely discussed already #ive done a bit of research and i haven't found anything but if you've seen similar posts dont hesitate to pass me the links #anyway first try at this kind of rambling i hope it's ok eek #but really I love this parallel or at least the idea i make of it lol #harry styles #two ghosts #queer inspo #my analysis

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butgilinsky · 3 years

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someone will ache for your soul // np

warning; a lot of language i’m sry, argument btw best friends, talks abt a shitty ex bf but there’s nothing explicit

summary; in a world where you acquire tattoos across various parts of your body once you fall in love with someone, you have to hide yours from your best friend.

word count; 6.7k+

a/n: kind of a soulmate au but not really i guess? i saw this prompt somewhere online and idk where it’s from so the general idea of gaining tattoos from those you fall in love with is not mine but the rest of the fic is. okay thx bye(:

add yourself to my nhl taglist!

When you were younger, you loved it. You loved looking down at your ankle and seeing the small butterfly just beside your ankle. You’d had it your whole life, though you still weren’t entirely sure how a tattoo grew up with you, but you accepted it. After all, it’s all that you knew.

Everybody’s born with a tattoo on their ankle, a small tattoo that has theirselves embedded into it. However, the older you get the more you realize that it’s not the tattoo you’re born with that makes the biggest impact on you, it’s others’. Every time you fall in love with somebody, your skin makes room for their tattoo on it. Your mom’s tattoo, a small star on her left ankle, shined bright from its place on your father’s wrist, somehow separate from the couple tattoos he collected over the years.

You remember the day you found out about the tattoos, perched in your mom’s lap and listening to her talk to your aunt about it. You remember tracing their tattoos with your small fingers while they told you various stories about their loves and how they grew up collecting tattoos on their skin. You were scared, asked your mom what happened if you never got any more than your single tattoo on your ankle. She told you that you would, that anybody would be lucky to collect your small butterfly somewhere on their body.

You remember the day you got your second tattoo, the paper plane that sat on the back of your left shoulder that now held the role as a painful reminder of your first love. You loved Cory, but the time for the two of you had come and gone. The paper airplane, though never in your line of sight, was still a painful reminder of the times you shared with the boy and how he broke your heart at the end of it all just before moving to college.

You had to go through senior year alone, newly broken up with and with your best friend hours away from home. You couldn’t blame Nolan, not when he was out doing the thing he loved so much. Being in Brandon was good for him, it was all that he wanted, and it wasn’t all that far away from Winnipeg anyways. You still drove out to see Nolan’s games, even if it ran up the miles on your car and had you spending late nights driving back home by yourself. You would’ve done anything for Nolan, and it truly showed during your senior year.

Nolan’s draft day was a rude awakening for you. You jumped up when his name was called, hugging him as tight as you possibly could before hiding your giddy expression behind your hands. You were excited for him, even if he was going all the way out to Philadelphia. You wanted him to be happy, and you could tell within seconds of his name being called that he was going to do just fine in Philly.

You didn’t notice until you got home and your heart sank into your stomach. Your adrenaline high had worn off, and the reality of everything around you began to sink in. You knew what it was the second you laid your eyes on it, black lines etched into the skin of your sternum. You thought it was an odd placement, though it was hard to miss it when you stepped out of the shower and it stood tall and proud and ready to be found.

You knew what it was, you’d seen the shape etched into Nolan’s ankle far more times than you could count. It mocked you, the snake coiled up the same way your memory sketched it out in your brain, and now it was imprinted perfectly into your skin. You touched it, rubbed it, tried to wash it off. You had just taken a shower, just washed the day off of you and down the drain and now you were standing in the middle of a hotel bathroom, rubbing at the spot between your breasts mercilessly. This couldn’t be happening, not to you, not when Nolan was about to move thousands of miles away from you.

But it was happening, because the black line that followed no real pattern never faded, despite the skin around it turning raw from your insistent attempts at washing it off. It was here to stay, no matter what happened in your life down the road. It didn’t matter that you had no heads up, no warning that you were falling head over heels in love with your best friend.

You knew it wouldn’t wash off, but that didn’t stop you from trying. These tattoos were forever, you knew that. You learned from a ripe, young age about obtaining your love’s tattoo. You learned about it growing up, you talked about it with friends and family, hell this wasn’t even your first tattoo that wasn’t your own. You knew the drill, you knew the routine, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

You were 18, watching him sign contracts and make agreements of his big move in a few short weeks. You couldn’t believe it, that you were losing him in a time like this. It made dropping him off at the airport all that much harder, cheeks wet and eyes bloodshot as you clung to him for dear life. You knew his parents wanted to say bye, that his sisters were waiting patiently while you cried into his shoulder, but you couldn’t let go.

He didn’t know about the snake on your sternum, nor did you plan on telling him. You couldn’t drop a bomb like that on him just before he moved to a different country, finally living out the dream he’d had ever since you could remember. Nolan wasn’t Nolan without hockey, and you were aware of that. You were painfully aware of that.

So you didn’t tell him.

You spent too many nights curled up in your bed, clinging to your pillow to muffle the whimpers and whines that pushed through your lips and out into the air. You tried to ignore the sinking feeling in your chest at any given moment, and you did everything in your power to keep everything under wraps. You couldn’t tell anyone, no matter how bad it hurt to be in love with your best friend that now lived so far away from you.

It was hard, hiding it. You had to hide it from your family and friends, and sometimes that was easy. During the cold months you were seemingly off the hook, but when summer rolled around and your friends dragged you out to the lake every chance they got, you were in a bit of trouble. You had to carefully choose what bathing suits you wore and had to make sure nothing slipped or faltered throughout the day.

You’d made it three years without a slip up. Even on nights when Nolan came home and you were mere inches away from him, you couldn’t find it in you to tell him. Even when he was curled up into your side and holding you against his chest in the most comfortable way, you couldn’t say anything. You couldn’t make a move on him.

And now you were in Philly, standing in an arena that had you shivering but smiling brightly from the opposite side of the glass. You smiled every time Nolan skated by, even more when he assisted Travis in the first goal of the game and scored one of his own late in the second period. You were buzzing, adrenaline pumping and excitement shining deep in your chest. Watching Nolan do what he loved would never get old, not when the smile he wore was enough to wash away any fear or worry you’ve ever had.

You remember nights when you couldn’t sleep and Nolan would hold you. You remembered nights when you were crying over the phone to him and he snuck out of his room and into your own. You remembered fights you had and the way he made you walk home one night after one of your bigger ones.

You were walking out of TIm Horton’s, mere feet away from Nolan’s car before you tumbled into an argument you’d been trying to avoid for a few days now. You were dating Cory at the time, and Nolan couldn’t believe you were telling him that you couldn’t go to his game on Friday night, regardless of the fact that you’d promised him for weeks now that you’d be there. It was hard for you to catch games during the week, but this one was on a Friday night with plenty of time for you to finish the school day and drive over to Brandon.

But now you were telling him that you couldn’t go, and no matter how sorry you were, Nolan couldn’t forgive you. He said you’d blown him off for Cory more times than he could accept anymore. You had to call your sister, figuring she was the only one that would pick you up and give you a ride home without threatening to leave you in the parking lot in favor of beating Nolan to a pulp.

None of that mattered though. None of it mattered when you were faced with the boy you’d fallen in love with doing the thing he cherished most. When he left the locker room with a smile brighter than any of his teammates had seen in a long time that was directed straight at you, you knew none of it mattered.

Your feet left the ground, hanging in the air while your best friend clung to your frame tightly. He thanked you for coming, told you that he scored the goal just for you, that he scored every goal for you. You figured it was the adrenaline talking, that he was just basking in the big win against their biggest rivals. That plus the fact that Nolan could barely come to terms with the fact that you were here all for him.

You’d been in Philly before, had visited Nolan a few times over his years with the Flyers. You’d met practically everyone there was to meet and had gotten fairly close with his closest friends by default, seeing as they were always around when you were. Everything was going well this time around, everyone was having fun and getting along and it almost seemed like nothing could fall out of place.

You were standing in the kitchen with Nolan and Travis when Nolan’s name was called, beckoning him out into the rest of the house while you and Travis rallied drinks for the group. He tried to ignore them, tried to help you pile up on wine and beers for the rest of the group but Travis practically kicked him out of the kitchen. Travis said he could help you, that the two of you didn’t need Nolan’s help and that someone else clearly did.

It took all of five minutes for Travis to spill red wine all over your shirt. Thankfully for him, the few glasses you’d thrown back throughout the night washed over any sense of anger or annoyance you’d usually pick up and you simply laughed it off. He felt so bad, begged you to forgive him and let you buy him a new shirt, but all you did was insist that he find you a new one for now and that you could figure out the rest of it when the two of you weren’t tipsy and surrounded by your friends.

Travis ducked out of the kitchen for a second before turning back up and leading you into a hallway on the other end of the house. He told you that Claude never really let them wander his house without a little supervision, claiming that they break everything that they touch, but this was a special case. Claude loved you, and he wasn’t going to let you walk around with a wine stained shirt for the rest of the night, especially when it’s Travis’s fault in the first place.

You laid back on the bed in the room you were unfamiliar with, smiling up at the ceiling and humming to yourself while Travis dug through Claude’s closet.

“I know Ryanne has a stack of those shirts somewhere.” he spoke gently to himself, refraining from throwing clothes all over the room and instead digging for one through multiple piles. You laughed to yourself, not even sure if he knew that you could hear him.

“Just pick one, Teeks!” he huffed and chucked one at you, laughing loudly when it landed directly on your face.

You whined and sat up, reaching for the hem of your shirt without much thought surrounding the subject before peeling it off. All you could think about was how sticky your stomach had gotten from the red spot.

It was the small gasp that got you, the one that brought you back down to Earth and tore you out of your wine-induced haze. It was Travis’s eyes locked in on the spot in the middle of your chest that triggered every panic siren in between your ears.

“Is that-”

“TK you can’t tell him.” you rushed out, pushing yourself to stand up as you pressed a bright orange Flyers shirt against your chest. Your hands were shaking, and Travis’s eyes were glued to the spot of the tattoo even without being able to see it anymore. He knew what that snake was, he knew it all too well. He’d known Nolan for a long time now, and he’d seen the snake enough times to commit it to memory.

He was sure you had Nolan’s snake in the middle of your chest, and now Travis knew you were in love with Nolan.

“Trav, I’m serious.” he shook his head, trying to clear himself of the intrusive thoughts and nodded gently. He couldn’t tell Nolan. He wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to keep that from him, especially when he had been looking for your tattoo on Nolan’s skin for years now.

Travis wasn’t dense. He saw the way that Nolan looked at you, heard the tone he used when he talked about you. He saw how excited Nolan got when he knew you were about to fly into Philly, and he saw how upset Nolan got when you left. He might not have been the brightest bulb in the box, but he knew that there was something lying under the surface of you and Nolan’s friendship.

He tried to have this conversation before, had tried more times than he could count at this point. The only difference now was that there was hard proof, there was evidence that he was right all along. But now he couldn’t use that evidence, not when you were looking at him with wide eyes and begging him to keep it between the two of you.

“Fine, but we’re talking about this before you go back home.” you nodded, figuring that it was good enough for you if it meant he never told Nolan about it.

Except, there was one small problem.

The door swung open, dark and narrowed eyes landing on you and Travis, less than a foot between the two of you with you topless, a single shirt held between your hands and in front of your chest.

“My best friend?” the disappointment in his voice tugged at your heart and punched you in the gut simultaneously. The guilt hanging in your chest was barely justified, given this was one large misunderstanding, but the look on Nolan’s face was enough to have your shoulders falling.

“Nolan, it’s not-”

“My best fucking friend? Of all people you had to choose him?” his eyes were wide and glued to yours, anger mixing with disgust in the back of his mind. He couldn’t believe you’d do this to him.

“Pat, you don’t understand-”

“Fuck you.” Nolan spoke slowly and clearly, shooting Travis the sharpest glare he could produce. His voice sent a chill down your spine, unsure if you had ever heard him speak with such malice. “Both of you.”

Nolan spun on the balls of his feet and left the room, but you didn’t let him get far before you were following him. You tugged the shirt over your head, not even bothering to turn back to Travis to apologize before you were running after Nolan, calling his name down the hallway.

“Nolan, please-”

“I don’t want to hear it, honestly.” he threw over his shoulder, but you weren’t accepting that. You weren’t going to let him walk away right now, not when you didn’t do anything wrong.

“Just listen to me!” you stopped walking, stopped running. You stood in the middle of a hallway that had pictures lining the walls around you. Smiling faces and cheery laughs suffocated you in a time where you stood toe to toe with your best friend, the same one who was looking down at you like he’d never known you. “You don’t get to assume things and just walk away!”

“Yeah, well you don’t get to come out here after not seeing me for six months and sleep with my best friend! You don’t get to do that to me! You don’t get to use me to sleep with professional athletes.” any words you had swimming through your mind halted at his accusation. They fizzled out, unable to produce a coherent thought after you heard your best friend accuse you of using him.

“After all this time, you think i’m using you? You think that I came here to sleep with Travis?”

“You want to know what I think? I think you’ve always used me. You used me to escape your awful boyfriend in high school and you used me to leave home when things got bad. You used me to get over your shitty boyfriend when he left you in the fucking dust and here you are now, using me to sleep with my best fucking friend.” you were in shock, lips parted and throat constricting as you tried to let his words sit.

“If you wanted to whore yourself out to NHL players, you should’ve just said so, puck bunny.” The nickname weighed heavily in your chest, bringing you back to a time where Nolan went on and on about how much puck bunnies got under his skin. It brought you back to a time when Nolan would never call you that, would never even put you and the name in the same conversation.

“Patty!” Nolan’s eyes left yours, casting over your shoulder and locking with another pair that he might have been more furious at. Sure, he was angry at you. He couldn’t believe you’d do something like this, not after growing up with him just a few houses down. He couldn’t believe you’d stoop this low, but Travis? Travis knew how Nolan felt about you. Even if he didn’t admit it, even if he’d never say that was all true, Travis knew. He knew better than anyone how Nolan felt, and that made it all the more worse.

“Don’t talk to her like that.” you bit down on your bottom lip, hard enough to sting slightly but you couldn’t look away from where your eye level left you. You couldn’t look up at Nolan, not when he was this angry at you, and you surely couldn’t look at Travis. You knew that’d only make things worse.

“Now you get to tell me how to talk to her? Does that mean the two of you are a thing now? That’s funny, seeing as you have a girlfriend, Teeks. Didn’t know you were into home wrecking, y/n.”

“Fuck you.” you spoke softly, not even sure if he had heard you before he looked down at you with a puzzled look stretched across his face.

“So I can pick up TK’s sloppy seconds? No thanks, angel.” you shoved him then, shoved him hard. He didn’t move much due to the way his feet dug into the ground and he had muscle on you, but you got your point across by the force delivered to his chest.

“You’re a dick, you know that? You walk into a room and think you know everything that’s going on, but you don’t, okay? You don’t know what happens when you’re gone. You don’t know what happened in there or what happens at home when you’re here. You don’t know anything, okay?”

“That’s bold, given that I just walked in on you topless, seconds away from kissing my best friend, y/n-”

“Is there a reason you feel the need to keep reminding me that Travis is your best friend?”

“Because I need you to know that you’re not.”

The world titled on its axis then, the rude awakening you’d walked into becoming all too much for you to handle. With the realization that Nolan wanted nothing to do with you, you nodded once and walked around him so you could leave. It was only then that you noticed the audience you’d gathered, the better half of the Flyers roster circled around the room with a few of their significant others. You flashed everyone a pained smile and thanked Claude and Ryanne for inviting you before leaving the house.

You weren’t even down the driveway when your lungs gave way, gasping for air while tears streamed down your cheeks. Your heart hurt and your stomach turned, and you knew it was going to be a long night.

“You really are a dick.” Travis was going to walk past him, was going to avoid the lot of people and follow you outside. He knew you didn’t know where you were, nor did you have a way to get to or from anywhere else. You could order an uber to Nolan’s, but then what? Kevin might let you into the apartment but where would you stay? On the couch in a living room you weren’t welcome in? Not likely.

“I’m the dick? You know how I feel about her!”

“Nothing happened!”

“Bullshit, TK! I know that look on your face and I know that she sure as hell looked embarrassed-”

“I spilt wine on her shirt, you fucking idiot! I knocked into her when we were in the kitchen and I made her entire glass of wine spill down the front of her shirt, so I went to get her another one. I didn’t want her to sit in a soaking wet, stained shirt for the rest of the night so I went to get her another.”

“And she changed in front of you because-?”

“Because she was drunk and knew I wouldn’t make a move on her. Because she knows that I respect you and care about you far more than I care about making a move on her. I don’t look at her that way, Pat. You know I would never do that to you.” Nolan sucked on his teeth then, casting his eyes away from Travis’s and looking down at his feet.

“Do I?” Travis scoffed then, not bothering to give Nolan a response before walking past everybody else and out to his car.

After a few minutes of driving around, he found you at the park just down the street, leaning against the chain that supported the swing you sat on. He couldn’t see your tears from his car, but he could see the way you flinched when he shut the car door behind him.

“You okay?” you shook your head, eyes filled to the brim with tears that blurred your vision and broke Travis’s heart.

“I’m in love with him, Teeks. I love him more than anything in this entire world and he thinks I’m using him. He t-thinks- he thinks I-”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Travis pulled you onto your feet and into his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around you in order to attempt to calm you down.

“He thinks-” your sobs rang through the air, piercing through Travis’s heart and resulting in him squeezing you tighter, letting you get all of it out while no one else was around.

“He doesn’t think that. He knows you’re not using him, he just can’t bear to think about you with anybody other than him.” you shook your head, not allowing yourself to believe Travis, even though he knew Nolan pretty well. If there was anything to know about Nolan, you or Travis would know about it.

“He loves you, okay? He loves you more than he knows how to handle and he can’t handle losing you before he’s even had you.” you flinched when a car backfired, jumping inches off of the ground and making Travis laugh gently from beside you when you let out a shaky breath of relief.

Your eyes found the familiar car drive by, slowing down the slightest bit by the park only to take off towards the entrance of the neighborhood quite quickly. You knew it was Nolan, you knew that car by heart.

You ended up on Travis’s couch the night, wrapped in a warm pair of sweatpants that Travis threw in the dryer for you before giving them to you. You tied the drawstring in a tight knot so they’d stay up and pulled on a hoodie that he offered to you shortly after. He listened to you reminisce on all of the memories you had with Nolan. He learned more about his best friend and who he was growing up, but also learned a fair amount about you as well.

He felt for you. He couldn’t believe Nolan said all of those things to you, but he also knew that Nolan must not be doing well right now. He texted Kevin when he got back to his apartment, saying that you were safe with him, and that he’d text Nolan but didn’t for obvious reasons. Kevin assured Travis he’d let Nolan know you were safe, despite Nolan not asking about your well being. Not that he hadn’t thought about it, but he figured if he asked he’d be left with a less than likable answer.

Nolan didn’t sleep well that night, replaying how bad he fucked up over and over again in his mind. He didn’t believe you at first, didn’t even believe Travis when he told him what truly happened. He did, however, believe his captain when he said that Travis asked him for a shirt for you just a few minutes before it all happened. Ryanne brought out your wine soaked shirt after the two of you had left, and despite Nolan coming to terms with the fact that he was wrong, he couldn’t forgive himself for the things he said to you.

He couldn’t believe he accused you of it all before going on to accuse you of using him for your benefit. He knew it was stupid, since you’d been around far before the NHL. you were there when he got drafted, you were there when he was named captain of the Wheat Kings, and you were there when he almost quit hockey when he was younger. He remembered having you by his side through everything growing up and even now, even while living so far away from each other. If he called, you answered. If he needed help, you helped him. Hockey had nothing to do with that.

He looked down at the butterfly on his thigh, the one that took residence right beside another one of his tattoos, one that he had to keep hidden from you for well over two years now. He traced his finger over the small image, let his mind wander over all the possibilities of where yours could be if you had a snake somewhere inked into your skin. It’s a thought he often had, wondering where you’d want it, if you’d want it.

By the time Nolan came to his senses, it was too late. He’d already gotten through an entire practice and by the time he got back, by the time he got home, he realized you were gone. Your things that were piled into a corner of his room were gone. The jersey he’d given you for the game against the pens was folded up nicely on the pillow of his bed and a sticky note with your unmistakeable handwriting on it left a hole in his chest.

I’m sorry I ever made you doubt me.

He couldn’t reach for his phone fast enough, couldn’t call you enough times to break your voicemail box. He called Travis, pained to hear that you were already on a flight back to Winnipeg. He wanted to leave, wanted to drive to the airport right this second and catch a flight back home to tell you he’s incredibly sorry, but he couldn’t. He had a roadie in a few days and a game tomorrow night and he couldn’t just leave.

He did his best to contact you, tried to call every person in your family and was disappointed every time. Even when both of his sisters sat down and called him to collectively tell him that he was the biggest idiot either of them had ever met. Nobody could believe Nolan blew you off like that, not even Nolan himself.

He knew he fucked up, but he hadn’t realized how bad he fucked things up until one of your friends from back home posted a picture of you on social media a few months later. It had been at least four months since he’d spoken to you, since he saw you. It had been too long of him having nothing but the sliver of content he got from social media. He hated that his friends had chosen your side in the thick of it all, though he guessed it was easier to do that with him in Philadelphia and the rest of you in the same place.

But it wasn’t until a picture of you with a wide smile and a new bathing suit popped up on his phone that he knew the true weight of the situation in front of him. There you were, in a baby blue bathing suit that showed the same shape between your breasts that he’d grown up with beside his ankle. His tattoo was committed to memory, ingrained into his brain with no room to forget about it, especially when he saw it on you, etched into your skin the same way it had been etched into his.

He thought back to the paper airplane on your shoulder, the mark that had haunted him for years. He hated your boyfriend, hated the sight of his tattoo on your skin. He hated everything that had to do with the sheer thought of you with somebody else, even if he didn’t know how to deal with that. And now, with his thumb sitting on the butterfly on his thigh and his eyes on the snake on your sternum, he knew he had to fix this. He knew he had to fix things because these tattoos, though permanent themselves, didn’t guarantee him a life as your boyfriend, nor your husband.

Nolan remembered a time when he thought these tattoos were stupid. He remembered when he thought it was a thing for soulmates and you told him that thought was wrong, that it just reminded you of a love you felt, even if it was eventually lost. He remembers you telling him that you were scared you’d never be loved forever, that you were scared to only be loved momentarily.

But that wasn’t the case. Nolan would never stop loving you. He couldn’t forget about the way your laugh brightened his day without question, or the way your nose scrunched when you laughed. He couldn’t forget about the way you bugged him for ice cream on a bad day, or how good you looked with his name and number stretched across your back.

He couldn’t remember a day he wasn’t in love with you.

So Nolan flew to Winnipeg the second the Flyers’ season was over. He didn’t bask in getting knocked out of the playoffs like some of the other guys, didn’t dwell on the loss in the sixth game of the series because he couldn’t. He couldn’t dwell on a loss when he was so focused on trying to prevent a second one.

He had called everybody he could think of once he got off the plane. Some didn’t answer, some didn’t know the answer to his question, and some just flat out refused to humor him. You weren’t home, he knew that much by the absence of your car in the driveway and your sister telling him that you weren’t there, and that she wouldn’t let him inside even if you were. It wasn’t until he rounded a familiar corner after a phone call he’d been thankful for.

Jordan told him where you were, unable to lie to his childhood friend when you were hanging out with everyone. You were wearing a bathing suit again, though it didn’t matter for a while. The sun was high in the air and you weren’t the only that had shed yourself of your coverup earlier in the afternoon. You were playing basketball with Jordan, oblivious to the fact that he’d given you up just ten minutes prior to the gate door swinging open and Nolan letting himself into the backyard.

Your eyes found him easily, as if he was a magnet you could never repel. Your shoulders fell for a moment, your instinct of wanting to comfort him seeping in before you could tell it not to. Of course you kept up with his team, watching every game you possibly could until the very last one. You knew he’d been knocked out of the playoff less than 48 hours ago, and you had no idea he was coming home.

You hadn’t realized the weight of the situation until you noticed his eyes locked in on your chest. You folded your arms over your chest in an attempt to cover the snake, but it didn’t make Nolan look anywhere else.

“Who told you I was here?” your voice was soft. You knew he didn’t drive around the entire town looking for your car, though you weren’t sure it was something too far out of his reach. Nolan would do just about anything to get something if he wanted it bad enough.

“Bo did.” you glared at the boy not far from you, the one that you shouldn’t have trusted with something like this in the first place. You should’ve known Jordan would do something like this.

“Patty, what the fuck?”

“Just shut up, Bo.” Jordan rolled his eyes and tossed the basketball to Nolan who smacked it away and into the grass.

“Well, I don’t want to talk to you.” you tried to stand your ground, even with Jordan giggling to himself before walking over to your friends not too far from where you currently stood.

“Just give me five minutes.”

Nolan’s eyes bore into yours, the same pair of bright blue eyes that you had been avoiding for months. You wanted to answer every call and every text, but how could you? How could you pick up the phone and listen to his voice through the speaker after all he’d said to you in front of his entire team. And then on top of it all, he left you stranded in Philly, in the middle of a city, country even, where you had nobody to turn to and nowhere to go.

“I know you don’t want to talk to me-”

“Then leave, Nols.” he shook his head, taking a step towards you. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“I know I hurt you-”

“You’re right! You hurt me! You hurt me so bad Nolan and I can’t go through that again so if you’re here to let history repeat itself, then can you just go?” he shook his head, firmly planting his feet into the ground and refusing to move.

“I know you don’t want to see me or listen to me or give me the benefit of the doubt but I need you to hear me out.” you sighed, letting your arms fall to your side. You weren’t sure how he seemingly broke down all of your walls without even lifting a finger. You watched his eyes flick down to the image on your chest, you even let him raise a finger once he stood in front of you and trace the shape of the snake. “It suits you, y’know?”

“Did you really come all this way to tell me that this suits me?” there was a hint of amusement in your voice, enough of it to bring a smile to Nolan’s lips.

“I know I fucked up-”

“Big time.” you cut him off, shooting him a gentle smile and nod that told you you’d stop interrupting him. “Sorry, continue.”

“I know I fucked up and I said a lot of shit I didn’t mean and that’s not an excuse but- look, I know i shouldn’t have said all of that shit. I should’ve believed the two of you. I should’ve believed you when you told me nothing happened and I shouldn’t have said you were using me. I know you’re not using me. There was no way you could’ve known that I was going to be in the NHL, and you wouldn’t have stuck around all this time just to be a puck bunny.”

It wasn’t like you to forgive all that easily. You drew lines in the sand and refused to let someone fuck you over twice. You weren’t big on second chances, especially when you thought people didn’t deserve them. You were a straight shooter, no bullshit. But those walls cracked for Nolan, they fell for Nolan. None of your boundaries were drawn in place with Nolan in mind. He had broken down every wall, overstepped every boundary since the day he met you. You couldn’t block him out, couldn’t lead him out of your life.

As much as you hated to admit it, you needed Nolan Patrick. You were in love with Nolan Patrick.

And the little butterfly on his thigh told you that he loved you all the same.

Your lips turned up at the sight, your eyes locked in on the place where his shorts had ridden up and the small image danced happily on his skin.

“How long have you had that?” you pointed down at it, barely noticing the way his eyes stayed trained on you through the entirety of the situation. You were looking at his tattoo, but he was looking at you. He was always looking at you, which only made it that much more surprising that he hadn’t picked up on the snake on your chest.

“Since before I got drafted.” he spoke softly, hitting you with a force you didn’t know existed. You were floored by the realization, somewhat thinking that he’d only had it for a small bit of time. You’d seen his thighs, seen his tattoos and you’d never seen the small butterfly etched into his skin.

“How long have you had that?” his finger traced over the snake one more time, sending a chill down your spine that you had felt more times than you could count when you were around Nolan. It was a feeling that was never expected but always welcome.

“Draft day.” you breathed out, feeling the weight of the world lift off of your shoulders. You were finally admitting it, finally letting the love of your life know just how long you’ve been a mess for him. Little did you know how much of a mess he was for you.

“I’m so sorry, y/n.”

“It’s okay.” you spoke softly, a smile gracing your lips at the realization that things were falling back into place, even after all this time of not talking to him.

“It’s okay?” you nodded, taking another step toward him so you were chest to chest.

“As long as you don’t fuck it up again.” he let out a small laugh, his hands finding the sides of your face just before pressing his lips to yours.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

italics mean it wouldn’t let me tag you!!

nolpat tag list; @extratragic @babytkachuks @teenagekook @stfukie @kiedhara @sadcupofcoffee @sidscrosbyy @rebel-without-care @baby-cat-nol-pat @creator-appreciator

tagging the himbos as well; @bricksatlandyswindow @damndunner @anxietyandtacos @sortagaysortahigh @dmonchld

#nolan patrick #nolpat #nolan x reader #nolan patrick x reader #nhl #nhl fic #nhl imagine #hockey fic #hockey #hockey imagine #philadelphia flyers #flyers

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bigskydreaming · 3 years

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Hi! I was reading a fanfic and it brought up Roy and Dick's fight, which I see a lot of in fics but never what they fought about and consequently why they don't talk. I thought it was a vague excuse/reason why Roy was Jason's friend not Dick's anymore but this fic brought up when Dick was batman so I was wondering if there was actually a fight between them? Btw I really enjoy your metas! They're v thought out and well articulated. Also it's v easy to separate what's your opinion and what's fact which is. Very helpful for me

Yeah this is one hundred percent a fanon thing that's kept deliberately vague to justify why Roy in his friendship with Jason seems to have no positive thoughts or concerns about Dick whatsoever. Now granted, Dick and Roy are not nearly as close in the New 52 as they were pre-Reboot. The lack of their friendship there is definitely one of the things I disliked most about the Reboot - and I actually don't care if Jason and Roy are friends tbh, its the total erasure of his history with Dick as if he can't be friends with both, that like, bugs most.

But so like, yeah, Roy and Dick aren't super close when they interact on the Titans in the New 52, but there's literally nothing in any of their interactions that explains the complete absence of him from Roy's life or a reason that Roy would like, hate him the way he tends to in a lot of Jason-centric fics.

When you factor in pre-Reboot stuff though, it starts to get a LOT more.....uh wyd? And this is why I have trouble buying that people just write Roy and Jason the way they do because its the only thing they know from recent comics. Like one, most fans talk about how they don't even read the source comics, so there's no reason their knowledge of the characters or events would be limited to just recent comics if they're going off wiki summaries and scans anyway. And second, most fans AREN'T limited in their knowledge to just recent comics.

Like, the second people start writing Roy and Jason and Kori but with their pre-52 characterizations and references to events from THAT timeline, it all gets very messy, the way they're like, completely antagonistic towards Dick a lot of the time. Because Roy and Dick were always solid. Yes, they fought. A lot. But they always, ALWAYS made up afterwards. They had conflict about Roy's drug addiction - it didn't stop Dick from being there to support him through rehab, or Dick being the first person Roy called to help him get Lian after he learned of her existence. Dick literally held Lian before Roy ever did? He's the one who first put her in Roy's arms for the first time.

(Which is the prime grudge I and most Dick Grayson fans have about Roy and Jason fics which make Jason like, the absolute apple of Lian's eye. If you want to expand Lian's circle of loved and trusted ones to include Jason as Roy's friend and thus her uncle, like go for it! But there's zero reason that should require invalidating and erasing the fact that Dick was this little girl's adored godfather and uncle for pretty much her entire life. And the way Dick is just shoved offstage from Lian's life entirely, to slot Jason into his place as though they're completely interchangeable, its like....THAT'S the kind of thing that gets people irey about how Jason 'steals' Dick's dynamics and character relationships.

Because there's nothing saying they both can't be major players in Roy and Lian's lives! But just that they're not interchangeable! You need to develop the specific role Jason plays there WITHOUT just overwriting everything Dick actually did in relation to the two of them pre-Flashpoint, which is what you're drawing from the second you write Lian, unless you're specifically going with the few appearances we've had of her within literally just the last year.

But I mean, when people just search and replace Dick Grayson in all Roy and Lian's pre-Reboot stories and act like Jason was the one doing all of that instead.....why wouldn't fans of the source material be annoyed by a character getting credit for interactions and things done for Lian and Roy that Jason literally NEVER DID, while at the EXACT SAME TIME, conjuring some mysterious, unnamed 'Falling Out' that Roy and Dick had, that was clearly all Dick's fault, and resulted from him being basically excised entirely from Roy and Lian's lives?

Same with Kori, for the record, and like despite being Dick's ex, she and Dick have NEVER been like, estranged? She and Dick have often been close even after their breakup. None of it makes any sense, and the fact that a lot of fans don't even try to make it make sense or justify it, and expect other fans to just be fine with settling for an inexplicable reversal of Dick's every actual dynamic with these characters while setting up Jason to occupy the exact same role Dick played in these other characters' lives, like.....lol. Its fun.)

Anyway, back to your question, like, there are fights you can go with pre-Reboot as the source of various conflicts between Dick and Roy - but again, I maintain its just as crucial that they're always written as getting past them. They have a very tempestuous relationship because they are the two people MOST likely to call each other on their shit, two of the two people WITH the most shit in common due to the parallels in their childhoods and the roles they've occupied in the Titans and the superhero community in general, and the two people most resistant to being called out on their shit by each other, lol. Mostly in that case because like, they do recognize that they have a lot in common and understand each other very well, so the second the other is calling them out for something, they're usually like "ugh, if HE'S saying this, its probably true and I am just not prepared yet to be wrong about this. I need more time being unjustifiably rawr about things." Its like that thing where they both look at each other doing something that feels familiar or calls back to their own reasons for doing something and they're like ugh I'm in this picture and I don't like it.

So they clash. A lot. But always with the implicit bedrock of like, there's nothing either of them can do or say to the other that will push the other away for good.

They fought over Roy replacing Dick as leader of the Titans when Dick's wedding fell apart, even though Roy actually didn't want to do it and was kinda pushed into it by the government, but again, Dick like, got over it and realized it was for the best and forgave Roy for it that very same issue. And on and on. It always went like that. So there's plenty of stuff that can be used or pointed at as a source of conflict between the two, but the part I'll always call unbelievable is the idea that they never make up after one of these fights. Why now? What fight, specifically, is so bad between them that despite everything else they've gone through AND gotten past, they can't get past this one? Y'know?

So yeah, that's my take on this. There is no definitive falling out between Dick and Roy as many fics like to point to in order to shove him offscreen and make room for Jason in Roy and Lian's lives, and personally, I just don't find it necessary and I actually think it makes Roy look REALLY bad. Because when you're not specifically detailing all the things that Dick has actually DONE for Roy, the lengths to which he's been there for his friend, and like, specifically invalidating each and every one of them as something that never happened in a particular fic, then literally anyone who reads that fic and has their own awareness of Dick and Roy's friendship is kiiiiiinda likely to be reading that and thinking wow what an ungrateful asshole, when Roy's just written as bitching about Dick with Jason and sandbagging him without any real explanation as to WHY, beyond just 'oh they had a fight years ago.'

(And coming up with some random awful thing that Dick did to justify Roy hating him now isn't like, a superior alternative, lmao, because again, its still just trashing one character for the sake of getting him out of the way of two other characters' friendship and people are going to think what they think about that).

Anyway, my now standard stock disclaimer that like, there doesn't actually need to be a canon fight obviously, for people to just write things this way and handwave that Dick and Roy had an epic falling out years ago and now they just hate one another or whatever, or just Roy hates him or vice versa. Obviously people are free to do what they want. They don't need a reason other than "I want to write it this way so Jason and Roy are friends and Jason doesn't have to 'share' him with Dick or have his friendship be overshadowed by their greater history together." That just happens to be a reason that no Dick Grayson fan is ever really going to be happy about, lol, for what should be perfectly obvious reasons, so it honestly shouldn't be surprising to people that fans of the source material often gripe about it.

Because yeah fanfic is a tremendous opportunity to transform the source material into something better, but if what's better for some fans actively takes away what was working perfectly well for other fans the original way, they're going to say that. Especially in a fandom where so many new fans take their view of the characters and their dynamics from fics rather than the source material - when fandom has that much of an influence on what new fans perceive to be 'canon,' fans are perfectly within their right to emphasize what is ACTUALLY canon and what isn't, so that new fans at least have the opportunity to determine for themselves what take they want to go with, instead of just accepting at face value that the nature of say, Dick and Roy's relationship is just that Roy hates Dick because of some mumble mumble ancient history vague mumble details not found mumble mumble fight.

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reversemoon255 · 3 years

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(This is the final of a three-part series chronicling the development and ideas behind “Dungeons ‘n’ Dragonites,” a Pokémon DnD campaign. This last entry will be about the final string of encounters, some of the later ideas for story elements, and a deep dive into the overarching themes of the campaign’s Starters. Speaking of, the fantastic art of them, along with many of the other original Pokémon seen here, was done by @extyrannomon on Twitter, and I highly suggest you check them out.)

Dungeons ‘n’ Dragonites - Phase 3: Fauxchemine

Like the Queen Durant, the Steelix/Glacix fight would have been a transitory battle between phases of the campaign, taking place right before the Starters were about to evolve for the final time. Glacix was an idea I came up with early in development. As Rock, Steel, and Ice have a relationship throughout Pokémon, having Onix evolve into a specially tanky Ice-Type rather than the physically tanky Steelix made sense. This was also a design I put a lot of work into the actual proportions, like stretching its face vertically as Onix is circular, and Steelix is horizontally stretched. Also, as Steelix has two long spikes on every other segment, Glacix has four smaller spikes in the same pattern.

Glacix was also the first of the four penultimate boss encounters before the close of the campaign, each representing one of the four sacred beasts of Chinese mythology. I thought it would be a pattern that players could recognize and possibly plan ahead for. Glacix was always planned as the Phase 2-to-3 transitory boss, but I actually had roughly prototyped the other three before I realized Glacix fit into role of the Azure Dragon (which I was missing).

The second of the bosses, representing both the Black Tortoise and Rare Variants, was a Dire Torterra. The idea was this Torterra was symbiotic, housing a Sudowoodo instead of a tree, and hiding its identity was a shiny Altaria capable of Mega Evolving thanks to the Key Stone that had replaced one of Torterra’s stone spikes. This was a rough concept, and I’m sure it would have changed drastically by the time the players would actually encounter it.

Third, representing both the White Tiger and Ultra Beasts, was Shora (from Shodo and Tora, the Japanese words for calligraphy and tiger). A pure white tiger that paints floating, metal stripes above its body with its brush-like tail. This was an idea I was very happy with, though I lacked the artistic abilities to render it effectively. If I remember correctly, the markings above its shoulder were based on the Kanji for Tiger. I also hadn’t settled on an ability for it, which was key for depicting Ultra Beasts in this campaign.

And the last of the penultimate bosses was Phanic, being a second Ultra Beast and representing the Vermilion Phoenix. Sadly, I had little planned for this guy apart from some concept designs, like the rest of them. I was working on these as the campaign was starting, and didn’t pursue finishing them after its premature conclusion.

Phanic (from Phoenix and Panic) is actually an Ostrich. If you picture a phoenix, you typically imagine great plumes of feathers around the head, wings, and tail, which are all things Ostriches specifically lack, and I wanted to subvert that typical depiction. I liked the idea that when it was startled, it would scatter its feathers resulting in an exclamation point forming using the spot on its face. It was supposed to seem unassuming compared to the many larger and more imposing bosses, though just as dangerous. Also, it was Electric-Type because it is frequently “shocked” *Ba-dum-tish.*

=====

Let’s talk about our players. One of the backstory elements our Grass Trainer, Ethan, had was that his parents’ restaurant was struck by lightning and destroyed some time before he went to school, and saw a Pokémon at that time. This left him with a fear of lightning (ironically picking an Electric-Type Starter). With this knowledge, and as I was using Ultra Beasts, I altered his backstory slightly so that it was caused by a Xurkitree, and would eventually encounter one during the campaign with his victory over it (probably with a lot of Wisdom Saves) curing his phobia.

Johnny, our Fire Trainer, had a goal of becoming an entertainer, but was vague about what kind. I had an idea for a “Streamer” Trainer Class he could run into. Someone who uses their Rotom Phone to live stream battles and get reactions and advice from their chat. (Let’s face it, if Pokémon were real, this would totally be a thing.) There was also DJ Tomomitsu, who runs Stelopy City’s Trainer Radio, and was a Gym Leader. The idea was to present a bunch of different Pokémon-based entertainment ideas and professions and have him decide which ideas he liked and wanted to pursue.

While our other players were aiming for careers, Orion, our Water Trainer, was more interested in exploring his relationship with his family. His father in particular; both he and his wife being high-ranking executives for Silph Co., and raising their children to also be successful. However, Orion had always wanted to be a Trainer, and it was his parents that prevented him from adventuring. I had it that his father was so against the idea was because he, too, was a Trainer in his youth. But not a successful one, failing many more times than he succeeded, and didn’t want his son to suffer the same disappointments as he did. His partner was Rhyperior, btw.

Lastly was our Fairy Trainer, Arthur. He wanted to be a Gym Leader, and cited specific interest in the Galar League. He also mentioned in his back story that his father was belligerent and against the idea. While the Leaders of the Galar League are entertainers by profession, if you look at the list of Gym Leaders and Kahunas in US equivalent regions, almost all of them have a profession and run Gyms on the side:

(Restaurant Owner, Museum Curator, Artist, Model, Business Tycoon, Pilot, Actor, Teacher, Rock Star, Mayor, Shop Owner, Police Officer; 12/15)

It felt like a hobby, rather than a career, and I ran with this idea as it seemed like Arthur and his obsession with the Galar League hadn’t noticed this fact (nor had his player), but his father had and was pushing him into a sports-based career (one that is usually lucrative and has off-seasons) so he could have a well-paying job and time on the side for his interests, similar to Orion’s father.

Though, no DM can control their players, and even by the end of our fist session I could tell I would have to change some things. It’s just good to have some idea of where to lead everyone, and adjust as you go.

=====

There’s one more Pokémon I want to talk about before we get to the Starters.

This is Necrotiti (Combining Necro with the Egyptian God Nefertiti), an evolution of Cofagrigus, evolving if it’s holding an item called the “Ceremonial Jar” (literally a jar filled with Yamask’s human intestines). It was meant to evolve from the Yamask they could catch during their museum field trip. The reason it exists is... silly. It’s another instances where I wanted to surprise my players, and giving the “Gardevoir Treatment” to what I consider the creepiest Pokémon was funny (which I feel is a reason I cite a lot). And I was really happy with this design, which is why it got commissioned.

A lot of the original ideas I had for this campaign were meant to either surprise or creep out my players. Everyone I was playing with knew Pokémon very well, so I had this fear that if I presented them with a standard adventure they would either become bored or be able to easily predict where things were going. Having a Pokémon adventure within a single city, having it be more a mystery than a collect-a-thon, and using new Pokémon were all ways I came up with to keep interest high and have them guessing as to what would happen next.

Back to Necrotiti, despite having a sarcophagus Pokémon, we didn’t get a mummy. I wanted to make the body effeminate without being overly so, which is why her body is very geometrical in specific areas. For the mask, I went with a typical Egyptian Nubian motif mixed with some of the overall design elements and basic lines from Yamask, and the colors and patterns from Cofagrigus. But despite how much I like it, I don’t know if I would have used it. It didn’t match the Mutant Evolution concept, with its only similarity being that it’s a rare occurrence.

Onto the Starters: Epipesis has evolved into Drachenura (from Dragon, Lichen, and Meganeura). Grass Starters are typically based on extinct animals, and Flymph’s line is based on a Meganeura (an ancient species of giant dragonfly). Apart from some bulking out and additional colors, the lichen sacks in its tail are now yellow, as the plant matter has evolved with it. It supplies it with so much energy that it has to constantly move while the sun’s up to burn it off. Its tail tip is also based on the X-15, the fastest aircraft to date, as it was designed to be the fastest Grass-Type.

Steared has evolved into Auradiat (from Aura, Auroch, and Radiate). Now a Fire/Ice-Type, it’s based on an extinct species of cattle found around the time of the Ice Age. Its ability to absorb energy with its horns has become so powerful that they have frozen over. When I was originally designing it, I was actually trying to base it on the phrase “Irish Bull” (meaning a paradoxical statement), but as I kept working on it, it became more and more Minotaur-like, so I kept the Fire/Ice-Typing and dropped the more abstract elements. As I did, I actually made it more bull and less Minotaur since all Fire Starters are bipedal, and I wanted to try and avoid that.

Knaval has evolved into Chivalazuli (from Chivalier, the French word for knight, and Lapis Lazuli). This was probably my favorite example of features naturally changing as it evolves, with the antenna growing longer and the shield and lance growing harder (going from carapace, to stone, to crystal). Some of the things you might not have noticed at first glace were his forelegs becoming sub-arms on his chest, him gaining the lobster nose and it becoming a face guard, and how his eyes recess into his head. Also, almost every Starter is symmetrical (apart from patterns), with the only exception being Torterra, so I designed it to be asymmetrical throughout.

And Uteteo has evolved into Makutah (from the Aztec naming scheme used for their Gods of wealth and abundance and Utahraptor). He’s Fairy/Flying, with the gold adornments that first appeared on Uteteo now on his head and arms, giving him a more bird-like appearance. The idea was to have him naturally evolve from a Dinosaur into a bird, with the leg bands making them look more like talons, and the face mask giving him a beak. Also, he starts out with the singular sickle toe raptors are known for, and gets a new one every evolution, ending with a full set.

The thing that sets these Starters apart from ones you’d find in the games is that these are designed to be a team. As such, there are a few themes they all share to help reinforce that. (This ignores Utaw, but) All the Starters, throughout their evolutions, have a distinct yellow detail on their heads (eyes, nose ring, and antenna). Furthermore, once they reach their final stages, they share colors between them, with Drachenura having red on its extremities, Auradiat having blue neck fur, and Chivalazuli having flecks of green in its gemstone. And on top of that, they also all have two overarching themes. First is they all represent different time periods, with Drachenura being pre-humans (Precambrian), Auradiat being prehistoric humans (Ice Age), and Chivalazuli being more modern (Medieval Period). Secondly they all represent DnD, with a Dragon(fly), Auradiat filling the role of a minotaur and its connection to a labyrinth/dungeon, and the adventurous knight who traverses them.

There’s also reasoning behind their types, as all three’s secondary Types are also strong against their usual counterpart (Grass and Electric are both strong against Water, Fire and Ice against Grass, and Water and Rock against Fire). Furthermore, Electric, Ice, and Rock are all strong against Flying, which is the reason behind Makutah’s Type (a joke against the player who joined late).

Makutah does fit into these themes, but more loosely as it was created later. Utaw and Uteteo lack the yellow facial details (though they do have yellow eyes), only really achieving this during their final evolution. He also doesn’t share any colors, as Fairy is outside the usual threesome. It does somewhat fit into the themes of the others, but not as cleanly. Utaw, being a Dinosaur, is still pre-humans, but closer to them than Flymph is, and having Aztec themes puts him past Medieval and closer to the Renaissance in terms of human history, but is very close compared to the other time gaps. Also, the gold was partly to fit him into the DnD theme, representing treasure.

=====

One of the first things the players were told at the beginning of the campaign, and was reinforced throughout, was that Pokémon from outside the Wellou Region were mysteriously popping up all over the place, with the Ultra Beasts being the most extreme example. As to the cause, there were a number of red herrings. Silph Co. employees could occasionally be seen in areas where UBs were with strange equipment, Tomomitsu could occasionally be found before something would show up, and there were a few other strange characters like the Regional Champion or Silph Co.’s president. The only definite thing they would know was that there was a strange, creepy, grey Charizard that would occasionally appear when they took something down.

However, it would eventually be revealed that the above were only trying to understand what was going on, and prevent the appearances of such dangerous Pokémon, like our heroes. And as a massive Ultra Wormhole appears above the city, they come face-to-face with the true mastermind. Not an evil team, or a lone conqueror. Merely a single, twisted Pokémon. And our heroes have interfered with its fun long enough.

“You stare up at the now familiar form of the grey Charizard, which stares back with unblinking, dead eyes... Its mouth stretches wide, wide enough to swallow you whole, and a hand appears. And another. And another. Four skeletal hands pry its maw open from the inside, stretching it until its skin falls down to settle on its hips. What looks down on you now, with a single, glowing eye, is a monstrous form made of bone and rotting flesh. And witnessing the four of you before it, it lets out a high-pitched, chilling laugh...

“‘Fofofofofo...’“

Fauxchemine. A sadistic Ultra Beast capable of warping time and space to its will. All the disturbances throughout the town, all the strange creatures that have appeared, all the monsters sent to terrorize our heroes; all the result of its twisted sense of fun, and the consequences of getting in the way of it.

So there’s a running joke among my friends that we all “hate” Charizard. Not actually, but it’s always pushed in marketing with new forms and such, even though its popularity has been dropping steadily over the years. As such, I thought it would be somewhat cathartic to have the big bad they have to beat up at the end be related to Charizard. ‘Chemine’s skeletal nature comes from trying to cinematicly picture the encounter in my mind, with the eerie image of the mouth stretching open from the dialogue earlier. With bone white and rotten greens, the skin wasn’t meant to reflect Charizard as a shiny, but rather with all its color drained from it, as it’s more a puppeted skin than an actual part of the Pokémon. And as many Pokémon draw inspiration from Kaiju, ‘Chemine does, too, specifically calling back to an Ultra-Kaiju named Greeza with space warping abilities.

It’s Steel/Dragon with Thick Fat. When planning encounters, especially this late into the game, Auradiat made things tough since its offensive Typing is insane, and that combination made it resistant to all of the Starter Types except Fairy. This was supposed to be the toughest fight in the campaign, so I wanted to build a Pokémon that would be difficult to deal damage to. A swift Pokémon able to warp around the field, summoning Ultra Beasts or other versions of Charizard as adds or for specific attacks, I wanted this to be memorably difficult.

Oh, and the name? It’s meant to rhythmically sound like “Pokémon,” with the ‘faux’ symbolizing its disguise, and the ‘mine’ representing its personality. Everything in this world is its to play with.

But that giant Ultra Wormhole wasn’t just for show. Part-way through Phase 2 our players were sucked through a Wormhole themselves, both they and Fauxchemine bearing witness to a titanic creature as they did, and upon its defeat, it is let loose upon the city:

Standing over 100ft tall is Wreknarogg (from wreck, to destroy, Níðhöggr, a massive world-ending creature from Norse mythology, and Ragnarok, the end of the world). A massive symbiotic group of four Pokémon from a dead world, the whale-squid Bayleige, the parasitic Serrasite, and the barnacle Rhizocano. This was actually the first symbiotic Pokémon I designed, and its creation sparked the others like Shiinotic and Torterra so this wouldn’t be the first time our players encountered one.

Whales are the largest creatures on Earth, so using one as the base for a kaiju-sized Pokémon fit. It also helped that the prototype designs for the Cloverfield monster were based on a whale, so I had something to go on. Secondly, I really like a lot of the eldritch design philosophy, and a lot of those are based on sea creatures, which is where the combined squid elements came from. Also, when I was prototyping the design and trying to make it creepier, a friend suggested having a parasite coming out of its blowhole, which is what sparked the creation of Serrasite and Rhizocano (as whale’s are known to have such parasites in real life).

This was a design very inspired by the world it was supposed to inhabit. Coming from a desert world where they are the only living things remaining, they symbiotically support each other to stave off their own inevitable death, with Bayleige able to create rain with its ability and Rhizocano able to make artificial sunlight to feed Serrasite. Serrasite then gives energy to Bayleige to allow it to keep moving, and Rhizocano takes energy from Bayleige. It’s an incomplete system where energy is slowly lost over time.

Stage 2 of the final boss wasn’t supposed to be as intense as the last one. A gimmick for this fight was, at the start of every round, I was going to roll a D100, and an event would happen. They would be things like their friends showing up with healing items, trainers they knew joining the battle, wild Pokémon they’d befriended getting in pot shots, etc. It was meant to be a fun, celebratory, “you’re at the end of the campaign” fight rather than an intense one off the back of another. I was even considering having everyone use their full parties.

But after it’s defeated, a thick, dark haze enshrouds everyone. With their allies gone, and left with just their Starters, our players are alone in a dark void. I did say there were four Pokémon earlier...

And the final encounter is Wreknarogg (Core). The Pokémon who brought the three titans together, and controls them while siphoning off some of their energy to survive. Similar to Phanic, this was another unassuming Pokémon. Designed to resemble a virus while calling back to aspects from mythical Pokémon like Jirachi or Manaphy. I understand it might not feel as climactic as there wasn’t any set-up compared to ‘Chemine, who was shown throughout, or the previous Wreknarogg, who was foreshadowed, but I wanted a 3-stage boss fight, and this felt like a good way of concluding it.

While stage 1 was supposed to be difficult, and stage 2 was meant to be fun and call back to the long journey, stage 3 was an un-losable, cinematic fight with a somewhat somber tone to it. It was the final fight, the end of it all, and there’s a certain level of sadness that comes with that in accordance with the jubilation of completion. It was also meant to see how much everyone had grown; how would they handle this encounter? Fight it? Catch it? Persuade it? Maybe I haven’t listened to enough DnD finalés, but in how many can you beat the final boss by being nice to it and calming it down?

=====

And that’s the end. There would be some sort of epilogue, picking up with our characters some months or years later, but that’s not something I could write without witnessing the actions of the players. I was debating having everything that came from an Ultra Wormhole be sucked back in after Fauxchemine’s defeat, including the Starters (pull a Digimon Tamers), but as Wreknarogg came from a dead world I thought that a little cruel.

And to end things how I usually do; Overall, despite not getting off the ground, I was very happy with this project. I’m the type to pick up and drop projects frequently, and the fact that I stuck with and continued to work on it for months was something I was really proud of. It was also a great learning experience on many levels. And who knows; maybe I might do something like this again in the future...?

#Pokemon #Dungeons and Dragons #DnD #dnd homebrew #Onix #Steelix #Torterra #Sudowoodo #Altaria #Yamask #Cofagrigus #Charizard #Whale #Ultra Beast

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notanacousticsetcal · 3 years

Text

betty - calum hood

summary - a story based off of the song betty by taylor swift -- one of my absolute favorites from folklore and the most beautiful little story :) (y/n) in the role of the icon betty.

warnings - cheating

word count - 3k ish

mood board

a/n - check out the other 3 installments of the song series too! this piece is kind of out of the blue because I actually started it and finished it today which is extremely rare for me but I actually really like how it turned out. hope you guys do too. :) (def listen to this song -- its amazing). (btw this isnt the calum fic i was referencing in one of my previous posts, that one is still in the works.)

Betty, I won't make assumptions about why you switched your homeroom, but I think it's 'cause of me.

Calum sat in the back row, staring at Missy Grenshaw’s head feeling the hole in his chest grow larger. He glanced at your empty seat and frowned, his eyebrows scrunched together.

He heard Mrs. Martin start attendance and when she skipped over your name, the hole grew impossibly larger.

Calum tried to convince himself you switched because Mrs. Martin was a hard grader, but he knew that wasn’t the real reason.

He knew it was because you couldn’t stand to see his face.

Betty, one time I was riding on my skateboard when I passed your house. It's like I couldn't breathe.

Calum listened to the sound of a distant lawn mower and the rustling leaves and inhaled the smell of someone barbecuing in their backyard, trying to calm himself. He almost turned around and went home, his stomach grumbling at the idea of dinner waiting for him on the dining room table, but he didn’t.

He was only a block away from your house now. He pretended like he was riding down your street because it had the smoothest road, but Calum couldn’t lie to himself. Just knowing your room was in that house and knowing you might be sitting on your bed was enough to draw Calum near.

He didn’t let himself stop in front of the brick fronted modest house, but he wanted to. His legs ached as he kept pushing. He secretly hoped the sound of his wheels would draw you to the window. He held his breath in anticipation, but nothing. Not even a subtle shift in the curtains.

You heard the rumors from Inez. You can't believe a word she says most times, but this time it was true. The worst thing that I ever did was what I did to you.

“(Y/n)!” A familiar voice chirped from behind you. You turned on your heel to face your friend, Inez. She was your source of gossip always, even if it was almost always speculation and barely ever accurate.

You weren’t expecting her sad features -- it alarmed you. “Are you alright, Inez? What happened?” You linked arms with her as you continued forward, heading for first period.

She nodded softly. “You aren’t going to want to hear this, (y/n).”

But if I just showed up at your party, would you have me? Would you want me? Would you tell me to go fuck myself or lead me to the garden? In the garden would you trust me if I told you it was just a summer thing? I'm only seventeen, I don't know anything but I know I miss you.

Calum tossed the tennis ball up and caught it. He laid on his bed, absentmindedly continuing to toss the ball up and down, his mind plagued with thoughts about you.

Your birthday was a week away. Calum let his mind wander off in endless possibilities.

He knew how much he had hurt you and the guilt ate at him constantly. A day didn’t go by that he didn’t beat himself up for being so stupid.

Nothing was worth more to him than your happiness and he knew that now. He would do anything in his power to fix what he broke, if you’d let him.

He wondered how you would react if he showed up on your doorstep that evening, a bundle of flowers in hand and an apologetic smile on his face.

He wondered if you’d slam the door in his face and ignore his knocks and desperate pleas.

Or if you’d hesitantly let him come inside, your guard up, and lead him to the garden to talk alone. If you’d let him ramble on about how stupid he was. About how badly he messed up.

About how much he fucking missed you.

Your soft smile and your positive, bright disposition and your generosity and selflessness. The way your eyes squinted when you laughed and the way your hair smelled.

Calum really fucking missed you.

But he knew he didn’t really deserve a second chance. And he was asking a lot begging for one. But he thought he at least had to try.

Or this mistake would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Betty, I know where it all went wrong, your favorite song was playing from the far side of the gym. I was nowhere to be found, I hate the crowds, you know that. Plus, I saw you dance with him.

Calum walked into the school alongside you, your hand in his and a bright smile on your face. You loved dances and seeing all your friends dressed up -- Calum felt claustrophobic, but he would do anything to keep that smile on your face, so he tagged along anyway.

Immediately, you tugged him towards the dance floor and he followed hesitantly. After only a few moments on the dance floor, Calum excused himself to the sidelines. He watched your expression fall, but you understood. You would never pressure him into anything he was uncomfortable with.

Calum felt like he could finally breathe properly from the edges of the gym.

He watched solemnly as the DJ began to play your favorite song. Your features lit up and Calum couldn’t help but smile, too. He wished he could go in there and dance with you but just the thought of being squished in between so many people made his pulse speed up and his palms sweaty.

He watched Dean approach you, clearly nervous, and his hands turned to fists. Calum had half a mind to go over there and punch him square in the face.

Calum knew he couldn’t do that, but he had fun imagining it.

Dean grabbed your waist, pulling you close, and Calum’s heart practically stopped.

He couldn’t take anymore, so with one last glance at your soft smile, Calum stalked off in an angry blur.

Calum knew if he had just asked, you would’ve reassured him it was only a dance.

Calum knew if he had just asked, everything wouldn’t have gone the way it did.

I was walking home on broken cobblestones just thinking of you when she pulled up like a figment of my worst intentions. She said "James, get in, let's drive,” those days turned into nights. Slept next to her but I dreamt of you all summer long.

The sun beat down on Calum’s back and he couldn’t wait to get home. He’d run out of water long ago, riding his skateboard in the early summer heat.

He stumbled home, skipping happily over cracks in the concrete, skateboard in hand.

He thought about seeing you after dinner. Taking you to your favorite tree and watching the stars. Or… looking at you while you looked at the stars. He thought about the way you danced with Dean. He still hadn’t told you how much it bothered him so he just let the resentment boil up until it stung the back of his throat.

Calum heard tires screech next to him, a familiar face in the driver's seat. Her red lipstick shimmered in the direct sunlight. Her sunglasses reflected Calum’s awestruck face.

“Calum, get in. Lets drive,” She said. Her lips quirked up into an inviting smile and Calum swayed hesitantly. “Aw, come on. I’ll drive you home.”

Calum looked around at the neighborhood once more, checking for witnesses, and then finally climbed into the silver convertible. As soon as he got in, his heart fluttered with guilt. His eyes filled with images of you, hurting, and he almost got out. Almost.

There was Dean again, haunting Calum through memories, smiling down at you, holding you. Calum gripped his skateboard harder, his knuckles growing white.

Her voice was so inviting and her car smelled so nice. The air conditioning hit Calum’s warm skin and soothed it instantly. Calum stayed.

Calum didn’t just stay, though. He could’ve forgiven himself for that.

Betty, I'm here on your doorstep and I planned it out for weeks now but It's finally sinking in. Betty, right now is the last time I can dream about what happens when you see my face again. The only thing I wanna do is make it up to you.

Calum tossed and turned in his sleep, getting more and more frustrated with the nerves. He would face you tomorrow. It would determine the outcome of everything he had been wondering and worrying about for weeks.

Tomorrow meant everything. He had one last night to drift into dreams about how you might react. The forgiveness or resentment. The smile or the tears. The hug or the shove.

He drifted to sleep with images of you playing in his mind. In your favorite sweater, his hand in yours.

Calum hoped with everything in him that you could see past his stupid mistake. But he prepared himself for the worst. You didn’t owe him anything.

So, I showed up at your party. Yeah, I showed up at your party. Yeah, I showed up at your party. Will you have me? Will you love me? Will you kiss me on the porch in front of all your stupid friends? If you kiss me, will it be just like I dreamed it? Will it patch your broken wings? I'm only seventeen. I don't know anything, but I know I miss you.

Calum straightened out his button down and shifted the flowers, watching a few stray petals fall loose and hit the pavement of your porch. He cleared his throat and listened anxiously while his heart pounded ferociously in his ear.

He could faintly hear commotion from within the confines of your home but he couldn’t make out anything they were saying.

His shaky hand extended towards the dark wood door and he knocked twice.

Cars were parked a block or two down the street -- all of your friends had already arrived.

Calum could lie and say he meant to be the last person, but in reality, he sat in his car for 30 minutes gathering up the nerve to come over there.

He could see multicolored balloons lining the walls inside. He watched as a figure appeared through the window, the tint making the figure only a silhouette.

The door began to open and Calum thought for a moment about running, but it was too late. Before he knew it, he was face to face with you again. For the first time in 2 months, you were looking at him and he was looking at you.

He watched as confusion and shock filled your eyes, and then disappeared, filling with pure curiosity. He didn’t notice any anger yet.

“Calum?” Your voice was like sugar. Calum’s knees felt weak.

“Yeah, hi (y/n).” Calum coughed. “Happy birthday.”

There were a million things Calum wanted to say and that wasn’t necessarily at the top of his list. He mentally face palmed. Your eyebrows knit together. “Thank you?” You looked down at the bouquet of flowers in his hand. “Are those for me?”

Calum looked down at the flower he almost forgot he was holding, too lost in your eyes to care about anything else. “Oh, yes. Yeah.” He stumbled, holding them out to you.

You took them without a word.

“So um…” Calum started, wringing out his sweaty hands. “I was hoping I could talk to you for a minute.”

You turned around for a moment towards the chatter coming from the kitchen and then turned back to face him with a sigh. “Why should I say yes?” You didn’t look angry… just tired.

Calum scratched the back of his neck anxiously. “You don’t owe me anything, I know that. I was hoping to apologize, if you’d let me. I know that I’m the biggest idiot on the planet and I broke your heart and there's no way I can go back and undo that, but I owe it to you to at least try to fix what I broke. You don’t have to let me, though. I wouldn’t be mad if you cursed me out or slapped me or slammed the door in my face. I deserve it. I hurt you, and I suck for that.” He took a deep breath staring at the ground.

Your eyes softened and you sighed. “Come on.” You grabbed Calum’s hand and tugged him into the house, shutting the door softly behind him.

Calum followed your lead as you stepped through the back door into the garden.

You’d planted more of the flowers you told him about months ago and Calum thought your vision was really coming to life. You pulled him to a small metal table in the corner and sat down.

Calum looked around again, taking in all you’d accomplished since you two last spoke. “It looks beautiful, (y/n).”

You sighed, proudly admiring the shrubs and greenery that surrounded you. “I needed something to take my mind off things so I kind of poured my soul into it.” You fiddled with your rings.

Calum knew he was what you needed to take your mind off of and that made him feel even worse. “What I did to you… it was unforgivable. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. I betrayed your trust and I hurt you in the worst way imaginable. That girl… it was nothing. It meant nothing.”

Calum watched you carefully as you took this in. Again, you didn’t look angry or sad — just emotionally drained. Numb. “I just… I guess I kinda just wanna know why. Was I… was I not enough?” Calum watched the tears well up that threatened to spill over and down your rosy cheeks.

He shook his head instantly. “No, no. Of course not. I spent a lot of time thinking about it because at first I didn’t even know. But I think I was just… jealous.”

You scoffed. “Jealous?” Calum blushed. “But of who?”

Calum inhaled deeply, prepared to completely embarrass himself. If it meant getting back on good terms with you. “Dean,” he muttered.

You couldn’t help but laugh. And not just chuckle — really laugh. “Dean? Dean Marshall. You were jealous of Dean Marshall?” You put a hand over your mouth to stifle the laughter. It felt nice to laugh after so many weeks of pain.

Calum rolled his eyes playfully. “Yes, Dean Marshall. When he danced with you at the formal I was pissed.”

You stopped laughing, seeing the hurt in Calum’s soft features.

“You didn’t really think I was interested in him?... Did you?” You asked.

Calum looked down, playing with a loose thread on his trousers.

You let out a heavy sigh. “Oh, Cal. I never had any feelings for Dean.”

“Deep down, I did know that. It was some petty revenge thing in my head. I should’ve just voiced my pain and I know you would’ve reassured me. I was so dumb. I’ve never regretted anything so much in my life.” Calum finished with an exasperated breath and you smiled at his passion.

“Do you want to come in for cake, Cal?”

Calum’s eyes shot up to read your face. You couldn’t be serious. You laughed at his eagerness and joy. “I would love to come in for cake,” Calum said easily.

You grabbed his hand, guiding him towards the back door and inside.

You ignored the series of gasps from your unsuspecting friends and found Calum a seat around the table. Nobody asked questions. They just smiled. If you were happy and safe, then they were happy too.

After some time, the sun was nearing the horizon and friends were bidding their goodbyes.

Calum hadn’t taken his eyes off you all night.

Your stomach tingled in anticipation whenever you caught his gaze.

Calum got a text from his mom saying she needed him home, so he begrudgingly headed for the door, his hand in yours.

“Happy birthday, again,” he whispered in your ear.

“Thank you for coming today. It must’ve taken a lot of guts.” You laughed at Calum’s expression.

“You have no idea. But I'm so glad I did it.” He looked down at you fondly and you felt as if your knees might give out.

Before you could stop and think about the consequences, you were leaning closer and so was he.

Your noses barely brushed and the air around you was heating. It felt like everything between you two was leading up to this very moment — this very kiss.

He stooped down a little lower, pressing his lips gently onto yours. You felt a rush of emotions. You had missed him all this time. You felt ready to try again - slowly building a mutual trust between you two again.

His lips folded over yours at a steady pace. It was soft and not rushed. It was perfect.

When he pulled away, your lips tingled at the absence of his.

You were startled by the sudden applause.

You friends had gathered in the hall and watched the entire thing. You hid your face in Calum’s shoulder.

Standing in your cardigan. Kissing in my car again. Stopped at a streetlight, you know I miss you.

You slipped into Calum’s car and he smiled fondly. He hadn’t been this happy in so long.

You grabbed his sweater -- the one that had once been yours -- and felt it between your fingers. “You still have this old thing?”

He smiled, his cheeks glowing a faint pink. He looked adorable with his curls tumbling down across his forehead. “It smells like you.”

You planted a gentle kiss on his cheek.

He had missed you. But he didn’t have to anymore.

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pomegranates-and-blood · 3 years

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hello! i have a✨nostalgia winter question✨ if it sounds fun! we’ve seen the priestess starting to embrace her role as queen but i wondered if her choosing to stay also would affect her approach to her role as a healer now that it’s a permanent gig? i remember her mentioning how different it was to be a healer among her own ppl than on the silk roads—do you think she thinks about her role/patients a little differently now that she is really starting to think of kattegat as home (i.e. freydis noticing her being more open and teaching some of the younger girls in until spring comes)? ADDITIONALLY after all your hard work, your Viking sub agenda is thriving! good for you good for all of us!!

Hello sweetheart! Of course, I love answering these!!

That is a very interesting question! I'll answer under the cut, because, as usual, I rambled 😉

As we know, whenever she can she puts her role as healer to the forefront, even sometimes without realizing it, like in that flashback scene with Freydis in "Until spring comes." or her second interaction with Ubbe in Ch43; because it is the thing that in any variation of this story she would be.

The other titles (Anassa, Hiereia , and -in Alatheia- Queen and wife) come and go, but the one thing she always will be, because she made the choice to so long ago, is a healer.

That affects her relationships, everything about her. From the start, the women she finds herself trusting she meets through her skill as a healer. Hell, the reason she and Ivar get to talking in Chapter 1 is because this crazy fuck injures himself so she's forced to heal him/talk to him. And to the people of Kattegat, she becomes more human the more she works as a healer with them, they come to care and admire or love her because of her skill as a healer, long before she even steps up as their queen.

I think her role itself doesn't change, but her acceptance of the closeness that bond represents does. She cares about the people she heals, even if she doesn't know them (the woman and child she couldn't save in the Ch40 flashback, for example), and that doesn't change in Kattegat, even if she would want it to. So now that's she's staying, now that these are in fact her people, there's a noticeable lack of distance she keeps between them and herself, and the people notice. There's at least one family that has the permission orders, more likely lol to have word sent to the queen of fucking Kattegat (even if she's in her bedroom with her husband) if their baby is to be born or some complications with the pregnancy take place (a tiny scene in Ch44); and that is a closeness, a concern, a care, that she didn't let herself have. Because, even if evidence pointed to the contrary, she liked believing she kept her distance and didn't form close bonds in her time in Kattegat. Which is, and I cannot stress this enough: utter bullshit.

There's a lot of smaller changes that have to do with the practice in itself. She has to come to terms with there being some remedies she will never make again, some techniques she will never put to practice again, because she doesn't have the ingredients and whatnot; and there's a certain bittersweetness with that, because even if Kattegat is a trading hub and she has access to a lot of imported materials, it will never be like the Silk Roads she spent her life in. Then again, there's a lot that she reluctantly has to accept she must learn, now that it's a 'permanent gig' (love that wording btw), because there are many ingredients/techniques she doesn't know of. I pity the fool that has to tell her she's doing something the wrong way, or try teaching her something about healing, but hey, it is what it is 😂

Then there's a lot of little things around the topic of healing that show things have changed: teaching younger girls how to dry and store plants like you mentioned as this closer bond she forms with these women, taking care of the more sickness-related problems that arise in Kattegat during the winter which is something she takes in and makes sure she can prepare for when next winter comes, being much more involved (her subtle way of accepting that this is something she has to learn about because she knows jackshit) in pregnancy and childbirth within Viking tradition; and all these little things.

And yessss, I've been blessed with all this wonderful femdom content for my favorite Vikings!! I plan on still adding more kindle to the fire, there's a sub!Ivar winter blurb coming soon, then a one shot of soft and subby Ivar (but that one may take a while longer), and a couple continuations to the sub!Hvitserk universe of Kiss you godless 😊

Thank you so much for such a wonderful question lovely! I hope the answer was to your liking! Sending you my love!! 😘💖

#answered asks #asks and replies #νοσταλγία asks

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broadstbroskis · 4 years

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idk if you’re still doing t-swift prompts but if you are could I request brock boeser and mary’s song!! btw loved your matty tkachuk + wearing his name story💕

ahhh thank you 💜💜

here is brock and mary’s song (with some accidental paper rings vibes thrown in, oops sorry not sorry🤷‍♀️)

-----

The evening of your fifth birthday, after all of your friends had gone home with their party bags and the only people left were your family and your next door neighbors, your sister comes running inside to drag you away from your brand new paint set to bring you outside where she was playing with her best friend.

As older siblings of their families, Lauren and Jessica were sure they knew best and it’d was only the start of what was sure to be a summer of being pulled into their games and forced into whatever role they didn’t want to play. The ugly stepsister from Cinderella. The student in class. The worst Cabbage Patch doll.

Luckily, you had a partner in crime of your own. Jessica’s brother, Brock, was almost two years older than you but that still made him younger than the two of them, and in Lauren and Jess’ minds, that may as well have made you both babies, dolls for the two of them to play around with.

Brock’s sitting on the ground, picking at the grass, looking grumpy, so whatever Jess and Lauren have planned, must be something he’s already been waiting for them to organize for a while. But your face lights up at the sight of your best friend and you happily go sit down next to him, content to just be near him as he continues to pick at blades of grass and see which ones are good for whistling with, while continuing to wait for your sisters.

Really, you’re always just happy to be near him. Brock hung the moon. He’s the best hockey player. He’s always so nice, including you in games with his friends or wandering over to your house after school or practice just to see if you wanted to do something.

“Okay.” Jess claps her hands together. “I think we’re ready.”

Lauren shoves a handful of dandelions in your hand and pulls you up to stand in front of her and Jess. “Stop!” She shrieks, when you go to make a wish on your bouquet. “Not yet!”

Jess is in the process of man-handling Brock to stand across from you and he’s still grumbling, trying to pull his arm away from his sister, but once he’s standing in front of you, he smiles at you, like the two of you are sharing a secret or teaming up against your older sisters- the way things have always been really.

You and Brock against the world.

“Brock.” Jess signs long-sufferingly. “Do you want to marry YN so that Lauren and I can be sisters forever?”

He gives his sister a look. “Uhh, I guess?”

She huffs at him, annoyed. “You’re supposed to say I do!”

“I do!”

“YN.” Lauren addresses you. “Will you marry Brock so that we can all be related and stay friends forever and ever?”

Is that what this meant? Weddings made you related to someone forever? As if you’d ever say no to that! Lauren and Jess are glaring but it’s Brock’s hopeful look that makes you grin. “I do,” You say solemnly.

“Great!” Jess cheers. “It’s time for rings.” She hands you each a round piece of construction paper. “Put this on each other’s fingers!”

“Yours is purple and Brock’s is blue, because those are your favorite colors.” Lauren adds, matter-of-factly.

Brock is smiling as you slip the blue circle on his finger and then you giggle as he tries to find one of yours that the purple ring will fit on. He finally slips it on your thumb, and it stays, mostly, and the two of you look back at your sisters.

“What’s that thing…” Lauren trails off.

“What thing?”

“That thing!”

“Oh!” Jess cries. “Um. I now pron-prin-ce you man and wife! Kiss the bride!”

Brock gives you a skeptical look and you eye him right back, but he obliges and gives you a small kiss, both of you immediately wiping your lips afterwards. “What next?” He asks skeptically.

“We blow out the flowers!” Lauren says, excitedly. “And make a wish!”

It’s easy to distribute your bouquet between the four of you and then make your own wish. You can’t ever imagine a more perfect day than today, so you just wish for more of them.

-----

The day of your sixteenth birthday is the day that Brock is drafted by the Vancouver Canucks and instead of the Sweet Sixteen party that your friends have been dying for, you spend it sitting in front of a television, anxiously waiting for his name to be called.

When it finally is, you can’t stop grinning, and announce that cake can now be served. Your dad makes a joke that there are two things to celebrate now, but you had no doubts in your heart that there wouldn’t have been. Brock was going to be drafted; you’d always known it. It was just a matter of where he went.

And well, blue had always been his favorite color.

The Boeser’s don’t return until mid-week, at which point summer break has begun, which means you’re pulling yourself out of bed at midday right around when they’re pulling into their driveway.

Your dad opens the front door, without looking up from the paper he’s reading on his way back to his home office, and you know instantly what that means, running outside to go meet Brock, still in the short shorts and oversized tee (that originally had belonged to him) you’d slept in last night.

Brock’s unloading the trunk of the car but he drops the bag he’s holding onto the driveway just in time, to catch you as you leap into his arms and spin you around.

“I’m so happy for you.” You mutter into his chest, when he returns you safely to the ground.

“I’m sorry I missed your birthday.” He says, into your hair.

“Best present ever.” You declare, ignoring that familiar fluttering feeling in your stomach that’s been popping up more and more often whenever he says incredibly sweet things like that.

“Yeah?” Brock laughs, squeezing you once. “Wait until you see what I brought you from Florida!”

“You brought me a present from Florida?” You gasp, teasing him. “You knew my birthday has been coming up and you waited until the day of to buy me a gift?”

He grins. “It’ll be worth it. Clear your schedule tonight, okay?”

You’d already agreed to go to a party with some of your friends, deep in the woods behind someone’s lake house, but you’re sure they’ll understand. “Okay.”

Brock returns the smile you send him with a grin. “Good.”

A few hours later, he’s leading you to your favorite ice cream shop and then laughing as he purposefully brushes some along your nose within minutes of sitting down. “Brock!” You laugh, twisting away.

“You missed a spot.” He teases. You pull a face at him, brushing at the side of your nose. “No.” He huffs. “Here.” He licks his thumb and then gently wipes the opposite side.

Your breath catches in your throat. He’s so close, so close, so freaking close. “Thanks.”

Brock smiles back. “Anytime.” But this smile seems different than his usual smile, definitely softer and with this hint of something you can’t quite put your finger on, which starts to drive you crazy when that smile stays on his face for the rest of the night.

It’s late when Brock finally pulls your gift up onto the table, still sitting out on the patio of the ice cream shop and overlooking Main Street in your town on the extremely mild June evening that has plenty of people still walking around. “Big bag,” You joke, and then attempt to fall back on an old stand-by to try and ease the fluttering in your stomach that’s been in overdrive because of the smile on his face. “You sure there’s not a car in there?”

Brock gives you a look. “I got drafted, I didn’t sign shit yet.” You laugh. “But go on, open it!”

You grin at him and then reach into the bag, pulling out a flat object, immediately grinning at the driftwood “greetings from Florida” sign that will fit perfectly in with the aesthetic of your room. “Hey, sweet!”

“There’s more,” Brock encourages.

You reach in, fingers touching fabric, and hoping beyond hope for a kitschy Florida t-shirt, you’re shocked when you pull out a Canucks jersey. “Brock.” You breathe, looking up to see his expression, but he’s closer than you’d expected, and suddenly he’s so close…

You close your eyes, reach up for his cheek, and kiss him back.

-----

It’s the first day of real spring in Vancouver and Brock convinces you that it’ll be a good idea to go and grab dinner and a drink at your favorite rooftop bar.

“It’s going to be crowded.” You whine at him. It’d been your least favorite thing about the city since moving in with him after you graduated college last spring. Everywhere was always packed the second the weather turned beautiful.

“Come on,” Brock whines back, mocking you, easily pulling a grin to your face. “It’s so nice; it’ll be worth it.”

Brock’s never lied to you before and you have to admit that he’s right about tonight as well as soon as the two of you start walking over. The bar’s not even super crowded, surprisingly, and you two grab a table in the corner easily, starting to make light chatter as you browse the menu, like you’re not just going to get the same flatbread that you always end up getting.

Brock laughs as you place your order and then makes his own choice, before turning back to you. “So what’s new?”

You groan. “Lauren is driving me crazy.” There’s a sound from behind you and you turn to look, but Brock grabs both your hand and your attention back.

“How?” He asks, with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye.

“These stupid wedding favors and this stupid bachelorette party!” Jesus, did he need you to go on? Your sister was a certified Bridezilla and everyone, including Lauren, admitted it!

“Well,” Brock says mildly. “I guess you never know what you’ll be like until you actually have to start planning a wedding.” Another noise behind you has you nosily turning to look until Brock follows his first statement with, “Are you ready to see what we’ll be like?”

You’re not even halfway turned to looking at the table behind you and you think you get whiplash turning back toward him. He did-what the-what did he say?

But sure enough, Brock is slipping out of his chair and onto one knee, holding open a small box to show off the most beautiful diamond ring you could imagine.

“You’re going to have to ask me better than that.”You somehow manage to get out.

He grins. “Will you let me replace the construction paper with a real one, YN?”

There’s definitely tears running down your face as you nod, you can’t even remember if you actually ever say the word “yes”, but there’s a ring on your finger and you’re kissing him through the tears and he’s running his thumb against your cheeks when he pulls back.

Which is when you realize that everyone on the roof are your family and friends. Jess and Lauren sweep you into a hug, alternating comments about how “you’ll see” once you actually start planning and at the same time, squealing about their happiness. Quinn, Petey, and Jake, three of Brock’s teammates, start a ping-pong game with you, bouncing you back and forth between the three of them for a minute, sharing their excitement.

Over their shoulders, you see Brock is grinning at you as he’s wrapped up with your parents. And suddenly, you can’t stand not being next to him; it’s the hardest thing to wrap up with everyone congratulating you and push your way over to Brock.

“I love you.”

He grins back, somehow wider, even though the grin hasn’t left his face since he slid the ring on your finger. “I love you too.”

“No.” You try not to groan in frustration because how is he not getting this? He planned this whole thing for you. He is the world’s most amazing human, your rock, your idol. The person you’ve looked up to most for as long as you could remember. “I just- never mind.” You loop your arms around his waist, sure he won’t understand. “I really love you.”

“I’d hope so.” Brock teases. “Because I’m really serious this time. We might have just been fucking around with the paper, but this one’s for life.”

#brock boeser imagine #brock boeser fanfic #vancouver canucks fanfic #nhl imagines #nhl fanfiction #hockey imagines #hockey fanfiction #my hockey fics #hockey and tswift prompts

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drelleboag · 3 years

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“Who got the power”? Jese...that’s who!

So, it is confirmed, after 9 years of being a core part of the girl band Little Mix Jesy Nelson has left the building…and why? Because Jesy has had to endure unrelenting trolling and cyber bullying since appearing on the X Factor in 2011. Jesy has been targeted for the past 9 years about her looks, her body shape and her voice…all of which, in my humble opinion are odd things to target as I think Jesy is beautiful, has the figure that many women aspire to (even go “under the knife” to achieve) and an amazing singing voice. However, mine and many hundreds of thousands of voices upholding such a view has little effect on the negativity wrought by the lesser number of cruel online bullies who remain anonymous in order to spread their spiteful and incendiary “voice”.

Seven in 10 young people report experiencing cyberbullying and 26% report feeling suicidal, so clearly the psychological impact of cyberbullying impacts deeply, leading to serious mental health illness such as depression and anxiety, low self-esteem and loneliness. I remember watching Jesy’s speaking out about her experiences and the experiences of others in a documentary on BBC3 in 2019, and at the time wondering if it would relieve the venom that stalks her on social media platforms. Clearly the answer to that is a resounding “NO”, but how Jesy has navigated her own “story” since then is testament to her tenacity and resilience. So kudos to her fighting spirit and strength of character by saying in the most public way possible “enough is enough!” may she be a standard bearer for those who have to suffer at the hands of cowardly bullies who hide behind anonymised false identities whilst they vomit their vitriolic and often unsubstantiated “point of view”, provoking additional spewing of hatred and attacking from others simply “because they can”.

So why do cyberbullies and trolls do it? Well to answer that honestly, you would need to ask them…and we don’t really know who they are as they hardly step up and identify themselves…even Katy Hopkins, whose public and hateful outbursts have led to her famously being branded as the most hated Celebrity in Britain, has the Kahunas and honesty to be open about it – albeit as a means of increasing her fame and notoriety as the “villain” perhaps? Anyway, I digress…one of the key reasons that trolls troll and cyberbullies bully online is because they are anonymous. It has long been recognised that anonymity leads to deindividuation and subsequently all manner of negative behaviour…just think back to any and all crowd-based disturbance… it is individuals within the crowd that cause the most harm, act in the most violent, antisocial and even criminal ways, simply because they are anonymous, and their individual actions are less detectable. It is a small number (in the grand scheme of things) of individuals who start the ball rolling by trolling and cyberbullies continue in their wake once the poison has been injected into the comments on social media platforms. As with trolls, cyberbullies are anonymous and their actions are kept, albeit very close to the line, within the parameters of what is “legal”. In the UK cyberbullying is not, in itself a crime… shocking, but true. There are specific laws that might be breached by trolling someone online, such as the Malicious Communications Act (1988), the Protection from Harassment Act (1997) or the Communications Act (2003) to name but three…but how do you prosecute someone who is anonymous? and who ensures that their actions are as close to illegal as they can get, without (mostly) crossing that line? Basically… you can’t!

So why are celebrities such as Jesy being targeted? Is it jealousy? Or is it something else?

In answering this question, I can only voice my own view, one that I have talked about across the media for some time…it may be explained by the fact that we now pretty much all have social media and can “connect” with “@real….” Celebrity accounts across numerous platforms. Celebrities are now immediately accessible…we feed off of their comments and tweets, we see and review their photos as they live their lives in the public sphere…and as such, we feel a far stronger connection with our chosen celebs. For their part they send us “blanket statements” about how much they love us, how much they are thankful for our support of their latest album/movie/TV role/award…etc. But this is a precarious situation as now we can feel that we own our celebrity, that without us they are nothing that we gave them their status and that we can control their future success or failure. For celebrities such as Jesy in 2011 the feelings of ownership can be argued to be particularly important. The public had journeyed with Little Mix from being created on X Factor® (as each band member auditioned as a solo artist) through their auditions as a group, to the judges houses and finally voting for them to win. Social media accounts were created as part of their existence and platforms were regularly updated with news about their journey; this all added to establish a sense of ownership of the band’s successes (e.g., “if we don’t vote for them, they will be sent home this week”)…and the public developed a need to be connected to them 24-7, expected immediate responses to and likes of comments/tweets, feeling let down if responses are not quick enough, the activity of favourites were compared to fellow band members and the “who is your favourite?” question was raised (mine, btw was always Jese!). A comparator that has always made between females (and is now on the rise for males too) is about idealised (and outdated) looks, body shape/size…for example: too thin, too fat, too small, too big, too short, too tall, too White, too Black, too flat chested, too busty.

Anything that allows comparison (so basically anything at all), that favouritism of one person over another that then offers the opportunity for trolls to make their first insinuations and drip-feeding of poison onto the platform… someone responds to them… and it feeds their need to add more negativity, and so it begins…cyberbullies then see an opportunity to really dig in with some nastiness…again, by responding, their negativity and hatefulness grows… they positively thrive on the defence of their chosen target! They don’t care what you think of them, you don’t know who they are…they could be anyone for all you know! … and there is that anonymity again!

So, what, if anything can be done? What can targets of trolls and cyberbullies do? How can they protect themselves from experiencing the psychological harm that comes from persistent pervasive drip-feeding of poison about their looks, their body shape, their personality, their talents, or other personal attribute aimed at bringing about the maximum hurt?

Well take a leaf out of Jesy’s book…take back control

I have cobbled together some loose ideas that might help you work through the process of taking back control below, these are simply my thoughts about what you can do, but if they help then that is only a good thing:

1. Make it known that you are coming off of social media and do so straight away. You do not have to justify the decision, and do not wait around for the bullies to respond…just close your accounts.

2. Now identify what is causing you the most upset. Is it the words? are they tapping into your own insecurities? or is it the intention behind their words that is most upsetting? is it something else? …etc. If you don’t know, speak to close others (e.g., family and friends) and ask for their view.

3. Once identified, focus on what impact experiencing the cyberbullying and trolling is having on your mental health…and be honest with yourself…and speak to close others (e.g., family and friends) about how they feel it is impacting you, remember that they see you from the outside, from your behaviour and responding to them…not from the inside (as you do!). Don’t feel judged or guilty, it is simply about identifying what it is that you

4. Next, address the immediate issue about your mental health. If it is having a detrimental effect on your day-to-day life speak to your GP, take someone with you if you feel able to; having a second “voice” can often be helpful to identify issues that you might forget about, or that you haven’t identified; your GP needs as much information as possible to help you properly. If you are not impacted on a day-to-day basis, and/or once your mental health is on a stable footing, ask yourself whether you feel able to tackle this without professional help, or whether you should undertake some counselling? or whether you are willing to work with close others (family and friends)? and importantly are your close others able to (although they may desperately want to) support you properly? If no to the latter, seek out a counsellor or seek advice online or over the phone from one of the many mental health charities that exist (e.g., Mind, NHS mental health and wellbeing support, young minds) who will signpost you to appropriate support networks.

5. Recognise that working through the effects of your psychological and emotional trauma is not a quick process. It takes no time at all to knock someone down (for chronic attacks this is exaggerated) but it takes a long time for them to have the confidence to stand up again. Be invested in building up your resilience and confidence.

6. Surround yourself with people who mean something to you; do not isolate yourself…we are social creatures and need to be with others. If you live alone, join a group and get involved in community activities, if you are religious get involved in your faiths’ community projects … I am sure that your volunteering will be most gratefully received (and I believe even permitted under tier 3 restrictions…but do check!). There are ways that you can be active and be sociable that do not involve going to the pub! Which by the way is totally out for anyone in tier 3 anyway!

7. Live your life free from the chains of those who brought you down!

Finally, always remember that you are you…and only you can be you…it is not for others to tell you who you are, and anyone who wants to do so is simply not worth your concern. Be stronger than them and remove yourself from the equation…take you back from them…and always have the lyrics from Little Mix themselves in 2017:

“Who got the power? I got the, I got the power I got the, I got the power I got the, I got the power Hold up!”

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: James Abrahart / Camille Purcell / Dano Omelio

Power lyrics © Bmg Gold Songs, 360 Music, Artist Publishing Group East, Robopop Musik, Sony/atv Music Publishing Allegro (uk), Jayded Ink Publishing

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sidleyparkhermit · 4 years

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There is a story behind "a person who dies on the eve of Rosh Hashanah is a tzaddik - a righteous person." (Tzaddeket for a woman, btw.) I love seeing this teaching passed around on FB, and I want you to know the full story. The story as I learned it is from a teaching built upon a discussion in the Talmud of the "who shall live, who shall die" concept of who is written in the book of life for the year to come at the High Holy Days, and who is not. (BT Rosh Hashanah 16b, I believe.) A truly righteous person, too, must eventually die (as death is the inevitable conclusion of life). But God does not want to let this precious, righteous person go; God wants to cling on to every second of having this person on earth. But, God is God... and God knows that this person's name is not written in the Book of Life for the year to come. So God waits until the very last possible moment of the year, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, to allow the Angel of Death to descend. And finally that truly righteous person breaths her last and her soul departs. Gosh I love that teaching. Now, of course, I do not believe - as most progressive Jewish folks don't - in any literal sense of a "Book of Life," or that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people, or that a decree is set regarding our life or death on a certain date. I believe that we each write our own book of life, so to speak. And our actions write themselves in it, and our deepest truths are found within it. And every book has a conclusion. But the best books don't really end when you finish reading and sadly close the cover. They stay with you, linger in your heart, arise in your thoughts, and change you. They become a part of you. So it is with someone like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her book may have closed, but her legacy remains with us as long as we allow it to. What she taught us. Who she insisted on being despite how society would have limited her. The role model she was for so many women and people of all genders. How she dissented. (How she made fashion choices aligned with her judicial decisions! Had to get that in there.) The equity she fought so diligently for. Her ethics, her bravery, her intelligence. I could go on and on. These will endure long past her time on earth. Just like God, we didn't want to let go of her. We held on until the very last moment of this precious, righteous woman's life. And now she is no more. May we merit the opportunity to live her legacy and may we honor her memory.

Rabbi Emily Segal

#ruth bader ginsburg #rbg

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thelastspeecher · 4 years

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Superhero/villain AU - Baby Daddy Drama

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a ficlet! I’ve been busy, haven’t had time to write up ficlets. But I have a bit of a break right now, and since I won’t be posting the next chapter of Recoil until tomorrow (I decided I needed to edit it more), here’s some stuff I wrote up today. I’ve danced around Tate’s role in the Superhero/villain AU, mostly because I couldn’t figure out the circumstances behind how he comes to be. But I finally figured it out, so behold! Tate McGucket’s origin story.

(Btw, I forgot to mention, but like in most of my nonsense, Fidds is trans in this)

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

“They’re down,” Stan said, walking into the living room. Ford looked up from his book.

“Good. That took a bit longer than usual.”

“Eh.” Stan joined Ford on the couch. “Thanks for letting us chill at your place for a while.”

“No problem. May I ask why, though?”

“Fidds had a baby today,” Stan said casually. Ford’s eyes widened. “Angie went to go see him and the baby, but we figured that we’d wait a couple days before the girls met their new cousin. They can be hell on wheels, after all.” Ford chuckled.

“That’s an apt descriptor of them, yes.” Stan’s cellphone dinged. He dug it out of his pocket. “Is that an update from Angie?”

“Yep.” Stan grinned at his phone. “And a picture. Aw, that’s a cute kid. Not as cute as the girls, y’know, but still. Pretty damn-” His phone chimed again. Stan’s face went slack.

“Stan?” Ford asked, after a few moments passed in silence.

“Shit,” Stan whispered. He looked up at Ford. “Ford…”

“Yes?”

“You- uh- nine months ago, you and Fidds didn’t-” Stan rubbed his face. Ford felt dread begin to build in his gut. “You guys didn’t knock boots or something, did you?”

“Wh- my sexual history is none of your concern,” Ford blustered, trying to mask his growing unease. Stan pinched the bridge of his nose.

“No, I think it is right now. Fidds’ kid has twelve fingers.” A heavy weight settled in Ford’s stomach.

“Pardon?” he asked. Stan silently handed him his phone. Ford looked down at the messages Angie had sent. The first was a picture of a newborn swaddled in a white blanket, with a large nose like Fiddleford’s and thick, dark brown hair. Immediately after the picture was a text.

“Tate here has twelve fingers…” Stan’s phone chimed and buzzed as another text arrived from Angie. “Fidds won’t say who the other parent is, but I don’t need your mom’s power to figure it out. You need to talk to Ford right away.” Ford swallowed and returned Stan’s phone.

“I didn’t even realize he was expecting. He didn’t tell me.”

“Why? He told everyone else.”

“I- when we-” Ford looked away, feeling a flush beginning to creep onto his face. “I was very…emotionally vulnerable that night. Maybe he was worried about how I’d react.” Stan was silent. “As for why he won’t tell anyone outright who helped to- to conceive-”

“Seems pretty dumb, since it’s obvious,” Stan muttered.

“I assume Lute is there?”

“…Yeah.”

“He probably wants to spare Lute’s feelings.” Ford looked at Stan again. Stan rubbed his face. “I mean…”

“Okay, yeah, you and Lute used to date, which is…really awkward for all this, but Lute’s not an idiot, and Fidds knows that. Lute can figure it out. Why the hell would he keep his mouth shut when it’s this obvious?” A strange look crossed Stan’s face. “…Ford.”

“Yes?”

“When did you and Lute break up?” Stan asked in a dangerous tone.

“…Nine months ago.”

“Son of a-” Stan put his head in his hands. “Please tell me that what I’m thinking is wrong. Please tell me you didn’t rebound from my brother-in-law by sleeping with one of my other brothers-in-law.”

“If I was good at lying, I would,” Ford said softly. Stan let out a loud groan. “Look-”

“Okay, how soon after the breakup did you two sleep together?” Stan interrupted. Ford was silent. “Stanford.”

“That night.”

“That night?!” Stan whipped his head up to stare at Ford. “Holy fucking shit, really? While Lute was crying over the breakup, sitting on my couch and eating my ice cream, you were banging his older brother? Son of a bitch, Sixer, the McGuckets aren’t the only family with twiggy, big-nosed farm boys!”

“I- Fiddleford was visiting, we were reminiscing about our college days, and-” Ford looked down at his book, still open on his lap. “Even though Lute and I parted on amicable terms, I was still emotionally vulnerable. Fiddleford offered me comfort and one thing led to another and-”

“You do realize he’s gonna kill you, right?” Stan asked flatly. “The day you two broke up, you slept with his brother. And you didn’t just sleep with his brother, you got his brother pregnant!”

“I didn’t know about that last part!” Ford snapped, slamming his book shut.

“That doesn’t make the rest of it hunky-dory!” Stan shot back.

“You’re not exactly one to criticize me for who I sleep with!”

“God fucking-” Stan ran a hand through his hair, which was beginning to smoke. “You are not gonna bring me and Angie into this! We made a shitty decision, yeah, but it wasn’t half as shitty as yours!”

“You were archnemeses!”

“You slept with your ex-boyfriend’s older brother the day you broke up!” Stan thundered. He shook his head. “God, my three-year-old daughters can tell right from wrong, but I need to explain to you why what you did was bad?”

“I just- I don’t hear any of this vitriol being sent Fiddleford’s direction,” Ford stammered. He could feel himself running out of steam, guilt beginning to replace his rage.

“Two things. First, he’s not fucking here. Second, he just had a baby. I’ll wait for him to be out of the damn hospital before I yell at him.”

“How considerate,” Ford muttered. Stan’s eyes narrowed.

“Don’t get cute with me.” He jabbed a finger at Ford’s chest. Ford winced. Stan was worked up enough that his powers were emerging; the jab felt like it was from a red-hot fire poker. “You’re the one that fucked up here. You couldn’t keep it in your pants long enough for the dust to settle from your breakup. You and Fidds. Lute’s not gonna be happy about this.”

“You’re not going to tell him, are you?” Ford asked. Stan scowled.

“Hell no. But it doesn’t matter. Underneath that blustery, overprotective twink exterior, Lute’s just as smart as Angie and Fidds. He’ll be able to figure it out. And he��s gonna be hurt.” Ford felt his chest ache. “He’s gonna be hurt that the ex-boyfriend he loved so much and parted on such good terms with slept with his brother. And he’s gonna be hurt that his brother – the one he’s stood up for his whole life – would sleep with his ex-boyfriend.” Ford slumped against the couch. “He’s gonna use that anger of his to hide how much this whole thing hurts him. He was so damned excited to have a new nephew to spoil, and now he knows how that nephew was made.” Stan looked away. “Lute and I might have started off rough, but we’re good now. I’m not gonna be on your side this time.” Stan stood up. “I’m gonna take the girls and head home.”

“But you just got them to nap.”

“I don’t wanna be anywhere near you when Lute comes to your door demanding answers,” Stan said. His voice was devoid of emotion. “I sure don’t want my kids around.” Stan’s phone chimed again. Stan looked down at it. His face hardened. “Yep.”

“What?” Ford asked weakly. Stan shoved his phone in his pocket.

“Lute figured it out. He’s on his way.”

“How bad-”

“Count yourself lucky that he needs Angie’s help to make tornadoes.” Stan began to head towards the room his daughters were napping in. “You might wanna invest in some scuba gear, though.”

-----

The door opened to reveal Fiddleford, dressed in baggy clothes, a towel tossed over one shoulder. Fiddleford rubbed the bags under his eyes.

“I was expectin’ you at some point,” he said tiredly. Ford swallowed.

“May- may I come in?”

“By all means.” Fiddleford stood to the side, allowing Ford to enter. Ford had visited Fiddleford’s home a few times. Each time, it had been somehow both cluttered and clean; every single one of the many pieces of machinery tucked away on some shelf or in a drawer somewhere. Now, though, it was a mess. Empty boxes for various baby-related items lined the hallway leading to the door. In the far-off living room, Ford could see baby clothes and toys scattered on the floor.

“How- how are you doing?” Ford asked softly as he stepped inside. Fiddleford closed the door behind him with a shaky laugh.

“I’ve got no clue how Stan ‘n Angie managed to deal with two at once.” A shadow fell over Fiddleford’s face. “Then again, no one in the fam’ly was just pretendin’ to be nice when they helped out with Danny ‘n Daisy.”

“What do you mean?”

“My folks are here,” Fiddleford said in a low voice. Ford’s mouth went dry. “They wanted to stop by fer a couple days to help. And…well…once word spread about Tate’s parentage…” Fiddleford trailed off. “They’re goin’ easy on me right now, ‘cause I’m still a bit vulnerable. But once I’m back to normal, I wouldn’t be surprised if my whole garden up and died, or if a freak windstorm dinged up the house.” Fiddleford sighed. “Honestly, I wish they’d be upfront about their frustration. It’d be better than this fake cheerfulness.”

“This seems rather…harsh,” Ford ventured cautiously. Fiddleford slumped against the wall, rubbing his face.

“I wonder if their reactions would be dif’rent if we weren’t a fam’ly of villains. The ‘no snitches, no traitors’ code runs deep. And I’ve betrayed Lute.” Fiddleford’s voice broke. “My own brother.”

“How is he?” Ford asked. Fiddleford shook his head.

“If I knew, I’d tell ya. Within about five minutes of seein’ Tate up close, he stormed out. Haven’t seen him since. He’s- Lute ‘n Angie are awful sim’lar. They struggle to keep their emotions under wraps, ‘specially in the heat of the moment. I get the feelin’ Lute knows he wouldn’t be able to control his powers if he spent time with me or Tate. He might be fine if I got a bit scratched up, but he wouldn’t want Tate to get caught in the crossfire.”

“It doesn’t help that Lute tends to use anger to mask his more vulnerable emotions.”

“No. It doesn’t.” Fiddleford bit his lip. Finally, he let out a long sigh. “Well, no point in delayin’ it. Come meet the lil Tater Tot.” Ford silently followed Fiddleford down the hall and into the living room. Mrs. McGucket sat in a rocking chair, holding a small bundle, while Mr. McGucket was tidying the room. Mr. McGucket looked up at the sound of footsteps. His face twisted.

“You!” he snarled, stomping over to Ford. “Get out!”

“Mr. McGucket, I just-”

“Leave! You broke my son’s heart and then broke it again! Lute’s been devastated by this.” Mr. McGucket shook his head. “Can’t believe I was naïve enough to think that Stan would be the problem of the two of ya.”

“Mr. McGucket-”

“No arguin’, boyo. Yer not welcome in this place. Not after what you’ve done.”

“Pa,” Fiddleford interjected. “This is my home. I let Stanford in. He can stay until I kick him out.” Mr. McGucket glared at Fiddleford. The venom in his expression startled Ford.

“If Lute hears-”

“Mearl,” Mrs. McGucket said, still rocking back and forth in her chair. “Stanford has a right to meet his son.”

“Th-” Ford started.

“Don’t thank me,” Mrs. McGucket said shortly. “Then I’d have to say you were welcome. And you aren’t.” Ford’s body filled with ice at her vicious tone. She got up from the chair and strode over. As she got closer, Ford could feel harsh, dry, hot wind biting where his skin was exposed. Fiddleford looked at his mother, exasperated.

“Ma. Please cut that out.”

“Hmph.” Mrs. McGucket pursed her lips into a straight line, but the wind stopped. “Hold out yer arms.” Ford did as he was told. Mrs. McGucket carefully deposited the bundle she was holding into his arms. Ford felt his heart begin to race. He carefully parted the infant’s bangs to reveal his eyes. Tate stared stoically at him, his eyes brown, rather than Fiddleford’s blue.

“Hello, Tate,” Ford croaked. Mr. and Mrs. McGucket exchanged a frustrated look before turning away and marching out of the room. Ford swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. “Fiddleford, I’m sorry that your parents are-”

“We’re both to blame,” Fiddleford said. He stroked Tate’s cheek with one finger. “I refuse to let ya bear it all on yer own.” His voice was thick with emotion. Ford could only nod, unable to speak, the weight of everything that was happening finally crashing over him in full.

“He’s very- he’s very handsome,” Ford managed, still staring at Tate.

“I agree,” Fiddleford said softly. Tate yawned widely. Despite himself, Ford smiled. He held out a finger. Tate eagerly grabbed it with his hand.

His six-fingered hand. Ford had known Tate had twelve fingers like him, but actually seeing it in person was more than he could bear. He let out a choked sob.

“You all right?” Fiddleford asked. Ford shook his head. “What’s wrong?”

“Well, my ex-boyfriend flooded my house, my sister-in-law refuses to let me in her house, my twin brother is following her lead, and the relationship I built with my sister-in-law’s family is crumbling. And all of it is because of the conception and birth of my son.” Ford closed his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I hoped it wouldn’t be obvious whose he was,” Fiddleford said. “I thought I might be able to get away with no one suspecting a thing.”

“Polydactyly is dominant. There was a 50% chance he’d be like me.”

“And 50% chance he wouldn’t.”

“I just- you were really going to keep me in the dark?” Ford asked softly. “About my son? You expected to raise him as a single parent, never telling me whose he was?”

“I hadn’t planned that far ahead. All’s I planned was keepin’ it a secret from Lute fer a while. Maybe until he’d found himself a new main squeeze.”

“What if I had gotten back together with Lute? What then?”

“I…” Fiddleford looked away. “Like I said. I didn’t plan nearly as far in advance as I should have. I just wanted to keep Lute from gettin’ upset like he did.”

“No matter how long you held off telling him, he would have been upset,” Ford pointed out. Fiddleford sighed.

“Yer right.” He rubbed his forehead. “All I can hope for now is that he cools off a bit. Give the sit’ation some time, and maybe I can build up a relationship with him again.” Tate began to fuss loudly. “He’s prob’ly hungry.”

“Oh.” Ford handed Tate to Fiddleford. “I- I should probably go. I have some work to do at my mom’s place.” Fiddleford cocked his head curiously. “She was the only person willing to take me in while my house gets repaired.”

“Ah.”

“Even still, she’s pissed at me. Stan told her what happened.” Ford rubbed his forehead. “It feels a bit like it’s just me against the world right now. And rightfully so.”

“I’ve been feelin’ the same way m’self,” Fiddleford said softly. He took a hold of Ford’s hand and squeezed it. “Don’t worry. It might take a while, but things’ll blow over soon.”

“Easy enough for you to say. Aerokinesis runs in your family,” Ford said. Fiddleford managed a small smile. On impulse, Ford leaned over to kiss Tate’s forehead. “Goodbye, Tate. I look forward to spending more time with you.” Tate stopped fussing for a moment to stare at him in shock. Fiddleford chuckled softly.

“I think he’s lookin’ forward to it, too.”

#this is some top-notch Drama in an already Dramatic AU #I'm very proud of this even tho it also makes me feel v bad for Lute #Lute doesn't deserve this. he's just a good boy who wanted a clean break with a boyfriend for once #but nope. Ford and Fidds made sure that didn't happen #Superhero/villain AU #Stanley Pines #Stanford Pines #Fiddleford McGucket #Pa McGucket #Ma McGucket #McGucket Family #Tate McGucket #my writing #ficlet #speecher speaks

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katrou1894-blog · 4 years

Text

Frozen 2 Movie Review (No Spoilers Until Partly Through)

*All rights to this photo belong to Walt Disney Studios Hi Everyone!

Welcome back to Katie’s Messy Little Blog! I want to do something different (again) for this blog post. A movie review!

I, like many others, flocked to the movie theater the weekend before Thanksgiving to see the greatly anticipated Frozen II. (Sorry it took me so long to get this review out btw. The end of November and beginning of December has been super busy! 😅 )

[FYI the first half of this blog will be spoiler-free, so it is safe to read the first half of my blog if you haven’t seen the movie yet and you don’t want spoilers. It will be super obvious when we hit the spoiler part of the blog 😉]

I’m going to start by sharing, I LOVED this movie! I think it is one of the best films that Disney has produced this decade! (Not quite the best because I actually think that spot belongs to Coco, but this would be a close second!) Although Frozen II is a sequel, it really didn’t feel like one to me. Frozen II, of course, has the same cast of characters (with a couple of great additions like Lieutenant Mattias and Bruni), but this film also had almost an entirely different feel to it than its predecessor. Everything from the high fantasy elements of the film to the (at least in my opinion) much more mature soundtrack felt very different, but “good different.”

Frozen II also did an excellent job of tying the two films together. There are quite a few specific call back to the first film, both serious and humorous, which makes the jump from the first to the second film much smoother than it might have been without these specific references. Plus the storyline of Frozen II really is just a continuation of the first film, full of plausible and likely next steps for each of the characters.

Other then plotline, I also really loved some deeper Nordic cultural references and influences that Frozen II includes, the absolutely gorgeous animation (seriously one of the visually prettiest movies I have ever seen!) and the incredible, heartfelt and meaningful music. I could go on about all of these topics for a bit, but I strongly encourage you to go out and see the film and see what I mean for yourself!

SPOILER WARNING!!!!

(If you read past this section and you haven’t seen the film yet it is your own fault that you got Frozen II spoilers 😉 You have been warned.) For those of you who have seen Frozen II or to those of you who don’t care about reading about spoilers, welcome to the spoiler section of this blog! I am going to start my spoiler section by sharing my only real complaint about the film.

Frozen II leaves some VERY IMPORTANT sections of the film unclear. They chose to vaguely tell/hint at major reveals, leaving (I believe) many moviegoers somewhat confused until they later explain what happened in the film. There are two key moments, in particular, in which this happens.

The first being when Elsa awakens the spirits of the forest. This supposedly occurs at the very end of Elsa’s song, “Into the Unknown,” when she reaches out to the phantom voice that has been calling to her and she conjures the weird floating, ice-diamond, element symbols throughout Arendelle. Although this scene was showcased in promotional materials for the film, I was still very confused by this moment until Elsa tells Anna a few minutes later (after the entire population of Arendelle is evacuated to the nearby cliffs) that she had summoned the spirits of the forest (okay…). Admittedly, upon the second viewing of this film (Yes, I have seen it twice already. Judge all you want, I am content with my life choices. 😂) this series of events made much more sense because through the course of “Into the Unknown” Elsa actually dances/interacts with each of the elemental spirits which (at best) hints at Elsa potentially awakening the spirits. (I guess…) I think this really didn’t make sense the first time around because the film hadn’t yet explained what the water horse, hopping flame, the rock giants and the gust of wind were (it had only implied). So (I believe) between the overall vagueness of the scene and the lack of prior explanation of what the spirits are that’s why at least I was (perhaps many others were too) scratching my head at this point.

The other key moment that was unclear was when Elsa discovers that she is the fifth spirit. This occurs during Elsa’s other show stopper tune, “Show Yourself.” I really just don’t think this scene is very clear because one moment Elsa is in the large ice room surrounded by images of her memories, then she is singing with one of her mother’s images. (Who turns out to be the voice calling her?? Also unclear about this, however, the actress who voices Queen Iduna for Frozen II, Evan Rachel Wood, is credited for singing this song so I guess so??) Then suddenly the elemental shape appears (which not so discreetly is in the shape of a snowflake (We all see what you did there Disney)), Elsa steps into the center of this shape, and then she gets, yet another, dramatic makeover while she is singing an epic song. Don’t get me wrong, this is a stunning sequence and a super cool moment, but other then the makeover, a giddy face by Elsa, and a glowing snowflake, but there is no direct explanation on what is happening in this scene until about 20 minutes later when Elsa explains it to Anna. When I first saw this scene I guessed that they were trying to imply that Elsa is the fifth spirit, but it just wasn’t clear.

Now, in defense of this scene, I really am not sure how they could have made it more clear other than maybe Elsa saying to herself, “Of course, it was me all along!” However, I understand why the filmmakers may not have wanted to do this since it would seem quite narcissistic if Elsa had stated this, especially at this exact moment. Nonetheless, this scene did lose some of its power because of the lack of clarity.

I will also say that the overall spirit plotline/origin story is very vague and it leaves me with quite a few questions, specifically about the spirits. I am willing to, for the most part, overlook most of this vagueness because I did overall enjoy the film that much and I think that Disney is really striving for a different kind of storyline with this film because of the spirits and high fantasy elements. [However, if Disney actually answers my questions about the spirits (especially more on why Elsa is a spirit) I would not be opposed to a Frozen III. Assuming, of course, that they stay true to their commitment to high-quality storytelling. Seriously Disney, please don’t just make Frozen III for the money. If you do it well then you can both make great art and make a ton of money.]

Okay, now that I have shared my only real frustration with Frozen II, I want to get back to sharing about the film’s strengths.

The character development in this film is truly amazing! The majority of the film’s focus was, of course, on Elsa and Anna, but there was some really great character development for the beloved side characters in the Frozen gang. Both Olaf and Kristoff really grew in this film and took some maybe slightly unexpected, but interesting and crucial roles within the film.

Olaf in this film is “growing up” and “maturing” which leads him to ask a bunch of questions, to research, and to essentially become a walking and talking fun fact machine. Olaf represents children that have endless questions about the world and how everything works. I love that this is the direction that the filmmakers chose to progress Olaf’s character. Plus they use Olaf’s curiosity of life as an important vessel of key information that the film needs to explain in order for other parts of the film to make sense. This primarily being the concept that “water has memory” which Olaf shares with the group and keeps insisting on throughout the film. (And which he turns out to be right about, at least according to the film.)

[Also I really love Olaf’s silly line, “Samantha?” Towards the beginning of his song “When I Am Older.” It has been reported that Josh Gad, the actor who voices Olaf, did, in fact, improvise this line and the filmmakers loved it so much that it stayed in the film. However, I am burning with the question of Who is Samantha??? For now, I choose to believe that it must be the name of the promised, but not delivered upon, girlfriend of Olaf which was suggested during early discussions of the film who clearly was cut from the end result. ‍💁 ] Kristoff also has some truly incredible character development himself! Kristoff has always had an interesting role within the world of Frozen. He starts off as the brutish, but lovably dorky companion of Anna in her original search for her sister, then through the course of their journey he turns into the true love interest for Anna (leaving Hans already not looking super great before he reveals he is evil). Essentially, this is his entire arch for the first film. Naturally, Frozen II deals with Kristoff’s next character steps. It was absolutely no surprise to me that Kristoff spends the majority of the new film attempting to propose to Anna, however, what is so revolutionary about Kristoff in this film is both his open expression of emotion (since society has for generations and generations told men the bull crap that it “it isn’t manly to have emotions”), the fact that he doesn’t actually journey with Anna through the entirety of her journey and that Kristoff is also extremely supportive of Anna and he really doesn’t try to “save her.”

Kristoff has this amazing love ballad, “Lost in the Woods“ about halfway through the film. I love this scene for two reasons. Firstly, because this is a scene where Kristoff is free to express his emotions and frustrations. Secondly, because this scene is ridiculously funny! Kristoff sings in the woods with the help of his reindeer friends (especially Sven). This song pokes fun at pretty much every boy band ever and every weird and overly dramatic music video ever. Plus, I love the subtle hint at Queen’s famous “Bohemian Rhapsody” music video where Kristoff and his reindeer friend’s heads are highlighted on a black background.

I also love the fact that Kristoff very much has his own journey in this film. He is left behind by Anna, Elsa, and Olaf for the majority of the primary adventure of the film. Now, to be fair, the group (or at least Anna) didn’t want to leave Kristoff behind and the only reason why he was left behind was his own fault because of his weird proposal scheme with a bunch of reindeer. Yet, Kristoff’s alone time allows for his dramatic, but powerful emotional expression. This separation from the rest of the group also allows for Kristoff’s key positioning towards the end of the film in which he is able to help Anna in her mission to destroy the damn.

Kristoff’s unique positioning in the film not only allows him to help Anna destroy things, but it also allows for a subtle, but powerful moment in film history. It is not very often that a female lead is “allowed” by a male lead to go off and just be able to do what she needs to do without the male questioning her. Kristoff in this epic battle sequence does not question Anna at all. He allows her to take control of the situation and supports her in her efforts. This is HUGE! Now, don’t get me wrong, there are other films that have allowed for this before, but not many.

Kristoff also gets huge kudos for delivering (at least in my opinion) the best line in the film. After Anna apologizes for leaving him behind on their journey, Kristoff states, “My love is not fragile.” I love that Disney chose, in this moment of potential conflict, to show the strength of love and a solid relationship, rather than show a potentially distracting fight. I hope this moment will sink into young children’s heads and hopefully help them understand what a healthy and strong relationship could look like.

Anna also has a powerful and interesting journey in this film. Anna is incredibly protective of Elsa throughout the majority of the film. It is clear that Anna is struggling with a massive amount of change that she is facing in the film and she desperately wants to cling to her strong bonds (which she finally got at the end of the first film). Anna is this sort of overprotective, semi-controlling mess throughout the majority of the movie and it isn’t until she loses a couple of these dear bonds that she starts to face and accept her new reality of change. This leads me into possibly my favorite part of the movie, Anna’s song “The Next Right Thing.” This song is directly after Anna loses both Elsa and Olaf, two of the people (I guess I and counting a snowman as a person in this…) that she is most close to. I LOVE the fact that Disney actually dared to create a song about grief and the realities of loss. This is such a powerful and honest song about grief and the grief process. Anna mourns and struggles to find motivation to go on, yet still keeps stepping forward (both metaphorically and physically). This song acknowledges so many of the thoughts and struggles of losing loved ones, but also the active choice to keep pressing on, to do “the next right thing.” This scene is so full of meaning! Everything from the fact that Anna is trying to find her way through a cold wet cave through the course of this scene (stumbling towards the light at the end of the tunnel), to the fact that her costume changes slightly at this point, she loses her purple cape which she wears through the majority of the film and is now left in her black dress (a morning dress perhaps?), to the deeply meaningful lyrics. This is, by far, one of the most powerful scenes in the film and I so deeply value that Disney included this scene about such a difficult topic in such a high profile film. This scene (at least for me) made an already good movie, into a great one. A movie full of meaning and one that genuinely reflects life in many ways. Another favorite aspect of Frozen II that I really love is that each of the major characters in this film goes on their own paths of discovery. I have already discussed most of them. Olaf deals with “growing up” and how to process the world around him. Kristoff struggles with his emotions and feelings of rejection (although he is not actually being rejected, but sometimes we can feel like that even when it is not true). Anna struggles through her co-dependent nature and loss of control. Actually, looking at all of these major themes in the film really makes it quite clear to me that Frozen II is not only an enjoyable film but is also a very mature one.

Now, I’m sure most of you have noticed by now that I haven’t yet discussed Elsa’s journey in this film. I have saved this one for last primarily because Elsa’s journey is, of course, the primary journey of the film, but also because this is the journey that resonated the most with me personally. Elsa experiences this call, one that in the film is literal, but in real life can be a concept that might deeply resonates with some people as this kind of internal call. At the heart of Elsa’s call is the call for deeper meaning and a greater purpose in life. A call “Into the Unknown” of our lives. A craving to go out there and do what we are meant to do. I love that a children’s film brings up this “call.” I know (although I don’t have voices in my head) I personally have experienced a similar kind of craving to go out and do what I am “meant to do.” I believe that this very much can and does exists, although maybe not everyone has it or listens to it. I love that Disney also chose to include this kind of call in a children’s film. Perhaps this will help people to better understand this concept and help to motivate those who hear it, to pursue it. (Such as a young writer working on pursuing her dreams 😉 )

Before I conclude this blog post, I would love to just bring up a few short notable mentions of various other things that I really loved about Frozen II.

1. First off, I deeply appreciate that Disney did NOT take the “long thought to be dead parents are suddenly alive” approach in this film. This is done just a little too often in children’s film and I don’t like it (although some do it better than others, How to Train Your Dragon 2 for example I believe did an excellent job with bringing the long lost mom back, but I digress...). If Disney had taken this approach then it would have totally ruined the blow of the parent’s death in the first film. Plus it would have personally really pissed me off. Primarily because why would parents (especially ones that really needed to be there for their children (particularly a child with special needs) and their kingdom) just not come back? Or at least fight and work their butts off in order to get back to their loved ones? It just wouldn’t have made sense and I am really glad that Disney did not take this root. If anything they confirmed that Anna and Elsa’s parents did, in fact, die at sea. This is tragic, yes, but necessary. (I’m also a firm believer in the concept that the mentor has to die in order for the protagonist to grow to the point they need to be. Frankly, Anna and Elsa’s parents had to die in order for both of them to grow.)

2. I also love the fact that Anna and Elsa don’t actually stay together at the end of the film. They both have larger responsibilities/calling that they have to tend to. Although they, of course, love each other, sometimes physically staying in the same place as your loved ones hold you back from what you are capable of. The end of the film also shows a good example of how to stay connected even when you don’t live together anymore.

3. Okay, this one isn’t directly connected to the film actually because it is about one of the songs that got cut from the final product. So if you listen to the full Frozen II Deluxe Edition of the album (Available on Spotify if you are wondering) then you will come across the song “I Seek the Truth.” I have found this song quite delightful and I highly encourage people to go check it out! This song has intriguing lyrics and gorgeous music. It doesn’t quite have the powerhouse quality that “Into the Unknown” and “Show Yourself” have (which I am guessing is the main reason why this song was cut), but it does have a clever tune, plus it is very enjoyable and meaningful (at least in my opinion).

Overall I LOVED Frozen II and I am super excited for it to join the Disney library. The film is both highly enjoyable and deeply meaningful. Kudos to Disney for yet another masterpiece!

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#frozen ii #disney #blogs

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ayz0 · 5 years

Photo

holy crap these are soooo much better than my old 2015 designs

Currently imagining a Warrior Cats arc 1 role swap AU where Greypaw ("Fluffy") is the kittypet and Firepaw is the Clan-born cat.

Other changes in the AU:

Firepaw's family are Clanborn too

Princess ("Leafpaw") leaves the Clan before their Warrior ceremony, and becomes a kittypet, then having Cloudkit, so that arc continues as it is in canon --Jake met Nutmeg/"Seedpelt" (Fire's mom) within the Clans

Willow is a rogue, having Darkstripe first with Tawnyspots. She gave Darkkit to his father, as she was certain a Clan wouldn't take her in. Tawnyspots brought the kit into ThunderClan with a story of 'finding a lost kit'. Willow then became a kittypet when pregnant with Greykit

(btw, I saw that Greystripe's father is now just "unknown" on the official family trees, so I feel that him having an unknown kittypet father works out, here. It used to be Patchpelt, but since he's been removed now, it works if Willow isn't related to Patchpelt whatsoever either. It’s not like Willowpelt or Patchpelt ever played a huge role in books where they were growing up - Spottedleaf and Redtail were the focused-on siblings out of the four. I think in the books Willow and Patch are never even mentioned as being siblings? Thus, Willow gets to not be a part of the family anymore lol since it doesn’t change anything important there)

Into The Wild events

"Fluffy" grew up with Willow's stories of his older half-brother, whom he thought very brave and lucky, and heroic, for living in the wild. So, he sought to do the same in Into The Wild, and met Firepaw. Willow ended up coming with him, not wanting to lose another son this time.

Willow and Fluffy enter ThunderClan together, and Willow feels that a certain dark, striped cat looks very familiar... Tawnyspots had died at this point, and had told Darkstripe of his origins before he'd passed. Darkstripe, resentful at his heritage, is the one to fight Fluffy.

During the fight, Willow realizes that Darkstripe is indeed her son. Fluffy beats Darkstripe similarly to how Rusty beats Longtail in canon (it isn't Longtail in this scenario as I feel he is more Firepaw's rival), he becomes Greypaw

Wanting to stay with her sons, Willow pleads to become a part of the Clan as well, and is hesitantly accepted. She becomes Willowpelt, and similarly to how Firepaw was mentored by Bluestar, Tigerclaw, & Lionheart, Willowpelt is taught by Darkstripe (begrudgingly) & Whitestorm

At this current time, Lionheart is Firepaw's mentor, and thus while Willowpelt is educated by following along with Darkstripe & Dustpaw, and Whitestorm & Sandpaw, Greypaw is educated alongside Lionheart & Firepaw and Tigerclaw & Ravenpaw. similar to canon here.

During this time, Willowpelt manages to mend her relationship with her son Darkstripe slightly, but he still resents her past and her actions. Willowpelt also grows close to Whitestorm at this point, and he later becomes her mate to sire Sorrelkit, Rainkit, Sootkit - as in canon.

After a time of temporary mentorship, Greypaw is then eventually officially apprenticed to Bluestar, as Firepaw was in canon. Greypaw is probably going to one day be Greystar in this AU, if he's truly role-swapping with Firepaw. Lol

Fire and Ice & Forest of Secrets events

Still debating whether the Silverstream romance happens with Greystripe, or not. I think it still would. But then he’d truly go and pull a Bluestar and give up his kits to RiverClan to become deputy, and only Fireheart knows of all this. Silverstream remains alive during the birth, as she stays in the RiverClan camp instead of seeking out Greystripe like in the books - thus she was able to get medical attention as soon as her labour began.

Greystripe does not join RiverClan here, as the Wiki states “To avoid a battle, Graystripe brings Stormkit and Featherkit to RiverClan and decides to stay with them since they are the only living connections he has to Silverstream.“ Since Silverstream is still alive, they simply continue their secret meetings, and although he wishes to be with his family, he does not gain the desire to join RiverClan.

However, she did still suffer heavy blood loss and anemia, and was not able to fully recover and only got worse over time - especially considering that she still sneaks off with her kits to go see Greystripe in secret, instead of resting - so she does still die later on, before the kits are apprenticed.

Before she passes, Silverstream wishes for the kits to join their father in ThunderClan, as they’ll have no remaining kin in RiverClan after her passing. As her final action, she attempts to sneak out one last time to take them to Greystripe, but is far too weak due to anemia complications. Her best friend Mistyfoot finds her outside of the camp, as she was keeping a closer eye on her weakening friend. Silverstream tells Mistyfoot of who Featherkit & Stormkit’s father is, and is determined for her final action to be passing them on to their father. Mistyfoot believes the kits belong with RiverClan, but wants to honour her dying friend’s wish, and helps to get them all to the border.

Greystripe had been at Sunningrocks at the time, worried about the decreasing condition of his mate, plus he hadn’t been seeing her as often, and commonly waited near the area in case she arrived. The scene of her death is in the same place ad plays out similarly to Silverstream’s death in canon, with the exceptions that their kits and Mistyfoot are present, and it’s not a birth scene lol. Greystripe still panics and Fireheart fetches Cinderpaw (who is still med-apprentice, as Fireheart was still the one to suspect Tigerclaw, and Tigerclaw still tried to trap and kill him, causing Cinderpaw’s accident), with Tigerclaw in tow. Silverstream is too far-gone, however, and passes away with her kits and mate next to her.

Thus, Stormkit & Featherkit join ThunderClan, and Silverstream still passes away and is buried at the same area that she does in-canon. (and Cinderpaw is still traumatized the same way because she couldn’t help the dying cat)

Mistyfoot accompanies the group back to ThunderClan to ensure the kit’s safety on the way. Greystripe is devastated by the loss, and doesn’t keep it a secret anymore that he is a dad, and he dotes on his kits just, SO much, same as in canon haha. Anyway, ThunderClan finds out, obviously, about Grey’s half-clan babs, and Bluestar is initially furious (because oops, somebody made the same mistake she did! and omg, it was her own apprentice!!!) but Mistyfoot defends Silverstream’s family and tells Bluestar off for being so harsh while they’re grieving a loss. She says that TC should be grateful that ThunderClan is gaining two amazing cats, and they’re only here because of her best friend’s dying wish, and that she’d whisk them back to RC if they weren’t appreciated here. Bluestar then softens up at her (secret!!!) daughter’s words.

After Mistyfoot leaves and returns to RC, Bluestar enters the nursery where Greystripe and Fireheart are with the kits. (oh dude that sounds like Fire’s their second dad? i’m gonna do it. make em dads make em GAY parents and fire totally adopts storm & feather and grey has his bf to help him thru this extremely tough time UNLIKE IN CANON WHERE HE WAS ALL ALONE TO GRIEVE WTF ERINS) Anyway, Bluestar still explains the same as in canon how she’s mistyfoot and stonefur’s mother, etc, except in this version Fireheart isn’t the only one she tells, Greystripe now knows as well.

Fireheart & Greystripe are stretching their legs and taking a break from the nursery, with Fireheart’s apprentice Cloudpaw in-tow. The shit with Tigerclaw still goes down, but this time it’s Greystripe who saves Bluestar’s life (Fireheart heads straight for the nursery and guards Featherkit & Stormkit in this AU, so it’s Greystripe who sees Tigerclaw heading into Bluestar’s den) and she makes him deputy for multiple reasons - she sees her missed chances in him and wants him to have the full, happy life that she didn’t get the chance to. and she trusts him as much as she does Fireheart in this AU since Grey didn’t turn traitor in this one (and i mean he was her apprentice too so they’re pretty close!)

Rising Storm, A Dangerous Path events

Pretty standard role-swap AU from here as far as Greystripe and Fireheart are concerned, other than the fact that Fire is still Cloud’s mentor, that didn’t swap at all lol.

Fireheart isn’t stretched as thin as Greystripe is the deputy, leaving him more time for Cloudpaw’s training. Cloudpaw doesn’t behave as difficult as he does in canon about doing kittypet things. He’s still a lil shit though

Greystripe is healing quite nicely from Silverstream’s passing, as he is in his own familiar clan, has his children and his best friend BOYFRIEND with him, and has his deputy duties to thoroughly distract him and keep him on his feet. Bluestar is still degrading mentally, the same as in-canon, so he worries about her as well

Fireheart is still the one to find out about Tigerclaw and the dog pack, and their attack, and he is still the one to try and rescue Bluestar and be with her at her death along with Stonefur and Mistyfoot. Greystripe is with his kits at the time of evacuation, leading the Clan to safety as well

(This is such a cool contrast btw!!! omg cause the wiki says “After his leader's death, Fireheart looks at Graystripe. The dark gray tom dips his head in the deepest respect, and Fireheart is horrified because he realizes he is now the leader of ThunderClan, and has lost the easy friendship he shared with Graystripe.” and GOD my AU is like, holy shit, the exact opposite with their relationship. they are closer than ever! this is cool as hell)

The Darkest Hour events

Greystripe becomes Greystar. Mysteriously, he is not granted a 9th life, as the cat destined to give him that life is not present. He has no time to be confused, however, as the ceremony is still interrupted by a prophecy, as it is in-canon.

Whitestorm is still the one appointed deputy

Greystar is extremely conflicted and disappointed in his kin when he is forced to exile Darkstripe. Happens similar to canon, but it’s Greystar instead of Firestar of course

Not entirely sure yet what brings the gang over to RiverClan to save Misty & Stone from being executed. Also not sure if Stone is still going to be killed like in canon, or if I’ll let him live in this version.... I’ll figure it out tho

After Whitestorm dies, Fireheart is obviously appointed as Greystar’s deputy

Firestarheart’s Quest events

When Willowpelt dies in the beginning of the book, Greystar is obviously devastated, and has even more reason to stay with his remaining family during this time - hence, I did not swap his role with Fireheart’s role for this book’s journey.

Fireheart & Sandstorm still journey together to restore SkyClan

They become very good friends on the quest and do indeed still become mates and have Leafkit & Squirrelkit (Greystar sees them as much as family as he could! Cats are basically one big family community after all. Besides, with Fire and Grey’s relaxed and extremely close relationship, I don’t think that Grey would feel threatened or jealous over Sandstorm at all! So Fireheart can totally be Greystar’s bf as well as Sandstorm’s husband at the same time :D)

#role swap #au #alternate universe #warrior cats #firepaw greypaw #warriors #thunderclan

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ambersky0319 · 5 years

Text

Amber Rambles about a Story-

So I wanna ramble about an original story, the ideas I have for it, the characters, the world in general and the one person in my house that would listen and give good feedback or ideas and knows the basics of what I have planned is currently asleep so

There's a lot here oof-

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So to start off I wanna scratch the surface that is the world before I delve into the characters

The story(from what I have planned it'll take place over 11 books) takes place mainly on an alternate-earth that is more dystopian/sci-fi ish and an original fantasy world I've been calling Fandahli. The first part of the first book takes place in Fandahli, and the second and third parts on this alternate-earth.

The earth is basically unified, most people speaking a new language just known as Emor(basically English under a different name). Technological advances have come to a stop, or so it would seem. The world is pretty much American culture having taken over media, erasing other cultures, etc. They now call themselves Emorians. Not a good place to be.

They had created an organization about twenty-five years before the story takes place, at the time called Prosper, but later it renamed itself as Tempest. The organization was less of that and more like a government experiment, combining animal genes into the genes of humans in a certain way to create the 'ultimate human'. Originally, the Emorians created them to keep everyone in line. These humans were trained to be assassins without the government's knowing however and it wasn't long before Emorian officials began to disappear.

Now Fandahli! Fandahli is a world that's very similar to Earth, but is held together by magic(in this universe, Earth also technically has magic but it's very little/very weak and has been dormant for so long it's been forgotten). It was created by four Cinomeds, powerful beings that have powers no one still on Fandahli has. These four are: Rikki, Angel, Serranidae, and Aki.

Along with that, the most two important continents on Fandahli are Vola and Tione.

After the War of Cinomeds, where Angel rebelled against her companions, the land was pretty much destroyed. But portals to other worlds remained open and the land healed. Humans then arrived after discovering one of the portals, but soon after the portals all closed once more, trapping them there. The humans adapted, gaining magic to help them survive, and changed their name to Dalis.

The Dalis split over the different continents, and then into different kingdoms, and grew from there. The main kingdom focused on is Tongyi, located within Vola. It remains spring there no matter the time of year.

The powers of the Dalis vary, but usuaily end up being one of these:

Weapon-Creation

Barrier-Creation

Healing

Barrier creation and weapon creation can sometimes occur within the same Dali, though it isn't too common- but it's not rare either

Aside from Dalis, there are also Dragons. The dragon species vary on where on Tione they come from, or if they come from a different part of Fandahli. I'm still designing some of them.

And then there are the werewolves. Most werewolf villages are peaceful, and are respected by all Dali. It's believed to be a great dishonor to fight any werewolf village. I'm still developing the werewolves as well, I just know they play important roles within the story itself later on.

Back to Cinomeds cause I forgot an important detail!

After the War of Cinomeds(thought to be a war of gods by the Dali, they're also thought to just be legends), Angel was forcefully split apart. Her soul was torn and although Rikki(the one who defeated her) believed that she was gone for good, it seemed that she would just be reincarnated into two other people(Dalis for a long while, later encompassing both Fandahlian species and Humans) that when together could possibly turn into her. It was rare that any of the reincarnates actually met.

The other Cinomeds fell into a deep slumber until the portals would be reopened.

I feel I've rambled long enough about the world 😅 how about my babies next?

Evanna Mays

Evanna is a force to be reckoned with

The youngest queen to ever rule Tongyi, taking the throne soon after her (quite hated)mother's death. She took the throne midway through a war with another kingdom

Evanna herself is loved among her subjects, though many often try to tell her to do or not do certain things. Try to give her restrictions

Like don't fight on the front lines, have an heir if you're gonna do that, just stay on your throne, don't go to other kingdoms it's too dangerous

Each person fails

Especially whenever they bring up an heir, cause it's not like she doesn't like kids she just never wants to have a biological one

And she refuses to marry someone with a kid so they'd become her heir

She's Aro/Ace if ya didn't catch on

Her family all has bright red hair and pastel blue eyes. They're the only ones in all of Vola with these traits and are quite recognizeable.

She later adopts and people get off her case about having an heir because he is her son just not her biological son but that changes nothing cause she loves him and will fight anyone who thinks he's not fit for the throne

Dani Mays

The adopted son

He's just like Evanna, rushing into battle, and citizens of Tongyi just panic because oh fuck he's gonna die he's more reckless than her-

Very social but people treat him so differently cause he's the prince that he can't seem to make any friends and he h a t e s that

Then two humans come into his life and he is very very bi

Queue a whole love-triangle subplot that goes well

Dani adores reading and learning overall, spending hours in Evanna's old study

Becomes King far sooner than he had wanted

Life goes to hell not long after coronation and he suffers from depression and nothing's good for anyone during this time

Does he get a happy ending? Who knows

He doesn't

Oh also he's a biromantic asexual boi and proud

Leona Carter

Young woman with a troubled past, Leona is a very stubborn and apathetic human

Is a high-ranking member of Tempest

It was a last resort in a difficult situation and she's just glad her heart is still beating

Is pretty well-off so long as she follows orders

But if course she later joins a rebellion after becoming very gay for one of her targets that she now refuses to kill for other reasons

Slow burn subplot ensues

She nearly dies many times

95% of the time she does not care if she dies

Just wants a peaceful life

Does she ever get it?

Eventually, after losing something really important though

Marie Sydney

Marie had a decent life, great parents and an awesome protective older brother, and his new daughter

Yeah that all shattered after something happened to her and she was left to cope by herself cause she wasn't sure what to do about the situation

She just adopted a fifteen year old btw who has no idea about her situation

Then she meets Leona

She thinks Leona's great, but there's something off about this news reporter

And then Leona reveals her actual job and the original reason she ever asked Marie out and she's sobbing and a gun is in her hand but she's placing it in Marie's and begging for Marie to pull the trigger

Turns out Marie was a target but Leona just can't kill Marie, not knowing what's happened to Marie nor what could happen now that the two grew close. But Leona's incapable of taking her own life

Marie doesn't pull the trigger

Life somehow gets worse as she's tangled up in this whole Tempest bullshit

Falls for Leona in the process and is very conflicted about it

Taylor Sydney

Adopted by Marie at 15

Her life's pretty normal until a portal is discovered and when she's a high school senior her class is forced to learn about Vola and Tongyi specifically. They eventually go to Tongyi through the portal

Turns out her Mom and Leona know the queen of Tongyi cause things have happened

Meets Dani and Jeremiah

They find out they can form Angel and that's when shit really goes down

Things happen, love confessions made, near death experiences, loves drifting apart, etc. etc.

Doesn't have a happy ending

Jeremiah Canales

My trans boi

I love him, he gets mistaken for Evanna's son quite a lot, usually by humans

He identifies as pan, and doesn't experience dysphoria. Oh and he was a Tempest Engineer for awhile

His family was pretty accepting of him once he reconnected with them(originally drifted apart cause of reasons I have yet to create)

Is pretty much the only braincell Angel has when formed

He feels really, really guilty that weapons he created were used to kill dozens of people and somehow equates that to him killing them even if he was forced to make the weapons

Oh and Deathstriker(highest ranking member of Tempest) uses his Tempest name and despite being absolutely awful in every way refuses to deadname or misgender him

It's the one thing he'll ever appreciate Deathstriker doing

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This ain't even all the characters(obviously). There's still Kord Sydney, Chloe Jansen, and Neva Sydney, all of whom are still being developed. Deathstriker, and all the Cinomeds. Past Angels that will be relevant at different parts of the story. And many other characters that I've never even mentioned in the past.

Anywho fair warning, the series does not end quite that happily. I'm hoping to make the last chapter(an epilogue) to have a bittersweet feeling but idk I'm debating it.

Anyway if you got this far....

Thanks? I think? Idk I've never had anyone get this far I think in any original thing I've ever made- if you got this far tho here's some hearts cause I love you for taking some sort of interest in my personal creations 😅

💘💞💖💕💓💗❤💘💞💖💕💓💗❤💘💞💖💕💓💗❤💘💞💖💕💓💗❤💘💞💖💕💓💗❤💘💞💖💕💓💗❤💘💞💖💕💓💗❤💘💞💖💕💓💗❤💘💞💖💕💓💗❤

#cinomed chronicles #ambersky ocs #ambersky #ambersky oc #ambersky original writing #original content #rambling #if anyone ever has any questions about this story #i will literally cry #and gladly answer through my tears and love you forever #but i doubt anyone will XD #yall are here for the gay fanfic #not my gonna-be-angsty confusing original story

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