#our never ending journey through the magic tree house

[hello-delicious-tea]

Mary Pope Osborn has redeemed herself with Dragon of the Red Dawn. Night of the Ninjas was such absolute crap - clearly she was still properly feeling her way into her whole “history lesson thinly disguised as adventure story” schtick, and in this second trip to Japan, we’re doing MUCH better. Very pleased that Teaschooler is learning about Bashō and historical firefighting methods. However, he was not pleased when I tried to read The Narrow Road to Oku to him.

[antonymziie]

double-sided — bill cipher & reader

prologue :: d is for demon denial - 1765 words

(still debating on continuing this, if enough people want it i'll start writing the full fic on ao3)

You didn’t think summer break would lead you to where you currently were standing, most of your friends were sipping mixed drinks on white sand beaches or, at the very least, spending time with their family. After the semester you just had, you couldn’t bear to look your parents in the face for a while; but hell, D is for diploma. 

Now, with the little money you had saved up from working, you decided to spend your summer road-tripping through the woods, which is how you ended up here: following a tour group through a smelly house full of bad taxidermy. 

Your group was led by the tour guide; who introduced himself as “Soos”? and also happens to be the owner and “illegitimate son of the founder” so he says. In the dimly lit room, you observe many...curious things inside; which include random body parts of varying grotesqueness, a photo of a horse riding another horse, and plenty more poorly done taxidermies.

The group stopped in front of a wall that contained nothing but a large chest. 

“Now- this may just look like some old chest or something,” Soos said, matter-a-factly, “but I’m pretty sure it’s cursed; like if you stick a sandwich in it, the sandwich will turn evil and try to eat you. “

Perplexed by his reasoning behind why he thinks this chest is cursed, you snapped a picture because it did look pretty cool and the group moved on. The next stop in the show-room was a corner, that was it, just a corner

“Take a close look at this corner...don’t see anything? That’s because this is the invisible dude, dudes! He isn’t wearing any clothes right now…kinda weird actually.”

The majority of the tour group murmured in amusement and snapped pictures of the empty corner, you almost couldn’t believe that people were believing this stuff. Soos continued, showing the group a few more things in the showroom before exiting to the outside where a golf cart was parked.

“Since we have a small enough group, I thought I’d take you dudes to see some of our outdoor attractions!” He outstretched an arm, inviting our group to hop aboard. 

Your group of about four piled into the golf cart and rode off to the first stop, a gaping hole in the ground. You looked inside and it seemed to have no visible bottom.

“This is the bottomless pit, which is bottomless,” Soos looked down into the pit, “I actually fell in there once.”

You could see a small child inch closer to the edge of the pit, and a worried mother snatching them up before they got too close. Soos directed everyone back to the golf cart and drove out of the Shack’s lot onto a dirt path. The golf cart jerked and jumped as it hit tree roots and divots on the forest floor, and the trees became surprisingly denser only a little way into the journey. 

Little glowing spots started to appear along the pathside and scattered among the trees, you couldn’t quite tell what was glowing but the blue-green radiance was soothing. 

The cart eventually stopped in a clearing, you could now observe the hundreds of bioluminescent mushrooms clinging to the massive redwoods looming above you like a blanket from the outside world.

“Not many tour groups get to see this,” Soos said, “Sometimes nature is Gravity Falls’ most alluring attraction.” You were awestruck by the sheer magnificence of the forest, you knew this place was strange, but this was just...magical.

“But this is as far as we’ll go into the forest, dudes. Wouldn’t want to run up on,” He hesitated, the first time his friendly demeanor waned from his face, “Never mind! Let’s head back!”

What was farther in the forest? Curiosity got the best of you, and while the group was distracted trying to get the golf cart to start, you disappeared behind the tree line. You could find your way back after you looked around a little longer. 

The pine needles and greenery crunched underfoot, and the farther you went, the denser the forest became. Sounds of undetermined origin make you briefly question your choices…

A few rustles in the trees were common forest sounds. If something sinister was actually lurking about, it would have eaten you by now, you thought to yourself as you continued through the trees. The dense wood eventually opened up and light filtered through the treetops, bathing the forest floor in golden sunlight. A few more paces and the trees had given way to a clearing, a calm, quaint, almost enchanting clearing in the forest. 

That's when you saw it. At first, you thought it was a mossy boulder, but upon closer inspection, it seemed to have arms (and possibly legs that were buried in the dirt). What was something like this doing in the middle of nowhere? You moved away a piece of moss and were a bit frightened when an eye peaked from underneath. 

The statue wasn't anything you had ever seen before. A triangular body with one eye, dressed up in a little tophat and bowtie, and one outstretched arm like it was ready to shake your hand. It was a peculiar sight, really, but it made you curious why it was out here. What does it mean? And, more importantly, should I shake its hand?

What the hell did you have to lose? This was, by far, the coolest thing you had seen all day, and after snapping a few pictures, you shook its hand for the fun of it. 

Without warning, you were overcome with a wave of nausea that brought you to your knees. It was so unexpected and shocking that you didn’t even think to call for help, and within the same minute it appeared, it was gone. You rubbed your eyes and gathered yourself.

You looked at the statue, unchanged, still outreaching for a hand and scoff, “Fucking freaky triangle.” You decided it was best to turn back now, while you were still in one piece.

You were actually hoping the tour group forgot about you, but to your misfortune, the group was waiting for you, very impatiently. Soos rushed over to you, giving you a thorough look over 

“What happened, dude!?” He asked, “I thought I told you not to…”

He seemed pretty upset, and now you felt bad.

“I'm just glad you're okay. You didn't run into anything weird or anything, right?” You shook your head, he sighed a breath of what seemed like relief, and with nothing else said, Soos gestures for everyone to get into the cart. The ride back was one in silence.

He didn’t even say anything after shutting off the golf cart when you all arrived at the Shack, he just gave a tired look to you before disappearing inside the gift shop. 

There was obviously something he wasn’t letting in about the woods, and you had a bad feeling that the statue you had found there had something to do with that. It wasn’t any of your business, though, so you let it go. In a few days, you’d leave and forget this place entirely. 

For tonight, you parked your car in an overnight RV lot at the edge of town and you nodded off after you realized your phone would never get enough cell service to check any media, social or not.

You jerked upwards in your seat when you heard a tap on your window. A quick glancs confirmed no one was outside of your car, you reached for your phone to check the time, only to realize it wasn’t where you had left it. 

“Oh, were you looking for this?” You whipped around in the direction of the voice to see…the triangle. 

“Let me tell ya, you had a death grip on this thing,” the triangle snorted, their voice echoing in the car, “I just had to know what kind of humiliating stuff you got in here.”

You had to be dreaming, there was no way you weren’t dreaming right now. You scramble over the seat to swipe your phone from the dreamworld intruder. 

They pull the phone out of reach and snap a few flash photos of your desperate attempts to grab your phone from their grasp.

“HA! You wouldn’t believe how stupid you look in these,” The triangle vanished from view and appeared in the passenger seat beside you. They sat the phone down on the dash and gave you a playful smile, well, look…

“What’s your deal?” You snatched your phone up before they could grab it again, “Why are you here?”

“To be your new best friend, kid! You’re bold and I like that in a human. You got the potential to do something great with your life.”

The very statement “do something great with your life” made your eyes roll so far back in your sockets that you were sure you saw your brain.

“Ok, you’re not into schmoozing, I can accept that, doesn't mean I can’t make your life the most fun it’s ever been. The name’s Bill!” He extended a hand out to you, offering a handshake.

You glare at him, “Nothing good came from doing that last time.”

His eye narrows and he pulls his hand away, “Tch, fine then, your loss. I thought we had something special.”

“Yeah. Something special, alright. Could you maybe…leave and never come back? I’ve had enough weirdness for today.”

“I wish it was that simple,” Bill stroked under his eye where his metaphorical chin would be, “but I’m one of those things that’s real easy to get, hard to get rid of… like a fun case of head lice!”

“What?”

“That’s how it goes, you shake my hand and I’m your new brain pal until your corporeal meat-suit gives up, only one way to free me from your neurons and it ain’t easy.”

“So I’m stuck with you…forever?”

“If by forever you mean the pathetic amount of time you’ll spend on this mortal coil wallowing about trivial matters pertaining to your sad flesh…then yeah!”

It’s just a dream. Is it just a dream?

“If you really don’t want to hang out with me,” Bill glanced away from you with a big, sad eye, “I can tell you how to get me unstuck from your brain, it’s a process but it can be done.”

How could you even respond to that? You just stared back at him.

Bill sighed, “WOW. You’re really starting to bum me out.”

This isn’t real, It’s not real.

And then you woke up.

[shearlin]

Word count: 2977

An epilogue to 'A Piece of Heart'

First || << Previous

Every journey comes to an end. This one was no different. But there are still somethings to settle before the final farewells. Like items that were rented out that needed to be returned to their rightful owner. Like Legend was going to allow for them to give them back.

Hi :D I was fully expecting to post it in like few months. But as I was working on a different WIP I kept getting distracted writing this instead.

Enjoy :D

Nine portals of swirling white and gold framed in the arches of runes - glistering and icy blue - shone brightly in the middle of the meadow, as nine heroes of courage filled through the sparse trees.

They were allowed some time of reprieve after the final battle, some time to heal, to celebrate, to say their goodbyes.

Small mercies , Legend thought as the little whisper that guided them all here fizzled out to the soft rustling of the leaves. He took a deep breath to steady himself before turning to look around at his brothers, who were talking easily though the final final goodbyes.

This is it . The end of our journey.

He thought he would be angrier. Or more apathetic. That was usually how his journeys were ending so far. Either caught in the staticky fuzz filling his mind, while waiting restlessly for yet another unforeseen catastrophe to happen or in a simmering, directionless anger when faced with that particular kind of loneliness and longing that came with the goodbyes. 

Instead he found himself… calm? Tentatively content, even if a bit wistful. It was… bizarre. He scoffed at his own anxiety and rolled his shoulders, willing himself to relax. Seriously, if his mind could enjoy the ‘sweat’ part of the bittersweetness of this moment, it would be great.

They gathered in the space between the time gates and repeated for a hundredth time today the same plans for the future they shared a million times already in those last two weeks. Maybe no Link was good with goodbyes.

[...]

They stood in silence watching the portals radiating with power, all feeling a slight pull reaching deep into their souls. They would need to go soon.

Four broke the silence first stepping towards Legend and reaching into his bag. “Well, I think this officially counts as ‘the end of all of this’ so here.” He pulled out the Rod of Seasons and held it out for the veteran, “Once again, vet, thank you for everything. I dread to think how this journey would look without you.” And somehow Legend knew he meant so much more than just saving him from the worst of the portal sickness symptoms.

He looked at the item in smithy’s hands with furrowed brows feeling his hands itch. He needs it back. He promised Din he will keep it safe and away from any ill meaning person or being, while Farore re-establishes the Secrets keeping the Oracle Islands safe. He should bag it and as soon as he returns to his house, put it in a basement layered thick with protective and masking charms for however long he needs to, until Din sends for him.

He turned away looking deep into the swirling maw of the portal closest to him. Stretching his senses and focusing on the tiny tug on his very soul he had no doubt about it. They were divine in origin. Hylia Herself sends them their way to take them home safely. What were the odds She would put them in danger the first thing when they’re truly on their own for the first time in months?

… You know what? Never mind, better not answer that .

There was no way of knowing what exactly was upsetting Four magic this badly. Were his shattering scars sensitive to dark magic? Or it was the time-space shift itself, with its unnatural stretch and bend and crush and-

“Um, Vet?”

“Keep it.”

Read the rest on Ao3!

[birindale]

Increased number of pictures per post means i can now fit a whole minicomic in one go. very sexy

When Bow is kidnapped while exploring the ominous Dark Forest, Kowl rushes to get She-Ra's help. But a mysterious message is their only clue to his whereabouts, and no one can decipher it! Join our heroes as they face cat phantoms, continuity errors, and way too much verse on a quest to rescue Bow's heart from Catra's evil clutches.

Transcript/Image ID below the cut

[Image Description: A cover and 14 comic pages from the She-Ra mini-comic, “The Hidden Symbols Mystery”.

Cover: She-Ra holds her sword over her head. It is almost entirely obscured by the 'Princess of Power' logo. In the background, the toy version of the Crystal Castle is set into a cliff. Swift Wind and Kowl fly around, and on the ground we see Bow, Catra, a treasure chest, and a mysterious device resembling a magnifying glass on a piece of cloth.

Page 1: A yellow text box reads, "Legend has it the hearts of those who enter Etheria's DARK FOREST are gripped with evil gloom FOREVER!"

We see Bow journeying deeper into a dark, thorny forest, heedless of the narrative boxes.

A second box reads, "A grim warning indeed--but dire tales of danger cannot dampen Bow's CURIOSITY."

A third reads, "As Etheria's great archer steps ever closer to the forbidden forest, a pair of evil EYES follow his every move!" and we see a pair of bright yellow eyes with orange sclera, glowing against the silhouetted trees.

An ornate purple banner spells out the title, "THE HIDDEN SYMBOLS MYSTERY!" and we see that the eyes belong to Catra, who emerges from the shadows behind Bow's back. She's not wearing her mask, but her hair is stylized almost like cat ears.

"SO... the Dark Forest's strange powers lure brave Bow within my evil grasp! PURRRFECT! A little sleight of hand..." she says, as Bow gazes off in the other direction, completely oblivious.

End Page 1.

Page 2: Catra raises her arms over her head, trailing her hands through her ponytail in a weirdly seductive way, saying "Some MAGIC... and the master of bow and arrow..."

She's enveloped in a cloud of magical smoke. "...shall be..."

She emerges from the smoke like a rocket, now a dark-furred house cat. "... MINE!"

"MEEOOWWW! MEEOOWWW!" yowls the cat we know to be Catra, from the branches of a tree. Bow startles. "WHAT? HO! What evil MISCHIEF is this?" he asks.

"WHO GOES THERE?" he demands, evidently unable to recognize cat sounds.

"WHY, it's just a kitten! Guess I've listened to one too many tall tales about the Dark Forest!" he exclaims, when he sees Catra 'stuck' in the tree.

"FEAR NOT, little furball..." he tells her.

He shoots a rope arrow into the trunk of the tree, higher than where Catra's sitting, with a huge THWUNK!

"I'll get you down!" he assures her, scaling the tree.

End Page 2.

Page 3: Catra explodes into her true form, her cape fluttering dramatically. "Kind-hearted FOOL!" she shouts.

"The dangers of this Dark Forest is no tall tale--Your very bravery BETRAYS you! Now, you are MINE to do with what I wish!" she tells him, with a close up on her eyes. Her irises are slitted like a cat's pupils/

"Your SKILL with bow and arrow shall prove most USEFUL to my EVIL PLANS!" says Bow, because someone seems to have drawn the tail to this dialog bubble wrong. "NEVER! I will take no part in your dark designs!" he declares, leaping from the tree. A few vines begin to coil around him. That can't be good.

End Page 3.

Page 4: "Do not dare defy me! You are my PRISONER..." says Catra, jumping down from the tree as the vines wrap more securely around Bow.

"You have no choices here!" she tells him, leaning in close.

A yellow text box reads, "The cursed feline revels in TRIUMPH, unaware her wicked scheme has been DETECTED!" and we see that Kowl has been watching the whole thing.

"Oh me! Oh my! GREAT LAND O' GLOOM! Catra has Bow... he's destined for doom! Oh me! Oh my! What a horrible day! Good PRINCESS ADORA must know right away!" says Kowl, in verse for some reason, as he speeds away to get help.

He reaches Spirit and Adora, who says, "GOODNESS, Kowl! What is the MATTER?" and Kowl says, "Dribble... I mean drubble! Oh heavens... Bow's in TROUBLE!

"It's CATRA--that feline foe! She's trapped him! Our dear friend, Bow, he's in the Dark Forest! Yes! He is in need of your help, Adora, quickly TAKE HEED!"

End Page 4.

Page 5: "BY THE HONOR OF GRAYSKULL..." shouts Adora, raising both arms over her head. Spirit is silhouetted behind her. They were still ironing out details like 'catchphrase' at this point in production.

"I AM SHE-RA!" she finishes, as rainbow magic swirls and bursts around her and Swift Wind, both of them now transformed.

"No time to lose! Lead me to this dark trouble spot AT ONCE!" She-Ra tells Kowl.

End Page 5.

Page 6: "May the POWER of the sword protect us! Good Kowl, are you SURE this is the place? Bow is NOWHERE to be found!" says Adora (she's apparently de-transformed) from Swift Wind's back. Kowl flies in the opposite direction at their feet and speaks in verse again, "Bow is gone, that much is true... But I've found something here to give us a clue!"

"What strange fabric, what strange symbols!" says Adora, peering at a piece of green fabric speared on a tree branch. There are four symbols on it--boxes, lines, and triangles interlocking. "I'm sure they hold a clue to Bow's whereabouts, but I CANNOT read them!"

"Woe is me! Woe is me! LOOK! These symbols hold the key!" says Kowl, as Adora pulls the fabric down.

"QUICKLY! Kowl, we must pay a visit to the Wise Old Wizardess and ask her for help!" says Adora.

End Page 6.

Page 7: "She-Ra, my dear, your visit comes as a most pleasant surprise," says a woman with hair that appears to be made of rays of light, even though Adora is still de-transformed.

"But I sense you are in NEED! How is it I may HELP YOU?" says the woman, presumably the Wise Old Wizardess.

"Somewhere in Etheria's Dark Forest, the evil Catra holds Bow PRISONER! The cloth Kowl carries is our only clue to finding him, but I CANNOT decipher it!" says Adora, holding out the cloth, which Kowl is not carrying.

"Perhaps THIS will find your answer... and your friend!" says the Wise Old Wizardess.

She passes Adora an object that looks like a cross between a hand mirror and a magnifying glass. "Place your many colored cloth beneath the powerful gemstone and the symbols you shall read without delay!" she says.

End Page 7.

Page 8: "Why... it makes SENSE! It's a MAP... a map into the DEPTHS of the DARK FOREST!" says Adora, holding the object over the cloth, which is still only one color, showing a grid, compass, and river.

"Go quickly now! Your noble friend's plight is GRAVE indeed!" says the Wise Old Wizardess, pointing dramatically.

"FASTER, Swift Wind, FASTER! We must find Bow and foil Catra's evil plan for him before it's TOO LATE!" says Adora, as Swift Wind and Kowl fly as fast as they can.

"HOOTY HOOT HOOT! There's the Dark Forest door! QUICKLY! Go through it! Let us soar!" says Kowl, pointing at, like... some kind of tunnel through spacetime? It looks like a diagram of a gravity well.

"We're going to CRASH right through it! I want to take that conniving feline by SURPRISE!" says Adora.

End Page 8.

Page 9: A yellow text box says, "Meanwhile..." and we cut to Catra and Bow in a clearing. Catra is standing a few feet from Bow, holding up a finger as though delivering a lecture, while he's on his knees with his hands tied behind his back. "You've served Princess Adora these many years... a PUPPET to her beck and call! And yet it's gained you NOTHING!" she scolds.

"To serve Adora has been my GREATEST HONOR, her FRIENDSHIP my ample REWARD!" says Bow. Catra crosses her arms and scowls down at him.

"Don't be a fool! Join forces with me and the POWER and WEALTH of all Etheria will be OURS forever! LOOK..." says Catra, showing him a vision of the two of them standing on a dais of some kind, Bow waving and beaming down at a crowd of people. Each of them holds a basket of something gold up to Bow and Catra. Catra is gesturing at Bow as though presenting him to the audience, smiling under her mask. She's wearing a long pink skirt. The background is cool and abstract, but it evokes a castle of some kind.

"Doomed to spend a lifetime with you, Catra? No gold or glory is worth so high a price! In your plans I will take no part!" says Bow, waving her off, so I guess his hands are untied now.

End Page 9.

Page 10: "Perhaps my FRIENDS will change your mind!" says Catra, pointing at him and summoning what have historically been called 'cat phantoms' but she never does this again so it's anyone's guess. They're scary little ghouls with cat ears. Ahh!

Bow breaks the ropes around his wrists with a loud 'SNAP' so I guess he was still tied up after all.

He draws his bow despite not having had it a second ago, nocks an arrow, and says, "BACK OFF, foul phantoms... my MAGIC ARROWS will change your tune!"

An arrow, apparently magic, flies.

It goes through two phantoms, who wince in apparent pain.

"OAF! Your worthless weapons are but POWDER..." says Catra, catching the arrow, "... in my HANDS!"

She clenches her fist around the shaft of the arrow.

It warps and withers like a dehydrated plant that somebody like, gnawed on.

End Page 10.

Page 11: "You've had your chance! Prepare to meet your DOOM!" says Catra.

"Toil and trouble, gloom and sadness, feel the POWER of my madness. As the legends have foretold, your beating heart shall now grow COLD! Your happiness shall turn to HATE--I seal FOREVER your DESPERATE FATE!" say Catra, hands covered in magic. "NOOOOO!" says Bow. The heart on his chestplate glows a sickly gray, and the cat phantoms grin smug little cat grins.

"HISSSS..." says Catra, turning from Bow, who's slumped to his knees again. She-Ra has showed up, sword drawn and ready for action. "SHE-RA! My most UNWELCOME guest! The power of my evil spell CANNOT be broken! You are TOO LATE!" says Catra.

"I am outmatched by Catra in this Dark Forest! I must OUTWIT her if Bow is to survive!" She-Ra, who I will remind you is The Most Powerful Woman in the Universe, thinks to herself. "Let me see..."

"You shall NOT have my fine friend's heart! I take it for MY OWN!" says She-Ra, holding up a small green chest. Both it and the Sword of Protection are glowing. "Has the Dark Forest DRIVEN She-Ra from her SENSES? What in Etheria..." thinks Bow.

End Page 11.

Page 12: We see that the box contains a cartoonish heart.

"Oh no you don't! His heart belongs to ME!" says Catra, snatching the chest from She-Ra.

Swift Wind flies off, with Bow and She-Ra on his back somehow, as Catra gloats over her prize.

"SWIFT WIND, be gone! Bow... you are quite safe now, but hold on TIGHT!" says Adora, who has once more de-transformed off-panel.

"MY HEART!" says Bow, with an uncomfortably close close-up.

"My heart! I feel it beating once again! Oh, She-Ra... I don't know how you did it, but you SAVED me!" says Bow, flexing both arms over his head even though she literally just told him to hold on. He looks so happy though... it's probably fine.

End Page 12.

Page 13: Swift Wind and his passengers glow bright as they fly away.

"You miserable MEDDLER! You TRICKED me! The HEART OF DARKNESS is in RUIN and I must FLEE for my life! Oh, you will pay for this someday--Belive me, you WILL PAY!" says Catra, shaking her fist after them. We see that the chest she holds is now empty.

A yellow caption box reads, "Etheria's great archer, weary from his misadventure, finds himself safe within the castle grounds once more!" We see Swift Wind, Kowl, and two human figures silhouetted against the base of the Crystal Castle.

Another yellow caption box reads, "And he tells his true friend, Princess Adora his tale!" We see Spirit, Adora, Kowl, and Bow, safe and sound. "Oh Princess Adora, my CURIOSITY got the better of my good judgement! Catra tried to steal my heart!" Bow tells Adora.

End page 13.

Page 14: "But Adora, she would NEVER succeed because my heart belongs to YOU!" says Bow. They've switched places, Spirit and Kowl have disappeared, and they're now silhouetted by a brilliant green full moon.

"And I'm SURE you have learned a moral as well..." says Adora, smiling at him and apparently just not addressing that at all.

"Yes... be ever so CAREFUL not to let your CURIOSITY take you to DANGEROUS PLACES!" says Bow, in red text. "Oh yes! Curiosity ALWAYS gets the CAT! Tee hee!" says Adora. A white caption box reads, "The End."

End Page 14.

End ID]

[jeeeeeyq]

I

"My Story from Childhood to Adulthood"

I was born in October 25,2006 Imagine a young me, clad in mismatched socks and a superhero cape fashioned from an old bedsheet, ready to take on the world one backyard adventure at a time. Armed with a trusty sidekick (my loyal stuffed bear, of course), I was unstoppable. From defeating imaginary villains to rescuing stranded toys from the clutches of the alarm under-the-bed monster, every day was a new quest waiting to be conquered. On days that the classes is cancelled due to heavy rain and as a happy kid I wasted my time watching TV.My earliest recollections are hazy, like watercolor paintings softened by time. I remember the warmth of my mother's embrace, the sound of her laughter echoing through our modest home. She was the sun in our small universe, her love a constant beacon guiding me through the uncertainties of youth.The world outside our doorstep was a playground, a vast expanse waiting to be explored. My friends and I would roam the neighborhood streets until dusk, our imaginations running wild amidst the trees and hidden pathways.

Every corner held the promise of adventure, every stone a secret waiting to be uncovered.With hearts pounding and curiosity driving us forward, we pushed open the creaking door and stepped into the unknown. The interior was a maze of dusty corridors and forgotten belongings, each room holding a story untold. We felt like explorers charting uncharted territory, our senses alive with the thrill of discovery.As the sun began to set and shadows lengthened across the attic floor, we reluctantly left the abandoned house behind, our pockets filled with treasures and our hearts full of memories. In the years that followed, that summer afternoon became a cornerstone of my childhood, a reminder of the magic that lies hidden in the most unexpected places.But childhood wasn't all capes and crusades,there were plenty of mundane moments too. Like the time I tried to impress my crush by performing a daring stunt on my bike, only to end up with a mouthful of stone and a injured ego. Or the countless hours spent perfecting my secret handshake with my best friend, a complex ritual that involved more high-fives than any human could reasonably handle.As adolescence reared its awkward head, so too did the challenges of navigating the social minefield of middle school. Suddenly, the playground wasn't just a place for fun; it was a battleground where popularity reigned supreme and the cafeteria hierarchy was law. As the sun rises on another day, I find myself reflecting on the journey that has brought me to this point in my life.

Adulthood—a phase of life marked by responsibilities, challenges, and moments of profound growth. It's a journey that many of us embark on with a mixture of excitement and trepidation, unsure of what lies ahead but determined to navigate the path with courage and resilience.But along with that sense of freedom came a newfound awareness of responsibility. Suddenly, I was confronted with the daunting task of making decisions that would shape the course of my life. From choosing a career path to managing finances to building meaningful relationships, adulthood demanded a level of maturity and foresight that I had never before been required to possess.

At times, the weight of these responsibilities felt overwhelming. I grappled with self-doubt and uncertainty, wondering if I was capable of rising to the challenges that lay before me. But with each obstacle I faced, I discovered reserves of strength and resilience within myself that I never knew existed. Adversity became an opportunity for growth, a chance to test my limits and emerge stronger on the other side.But fear not, for I had my band of misfit friends by my side, ready to take on the world (or at least the mean girls in homeroom)High school brought its own set of challenges, from navigating the faithless waters of teenage romance to surviving the horrors of algebra class. Yet among the worry and acne, there were moments of pure joy. Like the Christmas Party Every School year, each of us playing of any kind of games with friends,classmates.And everytime Me and my Family go bonding like go to church,eat every where. Suddenly, the carefree days of childhood felt like a distant memory, replaced by the afraid to face of the responsibility and the daunting prospect of the real world. Would I be able to navigate the complexities of adulthood with the same ease and passion that I tackled childhood adventures? Only time would tell.And through it all, I learned valuable lessons about perseverance, gratitude, and the importance of embracing life's uncertainties.

Adulthood, I came to realize, is not a destination but a journey—a journey marked by both triumphs and setbacks, but ultimately defined by the growth and transformation that occur along the way.Now, as I look back on those fleeting years of innocence, I am filled with gratitude for the experiences that shaped me into the person I am today. My childhood may be but a memory, but its lessons live on in the fabric of my being, a testament to the enduring power of youth and the boundless potential of the human spirit. And Adulthood may be daunting at times, but it is also filled with endless possibilities and opportunities for growth. With each step forward, knowing that whatever obstacles in your life keep fighting And so, dear reader, as I stand on the precipice of adulthood, I can't help but feel a mix of excitement and apprehension for the journey that lies ahead. From the playground to the boardroom, from the sandbox to the stock market, the adventures of adulthood await. So grab your cape and your sense of humor, dear reader, for the ride is bound to be wild. And who knows? Maybe, just maybe, there's still a bit of childhood magic left to be found in the chaos of adulthood.

-Margielou Carba

[ariel-seagull-wings]

THE MAGIC MIRROR

@princesssarisa @themousefromfantasyland @tamisdava2 @adarkrainbow @professorlehnsherr-almashy @the-blue-fairie @softlytowardthesun @grimoireoffolkloreandfairytales

(A russian fairy tale from Aleksandr Afanas'ev's collection)

In a certain kingdom, in a certain land, there lived a widowed merchant. He had a son, a daughter, and a brother. One day the merchant was getting ready to sail to foreign lands to sell various goods. He planned to take his son with him and leave his daughter at home. Before leaving, he summoned his brother and said to him:

"I leave my entire household in your hands,dear brother, and I beg you to look after my daughter. Teach her to read and write, and don't lether misbehave!"

Then the merchant bid his brother and his daughter farewell and set off on his journey. The merchant's daughter was already of age and possessed such indescribable beauty that you could not find her equal if you walked around the whole world! Her uncle began tohave unclean thoughts that would not give him peace day or night.

He made advances toward the maiden, telling her, "You'll either sin with me or you won't live on this earth! I'll kill you and then run away myself!…" The girl ran towards the bathhouse with her uncle on her heels, and when she got there she grabbed a basin full of boiling water and soaked him from head to toe. He was laid up for three weeks and almost didn't recover.

A terrible hatred gnawed at his heart and he began to think of ways he could repay the trick with one of his own. He thought and thought, and finally wrote his brother a letter:

"Your daughter is up to no good, she gets around, never sleeps at home,and doesn't listen to me."

The merchant received the letter, read it, and became very angry. He told his son, "Your sister is shaming the whole family! She deserves no mercy: I want you to go home this very minute and chop the incorrigible girl into little bits and bring me her heart on this knife. Then our family name won't be the laughing stock of good people!" The son took the sharp knife and headed for home. He arrived in his hometown in secret, without anyone knowing, and began to investigate: how was the merchant's daughter really living?

Everyone unanimously praised her as a quiet, modest, god-fearing, obedient girl. Having heard all this, he went to see his sister. She was overjoyed and welcomed him with hugs and kisses:

"Dear brother! How did the Lord bring you this way? How is our dear father?"

"Oh,dear sister, don't be so quick to rejoice. My homecoming is not a happy one: father sent me with orders to chop your pale body into little pieces and bring him your heart on this knife." The sister burst into tears.

"My God," she said, "why such cruelty?"

"I'll tell you why!" said her brother, and told her about their uncle's letter.

"Oh, brother, I haven't done anything wrong!"

The merchant's son listened as she told him what had happened, and then he said, "Don't cry, little sister! I know that you're not at fault, and even though father told me not to accept any excuses, I still won't punish you. Better if you pack your things, leave our father's house, and go wherever your eyes lead you. God won't abandon you!"

The merchant's daughter didn't think about it for very long. She packed for her journey, bid farewell to her brother, and left. Where to, even she did not know. Meanwhile her brother killed a stray dog, cut out its heart, stuck it onto the end of the sharp knife, and took it to his father.

As he handed over the dog's heart he said:

"There, I've fulfilled your parental command and executed my sister." "Served her right," replied his father, "a dog like her deserved a dog's death!" For a long time or a short time the beautiful maiden wandered the wide world, and finally she went into a thick forest. The trees were so tall she could barely see the sky. She walked through the forest and suddenly emerged into a large clearing. In the clearing was a white palace made of stone surrounded by an iron fence.

"I'll pay a visit to that palace," thought the girl, "not everyone is mean, after all, so it should be all right."

She entered the palace, but didn't see a human soul in the halls. She was just about to turn back when suddenly two mighty bogatyrs galloped into the courtyard and entered the palace.

They saw the maiden and said, "Hello, beauty!"

"Hello, honorable knights!"

"Look, brother," one of the bogatyrs said to the other, "we were bemoaning the fact that we had nobody to look after things at home, and God sent us a little sister."

The bogatyrs let the merchant's daughter live with them, called her their sister, gave her the keys to the palace, and made her the mistress of the whole place. Then they took out their sharp sabers, stood chest to chest, and made a vow:

"If one of us dares to encroach on our sister's honor, the other will hack him up without mercy with his saber." So the beautiful maiden lived with the bogatyrs. Her father in the meantime finished buying goods overseas, returned home, and a short while later remarried. The new wife of the merchant was an indescribable beauty. She had a magic mirror into which you could look and find out what was happening and where. One day the bogatyrs were getting ready to go out hunting. They instructed their sister:

"Make sure you don't let anyone in while we are gone!" They said goodbye and left. At that very moment the merchant's wife was gazing into her mirror, admiring her own beauty. She said:

"There is none more beautiful than I in the whole world!"

But the mirror replied, "You are fair, there is no doubt! But you have a stepdaughter who lives in the thick forest with two bogatyrs, and she is fairer still!" The stepmother did not like these words at all. She summoned a mean old woman. "Here," she told the servant, "take this ring and go into the thick forest. There you will find a white stone palace. In that palace lives my stepdaughter. Bow to her and give her the ring, and tell her it is a present from her brother!"

The old woman took the ring and set off for the forest. She arrived at the white stone palace, where the beautiful maiden saw her and ran out to meet her. She was keen to learn news from her native land.

"Hello, granny! How did the Lord bring you here? Is everyone alive and well?"

"They live and chew bread! Your brother asked me to inquire about your health and to give you this ring as a gift. Here, put it on!"

The maiden was so happy, happier than words can describe. She took the old woman inside, gave her all sorts of food and drink, and told her to give her regards to her brother. In an hour the old woman pushed off for home, and the maiden admired the ring and decided to put it on. She did, and right away fell over as if dead. The bogatyrs returned home and entered the courtyard, but their sister did not come out to meet them. What was the matter? They went to her room and found her lying there dead, not saying a word. The bogatyrs began to grieve; death had taken the very thing that was most beautiful of all!

"We must dress her in new clothes and put her in a coffin," they said. They began to prepare her and one of them noticed a ring on the maiden's hand.

"We can't bury her with this ring, can we? We had better take it off and keep it as a memento."

They took off thering and immediately the fair maiden opened her eyes, gasped, and came to life.

"What has happened to you, little sister? Did someone come to visit you?" the bogatyrs asked.

"An old woman I know from home came and gave me a ring."

"Oh, you're so disobedient! Not for nothing did we tell you not to let anyone in when we're not here. See that you don't do it again!" A short while later the merchant's wife again looked into her mirror and found out that her stepdaughter was still alive and beautiful. She summoned the old woman and gave her aribbon, saying:

"Go to the white stone palace and give my stepdaughter this gift. Tell her it's from her brother!"

The old woman came to see the maiden again, persuaded her with all sorts of clever words, and gave her the ribbon. The girl was overjoyed and tied the ribbon around her neck. Right away she fell onto the bed as if dead. The bogatyrs returned from their hunt, saw their sister lying dead, and began to dress her in new clothes. They took off the ribbon and she opened her eyes, gasped, and came to life.

"What happened, little sister? Was the old woman here again?"

"Yes," she said, "the old woman from home came again and brought me a ribbon." "Oh, what will we do with you, little sister? We begged you not to let anyone in when we are gone!"

"Forgive me, dear brothers! I couldn't help myself! I wanted to hear news from home!" A few days passed and again the merchant's wife looked into her mirror. Again her stepdaughter was alive. She summoned the old woman.

"Here," she said, "take this strand of hair! Go to my stepdaughter and kill her once and for all!"

The old woman bided her time until the bogatyrs went out hunting and again went to the white stone palace. The fair maiden saw her through the window and couldn't help herself. She jumped up to meet the old woman:

"Hello, granny! How does God find you today?"

"Still alive, deary! I've dragged myself out into the world to come see you."

The fair maiden led her into the palace, gave her all sorts of food and drink, asked about her relatives, and told her to give her regards to her brother."

"Alright," said the old woman, "I will. And you, deary, you probably have nobody to search your head for lice, do you? Let me do it for you!"

"Go ahead, granny!"

She began to pick at the fair maiden's head and braided the enchanted strand into her hair. The maiden fell right over as if dead. The old woman cackled and left quickly so nobody would catch her. The bogatyrs came home and went into the palace. They saw their sister lying dead. For a long time they looked her over to see if there was something that should not be there, but they found nothing! So they made a crystal coffin, one so magnificent that you couldn't imagine it, one that exists only in fairy tales. T

hey adorned the merchant's daughter in a brilliant gown, like a bride on her wedding day, and laid her in the crystal coffin.

They placed the coffin in themiddle of the palace's great hall under a canopy of red velvet with diamond tassels and gold fringes, and hung twelve lanterns on twelve crystal columns. Then they wept bitter tears, for they were seized by a great longing.

"What do we have to live for? Let's do ourselves in!"

They embraced, said farewell, went up to the highest balcony, held hands, and jumped. They struck the sharp rocks below and thus ended their lives. Many years passed. A certain prince was out hunting. He went into the thick forest, released his dogs, separated from his huntsmen, and set off alone along an overgrown path. He rode and rode and suddenly found himself in a clearing and saw in the clearing a white stonepalace.

The prince dismounted, went up the staircase, and looked around the palace chambers. Everywhere he looked the palace was richly adorned, but there was no sign of a mistress' hand anywhere: it was all abandoned long ago! In one hall there stood a crystal coffin and in the coffin lay a dead maiden of indescribably beauty. There was a blush on her cheek and a smile on her lips, as if she were merely asleep. The prince approached, looked at the maiden, and stood rooted to the spot as if held there by an unseen force. He stood from morning until late evening, unable to tear his eyes from her, with a troubled heart. He was riveted by her maidenly beauty, more wondrous than you could find anywhere on earth! His huntsmen had long been searching for him everywhere, combing the forest, blowing their horns, and shouting for him. The prince stood before the crystal coffin and did not hear a thing. The sun went down and a thick gloom set in. Only then did he come around. He kissed the dead maiden and went back.

"Ah, your highness! Where have you been?" his huntsmen asked.

"I was chasing an animal and lost my way."

The next day, at first light, the prince went out hunting again.

He galloped into the forest, separated from his huntsmen, and by the same path came to the white stone palace.

Again he spent the entire day standing by the crystal coffin, not taking his eye off the dead maiden. Only late at night did he turn back for home. The same thing happened on the third day, and the fourth, and the rest of the week.

"What's going on with our prince?" the huntsmen wondered.

"Let's follow him, brothers, and make sure he's not in any trouble." So once again the prince went out to hunt, released his dogs in the forest, separated from his entourage, and set out for the white stone palace, this time with the huntsmen on his heels. They came to the clearing, went into the palace, saw the crystal coffin in the great hall, and their prince standing before the maiden. "Your highness! It's no wonder you spent a week in the forest! Now we won't be able to leave until nightfall, either!"

They stood in a circle around the crystal coffin looking at the maiden, admiring her beauty, and did not move an inch from morning until late evening. When it was completely dark, the prince addressed his huntsmen: "Do me a service, brothers, a great service: take this coffin with the dead maiden, bring it to my palace, and put it in my bedroom. But do it quietly, so nobody finds out. I'll reward you handsomely, with more gold than you've ever seen."

"Reward us as you will, prince, for we are glad to serve you!" said the huntsmen.

They lifted the crystal coffin, carried it into the courtyard, mounted it on the horses, and took it to the royal palace. There they put it in the prince's bedroom. From that day on the prince thought no more about hunting. He sat at home, not setting foot from his bedroom, admiring the maiden. "What is the matter with our son," thought the queen, "It's been so long since he's come out of his room, or even let anyone in. Has a sad longing overtaken him, or maybe some kind of illness? I should go and check on him."

The queen entered his bedroom and saw the crystal coffin. What was it doing there? She asked around and gave an order immediately to bury the maiden, as custom demanded, in the damp mother earth. The prince wept, and then went into the garden and picked some flowers. He took them to where the dead beauty lay and began to comb her light brown hair and adorn her head with the flowers. Suddenly the enchanted strand fell from her braid and the beauty opened her eyes, gasped, sat up in the crystal coffin, and said:

"Oh, how long I slept!"

The prince's joy was indescribable. He took her by the hand and led her to his father and mother.

"God sent her to me!" he said, "I can't live without her for a minute! Pray give us your permission to marry, dear father and mother." "Marry her, son! We shan't go against God's will, and you won't find a greater beauty anywhere in the world!"

Tsars don't waste time: on that very day there was a wedding and a great feast. The prince married the merchant's daughter and doted on her. Some time passed and she wanted to visit her father and brother.

The prince asked his father.

"Alright," said the tsar, "go, my dear children! You, prince, go by land so you can check on the state of affairs in our realm, and your wife will go by sea, a more direct route."

They prepared everything for the princess' journey, equipped the sailors, and appointed a general to captain the ship. The princess went aboard and they sailed onto the open sea, while the prince set off by land. The general saw the fair maiden, coveted her beauty, and began to make advances. What do I have to fear?, he thought, since she was in his hands, and he could do whatever he pleased. "Love me," he said to the princess, "If you don't, I'll throw you into the sea!"

The princess turned away without a reply, her eyes filling up with tears. The general's words were overheard by a sailor, who came to the princess later that evening and told her:

"Don't cry, princess! Put on my uniform and I'll dress in your clothes. Go out onto the deck, and I'll stay in your quarters. Let the general throw me overboard, I'm not afraid. I'll just swim to shore, since we're not far from land!"

They exchanged clothes and the princess went up onto the deck, while the sailor lay in her bed. At night the general appeared, seized the sailor, and threw him into the sea. The sailor swam and swam and by morning reached dry land. Meanwhile the ship docked and the sailors went ashore. The princess also disembarked, rushed to the market, bought herself a cook's outfit, put it on, and in this disguise went to work as a servant in her own father's kitchen. A short while later the prince arrived at the merchant's house.

"Hello, father!" he said. "Accept me as your son-in-law, for I am married to your daughter. Where is she? Hasn't she arrived yet?"

And then the general appeared with news:

"Your highness! A great misfortune has befallen us: the princess was standing on the deck when a storm came up and began to rock the ship. She began to swoon and was swept into the sea and drowned!" The prince began to grieve and cry, since he knew there was no return from the bottom of the sea. Her fate had been sealed! The prince stayed with his father-in-law for a few days and then ordered his entourage to prepare for the journey home.

The merchant arranged a large farewell banquet. All his relatives and the local merchants and boyars gathered for the feast.

His brother, the mean old woman, and the general were there, too. They ate and drank and refreshed themselves, and one of the guests said:

"Honorable friends! Why are we just eating and drinking? That's no good; let us tell tales!"

"Alright! Let's!" all the guests shouted, "Who shall begin?"

One guest tried but didn't know how, another was no better, and a third's memory had lapsed from the wine. What to do?

One guest chimed in and said:

"There is a new cook in the kitchen who has been to many foreign lands and seen many marvelous things. He's a master at telling tales!"

The merchant sent for the cook. "Entertain my guests!" he said.

The cook-princess relied:

"What shall I tell, a fairy tale or a true story?"

"Tell us a true story!"

"Alright, a true story. But with one condition: if anyone interrupts me, they'll get hit on the forehead with my ladle!" Everyone agreed. The princess began to tell the story of everything that had happened to her.

"And so," she said, "there was a merchant who had a daughter, and before he went overseas he entrusted his daughter to his brother's keep. The uncle was full of desire because of her beauty and would not give her a moment's peace…"

The uncle realized that she was speaking about him and said:

"These are lies, dear people!"

"Ah, so you think I'm lying? Here's a ladle to the forehead for you!"

Then the story came to the episode with the stepmother and how she questioned her magic mirror, and how the mean old woman went to the white stone castle of the bogatyrs, and the stepmother and the old woman shouted in unison:

"What nonsense! That's impossible!"

The princess hit them on the head with the ladle and continued her story, telling about how she lay in the crystal coffin until she was found by the prince, who brought her back to life and married her, and about how she set off to visit her father. The general knew he was in trouble and said to the prince:

"I'll be going home now, if you please. I feel a headache coming on…" "Sit a while longer," replied the prince, "you'll be alright!"

The princess began to tell the story of the general.

He couldn't stand it and said, "It's all lies!"

The princess whacked him on the head with the ladle. Then she cast off the cook's garments and revealed herself to the prince:

"I'm not a cook, I'm your lawful wife!"

The prince was overjoyed, and the merchant as well. They rushed to embrace and kiss her. Later they held a trial. The mean old woman and the uncle were shot by a firing squad. The stepmothersorceress was tied to a stallion's tail, and the stallion galloped across a field and scattered her smashed bones over the bushes and the gullies. The general was put in prison and his place was taken by the sailor who had saved the princess. From then on, the prince, his wife, and the merchant lived a long and happy life together.

[meaningful-negativity]

The moon sat high as the servants of Gaea did their business calling forth a darkness thought locked away forever by the gods. The thrones of the mortal world were occupied for far too long by those who praised the Olympians. The time for their fall was near and only their dark father could achieve it. The titan was back on the mortal plane along with siblings born of the sins once housed within Pandora's box.

The city was never a good place yet the number of attacks linked to the supernatural real had increased as demigods and demons wanted to gain favor. Good magic was at a standstill as those counted as the most powerful took losses yet never fell. The fates knew that was happening having spoken the prophesy when the world was new and with each war of the heavens. A child of great power will decide the tide of battle as only his power along with that of Olympus can defeat the darkness

Rico knew of the pains of humanity yet felt powerless to do anything about it. Having ascended to his full power he did what he could though most of it was small. Standing he saw the land's curst by the titan. The mand was foul and nothing would grow as it only drew in flies and plagues. He knew that humans needed food but also wanted to see how strong he had become.

"I call to thee, pure witch's fire, through vortex flow the heavenly mire. Cleanse brackish aura of debris, from dark to light, sweep history!"

His eyes glowed blue as he began to speak. Flames raged across the grounds destroying the darkness. This had gotten the attention of the Titans yet also Olympus signaling that he was there. Both sides knew that he was their greatest ally or enemy and as such needed to get to him before the other could.

Athena sensed a wall of magic traveling toward the part of the forest that she was standing in. "So, the child has come but now what side will they choose when given a choice between the Gods and the Titians." She changes into the form of an owl and flies in the direction of the power that she sensed until she finds a boy or to her he is a boy. Athena then lands in the tree beside him before hopping to the top of a rock under said tree, changing to her human form.

"So you are the one that could kill either the Gods or the Titians, i hope that you have made your mind up as to who you will be helping because getting rid of someone as powerful as you would be a bit of a bother for us." She moves over to him to inspect his work then tilts her head to the side with a cocked eyebrow "is this at your full power and don't be cocky around a Goddess. You may help us with our salvation but i can still kick your ass square."

"My name is Athena and i am here to help you get to Olympus. it will be a perilous journey being who you are and what you can do the enemy will also be looking for you. i have no thoughts on this at the moment except that you are powerful, maybe to powerful but at least you seem to be using it for good instead of for their purposes." She shakes her head "i never thought that i would see the end of the world or even get close to it but here it is."

Athena then points over her shoulder "We will need to go into town and get horses for the journey for it is a part of your quest to come to know yourself and your powers that we should take the long way to get to Olympus. i can teach you some things on the way and i'm sure that we will be meeting with more Gods and Goddesses than just me." She then takes the time to smile "You will be very busy little one and so will i. it has been a long time since i had a student."

@charmed-redemption

[popculturebee]

Ohayo! If you’ve been daydreaming of stepping into a land where delicate, pink petals rain from above and blanket the ground below, you're in the right place. Japan, home of the magical phenomenon known as 'sakura', never ceases to captivate with its iconic cherry blossom season. Get ready to venture with me through the top ten locations for the cherry blossom spectacle.

1. Yoshino, Nara

Our first pit-stop, Yoshino, is a stunning mountainous region awash with over 30,000 cherry trees. Yes, you read that correctly! Can you imagine a better way to commence your cherry blossom chase?

2. Shinjuku Gyoen, Tokyo

Next, we swing by the heart of Tokyo, landing at Shinjuku Gyoen. The park hosts not just one, but multiple varieties of cherry trees. No matter when you arrive during the season, you'll catch some blossoms in their prime.

3. Hirosaki Castle Park, Aomori

Famed for its vibrant Sakura Matsuri (Cherry Blossom Festival), Hirosaki Castle Park is the stuff dreams are made of. The castle, pond, and of course, breathtaking cherry blossom trees make perfect postcard material. Don't forget to spot petal-filled boats gently floating on the castle's moats!

4. Ueno Park, Tokyo

A combination like no other – Ueno Park houses both stunning sakura trees and intriguing museums. An afternoon under the cherry blossom canopy here is time well spent.

5. Himeji Castle, Hyogo

Majestic is the word when we talk about Himeji Castle during sakura season. The striking white castle surrounded by cherry blossoms creates an ethereal scene that belongs on the canvas of a master painter.

6. Maruyama Park, Kyoto

Kyoto, Japan's old capital, invites visitors to Maruyama Park to see Japan's most famous (and huge!) weeping cherry tree. Trust me, it's a sight to behold, especially at night when it's illuminated against the dark sky.

7. Lake Kawaguchi, Fujikawaguchiko

At Lake Kawaguchi, you get two Japanese wonders in a single frame - the enchanting Mt. Fuji backdrop to your cherry blossom viewing! This picturesque destination is a gem you should definitely add to your bucket list.

8. Osaka Mint Bureau, Osaka

Osaka Mint Bureau with its cherry garden will be your love-at-first-sight spot. Only open for one week in April, it parades late-blooming yaezakura trees, featuring blossoms with more petals than the common somei yoshino trees.

9. Kanazawa Castle, Kanazawa

Kanazawa Castle, another location where enchanting sakura landscapes weave magic. The Kenroku-en Garden located next to the castle is a spectacle of mellow pink and white hues of cherry blossoms in spring.

10. Takato Castle Park, Nagano

Ending our list on a high is Takato Castle Park, no less than a grand finale for your sakura pursuit. Renowned as one of Japan's top three cherry blossom spots, it's truly a paradise for sakura lovers.

Setting out on this cherry blossom journey is like stepping into a sensory painting of delicate pinks and whites, lively outdoor festivals, and joy-filled 'hanami' picnics. So brace yourself, Japan's iconic sakura season waits for no one. Gear up, and hop on this ethereal journey that celebrates the transient beauty of nature. And remember, as the cherry blossoms teach us, life is breathtakingly beautiful, but it is also incredibly fleeting, so enjoy every moment!FOLLOW FOR MORE WWW.AABEE.IN

[yundk]

Something that I’ve been looking forward to literally all year, ever since I came to Honduras, was to bring my mom and show her the world that she has gifted me to see. Except for her, it wasn’t exactly something she hasn’t seen before. The very first thing she noticed, other than the sweltering heat and humidity, was how similar present-day Honduras was to the Korea she had grown up in. The verdant pasture crescending into lofty mountains. Timeworn rickety vans and buses vying to pick up and pack in as much riders as the space allows. Those same vans swerving traffic and driving recklessly (relative to the customs of the US) on the paved roads and with even less caution to the wind on the dirt roads that are interspersed around the main highways. Roadside stands with bright fruits and vegetables heaped in piles, a mountain of recently harvested pineapples, or avocados or licha or whatever is in season, laying by the street hawker as they holler to everyone in the vicinity to come and purchase a bag of their garden-fresh produce. Or clothes or toothpastes or random gadgets, if that is what they’re selling. These street stalls and peddlers bring life to the city, intensifying the energy and heat of the already scorching day and as I show my mom around the city that has been my home for the past year, she leads me into a bank and luxuriates in the cool air of the air-conditioned room. This is what we used to do in Korea when it got too hot, she tells me. When we get home, she sits by the fan, two of them blasting full-power in her direction, and that’s pretty much where she stays if we’re not eating or traveling. I can’t have her in the house all day – I have to show her what Honduras is, who its people are, what beauty lies among the green fields and in the hearts of the catrachos that have wholeheartedly accepted me into their home. The next morning, we head out to Copan.

My parents are fascinated with indigenous culture, and my mom’s zealous interest in the ancient remains of the Mayan civilization of Copan Ruinas clearly showed. She had dozens of questions, all of which fell on me to translate with the unarranged guides who kindly volunteered their time to accompany us as we wandered the museum and hiked the ruins. For most of the day, we were the only visitors, and they must have welcomed the company. My mom listened keenly to the responses and stories of the Mayan past, chronicling them down carefully in her mind to later share with my dad and look for connections between the indigenous populations of America and the ancestry of Korea. After a fantastically thorough tour, we got another taste of Honduran hospitality – with no buses in sight and no sign of one coming soon, we hitchhiked our way back to our hostel. Many others would also show us this kindness as we journey through Honduras.

I spent half a day convincing my mom to go on this tour of a coffee and cacao plantation. I thought it would be perfect for her, because if there’s one thing she never forsakes, it’s nourishing our bodies with ingredients found in mother nature in its most unprocessed, organic state. The only problem with the tour was that it includes a two-hour trek on horseback through the rolling, lush hills of the Honduran and Guatemalan countryside. My mom had never ridden a horse in her life, and she was terribly scared of the prospect. After very nearly making a reservation but canceling at the last second, and later returning again to say that we’ve decided to actually go through with it, we trekked through the fertile soil of the massive farmland, cracking and chomping down on cacao seeds and snacking on fruit freshly picked from the trees. And of course, we traversed the unbelievably picturesque grassy highlands on horseback. Pure natural beauty, green as far as the eyes can see. Only a picture can come close to doing it justice. If that eye candy was not enough, we ended our day in a magical hot spring nestled in the mountains, the source of water flowing from a steaming waterfall that is too hot to touch. Everything is just magical, the warm water cloaking my body in the middle of a cloud forest, the views from the hours and days before imprinted in my mind and my camera, unwinding from a challenging year of teaching in such a breathtaking setting, my mom being here to experience it all alongside me.

[three-bunnies-in-a-trenchcoat]

Listen I know that Wanderer is a Genshin Impact character, and thus just likely to lose (the majority of polls I've seen have the Genshin character lose in the first round), but he has an interesting story that leads to him receiving his anemo vision (the thing that allows him to control the wind). Here's the cutscene

He's a puppet, created by the Electro Archon (god of electricity/lightning, basically) and then abandoned for being too weak, with too many human emotions. One day, a human found him, and he found friends and family, although this wouldn't last-- disaster would strike, orchestrated by a man known as the Doctor (Dottore), and he would cast out-- "he saw me as an abomination", in his own words (this was the Kabukimono's, as he was then known, second betrayal, the first being by his creator).

He then became friends with a sick child, who promised they would be friends forever. He returned to their house one day, and found him dead; the child broke their promise, and this would be his third betrayal. He burned the house down, and swore to never be weighed down by human emotions again (his recount of his betrayals linked below, its like two minutes long and explains it better than I did)

He'd then find his way to Snezhnaya, where he would become one of the Tsarita's (another god) Harbingers, Scaramouche. Eventually, hundreds of years later, he would return to his homeland, steal the Electro gnosis (the main source of a god's power, and the thing he was created to house), and go to Sumeru, where Dottore would help him become a god (meaning, build a giant mecha (seen at the end of both videos))-- the new god of Sumeru. Scaramouche would be defeated, of course, and taken into custody by Sumeru's actual god, Nahida

Eventually, the Traveler (player character) is called by Nahida, and Scaramouche takes us into Irminsul (the magical tree that serves as Teyvat's database), with her guidance, to see try and discover more information about our missing twin. While there, he learns the truth of what happened, that it was Dottore's fault, and that you can erase things from Teyvat, literally alter the history, using Irminsul if you're powerful enough.

He tries to use Irminsul to get rid of himself, deleting the Kabukimono and Scaramouche, in an attempt to save his first friend. It doesn't work, because you can't erase yourself completely, and it turns out that everything still happened, just without him there.

So now there's a new Teyvat, without Scaramouche-- which is where the Wanderer comes in. He's Scaramouche, just without any of the memories that made him, y'know, Scaramouche, so he's pretty nice now. We take him to Nahida, where she offers to return his memories to him (because she created her own backup of his story that wormed its way around Irminsul's erasure, which restored her memories, so she could restore his, I don't really get it). We (Wanderer, Traveler, and Traveler's companion, Paimon) go on a journey through his memories, reliving them, and then Nahida finally properly gives them back (which is where the first video starts at).

The rest is obvious-- he gets his memories back (painfully), the Shouko no Kami (the aforementioned mecha) shows up, and he finally receives his Anemo vision (visions are gifts of elemental control granted by the gods, and Anemo is the element of freedom), and defeats it

(He doesn't have any desire to go back to being a Harbinger, especially since they have no idea who he is, and kind of sticks around as Nahida's generally off-putting assistant, for those curious. The Traveler also gives him a new name)

Round One - Aeromancy 3/4

Propaganda under the cut (beware of potential spoilers!!)

No propaganda :(

[qqueenofhades]

The Green Knight and Medieval Metatextuality: An Essay

Right, so. Finally watched it last night, and I’ve been thinking about it literally ever since, except for the part where I was asleep. As I said to fellow medievalist and admirer of Dev Patel @oldshrewsburyian, it’s possibly the most fascinating piece of medieval-inspired media that I’ve seen in ages, and how refreshing to have something in this genre that actually rewards critical thought and deep analysis, rather than me just fulminating fruitlessly about how popular media thinks that slapping blood, filth, and misogyny onto some swords and castles is “historically accurate.” I read a review of TGK somewhere that described it as the anti-Game of Thrones, and I’m inclined to think that’s accurate. I didn’t agree with all of the film’s tonal, thematic, or interpretative choices, but I found them consistently stylish, compelling, and subversive in ways both small and large, and I’m gonna have to write about it or I’ll go crazy. So. Brace yourselves.

(Note: My PhD is in medieval history, not medieval literature, and I haven’t worked on SGGK specifically, but I am familiar with it, its general cultural context, and the historical influences, images, and debates that both the poem and the film referenced and drew upon, so that’s where this meta is coming from.)

First, obviously, while the film is not a straight-up text-to-screen version of the poem (though it is by and large relatively faithful), it is a multi-layered meta-text that comments on the original Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the archetypes of chivalric literature as a whole, modern expectations for medieval films, the hero’s journey, the requirements of being an “honorable knight,” and the nature of death, fate, magic, and religion, just to name a few. Given that the Arthurian legendarium, otherwise known as the Matter of Britain, was written and rewritten over several centuries by countless authors, drawing on and changing and hybridizing interpretations that sometimes challenged or outright contradicted earlier versions, it makes sense for the film to chart its own path and make its own adaptational decisions as part of this multivalent, multivocal literary canon. Sir Gawain himself is a canonically and textually inconsistent figure; in the movie, the characters merrily pronounce his name in several different ways, most notably as Sean Harris/King Arthur’s somewhat inexplicable “Garr-win.” He might be a man without a consistent identity, but that’s pointed out within the film itself. What has he done to define himself, aside from being the king’s nephew? Is his quixotic quest for the Green Knight actually going to resolve the question of his identity and his honor – and if so, is it even going to matter, given that successful completion of the “game” seemingly equates with death?

Likewise, as the anti-Game of Thrones, the film is deliberately and sometimes maddeningly non-commercial. For an adaptation coming from a studio known primarily for horror, it almost completely eschews the cliché that gory bloodshed equals authentic medievalism; the only graphic scene is the Green Knight’s original beheading. The violence is only hinted at, subtextual, suspenseful; it is kept out of sight, around the corner, never entirely played out or resolved. In other words, if anyone came in thinking that they were going to watch Dev Patel luridly swashbuckle his way through some CGI monsters like bad Beowulf adaptations of yore, they were swiftly disappointed. In fact, he seems to spend most of his time being wet, sad, and failing to meet the moment at hand (with a few important exceptions).

The film unhurriedly evokes a medieval setting that is both surreal and defiantly non-historical. We travel (in roughly chronological order) from Anglo-Saxon huts to Romanesque halls to high-Gothic cathedrals to Tudor villages and half-timbered houses, culminating in the eerie neo-Renaissance splendor of the Lord and Lady’s hall, before returning to the ancient trees of the Green Chapel and its immortal occupant: everything that has come before has now returned to dust. We have been removed even from imagined time and place and into a moment where it ceases to function altogether. We move forward, backward, and sideways, as Gawain experiences past, present, and future in unison. He is dislocated from his own sense of himself, just as we, the viewers, are dislocated from our sense of what is the “true” reality or filmic narrative; what we think is real turns out not to be the case at all. If, of course, such a thing even exists at all.

This visual evocation of the entire medieval era also creates a setting that, unlike GOT, takes pride in rejecting absolutely all political context or Machiavellian maneuvering. The film acknowledges its own cultural ubiquity and the question of whether we really need yet another King Arthur adaptation: none of the characters aside from Gawain himself are credited by name. We all know it’s Arthur, but he’s listed only as “king.” We know the spooky druid-like old man with the white beard is Merlin, but it’s never required to spell it out. The film gestures at our pre-existing understanding; it relies on us to fill in the gaps, cuing us to collaboratively produce the story with it, positioning us as listeners as if we were gathered to hear the original poem. Just like fanfiction, it knows that it doesn’t need to waste time introducing every single character or filling in ultimately unnecessary background knowledge, when the audience can be relied upon to bring their own.

As for that, the film explicitly frames itself as a “filmed adaptation of the chivalric romance” in its opening credits, and continues to play with textual referents and cues throughout: telling us where we are, what’s happening, or what’s coming next, rather like the rubrics or headings within a medieval manuscript. As noted, its historical/architectural references span the entire medieval European world, as does its costume design. I was particularly struck by the fact that Arthur and Guinevere’s crowns resemble those from illuminated monastic manuscripts or Eastern Orthodox iconography: they are both crown and halo, they confer an air of both secular kingship and religious sanctity. The question in the film’s imagined epilogue thus becomes one familiar to Shakespeare’s Henry V: heavy is the head that wears the crown. Does Gawain want to earn his uncle’s crown, take over his place as king, bear the fate of Camelot, become a great ruler, a husband and father in ways that even Arthur never did, only to see it all brought to dust by his cowardice, his reliance on unscrupulous sorcery, and his unfulfilled promise to the Green Knight? Is it better to have that entire life and then lose it, or to make the right choice now, even if it means death?

Likewise, Arthur’s kingly mantle is Byzantine in inspiration, as is the icon of the Virgin Mary-as-Theotokos painted on Gawain’s shield (which we see broken apart during the attack by the scavengers). The film only glances at its religious themes rather than harping on them explicitly; we do have the cliché scene of the male churchmen praying for Gawain’s safety, opposite Gawain’s mother and her female attendants working witchcraft to protect him. (When oh when will I get my film that treats medieval magic and medieval religion as the complementary and co-existing epistemological systems that they were, rather than portraying them as diametrically binary and disparagingly gendered opposites?) But despite the interim setbacks borne from the failure of Christian icons, the overall resolution of the film could serve as the culmination of a medieval Christian morality tale: Gawain can buy himself a great future in the short term if he relies on the protection of the enchanted green belt to avoid the Green Knight’s killing stroke, but then he will have to watch it all crumble until he is sitting alone in his own hall, his children dead and his kingdom destroyed, as a headless corpse who only now has been brave enough to accept his proper fate. By removing the belt from his person in the film’s Inception-like final scene, he relinquishes the taint of black magic and regains his religious honor, even at the likely cost of death. That, the medieval Christian morality tale would agree, is the correct course of action.

Gawain’s encounter with St. Winifred likewise presents a more subtle vision of medieval Christianity. Winifred was an eighth-century Welsh saint known for being beheaded, after which (by the power of another saint) her head was miraculously restored to her body and she went on to live a long and holy life. It doesn’t quite work that way in TGK. (St Winifred’s Well is mentioned in the original SGGK, but as far as I recall, Gawain doesn’t meet the saint in person.) In the film, Gawain encounters Winifred’s lifelike apparition, who begs him to dive into the mere and retrieve her head (despite appearances, she warns him, it is not attached to her body). This fits into the pattern of medieval ghost stories, where the dead often return to entreat the living to help them finish their business; they must be heeded, but when they are encountered in places they shouldn’t be, they must be put back into their proper physical space and reminded of their real fate. Gawain doesn’t follow William of Newburgh’s practical recommendation to just fetch some brawny young men with shovels to beat the wandering corpse back into its grave. Instead, in one of his few moments of unqualified heroism, he dives into the dark water and retrieves Winifred’s skull from the bottom of the lake. Then when he returns to the house, he finds the rest of her skeleton lying in the bed where he was earlier sleeping, and carefully reunites the skull with its body, finally allowing it to rest in peace.

However, Gawain’s involvement with Winifred doesn’t end there. The fox that he sees on the bank after emerging with her skull, who then accompanies him for the rest of the film, is strongly implied to be her spirit, or at least a companion that she has sent for him. Gawain has handled a saint’s holy bones; her relics, which were well known to grant protection in the medieval world. He has done the saint a service, and in return, she extends her favor to him. At the end of the film, the fox finally speaks in a human voice, warning him not to proceed to the fateful final encounter with the Green Knight; it will mean his death. The symbolism of having a beheaded saint serve as Gawain’s guide and protector is obvious, since it is the fate that may or may not lie in store for him. As I said, the ending is Inception-like in that it steadfastly refuses to tell you if the hero is alive (or will live) or dead (or will die). In the original SGGK, of course, the Green Knight and the Lord turn out to be the same person, Gawain survives, it was all just a test of chivalric will and honor, and a trap put together by Morgan Le Fay in an attempt to frighten Guinevere. It’s essentially able to be laughed off: a game, an adventure, not real. TGK takes this paradigm and flips it (to speak…) on its head.

Gawain’s rescue of Winifred’s head also rewards him in more immediate terms: his/the Green Knight’s axe, stolen by the scavengers, is miraculously restored to him in her cottage, immediately and concretely demonstrating the virtue of his actions. This is one of the points where the film most stubbornly resists modern storytelling conventions: it simply refuses to add in any kind of “rational” or “empirical” explanation of how else it got there, aside from the grace and intercession of the saint. This is indeed how it works in medieval hagiography: things simply reappear, are returned, reattached, repaired, made whole again, and Gawain’s lost weapon is thus restored, symbolizing that he has passed the test and is worthy to continue with the quest. The film’s narrative is not modernizing its underlying medieval logic here, and it doesn’t particularly care if a modern audience finds it “convincing” or not. As noted, the film never makes any attempt to temporalize or localize itself; it exists in a determinedly surrealist and ahistorical landscape, where naked female giants who look suspiciously like Tilda Swinton roam across the wild with no necessary explanation. While this might be frustrating for some people, I actually found it a huge relief that a clearly fantastic and fictional literary adaptation was not acting like it was qualified to teach “real history” to its audience. Nobody would come out of TGK thinking that they had seen the “actual” medieval world, and since we have enough of a problem with that sort of thing thanks to GOT, I for one welcome the creation of a medieval imaginative space that embraces its eccentric and unrealistic elements, rather than trying to fit them into the Real Life box.

This plays into the fact that the film, like a reused medieval manuscript containing more than one text, is a palimpsest: for one, it audaciously rewrites the entire Arthurian canon in the wordless vision of Gawain’s life after escaping the Green Knight (I could write another meta on that dream-epilogue alone). It moves fluidly through time and creates alternate universes in at least two major points: one, the scene where Gawain is tied up and abandoned by the scavengers and that long circling shot reveals his skeletal corpse rotting on the sward, only to return to our original universe as Gawain decides that he doesn’t want that fate, and two, Gawain as King. In this alternate ending, Arthur doesn’t die in battle with Mordred, but peaceably in bed, having anointed his worthy nephew as his heir. Gawain becomes king, has children, gets married, governs Camelot, becomes a ruler surpassing even Arthur, but then watches his son get killed in battle, his subjects turn on him, and his family vanish into the dust of his broken hall before he himself, in despair, pulls the enchanted scarf out of his clothing and succumbs to his fate.

In this version, Gawain takes on the responsibility for the fall of Camelot, not Arthur. This is the hero’s burden, but he’s obtained it dishonorably, by cheating. It is a vivid but mimetic future which Gawain (to all appearances) ultimately rejects, returning the film to the realm of traditional Arthurian canon – but not quite. After all, if Gawain does get beheaded after that final fade to black, it would represent a significant alteration from the poem and the character’s usual arc. Are we back in traditional canon or aren’t we? Did Gawain reject that future or didn’t he? Do all these alterities still exist within the visual medium of the meta-text, and have any of them been definitely foreclosed?

Furthermore, the film interrogates itself and its own tropes in explicit and overt ways. In Gawain’s conversation with the Lord, the Lord poses the question that many members of the audience might have: is Gawain going to carry out this potentially pointless and suicidal quest and then be an honorable hero, just like that? What is he actually getting by staggering through assorted Irish bogs and seeming to reject, rather than embrace, the paradigms of a proper quest and that of an honorable knight? He lies about being a knight to the scavengers, clearly out of fear, and ends up cravenly bound and robbed rather than fighting back. He denies knowing anything about love to the Lady (played by Alicia Vikander, who also plays his lover at the start of the film with a decidedly ropey Yorkshire accent, sorry to say). He seems to shrink from the responsibility thrust on him, rather than rise to meet it (his only honorable act, retrieving Winifred’s head, is discussed above) and yet here he still is, plugging away. Why is he doing this? What does he really stand to gain, other than accepting a choice and its consequences (somewhat?) The film raises these questions, but it has no plans to answer them. It’s going to leave you to think about them for yourself, and it isn’t going to spoon-feed you any ultimate moral or neat resolution. In this interchange, it’s easy to see both the echoes of a formal dialogue between two speakers (a favored medieval didactic tactic) and the broader purpose of chivalric literature: to interrogate what it actually means to be a knight, how personal honor is generated, acquired, and increased, and whether engaging in these pointless and bloody “war games” is actually any kind of real path to lasting glory.

The film’s treatment of race, gender, and queerness obviously also merits comment. By casting Dev Patel, an Indian-born actor, as an Arthurian hero, the film is… actually being quite accurate to the original legends, doubtless much to the disappointment of assorted internet racists. The thirteenth-century Arthurian romance Parzival (Percival) by the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach notably features the character of Percival’s mixed-race half-brother, Feirefiz, son of their father by his first marriage to a Muslim princess. Feirefiz is just as heroic as Percival (Gawaine, for the record, also plays a major role in the story) and assists in the quest for the Holy Grail, though it takes his conversion to Christianity for him to properly behold it.

By introducing Patel (and Sarita Chowdhury as Morgause) to the visual representation of Arthuriana, the film quietly does away with the “white Middle Ages” cliché that I have complained about ad nauseam; we see background Asian and black members of Camelot, who just exist there without having to conjure up some complicated rationale to explain their presence. The Lady also uses a camera obscura to make Gawain’s portrait. Contrary to those who might howl about anachronism, this technique was known in China as early as the fourth century BCE and the tenth/eleventh century Islamic scholar Ibn al-Haytham was probably the best-known medieval authority to write on it extensively; Latin translations of his work inspired European scientists from Roger Bacon to Leonardo da Vinci. Aside from the symbolism of an upside-down Gawain (and when he sees the portrait again during the ‘fall of Camelot’, it is right-side-up, representing that Gawain himself is in an upside-down world), this presents a subtle challenge to the prevailing Eurocentric imagination of the medieval world, and draws on other global influences.

As for gender, we have briefly touched on it above; in the original SGGK, Gawain’s entire journey is revealed to be just a cruel trick of Morgan Le Fay, simply trying to destabilize Arthur’s court and upset his queen. (Morgan is the old blindfolded woman who appears in the Lord and Lady’s castle and briefly approaches Gawain, but her identity is never explicitly spelled out.) This is, obviously, an implicitly misogynistic setup: an evil woman plays a trick on honorable men for the purpose of upsetting another woman, the honorable men overcome it, the hero survives, and everyone presumably lives happily ever after (at least until Mordred arrives).

Instead, by plunging the outcome into doubt and the hero into a much darker and more fallible moral universe, TGK shifts the blame for Gawain’s adventure and ultimate fate from Morgan to Gawain himself. Likewise, Guinevere is not the passive recipient of an evil deception but in a way, the catalyst for the whole thing. She breaks the seal on the Green Knight’s message with a weighty snap; she becomes the oracle who reads it out, she is alarming rather than alarmed, she disrupts the complacency of the court and silently shows up all the other knights who refuse to step forward and answer the Green Knight’s challenge. Gawain is not given the ontological reassurance that it’s just a practical joke and he’s going to be fine (and thanks to the unresolved ending, neither are we). The film instead takes the concept at face value in order to push the envelope and ask the simple question: if a man was going to be actually-for-real beheaded in a year, why would he set out on a suicidal quest? Would you, in Gawain’s place, make the same decision to cast aside the enchanted belt and accept your fate? Has he made his name, will he be remembered well? What is his legacy?

Indeed, if there is any hint of feminine connivance and manipulation, it arrives in the form of the implication that Gawain’s mother has deliberately summoned the Green Knight to test her son, prove his worth, and position him as his childless uncle’s heir; she gives him the protective belt to make sure he won’t actually die, and her intention all along was for the future shown in the epilogue to truly play out (minus the collapse of Camelot). Only Gawain loses the belt thanks to his cowardice in the encounter with the scavengers, regains it in a somewhat underhanded and morally questionable way when the Lady is attempting to seduce him, and by ultimately rejecting it altogether and submitting to his uncertain fate, totally mucks up his mother’s painstaking dynastic plans for his future. In this reading, Gawain could be king, and his mother’s efforts are meant to achieve that goal, rather than thwart it. He is thus required to shoulder his own responsibility for this outcome, rather than conveniently pawning it off on an “evil woman,” and by extension, the film asks the question: What would the world be like if men, especially those who make war on others as a way of life, were actually forced to face the consequences of their reckless and violent actions? Is it actually a “game” in any sense of the word, especially when chivalric literature is constantly preoccupied with the question of how much glorious violence is too much glorious violence? If you structure social prestige for the king and the noble male elite entirely around winning battles and existing in a state of perpetual war, when does that begin to backfire and devour the knightly class – and the rest of society – instead?

This leads into the central theme of Gawain’s relationships with the Lord and Lady, and how they’re treated in the film. The poem has been repeatedly studied in terms of its latent (and sometimes… less than latent) queer subtext: when the Lord asks Gawain to pay back to him whatever he should receive from his wife, does he already know what this involves; i.e. a physical and romantic encounter? When the Lady gives kisses to Gawain, which he is then obliged to return to the Lord as a condition of the agreement, is this all part of a dastardly plot to seduce him into a kinky green-themed threesome with a probably-not-human married couple looking to spice up their sex life? Why do we read the Lady’s kisses to Gawain as romantic but Gawain’s kisses to the Lord as filial, fraternal, or the standard “kiss of peace” exchanged between a liege lord and his vassal? Is Gawain simply being a dutiful guest by honoring the bargain with his host, actually just kissing the Lady again via the proxy of her husband, or somewhat more into this whole thing with the Lord than he (or the poet) would like to admit? Is the homosocial turning homoerotic, and how is Gawain going to navigate this tension and temptation?

If the question is never resolved: well, welcome to one of the central medieval anxieties about chivalry, knighthood, and male bonds! As I have written about before, medieval society needed to simultaneously exalt this as the most honored and noble form of love, and make sure it didn’t accidentally turn sexual (once again: how much male love is too much male love?). Does the poem raise the possibility of serious disruption to the dominant heteronormative paradigm, only to solve the problem by interpreting the Gawain/Lady male/female kisses as romantic and sexual and the Gawain/Lord male/male kisses as chaste and formal? In other words, acknowledging the underlying anxiety of possible homoeroticism but ultimately reasserting the heterosexual norm? The answer: Probably?!?! Maybe?!?! Hell if we know??! To say the least, this has been argued over to no end, and if you locked a lot of medieval history/literature scholars into a room and told them that they couldn’t come out until they decided on one clear answer, they would be in there for a very long time. The poem seemingly invokes the possibility of a queer reading only to reject it – but once again, as in the question of which canon we end up in at the film’s end, does it?

In some lights, the film’s treatment of this potential queer reading comes off like a cop-out: there is only one kiss between Gawain and the Lord, and it is something that the Lord has to initiate after Gawain has already fled the hall. Gawain himself appears to reject it; he tells the Lord to let go of him and runs off into the wilderness, rather than deal with or accept whatever has been suggested to him. However, this fits with film!Gawain’s pattern of rejecting that which fundamentally makes him who he is; like Peter in the Bible, he has now denied the truth three times. With the scavengers he denies being a knight; with the Lady he denies knowing about courtly love; with the Lord he denies the central bond of brotherhood with his fellows, whether homosocial or homoerotic in nature. I would go so far as to argue that if Gawain does die at the end of the film, it is this rejected kiss which truly seals his fate. In the poem, the Lord and the Green Knight are revealed to be the same person; in the film, it’s not clear if that’s the case, or they are separate characters, even if thematically interrelated. If we assume, however, that the Lord is in fact still the human form of the Green Knight, then Gawain has rejected both his kiss of peace (the standard gesture of protection offered from lord to vassal) and any deeper emotional bond that it can be read to signify. The Green Knight could decide to spare Gawain in recognition of the courage he has shown in relinquishing the enchanted belt – or he could just as easily decide to kill him, which he is legally free to do since Gawain has symbolically rejected the offer of brotherhood, vassalage, or knight-bonding by his unwise denial of the Lord’s freely given kiss. Once again, the film raises the overall thematic and moral question and then doesn’t give one straight (ahem) answer. As with the medieval anxieties and chivalric texts that it is based on, it invokes the specter of queerness and then doesn’t neatly resolve it. As a modern audience, we find this unsatisfying, but once again, the film is refusing to conform to our expectations.

As has been said before, there is so much kissing between men in medieval contexts, both ceremonial and otherwise, that we’re left to wonder: “is it gay or is it feudalism?” Is there an overtly erotic element in Gawain and the Green Knight’s mutual “beheading” of each other (especially since in the original version, this frees the Lord from his curse, functioning like a true love’s kiss in a fairytale). While it is certainly possible to argue that the film has “straightwashed” its subject material by removing the entire sequence of kisses between Gawain and the Lord and the unresolved motives for their existence, it is a fairly accurate, if condensed, representation of the anxieties around medieval knightly bonds and whether, as Carolyn Dinshaw put it, a (male/male) “kiss is just a kiss.” After all, the kiss between Gawain and the Lady is uncomplicatedly read as sexual/romantic, and that context doesn’t go away when Gawain is kissing the Lord instead. Just as with its multiple futurities, the film leaves the question open-ended. Is it that third and final denial that seals Gawain’s fate, and if so, is it asking us to reflect on why, specifically, he does so?

The film could play with both this question and its overall tone quite a bit more: it sometimes comes off as a grim, wooden, over-directed Shakespearean tragedy, rather than incorporating the lively and irreverent tone that the poem often takes. It’s almost totally devoid of humor, which is unfortunate, and the Grim Middle Ages aesthetic is in definite evidence. Nonetheless, because of the comprehensive de-historicizing and the obvious lack of effort to claim the film as any sort of authentic representation of the medieval past, it works. We are not meant to understand this as a historical document, and so we have to treat it on its terms, by its own logic, and by its own frames of reference. In some ways, its consistent opacity and its refusal to abide by modern rules and common narrative conventions is deliberately meant to challenge us: as before, when we recognize Arthur, Merlin, the Round Table, and the other stock characters because we know them already and not because the film tells us so, we have to fill in the gaps ourselves. We are watching the film not because it tells us a simple adventure story – there is, as noted, shockingly little action overall – but because we have to piece together the metatext independently and ponder the philosophical questions that it leaves us with. What conclusion do we reach? What canon do we settle in? What future or resolution is ultimately made real? That, the film says, it can’t decide for us. As ever, it is up to future generations to carry on the story, and decide how, if at all, it is going to survive.

(And to close, I desperately want them to make my much-coveted Bisclavret adaptation now in more or less the same style, albeit with some tweaks. Please.)

Further Reading

Ailes, Marianne J. ‘The Medieval Male Couple and the Language of Homosociality’, in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. by Dawn M. Hadley (Harlow: Longman, 1999), pp. 214–37.

Ashton, Gail. ‘The Perverse Dynamics of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 15 (2005), 51–74.

Boyd, David L. ‘Sodomy, Misogyny, and Displacement: Occluding Queer Desire in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 8 (1998), 77–113.

Busse, Peter. ‘The Poet as Spouse of his Patron: Homoerotic Love in Medieval Welsh and Irish Poetry?’, Studi Celtici 2 (2003), 175–92.

Dinshaw, Carolyn. ‘A Kiss Is Just a Kiss: Heterosexuality and Its Consolations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Diacritics 24 (1994), 205–226.

Kocher, Suzanne. ‘Gay Knights in Medieval French Fiction: Constructs of Queerness and Non-Transgression’, Mediaevalia 29 (2008), 51–66.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. ‘Knighthood, Compulsory Heterosexuality, and Sodomy’ in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 273–86.

Kuefler, Matthew. ‘Male Friendship and the Suspicion of Sodomy in Twelfth-Century France’, in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 179–214.

McVitty, E. Amanda, ‘False Knights and True Men: Contesting Chivalric Masculinity in English Treason Trials, 1388–1415,’ Journal of Medieval History 40 (2014), 458–77.

Mieszkowski, Gretchen. ‘The Prose Lancelot's Galehot, Malory's Lavain, and the Queering of Late Medieval Literature’, Arthuriana 5 (1995), 21–51.

Moss, Rachel E. ‘ “And much more I am soryat for my good knyghts’ ”: Fainting, Homosociality, and Elite Male Culture in Middle English Romance’, Historical Reflections / Réflexions historiques 42 (2016), 101–13.

Zeikowitz, Richard E. ‘Befriending the Medieval Queer: A Pedagogy for Literature Classes’, College English 65 (2002), 67–80.

[uroborosymphony]

Just human.

𝑂𝑛 𝑎 𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑛𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡. 𝐴𝑛𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑡ℎ. 

 ft. @alsvartr​

A delivery from the realm of Angrath to Earth. The velveteen cloak that was promised for my twenty eighth birthday by the King himself finally reached my mortal lands. Twirling, Oh I was twirling, dressed in the dark red of my gown and the gifted handmade cloak over my shoulders. My hair have delicately been styled, light jewerly perling down my collarbones and wrists.

I have received an invite tied to the present. In the realm of the King, it was time for a celebration, a celebration for the truce, the end of the war between the North and The South. What an honor - I kept whispering to myself - to be invited by royalty itself, by Aquila whom, has also become a dear friend to me. I couldn’t wait to see him again, to discover how his people were feasting and dancing and gorging on fresh boars and wine around fires and music. There were many customs and ways I was unaware of, even his language, I was far for being able to speak more than a couple words but it wasn’t scaring me, nothing was scaring me, on the contrary, impatience was running under my skin. After many years of daydreaming, many years of hallucinating, many years of a living with a mind that wasn’t wired like the other souls around mine here on Earth - finally, I would open the doors to secret universes the gods have kept away from me.

Portals, it’s through portals I would come and go in between Earth and Angrath, portals I could not create myself but with the use of a device Aquila asked to be made for me. A device filled with magic of his lands. After pampering myself for the ceremony, the object found itself between my hands. I couldn’t stop contemplating it, the depth of the ravens in my irises captivated by this wander the human mind couldn’t quite grasp. Does it make me superior to my own kind now? I wondered. Perhaps in a way, I was transcending human conditions and rules by holding the keys to a new truth. This should never land in the wrong hands, the King knew that, perhaps it was also a way to show and offer me his trust.

I kneeled down and as instructed, placed the device down the floor, keeping the palm of my hand spread on top of the magical object. My smile kept on piercing and growing as runes of light were carving themselves into the wooden floor of my little house.  Time and space were being bent, distorted, I could feel and see it, as the light kept on overwhelming my senses to finally, create it : my first portal. Back on my two feets, the device got slipped inside my little bag of black leather and it was time. Time for me to walk accross the now opened door. I didn’t walk actually, I ran into it, impatient, excited. Memories of my first journey to Vorlan with Aquila in the heart of July were dancing in my head, he was the one to open the portal back then as I watched him full of admiration - Vorlan, the two suns accross our heads, the fauna greeting us.

This time felt different however - as I was transitionning from Earth to Angrath - it was dark. Completely dark. The coordinates were supposed to send me near his castle where the celebration have already started. There was none of that. Only a forest.

I was in a forest. 

The gigantic trees were darkening the sky in this endless night, creating a roof above of my head, even the moons could not keep an eye on me. Where is the castle, what happened and where am I. Were my first and only questions. 

I took a few steps forward, in between the branches and the roots at my feet, believing that perhaps I simply landed a couple miles away. I re open my bag of leather as I keep on making steps and steps forward in hope of finding a path, a light, something - perhaps using the device again will send me back to Earth and I could try again. I was both handling the magical object and frenetiqually looking around as only muffled noises and howls of the night were surrounding me. 

It was only then that I saw it.

A fire.

Meters away from the position I was standing in, in between the black leaves.

Every single one of the cells within my body froze as if the winter of the lands was crawling deeper under my skin to lace with my blood and petrify me. The obscurity was keeping me hidden. However, around that fire... People. A circle of approximatively six to twelve figures, in cloaks, gathered. My heart stopped. 

I knew that in that moment, I was not where I was supposed to be. This, this isn’t Angrath.

I could hear their chanting, a chanting that was twisting every single wire of my mind. Words of a language I could not possibly understand - yet, one that did not have the same sounds and t’s as Aquila’s tongue. The flames were growing, higher, stronger as their voices where echoing louder in the obscurity of the night. A ritual. It was a ritual.

I step back.

Terrified of what could possibly happen to me if they see me, if they hear me. I step backwards, I keep on stepping back, carefully, my bones shaking, my eyes not leaving the scene. Until I freeze, again. In the circle, the figure at the exact opposite takes the hood of the cloak off to finally look up. A woman. She saw me. Her hair was of a color I couldn’t possibly describe. Somewhere between blonde and silver. No, her cloak is different than the other’s. Everyone else’s is red, hers is black. Black, made of Velveteen.

“Come.”

The word echoes inside of me like a calling. The veins under my skull are on the verge of imploding, exploding. This speaks human. It is in my head. She. Is in my head, no matter the distance in between her and I, I can hear her.

“Come.”

She keeps on repeating, staring towards me as the circle around her was still calling something, something from the above, like zealots.

“We can have it all.”

I scream. I scream and scream and scream, my head in between my hands as she’s inside, she’s inside of my head now, talking to me, speaking to me, telling me to come more and more and more and it hurts, like knives shoving inside my brain, under my skin, it’s overwhelming me.

“GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET!!!!! OUUUUT!!!”

Blank.

Black.

I open my eyes again and I stare around me. This time, the forest is gone. Am I losing my mind? I spin on my spot out of panic, which makes my red dress spin and my cloak around my legs and I’m looking around as if I’m possessed. The fire, the ritual, the woman, they are all gone. Was that... was that? What was that? 

I’m not alone anymore, all eyes are on me - it make sense, after I kept on shouting like a possessed person. I breathe in and out, like a maniac, as if my body experienced some sort of trance. I’m about to throw up but I can’t. Right now, I’m standing in the streets of Angrath, right now, with everyone dressed for celebrations and chanting to the glory of the King. And so I run, I run and run and run, until I can hide in a quieter street with no eyes on me. I’m breathless, unaware of what just happened to me, my back pressed against the wall of bricks, my eyes still widened out. Was that a vision? For another place, another time? It feels like something I’ve already lived or - something I’m about to live. I can’t possibly explain.

That Priestess.

She was wearing my cloak, it was the exact same one. 

That woman,

In what seemed to be a distorted reality,

It was me.

[comfortwriting]

Ashtray Part 5 - D.M

Masterlist, Requesting Rules, Writing Prompt Masterlist

Draco x Gryffindor Fem Reader

This is part 5 of my mini-series 'Ashtray', please read all previous parts if you haven't already.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

Warnings: Swearing, mention of nausea, mention of cigarettes.

Harry's world couldn't stop spinning around him, his palms clammy, his throat tight, Ron and Hermione couldn't shake him out of his thoughts or break him away from what he had seen.

"What do you mean he's back?!" Hermione gasped "You said-"

"I know what I said, Hermione!" Harry snapped back, raising his voice "Y/N is in trouble, Voldemort is going to get to her if we don't step in!"

Ron glared at Draco until his eyes finally shifted onto Harry, his hard face and piercing eyes finally softening.

"You said we need to work together," Draco finally spoke out, his fear of the dark lord and concern for your safety kicking in "Will that save her?"

Escape. Never to return. Train home. Never again.

Your heart split down the middle and separated into tiny pieces at the thought of Harry suffering silently whilst you dated his enemy - but how were you to know he had feelings for you? He never told you, he never hinted at such a thing.

You shook your head, trying to rid your mind of the gut-wrenching thoughts and feelings.

Focus, Y/N, focus. You'll be in that muggle school before you know it, sat in that exam hall without a care in the world about Hogwarts.

For the last time, you entered your dorm room, packing away your clothes, belongings, you even stuffed your empty box of cigarettes into your pocket - you couldn't believe that you wouldn't get to sleep in your four-poster bed again or watch the owls embark on their letter delivering journeys.

Taking a deep breath, you made your bed and picked up your trunk, walking out of your bedroom and making your way to Dumbledore's Office, your empty cigarette box falling out of your pocket - the only part of you to be left behind at Hogwarts.

Before you could knock, the door opened, Dumbledore standing before you in pure white robes, his half-moon spectacles shining against the light.

"I'm guessing you're ready to leave, Miss Y/L/N." Dumbledore widened his arm.

You hesitated for a moment and then linked your arm in his, nodding your head "Yes, I am."

"Well, we best be on our way." Dumbledore said softly, "Hold on tight."

Speed. Spinning. Swirling.

You held onto your headteacher, the spinning and rushing consuming you, everything around you turning into swirls of colour like paints being dragged out upon a canvas, you felt sick to your stomach and gripped onto Dumbledore harder, the lightheadedness making you feel off balance.

After what felt like a lifetime of travelling, the spinning finally stopped, the swirls of vibrant greens, hues of reds, and bold greys and black finally pooled into objects; hedges, lamp-posts, and cars.

You hunched over, feeling like you were about to throw up, the smell of the air helped settle you down - you knew where you were - you were home.

"I thought no one could Appiriate at Hogwarts?" you panted, slowly standing up.

"You've always had a good memory," Dumbledore smiled, "I'm surprised with just the scent of your surroundings you know where you are."

Dumbledore continued to walk further, members of the public either admiring his robes or giving him strange looks. The two of you followed a narrow path, surrounded by tall vibrant trees and tiny birds that flew past rather swiftly, not startled by your footsteps or voices.

"You can keep your wand, you might need it," Dumbledore said, the end of the trail nearing, the sight of a large house in sight.

Your eyebrows knitted together at his comment, "Why would I need it?" you asked quietly, "Underage magic is against the law isn't it?"

Dumbledore stayed quiet for a moment, standing in the driveway of your house "your parents are waiting for you," he said cooly "take care, Y/N."

Before you could ask or say anything else, Dumbledore left your trunk beside your feet and apparated, you were left with so many questions, so many worries and feelings.

You stared down at your wand, swallowing hard.

"You can keep your wand, you might need it."

"We need to hurry!" Hermione panicked, bursting into the common room, Ron and Harry behind her.

"Y/N!" she yelled, running up the stairs, "Y/N!"

"This is bloody scary, mate." Ron sighed, sitting down on the back of the sofa.

Harry didn't say anything, he stared into the flames, wanting nothing more than to see his uncles face pop through and help him through this, his vision replaying right in front of him.

"Pencils and pens down, your exam has finished." The invigilator announced loudly, his voice as clear as a bell.

Everyone placed their pens and pencils on their tiny desks, their exam papers staring up at them, you leaned back in your seat, yawning, shuffling in your chair and looking over your shoulder before feeling a sudden bout of worry and turning back to face the front.

The invigilators collected the exam papers from one desk to another, one with a pale face and deep silver eyes, and dressed in a black suit went over to your desk, he smirked at her, whispering inaudible lies before taking your paper and walking away.  

Now in the belly of the forest, the singing birds stopped instantly, the temperature dropping, the wind picking up and spreading the falling leaves towards you circling you at great force.

"Who's there!" you called out bravely, twirling around as the leaves started to slow down and drop beside your feet.

A loud hiss broke out, piercing Harry's scar, he clutched his head, squeezing his eyes shut tightly.

"So it's true," the hoarse voice said, one that Harry recognised better than any other "You love the boy."

Your breath hitched in your throat.

You screamed.

The birds departed.

What happened? Harry didn't know.

Hermione felt her heart drop to her stomach when she found the dorm room silent and empty, your bed made and belongings gone.

Hurrying down the stairs and out of breath, the three of them found Draco pacing up and down the stairs, his eyes glassy, his hands shaking.

"Anything?" he asked, desperation in his voice.

"No," Ron replied, trying to remember to be less snappy.

"She's gone, everything of hers is gone." Hermione sighed, shaking her head, her eyes filling with tears.

"We need to go to Dumbledore," Harry stressed "He'll know-"

"I already tried," Draco cut him off, "He isn't there."

The four of them fell silent, the stairs continuing to move in the distance.

Draco dug his hand in his pocket and pulled out your crumpled cigarette packet, his hands shaking. "This is all we have."

taglist: @horrorxweasley @alwaysnforeverfangirl @inglourious-imagines @sebby-staan @lovegoodsgf @m4vdb @reeophidian @oldschoolkiddo @illiicitarts @sycathorn-slush @blackqueens01 @opalsheart @axgelre @fredshufflepuff @a-dusty-emerald @mmalfoyferret @marella322 @badass-yn @originalsoulcollector 

[thewriterofkpop]

EXO with Y/N at a fair

So, this is for my lovely friend who wanted to have some fluff, here you are my baby! Enjoy!

Suho

,,I’m so excited!’’ you giggled as you prepared the sandwiches, putting some salad on the soft bread.

You heard your boyfriend laugh from the bath where he was currently preparing the first aid kit.

,,Junmyeon?’’ you suddenly called him, feeling his hands around your body a few seconds later.

He put his head on your shoulders as he looked at the fruits you prepared and the muffins you baked.

You put something in his mouth which he gladly began to chew before you told him your worries.

,,Will they like it?’’ you asked him.

Suho kissed your cheek when he gulped your food and assured you that they would go crazy for your snacks.

,,But isn’t it too much work?’’ he then asked you, but quickly realized that it was something that made you happy.

A few hours later, you all stood at the entrate and you were just so nervous.

The bag was on your boyfriend’s shoulders while he held your hand.

Half of the members carried the bag, making sure to change so that it wouldn’t get too hard to carry.

,,Let’s go there!’’ you laughed and tried to run towards a shop.

,,So crowned,’’ you heard Chen laugh as all nine members were in the shop, fooling around with the merchandise.

It was a funny day and it felt like a big family journey.

Chanyeol

,,No! I don’t want to get wet!’’ you complained as you tried to take your boyfriend to a calm drive while he tried to make you change your opinion.

,,Dear guests, in a few minutes our animal show will begin. Everyone who’s interested please feel free to enter the hall in the southern side of the park!’’ a woman’s voice said.

Both of you looked at each other before you quickly entered the entrance hand in hand, getting the best spots.

Dolphins did acrobatics with other people and amazing water shows were shown.

Penguins were shown, which at some point made your boyfriend clap his hands, making him look as if he was one of them.

Honestly, his face amused you more than the show did.

Baekhyun

Your boyfriend at first was a totally obsessed boyfriend.

He never let go of your hand, made sure that no one bumped into you, and even carried the stuff you brought along.

But it was less than a minute until you guys entered the fair.

,,WAHHHHH!“ he happily laughed and threw the bag on the floor, letting go of your hand and running to hug the mascot.

You had to laugh too at his funny behavior and quickly picked up the bag.

,,Y/N! Y/N! Let’s eat the candies back there!“ he exclaimed as he pulled you along, making you giggle again.

The both of you did everything and were even more childish than the children around you.

,,Baekhyun, come on babe.  You don’t have to win the teddy bear for me!“ you tried to convince your boyfriend who never gave up.

And after he lost almost half of his money and spent more than double for the teddy bear, he finally gave it to you with a smile brighter than the sun and told you that he loved you a lot.

Chen

Hand in hand, you walked through the fair.

You two just spent half an hour on a bench, trying to dry in the sun after you got wet from the last ride.

It was funny because the ride itself wouldn’t make you that wet, but people could spend money from the outside to splash you with water.

And that’s why the both of you were resting on a bench, trying to dry your clothes.

But finally you could go on, looking at the different stations and enjoying the sight of the children having fun.

,,Know what I thought of?“ you asked him.

He looked at you and gave you a sign that you could tell him everything.

,,Maybe later on in the future, we can come here as a family… or we could take along Chanyeol and Baekhyun. They would be just like children!“ you laughed and made him chuckle too.

,,Let’s do it…!“ he nodded.

Suddenly you stayed firm in front of a haunted house and grinned at him.

,,No, Y/N, let’s do something else…“ he almost begged you.

,,Pleaaase!“ you whined.

,,No, let’s go…“ he said as he tried to pressure you. However, he lost and got pulled in by you. He was shocked a few seconds later on after a zombie tried to pull him into a corner.

Kai

,,HAHAHAHAHA!“ he laughed at you when he saw you with the silly clothes the staff made you wear.

You and Kai wanted to play paint ball, however you quickly noticed that the game looked easier than it actually was.

Instead, you hid yourself and observed your boyfriend shooting at other players. 

,,Aish, Y/N, we wanted to stop fangirling over him,’’ you hissed to yourself as you felt hot watching him.

However, due to you watching Kai, you didn’t see that some player was about to shoot you.

,,WAHH!’’ Kai laughed and shot at the person behind you, making you quiver at his action.

In the end, someone else still shot you.

,,At least I could take revenge,’’ he laughed as the both of you licked the ice cream he bought.

,,That’s true, you were so cute!’’ you laughed and took his hand.

It was already dark and the parade, which walked down the street, began.

A lot of colors came up, making you gasp at its beauty.

,,Y/N,’’ suddenly he whispered, making you turn your head to Kai.

,,I love you,’’ he whispered and kissed you while the fireworks began to show their beauty in the sky.

Xiumin

,,Oh no no no no no no no!’’ he laughed as you showed him different haunted houses.

,,Okay,’’ you laughed and kissed Xiumin.

Today it was your anniversary and so Xiumin finally made your wish come true and brought you to the fair.

It was a beautiful day.

The sun was shining, but it wasn’t that hot and the atmosphere was really good. 

There were so many things you and your boyfriend wanted to test out.

,,How about we go on the horses back there?’’ you said as you pointed to the carousel.

Xiumin looked at you and strongly nodded.

Laughing, the both of you ran over there.

He got on a white horse and you got on a pink unicorn next to him.

You kept chuckling on the children's carousel and took a lot of pictures, sending them straight into the EXO group chat.

,,Oh! Look there!’’ you suddenly exclaimed after both of you finally stood on the ground again.

Xiumin tried to follow your finger as you pointed at a big doll which represented Spongebob.

Since Spongebob was his favorite cartoon, both of you followed the yellow man and managed to take a picture.

,,Thank you for being my boyfriend,’’ you finally mumbled as you both sat on the green grass and kissed each other.  

D.O

,,I’m sorry,’’ you whispered as your boyfriend put a wet towel over your face.

,,It’s okay, don’t worry, Y/N,’’ he said to try to make you feel better.

,,Come here, you need to drink,’’ he mumbled and tried to make you drink as he wet his own lips.

A few seconds later, you finally fell asleep.

The day began perfectly fine.

Both of you were having a lot of fun at the fair.

You kept walking around, taking pictures as you saw a lot of beautiful flowers.

You went on a few drives and even sat down below a beautiful tree to eat the food Kyungsoo prepared for the both of you.

However, you suddenly fainted when you wanted to get up again and found yourself on the bed in the medical room of the fair.

When you suddenly collapsed in his arms, he forgot what to do.

Luckily, people around him helped out.

,,I’m so sorry,’’ Kyungsoo himself mumbled as he observed you.

He actually wanted to make your birthday perfect, however, he forgot how weak you were against the warmth and how quickly you could faint if you didn’t stay hydrated.

,,Can we go on one last ride?’’ you asked him as both of you were about to go home.

You just wanted to go on the magical ride which drove you through the park.

Kyungsoo was hesitant, but then agreed, making sure that you would drink a lot of water.

,,I love you, my considerate boyfriend,’’ you laughed and kissed him when you were on your way home.

Sehun

,,Oh!’’ you exclaimed and looked at the shop which was filled with little souvenirs like caps, shirts, or pens.

Both of you suddenly had the same thought as you looked at the funny and beautiful souvenirs.

,,We need to get something for the members!’’ both of you said at the same time.

Your laughter echoed through the shop as you began to choose what the members may like.

,,Okay, we spend our money on presents for our dear friends,’’ you began.

,,Should be we drive some carousels?’’ you asked him, which made him nood.

He followed you around the whole time and smiled to himself whenever he saw your happy face while watching some rides.

The day unfortunately went by quickly, but both of you were more than happy.

You went on every ride, even the ones which were very scary and totally risky for the both of you.

,,It feels so good to know that you tried to overcome your own fear, right?’’ you asked him.

Sehun nodded.

It was true that thanks to you, he got to do things that he wouldn’t have done if you would have done it alone.

,,Thank you,’’ you suddenly said before you were ready to head over to the parking lot.

Lay

,,Here,’’ you mumbled when you finally succeeded at fishing out the scarf from the bag.

Sadly, the day was kind of windy.

And since you knew that he was sensitive to the wind, you made sure that he was warm.

Hand in hand you walked down, looking at different rides.

,,Let’s first look through them and then decide which one we will ride first, okay?’’ you asked him, unsure if your idea was a good one.

But your boyfriend quickly nodded, making it seem as if he was okay with it.

A few minutes later, both of you sat in various rides or played some mini games. 

,,AHHHHHHHH!’’ you screamed when you rushed down in the big car.

Both of you were currently having a lot of fun, especially after you finally got the picture they took of you while riding the carousel. It was funny.

Lay also made a few jokes about you and then finally took your hand before walking on.

After all there were a few things to do, like feeding the animals and having a beautiful lunch with you for free.

Masterlist

[dweemeister]

The complete list of films featured in 2021′s “31 Days of Oscar” marathon

What follows is the exhaustive list of all 403 short- and feature-length films featured on this blog over the last thirty-one days for the 31 Days of Oscar marathon. This number is up from last year’s count of 327 and is the second-highest number of films I have ever featured in this marathon (behind the 410 films from 2016). Despite the number, this remains only a fraction of the nearly 5,000 films that have been nominated for Academy Awards. This year’s marathon was harder to plan than usual due to the fact it was presented in alphabetical order - with the exception of any write-ups I did.

BREAKDOWN BY DECADE 1927-1929: 7 1930s: 44 1940s: 63 1950s: 63 1960s: 46 1970s: 25 1980s: 29 1990s: 28 2000s: 25 2010s: 43 2020s: 30

Year with most representation (2020 excluded): 1940 (ten films) Median year: 1964

And now, the list. Best Picture winners and the one (and only) winner for Unique and Artistic Production are in bold. Asterisked (*) films are films I haven’t seen in their entirety as of the publishing of this post.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Ace in the Hole (1951)

Adam’s Rib (1949)*

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

After the Thin Man (1936)*

Airport (1970)*

Aladdin (1992)

Albert Nobbs (2011)

Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1938)

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Almost Famous (2000)

An American in Paris (1951)

Anastasia (1956)

Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

Annie (1982)

Around the World in Eighty Days (1956)

Arrival (2016)

Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987, France)

The Awful Truth (1937)

Babe (1995)

Baby Doll (1956)*

Ballad of a Soldier (1959, Soviet Union)*

The Band Wagon (1953)

Bao (2018 short)

Ben-Hur (1959)

Berkeley Square (1933)

The Best Man (1964)

Better Days (2019, Hong Kong)*

The Big Chill (1983)*

The Birds (1963)

Birds Anonymous (1957 short)

Black Orpheus (1959, Brazil)

BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Blue Velvet (1986)

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)*

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2020)*

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

Brief Encounter (1945)

Brotherhood (2018 short, Tunisia/Canada/Qatar/Sweden)

Cabin in the Sky (1943)

Calamity Jane (1953)

Carol (2015)*

Casablanca (1942)

Casino (1995)*

Charade (1963)

The Circus (1928)

Citizen Kane (1941)

City of God (2002, Brazil)*

Claudine (1974)*

Closely Watched Trains (1966, Czechoslovakia)

Coraline (2009)*

Da 5 Bloods (2020)*

Dances with Wolves (1990)

Death in Venice (1971)*

Destination Moon (1950)*

The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941)

Down Argentine Way (1940)

Dunkirk (2017)

Easter Parade (1948)

The Edge of Democracy (2019, Brazil)*

Educated Fish (1937 short)*

El Cid (1961)*

Elmer Gantry (1960)

The End of the Affair (1999)*

Ernest & Celestine (2012, France/Belgium)

Face to Face (1976, Sweden)*

The Fallen Idol (1948)

Fantasia (1940)

A Fantastic Woman (2017, Chile)*

Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)*

A Farewell to Arms (1932)*

A Few Good Men (1992)*

Five Easy Pieces (1970)*

The Five Pennies (1959)

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. (1953)

Flower Drum Song (1961)

Flowers and Trees (1932 short)

Flying Down to Rio (1933)*

For All Mankind (1989)

For Sama (2019)*

Forbidden Planet (1956)

Forrest Gump (1994)

42nd Street (1933)

Four Days in November (1964)*

The Four Feathers (1939)

The 400 Blows (1959, France)

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)*

From Here to Eternity (1953)

Funny Face (1957)

Funny Girl (1968)

Fury (1936)*

Gandhi (1982)

The Garden of Allah (1936)

Garden Party (2017 short, France)

Gaslight (1944)

Giant (1956)

Gigi (1958)

Gladiator (2000)

The Godfather (1972)

The Godfather, Part II (1974)

Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

Gorillas in the Mist (1988)*

Gosford Park (2001)

Grand Hotel (1932)

Grand Prix (1966)*

The Great Beauty (2013, Italy)

The Great Race (1965)

The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

Green Book (2018)

Green Dolphin Street (1947)*

The Green Mile (1999)*

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)

Gunga Din (1939)

Hair Love (2019 short)

Hallelujah (1929)*

Hamlet (1948)

Hamlet (1990)

Hamlet (1996)

Hangmen Also Die! (1943)*

The Happiest Millionaire (1967)

A Hard Day’s Night (1964)

Harlan County U.S.A. (1976)

The Harvey Girls (1946)

Heartbreak Ridge (1986)*

The Heiress (1949)

Hell’s Angels (1930)*

Henry V (1989)

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

Hero (2002, China)*

Hidden Figures (2016)

The High and the Mighty (1954)*

High Noon (1952)

High Society (1956)

Himalaya (1999, France/Switzerland/United Kingdom/Nepal)*

Home Alone (1990)

Honeysuckle Rose (1980)*

Hoosiers (1986)

The House on 92nd Street (1945)*

How the West Was Won (1962)

How to Survive a Plague (2012)*

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

I Married a Witch (1942)*

I Never Sang for My Father (1970)

I Vitelloni (1953, Italy)*

I Wanted Wings (1941)*

I, Tonya (2017)*

Ida (2013, Poland)

Imitation of Life (1959)

In Cold Blood (1967)

In the Absence (2018 short, South Korea)

In the Heat of the Night (1967)

Inherit the Wind (1960)

Inside Daisy Clover (1965)*

Inside Moves (1980)*

It Happened One Night (1934)

It Happened Tomorrow (1944)*

It Should Happen to You (1954)*

It’s Always Fair Weather (1955)

Jackie Brown (1997)*

Jammin’ the Blues (1944 short)*

Jaws (1975)

The Jazz Singer (1927)

Jerry’s Cousin (1951 short)

Jesus Camp (2006)*

Jezebel (1938)

Jim: The James Foley Story (2016)*

Joe’s Violin (2016 short)

The Journey of Natty Gann (1985)

Joyeux Noel (2005, France)

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)

Julia (1977)*

Juliet of the Spirits (1965, Italy)

Kagemusha (1980, Japan)

The Karate Kid (1984)

The Killers (1946)*

The King and I (1956)

The King’s Speech (2010)

The Kite Runner (2007)

Knights of the Round Table (1953)*

Knives Out (2019)

Kundun (1997)*

La Ronde (1950, France)*

La Strada (1954, Italy)

La Traviata (1982, Italy)*

Lady Be Good (1941)*

The Lady Eve (1941)

The Ladykillers (1955)*

The Last Emperor (1987)

A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

The Life Ahead (2020, Italy)*

Life is Beautiful (1997, Italy)

Life with Feathers (1945 short)

Lili (1953)

Lilies of the Field (1963)

The Lion in Winter (1968)*

Little Caesar (1931)

A Little Romance (1979)

Little Women (2019)

Logan (2017)

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

Lost Horizon (1937)

Love Affair (1939)*

Love Story (1970)*

Loving Vincent (2017)

The Magic Flute (1975, Sweden)

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

Malcolm X (1992)

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

A Man for All Seasons (1966)

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Maria Full of Grace (2004, Colombia)*

Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956)*

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

Mighty Joe Young (1949)*

Milk (2008)

Million Dollar Mermaid (1952)*

The Miracle Worker (1962)*

Mon Oncle (1958, France)

Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (1953, France)*

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

My Fair Lady (1964)

My Favorite Wife (1940)

My Favorite Year (1982)

My Night at Maud’s (1969)*

The Narrow Margin (1952)

The Natural (1984)

Nebraska (2013)

Network (1976)

Night Must Fall (1937)*

Nightcrawler (2014)*

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Ninotchka (1939)

Nowhere in Africa (2001, Germany)*

Odd Man Out (1947)*

The Official Story (1985, Argentina)*

Oklahoma! (1955)*

Oliver! (1968)

On Golden Pond (1981)*

On the Riviera (1951)*

On the Waterfront (1954)

One Day in September (1999)*

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

One Foot in Heaven (1941)

One Hour with You (1932)

One Potato, Two Potato (1964)*

Only Angels Have Wings (1939)*

Our Town (1940)

Paisan (1946, Italy)

Pal Joey (1957)*

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006, Mexico)

Paper Moon (1973)*

Parasite (2019, South Korea)

The Parent Trap (1961)

A Passage to India (1984)*

Patton (1970)

Pelle the Conqueror (1987, Denmark)*

Period. End of Sentence. (2018 short)

Persepolis (2007, France)

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)

Pigs in a Polka (1943 short)*

Pillow Talk (1959)*

Pinocchio (1940)

Places in the Heart (1984)*

Poltergeist (1982)

Portrait of Jennie (1948)

Precious (2009)*

The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)

The Private Life of Helen of Troy (1927)*

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)*

The Producers (1967)

Psycho (1960)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Purple Rain (1984)

Puss Gets the Boot (1940 short)

Pygmalion (1938)

Quiet Please! (1945 short)

Quo Vadis, Aida? (2020, Bosnia-Herzegovina)*

Rachel, Rachel (1968)*

Ran (1985, Japan)

Random Harvest (1942)

Rashômon (1950, Japan)

Rasputin and the Empress (1932)*

Rear Window (1954)

Rebecca (1940)

Red River (1948)

The Red Shoes (1948)

A River Runs Through It (1992)

Road to Perdition (2002)

Roma (2018, Mexico)

Saludos Amigos (1942)

Same Time, Next Year (1978)*

The Secret of Kells (2009)

Sense and Sensibility (1995)*

Sergeant York (1941)

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)

Seven Samurai (1954, Japan)

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

The Shape of Water (2017)

Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015)*

She Done Him Wrong (1933)*

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

The Shootist (1976)

The Shop on Main Street (1965, Czechoslovakia)

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Silverado (1985)

Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

Sleeping Beauty (1959)

The Smiling Lieutenant (1931)

The Snake Pit (1948)*

Song of the Sea (2014)

Sounder (1972)

The Sound of Music (1965)

The Spanish Main (1945)*

Speedy (1928)

Speedy Gonzales (1955 short)

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

Spirited Away (2001, Japan)

Stagecoach (1939)

A Star is Born (1937)

A Star is Born (1954)

A Star is Born (1976)*

A Star is Born (2018)

Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

Star Wars (1977)

Starship Troopers (1997)

The Sting (1973)

A Stolen Life (1946)*

The Story of Three Loves (1953)*

The Story of the Weeping Camel (2003, Mongolia)*

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)*

The Stranger (1946)*

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Strike Up the Band (1940)

Strings (1991 short)*

The Sundowners (1960)*

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

Superman (1978)

Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)

Swing Time (1936)

T-Men (1947)*

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013, Japan)

Tangerines (2013, Estonia)*

Tenet (2020)

Them! (1954)

Theodora Goes Wild (1936)*

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)*

This is Cinerama (1952)*

The Three Musketeers (1948)

Three Orphan Kittens (1935 short)

Time (2020)*

Timecode (2016 short, Spain)

Tom Jones (1963)

Toni Erdmann (2016, Germany)*

Top Hat (1935)

The Triplets of Belleville (2003, France)*

The Truman Show (1998)*

12 Angry Men (1957)

Twilight of Honor (1963)*

Two Girls and a Sailor (1944)*

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Umberto D. (1952, Italy)

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964, France)

Unforgiven (1992)

Up (2009)

Vertigo (1958)

Victor/Victoria (1982)

WALL-E (2008)

Watch on the Rhine (1943)*

Waterloo Bridge (1940)

Weary River (1929)*

West Side Story (1961)

Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968 short)

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Wolfwalkers (2020)

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

You Can’t Take It with You (1938)

Zorba the Greek (1964)*

The 15 nominated short films for the 93rd Academy Awards

The 8 nominees for Best Picture at the 93rd Academy Awards, including the winner, Nomadland

Until next year’s ceremony, folks - February will be here before we know it!

[therealyaspen]

Possessed Legend Go Brr

You know I was gonna just post a snippet bc I stopped writing this like five months ago bUT HERE HAVE A MESSY, UNEDITED BUT COMPLETE THING I GUESS?? Any grammatical errors will probably be looked over tomorrow dfnsav

So. The Lost Woods were still creepy as hell. Good to know. A dense fog still covered the area, and crows still screamed their call-and-respond at random seemingly just to startle anyone not expecting it. The same old eerie lantern-light darted between the trees, the same poes laughed at the group as they got up and dusted themselves off.

Some things would never change, Legend supposed, no matter how often you came back.

"Looks like the Lost Woods," Time observed. "Do we know whose era we're in?"

"Mine," Legend said with a glance at the pedestal in the middle of the clearing, "The Sword looks just like I left it."

Sky sighed sadly. "This place is so... different," he said, then turned to Legend and asked, "Are you going to take it?"

Legend shook his head. "Better to leave it here for now, I think." In truth, he didn't want to hold the blade ever again. Too many memories involved his hand clenched tight around the azure hilt of the Master Sword until his knuckles turned white. Without another word on the matter, he started walking. "We should probably get going before that scaly bastard can put anymore distance between himself and us. Follow me and stick close--Hyrule, no wandering off."

And so began the journey through the woos. As the group of heroes left the Sword behind them, however, it became increasingly apparent that something was wrong with the Lost Woods. The further they went from the clearing, the more obvious the signs were. The plants were wilting and turning a sickly purple grey color, the crows got to be fewer and fewer. Wild was caught trying to grab mushrooms that even Legend hadn't seen before three times. Even the poes seemed to notice that something was amiss and were avoiding the rest of the forest as much as they could.

Hyrule was the first to say anything. "Something's not right. There's magic here, but it's... wrong. Like Dark Link's," he announced, reaching up to touch a grayed leaf and recoiling with a yelp when it crumbled to dust in his hand. It almost looked like it had burned the Traveler.

"Then all we can do is stay on our toes and trust Legend to get us out of here," Twilight replied, and Legend noted the way that his pelt almost looked like the fur on the back of an animal's neck, bristling and on high alert. He nodded.

"New rule--don't touch anything. Wild, for Din's sake, put the mushrooms down!"

Wild gave him a kicked puppy look over his armload of slimy, red-capped fungi. "They look like they might be good for cooking!" he protested.

Legend pinched the bridge of his nose. "They also might be poisonous, you--" the Veteran stopped mid-sentence, and not of his own volition. He felt his arms drop to his sides, his face go slack. What the hell...? What in the actual goddess-damned fuck?! He wanted to shout, to rip whatever was doing this to him a new asshole, but he couldn't.

This was... something else. Something other.

"...Legend? You okay?" Wild asked. "It's fine dude, I'll put them down." Gingerly, he set the mushrooms on the ground, then put his hands up when Legend--or rather, the thing that was controlling Legend--didn't look away or change its expression or do anything. Get the fuck out of me! I swear to Hylia, I'll kick your ass! Legend swore at whatever it was, trying to force even just a little twitch of his finger.

Four looked at him warily. "Is he... do you guys think he can even hear us? Legend?" he asked, tentatively walking over to him. Yes! Yes, I can, and I have no goddess-damned clue what the hell's going on! Hyrule's arm shot out to stop Four. His eyes were wide, never leaving Legend.

"Don't," he said, voice cracking a little. "Something... something's really wrong."

Whatever had taken Legend's body finally decided to speak. Its voice was raspy and quiet and most certainly not his own. It sounded almost like fallen leaves scraping against the bare earth in the fall. "Trespassers... leave..."

Then Legend felt himself be thrown forward in a leap towards Hyrule, sword out and ready to attack. Move! He screamed, but again, his mouth didn't so much as twitch. Four grabbed the other hero and pulled him down just barely in time to avoid getting sliced in half, but the sound of steel cutting through flesh was as clear as Hyrule's scream as the blade struck him. The Traveler had a massive gash in his side. legend's arm moved up to deal a death blow, and he was begging now, Please, don't do this! Don't kill him, don't kill any of them, they're all I have--

Clang!

Legend would have cheered at the sound of his sword striking Wild's shield if he could. Wild pushed outwards with a shout, sending Legend stumbling back. Warriors and Time were on him before whatever had him could even think about getting up, though the thing was apparently much stronger than he was and was struggling violently in an attempt to throw both of them off. "What the hell are you doing?!" Warriors bellowed. The fury in his eyes almost physically burned, and Legend didn't really blame him. He'd probably react much the same.

"He's not himself," Time said. His voice was strained, and Legend could see that behind his neutral expression was a barrage of emotions. He couldn't imagine any of them were particularly pleasant. "Someone grab his sword!"

Twilight was just barely able to pry the weapon from his grip, which seemed to just further aggravate the thing inside him. Time and Warriors both ended up being thrown off. "Damn, that was... has he always been this strong?" Warriors muttered, getting up swiftly and moving to aid Sky in trying to grab Legend again.

It's probably whatever's causing him to act like this," Sky guessed. He blocked a punch aimed directly at his head and Legend silent-howled in pain as his fist connected with solid metal, but his body landed a blow to the Skyloftian's gut and a kick to Twilight's left knee.

He was sent downwards when Wind charged him and grabbed ahold of the back of his legs, then swore internally as his newly-retrieved sword tore through the Sailor's calf. "Fuck! I don't want to hurt him, but this asshole's sure not taking it easy on us!" the kid exclaimed.

Twilight was back on his feet quickly, though Legend noticed that he was favoring his injured knee just a little. He hoped to whoever would listen that this thing didn't see it too. Sky was a little slower to recover, but he got back up before Legend shook Wind off of him.

"Hey!"

Legend's head snapped in the direction of the shout to see Warriors. The Captain looked jarringly unsure and a little surprised, as if he hadn't meant to yell. He shook his head and the surprise disappeared, though he was clearly still uncertain. Legend was barreling into him before he could start speaking, and he hardly had time to get his shield up. "Snap our of it, Legend! This isn't--I know you're still in there!"

The thing controlling Legend kicked at Warriors' ankles, sending him toppling down. Warriors went at Legend's own ankles, hard. Fucking ow, asshole. Legend didn't even have time to think before he was on his stomach, Warriors holding his left wrist firmly against the ground and rendering the sword he held useless. The Captain's knee was in his back, and his full weight was holding Legend down. The whatever-it-was struggled, thrashing to get free, but the others were quick to secure his other limbs.

There was a beat of silence, save for ragged breathing and the sounds of a frantic attempt to get free, before Warriors spoke. His weight shifted a bit. "Sorry, Legend. We'll figure this out, I promise."

Then there was a pain in the back of Legend's neck, and he was released into unfeeling darkness.

~~~

When Legend awoke, the first thing he noticed was the rope tying his hands together. The second was the very familiar bed, and the third...

"Oh, Mister Hero! You're awake!"

Legend groaned and gave Ravio the evil eye when he helped him sit up, but was relieved to find that he could move his body on his own now. "What the hell am I doing here, and where are the others."

Ravio gasped, placing a hand on his chest. "Oh, you wound me! And here I was, worried you wouldn't wake up yourself!"

"Ravio..."

"Fine, fine--but you did give me quite the scare, you know! Being carried in, unconscious and apparently possessed and all--"

"Ravio!"

The merchant put his hands on his hips. "Hold your horses, Mister Hero, I'm gettin' to it! Your family--" Ah. Yeah. He had called them that, hadn't he? "--didn't have time to say much at first. Mister Cape pulled out his sword--somehow, he had the actual Master Sword, what's up with that?!--and did this thing with it Something about purifying a corrupted forest spirit and getting it out of you? I dunno, that kinda went over my head if I'm being honest,... Anyways, the sword burned up his hands pretty bad, so I pointed him and a bunch of the others towards Kakariko so they could find a healer or something. Mister Scarf, Mister Armor, and Freckles headed to the castle to try and get an audience with Zelda for help, in case the whole sword thing didn't work."

Legend frowned, taking a moment to digest all that. So Sky had tried to use the Master Sword to exorcise him? And apparently it had worked? But he'd hurt himself. Now Fable might get involved, and not only would he get the ass-chewing of the century, but she'd be wasting her time she could be spending not worrying about a brother that was okay, really. Legend sighed. "I guess we're gonna have to wait until they get back, then," he said. "Think you can untie me? I'm guessing these were put here in case I woke up and was... not myself." Come to think of it, how had he stayed out that long? Had Hyrule used sleeping potions? That had to be it, there was no ay he would have been out for the entire trek from the Lost Woods to his house otherwise.

A mischievous light glinted in Ravio's eyes. "Hm... I'm not sure, how do I know you're not just that evil, corrupted spirit impersonating Link? Think you can prove you're not?"

"Fucker-- you know damn well I'm not!"

"Mmm, I dunno~"

Legend seethed. "Fine, when you started your 'rental shop' or whatever, the thing that pissed me off the most was that you moved my goddess-damned bed. That good?"

Ravio clapped his hands together, and Sheerow chirped from somewhere across the room. "It really is you, Mister Hero!" he exclaimed cheerfully, going to work at the knot holding Legend's hands together.

He would still be working at it when Time, Warriors, and Hyrule returned with Fable to the sound of Legend screaming at him to just cut the damn thing.