#like this isn’t even folklore or something it’s the one that sounds like a shitty target commercial….hello

[rollercoasterwords]

now what kind of barista plays taylor swift you need to calm down in the cafe. nefarious behavior quite frankly

[beauty-and-passion]

What Eurovision 2021 taught us

1. That a nice, enjoyable show was possible (even if 4 presenters are still too much)

Of course nothing can beat Love Love Peace Peace (even if Ja Ja Ding Dong does its best), but this year's intermissions were very enjoyable.

We expected something flashy and over the top because hey, The Netherlands. Sex, drugs, gays and all that jazz.

But instead Covid surprised us. And then The Netherlands surprised us even more, by making a very enjoyable show, despite the restrictions. My personal favourites were:

The water intermission of the first semi-final. I loved the mixed feelings, how water is both scary and respected, for being such a powerful, unstoppable force.

The rooftop concerts during the final. Social distancing? Sure, no problem, let's make the past winners sing on top of some roofs all over Rotterdam. That was pure genius, I loved it so much.

On the other hand, the presenters were basically all useless. We could've had just two of them instead of four. But hey, at least they weren't as cringy as the three scary ukranians from 2017 or the useless four ladies from Portugal. The true highlights of the show were the intermissions, the guests and especially the songs themselves and this is perfectly good for me.

________________________

2. That we can live in a world without boring ass ballads

I’ve never been so proud of the Eurovision public, especially during the second semifinal: that evening was PACKED with ballads. Boring ballad after boring ballad, with just a couple more funny songs in between.

The ballads were all left behind. Even the two Amen. And I love the irony we chose El Diablo and the finnish band for the final, but no Amen. No saints allowed, only the norwegian angel. As it always should be.

And so we had the best final I've seen since I started following Eurovision in 2014. Catchy songs, dance songs, upbeat songs. And power ballads. Yes, ballads can still have a place, but only if they're good.

Because yes, Switzerland and France were good. Very good. Just not as good as the ones the public wanted.

________________________

3. That we want Eurovision, not Englishvision

Every year, the same message blasts from all Europeans: send a song in your native language. This show is supposed to make other people from Europe (and the rest of the world) to know more about your own country, to enjoy its rhythm and to listen to something we don't usually hear. So why waste this huge opportunity, to bring a generic song in English?

Because the English song wins. Because we all understand English, so English has more chances.

Flash news: GUESS WHO WON THIS YEAR. No, it’s not the generic English song.

The public has been crystal clear, the final poll is even clearer: the top five includes an italian song, an ukraine song, two french songs and only one english song. We want different styles and rhythms, we want to listen to Europe.

So I want to give my full thank you to:

Albania: amazing song, great voice, wonderful language. Do it again.

Serbia: these ladies are fantastic, their song is great and they sang it in their language so I love them

Switzerland: thank you for leaving English to the side to give us some good french

Spain: the song wasn't as good as Universo, but it was in sexy spanish, so thank you for using it almost every year

Danemark: the song was terrible, but it was in your language and this alone deserves everything

France: I know we all make fun of you for being France, but your language is perfect for songs, so thank you for always using it

Ukraine: take note, Ukraine, because Europe is madly in love with your language and your rhythm

Italy: our language is beautiful, so thank you for delivering every year

While my biggest biases go to:

Greece: a generic pop song with no balkan rhythm and no greek either? An absolute shame, greek should always be used for songs.

Russia: russian language is very melodious and yes, we got something this year, but what about bringing a full russian song? We want it!

Germany: I may sound crazy, but I honestly think german language is good for songs. It's not like the mediterranean languages, but it still works. So please, do not be scared and show what you can do with it!

Scandinavian countries: why do you never want to bring your own language? Do it, don't be scared! Yes, Sweden, I'm talking with you: you still never tried to bring something in swedish, so do it.

________________________

4. That we don't want Americans to play with us

For reasons we still have to understand, Flo Rida was competing this year. And he was competing for San Marino, the smallest European country.

I'm pretty sure they took some time to explain to him what was going on, where he was, where San Marino is, wtf was happening, why there were sexy italians and ukranian witches and a norwegian angel and loads of beautiful women everywhere.

And I loved how we all send memes about this, about ahahah why is Flo Rida here, what if San Marino wins where would they host Eurovision, all while enjoying an actual catchy song.

And then, in the end, Flo Rida basically disappeared. Who remembers Flo Rida, when we got Ukraine, Italy, Finland, Iceland, and the UK? And Germany being wholesome? And the love story between Norway and Azerbaijan? We collectively forgot about him and I think it's very sexy from Europe to just say "nope" and push America away, even if for just one week.

And this isn't the first time: we basically showed Madonna in a corner in 2019, thanks to Mans, Eleni, Verka and Conchita. Once again, Europeans knows what they want: we don't want Americans. Australia can because they're like that little brother we took under our wing for no reason and now it's part of us. But not Americans.

The rest of the year is all yours, but one week is ours.

________________________

5. That we can lose like bosses

This year, the voting results have been absolutely insane and FOUR COUNTRIES got zero points from the public, while the UK got both zero points from the public AND the jury.

Don't get me wrong, the song was bad. And yes, Brexit played a role in this. And yes, hating England is Europe’s favourite sport.

But can we please all take a moment and appreciate how James Newman reacted? The public gave him a round of applause and he celebrated this achievement like a boss.

And he had all the reasons! He achieved something incredible, he unlocked something that this new voting system was supposed to never lead to. But he did it. So hats off to you, my boy: My Last Breath was better.

Germany is also used to the bottom of the chart, but this year I really thought Jendrik could have a chance to achieve a higher position. The song was funny, carefree, lively, the hand costume was the kind of trash we need and the message was nice as well. But he still got 3 points.

Despite that, Jendrik celebrated like a maniac and seeing his this happy made me happy as well. I really wish him the best.

________________________

6. That FUCK YOU JURY

Again, same message every year: the jury vote should be eliminated. It's a fucking farce and their votes have nothing to do with what the public want.

The jury focuses on the voices, except when they don't, and clearly giving points to your neighbours is because you like the song, not because they're your neighbours.

I usually make fun of Greece and Cyprus showing eternal love to each other, by giving 12 points to each other every year, but this time, it sounded even more stupid than usual. It really looked like a farce. Why should we see this farce? Why can't we just choose what the public wants? So at least we would blame ourselves for our shitty musical tastes.

Even if I'm pretty sure we all have great musical tastes. Let's not forget that in 2019 the public's winner was Norway, with a song that mixed english, a catchy rhythm and an amazing part in yoik language. Arcade is good as well, but we cannot deny the norwegian entry was a lot more interesting.

And this year, the public's taste was flawless:

Look at this beauty: italian glam rock, ukranian techno folk, french powerful ballad, finnish hard rock and whatever that thing was with Iceland.

There's variety, there's everything for everyone. And there are native languages. Italian, Ukranian, and French on top three, followed by English.

Moral of the story: the public is great and the jury should be abolished forever.

________________________

7. That Ukranian technofolk is all we needed in our lives

I didn’t see enough love for Go_A, so as italian, I think it's my sworn duty to give my appreciation to them and their amazing entry, because this band is awesome and Shum is currently on top of the Spotify top 50 - as it should be, because everyone should listen to it and join this slavic rave party.

I already liked their entry for 2020, Solovey. But I also liked My Last Breath from the UK and Universo from Spain. And this year they brought two of the worst songs. So I was very wary of Go_A.

But Shum is an absolute blast. Katerina Pavlenko's voice is unique and the song is even more, because based on ukranian folklore and traditional dances to summon the spirit of spring. They managed to teach something to all Europe in a three minute song and I think that’s incredibly sexy of them.

And so, I searched for other songs and OMG, I don’t know how it’s possible, but they are all great. Rano-Ranenko, Zhalmenina, Tanula, they all are perfect and I’m in love with this band.

And if all of this is not enough, THEY DID A COVER OF DANCING LASHA TUMBAI. The most iconic Eurovision song, sang by our god Verka. And this is the coolest, most badass cover ever in the whole universe. Please listen to it HERE everyone needs to hear this.

So thank you, Ukraine, for giving us Go_A. We all had a small empty place in our hearts and this place has ben perfectly filled by them.

And yif you think you don’t need ukranian technofolk, is only because you still haven’t listened to it. Please listen and enjoy Shum. You’re welcome.

________________________

8. That rock and roll never dies (and Italy’s well deserved victory)

The last time Italy won was in 19-fucking-90. 31 years ago. I was just born.

And now, they finally won again. And what a song! Despite being italian, I've never listened to Maneskin before, but oh damn, this song is good. Not all their songs are, but this one is. And also Morirò da re.

Their show was perfect as well. This post is really eye-opening about how well they put on their show. The use of the stage, the movements, everything has been part of a great performance, even their clothes. Damiano's voice never faltered, despite having an entire continent watching him. They handled the stage like bosses, despite being only in their twenties. And they gave us some good fucking rock.

And so the public said a loud "FUCK YOU" to the jury and chose its winners. The sassy, sexy italians.

And yes, I know that there has been a lot of petty polemics because those youngsters are having drugs!1!! as if they were a bunch of idiots who used drugs on international TV, with their manager sitting next to them.

Of course it was a pointless accusation and honestly I don't care if some people are sore losers. The drug results were negative anyway, what a shocker.

What we should truly think about is how strong the Maneskin's bladders are, because they spent the whole evening of the final drinking the entire alcohol supply of the Eurovision and, at the end, they were still happy and cool. Hats off to you, you sexy people.

This man is just iconic, why did I miss him before.

Also, have some more Maneskin. You know, as a treat.

________________________

9. That solidarity and wholesomeness are the biggest winners

It's just beautiful to see these nice people, from all over Europe, bonding, having fun, taking photos together and being friends.

The true winner of this, is probably Norway: Tix wanted to have a good time and he had a good time. The video of him vibing with Ukraine and Germany while listening Hard Rock Hallelujah is the best (HERE). His love story with Efendi from Azerbaijan is even better (please, check the video on his youtube channel, it's hilarious). I don't like his song, but he's a great guy and deserves everything.

The italian and finnish rock relationship is also great. Maneskin and Dark Sides found each other, considering they were the only two rock bands in the competition, so mutual appreciation was inevitable.

But Damiano is also a man of culture and he appreciates Ukraine's entry. And Ukraine appreciates both Finland and Italy. Is this what world peace looks like? Because I love it.

________________________

10. That Italians will be Europe's clowns again (and you're all allowed to make fun of us)

Beware, Europe: we Italians are messy and chaotic, our presenters don’t know a single word in English, we are homoerotic AND homophobic at the same time, our musical competitions are so fucking sloooow... let’s say next year’s Eurovision is going to be interesting.

And yes, you’re allowed to make fun of us. We don’t care, we won, so we deserve to be Europe’s clowns once again.

And I don’t know who the presenters will be (my bets are on everyone’s favourites: Fiorello, Amadeus and Malgioglio), I don’t know how we will ridicule ourselves once again, I don’t know where will we find the money to put on the show, I don’t know how ungodly long it will be... but I know that Mans Zelmerlow will be part of it. This man loves Eurovision just like all of us, so I can already see him packing his suitcase and planning his flight to Italy. Come to us, Mans, we will wait for you. We actually need an English presenter, so if you have nothing else to do...

[earthstellar]

Transformers Analysis: Folklore and Folk Magic in the Mines of Kaon

thinking about Miner Megatron again, as always. here we goooo 

So I've been doing some folk magic, as I usually do, and it got me thinking:

Surely, the lower class/caste bots wouldn’t feel welcomed into the more organised Cybertronian temples etc., or might even be outright banned from joining in shared spiritual spaces or rituals. 

So it’s time to teach y’all some working class magic history and how we can apply that to Cybertronian spirituality: 

Working Class History: Casting Spells on the Job (Just Call it Prayer so the Boss Doesn't Find Out)

Here's a quick history of rural Appalachian folk magic, for some context:

1) The Christian Bible has been used for spellcasting all up and down the rural East Coast in the USA from day one of colonisation.

In Pennsylvania you have Hexenmeisters and the Pennsylvania Dutch practices, for a well-documented example.

2) The working class has done spellcasting with the Bible from the very first day shitty bosses started

This is for several reasons, but primarily because Bibles were common and cheap, you didn't have to know how to read in order to follow along with or change the lyrics of popular hymns and prayers to fit your own needs, and it was very easy to sneak what is essentially localised witchcraft under the radar when it just looks like you're reading the Bible to everyone else.

Catholic materials were used a lot for this, because they were often provided for free by any local churches, and a lot of working class people in Appalachia were Italian (Roman Catholic) or Eastern European (Eastern Orthodox Catholic), which meant there was no shortage of all sorts of votive candles and the like to utilise for what we would now identify as spellcasting.

It's important to note that it wasn't called spellcasting outright by anybody; Sometimes it was called "hexing" or "sweet talking", among other terms, but if you called it spellcasting it was heavily frowned upon.

A lot of people were uncomfortable (and are still uncomfortable) with verbalising it or identifying it as such due to stigma from the more mainstream religious communities or their own religious backgrounds, and of course, historically if the boss found out that all the workers hated their jobs so much they were doing fucking witchcraft about it, it would not have ended well for the workers.

So, stealth it is. And that's why there are so many specific folk practices in a lot of historically working class rural regions/communities-- Not just in Appalachia, but similar things happen in similar communities around the world.

What does this have to do with Megatron?

Everything we know about the lower classes on Cybertron, the lower caste members, and the mines/industrial regions in Tarn and Kaon suggest that a similar folklore likely existed within these working communities.

And any local folk practices likely developed for the exact same reasons that this type of folk practice developed in the real world:

Workers are fucking miserable, "mainstream" religion isn't satisfying their spiritual/emotional/social/material needs or concerns, and close-knit people in small communities spending most of their time together naturally start to sort of do their own thing based on their collective situation.

People get desperate, there's nowhere to turn and nothing to do, so spirituality becomes a lifeline in that it builds solidarity and creates a more appropriate sort of support system.

For example: If we aren't allowed time off work to mourn our friend who was killed by heavy machinery, and we aren't allowed any time to process that or deal with it or take care of each other, then we will invent a ritual that allows us to grieve on the job.

This was, and still is, a common thing.

Which brings us to...

St. Barbara and the Mines + Solus Prime

St. Barbara's backstory can be summarised, roughly, as such (based on the version of this story that I know; keep in mind the details can vary):

She was kept isolated from others by her father, who became furious that she refused an arranged marriage. When she fled, he chased her; She ran into two people working in a field, the first who helped her, and the second who gave her path away to her father.

She was captured, and brought to a prominent local figure (the title varies based on different versions of this story), who had her tortured for escaping and disobeying her father.

However, when imprisoned, they tried to kill her again and again, and every morning she was healed. Fire intended to be used to burn her would cool the second it got near her skin, and daggers used to cut her would go dull when brought near her.

Snakes thrown into her room intended to bite her would then die the instant they went to approach her, and ropes intended to be used to bind and choke her would spontaneously fray and snap before they could be tied.

Eventually, she was condemned to beheading, and a special sword was used to cut her head off, which finally killed her.

Her father is the one who beheaded her, and as divine punishment, he was hit by lightning-- A single bolt that lasted so long that his entire body went up into flames, and his ashes disappeared.

Her gravesite became a place of veneration, where people prayed for protection and safety.

She became known as the patron saint of all people with dangerous jobs or jobs where the bosses don't care about the worker's wellbeing or safety, for obvious reasons: Nothing but the hands of her own father could ever harm her.  

(The imagery of St. Barbara being slain only by a special sword is very reminiscent of Solus Prime being slain only by a special sword...)

Workers, especially those with particularly dangerous or shitty jobs but also just anyone working class in general, can interpret this story in several ways which can make it additionally relatable:

Her father = A controlling and aggressive boss who abuses or neglects their workers to death.

The field workers = A pro-union worker (a helper) and an anti-union worker or scab (a betrayer).

So you can see how St. Barbara became immediately adopted as a common worker's saint, and was used in a lot of regional working class folk magic practices (where such folk magic developed within local working communities).

And this is still going strong as a tradition; Crossrail tunnel borers in London consecrated the drilling site in the name of St. Barbara in 2013:

"Several hundred contractors and senior management attended the St Barbara's Day ceremony at the Thames Tunnel (pictured) which will link Plumstead and North Woolwich when completed. The site was so large, that sound engineers put in place an amplification system for the ceremony." - Article here. 

"As a long-standing tradition, one of the first tasks for each new tunnelling projects is to establish a small shrine to Santa Barbara at the tunnel portal or at the underground junction into long tunnel headings. This is often followed with a dedication and an invocation to Santa Barbara for protection of all who work on the project during the construction period." - Article here. 

And here's a related example of a worker's prayer for St. Barbara, from here: 

So this is very much a tradition that is still going strong, and it isn't just Catholic workers who engage with these types of things!

To accommodate more diverse groups and communities of workers, folk practices (including what eventually becomes folk magic) increasingly develop even further away from any one specific religious origin, in order to become more inclusive for the majority of people who can be from all kinds of different spiritual or cultural backgrounds.

Hence, more folk magic is made-- And I believe something like this could absolutely have evolved in a similar way in working communities on Cybertron.

Cybertronian Spirituality: The Primes, The Knights, The Titans

My personal theory/headcanon, and there is not much in canon to support this particularly so please keep that in mind, is that given the average type of manual labour working environment in Tarn and Kaon (dangerous, dark, and deep), it would make sense for the legendary Titans to become worked into some kind of folk practice.

We have this concept of the Titans as these giant and very particular beings, which reminds me somewhat of the Jewish Golem of Prague, in that the Titans are made from raw materials in some kind of mystical or cosmically spiritual manner, then eventually ally themselves to at least one respective Prime who then acts as a director of their actions to achieve victory over cosmic evil(s).

The Titans then go forward and act as guardians of Cybertronian life by combating the origins of these cosmic evil(s) as protectors of their respective polities and regions and eventually colony worlds, called into action by what is essentially a metaphysical and possibly outright spiritual pull of the need of their Prime(s) and later on the needs of the Cybertronian and colony world populations in times of threat or desperation.

These details are peppered throughout canon and vary based on media/franchise, but most recently Titan lore was covered again in IDW’s Optimus Prime series, issue 10, literally titled Origin Myths. 

What is interesting is that while the Golem association could be reasonably made, you could also reasonably say that the Three Original Titans (Metroplex, Chela, and Metrotitan) could be associated just as easily with the Catholic concept of the Holy Trinity. 

Lots of different interpretations could be applied to this stuff!

Class Stratification Within Cybertronian Religious Institutions

No matter how you may interpret it, we know that the Titans have a similar mystical presence in Cybertronian history and cultural lore to that of the Primes and Knights, and it would make sense for those spurned and disparaged by "mainstream" spiritual practices (which were likely just as stratified by class and caste as everything else was on Cybertron during Megatron's youth) to go ahead and create a folk practice based more around Titans.

This is because the Primes would like be associated directly with their oppressive rulers and upper classes, and the Knights, who are said to be the first Cybertronians to come from the Well, thusly represent a very high class onto their own which may have repelled working class bots who were very likely sick of essentially worshipping those venerated in their class stratified society solely due to the conditions of their creation; The Knights were "born with silver spoons", essentially, and it's hard to sell that to people who suffered due to the conditions of their own creation.

Therefore, the Titans are the other most likely Cybertronian figures of historical lore that could reasonably be adapted into a sort of folk religion for the working classes and lower social caste bots.

The imagery is strong, and relatable: In Megatron's case, the manual labourers and miners all have large frames compared to the average Cybertronian, they all toil invisibly and in relative silence, and they are kept away from the end products of their labour and yet without them, Cybertron planet wide would instantly struggle to sustain their raw material demands. 

They are critical workers, yet many of them have no names/designations; It is noted at least once in canon that some Titans are so old or so little known that their designations are not recorded. Yet without these unseen/unknown Titans, it could be the case that cosmic evil could have achieved victory.

While the Titans are critical, they are largely a mystery and unknown in any real detail. They do not normally engage with average Cybertronians, and when they do, it is usually indirectly-- Even though their actions actively impact the lives of nearly everyone.

And though the Primes and Knights are generally never physically present, at least not within living memory, there is real and physical proof of Titans. I feel like that aspect alone may well appeal more to people who are very physically oriented; We also see a stark realist mentality from many of the lower class/caste bots, who are sometimes realistic to the point of nihilism (which is part of why Megatron's writings were so revolutionary, in that they re-introduced hope to people who had previously concluded that there was no realistic possibility of ever rising up).

The Titans being a known, tangible physical reality may well have endeared them as a more interesting folkloric or spiritual focus to this particular cohort of bots.

Just like with St. Barbara in real life, you can see how the Titans may have been interpreted in certain ways by the lower class/caste working bots which may have made them more appealing or more easy to structure into a framework of sorts for their own practices within their local cultures.

A Little Meta: There's a Lot of Various Religious Imagery in Transformers

Like with all media, especially Western media, inevitably some Jesus sneaks in there.

Which usually sucks, because it can be alienating for literally anyone who isn't familiar with Christianity in some way (as some references or parallels are inevitably not going to be as obvious or even detectable at all to people who didn't grow up with all this sometimes very specific shit, resulting in missed thematic elements and so on due to no fault of the viewers but rather the tendency for Western shows to overwhelmingly be written and designed by primarily Western white middle aged cis straight men who tend to throw some Jesus in there when there should not necessarily be any Jesus in there, but I could yell about this all night).

Transformers as a franchise altogether is not immune to this; As with all media, it is made by people, and people are influenced by their social/cultural upbringing, and that includes religious influences.

We could read some of this into the TFP/Aligned Continuity, in regards to the idea of the Thirteen Primes and how that concept is interpreted in TFP.

Transformers Prime: Alpha Trion is Essentially Paul the Apostle

The TFP Primes resemble both the Apostles as well as various Saints, and especially the Fourteen Holy Helpers; These fourteen Saints in particular are elevated above the others in many cases and contexts-- Similar to how the Primes are held up as elevated over other Cybertronians and other figures in Cybertronian history and presumably within certain Cybertronian spiritual practices as well. 

For example, Alpha Trion is strongly reminiscent of the Christian figure Paul the Apostle, who was a writer/scribe known for documenting early Christian concerns of faith in his letters, which became extremely important to theological historians in regards to determining early Christian discourse and attempting to create a timeline of early Christianity.

His letters are included the New Testament in thirteen (!) sections called epistles, which are archived forever in various iterations within the Christian Bible. 

Now, let’s take a look at the symbolism, using the TFP main illustration of Alpha Trion as featured in the Covenant, and a popular Icon image of Paul the Apostle: 

Beard, cloak, book-- Even the pose they are in here is very similar, look at the feet and the way they are both standing. Even the halo of Cybertronian glyphs around Alpha Trion’s head resembles the gold filament of Paul’s halo. 

And much like Alpha Trion's questionable ability to write/re-write history and determine events through some kind of cosmically divine power of foresight, the timeline of Paul's letters will likely never be fully verifiable, and of course, there are so many translations and interpretations of these letters along with the rest of the New Testament that while key points remain fairly consistent, there is still no "true" version or exact outline of events or discussions as recorded by Paul-- Primarily because in at least a few cases, Paul's letters are the only allusion to certain events or conversations.

This is extremely similar to how Alpha Trion states outright in the Covenant that he himself doesn't know if what he writes is actually factual anymore, or if he has changed things so many times to try to construct a more favourable narrative of actions and events that reality itself may have been warped by his Quill, either forwards or backwards in time...

You could also argue that Alpha Trion is presented as a God-like figure in TFP (especially when he appears to Optimus in the form of an echoing voice and shimmering spectral figure in a vision caused by what is essentially the equivalent of a holy relic), and Orion Pax would then be comparable to Jesus pre-Crucifixion, with his reformatting into Optimus Prime post-Matrix heavily resembling Jesus in the eyes of his followers post-Resurrection.

The main cast of Autobots in this comparison would then roughly correspond to the Apostles, of whom there were twelve, with Optimus then making Thirteen... And of course, canonically, Optimus is the resurrection of the Thirteenth Prime. 

You can also see visual similarities in the depiction of Thirteen in the Covenant; It reminds me heavily of the Divine Mercy image of Jesus: 

Both have their right hands raised, their chests emitting a holy/cosmic light. 

I'm just saying, it is totally possible to make connections between fictional lore/spiritual figures and real world ones, and TF is loaded with content that can be re-contextualised in this way. 

(I also want to point out at this time that it is not my intention to offend anyone with any of this analysis; I am writing from the point of view of someone who grew up with folk spirituality, and I am also a Quaker Attender, just so you are aware of my own personal background. I would love to hear any other interpretations of any spiritual imagery in Transformers media, because there’s a ton of possible ways to read into this stuff!) 

In Conclusion: Cast a Hex on Your Boss by Calling Upon the Titans

Just for fun, as someone who has actually done folk magic for my entire life, I've adapted a hex against bad bosses to fit this headcanon. I think this is something that lower class/caste bots would absolutely engage in; It's common in real life as well.

The original I'm basing this off of was actually something I found in one of our old family Bibles before I moved out, and was written in Girard, Pennsylvania sometime between 1920-1930. I believe it was written by a relative of mine who worked either on the farm or on the railways.

Remember that folk magic like this is for and by working class people, so there are no fancy supplies needed; Don't ever buy shit to do magic, you can do it with anything laying around you. No need to spend money.

If you have a shitty boss, please let me know if you hex your boss with this. I always encourage witchcraft, fictional or otherwise.

Here's what you do, if you want to actually try this:

1) Using any old paper that you have lying around, cut it roughly into a square (doesn't need to be perfect.) It doesn't matter what type of paper it is.

2) Grab any pen you like, it can be any type of pen, any type of ink.

3) Draw a square outline on the paper, making a border on the page. This can be big or small as you like, and you can decorate it if you want; Just leave enough space to write inside the square.

4) Fold this paper into a square, any way you'd like as long as it's a square, and take this paper while it's still blank to work in your pocket.

Carry the paper with you for at least one full day at work. If you can, place it in a chest pocket or a pocket where the paper will be fairly close to your body.

It doesn't matter if the paper gets dirty or smudged or torn; In fact, that's even better.

(Some people who do variations of this spell in real life even use the paper to wipe dirt off their hands etc. throughout the day, to really get the energy of a work day settled into the paper. As long as it can still be written on, you can do this if you'd like.)

5) At the end of the work day, take the paper out, and write the following:

Where I have put [X], the word "Lord" was in the original version of this hex which was in my family Bible, but to contextualise it within the fictional headcanon lore here, you can replace this with the word "Titan". (Or you can replace it with anything else that may be appropriate as well, if you would like to actually use this hex!)

"Give us pay for our work, or the poor will plea to the [X] against you, and you will be struck down, cast down.  

If you do not give to those who give to you, you will be cursed coming in, and going out.

Just as the [X] can raise you up and lead you to prosper, so too can the [X] turn away from you, and you will be left to have your walls destroyed, your fortress ruined.

Us servants will rejoice, but you will cry out in anguish, you will be put to shame.

Without the toilers, the land is made desolate, the haunt of jackals.

[X], turn your gaze to us, we labourers of all kinds, see our tears and our sweat.

Lay curses upon those who use their hands to hold us down; Kept below water, our tears lost in the flood.

Raise the waters, and surge the shores of their ill-owned kingdom; Bring forth to their memory that the [X] stewards the land, and that all among the land are equal in spirit.

The [X] will cast fury upon the unrighteous and conniving, cast rage and stand among us mightily, each motion casting winds against the oppressor who weakens like fractured stone under the onslaught of rain.

The [X] will make a storm from our anguish, which brings us higher, raises us from desolation. Our tears, become the rain that withers the false tower looming high above us.

Our hands will raise from our tools and duties, and offer high praise to the [X], who guards the disparaged and lowly, who enacts justice against those who have done wrong against us.

Let us be brought high, and those who revel in our struggle, may they be cast down."

6) You may flip the paper over once the ink is dry, and on the back, put three Xs in the upper corners of the paper. You may also add three more XXXs to the centre of the paper, where the crease in the paper is from folding it.

7) Re-fold the paper, and put it in the bottom of your right shoe. If this is too uncomfortable, carry it in any pocket on your right side.

You can also place it in your wallet for safe keeping, as your wallet contains money and possibly a work ID or something similar, which are all tied to work and working.

And there you have it! Fuck shitty bosses, both fictional ones and real ones. Join a union, do some witchcraft. 

This post was long as always, but I hope it's interesting to someone out there! <3 Thank you to anyone who actually reads through all of this! <3

[wincore]

vixen | nakamoto yuta

pairing: kitsune!yuta x female!reader

words: 5.1k 

summary: every year, you visit the fox who claims to know everything about you. 

genre: fantasy/folklore, fluff, angst(?)

warnings: suggestive, mention of past bullying, one excessively flirty nakamoto yuta

song rec(s): clear and sunny - sou (cover)

a/n: this is for all you furries who aren’t quite furries yet muah (im joking) but aaaa love exploring folklore and also i should put in a disclaimer that not every aspect adheres to the original tales of the kitsune <3 i did not proofread btw and i am very sorry

Some things never change.

Examples: boys, shitty friends, death, and the scent of nostalgia. To you, that very scent happens to be the earthy smell of chrysanthemums and a faint waft of spices from the kitchen in your parents’ house. To you, October is not just another month. To you, there is one more thing that never changes and it is not your belief in old ghost stories. 

Around this time of the year, the autumn festival begins in a flurry of vibrant red smudges and a whiff of excitement, in streets suddenly brought alive. The skies are candied orange, and it’s the only time you aren’t tired of home. This time is also when you find yourself right in the clutches of the one demon you swore you’d avoid for the rest of your life. You swore. It’s not your fault that said demon is a little, let’s say, tempting. 

Tempting in the most vexing, infuriating way possible. Bewitching, cruel, seducing—all that foxes are and all that you’ve heard of them could not have prepared you for an encounter. Folklore runs deep through you. The memories of a certain fox-boy run deeper. 

It is not the festival you are here for. 

You yawn, leaning against the wooden door frame of the shop. It would be inappropriate to fall asleep on the job, especially since there are a bunch of children staring idly at you. You close your mouth quickly, resting the back of your hand against your lips. Late afternoon is an easy time to fall asleep. You have half the mind to snarl at the kids to scare them off, their gaze getting on your nerves and when you think you will, you turn the other way. Manners come first to you, no matter how temperamental you get. 

The procession has gathered a crowd. Some shouts and squeals from the children make you slump further. At least they’re having fun with whatever stupid game they’re playing. You breathe in the autumn air. A part of you wonders if you simply let your feet lead you down the stairs, you’d be free of this entire ordeal. You shake your head. Temptation has always been hard to resist—never meant to be resisted but you’re much older now. There is dignity to be answered.

October is mild—your grandmother’s shop is still on the verge of collapse, your mother still yells at you for misplacing kitchen utensils and your old friends from school still gossip about who you’re dating. It’s like the script never changes; people change the meaning, twist their words in the same old pattern. If you were a little less behaved, you would have poured your drink over their heads yesterday. 

You clench your jaw. It’s always an ‘Oh, you’re so attractive’ and an ‘I wish I could date as many men as you do but I’m loyal to my boyfriend’, or even a ‘Must be nice being surrounded by boys all the time’. You know what they mean. It’s not the first time you’ve been called a fox, and you don’t think it’ll be the last—at least until you decide to stop letting your hometown suffocate you. Maybe you’ll accept what they say. You have heard of what hatred left unchecked can do.

If you’re honest, you haven’t been with too many men. If you’re a little more honest, none of them have ever made your heart race.

You watch the children play with a keen eye, their painted masks ridiculously large for their faces and in brightly coloured clothes contrasting well with the town. You might not be allowed to fall asleep, but there’s nothing against closing your eyes for a second or two.

The image of glinting yellow eyes and a fanged smile pop up and you quickly open your eyes. You don’t know why your heart beats so loud at the mere thought of him, thoughts in which his lips are full and painted red, and his bright smile is stretched upon them. Sometimes, the thought of him is in gentle washes, his hand fixing your hair, or a flirty smile when you dare stumble upon him on a particularly sleepless night. You shake your head to get rid of the thought. That is not love. Some sort of embarrassing attraction, maybe. However, the friendship you have is worse.

“I see you’re a slacker as always.”

Your grandmother’s voice breaks you out of your cycle of thoughts and you’re almost grateful.

“I sold approximately zero sweets,” you snort. “Why can’t we just do away with the shop?”

“You’re starting to sound like your mother,” your grandma calls from behind one of the counters, distaste ringing clear in her voice. 

You sigh. “Fine, but… you work way too hard to make these for them to not sell.”

“Maybe they would sell if a certain little lady would stay and help.”

You groan, leaning your head back. “You know I have work in the city.”

Your grandmother waves her hand about, dismissing your reasoning. She fiddles around in the shadows for a bit before coming forward with more boxes than she should be able to hold.

“You don’t have to feel too guilty. Yuta’s been helping out,” your grandmother informs fondly. “You could learn a thing or two from him.”

You’re not the superstitious sort and yet still, your heart beats faster. For him, or for the bad omens foxes bring to a household—you don’t know.

You scoff instead. “He’s not as great a guy as you think, grandma. He can be really mean too!”

“Oh, I doubt that. Have you seen his smile? Impossible.” Your grandmother waves it off before drawing nearer, voice hushed without reason. “Have you thought about it then? He is handsome, isn’t he?”

“Grandma.”

You’re not sure what old women go through in their youth that makes them something of a matchmaker in their later years. You think the whole ordeal is messed up. There is no way you’re going to stick your nose into your grandchildren’s love life; it’s gross.

“These should be enough for the children, no?” Your grandmother asks and you look up.

“You’re giving them away for free?” you question, furrowing your eyebrows. “And you talk about bad business.”

She places her hand on her hip, pointing an accusatory finger. “You’re going to lecture your grandmother?”

You raise your hands up in defeat, standing up to help her with the red boxes of acorn candy and paper wraps of roasted chestnuts. You end up with the entire load in your arms, your grandmother happily shuffling about as she locks up the store.

You turn sharply at the surprised sound behind you. The evening has settled in and glowing lanterns bring forward the evidence, the darkening streets flooding with round droplets of light.

But it is not the festival you are looking at.

Yuta looks somewhat serene, your cheeks heating up despite yourself. You look at him with bated breath, hoping the boxes obscure your face enough to make the vaguely positive emotions less evident. The dark red jacket draped over his shoulder does not look out of place—in fact, he fits in so well you would’ve mistaken him for another face in the crowd if he weren’t stupidly gorgeous. He looks at you with no strong emotion in the eyes before breaking into a smile; and when his hand strokes the top of your head as a greeting, he seems fond. He always does.

“Grandma,” he calls with his best smile, turning to the old woman.

Your grandmother doesn’t need any more convincing of his character. 

“Oh, there you are! Did I tell you (name)’s back? I wanted to break the news to you earlier. Ah…I must have forgotten.”

You glance from Yuta to her. Is this another one of her tricks and tests?

“She’s always here this time of the year,” he responds, laughing politely.

“Ah, you remembered,” she says, eyes crescent as she smiles back. “Help her with the boxes. The city has made her so frail.”

“I’m good,” you choke on the words, hurriedly moving away and almost dropping one of the boxes.

You slip on your sandals and scurry off faster, wishing he’d just stay behind. He always has. The air makes you shiver but you’re adamant; and it’s not the only trait of yours to make relationships fail.

“You know, you should be nicer to old friends.”

You try not to react when Yuta takes the boxes from you, matching your pace almost effortlessly.

“I thought foxes ran away once they’re found out,” you snap, reluctantly letting him take the packages.

Yuta rolls his eyes. “I see you still aren’t very fond of me.”

“Not when you’re tricking my grandmother like this,” you hiss.

“You call helping trickery?” he retaliates.

“Foxes bring bad business,” you mutter.

“I’m the reason your grandmother’s business is somewhat above the water.”

You sigh, exasperated. There’s no point in wasting your breath. You look away, crossing your arms as you walk, the silence between the two of you suddenly awkward. Even so, you’re not going to open your mouth for him.

“Would you two slow down?” your grandmother calls, voice weary. “We’re already there.”

The two of you halt in your tracks immediately, taking mellow steps back to her. She looks over the two of you with furrowed eyebrows and you try to think of an explanation when she starts laughing.

“Oh, I don’t mind the two of you flirting,” she says, littered with slow laughter. “Just make sure the food is where it’s supposed to be.”

You’re about to refute when Yuta laughs, the sound still boyish and lively. “Of course. (name) missed me so much this year, she couldn’t help herself.”

You give him a pointed look which he ignores, deliberately or not. “We- I wasn’t—”

“Grandmother, if you’ll give us permission,” he interrupts, settling the packages on the table by the food stall and smiling wide. “We’ll go enjoy the festival now.”

She bobs her head in affirmation and Yuta grabs your hand to pull you into the bustling street, your silent plea for help ignored by your smug grandmother.

“What are you doing?” you ask, slipping your hand from his. “You aren’t- You aren’t trying to eat my liver, are you?”

“Why the liver? Can’t I have the rest of you too?”

It’s not like you were particularly alarmed but his response makes you feel a flush of embarrassment.

“It’s been a year since I last saw you,” he says before his voice turns a shade cooler. “Have you thought about my proposal?”

You fall silent. The overthinking started last year too. Your thoughts and dreams, so easily pervaded by him and all it took was one sentence. 

“We should get married.”

“Why did you even think I’d agree to that?” You try not to get too flustered. He knows all your petty weaknesses and you’d rather not have them on display for him to stare and pick at. “What the fuck would I get out of marrying you?”

Yuta whistles. “I like your tongue. But—yes, to answer your question, you’d get a very handsome and capable husband. Your bed will always be warm and oh, speaking of beds—”

You clamp your hand over his mouth at the suggestive look he sends, worried about being spotted by one of your school friends. Ah, right—friends, the very same people that smell of jealousy and won’t miss any opportunity to throw a jab your way. Friends. You can’t believe you’re still afraid of their judgement.

“And why do you want to get married to me?” you ask, looking into his eyes.

There’s a pause, filled with the chatter of the crowd.

“You look like you’re afraid of finding someone,” he speaks finally, ignoring your question. “Or is it the other way around?”

You roll your eyes, ready to walk off when he grabs your wrist to pull you closer to his chest. It draws some looks from nearby people, your eyes darting from face to face in fear. You take a deep breath and look at Yuta again, almond eyes distracting. 

“People will think we’re lovers,” you whisper, almost a hiss.

“What’s wrong with that?”

You breathe out in disbelief. “You’re really something.”

“What? Why did you always come to meet me then? Behind the keyaki tree?”

“It wasn’t for you,” you lie quickly. “I had nothing better to do.”

Pining after a fox? You could never have feelings for him. Even so, your answer comes off childish and silly, and somehow he’s the only one to be able to draw that side of you—the you that is messy and unprepared.

Yuta smiles in return. “You think people can’t fall in love with us the same way they fall in love with most everything.”

It’s a statement, not a question.

“How conservative of you,” he leaves with an airy remark, but not before urging you to follow him.

The sizzling sound of food being fried and the knocking, clicking sound of children playing games, all these forgotten sounds grow louder and for a second, if only you let yourself, you could close your eyes and it would be just like your first date. 

No. It’s different. You look up, eyes trailing over Yuta’s back, his golden hair, how his figure moves with ease and confidence.

It is different.

You raise an eyebrow at the box of takoyaki Yuta shoves towards you, an expecting look across his face.

“You like this, don’t you?” he asks, an uncharacteristic hesitation in his voice.

You hum in response, taking the box from him and saving yourself the trouble of asking whether he paid for it or simply charmed his way through. 

“Eh, no thank you?” he complains. “How polite.”

You scrunch your nose to accompany an exaggerated smile and he laughs, the two of wandering over the asphalt streets. Your hands are close enough to brush—and if a twenty-something year-old woman can feel jittery because of it, hands truly are meant to share warmth. The smell of candy and caramel fills the air, making you smile. You’ve saved enough for the taste of home, you think. 

The taste of home. 

Inevitably, the thought of kissing your companion crosses your mind and you stop in your tracks. Whatever. It must be natural when someone as attractive is beside you. Those aren’t feelings. You curse yourself for feeling like a teenager again.

The festival grounds aren’t as shabby as you expect them to be. The city,—if you could call this one—stops here and the earth spreads out to the forest behind. The crowd also thins, and you take a fresh breath. They’re selling old books in the corner, but no one seems to be there.

“The raccoon dogs,” Yuta whispers in your ear, with an arcane smile. “Want to visit those rascals?”

You roll your eyes. He knows you’ve heard one too many folktales for a lifetime, seen one too many. It’s time to go home, especially now that the thought of thanking him crosses your mind. You’re about to turn when your shoulder crashes into someone else’s. A surprised, syrupy smile greets you, which you cannot return for the first few moments. Yui’s smile wavers and you flash her a quick smile. A friend. Her arm is looped through her lover’s, the one she never shuts up about and suddenly the urge to pour water over her head returns.

Yuta glances from you to her before pressing his lips together, as if suppressing laughter. You’re almost offended when Yui laughs flippantly.

“You’re on a date too? I knew you couldn’t stand spending the festival alone,” she says, tugging her lover closer. 

People have always told you who you are and what you do. As if they know better.

You smile awkwardly. “It’s… actually not—”

“Oh, don’t be shy.” She gently pats your shoulder before leaning in. “He’s a real catch. As expected from you. You can never leave the boys alone.”

You know what she really means. You’ve heard the same words in high school when she was shoving you into a wall behind the school. The sickening smile is still on her face.

You gulp, feeling sixteen again. The lack of people around somehow makes it more awkward and you’re about to excuse yourself when suddenly, Yuta bumps into Yui and his warm drink spills over her left shoulder. Your eyes widen, more in confusion. When did he leave? You don’t doubt his ability to sneak past people, but surely you couldn’t have been so enraptured in your own feelings that you barely noticed.

“I’m so sorry,” Yuta says, voice honeyed with surprise.

Yui looks like she’s about to explode when she looks at him, her expression dropping to a calmer one almost immediately.

It’s an easy look to recognize. They always have it when they first meet Yuta, whether it’s the smile that’s too dazzling or the pretty round eyes. 

How persuasive, those eyes.

“Ah… I must have not seen you,” she says faintly, and Yuta’s smile widens.

Before he can stir up more trouble, you slip your arm into his and pull him away, not caring for another polite apology to an old, almost nameless face.

“I was having fun,” Yuta complains, voice still smug and calm.

You glare at him and it only seems to add fuel to the fire, to whatever cold fire dances at his fingertips. 

“You’re happy, right? Don’t look at me like that. You should reward me.”

You don’t respond, looking away and hoping to get at least a word in about how troublesome he is every single time you visit. Yuta has other plans, however. Leaning his head to look you in the eye, he maintains a distance which looks perfectly decent but feels less than so.

“How about a kiss? I deserve one, don’t I?” He moves his head closer to yours, making you shy away.

You grab him by the belt and pretend to not catch a glimpse of the pleased look on his face as you drag him into a secluded part by the forest.

It’s quieter here, so much that you can almost hear your own heart drumming in your chest, and the faint light of the distant festival grounds doesn’t help much at all. It’s dark as dusk, and you can only make out Yuta’s jawline and a faint smirk over his lips. You think that if a fox ever wanted to eat your liver, this would be the perfect spot.

“You did something,” you finally utter the words. “You did something to me.”

“Why do you think I did something? Do you mean love?” he responds with a cheeky smile. “This means you’ve been thinking about me? How cute—”

“Yuta, stop it,” you warn. 

“Or what? You should stop me yourself.”

You grab the lapels of his jacket, the cloth bunching as your knuckles turn white. The anger you feel isn’t the first of its kind—it’s just a little funny how it’s always Yuta every time, making you remember the burning feeling time and time again. You find yourself unable to respond. 

“Oh, don’t hold back,” he provokes, leaning in.

You push at his chest in exasperation, but he grabs your wrists before you can retract your hands.

“Scared?” he whispers.

You pull apart anyway, a scowl over your lips. “You’re as annoying as ever. Don’t you have anyone else to bother?”

“Ooh! Sharp claws. You’d be lovely as my fox-bride.” he teases. 

Your face flares with heat. “I’m not your… I’m not a fox.”

“I didn’t say a fox, I said—”

“I know what you said,” you snap, massaging your wrist so you don’t have to look at him.

Yuta falls quiet for a moment, voice lower when he speaks again.

“Is it so nasty to be called a fox? There are worse things, you know.”

You scoff, growing increasingly annoyed. “Of course you’d say that. I hate it. I hate this town. I hate foxes and I hate you.”

Yuta places a hand over his chest, gasping with no emotion. Your eyes linger over his long, painted nails a little longer before you meet his eyes. A part of you regrets saying the words but you couldn’t help it. The shroud choking your hometown makes you want to scream at the top of your lungs every time you’re here. You hate this place.

But you don’t hate him, after all. 

You try to clear yourself of the thought. A gentle gust of wind brings you back to the present, Yuta still glancing at you with no giveaway to what he’s feeling.

“You wouldn’t make a terrible fox though,” he says, eyes sharp. “Don’t they know you’re a vixen already? How many livers will you eat?”

You suck in a breath, tears stinging at your eyes. However, it’s not like you to get so easily affected by him. No. No, somehow that doesn’t make sense either. Those words do hurt from Yuta and you’re not sure if it’s just because he's the only one you didn’t expect them from.

“You…”

“What? Aren’t you going to lash at me again? You’re so predictable.”

His voice is calm despite your obvious annoyance and you feel flames lick at your heart. Your hand moves before you can think, about to meet his cheek when he grabs your wrist. You struggle, trying to pull free but to no avail and you use the other hand to hit him in the chest. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t bother him and that same feline smile curves up his lips.

You feel something you haven’t before, a warm growl at the pit of your stomach.

You push with all your strength, catching Yuta off guard and he stumbles backward but not before pulling you into him. Consequently, either of you lose footing and land on the grass with a sudden thud, Yuta’s side pressed against yours. His hands still clutch your wrist, and he shifts to hover over you.

“We used to wrestle like this as a litter,” he says, erupting into full laughter. “Ah, memories. I don’t even know if they’re alive or dead now.”

Yuta is much stronger than he looks, and he’s taken your tantrum as a source of amusement much to your infuriation. He has your hands pinned back, eyes unaffected as he scans over your face. You try to shift but there’s just too much weight on you. You breathe slowly, chest rising and falling in time with his. His earrings sway gently in the wind, dangling a few inches above you—he’s pretty, so pretty. Admitting defeat has never been your forte but now that your senses are gathering again, you feel a flush of embarrassment for losing your temper. 

Or perhaps, it is something else when you register the lack of distance between your noses.

“Playtime’s over,” Yuta coos. “You’re kinda cute when you’re losing.”

He tilts his head, an adoring smile over his lips. For a moment, they’re all you see.

Can a fox comfort you? Can a fox make you feel loved on the darkest of nights? Your mind races with questions your heart does not want to answer. 

Yuta leans in to close the distance and despite every nerve in your body, you turn your head away. You can hear him gulp, the following moments painfully quiet before he gets up. Your breath is soft and shallow, lying on the ground till you get enough courage to sit up. 

You almost gasp. His tails are clearer under the dim moonlight, all nine of them golden and luxurious. The light hitting his face isn’t any less flattering and once again you are reminded of how handsome he is, fairytale or not. 

Yuta looks uncomfortable, and that’s a first for you.

“I’m sorry,” you say, though you don’t know why.

He waves his hand dismissively, annoyed.

“Yuta,” you take a step forward.

“I see the way you look at me,” he says quietly, “Is it not want?”

You fall silent, biting your lip so you don’t retort violently. He doesn’t look particularly malicious when he says that but you do not want to give him the satisfaction of an answer yet.

He quietens for a moment before a look of curiosity flashes across his features.

“What is it then?” he asks. “Is it a secret? Foxes love secrets. Tell me.”

Despite every bone in your body burning up, you find it in yourself to laugh.

“I don’t think I could keep a secret from you if I tried,” you finally say, before bursting into soft laughter again.

Yuta looks at you puzzled, lips parted while he stands frozen as if he were a painting. A daunting, reckless, heavenly painting.

“It’s not want,” you answer quietly. “It’s more than that. Even if I hated it. I like you.”

Yuta’s ears perk up at your confession. “So- so you admit, then? You are interested?”

“I could blame you for this, you know?” You shrug, hugging yourself once the night starts to feel cold again. Yuta begins to take off his jacket when you stop him, gently pressing your palm against his chest. 

“You’re a fox, after all,” you whisper. “Like me. What they think of me.”

Yuta purses his lips. “Does it really hurt you? No, wait. Did they- did they—”

“Now, you tell me,” you cut him off. “Why do you insist on getting married—to me?”

There’s a pause. The crickets chirp a merry tune despite the leisurely darkness of the night.

“You’re not terrible,” he says, nonchalantly.

You glare at him and he raises his hands in defeat. He looks wearier the more you look at him.

“I want to grow old,” he mumbles after a long pause. “Properly.”

You hold your breath.

“And you want to do it with me?”

Another flower blooms in your chest, as if he hasn’t planted a garden in there already. The lights from the festival flicker down, the lanterns burning brighter in the distance. He glances at them for a moment, your eyes still fixated on him. 

The tails glow even brighter in the dark, as if gold in broad daylight. You’ve always been curious about him and his kind, all the stories; but he says he’s too old to remember if you ask.

You reach out to touch one of the tails, wondering if the fur is as warm as it looks. They’re pale and captivating, but they look so soft—they shouldn’t belong to an animal so vicious. Is he, though? Is he all that you think he is or have all these years failed you? If anything, he’s quite probably not as much a fox as you are, you think bitterly.

The fur is warm, but the realization is short-lived.

A short growl leaves the corner of his mouth. Yuta glares at you like he was stolen from and yet, you do not move your hand. Some part of you wants to aggravate him further.

“I’m not a pet,” he snaps. “Stop that.”

“You should stop me yourself,” you mimic his voice.

Yuta’s shoulders relax, and he looks down but you can still see the trembling smile on his face. It’s the way he looks at you, you think to yourself, maybe that's the reason after all.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you say, feeling warmer than the autumn night should allow.

“Like what?” he asks, still smiling.

You look away. 

“You’re not too fox-like, you know?” you mumble. “You’re just annoying. And flirty. And annoying.”

Yuta chuckles, before pressing his palm to the top of your head. 

“And you’re lovely.”

You give in to the gesture of affection, leaning your head to press against his shoulder.

“Why do you even do all this? What do you get out of it?” you say, voice muffled. He hears you clearly, however.

“Because I love you,” he responds, as if coming to terms with it himself. “More than you think.”

There is no joke, no flirtation to his tone, no decoration upon his words. It’s plain, and laid bare. And sometimes, simplicity is scariest. 

You pull back, lips pulled into a frown. The air is cold once more; the longing for warmth flowing into you. The silence is worse.

“You don't believe foxes can fall in love,” he states softly upon a wavering smile. “I knew that. Of course.”

A part of him believes it too.

“I…” you begin, and for the first time, you are afraid of promises in the name of love. You are the one making them now.

“I’ll believe you,” you whisper, “I’ll believe you so please… please take care of me.”

You place your palm against his cheek, his skin bewitchingly warm. 

“Only if you take care of me,” he whispers back, leaning in.

This time, you do not move.

The lovers’ kiss you’d been searching for—lovers’ warmth, lovers’ comfort—all of it comes crashing down once Yuta tightens his arm around your waist, the other hand resting gently at the base of your neck. He kisses with the right amount of pressure, the vague taste of sweet berries in his mouth.

You used to fear his touch, like he would eat you whole; even if they have been gentle, always. This time, you might as well let him. He presses his lips from your cheek to jaw to neck, lingering at each spot enough to make you clutch at his shirt tighter, taking in short gasps of breath. You kiss for a little longer, like time means nothing.

“We should go back,” you whisper, pulling apart.

Yuta kisses you again, the distance unacceptable. 

“Yuta—”

He kisses you once more, your calls falling on deaf ears.

Finally, after another long kiss, he pulls apart enough to rest his forehead against yours, eyes still closed.

“It must have been hard for you,” he mumbles.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” you scoff.

“Foxes are faithful lovers, you know?” he insists.

You laugh. “What do you mean?”

“It means I’ll follow you everywhere.”

He stands up straight, his thumb stroking your cheek as he bites back a smile.

“I don’t think we should get back tonight,” he suggests all of a sudden. “We could book a hotel. That’s the place you use these days, right? I’m sure your grandmother will understand your absence—”

You groan, resting your forehead against his shoulder and he presents a delighted laugh in return. It is warm by his side; he is warm. You find it easy to forget the failures in love, the loneliness of a lover that isn’t meant to be yours. Folktales are just long tales, after all. You smile to yourself. 

You should’ve known—it was the fox all along. 

[anactorya]

What Doesn’t Kill You (2200 words, PG-13, hospitalization, grief/mourning, mild horror)

Written for the @sambuckylibrary Halloween bingo. Prompt: witching hour. Also on AO3.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Sam’s heard it a hundred times, even believed it a few of them.

Right now, clutching the edges of his hospital chair tight enough to leave fingernail imprints in the scratchy plastic, watching Bucky waxen and still and breathing through a tube, he’s pretty sure it’s a bunch of bullshit. Because he’s fine, got a few scrapes and bruises and a knock on the head that didn’t even give him a concussion, nowhere near death’s door, and he feels weaker and more useless than he ever has. Worn out like an old dishtowel. You could hold him up to the light and see right through him.

He keeps thinking back to Steve. All the hours Sam spent sitting at his bedside after they found him half-drowned on the bank of the Potomac, waiting for him to wake up. He held it together pretty good back then, but this is different. The doctors keep saying shit like minimal brain activity and invasive life support and limits of enhanced healing, and Sam knows what that stuff means. Bucky isn’t going to wake up.

In a way, it’s more like the day Riley died, except the whole thing’s happening in slow motion and Sam gets a front row seat to every excruciating inch of that spiral towards the ground. Another person Sam loved, gone before he ever plucked up the courage to say how he felt, because he can fall backwards out of planes and leap off buildings and go toe-to-toe with alien megalomaniacs, but when it comes to letting someone else in on his heart, he’s a fucking coward.

So, yeah. Sam’s lost people before. Riley, his parents, Nat. Steve, who never even said a real goodbye. Karli, who could’ve been good if he’d gotten through to her a little earlier. But this might be the one that finally breaks him.

A hand finds his shoulder, startling him out of his reverie. It’s Rhodes, his face set in a carefully neutral expression that makes Sam want to say something shitty just to wipe it off.

He doesn’t. Rhodes has always been good to him, better than he has to be, and the guy knows what it’s like. He lost a best friend too.

Except, no, he doesn’t know, not really. Nobody does. Sam’s never told them.

“Sam,” Rhodes says, heavily, “you’ve been here for three days, and I hate to say it, but you’re starting to smell like it.”

Sam shakes his head, breathes into his hands.

“At least take a shower, sleep in an actual bed. The doctors–”

“The doctor told me to contact his family, make arrangements,” he hears himself say. His voice is very distant, very flat. “I’m his family.”

“Pepper has people,” Rhodes offers. “If you don’t wanna deal with that stuff, you don’t have to.”

A flash of anger burns in his chest–at the way everyone’s talking about this like a done deal, like it’s already over, and at the same time, at the thought that if he has to organise a, a fucking funeral for Bucky he might want to be hands-off about it, not make sure himself that everything gets done right. It’s a tangled, inchoate mess of feeling, none of which makes it out his mouth. His hands are shaking.

Rhodes squeezes his shoulder. “Go home, Sam. Be with your family.”

He leaves, and the only sound left in the room is Bucky’s mechanical breathing. The bruises on his face have faded away, healing where the damage inside of him couldn’t and leaving him looking unfairly normal. Like a still photograph of himself, except for all the damn equipment keeping him alive.

Sam got wake up you asshole and you’re not allowed to leave me here alone out of his system days ago, and now all he does is reach for Bucky’s hand and squeeze it. Bucky doesn’t squeeze back, doesn’t react at all, not even a flutter of an eyelid, and after a moment Sam lets his hand fall back to his side.

#

Louisiana means you grow up knowing magic’s real. Sam knew it long before he ever met Wanda or Strange, or saw an alien god opening portals to another world on the TV news. It isn’t some big mystery, and it’s probably the same anyplace you can head out on the water–or up a mountain or into the deeps of a forest–and not see a living soul for hours on end. It just is. You know there are things out there, strange and old and probably best left alone, so you avoid them unless you’re desperate.

Sam’s been desperate before, or thought he was. He got halfway out here after Riley died, before he remembered he preferred physics to folklore and turned the hell around.

Tonight, he isn’t so sure.

There’s a post sticking up from the bank at the edge of the water, probably the remnant of an old dock that’s long since crumbled into the water. Some people claim it’s the signpost of a drowned crossroad, though that doesn’t make a lick of sense geographically.

Either way, what the rumours say is it’s a place to get help when all human means have failed. Come out here in the hour after midnight–the witching hour, when the veil between worlds is thinnest. Take a photograph and a drop of your blood, bury them beside the post, and something will come out of the water and help you. For a price.

Now, Sam scrapes away damp earth with his bare hands, Carlos’s borrowed boat bobbing in the water behind him. Hurried out here so fast he forgot to bring tools. Lucky Carlos left his penknife in there.

The photograph is from Torres’s Polaroid phase. Ankara, he thinks, after a mission. Bucky’s usual scowl has slipped as he crouches to pet one of the ubiquitous street cats (It doesn’t matter if he’s got fleas, Sam, they can’t bite vibranium!) and Sam’s in the foreground, smiling way brighter than he’d realised at the time.

Sam bisects it carefully with the penknife, making sure no part of Bucky is visible on the section he presses into the ground, and slips the other half into his back pocket. Then he grits his teeth and draws the blade across his palm, watches the blood spatter his sunlit face.

After that, he waits.

It’s almost peaceful out here for a while, just the insect noises of the night and the plashing of the water and the sound of his own breathing. The minutes tick down toward the end of the witching hour, and he almost convinces himself this isn’t gonna work.

And then.

It’s like the air and the silence thicken, a veil drawn between him and the rest of the world. Each breath feels a little harder, the night heat heavy on his skin and a chill somewhere beneath it. A sound reaches his ears from the edge of the water. A quiet splash, and a drag of wet fabric, and a shape resolves itself out of the darkness.

She’s like the swamp made flesh. Water-weed green and dripping from head to toe, fingers slender and reaching as cypress roots, eyes feu-follet balls of light in the mossy mass of her face.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Her voice is a wet rattle like a dying breath, the sympathy in it startlingly out-of-place. “I could feel your pain miles away.”

Sam grits his teeth and draws himself to his feet. He forces himself to look her in the eyes, but there’s a wrongness about the light that burns there that makes it an effort, keeps making him want to lower his gaze. “Can you help him?” he demands. “Bring him back?”

“Help him?” says that voice. “Or help you?” Her hand comes to rest over his heart, skinny fingers splayed, and he tries not to flinch. “He isn’t the one suffering.”

His throat feels tight. “Does it matter?”

A sludgy croak of a sound. It takes Sam a moment to realise it’s her laugh. “Maybe not.” She regards him steadily. “But you’ve survived worse than this. You’d survive it again.”

It’s the kind of statement that ought to be encouraging, but the way she says it, it’s perfectly neutral, like she’s observing that there’s rain on the way, or it’s Tuesday.

The thing is, she’s right. Sam knows she is. He pulled himself back together, piece by painful piece, after Riley died. He learned to fly solo. He rebuilt his life after the Blip and talked himself around to trusting his own judgement after Steve waltzed off to the past. Now, he’s gotten used to having Bucky at his side, in his life, watching his six in the field and teasing him over dinner, but he could learn to live without it. Fly a little more carefully, trust Torres to have his back, spend more time with Sarah and the boys and the neighbours to fill the silence. He’d be almost whole again, eventually.

But godfuckingdammit, he is sick of being strong.

“Didn’t come out here for daily affirmations,” he says. “Can you help me or not?”

She inclines her head. “You can’t claim I talked you into this.”

“So you’ll do it?” He takes a deep breath. “What’s your price?”

She shrugs, trailing a hand down his arm and crouching to dig into the ground where he buried his photograph. It’s damp and dirt-stained when she unearths it, but she smiles anyway. “You’ll owe me. That’s all.”

“Owe you what?” But even as he asks, he knows the answer doesn’t matter. He’ll promise anything if it means a do-over, a chance to get it right this time, say all the things he should’ve said to Riley way back when, the things he should’ve said to Bucky months ago.

“I’ll know when I need it.” She tucks Sam’s photograph away somewhere in the folds of her garment. “Seal it with a kiss.”

Her mouth tastes like swamp water, brackish and bitter. Sam swallows down bile. And at the same time, he feels a creeping sensation like the water itself wrapping around him, twining roots around his heart, pulling him under like a gator’s death roll. He fights for breath, lungs filling up with it, tears springing to his eyes, darkness crowding his vision.

As abruptly as it crept up on him, it’s gone. He sucks in a huge breath, bending over, hands on his thighs, and when he comes back to himself, she’s gone.

#

By the time he gets back to town, he has three missed calls. One from the hospital, one from Rhodes, and one from–

His heart leaps in his chest. He’s on a plane to DC within the hour.

At the specialist treatment facility, nobody stops him to ask for ID or what he’s doing here. He finds Bucky sitting up in bed, drinking orange juice through a straw and looking bitchy about it. His face lights up like Christmas when Sam walks in, that wide unashamed smile, and Sam aches with realising how much he’s missed it.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” he says.

Bucky shakes his head. “Rhodes told me the docs thought I was a goner,” he says. “Sent you home to plan my funeral. Don’t know that I could’ve stood being here, either.”

Sam exhales dizzily. “Yeah, well. Shoulda known better with your stubborn old ass. What’d you do, annoy the shit out of the Grim Reaper until he got sick of you?”

“Something like that. Guess I gotta thank that shitty knock-off serum for something, huh.” There’s an edge to his voice, like always when this stuff comes up, and Sam gets it, he does. Owing your life to something you hate is complicated.

He tries not to think about how much more complicated it would be if Bucky knew the truth.

“Hey,” he says instead, “don’t think you get to make a habit of this.” He tries to sound stern, but the tears pricking at his eyes make it hard. “Three days sitting on the crappy plastic chairs they got in here, I thought my ass was gonna fall off.”

Bucky smiles up at him, crooked, a little looser. “Now that’d be a real tragedy.”

Sam’s breath catches in his throat, heartbeat skittering. But shit, if he’s in the hole to some creepy-ass swamp goddess for who knows what kind of favour, or maybe his immortal soul, he’s damn well gonna make it count.

So he ignores the plastic chair and perches on the edge of the mattress, close enough to smell antiseptic and orange juice and feel Bucky’s warmth through his hospital gown.

(Roots wrapped around his heart, foul water on the back of his tongue, shapes moving in the depths.)

San leans in, telegraphing his intent, Bucky’s eyes fastened on his mouth. Presses their lips together, soft.

“About damn time.” Bucky sighs into the kiss, resting his forehead against Sam’s; and after a moment, Sam tastes only oranges.

[brockadoodles]

illicit affairs - a. matthews

AN: So this was actually the first folklore series fic I wrote, back when the album came out. I just never posted it because honestly I was scared to get mean, shitty anons for writing it. Because on my old blog, I always got rude shit about him. But like, so many people have asked for me to write for Auston and I wanted to so, fuck that, I’m posting it. Special shoutout to @broadstbroskis and @woah-were-halfway-there for hyping me up into posting it. And of course, miss @hockeyboysiguess who has known about it the entire time. 

Word Count: 1886

Warnings: ANGST, literally no happiness, also cheating sorry, and mentions of drinking.

And that's the thing about illicit affairs And clandestine meetings and longing stares It's born from just one single glance But it dies and it dies and it dies A million little times

It had started off innocent, a way to fill a space in your heart while he was away, it was never supposed to become anything more. You should have known it was wrong, you should have known you were demolishing your relationship that never really had any problems in the first place. You could lie to yourself, blame it on the insecurities, blame it on the loneliness, but you could never blame him. 

Auston wasn’t around all of the time, the nature of his job sending him away multiple times a week for months out of the year. He loved you, and by all accounts, he did everything right. He spent as much time on the phone with you as he could, being there in every way he could when he wasn’t physically in Toronto. By all accounts, he was the perfect partner. 

You pushed away from the loneliness, the inner workings of your mind reassuring you things were fine. That you were happy, but happy people don’t emotionally invest in someone who isn’t their partner. They don’t do what you did. 

Auston was with his team in California, a two-week-long trip that had you feeling more empty and alone than you had ever felt. You did everything you could to busy yourself, counting down the hours until he would call, hoping that the sound of his voice would bring you back to the happiness you once knew with him, but it didn’t. When he called, all you could focus on was the photo on your nightstand with him, one of you on his back after a night out, drunk smiles on both of your faces. You didn’t even recognize the person looking back at you in the dark frame. You didn’t even hear anything Auston said that night. All you felt was empty.

It was November when it started. A night out that led to the final nail in the coffin of your relationship. You saw him from across the bar, instantly recognizing the boy you once knew. He was everything that Auston wasn’t, and you found yourself nostalgic about the friendship you once had. He was shorter than Auston, smaller. His hair was light and Auston’s was dark. His blue eyes didn’t look at you with love like Auston’s, they looked at you with a lust behind them that made you feel wanted in a way that Auston couldn’t. Your heart wasn’t with Auston anymore, and all it took was a slap of nostalgia to pull you back from a relationship that at one point you thought you would sink without. 

He came over, gliding up to you with ease. Conversation and drinks flowing freely. The gin was getting to your head, but your judgement had been clouded by more than just a shitty mixed gin and tonic. 

His hand came gliding up your jeans, his fingers delicately along the rips of the black jeans, Auston’s favorite pair of jeans on you. You were relishing in the feeling, tuning out the noise of the bar, focussing on the guy in front of you, the guy that was everything that was wrong. Your phone was lighting up with texts from your boyfriend that you didn’t care to open. 

“Are you seeing anyone?” The words slipped from his lips, fingers sliding further up your thigh. The question should have been enough to snap you out of it, to remind yourself that what you were doing was wrong. But it didn’t, because you didn’t care about your boyfriend who was currently miles away, sending you what were likely sweet goodnight messages. Instead, you took the hammer to your relationship and took someone else into your bed.     

You should have known better with each text, flirtation, and appreciation evident in every word. You should have known better when texts became calls that had you sharing the most intimate details of your life. Never reveal that you had a home, one you shared with someone who had been your partner for the last three years. One who went away thinking nothing was ever wrong between you. 

Calls evolved into dates, where you’d dress up in your most beautiful clothing, a spritz of the perfume Auston always said he loved. Dates became going home with him, hands roaming, stolen kisses in the elevator up to the home you shared with Auston. 

You should have known better every time you put the photos of you and Auston in the drawer, never to be seen as another man sank into you each night you were otherwise alone. Each time you claimed it was the last, trying to convince yourself that once Auston was back you would stop. But you never did.    

You were throwing things around in the closet, looking for something specific when you found it, the item that caused everything you were haphazardly doing to come crashing to the surface. The small black box that should have been the beginning of a life with someone else. 

You held the small, velvet box in your hands, tears blurring your vision as you opened it. The ring was everything you would have ever wanted. A simple, yet beautiful diamond staring back at you. The ring glistened, a shiny reminder of everything you had done the last six months, every time you emotionally and physically left your own relationship, telling yourself it didn’t mean anything. Telling yourself Auston was away, and you were lonely. The most heartbreaking thing about it was that he trusted you, he fully trusted you, and you took that trust and threw it as far as you could, at the time not caring about the consequences.

Tears blurred your vision as the reality of your mistakes set in. Auston loved you, wholeheartedly. He did all of the things that people do when they’re in love. He took you home, he brought you into his family, he wanted a life with you. He knew you, only to be disadvantaged by a career that prevented him from being around all the time. He hadn’t done anything wrong, and you wrecked him anyway. The worst part was that he had no idea about any of it. He didn’t know that you had slept with someone else. He didn’t know that you had been doing it behind his back for months. He didn’t know about the late phone calls, the secret meetings, who you brought into your bed while he was away. He didn’t know that your heart had left long before that.  

You choked back a sob, carefully putting the ring back where you found it, knowing full well you had to tell him. You couldn’t marry him, not after what you had done in the last six months. 

When he came home and tried to kiss you in greeting, you pulled back. You pushed his body back from you, eyes diverting away from his as you spoke.

“I found the ring.” You whispered. 

“Shit, I mean that’s not how I wanted to give it to you, but-”

“I can’t marry you, Auston. I’ve been with someone else.” You couldn’t look at him, you couldn’t look at his face twist and his eyes fall. You couldn’t look at the personification of his heart shattering right in front of you even though it was your hand crushing it. 

“Has he been here?” Auston pinched the bridge of his nose, his own tears starting to form clouds in his eyes, hoping more than anything that the answer was no. 

“Yes.” All he saw was red as you said it. 

“What do you do with these while he’s here fucking you in our bed?” He spoke, his voice dull and full of disappointment, grabbing the photo of the two of you from the bedside table, the one you carefully tucked away each time. You couldn’t stop the sobs coming from your body, pleading with Auston that you were sorry. That it didn’t mean anything, that you never wanted to hurt him, even though your words meant nothing at this point. 

He threw the picture frame at the wall, glass shattering all over the floor, a final representation of the now nearly four-year relationship that you threw away one night at a bar six months ago. His eyes were red, tears flowing freely. 

“How long?” He asked, covering his eyes with one hand trying to steady his own breathing. You made no move to answer him, instead of looking down at the ground. Shame and guilt filling your heart, Auston was nothing but good to you, and you threw it back in his face repeatedly, for months. 

“How fucking long? He repeated, growing frustrated with your lack of an answer. 

“November.” You whispered, fresh tears falling down your cheeks. Auston looked at you, then walked into the closet, throwing things around before coming back with what you assumed was the ring in his hand. He tossed the box onto the bed in front of you, looking at you like you’d never seen him look at anyone before. 

“Here, you can have this. Fucking pawn it for all I care.” His voice was cold, a tenor you had never heard him use with anyone, let alone you, and you couldn’t even blame him for it, all you could blame was yourself. 

He didn’t say anything to you as you packed a bag. He didn’t say anything as you cleaned up the shattered picture frame from the bedroom floor. Auston didn’t have anything left to say to you at all, his own mind was still trying to work out how he had missed it. How he could have been better to you so that you didn’t need to look for comfort from someone else. He didn’t say anything when you left that night, or when you came back a week later to move out the rest of your stuff, letting you walk out and take your mistakes with you. 

He didn’t stay in that room anymore, instead, he slept in the guest room. When the season ended, he caught the first flight back to Arizona and didn’t look back. He spent four years looking back for you, and now he had to learn how to live with his own broken heart and the mess that you made. 

You only saw Auston once after that, at a bar, nearly six months after. The guy you had cheated on him with had been long gone, and you had spent those six months trying to understand what you had done. You were trying to piece yourself back together with a guilty conscience and a hole in your chest that had you feeling lonelier than you ever thought you were capable of feeling. 

You made eye contact and watched his face fall, turning quickly away from you back to whoever it was that he was with. You downed the rest of your drink and closed your tab, walking out and closing the chapter on the illicit affair you had for good, a drunken promise made to yourself in an attempt to never be as lost as you were again. 

[hermionegranger56]

a v late recap of evermore

so i think Taylor Swift sensed that i was Going Through It and was like here you sad bitch, here’s another surprise album to help fix all that. cause good lord evermore is just what i (and i think we all) needed. i truly TRULY can’t believe we’re lucky enough to get a sister album to folklore, i love it so much. the first day it was out i drove myself 2 hours to the very end of the Cape and sat on an empty beach and cried to it and honestly??? magical. here are my thoughts on it that no one asked for:

first, as an overall here, this album complements folklore so well. it’s the spring to folklore’s autumn, it’s self-assured and warm and beautiful. each album shows off her lyrical genius so well and she only grows stronger here. when folklore came out, i was floored because the music was so different for her and so up my alley. each song’s production sucked me in and it was like she was confidently telling us “here is another genre i can work with” (masterfully at that). evermore feels different. it feels like Taylor is so comfortable in this creative space, she isn’t trying to fit into any new molds or expectations, she is just HERE, now, saying “this is who i am and this is my craft”. it’s really been a privilege to watch her grow as an artist. ok. here we go

willow:

god the video was so beautiful, a really good continuation of cardigan. the chorus is so so delicate and prettyyy, thats MY MAN ughhh its so good. it reminds me a lot of invisible string tbh, or if betty from cardigan grew up and found love. this is really one of my favorites, she starts so strong

fave lines: “the more that you say, the less i know/ wherever you stray I follow/ i’m begging for you to take my hand/ wreck my plans, that’s my man”; “life was a willow and it bent right to your wind”

champagne problems:

oh dear god, it’s if all too well and new years day had a baby and it is a MASTERPIECE. i can picture it all, college sweethearts, broken hearts, i feel like its new england at christmas, ivy league old money…its cinematic. and it gets at the feeling like you’ll never be good enough so you leave before that happens (basically before you get to the tolerate it stage??) and OOF. AND GODDAMN THE RANTING BRIDGE (illicit affairs came close on folklore but i think THIS might be the best bridge since All Too Well). I’ve screamed it a lot tbh

fave lines: BRIDGE BABYYYYYY EVERY SINGLE PERFECT WORD. WHAT A SHAME SHES FUCKED IN THE HEADDDD

gold rush:

this one is bright and lovely and catchy!! it reminds me a lot of mirrorball tbh, all like swirly and magical. i can’t even put it into words but i can see this one so clearly. its all rosy and golden

fave lines: “eyes like sinking ships on waters/ so inviting, i almost jump in”; “what must it be like to grow up that beautiful?/with your hair falling into place like dominoes/ I see me padding across your wooden floors/ with my Eagles t-shirt hanging from your door”; “the coastal town we wandered round/ had never seen a love as pure as it”; “my mind turns your life into folklore”

’tis the damn season:

UGH I FUCKING LOVE THIS ONE EVEN THOUGH IT MAKES ME WANNA TEXT MY EX. the melody is SOOOO satisfying, the progression to “write this down”, i’m obsessed. the idea of being home for the holidays and feeling a little lost and tired and nostalgic for what could have been is something superrrr relatable. this song reminds me of snowy drives around my hometown in the best/worst possible way hahah. one of my top 5 for sure.

fave lines: “we could call it even/ you could call me babe for the weekend/ tis the damn season, write this down/i’m staying at my parents house/ and the road not taken looks real good now”; “and wonder about the only soul/ who can tell which smiles i’m faking”

tolerate it:

oh honeyyyyy this track 5 packs a punch, i mean the lyrics are absolutely BRUTAL in the best way. it’s just so sad, and encompasses a lot of my own insecurity about always feeling like you’re more invested in a relationship and watching someone fall out of love or just stop caring. i LOVE the “my love should be celebrated, but you tolerate it”, like bitch YES your love should be celebrated. also taylor sounds angelic on the “I” at the start of the chorus

fave lines: “i know my love should be celebrated/ but you tolerate it”; “i made you my temple, my mural, my sky/ now i’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life”; “what would you do if I/break free and leave us in ruins/ took this dagger in me and removed it”

.

no body, no crime:

YESSSSSSSSS I LOVE THE SUBGENRE OF COUNTRY ABOUT WOMEN KILLING SHITTY HUSBANDS AND THIS SONG IS SO FUCKING GOOD AHHHHH!! I LOVE the beat, i love country taylor, i love the addition of HAIM. UGH ITS SO CATCHYYYY, like i’m obsessed with the slide from “i think he did it but i just. can’t. prove itttttt NOOO no body no crime” UGHHH this is without a doubt in my top five

fave lines: “she thinks i did it but she just can’t prove it”

happiness:

I heard this one described as an emotional marathon and holy shit it is, each line is a sucker punch. i really like how it feels like a conversation and looks at the acceptance and pain that mingle together when a relationship just…ends. her lyrics are unmatched on this album but this is a particularly strong track

fave lines: “i haven’t met the new me yet”; “when did all our lessons start to look like weapons/ pointed at my deepest hurt”; “there is a glorious sunrise/ dappled with the flickers of light/ from the dress i wore at midnight”

dorothea:

this one feels like Betty 2.0 and its so sweet and bright and also kinda sad. it’s wistful!! that’s the word i want, wistful! the vibe is gives off reminds me of Red, like musically. it’s home-y. idk if that makes sense but i like it a lot

fave lines: and if you’re ever tired of being known for who you know/ you know, you’ll always know me”

coney island:

ugh this one is magical, i honestly really love the instrumental to this one, it’s so soothing. the lyrics to me feel like you’re in some dream state, going through every heartbreak you’ve ever been through. I love the addition of The National, the vocals fit together so well (and I like it better than both Bon Iver features i think??)

fave lines: do you miss the rogue/ who coaxed you into paradise and left you there/ will you forgive my soul/ who you’re too wise to trust me and too old to care?”

ivy:

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (that’s how i feel about this absolute masterpiece oh my GOD) it makes me so incandescently happy, the folk feel, the lyrics that are so cinematic and poetic and paint such a clear picture (to me) of two Victorian lovers who are in unhappy marriages but don’t let that stop their love. the chorus just like….fills my whole chest, the OH GODDAMN hits so different. and i want “my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand” tattooed on me, that is one of her BEST lines and i will die on that hill. its all so pretty, i can’t deal. the vibe also strongly reminds me of a) invisible string and b) Little Women (2019). i think taylor should do folk and uhhhh only folk please

fave lines: EVERY WORD BUT ESPECIALLY: “i’d meet you where the spirit meets the bone/ in a faith forgotten land”; “oh goddamn/ my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand/ taking mine, but its been promised to another/ oh, i can’t/ stop you putting roots in my dreamland/ my house of stone, your ivy grows/ and now I’m covered in you”; “he wants what’s only yours”; “clover blooms in the field/ springs breaks loose, time is near“; ”so yeah, it’s a fire/ its a goddamn blaze in the dark and you started it”

cowboy like me:

ALL RIGHT everyone sleeps on this song but oh my GOD its so good!! it’s smooth and dreamy and gives me that old fashioned, bonnie and clyde type love story and some of the lyrics are so poetic. I really love the addition of the Tim McGraw chords too???? BUT DEAR GOD COULD WE HAVE GIVEN MARCUS MUMFORD MORE OF A ROLE HERE??!! HE SOUNDS WONDERFUL, GIVE HIM A FEATURE, GIVE HIM A WHOLE VERSE. THIS IS A FOLK ALBUM TAYLOR, USE FUCKING MUMFORD AHHHH (i fucking love him omg)

fave lines: “dancin’ is a dangerous game”; “you’re a bandit like me/ eyes full of stars”; “now you hang from my lips/ like the Gardens of Babylon/ with your boots beneath my bed/ forever is the sweetest con”

long story short:

A BOP!! GIVE ME SOME HAPPINESS TAYLOR WOO! I really love how catchy this one is. it feels like her introducing the craziness of her life to joe and being like look all of that was tough but here i am now and I couldn’t be happier. It’s refreshing, self-deprecating and endearing. I couldn’t love it more and it is ALWAYS stuck in my head!

fave lines: “and he’s passing by/ rare as the glimmer of a comet in the sky”; “long story short I survived”

marjorie:

ha hahah hah ha this one ENDS me, like dear LORD i need to call my grandma immediately. it is so so GOOD and SAD, like the you don’t know how good something or someone is until they’re gone, but even then, they’re still there with you. I love the grandma wisdom of “never be so clever you forget to be kind” etc. and holy SHIT the addition of Taylor’s grandmother’s opera singing as background vocals is GENIUS AND DEVASTATING, god the part where she goes “i’d think you were singing with me now” and then Marjorie comes in is honestly one of the most beautiful musical moments i’ve heard in a hot minute and it breaks me every time. wow.

fave lines: “never be so polite/ you forget your power/ never wield such power/ you forget to be polite”; “the autumn chill that wakes me up/ you loved the amber sky so much”; “and if i didn’t know better/ i’d think you were singing to me now”

closure:

ok i’m sorry, this is my only skip here. I really do love the lyrics and the idea of, yeah no you don’t deserve closure from me. i just can’t get past the pots and pans beginning, its too chaotic. but i’m sure it’ll grow on me! it does feel like finally moving on and i do love that about it

fave lines: “don’t treat me like/ some situation that needs to be handled”; “i know i’m just a/ wrinkle in your new life/ staying friends would/ iron it out so nice”

evermore:

god her voice is SO soothing in this one, it’s literally hypnotic. the song itself feels wandering and dark at first, like you’re stuck in this depression, and then bon iver comes in and it picks up and it feels like coming out of the trees, into the sunlight and finding your way again. finding that the pain WOULDNT be for evermore like she says. it feels like an ending and a beginning. beautiful

fave lines: “writing letters/ addressed to the fire”; “and when i was shipwrecked/ i thought of you/ in the cracks of light/ i dreamed of you”; “and i was catching my breath/ floors of the cabin creaking under my step/ and i couldn’t be sure/ i had a feeling so peculiar/ this pain wouldn’t be for evermore”

[wiisagi-maiingan]

Do you know anything about the Harry Potter controversy surrounding Rowling's American wizarding school Ilvermony, where the school's houses and backlore supposedly havr ties to indigenous history? This probably sounds like utter gibberish if you don't know anything about it, sorry about that. I was hoping for some possible clarification, I'm not educated enough about either topic to understand the problems there.

HOO BOY, ANON, YOU HAVE STUMBLED ON SOMETHING THAT ABSOLUTELY INFURIATES ME.

I’m going to start this out with a disclaimer. I love Harry Potter and the HP universe; it’s even one of my oldest special interests and has been a hugely important part of my life and my development as a person.

With that being said, Rowling is absolute shit at putting decent representation in her books and she needs to stay 5,000,000 miles away from Native people.

The most obvious issue with Ilvermorny is the mascots; every single house is represented with a spirit from indigenous cultures. The Thunderbird is common in numerous Turtle Island tribes and is actually an extremely important figure in my own culture, to the point where it’s on my nation’s flag. Pukwudgies are creatures from Delaware and Wampanoag beliefs. The Wampus cat is from South Eastern Native folklore, particularly Cherokee. Horned Serpents, like Thunderbirds, are found in a lot of Native cultures, particularly those in the Southeast and by the Great Lakes.

These are all sacred spirits in their respective cultures and having a white British woman use them as mascots in her white, settler school is extremely insulting. Which brings me to my next issue.

The story of Ilvermorny starts with a Pukwudgie, a Native spirit, becoming indebted to an Irish settler:

“The Pukwudgie now declared himself bound to serve her until he had an opportunity to repay his debt. He considered it a great humiliation to be indebted to a young witch foolish enough to wander around in a strange country, where Pukwudgies or Hidebehinds might have attacked her at any moment, and her days were now filled with the Pukwudgie’s grumbling as he trudged along at her heels.” 

Which is fucking gross, lbr. This Pukwudgie then goes on to introduce this European woman to a whole fucking bunch of sacred spirits who just adore her for some reason. She could even understand the Horned Spirit because she’s ~special~

“William began to introduce Isolt to the magical creatures with which he was familiar. They took trips together to observe the frog-headed Hodags hunting, they fought a dragonish Snallygaster and watched newborn Wampus kittens playing in the dawn.

Most fascinating of all to Isolt, was the great horned river serpent with a jewel set into its forehead, which lived in a nearby creek. Even her Pukwudgie guide was terrified of this beast, but to his astonishment, the Horned Serpent seemed to like Isolt. Even more alarming to William was the fact that she claimed to understand what the Horned Serpent was saying to her.

Isolt learned not to talk to William about her strange sense of kinship with the serpent, nor of the fact that it seemed to tell her things. She took to visiting the creek alone and never told the Pukwudgie where she had been. The serpent’s message never varied: ‘Until I am part of your family, your family is doomed.’”

(She named the Pukwudgie William. Because of course she did.)

This Irish woman, alongside her adopted European settler sons, founded Ilvermorny and decided on the “mascots” of the house without any input from Native peoples.

Then, it gets even worse. Because the Horned Serpent that Isolt could magically communicate with gave her its own horn to turn into a wand for her son.

“The Horned Serpent was waiting there for her. It raised its head exactly as it had done in her dream, she took part of its horn, thanked it, then returned to the house and woke James, whose skill with stone and wood had already beautified the family cottage.

When Chadwick woke next day, it was to find a finely carved wand of prickly ash enclosing the horn of the serpent. Isolt and James had succeeded in creating a wand of exceptional power.”

The next students of the school were from the Wampanoag and Narragansett tribes, and the school continued to grow with both European and Native students. There is no mention of why these children were suddenly being sent to a European school instead of being taught by their tribes, which clearly must’ve been the practice prior to Ilvermorny’s founding.

I also need to seriously stress that there is a very horrific history around Native children being sent to European-run schools, particularly boarding schools. This is a trauma in our communities, not something for a white European woman to use as a plot point in her shitty lore.

Now. Let’s move away from Ilvermorny because it gets even worse when we take a look at Rowling’s History of Magic in North America, particularly the Fourteenth Century – Seventeenth Century article.. 

In the second paragraph, Rowling immediately makes a statement about Native communities.

“In the Native American community, some witches and wizards were accepted and even lauded within their tribes, gaining reputations for healing as medicine men, or outstanding hunters. However, others were stigmatised for their beliefs, often on the basis that they were possessed by malevolent spirits.” 

Now, this isn’t inherently bad, but we need to keep this statement in mind when we take a look at the next paragraph.

“The legend of the Native American ‘skin walker’ – an evil witch or wizard that can transform into an animal at will – has its basis in fact. A legend grew up around the Native American Animagi, that they had sacrificed close family members to gain their powers of transformation. In fact, the majority of Animagi assumed animal forms to escape persecution or to hunt for the tribe. Such derogatory rumours often originated with No-Maj medicine men, who were sometimes faking magical powers themselves, and fearful of exposure.”

First of all, what the fuck? “[. . .] No-Maj medicine men, who were sometimes faking magical powers themselves, and fearful of exposure.” I shouldn’t have to explain why this statement is absolutely disgusting, but I’m going to anyway. Medicine Men are among the absolute most important people in any Native community. They are revered and respected spiritual leaders, vital to the running of the tribe and the main reason why we as Native people have any bits of our spirituality and religions left. And Rowling essentially called them con artists and liars.

And the idea that sk*nwalkers are just regular Animagi that those ~evil savage Medicine Men~ spread ~nasty rumors~ about is just as disgusting. It is literally rewriting Najavo folklore to make actual Native people look like liars and bigots who are just persecuting those poor misunderstood sk*nwalkers :(((

The article ends with discussions of wands, emphasizing that even though Native peoples had been doing perfectly fine without them and that wandless magic is typically seen as something incredibly powerful, Native people still needed em. In the Ilvermorny article, it’s specifically mentioned that the Native students receive wands made by the Irish woman and her family.

In the other articles about North America, Native people are mentioned exactly twice, once to mention that tribes would take in their “European brethren” and again when discussing a Choctaw woman making wands with Thunderbird feather cores.

“Shikoba Wolfe, who was of Choctaw descent, was primarily famous for intricately carved wands containing Thunderbird tail feathers (the Thunderbird is a magical American bird closely related to the phoenix). Wolfe wands were generally held to be extremely powerful, though difficult to master. They were particularly prized by Transfigurers.” 

Sorry, correction; *a woman of Choctaw descent.

So. Tldr; Rowling is fucking racist and I am going to physically fight her with my bare hands.

[theotherackerman]

My Mind Turns Your Life Into Folklore

My Mind Turns Your Life Into Folklore

COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: Any recognizable elements belong to Attack on Titan.

NOTES:

Flashback: Mikasa, age 21 Current time: Wednesday January 20th

chapter twenty-three: the story of us

One year ago, Mikasa did not handle her upcoming father’s birthday very well.

She had gotten drunk.

More drunk than she had ever been.

The room was spinning, couldn’t feel anything sort of drunk.

If it worked for Eren, it could work for her.

She didn’t want to feel.

She didn’t want to think.

Every change of the minute brought her father’s birthday closer.

She had tried to call Eren but Ymir had snatched her phone away.

So Mikasa didn’t call Eren.

Instead, she wandered off into the backyard where Levi found her.

She sat down in the snow, not really feeling the cold.

“I know. You’re hurting. You have been, whether you want to admit it or not. You’re having issues because you’re not allowing the pain you feel to be felt. You’ve been through a lot, Mikasa. Give yourself a break,” Levi said as he offered his hand out to Mikasa.

After a moment, Mikasa took Levi’s hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet.

Ymir came out of the house moments later and helped lead Mikasa back into the house.

“She okay?” Ymir asked.

“No, but she will be,” Levi replied.

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

Eren woke up with his limbs tangled with Mikasa’s. He was unsure how he was going back to not sleeping with her every night. He loved waking up to her in the morning. She was sound asleep as he had woken up before his alarm had gone off. He watched her peacefully sleeping in his arms. He was still so in love with her.

His alarm went off. He swiped it away.

Mikasa mumbled something under his breath that he couldn’t make out before she was nuzzling into his chest, trying to go back to sleep.

“I’m going to shower,” he told her as he began to move.

There was some sort of noise of protest as she held onto him.

“Unless you want to join me,” he whispered into her ear.

She gave him a gentle shove.

“That’s what I thought,” he laughed as he stood up.

It was a strange little morning routine that they had already fallen into. He took his pills and then made his way towards the bathroom.

Eren noticed after he had returned to the bedroom after his shower that something was off about Mikasa. He remembered the whole reason he was here was because of her dad’s birthday looming ever so close.

She was always off on that day.

On her mom’s birthday, it was even worse.

No matter how happy of a day they all tried to make it, Mikasa still had the same feelings.

Eren didn’t blame her, couldn’t blame her. He knew how his mom’s death had affected him. He knew her birthday was also looming closer every day. With the towel still wrapped around his waist, he sat down on her bed.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked as he reached out and touched her face.

Mikasa nodded.

“You’re still a shitty liar,” he told her.

“I know,” she muttered as she looked down.

His thumb caressed her cheek. “We’ll make it through today and tomorrow...then we’ll go from there. One day at time, right?”

Mikasa nodded again, still not looking up at him.

Eren leaned in and briefly pressed his lips to hers. A gesture that he was still there, he still loved her, and that he wanted her.

If Eren was being completely honest, he had never wanted anyone else and he wouldn’t ever want anyone else. He had resigned himself to a life free of any romance after he had left her.

She kissed him back right before he pulled away.

He had left her.

She had gone through this without him last year.

And he had known it would be bad.

It was bad every year.

What kind of fucked up person would do that?

Eren wasn’t fully aware of the fact that he had grabbed Mikasa and pulled her into a hug until she was squeezing him back.

So he just held her.

After a moment, Mikasa finally spoke.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Always here for you,” he muttered as he rested his head on top of hers.

“Did you use my shampoo?” she asked.

“Yeah…..”

“You smell good though. It’s fine. Your hair is so much longer now.”

“Is that bad?”

“No, I like it. Is this scar new?” she asked as she traced a mark on his chest.

Eren nodded.

“Car accident?” she asked.

“Probably. There’s a small one on my neck too,” he said before he took her hand, he used her hand to trace the small scar on his neck. “That was from glass. I was unconscious when they took it out.”

“Luck you. I got to feel your dad pull the glass out of my face,” she muttered as she traced the scar on his neck.

“I’m sure he was at least trying to be gentle. The doctors were pretty mad at me for drinking and driving.”

“Good,” Mikasa said before she pulled out of his embrace.

“Hey! Well, you’re right. I kind of deserved it back then.”

“I’m going to go take a shower,” she said as she stood up.

“I mean you could have joined me…”

Mikasa tackled him, causing him to fall backwards onto the bed. He tried to wrestle out of her grip but even with him working out, she was still stronger. He also became very aware of the fact that he was still just wearing a towel. Mikasa quickly pinned both of Eren’s hands above his head.

Eren’s eyes met hers again.

“I’m going to take a page out of Niccolo’s book and say this is pretty much the hottest thing I’ve ever seen,” he told her.

“Thought you were stronger now,” she replied simply. No blush flooded her cheeks like Eren had hoped for.

“I just let you win.”

Mikasa rolled her eyes as she released his wrists.

“You really shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why?”

Eren’s only answer was to grab her and flip them so he was hovering over her. He could feel his towel slipping but it did stay in place. He knew another move like that and it would fall.

Mikasa biting her lip and refusing to look him in his eyes did not escape his notice. He stood up as he held onto his towel. He secured it as Mikasa got off of her bed.

“Told you I’ve gotten stronger,” he teased her.

“Yeah, yeah. So you’ve said. I’m going to go shower by myself.”

“Don’t sound so sad about it.”

Mikasa didn’t even bother to respond to him.

Eren waited until he heard Mikasa’s footsteps disappear before he sighed.

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

Jean had no idea what to expect from Pieck. The woman was a constant surprise when it came to what she did.

So when she had shown up with takeout and wine, he had been surprised.

“Figured Connie would probably still be here so I decided to keep it PG tonight,” Pieck said as came into the apartment. “And I brought a bottle of whiskey for him.”

“Did I hear whiskey?” Connie asked as he came out of his room.

“You did. New brand. Thought the bottle was cool,” Pieck shrugged.

“Pieck, this is why you’re the coolest girl he’s ever brought home,” Connie said as he took the bottle from her.

“Does he bring many girls home?” Pieck smirked.

“Yes,” Jean said.

“No,” Connie replied at the same time.

Jean glared at Connie which just caused Pieck to laugh.

“He always seemed to get shot down at galas. So I think I’m going to believe Connie,” Pieck smirked.

“See? Coolest girl. Alright, I’m going to get hammered and then write this essay,” Connie said before moving the bottle in a small toast before going back to his room.

“Let me guess, you thought it would be something much more sexy that I was going to bring you for stress relief,” Pieck said before she sat the bag of food down on the table.

“Very domestic of you,” Jean smirked as he sat down at the tiny kitchen table.

“Shut up, don’t get used to it. I had a good shoot today so here I am. Plus this place has the best tacos around and it happens to be two blocks away from here.”

“Best tacos, huh? Just look like normal tacos to me."

Pieck rolled her eyes before she sat across from him. "You're the man who thought a twenty dollar wine was expensive. So maybe I don't trust your judgement when it comes to food."

"Well excuse me. I didn't have my mom take me to a winery."

"Maybe she should have."

Jean rolled his eyes before taking a bite of his taco. His eyes lit up.

"Told you. World's best tacos."

"Alright, fine. You win this one."

"I told you."

"...you got any more tacos?" Connie's voice called from down the hall.

"Yes, come get some," Pieck replied.

Their conversation slowed as they continued their meal. Pieck found herself liking being here in Jean and Connie's company. Besides the talk of exams and essays, Pieck would sometimes forget they weren't in the same age group as her.

And despite how much she tried to avoid it, Pieck really did like Jean. Once she got through that cocky, asshole persona he used, she found herself really enjoying her company.

But she wouldn't tell him or anybody else for that matter that.

They would all tease her about it.

This all should have been a red flag for her.

Evidence that she was getting in far too deep with Jean. Here she was bringing him food and alcohol because he had had an exam.

After dinner, Pieck found herself sitting on the couch with Jean watching some cheesy sci-fi movie he had found.

"Saturday there's this frat party Marco and I are going to. I'm not staying long," he said casually.

"Okay?" She asked as she raised an eyebrow.

Why would she care?

"So uh..if you wanted to like…"

"Spit out, Jean."

"I mean this is kind of becoming a routine thing and if you know you were expecting for us to…"

She reached up and grabbed his face. "You're cute when you're embarrassed," she teased him before she let go. "Go get drunk. Party. Whatever. I'm keeping my weekly date with Porco and Marcel anyway. But if it isn't past your bedtime, maybe I'll swing by."

"I won't be asleep," Jean said as he leaned back against the couch.

"Hmmm...will Connie be here?"

"Shouldn't be. He's got a thing with Ruth. He spent an hour on the phone with Sasha trying to pick out the perfect gift."

"What for?"

"I don't know. He likes to spoil his girlfriend and get them gifts for no reason. He's always been like that."

"Huh."

The talk of a relationship was making Pieck uncomfortable. Did Jean want that from her? She couldn't give that to him. It just wasn't something she was capable of. Maybe she should break this whole thing off.

"He's right though," Jean said after a moment.

"About what?" She was clearly confused.

"You are the coolest girl I've brought home."

Pieck held back a laugh, "I've never been cool in my life."

"But you are. I mean you have a studio, you're a working artist. You can play multiple instruments. There's no way you're not cool."

"I'm also unbelievably boring."

"I doubt that."

"I am. I go home, I have a glass of wine, I watch TV, and I go to bed."

"Better than what I do. Just study all the time."

"Oh please. Aren't you going to save the world or something?"

"Just because I'm a political science major doesn't mean I'm going to save the world."

"Hmmm...somehow I doubt that. You seem like the type."

"What type?"

"The type to do something stupid. I should go. It's getting late," she said as she stood up.

"Or you could always stay," Jean muttered.

She stopped and looked back at him. "Why do you want me to stay? You feeling alright?"

"Just a stressful day. That's all," he shrugged.

"Okay, well, I've got a shoot in the morning."

"Right. Yeah, I'll see you later."

Pieck nodded and left, closing the door behind her.

Jean groaned once she was gone.

"Dude, you're so screwed," Connie said from the other room.

"Tell me something I don't know," Jean muttered as he sat down on the couch.

"So Sasha and Niccolo aren't talking."

"Why's that?"

"Guess he flipped because we're still friends and exes. It's not like I didn't grow up next door to her."

"Weird. So is he out of the group?"

"Not yet. Ymir is waiting for the word to take him out though."

"I'll help her hide the body."

"Are you going to talk to Pieck about everything?"

"You know she's the first girl since Mikasa that I actually like to be around? I mean the other girls I've been with have been good for a fling but Pieck is…"

"Someone you want to wife up?"

"Yes! I mean no. I don't know. She's just different."

"Then you should tell her. I'm pretty sure she feels the same."

"I hope so."

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

Her friends were very good at getting Mikasa to not think about the fact that her dad’s birthday was the next day.

At least until it was time to sleep.

She tossed and turned. Eren held onto her, never complaining.

Eren pulled her close to him. She turned over so she was facing him.

“You’re okay,” he assured her, wrapping his other arm around her.

She didn’t feel okay. She felt like she was breaking all over again.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Eren said.

The door opened, Annie stepped in first. She was wrapped in her comforter.

“Scoot over,” the blonde said. Eren pulled himself and Mikasa over to the other side of the bed. Annie plopped down on the open space just as Armin was coming in with his own blanket. He climbed into the bed and sat down next to Eren.

“Armin?” Mikasa questioned. “When did you get here?”

“About twenty minutes ago. My classes are canceled tomorrow,” he explained.

“So we’re having a sleepover in your room tonight because fuck being alone. None of that shit here,” Ymir added as she came into the room with her own blanket. She turned Mikasa’s tv on with the remote. “No one kick me,” she warned as she lay horizontally across the end foot of the bed.

Historia came into the room next, dragging a blanket with her.

“Annie, let me use you as a pillow,” Historia remarked as she climbed into bed. She rested her head on Annie’s shoulder.

“Ymir, can I use you as a pillow?” Sasha asked as she climbed over Ymir so she was the opposite way with her feet towards Mikasa’s pillows.

“I don’t care. Just don’t poke me with your boney elbow,” Ymir said.

“Anyone squished?” Eren asked after a moment.

“I’m good. Toss me a pillow,” Ymir said as she held her hand out.

Eren reached back and grabbed a pillow. He tossed it to her and Ymir caught it.

“You know it’s a good thing you have a giant bed,” Ymir laughed as she put her head down on the pillow.

“Probably a good thing we don’t have more friends too,” Annie added as she rested her head on top of Mikasa’s.

Mikasa twisted so she could see the tv.

“Alright, so we will find the worst thing possible on tv,” Ymir informed them before turning up the volume.

“Give me that or we’re going to end up watching Hallmark movies forever!” Historia proclaimed.

“They’re horrible!”

“That’s the point but they are a form of torture I will not endure. Sasha, snatch the remote away.”

“Uh, no. Ymir is my pillow.”

Mikasa laughed a bit as her friends argued.

This was an improvement from last year.

[wintersoldierland]

not too broken to fix

part 3 of witch bucky au, which can be found here

also on ao3

|

For a long while, he doesn’t remember his name.

Not just because of the HYDRA but because of the many many memories, tangled together. Thousands of years all bound by his memory, different names, genders, religions, races. He remembers them all yet none of them.

He remembers being Veles, the Slavic god; Tezcatlipoca, an Aztec deity; Anulap, a god of magic in Truk Island mythology; Hecate of the Greeks; Baba Yaga of Russian folklore; a witch in eastern Europe, over and over again; a witch in Salem, burning bright with the flames of stakes.

He remembers it all.

Most of all, he remembers Tony. Not always named that, not always looking like he does now, but he remembers his soul, bright with creation. His wife, companion, husband, lover, forever love.

He remembers it all and none of it.

It’s confusing, so he runs. He gets on a plane, then a train, then a bus, and ends up in rural Azerbaijan, surrounded by mountains and old, abandoned villages. Something is tugging him there, so he sets a base in one building and goes off to explore.

It feels strangely familiar as if he walked those streets before, and when he stands on top of the mountain, with the sun slowly setting around him, he knows where did the memory come from. He looks down, takes a deep breath and throws himself off the ledge.

For a second, there’s only wind and quietness, but then his memories surge up and James takes a deep breath of the cold, mountain air, before calling his magic to him and changing shape.

A raven soars over the hills and James’s mind heals.

He lets out a happy sound and lets the wind take him, over the familiar mountains and long-abandoned villages. Over paths lit with magic and old stories, forgotten for generations. James soars and feels free.

It’s something he forgot about, but now it sings in his blood. A witch cannot be tamed, cannot be bound. A witch of Old Magic is always wild.

James relishes in his newfound freedom and his mind drifts to Tony. His Tony, who exists in this world, who is as brilliant as always, a creator to the bone.

There’s a reason why he was the deity of creation so many times, even without direct magic in his soul. They’re tied together and James knows he’ll come back to him. Sooner or later he’ll come back when he puts himself back together enough to protect his heart. His little genius.

He flies for miles, never tiring, magic surging in his small body, thousands of years of memories slowly starting to set in their place.

James remembers their last meeting, how small but fierce Tony was, how curious. How his soul recognized James’s, even amidst the magic and darkness of the All Soul’s Day. If he could smile, he would.

There’s something soothing in seeing the lands below him pass, in the cold air of the wind, of the Old Magic of the Earth. James can feel it calling to him, the skies rejoicing that he’s back. It feels like coming to the childhood home, not quite where his heart lies now but filled with good memories. He flies and flies and his magic trails behind him, a bright blue hoe on a black sky.

He thinks of Tony and his heart sings, anticipating their meeting, even as he lands and gets lost in the small, people-filled cities near the rivers. James soaks up the atmosphere, builds himself back, brick by brick, learns to smile again. There’s a lot that can’t be fixed so soon, even if his months of travels, but it’s a start. He’s not scared of himself anymore.

James starts to practice his magic again. Helps the villagers, makes flowers for the girls, makes butterflies from his hands, heals a pregnant woman. He heals others and by that, he heals himself.

It feels good to be useful again. He’s always been a helper, even as a god. Put on the Earth to aid humans, mortals, in their short lives. Make it a bit easier. He feels more like himself, more like Bucky Barnes, more like Veles and Anulap, like Evelyn of the Rhear village, helping her neighbours with her gentle magic; like a witch.

It’s good.

He comes back to Irland, where he traces back the steps of druids he once belonged to, visits Newgrange and spends the winter solstice there, laughing when the rays of Saturn and the Sun warm up his core. He revisits his many roots, takes from the Earth and gives back. 

Eventually, James visits Peggy Carter who’s old and weak but her spirit is strong. She remembers him as the witch, not as Bucky Banes, but James just smiles and presses something into her shaking hands.

“You remembered,” she says softly, watching the small stone statue with gleaming emeralds emerge. James smiles bitterly.

“It’s a work in process.”

She just laughs. “You’re a good man. A good witch. It is my time, isn’t it?”

He sighs and squeezes her hand with his metal one, so reminiscent of the black one he always has. The price of his magic. “It’s close,” James admits.

Peggy just nods, content. “I had a good life,” she tells him. “I love my husband very much, and maybe I’ll meet him this time.”

James looks at the energy around her and chuckles when he notices the fierce pink hue around her heart. “He loves you too, very much. I don’t know the future, but you’re strong. Sometimes it takes a bit of waiting.”

“You know something about it,” Peggy snickers. For a second, his magic works and James sees her as young and beautiful as she was during the war, dressed in her uniform. It makes him warm.

“It’s worth it,” he replies. 

“I know.”

They sit in silence some more before she stirs again. “It’s time for you to go,” she says. “Thank you for visiting.”

James laughs and kisses her forehead. “I had something to return to you.”

They don’t say goodbyes, they’ll meet again. Sometime.

He leaves, feeling lighter than he has in years, and then promptly escapes New York before Steve can find him. James remembers him, he really does, but he’s not ready to come back yet. There are things waiting for him still.

This time, he doesn’t take the plane, he just changes into a raven and flies, for miles and miles, watching as land turns to water and then back to land again before the Andes start towering over him. There, James finds his old path and lands on a ledge.

The old kingdom stretches below him, bright green and pulsing with life. James can feel the pollution of humans who have no idea just how old and powerful those lands are, so he sits down and breathes slowly.

His magic stretches over the jungle and the earth welcomes him, recognizing him even with centuries that have passed. James smiles and lets himself get lost in slowly healing what’s broken. Countless souls come to kneel before him, and then go home, where they belong.

It’s exhausting, but also rewarding, healing something so old and powerful, fixing the damage of years of abuse. 

He gets a piece of himself there, a bloody and important one.

The piece of a fierce witch, drawing with blood on people’s faces, standing in the flames and laughing in the faces of gods. Someone bold and cruel, someone capable of anything. It’s not pretty, but James feels stronger, with his dark parts and bad memories.

There’s a weight on his shoulders when he leaves but he stands straighter.

It takes James a few months, and it feels simultaneously like seconds and forever. After all, what are months next to eternity? And what are months while waiting to be reunited with your heart?

He doesn’t hurry though, because he knows Tony will understand. It doesn’t matter if the man remembers because even if he does, he’ll understand. His love is incredibly forgiving and kind. It only makes James love him more.

James keeps tabs on the Avengers, smiles and huffs at Steve, stares at the image of Tony Stark on a shitty TV deep in Bulgarian mountains, smirks when he sees another HYDRA base destroyed. He does his fair share of destroying and dismantling, but it’s not a priority now.

All he wants to do is gather his pieces, glue himself back together and get back to his love.

It’s only right that the day he deems himself right enough is All Soul’s Day. Now called Halloween, he knows, it’s cliche and tacky and the power cracks in the air. Nature doesn’t forget, and neither does James.

He gets on a plane and lands in New York well into the night, and it’s only there that he realizes that something is wrong. Someone is using magic, Old Magic, and using it wrong. James growls when the Avengers appear on the screen fighting and old woman. A wannabe druid at that.

James rolls his eyes and then gets to work.

At the end of the day, he has Tony Stark in his arms, smiling into his neck and his heart feels whole. James doesn’t kiss him yet, because it’s not necessary. Their souls know each other, this meeting a mirror of their last one, and James just closes his eyes, rejoicing in the moment.

There will be time for explanations yet.

[thetaylorfiles]

this is the like. it’s not the first iwanthermidnightz like. when’s the last anti like come through btw? and you seriously believe that Taylor wouldn’t remember singing very clearly “I want her midnights” twice? :/ whatever lets you sleep at night. and ttf, you think you are in love is compelling evidence. why do you think she quoted yail for the lover release on instagram if not referring to that 1989 era lover? ———- Submission ———- I gotta be honest. YAIL is the weirdest thing to me ever. As a Kaylor it totally made sense. As a regular Swiftie, I can’t believe it’s about Lena and Jack. That’s just odd. If I had to guess, I’d say it was her fantasizing. Or fiction like folklore. Maybe she was projecting what she wanted to happen with Harry and felt too embarrassed by the time it came out to say that. Or maybe she was dating someone we didn’t know about. Or that she took inspiration from a friends relationship and part of her own new relationship. Because I 1,000% believe we do not know everyone Taylor has dated. Hell, I have a friend who went on a couple dates with her years and years ago and just because he’s not famous (he’s a working actor, but not famous), no one ever cared or found out. As for the “her midnights”, I think you’re hearing what you want to hear. I hear “you’re”. I can understand how you hear “her”, sure. But it’s very ambiguous and I wouldn’t have heard “her” had someone not pointed it out. Beyond that, why would she only switch one pronoun in that song? Why change only one pronoun to be female when the rest of the song is in second person? It makes no sense and makes the song sound poorly done. Either sing several jets to make the whole chorus make sense or don’t change it. On the other hand, I DO hear “that SHE never loved me” at that awards show. As a Kaylor and Even now, that’s all I can hear. So please know that I am not standing on some imaginary line in the sand and stomping my feet because I need to be right and Kaylors need to be wrong. I’m merely telling you what I, myself, one person only, hear. This is just one persons opinion. I would hope by now that you can see I’m not the kind of person who’s out to fight just for fighting’s sake. I don’t need to be right all the time and I will admit when I get it wrong and I will apologize. YAIL is incredibly weird. I don’t get it. I hear “she”, but don’t hear “her”. None of this helps me “sleep at night”. What my opinions are based on are not one offs and clues and coincidences. They’re based on years long observation. They’re based on what’s actually happening right now and LOGIC. Can you give me a good reason why Karlie and Taylor are no longer publicly friendly? Why they aren’t even amicable on social media? There’s no good reason for their friendship to have come to a screeching halt. Can you provide a good reason that Karlie married Josh and continues to be seen with him in a somewhat low key manner? Not in a way that he shows up any time she’s promoting something? And why she doesn’t have a beard that would actually be good for her promotion? A big name would do wonders for her brand and promotion. Instead she chooses a nobody outside of NYC social circles who has family members with shitty reputations. Can you provide a good reason Taylor isn’t single publicly? Why is there a Joe at all? Why doesn’t she have a beard with bigger name recognition? Either she wants privacy and should be single or she needs a beard and should use that beard to her advantage. She doesn’t use Joe to her advantage at all. He is not well known and doesn’t seek out fame. He’s an actor’s actor. Why do Karlie and Taylor send messages through clothing and similar IG posts, etc? Who is it to? Is it really to Kaylor fans to let them know they’re still together? Why do they do that instead of just being friends publicly? Why so cryptic? Why did Karlie support Scooter so publicly? Could you answer some of these questions for me like I did you? You guys come here and also me stuff and I usually answer. I’d really appreciate you doing me the same courtesy. Oh! I forgot the like. As for that, she liked someone who reblogged someone else who reblogged iwanthermidnightz. So she clearly doesn’t follow iwanthermidnightz. But even so, what’s the big deal of her liking her post? She liked a post about her video. She didn’t like a Kaylor post. When she likes a Kaylor post, currently, then that will give me pause.

[winterverses]

Walking Wounded - Intergalactic

Sugar overload for Christmas... I meant to have it done on Thursday but it needed a bit more polish. Anyway, here’s my take on how the Beastie Boys exist in the same world as Star Trek. It takes place sometime after Chapter 62, but I never nailed it down any further than that. Enjoy!

Anne shifted to sit against the headboard and tucked her feet under her, smiling a little as she watched Jim sift through music on one of the powerwalls. They were still ‘arguing’ about late 20th century/early 21st century pop music-- a topic that had grown to be contentious and usually ended in pretend make-up sex. Anne’s taste ran to either classical rock, obscure rockabilly, punk, loud angry music in general or bubblegum-sweet ridiculous bullshit that was made specifically to appeal to the masses. Jim was more than all right with the first few, but he hated the last with a fiery passion because it got stuck in his head, and he’d be wandering the apartment singing the words to ‘Whenever, Wherever’ under his breath until Anne called him on it, at which point he’d get cranky and put on some classical rock like Jimi Hendrix’s cover of All Along the Watchtower.

“Look, Bad Romance is a masterfully crafted pop song. Even you have to admit that,” Anne said, pretty specifically to piss him off. She was right and he knew it, but she’d caught him humming the tune a few hours ago and he was still mad about it.

Jim snorted. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, flipping through the conveniently placed powerwall to find something he wanted to listen to. “Forget it. It’s mass-produced crap that’s meant to specifically to be catchy--”

“But that’s what makes it so great,” Anne said. “Come on, it's drenched in Hitchcock references, even the chord progression in the chorus is a Hitchcock reference, and it still topped charts everywhere. It’s way more cerebral than you think. And it’s catchy, she took some risks with it--”

“It’s overproduced, it’s-- we’re not having this discussion again. You want masterfully crafted? Here.” He flipped a song on. “God, I haven’t heard this one in ages. Everyone always plays Sabotage.”

The robotic voice started up, then the bass hit with a nice little rumble. This apartment had a gorgeous audio setup. “Oh, beautiful. And yes, this one’s about as close to perfection as you can get, especially with all those rough edges.” Anne grinned. “But sometimes you just want something really slick.”

Jim looked over his shoulder at her, raising an eyebrow, a little grin playing at the corners of his mouth. “Anne Madeline Hardesty, I think you know I get all the slick I can handle with you around.”

“Ooh, very nice,” Anne laughed. He wasn’t serious. Neither was she. Yet. They’d just gotten out of the shower, and it was probably time for food before they let themselves get carried away again. “That was a really excellent turnaround, James Tiberius Kirk. Almost as good as watching you turn around.”

He laughed, flipping the covers back and getting into bed beside her, leaning against the headboard. “Okay, it makes sense for me to like asses, but you’ve got no excuse. What’s up with that?”

Anne felt her need for food starting to wane while her other needs waxed. “Well, let’s put it this way, James Tiberius: Old West riders had spurs; I've got nails instead.”

The look in his eye suddenly got more serious, his gaze flicking over her loose hair and bared breasts with growing want. “Hmm. That’s a comparison worth testing, I think. How about it? Wanna go for a ride?” He grinned widely and waggled his eyebrows, extremely pleased with his terrible innuendo.

“I can’t believe you get me to fuck you with shitty lines like that,” Anne snickered.

“Works every time. So far, anyway. I guess you just like shitty pickup lines,” Jim laughed, draping an arm over her shoulders and pulling her close.

“I swear, I’m going to write a tell-all book and include every single one of those lines in it, and you’ll never get laid again,” Anne said, her body already starting to react, her nipples tightening into little pink points. She rested her head on his chest, her hand sliding down his thigh, not quite touching the inside of it.

“Great idea. If you list all your favorite songs in it, you can call it ‘I Have Bad Taste in Everything, Including Men.’”

Anne sighed heavily. “Jim…” There was no way to answer that, so Anne just reached up, grabbing the back of his neck and pulling him into a kiss. The downturn into sexual territory was sharp and sudden, with her fingernails already digging in lightly and his free hand seizing one of her breasts, plucking gently at the nipple.

It would have gone on, too, and probably would have been quite satisfying if Anne hadn’t caught one of the last lines of the song and froze. She couldn’t be right.

Jim was immediately pulling away. “You okay?” he asked, worried, his hand having moved to her shoulder.

“Yeah, I’m all right,” Anne said, glancing around for a padd within reach. There were none.

“Music pause,” Jim said, correctly interpreting why she wanted the padd. “What’s up, gorgeous? Something wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Anne said. “Music repeat last fifteen seconds. Twenty seconds.” As the music started, “Jim, listen to this and just tell me I’m not insane, okay?”

He listened with her, concerned, and heard the line. She knew he did, because his eyebrows rose. “Huh. That’s a hell of a coincidence.”

“That’s crazy. That’s not even coincidence anymore. Here, grab me a padd and I’ll see if I can find out what that’s all about. Come on now-- Spock pinching necks? That’s too weird to be coincidence.” Anne took the padd he offered her and started to tap away, pulling up all the associations she could from that song. Fortunately, the song had been thoroughly analyzed… but what Anne found was even more unsettling. “It says here that Spock was a sort of folklore figure who showed up in San Francisco in the 1980’s. Apparently he claimed he could telepathically talk to whales, and the neck pinch comes from an incident where he shut down a punk kid on a bus who was listening to his music too loud and bothering everyone. He pinched the punk’s neck, and the kid passed out.” Anne looked over at Jim. “It says here he had a companion that he called Admiral Kirk.”

Jim paused at that, frowning, his entire body still. “Well, it could still be a coincidence,” he started.

“Bullshit,” Anne said immediately. She didn’t like to talk about his work much, but… “Jim, I get that there are things you can’t talk about, but can you at least tell me whether you know anything about this?”

Jim was silent for a while, frowning down at the padd in her hands. “Well… not really. Maybe. It’s--”

“It’s a long story?” Anne asked. On impulse, she told the padd to cross-reference all the Beastie Boys lyrics with terms that would only be found in post-warp literature. “Jim.” She showed him the padd. “Klingons. Look, this can’t be a coincidence. I can’t write this off.” She paused. “You know I won’t tell anyone… but I need this explained. How are these things showing up in lyrics by one of your favorite bands?”

Shaking his head slowly, Jim glanced up at her, then back down at the padd. “That’s the thing. I can’t explain it.” He hesitated, looking back at her, searching her face, then seemed to make a decision. “But I can guess.”

“I’m listening,” Anne said quietly.

It took him a moment to organize his thoughts. “I can’t go into too much detail on this, but we’ve had proof that time isn’t… isn’t as solid as we think it is. There are at least two timelines that we’re certain exist side-by-side. Maybe more.”

“How do you know this?” Anne asked, fascinated. “What was the proof? Can you tell me?”

Jim sighed, settling her against him and leaning back on the pillows. “The proof was Spock, actually. Another Spock. He’s-- he died shortly before the Altamid incident. Old age. He was a hundred and sixty two years old.”

Anne couldn’t muster up an intelligent reply. “What the fuck,” she breathed. “And you’re sure? Genetics testing--”

“Absolutely sure. Hell, I mind melded with him, before Spock and I were even friends. He was Spock. No doubt about it.” Jim looked down at her. “You know you can’t tell anyone, right? Some of this is classified. If anyone ever finds out you know… well, it wouldn’t be pretty.”

Meeting his eyes squarely, Anne said, “If there’s one thing I know, Jim Kirk, it’s how to keep a secret.”

He knew that. Even if he didn’t know the reasons she said it-- especially because he didn’t know the reasons she said it. He just nodded and continued. “All right. Well, what happened was pretty complicated, but what it boils down to is that there was a split in the timeline the day I was born. In the other timeline, my dad never died because the Narada never came back in time to kill him. And I can’t really get into all of the factors here, but because of some weird time shit, all of reality changed. Some changes were big. Some of them weren’t. But the upshot, at least in how it applies to the song, is that either the other Kirk and Spock did it, or it was me and I haven’t done it yet.” He laughed, looking pensive, shaking his head. “I told you my life gets really weird sometimes.”

“Huh.” It sort of changed her perspective on him. “So… that other you, he knows about you?”

“I don’t know. Never met him. I don’t think he does, because I don’t think the other Spock ever managed to go back. I get the impression that… that once Vulcan was destroyed, he felt like he was needed here.” Jim gave her a humorless grin. “Vulcan was never destroyed in the other timeline.”

That gave Anne pause. A universe where Vulcan still existed, where Jim had grown up with a father who cared about him… “Sounds like a better place,” she said wistfully. “Maybe I wouldn’t have been-- wasn’t-- taken in that timeline.” She laughed, her voice soft and a bit rough. “Or maybe I didn’t even exist. Who knows?”

“I don’t know. I got the impression that the other me didn’t have many attachments aside from his crew,” Jim said, his voice almost apologetic.

“Maybe we never met,” Anne said, turning the possibility over in her mind.

Frowning, Jim shook his head. “Maybe we just met under better circumstances.”

Anne laughed. “Oh, then we definitely wouldn’t have ended up like this. That would have been a wham bam thank you ma’am situation on both our parts, assuming the broad strokes of personality are the same.”

Jim’s frown only deepened. “No, I don’t think so. I mean, it’d be pretty in character for that guy to have a fling, but I don’t think he’d just fuck off after a couple days or whatever. That would be pretty stupid.”

“Oh come on. Nothing’s set in stone. If you and I didn’t have a reason not to fuck, we’d have gotten it out of our systems and then gotten scared and run off,” Anne teased, wondering why he looked so balky.

“That’s dumb,” Jim said, his frown turning into an actual scowl. “I guess it’s a possibility, but he’d have to be kind of a coward--”

“James Tiberius Kirk,” Anne said slowly, her eyes widening, and had to stop herself from laughing again. “You’re mad at him.”

He immediately started to backpedal. “What? No, I’m just-- well, come on, if he couldn’t figure out--”

“Yes you are,” Anne marveled. “You’re mad at him because he might not have stuck around to do--” she flapped a hand around at the bedroom and its luxurious appointments, “--all this.” They both knew she didn’t really mean the bedroom.

“I’m not mad at him--” Jim started, his frown reappearing, then his shoulders sank and he sighed. “Okay, maybe a little. But he would have to be really stupid to have the possibility of something like this and just let it go without ever… I mean, even with all your rotten music it’s still pretty damn great.”

Anne watched him without speaking for a few moments, just… just appreciating him, blue eyes, messy hair and all. If he wasn’t himself, she wouldn’t have fallen so hard for him, and that other Kirk definitely wasn’t her Jim. “This makes me right again, you know,” she said, a little irony in her smile. “Reality had to bend for you to exist, mon étoile.”

He just laughed once or twice, looking away, like he wasn’t really sure how to react to that. “Given all the shit that’s happened, I can’t exactly be glad that we’re in this timeline here.”

“I can, and I will,” Anne said lightly. She knew he was feeling a little guilty, as if his happiness in this moment was the only thing on the other side of the scales from all the havoc the Narada had wreaked. “If some other me exists in that timeline, she’s enjoying what she has, whatever that is. Why should she be the only one? Why shouldn’t I enjoy what I have?”

“What you have, huh?” he asked, looking skeptically at her, trying to suppress the tiny smile that wanted to touch the corners of his mouth. He wanted to be convinced that it was all right not to be guilty over it. Good, because it was. No one needed him to self-flagellate. “And what’s that?”

Inspiration struck, and Anne deliberately looked down, then up at him from under her lowered lashes. “Someone awful enough to love my shitty music and my shitty pickup lines.”

Bemusement replaced his skepticism, and that smile made a tentative appearance, uncertain of its welcome. “Is that so?” he asked, not really sure what she was driving at; she hadn’t been the one with the shitty lines.

“Jim Kirk…” Set ‘em up, and knock ‘em down. Anne smiled invitingly at him. “...come and rock the sure shot.”

He knew the lyric immediately, and that grin widened, became sunny and uncomplicated and boyish in the wake of her easy delivery. His arm slid back around her, yanking her into his lap, his other hand tipping up her jaw. As if she needed the cue. Anne was already curling up against him, wanting to feel that smile on her lips, glad she’d driven away that guilty look. After some time and a few kisses, once their breathing had started to roughen and pulses were getting quick, Jim laughed and said, “She’s the cheese, and I’m the macaroni.”

“No fair, you had time to think about it,” Anne pretended to protest. “Mine was really good, I did that really well--” Both laughter and another kiss cut her off, and like music and pickup lines, it didn’t matter whose were whose. Either way worked just fine for both of them.

[coelasquid]

Someone raised the challenge to take the idea of the cult ending that was assembled from non-canon datamined content but figure out a way to reassemble it into something that’s both tonally in-line with the rest of the game and a satisfying cap to the story so I rose to the challenge because bouncing from springboards like this and connecting plot points is basically what I do for a living.

Also tried to find a way to include all the dads because these “bigger picture” stories are more fun like that.

Putting it under a cut for length and hella spoilers, but here’s my response to the question of “well how would YOU handle the cult end”

You’re out on the boat with Joseph and it shuts down, Joseph comments the weather is getting bad and it’s probably not safe to be out so instead of looking for wine, the two of you are trying to find the spare gas (get the chance to look at all the stuff in the lounge on the ship while he’s digging elsewhere)

Joseph finds gas but it’s not enough to get back to shore so you need to figure something else out

Joseph sees you checking out the little map fragment framed in the lounge on the wall, reminisces about how Mary drew it back before things got weird with Robert, they used to go on his cryptid hunts with him because it was a fun excuse to get out and get some fresh air. Robert was fixated on the island, but they figured it was one of his Robert-stories and it turned into a running joke between them

Joseph says there’s probably enough gas to get to the island and wait out the storm until you can try to get the radio running later when it’s safe

You get to the island, maybe it has a dock or somewhere to leave the yacht? I don’t make up the rules for Creepy Mystery Island. Or I do. It has somewhere to leave the yacht while you head into like, a cave on the island because MC is very concerned the boat is going to get struck by lightning

cave is very unsettling, formations that seem too deliberate to be naturally occurring. Joseph starts acting weird, seems way too knowledgeable of the area compared to how he was acting before on the boat, tells you to follow him to a part of the cave he insists is safe and dry, leads to through the pitch black until you hear what sounds like a heavy door closing behind you. Joseph hasn’t said anything for a while, you fumble for something to light the way (maybe you kept one of the flashlights from the yacht?) and whoa surprise Joseph has turned into some kind of horrible monster slenderman Joseph that looks like Robert’s Dover Ghost story.

You scream and bolt out of there, the scene cuts to black

It cuts to the next morning back at your house on dry land, you realize you’re playing as Amanda now.

Brian shows up looking for your dad for something, wants to give him the pole-saw he lost in the fishing bet, maybe? Amanda realizes she hasn’t seen her dad since he left for the yacht, reasons he might have gotten home after she went to bed and got up early to go jog with Craig.

Go find Craig at the park, he hasn’t seen your dad but thinks he may have gotten there after him and tried to catch up, so they backtrack the usual circuit

they find Joseph’s twins out at the spot they play in out in the woods, but they seem really distressed, you calm them down enough to find out they’re worried about their dad, he’s been calling every night since he moved out to read them bedtime stories over the phone and say goodnight, but he didn’t call last night and they don’t know why

Robert overhears everything because he was creeping around the woods doing his cryptid-hunting thing and interjects into the conversation. He says as much as he thinks Joseph is a shitty person at least he’s a good dad, so something must have gone wrong. If no one’s seen him or the MC since the day before when he chewed the MC out on the dock, they must have been stranded out at sea through the storm. He’s got a sinking feeling about this, but he wants to call a neighbourhood meeting to figure out what to do.

Everyone from the cul-de-sac gets together at Mat’s cafe and Robert lays out the situation as he sees it, he tells everyone about his theories that the unusually high amount of cryptid activity in the area and noted Dover ghost sightings have something to do with the misfortune everyone’s families have experienced.

Mary is very exasperated, rolls her eyes like “oh not this again” and tells you that Robert’s obsessed with this idea that the Dover Ghost is cursing people and breaking up families and feeding on misfortune and all that. She tells you that she and Joseph thought it was cute and fun when he was leaving them little “protective totems” but when he got the symbol tattooed on his hand she knew he’d taken it too far (RE: the clock in Mary & Joseph’s living room and the cross in Joseph’s office that have the same symbol that Robert has tattooed on his hand)

Robert is very upset that Mary doesn’t believe him and ends up spilling the beans that this is something he’s been obsessed with for years. When his wife died he couldn’t accept that it was random chance and went looking for a “Grand Design” reason to explain it all. He found all the local folklore about the Dover Ghost and became obsessed because it all lined up with things he’d observed. It drove the wedge between him and his daughter because it felt like reopening the wound for her every time he went on one of his “Dover Ghost rants”

Everyone is starting to question Robert’s grip on reality, but Damien interjects to say that he believes Robert. He’s pretty sure he had a run-in with the Dover Ghost when he was younger, and says trying to make sense of it was a big part of what got him so interested in the macabre (also why he’s so skittish about horror movies)

Robert insists that he’s almost certain that Joseph and the MC must have ended up on an island he’s determined from his ghost-hunting to be the epicentre of the paranormal activity

That green-haired kid who works at Mat’s shop overhears and interjects like “Woah are you guys talking about [Creepy Cryptid Island]? My dad’s in the FBI, he’s been working the [Creepy Cryptid Island] case for years! It’s why he’s never around! If your friends are stuck there I’ll call him, he’ll be able to get them back!” and runs off to try to get in touch with someone in the department of Researching Creepy Cryptids.

Robert is insisting they can’t wait for that, they’ve gotta go now or it’ll be too late. Mary’s getting sincerely worried now too, she’s decided if Robert cares this much they’re going

Fortunately Hugo’s made so many friends down at the auto shop after he won all those trivia night gift cards he knows a guy with a boat he can hook you up with

After that it cuts from the coffee shop and back to the island where MC is running for his life from Dover!Joseph

Maybe as he’s running around he’s finding evidence of the previous victims of the Dover Ghost? Like trinkets related to the dead/missing spouses it kept to feed off negative energy from? Either way MC is running through Dover Ghost’s lair trying to escape Dover!Joseph, realizing he’s stuck in the lair of the Cryptid Robert was warning everyone about

Robert and Mary to the rescue! They show up just in the nick of time to save your character from a tight spot. Robert comes out here on daytime tourist ferry rides or something to try to explore the cave and find spooky ghost proof or whatever, so he knows all sorts of routes through these caves

Robert’s sharing his Dover Ghost intel while you escape, saying that people in compromised emotional states are vulnerable to being possessed. Mary’s making sarcastic biting digs about how Joseph can’t be that upset about finally leaving her after the cheating.

You realize from the way she’s talking that Mary isn’t actually aware the person Joseph cheated on her WITH was Robert. MC says something tactlessly ignorant like “what? But I thought Joseph and Robert-” Mary freezes up because she did NOT realize this and refuses to budge until Robert explains.

Robert tries to explain that being so close to Joseph and Mary was one of the only good things he had going on back then. After things went down with Joseph and Joseph backpedaled it ruined all that, he just wanted to try to bury the whole thing, pretend it didn’t happen, didn’t want to talk about it. Robert talks about how genuinely happy he was when the three of them were friends and spending time together

Dover!Joseph catches up to you while Mary and Robert are trying to sort this out and starts twisting the knife like “Oh poor Robert, you know he didn’t tell Mary because he wanted you to be able to count on each other if you were going to kick him out of the little trio? Too bad all the two of you do is cheer each other on while you drink yourselves to death!”

So now everything is out on the table and your MC has gotta tactfully talk these three through their emotional problem, but if you say the wrong thing they’ll get even more worked up and become vulnerable to the ghost too, then your MC is staring down three Dover!Neighbours and it’s game over. If you sort it out right you find out the initial rift started between Mary and Joseph because both of them were falling for Robert.

Mary admits she started avoiding Joseph because she's a Bad Bitch Who Doesn't Talk About Feelingz and didn't want him to know she had a thing for Robert, Joseph comes clean to feeling isolated and abandoned with Mary going AWOL all the time and that led to making Bad Decisions with Robert when he went to him for support.

You find out that's where it went downhill for all three of them. Mary knew Joseph cheated on her even if she didn't know with who so she got more distant and resentful, Joseph felt like shit for betraying her and making Robert feel used so he walls himself off, Robert lost his emotional support so he got even more self destructive and threw himself into his cryptids to cope.

So if you successfully managed to sort out all the hurt feelings and get the OT3 back together, the Dover Ghost can’t possess Joseph anymore and you force it out in the  open. MC can take the opportunity to jump at it with the knife Robert gave him, forcing it to retreat, wounded, back into the tunnels

Hunky FBI dude finally shows up with his crew to take care of the situation and get all the civilians off [Creepy Cryptid Island]. Joseph, Robert, and Mary are getting cuddly with each other on the way back now that they’ve aired out their drama and survived a run-in with the horrible supernatural abomination Robert was warning everyone about the whole time. Hunky FBI guy notices you’re feeling a bit awkward being the third... fourth... wheel here and winks that you should give him a call sometime.

Anyway, that was what I managed to come up with on the spot when someone asked how I’d handle that storyline differently, if it’s of interest to anyone.

[jacobpaulnielsen]

The Black Parade

Prompt: Write a 1,000-word album review of a record you’ve never heard in a genre you’re not familiar with.

I’ve always really, really hated emo music. The huge guitars and undeniable hooks are the same things that made me love a lot of bands, so I’m not entirely sure why I have such a distaste for it. The genre is famous for songs about depression, self-loathing, and heartbreak. None of these topics are out of place on a Neil Young, Smashing Pumpkins, or Radiohead record; all people that have been important to me at one time or another. And yet, something about this genre has always rubbed me the wrong way. I can't really put my finger on it. So for this assignment, I decided to challenge myself and do a deep dive into The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance.

Initially, my reaction to the album was less than stellar. I tore the album apart. I actually wrote, "On The Black Parade, My Chemical Romance tried their best to strike the right balance of music just edgy enough to appeal to suburban teens but not rebellious enough to actually provoke forward movement." Bold words coming from someone that's never sold a record, let alone written a song.

I wanted to do some research on the band before I really started writing the review in earnest, and it seemed like Life on the Murder Scene, the 2006 documentary on the band was a great place to start. I’m glad that I did. The film really changed my perception of the band and the album. I came to find out that MCR has the same narrative as the bands that were subjects of VH1's Behind the Music series. Like their predecessors, the band was plagued with the pressures of fame and drug addiction. It’s a Classic Rock story. It’s Rocket Man and Almost Famous and all of those other legends that follow the same classic rock mythos that inspired us to want to take over the world when we were kids.

So on this review, I challenged myself to find out how The Black Parade fits into the mythical schema of what's been dubbed "classic rock," because - like it or not - it does.

With 2006’s The Black Parade, My Chemical Romance created a Classic Rock masterpiece. Considering that Classic Rock as a genre mostly stopped progressing in the early to mid-80s, this might be a strange concept. However, the elements that make Classic Rock so pervasive in American music are all found on this record, too. It’s not a stretch to say that My Chemical Romance is the natural evolution of established and accepted Classic Rock artists like Kiss or Alice Cooper. MCR fans would probably shudder at the idea of their favorite band being lumped into the same category as bands that their parents listened to, but the similarities are striking: mythical lyrics, dramatic stage shows, power ballads, and - most importantly - mystery. Their image of a goth band gone punk evokes the same feelings that captivated teenagers when Kiss released Destroyer in 1976. And the image worked - their major-label debut was certified platinum just a year after its release. In his book Twilight of the Gods, Steven Hyden defines classic rock as “a particular era of music signified by bands who may or may not be shitty”. This definition is important if we’re going to consider The Black Parade for Classic Rock canon. There is a definitive line that can be drawn between Classic Rock as a genre and a classic rock album. The Velvet Underground & Nico is a classic rock album, whereas Bad Company is a Classic Rock album. Furthermore, there are recurring themes within the Classic Rock genre that appear throughout all of the essential Classic Rock albums. Let’s take a look at three of those essential elements of Classic Rock and see how The Black Parade measures up.

Grandiose Lyrics About Heartbreak, Love, Death, and Youth

“Carry on my wayward son There'll be peace when you are done Lay your weary head to rest Don't you cry no more”

Kansas. The band responsible for hits such as “Point of Know Return,” and “Dust in the Wind,” are one of several bands that came to embody Classic Rock. Given this definition and the ambiguous use of their music in Will Farrell movies, Kansas could very well be the defining Classic Rock band. Despite how “shitty” (as Hyden so lovingly puts it) Kansas is, we love them to this day. According to Louder Than Sound, Carry on Wayward Son was the number one song on classic rock radio in 1997. Since then it’s logged more than two million downloads.

But why?

These aren’t politically conscious lyrics. There’s no hidden meaning here. There’s no call for peace or change. These are just lyrics that, quite simply, feel good to sing out loud at a concert with fellow fans. The words just create this feeling of belonging. The same is true for the (almost) title track of The Black Parade. This is a song that was made to be played in front of a crowd.

One of the great things about Classic Rock is that the lyrics really seem to be made for the fans. They’re the right words sang in the right cadence. That’s it. These are words that just sing well. As a result, it’s really the fans that interpret the lyrics and ultimately take ownership of them. So when you take these lyrics from “Welcome to the Black Parade,” it’s obvious that Gerard Way didn’t actually have this conversation with his dad at a parade. Real people don’t talk like that. But damn those lyrics do make you feel some kind of way, don’t they?

Call to Arms

The Call to Arms is a song that asks the fans to get together and stand for something. It’s a song that says “let’s go take over the world.” A true Call to Arms, as it relates to the Classic Rock genre isn’t a zeitgeist, but the opaque lyrics do have a sense of urgency about them. More than any other song, these are the ones that give the fans a sense of identity and community. It’s a war cry. It’s a song that you would put on your workout playlist or you’d hear at a hockey game. It’s Immigrant Song, Seven Nation Army, and We Will Rock You. In the case of MCR, it’s Teenagers.

Teenagers, it’s probably the best example of a straightforward Classic Rock song on the album. Guitarist Ray Toro begins the song with a typical E minor blues riff before the whole band locks in with Bob Bryar’s classic beat and the song erupts. On the Live in Mexico DVD, their touring keyboardist even accompanies them with a very Stones-y piano part. And is that a cowbell Bob is playing during the breakdown? It’s a testament to the band’s bravery that they wrote a song like this in the first place. It’s a testament to their talent that it actually worked; it’s a staple in their set fourteen years later.

The Concept Album

It started in 1967 with Sgt. Pepper and it still continues to this day. It’s not surprising, given Gerard Way’s love of comic books and horror films, that he was drawn to the idea of a concept album. Originally titled The Rise and Fall of My Chemical Romance, this record opened up a whole world of possibilities for MCR. Given how the concept album lends itself to a particularly theatrical nature (see The Wall), it suddenly made sense for My Chemical Romance to integrate theatrics into the live performances supporting the album. Donned in black marching band uniforms and makeup for the tour, the live performances of songs from this album were like a marriage between David Bowie and Alice Cooper.

True Classic Rock artists are not merely people. They are Greek Gods. I’m finishing this post on the heels on Neil Peart’s death, of which Taylor Hawkins wrote “Neil Peart had the hands of God. End of Story.” Peart isn’t the first Classic Rocker to be compared to God, nor will he be the last. The genre is absolutely drenched in mystique, folklore, and larger than life stories of how the Gods came to be and the creations they made. Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil. Paul McCartney died and the Beatles told us about it. Led Zeppelin recorded their legendary fourth album in a haunted mansion. Not unlike their heroes, My Chemical Romance has draped all that they do in as much mystique as the 21st century can allow. Not unlike The Spiders from Mars, My Chemical Romance often performed under the name The Black Parade. And not unlike Kiss, the band performed in costume. The cryptic announcements surrounding MCR’s reunion shows and the impending new album has caused hysteria among their fans. It can’t be more clear that their vast and devoted fanbase considers them absolute superheroes - and that’s really the whole of what truly makes a band a Classic Rock band. If classic rock was what you were looking for in 2006, you could find it alive and well with My Chemical Romance.

[bluerosesburnblue]

Liz Liveblogs Bravely Second: Chapter One

Bravely Second Chapter 1: When Duty Calls, Who Will Answer, GO!

Oh hey Kamiizumi. What the heck are you doing on a canoe in the middle of the ocean? Also, how is the boat moving but you are not?

WHO BRINGS THEIR CAT TO THE MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN???

Yew is blaming himself for the very existence of the traitors like??? Buddy. I don’t think that betrayal had anything to do with you

THEY’RE ALREADY A FAMILY IT’S SO CUTE

Tiz is tracking Agnès’s location based on the birds she can see from her window. What is this boy?

Team went back to Gathelatio for a boat and ended up discussing childhoods. Yew is a sweet little bookworm after my own heart and Edea’s answer is SWORDFIGHTING (”Didn’t you play tea parties?” “No, SWORDFIGHTING.”)

Edea is so excited to see Kamiizumi! He won’t explain HOW he’s alive, but hey! Free boat!

Yew gave a rousing speech to the remnants of the Crystalguard and big bro Tiz is just gushing about how Yew sounded like Agnès. And big sis Agnès agrees! (this family kills me)

“And everyone knows there are no squid on the Moon... only octopuses.” Tiz what... how do you know that? Is the moon colony a well known thing? Did we all just forget to mention that people live there in the first game?

And Magnolia doesn’t even know what an octopus is!

Everyone spies on Yew while he narrates his diary entries to himself and... ah, this must be where the “party members write comments in the bestiary” thing from the demo comes from

“Tiz please stop them.” “EVERYONE PICK A COLOR. I CALL GREEN.” Tiz...

They really are just a group of dysfunctional siblings already. It’s adorable

No one is impressed by Kamiizumi’s rowboat. Also he just... has a cat now. Okay.

Villains are talking about “an experienced assassin” and my jobs list is telling me that catmancer is in this chapter... so is this “assassin” the catmancer?

...those were cat noises in the background so I’m gonna say maybe

Oh god they flipped the perspective on the map so Eternia/Eisenberg are on the right and Harena/Florem are on the left. Oh god I’m gonna get so lost

That boat did NOT last long

Ughhhhhhh catmancer girl is making cat puns ughhhhhh at least Kamiizumi likes her because cats

And whoops now Kami’s cat is under her control and attempting to murder us

Hey! It’s Al-Khampis from the demo! And... Pudgius Bismol. Who was most certainly NOT in the demo

Okay I was worried about Yew being Tiz 2.0 at first but now he’s my precious nerd child

Cute Al-Khampis girl from the demo has a name and it’s Rifa! Yew knows her

I still can’t use the Al-Khampis inn, just let me heal please

“The five star gentleman I used to know” ...were Yew and Rifa dating?

Magnolia sure seems to think so because she’s getting jealous

Oh, so Rifa studies Ba’als! I suppose that’ll be our next target, then, along with tracking Agnès

Someone who looks like the owl guys that gave you summons in the first game is watching the party. It’s... ominous. He isn’t even speaking English, but Magnolia can hear him and understand him (no one else noticed because Edea’s throwing a fit over food)

Oh no he’s a Chomp cultist. He gave us chompcrafts. Time to become excellent plush toy makers

Just leave the game running and the team will auto-make plushies to sell. That’s neat

Oh christ I did it again I spent too long on minigames

Edea just introduced Tiz to someone as Agnès’s boyfriend and his response was to shove his hand on her mouth and basically go “HAHA what no” Tiznes is the best ship

Ughhhh who let Fiore “I kidnap women and wanted to destroy Florem” deRosa teach at a college? At least he bought the team lunch I guess

And they’re studying “somnial energy” to put an end to wars (as if people won’t just fight over the new energy source but whatever)

I can already see where this new “choice-based sidequest” is gonna go. Jackal wants more water for the people of Harena, deRosa wants more water to develop his wonder energy, and we’re gonna have to choose who to give water to

(Btw, Yew took everyone to a folklore lecture and Tiz was really into it. I love that the game makes sure you know that Tiz, despite being a farm boy, really loves learning. Also just furthers my belief that Tiz and Yew would be cute brothers)

T-t-teleport... pig??? There’s pigs that teleport you between towns??? That’s convenient but huh???

I like Jackal, he’s actually a nice guy, but I want the Thief job more, so sorry buddy (and like everyone in Harena)

It’s making me sick to side with deRosa, especially since I don’t trust a single thing he says about somnial energy and his “let’s have everyone move to Florem if they want water” plan is stupid as hell

AND IT COULD BLOW UP A TOWN my god deRosa is the WORST

His contingency for “what if someone uses it as a weapon” is I’LL TELL EVERYONE SO EVERYONE IS EQUAL AND NO ONE WANTS TO USE IT (buddy that’s just how you start Cold Wars, your plan guarantees nothing)

Ah well, I’ve already been spoiled on the fact that this game has time loops, so I can side with Jackal in the “canon run” I suppose (second loop?) I still hate this

God and now Edea’s preaching about how ideals are good but to never forget what people have sacrificed, forgetting that there isn’t even a guarantee that deRosa’s dumbass plan is even going to work! We screwed these people over for potentially nothing! So a little rich boy could feel better about his thesis work!

And the game presents it like it was a difficult moral choice, in a way that assumes that deRosa’s plan was anything short of poorly thought out and horrendously terrible. Also like the previous game didn’t do everything in its power to let you know that Jackal only ever did bad jobs in order to provide for all of the orphans he was taking care of and deRosa did a LOT of REALLY SHITTY things to women just because he felt like it. What I’m saying is, if you’re gonna write something to seem “morally grey” you have to be very careful, and basically not. Do. This. Especially if the choice is between a jackass who takes care of orphans through crime (morally grey on its own!) and a serial molester

The Ba’al is not in its crater. Edea thinks it doesn’t exist. Magnolia and I can see this for the omen it truly is

Magnolia has a communicator bracelet and called up VP Appleberry, who I am assuming is also a moon man given that he speaks fluent French. The Ba’al is on its way

So Ba’al v: Urchin. I think this is the one from the demo? Wasn’t that bad once I started chaining everyone’s specials (save accidentally healing it with Magnolia)

Magnolia’s explaining how she’s from the moon and fights Ba’als which... I thought we already covered, but okay (Rifa’s concerned that A. people live on the moon and B. the moon people have been fighting Ba’als for generations)

Insert *touching but cliche friendship speech by the team in response to Magnolia declaring that she’ll defeat the Ba’als even if she has to do it alone* here

Yew no joke made everyone umbrellas out of the Ba’al (and Tiz is the only one to genuinely compliment him on the resourcefulness, as opposed to being disgusted)

Yew and Magnolia are sharing an umbrella and he’s BLUSHING LIKE CRAZY that’s so cute (and Edea had to explain the Japanese “couple sharing an umbrella” thing)

CHRIST Edea. Tiz was just trying to help by sharing his umbrella. You didn’t have to drop kick him and smash his umbrella. God they’re all so MEAN right now

Agnès is in Anchiem! Move out!

Ah geez, the sandstorm from the demo is back. Let’s see how this gets resolved

Oh good. I’ve been waiting for the moment where Yew tells Pudgius to get lost because he outranks him (the noise Pudgy makes when Yew tells him he had a special sixth star is beautiful)

The Seven Horrors of Al-Khampis sound up there with the Seven Wonders of Twilight Town on the list of “things that are probably not what you think they are.” Wonder if the world is gonna glitch out

Mister Bones: the skeleton in the biology lab that comes to life at night oh my god these are already great

Professor Norzen is making some... weird noises at his star predictions (he’s also the astrologist from the beginning. Time to take his asterisk!)

Norzen set up the sandstorm to take down the Skyhold. Totally willing to sacrifice the people of Ancheim and Agnès. Yeah, no. Glad he’s crazy so I’m less conflicted about this than the Jackal fight

“I didn’t do anything during the events of the first game, so this time I will bring justice!!!” glad that Edea and Tiz chime in with the fact that their attempt to bring justice got a lot of innocents killed last game

I’d heard that fight was supposed to be hard, but I was overleveled as hell soooooo

“It was all a test!” Y’know, I saw that coming yet I’m still disappointed

Go find the compass, he says. What do you mean the cat that was suspiciously on the scene was being controlled by the catmancer. I never coulda guessed

Oh god she’s singing a song about cats and called herself a “meowsassin” can I give her an award for most obnoxious new character?

Wow. One scratch from that cat just straight up murdered Norzen. What the heck buddy

...the kaiser just said “Who’s a good kitty now? Who’s a good widdle kitty?” to Minette and I’m just ???

Mephilia vs. Kamiizumi sidequest. Gho Gettar has two choices: follow his dream and study with Mephilia to summon Amaterasu or follow Kamiizumi’s advice and go give his awful job another try. Not gonna lie here, I’m with Mephilia. While I agree with Kamiizumi wanting him to work hard, I feel like it would be better for him to work hard pursuing something he loves, rather than an awful job he hates just because that job is the right thing to do. And I’m with Mephilia: the break someone down so that you can build them up again mentality is fucked up and honestly more likely to cause someone to give up forever than actually help them

So naturally in the interest of making this the worst timeline and my own love of the summoner job, I’m gonna attack Mephilia. Sorry Gho, go back to your dead end minimum wage job for now

Well, at least Gho got promoted and is happy with his job. Still not super okay with condoning the “break them to make them” mentality

At the Harena Sea Caves for the compass. I think this was a demo location? It’s very familiar

Cats are here. I think we may be late

Goddamn my game hates the Harena Sea Caves. It’s crashed twice since I’ve been here. Thank god for autosaves

...does that compass just have a giant sword attached to the center?

Ah, but of course. Minette is here. (Just let me kill her already)

“Mewtralize” JUST STOP

Oh god Minette is calling herself a cat, and also the queen of all cats. She’s too far gone

Oh and the Kaiser loaned her a lion. Where did he...? Why...?

“Yew Mewnimeowgia” alright she’s dead I can’t take this anymore

Ultimately not a hard fight, but Minette can put the whole party to sleep which is annoying

Well she’s dead, but also handed off the compass to Janne. Annoying until her dying breath

Wait. According to the Journal she’s seventeen?!?! What?!?!?

Oh and it just flat out gives you a list of all the abilities and what creatures give them and the items needed. That’s WAY better than the Vampire blood magic from the last game

The Skyhold is still in Ancheim so the team is gonna see if they can get on it before it leaves. Through the Mill Works!

Ah, okay. So Catmancy skills are learned when ANYONE in the party is hit by a learnable attack, which the catmancer can then cast by using items. Interesting

Addendum: a catmancer/someone with Learning equipped must be in the party when the move is used

Magnolia is very impressed by the Ancheim windmills. Given that I assume the moon lacks an atmosphere that would make air power viable, I suppose that’s expected

Heyyy Private Piddler’s back

“I was hoping for someone more... competent” damn Janne is brutal

Janne is explaining why he hates the Crystalguard. Way back during the wars mentioned in the first game the Orthodoxy’s Crystalguard made a peaceful surrender when the Anticrystalists showed up BUT they also destroyed anyone who opposed the surrender... violently. Which included Janne’s parents. Yeah, I guess having your family murdered and erased from all historical records would screw you up pretty bad

Yeah Janne’s House Balestra was specifically killed by houses Geneolgia and Camlann. So Yew and Othar’s families killed Janne’s

Yew isn’t taking it well, but he’s also not buying it as an excuse. Sad backstory or not, Janne killed Yew’s friends and kidnapped Agnès. Basically, “cool motive, still murder.” And another reason to love Yew for the list

Aaaaand here’s Amphisbaena, which I’m gonna assume is the boss of the chapter. It’s uh... a two headed worm thing? Ugly as hell? One head is weak to magic and the other physical attacks. They also swap positions

A poor showing on my part: I forgot that using the Rejuvenation special attack would make all of my attacks heal so I ended up healing the damn thing back to full for a few rounds

Oh dear god according to the Journal that thing was PEOPLE, specifically one of a set of twins that ate its twin after being mutated. And since the twins were trying to protect Tiz they placed the monster in charge of defending his pod. Holy SHIT the Empire is messed up

Yeah any sympathy for the Empire gained from Janne is lost IMMEDIATELY after reading that

Yeah of course we’re not getting on the Skyhold. They sent their sniper after us

Wait... she’s shooting from EISENBERG? That’s across the ocean! How?

Foiled by a cowgirl and a bored baker. Typical

Also they’re probably dating? At least flirting really hard with each other

I wonder who the person doing the end-of -chapter narrations is supposed to be. She’s talking about love and figuring out if feelings will be true, which I’m not sure relates to what just happened, but alright

Wait the intro video is playing. Didn’t that already happen? Is that gonna happen every chapter? Like anime opening/ending credits? That’s neat, I guess, and it’s very pretty so I’m not complaining

And that ends Chapter 1! What a... strange series of events. I can already see where it’s improving on Bravely Default, and the story is already wackier, so I guess I’ll just have to wait and see if that’s a good thing or not. Until next time!

[sarazanmai]

Thoughts on the “Sailor Moon Crystal” English dub. Season two episode eleven.

in an attempt at maintaining suspense we have the last scene of the previous episode replayed for us and then the intro

obviously I know what’s coming, but don’t you love when anime do this?

I think I’m gonna miss Moon Pride when they eventually dub season three and I go through that again

whenever I read this in the manga I saw it as something happening so fast nobody had time to think, but eh anime like to slow down the tone in the same of tension even though sometimes they shouldn’t

its things like this that are actually why I tend to prefer reading manga to watching anime

oh my God Toei

this is an important scene and you didn��t even have Pluto be fully animated when she says “time! I command thee!”

what I mean is she is a static image with her mouth open and for such an important moment this laziness pisses me off

yes season three, but we are not watching season three

at least when she stops time she doesn’t make a weird sound effect like Dio

Pluto’s sacrifice always makes me sad, again I know things get better for her but when she did this she didn’t expect any of that to come her way so as far as she knew reincarnation wasn’t an option for her

I know some fans criticize really all versions of Sailor Moon for giving people reset buttons if you will (and yet no one gives a shit when DBZ breaks its own canon by creating loopholes to do this...) but given that rebirth is a strong theme within the series I don’t actually care

why does Endymion’s cape look lavender now but it looks white every other time?

I wonder who was tasked with watching the gate before Pluto, I suppose it would have been Chronos (but then where is Chronos, we know he’s her dad so he did exist)

“I had long hoped to fight along side you and now that's been fulfilled” AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH

THE OUTERS LIVED SUCH SHITTY EXISTENCES BEFORE THE INFINITY ARC

I feel like Diana hasn’t had that many lines, but Debi really comes through with what she’s got

“I’ve never seen your cloak this close up before, such a beautiful lavender. like the color of sunrise....”

is that why they colored it lavender this time? I swear the rest of the time it looks white

“I love you so much Pluto! you’re my one and only friend!” oh just kill me already

so are tears crystallizing into gems a thing in Japanese folklore or something? because after the stuff with Yukina in YYH I don’t think I can call this just a Sailor Moon thing

Crystal is weird when it comes to the use of nudity I’ve noticed, Chibi-Usa is nude here and the intro for season three shows her and Hotaru nude (neither is in a sexual context) but in season three instead of Hotaru’s spirit being presented in the nude like it was in the manga she has a slip

I don’t understand because if this was wanting to not depict child nudity despite it never being used for sexual purposes then they should be more consistent about it (especially when so many anime show young boys full frontal and I don’t just mean DB and DBZ here)

anyway Sailor Chibi Moon in the house

Chibi Moon trying to show off to Pluto is just depressing

okay Wiseman she just became her own sailor senshi, she is the product of the users of the silver and golden crystals, if you think the power you gave her is more powerful than that then you’re an idiot

oh hey look a transformation sequence in Sailor Moon! that never happens!

Demande is like “hey guys I’m still here”

UUUUUURRRRRAAAAUUUUAAAAUUUGGGGHHHHH

now that’s using your head!

“your tricks might fool them, but they won’t fool me” bitch they already did for the entire arc!

friendly reminder Demande is only interfering because he wants to be the one to kill Sailor Moon and considers that something he is obligated to receive

oh don’t fucking look at her with your face and your eyes

BOOM!

bye Demande you don’t get a reset button and I will not miss you

and Matthew, we’ll see each other again when I watch the Stardust Crusaders dub

ora

“what the hell is that?” hearing Mamoru use even mild language feels a little jarring since I’m still having to remind myself this dub isn’t sanitized for children

“I am invincible!” no villain has ever said this and lived

tune in next time for our big finish and the beginning of the wait for the season three dub