#like the cursed realm is full of such bitter angry souls because the very fact that they were sent there means they are unable to move on

[fruit-colored-ninja]

I feel like we don’t talk about the fact that in canon the reason ghosts are destroyed by water is because water is constantly changing and never confined to one form, while ghosts are the opposite: unable to change, always remaining the way they were when they died. Genuinely one of ninjago’s best worldbuilding moments imo and also a fantastic way to look at ghosts. Of course you’re going to be angry if you’ve died and can’t move on from the moment of your death and the very thing that’s able to destroy you being the embodiment of change… A++ concept

[ingeniouscollectionthing]

If you were alive again...(Tom Riddle x Reader)

Part 2 

Pairing: Tom Riddle x Reader

Warnings: changed pronouns from you to she/her because it fits the character of the story better, death of a person, not following Harry Potter laws here, slightly out of character Tom Riddle

Part 1

Bitter cold rain was pouring from the clouds in loads, the fog encasing the Manor of Riddle Family. The moon had risen. A body, lifeless and heavy, lay on the old wooden floor. Wide blue eyes stared into darkness, black curls looked dishelved. Death himself stood, black and in silence in a corner of the old house, looking down at a young man standing over his poor poor victim. 

“A shame..”, he murmured while crouching down to get a better look of the corpses face. “You were rather good looking”. And he laughed, emotionless and cruel before he turned to leave the mansion. 

And the devil fiddled on his violin, happy to welcome a new soul into his realm.

“A shame?”, a voice asked. A sound so angelic and clear, yet so ice cold it sent shivers down the man’s spine. “I find it rather ironic then, that you’re his splitting image”. And it was her turn to laugh.

The man turned around, caught off guard by the sudden appearence of her. His heart made of stone skipped a beat, he hadn’t seen her since their conversation on the astronomy tower.

“(Y/N)....”, he whispered, unable to form words.    

The ticking of a clock could be heard, it probably will strike the next hour soon.

“Good evening, Tom”, she whispered. And a beautiful smile grazed her silver face. Tom wondered, if there would be a rosy blush on her cheeks right now. “It’s been a while”, she floated closer to where he stood at the door, frowning as her eyes fell on the dead body lying by her feet.

“A while?”, Tom asked in disbelief. “A while?!”, he stormed straight towards her, trying to grab onto her arms out of angry reflex, yet his hands tightened aorund nothingness. He calmed down again.

“Every day for the past four weeks I have tried to talk to you. Every single night and every following morning I went up to the astronomy tower to maybe get a chance to spend time with you, see your beautiful face, hear your beautiful laugh. I couldn’t find you anywhere”. And he shook his head. “And now here you are, standing in front of me out of nowhere after I just killed my worhtless muggle father?!”

His voice rose with anger again, making her flinch back. Had she been a living being, she would’ve stumbled over the corpse.

“What else was I supposed to do to make you realize that what you want can never happen?”, she whispered, her eyes shining with tears. 

“What are you talking about?”, he scoffed, turning away from her.

“You fell in love with a ghost.”, his shoulders rose with tension.

“SO WHAT?!”, Tom screamed. He turned and stalked her way, his eyes gleaming red. “HOW MANY TIMES DID I TELL YOU THAT WE CAN WORK THIS OUT? HOW MANY TIMES DID I TELL YOU THAT I WILL FIND A WAY? WHA-”

“I’M DEAD, TOM”, she shouted and the windows of the old mansion shook uncontrollably as she vanished in a grey cloud. A gust of wind blew through Tom’s curly black hair and she reappeared right in front of him.

Her hands came up to his face and for a moment Tom swore he could feel a warmth craddling his cheeks.

“I’m dead, Tom..”, (Y/N) repeated, softly this time, her cheeks tear stained.

His eyes returned to their beautiful blue-green colour.

“But...”, Tom’s voice broke, “but you don’t have to be any longer...I told you, I’ll find a way. And I did! You can live again, be mine..” His hand reached for somehting in his pocket. A small velvet box, old, black and full of dust. He opened it and it’s content made her gasp.

“After everything I told you, after everything you promised.” She backed away, her voice laced with venom. “You ended up here, on a mindless killing spree out of anger and hate. You killed them, all of them! Your uncle, your father!...and your lust for power drove you to the very things I begged you to let go of.”

It was a ring. A golden band with a single black stone it it’s center. 

The resurrection stone. A deathly hallow.

“I did it for you”, Tom calmly said as he inspected the ring.

“You did it for yourself”, (Y/N) replied.

He ripped the stone out of it’s confinement and enclosed it in his palm. His eyes found hers.

“I am damned by the devil's curse upon my heart. Daily I pace the lonely bridge between the hate I have for this world and the love I feel for you, (Y/N).  Death's shadow has looked upon me and from the very start of my life I’ve been forsaken by the guiding hand of fate. And I’m haunted..haunted by a score of sinful deeds and up to the day I finally met you,” he approached her shaking form and tried to softly grab her hand, “I thought I had to live a loveless life until I die.”

A soft light enveloped both lovers, one of them a living being, one merely a shadow of what once has been. And as they closed their eyes, Tom’s heart cracked into pieces. Two in fact. One to keep himself alive... one to gift life to his love.

And suddenly Tom felt it. A small hand of warm flesh laced it’s fingers with his. It felt so soft to the touch.

And as both, (Y/N) and Tom looked at each other, both halfs of the same heart, now held captive by two different bodies, skipped a beat.

“Your eyes”, Tom said. “They’re brown”.

_________________________

Dear lovely readers,

here is the second part. I hope you like this one! It’s a bit short again, but I really like this one <3. Let me know what you think! I love you!! Stay safe! Also please don’t mind the specific eye colour at the end, but at in this particular way I found it better than writing (e/c) :)

- ingeniouscollectionthing🐍

taglist

@softlyqoos

[anosrepasi]

Chapter 5 - (The Way is) Paved with Good Intentions

Read it on AO3 Start at Chapter 1

---

Compared to climbing the carrock, sailing around the waters surrounding Erebor with Frerin is an act of indulgence.

With no other passengers in the pole boat, Fili and Kili were free to spread out and lay across the benches of the boat while Frerin directed in in lazy circles around the coastline of the city.

The conversation came easy enough- the boys updated their Uncle on the recent going-ons in the eternal realm while Frerin shared stories of Erebor’s recovery and of notable mortals who he had ferried across the river. In one of the natural lulls of conversation Fili allowed himself to speak the question that had been on his mind since Kili’s calling ceremony.

“Uncle, are you not allowed to leave Erebor? Is that way you can’t attend ceremonies in the eternal realm?”

Frerin took a moment to respond, obviously pondering how to best word his answer while Kili shot Fili a questioning look in the pause.

“Yes and No. Technically, I can travel through all the realms as easily as Thorin. However, I have two obstacles that prevent me from traveling unless it’s a special occasion.” Frerin replied after a moment, he slowed them to a stop and tapped at his temples, “The first being that my particular type of vision makes traveling a far more intensive and less rewarding process than for someone with normal sight. Since I see souls, the physical landscape of the space around me is lost on me. Thus traveling alone is usually not very enjoyable, especially if I am unfamiliar with the area.”

“So what about special occasions like Callings or festivals?” Fili pressed on and his uncle gave him a small smile, though it was a tired one.

“That gets us to the second obstacle: Thorin and I both gravely underestimated the amount of work needed to be the soul guider for Erebor. He suggested me for this role because he wanted to go easy on me after the Battle of Erebor and instead we found out that the only day I’m free of my responsibilities is Durin’s Day.”

“As the soul guider couldn’t you take more time off?” Kili asked, propping himself up from where he way lying on the boat to better listen to Fili and Frerin’s conversation, “With the fog protecting Erebor, it’s not like someones going to get in without you giving them passage.”

“That’s the double edged sword and why I only get Durin’s Day off,” Frerin replied, “While the waters around Erebor are normal, they still run deep. We’ve had times before where a soul will think they need to swim across Celduin in order to make it to the afterlife and what they do instead is swim themselves in circles until they can’t tread water. The dead can still drown and that’s a fate I’d rather prevent from ever happening.”

“Didn’t stop Dwalin.” Kili said nonchalantly and Frerin snorted.

“He’s the exception.”

“So you get Durin’s Day off because Erebor is open to anyone that day, so they don’t need you making sure people get across?” Fili asked and Frerin nodded. Made sense, the celebration of Death’s Day only happened once every few centuries and in a literal sense there wouldn’t be any water circling the city to for someone to accidentally drown in.

That still didn’t explain the comments Fili had heard at Kili’s calling ceremony though.

“Would there be any reason people wouldn’t want Thorin to leave Erebor, for reasons of his responsibilities or something like that?”

Frerin frowned at the question, and Fili got the feeling his Uncle was sensing far more to his inquiry than just his initial question. Frerin’s voice was firm in response, “No, Thorin’s duties often take him to the Eternal and Living Realm since he’s the head of Erebor- expecting him to stay here would be ridiculous.”

“Fili, why are you asking?” Kili prompted and Fili felt a small ping of guilt for not telling his brother about the conversation he had overheard at the Calling Ceremony or any of the other strange occurrences Fili had noticed since then. Kili was now looking at him with his full attention and Fili felt the words catch in his throat.

“At the calling Ceremony, there was a god talking with Thranduil and he said something about it being ‘unwise to invite death to a calling,’ and Thranduil replied with saying it seemed like an ‘invitation for misfortune.’”

Frerin’s features went dark as Fili spoke. Between his uncle’s growing rage and his brother’s shock, Fili was already regretting playing the part of messenger, the conversation at the calling had weighed on him since and this was doing nothing to relieve the pressure.

Frerin’s voice made his displeasure apparent, even without the look of anger on his face. “Did Thorin overhear this conversation?”

“Yes.” Fili admitted and Frerin did not speak for an uncomfortable amount of time before he let out a long sigh and a rather vulgar curse laced with Thranduil’s name.

“Fili, I’m sorry you had to witness that,” Frerin begun, “but it’s better to make you boys aware now then to have you be oblivious to this sort of insult.”

He turned back to the boys and surprisingly, took a seat so he was level with his nephews instead of standing at the back of the pole boat. “Ever since the fall of Erebor, when we had the Shadow Ones attack the city, Thranduil has consistently implied that he felt that the God of Death was vulnerable to being corrupted by Shadows and thus Erebor’s fall was caused by the weakness of it’s leader- not the monsters that attacked it.”

“Since then, he has continued to treat Thorin with suspicion, regardless of the fact that Thorin was not the God of Death at the time of the Battle of Erebor, nor has he done anything other than be the best leader he could have been given he was quite unexpectedly made the ruler of an entire realm, much less all the other challenges he faced seeing as half of his family was killed and most of his city was destroyed by the vices of greed and violence before he managed to force the shadows to retreat-” Frerin stopped himself and let out an angry sigh, Fili dared not speak seeing how incensed his uncle was speaking of the topic.

Frerin’s voice dropped and his finishing statement ended on a bitter note. “And because Thanduiel also happens to be a leader of a realm apparently the misguided opinion that Death has anything to do with the monsters we call the Shadows has been spread around and made popular opinion.”

Fili felt the weight in his chest settle and seemingly expand, he had been unaware of just how deep the problem ran. Fili had sensed that the comments made at the calling had been spoken before, based on Thorin’s response but to have another god, another ruler, acting as if Thorin was liable to being corrupted by the Shadow Ones made Fili’s stomach turn. That wasn’t rude, it was horrifying.

Kili was the one to break the silence after Frerin had finished, “Is this was Uncle Thorin sometimes looks- sad, I guess? I’m not sure how else to put it.”

Frerin’s slight laugh was mirthless, “Yes, unfortunately. He tries really hard to make sure you two and Dis never see him worry but he’s always prepared for things to go wrong- The Battle of Erebor was horrifying boys, I’m thankful neither of you were around to witness it.”

Fili looked out over the water, though the fog made seeing anything impossible. He and Kili couldn’t do anything to change the words that had been said about Thorin at the Calling, but maybe they could do something to remind Thorin that he was a fantastic uncle and even a more fantastic King of Erebor- no matter what was said of him in the Eternal realm. Maybe they could surprise him with a gift or something he wanted fixed around Erebor-

“Would it cheer Uncle Thorin up at all if we could get some plants to grow around Erebor again?” Fili asked, focusing on Frerin as the older god gave him an inquisitive look. Next to him, Kili broke out in a grin, catching on to Fili’s thinking.

“And how do the gods of Loyalty and Bravery plan on accomplishing that feat?” Frerin asked, though they could see the anger had passed and all the remained was a tired expression on frerin’s face. Frerin had been the mischivious sibling- Fili recalled from an off hand comment his mother had made about her childhood. They would need Frerin’s help if this idea were to work.

“Because we happen to know a God of Planting,” Kili supplied with an open smile, “And he owes us a favor.”

“We’d need your help, getting him into the city obviously-” Fili continued Kili’s comments, “But I doubt the city would remain barren for long with his help.”

Frerin’s face remained serious but Fili could see a small twitch at the corner of his lips, “You’d have to sneak this god in while Thorin is away, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise otherwise.”

“I think we could manage that.” Fili shrugged and his Uncle gave a small smile, seemingly invigorated by the plan. Frerin had a gleam in his sightless eyes that suggested he was already planning out an excuse to get Thorin away from the city. Frerin was grinning as he directed them back towards the opposite shore, the three eagerly plotting as they sailed through the fog.

—

Nori and Balin are already in Thorin’s study, waiting for the King to arrive. The two nodded to Thorin as he and dwalin entered and Dwalin firmly closes the door behind them, standing guard at the only entrance to the room. The conversation matter is grave then.

“Sorry to pull you away from your family but this seemed rather important,” Nori started, motioning over to Thorin’s desk where three large maps were covering the surface, each marked in various amount of red. “My contacts in the other two realms have been getting back to me- in Elrond’s realm they’ve been seeing misfortunes that have taken place in the mortal world. Floods, famines, diseases, violence, that sort of thing. These incidents of things have been increasing in frequency lately.”

A small frown crossed Nori’s expression before his usually apathetic look once again took precedent, “Here on the outer shores of Erebor and in the eternal realm however- people have reported hearing whispers and seeing shadows.”

Thorin closed his eyes momentarily and pushed back the feeling of having been dropped into freezing water, he had expected the Shadow Ones to gather strength again at some point and it had been a few centuries since the Battle of Erebor. The fact they were showing up again wasn’t surprising- but it still made his blood run cold.

Balin continued where Nori had left off, holding up a simple letter and handing it over to Thorin, “Additionally, it seems we are not the only ones who have noticed these sighting- Lord Elrond is requesting a meeting of the lords. His letter called for urgency.”

Thorin sighed and looked over the maps before him, noting that Erebor seemed the least affected by Nori’s slashed markings. It wasn’t much, but it was a defensible position and Thorin knew they would have to make sure the Shadow One’s couldn’t create a foothold in Erebor, not after they nearly succeeded last time.

“Balin, respond back to Lord Elrond and let him know I will come to a meeting as soon as one is called. Nori, keep your contacts close but make sure they do not make their presence known. Dwalin, have the guard stay vigilant, but if you notice any of our men acting out- report it at once. Corruption is like a disease, it’s hard to catch at first but that’s also when it’s easiest to cure.” Thorin turned away from the maps and looked towards his allies, all of whom raised a fist to their chests and gave the King a half bow before leaving the study.

Thorin walked over to the window and looked at the City stretching out before him. Still recovering but still undefeated by the destruction the shadows had brought to Erebor those centuries before. He had been young then, oblivious to the darkness and the way it had tightened itself around Erebor like a snake before it struck.

He would not make the same mistake twice.

[stark-park]

OUAT, Episode 7x01 Thoughts

Ok so overall, I enjoyed it, I think? It's very different. It's the same, but different. @fezfanatic quite accurately compared it to the new Bake Off series: it's the same, but there's different people and only Paul survived. I'm very confused right now. I have many reservations over the new season, the main one being the dramatic change in cast, but I'm hoping the storyline(s) can keep me captivated and invested.

This is the first time I've, well, basically reviewed my opinions after watching something but here goes. Underneath I've listed likes, loves, dislikes, hates and a few general observations. All of this is my own opinion (with a lot of Fez agreement thrown in) so if you don't agree, that's fine. All opinions are welcomed and valid. Likes: - Lucy is with her real mum. That's nice. - I liked the idea that it wasn't Henry's story, but at the same time, I thought the idea was that Henry left Storybrooke to find his own story. I'm not sure about this yet, but I don't dislike it. - Dark Alice, she seems quite cool. Also her lair with the luminous mushrooms was awesome. I definitely wanna see more of her story! - Henry's keys with Emma's swan key ring on. The only reason this isn't in my love category is because it wasn't subtle enough. OUAT does a lot of nods and subtle references throughout the seasons and usually, they're really well done (for example, there's a lot of stuff in Rumple's pawn shop that isn't always blatantly spoken about, the doors in the Mad Hatter's Hat to the different realms and then there's a little picture of a pirate ship in Henry's apartment), but this one was so set up I'm not sure whether to love the fact Henry has the key ring, or hate the fact the camera focused on it for so long that it made me remember Emma is no longer the saviour. It also made me over-analyse it's significance. - Like father, like daughter. The check/plaid is strong in this family 😂 she is definitely Henry's daughter!

Loves: - Henry's leather jacket. It's nice to see that while he's being a responsible motorcycle rider with the leather, I bet he already owned the jacket knowing his mother and step-father 😂 I love it! HE FINALLY UPGRADED HIS COAT! No more black duffle coat for adult Henry. I also love the fact it's brown, it's probably just a good way to go from Jared in brown to Andrew in brown but I like the idea that it's nod to Graham's beautiful leather jacket because that was just 👌

- The portals. I mean, at the end of the day it's just a portal, but damn I like the style. It looks a lot cooler than the season 1-3 portals, in my opinion anyway. I dunno they just look cool okay.

- RUMPLE! He seems really cool but like, DAMN! I'm kinda terrified of him. That twist at the end where you find out he's actually a corrupt cop! (Well, that's what it seemed to imply anyway.) Dayuum man! I also love the fact he's called Weaver (or some other spelling of that, I apologise), like, he was Mr Gold, now he's Weaver. WILL HE EVER HAVE A CURSED FIRST NAME? At this point, I don't care because it's hilarious, the neglect of his first name 😂 I love it.

- Andrew J. West/Older Henry. I really like this guy, I think they did well on the casting here, like he has the same nose as Jared! How he played Henry as well made me actually stay focused on the episode. I also liked the tone of how he said a lot of things because it so reminded me of Emma's sarcasm and I like to think he got that from her.

- I said before I watched the episode, just randomly when talking to Fez, "I bet Henry is an amazing swordsman/knight! He's been practising since he was 11 with wooden swords, he's got his grandpa Charming having taught him and then Hook practising with him too." This guy is quite possibly an expert now and I'm so glad we got to see a scuffle where he pulled out his sword!

- I love Lady Tremaine's take on power. We've had a show dominated by magic and now she's saying that it's not everything is quite refreshing, for a villain anyway. I am intrigued as to how she handles magic in the rest of the season since she clearly has experience with it and I'd imagine we'll see some more magic.

- The new carefree Regina! Just casually sitting on the bar, you know how it is. I love her new hair too! 👌 I hope she's gonna be a lot more carefree throughout the season as she has been in this episode because I really enjoyed it. She's free, she's confident in herself and I like her. Oh and imagine if Henry ends up staying with her, like Emma stayed with Snow, and Roni having a few scenes where she's totally maternal towards Henry. That would be too cute, but it's not a must, just a small cute thought.

Dislikes: - What's going on with Lucy's wardrobe? It might be in fashion I don't know, I'm just not a fan. The longer shirt with the tiny sized jean jacket and then full length coat. I guess I just don't like her jean jacket. It's way too short.

HATES: - Now I know OUAT is not famed for it's amazing continuity, but COME ON! The first scene and Henry's jacket collar is up and down, up and down as if it's the aftermath of my granny chugging a glass of water! Seriously, it's the first scene and they can't even remember if his collar is turned up, or turned down! I might've been able to forgive them if it wasn't so blatantly obvious but it is. URGH! It just really bugged/bugs me.

- Right... my sigh is heavy as I write this one because in all honesty, it was soul crushing. I love OUAT and one of the things throughout the show has been a theme of family, and the fact that you can do anything when you're together. The fact that it was only Regina seeing Henry off into ANOTHER FRICKIN REALM kills me! Henry had clearly planned when he would depart, so why was the rest of his family not there? Maybe we'll find out during the rest of the season because it is only the first episode, there may be plot holes to be filled (however skeptical I am that they will be filled) in later episodes. But if there is no other mention of this scene, then by Once I will be angry! Henry has such a loving family matched only by the Fuller & Gibbler family, in my opinion. Snowing and Captain Swan would never have missed their boy riding off to ANOTHER FRICKIN REALM unless they were physically unable to, i.e. they were dead or already in another realm. It would also have been a lovely opportunity to have had a slightly older Neal and possibly slightly older Robin and Gideon too because episode 1 already told us that Rumple is looking out for his grandson, so it wouldn't have been a stretch to have them all together wishing Henry their best as he starts his new adventure. On his own. It just feels like the writers didn't truly think about this scene. Sigh. That rant is over.

General thoughts: - What's this power struggle between Cinderella and her step-mother over Lucy? We've been here with Henry, Emma and Regina so hopefully season 7 will give a slightly different take on child custody. I'm intrigued nonetheless. - Who's the sarcy police officer? 😂 I hope there's at least, a tiny story about who he is because he is bitter and I need to know why.

- The repeat curse, child believing in curse when everyone else doesn't: we've seen it. I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad or good thing. The fact we've seen it will either bring nostalgia or annoyance, not exclusively of course. I think they could have done it differently, imagine if Henry had been the only one to actually remember? He is the Truest Believer after all. But maybe that title has passed on to his daughter now that he is known as The Author? It certainly would've been different to have an adult be the only one remember pre-curse happenings, but I guess we'll just have to see what happens. (Of course, Rumple and Regina did remember the Enchanted Forest during season 1 but they didn't actually try to change everyone else's beliefs, what I'm suggesting is they could've had an adult try to change other adult's beliefs.)

- Does Hook remember or not? There was clearly a baffled expression when he looked at Emma, does he recognise her or not??? My guess, he probably does but maybe doesn't understand or remember where from. And what's going on with his hand? He quite obviously uses it a few times (to hold the book and he adjusts his shirt too using it), so why the glove? Does he have scarring and the glove is a way to shield people's eyes from it? Was he not meant to actually move the hand and the glove hides a prosthetic? Who knows, but I'm excited to find out. "What's in the glove? WHAT'S IN THE GLOVE?" D'you see what I did there? 🤓

That's all I have right now, again, overall I generally enjoyed it. Of course I am a OUAT lover and fan, it is the first and pretty much only show that I have invested my writing skills in because I love it so much. And it's because of this I will continue to watch season 7, but it's also because of this that I hold my own certain skepticisms. I truly hope that all the people working on season 7 don't balls it up because that is the last thing I want to see. I guess, when it comes to season 7, if OUAT goes downhill I will decide whether I accept it as part of the series, or disown it like many other trilogies and shows have done to certain parts of their universe, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor being a prime example. I mean, what? There's a third Mummy film? No there isn't 👀

Here's hoping for good ou(a)tcomes for season 7.