#Also been gathering a couple more icons

[cookieofearthbread]

I don't know but I think it's funny that most of my muses have roughly 30-80 icons.... Then you got Pure Vanilla who's peaking at 200 icons (and will be getting more).

[izzabela]

There's a First Time for Everything - Lin Kuei Siblings x fem!reader (scenario fic)

in which Tomas, Kuai Liang, and Bi Han give you their first kiss

a/n: so an anonymous requested the Lin Kuei family trying pda/first kiss, but my tumblr buggin hella, so i can't find the actual anon request. IF YOU REQUESTED THIS TROPE PLEASE SEND A DM BECAUSE I WANT TO TELL YOU THAT YOU. ARE. SEEN. also big thanks to anon for being my first ever request.

ship[s]: kuai liang, tomas, bi han x fem!reader (separate)

warning(s): pre-betrayal, consider yourself an opp if you hate fluff

Kuai Liang

The winter festival near the Lin Kuei Palace had wrapped up, and everyone was gathering in the field for the final fireworks display provided by the village. While the many families, couples, and festival-goers were heading to the field, Kuai Liang was leading you somewhere else.

"By the elder gods," you managed to muster out your chattering teeth, "I'll turn into a popsicle up here!"

Kuai Liang turned back at you and saw you clutching onto the fur pelt he gave you to fight the freeze. He smiled sheepishly and went by your side, taking your shoulders with both hands and lead you up the path. His hands were warmer than usual, and you figured he turned his powers on for you.

"I'm sorry, my love, but we're almost there," he said apologetically, kissing your cheek, "Hold on for me just a little bit longer?"

You rolled your eyes, but gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, "If you say so, love."

You and Kuai Liang have been dating for a couple of weeks now, but it honestly looked like two high schoolers dating more than two adults. Being raised in the environment like the Lin Kuei already left little room for a personal life, let alone a girlfriend! Besides, as second-in-command to his brother, Bi Han, he had very little interaction with women. I mean, there was Frost? But she, like the other female initiates, were training equally as hard as the men.

Kuai Liang had the basics of intimacy and PDA: quick kisses on the cheek, forehead, and hand were the only weapons he had on him. It was cute to see him learn new things about casual intimacy displays of affection, and even cuter to see him flush bright red when he tried them out on you. What was coming next, though, was something you did not expect at all.

Kuai Liang had led you to a beautiful Chinese Pistache tree, covered in frost and snow, overlooking the entire village and the field where the fireworks were going to happen. The sun was still peeking beyond the horizon, ad you could see the light reflect off the frozen pieces of the tree, giving the tree a natural glimmer.

Underneath, there was a seat for the both of you, a pit for fire right in front. Kuai Liang used his magic to set it alight, the fire warming up for both of you. Although you were warmed by Kuai Liang's magic, love had overflowed your heart at the sentiment.

"Okay, this is pretty good," you smirked, turning to him and giving him a soft smile, "This is wonderful. Thank you."

He nodded and led you over to the seat before the fireworks started. As you two waited, you were talking about the amazing day spent: winning cheap festival prizes, trying all the food from the vendors, even talking about how you two saw members of his family around the festival. Your mindless chatter was interrupted when the first boom went off, signifying the fireworks had started.

With the sun's final remnants of brightness gone, the stars and explosives were the only light against the darkness of the sky. The night sky became a canvas for pretty hues of blue, white, purple, and other colors representing winter. The exploded in shapes of snowflakes, mittens, and other iconic images of winter. You watched the show with your mouth slightly open, in awe of the show.

"Beautiful.." you murmured quietly, "Don't you think so, Kuai Lia...ng?"

When you turned to Kuai Liang, all his focus was on you, not the light display. His eyes stared deep into yours, making you turn pink from all the attention. He looked... lost in your colored orbs, and he definitely did not want to be found

"Yes, it is indeed a beautiful display," he said, a warm smile on his face.

His hand reached for your cheek, stroking it lightly with his thumb. His other hand took the hand you rest in your lap, still trying to keep you warm. However, your heart's pace was going so fast it might have been your personal heat generator. You realized he was slowly leaning in, eyes half-lidded as he was getting closer and closer to your lips.

You closed your eyes and waited for him to close the gap. When he did, your heart exploded with its own fireworks. His lips were warm on yours, and the kiss was filled with desire and longing, as if he'd waited for this moment his entire life. You pulled him closer, your arms flinging over his shoulders, and his hand tilting your face to allow for more room to deepen the kiss. Both of you were fired up, and not due to the warmth Kuai Liang provided with his magic.

When Kuai Liang separated from you, his eyes were glossed with love and euphoria, finally kissing his girlfriend for real. Yours were too, although there was a bit of pride in them since Kuai Liang had initiated it first. You moved one of your hands to his cheek, mimicking the same thing he did to your face as you spoke.

"That was amazing, my love. Where did you learn to do that?" You asked.

He chuckles, a shit-eating grin on his face as he puffed his chest up with a bit of pride.

"The Lin Kuei's secrets are not meant to be shared, love."

You gently shoved his chest, huffing at his response. Although, you had your own arsenal of teasing jabs.

"Well, for a guy who grew up without interacting with women, you fared pretty well."

He tilted his head, this time a smirk of knowing on his face as he brought your face close to his once more.

"Get over here," he said as he closed the distance.

You had more jabs for him, but they were ineffective against this deadly finisher of a move. Still, your mouth welcomed his as you both connected once more, the firework show being nothing but background noise for your guys' moment.

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

Tomas

"Boy, were you hungry..." Tomas said wearily as he looked at the bill.

A little burp escaped your mouth, covering it with your hand and offering an "excuse me" to lighten the embarrassment. Regardless, he ruffled your hair and paid the bill without worry.

"I can't help but agree with the sentiment," Kitana said, "The food was indeed delicious."

You, Tomas, Kitana, and Raiden had finished dinner at Madam Bo's in Fengjian, a double date insinuated by Raiden. During a mission to Outworld, he had the courage to ask Kitana out to dinner. However, he was just a bit nervous dining alone with her, so he sent a letter to you and Tomas to come and ease his worries.

The entire night, the four of you enjoyed casual conversation and updated each other on the affairs of your lives. Kitana had been promoted to Supreme Commander of the Imperial Army, Raiden had become an elite monk, teacher, and member to the White Lotus, and Tomas shared updates on his brothers and the Lin Kuei (the updates he was allowed to share, anyways).

You, on the other hand, were a simple villager farmer in Fengjian, which translates to boring. As boring and plain as white rice.

Even so, Tomas made sure to make you feel included. He always mentioned the little anecdotes you told him, asked about your family, and even made sure you and Kitana had stuff to talk about. He knew you were intimidated by her aura, but by the end of the night, she was just another girl (only a princess-warrior to a semi-immortal race).

"You must write to me, my friend," Kitana addressed you as you walked out the restaurant, "It has been too long since another acquaintance as entered my life."

You blushed at her praise and honor, "Of course, your highness! I would love to write to you!"

You and Tomas bade farewell to the other couple, Raiden walking with Kitana before seeing her off to a nearby portal. Hand in hand, you two walked together and enjoyed the quiet night in Fengjian. The casual buzz of June-bugs, flutter of dragonflies, and the light breeze that shook the trees gently filled both of you with peace.

You clung onto Tomas's large arm, nuzzling your face into his beefy bicep. His walk becomes more stiff, this display of affection getting into his heart and head.

While Tomas may be the more affectionate one of his brothers, it still surprised you that things like this flustered him. To be fair, he grew up orphaned from his mother and sister. Thankfully, he was taken in by Kuai Liang and Bi Han, but learning the ways of assassins and growing up with brothers left him very little time to engage with others of the opposite sex.

When you and Tomas were out, PDA was as foreign to him as him growing up in the Lin Kuei. Of course, he welcomed all the innocent brushes of your hands, the little kisses you blew at him, even you holding his hand. It was cute watching him turn beet red, and you always imagined him going back to his home with a love-struck face.

As you two walked, you noted how Tomas was leading a little ways away from the village. Gone were the little wooden houses and loose streetlights, ahead of you two were fields of tall grass and fireflies. Just a bit more walking, and Tomas stopped in the middle of the path.

"Where to now, darling?" you asked.

He simply smiled and walked behind you, covering your eyes and began leading you. You were surprised, but you trusted him and allowed him to guide your body.

"Lin Kuei secrets, my dear. Allow me to escort you, though," he said cheekily.

You heard the brush of the tall grass and the slight mush of the dirt below you. From your ears, you could hear the soft rustle of a tree, and the gentle flow of a small stream. When Tomas's hands were moved, the sight left you breathless.

Madam Bo's teahouse stood at the center of the scene, the houses were lit up and you could see the figures of your people enjoying the evening. You noticed the tree and its long branches stooping over, and you look up to be greeted with the most beautiful Weeping Willow tree in your life. What made it better was the fireflies that blinked their lights, like a personal light display.

A huge, beaming smile was plastered on your face as you began dancing underneath the bugs, watching them scatter and blink. You swung your body around in twirls and pirouettes, enjoying the place Tomas set you up with. He, too, was enjoying the place he brought you. Watching you spin around in pure joy, he decided to join you. He took your hands and danced with you, accompanying you as your dance partner.

After on final spin, he made sure you faced him. With both of your hands in his, you had nowhere else to go or look. He let go from on of your hands and brought it up to the back of your head. He gently brought your forehead closer to him, and he leaned down just a bit to make sure his connected with yours. You could feel his exasperated breath on yours, and you realized there was something else coming after this.

"May I kiss you, darling?" he asked gently.

You nodded shyly and felt Tomas's lips attack yours. You knew that before Lin Kuei, he was a hunter, and his kiss was proof. Sure, this was his first, but there was a primal hunger in it, the urge to have you for himself. His hand down in your other hand moved to your back, pulling you closer to his chest. He dove deeper into your mouth, loving every taste of you.

When he parted from you, he looked breathless and exhausted, yet his eyes longed for more of you. He held back, though, and fixed your hair before resting his hands on your face.

"Did I do well, darling? Was it good for you?" He asked (a little too quickly).

You giggled and rubbed his face gently, "Of course! For someone like you, I'm surprised you pulled this off."

You laughed, but his pout took your joy away momentarily. You frowned a bit and sighed a bit, apologizing.

"I'm sorry, honey, I didn't mean to tease you too hard. I was just-." You were interrupted with another kiss from him.

You giggled and welcomed it, wrapping your arms around his shoulder as he wrapped his around your waist.

It seems that the "King of Smoke" is nothing but a puff in your arms.

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

Bi Han

You two walked side by side, silently strolling around the compound-palace as the snow fell. You two were the only ones up at this time of night, minus the guards up in the towers.

As grandmaster, Bi Han had very little time for personal matters. Other than his immediate family and his clan, he was so sure nothing would put him away from his goals. He grew up with the most pressure on his shoulders, reminded that his inheritance would be worth more than gold. Of course, that should have left him with practically zero percent chance of interacting with women- until he met you.

You and Bi Han have been dating for a couple of weeks now, and it has been nothing but enjoyable. Although gruff and strict, he did his best to reel it back for you, especially with your PDA and innocent intimacy. It felt surreal, different, but not unwelcome, and allowed you to do what you wanted with him.

Sometimes, when you held his hand, his magic would affect him and create a very thin barrier of frost in his hand. While it was chilly, he worked on it for you so that you could enjoy normal couple things. There were similar moments when you massaged his head while you two cuddled, any objects in his hand becoming frozen immediately. Sometimes, he worries in hurting you and always asked you if you were alright, even if you told him multiple times you were okay.

You concluded that any time you showed affection to him, his "embarrassment" would come through in the form of ice. It was cute, in a way- dare you say wholesome.

Anyways, as you two walked, you decided to sneakily link your hand with his. In surprise, Bi Han had frozen in place, looking at you with an incredulous look of bewilderment. You smiled at him and watched him turn away, but he couldn't hide the pink that colored the edge of his ear.

"You're blushing, my dear~" you teased, "Why won't you look at me?"

He huffed, "Your games are useless, woman. Let us keep walking."

You chuckled and let him lead the way, his hand in yours as he led you past a couple more corridors and hallways. You were a bit nervous, since these parts of the compound were alien to you.

"Where are we going, dear?" you asked nervously, "I have never seen these parts before..."

You didn't finish your sentence due to the sight in front of you. A beautiful Wisteria tree stood in the middle of a pond, and smooth stone seating was underneath. There was a walkway that lead to the seating, and beautiful flora and shrubbery lined the path. The snowfall added a fantastical touch, this entire hidden garden area something out of a movie.

"No one, besides my family and Tomas, has ever seen this part of the compound," Bi Han explained softly, the natural gruff of his voice still lingering, "This garden area was built for my mother per request of my father."

"It's so beautiful," you breathed, following the path and reaching for a flower, "How can you maintain the flowers life here?"

Bi Han sighs, a rare smile on his face, "I personally see the care to each of the flowers and greenery in here. I coat each one in a layer of frost for the especially colder seasons."

Bi Han follows you as you walked the path leading to the seating. He watches you gently touching each plant, smiling at how well taken care they were. It was a rare sense of softness Bi Han felt. He offers his arm to you and you link your arm in his, escorting you the rest of the way.

"Thank you, my dear, for showing me such vulnerability," you said whole-heartedly as you walked.

Bi Han looks at you and nods, a little smile on his face, "I believe you were deserving of such a place. You are always welcome in the Lin Kuei, especially here."

When you both reached the center, he sat down on one of the stone seats, to which you took the opportunity to surprise him and sit on his lap. Locking eyes with him, his turned wide before turning away, pink lining the edge of his ears once again.

"Enough of your surprises, woman," he huffed out. However, he gently snaked his arm around your waist, pulling you closer.

You smiled and held his face in your hands and gently moved his face to yours. You gave a quick kiss to his forehead, a form of "thank you" to him. You noted that his eyes held gentility, rare softness, and love for you. His eyes slowly closed as he leaned into you, one of his hands supporting your head.

By the elder gods, he was going to kiss you.

Closing your eyes, you felt the cryomancer's slightly chilled lips on yours. Despite this, you had never felt warmer. Bi Han kissed you with ferocity, afraid that your very being would dissipate if he let go of you or your lips for a split second. The grip around your waist tightened just a bit, and you allowed it by throwing your hands around his shoulders and pulling him even closer (if that was possible).

When Bi Han split from you, his gaze was kept on you, his hand moving from the back of your head to your face. He fixes your hair and cups your cheek, a soft smile on his face as he teases you.

"How was that for a first time?" he mocked you playfully.

Your voice dripped with teasing, "Good, I guess, for the grandmaster of the Lin Kuei."

You were taken by surprise when he kissed you again, a little rougher this time.

He didn't care though, if it meant having you for longer in the privacy of this garden, shrouded in frost and snow.

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

i read the original request multiple times to make sure i could ace this, and i hope you enjoyed anon. ONCE AGAIN THANK YOU SO MUCH ANON FOR BEING MY FIRST EVER REQUEST. PLEASE SEND ME A DM OR ANOTHER REQUEST SO I CAN SHOW MY OWN AFFECTIONS TO YOU.

okay enough glazing. thank you guys so much for reading and i'll see you all in the next fic!

[useless-catalanfacts]

Happy 600th birthday! Per molts anys!

Giants are one of the most iconic figures in Catalan culture. Each town, city, or neighbourhood has their own couple of giant hollow figures that usually represent the mythical founders of the town or characters from local legends. People join the group to carry them and make them spin and dance on the streets on the days of local festivities, to the sound of live traditional Catalan festive music.

Giants don't exist only in Catalan culture, they're also present in other parts of Western Europe like Belgium, France, Portugal, Sicily, Southern Italy, the Basque Country, and some parts of Aragon and Castilla (Spain).

But this year, we are celebrating: the earliest ever written document anywhere in the world that mentions a giant figure dates from 1424 and talks about the Barcelona giants that danced in the Corpus festivity. This assures us that giants have been part of Barcelona's festivities for at least 600 years. Then, the giants were King David and the Giant (characters from the Bible), but with time they changed a bit and by the 1500s they were a king and a queen, who came to be identified with the king James I and the queen Violant of Hungary, the most iconic and important monarchs in Catalan history.

However, since they symbolise people from Catalan history, the giants were repressed by the Spanish fascist dictatorships of Primo de Rivera and Francisco Franco. These regimes had the aim of exterminating Catalan culture. They banned and persecuted the Catalan language and identity and many cultural celebrations of Catalan people, such as banning some songs and holidays. For this reason, the giants were forced to be renamed Isabella and Ferdinand and pretend like they represented the Catholic Kings, two key figures of Spanish history. When the dictatorship ended, they became Jaume I and Violant again.

The figures of the Barcelona city giants used nowadays aren't the same ones as 600 years ago, of course. The figures get copied into new ones when it's necessary. The ones used now were made in 1991 copying the previous figures, made in 1921.

Giants are adored by kids, and the Barcelona city male giant (gegant de la Ciutat) and the giant from Santa Maria del Pi parish of Barcelona (gegant del Pi) are also the main characters of one of the most popular traditional children's songs in Catalonia.

We love to see them continue being as popular as ever. Yesterday, they celebrated their anniversary with a meeting of giants from all the neighbourhoods of Barcelona and well as from other cities and towns. More than 600 giants gathered in Barcelona to dance together for the Barcelona city giants anniversary!

[outsideratheart]

I’ll be in the stands (Stina Blackstenius x reader)

A/N: This is set in the same universe as Very Important Person. Based off this request. I’m not sure how I feel about this one but I hope you all like it.

Wimbledon. It was the most iconic two weeks of the year. After Australia you had been playing the best tennis of your career so it made sense that you were one of the favourites going into the tournament. 

“Stina, I’m leaving” you shout up to your girlfriend. 

After supporting you in Paris, Stina invited you to join her on a friends trip then she travelled to London to support you before going to New Zealand for the World Cup. She had attended Roland Garros with your parents who unfortunately couldn’t make it to London which left two spare tickets. You gave them to your girlfriend who chose to bring Frido and Magda. 

“Good luck. I’ll see you on centre court” she shouted back down, no doubt still picking out what to wear. 

The Swedish Women had really enjoyed embracing the fashion at Wimbledon and spent most mornings working out who is going to wear what. Today would be their last game before leaving for camp in New Zealand. You had your fourth round game to play and then if you win you would be playing your quarter game whilst they were in the air. 

Dressed in white you walked onto the legendary centre court ready to fight for a spot in the next round. You had done your research on your opponent and knew how she would play and more importantly how to beat her. It’s why it comes as no surprise that you win the first set 6-2 and the second set 6-3.

As you thank the crowd your look lingers on the row that hold the three blondes with one of them capturing your attention more than the other two. You bring the S pendant on your necklace to your lips. After she gave you it for Valentine’s Day you never took it off and would kiss it after every match you played.

“Do you think she will win?” Frido asks.

“I do”

Stina had more faith in you that you did in yourself and whilst you loved her for it, it also added to the pressure because you didn’t want to let her down. The mental strength needed to be a tennis player was hard to explain to people outside the sport. Stina had watched you lose matches, not because your opponent out played you, because you lost your head a gave point after point away. 

The next morning the atmosphere in the house was full of sorrow. The girls were leaving and you wouldn’t see Stina for almost a month. It wasn’t the first time you’d be spending weeks apart but you had gotten used to her company over the past couple of weeks and hated the thought of being away from her.

“Don’t go” you whisper.

You and Stina stood on the doorstep, your arms wrapped tightly around her waist.

“Hjärtat I have to go”

Truth is you weren’t asking her to stay but you do wish her flight could be delayed a day or two.

“I love you, I have faith in you and I love you”

“You already said that” 

“Because I meant it. Good luck for your match, I’ll be watching on the plane”

You found little solace in knowing that Stina would still be supporting you from thousands of miles in the air. As her car drove away you felt emptier than you did just ten minutes ago but you knew that it was time for her to go, she too had a tournament to win.

Stina was a nervous wreck watching your match on the plane. You had won the first set on tie-break and she could tell that you wasn’t happy with your performance. The way you looked over to your box with a lost look on your face told everyone that you didn’t understand why the set went on this long. The second set was long but also ended in tie-break but this time you had lost. You sat in your area with a towel over your head as you tried desperately to gather your emotions. The fans at Wimbledon were known for cheering on the underdog and with you currently being number 2 and your opponent unseeded the entire arena was cheering her on instead of you.

You lost the final set 6-4. 

“She’s going to be ok right?” Frido wound down the window dividing her and Stina’s booth.

“I don’t know” Stina was already sending you a reassuring text “I hope so”

You felt like you let everyone down. Stina’s message brought a momentary smile to your face but then you remember the reason why she sent it and the smile was replaced with a frown.

The Swedish national team had landed in New Zealand 26 hours after your match ended and Stina’s phone remained glued in her hand but she still hadn’t heard anything from you. She tried calling for the 5th time but like every time before that she was met with your voicemail.

“Is she still not picking up?” Magda asked. 

“She does this sometimes. After a big loss she goes dark but she always texts me before doing so to let me know she’s alright”

At first she wasn’t worried but then her phone went off. She rushed to answer it not bothering to look at the caller ID. She assumed it would be you so imagine her surprise when you manager��s voice comes through the phone. She told Stina that you asked her to cancel all media for the next week and since then she couldn’t get a hold of you and she didn’t know where you were.

The team were given the next two days off in hopes that they could get over their jet lag before training starts. Most of the girls had organised to meet up and explore the city but Stina declined their invite.

She was watching Notting Hill on her iPad remembering how you took her there your first day in London before the tournament started. Her favourite scene had just started when heard a knock at the door.

There you stood with some flowers and half a smile on your face. She was just about to talk when you heard the movie playing in the background.

“The fame thing isn’t really real, you know?” And don’t forget i’m also just a girl standing in front of a girl asking her to love me”

You knew the entire movie word for word. It was your comfort film and since meeting you, it had become Stina’s too. Once your finished she flung her arms around you.

“Careful Älskling, someone might think you’ve missed me” 

She was happy to see you joking around but you had her worried sick since the end of the match and now here you are in New Zealand acting as if nothing had happened.

“Where have you been? We have all been really worried about you”

“I’m sorry I didn’t text. I knew I had let you down and I wasn’t ready to face you yet” 

Your joking expression vanished and the look of guilt took its place. 

Stina walked back into her room and laid on the bed.

“Come here” she held her arms open wide.

You laid between her legs with your head resting on her chest. She began tracing patterns on your back and for the first time in days your thoughts became quiet and your mind was calm.

“You could never let me down Y/N. I have learnt that Tennis can be a cruel sport and this week it chose you as one of its victims”

“Hmmm”

“Shall I put this back to the beginning?” She asks referring to the film even though she knew you wouldn’t see much of it. You were bound to be both physically and mentally exhausted. 

The blonde felt your heart beat even out just as Hugh Grant spills coffee over Julia Roberts. When she looks down your eyes are closed. She couldn’t believe you were here with her in New Zealand. She wasn’t sure how long you would be staying for so she chose to savour the moment playing out in front of her. 

A couple of hours pass and whilst Stina’s whole body was starting to go numb, you looked too peaceful to wake so she put on another film secretly hoping that you would wake up soon because she was starting to get hungry. Just as she was strolling through nearby restaurants the door swings open.

“Stina, Y/N’s here” Frido tells her but stops talking when she sees you fast asleep in her team mates arms or so that what she thought.

“We were at this coffee shop down the road and two girls were talking about how they had just met her” Zecira says not noticing you as she goes into the bathroom.

“Shhhh. She’s asleep” Stina scolds her team mates.

“No she’s not” you slowly sat up but not before placing a gentle kiss to your girlfriends lips.

You saw 4 Swedish woman looking at you and the awkward tension could be cut with a knife. All of them had watched the game and then saw the way Stina had been worried about you.

“Sorry you lost” Fillipa says earning a slap from Magda.

“Thanks but at least now I get to watch you girls play for the next month”

“You’re staying for the whole thing? You’re not going to play?” She was both happy that you were staying but also worried about you taking such a long break away from Tennis.

“I am. As for tennis, I think I need to take some time off but I can practice here when I’m ready because the courts are similar to New York”

Stina couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The two of you just looked at each other, waiting for the other to speak. 

“So you Y/N Y/L/N are going to be a WAG?” 

“Yes, Stina Blackstenius I am going to be a WAG. I will wear my highlighter shirt to every game and cheer you on”

[sylvan-librarian]

Nissa Revane, William Wordsworth, and Me

Introduction:

We are not isolated individuals but an interconnected web. Part of embracing green's philosophy is understanding the importance of how each of us figures into the lives of the others. Grasping the role this larger group plays is a vital piece in understanding how the world works. - Mark Rosewater: “It’s Not Easy Being Green Revisited” … Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create, And what perceive; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being. - William Wordsworth: “Tintern Abbey” How wonderful there should be a thing we don't yet know. - Magic Creative Team: “Renewal” 

What do Nissa Revane, elf animist who had a good run in the 2010's as Magic’s iconic green planeswalker, William Wordsworth, nineteenth century British poet and the godfather of English Romanticism, and I, a mentally ill librarian who spends all his free time playing a children’s card game, all have in common? Not much, really. I’m neither a lesbian that wields earth-shaking magic nor am I the founder of a poetic movement that English majors still fawn over. However, thankfully for me, the human experience transcends time, gender, sexual preference, and even reality. There’s a lot to learn from both fiction and poetry, and I’m nothing if not a curious student. In particular, though, I’d like to talk about transitions. 

The past couple of years for me have been packed full of constant transitions: I had an emergency move away from the city I had built a life in, I finished a master’s degree in library science, and I began the long, arduous process of changing careers. Not every transition has been so traumatic, though, as I am also now in a joyful, peaceful relationship and have finally achieved a modicum of financial stability on my own terms.

Needless to say, these transitions have had me feeling introspective (even more so than usual), and I have found myself seriously wondering about my place in the world. That probably sounds dramatic (well, if the shoe fits), but as an elder millennial who was around to witness when the first acorn fell from the first tree and the first scene boy put on girl jeans to pair with his trucker’s hat, I honestly just kind of gave up on that brand of stability at some point; after all, I was fifteen on 9/11, nineteen and living in Louisiana when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and washed away whatever trust I had left in our institutions, and twenty-one when the Bush-era recession nailed my post-undergrad job prospects into a coffin. Of course, at the risk of sounding like I’m trying to appeal to your sense of pity, I’ll admit that today’s generation coming of age during Trump and and Covid have probably had it worse than I did and have also proven themselves much stronger and more resilient than I ever was, but nevertheless, a swirling concoction of circumstances and terrible mental health habits left me feeling for decades that I’d never have a place in the world to call many own.

All that said, in my attempt to carve out a life for myself and discover my role within my larger community, I started rereading Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats (the poets of English Romanticism were my favorite discovery as a literature student and some of the only writers I have carried with me beyond academia), since their poetry also dealt in themes of self-discovery, memory, and transition (also, their poetry is broody and navel-gazing - something I definitely relate with). However, as a Magic: The Gathering Vorthos with basic forest brainrot, I was also struck on this reread just how close my own experiences and the themes of the Romantic Poets mirrored how my favorite green characters from Magic fiction navigate their world. At first, I felt that this is fairly low-hanging fruit, since on the surface, themes like “finding yourself in nature,” “the rejection of social norms,” “celebrating your connections,” etc. are common enough to be found in all sorts of literature. However, the more I thought about it and connected the dots in my head, the more I realized just how much green’s themes in modern Magic fiction, particularly as expressed through Nissa Revane, helped me understand my own place in the world.

Indeed, while this essay grew out of the concept of tracing the similarities between Green Magic and Romantic Poetry (not the most riveting read for most of you, I’m sure), this particular tale kind of grew in the telling (to loot a phrase from Tolkien) until it became my own personal journal of self-discovery. If the entire m.o. of my online presence didn’t already give it away, my love of Nissa Revane - planeswalker, animist, green mage, icon - colors most of my thoughts about Magic: The Gathering, and this is no different. Compiling Nissa’s arc throughout Magic’s Story, synthesizing it with the things I love the most about the Romantic poets, and letting it stew around in my brain for the last year highlighted something of vital importance to me: the message, one that weaves its way throughout Nissa’s entire narrative, that personal growth means learning that the definitions I have held onto for my whole life - of myself, of other people, of even nature and the universe itself - are but a narrow, small part of a greater whole; that embracing healthy connection with the world around me and seeking to understand my place within it helped change parts of me that I thought were intrinsic to my very nature and helped me bloom into the best version of myself.

Part I: 

(me, trying to juggle graduate school and work)

Last year around this time, I found myself struggling. I was wrapping up my last full semester of my graduate program, failing miserably at balancing school and work, isolating myself from my friends because of how busy I was, and unhappy about living in Central Texas again after I swore I was done with the region. Throughout all of this, following Magic Story was a boon to my shocked nerves, though I rarely found time to follow it completely. It wasn’t pure joy, however, because as a result of stress mixed with the, at the time, untreated depression and anxiety, Nissa getting compleated - with “no way” of getting healed - during the “All Will Be One” story (not to mention that her tragic loss happened OFF SCREEN - the disrespect) severely bummed me out, so I tuned most the “March of the Machine” stories out to focus on wrapping up my semester. That is, I tuned it out until the final story, K. Arsenault Rivera’s “Rhythms of Life” was released in late March. Letting Chandra and a healed Nissa kiss at the end was a nice touch, but it was not for another month until we found out what happened to them after the climax of the Phyrexian stories.

When that month passed, however, on May 1, Grace P. Fong’s “She Who Breaks the World,” was released in tandem with previews for “March of the Machine: The Aftermath” products. Of course, I was going to like this story because I like Nissa and Chandra, and I have been a proponent of them being romantically involved since “Zendikar Resurgent,” but this story struck a deeper chord in me than I expected. I felt an immediate kinship with Fong’s representation of Nissa, a character who is also in a state of transition: in a place she doesn’t want to be, isolated from her friends and loved ones, and trying to redefine who she was after traumatic events left her floating listlessly throughout her world. 

The events of “All Will be One” and “March of the Machine,” after all, were Nissa’s darkest hours in a life full of dark hours. Her mind enslaved and her bodily autonomy stolen from her, Nissa was forced to do things in service to the Phyrexian matriarch Elesh Norn that horrified her. However, due to the nature of Phyrexian compleation — having her mind and body altered on a genetic level — she performed these actions in the moment with fanatical zeal, even pleasure. We are told in the first episode of the March of the Machine arc, “Triumph of the Fleshless” that Nissa “is the finest gift the Planeswalkers have given Phyrexia. Even standing at Norn's side, she can steer Realmbreaker's attention. To say nothing of her combat capabilities. If things continued at this rate she might overtake Tamiyo as Norn's favorite new servant.” Later on in “She Who Breaks the World,” while Nissa is reflecting on this, she notes that the alterations the Phyrexians made to her “granted her the ability to unleash a call through the branches of the Invasion Tree and speak the glory of Phyrexia to every plane in the Multiverse. And right now, Nissa is disgusted with herself because—despite her friends' sacrifices, despite Chandra's sacrifices—part of her misses hearing those planes.”

On the other side of these events, Nissa is mostly healed from what the Phyrexians did to her (outside of a metal cage imprisoning her chest and some scarring on her limbs where metal was grafted on), her mind is returned to her own control, and she and Chandra are finally sharing mutual love and affection instead of being mired in “will they/won’t they” hell like they had been for nearly a decade of Magic Story. However, the trauma of knowing, remembering, and feeling intimately all of the terrible things she did understandably leaves her feeling like an outcast among loved ones, and to make matters worse, she is now with a planeswalker spark, meaning she got depowered significantly and can no longer go back to her beloved Zendikar, her homeworld that she has a close intimate connection with. All this is to point out that Nissa finds herself in a spot where she has to completely redefine who she is. Nissa took great pride in being animist; now, she cannot hear the voice of the planes and her magic is basically useless. Nissa had previously discovered meaning for herself being a member of the Gatewatch: traveling the planes doing good where can and making connections with new worlds and interesting people; now, she is trapped on a plane that does not listen to her among people she very directly harmed when her mind and body were not her own. 

After a failed attempt to connect with the world of Zhalfir, Nissa begins to despair, believing that the planes have rejected her because all of the social connections she has made over the years. Nissa believes that “[s]he has spent so long connected to others that she has smothered her own connection to the Multiverse. Whether or not those bonds were made of her own volition, the planes have rejected her.” While she recognizes deep down, even if she can’t forgive herself for it just yet, that what happened while she was a Phyrexian wasn’t her fault, Nissa comes to believe that her original sin that led to this was in getting involved with the wider universe in the first place. She (and everybody who suffered from her actions as a Phyrexian) would be better off, she believes, if she had remained in her primordial, untarnished state of a champion of nature.

At this point in the narrative, Nissa’s experience reflects the way poets and writers of the Romantic Period mythologize their own world. Canadian literary critic and theorist Northrop Frye (a theorist who, truth be told, I disagree with in many respects, though his work on the Romantic Period is exhaustive and insightful) called this the “Romantic Myth.” In “A Study of English Romanticism,” Frye describes how the Romantic Myth delineates from traditional mythology:

In the older mythology the myth of creation is followed by a gigantic cyclical myth, outlined in the Bible, which begins with the fall of man, is followed by a symbolic vision of human history, under the names of Adam and Israel, and ends with the redemption of Adam and Israel by Christ. The two poles are the alienation myth of fall, the separation of man from God by sin, and the reconciling, identifying, or atoning myth of redemption which restores to man his forfeited inheritance. Translated into Romantic terms, this myth assumes a quite different shape. What corresponds to the older myth of an unfallen state, or lost paradise of Eden, is now a sense of an original identity between the individual man and nature which has been lost.

Ignoring, for a moment, the gender essentialism Frye uses, note how the lost Eden of the Romantic period was connection to nature itself. Joining society, spending precious hours having “dialogues of business, love, or strife” - all of these things are the sins that tear us away from our original, perfect self. William Wordsworth begins his “Ode: Intimations of Immortality” this way: 

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,     The earth, and every common sight,                        To me did seem                    Apparelled in celestial light,          The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore;—                    Turn wheresoe'er I may,                        By night or day. The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

To the persona of Wordsworth’s poem, this sense of identity was lost in childhood; in Nissa’s head, she “smothered her own connection to the Multiverse” when she started to value her connections to other people — Chandra, the rest of the Gatewatch, Yahenni, and many others she let into her life — at the expense, apparently, of the natural world. What’s left for her except to turn back to nature and attempt to find herself again?

Part II:

(Nissa's oath to protect the life of "every plane" plays a huge role in her identity)

What does “finding herself” look like for Nissa, though? To answer that, let’s look at a few different things. Here, we’ll examine Nissa’s place as a green character in Magic’s color pie and pick apart the ludonarrative elements in Nissa’s card designs that informs how she approaches her idea of self.

Nissa is the only planeswalker of the original five Gatewatch to have cards that branch out to other colors. At heart, though, she is a green character. Even though she has some blue elements in her personality (curiosity) and black (the ambition to make her ideals reality, whatever the cost), Nissa’s heart is “green to the very door.” 

In his near ten year old article, Mark Rosewater writes this about the philosophy of Green: 

The natural order is a thing of beauty and has all the answers to life's problems. The key is learning to sit back and recognize what is right in front of you. Each individual is born with all the potential they need. The secret to a happy life is to recognize the role you were born into and then embrace it. Do what you were destined to do. The world is this elaborate system, and each one of us gets to play a part. And it's not something we have to guess about; it's imprinted on us, it's in our genes. Just look within.

It’s very easy to see Nissa in the first paragraph: even though she is a warrior out of necessity, she too craves peace and acceptance and this is revealed in one of her favorite hobbies: meditating. Nissa’s animist powers (more on that here) let her reach her consciousness into nature itself so that she can just exist among the wonders of life. Take note of this gorgeous passage near the end of “Renewal,” the last story of the Kaladesh block:

There were rivers in the air; they carried her like a mote of pollen. Great hearts were pounding in the deeps of the sky, singing slow symphonies of joy. Wordless, they expressed the sun breaking over the edge of clouds; the sharpness of stars over frosted peaks; the awareness of a new life growing within, nestled and patient, waiting for its first breath of radiance. She drifted bodiless among the singers, listening. Back and forth they called, echoing across cloud and current, composing shared dreams of weightlessness, rain, and memory. An eye the size of a house blinked. Radiant curiosity washed over her, like the return of sunlight from beyond the edge of all things. There is something new in our sky, it sang in language of sensation and vibrance; quickened heartbeats and quivering muscle; caught breath and a hundred shades of blue. How wonderful there should be a thing we don't yet know.

Nissa is an expert at recognizing “what is right in front of you,” though due to her connection to nature, “right in front of you” could mean just about anywhere on the plane itself. 

To cycle back to Rosewater’s statement, however, it’s important to take consideration of the fact that a green character does not just treat the wonders of the natural world as a conduit for inner peace, they also believe that the “secret to a happy life is to recognize the role you were born into and then embrace it. Do what you were destined to do.” What does Nissa believe the role she was born into is? What drives her throughout much of Magic’s narrative?

To put it simply, Nissa believes that she is the champion of nature itself, the chosen one of Zendikar’s worldsoul. Whenever she planeswalks to a new world, she adopts the worldsoul of the plane as her own; the first thing she usually does when touching down on new earth is to attempt to connect with the soul of the plane. Throughout whichever story arc she takes part in, she usually comes to see herself as the voice of that particular world and acts as its champion as well.

Let’s take a look at the second Innistrad block, for example. Even though her role in this story is quite small, this template still applies. Jace, after unraveling the mystery of what was happening on Innistrad, goes back to Zendikar to fetch the rest of the Gatewatch to help stop the rise of Emrakul. As she planeswalks to the battlefield, the “hill rumbled slightly, the only herald of Nissa's arrival. She frowned as she knelt down, placing her palm against the ground. ‘The mana here is dark. Twisted. It's in the soil, the trees...Emrakul did some of this, but’…‘This is your first time to Innistrad, right? “Dark and twisted” is kind of a regular feature,’ Jace continued.” 

Presumably at some point later on in the story, on the flavor text on the card Splendid Reclamation, Nissa says “No matter how much a plane has suffered, there is a way to restore it." Of course, this line appears nowhere in the story, but there has always been a conflict between what has been written in Magic fiction versus what is printed on the cards. Furthermore, it’s possible that this card was a bottom-up design with the mechanics designed first and Nissa pasted on later since there wasn’t another “green character who cares about lands” present during the battle against Emrakul. Either way, Nissa comes across as a character who sees herself as the champion of nature.

Nearly all other stories Nissa takes part in give her a similar arc. In "Amonkhet," she is the first to identify just how sick and distorted the world had become under Bolas’s influence, and after a trial with the ibis god Kefnet, she ends up believing that she set herself up as a rival to Bolas, able to manipulate the leylines and the gods attached to them just as efficiently as the dragon. During :War of the Spark," in a move that would earn her the disgust of the Selesnya guild, she animates Vito-Ghazi, the home of Ravnica’s worldsoul Mat'Selesnya, in order to fight against Bolas and the zombified gods. In "Zendikar Rising," Nissa’s journey takes front and center, with her conflict with Nahiri ending with Nissa as the one true savior and liberator of Zendikar. Her brief stint during the "Brothers' War" side stories end with Nissa swearing an oath to Gaea, the worldsoul of Dominaria, to personally destroy the Phyrexians herself, no matter the cost. 

Even while she was a Phyrexian during “All Will Be One” and “March of the Machine” and her mind not her own, Nissa follows a similar arc, though a twisted variation: after her capture and transformation, Nissa becomes the voice of Phyrexia, as the card All Will Be One showcases, proclaiming the plane’s glory and, through manipulating Realmbreaker (likely the single largest and most powerful living thing in existence at the time), sending “Phyrexian perfection coursing across the Multiverse.”

You can certainly see Nissa’s confidence in her station as the champion of worldsouls multiverse-wide in her cards: “Nissa, Voice of Zendikar,” “Nissa, Who Shakes the World,” “Nissa, Ascended Animist,” etc. All of these designs showcase Nissa’s might as a master of land magic. Loyalty abilities on these cards almost always animate a land into a creature that can then fight alongside her. The most powerful variation of this ability was on “Nissa, Who Shakes the World”:

On a narrative level, however, what these abilities showcase is that Nissa during this era saw herself as less a friend to nature than a master of it.

Fast forward to the aftermath of the Phyrexian invasion and Nissa is in a much different place mentally, emotionally, and even physically. As Nissa struggles to (literally) bury the physical remnants of what the Phyrexians did to her body, she feels an immense sense of loss that stems from more than just guilt. Fong describes it this way:

[Nissa] felt cut off, lost in the Multiverse with no voice calling her home. Maybe no plane would hear her ever again. They'd all lost their sparks, but only Nissa still wanted to planeswalk. Even if her friends seemed to be moving on without her, she still cared about their happiness. So not wanting to bring down the spirits of their celebration, she excused herself.

I recall seeing a few half-hearted takes on social media after this story was released expressing frustration that Nissa spent so much time in this narrative grappling with the harm that was done to her rather than acknowledging guilt for the harm she inadvertently did to others. First of all, she clearly does feel guilt for the harm Norn wrought through her:

[Her] copper skeleton is covered in mangled spikes, and those spikes are covered in the dried blood of her friends. She rubs one, and dark residue flakes off on her fingertips. She wonders whose blood it was. Maybe Koth? Maybe Wrenn? Maybe Chandra? Chandra. She had hurt Chandra, almost killed her.

Secondly, exploring Nissa as a green character shows us that Nissa has lived her life believing firmly that she was alive for a purpose: to be the voice of nature and act as its most ardent champion. However, now worldsouls won’t speak to her and her magic barely works at all. Her spirituality that drives her and her magical might that allows her to act in service of that spirituality have been unceremoniously ripped away from her. Everything Nissa has ever believed about herself has come dramatically (and traumatically) crashing down.

Nissa is a character whose entire system of beliefs has now been obliterated by her experiences, and as mentioned in the previous sections, she believes it was because her original mistake was in seeking her identity in her relationships with people rather than with her relationship with nature.

I asked at the end of part one, what’s left for Nissa except to turn back to nature and attempt to find herself again? Perhaps, however, a more apt question to ask is what’s left for Nissa at all? Yes, she and Chandra are (mostly) on the same page about their feelings for one another and yes, she is alive and physically healthy (though weakened and scarred), but notice that even if Nissa despairs about what she has lost, she shows little desire to go “back” to nature. Even though she believes with absolute certainty that “the planes have rejected her,” she stays true to her duty as one of the stronger warriors left among the surviving Mirrans; when faced with decision to either explore the brand new omenpath or to help the survivors, Fong writes, “as much as Nissa loathes to abandon the portal, she knows Koth is right. As much as the war took from her, others have lost even more. They need to help first.”

Though separated by over two-hundred years and in different genres altogether, what Nissa is going through reminds me of what Wordsworth writes in “Tintern Abbey”:

I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, Wherever nature led: more like a man Flying from something that he dreads, than one Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days And their glad animal movements all gone by) To me was all in all.—I cannot paint What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more.

You see, Wordsworth — like Nissa, like me, and probably like you at some point in your life — found himself in the late 1700’s grieving a deep sense of loss as everything he believed in came crashing down around him. Spellbound by the fervor of Revolution-era France, he lived on the continent for years and had a child with a woman he fell in love with there, but France’s tense political relations with his home country and the Revolution descending into the Reign of Terror forced him to return to Britain. Witnessing what he saw as his utopian beliefs plummet to irredeemable violence utterly broke him (on a personal note, I likely have a different view than Wordsworth on the merits of putting aristocrats to the guillotine, but that’s another essay entirely), and — like Nissa, like most of us — had to rebuild himself from the ground up.

What a relatable human story, right? As someone who is closer to forty than he is thirty, I have stumbled upon this crossroads multiple times in my life. Years ago, it involved disentangling myself from my evangelical upbringing and accepting the fact that, though my parents and (just to give them the benefit of the doubt) many of the religious adults who helped raise me had my best intentions in mind, instructing an impressionable, vulnerable, and anxious child that deep down in the center of his being he is evil and deserves eternal torment for the crime of being born was pretty fucked up. It took years of therapy, medication, and daily affirmations to finally feel good about myself. More recently, as alluded to, going through a tough breakup, wrapping up a master’s degree, and beginning the process of changing careers all within the span of roughly two years left me scrambling in my pursuit to create a new self to be a better fit for my new circumstances.

What choices did I make at this crossroads? What about Nissa or Wordsworth?

Part III:

The answer to that question is that the three of us (Nissa, Wordsworth, and I) all came to similar conclusions. This answer is two-fold, and I hope you’re not expecting some life-altering nugget of wisdom here, because — true to the heart of a green mage — the first lesson we learned is, quite simply, the art of acceptance: acceptance of the world that is, not the world that was or the future world our anxiety creates in our mind. Rosewater writes,

Green wants acceptance.

The other colors are all focused on how they'd change the world to make it better. Green is the one color that doesn't want to change the world, because green is convinced that the world already got everything right. 

There is, of course, something to be said for improving your circumstances — especially if the environment around you is toxic — and the relentless ambition to mold your life into one you are happy with, but in Nissa’s case, what she needed most was to accept that she was living in a different world than was previously. Bereft of the planeswalker spark that gave her a sense of purpose and traumatized by remembering what she did when her body and mind were being puppeted by the Phyrexians, Nissa finally comes to understand and acknowledge her new place in her new world. 

Early on in Fong’s “She Who Breaks the World,” Nissa attempts to connect her soul to the leylines of Zhalfir, but instead of basking in the orchestra of the planes, the music is drowned in all of the other songs that have influenced her, her tune “muffled by dozens of new, alien voices she recognizes and despises: the Eldrazi, Bolas, and finally, loudest, Phyrexia.” This leads to her belief that was discussed previously that her original sin was embracing human connection instead of remaining the voice of Zendikar’s worldsoul. 

However, at the climax of the story, Nissa shares this struggle with Chandra when the two of them are trying to fight their way out of an impossible situation. A wild, out-of-control storm elemental was threatening the Mirran survivors of the Phyrexian invasion, and Nissa and Chandra were defending the populace against it. However, the two of them are not working well together, and the elemental manages to capitalize on their poor tactics and absorbs copious amounts of steam arising from a burnt baobab tree to become a colossal being whose head caresses the sky. After they get trapped in a hole with no way out, Chandra suggests a plan of attack reminiscent of the channel-fireball combo the two of them used to destroy Ulamog and Kozilek all the way back in “Oath of the Gatewatch,” and Nissa finally admits to Chandra that her magic no longer works and expresses her deep anxieties about why: “‘it's like my voice isn't my own,’” she admits. “‘Like it belongs to Phyrexia instead, like everything I've ever connected to is drowning me out.’”

Chandra, however, does not see it that way. Choosing, for once, to think before she talks (a skill she no doubt learned from her years around Nissa), eventually concludes “‘you know … you have good connections, too.’” She continues:

‘It's true—you did bad things while they had you. But everyone you've connected with over the years with the Gatewatch, we're just happy you're still here. With us.’ Chandra sets fire to a chunk of moist dirt that was about to fall on Nissa, turning it into a soft rain of ash. ‘With me.’ For the first time since she awoke in Zhalfir, Nissa smiles. Chandra, sweet Chandra, even if she doesn't realize it, has always understood and explained emotions better than Nissa ever could. Chandra continues, ‘Your connections aren't drowning your voice, Nissa. They're changing it into something new, maybe something even more powerful. Infinite voices, infinite possibilities, right?’

What Nissa needed was not to perform some kind dramatic penance or to reject society for asceticism once again but to simply accept that the world around her had changed, that she had changed. This fact is hammered home by the next section: agreeing to try connecting to Zhalfir’s worldsoul again, 

Nissa closes her eyes. She retreats inward and listens for her inner voice. It's hard, much harder than before, but Chandra is dutifully helping her concentrate, blasting the falling rock away before it can reach her. Nissa is greeted by ringing deep in her ears, but she refuses to be deterred. With her connections in mind, she picks the static apart into unique melodies, the individual songs she picked up from all around the Multiverse. She arranges them, harmonizes them, and this time, when she calls to Zhalfir, her voice is amplified in chorus. She offers an apology. The plane answers. It too was cut off from everything it knew, from the connections it had made. It, too, was scarred by Phyrexia and is growing into something new. It forgives her, and Nissa can finally forgive herself. Magic floods her flesh, her blood, her bone. She hears Chandra laugh, delighted by their success.

It’s only through accepting that her life now is different from what is used to be, through confessing that her priorities had changed, through acknowledging that presence of others in her life had made her stronger, and most importantly, through forgiving herself for what’s she did when her mind wasn’t her own that Nissa is able to reconnect to the source of her magic and her joy. 

Nissa learns to reinterpret her world in a new way. This can be seen in mechanical elements as well. Most of Nissa’s planeswalker cards have her manipulating lands, either by animating them into creatures to be controlled or by fetching them from the library. Nissa, Resurgent Animist, however - the first time she has been printed as a creature since the flip-walkers of 2015 - does not do any of those things. The text on this card reads:

Landfall — Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, add one mana of any color. Then if this is the second time this ability has resolved this turn, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal an Elf or Elemental card. Put that card into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.

The act of playing a land during the narrative of a game of Magic is the act of a planeswalker establishing a mana bond with a certain place in the multiverse. ‘Mana bond’ is a term almost never used in Magic fiction anymore, but as far as I know, it has not been retconned either. Even if not explicitly stated, there are nods to the act of creating mana bonds throughout the tie-in fiction. Look at this section from “Nissa’s Origin: Home,” for example:

As they picked their way deeper into the marshland, Nissa formed a connection with it. She saw the beauty in the moss-laden trees, felt the magic in the mists that rose up from the brackish waters, and swayed to the song of the swarms of lion flies that circled them. She never would have believed a bog had so much to offer.

In the narrative of a game, this paragraph would simply read “Nissa plays a swamp.” Explicit or not, establishing a mana bond with a particular piece of geography means that the planeswalker can, among other things, draw mana from that place no matter where in the multiverse they are. This is why, flavorfully, a player can play Ravnica shock lands alongside Tarkir fetch lands: in the narrative of a game, your planeswalker avatar has gone to these places and forged a bond with those pieces of land.

To cycle back to the card, however, instead of manipulating the land itself, having Nissa, Resurgent Animist alongside the player allows them to, firstly, hypercharge their link to the lands they play, giving the player extra mana for the act of forming connections with lands. Secondly, the player forming connections with as many lands as possible in a single turn (two in this case) allows Nissa to discover other creatures to fight alongside them. Instead of being the champion of all nature, Nissa now fights alongside nature as an ally rather than a general. This makes it all the more fitting that according to the “Aftermath Set Design” article published last year, the original name for this card during the design process was “Nissa, Friend to Nature.”

The journey Nissa goes on lets her reinterpret herself from champion to friend, but celebrating things others consider dark and reinterpreting the world in a way to showcase its beauty was close to the heart of many Romantic Poets as well. In “To Autumn,” John Keats celebrates the season of change, a season so often characterized as a time of preparation and vigilance for the coming winter. Keats writes,

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?    Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,    And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn    Among the river sallows, borne aloft       Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies

Keats argues that we should not characterize an entire season through the lens of humanity. Instead of pining for spring, we should live in the moment and appreciate what fall offers us. Similarly, Nissa learns to appreciate the current, sparkless season of her life with Chandra instead pining for the life that was.

Keats again argues this in “Ode to a Nightingale”; a creature poets often infuse with sadness is only that way, he argues, because of how it is interpreted:

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!          No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard          In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path          Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,                 She stood in tears amid the alien corn

 “Thou wast not born for death,” Keats writes, meaning that the nightingale is not infused with sadness by nature, but only because that’s the emotion humans have assigned to it. Nissa too learns to stop infusing her world with despair by labeling herself as powerless, damaged, and guilty, instead choosing to enjoy the moment she is in.

It is through accepting that age and experience has changed how he views the world that Wordsworth also is able to move forward. Instead of treating nature as his “all in all,” he writes,

For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue.—And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man

Instead of nature being the only thing in his life, nature is now simply one of the important things in his life, a feeling too that Nissa wrestles with. Instead of hearing only the song of the leylines, the worldsoul’s tune is now just one of many melodies she sings.

Acceptance is a song I too have been singing. As a staunch leftist, living in Central Texas is not particularly suited to me, and I have left here once before. Swearing never to move back, I moved away in the 2010’s for a relationship with a woman that ended up failing some years later. Financially desperate, broken emotionally, in the middle of a graduate degree, and not having anywhere else to go, I moved back to Waco to live cheaply, wrap up my online library science degree, and re-constitute my support network. It was not easy reacclimating to life here. Though I love the people I know in the area, I felt then and still feel now haunted by the ghosts of old memories, all of which had become flavored by loss. After I finished my degree in mid-2023, it did not get much better; even though I’d become ambitious and committed to looking for work elsewhere, the job market for librarians kept me here (entry-salary positions asking for five years of experience and all that). Note that for as much as change scares me, I had dared to face those fears and dared to dream only for it to come to nothing - not an uncommon story these days, I’m afraid.

Now, however, I’m working at the public library in Temple, Texas (close enough to Waco to commute) and settled myself down for the time being. Composing a new rhythm for my life has drastically helped heal the damage that almost three years of rejection, chaos, instability, depression, and anxiety wreaked on me, but that journey began, I think, with acceptance. I’m not currently where I want to end up, but despite what my anxiety and self-doubt tell me, that’s okay. I had to accept that this is where I am at in my life right now, confess that my ambitious priorities were probably going to be achieved at a much slower rate than I had hoped, acknowledge that people in my life made me stronger, and most importantly, forgive myself for the many mistakes I made over the past three years. Only then was I able to truly move forward. 

The second lesson we all learned was to embrace connection with people in our lives rather than reject it. In Nissa’s case, as previously alluded to, part of the process of accepting where she is at in life involved understanding that becoming part of the Gatewatch pursuing romance with Chandra had made her better and happier than she had been before. Once that hurdle was crossed, Nissa was able to come to terms with just how different Chandra is from Nissa in how she thinks, feels, and loves. Chandra tells Nissa:

I realized I can't just burn through any relationship I care about. Love leaves room for the other person to be who they are. I have to make room for you, too. I want to." "Like fire needs oxygen . . ." Nissa asks her final question. "You have room for someone who can't planeswalk?" "Yes. I'll make it. I will falter, I will be tempted, but I will make it. Fire's going to burn, no matter what you do, but you can shape it if you try. And I want to try. For you." Nissa thinks for a moment. Finally, she nods. "I can handle that."

Later on, Nissa describes the omenpath she ran into earlier:

“I think I can still hear Zendikar out there, strange and distorted, but possibly still out there. I could just be imagining it completely, but I think I would risk that unknown to see home again." Chandra nods firmly. "And I'll be walking right alongside you." Every Planeswalker can go anywhere they want, but Nissa recognizes Chandra's need to roam runs deeper than that. It's part of who she is, and part of what Nissa loves. So Nissa offers, "Maybe, after that, I wouldn't mind seeing more. As long as it's with you." Chandra breaks into a wide smile. "Let me be your torch, then.”

Compromise is an important part of any relationship, and through embracing change in her life rather than running from it, Nissa is finally able to compromise with Chandra in a way that should fulfill both them - something Nissa has clearly wanted since at least the Kaladesh arc (though I would argue these feelings began long before that). Pursuing connection and intimacy with Chandra at this crossroads allows Nissa to blossom into a much happier and more self-actualized character than she has been in Magic fiction so far. Once, back in “Renewal,” the last story of the “Aether Revolt” arc, Nissa - deep in meditation and basking in her connection with the worldsoul of Kaladesh - watches the birth of a new aetherborn and ponders:

How could she tell this new life to laugh and weep without reservation or regret; to sing to the stars and waters, or to nothing at all; to love unreserved and unguarded; to treasure every moment with those beloved; to forgive any regretted trespass; to dance when moved to; to savor long silences in warm company; to greet each dawn, each face with the thought, this will be an adventure; to be brave, and kind, and trusting, and... ...like Chandra.

Years later, Nissa has finally learned to be more like Chandra, and she is better for it.

For his part, Wordsworth famously had a great relationship with his sister Dorothy, and part of the change he embraces throughout “Tintern Abbey” involves reclaiming himself through her:

…in thy voice I catch The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while May I behold in thee what I was once, My dear, dear Sister! 

Earlier in the poem, Wordsworth lamented that he could not “paint / What then I was.” In this passage, Wordsworth finally finds himself again through communion with his oldest and dearest friend.

As for me, I’m in a happy romantic relationship again after years of trying to rebuild myself. Additionally I've made friends with people I wanted to meet, and I’ve managed to carve out a small niche for myself in my own small corner of the world: I realized last summer that I thought about Magic: The Gathering in a much different way than many of my local friends do. As a game that occupies much of my social life and possibly more of my internal life, I searched for an outlet for these thoughts, and that led me here, where I’ve made good friends and joined an online community that I once looked at from afar. If you’re reading this, thanks! I’m happy to be here and to know you.

Conclusion

Relearning ourselves, redefining ourselves, and finding a place for ourselves is a journey most of us must embark, whether of our own volition or not. I’m certainly not a master of this process, so I’d like to leave you with the following thoughts:

One of the more, well, magical things about Magic The Gathering’s tie-in fiction is the fact that you could put just about any character from across the entire history of the game into a random number (character?) generator and the character that gets selected will be near and dear to some Magic player’s heart. In a game as wide and varied as Magic, there is a massive range of experiences portrayed throughout the stories that someone will personally identify with. I’ve seen communities big and small form around fans’ shared love of popular characters like Liliana, Vraska, Oko, and the entire concept of Phyrexians, but also less commonly known characters like Kallist Rhoka (who doesn’t even have a card) and less commonly liked characters (if we’re using loud people on the internet as a gauge) like Jace, Nahiri, and yes, even Nissa.

The biggest lesson I learned from my time as an English major (whether my professors meant for me to learn that is another thing entirely) was that there is no such thing as good and bad literature; there is just literature. Magic story has varied in quality drastically over the years, but one of my main reasons for writing this piece is to emphasize that Magic fiction has a place in the world of literature. It’s not likely to be studied by English students decades from now, but that says nothing about its ability to delight, upset, soothe, and even instruct those of us who enjoy it.

As for myself, I’m eternally grateful to writers who have picked up the task of writing Nissa over the years, because even when she is written poorly (ignoring that one instance where her characterization was butchered beyond recognition), I see much of myself reflected in her deep sense of conviction, in her struggle to express true feelings to people she loves, in her obsessive loyalty to those she lets into her life, in her adoration of the natural world, and even in her love of music. More specifically, I’m especially grateful to Fong and the story team behind “March of the Machine: The Aftermath” for giving me exactly the right Nissa story for exactly the right time in my life.

Whichever omenpath you personally are crossing through, I hope that you find what you need to come out of the other side of it happy, healthy, and ready for the next adventure.

References

Davidson, Nik. (2016). Battle of Thraben. 

Fong, Grace P. (2023). She Who Breaks the World. 

Frye, Northrop. (1968). A Study of English Romanticism.

Humphreys, Dave. (2023). Leading March of the Machine: The Aftermath Set Design 

Keats, John. (1819). Ode to a Nightingale.

Keats, John. (1820). To Autumn.

Kreines, Kimberly J. (2015). Nissa's Origin: Home.

Magic Creative Team. (2017). Renewal. 

Rivera, K. Arsenault. (2023). March of the Machine | Episode 1: Triumph of the Fleshless. 

Rosewater, Mark. (2015). It's Not Easy Being Green Revisited. 

Wordsworth, William. (1798). Lines Written (or Composed) a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798. 

Wordsworth, William. (1807). Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. 

[bbybluemochi]

bbybluemochi's F.A.Q. ✧･ﾟ

Hi! Arun here! I thought that instead of answering your submissions one by one I’d gather all the frequently asked questions and answer them in a single post (this is a mix of art/OC/commissions related q's)!

Please note that I do read all your messages and I’m so grateful for every one of them!!!! I keep all your words really close to my heart, thank you for liking my art and loving my Ocs as much as I do, it means the world to me <3

What’s the name of your OCs?

They’re called Cotton (the blonde one) and Puppy (the dark haired one). The original idea for them was to make some silly wolf/bunny OCs (that’s why Cotton is called like that, it was supposed to be a joke about her tail…) but somewhere along the way they took over and became something completely different!

Is there a webcomic for your OCs?

Not currently! I don’t have the time or the skills (for now) but I’d love to give it a try in the future! 

I was wondering if you mind people using your OC art as character art/inspiration for DnD?Just games with friends that are for fun, nothing for commercial.

Go ahead! I find that really flattering.

Just out of curiosity, are any of your OCs bisexual?

Both Cotton and Puppy are lesbians. That’s what I feel comfortable drawing since I’m a lesbian myself. If I ever do draw a bisexual OC I’ll make sure to mention it! <3

I think you said Cotton was a dominatrix in a previous ask, but is Puppy on the opposite side of the spectrum or is she just glad to be there whichever way?

Puppy is very much a sub. They both switch (Puppy as a service top and bottom and Cotton as a top and power bottom), but the dom/sub dynamic never changes. Also I wanted to mention that these dynamics do not transcend outside of the bedroom that much, there’s more to them than their kinks but I do love to draw them deep in their submissive/dominant headspaces. 

Are one of the lesbian fairytale characters trans?

I didn’t design either of them with that in mind, but I’m super OK with people headcanoning them as trans!

May I use your art as a header/icon?

Of course! Remember to credit me tho~

Do you allow people to use your art freely?

I don’t allow reposts of my work (not that it matters that much, since almost all my art has been already reposted a million times ))): but I’d really appreciate it if you just shared my posts instead of reposting my art). As for phone backgrounds/wallpapers or stuff like that, yeah!

Do you have an instagram account or other social media, I would love to follow you there.

My main platform is twitter (same @), I post all my drawings there and I’m usually more active over there. Tumblr is kind of like an archive. I really like the community here but I find it easier to reply/interact with people on twitter! As for instagram, I do have an old art account (same @, again) but I haven’t posted in so long. I may start posting there soon if a certain rich guy decides to keep destroying the bird app tho. 

I’ve always thought about this… how do you think it’d look if the aesthetics/styles [of your OCs] were reversed?

I’ll have to explore that in a future drawing, I haven’t thought much about it! 

Do you write fics for your characters or has anyone else written fics about them?

Not yet! A couple of my friends have offered, tho! I usually like to stick to drawing because that’s what I do best, I don’t wanna subject anyone to my writing (it’s not very good,,,,). When I share some of my Ocs stories, I think it will be in comic format. 

What's the story behind your OCs? 

There are several, actually!! I like to put my OCs in different universes. As for now, there’s the Fairytale AU, the modern setting AU (this is the original one), and now the Werewolf/Vampire AU. I also did a drawing of them as spiderwoman and black cat but I don’t think that AU is gonna make a comeback for a while. I’m also planning a scifi AU but I’m not sure I’d be able to pull off that aesthetic with my current art style so I’m still working on it. 

The Fairytale AU is the one I’m working on most of the time. I wanna release a small artbook with their story + illustrations. That was my main goal for 2023 but life got in the way, so maybe,,, 2024??? *crosses fingers* 

Is your shop down? It’s saying that it’s not available.

I open my shop for 1-2 weeks every now and then, that’s why it’s closed most of the time! My plan is to open the store again in september, if i manage to finish all the merch in time! I’ll announce it on my twitter and tumblr account when I do. 

Would you ever share a tutorial on how you make your art?

Yes, of course! I’m not very good at explaining my drawing process but If it helps anyone I’d love to! Just let me know what part of the drawing process you’d like me to focus on, because If i try to make a full illustration tutorial it’s gonna be too long/difficult to follow. 

May I ask what brush do you use for your lineart?

I use a different brush almost every time I start an illustration, I’m not very consistent when it comes to that (I think it’s mainly because I haven’t found the perfect brush yet!). But let me know what illustration you’re curious about and I’ll try to remember which one I used!

Do you come up with poses off the top of your head or do you use some type of reference? I always struggle with them.

It depends on what I’m drawing! Some of my drawings are reinterpretations of paintings (I’m obsessed with pre-raphaelite painters and arthurian legend paintings in general), so in those cases I try to adapt the poses to my art style. Even If I’m trying to recreate an already existing painting I end up changing the poses/proportions a lot along the way to fit my personal taste/art style. 

Other times, I just sketch from imagination (this is more entertaining, I think, since looking at references can make the drawing process a bit tedious). If I find it hard to draw a certain pose/part of the body I will look up references on printerest, no shame in using pictures! If I still can’t find the pose I need I’ll just take a picture of myself (this is like, a last resort for me. I’m too lazy for this). 

My personal advice would be to use references for the pose and then tweaking the pose and trying to make it more personal 

I love the way the armor was designed and rendered! Can you share some tips on designing armor? 

Drawing armor is something I still struggle with most of the time. I think I’ve learned a lot in the past year (please don’t look at my armor drawings from 2022,,,,, sigh) but I still struggle to draw certain poses/angles. My advice is: don’t hesitate to draw non-functional armor!!! There’s always gonna be someone like “actually, that armour makes no sense :)” well !!!! it looks cool as hell so who caresssss !!!!! 

I think it’s more important for you to get comfortable drawing armor before you start beating yourself up for not drawing accurate ones. It takes a lot of practice (I’m still learning!!!), especially if you’re trying to draw historically accurate ones, so start by having fun, and then work your way up from there.

Most of the tips I can think about are really hard to explain without a visual example, so let me know if that’d be a tutorial you would be interested in and I’ll try to make one (I’m cringing a little just saying this bc I swear, my armor skills are so bad compared to some amazing artists out there………..).

Do you allow cosplays your OCs?

YES…. YES PLEASE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IM BEGGING YOUUU ILL LOVE YOU FOREVER !!!!!! *rattles my cage* 

Do you allow fanart of your OCs?

Again,,, PLEASEEEEEEEEE !!! Just tag me so I don’t miss it and remember to give me credits if you do !!!!!!!!!!! :D

I was wondering if you use procreate , clip studio, or similar apps?

A mix of both. I used to draw on procreate only until I got a tablet and now I’m a clip studio user (csp sponsor me please), and now that’s all I use. I’m so used to drawing on PC now that I don’t think I’d be able to go back to procreate, but I still like that app a lot! All my drawings (even the ones I do on csp) always get retouched on procreate because I like some of the effects (*dreamy sigh* chromatic aberration filter,,, love u). 

I wanted to know if the marks Cotton has on her waist are tattoos or like a scar? 

Those are tats! Puppy is a tattoo artist ~~~ (I’m actually not sure if i’ll keep the waist tats on Cotton or if I’ll end up redesigning them,,,)

I was wondering if you take commissions?

Not right now. I also don’t have any plans of opening commissions any time soon! When I do, I’ll post a google forms on twitter and here on tumblr with the prices and type of comms I do. But there’s nothing scheduled. 

Even tho I'm not doing commissions atm, I’m currently looking for illustration jobs (specially book covers), so don’t hesitate to email me at bbybluemochi@gmail.com

That's all for now, thank you for reading!! I think I covered most of the questions, I'll make another q&a post in the future! Bye~~

[cnovelartreblogs]

So, I was unfamiliar with Monogatari Novels until I reblogged that last post and shared in a Discord server with friends that I'd heard this news and was excited.

I am. far less excited now. They are dicey at best, awful at worst, and I'm definitely going to be watching their releases with a great deal of skepticism.

I don't have time to do as thorough a blog post about this as it really deserves, but I did want to gather in one place the receipts that were shared with me, so that if others didn't know, they could learn more about the company we're dealing with and make their own decisions about whether to buy from them or not.

First: I noticed myself, and thought it was odd, that a place that primarily publishes Chinese fiction would use the name Monogatari, which is a Japanese word. Further, tho I hadn't noticed, it's actually worse: they use a rising sun as their icon, which is. uh. A choice. A pretty fucked up choice, given the history between Japan and China. When this was pointed out to them, they said repeatedly they just didn't know/didn't realize, which is a fucking weird thing for a company that things they have the expertise to translate these books to say about the history of the country they're translating books from. Like. It makes me think they don't actually know jackshit.

They also have a bad record regarding who they're picking as translators and their understanding of copyright law. (I recommend you use the links, the tweets often have more info in the replies)

(one of those mistranslated lines is so basic that even I, with my less than 2.5 yrs of studying, could have translated correctly.)

Basically: they are sus af. They've also apparently said on their Spanish-language twitter that they've been lying on their English-language one to appease US fans.

I was really excited a couple hours ago. Now, I'm EXTREMELY wary.

Just...be on the look-out, y'all.

To be clear: this doesn't mean that their subsequent publications will be a cluster. They might have learned! They might be doing better! Or, they might just have picked better, more trustworthy partners for specific projects! I don't want to say "do not support under any circumstances." But I know... I'd rather know all the above than not. And I figured other people would want to know too.

(research shared with permission from the person who shared it with me.)

[fishbaitslime]

Leafpool/Hawkfrost hypokits? Pls and thank you

hawkfrost and leafpool i think met at a gathering and leaf was immediately charmed by him. In my heart she has a thing for bad boys lol so she fell for him hard. hawk thought she was pretty and nice but defo was encouraged by tigerstar to get with her- but he did actually have genuine love feelings for her.

in this au, i think hawkfrost’s plans succeed in killing firestar, also killing brambleclaw. with no witnesses, he spins the story as him stumbling upon brambleclaw having trapped firestar, already taken the leaders lives- and hawkfrost in-turn fought brambleclaw to stop him before he moved onto the rest of thunderclan.

this kinda turned squirrelflight and leafpools relationship a bit sour, squirrel blaming hawk (rightfully) and leaf being like “you can’t see past your own nose and accept that bramble was just bad.” which thennn escalates to leafpool deciding to join riverclan as a medicine cat, the two becoming a leader medicine cat iconic duo power couple.

id like to think eventually hawkstars treachery is revealed which results in a lot of angst… perhaps ill make this an actual au lol

EAGLEFROST is our jay stand in. He’s still blind but becomes a warrior bc idk fuck the erins he can do what he wants. He’s revered throughout riverclan for his battle prowess and cunning, making for a skilled fighter even as an apprentice. This is partly due to having been trained in the dark forest all his life alongside his siblings. Eaglefrost isn’t dumb, he knows his family history.. he just is torn between honoring his legacy and doing what’s right. Renamed Eagle- because i think Hawk would talk Leafpool into a little more of a Cooler Bird Name. Then -frost as a kind’ve reference to his canon name being from his canon father, but also bc of his cold and calculated battle shit <3

TIGERLEAF is our lion, and our replacement medicine cat! I think Tigerstar would want a spy on the inside to starclan, so Hawk would probably fake a sign that would make he’s sons destiny within the medicine den. Tigerleaf is actually a very sweet soul, taking after Leafpool a lot and not at all his father or siblings. He is the voice of reason of the group, and he is usually the one to tell right from wrong. This leaves him within a lot of turmoil. His family is everything and that means their safety and success should be valued above all… right? Tiger- is because, again, I think Hawk/Tiger would disapprove of the Lion- prefix so yeagh. Leaf bc he plant doctor forever<3 but also his mom

TADPOLESTORM is our holly, and she is my favoriteee. Raised within the dark forest along her siblings, Tadpolestorm has been trained to be vicious but more importantly- fiercely loyal and obedient. Instead of the warrior code, Tadpolestorm is absolutely obsessed with helping her family. She know’s of (almost) all of Hawkstar’s deeds, and holds those secrets close to her chest. She would do anything to insure her father, mother, and brothers are safe- anything. Hawkstar has chosen her as elected deputy, and one day, leader. Tadpole- is from hawk’s brotherr and -storm is bc sheee a bit crazayyy (/affectionate)

despite all of this stuff, i do think Hawkstar does genuinely love Leafpool and his kids..he’s just got a lot going on.

warrior cat hypokit requests are open!

[lunabug2004]

New to the stranger things fandom. Do you have any good fic recs? Especially byler.

First of all, omg welcome! I hope you're enjoying being a part of the fandom!

Second, bestie I wish I could supply you more but I don't keep track of the fics I read at all :(. I have a few that I remember so I'll link those after the break! (but I gotta warn that all of them will be Mike-related and not necessarily canon because I have an addiction to his character):

'a cruel summer with you' by andiwriteordie, astrobi, and wiseatom: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48097207/chapters/121281193 Byler summer camp AU. Iconic & rightfully so. So so so good. [Ongoing, currently ~303k words]

'It's still raining. Why is it still raining?' by bouncehouce: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41543979 Mike angst, love it. + Mike&Hopper fiction is my fav tbh (after byler ofc) [Finished, ~2k words]

'The snow won't melt in mid-december' by GhoulSanderson: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45649651/chapters/114871651 Again, pure Mike angst. Love it. Also Byler, but might be pretty slight, I don't remember. [Finished, ~39k words]

'Please stay' by GhoulSanderson: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42486687 Madwheeler. Again, Mike angst but this time with Max. Madwheeler fiction is also my fav (also after byler ofc). [Finished, ~1.8k words]

'Code Purple Series' by BewitchingNotes: https://archiveofourown.org/series/3039501 Pure Mike angst as a series. No Byler unfortunately but very good and very sad. I reread a lot. [Finished, 15 works, ~24k words]

'Force of Gravity' by oceanfruit: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40134231/chapters/100515708 Byler modern AU. Also pretty iconic. Very good. [Finished, ~170k words]

'a stranger things group chat <3' by cosmicbrowniefan: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39748521/chapters/99513723 Byler. Everyone's LGBTQIA+ and it's amazing. This one's just very fun and lighthearted if I remember correctly. [Finished, ~69k words]

This last one's only for registered AO3 users so it's being difficult but it's 'The Darkest Eyes' by light_lanterne. Byler. This one is probably my top favorite but it's incomplete and seems to have been abandoned. It's "a semi canon-compliant character study of mike wheeler, his unaddressed trauma and his relationship with will byers, told through the eyes of a very tired jim hopper who can’t help but to become attached to the boy who keeps dating his children". (Yes this is the only one I'm using the actual summary for cuz I'm lazy by the end of this.)

Anyways, I hope you find enjoyment out of at least one of these! Sorry I couldn't give you more, I haven't read ST fanfic in while as my hyperfixation has died down atm (still there, just not as crazy as a few months ago). Also I'm so sorry for how long this response took me! I had to gather the fics and had lots of family gatherings going on these last couple weeks so my time was limited!

Thanks so much for the ask! I appreciate you so very much! <3

[itsmelloww]

Theory/HC on GuraGura being Shin's dog 🦴 [Long]

(every meta/a post i make is always long as shit so just fyi)

Its a theory with a bit of HC mixed in so dont take it too seriously ig but i believe that GuraGura didnt just randomly decide to become Shin's dog specifically, but rather it could be because GuraGura had a similar past to Shin.

--- Quick Index tab to all sections below: 🗂⬇️

Name

Past Life / Hobbies

(2.5) Design

GuraGura's characterisation in the series

The Theory

Theory ++ / Devils , Gathering Intel and En

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

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

1. Name

For starter's, before GG became a Devil, his name as a sorcerer was actually 'Shin'. Which imo is definitely Hayashida connecting the two.

GuraGura(sorc): 震 (Shin), Quake Shin: 心 (Shin) , Heart

[Side mini rant on this: This is something that I annoyingly missed for the longest time cause I read physical and VIZ likes to do a literal translation of the names to english , so i just knew GG's sorcerer name as 'Quake' for the longest time --- which literally pisses me off so much cause like WHY would I be referring to characters via the english translation of their names? Cause also if thats what were doing why do it selectively and why not also refer to Chidaruma as 'Covered in Blood' or Chota as 'Fat Bird' ?? But you see how dumb this is right, so wtf Viz??? pmo]

I find this such a cool detail - When i read the scans some months ago for the first time and saw GG's name as 'Shin' , my eyes literally goggled

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

2. Past Life / Hobbies

Secondly, in the bonus curse of volume 21, GuraGura has his own 'Hobby' Channel which is literally him building stuff.

He's building stuff.

I mean cmon!!!

Like please, surely you all remember that Shin basically grew up with his father as a CARPENTER ! He built stuff !

At some point in the series Asu explained how Devils are generally beings of passion, and we've also seen how obsessively and intensely Nikaido was cooking/making gyoza as she was transitioning into a Devil. In her full devil design Hayashida showed in an au chapter, she also had a mini gyoza between her horns which supports my understanding that generally, Devils must retain some of the hobbies/passions they had as sorcerers into Devilhood.

This would then help contextualise GuraGura - I believe for him to be having a whole channel to himself based around building stuff and furniture for a hobby would support the theory that as a sorcerer, he must have been a sort of carpenter or builder.

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

2.5 Design

This is a bit of a reach tbh im adding to just build on the theory, but I'd just like to make a point on GG's devil design- it kiiiinda resembles a carpenter's fit; especially with his vest with the pockets that look to me like a carpenter's vest, and even his skirt kinda gives me traditional japanese carpenter attire.

But like i said this is kind of a reach - its a cool design at the end of the day so doesnt have to mean that much.

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

GuraGura's characterisation in the series:

I think also what drives this home for me is also when I look at it in relation to how GG is portrayed in the series - he is a very aloof, even more so than you standard Devil.

He spends years pretending to be a dog and genuinely lives as one, he can be very thoughtless and random, he'd be so in his head he wouldnt notice Chidaruma calling to him, and even when in Devil form he'd act like a dog, such as barking, accepting pets and whatnot. His profile also in the all stars showed that he literally had no thoughts (iconic btw/ also cant find the page for the life of me to link but its out there).

So hes a very aloof, happy go lucky character (def not stupid tho, which I thought it was so interesting when I saw how he was driving lots of the conversation with Kaiman when he was reverted to a sorcerer, but thats a completely diff point).

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

The Theory:

In my eyes its couple strong points that come together -

They have the same names

Possibly the same past around building/carpentry

Just the name on its own would make me think is Hayashida just being cute, but when you add the hobby channel in conjuction with his characterisation in the show to me it just felt like Hayashida was trying to really hint at something more

Shin is generally a very interesting person, hes just gravitating really (no pun intended) ; hes also very strong, has grit, and he's also one of En's cleaners -- Add to all that that he has the same name as him and (potentially) the same past, and I can imagine why GuraGura would potentially see himself kinda and decide to play around with him.

GuraGura is also OLD ok, he's 358 years old -- imagine how endearing it'd be to find a little snot that reminds you of your old life (thats just me being sappy tho)

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

Theory ++ / Devils , Intel Gathering and En

Cute stuff aside btw, i'd also like to add that from Chidaruma's/Devils' perspective, how convenient is to have a Devil literally be with one of EN'S cleaners day in and out?

Like what a brilliant way to get intel on En and whatever he's up to at all times.

And if anyone thinks wtf do Devils care for all that, they absolutely do care. En's mentioned before while talking with Chidaruma how Chidaruma has informants and has also implied that its through informant networks that the Devils know everything that's going at all times. Think it was Haru that also mentioned that they'd also been spying on the cross eyes and Kai for the longest time.

Devils and in particular Chidaruma 100% just keep tabs on everyone and everything that's going on in the Magic World. They rule the realm anyways so It's part of having power at the end of the day. And who else would you be more interested in than En himself? (ok maybe whatever Kai was on as well but u get my point) Chidaruma and En are buddies, but En is 100% ass kissing and im sure theres so much that he doesn't let Chidaruma in on. Chidaruma also 100% is wary and very observant of En.

I do really believe (or like to at least) that GG just chose to be Shin's dog for the fuck of it but i would be in no way surprised if it was also partially to get intel.

Noi and Shin are in on everything En is on anyways since they kill for him, and they're always talking about him so can imagine the stuff GG's found out by just chilling and listening.

And all that info would go back to Chidaruma/Devils in the end.

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

So yeah, there's that.

Bit long (as per usual) but i like to get everything off my chest - been thinking about these for ages but i never got around to making the post. At the end of the day its all up to interpretation, but this is what i think.

[rjzimmerman]

A couple of my photos of joshua trees in blossom.

Excerpt from this story from the LA Times:

When it comes to one of California’s most beloved plants, the forecast is dire. Projections suggest that much of Joshua trees’ habitat will become unsuitable by the end of the century as the planet continues to warm.

Now, a new study has revealed that the icons of the Mojave Desert are experiencing conditions vastly different from those in the early 20th century, and that those conditions are changing the frequency of their reproductive activity.

“This is reinforcing the point that climate change impacts are already here,” said author Jeremy Yoder, associate professor of biology at Cal State Northridge.

The study, recently published in Ecology Letters, draws on observations from citizen scientists to reconstruct the effects of 120 years of climate change on Joshua trees. It’s the first systematic examination of exactly what triggers the spiky, Seussian succulents to mast, or flower, the first step in their reproductive process. It’s also the first study to examine how the plants are faring across their whole range.

The results were so surprising that Yoder spent days digging through the data trying to understand what was going on. He found that, counterintuitively, climate change, by driving bigger swings in precipitation and warmer winters, is causing Joshua trees to flower more frequently. While that sounds like a good thing, those same changes are probably reducing the survival of delicate Joshua tree seedlings, which need a consistent supply of water to grow into robust adult plants.

“We have all these predictive models about what’s going to happen in the future with Joshua trees, but this is showing us some real change just in the last 100 years,” said Kelly Herbinson, executive director of conservation nonprofit Mojave Desert Land Trust, who was not involved in the study. “It’s also helping us see this broader picture, which is that even though they may be flowering more often, these changes in precipitation and temperature are not advantageous for survival of the tree.”

Joshua trees are important for the entire desert community. Yoder likes to refer to them as umbrella species — two species, to be precise — because they provide food and habitat for other wildlife unique to the Mojave. The researchers looked at both the eastern and western Joshua trees, which have some differences — for instance, each is pollinated by a different species of yucca moth — but also hybridize and occupy overlapping climates, as the study notes.

“If we protect Joshua trees, we’re probably protecting this whole category of things that live in the desert,” Yoder said.

Yoder and his fellow researchers used more than 10,200 images of Joshua trees gathered from iNaturalist to train machine learning models to predict flowering from annual weather records. They then used weather records to “hindcast” flowering activity to 1900 to see how it has changed over time, resulting in the surprising projection that its frequency has increased from a median of once every five years to more than once every four years.

The model indicated that Joshua trees are more likely to flower when they experience a wet year following a dry year, as well as winter low temperatures above freezing. The plants are also more likely to flower when drought stress is relatively low, and temperatures and drought stress have been relatively stable over a couple of years, it found.

Evaluating the health of Joshua trees is a complex undertaking, and more research needs to be done to understand exactly how climate change is affecting each aspect, Yoder said. For instance, he said, in one area north of Death Valley, where conditions are cooler but also drier than much of the rest of their range, the researchers recorded a slight decline in conditions supporting flowering frequency. That area has been identified as a likely climate refuge, where Joshua trees may be able to survive in the future even as other portions of the desert grow inhospitable.

[godotdotdot]

I watched the end of evangelion in theaters last night. The last time I watched EoE was a near spiritual exp; I had been going thru a lot at home and needed catharsis, because I was personally grieving a lot of close relationships that had been hurting me, and could not stop feeling shitty for how I hurt my loved ones.

While that evening I had had the entirety of Eva fresh in my mind, and had sobbed accordingly to my heightened understanding and empathic ability, last night I did not. I had not prepared by rewatching the series or Death and Rebirth. It was a last minute chance that I took. I felt I had not "done" the experience properly.

I noticed so many details I hadn't before, thanks to the big screen: the name KAWORU printed on the EVA Series' S2 drives; how fitting it is that Kaworu (the ideal Shinji, the replacement for Asuka, the parallel of Rei) eviscerates Asuka. I also realised why Asuka has the bandage on her arm in the last scene, because her arm... ripped in two... and how insane is it, the arm that is iconically extended with "I'll kill you, I'll kill you" to be the same hand that reaches forward, as she's dying, to cup Shinji's cheek as he strangles her. I saw my favorite character, Rei, commit her revolt against Gendo. I absorbed everything on screen with greater clarity than I ever had before. The big screen magnified the details, the emotions, everything; and I realised with satisfaction that I was watching the movie the way it was supposed to be watched.

And as such, I think the most significant moment was in the actual theater itself. The scene in the film where they're in instrumentality and talking about dreams vs reality, and they pan to the irl audience of one of the first screenings of eoe? It hits different when YOU are in the theater. It's YOU on screen. I remember feeling like an individual and not at the same time. I realised that everyone in the movie theater was there for the same reason as me: for virtue of being human, having a deep connection w the series like me, having their own reconciling with the awe of seeing it in theaters; after all, all the young kids had streamed this movie on the phone like me, and all the older fellows had not been to an Eva screening in North America. We WERE the first audience seeing the movie, just like in the film; we had all gathered here with our rei plushies and our t-shirts and our cosplays like the audience in 1997. But would we be sitting there confused, like that initial audience was?

As it was, there is no sense of confusion in as an eva fan, not after the End. As the film ended, Shinji crying, Asuka still, Disgusting, and then the end card, there was a full 15 seconds of silence as the lights slowly came on. No clapping. No discussion. No laughter or sniffling or breath. The lights came on, and still, I was silent; I was both praying no one would break the silence as I needed it and observed it. I was completely processing the gravity of being the first (N. American) audience (ever!) since the show aired nearly thirty years ago; and with that weight, how SHOULD you react? And then, the silence broke as I heard people take shaky exhales like they had been crying, chuckling nervously, and then more comfortably laughing to their groups, beginning lore explanations--- someone had a beer snuck into the theater that I only noticed when I looked in front of me--- and everyone re-became themselves, imdividuals with lives and problems and things to be excited over. A couple was still crying and were not holding hands. I saw them outside, twenty minutes later, smiling and taking pictures with the poster.

It seemed strange to me that Eva had become such an emotional thing to such a crowd of people. I didn't realise that I was not the only one who cried tears of horror, who cried tears of disgust, who cried tears of sorrow. I had been excited to go to this movie and was left feeling... normal. It was life-changing, but also, not. I was just a person in a theater, and yet, I understood the movie because I had studied it. And so had everyone else, and we were still crying. At the same time, having reflected on my more private viewings, I still thought I hadn't cried enough.

I think to the things Hideako Anno has said about eva; how it's him on screen, his disdain for certain kinds of anime fans, his passing interest in things that people hyperanalyze. I think about the dedication he notes to his team of workers and five women in his life. Who are those five women? What kind of women are they? Why that descriptor, if you're separating them from your work?

I think the most appropriate explanation for my absurd reactions to the film are because the film itself is an absurd experience; I'm trying to assign it an aura (a la "art in the age of mechanical reproduction") but frankly, I believe it is impossible. Perhaps my theater wasn't right. Perhaps my company wasn't. Perhaps I was not. Perhaps the film was not. And most of all, perhaps it was okay for me to be there, because I wanted to be there, and I wanted to go on.

It was a really beautiful experience. The movie is absolutely meant to be played on a big screen, in a theater. I'm so glad I was there, and I'm so glad I got to be apart of eva history. It was not the perfect exp I wanted, but it was such a special occasion that I don't mind too much. One day I will keep going and maybe I will make that experience perfect for myself.

[harlivycentral]

Also can I just say I looooove Howard's Harley Quinn run so much 😭 From the beginning, Howard's run has brought back elements of Harley's character that I love and had missed. I loved the way her first issue leaned into the looney-tunes-esque element of Harley, the way we saw her pull out her big hammer again, the way Bud & Lou were back, the way it at once illustrated her tendency toward criminal mischief and her PhD credentials, etc. This most recent issue (#38) feels like it just cements everything I've loved about Howard's run, which is that she has obvious respect and love for all the iterations of Harley that came before and has used them to create a Harley run that is distinctly her own at the same time. Seeing the panel with all of her friends from various runs gathered for her birthday party made me so emotional--it really felt like not only a fun way to honor the history of the character but also to affirm how many people (in-universe and in her readership) love her!

I loved how Howard brought back Carmen & Bonny, mentioned their "sleepover days," and made them explicitly lesbian. Since the beginning, Harley's had this tongue-in-cheek gay undertone to her character, and revisiting a story line from her first solo run that felt soooo gay while being so not felt like a fun way to nod to that history; making Carmen & Bonny explicitly lesbian felt like a celebration of the fact that we don't have to dwell in subtext for Harley anymore!

I've really loved the way Harley & Ivy have been written in Howard's run. Obviously I think the breakup storyline in Phillips' run was probably more editorial than her own choice, but it's been so satisfying to finally settle into Ivy & Harley FINALLY being a canonical couple AND not instantly broken up. I've really enjoyed the way Howard has explored their relationship and at once explored the way Harley's past with Joker still impacts her while also showing that it doesn't define her. (As a side note, I think a lot of the Harlivy content in the Harley: Black & White & Redder series did an amazing job of exploring that too <3)

I really liked the conversation Ivy & Harley had about the whole concept of "hero vs villain" not making sense to them. I think that's been a pretty clear stance of Howard's since the start of her run, but it's nice to see her have FUN with the character, and I'm excited to see Harley hopefully unleash a bit in the next few issues. It's been fun to have her mallet and hyenas back, and now to have the return of her iconic original costume! Again, I feel like Howard has a real sense of balance in writing this plotline: it's clear that we're not going back to the same emotional place that Harley was in when she first went around in her jester suit with a big mallet and a couple of hyenas, and I'm sure we'll see her out of the suit/continuing to explore teaching as well/etc. I like that we get PARTS of Kessel & Doddson's run mixed in with others. I like that Howard also brought Kevin back in a significant role for the conclusion of this last arc, and I was so right to make this post honestly at the beginning of her run--I think she has expanded on the emotional kernels in Palmiotti & Conner's run.

Idk, Harley has just meant a lot to me personally, and I remember reading her comics not so long ago when it felt like so much of what I loved about her had to remain subtext, or was spread out disparately over so many different runs. I just love love love to see it all being so loving solidified and explored in this run! And it's FUN to read! And the art is pretty! I honestly got emotional reading issues 37 & 38 because Harley feels very much like a Real Person to me in a way that few other fictional characters do, and these past few issues have really honored all of that growth and complexity that used to feel more weaved together by fans! Love love love Harley and also y'all xoxo

[autisticlancemcclain]

fic rec friday 21

welcome to the twenty-first fic rec friday! where, on friday, i rec five of my favourite fics.

1. Most Artists are Messy by @shipsgalore

Lance is drawing a complicated flower on the base of Keith’s wrist and it makes his lips pull up into a smile despite the panic. They’re always flowers when it comes to Lance. He uses them in everything he does, and usually doesn’t even know he’s doing it. Keith can count on one hand how many times the doodles on his arms haven’t been of flowers.

i love this one because keith & lance are just blatantly and clearly autistic. it’s wonderful. it’s sweet and fluffy and it’s a modern au, which as y’all know is my jam, and the last few paragraphs do this specific thing with sentiment repetition that genuinely gets to me every time

2. Be Alive With Me Tonight by @caesaria [EXPLICIT] [ABO]

When the Blade of Marmora requests assistance on an information gathering mission, Lance and Keith go undercover as a bonded alpha and omega pair. At first, it seems like this is going to be more like a vacation than a mission – right up until everything falls apart and they realize how unprepared they really are. Now, Lance and Keith have to fight to not only survive, but to make it out together. They’ll have to rely not only on their skills as Paladin, but the bond they’ve created and nurtured between them.

okay i gave this one the explicit warning bc there are chapters that are explicit, but tbh the scenes are skippable if that’s not ur thing. now this fic is an EPIC. truly. its a quarter million words and the plot is breathtaking, the worldbuilding is iconic and the romance is like HOLY SHIT. this is a novel, and better yet its a KLANCE novel, so. highly recommend if you have a day or two to read.

3. roses by @renyoi

Lance is always getting flowers for Keith, so Keith decides to return the favor--with a little help, of course.

written for prompt #4 of klance valentine's week!

keith is hilarious here. just in general but here especially and i love him. he wants to pamper lance so so badly and hes so straightforward and earnest!! and allura’s character in here is also excellent. i will leave u with this one line from the fic that made me laugh it loud: “ The next day, the sun rises to Keith Kogane, dressed all in black (that’s all that was clean, okay?!), loitering around in front of Alluring Blossom, the 5-star-rated “I’ve never had such a delightful bouquet delivered to me in my entire life!” flower shop of a woman named Allura Altea. Keith automatically trusted her because he loves people that also have alliteration in their names. “ king. love him

4. here it comes by rideahorse

Keith watched a lonely droplet of water fall from Lance’s soaked bangs, curving a path over the bridge of his nose and then pooling—almost teasingly so—at the bow of his lips.

“I feel like I won, for some reason,” Lance said quietly.

what have i told yall about fics from 2016!!! this fic made me SMILE and im not usually a fan of like senior year of high school fics but holy shit!! holy SHIT!! this fic had me smiling and kicking my feet and losing my mind. i will leave u with the note i put on my bookmark (spoiler warning):

a couple things: 1. “lance is a bad influence” and “lance is a pretty princess (tm)” are god tier tags so thanks for that 2. keith with a tongue piercing. must i say more. 3. i miss keith gyeong that was an excellent era 4. the couple tattoo moment had me taking a Moment 5. here’s how i imagine the aftermath of this: shiro: i saw u ditched prom. are you okay? keith: yeah actually! lance convinced me that we have to have a wild final night, so we went to a High School Party (tm), i decked a guy for lance and your honour, we panic drove away, went skinny dipping in a pool, got caught, ran away naked for two blocks, went to sonic in another town, got matching tattoos, fucked in the backseat of my car, and watched the sunrise :)) shiro: shiro: shiro: shiro: i’m sorry. what were those last parts keith: yeah i know you really like sunrises we probably should have invited you :// but it was kind of an us thing i’m sure you understand :) shiro: KEITH

anyways i laughed

5. if silence was a song by @angstinspace

“It’s … Your show is on so late at night,” Keith tries to explain, as if Lance didn’t know this already. “I guess I was just wondering why that is.”

A crackling silence answers him, and Keith’s stomach sinks. Did Lance hang up? Keith can’t exactly blame him.

But then he hears Lance make a noise––a short huff of breath that might have been either an impatient sigh or a quiet laugh … Keith has no clue.

“That’s the reason you’re calling? To complain about my time slot?”

or, Keith starts anonymously calling Lance's college radio show and develops an unexpected crush.

@catnippackets did a comic of this i believe, and it literally never leaves my head. yall know the trope where one person gets a phone call and halfway through they sigh wistfully and say “god i wish you were here” and then the other person smiles so viscerally it can be felt through the phone and they say “look behind you” and theyre THERE?????? that makes me lose it every time. i love this fic

that’s it for today!! i’ll see y’all back next friday for the next fic rec post!!!    

[eemcintyre]

Looking the Part

TW- a short kiss scene that could be read as a tiny bit dubcon, just because the nature of the situation is awkward and the main character is taken by surprise by how it feels.

Summary- Valerie is guided by a stylist through the luxury shops of Rodeo Drive to assemble a wardrobe for her role as Terry's girlfriend. Afterward, she and Terry meet for lunch, and then they practice how to kiss each other for the first time at her apartment.

Buckle up y'all, because this is another nearly 6k absolute UNIT. Enjoy! <3

Valerie’s nervous anticipation made the rest of the week crawl slowly to Saturday.

She wondered what she and Terry would do and discuss to prepare for this performance of a lifetime that they were about to embark upon. She figured they would need to coordinate the story of how they met and when and why they decided to start going out; maybe schedule their first public outing to announce to the rest of the world that they were an item. Beyond that, Valerie could only guess what her eccentric boss had in store for the day. She wasn’t even sure whether she’d only be gone a couple of hours or would be out all day.

As discussed, a car pulled up outside Valerie’s apartment promptly at 10 AM. Of course, by “a car,” she hadn’t realized that Terry apparently meant a limousine. She eyed the glossy black hood of the vehicle, glinting in the morning sunshine, from the window that gave her a view of the street, sipping the last of her tea and gathering her purse.

The extravagant vehicle not only heightened her self-consciousness of her shabby apartment and simple attire, but it also somehow made her more nervous about the entire situation. The agreement was finally beginning to seem more real, rather than just some abstract conversations and distant future plans. Valerie kept telling herself that the rewards would outweigh the hardships, and it was the only thing keeping her from locking her doors and hiding until the limo drove away.

Stepping out of the complex and onto the bustling pavement, she was met by a man in a dark suit with short, neat dark hair to match. He introduced himself as Milos before ushering her into the backseat of the limo and pulling away from the curb, into the flow of traffic.

Uncomfortable with the thought of silence, Valerie attempted to make conversation with Milos, asking questions like how long he had worked for Mr. Silver and how he liked the job. She wondered whether Milos was aware of her and Terry’s scheme or if he thought she was actually the woman currently warming Mr. Silver’s bed. Although she desperately hoped that Milos somehow knew, and if not, wanted to make clear that this was all business to her, she knew that discussion of the deal had to kept between she and Terry unless he decided otherwise. “Utmost discretion” and all that.

When she eventually ran out of small talk to make, Valerie asked Milos if he would mind her opening a window- at least then she could listen to the rush of the air and the sounds of the city soaring past. He obliged, and she finally noticed a hint of warmness to his tone; he seemed to sense her discomfort. She was unaware that he was also amused by her unusual request- most of the limo’s occupants wished to be closed off from the rest of the city and its masses.

Though Valerie didn’t check her watch, preoccupied with the scenic panorama of Los Angeles passing before her, they seemed to reach their destination not too long after. Terry occupied a house that blended in perfectly with the rest of his larger-than-life business and persona- the iconic Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Ennis House.

Valerie had been to the exquisite Mayan Revival mansion once before for a work function, but she was just as taken aback this second time around by how palatial it was. How anyone could actually live there was beyond her. It was like a museum. Layers of sand-colored carved stone towered into an eventual wood planked ceiling, and the architect’s signature geometric designs adorned the sprawling windows, beyond which laid a view of the entire expanse of L.A.

Valerie was let into the foyer by a doorman and gestured onward by Milos, who led her into a spacious living area. She treaded delicately across the wood floors; feeling like it would be wrong to interrupt the stately quiet of the space with her noise, until she heard other thuds and clunks in the distance. Staff members doing cleaning and maintenance, she supposed, which was probably an endless job in that enormous house.

“Make yourself comfortable, Ms. Clancy. Mr. Silver will be right with you,” Milos said, leaving Valerie alone in a room that had more square footage than her entire apartment.

She wandered from one end of the room to the other, taking in the view afforded by the windows that was rivaled only by the view inside the house that contained them. Valerie’s eyes scanned through shelves of antique books with unusual titles and intricate designs on the spines, occasionally punctuated by a small marble statue or metal art piece. Dazed from trying to take it all in, she took a seat at one end of a tan-colored couch.

She was almost relieved when Terry appeared through a side entryway. His presence was still somewhat offensive to her, but in this setting, he was something familiar to cling to. However, her eyes narrowed when she noticed that his hair was undone and damp and he was clad in a silky, white robe falling half-open at his chest. Even from across the room, she could spot his toned ab muscles and a dusting of dark chest hair.

Terry strode to the center of the room where Valerie had stood up from the couch in shock, stopping just feet away from her. He greeted her with a warm smile, briefly glancing down at his state of dress- or rather, undress- to acknowledge it with a minimal amount of self-consciousness that left Valerie stunned.

“Good morning. I guess it is after 10, isn’t it? I apologize- so many preparations to make for today, and traffic must have been a lot lighter than I thought…” he trailed off, wiping water droplets and sweat from his forehead.

“Good morning,” she replied coolly.

“Just got out of the shower,” he chuckled. Her senses were overwhelmed, between the way he towered over her and how he enveloped the space around them with the smell of soap scented with something musky and heady like sandalwood or patchouli, with subtle notes of citrus- maybe bergamot.

The thought crossed Valerie’s mind again that this was some odd attempt to seduce her, but it was equally likely that Terry was just trying to provoke her by being late and wasting time. Either way, she kept an impassive expression and did her best to ignore the blush climbing her neck up to her cheeks.

“I hope you don’t mind if I go and change,” he continued, and she thought she detected a teasing glint in his eyes. She refused to look down at his chest, which was right at her eye level, keeping her gaze glued to his smug face.

“No, please do,” she said flatly, hoping to dampen his spirit. But to her dismay, his playful expression remained.

“Nicolette will fix you a drink while you wait,” he offered as he turned to leave and put some appropriate clothes on. “Tea, coffee, a mimosa if you’d like,” he called, rounding the corner of the entryway he’d come in from and disappearing.

Valerie opted for a simple cup of tea, which she felt strange about having prepared for her by someone else. Taking the delicate, vintage porcelain cup in her hand, and thanking Nicolette profusely, she returned to her spot on the couch and tried to think of literally anything except Terry and his wet hair and his abs. The sight had just been such an unexpected shock. And as she was ever so impartial, despite the fact that she still detested his personality, she had to acknowledge that the sight was impressive. Were it attached to anyone else, it would certainly be living rent-free in her daydreams.

The presumed noises of staff members cleaning the house continued in the background, providing a welcome bit of ambient noise in what otherwise would be uncomfortable silence. Staring intently into her tea, Valerie noticed that the tag dangling over the rim of the cup bore the logo of her favorite brand. Before she had time to give this odd coincidence any thought, she saw movement in the corner of her eye.

Terry’s secretary, Margaret, passed by- paper and pen in hand as she nearly always had. It was like they were attached to her. Even though it was a Saturday, Valerie knew it was not at all unusual for Margaret to be at Mr. Silver’s home outside normal work hours, assisting him with particularly important or extra tasks. The two briefly met eyes and Valerie gave Margaret a quick smile, to which she did not respond. Of course, this wasn’t at all unusual either- the two hardly interacted at the office. But just as she had wondered with Milos, Margaret being at the house this particular day and time prompted Valerie to wonder if Margaret was somehow involved with, or at least apprised of, what had been agreed upon between her and Terry.

Terry reappeared, this time looking presentable in a knit, collared short-sleeve shirt, slacks, and his trademark ponytail.

“How’s the tea?” he asked, taking a seat on the cushion right next to her despite the large area of couch space available to him.

“Very good, thank you.”

“Did you sleep well last night?”

“Why?” Valerie asked defensively.

“Just trying to make some small talk,” Terry assured her, shaking his head. “But, if you want to get right down to business, we can do that.”

“Sorry,” she replied, feeling as if she’d reacted a bit harshly. Not everything needed to be so deeply read into. “I’m just feeling on edge.”

“You don’t say.” She scowled at him. “Look, don’t let the house overwhelm you…”

Valerie recoiled, appalled that he would insinuate that she was feeling insecure because he was more well-off than her. “That’s not it at all,” she spat, ignoring the smirk that curled at the ends of his lips. “I’m just not sure that we’re going to be able to pull this off; how we’ll convince anyone by just showing up to a few events and holding hands, or whatever.”

Terry nodded. “Well, that’s why we’re not just going to show up to a few events and hold hands ‘or whatever.’”

He rose from the couch, offering her his hand. After a brief hesitation, searching his eyes but finding no answers, she let her curiosity get the better of her and took it, resigned. He whisked them away from the living room, taking them down one of the many hallways that branched out from it. As they ventured deeper into the house, they passed flocks of workers who, despite what Valerie had thought, were not cleaning. Rather, they were moving various pieces of furniture and a seemingly random array of objects- she spotted exotic-looking plants and café-style chairs. Her hand still clasped in his, Terry dragged her forward through the maze of people and things without stopping to allow her to ask any of the numerous questions she had.

“To build a truly believable story for our relationship, we’re going to have to do a lot more than that. We’re going to need photographs together, printed and framed, that look like they were taken over a long period of time in a variety of locations.” He finally acknowledged the bustle around them, gesturing to a man who was carrying a pair of wine glasses. “I know a top-notch photographer who can shoot us and doctor the photos,” Terry said casually. Valerie looked up at him, wide-eyed. “You meet all kinds of interesting people in L.A.,” he chuckled, leaving it at that and hurtling onward. “We’ll need to create a consistent narrative and rehearse it until it feels like it really happened to us. We need to get you some new clothes and a decent hairstyle…”

“Wait- what??” she exclaimed, wrestling her hand out of his grip and stopping in her tracks. The workers in the hallway did not stop; they merely adjusted their paths to go around them. “What the hell is wrong with the way I look?” She thought she had put together a pretty nice outfit that morning, and besides, this was a lot to take from a man with a ponytail.

“Valerie, now is hardly the time for jokes; we have a lot to do and very little time,” he replied, and she shot him the dirtiest look she was capable of. He sagged his shoulders. “Well, you can’t expect to go around with me looking like that. It would make no logical sense. For us to convincingly sell this thing, you need to look the part. You need to fit into my world. It would look awfully strange if the billionaire’s girlfriend was traipsing around the way you do, in anything but the latest fashions tailored to perfection.”

Valerie pressed her lips together, narrowing her eyes. Terry resumed his walk down the hallway, and Valerie growled to herself, although she continued to follow.

“I’ve taken the liberty of arranging an outing for you tomorrow with a stylist- Joan Fortier. All the most well-dressed people in L.A. have gone to her; she’s a fucking miracle worker. Plus, she owes me a favor. She’ll help find you some appropriate clothes and…” Terry detected dismay spreading across her face. “Don’t worry, I’ll have the payment covered.” He was confused when she didn’t look relieved.

“No, absolutely not. I can’t let you do all this; it’s too much…” Valerie loathed the idea of feeling obligated to him, even though he did have a point about looking the part she was going to play.

“Listen- do you want this to work, or do you just want to waste your time?” Terry spun to face her and they stopped in the middle of the hallway once more.

“I don’t need or want anyone’s charity.”

He rolled his eyes, his voice raising enough to turn the workers’ heads. “Hey, leave the tags on and return it; fucking donate it or set it on fire for all I care after we’re done. But we need this if we want to look believable.” He paused to rein in his exasperation, consciously making an effort to soften his voice. “And like I said, I’d do as much for a real girlfriend. Besides, remember- it’s really you who’s doing me the favor.”

Valerie bit the inside of her cheek, thinking his words over. She glanced up at him expectantly, gesturing impatiently to the nearby end of the hallway. Terry took her wordless consent to continue onward, smiling as he detected her footsteps behind him. They reached the end of the hall, and he opened the door to what appeared to be a study or an office.

“Now, I’ve reserved a room at The Pavilion on Crescent Drive- we’ll meet for lunch after Joan’s done with you and see where we’re at; plan our next move...”

~

Valerie’s morning and afternoon with Joan Fortier was a whirlwind. Contrary to Valerie’s nervous expectations, Joan thankfully wasn’t rude or condescending to her, despite being a renowned stylist.

“In multiple countries,” Joan had added, in a light French accent, wanting the credit where it was due from a career that spanned ten years of hard work.

Joan sported cropped, curly dark-brown hair, a black pantsuit, and a white blouse cinched at the neck with a black crossover tie. The look was accessorized with large, round gold stud earrings and chunky black sunglasses. Apparently, she knew Terry from when he had briefly dated Marpessa Hennink a few years ago.

Joan was undoubtably quirky and spoke straight to the point- after introductions, she immediately launched into outrageous stories of her fourteen-hour flight from France, the stuffy events she’d recently and begrudgingly attended, and how hotel staff had mistaken one of her designer dresses for trash and thrown it away.

Valerie was unsure of how to respond to any of this information, though it was indeed intriguing to hear from someone who lived such an unconventional lifestyle. Perhaps it was Joan's colorful way of life that made her so non-judgmental.

But Joan was also incredibly efficient in how she navigated the stores and calculated potential outfits for Valerie. Filtering through the contents of the racks and the items that Valerie would periodically suggest, she expressed her thoughts out loud in a continuous monologue: “Hm… that color clashes with your complexion- look for warmer colors; dark pinks and reds and browns. You’ll positively swim in those flared pants- try that straight-leg pair instead.” The woman was clearly an expert in her field. Before even an hour had passed, she had memorized the details of Valerie’s appearance and could pick out clothes that flattered her with an uncanny accuracy.

Milos shuttled the two ladies to Rodeo Drive and the most notable places nearby, and Valerie and Joan perused Ralph Lauren, Saks Fifth Avenue, Giorgio Beverly Hills, Théodore, and Gucci; every shop that Valerie had never had the courage to venture into but wondered what it was like. Joan seemed to know the streets and each store they explored like the back of her hand, zooming ahead on their mission while Valerie repeatedly lagged behind, admiring the striped and scalloped awnings and elegant logos that adorned each building, and the windows previewing the most coveted fashions within. They only took one break over the duration of their travels for Joan to smoke a cigarette.

As expected, Valerie caught many of the employees of these stores shooting her dirty and suspicious looks, but due to Joan’s presence (they welcomed Ms. Fortier like an old friend), and at the name drop of Terry Silver, they put their opinions aside in hopes of making the sales of their careers. Valerie was incredibly tempted to match their cruel behavior, but reminded herself that it wasn’t worth it; she had nothing to prove to them and would never see them again, and besides- it was difficult to concentrate too much on anything but the task at hand with Joan constantly hurling various clothing items and styling tips her way.

The one small revenge that Valerie allowed herself was to request multiple sizes of almost every item. Even when she already knew her size and didn’t need to try others on, it was a guilty pleasure to make them run around and work a bit for what was surely going to be an impressive sale.

While changing inside a dressing room at one of the shops, Valerie overheard a couple of the employees questioning Joan:

“You’ve styled a couple of Mr. Silver’s girlfriends in the past, but this latest project of yours is really a fixer-upper, don’t you think?” one of them said.

“I mean, there’s really only so much an outfit can do…” the second employee trailed off.

If it had been Valerie there on her own, she would have stormed out of the place, away from these people who didn’t deserve her business. And even though that wasn’t really an option, she was about to burst out of the dressing room anyway to grab Joan and drag the both of them out of there.

“Is he trying to transition into the public service industry or something?” the first one chimed in again, laughing at her own joke as her coworker joined in. 

“Now, now. That’s enough,” Joan replied calmly, but firmly. “She’s a nice girl, she just needs help figuring out how to show off her good features. I’ve never met a girl that I couldn’t transform into the next fashion icon, and you should trust that Mr. Silver knows what he’s doing. If he finds out that people are questioning his good taste and his decision-making, he might decide to take his business elsewhere…”

That statement immediately shut them up. Valerie grinned to herself, stifling a laugh as she put the last of her regular clothes back on. She was touched that Joan had stuck up for her client, even though that client wasn’t any kind of high-status figure.

Their journey concluded with a stop at Vidal Sassoon for Valerie’s much-dreaded haircut. To her relief, Joan (reluctantly) respected her wishes not to go too wild and trendy, but when the scissors and volumizing products made their appearance, Valerie still couldn’t help but be intimidated. When she exited the salon, though Joan showered her with compliments and encouragements, Valerie felt like she’d been assigned some new persona that she didn’t know how to embody. Catching her reflection in the windows they strolled by, she looked like a stranger to herself.

Valerie and Joan parted ways at 1:30 PM, time for Valerie’s scheduled lunch with Terry at The Pavilion. Collapsing into the backseat of the limousine, leaning miserably against the door, she asked Milos “Just how ridiculous do I look?” She studied his reflection in the rear-view mirror as he then also glanced into it to see her.

"Not ridiculous at all, Miss," he replied simply, bestowing the smallest of reassuring smiles upon her. Truly, none of the people from Terry's world were so bad, except for the man himself.

Milos dropped her off at a side entrance to the restaurant, half hidden by a trellis draped in greenery, rather than the more conspicuous main entrance facing the busy street. Since she and Terry had yet to be announced as, or really even practice as a couple, while a brief, distant sighting of the two of them together at this point wouldn’t ruin anything (and might even be a good teaser to their upcoming official debut), extended and uncontrolled time completely out in the open before they were ready could spell disaster.

Bidding a shaky farewell to Milos, Valerie stepped out of the limo and onto the bright, hot pavement, the sound of traffic in the background, and then from there into the comparative darkness, quiet, and chill of The Pavilion’s interior.

Joan had suggested she wear one of her new outfits in order to get fully used to her new look, and more importantly, to have some fun, so Valerie was dressed to the nines in a double-breasted deep magenta skirt suit and nude heels with a matching leather handbag. The look was topped off with her new hairstyle, a blown-out and layered wavy lob, red lipstick, and a pair of thick black sunglasses that gratefully hid her deer-in-the-headlights expression. She was so self-conscious of her new look that it felt like all eyes were on her when she entered the building. Despite being out of the sun, the sunglasses stayed on as she approached the host near the door.

“Good afternoon, Miss,” he greeted Valerie cordially, and she was confused when she didn’t detect a trace of forced politeness or skepticism. “Do you have a reservation?”

“I’m meeting Terry Silver,” she replied in a hushed tone, white knuckling the handles of her purse.

“Of course, right this way,” he made a sweeping gesture forward, leading them deeper into the restaurant.

Under the canopy of a glass ceiling adorned with metal filigree, they passed tall, tropical potted plants and tables set with plates of artfully arranged food. Valerie was shocked when none of the occupants of these tables gave her a second look. Terry and Joan had been right- she now appeared to belong there just as much as everyone else.

The host stopped in front of a door that led away from the main dining area, opening it and gently waving her inside. The instant she appeared in the doorway, she locked eyes with Terry.

“Well, hello there,” he grinned, seated at a table that was set for two, a glass of what appeared to be bourbon or whiskey in front of him. “Thank you, Paul,” he said to the host, who bade them farewell with a polite smile, nod, and wave before closing the door.

Valerie approached the empty chair at the table, still unable to shake her awkward rigidity. Terry’s eyes roved over her outfit and hair with undisguised interest as she sat and stared at him, muscles tensed, waiting to see what he would do- unleash another veiled insult, perhaps, or even worse, burst out laughing.

“Are you planning to wear the sunglasses all through lunch?” he asked dryly, and she flinched upon the reminder that they were still on. Removing them, she rummaged through her purse for her regular glasses.

“I can’t find anything in this stupid new purse,” she groaned, pawing at the numerous pockets.

Preoccupied with the search for her glasses, Valerie didn’t notice Terry’s self-assured expression falter as he took in the full effect of her new appearance. He was genuinely taken aback by how good she looked- hair out of her face, and that damned red lipstick again. It was, frankly, a stunning effect. Good old Joan hadn’t let him down yet. He swirled the whiskey in his glass.

“That’s much better,” he began, his tone more sincere than he would have liked. But by the time she looked up, having finally retrieved and put on her glasses, the mask of apathy was back up. “Joan is the Michelangelo of stylists- she never fails to bring masterpieces out of the rough,” he continued, making sure to inject his words with the usual underhanded sarcasm.

She gave him a wilting look before sagging her shoulders, gazing down at her clothes as if she was perplexed by them.

“I really don’t know about all of this… I feel like a walking, flashing marquee sign that says ‘look at me, look at me!’”

“That’s the L.A. lifestyle,” Terry replied matter-of-factly, leisurely perusing the menu. He pushed another copy of the menu toward Valerie. She opened the cover, craving a vodka cranberry to take the edge off.

“Joan even tried to take me to try on lingerie,” she scowled, rolling her eyes and shaking her head in disbelief, expecting him to do the same.

“Oh? Let’s see,” he replied, smirking.

“Don’t give me that look- obviously I told her I wouldn’t be needing it!” she spat.

“Just trying to lighten the mood with some levity,” he retorted, raising his eyebrows. In the momentary silence that ensued, Valerie felt a twinge of guilt.

“Y’know, you might try to enjoy yourself a bit,” Terry added more gently, wondering why he felt compelled to put her at ease. “Most people in your position would.”

“I just like to earn what I have and spend my own money,” she pouted. Feeling spoiled like this was an entirely new and terribly uncomfortable experience for her, even though that’s not really what it was at all and was just in the interest of furthering their plan.

“You’re a terribly strange lady,” he began to joke again, thinking better of it as she opened her mouth, undoubtably preparing her next comeback. “It’s kind of refreshing when you’re not yelling at me. But try to live a little. You might even end up having some fun.” He smiled at her through a sip of whiskey.

He assumed it was the alcohol when, upon her shyly smiling back, a twinge of warmth permeated his chest.  

~

After lunch, Terry and Valerie rejoined Milos in the limousine and they headed back to her place to drop her off.

Valerie and Terry reached her front door first, as Milos stayed behind to gather a handful of shopping bags from the car. She was relieved when Terry finally made it clear to her that Milos was indeed in on the scheme, meaning that she could interact with the man with more ease.

Unlocking the door, she brought Terry inside her apartment, ignoring the way he wrinkled his nose as he took in the main room- a combination kitchen and living area. He noted that the kitchen had all of the necessary appliances and he took in the cabinets, a faded but warm brown color, and the collection of mismatched teacups and mugs hanging from a rack on the wall. Turning to the living area, he saw a loveseat and a single wood chair set around a coffee table strewn with candles, a few magazines, and some cutesy, kitschy knickknacks. There was also a small television set, and upon one of the windowsills rested an assortment of potted plants.

The overall look of the place was an incongruent mix of aesthetics, cluttered and a bit claustrophobic compared to what he was used to. But in the interest of not antagonizing her further and possibly risking their deal after her emotionally-taxing day, he held back the incredible array of snide comments he could make.

“It’s… cozy,” he said eventually, as the door swung open and Milos dropped off the first of the bags.

“It works just fine for me,” Valerie replied, eyeing him like she was daring him to say what he really thought. She was surprised when he changed the subject.

“Okay, there’s just one more very important thing we have to practice if we want to look convincing and natural when we make this thing official.”

“What’s that?” she inquired, her gaze becoming wary.

“Well, it’ll be a bit awkward at first, but…” he stepped into her personal space, speaking softly. “We need to practice how to kiss.”

Terry almost made himself laugh out loud with his own modest, self-conscious act, pretending as if the idea made him embarrassed and he hadn’t done far more than kiss countless women whom he’d known for a far shorter amount of time. It was downright Oscar-worthy. While Valerie did manage to keep an impassive expression, she was not able to keep her face from flushing deep red.

“Okay. Let’s do it,” she tried to sound totally nonchalant, as if he’d just told her about tomorrow’s weather would be like, but the thudding in her chest was so intense that she was worried he could hear it. But she knew that this was a necessary part of their presentation.

She looked up at him expectantly, waiting for him to make the first move. The moment could only be described as surreal when he bent down and pressed his lips to hers. After all of the day’s events, this was when she felt the most profoundly like she was in someone else’s body, living someone else’s life. After her mind recovered from its initial blank shock at the new sensation, she thought to herself that she should move- take his hand, twist her head to another angle, at the very least unclench her shoulders, jaw and fists hanging at her sides, but her body would not cooperate.

Feeling her tension, Terry ended their first kiss, going in for another one in the hopes that it would be more successful. Again, she just stood there, eyes open, trying to compute the disjointed range of emotions hitting her all at once. The kiss, invitingly warm and tasting faintly of the alcohol they’d both consumed, was so startlingly, objectively good that she could temporarily set aside all of her disdain for him.

When Valerie continued to stand there, still motionless and stiff through the second attempt, Terry took a small step back.

“You need to relax,” he murmured, gripping her by the shoulders. “Do it with some conviction. I don’t bite unless you ask me to,” he grinned.

“I’ve got it,” Valerie snapped. “You just have to give me a second.” There was no way she was going to let him walk out of her apartment and end the day thinking that she didn’t even know how to kiss.

The front door opened, revealing Milos with the second and last armful of bags from Rodeo Drive. He shot the two of them, who had frozen in place, Terry still holding Valerie by the shoulders, a curious look, but all that he said was “I’ll be waiting in the car, sir.”

“Thank you,” Terry replied out of habit, hardly hearing what Milos had even said.

After Milos shut the door, his footsteps echoing down the stairs, Valerie reached up to wrap her arms around Terry’s neck, pulling him toward her instead of waiting for him to bend down. When their lips met this time, the kiss was enthusiastic on both sides. They moved in harmony with each other; he repositioned one of his hands from her shoulder to her cheek, and she leaned into the touch.

Once she realized her hands were clutching the back of his blazer jacket, she ended the embrace and waited for a response. It was Terry’s turn to stand motionlessly, momentarily transfixed by the sight of Valerie before him, wide-eyed and breathing heavily, face flushed, and lipstick slightly smudged.

“That should be enough to convince the press,” he said flatly, as if what had just happened had been totally uninteresting to him. Pulling the pocket square from his jacket, he wiped the residue of Valerie’s lipstick from his mouth.

“I’ll call you when it’s time for the next step,” he added without looking at her, heading abruptly for the door.

Just like that, he was gone- by the time Valerie was able to move from where he’d left her, glancing out of the window, she saw that the limousine was no longer at the curb either.

Turning back to face the inside of her apartment, it was an utterly bewildering moment as Valerie took in the events of the day. From the almost comical sight of the pile of bags, bearing the logos of luxury shops, against the backdrop of her modest décor, to how she’d exited her house that morning looking one way and reentered looking almost totally different, she was stunned. And still, all of that paled in comparison to how she had just passionately kissed her boss, a man she barely knew and hardly liked. Then, after something as significant as that, even if it was all just part of a performance, he seemed so cold and unaffected, almost repulsed, almost like he couldn’t get away from her fast enough.

But she wasn’t going to let that bother her. She reminded herself that the man was a professional- not only in regard to business (and that’s what this was; a business transaction), but in romance and its associated physicality as well. Then, rather than try to analyze Terry Silver any further, the most profound waste of time that she could think of, Valerie set about unpacking and putting away her new wardrobe.

She was unaware that Terry was doing some contemplation of his own- after he’d slid into the backseat of the limo, instructing Milo to take him home, he studied the lipstick-smeared pocket square that was still in his hand. He was overcome with the compulsion to keep it; preserve it.

Terry neatly folded up the cloth, the pads of his fingers tingling as he held it, thinking about where the safest place would be to keep it- away from prying eyes, the effects of the elements, and the alarming possibility of it being lost or put through the wash.

Cherry. Her lipstick tasted of cherry.

[alloutofgoddesses]

Percy Jackson TV thoughts -

Season 1, Episode 3

(I’m a book reader and I’m not holding back book spoilers)

The attic is show creaky

And apparently so is Percy

Walker is doing an incredible job portraying Percy’s “I hate everything” attitude

The craziest line reading it’s so stilted thank you Timm Sharp. Also condescending which is very Gabe

That’s awkward as hell why would you gather all the “good candidates”

BLACKJACK HIIIIIII BLACKJACK

Grover you’re killing me

That backpacks full of apples and tin cans you can’t fool me Underwood

Percy is SO FUNNY HELP

“Don’t mix ‘em up” Luke I know I can’t trust you stop being witty

THERE THEY ARE

Annabeth saying goodbye to Thalia… I’m losing it she’s just a BABY

I shouldn’t laugh but I think Thalia would so we’re good

Percy. She’s always in charge.

So no Seaweed Brain and Wisegirl? Rick when I find you

Percy you could’ve put them in your bag and left the box

The way Grover’s hair is styled to cover the horns more when they’re in the mortal world… hairdressers I love you

Can I have the full consensus song please I think it would actually be helpful

Also Grover being a 24 year old dealing with squabbling twelve year olds… Gods speed dude

Annabeth is so perfect. Like. She’s so annoying. It’s spot on. Annabeth is annoying in the books

SCREAM ALECTO!!! They hired the perfect actress for these lines

I get the plot reasons but if you had time to pick up anything WHY THE SHOES AND NOT THE BAG WITH MONEY IN IT PERCY

Please tell me they’re getting rid of the idea that demigods can’t use technology. I always thought it was dumb

Oh no Uncle Ferdinand…

Absolutely laying the tracks for Percy telling the gods to do better by their kids *chef’s kiss*

SO YOU FOLLOW IT? Grover you’re better than this

Hey. If the cyclops next season have those talons. I’m gonna be SO SCARED the whole time

MEEEDDDUUUUSSSSAAAAA!!!! I desperately want to cosplay this

I love the changes already

Percy… that beautiful fatal flaw

I mean yeah you’re mom is almost always right but still be on guard little man

Annabeth. I can’t wait for you to loosen up. She’s wound as right as a violin string.

*cheers from the crowd* I am fully on Medusa’s side btw. No matter what she was a victim of the god’s whims.

Annabeth my little baby you gotta think about multiple perspectives

The little milkshakes on the side. Does Medusa just wait for people to come along to feed or did she smell Percy from a couple miles away and really quickly whip stuff up

Thank god the box is being left behind

THE BASEMENT REALLY GUYS. There had to have been a back door

A MAIL CARRIER? What did a mail carrier do Medusa

I love that the snakes aren’t standing up like a lot of Medusa artworks portray… they’re noodles they wouldn’t be at attention all the time

Oh now THAT’S INSPIRED. Nkt as iconic as the reflective surface of an iPod though

Who’s gonna remind them there’s still one more. Also does this mean she’s a broken statue forever or since she’s a monster she’s reincarnating in Tartarus? I have so many questions

Oh Uncle Ferdinand. I’m glad Grover got to have an emotional moment that he wasn’t afforded in the book

Hell yeah good job Grover. Sometimes you Do have to be a little mean to get past some stuff.

Oh so we get the “I am impertinent” line verbatim but not SEAWEED BRAIN AND WISE GIRL

Percy I’m obsessed with you

Now who could this be

GAH LOOK AT HIM… he looks just a tad angry though lol

So does he have express straight to the throne room since he’s Hermes or did they change the placement of the elevator

AAAAAHHHHHH I need more immediately

Preview for next ep

Why are they splashing him

SHE’S ON THE BUS?!?!?!

Very excited for the arch… I’ve been there and I will be honest I only remember some of the museum stuff at the bottom and how claustrophobic the top is so I’m excited to hopefully jog my memory