#I liked this wizard lady from the last post so I did some more explorations for her | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

agamemnon-sux · 5 months

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Ongoing list of D&D characters I've played (excluding characters from pathfinder, GURPS, etc.). Why did this post take me over a year to write.

-Bongo bard (D&D one-shot, autogenerated): simple one-shot character. Update with name if I can find the sheet. Happy-go-lucky, impulsive. Played this game in anno domini 2019.

-Ribble "Turtledove" Itheroy (D&D campaign): this character means Everything to me & my tablemates for this game. Gnome paladin in service of Lady Boldrei, the hearthkeeper, with protector fighting style and oath of redemption. Has a mild temper, a deeply ingrained set of morals and a bleeding heart type of charisma. He's a wide-eyed young man away from his huge family and sprawling burrows on his first quest, and his arc ended up exploring what it means to be taught kindness, empathy, protecting the weak, and self-sacrifice vs what it means to actually apply those values in tense & nuanced situations. He also is about what it means to love and unconditionally care for people who don't always want you around, and who you can't expect to be with forever. I love this little church man and his unending choice to make home, whatever it takes. He also has a Summoned Mount, a big ol chow chow named Yona. I roleplayed so hard on this dude that when Ribble convinced himself he was going to have to die fighting the BBEG I made myself & my DM cry.

-wibble (D&D campaign): Wibble is a ribble retooling using elements that I played with for Ribble but ultimately couldn't make work. I play him in a highly infrequent campaign I do with my brothers like twice a year. He's a forest gnome instead of a rock gnome, oath of the Ancients, and leans much harder into being a silly little fey trickster who operates under his own opaque moral compass.

-Maud Wraithmore (D&D one-shot): much like Ribble, this character wormed her way into my brain and has taken up residence in my psyche. It started with a friend helping me min-max for a one-shot and we ended up with a bladesinger wizard who started with one level in barbarian, plus a little bit of metamagic. To make sense of that, Maud is a variant human kid from nowheresville, grew up by the swamp and wanted out, got into an underground fighting ring when all she had was her rage and her fists, and after that she started leaning into her spark of magic, making deals for scraps of spell instructions and moving into some more performative fighting circles, creating this WWE-inspired wizard streetfighter persona. I've got this idea that she's called back to the swamp by her hometown by some worrying dreams and ends up living in the ribcage of the dead titan that summoned her for a while, which is where she's able to learn most of her formal magic before she goes off and joins the BBEG she works under in the one-shot I made her for (she's evil, by the way). She's got a pretty broad stat spread so of course she has a -2 to Chr. This lady is intelligent and competent and will fall flat on her face in ANY conversation. Fortunately she is somehow able to poorly flirt her way into the heart of the DM's traveling salesperson, Rosie the Tiefling, who she will eventually marry & have a moss dweeb circle of spores daughter (Adelhaid) with. Disaster swamp wizard with a lust for life. Uproariously fun to play. I also have a build I made for a one-shot of Teenage Maud, while she's in the midst of growing her fighting ring reputation and not particularly evil yet besides just being an angsty rage-filled teenage girl.

-Volans (D&D oneshot, not mine): a borrowed character for a last-minute one-shot, a circle of stars Tiefling druid w/ his star map tattooed across his chest and an obsession with immortality. Interesting dude who got me interested in circle of stars for the first time (more on that later).

-Sorrel (D&D oneshot): a Tabaxi way of shadow monk I made for an Oops! All monks! one-shot, and one of my simplest characters personality-wise. I made him on a bootleg online character sheet creator that was mostly in French. His background was anthropologist specializing in... elves, I think? He was just a mildly slippery cat trying to prove his worth as a martial artist, who considered himself more an outsider & documentarian than a direct participant in his life.

-Feverfew (D&D oneshot): Feverfew is a funny case; I made her as an alternate to Sorrel depending on monk party comp, using the limited free options on D&D beyond. They clearly have the same history (why else would they both be named after herbs) but her background is Haunted One. I still had her character sheet up when our RA came by and we strong-armed him into playing for like half an hour, so bam, Feverfew was Real. So, she & Sorrel were brought to the monastery together and they trained until in her teens she had a nightmare so bad it changed her forever (maybe accidentally astral projected into the Abyss or something) and went out on the run, wandering in search of either answers or means of protecting herself, but occasionally still contacting Sorrel (or, in the case of the one-shot, being spectrally summoned to fight alongside her old classmates in a multidimensional Monk Tournament, which sounds way cooler than the game actually was).

-Mira (desert, D&D campaign): MIRA! Miramiramira. This character has everything: she's a crowgirl (crow cowgirl) druid with a rifle who has been stalking the Magnolia desert for the whole of her adult life, killed a dragon once, and has an innate hatred of being infantilized. She's circle of stars and her star map is an intricate embroidery project on the underside of her hat, the result of many long, lonely nights watching the stars. Mira (MiraBile, mee-RAH-bee-lay, btw) was hatched and raised in a traveling circus (owned by two very difficult women who called themselves sisters) and performed with another Kenku, AnDerLwm (OHN-dare-loom) as another "sister act." They were unrelated birds, but AnDi kept Mira safe, taught her most of her words, gave her her name, and was generally the brightest star in Mira's sky, until she disappeared. Mira, still a child, escaped from the circus soon after intent on finding her sister, and picked up her gun skills by long practice and her druid spells from a wandering deputy. Mostly, she watched the stars. For the campaign, her tendency to overhear things she shouldn't gets her looped into a series of fetch quests for incredibly powerful, potentially world-ending artifacts with a secret organization masquerading as a normal organization. Her arc & development revolve mostly around her willingness to trust others to understand her wants/needs and to look out for her, and her recapturing her lost childhood by embracing simple joy and silliness with her companions. She's even learning to play guitar from her warforged friend, a form of expression unhindered by her imitative speech. As her attunement with nature grows, she gains access to divination and seeking magic, which will allow her an understanding of the universe bigger than her missing "sister."

-Mira (islands, D&D campaign): My beloved crowgirl was my PC for more than one campaign; she was dreamed up for this one but played first in the desert (where she is ultimately a better fit...). The islands Mira has a similar backstory but is significantly more driven towards finding AnDi, falling in with her travelling group at the beck of some gods she doesn't understand (one thing that's true about Mira in every universe: gods and religion are near-completely foreign to her. She just Doesn't Get It). She's a grumpy crow lady who never knows when to call it quits. She has spent a lot of time learning how to front, how to deal with civilization without getting killed or mugged or run out of town, and she did her best to pass that information on to some of her companions who had similar trouble with social norms, to limited effect. Funny enough she also learned guitar, this time as a gift from a god to give her some form of social expression (the bass guitar, this time). She died in a scripted TPK to a zealot, that the DM intended to revive us from but we mutually agreed to stay dead. Because that campaign is behind us (rip Styx, the raddest character in the world), I get to decide what happened to that Mira, and I think she probably came back some three hundred years later as a false duragh (a wonderful idea from @/filibusterfrog). She was a restless, hunting soul who died outside of her home forest, and so the land itself would eventually shake her awake and send her on her way, dooming her to wander until she could find her sister. I wonder how that would shake out for her, given what I know about AnDi, but Mira does not.

-Hermés Mercurie (D&D oneshot): bubbly Satyr drag bard that I drew up for a heist one-shot. My beloved. The reason that I could do a Greek accent for like twelve hours before losing it again. A great solution for my DMs calling my characters by female pronouns regardless of their genders. It's important that you know that she's just here for the job. She's just here to get paid, man. She plays like a dozen instruments and can vogue with the best of them. I managed to roll two nat 20s in a row to keep a vampire count distracted long enough with a lute/piano duet for the party to steal the macguffin so that count is gonna remember her forever.

-"Chestnut" the Firbolg (D&D oneshot): the Firbolg, like most of its kin, doesn't really have a name, but its party insists on calling it "Chestnut." It's an unnerving mountain of a person who shouldn't be left alone around still-warm corpses. Absolute savant with a quarter-staff.

-Sid "The Id" Wicked, the priest of the people (D&D oneshot): My bastard son. The priest of the people. As a half-elf son of a wealthy elf socialite put to shame by her fling with a human, Sid grows up contemptuous and irreverent, gallivanting the streets of fantasy London and eventually falling into the newly-reignited cult of Argos, a minor god of vision (Argos's domain is... complicated, but I like to think of him as the god of Witnessing, and of feeds from unsecured security cameras). The cult was meant to just be a front for a bunch of punk-ish street kids to operate behind but unfortunately Sid & his friend Teddy commit to the bit perhaps a little too hard and end up properly pulling Argos from obscurity, leaving Sid a legitimate cleric ready to adventure. Sid is gross, mean, and way, way too excited to get your skull under his elaborately studded boot for someone who has cleric HP. He's besties with the party's bald wizard and makes Pal'leth the githyanki deeply nervous. I only got to play Sid for a brief window, but I've had lots of time to think since about the dreams Sid might start to have after prolonged contact with Argos, the Visions, and how well he might be able to handle that.

But I digress... Sid dresses himself somewhere between a mantis shrimp and an 80s goth rocker. He's got a stupid little French mustache. He carries a once-ceremonial mace that he stole from home into which he's inscribed "pick a god and pray". He's bisexual but he doesn't know that yet. He has a relationship with his mother constantly bordering on violence but he's also the only person in the world who understands her. He dyes his hair black to piss her off and then begs her for money. He says he's the frontman of a band that existed for like six months when he was 16. Literally what's not to like.

-Nizoirse "Nisa," the New (et Hrothgar, D&D oneshot): the instant I found out they had added Verdans to the game I knew I wanted to play one for a one-shot. Additionally, I had agreed with another player prior to create a pair of characters that we could play in-tandem, allowing him to play a private, unexpressive character and lean on my roleplaying skills for the both of us. We landed on a bugbear & a Verdan, giving them camaraderie as goblinoids. Both monks, though the bugbear (Hrothgar) had some prior levels in assassin rogue. She exists in a one-shot world in which most humans vanished from existence in semi-recent history. She woke up in the shadows of the Teeth (a mountain ridge), amnesiac and in an unfamiliar body. She was taken in easily by a nearby monastery and trained in martial arts, meditative grounding, and pottery. The monastery was headed by a'Era the Inquisitive, a curious and kindly copper dragon. She was ambushed by Hrothgar while traveling and subdued him, but recognized in him a hungry, desperate man and invited him to study at the monastery. After many trials of self-denial and physical resilience, she underwent a sudden physical transformation (a Verdan growth spurt, but when you're the only Verdan you know that's not exactly self-explanatory) and became an object of fascination for a'Era; she began training under him directly and received a dragon's name: Nizoirse (knee-ZER-shuh) the New. She & Hrothgar would eventually leave the monastery in pursuit of knowledge and adventure, meet new friends, and make a few interesting discoveries.

Nisa's area of fascination is anthropology, especially of humans-- she associates the disappearance of humans with the mystery of how she came to exist, and pursues cultural knowledge to fill the void of the absolute nil of her own past. She will put the discovery and preservation of knowledge above her and her party's safety. She prides herself on being extremely composed & unflappable, and keeping her emotions from affecting her work. She would fight and die for Hrothgar and cares deeply for the rest of her crew as well, but finds their worldly attachments misaligned and frustrating. I find Nizoirse really compelling, especially her brand of positive nihilism and the fact that she can manifest sick ass dragon wings from her ki.

-Designation 24 (D&D oneshot): I had a few thoughts when making this one-shot character: what if an angel was a robot, and what could possibly be going on in-world with a paladin-warlock multiclass? In terms of characterization and dogma she borrows heavily from Gabriel Ultrakill, because I wanted to play Gabriel Ultrakill, sue me!! I decided she wouldn't have a name, because she's someone who gave up their whole personhood, whole past for a higher purpose, instead she would be designated 24, a number I chose at random. She's a paladin sworn to some sort of angelic order of the sun, which, um. Nobody told me until after about the Solari, a race of sun angels in the D&D cosmology OF WHICH THERE ARE ONLY AND EXACTLY TWENTY-FOUR. She was DESTINED to be.

Anyways, Designation 24 is a giant heavily armored woman with flaming sword and shield. She follows a goddess of cleansing fire and ancient pacts (unnamed at this time but in fact another facet of Boldrei), and was trained in a secretive ultra-militaristic cloister of angels, her Sisters. She doesn't fly nor is she particularly fast but she does a kind of threatening lumbering teleport. She has an ongoing issue where the very sunfire that fuels her will rip through her, pouring from the gaps in her armor and burning her awfully in the process. She thinks in the past few years that she's been in closer contact than ever with her God, but when you're staring into the brilliant fire in front of you it's nearly impossible to tell that the Voice you're hearing is coming from the deep, cold shadows pooling behind you...

Under the helmet she looks exactly like Rorshach from Watchmen. I <3 you scary dyke of all time.

-Sycorax Font-of-Tumult (D&D campaign): oh, my boy. My baby... Sycorax is a fairy & a wild magic sorceror. They were born from a condensed pool of chaos and immediately stood up, dusted himself off, and became a low-level politician utterly and disastrously outspoken against the king. He had enough sense to be an activist generally within the law, but got themself in immense trouble when a wild magic surge went haywire at a demonstration and disfigured one of the king's generals.

Sycorax is an idealist, finds it hard to sit still, and is very difficult to tell no. They believe that the ultimate forms of good include small joys, whimsy, and regicide. If you leave him in a room full of people long enough he WILL start a riot and it doesn't really matter to them what it's about. There's a brief period where they wild magic surge himself down to about 3 inches tall and bright blue, which messes with his relationship to their physical body for the rest of his life. He figures out eventually that the robot they've been traveling with is constructed from the same chaos he bubbled out of and immediately latches onto it as their sworn brother.

They're dead, by the way. I knew I wouldn't be able to make it to the campaign's finale session so I asked the DM to kill me. Sycorax was shot clean through by never-before-seen assault weaponry during a capital riot, and guided their party and the remaining protestors to a safehouse before succumbing to the injury. His last words were "what a wonderful thing it is to be alive" before dissolving back into the chaos he was born from. And yet they linger; in every oil-slick shine on the ground, in every flickering shadow, in every murmur of unrest and its following outcry for change. In every cicada's song rests Sycorax, waiting to be the crack where light gets in.

-Ethel of Sunspring (et Frederick, D&D oneshot): Another one-shot character I built in tandem with another player, in this case my brother! We decided it would be fun to play in-game siblings and wrote up Ethel and Frederick of Sunspring, both warlock multiclasses who belong to the Nightwatchers, a local cult following a Lady Umbra, a historic nighttime vigilante (Robin Hood style) who was powerful and beloved enough to ascend to demigod-hood. They were two orphans who grew up together and Frederick mainly pursued the Arcane (divine sorcerer, fey-touched) while Ethel, the more grounded of the two, pursued martial excellence (samurai fighter, devil-sight).

The DM pulled a fun trick on us for this one-shot; we knew the party knew each other in advance, but we showed up and he said "okay, you've all known each other for decades at this point, you're all elderly and live in a retirement community together" which is so much fun, it instantly made Ethel (and everyone else) into cool ass grandparent adventurers taking on One Last Job. So you get this old-lady rōnin type character with otherwordly red eyes and impeccable aim. And she and her brother are still constantly messing with each other and conspiring amongst themselves. We need more grandmas who kill people in media.

-Posey Lanier, "the Jester" (D&D oneshot): Posey is the nomenclative punchline in a rule-of-threes joke involving a trio of pink tieflings (Mowzie, Rosie, Posey, the worst cousins in the world who you should never trust with anything, most especially your money. Rosie is the one who's married to Maud!). He calls himself "The Jester" and wears a blue and white porcelain Venetian mask with a jester's outfit to match. He's a rake rogue (a "swashbuckler" if you're nasty) with an especial talent for mockery; if you need a guy eviscerated in public but without any bloodshed, the Jester is your guy. He's genuinely mean, but at least he's genuine! Except also not genuine at all, since he's a sneak using Batesian mimicry to convince you he's some kind of bard.

Whatever the dynamic was with the one-shot's fairy mead crew was borderline polycule. I'm convinced they all sleep in one heap in the middle of the floor. He's especially sweet on one of the crew's druids (Rivari, I think, but it could have been Yinner. I really should start putting down player names when I make these lists) and has been roped into collecting a great many botanical field samples at personal expense that way. Posey occupies the Faceless archetype, and so goes between the Jester alter ego (loud, exuberant and deliberate) and Posey-as-himself, who is lank, reserved, and generally kind of a bummer. These days, he's the Jester most of the time. It's all fun and games with Posey until the jingling of bells ominously stops.

-Ken'renaq (Pathfinder 2e campaign): I said I wasn't gonna talk about my Pathfinder characters but that was over a year ago and I would like to tell you about her. She's from my brother's campaign & he has a really fun set of player races (essentially re-categorizing all the humanoids into elvish or goblinish) including a handful of beastfolk, one of which is bearfolk, the Takiaq. Ken'renaq is a champion (Pathfinder Paladin) who is surprisingly sneaky for a fully grown brown bear wearing armor. She follows the Liberator cause which means she respects the hell out of people for making their own decisions and demands freedom at all costs (weirdly enough, this campaign is also about regicide. Even here, Sycorax haunts the narrative). She's friends with Solid Snake from the metal gear solid franchise. I don't remember a ton about her background because we haven't played in months and I can't check my character sheet outside of Foundry.

She's just Ken.

-Doctor Flichard "Flinch" Underfoot (D&D oneshot, sort of): a wonderfully eloquent friend of mine could only describe Flinch as a "little creep" and I couldn't agree more. This guy sucks so bad. I got to drop in for a session on the campaign my old group had been playing for the last year as a weirdly pathetic lackey to the Big Bad. As with many of my characters, he's just a string of keywords that I've smushed together into a person: he's a bard but his performance skill is university lecture on planar cosmologeology, a field in which he was a premiere researcher. He had a psychic Incident 400-something years ago in an attempt to "open his mind" that left his head permanently cracked open to the psychosphere and him vulnerable to predatory thought entities (and gave him some sick ass lightning scarring cause. duh) and made him into a psychic halfling vampire who doesn't need brain juice to survive per se but just kind of likes it. He has a strong Jersey accent and says shit like "in my salad days". He's been living in Hades for at least decades and his coworkers have been stiffing him out of some of his pay because he sucks and because he's the only one that's not a yugoloth. My siblings and I spent so long laughing at shitty halfling names when I was trying to make him. I wish him as well as he deserves wherever Banishment spit him out.

IMAGES TIME

Ribble (& Yona!)

Maud, Maud & Mira pride art

Sorrel (left)

Mira

Hermes

Sid

Nisa

24 (insanely sick commission by @bedrock-to-buildheight)

Sycorax

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kaypeace21 · 4 years

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What's in a name? (Analysing all the names in stranger things)

*I'll be repeating some names more than once as I break down categories .

Show , book, and tv easterggs

Alot of character names may have deeper meaning but some are also refs to stories they liked. The stranger writers twitter posted a list of movies said to inspire s4 (which I’ll be referencing).

Dart- dustin names him this after d'artagenean (a 3 musketeers book character) and one of Dustin's fav candies (3 muskateers). Similarly his pet turtle yurtle is implied to be named after the dr Seuss’ story 'yertle the turtle'.

Brenner- main character from 'the birds', which was on the st s4 list.

Byers- john byers from x files. The duffers mentioned x files was an inspo for the show. Although John byers (from x files) resembles Murray as an unhinged conspiracy theorist. The documentary paradise lost was also cited as inspo for st- john byers and his son, terry, Michael, and Steve were names in said film

Jim Hopper- in Predator (another st inspo) he was a soldier who was flayed to death in the woods. Another character in the film with a similar fate was “Hawkins”.

Detective Wheeler and elle Holloway- from silent Hill franchise. Another ref mentioned by the Duffers. Holloway was the surname of st's Heather. Elle (is el) and Wheeler is Mike's surname. Wheeler was also on the ep of twiglight zone (another cited ref by the duffers) . In the ep 'mute' sheriff wheeler takes in a mute psychic girl as his foster daughter. So some hints at hopper too . Hopper even mentions el-anor (gilipse) in s1. The surname of a main character in the silent hill series.Lt. Colonel Sullivan (s4) could be a eastergg of silent hill 4 which had a Sullivan character.

Henderson- st twitter mentioned how all the bond films were on the s4 inspiration list . So Dustin's surname being the same as one of the bond characters is a nod. Duffers also mentioned ‘freaks & geeks’ as inspo- and 1 character’s surname was also Henderson (another nod).

Mrs Driscoll (from s3) - a nod to invasion of the body snatchers which was mentioned as inspo by the Duffers. And clear inspo for s3.

Powell (cop and partner of hopper ) - diehard films also on s4 list. He's named after the cop powell.

Callahan (cop and partner of Hopper) - father Callahan ref. He shows up in many of Stephen King novels. The Duffers have cited over 10 novels and books from him as inspo for st

Nancy- she's called ‘Nancy drew’ (from the novels). And the duffers have mentioned they are fans of elmstreet - who's main character was Nancy. Nancy also references 'Oliver twist" ,and that book has a character named Nancy in it. Nancy was also a first Lady in the 80s similar to her friend Barbara- who was also a first Lady in the 80s.Nancy's name might also be inspired by "Nancy Wheeler", a secondary character in the 1970 book Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret written by Judy Blume.

Fred (s4)- apparently a high-school journalist who may be friend or foe. This one is a stretch but given nancy maybe being an elmstreet ref- and her enemy being fred-die kreuger. Fred may have animosity to Nancy and that's why his name is Fred. I mean ... they even cast a new s4 character with Freddie kreuger's original actor.so...

Jason (s4) - is in the 1986 Nancy drew novel (when s4 takes place). He is similar to the duffers description. In the novel he's a rich, popular, arrogant jock and blackmailing students at the high-school . S3 even named one of its episodes after a nancy drew novel- so wouldn't surprise me.

Christie carpenter (s4/reffed in s1 by hopper)- christie is the main character in the hellraiser series (which is on the s4 st list). Carpenter is the surname of the director of 'the thing' name dropped in s3. (The flesh monster in s3 also resembles the thing) , and in s1 mr clarke watches it ,and mike has the thing movie poster in his basement.

Argyle (s4) - die hard 1-2 were on the s4 st list. And is a name of a diehard character.

Max- her name is 'mad max' like the 80s film. But since the Duffers like videogames. Her name may be a ref to max caufield from the ‘life is strange’ game as well. She has a 'never Maxine rule' similar to max in st. But the game character is similar to jonathan as she is a teen photographer and says similar words to jonathan in s1 saying she would rather watch people through a camera than interact with them.

Eddie munson (s4)- not going to lie. I have no proof of this but I immediately thought of the TV character Eddie Munster (the friendly monster ).

Possible comic book easteggs

The duffers are no stranger to comic book references. The duffers have already directly reffed xmen, wonderwoman, and green lantern. Kali's place also has a comic book ref to 'the invisibles' on the wall. While the s4 movie list mentions thor ragnock , age of ultron, and 2 batman films. Some of these refs will go over your head if you haven't read my DID theory. But a lot of this analysis will still be enjoyable. :)

Jane st ives (jane ives aka el). marvel. (jane st ives sees her dad k*ll her mom and vows revenge against him.Sort of similar to what brenner did to terry).

Stephanie harrington (Steve harrington)- 80s marvel comic. DP.7. Will DID ref. Antibody, is a medical resident who can project from his body a dark figure of himself (also called an "antibody", a word play on the medical term) that flies, can become intangible, and transfer its memories to another person by physical contact (mindflayer). He later merges with the antibody. like how susie refs ‘wizard of earthsea’ -the novel where the young wizard Ged releases a shadow monster (said to be an ancient evil) but it turns out to be the dark aspects of his personality and the only way for the chaos to stop is to accept his darkness and merge as 1.

Barry bauman (Murray bauman) . marvel comics - Will did easteregg.Bauman lived in never ending darkness. He felt, that there was a realm outside the darkness and started to explore the entire content of his brain thus using now more than the usual 10 % .Also had telekinesis.He turned his attention to the stars in order to exact revenge on the human race which spends billions of dollars to kill each other, but wouldn't spend the mere million or so it would have cost to cure him. For his vengeance he transported the suns near our galaxy into his omnipotent brain. As the people of Earth would learn of the disappearing of the suns they would panic and feel Bauman's loneliness before he would destroy Earth.Despite the death of his physical body, Bauman's consciousness somehow survived and began hopping from body to body throughout the galaxy, his powers growing until the Star Thief was recognized as a major threat to galactic society.

Sinclair- last name of xmen rhaine. Will Did ref. storyline Rahne Sinclair is mentally bonded to Havok against her will(Will/mf).She is subsequently manipulated by the Shadow King. Her bond with Havok causes her to act irrationally, sometimes threatening teammates, sometimes by flirting with them. She undergoes more than one attempt to undo the bonding, with varying results. Her instability also manifests in many odd dreams, in which her identity is merged into pop culture figures. What’s funny is charlie heaton (jonathan byers) was just in an xmen movie with this Rhaine character.

Victor creel (s4)-sounds like mutant victor creed of the xmen comic. x men Mutant with ab*sive dad and poor socioeconomic background. He had a "birthday tradition" of ab*sing his young relatives on their birthdays. Which reminds me of Lonnie making jonathan cry for a week (because he forced him to k*ll a rabbit on his b-day). Not to mention Lonnie is prob coming back for Will’s b day in s4... so... the name is prob a ref to that ‘birthday tradition’. Could also be a stephen king reference -since Duffers love him. The Creel family was in sk’s book “pet cemetary’-which fun fact (the actress who plays El’s aunt is in the recent remake)!

Yuri (s4)-Yuri Topolov (Russian: Юрий Тополов) was a Soviet scientist and the first foe of the Hulk.

Dimitri (s4)-Dmitri Bukharin was born in Kuibyshev, Russia (some sources say Moscow). First appeared in Iron man.

Peter ballard ( s4 character) may just be a hellfire ref . since I guy with last name ballard was a double agent for the hellfire club (name of st s4 ep 1). And ballard means bald which the actor is certainly not lol. I don't think he's literally associated with hellfire but its just a ref. And because its implied in his st character summary despite working for the mental hospital-where brenner is most likely at- he's horrified by the treatment of the psych patients. So that may be where the double agent aspect would come into play.

Ian Hargrove (billy hargrove)- batman comics. had a history of mental health problems dating back to childhood, which his parents were unable to afford treatment for. His brother John hargrove tried to keep him out of trouble but Ian developed an uncanny talent for explosives (will the wise fire powers). He ends up at Archam asylum. Cough billy is Will's alter. Why he has the name billy (a nickname for William) . Jonathan in s2 mentions how he likes the writer vonnegut- who wrote slaughter house 5- the main character was Billy. Already mentioned how it connects to my did theory .

Jason carver (s4)- carver is the last name of the comic hero thunderbolt (in the flash)-the first name of thunderbolt is Will and his brother is named Lonnie. There was also a John carver in the comic.

Holland (barb's last name) last name of Swamp thing. I think its plot has quite a few s4/5 spoilers but Im not diving into it right now.

Names associated with religions or mythology

(if you’ve read my DID theory- some themes will appear relevant in relation WIll’s alters or to WIll’s past/tr*uma).

-‘Kali prasad".Kali is the name of a Hindu goddess . Kali’s iconography and mythology commonly associate her with death, violence, s*xuality, but also paradoxically -motherly love. In myths ‘she only k*lls demons’ and is described as ‘overflowing with incomprehensible love for her children’ - (aka ST’s Kali k*lling people from hawkins lab for hurting kids). Her third eye stands for wisdom (like Will the wise).Kali is called at times ‘ the bright fire of truth’ (will the wise/fire powers).The devotee makes her image in his heart and under her influence burns away all limitations and ignorance in the cremation fires. This inner cremation fire in the heart is the gyanagni (fire of knowledge), which kali bestows (cough Will the wise-fire powers). The goddess also could create a darkcloud of lightning (similar to the mf). The phrase “brilliant as a dark cloud” is a snippet of one such prayer dedicated to Kali.The name Kali is derived from the Hindu word that means “time”. Kali receives her name because she devours ‘kala’ (Time)- like clocks ticking when El sees demogorgan/clock being wonky when Will see mf/clocks in s4 promos.’ After devouring time she resumes her own dark formlessness. “This transformative effect can be metaphorically illustrated in the West as a black hole in space” (cough mf cough hopper blackhole/time refs). Kali’s s2 butterfly-“Kali is the Hindu goddess associated with eternal energy. ... The cocoon, butterfly and the karmic golden wheel reflect Her deep connection with life.”And Prasād (her last name) is a material substance that is a religious offering to gods in Hinduism .

-While, EL is the name of a Cannanite (male) god associated with “salt water “ (pool filled with salt in s1) who “dwelled in a tent” (in s1 Mike’s blanket fort) .And his gray-beard was described as " "full of wisdom.” él’ in Spanish means ‘he’- which could be a nod at her ( androgynous) presentation in s1. El can also be translated to "God" or 'god'. The el character has various mythologies depending on which culture/ religion is using the term 'el'. In the post-biblical period, "el" became a regular element in the names of angels such as "Gabri·el," "Micha·el," and "Azri·el," to denote their status as divine beings.And Jane translates to " Yahweh (god) is gracious/merciful". The cannanite god El was also dubbed “Compassionate God of Mercy.” Earlier, a ninth century B.C.E. inscription identifies Ēl- the name of the Babylonian water god Ea, lord of the watery subterranean abyss (cough watery dark void in st). Terry (el’s mom-aka Teressa) was originally used in the Middle Ages for a “child baptized in holy water” (El in the sensory water tank/Terry used it too,according to Becky in s1). Eleanor (called this in s1)- can mean "sun ray" (possible the opposite of the ‘shadow monster’ or Kali who can represent a “black hole”).

-Will-the s4 st movie lists (‘red dragon’, gods of monsters, & ‘blade runner’ ) mention the artist and writer William Blake (specifically his painting of the angel michael fighting a dragon in revelations - reffed in st s1). He was one of many painters part of the exhibition of “ The World Turned Upside Down: Apocalyptic Imagery.”The World Turned Upside Down explores the myriad ways that artists in England visualized the apocalypse in a period fraught with political, religious, economic, and cultural change.

During this period Blake was commissioned to create over a hundred paintings intended to illustrate books of the Bible along with revelations . He also drew illustrations for the novel Dante’s inferno. Blake’s brutally satirizes oppressive authority in church and state.He said those who proclaim restrictive moral rules and oppressive laws as “goodness” are in themselves evil. Hence to counteract this repression, Blake announces that he is of the “Devil’s Party” (cough hellfire club ref-and dissing the satanic panic of the hellfire club and other marginilised groups) . He also says “men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.” So Instead of looking for God on remote altars, Blake warns, man should look within.He produced a diverse and symbolically rich œuvre, which embraced the “imagination as “the body of God.” He wrote his own stories based on biblical writings- one includes the fire wielding character of Los (will the wise) who represented jesus. Los (like jesus does in revelations) causes the destruction of the world and the second judgment unfolds. The poem ends with Los’s unfallen state rising up and shepherding in science and removing the dark religions. I also talked about how this story ‘book of los’ hints at the DID theory-but this is getting long-so you can just read the explanation here if interested. Also, hellooo Both names are William B(yers/lake). Billy (a alter of Will-sharing the name William) in s3 he even wore “lady of pillar” medallion- i.e about jesus/mary.

JOHN (supposedly Jesus’ blood relative- who wrote ‘revelations’.) In scripture John was called “the disciple whom Jesus loved as a brother” .Fire is the most typical element associated with the Saint John's Eve celebration (Jonathan did light the demogorgan on fire). Many scholars consider John & Jesus ("apocalyptic prophets"). Jonathan itself translates to " yahweh (god ) has given" in Hebrew.

Michael- Similar to kali, he’s a religious figure known for killing demons. He’s the arch-angel from the book of revelations (Apocalypse). A evil Beast (with seven heads usually translated to ‘satan’ or ‘dragon’) appears .“it was a 7″ causes Will to be attacked by the demogorgan ( which in d&d is a demon with multiple heads). The Archangel MICHAEL fought and defeated this 7 headed beast/satan. Corresponding with Mike at the end of s1 writing a fictional d&d story for Will (based off defeating the demogorgan) which was about helping kill a 7 HEADED MONSTER! Michael is also the archangel who oversees on Earth the natural element of fire (Mike telling Will the wise to use ‘fireball’ to defeat this same 7 headed monster in the game, at the end of s1)! Ironically though Jesus /Christian god is also associated with 7s a lot (he has 7 angels and during the apocalypse causes 7 plagues , he has 7 candles etc .)cause the number seven, represented ‘perfection’ according to ancient numerology . Will’s b day is March 22- (3) +2+2 =7 (“it was a 7”). Will’s bday even falls in what christians call “the holy week”( the week immediately preceding Easter.) At the end of s1 they even defeat this 7 headed monster because Will rolls a 14 (which can be broken down into two 7s). Michael & William also have 7 letters in each of their names respectively- equating to this 14. This dragon biblical story (of Michael) is also William blake’s most popular painting. Also, random fact in revelations god has a rainbow throne (with thunder /lightning -will the wise powers- coming from the throne, and seven lit torches next to it ) . He also wears a rainbow halo. Lol. Michael also roughly translates to ( 'Who like el?' The answer being roughly translated to ' no one like el' ... which i mean literally is saying there is no one similar to her. But I still think its a linguistic pun/ burn that Mike is not actually into El romantically).

Jim (James) hopper- According to the s3 script Hopper’s real name is James. JAMES (JIM) was an apostle to jesus- brother of john. And in the bible was called a ’son of thunder ’. Will’s powers/ hopper being an alter of Will's so technically brother of jonathan and thunder powers. Not to mention David on Instagram saying hopper has " he has risen. like bread" is a Jesus ref to 'he has risen"... even the bread ref could be a catholic ref to the last supper.

Martin Brenner/marsha holland- have their first name reference the roman god Mars who was originally a ‘thunder or storm deity’ (will the wise/mf powers). EL (in cannanite mythology) also allowed Baal the storm god to rule the entire earth.

ROBIN- was the God of Thunder’s- Thor’s- favorite bird. And Dustin also means ‘Thor’s stone.’The red belly robin is also an important bird in Christianity. Legend has it that the robin got its red belly from a fire in which it was trying to protect Jesus. Robin also name drops the greek god prometheus- the god of fire (will the wise) who brought human beings life and knowledge. And Steve looks at Robin and says "let there be light" a biblical passage. The robin represents selflessness for a higher truth.

Barb- Saint BARBara- dad kept her locked away from the outside world (like el/brenner) . He tried to k*ll her when he learned she didn’t believe in his religion- so the dad was punished by “god” who electrocuted him with lightning/lit him on fire. (Will the wise powers).

Nancy- is derived from a medieval diminutive of Annis, an English form of Agnes. There’s the christian saint Agnes- who was beautiful and from a wealthy family. She was the Christian saint of girls and v*rginity . And the duffers subverted this along with the problematic horror movie trope of the ' v*rgin female heroine surviving while her more se*ually liberated female friends are punished by the villain' ( by having her survive specifically because she decided to have s*x).Agnes was also led out and bound to a stake, but (allegedly) the bundle of wood would not burn, or the flames parted away from her (will the wise fire powers). Also people claimed that any man who tried to r*pe her was struck blind.

Hopper's wife’s name -Dianne- is also the roman goddess of ,nature, hunting and wild animals( and greek equivalent to Artemis) .Becky means ‘snare’ -for hunting animals .Teressa (Terry) means ' huntress'. The name was originally used in the Middle Ages for a child baptized in holy water . Name of 2 saints-Teresa of Avila and Therese of Lisieux. Lonnie’s gf (Cynthia) was originally an epithet of the Greek goddess Artemis, as well.

Power couple Angela & jake (s4) - Angela means 'messenger of God". And Jake (also means ”supplanter”) is derived from jacob. Jacob was the son of Isaac and Rebecca in genesis. El’s aunt,Becky (Rebecca) is wife of isaac.Other theories claim that Jacob is in fact derived from a hypothetical name like יַעֲקֹבְאֵל (Ya'aqov'el) meaning "may God protect".The name jacob is also where the names James/jim is derived from.

couple Steve spies on in s3- Anna Jacobi & Mark Lewinsky. Anna ( name of the mother of the Virgin Mary) Jacobi ("he who supplants"-aka same meaning as jim since both names are derived from jacob). Mark (”the god mars”-same meaning as martin brenner) .Lewinsky (lion-same name meaning as Lonnie). Also derived from the Hebrew root לוי‎ (leví, “priest”)

Joyce means "lord". Could also be a ref to the ('unofficial') saint Joyce who gave up wealth to live in poverty.

Ted-is the short form of the names Theodore and Edward. Theodore is a Greek name meaning "gift of God", Edward has an English origin and means "wealthy guard." Eddie (from s4) also means ‘wealthy guard”

Holly (nancy and Mike's sis)- Holly meanings are 'One who is pious' or 'sacred'

Karen- can be short for Katherine-one of the first christian saints.”Saint Katherine of the Wheel “(er). A 4th century martyr who suffered t*rture on a spiked wheel. Wheeler does mean ‘occupational name for a maker of wheels’ after all.

Gospel of LUKE (lucas?) , or simply Luke, tells of the origins, birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.

Sinclair- Catholic saint of computers and TV screens (i mean... he is in the av club).

MAXimilian was deemed a saint in the 1980s- saint of journalists and radios. (Both aspects of s3)

Saint stephen/steven ( STEVE)-an early disciple and deacon . Considered one of the first m*rtyrs of the church.Stephen is first mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles as one of seven deacons appointed by the Apostles to distribute food (lol icecream) .According to Orthodox belief, he was the eldest and is therefore called “archdeacon”.

Sara- Her name is a feminine form of sar (Hebrew: שַׂר‎), meaning “chieftain” or “prince." She was the wife and sister of Abraham (ew -given her being an alter of Will though, such a name doesn’t surprise me). Similar to st Barabara’s dad - Abraham tried to k*ll his son isaac in the name of god. Becky (El's aunt) - is derived from Rebecca - wife of Isaac.

Claudia (Dustin's mom)- Christian woman of Rome greeted by Paul in his second letter to Timothy (in the bible).

Sam mayfield (max's dad) - Short for Samuel or Samantha, from the Biblical name Shemu'el, which means "God has heard", from the Hebrew shama, meaning "heard" and el, meaning "God". Samuel is rumored to be argyle first name.

Marsha Kelly (s4)- Kelly means "frequents churches" or " bright headed". Given she's a counselor the bright headed pun makes sense. But maybe she's not to be trusted if she frequents churches during a satanic panic arc which was fueled by Christian religious extremism . Or she's someone who contrasts the rest of the religious people in town since she's not originally from hawkins...who knows. x files’ main character was catholic but in one ep she criticized a small town for the satanic panic occurring-and says how accusing these kids who listen to rock as satanic or being k*llers is ludicrous.

Peter ballard (s4) - Peter was also the name of an apostle.

Tina (side character s2)- like christy (s4) it’s short for Christina which translates to "follower of christ" or 'stream'. Tina was the gal who hosted the t halloween party and also the name of one of Erica’s friends in s3.

Samantha (goth girl jonathan talks to in s2 party) translates to "told by god".

Tommy (s1-2) "God's gift" or "twin".Thomas is the Greek variation of the Aramaic name Ta’oma’. It came about because there were too many apostles named Judas; Jesus renamed one Thomas—meaning "twin"—to distinguish him from Judas Iscariot and the Judas also known as Thaddeus.

carol (tommy’s gf)- Carol is the short form of Caroline and the meaning is derived from the English vocabulary word for “song” or “hymn". A hymn being a religious song or poem.

Benny ( who helped El at his dinner) - originally derived from latin bennedictus which means "blessed"

Stacey (s2-3 ) rejected dustin at dance. Stacey- "resurrection "

Grigori (the guy following and tracking hopper, Joyce, and alexi)- The name was adopted by early Christians heedful of the Biblical passage located in 1 Peter 5:8, “Be sober-minded; be watchful."grigory now means 'watchful and vigalent'

Alexi- prob based on the russian folklore story of alexy. A clever priest's son who tricks a dragon.

Harrington- similar to Robin's religious animal iconography. Harrington means 'he goat'.The most popular image of the Satanic goat dates back to the ever-mysterious Knights of Templar, who were accused of worshipping an idol known as Baphomet (a 1/2 human 1/2 goat man). Roman Catholic society decried it as a demon that demanded human sacrifice — but it would take a few more centuries before the goat became a truly occult symbol.Anton Lavey adopted Baphomet as the sigil of the Church of Satan in 1966, and it has appeared on countless metal album covers. But, Baphomet isn't the lone source of inspiration for our goat-like depictions of Satan.it's also believed that early Christians, seeking to demonize preexisting Pagan traditions, drew comparisons between the Devil and the Greek god Pan (god of nature), who happened to resemble a goat.Some cited how in revelations- during the apocalypse- Jesus separates the 'lambs from the goats'. ( supposedly Good vs bad)

Given the fact s3 alluded to the satanic panic. A Christian movement in the 80s that demonized and said d&d ,rock music, homosexuality, other religions, stephen King,horror films, wearing black,and non conservative ideology were 'satanic.' I wouldn't be surprised by this possible ref. Heck even William Blake criticized similar religious movements in his own time period. Several movies from the s4 list allude to this. The most obvious being the documentary paradise lost (named after the fictional retelling of satan/adam and eve story) - the documentary directly focuses on a witch hunt of rock loving teens (wrongfully accused of m*rders) in a small town during the satanic panic. Not to mention ironically s4 is hinted to be around easter. So Using such symbolism to address religious fundamentalism and the bigotry/hysteria it can cause isn't surprising. No i’m not lumping all religious people into this negative category- obviously.

Other Names with similar definitions

*Hunting /forests woods, nature, animals

Hunters and people in forrests

name meaning : becky - snare (a trap for catching birds or animals). Teressa-huntress. Dianne/Cynthia (Hopper’s ex wife/Lonnie’s gf) - is a roman/greek goddess of hunting and wild animals. Rhadaghast- Will's password for cb is a lothr wizard who protects forests/wildlife.martin/marsha- previously god of agriculture/plants.As an agricultural guardian, he was believed to directed his energies toward creating conditions that allow crops to grow, which may include warding off hostile forces of nature (pumpkins rotting in s2). El in phoenician culture was called Elus and its Greek equivalent Cronus (god of agriculture) steve- he goat- associated with pan- god of fields, groves, wooded glens . brenner- ‘someone who cleared forests by burning’. the blond women, Brenner worked with, Fraizer- “of the forrest men”

* FUN FACT: Kali’s name originally was going to be ‘Roman’ (which is derived from Romulus-the son of Mars... aka Martin Brenner) .

Trees

Ives and owens- ives means 'yew wood' while Owen means 'yew tree. ' bauman- nickname for someone who lived near a tree.comes from the German word "baum," or "boum" in Middle High and Old German, meaning "tree’. Jennifer hayes- Jennifer derived from Old English words "jenefer", "genefer" and "jinifer", all of which were variants of Juniper used to describe the juniper tree.Lonnie means "oak tree; or lion". Lion plushie in cb and the lion el has along with the tree establishes a connection between all 3 maybe? Oak groves were especially sacred to the goddess dianna too. Buckley (it has many different translations) - Old English "boch ley" (with boch meaning beech tree and ley meaning wood, glade or clearing).

Nature

buckley if translated from "bok lee," means meadow, or field. mayfield- open country (field) where madder (mæddre) grows. Holland- wood land, Bruce (who was also possessed) - means WILLow lands . Keith (s2-3) : woods or forrest.Hargrove- meadow filled with rabbits (Jonathan’s hunting story).Holloway is a topographic surname, which was given to a person who resided near a physical feature such as a hill, stream, or type of tree. Tina means 'river' . Burness (guy who claimed he jumped into quarry)-stream. Neil- cloud. Lowe (Bruce's last name)-This surname is derived from a geographical locality 'at the low,' i.e. the hill. Hayes means "hedged area'.

Flowers

Flo (hopper's secretary)- means flower. Suzie- lily flower. Susan (Max’s mom)- means lily, lotus flower or rose. Karen (in Japanese can mean)- flower, lotus, or water lily. Heather is also a variety of small shrubs with pink or white flowers which commonly grow in rocky areas. Erica is a type of "heather" plant. martin/marsha: in the legend of Mars,his mother become pregnant with him using a magic flower- which was given to her by the goddess flora.

Bright (aka intelligent)

Bob- nickname of Robert . Both Bob and Robert mean 'bright, shinning or fame'. Aka smart -he's called ' Bob the brain ' for a reason.

Robin- is also diminutive of Robert . And we all know robin is smart too. Being multilingual/ cracking the code.Robin (like Robert) also means 'bright, shining , or fame.'

Lucas- means "bright" or "shinning" aka he's also a smart cookie. His firework plan saving the day.

Lonnie and Larry (the mayor) can both be nicknames for Lawrence which also means ' bright one' or 'shinning one'. Well... both are cunning I'll give them that. Lonnie is unfortunately ...smart. I think this detail had other foreshadowing. Joyce to Will about Will the wise ' if he's so wise why does he need the fireballs? can't he just outsmart the bad guys? " Will: " yeah. Usually. BUT sometimes the bad guys are smart too." I never understood why on earth Joyce would be with someone as awful as Lonnie in the first place- than be with his literal opposite Bob- but maybe she just found intelligence attractive?

Names associated with thunder/lightning/fire (Like Will/mf/Will the wise)

Byers-reprsents Greek Zeus (god of thunder/lightning). Martin - references the roman god Mars who was originally a ‘thunder or storm deity’ .ROBIN- was the German God of Thunder’s- Thor’s- favorite bird. And Dustin also means ‘Thor’s stone.’Jim- “son of thunder”. Christian god- has throne (surrounded by thunder /lightning). Kali- could summon thunder storms.Nancy/Barb-both saints associated with fire. Kali-is called at times ‘ the bright fire of truth’ /and bestows the fire of knowledge. Robin also name drops the greek god prometheus- the god of fire. Mars -the keeper of Rome's perpetual flame . The Robin bird in a Christian story myth protects Jesus from hell's fire. William Blake- wrote about a fire wielding character of Los who represented jesus. Jesus during end times wields fire. Michael is the archangel who oversees on Earth the natural element of fire. Fire is the most typical element associated with the Saint John's Eve celebration (Saint John- called Jesus’s brother).

Animals (and their symbolism)

Byers- means ‘ cattle shed’.The Greeks considered the bull animal totem to be a symbol of Zeus (god of thunder and lighting - will the wise powers). He is the head of the gods and the almighty ruler of Olympus. I”n hinduism, Shiva is known as Gorakhnath, means the lord of the cows. And is also known as, Pasupathinath, the lord of all animals (similar to Rhadaghast). According to some scholars, Shiva’s association with cows and bulls might date back to the Indus Valley period. Cows have a special significance in Hinduism, as aspects of Mother Goddess and as symbols of selfless service. Mahatma Gandhi declared the protection of cows a central feature of Hinduism.Hindus worship cows as the Mother Goddess and symbol of motherhood, kindness and forbearance.”

Tigers: (Sarah’s plushie/ Hawkin’s macott/ Will & Mike have tiger posters in their rooms): The goddess Kali & God Shiva wore a tiger skin (this fact was actually mentioned by Kali in the prequel novel ‘suspicious minds’ ).”In many tribal traditions of India, the tiger (or lion) is worshipped as a god. In some Hindu hymns the domestic fires are compared to the tigers that guard the house.Tigers also figure prominently in many Indian folk-tales, Jataka-stories, and the Panchatantra.”

Lions:(Lonnie means ‘lion’ and el and Will have matching lion plushies)- In the Bible, the lion has two opposite meanings: it is compared to the Devil (1 Pet 5:8) and to Christ (Rev 5:5). Aka: Lonnie is the devil. The kids are the opposite. Nancy also compares the demogorgan to a lion. “In many tribal traditions of India, the lion is worshipped as a god.One of the ten incarnations of Vishnu is Narasimha, who has the head and shoulders of a lion, but the torso of a human.Goddess Durga, a fierce form of Parvathi or Shakti, has a golden lion as her vehicle, while Rahu, a planetary guard, rides upon a black lion as his vehicle.Lions form an important part of Hindu religious art. The face of the lion (simha-mukha) is used in images and sculpture in many Hindu temples to decorate the doors, walls, arches, and windows.The memorial pillar at Saranath contains four beautifully carved standing lions at the top on a round abacus representing the imperial power. They now constitute the official emblem of the government of India.”

El almost k*lling a cat- “Some superstitious beliefs are also associated with cats in Hinduism. For example, killing a cat is considered a grave sin, for which one may have to offer prayers and give in charity at least seven golden images of the killed cat. “

Harrington- he goat. Buckley- has various translations. Anglo-Saxon: ‘bucc and leah’ meaning goat and wood respectively. And obviously there’s the robin-bird. And I've already discussed their symbolism. Goat= baphomet/pan.

Robin- thor's fav bird/ helped Jesus from hell's fire.

Buckley- can also translate to " field filled with deer" (like the deer attacked by the demogrogan or the bambi film jon reffed in relation to the hunting story about lonnie).And Karen ( when from it’s Hebrew origins) can mean- antler or horn. Also the caananite God el was usually depicted with animal horns on his head.Diana in Roman art usually is accompanied by a hound (demo dog) or deer. Because of the story of her turning an attempted r*pist-hunter into a deer/ and then causing dogs to attack him. Deer is also one of the symbolic animals accepted since early Christianity as an allegory of Jesus Christ and the Christian Disciple. And when associated with Shiva (kali's husband) in Hindu iconography, the deer omen denotes sovereignty over nature and symbolizes the lord of all animals, humans, and the King of the Forest. In many visual and written illustrations, human beings and deer appear as close companions and in some cases, humans adopt the face or antlers of a deer, in images more common in stories of human strife. Deer also have a supernatural significance and appear as apparitions of divinity and in legends of spiritual awakening.

Hargrove- meadow filled with rabbits (like the rabbit lonnie made jonathan k*ll.) Hopper sounds like thumper the rabbit- which jonathan mentions in relation to bunnies . And ... idk... Hopper did make that pun in s3 about bunnies to Larry (lawerence) ? We also have rabbit refs elsewhere like with- el in Benny's. They play the song 'white rabbit' a song referencing Alice in wonderland and in el's room at Terry's house is the white rabbit from that story. Also paralleling to jonathan- el was almost made to k*ll a cat by her father (Cheshire cat aka Alice in wonderland ref + cats are associated with magic powers/witch craft).In Celtic folklore, the rabbit is seen as a supernatural being from the Otherworld.The rabbit symbolism in Christianity has found its way through the Germanic deity Eostre from which the name Easter came to be (s4 will most likely have the Easter holliday).One tale describes the rabbit as the pet of Jesus Christ. And rabbits were often inserted into art of jesus' mother .

Creel- basket or container of fish.fish is taken as symbolizing Christ’s faith, charity, and abundance. A biblical story goes how Christ fed his disciples with 2 fishes and called them “fishers of men.” The Christians made an acrostic from the Greek word for fish, “ichthys” as early as the first century and it is, “Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter”, meaning Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.

Names hinting at character traits (which are very literal)

Mr clarke (science teacher)- clarke means 'scholar'

Dottie (in kali's gang)- she was in an insane asylum . And ‘Dotty’ is a very old British slang term for 'crazy'

War (usually relates to ‘villains’)

Troy- means ' foot soldier'. Martin brenner: Martin means 'war like'. Lonnie is diminutive of Alonzo or Lawrence. Alonzo means 'ready for battle'.

In contrast to Lonnie, Will can mean "desiring peace. " Axel who is part of Kali’s crew (who i think Will created along with others ) even means "father is peace."

Twin

Tom (Heather's dad) and Tommy mean ‘twin’. Robin's crush Tammy ('twin') Thompson ( 'son of tom’).

* Besides similar/identical name meanings.There’s also a lot of other repeated names that go into this whole twin/mirror imagery which i find strange... makes me wonder about @strangertheory ‘s version of the did theory. If not...maybe it’s just a allusion to the whole Will vs Will the wise arc (possibly) coming up?

Jennifer hayes (popular girl) & Jen (Mr clarke’s gf). Tina (highschool gal) & Tina- erica’s friend- Tina & christy are also nicknames of christina (s4 character). Susie (dustin’s gf) & susan (max’s mom). Sam (max’s dad) and Samantha (girl at party)/ samuel (possibly argyle). Billy Hargrove, Bill (dianne’s new huband), and Will-all being nicknames for William. Robin & Bob-nicknames for Robert. Lonnie & Larry-nicknames for Lawerence. Ted & Eddie being nicknames for Edward.James (Will’s bully), Jim Hopper (real name James), jacobi, and jason- all 4 are derived from jacob . Marsha Holland (barb’s mom) and marsha kelly (therapist s4)/martin relate to mars. Tom (reporter), tommy (highschooler), thompson (other highschooler).

it’s definitely peculiar to repeat names like this in a story. Unless it means ...something... I talked about how David was mentioning alot of doppelganger/twin imagery recently-here. So the name mirroring could just be an allusion to the Will/WW arc coming up ...possibly?

#will byers #mike wheeler #el hopper #nancy wheeler #jonathan byers #jim hopper #steve harrington #lucas sinclair #max mayfield #murray bauman #robin buckley #byler #kali prasad #martin brenner #lonnie byers #stranger things #stranger things theory #billy hargrove

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iliveiloveiwrite · 4 years

Text

Wait For Me // D.M.

Request: hi! can you do a request where draco performed the obliviate curse on his gf before the war, then met her again post war when he became a healer? the storyline is up to you! by the way, i really really like your fics 🥺 - anon

A/N: This request let me explore all the things I love: angst, healer!draco, and redemption. Thank you for trusting me with this request, I love it so much. This was not also on my WIP lost but I had an idea and I ran with it. With some hope, my next few fics will be from that list!!

Warnings: angst, mentions of nightmares and injuries, some anxiety, short words and tempers, swearing. A HAPPY ENDING or at least the start of one.

Word count: 5.2k

1996:

“You know why I have to do this, right?” Draco whispers: worried that if he were to speak any louder his voice would give away how close he is to breaking.

You nod once. A solemn nod that juxtaposes the tears falling freely down your face. How could you be agreeing to this when it made you feel like your heart was being ripped out?

“I’m sorry,” He whispers, arms reaching for you, the urge to touch too strong to resist. “If they used you against me or if you got hurt, I would never forgive myself.”

You hush him; not missing the irony of the situation. To be comforting him when you were going to have a large chunk of your memories taken from you, it was almost laughable.

The final few moments together are spent in silence, wrapped in each other’s arms, getting as much of the other as possible before inevitably having to let go. You bury your face in his chest, almost refusing to let go of him as he unhooks your hands from around his waist.

The time has come; it’s come too soon.

You barely register Draco’s tears mixing with yours as he hauls you in for one last desperate kiss. His forehead remains pressed to yours as he whispers three words.

“Wait for me.”

Then everything goes blank. A flash of white and your life begins anew.

No memories of the last year of your life; no thoughts about the blonde haired teenager that had occupied your mind and stolen your heart.

There’s nothing.

Five years later:

The strong antiseptic smell has your nose crinkling in distaste. The overhead lights buzz as the bright light bounces off the overly clean floor; it makes your head hurt more. You place a tentative hand to the side of your head, frowning further when you feel the large bump growing there. Removing your hand, you sigh, remembering the tears of the pupil that had done this.

Not long after the war, a new decree was issued setting up centres of education for young witches and wizards that showed magical promise. They operated extremely similar to a muggle primary school; however these followed the curriculum created by the Ministry of Magic.

It was in one of these schools that you worked, choosing to train as a teacher after finishing your education.

A rogue ball is what had landed you in the emergency room of the only magical hospital in Britain. It had come out of nowhere; the children playing happily as the weather had improved over the course of the day.

Tapping your foot impatiently off the tiled floor, you had to admit to yourself it had been partly your fault for not seeing the ball before it knocked you on the side of the head and subsequently knocked you to the floor. The child, a young Hugo Ward, had felt terrible – sobs wracking his body as he apologised to you over and over again to the point where you had to reassure him you were fine.

An hour after the accident, it became evident that you were not fine. The dizziness and double vision being symptoms of something worse, your boss had sent you off to St. Mungo’s without room for argument, promising you she would cover your class for the rest of the day.

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N),” calls the triage nurse. A blonde middle aged lady with bright eyes and a kind smile; she points in the direction of exam room two and you flash her a grateful smile.

The hospital bed is uncomfortable as you take a seat on top of the crinkly paper. The pounding in your head had not stopped since you arrived but the dizziness was calming somewhat, and for that, you were thankful. It happens as a flash; a memory washes over you of a large hospital wing, two rows of beds and an elderly lady with fierce determination written over her face.

A single blink and it disappears. The flashes hadn’t happened for a while; the aftermath of a memory charm inflicted upon in your Sixth Year at Hogwarts. It wasn’t known who had done it; they had found you wandering the halls of Hogwarts alone and confused before realising what had happened. You had recovered fairly quickly; the only aftermath being the flashes of what could be memories.

You sigh, sinking further into the gurney as you think of the pile of marking waiting for you at home. Even a sore head couldn’t put off the inevitable.

The Healer doesn’t look up as he enters, pulling the curtain closed behind him, “I’m Healer Malfoy, how can I help you today?”

You sit straighter as you take in the healer. Blonde hair down to the nape of his neck, tied back with what seems to be a leather cord. He hasn’t looked up at you yet, but from your spot, you could tell he was handsome. A strong jaw being home to a distracting mouth. You look away, admiring the rest of him before you could be caught staring at his lips.

Healer Malfoy’s face slackens for a second as his eyes rake over your face. He collects himself after a second, but still, you noticed. He clears his throat, looking down at the chart in his hand. “(Y/N) (Y/L/N)?”

You nod, “That’s me.”

“You hurt your head at work?”

Again, you nod, “Twice over. A pupil threw a ball at my head by accident, but I knocked my head on the playground as I fell.”

Healer Malfoy places your chart on a nearby table, pulling latex gloves out of his pocket as he does so. He smiles at you, but there’s something guarded about the expression on his face that has question after question springing up in your overworked and pained mind.

“Did you lose consciousness?” Healer Malfoy asks routinely, silently gesturing to your head, asking for permission to feel the injury.

“No,” You answer, turning your head for him to feel the bump on the side of your head.

You hear his sharp inhale as he examines the large bump there. As if seeing you hurt physically hurt him too, yet how was that possible? Thinking through your admittedly fragmented memories, you cannot find a whisper of what the blonde haired man could have looked like younger. Something niggled in the back of your mind, a feeling, a hunch. You didn’t know what, but it got stronger every time you met the grey eyes of the handsome Healer Malfoy.

“This is going to sound odd but go with me on it please?” You say, voice lilting into a question at the end. The idea of not giving this man in front of you a choice simply abhorrent to you.

Healer Malfoy smiles: it’s polite and doesn’t reach his eyes. He takes a step back from you, needing the distance but also done with the examination of your injury. “Okay, I’ll go with it,” He states warily.

Your hands clench into fists; overcome with the urge to try and coax a smile out of him. “I don’t know how else to say it. Do we know each other? You feel familiar to me, as if I know you from somewhere.”

Whatever smile was on Healer Malfoy’s face falls the instant the words leave your mouth. His entire demeanour changes – shoulders stiff, hands gripping your chart so tight it could snap in half. Unclenching his jaw, Healer Malfoy grits out, “No. We haven’t met before.”

“Are you sure?” You press, deciding desperately that you needed to know the man standing in front of you.

“Very sure,” He murmurs, scribbling your discharge notes and handing them to you. “I would remember you if we had met before.”

The blank confession leaves you speechless. Blinking in what could only be described as shock, you take the outstretched papers.

“Your prescription is there too. You show no major signs of a concussion, just rest for tonight at least and watch out for anymore footballs,” Healer Malfoy starts, “Should you have any more problems, you know where to find us.”

Taking the dismissal for what it was, you hurriedly grab your bag from the gurney and leave the exam room, taking extra care to hide the dejected look on your face as you pass the handsome healer.

Draco watches you go. You all but sprint out of the hospital, almost desperate in your escape to get away from him and his short words.

The threat has been gone for years; vanquished not too long after the night Draco had taken your memories, after the night that continues to haunt his nightmares.

Draco Malfoy had faced the Dark Lord and lived – he has stared death in its sallow face and was not the first to look away. Yet, Draco was ever more terrified of what you would do should your memories ever return. Your rage was entirely more terrifying than staring into the soulless eyes of the man his parents so blindly followed.

Draco releases a breath as he spies your figure finally leaving the hospital. The released breath does nothing to loosen the tightness in his chest; the tightness that had been there since that fateful night in the astronomy tower.

He’s had this argument with himself countless times, always the same words and the same fight. His own justification for why he did what he did; why he took your memories of your relationship and sent you away. Deep down, Draco knows that he should have communicated better. He knows that he should have sat you down and explained to you his worries and his fears. However, at barely seventeen years old, Draco was just getting used to the idea of love. He knew what was coming; he knew that there were dark times ahead and he was unfortunately aware of how you could be used against him should the time come.

He had a decision to make, so he did. Thinking back on it now, it had almost killed him. He had never experienced a pain like it. Draco had been hit with the Sectumsempra curse and the pain that followed was nothing compared to the pain he felt when erasing your memories.

Draco turns away from the door. You’ve disappeared around the corner; your head bowed, and shoulders hunched. He has no reason to watch you now. He turns away from the door, wondering whether it was fate that had brought you back into his life after such an absence.

An absence he caused.

-------

You return to work the day after; feeling fine enough to stand in front of your class and deliver your lessons of literacy and maths but also of spellcasting and magical control for infants. You followed your lesson plans to the letter; resolutely refusing to stray from them should they let your mind wander to the handsome healer and his cold words.

The healer continues to play on your mind for the rest of the week: at work, at home. You would go over the brief conversation you had with him; wondering at which point his demeanour changed, that he became closed off and cold. He hadn’t been welcoming from the beginning, but by the end of it he had downright cold. It should have warned you off; it should have been warning enough to keep your distance and to do your best to ensure you never needed to return to the emergency room, yet there was something about him. There was something hidden within his grey eyes, a dark secret ravaging him from the inside out and you felt desperate to know what it was.

-------

As much as you adore your vocation, as much as you love coming into work and greeting the children with a smile, there was something sweet about sending them home to their parents. A sweet relief that loosens the weight on your chest somewhat.

A shock of blonde hair has you turning back to the school gates. Your breath catches in your throat as you recognise the handsome face of the healer that had treated you only a week ago. His face not one you felt like you could forget.

“Healer Malfoy?” You call out, confused at his presence.

He smiles bashfully, “Draco, please.”

“Draco,” You greet. “Do you often make home visits?” You tease, a smile crossing your face.

“Technically, I’m at your place of work so this would be a work visit,” Draco comments, laughing lightly, seeming to be in a much better mood than the last time you had met him.

Your smile grows larger at the sound of his laughter. “Okay… do you often make work visits?”

He shakes his head, “No. I do not.”

“Why are you here?”

“Two reasons.”

“And they are.”

“One, and one I thought of just now – I wanted to apologise for my behaviour at the hospital the other day, I was rude, and it was out of line so I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologise for. I doubt that you get asked by many of your patients whether you know them.”

Draco smiles, “You’re right, I don’t, but nevertheless, I shouldn’t have been so rude, and I apologise.”

“Then I accept your apology, only if you accept mine.”

He goes to argue but stops himself at the last possible moment. You meet his gaze head on, watching the emotions pile up there. There’s something lingering in his grey eyes; something deeper as if he has more to apologise for but he isn’t ready to confess to what or why he even needs to say more.

“What was your second reason for being here?” You question, curiosity piqued but also wanting to move the conversation on, unable to look into his grey eyes any long for the fear that your heart may burst out of your chest.

Draco smiles, “I’m picking up my godson.”

“Your godson? Do I know who he is?”

“You might. Tobias Dawsey?”

Recognition flashes across your face as you picture the small brunette in your mind’s eye. “I do know him! I taught him last year,” You all but shout, “He’s your godson?”

Draco nods, “He is. I’ve worked with his mother from my very first day at St. Mungo’s, she asked me to be godfather when she found out she was pregnant with him.”

His words warm your heart; the care he has for his godson obvious in his voice. You go to say more, to try and coax more information out of him. Your need to know him almost choking you with its intensity, but for the life in you, you couldn’t figure out why you needed to know him. You move to speak, but you’re interrupted by the excited crow of a young child.

“Uncle Draco!” Tobias shouts, running up to his uncle on his little legs, his bookbag banging against them with every step.

“Hey kiddo,” Draco greets, picking up the child making grabby arms for him.

“Do you know Miss (Y/L/N)?”

Draco nods. “Miss (Y/L/N) came into work the other week,” He states, thankfully not exaggerating further.

Tobias frowns, turning his attention to you, concerned about his favourite teacher, “Are you okay though?”

You smile at the young brunette, “I’m all better. Your Uncle Draco fixed me up.”

Tobias nods seriously, “He’s the best Healer ever.”

You laugh; the love Tobias has for his godfather so clear within his voice, it only warms your heart further. “I have no doubt in that, Tobias. Off you go anyway, I wouldn’t want to keep you from getting home.”

Tobias and Draco wave at you as they leave the school grounds. The smile on your face doesn’t fade as you watch them walk away, the young boy chattering the ear off his devoted uncle.

Deep down, where you would only admit to yourself and no-one else, you hoped that you would get to see the handsome blonde healer again.

-------

Over the following weeks you spy Draco’s presence more by the school gates. Tobias clearly adores him, sprinting into his uncle’s arms the moment he sees him waiting for him. Crossing your arms across your chest, you comment, “You must be a very devoted godfather to volunteer to pick up Tobias this often.”

Draco shrugs nonchalantly as if the task of reorganising his shifts was nothing of a chore, “I enjoy spending time with him and…”

“And?”

Draco ducks his head, feeling the familiar heat of blush creep up his neck, “I like talking to you.”

He feels like it’s the wrong thing to say. He knows it’s the wrong thing to say. If he had an ounce of human decency within him, he would turn away from you the moment Tobias arrives. He would walk away from you, never to come back into your life again. What he did all those years ago was unforgivable despite having your permission. Draco knows he shouldn’t be back in your life, but now that he had seen you once or twice, he had to see you more.

He felt like an addict. He couldn’t leave you alone. Draco didn’t want to if he was honest with himself especially when you grin at him so widely his heart pounds in his chest.

You duck your head, your hair hiding your face. “I like talking to you too even if it is only at the school gate,” You shyly admit.

“Then we should change that,” Draco stutters out before he backs down. He wants to kick himself; he should turn away from you now and leave you alone for good, but that one selfish part of him that powers his heart tells him to stay put.

If possible, your smile grows larger, “Then we should change that.”

------

The friendship feels so natural once it starts; once the both of you get past the initial awkwardness that seemed to loiter from Draco’s cold words earlier in the year. It started with longer conversations at the school gate, but then he would come with Tobias’ mother and wait for you as Tobias would reluctantly leave with his mother. From there, it grew into a timid friendship that slowly grew more surer of itself as you invited Draco out for food or to museums or to spend the weekend with you, walking around the city when he wasn’t working.

However, as the friendship became more solid, you could not ignore the way your heart sped up with every smile and every laugh. You could not ignore the way your face heated each time he winked at you; a private joke shared between you. It didn’t feel like a passing fancy. It felt like something deeper, as if the feelings had been there before and had been dormant until now. You felt as if you were always meant to feel this way about Draco – the feelings tugging on memories you weren’t even sure were yours. Flashes of blonde hair and the powerful scent of jasmine all tied in with late nights in a tower you could barely recognise. Draco made you feel like the only person in the world; he was supportive and kind and funny. He was everything you could want and more – how could you not fall for him?

There was still the remaining secret though. It haunted him; his eyes clouded over whenever it was on his mind as if he was returning to the very memory itself. He would return shier, unsure of himself as if the friendship he had forged with you was about to implode and leave him shattered once more.

You ask him about it once. The two of you sat on your couch; you introducing Draco the wonders of muggle films and showing him your favourites when you catch him zone out. Your finger reaches out, pokes his cheek. “Where did you just go?” You question, a smile in your voice.

Draco reaches out, grabbing your finger, “Nowhere of importance.”

You frown, pulling your finger out of his grip, “You do that a lot.”

“Do what a lot?”

“Disappear on me. It’s like you have something big to tell me, but you just aren’t ready yet.”

Draco feels certain his heart stops in his chest. He tries to laugh but it comes out strangled; choked by the worry creeping up from his gut. Draco opens his mouth to reply but you beat him to it. “I’m not saying you have to tell me what it is now,” You start, “I just want you to know that I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

Draco closes his eyes, rests his head against the back of your couch. You had so graciously opened your home to him, opened your life and offered friendship to him, and he felt awful. As he should, he thinks to himself. He had taken memories of importance from you, and here you sat, unaware of the crime and sitting with the criminal himself.

It felt like there was a countdown ticking over his head. It felt like he only had a certain amount of time until he had to come clean and he had to tell you about that night in the astronomy tower.

Yet for all that was in him, for all that created his moral compass, he couldn’t bring himself to tell you and ruin whatever was blossoming between the two of you. Draco supposes he is a coward. He probably is, he tells himself, but he cannot bring himself to care about his cowardice when you smile at him like he holds the sun and stars for you.

Does he regret that night? With everything within him. Would he do it again knowing the outcome? Of course he would. He would sacrifice himself and his happiness a thousand times over to ensure your safety.

---------

Draco tells himself he’ll confess the next time he sees you which is both all too soon and not soon enough. His love for you had never faded; he hadn’t been the one to forget the short relationship you had. The intensity that accompanied teenage love and infatuation had never left the forefront of his mind. After all, how could they? Now that you were back in his life, he felt the teenager again – utterly drawn to you and unwilling to let you go.

He confesses late on a Tuesday night. The shift at St. Mungo’s had been long and arduous, but he got through it with the single thought of you. He knew that at the end of it, he would get to knock on your door. He only hoped that you wouldn’t turn him away once you found out the truth. Your hatred of him could never rival the hatred he feels for himself, but he finds himself hoping for your forgiveness.

“I have to tell you something,” Draco states, plain and simple.

You chew on the inside of your cheek before answering, “You can tell me anything.”

“You had a memory charm used on you in Sixth Year, didn’t you?”

“How did you know that?” You demand. Despite the friendship grown between the both of you, you hadn’t told him that. You had given him bits and pieces, alluded to the fact that there were gaps in your memories, but you hadn’t told him the truth. Just like he hadn’t told you what made him disappear inside his mind like he so often does.

“I took your memories. It was me.” Draco confesses, his voice clear in the quiet room.

“What?” You shout, anger shooting through you.

“I took your memories. I used a memory charm on you in the middle of Sixth Year when things started to take a turn for the worst.”

“What gave you the right?” You cry, tears building out of upset and anger.

“You did,” Draco states plainly, “You didn’t want to at first, but you came round to my way of thinking when you saw how bad things were getting at home.”

“Why would I agree to that?”

“Because once upon a time, you were in love with me.”

You shake your head, pacing back and forth in your living room, trying to get to grips with the piles of information only just dumped on you. Draco watches you pace; his grey eyes following each step intently as you work through everything in your head.

Worry shines bright in his eyes when you stop pacing. He goes to take a step towards you, but you step back. The small space between you feels like a great chasm, a gaping void that Draco is desperate to fill, to patch up.

“Tell me everything,” You state before adding on, “Please.”

Draco releases a shuddering breath before starting: “We were friends through school. I don’t remember how the friendship started, but it did and for years we were really good, close friends. Then along the way, the friendship changed. We fell in love, or whatever it is at sixteen/seventeen years old. We had less than a year together when things started to change; when whisperings of the Dark Lord’s return were strengthened by continued attacks on the Ministry.

“You argued with me for hours,” Draco pauses, laughing as he remembers what you clearly couldn’t, “I had never seen you so angry or so stubborn. You were adamant, you didn’t want to but then you went quiet and I knew you saw what I had seen. You agreed after a minutes silence; told me yes even though it broke the both of us to do so.

Draco’s grey eyes are lined with unshed tears as he murmurs, “I couldn’t let them have you. My family was working with the darkest wizard there had ever been in the last century, if he had gotten a whiff of what you meant to me, you would be used in ways that not even I could imagine. My aunt would have taken great pleasure in ensuring that you would be a bargaining chip for me to fulfil whatever mission they handed me. That was something I couldn’t allow.

“It broke me to do it. To watch your eyes go blank as the memories of what we shared disappeared. Selfishly, I asked you to wait for me, not knowing that they would be tied to you afterwards. I just… I couldn’t let you go. As a teenager and an adult. There’s no real excuse for what I did, but know it was out of love for you that I did it.”

Draco falls silent. His heavy words adding to the growing tension in the room. Draco’s mind runs a thousand miles a minute; his eyes don’t leave you as he watches you work through every emotion coursing through your body. He sees the anger, the sadness, the frustration, but he also sees the relief at having an answer for those gaps that you had only recently confessed to him.

You break the loaded silence, “I forgot the relationship, but on some level I don’t think I ever forgot you.”

“What?” Draco asks, the air rushing out of him in one fell swoop.

A smile creeps across your face; relishing somewhat at having caught him off-guard. “I have glimpses of what I always assumed was a past life. The memories were always fuzzy around the edges, but they were clear enough for me to catch glimpses of blonde hair or to spy the pattern of a ring much like the one on your signet ring.”

Draco remains silent; he doesn’t dare talk; he doesn’t dare breathe. Nothing prepares him for your next words.

“I waited for you… like you asked.”

Those words. Those foolish words that he had absolutely no right to whisper to you. Draco had been so overwhelmed in that moment, yet he couldn’t ignore the small kernel of hope that despite the strength of the memory charm, a part of you would remember him and would wait for him.

But you had.

You had waited for him. You barely knew who he was, but you had waited for him, hoping that one day he would cross your path.

“Fuck,” Draco whispers, running a hand through his growing hair, starting to pace the length of your living room.

“When I woke after my memories had been taken, I clearly didn’t remember a single thing, but I had the echoes of three words ringing in my ears. A beg, a plea of someone – a boy asking for me to wait for them. I didn’t know completely who I was waiting for, I didn’t know it was you until I saw you at the hospital that first time and then again so soon after leaving. My memories haven’t returned, and I doubt they will, but I just know that it was you who I was waiting for.”

Draco falls silent, letting your words fall over him and sink into his skin, settling deep within his bones.

Years. It had been years since that night in the astronomy tower where he took your memories. It had been years since he felt the longing and love; there had been no-one lese and there would be no-one else. For Draco, there was only ever you… and you had waited.

You had waited for him.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Draco repeats, hands continuing to run through his hair in frustration as he paces the room. He faces you; grey eyes wild with emotion, “How are you not angry with me?”

“I am angry with you! I’m furious with you, Draco! You took my memories, but if you say I agreed to it, I’m just as angry with myself for allowing myself to forget you.”

“What do we do?” He asks, a hand running down his face as he tries to figure out the next step.

“Forgiveness,” You state simply, “We try to move on.”

Draco’s hands drop limply at his side as he gasps, “Forgiveness?”

“What happened after you erased my memories, Draco?”

“There was a war. I was on the wrong side,” is all he says. He isn’t ready to go into too much detail. That’s another story for another day.

“Was that what you were trying to protect me from? The wrong side?”

Draco nods wordlessly. He saw things going south so quickly but his parents hadn’t. They pushed and they pushed; inducting him into the same pureblood fanaticism they relished. “How can you even think of forgiving me? I took your memories. I stole them from you, and you won’t ever get them back,” He argues, wanting to know whether you truly understood what you were doing by forgiving him.

“Let me ask you something, Draco.”

“What?”

“Do you plan on leaving again?”

He shakes his head immediately. He doesn’t think he could leave you even if he tried.

You shrug your shoulders, “That’s how I can think of forgiving you.”

“I don’t understand,” He whispers; his own self-hatred confused by your words.

“The wizarding war was about to descend into war. We were confused, scared teenagers who didn’t see another option. You asked my permission, Draco, and I granted it clearly.”

“But-”

You cut him off, “No buts. I said yes. I gave permission and we cannot change the past, Draco but we can control our future. It’s going to require work on both sides, but you can tell me about what I’m missing and at the same time we can forge something new.”

“What do you mean?”

You smile shyly, taking that all important step towards him, “Make some new memories with me, Draco.”

*****

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#draco malfoy x reader #draco x reader #Draco Malfoy #draco malfoy fanfiction #draco malfoy imagine

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moderatelysociallymaladjusted · 3 years

Text

I have another take. Bear with me while I try to articulate. Okay. One of the things that really upset me about the movie was the emphasis on Jim. I know. He's my bestest boy and he's been my favorite throughout the series. But. The movie made him so self centered and so woe is me. That it got annoying. I could have made a drinking game out of how many times he asked if he was even still the trollhunter without the amulet. The thing is. Jim already dealt with that trauma and learned from it in unbecoming. "Amulet or not. I'm the trollhunter" now. Here's the thing. The series was Trollhunters. And even Jim called the whole group that several times. For all Jim could be reckless and do stupid things on his own. That wasn't selfishness or trying to steal glory for himself. That's just because Jim is selfless. And wants to protect people. He is often called out on this. It's not necessarily shown as a flaw but it's also shown it's not great either. He cares too much and he puts himself and accidentally others at risk doing things alone. These things are addressed. Many times. And I think Jim gets better about it as time goes on. A big thing the series. All of them really has been about. Is teamwork. Friends. And not doing things alone. It's trollhunters. 3below. And wizards. Emphasis multiple people. Now I get Jim would absolutely have trauma relating to soooo many things. But so would a lot of the characters. These are things I absolutely think would need to be explored. But putting so much emphasis on Jim and how he's moping about not having the amulet was a massive let down. Because that's not Jim. At all. All the series were about working together. We are shown so much that when they all did things as a group. They worked out better. The movie had everyone bickering. Jim whining. And just nerfed everyone. Claire should have absolutely been stronger than she was shown. My girl didn't so anything like I know she was shown to be capable of. Toby deserved better and to be more involved. He was in the show. I'm not saying he wasn't occasionally sidelined but let's be fair. Toby did a lot in the series. And the movie kind of ruined that. Douxie was nerfed. My boy did the same spell several times and wasn't allowed to show everything he'd become and learned since wizards when he was mad an actual master wizard. Like come on. Krel and Aja were side lined badly. Steves plot and character growth were. Well I'm not even touching it. Eli was there to be a glow up and nothing else of any substance. And then everything they did with Strickler and Nomura. Look. The series was supposed to be about teamwork. The tag line of the movie even teased it. All three series were a setup of a team up. And everyone but Jim got demoted so badly. And then Jim just became someone he wasn't. Look. I'm so mad at the movie. But I also think there was potential in some things they just didn't follow through with. And one thing. What this whole post is about really. Excalibur. Okay I was excited for Jim to wield it. He's my boy. I love him. And I wanted him to prove himself. But again. This movie was supposed to be a team up. They really went and said. Everyone has to be involved to get the sword out.

So. My thought. Why couldn't they all wield it? Wouldn't that have been interesting? If they all had to put themselves into it. Then by that they should have all gotten to use it. And this should have been done closer to the beginning. But really. In the midst of battle. Someone yells out to someone else. "Give me the sword" and the sword gets flung across the battlefield. And it automatically finds its target and into the hands of the one who called it. And so on and so forth that they all share it. Because screw the whole monarchy "the true king" shit about who wields it. Nah. I think if they wanted to emphasis a group up so much that they all had to put their hands on it to make it work. Then that would have been a great opportunity to have everyone use it.

Though my friend also pointed out a fun thing given the name change from Sturges in the book to Lake in the show. If Barbara had been the one to remove the sword and in lady of the lake fashion, after panicking that she didn't want the sword is nudged in the direction of bestowing it to a champion herself. Now I'm certain it would have gone to Jim but. Could have been an interesting twist. I think it's also the whole being miffed they did change their last name and then did nothing with it. I know it reflected the Arthurian myth stuff but it also really didn't play any kind of role over all.

Point is. I think the movie mostly just needs to be tossed in the garbage. I don't think much is salvagable. Bits and pieces. Small dialogue. But over all I just didn't like it. I didn't like the characterizations. I didn't like how much was hyped for a team up proper and then we get something that's a cry fest for Jim. Sort of feels like after the first Avengers when we all were excited for team ups and the group to actually do things together and then. They just didn't. I'm not saying in a way Jim isn't the main character but. He kind of only was in his own show. And even then it was Trollhunters. Not Trollhunter. It was never supposed to be just Jim. And that really disappoints me.

One more thing. I mentioned how Jim really seemed to be freaking out about losing the amulet and being the trollhunter. But. The thing is. The amulet was made to defeat gunmar. When that was done. The trollhunter didn't really need to be emphasized. The order and Titans were a whole different thing. The amount of constant emphasis and mention of trollhunter this trollhunter that in relation to him being supposed to beat the order. About how the trollhunter alone would remember the things at the end. I got really tired of hearing trollhunter by the end. Because that was a title for a specific thing. And it should have had zero bearing on anything to do with fighting any other bad guys. There was no destiny or prophecy stuff to do with the trollhunter having anything to do with any other catastrophe. So Jim being so insistent on being the trollhunter just got so old and so over done. I have never wanted to slap him so much but lord. He got on my nerves. And that makes me so sad because I love Jim. But the writers really dropped the ball. And retconned so much of what they taught us in the series.

#trollhunters #tales of arcadia #rise of the titans #rott spoilers

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experiment-000 · 4 years

Text

My Top 10 Ships of 2020

It's been a weird year but I've seen other people doing this. Plus this year I've been way more into gen fics (love a bit of found family especially in clone wars and marvel) than anything shippy. So I genuinely don't know what imma put on here aside from two ships for sure. Sorry this post is super long idk how to do the below the cut thing and I've had this app for 5 years...

10) Viktor Nikiforov and Yuuri Katsuki - Yuri!!! On Ice

It was a real toss up between this, supercorp, kanera and wolfstar cos they're all very integral ships to my fan heart but this son because of the Yuri on Ice fandom's rebirth this year. I've never stopped shipping this, never stopped reading fanfic of them for any extended period of time, they're still my most bookmarked ship on ao3 (although I think now star wars - all media types may have overtaken them for fandom). They were one of the first things I watched where the queer ship I loved became canon and I can't wait for the film (and hopefully someday a season 2). Heck I even made my mum watch Yuri on Ice with me so I think that says it all.

9) Edelgard Von Hresvelg and female Byleth - Fire Emblem: Three Houses

My first fire emblem game was fates when I was like 14 (and finally gay awake lol). I was so disappointed that I had to be with a guy character because the only female option was kinda creepy and also I wouldn't get the character of kana. So when three houses came out I was so happy because finally there were beautiful incredible female characters my female byleth could romance (I'm so sorry mlm you deserved so much more than you got). I got the game as soon as it came out (had to search a lot of shops let me tell you) and started on black eagles. I was actually kinda disappointed back in 2019. I didn't like the explore the monastery bit (still find it kinda tedious) and the battle mechanics weren't quite the same as fates (no pairing up?! Aka my main battle technique for protecting the weaker units). So I got like 20 hours in and put it down. Came back to it in lockdown and finally finished it! I'm so proud of myself I virtually never finish games. And I fully fell in love with the useless lesbian edelgard in the process. When I started back playing in 2020 I was like eh I wish I'd picked a different character to romance (like shes an emperor that's morally very shady) but then the romance stuff started with edelgard and I fell the heck in love.

8) Cory Matthews and Shawn Hunter (and Topanga Lawrence) - Boy Meets World

Disney+ was released in the UK this year and I finally got the opportunity to watch boy meets world in its best quality (aka not on YouTube). I watched it back when I was like 12 or 13 and it's such a nostalgic show for me. Watching it again I still absolutely adore it (and my bi ass was low-key crushing on Shawn especially in chick like me - I'm 18 btw and I got so scared for a sec but rider strong was 18 when chick like me came out so it's fine woah). And of course now I see the possibilities of the beautiful Cory and Shawn relationship like they were so bromance it was basically romance and throw in topanga it's the perfect ot3 (but I'm also fine with just Cory and Shawn or just Cory and Topanga). Read some good fanfic for them this year. My favourite was one about Shawn stealing makeup and stuff and exploring gender (need more fics like this I'm biiii).

7) Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes - Marvel Cinematic Universe

I rewatched all the MCU films this year too. And got really into Peter parker whump and irondad. Plus my eternal obsession with identity and relationship reveals of course led me from Spiderman identity reveals (and found family cuteness) to stucky coming out. Especially when it involves the internet and social media. Not my favourite ship but it's been significant to my year due to the sheer amount of marvel stuff I've read.

6) Satine Kryze and Obi Wan Kenobi - Star Wars

I rewatched clone wars in prep for season 7 and wow Satine's death was sad and sudden. She first appeared in S2 E13 I think and just the sheer sexual tension of their bickering. "The sarcasm of a soldier. The delusion of a dreamer." Just ugnnhhh my bi ass can't take much more of this. And Anakin just sipping his wine in the background grinning. And I fully believe korkie is a Kenobi.

5) Commander Cody and Obi Wan Kenobi - Star Wars

I am very much an Obi wan multishipper. I don't really have a favourite but I fully believe he was with satine and Quinlan in his life. I don't think be would've actually done anything with Cody because of the whole superior officer thing. And this probably isn't even my favourite Obi wan ship - that honour probably goes to quinobi or obitine. However the most popular ships in the fandom are codywan, quiobi and obikin. No offence to anyone who ships these they're just personally not to my taste, but I can't stand quiobi, and obikin I find only slightly more tolerable and I think that's just because there's so much obikin content so if I like the concept of a fic that happens to be obikin I'll read it. I'm just not a fan of the mentor/student relationships. So I generally favoured the codywan fics when there was shipping involved meaning I read a lot of them this year. Needed that nice fix it content post season 7.

4) Zuko and Katara - Avatar: the Last Airbender

Again I am a multishipper I have nothing against zukka it's cute. But I'm a zutara shipper first and foremost because when I first watched avatar I was like 13 and denying my gayness and gayness in general so I shipped the straight things and the straight things only. Most of these ships I stopped shipping - dramione, spuffy, some my little pony ones which we don't talk about. Zutara stayed. (I have nothing against any of the things I used to ship I just stopped shipping them so much/shipped new things more). I've continuously shipped zutara since I first watched avatar even if I didn't necessarily spend that much time on it it has always been here as one of my favourite ships. It has such good fanfic I swear including my favourite ever fanfic from any fandom - love thy enemy. Plus like the black games (reread this for the millionth time this year), a delicate subterfuge (which I read for the first time this year and damn it's so good) and so many more. With the avatar resurgence this year I haven't actually rewatched avatar aside from my normal random episode every now and then when I feel like it. But there's been a lot of avatar on my dash from people I follow getting into it and people I followed for avatar returning so naturally I returned to the fandom and read quite a lot of fanfic. I also read just a lot of avatar gen fics which were great at the whole found family thing I've been so obsessed with this year.

3) Catra and Adora - She Ra and the Princesses of Power

Catradora is canon! They kissed! What more is there to say. Arguably they should've been top but I never shipped them that much since I was always very much a multishipper when it came to she ra so yes I was very happy it became canon because we actually won for once but also I've never read much fanfic for them etc. But they are very much a dynamic I love and watching she ra all again in prep for season 5 I really enjoyed the build up of their relationship. The other two only go above because Buffy is my favourite show ever and damn there's some good fuffy fanfic and Aphra and Tolvan is both fresh in my mind and star wars owns me. Would love some catradora fic recs btw if anyone has them tho.

2) Buffy Summers and Faith Lehane - Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I didn't realise it was last year that I got super into them but according to my ao3 bookmarks it was lol. 2020 I swear it's lasted an eternity. I got into them about a month before lockdown (which feels like another lifetime). I've loved Buffy since I first watched it when I was 13. It's arguably still my favourite TV show. I've been through a lot of ships for Buffy - bangel to spuffy and now fuffy. I still think angel and her were a beautiful ship back in season 2 and especially in the angel episode I will remember you. But faith and Buffy had so much chemistry in season 3 - she would've been a fresh start for Buffy and the amount of fix it fics I read I swear. My favourite has to be one where they met in LA during Anne and how that changed everything feat Buffy's internal homophobia.

1) Cheili Lona Aphra and Magna Tolvan - Star Wars

I read Darth Vader (2015) and Doctor Aphra (2016) for the first time at the end of 2020 (got a comic subscription which has served me very well already I've nearly finished the star wars canon comics). Just to see canon queer ladies in star wars was so magical for me as a queer lady. I didn't think star wars would be so overt yet as to have a queer kiss in canon (even if it's in the comics) and especially not with the main character of arguably their main comic series. Now we just gotta hope that we'll get it in live action someday soon. They weren't the ship I consumed the most content of in 2020 but they were the highlight of my 2020 because star wars did that and I finally found out about it

Honourable mentions: Vivian and Elle - Legally Blonde, Candace and Vanessa - Phineas and Ferb, Stevie and Alex - Wizards of Waverly Place, Xander and Spike - Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I actually don't ship this but damn some authors are good - this was the ship that made me realise I don't need to like a ship if the author is good enough to write it well), Eli Vanto and Mitth'raw'nuruodo - Star Wars (started reading the books last year but finished this year and only started with fanfic this year), Villanelle and Eve - Killing Eve, Kanan and Hera - Star Wars, Barriss and Ahsoka - Star Wars, Remus and Sirius - Harry Potter, Kara and Lena - Supergirl (let's hope this becomes canon next year!) (Those last four are ones I've shipped forever some of my og ships but nothing particularly big has happened for me this year with them so)

I got Disney+ this year so rewatched a fair few things from my youth and though hey my obsession with that character may have been a little gay.

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quartzwriting · 4 years

Text

With The Malfoys

Pairing: Draco Malfoy X Fem!Slytherin!Reader

Description: You had been staying with your boyfriend’s family, the Malfoys, before the summer break is over. You also go with them on a trip to Diagon Alley to get your school supplies for the new year. Draco comforts your insecurity.

Warnings: Non

Word Count: 2.4k

A/N: Originally posted on Qutoev / TRANS LIVES MATTER / I really like this one, wrote it when I was on a Draco high a few years ago haha. Also more Draco cause he’s popular right now. (I’m not into Draco anymore but these exist)

Masterlist | Fic Reading Recs | Ao3 | Quotev | Coffee

You began to stir in your sleep when someone started knocking on the guest bedroom door. The sun shining in your eyes from the large windows didn’t help at all. You heard the door open and small footsteps follow behind.

“Lady (Y/N)? You’ve requested for me to wake you up at this hour.”

The light voice of the small house elf fully woke you up. You sat up and rubbed the tiredness from your eyes. “Yes, thank you Sammi.”

“Also, Mrs. Malfoy has invited you for morning tea. And an owl came this morning for you.” The little house elf said as she began to flatten out the sheets on your large guest bed. She had handed you a letter closed with a familiar seal. You didn’t hesitate to rip it open read it.

Hope you’re doing well darling,

It does feel weird having you be gone from the house two weeks early, but I assume everything is fine over there. I received a letter from Lucius and he says he enjoys having you at the Manor, and that he has noticed how happy you make his son. He says he wants you back for your Christmas break, he invited me and your father as well. Let me know and we’ll hopefully see you for Christmas over there. I hope you are remembering your manners over there! Treat everyone well and don’t forget to go to Diagon Alley to get your stuff for school. And write me back if you can!

See you soon, I love you

Signed

-Your mother

You were staying at Malfoy Manor for the last two weeks of summer break. Despite them being controversial both at school and in wizarding world in general, you loved Draco’s family. They adored you and they insisted that you stay with them before the next school year started.

The letter from your mother made you happy, but also semi embarrassed you. You have often received positive things from both your and Draco’s parents that you were dating. It took a while for his father to warm up to you, but his mother loved you instantly. And your parents adored Draco. All four of them never let you forget how perfect they thought you were.

You got up and Sammi the house elf made your bed behind you. Over the past few days, she sort of became your personal house elf since she was assigned to you so much. You showed her nothing but kindness and compassion. It was nice to have someone like her with you all throughout your stay.

You got ready in the bathroom and dressed into a clean outfit. A simple black dress and some black heel boots. You found yourself dressing a bit more formal when with the Malfoys, you grew to like it (and you felt good wearing nice dresses).

You came back into your room to find Sammi tidying it up a bit. She worked really hard by what you have seen her do.

“I appreciate your company, Sammi.”

She turned to you and her huge eyes lit up. “No one has ever been as kind to me as you, Lady (Y/N)!” Her speech was not like other house elves, not referring to herself in third person.

“It’s nothing don’t worry.” You waved it off. “Also I told you that you don’t have to call me ‘lady’.”

“Are you sure? I’m too used to being so formal to our guests."

You nodded and she smiled. You walked over to your bedside table and picked up your wand to place in the belt of your dress.

“But I quite like the sound of ‘lady (Y/N)’!” Sammi beamed, dusting a nearby shelf.

“There’s no need, really.” You replied, picking up the glass of water next to where your wand was and taking a sip.

“But really…” She paused. “Maybe someday I’ll be calling you Mrs. Malfoy.”

You choked and water went down the wrong way.

“I honestly do hope you and Master Draco get married. Maybe it will happen once you both graduate from Hogwarts. Oh, a house elf can only dream.” And with that she left your room, leaving you a coughing and blushing mess.

~~~~

Descending the main staircase, you made your way towards the drawing room where Narcissa Malfoy often invited you to have tea in the morning. You knew where you were going now, the manor had become familiar dispute its size. The first few days you always found yourself lost in the giant mansion, there were too many rooms to explore and curiosity took over plenty of times.

“Good morning, darling.” Narcissa greeted you while using her wand to pour you tea.

“Morning, Narcissa.” She had insisted that you call her by her first name.

“Did you get your letter? Who was it from?”

You sat down in the chair across from hers, it was soft and large. Taking your tea, you curled up on the chair. “The letter was from my mother.”

She smiled into her tea cup. “Oh (your mother’s name), I do miss her. Maybe she and your father should join us for Christmas…oh has Lucius or Draco mentioned that to you yet?”

“They hadn’t told me, but mum mentioned it in her letter. She’d love to come I’m sure.”

“I hope they do.” Narcissa smiled. “I’m sure if you asked them you all could join us.”

“I can ask them. I should write them back.”

Narcissa was already on it, using her magic to hand you a piece of parchment and a quill with ink already. You thanked her and began a letter back to your mother, writing on top of a book on your lap. Neutral peaceful silence fell in the room, Narcissa now petting a cat while you wrote to your mother and drank your tea. While writing, the large doors to the room opened and you wondered who had entered.

"Morning, Princess."

It was Draco. You felt his presence over your shoulder so you scooted over in your chair for him to sit. He did so, plopping down and slinging his arm around you.

"Morning mother." He smiled innocently, she was eyeing him for not acknowledging her earlier along with you. He then glanced down at you , "Whats this?"

"Mum wrote me this morning, replying back." You answered, then raising your quill to tickle his face for a split second just to bug him.

“Oh Draco, what do you think about the (L/N)s joining us for Christmas this year?” His mother asked him, chiming in about the letter.

"That would be great." He answered but he sounded unsure, then he continued which explained it, "but...do we want them near the other people we usually invite to our Christmas parties?"

"What do you mean?" She raised an eyebrow.

He turned to you. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want to meet my aunt Bella, (Y/N).”

“Do not speak of your aunt like that Draco.” Narcissa scoffed. “But...it is true that my sister is a little…uh”

“Insane?” Draco suggested, raising an eyebrow.

“Peculiar.” She corrected while eyeing her son.

"I'm sure me and my parents will survive a party here." You laughed.

~~~~

“Why is it that whenever I set foot in Diagon Alley, I instantly smell mudbloods?”

You slapped him on the shoulder. “Draco!”

“What? It’s kinda true.” This told you that he was trying to make a joke, but you just rolled your eyes.

You, Draco, Lucius and Narcissa were now walking down the street in Diagon Alley to get the things on your list for your next year at Hogwarts.

Once you got to a populated area, you felt eyes staring at you and the Malfoys. You instantly grew self conscious. You wrapped your arms around yourself and suddenly became aware of how heavy your footsteps sounded with the heels. Did you look like a snob to them? Too dramatic or over the top? Actually...do people think that you’re a Death Eater?

Draco noticed that you had become fidgety and nervous. He put it together and saw that you didn’t like the stares. He reached out and gently grabbed your hand to hold it.

“It’s okay, darling.” He whispered, pulling you closer to him protectively. “Keep that head held high. They’re just jealous that you’re so beautiful.”

You blushed and chuckled under your breath. Soon you found a small push of confidence, head up and smiling.

Yeah that’s right, I’m with the Malfoys! I probably look really good right now.

One of the first stops was Flourish and Blotts, where you needed to get the new textbooks for your classes. Draco’s parents had wandered to speak with another pure blood family that was on the other side of the shop, while you and Draco looked for textbooks. You scanned the shelves for a copy of Advanced Potion-making, and you felt Draco looming over your shoulder as he helped you look.

Then something caught your attention and you listened carefully. There was a group talking somewhere, and you swear you heard them mutter Malfoy and (L/N). Draco was busy mumbling to himself the book titles as he browsed the shelves, while you listened. It clicked in your head and the voices were suddenly recognizable.

You didn’t look in their direction and tried to act casual. Draco hadn’t noticed yet, so you slapped him lightly to get his attention.

“Draco.” You whispered.

He kept talking to himself, “Scamander? What an unfortunate surname to have...”

You rolled your eyes, “Draco!”

“What?”

“Shh! Listen.”

He did, then he understood what you meant. The two of you listened into the conversation while still trying to look like you were busy.

“Also why do they always dress like that? Are they going to a party?”

“Those heels (L/N) is wearing look really uncomfortable.”

“I’m surprised they’re still together. How long has it been?”

“A few years now.”

“Longer than most people at Hogwarts.”

“I don’t care, it’s still disgusting.”

“Is she with him just because he’s rich?”

“Maybe.”

"Maybe they've been arranged, like an arranged marriage."

"I wouldn't be surprised, not many pure blood families to keep the Malfoy family completely pure."

“They look like they’re plotting something…”

“Just by looking at books?”

“They always look like they’re up to no good.”

“Probably been bowing to You-Know-Who all summer.”

Draco had enough and he spoke up, “You’re really bad at being quiet, Potter.”

Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger all stopped talking, and turned to you and Draco with shocked faces. A smirk pulled at your lips, and you assumed your boyfriend was doing the same, the menacing smiles of a perfect Slytherin duo and couple.

You followed Draco as he approached the trio, knowing that all hell was about to break loose. But you were here for it. You stood there, arms crossed over your chest as you watched Draco and Harry have a standoff.

While the boys were nagging at each other, you watched with amusement. You quickly glanced to the side and looked at the bookshelf. “Oh look, here they are!” You took two copies of Advanced Potion-making off the shelf, which was right beside Granger. Somehow this irritated her.

“Oh by the way.” You started. “I’m not with him just because he’s rich,” You did your best intentionally annoying Hermione Granger impression. “and we weren't arranged. Pfff. Shame on you, mudblood.”

Alright maybe that was a little low for you to stoop down to, but what she said really got on your nerves so you said the first insult you thought of to call her.

The tension created by the mutual hatred on both sides caused a few other shoppers to stop and watch for at least one second. Draco was in the process of defending his last name from association with the dark arts, and it was amusing to you that he could piss off Harry just by barely opening his mouth.

“And I’d like to see you walk in these.” You showed off your heeled shoes to Granger which you noticed bugged her. “You’d probably trip and break your ankle in one step.”

Then you both went off, mirroring Draco and Harry. It could have gone on for much longer, but a large figure that appeared made the three Gryffindors tense and freeze.

“I really hope these blood traitors aren't giving you two any trouble.” Lucius’ voice rang out, him now standing behind you both with his wife.

“They were speaking negatively about us.” You stated with irritation, but with a hint of a smug smile.

Narcissa put her hands on her son’s shoulders protectively. "Forget them, dears. They are not worth your time."

"You're right mother, they're not at all." Draco held his nose in the air and began to walk off with Narcissa.

Lucius glared at the three, “Do not ever disrespect my future daughter-in-law. Come along, (Y/N).” The man lead you away from them, you still holding the textbooks you and Draco needed.

That comment made you blush, but it put a smile on your face once you saw the trio’s expressions; in some state of disbelief and jaws slightly slack. So you followed Lucius with your head held high.

~~~~

It was now September first, and the Hogwarts Express was scheduled to leave any minute now, but Narcissa’s bone crushing hug was preventing you from getting on the train.

“Mum, let her go.” Draco rolled his eyes and tried to pry his mother’s arms off of you.

She eventually did, but took your shoulders to look at you, "You watch over him, alright?"

"I will." You laughed.

Draco grabbed you hand and you both jumped onto the train just as it was leaving. You looked back and waved to his parents.

“We love you! Stay out of trouble!” His mother called one last time before they were out of sight.

"Why does mum have to be so embarrassing sometimes..." Draco mumbled under his breath as he pulled you along the hall to find an empty car.

"Because it's her job to embarrass you." You giggled, and he shook his head.

Once you found an empty car and settled in, you both sat down for the long train ride. You leaned your head on Draco's shoulder, and he let out a breath of amusement. You knew he was smirking, with content.

"You can take a nap if you want, darling." Draco chuckled, seeing how comfortable you have become now cuddling up to him.

"I could~" You sighed, now wrapping your arms around his torso, "wake me up when we get there..."

Draco smiled, placing one hand around your waist and the other on top of one of yours. He kissed your temple, and made a mental note that if Crabbe and Goyle wanted to share a car with you both, he wouldn't let them wake you.

#draco malfoy #draco malfoy x reader #slytherin #slytherin reader #draco malfoy x you #malfoy x reader #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter reader insert #tom felton #draco #harry potter

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wizardouxie · 4 years

Note

In the tags of your Evil Douxie Redemption post, you mentioned that maybe the old lady was an enchantress who wanted to give him back his magic. What’s the test - is it just him growing as a person, or is it something specific? How would he react if that’s the route you’re going with his redemption? Does Archie know what’s happening, or is he just as surprised? What happens afterwards? -Missing Hand Anon (yes this is now my signature lol) (sorry for all the questions skhjf)

I did! It was kind of like a thought thrown in the last moment, but I’m down to talk about it.

Essentially it’s like Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, but reversed. Instead of cursing those who judge her without getting to know her, the lady blesses those who change for the better.

So let’s assume old lady = enchantress was the route we’re going with.

I would say the test is mainly focused around him on growing as a person, but there would be a pivotal moment which would decide if he has finally passed with flying colors or not. I’d imagine it would occur during Rise of the Titans, where he receives a phone call from Morgana who sounds absolutely distraught. And rightfully so, because Nari’s been captured by the Arcane Order.

And as much as he’s aware how bad that is, is it really his place to help? After all that he has done? He pledged himself to a normal and disciplined life with Archie and made so much progress. He couldn’t throw it all away. Plus there’s the possibility that Bellroc and Skrael would try to turn him on their side again. And if they could take over Claire, they could take over him too.

More personally, who would take care of the old lady? He’s been looking after her for so long and no one knows her the way he does. He couldn’t just leave her. What was he supposed to tell her?

“Heyyy so I used to be this powerful wizard with an inferiority complex who tried to destroy the world with two other magical nutsos but now I’ve changed and want to redeem myself by throwing myself into danger and in the process leave you behind! Cool? Okay, bye!”

Like he can’t do that.

To clear his mind and find answers he goes to the ruins of Camelot with Archie. There’s barely any memories of the castle he used to live in. Just rubble and some broken turrets. While Archie explores the area, Douxie sits there, gazing at the sun which was beginning to set.

“Your friends need you,” he hears from behind. He looks behind to see the old lady. He shook his head.

“But I’m in no position to help. I’ve already screwed things up enough and if I try to fix my mess, I’ll only make it worse,”

The lady sat by him, stroking his hair. He leaned into her touch, and rested his head on her shoulder.

“Do you know the future?” she asked.

“Well no but--”

“Then you can’t say that. You should know better than to let fear cloud your judgement,”

Douxie sighs. She’s right. The last time he let fear get to him resulted in much pain for both him and others. If he gave into it again, then the world as he knows it would be gone. The normal life that he wishes to lead would be gone. Archie and the lady, gone.

So it was finalized then. He will help Morgana and the others. It didn’t matter if he’s a mortal now, he’d find some way to save the world he knows rather than kill it. When there is a will, there is a way.

Excalibur starts glowing in the distance. Huh that’s weird.

“Have you tried picking it up?” the old lady nudges Douxie. He chuckles. She can’t be serious right? Then again pretty much everyone in Arcadia but him tried to pull Excalibur.

“Pfft, why should I? I know it won’t work, and it shouldn’t.” She looks at him with pleading eyes and shakes his sleeves.

“Won’t you entertain me? Just this once?” After a few seconds, Douxie gives in. It’s futile to try, but if it makes her happy then why not?

His hands wrap around the hilt, one foot on the rock. He doesn’t know why but he feels nervous. Something is off, but he can’t quite make out what. He takes a deep breath.

Please don’t work.

He tugs it gently, but soon stumbles on his feet, not expecting the slide to be that smooth and easy. Out comes Excalibur, lighter than any sword he’s ever held. Thunder roars in the sky and a lightning bolt hits the blade. He cries out, pushing against the force of what can technically be considered literally nature and throws the weapon across from him, backing away.

“No, no, no, no, no! I’m not worthy! I don’t deserve it!” he yells, his eyes burning. He killed Merlin, the greatest wizard to ever exist. He still had to atone for his sins. This, this had to be a mistake. He turned around to face the old lady, promptly bursting into tears.

There she was beaming alongside Archie, a magic cuff floating just above her hand. His magic cuff. She couldn’t be doing what he thinks she’s doing. But she is. She waves it forward and it clasps around his forearm, glowing a harsh blue. He feels a new energy travel through his body. It felt familiar and he realizes what has changed within him.

“You are worthy. Of this blade and so much more. Think no more of your troubled past. Rise above it. Hisirdoux Casperan, successor to Merlin, I hereby restore your birthright of magic. Do good with it.”

[END SCENE]

So, to answer your last few questions, the reason why Archie even bothers Douxie to work in the bookstore and cafe is because he recognized the enchantress! He knew she was here for Douxie but wanted to bring Douxie to her rather than the other way around. As for what happens after this scene, well, we’ll find out in 2021 I guess!

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nikibogwater · 4 years

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A Shot in the Dark: Chapter 2 (Author’s Commentary--pt 1)

Read the fic here

Author’s Commentary pt. 2

General Notes:

Yes, I actually had to split the commentary into two parts because there was just So. Much. Going on in this chapter. We shifted over to Douxie’s perspective as he and Nari spent a lovely day about NYC, were properly introduced to the antagonist, and ended on what is probably the cruelest cliffhanger I have ever left anyone on ever (I’m soooooorry...! 😅). I swear I tried to carve this down as much as I could, but even so, there was just way too much to talk about for one post. So in Pt 1 of the commentary, I’ll be talking about the Magical Siblings and their Therapy Cat, but Pt 2 is going to be all about Rivan, because I have a lot to say about this Classy Boi.

One significant thing about this chapter is that it is my first time writing Douxie in Distress. There’s not really any moment in the show where Douxie is completely stripped of every last one of his defenses and put into a situation where he has no choice but to rely on others--which is fine! I love me one Badass Wizard Boi. But I did want to explore the concept because it opens up opportunities to expand on Douxie’s character. There is more to it than that, but I can’t say anything more until after Chapter 3 has been posted.

All right, now let’s get into some Passage-Specific notes.

Passage-Specific Notes:

It was a bit like witnessing a long-lost family reunion from the outside, and Douxie felt a strange ache settle in his heart as he followed the tiny forest goddess, who danced from one place to another, wide eyes glowing like sunlit amber.

“...She should have this all the time,” he murmured to Archie, who, after having his own little roll in the grass, had returned to his perch on Douxie’s shoulder. “She shouldn’t be stuck in that prison cell of an apartment.”

This is probably one of my favorite instances of Douxie showing off his Big Brother Energy. He is naturally a very kind-hearted person who believes everyone deserves the freedom to live their best lives (See Ep. 4: “The Lady of the Lake”) but in this scene, he’s not wishing for Nari’s freedom and happiness because of some abstract sense of empathy--Douxie loves Nari, and seeing her happy makes him happy. But he is also bound to his duty as her protector, and that forces him to put aside both her desires and his own in order to keep her safe. He has to balance the line between Responsible Guardian and Loving Brother. I just really enjoyed taking this moment to explore the nature of their relationship, and the impact it has on Douxie, even if it is a somewhat bittersweet scene.

“What do you suppose it would take for Americans to learn how to make a decent cup of tea?” Douxie grumbled, glaring at the disposable coffee cup in his hand as though it had personally offended him. “Seems like any hack street vendor with a pot and a filter can be taught to make a solid enough cup of coffee in this country, but ask them for a simple cup of water with a bag of leaves in it, and somehow no one knows how to do it properly.”

My new favorite game is “How Many Times in a Single Story Can I Not-So-Subtly Remind My Audience That Douxie is Very British?”

“Sweet tea is an abomination and I only let you get one because we’re eating out. But never shall such a detestable liquid be found under my roof.” Nari pulled her cup closer to her in a mock show of defensiveness and giggled.

I really love it when the Magical Siblings get playful like this, especially given all the crap that they’ve seen/been through. Also I did some research on sweet tea just for this line--it is an American beverage, and is made by sweetening a dark tea--such as the kind Douxie always drinks. Hence the reason he views it as an abomination--how dare we filthy Americans tamper with the sacred British liquid (although to be fair, I think he’s playing up his “hatred” for it for the sake of humor. Douxie’s pretty chill about most things).

“I...I think we should go home,” Nari squeaked. “He just....gives me a bad feeling.”

“Alright,” Douxie agreed, rising from his place and lifting Archie up onto his shoulder. He moved around the table and took Nari’s hand as she stood, squeezing it reassuringly when her other hand came up to anxiously grip his sleeve.

It was really important to me that Douxie not brush off Nari’s intensifying anxiety. Maybe she’s being a little unfair here (Rivan can’t help the fact that she can’t sense his life force/aura) but still, she feels unsettled, and Douxie responds to that by removing her from the situation, even though they still don’t have any proof that Rivan is actually following them. Douxie even begins to grow anxious about the situation himself, going so far as to double up on the concealing spell around Nari’s aura. It’s a small moment, but I like to think it displays the level of trust these two have developed over the last few months.

Even at his most desperate, Douxie wasn’t demanding. But he was begging with every ounce of his heart, calling on the bone-deep affection that had always bound these two together.

“...Yes, Hisirdoux,” Archie sighed, and Douxie’s heart ached with a rush of love and gratitude for his Familiar.

This scene was originally drafted as being on the opposite end of the emotional spectrum--Douxie was going to snap and give Archie a direct order--something he knew a Familiar can’t ignore, and it was going to be this gut-wrenching moment of Angst. But I realized very quickly that, after almost a thousand years of flawless teamwork and mutual support, these two are VERY unlikely to have a relationship fumble that intense. Also, it really would’ve just been pointless drama. So instead I leaned into the warmth and comfort of just how close and trusting Douxie and Archie are with one another, to the point that when Douxie begs Archie to do the one thing he doesn’t want to (leave Douxie), Archie acquiesces.

“...N-no. Archie...!” Nari stammered, looking frantically between the two of them. “Douxie, please!”

“Everything’s going to be fine, sweetheart,” Douxie soothed, giving her a gentle nudge forward. “I’ll meet you both back at the apartment later.”

Douxie using “sweetheart” on Nari is actually very significant here. While Douxie is a Pro-Tier Sweet-Talker who absolutely uses pet names on both friend and foe alike, Nari is the one exception to that rule (this is actually the first time in the series that he’s used a pet name on her). Douxie respects Nari in a way that is unique to their relationship. She’s a much-loved part of his family, yes, but she is also eons old, and a demigoddess, and whether consciously or unconsciously, I think Douxie is aware of that for the most part. So the fact that he caves and accidentally calls her Sweetheart here indicates that in this moment, he’s not seeing her as Nari the Ancient Sorceress, but as Nari the Child, Nari the Little Sister--someone who he wants to shield from the harsh reality they’re facing. So he makes her a promise he knows he might not be able to keep. Because sometimes, grown-ups lie in order to protect the children in their care. It’s not right, but in the heat of the moment, it’s all he can think to do.

There was a click and a soft whirring sound, and suddenly the magic in Douxie’s hand was pulled out of his grasp, leaving his fingers cold and empty. The wizard cast a frantic look down at his right arm to see an iron band locked around it, the intricate engravings glowing the same color as his own magic.

Just a short fun fact: The Inhibitor Cuff was actually originally conceived for my 12th Century Siblings AU.

“Spare me the pleasantries,” Douxie interrupted. “I’ll die before I’ll let the Order anywhere near her.”...

...Douxie stared back at Rivan defiantly, his jaw clenched shut, though behind his back, his hands were trembling with dread.

Writing Douxie in Distress like this was...tricky. I’ll talk more about this in pt. 2, but it was really hard to know when Douxie would drop his trademark sass and just be Dead Serious. His interactions with Morgana and the Arcane Order are mostly just him being a cocky little punk, but I also think that might have had something to do with the fact that he was never completely helpless in those situations. Apart from the few seconds he was held down by a corrupted Jim, Douxie always had at least some level of defense in those conflicts. But he has absolutely no power in this situation--his magic has been cancelled out, he’s tied to a chair in an abandoned warehouse miles away from home with no way of contacting his friends for backup, and the only thing standing between the Arcane Order and Nari at this point is his refusal to talk. So he drops the sass and just gets Stubborn. He wants to make it abundantly clear that he knows what Rivan could do to him--and that he doesn’t give a damn. He’s not talking, no matter what.

...Ngl, that’s very sexy of him.

#fanfiction #writing #author's commentary #the magical siblings #and their therapy cat #a shot in the dark

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kinetic-elaboration · 4 years

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February 17: 2x07 Catspaw

It’s not Halloween but it is my mom’s birthday so a very good opportunity to watch Catspaw.

So we start with Sulu and Scotty missing on an away mission but why exactly the Enterprise is here and what the away mission was is not explained...

Also speaking of interesting and unusual combos--Scotty and Sulu!

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

I like Uhura’s nails. They go so well with her communications board. Even her job is stylish.

Oooh, possessed dead mannequin crew member warning the ship that it has been cursed?? Very promising.

Also falling like that was an impressive stunt.

Lol Assistant Chief Engineer Dealle is in charge because the first and second in command are going after the third and fourth in command. What would TNG have to say about that??

According to the Amazon trivia, Uhura was supposed to be the next in command and in charge of the ship in this ep but NBC didn’t want a woman in charge and can I just say that if this is true we were ROBBED.

Oooh mysterious fog.

Chekov and his terrible wig. Should have left him in charge.

Also it’s interesting that this is the first Chekov episode in production order and he’s actually not the navigator. He’s Spock’s backup.

This is like a game of telephone: Chekov tells Desalle to tell Uhura to tell Kirk.

This is a very serious, creepy, mysterious opening in a lot of ways (the dead crewman mystery) but I remember this as more of a goofy, silly episode. (But actually upon having now seen the whole thing... it’s more serious than I remembered in its sci fi concepts! I guess I was just remembering the witches lol.)

Honestly those witches... I guess Macbeth is a pretty big part of Earth Lore lol. I think McCoy is alarmed and unsettled by this while Spock is more intrigued and Kirk just thinks it’s dumb.

I love Kirk’s face when Spock’s only comment is “bad poetry.” Hilarious. Like “I love you but please be more helpful. This is Serious Time not time to play games and fuck with me.”

I really like Kirk in this episode. He’s giving off smart, curious explorer vibes. (Although I will say, with the whole episode down... he is very harsh on the aliens. I mean he lost a man in the opening and so he’s not down to clown but still.. I think he overestimates their hostility some.)

Creepy castle. Trick-or-treating. I want the deleted scene where Kirk explains Trick-or-Treating to Spock.

Kirk looks so frustrated by the cat.

“I’m not that green.” Lol.

What a talented cat actor!! Trot trot trot.

“Bones? I mean...the other Bones?” Maybe a different nickname today. That’s a really underrated joke.

I wish they’d picked up on Spock and put some Vulcan horror in there too. (Although I guess creating horror tropes wasn’t exactly their intention...) I wonder what Vulcan subconscious horror is like.

That was actually a pretty cool transition from the dungeon to the dining room.

Kirk would be more impressed with all this if they hadn’t killed someone. He’s never up for fun and games when someone’s dead. He’s very dubious about all of this, especially the cat.

Hmm, they are not native.

Kirk’s face just screams: “So the cat...is talking...to you?” (Actually you know what, I do think it’s very interesting that Korob can understand Sylvia even when she’s speaking in a different language.)

I bet young Spocks read about wizards and familiars and was super taken with the idea.

I don’t believe for one second that Spock’s thoughts are black and white lol. This decadent bitch? No way.

None of this is Kirk’s interest. Illusions, weird tricks, people who don’t give straight answers. This is not the way to impress him or make him want to help you in any way.

McCoy the jewel expert. These look real!

You like shiny stuff right humans? Pretty crystalline forms for you?? Not in a post-scarcity utopia!

McCoy has just realized this woman IS the cat.

Hmmm, telepathy, like Spock’s?

I want that Enterprise necklace!!

“You do with your minds what we do with tools.”

Lol at Kirk thinking he’s won because he can send another search party. Like... how’d the last search party work out for you?

Mmm, Kirk looking at the necklace. That’s some Acting.

Credits to navy beans.

“An Earthman like yourself...”

These aliens are very interesting. Very, totally alien, as Spock says. This idea that they tried to read the humans’ minds and missed their target is just so cool. Like, they weren’t trying to create a weird Halloween experience, they thought they were creating a familiar home for the aliens. “Oh, a castle, just like home!”

So it sounds like this planet is not that far away from Earth. The aliens are coming closer...

Haha Sylvia says she’s not a puppet but ironically--she is exactly, literally a puppet.

I’m just going to say it: Sylvia is one of the best female characters in TOS. Like should I be insulted that the lady alien went insane and emotional and messed everything up? Probably but I prefer to think of it as her being intrigued and invested in her own power and possibilities and then she goes overboard.

Anyway this is Macbeth whoops

“You torture our specimens.”

So what is their mission??

Hmm, she’s really into Kirk. And he knows just how to manipulate her: telling her she’s not really a woman, she’s not real, then transitioning into Honeypot Mode.

“I can be many women,” she says and just puts on different wigs.

Whoops she found his conscious mind. So much for manipulating her.

And so the familiar becomes the wizard.

This is sad; they could have become friends with the aliens. Korob doesn’t seem so bad.

Big cat!! Really big cat! Not the most terrifying creature at all; the nicest and softest. I'm not convinced that cat is big; I think it's pretty obvious the hallway is just small. However, I like the idea. I wish I had a super big cat to be friends with.

[Cat screams continue]

“Well at least we found them.”

Spock is so unruffled. "Hmmm, this is most unpleasant. If only we had some kind of weapon or something..."

“I got the transmuter. It’s mine now.”

Sylvia is obviously still into him lol.

“Don’t let her touch the wand.” It’s a transmuter Spock have you not been listening?

THE PUPPETS.

Spock wants to study them. Of course he does. And so the specimen becomes the scientist and the scientist the specimen.

...Overall an interesting ep. But I do have some questions. One of those eps that leaves a lot of world bulding unsaid, which leaves room for fun speculation.

So, first, these aliens came from very far away, and now they’re in our galaxy. Mom question if it was an “invasion.” I think so, at least in a neutral sense. But what was their purpose? Why were they traveling to new planets? Do they need something their planet can’t give them? Or are they just exploring for fun/curiosity--as we ourselves do?

Sometimes they’d speak as if they had some greater mission--the references to the old ones, their insistence on getting the humans’ help as if they relied on it, their “tests” like they were looking for something specific--but the actual mission was never stated or even hinted at. So I guess it’s just as possible they were exploring as intelligent beings do, and then found these humans, and came to really like them and just thought the alliance (or possible further study) could be advantageous.

Are these two the only aliens left or are there others back home? I assume there are others but it wasn’t completely clear if the “old ones” were memories or beings with, like, literal oversight.

Also, why were Scotty and Sulu on the planet in the first place? Spock says the planet has never known to have beings on it. So was the Enterprise just like triple checking that or did they have a reason to go down? Did Korob and Sylvia lure them? Because I felt like Kirk's annoyance with them was rather unfounded if his men just invaded their home first. I tend to think that they were in the area and something on the planet attracted them--that the aliens specifically wanted them to come down. That, and the killing of Jackson, would make Kirk’s reaction to them more reasonable.

I’m not saying I don’t have sympathy for the aliens because I definitely do. Like, we would absolutely do the same thing: find the interesting specimens and examine them. These are curious aliens. A lot of what they do seems to be in fun also--providing the humans with a setting they think the humans will like; offering them things; playing around with illusion. Of course then there are hostile actions--like killing Jackson, manipulating Scotty, Sulu, and Bones, and harming the Enterprise. But it’s not entirely clear to me if these are meant to be hostile actions, or if they just don’t see them as that serious--or perhaps, serious but worth it. Also some of it might just be Sylvia going power-mad (like the Enterprise torture, which Korob didn’t like).

I wonder what the aliens were doing on the planet before the Enterprise arrived. Were they in their real forms, or were they creating other illusions? They took these forms (human and cat) from the Enterprise crew’s mind so one would assume they looked different before the Enterprise got there. Were they on their way somewhere else? Could they have already known about Earth, even?

I like these aliens because they really do feel alien. I think that’s very difficult; a lot of sci fi (including Star Trek, often) presents aliens against the bar of humans: how are they different from humans, as opposed to, what are they like? These aliens have some very impressive powers: mind-reading, mental control, shapeshifting, “magic.” But their powers also have limits: they don’t always read minds correctly, for example, and Sylvia is so easily corrupted by her newfound love of sensation. And like I said before, their actions seem erratic and the morality of them hard to parse, perhaps because they’re just operating on a completely different moral plane than people.

Like, why DID they kill Jackson? Did Sylvia do it just because she could? Was it part of the test? Korob says later “you were warned not to come and you came anyway, that shows loyalty,” and the nature of the warning--the curse--was also taken from the horror subconscious. So maybe they thought this is how you communicate with humans, and the idea that killing one of them was so egregious didn’t occur to them, either because they see the humans as specimens, and would no more mourn our deaths than we mourn the deaths of lab rats (or than Kirk et.al. mourned the aliens tbqh), or because they just have a different relationship to death on their planet.

And what was the purpose of taking control of Scotty, Sulu, and Bones? Some of the dialogue implies that control is part of their telepathy--and yet they seem more than capable of reading minds without actually altering what the object of the mind reading does. Do they gain control when they go particularly deep in their interrogations? Why are they interrogating that deeply at all, and what are they STILL looking for after taking control of 3 people?

Another possibility is that they had too many specimens and didn’t know enough about them to feel comfortable letting them all roam free. They were outnumbered 5 to 2. The fewer people who are free, the easier to interrogate them and learn about them--they also use physical restraints at times, and after they try talking to 3 and find it too much, they switch to talking to 1 at a time.

And then finally, as with the killing of Jackson--it might just be something they did because they can. And I have to say, humans would be the same. Like if we had a group of aliens, we’d use the tools at our disposal to corral and restrain them and then learn about them, not necessarily malevolently, but for our own safety and sense of power and control. And some people probably would cross lines. Like, Korob and Sylvia aren’t entirely benevolent OR malevolent. They’re just alien.

The transmuter was very weird. I have to say, it didn’t really make sense. They seemed to use their powers just fine without it most of the time, which is why I’m inclined to think Sylvia wasn’t lying when she said it just magnified their abilities. BUT then why did destroying it destroy all the illusion? It seems pretty obviously just a plot device that would allow the episode to wrap up in an hour.

I’m also confused and intrigued by the line that they used the transmuter to get to the planet. How do you use it to travel?

And...why did they die in the end? If those were their real forms, you’d think being returned to them wouldn’t harm them in any way. And yet they seemed to disintegrate right there. They did seem very delicate and we don’t know what their native planet was like. Perhaps they needed the transmuter/their shape-shifting abilities to survive on this planet at all.

Actually just occurred to me--the transmuter. Maybe their mind reading abilities are inherent but their shape-shifting isn’t. Although that raises the question of how they could have built something so big when they are so small--does the wand itself change shape and size?

One interesting thing about these aliens is that even though they appear as humans without being humans, they are NOT energy beings like a lot of other aliens who shape-shift to human forms. They haven’t transcended to a state beyond teh physical form. Unlike the Organians or the aliens from Return to Tomorrow, there’s no sense that they are purposefully evolving or striving toward being so mentally powerful that they no longer need the body--they do have bodies and they are physical beings, but one of their, imo, inherent powers is this extreme mental capacity, including a version of telepathy and a version of shapeshifting.

The Amazon summary says they are “aliens on a mission of conquest” but I don’t think that’s true.

Anyway idk if I had other thoughts but I’m becoming decreasingly coherent so I think it’s time for bed!

Next up is I, Mudd. I’m not a big Harvery Mudd fan but I seem to remember there were some funny bits in that ep so it should be fun.

#the year 2021 #2021: fandom thoughts #2021: star trek #star trek tos

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elesianne · 5 years

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A Lord of the Rings fanfic, chapter two of two

Story summary: Lothíriel felt prepared for everything that happened at her and Éomer’s wedding in the mead hall but at the end of the feast, in the privacy of their bedchamber, she knows less of what to expect and do. Fortunately her new husband is patient in this, if not in many other matters.

Chapter length: ~2,600 words; Rating: Mature audiences

Some keywords: arranged marriage, wedding night, virginity, mild sexual content, post-war of the rings

AO3 link

Midyear’s night: Chapter II – Morning

When Lothíriel wakes up in the morning, she is overheated.

It is strange. Usually she is more or less cold in the morning because the fire in the grate burns out during the night and though her maid builds it up again before waking her, the room hasn't warmed yet by then.

Now, though, she is so hot that it feels like she can hardly breathe. As she comes to true wakefulness, she realises that she is hot and finding it difficult to breathe because she is half-buried under a sleeping man. The man is naked and very heavy.

For a moment she freezes, until she remembers that she is now married and this is her husband and while he perhaps doesn't have the right to suffocate her in his sleep, he does have the right to be in bed with her. That is all right.

She tries to move a little to get him to move off of her, preferably without waking him because this is rather embarrassing and confusing – all the more so because she thinks she feels against her thigh something that she felt inside her last night. How can it be that hard when Éomer is asleep?

But even her small movement is enough to wake him. He wakes up faster than she did, without a moment of confusion.

He mumbles, 'Lothíriel', and kisses her shoulder and moves away from on top of her. He flops on his back next to her, apparently completely unashamed of his nakedness and hardness, and says, 'Good morning.'

'Good morning.' She curls up a little on herself, shy of being naked in his presence although before they fell asleep Éomer saw and explored every inch of her.

'Did you sleep well?' Éomer enquires, perfectly politely. It feels strange in the circumstances.

'I did. Very soundly', she replies.

'So did I. You tired me out.'

Half of her wants to protest at that, but she is also – flattered. Is that what a woman should be when a man says that?

She is left pondering that when Éomer gets up, says 'I'll light the fire', and goes to do so. As he kneels in front of the fireplace, still naked, Lothíriel peeks a glance at his muscled back and bottom, and then lays her head back on the pillow, startled.

There are scratches on his back, not deep but clear enough, and she is fairly certain that she is to blame for them. She remembers clutching at him with desperate hands and scrabbling fingers towards the end of him thrusting inside her, when it had become… pleasant and he also touched her with his fingers and made her –

But now he is saying something, and she missed it, and has to ask him to repeat it. He has put on some clothes meanwhile, too.

'I'll get some fresh water for us', he repeats. There is a soft smile on his lips. Alone with her, he is gentler than she has seen him otherwise

That is a very good thing, Lothíriel supposes.

While he is gone she tugs a blanket to her and wraps herself in it, and stares at the crumpled bedsheets around her.

What else could she think of but last night? There is a strange tiredness and a not very terrible soreness inside her reminding her of the night. It had been – rather confusing in many ways, but better than she expected. From Éomer's gentler manner with her, from his patience with her nervousness and inexperience, from his making sure that she too was pleasured instead of just taking his own pleasure in her body, she can surely conclude that he will likely to be a good husband for her.

Her mother told her, after Lothíriel became betrothed to Éomer, that what arranged marriages and love matches ultimately had in common is that one cannot know whether the marriage will be happy from beginning to end, or for a little while and then grow sour and cold.

'An arranged marriage that begins as a good partnership with shared ambitions often turns to good, enduring love sooner or later', Idhrenes told her daughter, and Lothíriel believed it because that was how her parents' marriage had begun and become.

She can only pray that her own will turn out the same way, and resolves to do her own part in making it so.

Perhaps, now that the wedding night is over and her virginity given to him, she will be regaining her equilibrium soon and stop being so nervous and silly. Now that she knows what to expect in private, too, things should be easier… although there are still some things that her aunt Ivriniel talked about that haven't happened yet.

Éomer comes back with a jug of water and a basket of bread.

'A truly poor breakfast for the king and queen', he says as he puts them down on the wash table in a corner of the room. 'I told them to bring a proper breakfast to the next room a little later. Before that there are some things to take care of.'

Wrapped in her blanket, Lothíriel shuffles over to have a drink of water. She almost trips on her shift and his undertunic that lie in a pile on the floor, shed and forgotten there last night.

She does not feel like much of a queen in this moment. She does feel like Éomer's wife, though. They are both messy-haired as they stand there at the wash table side by side, and she has an ache inside her and he has the marks of her fingernails on his back.

'What things are there for us to take care of?' she asks him.

Éomer empties his mug and gives her one from a hook on the wall. 'I will tell you once we are back in bed.'

That makes her raise her brows, as does Éomer taking half a loaf of bread with him as he returns to bed. Lothíriel drinks her water and follows him.

She doesn't take bread with her. Éomer munches on his piece as they settle to sit side by side against the headboard.

After a moment he breaks into laughter and says, 'You are looking at me like you think that I am a northern barbarian, like I once heard a countryman of yours call one of my men when they were both drunk and quarrelling in a tavern in Minas Tirith. Do you regret our union already, lady?'

Lothíriel laughs too, won over by his easy manner. 'I do not, my lord.' Since he used her title teasingly, she uses his. 'In truth, everything that has happened since we left the feast last night has been so new and strange to me that I should not wonder at a king eating the breakfast of a peasant in his bed.'

'A peasant would more likely break his fast on gruel', Éomer argues with a grin. 'And this bread is very good, fresh-baked and warm.' He breaks off a corner for her. 'Try it.'

He holds it in front of her mouth so she has little option but to bite into it. She chews and swallows and says, 'Yes, very good. Éomer, what are the things we need to take care of, and what is the time?'

'Many hours to midday yet', he tells her, and makes her wait for the rest of his answer while he finishes the bread. 'No one expects to see the newlyweds before then, I am sure', he continues. 'I want to spend the morning here with you. I only need to meet with my council for a moment before your coronation in the afternoon.'

Something warm spreads in her chest at his mention of wanting to spend the morning with her, though she doesn't know what he wants to do.

'Now, your morning gift', Éomer says. He moves to sit opposite her, and looks at her.

'I had forgotten about that', Lothíriel says. 'But now I remember. You insisted on it during your negotiations with my father.'

Smiling that crooked half-smile that she has come to know is not malicious at all, Éomer says, 'He said that his daughter needs no payment for her virginity. But it is a custom of my people, a security for your possible widowhood. Not that you would be left destitute anyway, but the gift is traditional.'

He takes her hand in his. Speaking more formally, he says, 'Lothíriel, I give to you a house a little way outside the town of Aldburg, and the fields that belong to it. They are good fields, bearing a decent crop every year whether it is rainy or dry. There is a very competent family farming the land, and they lease the house too. It is now yours to do with as you wish, and to leave to whoever you want. It was my father's mother's house. Her morning gift, in fact.'

Before she can react to that, he adds, 'And I give you a horse.'

Lothíriel says the first thing that comes to her mind at that, inane though it is. 'I have a horse.'

And she smiles. Of course the king of the Rohirrim, the horse-folk, would give her a horse on their first day as husband and wife.

Éomer grins, and it is a grin of true joy and pride. 'Not a horse like this. She is one the Mearas, the race of the greatest horses in Middle-Earth, a nobler creature than any horse of Gondor. She is tall and strong, not tame like an ordinary horse but willing to carry the royalty of the Mark like all her kin. She will be yours if she accepts you.'

Lothíriel frowns in worry. 'Do you think she might not?'

She is elated at the thought of getting to ride one of the Mearas. She has admired them from afar, Éomer's grey stallion and other equally wondrous horses on a pasture near Edoras. She remembers Shadowfax, the greatest of all the Mearas, whom Mithrandir the wizard rode and took with him to the West.

'I think she will.' Éomer stretches as he continues, 'You are my queen and easy to recognise as queen by your posture alone, and you are a decent horsewoman. Hrímfax – that is her name – is not as wild as some of the Mearas, not like Shadowfax, though she is his kin. She will be a faithful companion to you for decades – for they are more like companions than servants, the Mearas.

'You will have to give her up every now and then, though', he hurries to add, 'because we need her to foal if she will. There are not so many Mearas: we need all of them to breed to make sure that their race doesn't fade from Middle-earth.'

'Of course', Lothíriel says. She tries the name. 'Hrímfax. What does it mean?'

'Hrímfax', Éomer corrects her pronunciation. 'It means Frost-mane. She is a dapple grey, though she will most likely lighten to white in time. She is young still.'

'I look forward to meeting her.' Lothíriel smiles at him. 'Thank you, Éomer, for the gifts.'

Gathering her courage, she scoots closer to him on the bed and sets her hand on his arm and kisses him. She likes his kisses.

Éomer seems surprised at her advance but kisses her back at once, his hands going around her and into her hair that is truly a frightful mess, unbraided as it is.

He doesn't seem to mind it. As she licks into his mouth and holds onto his upper arms where they bulge delightfully with muscle, Lothíriel thinks that Guthild was certainly right about men liking to touch women's hair.

After a while Éomer takes his lips from hers to say, 'Kissing is better laying down', and pushes her gently to her back. He settles above her on all fours, looming over her and staring at her, and oh, isn't that a thing that makes warmth bloom between her legs.

He asks, 'How sore are you?' There is that certain glint in his eyes. 'We have hours still until we have any duties.'

Hours? That is a little intimidating, if he is implying what she thinks he is. 'A little sore', she admits. 'Not unbearably.'

Éomer's brows rise. 'If you were, I would have been a brute. But we must not make you any more sore. You have to manage the coronation ceremony and feast. It will be a long evening and night of celebration again.'

Somewhat to her surprise, Lothíriel feels a twinge of disappointment. It is silly, because Éomer is right. She will have to be in the centre of attention, the whole city of Edoras and all their wedding guests looking at her when Éomer crowns her his queen. It would not do to be wincing from pain when she kneels before him.

'But', Éomer says with a grin and a caress of her blanket-covered breast, 'there are still things we can do that will not make you markedly more sore which will be a very pleasant way to spend the morning.'

She suspects that these things may be some of the ones that aunt Ivriniel spoke to her about. They had sounded rather strange and intimidating and even shameful then, but here in the warm, crumpled bed and the heat of her husband's gaze, she wants to find out how exactly they work.

'Will you allow me to unwrap you?' Éomer's fingers are creeping beneath the blanket that covers her body, making her breath hitch.

She allows it.

She lets him bare her body to him again, and to kiss her breasts, and to spread her legs and touch her softly and then firmly between them until she makes desperate noises and closes her eyes under the weight of his gaze on her.

She lets him teach her how to touch the hardness between his legs so that it becomes ever harder and after a while of her touching it he, too, loses control of his voice and his pleasure. There is something… wonderful in managing to make him come undone with just strokes of her fingers around him. She kisses him on his shoulder and arms and chest while his breathing evens after he spills on her stomach, deciding not care about the unpleasantly cooling mess.

And then he wants to touch her again. He settles between her legs, kissing his way up her thighs, ticking her with his beard.

'One thing I must remember to say', Éomer says from between her thighs, as casually as if they were conversing at a dinner table. Lothíriel can barely bear to look at him there. 'Don't often make your hair as complicated as it was yesterday. I don't want your maid to undress you every night – it should be my pleasure – and I don't want to spend half the night untangling all those things from your hair either.'

Wondering if it is possible to die from blushing, or to ever stop blushing, Lothíriel nods. She wouldn't wear anything that complicated on ordinary days anyway.

Grinning and looking very satisfied with himself, Éomer puts his face between her legs and proceeds to make her gasp with embarrassment and whimper with desire and sob with pleasure.

He urges her to get a little more rest afterwards, reminding her – as if she didn't know – that this is the only day they can tarry in bed.

He lies down and pulls her to his side. She lays her head on his shoulder and he puts his arm around her, his finger splayed on her waist, and before she falls to sleep Lothíriel thinks that she could be very happy in this marriage.

Even her mother told her that mutual respect paired with mutual desire makes for a good partnership of spouses.

A/N: Tolkien wrote that the Mearas will carry only the king of the Mark and his sons, but I changed that to include queens and princesses as well. I try to be as canon-compliant as possible for the most part, but this is one detail I wanted to change.

The morning gift is an Anglo-Saxon custom: morgen-gifu. It is/was a custom of many other cultures, too.

There will be sequels but I'm not sure when as I am still working on the next one. You can subscribe to the series on AO3 to get an email notification when I post a new fic/chapter :)

#lord of the rings fanfiction #tolkien fanfiction #eomer #éomer #lothiriel #lothíriel #éothíriel #eothiriel #my fics #midyear's night #my éomer/lothíriel fics #elesianne's fics

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winchester-with-wings · 5 years

Text

Thief at Sea

Pairing: Newt Scamander x Witch!Reader

@yaviel-writes requested (a long time ago lol): Niffler steals stuff from the reader, who is also a witch

A/N: This is an older request that I finished a long time ago but never posted. You might notice a Titanic reference here or there hehehe Hope ya'll like it!

Word Count: 2700ish

This was posted a long time ago on my Patreon! Wanna get previews, early access and make exclusive requests? Become a Patron! You can follow my Patreon for free too! Can’t become a patron? please consider a donation to my Ko-Fi (Tips are appreciated, especially in this uncertain time)

Mobile Masterlist / Ko-Fi

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*gif found on google*

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Newt Scamander figured the likelihood of there being other witches and wizards on a ship bound for New York City was quite possible. Statistically, there must’ve been at least a few wizards amongst the hundreds of muggles aboard. But just as he kept to himself, so must they.

Three to four people were bunked in some of the boat’s rooms. Newt had been fortunate enough to afford a small but private room for him and his suitcase. He wasn’t about to risk the chance of a curious muggle opening his case when he wasn’t looking. Some wizards might not have been so lucky.

Still...Newt found the middle of the North Atlantic ocean to be quite a lonely place. He explored as much of the ship as was permitted, all the while carrying his suitcase with him. His creatures were restless as well. Though they had plenty of living space, they must’ve sensed the change in geography.

Newt visited them when he could, daring to enter his suitcase only when he was in his quarters with the door locked. His longing for land and sun was satiated by Frank’s enclosure. Caring for his young Occamys kept him busy and the Mooncalves needed feeding. And one morning, he checked on the Bowtruckles and found that Pickett had a cold. The small creature was now tucked into his coat pocket for body heat.

The niffler seemed especially susceptible to the world outside the suitcase. He could sense all of the worldly treasures people were travelling with. And if Newt had to guess, it was his niffler who kept popping the latch on his case and attempting to escape. Newt would just have to remain vigilant.

There was a multitude of fascinating people aboard this boat. You filled your days observing them all and basking on the sundeck. As a novelist, you had been looking forward to your ride to America, as much as the trip itself. The crowds and the opportunities for isolation were the perfect conditions to work on your characters and stories.

There were a few people you'd become quite infatuated with too.

A small girl with a pretty dress, large sun hat, and a doll. You'd imagined her to being an energetic little thing, an only child, perhaps a bit spoiled, the kind of girl who had tugged on her mum's hand until she'd relented and bought the hat.

A hearty bloke, rough around the edges, well-worn clothes and a scar here or there on his exposed arms. You would write him as a working man, a former soldier perhaps, in search of a woman and a better life in America.

A young couple with extravagant taste in clothing. The dark haired man looked happier than the red haired woman. You wrote them as arranged, betrothed for wealth and only one of them was happy about it. You imagined her to have a strong spirit and wandering eye. She'd exchanged looks with with a strapping lad, below her class. You hoped they fell in love and defied all the odds.

Another man who caught your attention seemed quite preoccupied with a suitcase. He was lovely to look at with tousled fiery hair and fair skin that had been speckled by sun exposure. He dressed well but they were worn. He looked like a traveller and the way he clutched that suitcase, he must live out of it.

What would drive a man to be so protective of his personal items? Wealth? Perhaps, but you had trusted your cabin to store all of your items. What could he possibly have to protect?

However, you had charmed your personal effects. No muggle...or wizard...could access them. Perhaps this man was a muggle? It was hard to tell. But surely there were other witches and wizards aboard.

The man with the suitcase took a stroll around the ship at the same time every day. At some point, he'd sit at a bench and rest the case on his lap. One of the latches popped open now and then but you never saw what was inside.

What if it was treasure? That was an intriguing thought. You wore your treasures (a locket and an opal ring) around your neck and on your finger, except for your grandmother's ruby ring. That was locked away, with a charm for good measure. No one would get their hands on it.

At least that's what you thought.

You were sharing cabin with a few other women. They seemed pleasant enough. Private yet hopeful for what awaited them in New York.

One of them called New York home and you revelled in every detail and recommendation she could offer you. Another was travelling with her family but they couldn't all fit in one cabin. She enjoyed the company of you and the other young ladies. The third was a girl with a sweet voice and tightly curled hair. She longed for the life of a New York girl; couldn't wait to attend parties wearing glitter and lipstick. She aspired to be an actress and you found her to be quite talented.

They didn't ask too much about you, which you preferred. You didn't want to elaborate on “Grew up outside of London and went to boarding school.” These girls were definitely muggles and they had no business knowing about Hogwarts.

One night, as the ship embarked ever closer to New York, there was a rustling in the cabin. One girl squealed and awoke you and the others.

“Rat!! Don't you hear it? Scurrying about?!”

The cabin remained dark as no one risked touching the floor and encountering the animal. You could hear it and if it was a rat, you weren't too concerned. Rats were common pets at Hogwarts. Yet you played the part of a frightened girl, sitting up in bed and curling your knees to your chest. One of the girls on the top bunk, tossed a shoe at the floor in an attempt to scare off the animal and she must've succeeded because the animal left the room, leaving you all wondering how it got in in the first place.

It was fortunate that you were the one who learned of the creature's true identity the next day. A muggle would've reacted differently.

The sun was bright today, beating down upon you in your several layers of clothing, which had served you well in London.

You took a respite in your cabin around noon. No one else was there as you changed outfits. But as you rifled through your own suitcase, you came to realize something was missing. Try as you might, your grandmother's ring was gone!

You searched the cabin high and low for the ring. It couldn't have left the room! And still you couldn’t find it. Hopeless and upset, you laid upon your bed, burying your face in your pillow.

At some point, you fell asleep. You’re not sure when you did but when you woke, there was a weight on your chest. It reminded you of your cat from Hogwarts and how he used to sleep on you. You thought it was just a dream but there was a tugging sensation at your neck that awoke you.

It happened so quickly, the way you startled as you realized that there was, in fact, something on top of you. You have the chance to either flail or freeze. You chose the latter. You opened your eyes slowly, straining your eyes to look down. It’s not as large as a cat but it’s alarming no matter what. At first glance, you’ve never seen anything like it.

You figured that the creature sitting on your chest--tugging at the locket around your neck--is not from the Muggle world. However, he did slightly resemble a platypus. He didn’t seem malicious but how were you to really know? Why did he have his little webbed paws clasped around your necklace? You tried to sit up slowly, a test to see if he could be scared off or if he’d stay in place. While he did slide down your body, the creature stayed put as best he could. The expression in his sparkling eyes was defiant as he yanked at your necklace.

“Give it to me!” he seemed to be communicating with each tug. You pried his little paws off of the gold pendant and chain and when that tether had been released, you set him down and jumped to your feet.

“You’re the little blighter that was in here last night, aren’t you?” you accused him--not that you expected him to answer. He only looked ashamed for half a second before something shiny caught his eye from across the room. He scurried off the bed towards your cabin mates’ belongings. “Bloody hell! Oh no you don’t!”

Like an uncoordinated cat after a mouse, you chased the creature around the cabin, not once coming close. As he stole a piece of jewelry and some money from one girl’s trunk, you pulled out your wand. He scurried across the room and before you could mutter a single word, the creature squeezed himself through the miniscule crack under the door.

If you doubted whether the creature was magical or not, that certainly answered your question.

“No!” You ran after him, throwing the door open and hoping for an empty hallway. He couldn’t go far on a ship in the middle of the ocean but still you couldn’t have him wandering around and stealing from people. How did he even get here?

As you rounded the corner of the narrow hallway, you risked whipping out your wand once more.

“Accio!” you hissed, exasperated. The creature was caught in your line of sight, susceptible to your charm. He surged into the air and then floated over to you where you suspended him for inspection. You watched as he slipped a coin into an invisible belly pouch. It was then that you realized what this creature was. “Ohhh, you…” you squinted at him, “where did you come from? Of all places to find you…”

The niffler tilted his head and just blinked at you. The corner of your mouth tilted up. He was rather cute, in an odd sort of way. With a flick of your wand, you pulled him closer to you, taking him into your embrace.

“Let’s get you back to my cabin, shall we? Don’t want any muggles to see you.” The niffler nuzzled into you, once again taking hold of your necklace. “If you stole my ring, I’m going to need that back,” you warned him.

The sound of shoes scuffing the floors brought you to the realization that someone else was in the corridor near your cabin. You glanced up to see the red-haired man you’d observed on the upper decks. He was on his hands and knees peeking around other cabin doors. He pulled that brown suitcase along with him as if he needed it nearby when he found what he’s looking for.

You’re about to turn around and hide the niffler when the man’s face lifted to look at you. Your back is to him.

“Oh um...excuse me…” he muttered quietly, getting to his feet. “I must be in your way. I’m terribly sorry. I was just…” He swatted at his coat and finally his gaze met yours as you turned around. “...looking for something…” his voice trailed off. His green eyes trained on the niffler.

“Does this little bugger belong to you?” You approached the man, coming closer to your own cabin.

“Erm, yes that’s my niff--”

“A niffler, yes.” The wizard breathed a sigh of relief at discovering you were a witch. “Were you smuggling this creature into the country?” you accused him, holding fast to the animal. The red-haired man, who’d yet to introduce himself, seemed shifty and unwilling to make eye contact.

“N--no no, absolutely not. I mean, technically, yes. But he was to accompany me on my travels. Never for sale,” he reassured you. “My name is Newt Scamander.” He introduced himself, extending a hand. You took it but not as a handshake.

“We should leave the corridor in case any muggles come by,” you suggested. You pulled Newt towards your cabin and checked to make sure that it was still empty before pushing him into the small space. You locked the door behind you. “Does he have a name?” you asked, holding up the creature that was snuggling into your neck.

“Erm...no...he’s--uh--just niffler.”

“Oh, well that’s boring,” you giggled. “Do you have several nifflers?” Mr. Scamander shook his head. “Well then, if he’s one of a kind in your collection, I should think he should have a name.”

“Y-yes, one of kind indeed,” he scowled at the creature. “And what about you? Surely someone like you must have a one of a kind name, as well?” Newt ventured to say and you thought it almost sounded like a compliment.

“Y/N, Y/N Y/L/N. Nice to meet you.” You shook his hand for real this time. “I was starting to think that if he was just a stowaway and no one was to claim him that I would take on the honor of naming your niffler.”

“What would you call him?”

“I’m thinking...Richard.”

Newt seemed to snort and scoff at the same time. His smile was a crooked one, tilting up on one side when he looked at you with those green eyes.

“I’m--I’m sorry. Richard? Why, might I ask?”

“Well, for several reasons. One: Richard is a very dignified name. Second: Richie the Pickpocket has a nice ring to it and third...well stealing priceless heirlooms from people is a bit of a dick move. Don’t ya think?” you asked as you tried to hold up the niffler and put him on display. Newt grinned.

“I suppose. Though, I see he hasn’t taken your necklace. Not for lack of trying,” he admitted. He started to detach the animal from your necklace and take him into his own arms. The platypus looking creature squirmed.

“Yes, well he did take my grandmother's ruby ring and that’s a problem. Do you know how to get it back?”

“Yes, unfortunately I have too much experience with that.” Newt took the niffler but the foot and hung him upside down. You squeaked, out of concern, but Newt smiled at you for reassurance. With his deft fingers, he started to tickle the creature’s tummy.

Countless items started to fall out of his invisible pouch! All things shiny! Jewelry and coin currency mostly. You imagined he’d be quite the desired tool for criminals looking to make money. Newt didn’t seem surprised, nor interested in the money. Still holding onto his creature under his arm, Newt searched through the pile of treasures until he found the only ruby ring.

“I’ve found it!” he boasts, kneeling before you on one knee. He presents the ring to you and for a moment, the scene before you is eerily similar to a proposal.

You accept your heirloom.

“Thank you so much! I don’t know what I would’ve done if I’d lost it forever.”

Newt put the niffler on the ground but still had a hold of him by the tail. He kept control of the animal while the niffler cleaned up the mess of shiny objects which had spilled like a golden waterfall. He stashed it all away in that pouch again and you couldn't think of an unethical reason for why he couldn’t do so. The little thief probably always had a stash.

Once Richie, the pickpocketing niffler, had cleaned up his mess, Newt brandished his large, old, leather suitcase. He opened it up and shoved the niffler inside, locking it quickly.

“What do you do for a living, Mr. Scamander?” you asked as the two of you left your cabin for the main deck.

“Oh, well uh, I study magical creatures. I’m writing a guide on how to care for them.” There’s a twinkle of passion in his eyes.

“Of course you are,” you grin. “I imagine there’s to be an entire chapter on your niffler?” you teased.

“Yes, you are quite right.”

“I’d love to learn more. If you’d happen to be available during our passage to New York, perhaps we could further discuss it?”

“Oh, yes. There’s much I can tell you. And maybe even show you?”

Your eyes drifted to his suitcase. There must’ve been more than one magical creature stowed away on this trip to America.

#newt scamander #newt scamander x reader #newt x reader #newt scamander imagine #newt scamander fanfiction #newt scamander fluff #fbawtft #fantastic beasts and where to find them #my writing #eddie redmayne #harry potter #wizarding world #niffler

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papermoonloveslucy · 4 years

Text

THE WONDER SHOW

1938-1939

“The Wonder Show” radio program was so named because it was sponsored by Wonder Bread, which at the time was made by Continental Baking Company, who also made Hostess Cakes. Wonder Bread is a brand of bread which originated in the United States in 1921 and was one of the first to be sold pre-sliced nationwide in 1930. This led to the popular phrase "the greatest thing since sliced bread". The brand is currently owned by Flowers Foods in the United States.

Before becoming “The Wonder Show” it was previously known as “Log Cabin Jamboree”, sponsored by Log Cabin Syrup. Like “The Wonder Show” “Log Cabin Jamboree” was helmed by Jack Haley, but without his ‘wonder woman’ Lucille Ball and ‘Wonderful’ announcer Gale Gordon.

It began broadcasting on Friday, October 14, 1938, at 7:30pm and aired its final broadcast on April 7, 1939.

It was hosted by Jack Haley, best remembered as the Tin Man in the The Wizard of Oz. Two weeks after “The Wonder Show” went on the air, Fox told Haley they were loaning him out to MGM, who needed a last-minute replacement for Buddy Ebsen in The Wizard of Oz. Ebsen, originally cast as the Tin Man, had been hospitalized with an allergic reaction to the aluminum-based make-up, and Metro was forced to replace him. For the next several months, Haley found himself filming an epic MGM fantasy musical by day, and working with his radio writers by night. He finished his scenes in the film in mid-January 1939 and celebrated by incorporating a Wizard of Oz sketch into the January 20th episode (#15) of “The Wonder Show.”

"That was quite a winter. By the time we did the show Friday night, I was physically exhausted. Emotionally, however, I was very satisfied. I loved doing that radio show."

Regular cast included singer Virginia Verrill (above with Haley and Lucy), Lucille Ball, comedian Artie Auerbach, and Ted Fio Rita and His Orchestra. Gale Gordon was the announcer. While many believed that Gordon and Ball’s association only went back as far as 1948, “The Wonder Show” deepens that relationship by a decade.

Lucy spent much of 1937-38 radio season as a regular on Phil Baker's “Gulf Headliner” series on CBS. Lucy reportedly enjoyed doing "The Wonder Show”. She credited it, along with her other early radio appearances, for helping her with her acting career.

"[Radio] gave me a name in the trade as a good feminine foil. I could flip a comedy line, which a lot of actresses couldn't do. In radio I couldn't depend upon props or costumes or makeup; I had to rely on timing and tone of voice for comic effects, and this was invaluable training."

At the time Gordon was 32 years old, recently married and had just starting to grow his trademark mustache. He was in such demand that he often did two or more radio shows in a day.

"Luckily, the studios were nestled along Sunset Boulevard or in a nearby theater, so we could shuttle rather quickly back and forth from one broadcast to another."

During the first episode of “The Wonder Show”, Haley spoke briefly about his current movie release, Alexander's Ragtime Band, starring Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, and Ethel Merman. He also mentioned Lucy's RKO films Room Service, The Affairs of Annabel, and Having Wonderful Time.

Other weekly guests included Dizzy Dean, Joan Bennett, Reginald Gardiner, and Oliver Hardy.

EPISODES

Episode #1 - October 14, 1938 - “Pepe Sacola Haley, Jewel Thief” [Premiere; introduces a series of weekly Haley Family Album sketches]

Episode #2 - October 21, 1938 - “Pony Bill Haley” [A forum entitled "Should a woman have a career?" Lucille Ball explored this theme on “I Love Lucy” in “Job Switching.”]

Episode #3 - October 28, 1938 - “Little Lord Fauntleroy Haley" [pre-empted in some areas for an address by President Roosevelt]

Episode #4 - November 4, 1938 - “Gaucho Haley”

Episode #5 - November 11, 1938 - “Julius Caesar Haley”

Episode #6 - November 18, 1938 - “Elephant Boy Haley”

Episode #7 - November 25, 1938 - “Sergeant O'Haley of the Northwest Mounted Police”

Episode #8 - December 2, 1938 - “The Hatfields and The McHaleys”

Episode #9 - December 9, 1938 - “Super Detective 'Wonder' Haley - The Secrets of the French Police or Where Did They Get Those Post Cards?”

Episode #10 - December 16, 1938 - “Colonel Jack Haley and Sea Cookie”

Episode #11 - December 23, 1938 - “Super Sleuth 'Wonder' Haley - Murder in the Sweater Department or Much Ado About Knitting” [The subtitle “Much Ado About Knitting” was later used on “I Love Lucy” in “Lucy Writes A Play”]

Episode #12 - December 30, 1938 - “Francois Villon Haley, The Pugnacious Poet of Paris”

Episode #13 - January 6, 1939 - “Captain Haley of the Marines”

Episode #14 - January 13, 1939 - “Haunted House” [Friday the 13th]

Episode #15 - January 20, 1939 - “Jack Haley the Clown: The Murder of the Bearded Lady”

Episode #16 - January 27, 1939 - “Jesse James Haley”

Episode #17 - February 3, 1939 - “The Czar of Russia”

Episode #18 - February 10, 1939 - “Gone With the American Revolution” [Lind Hayes, impersonator, imitates the voices of Lionel Barrymore, Gary Cooper, Fred Allen and others.]

Episode #19 - February 17, 1939 [Lucille Ball introduces a new character; Jack Haley's tough, sassy little niece, a sort of "Dead End Girl".]

Episode #20 - February 24, 1939 - “The Amazing Dr Jitterbug or A Scar Is Born” [A hunting lodge-themed episode]

Episode #21 - March 3, 1939 - “The Amazing Dr Jitterbug or A Scar Is Born” [Chicago Cubs baseball player Dizzy Dean guest stars]

Episode #22 - March 10, 1939 - [Actress Joan Bennett guest stars]

Episode #23 - March 17, 1939 - [Comedian Hugh Herbert guest stars]

Episode #24 - March 24, 1939 - “Paul Revere Haley” [Actor Reginald Gardiner guest stars; Lucille Ball later played Mrs. Paul Revere on “The Jack Benny Program” in 1964.]

Episode #25 - March 31, 1939 -“On the Trail of the Lonesome Crime” [Oliver Hardy guest stars. On a 1966 episode of “The Lucy Show” Gale Gordon - as Mr. Mooney - was hypnotized into being Oliver Hardy to Lucy’s Stan Laurel.]

Episode #26 - April 7, 1939 - “Local Boy Makes Good” [series finale]

On March 29, 1938, Ed Sullivan’s newspaper column announced that Artie Auerbach would be marrying young actress Cleo Manning (later Cleo Morgan then Smith). Manning made her screen debut being kissed by Clark Gable in the 1941 film Honky Tonk. Cleo Manning's cousin, Lucille Ball, interceded in the marriage, because Manning was not of age. They were at the license bureau when Ball persuaded them to wait. Auerbach and Manning were married at a later date. Cleo was producer of “Here’s Lucy” and “Lucy in London”.

Also in 1938, Lucy’s friend and fellow film actress Ann Sothern was also promoting Wonder Bread. Sothern was appearing in a Wonder Bread-sponsored radio show titled “Pretty Kitty Kelly” on CBS.

After “The Wonder Show” finished on April 7, 1939, Lucy was still cranking out films doing more than 25 screen appearances before being cast as Liz Cooper in radio’s “My Favorite Husband” (also starring Gale Gordon), the series that led to “I Love Lucy” and her place in television history. Although she initially wanted to take Gordon with her to television as a regular, his schedule and salary demands made it impossible so William Frawley was cast instead. Although he made several guest appearances on Ball’s shows, it wasn’t until 1963 that the two became a team again.

[The author is indebted to The Digital Deli Too for their “Wonder Show” web page as well as Thomas J. Watson’s Lucy Fan webpage about “The Wonder Show.”]

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littlemisssquiggles · 5 years

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Pinehead Headcanons: Oscar’s Royal Roots

Once more, hear me out with this one folks:

Playing off of ideas from the Marvellous Land of Oz, in that story, Princess Ozma was the daughter of King Pastoria of Oz who was given to the witch of the north Mombi by the Wizard of Oz. As the daughter of the former king, Ozma was the heir to the throne of Oz but Mombi transformed Ozma into a boy named Tip and raised her as her slave with Tip having no recollection of being a girl.

It was Glinda the Good Witch of the North that forced Mombi to reverse her spell, transforming Tip back into Ozma so that she may be crowned the rightful ruler of Oz.

From some of the musings and Pinehead headcanons I’ve shared, you guys can probably tell that this squiggle meister is an advocate for seeing more elements of the Wizard of Oz stories incorporated into RWBY’s narrative, particularly for Oscar’s side of things. That being said, I was thinking I could use these same story points from the Marvellous Land of Oz story to help forge another new Pinehead headcanon for Oscar.

Last time; I addressed ideas for Oscar’s parentage, I shared a theory that Oscar's mother could possibly be a General in the Atlesian Army. You can read the full post right here. Consider this an expansion of said theory.

What if…Oscar’s mother or at least one of his parents will draw inspiration from King Pastoria from the Marvellous Land of Oz? Imagine if…Oscar Pine, similar to Princess Ozma, is of royalty or at least the closest thing to royalty by Remnant standards.

Right now, the closest thing to monarchs in RWBY are the members of the ruling council for each respective kingdoms. In Vale, we caught a glimpse of the Vale Council during the events of V2. The Council consisted of three members. So let's say it's the same for Atlas. Three seats on the Atlesian Council.

We know General Ironwood holds two of these seats, as mentioned in V4. So let's say, whoever has the final seat is the Head of Atlesian Council as its First Chair.

For the sake of this theory, I'm going to refer to this character as Head Councilman Pastoria since I'm basing them off of their Oz counterpart.

Councilman Pastoria is currently the key 'ruler' of Atlas Kingdom as the head of its leading council. However Pastoria has a secret.

Long before being appointed as the Head of the Atlesian Council, Pastoria was part of the Atlesian military. That’s how they became affiliated with Ironwood.

I like the idea of Pastoria being the child of whoever was the head chairman of the Atlas Council who eventually retired from the council or passed away with Pastoria inheriting the position. I like the idea of Pastoria, being the child of a council leader, being groomed from childbirth to be involved in the politics and government of Atlas but still making the affirmed decision to join the military. Because despite being born into politics, Pastoria still desired a life outside of such the lifestyle they were bred in, you understand.

I even like the thought of Pastoria seeing the military as a way of forming their own identity since them being the child of a politician came with its fair share of responsibilities and burdens. Pastoria was constantly compared to their councilman father and held under a microscope to be judged by everyone for every action they made which wasn’t in accord with what their father wanted for them. Basically Pastoria’s was constantly told that their actions reflected heavily on, not just his father and the Council but also the People of Atlas. It was a rather suffocating type of life. All the more reason why Pastoria desired to depart from it and saw the military as their ticket out in a sense.

So Pastoria became a solider and a very good one to be precise. After all, they were the child of the Head Councilman so one could only expect greatness. I’m not sure how the Atlas Military works in Remnant but I’d like to think that once the soldiers reach a certain rank they can choose which military base in another kingdom to be deployed to. So Pastoria chose Mistral…or at least their controlling councilman father pulled some strings to ensure that Pastoria didn’t stray too far from Atlas and out of his reach. At least Mistral shared good intercontinental relations with Atlas so there was that.

Anyways to make this long explanation short, Pastoria is begrudgingly deployed to Mistral. Since RWBY made Ozma a genderbent version of the original Oz character in the Lost Fable, so to speak, I’m going to make my Councilman Pastoria character a woman. A leading lady at the Head of the Atlesian Council to keep up with my solider mom concept.

While in Mistral, Pastoria met the love of her life. A farm boy living on his family farm with his older sister and her husband (in case the CRWBY decide to go with Aunt Em being young). His name was Theodore Pine---my fanon name for Oscar’s papa. Pastoria and Theodore fell hopelessly in love and made plans to settle down and have a family together in Mistral. Despite her soldier duties and political ties to Atlas, Pastoria was more than ready to leave it all behind to start things anew with her Theodore. Especially following the conception of their son. Their little prince.

However things take an unexpected turning point when Pastoria is forced to return home. Her father, the former Head of the Council unfortunately passed during Pastoria's estranged absence and as his only child and heir, the one who was formerly being groomed to take his seat on the Council, Pastoria is elected as her father’s replacement.

This creates a complication in her relationship with Theodore. Let’s just say that no one else besides the Council knew of Pastoria’s alleged affair (that’s what they termed the relationship) with the lower class Mistrali Theodore. Nor did they know of their child together and thus, it was advised that Pastoria kept it that way.

To play off of the Marvellous Land of Oz, I like the idea of their being a Mombi character. Someone who was probably an advisor to Pastoria’s father and was the one who urged her to relinquish all ties she had with Theodore Pine for the sake of keeping up appearances. Something about avoiding a scandal in the political world for when Pastoria makes her return home.

So long story short, Pastoria breaks things off with Theodore and reluctantly leaves their baby boy---little Oscar in the care of his father.

In a similar fashion to Tip, I really like the idea of Oscar being raised oblivious to the truth about his Atlesian royal roots through his mother’s side. At least, the closest thing to royalty in Altas as the son of its head councilman.

This is another way to pull elements from the Marvellous Land of Oz to help mould Oscar's side of the story.

Up until V6 in RWBY, Oscar has basically more or less been dancing to the beat of Ozpin's (technically Ozma’s) drum with very little leeway to deviate and form his own individual story. Despite the Writers insinuating that he’s supposed to have one.

I'm hoping this is changed for V7; as alluded to by Kerry Shawcross which I'm holding him to.

I really would love to see some characters inspired by the Marvellous Land of Oz as part of Oscar's side of things.

Mombi, Pumpkinhead (and maybe Sawhorse too), General Jinjur, Tippetarius and now Pastoria. I really would love to see RWBY versions of them for Oscar's story in Atlas.

I've already shared concepts for how Mombi, General Jinjur and Tip can be incorporated. And of course, there's my Pumpkinhead idea. Still love my robot Pumpkinhead (Atlesian Battle Droid PMKN-4340) headcanon.

Now I got Pastoria. Not sure if we'll actually see this done for V7. Buuuuut....a squiggle meister can hope, right? It’s definitely going on my V7 Bingo Card wish list.

I just really, really like the thought of Oscar's story for V7 being him getting in touch with who he really is and who he destined to become in more ways than one.

We know he has the Merge with Oz that’s on his mind. However I also like the idea of Oscar having identity crisis issues before he met Oz. Like being raised by only one of his parents and a family who kept the identity of his other parent a secret from him for most of his life. Just like Tip/Ozma.

A potential Pastoria character can provide an excellent driver to explore Oscar's past and who he saw himself as WITHOUT it being all about Ozpin for a change. Forgive me folks but after three seasons, I’ve kind of grown tired of Oscar’s story always revolving around Ozpin or Ozma’s side of things without much exploration of his own story. Is he his own person or not, CRWBY Writers?

This is a decent way to play into Oscar’s side of things. Imagine if... all of his life, Oscar has been told he's like someone else. Like growing up in Mistral with his dad and his family, Oscar was told that despite looking like a spitting image of his dad, he was becoming more like his mother every day in terms of personality. However this statement would always confuse Oscar since he never knew the type of woman his mother was beyond what his family told him.

Then while with the heroes in Mistral, Oscar is expected to be more like Ozpin or Ozma. This is emphasized even more when he finally meets Ironwood who starts to grill him on that expectation of him.

And lastly, in the event of this theory being true and Oscar learns that his mother is a ruling party in Atlas, he has even more expectations placed on him since as the son of the Councilman he is expected to behave a certain way and adhere to certain regulations in keeping up with the political lifestyle. Something Oscar’s farm bred backstory never prepared him for and of course, he struggles. With all of it.

This can also be an interesting way to have Oscar bond with Weiss. Weiss was bred in such an aristocratic life but ultimately left. Oscar, on the other hand, was raised outside of said regime and is suddenly being tossed into it while getting to know his mother. He is expected to adjust quickly in order to impress or please his mother (and the Council) but he struggles with all of it.

Perhaps with this kind of plot, we can see Weiss developing a brother and sister bond with Oscar by using her previous life with her family to show him the ropes. This can then lead to Weiss unlocking memories of her past with her brother Whitley when the two used to get along. That could be really interesting. But who knows?

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

#rwby #oscar pine #rwby theories #rwby volume 7 theories #pinehead headcanons #squiggles pinehead headcanons

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