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anakinisvaderisanakin · 3 years ago

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Impasse - A Vaderdala Oneshot

“You forget something, Lord Vader.”

Vader flinched, the voice as clear as a bell yet as foreign as the icy vacuum of space. He found himself frozen in place, the bulk of his hefty frame suddenly unbearable. Inside his chest, he felt the searing fingers of remorse and the scalding flames of rage warring for control.

Against better judgment, he shifted to turn around. Against better judgment, he let down his guard and ignored unclipping his lightsaber. He knew the face he would find before he saw it, but he was still not prepared for the wave of emotion that spilled forth as he came face to face with his own ghosts. This one, he had expected long dead and buried.

“Padmé,” he gasped, but the voice that came out was blunt and deep and void of affection.

Still, the shock bled through. Padmé was as beautiful as the day he’d last seen her. Eyes fierce and determined, dark hair coming loose from her neatly tied bun. Her face was set in a scowl, blaster drawn and aiming straight for the chest panel on Vader’s chest as if it were a marked target meant for practice and precision fire. The air had shifted, the tension thick and heavy and oppressive as they stared each other down. No, more accurately Padmé’s intense, fiery glare was bearing down on Vader. Vader felt his anger dissipate the moment he met that stare; the ice cold regret and guilt crippling him inside out as it won the impasse.

“You said you had come to destroy the Rebellion. I am the last leader standing here. I alone. Will you destroy me now?�� Padmé hissed through a clenched jaw, cheeks flushed but her hands steady.

Vader was familiar with the vow he had made, but now it seemed an impossible lie. Before his mind’s eye, he had envisioned old men and snot nosed kids. Politicians and traitors and cowards, incapable of accepting the Emperor’s grand design and his expert vision. The future was bright, the Sith had reclaimed their natural state in the circle of life - atop the ladder. Only fools and children would oppose such an evident supply of unlimited power. Yet, Padmé seemed to care for none of these things. Time had not slowed her down, it had not thawed the ice built in her heart - the ice Vader himself had put there.

“Well?” she pressed, voice tight, calm and collected.

The words escaped before Vader had any chance to rein himself in. Perhaps he never intended to.

“No.”

“No?” she repeated, as if mocking him but her expression revealed surprise and disbelief.

“Aren’t you here to execute your Rebel traitors?”

Vader said nothing, instead he reached for the saber strapped to his belt. He watched Padmé tense, watched her shoulder come up and the finger on the trigger twitch. In what might have been a gesture of surrender, he simply tossed his weapon between them. The gesture was barely a flick of his wrist, but it sent the hilt skidding across the smooth floors until it came to an premeditated gentle stop at Padmé’s feet. She glanced down to regard the token, an unreadable tinge of something somber gleaming in her eyes for a split second. When she looked back up, Vader had not moved. He stood with his hands at his sides, the bombardment outside the underground bunker shaking its hull; straining the already flickering lights.

“I will not fight you,” said Vader finally, as if that would be enough to soothe the woman’s stubborn spirits.

She furrowed her brow, the corner of her lips curling into a half sneer of disgust. It stung, and Vader might have recoiled from that alone had he not been the man he was. Changed, remolded and retooled. His heart had been ripped out once, and still Padmé’s presence willed its withered carcass to beat and blossom. At the same time, she tore it to shreds once more with the disdain her face held for him. He sensed it inside her, swirling and expanding into a palpable loathing. It cloaked her, surrounded her like a cloud. It reeked of pain, sorrow, and betrayal.

“You don’t know me. If you won’t fight, I will,” she said, every word calculated and sincere.

“‘Aggressive negotiations’.”

It was merely a statement, but its meaning rang true. Padmé straightened up, eyes suddenly wide as a ghost of horrified recognition filtered past her defenses. it was gone in the blink of an eye, but the colour that had drained from her already pale face was harder to conceal.

“Who told you?” she snarled, shifting the aim of her blaster towards Vader’s heart - knowing it would do no harm, but the gesture hit him like a slap across the face either way.

She was questioning how he had learned about her and The Jedi. Anakin Skywalker, her husband. Perhaps she had her sneaking suspicions, she must. But her aura betrayed none of it, it remained outraged and unsettled and adamant in her quest.

“You did.”

Padmé opened her mouth to deliver another scathing retort, but she snapped it close again. A tremor passed her slight frame, and it did not go unnoticed. Her resolve was faltering and waning, the lie she had convinced herself to believe no less a stretch of the imagination than the mental gymnastics Vader himself had been performing for the past four years. Ever since Mustafar, ever since he lost everything. Now, that very everything lost stood before him. Now, she was once more within his reach.

“I’m sorry. I tried,” he heard himself say, a feeble apology not nearly sufficient to excuse the heinous acts he had committed.

The voice was still not his own, but the words were earnest. Padmé lowered her blaster in slow, jerky motions but her eyes were transfixed on his. At the very least, Vader felt their gaze burn straight into his soul; into the furnace of his heart that had frozen over a million times.

“You’re safe.”

It was a ridiculous profession, Padmé’s very existence as part of the Rebellion was a death sentence. But she was alive, she was well and healthy and stable and here. She had not died. He had failed her, but she had lived. He took one step towards her, feeling just as wary and insecure as she looked. She blinked rapidly, shaking her head in a tiny micromovement. She mouthed something, but there was no sound accompanying the motion. Vader understood her fear, yet it pained him to no end. He was unrecognizable, locked within this jettblack prison of durasteel, cybernetics and synth flesh. There was so little left of his physical body, and even less of the man Padmé had once loved.

“It can’t be…” she whispered, hoarse as the tendons at the sides of her neck strained.

Vader felt the urge to cry, an urge so overpowering. An urge that had not found him since Mustafar, since the fall of the Jedi and the Republic. He had no tears to cry, no measure to shed tears by. His retinas, his tear ducts were long since eaten away by flames and embers. Still, his eyes stung. A warmth pressed behind them, a heaviness bearing down on his chest like a fist squeezing the air out of his lungs. Lungs he no longer had.

“Do what you must. I am not afraid to die.”

Padmé’s eyes widened, mouth falling open as realization dawned upon her. She understood. Vader expected her to back away, expected her to cry, to yell, to fire. Anything. Instead, she stood stone faced. As frail as porcelain, yet as sturdy as the brightest star in the Galaxy. Now, she took a step towards him. Then another. Closing the gap, inch by inch, foot by foot. She tipped her head back, never once drawing her eyes from the opaque crimson lenses of Vader’s eyes that substituted eyes. They served for the damaged, half blind eyes hidden behind.

“What have they done to you?” Padmé’s resolute voice murmured; full of compassion and love, emotions that seemed to have sprung out of the ether.

Yet, what she really meant was; what have you done to yourself?

Vader did not falter as she stopped but a breath away. Her trembling, slender fingers reached for his face plate. Her tiny hand brushed over the mouthpiece, running over the sharp angles and the netted grill. A breath was forced through it, with a loud hiss and the smell of sanitizer and bacta fluids followed it. Padmé’s eyes were round, warm, and mournful. They were glassy, her cheeks flushed but it was Vader who wished more than ever that he might shed a tear. If she were to strike him down, he deserved it. He would allow it. He would let her.

“Anakin.”

It was not a question. She knew, it was evident in the pitiful, feeble smile of shock and relief alike that grazed her lips. It was gone in an instant, but it had said enough. So used to denouncing his name, denouncing himself and all he was and had been - Vader found himself unable to deflect her. She was right. He had been wrong for so long, choosing to live in darkness and denial. No more.

“Yes.”

Anakin meant it.

****

Have a short Vaderdala AU.

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umbry-fic · 3 years ago

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existence

Summary: It's a quiet day in the Sekai without a name. Miku wonders where everyone is...

Fandom: Project Sekai Colourful Stage! Characters: Hatsune Miku (Nightcord), Kagamine Rin (Nightcord), Megurine Luka (Nightcord), Meiko (Nightcord), Akiyama Mizuki, Shinonome Ena, Yoisaki Kanade, Asahina Mafuyu Relationships: Everyone & Hatsune Miku Rating: G Word Count: 1930 Mirror Link: AO3 Original Post Date: 01/09/2021

Notes: Written for Hatsune Miku's 14th birthday! This was not inspired by the official birthday art that Project Sekai released, since I wrote this back in July. What a happy coincidence that the art ended up featuring Nightcord Miku though!

I refer to 25 ji Nightcord de as Nightcord.

~~~

Miku hummed a tune with no name, the very same one that had left her throat when she’d come to realise her existence in this colourless world, and that had continued to fill this wide space in the months that had passed since then. A song with no lyrics, only a melody that had slowly evolved, from a hopeless, flat loop to one with crests and peaks, able to bring a smile to the girls of Nightcord and elicit a warmth within her heart, which did not beat.

Miku appeared to be completely alone, standing in the middle of the nameless Sekai. Rin was nowhere to be found. Perhaps she was hidden in one of the many corners or behind one of the countless walls, as she usually was. No matter the case, there was no sign of her.

But the silence that pressed on Miku’s shoulders was made all the more conspicuous by the lack of Meiko or Luka. The boisterous pair loved to argue, having done so nonstop ever since Luka’s arrival. This place hadn’t been quiet since then, their raised voices carrying all through the Sekai, giving her and Rin no respite from the noise. They’d had to resort to sitting behind a wall, which helped to muffle the sounds somewhat.

Rin had complained many times while in that position, but Miku thought that the other girl likely felt the same as herself - happy, that it was more lively here, the air no longer cold and dead. She just didn’t know how to say it out loud.

Without Meiko or Luka around, the silence that had once been the norm was now rather... overbearing. How had the two put a stop to their arguing for once? Had they simply grown tired of it? What were they doing, then? In fact, what was everyone doing? Rin, Meiko, Luka… Where could they be hiding?

And… why?

Were they hiding from her?

The familiar sound of someone entering the Sekai broke Miku out of her reverie. She stopped her humming, turning to face the visitors, wondering which of the four girls from the real world had come to visit today, and for what purpose. Sometimes they didn’t seem to have a purpose, stating that they were here “just for fun”, as Mizuki liked to say. She didn’t understand why anyone would want to do such a thing, to come here “just for fun”, when she and her companions weren’t what was considered good company.

But she never spoke up. She liked being in the presence of the girls. Surely, her fellow Vocaloids felt the same.

If the girls had come to seek help or assistance, then Miku would render it, to the best of her power. She would do anything that she could, even if she struggled to comprehend the complicated issues and emotions that these girls toiled with. Kanade’s guilt, Mizuki’s uncertainty, Ena’s lack of confidence…

For that was her purpose for existing. In her first second of consciousness, she had held the knowledge that she was meant to give Mafuyu as much comfort as she could. A wish that had come to extend to Mafuyu’s three companions.

She could not save Mafuyu on her own. She did not possess the necessary power, or even a physical body to protect the vulnerable girl. Her own emotions confounded her - it was that rare that she could put a name to the currents of her heart, let alone tell Mafuyu the best course of actions to soothe her pain. She could only give what she deemed was the best advice possible. To truly help Mafuyu, she needed the help of kind Kanade, determined Ena, and sensible Mizuki.

Miku didn’t know why, or how, any of this had come to be. Other than by the strength, or perhaps more accurately, the absence of Mafuyu’s feelings. It did not matter. She would gladly perform her purpose.

Miku expected to see one girl. Perhaps even two. Instead, the sight before her shattered all expectations.

All four members of Nightcord stood before her: Ena, Mizuki, Kanade, and even Mafuyu. Ena and Mizuki were sporting matching mischievous grins on their faces and holding back laughter; Mizuki holding a ribbon-adorned box by the corners while Ena gripped… unfamiliar cone-shaped hats with polka-dots on their surface. Kanade had a small smile on her face, and even with the blank expression on Mafuyu’s face that she always wore, she came off as strangely jovial. Kanade had a giant stack of paper decorations balanced precariously in her arms, while Mafuyu held what seemed to be a folded banner.

Confused, Miku cocked her head to the side. What was all this for? The last time all four girls had come was when Kanade had played her new song for everyone to hear, and Mafuyu had broken into a small, true smile for the first time in a long while.

At that very moment, the memory of Mizuki telling her about birthdays surfaced. She was fairly certain they had mentioned all the “equipment” here were involved in celebrations.

So all of this was presumably to celebrate a birthday… But whose? Nightcord had already celebrated Ena’s, and Mizuki’s, just a few days before… Hm, she supposed she could wait for them to explain, for she didn’t know the dates that everyone’s birthdays fell on.

But none of the four said a word, only continuing to stand there as if waiting for something.

All of a sudden, a ribbon revealed itself over a nearby wall, swaying slightly. It was quickly followed by a familiar head of golden hair, blue eyes blinking as Rin stepped out, black-and-white dress fluttering around her knees. Meiko and Luka were not far behind, the two already glaring at each other, raring to go.

So the three of them had been close-by all this while? Why the need for concealment, then?

What was going on? She couldn’t help but ask that question to herself again.

No answer presented itself, and she could only watch as her three fellow Vocaloids walked up to Nightcord. Materials passed between eager hands, fingers pointing in every direction as everyone split up to the four corners of the Sekai. The atmosphere was festive, conversations held in airy tones to coordinate where to position decorations.

In no time at all, the Sekai was bursting with colour. Banners hung from the remnants of overturned lighting trusses, now fulfilling their original purpose of holding objects, though rippling fabric was a far cry from spotlights. The cone-shaped hats sat securely on everyone’s head except her own, the mysterious box safely stashed by a wall.

She was still frozen in the centre of the hubbub, hands clasped over her heart. A faint thought whispered in her head, tickling the corner of her mind like a feather.

She was the only one not being involved in the preparations. And just days ago, Mizuki had been spared from expending any effort on the day of their birthday, left to lounge in a corner and watch with a smile.

“Here!” The exclamation attracted her attention to a waving Mizuki, who ran up and came to a stop in front of her - the first person to approach her. With the additional height they had on her, Mizuki was easily able to plop what Miku now realised was a pink party hat on her head, gently adjusting the strap so that it ran under her chin. Miku could do nothing but blink and stare at Mizuki, wondering if she was dreaming, if any of this was actually happening, or if the Sekai had somehow collapsed and sent her into an illusion.

“Perfect!” Mizuki commented, grinning and stepping back, their hands clapping together with a resounding sound that knocked Miku out of her speechless daze. “You look so cute, Miku!”

Upon spotting everyone else calmly walking over, she finally opened her mouth, fingers tightening over her chest.

“Is it…?”

Those were the only words she managed to get out before she clammed up. She couldn’t articulate the thoughts racing through her mind, nor the conclusion she had arrived at.

It couldn’t be fake. That was the only thing she was sure of. The colours, the sounds, the people and the expressions on their faces, their true emotions… It was all too vibrant, too real, too much.

Kanade nodded, seemingly understanding everything she wanted to say from her shaking words alone. Ena did the honours of cautiously opening the cover of the box with a steady hand, revealing a beautifully crafted cake, swirls of whipped cream artfully forming the border, strawberries topping the vanilla.

Written elegantly on its surface in red cream were the very words that left Kanade’s lips now.

“Happy birthday, Miku.”

“Yeah! Happy birthday!” Both Mizuki and Ena chirped, reaching into their pockets and throwing out handfuls of confetti that caught in her hair.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done for us,” Kanade continued.

“Yes.” Mafuyu nodded. “Happy birthday,” she said in her usual flat tone, face displaying no sign of emotion. Perhaps Mafuyu was only saying it to go along with what she’d been told to do, to avoid angering Ena. Perhaps she meant nothing by those words, was truly incapable of packing any scrap of emotion into them.

Yet Miku could sense… that same smile from the time before, hidden behind the pale, unmoving expanse.

“I…” Miku murmured. Something was choking up her throat. Her heart both felt like it was soaring, and like an invisible hand was squeezing it, something intangible filling it up to the brim. It was so full that it hurt. Not a sharp pain, but an ache, one that consumed her whole chest.

Something wet slipped down her cheek, salt hitting her tongue.

“You’re… crying,” Mafuyu said, eyes a little wide, just a little hint of awe in her voice, where there should have been none. It was, after all, nothing but an observation.

Miku reached up a trembling hand to press against her cheek, bringing it away stained with tears.

Ah. Mafuyu was right. The impossible had happened, emotions making their sudden, mystical appearance when they should have been kept away, blocked by an unbreakable lock.

“Miku…” Mizuki muttered, gaze sympathetic, a small smile on their face.

“Thank you,” she finally managed to force out, breaking into a smile larger than any that had come before, stretching from one corner of her face to the other, even as tears continued to leak from her eyes.

She knew now, why her heart hurt.

As she enjoyed a wonderful day in the Sekai with those that had become her friends, a day that she would never forget - eating the delectable, sweet slices of her birthday cake; being subject to Mizuki’s hairdressing as they tried their best to tame the unruly tangles of Miku’s massive locks with an assortment of ribbons; receiving birthday wishes and the strangest of presents from everyone... she finally came to understand.

The answer had arisen, making itself crystal clear.

Her heart hurt from happiness. True happiness, which could shatter just as easily as it could uplift, could stab just as much as soothe, when one was not used to it.

True happiness, from her friends remembering her birthday.

True happiness… from someone finding her existence worth celebrating.

And there were still some questions that couldn’t be solved, the answers to which were not in sight, and may never be.

But that was alright.

She would simply eke out her existence, moment by moment, taking what may come and enjoying the company of her friends.

#fanfiction #one shot #project sekai colourful stage #hatsune miku #megurine luka #kagamine rin #meiko #asahina mafuyu #yoisaki kanade #shinonome ena #akiyama mizuki #25 ji nightcord de #hatsune miku's 14th birthday #late post on tumblr sorry miku!#project sekai

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sayonarasanity · 4 years ago

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windmill

this fic is based on the song Windmill by Lor (and I highly recommend you to listen to it while reading especially or later for it is an incredible song)

AO3

summary: Here is the thing about Levi, his heart is a windmill in the middle of a wilderness where there was no wind to make it twirl, there was no wind to make it beat, pound and feel. Just feel.

Until one day he got hit by a storm so wild, so rare and so incredibly terrifying but in the most beautiful and breath-taking way that it left him defenceless, vulnerable and weak. Like a tiny little flower which had long passed its day of blossoming in a fierce, winter dawn yet it stood erect with its fragile body, challenging against the merciless winds and the brutal frost.

He fell in love.

Windmill, are you still afraid of nothing?

Here is the thing about human life, it isn’t everlasting.

But what is? The world and each and everything within it are mundane. The day is doomed with the night, the sun is doomed with the moon, life is doomed with death, men are doomed with gravity. If something starts, then it is fated to end. It is a vicious circle, living that is. Waking up only to sleep again at night. Earning money only to spend it an hour later on a trouser which you thought was necessary but maybe it wasn’t. Cooking for hours and hours just so you can eat it in mere ten minutes because your body needs food so that you can keep on living, living and living.

Like a windmill, turning, turning and turning to the day when there is not even a breeze to swirl you and you are frozen, unspoken and rigid.

And here is the thing about Levi, his heart is a windmill in the middle of a wilderness where there was no wind to make it twirl, there was no wind to make it beat, pound and feel. Just feel.

He fell in love.

And he fell in love not like jumping to death from a high up building, piercing through the clouds. It wasn’t as quick as that. He fell in love as if he had jumped into a river. It was slow and it hurt during the process of acknowledging it. Like accepting the fact that you were dying. Yet, instead of fighting against it, he welcomed the embrace of the water like he welcomed his mother’s hold. He let the arms wrap around him firmly. Then gradually the snow cold changed to sunny warm and the heavy water he thought that choked him turned into fresh, light air.

And he fell in love rather quietly, but he fell in love deep. Then his heart started to move and twirl with the wind.

She was the whirlwind, and he was the windmill. She was wild, sturdy and destructive. When he waited motionless and steady for merely a breeze to touch his vane, she had brought him a storm.

And he got carried away with it.

“Why do you keep looking at that thing?” She asks one day when they are in his apartment and he stands in front of one of his shelves in the living room.

“It’s a windmill,” he explains, taking his eyes away from the scale model of it to focus them on her.

“I know that,” she says. The shelf is not that high, so she puts her hands on the edge of it and rests her chin on top of her hands. “I wonder if there is a specific meaning behind it.”

“Like what?”

She shrugs and blows, making the vanes of the windmill move slightly. “Like a memory or… a specific reason that only you know, but you don’t want anybody else to learn.”

He raises a brow. “Then why do you ask?”

“I am a curious one, you know,” she smirks. The afternoon sun highlights her eyes and plays with the colour of her short hair which ends just above her shoulders. Some strands of her brown hair shine a sweet red. It is tied slovenly behind with a little hairpin. “And I would like to learn about my boyfriend’s secrets.”

Right, boyfriend. Apparently, by some miracle or a dice tossed by luck or during a single second in which God or whoever had a tiny pity on him or because of a good-hearted, gentle and humane ancestor of his she had loved him back.

“There is no secret,” he looks back at the little maquette. There is really no secret behind it. He had made it himself about four or five years ago when he was still at college, studying architecture. It was just that with time it had gained a place more special and a meaning more solid and a presence heavier.

“Is that so?” she asks, raising her brows and smiling lips pressed, playfully. “Rest assured, I won’t get offended if it’s a gift from one of your earlier lovers.”

“I don’t have earlier lovers,” he deadpans, glaring at her sideways.

“What is it then?” She straightens and comes closer, dropping her chin on his shoulder. He spares a few seconds just staring at her inquisitive eyes, demanding answers. His heart beats calm, and he hears its pounds and feels its vibrations. Because of her…

Is the wind still your friend?

“I liken it to my heart,” he looks away, already regretting the words that left his mouth out of command.

There is a pause in the air and faint pink on his cheeks. “Oh,” she reacts at last.

He cannot move his eyes to her this time, as the silence stretches like a furry, tired cat and it nerves him with each tick-tock he hears from the watch that is hung on the wall. It lasts so long that in the end, he shifts uncomfortably, and Hanji lifts her chin from his shoulder, her eyes, clouded and thoughtful behind her glasses, are focused on the windmill.

“I see,” she says.

The next day she brings a propeller, almost the same size as the windmill and places it next to it. When she turns it on, the vanes of the scale model twirl slowly.

Then she looks at Levi who is standing still and astonished. The wind howls in his ears, and his heart beats unsteady because it faces the same storm again. Vicious, wild and free.

And she smiles because she knows.

Levi doesn’t exactly know or rather remember but they end up drunk as hell on one Saturday night.

They are outside, stumbling together towards the coast road where benches are lined up side by side. The air smells like early summer, with newly blossoming flowers and salt. There is a full moon above the sea, and it reflects argent on the surface of the dark, tranquil water. People walk by every now and then and there are stray dogs and cats around.

When they somehow manage to sit down on an empty bench, Hanji slips and puts her head on his lap facing the pitch-black sky. She giggles to herself as she watches the stars there are barely visible because of the city lights. “So pretty.”

“Hmm,” he approves, observing her relaxed features, coloured cheeks and the goofy grin on her face.

“Hey, Hanji,” he rolls out of her tongue. He doesn’t even think or plan on what to say. The following words just stumble their ways out of his mouth. “You are—did you know that I couldn’t drink tea without some honey in it?”

She moves her eyes to his and giggles again, covering her mouth with her hand. “Yes, I realized.”

“Oh,” he blinks as if it’s enough to scatter the clouds in his head. But— whatever. It doesn’t matter now. When he has the stars and moon above, the sea ahead and the girl he loves lying on his lap. “Don’t tell anyone. Nobody knows.”

She nods and draws an invisible zip on her mouth.

“You know why?” He pushes her glasses up her nose. “The reason why I can’t… drink it without honey?”

Hanji lifts her shoulders up. “Because it tastes like piss without it?”

“Yes.” He is a little surprised at her guessing it right.

“But Levi,” she laughs. “How do you know what piss tastes like?”

“I don’t—I just know.” He closes her mouth with his hand when her laughter keeps interrupting his sentences. “Shut up, idiot. You are ruining the moment.”

To his surprise, she wraps her fingers around his wrist and kisses his palm. He breathes and his stomach moves as if he was in a car and suddenly rode down a hill. She closes her eyes tightly once to indicate that she is listening.

“Okay,” he goes on. “So, I can’t drink tea without honey because it tastes like piss.” He inhales, despite his drunken haze. He probably won’t even remember—or will he? How drunk is he anyway? Oh, well. Doesn’t matter.

“That’s… how my life would be.” Miracles happen. While sober he would rather die than utter these words out loud. Maybe it’s a good thing that he is tanked up. Because she deserves to learn. “Without you.”

Her are eyes wide open, and Levi thinks there are galaxies hidden in them. He doesn’t know if there is anything that is infinite or a life that would last forever. Does forever even exist? Does the sky have an end or space a beginning? Humans are such incapable creatures. Cannot go back a day before or has no idea what will happen a second later. Hanji is a human being, flesh, bone, blood and a little too much brain, a little too many feelings, and sentiments. And she is not indefinite, at all. But somehow, she makes him feel like she is.

“Levi,” she says, pulling his hand away from her mouth. Her eyes are still big behind her glasses and her cheeks are even redder than before. “Does this mean you’re going to call me honey from now on?”

And somehow, she manages to annoy him with every goddamn chance she gets.

He frowns and pushes her shoulder, almost making her fall down the bench. She is bursting with laughter in seconds and wraps her arms around his waist to secure herself and buries her face in his abdomen.

“I’m breaking up with you,” he announces coldly.

“You cannot break up with me. We are drunk.”

“I can. I just did.”

“No,” she groans and presses her face deeper in his stomach.

“Let go, you ungrateful woman.”

“I caaan’t,” she whimpers. “Levi I—” The rest of her words are muffled; he cannot pick up their meaning and form a logical sentence in his mind.

“What?” He asks, bending his head down.

“I said, I loppffhhhppp…”

“I don’t understand what you are saying, Hanji.” He puts his hand on her shoulder to push her back. He is convinced at this point that she is not forming legible words, intentionally.

Unexpectedly, she withdraws and puts her hands on his shoulders to lift herself up. Then leans in to rest her head right beside his neck, nuzzling his skin. “We should go back,” she murmurs. “My place is closer.”

Levi has no idea what time it is when they miraculously manage to enter her house after a taxi drive which felt like years. They take unsteady and clumsy steps inside the house until Levi finds a door of which room, he is unaware of. He only looks for something to lay down on, then catches the sight of a couch with the limited light provided through the half-drawn curtains. He throws himself to it, without even bothering to take his jacket off. He only kicks his shoes out of his feet and tosses until he finds a comfortable position to sleep.

Hanji gets into the room a few seconds later. Levi watches her with half-lidded eyes and sees that she has a blanket in her hands. He frowns. How the hell had she had enough wits in her head to think of a blanket? But sleep weighs down on him incredibly heavy and so very unusually that he is almost scared to make it run away. He doesn’t have the strength the utter proper words at the moment anyway.

Hanji lies down on his chest, covering them with the blanket. He automatically wraps his arms around her as she presses her forehead on his neck. She whines. “I hope I don’t throw up during the night.”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” he mutters. The clean freak inside of him is alarmed and screams with worry and dismay. He has no voice though. Just a wide mouth open in a silent yell and eyes filled with apprehension.

“Would you break up with me if I did?” Hanji asks, and he feels her smile in her sleepy voice.

A moment of consideration. “No.”

She huffs out a drowsy chuckle. “Levi,” she murmurs and sighs. “I love, love, love you.”

Are you still afraid of something? Is it you who command?

“Idiot,” he says affectionately. The vanes of the windmill twirl ever so rapidly, and he considers how weird it is for his heart to beat, pound and feel for somebody else, for her only. “I love, love, love you too.”

The subway moves swift through the night and they are alone inside the compartment at this hour of the day. Levi watches their reflection on the window when Hanji takes a few photos with her phone. Grinning from ear to ear while Levi has a dead, worn-out look rooted deeply in his eyes. Travelling around the city to visit historical places, museums and parks within just one single day was the worst idea he had ever agreed to. He barely had the energy to merely sit.

“Gonna post these on Instagram,” she twitters happily, swinging left and right.

“Don’t forget to announce my funeral,” Levi murmurs.

Hanji snorts and locking her phone she puts it back in her pocket. Then she shifts and lies her head on his lap, staring up at him.

“Why do you always lie on my lap in public places?” He asks, looking down at her.

She shrugs. “I enjoy the view above.”

“Tch.” One corner of his lips quivers and he moves his gaze up, looking at the window across from him again. This time he realizes that there is heavy rain outside, the raindrops tap furiously against the glass. “Shit,” he swears tiredly. “It’s raining.”

She follows his gaze. There isn’t much before they reach their stop. They are going to soak to their goddamn underwears. It had been sunny the whole day. Curse his luck.

“Alas!” she sighs, but she doesn’t sound much concerned. “Levi,” she says then, and when their gazes are locked again, she beams at him. “Would you kiss me under the rain?”

He blinks down at her first, his heart stammering hard against his ribcage. His eyes examine her features carefully. “Would you like me to?”

“Yes,” she breaths. “I’ve never done it before.”

“Me neither.”

“How do you think it would be?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve never done it before.”

Her smile widens to display her straight, white teeth. “We should try it.”

“Maybe.” He watches her lips. They are a sweet shade of pink and they look maddeningly soft. And he wants to taste them so very desperately.

“Don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen to your chastity.”

His gaze travels up to her eyes. “I am sure.”

It is still pouring rain when they leave the subway. Hanji leads them through the streets, with her fingers around his. He licks the rain on his lips and squints to get a better view of her. He smells wet asphalt and trees and earth. The odour of the pine trees is evident despite the rain. The splashing drops bounce on the ground like they are dancing up and down, but they slow down until they stop under a streetlamp.

“We should do it before the rain ends,” Hanji explains excitedly. As if what they were going to do wasn’t something basically everyone did but a life-changing, world-saving act of heroism.

Her lips taste like rain and they are warm against his own. When her hands cling to the collars of his jacket, he cups her cheeks and tilts his head. Much to their unfortunate luck, the rain almost ceases, turns into a drizzle that barely had any function of wetting anything. She smiles, but Levi doesn’t pull back for a little longer. Holds her gently, keeps her close.

Are you still afraid of the wind?

“Let’s dance,” she whispers against his lips. Her breath warm, her taste still on his tongue.

“There is no song.” And the rain stopped already.

She wraps an arm around his neck and holds one of his hands. He slides his other arm on her waist keeping up with her movements, while she rests her forehead on his temple. “We don’t need a song.”

They start to move slowly, following the notes of a song that doesn’t exist. The wind is blowing still, quietly. If he listens carefully, he can hear the pitter patters of the water dropping down from the rooftops, and the soft sounds of the wheels of the cars rolling on the wet ground, a plane taking off, a man coming back from work, his rapid footsteps. Tap, tap, tap. And his heart, content like he is lying down on the grass, with breezes caressing his face, ruffling his hair ever so slightly. Watching how quietly the vanes turn on top of a hill.

Oh, windmill.

You’re a place where I can cry.

You’re a place where I can lie.

You’re a place where I can die.

#levihan #levihanfic #fanfic #songfic #levi x hanji #levihan fanfiction

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theewildflowers · 4 years ago

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dramione fanfic recs

I’ve fallen into the Dramione fanfiction hole lately due to a friend’s recent obsession with Dramione and Draco Malfoy tik tok, so I wanted share some favorite stories I’ve read, especially with those who are also new to the pairing. Many of the fics below are pretty popular within the fandom, but maybe there will be something new as well for those who come across this post.

I’ve included the rating and word count in parenthesis, and the fics are set in the magical universe unless otherwise noted. Please mind the tags when you click through—many fics may have triggers. Happy reading!

wait and hope by mightbewriting (M, 95k) “Harry,” Hermione began, voice very controlled, but she could feel the blade of panic slicing at her vocal cords. “Why was Draco Malfoy just screaming bloody murder about his,” and the word almost strangled her as she said it, “wife?” Harry's green eyes blew wide. Healer Lucas pinched the bridge of her nose, clearly displeased with the recent series of events. “He was referring to you, my dear,” she said. “That was the other question you got wrong. Your name is Hermione Jean Granger-Malfoy.”

Part of the Wait and Hope story universe. Draco’s POV, Beginning and End, is a WIP. (I’ve read and reread Wait and Hope multiple times in a few weeks span, so it’s safe to say that it’s my favorite Dramione story universe.)

the politician’s wife by Pir8fancier (M, 66k) This story is set twenty-three years after the fall of Voldemort. Our main characters are Ministry employees, middle-aged, and the majority of them not very happy. (This was the first Dramione fic I’ve ever read and is still one of my favorites)

the right thing to do by LovesBitca8 (E, 176k) Hermione felt the pounding in her ears again. She would see him for the first time since the Great Hall, gaunt and stricken at the Slytherin table with his mother clutching his arm. She hadn't meant to look for him. Not in the corridors, not beneath the white sheets of the fallen, not on the way to the Chamber of Secrets with Ron, but she was a stupid girl. Part of the Rights and Wrongs story universe (highly recommend Draco’s POV, All the Wrong Things, as well).

remain nameless by HeyJude19 (E, WIP) The monotony of Draco’s daily routine had become both a lifeline and a noose. But this new habit of grabbing coffee with Hermione Granger is quickly becoming a reason to get out of bed and is unfortunately forcing him to re-evaluate his inconsequential existence.

seeker fit by selinyu and etlithien (T, 2.6k) “Will the Head Girl grace the pitch with her presence for today’s match?” The timbre of Malfoy’s cool lilting drawl slid down Hermione’s spine. I recommend all the fics in the SenLithien Dramione Collaboration collection.

breath mints / battle scars by Onyx_and_Elm (E, 148k) For a moment, she's almost giddy. Because Draco Malfoy's been ruined by this war and he's as out of place as she is and — yes, he has scars too. He's got an even bigger one. She wonders whether one day they'll compare sizes.

apple pies and other amends by ToEatAPeach (M, 76k) It’s not until she’s brought a basil and strawberry sponge cake to Neville Longbottom and his new girlfriend, Hannah Abbott, a dozen rhubarb hand-pies to Luna and Xenophilius Lovegood, and another basket of ganache-covered muffins to Dean and Seamus, that Hermione admits to herself what she’s actually doing: she’s making a thing of this. It’s a veritable PTSD tour. With pastries. And hand-skimmed clotted cream. And she has no idea why she’s doing it, but it’s becoming very apparent that she is.

clean and marked by olivieblake (M, 118k and 178k) Malfoy's handsome face was contoured into a condescending smirk. "No faith in that giant brain of yours, Granger?" She looked up at him defiantly. "Maybe I don't have faith in you!" she said, raising her voice. Malfoy only looked at her. "You'll find I'm very surprising." Basically a sixth year retelling.

the best of me by MrsRen (E, 148k) Officially, Hermione Granger was killed in action during the Battle of Hogwarts. Unofficially, Draco Malfoy has never stopped searching for her. Years after the war during a mission in France, his salvation comes in the form of a little blond boy and a familiar half-Kneazle.

fortuitous by MrsRen (M, 93k) Recently divorced Draco doesn't believe in the ideology of having one true love. He certainly doesn't expect to meet his match in a Halloween themed coffee shop, but fate has a peculiar way of giving you just what you need.

bring him to his knees by Musyc (E, WIP) Draco is on the case of a murderer, but to investigate, he needs a fake relationship - and a kink club play partner. When Hermione volunteers to take the role, both do their best to maintain the lie without letting each other know the truth: neither of them are acting.

looking glass by kyonomiko (M, 99k) No one knows what happened to Draco Malfoy in the final battle, but, when his portrait shows up at Harry Potter's house, it's readily assumed he didn't make it. Hermione's perspective on the wizard starts to change as she learns more about who he really was. The more she knows, the more tragic his apparent demise seems to be.

isolation by bex-chan (E, 264k) He can't leave the room. Her room. And it's all the Order's fault. Confined to a small space with only the Mudblood for company, something's going to give. Maybe his sanity. Maybe not. "There," she spat. "Now your Blood's filthy too!"

thirty-five by raven_maiden (M, 2.3k) It's Draco Malfoy's birthday, and you'd think he'd have some say in the matters concerning his birthday. Then again, the will of four other Malfoys is hard to overcome. Part of Meet the Malfoys collection.

apples & cream by LovesBitca8 (E, 1.4k) She could have taken her things and gone through his Floo without a word. She could have ignored him on Monday morning, as though last night had been no more than a fever dream and too much Firewhisky. But she’d come back to bed.

universal truths by scullymurphy (E, 145k, pride & prejudice inspired AU) Hermione Granger is a woman of intelligence and spirit. Draco Malfoy is a man of wealth and privilege. When they meet again, a decade after the second great wizarding war—they are not impressed. But when circumstances throw them together, dislike turns to attraction, attraction turns to passion and passion may turn into something more... If they can stay out of their own way and let love take its course.

my brown-eyed girl by PacificRimbaud (M, 2k) "Give it up, Granger. We've had our N.E.W.T. results for a week. What can possibly have earned your continued academic devotion in the last four days of term?" Draco and Hermione have a lazy snuggle in the grass behind the Quidditch pitch.

bite marks by provactive_envy (E, 19.4k, muggle AU) Draco’s mouth falls open. He clutches his cookie and ignores the shower of crumbs littering his grey cashmere fingerless gloves. He can’t decide if he wants to fuck this girl or fight with her. Maybe both? Maybe at the same time?

thirteenth night by Nelpher (M, 78k) When Hermione is assigned to keep tabs on a memory-charmed Draco, she is faced with a decision that could change her life forever.

familiar faces, worn out places by LovesBitca8 (E, 7k) “You are at St. Mungo’s. You were in a coma.” He looks me over again, taking a pause. “I am a Healer here now,” he says, like it explains something. My fingers stretch, drifting across his sleeve. He looks down, like I’ve thrown mud at him. Forcing my vocal chords together for the first time, I whisper, “What’s your name?”

bone mortar by mightbewriting (M, 10k, muggle AU) Draco clenched his teeth, forcing sharp, shallow breaths through his nose as he ripped open the door to his usual lecture hall only to find— someone at his desk. Well, he supposed it was technically less his desk and more the desk as he didn’t actually own this particular classroom. But since he’d taught in it for the last four semesters in a row he at least felt like he’d earned common law ownership of some sort.

of mongolian fireflies and russian sharpclaws by barnettdidit (T, 37k) As colleagues for the F.A.U.C.E.T. (Fetching And Uncovering Creatures Experiencing Terror) department, Draco and Hermione have had their fair share of arguments. When they face their hardest case yet, mixed with an odd swarm of fireflies that glow in the colour according to how they feel about each other, Hermione is struggling to keep a straight mind.

a muggle-born magic by Musyc (M, 50k, regency era AU) Physician's daughter Hermione Granger finds herself in need of a way to pay off her father's debts after his death. Draco Malfoy, retired from the politics of the Isolationists, a group of pure-bloods bent on separating 'true' magic from lesser folk, finds himself in need of a tutor for his son, Scorpius, who appears to be incapable of magic and must learn to survive in a world without it. Draco also needs a wife and mother for Scorpius, to satisfy a promise to his unwell father. After she saves his son from an attack by Isolationists, Draco hires the Muggle-born Miss Granger for the former, and after a riot in Vauxhall Gardens and a scandalous discovery made by his mother, weds that selfsame Muggle-born for the latter. While making the best of her marriage of (in)convenience, Hermione discovers that Scorpius' history of wild imaginings and dreams is more than just imagination. As she attempts to teach him about magical abilities no one expected he would ever have, she and Draco work together to raise Scorpius and learn to trust each other.

aurelian by BittyBlueEyes (T, 255k) Two years after the war, a young stranger pays a visit to the burrow. His arrival alone is baffling, but the news he brings of an upcoming war turns the world upside down. Hermione's quiet, post-war life will never be the same.

malfoy shrugged by uselessenglishmajor (E, 11k) February 14th is just another day at the office for Hermione Granger. Shame no one else got the memo.

distance by In_Dreams (T, 138k) She’s a novice Unspeakable trying to earn her stripes. He’s a shafted Auror desperate to prove himself. When they end up forced together on a shared assignment, neither is willing to back down. But when the mission pulls them into an ancient world of mystery and adventure, they find themselves depending on each other in a race against time.

nonscents by In_Dreams (M, 10k) Granger's Amortentia smells like him and Draco can't understand why. More importantly, he can't let her figure it out.

correspondence by olivieblake (T, 5k) Every year, Draco insists that Hermione take a picture for their Christmas card. Why? Hell if she knows, but if it will make him happy, so be it.

sandalwood and gardenias by secondbutton (E, 9k) A balanced fragrance of sandalwood and something musky and earthy followed him like a shroud. Draco Malfoy smelled like a magical forest’s best kept secret. Like the moment following a storm when the sun peeks back over the clouds and living beings stop what they’re doing and pause to marvel at being able to roam outside again. It was a crisp top note with more robust undertones, and just a hint of sweetness. She thought she might love the scent if it lived on anyone else other than him.

#dramione #draco malfoy #hermione granger #fanfiction recs #fanfic recs #little to no ron weasley bashing #dramione fanfics #dramione fanfic recs #fic recs #dramione fic recs

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vargnir · 4 years ago

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world & lore masterpost.

here’s a whole drop of lore, monsters, magic, humans & various other things in fenrirs main canon for those interested. mostly it just serves as a guide for me to orient on.

all art here was created on artbreeder and doesn’t belond to me because while i can generate i definitely can’t draw.

THE WORLD OF ROTWELSCH.

the world itself is split into four different continents; anvel, halmel, nimdal & mucuri.

whereas anvel and nimdal prosper, halmel has been ravaged by war and famine and mucuri struggles against a neverending influx of darkness & monsters terrorizing it’s people.

anvel lies on the northern parts of the world and is filled with plentiful rivers & seas, water plays a major key in the continent and it’s countries have unified to form the northern kingdoms. it’s people know all there is to possibly know about water and its inhabitants, they live with the sea and prefer to worship water-related gods. the northern kingdoms are more secluded from the rest of the world and prefer to live their lives privately. though certain countries within their unions are slowly starting to open trades with other nations across the world more and more.

nimdal lies southern of the world, its kingdoms have the most varying climates; countries like stanlow and aynor are plagued by heat and deserts but rare and sought after plants and animals that enables them to afford wells and water supplies. countries like claethor, tranmere or strathmore are rich of vegetation, filled with large forests and jungles alike, a plentiful fauna enriching their nations. northern countries like wolfden and glenarm are filled with snow; cold and ruthless but bringing mountains over mountains filled to the brim with minerals and precious materials and gems with them.

halmel lacks population and resources across the formerly glorious continent in total; a war between itself and a long since vanished fifth continent left it in ruins all across its formerly rich environments. its countries have long ceased to exist and halmel at this point is considered one big kingdom in itself. bandits have easy play here and terrorize poor village people. to top it off monsters from mucuri have slowly begun finding their ways over and have begun making the vast, empty lands of halmel their homes. halmels general climate is a foggy, almost ceaselessly rainy and gloomy one.

mucuri used to be the most prosperous continent amongst them all, as well as the centre of all of rotwelsch. though it is unsure of what happened all that is known is that once, a long time ago, a man who called himself the harbinger of the gods stepped foot onto mucurian land and eventually monsters began flooding from everywhere, creatures of such malevolence and hatred that ever since the world has only called the man, who revealed himself to be a cursed wolf, tortured by cruel humans and craving to bring forth the end of the world, demise. ever since the cities and nations have been living in fear, trying to live a somewhat normal life at daytime and locking themselves closed and in at nighttime, praying to whichever god will hear them that they survive another night of slaughter around them.

CREATURES OF ROTWELSCH.

HUMANS.

humans are the primary race of rotwelsch, though certain nations or even continents live peacefully amongst other people ( such as anvelians live peacefully with certain oceanic inhabitants ) whereas others live in fear of creatures not humanoid in nature. humans born under special circumstances may have an affinity for magic whereas others may have a special connection to nature. those born with special abilities oftentimes are shunned by their kin and live in villages or towns of their own amongst their kind.

TIEFSEA.

a humanoid race of fish originated creatures adapting to life further away from deepsea. having made a deal with humans tiefsea are usually found lurking near port towns and occasionally even found sitting in bars. they are capable of surviving short amounts of time without water ( when trained up to a week ) but will dry out over time. they take on differing forms inspired by several animals found in the oceans. their appearance usually resembles fish more than humans in skin and facial features, though their body structure usually is more human. imagine zoras from legend of zelda but a tad more monstrous.

THE BROKEN.

former mortals corrupted by darkness and turned into husks of their former self and forced into submission by demise. while groups of them will attack villages and towns singular ones will target homes on the outskirts to either kill or find more suitable subjects for demise. some of them retain a sense of self somewhere deep within and it is not a rare occurance to hear the desperate cry of a broken fighting against its own instincts and mind. their appearane usually is vaguely humanoid with their bones and skin growing and hardening into sort of an armor.

THE PLAGUES.

creatures of unknown origin, some more humanoid than others. there are vast differences within plagues, some are small and fast while others are hulking brutes with raw power. the only similarity is that they seem to be able to communicate with each other and that each time they get cut their limbs and wounds can regenerate. their blood is acidic in nature and can burn through human flesh like it is nothing; because of that they are more feared than the broken. it is not uncommon to find a giant plague accompanied by a smaller, fast plague which turns them into deadly duos you have to be on the lookout for at the same time.

THE PREDATORS.

predators are a deadly kind; humans who are still completely capable of thinking but have lost all will of their own, incapable of making decisions for themselves they have been turned into deadly assassins by the darkness and make formidable foes. while it is assumed that their appearance is largely unchanged they are covered from head to toe in what appears to be dark coloured robes made completely out of void mass and pure corruption. one touch from them can prove poisonous to most, should they choose a quick death for their victims. their ability to think makes most of them unpredictable and causes them to be the most feared out of all the races in rotwelsch.

THE CURSED.

the cursed are beings like fenrir who have been wounded by magic and whose animalistic nature was meant to be subdued in favor of a humanoid nature. their appearance is mostly human though part of their animal origins is retained; for fenrir it is his ears and tail, for certain others it could be their antlers or even fins. the cursed are rare, incredibly so to the point they are mostly considered legends. but a handful of them exist, and while not all of them possess demonic blood like fenrir they still possess more abilities than the average human, all granted by their origin nature. cursed will usually live in isolation, though very few select ones will live among humans as their own, disguising their animal traits with magic in order to fit in.

OTHERS.

there is a vast amount of races within rotwelsch that have yet to be known by the majority of the world; even the tiefsea have only recently created contact with humans and with the current abundance in magic there is no telling what other beings are out there.

MAGIC IN ROTWELSCH.

magic is highly frowned upon in rotwelsch; it is considered the origin of demise and the reason darkness has befallen the world. people born with magic abilities are often abandoned at birth or taught from an early age to suppress their nature. fearing the power it bears most of humanity has dedicated itself to eradicating all magic from their lives whereas others, more powerhungry, cruel beings have taken it upon themselves to seek out people with magical properties to turn them into a part of their armies.

with all different kinds of magic it is almost impossible to keep track of all of them, and yet the gods know. they give and take magical abilities as they see fit and design the powers as they wish. in certain areas in the world humans with magic and cursed live together in peace, both shunned by a world too fearful to see the beauty in their existence.

THE END OF THE WORLD.

from prophecies long foretold three children will bring the end of times upon the world;

one cursed from birth, meant to grow until it can swallow the sun from the sky and devor the king of kings before it releases eternal darkness upon the world.

one born from death, meant to command the forces of the dead to end the lives of all creatures wandering the earth.

one born from betrayal, whose rage will be the catalyst to the worlds end until it swallows everything that is left to destroy.

FENRIR THINGS FROM MY OLD PINNED POST.

fenrir is known in his world / his main verse. a fourty feet wolf that devours monsters big and small while keeping most humans relatively unharmed? yeah, that’s a pretty big conversation topic around the world he lives in, especially given he travels everywhere.

but it is not necessarily a good thing; even if he leaves humans unharmed he is a monstrosity; a beast. most people fear him and those who see the form he uses to walk among people for what it is in it’s entirety usually shun him.

fenrir doesn’t like interacting with people in any verse; he’s so used to being mistreated that he’d rather help silently and disappear without talking to anyone

he hates being thanked; he doesn’t think he deserves it and he generally dislikes the thought of people thinking that what he did to help them was anything but natural.

usually the only words he does speak to people are actually “don’t thank me.” before they even open their mouth

his voice is hoarse and rough because he barely talks. the most he can do without his throat burning is a short sentence, so never expect him to be very engaging in conversation.

because of that he’s made up his own little sign language --- most people don’t really get it unless they know him a bit better

there is a special guild trying to hunt him down because they know more about his curse than fenrir himself does

one of their “members” (he’s pretty much independent but relies on them for information) is a young man from the village fenrir saved when he lost his arm. he doesn’t necessarily want to kill fenrir but he does want to stop his curse from breaking free

he tries to befriend wildlife and smaller animals but they’re usually scared of him, except for one bird that follows him everywhere because he saved its life once.

it’s a robin!

he doesn’t keep food on his person other than some bread slices so he can feed his little bird companion

he thinks he’s not a good person --- nor even a person at all; it’s why he tries so hard to better himself, why he helps everyone.

he’s very harsh on himself, too

while his human form has a metallic prosthetic for his lost arm his wolf form actually has black matter to replace it; it’s more slimy in texture and practically radiates bad energy --- it comes from his curse

he’s ashamed of his ears and tails

he’s also ashamed of his scars

he gets flustered and embarrassed by even the most vague compliments

if you ever manage to break through his shell he’s very soft.

this is a wip and will be reworked over time to come !

#* PSA !#* WORLD TBT !#&. 《 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥 & 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 / HEADCANON.

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mattbrothersscriptwriter · 5 years ago

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My Top 20 Films of 2019 - Part Two

I don’t think I’ve had a year where my top ten jostled and shifted as much as this one did - these really are the best of the best and my personal favourites of 2019.

10. Toy Story 4

I think we can all agree that Toy Story 3 was a pretty much perfect conclusion to a perfect trilogy right? About as close as is likely to get, I’m sure. I shared the same trepidation when part four was announced, especially after some underwhelming sequels like Finding Dory and Cars 3 (though I do have a lot of time for Monsters University and Incredibles 2). So maybe it’s because the odds were so stacked against this being good but I thought it was wonderful. A truly existential nightmare of an epilogue that does away with Andy (and mostly kids altogether) to focus on the dreams and desires of the toys themselves - separate from their ‘duties’ as playthings to biological Gods. What is their purpose in life without an owner? Can they be their own person and carve their own path? In the case of breakout new character Forky (Tony Hale), what IS life? Big big questions for a cash grab kids films huh?

The animation is somehow yet another huge leap forward (that opening rainstorm!), Bo Peep’s return is excellently pitched and the series tradition of being unnervingly horrifying is back as well thanks to those creepy ventriloquist dolls! Keanu Reeves continues his ‘Keanuassaince‘ as the hilarious Duke Caboom and this time, hopefully, the ending at least feels finite. This series means so much to me: I think the first movie is possibly the tightest, most perfect script ever written, the third is one of my favourites of the decade and growing up with the franchise (I was 9 when the first came out, 13 for part two, 24 for part three and now 32 for this one), these characters are like old friends so of course it was great to see them again. All this film had to do was be good enough to justify its existence and while there are certainly those out there that don’t believe this one managed it, I think the fact that it went as far as it did showed that Pixar are still capable of pushing boundaries and exploring infinity and beyond when they really put their minds to it.

9. The Nightingale

Hoo boy. Already controversial with talk of mass walkouts (I witnessed a few when this screened at Sundance London), it’s not hard to see why but easy to understand. Jennifer Kent (The Babadook) is a truly fearless filmmaker following up her acclaimed suburban horror movie come grief allegory with a period revenge tale set in the Tasmanian wilderness during British colonial rule in the early 1800s. It’s rare to see the British depicted with the monstrous brutality for which they were known in the distant colonies and this unflinching drama sorely needed an Australian voice behind the camera to do it justice.

The film is front loaded with some genuinely upsetting, nasty scenes of cruel violence but its uncensored brutality and the almost casual nature of its depiction is entirely the point - this was normalised behaviour over there and by treating it so matter of factly, it doesn’t slip into gratuitous ‘movie violence’. It is what it is. And what it is is hard to watch. If anything, as Kent has often stated, it’s still toned down from the actual atrocities that occurred so it’s a delicate balance that I think Kent more than understands. Quoting from an excellent Vanity Fair interview she did about how she directs, Kent said “I think audiences have become very anaesthetised to violence on screen and it’s something I find disturbing... People say ‘these scenes are so shocking and disturbing’. Of course they are. We need to feel that. When we become so removed from violence on screen, this is a very irresponsible thing. So I wanted to put us right within the frame with that person experiencing the loss of everything they hold dear”.

Aisling Franciosi is next level here as a woman who has her whole life torn from her, leaving her as nothing but a raging husk out for vengeance. It would be so easy to fall into odd couple tropes once she teams up with reluctant native tracker Billy (an equally impressive newcomer, Baykali Ganambarr) but the film continues to stay true to the harsh racism of the era, unafraid to depict our heroine - our point of sympathy - as horrendously racist towards her own ally. Their partnership is not easily solidified but that makes it all the stronger when they star to trust each other. Sam Claflin is also career best here, weaponizing his usual charm into dangerous menace and even after cementing himself as the year’s most evil villain, he can still draw out the humanity in such a broken and corrupt man.

Gorgeously shot in the Academy ratio, the forest landscape here is oppressive and claustrophobic. Kent also steps back into her horror roots with some mesmerising, skin crawling dream scenes that amplify the woozy nightmarish tone and overbearing sense of dread. Once seen, never forgotten, this is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea (and that’s fine) but when cinema can affect you on such a visceral level and be this powerful, reflective and honest about our own past, it’s hard to ignore. Stunning.

8. The Irishman

Aka Martin Scorsese’s magnum opus, I did manage to see this one in a cinema before the Netflix drop and absolutely loved it. I’ve watched 85 minute long movies that felt longer than this - Marty’s mastery of pace, energy and knowing when to let things play out in agonising detail is second to none. This epic tale of the life of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) really is the cinematic equivalent of having your cake and eating it too, allowing Scorsese to run through a greatest hits victory lap of mobster set pieces, alpha male arguments, a decades spanning life story and one (last?) truly great Joe Pesci performance before simply letting the story... continue... to a natural, depressing and tragic ending, reflecting the emptiness of a life built on violence and crime.

For a film this long, it’s impressive how much the smallest details make the biggest impacts. A stammering phone call from a man emotionally incapable of offering any sort of condolence. The cold refusal of forgiveness from a once loving daughter. A simple mirroring of a bowl of cereal or a door left slightly ajar. These are the parts of life that haunt us all and it’s what we notice the most in a deliberately lengthy biopic that shows how much these things matter when everything else is said and done. The violence explodes in sudden, sharp bursts, often capping off unbearably tense sequences filled with the everyday (a car ride, a conversation about fish, ice cream...) and this contrast between the whizz bang of classic Scorsese and the contemplative nature of Silence era Scorsese is what makes this film feel like such an accomplishment. De Niro is FINALLY back but it’s the memorably against type role for Pesci and an invigorated Al Pacino who steals this one, along with a roll call of fantastic cameos, with perhaps the most screentime given to the wonderfully petty Stephen Graham as Tony Pro, not to mention Anna Paquin’s near silent performance which says more than possibly anyone else.

Yes, the CG de-aging is misguided at best, distracting at worst (I never really knew how old anyone was meant to be at any given time... which is kinda a problem) but like how you get used to it really quickly when it’s used well, here I kinda got past it being bad in an equally fast amount of time and just went with it. Would it have been a different beast had they cast younger actors to play them in the past? Undoubtedly. But if this gives us over three hours of Hollywood’s finest giving it their all for the last real time together, then that’s a compromise I can live with.

7. The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Wow. I was in love with this film from the moving first trailer but then the film itself surpassed all expectations. This is a true indie film success story, with lead actor Jimmie Fails developing the idea with director Joe Talbot for years before Kickstarting a proof of concept and eventually getting into Sundance with short film American Paradise, which led to the backing of this debut feature through Plan B and A24. The deeply personal and poetic drama follows a fictionalised version of Jimmie, trying to buy back an old Victorian town house he claims was built by his grandfather, in an act of rebellion against the increasingly gentrified San Francisco that both he and director Talbot call home.

The film is many things - a story of male friendship, of solidarity within our community, of how our cities can change right from underneath us - it moves to the beat of it’s own drum, with painterly cinematography full of gorgeous autumnal colours and my favourite score of the year from Emile Mosseri. The performances, mostly by newcomers or locals outside of brilliant turns from Jonathan Majors, Danny Glover and Thora Birch, are wonderful and the whole thing is such a beautiful love letter to the city that it makes you ache for a strong sense of place in your own home, even if your relationship with it is fractured or strained. As Jimmie says, “you’re not allowed to hate it unless you love it”.

For me, last year’s Blindspotting (my favourite film of the year) tackled gentrification within California more succinctly but this much more lyrical piece of work ebbs and flows through a number of themes like identity, family, memory and time. It’s a big film living inside a small, personal one and it is not to be overlooked.

6. Little Women

I had neither read the book nor seen any prior adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel so to me, this is by default the definitive telling of this story. If from what I hear, the non linear structure is Greta Gerwig’s addition, then it’s a total slam dunk. It works so well in breaking up the narrative and by jumping from past to present, her screenplay highlights certain moments and decisions with a palpable sense of irony, emotional weight or knowing wink. Getting to see a statement made with sincere conviction and then paid off within seconds, can be both a joy and a surefire recipe for tears. Whether it’s the devastating contrast between scenes centred around Beth’s illness or the juxtaposition of character’s attitudes to one another, it’s a massive triumph. Watching Amy angrily tell Laurie how she’s been in love with him all her life and then cutting back to her childishly making a plaster cast of her foot for him (’to remind him how small her feet are’) is so funny.

Gerwig and her impeccable cast bring an electric energy to the period setting, capturing the big, messy realities of family life with a mix of overwhelming cross-chatter and the smallest of intimate gestures. It’s a testament to the film that every sister feels fully serviced and represented, from Beth’s quiet strength to Amy’s unforgivable sibling rivalry. Chris Cooper’s turn as a stoic man suffering almost imperceptible grief is a personal heartbreaking favourite.

The book’s (I’m assuming) most sweeping romantic statements are wonderfully delivered, full of urgent passion and relatable heartache, from Marmie’s (Laura Dern) “I’m angry nearly every day of my life” moment to Jo’s (Saoirse Ronan) painful defiance of feminine attributes not being enough to cure her loneliness. The sheer amount of heart and warmth in this is just remarkable and I can easily see it being a film I return to again and again.

5. Booksmart

2019 has been a banner year for female directors, making their exclusion from some of the early awards conversations all the more damning. From this list alone, we have Lulu Wang, Jennifer Kent and Greta Gerwig. Not to mention Lorene Scafaria (Hustlers), Melina Matsoukas (Queen & Slim), Jocelyn DeBoer & Dawn Luebbe (Greener Grass), Sophie Hyde (Animals) and Rose Glass (Saint Maud - watch out for THIS one in 2020, it’s brilliant). Perhaps the most natural transition from in front of to behind the camera has been made by Olivia Wilde, who has created a borderline perfect teen comedy that can make you laugh till you cry, cry till you laugh and everything in-between.

Subverting the (usually male focused) ‘one last party before college’ tropes that fuel the likes of Superbad and it’s many inferior imitators, Booksmart follows two overachievers who, rather than go on a coming of age journey to get some booze or get laid, simply want to indulge in an insane night of teenage freedom after realising that all of the ‘cool kids’ who they assumed were dropouts, also managed to get a place in all of the big universities. It’s a subtly clever remix of an old favourite from the get go but the committed performances from Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein put you firmly in their shoes for the whole ride.

It’s a genuine blast, with big laughs and a bigger heart, portraying a supportive female friendship that doesn’t rely on hokey contrivances to tear them apart, meaning that when certain repressed feelings do come to the surface, the fallout is heartbreaking. As I stated in a twitter rave after first seeing it back in May, every single character, no matter how much they might appear to be simply representing a stock role or genre trope, gets their moment to be humanised. This is an impeccably cast ensemble of young unknowns who constantly surprise and the script is a marvel - a watertight structure without a beat out of place, callbacks and payoffs to throwaway gags circle back to be hugely important and most of all, the approach taken to sexuality and representation feels so natural. I really think it is destined to be looked back on and represent 2019 the way Heathers does ‘88, Clueless ‘95 or Easy A 2010. A new high benchmark for crowd pleasing, indie comedy - teen or otherwise.

4. Ad Astra

Brad Pitt is one of my favourite actors and one who, despite still being a huge A-lister even after 30 years in the game, never seems to get enough credit for the choices he makes, the movies he stars in and also the range of stories he helps produce through his company, Plan B. 2019 was something of a comeback year for Pitt as an actor with the insanely measured and controlled lead performance seen here in Ad Astra and the more charismatic and chaotic supporting role in Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.

I love space movies, especially those that are more about broken people blasting themselves into the unknown to search for answers within themselves... which manages to sum up a lot of recent output in this weirdly specific sub-genre. First Man was a devastating look at grief characterised by a man who would rather go to a desolate rock than have to confront what he lost, all while being packaged as a heroic biopic with a stunning score. Gravity and The Martian both find their protagonists forced to rely on their own cunning and ingenuity to survive and Interstellar looked at the lengths we go to for those we love left behind. Smaller, arty character studies like High Life or Moon are also astounding. All of this is to say that Ad Astra takes these concepts and runs with them, challenging Pitt to cross the solar system to talk some sense into his long thought dead father (Tommy Lee Jones). But within all the ‘sad dad’ stuff, there’s another film in here just daring you to try and second guess it - one that kicks things off with a terrifying free fall from space, gives us a Mad Max style buggy chase on the moon and sidesteps into horror for one particular set-piece involving a rabid baboon in zero G! It manages to feel so completely nuts, so episodic in structure, that I understand why a lot of people were turned off - feeling that the overall film was too scattershot to land the drama or too pondering to have any fun with. I get the criticisms but for me, both elements worked in tandem, propelling Pitt on this (assumed) one way journey at a crazy pace whilst sitting back and languishing in the ‘bigger themes’ more associated with a Malik or Kubrick film. Something that Pitt can sell me on in his sleep by this point.

I loved the visuals from cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (Interstellar), loved the imagination and flair of the script from director James Gray and Ethan Gross and loved the score by Max Richter (with Lorne Balfe and Nils Frahm) but most of all, loved Pitt, proving that sometimes a lot less, is a lot more. The sting of hearing the one thing he surely knew (but hoped he wouldn’t) be destined to hear from his absent father, acted almost entirely in his eyes during a third act confrontation, summed up the movie’s brilliance for me - so much so that I can forgive some of the more outlandish ‘Mr Hyde’ moments of this thing’s alter ego... like, say, riding a piece of damaged hull like a surfboard through a meteor debris field!

3. Avengers: Endgame

It’s no secret that I think Marvel, the MCU in particular, have been going from strength to strength in recent years, slowly but surely taking bigger risks with filmmakers (the bonkers Taika Waititi, the indie darlings of Ryan Coogler, Cate Shortland and Chloe Zhao) whilst also carefully crafting an entertaining, interconnected universe of characters and stories. But what is the point of building up any movie ‘universe’ if you’re not going to pay it off and Endgame is perhaps the strongest conclusion to eleven years of movie sequels that fans could have possibly hoped for.

Going into this thing, the hype was off the charts (and for good reason, with it now being the highest grossing film of all time) but I remember souring on the first entry of this two-parter, Infinity War, during the time between initial release and Endgame’s premiere. That film had a game-changing climax, killing off half the heroes (and indeed the universe’s population) and letting the credits role on the villain having achieved his ultimate goal. It was daring, especially for a mammoth summer blockbuster but obviously, we all knew the deaths would never be permanent, especially with so many already-announced sequels for now ‘dusted’ characters. However, it wasn’t just the feeling that everything would inevitably be alright in the end. For me, the characters themselves felt hugely under-serviced, with arguably the franchise’s main goody two shoes Captain America being little more than a beardy bloke who showed up to fight a little bit. Basically what I’m getting at is that I felt Endgame, perhaps emboldened by the giant runtime, managed to not only address these character slights but ALSO managed to deliver the most action packed, comic booky, ‘bashing your toys together’ final fight as well.

It’s a film of three parts, each pretty much broken up into one hour sections. There’s the genuinely new and interesting initial section following our heroes dealing with the fact that they lost... and it stuck. Thor angrily kills Thanos within the first fifteen minutes but it’s a meaningless action by this point - empty revenge. Cutting to five years later, we get to see how defeat has affected them, for better or worse, trying to come to terms with grief and acceptance. Cap tries to help the everyman, Black Widow is out leading an intergalactic mop up squad and Thor is wallowing in a depressive black hole. It’s a shocking and vibrantly compelling deconstruction of the whole superhero thing and it gives the actors some real meat to chew on, especially Robert Downy Jr here who goes from being utterly broken to fighting within himself to do the right thing despite now having a daughter he doesn’t want to lose too. Part two is the trip down memory lane, fan service-y time heist which is possibly the most fun section of any of these movies, paying tribute to the franchise’s past whilst teetering on a knife’s edge trying to pull off a genuine ‘mission impossible’. And then it explodes into the extended finale which pays everyone off, demonstrates some brilliantly imaginative action and sticks the landing better than it had any right to. In a year which saw the ending of a handful of massive geek properties, from Game of Thrones to Star Wars, it’s a miracle even one of them got it right at all. That Endgame managed to get it SO right is an extraordinary accomplishment and if anything, I think Marvel may have shot themselves in the foot as it’s hard to imagine anything they can give us in the future having the intense emotional weight and momentum of this huge finale.

2. Knives Out

Rian Johnson has been having a ball leaping into genre sandpits and stirring shit up, from his teen spin on noir in Brick to his quirky con man caper with The Brothers Bloom, his time travel thriller Looper and even his approach to the Star Wars mythos in The Last Jedi. Turning his attention to the relatively dead ‘whodunnit’ genre, Knives Out is a perfect example of how to celebrate everything that excites you about a genre whilst weaponizing it’s tropes against your audience’s baggage and preconceptions.

An impeccable cast have the time of their lives here, revelling in playing self obsessed narcissists who scramble to punt the blame around when the family’s patriarch, a successful crime novelist (Christopher Plummer), winds up dead. Of course there’s something fishy going on so Daniel Craig’s brilliantly dry southern detective Benoit Blanc is called in to investigate.There are plenty of standouts here, from Don Johnson’s ignorant alpha wannabe Richard to Michael Shannon’s ferocious eldest son Walt to Chris Evan’s sweater wearing jock Ransom, full of unchecked, white privilege swagger. But the surprise was the wholly sympathetic, meek, vomit prone Marta, played brilliantly by Ana de Armas, cast against her usual type of sultry bombshell (Knock Knock, Blade Runner 2049), to spearhead the biggest shake up of the genre conventions. To go into more detail would begin to tread into spoiler territory but by flipping the audience’s engagement with the detective, we’re suddenly on the receiving end of the scrutiny and the tension derived from this switcheroo is genius and opens up the second act of the story immensely.

The whole thing is so lovingly crafted and the script is one of the tightest I’ve seen in years. The amount of setup and payoff here is staggering and never not hugely satisfying, especially as it heads into it’s final stretch. It really gives you some hope that you could have such a dense, plotty, character driven idea for a story and that it could survive the transition from page to screen intact and for the finished product to work as well as it does. I really hope Johnson returns to tell another Benoit Blanc mystery and judging by the roaring box office success (currently over $200 million worldwide for a non IP original), I certainly believe he will.

1. Eighth Grade

My film of the year is another example of the power of cinema to put us in other people’s shoes and to discover the traits, fears, joys and insecurities that we all share irregardless. It may shock you to learn this but I have never been a 13 year old teenage girl trying to get by in the modern world of social media peer pressure and ‘influencer’ culture whilst crippled with personal anxiety. My school days almost literally could not have looked more different than this (less Instagram, more POGs) and yet, this is a film about struggling with oneself, with loneliness, with wanting more but not knowing how to get it without changing yourself and the careless way we treat those with our best interests at heart in our selfish attempt to impress peers and fit in. That is understandable. That is universal. And as I’m sure I’ve said a bunch of times in this list, movies that present the most specific worldview whilst tapping into universal themes are the ones that inevitably resonate the most.

Youtuber and comedian Bo Burnham has crafted an impeccable debut feature, somehow portraying a generation of teens at least a couple of generations below his own, with such laser focused insight and intimate detail. It’s no accident that this film has often been called a sort of social-horror, with cringe levels off the charts and recognisable trappings of anxiety and depression in every frame. The film’s style services this feeling at every turn, from it’s long takes and nauseous handheld camerawork to the sensory overload in it’s score (take a bow Anna Meredith) and the naturalistic performances from all involved. Burnham struck gold when he found Elsie Fisher, delivering the most painful and effortlessly real portrayal of a tweenager in crisis as Kayla. The way she glances around skittishly, the way she is completely lost in her phone, the way she talks, even the way she breathes all feeds into the illusion - the film is oftentimes less a studio style teen comedy and more a fly on the wall documentary.

This is a film that could have coasted on being a distant, social media based cousin to more standard fare like Sex Drive or Superbad or even Easy A but it goes much deeper, unafraid to let you lower your guard and suddenly hit you with the most terrifying scene of casually attempted sexual aggression or let you watch this pure, kindhearted girl falter and question herself in ways she shouldn’t even have to worry about. And at it’s core, there is another beautiful father/daughter relationship, with Josh Hamilton stuck on the outside looking in, desperate to help Kayla with every fibre of his being but knowing there are certain things she has to figure out for herself. It absolutely had me and their scene around a backyard campfire is one of the year’s most touching.

This is a truly remarkable film that I think everyone should seek out but I’m especially excited for all the actual teenage girls who will get to watch this and feel seen. This isn’t about the popular kid, it isn’t about the dork who hangs out with his or her own band of misfits. This is about the true loner, that person trying everything to get noticed and still ending up invisible, that person trying to connect through the most disconnected means there is - the internet - and everything that comes with it. Learning that the version of yourself you ‘portray’ on a Youtube channel may act like they have all the answers but if you’re kidding yourself then how do you grow?

When I saw this in the cinema, I watched a mother take her seat with her two daughters, aged probably at around nine and twelve. Possibly a touch young for this, I thought, and I admit I cringed a bit on their behalf during some very adult trailers but in the end, I’m glad their mum decided they were mature enough to see this because a) they had a total blast and b) life simply IS R rated for the most part, especially during our school years, and those girls being able to see someone like Kayla have her story told on the big screen felt like a huge win. I honestly can’t wait to see what Burnham or Fisher decide to do next. 2019 has absolutely been their year... and it’s been a hell of a year.

#top 20 #films of the year #films of 2019 #10-1 #toy story 4 #the nightingale #the irishman #the last black man in san francisco #little women #booksmart #ad astra #avengers endgame #knives out #eighth grade

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awfulcomingdown · 5 years ago

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Nintendo Switch Demos Review (Or, “Without a Paddle, I Might Add”)

Introduction

Over the past couple of weeks, or maybe months, I’ve downloaded some demos on my Switch that I’d intended to eventually play. And then I didn’t play them, which led me to believe that I might never do so.

And then, a couple of days ago, I found my self drunk, alone in the darkness of my sister’s home office, while her and her fiancee slept in another room. While drinking and staring out the window into the unfamiliar street, an idea hit me. I should play all those demos, right now.

And so I quickly walked down the hallway, as if afraid the inclination to really do this might dissipate as quickly as it’d formed, to my temporary bedroom where the Switch was laying on a nightstand, and brought it back to that dark office. I then proceeded to do it. I played all four demos, writing and becoming progressively more drunk as I went, until typing itself seemed an impossible, or at least undesirable, task. And then I went to sleep.

And now, I’ve taken those somewhat less than clear notes and formed them into a mostly comprehensible summary of my feelings on those games. And here they are.

The Touryst

I heard about this game for the first time in a Nintendo Direct, I think. It looked goofy. It looked too goofy for my liking. I planned to not ever think about it again. And then I didn’t for some time.

The next time I thought about it, it was because a Youtube video extolling the virtues of this game’s beauty and graphical prowess scrolled past my eyes on the Youtube homepage. I didn’t click on it, and I didn’t think much about it. However, I did think some about it.

Then I saw this demo, and I figured, sure, let’s try it.

This demo is very short. Well, at least, it felt very short to me, sitting in my sister’s makeshift home office, a couple of drinks in to what would eventually become a too many drinks to be having alone night. It flew by.

As soon as the game began, I was struck. It’s beautiful, in what feels like an extremely unique way.

It’s bizarre. The background is completely blurred, and you’re running around what feels like a tiny, static world that’s been put together by hand and pushed out to sea. It all feels very still. Apparently the people who made this game have been making video games since 1999. I feel as though they may have learned some very worthwhile things in that time.

The other thing that struck me as significant while I played this short demo was the fact that I had managed to ignore and look down on this game for so long. How was it that nobody was grabbing me by the shoulders, shaking me, and screaming “The Touryst is a fucking masterpiece, idiot. Just because the main character has a goofy mustache doesn’t mean this whole thing’s a joke. Play it. Fuck you.”

Now, that might not be totally fair. I mean, that Youtube video I saw about the game was literally titled “The Touryst is Stunning: Switch Game of the Year Contender?” which, to be fair, is a very funny thing to name a video. I would like to know who made the call on adding that question mark. Wild stuff.

And, again, to be fair, if you search “The Touryst” into the old Youtube search bar, you’ll come up with dozens of videos (okay I actually only saw three, but I didn’t scroll that far) making similar claims about the game’s greatness (funnily enough, all three of the videos I saw ended with a fucking question mark. That’s not a joke. Like, they really wanted you to be tempted to click the video just to find out if the game is, in fact, a contender for Switch game of the year. What a time.).

So my point is maybe less that there weren’t people talking (or, asking?), about this game, and more that it doesn’t seem as though anyone was giving this supposed masterpiece the respect that a masterpiece deserves. Which is to say, after watching exactly four minutes and 37 seconds of the first of those videos, I was able to conclude that not a single video on the entirety of Youtube had a single interesting or worthwhile thing to say about the game. And this seems...shitty.

If this game is a masterpiece (and sadly it seems as though we’ll never know, but, by god, we will continue to ask), then maybe it deserves something more than a Youtube video of a dude talking about its “tight gameplay” and “excellent soundtrack.”

Maybe we should do more than that. Maybe we should treat masterpiece video games with the same respect that a masterpiece film or album receives.

Maybe we should be writing thousands of words about the brilliance of said masterpiece, and actually attempt to discuss what exactly about the game makes it so noteworthy.

Maybe we should take the time to say whether or not it is a masterpiece, and not just ask the fucking question.

Dragon Quest Builders 2

As I finished the very short demo of The Touryst, I decided I would play the demos in whatever order they happened to be lined up in on my Switch homepage. As I scrolled to the right, I was struck with fear when I saw Dragon Quest Builders 2 was next up.

Despite being too drunk at the time to notice that the game icon literally says “Jumbo Demo,” I still knew, having learned from the Dragon Quest XI demo, that this demo could literally take the rest of my life to finish.

“Fuck,” I wrote. “I really didn’t want to play this one next. For all I know, this demo lasts eight and a half hours, and I’ll be here ‘till sunrise. It’s been loading for 30 seconds now, and I’m scared. Dear god.”

Some amount of these fears were quelled when the game finally finished loading, and the music began to play. Despite having never owned or really played a Dragon Quest game, I fucking love Dragon Quest music. Sure, it’s beautiful, but it’s not just that. Something about the music makes me feel as though the music has no idea as to how beautiful it actually is. It feels as though the music doesn’t know how profound it really is, and this only serves to make it that much more affecting. I feel this is a part of the charm of the series as a whole: Dragon Quest games never go out of their way to let you know that they know how brilliant they are.

Anyway, I grabbed another beer, bringing the Switch along with me to the fridge so I could continue to listen to the title screen music while I did, and began the demo. The beer was stronger and more expensive than anything I would’ve bought - and I doubt it was my sister who bought it, it was probably some bizarre house warming gift - and tasted to me like a mixture of apple cider and rock salt. It was palatable.

The game, DQB2, as it will henceforth be known, opens with a character customization screen. Now, I may have just been drunk then, and I may just be an asshole now, but the minimal amount of customization one can actually apply to their character struck me immediately, and continues to strike me now, as profound.

All that you’re allowed to change about the character is their hair colour, skin tone, and eye colour. Along with this, you’re also allowed to choose their name.

This small amount of change that you’re allowed to make to the character makes it feel as though you are inserting some very small amount of yourself into this pre-existing character. Like, the character you’ll be controlling is their own living, existing being, and you’re now just a part of that being. It almost feels like a tidy summation of what it is to control any character in any video game you’ve ever played. Which is to say, these characters always exist, having been made long before we gain control over them, before we come into contact with them, and as such we are incapable of actually fully putting ourselves into them. No matter how much character customization or character control they (the creator) allow, the player will always only be meeting them halfway, as the two of them work, isolated from one another, to create what is now a unique being.

Okay, I’ll stop now. But I’m serious about this.

Anyway, the opening of this game is pretty terrific. You wake up a prisoner on a large, monster-ruled pirate ship, and are immediately let out of your jail cell in order to help fix some things around the monster ship. You are enlisted for such duties as the result of your known designation as a “builder.” The skeleton pirate who frees you from your cage makes it clear that while you are a shitty, unimportant builder, that’s still enough for you to be capable of handling the small jobs they have for you. So, you help the monsters clean up the ship, and this acts as the first of what I assume to be many, many tutorials.

The dialogue during this opening section left me legitimately shocked. Nearly every thing that every monster said to me managed to make me silently laugh and/or over exaggeratedly look around the room as if to ask “Is anyone else seeing this!?” (nobody else was - everyone else was asleep and not thinking about video game dialogue).

In order to not write out fifteen different things, I’ll put here what struck me as the most clever of the writing. After asking the skeleton pirate who originally woke you up who he is and what you’re all doing on this ship, he answers:

“If you’re that desperate to find out how far up the creek you are - without a paddle, I might add - go and talk to those five monsters beneath the flag over there.”

This line in particular, along with the majority of the rest of the lines, led me to think about the absurd amount of time it must have taken for the localizers of this game to craft such a great translation. I mean, yeah, obviously the writing was terrific to begin with in Japanese, but the fact that they were able to translate that into such immediately brilliant English text is insane. I’d like to meet the people behind this translation, so that I could ask them what drives them to care so deeply about what they do.

The rest of this demo - or, at least, the rest of it that I managed to play that night* - was made up of me doing menial tasks (talk to monsters, learn to craft, learn to fight, etc.) until I finally decided that I simply could not play any longer, and left it at that for DQB2 for the time being.

*(note: I was really loving this demo, but decided that I needed to move on to another game, as it was already 1:16am and, as I wrote in my open google doc that night, I was “already pretty fucked up.” I played through the beginning of the demo again the next day while sober, and it took me about two minutes to get to where I made it to in like 45 minutes while drunk. Gotta love it.)

I’m mainly really curious about how a game like this gets made. I don’t know what the sales figures for this game were like in Japan, but as far as I could tell, very few people in North America really gave a fuck about it. The thing is, it seems really, really well made, and I know for a fact it is ridiculously large. I have questions about how something this big and seemingly great (and definitely carefully made), gets created, released, and then ostensibly immediately forgotten about. Art and commerce are weird.

Anyway, I doubt I’ll ever play this game. It is too big, and too chill, and I have too many other things that I need to be doing, or at least I often feel as though I do.

Ape Out

I literally can’t think about this game without referring to it as “Ape Escape” in my head. I’ve never played Ape Escape, but that is definitely a better freedom-seeking-ape based video game name.

Anyway, this game is beautiful, in a really jarring way. It’s beautiful in a way that I guess can’t be communicated through trailers, because something about this demo immediately struck a chord with me that no trailer for it had done.

This game is electric. You play as an ape, making your way out of a poisonous building, murdering any human who gets in your way (which is to say you play as an ape who is attempting to escape).

You can move with the left stick, aim with the right stick, grab with the left trigger, and throw/punch with the right trigger. And then you just fucking kill.

The music is an absurd mix of smashing drums and symbols, getting hit in time with your launching of men into walls, turning those men into limbs and torsos (which you can then pick up and throw at other men to stun them), and turning those walls into red paint splattered canvases.

Playing this game makes me really want to play the rest of this game, if only to see how far they can take this kinetic energy that pulses throughout the first three stages. How long does the novelty of having a drum hit perfectly coincide with a body hitting a wall and becoming a corpse last? Or, should I say, what did the developers (Gabe Cuzzillo, the game says, is the creator) do to make it so that fucking pulsing excitement deep in the players sternum lasts for the entirety of the experience?

I feel like this is a game that I could beat over the course of one delirious, sleepless night, though for now we can all only sit and hope that when I do finally purchase and play the full game, it forces me to do so.

Cadence of Hyrule

The music is so good. It sounds like you’re standing in an alternate universe Legend of Zelda elevator, a universe in which the Legend of Zelda isn’t a video game series, but is instead a religious belief.

Remember when this game got announced, and we were all like “What the fuck!?”? And then it came out, and some people were like “This is really good!” and other people were like “I like real Zelda better…”

Anyway. We should appreciate things more.

You know, I bought the first one of these games, on sale, for $5, and it really just did not click with me. Something about having to move on beat really bothered me. Like it was always the game’s fault, and not my own, that things were going wrong. It always felt like my Guitar Hero guitar was missing one battery, or like my Wiimote was miscalibrated, and that was causing all the troubles. It always felt like I was missing some peripheral accessory. It’s not a feeling that feels worth dealing with these days.

This just...isn’t as fun, and doesn’t feel as good, as any of the other three games I was playing. Specifically, I can’t stop thinking about The Touryst and DQB2. I thought that I didn’t like many 3D games, but fuck. Those got me.

The End (Closing Thought That I Wrote Immediately After Finishing These Demos)

This was cool, and this was good. We might even say that I “really needed this,” or, at least, “am really happy to have had this.”

But I’m sobering up, and a remix of some old Zelda song is playing, and I love it, and it’s time to go to bed. Tomorrow, one of my friends will come pick me up from my sister’s house, and I will return home, indefinitely, for now. Everything is fucking weird. But I’m going home. I can’t sit in the darkness of my sister’s home office playing Nintendo Switch demos forever, sadly.

After The End

I’m home now, and I’m tired. Everything is bizarre. I am definitely going to play all of The Touryst eventually, and I am almost definitely going to play all of Ape Escape eventually (I actually wrote the wrong name here by accident, and didn't realize it until now, a day later. They should have just named it Ape Escape. Fuck it.). As for DQB2 and CoHR, they were chill, and I will remember them, and the drunken night we had together, fondly. But I suppose this is the end of the road between me and them.

Anyway, I’ve got four essays due in the next 10 days, and then some online essay after that. I’m also playing through a very long and old JRPG right now, and I think I love it. All of that is to say that I won’t be playing any of these games any more for the time being. So for the time being, I’m thankful we all had that one night together. One night of repose, and of lonely drinking, in a house and a town I’d never been in before, in a room that was not my own, staring at a street that I couldn’t recognize. I’m home now, for some amount of time, and hopefully that time is good.

Goodnight.

#the touryst #dragon quest builders 2 #ape out #cadence of hyrule #nintendo switch

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lilcutieana · 6 years ago

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Safe Haven ~10 ( Hybrid Baby Bangtan/ ot7 )

Words: 2.4K Genre: Fluff with slight Angst, Hybrid! BTS AU Rating: PG-13 Warnings - None Summary: Some days just end up horrible.

Safe Haven ~ || Two || Three || Four || Five || Six || Seven || Eight || Nine

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I checked my watch for the-- most likely-- twelfth time in the past ten minutes I'd been here waiting, all the while tapping my feet to the non-existent music. With a little red-wrapped present sitting idle in front of me, mocking me every time I glance down at it, I bit my lip in consideration.

Was it all even worth it?

Yes. Yes, it was.

He was phenomenal. Everything about him was captivating. From the delicate way, he handled things, to his eye for precision. From the slight hunch to his walk to the mild woody scent he wore. He calmed me, he made me happy and feel like I was more important than just a caregiver. He reminded me that I was more deserving than what I let myself believe. And for that, I was eternally grateful to have met him five years back in a parent-teacher meeting at the Hybrid High for the Gifted.

That is… Until I saw how happy the mated couples, Jin and Hobi were. I had to doubt my own relationship. It wasn't the same, but then again, I was human and incapable of feeling such profound emotions. I wasn't jealous per say. Not of what others in my own home had...or so I have been trying to convince myself. But I know, deep down, in my heart; I've been pining for someone.

Though the kids formed a major part of my world, there's this tiny part of me that longs for someone. Someone more than family, someone more than a friend. Shaking my head from negative thoughts, I looked around the once bustling cafe. A few patrons huddled together like penguins near the window. They looked adorable in their pastel clothes, while I had been constantly wearing mostly black and grey tones for the past few months, reflecting my dark mood.

Guess Monday mornings weren't as busy of an affair as other days. The students and office workers choosing a more commercial setting over the quaint cafe making it harder for the little businesses around in town. The bittersweet aroma of coffee beans helped soothe my jittery nerves yet the mere idea of being stood up eating away what little patience I'd had. But I trusted my instincts.

He seemed good enough. He was good enough. He had a beautiful soul, he was someone I could envision myself spending rest of my life with. And… Yes.

I'd been dating guys. For a while now. But nothing seemed to quite work. For the most part, it was mostly because of me. I was dating guys to distract myself, to tell myself I needed someone. But did I really? Not exactly. I couldn't back then. The boys were of utmost priority to me. I didn't have enough money or time to spend on myself neither did I have the energy to motivate myself enough to actually put an effort in it. For the most part, my heart wasn't truly into it. And I'd decided not to ever do something that my heart didn't want but my brain thought it's a good idea. It probably never is.

Sighing, I shook my head and glared at my watch for moving too slow. And just then I caught a glimpse of bright orange, bordering on neon; pass by the window. Blinking once, twice, thrice… I was flabbergasted. Who'd in this day and age choose to wear something that colorful? Were they trying to replace the traffic signal? Or signal the bears to hunt them?

And then it clicked. It was him. And something was wrong. He wouldn't just be late, neither would he be running across the street, away from me. Letting my half-eaten croissant and a cold cup previously hot cocoa to fend for themselves; I dashed across the checkerboard tiled floor, merely escaping from crashing into strangers and the many trays and cups they carried. Skidding to half with an audible screech from my heels, guaranteeing their demise-- I looked around for a sign of bright orange but couldn't spot anything, anywhere at all.

The door to the cafe shut behind me with a bang. Startled, I yelped and closed my eyes as every eye was staring at me in exasperation and angry frowns. I know, that wasn't quite polite of me in this early of a morning. But I sure had my reasons!

Biting my lips, I looked to my right. As far as I could. And spotted a tiny crowd forming just across the street and sure enough, he was there. With a new purpose, I almost glided across the street. With angry stomps, of course.

I was mad. Not really, I was mostly just concerned, and... I don't even know what I was feeling at the moment. But it was frustrating. He didn't even bother telling me. Was chasing someone and standing in a crowd so important? I waited for about an hour! Or maybe less… It sure felt like an hour to me.

As I reached him. I blinked once, twice, even thrice and proceeded to even wipe my eyes! And yet, the sight before me was no different. He had beautiful snow like ears. And no, it wasn't just the colour, it was in how soft and fluffy the looked. My fingers were trembling from restraining myself, lest I touched him when he clearly hid his ears from the entire world for nearly half a decade. I wondered if he even was aware that his identity was there to see by everyone.

Did it matter? Or was I the only one who didn't know he wasn't completely human.

And his eyes! They were shining like molten silver. Intense and oh so fiery. And the reason was staring him in the eyes, their gaze solemn and defeated as they laid on the ground whimpering.

It reminded me why I had an immense crush on him in the first place. It was those eyes. They demanded attention. They demanded so many things… as soon as they were focused on you. Maybe I spoke to soon. Cause the next thing I knew, those shining eyes were focused right on me. I felt rooted to the spot, unable to even form a smile. I just stared at him as he raised his right eyebrow and slowly blinked-- just like a certain cat I was overly familiar with back at home.

I was about to blink back, smile at him too, that is… Until my eyes focused on the well-manicured ruby red talons on his arm which were showing absolutely no signs of letting go anytime soon. I was… Confused. Did he perhaps… Save her? Was that why she was clinging onto him? There sure was a crowd forming, and a supposed --criminal-- on the streets being glared at. Or was this something else entirely? I just couldn't blame him. He was gorgeous, who wouldn't want to glue themselves onto him.

But… Why today? Why when he was supposed to be with me?

We aren't official the little voice in my head sure knew what I needed to hear. Sure, we weren't. And he was open to dating more people until he knew who the “the one” for him. But At Least, I deserved to know if I was being stood up.

A sharp pang of pain went through my chest. Past insecurities bubbling up on the surface. I couldn't keep the eye contact I'd held with him any longer. Everything around me began to be blurred.

Tears. I was crying over a man who knew me for a little over five years and yet kept silent after making me wait an hour like a fool. Wiping under my eyes, I took a step back. And then another. Watching how his stance changed. Watching how his shoulders sagged. And then, I shook my head. I didn't want him closer. I didn't want his scent on me. I didn't want to hear his voice. My traitorous heart couldn't take it if he made some excuses. I wasn't strong enough. Not now. Not when my mind was absolute chaos. I needed to think. I needed a moment before my thoughts drowned me and I had already taken the dive. I just needed to breathe, I just had to breathe.

“Y/N! Wait…” He screamed. And as if my body was on little strings and he was the puppeteer; my feet stopped on their own accord and I looked him in the eyes once again. The same anguish reflected on his face that probably mirrored mine.

“Why…?”

Did you not come, did you even remember? Did you even care? Did you even want to see me? Do I even matter? A plethora of questions flashed my mind and how I wished I could say out loud, but my lips were tied as he enveloped me in his warm embrace, his caffeine induced sweater a warm welcome to my frantic nerves. His every breath calming my mind and helping me breathe. When he tried letting me go, I shouldn't have held onto him tighter, I should have been the one to let go first. But my arms had a mind of their own and they clutched onto him tighter. My ears didn't want to hear the people gasping around and leaving the scene. I didn't want to hear how the girl right behind his back was cursing at him. I didn't want to see anything. Just a little more, and I can let him go.

“I'm sorry, Y/N. I'd… I...I am...” He whispered in a resigned tone. His voice huskier from holding back tears, perhaps? Was I hurting him that much? Or was he reflecting my emotions?

“Why?” I murmured into his sweater, hoping he would tell me it was nothing but a huge misunderstanding.

“I found her. She's my mate. I...” I couldn't hear anything more. My ears were ringing. My heart drumming inside my head. And just one word and an image flashed across my mind.

Mate. They were mates.

Of course.

He was a hybrid. He'd have one. One that isn't me. I was never a priority. I never would probably be. It was like a splash of ice cold water over my head. I… Couldn’t take it anymore. Stepping back from his embrace as he continued whispering apologies. I hoped they were apologies. I shook my head and somehow managed a smile. Barely. I'm sure it was faker than the mistletoes hanging around every Christmas. Chuckling to myself, at my own luck, I looked up to the sky. How was I supposed to know? How am I supposed to react? Do I just say ‘it's okay, congratulate him, and what? Move on?’

It wasn’t that easy. I wasn't as strong. I'd only started to let myself fall for him. His eyes, his scent, his voice. The way he said my name, the way he always wore mismatched shoes, or how he sometimes ate with his left hand instead of right. How he liked ketchup over scrambled eggs and how he hated fries without seasoning. He was adorable in every way. And yet so strong. So determined. So... Lovely.

And yet… It wasn't me. I wasn't the one he waited for. I wasn't the one he saved. I wasn't the one he loved. “Did you ever…” choking back a sob, I looked to the side. His eyes too intense for me. “love me?”

“I still do. I love you, Y/N!” He shook his head and with a giant step, was towering over me once again. I felt so small. I felt like he was about to swallow my entire being. He shouldn't have said that. He was lying. Why was he lying?

“But I just found her today, and my heart feels confused. I need time to figure things out. Please… I’m just as torn as you are. Believe me.”

“Lies. All lies.” I bit my trembling lips. “I have seen mates. Nothing is instant. You don't even realize until you've spent enough time. You're lying!” I snarled. Panting, I shut my eyes. I didn't want to see him anymore. So what if I wasn't a hybrid. I have seen Jin and hoseok with their mates so often, I know what it's like. It's them and their flaunting of how sweet relations are that I had found a sweet escape. And yet….

“Noona!”

My chaotic mind was finally at rest. And this time, it was because of Namjoon. I was glad somehow. And a bit annoyed. He must have followed me. A kind, gentle hand encircled my shoulder and pulled me into a warm chest. From his scent alone, I could tell it was Jimin. Smiling to myself, I didn't bother turning back.

“I know how much a mate means to a person. Keep her happy.”

◤─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────◥

“Whaf ‘appened?” Jungkook asked with his mouth stuffed with marshmallows. Now I know where they went. It wasn't Jimin. It was kookie who stole it all.

“Bad day. Come here.” Extending my arms, I waited till he came closer and then held him by the ear. Even though it was soft and silky, and I was yearning to pet them, I refrained myself.

“Why did you lie when I asked the other day?” I asked sternly. Trying my best not to smile as I watched him squirm.

“Yeah! It wasn't me, Noona! See…” Jimin piped up from behind.

“I know now.” Smiling, I let go of Jungkook’s now pink flushed ears and ruffled Jimin’s hair until his pout turned to a smile only for it to drop as soon as Yoongi entered the room.

There was always slight tension between the two ever since they entered puberty. I just hoped it didn't last too long.

“So…”

Looking around, I spotted the flier Namjoon had collected a while back and smirked.

“How about we order in today?” A chorus of excited yeses made me smile.

Some things never change. And I couldn't be happier. This was my own safe Haven. Nothing. Absolutely nothing would damage it. I'd always be happy and safe, as long as the boys were with me. They would be. Won't they?

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~Tagged ~

@dreadity @im-emo-motherfuckers @xanny91 @oyasumi7@blackmaylovesfries @catkiecookie @noonaofkookie @thenyousaidhello @silveroccamy @boononx@2seokkyo @s0nh4dorasblog @minyoongi-infiresme @bluebirdphantom @love-yourself-moonchild

#bts #bts hybrid au #min yoongi #kpopwonderlandtag #btswritersguild #armyofwritersnet #park jimin #kim taehyung #kim namjoon #jeon jungkook #kim seokjin #Jung HoSeok #hybrid bts au

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theaceace · 6 years ago

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So you know my monster!jon posts? I started writing a Thing. It’s a little softer than my posts because I am physically incapable of anything else, and it’s sort of building up to pre-JonMartin

(it isn’t finished, and at the rate I write it may never be finished, but I know some of you like spooky boy Sims so here we are. Enjoy?)

There’s an ache in the space between his shoulder blades and his sternum. Jon knows that if he pressed a hand to the spot there would be nothing where he used to feel his heart beat. The ache pulses sometimes, throbs even, but never in time with rushing blood. His blood doesn’t rush anymore; it ebbs and flows, beats against his skin in waves, roars in his ears and sings behind his eyes. It pulls his limbs tighter and tighter, until he thinks the barest touch could snap him apart.

He has no way of knowing for sure. People avoid his touch, these days.

Beneath his hands a tape starts to thrum gently, reels spinning although there’s no statement to record, and no recorder to hold the tape. Gently, he brushes his fingertips over the edges of something that feels a touch too smooth and warm to be plastic. Behind him, the door opens – the real door, of course, that had always been there.

Jon doesn’t look up.

“No,” he says, and he is proud of how steady his voice is. He pulls in threads of Gertrude Robinson, Adelard Dekker, Joshua Gillespie, a hundred different voices from a hundred different statements, and weaves them all together against his tongue until he sounds as close to himself as he can manage – or at least, close to how he remembers sounding. He used to try to joke that he’d lost his voice, until he realised that no-one else thought it was funny.

Well. Gerry thought it was, but Gerry had always been a little unusual.

“Jon,” Elias says, weary and impatient. “This isn’t a debate.”

“Of course it isn’t,” Jon says through Karolina Górka’s resignation, and some of Elias’s own acerbic bite. “Nothing ever is with you.” He still doesn’t turn, but he sees the way Elias presses his mouth tight in a brief, irritated line. Then the expression smooths away as though it never existed, and Jon is left with the impression of a smile that doesn’t even reach Elias’s cheeks, never mind his eyes. Jon rubs his fingertips against his ragged thumbnail, bitten down to the quick. It’s an old habit, one that he picks up when he quits smoking, and abandons again when he has a cigarette to roll between his fingers. He hasn’t had a cigarette in a long time – can no longer stand the way the smoke curls through his hair and ashes cling to his collar. It feels too much like the fast-hot bite of Jude’s touch, or the wind tearing his breath from his mouth.

Come to think of it, he hasn’t had a breath in a long time either. He takes one now, curious; tastes dust and the obnoxious cologne that follows Elias like a cloud.

“There’s no need to be unpleasant,” Elias mutters, and Jon knows he isn’t just talking about their argument, such as it is.

“Certainly not,” Jon agrees, and thinks some remarkably unpleasant things knowing full well that Elias is watching him do so. “And there’s no need to keep discussing this. I don’t need assistants, I absolutely do not want assistants, and quite frankly, Elias, I think I would rather you just shot me again than go through this song and dance day in day out.” The reminder is enough to leave Elias drawn up to his full height by the time Jon finishes talking.

“I have apologised for that,” he says stiffly.

Jon scowls; a little confused, a little furious.

“No,” he says, and is aware that the sound crackling in his throat is less his own now. It curls against his teeth and coats his mouth like oil. Or poison. “You said it was regrettable that you’d allowed things to go so far, and that if you’d realised you wouldn’t have wasted the bullet. It’s not the same thing, Elias.”

There’s a reason, Jon reflects as he watches the colour leech from Elias’s face, as he listens to the sharp rasp of his heel turning on carpet, as he tracks the man’s progress back through the corridors of the Institute, that fairy tales paint names as things of power. He runs a hand through his hair, pushes his dark glasses up onto his head. He’s already seen the paperwork, of course. Elias, despite his best efforts, is no more able to lie to him now than anyone else. He knows that there will be three researchers joining him in the archives whether he likes it or not – and he most emphatically does not.

Timothy Stoker – currently cooing delightedly over photos of Rosie’s newborn nephew – Sasha James – sipping hot chocolate in the staff room – and Martin Blackwood – anxiously circling close to Jon’s office, then pacing away down the hall, before turning with a determined stride that lasts almost to the door. Jon watches him repeat this a couple of times, curious. It would be easy, so easy, to pull at the gossamer strands of intent, of thought, of emotion, that make up Martin’s decision. To read his actions aloud – recorded for posterity, of course – and watch as he unravels into a statement of his own. Such a simple solution to his problem, too – he couldn’t have an assistant no longer capable of connecting his own thoughts, and it might warn away any other potential jobseekers.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he pushes himself to his feet, tips his glasses back down to cover his eyes, and pops his head out the door.

“Martin?” He calls – he doesn’t bother to make himself sound surprised, or pretend that he doesn’t know who Martin is. They’ve worked adjacent to one another for years, although the longest conversation they’ve had lasted four sentences, and finished with Martin a stammering wreck. An unfortunately common occurrence, for people that spend any time talking to Jon outside of a statement.

Still, it couldn’t have traumatised him too thoroughly – otherwise he wouldn’t have applied to move down to the archives.

Martin flinches, a motion exaggerated enough to rock his whole body backwards, and Jon watches disinterestedly as he catches himself on the wall. His round cheeks flush – embarrassment, Jon sees, as well as the jolt of adrenaline that came with his sudden appearance. Jon knows that he moves very quietly, and the walls of the Archives have a knack for swallowing sounds almost before they begin.

“Jon!” Martin manages; he clears his throat and pushes himself away from the wall, tugging restlessly at his sleeves. Although he stands nearly a full head taller than Jon, the way he ducks down and curves his shoulders leaves them almost eye-to-eye. He’s used to taking up as little space as he can, to avoiding notice and letting people’s eyes slide easily off him; Jon reads it in every tense line of muscle and tendon. It must feel particularly strange to him, working in the domain of the Beholding, even if he isn’t really aware of why.

“Was there something you needed?” Jon asks. The answer floats lazily to the forefront of his mind, but he bites his tongue and waits for Martin to speak. Waits while Martin tries to meet his gaze, waits as he shifts from foot to foot before finally gathering himself.

Martin is afraid of him – it’s unfortunate in a colleague, but rather unavoidable. Yet, here he is, following Jon into his new office and taking a seat across the desk; here he is pulling at a loose thread in his cardigan with shaking hands; here he is smiling at Jon, just a little too wide to try to mask his anxiousness. Jon doesn’t smile back.

“Um,” Martin starts, then hesitates. The words sit in the air between them, and Jon knows them already, could pull them from Martin’s mouth with half a whispered thought, but something stops him. “Jon, I know you didn’t really want any assistants after – well, now that Gertrude’s gone, at least that’s what Elias said, and I know that I probably wouldn’t be your first choice even if you did, but I just wanted to say that. Um. I am looking forward to working with you, and if you need anything – at all! Then you can, er, you can always ask.”

Jon is silent for a long moment, stunned. It isn’t often that he’s surprised like this; he isn’t sure of the last time it happened, in fact. It takes conscious effort not to lower his face and look at Martin over the tops of his glasses. That isn’t at all what he’d expected Martin to say – had been waiting for an uncomfortably formal introduction given the brevity of their former interactions, at which point Jon would have been compelled to point out that he knew everyone in the Institute, and really Martin, such banalities are completely unnecessary. Instead, he finds himself fumbling.

“Martin are you – are you worried about me?”

#tma #magnus archives #monster!Jon verse #oh shit whaddup I wrote a thing

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roman-catholic-mass-readings · 3 years ago

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14th November >> Mass Readings (Except USA)

Thirty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

(Liturgical Colour: Green)

First Reading

Daniel 12:1-3

Some will wake to everlasting life, some to shame and disgrace.

‘At that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who mounts guard over your people. There is going to be a time of great distress, unparalleled since nations first came into existence. When that time comes, your own people will be spared, all those whose names are found written in the Book. Of those who lie sleeping in the dust of the earth many will awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting disgrace. The learned will shine as brightly as the vault of heaven, and those who have instructed many in virtue, as bright as stars for all eternity.’

The Word of the Lord

R/ Thanks be to God.

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 15(16):5,8-11

R/ Preserve me, God, I take refuge in you.

O Lord, it is you who are my portion and cup; it is you yourself who are my prize. I keep the Lord ever in my sight: since he is at my right hand, I shall stand firm.

R/ Preserve me, God, I take refuge in you.

And so my heart rejoices, my soul is glad; even my body shall rest in safety. For you will not leave my soul among the dead, nor let your beloved know decay.

R/ Preserve me, God, I take refuge in you.

You will show me the path of life, the fullness of joy in your presence, at your right hand happiness for ever.

R/ Preserve me, God, I take refuge in you.

Second Reading

Hebrews 10:11-14,18

When all sins have been forgiven, there can be no more sin-offerings.

All the priests stand at their duties every day, offering over and over again the same sacrifices which are quite incapable of taking sins away. He, on the other hand, has offered one single sacrifice for sins, and then taken his place forever, at the right hand of God, where he is now waiting until his enemies are made into a footstool for him. By virtue of that one single offering, he has achieved the eternal perfection of all whom he is sanctifying. When all sins have been forgiven, there can be no more sin offerings.

The Word of the Lord

R/ Thanks be to God.

Gospel Acclamation

Matthew 24:42 44

Alleluia, alleluia! Stay awake and stand ready, because you do not know the hour when the Son of Man is coming. Alleluia!

Or:

Luke 21:36

Alleluia, alleluia! Stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to stand with confidence before the Son of Man. Alleluia!

Gospel

Mark 13:24-32

The stars will fall from heaven and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘In those days, after the time of distress, the sun will be darkened, the moon will lose its brightness, the stars will come falling from heaven and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory; then too he will send the angels to gather his chosen from the four winds, from the ends of the world to the ends of heaven.

‘Take the fig tree as a parable: as soon as its twigs grow supple and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. So with you when you see these things happening: know that he is near, at the very gates. I tell you solemnly, before this generation has passed away all these things will have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. ‘But as for that day or hour, nobody knows it, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son; no one but the Father.’

The Gospel of the Lord

R/ Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

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watchingcutscene · 6 years ago

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The Legacy of Earl Grey Tea

Pairing: Levi x Reader

The abrasive, vulgar, and indifferent man was humanity's strongest. Rather uncharacteristic of his occupation as a soldier, he was a clean freak; and despite how he seemed, Levi had a side of morality and empathy. He valued the life of his comrades more than most would think. No one had ever overtly acknowledged his aberrant compassion, but the soldiers in his squadron all knew. Behind unuttered words and his constant look of dismay, the man was more caring than he gave himself credit for. Levi despised the Jaeger brat. His temper and rash desire for revenge was eventually going to become his own undoing. Between the two of them, Levi saw an uncanny resemblance, and every time he was forced to confront this hot-tempered kid, guilt would flood his senses. That was why he despised him. In his early days of service, Levi was consumed by the death of his two friends. The guilt and anger resulted from his loss led him to resort to the most reckless of decisions. He cared about nothing other than slaughtering titans, not even his own life. In fact, recalling the scene when those titans devoured his friends like livestock, he might as well have died too. Levi was nowhere the calm and rational man the Survey Corps had known him to be today. Breaking formation, running off on his own, utterly ignoring the mission of expeditions to slaughter every titan in sight was what he was known for. His comrades died trying to protect him, but there was a fire that burned his lungs that could not be settled because every time he looked in the mirror, he saw a gaping hole in his chest that no amount of revenge could fill. But he forged on ahead, one titan at a time, even at the cost of his comrades. Returning from every expedition, the captain of his squadron would scold him, but he had no ear for that. Overtime, Levi became trapped in his isolation, convincing himself that no one was ever capable of understanding his pain. But no one’s misery was ever theirs alone. Levi’s life was not void of blessings. He was just too consumed by his grief to see it. The leader of his squadron was a Corporal, about the same age as he. She made an effort to end his solitude. In the evenings when he skipped his meals, she’d stop by his room with bread and tea. The offering was first subjected to blunt rejection. He coldly declared that he “didn’t want it”, and shut the door before she could even utter a word. When Levi took his 2 am strolls during those sleepless nights, he would catch her in her office, door open to let in the breeze, catching up on paperwork. At first they would at most exchange glances when he passed, but soon, she began inviting him in. Those sleepless nights turned into regular visits to her office, where she would brew earl grey. Levi sat rather defensively between the cushions on her couch, not moving an inch. Between her paperwork, she would look up and urge for him to drink the tea, “it won’t taste good when it’s cold”, was a phrase that frequented her lips. When Levi finally accepted her offering of dinner brought to his room, she began their first real conversation. “You can’t always go out in expeditions breaking formations recklessly like that,” she said calmly, getting straight to the point, a ghost of a smile playing upon her lips. Levi immediately began regretting his decision of letting her in. It turned out, she was just the same as everyone else. He paused for a long time before replying, “It’s our jobs to kill titans. I’m not going to stay in formation and run away from titans like the rest of those cowards.” She looked up at him, her (eye colour) eyes into his grey ones, firm and unyielding, “It’s our job to go outside the walls, complete the mission, and come back alive.” He stared at her, his anger written all over his handsome features. “Everyone here has lost someone,” she said, pouring him a cup of her tea. Seeing his silence, she continued, “you can’t let your past haunt you forever.” Her casual tone set off Levi. His steely eyes were cold when he barked at her, “what do you know about my past?” This woman that was no older than he had a maturity almost unfitting for her age, “I know what it feels like to lose friends,” she paused, watching the expression on his face skew with anger, “I lost my squad, my friends, one by one, out there, because of you.” Levi froze. The expression on her face remained calm, like all the late nights in her office, the smell of earl grey never ceasing. “Human lives are fragile,” she said with a tenderness that made Levi subconsciously relax his features, “the only thing we can do is protect what we still have.” She stood up to leave. “By the way,” she turned to meet his gaze, the ghost of a smile never leaving her visage, “your room is a mess. You need to clean up after yourself.” When she opened the wooden door, a breeze that was the declaration of spring embraced her. The loose hairs of her pony tail fluttered, and for the first time, the gaping hole in Levi’s chest found a piece of itself in the ineffable sorrow that existed in her smile She was a girl who had a way with words. The saying opposites attract had proven itself in the case of Levi and (y/n). While Levi’s words were a scarcity saved for only special occasions, she did not spare him of much silence. “Drink your tea before it gets cold.” “When was the last time you washed your sheets? They smell disgusting.” “Do you have the formation memorized?” “The dust in your room is as thick the Military Police’s skulls.” But somehow, Levi found solace and liberation in her nagging. There never had been anyone who cared enough for him to spare words of such quantity. There were little things Levi had noticed and grown attached to. She was tender and kind, qualities unfit for a soldier, but her glare was strong an unyielding, just like her fists during combat training. She had an affinity for cleaning, claiming it made her feel calm, which made it all the more annoying when she entered Levi’s quarters as he seemingly was “incapable of cleaning up after himself”. Her finger tips were always a little cold because she was anemic due to a previous injury. And should there ever be a shortage of earl grey tea in her office, she would enter a state of distress, muttering “the legacy of earl grey tea cannot end yet” while frantically searching for another stash. They began appearing as a pair. Somewhere along the line, their comrades had probably started gossiping about their relationship, but neither he nor she were the kind to keep up with gossip. Being with her was a constant process of finding pieces of himself. In her nagging, in her tea, in her fingers, and in her ghostly smile. It was as if he was waiting for the final piece to fill that gaping hole before he could return the favour and utter for her three words that might become a turning point in their lives. But that turning point had a slight variation in outcome. In the midst of that summer was the 38th expedition. It was also her last. Before leaving, she repeated to him again and again “don’t break formation”, “follow my orders”, “if you see a titan, ignore it unless otherwise commanded”, until Levi interrupted. “I understand, (y/n),” staring directly into her (eye colour) orbs, a rare smile played upon his lips. She paused, processing his smile, and returned a toothy grin of her own. Of all the things that could have went wrong, it was Levi. Half way through the expedition, the Squadron ahead was attacked by four titans. (y/n) commanded to not break formation, and to follow Erwin’s orders, which was to avoid any contact with titans by all means necessary. She led the squad East of the original path, hoping to move around the titans. Not long into their detour, they caught sight of two titans trailing the squad. They were abnormal ones. The team continued forward, hoping to outrun them, but slowly, they were closing in. “There’s no way we can outrun them,” Levi called out to (y/n), catching up beside her. “We have to,” she said, eyes focused ahead, “there’s no way the five of us can take out two abnormal 15 meters.” “We have no choice!” Levi shouted. (y/n) did not respond. Her brows were drawn into a frown and her lips pursed into a thin line. Seeing her inaction, Levi declared, “I’ll go distract them and slow them down. You guys keep going, I’ll catch up,” and slowed his horse. “Levi!” (y/n) screamed, but he was already far behind them, heading to the opposite direction. “There’s no way he can stopped them on his own!” a member of her squad called out, “we need to go help him!” She hesitated, features twisted in a way they never have before. The kind and tender girl was gone. “I’ll go,” she announced, “you guys go on full speed to the meeting place. Don’t send reinforcements back to help us. I want to minimize the casualties. We’ll meet up with you in an hour, and if we don’t…” she swallowed, “continue following Erwin’s orders,” and before anyone could protest, she turned her horse and followed Levi’s trail. When she almost caught up to him, she called his name. His expression when he turned to see her was the most she had ever seen on his face. It was of shock and disappointment. “Why are you here?” he screamed above the sound of sprinting horses. “For you!” she shouted back. His expression became more intense, “are you insane?!” he roared, much unlike the indifferent soldier she had grown to know and love. “No,” she replied, “but you are!” The exchange was interrupted by the thumping of the two giant’s footsteps. The titans were less than a mile away and the Corporal and her soldier prepared their maneuver gear. They both knew these were unfavourable circumstances. Two soldiers, no matter how skilled, simply could not take down two 15 meter abnormal titans in a flat area with no trees. He only wanted to buy time for the rest of the team to escape, and she wanted to be there with him because she didn’t want to be the one left behind. And she wasn’t. He was. Levi had always been skilled. He took out the first titan with considerable ease. When (y/n) latched on to the second titan’s left shoulder with her gear, it grabbed the wire with its right arm, yanking her off her horse. Abnormal titans were always hard to deal with, but she reacted quickly and bounced off of its arm. Giving it a second try, she swung around to the backside, attempting to slash its nape, but the titan still had a grip on her wire, which it pulled. The force took her by surprise, and she found herself hanging by one wire as the titan lifted her to its mouth. The humid wind gushing out from its mouth became a sign of the end. At some point she heard Levi cry out for her, but her eyes were closed shut. The titan opened its jaws and lowered her into it, and behind her shut lids she could sense the light fading form the world. The adrenaline never ceased, so when its jaws closed, she did not feel pain. She felt herself free falling. Then something – someone – caught her. When she dared to open her eyes she was in Levi’s arms as he rushed toward the abandoned horses. The titans behind them were on the ground with smoke evaporating from their limp bodies. Her eyes focused on his visage, and there was blood. Everywhere. She panicked. “Are you –” her lips were dry and her voice raspy, “are you bleeding?” They had reached the horses by then, and he lifted her up first before getting on himself, still cradling her in his arms. He rode the horse at full speed before sparing her a glance. On his face she saw the most amount of sadness she had ever seen on him. Like a child, helpless and defenceless. “It’s you,” his voice was raspier than hers, almost as if he was going to cry, “it’s your blood…” By then, the adrenaline had started to wear down. And as she examined her blood-stained body, she found, accompanied by an increasingly vivid pain, the absence of her left arm. She did not panic. “I’ll treat it,” Levi’s voice was urgent. His grip on the harness a little tighter than it should have been, and his lips quivered. “I’ll stop the blood as soon as we get to somewhere safe.” It was late in the afternoon. The sun had begun its retirement. She grew increasingly cold and attempted to draw herself closer to him. His usual scent was overwhelmed by the metallic smell of blood. In these last moments of amity, she struggled to find traces of the one she loved. They managed to reach the meeting place, where the other squadrons had already arrived. The rest of their team rushed forward upon seeing the blood covered Levi and the tiny ball curled up in his arms. She could only register selected chunks of time at this point. “Get a medic!” someone had screamed. She felt Levi’s warmth leave her as she was lowered to the ground. Levi watched her half-hooded eyes flutter open and shut. Her expression changed with her varying states of consciousness. The medic roughly wrapped the stub that was her arm. Blood immediately soaked through the bandages. “That’s all we can do right now,” the medic turned to him, “the blood should stop soon. If there’s no delay, we can get back inside the walls before it’s too late.” “It will be too late,” his jaw was clenched, “isn’t there something we can do now? She won’t make it to the walls!” his voice made the young medic shutter, a deep roar that held more emotion than he was ever able to express to her. “Our medicine cart was lost with one of the squadrons that got attacked,” the medic became defensive, “she will make it to the walls, she won’t lose that much blood that quick!” Levi took a sharp inhale of air. A pounding doom finally lowered onto his shoulders. When he spoke, he found his words shaking and barely audible, the moisture finally overturning his vision, “she’s anemic…it’ll be too late”. This became their turning point. He lowered his head and let out all the demons he guarded with his stone-cold features. Tears rained down like an April shower. For a second, in his blurred vision of her fading existence, he saw the complete truth of this world, the cold relentless cycle of death. Somewhere, a longing was born into this god forsaken world, never to be answered never to be fulfilled. He cursed again and again under his breath that they were all damned and cursed and how he wished his heart were stone. This rage was only interrupted when he felt a cold hand placed on his. When he opened his eyes as more tears poured out, she was there. For a second, he thought everything was going to be okay, but when she signaled for him to lean in, and her words were barely fathomed into a full breath, he was reminded that this was all real. “Don’t give up okay?” she breathed into his ear, “you can’t give up. I won’t let you.” “How?” his voice was a mess of out of tune sounds, “You all leave one after another, I don’t even have anything to give up on.” “You do,” she said, exhausting laboured breaths in between words, “yourself.” His eyes rained harder. He suddenly couldn’t even remember why he forced his composure for all this time. What would have happened if he didn’t run off and break formation? What would have happened if he took her orders? She had a way with words. In the end, it was she who saved his life “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” In his early days of service, Levi was consumed by the death of his two friends. He was nowhere the calm and rational man the Survey Corps had known him to be today. It took a Corporal with an obsession with tea, one who had a way with words, to make a soldier out of him. She filled the gaping hole in his chest with little pieces of amity but decided to take one with her before she completed him in the end. When he took over her job, he lived up to her title. He cleaned his office more often than necessary. He became cool and level headed and learned to take orders. He had a soft spot that was compassion for his comrades and utter disgust for impulsive decisions and sacrifice. All in the name of carrying forth the legacy of her earl grey tea.

#Levi Rivaille #lance corporal levi #levi #snk #shingeki no kyojin #aot #attack on titan #levi ackerman #fanfiction #anime #x reader #angst #snk fandom #snk fanfiction #fanfic #reader #reader insert

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kyloren · 7 years ago

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Saw on your blog that you ship Hermione and Draco! Got any fic recommendations for someone who hasn't read anything with that pairing before?

I’ve never been asked to give a Dramione fic rec list to anyone outside of DMs, so here’s hoping my list would actually be good. *fingers crossed*

* marks WIPs.

canon (ish?):

lost and found by Anuna: “Draco Malfoy, a single father and a Curse Breaker employed at Ministry of Magic wants few things from his life. He mostly wants to be left alone. However, his work, his reputation and his mother’s schemes are to prevent him from being left alone as he wishes. Working with Hermione Granger doesn’t help much either.” post-Hogwarts, disregards Cursed Child. [you need an ao3 account to read this one.]

a primer for the small weird loves by unicornesque: “In the glow of the fires, her unkempt hair was a halo, her eyes were Baltic amber, and he was panicking.“ Born and raised in France, Draco Malfoy attends Beauxbatons and leads a privileged, well-ordered existence. He meets Hermione Granger for the first time at the Triwizard Tournament, and that’s when things get… strange. But kind of wonderful, too.” Wildly Canon Bending. [this is the one that makes me cry. every. single. time!]

gravity by luckei1: “It’s about arranging stacks of books, wall colours, and jumping off a cliff.”

the redemption of draco malfoy by luckei1: “Can Draco be saved from his Deathly Hallows fate of being a snivelling coward?” Alternative DH.

heavy lies the crown by luckei1: “For seven years, Draco has carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, and just when he thinks he’ll be released, something happens that will make him seek help from the last person he could have imagined.” Canon Divergence.

grey tuesdays by luckei1: “Hermione goes on holiday for three reasons. A calendar date, her mother, and spontaneity.”

++ just everything that luckei1 writes is solid gold. unfortunately, one of my favourite fanfics of hers — Elephant Walk — was published on dramione.org and is now unavailable till further notice.

unexpected* by @avdubs & @hexrmionegranger (oeuvre24): “Hermione was not expecting Harry to outshine her in Potions, and she was certainly not expecting an unlikely friendship with Draco Malfoy to form because of it.” Alternate HBP.

clean by @olivieblake: “Malfoy’s handsome face was contoured into a condescending smirk. “No faith in that giant brain of yours, Granger?” She looked up at him defiantly. “Maybe I don’t have faith in you!” she said, raising her voice. Malfoy only looked at her. “You’ll find I’m very surprising.”” Alternative HBP, first instalment of the This World or Any Other series.

red hands by Bex-chan: ““Comparatively, he was a wolf and she was a sparrow.” A story without an ending, but a story nonetheless. A story about Firewhiskey, tea, and murder.” Wartime one-shot.

the disillusionment of draco malfoy* by Little Witch1: “…and His Accomplice Hermione Granger.” Canon Bending.

it is the cause, my soul by DrSallySparrow: “Having completed her N.E.W.T.s Hermione decides to pursue a niggling interest in muggle literature and study at Oxford. Little does she know, she isn’t the only Hogwarts alum looking for answers among the dreaming spires. When a performance of Othello brings her together with two former enemies, sparks can’t help but fly.” post-Hogwarts, disregards Cursed Child.

the unseen army* by meupclose: “It is not us to fear my dear; for we are the assassins built for a revolution within the very frame work of evil. Believe me love, this is the price of peace. I will be successful in my plans, in my leadership. I will help in the downfall of Voldemort.” Canon Bending. [for me, this is the fic that got away. it’s been WIP for years.]

for her favour by Captainraychill: “A man in love is always apprehensive.” Alternative HBP. [okay, so this fic was deleted ff.net, so I had to track it down to fictionhunt.com]

the sorting by KathSilver: “Dumbledore stated that sometimes he thought students were sorted too soon, Minerva McGonagall took this to heart and resubmitted 7th years to be sorted again. What will happen when their world is turned upside down, and where will they find comfort?” Eight Year AU.

shadows of ourselves by InkFairy: “Draco Malfoy has played both sides of the war for years, but when Voldemort gives him an ultimatum—bring him Hermione Granger or die—she surprisingly agrees to be handed over to the Dark Lord. Together, they take pureblood society by storm as Master and Madam Malfoy, all while trying to help the Order find and destroy the last Horcruxes and defeat Voldemort forever.” Wartime Canon Divergence.

blind my eyes, sew them shut by Greenaleydis: “After a close brush with the Death Eaters, Hermione awakens blinded and on the run with a familiar snarky Slytherin. In hiding, Hermione and Draco must find a way to survive - and somehow thwart a plot that could alter their very world.” Wartime Canon Divergence.

unforgiveable* by EStrunk: “Draco is part of the Dark Lord’s Inner Circle, but secretly using his post to bring the Dark Lord down. Hermione is his contact in the Order and he is soon going to discover that she means far more to him than that.” post-DH.

seven days in april by inadaze22: “They were still the same people with the same problems on either side of a bathroom door.” Canon Divergence.

the gates of istanbul by pagan: “A Death Eater attack in Istanbul throws together two unlikely allies. As they unwillingly cooperate to reach safety, attraction and emotions flare up between them.” post-Hogwarts, canon bending.

god given solace by bluesuitharold: “Draco comes into his Veela heritage and must attempt to survive through all the trials that entails.” Alternative DH, veela!Draco.

a past erased by Ariel_Riddle: “His face contorted with a mixture of rage, indecision, and determination. Hermione did not care, she ran all the way up to him before flinging herself in his arms, wrapping herself tightly around him—she would never let go.” Alternative HPB & DH.

alternative universe:

fortuna major by @olivieblake: “She’s with Ron, he’s with Astoria, and nothing a cheap psychic on the Venice Boardwalk says is going to change that. Or will it?” Muggle AU.

a muggle-born magic by Musyc: “Physician’s daughter Hermione Granger finds herself in need of a way to pay off her father’s debts after his death. Draco Malfoy finds himself in need of a tutor for his son, Scorpius, who appears to be incapable of magic and must learn to survive in a world without it.” Regency AU.

time travel:

once, maybe twice in a lifetime by Ally147: “It’s still. Placid. An unbroken sheet of glass rippling with low, late afternoon sunlight. Nothing at all to be afraid of, really. Stupid that she still is, after all these years.” Canon Bending, Time Travel

regrets collect like old friends by ScotlandEvander: “Traveling into the past, Draco Malfoy finds himself in his eleven-year-old body with all his memories from the past seventeen years. Using this knowledge, he sets out change time. His first mission: befriend Harry Potter.” Time Travel, first instalment in the Rewritten in Time series. [I talk a lot about my love for time travel fics and this is among my favourite ones! Dramione doesn’t happen until later instalments though, so mind that.]

eternity in an hour by hiddenhibernian: “The doomsday prophets were right: the end is nigh. This time, having the right wand won’t be enough to save either wizards or Muggles. Hermione’s younger self would have been horrified by what she is planning to do, but she stopped caring about such things a long time ago.”

turn back this cursed clock* by @wingsofmercury: “As the Battle of Hogwarts rages around him, he curses the decisions that led to this moment. His wand is gone, his family ruined, and Harry Potter-the supposed savior-is dead. There is nothing left for him but ignominy and death, so Draco Malfoy heads to his sanctuary, the only safe place he’s ever known, and begs the Room of Requirement to grant one last request.” Time Travel. [so this is technically not Dramione, at least, not yet. It only has four chapters so far.]

I have read more, but either the stories have been deleted, or the links no longer work *cough* looking at you dramion.org *cough* so it’s fruitless. I hope you enjoy these recommendations, whoever you are, nonster.

#dramione #dramione fanfiction #dramione fanfiction recommendation #fanfiction recommendations #in this tag resides fanfiction #♔: victrix #*#anonymous #ask box

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idolizerp · 6 years ago

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LOADING INFORMATION ON IMPERIAL’S LEAD DANCE, LEAD VOCAL NOAH HAN ...

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: n/a CURRENT AGE: 26 DEBUT AGE: 21 TRAINEE SINCE: 17 COMPANY: 99 SECONDARY SKILL: Cinematography

IDOL PROFILE

NICKNAME(S): noee, noah-roo, noah’s ark. INSPIRATION: having grown up outside of korea, most of noah’s inspiration stems from international artists. michael jackson and bruno mars, with their charismatic performances, serves as some of his biggest influences. SPECIAL TALENTS:

capable of doing bland impressions of famous gagmen, actors, and notable characters from television dramas and/or movies, but the outcome is so stale, it does generate laughter.

he does, however, provide a shockingly good michael jackson vocal impersonation.

NOTABLE FACTS:

an only child.

cannot tolerate spicy food well, frequently turning red in the face and sweating profusely.

graduated from korea national university of arts with a major in cinematography.

has a extensive list of celebrity friends from most companies and is often uploading images of his network on instagram.

IDOL GOALS

SHORT-TERM GOALS:

noah doesn’t aim high, but he does eventually want to direct a music video for imperial. with small opportunities already granted, he’s positive (yet anxious) the comeback will arrive, and his skill is beckoned. yet, that doesn’t quell the constant fear of rejection and inadequacy since he’s been vying for this select chance since before debut. and it has yet to come to fruition.

LONG-TERM GOALS:

he doesn’t want to stop himself at imperial; noah also wants to help create music videos for other idol groups. and it doesn’t end there, irrespective if he’s blindly shooting for the stars. limitations are solidified to be pushed, so he hopes to one day branch out and film other forms of media: commercials, primetime dramas, movies. in all honesty, it’s a little gutsy and unbelievable and far-fetched, but he desires a little segregation from imperial’s noah and film graduate, noah han since an idol life is not forever. he doesn’t think (potentially want) to last as a singer.

IDOL IMAGE

at first glance, noah has a little too much POIZN in him than 99 appreciates. perhaps, it’s the careless tattoo (more to come) on his inner forearm he got when he was sixteen and reckless that has directors and managers scratching their heads on what to possibly do with him. he, himself, is very little help to the cause. for most his life, noah has lived under the direct, communist law of someone else. he was never his own person, always skirting on the edge of uncertainty. so, they have a lot to work with, but they can also mould him to whatever stereotype they want.

the bad boy.

the romantic.

the ice prince.

they go with that—ice prince. play up his own personality to draw in fans. he has the face, the aura, the rare smile that catches cameras and goes viral. noah is an enigma, really. but that’s probably the polite way of saying he doesn’t have much of anything to begin with. he’s raw but viciously trained by a family that cared too much of image and structure than well-being and nurture. his natural rigidness is construed as mysterious, cold to the touch but alluring. he doesn’t reek of danger, but he draws people in. apparently.

they want to know more.

except he doesn’t have much to offer. he’s quiet, cool and keeps to himself most of the time. so, the image placed on him works. he’s no prince charming, but a deity close to it.

the charade is easy to maintain. just don’t talk and look and smile after keeping fans on the edge of their seat. not speaking much was added because his korean was crummy. standing around was amplified because he looked good in dazzling hair colours. and smiling, well, fan-service has to be thrown in to pacify and quell thirst. and honestly, noah does a pretty stellar job at preserving the mask.

no one sees the broken boy nursing invisible wounds with alcoholic vices. he slips under the radar.

maybe it has something to do with no one truly noticing him, anyway. so he assumes.

maybe that has everything to do with it.

IDOL HISTORY

(triggers: death, physical abuse, alcoholism)

life starts with the death of his mother.

the doctors say it was complications with giving birth. that she received an infection they couldn’t catch in time. and it wasn’t his fault at all.

except that’s not what his father says.

his father is a cold, ruthless man. one heartbroken and angry his wife was traded in for a son he didn’t quite want. noah learns early on in childhood, parents and family don’t have to love you. it’s not a perquisite.

gold coast, australia is a battle to see which family in the korean community bests the rest. although, his father may not like him or see much worth in a toddling four year old sucking his thumb, noah is displaced in various academies to be a trophy his father can show off. that’s all he ever is, really, a possession only of value if he was gold.

he never is gold, though.

try as he might, noah doesn’t win piano competitions, is dropped early from spelling bees, fails to make it onto academic teams. he’s always an almost. he’s always not good enough. and his father preys on his frequent inadequacy, thinking a leather belt to the skin of an eight year old can teach something.

it doesn’t.

the last shot he has at making an impression, at receiving some kind of paternal love, is through choir. his father is a religious man, one that attends mass every sunday in his best attire. when a position opens up, noah is tossed in yet another gamble with his life on the line. family friends of equal snooty façades glower at the boy incapable of anything. but what comes out of his mouth aren’t keys off note or flat but angelic hymns of someone who has finally found their niche.

thirteen, and noah is all about singing and music and even dancing. he sings at choir both at church and at school and even convinced his father to sign him up for modern dance (anything to get them away from one another). because as noah gets older, the more he and his father father butt heads. he’s becoming a threatening omega to his father’s alpha. but collision is momentarily stalled when they get a phone call. his grandfather is ill, and they need to go back home.

but seoul, south korea isn’t home to noah. it’s a foreign, concrete jungle of people he can’t understand and barely communicate with. at school, he’s an outcast, unable to fit in anywhere. but what’s new, really?

the one thing that remains the same is the music. and he finally meets people through this mutual appreciation. comrades who teach him of the idol industry and being completely saturated in song. well, they were fifteen and foolish then, thinking entertainment worked in such a manner. thinking it was that easy.

it wasn’t.

auditions were brutal. and the only way his father agreed to him parading on stage if he didn’t let his education become affected. so, noah balances tryouts and eventual training at 99 with school, hoping he’d graduate on the honour roll because his father can and will pull him out if he failed to do so. sleep slowly turns to privilege with so little time in the day to practice and study. he can’t do both; it’s impossible.

but he does so, anyway.

perhaps why 99 chose him and kept him. he is more work than play. they like his work ethic, like that he tortures himself for a good result because in his life, that’s all that really mattered to anyone. being a trophy. being gold. being somebody to showoff.

he’s a thing, an object others can they do as they please. long story short, he’s perfect for the industry he has morphed into a slave for.

early on, however, noah realizes being boasted as some medal comes with very little incentives. when one member leaves imperial, it confirms the lingering doubt into something factual.

like all idols, he is only human, who easily falls into the lures and temptations of the vices that come with fame. or that’s his excuse for relying on alcohol and a warm-body to be late night companions. because as friendly as noah can be under the influence, he is very distrusting, aloof and can probably count a total of three close friends on one hand (not including his members). and that’s okay, right? he’s used to being in the slum of loneliness.

besides, less people to hurt him.

he confuses friendship with lust and submerges himself in a false sense of love because he’s never felt it. not once. and it scares him. so, he builds walls and hides behind a constructed façade all idols must have. he runs from problems and frankly, pretends they don’t exist because it’s easier to say he’s okay whilst pouring another glass of whiskey then explaining to others he wasn’t. because he’s an apparently talented, well-rounded idol, and no one will ever believe he’s unhappy.

he has no reason to be, right?

yet he’s overworked and on the brink of exhaustion. juggling the ideals of his father, the ideals of the contract he signed his soul to (fifteen year old noah couldn’t have seen this coming) and the ideals of his fans takes a toll on him. noah is an empty shell of himself, but he always was living his life for someone else. even now, working as idol is less about himself but more about the company, the group, the supporters. never about the actual person within the idol.

in a desirable life, in a different reality, noah has this vision of fruity sunsets and royal midnights. if music was once his escape but now what binds him, he tumbles into the beauty of film, where anyone can be anything they so please. another distraction, another distorted reality he’s transfixed on. it can only end wrongly, but noah is desperate to find himself, to grow and be just noah han.

a part of him is thankful his father forced his nose into books because he wouldn’t have made it into korea national university of the arts without it. wouldn’t have graduated, albeit slower than most (because he is imperial’s noah first), in cinematography without it. but now what? his father still belittles him and his choices.

supposedly, noah is doing all he loves and has a passion for yet he doesn’t feel adequate. yet he’s still struggling, lost, finding himself in the whirlwind of life.

born to a dying mother, a heartless father, noah’s actual endgame goal is to live a life that will give justice to his mother and make his father proud.

so far, he’s failing and falling.

and here is to another shot of whiskey to soothe the pain away.

he can’t please anyone. not even himself.

#id.bio #id.99 #id.imperial #id.wild&free #tw.death #tw.physical abuse #tw.alcoholism #id.oh sehun

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psychotickol-a · 6 years ago

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RULES.

DISCLAIMER

I am not, nor am I affiliated with, Nathaniel Buzolic or the CW shows, the Vampire Diaries and the Originals, or L.J Smith’s books. The blog was created for entertainment purposes only and is entirely non-profit. I do not own the character that I’m choosing to write on this account, but this blog is canon divergent.

I have altered the Original Family’s timeline, origins and history significantly, you can read an indepth explanation of the changes that I’ve made here or you can read the following bullet points.

CANON DIVERGENT

THE ORIGINAL FAMILY IS OLDER: they began their lives in Norway at the beginning of the Viking Age (790 AD), and were born and raised within the Viking culture and worship.

ANSEL WAS A SAXON SLAVE: taken during the Viking raids on England, the same as Esther and Dahlia.

KOL WAS TWENTY FOUR: when Esther turned her children into the first vampires. Kol was already renown for his bloodthirst and savagery in battle.

MARRIAGE: Kol married when he was fifteen years old to Siv but fathered no children.

KOL & FINN: they were a lot closer than the show portrayed as they were both left out of the “always and forever” schtick. What was more, Finn’s presence tempered Kol’s impulsiveness and anger whilst Kol’s playful nature and mischief often led Finn to seeing the simple pleasures of life.

THE SILAS ARC: Kol wasn’t killed. Elena, Jeremy and Bonnie trapped Kol within a prison world and used his sirelink to kill over a hundred vampires from Kol’s sireline but the majority of his sireline still exists.

FOLLOWING HIS FAMILY TO NEW ORLEANS: Kol astral projected to converse, tutor and mentor Davina Claire during season 1 of the Originals.

ESTHERS RETURN: Esther did attempt to use Kol’s resentment and bitterness towards his siblings as leverage to get him to work for her but Kol refused. Esther cut him off from Davina until she managed to bring him back temporarily in which Kol confronted his siblings but was eventually forced to return to his prison.

DAVINA CLAIRE: Kol and Davina still share a deep connection but my Kol is aromantic and is incapable of feeling romantic love for anyone. He is fond of Davina and cares for her but he can’t love her, therefore Kol is not married to Davina.

KOL’S DOES NOT DIE: After confronting his siblings, Kol was forced to return to his prison world or risk being torn apart. Davina had to work with the Strix to bring Kol back to the real world but the ancestors still cursed him into killing Davina.

FREYA, HAYLEY & HOPE: Kol has mixed feelings about the three. He tolerates them but struggles to see either of them as family. What he feels for them is obligation, though he does make more of an effort with Hope than the other two (this may change with roleplay).

MUN INFORMATION

I’m Chey, I’m 21+, queer and a woman of colour. This blog has been remade from my previous blogs under the same url psychotickol as I was feeling nostalgic and missed writing Kol. I’m a slow roleplayer so if you’re looking for someone who is quick with replies and is active every day I may not be the partner for you. Icons were capped and edited by me with the borders taken from destroyalist.

I have no triggers but I will not write rape, pedophilia, anything to do with pregnancy or eating disorders. I will also not partake in any nazi au’s or gender bent / rule!63 muses.

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

OOC DRAMA: I prefer not to get involved with other peoples personal problems with other roleplayers however, if I say or do something that upsets you, please feel free to message me so that I can apologize or explain as sometimes things can be misconstrued over the internet. Posting passive aggressive ooc posts to drag your entire follower count into something that could have been handled privately is immature and I will not take part in it nor will I tolerate having those kinds of people in my life.

PATIENCE: As I said above, I am incredibly slow and scatterbrained but I’m laid back and I do not mind how long it takes for my partners to reply or respond to me so please take as long as you want or need. If you are worried that I haven’t seen a reply / starter, feel free to send me a message and I’ll let you know if I have it tucked away in my drafts.

FOLLOWERS: If we’re mutuals then I’m going to assume that means that I can IM you, send you memes and write you starters on a whim without needing to plot or discus everything before hand. However, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO REPLY TO THESE!! Nor do you have to tell me if you’re going to reply or not, this is a no stress zone and you are not under any obligations to do anything that you do not want to or are not inspired to do.

TRIGGERS: As I mentioned, I personally do not have triggers but I will do my utmost to tag any and all kinds of triggering content. The dominant triggers that you will find on this blog are blood, violence, gore, face / eye horror, nudity, death, depression and other psychological issues / behavior. I will do my best to tag them. If I miss a tag or you have a specific tag then please let me know.

SHIPPING: This is a multi-ship account, I love building and developing relationships and seeing where things go. But sometimes muses simply do not click romantically, sometimes the spark or the feeling isn’t there and this is okay. I will never force a ship onto my partners, if you feel that I am pushing too hard for something then let me know and I’ll back off. That being said, my Kol is AROMANTIC, as I mentioned above, and he will never fall in love with your muse. He may care for and grow fond of your muse but romantic love is off the table.

SMUT: Both mun and muse are of age however smut continues to be the most challenging genre for me to write so please do not be surprised or upset if I time skip or fade to black should our muse become sexually involved. I will not roleplay or discuss smut or sexual relationships with minors.

MUTUALS ONLY: This account will be mutuals only as I do not have as much free time as I used to have and I want to focus my attention on those who wish to write with me, and who I wish to write with as well. I will occasionally post open starters for non-mutuals as I find that is a good way to meet / find new people.

MEMES: will be open to non-mutuals as they are good ice breakers but I will be selective with them.

PRE-ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS: I’m okay with pre-established relationships as long as we talk and discuss ooc together to really flesh out what their past relationships were like and then move on from there.

Thank you for taking the time to read through these, even if you just skimmed over them :) if anything is unclear please do not hesitate to message me.

#rules.

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