#they cannot go home! as a consequence of meeting each other they cannot go home

[rotzaprachim]

digging my teeth into the really dark fascinating fucked-upness of helnik. they’re fascinating in being a wartime love story about an intentional victim of genocidal violence and an unintentional fuck-around-and-find-out victim of “collateral damage,” both of which are different forms of wartime violence. 

nina is targeted as a grisha, she’s almost killed by the druskelle and fjerda in the books not for being a ravkan spy or agent but simply for being grisha. they will kill her for being grisha. and how will they kill her? they will burn her. and it’s fascinating when she tells matthias in a very justified moment of rage (i mean. they’re looking at the dying burned corpses of her people whom jesper, also a grisha, had to physically shoot) and says i want your family to burn i want them all to be burnt in the way my people were. and matthias says, they already have been. they already burned. and how that changes the entire dynamic between them, everything leading up to that, becuase FUCK. yeah. his whole family has already been burnt. he’s a lone survivor of something in much the same way she is, and his family was burnt not on purpose for being grisha but as a “justified accident,” the casual civilian side-damage of war. and it was her people. unlike the intentional, systemic violence that destroyed her people and left nina a shaken, traumatised survivor of a purposeful genocide, we have matthias as this destroyed survivor of one of those little sorts of accidents that’s swallowed and justified by the shape of the war and what Must Be Done to succeed. (also he serves as like, one of the only times i think it’s really faced that the first army is, you known, a national army that does national-army-during-a-war things.) one does not cancel out the other. 

their relationship is difficult and fucked and that’s why it’s fascinating and has so much potential to explore. it’s so much more complicated than the tiktok “enemies to lovers” trope because they dig right at the base of what it is to be an enemy to someone else. from the ship nina is an almost-lone survivor of the damage his people did. from his village being burnt by inferni matthias is a lone survivor of the damage her people did. from the consequences of war on his people and violent prejudice against her own, nina is raised a child soldier and in many ways reduced to weaponry, something that absolutely is a form of child abuse. from the consequences of war on her people matthias is inducted into a cult and subjected to spiritual abuse. they’ve been hurt by each other’s nations, but also by their own. there’s something so brutal but also tender in the way they knock each other off the orbits they’ve been living in and force them out of the home that is burning. love may make you free, but not without drowning first. 

#nina zenik #matthias helvar #helnik #they're so. they're SO. look i will gilroyfy this there's almost unlimited material #six of crows #symmetry and mirrors and the mirror hurts #but yeah the fact they're both absolutely victims not only of each other country's war crimes BUT THEIR OWN COUNTRIES WAR CRIMES IS LIKE #well that's a lot to unpack. the violence that comes inside and outside the house #they cannot go home! as a consequence of meeting each other they cannot go home #tw genocide #obviously none of this is to let matty off the hook but i think he is a FAR more complex character and his deradicalisation from military #violence is far far more complicated than often given credit too #his backstory especially is. damn. look have your entire family killed by a military apparatus and say that wouldnt' radicalise you too? #i love them for being a fantasy and (sighssss to use this phrase) enemies-to-lovers couple that ISN'T royalty #and that #for all their induction into nationalism hates each other not only along national lines but the violence of lived experiences like #nina may filter her hatred of him and his people through Ravka Good Fjerda Bad but it's also the fact they very much did kill her people #she very much /is/ a survivor of a whole shipload of drowned people #meanwhile matthias may filter his code through Fjerda Good Drusje Very Very Very Bad but like... also they very much did kill his people #it makes their relationship so much messier #but yeah they aren't royalty (matthias even in the one time he describes his background calls his family paupers) #they're ordinary people who have by structures of war been pulled into semi-priviledged positions of elite soldierdom and servitude #and that is fascinating. two kings set their fighting dogs against each other and they fall in love #that love can be liberatory it can be radical it can be real it can also just be. not enough to break the cycle of violence #ANYWAY!!! i love them forever. i have thoughts

[warrioreowynofrohan]

A few different people have been observing that Scrooge begins to change more quickly in the book than is often shown in adaptations. The Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come isn’t the one crucial factor breaking his obstinacy, but rather a final message to drive home a point that Scrooge had already become receptive to. I want to trace the shape of Scrooge’s progress over the course of the book and see what it reveals. (There will be some ‘spoilers’ here, since the story seems fairly universally known even among those who are reading the book for the first time.)

After Marley’s appearance, he is disturbed and discomfited, but still trying to hang onto denial and not face what he’s been told.

With Chistmas Past, adaptations often treat it like a psych session - see, you hate Christmas because you were so miserable during it. But in the book, that isn’t the point at all. Scrooge sees times when he was unhappy as a boy, but he also sees what comforted him during those times - reading and imagination, which his adult self would dismiss asfrivolous and unprofitable - and recaptures his joy in those things. He sees times when he was happy, like at Fezziwig’s Christmas party. And he sees how he’s become the kind of person who made his younger self unhappy rather than happy, and how easy it would to be otherwise.

He sees himself asan unhappy child, and wishes that he’d been kinder to the young boy singing carols at the door. He sees himself happily employed with a kind, generous and personable employer, who could create a vastly more pleasant workplace climate at trivial expense, and wishes he’d been nicer to Bob Cratchit.

And then he sees Belle, and is shown that his unhappiness is of his own making and the consequence of hus own choices. His being the selfish, avaricious person he is is not the consequence of Belle breaking up with him; it is the cause of it. She saw him already becoming that person, and chose not to follow him in that path. Her choices left her a happy, loving and loved woman; his left him unhappy and alone. Scrooge cannot bear this, and rejects and fights the spirit rather than face it.

But he has nonetheless already begun to change. Whereas he initially did not want to go with Christmas Past (“a night of unbroken sleep would be more conducive to [my welfare]”), he willingly goes with Christmas Present and expresses the desire to learn and benefit. He sees people in all manner of circumstances, good and bad, choosing to take joy in each other’s company and the comforts, small or great, around them. Many adaptations fail in this, focusing Scrooge’s attention on the idea that people dislike him (Mrs Cratchit; his nephew’s joke) but in the book Scrooge clearly greatly enjoys his nephew’s party, the nephew is being good-humoured and generous and expresses his goodwill towards Scrooge, and Scrooge doesn’t mind the joke at all. He sees the Cratchits making the best of what they have, and how he is making their lives harder than need be. He sees, in many ways and places, how he could be making others happy and being happy himself, rather than making evrryobe miserable, and it is an appealing picture. And Present calls him out, several times, on his past words and sentiments, and Scrooge repents them.

By the time he meets the Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come, he is already willing and prepared to change, and making deliberate plans to do so. The thing that I think is emphasized through the scenes with Yet To Come, as a driving home of the point, is that Scrooge’s actions up to this point have not only made him and others unhappy - they are an utter failure at getting Scrooge the one thing he had prioritized: wordly security, respect, and dignity. In Belle’s words, his turn to avarice in his youth was in hopes of avoiding the “sordid reproach” that the world has for poverty. He was fine, and even pleased, with being feared rather than loved - what he did not want was to be patronized, despized, looked down on.

And now he sees where that got him! His business partners don’t even care to attend his funeral. Men whose respect he hoped to have gained don’t even give him a second thought, and for the brief moment they do, think ill of him (“Old Scratch” is Victorian slang for the devil). His chambers and even his body are plundered (tomorrow’s reading is even more graphic about this, in some lines, than most adaptations). He’s buried in an obscure, untended, weedy churchyard, because no one cares enough about him to make other arrangements. He has none of the worldly respect, regard, dignity for which he turned to money as a protector. Past and Present showed that he was wanting the wrong things; but Future shows him that he wasn’t even achieving the things he thought he did want, amd was in fact achieving their opposite.

The point of Future, then, is not to convince Scrooge to change. He has already chosen that he desires to change. Future alone, without the earlier spirits, would be supremely ineffective; showing Scrooge that his servant and the people around him hate him, without first showing him that he can be happy and make other people happy, would only make him more of a misanthrope. This is not a “scare ‘em straight,” as some adaptations play it. The point of Future is as a final guard against backsliding, against regret: you are losing nothing by changing, because your current path is losing you even the paltry things you sought to gain by it.

Also, I hadn’t really registered this on previous reads, but this is the very near future - the Christmas one year after the period of the book. This is never stated outright, but Christmas Present says of Tiny Tim, “If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race will find him here” - meaning, no future Christmas. And, in the visions with Christmas Future, Tiny Tim has died only a few days ago. In the words of Dante (paraphrased) “the time was perilously short for turning.” The Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come doesn’t teach the lesson - that’s the previous spirits - but he makes sure it sticks.

#dickens december #a christmas carol #charles dickens #scrooge

[hsllfirescoopsreblogs]

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「 ✦ frankie morales ✦ 」

╰┈➤ 18+ none of these stories belong to me! this is a masterlist of all frankie morales stories i’ve read and reblogged! just thought it would be nice to have them all in one spot! (if your fic is on here and you wish not to be, please let me know!) some will have summaries if provided <3

╭┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈╮

► new beginnings by @endlessthxxghts

▻ Frankie’s daughter, Elena, gets enrolled into a new school for prodigal children. It’s going to be a new adjustment for Elena, but Frankie underestimates just how much life will change for him, too — especially after meeting you.

► do me yourself by @undercoverpena

▻ a meet-cute in a hardware store? impossible, out of the question. except, that's exactly what happens. a need for screws leads you to a broad-shouldered, brown-eyed man who you're sure is about to change your day, never mind your life.

► acts of service by @swiftispunk

▻ an unexpected admission leads frankie to make you an offer you can't refuse. this surely won't come with any consequences.

OR you've never had your pussy ate and your best friend frankie helps you out.

► stalemate by @joelscurls

▻ Frankie Morales is your best friend — until a drunken hookup tears you apart.

► pickup truck by @luxurychristmaspudding

▻ frankie hates your boyfriend. in fact, everybody does. but he’s willing to give him a chance. you’re his best friends, after all.

► twinkle by @ezrasbirdie

▻ when his daughter starts preschool, frankie needs a little help with after school care. enter you--and much to his dismay, frankie cannot stop thinking about you.

► bluffing season by @beskarandblasters

▻ Frankie Morales is your next door neighbor of the worst kind. To put it simply, you two can’t stand each other. But when his girlfriend breaks up with him right before the holidays he asks you to be his fake date for Christmas, not wanting to go home to his family single yet again. You reluctantly say yes and as you spend time with him you realize he’s not as terrible as you once thought.

► old house by @moralesispunk

▻ You and Frankie are staying in his childhood room

► table for two by @hellishjoel

▻ Tommy’s Diner is where dreams go to die and burnouts clock-in for work. Waitressing would be boring without the flirtatious distractions of line cook Frankie Morales.

► telltale heart by @astroboots

▻ Frankie failed a standard drug test, lost his pilot licence and disappeared for a month to Colombia while under suspension, and even though you decided to stay with him, you find yourself unable to forgive him.

► i wonder if you stopped his world like you did mine by @chronically-ghosted

▻ watching the woman he loves be with someone else is killing him, but for your sake, he manages. But when Benny's birthday loosens him up, he can't help but bear his soul over a phone call. Too bad you don't pick up and he's forced to leave the evidence in a voicemail.

► the blind dating show by @guess-my-next-obsession

► seven minutes in heaven by @tieronecrush

▻ it's your roommate ben miller's birthday and he's invited the special forces guys over and asked you to invite some of your friends. the night comes down to a throwback game of seven minutes in heaven. you've been into frankie for months, so when your name and frankie's are pulled together, you can't help but wonder what can happen in seven minutes? ( w/ benny, will, santi)

► @absurdthirst

▻ friendly competition

▾ Hanging out with your boys, shit talking turns to the idea of a friendly competition. Letting you decide who is the best a fucking. In order to give everyone a fair playing field, you are blindfolded and wearing ear protection so you don’t know which of the handsome ex-special forces is inside you. 

▻ bumpy road

▾ In order to stay on his team and keep his toxic ex in-laws from gaining custody of his daughter, Frankie does something crazy. He marries you, his friend. You need insurance and he needs someone to care for his daughter, ignoring how he feels about you until he ends up hurt on his deployment.

► shared breaths by @frenchiereading

▻ On the first day of school you meet single dad Frankie Morales and his daughter who is enrolled in your first grade class. As the year progresses, what started as parent-teacher conversations grow deeper, your encounters grow more frequent and feelings that you shouldn’t entertain for a student’s parent are becoming harder and harder to ignore.

► more hearts than mine by @joelsgreys

▻ Frankie promises you he’s not going anywhere.

► down the hall by @frannyzooey

•MASTERLIST

•PEDRO PASCAL CHARACTERS MASTERLIST

hopefully all links work, let me know if not <3

last updated april 25, 2024

#frankie morales #frankie morales x reader #frankie morales series #frankie morales angst #frankie morales smut #frankie morales fluff #frankie morales one shot #triple frontier x reader #triple frontier smut #triple frontier #pedro pascal #frankie morales imagine

[gardenofnoah]

turn me like a beast / hold you to the floor

tags: nanami kento x reader, princess!reader, violence, injuries (minor), non-graphic descriptions of hunting, medium burn, sort of enemies to lovers but mostly scared strangers to unfortunate lovers, the fall of a dynasty, character death (sorry), reincarnation, bittersweet ending. mdni.

wc: 6.5k ish

notes: for @medusashima’s collab—indulging myself (and y’all) in my take on one of my favorite stories. i hope you like it 💘 this is based on the tale of the two fossils found wrapped up in each other in an unlikely pairing (which is made even better by the fact that it is not fiction and it happened!! love is real nerd!!). there’s a really phenomenal webtoon called burrow (by saige9) that makes me cry and that y’all should read immediately. anyway, enjoy. love u

summary: the world is at its end, and an unlikely pair finds solace in each other. to love is an animal thing.

it shocks you, how gentle a tug it takes to unravel everything that you were. only a thing between two others—before: a princess on a hill, the unraveling, and who you’ll be after.

your feet stomp clumsily over dirt and jagged rock—softened soles split open easily with each stride. but, ever your grandmother's frightened little rabbit, not even that searing pain is enough to thwart you in your descent down the hill—away from what is surely certain death. nothing but the animal need to survive pushing you forward—to get to whatever comes next.

it happened too fast—the only way a dynasty can fall to those privileged enough not to notice the slow decline of the society around them until it's too late. your family spoke of pockets of uprisings as if they were fictitious and theoretical—some grandiose, far away prediction of the old crone that haunted the village below your compound, and certainly not the men concealed by shade of trees that had been pruned by your family for centuries, salivating but patient for the perfect moment to strike.

and then they were dead. all of them but you.

a childhood of exploring the grounds of your family home proves useful in knowing without much thought which paths lead farthest from the carnage at your back, but your fright makes you uncoordinated—mechanical in your stride. the price to stop for even a second is far too high, and the hounds that howl after you in the dark serve as a constant reminder of the consequence of hesitation. so, bruised and bleeding, you keep on.

you run until your lungs threaten to collapse and then on farther. your feet carry you through unfamiliar wood, but in your rush, your brain rationalizes that the repercussions of trespassing cannot be much worse than what's behind you. and that seems to be the truth—right up until the real consequence drops out of the tree above you and pins you to the earth below, a blade to your throat.

gritted teeth snap too close to your face. you hear a deep voice—maybe a deeper threat, something to raise the hair on the back of your neck if you could only focus on the words. the world spins and your mind struggles to make sense of the sudden stop in motion, but something far more animal inside you decides that it's had enough. against any remaining survival instinct, you feel all tension bleed from your body—the stranger's face comes into clearer view right as you go limp underneath him. resignation wins out—your limbs wouldn't move if you pleaded with them to.

blond eyebrows meet hairline as your attacker is caught off guard by your forfeiture. "what are you—"

once distant howls growing nearer cut him off. he looks over his shoulder, eyes narrowed at something he cannot yet see. you watch from outside yourself as he turns back toward you. dark eyes meet your own and you see the decision make itself—in one instant you are free of his bodyweight, and in the next you are weightless as he hauls you over his shoulder.

he makes it no more than 10 feet down the path before the last bit of adrenaline leaves you and is replaced by a sudden, blinding pain with no identifiable source. you feel it everywhere—all of the seemingly inconsequential injuries catching up with you now that you've stopped moving. the receding tree line is the last thing you see before the world goes dark.

.

..

the warmth that surrounds you is decadent. you curl into it, reluctant to break the spell of sleep. but then you remember.

you shoot upright, sending at least three layers of blankets rolling off of you. you pinch the fabric of the top one between your fingers—alpaca. not native, but farmed here over the last century or so. you know (and had been told) that it was unbecoming of a princess to hold so much commonplace knowledge. but then again, status matters little now, and this blanket is soft. you're grateful to know the beast it was made from.

it hurts, but you coax your head into swiveling around to survey your surroundings, surprised when you find that it's very clearly someone's home. it's old—some of the wooden boards that line the walls have started to bow against the nails that drove them into the framework of the house, and daylight peaks through the cracks. the bed you rest in can barely be called that—an old futon cushion atop bundles of straw. but it's warm, and you slept. someone has been taking care of you. the thought is sobering; the anxiety that comes with it is enough to hold you to the bed for the foreseeable future.

but your stomach growls, and the bodily betrayal forces you to move. you do it slowly, kicking both feet out from under the blankets. to see them bandaged is startlingly unexpected.

your memories until now are fuzzy at best, but the last thing you distinctly recall is the feeling of sharpened metal biting into your skin. there are few ways you can fathom connecting the dots from that moment to this—swaddled in blankets with your wounds tended to. it leaves you on edge.

on two feet, you sway a bit—the hunger feeds the vertigo that spins the surroundings in your peripheral. one hand braced on the bed now behind you, you blink until things settle. you take a step forward, and the pain is shocking—your feet are clearly more injured than they'd felt at the time, but there is only one way out of this room. you press on.

the heavy wooden door opens into a one room cottage. it's old, and not in the well-loved and well-lived way—the dilapidated structure and lack of any real homely qualities tells you immediately that it's current inhabitant is more of a recent opportunist than a longtime homemaker. that distinction mattered little now, though, and you suppose you should be grateful for your stranger's resourcefulness.

you creep further into the room without a sound until you find yourself in the middle of it. crouched and defensive, until the realization hits you—you see all four walls and are perplexed to find that you are completely alone.

the room is little more than a crooked wooden table and a futon pad on the floor. there are remnants of a fireplace in the center of the room—mortar and brick crumbling up wooden slats toward the roof, but still useful with still-burning embers inside. truly, it's more primitive than livable—there are weapons and tools strung up along the wooden panels of the walls, and animal hides hang in any space between metal and wood. but it's warm, and it's a reminder of what is at stake. what should spur anxiety brings only confusion—when cost of survival is so high, why add another body to the burden?

you forget yourself until the heavy fall of footsteps outside the door reignites your adrenaline. you watch, wide eyed and frozen, as the door picks a fight with whoever is on the other side of it. a weight smacks solidly into it once, twice, and a third time before it opens with a heavy groan. in the daylight, your captor is revealed to you.

hard eyes widen slightly at the sight of you, and then narrow in suspicion. you're still as he takes in all of you, and suddenly very aware of the nightgown you escaped your home in, still hanging off your body. you fight the urge to withdraw into yourself—you know it’s not the time to cower.

he eyes you for a moment more, and then drops a heavy pack on the floor next to him, and busies himself with unloading. you watch as he pulls out tools that look unfamiliar to you—though you suppose any tool would. it's not as if you or your family ever had a need for them.

you watch him work and are surprised to find that he's...handsome. jaw set at a hard angle with scars that wrap around the slope of one side, he's rugged in a way you'd never been taught to find appealing. he is unlike the men that sought after your hand with promises of riches and comfortable living. he is unlike anyone you've seen before, truthfully.

"um—"

"is there something you need?"

his coldness stuns you for a moment. you're not sure what you were expecting—you'd no real reason to anticipate any kindness from the man, but the care by which your feet were wrapped had led your mind in that foolish direction anyway.

you fight the urge to draw your limbs into yourself like a startled turtle. "oh—i just. wanted to thank you, i suppose. for helping me."

he looks up from his sorting to meet your eyes, and the disdain in them feels like a physical wound. he drops the tool in his hand with a sharp thud against the floor, and it makes you jump.

"once you've healed, you will leave."

you exhale sharply. it makes sense, of course—it is no small ask of him to allow you to stay even until you're healed. even so, the reality of the world that awaits you carries a weight to it—it lurks around the periphery of the tiny cabin, waiting for you to poke your head out.

then comes the loss—the blood that still stains your fingertips and the hem of your nightgown. you bow your head—out of shame or grief, you're not sure—and turn on your heel, right back into the room you came from. you shut the door behind you quietly, and you don't make it to the bed. you sink to your haunches and gravity pins you there, head in hands as your mind reintroduces you to each of the ghosts that now have a tight grip on both your ankles.

.

..

it's dark when you emerge, once again driven by hunger or thirst, or some other base need to stay alive despite every glaring sign not to.

you commit yourself to stealth—to staying out of your stranger's way, as much as you can before you take your leave. the dark of the cabin hides you in your trek out of your hiding place—unfortunately, it also hides the solid object on the floor, laid directly in front of your door. your foot catches it and it clangs, the metallic echo ringing in your ears.

you curse under your breath, bending down to feel around in the blackness for whatever you hit. you startle when your fingers hit something unexpectedly soft. you squint, and suck in a breath when you realize what you're holding—a piece of bread. rather, half of a loaf, with a cut of meat nearby, on the metal plate that you’d kicked. you blink, like if you do it enough, the mirage will dissipate and leave only dark wood behind. but it doesn't—the bread gives some as your fingers squeeze around it as if to test it's trustworthiness. you decide to stop looking the gift horse in its mouth, and recede back the dark of your room, food in hand.

.

..

oddly enough, it becomes a regular occurrence. you grow accustomed to expecting a plate of food by your door every night—a seemingly ironic luxury, given your reality now. you hardly see your stranger—you've no idea when he has the opportunity to leave food by your door unnoticed, give his penchant for absence. puzzling still is that the food you're given varies, as if he intends for you to have a fully balanced diet in the middle of a societal collapse.

he doesn’t stop at the food, either—after a few nights spent in your room, he makes his first real appearance in the daylight. a knock at your door rouses you from what’s become a habit of mid-afternoon naps, in lieu of staring at the splintered walls of what was quickly beginning to feel like a cage instead of a place of healing. you pull the door open to find your stranger towering over you—leering down at you with the same discontent he had before. only now, he holds something in his hands, and extends them to you.

“there’s a stream at the edge of the boundary.”

he thrusts what’s in his hands to yours, and you realize that it’s clothing—not in the best shape, but certainly better than the blood-crusted nightgown you still wear. he says no more, and for once you’re grateful for his curt demeanor. he turns on his heel and stalks out of the cabin, back to whatever the outside world has to offer him. after a moment, you follow his path, for the first time since you’d arrived.

it stuns you for a moment, how sinister the land looked in the dark, and how different it looks now. the sun shines hot down on the wheatgrass that sways gently in the breeze. it picks up a lock of your hair and you feel lighter with it.

you walk where you assume you should—down a thinly-worn path between the grass. you find it eventually: a small stream, just wide and deep enough for you to bathe in if you crouch. you turn your head to each side, squinting in your search for prying eyes—you find no one, but it’s still wholly uncomfortable to undress in the open like this.

your reservations leave you the minute you step into the water. warmed by the sun with a sweeping current, you let out a guttural moan that would’ve certainly earned you a chastising from your grandmother for its crudeness. you can’t help it—the caked on dirt and grime dissolves under your fingers and leaves you feeling better than you ever have. there is a slight sting in the soles of your feet—that it is slight is surprising to you, and a harrowing reminder of the clock that continues to tick out of your favor.

.

..

days bleed into weeks. your feet heal earlier than you expect them too, and the guilt you carry is worse than the wound. you know you’ve reached the end of your stay, but you can’t get yourself to leave. not when your stranger still insists on taking care of you. the anticipation is sickening—instead of sitting and waiting to be shooed away, you decide to earn your stay. hard work for someone who’d never worked a day, but the determination proves stronger than the fatigue.

you clean. it’s the only thing you can think to do, and truthfully, it’s necessary. you haul water in old containers on your shoulder from the stream, and you wash the dust away until the floors shine and the windows are clear again. you do this everyday—finding something to clean and fixating on it until the sun reaches the other side of the horizon. today is no different—you set your sights on the ash in the fireplace, using a metal pan to scoop it into a stray tarp to carry outside when you’re done.

you’re almost finished when you hear the now familiar sound of boots scraping the stone outside. you tense, but you don’t stop, pulling another pile of stale smelling soot onto the tarp as your stranger opens the door. you hear him stop behind you, but you don’t turn.

“what are you doing?” the tone is not as harsh as you’re used to—a little fatigued, mostly inquisitive.

“cleaning,” you say softly, pulling up at each corner of the canvas and watching the ash collide into neat little heaps in the center, “i’m almost done—i’ll be out of your way.”

you get to your feet, discard in hand, and turn to look at him. his strong brow furrows as he looks at you, like there’s something about what he sees that he can’t understand. against your best interest, your curiosity gets the better of you.

“i’m sorry, it’s just—i never learned your name.”

the look he levels you with makes you wish you’d never asked. his expression gives away nothing, but it tells you enough.

“how are your feet?”

your stomach drops—all of your attempts at earning your place for naught after all. but you stand in front of him now—to lie to him would be foolish at best.

you can barely raise your voice above a whisper. “healed.”

he studies you for a moment more, and it’s too much for you. your eyes fall to a crack in the floor, and distantly you wish you’d shrink down to slip inside of it, never to be seen again.

“tomorrow i will show you how to trap.” he gruffs, finality lacing his tone. your eyes snap to his but he’s already turning, half way out the door before he stops. he turns his head, eyeing you over his shoulder.

“kento,” he mutters, barely audible and strange meeting your ears, “my name is kento.”

and then he’s gone again—leaving you standing there with a hand full of dirt and no way to discern your left from right as your world tilts on its axis, if only slightly—but noticeable and disruptive all the same.

.

..

you don’t sleep well that night—startled out of a twilight sleep in what appears to be the dark hours of the morning by the rapping of knuckles on your door. kento nods to you in a greeting of his own, turning swiftly on his heel and heading toward the front door. you follow him dutifully, pulling over your shoulders the blanket you’d snagged before you left the warmth of your bed for the chill of the morning. the grass is cool and dewey under your bare feet, and it’s a quiet luxury you find yourself reveling in as you pad along behind him. you can hardly see him in the dark and yet you keep up, somehow—you know there’s too much at stake to lag behind.

true to his word, he teaches you how to trap. solely by doing—few words are exchanged between you as he trudges into the stream and hauls out a weaved basket attached to a rope, fastened to the shoreline by a stray branch. the light that creeps over the horizon begins to illuminate his work—silvery tails gleam as they flick back and forth from inside the cage. you know better than to be sad, but you feel it anyway. it’s silly to feel a kinship with the creatures, not even sentient enough to know that there is no escape for them—but you know, and the weight of that is a tangible thing.

he teaches you how to prepare the fish, then—and you get through it, if not only through sheer determination to not throw up in front of kento. the sun rises and illuminates other opportunities to learn—he teaches you about the native plants, only in simple directions of pointing to a patch of green with an accompanied “don’t touch”, or “fine to eat”. it’d feel patronizing if it wasn’t all so overwhelming—he had a knowledge of things you’d never dreamed of before. all you can feel is excitement that he’s willing to share it with you.

as the sun begins to set, he brings you to the garden—a small patch of land, seemingly unassuming until you step inside. there are fruiting plants everywhere you look—fat, red tomatoes and vining, prickly cucumbers, complete with rows of leafy greens and cabbages. you can’t begin to imagine how he’d managed to grow all of this by himself. his nightly food gifts start to make more sense.

you work side by side, pulling ripe crop from each plant and placing them into a metal canister—usually used for mechanical purposes, but at the end of the world, you find many uses for what you have. you feel emboldened somehow with your hands in the dirt next to his, and the words leave you before you have a moment to reconsider; you tell him of where you’d come from, and of your descent down the hill. you think of the kin you’d left behind, and you feel detached as you tell him of the loss—an observation if nothing else, as if you’d sat on a shoreline and watched the tide flood in.

he doesn’t react—not to your noble status, and not to the death—he’s quiet as he moves on to each plant, only the pattering sound of what he harvests hitting the tin bottom of his canister. you don’t mind—there’s no reaction you’d expect or find helpful, and for some reason, his presence is enough. you find it odd that weeks ago his footsteps incited real fear in your veins, and now he’d spent the day teaching you new ways to be useful. it was a strange and intimate gratitude, but one you felt nonetheless.

you find you see him more now, with your newfound ability to contribute and the determination to do just that. days are spent hauling fresh catches out of the stream, and hunting down small mammals to supplement your diet. you watch him closely—the flex and twist of his torso with the pull of the bow, the way he narrows his focus to the fluffy little thing that scurries among the leaves. with the twitch of a finger, the arrow flies toward its target—there is a screech, and then a sobering quiet. for the first time in your life, you pray—quietly, for the creature with the same instinct to survive that drives you to take its life.

“here,” kento says, handing the bow to you, “try it.”

you wrap your fingers around the wood and do as he asks. it’s deceptively heavy—the tension of the bow makes it nearly impossible to draw back with your own strength. focused and determined not to fail in front of him, you nearly jump out of your skin when his hands cover your own.

“there’s no trick to it,” his voice is gruff but gentle and far closer to you than he’s ever been, “just pull back, like this.”

he guides your hand backward with his own and the tail of the arrow follows—at your back, you feel the muscles in his chest ripple with the effort.

“focus,” he breathes, and you fight a shudder at his proximity, “listen.”

and it’s hard to hear anything over the roar of blood in your ears, but you try, blinking in an effort to snap out of whatever trance kento has put you in. it takes a moment, but then you hear it—the crinkle of leaves beneath tiny paws.

“take a deep breath.” kento allows you to move the bow where you want to, and you try to focus your aim. a bushy tail flicks up behind the underbrush—you train the point of the arrow right below it. your heart thuds wildly in your chest, and suddenly you’re worried that the bow might slide out of your sweating palms, impaling you instead.

“let it go.”

you do as he says, and the ringing in your ears drowns out the sounds of short-lived suffering. he lets go of you then—you don’t notice he’s come to stand in front of you until you feel the rough pad of his thumb swipe gently across your cheek. you blink, your own fingers reaching up to find tears you don’t recall ever shedding. your eyes meet his, and they burn with an intensity you’ve never seen in him before. but he’s not angry—you feel no compulsion to apologize for whatever is happening to you. he takes the bow from your hands, and slings it over his back.

“we’ll go back now,” he says quietly. you follow him up the path, and the tears don’t stop until you reach the cabin. you wonder who exactly it is that you’re crying for.

.

..

you don’t know what it is about the nights that follow that lead kento to decide to stick around, but there’s a part of you that’s glad he does. above all else, you knew better than to question it. he doesn’t say much—he never does—but you’re more than happy to fill the silence. you suppose you owe him the opportunity to know you, after all he’s done for you—you’ve no idea how to quantify the gratitude you’ve felt over the last few months. you do what you can.

“there’s a story my grandmother used to tell,” you murmur, eyes to the fire that crackles in front of you, “i used to sit at her feet while she brushed my hair. she only ever told it to me—it was like a secret between us.”

the wood pops and spits an ember at your feet. you watch it blaze bright, the tiny thing—one last attempt to catch before it snuffs itself out. “there was a princess that lived high in a tower built to protect her from the bandits of the neighboring empire. she was only ever allowed to walk the grounds of the palace under the safety of a full moon. one night, as she crept out of the tower under the cover of the dark, she’s lured into the dark forest by a witch. she promises to grant the princess any wish, for a price.”

your eyes catch kento’s, and for once, his expression is not indifferent. he is here with you in this moment, and it warms you more than the flame. “of course she wishes to be free,” you continue, waving a hand at its inevitability, “and the witch turns her into a hare. and in the original story, that’s the end of it. there’s a lesson there, right?”

“but in my grandmother’s story, it’s the best thing that could’ve happened to the princess. she’s free to hop around to her heart’s content. all she does is eat greenery and lay fat in her den until she dies a natural death after a long and happy life.”

you hear what you think is a scoff from the man next to you. your eyes roam kento’s face, and you think there might even be a hint of a smirk there. it thrills you.

“the tale of an optimist,” he offers quietly, and it’s not bitter.

“she was,” you murmur, “until the end, she was an optimist.”

it’s quiet between you for a moment, save for the crackle of the fire.

“i’m sorry you lost her.”

you smile, and it hurts. the tears well up before you can stop them.

“it’s unfair,” you croak, despite yourself. you’d done well to put up a good front in front of kento—humbling, to see how quickly it could be undone.

you startle when you feel a warm palm close around your clenched fist. “it is unfair,” he says, eyes meeting yours.

the warmth is profound, again despite the fire that heats your cheeks. you find yourself leaning into it until you’ve tucked yourself under his arm. he’s tense, but allows it.

“tell me something about you,” you whisper thickly, needing to think of anything else. he hums, tipping his head back. you sneak a glimpse of the curve of his jaw, glowing between shadows cast by a flickering flame. scar tissue curves and shimmers as it tenses.

“we were a group,” he murmurs, still looking up at the old, wooden boards, “myself and some of the neighbor children. there were no family units, there— we created our own.”

you’re so quiet you think you can nearly hear him piece together the memory in his mind. you know he’s gifting you something precious, so you don’t dare speak.

“we were too young to be running around alone, but there was nowhere to go. we knew enough to dodge the militias that would burn through each village. we thought we did, anyway.”

“the elders were kind. they brought in as many of us as they could on nights when the trucks would come down the road. but we didn’t have parents or homes, and they couldn’t take in all of us.” he pauses, sucking in a long breath. it shifts you when his chest expands. “i was small enough that i was able to fit through a hole in the crawl space under a home. Yu tried, but he wasn’t fast enough.”

“he was my best friend.” kento’s voice is quiet, and more fatigued than you’ve ever heard it. it’s unnerving, seeing his humanity laid out so plainly. “he tried to run, but they caught up just as quickly. they would’ve just taken him to a work camp, but he put up a fight.” he says it with a small smile, like he’s proud. “they shot him and left him there to die.”

if there was a way you could be closer to kento, you’d have found it by now, but you find yourself trying to sneak up under his ribs anyway. trying to find a way to siphon his pain into yourself, if only for a moment.

“you were brave,” you whisper, having nothing else to say except for that—for what feels obvious and true. he scoffs, but you can hear the grief behind it.

“maybe,” he says, arm tightening around your shoulders, “i don’t think i’ve ever felt that way.”

you hum, a low and sympathetic thing, fighting the urge to nuzzle into his chest. it’s strange, how easy it is to default to such animal inclinations when there’s no need to abide by arbitrary customs. there is only the two of you here, and the urge to comfort kento is strong.

“will you let me do something?”

he glances down at you out of the corner of his eyes—narrowed in distrust, despite baring his most tender bits to you only a moment ago. you push past it.

“here,” you say, sitting up and out from under his hold, “sit here.”

“on the ground?” he’s not so much incredulous as he is confused—and you’ll take what you can get. you nod, an appeasing sort of grin teasing the corners of your mouth.

his eyes are still narrowed when he goes—crouched in defense like you wait with bared teeth instead of open arms. still, he moves to sit before you—facing you. you laugh a little, endeared.

“i meant for you to turn—“

“no.”

you’re snapped back to reality then—to the present moment, with this man that kindly took you in but does not trust you. you take in a slow breath, careful not to flinch under the weight of his stare.

“okay,” you murmur, reaching up to pull free from your hair the comb that tethers it in its knot, “that’s okay.”

your hair slips down over your nape as you pull the teeth of it free—hard and familiar in your fingers, you offer it to him like one would a scrap of food to a feral dog. an heirloom made of deer bone—your family’s own commitment to using all that you were given, even if it was in excess. a reminder of a luxury that never felt like one until now.

“is it okay?” you ask, pulling up on your own bravery to keep his stare. after a long moment of careful deliberation, he nods tersely.

you lean forward slightly, careful of his space, and let him see the comb as you reach up. he jumps when the dulled prongs meet his scalp, but you stay the course. you pull it through the blond strands—longer than they were when you first met, the dulled ends slipping through with each pass.

you sit back to look at him after a moment. there’s no resistance, nor is there any enthusiasm—but you trust that he’d stop you if he was uncomfortable, so you keep going.

you lose yourself in the task, pulling (or pushing, from where you sit in front of him) the carved bone through his hair. you allow him the privacy of a reaction—eyes focused only on the strands that flit away from the teeth of the comb.

so focused, it seems, that you have to suppress the jerk of your leg when he leans up against it. the quick glimpse you allow yourself gores you—his eyes now closed, head cushioned by the soft of your thigh. looking more childlike than you’ve ever seen him in the months you’ve spent every minute with him. you see flashes of him as a boy—small and without scarring or a reason for haunches to raise in fear or rage. you think of him laughing—rolling in mud and being scolded by an otherwise kind woman instead of squeezing his way through jagged, wooden boards to save his life. never knowing the sound of a shot ringing out in the street.

you tuck your face into your shoulder—determined to hide the tears and your grief on his behalf. determined to let him feel this, whatever it is, and be a safe place for him to do it. to be the strong arm and the kind hand for him now—the one he can give his precious trust to.

the fire crackles and the mourning is heavy in the air—but kento is alive beneath your fingers, and your own heart beat is a heavy and reassuring thud inside your chest.

.

..

he is a rose in bloom, in the nights that follow. tightly coiled and still with all of his thorns, but in bloom nonetheless.

he becomes something of your shadow. where he lingered out of distrust he now hovers with intent—comically so, his large body folding itself in the small confines of the makeshift kitchen while you wring out linens in the sink. it’s clear that something has shifted between you—though what, you’re unsure. your mind tells you he is finally coming around to you. your heart yearns for something more than just his trust, though you are not unaffected by the weight of that trust alone.

he is never more than an arm’s length away. he leaves in the darkened hours of the morning to hunt, and is somehow back before the sun rises to wake you. that was another shift—he hadn’t asked you to join him on a hunt since that night. he hadn’t asked you for anything after that, really. he sleeps nearer, too—you’d been under the impression that he’d been sleeping outside until he wound up at the foot of your bed, sleeping still like a guard dog. you didn’t have the heart to ask him about it—you just left the candle burning and turned away from the door. he was owed privacy in his vulnerability, and you give him that.

and however hard to read the man may be, you feel some discontent at not pulling your weight, so you try your best to anyway. patching up holes in the wooden exterior of your home. sealing the windows with fur and fat to beat the chill of the creeping fall. you know that the garden tending is cyclical with the seasons—the cold calls for heartier vegetables. you pull and preen until your fingers swell, aching.

and there he would be—watching you, as always.

“hard work for a princess,” he mutters through something suspiciously similar to a smirk. you level him with a glare—the heat of which is immediately snuffed out in comparison to the heat of the cloth that he wraps around your wind-bitten hands. the heat of his body before yours is a close second to the warmest you've ever been despite all of the holes you'd still yet to patch.

“i hardly remember ever being one now,” you murmur, leaning into his side as his thumbs swipe over your palms—needle pinpricks left in their wake, even through the fabric.

he scoffs, his hands engulfing yours in his warmth. "are you not still?"

"i suppose, technically." you shrug, letting him crowd you over to the old, torn up futon that you'd been using as living room furniture. he'd been doing a lot of that lately—pushing you to relax. itching to take a weight from you. he arranges you to his liking, wrapping one of the woven blankets around your shoulders. "i was meant to be made into more than that, you know. before the uprising."

kento only raises an eyebrow at you. you shrug, past the point of shrinking from his silence. "my family had paid a sizeable dowry to have me married off. an heir in a neighboring village, supposedly. only my grandmother was against it, in her own, quiet way. she took to calling me her rabbit, after her story. she wanted differently for me."

there's no mistaking the way kento stiffens. there's no reason for it, nor is there a justification for the way you want to placate him. you do it anyway.

"maybe it's for the best," you say, waving your hand as if to dismiss the whole thing entirely, "i'm not exactly the noble type, now."

you watch him deflate. he nods sagely, the smirk pulling at his lips again. "surely you're the most frightening princess i've ever met."

you turn your head to watch him settle in next to you—another new behavior, seemingly unbothered by the proximity that he no doubt was unfamiliar with. "what's that supposed to mean?"

his teasing grin fades into something a little more forlorn. "when i found you, i expected you to be afraid. i wouldn't have harmed you—i only wanted to scare you off."

you huff. "that wasn't very nice."

"you weren't afraid though. it was unnerving."

"oh?" you grin, reaching to poke him in the ribs. "you were afraid of me?"

he reaches for your hand and pulls it to his lap. "i was sad for you. it wasn't a resilience—it felt as though you were broken."

it hurts, you decide, to be known like this. how simple things had been when he'd only left you provisions at your bedroom door and left you be. now you'd gone and allowed your heart to run freely ahead without a tether. you'd no way of preparing for the injury that freedom would cause.

"you pitied me," you mutter, unable to keep the bitterness from your tone. the mood shifts between you, and something inside you wants to resent him for it. how warm it had been inside the delusion—the world in which you both exist in this space as equals, brought together by fate and want and nothing else.

"no, not pity." you startle at the feeling of his fingertips as they brush a tendril of hair from your face. "you reminded me of myself. i didn't want you to be alone."

"why take on that burden?"

kento hums, pushing his fingers through the hair at your temple. despite yourself, you lean into the touch. "maybe i didn't want to be alone, either."

you blink, the sentiment working its way into your head. it lands significantly south—deep in your chest with an ache you can't describe. you reach for the wrist in your peripheral, stopping his movement and keeping him close. "is that all?"

"no." his admittance is a whispered, strained thing. you're close enough that to tilt your head back brings his jaw to your lips. the ghost of your breath along his skin makes him shudder, and you feel the fingers in your hair flex into a grip.

"what else, then?"

he ducks his chin to nose at your cheek. your eyes flutter closed, mind empty of all that swam around in it only a moment ago.

"my rabbit," his bottom lip brushes against your own, "what else is there but you?"

.

..

the weather changes and the gods grow restless.

you both feel it at the first chill of the year. there’s no graceful turn of the seasons—the air is bitter and cold, and you know something is coming. there’s little time for play, so on the last few warm evenings of fall, you take advantage of it. or you try to—you drag kento into the stream to soak in the dwindling rays of sun, but the knowledge of what is to come weighs heavily on you both. he holds you up in the current—body to body, only breathing. you can't get close enough—to reach inside him and carve out a space for yourself would still not sate the longing you feel.

that wretched something shows it’s face soon enough. the first snow is harsh, collecting in heavy banks against the roof of the house. the wood sags under the weight and the cold creeps in through the wood until the fire is no longer enough to warm the house in it's entirety—only the small space in front of the mantel that you crowd around. you and kento don’t talk much these days—to speak takes energy you don’t have to spare. he is doting as he always is—making sure you are covered in every layer of fabric and fur he can find, but something is wrong. you know the worst is yet to come. you feel it in the way kento holds you too close during the night; it’s never warm enough.

at first there is hope. kento has his food reserves and you'd preserved some of what you’d gathered. but a week of snow turns to two, and two weeks turn to two months. the rations get smaller and the two of you get hungrier. by the third month, you understand that you will not be spared the gods’ wrath. you see the punishment for what it is—a utilitarian consequence to all of the bloodshed by man. you do not have the energy to mull over the unfairness of that. even if you did, the gods do not concern themselves with what is fair—you know that now. the light inside you fades with every new inch of snowfall.

but kento is kind, despite your insistence that he be otherwise. he pulls from his own warmth to add to yours. your dinner portions are always bigger, even if it means he goes without eating entirely. it’s in vain, of course. neither of you will live through this. you scold him for pushing the last of his food on your plate and he doesn’t bother to respond. he only watches while you eat, like he can’t rest until he knows for sure that you have eaten all he has to offer you. you chew through tears and the only comfort is the hand that reaches to wipe them from your cheek. it’s a painful end, wasting away like this. watching kento fade away.

it's when you can smell death's approach that you know with certainty that your humanity has fled for a better place. the thing that remains in you—that keeps your heart beating, that coaxes your lungs to inflate—is purely animal. and it's out of that same primal need that you close the distance between kento's frail body and your own. in the silent chill of the night, the warmth between you may be merely a hallucination now, but you feel it all the same. there is no pain anymore. only a pull into a sleep you want so badly to slip into.

you don't cry—you use the last of the strength in your body to tuck yourself under kento's chin and curl around him in some intimate display of what exists between you. of what has existed this whole time.

"if this is the end," you murmur, knowing that it is, "i'm happy that i'll leave this world with you."

the knuckles that brush against your cheek are sharp and gnarled now. you've never known a touch so tender. it’s odd to speak—to shatter the intimacy of the silence that’s floated around the both of you for much of the last few weeks.

"do you know now?"

if you close your eyes, you can pretend that the man in your arms will live to see the morning. that this is merely pillow talk, and the sun will wake you with warmed skin in a few hours.

but you don't let yourself turn away. it's striking, how even with his last few breaths, kento manages to use them worrying about you. you wonder if he's done it the whole time. you do know; you realize with unmistakable clarity that you'd know his love anywhere, now. you nod, feeling his thready pulse against your forehead.

"i do. you'll have to forgive me for not seeing it sooner."

you feel him scoff—an inappropriate use of dwindling breath that makes you laugh, too. "there will be plenty of time to show you in the next life, my rabbit."

a brief bitterness curls up your spine—the unfairness of all of this creeping back up like a rising tide. how cruel it was to have settled on the loneliness of a life without love, just to be shown the magnitude of a life with it in the final months of your own.

but it recedes in the next moment, because there is no more time to grieve. you can only feel grateful, now—to leave this world saturated in all that kento has given you.

cracked lips brush the skin of your temple—he has no real energy for a proper kiss, but the desire to comfort is strong between you. you spend the next few, precious moments counting the breaths that rattle inside his chest, grateful for every one cycled through.

in the silent hours of a darker morning, there is a light only the two of you can see. shrouded in the glow, he is so beautiful.

with all of your strength, you call him by his name, one last time. "until next time, my love."

epilogue

if the notion of certainty is alive in anything, it is in the way that fable and folklore are sure to be born and born again out of gatherings of beings with mouths to speak it. one such example is the jagged, snow capped hills of Akaito—a new village comprised of all walks of life, the one commonality between them being their displacement during the fall of the Zaiaku dynasty almost one hundred years prior. built overtop the remnants of survivor settlements crushed under the Great Snow, all who inhabit the land know well of the blood that has stained the soil and pay mind to honor the loss of life in their own ways—namely in storytelling. this great coming together eventually gave way to a new mother tongue for the telling of a new bed time story to bleary eyed babes in the middle of the night: the tale of the Akaito lovers—the wolf and the hare.

as the story goes, villagers who have been bestowed some unearthly dose of luck by the gods may catch a glimpse of an unlikely pair—a formidable looking white wolf with scarring across its broad body, and its counterpart: a fluffy and downright regal grey hare. one might catch them romping around in the dusting after a fresh snow, or preening one another under a shaded tree in the heat of the summer. depending on who tells the tale, it might be the case that if a person is truly fortunate and determined to wait out the dark of night, they might even be gifted the sight of the duo curled around one another, sleeping peacefully in a protective and loving embrace under the light of a waning moon.

as with all fables, the story is altered with every new tongue that speaks it, and one day the tale will vanish from the minds of the younger generations completely. but for now, it is ripe in the minds of the young and old, the latter of which are very certain that it is no mere fable at all.

#sike i’m posting it now #nanami kento x reader #nanami kento fic #nanami x you #jjk fic #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen writing #livedeliciously🐐collab

[cranetreegang]

Ominis Gaunt 5th Year Masterlist

===========================

Archive of Our Own Link

===========================

🦄Let Me Show You Something🦄

Ominis finds himself following the Fifth year due to his burning curiosity about her. He ends up finding more than he expected.

🦅An Unexpected Flight🦅

Ominis gets an unexpected owl to meet up with the Fifth year. He wonders what's in store for him and her 'surprise'.

😓Cruel Words😓

After a heated argument with Sebastian, the Fifth Year is left with doubts about her ability to salvage their friendship. Ominis comes in to comfort.

👀And Eyes as Cold as the Deepest Lakes👀

Curiosity gets the better of Ominis, and Natty must do what Sebastian failed to.

🎇Under the Rainfall, I See You🎇

As the two head back from a trip to Hogsmeade, a sudden rainstorm may dampen the mood, or show them more of each other than they thought possible.

🧹The Call of Adventure🧹 - Part One

Hoping to show Ominis the joys of broom flight, things take a drastic turn.

🧹And Adventure Answers🧹 - Part Two

With the two cornered by Ashwinders, Ominis and the Fifth Year must find a way to make it out alive.

🔥 Like Moths to a Flame, and a Lamb to Slaughter 🔥

As Ominis and Sebastian study, Sebastian wonders why Ominis is in such high spirits. And as he uncovers the truth, the pain of the Scriptorium rears its head.

❄The Winter Ball ❄

Thanks to the outcry of Quidditch being canceled, Black decides to throw a Winter Ball. Ominis stresses over the night, and things keep not going his way.

💚 Like an Unquenchable Flame, I See You 💚

A letter comes for the Fifth year, bearing a long awaited first date.

🤯Lessons into the Mind🤯 - Part One

Ominis' Legilimency keeps the Fifth Year's thoughts occupied and she wants to find out more.

🏏The Midnight Quidditch Club🏏

The Fifth Year gets invited to a secret Quidditch Match. Sebastian and Ominis are eager to see how it all plays out.

🤯Delving into the Mind🤯 - Part Two

In an attempt to strengthen his Legilimency, things take a turn for the worst and she's left wondering if it was worth it at all.

😭Save Her🤯 - Part Three

Ominis and the Fifth Year are no longer speaking to one another. A rift Sebastian takes note of, and tries to bridge for them. Things take a turn, and she may be lost to them... forever

🔗Unbreakable 🔗

After the events in the catacombs, Ominis knows there's only one way to ensure Sebastian can never repeat his mistake.

🧙‍♀️ A Niffler, A Blind Boy, and A Clever Witch 🧙‍♀️

Ominis is dragged into a treasure hunt and rescue mission. While he enjoys feeling her excitement, he wonders if the guilt she feels about Sebastian is coming to a head.

😫 Close Call 😫

Ominis is on the way to meet his love as she returns from Hogsmeade, but things don't go according to plan.

🤗The Return 😭- Part One

She returns from her harrowing battle with Ranrok and is quick to get to the only place she wants to be. But, she fears her actions will have consequences. And how long before those she loves have to feel her choices.

🤗Waking Dreams 😭 - Part Two

A lesson in looking into your 'true self' reveals more to the 'Hero of Hogwarts' than she would like. She's not ready to face what troubles her, but Ominis and her friends are beginning to lose their patience.

😭The Boggart😭 - Part Three

Everything comes to a breaking point, and Ominis is left with an impossible decision to make. But, the fear of losing his love is something he cannot risk.

😭Tell me, What do You See Now?🤗 - Part Four

Forgiveness is hard to find, but with the help of their friends, the two lovers may once again find their way to each other. Perhaps, emerging stronger than before.

👋Goodbye, For Now 👋

With the school year coming to a close, she has a hard time parting from her beloved Ominis.

💌 Summer Letters 💌 - Part 1

Letters exchanged between Ominis and his lover

🏠 Home at Last 🏠

Ominis finally returns to the Gaunt Estate. It's all that he remembers, except he's the one who's changed. He navigates his parents in search of any clues about Ancient Magic and his ancestors.

💌 Summer Letters 💌 - Part 2

EVEN MORE Letters exchanged between Ominis and his lover

===========================

Hogwarts Legacy Masterlist

===========================

#ominis gaunt #ominis gaunt x reader #ominis gaunt x mc #masterlist #fanfic #fanfiction

[absolutebl]

hi there 🖐🏼 what are your recs for bl movies with great acting?

BL Movies with GREAT Acting

Specifically Movies? Do KBLs that were cut into movies count? Hum, I'm gonna make a judgement call given how few actual movies I have to work with and say if it holds as a "movie going experience" I can count it. I should say in order to really push this into the superlative acting space the BL aspect on many of these is... light.

His

Japan 2020 Viki

His is about being a grown adult and still struggling with coming out as gay. It addresses the consequences of life choices disingenuous to identity. Nagisa turns up on Shun’s doorstep with his precocious daughter in tow. This is a touch confusing to Shun since they were each others first love and ended badly. Shun has retreated from society, rejecting the world before it can reject him, already brokenhearted because without Nagisa he never had a reason to fight. Nagisa went the opposite way, tried to pretend to be something he was not and ended up with a daughter he adores and a wife who hates him. The acting is killer, Miyazawa Hio is sulky in the best possible way, the filming is beautiful and the setting unique and interesting...

I'm not wild about the ending. Moody arthouse smackdoodle is going to pretend that "ambiguous" is somehow unique and special rather than bog standard commonplace for narratives of this type. But endings are my hangup, not yours?

This is not really BL (the prequel was), so few of the tropes are used. You do not need to have watched the prequel.

Your Name Engraved Herein

Taiwan 2020 Netflix

This movie is fantastic but it is also seriously depressing. It’s a self acceptance journey that goes emotionally array on the alter of history, but if you wanna wallow in high quality acting and serious gay drama, this’ll do it. I would say it's not really BL, no real trope drops at all.

Okay those two I chose more on the strength of the acting than BL. These others are not going to be at the same standard/style.

If you want moee of the above level of drama, things get very sad in the BL world, so Love of Siam, Dew, Eternal Yesterday, Goodbye Mother, etc...

Restart After Come Back Home (Risutato wa tadaima no ato de)

Japan 2020 Gaga?

Atmospheric study in rural Japan meets complex family dynamics built on a romance framework of city boy meets country boy, grumpy/sunshine. It’s beautiful and icy sweet. Slow moving in places but ultimately worth the patience, low heat, low angst, and stunning. The acting is a touch stiff, in that Japanese reserved way.

This is the only BL movie, as a movie, that I could pull. There are others, I jsut don't think the acting is good enough.

So here are some highly rated short bingable series that are movie length (1.5-2.5 hours) but not really movies - BUT with killer acting. So they still might satisfy the itch. I places them in order of acting and filming quality, not my own personal preference.

From Japan

Old Fashion Cupcake

Tokyo in April is...

Life: Love on the Line (director's cut)

My Beautiful Man

I Cannot Reach You

Seven Days

From Taiwan

Red Balloon

We Best Love (esp part 2)

About Youth

HIStory 2: Crossing the Line

From Korea

To My Star

Long Time No See

The New Employee

Where Your Eyes Linger

More like this?

I want to shout out The Eighth Sense here too. It's longer than movie length but so well acted.

(source)

#asked and answered #BLs with great acting #movie bls #best bls #best of list #His the movie #Your Name Engraved Herein #Restart After Come Back Home #Old Fashion Cupcake

[ancientastarwis]

December Pick One Image ⭐

This month I was guided to choose a New Year's theme. Which image(s) did you choose? Was the message accurate and helpful for you? Feel free to comment. Each image contains advice for the month of December through the Tarot and/or Oracle decks I'm intuitively guided. In this case, I chose the Shaman's Dream Oracle Deck for all 3 groups.

Feel free to message me if you want a tarot/oracle reading. I offer guidance for several areas of life, always including intuitive messages and no cards limits.

Reblog 🔃 Like ❤️ Follow ➕ Thank you!❤️

Have a blessed day 🩷

Results ...✨🥰

Option 1: Fireworks 🎆

The Drifter invites you to step out of your to-do list and your ordinary routine to feel the breeze against your skin, calling you to follow the wind and explore life’s opportunities. When the Drifter appears, it’s a sign that it’s time to cut the mooring lines holding you to the dock. It’s not important to know the destination before you set sail; it will become clear as you leave port. Do not wait for a map, as there are none to where you are destined to go. But be sure that you do have a compass to keep you true. Yours is your pure love and your intention to be free, even of your own beliefs and preconceptions. Few appreciate the energy of the Drifter. Here, you might not seem to be doing anything worthwhile or meeting someone else’s expectations. But you are the only one who under­ stands that others are running full-out on the hamster wheel and getting nowhere. Your “laziness” is an underappreciated virtue. You know that life will find you and bring you everything you require without your having to search for it, by simply being instead of frantic doing. Even as you let your mind wander, releasing it to go on a daily walkabout, call it back home regularly to deliver news from the cosmos. The Drifter helps you find what you are looking for, even when you didn’t think you were seeking anything!

Option 2: Party Hat 🥳

The Empty Well reveals that there is nothing for you here. The well is dry, and the desert is encroaching on your once-fertile garden. It is time to face this harsh reality and move on. Give gratitude and thanks for the abundance you have experienced, and let Spirit guide you to your next destination. This might mean saying good-bye to someone or something or insisting on changing the rules of the game. Stop diminishing yourself for the sake of another. Making yourself small will not produce the results you want. There is a lack of reciprocity, of give-and-take. The Empty Well tells you that it is time to reclaim what is yours and return what does not belong to you. The shadows cast in your direction are not of your making. You do not need to react or respond to them, as they are not real. Simply shine your light upon them and see how it dispels them. These shadows are projections that you are confusing for reality. You may have been offered a shovel to help you dig yourself out of an uncomfortable situation, a bucket to drink from the well. But you cannot dig yourself out of this hole and remember that there is no water to be found in that well. Receive the Empty Well as a gift. Do not exert your energy and waste your resources by repairing the walls or mending the rope. Follow the watercourse way—the aquifers that run deep in the earth—and you will be led to a new spring oasis. You can find these underground streams, these rich natural resources, in the subterranean depths of your own heart.

Option 3: Party Horns 🎉

A great Feast is laid out before you and requires you to choose. What will satisfy your hunger: something new and unconventional, with its potential for bitter or savory qualities, or something you already know you love? You are faced with a plethora of options right now, and while that may seem to be an extraordinary thing, too many choices can throw you off balance. You might be worried that once you commit, you won’t be able to turn back or refuse to confront the consequences of that decision. The most important thing to realize is that the Feast is offering you experience—no amount of overanalyzing or strategizing will help you make the right choice now. Don’t debate the right- or wrongness. Instead, just choose. In the choosing is the seed of experience, and that is what is necessary now. Sour, bitter, sweet, savory—what matters is relishing the experience until you digest all that your choice is offering you right now. Only one warning: avoid the same choice if it keeps you hungry. If something didn’t feel good or does not bring you what it seemingly promised, do not choose that again. The experience will only repeat itself, and you will have more than a bad taste in your mouth. The Feast is yours to enjoy. You can always go back for more when you’re hungry again, for life’s blessings are ever available to you and calling your name.

#pac reading #tarot reading #tarot guidance #pick a card #pick a pile reading #pick a picture #pick a pile #pick a photo #pac #pick an image

[discordiansamba]

good afternoon, thinking about Haggar slowly breaking down Keith and Shiro.

She keeps them both separate on purpose. She lets them see each other- she can't completely keep them away from each other, or they'll become suspicious that she's not following through on her promises. They need to be able to confirm that the other is alive and well, or her plans won't work.

She starts simple with them both. They must show the proper respect to those around them. Learn to salute, learn the importance of phrases such as vrepit sa. They don't have to wear prison rags anymore- Keith is given the attire of a druid acolyte, and Shiro is given clothing that a Galra civilian would wear. They are both taught Galran, and are instructed to use it over their native language- or there will be consequences to face for the the other. They are both given instruction on Galra culture and history. They cannot say no.

Haggar also lies. She's still sending Shiro to the arena.

Not often. Just enough. She always makes sure he's healed before she allows him to meet Keith. And Shiro doesn't say anything, because he doesn't want his brother to worry. He has to keep winning for Keith. Haggar promised that she would ensure he's treated well as long as he keeps winning.

She actually uses very little magic. Magic can be undone. She desires something more... permanent. All she needs to do is goad on their progress here and there.

They stop being prisoners at some point. There are no longer any guards watching them. They can move about freely on Central Command. They slowly forget they were ever prisoners. Shiro fights in the arena by choice. Keith is studying druid magic by choice. When they are allowed to see each other, it doesn't cross their minds to switch from Galran to English.

Shiro talks openly about the training he is undergoing at the arena, regaling Keith with stories of his recent victories. How if he keeps winning, he'll be rewarded with a spot in Zarkon's army. Keith talks to Shiro about his studies and the progress he's making- about how Haggar thinks he'll be able to become a full druid soon. Shiro tells him how proud he is of him. How he knew he always had potential.

They are no longer kept apart. They share quarters together now on Central Command. Keith watches his brother fight in the arena, cheers him on alongside the rest of the Galra. Shiro drags Keith to bed when he's otherwise too engrossed with his studies to sleep. This is their normal daily life now.

They hold a joint celebration when Karrion becomes a full druid and Shiron is promoted to Commander, given a stronger Galra body to go with his new rank. Shiron tries to cook. Karrion does not let him. His memories of his past might be hazier now that he has taken the druid mantle, but he knows his brother well enough to know he can't cook for shit.

A week from now, they will move onto Shiron's new command ship. It will be sad to say goodbye to their home on Central Command- but serving the Galra Empire is a great honor. They won't fail the trust that Emperor Zarkon has placed in them.

#commander and druid au #just the thought of them having totally domestic sibling moments in the middle of their brainwashing is *chef's kiss* #they're getting so fucked up and they stopped realizing it at some point

[1000punks]

bonding. //the playlist

for the folks who want something to listen to while you read bonding., here are some of the songs that i felt fit the fic. ♡

if you want a detailed reason/analysis (song-by song) head under the cut. otherwise, enjoy. and thank you to everyone who supports this fic!

after midnight - wayv this song is all about the baser/physical aspects of intimacy, it's night-based, and it talks a lot about secrets and desires. my favorite line is: that someone's scent and someone's secret, someone's scent breaks the gap between each other - which i'm sure sounds more eloquent in chinese. (translation here!)

the summoning - sleep token i know this is the "token astarion thirst trap song" but i think i particularly like the lines: raise me up again, take me past the edge, i want to see the other side. new life, pushing boundaries in a healthy way.

rain - sleep token favorite lines: and i don't wanna get in your way but i finally think i can say that the vicious cycle was over the moment you smiled at me - nuff said.

hell above - pierce the veil cannot spend another night in this home i close my eyes and take a breath real slow the consequence is if i leave, I'm alone but what's the difference when you beg for love? this song is very astarion to me, i feel like it's reminiscent of his escape/kidnapping at the very beginning of the game, as well as that first sexual encounter.

first light - hozier another token astarion song! festé, to me, is very sun-coded. and i think this would be astarion's way of saying that he didn't know things could be this good before that damned imp walked unceremoniously into his life.

haunted - type o negative this part: a living flame, impossible to resist; burning me deep with every bite, kiss and lick. astarion's thirst, and the effect festé's blood and body seems to have on him. also, the way he can't figure them out even though they're very up-front about the things they say and do.

sexual healing - marvin gaye, kygo this one is pretty obvious but!

mother may i - coheed & cambria i wanted to grab this one as a nod to one of astarion's voice lines. but this line: god only knows when your word isn't pure, and the blood on your hands isn't yours screams to astarion's guilt for manipulating them. oopsie

boy division - my chemical romance this line: i buy my enemies rope to hang me and the knives to gang me; you can watch them stab me on your television referring to astarion feeling like he was complicit in his own trauma, and the anger that goes along with that. also the coffin part (:'D)

vampires will never hurt you - my chemical romance can you take this spike? will it wash away this jet black feeling? i think, deep down, he feels guilty for having to feed on them, and in general, being the way that he is. of course, they accept him fully but he doesn't accept that, not at the start. also heehoo vampire song

please please please let me get what i want - deftones good times for a change that's it, post. no but this version of this song to me speaks desire, not just melancholy and longing like the smiths (i honestly hate the smiths). deftones brought a more "feral" quality to this cover that i really like.

vore - sleep token your flesh and bone welcome me in, welcome me in are you in pain like i am? will we remain stuck in the throat of gods? will the pain stop if we go deeper? this one is for both of them, honestly. that moment where you realize that, emotionally and physically, you're in too deep with someone to quit, to cut things off.

irresistible - fall out boy this is just for the bdsm elements HAH. no but this entire song, i don't know why it fits them both exactly, but it does. the way they both go through the absolute worst trauma (both apart and together) and can still mostly laugh, shrug, make love, and keep on living.

w.a.m.s. - fall out boy my head's in heaven, my soles are in hell let's meet in the purgatory of my hips and get well on astarion's side, it's a song about feeling like he's the sum of his past deeds. on festé's, it's a song about meeting in the middle and being physically present.

big iron - marty robbins this... lmfao. i was listening to spotify on shuffle and i was like this is so... unserious. festé would love this song. but this (and the wanderer) point to the many adventures they've had before they met astarion. and how they're generally a judicious and "good" person.

the wanderer - dion festé slept around a lot before this, and on the surface, they might seem like a ripple on the water. moving around a lot, having lots of sexual conquests, etc. for as short as their life has been relative to astarion's, they've certainly lived a lot. he's changed them though, they want to stay in one place now.

drowning - radio company this is more under the surface with festé. i feel like if they were here in modern times, they would love folk and americana music. they may look like a thembo, but underneath that, they're emotionally complex and actually quite guarded. specifically this line: hold the day oh we pray to make it through the night i think would have been a hard-hitter in the very end of the netherbrain conflict. they were trying really hard to hold it together for the sake of everyone else, and that's something they really struggle with emotionally; feeling like the world rests on their shoulders.

forever ain't long - radio company take me to heaven or wherever you're from back where it started before the hurt came along this is love, plain and simple, from festé to astarion. it also hints at something they're going to go through in a much later chapter in the fic.

undisclosed desires - muse i listened to this a lot when i was writing //taking. festé is the type of top/dom that intensely cares about whoever it is that they're sleeping with. they're a service top, plain and simple. luckily, they're pretty forthcoming with how they approach topping someone else, though. they want to find exactly what the other person needs, and provide it. i know you've suffered but i don't want you to hide it's cold and loveless i won't let you be denied

coming of age ceremony - hyolyn, xia this song was another one i listened to a lot during //taking. it's about coming into a different role. it's the switch song. hahah it's actually a cover! i think the duet makes it really... sensual. give me twenty stems of roses so i can feel your love is a BAR. 20 roses is symbolic of sincerity and a deep belief in something, so i thought it fit well with the theme of commitment and exploration. (translation here!)

i'll keep you safe - sagun it's really simple, it's a lofi song. does what it says on the can. i imagine it being the background song to the two of them drifting off to sleep in each others' arms, as cheesy as that sounds. they haven't spent a night apart since act 2, give them a break.

tell it to my heart - meduza, hozier this is the song that plays in astarion's head whenever he gets really down on himself. i don't know that he'll ever truly believe he deserves someone like festé, and this is the little voice in his head confirming that. it alludes to him tending to misread situations that are actually innocent, which i think is something a lot of people who have trauma can relate to - jumping to the worst conclusions. what he doesn't know that deep down, they feel the same way.

it's not a side effect of the cocaine, i am thinking it must be love - fall out boy put your hand between an aching head and an aching world we'll make them so jealous we'll make them hate us those moments where astarion is trapped in his memories and he feels his imp touching him and grounding him back in the moment? yeah, i think of this line. they both want to show the other off, they're both so proud of each other and so DISGUSTINGLY in love.

#.txt #.mp3 #.fic #fic: bonding. #oc: festé #i'm all pointy ears #bg3 #bg3 fanfiction #astarion x oc #astarion x tav #astarion x named!tav #astarion bg3 #astarion acunin #Spotify

[croc-odette]

One of the first conversations Sisko has with the Prophets is about non-linear perception; why would anyone want to experience time in linear progression, ignorant of what happens next? Sisko explains the benefit of linear perception through a baseball game– the game is only enjoyable if one is constantly wondering what will happen next.

SISKO: With each new consequence, the game begins to take shape.

PROPHETS: And you have no idea what that shape is until it is completed.

SISKO: That’s right. In fact, the game wouldn’t be worth playing if we knew what was going to happen.

The Prophets are associated with religion, faith, and non-Federation culture; aspects of Star Trek that were either taboo in the writer’s room or in need of ‘correction’ from Starfleet and its futuristic scientists. The Prophets raise a question for the viewer; is non-linear thinking also in conflict with Star Trek’s usual commitment to science and rationality?

-

Star Trek as a whole is both linear and non-linear. In linear fashion, it is a show about the future where technology has advanced humanity to the point that we can explore space, create matter out of energy, teleport, and meet extra-terrestrials. In non-linear fashion, episode premises are often about how familiar problems such as prejudice, war, sickness, and violence reoccur in the future despite the progress of technology and social causes. The show was originally set in an idealistic 2260s, but written to look constantly behind its shoulder at the current problems of the 1960s in the United States. The original series’ politics could be radical at the time it aired; but in non-linear back-and-forth fashion, a show written in the 1960s, set in the 2260s, and still watched in the 2020s reveals outdated and blatantly offensive tropes. At the same time,  newer shows written in a post-War-on-Terror United States can feel more conservative than their predecessors. The quality or messaging of the franchise cannot be argued as a linear progression, but is itself a messy and changing reflection of the writers, the show’s subjective goals, and the political atmospheres it’s both created and viewed in. If the franchise (or the audience) was truly linear, then the older series (30-60 years old) would have no meaning or purpose to today’s viewers, and would have been discarded in favor of more recent series. Instead, new generations consistently still find relevance in older series.

-

Star Trek, especially TNG, tends to suggest advancement in technology as an obvious replacement for religion. The simplified linear idea is that a society begins with religion and ends at the ideal state of pure science. The Federation and Starfleet must be good, because they are our main characters, and therefore their exploration and desire to expand their purely scientific culture (linear) must be presented as a logical good.

DS9 challenges this concept not only by investing two of its main characters in Bajoran religion, but by overwhelmingly revealing the horror and tragedy still present in Federation societies with access to advanced technology. The Dominion War (much like the conflict with the Borg) kills tens of millions of people and seems hopeless. The scientifically advanced Federation still employs torture, assassination, forgery, and biological warfare in attempts to win it. Earth, a peaceful and insulated paradise, becomes wracked with paranoia when one Founder infiltrates. Bajor and the space station Deep Space Nine represent a gruesome history of colonization, occupation, and post-occupation, regardless of the occupying force’s technological capacity. The Federation, Bajor, and the Cardassian empire view each other in a barely held together truce with distrust, hatred, and disdain. Even when the Federation sends aid to Bajor, the limits of technology become more visible than they often are on Starfleet flagships. Machines for revitalizing polluted soil are fought over, and homes and land have to be obliterated for mining and energy. The space station itself was built by Bajoran slave labor and during the occupation was used as a dangerous ore processing facility. The toll of technological advancement becomes apparent in a way that Star Trek usually dodges; what does it take to build a space station? Who builds it, and under what conditions? Where does the material come from? Whose home is destroyed in order to get it? Who gets access to this technology? Who profits? If technology has to invent solutions to problems it created with past ‘solutions’ (see: the combustible engine leading to global warming), then has it created an objectively linear progression or a snake racing after its own tail? Is technology objectively advancing humanity if it still creates a massive imbalance of suffering and resource depletion where we choose not to see it?

The alternate simplified linear thinking is, well, okay then, religion is good and technology is bad. However, DS9 also critiques Bajoran religion rather than presenting it as an absolute good. Rather than bashing it for daring to exist at all, it pays attention to moments of corruption, fundamentalism, and power grabs. And technology in DS9, typically medicine, saves people and makes life in general easier. In an early episode called “Paradise,” Sisko and O’Brien crash on a planet where a previously stranded group of people have formed a cult without Starfleet technology. Later, it’s revealed that their leader had manipulated them into crashing, in order to forcibly deprive them of technology and shape them according to her own interest in ‘the ancient religions’; conveniently, she is at the top of their strict power structure. Rather than dismissing religion entirely, Sisko only coldly tells her “Perhaps one day you’ll even feel the hand of God on your shoulder.” The conflict is less about her shallow claims of technology versus religion, and more about her clear desire for punitive and total control over other people.

Both religion and technology are ancient aspects of human life, and cannot be simplified down to opposing or competing ends of a spectrum. Even for a non-religious society or individual, our interest in what’s mysterious or unfathomable about our world gives us humility, comfort, and curiosity; staring at stars or listening to music is not a ‘rational’ exercise that requires explanation in order to feel good. Modern humans evolved with a focused capacity on making and using tools, and the ability to teach and learn between generations, helping us survive and develop art and culture. Perceiving either our interest in the unknown or in science as the only ‘true’ way forward to a better life– however that may be defined– leaves little room for critique of either, and corrupt and exploitative power structures can grow without question. The idea that a single tool forward, a clear linear path, must be decided upon and committed to entirely– whether it’s to a futuristic utopia or existential salvation– tries to dodge the harder questions of personal choice, human behavior, and quests for control that often create the reoccuring problems in Star Trek no matter the time period.

-

Sisko understands non-linear perception of time more personally than other Star Trek characters we’ve seen. He’s studied history, specifically flashpoints of Earth. He’s deeply aware of the racism that would have prevented him from enjoying a 1960s Las Vegas casino. His grief over his wife’s death is what helps him understand the non-linear time of the Prophets, just as his love of baseball helps them understand linear time. He starts off doubtful and clinical towards the Bajoran religion and his posting near the planet, and by the end of the series is sincerely committed to Bajor.

In an episode that focuses on Sisko’s identity as an African American and a Bajoran religious figure, he experiences a past life as a scifi writer in the mid-20th century United States on Earth. The episode explicitly raises non-linear thinking through Sisko’s questioning of whether he imagines the writer or the writer imagines him, and we as the audience watch a man from the distant future see himself as a man from our recent past. Racism, rather than being masked through genre allegory as prejudice against aliens, elves, or mutants, is undisguised racism– the episode deliberately draws the parallel and then removes it again when Sisko imagines racist cops as Cardassians for several seconds. A non-linear problem in Star Trek is it originated as a show interested in civil rights and social progress, and over time became so bogged down in convention and metaphor that fans openly and unironically raged at the idea (both for DS9 and Discovery) of a Black captain and perceived ‘political correctness’. The episode points to the linear through-line of scifi, when Sisko’s past self asserts that even though his story about a Black astronaut will not be published, the fact the idea existed at all proves it could one day happen. The events that lead from Benny Russell’s story to Benjamin Sisko’s existence, however, are hardly a straight line. Sisko’s actor, Avery Brooks, experienced racism on the set of the show, both from showrunners and lot guards who racially profiled him when he would drive in to the parking lot. Even in Star Trek’s stated premise of a future where prejudice on Earth has disappeared, the franchise itself has been plagued with overt racism, sexism, and homophobia. Sisko’s character, despite existing in a show that is supposedly post-racism, shows the way progress does not move forward in a neat line, but often double-backs and pulls constantly from both the past experience and knowledge of the oppressed, and from the past prejudice and control of the oppressor.

-

In the episode “Explorers,” Sisko’s fascination with history, Bajor, engineering, and being Jake’s dad overlap. He researches and builds a traditional 16th century Bajoran spaceship that ‘sails’ on solar energy. If Sisko wanted to warp across the galaxy or replicate a model of the ship, he easily could. However, the ship for him serves as a pleasurable hobby, a way to bond with his son, and a deliberate retreading of the past and the experience of the people who lived it. The Cardassian empire (which often justifies its occupation of the Bajorans by claiming them to be technologically inferior, overly spiritual, militantly unambitious, and further behind in the Cardassian empire’s ‘linear’ understanding of a civilization’s progress and therefore right to exist) turn their nose up at the ship and its capabilities. By the end of the series, the Cardassian home planet’s reward for its commitment to technology, nationalism, and imperialism is revealed; even before the planet is brutalized by Dominion forces, it is a hollowed out, deeply polluted, and barely livable core of an empire starving for external resources to continue feeding its survival and ‘linear’ expansion. To the Cardassian empire, linear growth of capitalism, the military, and imperial reach was the perfect goal– it ends inevitably with mass casualties of its own population and major divisions. The survivors of the former empire, rather than start over and regrow into the same plant so it can hit the same brick wall, have to stop and simultaneously consider their propagandized history, devastated present, and uncertain future. The only way to actually progress and break the cycle is by questioning what their society considers progress to begin with; unstable imperial domination or sustainable peace?

-

A scientific example of forcing non-linear science in a linear box is evolution. Evolution is sometimes falsely believed to be a process which will result ultimately in a superior, perfectly adapted species; a belief that at its most harmless is used to stroke our own egos as ‘the apex predator’ and at worst used to justify eugenics. However, evolution is a non-conscious process that simply creates and recreates species that can fill whatever niches exist in the moment. A species perfectly adapted to flight in dense jungles will fail completely if placed at the bottom of the ocean. A species adapted to both will waste bodily form and function on trying to check every box, and likely be edged out by more specific competitors. There is no end goal, only a series of events happening constantly, shaping, and reshaping, sometimes retreading genetic history for a pair of legs or a life in the water again, sometimes building up to something that does well until it doesn’t, from the largest whales to the smallest bacteria.

A more poetic way to think about all of it is Ursula K. Leguin’s quote, from the relevantly titled sci-fi novel, The Lathe of Heaven; “Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; re-made all the time, made new.”

Faith, technology, even the DNA of every species cannot be seen as arrows reaching a specific target, that once reached, will prevent all past problems forever onward. The argument is not that progress can never be meaningfully achieved, and neither is the argument that progress once reached will remain concrete and fixed. The argument is that any effort, making bread or a tv show or a better world, has to be constantly made, remade, pushed, held, and examined. When a modern problem arises in Star Trek, it is because the conscious effort necessary to solve that problem has grown stale or become forgotten. Characters solve their problems, with the help of technology, and in DS9 with the help of faith, but mostly with the will to confront the issue, to work collectively, to use intelligence and compassion, to bear what cannot be easily solved, and to understand the past’s continued relevance in the present and the future. Even as we perceive time in a linear fashion, and we hope to leave the world better than we found it in whatever way we can, we need non-linear understanding to consistently weave and mend our own places within history. In Star Trek, both Earth and the Cardassian Empire have similar technological advancements– but Earth only achieved warp-travel and replication technology after undergoing World War 3 and being forced to solve its social and ethical crises. Technological advancements in both societies veered into rapidly different results based on the differing cultures, and even then, future Earth risks settling into a fragile state of content ignorance rather than permanent utopia. DS9 implies that Earth’s progress depends on its capacity for maintained social self-awareness rather than technology. We need non-linear understanding to keep from kidding ourselves that we’ve permanently ‘solved’ some great problem of life, either through smaller phones or psuedo-spiritual epiphanies, and no longer need to worry about mistakes from the past. We need non-linear understanding to recognize when a step forward really has happened, and to make sure we remember that step has to “be remade all the time, made new.”

-

In the first episode, we watch Sisko calmly and rationally explain to the Prophets our reality; that we live from one moment to the next, and use our past experiences to inform our decisions in the present about our future. The Prophets start to understand, but they distrust linear life for what they perceive as aggression, adversarial behavior, and lack of responsibility. We watch a capable Starfleet officer and an intelligent human being explain the most intrinsic and inevitable part of our lives; that we can only move forward in linear time. 

However, it is only once Sisko breaks down after repeatedly bringing himself to the death of his wife Jennifer, that the Prophets tell Sisko he exists in that moment and trust him. Beings moving through linear time do not do so carelessly; Sisko begs that he does not want to be at the moment of Jennifer’s death, that he wants to leave it behind; but he can’t. The moment existed, and will always exist for him. Sisko, crying, admits that “it’s not linear.”

#THIS HAS BEEN DRIVING ME NUTS TRYING TO EXPLAIN TO MYSELF. #ds9 #i still can't totally throw the dart at it but hm #i would even argue that by the end of TNG picard has changed from someone wholly married to 'we have moved forward thanks to the objectivity #of science' to 'damn i have experienced a lot of wild shit. oh the space god who's obsessed with me is here #again. sure why not'

[akatsukizombies]

Alternate Wish Storyline

I know this is a little late to the party, but I was just thinking about the Wish (2023) movie again and I started to come up with a different story in my head that would piece it together well enough

I know that some elements would heavily be inspired by like Jafar from Aladdin and other elements from the Little Mermaid, but for Disney's 100th anniversary, I don't think that having similar concepts in your movies would be a bad thing.

Start

One of the first things I would change is to make Asha the daughter of Magnifico. Magnifico has a similar back story to the one he already has, just that he and Amaya had a daughter.

Asha is their only child and on her 18th birthday is supposed to take on the role of the Wish granter for the city. Asha is excited for the job, and overly eager to grant the wishes of others.

Asha loves her kingdom and still makes time to visit her friends at the bakery whenever she can. Asha's friends are excited of the idea of Asha becoming the wish granter, and start asking her questions about whether she's going to cast more than one wish a month, or just generally all of the different things that she could potentially could do.

On her way home, Asha meets Sabino. Sabino creates and sells instruments to the people of Rosas. He had given his wish to Magnifico sometime ago and wishes that it would come true, especially considering he's quite old (insert joke about him being 100). Asha is inspired to grant Sabino's wish and is determined to make that the first wish she grants.

Magnifico and Asha share a kind moment with each other as they start to talk about wishes, however a similar argument about whether or not wishes are granted occurs. Magnifico refuses to grant Sabino's wish because he's paranoid that the wish could have negative consequences. Asha continues to argue and the two fight until Magnifico claims out of anger that "Asha clearly isn't ready for the responsibility of granting wishes". Since I'm writing this shorthand, there are a few details that don't transfer as well as they would with a fully typed-out conversation, but essentially Magnifico is having a King Triton moment. He's not willing to hear Asha out, and then he isn't willing to add details about why he can't grant these wishes.

Asha runs out of the castle, ashamed that she is unable to make people happy as she planned, and frustrated that Magnifico won't humor her opinion. Magnifico, once having a moment with his wife, feels guilty about his outburst towards Asha. As he speaks with Amaya and his advisor ("Not Jafar"), he recalls when he first gained his powers and all the mistakes he ended up making when granting wishes to others. Wishes, if not worded specifically or carefully considered, can become a monkey's paw. Because of his own naivety as a young man, a wish he granted was the reason for his original home being destroyed.

Meanwhile, we have the advisor I just mentioned. Yes, I know that it's super Jafar and Scar-like, but if you want to remain somewhat honest about Magnifico's portrayal before he becomes evil, I think just having an evil advisor is fun. The Advisor, (I'm going to call him Mateo) wants to take control of the kingdom, but he doesn't have magic powers. He would have shown up here and there, encouraging Asha and saying how she would be a great wish granter and things like that.

Asha finds a place out in the middle of the woods to cry, and this is when she starts to wish upon a star. As she wishes, down comes Star Boy. Star is curious of Asha and the two quickly start a banter. Star reveals that he's able to grant wishes as he pleases without needing a magic wand or potion, though some rules do apply (Cannot kill, force someone to fall in love, or revive anyone from the dead). Asha in an act of rebellion plans on dragging Star around with her to help her grant people's wishes while Star is in it for the fun of it.

Asha and Star would butt heads slightly due to Star not knowing how to act around humans, but Asha would in time be able to teach him about compassion.

Noticing that a large number of strange events have been transpiring, Magnifico starts having people look out for any people who may be casting spells amongst Rosas. Star hides out at the bakery with Asha's friends while Asha goes back to the castle to think of what to do with Star.

Mateo, probably having seen Asha and Star go around, takes advantage of Asha's emotions. Mateo talks about how the King just wont listen, and how when he finds Star, he's probably going to do "something drastic". He would really want to butter her up, and make her think that he's sympathetic and on her side. When he feels Asha is wrapped around his finger, Mateo casually drops "You know... my wish was never granted either."

Despite knowing that people who have given their wish to Magnifico are supposed to have forgotten their wish, Mateo is able to tell Asha that his only wish was to "Make Rosas a better place". Asha thinks that maybe he saw his wish in the wish room or something, but eventually what she would do is bring Star and him together.

Asha has Star grant his wish, but the wish backfires. Mateo's wish to make Rosas a better place was to make Rosas a better place for himself. Mateo becomes a sorcerer stronger than Magnifico. When Magnifico comes in to try and stop him, Mateo is easily able to defeat him and take his magic staff without even flinching. Asha tries to help/tries to get Star to help, but Mateo casts a spell that turns Star against Asha.

Asha barely manages to get away and she and her friends devise a plan to try and rescue her parents and Star. Mateo is after Asha, but Asha ends up using her own powers to try and fight against him. Mateo still overpowers her, but tries to use Star to kill her. Star while under Mateo's control, is unable to kill her because that goes against his magic. Mateo is furious because this infinite power is being wasted, so he wishes to have all of Star's power. This wish ends up being his demise, because Mateo becomes overloaded with power to the point that he bursts into a bright light and turns back into star dust.

Star is lying pale and cold on the ground, and Asha is devastated. She and the others start wishing and singing, and eventually, Star opens his eyes and starts to regain his magic (Tinkerbell). Star is alright thanks to the wishes of others and he and Asha kiss.

Magnifico, softened by this event, realizes that though if he's granting a wish he should still be careful, that maybe he's been too harsh on granting wishes. He tells the kingdom that he's going to be giving back the wishes to those in the kingdom, not because he will not grant them, but because everyone will be working to grant their own wishes.

Star knows that he has to go, but he's distraught at this point. Not just over Asha, but about everything. He's come to love Rosas and the people who live there. Up from the sky from the constellation star fell from, a few stars twinkle and Star starts to transform for a Star boy to a human boy. He and Asha embrace.

Instead of it ending on a wedding, we flash forward to Asha and Star together, planning and working together to help grant wishes for today on their little checklist. As they pass by people on the street, we see that Sabino's wish has been granted.

Anyway, sorry for this giant long thing. Sorry some of it is short like I mentioned, its just quick off the cuff thoughts.

#wish 2023 #princess asha #starboy #wish star #wish movie rewrite #movie rewrite

[bedlamsbard]

This is actually 3 things because ongoing breakup situation fried my brain so I kept forgetting. 1. That Peggy meta was a thing of beauty and I love that you managed to make her imperfect without ever falling into "this British aristocrat is a Relatable Underdog." 2. I kinda want to write my "alt!Loki hitting both his own and Thor's avengers beats" theory, but I don't want to make you feel like I'm trying to get you to go back to morning when I like Home a lot, your call? 3. Talk about Howard?

Aww, I'm sorry to hear you're not having a good time. <33333

I CANNOT get over the fact that the MCU tried to (a) make Peggy's and Whitney Frost's situations equivalent to each other in AC S2 when the flashbacks themselves made it clear that Peggy had every advantage Whitney didn't and (b) make Peggy's and Steve's situations equivalent to each other in CATFA and What If. I can actually see Peggy assuming growing up privileged but expected to fit into a certain role is equivalent to growing up poor, second gen, sickly, and with a single parent, but the narrative itself seemed to feel like those were identical, which is seriously uncomfortable.

I would be delighted to hear your alt!Loki theory! I don't get bothered about Morning the way I do with my Star Wars fic; I know exactly what's going to happen and how this story is going to end, I just haven't felt like working on it lately. So I would love to hear your theory!

Howard is a freak, which I say quite often and with affection. I don't think the MCU in any way intended him to be; it's a consequence of Howard mostly appearing in other people's memories, more as a plot device than a character, which is what he is in Tony's narrative. (And Tony says as much in his first scene in CACW.) We only see Howard as a non-constructed character on very few occasions and the only really extended occasion is CATFA, which is a much younger Howard than we see in Ant-Man or Endgame, or even his very brief flashback appearance in CACW. (I count IM2 as a constructed Howard because he's on camera and he knows he's on camera, he's just constructing himself here rather than being created by other people's memories/needs/etc.) Because Howard plays this wide variety of roles -- distant father, industrialist, inspirational father, casus belli, domineering boss, etc. -- it's easy to overlook what we see of Howard which isn't filtered through other people. I mean, literally, our introduction to Howard in IM1 is in newspaper articles about him. In IM2, it's Tony's memory of him, it's Fury using him to manipulate Tony, it's recorded videos -- and then CATFA we actually meet Howard, who is already at this point living the double life that Fury tells Tony about in IM2. Nobody knows he's involved with the SSR, just like for seventy years no one knew he was a member of SHIELD -- twenty years after his death! -- no one outside of SHIELD knew he was a member of SHIELD, including his own family. And the fact that Howard is the kind of person who not only could keep that secret, but actually did is such a major characterization note that should be the first thing anyone thinks of when it comes to him. Because everything else he does should be filtered through "this man is keeping a huge chunk of his life a secret." (and, I mean, one could definitely look at that as a metaphor for "Howard Stark was in love with a man for fifty years," but also it's...not a metaphor, he literally did that.)

#I could talk about howard a lot but it helps if I know which way to go! #thinking recently about the cartwheels I turn to take the best possible interpretation of not great stuff howard was involved with #I'm honestly surprised I don't get called on it more often (i.e. vibranium the manhattan project the cacw super soldier serum) #thelurkinglark #bedlam replies

[reubyrp]

[ LETHAL COMPANY AU / OPEN STARTER ]

Your muse finds themselves on a small ship, wearing a heavy radiation + space suit and a two oxygen tanks. They, along with Pete, Eisuke, and Nathan, have to recover scrap from other planets to meet the two day quota. However, each planet they visit has its own series of creatures that threaten the safety of the crew.

If your crew doesn't survive the planet or meet the quota, everyone will be FIRED.

Crews arrive at their destination at 8am, and MUST be back before 12am. The ship will leave automatically, leaving anyone on the ground behind. Each reply from me will include a time indicator.

Actions may have severe consequences, this may include critical injuries or DEATH. If your muse is able to die and that might affect your muses lore, do not consider these threads as "canon". It's just for fun teehee

Muses can be revived permitted their body is returned to the ship before departure. Bodies not rescued from the facilities or moon are left behind and thus- cannot be revived.

You can only visit one moon a day. Choose carefully.

Each scrap item will have a value (V) and weight (W) written in brackets. You cannot carry more than 75 weight.

Every muse will have a walkie-talkie and a flash light.

No overpowered muses. This really means- no muses that can't get injured by different creatures.

-----|||||-----

[ DAY 1 | Moon: 71:Gordion | Time: 0000 | Remaining: 300 ]

The crew had just boarded their ship, having made a delivery to the company. They'd barely scraped the quota, having unfortunately lost their longest serving crew mate on their last moon. While the loss hit the crew hard, they knew they had little time to recover.

They'd just been given a new set of instructions and a brand new quota to meet. Luckily, they'd also been given a new crew mate, someone no one had met before. Timidly, the trio greet their new crew mate before returning to their pre-departure duties.

"Yoo, what is hell is that quota?" Speaks Eisuke, pointing at the board above the radar. He tilts his head to the right a little bit, allowing his only eye to view the quota board with ease. "300 buckaroos? They expect us to recover that much in two days? That's insane."

Nathan, who's spending his time charging the flashlights and walkie-talkies, turns to look towards Eisuke. 300 is a staggering amount to bring back to the ship, especially since most scrap only averages approximately 5 to 15 bucks. He's quite shocked that this is their next quota.

"Look, we'll go to an easier moon first. Where the weather looks nicer." Nathan speaks up. "We can get started slowly and help our new crew mate learn the ropes." He gestures to the new crew mate, smiling warmly at them.

In the back of the ship is Pete. Who is analysing everything on their systems. He's studying the different creatures they've encountered and the different moons they've been to.

"If we do that, then we may not reach our quota at all." Pete speaks with a grumble in his voice as he turns to look at their new crew mate. "Let me read a list of the moons available, then our newbie can decide where we go." Pete leans against the computer terminal, scrolling through the list of moons they can travel to.

"We have:

[ 41: Experimentation / Level: B ] (Easiest)

Abandoned. With an arid environment paired with a thick haze. Notably home to the Bunker Spider and Hoarder Bugs.

[ 21: Offence / Level: B ] (Medium)

Abandoned. With a rough environment that supports highly aggressive creatures.

[ 85: Rend / Level: A ] (Hardest)

No one has ever lived here. It's a frozen wasteland. Unlikely for life to exist... which makes it highly unlikely we'd live."

"So." Pete finishes speaking, folding his arms as he turns to look at his new crew mate. "Where do you want to go?" The crew look curiously, nervous to find out what choice they'll make.

#lethal company AU #rp starter #open starter #not fully accurate to the game i assure you but this is how im coping bc i cant buy the game haha #Pete #Nathan #Eisuke

[032517]

sleep token lyric starters (pt 2)

feel free to change pronouns or adjust sentences to fit situations .

"give in to your love."

"drag me under again."

"i made loving you a blood sport."

"i'm still your favorite regret."

"you're still my weapon of choosing."

"i want to be forgiven."

"i want to choke up chunks of my own sins."

"let me pay for my arrogance."

"won't you show me your weakness?"

"call me when they bury bodies under water."

"they talk me through the damage, consequence, and how it's a pain they know they don't understand."

"weather me to notion, wash away the blood on my hands."

"did you not say we were made for each other?"

"i'll find a different harbor to lay my anchor in."

"you'll find a different way to keep from setting sail again."

"i'm still full of the love you want."

"i reach for you on faith alone."

"seems your heart is locked up and i still get the combination wrong."

"are you simply waiting to save your love for someone i am not?"

"too many swallowed keys will make you bleed someday."

"maybe you believe that in the end, you will be better off that way?"

"won't you fall for me?"

"my insecurities surround me like lions in the den."

"i feel like i'm losing touch with what i am again."

"i remember why i cannot pretend."

"you guide me in to safety and silence."

"as you breathe me out, i drink you in."

"we go beyond the furthest reaches, where the light bends and wraps beneath us."

"i know as you collapse into me, this is the start of something."

"i still avoid my own questions."

"we both bury that history deep."

"you know i can hold my breath forever."

"you are still a perfect reminder."

"it seems my hell is your high water."

"i'll smile through the agony for you."

"i know you still bear the weight of your own existence."

"i'd give anything to borrow your indifference."

"the stories you never told to me…"

"you keep me sharp and test my worth in blood."

"you got me in a chokehold."

"i'll turn my walls to gold to bring you home again."

"take me past the edge."

"won't you show me what it's like?"

"did i mistake you for a sign from god?"

"i would be lying if i told you that i didn't wish i could be your man."

"you won't ever want to talk about it."

"i was more than a body in your passenger seat."

"you were more than just somebody i was destined to meet."

"you gave me nothing whatsoever but a reason to leave."

"you say you want me but you know i'm not what you need."

"we'd rather be six feet under than be lonely."

"putting down the roses picking up the sword."

"my past is a holy book."

"these days i'm a picture frame."

"are you in pain like i am?"

"there is always something in the way."

"i wanna have you to myself for once."

"i wanna go where nobody else will ever go."

"i'm not here to be the savior you long for, only the one you don't."

"show me what wounds you've got."

"we were not young enough to know."

"and you think i don't notice."

"standing between collapsing walls, wearing a smile like you can't bear it anymore."

"will you show me the damage?"

"how much did they hurt you?"

"how much did they break you?"

"how far did they take you?"

"you will never be the same."

#( memes. ) #starter meme #rp ask meme #lyric meme

[rphelperblog]

inspired by @xx–ofmanythoughts–xx​

𝚃𝙷𝙴   𝚆𝙷𝙸𝚃𝙴   𝚀𝚄𝙴𝙴𝙽   𝙿𝚁𝙾𝙼𝙿𝚃𝚂.

these are taken from the show with the same title, triggers may be present, proceed with caution, feel free to adjust any you that you deem necessary.

promises are always made, and they are always broken. always.

i’ve been gone too long. too long.

i pray this is not the only time we meet.

i will come home, keep you safe, make this land better for you.

i love you, little prince/princess.

when you married into the royal house, their customs become yours.

i don’t know what he/she/they understands!

i only know the closer he/she/they gets to his brothers/sisters, the further he feels from me.

truly, we are destined.

ever since.. but ever since he/she/they came back from the battle.

how did you know?

whenever he/she/they returns from victory, a child is never far behind.

you both have more than your fair share already.

maybe it’s time that i started to take things.

what about a legacy? don’t you want to be remembered?

i will be remembered.

are we to measure our pain against each other?

are to compete with who’s suffered more?

what did you say?

i speak of that witch. that is treason.

[name:optional]? you’re as cold as ice.

this is a seeing. now, do you see more?

they must not be with strangers.

we have had a warning and now we will keep them close with us.

what are your intentions with [name:optional]?

what do you think they are?

well, you’re not attracted to her/him/them, which only leaves a motive no honorable than mine.

you might be a fool but you can’t fool me.

stay away from [name:optional].

my son/daughter will never marry you.

so whatever happens in this battle, i will be queen/king.

this is the very last time you will sit in my presence.

i am sorry for your loss.

this wasn’t an honorable death on a battlefield.

it was murder and treason in the eyes of god and men.

you will go wherever i command it.

you knew when you married that i would not be a husband that would faithfully sit at your feet.

we are not young anymore.

we are not those two people who met at the side of the road.

what remains is my love for you.

you are what sustains me in battle. you are my home.

i cannot ride to battle like this.

marry me. it is the only way. i’m mad for you. will you marry me?

i have to have you. if you will not be my mistress then you must marry me.

i cannot sleep. i haven’t slept since i last saw you.

so, is this love then? is this what it feels like?

what’s the point of being king/queen if i cannot keep you naked all day long?

you must be strong if you will marry [name:optional], as i once was.

you may have whatever you want. if you will take the consequences.

men go to battle. women wage war.

just play your part, it won’t be for long..

some of us are still loyal to our house.

do not doubt my courage. i am match for any man/woman.

i want them dead.

i am as lucky in battle as i am in love.

and i was hoping for you crown.

i’ve sacrificed too much to lose him/her/them now.

i thought you were well versed in love.

she’s/he’s/their my queen/king of choice.

i must avenge my father and my brother or god knows i shall go mad!

what should that achieve? it will not bring them back.

i don’t want to be king/queen if you will die.

i won’t die for a very long time, i promise.

i always keep my word, don’t i?

we were partners in every sense of the word.

you lay with her/him/them like you loved her/him/them.

maybe with them close to us our curse can do its work.

i would be a queen/king of stone. i would have dignity and no emotion.

you would defy a king/queen appointed by god himself/themselves?

oh, i don’t see god in these people.

death leaves a heartache no one can heal.

love leaves a memory no one can steal.

to fight an infestation you must scorch the nest.

how can one brother/sister betray the other?

i know you plot against the king/queen, while he/she/they may forgive you, i never will.

i wish there were no sides.

but i don’t forget and i don’t forgive.

only fools wait when their enemies are coming, to see if they may prove to befriends.

you are not alone. you have me and i will never leave you, i promise.

we will always have each other.

men/women with blood on their hands are no respecters of title or age.

they will be here any moment.

#open to all #open to anyone #open rp #ask meme #rp meme #open meme #open to anybody #roleplay meme #ask prompt #memes #historical rp #open historical starter #historical starter #open historical rp #historical roleplay #plot musings #wanted musings #plot musing #rp musing #roleplay musings

[ssaalexblake]

Okay, okay. Have a semi serious take here on the centenary special and the Doctor and Master relating to Themes, just because Ashad’s presence has my Frankenstein brain whirring. 

bc the show has used Frankenstein as a base metaphor for portray different themes across the whole spectrum of characters. The most blatant metaphor for the monster is, imo, Dhawan!Master. 

It should be noted that the main theme of the novel is ‘is the monster really a monster? Is the monster a monster for how he acts or what he is?’ which is pretty on the nose for this master’s breakdown. But the thing is, the doctor is Also a facet of the monster, this is not a simple case of having each of them take one role. The portrayals of Doctor Frankenstein (he has no degree. he’s a drop out. But i will be calling him this for ease of reading) so far rest in Ashad (who is a red herring for being the monster despite literally being a man made of parts of other men, he is the one who plays god, he is not the victim. He even says he wanted this before his conversion. He does not agree with mary when she posits his is a victim) and Tecteun, whose unethical experiments created the time lord race, and therefore Dhawan!Master, the metaphorical monster. These experiments also left Tecteun forcing that child to regenerate over and over for her own scientific gain, different people yet the same in one body. If 12 had found out about all of this i think it would have just compounded his depression. It’d hit a little too close to home. 

But as for what this means for the doctor and master? Well, they’re both monster metaphors but from the master’s point of view, the doctor is playing the part of the Doctor Frankenstein. He refuses to or cannot see that the doctor is a victim here, not a perpetrator, that even if the Doctor says they’re going to use this information to bolster themselves, that when they meet their very own doctor frankenstein in Tecteun she hisses and growls and spits in self defence like a wounded animal. Clearly distressed. No power here to speak of, not for 13. Absolutely aware that what was done to her was horrific abuse. 

But the main question lays in asking if is the story telling us that the master is not a monster full stop, or if the master is not a monster because of his genetics but because of his actions? We’re aware that his existence being the result of the abuse of the doctor was not something he had any control over, he was not complicit, he did not play a part in being born as he was and it doesn’t make him a monster.  But It could very well be that they are showing him as the same as Ashad, his monstrosity is in his actions. In which case, we’ve circled back around to the Master actually being the Doctor Frankenstein. 

In the book, Victor Frankenstein dies a futile and pointless death by chasing the monster and trying to kill them. Had no not tried to kill them, he’d have been fine. In the trailers for the episode, the master appears to be trying to erase the doctor from existence, so in effect he is chasing the doctor and putting himself in pointless danger to kill them. I suspect that the master will die, and it will be a consequence of his own actions. I do not expect the doctor to kill him, I suspect that his obsession with blaming the doctor will lead to his demise. It will fit with the literary themes. 

It’d be the irony that the Master, in an inability to let his misplaced fury for the doctor go and move on, dies. He’d make himself The Doctor. I enjoy that irony. In his distress at his situation he actively becomes the thing he hates. 

It also adds a layer to the fact that the doctor did not, in the end, kill Tecteun. Did not attempt to. Spent all of Flux trying to solve the puzzle, doggedly searched out leads in an obsessive way that poisoned her interpersonal relationships. She’s acting like Victor Frankenstein. But she finds Tecteun, finds the OG Doc Frankenstein metaphor and argues with her and hates her and is disgusted but... She does not go for her life. Maybe she would have, maybe not. Either way, Swarm killing Tecteun saves 13 from the type of pointless end that Victor Frankenstein suffered. 13 is merely the monster. Alone and not the cause of their own monstrosity. Passive. 

There’s a lot of literary debate on who is the real monster in frankenstein, but in this case i feel like placing 13 in the end as the the metaphorical Monster being hunted down is the sign of her honour. The Master being the most explicit metaphor for the monster physically in the show -having him be genetically parts of different people- and for him to blame the innocent doctor for his to the point his own obsession leads to his pointless death, making him circle back into Doctor Frankenstein territory (and therefore, monstrous) shows his own agency is what is making him awful. 

In the book, the monster dies after he believes he is alone now that Victor is dead. I believe 13 will fall to her death, probably on purpose, to bring her full circle (but that’s a whole other meta). I suspect it will be in the service of others, either many many people or maybe just saving Yaz. But either way, in the book one follows the other into death. 

tldr: the doctor is made the monster and the master is made the doctor in the end. I don’t think this made sense because of all the masters and monsters and doctors. Oh well.  

#dw shit #dw spoilers #dmsh #meanwhile byron had his literary hour in ttc #we don't talk enough about how well that poem links into the narrative