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saturnrevolution · 4 years ago

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Understand your mercury sign ☿️

Aries Mercury ☿️

The way you think: you are quick-minded and you have a million things you want to do in your head, but because of that you might start some and never really finish them. However, that doesn't matter to you as long as you can move on to the next thing. You can connect the fast thinking mind with the physical world, so you always need to act on your ideas and thoughts to feel productive.

The way you speak: even if you might not be able to express your thoughts as good as you wish, as you can easily get distracted and feel like your words are sometimes child-like when you put them out, you have a great ability of leading through your words. Whenever you are in a good mood and you speak, there's so much enthusiasm and motivation in you that others get that energy as well. You might prefer expressing yourself through action or movement.

The way you learn: You learn best when you combine information with fun and directly through action. If you had to read a manual before crafting something, you'd rather just do the work and figure it out on the way. However, just as fast as you understand any concept you're learning, you also might forget it to make room for new things.

Taurus Mercury ☿️

The way you think: you might be thinking a lot about ways to improve yourself in terms of your job, your income or your self worth, so you always find solutions that get you closer to your goals. You might sometimes get stuck on certain ideas and you tend to not give up unless you do it your way. You think about your loved ones often and how to keep yourself and them happy.

The way you speak: you have a strong endurance when it comes to communicating, so you are able to listen clearly to others and be there for them in a practical way. When there's a subject that you highly resonate it, you can get stuck on some ideas in your head. When that happens, you have strong opinions and you speak honestly, without really caring of what others think.

The way you learn: you learn really quickly when you encounter a subject that you are passionate about. However, when you have to learn something new out of obligation you either procrastinate a lot or you learn it like a robot, then forget it all. You might sometimes feel like you process information slower than others, as you like to take your time and feeling rushed or pushed makes you close off a lot.

Gemini Mercury ☿️

The way you think: you are full of ideas and information, so there's never really a break to your brain. Sometimes you can find yourself remembering things that you did not know you ever memorized and it seems like your head has layers to it. You might also find that your way of thinking is often split into two ideas, two plans and sometimes find it difficult to choose from them.

The way you speak: you speak with a natural flow, you can speak for hours about any possible subject, as you have an infinite source of information coming and going. You might sometimes find it difficult to express your emotions as effectively as you wish in the moment, but when it comes to expressing ideas or generating solutions you are always reactive. You might be good at small talk, even if you are not a social person.

The way you learn: you are able to learn facts and to memorize information quite easily, sometimes you can surprise others with remembering the small details. You also learn really well through associating some subject to something you knew before, this helps you make complex connections. Debates are something that helps you memorize things better as well, there's nothing like a good talk on your hobbies.

Cancer Mercury ☿️

The way you think: even if you realize it or not, you often think about the other before your own, about what they need and what you can say in order to make the person feel integrated. This is because your way of thinking combines the mind with emotions and it turns thoughts into something more tangible, it connects it with feelings. That's why you might sometimes be feeling something intuitively before you actually start thinking about it.

The way you speak: you speak from a space of empathy, but you do not share all the information. You might say how you feel more easily than others, but you do it only when you feel safe enough with the person you are talking to and this gives a bit of a mystery to your speech. When you do open up and speak your emotions, they might come attached to the way you feel in that moment - with enthusiasm if excited or with tears if sad.

The way you learn: you learn best when you feel safe, you first have to make sure that you had a good meal and good sleep and that everything is all right in your life in order to be able and detach to learn something new. Your mood affects your learning abilities, but you always manage to finalize the things that are significant to you.

Leo Mercury ☿️

The way you think: you might not be stuck in your head as much, because you usually act on things quite quick. This makes you quite decisive and sometimes you can come off as dominant. Your thinking is usually quite empathic and you always try to figure out what you can do to contribute even more to your growth.

The way you speak: you likely have leadership qualities when it comes to your speech. Even if you consider yourself an introvert or not - you have this power to get the attention on you when you express your opinions. That is because you have confidence in your words and you know how to articulate them. You might sometimes go overboard and say some things that you don't mean, as this fire energy gives you an impulse to speak your mind. Self expression is important to you, so you likely communicate more by focusing on your hobbies and taking action, rather than just aimless words.

The way you learn: you learn best by yourself or within a group of people, you likely have a person to go to for whatever it is that you need and you can work together in order to reach your goals. When learning, you usually focus on the bigger picture and do not like to get lost in the details.

Virgo Mercury ☿️

The way you think: you are a deep thinker, but your thoughts are always practical, as problem solving comes naturally to you. Most of the times you think in a very logical way and you pay attention to the details in your environment - maybe so much so that you are able to anticipate other people's steps. You have a rich inner world and no one really knows how many thoughts go through your head everyday.

The way you speak: you speak honestly and directly, you are great at giving advice and that is one of the ways that you show the other person you care. This can sometimes make you seem rather critical, but in reality you are trying to help. People come to you when looking to solve a problem.

The way you learn: you learn best by writing things down, by making lists, by decluttering the place and by making sure that everything is in place whenever you work on something. The environment you are in can influence your ability to learn a lot and you usually are scared of making mistakes. You know yourself very well, so I am sure that you have in mind a way that works for you personally in terms of learning lol.

Libra Mercury ☿️

The way you think: you might be thinking a lot and most of the times your thoughts are not being expressed as much as you wish, as you always want to make sure that the other person feels appreciated by you. You have a mind that's set on fairness - understanding others behind the surface is something that keeps you thinking. This is why, you might have conflicting thoughts at times, as you would rather not choose between two things than make a choice and have it not be the right one or have it upset someone and create an imbalance.

The way you speak: you have a way with words - you are a great storyteller. You feed yourself through communication and you are great at making sweet compliments. No one does that anymore, right? You feel as if there's not enough support in the world and you want to be the one that makes a difference.

The way you learn: you again learn best through conversation - there's something about saying things out loud into a story that helps you memorize them better. Also, reading is something you might be enjoying or something that helps you while learning. Any subject that you find truly beautiful will get your attention and your engagement.

Scorpio Mercury ☿️

The way you think: you are grounded in your thinking, you enjoy being present and going about your everyday life to make sure that things are under control. You tend to overthink the things that get that spark going in you, you think about it all the time and you let it consume you and that's how you know how important it is to you. There's also a lot of feeling attached to your thinking - you may find yourself being affected by bad things happening in the world and isolate yourself. You like being by yourself though, in your thoughts.

The way you speak: there's a slight sarcasm when you communicate, but each word you say always has a hidden meaning to it, even if you realize it or not. You feel things intensely, but you do not show your feelings through your words very often, as you believe that feelings are not suppose to be spoken, but just felt.

The way you learn: when it comes to a subject you are passionate about, you become obsessed with it. You need to know all about it and you are great at research. Even for the more taboo subjects you will find information on. Sometimes people around you have no idea about some subjects that you are really passionate about.

Sagittarius Mercury ☿️

The way you think: your thinking is quite philosophical, you might be thinking about your place in this world a lot or you might be having strong morals and opinions. You are a believer and whatever that is that you believe in, you are all in it. You like seeing things from a more detached perspective and you never take everything as seriously as everyone does. You like exploring with your mind and seeing where your brain can go, but you don't analyze your behaviors all that much, you just live.

The way you speak: you speak with fire in your soul, you like debates and even heated arguments about concepts of the mind, the world, but when it comes to serious debates about yourself or another - you might feel like backing down. You think it's a waste of time to be speaking on negative emotions and you always stand up when you feel like your freedom is being attacked. You usually have a positive speech.

The way you learn: you learn through reading, you learn through experiencing things, you learn though traveling, you learn through storytelling. Anything that seems cool at the present moment will be what you decide to spend your time learning about, but you don't get too deep into details.

Capricorn Mercury ☿️

The way you think: you know your potential really well, even if you don't show it. This is why, you always think about how to reach that potential faster and how to advance in your career. You are actually quite sensitive deep down, so you might sometimes find yourself getting busy in order to ignore some emotions, but you cannot ignore thinking about them forever, so you eventually let your guard down.

The way you speak: you speak in a very thought-out and controlled way. You are the type of person that says things only when you have enough knowledge on the subject and if you feel like you need to learn more on it, you inform yourself. You like talking clearly and effectively and there's not really gossip involved in your talking, as you like focusing on yourself and don't have time for drama.

The way you learn: you learn best by making systems in your head. Firstly, you identify the time of day/modality that works best for you while learning and then you build up your own way. You are a constant learner of the things that help you get closer to your goals and that have to do with your career path. You learn well through courses, apps or any other tool you find interesting.

Aquarius Mercury ☿️

The way you think: your thinking is quite chaotic, as you might be thinking of something today and then change your mind tomorrow. You sometimes find your mind to be working differently than everyone else's, as you process information in your own unique way. Also, you tend to overthink your emotions a lot instead of just feeling them right at the moment.

The way you speak: you speak from a place of truth most of the times and if that means saying something that might be totally against the belief system of the group you are in, that's also okay, You love having a community or a group to chat to and exchange ideas, thoughts about the future and ways that you can improve yourself everyday.

The way you learn: you learn best through creativity, you probably have your own way of learning already or you will one day invent one. You either work better in a group environment or by yourself, there's no in between and sometimes when you know that the thing you learn about has a purpose and can help yourself or others in the future you give more attention to it.

Pisces Mercury ☿️

The way you think: sometimes you feel like you think so much that you create your own bubble and get disconnected with the world. For you, your mind is a place to go to when you want to escape and it's so imaginative and full of color that it sometimes feels like it's more fun than the actual world...which is true.

The way you speak: you speak poetically on a good day and you ramble on a bad day. You might have obstacles when speaking, just because you can never seem to put into words the intense emotions you feel through your brain. So, sometimes you might be wanting to say something and then when you do say it, it comes out as something else. However, there's this bubbly, sweet and supportive way of speaking to you, as you are good at being there for others through speech.

The way you learn: you learn best when you connect the words with your imagination, so let's say that you want to learn about mythology - you view yourself as being one of the characters or you imagine how their world looks like, feels like and sounds like. It's a whole painted picture when you put your mind to it.

#mercury #posted #signs #zodiac #aries #taurus #gemini #cancer #leo #virgo #astrology #likes #follow #selfie

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script-nef · 4 years ago

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Confession in the moonlight | Gojou Satoru

Category: fluff

2.2k words; Hatsumoude date [6/6]

Happy New Year everyone!

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Bells and chatter are almost deafening even this late into the night. Families and friends are gathering here, mingling and pushing against each other in the narrow path leading up to the shrine. There are so many carts lined up on the sides, owners screaming their products and shouting over another.

And you're walking through the crowd with the one person who you want to avoid the most in the world.

Thanks to the event which is now dubbed "The Alcohol Incident That Can Never Happen Again", you learned about a couple of things in the following days.

First, alcohol is the enemy. This is ironclad and nothing will ever shift your opinion on it. Alcohol. Is. The. Enemy. None of it will ever touch your lips again.

Second, you discovered what type of a drunk you are. The clingy, bubbly one who has the misfortune of remembering practically everything that happened. Worst combination ever. Because your brain wants you to die from embarrassment. The only plus is that you don't feel like throwing up and you don't have headaches. Whatever Gojou fed you worked wonders.

Just thinking his name makes you want to slam your head into a wall.

Facing him again after that has proven to be a challenge. The memory of what happened on that day intrudes every time you see his face and then you have to take a break to calm down. Faking ignorance and acting as though you remember nothing from the night was your choice. Which was a bad choice since you’re not known for your acting skills and you also have the misfortune of wearing your heart on your sleeve. Which brings on the next problem.

Third, you… seem to have feelings for Gojou. The romantic kind. Like, the boyfriend-girlfriend kind. When you woke up the next day, it was probably the most clear your mind had been in months. Alcohol is a confusing drink. Still, you're never going to go near it again. Making a fool out of yourself once is enough.

Lastly, perhaps most importantly, you basically confessed to him. While drunk. And then went to sleep.

Sitting up in bed the morning after, hair everywhere and jacket still on, you did an analysis.

It's like a typical light novel cliché. A guy and a girl, co-workers or something like that, comfortable with each other, hangs out all the time, one major event or couple of minor events happens, the girl falls in love with the guy or vice-versa, confession and then happy ending.

It all kind of made sense with your new, alcohol-cleaned brain. The fluttering feelings, the spike in heart rate, the uncontrollable blushing and noticing physical contact more. There’s a reason why he’s so comfortable to be around, why you practically entrusted your life in his hands. And you literally said to him once, you think in the movie theatre, that he would make a good boyfriend. To his face. Who says that? Embarrassment turns into self loathing. It makes you wonder how you didn’t notice it last time.

With this new shocking revelation, you didn’t know what to do. Confess? If there is even the slightest bit of chance he doesn’t like you back and rejects you, life will be hell to live. Because you live in the same goddamn place, work together and all of your friends are his friends.

So two options. Three outcomes. One: you confess and he accepts and everything is fine. Ideal. Two: you confess and he rejects you and so you leave the place, never come back again and work in a farm halfway across the world by changing your identity. That sounded reasonable enough. Three: you don’t confess and somehow act naturally around him. This has problems because, again, you wear your heart on your sleeve. It’s still very tempting. More so than the second one. This is perhaps the most difficult decision you’ve made in your life.

So you turned to the one person you can vent this kind of thing on. Shouko. Who looked at you like you were either stupid or dense. Maybe both. Definitely both. It was quite amazing what she could express while moving the least amount of facial muscles.

“So… yeah. I think I like Gojou and I don’t know which of the options I should take. Help me?”

She just stared at you. With a deadpan face that has all the stress and exasperation in the world. You pride yourself in being able to read other’s faces quite easily. Rubbing her fingers over her eyes and groaning for a bit, she eventually took her phone out and dialled a number. The line rang for a bit.

“Ijichi? You owe me 10,000 yen.” Clicking off the phone even before hearing a response, Shouko turned her focus back to you. “You seriously don’t know?”

“Don’t know what? What was the phone call about?”

“That he likes you? That’s he’s insufferable because of that? You seriously don’t know?” She inched closer and closer until her face was right in front of yours. Shouko is seriously scary when she’s angry, like a sleeping lion. And you just somehow poked her. “Look at me in the eyes. You seriously never realised?”

“Um, what?”

“The dates. Remember when I couldn’t go to the movie for Howl because someone came in? I immediately gave it to him because I owed him a favour and he wanted to spend time with you. The time he went shopping with you by flying. Do you know why he offered that in the first place?”

“I mean, it was getting late… And I was in a bad mood so— oh.”

“Yeah. Oh. Do you get it now?”

“So then… the dinner, that was also…”

“A date.” Sighing, she sits back on the sofa, letting her head drop onto the backrest. Thoughts jumble inside your head, all of them slowly clicking into place.

“Wait, so. He likes me?”

Annoyed moans are her response as she thuds her head into the furniture. Something along the lines of “Why me.” could be heard.

“So him inviting me to hatsumoude today is also a date?” Her hand waves lazily in the air.

“Yes, it is. Tell me you accepted.” You nodded, then realised that she can’t see from her position.

“I did. I can’t really say no to him.” She makes a gagging sound.

“Good. Finally. So just confess to him then. He’ll accept, you’ll be happy, he’ll be happy, and we’ll all finally be free.”

“Free of what.”

“Your denseness.” She snaps, sitting back up. Fire burns in her irises. “It’s like the Chinese story, the one with the shield and the spear. You’re the shield, oblivious to every single one of his advances and he’s the spear, never giving up. And we’re the spectators who are bored and tired. So dress up in your prettiest clothes and go.”

And that’s why you’re walking up the steps to the shrine, swaddled in clothing. Gojou is right next to you, enjoying mochi he bought from somewhere and humming. He’s humming while you’re having one of the worst crises of your life. God, you envy his ability to keep cool.

Making every effort to keep calm and not look move your head in his general direction, you finally arrive at the bell. The sound resonates clearly into the night. Coins clink into the offering box. Two bows, two claps, pray, one bow. Your wish is the same as always, with one more sentence. Gojou copies you, mochi finished and trash discarded.

The way down is much easier, your heart a little lighter. Maybe the rest of the night will be fine.

This is a delusion and you realise it as soon as Gojou opens his mouth.

“What did you wish for?” His voice cuts through the commotion, nudging for your attention. You flinch a bit at the closeness but try to regain your composure. If he saw it, he doesn’t comment on it.

“I—I wished for everyone I love to survive the fight with Sukuna and have a peaceful retirement. Especially Ken-chan.” In actuality, you did wish for that but also for a way to confess. He doesn’t need to know that yet. Your voice trembles a bit, betraying you.

“You do know that saying it out loud negates the wish right?” There’s a delighted tone in his voice, like he’s happy he baited you. How is a person this childish? And what does that say about you, the person who likes him? A hand ruffles your head before you have a chance to lament your heart. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure your wish comes true.” Your heart thumps.

It’s so unfair how he always knows what to say. It’s so unfair that it’s having this kind of effect on you. Your earlobes grow hot and you scramble to find a reply.

“What did you wish for then?” He shifts his head to look at you. “Yeah, I know. It won’t come true if you say it out loud, but if you can protect everyone and save the human race, I’m sure it's not up to the gods or spirits whether or not your wish comes true.”

He seems to contemplate it. Then nods.

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s not up to them.”

“See? So what’s yo—”

“It’s up to you.”

You nearly trip over one of the stone tiles, flailing for balance. Of course Gojou comes to your rescue, hands gently gripping at your sides. The first problem here is that your reaction was too obvious. You can’t feign ignorance now, like you didn’t hear him over the crowd. The second is that you just made a fool of yourself. Which leads to the third problem.

He is way too close.

“You okay?” And now he’s whispering. The blushing worsens. “Come on, let’s go.”

It’s a clearing in the forest a bit away, a smaller dilapidated shrine on the edge of it. A small pond is in the middle, fireflies skimming over the surface and glimmering beautifully.

“There you go.” He guides you to the steps of the ruined shrine, letting you sit down but stays standing. Shifting on his feet, neck cracking as he rolls it. Nervous energy leaks out of him. Wait, is this—

“I don’t know what to say. I’ve rehearsed this like, hundreds of times but my heart is kind of going crazy.” So is yours. He comes back to you then lowers himself to one knee. Your heart stops. “I’m not proposing. Not yet. I’ve heard dating comes first.”

One of your hands slots into his. He removes his blindfold, revealing his cerulean eyes to you for the second time. Breath hitches and he most definitely heard it because his smile, no matter how tentative it was, becomes full and true.

“Let’s get to the main point straight away. I like you.” The words burn you alive and you try to take your hand back but his grip is strong. So you do the next best thing. Averting your face. “I know you do too. I also know you remember the night. Your acting skills are terrible. And Shouko told me.” If you’re not drowning in mortification and something that feels vaguely like hope, you might hit him. And Shouko.

But the second you face him, you see him. The heart-gripping worry in his eyes, the way he’s smiling to cover for his anxiousness, the light trembling in his fingers. It’s so different to his normal self, the aloof and laid-back aura completely dissipated. This is what you do to him?

“I’m not good at this. But I mean every word when I say that you’re the kindest, cutest and the most loveable person that I’ve ever met. You put up with me, and that’s saying a lot.” Protest is at the tip of your tongue, ready to argue that he should stop being so hard on himself and that you genuinely like spending time with him, but he recognises the look on your face and laughs delightedly. “See? So ready to come to my defence, even if it’s me you have to fight. Everyone’s fed up with me to some extent, and I know you are as well, but you still put up with me. That’s what made me fall for you. That unlimited kindness.”

He presses a kiss to the palm of your hand and it feels like he’s giving you his heart at the same time. Love shines in his eyes and clogs at your throat. A shuddering breath passes over the both of you. But then the cheeky smile comes back.

“I think that’s enough to sweep you off your feet. Is your heart beating fast?” A nod. “Hands clammy?” A nod. “Think you can manage granting me my wish?”

A wave of calm washes over. Gojou’s words, filled with sincerity and bare hearted emotions, turn into butterflies that travel to every inch in your body. It’s delightful and there’s no way you can live without hearing it again.

The distance between your lips close, and you swear your heart synchronises with his when they finally touch.

#gojou x reader #gojou satoru x reader #gojou imagine #gojou satoru imagine #gojo x reader #gojo imagine #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru imagine #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk imagine #jujutsu kaisen imagine #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #gojou #gojou satoru #fluff #series #female reader

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dilfbane · 3 years ago

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Your Weeping(Your Need For His Touch)

Summary: When things go south on a mission, you have to confront more than just the sketchy town, cartoon villains, and one-bed hotel room you’re forced to share with Loki. You have to come to terms with not only the consequences of being captured, but also the God of Mischief’s feelings for you - Because for all that he might be an asshole, sometimes, he really does have a heart. Written for the Picture Is Worth A 1,000 Words 6k Follower Writing Challenge by @startrekkingaroundasgard

Pairing: Loki/(Female)Reader

Warnings: Descriptions of injuries and medical treatment, as well as discussions of the inevitable mindset around sacrificing oneself for the mission that I feel like being part of the Avengers would entail. Also swearing, because at its core, this story started out as a bit of a crack! fic.

Word Count: 7.8k.

A/N: So apparently when I have mental breakdowns they result in me writing crack-fic that takes a 180 veer into angst and fluff for absolutely no reason. For the sake of the crack-fic, in this timeline Loki was forced to help the Avengers take down bad guys directly after the end of the first Avengers movie, so… Is that a confusing plot hole I didn’t know how to account for except by making this AU? Maybe. Did I do it anyway?…. Yeah. This really was meant to be a crack-fic about Loki and the reader confessing their feelings set in the bizarre world of meme culture, I didn’t realize there were going to be feels in it until it was three in the morning and all of a sudden this happened. That being said, your girl went there, so enjoy!

“Oh, shit,” You say, as you take in the grimy hotel room. The walls all smeared in what looks like dried blood, the putrid smell of rotten eggs, a crack-screened television with a fine dusting of some suspiciously white powder. And, of course, “There’s one bed.”

“Hmm?” Asks Loki, turning towards you, briefly, from unpacking. He had dumped his suitcase(Magically plucked out of a chaotic liminal space) unceremoniously on the bed’s scratching, pilling coverlet without so much as a second glance at the rest of the room. And why do you need a suitcase, anyways?? You wonder. It isn’t like we’re planning to be here that long. In fact, you hoped with every fiber of your being that you’d be here for as little time as possible, because this town might actually be the sketchiest place you’ve ever seen in your life; no small feat, for a bona-fide member of S.H.I.E.L.D.

You’ve kicked alien ass on a mutated purple Mongolian death-worm three thousand feet over New York City. You’ve run reconnaissance to rescue debatably-magical items sequestered away in an ancient cave labyrinth plastered in paintings and untranslatable runes, gunfire and what could only be described as the baying of hellhounds in the near distance. You’ve fist-fought a gigantic hive-mind robot in a field of artificially sentient feral steel suits - You’ve even survived Tony’s parties.

Yet none of those scenarios hold a candle to this fucking town.

And Loki, the asshat, seems utterly, competently - no, maniacally - unfazed.

“There’s one bed,” You repeat, into the air.

“Ah,” Says Loki, straightening.

“You don’t see that problem with that?!”

“Should I?” He asks you, walking across the room in long, graceful strides to stand in front of you. He wears the same expression he always wears, amused and indifferent, but this time with the addition of a single, elegantly-arched eyebrow. You drop your head, refusing to meet his somewhat-curious gaze. It physically hurts, how attractive Loki is. Not for the first time, you curse whatever god decided that you and him would once again be mission partners - in this case, you belatedly realize, and choke back a thick laugh, said god is, unsurprisingly, Thor.

If you survive this, you make a note to beat his head in with Mjolnir. As it is, you are here in this room with Loki, with perhaps twenty IPP agents and a reckless poisoner dogging your every move, and there’s a high chance that you won’t live long enough to navigate whatever the hell sleeping with your crush-who-has-murdered-men. Ok, so ‘murdered men’ isn’t entirely accurate. More like ‘caused the murder of men inadvertently through his schemes’. It doesn’t seem to make much of a difference, right now.

And what about Loki? He is still staring you down, like you’re some wind up toy moments away from going off. Funny, that, you think. If ever there were a time to not have a mental breakdown, it would be here, with him. You’ve crossed a lot of moral lines in your life, but you will be damned if you let Loki Laufeysson see you cry. Loki is graceful. Composed. Sarcastic. Lithe. Rolls his eyes at almost every statement that comes out of somebody’s mouth. But he is, also, beautiful. Shockingly comforting, in his own nihilistic way. You don’t know what it says about you that you find comfort in statements like, Try not to die, you know that I hate funerals. Part of you - most of you - doesn’t want to. But it gives you strength, somehow, to shrug off the day and ground your flailing mind in evading Loki’s calculated manipulation. I won’t show you my weakness, you think to yourself. It’s not enough, but it’s a start.

“No,” You tell him - too quickly, he’ll pick up on that - “You’re right, you shouldn’t. It’s fine. We have - a lot to deal with, is all.”

Loki nods, seemingly accepting your answer, but his eyes are still narrowed, watching you like he’s calling your bluff. You talk right past that look - have to, to keep yourself sane, to not think about the one bed that looms large over this entire conversation. It doesn’t even look like a comfortable bed.

“We have two days,” You say, to stop yourself thinking of it. And, also, to talk your way through your disarmingly disjointed thoughts. Loki nods. It would really help if you said something, you think. Swallow the thought, hot and thick, down your throat. What’s the point of a mission partner if you can’t even soundboard off them? “The Pink Cobra could strike anyone, anytime. The IPP is planning something in New York - “

“Isn’t everyone, these days, planning something in New York?”

He sounds regretful, and for half a second you want to offer him the reassurance that his very presence offers you. But you are sure he doesn’t know what he does to you - with his words, with the sidelong glances that you’ve felt linger on your form far too long in the heat of a fight. If you didn’t know any better, you would say Loki worries about you.

“We have to shut him down,” You say. Focus on the Pink Cobra, because honestly, that’s easier. “Find out where he manufactures. Not get poisoned,” You add, at the end.

“Yes,” Loki says, tone dripping with sarcasm, “We should certainly try not to get ourselves killed. Failing that, I suppose, we can at least request that no one in H.Y.D.R.A gets autopsy access.”

“Loki?” You ask. Rhetorically. “You’re not helping.”

He smirks at you, then. He knows.

“What do you propose that we do then?” He asks, taking a step towards you, getting so close that you can feel his hot breath. “About the Pink Cobra?”

“Find him.” You say, fumbling, blush rising high on your cheeks.

Tonight?

One bed?

You are screwed.

***

When you were a kid - think really little, Capri Sun pouches and still believing that true love wasn’t complicated - your father told you that every story needed a good supervillain. You aren’t sure if the Pink Cobra counts as a good supervillain, but he’s the least confusing one that you have to deal with - and, as far as villains go, a fine enough challenge to face. He’s like a madman out of some high fantasy novel, with dark eyes and a sable-sewn cloak and a penchant for poisoning. He is adept in all the arts of the woman’s murder; he has a keen grasp on the side-effects of arsenic and camphor and tansy and cyanide and strychnine. He’s been found to have dropped crystal phials filled with belladonna and ricin while fleeing a scene. If all else fails, he’s more than practiced with daggers.

In other words, he’s the kind of villain that none of you, with your flying suits and telekinesis and super-strength, are anywhere near prepared to waylay.

The plan, as far as team Avengers is concerned, is easy:

You and Loki. This town, where the webs of his manufacturing production and the few glimpses of information that Thor has totally legally excavated out of his captured minions has led to. Two days until some undefined grand attack bears down on the city you live in. Two days to find the Pink Cobra and kill him. The more time passes with no headway, the more you think that this is an impossible task, but you know what Tony would say. We have our best minds on it.

The thing is, you aren’t sure that that’s true. The minds that have been set to this task are you and the God of Lies. It’s hardly the best they could have come up with, considering your track records. Actually, you take that back - Loki was a good choice for this mission, because, not three hours after arriving in this hellhole of a city, he seems to have somehow developed the ability to read minds. More specifically, yours. And that could prove stunningly useful.

The scene, as it stands: Loki, sprawled across the lumpy bed, three pairs of crisp white shirts, a plaid scarf, and a full set of Asgardian battle armor neatly hung in the mothball-infested closet, flicking through channels on the grain, cracked television with an apathetic expression and one arm thrown haphazardly over bent leg. Propped up in such a way that he could jump or spin or parry at a moment’s notice, yet perfectly, devastatingly languid, leafing through Nick Fury’s dossier on the Pink Cobra. He looks at you like a god, you think, and then remember. He is one.

You, on the floor, because on top of all the other things this hotel doesn’t have, like two beds, there isn’t anything even resembling a desk, shifting through a glowing, holographed file archive from headquarters that barely runs on your severely outdated laptop. It’s a point of pride to you, keeping the laptop - not because it’s good, but because it’s survived five years of being an Avenger, which is something not even all the Avengers can claim to have done. You’re also fairly certain that Tony’s attempts to update the firmware had infested it with some sort of renegade virus. Elevated above your screen, the files are split into two groups, the sum total of everything that you know about both of the groups that are avidly trying to kill you.

There’s the wealth of information containing the Pink Cobra’s poisoning sprees, but those aren’t the files that interest you, and you know that Loki’s not much interested in them either. That honor falls to the fanatics at the IPP, the Imminently Predictable Psyops organization, which you know even less about than you do about the Pink Cobra, chief among which the fact that they need a new name. Imminently Predictable Psyops?, Tony had said, when you’d finally apprehended one of their proxies. What do they think this is? Some type of ARG?

What you’ve gleaned, from months worth of studying the network, is that they operate as a sort of cringe-oriented death cult intent on ‘reshaping the universe through meme agents’. They’d been on S.H.I.E.L.D’s radar for a long time - upwards of a year - before anyone at team base learned they existed - which, you can almost hear Loki saying, was a failure in the extreme. Currently, it was your job to obsessively worry over whether they were going to send ‘meme agents’ to bust through the door of your seedy hotel room and off you both. You hated - truly loathed - how casually Loki was taking it all.

He’s acting like nothing was wrong with this situation, when, in fact, you’re ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure that this night will end up with one or both of you dead. It is, to say the least, disconcerting.

Kill switch, the holograph files read. Cross-referential Neil Cicierega acoustic weaponry. Your mind sees the words, but doesn’t comprehend them, and you run a hand up to rub at your bleary eyes with annoyance. You risk a glance upwards; on the bed, Loki scans page after page after page with disinterested nonchalance, punctuating the flipping over of each document with a noncommittal hum; as if to say, I understand you. As it to say, This could be worse. You try to slip into that mindset. Certainly, things could be worse.

Actually, though? Not really.

Because, for all the world, the holo-file in front of you just said ‘Pepe The Frog Chaos Banking Laser Initiative’.

“What the fuck does that even mean?!”

“Sorry?”

You whip your head around. Loki, raising an eyebrow. Damn that - perfect - eyebrow.

“Sorry,” You echo back at him, rubbing your eyes again, perversely glad for the break, even if it is this awkward. “I … said that out loud, didn’t I?”

“Marginally,” He tells you. “Yes.”

“Sorry,” You - well, it’s not a whine, not exactly. You’re tired, and there’s no way you’re going to sleep tonight, so you feel like your tone’s justified. “I didn’t mean to do that. I think I’m just - this is. Completely nonsensical.”

“Show me?” He asks, and you snort. He could totally just look up, but -

“Do you have a P.h.d in memes?” You ask him, and, before he can answer, “Because unless you have a P.h.d in memes, I don’t think you’ll be able to help.”

“You’d be surprised,” Loki says. Vaults over the bed with the speed and grace of a panther, filling the air with a cringing wheeze as the rusty springs bend underneath him, and landing in front of the holo-file, pushing you aside slightly to get a better view. When his fingers brush against your side, cool and firm, you flinch.

“Tired,” You offer, when he shoots you a momentarily concerned look. “Just. Need to sleep, later, I think.”

But Loki is already scanning the file, and when he looks up, not five seconds later, you want to hit somebody. Preferably, you think, him.

“I would assume,” Loki says, “That they’re using time travel in order to obtain and store monetary value by way of a Pepe-the-frog inspired laser array.”

“Oh,” You say. You blink once. Blink twice. Still have no idea what that means. “Right.”

“Do you not know your memes, love?” He asks you, smirking. And oh, if you don’t feel things.

“I don’t go on the internet, much,” You tell him. “Too busy, you know, trying not to get killed.”

Loki shrugs. Sidles away from the file. The groan and squeak of those springs tells you he’s back on the bed, giving you some well-needed space, but you can’t bring yourself to look.

“You can sleep,” He says, “If you want.”

“Ha!” You yelp/choke/embarrassingly bleat out into the room’s stale silence. Underneath the rotten eggs, you catch a whiff of bong-water. “No.”

“There’s a bed,” Loki says, cocking his head pointedly and patting the lumpy covers.

“Yeah, that’s - kind of the problem.”

“Why?” He asks you.

“You - really?”

“I was only asking,” Says Loki, re-focusing his attention on whichever Pink Cobra document’s next in the folder. “If you aren’t comfortable telling me - I merely thought, seeing as you were tired, you might take this opportunity to rest.”

“Yeah,” You tell him, “Of course, that’s - nice of you.”

It comes out stilted. Patently off. If he notices, he doesn’t say.

“Are you going to - um. Do you need help, with the rest? The ones I have seem kind of hopeless. I mean,” You say, when he doesn’t look up, “I don’t think that we have to worry about getting demolished by trans-dimensional Agarthian wormholes.”

“Of course not,”” Loki says, scoffing and incredulous, gaze, you are sure, on his page. “If they wanted to kill us, they’d send someone with a gun.”

In reality, it’s several someones.

***

“You jinxed it,” Is the first thing you tell him, when the men leave you. They’ve thrown you into a one-room warehouse, rickety shelves stacked with cartoonish tubs of green goop and mildewing boxes filled with grenades and machine guns and what appears, at second-glance, to be twelve-fingered latex gloves. You’re tied wrist to wrist, ankle to ankle, and your throat feels uncharacteristically parched. Fear, you tell yourself. Apprehension. “Can’t you just - use your seidr to magic us out of this?”

If you could see him - which you can’t, because you’ve been tied back to back - you’d swear that Loki was glaring.

“Do you - do you have a plan?” You ask, after a moment.

“I’m working on it,” He says.

“That’s all?” You say. “We were dragged out of our drug-dealer’s hotel room by a bunch of robed men with guns and the only thing you have to say is ‘I’m working on it?’”

“I’d get it done faster,” Says Loki, “If you wouldn’t interrupt me.”

“Ok,” You tell him, “No interrupting you. Got it. That’s - Alright.”

Unfortunately, not interrupting him is easier said than done, because without the sound of your voice, you are left to your thoughts.

The men had broken in nearly immediately after Loki’s glib, sardonic retort to your worries, shooting the glass out of the room’s already half-smashed-in window and kicking the door in simultaneously. A bit much, isn’t it?, Loki’d asked, and you had wanted to smack yourself on the forehead. Really not the time, you had hissed, but Loki hadn’t seemed to hear you. Do you do this with everyone they send you to assassinate?, he had asked, instead. The men had been dressed in long, billowing cloaks of bright red, embroidered with orange snakes framing a picture of Beaker from the muppets with early 2000’s emo hair. Chaotic meme agents, you had thought to yourself. So that’s what they’re supposed to look like.

You hadn’t picked up, until now, on the snakes.

“They’re working together,” You say, when you can’t stand the playback of Loki being disarmed after spinning and tossing his silver daggers at the men, of the men kneeing him in the balls and twisting your arms behind your back, holding a gun to your head to stop you from trying to fight. Waking up in the back of a van that smelled like microwaved fish. Being tossed like garbage onto the floor of the warehouse, painted in bruises and cuts from the small pieces of glass that had dug their way into your skin. “The IPP and the Pink Cobra.”

“Obviously,” Loki says. Sharply.

“Did Tony not -“

“Stark,” Loki practically growls, and, ok, you’re not losing it but that did make you jump in your skin, “Is an idiot. He wouldn’t know how to connect the dots if they were presented to him in a Buzzfeed Unsolved episode.”

“That’s - You had that on Asgard?” You ask him, momentarily distracted. You wish that you could see Loki’s face, and are very glad that you can’t.

“That isn’t the point,” Loki says.

“I know,” You tell him. You’re scared that your voice is trembling. Scared that he can tell, even though he’s not facing you, how badly your fingers are shaking. Scared that he knows your worst, biggest secret -

That, despite being an Avenger, you are anxious. That, despite him being Loki, despite him being here, and wonderfully, infuriatingly himself, he cannot help you, this time.

You are going to die, covered in cuts and abrasions, on the floor of a meme network’s headquarters, at three a.m in the morning. They are going to come in with umbrellas that shoot poison darts or the ex-presidents Point Break masks and mow you down, and Loki has no fucking plan. You feel the ropes tighten where they’re knotted, itchy and fierce, and you have to fight to keep yourself from whining in terror and nerves. Whining isn’t what Loki needs right now. Whining’s not going to save you.

What is going to save you, you try and remind yourself, is Loki. If you can shut up. If you can let him decipher what needs to be done. If he can figure out some way to do it before the blowtorch-wielding robed vigilantes or some disincarnate meme god comes back and draws their electronically-sharpened fingernails across your throat hard enough to split skin and sinew, send waves of blood down the front of your shirt like a river of sweet, thick red honey and toss your corpse in a ditch by a highway and -

“Y/N?” It is foggy, barely-heard. Posh. “Y/N!” Louder, this time. There are fingers on your wrist, bent backwards to grip you. Squeezing, insistent and there. “Breathe.”

Fuck, you think. You’d started to hyperventilate. To shake, with a full-body tremor that forecasts a great, unstoppable wave of sobbing panic. And Loki had noticed. “I need you to trust me,” He says. “Trust me to get us out of this. Can you do that for me, darling?”

He has never called you darling before, but God how you’ve wanted him to. You feel like you’re being stabbed in the heart - because there is no way he means it, no way that this is anything other than a desperate and cruel attempt to get you to calm down. Something that belies how obvious you are. How needy you are. How pathetic. And yet -

And yet, he doesn’t say it meanly. He speaks like he cares about you, and in the face of your impending death, you want to think Loki cares. You’d let him say anything, do anything to you, right now. More than that, though, more than any of that - as you think back to meeting him, to your blossoming late-night friendship and twitchy banter and the quiet moments you’ve shared with him in-between battles -

“I trust you, Loki,” You tell him, and feel your breath quiet in you. Feel yourself growing still and calm with the certainty that Loki will do as he’s said.

That you will survive this.

That -

“Good,” Loki says. Not relieved, but determined. Leaving you no room to argue.

“So what do we do?” You ask him.

“Nothing,” Says Loki, and you can hear his wide grin.

“Nothing?” You ask him, gawking.

“Nothing,” Says Loki. He gives your hand a tight squeeze.

And then the Pink Cobra walks in.

***

This will end badly, you think. It’s about the only thing that you can think, preoccupied as you are with -

It might be easier not to -

Fuck.

The thing is - and you really do try not to move, not to groan, not to scream - the thing is, you thought that when Loki said he had a plan, that said plan wouldn’t involve you being collateral damage for a LARP-er who’d most likely broken out of an asylum. I wish that we could be back in that shitty one-bed hotel room, you think to yourself, and - alright, not the best timing, but it rips a laugh out of you, spiraling and unhinged, before you feel the Pink Cobra, resplendent in coral cloak and villainous swagger, slug you one in the jaw. It hurts worse than you’d thought it would - you’ve never really gotten injured on missions, you’re usually good at talking yourself out of things, which is why the Avengers keep you around. You can speak any language, as long as you’ve heard it once, and your customary daily awkwardness can shift into persuasion like flicking a light-switch on.

Usually, though, you had an opportunity to speak, and weren’t rendered speechless by -

Loki, if you’re being honest. How much you want to kiss him. How much of an asshole he is. Trust me, he’d asked you. Can you do that for me? The Pink Cobra’s grip is sharp and bruising on your side; he’s slipped his fingers up your shirt and is pressing the point on your side that threatens to make your knees buckle, making bile rise up in your throat, driving you wild with the aching need to flee. He has one hand clasped over your mouth, now that you’ve quieted, and you can feel something - pain, and a pill - pressed snugly into his palm. He will force it down you, you know, if Loki so much as sighs wrong.

You’ll never trust him again.

You wish that you knew what the time was. If you end up dying at 4:20, you’re going to throw fists with somebody in hell.

You wish, also, for aspirin. Avengers training has left you woefully unprepared for the reality of getting punched in the face. You can already feel your jaw starting to swell, taste an egregious amount of blood. You’re pretty sure that the force of the blow knocked a tooth out.

What strikes fear into you, though - a fear somehow deeper than the absolutely bone-chilling, blood-curdling knowledge of what the Pink Cobra might do to you - is the look you’d seen on Loki’s face in the seconds after he’d grabbed you, before it fell into practiced, amused apathy. He’d gone white, and his eyes had blown wide. His fingers had spasmed with anger.

He’d looked as scared as you feel.

And you have no idea why.

It isn’t like you’re anyone special. Not any more than the rest of the team. Less so than most of them. You aren’t a god, like Loki and Thor are. You don’t have stealth-assassin training, like Bucky, or super-strength like Steve. You can’t seamlessly pilot mechanical suits over the New York skyline like Tony, or use a crossbow like Clint, or beat thirty people in single-hand combat like Nat, or change into a nitro-fueled rage machine like Bruce.

You can’t do anything, much.

Except, apparently, die.

You squeeze your eyes shut, not letting yourself look at him. You won’t let Loki’s disinterested face be the last thing that you see. It makes the Pink Cobra’s words all the worse, when he speaks. His voice is dark and sick and timbered, and you feel maggots crawling over your skin as he slots you closer to his body, tightening his already painful grip on you so that you can’t move even an inch away from his tensed, coiled muscles.

“So,” He says, “You are superheroes? How long did it take me, to apprehend you? Ah - three and a half hours? Tell your boss-man, do better next time.”

“I’ll pass it along,” Loki says. His voice sounds different. You can’t place why. Still won’t look.

“You won’t,” The Pink Cobra says. You can feel his shoulders rise, then fall. Feel him smirk. You love Loki’s smirk - secretly delight in drawing it from him, sometimes - but the Pink Cobra’s only fills you with yet more terror. You’ve pursed your lips tightly shut against the intrusion of his hand, but when Loki speaks he forces your bruised, bleeding jaw open and shoves the pill into your mouth. The pain of your injury tears through you like white lightning and you thrash, trying to escape. A keening sound claws its way out of you, fevered and anguished, and you feel your hands, still bound up in ropes, trying in vain to push off and away. The man behind you sighs, and then aims a swift kick at the back of your knees, which sends you down before you can so much as yelp. Your knees hit the floor, and he’s holding you by your hair now, twisting it so hard that you’re almost sure he’ll scalp you. He’s pulled something - too big to be be a knife, some kind of shortsword?! - Out from beneath his cloak, and is pressing it up against the column of your throat. You feel the weight of the capsule between your teeth heavily now, and realize what it means in the split-second before the Pink Cobra bends and whispers, Your choice; stale and rancid into the shell of your ear.

Next, he addresses Loki.

“You’ll be wanting to know what our plan is,” He says. Our, you think. We were right. “Hmm? I know how you people are. Always wanting to know. Tell me this, Mischief Man. What will I get, if I tell you? What price are you willing to pay?”

You know what this is. You know it like the ache in your heart when Loki brushes you off. Like the safety you feel in his arms. You open your eyes. Take in Loki’s face - he’s trying to hide, but you know, you know how he feels. You know what he’s going to choose.

And you know that you can’t let him choose it.

“You’ll let her go,” Loki asks, “If we let you leave here?”

“The thing could be managed.”

No, you think. No, Loki, don’t! Whatever the Pink Cobra’s going to do, whatever the IPP’s planning, knowing’s worth more than your life.

“One thing I want to know,” Loki says. He’s twirling a knife of his own, a slim silver number he keeps on him at all times, and you feel the blade on your own throat start to dig in - not enough to draw blood, but enough for you to feel it. The threat of it. The promise of it, and the coldness of the gleaming metal. “You and the IPP? How does it fit?”

“You want information from me?” The Pink Cobra asks. Lets his blade bite you, just barely, and the strength it takes for you not to scream is more strength then you’d known you possess.

“Yes,” Says Loki. “It’s not like I’m asking for much.”

He meets your gaze. You meet his. You hope that he cannot read it. His eyes are so worried, so desperate, you nearly break down.

“I suppose,” The Pink Cobra says, “That you’ve earned it. Getting here - getting this far - it must have been no easy task. Fine. There is no Imminently Predictable Psyops organization. They were a - what do you call it? Red herring? A scent of blood for the shark.”

“You fabricated them,” Loki says. “Why would you fabricate them?”

He is losing his composure, you can tell. You will never be ready for this. He will never be ready for this. You hope that he will forgive you, and you know that he never will, and you swallow the pill in your mouth.

“Because it was fun,” The Pink Cobra says.

And then your body knows pain.

***

“He didn’t think I would do it,” You say. Your mouth feels thick, clotted with blood and shock, and your body is one raw, gaping wound, but the giddy feeling of victory has begun to course through your veins. Pure, unfiltered adrenaline. You had waited for the moment of death to come, and it hadn’t. The pill is fake, your mind had screamed. But there’d been one thing left, that might work. You had breathed as slowly as you possibly could, forced every muscle of your scared, writhing body into single-minded limpness, rolled your eyes backwards into your head, drew one last breath in, and fallen. Twitched, for a few seconds, like a rag-doll. Then made yourself still.

Loki had slit the Pink Cobra ear to ear, beaten him within an inch of his life as he bled out, screaming like a man deranged. He’d left him a wet, bloody mess on the floor, and the blood had run down the not-quite-steady plane of it, pooling around you and mixing with the blood from your jaw, from the evening’s earlier glass cuts, from the deep, burning stab wound the Cobra had got on your arm.

You breathe, and your body knows pain.

You look at Loki, and your body knows pain.

He is shaking. Visibly shaking. His hands are clenched into fists at his side, and he looks as pale as bleached bones. His eyes are shot red - he had sobbed, when you fell, and a howl had torn through his body. You don’t know what to do, what it means, what the hell even to say to him. His cheeks are tear-stained, his breaths ragged.

You blink, and your body feels pain.

“We won,” You croak out. “Loki, we won.” It hurts worse than anything you’ve ever felt in your life. “I think he broke one of my ribs.”

You don’t mean to say that last part, but you do, and you are the one crying now, because it feels like he probably has, and you can barely even stay awake through this pain. It feels like the Hulk is pulling you limb from limb. Like all of those nightmares you’ve had where Loki decided to leave you - to go back to Asgard, and never speak to you again.

Stupid, you think. He won’t, again. Not after this.

Loki still hasn’t spoken. He’s looking at you, and his eyes are wild. Desperately, jaggedly roaming your body. His fists twitch with every new part of your body they land on.

“That bad, huh - Oh, fuck.”

And just like that, the tension leaves Loki’s body. The dam that had held him firmly in place is broken, and he’s running towards you with none of his usual grace. Dropping down by your side. He hoists you, and you hiss, and the tears won’t stop coming, so you bury your face in his shirt, nose pressed at the crisply ironed collar. Don’t care that it’s bleeding, because Loki’s here now. Holding you. Keeping you real. He’s got one hand stroking your hair and his touch feels right, nothing like the Pink Cobra’s, and he’s whispering: You brave, precious, idiot, how dare you, how dare you throw your life away like that?!

“It worked,” You exhale - it’s the most you can manage. You would laugh, if it wouldn’t shred you to pieces. Loki cradles you fiercely, hands grasping at the sweat-and-blood soaked fabric of your shirt, running over you as if he doesn’t believe you’re alive. “It - hurts,” You get out. Barely. “Loki, it - I can’t -“

“Don’t,” He tells you. His voice has gone brittle, choked with thorns. “Don’t talk. Don’t - Don’t ever do that again. Do you hear me? You will never do that again.”

If I need to, I will, you think. And you wonder if that’s why you’re here. Wonder if that’s why you’re strong. You wonder, and hurt, and believe. Feel the strength of him, clutching you like you’re the only thing in the world, taking in greedy lungfuls of your weeping, your need for his touch.

You can’t talk, anymore. It hurts too badly. But you surge, upwards, up into where he’s holding the back of your head, pressing your forehead into the dark, warm space under his jaw that smells like smoke and peppermint. Loki is taller than you are - you fit right into the curve of his neck, and his long curls curtain you in a bubble of warmth and content.

“Promise,” You say, but it comes out unintelligible, and Loki’s hands are running, so gently, over your skin.

“What was your plan?” You ask him, forcing it out of your body.

“Hush,” Loki says, “Later.”

There might not be any later, you think. Not like this.

***

In the hotel room, an ocean of scattered pages and ceiling mold and blessed privacy, you balance, cross-legged, on the bed. The wind blows wet and cold from an earlier rain through the busted out window. You have managed this out of sheer stubborn-ness, because it is the most that Loki allowed you to do. You’d passed out, twice, on the journey back - he had magicked you there, though it had taken a considerable amount of effort that you weren’t sure you really deserved - and had immediately propped you up on the pillows and stooped to ruffle through his suitcase, emerging not long after with binding tape, cat-gut thread, and a needle so sharp you could feel it slicing your flesh. You had opened your mouth to protest, but Loki had silenced you with a glare that could fell Director Fury. So you had gone quiet, and caved, letting him kneel over you on the distinctly lumpy mattress and begin inspecting your wounds. It had taken a few tries and a Please to convince him to let you sit on your own, and it hurt much more than the manner in which he’d arranged you. You were starting to, slightly, regret it.

“You don’t have to do this,” You say, pulling it from bleeding lips. He shushes you with a harsh, stern tut. “You’re not my mother,” You tell him.

“You could have died,” Loki says. There’s a snarling undercurrent to it that you can’t even start dissecting. “What were you thinking?” He asks. It is easier, though still painful, for you to answer him - he had used nearly half of his Thor-limited magic reserve to perform a basic stasis spell on your injuries, but the spell wouldn’t last forever. You’ll need stitches, he’d said, choking it out like he was the hurt one when he’d seen the number the Cobra’s blade had done to your arm.

“I’ve had worse,” You say, grinning weakly.

“Are you lying to me?” He asks you, with the tone of someone who’s distinctly not in the mood for joking.

“I thought,” You say. Steel yourself. “I thought you weren’t going to do what needed to be done. So I - Did it myself.”

“What needed to be done.” Loki says, enunciating every word.

“We couldn’t let him walk away,” You say, meeting his eyes. Emerald, clouded with fury. You don’t let yourself flinch from that anger. You don’t let yourself run from your choice. “You know what he would have done.”

“I don’t,” Loki says. “I know nothing. I know - I know that you think that your life means so little I wouldn’t care if you were gone. That I could - Live, without you.”

That’s… different.

“And I know,” Loki continues, “That I told you to trust me, and I meant it.”

“I do,” You say. There is no hesitation. “I trust you - Loki. Of course I trust you. It’s not - it wasn’t -“

“Stop talking,” He snaps. Gentles, when you jerk your head away, blink back a fresh wave of tears. “You need rest,” He says. “And - This is. This is going to hurt.”

You nod.

“Best get it over with, then.”

“You should keep your eyes closed,” He says.

“No! I want - I need to look.” You bring your eyes up to your arm, which he’s settled onto bed’s chewed, scratchy quilt without you realizing, but Loki tilts your head up with a barely-there graze of his fingers, achingly gentle to avoid aggravating your swollen jaw. He holds your gaze for a long time. Doesn’t look mad, anymore.

“Are you sure?” He asks you. Like all of this could be over with, if you wanted.

“How bad it could it be?” You ask back.

The injury is horrendous. You’d thought - honest-to-God, you’d thought the pain was terrible, but you weren’t ready for what your arm has become. The line of the wound runs in a craggy jigsaw from just under your shoulder to the tip of your elbow. Small wonder you can’t move it, can barely think through it at all.

“Y/N?” Loki asks, “Are you -“

“Fine,” You say. Blink, and your body knows pain. Try not to let how scared you are show, when you look back up at Loki. The Pink Cobra’s dead. You shouldn’t be scared, anymore. “It’s really bad, isn’t it?”

Loki sighs. Long and low and sad.

“Will I have to - “

“Bite,” Loki says, and shoves something - the sleeve of his shirt, crusted in blood which you realize, sickeningly, is yours - into your mouth. “It’ll help.”

It doesn’t, but he holds your hand through it, hushing you through the pain with furrowed eyebrows, thread and needle flying deftly through skin, air, skin again. His fingers move precisely, deliberate, quick, and when, on one stitch, you audibly whimper, he pauses to lean down and press a soft, utterly unexpected kiss to your hairline. You are unable to fully express how much it means to you, so you do the next best thing and kiss him yourself, pressing him back once he’s finished the last of his stitches and breathing all the the words you can’t say into him. You press every fear and gratitude and lingering nerve into the warmth of his lips, wending your fingers through his dark hair despite the pangs of agony still thrumming through every inch of your body. Your face hurts, but the kiss is all you’ve ever needed and more, and Loki is so, so gentle with you, pulling away with creased eyebrows and a look of genuine concern.

“I wanted to,” You tell him, mustering all of your strength. “It didn’t hurt.”

“Stop,” He tells you, voice cracking, “Stop lying.”

“I’m not,” You say. “I wanted to, Loki, I did.”

“And you wanted to -“

“No.” You are vehement about it, for a broken-ribbed, broken-jawed, freshly-stitched person coming off the high of his teeth and his tongue. “Not that, I swear, never that.”

“Why did you do it, then?” Loki asks. He has steepled his fingers under his chin, and his narrowed eyes pierce through you to the soul. You couldn’t lie to this man, you think, if your life depended on it.

You know that you have to tell him, this time. Really tell him. You don’t.

“”Why didn’t you use your magic?”

“You know why,” He says, and you do. You’d remembered it as the white pill turned to white powder in your gums, as the Pink Cobra’s knife had carved its way into your flesh. Thor had put a set limit on it, as condition of Loki’s release - Proof, he had said, We can trust you. Loki had thought to save it for later, that you wouldn’t need him right then. He had thought you’d talk them out, to safety.

You’d failed him.

“You didn’t,” He tells you, voice raw. He goes to grip your chin, to force you to listen to him, but with a glance and ill-concealed wince at your purpled jaw he thinks better of it. “You think that you failed me? You let yourself be - be beaten and stabbed - just so people you’ve never met in your life wouldn’t die, and you call that a failure?” He runs a hand through his hair. Bites back a snarl. Drops your arm. “I need you to listen to me,” Loki says, “Very, very carefully. You’re going to tell me why now, love. And then we’re going to fix it.”

You raise an eyebrow. Worse than he does, you’re aware.

“Sleep,” He amends, with a pointed look at the bed underneath you, “And then we’re going to fix it.”

“There’s only one bed,” You tell him, “And I feel like I just got run over by a truck.”

Loki huffs, a puff of warm air that you feel, from how close he still is. A grin twitches at the edge of his lips. It sets off sparks inside you.

“I thought -“ You say. Shake your head, and restart. “You would have let the Pink Cobra attack. You would have let him just walk away, and I couldn’t just - let that happen.”

“Enlightening.”

“No,” You tell him, “I mean it. I couldn’t - I’m not - I’m not worth more than anyone else. We’re the Avengers. It’s our job to save people, Loki.”

He’s regarding you carefully, eyes still narrowed, all vestiges of softness gone from his face. When he opens his mouth, it’s to close it. Form thoughts. Discard them. Exhale.

“My mother once told me,” He finally says, “That I would never know what it meant to be human until I found the person who made me want to bleed the world dry. Take all of its’ suffering, all of its’ cruelty, and leech it out of the very fabric of time, just to keep that person from anguish, from harm.”

“I don’t -“

He holds a hand up. You still.

“She never said they would infuriate me,” Loki says. “She never said they would make me laugh, or smile, or question my sanity on a regular basis. She never said that they’d try and get themselves killed, and that I’d have to watch, and that I would feel like my heart was being ripped from my body and torn to a bloody pulp; that I would make the sky rain blood and fire at the sight of it alone. But she was right about one thing - Many things, but also this. She told me that it wouldn’t matter. That I would - love you - anyway.”

“You don’t,” You say, not daring to hope. It’s an automatic retort.

“Foolish girl,” Loki chides, and you blink back fresh, stinging tears. How long have you wanted to hear Loki say that to you? How many sneaky looks have you stolen in the heat of your missions, just to see his smart mind and tricky magic at work? How many nights have you sat up together, sequestered from your insomnia in a bubble of hard-earned banter and peppermint tea, fighting the tight, coiling urge to push aside your steaming mugs and pull him into your needing?

He could not - he can’t - feel the same.

“Loki,” You say, stumbling over the words, “You can’t - This is - This is me we’re talking about.”

“Is there anyone else here,” Loki asks you, “That I could be talking about?” He seems nonchalant, now, as if this - this cruel fucking joke, when you already feel you’re on fire - is merely a fact of his life. “We’re going to leave this excuse of a town, and get you - proper care. Fix it. Because I will not, on my honor, watch you suffer in pain. But first, you’re going to sleep.”

“There’s only one bed,” You tell him, and feel your resolve as it shatters. You cling to the statement like it’s the last remnant of the girl you were and the woman that you’ll never be, “And the shower doesn’t work. And I’m covered in blood.”

But when you look at Loki, his eyes twinkle, mischievous.

“Will you stay with me?,” You ask him, biting your lip.

“You astound me,” He tells you, and rolls his eyes, and it feels - it feels normal. Good. A tender heat unfurls in your heart like orchid petals in the sun, numbing the persistent ache in your ribcage. “To even think that I would do anything else.”

Later, you will ask him why. Why do you love me?, you will ask, and Loki will hum, low in his throat, curled around you just like this first night; your back pressed into his chest, your legs tangled up hopelessly, his fingers tracing nonsense patterns onto your spine in the dawn-light’s syrupy gold. Because, he will tell you, trailing a line of soft kisses up the scar on your arm - an ugly thing, but it functions, mostly, and only ever seems to hurt on the days when he isn’t there - I was given no choice.

But if you’d had one?”, You will ask, and spin around, propping yourself on your elbow.

You tempt me, He’ll tell you, baring his sharp teeth. Shouldn’t you know better than that?

You will lie there, next to each other, not needing a single word. Because you will know. Because he will have told you, a thousand times, a thousand ways, exactly how he feels about you.

Tonight, though, isn’t that night. It takes a moment to get settled in his hold, and the rain spits and drums against what glass remains in your window, slicking the carpet with dark, greasy splotches. It figures, you think, that even the rain in this city has the smell and the texture of oil. You feel like a bag of bones, stretched too thin. But safe, in his arms, in a way that you’ve never felt, before now. Loki is with you, you realize. Wrapped around you like a traveler’s cloak, the comforting weight of a slim, balanced blade at your side in a fight. He is cool, around your afraid. Warm, where his clever fingers whine and needle their way through your skin to your heart.

“I hate you,” You tell him, “You know that?”

Loki laughs, a deep, rumbling purr.

“Go to sleep.”

#picture1000wordswc #pic 4 #loki/reader #female reader #crack #so much crack #just a lot of references to bad memes and cringe movies that turns into all the angst #because for some reason i’m like this #guess which character from another popular franchise i based my crack villain off #soundtrack to this was 800 percent mouth moods #in all seriousness though huge congrats to @startrekkingaroundasgard #you deserve all the love #unfortunately i showed my love by writing insane crack fic but HEY #loki is in it so hopefully that makes up for the c r i n g e

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dgcatanisiri · 4 years ago

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I won’t say this is my last word on the subject of Legendary Edition bullshit, because... Well, I know myself enough to be able to say that I NEVER have a last word, I’ll always want to rant again later on. But let’s just make this a sort of master post of the issues overall.

So... Is it fair to hold a game that is a good roughly fifteen years old to the standards of the present? Not inherently. So if the games were being produced in any sort of unedited format, that it was a strict translation, 1:1 ratio, of the original to the remaster... Honestly, I’d still be bitter as all get out, for reasons I’ll expound on in a minute. But it could at least SEEM justified. I could consider it the kind of thing that would be expected - if KOTOR got a remaster today, I would not expect that Carth and Bastila would be made into bi love interests, or Juhani would have her romance patched up so that it has the same level of detail and attention as the het romances. If Jade Empire were remastered, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Sky or Silk Fox’s same sex romances adapted so that the straight romances had to be closed out first. That is the kind of thing that, on a functional, practical level, I could understand. Doing a translation from old hardware, the old engine, I get the PRACTICAL reasoning for not making things better. I still object to this on the moral level, to say nothing of the representational one. But PRACTICALLY, I see why - y’know, there’s only so much financial resources going in, and changing things like romances, even if justified, means doing new writing and getting the voice cast back in, which has complications the longer since a game’s original release - actors retire or even die, the passage of time changes voices (like listen to the difference of the exact same lines by James Earl Jones between both versions of the Lion King). Even without those complications, that means paying them, which, in the production of video games, for everything that goes in, something else must go out. So that is the practical argument.

BUT!

But.

But, the thing is, even apart from everything else that I’ll get in to shortly, is that there have been a lot of claims from BioWare about inclusion. There have also been A LOT. of homophobic bullshit from BioWare and Mass Effect. And yes, I’m calling it like I see it.

Because we had the game that followed Jade Empire, with a M/M romance option, be Mass Effect, with NO M/M romance option (but FemShep and Liara could bang - the writing obviously favored the MaleShep portrayal, given that there was no marketing use of FemShep until ME3, and we had ME2 give priority to having loyalty conflicts between MALE Shepard’s romances, but not Female Shepard’s, and we even had BioWare hem and haw about how “well, the asari are monogender, so they’re not TECHNICALLY women, so it’s not REALLY lesbians...”). Because the official claim is that they just “didn’t think about it” in time to have these options included in Mass Effect 1. Because we’ve had writers now come out that Jacob Taylor was originally written as a gay man, but in the game itself was a straight man. Because there are plenty of women who throw themselves at Male Shepard, and Shepard is animated with having Significant Looks™ with these women, but not a single man who expresses any interest in him, until ME3 finally offers SOMETHING, which came to just Kaidan and Cortez.

Because we had one of BioWare’s heads, one of BioWare’s founders, say in an interview right around the release of Mass Effect 2 say “Shepard is too predefined a character to be gay.”

That is what I mean by homophobic bullshit.

And I haven’t even started on Mass Effect Andromeda.

And I’m gonna start on Mass Effect Andromeda now.

So after ME3, after Kaidan and Cortez were actually romances, we honestly gave them a lot of faith - they got the message, we said. They understood that they couldn’t just cut out M/M romance in the game, we said. They didn’t need to have the constant observation that demanded they provide good representation, we said.

And then they cut Jaal’s bisexuality, leaving him straight on release, without even a chance to flirt and be turned down, the bisexual male character who did remain not only was planet bound, he also is a character who a solid argument can be made that he falls into the trope of the Depraved Bisexual, a trope that over in Dragon Age, Patrick Weekes specifically said that they wanted to avoid and so didn’t make a character bisexual because of that. And the gay man is not only almost totally disconnected from the game (aside from one point in the plot, he can be avoided entirely and is not included in almost any other group setting among the Tempest crew), he is also an accessory in his own plot line, which was also heavily criticized for being intensely homophobic. And of these, the only thing BioWare deigned to change was Jaal’s bisexuality. (Which, personal note, I’m uncomfortable with personally, because as it’s implemented, it just feels kind of afterthought-y. Much like Kaidan’s in ME3, being unchanged from a new FemShep romance, despite the active inability to romance him in ME1.)

So it is not just a matter of “you have the ability, you’re changing other things, you should do this.” I mean, that is absolutely there - the mods exist for the original game, to the point of being able to even get the romance scene to fire right without Shepard’s gender magically changing once the clothes come off. (I have a vague memory of, at some point, probably around the “too predefined” comment, that being another excuse, that there was difficulty with having the models play nice with one another in that scene.)

But this is about addressing a pattern of behavior on the part of BioWare, that they have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to the bare minimum that their own statements on matters of representation and inclusion claim they aspire to. That if the fans are not actively holding their feet to the fire, they are GOING to take their fans for granted - “you don’t get better quality content elsewhere, we’re your only choice!” But “only” choice is not a “good” choice. It’s not a choice with quality.

So if we don’t make a big damn deal about this now, when they have a chance - when they have a CHOICE - to make things better, to provide better representation, to correct the mistakes of the past... What will we get in the future? How will they backtrack on this in the future? How will they exclude us in the game they just announced a few months back? How will they continue to tell us that they don’t want gay people in this setting?

Look, I don’t use these words lightly. But that is, whether it’s a conscious attitude at all or not, what they are telling us. By not including us, by making us optionally involved, by making us disposable within our own stories, by cutting out our content, they are saying that they do not envision a world, a future, that includes queer men.

And anyone who does not speak up, does not condemn this, does not demand that they DO. BETTER... That is tacit approval and agreement. Because you’re saying that things as they are now - the removal and undermining of our content, of our EXISTENCE in these games - are perfectly fine and acceptable.

And yeah, I’m sure that reading that has probably made some people mad, believe I’m being unfair by saying that, because it’s going to push away allies. Thing is, and this is one of the things that always comes up in anything even tangentially activism related... THIS ISN’T ABOUT THE FEELINGS OF THE ALLIES. This is about listening to the people who are being hurt and saying “you don’t deserve to be hurt this way, things need to change.”

BioWare needs to change its approach. And, as we have seen, it does not come just because of a handful of angry queers, demanding to be represented in their games. It comes because of the community at large calling them out and saying “this isn’t right. What you have done is not right, and we are calling on you to fix it. To do better.”

Don’t just stand there and shrug this off. Because evidence tells us that if they aren’t called out on this now, the next game will not be better. And we will be in this exact same place, having this exact same argument, all over again, in a few years when the next Mass Effect game comes out. When the queer men are given the shortest end of the stick again, and people who are right now saying “what do you expect from a remaster?” will either suddenly turn around and go “I don’t know why BioWare would do something so homophobic” or, worse, “well, it’s something, I don’t see why you’re upset.”

We’re upset because we keep having this argument. And we are going to keep having this argument until people are willing to actually DEMAND that things be better. This is the chance to make things better now.

At this point, a post-release patch that includes a Male Shepard/Kaidan romance in ME1 that is tracked through to the following games is a bare minimum fix, a change done to make it clear that BioWare understands their mistakes in the past and want to make things BETTER.

It may not be easy, but genuinely fixing problems never is. But it’s work that needs to be done.

#dg rants #bioware critical #mass effect #mass effect critical #dg gets pissed #another angry queer rant

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broughttoyoubytheletterf · 4 years ago

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I was just thinking about one of the narrative choices I really enjoyed in MSec.

So, I always low-key hated that we never got a real kidnapping or assassination story line focused on Elizabeth. Who doesn’t want that angst? It’s practically a trope in this kind of show for a reason.

But it makes sense thinking about how they approached and handled her character and the fact that she was a woman in a sexist world and specifically how woman characters (even and maybe especially powerful woman characters) are usually treated in mass media in regards to their desirability/sexuality/femininity.

They didn’t take the easy route when it came to those stories. The time she’s injured worst? When she’s trying to negotiate a world-altering peace deal between sworn enemies and she happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She isn’t targeted by a crazed fan who is obsessed with her sexually or a religious fundamentalist who hates her because she’s a woman. She’s hurt because of the nature of her position, it has nothing to do to be with being a woman/the cliched (but still real) reasons people attack women.

Even when she does actually get a stalker, the stalker largely focuses on her children. Think of other shows where the creepy pictures she got of her children would instead have been a shot of Elizabeth half dressed in her bedroom window or some other semi-sexual photo. The person hacking her? Not someone with pictures pasted in his closet of Elizabeth, but a hired hand for a businessman who targeted Elizabeth for her immense political power and bold policy ideas. He didn’t care that she was a woman, he cared that she had the President’s ear. There’s not a single sexual reference anywhere in the stalking storyline. Again, think of how many shows effectively sexualize stalking. It’s a golden opportunity for shows to allow their powerful female characters to be treated as a sexual object in a way the in-universe supposedly doesn’t allow. (It’s torture porn in a way).

The one time she is specifically attacked because she is a woman, with Andrada, she immediately gets her comeuppance (she punches him in the face) and more importantly it is treated extremely seriously by everyone around her. Every single person is aghast that this happened and wants to take major action. Not a single staff member, even a one-off stand-in for a typical asshole, suggests that she let it go/it wasn’t a big deal/he just touched her ass/get over it. Neither Russell nor Conrad suggest that she overreacted. We know how in the real world there would be more than a few people who would be like “He barely touched you, it’s the price of doing business.” And most fictional universes would have made the assault more prolonged or had the thing Elizabeth had to deal with be that nobody was taking her seriously.

The kidnapping storyline? Given to her white male chief of staff.

Of course sexism exists in this universe and there are plenty of men who treat her as a sexual object, but it’s never the focus of the story. Think of the Moldovan general (and instead of unbuttoning her blouse to speak to him, she buttons it higher and puts on a jacket) or the press attention on her legs. Sometimes she uses her femininity/sexuality in a weaponized manner, say when she parades around in a new outfit to distract the press or jokes about flirting with the guy for the paperwork, but it’s extremely rare. In fact that off hand joke about how the guy has a crush on her and she’s not above using it stands out so much it serves more to highlight her desperation to improve things with Henry. It jars so much with how she usually acts.

When she’s President the people against her are obviously partially motivated by sexism (as we see pretty clearly laid out in the climax of that storyline and when Hanson slips and refers to her being a woman as the problem) but that’s never their outright stated purpose. The sexism is cloaked just the way it is in real life. It’s subtle and hidden, it’s never thrown in our face in that torture porny kind of way (not the best analogy, but media loves to make any kind of portrayal of sexism (or indeed racism or homo/transphobia) a huge production so it’s very very obvious).

I don’t know quite what I’m saying with all of this, I’m mostly just rambling, but fuck do I love me some Elizabeth McCord and Madam Secretary and it really shows that there were women writers and producers in charge.

#madam secretary #elizabeth mccord #i wanted to write fluff #instead i wrote meta #whoops #and don't get me wrong there is plenty of sexist crap they pulled in the show #cliches they used and such #but they mostly did this one thing right

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sinceileftyoublog · 3 years ago

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Philippe Cohen Solal & Mike Lindsay: A Pop Tribute to Outsider Art

From Left: Mike Linsday, Hannah Peel, Philippe Cohen Solal, Adam Glover; Artwork by Gabriel Jacquel

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Outsider visual artist and writer Henry Darger’s fame was essentially happenstance, so it’s fitting that Philippe Cohen Solal’s decades-long obsession with Darger is chock full of coincidence. In 2003, the member of longtime neotango group Gotan Project found himself with a day off on tour in New York City and decided to venture over to the American Folk Art Museum, a choice that would change his life and culminate in Outsider (¡Ya Basta!), April’s collaborative album with Tunng’s Mike Linsday, the first adaptation of Darger’s words in music.

At the museum, Solal, unaware not only of Darger but of outsider art in general, saw a Darger work, and, as he told me over the phone earlier this year, “fell in love.” Looking closer at the details of the work, he saw something he recognized: the name Kiyoko Lerner, who had lent the work to the museum. The very same name of a woman he was set to meet the next day in Chicago as recommended by a mutual friend back in Paris. The friend suggested they meet due to their love of tango. “We met and talked a bit about tango,” he said, “but quickly, I asked her about Henry Darger.” She began to tell him exactly who she was, the story that’s become increasingly well-known in the annals of Chicago cultural history.

Lerner and her late husband Nathan (himself a prominent Chicago photographer) were Darger’s landlords; Nathan discovered Darger’s work in his “very messy room” shortly before Darger’s death in 1973, most notably his 15,000+ page novel In The Realms of the Unreal as well as his magazine-traced illustrations and watercolors accompanying the book. (The book, a fantastical epic about child slave rebellions, would go on to inspire visual artists and musicians for decades; indie rock band Vivian Girls took their name from characters in the book, and Darger would even be referenced in The Venture Bros.) Nathan immediately knew he had something special, and he and his wife took control of Darger’s estate. Darger would start to become formally recognized by the art world, his work prominently featured in museums and documentaries. Nathan died in 1997, and Kiyoko would continue to operate as head of the estate and donate her collection to various museums across the world.

In 2006, Kiyoko flew to Paris and met up with Solal at the first Darger exhibition in the city, at La Maison Rouge. It was immediately when he left the show that Solal had the idea to make music inspired by Darger’s art. “At the time, I didn’t [even] know that [Darger] wrote lyrics,” Solal said. “I had no clue.” In reference to Darger’s war between children and adults, Solal had the idea to write “adult music for children,” or vice versa, and wrote a track that wouldn’t even end up 15 years later on Outsider. He visited Kiyoko at her Chicago apartment. “I spent a few days immersed in his art. I didn’t know precisely what I wanted to do, and then I discovered he wrote lyrics. It very much changed the project.” Nobody had thought to put Darger’s lyrics to music, and Solal wanted to put his stamp on the increasingly large pool of reinterpretations of or references to Darger in the arts and culture world at large. Kiyoko put him in touch with art historian Michael Bonesteel, who led Solal to more lyrics.

Not wanting to go at it alone, Solal got the idea to do a collective project adapting Darger’s lyrics to music with various friends. He reached out to the likes of Calexico’s Joey Burns and Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner, but Lindsay was the one who really stuck. Solal and Lindsay were fans of each other’s bands, and the latter visited the American Folk Art Museum while on tour at Solal’s recommendation, he himself rediscovering Darger’s work. In 2015, there was another Darger retrospective at the Paris Museum of Modern Art, and Kiyoko, who attended, suggested to Solal that he reveal his song adaptations of Darger. “I didn’t tell her I only had one song at the time,” he laughed. That was his inspiration to reach out to Lindsay. “I thought maybe I’d do a 5-track EP. I called Mike and reminded him of my project and asked him, ‘Are you ready to work on that with me?’”

Solal and Lindsay separately wrote the melodies and basic arrangements of the songs that would end up on Outsider, and they recorded and produced the record together. Lindsay introduced Solal to Northern Irish musician/singer/multi-instrumentalist Hannah Peel, who would voice the Vivian Girls. Solal asked Adam Glover, a singer he knew through his manager, to be the voice of Darger himself. (“He was very young...but he can sing like Sinatra or Dean Martin,” Solal said.) The four created an album with Darger’s words using traditional pop instrumentation and song structures but also children’s instruments; Peel even created her own music box to play some of the melodies. Sometimes, the words were spoken, as on “Hark Hark, My Friend, Cannon Thunders Are Swelling”, while other times the vocals are isolated in harmony, as on “We Sigh For The Child Slaves”. “We know more about Darger as a painter and visual artist, so it was important to have Darger as a storyteller,” Solal said. Furthermore, the group wanted to capture the raw spirit of Darger’s art by rendering the voices distorted, shifting their pitch to make them sound almost out of tune. The instrumentation, meanwhile, ranges from slinky electric guitars to strings, and even barroom-style piano on the penultimate “We’ll Never Say Goodby” [sic]. “With our small team, it was lean and simple to do this music,” said Solal. While most of the titles and words were taken directly from Darger, down to the spelling of “Goodby”, the album touches on Solal’s story, too. Instrumental interlude “851 Webster Avenue” is named after the address of Lerner’s apartment Solal visited for the first time, when his fascination with Darger really took off.

Solal can’t exactly pinpoint what ever fascinated him about Darger, both in general and as the world changes, but he has some clues. “At the time, what was interesting to me was it was clear [Darger] was a self-taught artist, and maybe I felt a bit moved by that because I’m a self-taught musician,” Solal said. “I never went to music school, but I understood that without any specific art education or practice at an art school, you can create something...Henry Darger is an amazing example of someone who created his own world.” Darger’s style of illustration, his drawings traced from magazines, made up for the fact that he wasn’t a technically great drawer, and it complemented his heightened sense of color. Moreover, Solal feels kinship with some aspects of Darger’s childhood. Part of the inspiration for In The Realms of the Unreal was that Darger himself was sent to an asylum that put children to work. “When he was a kid, everybody called him crazy,” said Solal, “But I’m sure he didn’t think he was crazy. I remember when I was 9 or 10, I thought I was crazy. Nobody called me crazy, but I thought I was.” He found commonalities in, simply, being misunderstood.

Solal also questions what it means to be an “outsider” artist; in reality, Darger spent most of his time inside, confined in a room creating fictional worlds. Funny enough, according to his diaries, he was fascinated with the weather, tracking the accuracy of the predicted versus actual weather, but that’s about all for the outside world. On the day JFK was killed, for instance, Darger had nothing about it in his diary entry. He chose to interact with the world through the magazines he would trace, and through collections of items like Pepto Bismol bottles, National Geographic issues, and broken glasses. He wasn’t much for interpersonal relationships. Not only was Nathan Lerner unaware of Darger’s artistic enterprises, but neither were the young artist couple with whom Darger actually shared his apartment. Solal thinks that Darger’s resistance to presenting himself as an artist was as a result of his childhood experiences. “If the outside world was not so mean to him, maybe he’d be less scared to show who he was to the rest of the world, even just to his neighbors,” he said. “It’s funny that we call him an outsider. He was more an insider but was protecting himself from the outside world.”

Perhaps, subconsciously, the more that creative folks learn to look through Darger’s eyes, the less likely his, or any genius goes unnoticed. Solal remarked that many of the folks involved in Outsider almost had to “unlearn” their craft. Andrew Scheps, who mixed the album, at first didn’t know the context and gave Solal and Lindsay a product that was “too clean;” Lindsay explained Darger’s story and the importance of having strange-sounding narrative effects in the records. “When he worked [after that] on the mix, we found Henry was back in our songs,” said Solal. The individuals involved in coming up with animated videos for each of these songs, French animator Gabriel Jacquel with art direction by Pascal Gary (aka Phormazero), also had to abandon their fundamentals and learn to draw like Darger. Overall, exploring his work provides admirers like Solal the opportunity to dig deeper, from figuring out how to bring Outsider on stage to “finding new ways to tell the story,” like podcasts, interactive maps, short films, and Spotify playlists of Darger’s favorite music. “This man is full of mysteries,” he said. “I hope my future is Outsider for a while.”

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drivingsideways · 4 years ago

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k-drama rec list

Prior to 2020 I’d maybe watched 2 k-dramas in my entire life, but this year I got sucked in, thanks to some great recs, and y’know, *gestures * everything.

I think I’d held off watching kdramas because my impression of them was limited to romances that I didn’t enjoy at all. But this was the year I discovered the equivalent of “gen fic” kdrama- dramas that had wonderful ensemble casts, strong story lines that weren’t entirely romance focused and also a variety in terms of themes and styles. A big plus was that I found so many of these dramas had women leading the writers’ room, and seeing the effect of that in the story telling. (Notable exceptions: a certain “star” writer who should please stop inflicting her badly written, formulaic crap on the world, yes Kim Eun-Sook, I mean you, and whoever wrote that trashfire Flower of Evil)

So here I am with my own rec list! Caveat- these are mostly not the dramas released in 2020, I’m still playing catch up! :)

Under the cut for length

My Mister/ My Ahjussi (2018, Written by Park Hae-Young, Directed by Kim Won-Seok, starring Lee Sun-kyun and Lee Ji-eun aka IU)

This was definitely my absolute favourite of the shows I watched this year across western/ asian media. It’s a story about the thread that binds us all and the ineffability of human connection. It’s also a story that deconstructs ideas of masculinity and honour and shame in a non-western context, but with an extremely compassionate touch. It’s a story that doesn’t shy away from showing the consequences of material and spiritual poverty; and how one can so easily feed into the other. It’s a love story that isn’t a romance, except that it’s a Romance. It’s about finding salvation in one another and in the kindness of strangers. It’s about choosing life, and picking yourself up off the floor to take that one last step and then the next and then the next. The one quibble I have with the series is that it could have been better paced, it does get extremely slow after the half way mark. But god, do they land the ending. Both Lee Sun-kyun and IU turn in absolutely heartbreaking performances, and fair warning, be prepared to go through an entire box of tissues watching this series.

Life (2018, written by Lee Soo-yeon and directed by Hong Jong-chan, starring Lee Dong-wook, Cho Seung-woo, Won Jin-ah, Lee Kyu-hyung, Yoo Jae-myung and Moon So-ri.)

Medical dramas are very much not my thing, and I wouldn’t have taken a chance on it except that @michyeosseo said I should, and she was right! It’s a medical drama in the sense that it’s set in a hospital, but rather than a “case-fic” format, this is actually a sharp commentary on the corporatization of health care, and the business of mixing, well, money and what should be a fundamental human right. Writer Lee Soo-yeon was coming off the global success of Stranger/Secret Forest S1 when this aired, so I understand that expectations were probably sky-high, and people were disappointed when this show didn’t give them the adrenaline rush that they wanted. On the other hand, I thought that this outing was really much more nuanced in terms of the politics and also how the ending doesn’t allow you the luxury of easy-fixes. This show has a great ensemble cast, and while it took me a while to get used to Lee Dong-wook’s woodenness (i ended up calling him mr.cadaver after watching this and was surprised to learn that he’s very popular?), in the end I was quite sold on his version of angry angst-bucket elder-sibling Dr.Ye Jin-woo. His best scenes were with Lee Kyu-hyung who turns in a lovely, achy performance as the paraplegic Dr. Ye Seon-woo who just wants to live a normal life. The love story between the two brothers is actually the emotional backbone of the story, and I think they landed that perfectly.

My one quibble with writer-nim is that she ended up writing in a forgettable and somewhat (for me at least) uncomfortable romance between the characters played by Won Jin-ah and Cho Seung-Woo. I think part of my uncomfortable-feeling was that I got the strong sense that the writer herself didn’t want to write this romance, it was as if she was being made to shoe-horn it in for Studio Reasons, and she basically grit her teeth and did the worst possible job of it. I do wish we could have absolutely had the OT3 of my dreams: Moon So-ri/Cho Seung-woo/Yoo Jae-myung like, c’mon TV gods MAKE IT HAPPEN, just...look at them!!!!

Anyway, that apart, I think this was a very engaging series, and by engaging, I also mean thirst-enabling, see below.

Stranger (aka Secret Forest or Forest of Secrets) S1 & 2 : (2017-, Written by Lee Soo-yeon, directed by

2017′s smash hit aired a much anticipated second season in 2020, and I managed to catch up just in time to watch that live, so that was thrilling :D . Writer Lee Soo-yeon mixes up thriller/office comedy/political commentary in an ambitious series. I think S1 is more “exciting” than S2 in terms of the mystery and pacing, but S2 is far more dense and interesting in terms of political commentary because it takes a long hard look at institutional corruption and in true writer-nim fashion doesn’t prescribe any easy solutions. Anyway, please enjoy public prosecutor Cho Seung-woo and police officer Bae Doona as partners/soulmates kicking ass and taking names in pursuit of Truth, Justice and just a goddamn peaceful meal, along with a stunningly competent ensemble cast. Also yes, Han Yeo Jin is a lesbian, sorry, I don’t make the rules.

Search: WWW (2019, Written by Kwon Do-Eun, directed by Jung Ji-hyun & Kwon Young-il, starring Im Soo-jung, Lee Da-hee, Jeon Hye-jin)

GOD. Where do I start? +1000 for writer Kwon Do-Eun saying “fuck the patriarchy” in the most grandiose way possible, i.e. absolutely refusing to acknowledge that it exists. Yes, this is that power fantasy, and it’s also a fun, slice-of-life tale about three women navigating their way through work, romance, national politics and everything in between. It’s true that I wasn’t entirely sold on the amount of time spent on the romance, and I really wish they’d actually had a textual wlw romance, though the subtext through the entire series is PRACTICALLY TEXT. But still, it maintains that veneer of plausible deniability and I think queer fans who are sick of that kind of treatment in media have a very valid grouse against the show. On the other hand, personally I felt that the queer-platonic vibe of the show is very wonderful and true to real life, and it was only reinforced by the ending. This is a show written by a woman for women (like me), and it shows.

Hyena (2020, Written by Kim Roo-Ri, directed by Jang Tae-yoo & Lee Chang Woo, starring Kim Hye-soo and Ju Ji-hoon )

Those of you who’ve been watching hit zombie epic Kingdom are probably familiar with Ju Ji-hoon’s brand of sexiness already. I had not watched Kingdom and got hit in the face by Mr.Sexy McSexyPants’ turn as a brash, privileged-by-birth, up and coming lawyer who gets completely runover by the smoking hot and incredibly dangerous fellow lawyer/competitor from the other side of the tracks in the person of Kim Hye-Soo. When I say they set the room on fire, I mean it, ok. Every single scene between these two is an actual bonfire of sexual attraction and emotional hand grenades, and they’re both absolutely riveting to watch. “Flower of Evil” wishes they had what this show has- an actual grown up romance as opposed to a thirteen year old twilight fan’s idea of an adult romance.

The “lawyer” shenanigans and the “cases” are hit or miss, and I think the occasional comedy fell flat for me. But that’s not why I mainlined like 6 episodes of this series overnight like a coke addict, and that’s not why you’re going to do it either. It’s so RARE, even in these enlightened days to find a female character like Jung Geum-ja: hard as nails, unapologetic about it, and not punished by the narrative for it. The best part for me is that she feels like a woman’s woman, not a man’s idea of what a Strong Female Character should be. Anyways, when I grow up I want to have what Kim Hye-soo has ok?

Other dramas that I watched this year, quickly rated:

The King: Eternal Monarch (3/10 and those 3 points are only for the combined goodness of second leads who deserved better- Jung Eun Chae, Woo Do Hwan and Kim Kyung Nam. Please head over to my AO3 and read my attempts to fix this garbage fire and rescue their characters from canon)

Flower of Evil (-10/100, dont @ me)

Tale of the Nine Tailed (5/10, I think it succeeds at what it set out to do, which is a light hearted, sweet fantasy-romance-melodrama, plus “second lead” Kim Beom will make you cry as the hot mess of a half human/ half fox spirit ALL TEARS character. I think if you’re into kdrama romances as a genre, this is probably a good bet?)

Signal (7/10, This was the first full kdrama I watched this year and would definitely recommend. It’s a police procedural with time travel shenanigans and has an engaging plot, good pacing, texture and compelling performances. My one disappointment with it was the way they wrote Kim Hye-soo’s character. As literally the only female character to survive in any way, she was given short shrift, and toward the end it really began to grate on me.)

Six Flying Dragons - (7/10, also would recommend if you’re interested in Korean historicals. It definitely already feels a bit dated in terms of styling and production values, and even scripting and acting choices. But it has a good balance of fantasy and history and political commentary. I was not a fan of Yoo In-Ah’s performance in this series, but it’s not anything that would make you want to nope out of the series. It’s GoT , if GoT was thoughtful about politics and characters and not the misogynist, racist trashfire that it became.)

My Country: The New Age - (3.5/10, and that’s 3 points to Jang Hyuk’s fan and 0.5.points to Woo Do Hwan’s heaving bosom. If you like your historical drama/fantasy with very pretty men, very gay subtext -seriously RIP to show makers who thought they could hetero it but didn’t account for Woo Do Hwan’s Tragic Face- lots of blood and tears and very nonsense plot, this is right up your alley. I probably would have enjoyed it more in other circumstances, I think? But this one just annoyed me too much at the time!

I have a couple of more dramas to watch on my list, that’ll probably carry me over into 2021, so see ya on the other side! :D

#k-drama #kdrama rec list #2020: A YEAR #i'm a queue for you

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normal-thoughts-official · 3 years ago

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Oooh yeah the first time I was playing as a female mc because I wanted to romance ava and I usually go male mc if I want to romance a man and female mc if I want to romance a woman (and I think there was one book with where mc could be non-binary so I picked that one but I didn't finished the book), and Stacy's brother felt Hetero™ in a way, like Hollywood ish (? Honestly like cinematographicly bad hetero) but I ended up really loving Andy too, and Stacy felt a little flat but also I really liked her potential, like go crazy girl, and the mom issues.

Apart but holy shit you're 10000% right about that teacher like who inmediately threatens expulsion just like that for something not violent ??? And to an honor student with way too much on his plate ??? Obviously it would have been bad with any student, but you have literally the reason of why he's doing it and as a teacher HE LITERALLY COULD HAVE HELPED WITH IT ??????? Like something teachers can't really help students because it's a family thing only or is a financial struggle or etc but it was literally because of school (and his family, but the teacher could have heloed him with the school part)

(Identity thief anon (also I go by any pronouns ahhshs))

ur valid! that's lowkey what i wish i'd do (picking female MC if my fave LI is female and the other way around, i mean) but unfortunately i always go into the stories blindly having no idea what i'll find </3 so i cant really do that doiajdiosa and then i get attached for the MC i picked so i feel bad about changing their gender/name/appearance when i replay. so what i usually do is that i pick a male MC when i get the option because A- u don't always get the option, so i end up being male half the time and female half the time either way; and B- i feel slightly more comfortable with a male identity than a female one. like i'm still nonbinary and i wouldn't consider myself male aligned or within the gender of Man, but like... when i first came out i went by any pronouns but then because im afab everyone was like "cool, she/her only it is" so i was like fuck that and stopped using she/her. so i feel slightly more comfortable with a masc MC and end up going with that

there's also the fact that it always feels slightly genderfucky to have a male MC because choices is so sexist and also always writes the stories assuming ull pick a female MC, even when they give u the option not to. so when u pick a male MC he's very like not toxically masc and some things they add to make a QuiRkY MC that are very white woman and would feel annoying are actually kind of subversive for my black and brown male MCs. so like another win for queerness /j

ILITW MC in particular i feel has HUGE nonbinary vibes like no reason at all he just does <3 maybe it's just that for once the male clothes for ILITW actually fUCK. i wanna dress in that goth outfit <3 so gorgeous ugh. i love him even tho he's a fucking dumbass

also there's a book where an MC can be enby? worm? ive only ever read one book in choices with any enby characters at all (america's most elligible, books 2-3) but they weren't even a LI which is disappointing cuz they were a billion times superior to any of the LIs. sorry america's most elligible LIs fans

also oh connor IS the epitome of white cistraight man even when u play as a man tbh, like he was just so cistraight to me daouhdsaojdasij he kind of annoys me but also i forget that he even exists until he shows up onscreen and choices starts trying to push me into his lap and i'm just like, ugh, not again

and yeah i think i feel a similar way about stacy. i don't dislike her as a character and i don't feel like she as a character felt flat, her growth was very interesting and i loved seeing her start to challenge her mom like YESSS GO GIRL GIVE US EVERYTHING, she just felt flat as a LI to me ig? like idk i didn't feel chemistry between her and my MC personally, but also like, stacy girls are valid u know

right exactly. like i don't think ppl really understand that a school that doesn't drive people to cry during finals week and feel absolutely crushed by having to be there and that makes ppl feel like they're stupid, not enough, and overwhelmed IS IN FACT POSSIBLE and actually pretty easy to make when we stop treating students like statistics that will get the school more clients/funding (depending on whether it's a private or public school). and like as a teacher getting my degree in brasil it just feels completely surreal to me that anyone would see a student who's so overwhelmed by the amount of extracurriculars and responsibilities he feels like he has to take that he starts taking drugs to help his performance despite it affecting his health, and see that as like... something morally reprehensible? like it is bad that it happened but it's not the student's fault, what's morally reprehensible are the circumstances that led to his decision, not his decision

and like it is very much a systemic problem, more and more kids are taking focus pills to be able to survive the pressure of school and have a shot at a future, either on their own or because we are actually medicalizing not existing to be productive. and if it's a systemic problem then the fault is at the system?? and like holy shit i legit don't understand why choices gave us options like being like "it still isn't enough" when lucas gets rid of his pills, what do you mean it isn't enough??? enough for what??? to FORGIVE him???? for something that only hurt himself??? for something that is very much a systemic problem and therefore NOT HIS FAULT????? literally what the fuck even is this, lucas doesn't have to "make up" for a single thing, he needs to be HELPED is what he needs

like idk i know that the school system in the US is...... extremely backwards lmao which is not a term i like to use because it usually implies imperialistic views but the US is the height of world imperialism so like actually idc. brasil has a pretty progressive constitution and as a teacher my whole education was focused on being critical of the school system, particularly the productivity obsession, and drilling into us again and again that we aren't supposed to just be teaching subjects, we are also supposed to be teaching how to be a citizen, be a critical human being, work towards building a better future, and learning and growing AS A PERSON to be healthy and happy are values of the school system

like that's easier said than done when schools are under insane amounts of pressure by companies in practice to be productivity-driven, and most teachers who actually want to do a good job end up having to live at the edge of the knife and constantly fighting back outside pressure, but at least it is very much a mandatory part of our education to become teachers and also like literally part of the constitution. so i just... i can't fathom reacting the way mr cooper did? like as a teacher i felt BETRAYED, i felt like he shat all over my profession because that is the opposite of what we should be doing, this is a kid who needs help

and just like hOLY SHIT HE DID NOTHING WRONG, what are you punishing him for??? it's not even a like, stealing bread to feed your family situation, because what he did HAS NO VICTIM OTHER THAN HIMSELF, and therefore HE IS THE VICTIM NOT THE CULPRIT. he doesn't have to repent or atone or answer for a single fucking thing, he didn't victimize others, he doesn't have to apologize, there's nothing to punish him fOR??? like i don't believe in punishment anyway cuz im a prison abolitionist but doDAUSDJADASIJDAS???????????? HE DIDN'T. HE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG. WHY IS THIS WHOLE GAME ACTING AS IF HE WAS IN THE WRONG. OH MY GOD

it's like saying that someone needs to be forgiven for self harming????? like how is it that someone has been hurt continuously until it led them to hurt themselves and then they have to? make up for it to a bunch of other ppl? my god it makes me so mad and i genuinely don't understand the logic, like usually when i see someone doing fucked up shit i can see the logic but i don't agree with it, but this time i genuinely DON'T SEE THE LOGIC. my USan friends said it was because he was technically doing drugs but like i legit still don't understand

anyway any school that drives a student to do something like that needs to rethink their entire curriculum and the psychological effect it's having on kids, because lucas is 1- not even the first one according to mr cooper; 2- even if he was, that'd be the only one who got CAUGHT; and 3- even if there was really only one singular student who went tHIS far, i doubt the others weren't feeling that same pressure and dealing with it in other similarly unhealthy ways

i know that's probably easier in brasil than in the US even if it's by no means easy here because here at least in public schools the curriculum and political-pedagogical plan has to be agreed on by the school community (teachers, parents, students, workers, and anyone who lives in the area of the school) and it's updated every year, so like, you have more means to do something to change the school in a deeper way, altho of course that still has to mean swinging the rest of the community, but still. but at the very least he could have looked for counseling for him? tried to find a way to take some of the workload off his shoulders? given him some more time on assignments? motioning for all the clubs he was the president of to have co-presidents so he was less overwhelmed?

like there was just daodsao he could have done so many things and he justs DIDN'T he chose to not only punish him instead but quite literally THREATEN HIM WITH DEATH because that's what calling the police on a latino student over a drug charge is. like he might've survived but the possibility that he would fucking DIE was very much there, and i know choices didn't think of that because they'd rather die than think about the racial implications of anything but holy fucking shit. and im not even getting into how mr cooper is BLACK because then ill just start biting people like thanks for putting that threat on a black character's mouth choices. if u need me ill be foaming at the mouth

anyway SORRY god why is it that i always get to the salty part within 2 seconds of joining a fandom i promise that i actually like it lives and the way they handled most of their plot, i genuinely think it's a very well written and actually worth ur time story but i just doadosaida like i said particularly as a teacher in the context where i'm being taught, plus with all my political beliefs, i just can't let it go aaaa

also ty for telling me ur pronouns! idk if i assumed them at any time, i don't think so but i might have done so without realizing and if i did im really sorry. also sorry for the gigantic salty reply daojdsaojdaisjsajdoadsaodasj rip me i never shut up

#it lives spoilers #ilitw spoilers #it lives #salt #long post #drugs tw #cops tw #police brutality tw #racism tw #victim blaming tw #anti connor green #ilitw #lucas thomas #ask #identity thief anon #self harm tw

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shinchan1221 · 7 months ago

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sailorfailures · 5 years ago

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ColourPop is dropping a Sailor Moon collab on Feb 20th and I have some Opinions

It’s the moment Sailor Moon makeup geeks have been waiting for - ColourPop cosmetics, noted for their affordable and colourful official pop culture makeup collaborations, has announced a Sailor Moon collaboration containing an eyeshadow palette, two liquid lipsticks, two lip glosses, two blushes, and two body glitters. Most likely this collab is being timed with the 25th Anniversary of Sailor Moon’s debut in North America to contrast with Japanese cosmetics from brands like Creer Beaute and Shiseido, which were released for the Japanese 25th anniversary.

Source: ColourPopCo on Twitter

After my initial excitement about the long-awaited collaboration died down, I was left with a somewhat disappointing realisation... this entire collab, over a total of nine products, was not about Sailor Moon: The Show... it was about Sailor Moon, the character.

When I imagine a makeup collection for Sailor Moon I immediately picture the rainbow of colours represented across the whole Sailor squad, or at least the OG Sailor Team five. But almost everything in the collab is quite warm, and either pink or neutral/natural. Exceedingly neutral/natural, in fact. One look at the names for all the product colours - “Shining Moon”, “Twilight Flash”, “Bun Head”, “Usagi” - make it clear that the products are intended to reflect Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon only.

The packaging itself is... interesting. I can appreciate that they were trying something new with the eyeshadow and blush cases, as they are all topped with different holographic pictures - not (just) the shiny kind of holo, but the old school kind that flips between two different images, all exclusively featuring Usagi and sometimes Luna. You can see the effect in action in this video review by TrendMood. Good concept but slightly awkward execution. I think they would’ve benefited from some kind of static frame around the images so that it didn’t look like I’d just hot glued a pog to my pencil case. The rest of the packaging features the same old redrawn clipart from every other piece of anniversary merch, so, yawn, though the prismatic elements are nice. The body glitter pots are cute, featuring Usagi’s first transformation brooch to mirror the round shape of the pots, but ColourPop’s “gliterally obsessed” branding seems out of place. I know that’s the name of their glitter gel series but maybe it could’ve been swapped out just this once.

(Screencap from above video by TrendMood)

The lip sticks/glosses are by far the most disappointing. Apart from the cardboard boxes they come in, the only branding visible on the tubes themselves is the series logo and a nondescript crescent moon pattern on the caps. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of subtle packaging. I don’t really want Sailor Moon’s face plastered all over a lipstick either; but I’ve also never been a fan of using random moons/hearts/stars as a stand-in for something more relevant to the show when that imagery is so generic and disconnected from the series. Why not little graphics of the Silver Crystal? If they’d thrown some rabbits, bows, and/or roses into the pattern then the combination would read more as “Sailor Moon” than moons on their own. (That said, splitting them into “Moonlight” for the liquid lips and “Daylight” for the lighter glosses with transformed vs. non-transformed? Brilliant. Genius. The perfect blend of nostalgic and practical.)

(Screencap from above video by TrendMood)

Here’s a photo of the palette taken from Temptalia’s website with everything but the shadows desaturated, so you can read the colours more clearly without being influenced by the packaging:

At first I wasn’t sure what this colour story was trying to tell me. I definitely understand going for a more neutral/“everyday” palette over something more glam, since the characters themselves are generally fresh-faced, but the AMOUNT of neutral shades here seem out of place for such a bright series. Tuxedo Rose and Love (the two pinks in the middle of the bottom row) are so similar for such a limited palette. Twilight Flash (top, second from the left) feels out of place; oddly saturated and just a bit too warm to play nicely with many of the other colours. Mare Serenitatis (the coppery-looking one) stood out as unusual but is actually more of a wine/plum under all the glitter, which is much more appropriate and reminds me of Sailor Moon’s transformation.

The more I looked at this palette, and the more I saw of reviewer's looks using it, the more I slowly realised that this palette wasn’t really evoking the character of Usagi herself, but rather the nostalgic, hazy, pink-washed aesthetic of the entire 90s Sailor Moon animation.

The dreamy not-quite-pastel quality of the 90s anime (half conscious design choice, half convention of the time) has received a lot of modern attention and praise. It makes sense that the palette feels like it’s being viewed through a rose-tinted filter when the entire show felt that way, or is at least remembered that way. It wouldn’t surprise me if ColourPop literally based some swatches on recurring colours picked from screenshots.

That being said... Does that make it a good choice for a makeup collab? Is this what Sailor Moon fans want and will buy? Is it versatile enough to warrant a purchase for non-diehard fans? Is it actually what casual fans, who might buy something like this out of pure nostalgia, are actually nostalgic for? Just because I see what ColourPop was going for, does it automatically translate to the most appropriate choice?

Ultimately, my judgement on that comes down to whether this is ColourPop’s only Sailor Moon collab. If this is them testing the waters to see if they can branch out into releasing products focused on the other girls, like a blue/silver mini palette for Sailor Mercury, a green/pink mini palette for Sailor Jupiter, etc. then I’m all for it. When perceived as a palette that represents the show itself, and not any specific character - not even Usagi, despite what all of the swatch names suggest - it really shines. But that’s not really ColourPop’s MO. Most of their pop culture collections are released in one big shining burst of products and then... nothing. And there are quite a few different products here.

I’d also be remiss not to point out that there are lots of indie Sailor Moon-inspired makeup collections already on the market, which makes sense for an almost-30-year-old series that literally repeats the words “make-up!” nearly every episode. Maybe ColourPop felt like they would be stepping on fandom toes or running the risk of copycat accusations if they strayed too close to any of the 2,348 red Sailor Mars-inspired eyeshadows online, though I assume they’d have the legal upper hand. In that respect, I do appreciate that this is a unique approach to a concept that has been nearly driven into the ground.

But ColourPop is not an indie brand and there are some benefits that come with that. They are generally more accessible, sometimes more affordable, can usually ship to more places in less time at a lower cost to the buyer, and can afford much larger runs that will sell out less quickly (though don’t be fooled, this collab will almost certainly start to sell out shortly after its launch). For many fans, especially younger fans, this is probably their only feasible option for Sailor Moon makeup. And some fans prefer the stamp of authenticity from an “official” collaboration, even if indie collections are often, well, better. So I think there’s an impetus for ColourPop to release a less specialised collection that’s reminiscent of more characters.

If this really is the only Sailor Moon collab ColourPop is planning to release, then the packaging, in my opinion, is an odd choice. I don’t know why they decided to focus exclusively on Usagi herself; if the colour story is meant to represent the entire series, then why not either have all the girls on the front in a rosey colour scheme, OR have none of them and focus on one of the cityscapes that clearly inspired the palette? I feel like there are lots of fans who aren’t necessarily fond of Usagi herself who may be put off by the overwhelming focus on her.

Overall: The lip sticks are nice but not super exciting, but I like what I can see of the lipglosses. The subtle glitter is very Sailor Moon. I love the Moonlight/Daylight concept but wish it were reflected on the actual tubes. The body glitters (Moonlight Legend, Moon Prism Power) are exciting and interesting, by far the most experimental part of the collab. The shape and colour choices for the glitters are very “Sailor Moon” and I can see them getting some use on the festival scene. The blushes also seem cute but a tad overpowering for the otherwise understated vibe of the rest of the collab, like the liquid lipsticks, and I love the Luna stamp in the blushes but would be sad to actually use them and see it get worn away. And while I like the gauzy backdrop-inspired looks people are making out of the palette, I feel like it’s extremely limited in the number of unique looks you could actually pull off.

So, in the end... am I going to be buying any of these? Hell, probably, if they’re not totally sold out by the time I get to them. My initial roller coaster of OMG COLOURPOP SAILOR MOON!!!! excitement dropped into “that’s it?” disappointment but has now leveled out at a respectable buzz of interest. I could see myself wearing most of these products, and the collector in me wants at least a piece of the collab for posterity. I just really hope that this isn’t the end of ColourPop’s involvement in Sailor Moon and that we might see some future products tailored specifically to the other girls, so that my collection isn’t just Usagi’s face staring back at me.

#Sailor Moon #ColourPop #Colour Pop #merchandise #long post #edit: just bc I have some questions about this collab I hope this didn't come off as overly negative #I'm still planning on buying a lot of it LOL #and the more I look at it the more excited I get #I think I wrote a lot of this when I was still in the disappointed downspiral from the initial announcement #bc I was thinking about what it 'could' have been based on my own biases #when i look back and see what it actually is I'm still very excited #the more I look at it the more I feel like these are uniquely 'sailor moon'

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