#juniper means the world to me

[tidbi-t-art]

Juniper of Colony Tau

[eyeballteaa]

I love the idea of queerplatonic rowaniper. It’s the kind of qpr where it’s kinda like a romantic relationship but it’s not EXACTLY a romantic relationship like romantic doesn’t describe the full extent of what’s happening because it’s entirely something else at the same time

[blujayonthewing]

brain too bad to think good so just reading some general folklore and feeling out vibes and writing things down and letting it all gently stew in the very slow cooker in my skull

[burr-ell]

Something I just noticed and really enjoy about Campaign 1 is how often their story involves becoming incredibly powerful and accomplishing so much and yet still not being able to do what's truly important to them. It's not only the gutpunch of the final episode, it's a thematic underpinning throughout the campaign.

Way back in their prestream adventures, the party was strong enough to defeat the Dread Emperor and save all the kidnapped children from Tal'Dorei—except one, a child Keyleth killed by accident, an act which haunts her through at least much of the early campaign. The party defeats the Briarwoods and reclaims Whitestone, but Ripley still escapes and 19 still misses, and the Chroma Conclave raze half the continent. Percy has great intellect and access to a powerful magical amplifier and forced out a demon through sheer force of will, but his carelessness still killed Vex and he only rolls a 6 to try to save her. The party has slain a dragon and is armed with four Vestiges of Divergence, but they couldn't save Tiberius and can't even give him the proper burial they want to. They brutally slaughter Ripley, but not before she gets the revenge she wants; she kills Percy, sending him to Orthax, and spreads guns throughout Exandria. The Conclave is slain, the whole party made it out alive, but Scanlan is forever scarred by the experience and leaves, tearing the party down as he goes. Even Vilya, prior to the campaign's beginning, was at the very end of her Aramente, likely a level 16-17 druid like Keyleth was, and still failed the trial of the Water Plane and was gone for almost 40 years.

And of course, Vox Machina became some of the most powerful people in the world, slayers of a god, legends to be immortalized for centuries...and none of their power could save their brother.

Percy points out to Bell's Hells, thirty years later, that fate isn't always kind and not everyone gets a second chance, and to me that's underscored by what we don't see. Elaina is still dead. Juniper is still dead. Percy's parents and five siblings are all still dead.

I mean, if any or all of their bodies are intact, it wouldn't even require True Resurrection to bring them back—not that Keyleth or Percy are averse to a little heresy, but hey, conserve your resources. If there are bodies, all they'd need is 7th-level Resurrection; none of those people have been dead for over a century, and if they need to find the bodies, well, Vex has Locate Object and Pike gets a Divine Intervention freebie once a week, right? Even if they did need True Resurrection, it's a heftier cost but probably not something too difficult to pay over time for one of the wealthiest families in the world.

But none of them have ever done that, nor do we get an indication that they've pursued it. Vox Machina is, probably more than any other CR party, defined by grief—how individual PCs respond to their own profound losses; how they succeed and fail to shoulder each others' burdens; and at the end of their story, how they deal with one of the most painful losses imaginable, and how they move forward and find peace in spite of it. Campaign 1 is just as much about how to deal with what you couldn't do as it is about what you now can do.

[arc-misadventures]

What Are Those: In some stories, due to their nature, dragons seek, avoid and attack certain places/objects. Fire dragons seek anything and anywhere that gives heat, Ice dragons avoid said heat while Holy dragons attack anything that's impure. We know Jaune seeks precious gems. Is there anything that he would avoid and attack?

I Am A Creature of Stereotypes, Evidently

Ruby: Okay… here’s one for you: “The more I take the more I leave behind.”

Yang: Uhhh… Air?

Ruby: Nope.

Yang: Crap.

Weiss: Dirt?

Ruby: Also no.

Weiss: What?

Jaune: Foorsteps.

Ruby: Correct! Okay, next one: “If two is a company, and three is a crowd, what is four, and five.

Weiss: Four is a quartet right?

Ruby: Yes, but that’s not the answer.

Weiss: What?

Blake: It makes sense, five is a pentagon, I don’t think that works as an answer.

Ruby: Nope~!

Yang: Then what is it?

Jaune: Nine.

Ruby: Correct!

Weiss: What? That doesn’t make any sense?

Yang: Four, and five… equals nine…

Weiss: That’s a stupid answer!

Ruby: Okay next riddle! “Iron roof, glass walls. Burns, and burns, but never falls.”

Blake: Iron roof, and glass walls?

Weiss: Never falls…

Yang: Is it a…?

Jaune: A lantern.

Ruby: Correct!

Yang: What?!

Blake: How does he keep doing this?’

Ruby: “I have rivers without water, forests without trees, mountains without rocks, and towns without houses.”

Yang: So it’s an image then? It has those things, but it doesn’t have them…

Weiss: Oh! Its a…?!

Jaune: A map.

Weiss: A map?! Gods dammit?! I had it!

Blake: That’s one to us! Right?

Ruby: Mmmm… neither of you get the point.

Yang: Dammit.

Ruby: Okay… Oh here’s a good one!

Ruby: Ahem: “I begin eternity, and end space. At the end of time, and in every place. Last in life, second to death. Never alone. Found in your breath. Contained by earth, water or flame. My grandeur so awesome. Wind dare not tame. Not in your mind. Am in your dreams. Vacant to Kings, present to Queens.”

Weiss: Huw…?

Blake: That is a good one…

Yang: It would be better if I knew the answer?!

Jaune: The letter ‘E.’

Ruby: Correct!

Weiss: Oh come on?!

Blake: Already?!

Yang: How is the letter ‘E’ the fucking answer?!

Jaune: Simple: The answer is found when you think literally, not metaphorically.

Yang: Eh?

Weiss: ‘End of Time.’ Time ends with the letter ‘E.’

Blake: ‘Vacant in kings, present in queens.’ Queen has the letter, ‘E’ in it, and kings doesn’t…

Yang: …

Yang: I hate riddles…

Ruby: Ah-ha… H-Here’s an easy one: ‘What kind of ear cannot hear?’

Weiss: A deaf one?

Ruby: No.

Weiss: How is that not the answer?!

Yang: Ear hair…?

Ruby: Eww, gross!

Yang: But, am I wrong…?

Ruby: Yes, yes you are wring.

Yang: Shit!

Blake: Uhhh…? A… A…?

Weiss: You have no idea do you?

Blake: No…

Ruby: Haa… Jaune?

Jaune: An ear of corn.

Ruby: Correct!

Weiss: Oh?! Give me that book!

Ruby: What… hey?!

Weiss: Okay, Jaune here’s one for you: “He who makes me doesn’t want me, he who buys me doesn’t need me, he who uses me doesn’t care.”

Jaune: A casket.

Weiss: What!! How did you… grrrr! Never mind. Next riddle! “I run through hills; I veer around mountains.I leap over rivers, and crawl through the forests. Step out your door to find me.” What is it…?!

Jaune: Roads.

Weiss: Okay…?! Let’s continue shall we…?!

Yang: I think we should take that book away from her.

Blake: I’m afraid she’ll bite me if I try…

Weiss: Okay… “I am a portal to another world, I can take you to places unseen, but I require no magic spell to open. What am I?”

Jaune: A book.

Weiss: MOTHER FU…?!!!

Yang: We’re in public, Weiss! Don’t scream your head off!

Juniper: Oh my? What’s going on by on here?

Ruby: I was just asking my team some riddles, and I think, Weiss is angry that he keeps on answering the riddles. I’m not really sure though.

Blake: Probably has to deal with the speed of which he is answering them too. I mean, here’s a riddle for you, Jaune: “I have a heart that never beats, I have a home but I never sleep. I can take a man’s house and build another’s. And I love to play games with my many brothers. What am I?”

Jaune: The king of hearts.

Blake: Correct.

Weiss: You didn’t even fucking think about it?! You’re cheating!

Blake: And, that’s why, Weiss is upset.

Ruby: I think it’s more so to do with her pride of not answering any herself.

Blake: Probably.

Juniper: Ahh you silly girls; You asked a dragon to play a game of riddles. You were bound to lose eventually, Jaune is a master of riddles. It’s honestly a little scary.

Jaune: What’s scary about my love for riddles?

Juniper: Nothing really, It’s just weird overall.

Jaune: And, why is that?

Juniper: No reasons. Now girls, let me give you the ultimate riddle for, Jaune! Okay, Jaune sweetie; “What have I got in my pocket?”

Blake: That riddle from that book?

Weiss: Then that means that the answers a…!

Jaune: A condom.

Blake: A ring! Wait, what?!

Yang: You’re kidding me… That’s not the answer.

Ruby: Is he right?

Juniper: H-How did you know?!

Weiss: HE’S RIGHT?!

Yang: Seriously.

Jaune: I can smell the latex.

Blake: You know what a condom smells like?

Jaune: She waved them in my face for an hour when she was showing me ‘how’ to use them. I remember that smell…

Juniper: And, that is good so you remember how to have safe sex.

Jaune: You told me not to use them because it, and I quote: “Condoms cut off the circulation to my penis, and make it fall off. So don’t use them.” End quote. So knowing that girls: “Why does my mom want me to use a condom?”

Ruby: To actually have safe sex?

Yang: Yeah, I mean you’ve already done it with a few girls. Hopefully me too… You don’t want them to end up pregnant, and ruin their careers now do you?

Jaune: Wrong.

Weiss: Those answers make complete sense.

Blake: How is that wrong?

Jaune: Simple: Mom punched a hole into the tip of the condom with a pin, rendering them useless.

Ruby: That’s not why you’re giving him those condoms now is it?

Juniper: Dammit, I’ve become predictable…

Ruby: W-W-What…?

Yang: Wait seriously?!

Blake: Talk about baby fever…

Weiss: Thank goodness you used a working one when you slept with my mom. Right, Jaune?

Ruby: Wait, You did sleep with her mom?!

Yang: I thought that was just a wild rumour?! You actually did it?!

Jaune: Uhhh…

Weiss: Y-You used protection… R-Right, Jaune…?

Jaune: Well, you see…

Weiss: Jaune… did you use protection…?

Jaune: I’m not saying she… But, I’ll take responsibility… Okay?

Weiss: Ahh… I see…

(Thud!)

Ruby: Weiss?!

Yang: Great, she fainted again…

Blake: Wait… You slept with, Weiss’s mother?! How the hell did that happen?!

Jaune: She discovered a new kink for me, and I lost it… okay?

Yang: What new kink?!

Jaune: I’m not answering that!

Juniper: So… does that mean grand babies…?

Jaune: Uhhh…?

Juniper: Grand babies~?

Jaune: Oh no…

[lkaruss]

An extensive KFP 4 rant (spoiler heavy)

So, Kung Fu Panda 4 was… an experience. It took about 3 glasses of whiskey to get through it.

There is so much wrong with this movie, from the pacing to lore breaking issues. However, this is an attempt at trying to formulate my opinions regarding the film, and explain why certain story decisions were detrimental.

My live reaction to the film:

The movie makes it clear right from the start that it was made for very young children. It’s filled to the brim with jokes. If there is a chance to make a joke, then there is a joke. Regardless if it's appropriate or if it hurts the story/lore/characters. In normal circumstances, this would be offset by the fact that the jokes are creative and unpredictable, but they aren’t. I would say most of them can be seen either from a mile away, or they just fall flat. I think I only managed to laugh once or twice when Po’s dads were doing something, but outside of that, the film couldn’t get a chuckle out of me. On the contrary, I found many to be cringe, and some even made me uncomfortable.

But why am I talking so much about the jokes? In the previous Kung Fu Panda films, the jokes were used to break tension. The way the seriousness of the story and the jokes were in harmony is what made those films so memorable and impactful. The story (and films) took itself seriously, but it would sprinkle in jokes that fit the universe, the situation, and most importantly originated from the scene themselves. 

Compared to this, the jokes in KFP 4 are, unoriginal, forced, and usually can be traced back to pop-culture. The last one being important as the original Kung Fu Panda films stayed away from referencing pop-culture as it would break the immersion and authenticity of the setting.

This ties into the ERA that these films depict.

Setting

Based on my limited understanding, the original films have done an excellent job at depicting a world that is supposedly set in an authentic ancient China. From the way names are handled, to symbolisms, everything was well done.

The same cannot be said about Kung Fu Panda 4.

I’m not an expert on chinese culture, but from what chinese friends have told me, „Juniper” city doesn’t sound Chinese at all, or has a meaning in Chinese. It’s essentially a Latin word for a common plant that can be found all over the globe.

The architecture of the city is also questionable. It’s trying to give off a metropolitan feel, which doesn’t fit the ERA. Additionally, the architecture of the buildings is odd. It’s like a mesh of the architecture of several Asian cultures.

Then there are some of the names. „Steve” and „Scott” to be specific. These are the names of some masters and I don’t think I need to explain why these don’t fit the setting at all.

I was constantly questioning what movie I was watching as it was hard to believe this is Kung Fu Panda.

Identity crysis

What made me question the film’s identity the most however is the story.

This 4th film felt like a 1st installment rather than a sequel. It conveniently disregards everything from the previous movies that would contradict its plot and world.

The film immediately starts with Shifu coming out of nowhere and saying Po has to choose a new Dragon Warrior at that very moment. Not only did this feel incredibly random, but it’s also thematically incorrect.

First off, why is Shifu saying this? Why would he want Po to pass on his „title” if it's destiny? Why would he want him to do it now? Why did he not even consider ANYONE FROM THE FIVE and instead got 5 randos as candidates out of the blue?

The issue with the whole premise is incredibly flawed. Let me explain…

Po was chosen as the dragon warrior in the first film. There he proved his worth as such. The key to this is that he is the chosen one because it’s his destiny to deal with threats that no one else can. 

This doesn’t necessarily mean that he is the best. He is the guy who is and will be in the right place at the right time, with the right tools to deal with threats that no one else can deal with. But I digress, it's a different topic.

The point is that Po’s role as the Dragon Warrior is his destiny. The „title” merely represents that role in the world. So you can pass the title to anyone you want, but that does not change the fact that due to destiny, it’s still going to be Po’s role.

This is not just a coincidence though. Po has shown many times that he has a very open view of the world. This is then combined with his traits of being is warm, outgoing, energetic, friendly, goofy, and unorthodox. He represents the Dragon, Yang in the Yin Yang.

All of this is important to understanding why there is only 1 dragon warrior, and that is Po. End of the story.

The film however completely throws all of this out the window and goes with the new Dragon Warrior plot anyway.

That means the new Dragon Warrior is literally right there next to him. Master Tigress.

Now you might be asking why that would be the case.

This film, although throws out all the symbolisms of the previous films, still shouldn’t disregard the other characters that are around Po.

The 2 characters work like the 2 sides of the Yin-Yang, as complementary forces. They are opposite forces that need each other in order to create balance. 

Her influence is extremely necessary throughout the three films, particularly the second and third. It is her companionship, her support, and her constant push against Po’s natural instincts that lead to the best outcome.

Po has achieved a lot of spiritual enlightenment and character development. A lot of it through his own means, but without Tigress he wouldn't be where he is right now.

The Yang is the strongest when it contains the Yin, and the Yin is the strongest when it contains the Yang.

But this dynamic goes both ways. Although we mostly see the effects of this relationship on Po as the films focus on him, it has also changed Tigress. This leads to her opening up more and being more expressive as the films went on, giving us glimpses into the compassionate person she truly is.

While symbolically she is not the dragon, the 4th film establishes that it doesn’t care about the symbolisms or anything that the previous films have established. So naturally a character that compliments Po this well,  should be put into the spotlight and get the character development that she deserves. A character that went through serious changes, but is still left incomplete. You might as well make her the new Dragon Warrior then.

She - altough deserved the title the most even in the first film - lacked the ability to see the world from a perspective that's required to handle certain situations. The Dragon Warrior is way more than just being the perfect warrior. Po's presence was necessary for her to change her attitude. Leading to her slowly becoming her best self. Knowing all of this, it's not such a wild thought that if there has to be a new person who takes over that role, then Tigress would be a great choice for that.

But what is there for her to learn from Po? Spirituality.

Tigress has always been a grounded, by-the-book character. This can be mostly attributed to her upbringing. Her changing and becoming more open, seeing things differently would have been something interesting to explore, and this would also take care of the issue of the „new trilogy” copying the original trilogy’s main character development.

However, the film completely ignores her existence, and the new Dragon Warrior is instead a random Zootopia fox.

The (new) deuteragonist

There is so little to say about Zhen. The best thing I could compare her to is an untreated wooden board. 

It’s rough, full of splinter, and there are many like it. Probably one of the most cliché characters I have seen in a very long time.

She is generic, has an overused „misunderstood fox thief” trope, and a character arc that is so predictable that we all knew what was going to happen just from reading the film’s synopsis at the beginning of 2023.

Her backstory is a copy of Tigress’ except if Shifu was evil. An orphan who is taken in by a master who emotionally neglects her. Said orphan doing what her master wants in order to be loved/accepted by said master. Except that Zhen doesn’t seem to have any attachment or loyalty to the Chameleon. So the „Sad backstory” fails to garner any sympathy towards the character.

Her dynamic with Po is non-existent, which is why their „friendship” is forced. The creators tried so hard to make the two bond, that they forgot to give them time, shared experiences, or anything that would resemble an emotional connection between them. They just quickly went over everything that they have in common in a dialogue and that’s it. There was no prerequisite completed that would make Po care about Zhen or vice versa.

Furthermore, Zhen doesn’t fit the traits that the dragon has, she is not spiritual either or has an open view of the world. So why is she the new one then?

And I wanted to avoid talking about this, but the character is a textbook Mary Sue.

per wikipedia

Zhen is more than capable in a fight to keep up with Po, even though it was not shown why she is so good at fighting. One thing is for sure, she shouldn’t know Kung Fu as she certainly didn’t learn it from her „master” the Chameleon if the film’s plot has any consistency.

She is not only able to manipulate Chi, but also to use Po’s staff without knowing anything about either of those.

A previous character’s role being retconned so that she can take it for herself (See the rant about the Dragon Warrior title above)

She always gets along with characters that matter, getting what she wants. 

No real character drawbacks.

A throwaway character like this, should be a minor support character, not the new main protagonist for crying out loud.

Her inadequacies are so blatant as a character, that no wonder they didn’t even want to have at the very least Tigress in the film as Zhen would immediately become irrelevant to the audience. They put all the spotlight they could on her, at the expense of the story, and in the end achieved nothing in return.

Tell me with a straight face that a character that has an entire movie focusing on them - who still remains a generic, boring character by the end, without any story potential - should be the new main protagonist. The fact that most people don’t even refer to the character by her name, but by the actress’ name Awkwafina should tell you everything about how memorable she is.

Most new characters and animal designs don’t fit the KFP art style.

A good example of this is Zhen.

This is how a fox would look like in Nico Marlet’s KFP style:

And this is what we got:

Sorry, wrong picture. I meant this:

Now, I’m not a character designer, or a professional artist, I only draw a couple of his characters, but I can see that this is way too far off from his work. If not from personal experience, then from the interviews that Nico Marlet himself gave.

The same issue applies to the villain of the film, the chameleon, but atleast with her they tried (somewhat).

The Villain

They say a film is as good, as its villain. This seems to be true in the case of this film too.

The Chameleon sucks.

She has no connection to anyone from the cast. She has no emotional leverage or pressure on the cast. She is not scary or powerful enough to make the audience care about the cast. Her motivation is so terrible, it might be one of the reasons why the Five was kept out of the film because their mere existence single-handedly demolishes her reason for breaking bad.

Outside of this, the character is unoriginal and uninspired. She basically can “lick” people and steal their Kung Fu? I honestly don't know how to put this into words because it doesnt make any lick of sense (I did the funny). If anything it's a budget version of Kai.

They didn’t even bother to give her a name.

What I will say though is that Viola Davis did what she could with what she was given. I found it amusing that she managed to give the chameleon those serious villainous vibes, while at the same time, the character is a joke. If that’s not a testament to the voice actor’s abilities then I don’t know what is. She was definitely wasted on this role.

As for the “returning villains”. I knew they were only there for cash-grab from the moment they said that all of them would return. Shen, is dead. He is not a Kung Fu master, he doesn’t have any connection with Chi, and he hasn’t been banished to the spirit realm. Then there is Kai, whose soul/spirit doesn’t exist anymore.

The only one that could ever return was Tai Lung. However, due to the gravity of his character, if he does return it has to be done perfectly regardless of what direction his character takes.

Now, many of us knew from the start that whatever they were gonna do with him would be bad (I mean there is a massive beef between Tigress and him, and yet she is not even in the film), but I think I speak for all of us when I say that they managed to somehow lowball it even worse than expected.

Basically, the Chameleon brings him back from the spirit realm, licks the Kung Fu out of him, he says like 3-4 lines, and returns to the spirit realm…. what the actual f*ck.

I’m sure I don’t need to go into a 10-paragraph rant on how much storytelling potential was wasted with this, because everyone knows. From reconciling with his dad, to her little sister having a crazy beef with him, to having to accept all the wrongs he did, accepting that he is not the Dragon warrior etc. etc. etc…

There was always only 1 chance of bringing him back. If he came back in a new film or show (again) it wouldn’t have anywhere near the same impact as it should, and it would also feel weird to the audience.

DreamWorks, you had 1 chance to bring this guy back, and you wasted it all on this film.

The non-existent magic system.

Or rather, how this film didn’t care about it at all.

Kung Fu Panda has a relatively grounded world. It’s animals that do Kung Fu based on their natural abilities. The closest thing we got to supernatural was Chi, but it was well handled in the 3rd film in my opinion.

Chi is life force and not magic. This means if you use it, you are exhausting your own life force. This means you would only use it in certain situations, such as healing someone who is mortally wounded, or perhaps to enhance an attack in a desperate fight.

The film doesn’t care about this and handles it as just a regular, inexhaustible force of energy. This can mostly be seen with Po as he uses it whenever he feels like it.

The other type of magic is what the Chameleon is using. It’s not explained, or shown how it works. It’s just there to further progress the plot so that the character can take the Kung Fu from others. (Seriously, how does that work?)

The Kung Fu action

The fight scenes were also a downgrade compared to the previous films.

In KFP 4 they felt less energetic, less grounded, and overall too cartoonish. As an example, Po can jump ridiculously high because… I don’t know, I guess the film just ignores the fact that he is Panda who sometimes even struggles to pull himself up to a rooftop. 

The previous films incorporated the strengths and weaknesses of the animals that fought. Po is not very mobile, but he is very durable, and his fighting style compliments this. However, when he really needs to get somewhere, his lack of mobility is then offset by his friends, the Furious Five.

The Furious Five

Their absence can be severely felt throughout the movie. That is because in their place was a generic character that had forced interactions with Po.

They have great synergy with him, that cannot be replicated, however minor their role might be sometimes. They serve as a great way to fill in those empty spots in the story, and to elevate the villain. Additionally, their fight scenes are entertaining and help to spice up the choreography.

Although they are great companions, if the film really doesn’t have the time to spare for them, then it's understandable if they aren’t around. However the same cannot be said about Tigress.

A Kung Fu Panda film has to have Po and Tigress interact, due to the reasons already explained above regarding her, and also because of the following:

They are direct opposites, which is why their relationship is so entertaining, regardless if you look at them as platonic best friends, or as a potential couple. 

Po is warm, outgoing, brash, energetic, friendly, goofy, and unorthodox, however, he is also serious when needed. While Tigress is introverted, calm, calculated, passive, and intuitive, but deep down she is also a very compassionate and conflicted person that we rarely see. This is then in conjunction with the emotional bond that the previous films have built up between them. These are the reasons why just putting these two in a room is enough to create entertaining scenarios. They add a lot of fun, heartfelt, and emotional moments to every film.

Whenever Po is facing a problem, she is right there to help him through it, whether by talking it through or by beating some sense into him (literally).

She has always been quintessential in Po’s development and motivations.

Memberberries, Memberberries everywhere…

It was jarring to see the film disregarding the existence of the previous movies to justify its plot, but at the same time heavily relied on tropes, and scenes from said films. I’m not kidding when I say that there were moments that were ripped straight out of them.

One of those moments is the standoff between Po and Zhen before the final fight. Zhen wants to stop Po to avoid him getting hurt, but the fight ends with her hugging Po….

Yeah… it was a blatant copy of the prison scene from the 2nd film. However, I think the 2 scenes here perfectly encapsulate why the previous films worked, and why the 4th film doesn’t.

The prison scene in the 2nd film was essentially an emotionally unstable Po being held back by a caring Tigress. Po is so focused on getting to the truth that he forgets the reason they are there, and would put his and his friends’ lives in jeopardy to know what happened to him and his parents. So much so that Po was ready to get beaten to a pulp by Tigress instead of staying down there and waiting until the Five finished the task.

But instead of that happening, Tigress saw how lost Po was, and realized she needed to calm him down to help him understand their situation. And so the person who has always been portrayed as an unfeeling, hardcore, essentially perfect warrior gave Po an unexpected hug and told him he is too important for her to lose him.

This moment has gravity and weight, because of how she is perceived, because of how Po views her, and because Tigress was forced out of her comfort zone to emotionally connect with Po, to help him. It’s a moment of pure comradery and care towards each other that ascends the situation they are in. It’s a moment that in many ways defined their relationship going forward.

In comparison to this, the scene that copied this in the 4th film has none of the emotional underlinings that I discussed, and so it falls flat and feels cringe rather than heartfelt and warm. This is mainly due to Po and Zhen having no connection, bond, or reason to care about each other. But then there is the other element that I discussed when talking about the villain. Po is in no real danger, and it never felt like he was.

Production

From the early leaks, it was blatantly obvious that the production of this film was rushed. Between the artificially forced plot, the generic character designs, the non-existence of the Five, the lack of time, money, commitment, and care was apparent.

However, due to an interview that the Co-director did with some folks on the subreddit discord, light was shed on the nightmare that was the production. I won’t go into details, as everyone should read the Q&A for themselves, but I’ll touch upon a point that was brought up as an excuse for this film turning out the way it did.

(this is a real concept art from the production btw)

Some are saying the reason the film turned like this was due to the budget restriction. That they simply didn’t have the money to have characters like Tigress return due to Angelina Jolie costing a ridiculous amount of money.

But then I have to ask: They had the budget for characters like Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), Po’s dads (James Hong & Bryan Cranston), Tai Lung (Ian McShane), who in the end turned out to be completely irrelevant to the story, but not at the very least for Tigress (Angelina Jolie)?

I’m not saying that you cannot make a story with these characters, because you obviously could make a great one. What I’m trying to point out is if you have such a limited budget, are you really going to blow it all on actors who play characters that essentially add nothing to the story? This is why I call bullshit on them not getting at least Angelina Jolie back to play Tigress. 

Let’s not even mention how you could always recast these characters anyway (although it's clear that the execs are the ones forcing the use of A-list actors).

So for the sake of the argument, let’s come up with a story, that has a reason to exist, has characters that you can do something with, and fits the budget that you are given.

For me - considering that this film was essentially a buddy adventure film - it's an easy task. Just have Po help Tigress explore her origins. I know it's cheesy and basic, but at the very least you have what’s needed for a decent story that would be able to expand on a beloved character, and even help develop Po into a spiritual leader as he has to aid her best friend.

Another idea is what my friend and I had come up with. Have Po bring Lei Lei (now much older, and is a student under him and Tigress) on an adventure. You wouldn’t even need Tigress to appear in the film, because these characters would reference her many times. Lei Lei is a copy of Po in the sense that she wanted to do Kung Fu because she puts Tigress on a pedestal. Because of how influential she was in her life, Lei Lei’s personality is a copy of Tigress’.

I’m just shooting ideas here, but at least these wouldn’t ruin the continuity of the franchise and would be able to navigate the studio limitations that the creators had to face. (from the ones we know of).

"Limitation is the mother of creativity"

KFP 4 was a shallow, artificial story that didn't add anything to the franchise, only degraded it and stripped it of it's remaining value. It's missing the foundations of a KFP film, such as the heart, artistry, and warmth. It's not unexpected as none of the original brains worked on this film.

So what can be expected from this franchise going forward?

Well, not much honestly. It was a weak attempt by DreamWorks to continue the main storyline, not for the sake of the story, but to milk as much money out of it as they can. Even though with a little bit of effort they really could have at least made a good film in the end. However, between the incompetence of the decision makers, the rushed production, and the new people not knowing much about the franchise, that was never going to happen.

The only thing that we can hope for is a spinoff (which is about a decade late at this point), that focuses on Tigress. It’s the only way I see anything for this franchise going forward and hopefully, this film served as a wakeup call for the executives.

Thank you to those who had the patience to read through my inessential rant. Let me know what you guys think about the film.

[astralnymphh]

patterned palmistry ⋆ | ellie williams headcanons

༺ ellie x witch!reader headcanons/scenarios ༻ ☽𖤐☾

✧˖ ° 🕯 bright blessings!

an: being the witchy little gremlin i am i just had to throw some hcs together for myself but ofc i'd share them here🙄ive been practicing witchcraft since i was 15 so it felt fitting to incorporate it whenever i brace my delusions at the bootycrack of midnight that r all abt ellie 💀 regardless this def isnt gonna be my only witchy hcs post i just didnt wanna spoil all my ideas right away <3 tags: MDNI, slight nsfw (no detailed smut), boob jokes, witchcraft (obv), tarot, palm reading, mostly convos, flirting, not mentioned in the writing but u 2 r alrdy dating, playful bickering, more natural casual writing with some bigger words, no specific religion tied to the practice, generally a fluff piece, lowk cute moments. °________________________⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆__________________________°

I. ☆ ellie definitely had a peak in curiosity the first time you mentioned you immerse yourself in the world of the craft, her ears perked figuratively and were tuned in to learn what that entails. she may not forfeit a nip of skepticism right away but she's more than happy to engross herself in the idea of it. you'd stay up till first light rambling on about the 'rituals', 'divination', the history tied to it and why you practice it. you'd be lying in bed adjacent to her, heavenward to the ceiling, but interwoven in a warm and loving cuddle with her palm residing on your lap whilst you chatted.

"mmmmh-" ellie's hum churns 'round your bedroom, "so that's why you collect rocks."

"crystals."

"same thing," she drones an inwardly giggle, "which crystal will give me superpowers?" a witty remark springs from her tongue.

"babe.." you pout, acting offended yet none is taken.

"didn't mean it like that, y'know I believe you, it's all just new to me." ellie tapes an assuring kiss to your temple, "tell me about your favorite crystals, hmm?" 

⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆

II. ☆ now because of this, anytime you're out on patrol and delight the opportunity of scavenging, she always keeps in mind to find you flowers, rocks, unused candles and other oddities of nature.

"hey babe! I found a black candle for'ya." ellie bolstered a long glass cylinder filled with an opaque charcoal wax, wick still intact, "and- ..some wild lavender." her other arm swings from behind her back, twines of dusty purple lavender upheld in a pinch.

"fuck yeah, needed this stuff.." you graciously tweak the lavender from her, whiffing up its poignant scent.

"always on the lookout.." her voice resembles her proud countenance outwards, essentially, a dorky smirk.

⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆

III. ☆ obviously, the second you mentioned the art of tarot to her, she begged for a reading. whenever a card flew from your shuffling motions, she'd patiently wait for you to place it before her and then she'd swipe it up and admire the art piece detailing the cardstock.

"whew! look at the boobs on this one!" 

"oh- my god, of course you'd point that out." you snatch the card from her, shamelessly ogling the nude depiction that had her attention.

"you're looking at them too!"

"cuz' you said something 'bout it!" you flick the card towards her face, noting, "those are some nice boobs though." 

"why thank you~" 

"wasn't talking about you, idiot!" 

"eh, but.. urs' are the best." her hoarse tone binds a nonchalant flirtiness in its rumble.

"oh really? should we compare the.. four?"

that really stole her attention.

⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆

IV. ☆ the first time you entertained her with a palm reading, it had her all dappy and touched to the essence at the paltry contact you made with her hand. your fingerprints drafting her calloused palms with such a gentle focus on every river lining her hand. she just wanted to smother you with kisses.

"and… this is your heart line." your finger hovers the crevice of her palm-pads stretching from index to pinkie, "ah.. it's a broken one.."

"is that.. bad?" her juniper eyes study your expression meticulously.

"it just means u're closed off, stubborn, have some emotional trauma.. stuff like that." you mindlessly fiddle with her fingers, "lines can change though, so.."

she nods, taking in the insight. she licks her slightly chapped lips clean, "am I stubborn?" her voice rises partially an octave, bending playfulness in her question.

"mm.. no."

"why'd you hesitate?"

"well- the only times ur' stubborn is refusing to let go whenever you hug me- ur' a life-size sloth!" 

"I like huggin' you though." a puppy pout frowns on her lips, "you're like a pillow!"

and oh, how your heart capers a beat, "is that all I am, williams?"

her swift speech conjuncts, "whaddid' I say about that name?!"

"I don't know, I think you like it." 

"nuh-uh I don't!"

you pepper a haste kiss to her knuckles still forcepped in your clasp, totally deterring the crime you've just committed when a half impish half taken aback smile creaks her lips.

"c'mere." vaults from her tongue before she lunges her body forward and tackles you in a saucy position riddled with love bites. guess you'll be reading her palms in a different way tonight.

⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆ V. ☆ an bonus hc, you'd totally mention out of the void about her tattoo n the mystic meanings surrounding moths, like, its for sure one of the topics you'll ramble about one night cause you just feel so wise for knowing. "y'know, moths play a pretty large role in the metaphysical world." "really? i mean, i knew they had some kind of.. 'symbolism' to them-" ellie's hand rolls over the knoll of her forearm, reading the bumps glamoured in that beautiful inking. "yeah, like- luna moths represent transformation, renewal.. oh! and death-head moths are an omen of death.. an- and black witch moths mean either good luck, or bad-" ellie is amused at your prattle shown by her raspy giggles, legitimately having to conceal her scrunched face. "what?" "nothin' you- you're just so cute." "stop.." the embarrassment catches up to you, now having to hide your face to the shadows beneath your hands. her finger cranes out to hook and uncover your nerdy grin, assuring, "never stop tellin' me bout this stuff, ok babe?" a wide delighted beam syncs on her cheeks. goddess above, her dimples and nasal lines are to die for. ⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆

𖤐

in general; she's a curious dork n will ask you oh so many questions, i mean, she loves space and a futuristic sci-fi comic for crying out loud, she's alrdy so imaginative so ofc she'd be open to a realistic amount. she'd also be so respectful and helpful n defend ur practice with so much love. maybe she'd pick up some little traditions and customs like folding letters a specific amount of times, drawing little pentacles, mixing liquid in specific directions, just the simple things that grow on her.

[blue-hi]

shuffled playlist tag game

sometimes friends tag me in these and i definitely mean to do them but i always forget. @leliesblou tagged me in one and i promise i'm not gonna forget this time!

Rules: you can tell a lot about a person by the music they listen to. Put a playlist on shuffle, list the first 10 songs and then tag people :)

i have a bunch of playlists, so i'm choosing my "bops only" one:

Safe & Sound - from The Hunger Games Soundtrack (Taylor Swift, The Civil Wars)

World's Smallest Violin (AJR)

The Devil Went Down to Georgia (The Charlie Daniels Band)

Father Finlee (Spence Hood, Justin Ray Stringer)

Rule #27 - Drunk on Pride (Fish in a Birdcage, Philip Bowen)

Will I Find My Home - Acoustic Version (Juniper Vale, Vian Izak)

Bang! (AJR)

Fire Fire (Steam Powered Giraffe)

Red Signal (The Mechanisms)

Ruin (The Amazing Devil)

there we go! i'll tag: @seismologically-silly, @gays4vulo, @vilesssserpent, @sol1loqu1st, @honeybeeofficial, @mlerf, @terriblelizbians, @astriiformes, and anyone else who wants to do it!

[historiaxvanserra]

You Fall On Me Like Night | A Prequel to All That Is Dark

Pairing: Azriel x Rhys'Sister!Reader

Summary: In the wake of your engagement to the Heir of Spring Azriel makes one final bid to make you his. But, as is the way of things, his devotion comes at much too high a cost.

Word Count: 4.5k

Warnings: not much really, discussions of oppression of the Illyrian's and using women as political pawns, forbidden romance and threat of violence.

This technically is part of the Az x Rhys!Sister (Solas is her nickname) universe which takes place before she is killed by Tamlin's family but can be read as a standalone fic! This is also a repost of a fic I took down a few weeks ago because I decided it wasn't very good.

The moon wanes languidly in the sky above Velaris and the heavens are cast in a shroud of opal that reflects on the surface of the sidra like spider silk; incandescent and gossamer thin. From this height Ramiel’s long shadows sink into the depths of the city below the House of Wind until Velaris is saturated in a darkness so deep that even Azriel’s shadows bend it. They whisper to you in the old language, so mournful and ancient, that only Azriel himself might infer some meaning from their song. You think he must have been born on a night like this. When the world is soaked in the hues of night; all onyx and obsidian as it bleeds across the sky until it reigns over the valley like tendrils of shadow, smothering all in its wake save for the silver starlight that pierces the veil of the black each night. 

The light and the dark bound together as you and he might be. 

The sounds of the wraiths as they work draws your mind from the darkness that plagues the city below and into the heart of your apartments in your father’s residence atop the crimson mountain that flanks the city of starlight. Nuala and Crrewidden look like the personification of shadow as they move throughout your rooms; each dressed in Night court black and adorned in dark jewels and beads that refract in the white light from the lanterns that hang on the dark stone walls. In their wake they leave the smell of smoked oak and juniper.

“Come, Princess.” Nuala beckons you to come and sit at the vanity table as she takes your comb in her slender hands, Nuala runs a smooth line down the lengths of your hair as she speaks to you again, in a voice rich and comforting.

“The High Lord will be here for you soon.” 

In the reflections of your rooms you see Crewwiden as she works. Diligently, adjusting the beautifully crafted garment that lay haphazardly on your bed so that it drapes over the comforter in a swathe of onyx silk. Nuala’s steady fingers press into the base of your skull as she pins your unbound hair up in style reminiscent of a crown. Braid laid over braid until it forms a dark diadem around the crown of your head. The wraith's slender fingers work intricate crystal pins into the center of each braid so that their many faces refract in the flickering fae-light. 

You wear those braids like armor that they might protect you against the dark brutality of the night ahead. 

“I had hoped he might have waited a little longer before selling me off.” You say with exasperation evident in your voice. The wraiths share an apprehensive look between them as you angrily run your fingers over the taut lines of your body as the midnight silk drapes over every curve and divot of your form. Its skirts are long and dusted with starlight so glitters silver and black under the light, the bodice itself embroidered with silver lace along the bust line and a line of onyx that curve over the swell of your breasts. It is the first time you’ve ever worn a garment so exquisite. A dress fit for a Lady of the Night Court. You think perhaps it is by design. A reminder of all that you are. All that you are expected to be.The obedient daughter to a capricious king and should the night go as your father had planned, the dutiful and docile wife to some scheming young Lord.

“You are a Princess of The Night Court.” Nuala tells you, her voice stern and slow. The crease in her forehead deepens as two slender brows draw tightly together as you select a cerulean necklace from your jewelry box, “It is your duty to be wed.”

You don’t want that to be your fate -- sold to the highest bidder -- forced to live under his hardened gaze until all the light has bled from you and all that is left is a terrible darkness from which you will never escape.

“Not if Azriel has anything to say about it.” You counter, your traitorous heart beating wildly in your chest as you meet Nuala’s hardened gaze. Your fingers tangle in the chain of the necklace that Azriel had given you last Solstice. When the light refracts and bends it bleeds into the shadows of the world beyond, it dapples the darkness like a thousand tiny stars until they are bound together eternally. 

As you and he are.

“The Shadowsinger is a good male but from this, not even he cannot save you.” The wraith asserts. Her fingers find the clasp of the necklace and set it in place over your heart. Nuala has always been the pragmatic one, in another life she would have made a fine diplomat you think. 

“Marriages are an important political process and from that you are not exempt, Princess.” She reminds you again.

“The Spring boy is your mate, is he not?” In the reflection of your vanity you see Cerridwen approach her sister and look longingly at your image in the glass. The makeup she had selected compliments your attire beautifully; dark kohl smudged along the outer corners of your eyes give you an almost feline grace and the rouge she had used on your lips and cheeks had come as a gift from the Heir of Spring himself. 

“And beautiful by all accounts.” Cerridwen says, smiling wickedly.

“A fine knight.” Nuala adds, her slender fingers curving round an exposed shoulder and smiling encouragingly in an attempt to dissuade you from your misery. 

“You could do a lot worse.” They agree, trading sly smirks in the reflection of the mirror. 

You think of the Male to whom you have been promised; Heir to the Spring Court painted in the colors of the first light. Golden hair the color of Velaris at dawn, eyes that glitter like star flecked pools of sapphire and his skin, white as the snow capped mountains that flank the city glows all incandescent like spider silk in the warm light. He could be your home, you think. 

But then you think of the Azriel; your dark star, cut from the dark stone of the Illyrian mountains. Dark and lethal. With a voice that cuts like the draw of Illyrian steel, and the words that you draw from him, whispered in the darkness of the night, spoken in the old tongue. Like secrets shared between lovers. His onyx curls that frame dark eyes, like the sacred soil on which you were both born. He is your home. 

And for all his darkness you love him anyway. 

“But I don’t love him,” The words are uttered with a deep sorrow and you feel all the light leave your body when the door to your apartments open, spelling your undoing. 

“Love has very little to do with it I’m afraid, little star.” It is your mothers voice that permeates the morose atmosphere that has enveloped the room. She looks so very lovely in the light of Velaris. 

Your mother and the Lady of the Night Court is a dark beauty; with onyx curls that fall about her strong shoulders and eyes the color of the sun-dappled earth of the Illyrian wilderness. With golden brown skin that glows bronze in the warm light and dark wings that sit high on her shoulders. She wears that darkness well. Like she was born from it. Because in a way she was; the Night Court might be her home now, but she is an Illyrian. Made from the same steel, carved from the same mountain stone, raised in the shadows of Ramiel. 

To be brutal and beautiful.

The wraiths take that as their leave to go about their duties. 

“Mother, I--” You fumble with the words under the weight of her concerned stare. 

“Your father has ordered Azriel to stay in Illyria tonight,” Your mother says empathetically, striding into the room and taking you in her arms, sinking to her knees before you. 

“He will not come for you, My love.” Her voice is soft and reverent as she strokes a gentle hand over your hair, cradling your head in her hands as she had done when you were a child. As if shielding you from the revelation. 

You know it is true. 

“I love him. I would choose him, always.” The words are whispered in reverence like a vow. To any deity who would listen. Even as children you and he had been drawn to one another. Born from the same star, she used to say. 

“Sometimes we do not get a choice, my love,” Your mother sighs deeply, almost wistfully, as if she herself is recalling her own great love. She takes your chin in her gentle hands and commands your gaze, and you fall into the depths of those eyes. 

“It will pass -- in time.” You see something dark that pools in the glassy depths of her eyes. It is something akin to rage; violent and brutal, bitter in ways that you scarcely understand. There is regret too. Grief even. For the life she had to give up. For the love you will have to forsake. 

“N-no, I love him,” The words are strained in your throat, coming out as a plea, a strangled cry that makes your mothers heart lurch. She presses tender kisses to your hairline as her hands brush away the tears as they begin to gather in your eyes, “In this life and every life after.” 

You repeat those words as Azriel had. A vow he made solemnly, in sight of the Old Gods. 

“Love like that is hard,” Your mother reasons, “You would have to give up everything and everyone else.” She says it with a pained edge to her voice. As though she would be prepared to let you go if it is what you truly wanted. 

“We would have each other.” It’s a little indignant and immature but the hours pass ever swiftly and your world feels as though it is closing in on your with every passing second.  

“Y’know, if I were a male,” You muse, full of wrath and envy, as you dry the tears that stain your cheeks, “Father would be content for me to fuck and fight until the mountains come down around us.”

Your mothers laughter rings in your ears like birdsong. 

A reminder that you and she bear the same rebellious heart. 

“Well fortunately for us all,” Your father’s voice drifts in on a night-chilled mist, the lovely velvet tenor tainted with the sharp edges of his ire,  “you are not a male and Ramiel doesn’t seem to be going anywhere soon.” 

From the fleeting darkness your father emerges.

“Father--” You greet sucking in a sharp breath, smoothing the skirts of your dress reflexively as he approaches you. 

“Fenrir.” Your parents regard each other in that moment and the air grows frigid. Like a collision of rage and wrath, a war fought in the eyes as they begin to speak mind to mind. The echoes of their argument reaches you in those moments, fleeting words caught on the wind.

The High Lord of Night looks like Night personified as he steps into the shadowed light; The lengths of his dark onyx hair are tousled to perfection, and his lustrous curls fall away from his pointed ears to frame his face. His nose is straight and aquiline; with a rugged sort of gracefulness, and his skin, though lighter than your own, looks as though it is wreathed in starlight.  

“You look beautiful, my star.” Your father says fondly; his eyes shine the color of moondust that reigns from the sky on Starfall each year. A strange gray hue saturated in a luminous amethyst that sparkles with dark promise. 

“Just like your mother.” The words weigh heavily on you and you suspect that they have a deeper meaning when your eyes meet your fathers own glinting amethyst gaze. 

“Dry those tears, girl, we have a ball to attend.” Your father approaches you with a feline grace, stalks towards you and holds you in his embrace. The way he holds you is possessive like a wolf; ravenous and hungry, clawing at you. You know better than to fight it. He presses a fervent kiss to your temple as he pulls back so he can look at you, tucking a strand of hair and tucking it behind your ear with an air of false affection. His cold fingers linger on the cut cerulean as it rests over your heart, turning it over in his fingers he purses his lips into a terse smile. 

The High Lord of Night holds you in his bruising grip and with a few parting words with your mother you are gone; in ribbons of shadow and smoke you are enveloped into the black. 

The darkness between worlds. 

As you emerge from the ether you see that the antechamber of the Moonstone Palace is shrouded in darkness; convalescing into columns of shadowed light as you winnow into The Court of Nightmares. The smell of pomegranate wine and wisteria shades the air in an earthy musk reminiscent of the Illyrian wilderness. It brings with it a hirearth; a longing for a home you cannot return to.

A home you might never see again. 

The wrought iron doors yawn open to reveal the throne room of the Moonstone Palace. The high onyx ceilings held in place by dark stone pillars -- cut from the mountain itself -- are wreathed with garlands of moonflowers and night blooming ivy, all dappled with violet foxglove blooms. The high-arching sounds of lyres and harps bleed into a sharp staccato as The High Lord of Night enters on a night-chilled mist. The courtiers, who look as though they are shaded in the colours of twilight, part like the tide as your father paces the length of the aisle with you, a frightened child at his heels. 

As you approach the emerald dias you are greeted by the sight of your brothers, flanking either side of your father’s throne. Rhysand is already making eyes at one of Lord Selwyn’s many daughters but when Cassian sees you he smiles so brightly that you think the female in question might have been swayed away from Rhys altogether. 

“Cass!” You say excitedly, forgetting for a moment the unfortunate reality of tonight’s ball as you fall into step with your brothers on the edge of the dias. Your father eyes the interaction carefully discerning if your brothers might be trusted to keep you safe and obedient for the night so that he might entertain his Lords and the visiting emissaries sent from Spring to oversee the betrothal negotiations. 

Your father dons a strange dark visage on Night’s like this. Far from the man he is in Velaris. He had always been cruel and cold, calculating in so many ways. But here, in the cold light of Hewn City he is something else entirely; barbaric and bestial. Best not to dwell on it too much. Instead you turn to Cassian and pull him into the throng of courtiers as the music drifts into a high-spirited dance you know well from your days in tutoring. 

“Sister, don’t you clean up nice, afterall.” Cassian wraps you in his arms and you relax into him. Inhaling his scent; juniper and pine, cut with something almost musky. Cassian carries Illyria in his veins in a way that feels kindred to you. 

“You aren’t afraid of a little competition are you?” You ask, eyeing him in his formal attire. His hair is shorter and pushed back, away from his face. Your thumb trails the line of a faded scar that sits above his dark brows. It makes him look more rugged, at least that is what you had said when he sat across the table from you nursing a sour look after Azriel had given him it in training.

That had been so long ago now. 

“He has plenty of competition, already” Rhysand’s cool tenor chimes in, his violet eyes alight with mirth as Cassian offers him a scathing look, “believe me.”

Rhysand offers you a brotherly embrace, running a hand down your back in an effort to comfort you and calm the rage he no doubt feels swarming beneath the surface. 

“You’re just jealous of my rugged good looks.” Cassian counters and Rhysand laughs, drinking deeply from his wine before sauntering into the crowd, where the ladies of the court seem to flock to him. 

Like a moth to the flame. 

Cassian grunts his disapproval when Lord Selwyns daughter finally approaches Rhysand, batting her long lashes and flashing him a sweet smile.

“That’s the last you’ll see of him tonight,” You say, taking Cassian’s arm so it loops around your own and leading him into a slow dance as the orchestra begin to play. The sounds of their lyres and harps a beautiful symphony. 

“Come, dance with your sister.” Cassian has no choice but to oblige when you look at him so sweetly and smile until you see his resolve break. He never did have the heart to deny you. You and Cassian take to the floor and one dance bleeds into three and by the time the harps play again you’re both heaving for breath and your laughter breaks apart in your mouth. 

The wrought iron gates of the throne room yawn open and on a night chilled mist a figure emerges; veiled in shadows and dressed all in black. He looks like the image of some ancient deity. Some cruel God of death.

Azriel. 

Azriel is beautiful in the way darkness might be; as though he was born from some dark star. Carved from the infernal stone of Ramiel. Beautiful with a strange brutality to him that speaks to the innate darkness that lurks beneath his skin. He is the darkness from which all light is born, and you are the lone star in his vast, black abyss. He looks at home here, in the cruel light of Hewn City; a nightmare personified as he enters through the awning iron gates. Like the wicked Prince of hell. Dark wings and dark words, come to claim you as his. His signature subtle smirk spreads across his lips like a taunt when he makes eye contact with Rhysand as he stands on the dias. In these indulgent moments, you think that he is the only thing in this world worth looking at. His onyx hair is tousled purposely, the longer strands of hair curling away from his face and you want to reach out and touch him. If only for a moment. If only one last time. 

“May I, Brother?” Azriel’s voice like cold death ripples its way down your spine. Dark and laden with the weight of the world as it rests on his shoulders.

He looks like darkness personified. All dark winged and saturated in shadows as he stalks through the dancing tide. He looks so at home there; in the cold light of Hewn City. The shadows cling to him as he advances, a feral glint in his hazel eyes when he sees your wrapped in Cassian’s secure hold.  

“What are you doing, brother?” Cassian snarls in warning. He does not falter. Only wades further into the sea of dancing courtiers. Cassian advances then, siphons waning and flaring; the cataclysmic union of ruby and cerulean until it casts you in a lavender haze. He and Azriel stand for a moment as they are, neither daring to acquiesce to the other. Cassian concedes, his large comforting hand falling from your hip to his side. Something passes between them then, a taunt and a warning, uttered in anger, made with love. You offer Cassian the ghost of a smile as he passes, a gentle caress of his hand as he slips from you into the moving tide of dancing bodies.

In his place, Azriel stands. Stoic and statuesque. Infernal and angelic as he towers over you. Wreathed in the shadowed light. He speaks to you in the old language of your homeland. Words so ancient, spoken in a language half-dead that only you and he might infer some meaning from those words exchanged sharply as the world falls away from you both. 

“Solas,” Azriel’s voice strains under the weight of your name he had given you. Uttered with such reverence and sorrow as he takes your hand in his own. “Is this truly what you want? Is he?” 

The crease in his brow deepens and hazel eyes go dark. 

His is a darkness you could lose yourself in. 

Like the darkness at the end of the world. 

“What I want is of very little consequence to anyone that matters.”Azriel’s arm wraps around your waist possessively. He touches you with an ardor that you have never known. To be held in such reverence. In such contempt. It’s a strange juxtaposition. The feeling of scarred fingertips as they map the brutal line of your spine. Azriel leans into the orchestral beat of the music, moving with a predatory grace. He commands your body like it is one of his shadows. It bends to him as light bends to the dark. 

“I will ask you again; do you love him?” Azriel’s voice is cold. Lethal. As he assesses you for any sign of weakness. 

“He is a good male -- a fine knight,” You reason with him, parroting the words the wraiths had spoken to you in the safety of your room in Velaris. Azriel offers you a cruel laugh in response and you feel your resolve begin to wane. “He is my mate.” The words are whispered petulantly. Azriel’s cruel laugh reverberates through your chest. 

“You don’t love him, Solas.” Azriel’s voice does not waver and you know by the glint in his eye that there is no denying it. 

“Love has very little to do with it, or so I am told.” You muse bitterly and Azriel recoils from you; the darkness in your eyes unlike anything he has ever seen.

“I know he is your mate and that I do not deser--”

“So that is your purpose for coming here?” You seethe, a broken laugh sounds in your heaving chest when you place your hand over his heart as you struggle against his bruising grip. He holds you tighter still. As if you might fall through his fingers like you are nothing more than stardust and light.

As if when you are gone from him, all the light leaves him. And he is alone in the darkness.

“Take me then -- I am not yet married.” You implore, offering yourself up to him again. A warning. A plea. Azriel’s fingers ghost the hollow of your throat, his teeth on the shell of your ear elicit a strangled groan from you in surrender.

“The hours pass so swiftly, Azriel,” you say breathily, the ghost of a taunt on your lips as they pass over him in the spaces between the seconds. “You are armed, yes?”

His fingers tangle in your hair and you bare the column of your throat to him. 

“Yes.” Azriel’s breath is hot on your neck. His teeth graze over the pulse point in an errant movement; all teeth and tongue as if he might tear it open just to taste you one last time. Your delicate hand traces the graceful curve of his spine, following the line of his body to rest on the hilt of Truth Teller as it rests on his hip. 

“So take me,” Through darkened lashes his eyes find yours. Onyx streaked with bronze and topaz, flecked with gold and dappled emerald. In their depths you find your home. Him who is cut from the mountain stone and painted the color of the Illyrian wilderness. He had always been your home.  

It’s an impossible ask, this much you know. He would have to forsake all else; his honor, his home, his faith, his family. So you resign yourself to the reality that this will be your undoing. 

“Cut through my father’s men, and my mate” The words themselves are loaded with dangerous tension as you cup his jaw, willing him to look at you. 

From your spot in the middle of the dance floor you dare to look up to the emerald dias, through the haze of incense smoke you see the faces of The High Lord and his council, each saturated in their own shade of ire. The music swells and dies. Each stabbing note is like a tightening coil as your circle one another as the dance draws to its close. Your body bends to his and his dark wings offer you a reprieve from the prying eyes of the court. 

You and Azriel; intertwined as shadow and light are. 

“Take me to Illyria and claim me as your wife.” for a brief moment you abandon yourself to the thought. Azriel looses a shaky breath, his beautiful eyes lined silver. 

“You know why I can’t do that.” Azriel growls, his voice dangerously low and his grip on your hip like a vice. His voice breaks and breathing ceases and you feel the moment his hold on your softens. Like he is confronted with the cruel reality that this must be goodbye.

“You know that if I could have chosen anyone, it would have been you.” The words are uttered against the skin of his cheek as you press your lips to his face once more as your tears begin to fall. 

“I know.” Azriel resigns himself to your joined fate finally. 

“Then release me.” Your fingers curl around the fabric of his shirt again, willing him to hold you close, even in the knowing that he must let you go, “please.” The plea comes out broken and bleeds into a sob. It takes every bit of strength in you to unfurl yourself from him and put some distance between your body and his. 

“Promise me something?”Azriel whispers solemnly as he presses close again, his lips ghosting over the skin of your knuckles. A fervent parting kiss as his eyes find yours once more. 

“Anything” You say, half-breathless as he finally releases you from his tender hold. 

“That you and I will find each other in the next life.”

“And every life after.” You repeat it like a vow, whispered into scarred skin until Azriel finds the strength to part from you. 

It is your father’s wicked stare that eventually pries you apart from him for the last time. 

The next time Azriel holds you is deep in the wilds of Illyria; wrapped in his shadows while he whispers solemn vows into your skin as body grows cold. 

[trtlebuns]

Who would’ve thought?

Random things about T141 + Alejandro & Köing

Tags: Fluff and cursing (maybe?)

Alejandro Vargas

my man my man my man!!!!

Alejandro HATES!!! Spicy foods, even though he is Mexican and grew up in a Mexican household he CANNOT handle anything spicy

Wakes up at 6:45 everyday

His comfort clothing includes: a tank top or T-shirt with grey joggers and black/socks

He would often cook the meals (very house husband of him)

Hates alcoholic beverages, like he’ll drink them but won’t enjoy them

Favorite color is: Rosewood Pink

Favorite ice cream flavor is strawberry

He doesn’t wear cologne

He takes his skin care VERY serious

When he’s angry or excited he would talk in his native tongue

Will call out of work if his hair isn’t “hairing”

Likes to kiss you on the forehead near your edges

Likes to watch you get dressed

Wants to have a big family

If he could be any cartoon character he would be Milo from fish hooks

Has a tattoo of your initial behind his ear

Köing

Listens to lofi and jazz

A light sleeper

Hates pickles

Wears his mask in public but at home he wears a big sweater with a large hood to hide most of his face (specifically a deep purple sweater)

Likes all of the avengers movies and if one is coming out he would buy tickets in advance (like 3-6 months in advance)

Likes strawberry milk but is severely lactose intolerant

Hates raisins but likes grapes

His comfort outfit would be: at home, a onesie to match yours or if in public ( like he goes out there willingly) would be a hoodie and joggers with crocs

Enjoys putting on his eye makeup while you do your makeup

Still doesn’t know what “beat this face to the gods” mean, even though you only say it when you do your makeup

Is happy with being with you and having a cat or two (or any small animal of your choice)

Prefers to eat ketchup with anything

Likes sardines

Likes to hug you from the back

Favorite color is: Mulberry Purple

He wears your initial as a chain

Has a dad sneeze

GHOST (Simon Riley)

Hates anything super sweet or sweeting in general

Prefers coffee (black) over tea, but would drink it if it’s the only thing around

He likes pumpkin spice lattes (yes he’s a basic bi- brit 🫣)

Secretly adds weapons to you car every time he gets in it

Like why do you have a knife in your cup holder?? How did that get there, you wonder

Orders steak every time you guys eat out anywhere “fancy”

Wears a face mask when he’s out

Your nickname for him is “beady eyed brit”

Only kisses you on the cheek and the temple

He rolls his eyes at everything

“Omg mon, you didn’t have to get me this??” You said happily as you hugged Simon. “I wouldn’t have gotten it, if you didn’t stop pestering me about it” He sighed and rolled his eyes knowing that he would buy you the world if you only mentioned it once

He loves peppermints

He likes to watch you…just do you

You’re in the kitchen? Boom, he’s leaning on the fridge watching you. You’re in the bathroom fixing your hair, Boom, he’s sitting on the toilet seat just staring. You’re walking around talking on the phone? Boom, he’s right there in arms distance listening and watching you. Just watching

He listens to classical music

Comfort fit: anything that’s lying on the floor closest to him or anything that seems comfy to him, could be shorts and a shirt or joggers and topless as long as he’s comfy he don’t care

Prefers to be just with you but wouldn’t mind stretching the family

He likes to skip rocks

He knows how to skateboard

Weirdly obsessed with peanut butter because of the “protein”

Favorite color is: Juniper Green

He goes makeup shopping with you because you need to know what type of eye makeup he wears that lasts through literal war

SOAP (Johnny Mactavish)

Hates coconut flavored anything! It could artificial or down to the real deal he HATES IT

Likes to yell at the tv

Must take a bite of your food, it doesn’t matter if you both have the same thing or not. He needs a bite and his reasoning is “I’m testing for poison”

Get you a man who CARES!

Would rate your burps out of 10

Let’s you paint his nails

He spills the tea and so do you

Johnny bursts through the door, and started you “BIIIIIIITCH!!!” Johnny says as he shakes his head walks towards you, you already know the tea is piping HOT! “Let me tell you what price done said over the phone just now” he says as he props down on the bed and you get into a sitting position “I’m all ears babe” you get ready for the most juiciest information of you life

Likes to pee/shit while you’re in the bathroom (it’s his favorite activity)

He rock climbs for a hobby

Favorite color is: Coin Silver

Always calls and never text in advance that he needs to talk

Comfort outfit: pajama bottoms, bunny slippers, and topless or a tanktop

Likes to sleep in cold temperatures

Tackles you with hugs and kisses whenever he sees you

You’re on the phone trying to pay a bill? Boom, he’s right next to you kissing your head and hugging you from the back. You’re trying to get ready for work? Boom, you’re making out and now you gotta call off work…AGAIN!

Listens to a lot of Megan thee stallion because he heard you playing thot shit

Hates the texture of cottage cheese

He’s a horrible cook and so are you, but you both try your best and end up ordering out

Likes to throw things at you and act as if he had no idea what you’re talking about when you ask if he threw something at you

“Ow, what the fu-“ you say as you scratch your head and look at the ground and see an orange crayon on the floor. You look up and see Johnny at the table with a coloring book and crayons “J did you just throw this at me” you question as you raise the crayon. He looks and you and you look at him… “I have no idea what you’re talking about” he says calmly as he goes back to coloring. You sigh, “then how did this get over here?” You roll your eyes and put your hand on your hip. “It must’ve been already over there” he shrugs while continuing his activity with a small smirk pulling at his lips

Likes to eat haggis ( Scottish bastard )

Knows how to play the flute

He would like to have 3 kids and 2 dogs (specifically a Rottweiler and Doberman)

[sudokuplayer]

MY LOVE IS A WEAPON THROWN ONTO THE OBLIVION OF YOUR BODY (taken from booklet of original art and essays by Sufjan Stevens, written to accompany his new album Javelin)

read essays ↓

1.MY LOVE My first love was an involuntary sound – the music of the spheres – a subdued, white-noise shuddering of my heart, a fluster of hummingbird vibrations that I could taste in the prenatal hemispheres of my mouth, body against body and brain against brain, two conjoined selves conjuring an off-shore thunderstorm in the horizontal distance, dazzling with flashes of metallic music and elemental chaos in the safe harbor of my mother’s womb. There was no light and no dark, no semblance of simile or semaphore. There was only the blurred and audible presence of a distant and divine voice hovering above the waters where I balanced between the prism of absence and presence on an inflatable dirigible of sea foam, wandering into the oleaginous abyss with a half-smile of hazardry and wizardry – my maiden voyage into the “unbeknownst” of oblivion. For what did I really know at this point in my primordial mindlessness? Nothing at all. I was struck dumb, created from ignorance and ether, first without function or features, then without order or form. I was sensation and consciousness postponed, a wet and placid portion of monotonous fruit cut in quarters awaiting heaven’s blessing. My only occupation at this point was to occupy, be occupied, preoccupy, and prevail nature in a womb-world of benevolence and buoyancy. The music of the heartbeat of the universe danced me to sleep. Within this realm, I was love and life supreme, undivided by thought, word and deed, a small promise kept until the act of doing would undo me for good. My birth was my undoing. And then I was born into oblivion.

2.IS I remember in college, falling in love for the first time, two spring months of rapture, residing on the tail end of a helium balloon. I was so giddy about everything: washing the dishes, tying my shoes, scrambling eggs, binding books, pulling berries off juniper trees. My infatuation had such an arrogant persuasion on the world around me. Everything as metaphor ascribed with romance. I remember, while mowing lawns on the college campus, finding an injured fledgling crow by the dining hall. I carried it to the biology lab, where we called a woman who ran an animal sanctuary from her home. She met us on a bike with a wicker basket. “You are doing the universe a great favor,” she said, holding the bird to her breast, like Mother Goose. The event provided endless fodder: for prose poems and folk songs and long conversations on the roof of the aspirin factory, where we got drunk on Boone’s Farm sangria, speculating on cosmic intentions and the order of the universe. So much meaning, so little time. I was young and dumb and in love. Guided by a perverse curiosity and a voracious sensation-of-the-imagination pivoting at the tip of my tongue, I marveled at the mysteries of life laid out before me, awaiting in the calm commotion between innocence and experience.

3.A WEAPON And then experience pummeled me. Many years later, after the long-suffering exhaustion of life had driven me into the bleak underbelly of realism, my most profound thought was sad and static: that nothing really matters, nobody loves me, and loneliness would always be my most devoted companion. In my new sobering worldview, absent of love, I began to encounter everything as an object without meaning, without modifier. The homeless man selling day-old newspapers on the subway was just a homeless man selling day-old newspapers on the subway. There was no metaphor, no rapture, no cosmic intentions. I had to ask myself: does this make the man, the newspaper, the subway, or myself any less meaningful? No. Quite the opposite. For what resided in that substantial vacancy where I was always prone to symbolize the world to death is exactly what I needed right then: Opportunity. Presence of Mind. Peace On Earth. Stable Stoicism. Absence of Metaphor. Responsibility. And Hard Facts. That was my prayer: to shake off the doting artistry of an over-eager poet with a proclivity to create dreams from doldrums; to approach the world as a concrete object, a thing to be held, not a thing to behold, or allegorized; to remain at peace and in careful jurisprudence in spite of the resentful intonation of my overarching loneliness that devastated innocent bystanders with all the magic castles of the imagination. I told myself: I must snuff out the candle of candy-corn dreams. I must soldier on like a dead-end daydream undeterred. I must be steadfast in the stolid presence and essence of common sense and survival. I must be true to life internal and reside in resignation at last.

4.THROWN My second love was less ecstatic, but more tragic: the “gift” of sight – an elemental flash of lightning, which struck me like a bag of metal shavings thrown out onto ice reflecting back at the centerpiece of my sternum. A sucker punch to the chest. My cold consciousness came into sharp focus, rattled by illuminating waves invading everything around me. The light was loud and extraordinary. And even with my eyes closed, my pupils began pontificating at the pornography of sight, and I was momentarily carved into madness. Seeing is believing is birth. I shuddered and shirked at the tangible evidence of something else – the others – the imposition of a sensation outside myself, in which everything was separated into opposable armies: the land from the waters, the air from the earth, the seasons from the doldrums, the seen from the unseen, sin from sainthood, light from dark, good from evil. Everything was put in its place by the curse of namesake. The world was now before me, beneath me, above me, and ultimately against me, a pressure foot pressed down on all sides. I felt a cold claustrophobia, empty and alone, trans-natal and tragic, baffled by the violence of this new environmental context. And to think I was just a silly beansprout of a thing shivering under the medical lights, squirming like an open earthworm, now tasked with this terrible act of naming. God gave me a pen and a pad of parchment paper. “Transcribe your feelings and your findings,” she said. “Do your thing. First thought, best thought.” I did as I was commanded, a dutiful sea urchin inching its way to the possibility of words and wisdom.

5.ONTO A world without language was once the indication of certain death. Soundless, voiceless, nameless vapor. A typography of empty vessels. The void! But now, what of the tragedy of names, spoken into existence with the demystification of words? I was culprit and complicit, identifying all the divergences, differentiations, variations, permutations, diversities, dichotomies and double entendres. Categorizing the animals, cutting them down to size, organizing the parts of the body with the parts of speech, a fanatical grammar-game of possession, domination and death. I had to ask myself: Is this manner of identification in the name of higher knowledge even if it disregards purpose, analysis, and compassion (observation absent of intention)? And how could it be undertaken without idolatry and ulterior motive? I desired the objectivity of the photography of the baby-brain, whose fuzzy visionary reception was a delightful nebula of perfumed consciousness and joy. I wanted to see the world coherently and without discretion, discernment, reduction, and deduction – unintelligible intelligence. Instead I began to perceive how intimate knowledge generates prosperity (fullness) and progeny (fruitfulness) – of ideas and offspring. To be “made known” was to be consummated: “Adam knew Eve” – intercourse as discourse (knowledge as physical/sexual engagement). To know someone was to take possession (to gain access, in confidence and with confidentiality). The exchange would potentially unveil the secret knowledge between lovers (the nominative ordinances of arousal) – wherein posterity would become the observable antecedents of this sacred wisdom, and pleasure would be its misfortune (of infatuation and love, of chaos and order). My sexual discourse began to die a slow death of observation and objectification, a nonsense category of substances seen and deemed believable, predicating a cosmic break from the universe: a psychic rebirth, from which invisible things transformed into figures of speech, wherein figures of speech were left dead in the wake of rivulets and rivers, drowning in a molten waterfall of dread, where they would meet their maker in linguistic whimsy. My death was now new life. My reincarnation, a reverse sublimation. I was made known; therefore, I knew nothing.

6.THE For a short time, my pet peeves were my shortcomings: dry skin in the morning – brushing off the bed sheets with bits of outer insulation from my body. Was I molting? I needed to drink more bitter herbs, I thought. I had chronic stomach pain, below the clavicle, a small fist of air. Sweet antacid, mint leaves, fennel seed tea. Invisible Anxiety. The pain in my leg: a hypochondriac’s dream. Soothing myself with palm oil and camphor. Small applications on the surface. At dinner with guests, supplementing aspirin with ice-water, saying very little otherwise, a friend agreed with everyone’s assessment: “Yes, sometimes you are cold and unfeeling. You could warm it up a little.” My apparent coolness – was it a matter of objective safety? That remote vacancy which I brought to every engagement, keeping the world at arm’s length, the anthropologist’s vantage point, sustaining the presumptive: was that my vocation – the judicious spectator, an odd outlier outlining all this activity while staying behind the line of sight? As the youngest sibling, I was always evaluating my older sisters with fierce judgment from the corner of the room, just out of reach: eavesdropping on phone conversations, catching glimpses of padded bras, curling irons, and maxi pads passed between casual doorways. Taking stock of the panoply of premature adulthood (teenage pregnancy), unruly rebellion (sneaking out at night), clumsy and combative excursions with our wicked step-mother (cat fights with elegantly finger-nailed fisticuffs). I watched from a dutiful distance, careful not to engage, harboring a catalog of tragicomic events and all their moral assessments in order to avoid the worst-case scenario for myself. I was in the world, but not of it. I learned from the mistakes of others: that I was nothing more than a mistake waiting to happen, potential energy. I learned from the mistletoe to keep watch overhead so as to avoid the dangling modifier of accidental affection. I learned from the stone in my shoe to keep walking through the pain with a staggering refrain in my step, a constant reminder of the brokenness of my body and the indefatigable self-loathing of my own self-consciousness.

7.OBLIVION My third love was a surprise affection – ticklish touching and tender swaddles of terry towels and cotton cloth wrapped in armfuls of goose down feathers transfixed in the careful undertaking of childcare. A sensual delight! I was an object to be objectified, a thing to squeeze and prickle, caress and carry about in a breadbasket. I grew from a pinecone to a pine tree, from a newt to a dinosaur, from a poppy-seed to a poppy flower bursting with fireworks. This love then transferred its fornications onto something wet, wild and ornithological – a flying, feathery python ascending to its countenance as a bastion of bridegrooms in a flaming aviary chariot of leathery kisses all aimed at my elbows. Hope is a thing with bird feeders. So I watched the feathered fowl crowd around the seeds and suet, grubs and grains with dinosaur intensity, beaks and claws doing their vast prehistoric business with messy execution. My lovers cawed at their community of plumy mishaps like transcendental mother hens: nuthatch and creeper, tanager and titmouse, blue jay and junco gallivanting together like an armful of woolen throw blankets clapping the dust from their ornamental features. Our fairy dance of foreplay lasted for days. Cat calls as birdsong with balloons, iambic pentameter poems, chimes that rhymed with clanging crystals hung on fishing line, and all the fanciful costumes with sequins and fringe, flowered bell bottoms, metallic body suits, reggae music, ballroom dancing, charm bracelets, diamond rings, glimmering little earrings with fly-fishing ornaments, and, on the last day, a very long and serious monologue about global warming. Our lovemaking was quick and witty, a little slutty and clumsy – nothing more than a jaunt, a quick choreography of slaps and body slams, two pigeons in a mosh pit, working things out in juvenilia. Nature had done its work. Afterward we lounged together in the afterglow with soft pillow talk and dreams of nest eggs and parenting, protecting, foraging, feeding, and changing diapers, all the domestic labors of love. But for now, in a warm bird bath, sunning ourselves with a glistening glow, I could only think of the sweet bliss of here and now, the wetness of loving kisses on my nape, my neck, my back, my rump, my foreshortened wings and a sweet nectar nightcap. Hope is a thing deferred, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.

8.OF My fourth love was peripatetic: a suitcase stored in an overhead bin on an airplane. Things beget things beget responsibilities. I procrastinated my life by traveling far from it. A day before the voyage, I stayed up late in the polar forces of the night, diligently packing the baggage on the couch, opened up like can of tuna fish, a glass of lemon juice on the nightstand (master cleanse), the Siamese cat washing itself, the dollar store dishes in the sink, my dirty clothes in a paper bag. The last time I had left for this kind of trip, my things were in boxes in one room on the second floor of a gated town house in God-knows-where, New York. Now everything had been transferred as in a swap meet, boxes upon boxes, things upon things, other voices, other rooms. The living room was a labyrinth of speculative journeys, a crossword puzzle of travel prompts. Outside, gale force winds rose to the occasion, knocking on the windows like unwanted guests. I imagined the weather overtaking everything in an apocalyptic frenzy: cups and saucers trembling in tongues, plastic wrap coming undone in a transparent wedding train, pillowcases falling over our heads like hard hats, ceiling fans circumnavigating the neighborhood like helicopter rides, the colored crayons on the kitchen shelf thrown asunder to make slapdash hieroglyphs all over the window panes, the mysterious penmanship of the gods! My mind was preoccupied by disaster, a force majeure, an act of God, a ball of yarn, and the four horses of the Apocalypse. I wanted nothing of it: this origami suitcase lifestyle of travel and transition. I wanted to be here and now. I wanted silence, solace, and stillness. I wanted the simplest of things: a bowl of vanilla ice cream, a warm bath, and a quiet place to sit and stitch my hand-crafted cross-stitch of rainbows and sailboats framing a sexy cartoon portrait of Dionne Warwick diligently working the lines for the Psychic Friends Network from way back in the 1990s, when every solution to every problem was just a phone call away.

9.YOUR History repeats itself, defeats itself, cheats itself, berates and beats itself. I am not historic. I am histrionics. I must hate my mother and my father. I must hate myself and take up the cross and be born again. In this way, my fifth love was an immutable shadow following me with sticky tricks and schemes, a cancerous contamination of the mind that could only be cured with the deadly venom of a cone snail. I couldn’t quite shake it, the cobalt-blue memory of a ghost haunting my sophistry, a prescient reminder that the knowledge of faith and the substance of hope were right behind me this entire time (and not something to pursue, or follow, like an ornamental object on the horizon, dazzling, elusive and alive in the distant future). The Divine Inside was a “previously known encounter.” I could never see it face to face, but only feel it in my shadow, the former patterns of an aura left behind, pushing forward, pursuing, persuading, steering and navigating my memory through the valley of the shadow of death. I wanted so desperately to “have and to hold” the real substance of things (evidence!), the physical, intimate engagement with the body and the blood, which I actively sought out in transcendental activity, prayer and supplication, the sacraments, the feasts of the saints, a metaphysical substance to salivate and sublimate within the natural order of things. But this was a false pretense. God is not natural, but supernatural. The real material of divinity is ineffable, unassailable, unknowable, unutterable, and unreal. The evidence of providence is not within our line of sight, nor within our grasp, but instead beyond and behind our physical kinesphere. It is unapproachable, unspeakable, unobservable, and ultimately “erstwhile”. And yet still we continue to feel it “under our skin” and “within the universe” of our own personal history: The Past/The Passed/The Repossessed. God is our delayed consciousness – the nameless, faceless dichotomy of our secret truth. And we are made in its indistinguishable appearance. Therefore our own true “image” is without a name or a face – a baseless, shapeless cloud hovering above the waters, a countenance of empty atmosphere (signifying nothing) – a gothic apparition, a vision of love, a dance of the eternal travesty of life, a burrowing beetle of impenetrating curiosity. Digging for the true grit of life in the eternal dirt of the universe. 

10.BODY  My last love was a kind of science fiction. I was out running errands at the mall when I saw a fleet of lampshades falling like flying saucers from the sky. The alien robots came to me in an escalating beam of light and said: “We come in peace! The obverse seeks to make its face shine upon you, while the inverse hides in shame.” They did their thing with my body, prodding and poking around for some good news, but at first I would have none of it. I struggled and squirmed under nylon restraints strapped onto a stainless steel operating table. I was a basket case of curmudgeonly vitriol, pointing out everything that was wrong with the world around me: Fossil fuels. Cancer. Money. Greed. Sales Tax. Frozen Yoghurt. Religion. Varicose Veins. Junk Mail. But the alien robots were unflappable. They said, “We just need a little DNA, not a diatribe,” while swabbing the insides of my mouth with a cottony Q-tip. Then, after careful intubation and a slow drip of aesthesia, I eased into the abyss. They removed my clothes and covered my body with a marshmallowy spray foam. They swaddled me into a warm cocoon of maroon goo, where I remained in stasis to the end of the ages, slowly resuming into the soft, pillowy features of my former self – pre-natal, premature, pre-conceived – a slippery and succulent primordial membrane of soupy warmth and illuminating agency awaiting, once again, the cosmic journey laid out before me like a yellow-brick road of possibilities – the secret oblivion of love, the “unbeknownst!” Within this pinprick vision, I saw a tapestry of afterbirth in afterglow as an addendum to an immaculate after-thought of rapturous joy. I was born-again in fullness and truth. I was a peanut. I was a pretzel. I was a pan-fried shrimp. I was pandemonium personified. I was once again myself waiting to happen again and again and again and again and again … until the end.

— Sufjan Stevens

[pestilentbrood]

VERY long Ramble incoming

honestly now that I'm looking at the auraboa lore situation, I'm just disappointed. There was such POTENTIAL in the idea of the Loop and the horror of a new generation inexplicably being disconnected from it, forcing the newly hatched children into a world totally separate from that perceived by their parents (I mean, hell, they perceive TIME differently!).... but then the writer(s?) just fell ass backwards into Icky Tropes.

I feel like I can see what the idea was, especially with the recent alterations to the Encyclopedia entry... It seems like staff fundamentally understands the true Horror potential here, but... Instead, through the short story, they proposed it through the lens of a condescending outsider character, turning the fears of the older generation into something trivial. And also weirdly demeaning the Auroboa's situation by portraying them as overreacting.

Why... why would you do that? Like, from a storytelling perspective? What's gained from that? Why not embrace the true horror and even Emotional significance of that disruption? Why instead go for "ohh we NEED outsider help we NEED to be saved because we are so helpless and it is so Silly that we, creatures who have never experienced such things, do not know what sleep is"????

And if they WANTED to have a condescending outsider, I feel like they COULD have done that, but it would have to have that character realize the horror at some point. And make it obvious that their attitude towards distressed parents and children facing Eldritch Shit and the Sudden Deconstruction of it was not cool!

(or at the very least be a bit more...idk. Consistent with said outsider character? Juniper just goes from "omg I am so honored that the fascinating creatures of the behemoth have chosen me to speak to" to "oh their wasting my time because they don't know what sleep is. I'd rather be sleeping!! 🙄" like girl... c'mon now. Why are we trivializing it like this. Do you want me as the reader to be invested in their plight or not.)

I mean come on. They're beings connected through one networked hivemind-like system, yet each still maintains a silver of individuality that allows them to move freely throughout the Behemoth that they care for. And they've got an eldritch understanding of time that no other dragon could understand. They're seeing the future, past, and present unfold simultaneously. They're witnessing the birth and death of the world at the same time, and have no way to communicate it to other dragons. The best they can do is maintain their home, and even then, they see its roots spread and decay all at once.

And then the newest generation is suddenly disconnected. An inherent link between parent and child and all dragons in-between, that has existed since the creation of their species, is just suddenly GONE for the newest births. With NO explanation for it. The children have no easy way of communicating with their parents. The children are experiencing time in a way that was not meant for their species. They've forcefully been shoved into a circadian rhythm that they are Not! Built for!

The only way a parent could communicate properly with their child would be when the latter is sleeping, something that is also completely foreign to this species. It would be terrifying for all involved!!!

They are literally experiencing eldritch horror from the perspective of the eldritch being forced into the mortal.

Like why WOULDN'T there be panic!!! And why would that panic be trivialized! Why are we only shown the perspective of an outsider who looks at this situation and goes "Oh the silly tree beasts are being so silly over nothing, it's no big deal!"

That and the way the auraboas talk to outsiders. Like. There was such potential there. Real opportunity to explore how ancient, time-bending beings would communicate to someone who couldn't even BEGIN to understand the intricacies of it.

Instead we got what feels more like baby talk (even described as though they were hatchlings enunciating their first words, which... I dunno man, maybe we don't want to compare them to children like That) and less like... Beings that experience all of time at once. I mean, the hatchlings and the adults speak the exact same way, and that doesn't make any sense given the literal time barrier going on.

I totally get why people thought there was just a language barrier and that auraboas had their own language, thus causing the disjointed speak, and not that it was because They Do Not Experience Time Like We Do. And I feel it would've been far easier to get it across by just... I dunno. Do anything else?? I saw someone on here suggest they speak in the "wrong" tenses, or using multiple tenses in the same sentence, which I think would've been far more clear.

Like, as opposed to "saplings wilt! saplings silent!" just "the saplings will wilt in silence, they've wilted in silence, they are wilting silently." Said all at once like all things are true simultaneously. And if we're going for hivemind, have each auraboa speak in a different tense, all at the same time, and have them switch it up every time. Have our outsider get confused and be like "which is it? are they wilting now, or have they already wilted?" and the cluster of auraboas respond in a cacophony of yes's, no's, and maybe's all at once.

Would've probably gotten across the "alien" vibe they were supposedly going for far better than wide-eyed desperation for an outsider's guidance conveyed through disjointed, in-world described as baby speech.

And also maybe would've had less accidental connotations. Because as it stands, I completely see why people have made the connections to the real world where they have. This doesn't read like eldritch timey-wimey intrigue, or even a respectful look at how younger generations can become detached from their families' cultures over time and the struggles that come with it. It reads like a culture being perceived by an ignorant outsider who (despite supposedly respecting these dragons) scoffs and rolls their eyes because the tree beasts with their funny words are being silly again, and that Hey, isn't it actually a great thing that the children are fundamentally different in all manners now? Because now they can join the rest of us in the "real world."

Yknow. Ick.

(I Personally think it would've been better to have the perspective be one of the Auraboas themselves, especially one of the children, to really understand what was going on here. Give us the full brunt of the mind of a creature experiencing all of time interwoven as one shape. The waters fall and the oceans crash with waves. They've now fallen to drought. The ocean has yet to be born. Caves have been carved out through the waters' currents. And when I break from this timeline, I open my eyes to see a child, the child not yet born, the child born now, the child born yesterday. Why can't I hear it? Why couldn't I hear it? Why won't I ever hear it?)

I dunno. People more qualified than me to speak on this matter have already torn the lore apart, I'm just... dropping my own two cents. Potential got weirdly squandered and we ended up instead with unfortunate implications and tropes that could be connected a liiiittle too awkwardly to irl situations.

*Also, before anyone points out: Yes, I know the hatchlings aren't COMPLETELY detached from the Loop and can join it when they sleep. But the fact is, these thangs never had to sleep before. That wasn't in their species' nature. So that's still weird and foreign for them on both sides. And since the hatchlings now have a circadian rhythm, they can't stay connected to the loop permanently. And also Also, seeing as the previous generations aren't experiencing time linearly, who's to say they even recognize when their child joins the loop? They'll speak with an echo of their child when that child was last asleep ages ago, not knowing that it's not them presently, because there is no 'present' for the older generations.

[blujayonthewing]

still thinking about how I wanna draw Juniper and Fengling talking about Their Feelings and torn between 'You've asked me what I wanted... [...] If I could have it, what I would like... is to travel with you. [...] That's probably the best life I can think of' being really well suited for an effective two or three captioned illustrations of this conversation VS some of those [...] bits of this roleplay conversation being really important to me, actually, but including them changes the flow and I'd have to do more of A Comic instead

[inkingthingsintotrees]

so, like, the bitter middle-class character is showing up more and people are not registering it?

I recently watched a video essay how Saltburn mostly falls short due to its inability to actually properly criticize class, and it got me thinking about the whole kerfuffle that happened with D20 fans about Fantasy High: Junior Year and specifically Kipperlily CopperKettle. Then, I finally got into Yellow Face by R.F. Kuang and saw the same character archetype in the narrator.

When I say the 'bitter middle-class' character I mean the type of character that is not extrodinary by any standards and blames any possible external factors for what they view as a 'failing'. Here's what I mean in narrative context: Oliver covets the type of social life and charisma Felix has and fixates on the wealth that Felix comes from as the source(Saltburn), Kipperlily thinks Riz's dad dying is an unfair advantage actually its pretty fair to assume she thinks all the heinous shit the Bad Kids had to deal with regularly were unfair advantages that gained them prestige they didn't earn through 'hard work' like she did(Fantasy High/D20), Juniper Hayward blames diversity and diverse stories as a whole as to why she has found no success as a white author in publishing compared to her 'friend' Athena who has found massive success through her writing (Yellow Face).

The three of them are meant to be wrong in the end because they were lashing out at those a flawed system chose to champion. But there's some block on really digesting these characters as being part of the 'bitter middle-class' and I can't tell if it's cuz so many people who consume this media are from the middle class or cuz people can't look deeper than the surface when it comes to the media that they consume.

In the case of Saltburn I can only assume that it was because Fennel doesn't know how to write anything that's particularly class-conscious and tried to dress the movie up at the very end like a thriller eat the rich film. The ending of the film really hurts it in the end, and I have trouble believing that it was properly workshopped to actually fit with the rest of the story. I have seen so many people take Oliver's final monologue and run with it, though. Either people use the closing monologue to condemn the way the film fails at being a class commentary, or they explain away the shortcoming with the argument of the film is that it is an upper-class horror story about the middle and lower class. But neither interpretation really acknowledges that Oliver as a character lied for attention both from Felix and his family but Oliver's parents as well (sure some of what they say is likely true but there is a good chance a decent amount of the information he feeds his parents is not the truth). Oliver spends 3/4 of the movie bitter about being mediocre in comparison to those around him at Oxford. Through his own perspective, he is putting in work that his peers can omit because of their wealth and Oliver's inability to be significant socially amplifies that bitterness. To Oliver there is only two ways to be 'interesting' at Oxford and that's to be rich and cultured or poor and traumatized.

Kipperlilly Copperkettle is real interesting just from a solid fandom perspective for me. So many fucking D20ers complained about the lack of redemption of any of the Rat Grinders but especially Kippers despite the fact that she's the one with the foulest mindset. Girl, you cannot be complaining about how people with dead parents get a leg up in life and expect any sort of sympathy. She's probably the best demonstration of this character archetype (would you call it archetype?) simply because Kipperlilly is just so deeply out of touch with reality. She's mad that the way she specifically approached adventuring doesn't get rewarded in the type of world that she's in and on top of that there is nothing else to make her standout amongst the crowd of other decent adventurers. Except Copperkettle Fourdogs is also one of those middle-of-the-road kids that's incredibly upset that none of their work will ever be recognized because it simply does not hold a candle to what other people are doing. I think this is why she got the amount of sympathy that she did from certain parts of the fandom too, a lot of y'all saw yourselves in her huh? Because it is a flawed system to be like: if you show up and do the work then you'll be acknowledged, and then turn around and require more because now everybody's done the work so who really deserves it now? But the way Kippers handled that by lashing out at some of the most traumatized kids in school not even about shit that happened while they were at school and being menaces but rather something that happened way before the Bad Kids were even a party is insane and out of touch. And sure you sort of see the work being put in by Jawbone to change that mindset but Kipperlilly doesn't care. She willingly accepts the rage in order to better dominate this group of kids she believes coasted into saving the world several times.

I forgot where I was going with this outside of : There is more than just eat the rich and wrongfully outraged rich people narratives when it comes to class, and I feel like this ignoring of a whole like a subgenre of narratives involving the bitterness surrounding what society deems worthy of interest.

Jesus Christ this is long I commend you if you got this far and didn't think I sounded like a total idiot because I definitly think that I sound like one at this point

[lunajay33]

New World🍂Part.13

Summary: You grew up in a crappy town with one friend who kept you going, everything started to fall into place, that’s until the world ended and the dead ruled the world, now you and your best friend Daryl Dixon had to stay alive but will you finally confess?

Part.12

•Masterlist•

I was around 5 months pregnant now and everything has been going good, great actually, Daryl became even more protective and I didn’t hate it I loved when he dotted on me, what can I say I adore him and I’m gonna adore this baby just as much

“Everything feeling normal since our last check up?” Hershel asked as I laid on the bed for him to check on things, Daryl at my side

“Yeah, they’ve been kicking a bit more and I have to pee a lot more” I said making Hershel let out a little laugh

“Sounds like you’re on track, now I’ll just check the heart beat” he took his stethoscope and placed it around my belly as the room fell silent

“Well everything seems to be normal, but I should warn you, some people around the prison have caught a cough, you should steer clear just incase, you can’t afford to get sick while you’re pregnant” he said as he gave me my prenatal vitamins

“I’ll take care of her” Daryl said helping me off the bed and leading me out of his little office as another person was about to enter, we walked past and noticed them coughing up blood

“I think I’m gonna set ya up in a watch tower just in case” he said rubbing my back reassuringly

“Yeah I think it’s better to be cautious”

He pulled two of our mattresses from our block to the watchtower as I gathered some of my things, blankets, to go bag, food and water, after we worked on it the rest of the evening it looked pretty cute……well as nice as we could get it

We laid in bed, his arms wrapped around me as I laid my head on his shoulder, my hand protectively placed on my bump

“Do you want a girl or boy?” I asked tired

“Don’t matter, as long as they’re like ya” he said dragging his fingers back and forth through my hair, I still can’t believe we got to this point from being best friends to me pinning over him and now I’m pregnant

“Well if it’s a girl…….can we name her Juniper?” I kept remembering the dream I had and I feel like it was a sign of some sort

“ of course sunshine”

Hershel was right, it’s only been a week and people were dropping like flies left and right, getting more and more sick, coughing up blood, it coming out of their eyes and everything, there was an incident where a cell block had walkers from those who died at night, that’s what Daryl told me he refused to let me leave the watchtower but now that I’m pregnant I didn’t really want to now anyways, as I was looking out over the field I heard Daryl come out

“Hey sunshine how ya feeling?” He asked rubbing my back

“I’m good but I’m really craving some things I can’t even have anymore” as I said that groaning he laughed as he stood behind me and held my bump

“What’s this lil baby craving?” He asked as we both looked down to where he was caressing my belly

“I really want soft serve ice cream, spaghetti, I really crave any kind of chocolate bar OH! and a orange soda”

“Is that all?” He let out a breathy laugh as it blew a bit of my hair tickling my face

“Daryyyylll, it’s not my fault the baby wants what it wants” I whined

“Well I know it ain’t chocolate of ice cream but I brought ya some spaghetti’os and some peaches I found out on a run, wanted to keep em just for ya”

“Awe thanks D, remember that time when you came over for a whole weekend when we were like 13 and all we ate was spaghetti’os and grilled cheese” I asked remembering the good times we had together

“Ya, think of it everytime I see a can, ya know I appreciate ya fer that stuff ya use to do fer me?” I turned in his arms brushing his hair back

“What do you mean?”

“When my old man would neglect me or beat on me ya were always there fer me, yer gonna be a great mother” he said placing kisses all over my face

“Oh Daryl, I’m always gonna be here for you, you’ve made it easy, you’re the sweetest most generous man I’ve ever met, and because of that you’re going to be the best dad in this whole messed up world, I love you D, always have and always will”

“I love ya too peach, forever”

I woke up seeing Daryl had already left, judging by the sun it was probably around 12 pm, since getting pregnant I’ve needed to sleep more, always tired was a normal side effect Hershel had told me, I got up putting my hair into a ponytail, pulling in some black yoga pants and one of Daryl’s plaids that still had the sleeves on, just as I was about to drink some water an explosion happened to the watchtower across the court yard, completely destroyed and in flames, looking to where it came from and my heart dropped, the governor and a group of people, I knew this was gonna go terribly, the governor wasn’t the forgiving type

I gathered up all my food and water and threw it in my back pack that had spare clothes and baby clothes Daryl had found for me, put my holster belt around my hips carrying my gun and knife, I slung my bag over my back and ran down the stairs, some of the group were huddled around the fence watching to see if Rick could settle this

“Sunshine ya gotta get outta here” Daryl said as he squeezed my arm

“No I can’t go without you”

“Ya gotta fer the baby, if things go bad and we get separated I’ll find ya, I promise” he said giving me a hard passionate kiss signalling for me to go

“I love you Daryl Dixon” and with that I ran off into the prison informing everyone to get ready, I was about to leave when I saw her, little Judith unaware of the dangers around her, I found her baby carrier, diapers, food and clothes and put it in my back as well then strapping her in the carrier on my chest and ran when a part of the prison exploded, I ran out the back opening in the prison, going until my legs couldn’t anymore, I could here the gunshots in the distance stop, I wanted to go back but I know I can’t, I kept walking hoping to find someone from my family

It’s been a few days now, I’ve just been walking and walking and walking, everything was the same everyday, wake up from some shitty shelter I could find, feed Judith and myself with the little rations I had left, and wander hoping someone would show up……..anyone, I couldn’t do this alone, pregnant and caring for a little girl there was only so much I could do and only so long I’d be able to do it without becoming exhausted

It felt like I’d never see Daryl again, I’d think of him all day especially when the wind would pick up and blow the scent of fallen leaves across my face, I’d picture his scruff and the feeling of it against my neck and shoulder where he’d be cuddled against me in the morning, and the way he’d glance at me with those blue eyes it made my world brighter, or how excited we were for this baby but now we may never be a family

As I was walking, reminiscing my lost love I came across a graveyard feeling fit with how empty and broken inside I felt, there was a house in the distance and decided to stay there for the night if it was all clear, I swept the house thankful for no walkers, Judith was getting fussy so I checked the cabinets and they were completely filled, I took a jar of jam and crackers and sat feeding Judith them myself until all the crackers were gone, it felt so good to have a full ish stomach, I hadn’t been starving on the road but it wasn’t enough, after we settled and the sun was setting I decided to sit on the porch steps to rock Judith to sleep hoping the fresh air would help, I leaned my head against the banister looking out over the graveyard, it was silent from walker groans only the sound of wind rustling through the leaves and crickets, it felt like old times when Daryl and I would stay out late and just watch the sky

All of a sudden there were a figure in the distance running closer to the house, I stood up securing Judith and taking out my gun but the closer they got the clearer they became

DARYL

I dropped my gun as I walked down the porch, he finally noticed me and Daryl ran even faster, I could feel the knot in my throat and the tears cascading down my face, I tried to speak but all that came out we gasps, he was here, he found me like he said, he finally reached me throwing his arms around me and holding my head to his chest as I cried harder then ever before

“I found ya, are ya alright?” He asked pulling and looking over my body

“I’m……..I’m okay now” he held my face looking deep in my eyes and that scent of musky woods crossed my senses and I breathed in deeply

“You found us” he finally looked down noticing a completely knocked out Judith

“Ya got her, got lil asskicker……..and how’s the baby?” He asked rubbing my belly

“I think they’re fine, I need more food though but I got that covered now” I took his hand and led him inside showing him the gift that was the kitchen cabinets

We lit some candles and chowed down for the rest of the night until we went upstairs settling in the bed after Daryl had secured all the points of entry

We found some clothes and changed into the fresh ones and slid into bed, his chest secure to my back as he held me close, arms and legs entangled, lil asskicker in my arms

“I thought I’d never see you again………I was so scared” I felt his arms tighten around me

“I ain’t leavin now, I thought of ya everyday”

“I can’t do this anymore Daryl” I whimpered as my bottom lip quivered, I needed a home that was secure and safe and peaceful I couldn’t have a baby where it was at risk every second

“I know baby, I’ll find it fer us, all of us”

“Did you see anyone get out?”

“Nah, too much was happening but…..Hershel’s dead”

“The governor?” My heart ached for Hershel he was the sweetest giving man

I just felt him nod as he started rubbing my belly, knowing how much it calmed him down

“I love you more than life Daryl” I said turning my head so I could kiss him gently

“Love ya too, I wish I could give ya everything we coulda had, it may not be everything but I’ll try”

Lmk your thoughts on this chapters, if you’d like to be added to the taglist comment!!:)

Taglist: @deansapplepie @ghostboneswrites2 @willowshadenox @thebadbatch2022 @writer-ann-artist @i-wear-wet-socks313 @thestonedwriter

[beastlybardou]

The Aesthetics of Identity and Self Imposed Homesickness

As I worked on a playlist for myself and my werewolf identity, I came across something that I had never noticed before: the way that the aesthetics I associate with my identity make me feel more out of place in my current life.

I associate my werewolf identity with, well, probably the same things most people associate wolves and werewolves with. Frigid cold mountain ranges, dark frozen forests of birch and pine, bubbling streams lined with fern and moss, the bugle of elk and growls of bears, the absence of humanity for miles upon miles - the cold, isolated wilderness of the north. Engaging with these aesthetics makes me feel euphoric and at home. You can imagine then how it feels to get offline and live in the burning hot ranch-land plains of Texas. There are no mountains here, no birch and pine, no rushing springs, no lush fern nor moss, no elk, no bears, none of it.

So what to do then when the comfort of my kind's home is locked away behind a screen or a hundred dollar plane ticket?

Well for a good while I contented myself with the answer "suffer". But y'know I really don't think that is the best solution. The feeling of discontent in your surroundings and intense species dysphoria actually feels, well, kind of romanticized in our community, like the suffering makes your identity more real, but I think for me what really makes my identity shine is bringing it away from the online world and into the real one, even if what is around me isn't exactly the environment I prefer. I think a better answer is to do what wolves and humans have always done best: adapt. There is no reason that I shouldn't romanticize the aesthetics of the land that I do have around me through a werewolf perspective. That's where the playlist I was working on comes in. All this kind of "clicked" in a way for me driving down a long ranch road at sundown listening to Prowler by Coyote Kid which I had just added to my playlist on recommendation without listening to it first. Its southern gothic vibes mixed with werewolfery caught my attention immediately, because I noticed what I felt in that moment was a kind of species euphoria usually reserved for visits to the mountains. I was at home in my species *and* my environment. The dark dusky skies darkening over fields of cattle and juniper forests, the scent of sun baked straw and dust warming my snout, the hot evening breeze ruffling my fur - it all suddenly felt like home.

That feeling did quickly fade, but it gave me a glimpse of the fact that I am capable of feeling at home here. That I can be just as much, or even more, of a werewolf when I'm enjoying this land as I am when I'm made miserable by it and my homesickness. So from now on I am going to try to embrace the aesthetics and activities of the place that I am, rather than the place I wish I was. I'll be the beast lurking in the ranch lands and along the country roads, the snarl from in the grass much to deep to be a coyote, the mysterious paw prints littering the dust of your destroyed barn. And I can treat living near humans the same way. I will never fit in with humans. I try not to get too misanthropic about it, but I just won't. That doesn't mean I can't exist on the fringes of their society. Infiltrator. Beast hidden in the crowd. I can wear their mask and be proud of my ability to do so. I don't have to feel crushed by it when I know I am always just biding my time to meet others of my kind and let myself free when I am alone.

I know it might seem strange for a simple shift of aesthetics to be so impactful, but in this community especially, aesthetics and symbolism are such a foundational building block of self image and of how you interact with the community itself. And I suppose even then really this is less about the shift in self image around aesthetics and more about the refusal to continue participating in the misery olympics of "how homesick and species dysphoric can I be".

I am a wolf. We adapt.