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five-flavor-soup · 1 month

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This is technically in response/as an addition to a post on the supposed ‘double standard’ in the fandom between Zuko and Jet as Katara’s love interests, but it’s been so long since it was posted and I figured the OP would be entirely uninterested in my word vomit, especially after like one and half years—so, separate post. I added a link for those interested. There's a cut because this got quite long lmao.

In short, the post supposes the argument that though Jet would’ve made Katara kill people (something Zuko very much Did Not Do, no matter what you think about The Southern Raiders), he cleaned up his act after this. Zuko, on the other hand, did lots of Really Bad Things to Katara & Co. with far more frequency than Jet did and got redeemed after a multitude of episodes doing Various Things Moste Evile. To then slap Jet with The Toxic Ex-label and see Zuko as the ‘healthier’ and ‘better’ option creates a Double Standard(™) within the fandom, which is supposedly bad and not an arguably incorrect reading.

But the differences in fandom perception between Jet and Zuko as Love Interests for Katara (one of which canonically, and the other potentially and apparently talked about in the writer’s room) are easily explained, as can the Supposed Double Standard—just by thinking about it from Katara’s viewpoint, or even the audience’s. Because, well, the worst things Jet ‘almost’ ended up doing didn’t happen because of outside interference only.

That’s the important bit here. He 100% would’ve drowned an entire village just to get rid of a handful of Fire Nation soldiers, had Sokka not managed to evacuate everybody. He 100% would’ve grievously injured two people who, as far as Jet and everybody else were aware, were refugees who might not even be firebenders — considering nobody else saw Iroh heat up his tea, he could’ve been wrong — in an attempt to prove his own hunch. Had the guards not been there, had Zuko not been able to fight back with swords, Jet would’ve genuinely attempted to wound them for as much as a puff of smoke. And Jet consistently involves bystanders (innocent or not) in his desperate quest to harm and defeat the Fire Nation: the Gaang (and particularly Katara, through explicitly manipulative means) and the villagers in Jet; Zuko, Iroh, and the people in the teashop in City of Walls and Secrets. Additionally, we don’t see more violence from him because he’s not a main character like Zuko is—though it’s implied that Jet beats up villagers who are supposedly in cahoots with the Fire Nation often, only agreeing to turn over a new leaf when he, Smellerbee, and Longshot decide to move to Ba Sing Se.

Zuko explicitly and frequently doesn’t harm people: that, or it isn’t important to the plot. He doesn’t burn down the village on Kyoshi, he literally only manages to lightly singe it. He threatens people with violence frequently but never actually goes in for the kill. I’d argue that the most explicitly violent thing he does in Book 1 is breaking Aang out of the Pouhai Stronghold—for his own ends obviously, but if it’s spelled like treason and sounds like treason, it’s probably treason. When he thinks of robbing the pregnant couple while he’s on the run, he stops himself of his own volition; when he considers using Appa to catch Aang (this was a point made against Zuko in the post), he’s unaware of what Appa’s been through prior to that point and sees him as no more than an animal used for travel, much like the ostrich horse he stole earlier in the season.

Zuko’s schtick throughout Book 1 and 2 is that he doesn’t want to think of the consequences of his actions. His plans are never fully complete. He doesn’t think of how he’s going to get a chained, notoriously slippery little eel of an Avatar to the Fire Nation, and he doesn’t think about what would happen to twelve-year-old Aang after they got there—which is horrible of him, but it also shows an odd, ignorant kind of innocence that you’d associate with a kid who’s got a hard time telling right from wrong. Like, I love Zuko dearly, adore him even, but kiddo doesn’t think ahead until the Book 2 finale and even that’s debatable. He’ll eventually start thinking ahead a little bit but for the most part, he doesn’t. Not saying that takes away responsibility, because it absolutely doesn’t, but it is telling of Zuko’s character: he’s an ‘act first, think later’-kind of guy, all ‘fuck around; find out; maybe success’. His sole goal throughout Book 1 and 2 is going home, without even thinking on how to get there beyond like, Avatar in my custody => back in Fire Nation with Avatar => dad loves me again. And he says that his only intention is to go home too, in Ep 2 of Book 1:

Aang: If I go with you, [He holds his staff in front of him as an offer, making sure Zuko understands that he does not wish to continue fighting.] will you promise to leave everyone alone? [The camera cuts to a side-view of the area, Zuko's men still surrounding him, spears poised. After a brief moment of hesitation, Zuko erects himself and nods in agreement. Aang is apprehended by Zuko's men, who take his staff . . . ] Zuko: [Boarding the ship up the walkway. Determined.] Head a course for the Fire Nation. I'm going home.

(Added emphasis for my point)

Zuko is not the Big Bad. He’s not The Largest Threat. He never is. In Book 1 it’s Zhao, in Book 2 it’s Azula, and in Book 3 it’s Ozai. Zuko is a consistent threat, yes, but not a particularly large one no matter how good of a fighter he is. Because he’s presented to us as a disastrously hurt and traumatised little brat who we, the audience, are supposed to feel sorry for, and slowly grow fond of. Because we learn in The Storm that the notion of “caring for others is weak” has literally been branded into him. Because he keeps getting back up to fight, but consistently holds back. We are shown that he knows, on some level, that what he’s doing is wrong: the text suggests that Zuko is actively suppressing his morals. And by the time Zuko hires an assassin to ensure the Avatar is dead, we know that Zuko is incredibly unhappy with his choice(s) and is desperate to be safe; that he’s uncomfortable but wants to be comfortable; that he’s incorrect about the source of his fear while he’s back in the palace. The audience is shown this explicitly.

By contrast, we’re shown that Jet is fully aware that those villagers will die. He’s fully aware that, if he manages to prove the two refugees are firebenders, they’ll be arrested and probably mutilated (if the hand-crushing is any indication). I love Jet and his character, but he’s supposed to be the example of poisoning yourself with your hatred, anger, and hurt. He’s revenge that goes too far, because he doesn’t allow himself closure. He knows the consequences and isn’t shown to care for them, as long as his goal is furthered.

And there is the small, but significant, difference between the two characters: Zuko initially just wants to capture the Avatar, is purposefully remaining unaware of what will happen when he does so, and is clearly shown to change, while Jet just wants to punish firebenders and is very aware of what will be necessary for him to do so, with a handful of lines of how he ‘stopped being like that’. And honestly, Jet is far more mature than Zuko is for quite some time, regarding the violence of war—basically as mature as Zuko eventually becomes at the tail-end of his redemption arc. But Zuko’s maturity is at that point healthier, because he doesn’t want to genuinely do harm.

In regards to their separate relationships with Katara, there’s these fantastic points that @sokkastyles made in reply to the post:

The fact that Zuko actually did change and Katara actually forgave him makes ALL the difference. [ . . . ] The thing about Jet is how manipulative he was with Katara. He not only almost made her kill innocents, but he lied to her about the man he attacked having a knife when he was called out, so that Katara would see her as righteous. Someone who is willing to lie in order to make themselves seem good and someone who says they are going to change but then does the same things doesn’t have a good track record, and that’s a more troubling relationship dynamic than someone who acts as an upfront enemy but then sincerely changes.

And:

I do think it makes sense to focus on manipulation being worse than being a cartoon villain when we're talking about personal relationships. I think many people can relate to having someone like Jet in their lives who seems nice but who lies and manipulates to justify their own bad behavior despite repeatedly claiming that they will change. Not that many people will experience being tied to a tree by someone who wants you to tell them where the Avatar is, and it is completely reasonable for people to be more forgivable of things Zuko did as a villain than things Jet did to Katara when he claimed to be a friend.

I actually don’t have anything to add to this, lol. It’s succinct and well-worded.

Lastly, in addition the relatability and the relationships being different (the manipulative, emotionally hurt, and self-proclaimed anti-hero versus the initially childish, explicitly confused and desperate cartoon villain, plus the girl they hurt horribly), there’s also the problem of Jet not being a main character. Jet is a relatively well-written side character, whilst Zuko is very quickly established as a main-ish character with his own POV (as the writers decided during the conceptualisation that he’d be joining Team Avatar eventually). Zuko’s troubling, self-destructive nature that has been forced upon him and his Tragic Childhood is shown in high definition. The audience is supposed to eventually be okay with Zuko and hopefully like him, slowly adding puzzle pieces to complete the picture of a horrific earlier youth and treatment by nearly everybody he knows except Iroh. Something like this isn’t necessary with Jet, not just because he was already incredibly likeable and understandable from his introduction and onwards, but also because he’s neither a villain nor a main character.

There’s multiple reasons as to why Zuko is often seen as the ‘better’ option, just like there are multiple reasons why Jet and Zuko are compared so frequently—they’re both traumatised teenage boys who ‘rebel’ to get some semblance of control back, but we see Zuko change into a kid anyone would be a little bit proud and fond of and that doesn’t happen with Jet. Double standard or not, Zuko and Jet are different characters who the writers also treated very differently, on purpose. It makes sense to me that the audience would think Zutara is the ‘less bad’ or far better option. We know far more about Zuko than we know about Jet; and Jet’s redemption arc, if we can even call it that, halts permanently when Zuko’s is reaching the height it for him to go into a freefall, ultimately culminating in a genuine redemption. We, the audience, know this. So does Katara.

#atla meta #zutara meta #not tagging this j*t*ra bc its a bit negative and i do not want to infringe on anyone's tag lmao #but i will tag it #jetara critical #just to be safe #jet atla #prince zuko #katara #zutara #the thing about both these ships is that katara can be put down as making an active choice in the narrative #though it wants to punish her for it #she is Wrong. he is Bad Guy. here's Better Guy go have babies #regardless. i feel like post-redemption zuko would be easier for her to choose--because she saw the proof of his change

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anto-pops · 3 months

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The Serpent's Paramour - Sebastian Sallow x Female!Reader

Summary: For the past five years, you've been traversing the Highlands in pursuit of ancient magic sites to master the all-consuming power from the repository. In the midst of your travels, you find yourself forced into an uneasy alliance with none other than Sebastian Sallow. He wants your help, but you want absolutely nothing to do with him.

At first, that is.

While the two of you learn to coexist in the same space again, you’re left wondering if you truly will be able to aid one another, or if your past mistakes will finally come to head after all these years and ultimately lead to your long awaited downfall.

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: 18+. aged up characters, canon-typical violence, kidnapping

Chapter 1 can also be found here on Ao3

You were getting really tired of running for your life.

During your fifth-year turning tail and booking it was often heavily warranted, especially because it was usually being done as a result of you waking up hordes of Inferi, or stealing important artifacts from dark wizards that would then be out for blood. You liked to think you had grown out of that habit, but tonight was proving to be something of a trip down memory lane.

You were being chased. Again.

Tucking your knees to your chest, you ducked down and rolled through mud at the same time a Bombarda curse blew up a chunk of the tree ahead of you. It was a close call, but you could hardly stop to survey the extent of the damage when you could still hear the thugs behind you giving chase.

“You daft idiots, grab her!”

Another spell struck the ground where you’d landed moments before, but you were already on the move– dipping and weaving in a bid to dodge the attacks that were fired blindly at your back. It made no sense; you had never been intercepted at an ancient magic site before, and as far as you were concerned, there was no reason for anyone to take interest in a dilapidated ruin. Aside from using the crumbling fortress as a makeshift base, no Ashwinders or poachers had ever been lying in wait in what was otherwise deemed an unremarkable location.

They had been this time, though. To make matters worse, they were looking for you specifically.

Your name had been like a battle cry from their lips as you’d exited the rundown site, and you hadn’t bothered to stick around to find out whatever the hell it was they wanted with you. If you weren’t so tired and weary, you would have apparated yourself to safety in a heartbeat, but splinching yourself as a result of your carelessness wasn’t exactly at the top of your to-do list. So, you had bolted straight for the edge of the forest, doing your best to avoid colliding with the low hanging branches that scratched at your cheeks and ripped at your cloak.

There was more yelling from behind you, only this time it sounded distinctly farther away. Chancing a look over your shoulder, you discovered that there was now ample distance between you and the goons chasing you, and you pivoted on your heels to head north for the river that separated the Clagmar Coast from Cragcroftshire. If you could reach the water, you would have a better chance of getting away and concealing your tracks in the process.

At least, you hoped you would.

Lungs aching, you pushed yourself harder, your arms pumping at your sides as you lept over a fallen log in your path, and though you stumbled a bit upon landing, you remained upright and pressed on. Another spell whizzed past your head– the heat from the Confringo curse nearly singing your matted hair– but you ignored it and focused wholly on running. It felt like an eternity had passed when you finally reached the colossal ravine, immediately trying to formulate a plan that would result in you on the other side with your pursuers left behind. There was no bridge to repair, no loose boulders to form into a levitating staircase, nothing. Panic began to fester in your mind for a heartbeat before you steeled your nerves and banished the feeling entirely. Hysteria wouldn’t help you right now– it never had.

“There– up ahead! Move your asses, dammit,” came the same voice from before. You turned to watch as a handful of masked assailants slid down the muddy embankment roughly fifty feet from you, and that sight alone spurred you into action.

Your wand was ripped from the holster on your thigh, and you channeled every bit of magic in your body into it as you aimed for the largest tree across the daunting trench in front of you. The Accio charm wrapped around the top of the monstrous trunk, and with every ounce of strength you possessed, you pulled. It seemed impossible at first, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and the foreign power from the repository surged to life to give you the assistance you gravely needed. There was a deafening crack as the wood began to splinter and give way under your ministrations, muting the onslaught of footsteps that grew nearer and nearer. With one final pull your efforts were rewarded, and the massive evergreen tipped towards you slowly before gravity caught up to it, sending it plummeting towards where you stood.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? It was a philosophical question– one that you had never thought about much before– but you had always assumed that with no one around, there would never be any way to know. Presently there were multiple people around, and as it turned out, a falling tree did make a sound.

As you dove out of the way, the pine covered top of the tree arched past where you had been standing, stretching over the shrinking space between you and the encroaching strangers behind you. Most of them saw the gargantuan tree heading straight for them and jumped out of the way, their shrill screams echoing throughout the forest and bringing a small smile to your face. A few others weren’t so lucky, and you watched as the peaked top of the tree swallowed them whole and buried them beneath a heavy thicket of pine needles.

Seizing your opportunity, you ran for the makeshift bridge and hauled yourself on top of the rough trunk, shoving and kicking at the spindly branches that stood in your way as you practically clawed your way through to the other side of the ravine. You didn’t dare look back, keeping your eyes trained ahead as you focused on maintaining your footing and not getting thrown off balance by your satchel.

It looked like a hurricane had torn through the earth when you finally emerged at the base of the tree. You hopped down and landed in the deep, root-riddled crater that had previously held the evergreen upright before running to the side to gauge where your attackers were. Most were still gathering their bearings while others attempted to drag their comrades out from under the suffocating weight of the branches. You hardly spared their survival a second thought as you pointed your wand at the center of the tree and cast, “Confringo!”

The flames grew rapidly and without mercy, frantic calls of “hurry” and “get them out of there” reaching your ears as you spun towards the forest and disappeared into the treeline. There was no knowing how much time you had bought yourself, but you weren’t about to squander any of it for a second.

You ran, and you did not look back.

***

One would assume that after two years of living in abandoned hovels and scrounging up scraps to eat with your bare hands, you’d be used to being cold, wet, and miserable. Hell, you had learned more about yourself since leaving Hogwarts than you’d ever thought possible, including just how resilient and resourceful you could be. Rain storms, stale bread, and a lack of clean water had never deterred you for long, and through all the trials and tribulations you found yourself facing, you always managed to pull through.

Tonight, however, you allowed yourself to be sullen.

The torrential downpour you’d been caught up in somehow managed to slip through the canopy of trees overhead, and as a result, you were encased in a cold, wet, dreary darkness. It had been two hours of trudging through mud and frigid temperatures, and by now you were caked in a thick layer of grime that you desperately wanted to rid yourself of. Charming away the mess was pointless– it wouldn’t be long before you were covered in muck once again– and you’d learned long ago that using magic while in the middle of a void forest was a bad idea, especially when you were trying to remain undetected.

After the events from earlier in the day, you had decided to head straight for the next site marked on your map to make camp and settle down for the night. However, you were still a day away from reaching the location, no thanks to the dark wizards that had chased you in the opposite direction. Your stubbornness and desire to reach your destination is why you currently found yourself on the outskirts of civilization, trying and failing to fend off the elements to get the journey over with, but the bone-deep chill that wracked your body was beginning to weaken your resolve.

You were exhausted.

Thunder rumbled overhead, long and loud amidst the sound of raindrops pelting against the dirt, and with a disappointed sigh, you made up your mind. If memory served you correctly, the town of Bainburgh was roughly a two mile walk west of the forest. Your paranoia told you it was too risky to set foot in a legitimate establishment, but your numb limbs and wet boots squashed your fears before they could come to head. Staying outside for the entire night would likely leave you dead, and there were few other options to choose from.

So, you marched. It took roughly forty minutes to traverse the jagged, rocky landscape in the dark, slowed down by the stray roots that stuck out of the ground and worked to trip you in your haste. By the time you made it into town, you were soaked to the bone and shivering violently enough that you were certain passersby could hear. The tavern was helpfully the largest building at the end of the road, and you headed straight for it without sparing any of the town’s denizens a second glance.

The warmth that greeted you as soon as you entered was beyond welcoming, and you tugged the door shut behind you before beelining straight for the firepit in the middle of the room. Your hands were so numb that you practically had to submerge them in the flames to feel any semblance of reprieve, and a few onlookers cast wary glances your way. Between the mud that coated your lower half and the water that dripped from every fiber of your clothing, you realized you had to look like a walking disaster, and that sobering thought had you tucking your hands under your armpits as you hurried to the bar at the back of the room.

The older gentleman wiping down the counter turned to face you, his aged face showing obvious alarm and concern when he caught sight of you. “Merlin’s beard girl, you look like you’ve been dragged straight through hell.”

You flashed him a bashful smile, though you were certain it looked like more of a grimace. “You could say that. You wouldn’t happen to have any rooms available for the night, would you?”

With practiced efficiency, he tossed the rag he’d been holding over his shoulder and shuffled over to the cabinet at the edge of the bar, opening the squeaky glass panel that housed the keys for the rentable rooms. “Ordinarily the answer would be no, but that damned storm blowing through has business movin’ slow. I’ve got two rooms left, one with a bath and the other without.”

Your heart soared as you hastily replied, “The one with the bath, please.” Without missing a beat, you snatched your weighty coin purse from your belt and dropped it on the wooden surface. The barkeeper raised his white, bushy brows in silent surprise as he tentatively picked up the drawstring sac, plucking ten gold pieces from within before handing it back to you. The bronze key he deposited in front of you had a wooden tag dangling from the end that read ‘13’, and for the first time in nearly two weeks you found yourself genuinely smiling as your fist closed around the cool metal.

“Up the stairs and on your left,” he instructed you. “Kitchen is open for another hour if you’re tryin’ to grab a bite before bed, but I’d wager you’re more interested in the runnin’ water.” The way his eyes fell to your soiled clothing didn’t escape you. You almost felt bad for tracking all the mud and water through the lobby.

Twenty minutes later, you had a warm loaf of bread and a small wedge of cheese tucked away in your bag as you ascended the rickety staircase. The decor within the aged tavern was modest, save for the silver plaques that adorned each door with their respective room numbers. Finding your own was a non-issue, and as soon as you were inside the sanctity of the rented space, you let loose a breath that you’d seemingly been holding since setting foot into town. Now wasn’t the time to let your guard down, but you weren’t about to turn your nose up at clean linens and running water.

Moving quietly, you stripped down to your undergarments and tossed your ruined clothing in the corner of the bathroom, then cranked the tub’s faucet to the highest setting and left it to fill. The bread from the kitchen had cooled some, but it hardly made a difference to you as you ripped off a piece and ate it with the cheese you’d purchased. Fresh food was a rarity for you these days, and you savored every bite as you paced the length of the room. With your hunger sated and your looming bath just around the corner, you allowed yourself to think back to the last few weeks, and you pondered just why dark wizards were looking for you.

Understandably, the whole situation reminded you of your fifth-year. Suddenly you were fifteen again, being hounded and hunted by Ranrok and Rookwood alike for simply existing. At that time they had wanted something from you; your abilities, your information, and most prudent of all, your silence. You’d known too much back then, but those times had passed, and both Ranrok and Rookwood were now dead– at your hands, no less.

So why would anyone be looking for you? Who were they to you? What did they want?

It wouldn’t surprise you in the slightest to discover that you had more enemies lurking in the shadows. The stunts you’d pulled and the things you’d gotten away with back then were bound to catch up with you, but you hated not knowing. The whole reason you’d left Hogwarts after graduation without so much as a word to anyone was precisely because you didn’t want your whereabouts known. The line between friend and foe had started to blur towards the end, though you acknowledged that it was mostly your fault.

You hadn’t turned Sebastian in, but you also hadn’t moved to stop Ominis from doing so.

With him imprisoned in Azkaban and Ominis reeling from the decision, it was no wonder the two of you had drifted apart in the years that followed. Anne’s curse worsening had only exacerbated Ominis’ feelings, and you’d graciously stayed out of his way anytime you saw him around school. Natty had never fully recovered from Harlow’s use of the Cruciatus curse on her, and your guilt had in turn driven you further away from her. Poppy was the only person you’d stayed in touch with for the remainder of your academic life, but she was too good a person to drag down with your… issues. You’d ultimately been the one to cut contact with her following your seventh-year, and while you’d felt bad about it at first, you knew it was for the best.

After tonight, that decision had proven to be the right one. If you really were being tracked, were any of your former friends targets for information? Did this impromptu, wild goose chase have anything to do with your volatile abilities from the repository? Had you unwittingly put them in harm's way simply because they knew you?

The bread in your mouth had gone soft, and you shook the pointless thoughts from your mind as you finished off your mediocre dinner and made for the bathroom. The warmth from the water was divine and single-handedly chased away any lingering doubts about holing up in a public place for the night. For just this once, you would gladly trade sleeping in the cold, wet dirt for the pending restlessness and paranoia that was bound to greet you, and greet you it did.

After climbing under the itchy but clean blankets, you stared wide eyed up at the ceiling for what felt like hours. Every squeak of a floorboard, every booming laugh that echoed up the stairs, every shadow that darted past your window, all had your heart racing. Even after checking twice that the two points of entry were indeed firmly locked, your nerves wouldn’t steady. Your skin crawled with unease at the prospect of being blindsided in an unfamiliar place, and at one point you even began pacing the length of the tiny room just to tire yourself out.

Eventually, you came to a grinding halt at the foot of the bed, your hands curling into fists as you sucked down a slow, deep breath. “You’re fine,” you murmured to yourself. “You’re fine. It’s okay, you’re safe, you’re fine.”

Maybe if you repeated it enough times you would start to believe it.

The second time you crawled beneath the prickly sheets your brain was still running in overdrive, but you were far less fidgety than before. You had no clue how you managed it, but eventually your eyes drifted shut– and even if it ended up being a fitful bout of sleep, you would be grateful for the few hours of shut eye you managed to acquire.

Gratitude went right out the window, however, when you were startled awake by a whispered, “Petrificus totalus.”

Your body locked up– stiff and unable to move an inch below the scratchy covers– and before you even had the chance to glance in the direction of the disembodied voice, they whispered a different sort of charm.

One that made your world go dark.

#sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow x you #sebastian sallow x reader #hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy fanfic #hogwarts legacy fanfiction #sebastian sallow x female!reader #my writing #I have every intention of posting chapter 2 soon cause I'm not used to putting out short stuff and this shit is PUNY #sebastian isn't even in this chapter maybe that's why I don't vibe with it LMAO #wip: the serpent’s paramour #WIP TSP

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pinktom · 5 months

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What do you think pink about tomarry content creators getting abusive tomione asks suddenly? First obsidian, then I saw one more account getting and now seminar arts. Is it only one person doing all this?

Btw my jaw dropped with your no filter answer where you said that whenever harry comes the chemistry between to marry best tomione 🤣. I would love to hear more of your no filter thoughts

I have no doubt those asks were sent by trolls. I, however, am simply a hater—I see an opportunity to hate, justified or not, I pounce. x]

In ascending order, here are the reasons I think Tomione sucks.

PS: If you know this post is gonna piss you off and press "Keep Reading" anyway - that is entirely on you. Send me anon hate and I'll assume you're a masochist who wants me to spank your pert, round hinie and call you a naughty, naughty girl.

“Book nerd loves book nerd uwu” trope does not fit Tom Riddle, and I find it obnoxious.

Like I touched on when I was first sipping on that haterade, Tom Riddle values usefulness. By this logic, you could easily contrive up a scenario in which he wants to use Hermione’s skills for whatever reason.

However, the route that is usually taken in Tomione is that Tom is … impressed … by her intellect. A woman… who is… smart? He’s intrigued. 😏 He’s never once met a smart woman in his life before. And certainly not one so independent and feisty. She doesn’t swoon over him like the other girls do (eye roll).

I never got the impression anywhere in canon that Tom Riddle cared much about intellectual pursuits beyond those which were immediately useful to his goals, so for the very basis of a relationship to be his interest in her brains – to me, it’s tedious and off-base.

And also icky honestly lkjdflkj. Hermione’s two crushes are on a couple of stinky smelly boys (Krum, Ron), where the hell do you go off acting like she wants some mysterious, twisted dark boy? I’m offended.

Absolutely zero chemistry; once Harry steps in, it’s game over

Because these characters lack any common ground, shared values, or compelling circumstances that tether them together, there is zero chemistry. You can try to fabricate those things with a little bit of crack!cocaine, but then you’re forced to contrive a lot of additional personality traits and circumstances that diverge them from their canon selves. (Which yes, you can do, but it only works if you’re gonna do something really interesting.)

As much as people like to har har about how canon doesn’t matter, here’s the truth: yes, it does. Our communities only exist because we’re referencing shared source material. However much you can bend characters around, everyone knows each character has an essence that just “feels like them” on a deeper human level.

As such, we all know Tom Riddle and Harry Potter are intrinsically connected to each other. In Tomione this presents a conundrum. I could cite dozens of fics, but I’ll stick to two very well-written ones I enjoyed.

In one of them, Tom was a criminal and Harry was a detective on his tail; no matter how many times Tom fingered Hermione, he was always more entangled with Harry, because the stakes and intensity between them were so much grander. Same thing with the other fic but amplified by the Horcrux bond. At their very first encounter, when Tom and Harry laid eyes on each other, they both immediately felt an arresting connection, with distrust and intrigue. Hermione instantly paled in comparison in both stories.

It’s just like the moment Harry steps into the frame, you see how transparent and superficial the “commonalities” between Tom and Hermione ever are. Books and cleverness - oh but Harry, there are more important things! Like being spiritually linked! And sharing unique and intimate traumas in common!

Heterosexual Tom is truly disgusting to read about

Look–it’s a matter of taste. We’re all products of our environments. For me, no amount of feminism or fantasy can overrule everything I’ve seen and experienced in my life. ( ಠ_ಠ )

I don’t enjoy reading about women in relationships with men who are controlling, violent, and selfish. Even the way Voldemort treats Bellatrix in canon always makes me wince, because I see it like this … here’s this girl who grew up proud; who was beautiful, rich, extremely gifted and powerful; and she turns into this horrible sniveling creature. Say it ain't so! I wish she'd killed him when he broke her ass out of Azkaban.

But back on the topic of Tomione specifically — I think there’s another layer to it, which is the greasy self-insertion aspect which makes me uncomfortably aware of how much the author’s ginie is tingling at the idea of Tom Riddle lifting a brow and saying, “Is that so, Miss Granger?” while she scowls and tells him to fuck off !!!

It’s of course not the self-insertion in itself that’s icky. It’s more just that the type of person who wants to self-insert into that particular heterosexual scenario is, uhh, too basic for me and my big powerful fujo brain.

And I guess that's gets me to the very core of why I find Tomione basic, trifling, and underwhelming.

Tom Riddle is allowed no faults whatsoever in Tomione

Oh, sure. He’s controlling. He’s mean. He grabs her wrist and says, “What were you doing talking to Malfoy?” 😠

But so... ? Tom Riddle is a deeply embarrassing, mentally unwell trainwreck of a person. He's so much grosser than that. Yet you do not get that feeling at all in most Tomione fics. His worst character traits are often there but they’re made to seem sexy and flattering at all times.

I’m not saying your run-of-the-mill Tomarry fic doesn’t suffer this fatal flaw too—but when it comes down to it, Tomione doesn’t allow for his unsexy fallibility, period. Because the sexiness of the ship really depends on heteronormative romantic tropes and fantasies, which tend to be quite rigid and narrow.

And I understand and empathize with why this is; just look at Reddit, so many women in heterosexual relationships already must put up with mortifying, embarrassing, and unhygienic things (y’all know which posts I mean 🙁).

That’s just not what I’m here for. I love Tom Riddle because he’s a superficial narcissistic lunatic with no self-awareness and emotionally stunted outlook.

I don’t want to hear how he terrified the orphans if I’m not gonna hear about how he pissed the bed and got his bare ass whipped by a mean, toothless matron for chatting in sermon. I don’t care to see him bossing around those wimps at Hogwarts if there’s not at least one student who looks at “ENEMIES OF THE HEIR BEWARE” written in blood and feels tummy-churning secondhand embarrassment.

#tom #server #asks #offensive content #anti tomione #shipping wars

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wordbunch · 1 year

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You’re in the Fellowship and the Hobbits have a crush on you...

a/n: lol there’s no explanation for this, just a cutesy idea that came to me. yes I know I’m still not finished with my Legolas story 😅 no warnings here, just fluff and chaos 💛 (the reader here is human/elf/dwarf/anything but a hobbit for extra fascination 😆) lemme know how you liked it! 😘

+ tagging @starlady66 as requested

For starters let's just (re)establish one thing: being subtle and lowkey is not something any of them vibe with (except sometimes Frodo)

If you're an Elf, Sam would be infatuated with you beyond words. You would just be talking about something and he'd stare with the biggest heart eyes, and then blush furiously either when one of his friends point it out, or when you make eye contact with him - he'd be so red in the face

Oftentimes he would ask you lots of questions with genuine curiosity, and you would be more than happy to answer, whether it's about historical events, songs and stories, customs of your own race, your travels... Anything, and he wants to know it all

Whenever he cooks for the fellowship, you (after Frodo, of course) get the most delicious piece of whatever he made, you caught on it fairly quickly

Many times the Hobbits will talk about you (only the best, of course), but they would be unaware of how loud they're being, and you would hear so many adorable comments and try not to giggle

"Did you see how [y/n] fought off that orc?!"

Frodo would enjoy engaging with you in meaningful, deep conversations, and you think he's wonderful to talk to, yet the spark in his eyes gives him away. And sometimes he has a little smile on his face, no matter what you talk about, he just enjoys talking to you and having your full attention 🥺

wait hold up, Sam would give you random flowers he found along the way, or he would just show you and teach you about many different plants

Like I said, Frodo would be the most lowkey of all of them, but you picked up easily on his mannerisms and you can now read him like a book

You have a great knowledge of Middle-earth and he often wants to consult with you when trying to make a decision where to go next

You yourself are very protective of the four Hobbits and just have a soft spot for all of them, you like to ruffle their curly hair and sometimes tell them a legend or sing an ancient song as they go to sleep

They all love to stay close to you when you're walking over long distances, especially Frodo and Pippin

Firstly, they feel safe with you, secondly, they enjoy your company

You try to always reassure them in little ways

You always always always have a snack or a piece of candy in your pocket for any of them 🤫

You practice sword fighting with Frodo a lot, you're very concerned for his safety, of course

Sometimes that would make the other 3 just a tiny bit jealous, and then of course you'd have to do it with everyone

Gandalf had known you for a while and trusts you, therefore, all four Hobbits trust you completely

Merry is super loud and boisterous around you, shamelessly trying to get your attention, and then keep it for as long as possible

He likes to act all brave and tough when you get attacked by orcs, but more times than not you ended up saving him

Merry is definitely the boldest when it comes to openly complimenting you, and he's very dramatic about it also

In comparison to him, Sam can sometimes feel extra shy and inadequate, but you make sure to let him know you appreciate him and what he does and says

He's just as important!!!!

Sam would tell Frodo that he's crushing on you (not like it's hard to tell...) and when Frodo says he's having the same feelings, Sam immediately wants to back out but Frodo is like "you really think [y/n] would end up with either of us?"

Merry and Pippin enjoy telling you stories of their mischievous adventures so much, and they exaggerate stuff so much in order to make themselves seem cooler

You think they're unbelievably fun either way

So, Pippin is canonically the smallest and youngest and you have an EXTRA soft spot for him, and also he's the most painfully obvious about his crush

He's always sooo embarrassed when Gandalf is strict with him because you can also hear the wizard's reprimands of the young Hobbit

He blushes furiously and he gives you a sad baby look and you always reassure him that "accidents can happen to anyone" and "Gandalf can just be grumpy like that, it's not your fault"

More than once he instinctively hid behind you in a dangerous situation

Sometimes for safety he likes to hold the hem of your cloak and fiddle with it as you walk - helps him get his mind off of all the impending dangers

The other 3 Hobbits would relentlessly make fun of him for being so obvious but he doesn't care in the slightest

Many times when you were alone on the night watch, one of the Hobbits just happened to be unable to sleep and would keep you company instead

Once during the night watch Merry was hanging out with you and laughed so loudly at something you said that half of the fellowship woke up and wanted to strangle him

Especially in those late hours Frodo likes to confide in you and even talk about his dreams and visions that you try to interpret together

You teach Sam about the stars and constellations and phases of the moon

Almost every time Pippin joins you on the night watch, he ends up falling asleep like hugging you around your legs as you stand alert or something (i diagnose him with BABY)

He very much loves to give you cool rocks that he gathers on the way

If any of the Hobbits has an unpleasant dream that wakes them up, they come to you, you just have the calming protective energy (and candy in your pockets, when you think about that...)

If only one of them had a crush on you, it would be a lot to handle, let alone FOUR

But they're so cute that you just can't dismiss them or ignore them ever

And maybe all that lovely chaos is a good distraction from everything bad happening around you

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itsmattchou · 11 months

Text

like sweet chocolate ice cream !

pairing: seventeen maknae line x gn!reader warnings: probably profanity i swear too much, reader is implied to be shorter than mingyu, canon typical seungkwan violence in chans section, english isn't my first language!!! genre: fluff synopsis: just cute things the boys would do in a relationship! notes: started this thing in march and finally finished like a week ago. first post kinda nervous🥴 shoutout to my beautiful gf for helping me with this!💗

hyung line version

seokmin - has thousands of petnames for you. he knows you have a name. but calling you solely by your name is too boring for him- so he just resorts to petnames. but always using the same ones isn't good enough for him either, as no single petname alone could express his love for you perfectly. so he just uses every single one and switches them up every time: honey, baby, babe, darling, love, sweetheart, sunshine, pumpkin, flower, … you get the thrill. he calls you every pretty word he knows. will get offended if you don't switch up your petnames for him from time to time too.

mingyu - rests his head on yours. no matter how tall you are, there's a good chance he's still taller than you. and he absolutely loves loves LOVES it. he does that annoying thing tall people tend to do- purposely putting stuff you need on the highest shelf so you have to ask him to get it for you (he loves feeling needed)- but his favorite thing he can do because his height allows him to is resting his head on yours whenever he gives you a random back hug. and he does it every time he hugs you. and he hugs you all the time. your head isn't for you to use, it's just "mingyus headrest" at this point.

minghao - remembers everything you tell him about. whatever you're telling him, he is always 100% paying attention. whenever you ramble about something, may it be about a show you like, about the book you've read recently or just something that happened at work- he slurps up every piece of information as if he was dying of thirst. minghao thinks of you as one of the most important parts of his life, therefore he "should treasure everything about you, even your opinion on the sweater your boss wore today" (his words, not yours). you do find it endearing, of course you do, but it's still a bit creepy when he remembers stuff you can't even recall ever talking about…

vernon - only watches shows with you. he is your typical introverted, quality time as love language, chilled kinda guy. he enjoys simply existing next to you, he doesn't even need to talk to you. your presence next to him is already enough for him to be super happy- but he also knows it can get quite boring to do only that. so he just puts a show on for you two to watch! vernon refuses to watch a single episode without you and stops the second he sees you asleep next to him and 100% expects you to do the same thing whenever he falls asleep first. he's always on the lookout for new shows for the two of you to watch and has made a list for it. he really likes to call it "your thing".

seungkwan - is your personal hypeman. this man is simply so fun and precious. he loves when you talk to him about your day, your ideas, your worries, your everything- he also likes that he's able to do the exact same thing with you. but he not only listens, he also encourages you and hypes you up. for every little thing. you wore the green sweater today? AWESOME! you want to try a new lip tint? GO AHEAD! you show him lyrics you wrote? YOU SLAYED! karaoke night? YOU'RE BEYONCÉ! he's so proud of you and can't help but be your lil cheerleader boyfriend. he still gives you the "criminal offensive side eye" from time to time tho. nobody's safe.

chan - updates you on everything. there's nothing chan loves more than spending time with you. dates, cuddling or just silently enjoying each others presence: he's down for everything, as long as it means being with you. of course he can't spend every second of his life by your side (sobbing), so whenever he's not around you he resorts to texting you. "wonwoo hyung just sneezed" "seungkwan hyung just kicked hoshis kneecaps" "seungcheol hyung just told me to put my phone down" he updates you on everything that happened, doesn't even matter how important it is. also has that goofy smile on his face his hyungs make fun of him for whenever you text

#seventeen #svt #seventeen x reader #svt x reader #seventeen fluff #seventeen headcanons #seventeen reactions #seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #dk x reader #dokyeom #seokmin x reader #mingyu x reader #minghao x reader #the8 x reader #vernon x reader #chwe hansol x reader #lee chan x reader #dino x reader

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nalyra-dreaming · 4 months

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Hi! Love your blog!

We know that made Lestat's abuse of Louis way more prominent in show (decision I still don't agree with but that's not the matter) and we have Jacob saying that s2 is way darker than book. People speculate that it's because they'll include FrankenClaudia who technically wasn't in this particular book but do you think they'll make Loumands relationship more toxic too like they did with Loustat? (I know they added romance to loustat but they also added beating scene that was on way way more smaller scale in book). Do you think they'll add more gaslighting? Emphasize on Armand making Louis turn Madeleine against his will?

Thank you for answering!

Hey nonny!

So glad you like!

I do think that they will heavily lean into that, yes. (And this "interview" is already held with the content of several books, so imho it doesn't really matter where the content comes from... Rolin held 6? or 7 books up to the camera^^). This will be a bit longer^^:

As all things are said to be revisited we will see how s1 will hold up, but of course it will stay correct that they emphasized the abuse vector. And that is a very valid thing for the Vampire Chronicles! There is a LOT in there, especially abuse, but also like... everything else, too. (As the Twitter discourse currently on Marius also... shows.)

So to get back to your actual question: yes I do think they will emphasize this part (though if they add more? We will see.), I think they have already hinted at that in season 1, but the book canon and their chosen promotional posters give us a very poignant hint here as well.

If we look at the "elevator posters" for example, we have Lestat, Louis and Claudia looking sideways at the observer*, in various state of emotions: fear, anger, and aware consternation (maybe), respectively.

And then we have Armand, *the observer, who looks down the length of his nose at them, with an air of superiority and a hint of a smile, clearly the one in charge:

It is also important to note that he is half in shadow but from the front here, not sideways as the others. The other three are almost completely "in the light", visible as it were. Armand... is not.

Now, if you remember the poster of season 1, then this is a direct echo of it, as well as a development from it:

Lestat was only half visible, behind Louis, since we only heard of him through Louis. Now he is in the same "position" as Louis and Claudia, almost fully revealed.

It is interesting that those elevator pictures keep Claudia in this position here, too, but it makes sense when one knows what will revealed only in later books about her and her play (I have talked about the twist from Merrick).

Now the posters sold at SDCC are equally interesting, because they speak their own language:

First off, we have Louis, holding the mask of Lestat in his hand, a mask taken off, and the mask echoes Lestat's "death face". He is looking into space, beyond it, and he seems to be seated in the back of a stage (given that we have a scene photo with Lestat seated on stage that carries ... repercussions^^).

"La mémoire est un monstre". The second half of IWTV is (among other things of course) Louis yearning for Lestat and learning a few... uncomfortable truths. Masks are taken off, and the revelations will be bloody. Louis will be condemned to be a spectator for some of them, and in the book it culminates in a very poignant speech about passivity.

And then there's Claudia. "La famille est un monstre." Dancing as Carmen, the red flamenco dress making her seem older than she is (supposed to be). The dress emulates flames, the audience is dead. She is almost smirking at the beholder, definitely proud of who she is, and her feet are naked.

"Carmen, a searing depiction of a woman who craves love, but creates obsession and jealousy, is one of the most popular operas ever written." (x)

The Carmen reference feels perfect for me, it will be very interesting to see which aspects they take up for the show, who Madeleine will be, given the World War 2 context, and the jealousy of the soldier in the original opera.

Then there is "L'amour est un monstre". Love is a monster. Love is the monster. The lover is the monster. For these vampires all these variations fit, and I do not just mean Loumand here, but generally.

Armand seems to say something to Louis, who is looking into space, with a slight frown.

The movie poster from "Gaslight", a movie about a whirlwind romance and the new husband isolating the wife from the world and "gaslighting" her to make her appear mad and doubt her own sanity to get at what she possesses... now the IWTV people know what they're doing *laughs*

Anyone who has read IWTV and TVA knows that Armand spell-binds Louis on several occasions, and influences him to do things, for example turning Madeleine, as you mentioned.

Interestingly enough there is also a man with a face half in light, half in shadows here - and that is echoed on Louis in the poster, one half is painted red - indicating he doubles with the police officer of the movie, discovering the things that are supposed to be hidden from him.

And, last but definitely not least, the general poster, without caption:

Lestat is "almost" revealed, our "view" of him still restricted somewhat by Louis and Claudia, as well from the theater curtain.

Claudia is engaged with whatever is happening beyond our view, Louis... is not. He is restraining himself, hands in pockets, mouth set and his gaze is dark, somewhere between accusation and anger. Lestat's gaze is open here, carrying a vague challenge, an expectation.

If we take the elevator pictures back into account one could argue they are looking at Armand here - and that would fit with the story:

Lestat will come to Armand hoping for something, expecting something. Louis will come to some very uncomfortable realizations, and events that will make him beyond angry. Claudia will try to move on, leave Armand behind. And even Louis, arguably.

So to wrap this up: I'm not sure they will add more gaslighting. More toxicity.

Because I don't think they actually need to! There is plenty there already. They will however build on what's there, and it has been more than hinted at imho. (Arguably that happened in season 1 as well, as a lot of that ep 5 scene echoes something in later books, and we will know only after season 2 how it will click into place.)

Armand uses his spell-gift on Louis even after promising not to do it (in the book, I talked about it here), and given how this show drags things into the light they will definitely hook into this. I think both definitions of "gaslighting" will apply - given the structure of the show they might make Armand the "villain" (that he was in the first books) this time round, though of course this word doesn't quite fit for these vampires.

Armand is the one who tortures Nicki and chops off his hands. We are getting flashbacks to that time, and we know that we will get to see Lestat and Nicki in that time. I would bet money on it that they will explore that part of their history.

Armand is the one who tortures Lestat, and uses him to pull the mock trial off.

Armand is the one who throws Lestat off a tower, challenging him to love him... a scene many book readers expect to at the very least echo, if not replace the ep5 scene, depending on how they spin it.

Armand is the one who influences Louis to do things, and who lies to both Louis and Lestat about the other.

Armand is the one who has Claudia (and Madeleine) killed, because she was in the way.

I know show only viewers see Lestat as the epitome of toxicity right now, but... he's actually not. Jacob put it well in that interview that Louis is "angry at him and presents him as a monster".

The show made choices, and given that it's Lestat (who is just the tiniest bit important for the following seasons/books after all)... this requires other choices to be made.

And going by the posters they have given us - they do.

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indigovigilance · 7 months

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The Erasure of Human!Metatron

The elephant in the room is that Neil has [purportedly] denied the existence of a human Metatron. But I, for one, think an elephant really ties the room together. So let's get started.

First, I will address Neil Gaiman’s apparent denial of the Human!Metatron storyline (below the cut):

Caption: The Metatron in Good Omens wasn't ever human.

Which would seem to put the debate to bed.

Except.

Caption: That’s not really his father. It is. It is now, and it always was.

By Adam renouncing Satan as his father, we have in-story canon evidence that the past can be retroactively changed. So a storyline past can be divergent from an in-world past which has been modified. But only to a degree, because Aziraphale and Crowley clearly remember that Adam ~was~ Satan’s son, and Adam still retains some residual powers. Like pencil marks on paper, the past can be erased, but the shadow of its former self will always be there. But if that's not enough for you, there's also...

Lucifer!Satan

Neil Gaiman has also been pretty consistent with this characterization about the non-existence of the past in other characters, for example Lucifer!Satan:

Basically (not to be rude), if you think that these statements can be taken to mean that we will definitely not get a story about Enoch aka Human!Metatron in S3, you have fundamentally misunderstood how time, history, and identity work in Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens universe.

So what Neil said about Metatron never being human… can we just collectively set that aside for a moment?

Caption: Work with me, I’m extrapolating here. Yes? Good. Read the rest of the meta.

Evidence of Human!Metatron

Now that we have established that a former, no-longer-existing version of Metatron could have been human, let’s examine the in-world evidence. The best direct evidence is:

Caption: I’ve ingested things in my time, you know.

This is weirdly important in the Book of Enoch. Food is mentioned in the Book of Enoch at least fourteen times, and consistently it is associated with being human, and having earthly desires, and subsequently with sin, whereas the angels are described as not needing to eat food but instead being nourished by faith alone. Enoch!Metatron’s own relationship with food is also explicitly elucidated:

Enoch answered to his son Mathosalam (and) said: Hear, child, from the time when the Lord anointed me with the ointment of his glory, (there has been no) food in me, and my soul remembers not earthly enjoyment, neither do I want anything earthly.

I propose that "in my time" is a direct reference to Metatron's prior existence as a human, and the fact that this time is over serves to underscore his current inhumanity, making him all the more sinister.

Other Evidence Pointing to Book of Enoch

This next bit is somewhat dubious evidence, but the entire reason I wound up investigating this is that I was actually investigating Baraqiel:

…and for the God-fearing life of me, I cannot find any reference to Baraqiel except in the Book of Enoch. So this is a pretty big ✨Clue✨ to just leave hanging out there if it’s not supposed to lead us to this text.

The Scottish Mason

Okay guys, this the part where it all comes unhinged, but I promise the payoff is worth it.

The Book of Enoch was recovered from Ethiopia in 1773 by a Scottish explorer named James Bruce, who also happened to be a Mason. In 1774, upon his return, he was made a Fellow of The Royal Society of Edinburgh. And if this quote doesn’t get you, I don’t know what will:

Amazingly, Bruce brings back not just one copy, nor two, but three! Three copies of this text, which was previously thought to have been lost to the West forever. This inevitably led to all kinds of accusations as to where he had come by them, and more importantly how? Add to this that Bruce was a Mason in one of the most influential lodges, a Bruce descendant, and an imposing physical figure and 6 feet 4 inches tall, with dark red hair and an irascible temper, it is no wonder that so much excitement and mystery surrounded the man. [source]

So, you know, this guy:

In summary:

There are reasons that we should be looking to the Book of Enoch, and the story surrounding its reintroduction to the Western world, as source evidence for Good Omens S3.

If you enjoyed this, you may also like my meta on Baraqiel and Azazel, which draws upon the Book of Enoch.

My original (in retrospect, kind of terrible) Metatron meta is here.

#good omens meta #good omens #good omens 2 #the metatron #metatron #book of enoch #crowley #satan #lucifer #baraqiel #book of life #ivoc #erasure theory

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chinomiko · 7 months

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hi! i know it must be kinga boring for you recive questions about castiel bc ppl are obsessed ober him for years but like the other person who asked you a few days ago, i follow you (and ply mcl) for like 10 years and ever since day one my fav boy has been tiel. till this day at the age of 22 he's my favorite and my comfort boy so i joke that he's not a fictional character anymore for me and that i know him personally at this point lol

with that being said, i bet you can imagine that over the years i've been elaborating his personality beyond what the game gives us but he's your boy, you created him therefore you know him and your word is canon, so i'd like to ask a few stuff!! nothing too big, dont worry but here we go.

tiel is an amazing songwriter and since he's very emotional not very good at express it (he does it a lot better now that he's an adult 🥹) i bet his lyricism is very deep and poetic so i have this headcanon that he at first wouldn't like taylor swift because obviously lol but then he payed attention to her lyrics and ends up basically being a swiftie since he likes her writing a lot. what you think about that?

and what kind of music crowstorm sings? like there are any bands that you listen and think "hey this would be in a crowstorm album!" (i have a playlist with this name btw lol). im probably wrong on this one but since this is my fav band i like to think that catfish and the bottlemen are the irl crowstorm, musically speaking

and the last one: another thing that gives me so much comfort is the lystiel friendship. not having present parents, being so closed off i know that lysander is such an important presence on tiel's life because he was basically the only close person he had (specially after the debrah fiasco); if lys didnt had taken the farm and went to college and bla bla bla do you think he would still be part of the band with castiel? im not sure if im mixing the canon with a fanfic i read a while ago (lol) but the band was more of a fun thing to lys, right? he liked writing most (i always imagined him getting into a literature degree or something like this). i also like to think that he helps tiel with lyrics at times, even if he's out of the band (in my head the canon is that they are best friends and pretty close till this day, i pretend lys never left our lives just like armin)

anyways sorry for this big ask 😭 i dont even know if you will read it all but if you do, thank you! and dont feel like you have to answer, i know its too much its just that mcl is my hyperfixation till this day like for real, i have a fanfic that i write still and i even plan on making it into a book sometime. except from the main characters (who is my oc) all the characters will be based on the game's ones :)

ilysm take care and stay hydrated!!

Hellow !

Aww thank you so much and for all your love for Castiel ^^

What a long ask, I'll try to answer in order.

Castiel being a swiftie. No sorry, I don't think he would be. If candy likes her, I'm pretty sure he would try to listen. Also he is an open minded person for sure, so I'm sure he would be curious to listen and study what all the hype is about, it could also help as some sort of far away inspiration, but I don't see him being a fan.

What kind of songs Crowstorm sings This is hard to answer because my musical knowledge is pretty limited and I'm sure I would miss on lot of potential groups or singers that would fit well. And it would require too much research time to have a real detailed and clear answer, but I still did check a bit and here is a little list of songs/groups that I think would have a fitting vibe for Crowstorm

City of the dead - Hollywood Undead The worst in me - bad omens Paranoid - I prevail Trauma Just pretend - Bad omens Ice Nine Kills - A grave mistake Catfish and the bottlemen sounds nice but I think its a bit too soft for what I imagine for Crowstorm.

What is his voice like I think something similar to this (not necessarily the song itself, just the voice. )

bonus, I think this song is so so fitting for Castiel's breakup song, I love it. Dial Tone - Catch your breath

Castiel and Lys friendship. It was'nt mentionned much in UL/LL because I didnt wish to bring too much drama by mentioning Lys when he was not there for the players, but of course Lys and Cast always kept in touch. It is very clearly mentionned in Lys' AL that they keep in touch, that Lys helps Castiel write songs and Cast also like to come to his farm to have a break and spend time together. You should play it if you havent, you'll have a good chunk of Cast and Lys friendship :) However yeah I can confirm that Lys would not like to do it serisouly and professionally, but he'll be all the way around to support and help Cast.

#chinomiko #my candy love #otome game #castiel #original character #canon lore #mcl

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jeremywhitley · 6 months

Text

Canonically trans pirate: Alister St. Marina

So, when we first started the Sea of Thieves comics, the game was still in alpha testing. I got the incredibly cool privilege of rolling up on the Golden Shores before other people even had access, because we were basically launching simultaneously. One of the really cool things about the set up was that we got to create our own crew from scratch and tell a story on the sea when it only had a few legends in it, so we were given free reign. I knew we had a handful of issues to tell the story and I hoped we'd get to come back to them, but nothing was certain.

Some of the characters, namely DeMarco and Lesedi Singh became regular characters in the game, which was something I had never even realized was a possibility. Then, of course, DeMarco's death as a big story in the game. It was the first big mystery. And Lesedi was part of it. We even got to hear Lesedi's voice (I was quietly VERY excited they actually cast a South Asian woman in the part).

That led to a new opportunity! Years after their initial adventures, we got to make a new mini-series called "Sea Dog's Search" which centers Lesedi on her quest to find her brother's lost soul. We wanted to change things up and show that it had been years of adventuring on the Sea of Thieves, so even though we hadn't written years of comics, we wanted to show that their lives had kept on going. Since Lesedi was our focus in the series, updating her look was important to me. In the first comic, she started out looking like this:

Then, in the game, she and her brother founded The Sea Dogs and got sharp matching outfits:

Obviously, she stay's looking fly, but it's worth noting that this was a matching outfit with her brother and much more his style than hers (DeMarco loves clothes and dressing sexy, Lesedi has always been a little more no nonsense). So now that she's out from under the shadow of both her brother and legendary father, we've done some updating to her look. First, she had to get rid of the old one and do a bit of fighting of her own:

Over the years, the variety of what you can wear in SoT has improved so we wanted to give Lesedi something that felt like it had a little bit of who she is and a little bit of her home.

But there was somebody else who hadn't really been in the game whose evolution was perhaps more important to me.

When we had done the first miniseries, I talked with the crew about the possibility of having a trans character in the books. They were excited, but one thing they really wanted in the comics was to make sure that things that characters did in the book were more or less achievable in the game and, at the time, there was no way in the build to change your character's look or gender once you started.

But now, there is! There is a potion that allows you to change the look of your character including their gender. Rare and co was very supporting of us then following through with an idea we had during the first fun that was now possible. I had originally written the character of Alessia St. Marina as a person who was not comfortable in her own skin and had used costumes and espionage as a way to cope with that. She was especially fond of going undercover pretending to be male.

At the end of the mini-series, Alessia ended up getting together with her partner in crime, but she was never able to come out as trans. But it has been a few years both in our world and in the game one, so allow be to introduce you to Alister St. Marina.

He's a smooth talkin swashbuckler who just happens to be married to one of the most dangerous cutthroat women in the world, whom our crew has to rescue from her most recent scrape.

So, thank you very much to Rare, Titan, and everybody else involved for letting us tell this wonderful story and bring the first canonical trans masc pirate character into the Sea of Thieves.

See you out there, you salty sea dogs!

#sea dogs #lgbtq #lgbtq comics #sea of thieves #seaofthieves #sea of thieves mystery #demarco singh #lesedi singh #Alister St. Marina #trans pirates #queer pirates

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ravenelyx · 1 year

Text

I love you in every timeline - Chapter 1: My Love Is As a Fever, Longing Still

← Prologue

Pairing: Sebastian Sallow x Fem!Reader

Words: 14.9k

Chapter Warnings: angst, Harry Potter characters appearance, no name usage for reader (only a few blank spaces), use of 2nd person for the reader, Sebastian is confused and doesn't know how to handle his feelings, and he's also struggling with his personality, veeeeery slow burn

Summary: "He couldn't risk being emotionally stuck somewhere he didn't belong just because his heart was grieving and crying out for a memory of the girl it broke and pieced itself back together for. He couldn't do that to you. He couldn't do that to himself. He couldn't do that to her". In which Sebastian, in his search for a cure in the Dark Arts, finds himself 100 years into the future and meets his most trusted companion's descendant (who looks far too similar to the girl he was once secretly in love with).

A/N: this is long, and more is to come. It's gonna be a very slow burn apparently, but I hope you will like it. Finally Chapter 1 is here, it's been a while. Also, as much as I love fanon! Draco and Pansy, I decided to follow a more canonical approach here, sorry. Again, english is not myfirst language so I'm sorry if I made any mistakes. Never am I going to write about time travel again,my brain hurts.

I also made a playlist inspired by this because why not.

You can find the whole fanfiction here on ao3

"My love is as a fever, longing still For that which longer nurseth the disease, Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please." - William Shakespeare, Sonnet 147

You weren't her.

Then who the hell were you?

You briefly smiled at Sebastian and then turned back to the red-head, squinting. "Do you have the book or not?"

Ron gulped, avoiding your eyes. "It's probably in my dorm or something... I didn't have class, so I didn't take it with me."

"In your dorm, isn't that right?" Your eyes narrowed even more if that was even possible, and Sebastian was pretty sure you were about to hex him on the spot. Your leering didn't go unnoticed by either of the two Gryffindors and Hermione’s throat bobbed ever so slightly, eyes widening a little in alert.

"Well, as I said—"

"Here," interrupted Hermione suddenly, voice slightly squeaking. She looked into her bag and extracted her own copy of Winogrand's Wondrous Water Plants. "Use this in the meantime. I take notes on the book too, unlike Ronald here, so it should compensate."

You accepted the book, seemingly calming down a bit. “Thank you, Hermione,” you said, enunciating her name sarcastically as you shot the other boy a nasty look, and Sebastian couldn't help but feel a touch of schadenfreude as Ron hung his head low, cheeks as red as his hair.

“I said I'll give it back,” said Ron, scowling. “It’s not like you need it anyway. Sprout doesn’t even make us open books!”

You politely smiled at Hermione, your eye slightly twitching at his remark, before said smile turned into a sneer as you looked at Ron again. “Then what the hell is taking you so long?"

Hermione sighed softly, dejectedly, and Ron shrinked on himself, sending Sebastian an unconfident look. But that only seemed to propel you to continue.

"And most people do open books for Herbology, my dear Ron, but I don’t expect you to know that. You’re too busy trying to find ways to whine and beg others to help your lazy ass later when they have other, more important things to do.”

Sebastian saw it happen, in a gradual, torturous slowing of time. There was something about you, in the way your lip quirked up, in the way your brows furrowed, giving life to that crease. Something that you couldn't stop, washing over you like a tsunami, drowning any possible thought of rationality and empathy. Control, in that moment, was appearance and nothing more.

He felt, for a moment, afraid; chilling his veins until goosebumps raised on his skin: a thrill, as if she was there. As if he was watching her unleash that godly power in all her beauty.

You were still, hands clammy at your sides, as he could see you open and close them repeatedly, and you weren't gloating. It was different; like that thick, foggy feeling that floods your brain when your opponent misses a step whilst casting Protego, or opens their arm a bit too much, making it easy for a well-aimed Stunning Spell to pass through, and it makes your cheeks turn red and your chest flutter, and Sebastian saw that twinkle in your eyes as you ignored Hermione’s pleading look.

The same thrill that makes his heart tug when he inevitably, nimbly raises his wand back. When the spell goes right where he intended it to go, and the deaf sound of a wand hitting the floor fills his ears.

It was that innate human side that took pleasure in pain. That part that could turn from a lambent glow into a Fiendfyre if you're not careful. Or if you really put your mind to it.

But you weren't duelling.

Sebastian wasn’t sure what to make of the way with which you were slandering your — he supposed — friend. And in front of him, too. It made him slightly tremble, his lip slightly twitch. Part of him wondered if he was invisible, part of him felt a little too alert, part of him pitied the girl in front of him.

And while it seemed Ron and Hermione were just as shocked, they had a sort of weary gleam in their eyes. And any attempt at smoothing things over was futile. Hermione feebly tried to intervene. “Oh, we don’t need to go further—”

“You see Ronald, for a Prefect you should really put some thought into the impression you’re making on new students, not to mention the one you should give of our school—” you ignored her and sarcastically gestured towards Sebastian, who felt his breath hitch at the sudden spotlight put on him, “and yet, you’re always so comfortable acting like a dimwit . Pull yourself together and be responsible for once.”

Ron’s jaw fell open, completely at loss for words at your harsh words, and he shared a look with Hermione that Sebastian was able to understand completely.

What the hell just happened?

He couldn't agree more.

“I think you’re overreacting,” said Ron sternly.

“I think you’re disrespectful,” you replied just as eagerly.

“Alright, that’s enough!” said Hermione, putting herself between the two Gryffindors. “It so happens we have a guest here!”

Sebastian felt his heartbeat quicken ever-so-slightly as both you and Ron turned to him like you had just seen him for the first time. He shifted his weight uncomfortably; an attempt to get rid of that eerie shiver that ran down his spine as your incensed gaze fell on him.

That seemed to snap you out of it, and your cheeks flushed a bit in regret. “Fair enough...” you muttered, nodding at Sebastian. “Sorry.”

He nodded back, unsure about what to do as he shifted his eyes between you and Ron, letting them linger on your face each time he looked at you. Your nose had that same curve he always wished he could kiss, run his lips over with reverence… He shook the thought out of his head immediately.

“I should receive an apology as well,” muttered Ron, and Hermione nudged his arm as a warning not to add fuel to the fire.

"You have one day. Just one." You gave Ron an ultimatum, your tone sharp and, Sebastian thought, quite frightening. He hoped to never find himself in Ron's place. “And don’t expect me to help you ever again, I'm tired of it!”

You didn’t wait for an answer and began to walk away, only stopping briefly to look at the Slytherin boy. "I wish you the best of luck, especially if he— " you glanced at Ron again "—has to be the one guiding you through this maze they call a school."

Sebastian gasped and opened his mouth to reply, but his words seemed to be stuck somewhere between his throat and his tongue. He let his eyes fleet over your face again, heart beating out of his chest as he tried to make out your features, like in a dream.

"I hope we'll meet again soon enough." You forced a smile on your face that looked almost guilty and embarrassed, and with that, you were gone.

His eyes followed you until you turned a corner and vanished from his sight, thoughts racing at a hundred miles an hour — questions with no answers clouding his mind more and more each second. Who were you? Why did you look like her? And above all, why did you bear her family name?

Even after the theatricals that he had just witnessed, there was a certain hope in his heart: traitorous and wrong. A hope that she was really there, somewhere, waiting for him. A hope he immediately wanted to crush as soon as the image of your eyes and red robes flashed in the window of his vision again.

Sebastian Sallow was utterly, completely, absolutely losing his mind.

He was aware of the gravity of his situation — his body still spasmed uncomfortably every now and then as a result of having travelled through space and time — but, Sebastian realised, it felt more like a trance. A painfully aware and too tight reverie he couldn't find a way out of. After all, just the night before, Natty had asked him if he wanted to take part in Summoner's Court with her the next day, hadn't she?

And just a few hours after that, Sebastian had decided to try his last chance, opening the artefact that, he had believed, would bring him back to a time where her sister wasn't cursed — a time he could have avoided the disaster. And not just one at that.

He took a deep breath, willing the halls of Hogwarts to become brighter in his vision, more real. He was indeed in the future, he repeated himself, his ribcage evidently too small to contain the excruciating throbbing he felt in his chest. He had to accept that. He did. Probably.

“Bloody hell!” Sebastian heard Ron mutter as he also stared at the point from which you had just disappeared. “What was all that for?”

“Honestly, Ronald…” said Hermione curtly. “We’ll deal with this later.”

Still, Sebastian felt painfully calm at his situation: the sort of calm that he only experienced when he knew he was in trouble and couldn't do anything about it, or when he knew he was in trouble and had the solution for it lying in his hands, teeming down his throat like a treacly and old pint of Butterbeer, or a briquette of ice, whipsawed by the choice of safely travelling down his stomach and melt and leave him warm and satisfied or change direction and chill his lungs and cut his breath and bring him to a freeze.

What would Sebastian, a calm and collected person (and he believed he was, or tried, at least), do in a similar situation?

Two options came to his mind, clear and painfully bright.

To freak out completely until he was in shambles on the floor, addled and ready to break himself and cut the edges of his persona to fit into the new reality he now essentially belonged to, though he still didn't feel like it.

Or estrange himself from said reality, seeing it through lenses, analysing the world around him as if he weren't there until he found a way to go back, like a spectator, a reader. And he was indeed a reader.

In a way, the very core of one was tantamount to the other — both would completely destroy him. And Sebastian Sallow could not allow himself to be destroyed. Not like this.

But then there was another, the one Sebastian desperately willed himself to adopt, keeping his edges glued to himself and the lenses away from his perfectly working eyes.

The one he followed when everyone had lost hope for Anne.

And that was any option available, and every rational thought, even if the sound of them — or anything else, really — was still drowned by the loud pounding of his heart reverberating at the thought of the girl who just flipped his world upside down.

“What did you say her name was again?” Sebastian asked the two students, his eyes never leaving the corner you had just turned.

Ron and Hermione both looked at him with surprise; Ron opened his mouth with a scowl, as if about to make a snarky remark, but Hermione interrupted him, repeating your name calmly.

That was indeed the name.

And so he tried to be as rational as possible.

“Thank you,” said Sebastian quietly, lips parted, gaze musing. “I’d forgotten that just there.”

You were her descendant, a hundred years from his time.

Sebastian couldn't remember her having any siblings or cousins who bore her surname, but if you did, you had to have received it from a male member of her family, didn't you? She couldn't possibly have given you her name unless she married someone from her own bloodline, and Merlin, he hated that thought.

Or she had married someone else and decided to keep her own surname instead, and, once again, Sebastian knew — it wasn't his first thought, of course, but certainly one that plagued his mind — that he couldn't have been the one she had married, because if one thing was true about Sebastian Sallow, it was that he'd have burned down the world just to get her to take his last name.

His thoughts circled back to her family, but try as he might, he couldn't pinpoint any related members from whom you might descend. He was starting to feel dizzy and sure to be on the brink of collapsing under the amount of information he was trying to process, but then Ron and Hermione pulled him out of his trance by starting to explain the rules of the castle, the classes to attend and some basic information about the Professors.

"Defence Against the Dark Arts changes every year; they say there's a curse on the chair or something," explained Ron, having calmed down a bit, and half-smiled, "so you won't have to see toad-face for long."

"Toad-what?" asked Sebastian absent-mindedly, his head still teeming with disjointed thoughts and meandering ideas which, Sebastian was sure of it, would never find a proper abode.

"Our new Professor. You'll see what I mean when you meet her for the first time."

Sebastian nodded occasionally as he listened to them talk about the other Professors, such as Snape, the Potions teacher, and also the Head of the Slytherin House. Ron kept going on about how annoying he was, trying not to show how much he was afraid of him. "You don't have to worry, though: Slytherins get special treatment from him," he said jokingly.

Ron, Sebastian decided then, was a nice fellow. He found himself wondering why you had reproached him so harshly. He had half-a-mind to ask, then, about your behaviour — and why both the two Gryffindors seemed to be far less surprised about it than he expected. He decided against it.

"Wait, what do you mean, she won't let you use spells?" Sebastian frowned as they talked about 'toad-face', alias Dolores Umbridge.

"She's from the Ministry," explained Hermione. "After what happened last year, we're sure they're doing everything they can to keep the school under control and make sure no lies—" she stroked the word sarcastically, "—are spread among the students.

"I'll explain everything later. We should focus on more important things, like your academic persona and your education," she added, noticing his confused expression.

She was definitely Prefect and worthy of her role too, at least if you went by the typical clichés.

The hours passed, and there wasn't a minute when Sebastian didn't think of her.

And of you.

Because the more time he spent walking, the more his rationality seemed weak and pointless.

He thought he'd go mad, her memories spoiled by your oh-so-similar but equally different features. He saw your eyes looking at him back in the Scriptorium, as she was ready to take the Cruciatus Curse rather than cast it on him. He saw a Gryffindor sitting by him in Herbology, stealing not-so-subtle glances while tending to the mandrakes. He felt like his mind was splitting in half, frustrated and embittered and close to tears as you tainted his remembrances of her.

He needed to see you again, talk to you, ask about your life, your family, your past. He needed to know every thought behind your eyes, every subtle expression towards him that could mean you recognised him, that you were her, that you remembered him, remembered your time together, that you'd follow him in all his antics, in all his mistakes, in all his choices, that your actions meant more than your words.

That you loved him as he loved you — as he loved her.

Her.

Not you.

Because he didn't need to talk to you. Because indeed your recent actions spoke louder than words ever could.

Because no matter how much Sebastian fooled himself into thinking that he wasn't alone, stuck in a world that had gone on without him for a hundred years, that she returned his feelings the way he thought she did, that somehow you'd look at him and know that she was meant for him, that you were meant for him, you weren't her . You didn't know him. You could never know him as she did, and not because he wouldn't let you in — he'd run to you even now and lay his heart open if it meant finding a faint resemblance to what it used to be — but because he couldn't allow it. He couldn't risk being emotionally stuck somewhere he didn't belong just because his heart was grieving and crying out for a memory of the girl it broke and pieced itself back together for. He couldn't do that to you. He couldn't do that to himself. He couldn't do that to her.

At that moment, Sebastian made the decision to stay as far away from you as possible.

He snapped out of his thoughts as he reached the Great Hall. He hadn't noticed that it was already lunchtime.

"Do you think Dumbledore will make a speech to introduce him or not?" asked Ron, not caring that the Slytherin boy could hear him loud and clear.

"I don't think he'd just let it go, but I hope it won't be as big as last year's," noted Hermione.

"Those were two bloody new schools, Hermione. This one must be different."

He felt like a new Honeydukes product hitting the shelves for the first time.

It turned out the Headmaster hadn't made a speech to introduce him, and Sebastian almost would have preferred it if he had, because he felt like a circus monkey sitting at the Slytherin table with a hundred eyes staring at him like he'd just broken into their home and stole a particularly rare card from their Chocolate Frogs collection. He looked around at the other tables and saw heads turning away so quickly that he was sure he would be the culprit in a mass murder with a thousand broken necks. He sighed as a girl with dark hair and green eyes sitting opposite of him handed him mashed potatoes.

"Do you want to eat or not? No one poisoned your food just because they don't know you."

Sebastian glanced at her and accepted her plate, munching his food slowly as if he didn't quite believe her.

"I'm Pansy Parkinson."

"Sebastian Sallow."

"Sallow? Never heard of that name. What's your blood status?"

He almost choked on his food at her blunt question. What kind of uncivilised conversation was this? And the way she looked at him, waiting for his answer, he knew that that question alone could decide his entire future — hopefully a short one — in that House.

"I'm a pureblood like you, I suppose," he lied, lifting an eyebrow as he blankly stared at the girl.

"I see," said Pansy, narrowing her eyes as if not fully believing him. And Sebastian knew it was probably time for him to make up a story, a lie he could tell everyone in the indefinite amount of time he was to spend among them.

He had put a great deal of thought into what wanted to tell in the past hour — he could, after all, be anyone. Anyone he wanted.

He could change his past, he could avoid his mistakes, he could pretend to be a normal boy with a normal life. He could just be.

In the end, it didn't matter, because while other people might look at him and see only a picture-perfect new student with a thirst for knowledge, he would look at himself and see the boy who tortured his friend, the boy who murdered his uncle.

They might not know, but he would.

He kept the edges tight against his body, and decided to opt for a half lie that made it easier for him to play on and not forget any details.

He told her that he wasn't from the Highlands. He told her how his parents were Professors at another magical school but died prematurely, and left him to live with his uncle, a former Auror. And he told her about his timely death as well, omitting, of course, his involvement in it.

"When he died, too, I decided to move here," he concluded simply, hiding the tremble of his lips behind a glass of pumpkin juice.

Part of him expected sympathy from her, or at least a hint of hesitation; that look he had become so accustomed to whenever people came to know about his tragic tale or something along those lines.

Surprisingly — though, for some reason, Sebastian wasn’t surprised in the slightest — Pansy Parkinson didn't seem to care at all.

"Were your parents true purebloods or filthy blood traitors like the Weasleys?" she asked instead, clearly showing where her priorities lay, and it was enough for him to know that his earlier hope that there would be no more discrimination was merely a child's prayer.

"They have magic. That's the only thing you need to know." Sebastian cut short before focusing on his food. He noticed the familiar badge on her robes and silently thanked Dumbledore for assigning him to the Gryffindor Prefects instead. At least they never judged him, not even for dwelling with time and space like a bloody idiot — though he believed he had seen a gleam of reproach in Hermione's eyes as she'd uttered the word 'misadventure .

"All right, I believe you." She shrugged.

Sebastian wasn't convinced.

Pansy nudged a boy beside her, who looked at him with his piercing grey eyes. He was pale, with sleek blond hair so light it almost looked white, and also wore a badge. He reminded Sebastian of Ominis. That must be Malfoy.

"I'm Draco Malfoy," — it hadn't been so hard to guess, though now Sebastian thought he'd rather not meet him at all — "I saw you walking around today with that skint blood traitor and that mudblood Granger. You should have been assigned to us. It's not worth it to taint your blood status by associating with such filth," he spoke venomously, a mocking tone punctuating his sentences.

Skint blood traitor. Mudblood. He was exactly like those boors Sebastian so enjoyed thrashing in Crossed Wands when they had the guts to join. Perhaps he could do the same with him — blast him with Bombarda until his hair turned black (or he went bald; any of them would do).

Sebastian didn't know why he suddenly felt like defending the honour of two people he had met that same day, but he wished he could poison his food instead.

"Maybe next time you'll be considered fit for your assigned role. I suppose all that purity didn’t take you that far this time," he replied just as rudely.

Draco Malfoy made a weird face — a mix between stunned and angry and that half smirk that had begun to creep up his face as he had expected Sebastian to agree with him, and that had died on his lips but not yet fully, and the whole thing was so comical Sebastian had to hold back a snort. Because that was not (not in a million years, no matter how many artefacts he accidentally opened) going to happen, and when Draco Malfoy realised it, he seemed to have a hard time closing his mouth back to a dignified expression.

"I'd be careful if I were you, new student. I'm a Prefect!" he threatened, squinting his grey eyes and finally gaining enough control to curl his lip into a small smirk.

Spoiled bragger, Sebastian thought.

"And what exactly are you planning to do — take points away from your own House?" replied Sebastian, smirking back, enjoying how his face turned back to that ferret-like countenance.

"We share the same dormitory. Choose your words carefully." Draco Malfoy pursed his lips, his face becoming even paler. Sebastian wondered if he had even an ounce of blood in that body of his.

"We do indeed, so I suggest you sleep with one eye open," retorted Sebastian. Part of him knew that, logically, he should have been more mature about the situation.

But Merlin, he was starting to despise the brat.

(And the other part of him was still fantasising about that Bombarda-induced vengeance).

"You think you can scare me?"

Draco Malfoy snickered, and the line of Slytherins sitting on his side began staring at the two boys with piqued interest, wondering what all the fuss was about. It was quite unusual for two Slytherins to argue so openly, and even students from other Houses had begun to turn their heads towards their direction. Two big students beside Draco Malfoy snickered, too, as if on cue. Sebastian felt a wave of repugnance at how pathetic they looked.

"Definitely not, especially when you have your guard dogs next to you." Sebastian nodded at the two students mockingly. "Tell me, does your father pay them to be by your side? They can't be that stupid to volunteer to be in your presence."

The blond appeared to want to eat him alive, while the other two took a bit longer to fully understand his words before reproducing the same angry expression. Perhaps Sebastian understood your outburst: it was indeed gratifying to pour his disdain out. Though, unlike you, Sebastian didn't feel an ounce of regret.

"All right, Draco, enough of this," interrupted Pansy with a sigh, before giving Sebastian a hateful look. "He's a blood traitor like Weasley, and he'd better take care of his priorities."

Sebastian ignored her, focusing back on his food and already dreading the idea of having to share his Common Room and dormitory with people like that. Maybe he could sleep in the Undercroft for the rest of the year. He wondered if that place still existed at all.

Strangely enough, the aftermath was quite unsatisfactory, and Sebastian felt his cheeks warm up as he realised he had indeed acted like an immature git, stepping down right at their level. He stared at his half-empty plate, abashed.

The time passing, then, felt particularly chilly under his skin.

After he felt content enough with his lunch, Sebastian stood up, ready to meet the two Gryffindors again. He faltered a little as he looked around their table, his chest squeezing as he caught a glimpse of you. And not just a glimpse.

He watched you as you engaged in a happy conversation with a red-haired girl next to you: she scarily resembled Ron, so he deduced that she must be his sister. The two Prefects sat opposite you, and on your other side was a boy with messy black hair and round glasses.

Sebastian noticed how you tried to avoid Ron's eyes, only glancing up at him through your lashes from time to time before looking back at the girl, and he wondered if you would even apologise or if you were waiting for the red-head to do so. How proud were you? How much did you care? To which length were you willing to go for the people you loved? Sebastian felt a compulsive need to know it all, a new wave of hunger right in the pit of his stomach, completely empty even after his heavy, albeit displeasing, lunch, and ready to be fed by what all he could find about you. He needed to know every last bit of information, if it was the last thing he did in that new world.

That eerie calm chilled his bones again, moderately assuaging his desire, like a glass of cold water before supper. Sebastian realised he was stuck, so he had no rush to do exactly that. He didn't need to be greedy, to devour — though the idea was tempting indeed — and to gobble up every bit of you yet. He could feast, he could savour, he could indulge in his sumptuous meal like he deserved. And then he would find his way back, satiated beyond belief.

Now that would take his edges off.

He shook his head, derailing that tingly feeling running down his lower stomach before it nestled, and averted his eyes, instead noticing that barely anyone had left the Great Hall, and he was the only Slytherin standing. He quickly walked out of the room and rested against a column, wondering if he should wait for Ron and Hermione to finish eating and meet him, or if he should just go alone.

Sebastian decided to walk to the Defence Against the Dark Arts tower, to the Undercroft, praying it would still be there, untouched by other students. When he arrived, he saw the familiar clock, and his heart swelled in fear and anticipation as he took out his wand and flourished it like he had done so many times he practically relied on muscle memory alone.

The clock hands started to turn, and he breathed a sigh of relief as a door opened to the familiar room that he considered an analogue to his house. He stepped in carefully and looked around. The furniture hadn’t moved an inch in a hundred years, still in the same position that Ominis knew by memory. He wondered about him: if he knew Sebastian would one day disappear forever only to remain stuck in the future, if he had waited for him in that same room hoping for him to come back, or if he was glad he was gone after all.

Sebastian wondered if he would ever return to his time: if Ominis and Anne had been waiting for him their entire lives, getting old without him, and if they had hoped that they would one day see him again, and then he had another terrifying thought: what if he went back yet it was too late?

What if all of his pals were much older than him once he did? What if, upon his return, he discovered Anne still suffering the effects of the curse, or worse yet, already deceased? What if Ominis had been made to return to his family, where he would have either changed into one of them or been tortured and murdered? What if she had found someone else to fall in love and share the rest of her life with, or what if the perilous journeys she was compelled to take killed her and he had not been there to save her?

"Scourgify!" he declared, pointing his wand at various objects around him to clean them, wishing he could reproduce the same effect on his mind.

Once he was done, he sat down, leaned against a column, and put his head in his hands, breathing deeply and feeling his eyes burn.

The calm had gone, replaced by pure, utter despair and panic. It had only been a few hours since he'd found himself there, confused and startled, and he knew it would be many more until he went back — if ever.

If ever.

The thought cut at his lungs like sharp glass, drawing quiet and wet sobs. He didn't know whether the artefact could ever be repaired at all. He didn't know whether he could control it enough to go back if it was repaired. For all he knew, he'd find himself in bloody Mesopotamia, if he was lucky enough to survive another travel. Or he'd get stuck between time and space, forever embedded in the threads between realities.

Based on those thoughts alone, Sebastian felt like he should be grateful to have found himself still in Hogwarts, as safe as he could be, but he wasn't.

He missed his routine, his life, his friends. He had disappointed Ominis, but he would give anything to hear his voice now, even if he yelled at him, to see Anne even if she did not want to see him, to read their old letters over and over again, to accompany her on whatever adventure she was setting out on. Heck , he wanted to hear Headmaster Black's voice scolding him for his horrible detention record, listen to Poppy ramble about her dear magical creatures, see Garreth blow up his potions, and even wanted to hear Imelda complain about Quidditch being cancelled. He missed it all.

He spent some time there alone — he did not know whether it was minutes or hours — weeping silently to himself. His wrists copiously moved to his eyes in a weak attempt to dry his tears, which kept falling nonetheless, undaunted, wetting his cardigan and shirt and skin.

Sebastian had always prided himself in his capacity to bottle up emotions, to avoid the crying and instead channelling those goopy feelings into something more useful, like studying or spellcasting. That had backfired, and Sebastian had to learn, awfully, that doing that didn't mean those emotions wouldn't force their way out in a way or another, and after what had happened in the Catacombs, where his feelings had exploded in the worst way imaginable, he had reluctantly decided that crying alone was the best way to let them flow naturally. With that and everything that had happened to him within a few weeks, not to mention the previous events, he felt overwhelmed.

He hated it.

After drying his tears as best he could, hoping that no one would notice his glistening eyes or swollen face, he decided to leave the Undercroft and find Ron and Hermione again; they were to give him his timetable, as he would join their class starting the next day. That was before he abandoned them.

He stepped out of the room and froze in his steps. You were sitting on the ground just outside, back against the wall, focused on your textbook. You looked up once you heard a noise, and saw a dishevelled and surprised Sebastian staring straight at you.

"Oh, well, hello again, new fifth-year!" You smiled politely.

He cursed under his breath, turning his face away slightly and rubbing the back of his hand under his nose again, in case any stray tears were still present.

"'Didn't know about another secret passage in the school," you continued, apparently ignoring his actions, before muttering to yourself, "It wasn't on the Map."

"Map?" he said in a rough, unfamiliar voice, surprising even himself.

You examined him, a quizzical expression on your face. "Have you been crying?" you asked bluntly, raising your eyebrows in surprise.

Great job, Sebastian. Perfect disguise.

He felt his cheeks warm up, and he turned away again. "No... not at all." He cleared his throat, trying to find a way to switch up the conversation when his eyes fell on your book. "What are you reading?"

You frowned slightly, obviously not believing him, but understanding that he wasn't willing to talk about it, and looked back at your book. "My Herbology book. Ron gave it back to me at lunch. Finally, I’d say."

Sebastian paused for a moment, unsure whether it was appropriate to ask about what happened in the corridor, but then he felt that ache again, right above his navel, and the words slipped from his mouth without restraint. "Did you two—"

"Don't." You interrupted him and averted your eyes, staring down at the cover musingly. "Don't bring it up again. That was already embarrassing as it was."

Sebastian stayed quiet, his eyes never leaving your form. He would very much have liked to just plunge into your brain at that moment and make himself at home there.

Perhaps he needed to add 'Learn Legilimency' to his to-do list.

"How so?" he asked at length, quite stupidly, he realised.

"I lost my temper," you said simply, and forced your eyes back towards him. Your next words seemed to eject out of your mouth painfully, like they were unfamiliar to you, and it took a while for you to utter them. You sighed, "I— I suppose… I owe you an apology."

An apology never felt so forced and so sincere at the same time. "Oh, you don't have to—"

"I do. It wasn't the best impression I made of myself." Your lips parted as you leaned your head back on the wall. "I suppose I have to apologise to Ron as well — properly, I mean."

Sebastian stayed quiet, observing you curiously. Why were you telling him all that? "I... suppose," he uttered, not knowing what else to say. That appeared to be enough for you because you didn't even seem to acknowledge his words.

"He was looking for you, you know? Hermione, too. They said they needed to give you your schedule."

"Ah, yes, they mentioned that before," said Sebastian, glad to change the topic. "I’ll meet them promptly then, I was—"

"—Too busy hiding in a place no one else knew about," you continued for him.

That made him still in his steps, a chill running down his spine. Your eyes met: his open wide, yours unwavering and daring him to contradict your statement.

Perhaps the previous topic was way better.

"I just..." Come on, Sebastian, think!

"I just stumbled upon it!"

Usually he was one to conjure lies out of thin air, but being around you made his brain seem to melt. Sebastian thought that it was because he didn't really want to lie to you, or perhaps it was because, with the way your eyes pierced him, he felt as if you already knew all his secrets, all his lies, and you certainly wouldn't be fooled, not even if he made up a whole story full of intricacies and chapters worth publishing.

He knew, however, that the answer was neither, and it lay deeper than anything he was willing to admit to himself so loudly that he had to face it.

"Right."

You closed your book and stood up, facing him. He couldn't read your expression properly, but he felt his body start to uncharacteristically shrivel at the intensity with which you stared him down. He was in Ron's place.

"Strange, isn’t it? how the new student suddenly stumbles upon a secret room on his first day — a room not even Fred and George know about."

You had spoken that last part quietly, as if only to yourself. In fact, Sebastian didn’t know who Fred and George were at all. And, frankly, he didn't want to. "What can I say? I’m full of surprises," he replied smoothly.

"Or full of lies." You hadn’t missed a beat.

It was frightening how easily you had switched back to the girl he had met in the corridor. And he pitied it. And he liked it. And perhaps he was a fool for liking it, and an even bigger fool for pitying it. "I didn’t know it was illegal to be in this room," he said, scowling.

"Illegal? Oh, not at all. But certainly unusual for someone who has supposedly never set foot in this school before."

You took a step towards him, and he had to fight the urge to take one back himself. There was something wrong in the air — something goopy and misty and heavy, penetrating his skin like Mallowsweet fumes, inebriating and dizzying and frighteningly close to losing control. He had only felt it once, in Hogsmeade nonetheless. Electric and impatient, but, now, shrouded. That day, it had been galvanising. Now it was almost shy — almost… veiled.

"Hermione told me that she barely only took you through the first two floors. You're not even supposed to know about the classroom's whereabouts, and yet you seem all too comfortable with your surroundings," you continued, unaware.

He felt his heartbeat accelerate. Why did you have to be so inquisitive? Was he supposed to tell you the truth now?

Dumbledore’s voice came back to his mind: "...unless it's absolutely necessary."

"I don’t know what you're talking about. It was an accident, as I said," replied Sebastian in a poor attempt to reason again, knowing full well you wouldn't believe him.

"Certainly a convenient one." He twitched involuntarily, like he had just got a shock. The corners of your lips lifted in a sneer. "You are an interesting case... Sebastian, was it?"

He nodded hesitantly and narrowed his eyes, baffled at your countenance and your confounding words. An interesting case?

You shuffled on your feet in a nimble movement and pressed your back against the wall again, leaning onto it. "Don’t forget to show me that room sometime, too."

"And why would I do that?" Sebastian was growing impatient at your behaviour, while some part of him was thrilled at your nonchalance. The more you bantered with him, teasing him like that, the more he felt his stomach flutter. He hated himself for it.

He felt a sudden urge to leave. To run to his Common Room, or back into the Great Hall, where the noise cramming his ears would be enough to shut down each and any possible much-too-loud beat of his heart, as if the mere sound of those tiny pulses would beguile him into wandering proscribed feelings. A deceit of his own body he wasn't willing to face, not even through his love of the forbidden. The hunger and ache had to stay just that: mere curiosity, more about her and her family than you.

But he stayed in the silence of the corridor, with a loud pounding noise in his ears.

"Because it would be a shame if other people in, let’s see, higher power were to know about it, too, wouldn’t it?" You moved a hand through your hair to push it back, clearing your vision, and Sebastian watched as your locks fell around your face, a twinge in his chest. "Although I do believe Professor Flitwick would love to have another room for his choir practice. Is there a good acoustic in it?" You peered over his shoulder and towards the now closed door with a playful smile, clearly only teasing him, but the way the light fell on the tresses framing your visage was a bit too familiar to him. His mind stalled for a moment, and he didn't want those beats to stop anymore.

"Why do you care about this room so much?" Sebastian shifted his weight, now taking a step forward as well, and your eyes flickered down when you perceived the movement. Your lip twitched a bit.

"Why do you?" You simply replied, shrugging. "A secret room is a secret room. Don't you want to be a proper new student and get in good with the Professors?"

Sebastian felt his stomach boil at your singsong tone. "That seems to be more of a Gryffindor trait."

"Is it? And how much does a supposed stranger know about our Houses?"

His breath hitched and his resolve crumbled immediately at your quick retort. Sebastian warmed all over and stilled in his steps, feeling a bit too heavy on his legs. The image of the girl who lost her temper in the corridor was the one he had expected to evoke, pity even, yet she was nowhere to be found as your half-lidded gaze stared at him impishly.

"Besides," you continued, clearly feeding off his reaction with increasing confidence. "You should really get to know your Slytherin peers a bit more. Hopefully you won't become like them, but alas if you do, you'll end up snitching on this place yourself."

The thrill gradually disappeared, replaced by unadulterated annoyance. He found himself lowering his head, and he glared down at you, heart pounding in his ears. Your eyes stayed unwavering in his, though Sebastian noticed your crossed arms tightening marginally around your chest. "You can only wish to be like us," he hissed.

As you lifted an eyebrow daringly, he stepped forward again, finally free of that marbly perception that had spread through his body at your mockery, and towered over you. You tilted your head up, eyes never leaving his, the red and gold making them stand out in a way that only sent a new wave of anger through Sebastian's bones.

You could only wish to be like her.

"My dream in life."

Your voice rustled softly against your teeth, stretching with the smirk you wore, daring him to retort again. Sebastian felt it spread before he could even process your words entirely, burning through his guts all the way up to his trembling hands. That hunger. Craving. Ache. And something else — something that made the corners of his mouth tingle and his head tilt forward slightly more. He inhaled deeply from his nose, breathing out gratingly, air straining against his throat.

"Shall I serve as your future proxy and tell the faculty about it now?" you continued, voice glottal and purring, faring on the satisfaction of his heavy breathing on your face. "Might save you time ahead."

A low chuckle left his lips. "Even if you told the faculty about it, I could always pretend you were the one who showed it to me and kept it a secret all this time. After all, I am the new student, aren’t I?"

He grinned to himself as your smile fell slightly, squinting as you looked at him, but it only lasted a moment before you spoke again.

"And why, pray tell, would anyone believe that I would fraternise with a Slytherin enough to show said person a secret room?" You leaned your head on the side, and Sebastian’s heart jumped again. "And why would I turn myself in, given I would have, supposedly, kept my room hidden for five years?"

"It's my room," replied Sebastian lowly, instinctually, voice slightly trembling, blood rising to his head. Despite the height difference, he was starting to feel smaller and smaller every time you spoke, crushing his resolve word by word. It made him shrivel. "I knew it before. You're not welcome in it, nor is it any of your business."

"You knew it before," you repeated blankly, like you didn't care. "So you’re admitting to having learnt about this place already?"

What?

A heartbeat, a glint in your irises, and Sebastian's heart dropped pathetically as he realised he had given you exactly what you had been searching for — what you had wanted him to admit all this time. He shifted his weight back, leaning away from you. "No, I never said—"

"—I believe the Professors know about your true history — especially Dumbledore, you can't trick that one — so I know they won’t be fooled," you continued undaunted to shut each and every one of his possible retorts. "Plus, even if you told them that lie after I snitched on this place, they’d still let it go and take control of this room — Filch in particular. I won’t get into trouble just for keeping an insignificant room secret, but you would lose your special place."

His mouth fell open, for once at a loss for words. He could only stay silent as you threatened to reveal his hidden spot with that undeterred ragging tone of yours. Sebastian would usually brush off any threat against him, especially if it involved getting the help of teachers of all people — he was known for breaking rules on any occasion — but he couldn't ignore your words. He knew you had no idea how much that room meant to him; would you have cared if he told you? Would you have taken your words back? Why would he care if you had? He had promised himself to stay away from you, and that was exactly what he was planning to do. This conversation had gone on for too long.

"Who—Who says it's my special place?" Sebastian tried to salvage it, although his disingenuous and trembling voice betrayed him almost immediately.

"You reek of dust and humidity," you said with a satisfied smile, as if insouciantly waiting to shake his hand after your checkmate. "As if you've spent a lot of time in there just now. Also, no student in Hogwarts with more than a pea for a brain would ever refuse the comfort of a secret room no one has discovered yet."

You had deduced it... by his smell?

Sebastian had still been processing when you gathered your things and looked back at him, breaking into a genuine smile. "You look like you’ve just seen a ghost, and mind you, there are a lot of them in this school, so you'd better get used to it."

The corner of his lips quirked up against his will, heart gradually slowing down again. "Well, you did just threaten me in a way."

You chuckled — an unfeigned, carefree chuckle with no malicious hint — and shrugged. "I was never going to snitch on you, that would have been incongruous. I just wanted to see how this would go."

"I don't follow," he said at length, tilting his head slightly and raising an eyebrow at that. "Were you just playing with me?"

Sebastian didn't know why he had asked. It had been quite clear since you started talking that you had only run rings around him like he was a bloody amateur. He chewed on the insides of his cheeks in chagrin. You averted your eyes with a smile still on your face, and Sebastian wasn't sure whether to feel impressed or annoyed.

"Call it an investigation." You raised your hands in surrender. "I’m no Sherlock Holmes, of course, but..."

"Sherlock who?"

"He... Never mind." You shook your head, and looked back at him for a moment, biting your lip as if facing a conundrum. You sighed. "The thing is, from your perspective my threat should've appeared empty, or unfounded, because, as you said, the Professors would have believed that I was the one who showed you the room, as a more experienced student."

Sebastian listened intently, growing more confused the more you spoke. "Wait, so—"

"So, if you had nothing to hide and had really just found out about the room, you would've been less... defensive ," you explained, and Sebastian found no contempt in your voice: it was neutral, a bit excited maybe, but not mocking — perhaps only a little condescending, he noted bitterly. "Or, more specifically, you would have been defensive about me being out of line rather than about the room itself — more annoyed , I believe, at the fact that I got all up in your personal business uninvited."

The way you spoke, with unalloyed certitude and indisputable pride — though with an almost riveting aspect in your self-assurance, if he dared to admit it — seemed almost preposterous to Sebastian.

"Also," you continued, "if you had really stumbled upon it so easily, you would've been more shocked about the fact that no one else in the school had, wouldn't you?"

That actually... Made sense.

“What if I were just a new student who had accidentally found a room,” began Sebastian hesitantly, although he couldn't stop himself from being rather dazzled — and envious. And definitely ill at ease at your aptitude at reading people — him specifically. “And had completely panicked when another more experienced student threatened to reveal me as if I had done something horribly wrong?”

You looked at him, eyes shifting between his right and left one in a sequence. “Yeah,” you finally countenanced with a blithe nod. “That would have been perfectly plausible, too.”

Sebastian’s face fell, exasperated beyond measure. He suddenly felt a wave of lassitude wash over him and let out a world-weary sigh that earned him a small smile from you.

"Just know that you don't know me as much as you think you do," he said at length.

“I don’t know you at all,” you confirmed with a bright smile. “But I definitely enjoyed this. "

You pointed between the two of you, and Sebastian faltered, following your hand with his eyes for a moment before his gaze fixed on you again. "What?"

"It's just… I didn't lose my temper this time, and... well — it was sort of... nice."

Nice. The word you had used was nice. Sebastian found it anything but that: it had been humiliating to say the least. But again, he was the loser.

"You didn't lose your temper alright," said Sebastian, looking away. "Though we may need to get even on that."

Your eyebrows lifted and you broke into a giggle. "Yeah, perhaps. Even if I'm sure I'm not as much of a smooth talker when you’re not in… well… emotional distress."

To his own surprise, Sebastian smiled back, genuinely and widely and almost tenderly, letting his chest tingle freely and a little more than needed. "So you took advantage of me."

"That I did." You nodded at him. "It’s a pleasure doing business with you." And with that, you started to walk away, leaving him stunned but smiling in the middle of the corridor.

"Ah, before I go," you suddenly added, turning around and walking backwards, and his eyes shot to you once more; "last time I saw Ron and Hermione, they were near the Grand Staircase, on the second floor. If I meet them, I’ll send them to you."

You waved at him and turned around, walking down the stairs and disappearing from his sight.

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youthofpandas · 4 months

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Emil Sinclair & Frau Eva

A consistent problem I’ve run into while discussing the novel Demian is the rejection of Emil’s relationship with Eva in favor and treating it as if it is nothing but a tool to analyze the relationship that he shares with Demian. People treat his feelings towards Eva as fake, imagined, and entirely as misplaced affections that he holds towards Demian and become quite defensive when told that isn’t the case in the actual text of the book. I’m no stranger to interpreting things in ways that don’t quite match canon, especially when they make me uncomfortable, and it is clear to me that discomfort or even disgust is how a lot of people view this relationship as given the age gap between them and the general preference for seeing Emil with Demian instead of Eva. I have no problems with that aspect of this little debate, discomfort is more than allowed and I’m not writing this to force people into liking the idea of their relationship.

What I am writing this for, and what I do find a problem with, is the way that people attempt to force an erasure of this aspect of the book and will accuse people of misreading the novel when acknowledging its existence. To say that someone does not understand the book or Emil’s character because they made reference to his love for Eva or his general affinity for mature women just seems to signal that there is a confusion of what the book actually says. Emil does love Eva and it is not misplaced love for Demian. From the moment he dreams of her to the moment Demian passes a kiss from his mother to Emil, Emil loves her. (That doesn’t mean he doesn’t also love Demian, by the way, but this post/essay isn’t about that, so I won’t be dwelling on the feelings he holds for Demian).

This is not going to be a complete, in-depth look at her character and role in the story and will instead simply focus on the actual relationship Emil has with her throughout the story and the ways that the novel sets up their relationship and makes it explicitly clear what sort of relationship exists between them. I feel it has been a massive disservice to her character to view her as nothing more than a woman getting in the way of a relationship or as if all of the quite beautiful descriptions of her person and effect on Emil are inconsequential and/or imagined, so I hope that this does some justice to Hesse’s work.

All quotes taken from the translation of the novel done by W. J. Strachan.

To begin, I will actually be talking about Max Demian himself, because Eva can be understood through son as he acts as a bit of a proto-Eva in Emil's life. They have a similar appearance, as it is often noted, they both bear the ‘sign’, they are deeply linked to Emil’s personal growth and relationship with the world, so to get a full grasp of his relationship with Eva it is also important to look at how he sees Demian and the key overlaps between them. So, let's look at one of the descriptions Emil writes of his dear friend.

This remarkable boy seemed older than he looked; he did not in fact seem like a boy at all. He moved among us more childish members of the school strangely mature, like a man, or rather a gentleman. He was not popular; he took no part in games, still less in the general rough and tumble and it was only the firm self-confident tone he adapted in his attitude towards the masters that won him favour with the other boys. He was called Max Demian.

Note how it focuses on his age and maturity, even though he is literally a couple years older than Emil, spiritually, thematically, he is older than even that. He is like a man, an adult. Here's a similar passage from another moment where Emil describes his friend:

I saw Demian's face and remarked that it was not a boy's face but a man's and then I saw, or rather became aware, that it was not really the face of a man either; it had something different about it, almost a feminine element. And for the time being his face seemed neither masculine nor childish, neither old nor young but a hundred years old, almost timeless and bearing the mark of other periods of history than our own.

Once again we see that he is more than a child, Demian is aged, grown, but not old nor young. In contrast to Emil who is youthful and immature, someone who has not yet begun his true journey. Here we also see a hint at there being a feminine element to Demian. Demian represents not just the fact that he is mature and capable of leading Emil through the spiritual journey he so longs for, but that he is not limited to just one world. He is not stuck in the dichotomy of light and dark, of masculine and feminine, of age and youth, he is both and neither.

Continuing the subject of maturity, we can take a look at the moment we share with Alfons Beck, a relationship that Emil describes with "we seemed to have a perfect understanding of each other" and, while a character who does not stay around long, acts as a mentor in the way he teaches Emil to grow up when it concerns sexuality and affections. It isn't long after this moment that Emil begins his venture into the world of darkness and almost loses himself to indulgence and excess of drinking and what have you, but it is clear from the later scenes with Knauer that Emil retains this personal growth surrounding sex and desire.

I heard amazing things; things I would not have thought possible were trotted out as part of everyday reality and seemed quite normal. Alfons Beck had already gained experience of women in his less than eighteen years of life. He had learned, for example, that girls were only out for flirtation and attention, which was all very agreeable but not the real thing. There was more chance of that with mature women. They were much more reasonable. You could talk with Frau Jaggelt who kept the stationer's shop, and a book could not contain all the various goings-on behind her counter. I sat there spell-bound and stupefied. Certainly I could never have loved Frau Jaggelt - but nevertheless it was terrific. There seemed to be hidden springs as least for my seniors, whose existence had never suspected. It all had a false ring about it, a more ordinary and insignificant flavour than love should have, in my opinion, but at all events it was life and adventure and I was sitting next to someone who had actually experienced it and to whom it seemed a normal thing.

By the end of this talk, Emil feels like a boy listening to a man. He understands that in this area he is behind, yet still is drawn to it. Alfons Beck is here, quite clearly, setting up and building upon the themes of maturity, especially that of women. This is very important seeing how it is one of the first times he is so explicit about his feelings regarding sexuality, and it is not by accident that this conversation regards mature, older women.

Another element here is that Emil points out that he finds more passing encounters, attraction without the intent to form a significant relationship, to be not founded in love - or at least the type of love he desires. I point this out because it establishes the idea that the types of relationships and attraction Emil is most interested in are ones that are serious and lasting. Quick, temporary connections excite him, intrigue him, because of course they do, he is a young man away from home and free to explore the world for the first time in his life and he has wants and desires. But, as we will see in his actions towards Eva later on, what he is most interested in a more true kind of love.

I'm going to hop straight to the painting next, as it is the real start of his relationship with Eva. There's a lot with the painting that I don't believe needs to be quoted directly so I've chosen a description of his realization of who it reminds him of.

Then one morning when I awoke from one of these dreams, I suddenly recognized it. It looked so fantastically familiar and seemed to call out my name. It appeared to know me as a mother, as if its eyes had been fixed on me all my life. I stared at the picture with beating heart, the close, brown hair, the half-feminine mouth, the strong forehead with its strange brightness-which it had assumed of its own accord-and I realized that my recognition, my rediscovery and knowledge of it were becoming more and more a reality.

He says after this that it resembles Demian, it was not his features exactly but there is no mistaking the fact that it was ultimately Demian's face. A motherly, matured woman version of Demian. This will later be seen to be the same description he gives Eva, even beyond the fact that he explicitly states that it is her as I'll quote later.

The effects this painting have on him are, as we all know, quite extreme and trigger many contradictory feelings within him. It is obvious that he worships it, he puts it on the wall in a way he can look at the face first thing in the morning, the same way one would look at a lover in bed upon waking up, he cries over it and clearly experiences intense lust and attraction towards the figure depicted in it. He also finds these feelings towards it revolting and terrifying, and would sometimes call it a devil and a murderer. At this point in the story, he still has lingering shame for these sorts of desires, even if he has begun to embrace them in some ways, he hasn’t fully overcome his belief that the world is separated in two halves and as a result views many things in extremes of both the most beautiful parts of the world of the light and the worst of the tempting world of darkness.

But for full context on this painting, we also need to look at the dream in which its subject appeared in, the most important dream of his life that he dreamed of night after night.

This dream, the most important and enduring of my life, followed this pattern: I was on my way to my parents' home and over the main entrance the heraldic bird gleamed gold on an azure ground. My mother walked towards me but when I entered and she was about to kiss me, it was no longer she but a form I had never set eyes on, tall and strong with a look of Max Demian and my painted portrait - yet it was somehow different and despite the robust frame, very feminine. The form drew me to itself and enveloped me in a deep, shuddering embrace. My feelings were a mixture of ecstasy and horror, the embrace was at once an act of worship and a crime. The form that embraced me had something about it of both my mother and my friend Demian and also this embrace violated every sense of religious awe, yet it was bliss. Sometimes I awoke out of this dream with a feeling of ecstasy, sometimes in mortal fear and with a tortured conscience as if I had committed some terrible sin.

Here we see Emil's most important dream: one where he is filled with ecstasy when embracing a figure that is a sort of halfway point between his mother and his friend. I'm going to share another passage from later, when he sees Frau Eva for the first time since childhood.

Sensing my interest in them, she took me into the house, looked out a leather album and showed me a photograph of Demian's mother. I could hardly remember her but now that I had the small photograph before me my heart stood still. It was the picture of my dreams. There she was, the tall, almost masculine figure, looking like her son, but with maternal traits, traits of severity and deep passion, beautiful and alluring, beautiful and unapproachable, daimon and mother, fate and lover. There was no mistaking her! The discovery that my dream image existed on this earth affected me like some fantastic miracle! So there was a woman who looked like that, who bore the features of my destiny! Where was she? Where? And she was Demian's mother!

So, this figure he dreams about, the figure he paints? It is Frau Eva. And we see here that, much like how her son is described as feminine, she is described as masculine. She also is inherently full of contrasts: daimon and mother, beautiful and unapproachable. Frau Eva and Demian follow the same pattern of being opposing natures who exist in one, the deconstruction of the binary and embracing something that is less easy to categorize. They embody the same ideals as Abraxas, of Emil's dreams.

Speaking of Abraxas and Frau Eva, here is his proper introduction to her as an adult.

With eyes moistened with tears I gazed at my painting, absorbed in my reflections. Then my glance dropped. Under the picture of the bird in the opened door stood a tall woman in a dark dress. It was she. I was unable to utter a word. From a face that resembled her son's, timeless and ageless and full of inward strength, the beautiful, dignified woman gave me a friendly smile. Her gaze was fulfillment, her greeting a homecoming. Silently I stretched out my hands towards her. She took them both in her warm. firm hands. "You are Sinclair. I recognized you at once. Welcome!" Her voice was deep and warm. I drank it up like sweet wine. And now I looked up and into her quiet face, the black unfathomable eyes, at her fresh, ripe lips, the open, queenly brow that bore the 'sign.' "How glad I am!" I said and kissed her hands. "I believe I have been on my way here the whole of my life and now I have reached home at last." She gave a motherly smile.

Eva makes her entrance quite literally alongside the painting of Abraxas Emil painted not long after he put a name to the face of the painting he made of her. He describes this as reaching home, incredibly important to him after he has been feeling so outcast from the home he grew up in. And he loves her deep voice, her quiet face that resembles her son's, and her friendly, motherly smile.

Eva and Abraxas, the god he worships and adores, are linked beings. This all builds on to the Demian and Cain, Eva and Eve connections. Eve the mother of both Cain the murderer and Abel the victim, Eve the woman born of God who spoke to the Devil and committed the first sin (which to bearer's of the Sign was surely not a sin), is now properly linked to Abraxas and it all feeds quite well into a similar theme. Eva is mother and she is home.

Eva is the origin of Demian, an embodiment of his ideals with even more maturity, she created the one who created Emil in a manner of speaking. She truly represents a world that is not divided into light and darkness, the very world that Emil chases after and wishes to believe in. It only makes sense, then, that he would find her so attractive and want her, desire her. By this point, so late into the novel, Emil is quite grown up, literally and spiritually, compared to the young, lost boy he was at the start. He has accepted sexual desires, accepted the world is complex and rejected many of the beliefs he held as a child, and he wants Eva the way any grown man might.

But, of course as we established earlier, Emil wants more than a passing encounter fueled by lust. He wants a real kind of love. And when he has gotten to know her and understand her as a real person rather than just a figure in his dreams, he writes the following, detailed, heavily romantic, filled with yearning and love passage:

On many occasions I believed that it was not really just her as a person, whom I yearned for with all my being, but that she existed as an outward symbol of my inner self and her sole purpose was to lead me more deeply into myself. Things she said often sounded like replies from my unconscious mind to burning questions which tormented me. There were other moments when as I sat beside her I was consumed with sensual desire and kissed objects which she had touched. And little by little sensual and transcendental love, reality and symbol mingled together. As I thought about her in my room at home in tranquil absorption, I felt her hand in mine and her lips touching my lips. Or I would be conscious of her presence, look into her face, speak with her and hear her voice, not knowing whether she was real or a dream. I began to realize how one can be possessed of a lasting and immortal love. I would gain knowledge of a new religion from my reading, and it would give me the same feeling as a kiss from Eva. She stroked my hair and smiled with all her warm affection, and I had the same feeling as when I took a step forward in knowledge of my inner self. Her person embraced everything that was significant and fateful for me. She could be transformed into each one of my thoughts and each of my thoughts could be transformed into her.

This paragraph here always sticks with me, the way his love transcends reality. It mirrors the way that Demian's existence is questionably real, that the moments he shared with the Demian family are somewhere fundamentally between imagined and real. Does she kiss him or is it imagined? It hardly matters, because reality and symbol are mixing together and becoming one and the same. These are his manifestations, these are his calls to the world to make his love true. And that love is so true in his heart he can hardly tell when it is real.

Also I just want to point out how cute he is when he's in love... kissing the things that belong to her, linking his learning and his growth as a person to her. It is similar to his behavior with Beatrice, in that this woman is helping inspire him to improve upon himself, but now it is not the desperate clutch to an unknown figure as a guiding light he can never speak to, it is a woman who pulls answers from his own mind, a woman who exists as a symbol of his inner self. Frau Eva, again just like Demian, is an extension of Emil's self and soul.

Alright, so I have now established Emil's feelings towards Frau Eva, but what of her feelings towards him? This following passage comes immediately after the one before

When I arrived back at H-- I stayed away from her for two days in order to savour this security and independence from her physical presence. I had dreams too in which my union with her was consummated in a symbolic act. She was a star and I was a star on my way to her, and we met and mutually attracted, remained together and circled round each other blissfully in all eternity to the accompaniment of the music of the spheres. I told her this dream on my first visit on returning. "It is a lovely dream," she said quietly, "Make it true!"

Emil tells her that he had a dream of the two of them in which they consummated their union (which, just to make this abundantly clear, means having sex. there is no getting around that fact) through a symbolic act of entwining around each other for all of eternity and Frau Eva tells him to make it true. She tells him, explicitly, that this dream he has of them making love is lovely and that he should work on making it happen in reality. This is of course a further extension of her trying to help Emil manifest a kind of mutual attraction between them through his extended longing and deep, honest desires. While she does not currently reciprocate the romantic affections he has for her, she is clear about being open to the idea of that one day being the case.

Let's also look at this bit, which is mostly about Sinclair's affections towards her but provides a bit of a conclusion to this theme of manifesting her love.

One day this foreboding came over me with such force that my love for Eva flared up suddenly and caused me great pain. My God, what a short time I had left; soon I should no longer be seeing her, no longer hearing her good, assured step about the house, no longer finding her flowers on my table! And what had I achieved? I had luxuriated in dreams and comfort instead of winning her, instead of struggling for her and clasping her to me forever! Everything she had told me about true love came back to me, a kindred stirring, admonitory messages, and as many gentle promises and words of encouragement, too, perhaps; and what had I made out of it all? Nothing. I stood in the middle of the room, summoned my whole conscious being and thought of Eva. I wanted to gather all the power of my soul in order to make her aware of my love and attract her to me. She must come; she must long for my embrace, my kisses must tremble on her ripe lips.

Emil is realizing that despite her encouragements and his continued love for her, he has never truly spent the energy required to make his love reciprocated. These things, him wanting her be his forever, him wanting to kiss her so much that he shakes, to attract her to him so that she desires him in the same way that he does her... those are the things Eva wanted him to manifest. Now, this also makes it clear that for as much time as they spent together (the book mentions that Max was out for long stretches of time, leaving Emil alone with Eva for the majority of his days there), they did not get to do any of the things he wanted so passionately AND that she had still be encouraging him to manifest this.

And does she get this message? Yes! She does, only there is The War starting and so she does not go herself to him, but she does tell him that she heard his appeal and to do it again if he should ever need her.

Now, let's talk about the ending of the book, about the kiss.

"And there is something else. Frau Eva said that if things ever went badly with you, I was to pass on a kiss from her which she gave me … Close your eyes, Sinclair." I closed my eyes in obedience. I felt the brush of a kiss on my lips on which there was a bead of blood that never seemed to diminish. Then I fell asleep.

Demian (who is made clear to be a hallucination or a purely spiritual being at this moment, regardless of what you believe his regular appearances are that of a real actual boy or a reflection of Emil's self or a mixture of the two. in this scene he is a dream-like being existing from Emil's mind here to help conclude the narrative) passes on a kiss that his mother gave to him. Eva wanted to give this kiss to Emil after all of those appeals he made for her love, and uses Demian as a vessel to give this to him.

Now I am absolutely not here to deny any sort of queerness in this moment, in the fact that it is not Eva herself who appears but rather Max. What I am trying to say is that Eva and Max are linked people, especially in the mind of Emil, and therefore it makes thematic sense for the boy who had introduced him to the world of the enlightened and to the woman he would come to love to be here in this quiet, scary moment and pass on a message from his mother. I am trying to say that denying that this kiss is even the slightest bit from Eva and 100% Max's moment is ignoring her entire character and a large, large portion of Emil's.

I could’ve gone on for longer, I skipped over the story she tells Emil of the man in love with a star and how that star eventually came to love him in return and how Frau Eva is his star. His last description of her before leaving for the war is about the myriad of stars glowing in the night sky and it is quite romantic, but I feel getting into the star symbolism in Demian would double the length of this and her feelings towards him cannot get any clearer than the part where she encourages consummating their union, which itself is still linked to the star story. This was all done taking passages I remembered off the top of my head and not a full reread of the book, but I feel like this does more than enough to explain my point.

In conclusion: never tell me again that I misunderstood the 1919 novel Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth by Hermann Hesse because I joked about how Emil is into MILFs. He is.

#hermann hesse #demian 1919 #demian #emil sinclair #frau eva #demian (1919)

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