#but he also made uncut gems!

[cinemaocd]

The character Benny Safdie plays, Edward Teller, is the scientist on whom Dr. Strangelove was modeled. Teller was a Hungarian refugee and watched Budapest crushed by Soviet Tanks in the 50s. He had always pushed for the hydrogen bomb to be developed even at Los Alamos. The idea was considered wacky and too complicated and possibly theoretically apocalyptic, but Oppenheimer kept Teller around humoring his interest in the "Super" as they called it in order to continue to have access to his mathematical abilities and to prevent him from throwing his career away. Teller is portrayed as basically honorable and a pawn of Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.'s character) in the film.

'As a director, Benny Safdie makes sleazy movies about hustlers and gamblers and criminals and strivers. Films that teem with violence and drugs, while a pulsating anxiety yanks you through a gritty underbelly of a New York you thought no longer existed.

But today? We’re about as far from that seediness as you can get. On his suggestion, we meet up at the Upper West Side deli institution Barney Greengrass. The tree-lined blocks around here are stately and idyllic, tucked between Central Park and the Hudson River. Safdie, 37, is dressed in full dadcore: glasses, striped tee, jeans, Tevas. (Tevas!) He has the personality to match, with a warmth and gregariousness that initially catch you way off guard. This is the guy responsible for Uncut Gems?

“My go-to meal here was pastrami, eggs, and Mun-chee cheese. But Mun-chee cheese doesn't exist anymore,” Safdie laments. “Nobody bought it.” He opts for a sesame bagel with butter instead.

This neighborhood is his home turf, and his favorite place in the world. He spent his childhood ping-ponging between an unstable environment with his father in Queens, then comfortable normalcy with his mother and stepdad on the Upper West Side.

As a younger man, he did a brief stint living downtown. “I looked out, I'm like, There's no trees. I didn't realize how important that is to my sanity,” he remembers. Now he and his wife, Ava, are raising their two boys, Cosmo, 7, and Murray, 4, up here.

Safdie made his name in tandem with his older brother Josh, the two perpetually mentioned in the same breath for their idiosyncratic, independent films reminiscent of the heyday of New Hollywood. Daddy Long Legs (2009) was mined from their own misadventures with an irresponsible father. (Safdie says he tends to have a more critical view of their upbringing than Josh and, though he still talks to their dad, “it can be strained.”) Good Time (2017), with Robert Pattinson as a small-time criminal and Benny as his mentally disabled brother, raised their profile.

And then came 2019’s Uncut Gems, the heart-pounding thriller starring Adam Sandler as a diamond-dealing gambling addict, which planted the Safide brothers firmly at the center of the culture. The success that followed changed everything.

“That was the first time where I had a vision beyond four feet in front of me,” Safdie says.

What does that vision look like? For Safdie, it means pursuing an increasingly successful acting career. He’s branched out on his own, diverging from the brother he’s been working with his entire life. Many actors go on to become directors; it’s much rarer for the opposite to happen. Even the few who do make the jump—say, John Huston—end up being remembered more for their first career.

Safdie, though, possesses a chameleonic talent, so much so that every role of his feels like a genuine surprise. Perhaps you saw him pop up in Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘70s Valley vibefest Licorice Pizza as Joel Wachs, a closeted councilman. Or in Claire Denis’s Stars at Noon as an eerily nefarious CIA man (character’s name: CIA Man). Or as a Jedi in Obi-Wan Kenobi. Or, earlier this year, in—wait a second—the film adaptation of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Judy Blume’s seminal tome about a preteen girl coming of age.

Safdie’s downtown cred, the A24-ness of it all, maybe didn’t make him the most natural casting choice for Margaret’s dad Herb on paper. “It always delights me when people find out he's in the movie. Just their total shock,” the film’s director, Kelly Fremon Craig told me.

Rachel McAdams, who plays Margaret’s mom, told me in an email that she first met Safdie at a screening he hosted for Uncut Gems. “He was so lovely and effusive with such a gentle, open energy about him,” she said. “I remember my brain not quite being able to compute that guy with the same guy who just put me through one of the most stressful movie-watching experiences of my life.”

Safdie sees acting as a way to delve into certain aspects of himself that he hasn’t had an outlet for otherwise. Playing a dad, for instance. “That's a big part of my personality that I haven't yet had the chance to explore in my own work,” he says. His experience as a director also makes him considerably less neurotic about his own performances. Watching himself in the editing room? Having a big line in a scene cut? No problem—he’s been on the other side, and he gets it.

Now, Safdie has his biggest role yet, a meaty part in Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s wildly anticipated summer blockbuster about the father of the atomic bomb. Safdie plays Edward Teller, opposite Cillian Murphy’s J. Robert Oppenheimer. Teller was a controversial figure, a Hungarian theoretical physicist who would go on to testify against Oppenheimer in later years.

The cast of Oppenheimer is comically stacked: Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Gary Oldman, Rami Malek, to name a few. Nolan was looking for someone fresh and unexpected to play Teller. He had initially seen Safdie in Good Time and then Licorice Pizza. “I called Paul [Thomas Anderson] and I asked about Benny, and he gave him the strongest possible endorsement and pointed out that he's an incredible actor, but also just a wonderful guy,” Nolan told me.

There was also a bit of fate sprinkled in. Safdie had studied physics at Boston University—almost became a physicist, in fact, before he swerved off into filmmaking. Oppenheimer would allow him to combine his two passions, to dive into yet another deep interest that had otherwise not merged with his film career. It would also require him to wear layers of makeup, to have his hair straightened every day until he could hear it sizzle, and to do accent work for the first time. Safdie put off sharing his speech progress with Nolan for as long he could, until he couldn’t. Finally, he sent the director a voice memo of himself describing his breakfast in a thick Hungarian accent.

“When he sent me that recording, I listened to it about a thousand times and very much enjoyed it,” Nolan said.

Teller could have been written as a straight antagonist to Oppenheimer, but instead Nolan used him to inject rare moments of levity throughout the film. (There is one memorable scene in which Safdie slathers sunscreen all over his face before the first nuclear bomb test.) “For the tragedy of that relationship to have resonance, you have to have seen a warmth there and something between them that's more of a brotherly relationship,” Nolan said. “And I felt that Benny could really bring that to the role and give it that warmth.”

“[He’s] such a kind and gentle fella,” Cillian Murphy told me of Safdie. Much has been made of how intense the film is—take a look at any number of harrowing promotional shots of Murphy in character looking like the most haunted man of all time. In between takes, he said it always seemed as if he ended up talking to Safdie.

“You keep the atmosphere light and joke around because I feel you need to be in a relaxed state to act. Your heart rate needs to be low, your cortisol levels need to be low,” Murphy said. “And that's why I think I probably gravitated towards Benny.”

Safdie is obsessed with realism. It checks out, considering how so many characters in his movies were just ordinary people plucked off the street. That sensibility has followed him into his performances.

Eating, for instance. It drives him nuts when people don’t eat on camera. “I hate it when people don't eat,” he says, tearing into his bagel. “It destroys me.” When he filmed a dinner scene in Licorice Pizza, he made sure to eat in every take. “I don't know how many tiramisus I ate, but it must have been 30,” he says. Same thing happened in The Curse, his secretive upcoming Showtime series with Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone about a couple producing an HGTV show: “Sixty chips in one take, and we must have had nine takes…”

“It wasn't just the nine bags of chips,” Fielder told me in an email. “Any scene that involved food, everyone would pace themselves on the first take.… But Benny for some reason would keep shoving food in his mouth the entire scene ’cause he thought it would be funnier. And he was right. There was one scene where he ate an entire Chinese buffet plate every single take for 15 takes and he would always match the exact same volume of food. You'd think any sane person would eat a couple less popcorn shrimp each time as the takes went on. But he wouldn't.”

And then there’s the crying. Safdie tends to cry when he gets into character—thinking of all the things he might be feeling if he were in that person’s shoes. When Adam Sandler, in Uncut Gems, had to weep, dejected, that he was “so sad and so fucked up,” it was Safdie who went into his trailer to pump him up.

“In a weird way, there's nothing better than being able to do that in front of people because it's usually a very private moment that you're ashamed of and you don't want to show anybody. But to actually get the opportunity to show people what it's like when you're really sad,” Safdie recalls saying. “And then I started crying. He goes, ‘You got to stop. Can you take it easy?’”

Before Uncut Gems, even with a handful of celebrated movies under his belt, a film career didn’t feel truly viable. At the back of his mind, he still thought he might have to go back to school and actually become a physicist. His wife was the primary breadwinner, and so when he edited Good Time, he’d set his son Cosmo in bed with a bunch of pillows surrounding him so he wouldn’t roll over, turn on the baby monitor, and work while he slept.

Last year, it was announced that Sandler would be working on a new movie with Elara Pictures, the Safdie brothers’ production company. The project would be set in the world of sports memorabilia collectors, with Megan Thee Stallion also reported to star.

Shortly after, news broke that Benny would not be directing the Sandler movie with Josh. “Elara is still there. We work on a lot of documentaries and there's just a constant flow of ideas,” Safdie says. “It just felt like, okay, there's things that I want to explore that don't necessarily align right now with Josh. So it's a divide and conquer mentality. He wants to tell this story, he can go and do that. I'm going to go and do a couple of other things. It seems like a natural progression for how things have happened.”

Mainly, he had gone away to act on several projects and work on The Curse. By the time he returned, Josh and their longtime third collaborator Ronald Bronstein, were already deep into working on the new Sandler movie. “It was just a matter of, ‘This works for me right now and this is what I've got to do,’” Safdie explains.

Elara also had a shakeup earlier this year. One of its founding producers, Sebastian Bear-McClard, was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. A spokesperson for the Safdies had previously said they fired him upon becoming aware of the behavior in July 2022. “It’s disgusting, and when you find out something about somebody that you didn't realize, you just have to be much more careful,” Safdie says when I ask him about the incident. “It's a lot, and it's not something that you want to have happen to anybody. And when you find it out, the one thing that you can do is really just take control.”

When we speak, Safdie is just finishing up final sound editing on The Curse. The show originated through his friendship with Fielder. Safdie had been a longtime Nathan for You enthusiast, and had even written a Cinema Scope article about his love for the show. Fielder was similarly a fan of Safdie’s. “In those initial hangouts it was clear we were on a similar wavelength,” Fielder said.“We both think a lot about tone and realism. We weren't even intending to collaborate on a project actually, it just sort of happened organically the second time we hung out.”

“We came up with the idea for The Curse and we're like, ‘This is so stupid, but it's really funny,’” Safdie explains. They kept texting and texting about it, until the bit became real.

In The Curse, Fielder and Emma Stone play a couple, while Safdie is a long-haired, turquoise jewelry-wearing HGTV producer. “They live in an area called Española, which is close to Santa Fe. And that's where they're building their new homes. They have a very different way of gentrifying the community. They want to do it ethically, and they want to do it in a way that doesn't hurt anybody. So they want to make a show about that. And you follow their lives as they're doing it,” Safdie explains. “It started out as a 30-minute comedy and became an hour-long comedy-drama.”

So he filmed Oppenheimer in the New Mexico desert and then returned to New Mexico to film The Curse for several more months. While he emerged without any turquoise jewelry, he did leave the set having purchased a ton of props from production. “I do have an insane amount of Talavera dishware, which I love. I love it so much. It brings me so much joy to look down and see the bright colors,” he says.

This enthusiasm and attention to detail saturates everything. Directing, acting, physics—they’re all connected.

“All of it is just trying to understand what this thing is that we're going through,” Safdie says. “How in the world is the universe expanding and here I am, sitting here. What's 14 billion years ago? What's time? How much time is left?”'

[thatfoxnamedfinley]

You Cannot Have My Pain aka Oathbringer thoughts

I am an empty shell

in both a good and a bad way

it's 5:28AM as I start to write this

MOASH

how DARE you

Dalinar I actually love you

Odium, u r actually a CREEP dude

spoilers will be under the cut *bows an emotionally drained bow*

*stares into the distance, watching the waves crash onto the shore*

Do you guys ever relate to a character that's nothing like you? Like, something happened in your life that CONNECTS you to a character? For me, that's Dalinar.

And I know what you're thinking

WHAT bitch?

a warlord tyrant turned peacemaker, eh? r u a criminal bitch?

No. But I did lose my mom to cancer in 2022. My internal landscape changed overnight. The things I deemed important changed. I was able to finally see my flaws, made bare by my immense regret (a normal feeling when grieving) and it look a LOT of therapy to forgive myself. I didn't like the person I was. I was selfish, was quick to judge and didn't desire human connection, and I was so mad at myself that it took my mom dying to spark that change.

Without making this a TED Talk, I deeply connected to Dalinar's grief that struck me in an unexpected way.

"Sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a man in the process of changing." Oh...? Oh. Oh. TEARS down my face.

LET US BEGIN.

So, we BEGIN the book with Dalinar seeing a figure in black Shardplate with nine shadows and red eyes

oh ok

Oh bro when Elhokar bowed down to Dalianr trying to abdicate and name Dalinar a Highking...& Dalinar and Navani are like

!! bro !! GET UP

OMG!!

WHEN HIS MEMORY CAME BACK OF EVI

I remember reading it and they were like "blah blah blah yeah, Evi" and I was like bro WAIT A FUCKING SECOND DUDE

oh oh oh

When Pattern asked if Adolin was an option for him to marry LMFAO ok Pattern we get it hahhhahhaha Pattern is so funny dude

Even in Shadesmar when he and Adolin were pretending to be illusions and he was happily waving a glass stick above his head, I'm like damn he's....a little touched tbh

Dalinar strolling around during a highstorm looking for a fucking knife was iconic as well as him spotting the assassin in literally 0.5 seconds and murking him and everyone in the room is like

Gavilar was like "um thanks"

Blackthorn Unleashed was an amazing chapter. He went into Bloodstance - a stance for someone who didn't care if he got hit and he was RAGING

But you know what I also noticed about this chapter? Gavilar like, casually put a hit out on Highprince Kalanor and juts points Dalinar wherever he wants. And I GET IT, right? Like, the Alethi are good at war. Everyone talks about it, it's what they're known for.

HOWEVER, the enabling of Dalinar's behavior is, at times, sickening. Even though I know this is a cultural thing and they all see it as a good thing. There were several times in this book where Sadeas or Gavilar said something to push Dalinar towards violence that I was like YO this is super fucked up.

Tangerine had a interesting quote too. He was telling a story about how if there were 3 people and one was a murderer, would you hang all of them, let them all go and risk someone killing again, or keep them all in prison despite some being innocent. And Tangerine said

"Eventually you will execute someone who does not deserve it. This is the burden society must carry in exchange for order." And I'm sitting here in the US of A like

holy fuck we're rich bitches <-- my audiobook bookmark when the Midnight Mother is chased away by Shallan's phalanges and we see all the uncut gems in the pillar thingy

JASNAH WELCOME BACK BITCH I was lit and it was so unexpected, she was such a badass in this book. At the end when she isn't even looking when she's killing The Fused and when she steps into politics and I'm like oh Jasnah will STEAMROLL these mother fuckers

OMG when Adolin was like I am NOT going to be king, dad and Shallan was like "hmm have you guys ever thought of..." and I rolled my eyes and was like "Renarin, duh. He'll have more prominence in the story this way and"

*Jasnah walks into the room with a crown on*

OF COURSE!! IM A FUCKING IDIOT!!! OF COURSE JASNAH SHOULD RULE. Omg I feel like she hates politics but she's the PERFECT one for the job! She can be the best diplomat but also fuck them up with words (or she could soulcast tf outta them)

OH! Evi suggesting the Nightwatcher first was a surprise

omg wait about Evi

she was amazing. she tried so hard despite not fully understanding everything (I do blame Dalinar because he made decisions, but I mostly blame Alethi culture, here. I cursed out loud multiple times at their NEED for conquest and war, growing frustrated at how narrow minded that can make them. as well as how cruel). she was scared of him, but she had this one moment when she told Dalinar after finding out that he had actually spared that child, that she saw BEAUTY in him. i was like oh bitch you are a baby angel

she tried so hard for Dalinar. even that scene when Adolin crawled down from the carriage and he saluted Dalinar...and Evi said Adolin asked her the best way to talk to him and when she told him he was a war general he decides to salute

that's just....that moment was so sweet despite Dalinar still not understanding how to be a father

LIFT SAYING THAT DALINAR HAS A DUMPTRUCK OF AN ASS WAS ONE OF MY FAVORITE SCENES

Lift out here like "HEY YO TIGHT BUTT WHATS GOING ON?"

holy fuck

Dalinar in canon having a nice ass is one of the funniest, most unexpected comedic jokes of this series

oh, Shallan was supposed to take notes but was drawing Kaladin instead ok girl

Teft being addicted to firemoss and Rock saving Kaladin with the Shardbow were both so amazing characters moments. teft having so much self hatred and selling his uniform which ended up coming back around when the person who attacked bridge 4 for the herald blade had his vets on PHEEWW and Rock saving the day I SCREAMEDDDDD!!! OMG ROCK!!!

"You're thinking of me," the Stormfather sent. "I can feel it."

BRO WHAT???????????? STAY IN THE STORM WHY YOU SAYING WEIRD SHIT

Jasnah vs Amaram was legendary. She REALLY said do you feel lucky today, punk

ODIUMMMMMMMMM

yo when Odium showed up literally the nicest dude wanting to braid Dalinar's hair I was like HELL NO this man is dangerous

then when he showed Dalinar his final form I GUESS he's like all hatred and passion and sex and bloodlust and im like oh HELL NO dude

"Emotion. It is what defines men - though ironically you are poor vessels for it. It fills you up and breaks you unless you find someone to share the burden with" oh ok cool odium, lol poor weak humans, fuck us then i guess

Kaza was maybe the most memorable one off character for me, the soulcaster woman who was dying and chose to kamikaze at the end because she wanted to choose how she went out

Lift and Dalinar eating fruit together in silence is, I fear, iconic

i cracked up at the myth wit told about the queen who switched places with Mishim (the moon) to fuck Nomon (the other moon) and that's why Natanatan people are blue

like wtf bitch

Adolin telling Kaladin he talks like a girl sometimes....oh? Adolin? OH?????? *smirks in Alethi*

The Rathalas scene was nuts. The thing was he tried too, Dalinar tried to offer some sort of mercy and they fucked his ass with a pole. Then he's like ok, dope *embraces Thrill in a sensual embrace* "None will be left to weep" got it cool cool cool

I do like the little hints left, like he sees red (which we see later is the Unmade) and all the times he's briefly seen red and flashes of red we know was the Nergaoul, who was thought to be the origin of the Alethi "Thrill" which I found fascinating

OOOOOOH MY GOD

MOASH

MOASH!!!

FUCKING MOASH

HOW DARE YOU!!!

after he was EMOTIONLESS when he KILLED Elhokar then SALUTED KALADIN WITH THE BRIDGE FOUR SALUTE RIGHT AFTER IT

Literally fuck Moash (his arc is fine and it's interesting because we get more lore but I dont like him)

THEN HE SHANKS JEZRIAN like MOASH wtf are you DOING bro?!?!?!?!!!!??!?!?!?!??!?!?!!?!?

I liked how cautious Queen Fen was but then remained an ally when shit hit the fan (I liked how cautious everyone was tbh because they're all just so scared of ThE BLAcKtHoRn and youre like bro come ON but then you're like oh yeah ok i get it)

I LOVED Dalinar's flashbacks. With the Nightwatcher (then Cultivation after Dalinar asked for forgiveness and NW was like ??? and Cultivation was like "I got it from here bitch"), and when he breaks down and holds Renarin ("They talk about you, but they're wrong. You just need to rest, after all the fighting you did. I know. And I miss her too." RENARIN PLEASE!!! THE TEARS I HADDD!!!!!), when Adolin lights up after Dalinar tells him he's proud of him, how he thinks of himself as an animal, that he deserves to be hated. It's all just so MUCH.

The PANIC ATTACK he was having when the Thrill like, chased him around and threatened to consume him...

It was so well done that the

YOU CANNOT HAVE MY PAIN was so GOOD it was so EARNED. God, the CATHARSIS I felt in that moment was so satisfying. Because bitches i really thought Dalinar was going to become Odium's champion and out intrepid heroes were going to have to fight DALINAR in book 4

Odium: lol I've had my champion for a long ass time, bro. ive been preparing him and watching him forever

Dalinar: Amaram?

Odium: lmfao bro its you bro

Dalinar: ...bro

and I was like

Then Dalinar said JUST KIDDING BITCHES and the GLORY SPREN!!! BY THE THOUSANDS!!! AND HE SMASHED ALL THE REALMS TOGETHER!!! AND HE SAVED ADOLIN KALADIN AND SHALLAN!!!

YOU CANNOT HAVE MY PAIN!!!!!

"I KILLED THOSE CHILDREN. I BURNED THE PEOPLE OF RATHALAS!"

oh my god I have GOOSEBUMPS AGAIN

truly one of the most cathartic reading experiences I've had. The investment of 3000+ pages was worth it for that moment, and I mean that sincerely. It was that good

(Side note when Adolin's sword spren with her clawed out eyes attacked that one Fused I was overcome with emotion. What was her name? Maya? I think? that was a great scene too)

yo. SZETH. Brandon Sanderson you brilliant bastard. You did it. You gave us Szeth. Yes. YES. He's chosen to swear and oath to DALINAR. My man DK just be picking up bitches left and right to do his bidding. Kaladin, Lift, Szeth, Rial, Kmakl.

Lift was amazing. Her parts were so much FUN and the atmosphere shift to her personality was so welcome and uplifting and funny when it happened.

Jasnah's moment with Renarin was beautiful. "You are my cousin. Family, Renarin! Hold my hand. Run with me." SO SO SO SO GOOD Jasnah you are a legend you are THE MOMENT

Venli's Timbre pulsing to Victory as he has the Voidspren of her gemheart at knifepoint lmao (Im so glad she's a Radiant now, can't wait to see if she is developed more)

I feel like I have more thoughts (there was so much lore in his book but I'm not sure I have the energy to dissect it rn) but it's 7:22am and I haven't slept so im sorry if this post was unstable

good night lovelies

*sits up violently* wtf is up with sja-anat bro

ok *passes out*

*sits up again with eye mask on* yo Tangerine is gunna be a fucking problem and wtf Renarin has a corrupted spren right??

*wakes up and crawls on top of table, swaying with exhaustion*

I LOVE DALINAR KHOLIN A LOT OK I HAVE STRUGGLED SINCE MY MOM DIED IN GRASPING THAT DESPITE YOUR PAST YOU CAN CHANGE AND ITS POSSIBLE TO UNDERSTAND THE BEAUTY OF LIFE MORE AFTER YOU'VE EXPERIENCED THE PAIN OF LOSING SOMEONE YOU LOVE BECAUSE THEY CAN NO LONGER EXPERIENCE IT WITH YOU

AND THAT GRIEF ISN'T FATAL BUT SOMETIMES IT FEELS LIKE IT COULD BE BUT IF YOU CAN FIND A WAY TO PUSH THROUGH THE PAIN OF GUILT AND REGRET IT CAN ACTUALLY MORPH YOU INTO A BETTER PERSON IF YOU LET IT

[sunnyrealist]

Chapter 56: Keep Me Close

The Sun, the Moon, and All Our Stars

Summary and Details…

Previous Chapter Recap/Context: Sebastian wrote a letter to Ominis, contacting him for the first time in nearly a decade in hopes of reconnecting and learning about Anne's final years and marriage. Unfortunately, Kate's owl returned a day later with the same letter Sebastian had sent out. He was devastated, assuming that Ominis didn't want anything to do with him post-Azkaban. Kate and Sebastian discussed it over a hot cup of tea. He decided he would still attempt to contact Ruby, his close friend from his fifth year at Hogwarts. In this chapter, we see Seb's final day off of work from the DMLE, in which he sends the letter; in addition, he arranges for some romantic surprises for Kate, and takes part in a portrait session with her.

Pairing: 25-year-old, post-Azkaban Sebastian Sallow x 24-year-old Kate Mayflower (my OC), the assistant librarian at Hogwarts

Art Credit: @giselsann-opencommissions made all three of these gorgeous portraits.

Content warnings: In general, this is rated 18+, so minors should not read or interact with this story. This chapter is overall pretty sweet and romantic, but there's a brief mention of making love.

The full chapter is available below the cut; it can also be found on AO3 (link is posted below). Please leave some feedback if possible, especially if you like what you read! 🥰

Chapter 56: Keep Me Close

The next afternoon, Sebastian amends his letter to Ruby to inform her that he was unable to contact Ominis. Maybe she would have some news to share on that front, or maybe she would ignore his correspondence entirely. He wouldn’t know unless he tried, and with the disappointment of Ominis’ silence, he figured it couldn’t hurt much more to take another blow. 

He had taken far worse.

“I’m so sorry about last time, Hootie,” he murmurs soothingly to Kate’s owl, holding up the letter. “Hopefully this won’t be a repeat. I’ve got a field mouse right here as a special treat for your trouble, just in case.” 

Hootie makes an excited noise, chomping onto the dead mouse’s tail and then accepting the letter in his talons.

“Please bring this to Ruby McKinnon.”

Sebastian sighs nervously as the snowy owl takes off, not sure if it is worth the effort to hope.

It had been a busy morning. 

Kate had informed him, without a hint of exaggeration, that it would take her a great deal of time to prepare for their portrait session, and that she did not want him to see her until she was completely ready. It was clear she planned to pull out all the stops when it came to her clothing, accessories, hair, and perhaps even makeup. 

Sebastian knew getting ready would not take him all that long, so he threw himself into rewriting Ruby’s letter and he had gone into town to “run some errands.” Kate hadn’t questioned him at all, which was perfect. 

He smiles, pulling the custom gold locket out of his pocket to admire it. 

The jeweler had made quick work of the engraving, and Sebastian was quite impressed. He definitely planned to return there for future purchases… and perhaps to sell future treasure. He and Kate would have more adventures - of that he was certain. With the money he kept from the centuries-old jewelry and precious uncut gems he sold, he was also sure that he would likely be back to buy more gifts for Kate. Christmas, Valentine’s Day, her birthday next year… and maybe even surprises in between.

He had also stopped at the Three Broomsticks to make a reservation for a private room on an upper level.

A few moments later, Sebastian knocks on the bathroom door. “Kate - how much more time do you need in there? I still have to shower.”

“Oh!” was her response from behind the door. “Erm… I’ll be moving into the bedroom in just a few minutes, but I’ll still need time in there, too.”

He chuckles. “That’s fine. I’ll lay out my clothes in the study now so that I don’t disturb you.”

“Okay. Tell me when you’re done, and I’ll sneak back into the room,” she requests. 

“Not a problem,” he replies, finding her secretive preparation amusing. He heads right into the bedroom to grab his new tailored suit and undergarments. 

About an hour later, Sebastian is ready. He strolls into the bathroom to view himself in the mirror and to make sure his hair is still mostly cooperating. 

His eyebrows shoot up as he examines himself in the black formal evening suit. He has never seen himself dressed in such… fancy clothing. For his entire life, he never had a need for this kind of attire. He fixes a stray hair, then straightens the tan vest. 

Though he feels a bit out of his element, Sebastian has to admit to himself that he looks good. 

“Almost ready, Kate?” he calls out towards the bedroom.

“Just a few more minutes!” Kate answers. “I’ll come out soon - I promise!”

Sebastian chuffs under his breath and figures he ought to find a way to pass the time. He wanders into the living room and sits, then thinks better of it. He doesn’t want to wrinkle the suit before pictures are taken. 

He wanders towards a shelf with books, reading off some of the titles, none of which he recognizes. Emma, Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility, Little Women, Jo’s Boys, Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing… Likely all Muggle books. He pulls out the only title he recognizes - Homer’s Epics: The Iliad and The Odyssey, flipping through the pages to view the illustrations of the ancient Greek gods and goddesses and fierce mortal warriors, lingering on a picture of Odysseus reuniting with Penelope in Ithaca. He’s about to continue on, when he finally realizes he is being stared at.

“Hi,” Kate says shyly, poking her head around the corner. “I’m ready.”

Sebastian immediately shelves the book, then watches her step out, his jaw dropping unironically. He swallows, his eyebrows lifting and pupils dilating.

She looks like an angel. A golden angel.

Kate’s hair is arranged elegantly, half up and half down with soft, blonde curls flowing to her waist. A light dusting of makeup is on her face, showing off curled eyelashes, rosy lips, and a glowing complexion. She’s wearing golden earrings and a golden necklace that perfectly compliment her golden gown, which perfectly accentuates her figure. There are delicate straps on her shoulders and additional wider sleeves that hang just off her shoulders in a gauzy fabric that flows across the top of the bodice. Just a touch of cleavage is visible. The bodice features embroidered golden leaves. In the center of the neckline, the leaves form a kind of flower. The gown hugs her waist, and then the skirt flows out, sweeping the floor with a ruched fabric trim. The skirt features many embroidered leaves in various earth tones, connected by vines. Her shoes are hard to see, but the light yellow shoes poke out just enough that he can see a shiny little accent bow on each.

“You- You look… stunning,” Sebastian stammers, his face getting red. “Gods… you are gorgeous.”

Kate blushes, her cheeks turning a little pink. “Thank you.” She eyes Sebastian up and down, then adds, “And you are incredibly handsome. The formalwear suits you. You look very dapper.” She takes a few steps towards him and kisses his cheek.

Sebastian tells her in a serious tone, “I mean it. You look absolutely beautiful. I don’t think… I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone as beautiful as you.”

Kate smiles, basking in the compliment for a moment. Then, she says, “We should probably apparate. I’d hate to see our clothes get dirty on a walk.”

“Agreed. Let’s go.”

Sebastian had never been inside of a portrait studio. Whenever his family had had pictures taken in the past, a photographer had always come to their home. His parents were proud of their house and always wanted it featured in mementos. 

The photographer was skilled and prepared, with backdrops and furniture ready. He assured the couple that their portraits would be in color and available in just about an hour. That was new. Sebastian had always remembered the development process taking weeks, if not over a month. Kate inquired about new advancements in America that her friends had written about. Lottie and Otty had been able to take moving photographs, just like paintings could be enchanted to do. It became a long conversation, with the photographer excitedly chattering about the intricate spellwork and materials that were supposedly required and that perhaps in a year or so, moving photos would be available in Europe.

About to leave, they finish up by confirming the number of prints and sizes for each. They step out, but Sebastian stops and says, “Oh, wait, I forgot something,” ducking back into the studio on his own.

“Excuse me… I wanted to make another request if I could. I would also like a small portrait of my girlfriend - pocket size. And… also a portrait of myself and our portrait as a couple made for a locket in this size,” he requests, showing the locket to the photographer, who nods in understanding. “I’ll come back later for the prints. It’s for a surprise.”

“This… is lovely. And such a wonderful surprise,” Kate murmurs, dabbing her cloth napkin over her lips. 

Sebastian admires her across the table, their private dinner illuminated by candlelight and accompanied by soft music from a gramophone. He refills their wine and tucks back into their meal of roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, buttery dinner rolls, with a medley of seasoned carrots and green beans. 

Kate sips the Pinot Noir. “Did you know this is my favorite meal?”

He smiles. “You told me when we were hiking in the Highlands.”

Kate gazes at him, raising an eyebrow. “So… What is the occasion? It’s clearly an occasion. I’ve never dined in a private room here, and you’ve arranged my favorite meal.” 

Sebastian replies, “I wanted to end my week off of work perfectly with you.” He pauses, studying her reaction. “It has been… the happiest week of my entire life. Being with you… makes me feel complete. And after all that has happened, all that we have learned, moving in together… Well, a celebration was in order.” 

“It truly has been wonderful,” she agrees. “Thank you for arranging everything. Our trip was a fascinating experience, and… I’m excited to live with you and… experience all that lies ahead. I love you, Sebastian.”

“And I love you,” he echoes, “so deeply, Kate. You’re my sunshine. You’re all that is good in the world, and… I can’t believe how lucky I am to have you as my… future wife.”

Their eyes meet, both of them smiling.

Sebastian glances at his pocketwatch. “I know this might seem a bit silly, but… I am so anxious to see the photographs. Do you mind if I quickly apparate over to the studio after I order dessert and settle the bill? We can look at them here.”

Kate grins even more widely. “By all means, yes. I can’t wait to see them.”

Once they finish up with their dinner, Sebastian heads downstairs to order a blackberry crumble for them to share, which he was told would pair excellently with the Pinot Noir. He pays the bill. Then, he ducks out of the restaurant to head to the studio.

After a refreshing dessert, they finally are ready to look at the portraits. Sebastian scoots his chair right next to Kate, handing the envelope to her. 

She carefully opens the packaging, and the first portrait she pulls out is the portrait of them as a couple. She gasps upon seeing it. They are seated at a bench with the backdrop of a garden. Kate was given a matching parasol as a prop, and the two of them smile, appearing to read a book together with Sebastian leaning in, their foreheads practically touching.

The next portrait is of Kate. The photographer had asked her to pose for a close-up, insisting this was the most current fashionable style - it would make the subject appear glamorous, soft, and romantic. The photo features her from the bust and above. Her hair is flowing and is voluminous. She rests her hand on her cheek. Sebastian whistles.

“A goddess,” he murmurs.

Finally, the portrait of Sebastian is revealed. He is seated on a chair, looking right at the camera with a bit of a smirk on his face - an apt depiction.

“Merlin, what a good-looking man,” Kate murmurs, looking closely at it and then flashing a grin at her boyfriend.

“I suppose we are a rather attractive couple,” he replies with a smirk.

Kate continues looking at the pictures for several minutes, then places them all back inside the envelope.

Sebastian has been waiting for this moment. He reaches over to take Kate’s hand. “I have something for you.”

“You do?” Kate seems surprised.

He pulls out a small box from his pocket and opens it for her. There lies the golden locket. Kate gasps, then examines it closer. 

“It has… a moon! That’s you! And flowers… I suppose that’s… me!” she notes with an excited laugh. “Sebastian… it’s perfect. Absolutely perfect. Just what I would have chosen myself.”

“I’m glad you like it. Here, take it. Open it,” he requests.

She obeys, opening it carefully, and inside are tiny photographs - their portrait as a couple and a portrait of Sebastian. She studies it adoringly, then closes it. Throwing her arms around him, she murmurs “Thank you” in his ear. When she pulls back, she kisses him tenderly and repeats the sentiment: “Thank you.”

Sebastian stands behind her, and she holds her hair up as he fastens the necklace. “You can always keep me close. And I’ll be able to do the same.” He reveals the pocket portrait he had made of her. “It will help me survive being away from you.” He chuckles. “No easy task. I cannot even fathom having to wake up for work tomorrow and leaving you in bed alone.”

Kate reaches out to caress his cheek. “I don’t want you to go back to the Ministry tomorrow. I wish you could have the entire summer off with me.”

“Me, too, sunshine. Me, too,” he whispers wistfully. 

After a few moments, he suggests apparating home, where they immediately make the most of Sebastian’s final evening without responsibilities. Their lovemaking is slow, unhurried, as they thoroughly explore each other’s bodies. 

The only thing Kate wears to bed that night is the locket.

[shyvien]

Here are 100 random quotes from Mammon!

Sourced from the OM! Wiki, chats, devilgram, screenshots I found, etc. I made this list to help with studying to write the characters in character. (Not really proofread, sorry if there are mistakes. Also, there may be spoilers. If so, they're minor spoilers)

✧༺⚜️༻✧

“I want to [CENSORED], [CENSORED], and [CENSORED] like there's no tomorrow!”

“Hey! No touchin'! Grrr..!”

“Hey! So you're just gonna ignore me, are ya?! ...Also, I SAID you're too close! Don't get near MC! And NO touchin'! I won't allow it!”

“I don't want to have anything to do with someone like you! That's it. we're done! It's over! ...gr ...! ...! Dammit! Like I could ever really say that to you! I love you, MC! And I'II NEVER break up with you, okay?! NEVER!

“Hey, whoa! Whaddya think you're doin', huh?! You want a piece of me?! IS THAT IT?!”

“Come on, I was just kiddin' around! Now go on and unblock me. ...I'll tell ya a funny joke if you do. "Who's got two thumbs and needs some company?" 👍 "THIS GUY!" 👍 At least gimme a pity laugh, will ya?!”

“Right now it's just you, me, a bed, and no one to bother us.”

“Oh yeah? Well do me a favor and look into your crystal ball and tell me how many times I'm gonna sock you for that smartass comment.”

“I don't THINK so! Like, don't go marryin' Asmo, MC! If you're gonna marry someone, marry m...m-m-m…..m-m-ME! MARRY THE GREAT MAMMON!”

“Y'know..I wouldn't have pegged you as someone who likes to stir up trouble. But you have some pretty interestin' ideas up there in that head of yours, don't ya?”

“Whoa, hey there. Those are some pretty harsh words. Is there some sorta bad blood between you?”

“Look at those cheeks of yours. What's up with those, huh? How'd ya like me to give 'em a little poke? ...Like that! ...And that!”

“Would ya look at that? The Great Mammon really has an eye for spottin' shiny and expensive things! Who knew such a little shop would have uncut gems like these? Hehehe, come to daddy...”

“What's this here...an emerald? You're a looker, aren't ya? Wanna come home with daddy?”

“Lemme go! I'm not gonna rest until l've landed one really good hit on Levi!… Beel! Lemme go, ya muscle-bound son of a...! …All right, bring it on! Do it...see what happens!”

“Man, what's got your panties in a wad all of a sudden?”

“Yeah-heah-HEAAAH! Sweet, sweet treasure! COME TO PAPA!”

“No frickin' way!”

“Geez, I oughta wrap you up for pullin' a stunt like that!”

“Y'see, I was plannin' on hanging out with MC in my room today. And I wanted to create a romantic atmosphere, y'know? So I lit about 500 candles, and the room caught on fire. Scared the bejeebers outta me!”

“You think a little w-warnin' like that would be enough to s-s-scare me off? He thinks I'm gonna stop s-s-spyin' on him because of that? As if!”

“Folks around here won't let us forget it. But they're just labels. By now, no one knows better than us that labels don't mean anything.”

“Th-That's so coooohohohohold! Ahahaha! Why you guys gotta be so meeeeean?”

“C'mon, man. Make with the mouth openin'. The rest of us are waitin' for our turn.”

“Yeah, I know what you're thinkin'. How'd I turn out to be so awesome? You can tell I've been through both highs and lows, and that I'm self-assured and totally sexy.”

“If I can land a nice, clean blow on Lucifer just once, then whatever happens, happens.”

“And I hate the way you lock eyes with Lucifer...and then like smile and stuff... Don't do that, okay? Don't even breath in front of him, okay?!”

“Exactly. Nothin' of value is missin', except for the stuff I sold.”

“That's rough, buddy.”

“You might not know what I'm talkin' about, but I know what l'm talkin' about! Quit showin' up in my dreams uninvited! Ya gotta give me time to prepare before you go bustin' in like that!”

“D-Dummy! Don't go makin' me say it!”

“Have you forgotten? I AM evil! Demon, remember?”

“What? No, you must be mistaken, Your Wonderfulness. I said absolutely nothing of the sort.”

“Whoever's disturbed my...*yawn* my sleep... I got a pile driver with your name on it”

“Hey, you sure you'll be satisfied with just leaving things at my head?”

“If you're wondrin' where I'm at, that means ya got it bad for me, don't ya? ...Please don't pull that "stay" thing on me.”

“Levi, you son of a-- You just full-on PUNCHED me!”

“Eh, still... It feels nice when you run your hand through my hair like that. So l'll go ahead and let it slide.”

“Wha? No, I wasn't tryin' to make fun of ya... Little guy.”

“Damn straight.”

“Anyway, he said he'd be willin' to lend me money again if I managed to pay back everythin' I owed. Obviously, there's no way I can, so I pretended not to have seen anythin' and ran like hell.”

“Nighttime's when I kick into gear! Let's go out on the town! Your treat!”

“I'm still laughin' my ass off over here!”

“You're the only thing more dazzlin' than a gold credit card! Almost blinding, I'd say!”

“Final boss, my ass! Listen up, 'cause the Great Mammon's got some truths for you haters!”

“Just this once, l'II let ya film me in a bathtub full of money! How's THAT for fan service?!”

“So? Waitin' like a good boy's gone and earned me some kinda reward, right?”

“I'll raise my favorability score with MC lickety-split, profess my love, and win this game before you even know what hit you!”

“...Aww. ...I mean, now listen, you! Dammit. You really play dirty, you know that...?”

“Ah, there ya are! How'd you like to hit the casino with me, huh?! Right now! I'm feelin' lucky today. REAL lucky!”

“Just so we're clear, I ain't afraid of no horror movies. Not even a little! Not even a teensy-tiny bit, all right? Like, seriously.”

“Just to be clear, it's not like l'm afraid Lucifer might catch me if I go alone. That's not what this is about. Seriously, that's not what this is about! For real, it isn't!”

“I've got some serious business opportunities lined up for after classes tomorrow. I'm talkin' makin' some mad cheddar, yo! If Lucifer asks about me, tell him I was called to the human world by the witches, would ya?”

“You don't sleep until I do, you got that? And would ya look at that?! The ol' Sandman forgot to sprinkle his magical sand in my eyes! So strap in, buddy! We got a looooong night ahead of us!”

“Listen, Lucifer is gonna be all over my ass once he finds out…”

“No need to worry your pretty little head. I'll be around for meals and sleep. The bed's pretty big, after all”

“Yeah, a real gold digger, that one.”

“I wasn't about to give in to that jerk's demands. I've got more self-respect than that. So, I told him what the deal was: I get the room rent-free and he can shove his two-year contract where the sun don't shine. But then that snake threatened to snitch to Lord Diavolo and Lucifer if I didn't pay up.”

“Cheap shot callin' a guy stingy cause he's lookin' out for his pal.”

“Bet your wonderin' how a guy like me-drownin' in debt, frozen credit card, more lint in his pockets than Grimm-“

“Using my power and influence, I'll push you through the auditions and get you the chance to model, no strings attached! Well, maybe one string: front and center's all mine. Hope the edge is good enough for ya!”

“I swear, I'm not tryin' to pull a fast one on ya, MC, ol' buddy ol' pal!”

“We're pals, right? If ya really wanna know the details, I'll tell ya for 500 Grimm. If you've got the cash on-hand now, I'll tell ya for half the price. So, what'll it be?”

“Hey! MC! Why ya runnin' BUDDY?”

“Ya know, just a peek! So, help me out by opening the door, just a little?… But I caaaaaaaaan't! Open the door and let me see already!”

“My dear sunglasses just took their last breath... I kinda accidentally killed them. I crushed them...with my rear end. That's right, my poor sunglasses...and bum.”

“I'll whip up my special cup ramen! I'll bring it up in a bit, so just sit tight.”

“Look, l'm sendin' ya a ping! So get your butt over here, pronto!”

“Seriously, I'll bust my ass and get there at Mach speed!”

“Crap, that really does make me feel all warm and fuzzy. Thanks, MC. I love ya a whole bunch, too!”

“I got a raffle ticket when I went shoppin' today, so I tried my luck, and booyah. Jackpot, baby!”

“I've got jack all to do! JACK ALL!”

“Listen to what I'm saying, dammit! Can't someone shut this guy up?!”

“Huh, ya don't say. Whoopsie.”

“If you're thinkin' of saving that picture of me on your D.D.D., I swear I'll put a curse on ya! I'll make it so that you never find money layin' on the street again! And don't you forget it...”

“Jealous? Wanna join me, right? Well, this isn't the sorta place that humans can just go lollygaggin' about in, so keep your pants on.”

“Haha! That's all ya got?!”

“It's an honor to be fightin' ME!”

“Muahahaha. ALL points for MAMMON! Bow down to me!”

“Hehehe, I'm feelin' GOOD today. I got ya somethin'!”

“Oh...? Yeah, that's the spot! Right there!”

“That's a good human. You're gettin' the hang of it, aren't ya?”

“Yo. So ya dropped in to pay Mammon a visit, eh? Good on ya!”

“Missin' the Great Mammon, were ya? Heh, welcome home.”

“Hey, not there! That tickles!”

“What are ya, a spoiled brat?”

“I guess everyone's like that with their first. Who knew ya could be so cute. Hey, why dontcha be more greedy? That way you'd really win my heart.”

“Hey... Oi... All right, already! Pay attention to me!”

“Hey, can't ya be gentle?!”

“Ya know what do to, doncha? Thanks!”

“Eeeew, take that back. Give it to someone else.”

“Hahaha! Is that all ya got? It's nothing compared to Lucifer's swing!”

“Don't think you can get away with this!”

“Here, I got a present for ya! Beach time, you and me! Let me show you how well I can swim!”

“Also, I'm goin' wakeboarding but... I'm gonna bring you along too, 'cause ya know, I like hangin' out with ya and stuff.”

“A Red Demonus after a long day's work is the best! Why doncha grab one too?”

“It's cool if we chill here and drink together, yeah?”

“This looks so flippin' good!”

“Hey, why don't we go this year? Keep the date open, all right?”

“They're very nice, so I thought it woulda cost ya a pretty penny!”

Couple extra for my boy

“You wanted to match with me, ya say?! Cute!”

“Someone put a photo frame in your room, right? That was me. You were eyein' it up in the shop so I bought it. You put a picture of everyone in it, but I really wanted you to put one of just us t... Never mind.”

✧༺⚜️༻✧

I love this goofy fucker

𝑀𝒶𝓈𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓁𝒾𝓈𝓉

𝒮𝒽𝓎 𝒲𝓇𝒾𝓉𝑒𝓇 ༝༚༝༚

[dream-meister-translations]

PERSONA 5 : THE PHANTOM X

PERSONA 5 : THE PHANTOM X BETA - PART 9

━

As the shadow falls to reveal Joker’s crouching form, he pushes himself to his feet. Wonder looks up at him from his own kneel and Ruferu watches on in awe.

RUFERU : What the--... Who IS this guy?

Joker nods his head, motioning for Wonder to stand. He does so, scrambling to his feet and turning to face Joker who had already shifted his attention to Ruferu.

JOKER : Let’s go.

More Shadows spawn into existence as Joker and Wonder charge them together, their masks activate as they summon forth their Personas. 

WONDER : Janosik!!

JOKER : Arsène!!

Janosik and Arsène burst into existence in a spectacle of cosmic light before spearing their way through the enemy. In a single eruption of pyroclastic energy, the Shadows are annihilated in their entirety. As the dust settles, Wonder looks across to see Joker standing in the rubble. He speaks but a single word…

JOKER : Revolt…

…Before his form begins to fade away in a gleaming electric blue light.

Wonder and Ruferu watch on as he disappears before Ruferu speaks up…

RUFERU : He… Vanished…? What the Hell…?

WONDER : I feel like��� I’ve seen him somewhere before…

RUFERU : Nevermind that. We need to get out of here.

RUFERU : We’re safe for now, but this isn’t a place we can stay any longer. Let’s go.

Ruferu sets off down the train tracks with Wonder trailing close behind only to freeze at the sight of a door to the Velvet Room appearing before him. The door opens and out steps Merope.

MEROPE : Finally, we found you.

MEROPE : Please, follow me.

Merope steps forward and curtsies before Wonder, only to grab at his hand and throw him forward, through the Velvet Room door. 

━

In the Velvet Room, we see Igor and Wonder, dressed back in his real world attire, both sitting at a roundtable with Merope standing off to the side of Igor.

MEROPE : I’ve brought Wonder.

WONDER : (Looks like I’m back to my usual self…)

MEROPE : In reality, you’re currently leaving school. That’s why you appear before us in this form. Do not be alarmed.

IGOR : It seems you’ve made yet another… Interesting choice…

WONDER : An… Interesting choice…?

MEROPE : Yes, it relates to our earlier discussion of how you may resist your inevitable destruction and honing your own desires.

MEROPE : You volunteered to venture into the Metaverse, indicating that you fully intend to challenge and refine your own desires by nurturing the desires of those around you.

IGOR : And so, it is our desire to support you on your journey.

IGOR : Merope, this was your idea, no? Then let’s get started.

Merope bows her head in curtsy to Igor. We are taken to the summoning tutorial, and after…

MEROPE : What you just observed… Was another person’s cognitive existence.

WONDER : Someone’s cognitive existence?

MEROPE : Yes, or rather, they are embodiments of the "cognition" that sleeps deep within your heart. This you must understand.

MEROPE : This includes your perception of those close to you, and those you are not yet familiar with.

MEROPE : Put simply, it is your sustained impression of everyone you have ever met in your life, knowingly or otherwise.

MEROPE : As such, I have no control over who you may encounter.

MEROPE : But what I do know is that these are people just like you. That is to say, they are individuals with strong, human, desires.

MEROPE : Though, perhaps, they may also be people who are only just beginning to discover their true desires. Or they could be beings who once possessed desires and have lost them in some way.

MEROPE : In such cases, their cognition may take on various forms from the pinnacle of their desires. This, too, you must understand.

WONDER : Have I ever met such a person…?

MEROPE : You may not realize it, but life has a way of bringing together those who share the same desires.

MEROPE : Rest assured, in time, you will come to know exactly who these people are.

MEROPE : In a world of dimming desires, they will radiate as brightly as uncut gems.

MEROPE : Not unlike idols.

MEROPE : I have taken to calling such power… “Persona II”.

WONDER : II…?

MEROPE : Yes, the roman numeral for the number “2”. It is to say their power is derived from the combination of two people combined, and that your persona leads theirs in turn.

MEROPE : In some languages, it can be seen as an abbreviation for duet. As in two people singing in unison.

MEROPE : Supporting you in battle like idols support one another on stage.

MEROPE : I’ll name these entities “Phantom Thief Idols”.

MEROPE : The Persona II Masks used by the Phantom Thief Idols draw inspiration from your own Persona Mask.

MEROPE : Their origins are that of a fusion between the Shadows roaming in the cognitive world and the cognitive desires of the individuals in question.

MEROPE : Now, that all said, it is our understanding that all Phantom Thieves must have their own code name.

MEROPE : To that end, I’ve taken it upon myself to provide code names for each of the Idols. Forgive me for doing so without their permission.

WONDER : No, you have my thanks.

MEROPE : Haha! What’s this? I’m suddenly overcome with an unprecedented sense of accomplishment.

MEROPE : I will call upon you again with further support. Please, be ready for it.

WONDER : (With Merope by my side… I find myself feeling strangely excited for the days ahead…)

━

I am thou… Thou are I… Together, we shall resonate with boundless desire… In resonance, friendships may blossom in resistance of thy’s inevitable destruction. I, in resonance of thy’s deepest desire, gaze forth unto a boundless future.

━

MEROPE : If I may add one more thing…

MEROPE : In your subconscious, many people may take on multiple personality traits at once… Which means they may manifest under multiple persona masks.

MEROPE : This will all depend on your perception, at the time your cognition materializes them into being. Consider your mind the root from which may sprout all manner of possibility.

MEROPE : I hope that with the support of these Cognitive Entities, Phantom Thieves and Personas…

MEROPE : You will be able to face down the oncoming destruction.

WONDER : (Yeah… whatever you say…)

WONDER : So will the person in the real world now also be a Phantom Thief Idol…?

MEROPE : …Hm?

MEROPE : I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking…

Igor lets out his trademark laugh, hunching over the roundtable, head propped up by the back of his hand.

IGOR : Heheh… I guess you could say that I’d expect as much.

IGOR : Ah, my apologies. There are still many mysteries we have yet to unravel when it comes to the Cognitive World. Perhaps something altogether more “twisted” may occur…

IGOR : The abnormal phenomena caused by the entanglement of various individual consciousnesses... It would seem there are still aspects of the mysterious realm that are unknown even to us.

MEROPE : For what it’s worth, taking these risks will also help you to hone your desires more effectively.

MEROPE : As an attendant here at the Velvet Room, I will do what I can to help.

IGOR : Well, then, let’s bring an end to our little rendezvous for now.

MEROPE : If you ever seek the power of the Phantom Thief Idols, you need only call upon me in your heart…

With that, Wonder takes his leave from the Velvet Room…

[minty-mumbles]

Shifting Hues (Chapter 1: Blue Earrings)

Summary: In all the eras of Hyrule's history Wild has travelled to with the heroes of courage, red is considered a feminine color. Wild likes the color red. 

Or: A fic that follows Wild’s journey to discover themselves

A/N: Beta read by @supraobsessed !

(Read on AO3 | Chapter 2)

~~~

It’s traditional for Hylian men to wear blue earrings. 

Wild doesn’t know why. He just knows that most of the Hylian men he knows, at least those who have pierced ears, wear small and simple blue hoops. Time, Twilight, and Warriors all wear them. 

There are exceptions, of course. Not everyone likes tradition, or cares to adhere to it. Legend wears gold studs and small silver hoops. He even has multiple sets of piercings in both of his ears, which isn’t common for men or women. But still, his earrings are simple. Masculine, even if they aren’t blue hoops.

Sky wears spiky orange hoops, made out of strange orange metal. But they're small, and they have magical properties, and Wild is pretty sure that's the only reason Sky wears them in the first place

But Wild- well.

Wild.

Wild wears flashy pieces of amber that dangle from his ears. If he turns his head quickly enough, they tap against his neck comfortingly, reminding him that they’re there.

He has some blue hoop earrings, stored away in his slate. He’d woken up from the shrine wearing the blue hoops and hadn’t given it a second of thought. He hadn’t even noticed he had earrings on at first. 

The first time he’d seen a woman wearing dangling gems from her ears, Wild had known that was what he wanted. He’d stopped the woman in the street, asking her where she had gotten the earrings. The woman had laughed, asking him if he was looking for a gift for a special girl in his life. It had thrown him off balance so badly that he hadn’t even corrected her. 

The woman told him of Isha, a renowned jeweler who lived in Gerudo town but had warned him that as a man, he wouldn’t be allowed into the town. He’d have to do some trade with one of the Gorons that traveled to Gerudo Town to get his jewelry. Apparently Gorons- not having genders like the rest of the Hyrule’s races did- are allowed into the town indiscriminately. 

They traded the uncut gems they mined for the finished jewelry that Isha produced. Then they took the jewelry around the rest of Hyrule for other races to buy. Wild would have to buy from one of the Gorons.

It’s well worth tracking one of them down, the woman had told him. Isha’s products are always high quality. 

He’d been quick to do so when he next had time to spare. The plain uncut gemstones he mined or picked up after fighting a talus were enchanting, with all their raw facets that reflected sunlight. He wanted that beauty captured in a form he could wear.

He’d bought the amber earrings he wore most often from a Goron in Hateno town. Thinking back on it, Wild suspects that the Goron had seen how eager he’d been and overcharged him, but he hadn’t cared at all about the extravagant price. 

The second he got his hands on those pretty earrings, the blue hoops had come out of his ears and had gone straight into his slate. He hasn’t touched them since, and his collection of jewelry made by Isha had expanded significantly.

Wild had gotten his amber earrings blessed by a Great Fairy, enchanted to increase his defense. For practical reasons, but also so if anyone ever asked him why he wears the more feminine jewelry, he’d have that answer for them. 

No one ever asks though, which he’s thankful for. He doesn’t like to lie, and he’s not very good at it.

He doesn’t think the other heroes have even noticed that he wears flashier earrings. If they have, they didn’t find it strange enough to comment on.

~~~

Wild’s still relearning things about the culture he stumbled into when he was released from the shrine. He knows he’s pretty socially inept, and he doesn’t pick up on other people’s cues very well. Whether that was a personal quirk or an effect of his amnesia was up for debate. 

It wasn’t just reading other people’s body language he had trouble with, though. There are norms and traditions that people assume Wild knows, when he just didn’t. 

Thankfully, people in his era were more than used to merchants and other travelers who spend most of their time out in the wild and are a little rusty with social interactions. They’re also more than willing to be more flexible with such things when they learn who Wild is. 

His entire Hyrule seemed to feel a debt to him, for a reason Wild can’t explain. He had only been fixing his own mistakes when he’d walked into Hyrule castle and taken on the Calamity. He doesn’t deserve praise for finally finishing his duty a hundred years too late, even if everyone else seems to think they can never repay him. 

Regardless of why though, people were a lot more willing to overlook his social blunders, and slowly but surely, he’s been learning. 

He doesn’t love everything he’s learned so far. Some things seem just arbitrary and pointless. The pressure to conform to these norms grates under his skin.

For example, he’s pretty sure that red is considered a feminine color. The whole masculine versus feminine colors thing confuses him; he doesn’t understand how it’s decided whether colors are masculine or feminine. 

Red is a feminine color. Wild thinks it might be because Gerudos so often have red hair, and Gerudos are always women, but he doesn’t know. 

Wild likes the color red. 

He likes it more than any of the other colors, he thinks. It’s bold, like the blood that has soaked every aspect of his short life. It’s bright, like the autumn leaves the Akkala region is known for. It’s a cleaner, purified version of the sickly purple-red color of malice. 

People always tell him blue is his color, and failing that, green suited him best. Wild, reluctantly, thinks he agrees. With his pale coloring, any bolder, warmer colors he wore stood out too much. The softer blues and greens fit him better. So when someone asks him his favorite color, he says blue. He doesn't know why. 

It’s not like men aren’t allowed to like red, but admitting he likes red feels like he’s admitting to something else, and he doesn't know what.

~~~

Wild has ruby red earrings that he keeps tucked away in his slate. The jewelry protects him against the cold, warming him when he travels too high in the mountains, or stays in the desert at night. However, when the temperature is decent, they act as regular earrings with no magical properties.

He doesn’t wear them too often. He worries they’re too gaudy, that they’ll attract too much attention to his odd jewelry choices. 

But today, he wakes up and finds himself wanting to hide away from everyone. He hasn’t even opened his eyes, and he already knows it’s going to be one of those days. One of those days he would rather spend hidden away in the woods, far away from any prying eyes. The mumbled speech from around the campfire from the early risers among the heroes makes him want to turn over and hide in his bed roll.

He doesn’t want anyone's eyes on him, on his form, or his clothes. It all makes him feel so wrong. 

He forces himself to sit up anyway. The camp is still quiet. As usual, he’s one of the first up, with only Time, Twilight, and Four sitting around the fire. He has to get up and get breakfast ready. And to do that, he has to get dressed.

He selects his normal outfit- the Champion’s tunic, trousers, and a black cloak- from his slate, and it appears on his body with a quiet fwoosh and a blue glow. None of the other heroes even look at him, more than used to the noise by now. Although he wears the Champion tunic every day and usually never has a problem with it, today it hugs his form in all the wrong places. Wild swallows down a hot, uncomfortable, nameless emotion, and tugs his cloak tighter around himself. 

He needs to get up and make breakfast, but he really doesn’t want to. 

He needs… something, today. Something just for himself, that no one else will comment on.

So he swipes through his slate and pulls out the ruby earrings. The earrings are incredible works of art. Isha did a wonderful job with the gemstones Wild had brought her. She’d managed to shape the stone so they caught the morning light as Wild holds them up in the sun, but still retain their rough and somewhat natural shape. 

Wild puts them on, and smiles as the weight of them tugs on his earlobes. They’re a little heavier than his normal amber earrings, and they pull at his ears a little more than he's used to. The sensation- that little reminder that they’re there- soothes his irritation away.

Throughout the day, none of the other heroes seem to notice his wardrobe change, but Wild notices, constantly. He finds himself fiddling with the jewels throughout the day, running his fingers over the smooth facets of the gemstones. The tap-tap of his fingernails against the stones makes him smile.

Every time he sees himself in something even slightly reflective, his eyes are drawn to the beautiful red stones, hanging like drops of blood from his ears.

He’s washing dishes after supper in a river, and he sees himself. His long hair and red earrings are reflected back at him from the water, and like he has all day, he pauses and looks at himself for a moment. He can see the smile beaming from his face in the reflection. Maybe it’s vain to care so much about how he looked, but he couldn't help it.

And when he turns his head just so, and the ripples in the water are particularly strong, he can imagine that his cheekbones are a little less sharp, that his face is softer.

It’s times like this that he's glad that he doesn't have a larger frame with more muscle mass like Time or Twilight do. He’s always loved his leaner build, meant for flexibility and running instead of the solid muscle meant for overpowering strength. It would be harder to pretend, even for a moment, if he was built like that.

~~~

Wild knows he should’ve gotten rid of the vai clothes after he no longer needed to enter Gerudo town. Or at the very least, he should have tucked them away in a chest in his house, and not put them on again. 

He put the clothes on again.

Of course he did. He can’t leave well enough alone. 

He did so only once. It had been well before he was whisked away on this new journey, before he even knew about the heroes of the ancient past or of the spreading infection of black blood. 

He had wanted to put on the clothes again, but he knew he couldn’t go back to Gerudo Town. 

No matter how careful he was, Riju would eventually hear about his return, and she’d want to know why he’d returned to the town when there was no reason to do so. He didn’t want to be disrespectful of the Gerudos’ culture. If their laws said no men in Gerudo Town, that meant no men in Gerudo Town.

So when he inevitably cracked after weeks of thinking about the clothing, he didn’t go to the town. Instead, he tucked the clothing into the bottom of his bag, and took it out to the middle of the woods near Hateno, far away from any prying eyes.

But he still hasn’t been able to bring himself to put it on. What if someone saw him? He’d known the thought was irrational. There was no one out here who would possibly see him.

He wanted to put it on so badly. 

He wanted to put it on, but someone could see him. No one would be fooled for long, especially if they knew him. The clothing was made for women, but it didn’t conceal his masculine figure. It definitely didn’t conceal his scars. 

(Wild wasn't an idiot. The Gerudo guards, along with everyone else in Gerudo town, knew who he was. They knew he was a man. The only reason they had let him stay was that their Chief had given him permission to enter the town, and they’d needed his aid badly. It also helped that Wild never caused a scene or took advantage of being allowed inside the walls. He was also willing to adhere to their traditions, and wear the vai outfit. If he went back now- when he had no need to and Riju no longer had any reason to let him into the town- it likely wouldn’t turn out so well.)

So he left Hateno, leaving any sign of Hylian life behind. He ended up at the Great Plateau, his birthplace. 

No one would find him there. Most couldn’t scale the walls, and those who could, like the Rito, usually didn’t find any reason to.

It was dark by the time he’d arrived, and by the time he slipped the clothing on, nighttime had fallen completely. But it had been summer, and the night breeze had been balmy, so even with the thin fabric of the Gerudo clothing, he’d felt comfortable. 

He’d felt more than comfortable, actually. 

It had made him happy, somehow, to know that if someone looked at him, they might not have seen a man, even if just for a moment.

He had left the clothes on all night, and had simply existed. He’d hunted, he’d explored the plateau (even though he’d long since memorized it like the back of his hand,) and he’d laughed, a good deal more than he usually did. 

He’d felt light on his feet, and he had almost been dancing when he entered the Temple of Time.

And then he’d turned around to face the front of the temple, and he’d seen the stoney face of Hylia, eyes closed in perfect peaceful prayer, and everything had gone quiet.

Not that there had been music playing before, or any sound at all besides his own heartbeat, but it felt like the whole world stops breathing when he’s faced with the pinnacle of why this was wrong, wrong, so very wrong.

He wondered if Hylia had been laughing at him, or if she’d been watching him at all. He wondered if the goddess even has the ability to laugh. He felt ashamed, when he thought of her looking at him when he was dressed like that. 

Hylia had chosen him to be the hero. 

He’s the hero, and everyone knows the hero was always a man, even if they didn’t start out as one, like Hyrule and Warriors.

And men don’t wear women’s clothing. 

Wild doesn’t understand why, but they don’t. 

Did these feelings mean that Hylia chose the wrong person to wield the sacred blade? Or had she chosen correctly, and it was Wild who was just… wrong? 

He left almost immediately, using his slate to teleport away. And he hadn’t gone back to the Temple of Time for a very long time, in the vai outfit or out of it.

~~~

When Wild was invited to join this group of heroes from the past, he hadn’t hesitated to say yes. The only time he had faltered when getting ready to leave was when it came to packing his clothes. He took his regular outfit, his heat and cold resistant clothes, his climbing gear, his Sheikah stealth outfit, and any other pieces of clothing that may help him on this journey. 

He also took the vai clothing with him. He’d shoved it down to the very bottom of his bag, and when he rejoined the other heroes, he could have sworn that they would be able to tell what he carried somehow. 

No one could, of course. As many talents as the heroes of old possess, none of them had x-ray vision. 

Wild doesn’t know why he had felt compelled to tuck the silky fabrics into his pack. Sometimes he regretted bringing them with him on the journey. It’s not like he could wear them, and it put the clothing in constant danger of being discovered. But he had brought it with him, so there was no use regretting.

So now, several months into the journey, the vai clothes remain at the bottom of his pack for the most part. None of the other heroes have the habit of riffling through other people’s bags, so he doesn’t worry too much that they’ll find the clothes as long as he’s careful. 

Sometimes, late at night when he’s on watch, he puts his bag in his lap. His hand slips into the bag to feel the silken fabric brush against his fingers. Only one hand, primed and ready to casually remove it at the first sign of someone waking up.

It’s comforting for some reason, to remember how the fabric felt against his body. To remember that what he’d felt when he’d worn the clothes- that inexplicable joy, that freeness- had been real, even if he can’t experience it again. 

He doesn’t dare take the clothes out of his pack though, let alone put them on. Not even in the dead of night, not when there’s a chance that someone could wake up and see him. He doesn’t want to think of the questions that might arise from any of them seeing him dressed like that.

His late-night habit backfires on him, and bringing the clothes on the journey comes back to bite him eventually. 

Wild doesn’t see the moment that Warriors finds the veil. He’s not really one to go through someone’s bag, so Wild has to assume that he had forgotten to put the clothes back at the bottom of the bag. That part of them had been poking out of the top of his pack and Warriors eyes had caught on the blue fabric. 

Warriors doesn’t think the clothes belong to Wild, to Wild’s immense relief. Instead, he thinks it’s a gift for some girl Wild likes. It’s still not a good outcome. It’s still embarrassing. 

But at least there doesn’t seem to be any inkling in Warriors' mocking tone that he knows about Wild’s shameful secret.

The others pay dearly for their teasing with their burnt taste buds, but his revenge doesn’t make Wild feel much better. The whole situation should make him angry. Instead, it’s only stressing him out and upsetting him.

He does his best to ignore the hurt bubbling up inside of him while he’s around the other heroes. He pushes it down, replacing it with righteous anger, angry glares, and a sharp thwack on the back of Warriors’ hand when the man tries to sneak food that isn’t spiced to high heavens. 

Once the commotion around dinner has mostly calmed down, he walks off alone into the nearby woods. No one dares follow him, not while his temper is still so obviously sensitive and ready to snap. 

He keeps going until he’s far enough away from their camp. When he’s determined that no one will hear him, not even Twilight with his wolf-like hearing, he stops. Slumping down, he sits at the base of a tree. 

Slowly, WIld lets go of the anger he’s been using all evening to suppress his other emotions. Sadness and confusion and frustration well up to replace it, and tears are quick to start flowing from his eyes.

He doesn’t know… why. 

Why he’s crying, why he’s so upset about this. Warriors and Legend- and Sky and Twilight to an extent- were only teasing. And the others didn’t interfere or stop them because they had only been teasing. Usually Wild is all too happy to engage in that kind of play and banter. But this time… it hurt.

It hurt because even though they hadn’t even known Wild’s most tightly kept secret- even though they hadn’t known that the vai clothes are his, and not a gift for someone else- they still made fun of him. What would they say if they knew the full truth- if they knew he was the one who the clothes were for? 

Because men aren’t supposed to wear these kinds of clothes. And everyone knows that the hero is supposed to be a man and-

And Wild isn’t a man.

Wild growls, posture shrinking defensively against the tree as if that would help stave off the thoughts. They shake their head as they finally let themself think what they’ve known for a while. Their teeth grit in anger, and slam their hands down on the soft earth. Sharp nails dig into the loose, moist soil. It’ll be a pain to clean under their nails later but Wild doesn’t care! 

This isn’t fair! It isn't fair, Goddess damn it!

They’re not crying anymore. The tears still well up in the corners of their eyes, but they blink furiously, not letting them fall. Why did this have to be them? Why couldn’t anything be simple for them? 

This is how Hyrule finds them, an indeterminable amount of time later. Angry and seething at no one except themself for daring to feel like this. Wild doesn’t know if Hyrule had been looking for them, or if he’d just been wandering nearby and happened to hear Wild’s distress.

Hyrule’s concerned, as anyone would be if they found their friend rocking back and forth on the ground, one hand digging into the earth and the other, still muddy, gripping tightly at their hair. 

He sits next to Wild, slowly and carefully, as if trying not to startle a wild animal. There’s a moment of silence where he just looks at Wild with concern gleaming in his eyes. 

After a moment, Hyrule reaches out, giving Wild plenty of time to draw away from him. When they don’t move away, Hyrule eases their hands from their long hair. 

Wild lets themself relax slightly. They can’t bring themselves to clutch at Hyrule’s hands as punishingly as they had been gripping their hair, so they’re forced to let their muscles loosen.

Hyrule looks at them carefully, no doubt trying to find Wild’s cause for distress. When he finds no obvious injuries or ailments, he asks them what’s wrong, but Wild has no answer for him. 

If anyone would understand, Hyrule would. Or Warriors. But Wild can’t help but think of the relief that Hyrule and Warriors must have felt when they figured out they were men, when they knew that was what they were supposed to be. What the hero was supposed to be. 

Wild can’t help but think of how angry Hyrule might be, at Wild for wanting so desperately what Hyrule himself has rejected.

Any thought of telling Hyrule dies before Wild even opens their mouth. They can’t tell anyone about this. Not now. Not yet.

[moonbiscuitsims]

Juana Iris, spellcaster and gemologist (backstory)

Juana is an apprentice spellcaster and aspiring gemologist. She moved in her Grandmothers old home in Willow Creek after she sadly passed, which she's made her own. Her grandmother introduced her to crystals at a young age, as they're very common in Willow Creek, and they fascinated her, and she also told her of legends of spellcasters. In one of her old journals during her move in, she found out how to access the magical realm and couldn't believe it was all true. Unfortunately she is neither a good spellcaster yet nor a competent gemologist, as tends to find only fossils which are actually valuable and great for paying the bills or buying supplies, but to her they just look like junk. She sells them to get money to buy crystals in the realm of magic, but really feels like she should find her own to have more connection with them. She works extra hard improving her skills and studying magic, as well as spending many hours digging for crystals. She hopes to one day fill all her cabinets with beautiful cut or uncut gems and handmade jewellery, and down the line sell them or even open her own store to sell crystals and potions. Juana has no other family and gets lonely sometimes but she wants to get a cat familiar soon to keep her company once she can stabilise her career. She travels to the magical realm quite often, to spend time at the academy meeting other spellcasters. Her mentor is Simeon but aside from granting her access to magic he doesn't teach her much. She is quite moody and tends to get a bit depressed, especially during the day, she likes sleeping a lot during the light hours, as she's a night owl. She only goes out during the day to collect gems with better light for a few hours, which makes her quite uncomfortable, her skin is very delicate to the sun and it makes her feel moodier. That's something she loves about the magical realm, it isn't too bright even during the day. She'd like to find a cave nearby where she can mine for crystals in a darker cooler setting. She also talks to all her plants, mainly her mushrooms every morning before bed and every evening when she wakes. Her garden is haunted by little spirits which scared her at first, one of the reasons she wasn't sure about living here, but she is getting used to them. Other hobbies of hers include looking through her telescope, watching horror movies and making japanese food.

[kaiowut99]

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters GX Episodes 120-121 Subbed (Finalized)

(Previously: Episodes 117-119 Subbed [Finalized])

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

TURN-120: A Battle in a Different World! The Gem Beasts VS Harpie Lady

Upon opening his eyes after his life-or-death bout with Cobra, Judai finds himself in... a desert--a desert in which only the Duel Academia school building stands, making this an odd situation. Well-versed in geology, Jim posits that the Duel Academia has been flung into a different world, the strange circumstances causing disorder among the Duel Academia's students. Things turn for the worse as the Monsters made real in this world come to attack. Johan confronts the Harpie Lady invasion, but...

TURN-121: Survival in the Desert! Johan VS the Antlion

Something has caused Rei to sustain a serious injury. To acquire medicine to treat Rei, Judai and co. head for a submarine that Misawa saw, having to traverse the desert in order to get to where the submarine is. A materialized Titan appears before Judai and the others there, obstructing their way. A battle begins between Titan and Johan, and as Titan materializes his Sand Doodlebug to attack him, Johan responds with his Gem Beasts. However, with Titan summoning a Monster that is at its best in the Desert, Johan is gradually cornered.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Does anyone else have sand in their everywhere

Slight delay aside, episodes 120 and 121 are now up and finalized! With Cobra out of the picture, we shift into a bit of a transition arc as we get more setup for the second half of Season 3, with a little dimension-hopping as our crew gets warped to a Desert world (featuring three suns like the Gravekeepers' world) and come face-to-face with materialized Monsters. I do appreciate how this shakes things up and gives us a setting that's away from the Academia island, and also getting the glorious [yet random] return of Misawa, 5-o'clock shadow and all; 120 effectively serves as setup for how this new world works, as well as finally getting Samejima back [as Chronos notes, he never is around for times like these] with Pegasus coming to join him, and the glowing boy getting his hand on Martin, with 121 showing us more, and also a hint at who might be behind the arm ("This pain... is your love, isn't it?"). Also, materialized Winged Kuriboh is precious.

Animation error-wise, there actually wasn't too much overall! (Which is nice since I can keep it all to one post, lol.) Though that would happen since these don't have too much going on all told. 120 gets two small fixes with the Ojamas-in-bed scene and Sapphire Pegasus's second ATK/DEF counter, while 121 gets a handful of mostly quality-of-watching ones, with one card fix and a couple of on-screen translation edits. Details under the cut below for the interested!

Quick housekeeping: I re-finalized episode 46 after an "I activate an Quick-Play" typo was brought to my attention (a holdover from my "Instant Magic" days--thanks to Lyeat Akiyama over on NAC for the heads-up [pls let me know if you find typos while watching!]), as well as 119 after missing an update to the Program Marketing credit in the ED (Kenrou Utsumi taking over from Machiko Ishii as of 119). The 119 link in 117-119's release post now links to the re-uploaded version, as does 46's in its post; I've updated both links in the Masterpost and will be posting the re-finalized hardsub/script/MKV for 46 and hardsub for 119 on NAC soon as I post these.

Anywho, enjoy! With these done, I'll be getting into the ZEXAL stretch of TFSP for a bit as I revise what I'd already worked on for Yuma's story and then start on the next one, as well as getting my ARC-V "Dub-Uncut" edit for episode 1 finally off my backburner (subsequent episodes shouldn't take that long lol--though it's funny, I wasn't going to sub ARC-V since Crunchyroll's done so, but in revising their subs to use with my DU releases [since I want to release dual-audio versions], I still revised quite a bit like it'd be my own take anyway lol, so I guess I am in some way 🙃). After that, it'll be onto GX 122-123 as we get into the Invasion of the Body-Snatchers Duel Zombies stretch of this arc--stay tuned!

Fixes & Edits! (120)

As Manjoume gets up from his Infirmary bed, he pushes the bed sheets down to the foot of the bed, revealing the Ojamas--now materialized--under them. But as the sheets pass over them, there's a quick frame of sheet movement (lasting for three frames) where the sheets are drawn over Ojama Yellow's eyes (partially over his left eye and fully over his right). A quick fix in Sony Vegas by masking Ojama Yellow's eyes from the prior frame on top of the sheets.

As a persistent Harpie Lady comes back for an attack, Johan re-summons Sapphire Pegasus to take her on--but for a quick frame just before his ATK/DEF counter disappears, we can see it start decreasing. A quick fix in Vegas as I masked in the counter from the frame just before to hold it in place (couldn't just hold the frame prior as a whole as the scene started to fade into showing Johan and co. on this last counter frame).

Fixes & Edits! (121)

As Titan asks Johan if he will be his opponent, their split-screen levels up as it becomes a split-screen of their Disks activating, but the split with Titan's starts sliding in a frame before Johan's, causing both to be uneven as they slide in. Fixed in Vegas by masking in Titan's Disk split to start its slide-in with Johan's Disk split.

After the eyecatch, Johan bemoans how his Gem Beasts are at a huge disadvantage on the Desert field effectively in play, before Titan slides in on a split-screen to gloat about how there's nowhere to escape in this world of endless sand--but Johan starts moving for his slide-in a frame early; fixed in Vegas by editing Titan's slide-in for 3-4 frames to time it with Johan's moving. Then, as their split-screen splits to show Cobalt Eagle being summoned by Johan, Johan's split takes a frame longer than Titan's to slide offscreen; fixed in Vegas by just replacing this frame with the following no-split one.

For the hardsub: as Amon sneaks around in the Garam submarine, he finds his bio information on a computer, which he goes on to delete; I set up this edit back when handling his bio in 111 to get it out of the way, applying my translation of his bio to this screen using the CC Power Pin effect in AfterEffects, masking in the edges for blending. (And, of course, edited a dub version for reasons.)

Later, to deal with the Devil Scorpion onslaught, Judai summons Clayman in Defense Mode to hold them off, but the card's reversed as he plays it on his Disk, with its name box facing to the right. Fixed using AfterEffects to apply a correctly facing proxy, masking Judai's fingers onto it and using some motion tracking during the initial rapid blurry zoom-out, while also masking the original card border around it for blending; I then used Vegas to re-zoom the post-rapid-zoom-out fix into the remaining bit of the shot to keep the card consistently edited (since the motion tracking didn't come out perfectly for that part).

After 8-Claws Scorpion's able to take out a face-down Clayman, Johan summons Amethyst Cat and Topaz Tiger to corner and deal with all the Scorpions, but for a quick frame after they're summoned, as they start to split apart from their split-screen, Amethyst's isn't given a border (it gets a border in the frame after). Fixed in Vegas by applying a quick border to her split, masking in part of the following shot of Johan behind the two splits.

For the hardsub: in the preview for 122, as we see Manjoume hanging out in the Food Storage facility, there are posters with Mrs. Tome behind him, saying "Our Food's Important" and "No Stealin' Allowed 🧡"; wanting to translate these in 122 proper--madman that I am as there are about 22-23 total shots I'll be editing--I worked on translating these there first. I worked off the best front-facing shots of them that there were in the episode and made a full translated copy of each poster, repainting Tome as needed to cover up the Japanese text (annoyingly, I couldn't get the border on the heart to blur nicely but oh well), which I then used AfterEffects to Power Pin into place, masking in only the bits with the translated text. Then, for this shot, I used some motion tracking to track the panning across the shot, and then applied that tracked motion to the edit.

Also for the hardsub, the subsequent shot after #6 shows Manjoume with the Ojamas fading in to join him, with the poster on the right behind him; I applied my translation for that poster there, masking in the top tip of Manjoume's hair over the edit as needed.

Also also for the hardsub: during the "Just After This!" preview clip before the best card segment, we see Manjoume prepping his Disk in front of that second poster; I applied my edit to this scene, as well, masking in Manjoume's hair over it, but I also had to take some of the frames and touch them up in Photoshop, since the color of the original text was bleeding into his hair. The poster on the left also appears in the shot as Manjoume plays Tribute to the Dead/Doomed; I applied my edit there as well, masking Manjoume's shoulder over it and dimming it as the shot dims while the light from the card radiates out.

[kookaburra1701]

WIP Wheneversday - Nostos

tagged by @dirty-bosmer @mareenavee @paraparadigm @gilgamish and @changelingsandothernonsense

I am tagging @greyborn2 and @thana-topsy mainly because I've been screaming in Discord about my new OC so they get tags too. Also Khemor would likely have never existed in his final form without the absolutely inspiring works by @greyborn2 featuring Kesh gra-Bruma.

I just want everyone to know, this is all @mareenavee's fault. An "innocent" question about what Borgakh's ideal future would look like after Aristeia is done and suddenly 48 hours later I'm writing a sequel when I haven't even finished the second chapter???? I am a clown. This is me putting on my big red shoes and big red nose and honking a silly horn and squirting a flower all over my massive WIP pile.

Fandom: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Rating: T (blood and violence, mushy stuff [kissin' not viscera])

Category: M/F

Genre(s): Romance

Main characters: Borgakh the Steel Heart, Khemor gro-Skaven (Male orc LDB)

Summary: Khemor gro-Skaven, Thane of Eastmarch and The Pale, Last Dragonborn, Vanquisher of Alduin, Confidant of the High King of Skyrim, and disgraced former Magus of the College of Whispers thought that after he defeated Alduin, he would not have to worry about anything more dangerous than a papercut for the rest of his life. When Jarl of the Pale asks him to investigate the destruction of the Hall of the Vigilants, it sets off a chain of events that ultimately leads him to wash up at the feet of the woman of his dreams. But what can a crippled conjuration mage-scholar half again her age possibly offer to a future Shield-Wife?

The pain was blinding. Khemor's knees buckled, and Borgakh made a noise of fear and started forward as if to catch him but Serana was faster, her shoulder under his arm, one knee bracing his leg.

"No, keep your hands on it!" Khemor hissed through gritted teeth. Borgakh's hands tightened over his, pressing them into the soul gem.

Magicka burned its way down his arms, dammed behind his palms, searching for a way into the rough, uncut gem.

There it is! All soul gems had a natural entry point, almost always obliterated in the process of faceting them. But if you had a natural, uncut gem, and the talent and patience to find the entry point, the soul would flow into it effortlessly, like a river finding the sea.

The pain faded as the flow of magicka -- the flow of his soul-- was released into the stone. It left behind an acute weariness, and despite Serana's support Khemor sank to his knees. Borgakh still clasped his hands around the soul gem, and he looked up into her eyes.

The naked fear they held was so alien to him in the context of her features that he almost reached out automatically to touch her face, to reassure her. But she was not concerned with herself, she was fearful for him. And there was no reassurance he could give that he would be alright.

"Khemor, that's enough," Serana's voice cut through the spell Borgakh's eyes had held him in. He cut off the flow of magicka into the stone. A chill had settled in his chest, as if cold hands were gripping his heart. But as he withdrew from the stone, leaving it cradled in Borgakh's hands, the sharpness of the cold diminished, as if he was huddled next to a small fire in a snowstorm.

"Oh!" she said in surprise. "It's...warm. It's like a heartbeat."

Khemor reached up, and covered her hands with his own, he looked into her face beseechingly. "You hold my heart and soul in your hands, Borgakh the Steel-Heart. Please," his voice dropped into a husky whisper. "Please don't let them break." He pushed the stone against her chest. "Keep them safe."

The kindness and determination in her face as she nodded sent another bloom of fleeting warmth that forced the chill farther away from his heart.

The hardness of the flagstones against his shins brought Khemor back to himself, and the fact that he was on his knees, gripping Borgakh's hands, staring into her eyes and begging her to take care of his heart. He forced himself to release her, and accepted Serana's assistance to rise shakily to his feet.

Leaning on his staff, Khemor faced the swirling, violet abyss that yawned below them, the steps leading into it like a narrow tongue inviting him into the maw of Oblivion. He could not meet Borgakh's eyes, but as she carefully opened her gambeson and placed the now-glowing soul gem into an inner pocket, next to her heart, a peace settled over him. No matter what awaited him on the other side of the portal, his soul was with Borgakh.

As he placed his foot upon the threshold of the steps, a hand gripped his arm. Khemor didn't turn, but reached up to cover it with his own.

"Return safely to me, Khemor gro-Skaven."

Khemor said nothing, but took Borgakh's hand in his and with a final squeeze shared between them, let her fingers slip from his as he descended the stairs into the realm of the Ideal Masters.

[ratsoh-writes]

Alright!!

Like I said I get ma and pa the same thing each year. A soft blanket for ma and some homemade sweets for pa. Now for everyone else!

Pitch- I got him a history of soap making book with a kit to go with it. Plus a soap I made myself, honey lavender scented. And some herseys kisses

Ram- I don’t know him that well but I wanted to get him something nice for the holidays. So I also got him a blanket

Lord- he received a 101 different vegan recipe book with sticky notes in it of dishes I’ve made in the past and what I added to them to make them better along with some homemade gloves in his color an some herseys kisses. Figured he’d appreciate them.

Mutt- he gets another blanket with a raccoon on the front.

Mal- I was able to get a favor from a friend who works in the mines and managed to get some uncut gems and stones for him.

Wine- he received a painting that, if you look at it from far away. Looks like the nessy photo.

-🐝

They all loved it!!

Lord and pitch had gotten you presents too!

Lord had gotten you the cutest cookie jar shaped as a beehive!! And a book from “that series” signed by the author ;)

And pitch had gotten you some hand whittled wooden bracelets. You think he made them himself, a few have string woven on them as well for color

[seerofmike]

mike's media medley--March 2024

yo whats up. so at the end of the year i do a top 7 ranking of my fave movies released that year and a top 7 ranking of video games i played that year (regardless of release date) which is VERY fun and im still gonna do it but!

there are a lot of things that i like that don't make the cut that i would like to talk about...and things that i did not like that i would also like to talk about. so i will be doing a post every month about *all* the movies i watched for the first time, including older movies and new releases, same for games i played for the first time. and occasionally a book if i can manage it. it is taking me one billion years to read The Plague

here are some things i watched and played for the very first time this march:

(thoughts below the cut. minor spoilers)

starting off in alphabetical order with:

Good Time (2017)

i watched Uncut Gems a couple of years ago and I actually didn't remember the directors' name(s) for that movie, so when I watched Good Time i was like damn that made me feel like Uncut Gems. im gonna check out more of these guys' movies. lo and behold

i think overall Uncut Gems made me feel more stressed, but Good Time made me feel more bad for basically everyone involved but Robert Pattinson's character and watching this dude just make awful decisions and treat other people like shit was like. so nasty feeling. i would like to watch more.

i liked the directing of this movie but i liked Uncut Gems's better. not to keep comparing the two but theyre made by the same people with the same like. goals of being a fucking Stress Simulator. i did love robert pattinson's performance which i won't compare to adam sandler's in Uncut Gems because even though they're both the driving forces of their movies they're both pretty different characters and even if i thought pattinson's character was slimy and just like a shite fucking person i think he did a good enough job expressing the desperation of getting the hell outta there with his brother. the emotional hook was There but i wish it was explored slightly more so i could be a bit more invested in seeing how he makes everything worse.

overall decent. i did like it. would maaaaaybe watch again but not like regularly. 70/100. also if you think 70 is a low score it is Not. it is a good score. just putting that out there before someone takes 70/100 to mean i think something is bad (<- damage control for a later score)

next:

Late Night with the Devil (2024)

this movie has like 10 FUCKING COMPANIES CREDITED AT THE BEGINNING when i saw it in theaters by the time it got to like the 7th one everyone in my theater was exasperatedly saying 'oh my god'

but once the movie gets started. oh hell fucking yeah

i didn't watch any trailers for this or love lies bleeding (i dont rly watch trailers in gen tbh) so idk if the trailer conveyed that this would be set up as like...a lost TV episode, complete with bumpers and brief sponsor mentions, 'behind the scenes footage' etc, but regardless i did not know that going in and you can imagine my utter fucking delight when the movie started playing and after a minute or two i realized the gimmick

i REALLY liked this movie. i thought it was appropriately cheesy for a talkshow hosted in the 70s and i liked some of the subtle moments you really only catch on rewatch (which i did rewatch it w/ my mom), like how the doctor says abraxas thrives on the attention of an audience and the whole time lily is trying to stare directly into the cameras smiling.

the ending is really fucking cool and the mystery unraveling through the supernatural occurrences was compelling. i thought most of the actors did a pretty good job. im not really a fan of demon possession stuff for very personal reasons but i stuck it out for the concept which i really did enjoy.

that being said i found out shortly after i watched this movie that they used AI art for some of the bumpers and i was legitimately so disappointed. there was clearly a talented production team working on this thing to ensure the 70s night talkshow vibe was maintained and they couldn't get one of them to do bumpers, or hire an artist?

it really sucks. i dont want to rag too harshly on smaller indie filmmakers for doing this when big players in every industry are forcibly trying to incorporate AI into their stuff so i won't be review bombing the movie like ive seen some do in response--which i *get*, and i hope the team takes that as a sign to just hire a fucking artist next time--but it did kind of sour the movie for me despite how much i enjoyed it.

so im docking 5 points for the AI art and im also docking 5 points for the 10 companies credited in the beginning because that just makes the AI art feel more egregious to me.

75/100. maybe if they release the movie on shudder with the AI art removed they'll get their 5 points back

next:

Love Lies Bleeding (2024)

everybody in this movie is so fucking sweaty and grimy and everything looks kind of dirty and like it smells like sweat and deodorant and tbh i kind of dig it. especially when next to the cleaner 'aesthetic' version of the 70s presented in Late Night with the Devil

but man this movie was really good. i dont want to spoil it too much but PLEASE go watch it. its decently horny so if you dont like that sort of thing Sawi but if you can look past that its so fucking weird and like strangely funny when it shouldnt be (but is definitely trying to be, so its not like unintentional humor, maybe more like morbid humor?) and theres horror and fantastical elements that you simply arent expecting and my theater screamed at the ending. please go watch it. truly the epitome of i support womens rights AND womens wrongs. honestly i could go on about this movie but i will not right now because you WILL go watch it in theaters NEOW

85/100

next:

Spirited Away (2001)

okay im gonna be really blunt and rip the bandaid off with this one. i just thought it was Fine

like obviously the animation is stellar but that was about it for me. maybe i listened to this movie get hyped as one of the best animated films ever and set my expectations absurdly high but i watched it and i enjoyed it but i wasn't like...blown away or struck with Whimsy And Wonder or overcome with emotion.

i do think some of the characters were charming and it was entertaining and i dont want it to sound like i didnt like the movie but i guess i just felt underwhelmed? i might rewatch it another time with my expectations readjusted and see if i enjoy it more but when i watched it and the credits rolled i just went 'oh okay. was that it?'

anyways 70/100

viddy game time

(the) gnorp apologue--

she gnorp on my rock until i shard

funny clicky idle game . it is NOT an idle game where you can just buy all the upgrades and 'win', theres some strategy involved, but its honestly a really funny game. theres breaking bad references in there. in fact there are all kinds of references in there. you should go play it for the low low price of just over 5 dollars

minami lane--

so i will say first i am not like an avid player of 'cozy' games and find a lot of them pretty boring but i did really enjoy this one. it's a short city builder game with a really cute art-style. it has a sandbox mode (which i havent played) but it also has about five challenges to complete with multiple objectives and i had a good time trying to 100% them all. i would love if they added more challenges but tbh! it's not a bad way to spend about 3-4 hours of your time. im sure if you play sandbox mode you'd get even more but honestly i was satisfied with doing the challenges. it's just under 5 bucks there are definitely worse ways to spend your money.

if you've read this whole thing i love u. feel free to use this post as an opportunity to recommend me movies, tv shows, and games you think i should check out.

[padraigshomebrewworkshop]

D&D Ramblings: Dragons Part 1 (Chromatic)

Hello, It's been a little bit so I thought I would do something a little different. This was mostly brought on by Pointy Hats recently started dragon series over on their YouTube channel. Specifically with how he is dissatisfied with the typical Metallic/Chromatic/Gem split and how it doesn't offer much story potential beyond a big boss fight sort of encounter.

I have to admit, I am dissatisfied with these categories, mostly because they are very flat in motivation and theme. Until very recently, it was assumed that all chromatic dragons were evil because they were evil and metallic dragons were good because they were good. And even after this was slightly mitigated with recent books like Fizban's, they are still very flat in their motivations. As for gem dragons... I don't have much of an opinion, and that might be a problem in of itself. Beyond their aesthetic and unique elemental breaths, they have very little that sticks them together and in the mind.

Now, why make this post? Well, I have my own thoughts on how these three groups could be changed to make them more interesting, at least for me. These changes may not work for you, and that's fine. These are just my thoughts on them. Now then....

To start...

Lets discard of the Evil/Neutral/Good split. Yes, like quite a few others, I hold umbrage with using alignments. Specifically, I dislike it when an entire group is evil or good just because they are, with no real reason or explanation beyond some metaphysical something or whatever. Now, what do I propose instead? Well, I believe using a different sort of trinity of ideals would work better, specifically using Past/Present/Future as a base for them. Let me go into detail for each.

Chromatic as "The Past":

So, for the past I chose chromatic dragons. To start, aesthetic wise they have the closest connection to the primal elements (as far as D&D is concerned), that being acid/poison/fire/cold/lightning. They also look the most natural out of the three groups, having scales that are merely different colors instead of being made of metal or gemstones. Now, what kind of ideology can we give them that aligns with the past?

To start, lets look at the typical story dragons as a whole are given in various settings. More often then not, dragons are described as one of the first powerful creatures to come into existence. As such, they dominated those below them, often forming an empire with dragons at the top. Also, more often then not, this empire comes to ruin in one way or another. This gives us a good first step. Perhaps a majority of chromatic dragons yearn for a return to the previous majesty of dragons, when they were undisputed rulers of the world. However, let's add on some more. Perhaps this version of chromatic dragons have an exceptionally close connection to the natural world, or at least its "Primal State". They have a distaste for those who try to change the natural world, which they see perfect as is. As such, they have a distaste for most humanoids and their cities. This also extends to their horde and lair, preferring naturally formed structures such as cave networks and natural treasures such as uncut gemstones and unrefined ore. If this version of chromatic dragon has a patron deity, it would be a god of nature and the primal state of the world, perhaps acting more like a fickle force of nature then like any known humanoid deity.

Story Potential

With this new ideology, lets see what stories can be made using this version of chromatic dragon. Obviously, we can have the typical big boss fight, but the fact they now have more potential as NPCs can be quite obvious. Perhaps a green dragon is acting as a leader to a druid grove, granting them greater connection to the forest they call home with the dragons inherent connection to it. Perhaps a red dragon is apposing a large scale dwarven mining operation near its home, not out of greed, but due to it seeing such an operation as a plundering of the natural world. Perhaps a black dragon kills any who come into its swamp, trying to protect the endangered plants and animals that reside there. As for a yearning for their ancient majesty, this can be tackled in different ways as well. Perhaps a dragon watches over a tribe of humanoids with a condescending, almost parental attitude, seeing itself as guiding hand for these "weak and childish" creatures. Or maybe a group of dragons try to perform a ritual that will turn back time to when dragons ruled over all, hoping to change the path of history so that their empire never collapsed. I honestly believe that this is a far more interesting version of chromatic dragons. One that grants greater story potential and far more interesting NPC dragons.

[shutupholden]

What’s On My Shelf #3: Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

This week, we’re stepping into the Criterion Closet!

Actually, it’s just a little shelf in the corner of my room dedicated to my relatively modest collection of Criterion films. I say “relatively modest” because I might have close to 100 films in my Criterion collection (counting individual films included in box sets), but there are people like this guy who own every film Criterion has released on Blu-ray, DVD, and Laserdisc. I can’t commit to anything that hard. Nor can I afford to.

It was 2021 when I discovered the Criterion Collection, and in just the first few months of collecting I spent more money than I’d like to admit here. I am happy to report, though, that these purchases are far less frequent than they used to be and usually only occur during sales. That being said, yes: one of those purchases did occur a few days ago.

Now then! Enough about my poor spending habits. Let’s just get to the film in the title.

Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love.

One of the films I purchased during those first few months of collecting was Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love, a quirky romantic comedy-drama starring Adam Sandler. In a huge departure from the typical low-brow comedy films that made him a movie star, Sandler plays Barry Egan, a lonely and socially anxious entrepreneur who’s having one hell of a week.

He’s got seven sisters who torment him all the time, so he’s prone to fits of rage. He calls a phone sex line to chat about his feelings and ends up being extorted for cash by the operator and her boss (Philip Seymour Hoffman). He discovers a loophole in a promotion for Healthy Choice that could earn him a million frequent-flyer miles, and all he’s gotta do is buy ton of pudding. Oh yeah, and he meets and falls in love with his sister’s co-worker, but what’s really important is the PUDDING!

Emily Watson and Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love.

I remember watching this for the first time on Netflix late one night when I didn’t really feel like going to sleep, and I was so entranced by it. I don’t watch a ton of romance films, but for whatever reason this one really affected me. The story is as funny and sweet as it is intense and stressful. Robert Elswit’s cinematography is gorgeous, Jon Brion’s score has some of my favorite musical moments of any film I’ve ever seen, and Philip Seymour Hoffman continues to prove that even in a small supporting role, he was one of the greatest to ever do it.

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love.

I think what resonated with me most of all the first time I watched this film was Adam Sandler’s performance. As someone who’s socially anxious and kind of a loner, I think I saw a bit of myself in Barry Egan. I know what it’s like to not like myself sometimes, to lash out, to avoid situations that might actually bring me some significant personal growth because it’s easier to just close yourself off than to face potential embarrassment, rejection, etc. It’s my favorite Adam Sandler performance, and it’s undoubtedly one of the finest of his career.

Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems.

The last time I watched Punch-Drunk Love, I made it a double feature with Uncut Gems. There’s an episode of the A24 Podcast that I love to go back and listen to because it features a fascinating conversation between Paul Thomas Anderson and the Safdie brothers about what it was like working with Adam Sandler on their respective films, and I was like, “Damn, that’d actually be an insane double feature.” And it was.

Remember those things I said earlier about Punch-Drunk Love being funny and sweet but also intense and stressful? Uncut Gems is kind of the same, only the Safdies remove the funny, remove the sweet, and pile on several more heaping shitloads of stress. Watching these films back to back gave me whiplash, not only because of those differences, but because the transition from underdog Barry Egan to sleazy Howard Ratner was incredibly jarring. Usually if you watch two Adam Sandler movies back to back, Sandler’s just playing Sandler in both of them, but that is not the case here. Not the case at all.

So yeah, I’m just gonna say it: the guy who made Jack and Jill has range.

Emily Watson and Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love.

If I haven’t made it obvious, Punch-Drunk Love is one of my favorites. I cannot recommend it enough. If you’re a fan of the Sandman, check it out ASAP.

[reasoningdaily]

On the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's death at the age of 96, before the news was made public, the Twitter account @Africa_Archives tweeted, "Queen Elizabeth II owns the largest clear-cut diamond in the world known as the Great Star of Africa. The 530-carat gem was mined in South Africa back in 1905. It was stolen from South Africa. It has an estimated worth of $400 million."

In this story we'll take a look at all of the facts regarding the history of the diamond, including its discovery, purchase, transfer, and controversy.

The Cullinan Diamond

On Jan. 26, 1905, a 3,106-carat diamond was discovered in the Premier Mine in the Transvaal province of South Africa. It was given the name Cullinan after the mine's chairman, Thomas Cullinan. Cullinan was born in South Africa, according to author Nigel Helme's 1974 biography of the diamond magnate.

According to Brittanica.com, the original, uncut Cullinan diamond was then "purchased by the [local] Transvaal government and was presented [in 1907] to the reigning British monarch, King Edward VII." The 1907 purchase was made for 150,000 pounds, Cullinan-Diamond.com reported. (In Helme's biography of Cullinan, he wrote that the original, uncut diamond was sent to London in April 1905 and was "officially presented to King Edward VII" on Nov. 9, 1907.)

In 1908, Asscher's of Amsterdam cut and polished the diamond into nine large stones and about 100 smaller ones. All of the stones are now part of British regalia, according to Brittanica.com.

Great Star of Africa

The Great Star of Africa was the largest stone cut from the Cullinan diamond. At 530.2 carats, it is the largest clear-cut diamond in the world. According to historical records, it is also known as Cullinan I, First Star of Africa, or simply just Star of Africa. It's unclear when each of these names originated.

It's true that the queen owned the Great Star of Africa. The diamond, part of the British crown jewels, is currently part of the Sovereign’s Sceptre, also sometimes referred to as the Imperial Sceptre or Royal Sceptre.

This photograph showing the Great Star of Africa in the sceptre and other crown jewels was captured around the coronation of Elizabeth II in June 1953. (Courtesy: Bettmann / Contributor / Getty Images)

The 317.4-carat Lesser Star of Africa, also known as Cullinan II, also was cut from the Cullinan diamond and is part of the British-owned Imperial State Crown.

A Google search produced varying estimates for the value of the Great Star of Africa such as $400 million and $2 billion. Its approximate worth is unclear. However, yes, the largest diamond of its kind in the world is worth a lot of money, to say the least.

Was the Diamond 'Stolen'?

As for the accusation that the Great Star of Africa was "stolen," this rumor needs some context. As previously mentioned, historical records indicated that the Transvaal government in South Africa purchased the original diamond and then presented it to the British monarchy. An article printed in 1995 by The Birmingham Post summarized the controversy and included a statement from Buckingham Palace:

Give back Great Star of Africa, say townships Black township leaders in South Africa yesterday called on the queen to give back the priceless "Great Star of Africa" diamond which is set in the crown jewels' Royal Sceptre. The Azanian People's Organisation (Azapo) claims the diamond was "stolen from the treasures of the Azanian (African) soil." Azapo spokesman Zithulele Nxawe said: "She (the queen) must be reminded that the diamond belongs to the Black people of this country, and to them alone." The "Great Star of Africa" was bought by the Transvaal Republic from the Premier Mine and presented to King Edward VII as a gift in 1907, said a Buckingham Palace spokeswoman.

It's true that the jewels originated in African soil, just as the organization had claimed. Whether or not all of the details surrounding the purported purchase and transfer of the jewels constituted a theft would appear to be a matter of opinion.

The Legend of the Jewels' Delivery

How did the jewels safely make the voyage from South Africa all the way to Europe? According to The Associated Press, there's a legend that it was supposedly simply just sent in the mail:

One piece, the royal scepter, contains the 516-carat Star of Africa, cut from the 3,106-carat Cullinan, the biggest diamond ever found. Legend has it that mine chairman Thomas Cullinan sent it to King Edward VII from South Africa in the early 1900s by parcel post. "I know the Royal Mail was very reliable in those days," said Shirley Bury, who helped catalog the jewels, "but I have my doubts about that."

In sum, it's true that the queen owned the diamond known as the Great Star of Africa. As for the controversy over whether or not it was "stolen" from South Africa, as we mentioned, that matter is perhaps a bit more complicated. This story will be updated with any further data or developments that may help inform readers about the subject.

[fmhiphop]

Book of Clarence Starring LaKeith Stanfield Headed To The Big Screen

Everyone loves a good movie, especially an original one. A new and unique cinematic experience, "Book of Clarence," featuring LaKeith Stanfield, will soon grace theaters near you. Here's everything you need to know about this exciting film. On LaKeith Stanfield LaKeith Stanfield has undeniably emerged as a standout figure in Hollywood, earning his reputation as a must-watch talent. Many first recognized Stanfield through his breakout performances in the series "Atlanta," where he collaborated with Childish Gambino. But he's also left an indelible mark in various film projects, from "Straight Outta Compton," "The Purge," "Selma," "Dope," "Get Out," "Death Note," "Sorry to Bother You," "Uncut Gems," "Knives Out," "Judas and the Black Messiah," "The Harder They Fall," to the 2023 feature film "Haunted Mansion." One look at his extensive filmography makes it impossible to ignore his remarkable talent. No matter what character shoes he fills, big or small, he stretches them to his size. Without a doubt, he slays every role. Now, fans of LaKeith have another reason to celebrate as he steps into the role of Clarence in the upcoming film "The Book of Clarence." Book of Clarence This is a film that may be different from what everyone expects. "The Book of Clarence" is a piece with a biblical slant. The story transports viewers to 33 AD and introduces them to Clarence, a character driven by ambitions intertwined with faith and personal gain. As Blexmedia notes, “The Book of Clarence centers around its title character (Stanfield), a man inspired to become the next Messiah for personal gain. But his journey turns out to be a bigger exploration of faith and loyalty than he could have imagined.” Fundamentally, Clarence sets his sights on joining the apostles, driven by his fascination with their status and position. Audiences will accompany Clarence on his quest, witnessing how he attempts to fulfill his vision while encountering significant lessons. Despite initially harboring doubt about the Messiah, Clarence is compelled to search for and discover his faith as the story unfolds. This narrative promises to offer a thought-provoking and spiritually resonant experience for viewers. Who's Behind the Book of Clarence While Stanfield's name is enough to earn the investment of many moviegoers, there is so much more to be excited about. "The Book of Clarence" reunites some of the creative team behind the successful feature "The Harder They Fall." Jeymes Samuel, who directed "The Harder They Fall," will be at the helm of "The Book of Clarence," ensuring a consistent and compelling directorial vision. Additionally, Jay Z, who produced "The Harder They Fall," is set to return as a producer for this project, adding further anticipation to the film. Fans of Stanfield will also be delighted to hear that RJ Cyler, a co-star from "The Harder They Fall," is also part of the cast. This reunion of talent from a well-received film like "The Harder They Fall" suggests that "The Book of Clarence" will be a movie undeniably rich and one viewers will not want to miss. Other Amazing Cast Members The film also boasts a superb supporting cast, some of the best in the industry. Of those mentioned is Teyana Taylor, who made a splash in "A Thousand and One" and "Coming to America 2." David Oyelowo, as seen in "Selma "and "The Waterman," will add his talents. Alfre Woodard, known for projects "The Porter" and "Twelve Years a Slave," will join the ensemble. Benedict Cumberbatch, the title character in "Dr. Strange" and "The Hobbit," will also be aboard. Omar Sy from "Jurassic World and Transformers" will bring his acting chops. James McAvoy, who appears in "Split" and "Transformers," will also participate. And Micheal Ward from "Empire of Light" and "Top Boy." And this is only the tip of the iceberg. Theatrical Release Date There is no way to explain how intriguing this feature is shaping up to be. However, the wait will be slightly longer as "The Book of Clarence" is expected to be released in the new year. So, if this is enough to entice the appetite, mark your calendars for January 12, 2024. Written By: Renae Richardson Read the full article

[guyfieriii]

You can feel the re-echo of it through the worn herringbone floorboards, bleached in some parts by the repeated spills of ethanol, and the scuff of countless soles dragging across the wood.

Only you can make a dingy pub floor seem appealing, Lev. Only you.

No lives were lost, but he carries the near-misses in the deep canyon between his brows and drapes each failure over his shoulder as if he was Atlas, cursed to carry it all. 

Jesus CHRIST, the prose. Also PRICE TO A FUCKING T.

It's an aching sense of want that is so palpable you can feel the weight of his greed on your skin like a physical touch, like the steady hand he keeps notched into the space of your back, leading you steadily through the pandemonium of the battleground that is downtown Liverpool, or a crowded bar filled with rowdy adults. 

Want this whole things tattooed on me somehow.

Two days in the scorching desert. And he still called. 

THIS. MADE. ME. ACHE.

(You've always loved uncut gems.)

Always the bloody parentheses that gets me.

"If that's what you want—a clumsy fuck next in an alley with a man who doesn't know how to really please you, then by all means, love. Go for it." 

Fucking Christ, John. Jealous Price has no business being this appealing. Or is it only my questionable taste?

Peppering a litany of devotion across bristly lips that feel more comfortable spitting vitriol than sweet nothings. 

POETRY!!!!!

Atlas carrying the world, and you. 

GOD I LOVE THIS LINE SO SO SO MUCH.

Gloriously written, Lev. An absolute treat to read. I’m such a sucker for stifling sexual tension and yearning and this really hit the spot.

BARKING DOG | Jealousy + Price x GN!Reader

Jealousy comes easy for Price, but it's rare he ever acts on it.

Until, of course, he does.

》 WORD COUNT: 4,9k 》 WARNINGS: None (don't look at me, i'm just as surprised as you are). 》 TAGS: Fluff. Angst. Coarse language. 》 NOTES: I've gotten a few asks (read: two) about my take on Jealous!Price, so this is that. —Jealousy would be rare in an established relationship. He sees jealousy as distrust, and since trust itself is the foremost foundation he'd want before even pursuing a relationship, it would be extremely out of character for him to give into it. —That being said, before you get together? When feelings are not yet Actualised? Ooof. 

The heavy bass pulses through the unusually packed pub. The rhythm of it seems to reverberate through your body, harsh enough to rattle your bones like a second heartbeat in your marrow. 

You can feel the re-echo of it through the worn herringbone floorboards, bleached in some parts by the repeated spills of ethanol, and the scuff of countless soles dragging across the wood. It pulses beneath you, alive with the leaden stomps of the pub-goers matching the rhythm of the band on stage—the very thing that drew the dense crowd into the ramshackle pub off the corner of Pilgrim and Rice Street. 

It's nestled between Knowledge and Georgian Quarter, a place he'd said was quiet, but good. 

Quiet, you think as cheers erupt when the band trails off their latest rock version of a Sea Shanty from somewhere in Atlantic Canada. If only. 

It was clear when you arrived that Price hadn't anticipated the crowd. The placid look on his face crumbled into something sour, and surly, and you'd taken to jabbing your elbow into his side when he tried to turn around and flee. 

"Who cares," you yelled, shrugging. "We're already here." 

Who cares, indeed. You'd come to regret those words within a half hour of sitting in a booth in the farthest corner away from the makeshift stage you could find. The writhing mass of bodies heated the balmy room until the windows fogged over with a layer of thick condensation, and the air became humid, permeating the scent of people—sweat, the heavy admixing of perfume and cologne, rotten, waterlogged cigarettes and the lingering staleness of tobacco-saturated smoke, and rich ethanol from the abundance of alcohol sloshing against the raw floorboards. 

It clots in your lungs until you're dizzy with its potency. 

This was meant to be a way to unwind and relax. The mission had been a disaster—weeks of stress that you could only grieve about from your safe perch behind a desk—and you could tell when you met Price at the base in Hereford, the duffle bag, that was more his home than the flat he owned by the docks in Liverpool, slung loosely over his broad shoulder, that it was bad. 

Terrible, even. 

No lives were lost, but he carries the near-misses in the deep canyon between his brows and drapes each failure over his shoulder as if he was Atlas, cursed to carry it all. 

There was a moment when he seemed to stagger, knees folding in under the neverending pressure that loomed over him, and it hardened something inside of you. The filaments of your tender joints were fitted with concrete, and as you hurried to his side, fingers looping around the strap of the duffle bag to try and alleviate some of his stress, it slipped out. 

"Lemme buy you a drink."

Relax, you silently implored him. Let me help. 

(Let me in.)

The unvoiced words lingered in the tense atmosphere that always seemed to bloom like a dense thundercloud around the two of you. It's one that starts when his eyes lift, meeting yours. It feels like a spark—like a rubber band being pulled tighter and tighter until the middle burned hot from the crystallising polymer molecules. Heat, white hot, settled in the thick space between your bodies, in the uncrossable impasse of your matched stare. 

Sometimes, you almost convince yourself that he might shatter the opaque haze that clouds in the distance, that he might say something that will disperse the looming plume of separation. The uncrossable, crossed. 

You're not oblivious to how he looks at you—listing across your flesh with nothing short of raw want in the pelagic gaze that brands you from afar. It's an aching sense of want that is so palpable you can feel the weight of his greed on your skin like a physical touch, like the steady hand he keeps notched into the space of your back, leading you steadily through the pandemonium of the battleground that is downtown Liverpool, or a crowded bar filled with rowdy adults. 

An anchor. A guide. The solid ground beneath your feet amid the ever-changing plates that threaten to compromise your balance, sending you off the edge of a precipice. 

Almost unconsciously, you lean forward, as if trying to meet him in the middle, to carve a perfect equilibrium between the asymmetrical chasm that sits, oppressive and unchartable, between the two of you. 

It's then, always, when he seems to shake the reverie that overtakes him. 

But he always takes a step forward before he steps back. 

You consider that single moment of weakness more of a victory than anything else—pyrrhic as it might be, because when he notices he's now closer to you by his own design, carried by the slippage of his staunch control, the distance he pitches between you lasts longer than the winter months in the apex of a polar vortex. 

He clears his throat, but his voice is still thick when he speaks. A rasping noise sticks, reluctantly, to the side of his throat. 

"Right, mmm."

And then he'll say something that isn't quite goodbye but sounds like it all the same. 

In a world of defensive pessimists, you've always tried to be an offensive optimist. Pushing, pushing, pushing until the bricks wobble and the walls crumble. Until you can see through the gaps to the other side. 

But, in spite of it all, you get it. 

If he wanted to, he would have. Simple. You know this. Echo is sharply like a mantra whenever he takes that single step closer, and the air in your lungs catches fire as you wait for the second—the one that never comes. 

You push because you know you'll be good for him. It isn't the egotist in you refusing rejection, the optimist who refuses to yield, but before there was measured distance, purposeful silence, and accidental steps, there was friendship. 

You were his friend first. 

His confidant. The one he called after missions just to talk to someone who was firmly fixed on the ground of reality, but still tangled up in the world he spent most of his time in. You knew, then, that you'd be good for him. 

And then Al Mazrah. Banter over the airwaves. An explosion. Radio silence for three days. 

Everyone thought his group to be beyond saving—pieces scattered amongst the dunes, being picked at by the vultures and vermin; nothing to bring home, not even partially melted dog tags. 

It was something greater than fear in those excruciating hours of nothing but the static in the airwaves. Nothing. Nothing—

And then—

"Lost my last fuckin' cigar—"

You had a job to do first. A role. You radioed in and pretended as if your lungs were collapsing in on themselves as if your heart hadn't torn out of your chest, and led to Al Mazrah to rot beside him in the scorching sun. 

You managed (somehow, somehow) to forge some facsimile of normalcy into your voice even your fingers spasmed from being compressed into tight balls by your side, aching now as you tried to unfurl them. If your inflection gave anything away as you barked out coordinates to the rescue team, demanding a safe—and swift—extraction, it was only Price could ever pick it up.

Later, when the darkness around the edges of your splintering world started to recede, he called you. Nine hours on a jet to get to where you were. Two days in the scorching desert. And he still called. 

It was the moment of fiction when the hero reached out to the sidelined love interest, that picturesque moment in film when the music rose to a deafening crescendo, and words of curated adoration slipped from the lips of the leading man. When the audience cheered with a sense of relief—fucking finally. 

But it isn't fiction. 

"Need a goddamn bottle of scotch after this one, love. Fuckin' hell, what a shitshow—"

It's reality. And Price. 

It was in the aching nothingness when it clicked. 

You might have been good for him, but that was in another life—when he wasn't already entangled in a sordid affair with his work, when even a brush with death and all its glory wasn't enough to change his mind. When the shakiness in your voice couldn't sway him. 

And—

Sure. Okay. 

You forced another wan smile that he couldn't see and offered to buy him a whole distillery as long as he came home. 

"Might take you up on that." 

And so, it was with the crushing absolution of rejection, and the firm friends-only label you slapped across the gaping hole in your chest to stem the bleeding, that you invited Atlas, with his sagging shoulders and trembling knees, out for a drink. 

Eventually, of course, because he'd spent two days in the wilderness, in the unrepentant grip of the elements, and then another nine hours on a jet being fussed over by the medical team and getting only a blink of rest, and—

"Alrigh', but you're buying."

Eventually, of course, because he needed his rest. 

But you've yet to meet another man nearly as stubborn as he is, and it didn't surprise you as much as you thought it would when he simply nodded, let you take his duffle bag, and followed you to his parked car. He drove, too, despite the fatigue around his eyes because you told him how much you despised the idiots on the Motorway near Heathrow, and he listened, of course, and said nothing at all when he pushed into the driver's seat, offering nothing more than a glance that said well? What are you waitin' for?

You didn't mean right now but maybe the brush with death softened him to your presence. Maybe, just maybe, he needs your company now just as much as you need his.

(Maybe, maybe—everything with Price has always been filled with maybes—)

Exhaustion clots in the corner of his eyes, deepening when he saw how crowded the pub was, but he still followed. Still went along with nothing more than a soft grunt. 

So, here you are. Toasting to yourself about the quiet rejection he gave, and weaving through the throng of bodies, two glasses clenched in your sweat-slicked palms, as you try to get his promised drink back to him. 

It doesn't hurt as much as you thought it would. 

(And other lies you tell yourself—)

That might have more to do with the absence of anything living inside the rotting hole where your heart once beat. A gap, now, as that pesky little nuisance has fled the confines of its fleshy prison for the scorching heat in the desert to remain, forever, beside whatever it was that Price left behind when they found him. 

(—at least they're together—)

The amber in the glass sloshes when someone backs up, clipping your shoulder. Droplets spill over the rim, running down your fingers clutching the drink. It's cold despite the heat that permeates the crowded pub. A sharp contrast that makes you shiver. 

The nameless, faceless entity whirls around when you stop, stabilising the drinks in your hand, and you catch wide eyes in your periphery, a mouth moving but the words are swallowed by the vacuum of noise booming from the patrons, the speakers. 

"...shit," you vaguely make out. "I'm so—shit—I'm so sorry, did I spill your—ah, fuck, let me get you a napkin—" 

He's cute, you note. Boyishly handsome with his thick, dark curls and soft almond eyes. The warm glow of the strung lanterns overhead cast a halo of pale orange and muted yellows on his flushed skin, making him look like a bronze-dusted cherub in hazy, ethereal gold. 

Handsome, like the men on the covers of Vogue. 

His eyes are dark—bewitching—and when they crease with shame, and contrition, you find yourself conjuring the image of a guilty golden retriever, head bowed in consternation but tail still sweeping low. 

The comparison makes you huff. 

"I'm alright," you say, more for his benefit than your own. 

He turns at the sound—startling as if you, too, were a nameless, faceless stranger in the middle of everything— and you catch the sharpness in his features when he looks back at you. Beneath the boyish veneer are chiselled cheekbones, full lips, and a divot in his chin. Perfectly symmetrical in his beauty. His eyebrows are groomed, but thick. Black against raw topaz. 

(You've always loved uncut gems.)

"Hi," he murmurs, eyes darkening as he takes you in. "I, uh—sorry, I wasn't paying attention."

But he's paying attention now. There's a cut of appreciation, intrigue, in his eyes when they trail over the features of your face. Differentiating you as an individual person amid a sea of so many. 

"You, uh—" he blinks, and then his mouth peels open in a grin that's just as charming as his boyish features. It's soft, if a little windswept. "Hey."

It isn't the smoothest transition from nervous fretting to something that seems like it's meant to be suave, but it's endearing in an inelegant way. it feels unpolished. Authentic. Like the word slipped out of its own accord. 

Stunned. You stunned him.

"Hey," you echo, offering a small smile of your own. 

And it's a bad idea. One that dips in an almost tangible glimmer of hindsight, like some portent proclaiming an inevitable regret when your senses clear, and the ache in your stomach fades into a sore knot that you can ignore on a good day. 

But he's cute. Charming in his clumsy attempts to make sure you're okay. He isn't something that can fix the ache in your chest, but he's certainly a balm to it. A temporal crutch. One you think you can live with. 

"Are you from around here?" He has a soft voice—low, dulcet. Plummy, but not gratingly so. Refined, you think. There's a soft elegance to him, and in the way he moves, speaks. 

The balm spreads as his head tips to the side when you tell him where you're from, curls bouncing freely against his cheek. 

"Oh," he notes, his lips falling together to make a pretty, pink circle. Adorable. "That's far. Come to see the show? My mates and I came out to see them. They're kind of a big deal where we're from, and—"

Someone pushes through the gap behind him, pushing him forward. You reach out, but the glass in your hands stops you from doing much when he stumbles, losing his footing from the sudden shove, soles of his oxfords (of course, of course, he's wearing oxfords) catching on the spilled drink from earlier. 

Blearily, you have a moment to admire witnessing the sequence of events come full circle before his hands reach out, scrambling for purchase, and fit across your shoulders like he's searching for a climbing hold to catch himself from the fall. You tetter back from the brunt force of him stumbling into you, before catching yourself on the pillar cutting through the room. 

He's muttering apologies as he straightens himself out, but your eyes are drawn to the rivulets of scotch dripping down the back of your hand. Three fingers dwindling quickly down to one. 

"I'm—shit—I'm so sorry—!"

He looks cute frazzled like this. His coiffed curls tangle across his sweat-slicked forehead, dangling over his dark eyes. There's a flush growing across the bridge of his nose, colouring him in a distinct palette of rose, bronze, and gold.

You've always been partial to blues and browns, but this wedges inside of you—different, but not overly so. 

"What a jerk—" you lift your chin, glaring over the top of his tousled curls. 

"Yeah," he breathes, the word nearly eclipsed by the pounding in the background. 

His hands are still on you. When you turn back to him, you're almost a little surprised by how close he is. A short step, and suddenly you realise that it wouldn't take much for you to lean up, and kiss him. 

It's an odd, aching contrast to the one step forward, nine steps back with Price. 

You think about it. About kissing him. About going back to the booth in the back where Price is waiting, and demanding he rejects you already so you can pull yourself out of the limbo you've fallen into, run your fingers through this man's hair, and feel nothing at all except satisfaction. 

(Instead of guilt. The stifling sense of betrayal.)

You tilt forward as if trying to meet him somewhere in the middle. As if a kiss would break this skein web where you can still, somehow somehow, feel Price's presence around you like a nebulous cloud. A magnetic pull that keeps some facet of your attention on him, always. 

Still. Still.

The tether is short. You stop before you close the minuscule gap, and let your body fall back on your heels. 

"You know—" You start, but the words—one with no real objective outside of salvaging something from this mess—are swallowed by a call. 

He startles a little at the noise, craning his chin over his neck to see what is vying for his attention. You follow the breadcrumbs of his gaze, locking onto a man waving his hand over his head. 

"Ah," he says. He knows him. Obviously. He turns back to you, something sheepish flickering across his keen expression. Reluctance settles in the crease of his eyes. He huffs. "I, uh, guess I should get back to them."

You nod. "Sure. Enjoying the riveting show, right?"

"What can I say?" He grins, wide and bright. "I'm a sea shanty kinda guy, and they've been gearing up toward Stan Rogers all night." 

"Wouldn't want to miss that." 

"No," he shakes his head. "You really wouldn't. But, uh—"

You know what he's going to ask for before the words are out, and you give it to him. 

Your name. Your number. His hands fly to his pocket, hastily pulling out his phone, and tapping the numbers into his contact screen. 

"I do owe you a drink," he jokes, eyes skirting to the lonely swallow in a glass meant for another man. "So, uh, if you ever want to cash in on it tonight, um. Text me?"

It tapers off into a question, and the vulnerability, the softness of him, blooms something warm in your chest. He won't just be a balm, you think, but a bandage. 

Your smile is loose, even. It's the first one in weeks since the radio was cut and your world was thrown into a staticky silence. A communications blackout. 

"I could buy it for you now if you'd like…"

It's sweet. He's sweet. Different from the men you're surrounded by—ones with hard edges, and brittle trauma. 

"I think you should get back to your friends," you say instead. "But I'm sure I'll see you around."

You want to feel selfish, but you don't. There is nothing between you and Price but a tenuous thread he tries to pull as taut as he can, and the chiaroscuro that paints him and this man are like night and day; normalcy and—

Well. Price. 

He gives you a slow nod and then slips his phone back in his pocket. He doesn't even try to call the number you gave him, so trusting that everything you said was the truth. Your phone is back on the table where you left it, but you're sure it buzzed with his text. 

"I'll see you around." 

He waves you off with a two-fingered salute against his temple and turns back to his friends when the moment passes. Without soft brown pinning you against the pillar, and spilling comfort into the aether, the world around you snaps like a rubber band to your skin. 

Something shakes loose inside of you, and you turn on your heel, balancing unequal glasses of scotch in your hand. When you lift your head, seeking out the booth, you meet noctilucent eyes boring into yours. 

The tether wobbles. The noise fades into a whisper drifting through the pews in an empty church. 

Right. 

You forgot what it felt like to truly be pinned in place by blue. 

The noise floods in a strange, distorted echo the closer you get to the table. 

"New friend of yours?" He asks, expression clouded with impassivity honed before you even knew what the threads of apathy felt like beneath your fingers. 

His eyes drop to the glasses, curving along the knob of your wrist when you push the fuller glass toward him. Derision blooms, splicing through cerulean-tinged disinterest. 

You wonder how much he saw, and—with a bitter touch of trepidation—if he kept watching. 

It's answered when he scoffs. "Couldn't even buy you a new one, eh?"

"It's only a little off the top."

"A little, hmm?" Bruised knuckles, split and cracked at the crease of his bone, curl around the glass leaving a smear of tobacco stains behind. "Your phone rang earlier."

It sounds testy. Cross. It makes you bristle like a cornered cat.

"I know. He texted me his number so I can find him later."

"That so?"

Your nod is short. Clipped. 

Price leans back in his seat as you slide into the bench across from him. His gaze never wavers. It never does. You feel it like a warm hand against your throat, and the thought alone makes you swallow hard, and breathe harder. 

"If that's what you want—a clumsy fuck next in an alley with a man who doesn't know how to really please you, then by all means, love. Go for it." 

His words are scraped out of his throat by the fine edge of a scalpel; grizzled and raw, and drenched in the heavy ethanol of his scotch. 

He normally sounds like this after a mission, after he stood in the middle of a bloodsoaked battlefield, and bellowed out harsh commands until his vocal cords swelled up, and split apart at the seams. 

When he speaks, you scent the coagulated blood of the pulsing wound, ripped open by the scotch and irritated by the cigar clenched tight between his thumb and forefinger.

"But when you get tired of quick fumbles with an idiot who only cares about himself, I'll be waiting. Just don't keep me too long, love. Ain't gettin' any younger."

His words are meant to cut. To slice through flesh, and saw into bone.

"Neither am I—" Those icy eyes meet yours. You shiver. "You—I mean, honestly, Price; I've been putting out pretty clear signals since the beginning, and—"

"I know."

And—

Oh. 

"Great." You say. "Good." But it isn't. It hurts like a knife to the gut, serrated edge tearing through soft tissue. A blunt pressure against your sternum until it bruises, and then cracks. 

(You always knew he'd be brutal in his rejection.)

You're a distraction, is the underlying accusation to everything. Unneeded. Unwanted. 

But something splinters in his glacial gaze; a frisson that splits into a crevasse, a chasm. Darker than midnight, and endlessly wanting. Harsh winds billow from the moonlit depths, howling against the icy walls. 

"Good?" He echoes, tone gritty and unrefined. A jagged gem with sides sharp enough to cut. "Don't think you understand what you're startin', love." 

It's not anger that clots between his teeth, that colours the divots in his brow harshly turbid, but you feel the blistering heat leaking from his skin all the time. 

"And what am I starting, Price?" 

There's picking at wounds sealed over with a scab, and then there's reaching into the pyre with both hands just to cauterise a paper cut. 

This, you think, when he shifts in his seat, eyes narrowing at you, is that. The latter.

You smell burning flesh and feel the heat scorching your palms when he moves forward. There is nowhere for him to go, but he wouldn't be Price—indomitable Captain John Price who still threatens his superiors after almost dying in the desert because they want him to take a mandatory leave—if he didn't make room, didn't force his way through. 

He leans over the small, three-plank table that divides you, and roughly grounds your name out between nicotine-stained teeth. It's a warning, of course. A rotting barbed wire fence that says keep out, no trespassing. But beneath it, you hear a plea. 

Please don't come any closer. 

It occurs to you, then, when his eyes grow lidded and heavy, weary. When they clove with uncertainty, and a brittle vulnerability that seems out of place across the staunch, hardened veneer of a man who finds screaming through a fusillade easier than taking a step forward. 

You get it. It isn't mocking scorn or brutal, vindictive words. It isn't him mercilessly picking apart the soft, gentle exchange of a man you'd willingly given your number to. It's—

"Too much," he says, and the tether sways.

—basal. Naked jealousy. 

He seems to gaze inward for a moment after his confessional fades, and the sounds of pulsing bass, jaunty music, and rhythm thuds against the floorboards flood the space eked out with his voice. It's a brief flicker. And then the mask is pulled back on. 

One step forward. One done almost unconsciously. 

But it tugs on the line connecting you both, and so: 

You take that step instead. 

Meet him in the middle. Connected by one end of a short line. It drops loose against the table, tangling in the spilled drinks that have come before you. Top sticky, scoured raw with ethanol, but still attached. A tether, a red string of fate. You're locked, somehow, in his pull. An orbital eccentricity: forever circling a sun that threatens to burn you whole when your alignment gets too close. 

There's hesitancy in the angles of his face, casting shadows of uncertainty in the murk. Always pulling back. Always only one step in. 

You might have, too, if you didn't see the brief flicker of midnight blue dropping to your mouth. The flash of greed—dark want; covetous florentine—as he gazed at you. 

You know John. A man who gives, gives, gives, but seldom ever takes. Content, you think, with just this unignorable strand arching between the chasm of your hearts. 

(But you've always taken more than your hands can carry.)

So, you chisel a space in that glorious want, shape in until it fits you perfectly, and press your lips to kiss in a truculent kiss, braced for the recoil. 

But he doesn't. 

It feels natural when he rasps your name out between lax teeth. 

Feels, you find, even better when you slot your mouth against his, gently this time. Peppering a litany of devotion across bristly lips that feel more comfortable spitting vitriol than sweet nothings. 

"Been waiting a long time, John."

Against your lips, he groans. "Guess I better start makin' it up to you."

"Guess so."

His eyes flash, then, aposematic; burning bright in a pretty circle. The rich colour reminds you of a blue-ringed octopus.

Captivating, vibrant, electric.

His chin tilts toward the stage, hypnotic, iridescent blue pulling away from you to follow the list of his head. You know when his brows furrow, a deep canyon of displeasure and sullen irritation, that he's staring at the man who gave you his number. His lids fall, eyes narrowing into a tight slit.

Deadly, dangerous.

Tetrodotoxin taints pretty cerulean in a shade of inky black.

You reach out, eyes never straying from Price, and curl your fingers around the thick bulk of his tensed wrist.

"Wanna get out of here?"

He doesn't look away from the man. You don't look away from him.

"Yeah," he grumbles, but the gloss in his gaze reeks of victory. "Let's go."

"Thought you'd make me wait forever."

He hums, considering your words. The streets are lively despite the late hour, reeking of ozone and malt. A kaleidoscope of colours spills out from the cluster of shops, drenching the gunmetal cobblestone in a varicoloured smear. 

"Might'a," he agrees, tone light and cooler than the breeze. 

"I guess it's a good thing I got bumped into. Without your jealousy, this might've gone nowhere."

He stills suddenly, body tensing like a coiled cobra. 

"John—?"

You get a glimpse of prowess when his hand snakes out, snagging your shoulder, and before you can even pry apart your teeth, he moves you in three quick steps, pushing your back against the dewy wall. 

His hands are hot on your collar, your waist, and he holds you firm to the brick. But the heat of his palm is a mere ember compared to the blaze in his eyes—lavascapes in midnight blue. 

It leaks down, molten puddles, before it congeals around the soles of your feet, keeping against brick, and under the weight of his stare. 

His gaze sharpens when you settle in his hold. "And that guy?"

You smile in a facsimile of placating condescension as his hands tighten around you. "Which one?" 

He lifts his hand from your shoulder, dragging his bare knuckles over your dewy skin, letting himself feel the flutter of your pulse under burning flesh. They're rough, split and scared, and you want to take them into your mouth. To taste the ichor rushing through his veins. 

They're dragged up, away from your parting lips, and you nearly pout from the loss before his fingers brush over your nape, where they curl around your neck, holding you close as he growls out your name, breath ghosting over your lips. 

"None, love. Won't want any by the time I'm done with you."

"And when are you gonna be done with me?"

"Never," he murmurs, fingers tightening over your nape. "Kept thinkin' 'bout you the whole time I was in the desert. Dyin', and my only thought was fuckin' hell. I've been a goddamn idiot."

Price takes a step closer to you, and your blood burns. One forward, and—

He takes another. Another. 

He kisses you, then, like he's trying to devour you whole; trying to carve a place inside of you just for him. A space inside each other where nothing else can fit. 

A rogue planet, a stellar collision.

Every atom inside of you burns bright blue, and you find purchase on his broad shoulders—Atlas carrying the world, and you.