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lord-of-christmas-lights · 3 years ago

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I swear I have normal Narnia headcanons. However, none of them are featured in this post.

So! If you've been following my series of posts about my Inhuman Narnia AU and the couple of oneshots I posted on ao3 under ASkyOfKai, you've probably noticed that in this little universe I've created, Narnia is sort of...sentient. And I've just realized that I've only actually gone into depth about this on Discord with my friends who are probably very tired of hearing about it. So I'm making y'all suffer through it instead. Welcome to Inhuman Narnia 101, please take your seats because this is going to take a while.

Warning for religious themes, theological discussion, and some dark fantasy/inhuman/body horror concepts that involve blood and physical changes.

BEFORE I SAY ANYTHING: Please keep in mind that an AU is meant to be an alternate universe that may not follow canon information. If anything in this post contradicts canon on the creation of Narnia (it undoubtedly will), pay it no mind, this is an AU. It doesn't have to follow canon.

First off, a little explanation of the Inhuman Narnia AU in general. Basically I came up with this AU after seeing some other people on tumblr post about the Pevensies being not quite human after their time in Narnia. Just eerie, cryptid, a bit of dark fantasy kinda stuff. And I was like, "I'm in love, sign me up, I have ideas." I did not sit down and develop this all at once. The worldbuilding I've done for it has come slowly over the past few weeks through posts, fanfics, and discord rambles. The idea of Narnia being a sentient earth deity of sorts is a recent one and there is already so much to it. (Also I call her Narnia because it's convenient, she has other names but I haven't bothered to like, actually make any up so Narnia is what she's called.)

The most important thing to note starting off is that Narnia is not supposed to be a replacement for Aslan, nor is she necessarily "the hero to his villain". Aslan and I have an interesting relationship, as he is literally God/Jesus/The Holy Spirit/etc and I no longer really identify as Christian. While there are times that Aslan definitely takes a more antagonistic route in my writings, I don't actually see him as a bad guy, nor as a good guy. As God, he literally removed from our concepts of good and evil (in my opinion). The same goes for Narnia being an earth deity. I am a Christian-raised pagan, and I definitely subscribe to the idea that gods and deities are not subject to humanity and our rules. Narnia is not a good goddess, she is not a bad goddess, she simply is a goddess. Plain and simple. The dichotomy that exists between Narnia and Aslan in my writing is generally that of opposing deities, but this isn't a hard and fast rule. There were and still are times when they're friends, working towards the same goals. There are times when Narnia's power is stronger than Aslan's and times when Aslan's power is stronger than hers. There is no simple 1:1 comparison between them.

So, getting into motivations and why Narnia as a deity even exists. Essentially, I asked the question, "How do the Pevensies become inhuman?" and voila earth deity Narnia was born. Now, the basic in-universe mythology I've worked out is that Narnia and Aslan are two deities from separate dimensions that came together to create a new world, the world of Narnia. Aslan is the one who oversees things, he's the one who comes up with the ideas, and he's a little less attached to the world as a whole because he's a Creator, not an earth deity. Narnia is, however, and she literally makes up the world, she sort of runs the entire thing on a physical level, and she is much more attached to it. So she's always kinda taken on this role of making the things in her world the way she wants them. For the most part, she and Aslan designed everything together and they're both happy with it blah blah blah. Well, Aslan then decides to bring a few humans from this other world he's created to Narnia. And she affects them a bit (I've got headcanons about Digory and Polly that I haven't posted anywhere yet but I might soon), but it isn't until Aslan brings the Pevensies over that she really gets to experiment. See, there are other deities in the world that kinda rule over the various lands on a surface level (patron gods for Telmar, the Archenlands, etc, they just have less power than Narnia and Aslan) so she has a little less power over the people in those places, but the country of Narnia is both her land and her so when the Pevensies become the Kings and Queens and live there for 15 years, she's very connected to them. And it's through this connection that she starts to affect them. Honestly, I'm not sure if Narnia even knows what she's doing when she starts stripping away their humanity. I think it's that she can feel they're not from her world and she doesn't like that. She wants them to be a part of her, she wants them to belong in her world just the same as everyone else. (Side note—I know Telmar and some other lands in canon are based on people finding portals and coming through and I'd like to say that she does affect them a bit, takes away a bit of their humanity, but it's not to the same extent as the Kings and Queens of her lands).

"So Kai," you might say, "You keep empathizing that she is literally the land and the land is her. What the hell do you mean by that?" Well, essentially, she is...the...land. Basically if you've read Percy Jackson Heroes of Olympus, there's this idea that Gaia and Tartarus are both physically their domains and able to take on a smaller, human shaped physical form because they're gods and not restricted by human ideas of only having one body. Narnia is the same. Her physical form is both the entire world and whatever smaller shape she might appear in to people. However, we have to acknowledge that their world is differently structurally from ours. There's magic, there's talking animals, and in my Inhuman AU, there is a literal Heart of Narnia at the center. Like a physical, beating, human-shaped heart. Except it's a lot bigger than a regular human heart. Also it's golden. And many many many miles underground. So anyways this is where she's centered. It's basically where her soul is. Probably under Cair Paravel because I just came up with that idea and I love it. And radiating out from it are veins of magic and blood, and these stretch all across the world. Now here is where we get into blood magic and some of those fun terrifying concepts I've come up with.

Narnia has her own blood, of course, but also whenever one of her Kings or Queens bleeds in battle, she kinda pulls it down through the earth into her own heart and veins. It doesn't really do anything to her or them in particular, it's just a fun side effect of them having a patron pagan god. Yes this includes Caspian after he becomes King. Also Peter's blood turns golden because he's the High King, and then later Caspian's does too because I just really like imagery of Ben Barnes bleeding gold. (Side note—when Peter returns to England, his blood goes back to red, but it does remain a brighter red than blood generally is).

Diverting for half a second here. Now, in both my regular Narnia writings and my Inhuman AU, Lucy is very very connected to magic. In my regular Narnia fanfic, she studies with the druids, who are sort of like BBC Merlin's druids. They're just like, chill dudes who run around in camps doing magic and making prophecies and shit. However, in the Inhuman AU, they are a lot darker. One of my favorite ideas with the Inhuman druids and Lucy is that they are so connected to Narnia's magic and her Heart that their hands become stained with blood. Is it their blood, is it Narnia's blood, is it someone else's blood? Idk, don't ask questions. But yea, their hands are permanently stained reddish-brown to almost black. In my regular Narnia stuff, I still like the idea of Lucy's hands being stained and go with just earth magic, dirt stuff for the reason why. But yea no, in the Inhuman AU her hands are stained with blood because of blood magic.

So getting a bit more into how Narnia affects the Pevensies now because I love talking about this lol. She doesn't consciously chose how to change them, though she does call them her creations. Generally the way her magic affects them is by connecting them to to the land in some way and bringing out certain traits they have. So for Peter it's his eyes flickering between regular blue and the amber of a lion's, feathers appearing on his back that grow into wings, having a strength greater than that of a giant's. His blood is golden and on clear nights, the Aurora Borealis in the sky is reflected across his skin. For Susan, her skin glints like glass in the sun and she can briefly glimpse the future. Her wounds are sewn shut with golden rays of light, her eyes are cracked but clear, and she seems to glow faintly in the night, a bit of the sun's radiance shining through her. Edmund has a bit of a star's power lodged in his throat, and can manipulate words, uses them to influence people and their actions. His skin is frostbitten in places, a side effect of ruling the Woods where the White Witch once held so much power, and in some spots his bones shine under the ice that spreads across his skin. Lucy has the stained skin from her stronger connection to magic, and when she speaks words from the Old Language (the one Aslan and Narnia used to shape the world itself), her voice echoes and rasps. Her teeth are too sharp, her smile too wide, and when she disappears underwater, she can stay for hours without surfacing. I want to get into Eustace and Caspian now too but this post is already extremely long and I've still got a bit to cover, so we're just sticking with the Pevensies for now. So yea, Narnia doesn't pick what she does to the Pevensies, she just connects herself to them and through that connection, they change. The magic that she is made of, that Narnia the world operates on, that's what changes them. However, as I stated already, she does call them her creations and feels extremely responsible for them.

Wrapping back around up to the beginning, this is the biggest source of conflict between her and Aslan as of the canon timeline. I like to believe that the lamppost incident was an accident, that Aslan didn't actually mean to send them back at the end of LWW and it was pure coincidence, wrong place wrong time stuff. That being said, it did happen and Narnia really didn't like it happening. The Pevensies did return to their (mostly) human selves in this AU in England, so when they came back in Prince Caspian, she felt disconnected from them again. She reacted to this by digging into them even harder on a spiritual level and essentially speedran them back to being inhuman throughout the timeline of PC, which generally takes place over a few months in my mind. I don't remember how long it was in the book, it's been quite a while since I read them, but it's only like a week in the movie and like eff that, overthrowing a kingdom takes a bit longer in my opinion. Now there are a few divergences here. 1. They all stay at the end of PC and yea that's it, they go back to being Kings and Queens and it's like a second Golden Age but with Caspian there as well. 2. Susan and Peter stay, Lucy and Edmund go back and it's a repeat of the human/inhumanity cycle for them + Eustace in VOTDT and then they stay. 3. Everything happens exactly as it does in canon and it's a constant cycle of humanity/inhumanity with the character's various trips and finally ends at The Last Battle. I like all versions and I tend to leave things a little open to the reader on what exactly happens, or I would if I could actually finish some of my drafts and post them. As you can imagine, Narnia likes 1 the best and 3 the least. She really wants her Kings and Queens to stay and rule her lands and like be awesome and stuff. However, Aslan prefers 3 the best and 1 the least. So again, neither of them is really good nor evil, they just have differing opinions on how the world should be run and what the Pevensie's fates should be. I do tend to side with Narnia, I really like exploring these concepts of inhumanity, but I also really like the concept of a cycle. That's very common in mythology.

So anyways, that's a bit of an overview on earth deity Narnia and her role in my Inhuman AU. If you made it this far, congratulations, and I give you explicit permission to use any of my ideas in your own writing/fanart/whatever, as long as you tag either my tumblr or my ao3 (lord-of-christmas-lights and ASkyOfKai) because I need more Narnia+Inhumanity content in my life. Thanks for reading all this and I'll probably be back very soon with elaboration on Eustace and Caspian's inhumanity!

- Kai

#inhuman/dark fantasy narnia #the chronicles of narnia #peter pevensie #susan pevensie #edmund pevensie #lucy pevensie #aslan #digory kirke #eustace scrubb #caspian x #narnia headcanons #rambles of a hyperfixating kai

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another-snape-story · 4 years ago

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Always On My Mind

Chapter XII

Snape thought about you more than he should, more than he considered to be appropriate, but there was nothing he could do to resist that uncontrollable attraction he's grown to feel towards you. Being a loner his whole life, probably for the first time in many years, he found comfort in someone's company – your company. Afraid to admit the fact, Snape gave absurd excuses to explain the feeling that expanded his chest every time he saw you, realizing perfectly well, however, how pointless it was to deny the obvious. His typical mistrust in people, which escalated now, on the eve of return of Him-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and initial desire to find out if there was any kind of threat for school or its students in your intentions when you applied for the position of Hogwarts Professor a few months ago, played a cruel trick on the man, drawing his interest – and later his heart – to a woman, who started meaning for him more than a colleague should. It wasn't right, Snape thought, and this thought made him sad. His obligations in current circumstances – that's what he had to focus on. Moreover, who on earth would want to have him close? Nobody would accept him, he knew it; and his skeletons would always drag him back into the dusty cupboard, where no room was left for joy or even hope – only darkness and emptiness. Pulled himself together, he carried on, still remaining kind to you but trying to keep a certain distance.

Nothing has changed in his appearance – he's always looked brooding actually. Neither did you notice any change in his attitude. You shared smiles seeing each other in school corridors, had long conversations in the staff room, which led you deep into the night and brought slight headache in the morning due to the lack of sleep. Sometimes you invited him to your office for a cup of tea, but that black armchair in cold Potions classroom seemed more appealing anyway, and Snape, being aware of this, prepared wool plaid blanket for you every time he expected you to pay him a visit, pretending it's always been there. Although it didn't surprise you any longer, your heart grew a size – you knew he cared for you, and were eminently grateful for his attention. Nevertheless, you still were afraid to say or do something, that Snape might dislike or – what frightened you even more – something, that might push him away – his serious look always kept you alert. He never seemed fully relaxed, therefore you couldn't do it either. Sometimes though, you could notice his features soften in response to your random phrase or look, reflecting his true attitude towards your personality, which – despite all his feigned indifference – seemed like a promising sign of inevitable warming in your relationship.

“Professor Sprout's been too busy with pumpkins for Halloween recently, so today it's me delivering this,” you slumped a box of an impressive size on Snape's desk. You carried it through the whole castle and were happy to finally get rid of this heavy load.

“I thought it was Hagrid who took care of pumpkins,” Snape opened the lid, examining the box content. “It's always been his exclusive privilege.”

“He’s been struggling with gourd aphids for two weeks now,” you explained without showing much concern. “I added some extra item,” your eye excitedly dived in the depth of the box as your finger pointed into it.

“Snargaluff,” Snape spotted surplus jar with green pulsating pod enchanted to always stay fresh. It took him no effort to identify it at once. Perfect, almost twice bigger than prevalent, it glistened in the daylight.

“I just thought you wouldn’t mind having it in your storages,” you looked up at him to make sure he was pleased.

“Merlin, I hope its thorned vines didn’t hurt you,” he frowned worriedly, trying to get a better view of your hands – he wasn’t going to grab you, no matter how bad he itched to.

You pursed your lips to suppress a smile which threatened to give out your embarrassment which suddenly took over you, and drove your eyes away for a second. Not the kind of reaction you’ve expected, but seeing this fleeting transformation on his stone face, usually stingy for expressing any kind of emotion, felt so surprisingly flattering.

“Who do you think I am?” you grouched with discontent in a joky manner.

“If you only saw his pleading eyes – Hagrid’s – when he begged for help, poor thing!” you giggled kindheartedly, changing the topic. “It’s so weird seeing a man of his size almost crying over damaged pumpkins!”

“Never got why they can’t just conjure them,” Snape shook his head disapprovingly. “Minerva could’ve given those little dunderheads some additional practice in Transfiguration.”

“Let them do what they want,” you sighed, “unless you’re not involved, of course.”

“Instead of avoiding unwanted job, better create favorable circumstances that increase the chances of not doing it. Otherwise it’d be too late to keep away.”

“You’re a clever guy, Professor Snape,” you teased him, walking around his desk. “And how often do you make people think what is advantageous to you?”

“Some-times,” he responded stretching the word, as slowly as his glance followed you. “For instance, I let you think for a while I didn’t notice that bandage under your sleeve.” His eyes narrowed, while he stared at you with reproach. “As you’ve just mentioned,” his tone gained cold notes, “I’m a clever guy, indeed.”

“Not that clever to presume I would lie about a scratch from Snargaluff,” you approached him, smiling softly.

“What is it then?” ashamed of making quick – and therefore false – conclusion, Snape blinked confusedly.

“It has to do with the seed you’ve given me,” you clarified proudly, “but it’s a surprise!”

“How did you… What?”

“The seed defends itself, when… Well. I can’t tell you now. Will you be patient, until…”

“Until it kills you?” Snape grunted and you laughed.

“I hope it won’t go that far!”

“Let me have a look,” he stretched out his hand, expecting you’d give him yours. But you just squeezed his palm as a token of gratitude and let go.

“It’s fine, Poppy was so nice to provide me with everything I needed. It’s no more a matter of concern.”

Snape hated surprises. Never had he ever had one to his liking – all surprises he’s encountered happened to be of an unpleasant kind. Neither did this one promise to be enjoyable. What on Earth you had on your mind? And why you found it so exciting putting yourself in danger?

“I got to go now,” you announced not without regret. “Just dropped in for a minute…”

“…and stayed for half an hour,” Snape smiled warmly.

“As usual,” you chuckled. “Sorry for taking your time again.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you’d take some more,” he thought, and said in a more formal tone, “thank you for Snargaluff. It’s exceptionally good.”

“Just good?” you portrayed disappointment.

“I said exceptionally good! Okay, it’s outstanding,” he smirked.

“Outstanding,” you declaimed, savoring the word. “Outstanding sounds much better!”

You swiftly disappeared behind the door, leaving your fellow Professor smile pensively, unwilling to let lighthearted image of yours out of his mind.

<<< Previous Chapter • Next Chapter >>>

Tag: @diaryofafan17 @yul-is-sparkling @fullmoonshadowwrites @forthehonourof @mayumikurosake @redrehab @space-helen @fluffymadamina nadiigh @theworldisugly-22 @lukaerith-morningstar @sighsinkhuzdul @67-chevy-baby @rustypotatospork @aquila-leo @dandyrua @majusketch @fancygirl61 @writingmi @s00nhi @pinkininja @shizuethedragon

#snape #severus snape #snape x reader #severus snape x reader #snape fanfiction #severus snape fanfiction

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katherinewilliams221b · 4 years ago

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For A Greater Good 7/18

gif not mine just the text

Summary: Kate Williams, young healer and member of the Order, joins Durmstrang's staff at Dumbledore's request. Her mission? Find a Death Eater and survive long enough to tell the story. Set in 1996.

Pairing: Charlie Weasley x ofc

Masterlist

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5]

[Part 6]

Charlie adjusted the collar of his shirt while staring at his reflection in the bathroom’s mirror. Poking his head out of the door that connected to the bedroom, he checked the clock and hurried back into the bathroom to dry his hands with a towel.

He heard a soft bell coming his way and found Grimoire, Kate’s beloved cat, by his feet.

“I know, I know. I still have a few minutes…”

Grimoire hissed in disappointment and disappeared again.

Charlie cleaned the remains of the shaving cream that were left on his jaw and nodded at his work before heading to the fireplace in the living room, where Grimoire was pacing.

He chuckled at the invisible circles that the cat was making.

With the floo powder in hand, he kneeled next to Grimoire and tried to concentrate on the words that Kate indicated him to say.

Durmstrang’s chimneys were not connected to their home in Romania, but she said to give her two weeks and, in that time, true to her words, found a way to connect them.

“Doorm-strang.” He pronounced, throwing the powder to the logs. The green flames appeared, and he waited for her face to pop out of them.

He rubbed his suddenly sweating hands on his thighs while staring impatiently at the fire. Grimoire had time to spin several times around him, making him consider locking the tedious animal inside his closet. Giving it a second thought, the idea of having to deal with him after that seemed equally, and even more horrible.

“Hey, you” Kate’s voice dragged him back to reality.

He knew he had the stupidest grin all over his face and prayed for the green fire to distortion it a bit. He observed her features: her forehead, her nose, her impossibly long eyelashes, those thin but very well-shaped lips, back again to her moderately thick eyebrows and the gorgeous honey eyes that gazed at him. He couldn’t see her ears, or her neck, probably covered in all of those tangled waves he loved spending hours combing with his fingers.

His eyes darted back to her lips, now moving again, but he couldn’t identify what they said.

“Charlie? Is there something wrong with your side of the floo? Can you hear me?”

The crinkle between her eyes formed like many times before, and he smiled at it.

“I can hear you, love, loud and clear.”

“How have you been? How are you?” Not even the flames could hide the concern.

“I’ve been better. It’s ah... somehow more difficult being away after living together than... you know.”

He heard how she shifted in her place and tried to get more comfortable.

“I know…”

“I have been busy, though, working, writing, I did some cooking, but it’s infinitely more satisfying doing that for two rather than one.”

Her face lit up with the flames and expanded a little as she leaned in. If he concentrated enough, he could imagine that she got closer to him.

“Did you finish your papers?”

“Not yet, the text is there in my nightstand and I stare at it daily, waiting for it to write itself. Wait, someone wants to see you.”

Kate chuckled, and the flames danced around her when she shook her head.

“That’s not writing.”

“It’s not? Well, maybe I’ll have to plan another strategy, then.” He said equally amused. He lifted Grimoire to the fire level, and the cat mewled in delight, seeing his master for the first time in months. He mewled again, and Charlie had the impression he was telling her his version of the story.

“Hello, Grimoire, is that ginger over there being rude to you? Want me to give him a lesson?”

Charlie huffed and practically threw Grimoire out of his arms, before brushing the hairs out of his sleeves.

“Bloody demon, that poor excuse of a cat of yours.”

“What happened? You’ve never had problems before?” She said with a chuckle.

“It appears we are a tad territorial with your things. I wanted to sleep on your side of the bed these days, and I tried to trick him and put your favourite blanket on the couch, but he won’t have it. He always returns and curls up in your pillow, mocking me.”

“I miss you both, too.”

The light atmosphere evaporated and was replaced by a way too familiar sadness. They had walked this road before, and yet it seemed that it would never end.

Kate gave a sharp inhalation, holding back something that could have been words, tears or both.

“How did you, ah... get rid of the smoke? Of the fire you said…” Charlie cleared his throat, holding back something that could have been words, tears or both.

“I’m holding my wand up the chimney, vanishing it. Do you know how hard it is to practise ‘evanesco’ on actual smoke?” She chuckled, barely believing how she managed to perfect the spell in just two weeks. “What’s the physical form of... smoke? I have no idea.”

She was just rambling, now. Not wanting to end the conversation, but guilty about not having anything to talk about, or better said, anything safe to talk about.

Charlie puffed out a disbelieving and proud huff at her brightness, and out of pure instinct he stretched his arm to caress her face, immediately regretting his dumb behaviour.

Kate grinned when he brought his fingertip to his mouth to soothe the pain.

“I see some things don’t change, then. Always attracted to the fire.”

Catching her eyes, he was captivated by their sudden shimmer that had nothing to do with the floo powder.

“I like the warm feeling of it.” he whispered.

“You want to be cautious; you might burn.” her voice sounding equally low, and in the silence of the night, it resembled a purr. But it might have been the floo interferences. He chose his words very carefully, selected them to have the desired effect.

“I would happily let the flames consume me.”

Grimoire’s angry hiss covered Kate’s shuddering breath, and she thanked Merlin when Charlie turned around at the cat and didn’t see her face.

She looked up, probably checking her spell, and then behind her before focusing on Charlie again.

“You must go already?” He intended to sound as disappointed as he felt, selfishly wanting her to stay at least one more minute.

“I have a bit of time. There’s plenty of healers here, and night-shifts are relaxed. They will survive without me. Now tell me, are you putting on enough sunscreen?”

Charlie’s entire face brightened at the question and proceeded to tell her the amount of work he’d been putting on the sanctuary.

“Some of my teammates have been asking about you, you know?”

“Really? What did you tell them?”

“That you were on a trip around Europe. I don’t think they believe that. They think we broke up.”

“Stick to the Europe story. It’s pretty accurate, anyway. By the way, are you familiar with the book... uh... The Tales of Beedle the Bard?” Her voice above a whisper.

Charlie was taken aback by the question and answered full of curiosity.

“Sure thing, love. Mum used to read it to us when we were kids. Why the sudden urge to read bedtime stories?”

“Someone recommended it...”

“Wait... you’ve never read it? It’s very famous.”

“I don’t remember there being any children’s stories in my house. Arithmancy books, yes.” As the conversation came to a halt, Kate settled down on the floor, adjusting her arm.

“I hope you’ve been watering my plants...” she threatened after she settled.

“Each and every one.”

“And have you been moving Ypsilon? He likes the sun at all times, otherwise his leaves close up and then he gets mad at me.”

“Plants can’t get angry, Katie,” he let out with a laugh, “and yes, every day; in the morning I put him by the window with white curtains and in the evening on the chairs on the other side.”

“That they can’t get angry, he says. You paid little attention in herbology and it shows.”

“You left me an endless list of instructions for each pot and I’m following them to the letter. If you think I’m not doing a good job, come home and see for yourself.”

The smirk that had planted itself on her face deflated to leave only a sad smile.

“I would love to...”

Charlie’s expression suddenly darkened. He adjusted on the carpet to be more comfortable, but Kate noticed the agitation. She gave him time to say what he had to say and after a long sigh he spoke again.

“Katie, you’ve been receiving letters... letters from your father.”

“Have you opened them?”

“Of course not. But there’s three of them now…”

“But... Oh, shit.” Charlie frowned and leaned into the fire. “A few weeks ago someone from the ministry came looking for Igor Karkarov,” Charlie’s eyes opened like plates “He must have recognised me. I know he was from my father’s department.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Me? Nothing. Well, my job. The important thing is what you do. Open the letters. Probably he’s just asking why I don’t respond. Send an owl saying I have a lot of work.”

“What if he comes here?” Kate snorted.

“Joseph Williams? Getting his trousers dirty to go to a cabin? Don’t worry, he won’t bother.”

“I’m worried, Kate. What if something happened?”

“All the more reason to read them. Don’t tell me anything, don’t send me anything, I don’t want to know anything. The less traceable, the better.”

“Katie, we’ve been sending each other letters for over a month.”

“I know...” They were silent for a few moments, listening to the crackling of the flames. Kate adjusted her arm again, moving the fire, and inhaled to speak.

“Don’t tell me we should stop because I’ll have a heart attack,” Charlie rushed before she could say anything.

“No, it’s just... things can get ugly real fast and I don’t... I don’t want them to get to you.”

“I’m not the one who can’t go home. Besides, if someone intercepts our letters, what will they find? Dumb words of love?” He managed to get a laugh out of her for the first time in two months.

“Hey! They’re not dumb!” Charlie rested his head on the palm of his hand. “No, they’re not...”

“One question.” Charlie started out of nowhere, “What do you know about giants?” Kate arched her eyebrows before pursing her lips, pensive.

“They’re usually big...”

“Yes, thank you very much. You remember that Hagrid…”

“Yes.”

“Dumbledore asked me to fix it...”

“No. Absolutely not. No way...”

“Katie, I already went.”

“Damn you, Charles! Giants, are you mad?” She looked behind her shoulder and murmured, “What were you thinking?”

“About you, and on how useless I was feeling by keeping a low profile.” She tsked and shook her head. “It didn’t go well, but it was worth a try.”

“What made you think it would work, if Hagrid failed?”

“My charm.” He threw a proud smirk at her, trying to tease her a bit. She shook her head again, this time trying to keep the corners of her mouth from curving.

“Are you all right?” She asked in a completely different tone.

“A little bruised, but fine. Though I would have preferred you being the one who healed me.”

“Sweet talker.” She accused. He flashed her a grin again, attempting to make her forget his little adventure.

“So they’re on His side, irrevocably, right?” Charlie slowly nodded.

Asking her to wait, he reached for the flu-powder bowl, and threw a handful into the fire, rekindling the green flames.

He looked at her again, without saying anything. The fire was the only thing that lit up the little room in his home, and if he concentrated enough, he could imagine that she was there with him; reading or writing, both of them in silence, enjoying a quiet night.

“What’s wrong?” She whispered.

“Nothing, just looking at you. Lovely views.”

Kate’s face contorted in worry all of a sudden. She ordered him to be quiet with her finger against her lips and turned around. He saw the back of her head for one solid minute before she faced him again.

“Someone’s outside,” she whispered, “I need to go now. I promise we’ll talk like this again.”

“Katie... Kate!” She looked at him with fear of being caught and with a pointed look, hurried him to talk.

“I love you.”

She softened, and a hint of a sad smile appeared on her face. He watched her close her eyes and take a deep breath.

I love you, too

He barely heard her, but her lips didn’t move at all, and he had to blink several times to register what was happening. It felt like she was there, right next to him, and in his head, and everywhere.

“How…”

“A connection. An unbreakable bond lets the mind do wonderful things. And the vanishing spell isn't the only thing I've been practising.” She checked her back again and returned to him once more before grinning. “You look handsome, by the way, as always.”

And with a wink and a smile she left him staring at the now cooling logs, touching his recently shaved face and with a devastated expression that would stay with him for the next months.

“Thanks…” he whispered into the night.

She glanced around to make her eyes adjust to the darkness and picked up the heavy skirts of her uniform so that she could stand up. Groping around, she approached headmistress Rhode’s desk and opened the top drawer. Feeling only papers and parchment, she closed it and opened the next.

Kate made the remaining smoke disappear quickly, as well as the burned logs. She raised her hand to her necklace and then pressed it against stomach, thinking that perhaps, if she put enough pressure, she would make the horrible feeling in her body disappear.

Something cold touched her hand. Bingo.

She lifted the bottle and extended her arms before pressing the valve at the end of the tube. The characteristic smell of the headmistress’ office flooded the room, making all traces of the smoke disappear.

She grimaced at the new fragrance and quickly returned the bottle to the drawer. Just as she was closing it, a new set of voices echoed through the door.

She stood very still, at first, hearing them closer and clearer.

She hurried to her feet, and at her haste, the corner of the desk collided with her hip. Taking her hand to her mouth, she pressed her eyes so hard that she began to see stars.

When the pain became tolerable, she went on her way to the door and bent over the doorknob. Moving the flap that covered the lock, she dared to look.

“You can’t get very far, Marek.”

She could make out Libor Marek’s legs, limping rapidly out of reach of his pursuer. Another pair of legs appeared beside him and Marek halted.

“You’re a lunatic. All those weird herbs of yours can’t be doing you any good.” He lowered the volume of his voice as he stood in front of the door, yet the irritation was evident in his tone.

“I’m only going to ask you once...”

“You mean, ‘once more’...”

“I’m just saying, if you need painkillers for your leg, don’t steal ingredients. You can ask for them. I didn’t say anything the first time, but it’s getting repetitive.”

“Don’t get amiable with me, Jorgensen. I didn’t take anything from your stinking office. Maybe you should ask yourself who decided that poisoning teachers is the order of the day in entertainment.”

“Well, that would be perfect, wouldn’t it? You’d kill two birds with one stone. You never liked her."

Marek didn’t respond. His legs turned away from the potion teacher. Although he said one last sentence, Kate could only make out the word “cretin”.

Jorgensen stood in front of the door before turning around and walking away in the opposite direction.

Kate let out a long sigh and squeezed her wand more tightly. With a grimace, she lifted the latch of the door and pulled. She tiptoed out of the room, trying to avoid the heels of her boots to touch the floor, and slipped through the shadows. To the rest of the world, she had never been there.

She walked through the halls calmly and quietly. The floating candlesticks barely lit the way, enough to keep from tripping.

Darkness had never been a problem for her. In fact, it was preferable. Everything was different; the people seemed good, the problems insignificant, and the world was at peace.

However, everything was out of the ordinary now. Even the night could not avoid that feeling of being watched. There weren’t too many pictures on the walls, but if the stone had eyes, Kate was sure it would squint as she walked.

I’m not very good at this spy stuff, she thought. Suddenly the question she had asked Astrid Rhode on her first day echoed in her mind.

Why me?

I’d never get a clear answer from Dumbledore, that was clear. She could only resign herself to accepting her mission.

Before entering the infirmary, she sniffed the inside of her elbow and shirt collar, and when she saw that Astrid’s potion to eliminate odours had worked, she plastered her healing face on and opened the hospital wing’s doors.

With the events of the past two weeks related to the herbology professor in mind, she went over to Flavia Hodges’ bed to review her status report. Just a few days before, Flavia suffered another accident; she rolled down the stairs in, what appeared to be, a moment of distraction on her part.

Poisoning. Unknown. Possible Weedosoros. (Symptoms: convulsions, foaming at mouth) - Antidote for common poisons. Effective.

Anxiety attack. - Calming draught. Effective.

Hip fracture- 3-4 days, Skele-gro. Effective.

Looking up from the paper, she observed how the teacher moved in a restless sleep. As she approached to blow out the candle on her bedside table, a hand grabbed her tightly at the wrist.

Professor Hodges took a deep breath; her eyes were wide open, and they looked at Kate with a horrified expression. With her free hand she gestured frantically, and her mouth opened and closed, trying to pronounce the words she so desperately wanted to convey.

“Professor Hodges, breathe with me.” Kate tried to get Flavia to compose herself, but she was getting more and more agitated.

Some sounds came out of her mouth, and Kate sat down on the bed.

“What do you want to tell me?” She put her hand on her forehead and didn’t need a thermometer to know that her temperature was not normal.

“I need help! Fever-reducing potion and... and more antidote!” She screamed over her shoulder, not caring if she woke up other patients.

Two mediwizards rushed to the cabinets to provide the necessary potions. Kate reached out her hand that wasn’t being squeezed by the teacher and flew a cloth hanging from a chair on the other side of the room.

“Aguamenti.” She mumbled. The cloth became wet in her hand, causing several drops of water to travel to her elbow. She placed the cloth on the teacher’s forehead, who winced at the contact.

The promised potions arrived quickly, and the three mediwizards set about healing their patient. Flavia resisted, squirming and holding Kate tighter and tighter.

“Ig...” She put her index finger just below her eye for a second before dropping her hand.

“You saw something. What did you see?” Kate insisted.

“Ig... ov...”

“I’ll give you what’s left of the calming draught.” Kate heard her partner say.

“There’s nothing left but that?”

“Don’t give her anything yet!” Kate interrupted. “Professor. Professor Hodges. Look at me. Do you mean that...”

Before she could finish the question, one of her companions raised Flavia’s head and made her drink from the bottle of the potion that would take effect in a few seconds.

Kate stood up and as she watched Flavia Hodges go into a deep sleep, two dots connected in her mind. It was possible, and almost certain, that Professor Hodges had had an encounter with the Death Eater Igor Karkarov, and that he was roaming the castle at that very moment.

[Part 8]

A/N. I took the liberty of writing the floo net system as I pleased. Did it sound like they were facetiming? Perhaps

#charlie weasley #charlie x jacob's sibling #charlie weasley x mc #charlie weasley x ofc #kate williams #hphm ask #hphm fanfiction #charlie weasley fanfiction #durmstrang series

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drarryangels · 5 years ago

Note

heyy so my birthday is in 3 days (the 14th) and i was wondering if you could write something for then? i really love your writing and *most* stories (i’m still crying bc of the last two)! it could be literally anything, i just wanted something cute and that hate that’s actually suppressed love vibe totally cool if you can’t/don’t want to, just thought i should try 😅 thank you 💜

Oh my gosh happy birthday!! (I’m probably going to post this early because I wanted to work on this as soon as I got this ask and Tumblr won’t let you schedule ask posts as far as I know) So happy EARLY birthday!! Thank you so much and I’m sorry about the two most recent fics! (I’m actually not and your reactions gave me LIFE) Thank you for being the sweetest and I’m so so so happy to write something for you!

Also I’m sorry I couldn’t decide whether or not to write something angsty or fluffy so I wrote both. (the second one will be coming on your actual birthday)

I still haven’t figured out how to sit across from you, and not be madly in love with everything you do, Draco thought, spooning more eggs into his mouth.

Harry was laughing across the table, giggling and snorting at something Pansy had said. Draco didn’t know what she had said, but whatever it was had Harry losing his mind. He looked so beautiful in this light. Rich sunlight was sparkling in and out of perspective through the windows and dust motes caught on and ruffled through Harry’s hair.

Draco smiled down at his plate. He had made Harry’s hair like that. Wild and untamed, finger tracks imprinted through his curls from last night and this morning. Sex and kissing and cuddling. Just one tiny sign of the fingerprints all over Harry’s body that Draco had left there.

Harry’s toes tapped over Draco’s under the table and Draco’s eyes flicked up to meet Harry’s green ones. Every time. Every time, Draco couldn’t help but lose his breath. Being in love with Harry Potter had that effect on him.

Pansy kicked Draco’s knee under the table, and even though it stung, he didn’t have it in him to glare at her. He knew it was her way to say stop looking like you’re so in love you can’t function, but that’s exactly what he was.

At first, their friends, even Harry’s who had only known about their relationship for a week, had teased them about being in the honeymoon phase. But while the rest of their friends lost their desperate need for public sexy times and shifted towards the old bickering of people who knew each other too well, Draco and Harry didn’t change.

Harry’s hands had never stopped shaking in nervous anticipation after that first time after their eighth year graduation when they had kissed for the first time. It had just been a light, soft thing, but it made Draco’s heart stutter in his fingertips. Draco’s heart still did that when they kissed. Harry’s habit of lacing both his hands through Draco’s before they went to bed never faded away. Draco’s insistence to eat half of the food off of Harry’s plate for every meal never dissipated.

They were still just as madly in love as they had been since always. It wasn’t a honeymoon phase because it wasn’t a phase.

They’d been together for over four years now, and everything was still a surprise. Every move was still a gift.

Harry stood up from the brunch table and kissed Pansy on the cheek. Draco knew they were leaving the restaurant, but why? Hadn’t they just gotten here? Harry might’ve had an Auror meeting. Maybe he was just heading out earlier. Harry came around the table and grabbed Draco’s hand and beckoned him to follow along. Pansy just grinned and waved goodbye.

Draco trusted Harry, and so he followed him.

There was no one outside when they walked past the host at the front door and out of the local brunch place they’d been eating at. The streets were completely empty.

Draco turned to ask Harry what was going on, but when he turned, Harry was there pressing him up against the side of the wall with beauty captured in his eyes. He was so close that Draco could almost see his own reflection in the glassiness of Harry’s eyes, but there was no roughness of lust. Harry’s hands were gentle on his hips and his mouth was just barely brushing the corner of Draco’s mouth.

“I miss you,” Draco whispered. Harry leaned back in confusion, and then it was over.

Draco sat up violently and looked around. Their bed was empty and the sheets were soaked with Draco’s sweat and the mess of rolling he had done in his sleep. A sharp pull tugged his stomach down into darkness.

Draco flopped back into bed and closed his eyes tightly. I miss you. Draco wished desperately to go back to sleep. That was the only time he ever got to see Harry now.

“Dada?” a small voice came from the doorway. “Papa?”

Draco lifted his head and squinted in the darkness. For a second, he saw two tiny boys clutching onto each other highlighted by the light coming in through the door, and then the image cleared. Scorpius was hanging on to the door frame with one hand, and the other one clutching on to the knitted blanket Mrs. Weasley had given him last Christmas. The pull in his stomach yanked down again, and gravity swam underneath him.

“Come here, bub,” Draco said quietly.

Scorpius waddled over to the side of Draco’s and Harry’s bed, now just Draco’s, and held his hands up for Draco to lift him up. Draco picked him and lied him down in the curve of of his body. Draco lifted his hand to rub through Scorpius’ curly blonde hair.

“Where’s Dada?” he heard Scorpius whisper.

Draco squeezed his eyes shut and glance over his shoulder at the empty side of the bed where Harry used to sleep before…

“Gone,” Draco whispered back, a hot tear sliding out of the corner of his eye. “They’re both gone.”

“Gone where?” Scorpius rolled over to face Draco and wrapped his small, dimpled hand into Draco’s shirt.

Draco opened his eyes and let the tears drip down his face sideways. “They’re just gone, bub. It was an accident.”

“Dada?”

“He went in the accident, too,” Draco choked out. Scorpius set his hand clumsily on Draco’s cheek. Draco stared into his little, pointed his face. His son. Draco never thought he’d get to say that. Never thought he’d ever have a son of all things. Much less, two! Two sons, twins.

“Why didn’t Alby come home?” Scorpius asked, his voice so small, so stumbly and young.

Draco tried to swallow it down. Tried to swallow down the heaving sobs and the grief that was trying to stab everything in him to pieces.

“He’s gone, too,” Draco said. His body shook, he could feel it shaking as if it was the only thing that made him real. He could feel Scorpius shaking too, pressed up against him, and the only thing he had left in this life.

It had happened so fast. Harry had gone out with Albus into Muggle London. Sweet, lovely dark-haired Albus with Harry’s dark skin and Draco’s moles. His son, his perfect son. And Harry, dressed like a haphazard mess, just like he always was. Draco remembered the morning like it was happening then, all again.

The orange sweater Harry had put on. Draco had tugged at it, prodding at Harry and telling him the Chudley Cannons sucked, and so did neon orange. Harry had kissed his cheek and then swatted his hands away before picking Albus up and swinging him around the kitchen. He had bellowed, “Whose ready for a day with the Aurors?” Albus had shrieked and squealed, “Me, me, me!”

It had been take your kid to work day. Albus had insisted on going with Harry into the Auror office for the day, and Scorpius had wanted to go to Draco’s apprenticeship job at the upstart wand making shop in Diagon Alley. So that’s what they had done.

Draco didn’t find out until 15:02 the next day that Harry and Albus had been on the bus that’s brakes had broken down and driven straight off the road, killing all the passengers within the first five rows of seats. Damn Albus and his need to see absolutely everything and everyone through the front window.

Scorpius hadn’t been with him, he’d been at the Weasley’s for several hours, and the first thing Draco did was Apparate to where the bus had crashed. It was gone. It was already a day later, and they’d cleared the bus and bodies.

So Draco went to the hospital. Wizards didn’t need any identification other than wands, and therefore didn’t carry any IDs. The authorities didn’t know what to do with a man with a long piece of thin wood in his pocket and the tiny boy with a snapped neck who had been in his lap. They took them to the hospital and waited for someone to identify them.

They didn’t ask Draco if he knew them.

Draco didn’t even have to really see them. He’d crashed into the wall, and then into the floor because his husband and his son. His husband and his son, and oh Merlin. He’d never wanted to see this. He’d never wanted to see anything like this in his life. Dear god, dear god, why had Harry gotten that phrase stuck in his head? Oh god, they were really, really gone. His husband, and his baby boy. Gone, dead, blue, identified. They carried Draco out, kicking and screaming, and took him to the mental ward. He Apparated out when they shoved him in the waiting room. The Statute of Secrecy meant shit.

The next thing Draco did was go to the Weasley’s. He snatched Scorpius up in his arms from where he’d been rolling around with Victoire on the kitchen floor and hugged him so tight, Fleur had yelped at him not to suffocate Scorpius. And then Draco had sat on the floor and cried harder than he’d ever cried in his life, still holding onto Scorpius.

There was talking and a lot of crying after that. Someone had to tell the Weasley’s. Someone had to call Hermione and Ron back from their work trip to America, advocating for magical creature rights. Someone had to go back and put the funeral matters in order.

Draco went to say goodbye later. He’d never wanted to see anything like this in his life. His 23 year old husband with combed hair and pale skin and a tuxedo on. And three year old Albus, who was too small to even really deserve a coffin all his own. Draco held Harry’s hand and ran his finger’s through Albus’ hair, and it was all so wrong. So, so incredibly wrong.

He took Harry’s ring off of his finger and put it on a chain around his neck. There was nothing to remember Albus by. He was a baby. He didn’t have any rings or material objects that would hold on to the memory of his soul. All he had was a blonde haired twin who’d gotten left behind in the world of the living.

It had been a week. One week.

And Draco lied there, holding Scorpius close in the abandoned stale dark of his bed. Draco lied there with his mouth open, and spit and snot dribbling, and wailed silently. He held onto Scorpius’ warm, breathing body, and cried into his waving hair. He rocked in bed and stared at all the empty gaps that were left in his life.

I still haven’t figured out how to move on from this, and not be madly in love with everything that used to be mine.

(Notes: Holy crap. I feel like I just ran an emotional marathon after writing this. I meant for this to be fluffy and then I sneezed and uh… This is honestly the only fic that I’ve cried about while writing. I don’t cry about my own fics. Woah, you just proved me wrong. I am so desperately sorry @holdmybook I promise I’ll write something sweet for the 14th)

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trollhunter-nomura · 6 years ago

Text

Ch 6.5 was the Valkyrie a changeling?

Who will win, who will die, the fight ensues! Split this one in 2 parts cuz it was too long for Tumblr

...

Early in the evening, just hours from sunset, Bular, Strickler and another changeling by the name of Otto Scaarbach stood before the completed Killahwad bridge. Otto was ready to put the final piece on, the Eye stone.

"We are about to make history." He said almost giddy.

"Be quiet and hurry up, impure! " Bular growled. Otto bowed and climbed to the top of the bridge, inserting the final stone.

The bridge glowed an eery white light and a veiled doorway appeared to open. Within the smoke was a large shadowy figure. Bular knealt on one knee, followed suit by Strickler and Otto.

"Father!" He cried out, almost in pain.

"My son, it has been too long." The voice from the other side was deep, eerie so.

"We have finally finished the bridge, all we need now is the trollhunter amulet!"

The shadow shifted. "And where is the trollhunter now?"

Bular clenched a fist, "Whoever they are they have eluded me for months now. We have not been able to even identify the human who has it."

" The trollhunter is human?" Gunmar seemed curious. "Yet it seems the changelings are failing at such a simple task. Perhaps you should get more competent changelings? "

Strickler paled at the implications.

" You're right father, I should get right on that."

Bular stood and pulled out his swords, backing Strickler to the corner.

"Bular, please..." Strickler started, knowing it was pointless.

Before Bular could act, their attention was drawn to a noise at the entrance of the room. Nomura stumbled in, looking very worse for the wear. Her arm hung limp at her side, possibly dislocated, and She had a bleeding cut on her cheek, which she had to coerce Draal to give her. It's not like she could have gotten a convincing one from Blinky or even the pacifist.

"Nice of you to join us, Nomura." Otto said snidely. "You are just in time to have some fun."

Nomura acted in pain, leaning against the wall at the entrance of the exhibit. She bit back the smile, knowing he was far from wrong.

"You're late, impure." Bular growled, turning his attention to her.

"With good reason, Bular." She turned her hand upward to show the amulet. The others stared in shock.

"Merlin's amulet! How did you get that?" Otto asked the million dollar question, the blue light reflecting on his glasses.

Nomura shook her head, "The trollhunter was here last night. Wiped out the entire nest of goblins. I managed to get this in the fight. "

Well it was mostly true. Strickler slipped away from Bular and snatched the amulet from her hand.

"My Lord with this we can take Arcadia!" Strickler shouted, holding the amulet out.

While Bular insisted he would do the honor of freeing his father, Nomura quietly fixed her shoulder knowing the impending fight would go better if she had both arms. She just hoped her hunch was correct.

Once the amulet was inserted into the bridge, it seemed to react negatively. Rather than releasing the gummgumm king, the bridge seemed to reject the amulet all together, and it went flying out smacking Otto square in the face, shattering his glasses. The amulet rolled to a stop at Strickler's feet. He picked it up to look it over.

"Explain what happened, impure!" Bular shouted in the room, now dark and silence due to the bridge being rendered inert from the loss of the amulet.

"Daylight is... HER'S to command!? The trollhunter, it won't work without the trollhunter!" He said with urgency. " Nomura, where is the trollhunter, what did you do to her? "

Nomura rolled her shoulder to alleviate the stiffness.

"Do to her? Interesting you should ask." She walked closer to Strickler. "I'm glad that my hunch was correct, that if anyone else were to use the amulet against my will, it wouldn't work. I found it funny how it happened, I mean seriously Scaarbach."

The pudgy changeling was still rolling on the ground clutching his face from the glass that pierced his eyes.

"Explain yourself impure, you try my patience." Bular said lowly, jumping from the top of the bridge.

"Explain? How about I just show you instead?" She held out her hand and recited the oath. To the surprise of at least two of the occupants of the room, she was suddenly adorned with the glowing blue armor.

"You?" Strickler asked in awe.

"How could an impurebe the trollhunter?" Bular growled, hatred in his red eyes.

Nomura shook her head as the sword appeared in her hand.

"Call me 'impure' all you want Bular, but I will still shove Daylight where the Heartstone doesn't shine." She gestured to the sword in her hand as she walked over to the entry way.

"You think you can take us both by yourself?" Strickler asked, shifting to his troll form and reaching for a handful of his feather quills.

"Of course not, that's why I brought this." She slammed the blade against the support rope, causing the curtainto fall revealing three other trolls: Draal, Blinky and ARRRGGGH.

"Traitor!" Strickler made a lunge for her, which Draal stopped.

"I'll take care of this one!" He shouted knocking the smaller troll out of the way.

Good thing, because at the same time Bular made a move towards her with his twin swords both which Nomura narrowly parried. He swing both simultaneously, forcing Nomura to backflip out of the way. She was going to need a second sword in this fight. As she tried to get an opening, one of Bular's blows knocked Daylight out of her hand, which vanished as it skidded across the floor. Nomura did a few flips backwards to be out of the way, and instantly shifted to her troll form, armor shifting to accommodate the new form.

"Master Nomura what...?" Blinky trailed off at the sight.

"Don't worry about me, you and ARRRGGGH take care of the bridge!" Nomura shouted drawing her khopesh swords. Now she was more in her element, and it should make for a fairer fight.

"Ah... Right." Blinky and ARRRGGGH went towards the bridge.

Bular charged towards her and she charged back, now on even grounds with fighting. As the fight wore on, her dodging and blocking blows, she found it hard to find an opening. Plus with the fight in the museum, there was supposed much going on, so many things getting wrecked, she had to get him out if the museum. It was a good thing she disabled the security cameras earlier that morning. She chanced a look out the window to see it still daylight, so instead she dove thru the maintenance hatch nearby. This would have been where Draal and the others got to the museum safely.

"You are pathetic Bular, you had victory within your reach, only to have it snatched away so easily." She taunted, before jumping down the hatch. She stood in anticipation waiting for Bular to come after, and after hearing his roar, she knew her comment enraged him.

The fight went on in the sewers, blow after blow on both sides blocked and parried. Nomura grew frustrated. She had to find an opening, but even so, her khopesh alone would do nothing to the gummgumm. She used the wall as leverage to jump over Bular, much like the first time she faced him as the trollhunter. In his momentary distraction, she pressed a hidden switch on her scimitar which released a foul green poison. With creepers sun she might actually win the fight. She threw one blade at him in an uppercut movement which he blocked easily, but left him open. She slashed low at his abdomen, and made contact. The khopesh snagged on his belt, but the poison made contact. It was far too soon to celebrate tho, as with a Bellow of rage he lunged at her, one hand on his open wound, stumbling thru a grate.

In the momentary quiet. Nomura picked up the fallen khopesh and followed him thru the opening. She saw nothing, heard nothing, as she went thru the opening and eventually finding herself in the canals. The sun was still up, but approaching sunset; the sky turning orange. She still saw no sign of the burly troll. She stuck to the shadows, ears turning to catch the slightest noise.

Without warning a clawed hand wrapped itself around her throat, and in a fast movement shoved her into the sunlight. The sun's rays forced her to her human form. She clawed at the now stone hand wrapped tightly around her throat. Looking down she saw Bular at this point was half stone. The poison was acting slow.

"Tour fool poison may finish me, but I will take final pleasure in eliminating you. And when I fall, I will be remembered. There will be nothing to remember you by impure." His voice was growing stiffer as the poison seemed to be reacting inward to out.

She was certainly running out of time. Her vision clouding, black spots bouncing around. She kicked at the air, futilely. She couldn't breath, and almost couldn't think. She suddenly had a revelation, remembering what Draal had told her not long ago. 'The armor and the blade is a mere extension of your body. You have to expect the unexpected, and learn to embody the armor. Force it to do what you want.' As her vision grew darker, she wanted to do anything to wipe the smirk of victory from the troll's face. She felt the warmth of the Daylight sword appear in her hand, and in her last seconds she slashed at the gummgumm, causing the arm wrapped around her throat to disconnect from the body. Before she lost total conciousness, she saw a bright explosion of his body being destroyed.

...

Draal followed the trail of battle thru the sewers to the canal. He looked around the area and noticed the pile of rocks nearby. Sticking to the shadows he approached the scene. He noticed the rocks were what remained of Bular, and it felt as if a weight had been lifted from his chest. But where was... He noticed her, lying in the sun, lifeless.

"Nomura!" He called out.

He noticed her skin was almost the same color of her troll form's flesh. That was when he realized stone hand clenched about her throat. He heard a slight ticking sound too, realizing it was coming from the amulet, and it was slow. He had to act fast, taking note that she was in full sunlight. Without another moment's hesitation, he reached into the sunlight to grab her leg, feeling the burn of the sun pierce his right arm, and pulled her into the shade. Then he quickly crumbled the stone around her throat. Freeing her from it's grip.

Within a few seconds, the amulet spun wildly before the whole of the armor glowed brightly, as if jump-starting her. Nomura jackknifed off the ground with a deep breath, curling in a tight ball, coughing to catch her breath. Draal barely registered the motion, as his dead arm was ripped off his body. Nomura sat up, trying to catch her breath. She took in her surroundings, realizing the half burnt half petrified remains of Bular around her. So she did manage to finish him, good. She rubbed a hand around her throat wondering how she got out of the choke hold. That's when she realized her company.

"Draal what are you..." She trailed off taking notice of his arm, or at this point, lack thereof. "What happened to your arm??!?"

Draal helped her to her feet.

"Well, you were unconscious in the sunlight, I had to act quickly before you actually died." He rubbed at his shoulder. It hurt but didn't hurt.

Nomura didn't understand. She pinched her nose, her head had started pounding due to the sudden regaining of blood flow.

"But, why? If I'd died, you would have gotten everything you wanted. Bular dead, and a chance to be the trollhunter. I'm sure you would have been next in line!"

" It didn't seem right to become the trollhunter like that, it wouldn't have been right."

" Oh, suddenly your HONORABLE??" She shouted.

Draal seemed to act sheepish. "I deserve that."

Nomura shook her head, rubbing her forehead. She really wasn't in the mood for this conversation right now. She held her hand up to just cut off the conversation.

"Forget it. Where are Blinky and ARRRGGGH?"

"They should be finishing moving the bridge to Trollmarket by now. The green changeling I was fighting managed to escape in the chaos."

Of course he did.

"Strickler was always a coward. What about the other changeling?"

Draal shook his head. "I did not see any other changeling's in the room."

That didn't make her happy, but atleast they got the bridge.

"Terrific. We should get to Trollmarket."

She wasn't too happy, regardless of the victory. She didn't worry too much about Strickler, he was a sentimental fool who always got invested in his human life. Scaarbach was who she worried about, but that was for another day. They made their way to Trollmarket, Nomura's head pounding. She had a feeling her headache was going to get worse long before it got better.

#trollhunter nomura #trollhunters #fic

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padfootagain · 7 years ago

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Aurors

Part 1 : Sofia Porazzo

Here is the first part of a series @fortisfiliae and I are writing together! Each one of us is writing bits of each chapters. We hope you like this project of ours :)

A little summary : you and Sirius are Aurors and work together as partners. But this new mission in the heart of the Wizarding mafia is going to be much more complicated than expected...

We hope you all like this!!! Tell us what you think about it :)

Gif not ours

Word count : 2400

Being an Auror was tough. It was harder than you had it imagined it to be, but so rewarding at the same time. Ever since you passed your OWLs you wanted to become one some day. And you actually managed to reach your goal, passing the NEWTs with outstanding grades.

Waking up every day to go to the Ministry and being able to defend and fight for the good side felt great.

You opened the door to your office and saw two paper planes floating above your desk. You took the light-blue one first, it was the colour your boss used to send you important messages on.

“New duty:

Drug ring spotted in Hackney

Head: Sofia Porrazzo

Illegal dealing with Amortentia, Baneberry Potion, Moonseed Poison and various body parts of rare creatures

Observation starts tonight; take your partner to Denton Way, we provide a shed to remain unnoticed;

Undercover investigation can start right after; consider them highly dangerous!

M. Bowen”

Very interesting. You folded it neatly, grabbed the other one and anticipated who it was from. The paper was grey and dull, like he was. McFarley. You sighed before opening the letter:

“Would you mind coming to my office as soon as you’re here?

Thanks, Geoffrey”

While you really didn’t want to do what he asked for, you knew he would pay you a visit in return, if you didn’t. And it was better to be standing inside his office, being able to disappear right away, than having him sitting on the edge of your desk, not bothering to leave.

You got up and left your office, walked over to the neighboring one and knocked before opening the door. Geoffrey sat at his table, eyes fixated on some papers, seemingly writing another letter. He was lean and tall, his blond hair perfectly trimmed as always. Most people would call him handsome - he wasn’t bad looking in fact, but you always disliked his artificial smile and exaggerated friendliness. You could tell he would do anything to achieve his goals, spineless and without morality.

“Morning. You wanted me to come over?”, you asked, as you leant against the wooden door frame.

“Good morning, yes indeed”, he said and put away his pen before he looking up. “Have you read Bowen’s instructions?”

“I have”, you answered, your eyebrow wandering up a bit. “What about it?”

“Well, I had a little talk with him about that case yesterday. He said you could take me with you as your partner this time.”

“Sirius is my partner”, you said and crossed your arms in front of your chest.

“I’m aware. But you seemed to be complaining about him lately. And besides - he’s a Black. I’m still not sure if he’s to be trusted as an Auror with that background”, Geoffrey told you and sneered, apparently waiting for your approval.

“Wow, okay”, you said, took two steps inside and closed the door a bit. “Listen, when I’m complaining, I’m not doing it because he’s incompetent. He clearly is not, he just get’s on my nerves from time to time. And about that family reputation - it’s absolutely not your job to judge his reliability. That’s Bowen’s and mine.”

“Alright, alright. I’m sorry then. I just thought I’d be ready to go out and hunt some bad guys too”, he apologized as you expected.

“Maybe next time”, you mumbled, shook your head and sent him a sympathetic smile, remembering how eager you were to start your first mission. “Ask Henderson, he lost his partner a week ago.”

“You were my first choice, but sure, I’ll talk to him”, Geoffrey said and smiled. There was it. You knew he’d tell everyone they were his first choice. “Thank you Y/N.”

You turned around, without saying another word and left his office. He was still young and inexperienced, maybe he would better himself one day. Maybe you shouldn’t give him such a hard time. But his grin still made you angry. You walked along the corridor, stopped in front of Sirius’ office and knocked. No answer. You tried to open the door but it was locked.

“I’m here”, Sirius’ voice echoed from the halls as he walked your way.

It was exactly 8 o’ clock when checked the time on your watch.

“Never a minute early”, you joked.

“Always on time”, he responded and smirked as he opened the door to his office. “Want to come in? Any news?”

You stepped inside and sat down on one of the two chairs in front of his desk, saying:

“Bowen’s sent a new instruction for tonight. You got it too I think.”

He took the blue paper plane that was floating over his desk and read it.

“Interesting.”

Two hard knocks on the door made you turn around in your seat. Your boss walked in without waiting for a response. Martin Bowen was a tall, broadly built, dark-skinned man in his late fifties. He looked like he could crush a skull with his bare hands, but you knew he’d prefer to use magic instead of getting his hands dirty. Deep inside was a soft core, you were aware of that, but when it came to criminals he wouldn’t let it show.

“Ready for the show tonight?”, he asked after closing the door behind him.

He usually never paid you a visit, this case was seemingly quite important.

“Sure am Martin”, you said. “What’s so special about it that you honour us with your presence?”

Bowen took a seat next to you and sighed.

“They’re dangerous, more dangerous than usual, not just some crooks. I wanted to make that clear again. You need to take extra care.” “

Will do”, Sirius mumbled as he read the instructions again.

“Wait, why did you allow McFarley to come with me if this case is so risky? He’s half-baked”, you asked. “And annoying as well.”

Sirius looked up from the letter and watched the two of you talking.

“He is”, Bowen admitted. “He got on my nerves, begged me to send him afield constantly. That’s why I told him to ask you. I knew you wouldn’t let him.”

You shook your head grinning, tongue stuck between your teeth.

“Told him to ask Henderson, so that’s his problem now.”

Bowen laughed quietly: “Poor guy.”

He got up again and said: “I expect your highest attention tonight. Good luck.”

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

"You know, I think that they could at least give us comfortable furniture. Like an armchair, or at least a sofa that does not risk to collapse under our weight..."

Your remark merely made Sirius laugh.

"That would mean that they would have to pay for something."

You rolled your eyes, setting your gaze back onto the street under you. It was raining hard on the dirty streets of London. You watched strangers hurrying down the street under the heavy rain, their dark umbrellas shaken by the wind. You heaved a sigh, your eyes settling back on the bar you were to monitor. An important meeting was to take place there the following night, but many members of the mafia were already expected tonight to prepare their encounter with the rest of the thugs. And you and Sirius needed to find a way to enter as well tomorrow night. The meeting would gather the most powerful leaders of the black market and other illegal organizations. It was your chance to catch most of them and to learn a lot about their web as well.

But for now, all you had to do was watch over the entrance of the club and try to identify the people who walked inside, and you and Sirius were both trapped in this dirty and dusty little flat.

You heard Sirius heaving a sigh behind you.

"I'm bored, Y/N," he complained.

"Me too," you replied.

He walked across the room and sat down next to you, watching through the curtain the wet street as well.

"Still no one?" he asked after a few seconds of silence.

But you shook your head.

"I hate this kind of missions," he went on. "We should be out there already."

"We need to..."

"... learn more about them. I know. Merlin, you sound like Bowen. Next time, I'm pretty sure you'll give me a lecture about being careful at work..."

"I already give you lectures."

"That's what I'm saying."

He stared more intensely at you all of a sudden, and when he spoke, although his tone sounded nonchalant, you knew that he was serious.

"You didn't tell me anything about this story with Blondie."

"Blondie?"

"Geoffrey."

You rolled your eyes.

"You have to stop giving our colleagues stupid nicknames."

"Don't you dare. You know it's a good pick."

"Awful."

"Brilliant."

"Awful."

"Brilliant."

You heaved a sigh, but in reality, you were struggling not to smile. No matter how much you and Sirius could bicker, you still found him funny... when he was not too annoying, of course.

"Anyway, what's up with him?" Sirius asked again.

"You heard Bowen," you shrugged. "He told Geoffrey to ask me if he could come to this mission with me."

"And I bet he didn't want to be partnered with us, right?"

Sirius's tone was too neutral to reflect nonchalance, and you knew it. He was your partner after all, you knew him so well.

"What now? Jealous, are we?" you joked.

A smile crossed his face, but it quickly vanished as he leaned against the window pane, turning to stare at you as he crossed his arms before his chest.

"I bet he used the same good old argument," Sirius said.

He didn't need to tell you which one he was mentioning. It was a stupid thought that most of Aurors in the department shared about Sirius, and called for them not to trust him.

You knew it was all wrong though.

"Yeah, he did," you nodded. "But it's not true. You're not your family, and you're good."

He raised a playful eyebrow, and you rolled your eyes.

"At this work, Sirius," you added. "You're good at this job."

"I know you like me."

"In your wildest and most twisted dreams only."

"Why did you refuse to do this mission with someone else than me then?" he argued.

"Geoffrey is not ready for such a dangerous mission. And I don't like him. He's annoying."

"I thought you found me annoying too."

"I'm afraid you lose here. He's more annoying than you are, and that's saying a lot. Cope with it, you can't be the best at everything."

"And what am I the best at, in your opinion?"

"I haven't found that out yet. Who knows, maybe you're the best at nothing."

"Oh... I know a thing or two that I'm good at... I could show you..."

"I know what you're thinking about, and that is part of your same twisted and crazy dream where I like you, Sirius."

"Merlin, I was so close this time."

"Not even a tiny bit."

He laughed, focusing on the street as well one more time.

"You know, there is another problem we need to discuss though."

"And what could that be?" you asked.

Night was soon going to fall. The sky wore darker shades now, but the rain was still as violent as before, blurring the shapes that moved through the street. You kept your eyes focused on the entrance, careful that your conversation with Sirius would not draw your attention too far from your mission, far enough to make you miss someone who would enter.

"There is only one bed," Sirius said matter-of-factly.

You frowned.

"There is also a couch, Sirius."

"Why should I be the one to always take the couch?"

"Alright, then. I'll take the couch."

"Or... we could share the bed. It's big enough for two..."

"Wildest dreams again, Sirius. You really should stop holding such fantasies."

"There is only one blanket. You'll die frozen."

You rolled your eyes.

"I have a warm coat. I'll manage."

"So you would rather die from a terrible cold than share a bed with me for one night?"

"I'll still have to sleep in the same room as you, which means that I will have to bear your snoring. That's already more than enough."

He couldn't refrained a chuckle.

"I don't snore."

"You do though."

"No, I don't snore. And you don't either. You make a very cute pout when you sleep though."

You looked up at him, your mind forgetting all about the club.

"I don't."

"You do," he nodded, a smile on his face that you couldn't clearly describe, it was something between soft and amused. "I like it."

"Don't you dare tell anyone."

"I haven't told anyone in the six months that passed since we had this kind of boring mission. Why would I now? Besides... I like having leverage."

"Your snoring is good leverage too."

"I don't snore, Y/N."

"We are not sharing the bed, Sirius."

He shrugged.

"As you wish. But I take the bed this time."

"Deal."

He set his grey eyes on the busy street again, this same smile still on his lips. But his expression quickly changed, and you followed his gaze.

Indeed, a car had stopped right before the club.

"Who is it?" Sirius asked, staring at the woman who walked out of the car and hurried into the club, trying to avoid the rain.

"I think it was our target."

You showed him a picture of your suspect, and he nodded.

That was her no doubt. Dark hair, lean silhouette, dressed in a suit...

"What do we do?" you asked him.

"We follow orders for once," he said. "Bowen said they were particularly nasty. If he bothered reminding us, it means that he really is worried this time. We should stay here for tonight and get there undercover tomorrow night."

You nodded, setting your glance on the rainy street once more.

Indeed, you could feel it in your guts, your instinct sending shivers through your body as a warning. This woman was dangerous. This whole mission was dangerous. And both you and Sirius needed to be careful if you wanted to get out of this club alive tomorrow night.

*********************

Tag list : @geeksareunique @ren-ela @marauderskeeper @giggleberts @way-obsessed5 @oreofrappiewithblueberry @draqcnheartstrinq @dogfatherpads @whatisthisthingcalledlife @watching-the-tension-grow @justanothermaraudersblog, @sad-orange-thoughts, @aylinnmaslow, @haritini2000, @ladyblablabla, @joelynnp, @riacollins

#sirius black #sirius imagine #sirius black imagine #sirius fanfic #sirius black fanfiction #sirius x reader #sirius black x reader #marauders era #marauders imagine #marauders #marauders fanfiction #fanfic #writing #imagine

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writedreamlie · 7 years ago

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Stars in Your Eyes

A/N: @thetrendywitch I DID THE THING

Baz

“No. I want to look at the stars.”

“I’m pulling back,” he says.

I tighten my grip on his hands, and before I can think of anything more eloquent to say, I whisper, “Please don’t.”

For once he doesn’t argue. Both our hands relax again, and I take a moment to really look around.

It’s beautiful, stunning even. The stars surround us, even float below us as if we really are in space. The drunken feeling get stronger as I gaze into the twinkling twilight. I can feel my face twisting to accommodate the huge grin I must be giving. I think I even laugh, though I’m not sure what for.

I wonder again exactly what we’ve conjured. We haven’t gone anywhere, that’s for sure. If I shift, I can still feel the bed underneath me. So it’s got to be an illusion. If so, it’s a very realistic one; turning my head, I can identify a handful of constellations lined up in the… I suppose it’s the sky I’m looking at.

Still, there are far more stars than I’m used to seeing, even from here at Watford, which is far enough away from most cities to get an eyeful at night.

In that instant, remember where we are, and what we’re doing. For a second, one blissful second, I’d almost forgotten Simon was still there. He can’t possibly be enjoying this spectacle half as much as I am. He’s rubbish at Astronomy, despite all the help he gets.

I tear my eyes away from the stars and look down at Simon, expecting him to be looking around in confusion.

Instead, my eyes meet his, which are entirely transfixed… on me.

Simon

I’ve never seen anyone look this happy. I’ve especially never seen Baz look this happy.

I always thought “grinning ear-to-ear” was just an expression. (There’s a spell I’m not sure I’d want to see…) But Baz is certainly having a go at it right now.

His eyes are darting back and forth like he can’t possibly take enough of it in. I’d probably be in the same condition if I weren’t concentrating on not blowing us both to smithereens.

But… this doesn’t feel like going off, which is nice. It actually feels like, for once in my life as a mage, all my magic has somewhere to go. Like, as long as I’m holing onto Baz, I won’t ever have to go off again.

I’m also not losing power, even though we’ve been at this for several minutes now. It’s rather like he said: I’ve just completed a circuit, and the magic is moving through the both of us unhindered, smoothly, nicely.

I sort of wish more things with Baz could be nice like this.

Since we don’t seem to be in danger of spontaneously combusting at the moment, and Baz doesn’t seem to be letting me go any time soon, I allow myself a moment to admire the peaceful side of my roommate that I’ve never seen before.

His smile is the first surprise. It’s huge, and gives me a full view of most of his teeth. I’m not sure if I’m reassured or disappointed that I can’t see his fangs right away.

Then there’s his nose, which looks less bulgy now his brow isn’t perpetually furrowed. His whole face, in fact, has smoothed out, like this trip to space, or wherever we are, has washed all the worry lines away.

His hair’s in his face again, lying still against the pale skin of his cheeks. There’s no wind; the bastard shut the window again tonight. I almost want to pull my hand free and brush it out of his face, at least so I can get a better look at…

..his eyes, Merlin, they’re beautiful.

The brackish grey has shifted, reflecting the inky purple of the sky around us. And I can see every star in the sky mirrored in them. I can’t imagine the stars themselves are this stunning to look at.

I watch as Baz’s eyes dart back and forth a few seconds more… before coming to rest on me.

I wonder again if we are in space, as it would explain why I’ve just stopped breathing.

Baz

It’s not just that he’s staring at me. That’s bad enough, seeing his frustratingly normal blue eyes suddenly turned into their own mini-galaxies right in front of me.

But it’s worse because he’s not just looking, he’s leaning into me, putting more weight on our hands as he shifts closer to me. His grip has also tightened slightly, though he doesn’t seem to be aware of any of this.

I’m feeling less drunk than I was, but with the connection still flowing between us, I can’t be entirely sure that I’m thinking clearly.

Crowley, am I going to have to spell this idiot away from me?

I might just kiss him instead.

There are stars, far too many stars, in his eyes. I still don’t know how we’re doing this, or how much longer we can keep it up.

I think I could still kiss him now and blame it on the magic drunkenness. Sure. Why not.

He’s smiling like he knows what I’m thinking. He can’t. He’s just star struck.

“Simon…” I start to say.

And then he’s kissing me.

Link to AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11166447

#Carry On #SnowBaz #Simon Snow #Baz Pitch #Rainbow Rowell #I offer no excuses #I wanted the fluff

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the-desolated-quill · 7 years ago

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Captain Britain Joining The MCU. Give Me Fucking Strength - Quill’s Scribbles

You know there are some points in my life where a person or a movie studio does something so stupid and moronic that my only response is... what the fuck are you doing?

DC, what the fuck are you doing?

Marvel, what the fuck are you doing?

Kevin Feige... what the fuck are you doing?!

Yes, apparently Marvel Studios are considering putting Captain Britain into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Something I’m sure every comic book fan in the land has been crying out for. Now I’m sure you’re wondering what I, a British person, may think of this. Do I feel patriotic? Proud that such a ‘beloved’ British icon is going to be part of the MCU?

youtube

Yeah, I can’t say I’m excited about the prospect and the reason is because... um... how do I put this?... Captain Britain is quite possibly the dumbest thing to ever come out of Marvel (and I’m including Howard The Duck).

Captain Britain was created by Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe to be the British equivalent of Captain America. But whereas Captain America took off and became a relatively integral part of the American comics industry, Captain Britain never had quite the same impact with us Brits. In fact in contrast with Captain America, he’s actually a very obscure character. While he does have his fans (very few fans), most people have either never heard of him or, like me, can’t stand the fucking sight of him, finding the character to be more patronising than patriotic.

There’s a number of reasons why Captain Britain never took off, but first let’s quickly sum up his backstory. Brian Braddock (smirk) was born into an aristocratic family in Essex and educated at Fettes College In Edinburgh. Because his family were no longer rich enough to fraternise with their academic peers, Brian was a quiet and lonely child because he was too proud to fraternise with the lower classes (and I’m sure we in the lower classes were eternally grateful for that, you stuck up git). After his parents, Sir James and Lady Elizabeth (oh I do beg your pardon) die in a laboratory accident, Brian gets a job at a nuclear facility at Darkmoor. When this facility is attacked by a terrorist, Brian gets on his motorcycle (a motorcycle? Oh come now! Surely that’s far too lower class for him. Shouldn’t he be riding a horse and cart? Pip, pip! Tally ho chaps! We’ll give the ruffians what for!) and goes looking for help only to then crash and get seriously injured (you had one job! That’s you off the Queen’s Christmas card list). He is then saved by Merlyn (yes, that Merlin) and is offered the chance to become Captain Britain. He’s asked to choose between the Amulet of Right (pffft) and the Sword of Might (tee hee). Brian chooses the amulet and he transforms into the champion of Great Britain, fighting for Queen and country and all that is pre-shrunk and cottony... Oh no, wait. That’s from Captain Underpants. Have you ever read Captain Underpants? It’s a brilliant series of books. Very funny. Did you know that DreamWorks are doing a movie adaptation? I’m very excited! :D

Now you may have noticed that I wasn’t really taking this seriously. And really, how could I? It sounds more like a parody of Captain America. But no. Apparently we’re supposed to be taking this very seriously. So come on. Let’s be serious about this for a moment. No! Stop sniggering! Control yourselves, please! This could very well be the next big thing in the MCU.

As I said, there are many reasons why Captain Britain never really took off. The most glaring example being how stereotypical it is. He comes from an aristocratic family. He went to a boarding school. It’s incredibly painful. He’s one step away from spending Sunday afternoons playing croquet in the grounds and sipping tea in the gazebo before retiring to his four poster bedroom where his butler will give him a glass of port as a nightcap and remind him to get up early in the morning so he won’t be late for a spot of fox hunting with the chaps from Grantham House. I mean Jesus Christ!

Another big reason why Captain Britain doesn’t work is because we don’t really have the same relationship to our flag and our country as the Americans do. Oh sure we can be patriotic on occasion, such as on remembrance days or royal events, but America takes it to a whole other level. Americans love their country. They love their flag. They’re proud to be Americans. To the point where they even have laws dictating how you should take care of your flag. You can actually get punished for not cleaning your flag properly. In some states it’s illegal to wash your flag in a washing machine because it’s disrespectful. That’s insane! Like... it’s just a piece of cloth! Calm down! Brits, generally speaking, don’t have that kind of relationship. In fact kind of the opposite. We often mock our country and view it with a certain amount of disdain. The only people who feel truly patriotic about Britain are the royalists and other such nutters. People who passionately believe that Britain is the best country in the world, who love the Royal family and harken back to the UK’s glorious yesteryears (which never actually existed). While both Captain America and Captain Britain are both equally dumb ideas, I can see why Americans would be drawn to Captain America. An American patriot who stands for American ideals and wears the American flag across his chest with pride. Captain Britain on the other hand, with his Union Jack and his Amulet of Right, is more likely to produce snorts of laughter from us Brits.

But I’ll say one thing for Captain America. It may be a stupid idea and he may talk as though he has the Declaration of Independence shoved firmly up his arse, but at least he doesn’t act all high and mighty or try to lord it over everyone else. No. He fights for the common man and that’s largely because he was a common man himself. A wimpy kid off the streets of Brooklyn determined to become a soldier and fight the Nazis, wanting to protect his country from injustice. His inner strength, good will and patriotism is what made him a prime candidate for the Vita-Ray experiment and he represents an aspirational figure that kids can look up to. Captain Britain is precisely not that. In fact he represents what the majority of Brits actually hate. An overly privileged, upper class prick who has great power bestowed onto him despite the fact that he’s done very little to actually deserve it.

And that’s by far the biggest problem with Captain Britain. As a character, he just doesn’t appeal to us Brits. He’s above us and he sees himself as above us. We don’t want to see that. If we wanted to see that, we’d just watch BBC Parliament. Let me give you an idea of the kind of characters we in the UK love:

Derek Trotter, more commonly known as Del Boy, was the main protagonist of the hugely successful sitcom Only Fools & Horses and is arguably one of the most beloved characters in British culture today. A market trader and con man who sells hooky gear on the streets of Peckham and often gets into trouble due to his get rich quick schemes.

Dave Lister, a vending machine repair man from the sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf. This lager drinking, curry loving slob ends up becoming the last surviving member of the human race and a Godlike figure to a new race of people that evolved from his pet cat. As the series progressed, he helped his robot Kryten break his programming and become fully independent, and it’s this that helps him to grow and mature to become the space hero he is now in the current series.

Victor Meldrew, from the sitcom One Foot In The Grave. A middle aged man forced into early retirement and having to find ways to pass the time, be it through peculiar hobbies or shouting at the weird events happening around him, much to the dismay of his wife Margaret.

Basil Fawlty, from the beloved sitcom Fawlty Towers, has become one of the most iconic characters in British culture. A traditionalist, right wing hotelier desperately seeking to raise his social status and to become successful, but is forced to work with people he absolutely despises, including his incompetent Spanish waiter Manuel.

Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced Bouquet) is the main character of the sitcom Keeping Up Appearances. Housewife to her eternally suffering husband Richard, she’s a pompous snob desperately seeking to maintain the illusion that she’s wealthier and more socially important than she actually is. However her attempts to climb the social ladder are often ruined by her working class sisters or her senile father.

And finally, just to bring this back into the realm of comic books there’s:

John Constantine. The chain smoking, working class magician from Liverpool who fights dark supernatural forces on a regular basis and frequently has to make morally dubious choices, often resulting in the deaths of his friends and loved ones.

Now what do all of these characters have in common? They’re all underdogs. Working class. Losers. Idiots. Failures. Those are the types of characters we’re drawn to as a culture. The reason why I included so many sitcom characters is because I feel they perfectly demonstrate the difference between British and American culture. America is brimming with idealism and aspiration. The idea that anyone can become greater than their humble origins, and this is reflected in their culture. In most American movies and TV shows and comic books, the main character is often smarter, wittier, tougher and/or funnier than the audience, representing someone they can aspire to be like. Here in Britain, where our rigid class system is permanently ingrained into us at an early age, we mostly accept the fact we’re likely going to stay where we’re at for the rest of our lives and so our media reflects that by giving us characters that are in similar situations to us. The reason we identify with the likes of Constantine and Lister and Del Boy is because they operate on our level and share our problems and worries. They’re one of us. When Basil Fawlty and Hyacinth Bucket arrogantly disregard their working class roots and try to raise their social status, it’s funny when they fail because serve them right for looking down on us. But when Del Boy eventually becomes a millionaire at the end, we’re legitimately happy for him because we like the character, we want to see him succeed and we’re glad he managed to succeed without compromising who he is. And that’s why Captain Britain will never be accepted by us. He is above us and has power over us and we don’t like that. People with power and authority are to be mocked and shamed, not to be celebrated or aspired to be like.

The idea that Kevin Feige is even considering putting Captain Britain into the MCU for me proves what I’ve been saying about Marvel all along. That they don’t care about creating a coherent or entertaining universe, that they’re adding characters and storylines just for the sake of adding characters and storylines, and that Kevin Feige clearly doesn’t have the slightest fucking idea of what he’s doing. If he did, he honestly wouldn’t think Captain Britain would be a profitable or worthwhile project to pursue. I also feel extremely annoyed by all of this. Remember when Feige said we were definitely going to see an LGBT+ superhero appear in the MCU at some point in the next ten years? Or just recently when he said we were totes going to see Miles Morales’ Spider-Man show up in the MCU at some point in the future? All of these vague half-promises constantly pushed back to make way for more ‘important’ projects like an Ant-Man sequel, an Inhumans TV series or Captain fucking Britain.

Regardless of what your thoughts are on the state of the MCU right now, I think we can all agree that when you get to the stage when you’re seriously considering Captain Britain as a legitimately good idea... maybe it’s time to take a break and reevaluate just what the fuck it is you’re actually doing.

#captain britain #marvel cinematic universe #quill's scribbles

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ber-bonfamille-lyons · 7 years ago

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RP Questionnaire

in which lauryl rambles about all things rp (tw for incomplete sentences, odd punctuation, etc.)

Name: Lauryl Characters: leave me alone (ber, kiara, hades, mel, chester, milla, milo, nala, kiki, prince, pongo/paul, anita) Pick a thread from the past six months that you’re proud of and talk about why.

The Journey of Kiki Takayama: I loved this thread because it highlighted my bby Kiki! I’m really proud of Kiki’s character and her journey, both literal in this case and in the development~ way. I’ve been really poking at Kiki’s self-esteem issues, her pervasive depression, and I think this thread really brings a lot of those threads, and other threads, together. Like, the fact she brings Howl back to her by singing and dancing with the earworm she’d made for Patty (this sentence is nonsense to anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about). Like, that felt so natural to me-- that I could use her friendship with Patty, her earworwm thread with Hiro, and her history with Howl dancin’ to karaoke, to produce what I thought was this really silly-yet-serious-and-kinda-beautiful moment. To me, it was just very dynamic, and I’m proud.

Chester’s arc: I’m also really proud that I finally got to PULL THIS OFF AFTER SO LONG. I loved the pace of it overall, and Chloe really provided a lot of emotional depth by bringing Mitte along. Even though these two are ridiculous and full of hijinks, that question “What do these two mean to each other?” still followed them from para to para. And Mitte’s loyalty to Chester (or to chaos) has really solidified this strange friendship and helped launch the second part of this plot. Thus, this arc ran the gamut: light and ridiculous, serious and dark, tragic and comic.

Identify a challenge you’ve faced in this rp. Reflect on why this is a challenge for you. Are there any strategies you can develop to overcome this challenge?

Taking on too much hahahha: this is definitely my biggest challenge and even extends to the outside writing that I do. I’m an Idea Man. I’m a conceptual, out of the box, daydreamer-of-an-rper, who develops everything like, very top down, very chronic-plot-heavy, very BIG STAKES!! So usually every character has a Big Arc and I get really excited about these very big plots-- annnnnd then i have 13 very big plots and no way to balance them all along with all the plots i want to get involved in with the REST of the rp that kinda fall into my lap and i’m like omfg ahhhhhh.

What happens naturally is I prioritize characters over others. Ber, Hades, and Mel are my big kahunas who i do the most with. Chester’s gotten his time in the sunshine finally, god bless, and to a good extent, Kiki too. And Rajah got a lot of good stuff. But there are some babies that I haven’t done a lot of those Big things for. Milo for example lawd, MILO. I finally have this mummy plot but i’ve been trying to do more cave/merlin stuff for over a year now. I also wanna do so much MORE with Prince and with Nala and Paul, but they always get pushed to the side. Even the characters that I do more with get pushed to the side-- hi Hades !!

So how do I fix this? I mean, I can really prioritize, I can create schedules and hard deadlines that map out my plots for myself and keep me on track….buuuut if we’re honest rp is a collaborative hobby and hard deadlines are often soft, malleable deadlines.

I can also just, not plan as much and focus on more acute plots. Or: not have as many characters.

Gasp.

I know, someone needed to say it though. Also I could be a total hypocrite on this point because as we speak I have little plot seedlings growing jungles in my head. But something’s got to give. And so this is not a very clear answer but I think it’s sort of a combination of me being serious with my deadlines (or at least structure out plots the way we are doing on this questionnaire) instead of keeping all those Big big big plots in my head. I can also do less threads. The other part? Finishing off character’s arcs and letting them go, my darlings, so I can free up a lil more space for others. I did that with Rajah recently because I’d accomplished the biggest goals I had for him and soon I’ll be letting go of Chester and Milla too for the same reasons-- I’m closing up their stories. Course, I’ll probably pick up NEW characters like the hypocrite I am, but the point is: it’s good to know when to let your babies go, and I want to be the first person to encourage people to see their characters through to whatever end there is.

Pick one of your characters and talk about their growth (we recommend choosing an older character, but it’s up to you! ) What about their story has surprised you? What are you proud of? How have they changed from their original inception to now?

Milla: When I first got Milla, I wanted a capital-v Villain and I wanted to use her for plot purposes mostly. I was fine with just being a tool in other people’s plots in other words, and I didn’t expect Milla to go anywhere. But Milla has surprised me, and it’s all due to the people who have drawn out new sides of Milla that I only suspected lay dormant. I love that I have both my daughters and an Ella (and gosh, I love that Bee was up for having Ella have this contentious relationship with Milla that was out of the house but still very much a “trap” of sorts, just a more modern day trap, ala money). I love her deliciously evil relationship with Taka. I love that she’s gotten to be a lawyer for Gaston and other villains. I love that she’s become this dominatrix character with Flynn. She’s still very set in her ways now, but finding how she became set in those ways through these interactions is some of the most interesting, different RPing I get to do. I love that how she twists her definition of mother on its head, I love that she is honestly so weary and lonely, I love that she has accepted a lot of that if only because of her age. I’m really proud of the depth I’ve achieved with her, so much so that I can write a terrible post and fully sympathize with her anyway. In fact...part of me honestly roots for her, and I think that’s how you should wanna feel for your villains, even if, at the end of the day, you know they must be thwarted.

Pick another character and talk a little about where you WANT them to go. What are your plans for them for the rest of the year?

The Great Prince: Eeeee, my son. The Prince has always been a very distinctive voice for me and a much different story than many of my characters. Like Milla, he’s older, and in some ways a lot of his development is in backstory, which involves a fair amount of “uncovering” as I write. But unlike Milla, I fully intend Great Prince to grow and he’s doing so already. He’s blurring the lines between the forest and the town and sort of fully embracing the liminal aspects of his being. Like, yes, he’ll never really be a normal human, but he is still human; and yes, he might not be a true animal of the forest, but it’s still his home, and he wants to share it with people in a way he’s never really gotten to do.

I’m looking forward to forging stronger relationships with those he has already formed bonds with: Soleil, Bambi, Ella, etc. I would love to get more fairy relationships for him actually because I haven’t done a lot with that though I imagine Prince was raised by the fairies a lot more than he was his Father Prince, so I’d love to explore that dynamic. Send me ur fairies!!

I’m also looking forward to trying to do more forest plotty stuff. Maybe I can do this with Bambi if Bambi ends up embracing his powers more but I could also do this with FAIRIES if I do make more fairy friends!!

I also really want the Prince to start wrestling more concretely with the toxic rules he was raised under. I want him to realize he can change tradition, that the rules he hates don’t have to be the rules. As his relationships develop with key characters, I think the Prince will come in conflict with those rules (or I hope so) rather naturally.

AND finally, wow so long, I see the Prince mourning and letting go of Willow, finally. His memories of her have been the only really good ones in his life, so as he gets more good memories and makes relationships, he’ll be able to put Willow to rest for himself. Maaaaaaaybe, just maybe, he miiiight even let himself fall in love again (and that will help him wrestle with those toxic rules I was just talking about :D)

IF YOU DID THE LAST QUESTIONNAIRE: Alright, now pick an item from the Wishlist you completed in January that you’ve started to pursue. How far are you from completing this goal? Talk about the steps you took to make it happen.

Well, I made Chester’s entire arc happen! And it’s still kinda happening. It took a LOT of organizing on my part, and I sort of followed the same format as the mock plot included in this questionnaire. I plotted out paras and made sure I knew what partners I had to contact to help me. The London plot was all Mitte/Chloe, so that was very straightforward, though I should note I had to do a lot of one-shot writing because important events took place with just Chester.

Also moving forward, organizing the demon haunting threads has been a real fun challenge, because it’s such a weird animal. I’m lucky to have such enthusiastic partners who are willing to try this strange format with me, so shoutout to Sam who was instrumental in that, and to J and Pet for playing along. Also just Pet and MK in general for doing chatzies with me and staying patient. AND one last shoutout to Marina for freezing Anita’s heart! It’s been really refreshing for me to RP her and I love what it did for the plot overall. IF YOU DID THE LAST QUESTIONNAIRE: Pick another item on your wishlist that hasn’t happened yet. We’re gonna do a MOCK-PLOT!!!

Great Prince + Forest stuff! Like I mentioned, I’d love to get a sideplot going with some of the forest natives sooo I’m literally pulling this outta my ass, check it:

Great Prince introduces Bambi to the Stone Trolls, during which the Stone Trolls complain about the Gummis

Therefore

Great Prince visits Gummis with Clarion for negotiations

But

Negotiations break down and the Stone Trolls kidnap someone (Soleil, Ella, Bambi) for ransom

Therefore

The Prince asks Goliath for help on a rescue mission.

This is the most hilarious plot if only bc the gummis are a thing that exist.

Finally: write a NEW wish list for the upcoming half of the year. It’s fine if you use a lot from your previous wish list if you still haven’t completed them and you still want to!

By character:

Mel:

Explore momma mel-- this will sorta be through threads as I weave this event into Mel’s life. I also think this applies to getting an apprentice-ish figure for Mel which is kinda happening as she “mentors” some young Magicks (Celia, Jim, Ly).

Acknowledge her feelings for Howl and deal with that shit: dark squad is always Really High Magic, so I’d love to take ‘em down with a good ol confession scene or something idk. Or maybe Mel cries to someone else bc she has feelings for someone who can’t love her or idk maybe she goes on a rampage I dunno.

Ber:

More music reviews. This was from my old list AND I’ve been doing more, so I just want to kinda continue on doing these and up my number mhm.

Produce someone’s music. I rly want Ber to get a partnership with someone sooo!! I’ll be on the look out.

Kiara:

Date! I actually am here for this idea of Kiara dating Callie and maybe Alice too. Is Callie ok with that?? Idk we’ll see.

Figure out her passion for healthcare and women stuff!!! I think Kiara might end up like a nurse or a social worker related to like women’s healthcare so I dunno I’d like to somehow explore more of those threads, maybe make her do some sort of afterschool program. She’s still finding herself so!! It’s an important year for her coming up.

Hades:

Uh. Use his fire lmao but rly this is an important goal and lowkey cant say anything more spoilers

Chester: spoilers

Milla: spoilers

Milo:

Still want him to start looking OUT of Pride U and start thinking about what he really wants for his future.

Buuuut while he’s in Pride U, student stuff! Teacher apprentice?? Tutor?? Idk hit me up

Merlin Objects. Get dat seal in the cave yo

TALK ABOUT ISSUES WITH JANE

Nala:

Still want Nala to have a one night stand/go on dates c’mon ppl I don’t get to explore romantic Nala a lot.

More female friends

Kiki:

Find Jiji, perform ceremony

Discover true nature of her powers, which will lead to ONE OF TWO SCENARIOS:

Embraces her powers

Decides to stop being a witch and go to university instead.

Would still like her to go on a date ok

Anita:

Explore what a canon dearcliffe looks like????? I don’t know if this will actually happen like when all this shit calms down and Anita is unfrozen maybe Roger will be like bitch bye idk. But it would be interesting to see Anita finally embrace her real feelings and realize that she can be considerate but still assertive, and then get to see how the relationship actually operates after so. much. build-up.

Also I meeeaaaan she’s also been woken up for how BI she is, that’d be interesting to do more with. Especially if it was in the context of a budding relationship with Roger (tbd on that lol)

Would still like to do more art paras (looking at anna and annette for potential help with this-- maybe a louita (friendly) reunion would be nice too

Great Prince:

More forest plot stuff. I have some random ideas floating in my head and so i’d love to introduce the stone trolls i keep mentioning and have great prince share his forest home with ppl (like bambi and ella). Obviously some of this will happen as prince ‘trains’ bambi in his magic. Or I hope so.

Honestly…. Maybe...have him...do stuff...with..pride..u? He really loved being a professor and I could see him get more involved with the magizoology department! Maybe as a guest lecturer at times or he could lead groups of students? IDK we both just loved prof henthorn sooo bring! it! back!

Paul:

Make Paul go on dates. This is leftover from my old one but part of his journey~ involves putting himself back out there. It’s important for Paul to realize he’s not trapped or that being a dad isnt the end of his love life and he can’t really do that with Perdita (sorry Perdy).

Continue fixing his relationship with Perdy. That being said and counterintuitive perhaps to the last point, Paul does care about Perdy and wants to be good friends with her. I’d love some more co-parenting stuff when Perdy gets more comfortable with the babies because I am intrigued by that dynamic since they won’t be dating rn. At least i dont think they will.

UNIVERSITY i have a plan for this i gotta make it happen lol i suck

#bdrptask #about #ooc

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kivablog3 · 8 years ago

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Spring Repost of “Why I Am Not a Pagan”

March 2017 -- I’m reposting this since the Spring Equinox is coming up, along with the festival of the goddess Eostre, whence derives our word for it: Easter. Along with the eggs, and bunnies too, I think. Fertility, at any rate. In wicca it’s the winter solstice which starts the new year, but for me it was Spring when the light truly came back: Daylight Saving Magic. So I think of it as the start of my own year. Also, I attended an open Dianic Goddess circle for the first time in my life. So I may even have to change the title. Maybe put the predicate in the past tense. Idk, maybe nothing will come of it, but I want to try. Happy Eostre, everyone.

Fall 2016 -- I wrote this for an anthology, about trans wicca and paganism, which was triggered by a conflict between terfy witches who wanted to have a ceremony for “all women” at a large pagan conference on the West Coast, but for “women-born women” only, and everyone else was appalled, not just us, and a conflict resulted over whether this was right or even acceptable behavior anymore. At the time I was convinced this was a hopeless cause, transfolx and Dianic Wicca, and thus wasn’t sure there was any point in arguing about it. That may be changing too, there are a lot of changes I am still unaware of.

So, I wasn’t even a pagan, and kind of relieved about that when I heard that this conflict was still going on in the pagan community, fifteen years after it helped convince me I had failed, because I was just born wrong, and that was that. The Goddess did not see me. It certainly helped convince me I wasn’t a pagan; I had less than no use for a binary divinity, a Goddess with a God. And I wasn’t allowed to just follow the Goddess, so that was that. It was a long time ago.

But I had a story to tell that might be interesting to a few other people, since this still seemed to be a raging conflict ffs. Somehow this conflict at the pagan conference on the Coast resulted in a trans pagan anthology being planned by way of response in the UK, which my friend in Boston tipped me off to; she’s written books which have actually been published, some of them on paganism, and is just generally networked with everyone fun, queer, kinky and/or just interesting in New England and a lot of other places. So I just started writing this, which I’d been trying to do for months. It’s about an important turning point in my life, but the ending is mushy and incomplete because I was afraid of writing my own truth and not caring if someone else was upset by it. This is why the ending is sort of abrupt. It has to be revised and extended and tied together with other stuff that happened then. (And is happening now. There’s a bad case of abrupt going around lately. Alyssa Harley told me I should just write from the heart, and not worry about who else might or might not read it and how they might react. That my writing is first of all for me, explaining myself to myself; and it turns out I learn a lot of things about myself that I wasn’t aware of. Like most advice she gives me, she’s right about this.) [note: This all helped me see that what I really love doing is writing and then editing what I wrote. Some effort will be involved in figuring out things like where to submit finished work and how to write brief, informative cover letters which might get the submission passed up to an editor. Where to do open-mic readings, and which six minutes and forty-five seconds of my work did I want to read? This may all turn out to be very interesting and unexpected things may happen. But I love writing now, I do it most nearly every day So that’s a start.]

After I wrote this piece, sort of all at once, I looked at the publisher’s site, and saw that their catalog runs toward books which have lots of footnotes and a scholarly approach toward the subject at hand, and I have a feeling they’re not going to use this because it so isn’t that. [Note: In the event, it didn’t even merit a rejection email. ] But it’s the most important part of What Happened to Me, how I was out for years, how in the end I couldn’t keep going after 2001, and hid again, in plain sight, for a long time.

So I’m going to keep working on it. I have a printout of Parts 2-3 I want to mark up and then incorporate those changes into the new version. But right now I’m in maintenance mode, learning about myself and trying to love myself and waiting for it to get warm. I’m much happier then, and it’s easier to be out, somehow. Coming out publicly caused a rebound, and a few days’ worth of migraines (tension + pollen + dry air = M, where M is any migraine bad enough that you have to turn all the lights off and you throw up). It’s taking a while to get up off the canvas and clear my head enough to continue to fight back. I don’t feel like fixing the paragraph breaks right now, sorry for any confusion. Anyway, here it is:

Why I Am Not a Pagan by Kiva Offenholley (The section letters/numbers are placeholders and not meant to be consecutive or even logical.) Part One A. So how do I tell this story? Where do I start? When I was poring over books on lesbian feminism in the library? [note: upon reflection, this is probably the point at which I lost the attention of the editor of the anthology. I assume it will get published at some point.] In the 1970s while I was in high school, reading everything I could find at the branch library and then becoming a page at the central library, when did I first run across witches? Who first mentioned the Goddess? I remember how powerful that particular idea felt when I first ran across it: that God was a woman, that there was another way. She wasn’t constantly promising punishment as well as or instead of love (so she wasn’t my mother, or G. the Father). She wasn’t scary—well, She wasn’t male, for one thing, and males scared me to death. I was supposed to be one, and I was really, really, really bad at it, and in Texas that still matters even now, a lot more than it should. It was worse then. I read some books that involved witches, even though I didn’t believe in magic per se (my sister kept trying spells and nothing much seemed to happen), which I understood then to be witchcraft. It wasn’t clear to me why belief in the Goddess necessitated not just ritual activities for their own sake, but ones which enable or prevent the use of invisible forces (the existence of which I have yet to be convinced of) to cause or prevent change in the real world, summoning spirits (see above) or even magic defined as creating change inside yourself using a Jungian approach to archetypes and ritual actions to focus intentionality and release energy. Maybe it’s because I was never in a Dianic coven, or any other kind, and I probably would’ve changed as I learned more. But possibly not. As it was, I just wanted to experience rituals because they are beautiful, and they are for Her. Ritual for its own sake. I may not believe in a deity—that’s Southern for “I’m an atheist”—but I have loved Her instinctively and completely, from the moment I learned of Her, and the idea of Her. And I hoped that maybe I could learn why I was made this way, why in my soul I felt like a girl. And it seemed to me that, if I tried, I could feel loved. Because I love the Goddess. B. It was clear even to me that one thing I definitely could not be was a lesbian separatist, which was a shame because I needed that too: I had nothing but rage and fear from men and for them, and wanted to live in or at least envision a world where we were in women’s space. I had only ever felt safe when I was with other women, or some of them at least. Most of them. Someone once called it “swimming in the safe sea of women.” I just wanted to count as a “woman” of some sort, maybe not fully female yet, if it was a problem, but I’d sit in the back and not get in anyone’s way…. They had somehow gotten undisputed custody of the real-world carrying into concrete action of the idea of the Goddess, and despite having read histories like The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner, or Starhawk or Merlin Stone, of course, anything I could find, my only connection to the other universe, I wasn’t supposed to feel like I belonged. Avidly reading, and thinking and feeling all this stuff that made me feel like I not only belonged inside the circle, that it was the place I would be safe, but that it was the only place outside a classroom that I could ever discuss Gerda Lerner with someone else. I just kept reading, and tried to understand why some radical feminists hated us so much. We were less than or other than women, according to the women who hated us; we were less than or other than human. We were used for ideological target practice. It was like the inverse of being hated by Southern Baptists, the result was the same. It was a part of why I finally skidded to a halt, and detransitioned in 2001, after the period described here. It seemed that Goddess-centered religion was destined to be controlled by those unknown women, like the music festival in Michigan: my spouse, having attended once, assured me that I would consider it close to hell on Earth, between the mud and the rain and the bugs and the heat and the mud, given that my idea of roughing it is a hotel room with no minifridge. But I would’ve liked to have had the option. Around that same time, 1999-2000, I had a nasty encounter in a local institutional setting which I can’t or won’t really identify here. It was with two of the people we now call TERFs: an angry ideological one, who’d just joined the institution, to attack me viciously—none of my friends, no one, ever told me what she’d said while I was out of the room, so it must’ve been awful—and a reflexively 70s-grounded person in a position of authority to unthinkingly and unknowingly privilege TERF 1’s painful past, which was bad, over mine, which was pretty goddamn awful but which never really came up since it still wasn’t really clear to TERF 2 what the hell exactly I was, anyway, even though I had been around for nearly ten years. For a long time it seemed like she could barely greet me civilly when we on occasion ran into her on the street. But she never turned up at parties, which was what mattered, and so it really didn’t seem to matter, at the time. Years of work, living out as a woman among women who loved women in our wonderful little neighborhood: making and deepening friendships, learning to love our little world especially after our son was born, since we still had large lunches on Saturdays then, and he was so darned cute, and everyone loved him. And then I began the estrogen, and it was like I’d had my finger in a light socket for decades, had sort of learned to put up with it, like chronic pain, but it felt so good when I got to take my finger out finally, I felt so relieved when it stopped. All this time I’d been preparing myself, learning to not be afraid, not afraid to let myself Be. To do what someone has described as the most difficult thing you’ll ever do. But that was apart from this story, and it all started just as the getting-TERFed part (for which we then still didn’t have a term) was getting truly awful, so I truly needed something good to happen. And I thought I could finally use all this learning, all that reading I’d done for decades. And I was looking for a spiritual guide, too, it turned out. B. I took a class called Women & Religion in 1987, at Hunter College (from Dr. Serinity Young, who is now at Queens College CUNY and is still a wonderful teacher and human being), and one day while I was enthusiastically talking with the professor after class—it was the only way I talked with her, enthusiastically; I think she even taught me the origins of the word “enthused”—I casually let drop that not only did I want to major in Women’s Studies, I actually would really kind of like to become one someday. Like, medically, you know? And so she had the sad duty of letting me down as gently as humanly possible, but clearly someone had to tell me, I think she must’ve thought, and so: not only would I not be welcomed by a Dianic coven, any of them, she explained, I would face open hostility from radical feminists in general. That what I really wanted wasn’t feasible after all. That the team I wanted to join didn’t want someone like me as a member. That it was genuinely impossible, apparently; some of them hated us. At least I learned this from one of the gentlest souls I have ever known, it hurt less that way. I used to read a lot of those expensive little scholarly/theoretical radical feminist quarterlies they sold in the 80s for like $7, in the newsstand in the Pan Am Building back in the day. I had run across this hatred toward trans folks before; I just didn’t realize that it was so prevalent. That it was widespread, for some people it was an ideological litmus test. What Serinity told me did not completely surprise me, but the extent of what she described did. My best friend back then, who was from Long Island—think “where suburbs were invented”—said of course she was “a feminist, but not the kind that goes to demonstrations.” She may have even used that old saw about being in favor of equal pay, everyone said that back then if you asked if they were feminists. Her girlfriend at the time said that she wasn’t one, and that moreover she didn’t date feminists because she didn’t like women who don’t shave their underarms. (I do. I’m Old School. But I have to admit I was confused by all this.) So this idea and ideal, “Feminism,” had given me hope of a kind for years, feminist thealogy providing a Great Mother figure which I really needed when my own mother was beating me, sometimes unconscious, but never quite killing me; and I never quite killed myself either. I wrote stories and drew sketches and imagined a science-fiction future where there was a Lesbian Nation, a refuge for women of any orientation and a force in the world fighting for women. I had this belief that the world could be different or we could build a new one even, a better one, this escape hatch from the hatred of a world full of men, and most of them had hated me practically since I was born, it seemed to me. Because I wasn’t nearly enough like them, and far too much like a woman—the escape hatch was useless, it wouldn’t work for me because under the rules I could never ever be a woman. I would have to live the remainder of my life as a man because there was no such thing as “transsexual lesbians.” I might as well have spent years studying a dead language. Because the women who spoke it apparently wouldn’t talk to me. I tried to not care, but it involved a lot of nights of crying, and after that one class I gave up on Women’s Studies, on the idea of finishing my degree, and on the idea that I could even possibly not be male. I must be some kind of a gay man, then, I thought yet again, dejectedly, struggling with the limited rôles “permitted” in the old order. I guess I’m gay, I’m just not sexually attracted to men…I spent years in painful solitude, rarely dating (and always women) because I didn’t fit anyone’s pattern. I was born in the Friend Zone and apparently would die there. I just kept wishing I’d been born a girl, not a boy, like always: the existential mistake that felt like grief, that I wore like a suit of armor you can never take off, like walking in sunlight in a darkness that would never lift. Again, I didn’t quite kill myself. I wrote some simple performance art pieces, just monologues really, about how much I hated it all, and delivered them on open mic night at the old Dixon Place, Ellie Covan’s apartment on First Street. Maybe I could express this misery through art, squeeze some of the pain out onstage, writing monologues I wouldn’t have been able to sit through if I hadn’t written them myself. And then, in 1991, when I was 33, I met my future spouse. I invited her to come see my performance at Dixon, and we suddenly fell for each other, and everything changed. C. When I officially finally came out as trans—or “transsexual” as we used to say—it surprised absolutely no one. My wife identified as lesbian when we first got together in 1991, and being part of the lesbian/bi women’s community in the Slope in the 90s gave me a context and a place to want to be, since unlike most trans folks I was “transitioning in place.” Meaning that coming out as trans didn’t automatically destroy my personal relationships, as happens to so many of us then and now, and so I didn’t have to start over somewhere else, creating a new identity as if you’re in a Gender Relocation Program. It also meant (and now it means, again) that people who knew me as male before, not friends but deli clerks, auto mechanics, the bagel store staff, everyone, will have to adjust. It was the hardest thing I’d ever try to do. But it finally seemed doable. It seemed perfect, not just doable. We lived in Park Slope, in Brooklyn, which was a wonderfully diverse and welcoming lesbian community in the 1990s, and the Slope was still a place young lesbians starting a career in New York could move to and find an apartment at a reasonable price. All that new energy kept the neighborhood interesting. The lesbian social universe was arrayed around the karate school, and my wife had been at the school since before we met. I saw people I knew every day, just walking down Seventh Avenue. We had a baby, then I started taking estrogen. We were so happy. Then, as it happened, in the Spring of 2000 I met a cis woman who was already a witch and we tried to start what she assured me was indeed the First Trans-Friendly Dianic Goddess Circle, which ended up being the Last Trans-Friendly Dianic Goddess Circle, sort of. There are others now, I am told, who don’t even care what gender you are or aren’t, but this was the turn of the century, and it was still well-nigh unheard of.

Part Two A. The Center—once upon a time, a long, long time ago, it was the Gay Community Center, hence the venerable web address: gaycenter.org, then the Gay and Lesbian Etc., then the Lesbian and Gay But Not Bi, Definitely Not Bi Center, then the Lesbian, Gay & Alright, Already, Bi Center, then they finally went to LGBT, this was along about when they—whoever “they” were, the ones who ran The Center, and whoever they were, they seemed to arrive a tad tardily to each of these transformations. And as I recall they were still coming to terms with the whole adding-the-T part, and it hadn’t happened yet, or maybe it had already happened but I sincerely didn’t notice, I was busy: the spring of 2000, a beautiful warm spring with a lot of sunny days, at least as I remember it. The Center was in the Swing Space, the temporary building that they were operating out of around the turn of the century, so that the old school building could be turned into, in time, the space station command center-&-caffeine bar-fronted miracle of architecture and fundraising you find there now, over at 218 W. 13th Street. But this was the between-time, somewhere out near where the old “The Vault” S&M club had once been, around the corner of this triangular wedge of real estate just below 14th Street, around Ninth Avenue. I am told that there were rather a lot of directions given then that began, “You remember where The Vault used to be? You walk a block down past it, hang a right….” So I was on my way out of the Swing Space one day, after trying to do some kind of transgender networking, and I passed a woman with beautiful eyes, in warm fuzzy hippie clothes and interesting jewelry, with Tori Amos-like long wavy red hair and some kind of energy or sense of purpose about her. She had some kind of small bag or satchel with her. We passed, she smiled, I smiled. She saw the “Trans Dyke” button I had on—possibly the only such button extant at the time in the US if not all North America, unless the inspired artist/buttonmaker had made more of them. It was drawn by hand, in colored pencil, with TRANS DYKE written across it in large, friendly letters. I’d found it quite by accident among an assortment of handmade radical buttons in a cigar box, at an alternative bookstore in Montréal when I’d visited with K. the previous winter. I couldn’t quite believe my luck: I was still hesitant to say what I was aloud, but buttons were no problem. [K. had very supportively agreed to come with me to freaking Canada during hockey season so I could see a Canadiens game at the Centre Molson (now Centre Bell). I was clearly out of my mind. We lost a set of keys and came back two days later to the same parking spot on a hunch, and we found them in the snowbank, two feet down, where they’d landed. It was cold. I love Québec, but go in the summer.] That button was just perfect at the time for me, still a novel idea a decade after Kate Bornstein came out as lesbian and trans in OutWeek magazine. That was the first time I asked myself that ages-old queer question, “So you mean I’m not the only one?” So just wearing the fucking button around the Center felt somewhat defiant, improvising a sort of pronoun-sticker years before they existed, saying who I was. It mattered. I was wearing it on my jacket, all the time since it wouldn’t stay on my backpack, and she turned around and asked me one of those life-changing questions: “Hey! Would you like to come help me with a transsexual-friendly Goddess circle? I’m going to hold one upstairs!”

Well. I had sort of been waiting 25 years or so for someone to ask me that. So sure, yeah, I’d love to, I may even have said something like, “I’ve waited years for someone to ask me that!” and I headed back with her into the Swing Space elevator, and up. I helped her set up the altar furnishings. Candles (couldn’t actually light them because of building regs plus sprinklers going off) and statues, I think, pretty scarves and cloths and jewelry. It wasn’t anything complicated, but it was amazing to me just to be there, suddenly, seemingly by chance. Friends of hers came, a trans couple from New Jersey showed up, and we held our ceremony, greeting the Spring Equinox and thanking the Goddess for the new season. I forget details from there, just that I helped her clear up afterwards and the two of us talked. What sort of thing are you into, she asked. Going way back, really, I said, I’ve read about the Sumerians and their religion. “Inanna.” “Right. The earliest written records we have of Mesopotamian religion. And they mention servants of Inanna, they’re like two-spirited, I mean, both-gendered or something…” She knew the word for them. We talked some more, about sort of Jungian stuff, like what images spoke most powerfully to me? The Great Mother, primarily, “possibly since my own mother was, um, she was nuts.…” She nodded to let me know she “got it,” as far as survivor stuff, then I went on: “I hope you don’t think this is weird, but I’ve always been fascinated by the temple prostitutes in Sumeria. The service of the Goddess, through the celebration of sex itself.” She gave me one of those dazzling smiles. “No,” she reassured me, “I don’t think it’s weird at all. In fact, it’s also sort of what I had in mind….” Wow. “What’s your name?” I asked, finally. “Yana.” “I’m Kiva,” I said. And so it began. B. She had come to New York a few years before, and with her fascination with the Goddess already intertwined with the Marian devotion she had learned growing up in the Roman Church. She was Catholic, but not Christian, I think she said, Catholic to the extent of the Marian practices which she’d been taught and had read about. Then she became a Dianic witch and studied all sorts of other women-focussed practices across denominations that all fed into Goddess history. She felt the church was the people who turned up, all of us flawed, but it wasn’t her primary interest. The Black Madonnas, devotions related to marriage and a safe delivery, “churching” women after a birth, implying they were impure afterwards; different beliefs from Eastern Europe, the Orthodox, from all over, but mostly she’d read a lot of what I had, particularly European and Middle Eastern religious history and especially the odd or neglected corners of it, the backwaters like the three villages in Syria that still used Aramaic in their services, the witches of the mountains in their different forms, Babayaga, all this off-the-beaten-path stuff. Ishtar, Istar, Ester. Enna, Enana, Innana. Timelines, conjectures about periods without written or archaeological records, or ambiguous sites like Çatal Hüyük. It was more or less pre-Google, so any kind of conjecture could possibly be true, depending on how late at night it was. We talked about labryses, and Crete. We talked about goddesses, and witches, and magic, none of which, I explained, I really believed in, I was just sort of fascinated by it all, you see. I was just stubbornly atheistic as a default setting, since I was a recovering Southern Baptist. We touched on Bokononism when I brought it up; I don’t remember if we got around to the Cathars. I’d never met anyone before her, outside of that class at Hunter in 1987, who’d even heard of Çatal Hüyük. We talked and talked, for hours, for days and days, about all of these things, and all of them at once, it seemed like. Everything was connected. We’d read the same books. A lot of the same books. We talked about who we were, how we identified, how we got to where we were. She talked about how she got involved so deeply in trans women’s activism (and, “no,” she replied when I asked, “I’m not transgendered;” it was clearly a question she got sooner or later from each of us.) We didn’t have the words “cis” and “trans” as such then, “cis” still dwelled quietly as a prefix in old Latin and French dictionaries. At the time we called cis women “GGs,” genetic girls, or “biogirls,” both of which were self-deprecating, self-devaluing, and inferiority-reinforcing terms we came up with all on our own, as a community; as for ourselves, I learned soon that to save time and avoid arguments over changing terminology such as “transsexual” (“ss,” not “s”, dammit) and “transgender,” and who was and wasn’t really a whatever, we called each other by this diminutive term no one outside our little world seemed to have heard of: “trannies”…. She’d been homeless not all that long before, and it was trans women, sex workers out working the street in Manhattan, who kept her from starving, let her sleep on couches, nursed her to health, and I gathered that somewhere in there she’d fallen in love, too, and by that point she’d come to love us as we were. And so she was an ardent lesbian trans ally at a time when we didn’t have many (we didn’t have the term “trans ally” yet, for example) and a lover of other trans women when few cis women openly were—for a while she and K. wanted to start a support group but I think they’d have been the only ones there. Like K., she was was a gem cut in a distinct pattern. She was unique and unafraid. And she loved us. Yeah, I had sort of a crush on her. She was magical. She asked me to help her start a pagan meeting circle, a stable, ongoing Goddess-focussed Dianic circle. A Dianic circle like any other, except this one would welcome trans women. It was dedicated to lifting up trans women spiritually, meeting what in Yana’s eyes was an obvious need. I said okay, and set to work. We were going to call it Two Spirit Moon Circle but I wondered if it might be appropriating a Native American term outside its cultural context. So I kept accidentally calling it Two Moon Spirit Circle, as if we were on Mars or something, and eventually we decided to call it that. Yana had a phone list of people who were supposed to be either interested or potentially interested. It was a handful of names and numbers, some of them names you weren’t supposed to use to ask for them with because they were still closeted, as transgender or as pagan or as both even, and in the (as it transpired, extremely unlikely) event that someone answered the phone, I said something vague, some preset phrase like, “I’m calling on behalf of Yana.” Several of them had no surname, just a name and a phone number. Some of them never did answer, a couple of numbers proved to have gone out of service, two or three of them didn’t need to be called because they were close to Yana. I still have the list around here somewhere, I saw it recently stuck in a book, and I was amazed by how much of it was blank space. There was no social media, no smartphones, and the Web was still in its toddler stage. It was all we had to work with. Somehow Yana had talked the NYC Metropolitan Community Church into letting us use their basement room after their services were over on Sunday afternoons. The MCC was originally organized as a gay-friendly church because there weren’t any other ones, except the Unitarians. Yana attended services there, which may have helped. And for a few months, we held circles nearly every Sunday. Yana tried to find more members; she knew the folks at what we shall refer to here as “T-House” on 16th Street in Brooklyn, which turned out to be three blocks up from me (the Slope was like that then). It’s gone down in history as “Transy House.” We never did get many people from T-House to attend our circle, or if we did it wasn’t more than once. The circle didn’t grow. C. I happily took on the task of writing up a ritual we could use for a special occasion, like the solstice. As it happened, I was enrolled at the New School for one semester, taking some class on religious symbols. So I had access to their library, and way back on the bottom shelf, full of the dusty volumes of history which no one used for research and which hadn’t been opened in decades, there was a really old series of books with the translated Sumerian scriptures in them. It looked ancient, so I checked the indicia and it was published in 1912 or something like that. In the 1900s, but before 1914. I forget now what they were called, and don’t particularly want to try googling for 20 minutes looking for it, but they were special messengers of Inanna, and they were both female and male together in one. There was a passage where Inanna made a promise to them—and we argued, by extension, you could include us, trans people, and gender-variance of all kinds too, I believe, although we didn’t quite have the freedom to imagine all that at the time. Inanna made a promise to Her two-gendered beings, who were special to Her, that she would protect them. Nothing complicated, nothing that other divinities wouldn’t subsequently promise to their special peoples, except that it’s hard to find one where the Goddess says she will protect us. But Yana and I both knew how far back you had to go to find a strong Inanna figure: as far as possible, in early Sumerian theology, some of the first written records of a religious belief system. I think it was from reading The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner that I learned the story of how Inanna had gradually been weakened and eventually subordinated or sidelined in later Sumerian and then Akkadian theology; this weakening and subordination reflected the same thing happening to Sumerian women in reality, losing rights to buy and hold property, rights in inheritance, independent social existence gradually subordinated to the control of the father: patriarchy. This wasn’t the only society and time when this happened, but the Sumerians had left detailed real estate and inheritance records. I remember how exhaustively she went over and cited her source material, all those footnotes. My copy is still in the basement. I just brought up the laundry and I forgot to bring it up with me, but I guess the point is it touched on the area of ancient religions. So I looked in it for a reference which would help me find the huge old rebound-in-green volume of forgotten Sumerian scriptures that I needed: the story about Inanna trapped in the underworld. But I think in the end I just went down to the New School library, and pulled out a volume. It was one of those old-school, 2000-large-pages volumes that voluminous scriptures used to end up in. Bound volumes of Theravada Buddhist scriptures are about the same size and weight, you can probably find them in the 200s section of your public library, depending on how large it is. They have a very nice set at the Brooklyn Central Library. So I opened up the book, spine on my knee, and it more or less opened to the place I needed, the story of Inanna in the underworld and the transgender messengers she sent, and the promise she made. I took it to a table and started to make notes. Yana maintained that this was a small example of divine intervention, that She guided my hand, helped me pick the right volume, open it to the right chapter. I said I thought it was a coincidence, although I wasn’t too sure at the time. It’s possible also, I argued, that I wasn’t the first person to ever go looking for that particular story, and so the book opened to that page, more or less. Because the spine, mostly unspoiled through the decades by the routine damage inflicted by readers of books, probably had a single crack left in it from before. It’s possible that the volume, if it had been used before, was reshelved by the user sticking out slightly instead of flush with the other books, and so I unconsciously chose it (I used to be a library page—a minion—long ago). I recount this to illustrate what a stubborn subject I was and am when it comes to faith and belief. Yana knew about Jungian archetypes and self-actualization and so on, but I think deep in her heart she totally and sincerely believed in Her, that She exists, that She loves us, and that She had agency in the mundane world which she used to help us, if we but asked her. I was just never able to let go, to trust in someone I didn’t think existed. Archetypes, schmarchetypes: I needed Her to *exist*. I needed proof. 5. I read online a couple of years ago that there was some kind of all-pagan conference on the West Coast, where a group of Dianic witches held an “all women-born women welcome” Goddess ritual from which trans women were of course angrily and ostentatiously excluded. It was instructive to me, when I read about it, of something I’m trying to learn over and over until I believe it: apparently nearly everyone else had the decency to be appalled and regarded it as bigoted and ignorant of who we actually are. This book is itself one consequence of this conflict, I am told. In some parallel universe, maybe even nearby, where radical feminists and lesbian separatists of every kind had welcomed trans women into the community from the beginning, valued us, maybe even cherished us for our unique critique of masculinity, our courage in crossing the river of fire, I might be some kind of elder by now, possibly even considered wise. That, along with having transitioned, successfully, long ago. They do feel like they should go together, at least for me. It always felt logical. But I can’t claim a pagan identity now, retroactively, and have it become something that provided comfort and joy over the years, because it isn’t. It didn’t. It never happened. Just like I was never really a Christian after the Southern Baptists chewed me up and spit me out. Past age eight, I never really had the feeling that when I said my prayers, there was someone on the other end listening. By adolescence I knew that they hated people like me, even if whatever the hell it was that I was had not become clear yet. They hated just about anything related to sex that had happened after 1960. The various kinds of baptist churches were gradually taken over in the 1980s by fundamentalists, who had been kept at bay by conservatives for decades (sound familiar?) but now overran the Baptists and other evangelical churches. They voted for Reagan and gave birth to the generation which is now smitten by Trump. They are the real reason I left Texas. I tried for years to make Christianity work for me somehow—you don’t read Tillich on a whim, I spent months checking out everything I could from the library on theology. Fascinating subject, but to me it is fascinating largely as history and supposition. Yana used to say that it didn’t matter if I didn’t believe, it wasn’t a matter of belief; it was a matter of trusting in Her even though you don’t believe it will help. I tried to take the rituals into me, let out that little spark inside, let out the little kid in me. She’s still there, and she’s still scared to come outside, afraid of being slapped again. And for a while it was better. I even tried to meditate. I can’t meditate for shit, but I tried. Our little circle met until it didn’t. It wasn’t like herding cats so much as trying to teach kittens to march down Broadway in lockstep and chanting, “The kittens/United/Will never be defeated!” Only you can’t find enough kittens. And around then, Yana began to vanish into what became an opaque relationship: a glom-on girlfriend who would never give her messages or call her to the phone, she was always “not here,” who eventually closed her off from everyone, or at least everyone at T-House, which was, like, everyone, but apparently the girlfriend thought it included me for some reason; and, long story short, after a couple more times I never saw Yana again. What really kills me is, I introduced them. For political purposes; Glom-on was trans and in a position to help. But the next thing I knew, Yana was telling me the old, old story: “well, you know, we worked all those late nights together on the protest, and next thing you know….” It was the greatest unforeseeable mistake I have ever made, to this day. 3. The Goddess lives in my heart, of course, some kind of small (yet apparently inextinguishable) light, otherwise I wouldn’t have had the strength to survive growing up and getting beaten, a few times nearly to death, by my mother the psycho vodka-swilling pillhead, or to survive living in New York for years with nothing but my sheer uncrushableness and a talent for proofreading. Without Her I could never have embraced my trans identity, then somehow detransition yet not fall apart completely, in a time when it seemed impossible after all to make it through transition as an out lesbian who didn’t pass (2001), and to survive until a time when it does seem sort of possible (2016). Without Her I wouldn’t be able to come back and embrace my trans identity, a choice which saved my life. But that light mostly doesn’t sustain me or reassure me or whatever; it just is me, it feels pain, too. It feels like She put it there, subjectively; like She made me, somehow. She lives in each of us, that light is the You that you hope to find if you look inwards far enough. Maybe that’s what the argument is really about, whether She lives in us, made us the way we are, whether that light is inside us and she really did make us women. Instead of monsters. I’ve met some boring trans people, but I’ve never a monster who wanted to destroy womenspace by demanding admission even though it has a penis. Mostly, we’re just kind of reticent, afraid of sounding too femme, or not enough, or just reminding people we’re different. Like clearing my throat, always comes out sounding deep. It’s like the current bathroom nonsense: as has been true already for decades, we’re just looking for a place to pee. Only now, everyone knows we exist. Maybe it’s the estrogen-wash theory, that high E levels plus maybe really wanting a girl can prevent a fetus with a Y chromosome from fully changing into a male, at least in the brain. I read a study that suggests there are genetic signatures of some kind in some sort of brain cell, and ours differ from men’s, they’re longer yet there aren’t very many testosterone receptors. (Sorry, I don’t have a footer for that.) I have enough material from age five up for another book or two. It took them years, until around age eight, to convince me that not only was I not a girl, but I wouldn’t turn into one later, it didn’t work that way, and when I grew up I wouldn’t be a woman. I’d wear one of those suits, like Dad, not a dress. I hated those suits. I thought this would be an essay about an attempt at forming a circle in the intersection of Goddess religion and trans women’s culture, because you want academic papers with footnotes and everything. But it turns out it’s as much about Yana as about the Goddess or Dianic wicca or other stuff you’d research and footnote and make a biblio out of. It’s all just from me; it’s my story, and what it is, too. My close encounter with having a pagan religious identity, my pagan identity, the one I wanted to at least try, before that identity zoomed past me, then looped around the Sun and shot back out into space, probably all the way to the Oort Cloud. It should be back in a few thousand years. It was Yana who embodied Her for me, and made Her seem real; so once Yana was gone from my life, that sense of the numinous, of spirit in everything, went away too, leaving behind a fondness for a hill with a circle of trees on it in Prospect Park where we used to go to talk and be. I don’t believe that in any of this I was in point of fact a pagan; I was an acolyte of Yana. I trusted her, I learned from her, I believed her, I miss her.

Part Three A. I am 58 now. I used to care so very intensely about this, I was so proud to be co-organizing a Goddess circle for women like us. That was 2000, and so much else was going wrong in my personal life that year, so this was special, something I tried harder to keep hold of even as it slipped further out of my grasp. When I was forced by events to detransition in April of 2001, it hurt like I was dying. I had to cut loose a lot of things to survive, and caring so intensely about this, since I was spiritually on my own once again, became one of them. Like with anything transgender, I didn’t want to know, I turned away, shamed by what felt like my epic failure, and I didn’t want to hear about it anymore. If I couldn’t have it, I couldn’t bear to look at others who could. Because they’d learned to go out dressed without trembling. Because they were living. I felt like the kid with her nose pressed against the glass again, looking in, like before, and it started to seem normal again to feel like I was permanently wrong, or at least I was too emotionally exhausted to fight. I suspended my transition, for 15 years it turns out. A lot of things have gotten better in the meantime, a lot more than I could’ve imagined. Like marriage equality isn’t a Thing, it’s the law. Hating on trans folks of all stripes on modern gay/bi women’s sites, like Autostraddle.com, isn’t acceptable behavior anymore, or at least TERFy posts draw multiple posts from allies. This is the generation we gave birth to, and they mostly as a rule just don’t believe in hate; and there isn’t an exception made to that rule for trans people. Yet it turns out this, the reason I’m a cynical atheist instead of a somewhat less cynical witch, is still a Thing in 2016. So many awful Things, Things that seemed unchangeable for queers for so very long, have changed in the last fifteen years, but this isn’t one of them. And we do this to ourselves. Queers who obsessively hate certain other queers. It seems so wrong now, when I think about it like that. So a friend of mine who is a writer and a witch told me about the call for papers. I intended to write something more like I might have written for an academic paper, and if I were still taking college courses I probably would have, MLA format and all. This is not that story, this is the story that wanted to be told. So I have I decided to try and tell the Tale of Yana and Kiva. I would’ve made a lousy pagan anyway. There’s the indifference to magic. I can’t meditate for shit. I feel antagonistic toward religion in general. I’m hopelessly cynical. I’m an atheist, for Chrissakes. B. Last week my wife K. and I went to Massachusetts to visit old friends. We stopped at my favorite used bookstore in the world, the Raven Used Books in Northampton, on Old South Street. Most of what I found in LGBT or Women’s Studies was from the 80s or 90s, when I was reading some of the same books I found there. I asked about transgender theory—I murmured “trans” and she thought I said “trains”, so I said, “transgender” in this slightly apologetic way I still do. She thought for a second and said they are largely a used book store (“academic” being a given) and that since the field has started growing so recently and so quickly, they didn’t have them in great numbers, yet, but when they did it would be shelved in LGBT. Which makes sense to me, really, since the oldest of the new wave of major works I have read are from about 2005 on. They haven’t had time to finish the cycle: first migrate in signifigant numbers onto syllabii at Smith, Holyoke, Hampshire, Amherst and UMass, to wax and wane in popularity and utility, and thence in time make their way to Happy Valley’s used bookstores, particularly to Raven. Where people like me buy them. Maybe they’re still waxing in popularity. I hope so. But this visit I wasn’t into languages or mediæval history or Buddhism, I was back where I began, at LGBT and Women’s Studies. And the future is so new here that the books I was hoping to find are still being used, rather than having been used. They have some mugs and bags for hardcore fans like me. But I already have two mugs. So I bought a nice copy of Carol Christ’s Laughter of Aphrodite, since I haven’t read it and thealogy is really sort of timeless, even if some of the people she was discussing and critiquing advocated then-current arguments which have become dim with the passage of time. (Remember, everyone: if you have a used book you haven’t read before, it’s new.) Laughter of Aphrodite came out around the time Christ (pronounced “krist”, with a short i) was co-editing the now-classic anthology which we used as our principal textbook for the Women & Religion course at Hunter College in 1987: Womanspirit Rising. I’m looking forward to reading it.

But, like I said, I’m not a pagan. Go figure.

#trans #gender #transgender #paganism #neo-Paganism #dianic wicca #wicca #trans history #transgender history #lgbtq history #queer pagan

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