#it forms a sort of trilogy

[kindaeccentric]

The subject of the painting is Gauguin's 13-year-old native "wife" Teha'amana (called Tehura in his letters), who one night, according to Gauguin, was lying in fear when he arrived home late: "immobile, naked, lying face downward flat on the bed with the eyes inordinately large with fear [...] Might she not with my frightened face take me for one of the demons and specters, one of the Tupapaus, with which the legends of her race people sleepless nights?" Gauguin was suffering from advanced venereal disease when he came to Tahiti, and he passed it onto Teha'amana, who was his first sexual partner on the island.

'The Adoration of the Shepherds With a Donor.' Palma Vecchio. A contemporary of my maker, Marius De Romanus, also a fine painter, albeit one of lesser skill. In fact, the donor in the title was my maker. The canvas painted in my maker's studio. And in this case, the donation was…What is the modern word for it? In kind. This is Amadeo.

He's 20 years here. He was rescued from a brothel when he was 15, named… named Arun then, I think. I cannot be sure. The abuse in the brothel was such that he cannot be sure that's what his… parents named him. Arun. The parents that sent him to work on a merchant boat in Delhi when in actuality they had sold him…into slavery to the ship's captain. All… fragments. Shackled on the boat. The brothel. My maker's purchase. His renaming me.

His reluctance to share the Dark Gift, knowing what it would do to his beloved Amadeo. I served him with all my heart. Basked in his mercy, his worshipful mercy. Still… Amadeo had a skill. And if a friend wandered into town, I was occasionally… donated.

Meatier in the forearms, but then this was… seven years before I was stricken with illness, before I was turned, and imbued with my powers.

---

don't mind me, I'm just thinking aloud about art as a form of colonial violence when artists take part in the sexual exploitation of underage people of color, name changing, orientalism, monstrosity, and blood+sex-transmittable diseases in the context of Armand

[zeb-z]

do you guys think Thrawn’s accent would have just a little bit of a Wild Space twang in the words he had learned from Eli Vanto

[sendmebacktonowhere]

something something rescue mission to kamino in the early days of the empire, led by clones, aided by freedom fighters who have never even seen an ocean.

(I dont write often so bear with me)

imagine going into the jaws of a place so cold, so suffocating, whether it be from the rigid structure inside or the raging seas below. this horror is unknown to you, yet your comrades have never known another place as "home". coping with your own fear alongside the creeping horror of bearing witness to just what exactly your new allies, your former troops, your new brethren, were forced to endure. gaining a new sense of admiration for them, and shame for yourself. knowing that no matter how necessary their presence is for this mission, no matter how important it is to reunite with their brothers and sister- it's not fair. it's not fair that they must face their makers again.

imagine returning to your home. or rather, your birthplace. you've been gone long enough to realize there were too many tests, too many... unyielding protocols for it to be a real home. the storms are so familiar. the surveillance, and your response to it, is so nauseatingly familiar. somehow, the danger never truly set into your guts until you returned, perhaps because your new allies are there to point it out. allies who are so very new, former civilians much more fragile than you could have ever dared to be. you wonder if they'll ever truly feel like brethren the way your trapped siblings do. you wonder how many of your makers you'll have to throw to the sea. you wonder if the storms on other planets will feel as suffocating as the ones here. everything born of kamino was born to die. it was never fair.

[readwritealldayallnight]

(part of the Wife at First Sight series)

In Ghost’s eyes, the first time you smiled up at him was the moment you became his and his alone.

So what if everyone apart from you knew it?

Didn’t make it any less of a fact, as far as he was concerned.

Still though, he wanted to learn more about just who his pretty little wife was, including anything that might make letting you know about your marriage a little easier. And so like the good soldier he is, he goes about it as though it were a reconnaissance mission.

He asks you how you take your coffees and teas, holding his breath as he watches you take the first sip of whichever drink he’s made you that day, pride swelling in his chest when you tell him it’s perfect, even better than when you make it.

The first time he’d done so, your eyes widened in surprise when he put his large, gloved hands over yours where they were wrapped around the mug, leaning forward and bringing the rim to his lips where he took a sip for himself, eyes locked with yours. You were unsure of what to think or say, but he apparently decided for you that this was okay, returning the warm drink to your mouth where he encouraged you to take another sip.

You figured that it was alright, he did make the tea for you after all, right?

You even laughed when he started only serving you in a mug with ‘Mrs.’ printed across the side, certain that it hadn’t been in any of the common room’s cupboards before.

He eyes the book peeking out of your bag one morning as you tuck it away, purchasing his own copy the very same day, curious to know what you like reading. You’re pleasantly surprised, if not a tad confused, when you find the next two books in the trilogy sat atop your desk soon after, a small note written in chicken scratch lain on top reads ‘To : Wife’. He’ll make a point of commenting on the novel if he sees you holding it, slipping in tid bits of information to impress you show he’s read it as well, likes the same things you like.

He’ll joke about how the food on the dining hall is always subpar, trying to casually find out what you like eating, subtly pulling out his phone and typing anything new into his notes app where he’s been keeping track of all your likes and dislikes. He just wants to get things right with you, be good for you, prove he can be the husband you need. You’re already perfect in his eyes, his sweet little soulmate who just doesn’t know it yet.

Though this was the first military base you’d ever worked on, you couldn’t recall anyone having ever warned you about the way Lieutenants apparently like to haze the new hires, never mind the fact that everyone else was apparently in on it.

No one bats an eye when you go to take the empty seat next to him in a briefing, and he wraps his strong arms around you to instead plop you down onto his muscular thighs, carrying on with the task at hand as though this is perfectly normal and professional. Even the Captain hardly glances at the interaction, so you figure it’s okay, some strange form of team bonding?

Not a soul comments on the way the Lieutenant insists on being the one to cut up your food and feed you bites during meals in the dining hall, pretending as though they don’t hear him telling you about how “my wife works hard enough, don’t need to be liftin’ a finger wit’ me around, love.”

They know to move out of the way if you’re approaching a closed door, knowing if the Lieutenant is anywhere near, he’ll be rushing to open the door for you before you can even attempt to do it yourself.

Even Soap has stopped complaining aloud and only rolls his eyes when Ghost drops anything and everything he’s doing- whether it’s spotting the Sergeant in the gym, being out on a morning run, hell even being in the middle of a shower- to send you a good morning text at six o clock on the dot. Every. Single. Morning.

No, you never exactly anticipated this sort of a running gag from a hardened military base, but you’re not exactly complaining either.

Not when you find your heart fluttering every time your fake work husband dotes on you like he really would marry you at the drop of a hat.

Besides, it’s all just playful, innocent fun, right?

Especially when everyone begins to apparently forget your name and instead refers to you only as Mrs Riley.

And when the Captain tells you that your requested time off for a honeymoon has been approved, something which you definitely don’t remember requesting, well that’s all just fun too, right?

[itsmemuffy]

I can make you feel better... If you let me

Contents: Original Trilogy! Logan x fem reader, naive reader, obsessive and touch starved Logan, friends to lovers, mutual pining, hurt/comfort, non-sexual physical intimacy, sexual fantasies (real smut in pt. 2), mentions of Charles, Ororo, Jean, Scott and Rogue

Summary: You keep everything running as smooth as possible in the background while Professor Xavier keeps a very full plate of locating mutants, running the school, and leading the X-Men. A steady stream of mutants come and go through the mansion, but a certain one in particular makes it his mission to nestle his way into your life.

The past few days had been a whirlwind for Logan. He's the type of man that goes where he wants to go- and waking up in an infirmary on a small hospital cot after being round up like some sort of animal was not on his list of things to do that week, to say the least.

For all intents and purposes, his next plan of action was to get away from here as soon as he possibly could and get back to the life he lived on his own terms. His only home and form of transportation was totalled somewhere in the Alberta wilderness, sure, but he already had experience starting over from nothing.

Oh, but was one man ever persuasive: Charles Xavier. Not many people had an edge over Logan like he did. If his ego permitted, he would be thankful that the man that held upper hand had noble intentions.

When he first met you, a cute little thing diligently running errands to what was perhaps the one man who could have his answers, you immediately piqued Logan's interest. So sweet and so kind, and Charles put his trust in you?

He had barged in like he owned the place on you and the professor scheduling out the upcoming semester in his office. Charles appeared to have already gotten used to this type behavior from him. "This, my dear, is Logan. He will hopefully be joining us now."

Oh... so is he planning to stick around? You ponder as you bite the inside of your cheek, leaning onto Charles' desk with your hip. Logan immediately came off as brooding and dismissive, and he didn't seem like the type to settle into a place beaming with so much activity. Regardless, you extended your hand out to him as you told him your name.

It took him a second to register the gesture. He only now noticed how lost in thought he was, eyes caught below your neckline. With a clearing of his throat, Logan reached a hand back to you to shake it. The most formal of ways to greet someone, yet the feeling of your delicate fingers grasping his rough palm caused his mind to wander again. He forced himself back to reality.

"I guess I'll be seeing you around," Logan remained aloof in speech, hoping you didn't notice the way he devoured you with his gaze. He decided to promptly remove himself from the room, searching for the privacy to be alone with his thoughts.

A few interactions after your initial introduction, Logan started to feel something beyond sexual curiosity. You made his heart race, you made him nervous.

Not a single detail went unnoticed by Logan. The way your hips would sway, how you parted your hair, the shade of lipstick you wore, the softness in your voice whenever you greeted him, your scent.

Life kept throwing change in Logan's way, morphing his way of living into something unrecognizable to him. For the last however many years (boy, is he ever bad at keeping track of time) he had filled them with isolation and taking whatever cheap pleasures he could find. Now he finds himself surrendering the space in his mind to a woman he barely knew. You brought warmth and light into a cold, dark place.

No, this won't fly, he thought to himself. The fact that he was losing control over the dynamic between you made him very uncomfortable. Logan made it his mission to learn more about you. If he could just figure you out, he could take the reins over again.

The two of you would always acknowledge eachother in a group setting. The tiny smile Logan would throw your way whenever you caught eyes made you weak. You couldn't help but to want to know more about him, too. A rugged man who was a stranger not too long ago was showing you consideration? A man who nobody knows where he's been, what he's done, how old he is? It kind of racked your brain, but you tried not to let it trip you up.

Oh, but he would catch you trip up. It wasn't lost on Logan the times you entered a space with him in it, seemingly to forget what you came in there for. Maybe you were a little ditzy- your mind often racing too fast that you couldn't catch up with yourself, but it had happened too many times for it to be a coincidence. At least, that's what he told himself.

He replicated your behavior, scouting you out amongst the mansion. It wasn't hard for him to find you. Your trail had become so much bolder to his senses, overshadowing anybody else that could be in vicinity.

Logan always found what he was looking for. Excuse after excuse slipped easily from his lips. Obvious to everyone else what he was doing, you earnestly took the bait every time without fail. He marked the first time he had a conversation with you alone as a significant victory.

"Hey, didn't see you there. Have you seen Charles around? I need to talk to him." He had cornered you in the library, watching you read for a minute or two before making his presence known.

You flinched up in your chair, "Jesus Logan, don't sneak up on me like that!" The yelp that initially left your lips was definitely a sound he would remember next time he's alone.

"Sorry, doll. Didn't mean to scare ya," he chuckled.

The upset you felt towards him for breaking your flow state lasted but half a second. You couldn't be mad. After all, whatever he needed Charles for must of been important.

"No, Jean and him are off chaperoning a field trip in the city. He should be back sometime this evening."

Logan let out a little "hmph", trying his best sound to sound disappointed. Inside he was estatic he finally caught up to you again. Now with no one else around, his mind flooded with possibilities on how this could go. The odds of you immediately throwing yourself at him weren't zero, were they? If he were to take you and bend you over the table right this very second, there was a possiblility you'd let him... right? God, am I really this desperate? he thought.

After letting a moment hang in the air, he sat down next to you in the ajacet seat. "So, what are you doing here all by yourself? Got nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon, huh?" Good idea, Logan, change the subject.

"You're one to talk," your focus was now one hundred percent on him. Thighs spread as he lazily leaned back in the chair, rolling his head to the side. To say he wasn't beautiful like this would be a lie. You've rarely seen him this relaxed. "Aren't you here too?"

"Huh." Logan did not anticipate you to call him out like that, "I guess you've got a point, there."

An awkward silence sat between the two of you. You pretended to divert your attention back to your book, not letting him escape the corner of your eye. Logan lit up a cigar he fished from his pocket. He desperately needed something to do with his hands.

"This is a library, you know that right?" You chide him after an annoyed sigh.

"Oh, is it now? I thought all these books were just for decoration." His lips sucked in another drag.

"Very expensive books, Logan. There's plenty of perfecly fine places to smoke around here if you just look."

He got up from his seat, "Then why don't you show me around, darlin'? Open my eyes a little." You couldn't quite tell if the pet name was to belittle you or to be affectionate. A hand reached out to bring you to stand. "I'll let you lead the way."

You lead him outside to the back of the mansion, a secluded area with an old stone bench shaded by the surrounding trees. It was your favorite place on the property, and it soon became his as well.

After that day, it wasn't an uncommon occurrence for the two of you to catch eachother in that very spot on a warm day. You would watch the kids play in the field, discussing all the antics the students got into that week. Bright afternoon sun would peak through the trees as cigar smoke wafted in the air- everything felt so perfect when you were with him.

Logan often found himself falling asleep thinking of you. He would linger on any time you spent together in the previous hours of the day, overanalyzing the interaction. Any amount he got of you was never enough. He always needed more. More time with you, more closeness, more, more, more.

If he was lucky, you would visit him in his dreams. It was rare but whenever it happened, it was a blessing. You would appear to him as vivid and real as if he was awake. There, he was finally able to close the gap between you two. His hands would finally meet every inch of your plush skin.

However, Logan's mind loved to torture him. As much as your companionship has brought him peace, no amount of feelings for you could change the fact that he was a broken man. Most nights consisted of horrific images; an incomprehensible collage of blood and bodies that he desperately tried to make sense of. All he knew is that it was all real. It happened. The pain was too prevalent to be fantasy.

Tonight he had awoke in terror yet again. A cold, uncomfortable sweat coated his body, chest heaving up and down like a piston. Logan's eyes were blown wide, staring at the ceiling in an attempt to convince himself he was safe in his room. When did four walls around you ever mean you were safe? His intrusive thoughts were keen on keeping him in a state of anxiety. When did four walls ever make someone safe from you?

That was enough. Logan knew all too well how his mind could go on and on like this if he let it. He needed to get some air. The bed creaked under his shifting weight as he sat up. His entire body felt sore. It was if he fought off an entire army in the hours he was asleep.

After finally getting up, he made his way past his bedroom door and down the hall towards the nearest exit. The kitchen was along that route. He figured he might as well grab something to drink. Anything, as long as it was cold.

As he turned the corner, the narrow hallway met the open space of the kitchen. Logan was surprised to find the room already illuminated with light. His eyes lit up when he saw who was sitting at the counter.

Logan stumbled before you a dishelveled mess. His hair was matted, sticking up every which way. The white tank he wore was half tucked into sweatpants he haphazardly put on before leaving his bedroom, drawstrings not even tied as they sat low on his hips. His demeanor was one of a wild animal, cautious and running on instinct.

A wave of awareness washed over Logan. He combed his fingers through his dark locks and straightened his back as he approached you further. Once he got himself to think in actual words again, he greeted you.

"Couldn't sleep either, huh?" His voice was hoarse and deep. Logan just now realized how sore his throat was. He hoped to god that he wasn't screaming in his slumber- at least not loud enough for anybody to hear.

"I just woke up not too long ago. Was hoping a snack would help me get back to sleep." You sat before a plate filled with a random assortment of food you scavenged from the cupboards, "Want some?"

"No thanks, sweetheart," the way he spoke sweetly to you through his gravelly tone made your heart skip a beat. He didn't need to ask to know that you had a rough night as well. It was written all over your face. A gentleness Logan typically pushed down and tried to ignore was bubbling to the surface. Something in him was relieved he was no longer alone with himself tonight.

You watch him make the journey past you to the fridge, scanning the contents of the shelves like it was the hardest decision he had to make in a long time. Rootbeer or ginger ale... Ginger ale or rootbeer...

"You didn't hear it from me, but Scott keeps a few beers in the vegetable drawer underneath the celery."

"That sneaky little bastard," he smirks. "Don't worry, your secret is safe with me." Logan was delighted. Not only by the sudden promise of alcohol, but by the thought that you might share other secrets with him, too. He had a boyish urge to stay up the entire night with you and see if he could get you to spill all the other secrets you must have.

Two beers clanked together as Logan grasped them with a single hand. He took a seat across from you and slid a bottle over to your side of the countertop. Your eyes locked and held on to that contact for probably way too long. Time felt like it has stopped. The moment he walked into the kitchen and saw you, the clock might as well never ticked a single second past 1:37 AM.

"I don't know... Scott will probably notice if we take more than one," you say as you bite your lip.

"I'll run to the store in the morning, he won't even know they were gone," he was all too ready to combat your excuse. Logan wanted to see you come undone. You worked so hard, did everything you're told and were so diligent. Such a good girl. A beer in your hand looked terribly out of place and that made his heart swell.

"Guess it can't hurt, can it?" You opened the bottle and sipped as the frosty glass numbed the tips of your fingers.

He drank much slower than his usual pace, taking the tiniest of mouthfuls like the time with you would run out with the beer. Silence draped over the two of you like a warm blanket, both too exhausted to put on any sort of show to entertain the other. The satisfaction of just being in eachother's company was enough. It came all too easy when you were together. After witnessing all those horrors earlier in the night, Logan finally felt content.

You notice he rubs his neck, a strained noise rumbled in his chest. The stool you sat in screeches against the tile floor as you get up and make your way over to him on the other side of the island. Logan's eyes followed you with every step you took

"May I?" you ask as you now stand behind him, hands hovering over his shoulders, waiting for permission. It wasn't a big deal. You always help out Ororo and Jean when they have stiffness or a knot. That's what friends do for eachother, right?

Logan did his best to hide his signs of exitement. He couldn't let you know how often he thinks of your touch. If he had only one ounce less of pride, he would be begging you for the simplest of contact all hours of the day. "That's real sweet of you, but you really don't have to," he said with the slightest quiver in is voice.

"But I want to." That's it. Those four words just shattered him into a million pieces. If you only knew what you were doing to him.

Your digits grip the dip in his shoulder as your thumbs dig between his shoulder blades. You tried not to gasp when you felt the all knots going up his back. It has just occurred to you how little mind he must pay to taking care of himself for it to get this bad. Pain was a staple of his everyday life, why waste time to try and remedy it? Despite the ability to heal, the constant state of tension still took an immense toll on his body.

Logan leaned into your touch and practically melted under your fingers as he tentatively sipped his beer. If he were to turn around and look at your face, he'd see your complexion flushed bright red. Maybe you were enjoying this a little too much, and you chastised yourself for thinking that way. Little did you know all the scandalous thoughts Logan let his mind run away with on a daily basis when he was around you.

Your hands quickly grew weary working into the solid muscle, but you pushed through it for him. You know he needed this by the way his eyes were now closed and soft hums that left his lips. After working across his shoulders, you finally made your way to his neck. Logan let his head fall forward completely as your knuckles broke up the bundled-up nerves beneath his skin. The tightness in him was able to come loose a bit for the first time in a long, long time.

"Whew," you withdrew your hands and shook them out, "hopefully it feels a bit better now."

"It does," a smile crept up on his face that he tried to supress with each word. "That really was somethin', thank you."

You sat back down across from him and remained mostly silent after that apart from the occasional yawn. A single beer not quite enough to offer a buzz, but enough to lull you out of your wired state.

"Think I'm going to call it a night. You should, too. Danger room is on the itinerary first thing in the morning."

"Yeah, well you can tell Charles where to stick his itinerary." Logan was determined to make you smile one last time before you parted ways- and he succeeded.

He walked behind you on your way back down the hall, wishing the journey was not as quick as it was. Your room came up a few doors before his. Logan almost followed you into your bedroom before he shook himself out of auto pilot. It was like a habit that hadn't been formed yet. He belonged next to you in that bed, he knew because he felt it in every fibre of his being.

"Goodnight, Logan. Sleep well."

"I definetly will now. Goodnight, sweetheart."

Sweetheart. There it was again. You convince yourself it couldn't of meant anything.

When you gently shut the door behind you, time had resumed yet again. That little bubble wherein only the two of you existed had been popped.

He lied about going back to sleep, holding on to the delusion that he didn't need it. Besides, he didn't want to say goodbye to your essence. You still filled his senses, if only just barely. A deep inhale could capture your scent, and your breathing could faintly be heard if he really listened. Logan stood outside your door until the sun started to rise before he snuck back into his room.

He never ended up replacing Scott's beers.

As time went by, your encounters with eachother became more and more frequent. Excuses to talk were no longer required. You enjoyed Logan's company, as he did yours. There was no reason to pretend, you were just two friends growing closer by the day.

You gradually opened up to one another and Logan started to confide in you. Any insight on himself or his past was kept brief, giving carefully worded and vague details. You knew better than to push him for more than he was wiling to give and he liked that about you. Whenever the confusion, the regret, or the pain would get too much, he turned the conversation back to you. The more he learned about you as a person, the more his mind circled all his thoughts back to you.

Neither side knew, however, what things the other was keeping to themselves. You couldn't tell him how the casual touches felt different from him than how it felt with your other male friends. You couldn't tell him how hard it was to think when you would run into him all sweaty after an intense training session. You couldn't tell him that when you held onto your pillow at night, you wish it had his warmth.

And he couldn't tell you that you were the first thing he thought of in the morning. He couldn't tell you how he had a favorite pair of jeans that your ass looked best in. He couldn't tell you that he committed every detail about you to memory- from the curve of your lips to the way you say his name.

Anyone who saw the way Logan looked at you could deduce there was something more going on beneath the surface. Scott would tease him about it and he would swiftly shut it down. Jean and Ororo would pry you for details, only for you to tell them there was nothing going on between you and him. They didn't buy it. No one bought it.

All the words unsaid eventually built up so high it was suffocating. It was getting harder and harder to behave like normal around eachother, not knowing where the boundaries were and if it was okay to cross them. Something had to give.

It started out as a regular Friday evening with the team gathered together, watching movies and playing cards. Your initial plan was to work late into the night. Small, tedious tasks has accumulated as you had focused on more pressing matters throughout the week. Charles was having the X-Men find mutants at a pace more efficient than ever before which corresponded with an increased workload on your front.

You were leaving in the morning on a trip for the long weekend and you were determined to finish everything before you left. Ororo was always the one to break you out of your paperwork prison and get you to live a little. "Come on, everyone's waiting for you to come down before we put on the next movie."

"Storm, if I don't do this now, it will never get done."

"Oh, please. You worked so hard all week. Everything here can wait until you get back," your friend watches you as you roll your eyes and continue sorting files. Good thing she had a little trick up her sleeve, "...and Logan wants to see you before you leave."

"He said that...?" you inquire in an almost pathetic manner. She nodded but truthfully, he didn't have say it. She knew it was true all the same.

After dragging you downstairs you scanned the common room, everyone talking amongst themselves with a glass in hand. Everyone except Logan. Ororo had pulled a similar scheme to get him to come out of his self isolation, but when he saw you weren't there earlier, he decided to skip the socializing and retire to his room.

Jean, ever the fast thinker, was in on the plan, "Hey, we were thinking about ordering takeout. Can you do me a favor and see if Logan wants anything?" She hands you a menu knowing you wouldn't pass up a chance to be helpful to a friend.

Logan sat in darkness on the edge of his bed, rubbing his temples and groaning. He truly didn't mean to blow everybody else off. In actuality, he enjoyed shooting the shit with the mutants he was slowly starting to recognize as his family. Tonight was different, however.

Frustration was pushing him to his limit. He still wasn't any closer to finding the missing pieces to his puzzle. Charles told him these kind of things take time. He was sick of hearing that, he needed answers now. His sanity depended on it.

Only one thing was certain- another person had done this to him. There was no doubt the wiping of his memories was a deliberate effort on somebody's part. That wasn't the only thing. The recurring visions of being horrified at his own self, the sickening realization he was changed into something he hadn't been before haunted him on the daily. Is my body really my own?

All of this made worse by the multiple birthdays of a couple of students this past month. Simple things everyone knew about themselves- when and where they were born- was a luxury he was not afforded. Logan felt himself slipping, the feelings that were out of his control eating away at him.

A knock at the door stopped his thoughts in its tracks. "Logan? You there?" Only but a half hour earlier, you were the only person he wanted to see. But now that he has succumbed further down his spiral of self pity in that short amount of time, he didn't want you to see him like this.

"What do you want?" His uncharacteristically cold tone made you wince behind the door. As much as he needed you to pull him out of the hole he dug for himself, the dark recesses of his mind were commanding him to push you away.

"We're ordering takeout. Jean needs to know if you want anything."

"I'm not hungry." He was silently begging for you to walk away before he said something he would regret.

"Can I please come in?" You pleaded, hoping he'd recognize the worry in your voice. This wasn't like him.

"Fine," he grumbled. At the end of the day, Logan could never say no to you.

The door squeaked as you inched it open. You could barely makeout his silhouette in the dark. With a flick of a switch, the space was illuminated. "Is everything alright, Lo? You're scaring me."

Careful footsteps slowly brought you to stand before him. The air in the room was undoubtedly charged. Every action you now took was deliberate, as if trying not to startle a feral animal.

"You wouldn't be the first person that's ever been scared of me," he spat out his words like daggers.

As serious as the conversation felt, you couldn't help a scoff from escaping you. You sat down next to him on the bed mere inches apart, "that's not what I mean and you know it. Stop being so obtuse and tell me what's going on."

"Nothing is going on, believe me," Logan sighed. His demeanor immediately softened just from having you close. He buried his face in his palm- an insecure gesture you've rarely seem him perform. But when he did, you knew exactly what it meant.

"Bullshit. I know you better than this, Logan." Maybe you were getting through to him.

Something about what you said must have struck him the wrong way as he tensed back up again. "You don't know me at all, actually."

"How can you say that? We see eachother almost every single day! Come on, now... You can't be serious," you playfully nudge his knee against your own, trying to lighten the mood.

"No, I am serious. How can you know me when I don't even know myself? You don't know what I've done and how many people I've had to do it to. I don't even know any of the fucking details but I know it ain't anything good, sweetheart." He watched outside himself as he was taking his inner frustration out on you.

Logan knew it wasn't right to speak to you this way when you were just trying to be there for him. As much as it stung in the moment, you tried not to take it personally. He was hurt and he needed you, that much was clear.

"Listen to me for just one second," you braced yourself, unsure how he would take what you were about to say. "I know what kind of man you are. And I don't need to know your entire damn history to be certain of that."

All he could do was stare blankly at your face as he processed your words. Without waiting for a response you continued, "How can I be so sure? Because I see it in everything you do, Logan. It's in the way you treat Rogue and the other kids, treat your teammates, treat me. I can't tell you that you've never had to hurt anyone, but you know what? I have faith in you. Faith that whatever may have happened in your past, you've learned from and are a better man for it."

A long period of silence sat between you. It wasn't exactly a comfortable silence, but the charge in the air had definetly diffused. You held his stare, now was not the time to back down. There was a chance you were finally getting through to him and you needed to make it clear you meant every word that you just said.

After a prolonged moment to properly think about what you were saying to him, the look on his face transformed into something you couldn't quite put your finger on. A look that was warm, and you could go as far to say it was a look that was loving.

Logan did indeed love you. He loved the way you didn't try to tame him, how you not only didn't shy away from the less savory aspects of his life- you met them head on with tenderness and understanding.

With this love came great guilt. You had a way of making Logan feel like the world had more to offer than just loss and suffering, for this he was grateful. Still, the feeling he deserved to suffer alone gnawed at him until his gut felt raw. If he were to send for you everytime he needed you, you would be a way busier woman than you already were. The fact that you always made time for him without the semblance of hesitation wasn't lost on him, either.

"How are you so sweet?" he croons as he caressed your cheek with the back of his hand. Logan was always gentle with his touch when it came to you, but the softness of his actions in this moment shocked even yourself. "You're too sweet for me, darlin'. Wouldn't want anything to change that."

It almost made you sick to your stomach how just barely your bodies were connected in this moment. He kept his touch as light as a feather as he trailed his hand down your neck before it made it's temporary home on your shoulder. "Say something, sweetheart," he pleaded as a firm squeeze brought you back to reality. Logan needed more of your words to keep him grounded. "Please."

"Logan, I..." your brain scrambled as you tried to gather your thoughts. The way you felt for him was so foreign to you. You couldn't put it into words right now no matter how badly you wanted to. This feeling could only properly be put into actions- an action older than language itself.

Without thinking, you close the gap and press your lips to his- Logan's bottom lip captured between your own. In his wildest dreams, he never thought you would be the one to make the first move and initiate a kiss. The hand that wasn't on your shoulder now cupped your face. He held you there, afraid you'd slip away from him.

"I'm sorry... I know it probably isn't the right time for this," you whispered against his lips.

"Mmm," Logan emitted a small chuckle into your mouth as he went in for a deeper kiss this time. More intense, hungry. His beard burned deliciously when it scuffed your skin. "Never a wrong time to kiss ya, sweet girl."

Now that he has felt your velvety soft lips, he knew he would never be able to get enough. His desire for you overrided his shame. Logan got a taste of what it would be like if you were his. From this point on, he wouldn't be able to hold back anymore. The floodgates were now open and he couldn't wait to pour himself all over you.

He pulled his face away from yours, still holding your body close, "all this just for you to leave in the morning, huh?" Logan looked down at you through half-lidded eyes. His mind was in a daze, in such bliss now that the invisible barriers between you were finally being torn down.

"Oh please, I'll only be gone for a few days." Even though the trip you were about to go on was a long time coming, you wouldn't mind throwing all your plans away just to be in Logan's arms all weekend. "Why, you gonna miss me that bad?"

"I always miss my girl when she's gone," he couldn't help all the syrupy words from flowing from his mouth. Inhibitions were nonexistent to Logan in this moment and he couldn't say anything but exactly what was on his mind.

He was right. You were his girl. In every sense of the word. His girl whose face would light up everytime he walked into a room. His girl who would save him a plate whenever he was late to dinner. His girl who would always make sure he was comfortable and had everything he needed. His girl who would do absolutely anything for him- all he had to do was ask. Logan had owned your heart for a while now.

You fiddle with the seams at the bottom of his tank, fingers brushing his abdomen underneath. It was enough to make you both shiver. "Just do me a favor while I'm away, Lo."

Jesus, how his pulse quickened everytime you called that little nickname. I'm so fucked, he thought. What a fool he was to think he was ever in control. Since the moment the two of you met, his heart belonged to you as well. "And what is that you need me to do?"

"Try not to be so hard on yourself," you punctuate your request with a chaste kiss to the apple of his cheek. You felt his face lift as a smile reached his eyes. "Shit... I haven't even finished packing," it has just now dawned on you.

The realization he couldn't keep you next to him in bed forever hit him like a brick- another bubble popped. It's a shame, but he told himself there will be plently of opportunities to conjure up the little worlds you built together. He had no other option but to placate his burning desire for the time being.

"Well, don't let me keep you any longer," Logan hesitatantly let go of his grip on you. He got up to escort you the few steps from the bed to the door. Excessive, yes. But so necessary all the same.

Just as your hand was reaching to turn the handle, turned your back to the door to embrace him. It took your entire wingspan to wrap your arms around his broad form. Logan's warmth was absolutely addictive. He held on to the back of your head with his face buried in the crook of your neck, inhaling your scent.

"Just in case I don't catch you first thing in the morning..." you whispered as you caress up and down his back, "goodbye, Lo."

"Goodbye, sweetheart," he withdraws from his burrow within your hair to slip his lips between yours again. "Think of me while you're gone, will ya?"

"Always do."

And with that, you were apart again. As you were folding clothes to go into your suitcase, you couldn't help but think about how well the two of you clicked into place. He already had you longing to feel his body up against your own again. You fell asleep imagining all the places you'd let his hands explore when you got back. Logan laid in his bed doing the same.

Fin.

[ronanlynchdefender]

The political stances of The Raven Cycle characters are so fascinating to me. You got Blue over here who is very much a progressive activist in the making. She recognizes things like misogyny and is not afraid to call those things out even when it concerns her closest friends. Because of that, I definitely see her as the type of activist who would be in the front lines at protests whether that be at the Capitol, college campuses, at the border, or as is the case in the dreamer trilogy, tied to a tree. She is the type of person who demands change in our current system and would demand it loudly and through acts of protest or civil disobedience.

Then you have Adam who displays no strong desire to change the system and whose only desire is to rise up in that system. He wants to climb the social ladder and assimilate to those of higher social status which is partially why he envies Gansey so much in the beginning because Gansey was born into it. Adam still tries to do this in the dreamer trilogy by essentially pretending to be a Gansey-like figure while at Harvard despite hating it. Eventually, Adam gives up on trying to belong within this higher social class and "climbing the ladder" but then strangely enough becomes a fed, which means just integrating into another form of hierarchy and power structure. And I feel like a more interesting arc would've been rejecting being a part of these societal systems altogether.

Which I suppose now leads us to Ronan who is a literal anarchist. He actually rejects all societal systems and rules and it permeates every aspect of his life. But actually, I shouldn't say all because there is one societal institution which he does enjoy partaking in: religion. With the exception of his catholicism, he does not engage in any other societal institution: education, law, politics. He hates it, in fact, It is antithetical to his being which is what makes his characterization so perfect because of course a gay farmer god would hate oppressive rules and structures (except for religion). That's not even mentioning that he is a canonical ecoterrorist that cost the US government a billion dollars. But what is really interesting about his character (and where his and Blue's political stances differ) is that because he rejects these systems he has no interest or stake in changing them. He'd sooner tear down the system than try to reform it.

And then there’s Gansey who doesn't seem to engage in politics and would rather spend his days reading his little Welsh books and going on his fun adventures. Of course, he is able to do this largely because he has the privilege to not worry about politics or social class. It seems that Blue's influence changes this as they are both chaining themselves to trees in protest during the dreamer trilogy. Other than that, I don't really have a lot to say about Gansey and his politics. But I find it very interesting that Maggie has created this close-knit group of characters with such varying relationships to how they view politics and social structures. I tried to draw out a 2-axis grid to show their differences, but I don't know if it really works because I feel like Gansey kinda screws it up but nevertheless I like how they each represent different ends of a spectrum sort of.

[balrogballs]

Finding Celebrían

For Tolkien Meta Week — an essay on autofiction, archives, healing, and why I moved across the country after finding out Elrond Peredhel had a wife. Being an essayist irl, believe me when I say I was thrilled to see @silmarillionwritersguild have the personal essay form as a format for Tolkien Meta Week! Here's something from the heart - warning for discussion of cPTSD and (non explicit) references to violence.

When I first found Celebrían in a footnote, I wrapped up warm and followed, certain she'd lead me to where she truly lived in the text.

By that point, it had been a good decade or so since I first read Tolkien – I had been aware that Elrond had a wife, and assumed she was dead or hung up in some other cold meat locker alongside a procession of wives spanning literary history.

It was only years later that I properly came across her, and blinked, realising she was a cursory line which led to a footnote in Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, one which referred to her torment in passing, meant to explain why the sons of Elrond and to an extent Elrond himself, were the way they were. 

Fridging was one thing, but torment was another entirely, I thought — and so casually! Tea and torment in the Third Age, tra-la-lally traumatised into "losing all joy" in Middle-Earth and leaving the year after, taking ship to Valinor and leaving behind a grieving family. It was simple curiosity, really, until it turned into a cold, familiar grasp: the clear-cut knowledge of exactly what sort of torment it would have been, that drove away the wife of a noble lord living in what was very clearly described as being one of the last great sanctuaries in a ravaged realm. 

But to understand why The Footnote stopped me in my tracks, I need to tell you about The Fields. 

When I speak of The Fields (which are of course not really fields and neither are they called The Fields anywhere but here), I refer to one of the most beautiful spots in the country. The Fields combined the peaceful pastoral with quaint urban charm, rustic without being remote, safe without being detached. I lived in The Fields for several years, and made a little life for myself that grew into something bigger. 

I had been an activist in The Fields — moved from scrappy student to card-carrying revolutionary — and I did it because I loved where I lived very, very much, enough to think I could kiss it better. And I was good, I was! I belonged on the stage in that sense, I was invited to panel after panel, talk after talk, and I stood on little podiums that grew alongside me. I knew how to carry myself, present myself, leveraged my palatability and conventionality in return for rights and bare-minimum environmental reparations. 

Such wonders, of course, came with a cost I hadn’t foreseen — an incident, a couple really, that tossed a diagnosis of cPTSD into my lap and turned my lovely home into The Fields. And because I had been so good at presenting myself and clambering on podiums with shiny hair, the incidents became the talk of the town, and I in turn very quickly became a subject, the walking, talking cost of resistance. 

A feature of cPTSD, one that sets it apart from PTSD, is the overarching dullness with which the emotional flashbacks grasp you. Not like being plucked off the surface of the earth by a monstrous thing, but rather drowning quietly in sludge you never realised was beneath your feet in the first place. There was never a thing that terrified me about The Fields, it was only ever a quiet, creeping mass taking over everything, and in being so — easy to ignore and disguise. 

I love The Fields, I told myself, even after. I loved The Fields, even though life had turned into air and static, and I had turned into an unfeeling thing. I lived in the middle of that little city but felt as though I was in a small hut on no-man's land, or a joint security area, suspended between towers. I couldn't stand the wonderful hills and valleys, so I tried my hardest to cling onto the reasons I loved them, tried to medicate them back into my heart with the forcefulness of a pacemaker. I shoved things down throats and up noses, walked back onto all those stages, turned myself into an electric hearse chasing a long-dead dragon. I would walk around The Fields on some nights, very cold and very young, the bleached bones left behind by something very promising. 

Can you see why I stopped still at Appendix A, at Celebrían? I tried to follow her, and see where her story began, and what wonders it would end in, because if Celebrían's story ended in wonder then maybe, there might be a chance, perhaps….. 

It would be easy, I thought, I was a writer, a journalist, a researcher - I trained in asking questions and knowing things, even sticky, stunted, back-of-the-throat things that you'd rather not catch sight of in a mirror. The History of Middle Earth book sets were ordered, fresh copies of all the old texts, magnifying glasses held over Unfinished Tales. 

I’d been so certain I would find her. That Celebrían would ramble across page after page, legs dangling over the edge and an indolent expression fizzing on her face. She would be stubborn and glorious and righteous in her fervor to change the world. I would find her in the flesh, and then no longer would I stand in The Fields each night, hollow-eyed, self-haunting spectre holding myself thrall to a single series of events in what has been, objectively, a lovely, loving life.

But a full month went by, and all I found was footnote after endnote after cursory mention, almost all of them clothing her in torment, growing stiff and sharp against the tooth of the page: vicious, like a blade angled backwards. For Celebrían and I, the richest text in the world turned into a landscape of loss. 

What a wonderful, rich, textured world you have!

All the better to swallow you whole, my dear. 

I couldn't find her in the story. I spent weeks and weeks on her, and I couldn't find her in the story and by then I had already fancied myself and Celebrían to be counterparts, like if she laughed, I would laugh too, like if she ran, then I would run too, and if she was lost, then… well. I suppose it shows the power of an enduring text. I had a PhD, at that point I had just gotten my publishing deal through, I'd spoken on all those podiums and done all those real-world, adult things, and still I was not immune to the indulgent tether of a good old self-insert. And then it turned out we were not counterparts but rather more akin to co-morbidities, that The Footnote and its friends were all I would ever know of Celebrían. 

It was summer, I remember, but my hands were cold — autopsy-fingers, my partner called them. Archive-fingers, autopsy-fingers, scrabbling around to find nothing, no indication as to how Celebrían's story truly ended and why I was the person I was. The texts shifted uneasily under my hands, like the Professor himself was turning out his pockets and shrugging, reminding me that it was neither Celebrían's nor my story, not really. Pointed me back to The Footnote like it was a pacifier, and still I turned in circles like a dog chasing its tail, looking for other instances of her name. I found nothing. I began to fear that I had wasted my life.

The Footnote started to blur across weeks, and soon it turned itself into My Footnote. The one I had found, a year or so before the hunt, in a fantastic, recently published book that spoke about activism in The Fields, where I came face to face with myself. But there, I hadn't been standing on a podium or being interviewed or writing pressure pieces or anything I had really, truly done, but I was instead a single footnote — condensed into the things that had happened to me, as opposed to the things I had made happen. As the months went on, I looked for references to myself in new books, newspapers, magazines — and I would find myself, but in the same scrap of footnote, wearing the same costume of torment, tragic poster children of a violent world. 

I sat there looking at the thousands and thousands of pages in the legendarium, the stack of books on things I had worked upon, statutes I had pulled down and little laws I had changed. And then at the scraps of Celebrían and I, reduced to scribbles and crossing outs in the margins. It was like we never lived at all. It seems a rather childish reaction, perhaps, to not finding the story you want in a book you bought. Still, that afternoon, when I put down the last page of HoME I had access to, I crawled into bed and stayed there for a very long time, trying very hard to not touch even the bedclothes around me.

But I think that was always what drew me to her, that absence. I didn't find myself in Celebrían, but in the footnote that gestured to her presence. It wasn't that I understood her so much as I knew how to decrypt the desperate scratches left behind by someone who drowned on dry land. That was how she and I were truly alike: people who wanted to change the world, or a little part of it, and did, did something good — and had all of it forgotten, crammed into a footnote read with a tender, pitying fret. 

But that's not canonical, is it? Yes, her absence shaped the story of the Ring War in certain regards. But who said Celebrían, Celebrían the Person, not Celebrían the Footnote — had ever changed anything, let alone the world in which she lived?

Simple – I did.

My Celebrían was a complete nutcase. I wrote her as a daughter born to a borderline-squirrel of a wood elf, who herself hated small creatures with a passion. I had her take off her shoe and beat earwigs to death, had her talk the ear off a perpetually grieving mother, irritate a kinslayer into planting a pine forest, and threaten the High King with a shovel. She would shove cotton in her ears to block out her husband's snoring, and put four teaspoons of sugar in her tea. She bribed her sons to dispose of a snake, and demanded magical healing for a little scrape on her forehead. 

I cut her into familiar shapes: the shape of someone who spent months unable to bear the slightest touch, whose loved one slept on the floor beside the bed, clinging to a listless hand dangled off the side. The shape of a small house in a forest, and the shape of a wonderful ending, in which she truly did change the world in all the ways she could. I don't know, if I'm being honest, whether Celebrían changed me, or if I changed her. Whether change was an instant or a process, whether this version of almost-Celebrían mattered to anyone but myself. I knew one thing though — my Celebrían is a thousand footnotes long, and counting. 

Footnotes, like most things in the archive, are of course caging things: keeping unpalatable violence in the past, or at least elsewhere, keeping the here and now good and quiet. It's easier to outsource healing and rediscovery to other places, to archives and museums and books and Valinor. Was being a footnote a punishment? What’s worse, being pickled wrongly or never being pickled at all? Was this yet another installment of the cautionary tale stretching all the way through time and reality from Celebrían to me; footnotes about women who held themselves thrall to the memory of violence, who lived as well as they could, till they couldn’t? Would it have been better if she never existed at all?

I don't know. All I know for certain is this: at some point between finding Celebrían and writing her, I moved out of The Fields and across the country.

It had been a long time coming. But for years, I had thought I would weather living in The Fields because even after the Torment, the Footnote, the Diagnosis, I never felt a disconnect from the place, because I was still extroverted and irritating and fizzing with the desire to stay in the Fields and love it, as I had always done. And then suddenly, I wanted to run.

It wasn't as if Celebrían burned The Fields down, leaving me there to watch flames eating its flat, starless sky. But what she did was this: carefully take off my rose-tinted glasses, and say run —- this earth has swallowed you whole. 

I had assumed it was my fault, my attachment to The Fields, that I was looking at things wrong, that I was maintaining unhealthy attachments to sites of trauma, prioritising the wrong perspectives, the body keeps an atlas and all that. But Celebrían did not call me crazy. Celebrían was not the kind of person who would ever call you crazy. She was the kind of person who would lay in a wide-open field beside you and ask you what you were looking at. 

And when you say "oh, just up at the big sky", she wouldn't probe. She would know exactly what you mean when you didn't say "-- because there is nothing ahead of me", and she wouldn't say a word about how the ground around you was soft with decay, reeking like a corpse, that you were caught in the straggling grass of its hair. 

She would instead shrug, wink, and point you towards Gollum, because of course she would. She would tell you that Tolkien, ever the Catholic, had drawn out a perfect depiction of what might have happened if Lazarus was left in that cave. And then she would say, run, for god's sake, girl, run, and you would. I did!

How stubbornly we all cling to the idea of staying fixed until being fixed, to the idea of a ready-made Valinor to sail to if we do well enough at life, stay still enough in the margins! How faithfully we believe that if you spend enough time being a very, very good cracked vessel, maybe one day you might feel the quiet triumph of bearing water again. Celebrían, not the Celebrían of The Footnote but my Cel, the manic pixie freakshow of Imladris, said shut the fuck up and run. That it was no use hungering for the impossible and thumbing listlessly though footnotes, and to instead run, and run, and start digging a garden at the ground you come to a stop at because it is only in new soil that something gentle could unfold unbidden. That as time passes, you will belong less and less to the ground you left behind and more and more to the ground you walk upon, to the new trees and new hills around you, to those who love you still.

Run! she said. How alive you looked, hunting for me. How badly you craved my story. See? There are still stories you crave. You are still human enough to crave. Run! 

I think many of us who love this brief, inexorable footnote of a Celebrían, whether we read her or write her, are bound by a similar truth: that in her we caught sight of something within ourselves. All around the world, these tiny, unflinching mirrors in Appendix A and the rest, tie together and create a hundred different Celebríans, all part of the same thread, each version carrying its own burden, though rarely do we ever acknowledge it in each other. It's a quiet nod, an unspoken connection, a reminder that we are all more alike and less alone than a cursory footnote might imply.

To find Celebrían, I had to write her. And in turn, she wrote me in her image. I look at her now, as she is in my head, and there Celebrían is neither alive nor dead. No, what is most clear in my mind is a girl in a dusty wing mirror, a life packed into boxes, sunglasses sliding down her nose. One hand sandwiched in an ordnance map, prying the pages open, hurtling at a perfectly legal speed down an M-road, The Fields growing smaller, and smaller, and smaller in the rearview mirror. Not gone, not truly, but invisible to the naked eye, unless you know exactly where to look. A grain of sand in a bucket of water, a single, sad-looking fish half-buried on a tropical beach. A finger to the past, a wave from a window, a footnote in an appendix. 

[tossawary]

I don't have a solid plot attached to this idea, I don't currently really have the desire to drop everything to go write "The Hobbit" fanfiction, but for a while I've had the idea of *gestures vaguely" some post-canon story (probably some form of fix-it) taking place before, during, and after a grand dwarven opera performance in Erebor.

Because I am absolutely certain that the Lonely Mountain had an absolutely stunningly beautiful Royal Opera House (and plenty of other, less grand performance halls) that, at the city's height, was putting at least one show every single day. Orchestral symphonies, operas and operettas, dramatic plays, dance performances... you name it, they had it and more. The various cultures of Middle Earth evidently ADORE music, dwarves absolutely included. The Company all bring instruments to Bag End to play and sing themselves off before their quest!

Also, beyond the music side of things, with how dwarves are named as master crafters? Smiths and toymakers and magicians? No way that they did not have some of the most gorgeous costumes, sets, and effects on the planet. Dwarves would go WILD with their articulated stage puppets, I know it.

One of my biggest issues with the film trilogy is that it failed to deeply explore the Company as people who had lost their home, beauty and culture included. Smaug not only killed countless people, entire families, and leave many of the survivors poor and desperate, the dragon went on to hoard their heirlooms and life's work and leave these priceless gold treasures UNUSED. It is an additional heartbreak to imagine Smaug tearing through Erebor neighborhood by neighborhood, house by house, so that he could tear out every gemstone in, say, mosaic made by someone's grandmother that sat above the breakfast table every morning. To think that Smaug in the aftermath tore magical lanterns off the walls, the sort that might have been decorated with animals or flowers, to make some daycare walkway just a little more cheery for the children, and in his greed left a dead city in the dark.

The live-action movies put both Smaug and the Balrog in these... absolutely enormous chambers that serve somewhat unclear purposes. The king's treasure vault and a former marketplace, I think? (Moria has been raised by goblins, I can forgive the emptiness.) It's a quick visual depiction of Thror's uncontrollable gold lust to give him a Scrooge McDuck room, sure, instead of anything with an actual organizational system (normally, I assume dwarves are big on sorting their vaults if they have one). Super big columns and hallways and staircases do somewhat effectively communicate the "lost glory" of Moria (I am very fond of these movies!!!), even if I also think it's not as interesting as it could have been. And the other obvious purpose of big, open warehouse-like spaces is 1) it's easier to animate the big creatures moving around in them generally and 2) it allows the films to show off the full-bodied visual spectacle of their big creatures.

But I think it would have also kicked ass to put Smaug in Erebor's former Royal Opera House or something, some enormous theatre decorated across generations. That could be big! The ART (statues, fountains, banners, windows, general architecture) that you could put on the exterior, which has had its face ripped open for the dragon to get inside? The ART that you could put INSIDE (mosaics, murals, and more) as Bilbo sneaks inside? Ohhh, you could include so many potential lore references with thematic relevance!

Also, Bilbo could get jump-scared by old articulated stage puppets or something. IT'S THE DRAGON-! Oh, no, it's some old opera prop. (Yes, we're talking more about an actual adaptation of "The Hobbit" rather than fanfiction concepts now.)

Sure, there's raw material treasure and coins hoarded here in this place, but there would also be musical instruments and toys and household tools and cookware and fancy dishes, wedding jewelry and anniversary gifts and family shrines and festival costumes, fountain statues and street lamps and mailboxes and business signs, and other evidence that people really LIVED here. These are all ordinary objects that Bilbo recognizes from the Shire.

We could tie these objects directly back to objects we saw featured in Bilbo's home early in this adaptation, which he was trying to "protect" from the dwarves during their "That's what Bilbo Baggins hates" song. There are half-burned portraits of people's late parents here too. Did he think that there weren't any dwarves who made doilies or handkerchiefs embroidered with flowers? Of course they made things like that too.

It's perfectly symbolic to, say, place Smaug's bed in an area like the king's throne room. The dragon is now the King Under The Mountain. But I think it would be deliciously haunting to have the throne room of Erebor be empty, the throne half-broken, the silver stripped from the walls and moved elsewhere, because Smaug doesn't care about Thror's old audience chamber. What's a dwarf king to a dragon? He burns the same as all the others. The dragon has instead made his bed in a beautiful public place of art and culture that was for the people, by the people, surrounded by the lovingly crafted belongings of the ordinary people he killed. Gold is gold to a dragon whether it's in a coin or a candlestick.

I think if you really want to sell one of the key messages of "The Hobbit", which in my opinion is: "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." then you ought to throw yourself behind EREBOR being a place where food and cheer and song had value, not just the Shire. Thorin isn't lost at the end because he's a dwarf and dwarves don't value such things, but because he as a specific person who makes the mistake of weighing pride and gold over people, and he comes to regret that on his deathbed.

So, back to the fanfiction idea, I think that Erebor had music again in it as soon as dwarves started living in it again. It will take decades and decades before the Royal Opera House is half as splendid as it was before, and there is a performance there with beautiful costumes and puppets and sets comparable to those that came before, some traditional historical show that is part of specific seasonal holiday for dwarves. But that very first winter, when the future still looked grim, I think the dwarves cleared out a small stage and cast the roles of this traditional musical retelling of their history among them, based on who knew the parts best, because they aren't just miners and smiths and soldiers, and there was music again in Erebor that winter despite all the damage that the dragon did.

[ot3]

[Replying to my own tags] anyway on this note I do think this is part of why edgeworth defending him in that class trial was so formative for phoenix. I've spent a lot of time playing around with various ideas about what sort of emotional context would make the most sense for that being something that still means so much to him 15 years later. Not because I'm unwilling to buy the premise the game has sold me, but more for the sake of "yes, and"ing. Obviously I have fully bought into what the ace attorney trilogy sells me

But i think if he was a kid who was raised to believe that the right thing to do in a situation was whatever caused the least amount of trouble for everyone, the first time soneone came and challenged that notion Would stick with him! What if you didn't have to apologize when all you were doing was trying to stick up for yourself! What if someone thought you were worth making a stink over! Even for something that in the grand scheme of things truly mattered to nobody else on the planet

[nkjemisin]

Hello! I’ve been seeing a lot about your work on social media lately and would love to read your books. What series do you recommend I start with?

Thanks ☺️

That depends on your taste/interest. I don't really write the same kind of thing from series to series, because I get bored easily and often want to try new subgenres/styles/etc. So I'll just briefly list my series and you can pick the one that appeals the most.

There's the Inheritance Trilogy, (link goes to the first book) my first published novels. A secondary world that has enslaved its own gods deals with the repercussions of that, from the POVs of three mortals. There's an overarching plot arc for all three books -- and there are some side-stories for this trilogy, too -- but each has a different narrator and takes place at different times. First person past tense, if you care about that sort of thing. (I don't, but some people seem weirdly attached to/repulsed by particular persons/tenses, so I'm including that info here.)

Then there's the Dreamblood Duology, which were actually written before the Inheritance books but I couldn't get them published at first because publishing in the 2000s was hella racist, basically. (I know, it hasn't changed much... but that little bit of change was enough for me to break in.) These books are as close to traditional fantasy as I'm probably ever going to get, except that they take place in faux ancient Egypt instead of faux medieval Europe. The story follows priests of the dream goddess as they're forced to deal with a conspiracy that threatens to inflict horrors on their society. Third person past tense for both books.

Next up is the Broken Earth trilogy. That's my experimental one, with first, second, and third-person POVs, present tense, a completely non-Earth world, and some heavy themes. All three books form a single story spanning, oh, forty thousand years or so, but mostly they're centered on one incredibly angry middle-aged mother who is on a roaring rampage of revenge/revolution. Features earthbenders, anti-magic groomers, magic statue people, and the apocalypse (again). Lots of "dark" themes and horror moments (harm to children, systemic bigotry, people-eating bugs, more).

My most recent books are the Great Cities duology. Urban fantasy set in modern-day New York, third person multiple POV ensemble cast. Turns out cities come to life once they hit a certain point, and then they claim a human avatar to represent and protect them. New York turns out to have six. It's also got some very unwanted tourists in the form of Lovecraftian entities that are trying to destroy it, along with reality as we know it. I meant for these to be lighthearted and silly and I think they kind of are, but there are still some notable political elements in them. (I mean, it's set in modern-day New York, and I started them the year Trump got elected, so...) It's lighthearted for me, anyway.

So, pick your poison!

[vaspider]

Agatha All Along Thoughts:

The thing that I've been thinking about that hasn't been touched on yet: the Witch's Road gives "what is missing."

Billy is CERTAIN that this means his brother, or that he gets to choose what it means. However, the MCU has been pretty clear up to this point that this is often not at all how magic works.

Also, if you look at the way the Witch's Road is laid out, like, look at the way the trees look and how stylized they are, look at the decorations in a few places... the same lights that are in Billy's room show up in Agatha's trial, those triangular string lights, and the trees on the Witch's Road are extremely stylized. Some look like the tree on the cover of the Torah Ark, and some look like the tabletoppers/centerpieces from William's bar mitzvah, and some have items hanging from them which look like the items hanging on the centerpieces. Additionally, the door didn't show up until Billy came downstairs. This may just be because the coven wasn't complete until Billy was in the room, but it may also be because he's the driving force behind getting everyone on the Road at all. The Road responds to the coven, right? It forms itself to the coven? And if each of the witches gets a trial, then the only place where William's influence might leak out, the only space that might be 'his,' where he's trying to, maybe, get Billy's attention would be in these liminal spaces. (His ability to reach out only happening in those most liminal of spaces would make a lot of sense if he's sort of been hovering for years in a sort of limbo.)

Oh fuck, I just realized that we got Randall/Ralph Bohner telling Billy "it's like watching yourself on TV." FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. That's not an accident. Ahhhhh fuck. Poor William.

I think what episode 6 has telegraphed to us -- one of the things it has, anyway -- is that what he is "missing" is William Kaplan, and he's going to have to integrate these two personalities/two lives into one thing.

(My theory re: Tommy is that the "quest" in VisionQuest, the third part of this trilogy, will be finding Tommy. I also think that Eddie is Hulkling -- his immediate explanation for the Hex was 'aliens,' Hulkling is often sleeveless, lots of little things. That might be a red herring, but I think they may be giving us Hulkling there.)

I really, really appreciate the level to which these choices have clearly been thought out. I'll be pulling apart the implications of this show for magic in the MCU for a while.

(If you're here to tell me that the MCU is dumb or you hate it, please go away. I'm not interested in that conversation.)

[frameacloud]

A list of some alterhuman identities and groups (cut version)

About this article

This article is a five-minute read. It gives definitions and sources about (in alphabetical order) alterhumans, constelics, daemons, dragons, endels, furries, fictionfolk, nonhumans, otherkin, plural systems, therianthropes, tulpas, and vampires. These alterhuman community historians, archivists, and writers wrote this article together in August and September 2023: Orion Scribner, House of Chimeras, Page Shepard, Dinocanid, Ryuu Yumemoto, Draconic Wizard Workshop, and others. You have permission to repost this article, if you keep the list of authors, don't change what the article says, and don't use it for money. This is shared under this type of Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND).

Alterhumans

In 2014, Lio of the Crossroads System created this word as an umbrella term and identity for anyone who feels they have an identity beyond the scope of how one might typically think of “being human.”^1 Later, the alterhuman advocacy group Alt+H popularized this word. According to the coiner and Alt+H, it includes but is not limited to nonhumans.^2 Some groups who can opt-in to considering themselves under the alterhuman umbrella are otherkin, therianthropes, fictionfolk, plural systems, daemians, vampires, voluntary identities, furries, and more.^3 This umbrella is very broad because its purpose is to give these communities something to unite under without erasing their distinctions.^4

Constelic

Coined by Extranth in 2021, a person who is constelic identifies with or as one or more entities, objects, concepts, species, items, or characters throughout their life.^5 A constelic may collect or hoard any number of these identities for any number of reasons, as their identities are non-inherent and are considered to be entirely extrinsic.^6 Constels may be voluntary or involuntary identities,^7 and can be intense or casual, but they are often non-permanent.^8 

Daemians and daemons

Daemians are people who have daemons, which are most often described as mental constructs or a part of an individual’s consciousness which has been assigned a unique gender, form, and personality.^9 Some daemians consider themselves plural.^10 Their community started in 2002, inspired by Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials fantasy novel trilogy.^11

Dragons

The dragon community started in the 1990s in an online group called alt.fan.dragons.^12 They identify as dragons for spiritual or psychological reasons. They are draconic, and they refer to this part of themselves as their draconity.^13 In the 2000s, the dragon community started to mingle with the other communities: with dragon otherkin (dragonkin)^14 and dragon therians.^15

Endels

Mental health experts say that being alterhuman isn’t the same as being mentally ill.^16 For alterhumans who do have mental illnesses, that can be an important part of their everyday life and their sense of self. Endel is a word for alterhuman identities that are rooted in or greatly influenced by delusion. Babydog coined this word in 2021, by and for delusional alterhumans.^17

Furries

The furry fandom is a large subculture that began at sci-fi conventions in the 1980s.^18 It’s for creating and enjoying art, stories, costumes, and roleplay about fictional human-like (anthropomorphic) animal characters, called furries. Many fandom participants choose to represent themselves as their furry persona (fursona), which can be just for fun, though it can be meaningful about who they are.

Fictionfolk

Fictionfolk is an umbrella term for many sorts of identities that come partly or wholly from fiction.^19 Fictionkin identify as characters or species from fiction,^20 and their community started in the early 2000s.^21 A plural system member with origins from fiction is a fictive, which psychologists call a fictional introject.^22 When someone has the brief experience of becoming someone or something from fiction, that’s a fictionflicker, which psychologists call experience-taking.^23 

Nonhumans

An umbrella term for those of us who identify as partly or wholly not human: therianthropes, otherkin, and more. Many nonhumans opt to include themselves under the alterhuman umbrella.

Otherkin

Otherkin are elves, dragons, or other beings, usually from mythology. It’s always an important part of who they are throughout their lives, not role-play for fun.^24 The community started in the Elfinkind Digest mailing list in 1990, when they started calling themselves otherkind or otherkin.^25 Their reasons for being otherkin are often spiritual, for example, from reincarnation.^26 However, otherkin is not a religion.^27

Plural systems

Plurality (or multiplicity) is an umbrella term for all experiences and identities in which more than one entity, consciousness, or pseudo-consciousness exists within one physical body,^28 for systems who are or can be diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (DID), formerly called multiple personality disorder (MPD), as well as systems who do not meet those diagnostic criteria. Plurality and multiplicity as terms have always been inclusive of systems regardless of their origin or diagnoses.^29 Some plural systems have members who aren’t human or who are fictional characters or species.^30 Multiplicity can be an interchangeable synonym for plurality, or multiplicity can mean a form of plurality in which more than one person, self, or identity is within a single body.^31

Therianthropes

Therianthropes are people who have a lifelong identification as a certain species of animal on an integral, personal level.^32 Some are other species than animals from Earth.^33 The therian community started in 1993 in an online group, alt.horror.werewolves.^34 They developed jargon about shapeshifting to describe feeling more animal-like at some times. These changes are mental or spiritual, not physical.^35 Some have sensations of phantom limbs.^36 Some feel consistently animal-like at all times.^37 In the late 1990s and early 2000s, therians started mingling with the otherkin community.^38

Tulpas and tulpamancers

A tulpamancer is someone who practices tulpamancy, which is the act of creating tulpas.^39 A tulpa is an autonomous conscious entity who shares the body and brain of their creator.^40 Tulpamancy is often considered to be a part of the plurality umbrella.^41 

Vampire Community

The vampyre or vampire community (VC) is for people who identify as vampires and require sustenance.^42 Those who drain energy are energy vampires or psi-vampires.^43 Sanguinarians drink blood.^44 Hybrid vampires need both.^45 Vampire lifestylers and donors are in the VC, too.^46 

None of the above

Some participants of our communities are not themselves alterhumans. However, they’re here because they’re curious, or they’re our friends, family, and partners.

-

Endnotes

Please click to open this so you can read all of the sources that we cited. They are all here below.

1. Lio of the Crossroads System (September 26 2014). "This will probably be my last post on semantics..." Phasmovore. https://phasmovore.tumblr.com/post/98482696958/

2. Lio of the Crossroads System (May 27, 2023). https://x-rds.tumblr.com/post/712949341799727104/ Alt+H (September 17 2021) “What does alterhuman mean?” Alt+H. https://blog.alt-h.net/post/165592493965/what-does-alterhuman-mean

3. Kiera Ember. “Alterhuman Dictionary.” Beyond Humanity. https://www.beyondhumanity.net/alterhuman-dictionary/dictionary-a Ana Valens (September 25 2020). “Otherkin are the internet’s punchline. They’re also our future.” Daily Dot. https://www.dailydot.com/irl/otherkin/  Alt+H, “FAQ” https://alt-h.net/educate/faq.php

4. Lio of the Crossroads System (February 19, 2023). https://x-rds.tumblr.com/post/709694807213211648/

5. Extranth. “An Introduction to Constelic” https://web.archive.org/web/20230519124625/https://constelic.carrd.co/

6. Extranth (May 19, 2021). “Constelic!” https://extranth.tumblr.com/post/651652168396472320/constelic-1-whats-constelic-constelic-or

7. Constelic (May 27, 2022). “How are Constelic and Otherlink different?” https://constelic.tumblr.com/post/685380822139813888/how-are-constelic-and-otherlink-different

8. Constelic (April 12, 2022). “The wild thing with stels for me is how sometimes…” https://constelic.tumblr.com/post/681308197084135424/the-wild-thing-with-stels-for-me-is-how-sometimes

9. The Daemon Page, “Introduction” https://daemonpage.com/introduction.php

10. Daemians & Daemons (March 18 2023). “Hey there! This is a bit of a discussion question…” https://www.tumblr.com/daemians-n-daemons/712142103972560896/hey-there-this-is-a-bit-of-a-discussion-question Rani (June 21 2022). “Okay so I was right dæmonism is turning into my…” A Dragon’s Journal. https://a-dragons-journal.tumblr.com/post/687725978250870784/okay-so-i-was-right-d%C3%A6monism-is-turning-into-my

11. House of Chimeras (October 8 2022). “A Timeline of the Daemon Community” pg. 3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GVSBMvwKIyTvDIqyqXy2C_7Q4Qx4UK3A/view 

12. ExistingPhantom (October 3 2001). “Alt.Fan.Dragons Frequently Asked Questions.” Dragons Must Be Here. https://web.archive.org/web/20050219002348/http://www.dmbh.org/dragonfire/IndexFAQ.html 

13. Baxil (December 1999). “Draconity FAQ.” Tomorrowlands. http://www.tomorrowlands.org/draconity/faq/index.html  Orion Scribner (September 8, 2012), Otherkin Timeline, version 2.0 http://frameacloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Scribner_Timeline2p0.pdf p. 36

14. Orion Scribner, Otherkin Timeline, p. 53.

15. Daski (August 17, 2022). ���Therian: Dispelling the Earthen Animal Myth.” The River System. https://theriversystem.neocities.org/essays/EarthenMyth.html  

16. Gavia Baker-Whitelaw (February 22, 2015). “Understanding the otherkin.” The Kernel. Archived March 18, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150318110839/http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features-issue-sections/11866/otherkin-tumblr-definition-pronouns/ 

17. Babydog, “Endel” https://endel.carrd.co/ 

18. Fred Patten (July 15 2012). "Retrospective: An Illustrated Chronology of Furry Fandom, 1966–1996". Flayrah. https://www.flayrah.com/4117/retrospective-illustrated-chronology-furry-fandom-1966%E2%80%931996 

19. Poppy (January 24, 2023). “Quick guide to fictionfolk terminology.” Aestherians. https://aestherians.tumblr.com/post/707370073217695744/ 

20. Mordax. “What is Fictionkin? An exploratory definition”. From Fiction. https://web.archive.org/web/20220728060858/https://fromfiction.net/index.php/what-is-fictionkin-an-exploratory-definition/ 

21. House of Chimeras (June 21, 2021). A Timeline of the Fictionkin Community, Version 1.0. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1w4vGsWkiGPjYtXvTe4PyCcZsPba1kb_p/view?usp=sharing Page 4.

22. Ryn (Aristocrats) (October 18, 2021). “Fictives: A short introduction” https://pluralsoapbox.wordpress.com/2021/10/18/fictives-a-short-introduction/  Sark (The Interstellar System) (August 9, 2021). “Fictive and Factive FAQ”  https://interstellarsystem.weebly.com/fictive-and-factive-faq.html 

23. Geoff F. Kaufman, Lisa K. Libby (2012). “Changing Beliefs and Behavior Through Experience-Taking.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2012; DOI: 10.1037/a0027525 https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0027525

24. Lupa (2007), A Field Guide to Otherkin, Stafford, England: Immanion Press, pp. 27, 108-109.

25. Arethinn (September 6, 2021). “A brief(ish) history of the word ‘otherkind’.” Mythsong. https://www.mythsong.net/history/wordhist.html 

26. Lupa, pp. 57-66, 287.

27. Lupa, p. 30; and Devin Proctor (May 2019), On Being Non-Human: Otherkin Identification and Virtual Space. The George Washington University. https://search.proquest.com/openview/e156c24bf65c4efb0918a8db37433cce/ pp. 94-95.

28. FreyasSpirit (Lucia Batman) and Irenes (Irene Knapp), “Plurality Playbook” https://freyasspirit.com/plurality-playbook/ 

29. LB Lee (May 28, 2020). “Quick'n'Dirty Plural History... Part 1 (1811-1980ish)” https://lb-lee.dreamwidth.org/1111069.html  LB Lee (June 30, 2020).”Plural History part 2: The Memory Wars” https://lb-lee.dreamwidth.org/1116190.html  LB Lee (July 30, 2020). “Plural History, part 3: Usenet and its spin-offs and Soulbonders” https://lb-lee.dreamwidth.org/1120824.html  LB Lee (August 31, 2020). “Quick'n'Dirty Plural History, part 4 (LJ, the Genic Slapfight, and THE END!)” https://lb-lee.dreamwidth.org/1129216.html 

30. House of Chimeras (May 1, 2021). “A Collection of Mentions of Nonhuman and Fictional-Based Members of Plural Systems” https://drive.google.com/file/d/17TKE_8Lx2ljuTpHNclvaXqvA5AAlkG90/view 

31. Manchester Metropolitan University, “Understanding Multiplicity” https://www.mmu.ac.uk/mmud8/media/10605/download 

32. Sonne (2008). “Terms and definitions.” Project Shift. https://projectshift.therianthropy.info/terms-definitions-by-sonne/ 

33. Daski (August 17, 2022). “Therian: Dispelling the Earthen Animal Myth.” The River System. https://theriversystem.neocities.org/essays/EarthenMyth.html  

34. House of Chimeras (19 November 2021). A Timeline of the Therianthrope Community, Version 1.1. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jDmjl78hQ2BiQtzQMTV3yRQkrIgB9eUZ/view?usp=sharing P 9.

35. Clegg, H., Collings, R., & Roxburgh, E. C. (2019). “Therianthropy: Wellbeing, Schizotypy, and Autism in Individuals Who Self-Identify as Non-Human.” Society & Animals, 27(4), pp. 403-426. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/15685306-12341540

36. Jakkal (October 6, 2001). “Therianthropy- an overview." Shifters.org. Archived 2002-11-10. https://web.archive.org/web/20021101165313/http://www.shifters.org/overview/therianthropy.asp

37. Akhila (April 2005). “The Contherian FAQ.” https://akhila.feralscribes.org/2005/the-contherian-faq/ 

38. House of Chimeras (November 19, 2021). A Timeline of the Therianthrope Community, Version 1.1. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jDmjl78hQ2BiQtzQMTV3yRQkrIgB9eUZ/view?usp=sharing Pp. 27, 56.

39. Tulpa.io, “Terminologies” https://web.archive.org/web/20160405214050/http://tulpa.io/terminologies 

40. Luigi.exe/The Dragonheart Collective (January 12, 2020). “Tulpamancy FAQ” https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-Yb6dfm4JxR5u_oNpHrttJyJHc0NvMhkKUP4Btc4jPc/edit#heading=h.h3onkkn

41. Tulpa.io, “What Is A Tulpa?” https://web.archive.org/web/20160318054103/http://tulpa.io/what-is-a-tulpa 

42. Jayden Night, “What is Vampirism?” https://web.archive.org/web/20080511200648/http://sphynxcatvp.nocturna.org/articles/jn-vamprism.html 

43. Fvorboda, “Psy Vampirism” https://web.archive.org/web/20080513030621/http://sphynxcatvp.nocturna.org/articles/dyscracia-psivamps.html 

44. #Sanguinarius IRC (May 26, 2007). “A Discussion of Sang and Psi Vampires” https://web.archive.org/web/20080108215555/http://www.sanguinarius.org/articles/sang-and-psi-disc.shtml 

45. Enygma, “Real Vampires” https://web.archive.org/web/20080511201408/http://sphynxcatvp.nocturna.org/faq/most-enygma.html 

46. Sanguinarius: The Vampire Support Page, (July 4, 2006). “Sainguinarus Terminology & Lingo” https://web.archive.org/web/20080521005735/http://www.sanguinarius.org/terminology.shtml

[idontknowreallywhy]

Fathers Day 4 - The Other Father

(Parts 1-3)

This one has been brewing a fairly long time. The 3 short sections I posted a while ago form a perfectly good trilogy and we could happily leave it there…but I did sneak in a hint that a certain somebody overheard at least part of the conversation between Scott and his siblings.

And I’m determined to force Jeff to confront his many failings as a parent and make a start on sorting things out with his sons, especially the eldest. Haven’t quite got there yet (of course it would be terribly out of character for me to actually finish the story 🙄) but they are moving in the right direction at least.

It feels a little rougher than I’d like but I haven’t managed to post a whole chapter of anything for over a month and perhaps am a little wobbly on that score but… here goes…

🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙

Jeff hovered uncertainly outside the door to his eldest son’s bedroom, pretending to be minutely interested in the glued crack running down the doorframe through the locking mechanism and out the other side. There was probably a story behind that, an attentive father should probably ask about it… he started to raise a hand to knock but lost his nerve and continued to hover.

Well, truth be told, he wasn’t so much hovering as leaning very heavily on his cane like the frail old man he always swore he’d never be. Certainly not at his age. But he was uncertain (whilst leaning in a solid and definite way) about whether to do the thing he had been so very certain was a good idea an hour ago but about which, NOW… now he was here… at the door… at Scott’s door… he was suddenly deeply unsure.

Jeff didn’t really do unsure and uncertain. That had never been his style. He’d always been blessed with a great deal of confidence in the plans that came to him and that confidence was justified by the fact he usually pulled them off.

Nor was he the kind of man who stood in corridors staring at inanimate objects while engaging in a rambling inner monologue.

And yet, here he was…

It was amazing what years of solitary confinement on a rock could change.

🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙

One hour earlier…

🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙

He eased himself down on to the lounger and closed his eyes, trying to fix in his mind the new version of that sound he’d dreamed of for so long - the laughter of his children. All of them. Together. Happy. Safe. The glowing memory of it had sustained him for years. The fear that he might have somehow extinguished it for good had kept him awake in the dark for far more hours than the mundane concerns about food, oxygen supplies…

Survival.

The voices were deeper now than the ones he’d remembered. Not quite so familiar. But still so beloved. They were still his babies. Lucy’s babies. They’d just grown. A lot. In innumerable ways.

Slowly, so as not to overbalance when gravity tugged at him, he leaned over and felt around underneath the seat to retrieve what he’d initially assumed was a piece of litter but now knew with a prescient certainty was going to be incredibly important.

“It was always you…”

He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. Or sneak around like a teenager. He was supposed to be in bed but he’d found himself desperate to breathe oxygen rich but un-climate-controlled air for a few moments. As the lingering agoraphobia of the depths of infinite space warred with the claustrophobia born of the small liveable portion of the Zero-X that had been his entire world, Jeff had found his heart rate increasing and knew he wouldn’t sleep without proving to himself once more what the sea breeze felt like on his face.

And he’d snuck down the back stairs because they’d hear his balcony door open and come to check.

Then he’d have to explain.

If he explained, they’d just worry.

And today of all days, when the void between what he knew he was and what he desperately wanted to be to them all had loomed and sucked at him so hungrily… Well. How could he ever be their Daddy again if they had to be looking after him all the time? It was all backwards.

It had been so long since he’d been a Daddy. Far longer than the time he’d been stranded. He had been a good parent, once upon a time. Lucy had said so and he’d always trusted her judgment. To Scott and Virgil anyway. With John he’d done his best too, albeit the boy could rarely be persuaded to leave his mother’s side, but they’d had a decent relationship.

And there had been a time he was Daddy to five. Little Gordon chattering away at his knee while baby Alan’s bright blue eyes peered up at him from the impossibly tiny bundle in his arms. Lucy’s chin on his shoulder, her cheek brushing against his own… he’d known his place in the world, they were blessed with the privilege of raising these little ones together.

And then she was gone. And somehow everything good about Jeff went with her. Including Daddy.

He’d as good as orphaned them back then, eight whole years before it became official.

Eight more years to regret it after that.

Miraculously he now had his much longed-for chance to make it right. But for all the thinking and regretting and self analysis of those castaway years, he still wasn’t entirely sure where to start. He knew what he had to mend, he knew when and why it had all broken, but not how to fix it, if it was even fixable at all.

And now in light of what he’d heard, he realised that whatever “fixed” was, it might look rather different from what he’d spent all those years imagining.

And if he had been more honest with himself… he’d always known that. He let the card fall open in his lap.

“Still true.”

It was. It was absolutely true. Gordon and Alan were Scott’s kids, in all the ways that mattered. They knew it. Jeff knew it. And for all his desire to compensate for the time they had lost, he knew with absolute clarity he did not want to replace their eldest brother’s place in their lives. He had no right to.

He had no desire to. Not now.

He needed to make sure Scott knew that. His knees creaked as he shot decisively to his feet and he staggered slightly before snatching up the cane propped against the back of the lounger and making his purposeful… alright, shuffling way towards his old office.

He needed to find a pen.

🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙

And so here he was by the doorway, the card tucked into the pocket of his bathrobe, trying to think of an opening line. Some appropriate words to broach the subject.

Jeff Tracy was pretty good with words.

He used to be king of the press conference, inspirational teacher of young astronauts. A dreamer of big dreams that could recruit almost anyone to his cause given time. He was used to being in command. When he spoke, people listened.

Yes, Jeff Tracy could make words work for him. With strangers, anyway.

With family it was different.

Especially with one in particular.

Oh, he and Scott had talked a lot. When he was home from space tiny-Scott had been his shadow, trailing him around with his excited, bouncy hop-skip drinking in all his father’s adventure stories. In fairness some of those maybe became just a little exaggerated by the lure of the warm feeling the admiration in those sparkling blue eyes created.

As time had passed the skip-hop evolved into a leggy teenage stride, precisely matched to Jeff’s own. There was less bounce in it, but the sparkle was still there. The constant reminder to Jeff Tracy that he was admired far more than he really deserved to be.

But then it had all gone wrong.

Part of the problem with Scott was he looked like Lucy. He didn’t resemble her much at all, physically - Jeff’s firstborn was pretty much a clone of himself, everyone said as much. No. It was that he looked the way she had. When he was really looking. Something about the intensity of his gaze… the colour of Scott’s eyes may have been from Jeff but the power of them was all her. It was like facing down a strangely warming X-ray.

Yes, the issue Jeff had was that Lucy looked at him out of his eldest son’s eyes and it made him confused and lonely... and so very uncertain about everything that was important.

About whether he could do any of this alone.

About whether he had got a single thing right since she’d gone.

It had made him defensive and short with his son. And when he snapped at Scott, when the same uncertainty, the same confused loneliness was reflected back at him… that chased her away and replaced her image with only himself and he couldn’t bear it.

So he stopped looking.

And so as Scott took on her role, as his son parented far better than the father had the capacity to manage, Jeff backed away and allowed him to do it. He’d let his teenage son be father to his children while he hid away inside himself and focussed on the things that Jeff had been able to do long before he ever met her - he inspired strangers, he dreamed, he commanded.

And Scott had grown up way too fast. And Jeff couldn’t fix it.

There were some short conversations that came close to the one they really needed to have in the aftermath of the Bereznik situation, when Jeff had feared he’d lost his eldest boy for good. But the important words had got stuck in his throat and he’d had to settle for an affectionate pat on the shoulder. Scott had seemed to feel safer with Virgil present anyway and his second son was incredibly protective of his big brother… of course that hadn’t been conducive to bringing up more difficult topics. Although Jeff knew he could have engineered the circumstances if he’d had the nerve. By the time Scott had recovered and they’d both thrown themselves into the Big Project, the moment seemed to have passed.

So they talked Tracy household admin, school admin. Most of all, they talked about the Project, Scott almost as excited as he was about that. His son admired and encouraged and gently challenged him in exactly the way his mother would have. It worked.

It was comfortable. And Jeff had been too much of a coward to make it uncomfortable.

He’d been home nearly two months and he’d nearly missed his chance again.

Not this time.

He raised his hand once more and let his knuckles fall against the door.

🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙

“Scott?”

“Yes, EOS?” His reply was muffled somewhat by a mouthful of toothpaste.

“Your father has been stood outside your door for seven point five minutes.”

Some of the toothpaste migrated to his pyjama shirt. “What?! He should be in bed!”

“And yet he is currently located in the corridor. Just thought you’d like to know.”

“Is he ok?”

“His heart rate is a little elevated but his other vitals seem as healthy as they have proved in recent weeks.”

“I… ok, alright. Thanks for telling me.”

“Of course.”

Scott scrubbed pointlessly at the mark on his shirt and headed out of his en-suite towards the hallway door, where he paused and compulsively tidied his hair.

He reached for the door handle then jumped out of his skin as a loud knock sounded inches from his face.

🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙🤍💙

TBC when Jeff can work out how to start the conversation ;)

[squash1]

something i’ve been thinking about a lot lately is the way that language in the dreamer trilogy & the raven cycle is a barrier to forming connection/community.

in the raven cycle we see a distinct lack of specific terms used between ronan and kavinsky. the word “dreamer” is not even used directly — instead the two of them talk conceptually about the dreaming process, about their respective “special places” (ronan’s being cabeswater), and how the dreaming “juice” runs out (but again, the terms “ley line” or “energy” are not used). there is a clear recognition of “sameness” or shared experiences between the boys, with kavinsky specifically saying he “knows what ronan is” (tho whether he’s referring to dreaming or ronan’s sexuality is up for debate i suppose).

this is really the first time ronan is connecting with a dreamer outside of his family. and his family, of course, has their own terms and language for dreaming. there is a barrier in the discussions ronan and kavinsky are having because of a lack of shared language. so much of what they experience as dreamers is isolated in the individual, so they are forced to talk around concepts because they don’t have universal terminology to fall back on.

i’ve talked extensively about how dreaming is a representation of chronic illness in the dreamer trilogy so i won’t go too far down that rabbit hole. But. something that is talked about within the disability/chronic illness community (and beyond) is the way that individuals can struggle to connect with people that have the same condition/similar experiences as them because of a lack of shared terminology to discuss abstract or hyper-specific concepts/feelings.

we see this in the raven cycle with kavinsky and ronan, and then we start to see it even more in the dreamer trilogy as ronan continues to find belonging and community with other dreamers. ronan and hennessy’s friendship requires them to bridge the language gap. though they both live as dreamers, because of their different experiences throughout their lives, they use different terminology to make meaning of their situation.

in knowing to one another, ronan and hennessy are exposing each other to new, shareable language. ronan shares his term for “nightwash,” and hennessy shares her term for “the lace.” both of them adapt to using this new language for a shared conceptual experience and in doing so are able to connect more fully with one another. in the raven king, i believe it is quite possible that ronan and adam had encountered the lace — a dark entity that whispered their worst fears to them — but did not have the term yet to describe it. obviously, terminology does not outweigh experience, but it is an important element of forming community through shared experience.

there’s also the way that the moderators use the term “zed” instead of “dreamer” — at first it is unclear what zeds even are because as the reader we have only ever had the language provided by ronan. in this experience of coming to realize that “zeds” are equivalent to “dreamers,” we as the reader experience the same sort of dissonance that dreamers themselves experience when trying to connect with one another without universal/shared language.

for ronan specifically, in both trc and tdt, there’s always an element of translation. in the dreaming world, his dreams speak in either latin or a dream language that doesn’t exist in the waking world. in his dreams ronan understands the dream language, but outside of them he can’t. ronan working so hard to learn latin is intentional — by understanding it in and outside of his dreams, he can bridge a language gap for himself; can understand his waking world AND his dreaming world at once. he studies it like his life depends on it because. it. does. the puzzle box is also helpful to ronan because it makes something that is unreal in the waking world, real — it is confirmation of the validity of that language. whether you’re thinking of dreaming as a metaphor for chronic illness, mental illness, or some other identity, the point is about the feeling of otherness, of inability. ronan only feels strange & lost & like he doesn’t know what the hell he is outside of his dreams where no one else understands his language. where he is confronted by being unable to speak to what he lives in his head.

in conclusion:

ronan lynch i love you.

[darklinaforever]

I don't understand why Charlie essentially thinks that Sauron would make Galadriel the equivalent of some sort of secretary for him ? A pretty queen to admire and nothing more ?

Maybe Sauron wants that, but the fact is that it definitely wouldn't happen that way if Galadriel succumbed.

Because we know very well from Tolkien himself that if Galadriel gave in to the temptation of the dark side, she would be much worse than Sauron.

Sauron would therefore have no real control over her. Rather the opposite would happen.

And while I think he would fight to be on the same level as her in terms of power seeing as how he is a control freak, well surely he couldn't help but become anyway a form follower of Galadriel.

After all, he becomes the slave of the rings (and the one ring) and not the other way around according to the show TROP itself as well (and even in the original trilogy with the one ring to which he is literally bind), even though he is their creator. Sauron is therefore technically always subject to something even while attempting to take power.

A lot of people think it would have to do with him being a Maiar and, as much as at first I had reservations, but as time goes by I agree more.

Even if Sauron continued to fight to be on the same level as Galadriel, or to give himself an illusion of domination over her, in the end he could not help but follow her and be submissive to her in one way or another. other.

As he was in season 1 (because he was clearly a follower of Galadriel at that time). As he was under Morgoth (Galadriel is literally compared by Adar to a potential successor to Morgoth in season 1 by the way). As he was under the rings.

[itsmemuffy]

When I published my first post, wanted to keep the momentum going. It was my goal to post weekly and well.... it's been two weeks ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I abandoned all my little drabbles to focus on a full-length fic that is becoming waaay longer than I anticipated. Thought I'd post a little WIP Wednesday to make sure I don't go back into the ether. Can't wait to have this one finished, I've been having a lot of fun writing it.

Contents: Original Trilogy! Logan x fem reader, naive reader, obsessive Logan, suggestive content, Charles makes an appearance

Summary: You keep everything running as smooth as possible in the background while Professor Xavier keeps a very full plate of locating mutants, running the school, and leading the X-Men. A steady stream of mutants come and go through the mansion, but a certain one in particular makes it his mission to nestle his way into your life.

The past few days had been a whirlwind for Logan. He's the type of man that goes where he wants to go- and waking up in an infirmary on a small hospital cot after being round up like some sort of animal was not on his list of things to do that week, to say the least.

For all intents and purposes, his next plan of action was to get away from here as soon as he possibly could and get back to the life he lived on his own terms. His only home and form of transportation was totalled somewhere in the Alberta wilderness, sure, but he already had experience starting over from nothing.

When he first met you, a cute little thing diligently running errands to what was perhaps the one man who could have his answers, you immediately piqued Logan's interest. So sweet and so kind, and Charles put his trust in you?

He had barged in like he owned the place on you and the professor scheduling out the upcoming semester in his office. Charles appeared to have already gotten used to this type behavior from him. "This, my dear, is Logan. He will hopefully be joining us now."

Oh... so is he planning to stick around? You ponder as you bite the inside of your cheek, leaning onto Charles' desk with your hip. Logan immediately came off as brooding and dismissive, and he didn't seem like the type to settle into a place beaming with so much activity. Regardless, you extended your hand out to him as you told him your name.

It took him a second to register the gesture. He only now noticed how lost in thought he was, eyes caught below your neckline. With a clearing of his throat, Logan reached a hand back to you to shake it. The most formal of ways to greet someone, yet the feeling of your delicate fingers grasping his rough palm caused his mind to wander again. He forced himself back to reality.

"I guess I'll be seeing you around" Logan remained aloof in speech, hoping you didn't notice the way he devoured you with his gaze. He decided to promptly remove himself from the room, searching for the privacy to be alone with his thoughts.

A few interactions after your initial introduction, Logan started to feel something beyond sexual curiosity. You made his heart race, you made him nervous.

Not a single detail went unnoticed by Logan. The way your hips would sway, how you parted your hair, the lipstick you wore, the softness in your voice whenever you greeted him, your scent.

Life kept throwing change in Logan's way, morphing his way of living into something unrecognizable to him. For the last however many years (boy, is he ever bad at keeping track of time) he had filled them with isolation and taking whatever cheap pleasures he could find. Now he finds himself surrendering the space in his mind to a woman he barely knew. You brought warmth and light into a cold, dark place.

No, this wont fly, he thought to himself. The fact that he was losing control over the dynamic between you made him very uncomfortable. Logan made it his mission to learn more about you. If he could just figure you out, he could take the reins over again.

The two of you would always acknowledge eachother in a group setting. The tiny smile Logan would throw your way whenever you caught eyes made you weak. You couldn't help but to want to know more about him too. A rugged man who was a stranger not too long ago was showing you consideration? A man who nobody knows where he's been, what he's done, how old he is? It kind of racked your brain, but you tried not to let it trip you up.

Oh, but he would catch you trip up. It wasn't lost on Logan the times you entered a space with him in it, seemingly to forget what you came in there for. Maybe you were a little ditzy- your mind often racing too fast that you couldn't catch up with yourself, but it had happened too many times for it to be a coincidence. At least, that's what he told himself.

He replicated your behavior, scouting you out amongst the mansion. It wasn't hard for him to find you. Your trail had become so much bolder to his senses, overshadowing anybody else that could be in vicinity.

Logan always found what he was looking for. Excuse after excuse slipped easily from his lips. Obvious to everyone else what he was doing, you earnestly took the bait every time without fail. He marked the first time he had a conversation with you alone as a significant victory.

"Hey, didn't see you there. Have you seen Charles around? I need to talk to him." He had cornered you in the library, watching you read for a minute or two before making his presence known.

You flinched up in your chair, "Jesus Logan, don't sneak up on me like that!" The yelp that initially left your lips was definitely a sound he would remember next time he's alone.

"Sorry, doll. Didn't mean to scare ya," he chuckled.

The upset you felt towards him for breaking your flow state lasted but half a second. You couldn't be mad. After all, whatever he needed Charles for must of been important.

"No, Jean and him are off chaperoning a field trip in the city. He should be back sometime this evening."

Logan let out a little "hmph", trying his best sound to sound disappointed. Inside he was estatic he finally caught up to you again. Now with no one else around, his mind flooded with possibilities on how this could go. The odds of you immediately throwing yourself at him weren't zero, were they? If he were to take you and bend you over the table right this very second, there was a possiblility you'd let him... right? God, am I really this desperate? he thought.

After letting a moment hang in the air, he sat down next to you in the ajacet seat. "So, what are you doing here all by yourself? Got nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon, huh?" Good idea, Logan, change the subject.

"You're one to talk," your focus was now one hundred percent on him. Thighs spread as he lazily leaned back in the chair, rolling his head ro the side. To say he wasn't beautiful like this would be a lie. You've rarely seen him this relaxed. "Aren't you here too?"

"Huh." Logan did not anticipate you to call him out like that, "I guess you've got a point."

An awkward silence sat between the two of you. You pretended to divert your attention back to your book, not letting him escape the corner of your eye. Logan lit up a cigar he fished from his pocket. He desperately needed something to do with his hands.

"This is a library, you know that right?" You chide him after an annoyed sigh.

"Oh, is it now? I thought all these books were just for decoration." His lips sucked in another drag.

"Very expensive books, Logan. There's plenty of perfecly fine places to smoke around here if you just look."

He got up from his seat, "Then why don't you show me around, darlin'? Open my eyes a little." You couldn't quite tell if the pet name was to belittle you or to be affectionate. A hand reached out to bring you to stand. "I'll let you lead the way."