#but it would be cool to have more suggestions for stuff to read that treats the setting with respect while leaning into the horror elements | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

noorpersona · 30 days ago

Note

omgggg you're the sweetest (T_T)♡

oh! can i request a fic about rivalry with kita? i'd love to see him fuming and stuff since he rarely mad about anything. by anything, i mean ANYTHING. and... i don't mind a pinch of nsfw in it btw (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧ but if it's not necessary for the plot you can take that away, that's okay. thanks in advance ^^♡

(you don't have to rush, take your time writing it (*ゝω･*))

Thank you so much for the sweetest request!! ♡ I had so much fun exploring what it would take to actually get under Kita’s skinn heheheh

no smut just yet! but trust me—I’ve got some spicy ideas brewing for part two 👀

Thank you for reading lovely 🥰

The gym echoed with squeaking sneakers and shouted drills, the clash of balls against hardwood punctuated by the shrill calls of coaches on either end. Co-ed training camps were chaos on a good day. On this day, it was warfare—at least, it felt that way to Kita Shinsuke.

Across the net, you stood with your hands on your hips, eyes cool and sharp, as if you could predict every move his team made. And worse—you smirked when you were right.

“That’s the fourth time your middle’s fallen for the cross,” you called out across the net, voice far too casual for his taste. “You might wanna switch it up before he tears his ACL.”

Kita’s eyes narrowed.

He didn’t respond. He rarely did. But he filed it away. Like he always did.

Osamu muttered beside him, “They’re good.”

Kita hummed in agreement. “Too chatty.”

You were, admittedly, talented. Strategic. A good captain. But the way you barked directions with a bite of sarcasm, the way you smirked when things went your way, the way you carried yourself with this insufferable looseness like volleyball wasn’t sacred—

It got under his skin.

And you knew it.

You took every opportunity to needle him. Subtle things. Walking just a little too close when switching drills. Offering sly suggestions to his players during breaks like you knew them better. Commenting on his rigidity with a grin that never met your eyes.

Today was only day three of the camp. And he was already counting down to the end.

Later that afternoon, the teams broke into a scrimmage. Mixed lineups, random assignments.

Unfortunately, you were on his side of the court.

“Wow,” you said, eyes scanning the rotation chart as you stepped into place beside him, “I didn’t think they’d actually put us together. Do you think they’re trying to test how long you can tolerate me?”

Kita didn’t even glance at you. “Keep your mind on the game.”

“Always do,” you chirped.

The first serve came, and to your credit, you didn’t miss a beat. Your timing was perfect. Your approach was clean. You called the ball clearly, landed sharply, and turned back with a smirk.

“What, no feedback?” you asked breathlessly. “Not even a little pointer?”

Kita stared at you, flat and unimpressed. “You were slightly late on your first step.”

You blinked. “Was not.”

He turned away. “Yes, you were.”

You scoffed. “Kita, if I was any more precise, I’d be a stopwatch.”

He didn’t reply.

You, of course, took that as a challenge.

Practice ended, finally, after a brutal hour. Kita dismissed his team with a bow and collected the stray balls with quiet efficiency. You lingered, sweat still clinging to your brow, hair pulled back, muscles humming with exertion.

You approached slowly, ball in hand, rolling it against your palm.

“You know,” you said mildly, “I can’t tell if you hate me or if that’s just your default personality.”

Kita didn’t look at you. “Is there a reason you’re still here?”

“Yup. I like the view.”

His jaw ticked. His shoulders squared just slightly, a subtle but unmistakable signal of irritation.

You came a step closer. “What is it about me, huh? The fact that I don’t shut up? That I challenge you? That I coach with instinct instead of a clipboard?”

“You coach with your ego,” he replied, finally turning toward you. His voice was sharp—colder than you’d ever heard it. “You don’t respect the game. You treat it like a stage for your mouth.”

You raised a brow, momentarily taken aback by the vehemence in his tone.

“And you treat it like a religion,” you said evenly, though the smirk had faded from your voice. “But not everyone worships like you, Kita.”

He stepped forward once, not quite in your space but close enough to make your breath hitch. His posture was tense now, fists loosely clenched at his sides, back straight like he was trying not to launch into a full tirade. His voice was low, deadly quiet.

“You think being loud makes you better. You think swagger makes up for gaps in discipline. But this—this isn’t your team. These aren’t your players. And I’m not going to stand by while you make a spectacle of the game I’ve spent years building.”

You stared at him.

For a moment, all your usual wit dried on your tongue. Your hands curled tighter around the volleyball in your grip. His jaw was set, the muscle twitching, and his brows were drawn low, eyes locked on yours with a kind of restrained heat you didn’t expect.

No sarcasm. No smirk. Just anger. Real, burning anger.

You hadn’t expected that.

“You’re mad,” you said finally, voice quieter.

“I’m focused.”

“No.” You took a step forward this time. “You’re mad.”

His nostrils flared. His gaze dropped to your mouth for a fraction of a second before snapping back up.

“And why is that?” you continued, cocking your head. “Because I’m not like you? Because I don’t worship your little routines? Or is it because someone finally rattled that polished little mask of yours?”

His mouth parted slightly, but he didn’t answer.

“Right,” you murmured, taking another step closer—close enough to see the veins in his neck standing taut, the slight tremble in his fingertips. “Because someone like you would never snap, right? You’re too composed. Too perfect.”

Kita didn’t respond.

He couldn’t.

Because you were right. And he hated that.

The silence buzzed between you, thick and electric. And something shifted in the air—sharp, magnetic, inevitable.

“Say it,” you whispered. “Say you hate me.”

His hand shot out, grabbing your wrist, firm but not painful.

You sucked in a breath.

“I don’t hate you,” he said, voice low and strained. “I just don’t know how to stand you.”

And that was the moment.

The shift.

The crack in the dam.

Your fingers twitched. His hold tightened. And for one suspended heartbeat, it felt like the entire gym faded around you.

Then—

“Everyone outta the locker rooms!” a coach barked from the entrance.

Kita dropped your wrist like it burned. You took a full step back, breath sharp, eyes wide.

No words passed between you.

The look he gave you said everything.

He was absolutely going to snap.

And you were absolutely going to be the reason why.

76 notes · View notes

poppitron360 · 11 months ago

Text

“Trust me, Hephaestus cabin doesn’t see fire powers as cool. Nyssa told me that they’re super rare. When a demigod like me comes around bad things happen. Really bad.”

“Maybe it’s the other way around,” Jason suggested. “Maybe people with special gifts show up when bad things are happening because that’s when they’re needed most.”

Leo cleared away the plates. “Maybe. But I’m telling you… It’s not always a gift.”

Jason fell silent. “You’re talking about your mom, aren’t you? The night she died.”

Leo didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. The fact that he was quiet, not joking around- that told Jason enough.

“Leo, her death wasn’t your fault. Whatever happened that night- it wasn’t because you could summon fire. This Dirt Woman, whoever she is, has been trying to ruin you for years, mess up your confidence, take away everything you care about. She’s trying to make you feel like a failure. You’re not. You’re important.”

“That’s what she said,” Leo looked up, his eyes full of pain. “She said I was meant to do something important- something that would make or break that big prophecy about the seven demigods. That’s what scares me. I don’t know if I’m up to it.”

Jason wanted to tell him that everything would be all right, but it would’ve sounded fake. Jason didn’t know what would happen. They were demigods, which meant sometimes things didn’t end okay. Sometimes you got eaten by the Cyclops.

____________________________________________________________________

“The Lost Hero” Pg. 285-286.

A REMINDER- JASON:

Told Leo he was needed

Was able to see through the mask of the jokes

Told Leo his mom’s death wasn’t his fault

Told him that Gaea was only doing it to get inside his head and that he shouldn’t blame himself (FACTS)

Told him he wasn’t a failure

Told him he was important

Wanted to tell him everything would be alright

Generally just listened and was there for him and made himself a safe place where Leo could open up and be vulnerable

Earlier in this scene he also told him his powers were cool and that he wasn’t a freak.

Is too pure for this world

Several times throughout the book he comments on how awesome Leo is and how hard he’s working

Is an amazing boyfriend best friend to Leo

What did Calypso do?:

Yelled at him

Threw stuff at him

Told him she didn’t want him because he didn’t look as “Heroic” as Percy or Odysseus

Made him sleep outside

Probably a lot more that I’ve forgotten about

Just generally treats him like shit

And that’s only HoH- I’m still reading BoO

204 notes · View notes

g1rldrool · 2 years ago

Note

puhlease PLEASE a hazel callahan fic takşng place after the movie when hazel thought the kiss was special but PJ is treating her the same so hazel tries to make PJ jealous with y/n but they actually start having feelings (at first passionate) towards each other????????

FEELING'S AREN'T FAKE

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

plot: fake dating never works but sometimes it does just in different ways

warnings: light angst, nothing too serious, r is a cheerleader but that doesn't really affect the story!

word count: 1.8k

notes: sorry this took so long to get out but I'm a little burnt out rn! hope you like this anon🫶🏼

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

after hazel and PJs kiss, hazel thought that something was there, she tried hanging out more with PJ, but she would just pushed away and end up getting hurt. one lonely night hazel had the bright idea that maybe she could try and make PJ jealous, of course it was a dumb idea but at this point it was all she had.

she opened your contact and sent you a short message proposing the plan

'hey I know it's late but I'm trying to make PJ jealous so I was thinking we could fake date for a while, you down?'

of course she rewrote the message a couple times but when she got it down she nervously pressed send. a half hour later she got your confirmation

'sure, make it simple please I don't wanna waste too much if me time on this'

she smiled at your message excited for tomorrow, trying to go to bed all she could think about was PJ, how she would finally get to be with her, after years of waiting.

you sat on your bed and typed on your computer trying to finish up an essay do tomorrow, but you kept getting distracted by the thought of fake dating hazel, after a long 40 minutes of homework you closed your computer and put on some comfortable clothes. laying in bed you turned over and shut your eyes all of your thoughts just being about hazel

you walked onto school campus and saw hazel sitting on a bench reading something in a small book, 'i wonder what she's reading' you furrowed your brows and started walked over to her, 'hey!' you shouted to her, she quickly looked up and waved at you, you sat down next to her and she closed her little book, 'whatcha reading?' you questioned, 'uhm...she drives me crazy' you nodded, 'okay so what's the plan stan' she chuckled at your lame attempt of a joke and turned her head to you.

'so were just gonna act like we're dating, so hug and flirt and hold hands, all that gross shit, and hopefully PJ will get jealous' she said with a look on her face insinuating she was a very proud of her plan, you nodded and stood back up, 'sounds great to me, I gotta get to class so I'll see you later' you waved and grabbed your bag, 'wait!' hazel said a little too loud, you perked your head up at her, 'shouldn't we go in...together?' she suggested in a nervous tone

'oh shit yeah you're right' you stuck out your hand for her to grab on to, she took your hand and you started walking side by side, you entered the hall and people already turned they're heads to look at you two, I mean it is pretty weird seeing a cheerleader and a total nobody date, you got to hazel's locker and you leaned against against the a near wall, out of the corner of your eyes you saw PJ and Josie walking towards you

'pj and Josie are coming over here' you whispered to hazel, she turned around and shut her locker, a couple seconds later they stood right in front of you, the weird thing is that you had never actually talked to them, so now that you "dating" they're friend you would have to, talking to the girl your crush fake girlfriend is in love with was not on your bucket list. as they started talking you zoned out mid conversation, they talk about such boring stuff, how were you supposed to keep up?

next thing you heard was the loud bell ring, you saw that they had left and now it was just you and hazel, and of course the swarm of students late to class. hazel unexpectedly grabbed your hand and led you through the crowd, you both got to class in time, kinda. the boring school hours past by fast and as soon as you knew it was lunch, you thought you would sit down with your friends like you do everyday, but that was before you were pulled to a table in the corner of the cafeteria with hazel and the rest of the fight club.

as they talked you felt hazel's hand snake around your waist, you felt you face get hot but you continued eating, after an excruciating hour of listening to them talk as hazel moved her hand from your waist, to hips your to shoulder to your thigh, it was finally time to leave you packed everything up and sped out of the cafeteria, hazel catched up to you and walked with you out of school. you both sat down at the same bench from this morning

'so did I do good as a fake girlfriend?' she questioned with a cocky grin on her face, you rolled your eyes and turned your head to face her, sure having her as your fake girlfriend was gonna be nice but what if you catched even more feelings? what if her and PJ actually get together and you're just left alone again. 'you did pretty good' you said leaning against the back of the bench, you smiled and immediately started talking about the rest of the plan.

it has been 2 weeks of the fake dating and it really seemed like PJ didn't care, but tonight there was a big party at Isabel's, hazel thought it was perfect opportunity to make PJ "jealous". you decided to get ready together like a cute couple,hazel wore some simple baggy jeans and a white t-shirt, she almost looked like a frat guy, you chose what you usually wear to party's, nothing to flashy but nothing too simple.

when you got there it was loud and already smelled like BO and alcohol, you sat down on a couch with hazel by your side, she put her arm around your shoulder and you stiffed up, still not used to her touch. almost the whole party you say right there, getting up a couple time's to go to the bathroom, when the party died down, Isabel came out from the kitchen with an empty beer bottle, 'what are we 12!' PJ shouted, you chuckled and sat down next to Josie I'm the big circle of people

Isabel spinned the bottle and it landed on Josie, you could see Isabel blush and Josie had a nervous look on her face as they entered the small downstairs bathroom, after was felt like a life time someone yelled, 'seven minutes is up' you heard the door unlock before Isabel came out with a very visible hickey on her neck, some people gasped and others laughed, they sat back down and now it was Pj's turn, she spinned the empty bottle and it landed on, hazel.

hazel tired to hide her smile and she looked over to you, 'aren't you guys dating?' PJ looked at hazel then you, you opened your mouth to say maybe it was better if she re spinned, but before you could hazel spoke up, 'no it's okay, I mean it's just a dumb kids game right?' hazel looked at you trying to indicate that she really wanted to do this, you looked at the ground for a second before agreeing with her, some guy patted your shoulder and called you a 'chill girlfriend' you let out your best fake laugh and put your knees to your chest

meanwhile the scene of hazel and PJ in the bathroom was to say the least very awkward, 'so do we kiss?' hazel anxiously asked, PJ nodded and moved closer to her trying to make things more natural, hazel cupped PJs face and brought her lips to hers, she finally kissed PJ, after years of waiting she finally did it and she felt, nothing. absolutely nothing, she bearly even kissed back, you got up and told your friends you needed a drink and somehow they believed you, you walked into the kitchen grabbed your purse and left that god awful party, you didn't even think about saying goodbye because if you did you would have to watch them come out of that bathroom and see the start of they're relationship

hazel unlocked the door early and people were confused, 'you have to do seven minutes not three!' Sylvie shouted and people agreed, hazel noticed you weren't there and got worried, 'c'mon guys we're not middle schoolers and where's my girlfriend?' she shouted back, 'oh I think she left' some guy slurred clearly intoxicated, hazel grabbed her phone and said goodbye to everyone and that she was going to find you. what she didn't know was that you were already home by the time she had left, she urgently called you trying to understand where you were so you could talk

after 5 missed calls you finally picked up, 'where are you?' she said through the phone, 'home' you responded dryly, she let out a sigh of relief and started walking to your house still on the phone with you, 'why did you leave?' you thought about actually telling her why but the you remembered you actually dating, 'i was tired' she scoffed as she finally saw your house through the dark, 'open your front door please' she stood waiting impatiently for you, 'are you outside my house?'

you said walking down your stairs, 'yes just please open up it's cold' she hung up, you put your phone down and opened up your front door, you looked hazel up and down and saw no hickey, weird. you moved from the door and she stepped in, she shut the door behind her, you quickly grabbed her hand and took her to your room, she had never actually been in your room, you had been at her house but she'd never been to yours, you closed the door and say down on your bed next to her

'so why do you wanna talk haze?' she sighed and looked you straight in your eyes, 'i don't think I like PJ' she confessed, your eyes widened, had you done this whole plan for nothing, had you hurt yourself...for nothing? 'okay then who do you like? I'm not going to go through this plan another time just with a different person, I really hope you know that' you said in a frustrated tone, she moved closer to you and put her hand on your thigh, 'what the fuck was she doing?' you questioned to yourself

she just responded by crashing her lips with yours, at first you were taken aback, very taken aback, but then you felt how soft her lips were and how passionate and pure this moment was, you quickly kissed back and moved yourself closer to her, she dragged out the kiss for a couple more seconds before pulled away. you couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation, she laughed with you and pulled you into a tight hug.

'i love you' she mumbled into your shoulder, you sighed and kissed the side her neck, 'i love you too' you mumbled back.

#hazel callahan x reader #hazel callahan #hazel callahan fanfiction #bottoms 2023 #bottoms movie #hazel callahan oneshot #hazel callahan imagine #hazel callahan x you #hazel callahan x fem reader

487 notes · View notes

lily-alphonse · 8 months ago

Note

your ancient gold biland post has captivated me 👀

HELL YEAH

Eiland x Balor (check out the original post here) are so good. I actually have so many ideas for them, even at just 4 hearts I think I have enough background to work with.

For one, Balor is the only character so far that has even a hint of a troubled past (which is like catnip to me I zeroed in on him right away lol). Besides the very obvious giant scar on his chest he has a line: "Elsie speaks fondly of the Capital, but that place only holds bad memories for me" ohoho when I read that I got lazer eyes like you wouldn't believe.

Eiland on the other hand is so naive and full of wonder about the world. He pushes for adventure even where it might be dangerous. He pushes even when those below his station try to argue with him, like he does with Errol. He's actually a bit of spoiled brat in that sense (I say with no hate, I love a complex character). He doesn't want to hear about how reopening the mines might be dangerous, he wants adventure and cool artifacts!

So already we have one approach, where Balor might harbor a bit of disdain for Eiland at first. He's a spoiled Capital brat who doesn't understand the work that goes into procuring his merchandise, stuff like that. Maybe they butt heads about that and its rivals to lovers. OR hatefuck to lovers, because Balor sees an opportunity to put Eiland in his place via domination. Or like I suggested in my original post Eiland just ends up with a crush on him because he's rugged and mysterious and worldly, and Balor sees easy prey in the innocent dork.

No matter how it starts, I think where things would really develop is as they uncover more about the other person.

Balor learns that Eiland actually grew up pretty neglected, and expected to meet a specific mold established for him long ago. Try as he might he never could outmatch his sister, who everyone compared him to. He felt really lost until he found his purpose in studying archaeology and architecture, and it was like a switch flipped within him. He wouldn't let anyone try to tell him what to do with his life anymore. He would speak up for what he wanted, because he had wasted so much of his life already doing what was expected of him (hence where the brattiness comes from).

Eiland learns from Balor that the world is not fair, and a darker place than he imagines. I don't want to speculate about Balor's potential trauma but I imagine it would make Eiland view the Capital and maybe even his family in a different light. Actually it might give him a new passion for making things right in the world now, rather than getting lost in the past and treating it like a different world.

I think they'd level each other out, with Balor grounding Eiland and Eiland giving him hope and whimsy. They would absolutely have dorky moments together. Imagine the Dnd night where Balor takes over as DM except behind the scenes they have recently gotten together, and Eiland is so proud of him for taking over. But Balor is lovingly exasperated with his silly archaeologist boyfriend who keeps trying to avoid fighting lmao.

WE NEED BILAND! Let me know what yall think

PS Check out this lovely fanart that inspired the first post. I dont think its meant to be ship art but it instantly had a gay lightbulb going off in my brain

#fields of mistria spoilers #fom spoilers #only to 4 hearts #biland #fom eiland #fom balor #balor x eiland #eiland x balor #lily speaks #anon ask #fields of mistria #fom #fom headcanons

35 notes · View notes

hms-no-fun · 1 month ago

Note

What movie would you suggest to someone who just hasn't seen that many movies?

oh jeez, only one? that's tough...

my girlfriend just came up behind me, read this post, and said "boss baby." i don't know if i agree with her sentiment but i'm including it for posterity.

thing is, if it was just the two of us in a room and you asked me this question, i'd respond by asking you more questions. what are some movies you have seen? what have you liked, what haven't you liked? what are your interests? what kinds of experiences do you crave? how do you feel about modern art? are you a pervert? can you handle blood? what's a feeling you're nostalgic for? you know, normal person questions. the more straightforward approach would be like, what are your favorite genres? but i think that's a lot less useful than folks have been led to believe because like, what if your response is "scifi?" what kind of science fiction are we talking about here? could be 70s hard scifi, could be 2000s action-oriented scifi, could run the gamut from trek to wars etc etc. i think it's more fun to try to find something personal you can relate a film to in an abstract sense.

but idk, maybe that's too cerebral! the mood i'm in right now, i might say the 2007 tony gilroy film Michael Clayton. it's a sort of corporate espionage thriller about a monsanto-esque agrotech company trying to hide evidence of the health risks caused by its chemicals. it is also a lovecraftian horror about monstrous amorphous entities of capital treating human beings as disposable. it's one of my favorite movies ever.

maybe the question is, what kind of experience are you looking to have?

if you're looking to have a good time, why not shane black's The Nice Guys? great buddy cop comedy with ryan gosling and russell crowe set in 70s LA about a murdered porn star's potential connection with a corrupt automotive industry advocate in government. hilarious script, it just gets funnier every time you watch it. watch this brief scene and if it makes you laugh you'll love this flick.

if you're looking to have a bad time, fuck it, jump in the deep end, watch david lynch's Mulholland Drive. it's about an amnesiac who survived a car crash and a recent transplant to LA trying to figure out what happened to her that she lost her memory, and then some other stuff happens. it's brilliant and you may very well not get it and that's okay. not getting david lynch the first time you watch one of his movies is a rite of passage. the joy of his cinema is that it grows as you grow, and it always has something new to say when you come back to it. but it also may very well not be your thing, and that's cool too! at least you learned something about yourself

if you just want a classic kinda action movie, you could do a lot worse than The Taking of Pelham 123, a 70s heist film about a group of guys hijacking a subway car in NYC. it is the most new york movie ever made, just a bunch of sweaty middle aged dudes at work annoyed that they have to deal with this hostage situation AND run a subway at the same time. there's some guys who are racist in it but it is not a racist film.

want to get away from america into the world of pretentious art movies? check out krzysztof kieslowski's Three Colors: Blue, an anti-tragedy about a woman who loses her entire family in a car crash and decides to isolate from reality until she dies, but who cannot help but to be already living in a society where other human beings exist and notice her and want to help her. it's one of my favorite movies, it is profoundly beautiful and moving and will hit especially hard if you've ever felt loss but still had to keep on living anyway.

i could go on, but i gotta eat dinner. i think what i'd recommend most is that you pick a movie to watch, watch it, and then pick another movie to watch, and then another, and then keep doing that. the easiest way to watch more movies is to watch more movies, and part of the fun is abandoning trepidation and just picking something out of the blue to give a shot. fuck it, why not? there are no wrong answers.

#sarahposts #movie recommendations

9 notes · View notes

submalevolentgrace · 7 months ago

Note

Question about hand prostheses; would it be more worthwhile to get them if the character had lost BOTH hands, or would it still be easier to just learn to do stuff with their feet/mouth/whatever? Does how far up the arm the severing point is make a difference to whether it's worth it, like a wrist is relatively easy to do things with but a shoulder is not? (Also, I recommend Sigdi Thundershield from Order of the Stick as a character who doesn't use an arm prosthetic and manages just fine without.)

i get that there's no way for any one asker to know how often i get asks like this, and probably 2/3rds of the time i don't even answer them, but when i do i like to try and mix up my responses based on what i can glean from the way the question was asked. if we're going to call ourselves writers, let's engage with the text given. so here's what i've got this time:

i have already written out my opinions on the topic of upper limb prostheses in fiction. it's long, carefully and purposefully constructed to deliver all the information and emotion i think possible and necessary... short of sitting down one on one for hours at a time of interview style back and forth to really dig down into it. you've ostensibly read it - that writing, my pinned post - because you're responding to it and had to metaphorically step around it to get to my ask box. and yet... i'd say in it, i overtly expresses 3 major themes; the first two of which already answer your questions, and the third of which should hopefully have inspired you to not need to ask them at all.

so based on that, and how you constructed your question, from my perspective i reckon there's one of two possibilities going on here:

1) you've already written/conceptualised a character with one or more cool robot arms, and you're unwilling to do the introspection or self-editing to change that and 'let go of them', so you're looking for loopholes and where exactly the line is drawn. you want permission that it's okay from that tumblr blog linked on those 'how to write disabled characters' lists. why not just accept responsibility as an author, and change your character? or...

2) you want to write a character that has a robot arm or two because it lets you score Disability Representation Points with your audience for including a Disabled™ character, but like, not in any awkward or difficult way that including someone actually disabled would, like a real amputee or someone in a wheelchair or blind-without-magic or whatever. why not just write a disabled character, with a disability you understand?

neither one of these explanations for your ask reflects on you particularly well as a crafter of fiction, so hopefully i'm just being a pretentious judgemental bitch and you composed this after only half skimming my writing while barely awake, or some fourth other option that makes you look better.

but then again, in response to an essay where i laid out my feelings on medical abuse in pursuit of normativity and and a society that treats me as barely human because of the shape of my limbs, you suggested to me a character whose backstory seems to be 'trauma porn for easy pathos', from a webcomic that, in my time at least, was famous for jokes like 'a lead sheet blocks detect evil so you can't prove he's a psychopath' and 'the gang tries increasingly insane ways to spy on the genitals of their gender ambiguous companion'.

which is to say, i'm fucking tired of self-described writers apparently not really thinking about anything they're writing; in their work, in their joyful suggestions, or in their clumsy asks to a clearly hurt individual on an obviously sensitive topic.

26 notes · View notes

cirrem · 1 month ago

Text

my thoughts on book 5 of the stormlight archive: wind and truth

spoiler free section:

overall: i LOVED the series and this is a good book. there were some bits i didnt really think were good, there were some bits i loved. if you enjoyed books 1-4 definitally finish this arc.

spoiler thoughs below ONLY READ IF YOU DONT CARE ABOUT GETTING THE ENDING SPOILED (sorry its long and awfully formatted)

lets break it down by each POV from "has the least things im going to complain about or suggest changing" to "most things im going to complain about or suggest changing" (as well as how i would change them)

renarin and rlain: i love them sooo much it was kinda funny seeing them act like lovebirds during the end of the world event but honestly they cant do anything about the end of the world except fall in love.

adolin: i love his section he's the best part of the book. theres like one or two bits of dialogue that felt kinda off but the book is huge

all the small side bits (including jasnah and venli and the shattered plains and stuff): really well done. the only issues is that i wouldve liked more time for venli and her people, and that we didnt connect to teft and his spren before so their split didnt feel as dramatic as sanderson likely intended. ill talk more about a way to fix that later

shallan: mraize and the ghostbloods felt a lot more like a side quest then a big threat throughout the whole entire series. mainly because (imo) they arent ever successful. it kinda took the final confrontation between shallan and mraize feel unimportant, which sucks because i really enjoyed it. also mishram didnt do squat and that felt underwhelming

dalinar/navini: ohhhh boy heres where we get some meat. there are a few different complaints i have so im going to order them from least to most annoying

the honor exposition dump felt like an exposition dump. idk what to do about it

the twist @ the end with gavilar felt like it was pulled out of nothing and done for shock value. it wouldve been better if a) the fake gavilar wasnt just asleep but acted "wrong" (didnt recognize navini or lift, but did know who odium is, treated dalinar with hostility, etc) and b) we saw a pov from young gavilar of dalinar and navini leaving him in the spirit realm

the ending was messy and hard to follow. maybe i was too tired when i read it but heres the order of events that i think would make it clearer and more satisfying: a) dalinar realizes he cant just keep odium locked in here he needs the other shards and the narration being like "dalinor realized the power was too great blah blah blah he needs to unite the shards against odium" b) after gavilar is brought to be his challenger, he talks to honor, asking if she remembers the first thing she (she appears as a young girl in a vision so im going with she) said to him: "unite them" and tells her to do the same c) he breaks the bonds and forgoes the agreement, and tells honor to join with taravangian (spelling is hard), she does, and retribution is formed d) gavilar DEMANDS to get vengeance for his parents against dalinor, and much like how taravangians emotional overflow stole odiums power, gavilars 20+ years in the spiritual realm being trained for nothing BUT retribution allows him to take retribution from taravangian who doesnt have a single bone of retribution on his body (if you acted against him he would manipulate you instead of killing you and hed manipulate you anyways) e) gavilor immediately kills dalinor... and has no one else to seek retribution towards. but odium remembers how the other shards hated and belittled him, and honor remembers how they abandoned tanavasts cries for help and how dalinar told her to unite them... so he turns his attention outwards and yeah thats have been cool

(also i def need to reread the ending bc how did it happen that retribution must respect the countries borders but isnt bound to roshar i though they were the same thing)

kaladin/szeth. im sorry. 10 days is not enough time for the therapist arc working and feeling satisfied. remember in book 1 how you struggled and brought a whole bridge crew from the brink of suicidal depression and how satisfying it was and how much you worked for it and how earned it was? now in this book over 10 days you basically cured szeth and a herald by repeating some mantras playing a song and making soup. the dialogue was a step down and his victories felt unearned. what i would have liked to see instead:

book 4: dalinor sends kaladin and szeth to the shinovar reason. they also take taravangian because dalinor doesnt trust him here or in the the tower thing.

but who does all of kaladins stuff in book 4? Teft! we shift things slightly so that teft is almost to the level of kaladin here, and doesnt pass out. instead of the darkest hour of visions from odium kaladin gets, teft gets grabbed and drugged with firemoss. AWFUL! (this has the benefit of cutting out almost every convo between kaladin and lirin, who SUCKS).

however, the shinovar plot is slightly different: there are enemy fused and singers there as well! and theyre also terrorizing the local population, and their led by the pursuer! kaladins shaming of the pursuer and protecting the population replaces his big moment in the tower. the lowest low point can still happen, but with a twist: afterwards, kaladin is resting, sleeping peacefully after being healed by the powers of one of the honorblades szeth has killed for. at this point, i envision szeth has decided he doesnt want to kill anymore. BUT taravangian, sensing odiums nearby prescence, goads szeth, bragging about how he sent odium, and how he'll do it again, and how easy it was to make kaladin break and how much he enjoyed it. szeth, despite wanting to not kill people, kills him, (except odium is there, currently trying to torment a recovering kaladin some more, so... taravangian becomes odium here now)

and then book 5 would be a continuation of that, but with the reveal of the spren being a herald come much sooner, and kaladin slowly but surely breaking down ishars defensives while testing and failing but ultimitally suceeding with szeth and taln whose journey to recovery started in the previous book.

i did enjoy the twists and backstory and interactions with nightblood and the monastary challenges (though i think more time could have been spent on that) and on kaladin becoming a herald at the end, so lots of stuff to enjoy, but i would have done a lot of it differently

but i didnt do it differently, i didnt do it at all. so massive respect to sanderson for even attempting a project on this scale, and even completing books 1-5 with connection to the whole cosmere.

one last thing about book 5 before i finished is that it felt a lot more satisfying knowing that the end message "not all oaths are worth keeping" which makes sense and i can totally see that in hindsight BUT while reading i was like "nooo the ouaths" so it wouldve been good to have it said explicitly BUT i may be just a someone with 0 reading comprehension.

anyways overall i LOVED the series and even though theres some bits of book 5 i didnt really think were good there were some bits i loved so if you enjoyed books 1-4 definitally finish this arc

#wind and truth #ive been turning this over in my head for a bit trying to figure out why i didnt like it as well as the others in the series #and what i would do instead #overall i hope i wasnt too negative i still think its a great (even if flawed) book

10 notes · View notes

superkooku · 3 months ago

Note

Since I have noticed you're an Asterion defender, may I suggest you watch "Icare" 2022? It's a French animated movie which focuses on the possibility that the Minotaur was originally a gentle soul and was corrupted by King Minos' harsh treatment. It's beautifully animated and the design of Minotaur is simply epic (seriously, just google images for him).

Maybe the one thing you may dislike about the movie is the portrayal of Ariadne. She's depicted as a total bitch and a jerkass spoiled princess who hates the Minotaur as much as everyone else (sorry, no sibling empathy between the two) and cares only about herself. Oh, and her being abandoned in Naxos is mostly treated less of a nasty move by Theseus and more of her getting her comeuppance. Oh, and there's no Dionysus to save her.

Very interesting ask, anon ! And I'm kinda glad you took the time to read through some of my posts :3. I heard of this movie and kinda forgot about it.

As you guess, this summary leaves me in a very ambiguous position.

I'll start by analyzing each element separately.

Asterius (and other positives)

Quite frankly, seeing him as a straight up pacifist doesn't fit the myths. Since he did kill and eat these people.

However, it's the circumstances that make me sympathize for him, as he was thrown in the Labyrinth by an uncaring "father figure"

The description you gave doesn't go too far in the former direction and is actually very interesting to explore ! Asterius having a naive soul due to him not being tainted by the outside world and ultimately no bad intentions but just wild instinct and rage at his loneliness.

And I kinda like the Minotaur's design here, ngl. He looks kinda human, not like a demon from Berserk or a guy in armor. If anything, he gives me Ghibli monster vibes. I dig it !!

He has these childish vibes that definitely fit his secluded lifestyle and potentially hope (that would unfortunately be in vain)

Seeing Icarus build a friendship with him is actually a very cute idea and the potential for a bittersweet movie.

And the artstyle is absolutely adorable btw :3

Ariadne :(

Thanks for the trigger warning 🤣. I feel like this is the exact opposite problem with Jennifer Saint's version but that has the same effect.

Instead of being a passive doormat in one retelling, this Ariadne sounds like a typical pick-me-girl who doesn't respect her promises. And she's spoiled 😮‍💨. In the end, she's stripped of all her qualities and demonized.

She sounds exactly like the kind of character I dislike. Not that I hate them because they're despicable, like a well-written villain, but rather annoying nuisances on screen, wasting my time, and if I didn't love her mythical counterpart so much, I'd say she'd deserve to end up alone on that island. (Sorry but I came across this type of character before and they never fail to aggravate me).

Listen, I see a way we could alter this so it works. Maybe we could show Ariadne resigning herself to see Asterius die not because she hates him or finds him disgusting but because he suffers too much and is beyond saving (at least as long as other lives are on the line).

Probably dedicating a scene where she says farewell to him and maybe Icarus' more idealistic perspective could be confronted to her knowing Asterius better and how Minos mishandled him.

Betraying her half-brother could be a very dramatic and bittersweet plot point that could leave a lot of scars in her psyche.

It's a shame that she's characterized like that because I like her design, she looks cute and idk, her hair being red wine is a tiny detail that looks cool (if she's the ginger girl in the cover).

Also, imagine Ariadne, Icarus AND Asterius being secret buddies or something. A tragic friendship.

Fortunately, I get to regularly enjoy some good Ariadne stuff on @margaretkart 's blog (and more sporadically from other artists, dw).

Because adaptation-wise, there aren't that many interesting portrayals of her other than the sources and maybe the Roberta Gellis book that I WILL get to one day.

(I'd take an interesting adaptation of her character even without Dionysus and stuff. Just something of substance for her would be great)

The rest

EXCEPT for Ariadne being ruined, I'm curious about how others are shown. Icarus seems to be a cute kid. But how about Minos ? He'll have a seemingly negative portrayal, which tbf fits this story.

But I wonder if Pasiphae will be any better. Or Phaedra will maybe be more complex than her sister if she appears at all.

Hopefully Daedalus will have an interesting role.

I also wonder why Theseus abandons her in this version though. Because he hates her or just because he forgets ? Or how Theseus is portrayed in general.

As a hero, as a jerk, or as the massive airhead he is in mythology?

I may check out this movie one day and write a review post.

#You get me anon. Now if I watch this movie I'll know to have zero expectations about Ariadne #The rest sounds really cute though #greek mythology #greek myth discussion #greek myth retellings #icarus #asterius #asterion #ariadne #ask #not a reblog #the minotaur

12 notes · View notes

goodluckclove · 8 months ago

Text

WRITERS - Read More Nonfiction! (With Recs)

Okay so before I start I'm making it very clear that I don't say this as some generalized statement about how All Online People Aren't Reading Right. I doubt that's true! But based on some of the threads and discourse I see on my corner on Writeblr, it definitely seems like a lot of you would greatly benefit from expanding the scope of what you read.

I think there's probably a big stigma against nonfiction for a lot of people - there was for me for the longest time. Maybe six years ago, though, I stumbled into the genre and found that it can actually be rad as shit. It's been an invaluable form of research from people who definitely know what they're talking about, as well as a way to open myself up to new ideas.

You have chronic writers block? It could potentially be because you're consuming exclusively one genre of media. If that's the case, this will definitely get the gears turning!

Below are a collection of my favorite nonfiction books from my own shelf. The funny thing I immediately learned about suggesting more than like three nonfiction books at a time is that it does paint a kind of intimate picture of who I am. Feel free to tell me if these recommendations surprise you based on who you view me to be.

Clove's Favorite Nonfiction Books!

The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth by Thomas Morris - a collection of historical medical cases back when someone would see a doctor for a gunshot wound and the doctor would treat it with a laxative. WILD stuff.

American Monsters by Linda S. Godfrey - US cryptids! Lots of first person accounts.

Cursed Objects by J. W. Ocker - Famous cursed shit. Quick read but very fun.

The Cloudspotter's Guide by Gavin Prector-Pinney - this was written by the founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society, a real organization. It tells you everything you need to know about clouds. Fascinating.

Gory Details by Erika Englehaupt - stories and studies of more morbid and "gross" aspects of science, like the guys who stung themselves with instincts to measure the pain or that beach that feet kept washing up on for a while. Cool interviews with science people.

Fuzz by Mary Roach - wild animals break the law a lot actually and we still as a species don't really know what to do about that.

Spook by Mary Roach - an account of Ghost Believing from all sides of the argument. There was a guy who measured dying bodies to see if he could see them get lighter as their soul escaped.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimberly - an indigenous-influenced look at our relationship as a species to nature around us. Really beautiful prose from someone who I believe is primarily a botanist and activist?

All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell - stories and analysis from different aspects of the death industry! Embalmers to crime scene cleaners! Super interesting!

American Afterlives by Shannon Lee Dawdy - I have. A lot of death culture books. A lot. This one talks about all the neat things people in America do with their bodies after they die in the modern age. It's fun!

Dark Archives by Megan Rosenbloom - so this IS a book on the history of Anthropodermic bibliopegy, or books bound in human skin. I'm actually midway through this now and it's super fascinating and cool. Also my wife refuses to talk to me about this so I'd love someone else to talk to.

The Secret Lives of Color by Cassia St. Clair - I read like four books on color theory and pigment for a novel I wrote a few years ago and this was my favorite. It's a look into a ton of major hues and pigments throughout history as well as a peek into the timeline of color making. Did you know making green fabrics used to be illegal?

Atlas Obscura - a fucking cool look into weird and unique spots across the globe. Every artist who works with places should have access to this. It's awesome.

Every Caitlin Doughty book they're all great. She's a modern mortician and founder of the Order of the Good Death. Just an incredible human being and a super engaging and informative writer.

If someone wants to reblog with their favorite nonfiction books and what they got from them, be my guest! Maybe someone could use a new read to get their next idea or refine what they're currently working on!

#writeblr #writing community #on writing #writing resources #book recommendations #aspiring authors

16 notes · View notes

cephalofrog · 1 year ago

Text

finished reading monstrous regiment

they weren't kidding that book can queer rep

spoilers below cut ofc

I kinda already knew about like... a queer relationship + trans character existing in the book but it still kinda caught me off guard - like I guess I shouldn't assume stuff to be generic from terry pratchett but I didn't know anything about jackrum aside from him being trans going in and it caught me off guard just how damn GOOD a character he is.

I'll admit I wasn't even certain that he was the trans character for a lot of the narrative, like I thought I maybe misremembered the posts or something cause surely the fat, extremely skilled, morally grey man with a lot of PTSD but who clearly cares deep down isn't actually gonna turn out to be a trans man right cause no one would write a trans character THAT interesting and good in 2003 and god dammit I underestimated terry pratchett so much. I am a fool.

the fact that he's like. no I don't want to reunite with my kid + grandchildren cause I can't stand the thought of just being their old granny cause he can't imagine a life for himself where he can exist as a man outside of needing to do so to survive then to have polly suggest it, giving him a new idea, letting him let go of not only the dangerous life of existing in the army but also giving him permission to himself to exist as someone's grandfather?? as a man, not because he has to, but because he wants to??????

god that final conversation between polly and jackrum is fucking perfect. I'll admit I need to consume more media centering trans narratives cause I don't really have a comparison point but it feels like the first piece of media I've ever consumed that honestly reflects how I feel about being trans. you don't need permission or a logical reason to exist a certain way - you're allowed to exist in a certain way just because you want to exist that way.

it's super impressive how deconstructive the book is - like it makes me wonder whether terry pratchett learned about queer theory prior to writing the book or whether he just developed the way that the book talks about gender of his own accord cause the entire damn plot hinges on the fact that gender is socially constructed and fully based upon perception. people see the characters as men, they treat them as men, and so they are men. the entire concept of men and women having some impossible-to-overcome differences is questioned, stereotypes are introduced and then used to disprove themselves.

I think the only thing that the book kinda dropped the ball on was maladicta's character - she gets a lot of focus and is super cool and likeable in the first half but I feel like she gets left behind a bit after running out of coffee, and I do wish there had been a more interesting conclusion to her being the last of the regiment to be confirmed as female (since we all kinda knew it was coming but for some reason it takes a long time to get around to it with no real reason since everyone knows everyone else is a girl at that point).

I'm glad polly and maladicta end up leaving on the boat together though. (they kiss after the book ends, terry pratchett appeared in my dream last night and confirmed it as canon)

#discworld #monstrous regiment

51 notes · View notes

p0tat0-ficblog · 4 months ago

Text

the Fall, Angel, Fall series so far recap for people who don’t feel like reading the like 120k words

Fall Angel Fall (Book 1)

Book starts with Evangeline laying on the ground in a rainstorm, with an arrow through her wing. She reminisces morosely for a moment before an unfamiliar person appears, picks her up, and she passes out. She wakes up inside a dirt house with her wing treated and wrapped and is like "?????" for like 12 seconds before she spots her host, Herobrine. They've never met before, but she knows him from the time she helped kick him out of the Nether like 300 years ago because he was being A Big Meanie. He explains that he found her in the rain and brought her inside because if he didnt she would die, and she's like "why would you care" and he's like "idk, I'm a good person now" and she's like "oh ok. I got banished by the way" and he was like "sick me too". A couple of days later she can walk and stuff and they chat and she explains that she and her best friend (Meryl) were investigating the disappearances of some of her fellow soldiers when Meryl was brutally murdered, Evangeline was framed for it, and she was banished before a proper trial could be had. When she protested, she got shot and subsequently fell out of the sky. Herobrine is like "hmm. that sucks. anyway (goes back to gardening)"

That night, Evangeline wakes up to a valkyrie standing over her with a sword, whom Herobrine keeps from murdering her. They kill him and come to the conclusion that whoever had killed Meryl had sent an assassin after Eve to keep her from being able to snitch about the murders, and Herobrine points out that now they're both in trouble because the assassin will have reported her location before trying to kill her, meaning that now he has to leave his home and live somewhere else. Evangeline feels guilty about this and says she'll leave but Herobrine is like "NO im going WITH YOU. sorry." and shes like "??? okay??"

The next day they set off in a random direction. it is late autumn and herobrine is being grumpy about the fact that it's cold outside. Evangeline is a gamer and doesn't care. They walk for a while and eventually go to bed, and Herobrine stays up all night to watch over her instead of letting her take a watch. Evangeline is annoyed by this. On the second day they go to cross a river and Evangeline says it would be better for them to walk IN the (shallow) river instead to throw off anyone following them and herobrine is like ":( it's cold" but she bullies him into it. herobrine proceeds to trip over a rock and fall in the water, getting completely soaked. After Evangeline is finished making fun of him she realizes that he's actually rapidly becoming hypothermic and herds him into a cave to rest and dry off, and promptly gets Flustered when he takes off his shirt.

While hypothermic, Herobrine is slightly more open about his Feelings, and Evangeline begins to feel Feelings.

The next day they continue walking and come across a human town, which Evangeline suggests they enter in search of more supplies as they are running out of food and water. Herobrine points out that everyone hates him, but Evangeline's like "it's fiiiiine, just pull your hood down, nobody will even look at you because im a valkyrie and im cool like that" and he's like ":/ fine". they successfully get into the village, Evangeline pulling her "im a holy warrior of Literal God please give me free stuff" card and successfully getting Free Stuff. Unfortunately, a former friend of Evangeline's named Hannah happens to arrive right after her and runs into her at the general store. Contrary to Evangeline's fears, Hannah is happy she's safe and says that her getting banished was ridiculous and that everyone with half a braincell knows that she would never hurt Meryl, so what's going on?? Evangeline doesn't know but she's glad Hannah is on her side.

Hannah then proceeds to spot Herobrine's glowing eyes and is like "👁️ 👁️ 🫵" at him, to which he points out that he's not breaking any laws since he was only banished from the Nether, not settlements on the Overworld. Hannah gets mad at Eve for hanging out with him, to which Eve points out that she didnt have anyone else to turn to when she got literally shot down from the Aether. Hannah is still mad but lets them leave without raising a fuss and telling all the villagers that Herobrine is there. They leave in a hurry with their Free Stuff.

That evening, Herobrine feels bad and tells her that she needs to stop being so friendly with him because she's going to get a bad rep. Eve says frick that, we're pals. In the meantime, Hannah has made an official report of their location, which makes it to Eve's commander, philza minecra- I mean Phillip Zenith, Commander of the Valkyrian Armies. Philza is also convinced that Eve didn't kill Meryl but she was tried and sentenced before he could do anything about it. technoblad- I mean David Tekno is fairly convinced that Eve has lost her mind, if not before then definitely now because she's hanging out with herobrine, who, as we have discussed, was A Big Meanie. Philza decides he's going after her to learn the truth, Tekno tags along so dadza doesn't get himself murdered by Herobrine.

The next day, Eve has begun molting, which is good because she'll grow back her feathers and be able to fly again but bad because she is now leaving a very obvious trail. Herobrine is mad about this. Eve is mad about this. Nobody is having a good time.

Suddenly, three valkyries appear in the skies above them. they land and Eve doesn't recognize any of them, but tries to talk to them anyway, despite Herobrine's instance that they get away before they get shanked. The valkyries don't respond, and when Eve gets closer she realizes that they're not breathing. The valkyries attack them and lose, and Herobrine discovers that they all have stab wounds over their hearts preceeding their battle, which means they were already dead. He makes Evangeline leave while he beheads them. Evangeline is big sad because Literally What The Actual Flip Bro, That's Messed Up and herobrine gives her his cloak because he wants her to feel better.

In the meantime, Philza and tecknoblade have discovered Herobrine's old house, where they find the assassin's body buried in a shallow grave. They are now more convinced that Eve and herobrine have gone on a couple murder spree.

The next day it's snowing, which is bad because leaving footprints. Herobrine insists they take shelter in a mineshaft from the storm, Evangeline hates this idea but goes along with it. 15 minutes after, Philza and Techno follow their footprints into it, but are forced to split up as there are two mineshafts. Eve is having a terrible time because she's claustrophobic, and Herobrine's half-a$$ed attempts at comforting her do not work. They find a natural cave which Eve hates slightly less and hang out there for a bit, and Herobrine helps her pluck out all the loose feathers so that she's not leaving them everywhere anymore. Evangeline is steadily falling for him.

Surprise! Technoblade! Tekno finds them and is like "yo, please explain the murder before I axe your sorry butts". Eve tries to explain that the people they killed were already dead and Tekno, who has never heard of a zombie, is like "mmmmmmyeaaaaaahhhh nnoooooooooo I dont think so." Eve convinces him to let them talk to Philza about this when they get up to the surface. Herobrine attacks him with a knife.

Eve tries unsuccessfully to get Herobrine to stop attacking technoblade with a knife. They fight for a while. herobrine fire powers reveal. Techno absolutely owns him and slams a pickaxe through his ribs. Herobrine collapses, Techno moves in to finish him off but Eve makes him stop because actually! no amount of physical damage can kill herobrine, which is common knowledge amongst valkyries but technoblade is not one (he's half-human half-piglin, which, as my brother irl says, is an abomination). Techno agrees to let him just lay on the floor and gasp pathetically while they drag him up the mineshaft to get Philza, but Herobrine abruptly gets up, grabs Eve, teleports (teleportation powers reveal) and sets a support on fire, collapsing the tunnel between themselves and techno and allowing them to escape. Techno is fine, Philza finds him later.

Eve does her best to wrap up his wound while also scolding him for being a dumb idiot since he had literally no reason to attack. Herobrine sort of apologizes but is obviously mad about it and also in pain. Once there's more blood inside him then out, he insists he knows where they are and knows a safe place, and they head off again, gone by the time their pursuers get back to the surface.

Herobrine leads her to A Whole Mansion, which she thinks is really stupid and he refuses to offer any explaination for, just keeps telling her to trust him. She decides she will and they hide out in the garden overnight, and Herobrine sneaks into the building to steal food for them. The next day, upon seeing philza and technoblade arriving, Herobrine insists they hide in the building, which Eve confusedly goes along with and they hide in a cellar. They listen while the owner of the manor says he hasn't seen them, philza and technoblade leave, and then the owner walks into the cellar and is like "hi :3". Surprise! it's steve minecra- I mean Steven Lancaster, Lord of the region of Mosenta and also herobrine's older brother.

Steve is like "what kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into now" and herobrine is like "lots. pls help :(" and eve is like "??????? ???????????????????? ?????? ???????????????????????????? WHYT DIDNT YOU TELL ME THIS BEFORE" and herobrine was like "idk it wasnt important" "IT WAS TOO IMPORTANT"

Steven listens to their sob story and agrees to give them shelter for the night, new clothes, and supplies for the road. Eve goes to bed because Girl is Tired while Steven and Herobrine have some bro time and Herobrine gets a hug for the first time in like 500 years probably. The next night they head out with their new loot and they have a lovely conversation for once that isnt about being on the run and being hunted down by murderous valkyrie necromancers.

In the meantime, Philza and Techno have decided that maybe they went to the nether for some reason? so they go to the Nether to talk to the Nether Queen, who was established 300 years ago after Herobrine got ousted. she's a regular human who got granted eternal life because she was doing a banger job of being queen, and philza is a little leery about whether or not that might be affecting her psyche at this point- oh no she's hot. anyway the queen hasn't seen them but she'll keep an eye out. also they're flirting. techno has things to say about this

The next night, Eve and Herobrine are walking again when they get attacked by another valkyrie zombie, but this one is meryl. oh no.

Eve is obviously Very Thrown Off by this but the logical part of her brain allows her to fight and defend herself. Unfortunately, she's off her game enough to let Herobrine get whacked where he was already injured and get knocked down, and eve gets disarmed and pinned against a tree. Instead of killing her though, Meryl just stares at her, expressionless, with tears in her eyes, which is enough for Eve to decide that she's still conscious and insist that they don't kill her. Herobrine reluctantly goes along with this and they manage to trap her and get her tied up instead. Eve starts crying (girl has had a hard week) and herobrine gives her a hug (girl is also down bad).

They drag a very angry and wiggly meryl back to Steve's house, where they appropriate his dungeon as a holding cell and explain what's going on. They come to the conclusion that a golden apple may be able to cure her, if her wounds are what are keeping her in a half-alive state. With this in mind, Steven somehow gets a message to Philza and Techno and summons them to have a nice friendly chat about zombies and such. They arrive and manage to have a diplomatic talk with Herobrine despite their murdery last encounter, and Philza is glad that Eve is ok. Philza goes off to get a golden apple, Techno goes off to acquire a potion of weakness since he says that should help.

While all this is happening, Eve and Steven are watching over Meryl one evening and Eve asks him why Herobrine seems to have a weird vendetta against piglins. Steven explains that about a year after Herobrine was instated as the king of the Nether, a group of assassins broke into the castle and brutally murdered him, except he can't die so he was just left in excruciating pain until he was found and treated. This gave him a lasting paranoia which eventually turned into the tyrant that he had come to be known as.

Once all the materials have been gathered, they force feed Meryl the golden apple and Eve takes a stress nap. herobrine wakes her up from the stress nap because meryl is cured YAY!!! Meryl explains that she doesn't remember much after being murdered, only faint images and sounds. Eve is just glad she's okay. Since Meryl is no longer dead, Eve can no longer be banished for her murder, so her innocence is offically proven. Herobrine points out that the people that tried to take them out are going to do so again. Philza acknowledges this and says they're going to launch a full investigation now.

While people are chatting, Herobrine slips out, and Evangeline has a bad feeling so she follows him. She catches him trying to sneak off into the current snowstorm, calls him out, then confesses her love for him. Herobrine takes a solid second to process this and then very firmly rejects her, saying he's a terrible person and they should never see each other again. 10 seconds later, they both get knocked out and kidnapped.

They wake up in a dungeon, chained up next to each other, and Evangeline immediately recognizes that they're in the Aether. Herobrine is bound in magic cuffs that block his powers so he can't teleport. After a slightly awkward but mostly on-topic assessment of where they are (in a dungeon), their captor appears.

Enter, Sirben (💃✨)

Sirben is very angy that they managed to cure one of his zombies, and demands to know how they did it. Evangeline wont tell him so he beats her with a zappy stick until Herobrine tears his chains out of the wall and beats HIM with the zappy stick. Unfortunately he's wounded and not feeling so great so he can't defend her further, and Sirben ultimately decides this is too much to deal with and leaves them alone for now.

In the meantime, the gang at Steven's house has noticed that they're missing and has come to the correct conclusion that they got kidnapped, and are on their way to the Aether to regroup. On the way, they get attacked by valkyries, but not zombies this time, these are Sirben's goons. Steven reveals his earthbending powers by absolutely clowning on them. Also, Meryl is feeling kinda funny.

Herobrine and Eve, still in jail, have a long conversation about her love confession and who he is as a person and why he doesn't feel like he deserves her love. He brings up the time he ordered a third of the population of the nether capital city executed because he was afraid they would overthrow him, which she agrees was in fact Really Really Bad but also it's been centuries, he's going to live forever, and he can't do anything to undo it so he's going to have to live with it, and also hiding in the wilderness is never going to do anything for his reputation as a reprehensible tyrant. Herobrine doesn't really agree with her. he tells her that he doesn't love her, but he does care about her as a consequence of watching over her through so much. Because he cares, and also because Sirben made it very clear that he was going to kill her, Herobrine kisses her because he wants her to be happy before her inevitable death.

Sirben then proceeds to separate them, taking Eve into another room so he can interrogate Herobrine about the cure and also make grandoise threats, including that he's going to kill Evangeline in some gruesome way and also that he can find a way to kill Herobrine somehow (Herobrine, suicidal: cool 👍). In the meantime, Evangeline tries to subtly question the two goons watching her, but they are smart enough to not actually tell her anything.

When they're brought back together, Evangeline trips over her feet and bumps into her guard before she's chained up again, at which point she reveals to Herobrine that she stole the key to their chains because she succeeded her sleight of hand check. They break out and start trying to navigate their way out of Sirben's lair.

In the meantime, Philza and the gang are back in the Aether, where they meet up with Meryl's commander (Erika) and start trying to plan how to find the bad guys. Meryl claims she feels drawn in a certain direction, the gang hypothesizes that she's still connected to the bad guy somehow, and they decide to follow her vibes into the horizon.

While trying to escape, Eve and Herobrine duck into a room that they quickly realize is filled with the bodies of dead valkyries which are most likely zombie fodder. They get into a fight because Herobrine wants to behead them but Eve insists that they can be cured so they shouldn't. While they're arguing, the zombies wake up and capture them (oops). They're dragged out into the hall where Sirben rendezvouses with them, and he makes some vague comment about unexpected guests and takes them to a large, dome-shaped room with a giant glass skylight over an altar. Turns out the vibes gang are incoming fast with many angry valkyries, and Sirben is trying to kill Evangeline and then escape through a Nether portal he has in his base. Herobrine can't really do anything to stop him as Eve is brought up to the altar and Sirben goes to kill her, but he's stopped at the last moment by Philza making an epic entrance through the skylight and smacking him. Chaos ensues.

In the resulting battle, many of the zombies are bound or incapacitated, the goons are either captured or killed, and Eve and Meryl reunite and hang out with herobrine and try to stay out of harm's way. Sirben tries to slip out through the nether portal without anyone noticing, and Evangeline takes advantage of her finally healed wings to catch up to him and steal & break his zappy stick, breaking his connection to the zombies and also Meryl. Sirben, now stickless, escapes into the Nether.

Post battle, all the goons are imprisoned or dead and the zombies are just kind of lost and wandering while treatment is gotten for them. Meryl recognizes that her bestie is Down Bad. While Eve is celebrating though, Herobrine approaches her to tell her that he's Leaving Forever, Sorry, bye, and he disappears through the Nether portal (where, if you recall, he was banished).

Herobrine proceeds to go to the Nether Queen's castle and turns herself in. When she asks him what the flip he's doing there, he tells her that he wants her to lock him up for all eternity so that the nether doesn't need to worry about him anymore. She says no, she has her own ideas.

In the meantime, Meryl and Evangeline are awared medals of valor or something for revealing Sirben's plot, and they get a pat on the head from Notch and he says they did a great job. Notch also makes a comment about how he wishes Herobrine was there too. Eve also misses him and she is sad.

Sirben is not having a good time in the Nether. It's hot and he almost got gored by a hoglin. he also just lost the zombie army he's been building up for years, AND he lost his zappy stick, but he's not too concerned about that, because his boss is gonna absolutely clown on these idiots, you'll see.

THE END

Fly, Phoenix, Fly (book 2)

Book begins with the Queen of the Nether getting visited by a young lady who’s bringing the corpse of a young piglin man with her. Young lady (Alex) claims that this piglin attacked her and acted sick/feral, and she was forced to kill him in self defense. Nether Queen has Herobrine check out the body, and he comes to the conclusion that Sirben is responsible. Cut to the Aether, where Evangeline and Meryl have been summoned by Philza to the Nether because of something mysterious, but they’ve both already decided it’s probably Sirben since they both have personal experience with him. Also, it’s been 40 years since the end of book one. And Eve is still in love with Herobrine. They go through the nether portal and are immediately greeted by a strange cloaked man whose disguise lasts all of 12 seconds before Evangeline outs him as being Herobrine, sent to guide them from the portal to the castle. She demands to know where he’s been/how he’s been and he’s just like “oh yeah I work for the nether queen now” “what? for how long?” “for 40 years”. Eve is Madge.

The three of them make their way towards the castle, Herobrine pointedly ignoring them while Eve and Meryl go “?????” At each other. When they reach the castle they are brought up to speed on the situation, and they agree with Herobrine’s opinion that Sirben is to blame (minecraft zombie piglins????? 😱). They decide that they (along with Philza, Techno, and the queen, who insists on coming along because she’s bored) will go with Alex to the spot where she found the zombie piglin and then search around there for evidence that will hopefully lead them to Sirben.

The next day, they all set out. Herobrine is still pointedly ignoring Eve, but in a scene from his POV it’s revealed that he’s very much in love with her and is having a very hard time not showing it, hence the ignoring. The queen is very much aware of this and forces them to talk to each other. It’s also revealed that Herobrine has been sending letters back and forth with Steven (bros :) ).

After a couple of days they make it to where Alex found the piglin, and they start hunting around for clues. They find plants that seem to be withered, but before they can make any progress they get attacked by hoglins (which aren’t scared of warped mushrooms like they’re supposed to be and scatter. Philza grabs the queen (oh yeah, they’ve also been dating for like 40 years now) and flees, Eve brings Alex to a safe place and then returns, and Herobrine grabs her and teleports away from danger while Meryl flees with Techno. Meryl and Techno find Philza and Mumza, while Alex finds Herobrine and Eve. Neither group knows where the other is, and both of them start walking in the wrong direction to find the other.

While walking through a warped forest, Eve and her gang encounter an Enderman, who plucks a few mushrooms and then vanishes. In the meantime, the queen and her party are in a soul sand valley. Also, over the course of these chapters we see a series of flashbacks from Herobrine’s childhood (smol baby) to when he was a young man (30-100) and is established as the king of the Nether. he was, in fact, a good boi.

Eve’s party eventually descends into a ravine because Herobrine insists that it’s the sort of place that the queen would take shelter in. Unfortunately, she’s not there. Eve keeps arguing with him but he keeps brushing her off and ignoring her, which pisses her off enough that she confronts him directly, accusing him of leaving her to go serve the queen. Herobrine admits that he came to the Nether in the hopes of being locked up forever, and apologizes for brushing her off. Immediately after, they are attacked by hoglins.

After getting out of the ravine, Herobrine points out that there’s a boar spear sticking out of the hoglin and suggests they try to kill it to win the favor of whoever was trying to do so in the first place. Evangeline agrees, and they leave Alex in a safe place (much to her chagrin) while they fight it. They successfully take out the hoglin, only to realize that it’s a zombie. A second hoglin sneaks up on Evangeline and gores her, injuring her badly, and Herobrine teleports with her to safety and cauterizing the wound to keep her stable while Alex brews healing potions.

By the time she’s woken up and is doing okay again, Herobrine is acting a lot more affectionate, immediately offering to carry her so she doesn’t have to walk. The next time they rest, Alex interrogates Eve about her relationship with Herobrine since she has observed very mixed signals from them. Eve tells her that she still has feelings for Herobrine, but he doesn’t return them and she can’t force him to, so she’s not going to try. In the meantime, Philza and the gang finds a piglin village where all the inhabitants are dead and crumbling into black dust.

Herobrine continues to carry Eve the next day, and as they’re walking they encounter a pair of piglin hunters. They explain how Eve got injured, and it turns out that those piglins were tracking the hoglins that attacked them, since they were ‘strange’ and not deterred by warped mushrooms like they’re supposed to be. The hunters invite them back to their camp, and Herobrine reluctantly accepts at the promise of being given fresh supplies.

The piglins bring them back to their camp, where they’re welcomed. Herobrine is a little uncomfortable around them, but after 40 years in the nether his piglin phobia has reduced considerably. The piglins celebrate because the hoglins were murdered, and Herobrine invites Eve to dance with him. Bewildered, she accepts. Alex is now more confused.

After dinner, the highlord of the camp calls them all in to speak with him. They explain who Sirben is and what they suspect he’s doing, and it turns out that the zombie piglin that attacked Alex came from this camp. The highlord sends out Eve and Alex to talk to Herobrine alone, and reveals that Herobrine was responsible for killing his grandfather about 400 years ago. Herobrine apologizes, which the highlord is not satisfied with, but Herobrine promises to do his best to protect the Nether by dealing with Sirben. The highlord agrees to give them supplies and tells him to never come back, or else.

The following chapter begins with a flashback of Herobrine being attacked in his castle and left for dead. In the present, shortly after leaving the piglin camp, he and the girls find a bloodstained feather, directly after which Sirben reveals himself along with two huge, black skeletons. Eve and Sirben banter for a bit, then Herobrine notices a crest on a banner that a skeleton is carrying, which is the same crest as the assassins who attacked him wore. He promptly spirals into a panic attack. Sirben leaves, the skeletons go to attack them, and Herobrine grabs the girls and teleports away.

Eventually, they get far enough away and Herobrine has calmed down enough to explain what freaked him out. Eve is sympathetic. They find a cave to hide out in for the night, and Alex goes to bed, leaving Eve and Herobrine awake. Herobrine refuses to sleep because he’s afraid of having nightmares. They talk for a while, which culminates in Evangeline demanding to know why he’s been acting weird and Herobrine admits that he’s in love with her, but he’s been avoiding her because he doesn’t deserve the happiness that she would bring him. Eve gives him a hug, then kisses him and he starts crying. In the meantime, Philza and the gang finally make their way back around to the capital.

The next day, Eve’s gang agrees (reluctantly on Herobrine’s part) to let her fly around to scan for any sign of Sirben from the air. She heads out and makes it back safe, reporting that she found tracks in a soulsand valley. In the meantime, Techno and Meryl head out to track them down, this time with a lodestone compass so they don’t get lost themselves.

Eve and the gang pass through the soulsand valley, which is Annoying because the sand is basically quicksand. They lose the trail in a crimson forest, and Eve flies off again. This time, she finds a sword abandoned in the middle of a clearing, and while investigating it is kidnapped by Sirben and his piglin brutes. When she doesn’t come back, Herobrine and Alex go in search of her, and they find her sword, which Sirben left intentionally to bait them into following.

Sirben ties up Eve and leaves her in his base, which is a cave system (RIP claustrophobic Eve), with the express purpose of baiting in Herobrine. Eve tells him he’s going to get smacked. Sirben, who has ego problems, doesn’t believe her. She also notices that he has a bunch of captive hoglins. Herobrine and Alex track down the camp (which is covered with the same crest as the assassins that attacked Herobrine), and devise a plan to break in and save her.

Herobrine teleports into the caves and murders every piglin that he comes across, eventually locating Sirben in a larger room and attacking him. He’s promptly attacked by wither skeletons, which are far stronger and faster than he expects, but he manages to hold them off until the hoglins (which Alex released) flood the cave system and destroy everything in their path. Herobrine slips away and finds Eve, kills her guards, and gets out with her safely. As they make to leave, they notice Sirben escaping, and Eve goes after him, but she doesn’t take him down before he reaches more wither skeletons. He and Eve have another shouting match, then one of the wither skeletons attacks Sirben and cuts off his wing, causing him to fall off the ledge and land in the forest below. By the time Eve and the gang get to him, he’s dying, and he explains that a single blow from the skeletons inflicts Wither, which is lethal. He says that his master is named Null and that it’s impossible to kill him. Eve sits with him and holds his hand while he dies.

With Sirben dead, the gang heads through the tunnel that he was about to flee through in search of Null. During a rest stop, Eve and Herobrine talk about Sirben’s death, then they kiss more, despite Herobrine’s insistence that he’s going to leave her after this mission and they shouldn’t make the separation harder (because he doesn’t deserve to be happy etc etc etc). In the meantime, Meryl and Techno find the camp where they stayed and talk to the Highlord about where they went.

When they get to the end of the tunnel, they spot a group of piglin brutes leading a prisoner, and Eve convinces them that they should rescue them because they might have info for them. Eve and Herobrine beat up the piglin brutes and rescue the woman, who is a former member of Null’s cult, and she leads them back to the bastion where she’s been living.

Hama goes to take a nap and Herobrine sneaks off to treat his wound and have some alone time, which Eve crashes because she wants to spend as much time as possible before he leaves her. When Hama gets up, she explains to them how she was born into Null’s cult and left when she became elderly, which made her a target for the younger, more bloodthirsty members. She describes Null to them and explains his wither powers, and says that the cult worships him and he has lots of wither skeletons. She also says that he was directly responsible for the attempt on Herobrine’s life, since he was doing such a good job uniting the Nether and that was a bad thing for Null, who thrived on chaos. They ask her where to find him, and she says she can’t tell them, but she produces an old map that she says her parents had. Alex, being a mapmaker, is able to read it and can lead them to Null’s fortress. In the meantime, back at the Nether Castle, Philza tries to propose to Mumza but is interrupted by the castle being attacked by wither skeletons.

On their way to Null’s castle, Herobrine tries to convince Eve to take Alex and leave once they get there in an attempt to keep them safe, but Eve refuses since she wants to protect him to. They argue, and then he kisses her. Alex is very confused about the current state of the ship.

Over the course of these chapters, we get a series of flashbacks of Herobrine growing more and more cruel and paranoid, including how he murdered a valkyrie woman named Angela because he was afraid she was a spy from Notch. This ultimately culminates in him having a third of the population of the capital executed, following the death of his most trusted advisor, Mikkael.

In the present, Eve and Alex chat about family, and Eve explains to her how valkyries who suffer severe injuries or mental trauma retire from fighting and take care of the young valkyries instead.

The wither skeletons at the nether capital are currently breaking into the castle, and Philza manages to convince Mumza to flee to the Aether with him for safety. As they’re fleeing, the wither skeletons break in and attack them, and Philza is forced to break through a window with her to escape. The moment they reach the Aether, he proposes and she accepts.

Eve and her gang encounter another zombie piglin, this one being a member of Null’s cult, and they follow his tracks to the cult camp, where they find that the zombification has spread and infected the entire cult (L). Herobrine is also being more affectionate towards her now. In the Aether, Philza and Mumza meet up with Erika (that’s Meryl’s commander) and Notch, who is obviously concerned about the fact that there are animate skeletons that 1-hit KO anything they touch. They all decide to go through another portal to scout out the situation. Upon arriving, they conclude that the city is so far safe, but the castle is completely overrun by the skeletons. They decide that the plan will be for Notch to go in and start beating them with his hammer while the valkyries drop big rocks on them.

Eve and the gang reach the lava lake that Null’s Nether Fortress is located in, and they stop one last time to rest before they attack. They’re all stressed, but they’re trying their best to keep up morale. Eve tries to convince Herobrine once more that he’s not an irredeemable piece of trash, with debatable success. Meryl and Techno are getting close to finding them.

The next day, Herobrine goes to the fortress alone to confront Null, and he gets his attention while Eve sneak attacks him. At the capital, Notch engages the wither skeletons, and he gets withered but fights off the infection. Philza and Mumza watch from a distance with Steven (who’s also there), until they’re attacked by wither skeletons and Philza carries her to safety. Steven joins Notch at the castle to help him fight, despite Notch’s protests that he should keep back.

At the nether fortress, Eve and Herobrine continue to fight, and they encounter a wither skeleton made from the remains of Sirben. Upon taking out all of the wither skeletons, Null attacks them himself, and Eve manages to push him off the fortress, but he throws an ender pearl and teleports back up. He almost manages to kill Herobrine, but Eve pins Null down for just long enough for Herobrine to run him through and kill him. The wither skeleton reinforcements beginning to arrive start to crumble, and Eve and Herobrine hug. Eve is the only one to spot a wither skeleton archer before it fires on them, and she blocks the shot with her wing to keep it from hitting Herobrine, who she suspects would be killed by wither. Herobrine is distraught as she begins to die, but Meryl and Techno arrive just in time to get her to eat enough of a golden apple to save her, and Meryl carries her back to the Aether for further treatment. At the capital, the rest of the wither skeletons crumble.

Eve wakes up in the Aether with her wing destroyed, but with Herobrine there waiting for her, and he doesn’t waste any time in professing his love for her and proposing. They get married, and become a set of surrogate parents for the young valkyries while dealing with their own demons.

THE END

#I’ll recap book 3 when I finish writing it #evangeline #FAF!Herobrine #Sirben #FAF #FPF #fanfiction

4 notes · View notes

mothman-can-write · 1 year ago

Note

hi !!! i saw u said you were open for prompts, i mean this is kinda less of a prompt really, but like i loved that blackhill mission transcript thing you did a while ago and would be really cool to see some more stuff in the same vein ig ! but also maybe something like a kinda blackhill first meeting kinda thing idk !! i just love your work tho ! you really have the ability to make me feel all the emotions

OOOOO i just thought of this whilst writing this but maybe something like with clint teasing nat ab having like feelings for maria or something ?? idk i just love ur writing ! sorry these are kinda shitty hahah

NGL I took this prompt and mangled it in my hands. I heard first meeting and my brain was immediately like well that could go seventeen thousand different ways, so I sorta mashed in Clint's teasing to go along with it and made it a little more suggestive than outright shippy. Realistically, I think if Natasha is only meeting Maria for the first time, she's probably still in a place where she's not totally open to such self indulgent things as having a crush

Also, this isn't a mission transcript but I'd love to do more of them that one was really fun! I just don't really have any good ideas for the sort of things they'd have to talk about in the field besides dying haha

ANYWAY enough rambling, though you're all familiar with my inability to shut up these days. ~3k under the cut of Clint being a ballache and nat being sceptical but gay

The only person that doesn’t treat Natasha like she’s a project – or a live wire – is Clint. He’d had his fair share of looking at her with those careful eyes, something behind them that made her teeth itch in her gums like some trained dog. He doesn’t do that so much anymore, not unless she’s in a particular state and doing a very bad job at hiding it. She likes him, she thinks. He might be one of the first people in her entire life that she can truly say she likes.

Naturally, she finds herself in his quarters more often than her own. She lays on his bed as he works on something probably explosive enough to kill them both if he sneezes, and she ignores the pip of her emails as she braids a small strip of hair under her ear. She’s bored, if she’s honest, but she doesn’t want to waste her first free morning of the past fortnight on something so trivial as emails. Or helping Clint.

“You not gonna answer her?” he says without looking up from his work. He holds it close to his face, something far too small in his tweezers.

Natasha’s fingers pause in untangling her braid. “How do you know who it is?”

He still doesn’t turn in his seat, matter of fact when he speaks. “You have a different tone for Hill.”

“How did you figure that out?” She tries not to scowl at him, but she still isn’t used to feeling so see-through. Quite frankly, she’d like to be as opaque as possible, but she seems to have grown rather attached to someone with x-ray vision.

Clint puts his miniature contraption down and turns to her at last. She’s not fond of the smile on his face as he leans over the back of his chair. “You’re not the only spy on the ship. Also, you weren’t trying very hard to hide it.”

“Her emails are usually more important,” Natasha argues, not quite sure why she feels the need to defend herself on it.

Clint grins ever wider. “I never asked why. I just thought you had a massive crush on her.”

Natasha scowls fully this time. “I’ve never met her.”

He shrugs. “I don’t know what’s in those emails.”

“Shut up.”

She reaches for her phone anyway and pointedly ignores the way Clint watches her. The email is much the same as they always are, telling her about meetings and progress and such. She’s overtly professional in every one, but now that she’s thinking about it, Natasha likes the words she uses – just slightly like she enjoyed reading dictionaries as a child. Very, very rarely, Maria will let something slip in her emails that is almost like humour, and Natasha doesn’t tell Clint that she actually does enjoy receiving emails from her just for the fact that she feels a little special when that happens. She’s heard the rumours; she knows not to expect giggles and grins when it comes to the Assistant Director.

In the end, she doesn’t bother to respond to the email anyway and Clint has already turned back to his work. “Not in the mood to sext her back?”

She scowls at the back of his head. “It sounds like Laura needs to watch her back.”

“Oh, god,” he laughs. “Gross. Absolutely not. Not my type.”

“What makes you think she’s mine?”

“You need someone to match your weirdness.”

Natasha wishes she had something to throw at him. She won’t admit that she intrigues her in small ways. She doubts she’s any different from every other CEO and government lead in the world, but some small part of her feels thankful to her faceless emails. She could’ve easily overridden Clint’s choice, could’ve had her put down before she could even think to beg for forgiveness. But she’d given her a chance, and she’d kept in contact despite her supposed overbooked schedule every day since. Maria held her life in her hands at one point, and she’d given her another shot at it.

Despite everything, Natasha still doesn’t sleep well. Or, rather, because of everything, she supposes. One good month doesn’t erase a lifetime of bad – and she’s really a little hesitant to say that this month has even been good in many senses of the word. She wonders if the nights will ever get easier on her with time, or if she’s stuck with these hours of restlessness and sweat for the rest of her life. It’s not a nice thing to think about, and it doesn’t really do all that much to distract her from the shadows that still play behind her eyelids or the way the shapes of the room still seem to swim around the edges. So, she swings her legs over the side of her bed and scrubs at her face with her hands. She can appreciate, at the very least, that she isn’t handcuffed to her bed here. Somehow, that had been a hard thing to get used to. She still sleeps with one arm by the headboard.

There aren't many things to do at this hour. Clint has told her countless times that she’s perfectly welcome to pester him at any time of the night if it would make her feel even minutely better. He says he understands, and she believes him enough from the way his past lines his own face, but it doesn’t make it any easier to put into practice.

She doesn’t have a plan as she steps out into the corridors. She dresses like she’s going to the gym on the off chance that she might be able to sneak into it and punch something until she’s sweaty for reasons more tangible. She wishes the firing range was usable at this hour, but she’s sure that’s much less subtle. Still, there are some nightmares you can only really feel better by shooting at. Maybe she’ll bat her eyelashes into an hour or so at the targets tomorrow.

She passes the odd agent as she trails around the corridors and considers that the ship never really sleeps entirely. There’s always someone on the night shift, always someone pottering around with something. She thinks it would be nice to work when it’s so quiet. Maybe she should ask about changing her hours. It might be a little soon.

The gym isn’t so far from her quarters, and by the time she reaches it her shirt still feels sticky at her back and her stomach still feels like it’s alive in her ribcage. Her hopes are low enough to limbo as she presses her hand to the door, and she could almost sigh with relief when the door opens easily. She’s not against breaking in, but she likes to think she’s been doing a pretty good job of building a better reputation lately. Maybe not socially, but Maria’s emails haven’t managed to sound short lately – not since the last time she’d bypassed what she maintains was a criminally simple encryption on one of Clint’s jobs.

The gym is utterly silent at this time of the morning, which is entirely unsurprising. She doubts anyone else sensible gets out of bed for another hour or two, let alone starts their training regime. Generally, agents are allowed the privilege of breakfast before they’re worked to the bone. Natasha’s never been a fan of food so early in the morning.

She doesn’t really know when she fell out of the habit of scanning each room on this ship like someone will be waiting to haul her out of it, and she blames it firmly on her lack of sleep and nightmare slurred thoughts when she doesn’t notice the other body in the gym until it’s too late.

“I did wonder,” someone says, and Natasha’s attention snaps to one of the benches on the far side, half covered from the entrance.

It takes Natasha an almost embarrassingly drawn out moment to place her features, and she’s sure she only half succeeds in hiding her surprise into an intrigued eyebrow. The Assistant Director didn’t really strike her as the type to be in the gym when everyone is supposed to be sleeping.

“Wonder what?” she asks instead of every other question that gnaws at her head. She stays firmly planted in the middle of the room.

“Who would come in at this time.”

Oh. She’s not wondering about Natasha. She doesn’t really know what that feels a mote disappointing. She hates it when Clint asks how she’s sleeping. Maybe she just doesn’t like lying to him.

“I thought it would be empty.”

Maria places her water bottle beside her on the bench and makes absolutely no move to stand up yet. Somehow, Natasha finds it unnerving, even if she’s taller here. “It usually is,” she says simply.

Her eyes bore into her in a way that makes the back of her neck crawl. Something about her says that she’s calculating, that she’s looking at Natasha and breaking her down into little bite sized pieces. Natasha has never liked being dissected. Maria’s eyes are very blue.

“Do you usually spend your mornings here?” she asks, if only to stop Maria from burning holes into her skull and reading her thoughts directly.

It works, in the way that her gaze flicks away for the briefest moment before pinning her again in that same cool tone. “I guess you could call this morning.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Maria’s eyes soften ever so slightly around the corners, and Natasha would almost call it a squint. “I’ve made a bit of a habit at this point, yes.”

She almost seems reluctant to admit it, and Natasha can’t help the way she wants to pick this woman apart. She has always liked puzzles, and people are just some of the more complex the world has to offer. She thinks she understands the rumours a little more now, even through this uncanny meeting. She wonders if Maria feels her own searching gaze as intently.

Maria stands at last, and Natasha had almost forgotten how tall she is. She thinks she preferred it when she was sitting. “Don’t let me stop you,” she says, and Natasha is silently thankful for the way that answers her question. Again, not that she wouldn’t break the rules. It’s just much harder to make an excuse when the Assistant Director is the one who catches you.

“I would’ve expected the AD to send me back to my quarters,” she notes, as forward as ever when it gets her information. She’ll admit this woman seems to be intriguing. She’s curious as to just why she’s indulging her so far.

Maria’s expressions are all very small, mere suggestions of emotions that only make Natasha want to pick her apart. “That would make me more of a hypocrite than I already am,” she says simply, almost smiling. “Are you getting on okay?” she asks instead , and her eyes are on her like she’s deciphering her again. She’s closer now, making direct eye contact, and Natasha holds it like a game. “Besides the obvious, of course.”

Natasha tries not to scowl. God, does she hate when people pretend like they know her. “What’s the obvious?”

Maria raises one eyebrow ever so slightly, her expression caught somewhere to amusement. “Did the Red Room have you in the routine of training at four in the morning?”

“Sometimes.” They both know that’s not the reason that she’s here, as much as Natasha wishes Maria didn’t.

Her eyes are almost soft. Almost like she truly cares about her. Natasha doesn’t like to let herself believe the sort of things that might cost her later. “Half of the people on this ship struggle with it, Romanoff,” she says, nearly gentle in the silence around them. “You don’t have to be ashamed of it.”

She can almost imagine her setting a heavy hand on her shoulder as she says it, though Maria remains in her own space. She’s still slightly too close for what Natasha is used to however, and it’s the first time she realises the darkness under her eyes. Her face is lined, something bone deep that she doubts ever goes away. It lends her a certain sort of…imperfection that makes her seem a whole lot more human. For everything she’s heard, though she knows to take gossip with a healthy grain of salt, she could almost imagine Hill to be some sort of robot, some living excel sheet.

Standing in front of her, she sort of just looks like a woman who could do with some sleep. She looks like a woman who has spent the last who-knows-how-many hours beating out her own past the same way Natasha intends to. She won’t call it affection. It doesn’t mean Natasha likes the way she looks straight through her any more.

“You have any tips?” she says, aiming for something playful. She really, really just wants her to stop looking at her like she can figure her out right here in the middle of the room. Maybe if she seems better than she is, she’ll leave her alone. She’d rather her conduct a genuine vivisection out on the boxing ring floor if she’s going to continue to examine her.

She’s certain Maria almost smiles at that, a tug at the corner of her lips that is almost sad, almost conspirational. She shrugs ever so slightly. “Shooting things usually helps.”

Natasha tries not to scowl like a child. As if she wouldn’t be there right now if she could get away with it. “I’m on supervised arms training.”

This time, Maria does smile, though Natasha thinks she’d have missed it if she blinked. “Not from tomorrow,” she says plainly, and Natasha can only watch her walk away without another word.

The door closes behind her, and Natasha lets herself furrow her eyebrows as deeply as she likes. She is overtly aware that she is not being let off of supervised training tomorrow. She’s aware that she has been seen as a weapon and an explosive since the moment Clint forgot that he was meant to shoot her. Somehow, she doesn’t think that Maria is one to tease.

It makes it very hard to punch things as effectively as she’d like to when she can only think after Maria. She wonders what keeps her up at night. She wonders what else she does to get rid of the shadows. She wonders why on earth she would let her off of the hook so early. For all they know, Natasha might decide to defect back. She might’ve been biding her time until she could get a hand on one of those guns outside of the range. She’d never even dream of it, of course. She’d rather be supervised for every split second a gun is in her hands for the rest of her life than have to go back to her life before. She wonders just how deep Maria managed to dig. She wonders if she really is all that transparent after all.

She finds herself in Clint’s quarters again as thoughtlessly as breathing. Every spare minute in her schedule that lines up with his, she’ll spend hiding from the rest of the world. This time, she’s sitting in his chair, her knees resting against the edge of his desk so that she can spin it slightly from side to side. Clint is behind her in his bunk, his arms tucked up behind his head and his eyes closed. It’s only 2pm. Natasha wishes she could have a nap too.

“Is she always like that?” she says on a whim, her thoughts still stuck on tired eyes and snap decisions.

“Like what?” Clint asks, completely brushing over her lack of context.

“So…intense.”

“Ah, we’re back on Hill. Yes.” He falls silent again, and Natasha listens to his breath. “Hold on.” His eyes open and his head turns on his pillow to face her. “Did you meet her? When?”

“This morning.”

“You were at the range this morning.”

“Before that.”

“You were asleep before that.” She doesn’t answer, and that tells him everything in as little effort as possible. “Natasha.”

She doesn’t meet his eye. “It’s better than moping.”

“You don’t need to mope. You can come wake me up.”

“But then you don’t sleep.”

“Tasha, do you really think I’m sleeping well either half the time?”

She stays silent again, staring intently at the dimples Clint’s chair has made in the carpet.

“How did you even find her?” he asks eventually, giving up the argument for the countless time. “She’s practically booked to the minute.”

“She was in the gym when I got there.”

“I’m going to skip over the fact that you’d rather punch something until you bleed than come and bug me. Was it worth it? Was she all sweaty and hot? Did you two finally canoodle in person?”

She doesn’t dignify his jokes with a response, her thoughts plain in her expression. “I don’t think she sleeps well either. She looked tired.”

Clint grins a little. “You paying attention to her face?”

Natasha scowls at him. “It’s normal to look someone in the eye.”

“Mhm…” He retucks his arms under his head, settling back against his pillow. “It’s for sure normal to think about them all morning.”

“She took me off of probation,” she says, almost in a rush, like maybe this will change the subject – maybe a little bit like she’s admitting something.

“Oh you definitely have a crush on her. It’s like she’s trying to get in your pants. Remind me never to read your emails.”

Natasha only squints at him, wishing once again that she had something appropriate to throw. The urge distracts her enough that she never does reject the notion. And when she finds herself imagining Maria’s secret little smile in those few and far casual emails, she decides that Clint doesn’t need to know. She’s not been given many chances in her life, and she thinks she could make space in her life for two instead of one. She wonders if Maria would ever want a gym buddy on long nights and promptly decides not to think any deeper into it.

#words #tumblr exclusive #prompts #blackhill #natasha romanoff #maria hill #clint barton

30 notes · View notes

torchwood-99 · 1 year ago

Text

Theoden and Eowyn's Relationship

There seems to me a shift in the way that Theoden treats Eowyn in Two Towers, to how he treats her in Return of the King.

In Two Towers, the first thing he says to her on awakening is an order for her to leave the room. The danger is passed, he is healed, she can go now.

Theoden hears of how Grima, the man he trusted, stalked Eowyn and obviously had malicious plans for her. Whereas Eomer is rightly incensed by that, we get little reaction from Theoden that his adoptive daughter had been harassed by the man he welcomed into his halls and allowed great authority to.

We then see Eowyn serving Theoden, waiting on him, while her brother and Theoden's guests get to sit with him.

Then, (an oh god does this piss me off) we get Theoden pretty much forgetting she exists when the people tell him they want the House of Eorl to rule them, even when he and Eomer are gone. The scene where Theoden heeds the people's wishes and puts Eowyn in charge, even giving her a corselet and a sword, could have been moving and a moment of pride for Eowyn, but it comes on the back of that total dismissal of her as a member of their house. Their parting is perfunctory, with Theoden giving Eowyn orders and then riding off, leaving her behind to guard an empty hall.

In turn, when Eowyn is dismissed from the hall, she looks at Theoden with "cool pity." She isn't rejoicing to see him recovered, she isn't warm and tender, she is removed, even contemptuous. Then, when she bids Theoden farewell, she says all the right stuff about how hard the parting is, but her focus is clearly elsewhere. It is with Aragorn, (the man who is everything she thinks a king should be.)

Reading Two Towers, any great love between Theoden and Eowyn would be a case of telling instead of showing. There's little warmth, interest or respect between them. The greatest hint of there being anything personal between the two is when Theoden has to insist Eowyn leave, as that suggests Eowyn was reluctant to leave his side.

In Return of the King, the dynamic shifts considerable. It is far warmer and much more tender and personal. When Theoden returns to Dunharrow, he asks after Eowyn, checking on how her work is going, but also asking how she is, probably seeing that has been weeping as Merry had noticed.

In Dunharrow, Eowyn is at last allowed to sit with her uncle while he dines with her brother, instead of waiting on him. During this dinner, Theoden notices Eowyn seems in need of comfort, and tries to offer it to her. Furthermore, just as he started calling Eomer "son", he now calls Eowyn "daughter".

Their parting is described as having been very painful, and Theoden later notes that Eowyn didn't want him gone from her side. While he dies with some peace, feeling like he has regained his honour and accomplished worthy feats, he mentions how Eowyn didn't want him to go and now he will never see her again, the closest thing to regret we hear in his dying speech. He calls her dearer-than-daughter, and uses his last breath to bid her farewell.

Eowyn, in turn, breaks away from Elfhelm's eored so she can ride close to the king, is noted several times to have Theoden as a father, and of course, is willing to endure a terrible death to allow Theoden to die in peace.

Now, the shift in their dynamic can be attributed to Tolkien needing to make Eowyn's attempted sacrifice and Theoden's following death more moving, but I also think there are in-universe reasons for the shift in dynamic as well.

First, in Two Towers, Theoden is still coming out from his own traumatic experience. A traumatic experience that probably left him feeling ashamed, as during that time he fit into his people's conception of neither a man nor a king, and his country suffered for it. Eowyn was with him that whole time, she saw his fall into dotage, and as the narrative noted that Eowyn "pitied" him for it, and saw in him the fall of their house, Theoden likewise felt the same, and also either saw or at least suspected Eowyn's own feelings. She is a symbol of his hurt pride.

Eowyn's presence at his side was a reminder of his time spent being nursed by her, a time of suffering and degradation, which Theoden would rather not be reminded of. and now he's coming out from that, there's a distance between them. That their relationship has been one of nursemaid and patient, only to be drastically altered, also makes it reasonable for there now to be a gap between them, now that Theoden has taken up a role of authority and power once more, and Eowyn, his living crutch, is no longer needed.

At the same time, Theoden has gotten used to seeing Eowyn as a crutch, a staff for him to lean on, and not a person with a will or capabilities of her own.

Eomer is his sister-son, the last of his house, the brave warrior who endured imprisonment at his own adoptive father's hands to do what's right for their people, and the future of Rohan. Eowyn is the nurse he no longer needs, the reminder of his lost pride and power, the crutch he can now throw aside and pray he never needs again.

That he lives in a patriarchal society and thus already has a lazy, general expectation of women and women's roles, also means he is going to have something of a blind spot to Eowyn. She waits on him and comes and goes at his calling because that is what women do. It doesn't occur to him that Eowyn can lead, because Eowyn as a leader simply isn't something he has ever seen her as.

The fact that he's dealing with his own trauma, loss of his son, the threat of Sauron and Saruman, and his imminent march to war, all means that he really isn't in the head space to re-think things with Eowyn, notice how she too has been suffering, or acknowledge the power in her that has been overlooked by him. Eowyn, likewise, has little time or cause to reform the bond with her uncle.

Come Return of the King, things have changed. Time has passed, for one. Theoden is a leading king once more, with a victory under his belt. His pride, to an extent, has been restored. At the same time, he knows more war is coming, and he will probably be dying soon. As such, Eowyn is less the shameful reminder of his past, and more a child he will have to say farewell to very soon.

On returning to Dunharrow, he is presented with two bits of information about Eowyn. One, that she had done her duty very well, the people are settled and safe, and they followed her, just as Hama said they would. At the same time, Eowyn has obviously been suffering. Before, Theoden was the king, the leader, and at the same time, he was the patient and the sufferer in need of tending to and comfort.

Now, Theoden sees that Eowyn is a leader, that she has an existence and virtues aside from being his carer. At the same time, he is reminded that Eowyn has feelings, that she suffers hurts and losses, and needs comforting.

The tension from Eowyn having seen and nursed Theoden at his lowest might be eased, at least on Theoden's side, for Eowyn is no longer just a crutch that Theoden doesn't want or need, and Theoden is now in the place of seeing Eowyn vulnerable and in need of comfort.

And just as how Theoden now looks on Eomer fully as a son following the battle, Eowyn is now fully his daughter. He has made that choice to embrace them so, and on doing this, he sees Eowyn has proven herself a leader, but is also in pain. Paternal pride and paternal comfort now have cause to meet.

On the note of leadership, that Eowyn now sits with Theoden at table, instead of waiting on him, marks a shift in their dynamic and Eowyn's position. Eowyn has taken charge of the people, she has organised the camp, she has acted as lord in his place, it's no longer right that she act as his cupbearer.

Going into speculation, we can also look at how Theoden assigns Merry to serve Eowyn. Now, this is to give Merry some purpose, and to keep him safe. But at the same time, he is acknowledging Eowyn as a leader, while also perhaps ensuring she has someone in her company who might be comforting to her.

Theoden rides off to death, knowing that this may very well be the last time he sees Eowyn. Eowyn, having had some part of her bond with Theoden reforged, her love and respect for him re-captured, coupled with a lingering sense of duty that it's her role to care for him, doesn't just ride to battle, but rides to protect him.

Finally, in terms of framing, we see Eowyn and Theoden through the eyes of Merry. Merry is compassionate, able to pick up on people's feelings, perhaps more inclined to notice the familial stuff, than the more removed narrator of Two Towers.

In his recollections, retold to Sam and Frodo for the Red Book, it is likely that he would have remembered more of the tender moments between Theoden and Eowyn, than whoever it was who told Sam and Frodo about the pair in Two Towers. Especially as Merry loved Theoden like a father and was very close to Eowyn, and in hindsight knew about what love for Theoden would drive Eowyn to do. Therefore, both at the time and in memory, he would have placed far more importance on their interpersonal relationship, than the Three Hunters would have done with their re-tellings.

Who knows what moments between Theoden and Eowyn we would have seen in the Two Towers; Eowyn's reaction to Eomer being called last of their house, Theoden's face on being reminded Eowyn was there, whatever passed between them when Theoden gave her that sword and corselet, had we got them from Merry's POV,

#Lotr #Lord of the Rings #Eowyn #Theoden #Merry Brandybuck

12 notes · View notes