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jackarthurdavenport · 3 years

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Some of my lovely friends asked to show how I do my blending, so here is a very long tutorial! I will explain how to:

Blend GIFs with lots of movement

Blend three or more GIFs on one canvas

You will need:

Any version of Photoshop with a timeline

Basic-intermediate knowledge of GIF making (including cropping, how to use adjustment layers for color correction, applying layer masks, and placing multiple GIFs on one canvas)

Since the way I blend depends on the footage I'm able to work with, I often end up going in a different direction than I first planned. So this isn't a strict step-by-step guide that can be applied to everything you make. These are just some tips!

Read the rest under the cut.

TERMINOLOGY:

(Pretty sure you already know this but I will be repeating these a lot here, so just in case!)

Highlights & Shadows - The highlights are the brightest parts of the image. The shadows are the darkest parts. Remember that just because it's bright doesn't mean it's actually white, and just because it's dark doesn't mean it's actually black!

Negative Space - This refers to empty space around your subject. When there's negative space, it's easier to spot the focal point of the image.

BLENDING GIFS WITH LOTS OF MOVEMENT

Number of GIFs: 2 Main GIF: Closeup of Sam (“big!Sam”) Secondary GIF: Sam flying (“flying!Sam”)

STEP 1: Find the right scenes Since the subject of the secondary GIF is much smaller and basically cuts across the frame, it’s important (but not always essential!) that the main GIF has less movement and a decent amount of negative space.

STEP 2: Make your individual GIFs Make your GIFs like how you usually do (Important: Remember that your GIFs need to have the same number of frames). When it’s time to crop, it’s best to have the two files opened in Photoshop at the same time so you can compare them against each other. It’s absolutely fine for them to overlap because that’s the whole point! The secondary GIF has Sam flying in from the top left to the bottom right, so I cropped the main GIF with him off-center so there would be space to see flying!Sam.

Now we have these two GIFs:

STEP 3: Combine your GIFs Place the secondary GIF over the main one and adjust the blend mode. Setting the blend mode to Screen usually works, but in this case, this is how it looks:

As you can see, the highlights in the main GIF are obscuring flying!Sam in the first frames. You can only see him clearly when he’s flying over big!Sam’s face. This is because the shadows on the top GIF will lighten and/or disappear against the highlights of the bottom GIF when set to Screen. It would be too complicated to fix this with a brush (which we will get to later) because of the movement in the secondary GIF, so instead I set the blending mode to Multiply, which is the opposite of Screen. Now here is the GIF:

We can now see flying!Sam. But the blue of the sky is now a pseudo-filter over big!Sam’s face up until the last frames. So I applied a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer over the secondary GIF to remove those colors. The sky in the GIF is made up of cyans and blues, so I dragged those sliders down to -100. Here is how it looks now:

STEP 4: Erase the bits you don’t want So that big!Sam’s face isn’t covered by flying!Sam’s wings and that pesky airplane up top, we have to use a brush to erase those parts. In the Layers panel, make sure your GIF layers (in this case, groups/folders) are selected and click the Add Layer Mask button. A little rectangle next to the layer/group name will show up like so:

Then in the Tools panel, click the Brush tool, pick a soft brush and set the size to around 180-210px. The larger the brush, the softer the look. I learned this from Becca (@inejz-ghafa) who made an amazing tutorial a while back (will link it in the source at the bottom)! Adjust the brush size if you have to.

Now click on the little rectangle layer mask of the group you want to erase (in this case, the secondary GIF). When you do this, the Foreground and Background Colors buttons in the Tools panel will revert to the default black and white.

Painting with black will erase and painting with white will undo the erasure. So I erased the airplane and the bits of the wings covering his face. I didn’t erase the parts that overlap with his uniform, just to keep the effect of flying!Sam zooming across the GIF. And here is our finished product:

BLENDING THREE OR MORE GIFS ON ONE CANVAS

We will be working with these two GIFs since they use different techniques:

STEP 1: Compose your image Find the scenes you want to put in your GIF and choose which of those is the most important. Once you've decided on that, you can build the rest of the elements around it.

Sam's GIF: Multiple Exposure Effect

Number of GIFs: 3 Main GIF: Bloodied shield Secondary GIF: Closeup of Sam Tertiary GIF: Bucky with the shield

STEP 2: Make your individual GIFs Since the shield is the most important part, I made it the largest GIF and cropped it close to emphasize the star and the blood. I made Sam's GIF the same size, but cropped it with his face off-center so that the star wouldn't completely cover his face. Again, it's totally fine for the images to overlap! The tertiary GIF is the least important so I cropped it smaller. To determine the size of that GIF compared to the shield, I made the Rulers visible (View > Rulers; or Ctrl+R) then clicked the top ruler and dragged down to create a guide to where I wanted the smaller GIF to end. Then I measured from the bottom of the GIF up to the guide to determine the height of the smaller GIF. (Tip: It's better to make the tertiary GIF too large than too small. That way, you have more to work with. So size it larger than it will appear on the final GIF.)

This is only a stylistic choice for this particular set, but I removed the blue from the shield and set the tertiary GIF to black and white, so that the only notable colors in the GIF are red, black and white. Varying up the coloring of each GIF (i.e. color vs. monochrome) adds some spice to the image, so play around with these different styles if you like!

Here are our three GIFs:

STEP 3: Combine your GIFs At first, I made the main GIF of the shield the bottom GIF. Then I placed the secondary GIF over it and set the blend mode to Screen, but found that it lacked depth. So I switched them and made the Sam GIF the bottom GIF (blend mode: Pass Through) and placed the shield GIF (blend mode: Screen) over it. And this is what I got:

Notice how the window behind Sam on the left side is distracting? It also partially obscures the star. So I went back to Sam’s GIF, created a New Layer and painted over the window with a black brush. Now here is our GIF:

This is just my personal preference, but I wanted the area around the star to be a solid black rather than gray, so this time I created a New Layer over the shield GIF and applied a layer of black with the Paint Bucket tool, setting the blend mode to Soft Light. Now we’re done with the main and secondary GIFs:

Now let’s add the last GIF:

STEP 4: Erase the bits you don’t want Lastly, I erased the warehouse rafters over Sam’s face and a bit of his shirt and the warehouse floor on the bottom right corner using Layer Masks and a soft brush (like in the first tutorial). And we’re done!

Bucky's GIF: Silhouette Effect

Number of GIFs: 3 Main GIF: Bucky holding the notebook Secondary GIF: View of the sunrise from the boat Tertiary GIF: Sam and Bucky walking away

STEP 2: Make your individual GIFs To achieve this silhouette effect, the main GIF needs to have a clear focal point, which means it’s better to have negative space around the subject and for there to be minimal movement. In this case, the subject is made up of Bucky’s hands, notebook, and part of his shirt; and there’s some movement but we can still work with that. The other two GIFs will then be placed “inside” the subject. Because the negative space in the main GIF consists of highlights, I chose a secondary GIF which emphasized the shadows. For the smallest GIF, I used a guide like in the previous tutorial to measure its size.

We have these three GIFs:

STEP 3: Combine your GIFs Place the secondary GIF over the main one. In my case, I didn’t measure it right so I had to nudge the top GIF a bit to the right to fit it inside the silhouette. The important thing is that the edge of the secondary GIF should not overlap with the silhouette itself, or else the illusion “breaks.”

Now let’s add the third GIF:

STEP 4: Erase the bits you don’t want For this GIF, there’s a lot we need to erase! Using Layer Masks and a soft brush again, erase the parts of the secondary GIF that extend beyond the silhouette. It’s entirely based on personal preference if you want to keep some parts of the secondary GIF outside the silhouette (like I did here) or if you want them completely removed. And for the small GIF, erase the edges for it to blend with the secondary GIF while also staying within the silhouette of the main one.

Now here is our finished GIF:

And that’s it! If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. I hope this was useful! Remember, there is no definitive way to blend GIFs, so keep experimenting. And don’t be afraid to make mistakes either, because we learn a lot from those. Happy Photoshop-ing!

- Elle

#completeresources #allresources #blending tutorial #photoshop tutorial #userpavi #tusergabriela #usersae #userrex #usertk #supervalcsi #usernums #userringo #userkraina #usersmile #tuserlouise #usersof #mine #my tutorials

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lokiondisneyplus · 3 years

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Yes, Loki series director Kate Herron knows about your fan theory about the show, the analysis you posted to social media. No, she won’t tell you what she thinks about it, or whether you were right.

“I follow all the conversations on Twitter,” Herron told Polygon in an interview shortly after Loki’s season 1 finale. “I don’t always weigh in on them, because I made the show, so they don’t want me weighing in like, ‘Actually, guys…’ I think that’s the whole point of art — it should be up for debate and discussion.”

[Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for season 1 of Loki.]

Loki has been a hit for streaming service Disney Plus — episode 6 of the show, the final installment for this season, was reportedly watched by more households than any of the platform’s MCU finales to date. The series has been a popular source of fan conjecture and argument, with one particularly big rolling conversation focusing on whether the budding romantic relationship between trickster Asgardian Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his alternate-universe counterpart Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) is a form of incest.

Herron is willing to speak up about that one. “My interpretation of it is that they’re both Lokis, but they aren’t the same person,” she says. “I don’t see them as being like brother and sister. They have completely different backgrounds […] and I think that’s really important to her character. They sort of have the same role in terms of the universe and destiny, but they won’t make the same decisions.”

Herron says thematically, Loki falling for Sylvie is an exploration of “self-love,” but only in the sense that it’s Loki learning to understand his own motives and integrity. “[The show is] looking at the self and asking ‘What makes us us?’” Herron says. “I mean, look at all the Lokis across the show, they’re all completely different. I think there’s something beautiful about his romantic relationship with Sylvie, but they’re not interchangeable.”

Directing the final kiss between the two characters was a complicated process because it had to communicate something about each of them over the course of just a few seconds. Herron says the primary goal was creating a safe, comfortable environment for Hiddleston and Di Martino, and after that, she had to think about how to bring across Loki and Sylvie’s conflicting goals in that moment.

“It’s an interesting one, right?” she says. “Emotionally, from Sylvie’s perspective, I think it’s a goodbye. But it’s still a buildup of all these feelings. They’ve both grown through each other over the last few episodes. It was important to me that it didn’t feel like a trick, like she was deceiving him. She is obviously doing that, on one hand, but I don’t feel the kiss is any less genuine. I think she’s in a bad place, but her feelings are true.”

Herron says directing Hiddleston in the scene mostly came down to discussing the speech Loki gives Sylvie before the kiss. “That was really important, showing this new place for Loki,” Herron says. “In the first episode, he’s like, ‘I want the throne, I want to rule,’ and by episode 6, he isn’t focused on that selfish want. He just wants her to be okay.”

Loki writer and producer Eric Martin recently tweeted that he wished the show had been able to focus more time on two of its secondary characters, Owen Wilson’s Time Variance Authority agent Mobius M. Mobius, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Ravonna Renslayer. “I wanted to explore her more deeply and really see their relationship,” he says, “But covid got in the way and we just didn’t have time.”

Asked if Loki and Sylvie’s relationship suffered from similar necessary edits, Herron says it’s true that the show’s creators and audience still don’t know everything Sylvie went through to make her so different from the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s original version of Loki. “We’ve seen her as a child, but she’s lived for thousands and thousands of years, in apocalypses on the run,” she says. “I think there’s so much more to delve into with Sylvie […] You’re filling in the blanks. You see [her on the planet] Lamentis, and it’s horrific. And you’re like, “Well, what kind of person would she be, growing up in apocalypses? What kind of personality would that give her?”

Herron says Sylvie’s backstory actually reminds her of the 1995 movie Jumanji, where a young boy is sucked into a magical board game in 1969, and emerges 26 years later as a full-grown man, played by with typical manic energy by Robin Williams. “It’s such a weird reference, but…” she says. “He’s a little boy when he ends up captive in that game, and when he comes out, it’s obviously been a life experience. With Sylvie, it’s similar. She was a child when she had to go on the run, so she’s had a very difficult life. I would love to see more of it. As Eric said, she’s a rich character, there’s so much to be explored.”

Herron says, though, that during her time on the show, material about Sylvie was added rather than cut — specifically, those scenes of her as a child, being kidnapped by the TVA. “This was before my time, but I know in the writers’ room, there were lots of avenues exploring Sylvie on the run and what her life was like,” Herron says. “I wouldn’t want to speak more to those, because I wasn’t there when they were being discussed. But something wasn’t in there that was important to me — I felt we should see her [history] in the TVA. Me and the team were talking about how it made complete sense, because episode 4 is all about twisting the idea that the TVA might be good on its head. And so that’s something that came in later, once I joined, was seeing her as a child. I think we needed to see that, not to understand her completely, but to get an idea of her motivations, why she’s so angry at this place.”

Talking more broadly about the series finale, Herron says the last few episodes weren’t as heavily referential as the first episodes, which she intended as “a love letter to sci-fi.” While early images like the TVA’s interrogation rooms had specific visual references from past science fiction, episode 6’s locations were drawn more from collaborations with the crew.

“The idea of the physical timeline being circular, our storyboard artists came up with that,” Herron says. “I had in the scripts, ‘We move through space to the end of time,” and then me and [storyboard artist Darrin Denlinger] discussed how we could play with the idea of time, while also adding MCU nods. He was like, ‘What if the timeline is circular?’ I think that’s such a striking image, like the Citadel at the End of Time is the needle on a record player. I just thought that was such a cool image, but it wasn’t necessarily taken from anything.”

Episode 6 focuses heavily on the mysterious figure He Who Remains and his citadel, a space she says was largely conceived by production designer Kasra Farahani. “I remember he brought in the art of the Citadel, and I thought it was beautiful,” Herron says. “He said, ‘The Citadel has been carved from an actual meteorite,’ which I thought was such an inspired idea. And He Who Remains’ office is the only finished portion of it.”

She says there are only a few direct homages in episode 6, including the zoom shot through space, which directly referenced a similar sequence in Robert Zemeckis’ 1997 film Contact.

“And then I have my Teletubbies reference for episode 5,” Herron says. “I wanted the Void to feel like an overgrown garden, like a kind of forgotten place. And I realized I’d pitched it as the British countryside. I remember trying to explain it to ILM, who did the visual effects, and saying, ‘Oh, you know, it’s like the Teletubbies. It’s just rolling hills, but they go on forever.’ That actually was quite a helpful reference in the end, which is funny.”

Asked for her favorite set memory from shooting the season, Herron says it comes down to Tom Hiddleston starting a mania for physical exertion before takes. “Sometimes he runs around set to get himself in the right mindset before he performs,” she says. “He does pushups. You know, you’re going into an action scene, you want to look like you’ve just been running. And it became infectious across all the cast. We’ve got so much footage of — I think Jack [Veal] ended up doing it, who plays Kid Loki. I’ve got [shots of] him and Sophia doing pushups and squats, just to get ready. It was so funny watching that echo across all the cast. I think all of them ended up doing those exercises with him at some point. It was so funny.”

“That might be my favorite set story, but it’s honestly, not a sweet one,” she adds. “I would say my favorite thing is his enthusiasm. He’s a very kind empathetic person. We were filming this in quite tough circumstances, a lot of people were far from home and isolating, and he brought this warmth and energy and joy to the set every day. And I think that made everyone feel very safe and very bonded. I’m forever grateful to him for doing that.”

#Kate Herron #Loki #Sylvie #Tom Hiddleston #owen wilson

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familyagrestefanblog · 3 years

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Ml Meta analysis: Adriens current absents, season 4 structure and theory on whats to come

Here I am back again with my endless rambling.

I'm just as worried for our cat son as everyone else (maybe even more) which is why I tried figuring out for my own sanity why he is so absent currently.

Upfront I wanna warn yall that I wrote this post in one rush this night and therefore had no time to do alot of editing. So things can probably get a bit more messy than usual but I tried to write it clearly, while writing 2 other ml essays as well. This is the one drawback of having so many episodes in such a short time, I have no time to write my posts x3 I had another theory planned for before Optigami airs but I don't think I can manage before tomorrow.

But let's not waste any more time. Grab a snack and here we go:

It's 2am right now but I think I just realized why Adrien/Chat Noir is being sidelined so much recently.

Sure, yes, it'll come into play in the very obviously set up Ladynoir drama later on but what I wanna talk about now is more the structure of how s4 is most likely written in terms of both Marinettes and Adriens side of the story. And then deep dive a little on why I think so.

You see season 4 is now reaping what has been built up from s1-s3, but this also includes that you have to take the time now to properly recreate the new possibilities out of the loose pieces of the broken status quo.

Seriously, season 4 has to handle and reinvent ALOT. The show got now officially announced to have 7 seasons, which is exactly the amount of seasons Astruc said they have story for. I couldnt find the official tweet from Thomas himself but I one from another source:

And now look take a look at the possible shows structure:

- s1-s3 was the first status quo and built up everything so now they can pay off after pay off while...

-... S4 is now the transitional season where the old status quo gets left behind as we work towards the new one.

-I have nothing to proof this of course, but in the same sense it would now make sense that s5-s7 where/are planned to play out under the final status quo. If I'm not wrong at first the show was under contract for 5 seasons, which would mean that after the transitional season 4 there was only 1 season of the final status quo for sure. Still, done right it could have been worth the wait. But this isn't where Miraculous will end. The show actually got the 7 seasons the creator wanted and THIS is how I think the long term plan makes the most sense. Nothing all too complicated but still hella effective in its execution.

But now back to our two main characters, because Marinettes and Adriens development are the two aspects that will raise the show to the intense heights of the s5-s7 status quo.

From s1-s3 Marinette was the active player but she was hardly involved with the actual PLOT of the show, since most of the plot and backstory of the show lies directly with the Agreste family. She only started to get her own plot when she literally created a new one by getting involved with the miraculous lore, because the closest Marinette got to the Agreste plot was "The collector".

Adrien in the other hand was always literally right in the middle of the plot but he wasn't enough of an active player to bring us further either.

Season 4 is now going to add the missing parts for both of them and as the very beginning of the season showed us: there are going to do it SEPERATLY.

This is why "Truth" and "Lies" have been structured the way they are (One Marinette-centric the other Adrien-centric). Yes, Marinette and Adrien are meant to end their story victoriously together, but they are simply not the people they have to be to become such a powerful team. Certain aspects of their journey they have to do... basically disconnected from the other one. The "Miracle Queen" endcard shows it quite nicely as well where they are heading now: away from each other.

Obviously the season started with Marinette growing into her new guardian status including everything miraculous related, since she is the main lead and because the new ways the episodes can now utilize everything Miraculous need to be established first before we deep dive into the messed up Agreste mystery.

So while I totally agree that it is annoying to get so little Adrien/Chat Noir content currently I also understand the practicality behind it. As I said, before s4 Marinette was the active main character who mostly didn't really have her own plot. So now adding her plot aspect and have her ACTIVELY figure everything needed out means that right now Marinette/Ladybug is the active focus main character who is solving a huge part of her s4 character arc. That simply drowns out Adrien as the currently still mostly-inactive secondary main character who, yes, may be right in the middle of the shows emotional + villain plot/lore/backstory, but that side of the story simply isn't in focus at the moment.

And I gotta say, I'm kinda glad they're doing it this way. Because I'm gonna be honest, when the season starts giving us Adrien/family Agreste episodes like "Lies" and "The collector" (in this case "Gabriel Agreste" for example) again, I don't want the narrative to be forced to spend time with something guardian lore based just because they didn't took their time to do it earlier.

So, as we see on the s4 episode raster "Gabriel Agreste" is episode 9. Honestly, I expect most of it (especially the ones near the beginning, so ep. 5 included) til that episode to be Marinette based the way everything else til now did (besides Lies obviously and Guilt trip didn't hardcore focus on Marinette/Ladybug either and that's because it's after "Gabriel Agreste") in the spirit of "Truth". It's just the needed set up from Marinettes side of the story and I can live with that.

Because we actually saw the change after "Gabriel Agreste" already in "Guilt trip".

I don't know why some people pretend like Chat almost cataclysming himself after hearing how guilt-eaten Nino is for Adriens sake isn't a huge indicator that the episodes afterwards will not only acknowledge but also DEAL with Adriens/Chats situation and problems. Remember, we are talking about CHAT NOIR here not Adrien Agreste. The show has always portrayed and acknowledged ADRIENS issues very straight forward and with the proper seriousness (especially when it comes to his family), whereas Chat Noir was often mostly used for comedic purposes with some exceptions of his problems being properly delt with (since Marinette/Ladybug was mostly oblivious to them, since Adrien keeps them hidden so well). But now in "Guilt trip" LADYBUG was confronted head-on with just how much negativity Chat has inside and how quickly and extremely he drowns in it.

Sure, correct, the episode also has his negativity "washed away" rather quickly by Ladybug opening up to him on how important he is to her

But this is in character for both of them as "Lies" very clearly showed us that the way BOTH OF THEM behave here is where the problem lies. There Ladybug was freaked out after Chat threw his life away once again but quickly accepted Chats very direct avoidance of the confrontation, since he seemed to be alright to her.

Something I also find noteworthy here is that Ladybugs dialog is "Seriously, you need to stop doing this to me!", which is.... a VERY Marinette-centric way of acknowledging the problem.

It completely shifts the issue away from Adriens extremely alarming self-harmful/suicidal tendencies and instead only calls out how it affects Marinette (whose feelings here are definitely valid, don't get me wrong!). It showcases perfectly how unaware Marinette still is of her partners inner tumult at that point and also parallels how Marinette called Adriens life "perfect" at the beginning of the episode (This is no shade towards Marinette, in general the entirety of "Lies" is about showing us just how harmful Adriens Chat Noir persona actually IS to him so these two moments of her being oblivious to Adriens and Chats immense problems very much fits into that episodes narrative and sets up what's about to come. I still have an entire essay in the making for "Lies" but, guys, it's just getting longer and longer. I suck xD).

So the fact that an episode after "Gabriel Agreste" brings this scenario back, just a little different but ALOT more revealing of Adriens immense problems to his partner, is VERY telling. Besides other things it tells us that this happens at the beginning of the arc that deals with (at least) Chats issues since Ladybug is still way too quickly too ready to accept her partner as "completely fine" again just because Chat makes it seem that way (while some negativity increasing guilt bubbles still to stick to him.).

And yet, others have already pointed it out that Ladybug IS noticing what Chat wanted to do and reacted accordingly...

she just didn't speak of it the way it is because it overwhelmed her, which calls back to Ladybugs "You have to stop doing this to me!" dialog.( For a great breakdown of her dialog HERE is a link to @flightfoot post)

In "Lies" Marinette was way too stressed by her new guardian role to even consider Chats side of it and therefore only spoke of her own, but in "Guilt trip" she's already past that stressful arc. So here she is immediately able to recognize Chats suicidal action for what it is, come to his (much needed) aid and lift her partners spirit the best she can by emotionally opening up to him (which is something we KNOW is incredibly hart for Marinette).

The difference between her reaction in "Lies" and in "Guilt trip" shows that Marinette has her guardian role already mostly handled and is now mentally able to be there for others again, so the extremely Marinette-centric "Truth"-like episodes are mostly passed. Now the episodes can bring Adrien/Chat Noir more into the game again and even shift to "Lies" - like episodes because MARINETTE can pay more attention to him again and isn't faced with something new, important and overwhelming Miraculous related every step she takes.

And THAT is extremely fair from a narrative standpoint.

---

I really need to stop elaborating so much on these posts because I'm only NOW actually getting to the point of where Adriens journey will disconnect for a while from Ladybugs. Sorry guys.

Okay, to understand where I'm going with this I will have to quickly explain how I always saw Chat Noirs place in the Ladybug+Chat Noir vs Hawkmoth war ever since s1.

Because here is the thing: Adrien wasn't able to truly leave the battle field ONCE since the origins. Marinette was completely out of Hawkmoths and Gabriels reach once she detransformed, which balances out her basically being the personification of the good sides force. And Gabriel literally decided whenever or not the battle is even ACTIVE right now! Besides that he is in complete control of his own actions and environment, which gives him all the necessary time, safety and downtime he needs to act as the personification of the evil sides force.

Marinette and Gabriel always knew when they were safe and off the battle field, but ADRIEN never had that and it left him LITERALLY right in the middle of both Ladybugs and Hawkmoths sides.

You see, because before Adrien became Chat Noir he basically was part of Hawkmoths side just by default. He was born into this family, that's his father and lost mother and everything he knows. Adrien didn't/doesn't even have to KNOW that he is part of Hawkmoths side, he's his son at some level he just IS! And I'm not saying this as anything negative, Adrien coming from Hawkmoths side is literally the reason why he became Chat Noir!

Because whereas Gabriel is having the time of his damn life as evil terrorist, created out of tragic and sinister circumstances, ADRIEN on the other hand couldn't handle his families environment and very same circumstances anymore and accepted the role as Paris' hero to escape his heritage for a while.

Keywords being: a WHILE.

Something unique about Adrien I always loved is the fact that he is the villains abused, isolated and overworked SON, who becomes a hero to escape his depressing life and YET it was never Adriens intention to LEAVE IT. Adrien merely wanted to use his time as Chat Noir to let of some steam and breath freely while doing some hero work so he can go back into his civilian life and try to one day successfully ment his broken family. He couldn't handle the current situation anymore but he still always saw worth in his family/father. I have SO MUCH respect for that!

But him not intending to leave his family and instead regaining strength as Chat Noir to continue to hold onto it came with the downside of him not being able to fully become part of the good sides people/force either. Hence why Adriens/Chats place always felt so lost in comparison to Ladybugs and Hawkmoths clear positions. He's caught in between their extremes trying to balance out BOTH at the same time. What an impossible task!

So he couldn't put in the same focus as Ladybug into being the good sides force because he is literally burned out from his civilian life on Hawkmoths evil side. But he also couldn't be involved as an ACTIVE member of his fathers evil force, because he chose to find refuge in his friends and as a hero on Ladybugs side.

Adrien unknowingly is part of BOTH the shows two extreme moral sides of good and evil and this season we will see Adrien/Chat Noir grow into his own within BOTH sides as well.

Because he simply couldn't have done so right away in s1. Now after 3 seasons Chat Noir is more than solidly established as one of Paris Heros and his time with Ladybug, the other heros and his normal friends helped him greatly to find his place on the good side. "Lies" set this up as Chat Noirs arcs starting point that now he has to stop connecting "being heroic" strictly with following Ladybug (as Marinette is the STAND IN personification for the good side, she's still a flawed human being like everyone else and not the ultimate force of perfect and good. Big difference.) just as he has to start looking past his fathers sympathetic moments/qualities to see that Hawkmoth isn't a 100%, inhumane monster just because he is the stand-in personification of evil in their fight, but the man he calls Father and still needs to be taken down. (I talked about this in more detail on THIS post)

Adrien has to seperat himself from Ladybugs path and focus on his family and I believe it'll start with the much dreaded (but expected) Ladynoir fight.

Funnily enough, what I'm talking about was actually already set up in "Frozer" I just didn't remember that for a bit. In "Frozer" we saw Ladynoir having a fight which caused Chat Noir to go his own way in the episodes battle.

I always found it interesting that the episode didn't had Chats decision, to not follow Ladybugs lead here, turn out to be a huge mistake. Almost every other show would have done so but now I think I understand. This episode and s2 in general SET UP the s4 conflict, s3 LEAD UP to it and now s4 DELIVERS it.

So what happened in "Frozer" is a direct parallel to what about to go down:

Ladynoirs fight will cause Chat Noir to not simply follow Ladybugs side anymore the way he used to, but note, he DOESN'T leave the good side AND they make up again in the end after Chat saves Ladybug from the akuma. He just does things on his own because he isn't on great terms with her for a while. "Frozer" showed Chats decision to not only NOT be a mistake but also a necessary part of defeating the akuma, just the way it'll be in s4. Damn, Adrien breaking away from Ladybugs side, the way she (unintentionally tho) did at the beginning of the season, to focus more on himself and his family will be the game changing factor, when Adrien will have his completing arc where he goes from "not active character within the villain/backstory plot" to "ACTIVE character within the villain/backstory plot".

And we already saw with Marinette how many fast breakthroughs we get through these completing arcs. Which is also a reason for why Adriens/ Chats arc comes later in the season, because BUDDY. Once Adrien starts to actively uncover his families mystery and fathers secrets Gabriel is SCREWED! Adrien will gain the needed inside knowledge that complements Marinettes Miraculous power; and reunited they can take on whatever the hell kind of scale the Agrestes plan actually is.

So how to end this post? My biggest intention was to raise hope for everybody (myself included lol) who is right now very concerned and upset about how side-lined our boy is at the moment. But I prefer doing so in a way that actually works with canons context instead of sugarcoating what I don't like. And Adriens/Chats current position I definitely do NOT like but accepting it as realistic outcome from s1-s3 and set up for the escalation for both Ladynoir and his home situation gives it the proper purpose and pay off (narrative and character wise) that it SHOULD have.

Basically, the endcards of "Truth" and "Lies" show it perfectly.

It looks like ShadowMoth is turning a blind eye towards Adrien/Chat Noir because of Ladybugs new guardian status and "greater importance". But Gabriels tunnel vision on Ladybug will leave him vulnerable to his own sons secret actions against him and Gabriel won't see it coming until its already too late.

#Miraculous #Miraculous ladybug #ml theory #ml analysis #ml season 4 #ml show structure #Adrien Agreste #marinette dupain chang #Gabriel Agreste #Chat Noir #Ladybug #Hawkmoth #ml forshadowing

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artemisia-black · 3 years

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Part three: Sirius Black, traditional masculinity and mental health.

Trigger warning: discussions of PTSD

Part three : Sirius: Grief, guilt, rage, and responsibility

Here’s part one and part two.

Sirius and his sense of responsibility and guilt

Although Sirius shows a high level of recklessness and disregard for consequences throughout the series (both key traits of traditional masculinity).

This is entirely centred around his own safety. For those he loves, Sirius adopts too much responsibility for their misfortunes and often accepts blame when there is not any.

The chief example of this is his belief that he ‘as good as killed’ James and Lilly and his deep-seated guilt about having caused their death.

Another example occurs in GoF after Harry returns from the maze and is brought to Sirius in Dumbledore's office. In this scene, Sirius's face is described as,

‘…white and gaunt as it had been when he escaped Azkaban.’ (GoF Chapter 36, p583)

And he immediately shoulders the blame for what Harry has experienced,

‘…I knew it- I knew something like this..’ (GoF Chapter 36, p583)

While this is concern for a loved one, it also reads as Sirius expressing that he had fault for what happened to Harry.

Excessive self-blame is one symptom of attachment trauma. And although I do not believe the Blacks were physically abusive, calling your child (whatever their age) the,

‘Shame of your flesh,' can cause a deep wound to their self-esteem.

And numerous studies have found that early trauma (like leaving home and emotional abandonment) was related to self-blame as a coping strategy in adult life.

Sirius and his rage

I will caveat this section by saying that anger is not an inherently bad emotion. Anger can be a useful tool that tells us when someone has crossed our boundaries. It can also provide the motivation to fight injustice and can save our lives when we are being attacked.

However, anger is also a secondary emotion that usually masks other underlying feelings such as grief, fear, anxiety, and frustration.

Throughout masculinity literature, anger is one of the few powerful emotions that men are ‘allowed’ to show publicly and is often the reason that many of the underlying emotions can fester.

Sirius’s rage is a key component of his character. His grief for James and Lilly (coupled with not being allowed to step into his role as Harry’s godfather), manifests as such an intense and fatalistic rage that he goes after Peter. I also believe that the prank/werewolf incident is his abandonment wound manifesting as rage.

However, in this post, I want to explore his rage towards his family (specifically his parents).

His very first line in OoTP, is him screaming at his mother’s portrait,

‘Shut up, you horrible old hag, Shut UP.’ He roared. (OoTP, Chapter 4, P74)

Furthermore, during the cleaning, he actively wrestles with Kreecher, to throw out his father’s ring.

By aggressively throwing out family heirlooms, Sirius is focusing his anger on physical objects and the physical representations of his family. And is subconsciously attempting to cleanse himself of the wide variety of emotions that are lurking beneath his anger.

Later in the book Sirius says,

‘My mother didn’t have a heart, Kreacher,” Sirius snapped. “She kept herself alive out of pure spite.” (OoTP, Chapter 6, p102).

Therefore, it can be inferred that rage at his parents (particularly his mother) is always simmering below the surface with Sirius. And is reminiscent of the rage (stemming from his grief and guilt) he shows during the Shrieking Shack scene in PoA.

It is also interesting to note that whenever his negative emotions become too intense; he withdraws to his mother’s room (and this occurs on several occasions).

‘…Spending increasing number of times, shut up in his mother’s room with Buckbeak,’ (OoTP chapter 9, p144)

‘…often withdrawing to Buckbeak’s room for hours at a time.’ (OoTP, Chapter 24 p456)

Although Buckbeak is a source of comfort, it is very interesting that of all the large rooms in this large house, his mother’s room is where he decides to house him.

Additionally, Sirius and Walburga’s angry words are very similar. For example, in the shrieking shack scene, Sirius says to Peter:

‘There’s enough filth on my robes without you touching them,’ (PoA, Chapter 19 p273) (and in this line, Sirius is effectively calling Peter ‘filth’)

And the first word (at least in the first edition of the book) that Walburga’s portrait shouts is ‘filth’.

This implies that Sirius and Walburga, are potentially quite similar people.

And for Sirius to have adopted her verbiage means that she had a profound impact on him. Therefore him withdrawing to her room, reads as though he takes comfort in a place that has vestiges of his mother’s presence, despite his angry claims that she lacked a heart.

It is my opinion that his rage when his mother or family is mentioned is a mask for his deep grief for his parents and brother, coupled with hurt over their emotional abandonment.

In my next post, I will discuss how Sirius Black really deserved better.

Thanks for reading :)

#sirius black #sirius black deserved better #the noble and most ancient house of black #toujours pur #harry potter #masculinity and mental health #mental health in literature #i want to hug him #orion black #walburga black

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jextraordinaire · 4 years

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I know I already reblogged a post about this but the thought of Wilbur going back to writing on the dream smp is stressing me out. I need to stop being protective of Technoblade's plotline and the dsmp plot in general but it's kinda hard. They're a huge part of my life (second to sleep and college) and seeing something I care about be "messed up" would really bother me.

In the interest of organization here's a list of poorly sourced paraphrased things that concern me in regards to Wilbur returning to writing. (In no particular order)

1) Technoblade's excitement about writing

In "a new home" Techno was so genuinely excited about writing. I just want him to be happy honestly

2) The revisions Techno made to Nov 16th

I'm sure everyone remembers how anticlimactic Nov 16th felt after Tubbo was declared president. It was way too easy since everyone defected from Schlatt. The Great President Handoff (tm) started to feel really lame after the dust had settled. All that work for nothing. But then c!Technoblade starts freaking out and goes rogue to fight the new dictatorship. And it was such a climatic ending

But if you remember, Techno said that Wilbur was gonna just have him as another fighter with no significant contributions. No vault, no withers, no Theseus. Maybe he would have managed to make the post president assignment less awkward and anticlimactic but I kinda doubt it. There wasn't much that could be done with it imo.

My point is collaborative story telling gave us Nov 16th not head writer Wilbur

3) Wilbur's cursed canon

The thing Wilbur said about being twins with Techno was never about the dsmp and rather the general family dynamic au that already existed (we know this because Wilbur said that in response to discourse about the au not canon). However the rest of Wilbur's cursed canon is still yikes. Having sex with a salmon, dating a sheep, the refrigerator mother, his references to the family dynamic on the server, etc. When Technoblade says "canon" for the 50th time when Tubbo dies no one takes it seriously. When Wilbur shitposts people update the wiki

4) Techno's commitment to clearing up false info

On a related note Techno's commitment to his characterisation keeps me going. He corrected the family dynamic and comes up with arguments against all the bad takes about his character. He makes fun of Tommy's blame game logic, fights bad character takes by other cc's and pushed for Nov 16th. I trust him to have our back on character and plot nonsense and Wilbur's sometimes opposite demeanor concerns me

5) Wilbur saying he would only come back to be head writer

Wilbur said (before the recent confirmation of him as a writer) that he would only come back if he was the head writer who got the final say. That obviously concerns me because he's coming back now, but the general attitude also feels bad. It insinuates that having his way in the writing is really important to him which doesn't bode well for other writers

6) Wilbur appreciating Tommy not wanting to control his character

Wilbur says (maybe in that same stream idk) that Tommy was super flexible with how Wilbur characterised him while Technoblade wasn't. I can't remember the wording but he sounding noticeably appreciative of Tommy's aquiesence to any sort of writing. Another attitude about writing that I worry won't mesh well

7) Wilbur saying he wanted more geopolitical plot

We have a lot of non geopolitical plot and I'm concerned for how he'd treat them

8) But like seriously Nov 16th??

9) How Philza got into the plot

Not a criticism but Phil got added to the plot and to the smp early because Wilbur wrote him in. What does that say for people Wilbur doesn't know who are running their own story lines. People got really mad over Niki not being involved in the plot like she wanted to and there was no head writer at the time. If you wanted your arc to be important you had to push for it. Now imagine Wilbur not letting someone into the central plot cause he's got his casting already prepared.

10) The exile arc would never have happened

Character driven story telling? Wilbur would never

11) The eggpire would definitely have not happened

Secondary plots that are supernatural and don't involve countries or politics?? No.

12) Techno's retirement arc would be unlikely

Certainly not with the level of development it got

13) -1000% chance of Doomsday happening

Large scale battle to settle conflict?? Not a chance

14) Tommy's hotel bit is cool after all the action

I feel like Tommy in the spotlight just gets repetitive. It's like a tv show desperately trying to make another season. I'm really glad Tommy stepping back from the eggpire arc and giving his character some room to breathe

15) Tommy's non dsmp videos are really good

Another point in the less main character Tommy please column. I personally find the mod videos so much more entertaining than his dsmp stuff. I feel like spending all your time on a server either walk around aimlessly or roleplaying a character someone else made just isn't peak content. Tommy vibing in non plot streams was where his better dsmp content came from. And now he's vibing in videos not even in the server

16) Wilbur plot holes

Despite being a writer before want collaborative story telling, Wilbur's writing has a lot of lore breaking plot holes. The family dynamic obviously, but also the age and death stuff. Fundy's age is a mess and Wilbur writing Phil in as his dad made it so much worse. Is Phil supposed to be 50? How old is Fundy actually? The inconsistency between which lives mattered and which didn't also came about while Wilbur was writing. A fan theory came in clutch but it was very frustrating before that point

17) Wilbur's joke about writing Ranboo out of the story

Obviously a joke but I dislike the implications that he would have that much power over other people's characters

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

In summary no hate to Wilbur he's a super cool guy. Not all of this is his fault; I'm just concerned and wanted to vent. I trust Technoblade to put his foot down about writing but also I fear

#dream smp #Technoblade

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therabine · 3 years

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In case you were wondering why wordbuilding for Ravka feels so random

After going down the rabbit hole in my search for answers I've stumbled across this conversation on goodreads dated back to the November of 2013, where Leigh Bardugo replied to some reasonable criticism about her 'cultural inspiration"- https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1533856-has-bardugo-talked-about-the-russian-inconsistencies This conversation is quite long and miss Leigh gave about three replies to various questions from people that were deeply bothered by the very surface level research she did on the Russian cilture. Here are the major highlights, plus the other things I've found while goodling: 1) As far as I've understood - neither she nor her publishers expected the first book to blow up like this. So even though there was obvoiusy a lack of proper research and some mistakes variying from minor to insulting, now that she's an esteemed author Leigh claims all of it to be deliberate choices adding that "deliberate choices aren't necessarily good ones". She also tries to lift the responsibility off her shoulders, mentioning that her work "was reviewed not just by my editor, but by copy editors, proofreaders, multiple foreign editors, and foreign copy editors". Not a single word about actual Russian-speaking person/expert reviweing the text or helping her out with creating the Ravkan language though. The only person she's ever credited as the one who helped her out with creating Ravkan is Erdene Ukhaasai from Mongolia that she's been friends on Facebook at the time (source on this one - https://ageofsteam.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/genre-friction-what-is-tsarpunk-by-leigh-bardugo/ ). The Facebook page under this name currently doesn't exist and the only results that Google shows on this person are the mentions that Leigh Bardugo gave in her interview, so unfortunately I couldn't reach out for clarification on this topic. Still, it's highly unlikey that someone with zero publications under their name would be a proffesional linguist and therefore qualified for such a task. 2) Within your secondary world, unless you are writing satire, things should make internal sense. That world could not arize independently of its context. The problem with the Bardugo's Ravka is that it's based on Russian Empire alone, yet she claims that "it's only Russian inspired" without acknowledging that most people that are not familiar with the culture will take it in as authentic. She takes the words and objects out of the context, misgenders names and last names and creates new 'russian-sounding" words without understanding how the grammar works. Which is a shame, given how flexible Russian language is - the possibility for the word-building is endless and with the right guidance she truly could make some unique and meaningful terms specifically for the Ravka. Also on the alcoholic kvas issue - Leigh proudly claims this as a solution to be a vodka "substitute", because vodka would be too on the nose and too common (more on the matter here -https://www.leighbardugo.com/grishaverse/the-archives/tongue-twister/). What didn't cross her mind is that instead of turning a non-alcoholic drink into strong booze for "wordbuilding" it would be much better to use less known drinks whic do contain alcohol - braga, samogon, nalivka - just to name a few.

3) To elaborate on some of the specific issues with names and last names: Leigh doesn't seem to understand how gendered surnames work in Russian. That's why we get stuff like Alina Starkov (when it's supposed to be Starkova, because she's a woman) and Alexander Morozova (Morozov would be a correct form) etc. This system is never consistent - Mal Oretsev gets to have a male surname, but so does Genya Safin and Zoya Nazyalensky has a weird non-gendered kind of in between last name (very much in fashion of Natasha Romanoff, who would be called Natalia Romanova in Russian). Also must mention Ana Kuya - poor woman's name literally sounds like "why the f*ck" in Russian, that's about just as bad as naming your Asian character Whata Phuck. Again - none of this nonsense would happen if someone bothered to find a Russian-speaking person to read the text. Other Russian words she tries to throw in seem to be the result of a bad Google Translate, rather than a conscious choice: for example the word otkazats'ya that she uses to describe non-grishas is actually a verb that translates as "to refuse". The noun with the meaning of "the refused one" would be otkaznik or otkazniki for a plural form. Same with sobachka ("small dog") - the context from the book suggests this nickname to be an insulting one, so the word we're really looking for would be shchenok ("puppy") or shavka ("mongrel", "cur"). The list of those examples, honestly, goes on and on.

4) Leigh does mention that she "can acknowledge that the choices I made in building the language and culture of Ravka came from a place of insularity and a type of privilege". However she's more keen to talk about how she has "certainly encountered critics, but I've also had Russian fans"...Which to me sounds about just as bad as stating "I do have *insert a minority racial group* friends and they say that me doing *insert a dubious act* is fine". The problem is that Russian culture has been demonized and overlooked for so long that most people (myself included) tend to praise content creators for including even the most sterytypical "insprations". Just because some people are willing to excuse her voluntary ignorance, doesn't mean that it's okay.

5) No books on Russian culture that she's mentioned as part of the resarch were written by Russian authors. And while reading the SaB it becomes crystal clear that that the major 'cultural inspiration' Leigh got was not from those books, but from the monstrosity that is her tsapunk pinterest board - https://www.pinterest.ru/lbardugo/tsarpunk-inspiration/ . About 80% of the stuff there doesn't even relate to Russian culture and the rest is a mash of modern knockoffs.

To summorize it: Leigh very much knew about the concerns surrounding her "Russian-inspired" Ravka which were respectfully brought to her consideration by her Russian speaking fans back in 2012-2013. She said "I've taken it to heart and it's something that I've tried to be conscious of as I move forward in the series and my other work", apologized and then she did nothing to do better. She marketed Shadow and Bone as "Tsarpunk", fetishisizing Russian culture and using it as a unique setting to uplift a generic "light vs. dark" fantasy plot supported by the bland narrative of the Chosen One. There was an effort and will to make a change for the better, not a single letter has been changed for us. When I think about, I can't really remember anything that would ring as a thoughtful and clever element adapted into the story from Russian culture. If everything is always altered or twisted, if there is nothing true or authentic then should you really call it Russian-inspired? Should you really make profit off it and call this aesthetic tsarpunk?

Leigh Bardugo could have fixed the most jarring problems with the material while doing the adaptation from book to screen, but she chose not to. There was no effort made to include more people of slavic descent as a major part of production team or as background actors. Almost nothing of the production design or clothing was inspired by Russian culture. To elaborate: I'm not even mad. I'm just deeply sad and hurt by the indifference.

Some might argue that this book series was not written for Russians, that it was written for the western audience. But don't they deserve respectfully researched and authentic stories too?

#leigh berdugo #shadow and bone #sab #six of crows #grishaverse #alina starkov #bookblr #tsarpunk #mal oretsev #genya safin #zoya nazyalensky

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woogyu · 3 years

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A World Tinted Gold | Mingyu; Chapter Two

Kalon; beauty that is more than skin-deep

streamer!y/n x werewolf!mingyu

notes; werewolf au

word count; 1749

previous | next | masterlist

summary; The only werewolves you encountered were the ones living inside your video games. They were nothing more to you than mythical creatures you often had to kill in order to complete objectives. You had a good thing going with your online gaming setup. Your supporters were kind and usually tipped well during streams. Sure it meant you had to deal with the occasional creep sliding into your DMs, but it was worth it. Playing games online was putting you through college. Little did you know your quiet life was about to be turned upside down at the hands of someone you didn’t think existed outside of the virtual world.

»»————-　♡　————-««

“Are you seriously watching that steamer again? Why don’t you just play the games yourself?” Seungcheol questioned as he stepped into Mingyu’s room, chuckling as the younger wolf quickly turned around and blushed.

“It’s not the same… I’m not really interested in the games, I’m interested in her” Mingyu admitted sheepishly, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. He didn’t know what it was about you that made him so transfixed, but he had a hard time tearing his eyes from the screen. Hell, just the other day when you read his comment aloud, he was over the moon.

“It’s rare for you to show interest in a girl at all” Seungcheol remarked, eyebrow pulled up in question. Until a wolf found its mate there was little reason to get involved with or show interest in others romantically. There were of course some wolves that preferred being unmated; it allowed them to be explorative with their romantic partners. Not all wolves longed to find their mate, and not all wolves would end up finding their mates. He knew destiny had a hand to play in it all, but the thought of never finding who he was supposed to be with made the wolf in him whine. Mingyu wasn’t an unmated wolf that enjoyed exploring his options, he was desperately waiting for the day he met his mate. Right now, Mingyu wasn’t sure if he was simply lonely or if there was something more going on.

“There is just something about her…” Mingyu started, pausing for a second to find the right words, “I just have a hard time tearing my eyes away from the screen. There is something about her that just draws me in” Mingyu explained. He wasn’t doing a very good job at explaining the feelings that bubbled up inside him when he saw you on screen. When he tried to explain it he could never quite describe the feeling that settled over his chest and body, it was a warmth almost like a subtle glow within him.

Seungcheol didn’t comment on it any further as he moved into the room and crossed his arms over his chest. Mingyu knew better than to ignore the alpha, closing his laptop he turned to face Seungcheol fully. Their pack had a different dynamic than most. Normally a thirteen-member pack would be impossible because of the strain it put on the head alpha. It worked for them because while Seungcheol was their main alpha, they had two secondary alphas, Jihoon and Soonyoung. The three of them shared the work of looking after the group and it worked perfectly for them. He liked that the alphas didn’t abuse their power, there was a lot of lenience in the pack and it made for less confrontations.

“Joshua has to head into town tonight and won’t be able to run the perimeter. Would you be alright with doing it?” Seungcheol asked, pursing his lips as he looked down at the younger wolf. Mingyu normally enjoyed running the perimeter, it meant he got to shift and stretch his body, but this time he was a little bit more hesitant with his answer. Mingyu knew that later on tonight you would have a new video posted and he would have to wait even longer to watch it. It seemed like a silly reason, but his heart ached at the thought of not being able to ‘see’ you on screen until early tomorrow morning.

“Sure! I don’t mind” Mingyu answered with a half-smile, Seungcheol never asked him for much so he figured he could help him out with this. Seungcheol breathed a sigh of relief as he leaned back against the wall.

“Thank you, I didn’t really want to be the one stuck doing it again” Seungcheol admitted, the alpha had been on perimeter duty for the past 3 nights and must have been eager for a good night’s sleep. Mingyu smiled and nodded his head a few times, his own wants would just have to be paused for a little while.

Before leaving the room Seungcheol patted him on the shoulder, yawning a little bit as he headed toward what Mingyu assumed was his own room. Mingyu was thankful that Seungcheol’s parents had left him their families pack house. Coming from a family of alpha’s certainly had its perks, and it meant they all got their own rooms.

Once Seungcheol was gone he checked the time, he had roughly 4 hours before he would have to head out.

»»————-　♡　————-««

“I just don’t understand what this trend is supposed to be” you complained to Ciri for probably the 20th time over your video call. Apparently, there was a trend going around among streamers to recreate video games in real life. You hadn’t thought much of it when it first gained popularity, but now Ciri thought it would be a good idea for the two of you to join in on it. Her big plan was a two-part video where the two of you recreated iconic aspects of the Witcher 3 video game. You should have known she would want to do it, she already owned a Cirilla cosplay.

“It’s going to be fun” Ciri reminded you, drawing out the last syllable as she drew a fake scar along her face, effectively transforming herself into the iconic video game character.

“Come on, I even sent you the Yennefer cosplay and everything!” she exclaimed, using her make up brush to point at the camera accusingly. You rolled your eyes as you reached up to adjust the dark black wig that you now wore. To her credit, Ciri had sent you everything you would need to transform yourself into Yennefer of Vengerberg. How she somehow guessed your sizing right you would have no idea. Probably the Witcher powers.

“I wish we lived in the same city” you sighed, leaning your head back and looking up at the ceiling. Things would be so much easier if you and Ciri, and the other girls, didn’t live so far away from one another. But that was the price you paid for finding your friends online.

“Me too” Ciri said with a gentle sigh, setting her make up tools down and picking up her phone, her face coming into full view.

“I sent you the script, I won’t be able to stay on the call with you while we are filming because data rates are crazy, but I know you’ll do amazing” Ciri said with a reassuring smile. You would have to film all of this on your own, which was just a little bit intimidating. Ciri’s script mostly just directed you to do a lot of handwaving and she would add in the ‘magic’ elements later.

“Just find a good spot in the woods and it’ll be perfect” Ciri finished with a nod of her head. You sighed, straightening yourself up and looking down at your phone.

“I’ll call you later on when I’m finished to send you the video” you mumbled, pouting a little bit as you stood and picked up your phone.

“Good luck!” Ciri told you, waving a little bit before ending the call. Great, now you actually had to go do it…

»»————-　♡　————-««

You were lucky there was quite a bit of woods around where you lived, the problem was going to be trying to get to the woods without anyone seeing the ridiculous clothes you were wearing. You threw on a huge coat, effectively covering up most of the costume. After grabbing the bag with your equipment, you ventured outside, keeping your head down as you walked to avoid drawing attention.

Twenty minutes later you were standing in the middle of a beautiful calm forest. Now that you were here you questioned why you didn’t come out here more often. You couldn’t hear the loud noises that came with living in a bustling city and the air felt fresh on your face. Once you reached a small clearing by a river you laid your things down and took a deep breath, basking in the coolness of the air. Maybe this trend wouldn’t be so bad.

After setting up your camera in a place you were at least half sure wouldn’t result in it falling over, you walked into frame and took a deep breath. You briefly checked your phone to see what Ciri’s notes asked of you, before you began doing your best to follow directions. Your portion of the video wouldn’t be long, but you did re-film it 4 times to try and get your motions to be less stiff.

After forty-five minutes of waving your arms around, you walked back to your camera, picking it up before taking a seat on a nearby log. Reviewing the footage, you winced at how awkward it looked, you seriously hoped that Ciri could work some magic on this because you didn’t have it in you to film it again.

The forest around you was darkening as the day began to draw to a close, but you couldn’t bring yourself to head back right away. The forest was too peaceful and serene. Reaching up you pulled your wig off, stuffing it in your bag as you sighed with relief. You closed your eyes and took a deep breath, focusing in on the sounds of nature around you. Maybe coming to the woods would become a weekly thing for you, like therapy.

A low deep growl broke you out of your trance, your eyes flying open and flickering around to find the source. Your heart hammered against your chest, and your whole body stiffened in fear. A few moments later a dark black wolf emerged from the trees, larger than any wolf you had seen on tv. You could vaguely see blood dripping from its muzzle, and its dark red eyes were focused right on you.

It paused at the edge of the clearing, its lips pulling back to reveal sharp blood-stained teeth. Your breath came quick as you leaned back, unsure if you should run or try and hide behind the log. Both seemed unhelpful in this current situation, but you were really low on options.

The wolf’s body tensed before springing toward you. Your hands instinctively grabbed whatever was nearest to you, which happened to be your very expensive camera, and threw it toward the wolf. This did nothing to deter the predator from its prey, and within seconds the beast was on you.

#seventeen werewolf #werewolf!seventeen #werewolf!mingyu #seventeen x reader #ultkpop #seventeen #svt #seventeen imagines #seventeen fanfic #seventeen scenarios #kim mingyu #Werewolf!AU #werewolf!svt #mingyu imagines #mingyu scenarios #mingyu x reader #seventeen mingyu

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insertdeeplyrics · 4 years

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On the ending of Supernatural

Hi, I’ve never actually posted anything on Tumblr of my own creation (I mostly reblog stuff), but I’ve just seen the ending of Supernatural, and given that this is where I’ve been fed my SPN content, it felt right to share my thoughts here. I’m sure nobody is going to read this, but whatever, I just need to get this out of my chest. Sorry in advance if this is too long, but I have to type this out if I want to move on.

I still need to take some time to process everything that’s happened, because it is a lot. I did have my hopes up for the finale, thinking that Cas would at least show up, but like many of the fans, I was let down.

So I guess that would be the first issue I had with the episode. Regardless of what Dean felt towards Cas, if he reciprocated his feelings or not (which he totally did, I mean, we have all been watching the same show for 12 fucking years, and if you don’t believe me, there are plenty of metas that would support this statement), he still is his best friend and it doesn’t sit right with me the fact that he doesn’t even try to find a way to rescue Cas from the Empty. And okay, maybe he didn’t, make Cas got resurrected by Jack, then why the hell wasn’t he on the final episode? He was a pivotal character for the series, I mean, the proof is in the ratings: Season 7, when he was killed off to apparently never return, the ratings were at their lowest. The show may have started as just Dean and Sam, but over the years it became much bigger than them, and it is so disappointing that the show runners failed to acknowledge it. But I’ll get back to this point later.

Okay, I need to talk about Dean’s death, the only part of the episode that made me cry, because my poor baby had to suffer so much! Like, when he started saying that Sam never put up with John’s crap (which reinforces my headcanon that John was abusive towards the boys) and how much he admired him for it, my heart just shattered. I just love Dean Winchester so freaking much, and they did him so dirty... Don’t get me wrong, Jensen and Jared’s acting was 10/10, like, I thought I had a grip of myself and then Sam started crying and tears came back to my eyes. Nonetheless, I felt that the scene was so freaking long! I mean, Dean was dying, and he had time to make a 10 minutes-long speech! C’mon! Also, I get that Sam and Dean’s relationship is quite deep and strong and whatever, but I felt a bit unconformable watching it: it didn’t feel like a brotherly goodbye, more like a lover’s one. They were too touchy and intimate, and, overall, their relationship from this point on was coded as a romantic one, in my opinion. And Chuck, did I hate it! I have an older brother and I know what it is like to be close to your sibling and to love him more than anything else in the world, but the way they portrayed their relationship on this last episode felt incest-y, which makes me believe that this scene was originally written with another character in mind (cough CAS cough) or the writers don’t know the difference between romantic and brotherly love. To finish off, the way they killed off Dean??? I mean, I did expect Dean to die, but this was such a horrible and ridiculous way to go... I would have accepted it if he died actually fighting, but impaled??? After all he’s been through, after fighting so many demons, angels and deities, that’s how he dies??? That just felt cheap and rushed. Dean did not deserve that ending and I refuse to accept it. In fact, I refuse to acknowledge the existence of this whole fucking mess of an episode. Also, I just can’t believe that no one showed up to Dean’s funeral. I just can’t. I get that maybe it was difficult to bring in a lot of actors due to the pandemic, but they could have added them on post-production...

Next, we have Sam’s ending. He quits hunting and finally obtains his white-picket fence life. I did like the fact that he honored all of his friends and family that he lost along the way, especially Dean. Like, yes, if my brother died, I would like to keep a token (don’t know if that’s the actual word for it, my first language is not English), to have something with me that reminded me of him and to have him with me wherever I go. And I did like that he named his son Dean, in honor of his brother. However, we don’t know how he met his wife, we don’t even know who she is. They set up Sameileen for what?? Like, Sam and Eileen deserved better, tbh. And, again, even with Covid restrictions they could have done something to signal that Sam got married to Eileen, you don’t need the actor there. In fact, we never actually found out what happened to her, and just like I can’t believe that Dean didn’t even try to save Cas from the Empty, I can’t believe that Sam didn’t reach out to Eileen. Furthermore, the montage with his son felt cheap and a way to try to appeal to the audience’s emotions... (Btw, as a side note, the grey wig and the glasses, my god, they did Jared dirty 😂😂). But it wasn’t doing it for me, I didn’t care much for the kid, and while I do believe that was always going to be Sam’s ending, I didn’t like how it was executed.

And the worst part of it all: that suuuuuper long scene with Dean driving in Heaven, waiting for Sam. They could have used that time to show something more meaningful, even to develop a bit more Sam’s new life, how he adjusted to domesticity and fatherhood and all that crap. Or, I don’t know, A TEAM FREE WILL 2.0 REUNION??? And I guess this is my biggest issue with the whole episode. I get it, Sam and Dean are the central characters, the ones that started it all, but family don’t end with blood, and they were not the only ones who deserved a goodbye. They had formed so many bonds and friendships over the years, and to not have them address them on the final episode just feels infuriating. Especially Cas. His arc was not finished, he deserved to be on the finale. We never got Dean’s reaction to his confession, we don’t know how he felt about him, nor did Cas get to say goodbye to any other character. How did he get out of the Empty? What is he doing now? Is he still an angel? Also, he gave his life to save Dean, only for Dean to be killed not long after. My headcanon that is helping me cope with Dean’s death is thinking that he was so quick to accept his death because he was hoping to reunite in Heaven with Castiel. A girl can dream, ok??? But also, what about Jack? He is the new God, but I highly doubt it that he won’t drop by the Bunker from time to time, after all, Sam and Dean (AND CAS, ESPECIALLY CAS) raised him. And Charlie? Did she get back with Stevie? Did she and the boys go for drinks from time to time? And Jody? Donna? Claire? Sorry to be so repetitive, but I just can’t understand why the writers thought that these characters weren’t important enough to deserve a spot on the finale, and not just an off-hand mention (and not even all of them got that). Of course, the brothers are the main characters and their goodbye must be the longest and the most emotional of them all, but like I said before, the show stopped being just about the Winchesters on season 3, when Bobby was first introduced, maybe even 4, with Cas.

Overall, the finale left a lot of questions unanswered, most of them regarding secondary characters (but not less important for that!), completely destroyed Sam and Dean’s character development (Dean never got to be free, like he had been fighting for all season, probably all his life; Sam’s development is non-existing, as he ended up as he would’ve if he never had gotten on that hunting trip with Dean 15 years ago), and completely disregarded all the themes they had been setting up this season, probably on previous ones as well. It is sad knowing that the writers, either don’t know the show good enough to give it a proper goodbye, or they just didn’t care to do so. I don’t know who’s to blame here (definitely not the actors, though, probably someone higher up the chain), but I just know that I am so fucking disappointed. I expected more from the last episode of a 15-season TV show, one that has been part of my life for 7 years. I guess, that despite all of it, I can’t hate Supernatural. Maybe I was not a hardcore fan like some people on this site, but I did care for the characters and what happened to them. This is the show that introduced me to the world of shipping (Destiel will always hold a special place in my heart, it doesn’t matter how badly their relationship was treated, as well as the characters) and I got to discover one of my favorite characters, Dean Winchester. He is just such so complex, one that I relate to on so many levels, and his relationship with Cas has been the source of many short stories that I’ve never posted anywhere, but that have made me take up writing again. That’s the reason why I love the show so much, it has helped me tap into my creativeness and go back to writing, a passion of mine that I seem to have forgotten over the years. Anyways, maybe one day I’ll publish some of those stories, and maybe even write my own fix-it fanfic, but right now, I can’t deal with anything that has to do with the show, I am too hurt. Maybe once the five stages of grief are over, I might give it a try and read all of the amazing codas and fanfics that I’m sure will be posted here or on AO3. But for now, Supernatural is dead and gone, and I don’t want to talk nor think about it anymore. I’m done wasting my time here, because I feel like that’s what I’ve been doing this past 7 years after watching this crap of a finale.

To finish this long rant off, I just want to say thank you to some meta-writers, the true heroes of the fandom. Thanks to them, I carried on watching the show, because they made me have hope that things will get better. They are the ones that have made this experience worth something, and even though I’ve never spoken to any of them, I see you and I love you. Thanks for everything ❤.

@tinkdw @charlie-minion @dotthings @heliodean @verobatto-angelxhunter @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover

#supernatural #spn s15 #spn #carry on #destiel #supernatural finale #personal rant #dean is bi #dean winchester #sam winchester #disappointed #dean winchester deserved better #destiel forever #jack also deserved better #every fucking character deserved better #character development who? don't know her #castiel #spn spoilers #spn 15x20

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inonibird · 3 years

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Sahuldeem/Kaleesh Q&A #4

Here we go again! If your questions are featured here, I’ve included your username in the tags! And do note I’ve also included the spoiler tag. >_> (questions bold; answers italic)

Out of curiosity, what first got you interested in the Grievous backstory? Boy, I wish I had a COOL STORY, but it’s pretty much: General Grievous was randomly brought up in something I was watching and so I started searching around and came across clips of his 2003 incarnation—on two separate occasions over the course of multiple years. It took until the second time this happened for me to latch onto it, possibly because was around the same time as the combined hype for The Rise of Skywalker (which did not live up to it) and first season of The Mandalorian (which did). I very quickly went from “hey, this guy does have a cool design” to “what’s his story?” and the rest is history.

Please tell us so much about Kaleesh biology. How good is their hearing? Are their bones more or less flexible than humans? How much can the average Kaleesh bench-press? How much can Qymaen bench-press? What’s the closest living relative to the Kaleesh in the Kalee animal kingdom? What’s the purpose for the tusks, beyond aesthetics?

I’m in love with your worldbuilding and have about as many questions as Huk Qymaen has killed. Oh jeez, thanks! There are questions here that I HAVEN’T actually put much thought into, oh no! The best I can do without doing some improvisational worldbuilding is: their hearing is at least as good as a human’s; the average Kaleesh warrior can bench-press…uh, more than Sheelal-era Qymaen (sorry buddy); and yeah, tusks are pretty much all about display/aesthetics (they are secondary sex characteristics and...well, more along the lines of “eyy check these out” than “LET ME FIGHT YOU WITH MY FACE”).

Sometime I recommend transliterating Kaleesh words into Cyrillic and running them through Google Translate’s Russian text reader. It’s so satisfying. Долхлава. Какмусмэ. Урукишнугал. Колкправис. Рондеру лидж Куммар. Амаги дин Ку-лиана. Малга Шапра.

(No, I didn’t just spend all night doing this, why do you ask?) First of all, this was really fun to do. It’s still wild to hear these words and names said out loud! Usually sounds spot-on, too. Second and less relevant, I was FAR too proud of myself for being able to remember enough Cyrillic to be able to read all of the Kaleesh words up there. But of course context helps. :’D

You know what would be cool? A picture of the entire Gang together before ... you know. This is something I have indeed considered drawing! Someday… Maybe a candid group photo with some sort of salvaged Huk cam that Amagi and Jindra have just figured out how to make work? xD

So Ronderu’s what, three years older than Qymaen? Two? Three years, weighted closer to four than to two. (note to self: Kaleesh calendar)

I absolutely adore and admire the amount of detail and work that you've put into this fanfic, I really wish this was current canon! This has also gotten me interested in wanting to know more about the Kaleesh–Bitthævrian War and Grievous's grandmother who was in it, while also inspiring me to want to make my own headcanons about it. Thank you so much! It sure is MY personal canon, and I’m so glad there are some folks out there enjoying it and drawing inspiration from it, too. I can’t see myself having the energy anytime soon to flesh out more about the Kaleesh-Bitthævrian War and his great-elder-mother, but it certainly would be very cool to read a short story about it~ ;D (btw, according to the “The Story of General Grievous: Lord of War” article, it was his great-grandmother, not his grandmother, who fought in the Kaleesh-Bitthævrian War. I think Wookieepedia may have been updated incorrectly at some point!)

That is an interesting revelation in the new chapter! I was wondering, is Zigmash & the concept of 'Planet Name' Spice something you created, or are you building off of something from the EU? Ah, so Aza just refers to zigmash as “Kaleesh spice” for lack of a better descriptor; it’s clearly a drug and it’s from Kalee, but it makes it offworld so rarely there’s no general term for it. Zigmash itself is my invention; Kalee’s resources were not considered valuable to the Yam’rii, but that’s not to say they have to be entirely nonexistent! (in this case, there is DEFINITELY stronger, more desirable spice out there in the galaxy; as Aza herself notes, it’s more the scarcity and unusual source that makes it marketable).

Sooooo the kaleesh babies

They are adorable, mother instinct activated!

But then i realized something, read it somewhere else on the Internet that said Grievous had like 30 children after Ronderu's death, any specific thoughts on that I'm just curious👀

(Qymaen doesn't look that fertile but who knows) I mean. Well. Yeah. Give him time. (and…10 wives…) >_> ...Also Kaleesh reproduction ≠ human reproduction, wheee~ ........................You’ll learn more about all of this in Part Three.

What do Zaebar’s and Amagi’s kakmusmal look like? I do plan on drawing them sometime! (that reminds me, I still need to draw clan sigils! augh! so many plans, so little time!) Most kakmusmal look pretty similar, since they’re all carved to fit the general shape of Kaleesh faces, but they use different animal skulls (common to the region) for the base. Zaebar’s is likely from a pakozri, and Amagi’s is made from an amsi.

#Inoni Answers #Inoni Writes #Sahuldeem #Star Wars #Kaleesh #Kalee #Qymaen jai Sheelal #General Grievous #Sahuldeem spoilers #fanfic #Anonymous #ukrainian-groove-metal #apollonkondric #stars-and-bites #merspots #YAY #I DID IT #I ANSWERED THINGS

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thecagedsong · 3 years

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Forgotten Light: Chapter 9: Leads

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11

Chapter 9: Leads

“Caretaker, I present Ruta, Hollea, and Mizelle, Dryads of the South and East forests, to present their case to the caretaker,” Henrick bowed and the ladies stepped forward. Official business must be what let them walk on the road.

Agad whispered behind Seth, “Ask them the nature of their visit.”

“Ah, welcome,” Seth said, feeling a little silly, “Um, what is the nature of your visit?” His mouth quirked up at the pun. They all looked a little familiar, they must have crashed the Zzyzx opening and closing party.

“That information is private,” a blue haired one, Ruta, said. “It regards the recent adjustments of leadership and a possible danger to the fae of this preserve.”

Seth glanced at the sun, he’d guess it was a little past 10 AM, “Uh, how long is this going to take? Because if we could meet up tomorrow, that would work so much better for us.”

“I believe you will want to hear us now, Caretaker Sorenson,” the middle one said, standing a bit behind the other two. Pure black hair was tied up in a bun, rounded narrow black eyes demanded respect over high cheekbones. She was the only one armed.

“Alrighty then,” Seth said, turning to Agad, “Uh, where’s the best place to talk with…our friends?”

“Ladies, please follow me,” Agad said with a bow.

When the four of them were a little ways away, Seth stepped up to Henrick, “Hey, you missed some important stuff,” Seth whispered, “Grandma and Grandpa are in the winter study, they need your help and can catch you up. I’ll check on you guys after this, but you can go on without me.”

Henrick nodded, then reported at normal volume, “My rounds on the preserve show that everyone is restless. Far more restless than they usually are, so soon after the solstice when they tend to be tired. Repairs to the roads are happening on schedule, the Taurans have settled back into their domain, and many creatures are awaiting news of the next confrontation between you, your sister, and Celebrant.”

“I wouldn’t want to disappoint my adoring fans,” Seth joked, “I’ll make sure it’s a good one. I got to go.”

Agad had just turned a corner around the outer wall, and Seth ran to catch up. Sitting there was a room like the safe huts along the road. They weren’t restricted to mortals, however, and Mizelle was seated at a round table with seven chairs, while the other two waited outside.

Seth walked in, took a seat opposite the dryad and said, “Okay, what can I do for you?” he wished the other two dryads were here, Mizelle scared him a little.

From a pouch at her waist, Mizelle produced an hourglass, and turned it over. The number four was embossed in gold at the top. Mizelle glanced at him.

“Ah, nipsie. You are welcome at this table, if the caretaker gives you all his confidence,” Mizelle said graciously.

Once again, Seth had completely forgotten about his friend. A slight jerk in the corner of his eye where Agad was standing suggested that the wizard had too. Whoops, sorry about all those secrets.

Seth took Calvin from his pocket and placed him on table. He bowed, “My lady.”

Mizelle smiled, “Rise, small sword. Know that while the four of us talk, none can overhear us. This trinket thought up and enchanted by my sister Nika ensures that.”

“Marvelous,” Agad said, examining the item.

“Yes, but we are here for business,” Mizelle said, “Specifically, your sister, where she is, and what she is doing.”

“Do you know where she is?” Seth asked, “Ronodin and the Sphinx captured her after she lost her memory. We’re looking, but haven’t found anything yet.”

Mizelle slammed a hand on the table, “How could you let that happen!”

“Hey, Ronodin got the drop on Bracken,” Seth shot back, trying to cover up that she had made him jump, “I don’t see why Kendra is any more at fault than him.”

“Oh don’t worry, my brother won’t be spared my ire either. The fool just barely got out of captivity, and he so quickly jumps back in.” Mizelle spat. “When will that fool learn to keep his horns where he can see them!”

Seth pulled back, “Wait, brother?”

Agad blinked, “Excuse me for not recognizing you earlier. You are a unicorn?”

Mizelle nodded, “I am the eldest child of their royal majesties, and the leader of the warrior fairies of our realm.

“You’re… more intense, than I expected a unicorn to be,” Seth admitted. He’d met Bracken, the Fairy Queen, and the Fairy King, and he’d never seen a look as intense as the one that Mizelle was shooting him right now.

“Yes,” was all she said. “I take it Kendra did not explain the full nature of her abilities?”

“I am familiar with the abilities of Fairy Kind,” Agad said. “But I fear their nature is a closely held secret. I assumed it functioned similar to how fairies share their power with the fairy struck.”

Mizelle nodded, “Kendra had permission to inform her brother and grandparents. It appears she did not take it. Kenda is literally a receptacle for the Fairy Queen’s power in the mortal world. It is similar to the relationship between the Fairies and their fairy struck, but instead of a gift of shared magic, it is an open spring. She is a direct connection to Mother and the magic that fuels Fairy Realm, and therefore, is a direct weakness. This is the secret, and of the few people that understand this magic, Ronodin does.”

Seth paled, “Ronodin is hurting Kendra?”

Mizelle shook her head, “Worse. It appears he is taking advantage of her memory loss, and teaching her to poison her magic and my mother by proxy. He is leading Kendra quickly down the path he used so many years ago to corrupt his own horns.”

“Kendra would never do that.”

“That is obviously what my Mother thought,” Mizelle said drily, “With effort and training, Kendra is able to use the wellspring of fairy magic inside her and craft magic. Not as a wizard or a unicorn crafts, but as mortal does. Should she tend to a herb garden, those plants will take on magical properties. Should she weave thread with intent to protect, the cloth will become armor. When trained, her abilities are a fairy’s creation magic inspired by human emotions and ingenuity, a power Mother should not have released on the world so easily or in one so young, but here we are. Ronodin is teaching her to craft curses and items to harm and poison. It will pervert her magic, and the effects will reach straight into my mother’s heart.”

“Oh dear,” Agad said, head sinking into his hands. “I am getting too old for this. How is the Fairy Queen?”

“She is attentive and well-attuned to her magic. She noticed the change immediately, and analyzed it as much as she could before cutting her connection with Kendra completely. An unfortunate necessity, especially since my mother can’t undo the changes she wrought in Kendra and is merely cutting the girl loose, but it is the only solution that slows down the taint.” Mizelle said, “Kendra is much farther from aid than we feared.”

“What do you know about where she is?” Seth asked.

“Kendra was in the realm opposite my mother,” Mizelle explained, and held up a hand at Seth’s outraged look, “Not the demon prison. The realm of the Underking. Demons can survive surrounded by light, and as my father has shown, beings of light can survive surrounded by demons. The denizens of the Underking are fundamentally incompatible with my kind. Their darkness will extinguish our light, and our light will extinguish their darkness. Many fairies have died, trying to light up the darkness for even a moment. Mortals refer to the Underking’s domain as the Phantom Isle.”

“How does the Queen know that’s where Kendra is being kept? Does she know where the Phantom Isle is currently located?” Agad asked.

“It is part of the connection Mother shares with Kendra, is it unequal to even what she shares with her family.” Mizelle said, massaging her temples, “The magic flow remained strong, but that is the only place on earth where her senses are truly dulled. Ronodin is somehow protecting Kendra’s light from going out, but he is only preserving it in order to mutate it. If he corrupts Kendra to a level near his own corruption, the source that Kendra and Mothers draw from will become poisoned, and the realm of light falls.”

“Okay, Phantom Isle, how do we get there?” Seth asked.

Agad shook his head, “It moves around. It has connections to our world all over the place, but very few beings are able to utilize them. The Underking’s realm is the home of phantoms, zombies, liches, wraiths, and every other possible thing that made a deal to give up living for longer life.”

“Okay,” Seth said, “Not a popular vacation spot. Is it an actual island? Cause that explains the barrel underwater bit.”

They both nodded. Mizelle didn’t consider any information about barrels to be important, and didn’t ask.

“Do you know anything else about Kendra?” Seth asked.

Mizelle shook her head, “I can tell you that it will take time to turn her. Mother felt shadows passing over the soul, but that is the first step to a long descent that Ronodin has taken over the course of his life to replace all his light with darkness. However, Ronodin is cunning, he is skilled. It will be that much easier if Kendra has no memories of goodness. Unfortunately, Mother will not be able to continually check on her.

“Think of the source that Kendra and Mother draw from as a well with a pipe directly to the Fairy Queen. From the Fairy Queen, magic flows to all creatures of light. When making Kendra Fairy Kind, Mother expanded the width of the pipe, and created a secondary pull from the Source before the magic reaches her to reach Kendra instead. An offshoot pipe before my mother’s reservoir. Kendra’s poison is travelling back up the pipe towards the source, and to prevent immediate contamination, Mother had to build a wall separating the streams of magic. Because of her actions, it will take the corruption much longer to reach Mother. Kendra will have to poison the source first before it reaches the Fairy Kingdom.”

“That’s fascinating, is that really how fairy magic works?” Agad asked.

Mizelle shot him a deadpan, “No. It is incredibly more complicated. I am describing astrophysics to someone who hasn’t figured out how to make fire yet. But it is a sufficient metaphor for what you need to know.”

“Could you give us a timeframe?” Agad asked.

“That depends on Kendra’s resistance,” Mizelle said. “With the circumstances as they are…find her before the fall equinox. That is the soonest Kendra could reach that level of corruption. Find her as soon as you can, but that is your deadline. We are unable to help you more without declaring another war that we are sorely ill prepared to handle. As a mortal, Kendra does not belong there, but nor is she banned from it.”

“I’m going to get her back much sooner,” Seth swore, meeting the intimidating gaze full on.

Mizelle met his gaze, and when he didn’t waver, she gave him a small nod, “I don’t doubt your courage or will, and I pray for your success. Of all the beings to reach the heart of the Underking’s realm, a shadow charmer has a better chance than most. Not a good one, but you have proven yourself before.”

Mizelle stood up, “Hurry, but do not go unprepared. I will be busy managing the affairs of the Fairy Realm, let no one know of its weakness. You have been a good ally to us before, Seth Sorenson and Agad the Young. Unfortunately, we must rely on you once more.”

There was still a little bit of sand left in the hourglass, and Seth stood up too. “It’s my sister. I’ll dig a hole there myself if I have to.”

“Mortals,” Mizelle said, somewhere between scoffing and amusement, “I did not inherit Mother’s love of mortals, nor did any of my sisters. Only Bracken claims that. In addition to most of her looks, it’s why he is her favorite. I, personally, am still struggling to see the appeal.”

“Wait until we…er,” the sand in the hourglass ran out, “Wait until we manage your request, and you will see what mortals can do when people we care about are at stake. I think you’ll figure out why we’re pretty cool.”

“I await proof, Caretaker,” Mizelle said, offering a hand. Seth shook it. Agad stood up and shook her hand as well.

After seeing the envoy of “dryads” off, Seth didn’t move. He was hoping that any spy had left him for more fruitful pastures after seeing they couldn’t overhear what the dryads wanted.

“Send Marat to the stables,” Seth said, quietly, waving at the departing figures from the archway. “See which mounts are interested in another adventure. Then go to Grandma and Grandpa, if their plans look good, approve it.”

“Where will you be?”

“Shadow hunting. I’ll take a late lunch.”

He turned back towards the Keep, speaking at a normal volume, “Their issue wasn’t that big, right? Henrick can help them.”

“If you tell him to,” Agad agreed. “First we should weather tonight.”

Seth started walking towards the winter study, but sidetracked into a…music room? They had a music room? The map was going to be useful all on its own.

He turned off the lights, drew his sword, and started walking. He tried to turn off all the lights around him, but it was hard when only some of the rooms has electricity. Most were gas lamps, and for about the hundredth time he wished he was a fully trained shadow charmer. According to the Sphinx, a shadow charmer can dim flames, bring cold, and a bunch of other cool stuff that would be really useful for figuring out if there was a spy in the Keep.

He decided to start at the top and make his way down, following Tess’s group wasn’t going to be any good if the spy was doing that already.

Luckily, the Keep was meant to be a fortress, and there no windows on the ground floor. When he approached the winter study, he listened carefully, looking for another spy, but didn’t find anything. Agad was talking about the best way to inform the staff, so Seth moved on.

Seth made his way to the dungeons next, checking various rooms as he followed the strained whispers of the undead. Unable to see in the dark, he stuck close to the walls. He approached the room with the barrel in it, hidden amongst the empty cells. One of the minotaur’s, not Brunwin, was guarding it along with a dwarf.

Seth imagined himself as part of the darkness, and tested how close he could get.

Seth could have stabbed the Minotaur through the chest. He was within the torchlight hanging near the entrance, but with the sword helping him, still the guards hadn’t noticed. Then Seth was actually standing behind the minotaur, reaching for the gate, when the dwarf saw him, cursing in dwarvish, as he pulled his shortsword free.

The Minotaur spun around, and Seth held up his hands without letting go of his sword, “Don’t attack! It’s only me,” Seth said. “Sorry, I was just trying to see how far my shadewalking and this sword could get me without being noticed.

The Minotaur lowered his axe, shaking his head, “I didn’t see you at all. I didn’t smell or hear you either.”

“And you can do all that now?” Seth asked.

They both nodded.

“Okay, good to know,” Seth said, “I’m going to go in the cell, check up on the barrel. Is there anyone in there right now?”

“Agatha,” the dwarf said, “She’s keeping watch over your note.” The dwarf handed him the key.

“We got a believable threat to Blackwell that’s supposed to come tonight,” Seth said, “My grandparents will fill you in soon, but be as vigilant as you can. Okay?”

They both nodded and Seth walked in. Agatha was apparently one of the old women, she was knitting an enormous sock, and smiled pleasantly when she saw him.

“Ahh, Young Master. The letter remains untouched and unmoved,” she said.

“Err, awesome. Good job,” Seth said. He felt a little uncomfortable having the old woman be the last or first line of defense should something happen with the barrel, but something about the click of her needles made him think she wasn’t as harmless as she appeared. There was no one else hiding in the cell with her, so he walked back out and continued towards the Blackwell.

As he wound closer to the Blackwell, he heard Doren, “Look, it’s really not necessary to go closer. Seth even told us not to touch this place.”

“He isn’t the boss of me,” Knox said, a slight tremor in his voice. He wondered how bad it was this close to the Blackwell for people without magical fear immunity, “We should look in, figure out the shape for the map, then we can go.”

“I don’t want to go any closer,” Tess said, almost crying.

“You don’t have to,” Knox said, sounding braver. “I’ll just crack open the door.”

Seth waited, pulling himself into a little nook around the corner of the prison door. It was round indent, about three feet deep, and he pressed himself to the wall, focusing on listening.

“Well, it won’t open. And if it’s locked for us, its probably locked for everyone one else. Move along now, we still need to get through the first floor before lunch. I for one, don’t plan on missing a meal because we stared at a door too long,” Newel said, “Off we go.”

Seth watched, holding his sword ready. Any tails the group had would have to back track, if Seth remembered right. He kept his eyes peeled for movement, ears alert for the sound of shoes separate from the others. Surprisingly, the ghostly wailing wasn’t overwhelming like he remembered the first time. Seth could firmly place it within his head, and it quieted while he focused on his non-shadow hearing.

His friends passed without a sound. Newel was holding the torch, the rest their papers and clipboards.

Seth waited for Tess to point to him and ask to talk, but her eyes slid right past his hiding spot. He felt the light touch him, but a single torch wasn’t enough to take away his advantage in this area. That meant that while she could see through distractor spells, shadow magic eluded her. It all depended on what the spy was using.

The group continued forward, and Seth waited.

And waited.

He made himself wait longer, just because time flew when you were waiting for something to happen. A trained spy would know that, even though the group was out of earshot.

Nothing happened.

It didn’t make sense. If the spy was tailing this group, which he thought any reasonable spy would be, he or Tess should have seen the person. This was a dead end! The spy wasn’t tailing his grandparents, he didn’t think. Any plan of the Sphinx’s and Ronodin’s wouldn’t be thwarted by increased security. Did the person stick to Agad, knowing the old wizard was the most powerful of their group? That didn’t seem right either, Agad had been as clueless as the rest of them in the meeting, and Seth had put him on magic defenses, which were already confirmed to be holding strong. Tailing Seth? The Dryads and Mizelle’s item would have found the spy if they were using distractor spells, and Seth would have found them using shadow disguise magic.

Sending two children and the satyrs through the nooks of the lower levels clearly presented the most unassuming group, and therefore the most suspicious. Considering they hadn’t even considered a spy until mid-morning, the spy wouldn’t have assumed Seth to be a good enough strategist to do what he did. Seth hadn’t been banking on the spy following this group, but even if the spy wasn’t listening in on the War Room meeting, the four of them tromping through the underground should have caught the spy’s attention.

Seth was looking at this wrong. Or maybe it was crazy, thinking there was a spy already here. Maybe the spy had known about the dead end and hadn’t bothered to follow them towards the Blackwell already, and instead stopped before —

Seth froze, then immediately forced himself to relax. He stood up straight, as though getting ready to leave and stepped from the nook.

Seth spun with all his strength, sword extended. Steel sparked against stone wall. A dark figure crouched, sparks landing on their hat. Seth had put too much force into the swing, and had trouble pulling back. The figure used that millisecond to run. An arm shot out, shoving him.

“Hey!” Seth yelled, scrambling to his feet. “Intruder!”

Seth ran, eyes darting everywhere, looking for the figure, catching the barest flicker of movement turning corners. He hit the main hallway, and there was nothing. No doors swinging, no locks rattling, no flickers of coat. Seth hurried forward and reached the cell with the barrel, and found the minotaur and the dwarf, braced and ready for action.

“Did you see anyone?” Seth asked as he rushed closer.

They jumped, only spotting him as he spoke.

“Right, new plan,” Seth said, putting a hand on his head, trying to think through this.

He was planning on taking the barrel with him out of Wyrmroost in the late afternoon. It had seemed so much more likely that they were going to attack at night. Now that the spy had been spotted, would their enemies try to move up the plan? What did Seth want the spy to think? If Seth did nothing, the spy would know that something was going to happen.

If Seth saw the intruder, and Tess didn’t, that meant shadow magic. Being unable to see in the dark meant that even if he could see past the shadow magic, he wouldn’t be able to find the intruder easily. That was a dumb trait. There had to be some aspect of being a shadow charmer that let him sense others in the dark.

But it was reality, and it meant that keeping their biggest weakness at the bottom of the dungeon, near the Blackwell, was a mistake.

“Okay, uh, remind me of your names?” Seth asked apologetically.

“Borum,” the dwarf said.

“Romnus,” grunted the minotaur.

“Right, Borum, you’re on guard duty with me. We’re moving the barrel, Romnus is going to carry it. I know this is one of the most protected areas, but we’re dealing with someone even better at shadow stuff than me. This is going too the High Judgement Court,” Seth said.

“Where?” Borum asked.

Seth opened the door to the cell, “Oh, uh, the center thing at the top. It doesn’t have any walls?”

“He means the pavilion,” Romnus said. Seth put his back to the cell door as Romnus explained the situation to Agatha.

“You lead, I’ll bring up the rear,” Seth said. Borum nodded, and they made their way out of the dungeons. Seth’s eyes were starting to hurt from spending so long trying to decipher the darkness, but he didn’t stop looking until they made it all the way to the top.

They attracted a trail of people, running into Tess’s group on the first floor, then Marat and Agad as they made their way to the kitchens.

They all asked Romnus, Agatha, and Borum questions, but they were directed to Seth who shook his head, motioning for everyone to follow quietly.

With everyone gathered at the pavilion, the harsh sunlight let Seth finally lower his sword. He sheathed it and looked in the barrel. The note remained, having shifted only a little bit during the trip.

“Okay,” Seth said, “I found the spy. Didn’t get a good look at them, but they are definitely using concealment shadow magic to hide themselves. Something I can sort of see through anyway. Which means its definitely going to be weaker up here.”

“Until nightfall,” Romnus said. “New moon tonight.”

Seth nodded, “Yes. This will still need to be guarded, but I already feel a lot better with it away from the Blackwell. Any conversations you have from now on, we should probably assume we’re being spied on. With the barrel up here, assuming they still go forward with their plan, the spy will have to wait until nightfall. If their plans involved the Blackwell, they’re going to have a lot farther to go, giving us a chance to stop them.”

“Is there anything else we can do? Tess didn’t find anyone,” Knox said.

“Oi, Tess was looking for people?” Doren said, “I thought we were making a map!”

“I thought the point was to get the spy to follow us,” Newel said.

Doren looked betrayed, “You knew it wasn’t about my map making skills!”

“Guys, it was all those things,” Seth said. He crouched and put a hand on Tess’s shoulder, who looked scared, “Hey, you did great. I never would have found the spy without you.”

He waited until she nodded and gave him a smile.

Seth stood up, “I want your map in the War room, because there’s always the chance that we missed a weakness down there. Agad, I want you to go over it with Marat after lunch, see if everything looks like you remember. I’m pretty sure the spy was following you guys the whole time, which means the rest of our conversations were probably private. Let’s head down to lunch, see if we can think of anything else. I’m starving.”

The Satrys whooped and hurried down, Tess and Knox following after.

“I have been giving some thought to where you need to go,” Agad said. “And I am starting to believe it was a mistake to think you didn’t need to be trained in your Shadow Charmer abilities. A fully trained shadow charmer would have been able to sense the shadow and concealment magic, and would be able to sense it now.”

“I’ve had plenty of people offer,” Seth admitted, “No one I felt like I could trust. Kendra told me that a demon she knew vouched for other demons that hate the dragons a lot more than they hated humans, but I already forgot their names. She didn’t want me learning from demons anyway.”

“But still she told you,” Agad said gently, “She would have let the information die with her memory if she didn’t trust your judgement. Demons are different among the denizens of the magical world, they are not always bound to their word as Fairies and Underbeings are. In order to deal with demons successfully, you must always have your goals aligned. Is there anywhere she would have written it down?”

“The journal of secrets,” Seth admitted, “But she writes that by umite candle and in fairy languages.”

Agad hummed, “There is a surprising store of Umite candles in the stockroom, and I believe that with Tess, fairy languages aren’t the bar Kendra trusted them to be.”

Seth grinned, changing direction at a hallway, “It looks like Tess has some homework. Do you think being a Shadow Charmer would help me rescue Kendra?”

“Having your abilities fully trained would indeed let you walk among the denizens of the Phantom Isle. From what I understand, you could no more walk on the Phantom Isle unseen than you could walk in the Fairy Realm without the Queen’s knowledge.” Agad said, “But if there is a way to take back what belongs in the light, a trained shadow charmer has a much better chance than many others.”

Agad stopped Agatha, who they had caught up to in the halls, and requested a set of Umite candles be brought to the kitchen. She nodded, and went to do it.

“The staff has been put on alert, watch and rotations set, for your information,” Agad said.

“Great,” Seth replied opening the door to his sister’s room. He immediately went to the desk in the corner and looked at the underside. It was much lower to the ground, and the journal wasn’t there. He checked Kendra’s other hiding spots, and in her desk for good measure. Agad watched.

“I have the feeling this isn’t your first time snooping on your sister,” Agad said.

Seth pulled the Journal of Secrets from the inside pocket of her duffle bag, which had been folded to fit inside the bottom of her laundry basket.

“Sisters, you know?” he said, grinning and tucking the book under his arm. “I wonder if Patton finished writing in it before or after the stingbulb was made? The first half is his journal, the rest of it is Kendra’s.”

Patton. The stingbulb had only a day left, how could they make sure Patton was used to the fullest extent?

Seth once again changed course.

“The kitchen is this way,” Agad said, amused, “It seems you really do need a map.”

“We want to go somewhere no has ever been, that constantly moves locations, and survive to tell about it?” Seth asked, smiling again, “Ten bucks says Patton knows where he left the t-shirt.”

Patton’s eyes lit up, but the rest of his features had only a hint of amusement, “Seth, I hope you aren’t suggesting that you think I rang the Underking’s doorbell for the fun of it? There isn’t a fairy shrine there.”

“Patton,” Seth said, cracking his own smile, “I’m obligated to let you know that if you haven’t ding-dong-ditched the Underking, it’s going to be a crushing letdown for one of your biggest fans.”

Patton laughed, “I had a good reason, I swear. But the particulars of it elude me. Stingbulbs don’t retain a perfect memory, you know. There is a ship, mildly haunted, that a shadow charmer should be able to strong arm into giving a lift.”

“Lady Luck?” Seth asked.

Patton raised his eyebrows, “You’re familiar with it?”

Seth winced, “Yeah, you left some stuff for me with Cormic, and we used her to get to the Shoreless Isle to stop Zzyxx. I think the bell and whistle ended up at Fablehaven, but I left the music box in the Presence’s cabin. I didn’t think I’d survive, much less need it again.”

“You’ll get a lot farther if you assume you will survive,” Patton said, stroking his mustache, “And if you don’t, you leave some nice pieces for the next adventurer to pick up. It is possible the music box remains in the cabin, but if not, a Shadow Charmer can summon the presence of spirits, I hear.”

Something else he’d need to be trained on. He caught Agad’s eye, and nodded. Training him had to be part of their plan before they went to the Phantom Isle.

“Can you think of another way?” Seth asked.

Patton shrugged, “The old stories suggest sailing to the end of the world and falling off it, but that has obvious issues. There are many caves that lead to the Underking’s domain, but those are also constantly shifting and extremely well hidden.

“The Underking has a clever boat he uses to ferry his servants across the water, but I don’t know of any others like it. There are also certain fairies that strive to find their way to the Phantom Isle, they were born with a need to light up the deepest darkness. Called Nova Songs, they are exceptionally rare, but they could lead a normal ship to your destination.”

“Right,” Seth said, “Could you write those down?”

“Of course, my boy,” Patton said, accepting a piece of paper from Tanu. He started writing. “I’m glad I could help this much. I get the sense Patton was hoping I’d be able to be more of an assistance than what I have been. Aside from getting the winged mounts, I fear I haven’t lived up to Patton’s hopes.”

“Those mounts are more important than you think,” Seth said, thinking of their plan for escape. Was there anything Patton could do in the next half a day? Probably not with Kendra, that was clearly going to take longer.

“Actually,” Agad said, “There is something you can do. I refrained from asking about your journey here before, but is it true you hid one of the keys to the vault in the Dragon Temple?”

“I suppose I can’t make myself any less popular with the dragons than I am right now,” Patton said, handing Seth the note detailing his ideas, “I did indeed. I had a couple of important items that let me get past the guardians, a lot of time, and an urgent need.”

“You used the Unicorn horn to get past Stilletta, didn’t you?” Seth said.

Patton arched an eyebrow, “As did you, I assume.”

“We killed her,” Seth replied, “The unicorn horn fed by Kendra’s unending power helped us purify her to a crisp. By the time she figured out to use her claws, she was dead.”

Patton grinned, “Quite clever. Though taking a dragon’s life shouldn’t be done lightly, Stiletta was a piece of work. I procured myself a set of Pegasus boots. Allows for increased speed while hovering three inches above the ground. That, along with a scarf that turned the wearer invisible while moving, allowed me to make it into the Temple and out again.”

“How would you like to revisit it?” Agad asked. “The dragons have declared war, voiding the treaty that gave them the right to certain treasures. We will be needing them back. Any information on the status of the temple guardians would be most welcome.”

“I believe I can do that,” Patton said, “How will I be able to convey the information back to you? I will likely expire before I can make the return trip.”

“I believe I have something that will do the trick,” Agad said, “Follow me to the library. Seth, I believe your stomach is still growling, why don’t you take your sister’s journal to Tess, see if you can scrounge up any secrets that might have been lost with Kendra’s memory.”

“Hey Tanu? When can you be all packed up?” Seth asked.

Tanu nodded, mixing two vials. “Patton’s help was greatly appreciated. I will be ready to go by 4 this afternoon.”

Marat came up to him as he approached the kitchen, but thankfully didn’t try to pull him in a different direction. He really was starving.

“The flying mounts have agreed. The destination?”

“Err, Fablehaven, I guess,” Seth said, looking around. “Think they can go that far?”

“It is approximately 1600 miles,” Marat said, “It would take a dragon three days, two days without rest. I do not know how fast your mounts fly, but I would plan for a week.”

“A week? I don’t have that much time to spend roadtripping,” Seth said, “After we get to human towns, think we could buy plane tickets to Fablehaven? They’re Luvians, they should be able to make it to Fablehaven without riders.”

“I will consult with them, though that plan has merit,” Marat said. They made it into the kitchen and Seth finally got a lunch of barbeque and some kind of mashed potato thing.

Seth dived in.

“When do you intend to implement the second part of your plan?”

“You’ve been up to something else?” Grandpa asked, sitting down with his own plate beside him.

Seth swallowed and grinned, “Always,” he said. To Marat he said, “It’s what, 1 o’clock? Let’s save it for 4:30-ish, have everyone gather at the High Judgement Pavilion. That’s when Tanu will be ready to go.”

“It’s only because I heard about your encounter with our spy that I’m letting you get away with your secrets Seth Sorenson,” Grandpa warned. “We will be discussing this.”

“I appreciate your input as my assistant,” Seth said, nodding.

“Mind your grandfather,” Grandma said.

“Yes Grandma.”

#Forgotten Light #fablehaven #dragonwatch #Seth Sorenson

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jwillowwolf · 3 years

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Magic and Miracles - Chapter 4

Sanders Sides Big Bang fic, Chapter 4!

< Previous Chapter | Next Chapter > | Masterlist

Summary: “Are you mocking me?”

“Are you that dense?”

Warning/s: food mention.

Characters: Logan, Remy, OCs, Virgil, Roman, Remus, Patton, Janus, Emile.

Tag List: @theimprobabledreamersworld @remy-please-come-back

Read on AO3

4 | Teamwork Troubles

It was the day after the quest-incident, and Remy had decided they would not be going on any more expeditions for a while. Especially since it was raining like crazy outside. Almost storming but not quite there yet.

Logan liked these kinds of days best because they gave him the perfect excuse to curl up somewhere and read a book. Except, today he couldn’t do that, since they still had lessons, and just like the day before Remy had led them somewhere that wasn’t their classroom.

“Why are we in the kitchens?” Janus asked.

“Because I’ve decided to teach you some more unique magic. Household spells, to be exact.”

Remus cocked his head to the side. “Household spells? Are we learning how to make a home?”

“How to make one tidy, yes. I’m going to teach you everyday spells you can use for cleaning and whatnot.”

“What? But that’s the servant’s job!” Roman complained.

“Not today. I gave the staff the day off, so you’ll all be doing what they usually do.”

The teens all groaned but went to work without much complaining. From most of them anyway. Remy taught them a few easy spells for using water to clean surfaces, air to dust hard to reach places, etc. Logan found that it was a lot easier than normal cleaning but just as boring. His classmates seemed to think so too if their agonised expressions were anything to go by.

“Are we almost done?” Roman asked.

“There’s still a whole third of the house to go,” Virgil informed him.

“This is so lame!” Remus complained. “We’re just casting mopping spells, and dusting spells, and sweeping spells, and shining spells, and nothing interesting!”

“It’s not so bad. We’re getting to see more of the house.” Patton said.

Remus perked up. “Do you think we’ll get to see what’s in the tower?”

“Remy told us on day one we weren’t allowed there,” Willow said.

“Yeah, but he also said we’d be doing what the servants usually do. They must do some kind of maintenance there.”

Logan shrugged. “I highly doubt Remy will allow us to do anything there, even if we’re taking over for the servants.”

“We shouldn’t be doing the servants’ work anyway. It’s for servants!” Roman complained.

Janus groaned. “Can you just shut up? We’re all in the same boat here, so there’s no use complaining the entire time.”

“Well, obviously you’re not standing up for anyone, Mx Dragon.”

“There’s no one to stand up for.”

“We can stand up for ourselves. This is inhumane!”

“Have you never had any repercussions in your life? For anything?”

“What would I need repercussions for? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Oh, of course. Sorry, I forgot you’re Mr Perfect.”

“Are you mocking me?”

“Are you that dense?”

“You b-”

Before Roman could finish, he and Janus were splashed with water. Everyone turned to find that it was Willow who’d cast the water spell.

“You’re both getting on my nerves now. The only reason you even oppose each other is because of some stupid race-rivalry from a thousand years ago. It’s getting old!”

“He started it!”

“Me? It was you who started it!”

They were both doused with water again. “See, this is what I was talking about! It doesn’t matter who started it, because I say it’s finished.”

“That’s not fair,” Janus complained.

“Well, boo hoo to you- eek!” Willow was suddenly soaked. “Remus!”

“What? I wanted to try out the spell,” she said with an innocent smile that was then wiped of by a thin stream of water squirting into his face.

“Sorry Re, I guess I don’t know my own strength,” Patton said, nervously rubbing the back of his neck.

Remus just laughed. “No worries Pat, I’ll get you back for that!”

“Eek!” Patton jumped out of the way as Remus sent a stream at him.

Which caused poor Virgil to get drenched from the attack. He glared at both of them and sent water at everyone else, which finally caused things to fall into chaos as all of the students were now wet and trying to shoot each other. It had started out as them all trying to get revenge but quickly turned into a game as the teens dissolved into laughter and just began shooting each other for the fun of it.

The laughter didn’t last long-- or maybe it did? But no one had thought to keep track of the time- but getting back to my point, Remy was not happy when he walked in on his students having a water fight in the library. Especially not when he was shot by all seven of them upon entering the room.

“Okay, since you caused an absolute catastrophe with your first punishment, I have no choice but to make the second one harder.”

“Are you going to make us do more manual labour?” Roman asked.

“No, I don’t think anything of that kind won’t end up the same as-- well this!” He gestured to the soaked library. “What to do, what to do… ah-ha!”

“Oh, I don’t like that look on his face,” Remus whispered.

Indeed, none of them liked the dark grin that was plastered on their teacher’s face. They all shivered with dread from the anticipation of what kind of punishment they were going to face.

“You will all be writing your own independent papers on a historic magical event.”

And then everyone died.

Not really, no one actually died. I’m sorry if I misled you there. I meant that they all died inside, just a little, as one does when told they have to write a school paper. Especially when you realise you’ve just destroyed the library and have no sources to help you write said paper.

Dinner was unbelievably quiet as everyone was wallowing in agony over what to do about their assignment. Logan found himself distracted from such thoughts however as he noticed the minute change in the atmosphere.

Normally, there was tension during mealtimes, especially between Roman and Janus. Tonight however the dragon and elf seemed to be accepting or perhaps ignoring each other’s presence. For once there was complete peace among the teens and Logan came to a realisation.

In the past two days, they’d worked together, somewhat, and managed to do a lot more than they’d done alone. Okay, so technically the things they’d done was collect a bunch of forest ingredients, save Patton from a well, and destroy a library, but with proper coordination and teamwork, they could find ways to put their skills to use. And perhaps that would help them in the long run when it came time for the secondary license test.

Long story short, they needed to work together properly if they wanted to accomplish anything worthwhile. Which meant they needed to get along like this, preferably without wallowing in despair.

That brought Logan back to the problem at hand. The papers. With the library absolutely soaked where were they going to get-

“That’s it!”

Everyone jumped in their seats a little at Logan’s exclamation.

“Uh, did you figure something out?” Willow asked.

“Yes, I’ve come up with a solution to our paper problem to be exact.”

“Don’t keep us in suspense,” Virgil urged.

“We can use the library.”

Roman frowned. “It’s waterlogged, Genius. Remember?”

“Not that library. The one in town. They have an entire section on magical history and I happen to know someone who could help us find whatever we need.”

“If we’re going into town, can we also do some sightseeing?” Patton asked.

Remus grinned. “Yeah, we haven’t gotten to see anything apart from the manor and forest since we got here.”

Logan blinked in surprise. “Wait, what do you guys usually do on weekends when I visit the town?”

“You visit the town? I thought you just stayed in your room.” Janus said.

“Jan and I normally spend the day in the garden,” Willow answered. “I think we all just laze around the manor really.”

Everyone nodded affirmatively.

“Alright then, I suppose we can get some sightseeing done as soon as we find what we need at the library.”

---

“What are you gonna show them? The town well?” Everleigh remarked.

Logan shrugged. “I don’t know. They are the ones who want to do the sightseeing.”

Saturday had come and the entire class had taken a carriage into town. With any tension between them having been absolved since the water incident, they had openly spoken of their excitement at getting to go into town, despite having to do research for their papers at the library.

It was such a strange thing to think that his classmates who grew up in more interesting faraway places, would be so interested in his little hometown. He wondered if they would be disappointed when they realised how simple life here really was.

Roman and Remus had grown up on Lyrecrest Ilse, a well-known destination that many called an island paradise. Patton came from Sweetwater Cove, where the waters were said to be clear as glass. Willow and Janus were from the Evergreen Valley where many other demi-creatures and magical folk lived together in their own private communities. And Virgil… now that Logan thought about it, he didn’t know where Virgil was from, but it had to be somewhere just as exotic, if not more so.

Yet here they all were, eager to see his quiet hometown.

Everleigh had been waiting at the bakery, as always, to greet Logan when he came and was quite shocked to see the others he’d brought along with him. He took her aside and explained what had happened as briefly as possible without losing too much detail, while Emile was handing out breakfast pastries to his classmates.

“Hmm, this is absolutely delicious. Thank you, Mr Picani,” Patton said, and the others echoed their appreciation after him.

“It’s no problem kids. I’m glad you like these. They’re a new recipe I’m perfecting.”

“It tastes pretty perfect to me,” Remus complimented as he licked his fingers.

“Hey, the carriage is leaving,” Roman said, pointing outside.

“Yeah, the driver is taking the horses to be watered. He’ll come back this evening to take us home.” Remy explained.

“But how are we getting to the library?”

Janus snorted. “Ever heard of walking?”

Roman’s face morphed into an expression of mild dread and disbelief.

“The library is only twenty minutes from here,” Everleigh stated. “It’s not a long trek or anything.”

“We could probably get there even faster if we raced,” Remus suggested.

Willow’s ears perked up. “Race?”

Janus smirked. “Hey roman, I bet you couldn’t beat Willow there.”

Roman huffed. “I could beat all of you there.”

“You all don’t even know the way there,” Virgil pointed out.

“Uh, Everleigh and Logan could give us some directions,” Patton suggested.

“I’d be happy to provide directions if I can race too,” Everleigh said.

Willow grinned. “The more the merrier.”

After giving out directions and everyone lining up in what they determined was a fair starting line, the eight teenagers ran through the streets and arrived in front of the grand library in record time. They stood outside arguing for a few minutes, or rather Roman and Janus argued for a few minutes about Janus getting there via a piggy-back ride from Willow.

They came to the resolution that it didn’t matter since Willow had gotten there first, while carrying Janus, making her the winner. Everleigh had complimented Willow’s strength, causing them to blush furiously, and suggest they all went into the library.

“Okay, so you guys need magical history stuff, uh, that will be in the archives under magical research and/or supernatural events. Do you guys have anything specific in mind?” Everleigh asked as they stepped inside of the massive building.

“Woah, how many books are there here?” Janus asked as they looked around in awe.

“I have no idea, but we’ve got something for everyone, from fictional works and poetry to adventurer biographies and cookbooks.”

“What kinds of biographies do you have?” Willow inquired.

“Pretty much anything that’s printed for public distribution, plus a couple of private journals that have been donated from noble families. Do you have something in mind?”

“Um, well, there’s a book I read back home that I was thinking of using. The Quest of Nigel Hawk. there are a bunch of events in there that Nigel witnessed first hand that we could write about.”

“A primary source? That would be the best way to get whatever information we needed.” Logan said.

“What kind of events did Nigel see on this quest?” Patton asked.

“I don’t remember everything, but ze saw stars dancing on the ocean, met the grand phoenix and witnessed the birth of the first pegasus,” Willow recounted.

“Stars dancing on the ocean? Are you sure ze wasn’t just dreaming?” Remus asked.

“If I remember right, they were two spirits. The soul of the north star and her bride, a sailor from days long past. Nigel met them both on the night of their anniversary when they came down to celebrate with a dance, and they told him the story of how they got together.”

“That sounds so romantic! I’ll go see if I can find that book,” Everleigh said before disappearing between the tall bookshelves.

“Uh, do we just wait here for her or...?” Roman asked.

“She does this when she’s excited. We can just wait for her in the reading area,” Logan explained, motioning for everyone to follow him.

He led them to an area where there were several long tables with semi-comfortable chairs where they could sit. Once the group had sat down at one, Everleigh came from gods-know-where and plopped down a pile of thick tomes.

“This guy either lived a long life or an eventful one, but there are like eight different parts of his adventures in chronological order.”

“Why do I feel like this is going to be worse than I’d hoped,” Remus groaned.

Virgil raised an eyebrow. “You expected studying to be easy?”

“You make a good point, but there’s no need to stab me with it.”

“Well, we should probably get started, right?” Roman sighed and they all nodded. “Which is the first volume?”

“Uh, this one. I could read it aloud for you all,” Everleigh offered.

Patton clapped his hands together. “Oh, it’s like a storytime.”

“Yeah, but shh, we don’t want to get kicked out for making too much noise,” Logan warned.

“Oh, sorry.”

“It’s okay. The librarians are pretty lenient, but let’s keep the noise at a minimum.” Everleigh suggested. “And I’ll read this as softly as I can…”

The group listened to Everleigh read the first book of Nigel’s adventures for a while, then she passed the book to Logan who continued from where she left off. Basically, they all became enthralled with knowing what happened next and passed the story around to be read aloud as each reader got tired of reading. They all took turns and before they knew it they’d come to the end of the book.

“Holy Knights, that was a real twist,” Remus exclaimed.

Virgil nodded. “Right? Was anyone else feeling anxious there when Killian got hit by that arrow?”

“I thought he’d have died, honestly. It’s amazing that Gwen was able to heal him,” Patton said.

“I would have never guessed that was where healing magic came from. But it makes me curious about where other magics originated from,” Logan stated.

“Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I call dibs on Duncan’s coronation for my paper. That was one heck of a rebellion,” Roman declared.

“I think I’ll do my report on Odessa’s garden. That was a true masterpiece of romantic tragedy,” Janus remarked.

Willow snorted and Patton gave her a questioning look. “What’s so funny?”

“It just seems kind of ironic that Roman is doing a report on the first Dragon King and Janus is doing one about an elf heroine.”

Everyone exchanged glances and began laughing, except for Janus and Roman who just looked at their companions in complete confusion. While they were laughing, a librarian walked over to their table.

“Pardon, but I must request you all be quiet or take your merriment elsewhere.”

“Oh, sorry Jana, we’ll just- oh man, is that the time?” Everleigh asked when she noticed the clock in the corner was now at eleven-forty-eight.

“Yes, that’s the right time.” Jana answered.

Everleigh looked at the group. “I think we better get some lunch.”

The group exchanged some agreeing nods and got up from the table.

“Sorry for the trouble, Jana. we’ll head out now, uh, could you check out these books for me and i’ll swing by for them later?”

Jana looked at the books and sighed. “I suppose, but only if you leave now.”

“Sure thing. See ya!” Everleigh said before running off towards the exit with the others following her.

“What are we doing for lunch?” Remus asked the group. “Because I for one am starving.”

“We could check what there is in the market,” Logan suggested. “Remy and my dad won’t be expecting us until dinner time, so we can check out what’s there until then.”

“Oh yeah, we wanted to get some sightseeing in,” Roman remembered.

“Well, there’s no place to start like market street.” Everleigh declared. “Let’s go!”

---

A/N: thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this. I'll be posting two chapters a day until the full fic is up, so if you want to be tagged, you can just ask.

I'd love to hear what you thought about the chapter if you wouldn't mind commenting. Thanks again for reading! Here's hoping you have a magical day 💜

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umbry-fic · 3 years

Text

A Palette Full of You (4)

Summary: Glimpses into Colette and Lloyd’s lives as they grow up together, learn who they are, and fall in love with each other.

(Written for Colloyd Week 2021)

Fandom: Tales of Symphonia Characters: Colette Brunel, Lloyd Irving Relationships: Colette Brunel/Lloyd Irving Rating: G Chapter: 4 of 6 Word Count: 5897 Mirror Link: AO3 Original Post Date: 12/06/2021

Chapter Title: Stardust

Chapter Summary: The astronomy club holds a stargazing event on the school rooftop. As chairperson, there's no chance Lloyd isn't going to invite Colette. But as the night progresses, actually spotting the hard-to-find stars become the least of Colette's concerns.

(Colloyd Week Day 4: Stargazing)

Notes+Warnings: Chapter 4 of my multi chapter Colloyd week fic! Warning for some major internalised acephobia.

Chapter list Full fic Previous chapter Next chapter

~~~

16-years-old

Stepping out of the science lab into the corridor, Colette came to a halt, her schoolbag weighing on her shoulders, soaking in the warm air as other students filed past her. One of the most unfortunate things about attending practical make-up was that she wasn't guaranteed her usual seat by the lab window. Sitting right under the air-con was enough to send her into hibernation, and the test was hard enough as it was. She'd barely managed to finish on time.

Rummaging through the pocket of her navy blue pinafore, her fingers brushed past a packet of tissue and her wallet before successfully pulling her phone out. She needed a reminder of where the stargazing event was taking place, and who better to ask than Lloyd? She hoped he was reading his messages.

"7.23 pm, May 18th" blinked at her from her phone screen.

Wait, 7 missed calls? From Lloyd? What for?

Gah, she’d forgotten to tell him.

She dialled his number, placing the phone against her ear and waiting for his anxious voice to ring out. Which it did, just seconds later as he picked up.

“Colette? Where are you? I tried calling you so many times, and Sheena and Zelos wouldn’t pick up because they’re both at tuition!”

“I forgot to tell you the makeup got pushed by an hour. Sorry for making you worry, Lloyd. But I’m done now. Where’s the event at?”

"We’re on the school rooftop! Where we celebrated Sheena's birthday last month, remember?" Lloyd replied, his voice tinny in quality from the phone call. She could hear, in the background, the overlapping sounds of many voices.

“School rooftop, school rooftop, school rooftop…” she mumbled, beginning to scurry through her secondary school's corridors, head darting every which way to determine where she was and try to find clues as to where she was going. She didn’t often wander into this part of the school campus - block D, the science block - since she only took two sciences. Usually, she’d take the main staircase straight down to the canteen, but it would take forever to get back to the roof from there. She didn’t want to be too late.

“You’re coming from science lab 3, right? If I remember correctly, it’s one right, walk past the storage room to block C, and then take the first left down the bridge to block B. You should see the staircase to the roof. Do you need me to come and get you?”

“No, no, it’s fine! Just stay on the phone?”

“Alri - OI, MATTHEW, STOP MESSING WITH THE TELESCOPE! YOU DO NOT GET SPECIAL TREATMENT JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE MY DESKMATE! GET YOUR HANDS OFF AND LET ELLA HANDLE IT!” The yell was muffled, probably because Lloyd had taken the phone away from his mouth to avoid deafening her, though his raised voice was still enough to make her wince, tearing the phone away from her ear.

“Sorry about that,” Lloyd said, his voice lowered back to normal volume again. “Got to prevent property damage. You know how it is.”

“Right…” She laughed nervously, wondering how many people were up on the rooftop and what exactly they were up to. She was hoping to spend a peaceful evening stargazing with Lloyd and listening to him talk about constellations, the shining passion in his eyes rivalling even the stars above, not… getting distracted by people fooling around.

“How’s it going? Are you getting closer?”

“I’m pretty sure I’m heading in the right direction,” she assured Lloyd, taking the left he’d directed her to and running down the bridge connecting two blocks, her ponytail flaring behind her and her pinafore swirling around her legs. There was almost no one left in the school now. The hallways she’d run through had been abandoned, for the most part, the stragglers she passed by all heading in the direction of the main gate. The sky, visible from the bridge, was in the last throes of twilight, slowly bleeding into night as black seeped across the sky.

Colette skidded to a halt at the end of the bridge, gaze landing on a familiar door. She could recall this stairwell now, having taken it two months ago. She, Zelos and Lloyd had somehow managed to lead a blindfolded Sheena up it, whereafter they had surprised their friend with a birthday cake they had baked together. That birthday cake had been salvaged solely by Zelos, who was a surprisingly good baker. Or maybe they were just average, and weren't knocking over the baking tray every ten minutes like her.

“I’ve found the right staircase!” Colette said, hanging up and stuffing her phone back into her pocket and starting to take the stairs two at a time. She usually never did that (and was often teased by Sheena over it), choosing to climb each step carefully, for the risk of tripping was too high. But she was in a hurry, and so had no other choice. Her shoe-laces were coming undone, and her school bag seemed to be getting heavier with each step.

Everyone else who was attending the event was likely already on the rooftop - Colette could hear voices and the sounds of footsteps against concrete through the open door at the top of the stairwell. Grabbing the cold metal handle, she threw the door open, finally emerging onto the rooftop.

There were about thirty or so people milling around, everyone still dressed in their school uniforms, chatting with friends, holding cups of fruit punch or lounging on the mats that had come from the gymnasium. Not enough people to count as a crowd, but certainly respectable. Just a small event, one where she could relax and enjoy some peace and quiet.

Now she just had to find Lloyd...

"Colette!"

Speak of the devil! Or the angel, perhaps... Colette tracked the source of the voice and spotted Lloyd, making his way over from a group of students who were busy fiddling with a telescope, his hand gripping a red plastic cup. One side of his collar was flipped up, and the small shooting star pin that marked him as the chairperson of the astrology club was pinned to the other. Only one of the sleeves of his white blouse were folded like they were meant to be, the other way too long and leaving barely any skin visible above his elbow. His white long pants had been rolled up as much as possible - which wasn't much, honestly, the most it could reach was mid-thigh. It was one of those stuffy nights with no wind that was stifling and hard to fall asleep in.

"You made it!" Lloyd's grin grew wider as he grabbed her hand, only for him to flinch away instantly, vivid red liquid nearly sloshing over the rim of his cup. “Gah, your hand is really cold.”

"Sorry! You know how cold the lab is. Anyway, I only made it here thanks to your assistance." Colette laughed, feeling her weariness peel off her instantly. Lloyd always had that effect on her - his energy was infectious, like it was being injected straight into her veins whenever she was in close proximity to him. Especially now, with clear excitement alive on his face.

It was strange, though. He was the only one with that effect on her. Meeting her other friends never failed to make her happy, but Lloyd was the only one that could make her feel ten times more alive in an instant the moment she saw his smile. It had only started in the past year, this unknown, electrifying sensation that arose in her heart whenever she was with Lloyd. The desire to see him again after school ended got stronger with each day, but she couldn’t understand any of it…

“You’re staying for the afterparty, right?” Lloyd asked, taking a sip of the fruit punch. He said afterparty, but she knew it wouldn’t be much of a party. Just all the members of the astrology club hanging out in the tiny room the school had assigned to them, playing card games and chatting. Everyone in the club knew her by name, for she was the friend of their chairperson who somehow managed to turn up at every meeting. She was practically an honorary member at this point.

A homey gathering without any alcohol in sight. She much preferred it that way. The last time alcohol had come into play when she was staying overnight at a chalet with the rest of her class, sometime late last year. She'd avoided the cans of beer stacked on the floor, the smell not appealing to her. But alcohol sure made the rest of her classmates go wild. Running away from slightly drunk classmates trying to get her to play truth and dare was not fun. Normal truth and dare was already horrible, with questions like "who are you crushing on" and "who would you like to kiss". She didn't understand why it was a game that people insisted be played at every class gathering or orientation. No one ever believed her when she answered honestly with "no one", and she was fairly used to the reactions by now, the common ones being that she had to be lying, for everyone had someone in mind, or that she should stop acting so high-and-mighty, or just snickers of her being a prude.

Just because she was used to the biting words didn't mean they had stopped hurting, reminder stacked atop reminder of how she was isolated from everyone else around her. And as much as she hated answering "truth" whenever that accursed bottle landed on her, answering "dare" was even worse. There were the innocent ones like doing the chicken dance, and then there was having to kiss someone. She always did her best to leave as soon as the bottle made an appearance, but she could never say "no" when someone asked her directly to join, for she never knew how to turn people down. Neither did she want to give her classmates more reasons to treat her as a laughingstock for being too much of a coward to play. So now, whenever she was forced to play the game, she would give the least offensive answers possible - mostly girls, for she at least found them pretty, though she didn't think that was what attractive meant.

But the drunk version of truth and dare? That was hell on Earth. The questions got even more invasive. She could never understand how someone could ask "who would you sleep with here" with a straight face. And alcohol loosened the lips of her classmates, enough that she had heard snippets of some of the more adventurous ones describing their sexual escapades in sickening detail. She really didn't need the reminder that sexual activities weren't just a thing of fiction, but something that actually happened amongst real people and that people seemed to really want to do. She'd spent half of that chalet stay playing Uno with Zelos in a corner, because Zelos was way better at promptly rejecting offers to play truth and dare.

Only her friends had ever come to her defence, but it was not like they could help that much when they weren't in the same class, apart from Zelos. Still, they afforded much-needed safety, and they never pointed out how she was weird or strange or different, even if they must have noticed by now. But...

She was 16. Wasn't she supposed to get it by now?

“Yep, I'm staying. We can go home together,” Colette suggested, tearing her thoughts back to the present. "Dad already knows I'll be coming home late, and Aunt Anna can just pick us both up."

Colette reached out to fold Lloyd's right sleeve, straightening the wrinkles out, before reaching to flip his collar down. His uniform was always in such a state of disarray, and it was always up to her to get him looking neat before the teachers did their inspections during morning assembly.

"Yep, I'll let Mom know," Lloyd replied, squeezing her hand. "Let's actually get to stargazing, shall we? Come on, I reserved the mat with the best telescope. The..."

Colette let Lloyd ramble on about the specifications of the telescope as he guided her towards their destination. It was always endearing to hear him talk about the topics he loved, whether it be the ocean or the stars. His words would get faster as he went on, until he was barely intelligible as all the syllables clumped together, without him even noticing. She didn’t want to interrupt him, though, much preferring to just watch him as a smile inevitably grew on her face.

"Right! Get comfortable!" Lloyd said, having completed his spiel and coming to an abrupt stop. Colette stumbled a few steps forward, so engrossed in listening to Lloyd that she'd nearly tripped. He gestured towards the deep blue mat stuffed with foam, placing his cup next to it before crouching to adjust the sleek black telescope, nimble fingers flying from knobs to levers. His face was scrunched up in concentration, focussed entirely on his task.

Colette dumped her school bag down and kicked off her school shoes, leaving her feet clad in white socks, and scrambled onto the mat, lying down on it. Lloyd joined her soon after, having finished whatever preparations he was doing, sidling closer on the mat so that his shoulder pressed against hers as they both stared up into the night sky, now completely dark. In the distance, Colette could see the lighted-up M sign on the business complex.

“We can look at the stars first before we use the telescope to find the planets. What do you see, right now?”

"Um, well… I can only see one star in the sky," Colette muttered, pointing out the lone, twinkling presence. It was common knowledge that there was too much light pollution to actually see any of the vast galaxies and planets that were scattered throughout the universe. The most Colette had ever seen at once when looking out at the sky from the balcony of her apartment was three stars, dimly shining and far away from each other. They were hundreds of light-years away, unreachable and yet still shining their light for all to see.

"No, there's more. It's a really clear sky tonight, and we can see so much!" Lloyd replied eagerly. The starry-eyed enthusiasm had returned to his eyes, seeming to burrow straight into her heart. Pointing up into a particular patch of sky, he said, "There! Do you see the top of the Big Dipper?"

"Ah..." She tried to follow the line of his arm but didn't spot any hidden stars, shaking her head. "No...? The Big Dipper is the one that looks like a frying pan, right?" It was one of the many constellations that Lloyd had taught her while on his impassioned rambles about astrology. Ever since he'd picked up that one book on constellations from the library in primary school, he'd been obsessed with stars. She could still fondly remember the first time he had talked about it. She'd plopped down in front of him at the canteen table after school, asking what he was reading. He'd shut the book and told her about white dwarfs, planetary systems and the Milky Way for a full five minutes while she listened in awed silence. She'd rarely seen him this excited over anything. Lloyd had been about to continue before shutting his mouth abruptly, flushing as he realised how long he had gone on for and apologising for running her ear off. She'd told him that she didn't mind listening to him - there was something soothing about it, really, listening to his voice and watching his excited mannerisms.

"You remember?" Lloyd craned his neck so that he was facing her. There was something in the depths of those eyes that stared back at her. Something which, for the past two years, she would spot occasionally. And yet she still couldn’t put a name to it.

Somehow, how truly close they were hadn’t registered in her mind until this very moment. If she inched forward just a little, their noses would bump.

But they’d been this close so many times before. Why was this time so different?

Or, more accurately, what had changed in the past year? Why couldn’t she be this close without something in her clicking, filling her with a warmth that was both familiar but foreign? Why were her palms starting to sweat, her heart starting to race? It felt like she was about to give a presentation to a room full of strangers.

But that wasn't the case. She was just next to Lloyd, her oldest friend and the person she trusted most in the world.

Perhaps recently she had been noticing more tiny things she hadn't before, staring at him for just a little longer than she used to - how his hair fell into his eyes on days where he didn’t bother to comb or style his hair, how there was a dimple only on the right side of his mouth, how his hair could vary in shade under different lighting, from a golden brown to dark chocolate. It even appeared red sometimes.

She felt like she was at the cusp of a discovery.

"Of - of course I remember." Colette stumbled over the words, averting her gaze up towards the night sky. "You've been working on the notes for this club for so long, and I helped you with them! So of course I'd remember."

"That's true. We did spend a lot of late nights on those." Lloyd chuckled. "Remember all the pillow fights?"

"Yeah, I do. You always let me win, you cheater," she grumbled, glad for the light-hearted change in topic to distract from her confusing feelings. "But I'm happy everything worked out and you managed to get the club set up! You've worked really hard on all this. You deserve the success."

"I couldn't have done it without you, really," Lloyd retorted, taking gentle hold of her wrist. "And I know I've thanked you already, but let me just say it again. Thank you. In return, I'll do my best to show you as much as I can!" Lloyd pointed her arm towards a point in the sky. "There. Look closely. Do you see it now?"

She focussed on that spot, squinting in hopes that the secrets of the night sky would be revealed to her. "Oh!" Colette exclaimed. She could see it now, just barely - a faint source of light. There was a lonely little star, shining as brightly as it could, just enough to be noticeable but going unseen by the unobservant eye.

"You got it!" Lloyd cheered, beginning to slowly guide her hand to trace out a shape - that familiar pan shape he’d drawn for her so many times. His fingers, wrapped around her wrist, were so warm... "Now do you see the Big Dipper?"

"You're right," she said in amazement. The pattern had been there all along. How many more were waiting to be found, causing the sky to come to life before her very eyes?

"There are so many beautiful constellations to find in the sky." Lloyd grinned. Dimly lit by the gentle light of the night sky, far from the harsh fluorescent lights of the classroom and the often blinding rays of the sun, his features seemed softer than ever, and she had the urge to just... reach out and touch his face. Splay her fingers on his cheek, rest her forehead against his, let the strands of his hair fall through her fingers…

"Yeah..." She glanced back up at the night sky. She could spot the Little Dipper now, glimmering. Already, she was discovering new things.

When she glanced back, Lloyd was staring at her with a wistful expression, the arm not holding hers held stiffly against his side, like he was aching to reach out but was holding himself back.

The moment was gone, as quickly as it had come, and Lloyd's face once again sported a happy smile, like nothing of significance had happened. Perhaps she had imagined the whole thing. But in just a few seconds, the entire centre of her world had shifted, throwing her irreversibly off balance.

Her chest felt constricted, like she couldn't breathe properly, that strange sensation back in her heart again.

But it would be a lie to say she hadn’t figured out what it was. She had fallen into the unfamiliar pit of love, just as she had always wanted. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say she had fallen a long time ago, but had only just realised she wasn’t standing on solid ground any longer.

She had found The One. Finally.

So why... Why had nothing changed at all?

It was no longer possible to convince herself that she could be just like everyone else. Not when she was acutely aware of how stupidly immature she was compared to everyone else, always cringing away from the thought of sex. Whether it be skipping raunchy scenes in books or shows, avoiding popular pop songs with explicit lyrics, or promptly deciding to stop listening whenever her classmates decided it was a good time to talk about it. She couldn't rid herself of nausea that would roil in her stomach. But... that was wrong, wasn't it?

If she loved someone, she was supposed to desire them. That's what happened in all the stories - people fell in love, and then they happily had sex with each other. It was everywhere. In every book, in every show. Even the terrible sex-ed lessons had parroted that a happy relationship was one with healthy amounts of sex. Everyone was going to have sex at some point once they got into a relationship, to want to have it and to eagerly give it. But she didn't. She had never felt the same way. And that was her truth, the one that went unregarded by others.

Or maybe her truth was that she was just broken. That something had shattered inside of her a long time ago, and now she couldn't be put back together, couldn't feel what she was supposed to, what others did. And she didn't know what to do about it.

No matter how much she hated the idea of sex, someday she’d have to force herself to go through with it. After all, it was a requisite for a relationship. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be worthy of love, and she didn’t love her partner enough. She owed it to whoever her partner was, even if one day it ended up being Lloyd. This was her fault, after all. No one else was broken in the same way as her.

It would just be like… forcing herself to eat her vegetables when she was younger, wincing over the yucky taste until she got used to it. Nothing more. Easy.

Maybe then she’d finally get it.

Maybe then everything would magically fix itself.

Tears pricked at the corner of her eyes which she willed to disappear. She felt like the stars above. Shining alone, so far away from any other companion, looking down upon a world that was too far away to understand. All alone. Always all alone.

"Too bad we can't see more here in the city. One day, I promise, we'll see the real starry sky together! The galaxies, the planets, the suns... All of it. It'll be amazing," Lloyd continued, oblivious to her inner turmoil. Because even he could not read her mind.

Colette folded her hands over her stomach, closing her eyes. The enormity of the emotion beating in her heart absolutely terrified her, as did the thought of the future and what awaited her. Could she ever act on these feelings? Would she ever be deserving of acting on them, inadequate as she was? Did she even really love him?

There was no use in agonising over these thoughts, for no answers would ever be found.

"I'd like that," she whispered, squeezing his hand. She was more than willing to just enjoy his company for now. Her dearest friend.

“I’ll show you the rest of the stars that are visible today! Then we can look into the telescope and see the nebula. I’ve already pointed it in the right direction! You won’t want to miss it, it’s incredible! Over there is…”

So long as she could remain with him, everything would be alright.

~~~

“Bye, Lloyd!” Ella said, waving as she sprinted out of the club room. “Have a safe trip home!”

“You too!” he called out after her, as loud as he could without waking up Colette. Her head was resting on his lap, the hair she had freed from her ponytail forming a golden sea that swallowed his legs. Her arms were still wrapped tightly around the huge penguin plush that acted as the club’s unofficial mascot. He couldn’t for the life of him recall where it’d come from.

How did he always end up being Colette’s pillow? Not that he was complaining…

Lloyd ran a gentle hand through Colette’s hair, making sure not to awaken her. Mom would take another 20 minutes to arrive at the drop-off point, so he might as well let Colette continue to sleep. After all, he still had to clean up and lock up the room. At least Colette had helped him with most of it.

He moved his hand rhythmically, watching her minute facial movements. What dream was she having right now? Was it a happy one? He hoped it was. He wanted nothing more than to see a truly happy smile on her face every day, and that was the root of the feelings that had built up over years.

In the ensuing silence, he couldn’t help but think back.

What had happened while he was showing her the stars? There had been a period of time when she had seemed to withdraw into herself, becoming far quieter than she usually was. Almost contemplative. Even a little sad.

She had been back to normal afterwards, cheerful with her large smiles and bright laughter. He didn’t know how to question her about it, didn’t know how to even start the conversation. He wanted to find out, so he could help, in any way he could.

But… No matter how much he hated it, he could only wait. After all, if whatever was weighing on her was simple, she would have told him already. He could only hope she’d be able to tell him about what was troubling her, someday.

And he would wait. For as long as needed…

~~~

26-years-old

Lloyd set the rental car in reverse, slowly backing it up into the empty lot in the mostly deserted car park, the wheels crunching against gravel. Turning off the engine, he pulled the keys out of the ignition and stuffed them into the pocket of his jeans. Glancing over at the seat next to him revealed that Colette was peacefully asleep, head lolling onto her shoulder. Somehow, the abrupt bump in the road some ten minutes ago hadn't woken her up.

This was their second day in Melbourne to celebrate their honeymoon. Dad and Mom had come here for their honeymoon too, but maybe some things become a tradition for a reason. He and Colette had followed a strict itinerary, taking some advice from his parents when planning where to go. They had visited the fisheries for lunch yesterday, where Colette had sung the praises of the fish fillet, absolutely delighted at its freshness, which could never be experienced at home. Following which, they had driven to Phillip island to catch the nightly penguin parade, Colette cooing over all the little penguins waddling home. It was a cute sight - both the penguins and Colette.

It was the middle of winter, the temperature just shy of needing actual winter gear but cold enough that they were both wearing turtlenecks, not accustomed to the winter winds. A bit of a shame, actually. He would have loved to witness the adorable sight of Colette in a beanie that covered her ears, cheeks flushed from the cold and fingers housed in fluffy gloves. But alas, that sight would only remain in his imagination until they travelled to a country with much colder weather.

The car journey had been silent, Colette alternating between staring at the rare car that passed them on the narrow dirt roads, or doodling on her phone with a stylus, occasionally letting out a tiny giggle. As they had agreed upon, she had stopped looking out of the window for the last leg of their journey, which was close to a whole hour. At some point she had stopped making conversation with him, soft snores replacing the sound of her voice as the quiet night and hours of travelling had finally taken their toll.

He reached out a hand to hover over her shoulder, hesitating. He didn’t want to disrupt her rest, but she wouldn’t be seeing anything if she didn’t wake up, and that would render all his effort to transport the two of them into the remote meaningless. He had no choice.

“Colette.” He called her name softly, gently shaking her shoulder until she let out a tiny sigh. Her eyes fluttered open, still filled with sleepiness.

“We’re here. It’s time to get out of the car,” he said, grabbing hold of the strands of her hair that had fallen into her face during her sleep and tucking them behind her ear.

“Oh. Thanks for waking me up.” Colette yawned, covering her mouth with her hand as she stretched, trying to shake the sleep out of her system. “I need to cover my eyes while I get out, right?” she said, covering her eyes with her palms and giggling, doing exactly as they’d discussed without question. “I can’t look until you say so! Can’t spoil the surprise now, right?”

“Perfect! I’ll help you out of the car. Wait there.”

Lloyd stepped out of the car, shutting the door and running over to her side. He opened the passenger-side door, grabbing hold of her bent arms.

"Carefully now," he muttered, slowly helping Colette out of the car and steadying her when she stumbled slightly onto the gravel. Taking a stronger hold around her arm, he began to guide her across the carpark towards a small hill, walking backwards and taking the occasional peek behind his shoulder to get a gauge for where he was going. With each step they took, the loose bits of gravel under their feet were kicked aside.

The grassy hill was a little harder to go up backwards, but he persevered. The grass was wet with dew, starting to wet the hem of his jeans as they brushed the skin of his ankles. Colette was completely silent, seemingly holding her breath in anticipation of the big reveal.

The trip out here had been exceedingly long, for this place truly was off the beaten path. He could count the number of people here with the fingers on one hand. But he could certainly say the trip had been worth it. Just sneaking a peek upwards was enough to make up for everything. This place really lived up to all the praise it had been given online.

Making sure they had a wonderful view of the sky, Lloyd came to a stop, turning Colette by the shoulders so she was facing the right direction. "You can look now," he whispered into her ear, tapping her shoulder and stepping back.

Colette uncovered her eyes and let out an audible gasp, transfixed by the night sky. They were far from civilization, so distant that there were no artificial lights to interfere with the natural dance of the stars. Laid out above them were millions of stars, clustered together and twinkling in unity. Swirls of pink and purple denoted the galaxies, resembling little bits of cotton candy painted onto the black canvas of the sky, interspersed with tiny dots that represented planets. The entire universe was spread out before their eyes to witness, splendid and magnificent.

He watched as she raised an arm, tracing the skies slowly. It almost seemed like her index finger was trailing stardust. He wouldn't be surprised if she actually was, since she was already pure magic in every other way.

She turned to face him, the starlight reflecting in her wide eyes and off the ring on her left hand, painting her as a more beautiful sight than even the gorgeous skies above him.

"You remembered!" she exclaimed, running over to throw her arms around him, knocking him back slightly as she smiled up at him. Thankfully, they were nowhere near the edge of the incline, or they would have gone tumbling down a long way. This close, he was even more reminded of her untouchable beauty: her shimmering blue eyes were breathtaking. "You kept your promise."

Colette moved her arms so they were wrapped behind his neck. She was practically hanging off of him; his gaze focussed on her smiling face.

"Well, I wanted to see it too." He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer to press a kiss on her forehead. "And I always do my best to keep my promises."

I promised that I would never leave you, and I will keep that promise. No matter what.

“They’re all together now. They’re not alone anymore,” Colette said, "Thank you." She rested her head against his shoulder, his hands automatically shifting to her back, holding her close. "I love you."

She said those words so easily now, without the hesitance that had bogged her down at the beginning. He knew not all of her fears and insecurities were gone - maybe they never would be, and all they could do was reassure each other. There were the terrible nights where she would sob next to him and admit she felt like a fraud for being unable to give him sexual intimacy, crying that she wasn't enough and that he deserved so much more. All he could do was hold her in his arms and whisper into her hair that it was alright, that he loved her, that he didn’t care. But as time went on, those nights became less frequent, until they were few and far between. Besides, she did give him pieces of that intimacy, whenever she could - the gift he cherished, for it truly meant the world coming from her.

"I love you too. Picture?" he offered, holding up his phone. He wanted to create a physical memory of this magical moment, one that they could preserve forever.

Besides, if his parents didn’t get a photo, they would probably murder him. Mom, at least. So would Sheena, with Zelos’ snickering as an accompaniment to the crime. He wouldn’t live to see another day once he got back home.

"Of course," she replied. And he hoped the picture would be able to capture her bright smile, that which was most precious to him.

~~~

The picture they took would become a cherished memento, to be displayed on their nightstand forever - Colette pressing a kiss to his cheek, even as she gave him bunny ears, both of their faces lit up with large smiles.

~~~

Next chapter

#fanfiction #tales of symphonia #multi chapter #colloyd #colloydweek2021 #day 4: stargazing #colette brunel #lloyd irving

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