#i cannot say what this poet is about or i will be taken down

[iseetheisland]

One of the worst feelings ever has gotta be when you get into something because it's so camp and unintentionally hilarious but then you check out the fandom around it and everyone accepts you and is so excited so you get involved and then slowly realize that no one else thinks it is camp

It is so serious to them

So now you're that prick who's in the group and adored but no one knows you secretly think the content they worship for great writing is actually like The Room to you

Like where do I even go from here

[stellarspecter]

STWG daily prompt 8/2/24: hanahaki

wc: 737 | pairing: pre-steddie, platonic stobin | read on ao3

this takes place in a world with chronic hanahaki! so it doesn't kill you, it just makes you kind of sick for a bit until it becomes requited or you get over them. most people end up getting it at least once in their lives.

“Got a crush, dingus?”

Steve stares at the retreating back of Eddie Munson, jingling through the aisles as he juggles his car keys and his stack of newly-rented movies. “...You can't prove anything.”

Robin snorts. “The fact that you need to say that is proof enough.”

“No, it's not,” Steve pouts. Is he really so obvious?

“It literally is.” Robin rolls her eyes. “What's so special about him anyway? He's a drug dealer who looks like a wet rat. I didn't think that was your type.”

Steve sighs. “It's… not,” he concedes. “I think my type is passionate nerdy brunettes.”

Robin wrinkles her nose. “Ew.”

“He's not ugly or anything!” Steve cries. “He's cute. His hair could use some work, but his eyes are… so brown. And his lips…”

“Don't say so pink,” Robin groans.

Steve clears his throat instead of laughing. “Well, they are very pink.”

“Showstopping. Unexpected. Incredible. Who could have seen this coming,” she deadpans.

“Okay, so I'm not a poet or anything,” Steve gripes, “but I'm not wrong, either. There's just something about him…” He trails off, thinking about Eddie's smile, the way his eyes sparkle when he gets to talk about his music, the little flourishes he adds to every movement. Everything about him is captivating to Steve, and he just can't get his mind off of him.

“Ugh,” he hears Robin groan over his thoughts. “I'm not gonna stop hearing about Munson for a while, am I?”

“Not if you keep hanging arou—” He's cut off by a vicious cough. He keeps trying to clear his throat, but something's stuck in it and he can't get it out. Maybe part of his bagel from breakfast? Gross.

He keeps coughing, a concerning rattle that doesn't cease until he spits a few petals on the counter.

He and Robin stare at them in silence.

“Looks like he's not going away anytime soon,” Steve says weakly. His head thunks down on the counter, just inches away from the spit-soaked petals.

“I cannot fucking believe, out of all the people on this earth, you have hanahaki for Munson. Munson. Threepeat senior drug dealer Eddie Munson.”

Steve stays folded over, mentally going over every interaction he's had with him, because hanahaki? Really? 

But he's always fallen easily, hasn't he? It's not like it's his first time with it. He'd gotten it almost every year since seventh grade, infatuated with classmate after classmate. Tommy and Carol always made fun of him for it, but he couldn't help how he loved.

He just didn't expect this time to be Eddie Munson.

“Like I said,” he starts, peeling himself off the counter to meet eyes with Robin, “I think he's cute.”

She just scoffs. “You know I'm never gonna stop making fun of you for this, right? This is literally so embarrassing for you.”

“You know, I thought I'd end up getting hanahaki for you,” he casually tells her.

She gasps, her mind immediately taken off of Munson. “No!”

“Yeah,” he confirms with a sheepish smile. “I didn't, I think cause we got kidnapped before I got too serious about it. But I really expected you to be my hanahaki crush for that year.”

She's silent for a moment. “You know, I can't decide if that's endearing or concerning.”

“Decide on endearing, please,” he says, and she snaps her fingers.

“Done. Now, back to Munson.” 

Steve lays back down and despairs that the topic change didn’t distract her well enough. “Do we have to?”

“If you’re gonna get over your case of hanahaki, then yes,” she tells him.

“If I ignore it for long enough it goes away,” he mumbles.

“Or if you ask him out, it’s either requited and it goes away or he rejects you and it goes away.” Robin’s too smart for her own good, Steve thinks. He doesn’t think she’s even had hanahaki yet. “You know I’m right, dingus.”

“Why do you have to be so good at logic?” he grumbles, but turns to peek at her anyways.

She rolls her eyes and gets her arms under his armpits, hauling him upright. “Get it together, dingus, we’ve gotta figure out our plan to woo Munson and cure your hanahaki. You with me?”

“I’m with you,” Steve says. He presses his hands over his eyes hard for one, two, three seconds, then takes a deep breath and meets Robin’s gaze. “Okay. Let’s get these flowers gone.”

dividers by saradika-graphics!

[prettypinkbubbless]

I see plenty of posts saying things like “how is DPS a comfort movie” or “DPS is a comfort movie it ends at the play” and I get the joke and I understand the sentiment, but to me, even with the end, it’s still a comfort movie.

Like yeah. It’s sad. It’s incredibly sad! Neil kills himself and it’s heart wrenching and watching the consequences unfold makes you feel sick. But there’s still good to be had out of it, comfort to be taken.

Most importantly, life goes on. Neil dies and the poets’ worlds are turned upside down, but life still goes on. They don’t get to shut away from the world that killed their friend; they still have to live. I know that’s scary to lots of people but I actually find comfort in that. Bad things happen and you still have to breathe and live and grow, especially when the people you love cannot. There’s still change to be made.

Also, you are loved! You are remembered! We get to see in real time how absolutely devastated the poets are when they learn about Neil’s suicide. Your friends DO care. You DO mean something to people. They would be BROKEN if you were gone. Both in context and out, that is a comforting notion.

Finally, your actions have impact. That speck of dust nihilist spiel is bullshit. Neil and his situation is most obvious, but the entire rest of the movie shows this in I think the best way. Even though Keating is leaving, we see tangibly just how he changed his class. How his ideas, simply just who he was and how he lived changed his students. You don’t have to be famous or president of the world to mean something to others. Yes, it can be for better or for worse, but you still matter in the web of life, your ripple effects still reach others, you never know how profoundly you can touch someone.

Todd, historically anxious out of his mind, defies authority and displays his beliefs at the end of the movie. That scene is so damn important! Especially juxtaposing the scenes that came before it! The movie could end sad. It could end really before that classroom scene. But it doesn’t. It ends on a scene filled with hope and triumph and rebellion. Because that is the whole point of the movie! And that’s what I glean comfort from.

TL;DR I argue that DPS is absolutely a comfort movie right to the very end with…an obnoxious amount of words.

[taranida]

What exactly happened in the 70’s

I’ll start with The Poet and The Muse. I’ve written about the real Thomas Zane being a poet already, but left out this piece of evidence (not at all on purpose, truth be told), but I want to discuss it here, since it goes well with the point I want to make.

In the song we learn the story of a Poet living happily with his Muse and telling her stories about treasures beneath the waves. Then one morning the Muse goes to the lake and drowns. The Poet at some point realises that something happened and comes to the lake, calling for the Muse, but to no avail. Whole day spent in search, and in his desperation, he swears to bring his love back. He writes a story and succeeds to some degree. The husk of the Muse comes to him in the night, possessed by some dark force. The Poet takes her in, but in trying to fix his mistake, vows them both to silence beneath the lake. The story concluded with the peculiar:

Now if its real or just a dream One mystery remains For it is said on moonless nights They may still haunt this place

Now, what exactly the boys of the Old Gods of Asgard are hinting at here (aside from the existence of the Dark and Bright Presences) I can’t tell for sure: they might just toy with all those who have that buzzing question of “who wrote whom”, but I will treat the story of Thomas Zane the Poet as a true story, that happened without any help of tortured writers. Although I will use the manuscripts as well as every other source of information.

Prepare for a long read, since firstly, I would like to present all the bits and pieces that I’ve managed to collect, and then tie them all up in a version of events, I believe, happened in July 1970.

First, the dialogs.

Tor and Odin (whom I cannot stop lovingly call “the boys”) say this:

“Tom’s just lost, is all. Baba Yaga got to him too, the damn witch!” “She used us all, taken from all of us. Took my thunder, the witch.” “And my ravens, what was...what were they? Memory and Thought! The hag.” “She took something from you too, didn’t she? That’s what she does.” “Oh, we’re better off. This place, the lake, it gives you power. If you’re a creator.... An artist, a god!” “Nightmares shifted in their sleep in the darkness of the lake...” “Heh heh, yeah, that’s the one. She makes sure it comes out twisted and wrong. Just ask the Lamp Lady. She knows what happened to that other writer.”

 Cynthia Weaver tells us:

“I knew them both. Tom and Barbara. I had such a crush on him...such a beautiful man. I was jealous. There was a part of me that was maybe a little glad when she had the accident. And then Tom started writing and woke the darkness up.... He tried to bring her back...but you can’t do that. There are no free rides like that.” […] “The witch looked like her, but it wasn’t. Barbara was sweet. He didn’t understand until it was too late. He tried to undo it, wrote himself, her, everything he’d ever written out of the world.”

We have Samantha’s dream in “This House of Dreams”, that gives us even more details:

“The diver told me that a dark presence had taken over his girlfriend (the woman in the photos). He’d tried everything he could think of to banish it from her, but everything had failed. In the end, he finally understood what he had to do, finally understood the true nature of the dark place that was hidden under the waves of the lake where they lived. The lake was an opening to dark place that was much bigger than the lake itself, in fact, much bigger than the whole universe we live in. He wrote one last poem, his masterpiece, a secret poem, a hidden poem, a poem that’s not among the poems I’ve found in the shoebox. And he took his girlfriend for one last dive. Together they sank down into the depths, far deeper than he had ever dived before.”

Then we have the manuscripts, that expand on the story:

More so, we have the dates and newspaper articles:

The last one is cut awkwardly, but, really, all I needed from it are the dates of publishing and of the seismic activity.

So, what really happened during this week? On the morning of 10th July Barbara went for a swim and drowned. As Cynthia notes in her article, Barbara was quite a swimmer and her death does seem odd. At the same time, we have another article (that I will put in the very end for those who are curious) about a writer visiting the area and encountering Taken — Robert “The Colonel” Hambleton dated 6th July 1970. Thomas even makes a snarky remark about not ever hearing about him and calling him “an uninvited guest”. All hints that with all the artists in the area: the boys of Old Gods of Asgard, Thomas Zane, Cynthia Weaver and Barbara Jagger, the Dark Presence still pounces on every other creator unfortunate enough to choose Bright Falls as a place to visit. Might’ve been because it could not make the gang mentioned above do its bidding?

The Dark Presence might be of a very different mind, alien to humans, but it’s cunning. As stated in one of the manuscripts, when it senses Alan, “all he'd need was a little incentive.” For Alan it had to drag Alice to the pier and into the lake; for Thomas it might’ve used the help of its ravens or some other means necessary to overwhelm Barbara long enough for her to drown, as at the time the Dark Presence had no physical body (but there might’ve been some other Taken swimmer around). And after Thomas spent the whole day searching for his lover, succumbing to desperation more and more, he got that incentive, the Dark Presence needed.

In the night Thomas wrote a poem to bring Jagger back. The Dark Presence plan worked and it was now in the world, almost free, wearing Barbara’s skin. But it was still constrained by the story Thomas wrote, and in his story he surely wrote something along the lines of them being together and in love again, therefore we see that the Dark Presence cannot do anything to Thomas as he ties it to the chair, carves its heart out and writes countless pieces to undo his mistake. It just couldn’t get out of the role of the loving Barbara, who would never hurt Zane. It had to go through the story in which, probably, Thomas and Barbara lived happily ever after and died on the same day, to be completely free. Which doesn’t mean that the very, pardon, presence of the Dark Presence in the world was not affecting Bright Falls at the time, the Taken might’ve been multiplying and awful things happening during this week. Yet, unlike Alan, Thomas didn’t go into the woods, fighting for his life, he searched for a solution at the cabin, armed with his typewriter and the (kitchen) knife.

The only solution he found in the end — one last dive. To bring this darkness back to where it came from.

There are still a few mysteries left:

in the guide for the first game we can read excerpts from the book “Taken by the Dark Presence” found in a shoebox that has no author, but has initials of T.Z. and J.Z. on some pages, apparently written in the late 1960’s. And, oh boy, I have lots of questions for this one!

the Bird Leg Cabin and the Diver’s Isle, that might or might not been retroactively removed by the eruption under the Cauldron Lake.

the extent of Thomas’ writing powers, since as much as it is stressed a lot that he wrote himself out of reality, Barry, with a little research, is still able to find out about his existence, yet Alan in one of the “Writer in the Cabin” TV’s claims “A story is a beast with a life of its own. You can create it, shape it, but as the story grows, it starts wanting things of its own. Change one thing, and you set off a chain reaction of events that spreads through the whole thing.” The chain reaction here never happens: we have hard evidence that both Thomas and Barbara existed.

But those are theories for another day. This is already a long enough read to throw those into the mix.

And here’s the article about Robert “The Colonel” Hambleton (spoiler alert: there is another one, confirming that he died):

[daisychainsandbowties]

tagged by @the-darkness-does-not-bargain for this six sentence thing🥰🥰 the rules are you post the last six sentences of what you’re writing but i’m going to ignore that and post this chunk that is coherent since i take a long time to say anything🥰

from my ot3 vamp au😘

///

“humans have more… choice about it. you can decide not to eat meat at all.”

she traces the tips of two fingers across Ava’s chest, and this time it does not feel demonstrative - or, maybe the word she wants is deliberate. beatrice isn’t trying to test the waters anymore because they are already pink-frothed with blood. her expression is faraway.

“most of us don’t though,” Ava tells her, shivering, even though the brush of fingers across her chest is only an idle animation. it is not trying to make her breath catch but she is every metaphor for a moth to a flame. she is so drawn to, so helpless against these hands.

ava tries to hold onto the thought that the body obstructing the moonlight is old. it has habits she cannot fathom. but she doesn’t really think that Beatrice is teasing her now; just touching, in her odd reverent way.

ava has never felt anything close to holy

and good, good. she knows now that no holy water or consecrated ground can stop an angry ghost still girl-shaped from filling a room up with blood, but still. on the off chance that being better would make her a poison to them she is happy to lay here, profane and just-fucked and hopelessly drawn to the girl with eyes like bloodshot halos.

she stirs on the backseat – they are impossibly tangled up now in the almost-dark. just moonlight leaking in, air through the window beatrice rolled down, after they were done. ava coming down, still shaking. watching beatrice use her forearm to wipe Ava’s cum off her chin. an odd, practical sort of motion that turned Ava on all over again.

“besides. you can do that too, sort of.”

“I drink blood, Ava. there’s hardly any vegetarian option in that.”

Ava rolls her eyes, realising belatedly that her head is resting on Beatrice’s discarded coat. she has the shirt back on but unbuttoned, gaping open to show a scandalous slant of stomach. Ava likes that she is unsculpted – her tummy faintly soft when Ava kissed it. there’s a false note of reassurance in that – how beatrice not a statue but a warm girl.

“no, but you could hunt bad people, instead.” she feels her voice take a turn toward quiet, “is that what you do?”

twin wicks of gold observe her through the darkness and beatrice takes a long, unnecessary breath. “some of us do that. i think, at least, since lilith gives any coven a wide berth and you don’t often meet solitary vampires out in the wild. we are avoidant creatures by nature.” she shuts her mouth then and Ava can see a pattern of self-reproach in it as she presses her lips flat against her teeth. “but no, i don’t do that.”

“oh”

she gives Ava a very sad smile (she could almost have taken it in her hands, it is so palpable), “i have eaten poets before.”

“were they good?”

[literaryvein-reblogs]

George Orwell: On Poetry

Excerpts from George Orwell's essay, "Poetry and the Microphone" published in The New Saxon Pamphlet, No. 3. March 1945

It is a commonplace that in modern times—the last two hundred years, say—poetry has come to have less and less connection either with music or with the spoken word. It needs print in order to exist at all, and it is no more expected that a poet, as such, will know how to sing or even to declaim than it is expected that an architect will know how to plaster a ceiling.

Lyrical and rhetorical poetry have almost ceased to be written, and a hostility towards poetry on the part of the common man has come to be taken for granted in any country where everyone can read. And where such a breach exists it is always inclined to widen, because the concept of poetry as primarily something printed, and something intelligible only to a minority, encourages obscurity and “cleverness”.

How many people do not feel quasi-instinctively that there must be something wrong with any poem whose meaning can be taken in at a single glance? It seems unlikely that these tendencies will be checked unless it again becomes normal to read verse aloud, and it is difficult to see how this can be brought about except by using the radio as a medium.

People to whom poetry means something

That grisly thing, a “poetry reading”, is what it is because there will always be some among the audience who are bored or all but frankly hostile and who can’t remove themselves by the simple act of turning a knob. And it is at bottom the same difficulty—the fact that a theatre audience is not a selected one—that makes it impossible to get a decent performance of Shakespeare in England. On the air these conditions do not exist. The poet feels that he is addressing people to whom poetry means something, and it is a fact that poets who are used to broadcasting can read into the microphone with a virtuosity they would not equal if they had a visible audience in front of them.

The element of make-believe that enters here does not greatly matter. The point is that in the only way now possible the poet has been brought into a situation in which reading verse aloud seems a natural unembarrassing thing, a normal exchange between man and man: also he has been led to think of his work as sound rather than as a pattern on paper. By that much the reconciliation between poetry and the common man is nearer. It already exists at the poet’s end of the ether-waves, whatever may be happening at the other end.

Poetry is by far the most discredited of the arts

However, what is happening at the other end cannot be disregarded. It will be seen that I have been speaking as though the whole subject of poetry were embarrassing, almost indecent, as though popularising poetry were essentially a strategic manœuvre, like getting a dose of medicine down a child’s throat or establishing tolerance for a persecuted sect. But unfortunately that or something like it is the case.

There can be no doubt that in our civilisation poetry is by far the most discredited of the arts, the only art, indeed, in which the average man refuses to discern any value.

Arnold Bennett was hardly exaggerating when he said that in the English-speaking countries the word “poetry” would disperse a crowd quicker than a fire-hose.

The unpopularity & toleration of poetry

On the face of it, the unpopularity of poetry is as complete as it could be. But on second thoughts, this has to be qualified in a rather peculiar way. To begin with, there is still an appreciable amount of folk poetry (nursery rhymes etc) which is universally known and quoted and forms part of the background of everyone’s mind. There is also a handful of ancient songs and ballads which have never gone out of favour. In addition there is the popularity, or at least the toleration, of “good bad” poetry, generally of a patriotic or sentimental kind. This might seem beside the point if it were not that “good bad” poetry has all the characteristics which, ostensibly, make the average man dislike true poetry.

It is in verse, it rhymes, it deals in lofty sentiments and unusual language—all this to a very marked degree, for it is almost axiomatic that bad poetry is more “poetical” than good poetry. Yet if not actively liked it is at least tolerated.

The hostility to poetry

One must conclude that though the big public is hostile to poetry, it is not strongly hostile to verse. After all, if rhyme and metre were disliked for their own sakes, neither songs nor dirty limericks could be popular. Poetry is disliked because it is associated with untelligibility, intellectual pretentiousness and a general feeling of Sunday-on-a-weekday.

Its name creates in advance the same sort of bad impression as the word “God”, or a parson’s dog-collar. To a certain extent, popularising poetry is a question of breaking down an acquired inhibition. It is a question of getting people to listen instead of uttering a mechanical raspberry. If true poetry could be introduced to the big public in such a way as to make it seem normal, as that piece of rubbish I have just listened to presumably seemed normal, then part of the prejudice against it might be overcome.

More: George Orwell

[hotxcheeto]

Hiii bby ! ☺️ i’m literally obsessed with your chloe fics <3 may i request rachel x fem reader smut with soft dom rachel <3 i love her sm

━ 𝐌𝐀𝐉𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂

𝙥𝙖��𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜(𝙨) - Rachel Amber x Fem!Reader

𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 - Smut, cursing, v fingering ( r! receiving ), kissing, sweetness and FLUFFFF, compliments, girlfriend!rachel, top rach, bottom reader

𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙤𝙛𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 ? - Yeah/Nope ( I did spell check tho... kinda )

𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙧'𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙚 - AHH ty for the request!! and I'm glad you like my other fics ily sm!!

REBLOG MY WORK! I WORK HARD & IT'S APPRECIATED!!

Your dorm room was silent, blinds clattering every few minutes from a blow of the wind. Rachel didn't seem to notice like you had though, too busy sorting all of the photos she'd taken in the past few weeks while muttering criticisms to herself. Tossing her least favorites aside.

The golden glow from the window complimented the four walls that you called home currently. Your eyes dancing from each of them as you thought, stretched out and comfortable while pondering what to have for dinner.

The sudden flash of a camera took your mind away from the thoughts of ramen or tacos. Flickering your pupils to the golden haired girl looking at the screen of the camera in her hands with a grin.

"Sorry, you just looked so... majestic."

You rolled your eyes at her dramatics, running your hands down your face while hiding your smile in the process.

"Nothing about me is majestic right now, I can promise you that."

Rachel gasped, placing her hand on her chest. Suddenly a faux expression of shock and horror crossed her face and invaded her irises.

"I didn't take you for a liar and a promise breaker, Y/n."

"What can I say? I'm truly a horrible person at heart."

Rachel stood up, laughing on her way to sit beside you on the mattress. Climbing over your body which made you painfully aware of how little clothing she'd been wearing, having spent the night. Choosing her underwear over her jeans which... who were you to disagree... or complain, for that matter?

"Majestic as well." She joked, resting her head on the pillow next to the one you'd been laying on. "Even if you're blind to your beauty." "Is that a line from one of your plays?" You then asked her, rolling onto your side to face her.

"No, it's a line from my heart." The way Rachel spoke always sounded like she was reciting a poem, making it hard to believe yet entrapping and enticing you all the same. She sounded like a Goldrush, and it matched her appearance as well.

"You should be a poet, if your other career plans fail." You blurted out quietly, listening to her melodic chuckles. "I get that a lot." It was your turn to find her funny, blinking while watching her take in a breath.

"Have been considering it, but I'll need a muse." You listened to her voice, the bed moving as she shifted to lean over you, laying her head against her palm, elbow keeping her raised.

"Something... someone... majestic? To, y'know, get heaps and floods of inspiration from. As those movie artists say, you cannot be a creator without finding something to love that's been already created."

You stared blankly at her, admiring the way her jaw and mouth moved as she spoke. It sounded like she was both joking and serious.

"You just made that up didn't you?" Your question came out before you could think it back in. Her laughter filling up your ears.

"Yeah, but it was hella poetic, right?"

You agreed quietly, smiling up at her while she continued to wonder. Her nail running along your leg making you shift as it had tickled. Though it began feeling less and less ticklish the closer she got to your inner thigh.

"Maybe I should be a poet." You said something to follow up that but it trickled away as she moved closer and closer towards where your shorts had ridden upwards.

"But all my poems would just end up being about you." She muttered, content with the way you squirmed under touch but didn't pull away. The little flicker of a flustered state never passing slowly across your features which made her increasingly bold.

"Oh really?" You spoke just above a whisper, trying your hardest to ignore the thumping in your underwear. Breaths light and shuddering her baby hairs from how close she truly was to your face.

Rachel spared no seconds though, leaning down to kiss your lips, tasting like the fruity drink she'd bought from the convenience store. The half drunk can still set on your side table across the room.

"I love you.." You said happily, muttering it to both yourself and her. Feeling the tips of her fingers inching towards where the seams of your panties met your leg. "Hm... tell me again."

She grinned as she said this, sneaking her way into your shorts and tugging them aside while you gathered yourself once again.

"I love you..." You spoke again, spreading your legs in just the slightest to give her more room to work with. "I love you so much..." A grin crossed your face when speaking, only for it to be replaced by a gasp, her fingertips brushing over your clit before moving in a soft circle.

Rachel just continues to take in every inch of your face, each little curve and indent. Each line and little blemish, her fingers working whilst she tried to paint your entire existence into her memory.

"Do you love me?" Your question was silently answered but was followed by an audible, "Of course I do.." from her. Rachel then leaned down to kiss you again and again while teasing and pleasuring your bundle of nerves. Rolling it against her fingers while you tried your hardest to stay in the same spot and not jerk away or shut your legs.

"You're my muse..." She gave you a smirk, referring to herself earlier while simultaneously picking up her pace and making you whimper. "...what's not to love?"

You focused on how she worked skillfully, yet barely broke a sweat. Too busy nipping your jaw or nuzzling your cheek to hear your sweet yet low moans increase. A light wet sound meeting your ears from inside of your bottoms, making you look at her with big eyes while she only basked in your adorable pleas that fell on deaf ears.

Your eyebrows furrowed and mouth jittered, biting your lip to give your neighboring students ease of not having to listen to your girlfriend fuck you.

Her digits then found their way to your hole and without warning, two fingers soaked with your slick invaded your cunt. A choked, strangled noise following up from your throat which she pressed a kiss to.

"Rach.. oh fuck..." You hummed, chest heaving up and down, eyes moving back and forth between her hand and her face. Both such sights to behold but she helped you make the choice of which to actually focus on.

"Look at me..." Rachel practically sang, giving you no room to deny her request. "M'gonna-" "I know, now tell me how much you love me, Y/n."

You were rocking against her to meet her knuckles, reaching out to grab at her forearm which she seemed to thoroughly enjoy.

"I- I love you- I really do- I love you so much-"

She giggled as you repeated yourself over and over, muttering and babbling nonsense to her as you came around her. Shuddering and shutting your thighs on her hand, but she kept moving, not letting her unfortunate new position hold her back from fucking you through your blissful state.

Everything then coming to a halt, your shaky breathing being the only sound in the room besides her amusement.

"Fuck, now that was majestic." She spoke first.

You looked up at her, smiling big and leaning for a kiss which she gave. Rubbing her nose against yours and making you pull back, laughing sweetly.

"Now... be my muse for a little longer?"

How could you say no?

a/n: watching kennie rn - stan bad movies and a beat y'all

[that-ari-blogger]

Duality Of Tone (Follies at the Coven Day Parade)

Let’s talk about tone for a bit.

We’re in a kind of pre-chorus for The Owl House, we’re not in the end game yet, that kicks off with Edge of the World, but we’re gearing up for it.

We’re also not exactly at the start of the series anymore. You could argue that the start of Season Two got the ball rolling with the more dramatic storytelling that characterised some of the series’ best episodes, and while that’s true from a certain point of view, I still think that the show actually gained momentum with Knock Knock Knockin’ On Hooty’s Door and has been spending the after that consolidating what it has before the final sprint.

In this context, I mean dramatic in the sense of one of the two main overarching genres (kinda), the other being comedic. This is the context in which you will hear actors discussed as dedicating themselves to one and breaking the mould when they venture into the other. I will come back to this.

Follies At The Coven Day Parade focuses the idea of choice and the established ending implicit in the magical world genre, but it uses the opportunity to fine tune the show’s tone and mood as a whole.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD (The Owl House, Amphibia, Dead Poet Society, Good Morning Vietnam, Good Will Hunting)

Kikimore is just fun. I’ll talk about how her story factors into the themes in a minute, but I want to come back to a concept I have been discussing for a while, the idea of multiple introductions.

Because, up to this point, Kikimora has been a one note villain. She’s a henchwoman with an abusive boss. Its interesting, but there’s not really been much else to her.

Enter this episode, which introduces her family and the stress that relationship puts on her. You can imply a lot from the one side of that phone call, and it doesn’t seem like the healthiest of relationships.

I think the fact that Kikimora stands up straighter in response to her mother over the phone speaks volumes. She follows the voice of authority, in this case her mother, immediately. Its instinctive. You can imply a lot about Kikimora's family life from this phone call, but also why she follows Belos so willingly. She has had that hierarchy engrained deep in her psyche from a very young age.

As a side note, is it a phone call? Is it a walkie talkie? The wiki calls them Crow Phones, but Amity has clearly only ever heard Luz say the word “phone” so I’m just at a loss. Are they just crows? Are they a pun that I’m not aware of? I’m so confused.

Anyway, then we get the one line that sells this character for me:

“Ooh! I cannot believe we are being taken against our will. What sayeth you, fiend?”

This seems like part of Luz’s schemes, right? She seems like the kind of person who would work references to her favourite stories into her plans. But her response says otherwise.

“Uh! That's right! I, Hecate, will whisk you away to my kingdom of mirrors and snakes! (Hushed) Hey, come on. I didn't know I had to prepare lines.”

The fact that Luz’s idea of improvising is just becoming someone else is telling because it shows you that her idea of confidence isn’t in her own identity, its in idolisation and replication. But also, Kikimora out of the blue decided to dish out some purple prose, for no reason. She could have just been silent, but she decided to be poetic. She’s got a hobby, and a personal life beyond what we see.

But then she doubles down.

Hey, look at that, duality as a theme presented through the cinematography. Kikimora is intimidating and lit from below. You look up at her and that frost effect is awesome. But she's also tiny, relying on the bigger creature for her power.

When I talk about characters being introduced twice, that usually implies a mask being worn or an innate contradiction. Amity, for example, is introduced as “the bully” first, and then expanded into a character with themes of abuse and expectations, which recontextualises her into someone that can change and become better.

The purpose of this isn’t to claim everyone is the exact opposite of how they appear, because with Kikimora, what you see is what you get. Kikimora has complexity, but she is still a henchwoman with an abusive boss. That one note has been expanded into a chord, sure, but it’s not a complex one, and that’s ok.

It does allow Kikimora to engage with the theme of duality that this episode hinges on. Kikimora has to make a decision between her two worlds, and Luz latches onto that because of the events of the previous episode.

Worth noting, however, is that Luz has completely misinterpreted the conversation with her mother. The mind spell is a fantastic way of literally exploring a character’s psyche, but a flashback can work just as well. Memories aren’t as infalable as people think, especially with an unreliable narrator who focuses on specifics and misses important elements.

The original conversation went like this:

“When you come home, promise you'll stay here. I didn't mean to push you away. I swear things will be different.

“Mom, it's not you, it never was!”

“Promise me, Luz... please!”

“Okay, Mom. I promise.”

Whereas in this episode, Luz only remembers the following:

“Promise me. When you come home, you'll stay with me, and you'll never go back to that place.”

“Mom, it's not you. It never was!”

“Please!”

“Okay, Mom. I promise.”

There’s an ultimatum in Luz’s memory that wasn’t there to start with. Luz is dealing in absolutes, and all know who deals in absolutes.

In all seriousness, Luz has perceived the world as a Boolean variable, either she stays in the demon realm, or she stays in the human realm. In her mind there are only two options.

This is exacerbated by Kikimora, who does live in a world of extremes, because her boss is abusive, and her family is… less than stellar. Luz has projected onto a situation that doesn’t fit her and tried to work that out as a proxy, which doesn’t work.

Similarly, Riane has, in my eyes, misconstrued things as well. Raine’s last interaction with Eda led to them believing that Eda cannot be a part of the rebellion. They think that either Eda protects her kids and isn’t a rebel, or Eda is a rebel and loses out on her family.

But here’s the kicker: The Emperor directly threatens Luz and King with his villainy. Eda will be forced to join the rebellion later on, so Raine trying to scare her away only postpones the inevitable.

I mentioned tone, and that actually factors into the duality theme that is being presented here.

Luz is so morose in this episode, especially in contrast to the rest of the series up to this point. This is to set up the weight of episodes to come so that they aren’t jarring, but it also reflects how thematically dissonant the ultimatum is.

Take Amphibia for example. That is a series about growing up and understanding that sometimes you have to let go. Sometimes people drift apart, sometimes you move to a different place, and that’s ok. So, the finale, when the two worlds are separated, feels cathartic. It’s the culmination of the themes.

The Owl House is not Amphibia. It’s a story about human complexity, and the perils of boxing people in. It’s a story about nuance, and the breaking down of categories. It’s a story about finding a middle ground between the real and the imaginary. This ultimatum doesn’t make sense.

Case and point, the duality of dramatic and comedic storytelling it utter bollocks.

It’s a useful tool, don’t get me wrong, but its for external understanding. Its so that an actor or a writer can go “I like telling this kind of story” and an audience can point out their preferences. But in practical terms, storytelling is more of a gradient. There is no exact line that distinguishes each category. Nobody is saying “everything funnier than Toy Story 2 is a comedy”.

As evidence, I present, Robin Williams.

Dead Poet Society and Good Morning Vietnam both start out as comedies then come crashing down into dramas towards their finales.

The former focuses on the quirky hijinks of what boarding school kids get up to in a critique of British Private School education that all comes to a head with the death of a student and the utter mismanagement of the results.

The latter is about a comedy radio star who witnesses the horrors of war and gradually looses his sense of humour. The Adrian Cronauer that gets off the plane at the start of the film is a very different person to the one we see at the end.

Both of these stories have clear points at which their tones are changed up and Robbin Williams switches his performance seamlessly.

So, was Robbin Williams a comedic actor, or a dramatic one? Or was he just using tools of the trade from one or the other depending on the situation?

Alternatively, is it possible that he was drawing from the same toolbox to achieve whatever response he wanted at the time?

Good Will Hunting is both a comedy and a drama, and it doesn’t differentiate the two. Sure, there are moments that are one or the other, with the discussion of Sean’s wife waking herself up with her own farts being decidedly funny and the “your move chief” speech being serious as all hell, but the rest of the film falls somewhere in the middle. And let’s look at those two scenes in a bit more detail.

The joke about Sean’s wife is used to bring the characters together and allow them to empathise. Their friendship is built on humour.

Simultaneously, the speech is all build up to a single, final punchline. It has little moments to keep you interested, keep you entertained, and hint and the meaning, but it hinges on its final words, that’s how jokes work.

The iconic “it’s not your fault” scene works in a similar way. It’s a building of emotion slowly, gathering your attention as the characters react in different ways, until that powerful burst of emotion and breaking down.

Set up and pay off. That’s all it is.

Maybe the two genres of storytelling aren’t that different at all. Maybe the entirety of genre is a construct. Maybe the world is more nuanced than categorisation would lead you to believe.

I feel the need to cover all my bases here and say that I am heavily biased in the direction of genre being a scam. There is an argument to be made that the duality of performance does exist, and a ton of actors, including some I know personally, use it to great effect to inform their choices on stage. It is a way of understanding a story, and if it helps you, it helps you. I am just one of those people for whom it does not work.

Linking back to The Owl House, the series is gearing up to get really dark and really serious in the near future, lessening its comedic influence for a while. The ratio of jokes per episode will be a lot lower in the next few episodes.

This reflects Luz’s swing in a different direction. She has been so focused on the dream and adventure, but now that she is dealing with reality, she is grappling with her home, which she sees as more mundane. The humour is used to convey whimsicality, and the “real” world is sapping that from Luz’s life.

I’m not going to spoil the entirety of the series here, because I know some people are reading these posts as they watch the show. But rest assured, this won’t be the last time the series messes around with its tone.

Belos shows the audience his scar, possibly creating a dilemma by way of Wild Magic having a cost, it could be thought provoking, if it wasn't immediately preceded by the most overtly villainous visual I have ever seen. The show primes you to disbelieve what he is about to say, which I think is neat.

Final Thoughts

I had more to say about this episode than I was expecting. I never really found Kikimora that engaging as a character, so an episode about her was never going to be my favourite. I think she’s fun, don’t get me wrong, but she never really got me to care about what happens to her. And that’s ok. Not every character has to be a big sell. Sometimes you just need a goon who relates to the themes and is written competently. Not everything needs to be amazing.

But, you know who is amazing? Terra Snapdragon. Holy moly that character introduction is brilliant. She has Kikimora and Raine wrapped around her finger, and the amount of malice that Debra Wilson brings to the role is full on Disney villain levels of panache and I love it.

She will get her second introduction much later, but as for what we get now, she is delightfully devilish. She is also set up so clearly as a villain for Willow. The plant magic is the obvious one, but she’s also Willow’s exact opposite, she’s confident where Willow is shy, and she puts people down where Willow is the team support. If season three hadn’t been cut short, I guarantee that would have come up.

Although, I do have a little more in mind that a possible extended season three would cover. Sound off in the replies if you are interested in my hypotheticals.

Next week, I will be covering Elsewhere and Elsewhen, which has more so much to talk about that I’m not sure where to start. So, stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[bitethedevil]

More Than Our Fathers (Raphael x Demigod!Reader): Chapter 4

Chapter: one, two, three, four, five

Read this on AO3

Summary: After your quick wedding, you and Raphael begins working on getting the Crown of Karsus. You receive a worrying vision of Raphael dying. Haarlep is very interested in you and tries their very best to sleep with you.

Word count: 4,093

(AN: The updates on this fic are going a bit slow because I'm working on finishing another fic, but here we are.)

WARNINGS: Slightly NSFW (just a tiny tiny bit)

Your eyes were closed as you let the hot Avernian sun dry your wet hair and skin. Raphael joined you on the balcony soon after. You opened one eye to look at him. His hair was also wet and slicked back from the bath, after you had both taken turns to wash off the blood from the ritual.

You were both quick to move away from the fact that you had literally just gotten married and shared a very intimate kiss that was completely out of character from the relationship the two of you had.

You closed your eyes again and leaned back comfortably in the chair as you enjoyed the feeling of the sun on your skin.

“You said that you have already met with those adventurers of yours,” you said lazily. “Tell me about them.”

“They are from various interesting backgrounds, though my interest lays with their leader, whom they seem to blindly follow,” Raphael said.

“And who are they?” you asked.

“A young woman by the name Tav,” Raphael explained. “There is not much to be learned about their past, beside that they are a capable fighter. She is not the brightest specimen from what I could gather from our first meeting, and she seems easily affected by the opinions of her fellow companions.”

“Mm,” you said. “Which means you will need to keep an eye out for who she gets close to and use that.”

“Indeed,” Raphael agreed.

You kept your eyes closed and held your hand out to him. You made a grabbing motion with it.

“I’ll take a look at that first meeting before I start looking into the future,” you said.

Raphael put his hand in yours. You saw how he had approached the adventurers and introduced himself. You saw that he had taken them to the House of Hope and offered them a solution to the tadpole in their head.

You recognized that he was giving them an offer that would seem tempting, though unreasonable, so that his later offer would seem even more attractive. The vision ended after Raphael sent them away.

“You’re not seriously telling me that you are still using the same Cormyrian rhyme for your deals?” you asked teasingly. “You need new material.”

“It was fitting, and I don’t believe I asked for your opinion on my business tactics,” Raphael said defensively.

You opened your eyes to look at him.

“Have you read the book ‘Devils Don’t Rhyme’ by any chance?” you asked with a teasing smile.

“I cannot say I have,” Raphael said with a sigh. “Why?”

“It’s a heroic fantasy story about a poet who challenges a devil to a poetry contest,” you said. “It’s about you, you know…”

“Is that so?”

“I thought the devil character seemed familiar,” you explained. “He is depicted as exceedingly arrogant and terrible at poetry. I knew for sure when I read the ‘down came the claw’ line.”

Raphael sneered at that.

“What was the name of the book again?” he asked.

“’Devils Don’t Rhyme’. It’s not a bad read, actually,” you said with a laugh.

“I will have to find a copy,” Raphael said carefully. “And the author, if what you say is true…”

You chuckled at his irritation.

“Anyway,” you said and got back to the matter at hand. “It was a smart move with your starting offer. Their situation is desperate enough that they will have to consider it…Should I take a look at some possible outcomes?”

Raphael nodded and squeezed your hand gently.

You closed your eyes again and focused on Raphael’s intentions and the threads of fate that ran from them. You saw a lot of things pass your mind’s eye, but one vision in particular made you yank your hand out of his.

You looked at him with wide eyes.

“Raphael…” you said quietly in a concerned voice.

His eyes narrowed and his nose wrinkled in irritation at you.

“Do not,” he said. “It was not amusing the first twenty times you tried to make me fall for that, and it is not amusing now.”

You shook your head and grabbed his hand again and held it.

“I’m serious,” you said and looked him in the eyes. “You…”

You trailed off and stared emptily at the floor for a moment. The vision had really shaken you.

“I…what?” he asked impatiently, as if he still did not believe you.

“Died,” you said quietly. “They killed you.”

Raphael looked at you and a smile tugged at his lips. Then he started laughing.

“That’s absurd,” he said.

When he saw that you still had the same serious expression on your face, his amusement faltered only slightly.

“Surely, you must have seen wrong or misinterpreted something,” Raphael said. “There is not a chance that a group of mortals would ever succeed in killing me. Least of all that lot.”

“I saw Mephistopheles devouring your mangled body, so don’t tell me what I saw!” you snapped.

That shut him up. You were still shaken by seeing the death of the only person you had ever been somewhat close to. You hated the fact that tears were threatening to fall down your cheeks. You took a deep breath. You loathed to show that kind of weakness in front of anyone, and especially Raphael.

“Are you crying?” Raphael asked in disbelief as he studied your face.

“Shut up and listen to me,” you said harshly. “You need to be careful, and you need to be smart about this. Do not tell them that you keep the hammer in your home, it is enough of a risk that they already know where you live.”

“Understood…” Raphael said carefully.

“Good,” you said.

Raphael saw how oddly emotional the whole thing had made you. He ran his thumb over the top of your hand and smirked at your reaction.

“I’m not dead yet, dear,” Raphael said in a teasing tone. “How tragic it would be to leave my new wife widowed so soon.”

“I hate your tone right now,” you warned.

“Come now,” he said. “We are aware of the possibility, so we can avoid the outcome. This is why I needed you. Cheer up.”

You shook your head and sighed. You finished your wine in one gulp and left him on the balcony. You needed to be alone.

He did not understand the toll of receiving the visions you did. Your powers were as much a curse as they were a blessing. The visions always felt real, and they were often experienced through the eyes of someone. You had felt his fear and heard his desperate pleading as his father laughed at him before devouring him.

You entered the boudoir to get some quiet and clear your head. When you entered, you saw Haarlep bathing in the restoration pool. They smiled at you, and you averted your gaze from their nakedness.

“Sorry,” you said. “I didn’t know you were in here. I thought you weren’t supposed to be in the boudoir.”

“’Unless called upon’, I believe he said,” Haarlep purred. “He was in need of some relief after the ritual…Thousands of years old and a little kiss can get him so excited. It’s almost adorable, isn’t it?”

You could hear Haarlep moving through the water. The next time they spoke, it sounded like they were right at the edge of the pool near you. You refused to look at them.

“Shy little thing, aren't you?” they purred. “I don’t mind if you look, you know. Raphael doesn’t either…”

You glanced down at them. They had their elbows on the edge as they looked up at you with a smile that was everything but innocent.

“Not shy,” you said and looked away again. “Just really uninterested in seeing Raphael’s…bits…”

“What a shame!” Haarlep said dramatically. “They’re quite impressive bits. He might not have much else going for him, but at least he’s well endowed.”

You looked at them with slight disgust. They looked you in the eyes when you glanced at them again and saw that your eyes were a bit red. They gave you an exaggerated pout when they saw your expression.

“Oh, you poor thing,” they cooed. “Did the brat make you cry? And on your wedding day…tsk tsk…”  

You couldn’t help the small chuckle at hearing them calling him a ‘brat’. Haarlep smiled when you did.

“I’m fine,” you said. “Just needed some peace and quiet.”

“I’m quite good at cheering people up, you know…” Haarlep said in a suggestive tone.

“I’m sure,” you said with a strained but polite smile. “I’m fine, really.”

You walked to the other end of the room where the bed was. There were some drapes that separated the room that you pulled to the side to give yourself some privacy from Haarlep. You laid down on the bed with your feet hanging off the side and closed your eyes for a moment.

Only a short moment after, you heard Haarlep step out of the pool. When you heard footsteps come closer, you opened your eyes.

“Haaaarlep…” you said in a polite but warning tone.

“Yeees?” he said in a feigned innocent tone.

You felt the bed dip. They laid down beside you in the same way you were with their legs hanging off the other side. You were laying in opposite directions across the bed. They turned to their side with an arm under their head as they looked at you with a wicked smile.

“You should leave…” you said.

Haarlep looked at you with a feigned look of concern.

“And leave you all alone to your thoughts when you are not feeling well?” they said and ran a clawed hand through your hair. “What kind of monster do you think I am?”

You batted their hand away firmly.

“I am not playing around, Haarlep,” you said firmly. “I’m not interested. Try anything, and I will not hesitate to hurt you. I could not care less if Raphael feels it as well.”

Haarlep’s smile widened, and they shivered in excitement. They leaned closer to you.

“Is that a promise?” they purred.

You sat up and raised a hand to cast a spell.

“Point taken…” they said and put a hand on your shoulder.  “There really is no need for all of that hostility. I only get carried away because it is so rare that Raphael brings home someone as exciting and pretty as you…”

They had crawled up behind you and were now gently massaging your shoulder. It felt nice, you had to admit.

“Watch it,” you warned, though it sounded half-hearted even to you.

“You’re sooo tense,” they said and moved both of their hands to massage your shoulders. “There…isn’t that much nicer than using all your energy on throwing threats at me?”

 You started melting into their hands despite yourself. A small moan escaped you as you felt your body start to relax into their touch. Haarlep gasped softly at the sound.

“What pretty little noises you make,” they breathed into your ear. “That’s it…Relax and let me take care of you…”

You had barely even noticed, but they had gotten so close to you that their legs were spread on either side of you and their head was suddenly on your shoulder. It was only when you felt their fully hard member press against your lower back that you snapped back into reality.

You flicked your hand and Haarlep disappeared behind you and dropped into the restoration pool. You heard the splash and shortly after the sound of Haarlep’s sputtering as they resurfaced.

“That wasn’t very nice of you!” Haarlep said from the other end of the room.

“You can leave now,” you said firmly and laid down on the bed again.

You spent the remainder of the day in the boudoir and Raphael seemed to understand that you needed the space.

The drapes had been put up, so you were also enjoying that it was actually dark when you wanted to sleep. You were close to drifting off to sleep, when you heard someone enter. You heard the ruffling of clothing and soon after you felt the bed dip beside you. You felt a hand gently being put on your arm.

“Are you asleep?” you heard Raphael’s voice ask.

You turned to your other side to face him. You felt around blindly in the dark with your hands until you felt horns. You worked downwards from there until you felt a forehead.

“What in the Nine Hells are you doing?”

By this point you were ninety percent sure that it was Raphael, and not Haarlep, but you decided to check anyway. You felt around his face.

“Feeling for wrinkles,” you mumbled.

He batted your hand away. It was Raphael.

“Insolent whelp,” he grumbled.

A self-satisfied smile washed over your face.

“I see you are in a much better mood than earlier…” he said. “I wanted to apologize for my behavior. It was merely my intention to calm you, and not to further distress you about the matter.”

You sighed softly.

“It’s fine,” you said. “You just don’t know what it’s like, is all.”

“I cannot say I do, but I will try to be handle it differently in the future,” he said, and he sounded genuine.

You knew that the genuineness came from him needing you, but you still appreciated that he at least was trying.

“Thank you,” you muttered.

“I hope that Haarlep was not too much of a bother earlier,” Raphael said. “I should have made them leave after their…visit.”

“After you fucked them, you mean?” you asked casually.

“You have such a way with words, dear.”

“They are very persistent,” you said.

“I’m aware.”

“They told you?” you asked.

“I felt it,” Raphael purred. “I also felt you trying to drown them afterwards. Don’t mind them and feel free to put them in their place if they become too much of a pestilence. It’s been an obsession of theirs for as long as I have known them.”

“What has?” you asked.

“Sleeping with someone like you,” he explained. “Incubi and succubi feed off corrupting and tempting souls, along with the pleasure of the soul they are corrupting, as you are aware. It is a common myth that sleeping with someone of the divine would achieve the highest peak of sexual bliss for someone like Haarlep, because it would be the biggest act of corruption. The fool actually believes it.”

“Huh…” you said. “It makes sense, I suppose. But it’s not true, right?”

“It has never been proven, no,” Raphael said. “It is a myth that incubi and succubi tell each other. A legend, nothing more. You’re welcome to test it, of course. If nothing else, I would enjoy seeing their reaction when nothing out of the ordinary happens.”

“I am not sleeping with Haarlep,” you said stubbornly. “No matter how curious I am to test that theory.”

“Do you truly intend to live in celibacy for centuries?” Raphael asked. “You will give in eventually. It is just a question of when your stubbornness will falter.”

“Never,” you mumbled stubbornly into your pillow. “I have two hands and an arsenal of spells to help sate any needs I need sated.”

“How wonderful to hear that your wizard’s education is being put to good use,” Raphael teased. “If it is because they and I share a body, then you have nothing to worry about. I have had many years to learn how to completely ignore those sensations.”

You turned on your side to face him. You couldn’t see him in the darkness except for his glowing orange eyes, but you knew he could see you.

“Mhm,” you said skeptically. “But would you ignore them? Haarlep told me about how that kiss we shared got you all hot and flustered earlier.”

“Is that a crime?” he purred, and you felt him run his clawed fingers over your cheek. You could practically hear that he was smirking. “For a man to find his new wife desirable? Had it not been for that blasted stubbornness of yours, we would both have spent the entire day in this bed.”

You batted his hand away gently.

“I’ll tell you the same thing I told Haarlep,” you said. “Watch it. Goodnight, husband.”

“Goodnight, dear.”

Days became weeks as the both of you followed the movements of the adventurers. You were present when Korrilla brought Raphael news, and you followed his interactions with them through using him as a conduit to see his past.

Raphael became obsessed with the adventurers and especially with the leader of the group. The obsession with the Crown of Karsus had at some point bled into the people that would one day bring it to him. He spoke of nothing else. It was worrying.

You had heard the stories of his father Mephistopheles. A powerful devil and the greatest wizard of the Hells. He was cunning and an efficient leader but was well-known for losing sight of the grander picture in favor of his obsession with magic, or whatever caught his interest at that particular moment.

You were worried that Raphael might have inherited this unfortunate trait from his father. It certainly seemed like it. He needed to stay focused on the Crown of Karsus, or it would slip out of his hands, and he needed to not let his emotions and arrogance run away with him.

His work at in the Shadow-Cursed Lands had been phenomenal. You could see what he was doing: he gave them a soft and fair deal for something they needed help with, so that he could appear more trustworthy for the more important deal he had in store. He was grooming them into trusting him by helping the leader’s vampire sweetheart with deciphering his scars.

What they did not know was that Raphael was gaining even more out of that deal. It did not take a genius or a seer to figure out that Tav would do anything to disrupt the ritual, which meant that Mephistopheles would be robbed of seven thousand souls. Seven thousand souls that would have been nice to have when his son starts his rebellion.

Now you were at the finish line. The adventurers had made their way to Baldur’s Gate, and you had barely seen Raphael for days because he was waiting for them at a brothel. You hoped that he would heed all of your advice. That he would prey on the Githyanki woman’s change of heart about her ruler Vlaakith and that he would convince them that the Orphic Hammer was the only way.

Most importantly, you hoped that he would not be reckless enough to tell them were he kept the Hammer or where he would keep their contract. It was an unnecessary risk, but you knew how he was: he liked to tempt people.

He loved the idea of control. Nothing satisfied him more than knowing he had done his job of manipulating someone so well that he himself could hand them a knife to kill him and they would still not stab him out of fear. He found just as much satisfaction in playing that game, as he did in gaining a signature on a contract.

When he finally arrived back to Avernus, he looked satisfied. He walked over to you and placed a kiss on your lips. You still had not quite gotten used to the kissing, but you indulged him.

“So?” you asked. “What happened?”

He went to pour a glass of wine for the both of you.

“They signed, of course,” he said calmly with a smile. “It seems the Gith will get to free her forgotten prince after all.”

A part of you were relieved but you knew that nothing was for certain just yet. Raphael might be bound by laws and rules, but the adventurers were not. A lot could happen between now and the defeat of the Elderbrain.

You held out your hand to him and made a grabbing motion. He placed a glass of wine in it while being careful not to touch you. He knew that you wanted to peek, and he was not letting you.

“Patience, dear,” he said and sat down beside you. “Let me appreciate being home after having been forced to stay in a brothel for days before you start your investigation of me.”

You narrowed your eyes at him.

“No investigation necessary if you have simply heeded my warnings,” you said and made an even more insisting grabbing motion.

Raphael looked at your hand with disinterest and then at your eyes before sipping his wine.

“You are hiding something,” you stated. “What?”

He smirked slightly and shrugged.

You quickly reached out to grab him, but he moved out of your grasp. You climbed over the arm of the chair to reach him, but he simply teleported a few feet away from you in a flash of embers. He looked at you with that annoying smirk, calmly sipping his wine. You got up from your chair.

“You know you’re not the only one of us who can do that little trick,” you said and used a teleportation spell to move to where he was standing. The second you did, he appeared a few feet away from you once again.

“I’m well aware but your reflexes leave something to be desired,” he said and swirled the contents of this glass lazily. “You are awfully predictable, Sibyl.”

“Let. Me. Touch. You.”

“Did you miss your husband so much? You only had to say. We can take this to the bedroom if you want.”

You teleported near him again and once again he disappeared right before you could get your hands on him.

“You told them, didn’t you?” you said to him annoyed. “That’s the reason why you won’t show me, isn’t it? You told her where you keep her contract.”

The look in his eyes and the way he did not answer you immediately confirmed your suspicions.

“Are you serious?” you asked. “After I warned you of what would happen?”

“I know what I am doing, Sibyl,” he said. “Besides, if she is stupid enough to betray me, do you not think the House of Hope would be her first guess no matter what I told her?”

He did have a point, but you were angry regardless.

“It was still unnecessary,” you grumbled. “If they come here, you will let them take whatever they want. You are not getting in a fight with them.”

“And let them break their agreement without any punishment? No,” Raphael said. “If they dare go against what we have agreed on, then they deserve what is coming to them. However, I have reason to believe that they won’t go against their word.”

You took a deep irritated breath.

“Your obsession with them makes you blind, Raphael,” you said. “This little trust exercise is completely unnecessary, and we know, I have seen, that it’s a possibility that they might do exactly that and kill you while doing so. Why are you being so damn thick-headed?”

You sighed and sat back down.

“Give me your hand,” you said tiredly and held out yours. “Let’s see the damage you’ve done.”

“You are getting upset over nothing,” he said with a sneer and sat down beside you. “I have been alive twice as long as you. I have been doing this since before you were born and I have done it without your help. I will be fine.”

You didn’t answer. You just glared at him with your hand held out to him. He glared back before putting his hand in yours.

A vision flashed past your eyes. You saw the adventurers. They were gathered at the House of Hope exactly as you had expected. In front of them you saw Raphael, although it did not look like him in the least. He had become something else. It was a form you had never seen him wear before. He looked horrifying, twisted and entirely inhuman as he fought those beloved adventurers of his. He was losing.

“So?” he asked. “Did that enlighten you, dear?”

You kept a calm expression as you pulled your hand to yourself and put it back in your lap.

“Yes,” you said quietly. “It seems that everything is going to be fine. My mistake.”

You smiled at him and got up from your seat. His eyes narrowed at you in slight suspicion as you placed a kiss on his cheek before going to bed.

[karistiltskin]

i don’t care that the lakes is only now getting its recognition i just care that it’s about MERLIN and ARTHUR.

little teeny tiny analysis incoming:

“Is it romantic how all my elegies eulogize me

I’m not cut out for all these cynical clones

These hunters with cell phones”

First of all, this is set in Merlin’s POV. The first line talks about Merlin becoming a myth and how he’s praised as the most powerful wizard alive. He is a staple as the start of “magic” and “wizardry” after his legacy is passed on. The use of the term “romantic” seems sarcastic as if he’s saying “isn’t it romantic that after my kind was hunted down and killed for believing to be evil, now I’m the optimum of good? Shouldn’t i be over the moon from this appreciation?”

Moving on to the second and third verse, “cynical clones” and “hunters with cell phones” refers to modern time. These people have twisted Merlin’s story, didn’t get it right, missed out on details, and changed him. Because his history is not correct he feels uncomfortable but is also placed in a position where he cannot clarify or speak out on it because he’s supposed to be, well, dead. People are using his story for fame and no one is receiving the truth. It’s just been turned into a myth to be broken apart, analyzed, and criticized.

“Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die

I don’t belong, and my beloved, neither do you

Those Windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry

I’m setting off, but not without my muse”

(only doing the chorus once)

if the first line doesn’t speak for itself I don’t know what does. Merlin is a poet!! He is. A quick google search for the definition of poet reads: “a person possessing special powers of imagination or expression.” hello??? We all knew he was good with words whether it came from enchantments, comforting words to his friends, his followers, or when speaking about himself. “special powers”—he is magic. “imagination”—he creates, he is creation.

He is the original poet who went to the lakes, not necessarily to die, but the other half of his soul was taken from him there.

Now, Merlin of course believes Arthur was not meant to die. He doesn’t belong there. He belongs at Merlin’s side. The lakes = Avalon and Merlin did not ever want to go there in the situation that Arthur may die. The both of them weren’t meant to wait for their purpose to begin again at Avalon when “Camelot needed Arthur most.” They were supposed to stay together in the time of a human life span and their story was supposed to continue.

“Windermere peaks.” I’m not gonna dive too much into this so here’s one word: England

The last line is that Merlin could not have stayed at the lake forever. I mean he could’ve but, I don’t think he would. So he lives his life in the most physical sense he can. He does go to visit Avalon tho and his life, his soul, doesn’t restart until Arthur’s does. He carries Arthur with him everywhere at all times, and he doesn’t forget that as he leaves Avalon and he never forgets the reason why as he also goes BACK to Avalon. Also, Arthur being Merlin’s muse>>> I mean, the whole “my magic. i use it for you. it was supposed to be yours.” EVERYTHING Merlin did was for Arthur.

“What should be burrowed under my skin

In heart-stopping waves of hurt

I’ve come too far to watch some namedropping sleaze

Tell me what are my words worth”

The first two lines refer to his early life in Camelot. Moving there, making friends, growing in his magic, Arthur, trust, betrayal, his lessons. He thinks because so much time has passed (he’s immortal) he should at least be over it or it should stop hurting but it doesn’t. It stays with him. It’s a part of him and who he is.

Now for the next two lines. Although the past will linger in him, he does grow and become wiser over the years. He has so many experiences and has lived through so many lifetimes and is still finding the strength to continue. But he’s had to watch people get his life absolutely wrong, the narratives of his friends and enemies, his character, etc. I like to think Merlin dropped some real pieces of evidence of the truth in a manuscript or a symbol or anything but the ones who found it, abused it. Instead of appreciating art and life they looked for the income and how to profit off it.

“I want auroras and sad prose

I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet

‘Cause I haven’t moved in years

And I want you right here”

Merlin finds memories in the hurt. He finds comfort in it. He wants to stay in the past because as much as it pains him, it was a time where he was the most happy.

Wisteria = a plant that can live for centuries (symbolism: resilience and longevity)

“help i’m still at the restaurant.” is Merlin. He has not moved on at all, that poor soul. He wants Arthur forever but also ALIVE and physically, mentally, emotionally with him.

“A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground

With no one around to tweet it

While I bathe in cliffside pools

With my calamitous love and insurmountable grief”

Merlin has a shield around him. Actually, plural, shields. His pain, anger, and hurt made him become this shell. But the red rose, his love, it’s still there. Always there. His love for Arthur and his narrative is still ongoing and no one knows. It’s his to keep.

His “calamitous love” and insurmountable grief” although sounds horrid are both stemmed from the purest thing he has. His love. It’s so passionate because he feels and cares so much. So his love is used as a metaphor with cliffside pools and the water in it because it (his love) overflows and spills over (i think? do cliffside pools do that?)

OKAY I’M DONE. mostly cause im tired, it’s 3:26 am, and im fried. the keyboard has been smashed quite enough and this makes one lengthy tumblr post (i can write more). i don’t even know if most of it makes sense i just wanted to get it out there.

also don’t take this too literally of course there are a million interpretations to this song, i associate it far more than just an immortal warlock and a dead king, as well as my opinions. I just wanted to share a little bit of where my mind was going. just a little.

props to you if you read this, thank you, and thank you bbc merlin

[nine-blessed-hero]

A Gift

Universe: TESIV: Oblivion CW: Mention of canon-standard violence Words: 600 Context: Written for the TES Summer Fest prompt: Golden. As it's a bit more experimental, Concit is welcome on this piece. Tagging: @tes-summer-fest, @jacqueswriteblrlibrary

"My champion!" cries the man imprisoned by fate as the doors to the great hall open. He pours a cup of ale, placing it in front of where his hero sits heavily, their shoulders bowed by the dusty road. Food is procured; only the crackle of the ever-present fire sounds as the hero devours the commons presented. "What news of the outside world?" asks the imprisoned man after his hero has supped, resting a chin on raised, clasped hands. His hero smiles, a tired curving of the lips. "Same as it ever was, I suppose. People are born, people die. The earth is tilled." The smile droops. "The threat against us grows worse." "And where have your travels taken you, my friend? The world cannot be overrun already. There must surely be some beauty or interest you've seen?" The hero takes another sip of ale. "No, not overrun. Not yet. I am managing to stay ahead of the daedric hordes." The hero places down their cup. "Which is why I am come from Leyawiin county, by way of Bravil." They run a weary hand over their face. "The gates are clustered thick in the Blackwood. It's as if the enemy knows there is limited manpower to stop them at the edge of the territories. But," the smile they give is more of a grimace, "you asked about what beauty there is still in the world, not the unholy beasts that terrorise it. Be fair warned, o my Emperor, I am no poet." Their grimace relaxes into a lighter thing. The man imprisoned tops off their hero's cup. "I feel sure you will do it justice. You are more eloquent than you think." "If thou sayest." The hero winks. They take a swig from the cup and settle back, thinking. From without the hall, a Blade hails another as the guard changes. The wind, whipping down from the mountains, sings in the eves. Presently, the hero begins, "I came from Leyawiin county, aye, and through Bravil. But dark was closing in before I ever reached the city. So rather than take on spriggans by night, I stopped at Bawnwatch Camp. "They say a ghost haunts that mound, but if he came that night, I never saw – a gate opening wouldn't even have roused me! But when I did awake, fully refreshed next morning, what a sight it was that greeted me. "Bawnwatch sits on a little island, no larger than this room, in Niben Bay. Meaning it is surrounded on most sides by the water. The night I rode in on was damp and foggy, but the morn I woke to was glorious! "Fluffy, dappled clouds, like a herd of sheep, raced across the lavender sky, chasing mares' tails. The shore opposite was drenched in shadow, but the water! Filled with barely lapping waves, it looked like molten gold–" The man imprisoned laughs. "You couldn't think of a less cliché description?" "Do you want to hear this or not?" the hero laughs back. "And I'm telling you! It looked like someone took the Empire's coffers and melted it all down in the Nibenay. It was glorious and stunning and…" The hero draws a breath, their mouth hanging for want of a word. Their eyes search the rafters as if for divine inspiration. "A blessing." Their eyes glitter in the sconcelight, their voice softening, "Something to make up for all the blood and death of the Deadlands." The man imprisoned reaches out to squeeze his hero's hand. "A gift, to remind you of what you fight for."

[lafcadiosadventures]

Madame Putiphar Groupread. Book Two, Chapter XXXV

-𝔠𝔢𝔯𝔠𝔞 𝔮𝔲𝔦, 𝔱𝔯𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔞𝔦!

{or indirect communication devices between prisonners}

Once is not enough, from Devices heroiques et emblemes, by Calude Paradin (1614)

make sure to read @sainteverge and @counterwiddershins 's posts as well

Our heroine has managed to continue the siege in her room under the threat of suicide. Debby has made a habit of inspecting her room, and one time scanning the woodworks, she finds a graphite scrawl on it saying “cerca qui, troverai” or “search here, you will find”. She introduces her fingers on a gap in the frieze. She is able to remove it, and to introduce her hand in it only to find a small volume of Petrarca (a poet who specialized in Love poems, and whose adressee Laura -fun fact-was a distant relation to the Marquis de Sade)(that's basically all i know about him)

Debby correctly asumes there has to be more than just a hidden book to the mystery but the volume is all she can find, so she sits down to read her favorite sonnets to soothe herself. (Debby was taught italian as a young girl, by her maternal grandfather, unless i am misremembering, so she loves the language because Borel is a Romantic and she -despite being Irish- is a latin coded woman with everything that implies in this era, to this particular writer, but it also echoes those happy childhood days)

and she is correct, there is more to be found. She finds more graphite handwritten words in the blank page before the frontis. The handwriting isn't easy to descipher... since it was surely written in secrecy and perhaps in a hurry. But it also seems metaphorical, one has to make a physical effort to get to the truth, if this is indeed a real testimony by a prisoner. (which I tend to think it is, but given that we've all seen V for Vendetta we probably all suspected this to be a perverse device by the jailers, since as we will see, the testimony aims to bring peace and passivity to the newer captives)

The letter reads as written by a candid and naive woman. The letter is also contradictory, it mentions an imperious need for distractions from suffering, since the writer is a victim of kidnapping and is kept a prisonner who is expected to sexually satisfy a complete stranger who is clearly very powerful; but the letter also expresses immense gratitude for her fortune. All this suffering has led to a fortuitous event. The man is not just any nobleman (as Deborah already suspected, the story about the noble benefactor who would eventually marry her is a lie) he is the King himself, and the person writing the letter is soon to birth a bastard son of the monarch. So she is to be “set free”. And she is happy and grateful for she is, like the narrator says, a madwoman. a poor fool. It is not impossible that the woman and her child were both already killed. It is counterproductive to the regime to have out of control bastards lying around and women blabbing about the secret harem where children and widows are kidnapped.

The writer is also, a fervent catholic, which seems relevant given how we have seen how faith in most cases, makes our heores passive -making Patrick leave everything in the hands of god when he could have taken the initiative and acted earlier- and vulnerable-Deborah lying on the floor in public in a place she is known to frequent, making it easier for the king's men to grab her and kidnap her) Maria degli Angeli, her name or what she was called back in Ferrara, asks her “beautiful stranger”to tear the page off and burn it, which points towards Deborah being the first reader, the first one to find the secret message.

Deborah is obviously destroyed by this touching testimony. She cries for her distant friend, and for herself. This knowledge makes her change strategies. She will interrupt her siege. She will pretend to be “submissive, good and kind and honorable.” She considers herself lucky to be in hands of the king who surely cannot be as perverse as Villepastour (we should not forget how both Patrick and Deborah's first instinct is to assume the royals to be reasonable and honorable people)

this is the madwoman passage I had in mind before before:

“(...)she came to her knees and thanked God for having not abandoned her in her affliction, for having made her aware of the traps set beneath her feet, and begged him to bless the crazy Maria-degli-Angeli, the generous instrument of his will.”

(tr. saintverge)

I find it ambiguous if this “crazy” is part of Deborah's inner monologue or if it's an adition by Borel's ever elusive narrator. "Instrument of his will" definitely seems to be hers so it's an interesting irruption by the narrator because of how un highlighted it is. If Deborah thought her crazy, why would she think herself relatively lucky and blessed after discovering her master is the king himself? As we will see, she will entreat the king and ask him not to force her, to set her free without sexually enslaving her....if she were lucid enough to find Maria crazy, would she have changed her strategy? The siege couldn't last forever anyways. And even without her tendency to idealize monarchs, the posibility that a man who kidnaps women for kicks to be a man open to being reasonable and honorable and letting her go is extremely thin but not impossible.... ... .........

[sapropel]

NAOMI KLEIN

April 24, 2024

My friends, I’ve been thinking about Moses and his rage when he came down from the mount to find the Israelites worshiping a golden calf. The ecofeminist in me has always been uneasy about this story. What kind of god is jealous of animals? What kind of god wants to hoard all the sacredness of the Earth for himself? But there is, of course, a less literal way of understanding this story. It is a lesson about false idols, about the human tendency to worship the profane and shining, to look to the small and material rather than the large and transcendent.

What I want to say to you this evening at this revolutionary and historic Seder in the Streets is that too many of our people are worshiping a false idol once again. They are enraptured by it. They are drunk on it. They are profaned by it. And that false idol is called Zionism.

It is a false idol that takes our most profound biblical stories of justice and emancipation from slavery, the story of Passover itself, and turns them into brutalist weapons of colonial land theft, roadmaps for ethnic cleansing and genocide. It is a false idol that has taken the transcendent idea of the Promised Land, a metaphor for human liberation that has traveled across faiths to every corner of this globe, and dared to turn it into a deed of sale for a militarist ethnostate.

Political Zionism’s version of liberation is itself profane. From the start, it required the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and ancestral lands in the Nakba. From the start, it has been at war with collective dreams of liberation. At a seder, it is worth remembering that this includes the dreams of liberation and self-determination of the Egyptian people. This false idol of Zionism has long equated Israeli safety with Egyptian dictatorship and unfreedom and client state. From the start, it has produced an ugly kind of freedom that saw Palestinian children not as human beings, but as demographic threats, much as the Pharaoh in the Book of Exodus feared the growing population of Israelites and thus ordered the death of their sons. And as we know, Moses was saved from that by being put in a basket and adopted by an Egyptian woman.

Zionism has brought us to our present moment of cataclysm, and it is time that we say clearly it has always been leading us here. It is a false idol that has led far too many of our own people down a deeply immoral path that now has them justifying the shredding of core commandments — “Thou shall not kill,” “Thou shall not steal,” “Thou shall not covet” — the commandments brought down from the mount. It is a false idol that equates Jewish freedom with cluster bombs that kill and maim Palestinian children.

Zionism is a false idol that has betrayed every Jewish value, including the value that we place on questioning a practice embedded in the seder itself with its four questions asked by the youngest child. It also betrays the love that we have as a people for text and for education. Today this false idol dares to justify the bombing of every single university in Gaza, the destruction of countless schools, of archives, of printing presses, the killing of hundreds of academics, scholars, journalists, poets, essayists. This is what Palestinians call scholasticide, the killing of the infrastructure and the means of education.

Meanwhile, in this city, the universities call the NYPD and barricade themselves against the grave threat posed by their own students asking them... questions like “How can you claim to believe in anything at all, least of all us, while you enable, invest in and collaborate with this genocide?”

The false idol of Zionism has been allowed to grow unchecked for far too long. So tonight we say it ends here. Our Judaism cannot be contained by an ethnostate, for our Judaism is internationalist by its very nature. Our Judaism cannot be protected by the rampaging military of that ethnostate, for all that military does is sow sorrow and reap hatred, including hatred against us as Jews. Our Judaism is not threatened by people raising their voices in solidarity with Palestine across lines of race, ethnicity, physical ability, gender identity and generations. Our Judaism is one of those voices and knows that in this chorus lies both our safety and our collective liberation.

Our Judaism is the Judaism of the Passover Seder, the gathering in ceremony to share food and wine with loved ones and strangers alike. This ritual, light enough to carry on our backs, in need of nothing but one another, even with — we don’t need walls. We need no temple, no rabbi. And there is a role for everyone, including especially the smallest child. The seder is portable, a diaspora technology if ever there was one. It is made to hold our collective grieving, our contemplation, our questioning, our remembering, and our reviving and rekindling of the revolutionary spirit.

So, tonight — so, look around. This here is our Judaism. As waters rise and forests burn and nothing is certain, we pray at the altar of solidarity and mutual aid, no matter the cost. We don’t need or want the false idol of Zionism. We want freedom from the project that commits genocide in our name. We want freedom from the ideology that has no plan for peace, except for deals with the murderous, theocratic petrostates next door, while selling the technologies of robo-assassinations to the world. We seek to liberate Judaism from an ethnostate that wants Jews to be perennially afraid, that wants our children afraid, that wants us to believe that the world is against us so that we go running to its fortress, or at least keep sending the weapons and the donations.

That is a false idol. And it’s not just Netanyahu. It’s the world he made and the world that made him. It’s Zionism. What are we? We, in these streets for months and months, we are the exodus, the exodus from Zionism. So, to the Chuck Schumers of this world, we do not say, “Let our people go.” We say, “We have already gone, and your kids, they are with us now.”

[calmcroissant]

You sleep like a lamb, but I know you could devour me entirely. Your hands are ivy, they have completely taken hold of me and now I can't break through all of the overgrowth. Even pretending you cannot break my heart is admitting I care enough about you to lie. They say falling in love with a writer is a way to be immortalized forever, and I know no one remembers the poet even if they do remember the poem, but for the first time, I do not mind, I do not mind if it means I get to immortalize you.

You. Your hands. The tan in your skin. The crinkles in the corners of your eyes when you smile. Your laughter and how I could recognize it even if I were blind, how it lights up any dark room. We've been in enough dark rooms to last a lifetime but my hands will always find yours. I would follow you in the dark, anywhere, anywhere. Our love may have started in the night but we now feel like the first ray of sunlight when morning breaks. When I asked you what I felt like to you, you told me I was like a breath of fresh air; but you feel like breathing for the first time, and now loving you feels just as natural- I have entirely forgotten how it felt to live in a world where I wasn't with you. A world where I wasn't breathing. Although, I must confess- sometimes when you stand in a crowded room, singular, luminous; or when you're driving down the highway, your hold so steady; or when you pull me closer, even in your sleep- I think, this must be some joke. Which is to say, I want to wake you from your slumber and ask you if you're real.

Which is to say, I never thought you'd happen to me.

[smoosnoom]

moon moon moon hello i am opening ao3 for the first time in WEEKS and its because ive come to know you have written an anderperry fic. jaw dropped when i found out because WHAT!!!!!!!! one of my favorite writers n one of my favorite pairings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! dps was literally my entire personality at one point and im STILL insane about this film

anyways im here to give u my thoughts as i read because i will be insane about this for the rest of my life. moon anderperry fic moon anderperry fic moon anderperry fic i will never be okay ever again

WYM TODD CAN JUST /FEEL/ SOMETHING IS WRONG. FUCK THIS FUCK FUCK FUCK THE FEAR THE AGONY THE FEELINGS I AM FEELING RIGHT NOW

Neil shakes his head. “Don’t you get it, Todd?” He sounds too calm, too resigned, and Todd hates it, he decides, he never wants to see Neil so complicit with something so terrible ever again. “There’s no fighting it. There’s no good way out of this.” He shrugs again. “I’m trapped.” 

fuckkk its like his dad killed his spirit sucked the life out of him broke him or something i cannot fucking do this anymore. AND TODD IS PROTESTING!!!!!!!!!!!! BECAUSE WHAT HAPPENED TO NEIL WHAT HAPPENED TO SEIZE THE DAY AND ITS SO HARD TO SEE NEIL MAKE PEACE WITH HIS PASSION TAKEN AWAY FROM HIM. im :( might just pull a neil perry at the end of dead poets society (1989) if u get what im saying

He takes a leap of bravery. He reaches out and rests a hand on Neil’s elbow. He takes a step forward, brings up another hand, and Neil collapses into him, all six feet of him falling onto Todd, who doesn’t stumble when he holds him up. Sorry, he wants to say, even if it’s not his fault, even if he had tried to warn Neil, so many weeks ago, sorry, sorry, sorry. He presses a hand a little more firmly into Neil’s back when his shoulders shake, and his body is cold, and some reckless part of Todd wants to strip off his jacket and throw it over Neil, usher him inside and make him tea like Todd’s mother would do, when he was still a child and not quite Todd. 

HOW DO YOU WRITE THE WAY YOU WRITE IM GOING FUCKING INSANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! watch me sob over when he was still a child and not quite todd what the fuckkkk

AND FOR A SECOND IT FEELS LIKE IT COULD BE. im never recovering im never ever getting over this fic ever this was so :( sorry for the long ask i lost my mind the second i found out u wrote an anderperry fic (and perhaps inspired me to get back to writing dps again)

ivy ronanticized hello !!!! omg im Honored my little dps fic was enough for u to open up ao3 again 😭 i really just wrote it on a whim since tragedies have never settled Peacefully in me

one of ur favorite writers 😭 thank u so much omg i Did write . another anderperry fic which . i hope u like BUTDONT FEEL LIKE U HAVE TO DO ANOTHER ONE OF THESE i just wanted to let u know since . u seemed to enjoy this one LOL

stop im fully falling apart rn ivy i need u to Calm Down before i explode from flattery fr !!!!!

todd can feel something is wrong ... it's the soulmateism 😕

FUCK MR PERRY !!!!!! ALL MY HOMIES HATEEEE MR PERRY FR u know what . i Completely get neil and im glad i could get his defeatedness across 🫡 and todd protesting bc he cannot bear to see him like that . You Get It

might pull a neil perry 😭 ivy NO

HEELPHP 😭 THANK U FOR LIKING IT it means Everything to me .

and for a second it feels like it could be !!!!!!!

never apolgoize Ever again for long asks ok they are very much treasured !!!! im so so so happy u enjoyed it and very very honored that it mightvw inspired u to write more dps !!! id love to read some of it :]

[faeties]

@fateviled - ❝ your strength has returned. but your weakness still remains. ❞ ( megatron @ optimus<3 )

“weakness,” repeated optimus, muddling the worth over in his mouth. when had simple empathy become a weakness to the mech whom he had once– who he still truly did– hold so close to spark?

where was his poet? where was his gladiator? where was the mech that he had once desired to bond his spark to his own? at what point during the war had the WARLORD killed the LOVER? or had a young, naive orion pax simply ignored the signs of danger until they stood before the senate while he listened to megatronus’ demands for the matrix. 

at one time, he could have suggested no better candidate to become prime… until that very moment where everything changed.

for a time, and he felt guilty for how much he had enjoyed that time of blissful ignorance until the lies had become too many, too obvious for him to accept, he believed himself orion pax once more. memories had clouded within his databanks which made him cling to the familiar– to his megatronus. so the other had taken him and orion had followed until he broke free, until jack was able to return him to himself. 

when he recharged, he dreamed of better worlds. optimus would have liked to say they disappeared only to start again after the return of the matrix, but that would be a lie. his sleep was plagued with fluxes of the very mech before, of losing the autobots he commanded and the humans they cared for in equal measure to dreams where he was still orion pax. there he could feel the soft touch of a mech who killed in the arena yet held his archivist as though he were made of crystal. of worlds where megatron realized the path he was turning down before the war had progressed four million long, arduous years that were littered with unspeakable acts. even now, awake and facing him, optimus could feel his touch, hear his whispered voice, and long for when they would have been half of one spark, talking about the freedom they would bring to their people. 

even now, optimus could forgive him, yes, even now…

 “there was such a time when you spoke of oppression and meant to destroy it,” optimus told him, voice cold, but spark torn within him, “now you preach PEACE THROUGH TYRANNY and i wonder how you cannot see it's one in the same.”