#source: style over net

[jokeroutsubs]

📝[ENG Translation] Joker Out exclusively for Style.

Before their performance at Sziget, Joker Out spoke exclusively to Style.Over.Net about what this means to them and when we can expect new music.

Article written by Meta Vrazic, published on 22.08.2024 on the Style.Over. Net website.

Translation by @kurooscoffee, review by a member of JokerOutSubs, proofread by @flowerlotus8

What do Tom Odell, Sam Smith, Bebe Rexha, and Kylie Minogue have in common?

All of these music giants shared the stage last week with the Slovenian band Joker Out at one of the biggest European festivals, Sziget.

Before their performance, they spoke exclusively to Style.Over.Net about what this means to them and when we can expect new music.

Photo: Vita Orehek

You're performing at Sziget, which means you're sharing the stage with some of the biggest names in the music industry. What does this mean for you?

Bojan: For us, this is a dream come true. Today (editor's note: on the day of the concert), we'll reach or even surpass our hidden hopes and dreams that every band starting out at 15 years old has.

Kris: I'd like to add that, in my opinion, it doesn't matter that much who is on stage before or after me. I focus more on which other performers have played on this stage at this time. In 2018, I listened to one of my favourite bands, The Kooks, at this exact time at Sziget. Lewis Capaldi also had his first performance at this time, and yesterday, Tom Odell got this slot. To me, it's an incredible achievement that we can compare ourselves with such names, especially in our region.

So you would equate yourselves with these artists? Do you see yourselves as equals?

Bojan: Yes, we're on par with Lewis Capaldi (laughs). No, we don't see ourselves as equals, but I would emphasise that this festival has 60 stages and over a thousand performers. So, being on the main stage at such a time is quite an amazing feeling.

Photo: Vita Orehek

In a recent interview, you mentioned differences between Slovenian and European stages. So, I have to ask – do you have a shower here?

Jure: Yes, I saw a shower. We'll definitely shower after the show since we're heading straight into a van and back to the studio.

So, you won't have a chance to walk around Sziget? When did you even arrive?

Jure: We left Hamburg at 7 AM, arrived at 11 AM, had a coffee, did a soundcheck, now we're talking to the media, then it's the concert, and back. It's pretty packed.

Photo: Vita Orehek

You've already performed for various audiences in many countries. Which audience is more demanding, Slovenian or international?

Bojan: Slovenian, for sure, because it's our home crowd. Other artists we've talked to also say that the home audience is always more demanding.

In Slovenia, we're omnipresent, both musically and in the media, so there are certain expectations. Some might even come to our shows hoping our performace would suck, so they can justify not liking us. Meanwhile, in other countries, they don't understand what we're saying, so they come just to let loose, dance, and have a good time.

International audiences sing incredibly well. If you closed your eyes during the concert and just listened, you'd think you were in Slovenia.

Kris: I'd add that someone willing to listen to music in another language is by default more open-minded and less demanding.

What's tougher: Sziget or Eurovision?

Jure: Eurovision, because we had no experience, and the pressure was much greater. We prepared for it for six months, whereas for a concert, you have a day or maybe even just a few hours.

Bojan: At Eurovision, it doesn't matter how good you are or what kind of performance you have. If you mess up in those three minutes, you're done. There are so many people there who don't care about your story or how precise you are—if you make a mistake, it's over. Whereas at a concert, you're there to have fun, and even mistakes are welcome as they make the experience more enjoyable.

Photo: Vita Orehek

How do you prepare for concerts? Do you have any special rituals?

Bojan: Not really. About 30 minutes before the concert, we completely calm down, practice a little, and then we all shout our motto together.

We've all heard stories about stars with very specific backstage food and drink requests. Do you have any special requests? What must be there for you?

Jure: Ginger shots, sour candies, vitamin water, towels...

Bojan: A mirror! It sounds bizarre, but there's often no mirror backstage, and before you go on stage, you can't check that everything's in place. So now we've specifically added a mirror to our list.

Is there even any stage fright still present before the concerts?

All: Yes, definitely.

Kris: Sometimes it happens about 20 minutes before the performance, depending on the day you're having.

Photo: Vita Orehek

And who's the most nervous?

Jure: Lately, it's been Bojan.

You now have songs in three different languages. What does this mean for your target audience? What is your target audience like, actually?

Bojan: We aim to have a good time. To play and enjoy ourselves, this music comes from us – and we haven't changed much during this time. Of course, we always try to find something new and different, depending on where the wind takes us.

I mainly think that you don't need to take this too seriously. If everyone checks their playlist and looks at the music they listen to, it's probably not all the same and monotonous. Why shouldn't it be the same for performers?

Have you ever felt that you aren't taken seriously because of the “boyband” label?

Bojan: We get this most often precisely in Slovenia. When we did interviews abroad, serious journalists approached us with a great deal of respect. They often even came to our concerts before the interview and expressed their enthusiasm and respect—you can feel that they take you seriously. Still, this doesn't bother us in Slovenia either, because, in reality, we are a “boyband.”

Photo: Vita Orehek

Do you ever get tired of any of your songs?

Kris: I always enjoy all our songs, but during a one-month tour in Europe, we involved the audience during the song 'Umazane misli'. And sometimes, while waiting for the audience, it drags on and gets a bit boring.

Bojan: Well, I had a great time even during those moments.

Of course, we need to check in on how the new album is coming along. When will it see the light of day?

Bojan: The album is expected to be “on time,” and you can expect it at the end of October. So far, things are moving well; we occasionally hit a “bump” that throws us off rhythm, but we're satisfied. We're doing well and holding up great.

[shithowdy]

this is your periodic reminder that for all the artifacts and errors and "tells" one could possibly list, the only reliable way to actually determine if an image is ai generated is to investigate the source. it is becoming increasingly common for "fake classical paintings" to circulate around curative aesthetic blogs, and everyone should be using this as an opportunity to not only exercise their investigative skills but also appreciate art more in general. you're all checking out the artists you reblog, right? 🫣

so what are some signs to look for? let's use this very good example.

what a lovely late-impressionist piece blended with evocative leyendecker-esque themes! why haven't you ever heard of this artist before? surely tumblr would be all over an artist like this. who is justin brown?

your two options from here are to do a search for the name, or a reverse image search. i prefer reverse image searching, particularly when it comes to a common name like "justin brown". so what does that net?

Immediately, without looking at any text, something is wrong: it barely exists. an actual historical piece would turn up numerous results from websites individually discussing the piece, but no such discussions are taking place. Looking at the text, though, does show the source-- and at least in this case, the creator was honest about their medium.

But let's also look at the "exact matches", in case a source doesn't make itself apparent in the initial sidebar results like this.

This section will often tell you post dates of images, and here it can be seen that the very first iteration of the image was posted 15 days ago. It did not exist online prior to that.

Seeing how long an unsourced image has been floating around is a skill applicable to more than just generative images! See a cool image of an artifact or other intriguing item with a vivid caption? Reverse search it! If all the results are paired with that caption and only go back a few months, you might just have viral facebook spam.

Sometimes generative creators are dishonest about their medium and do not tag it like in the example, so that's when establishing "jpeg provenance" becomes important. While it can be a little trickier to determine if someone is using generative images and not admitting to it if they aren't trying to pass it off as a classic, something to consider is the age of their account and the frequency with which they post. Here are some account red flags:

-Did they only start posting art after 2022, or if they did before, did their style/skill level WILDLY change? Not gradual improvement-- I'm talking amateur graphite portraits straight into complex digital renders. Everyone starts somewhere, newness is not a red flag alone; it's newness combined with existing in a vacuum away from any community.

-Do they post fully-finished paintings several times a week? -Do many of these paintings seem iterative of a similar theme or subject matter ("three well-dressed young men face each other under shade and dappled sunlight")?

-Does their style change in inconsistent ways? An artist that can swap between painting like Drew Struzan and Hokusai should be pretty well known, right? Why is no one hyping this guy?!

-Do they have social media besides the source instagram? If so, what are they posting about? Are there any WIPs? Doodles? Interactions with other artists? Gallery dates? 3am self-doubt posts? Or is it all self-promo? Crypto? Seemingly nothing art-related at all for someone pushing out 3 weekly paintings?

Basically, if it's important to you to omit this stuff when you curate, please don't just smash reblog if the source doesn't seem to be the OP themselves. Seeking out sources was important even before this became an issue, now it is more than ever.

peace n love

[sunderwight]

A fun prospect for Superhero-themed SV AU's that I don't often see is genre dissonance. Like, Luo Binghe as this edgy 90's style antihero who just straight up kills his enemies and sleeps around and is driven by selfish motives (revenge, ambition, etc) rather than altruistic morality, vs Shen Qingqiu as this kid-friendly supervillain who is "evil" mostly in terms of aesthetics and his ability to make inconvenient problems that are reasonably safe for child heroes to solve. Something like Punisher vs Team Rocket in terms of vibes.

Maybe the reason they meet is because some big publishing house akin to Marvel or DC just bought up the rights to whole bunch of older, discontinued comics titles, and decided to do a Justice League/Avengers style mash-up with a bunch of nostalgia properties and their most recognizable heroes and villains. Which means lots of crossovers condensing several titles into a handful of series.

Luo Binghe's origin always features him as a teenager, so he reboots as the youngest Avenger-equivalent team member in the new continuity. Even in this reboot, however, the writers still mostly go the gritty and dark route with his plots and stick to the same key developments -- his abandonment as an infant, his adoptive mother's tragic death, his tough life on the streets, abusive mentors and backstabbing "allies", and so on.

But Luo Binghe's life suddenly starts experiencing periods of dramatic change in his life when he's brought in for appearances in the lighter, friendlier world of the Junior Heroes continuity. After all, he's a natural choice for tying the two continuities together thanks to his youthfulness. Luo Binghe isn't consciously aware of the fact that he's moving between different titles and different writers. All he knows is that sometimes, when he hangs out with the bright and talented Ning Yingying, he's drawn into "conflicts" with Shen Qingqiu -- the kind of "villain" who will call for tea breaks, never actually hits anyone when he shoots his ray gun, leaves clues for all of his crimes, and can't seem to stop from imparting genuinely helpful advice in between his witty quips and taunts.

When Luo Binghe fights Shen Qingqiu, somehow he never actually gets hurt. Neither do any of his friends. The world in general seems brighter and lighter, as if there is some secret barrier protecting everyone from all the evils Binghe knows only too well exist in the rest of his life. Luo Binghe is increasingly convinced that Shen Qingqiu is the source of this mystical safety net. After all, for an allegedly powerful genius who is able to fool half the world about his wicked aims, he's never won a single fight against a kindhearted but somewhat ditzy teenager and her ragtag bunch of friends!

So what's he spending his actual energy on?

Luo Binghe is pretty sure it's keeping the real evils at bay. Making himself the biggest bad in town, and in doing that, making it so that the "biggest bad" is nothing worse than a slightly judgmental teacher in a pretty costume.

It's not long before Luo Binghe doesn't want to go back to the Justice League equivalent, to his world of misery and strife, even after his visits with Ning Yingying are supposed to be over. Especially as the global stakes of various heroic activities start getting higher, and it becomes clear that the boundary between Shen Qingqiu's safe world and the grimdark reality of Binghe's usual life are getting thinner...

[runningfrom2am]

cold nights // part twenty-eight

summary: you were back in the capitol, and you would be damned if you didn't try your hardest to make it worthwhile.

pairing: coriolanus snow x fem!reader

wc: 3.3k

masterlists / nav / requests

tags/warnings: tribute!reader and mentor!coriolanus, r is very sweet (too kind for this world. literally.), sunshine x grumpy trope kinda, he falls first, violence typical for the source material, depictions of mental illness, also she's is very smart (as she should), district twelve!reader.

a/n: ahh hiii sorry i went ghost on yall i have been BOOKED and i am so sick and just,,, yeah. life is catching up to me omg

my asks are also open to talk about this series! (i do have emoji anons open now too!)

send me any and all of your thoughts! here!

series masterlist // playlist

Coryo must have been running a few minutes late today, since he hasn't come to get you from your class yet. It was eating into your lunch, which you didn't mind, but still- it was outside of your very structured routine.

Looking down the now almost empty halls, books held against your chest as you wait for your boyfriend.

'Boyfriend'.

The term still felt weird, but you can't help the giddy feeling that manifests into a small smile on your face as butterflies flutter their way into your chest. Still, though, there was no sign of this boyfriend of yours.

"Y/N, hello." Your name pulls you out of the internal mantra, and you look up to its source; a boy who had just walked out of your class after staying back to speak to the professor. He had short hair, styled up the same way Coryo's was day to day now- but it wasn't nearly as blonde. This boy has kind eyes, and it relaxes you from the unexpected interaction.

"Hi there." You smile at the boy, trying to hide how furiously you're searching your head for his name. In classes of forty to fifty students, it was difficult for you to remember especially when you'd only heard their names once and never spoken to essentially all of them. "I'm so sorry," You say to the boy, smile shifting to apologetic. "You'll have to remind me of your name."

"Hilarius." He tells you, and seems to take it in stride.

"Yes! Oh, of course. My apologies." You laugh slightly, a force of habit pushing your hand out to shake his.

He grins as he takes it. "No worries." He adjusts his bag over his shoulder, looking past you and down the halls. "Are... are you waiting for someone?"

"Yes," You nod, and the confusion surrounding why you were just standing there clears from his features. "Coriolanus."

"Ah." Hilarius nods.

"Do you know him?" You ask, having that be your go-to for small talk with your new peers. So far, it's worked well. No one you've had the chance to speak to yet has said no.

"Yeah, yeah. I do." He rubs his jaw as he answers. "We've never been close, but we went to school together. He's in one of my classes now, actually."

"Really?" You smile. "Which one?"

"Poli sci."

"Oh, nice! That's his major. He knows an awful lot about it already- if there's any group projects he's definitely someone you would want working with you." You gush, adjusting your hold on your books.

"Yeah, he's pretty smart." Hilarius agrees.

"Have you decided on your major yet?" You ask. "Political science and English is a wide net to cast."

He shrugs. "Kind of, I don't know. My parents want me to go into business or politics, but I don't think that's what I want."

"The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream." You hum. "I think you should pursue what you want. Not what they tell you you should."

He tilts his head at you, a confused smile on his face. "You do really speak that way, don't you?"

"Well, yes." You laugh.

"I'll be honest, I thought you were playing us all for fools to try and get people to like you."

"Oh, no. I am not smart enough for a ruse like that." You giggle, shaking your head.

"Sure you are." He laughs. "I mean clearly, you are."

"I promise that's not it at all." You assure him quickly.

"Yeah, yeah I know that." He gives you a calm smile. "Hey, do you... do you have time before your next class? I have a little bit if you want to grab lunch together."

"I do, but I usually eat with Coryo." You explain, but he was fifteen minutes late by now. Maybe if you just went to the courtyard he would meet you there. "But we always eat in the courtyard between the buildings, so if we go there I'm sure he'll know where to find us."

"Then lead the way." Your new friend nods to you and you smile, heading off down the hall in the direction of the exit.

Coryo rushes out of his lecture hall as soon as they're done. How the professor had so little care for holding them back an extra twenty minutes just to "wrap up" on a lecture concept was unbelievable to him. Other people had other classes, and he had to get to you.

When he makes it to your building and your class, he assumes your professor must have done the same thing when he doesn't see you in the hall. Peeking into the classroom, he doesn't have the time to be relieved since another class has already started and you are not sitting there listening. He takes a step back and looks around, thoroughly confused.

Where did she go?

He doesn't know if you're comfortable enough here to be wandering off on your own, but you must be. Or you were with someone. Likely Sejanus, if you were to go off with anyone, but as far as Coryo knew Sejanus was in a class across campus right now. Or he was at least supposed to be.

Immediately he picks up his pace stalking through the halls. After ten minutes, it's clear you were nowhere in the building. He even ran the risk of checking the women's bathrooms after his second lap, scared that maybe you were sick or hurt. But no, you were just gone.

Okay, Coriolanus- think realistically about this. Maybe she just went to wait at our usual lunch spot.

That had to be it, so cursing himself for wasting more time, he heads outside.

Sure enough, he was right. He just wishes he had thought of that sooner- especially when he had neglected the possibility that you had been kidnapped.

"I do love it here, I really do." You smile, trying to be convincing enough to your new friend. "Of course, there is always so much to learn! I'm just really grateful for the opportunity." You say, covering your mouth with your palm as you speak and chew at the same time.

"Come on, Y/N. You can be honest with me." Hilarius says, raising an eyebrow at you. "That sounded extremely scripted. There aren't peacekeepers holding a gun to your head, so... just be honest."

You laugh nervously, looking around. "Okay... I mean, it's fine. I'm comfortable, and I love Coryo and everything don't get me wrong!" You defend quickly, and he just nods. "But... I miss my family and my friends, the music, the food... just, it's really not the same."

"I can imagine." He nods sympathetically.

"Here," You offer him your container of fruit in an effort to soften the subject. "Take some, it's far too much for me."

"Thank you." He agrees politely, taking a raspberry from the mix and popping it into his mouth.

"Please, though, don't tell anyone. I did that whole interview convincing everyone that I was happier than ever here and I just don't want to start any trouble."

"You have my word." Hilarius nods, holding out his pinky to you which you accept with a smile.

"Can I tell you a secret?" He says quietly, and you nod while you grab another strawberry from the glass in your lap.

"You kind of owe me one, now." You tease.

He laughs, but his smile fades quickly. "I feel like... Everyone here loves the games, but I hate them." He admits, taking you by surprise. "I want you to know that I think it's absolutely cruel. I mean, little Wovey... She was just the sweetest and- and I feel so guilty about it all. I wish I got to choose whether or not I wanted to mentor."

You nod, swallowing back the rest of the fruit in your mouth. Suddenly, the sweetness makes you nauseous. "She was." You agree quietly, closing your eyes for a moment and preparing for yet another distressing conversation. "I am sorry I couldn't save her."

"Don't be." He corrects you quickly, a worried expression greeting you when you looked at him again. "That's not what I meant, there was nothing more you could have done. You were a friend to her, she really liked you. She had someone, that's the best either of us could offer."

You nod slightly, chewing instead into your lip and leaving your lunch abandoned. "I-I..." You take a shaky breath. "If I could go back, I would have protected her more. She should have won." You choke your way through the statement, eyes burning from holding back tears. Every time you have one of these conversations it feels like you think someone else should have won. Never you.

"Don't cry, please don't cry." He pleads, placing a hand on your shoulder and you freeze under his touch.

"Don't, please." You say quietly, gently shaking off his hand. You couldn't be touched right now, but how was he to know that? This wasn't his fault.

"I'm sorry." Hilarius says, eyes wide as he watches you. "I didn't think, I shouldn't have said anything but I-"

"What the hell did you say to her?!" Your boyfriend's voice is the next one that rings in your ears, you look up to your right to see him walking over quickly, and Hilarius shuffles to get up.

"Nothing! Nothing, I- I don't know." He defends quickly. "I didn't mean to upset her, honestly."

Then Coryo is crouching in front of you, waving a hand in front of your face. "Hey, you're okay." He says softly, offering you a worried smile. "I've got you, alright?"

You nod a little bit, moving your things away from yourself with trembling hands. "I know."

"Is she okay?" Hilarius asks and you nod again, trying to smile in his direction.

"No. Get out of here, Heavensbee. I'll clean up your mess." Coryo spits at him, and he apologizes again quickly before grabbing his bag and disappearing across the grass.

"Coryo, he didn't-"

"Don't worry about it, love." Coryo smiles at you, suddenly less angry than he was a moment ago. "Just take some deep breaths for me, can you do that?"

"I-I'm fine." You breathe out, chest rising and falling quickly.

"Yeah, you're doing great." Coryo smiles, looking around quickly before adjusting so he's kneeling just in front of you. "Tell me about your readings. Anything good today?" He asks, already knowing the answer.

"I'm glad I went back to class today." You say cheerily as you climb into the car, your boyfriend right on your heels.

"Yes, I am too." He says as you buckle up in the middle seat and he closes the door before getting comfortable next to you. "You're getting so much better."

You nod, looking out through the tinted windows as the car begins to move into traffic. You weren't sure if "better" was the correct term- it didn't sit right with you. You weren't sick, not that you thought, anyway, but maybe he was right. The mention of the other tributes' names would have had you on your knees a matter of months ago; you would have been down for the count for days. Still, though, it felt unsettling to hear it said like that.

If getting better meant not being as hurt by their deaths, maybe it's best if you never recover.

"Hey, are you hungry?" He asks after a moment, watching your eyes glaze over as you stare across him and out the window at all the other young people walking by. "I was thinking we could go try that ice cream place I was telling you about on the train."

You blink away the disassociation, smiling up at him instead. "Yes, that sounds lovely."

"What kind do you think you'll get?" You ask, leaning into Coryo's side as you approach the shop. It was late afternoon, so it was a little busy, but really not all that bad. Crowds bothered you less and less, these days.

"I'm not sure." He replies. "Probably like... vanilla."

"Vanilla?" You giggle. "That's so boring! You said they have every flavour imaginable, and you're settling for vanilla?"

"Okay, well, what do you suggest?" He chuckles, pulling the door open for you as you step through.

"I don't know, I just think you should consider all your options first." You shrug, eyes already landing on the handwritten chalkboard menu that spans the back wall. "Oh, wow..." You say under your breath, eyes going wide.

Coryo watches you with a smile on his face, gently brushing his hand over your back. "Okay, I know what I want." You speak quickly, and he laughs.

"What? There's no way you read all of it just now."

"No, course not." You shake your head, eyes still locked on the board as the sound of people chattering surrounds you. "Coryo, what's white chocolate?" You ask, gently tugging on his sleeve and pointing to where you see it.

"Uh, it's chocolate, but white." He answers, really unsure as well. "Tastes a little different than regular chocolate, but hardly."

"Okay, yes. I want that. With raspberries, it says." You nod in finality.

"Yes, ma'am." He agrees. "Wait right here, love." He says and you nod as he walks over to the counter, and you get to look at the colourful paint on the walls and all the buckets of ice cream behind the glass barrier.

"You're Y/N, right? The victor?" A girl's voice asks you and you turn to instead give them your full attention, nodding with a nervous smile.

"In the flesh." You smile, tilting your head slightly. She must be just a few years younger than you, maybe Len's age.

"Oh, wow! We thought so!" She grins, nodding back to a group of other kids, all of whom are donning the same red uniform you always saw Coryo in earlier in the year. "It's so nice to meet you! Oh my gosh, you're so pretty in person." She gushes. "Not that you weren't on screen, but just- wow, I mean, sorry. I'm just nervous."

"Oh, please, don't be." You smile at her, trying to be reassuring as you press a hand to your chest. "I get nervous meeting people all the time. What's your name, hun?"

"Lexus." She answers with an excited smile and flushed cheeks.

"Lexus! What a beautiful name." You say, partially to fill the silence. "It reminds me of my little brother, his name is Lennox. He's about your age, too."

"That's really cool!" She smiles. "How old are you? I mean, obviously under eighteen, but I'm just wondering because I have an older brother so it would be funny if I was the same age as your brother and my brother was the same age as you. If that makes sense, gosh, sorry- I'm rambling..."

"No, no, you're alright!" You laugh slightly, honestly relieved that she was able to do most of the talking. "And I am eighteen. My birthday was during the games, actually."

Her eyes widen. "Really? That's so lucky! That must have felt so special. What a gift!"

A gift?

You almost choke on the air, patting your hand on your chest as you swallow it down. "Well," You clear your throat, looking over to your boyfriend while he's collecting change from the girl working at the counter. "Only because Coriolanus brought me an amazing gift."

"What did he give you?" She asks, and you still haven't torn your eyes away from him as he walks over, silently pleading for his help.

"What did who give you?" He asks, eyeing her as he walks back up to rejoin you.

"I was just telling Lexus that you gave me an amazing birthday present." You explain.

"Oh, well, no. It was very lame, I'm afraid." He shrugs modestly.

"No, it wasn't!" You laugh, swatting his arm before looking over at her again. "He gave me my favourite book, and his cousin even made me a cake. We had a little celebration just before the games, didn't we?"

"Kind of." He chuckles.

"No, hush. It was perfect, I couldn't have asked for anything better."

"I could think of a few better ways to spend your birthday-"

"You guys are really cute." Lexus cuts in before he can finish, and your cheeks flush pink as your attention is drawn back to her. You don't notice how his face pales.

"Oh, no." You laugh. "He's just a little stubborn sometimes, I think my birthday was perfect, and my opinion on it is the only one that matters, no?" You look up at him, raising an eyebrow.

Coryo collects himself quickly, raising his hands defensively with a smile. "Of course, you're right."

"I know I am." You smile, lifting your nose in pride.

He turns as his name is called, seeing the same girl with your ice cream cones waiting. "Did- did you want a picture or something?" He asks Lexus and she nods, cheeks red.

"If that would be okay, Y/N." She looks to you.

"Oh, of course it is!" You smile, following her back over to the table. Her friends were watching silently the entire time, eyes wide in awe. "Hi..." You say, suddenly nervous as none of them greet you. Lexus must have been the chosen one for being able to speak to you, and she was sent over because the others were too shy.

"Here," Lexus says quickly, moving her bag from the seat at the table and fishing a camera out of it. "Take a seat, I'll sit over here." She slides into her friend's lap across from you, making them all laugh as she holds the camera out to Coryo. "Would you mind?" She asks him.

"Not at all." He says, taking it carefully and turning it over in his hands to find the right button.

"It's that button on the top." She points vaguely and he nods, getting the gist of it quickly. "It comes in handy to be in photography right now, apparently."

You laugh slightly and lean over the table slightly, tilting your head as you smile.

"Ready?" Coryo asks and you nod, hearing mumbles of agreement as you raise your hand from where it rests against the table, holding your pinky under your thumb and raising three fingers.

The flash almost blinds you, but you try not to blink.

"Lovely." Coryo says as he passes the camera back to Lexus and she stands up to take it.

"What does this mean?" Her friend asks, mimicking the salute you did for the photo.

"Oh, we do it back home." You explain. "It means peace and unity, or something along those lines depending on context." Getting up from the seat, you shrug a bit. "Force of habit, I suppose."

"Oh, cool! I didn't know that." She replies and you just nod, eyes following Coryo as he quickly rushes over to grab your ice cream. "Well, I should probably go before that melts, but it was so nice to meet you!"

"Yes, of course, thank you!" Lexus grins. "Maybe we'll see you around!"

"I hope so!" You smile. "Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me." You wave, turning to go after your boyfriend.

"What's that from?" He asks when you reach his side, knowing your shift in tone.

"Hamlet." You answer as he holds the ice cream cone out for you and you take it happily.

"Ah." He chuckles, giving the kids a nod as he follows you to the door.

"She said I am so lucky that my birthday was during the games." You say as the door shuts behind you, and you resist the urge to look back in through the window.

"Oh, wow." Coryo laughs, shaking his head. "Yeah, I mean, kids around here don't get it. I don't think they understand what's really happening."

"Clearly not." You focus on licking up the drips that have begun to stray down the side of the cone. "This is really good!" You say excitedly, back to your normal self as you look up to him walking next to you down the sidewalk.

"Yeah?" He smiles.

"Yes." You hum, taking the first real lick off the top. "What did you get?"

"Vanilla." He chuckles, already knowing how you will react.

"Vanilla? Oh, Coryo, you need to expand your horizons a bit." You tsk, teasingly shaking your head at him.

"Hey, it's not my fault it's good."

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okay suddenly tumblr isn't letting me tag more people than this so i just made some cuts unfortunately :') i just left the max amount of people i could whose users i recognized and see in my notifs all the time :) if you're not on here and you should be i'm so sorry!

also this taglist is closed now!! if you’d like to get a notification when i update, turn on my post notifications!! i promise i won’t spam y'all :,)

[theghostparty]

Roméo et Juliette: de la Haine à l'Amour - Redesign - 2024

To understand my completely unnecessary desire to redesign a musical that is over twenty years old, you have to understand that Romeo et Juliette is my Roman Empire. Long explanation under the break.

I wanted this design to be an homage in the silliest way possible.

I really leant into the sensibilities of original costume designer Dominique Borg, who used contemporary colour and technique and applied it to historical (or pseudo-historical) silhouettes.

Broadly, I wanted the Montagues to feel English in their shapes--Elizabethan doublets, high necklines, and ruffs, in homage to Shakespeare and the source text. They're all leather, denim, silver hardware--a little bit punk with status.

The Capulets would be deeply Italian Renaissance in their silhouettes, in reference to the setting of the play. They're all velvets, lace, chiffon, satins, and gold hardware--giving them an airiness of the Mediterranean while still allowing some drape here and there.

I wanted each family to have a slightly more broad palette than most versions afford them--which is why the Montagues have a smattering of green and magenta while the Capulets play with some soft yellows and lavenders.

The ball scene is largely Arthurian in inspiration--just because I took the idea of "what would the 1500s consider vintage and costume-y in the same way we think of the Victorian era" and ran away with it. There's also some silly Y2K nonsense because I rewatched the "On dit dans la rue" music video and thought "What if the Capulets threw this big Arthurian affair with full elegance and the Montagues cobbled together some gay club outfits circa 1998 fits out of a suit of armour."

FINALLY, I wanted Roméo and Juliette to take on elements of each other's family's style and colours for the end of the play--because to be loved is to be changed.

So here is a breakdown of my choices for each of the looks.

Un Jour: Here we see Roméo in his base look. It's a two-tone patent leather double with multiple zipper details. The peplum is criss-crossed zippers. The wings over the shoulder seams are edged with zipper teeth. The ruff detail at the neckline is also edged with zipper teeth. He has along zipper across the front of his boot like he's trying to be the next Sailor Moon. I don't know y'all. I went a little feral with trying to figure out all the places I could put zippers in.

Juliette is the most juvenile looking in Un Jour. I imagine that in this scene, she's being dressed by her family instead of her own volition.

She's in an asymmetrical, empire-waisted gown that is likely a brocaded or printed silk. Her chemise is a sheer lavender georgette or chiffon that peaks through the lacing at the shoulders and along the upper arms. She has a velvet choker and velvet belt and a heavily stoned velvet headband. Her hairstyling (it would have to be a wig, it would be NUTS to not make this a wig) is an homage to the open-weave Juliet caps that were similar to nets worn in the period on hair. Italy was, fun fact, one of the few countries where women didn't cover their hair during the renaissance.

L'amour heureux: As I explained above, Roméo's outfit is so silly. The wrap around glasses. The one arm of armour. The sheer, stoned period shirt. The gold brocade on the trousers. The pearl earring. The many, unnecessary belts. Bless this mess. It's also a cheeky little nod to Baz Lurhmann's Romeo + Juliet.

Juliette is, ostensibly, cosplaying as Guinevere or Lady Macbeth or Ophelia or any number of Middle Ages women. The ball is the Capulet's opportunity to really sell their daughter as marriage material so I wanted the look to feel bridal, hence the veil. I wanted to give reference to exaggerated surcote sleeves without actually doing them, hence the sleeve-into-glove and bow detailing with trails down to the floor. There is also a hint of yellow chemise underneath, which is actually just her Le balcon look underdressed for ease of the quick change (yes, I did think about this.) The dress is velvet with one panel of lace in-set into the underskirt. The bows are satin-face organza.

Le balcon: Romeo would change into his base again (during Le Poète). Juliette is in a simple yet totally impractical sheer chemise + slip combo. I wanted this soft yellow for this sequence because I always think about the lines "O she doth teach the torches to burn bright!" and "But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?/It is the east and Juliet is the sun" when it comes to describing her. The chemise would likely be a chiffon, while the slip would be silk.

Aimer: I say this with my whole chest--I hate how they changed the palette for Aimer in the 2010 production. I want my lovers soft and angelic and matching in this moment of union. Here we see a bit more of Romeo's lace shirt--his sleeves are laced like Juliette's in the first look. His doublet, trouser, boot combo are off-white leather in homage to the original production. Juliette's dress has a similar train length to her ball look (again, bridal) and we see the neckline creep up into a ruff (Elizabethan, rather than Italian). Lots of sheer net and lace with cream bridal satin as a skirt. Tiered sleeves. A little circlet on her head.

Le poison: Honestly? Just wanted her to have another outfit change before her death dress as a transitional choice. There's so much more of the purple in this look because it's going to take us into the blue elements of the final dress.

La mort de Roméo/Juliette: Again. To be loved is to be changed. Juliette has a dropped waistline, a high neckline and ruff, and a heart shaped cut-out detail (see: boob window). She's straight up in blue, and all the sweet and soft pinks of her youth are gone. Romeo has lost his high neckline, ruff, wins, and peplum in favour of a shorter Italian silhouette. He's asymmetrical (a call-back to Juliette's asymmetry) and all the edging detail is done in red. Mantua as a setting is patchworked, torn, and dirty, so I imagine the doublet is pieced together from scraps of jersey (so it's drippy and sad and hangs off him in a lovely manner).

[gothhabiba]

hello! i am a longtime huge admirer of your clothing/fashion sense, as well as a longtime backreader of your #victorian and #goth tags. i am really interested in what you've written about Victorian dress, and i am looking to get more into 19th and 20th century clothing for gender + diy craft reasons. i'm so sorry if you've answered similar questions before, but do you have any tips for where a newbie should start researching? either way, thank you thank you, your blog opens my mind wide and brings me much joy and reflection!

General research:

Spend some time searching the 'net, museum websites, and archive sites for fashion plates (such as archive.org—link leads to a date-restricted query for "fashion"—or the Smithsonian—link leads to fashion plates in their image collection). Take note of what you like, as well as which styles correspond to which decade. Karolina Żebrowska has a good rundown of English fashion over the decades.

The undergarments are what does the most work creating the necessary silhouette to make Victorian & Edwardian womenswear fit properly. If you've figured out a decade you want your outfit to draw on, doing a quick search for "[decade] undergarments" should bring up plenty of blog posts, which may or may not cite primary sources (such is the fickle nature of the historical blogosphere). Bustle pads and sleeve supports can be purchased or made; they're both pretty simple, and tutorials abound.

Purchasing clothing:

Reproduction made-to-measure clothing can be readily found on etsy, but can be in the several-hundred USD range. I've had some luck finding vintage reproduction clothing (like, a skirt someone made by hand in the 1980s to a 1900s walking skirt pattern), which tends to be much cheaper.

Men, women, and children wore stays and corsets. As far as I know, Orchard Corset has the cheapest OTR corsets that are good quality and safe to wear. If you get a corset in the style of a specific decade handmade or made to measure, make sure that the seller tells you what the boning material is, what construction the boning is (spiral steel is sturdiest and most flexible), how many bones there are, what the corset material is, &c.—otherwise it's an indication of an unserious maker. Follow general advice for wearing corsets at a waist reduction (lace up slowly, break it in, &c.).

Antique Menswear on youtube gives a lot of good, practical advice for wearing late 19th-century and early 20th-century men's clothing (including where to buy reproductions and how to treat them, how to modify modern shirts to 19th-century standards with basically no sewing skills, &c.).

Actual antique clothing can be found and purchased online or at estate sales—usually in very small sizes, but I've seen Edwardian skirts and petticoats in an XL (also a small size, but...). You can also just simply browse this kind of thing for inspiration and save photos of anything you think you'd like to recreate.

Even clothing that was not "meant" to be worn by re-enactors can be clearly historically influenced (e.g. the huge boom in Victorian- and Edwardian- style blouses in the 1980s), so keep an open mind when shopping for vintage clothing! A lot of 1970s dresses that look "hippy" on their own can look very Victorian with the right undergarments and an updo. A lot of 1980s men's trousers also approach the right silhouette for the 1910s-inspired three-piece suit I'm trying to put together. Witness also the recent trend for big puffed sleeves!

Making or modifying clothing:

Victorian and Edwardian manuals for garment drafting and sewing can be found online—go to archive.org and search for "sewing," "drafting," or "dressmaking," then use the filters on the left to chuse which year(s) you want to see results from. Most of these have patterns that are sort of vibes-based: The work-woman's guide is one manual that claims to have patterns laid out strictly according to a grid.

I don't sew garments, but if Victorian pattern-writing for sewing is anything like it is for knitting, that may not be super useful. People do sell updates and graded 'translations' of antique patterns (which tend to be written in only one size) on etsy and ebay—just make sure from the description that it's 'deciphered' and translated rather than a scan of the original pattern!

One of the easiest things that you can do to add some Victorian or Goth flair to an otherwise plain-looking garment is to add trim. You can knit, crochet, or tat your own trim from Victorian lace-making patterns; purchase antique trim from resale sites; or buy braided or lace trim very cheaply at any craft store. Trim doesn't just have to go around the hems and cuffs of a garment: lace "insertions" between two pieces of fabric, as well as raised geometric patterns over the surface of a garment, are common in 19th-century clothing.

[ID: first image shows a black overdress showing lace insertions between strips of fabric of equal width, creating a striped effect. second image is the back of a black blouse with trim in a geometric design centred around right angles and parallel lines. end ID]

Jewellery (women's and men's):

Actual antique jewellery (including men's jewellery and fastenings) is not as expensive as you might think. Even if you're not willing to spend a lot of time learning what to look for and scouring estate sales for people who don't know or care what they have, late Victorian mass-manufactured costume jewellery often goes for sub-$50 or even $30 prices at auction on ebay (USD, in the US—in my experience it is even more plentiful and cheaper in the UK).

Specifically, I've lucked out with lots ("lot" as in, a bunch of small things being sold together) of "vintage men's accessories" going for $20 or so that contained Victorian cufflinks (in low-karat gold, mother-of-pearl, and jet), collar studs (in low-karat gold and base metals), and shirt studs (in low-karat gold, with garnets and seed pearls, &c.). Searching for lots of accessories is generally a good idea since by and large people do not know what these things are... but if you're willing to spend a little more for something that has been identified and is more likely to still be with its set, use the specific search term for that item (e.g. "antique collar studs").

Answers to Questions About Old Jewelry (though aimed at estate sellers and, if memory serves, full of regrettable pæans to Queen Victoria) is a good reference text to dating antique jewellery. I also recommend Miller's Illustrated Guide to Jewelry Appraising. Both of these texts are available on libgen.

Feel free to ask me follow-up questions if you want more detail on any of these points. As you can see I am perfectly happy to blather away on this topic

[iravaid]

(in reference to your reblog)

I would absolutely love an exhaustive breakdown of all of your decisions regarding ‘Simon Riley in Situations’

That series consumes me. Much like in the way that Simon was consumed by the desert. I have been fundamentally altered by it.

Oh my god, genuinely thank you so much for asking

This became a very long set of rambles that I have two split in two, possessed by the talk too much demons... sad! Here is the first part, the second part I'll tack on in a later reblog.

More below, I get a little bit Pepe Silvia in this, but oh well lmao

An Introduction

I’m going to preface this with stating that the comics are bad. On an artistic and writer’s standpoint, their net value is negative. I have read those six wretched issues at least seven times through and feel confident in that assertion. I have no idea why people think they’re actually good, in the face of muddy rendering and an overall displeasing art style, Americanised writing with poor panelling and pacing and dialogue, among other torture-porn related things.

That being said, there are moments of competency that shine through, past the early 2000s edge and casual sexism + racist stereotypes, which in turn irritates me because it does show there could have been a better story here. And Yet. But the comics have been a well of spiteful inspiration, first with Except You, and second with In The Desert (and perhaps more to come), and I do want to talk about that. (and I do know that the comics aren’t necessarily canon for the reboot Ghost, but like. C’mon. Work with what we’ve currently got. Even if my money is on Makarov in the reboot having something to do with Ghost’s past, considering the knowing look he and Price share upon seeing the photo.)

Simon is a character that has been doomed by the narrative since day one, and while it would not be a surprise if he survives MW3 on account of the company wanting to make money off his multiplayer counterpart, there is a certain compelling grief in knowing his fate was always going to be how it was in the original trilogy. Simon suffers: Simon dies; Ghost suffers: Ghost dies. There is no other way this story ends. And there is something about the cyclical nature of his life, and patterns to be found in a such a story, which I think are extremely fun to try and enforce, as well as emphasise. It’s this, among other things, that makes him a compelling character to me. Well – that and him being tall, built like a brick-shithouse, gravelly voice, wears a skull mask, has a strong sense of loyalty and compassion for fellow soldiers… (but that’s beside the point!!!!).

The things he went through in the comics had occasionally been so over the top that I need a moment to stand back and go ‘… really? Like. Really? After all that, you put him through more?’ after every reread. It’s not enough that his entire family was murdered but also his psychiatrist and superior officer, and so on and so on. But unfortunately, I have to reiterate that the comics have been a source of inspiration. ‘Simon Riley In Situations’ is an extension of this spiteful motivation to retell/improve upon what the comics were trying to do, as well as occasionally extrapolating on them, or even warping canon to better accommodate my own headcanons/the rebooted universe.

I love stories were a main/side character goes through an incredible change, to the point where they’re noticeably and irreparably different to how they were at the beginning of the story, for better or for worse. Examples that come to mind, currently, are Jinx from Arcane, Zuko from ATLA, Ahsoka in Clone Wars, Steve from Stranger Things. To me, the transformation of Simon into Ghost is something very compelling. The Simon Riley that’s about to fly to the states with Major Vernon is a man very, very different to the Simon Riley freshly recruited into the 141 by Shepherd. But fundamentally they’re still the same person, and that can be an important facet for a big change in a character imo.

I like using a lot of poems and songs and the occasional bible reference in my works. I know it’s fanfiction and maybe for some people that’s overdoing it, but I love it. I love how art informs and inspires itself, and I love using the inherent emotional and cultural connections attached to a specific work in order to enhance that of my own writing. I think it’s good practice, and maybe it doesn’t matter that it’s expressed in the form of fanfiction. I’m a better writer because of it, and that’s something of significance to me: I never studied English lit/creative writing at a higher level of education, so this is where it will be expressed.

Skulls, Death, and the Ghost

Skulls haunt Simon throughout the comics; in turn, Simon has been haunted by the Ghost he’s doomed to become for a very long time. Roba wears skull face-paint when torturing and attempting to brainwash Simon, Simon’s father used to wear skull face-paint when performing, Simon smeared toothpaste on his face when in recovery from Roba’s captivity and it resembled a skull, Tommy wore a skull mask to emulate his father, and Simon hallucinates skeletons/skulls at different points in the comics. Finally, when his family are killed and Simon goes on his revenge mission, he wears the same face paint as he did during Día de Los Muertos when Roba captured him. He claims that the brainwashing didn’t ‘work’ (as the comics put it), but here Simon is, wearing the same mask as his tormentors. I wanted to stretch that recurring imagery by adding the vocalist wearing the skull face-paint in chapter one of Except You. Something there about returning to form, or perhaps finally looking back to see what exactly is that thing who’s been lurking in the back of your mind. I describe the skull reoccurring as “morbidly familiar” in that this has always been Simon’s fate, and it doesn’t matter what he does to try and escape, because he will always return to it.

It can also be stretched to symbolise his close relationship with Death. Simon has ‘died’ a lot of times in the story. At first he believes he’s dead on a subconscious level (nightmares with Roba’ saying he killed him), but then issues 3+4 happen, and that belief escalates into a conscious conviction that he died on the concrete floor in Roba’s captivity; he died out there in the desert; he died surrounded by his family’s corpses on Christmas; he died the moment he killed Roba; he died for good at the end of MW2. Roba killed Simon, and Ghost put whatever ‘Simon Riley’ once was to rest in the funeral pyre of his childhood home. Ghost has always had to everything on his own up until this point: even give himself a proper sendoff. A part of me wonders if Ghost believes himself, on some level, to be the keeper of Simon’s memory and identity. That is what a ghost is, right? The thing that lingers after a tragedy.

It's something incredibly interesting to consider present-era Ghost. Does he still think he’s dead? Is he waiting for the rot to set in? Has he been so dissociated from himself for so long that he doesn’t know how else to function, and on some level is terrified of what might happen, should he in turn look back to face whatever is left of ‘Simon Riley’? Maybe Ghost can be interpreted as the one that came back ‘wrong’, and he’s waiting for other people to notice that there’s nothing left but a corpse. He has gotten very little help by way of therapy/counselling, and probably doesn’t have the tools nor language at his disposal to neither work through these things, nor know how to voice them in the first place. That’s one of the reasons I wrote Simon as not fully aware of the definition of ‘child abuse’ and how it related to him. He knows Nigel (his father) was a cunt and a wifebeater, but he doesn’t know those necessary psych terms to properly begin processing what happened to him both as a child and adult, because who could have taught him? He never got the chance to go to DBT or CBT, and that hazy moment of time with Dr Halloway probably wasn’t conducive to learning about things like CPTSD and trauma and abusive households. I tried to extrapolate this, with Simon’s internalised ableism also being a block to fully accepting or even processing those terms. He’s in a lot of pain, and he very, very desperately wants to move on, to return to how he used to be before all of ‘this’. Will talk later on about how the military factors in to keeping the status quo of ‘the Ghost’.

In tarot (love you tarot love symbolisms in it love when it’s used in media mwah mwah), the death card symbolises major change, rebirth, and endings and beginnings.

If anything, Simon Riley is defined by his deaths and rebirths, how he keeps forcing himself to change in order to survive a brutal narrative set for him. And Ghost, who bears a skull-face not dissimilar to the grim-reaper, perhaps wears this taboo symbol to ward off ‘evil’, or to use that fear in order to keep people at arm’s length, in response to these injustices done to him by fate and the machinations of people far crueller than Simon. He has been through a lot, and still he keeps moving, keeps completing missions and being a ‘good soldier’, because that’s all Simon knows. He’s like a shark in that way, or a well-trained dog: he was never taught, nor given the chance to learn, how to not be a soldier. This is something me and @narramin, affectionately refer to as hound-coding, which, god, really suits Simon. Will talk about it further on.

Roba Himself

Manuel Roba is certainly there. It’s honestly incredibly disappointing to see how this specific character was handled, how heavily the writers leaned into stereotypes to depict Roba – there’s a panel of him holding a burrito for fuck’s sake. This caricature of a villain is both lazily written, but also serves to reduce the impact he has on Simon. This man is supposed to be the primary antagonist, above Simon’s abusive father. He is the reason that Ghost exists, the reason the Riley family are dead, and can be considered the primary catalyst for most of the comics’ plot. And yet this man, and all that he represents in Simon’s suffering, is reduced to the fat ‘El Gordo’ with dialogue lines that are ultimately meaningless, a personal motivation that is only said in his dying breath without further exploration, and ultimately is a villain without any teeth. I think Roba has the potential to be a terrifying figure, one this kind of dark story needs in order to ensure that Simon’s suffering isn’t made a joke when compared to the one at the source of it all.

There are moments of competency and personality that shine through here and there. The pink deck chair in the sensory overload room, the ‘plant flowers over [the grave]’ line, as well as Roba choosing to make himself appear as the grim reaper himself as a way to express ultimate power over his captives’ lives (and, in turn, Simon killing Roba and choosing to don the skull-face could be seen as him taking that control back).

There is a set of panels, one from issue 5 and another from issue 6, that piques my attention when placed together (seen below). Simon has tried so hard to convince himself and others that he is fine, that Roba’s brainwashing failed, that he is not deeply affected by the seven months of torture and humiliation and dehumanisation. But then he comes back from the dead wearing the same face-paint as Roba. He refers to himself as death, as does Roba. That man has his claws deep in Simon, and Roba knew this, and he died with a smile on his face because of it. As quoted by his final words: in the end Roba is just one man. Killing him won’t bring back the Rileys and it won’t stop the pain Ghost is in (but by god is it Ghost’s right to put that man down for what he did to him.).

The following paragraphs will discuss the torture Simon was subjected to in Roba’s captivity and features discussion of the sexual assault he experienced, as well as being him drugged + detailed acts of dehumanisation. The section itself will be bracketed with a ‘-’, feel free to skip to the final paragraph marked of this section if you’d prefer.

-

In my writing I want to show a competent, terrifying Roba. He should be purposeful in how he goes about breaking these men down in order to build them up into the dutiful hounds Roba so obviously wanted. That’s part of why I think, and wrote, Roba having never touched Simon, he made sure it was his men assaulting Simon while he watched (for one reason or another). And when they were finished Roba would try to manipulate the situation into one being Simon’s fault and that Roba, and only Roba, could fix for him. Simon needed to see Roba as the one with the power to control all these awful things happening to him, and that his own obstinance is the reason he’s suffering. Roba would make an offer – if you listen to me, follow what I say, I can make this stop. I can stop them from touching you ever again. It’s purposefully and insidiously phrased, he’s trying to make all this seem like Simon’s fault for not ‘giving in’. In turn, the prolonged torture and dehumanisation would best be served as well-thought-out tactics.

I’m not a fan of how every other captive was noted as too ‘weak’ or whatever to hold out against all that Roba was doing to them, only for Vernon to say that his methods were ‘genius’ – not with a near 100% mortality rate it fucking isn’t. It would be interesting to explore a fic where Roba was actually competent enough for those aforementioned super soldiers to be a real thing (and we’ll make death proud of us touches on this very well I recommend this fic). But, regardless, I find exploring the ways Simon could have been dehumanised/tortured without succumbing to infection or shock or a sudden heart attack from the sheer amount of stress and trauma to be morbidly interesting. I’m a morbid person, so this tracks lmao (it’s regardless a matter of balance, though, because we’re trying not to fall into that Edge the comics loved so much). I also want to note that Roba rarely, if ever, called Simon by his real name. It’s always ‘English’ or ‘Mr. Death’. A name is a powerful thing to control, stripping a person of their name is a common dehumanisation tactic, one that even the military has been known to use in order to get all these individuals into acting as one mass. It’s also a sign of non-acknowledgement, in my eyes. Simon was not a person to Roba, not really, just a dog that needed moulding. In a way, Ghost referring to himself as ‘Ghost’ may also be a tactic to distance himself from Simon in order to cope with the Everything that’s happened to him.

The next point is just as important as the prior ones: what kind of effect would all this have on Simon in different stages of the comics? And what kind of inner monologue and mindset would he have in order to endure these awful, awful things? And how would he heal from it, considering how the events of the comics went down? He has no control over the situation as a whole, but I imagine that Simon is the kind of person to try and grasp for anything to have control over regardless – he’s exhausted but he still might try to lay in a way that keeps him protected or stills his roiling gut, he’ll occasionally still try to lash out against the narcos, he’ll try and joke with Sparks and Washington in order to help them cling to their humanity (as well as preserve his own identity as a protector, which I want to get into later). He especially utilises dissociation as a ‘tool’ developed from living under the same roof as Nigel Fucking Riley. It provided a very necessary reprieve, and Simon probably believes he’d been ‘broken’ by his father long before Roba ever got his hands on him. Simon at this point probably (maladaptively, in the long run) perceives his ability to dissociate from the body to be a way to control what he truly feels. He can get some kind of control over experiencing multiple instances of sexual assault, over MONTHS, by creating a clear delineation between the body and the person. I wonder if this laid the groundworks for the self-perceived split between Simon Riley and Ghost.

He’s out of that place, Roba is dead and whatever was left of the Zaragoza cartel is hopefully long gone. But where does that leave Simon, whose primary coping mechanisms are either feeling horrific, yawning numbness, or forcing all that pain and fear and humiliation into over-powering anger? All these things kept him alive then… but now what? He has been subjected to a horrific slew of experiences in seven months, over two-hundred days. How do you approach that kind of deal and unpackaging and addressing of that trauma? It’s something in and of itself would be a compelling story to tell, especially with his childhood trauma informing how he processes those experiences. Simon has been physically and psychologically changed by Roba, even if he tried to ‘resist’ – even though interrogation resistance training only lasts for so long.

Sometimes I wonder at what point did Simon realise they weren’t torturing him for information, but to make him into something that wasn’t human. At what point did he realise that there was a reason they made him crawl down the hallways on his hands and knees with a collar around his neck, or that they fed him dog food off the ground, or that he might have been kept in retrofitted dog kennels, in a long-abandoned dog fighting pit.

I wonder if there were times he wished he’d just let go and listen to Roba, and kill the people the latter wanted him to kill; just so that the pain would stop, and he could be more than this thing surviving on the concrete floor. Very interesting to consider, what with the comics implying that Sparks and potentially Washington were also drugged in order to force a dependence on them, as a way to further exert control over them. I’m not sure why Simon didn’t also experience this. Yet another Comics Cringe Moment.

-

Ultimately, when I see Roba I think of a Judge Holden-esque figure: an intelligent man who has taken a step back, looked at the violence of the world, and ultimately came to the conclusion that, 1.) It is in man’s nature to wage war and be violent, and 2.) It is Roba’s right to control that flow of violence. He had Simon, Sparks, and Washington, and others who came before them, tortured, brutalised, dehumanised, starved, assaulted, and vivisected with intents to brainwash them into his own personal soldiers/bodyguards. He wanted to perverse nature and control something that was never his to control, and I think a character like that should ooze calculated cruelty and a disdain for the optimistic/what he perceives as weak. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, in Roba’s eyes, and he wants to be the one holding the leash.

Dogs and Hounds

Speaking of dogs, let’s get into hound-coding. Dog/hound/wolf metaphors are used for characters in a plethora of ways: dogs and other canines are embedded deeply in a lot of cultures and that can be seen in how disparate a dog can be used in symbolism. The rabid dog that requires put down, versus the loyal-to-a-fault dog whose diligence will be its downfall. The dog that hunts you down relentlessly against the dog that protects and nurtures. Vicious and borderline obsessed, pursuing a singular goal with tunnel-vision; dangerous predator stalking you from the shadows; wholly dedicated to a sole purpose in life; kicked to the point where anger lines their teeth and they meet the world with a bite, because they’ll never let anyone hurt them again; a caregiver and teacher, sometimes even a leader that will look out for who they see as family.

With Simon Riley, I feel he is a hound, the kind that’s been kicked enough times to know to bite first and ask questions later – but can someone please be gentle? Please, can’t someone let him rest? Then the narrative slaps his muzzle and tells him the story isn’t done yet. Simon, off the coattails of escaping his childhood home as a teenager, finds purpose in the military and clings to it. So much of Simon’s identity can be tied to him being a protector, as well as a soldier; he’s proud of his achievements within the SAS, cocky, even. He is well trained in violence and well experienced, too; he’s risen above to make a reputation for himself as a tough sonofabitch within the SAS, which is pretty famously full of that type of person.

The dog can be moulded into a lot of different things in fiction, just as it has in real life. So can Simon, so can Ghost: he’s a character that has been subjected to extreme kinds of change, with some very clear distinctions between Pre-Roba Simon, During-Roba, Post-Roba, Post-Family Massacre, and Post-Jungle Raid. That’s one of the reasons why I think the dog metaphor, and its imagery, can provide very impactful parallels for Simon. What is a dog, if not loyal and loving? Didn’t we make it that way? And what is a dog, if not defined by the job it can fulfil. We made it that way. What use is Simon to the military, if he won’t do what he was trained to do. I wonder if he worries about that in between missions: losing his purpose and identity one way or another.

Ghost is a good leader; he knows how to direct a team and how to keep Soap calm during the chaos in Las Almas. I imagine he found sanctuary in the camaraderie that can be found in a military environment, compared to his chaotic homelife. He doesn’t necessarily have to be open about it, or all that externally happy. But it’s regardless a community that has provided Ghost with some form of support (ironic, again, considering it’s the military, but that is how it works). Like a pack animal, one might say.

His potential relationship with Soap, if people take it that way (I do and will be talking about it more later #peaceandlove), reminds me of the poem ‘bait dog’ among others, here's an excerpt from the end of it: “And she still flinches / When I reach to pet her / but she smiles / once I get behind the ears / you will not heal from everything / that does not mean / you will stop being loved.”, and I feel that’s a very lovely image when applied to Soapghost, y’know? Simon has been through a lot, and Soap is emotionally mature enough to recognise that and give him space, while still putting in that necessary work to bridge certain gaps. Kind of like the slow burn of getting a rescue dog to trust you, except it’s your human superior officer with CPTSD and an edgy comic book backstory. They will doubtless have issues and bumps in the road, but they’ll also have shitty jokes and a lot of patience to keep things buoyed. Love wins or WHATEVER.

Roba tried to make Simon into an attack dog, too. Treated him like one, and I imagine there was a point where Simon was starting to believe it. Then he gets buried alive and has to dig his way out. He has to drag himself through the desert (more to come on that) and survive months of recovery until he has a chance to return to the state he physically was. I imagine this time of injury was awful for Simon: he felt incompetent on top of the other churning emotions one would have after surviving so many months of All That. Simon, I imagine, has always defined himself by his ability to provide, protection or otherwise, as well as his own physical prowess. It’s what kept him and his family safe all this time. It also led to him being picked for that fateful mission. I think Simon is a man shown to be capable of that single-minded focus of a hound that’s caught the scent, especially when he spent months tracking down Roba in the jungle.

Simon is a dog constantly having to remember its teeth. There is a lot to be said about dogs that learn to bite back.

I have reached a character limit here but still have a lot to talk about, please hold (and tysm, again, for the ask)

[panopticonrpg]

EVENT 01. PART 2: THE FEAST

Your new home...

You’re off the cruise ship - but where are you? There’s nothing else in the horizon but deep ocean; inland, the beach gives way to thick wilderness, and a raised plateau with small, bungalow-style houses peppering the landscape. They all look exactly the same, and are scattered like a small village - or like someone tossed them on the land like dice on a board. To the east, a large brick and stone building squats in a field. Something about the building hums; closer inspection reveals generators situated around the back. The same with a warehouse building to the east - in fact, generators seem to power all electricity around the empty village…but what was powering the generators?  No gas tank, no batteries, no solar panels even.  But they chugged along nonetheless.

The cameras on the tall poles lovingly follow your movements, everywhere. What catches your senses - particularly your nose - is the scent of food.  On the coast overlooking over the ocean is a wooden patio, spacious enough to hold over 200 people.  The patio is empty, save for one long table near what looks like a barbeque-and-bar counter.  Under covered nets to protect it from wandering critters, are dishes and dishes of food. Hot and cold food, non-alcoholic beverages in large dispensers, dishes to please every palate and dietary needs.  Given how empty this place is, it's unclear how the food - freshly made and beautifully arranged - even appeared.  Was it here before you woke up, or did it manifest somehow during the panic of waking up on the Odyssey? The loudspeaker message glitches, garbles up and then suddenly changes to a woman’s soft and cheery voice: COME CHECK OUT THE BUFFET AT THE HUB! You must be S̡̧̧̡̨͔̜̲̞̖̥͚̦̎T̡̜̦͖͈̥̈́̈́̓͐͘A̻̘̜̣̱̫̳͖͉͊̃̅́̄̑͘Ŗ͕̞̜̩̟͑͆͂͐̐̊̑̀̊͝͠͝͝V̛͙͍̘̟̞̓͛͒͐̇̀͑̐̋̿̈́Í̧̻̗͊̃̎͆̍̅̕͜Ņ̧̧͙̲̬̳̞͇͇̊͆́͒̋̊̔̽̕͝Ḡ̡̦͕͔̘͎̥̻̅̾̉̂̅̎̄̋͌́͝͠ (starving) after your long travel to get here.

OOC info below the cut!

OOC INFO:

The rest of the island has opened up for exploration!  Within immediate access (about a 15 minute walk from the beach) are the community areas.  The top point of the Tower is in the distance, and might be tricky to reach, as there’s a strip of wilderness and a crooked old bridge separating the community from the Tower. The black-sand beach is about a half-hour walk, and the volcano island is a ten-minute swim (by a strong swimmer) to reach it.   Within the bungalows and medicenter, there are electric sockets.  (Hint: need a phone charger?  Your character might want to head back to the Odyssey).  All bungalows have plumbing and electricity, powered by the mysterious generators.  NOTE: Breaking apart a generator comes with risks - if you don’t understand the power source, can you put it back together successfully?  There are no generators to replace the ones in use. The medicentre is basic, but fully functional.  Inside the brutalist building, it looks incredibly sterile, like no one has used it since it was built.  The technology in there looks like it came from before Y2K. The warehouse is fully stocked with perishable and non-perishable food.  There are also some other basic supplies:

 somewhat shapeless clothes made of natural fabrics, heavy coats (despite the island seeming tropical)

some small household appliances, including toasters

plenty of toiletries and cleaning supplies

a few books and magazines

some cassette tapes, CDs, and old music players.  No music from after Y2K.

there are no televisions

a variety of repair and household garage small tools, mostly non-powered 

a stand-up dolly, some wheeled wagon-carts for carrying heavy things, and five bicycles.  

FINAL NOTE: The bracelets do not work yet! Patience…

[cindylouwho-2]

Etsy Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Report: Sales Still Down, But Not As Much

Above: Slide 8 from Etsy's Q2 Financial Results Call, © Etsy.

The company is doubling down on gifts, AI, and "the quality, diversity, and differentiation of our sellers' most unique inventory"

While sales were still down in Etsy's second quarter, the trend is slowly changing, and the number of sellers is dropping as well, hinting that the site clean-up may be working a bit.

We also got some key information on recent Etsy search changes, more on specific ways engineers are using AI, and some interesting details on the new Etsy Insider program announced the same day. This is definitely a report you don't want to miss!

First, here are the official sources:

the press release

transcript of the conference call

slides from the conference call

video of the call (click on “Webcast”)

my summaries of the second quarter 2023, and the first quarter 2024 for comparison

And the key numbers (covering April to June 2024, compared to the same period in 2023):

Sales on Etsy were $2.5 billion, down 3.2% year over year

Total sales for all 3 marketplaces (Etsy, Reverb, and Depop) were $2.9 billion, down 2.1%. [Elo7 was officially sold in mid-August 2023, so its numbers were included in the comparison totals]

Etsy’s revenue (including all 3 sites) was $647.8 million, up 3.0%

Seller service revenue was up 0.9% , while marketplace revenue was up 3.8% across all 3 sites

Net income was $53.0 million, down 14.4% “reflecting a $7.2 million retroactive non-income tax expense” that Canada is to blame for [note that Canadian sellers will now be paying a ~10% increase in fees starting August 15, with a 1.15% regulatory operating fee almost certainly related to this tax change]

Active buyers on Etsy alone stand at 91.5 million, up 1%

Active sellers on Etsy alone are at 6.6 million, up 300,000 from the second quarter 2023 but down 400,000 from the first quarter 2024. [Note that “active” means one charge or transaction in the past 12 months; many “active” shops currently have nothing for sale]

Etsy sales where the buyer and/or the seller was not in the United States were 48%, although across all three sites that is only 45%

What Sellers Need To Know About Search

As you already know, from previous quarterly results calls and other presentations, Etsy is moving away from serving up the most relevant search results - which often might be very similar in nature - and is instead focussing on the quality of the listings now. CEO Josh Silverman now revealed that they are trying to reduce repetition of items and of individual shops in the search results, as a push to show the wide variety of products and styles available on the marketplace. This part regarding recent search tests is worth reading in full:

"In the past, our search algorithms ranked each listing individually based on likelihood to convert, which often resulted in buyers seeing far too many similar items rather than a more holistic set. Here's some powerful data. We roughly cut in half the percentage of searches where a high percentage of listings seen on page one are from a single seller. We reduced the percentage of searches that have two or more listings that may appear identical by over 70%. We're incredibly excited about what this might mean for future visitation, as buyers see a more diverse and higher quality set of listings each time they visit Etsy. In addition to helping buyers, these initiatives also support our sellers, given how important it is that we nurture the best of Etsy across our seller base. Our latest search experiments resulted in approximately 70% of shops having more visibility in search, with the share of search impressions from small and medium shops increasing by nearly 30%." [my emphasis]

That's right: almost out of nowhere, Etsy is suddenly worried about giving visibility to smaller-volume shops with (possibly) fewer items. They were not only cutting down the number of times a shop can appear on page 1, but are also reducing the number of listings that look very similar. If they adopt some version of these tests in the future, this has the potential to harm resellers, shops that only personalize common finished goods, and shops using print-on-demand (POD) services. I know some sellers are upset that POD shops can still use mock-ups - I wrote more about that here - but if looking the same as other merchants may be a huge drawback later this year, suddenly original photos sound like a great advantage.

They didn't mention when they tested this, but we should assume that search changes will keep coming in this area. Given that Silverman also repeated the promise to soon provide better information about how our listings are ranked in search, definitely expect more volatility in the near future. For bigger businesses with tons of listings, you may want to think about how to get your lines into a broader array of searches instead of depending on competing with yourself in a smaller number of large queries.

AI: It Knows Better

Silverman's ideal world is apparently one where the corporation ignores sellers' own descriptions of their wares and instead lets a machine figure it out for us.

His own words are perhaps the best description of what I mean:

"...to better curate merchandise to improve the buyer experience and drive GMS, we're making it easier for buyers to find quality listings for mid-price jewelry, known as demifine, by having human experts determine what jewelry attributes are most important to a buyer's search, think material, gold purity, or hot trends, then utilizing GenAI to infer those attributes to create new search discovery modules and pathways, and incorporate this into on-site experiences such as landing pages. While this search is very much in progress, these better on-site shopping experiences, combined with targeted marketing initiatives, such as tailored social media content, CRM efforts, and improved data feed curation for paid and organic search, contributed to a 9% year-over-year increase in GMS for demifine jewelry in the quarter." [my emphasis]

To summarize: human merchandising experts figure out what the average shopper wants in jewellery in the $100-$200 range, then AI looks at listings and figures out which have those elements. [Sadly, that means that shops making less trendy items could have even less visibility in generic searches, which kind of goes against the diversity thing he was pushing when discussing search earlier.]

Given that Etsy's AIs currently tell me that my pendants are a completely different size than the actual measurements I've already written into the listing, and still sometimes think that something turquoise-coloured is a turquoise gemstone, I'm not looking forward to more of this. [I am intrigued by the fact they are trying to push sales of jewellery in that price range, though, so that's something.]

The New Creativity Standards

No real news here. As promised in previous calls, the July 9th announcement was about ditching the broad concept of handmade - which both buyers and sellers could find confusing - for different levels of contribution by the shop owner. The accompanying ad campaigns are about changing the public perception of Etsy and focussing on the shop owners themselves. Silverman thinks that emphasizing that Etsy has artisan goods may lead to sellers feeling better able to raise their prices.

Etsy isn't expecting the new standards to increase conversion, but instead to bring people who already know Etsy back to shop more often. Silverman also linked this to the search testing discussed above; showing buyers more variety should also encourage more repeat visitors.

Being a Gift Hub Is Still A Big Goal

Some sellers seem to think Etsy is going to give up on being a gift destination any time now, but that seems really unlikely, given that the proportion of orders marked as gifts went up 4% in the quarter while overall marketplace sales were down 3.2%. Furthermore, "we're utilizing monthly US buyer surveys to gauge the impact of our gifting strategies, and this data shows a significant year-over-year increase in prompted consideration of Etsy for gifts." The press release even mentions selling Etsy gift cards through third parties, although that hasn't otherwise been announced or discussed just yet.

As the company keeps adding new gift features - such as video gift teasers and gift purchase reminders - it's clear this is a long-term plan. If you haven't already, look at how your shop can innovate for the gift buyers Etsy is going after, because the focus on gifting is not going away.

"Etsy Insider" Is A Test; It Might Disappear, Or Change

While some sellers are upset about the new Etsy Insider program that will be offered to US buyers via invite only in September, there are a few facts you need to know:

It's a test. It may not go beyond beta, although they are hopeful.

Silverman is really excited about seeing if offering free US shipping will bring people back in more shopping situations. [Since shipping costs have skyrocketed but Etsy hasn't raised the US free shipping minimum set before the pandemic, this point does not bode well for sellers.]

The target Insider members are not Etsy's best buyers, but "people who shop only occasionally on Etsy. Think people who shop three or four times a year...We're targeting more occasional shoppers and seeing if we can upgrade them."

Miscellaneous

Expect even more pressure to use the buyer app, as 42% of sales now come from it. They are even running paid ads for the app, because shoppers who download it come back more and spend more on Etsy in the long term.

Chief Financial Officer Rachel Glaser is retiring, but not until they find a replacement for her, and she will be staying on as a consultant into 2025.

Offsite Ads are up, in part because they are expanding where they are shown, with way more social media ads. Those tend to bring existing buyers back sooner rather than attracting new buyers as Google Shopping does.

While Offsite Ads spending was up, brand spending was down, because they spent so much on hyping Gift Mode in the first quarter.

98% of sales now go through Etsy Payments [while that led to more income this quarter, it also means there isn't much real growth to come, with only 2% of sales going to other payment processors today.]

The new shop fee is cutting down on fraud and also the number of new sellers. Fraud tends to go way up in the fourth quarter, and they feel they are much better prepared to prevent it this year.

Sales were up at Depop, and Reverb continues to do better than the average musical instrument business.

The economy is still volatile.

Finally, while all of Etsy's top 6 categories were down in the first quarter, 3 were down less in the second, paper and party supplies were about even, and toys and games actually increased.

My Thoughts

It would be easy to criticize Etsy for not managing to increase sales again this quarter, and for expecting to be slightly down in the third quarter as well, but the truth is lots of non-essential ecommerce is still down or struggling. Ecommerce stocks were down this week after several other companies such as Wayfair reported poor numbers. Amazon's online sales were only up 5% in the quarter, which is a bad result for them, especially given that they sell a lot of essentials and grocery items. Amazon revenue missed projections as well.

On the other hand, it would also be understandable if some people fell for the "increasing impressions for small shops/marketing true artisan goods/reducing scammy sellers" rhetoric. It sounds great, but to me it's all a bit too good to be true, especially given that the site just allowed AI art, and 100% commercial gift baskets and commercially-made holiday decor to be sold, competing with genuine handmade artisan creations. We'll have to see how much visibility wreath and pillow resellers get once they realize they are allowed now.

More importantly, Etsy might have tried pivoting a lot earlier instead of losing so much goodwill over the past several years with the increasing quality decline of the site's offerings. I guess someone at head office finally noticed all the articles and social media posts about how Etsy is just AliExpress-lite with a veneer of handmade now. The time to retain core buyers instead of disappointing them arrived well before 2024. What took them so long?

In other news, it's looking there will not just be new insights for Etsy search coming soon, but also actual new changes to search. Silverman discussed the search tests as if they were the plan going forward, while still calling them tests. The increased use of AI to identify attributes for listings is disturbing, given how horrid Etsy has been at this for years now, but no one should be surprised. Expect a lot more of this, and expect it to disrupt traffic for some.

Wanting more diverse search results is actually great if it works and shows people what they are searching for. That doesn't always happen right now, of course. Getting rid of some mock-ups is also a strong idea, as long as Etsy follows through and makes the correct creativity standards very evident to shoppers, thereby elevating items sellers truly made by hand over simple POD. Right now, though, the creativity standards are frequently applied incorrectly, and way too many handmade shops are having items removed when they have done nothing wrong. Without an effective way to appeal bad image bot decisions, many of the proposals might harm more legitimate shop owners than they help.

I wish I felt like Etsy could truly pull this out of the fire, but we should not be surprised if the final 5 months of this year give us buckets of chaos randomly tossed about various features on the site, and even more instability for many sellers. Plan for major disruptions while still hoping for improvements.

[toreadorcaretaker]

🍷 𝑻𝑶𝑹𝑬𝑨𝑫𝑶𝑹 𝑶𝑪 𝑻𝑨𝑮 𝑮𝑨𝑴𝑬 🌹

I was tagged by @sadwrncupid! I dare you to do fashion for Enir and/or Florante even though they're not Toreadors (if you want to). Also, I don't know a lot of people in VTM yet, so I am just making this an open tag!

DRESS UP : Put 6 photos describing your Toreador OC’s style and aesthetic. Let others get to know them through fashion, since you get to know about people through what they wear (and maybe some more notes on why they dress like that because this is more of a me thing and I just wanna read about fashion and lore okay you don’t have to haha)

Clarette favors tight silhouettes in black or red satin so that her big, curly hair can take center stage. She wears it in a messy updo for formal occasions, or just flowing everywhere, and often wears hats with netting over her face. She also likes velvet and furs, because they give the illusion of warmth, which is something she misses. She has a leopard fur capelet that is made from her former pet leopard, in addition to many other fur items. She likes lots of silver jewelry and pearls.

Image Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

[olet-lucernam]

A Hollow Promise [20] chapter v, part i

main tags : loki x original character, post-avengers 2012, canon divergence - post-thor: the dark world, canon-typical violence, mentions of torture

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summary: In the aftermath of the Battle of New York, the Avengers need a few days to build a transport device for the Tesseract. With the Helicarrier damaged and surveillance offline, SHIELD sends an asset to guard Loki in the interim: a young woman who sees the truth in all things, and cannot lie.

Even long presumed dead, her memories lost to her, Loki would know her anywhere.

And this changes things.

Some things last beyond infinity. And the universe is in love with chaos.

(Loki was never looking for redemption. It came as an unexpected side-effect.)

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chapter summary : despite his chains, loki begins gathering his pieces on the board. astrid works on escaping her own confines, and mitigating the damage of disasters to come.

recommended listening : no place like home, todrick hall

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[PREVIOUS] | [MASTERLIST] | [NEXT]

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The solitary cell was deep underground, far below expansive cerulean skies and the firelit gold of the palace halls, in deepest wing of the dungeons.

Loki supposed he ought to be flattered.

It had long since fallen into obsolescence, disuse, and disrepair, contrasted against the cells shelved several staircases above it- a well-lit, refitted sector of the dungeons that Loki himself had headed the redesigns for, only a few centuries ago.

Oh, the irony, he had acknowledged with a smirk as the Einherjar escorted him past the bright rows, smooth-cornered and minimalist and cold as carved ice within a hallway of black stone. Each chamber was faced with the slow-rippling sheen of a containment field, the weft of it as tight as a seine net, its meticulous smooth-locked gears bearing Loki’s signature style, obvious to any mage skilled enough to realise that there was a difference.

Time and age may have begun to dull the Allfather’s edge at last, but Odin was still too proud and too cautious to store Loki, untried, on display amongst the common rabble- and least of all in a prison that was reliant upon magic that Loki had custom-engineered. Not only could he easily escape, he might unleash the other inmates as a distraction, or just for the fun of the ensuing chaos.

Loki could admit that the thought was deeply tempting.

It would take time, for Odin to decide his strategy and settle upon the sentence pre-emptive to the trial- using supposed exceptional circumstance and royal authority to override that of Glintir, Asgard’s delegated halls of justice- and more to strip down and renovate one of the cells to contain him. A few months, at the barest minimum. Perhaps less, if his mother was involved in the process; perhaps more, if Odin was in a particularly paranoid or vindictive humour.

In the interim, his current lodgings were the one place best equipped to contain him.

Despite surface appearance, the stone walls and oaken doors and rusted iron fittings were steeped in old magic- old protections- drawing from the core of Asgard itself to keep itself strong despite the physical decay. The unevenly-hewn cells had been hollowed out near the very roots of the realm, cloistered against ley lines and veins of unstable ore, the stagnant air thick with wild mana; it set Loki’s nerves sparking, its taste similar to the thrum of the Bifrost, but unfiltered, flowing directionlessly like water swirled in a pail, knocking against the sides and swilling back into itself.

Beyond it-

Loki ran his thumb across the valley of his palm.

The maelstrom of mana was like the wash of daylight over the stars- rinsing out any lesser source of power like bleach. It was part of the reason, he assumed, as to why Odin had ordered to have him thrown in such scarcely used accommodations, using the cell’s unique conditions to overwhelm his carefully honed sense of ambient magic, and prevent him from perceiving or tampering with anything that laid beyond his cell.

Yet, the logic only applied to lesser sources of power.

Even the might of Asgard was nothing to an Infinity Stone, even one disguised and sealed in a lesser form.

Clear as a beacon, singing through him and lingering like the soft metallic ring of a struck tuning fork, Loki could feel the sheer potential energy of the Tesseract even as the gaol door was bolted behind him. In fact- turning his head towards the ceiling, a few degrees above and across from the cell door- Loki was almost certain that he could guess its precise location within the Vault.

He would not have thought much of it, were it not for the fact that he could feel it reaching into the cell, intangible currents swirling in to greet him. Since returning to Asgard, it had become a constant presence, a companion in the dark.

His eyebrows twitched contemplatively, as he wound the Tesseract’s energy around his fingers, and sent a shimmer of his mana brushing against its edges.

The Tesseract glimmered back against him amiably, playing into their wordless game of call-and-response as it drifted, omnipresent and aimless and eldritch in the manner of gravity wells and hydrogen clouds.

Odd. It was odd.

The Tesseract wanted to help me- wanted me to find you- and it responded to you, when you asked it to open the way to Earth –

Astrid was right, as ever.

Even at the time, and more recently with the benefits of a clearer head and the absence of the Black Order monitoring his every thought, Loki could appreciate how unnaturally easy it had been to open the portal. When he had reached out through the Sceptre, hooking into Selvig as an established conduit, experimentally tapping at the Tesseract, Loki had felt its attention swing towards him- effortlessly piercing past and through Selvig’s flesh and the lightyears of space to alight upon him, considering him with what felt akin to mild disinterest.

Then it rippled, as though in reaction to him- and spat a mouthful of energy from within its titanium cradle, setting the PEGASUS scientists scattering into coordinated action, searching for the root of the anomaly.

Loki hadn’t questioned it. Only the naïve and the omnipotent refused the advantage. And besides which, it was a fool’s errand to attempt to understand why the Tesseract had behaved, as Selvig had so elegantly phrased it. It was not quite sentience in the way that most sapient lifeforms would comprehend it but- from experience, Loki knew that the greater an artifact’s age, the more likely it was to possess opinions; and the greater its power, the more unknowable those opinions tended to be, and hence its behaviour more unpredictable.

Applying that same logic to an Infinity Stone- a remnant of the universe’s creation, a concentrated ingot of one of the essential, esoteric forces that underpinned the very fabric of existence, an extant piece of the demiurge itself- and Loki had quickly concluded that there was nothing to be gained from wondering why.

And yet.

I suppose you must not be overeager to be in Thanos’ grasp, he mused in its direction. Or perhaps you’re simply fond of Astrid. Either way, I can entirely sympathise.

The Tesseract sheened back at him.

Loki quirked a slight smile.

He had, however, noticed something odd.

A tendril of the Tesseract’s power steadily tapered downwards- several layers of strata below his cell, to where there should be nothing but inert bedrock.

With nothing else to occupy his time and increasingly restless mind, Loki had begun whittling at a method to borrow and coast on the Tesseract’s power, imbuing it with his own magic until he could glimpse through it. In theory, the restrictions of space should be nothing to the Space Stone itself- and after investigating what had attracted it to one of the least interesting sectors of Asgard’s foundations, it would be useful for his other schemes amongst the Nine in the coming months.

It could have been worse, Loki supposed. He had experienced worse. And the quiet gave him space to think.

Loki held fast to the thought, keeping a firm grip. Staring at the dark walls of his cell, he could almost taste the buzz of the silence in his teeth, a held breath like the artificial hush of a theatre as the drama played out onstage. It sat within him as though he had swallowed a bulb of glass, and was left waiting to see if it would break under the pressure of his throat.

Fine. It was fine. He had free reign of his magic within his cell, and the vague favour of the Tesseract, and the freedom to think, even if he could feel the jagged pieces of himself shifting against each other, disjointed, his mind still split and frayed at the edges despite Astrid driving out the lingering influenced and dosing him with her own mana to give him time to heal, it was fine, he wasn’t there anymore, he needed to be hale and whole in order to drive off what was coming, everything was fine and even if it wasn’t he would never let them see it-

Loki felt a warmth bloom against his spine, just behind his heart.

He startled, like the whip of a livewire sparking off, instinctively careening back and lashing out against other, other, not again-

The slow press of a presence seeped through the spell embroidered into him, warming him through like an orchestra tuning before a symphony- resolving from blank heat into pattern and form, detailed as lacework.

It was golden- the very essence of gold, bright as hot metal, alive in the manner of hydrogen clouds- rippling into satin lustre, dissolving into powder-fine glitter, coalescing into smooth candlelight, diffusing into dappled daylight.

It hit him like sunshine striking through a glacier, shattering kaleidoscopic against his insides.

Oh.

The connection was weak, wavering. Through it, Loki could only discern a watercolour haze of emotion and surface thoughts, like the flit of shadows behind a curtain of finely-spun gauze- the link too new, nothing more than a single hastily-anchored thread, stretched too thin by the immense physical distance and the decomposing magic contaminating her, to convey anything more coherent.

Still, Loki felt the relief melt through him, the intimate press of another mind against his both foreign and familiar, a welcome anathema, a guest rather than an invasion.

With a practiced twist of his wrist, Loki threw up a screen against Heimdall’s gaze.

“Hello, darling,” he murmured into the cell’s quiet. “Have you missed me terribly?”

The warmth stilled.

Loki could sense a current of realisation within it, gently whorling together and condensing.

A solar-flare burst of mana surged within the connection- slamming against its limitations, pouring in power, attempting to pry the connection open- and Loki winced against the shock.

“Steady, dove,” he grunted out quietly, letting the words taper into a fond laugh. “The link isn’t strong enough just yet, and there is no forcing it along- have a little patience, darling. It will strengthen, with time.”

It had stilled at his entreaty, reluctantly withdrawing, but Loki could discern the hesitation-frustration-question-impatience-want lingering in it.

He smiled faintly, massaging the aftershock-ache out of his chest.

“You must have known its purpose, when I wove it. I had to have a way to find you again,” he explained in a murmur. “As a side effect- while you sleep, your mind will come to me. And when I sleep, I will dream in you.”

The warmth rippled faintly, tentatively pressing a few degrees closer, pausing at the tremulous point before it overstressed the fragile link.

Loki had the simultaneous sensation of staring out at a mist-shrouded figure on the other end of a long, treacherously narrow rope bridge, suspended above the sheer drop of the abyss- and of someone gently resting their chin on his shoulder from behind, reading something over his shoulder, a slight weight leaning in against the backrest of his chair.

The nebulous gesture haemorrhaged affection, and casual determination.

Loki laughed into the dark, his dark head lifting.

It tasted of revenge, only sweeter.

Yes. Everything would be fine.

-

“I have a question.”

“Mn.”

The noise of acknowledgement that Alethia made was unenthused, but Barton either didn’t notice or didn’t take it as sufficient dissent.

Striding back into the dim, windowless VERITAS testing room with what apparently passed as lunch- an armful of vending machine junk food- Barton let his haul drop to the table in a cascade of technicolour plastic wrappers, plucking a bottle of Mountain Dew from a utility pocket and cracking it open with a firm twist.

If not for the sleeveless, matte-black SHIELD jumpsuit and cinched gun harness, the former assassin, marksman, and one half of STRIKE Team Delta, codename Hawkeye- brass-blond and stocky, square-featured and almost generically Midwestern- would have looked like nothing more than an overgrown burnout frat boy.

Several seats away, Alethia remained reclined in her chair, clean-soled boots propped atop the desk, crossed at the ankles. Her eyes were closed, mouth soft, ash-blonde hair pinned up at the back of her head, one arm draping from the armrest.

By direct contrast, if not for her own jumpsuit, Alethia would have resembled something fae, pretty and still in a way that was not quite natural or human.

As he swung back into his seat, spinning into place, Barton tossed one of the packets in her direction with characteristic flawless aim.

The bag of sour candies struck her boots, falling to the table with a crinkle of plastic. Alethia lifted her lashes just enough to eye the sugar-loaded projectile- then proceeded to ignore it, settling back again.

On the other side of the room, supervising the automated collation of results from their latest testing session, Dr Abigail Brand watched the exchange- observing and unobserved, the blue light of the screen reflected in the curve of her dark irises.

As the de facto head of Project VERITAS, and another of SHIELD’s externally sourced, fixed-term hires- headhunted from AIM several months ago, for her unique expertise in improving AI recognition and classification of human response data and biofeedback- Abigail saw more of Alethia than most.

Privately, she would argue that this was both in the literal and figurative sense.

As a consultant, Abigail was aware that her every interaction within SHIELD and its agents was glossed with a tepid distance, like a layer of clear, flexible resin. As an outsourced asset, Alethia was choked into near immobility, even when her collar slackened under Romanoff’s watch, constantly monitored and quarantined by a closed circle of operatives.

Abigail wasn’t ignorant as to which of them had it worse.

SHIELD had asked one of them nicely for their cooperation. However, Abigail strongly suspected that she wasn’t the only one savvy enough to say yes, given the same opportunity.

Abigail was good at recognising those like her. It was a necessary survival skill.

Within sealed rooms and months of ten-hour days, she had formed a rough sketch of who Alethia was, and they had charted out enough common ground to stand comfortable with each other.

In the wake of the Incident- jeez, are they really calling it that- she had recognised a shift.

Alethia had seemed- for want of a better word- happier. She was less guarded, less opaque, her smiles coming easier and her moods milder.

Judging by her response, Romanoff had interpreted Alethia’s mellowing as an opportunity- as signs of a burgeoning sense of comradery. There was a glimmer of optimism and increased warmth in her handling, and in the less falsely casual tone that Romanoff and Barton had taken with her- pressing their thumbs onto the scale of her conversion from risky asset to invaluable agent. Fury did not seem like the type to refuse an advantage, or fail to capitalise on potential value, and so had likely sanctioned her recruitment, if possible.

Abigail didn’t really think that anyone at SHIELD was stupid, but sometimes they did a very convincing impression of it.

If there was anything that she had learned, however, from spending few more years in academia and research than was strictly good for anyone’s mental health, it was that the sharpest and most highly regarded people in any given field were typically the ones most fixed in their outlook.

Looking at Alethia, all she could see was someone who had finally gotten what she wanted, and was now content to wait out the remainder of her sentence, and even be cordial for its duration.

Which begged the question: what had she wanted? And when, and how, did she get it?

“Alright, so, we’ve encountered gods now,” Barton was saying, splitting open a bag and popping a few Cheetos into his mouth with a crunch, “as in- real, literal, fell-out-of-the-sky Norse gods.”

“We have.” Alethia agreed idly.

“And we’ve got proof of aliens in HD. A lot of corpses too.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Alright, so- how many of the stories are true? How many myths, fairytales, religions, whatever- how many of them are real, or based on something real? Is the History Channel gonna start looking like National Geographic? How many clowns do we have to add to the circus? We’ve got aliens, demigods, whatever the hell the Nazis were doing back then- should we start looking out for vampires? Werewolves? Mermaids? I mean, why not, right? How many are we talking, here? I mean, how much weirder is the world going to get?”

There was a long moment of expectant silence, punctuated by the quiet crunch of corn puffs.

Then Alethia opened her eyes and straightened slightly, her hair mussed as she turned towards Barton.

“Oh, were you asking me?”

“Yeah, I’m asking you!”

“Oh. How should I know?”

“Y- wait, you don’t know?”

Alethia shrugged one shoulder, settling back with a flick of her wrist.

“Bring me your gods, and I’ll tell you if they’re real.”

Abigail grimaced, taking a hasty draught of her cooling coffee to hide it.

Fuck, give me an existential crisis, why don’t you.

She could almost hear Alethia laughing, warm as a heartbeat, unmalicious.

Alethia had remarked, once, that Abigail had never asked her anything outside of the testing sessions. According to her, most people gave into the temptation eventually; Fury was a notable exception, for which Alethia appeared to have a grudging respect, but Romanoff had been delicately circumventive in her attempt, while Barton had been unabashedly obvious in his.

Operating on too little sleep and too many hours of coding, Abigail had answered with a touch more blunt honesty that she probably should have.

I’m not stupid, she had muttered, you’re like some fucked-up genie, or that fairground thing from that weird-ass Tom Hanks movie. I’m not going poking that psychological hornet’s nest. If I gotta ask, I deserve the monkey-paw treatment.

Pft-!

Alethia had barely stifled her startled giggle behind her fingers, clear hazel eyes creased at the corners and glittering delightedly.

Abigail had frozen, mortified- what the fuck, Brand, why would you say that- until Alethia had spoken again in a faintly strangled tone.

It was Big.

… What?

The, ah- title of the weird-ass Tom Hanks film. It was Big.

Abigail had thawed, nodding slowly. The awkwardness ebbed just enough to let her mouth and scientific curiosity run away with her impulse-control again.

Why do they always ask you something?

Alethia had hummed quietly, cocking her head, open as the skies.

As a general rule?

Sure, yeah.

She had lifted her shoulder in a wry half-shrug. Curiosity. Hubris. People either want to witness the party trick, or prove it false. There are few who like to think that their deepest secrets are available to a perfect stranger, prima facia. But also- some of them just want the bragging rights. Of being the one to beat the living lie-detector. Alethia exhaled quietly. Spies. They’re the equal of surgeons, when it comes to ego.

Abigail had frowned, nose crinkling sceptically.

But- hold up. Their deepest secrets wouldn’t be available if they just kept their mouths shut, she argued. You need something to go off, right? You’re not psychic. All they gotta do is shut up and believe you halfway about your whole- truth- thing. Err on the side of caution.

Alethia had smiled, the motion as precise and conscious as the unfurling of a wing, half-hidden beneath the lingering skim of her fingers.

As you said, Dr Brand. You’re not stupid.

Abigail shivered at the memory, teeth clinking against the ceramic rim of her cup.

The words had been spoken casually enough, but there was a knowing in Alethia’s face that had rattled Abigail’s nerves.

It was nothing.

She’s not psychic.

Barton frowned in consternation, the Cheetos bag rattling in his lap.

“So you have no idea which stories are true? Even after hearing them?”

“Stories are stories. Their intent is different. They contain truth,” Alethia said, “even if they are not true.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“No it is not.”

“Because they really kinda sound like the same thing.”

“And yet it’s not.”

“Okay, so what’s the difference?”

Alethia exhaled, deep and quiet- then levered herself upright with a press of her palms into the arms of her chair.

“Thor and Loki were born approximately a year apart. Around 1150CE.”

“Were they?” Barton swallowed thickly, fingers already stained to the third knuckle with orange powder. “Hang on, how do you know that?”

“He told me. Except Norse mythology originates from the old Norse religion- which is thought to have been at the peak of active worship between 500BCE, and 1000CE. Do you see the dilemma?”

Several seconds late, Abigail registered the implication of who he was.

Barton gave no sign that he had noticed. But Abigail knew better than to underestimate those who had Fury’s favour.

“Oh. Yeah, okay. How is it possible that there are myths about Thor and Loki that are that old,” Barton said slowly, “when they hadn’t been born yet?”

His tone was one of statement and deduction, rather than question.

“I don’t know,” Alethia admitted with startling ease, almost laughingly, turning her head to meet Barton’s gaze with a pleased glint in her eyes. “Therein lies the mystery. Barring an anomaly in space-time, it’s impossible for Norse mythology to be a factual record of events. Yet it still has some correlation to the truth, as the planet is now aware. The myth is true; the mythology is not.”

“Huh.”

Tearing open a candy bar and breaking off a chunk, Barton mulled over Alethia’s statement.

“Okay, so- basically, a bunch of myths could turn out to be referencing something real, but,” he popped the bite into his mouth, speaking around it, “the folklore might not actually be that useful, in practice.”

“In essence, yes.”

“Huh.” Barton sucked nougat from between his teeth with an obnoxious smack. “Do you think we’ll be seeing more of this weirdness? Like, out in the open?”

“Mm, most likely,” Alethia said lightly, lifting her eyes back to the ceiling with a blink, “now that SHIELD can no longer swallow it back into the darkness.”

Barton paused, stilling like an animal sensing danger.

“You make it sound pretty sinister.”

“SHIELD has a list of enhanced people called the Index, constantly track their movements regardless of what they have or haven’t done, and threaten them into keeping their abilities hidden from the general public,” she said dryly. “You quite literally disappeared me.”

“Come on,” Barton rolled his head back in his chair exasperatedly, “that’s unfair and you know it. Even you have to admit that SHIELD’s mission is to protect people-”

“Which ones, and from what?”

Her tone was lacklustre, almost vacant, as though this conversation was one that she had with him many times before, and had little hope of it progressing any differently this time.

Abigail wondered what it said that she had to say it again- but also that she begun to anyway.

“Most of them- these myths in hiding- are in hiding from things like SHIELD. You are not the heroes in their stories. You don’t know about them because they don’t want you to. They masquerade as baseline humans and lie to your face and never think twice about it, because they are protecting themselves. They could be right here, in this room, and you would never know. And who could blame them?”

Abigail’s stomach dipped in terror.

The door opened.

“I got lunch,” Romanoff announced.

“I got lunch,” Clint protested, rattling a bag of pretzels in her direction, quickly switching gears into the distraction.

“You’ve got a future heart attack and type-two diabetes.” Dressed more casually than her partner, her dark-rinse jeans and scoop-neck sweater still relatively professional, Romanoff lifted a brown paper bag into the air. “I bought something with nutritional value.”

“If you went to the sandwich bar on the second floor, I seriously doubt that. Unless, you know, nutritional value is interchangeable with salmonella-”

“Shut up and eat your fibre, Clint.”

Sweeping across the room, Romanoff placed an oblong package on Abigail’s desk, wrapped in white deli paper: crab meat in mayonnaise, shredded lettuce, sliced tomato, pickles, and a dash of hot sauce on French baguette, in a somewhat inauthentic, New York approximation of a Louisiana po’boy.

Romanoff had a memory for such things.

Offering Abigail a brief smile, Romanoff turned to Alethia with a skim of chin-length cherry curls. “Ali. Caprese on focaccia, right?”

Ali? Abigail wondered with a twist of her mouth, as Romanoff tossed Alethia her sandwich with a low underarm throw. That’s new.

“I had them hold the pesto, add aioli, rocket, and red onion,” Romanoff added as Alethia caught the package with one upturned palm.

“What did you get me?” Barton asked expectantly.

“Salmonella.”

“Nat.”

“Did you save me some Oreos?”

“Please. I’m not a monster, Natasha.”

“Roast beef on wholewheat.”

“Hm. I’ll allow it.”

“Seriously, it’s a miracle you don’t have a nutritional deficiency-”

“Look, I keep telling you, peanut butter is a source of protein-”

Shrouded by the smooth-flowing banter between the agents, Abigail made the mistake of stealing a glance at Alethia.

She was looking directly at her.

Abigail’s blood seemed to drain directly to her vital organs.

Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit.

Her gaze was unworldly, frighteningly intense, like staring into the core of the sun. Abigail had the sensation of being an insect trapped in amber, paralysed at the mercy of a being that could carve her soul open and leave it to bleed, if she stood in her way.

After a moment, a faint, knowing smile softened at Alethia’s mouth- as though greeting Abigail for the first time.

Without comment, Alethia strained forward to drop her wrapped sandwich on the desk, and kicked off sharply- swivelling her chair, catching her boot against the table behind her to halt herself.

With the slant of her torso, her new position effectively left her with her back to Romanoff and Barton.

The message was clear.

Abigail forced herself to relax, unwrapping her imitation po’boy with trembling fingers and refusing to look back at Alethia, who was now humming a soft, romantic refrain.

She just had to reach the end of her contract. That was all. Once Project VERITAS entered its final phase, she could begin looking for another position. SHIELD would provide her with a mostly accurate reference from a credibly falsified employer, avoiding a damning void in her work history, so she could head back out and-

And then what?

It wasn’t an unfamiliar question.

After completing her studies, she had quietly left her school, declining to enter the graduate program. It wasn’t for her, she had decided, and to his credit, the head professor had been understanding, sending her off with his good will and a glowing reference.

But the world had been wilder, then, and smaller. Their conflict had been fought in shadows, both sides of the schism tacitly agreeing that obscurity was the best source of protection, for now.

But now the light had flooded across the globe, and there were fewer shadows to hide within, and-

What now?

What now, Brand?

Sooner or later, it seemed she would have to make the trip back to Westchester.

-

Later, when she had the time to think about it, Abigail asked Barton what Alethia had been humming.

Ironically, despite being mostly deaf without his hearing aids, Hawkeye had an excellent ear for music; even from Abigail’s tone-deaf attempt at replication, he had quickly identified the piece.

It was opera, apparently, one of those recognisable classical pieces that had filtered into common knowledge without anyone knowing actual title.

The song was an aria, from La traviata.

Sempre libera.

It was clever, and biting, and exactly what she could expect of Alethia, and it should have been enough of an answer just to hear the title.

Except Abigail had gotten curious, and listened to the aria, and looked up the lyrics, because scientific curiosity should not be sated by the first answer it encountered.

Alethia had not been humming the defiantly carefree, fluttering refrain- free and aimless I frolic, from joy to joy- sung by the opera’s protagonist, Violetta. Instead, she had been humming the lines of Violetta’s lover, Alfredo, as he sang offstage.

Love is the heartbeat of the entire universe, they read, the melody drawn out in gently sloping notes, mysterious, altering, the torment and delight of my heart…

-

The shackles, Loki decided, were a little excessive.

Chains as thick as a femur looped between his wrists and ankles, connected by a third to the collar resting against his clavicle, which locked into a fourth wrapped around his waist, from which two more were linked and leashed in the grip of a set of helmed Einherjar- Loki had wanted to roll his eyes at that alone, but he hadn’t been able to resist the low huff of laughter when he was met with no less than ten figures in golden armour outside his cell, dispatched to escort him to Valaskijálf Hall.

At least it would appear that Odin was finally taking him seriously.

The thought was bracing, allowing him to pull forth all the practiced, aloof insouciance of an Asgardian prince.

Odin was paying attention- it was only right that Loki give him a show.

He could already feel the discomfort twisting into the guards, like thumbscrews, in the face of his calm irreverence. They were the ideal test audience- Loki had manipulated enough of the Einherjar over the years that their thoughts were all but cellophane to him.

Admittedly, it was far easier to play the unrepentant monster when she was with him- emerging into consciousness like the break of dawn, burning and righteous and steadying, like a weapon warming his palm.

Over the weeks, their link had stabilised, enough that it could finally convey more than echoes of emotion.

He could feel the moment that she snapped awake in his mind, the breath of a spectre.

Where-?

Loki let his gaze drift briefly, letting her see his surroundings.

His eyes glazed a subtle circuit over dark, mirror-gloss floors, inset with knotwork motifs of amber marble, opulently engraved gold pillars bearing the weight of the high ceiling and its delicately detailed fresco. Fires burned in braziers thrice his height, contrasting the clear natural daylight streaming from the breezeways at his back. Through him, Astrid could no doubt hear the gentle clink and rattle of the chains against his leathers, and the smooth scrape of the Einherjar’s laminar armour as they kept in pace with him, in a parody of an honour guard. Loki could smell mist from the waterways, and sunshine, and the crisp opening knell of autumn- contrasting the heat of early summer that Astrid was currently experiencing in New York, from the trap of SHIELD’s air-conditioned base of operations.

It all tasted traitorously of home.

Trial, he explained to her simply.

Ah. Palace?

Yes.

She paused. Hm.

After a moment of consideration, Astrid sent him a breeze of blasé contempt, and a flash of a memory- of what he recognised as a casino lobby, somewhere on Midgard-

Loki almost choked.

Astra!

The Hall of Valaskijálf, the magnificent heart of the Palace of Asgard and the seat of its power, was being compared to the Bellagio on the Las Vegas strip.

Loki had to forcefully remind himself that dissolving into delighted, scandalised laughter would, at this juncture, be a bad idea.

Against his mind, Astrid preened, irreverently.

Sheath, she murmured with a tint of melancholy, curling around him, setting a little of her mana through their connection to press warm against his heart.

Shoulders relaxing minutely, Loki sent her every ounce of fierce, violent affection that was welling in his chest.

Dagger, he whispered back tenderly, his magic twining into hers like laced fingers.

Even despite the solidified connection, it was still like comparing the glint of a distant star to the heat of the sun, or hearing strains of music just beyond coherency. Loki would have wondered if he had not unconsciously chosen it as a masochistic punishment, if not for the fear that it was affecting her the same way.

“Loki.”

His heart stopped briefly.

“Hello, Mother.”

Loki whipped his head to meet the sight of her, blasé and unmoved.

Astrid tensed in his veins, wary and curious.

Queen Consort Frigga of Asgard was not dressed for court, devoid of the finer trappings of her station. Rather than an elaborately braided, sleekly curled coiffeur, brocaded chrysalis silks, and waterfall sheets of jewels, her gown was one of her simpler garments- a relatively subtle teal satin, with a seafoam-silver shawl draped over her arms. Her only item of jewellery was a set of turquoise pendant earrings, handcrafted in a simple Vanir design, waves of copper-blonde hair left unbound to her waist.

She looked- tired, anxious. Loki could see it in the lines around her eyes, in the tight downturn of her mouth. Her fingers were laced together, one thumb pressing at the opposite palm unconsciously.

Crushing an acute lurch of guilt, and the momentary embittered wish that he could have hated her for all that she had- or, more accurately, hadn’t- done, Loki steepled his eyebrows sardonically at her, his voice soft as velvet.

“Have I made you proud?”

“Please,” Frigga implored quietly, her eyes wide and unblinking, intent and quietly afraid, “don’t make this worse.”

“Define worse.” Loki riposted dryly.

“Enough.”

The king’s voice echoed throughout the throne room.

Loki consciously resisted the reflex to straighten his spine. He felt Astrid coil in response, her attention diverted from Frigga.

Loki turned towards the throne.

Set upon the raised dais, at the summit of three flights of curved steps, was the high seat of Hlidskijalf.

The seat itself was nothing so magnificent- a square of gold, hemmed by broad, rectangular blocks at either side to serve as arms, and a low back- but its silhouette was made imposing by the heavily ornamented wings of solid gold that curved from either side. Bevelled at the edges like a great axe blade, their gentle upward arch framed its occupant, like the centre of a set of inverted scales.

The Allfather sat comfortably upon it, as ever.

His armour was darker than when last Loki had stood in his presence, compared to his burnished silver-steel war plate, or the ceremonial armour that he had worn for Thor’s almost-coronation.

By contrast, the pitch leathers and aged gold plate looked almost tarnished.

Knowing his father, it was undoubtedly a message.

Loki met Odin’s gaze, finding one piercing blue eye gazing down at him dispassionately.

He refused to blink.

“I will speak to the prisoner alone.”

Odin spoke with a calm, almost reasonable authority.

Instinctively, a pit formed in Loki’s stomach, even his jaw worked with defiance.

A thousand years of conditioning- of loyalty, deference, and respect instilled towards his father, his commander, his sovereign- was not so easily broken.

Meanwhile, he could feel Astrid assessing and dissecting the Allfather like a lancet, merciless and unawed.

Whatever it was that she saw, Loki could already feel her dislike forming.

Frigga glanced towards her husband, settling one last unreadable look upon Loki- and turned on her heel, departing with a swirl of heavy skirts and quick steps, accepting her dismissal with dignity.

Loki watched her leave, before swinging his attention back to Odin.

So, Astrid stated, her presence cloaked across Loki’s shoulders like draped arms and mantled wings.

So, Loki agreed, leaning back into her support.

He drew closer to the steps with three slow, measured steps, and snapped his heels together in a sarcastic salute, the crisp clank of his shackles echoing out into the empty hall.

Provocateur, Astrid teased, like lips against his cheek.

This time, Loki left himself exhale a laugh, swaying forwards slightly.

“I really don’t know what all the fuss is about,” he said with a rehearsed air of callous, flippant levity, palms splayed as much as they could within the chains.

“Do you truly not understand the gravity of your crimes?”

Rich, Astrid commented dryly from across their link.

Loki sent back something that evoked a huff of agreement. Of all those involved, Odin had the barest understanding of his actions- even in his ignorance, Thor had at least witnessed the destruction for himself and had almost hit upon the correct question to ask.

“Wherever you go,” Odin proclaimed, almost blandly, “there is war, ruin- and death.”

Astrid stilled dangerously.

Dove, Loki calmed her, his expression sobering.

“I went down to Midgard to rule the people of Earth as a benevolent god.” Loki allowed a soft, taunting smile break through, unable to resist the accusation that welled. “Just like you.”

“We are not gods,” Odin said sagely, all but ignoring his closing barb. “We are born, we live, we die. Just as humans do.”

Hypocrite, Loki shared with Astrid, receiving her dry agreement in reply, before shrugging.

“Give or take five thousand years,” he corrected with a flat-lipped, sardonic smile.

“All this,” the Allfather mused, a hint of scorn finally bleeding through, “because Loki desires a throne.”

“It is my birthright!” Loki snapped, unable to withstand the insult, as though Odin had not told him that he was born to be a king, as though he could not have known what he was implying through the lens of that lie, as though the Norns-damned throne was all it was ever about-

“Your birthright-!” Odin bellowed in reply, leaning forward in his seat, as though to swiftly crush the insolence shown to him. “Was to die!”

Silence reigned for a moment.

In the ringing quiet- and the detached shock that, even now, there was still something left in him to hurt at a truth he had already known- Loki felt it.

Pure, clean, unadulterated rage, the emotion borrowed and possessive and selfish, swathed him.

It tasted like destruction on his tongue, like intent on the edge of his nerves, borne in the currents of something heart-deep that threatened to obliterate anything before it. Her mana burned bright in his nerves, crackling behind his retinas, threatening to radiate out of him and contaminating his own magic.

And if Odin caught the traces of a foreign mana in him, active and alive-

Loki reached for Astrid with thoughts like cool water and nepenthe, gathering her wild mana into his core, hastily absorbing and reforming it before Odin could notice.

There was only so much that his own magical core, and the mana-supressing runes in his shackles, could do to mask her presence. Ironically, it was fortunate that the connection was yet to develop to its full strength, muting her.

Given the strength of her rage, however, an intensity so heady that he could overdose on it-

Bastard. Her thoughts were incandescent, tumbling through his own and breaking through to a fresh level of coherency. Bastard. How dare he-

Beloved, please, calm- for me-

“- as a child. Cast out onto a frozen rock. If I had not taken you in,” the corner of Odin’s mouth lifted, almost a jeer, “you would not be here now to hate me.”

Abruptly, Astrid’s mood crystallised, bright and clear, giving Loki space to breathe again.

No, Loki heard her decide, no, better- wait and sic Daddy on him-

He took a sharp stride forward, back into more pressing problems.

“If I am for the axe, then for mercy’s sake, just swing it,” Loki challenged Odin in reply, sotto voce and almost obliging. If he seemed preoccupied, if Odin was given cause to suspect anything, if he found out about Astrid-

He felt the sharp knife of instinctive fear, sick in his stomach.

In this respect, Odin remained exponentially more dangerous than Thanos.

Astrid offered a flicker of conviction in comfort, her temper still cooling.

“It’s not that I don’t love our little talks, it’s just-” Loki paused pointedly, as though considering his phrasing. “I don’t love them.”

Odin didn’t respond to his insolence, as though it mattered so little to him that it was unworthy of a reaction.

“Frigga is the only reason that you are still alive, and you will never see her again.” His announcement was perfunctory, prelude to dismissal.

Ah.

Well. The Allfather knew how to mete out cruelty with the political precision of an autocrat.

“You will spend the rest of your days in the dungeon,” Odin concluded softly.

As though choreographed, the guards gave a short tug on Loki’s chains, drawing him back a step from the throne.

He should have been prepared for it.

He had been prepared for it, intellectually, had predicted the most likely ruling and Odin’s pretence at a measure of mercy, had expected to be kept in cold storage indefinitely lest Odin ever encounter a better use for him, or a quandary that Thor’s brawn could not resolve- even while he knew that the sentence would never be carried out. Between the Tesseract’s power and Astrid’s sheer will and wit, all Loki would have to do was ask.

But this was the ruling, the mock trial that was all that Loki was worth. Odin had not even deigned to ask why. He had assumed, and accepted the lie in confirmation of it.

Alderliefest, she gentled him, her mind as unclouded and radiant within his.

She strained for him like an outstretched hand, fingers flared and trembling.

Ah, Loki realised ruefully, so I really am being cruel to both of us.

Gripping onto her lifeline, winding the necessity around his fist to ground himself, Loki spoke numbly.

“And what of Thor? You’ll make that witless oaf king, while I rot in chains?”

“Thor must strive to undo the damage you have done,” Odin spoke sharply. “He will bring order to the Nine Realms, and then-”

The Einherjar behind him clamped leather-gloved hands down on his shoulders, prepared to haul him away.

“Yes. He will be king.”

Internally, Loki dissolved into triumphant laughter.

He felt Astrid’s flutter of curious confusion- and her sting of pleasure at being surprised.

Later, he vowed, darkly heated, already in anticipation of witnessing her reaction.

What Odin had meant as a parting volley- as salt ground into an open wound- was a precious piece of intelligence that Loki would have otherwise been hard pressed to obtain.

The Nine was in chaos, then. The damage you have done could only refer to the destruction of the Bifrost, only recently repaired and restored to functionality, with the assistance of the Tesseract.

Without the Rainbow Bridge, Asgard had limited means of interstellar travel. Their spaceworthy fleet had atrophied over the centuries of relative peace, the great warships considered obsolete upon the construction of the Bifrost, the streamlined technology left to fall behind the other galactic powers. Almost no one knew of the secret passageways that Loki had discovered, let alone mapped them, and there were few his equal in the kenning arts who could locate, stabilise, and manipulate the few that could accommodate passage of a large volume of troops.

Without the Bridge, Asgard had been cut off from the other eight realms.

And without Asgard’s presence as a deterrent, every world within the Yggdrasil complex would have been overrun with opportunists for months, if not close to years.

It was a cold necessity- a nasty shock to the established system, both for those who had relied upon Asgardian arms for the safety of their realm, and for Asgard itself at being so simply and effectively hamstrung for almost two years.

Thor would do what he did best, of course, and battle his way through the marauders, trussing them up and tossing them into the dungeons to rot beside Loki- but the damage would already be done.

The seeds would be planted, and people would start to think.

And when people started to think, they would start to talk.

And that, Loki could work to his advantage, like hot metal upon an anvil.

Thank you, Allfather, Loki wanted to say, laughing against the pain as he was led away, for your most gracious cruelty.

With that, the first gears were in motion.

-

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[aiyexayen]

✿⋆₊⊹ Zonai Facts ⊹₊⋆✿

Mammalian features.

Furry.

Bipedal.

Had exclusive access to incredibly potent but finite power source obtained by unsustainable mining practises.

Opened enormous pit mines in underground caverns beneath every single major city of every nation across Hyrule in the pursuit of more of the energy source.

Bound naturally-occurring root systems in tight woven nets throughout Hyrule's underworld to funnel large quantities of daylight down from the surface, introducing invasive species of surface flora in the process, in order to see better in pursuit of more of the energy source.

Named the energy source after themselves.

Energy source notably corrupts other beings who mine for it.

Used their power and technological advancements to invent fully modular mass weapons of elemental destruction.

Created an army of effectively-immortal, autonomous war robots that are hostile to all lifeforms and attack immediately with deadly force.

Had the power to semi-permanently suspend enormous land masses in the air and did so.

Seeded aforementioned robots on these land masses across the entire skies of Hyrule suspended over every other peoples' land.

Spread their Zonai-exclusive-access technology across the entire surface of Hyrule as well--into towns, caves, valleys, mountaintops.

Supplanted many Hyrulean culture's beliefs and religious practises, building all of them enormous temples with little apparent religious function beyond interacting with the Zonai themselves.

Built over ancient sacred grave sites with their own architecture.

Constructed their own buildings on sacred land intruding on the homes of spirit beings.

Perpetuated the belief that the Zonai themselves were descended from gods.

Filled each of these Zonai temples across Hyrule with technology exclusively able to be accessed by the Zonai or those few they grant permission.

Each temple's technology contained the enormous elemental potential to wreak extinction-level destruction on the peoples and land of Hyrule, not unlike enormous floating war machines.

Seeded the temples with scores of their previously-mentioned immortal, armed with deadly force, universally hostile battle robots.

Places where the Zonai land masses interact with Hyrulean ground cause the latter to begin to disappear, native ecology being replaced as patterns of unknown nature spread out from the point of contact like a living tattoo.

Made a marriage alliance with the most populous and centrally-located race in Hyrule, who also claimed divine bloodline.

Both accepted and demanded allegiance from every other prominent nation in Hyrule.

Described as "warlike" by those who outlived them.

Commandeered the most powerful spiritual leaders from each race and bonded them to ancient and powerful Zonai amulets.

Crafted Zonai-style animal masks for this elite team of mages that they appeared to wear permanently, while the Zonai and Hylians remained unmasked.

Ensured their own visages and names would survive eternally through hundreds of shrines built in their image across the land and sky, filled with an absurd quantity of light energy from an unknown source (and battle robots) to eternally preserve and protect them.

Left the other mages' faces and names out of history entirely--until they do not exist even in the records of their own peoples and nations.

Adorned royalty with intricate stone jewellery.

Severed limbs capable of functioning independent of rest of body.

Had white hair.

Very tall.

Fuckable?

[old-stoneface]

ive been really interested in reading fanfic by published authors lately, and recently i found the account where the author naomi novik (who i think is very talented and whose books i have read two of) has posted fic from the late 1990s to literally this year (over 500 fics), and its like . these fics are such perfect examples of their kind. im fascinated by the depth thats added to the characters i recognize, but im also deeply amused by the stereotypical way that characters are mischaracterized, and ive been going thru old livejournal posts from novik as well. my original goal when looking for published authors' fic was to find holly black's old handles so i could look up what she was writing in the late 90s and early oughts but i havent been able to track it down....so disappointing. ive found a few pdfs of c*ssandra cl*re's work too (censored bc shes on tumblr) but since its all hp stuff i have very little interest in it. it is, however, very funny to see the origins of the writing styles that you see in the published work....

the most interesting part of reading novik's fanfic is seeing the care with which she treats female characters, making them way more complex than they are in the source material, which is also very evident in the way she wrote the main characters of original work spinning silver and uprooted. i also found transcripts of the very amusing drama that novik was involved in a while back on a reddit ama, wherein she was asked why, even though her fic is majority m/m slash fic and is mostly explicit, she hasnt written an original story featuring gay men. her main reason was that she typically leaves it up to the interpretation of the readers, letting them draw their own conclusions, but there was some messiness to her phrasing that didnt lend to a favorable reasoning and which garnered her some distrust in fandom spaces. however, this mainly just interested me, and didnt have any negative impact on the way she writes or what she writes about.

this is all to say that im proud of the fact that i was posting fic in 2012 on fanfiction dot net, and where i used to feel a lot of shame about it because of various forces in my life, i now have more respect for this tradition within the last two generations of writers lol ive never been particularly interested in the way that fandoms interact with each other but im deeply fascinated by the way you can analyze people based on what they write and how their voice comes thru ...

[h4rr0wh4rk]

Harrow Cosplay Planning 2: The Hard Part

Friends, the harder yet more fun aspect of this cosplay is designing my version of Harrow's necromancer robes. While one could look at the series as sci-fi and have a lot of fun trying to design something more sleek and futuristic, like Harrow's canonical cover outfit, I have a deep love for historical costuming and overly ornate bullshit of all sorts, and as such will be leaning heavily into anachronism for the Reverend Daughter of Drearburh's more officious garments.

The line from chapter 7 about Harrow's disembarking outfit reads,

"Harrowhark did not care for any herald. She had drifted out like a black ship in sail, a bony figure wreathed in layers and layers of night-coloured cloth with a lace overcloak trailing behind her; adorned with bones, painted like a dead woman, eyes blindfolded with black net."

"Layers and layers" and "ship in sail" are the first things that give me ideas. When I think of the silhouette of a "ship in sail" I think long not wide. Now, maybe most of the train comes from that lace overcloak, but I think we would have more fun if the main gown itself had some volume in the skirt. I want to avoid any horizontally boned skirt supports, (so no drum farthingales, panniers, or crinoline cages) in order to maintain that long not wide effect. Initially, I thought about basing the main gown on a houppelande, specifically the one pictured here:

Rogier van der Weydan, c. 1443-1445

But as I thought about the practicalities of cloth usage in the ninth and this line Harrow has in chapter 6 of HtN, where she notices Jod's all-black attire, "he was dressed simply, as per usual, in a black shirt and trousers. The lack of tint had always pleased you. It was very Ninth, even the collar and the cuffs of his shirt that were scruffy and pilled from too much wearing," it became clearer to me that the houppelande was too wasteful in its fabric use. That fits more with one of the Tridentarii's diaphanous dresses than Harrow. So I looked instead to a much less wasteful garment, the kirtle:

Dieric Bouts, ca. 1455

Specifically, one that has the opening on the side like this example.

Daisy Viktoria Medieval Dress Pattern

But with more of this shape when standing. I like the continuous cut of the front pieces of the bodice and skirt, and we can add volume and length at the rear gore without adding bulk or extra fabric to the front or side gores.

I want to do a side button (because they actually have buttons! Woo not the 13th century!) opening to try and do something stupid. Given Harrow's propensity for turtlenecks, I want to try and add a side buttoning high neck collar, though whether that gets added to the kirtle or lace overcloak is anybody's guess right now. But if it does end up on the kirtle, getting into the gown will probably be easier if all the openings are on the same line.

To create the "layers and layers," the black kirtle will get a black shift and petticoat, an apron, a shawl, maybe a separate collar garment, kind of like a structured fichu, and the lace overcloak, which will objectively be the hardest thing to source. I'm not adding a surcoat because this is my design and I don't feel like it, it doesn't fit my goth 13th-century rococo vibe.

Speaking of rococo, I am tossing around the idea of adding robe-a-la-francaise-style box pleats to the gown to help support the length idea, but that might be too much.

The veil is a tad confusing. The way it's described in the quote above, as Harrow's "eyes blindfolded with black net," implies it may be more of a fascinator or even a true blindfold, but earlier in that same chapter, Gideon describes how, “The expression on the other girl’s face wasn’t disinterest or distraction, as she’d assumed; even through a layer of veiling, she could tell that Harrow was near-incapacitated with concentration,” making it seem like the veil is over her whole face. Out of a deep love of overdramatics, I'm taking the executive decision it's a full-face veil.

The veil I'm taking from Victorian mourning veils. I know it describes it as "net" in the quote, but in HtN, the Lyctor Hood is contrasted with it as such, "your new hood, unlike good Ninth House furze, was transparent enough to let you see quite clearly". I did some googling, and today it seems like "furze" is just a plant otherwise known as gorse, not a type of cloth or veil. However, if Harrow's veil were simply netting, she would be able to see out of it easily. I think this is a case where Gideon's unreliable narration and inattention to detail is kicking in. As such, I feel justified in using a more densely woven fabric for the veil itself.

The Met, Mourning Veil, 1900-1920

While this is technically probably Edwardian, the crepey silk used was common throughout the Victorian era.

I also like this type of headband I keep seeing fan artists (I will try to find sources and links in the coming days) put Harrow in to anchor the veil, so I would make a version that is not 50 dollars and is probably smaller.

ZiptieJewelry

The shoes would just be the shoes I get for the other version of this cosplay.

Adding all of the bone beading to the gown will be a bridge I burn when I get to it, it's going to be rough rough rough. I have no idea what I want to do in terms of rococoing this up, so expect at least a part 4 of the HCP series about that, (3 will be grease paint research) even if HCC (Harrow Cosplay Constructing) begins in the meantime.

If you made it all the way down here, thank you for reading all of that I am excited to work hard on it and show you what I come up with, and if you didn't:

TL;DR Gonna make a black kirtle for the necromancer robes and add some accessories

[chussyracing]

what's up in motorsport lately

There will be superlicence points awarded for F1 Academy drivers (for the top 5 in the standings) as well and there will be wildcard drivers driving for Prema in each country they race in and they will only be able to race in the series for two years

Horner is under independent investigation after misconduct at work place allegations, which Red Bull's senior executive Oliver Mintzlaff is dealing with now (the only official statements are from Red Bull company, not the racing division, informing about the ongoing investigation and from Horner denying any allegations, rumours say that Horner sent multiple nude pics to at least one female worker of Red Bull Racing, they have solid proof of it, the investigation has been going on for weeks, Horner has been told to step down to avoid harming the company's reputation any further and reportedly there will be a comission meeting because of it this Friday to come up with a solution before their car launch, he lost the support of the team and Jonathan Wheatley should take over and Geri Halliwell "has been crying all weekend but insists her husband did nothing wrong")

Carlos partnered with OTK Kart Group to start his own kart CS55

Sauber and Williams showed us their liveries and race suits for 2024 season

F1 comission meeting came up with new sprint weekend format meaning Friday will be FP1 and sprint shootout, Saturday will be Sprint and quali, Sunday will be the race as usual

They increased the possible use of PUs from 3 to 4 for 2024 and 2025

DRS will be available after 1 lap instead of two (both after start and after SC restart) in effort to increase overtaking on track

Lewis and Fernando did Pirelli tyre testing today with George and Lance following (tomorrow I think) in Jezer

Carlos gave an interview to Skysports and mentioned Maranello is his home and he will try to become WDC this year and stays calm about his future

Adrian Newey went on Talking Bulls podcast and mentioned a few interesting things like that he is afraid they made a mistake of making third evolution to choose a conservative approach with their limited sources and they're not sure how this season will go, because others got closer and towards the end of the season, they were sometimes even faster, like Charles in Las Vegas

Helmut Marko denied rumours of Ricciardo to Mercedes (before they even started) stating he has a long term contract (he also spoke out on why Max will never join Mercedes, because of their accusations and name dropped AD 2021 and Silverstone 2021)

Sauber faces legal issues in Switzerland because of Stake sponsorship (screenshot below)

Pierre Keterrer and Edward Floydd left the legal department of FIA are leaving the organization (side note they were both included in the last Concorde Agreement on the side of FIA which could mean nothing but 🙃)

Ferrari and Visa Cash App RB fired up their cars

Riccardo Musconi is rumoured to join Ferrari with Lewis

Aston Martin is looking for a new CEO (note: this us the car maker not the F1 division)

Mercedes signed Climate Pledge to reach Net Zero

Barnard is the last addition to F2 so the grid is now complete

Netflix is working on a documentary about Senna in style of Drive to Survive

Guanyu said he knew about Lewis signing with Ferrari before it was official from his manager

From fan's point of view: Carlos went cycling in Monaco, Lewis posted his naked back, Viaplay made a short docu series about Max

[hockeygossipdaily]

https://www.tumblr.com/hockeygossipdaily/764196630685728768/well-thats-why-some-people-stated-it-had-part-of?source=share

im not trying to start shit but Jack is a turnover machine.

and thats not a bad thing thats because he always had the puck. youre more likely to turnover the puck when you have the puck on your stick more often. if you look at puck possession stats Jack is always near the top because if he's on the ice the puck is on his stick so he's definitely gonna have higher turnover rates thats legit always been the case. its been a critique people have had of him for years and its a dumb critique because its just because he had the puck more often not because hes a bad player

plus as much as he turns the puck over he also causes the other team to make turnovers. hes a puck stealing machine.

id be concerned with his play if his play away from the puck was bad but it isnt. hes still playing well when he doesnt have the puck which is important. hes defending well and making good decisions when he defends.

him missing the net is whatever. he will find his groove.

also have to remember that he doesnt play on his own he has linemates and historically him and timo dont mesh well together. he plays really well with bratter but his style and timos style dont work well together so that is also causing growing pains in his play.

^^^