#this boy belongs to the birds and you cannot change my mind.
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rocketbirdie · 5 months ago
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country boy napping on the job
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meekmedea · 2 years ago
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The Age Old Question: Can we get a ___?
Slade having to deal with his children asking for a pet throughout the years
~~~~
Grant (Age 6)
“I want a dog.”
Truly a boy after his own heart. He did too. But Adeline didn’t like dogs, and Slade wasn’t home as often to argue that he could take care of it. Rather than giving Addie another burden, he shook his head in the negative. “No.”
“Pretty please?” His eldest stares up at him, eyes pleading and by God did it feel like a crime to refuse his request.
It takes everything to not give in. "The attractiveness of the word please won't change my mind."
~~~~
Joey (Age 9)
“Can I get a cat?”
Addie liked cats. But she was also allergic, which meant that a cat was out of the question at her place. “And who's going to take care of the cat when you’re away at your mother’s?”
“I’ll bring them along with me,” signs Joey.
“Your mother’s allergic.”
“Medi wouldn’t mind having a cat around the house. She said so.”
“She’s four, Joey. She’s going to agree to whatever her brothers suggest." Slade can already see his younger son's next argument and nips it in the bud. "And before you ask, I travel too much to also take care of a cat.”
~~~~
Medea (Age 5)
“I want a dragon,” announces his youngest without any preamble.
“Okay.”
“With wings.”
“Alright.”
"Oh! Oh! Can it be golden too?"
"If I can find one, sure."
At his words, Medea beamed and launched herself at him. "Thank you!"
''
While Medea had wandered back to sit by Joey, Slade felt a pair of eyes staring him down. “Hmm?” He lazily looked in that direction to find the stare belonging to his eldest. “What is it?”
“I wanted a dog and you said no because it was too messy. But you’re saying yes to a dragon?”
He shrugs. “And?”
“Pops! That’s unfair!”
Would Grant throw hands with a toddler? Absolutely. Something Joey noticed as he inched himself closer toward Medea. But if it was his five year old sister? Probably not. Right?
Bonus: 2 weeks later
Medea’s dragon in question: a plushie
Grant: 😒 Medea: đŸ„°
~~~~
Years later with Rose...
Rose (Age 16)
"You know, I've been thinking," trails off Rose.
Slade merely raised an eyebrow at her. It was obvious that she was angling for something, but the question was, for what?
"Since you know we’ve missed out on quite a few years of presents. I was thinking we could just get one gift to make up for everything."
"Like?" This better not be what he thought it was.  
"I want a bird."
"No. Your mother told me that you’re not allowed any more pets."
``
"And why not?" Rose huffed, hands on her hips.
"I seem to remember a certain Mr. Wiggles having an unfortunate accident." He bites back a smile at how red his daughter had turned.
"I cannot believe Mom told you that!"
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azucanela · 4 years ago
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HI CAN I REQUEST?!? How would Keigo, Bakugou and Shinsou react to their s/o wearing a really low cut shirt, one that shows a lot of cleavage and they don’t seem to have any idea what they’re doing- like they aren’t trying to get they’re attention they just happen to be wearing it. And they like bend down next to them to tell them something.(i feel like this can be partially serious nsfw and partially major crack. 😂) thank you.
REACTING TO S/O WEARING A LOW CUT SHIRT HEADCANNONS + SCENARIOS
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[FT. BAKUGOU KATSUKI, KEIGO TAKAMI, SHINSOU HITOSHI]
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SUMMARY: Y/N honestly didn’t think her shirt was anything special until...
WORD COUNT: 2.2k
WARNINGS: mildly suggestive content, innuendos, kissing, 
A/N: THIS REMINDS ME OF THE TIK TOK AUDIO THING SKLHDJKAH I CAN’T EXPLAIN IT 
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BAKUGOU KATSUKI
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HEADCANNONS
will not admit it but he is appreciating everything he can see
katuski doesn’t seem like the type to drink respect women juice but he does, he drinks too much, thats why he DESTROYED uraraka in the sports festival, katsuki thinks everyone should get destroyed equally
if anyone at any point decides to point out that he is staring, katsuki is gonna commit death and will not look at you for the rest of the day, like he is avoiding you and your gaze no matter what
katsuki is definitely going to be watching everyone else, and one wrong move means he’s gonna blast them to bits sjahjkahdjk, like oh hey mineta? you spent to long even glancing in my s/o’s direction so TIME TO DIE EXTRA
if you guys are out in public and other guys are looking at you then the PDA shoots through the ROOF, Katsuki has his hands all over you and you don’t mind this is abnormal behavior um??
definitely glaring at anyone who looks your way, especially since you aren’t noticing all the attention your lovely outfit is garnering
will compliment you but is shy about it
“you look... nice.”
“thanks katsuki.”
intense blushing from him but he WILL deny it
if you bend down in front of him and give him a CLOSE UP he is going to die on the inside, externally he is going to seem mostly composed, there’ll be a lil blush on his cheeks and he’s gonna try to avert his eyes very quick peak 
very quick
would never admit it happened but you’ll know because he’s gonna try and drag you away somewhere more private because it is unfair how flustered you are making him what the hell
then y’all,,,
ahsbdhjhksjdhakjs
you should wear that shirt more often tho like 👀
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SCENARIO
Most of the time when Katsuki said he hated Y/N, he didn’t really mean it. In reality, she was one of few people he tolerated, and part of an even smaller group of people that he respected in their school. Also, he may or may not have been in love with her and dating her. 
Not that he would admit that, yet.
Watching Y/N enter the room, in a low cut top, revealing far too much, Katsuki realized he hated this woman. His eyes following her figure as she made her way into the common room kitchen, Katsuki could practically feel Kirishima smirk, “what’cha looking at Bakubro?”
“Shut up.” He grumbled in response, tearing his eyes away from Y/N, who had begun to speak with that dumb Deku. Katsuki couldn’t help the jealousy that flooded his veins at the sight, he shifted in his seat uncomfortably as he attempted to keep his attention focused on the show Kirishima had selected.
In the corner of his eye, Katsuki could see that stupid Grape heading in Y/N’s direction. “Hey! Grape.” He called out, voice low. Mineta froze at his words, eyes widening in fear as he slowly turned to meet Katsuki’s piercing glare. “What did I tell you?”
It was common knowledge at this point, messing with Y/N L/N meant messing with Bakugou Katsuki, and only an idiot would do that. Katsuki had made it especially clear to Mineta that you— along with all the other girls in their class, though he’d never admit it— were strictly off limits, unless Mineta wanted to die a long and painful death at his hands.
Y/N seemed blissfully unaware of the fact that Katuski despises the lovely top she dons as she makes her way over to his spot on the couch, and the eyes on you that don’t belong to him. It seemed you hadn’t just caught his attention today. “Hey, Katsuki.” He’s about to say something in reply when Y/N rests her hands on his knees, leaning down to continue. “I was thinking we could go out today,” Y/N keeps talking, about the possible areas to visit, but Katsuki isn’t listening at this point. 
Her upper body is dangerously visible and close to him, and Katsuki is doing his best to avoid staring but Y/N seems to be making that very difficult as she speaks. He’s forced to resort in looking away from her entirely, only to see Kirishima’s smug grin as he snickers alongside Mina.
This is why Katsuki grabs one of Y/N’s hands off his knee as he practically shoots up from his spot on the couch, “yeah. Let’s go now.”
Her brows furrow, but upon seeing the reddening face of Bakugou Katsuki, and Y/N agrees despite her own confusion, “sure, you have somewhere in mind?”
“Yeah, I have something in mind.”
Somewhere was his room, something was Y/N pressed up against the door. Her arms had wrapped around his neck, and she broke away from the kiss he’d initiated to speak, “what’s up with you?” There’s a grin on her face as his own begins to flush once more.
“Your stupid shirt.”
“What did my shirt do?”
“EVERYTHING.”
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KEIGO TAKAMI | PRO HERO HAWKS
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HEADCANNONS
blatantly checking you out, he has ZERO SHAME, keigo wants you to know that he finds you VERY ATTRACTIVE 
“you look so good today babe. i love the outfit.”
always been very big on PDA though his agency and publicist do not approve, during dates he’s less touchy than he wants to be but seeing you in that top he is now 100% with PDA
if anyone hits on you or anything i feel like he’s the type to be a lil possessive because bird instincts, and he will have no shame just making out with you and feeling you up right there in front of anybody who flirts with you, much to everyone’s dismay
if someone points out his blatant stares he gonna be proud of it and be like yeah im looking
there is no blushing, there is no being flustered, yes he is going to be a little caught off guard that you are wearing that type of shirt, but aside from that he is going to enjoy it while it lasts
very much appreciates this opportunity like the perv he is
will wanna find somewhere provide just to have a little bit of fun, because he’s,,, hawks. you can’t tell me he isn’t gonna wanna make out with you or 👀 👀 👀
def most likely to have this happen with, purely because he knows it could be embarrassing for you if he just started making out with you in public, because at this point, keigo does not care
keigo simps and he has ZERO shame, definitely the most perverted, you cannot change my mind
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SCENARIO
For once in his career, Keigo had managed to earn a day off, and he didn’t know anyone better to spend it with than his lovely girlfriend, Y/N L/N. Of course, he never expected her to arrive to their little hangout in such a wonderful outfit.
Keigo could not deny that he was appreciating everything. His eyes were wandering over her upper body, brow raised as she approached him, waving. “Hey, Takami!” She greeted, beaming at him.
“Hey, babe.” Comes his response, bringing a hand to her hip to pull her closer, Keigo brought his other hand to her cheek and pressed a kiss to her lips. “You look nice today.” He mumbled when they pulled apart, his eyes trailing over her figure once more, Keigo’s hand remained at her side as he pulled her through the streets. 
“You’re very touchy today.” Y/N pointed out, though she brought her hand over his nonetheless, leaning into his touch as they made their way through the crowd. 
He could feel the stares on the both of them, and he wasn’t necessarily sure if that was because two Pro Heroes were casually walking through the street, or if Y/N’s outfit was bringing in more attention than she’d expected. Regardless, Keigo didn’t like it. “What can I say, I wanna touch my amazingly attractive girlfriend.”
Y/N swats at his chest playfully as he brings her to an empty table in the food court, eyes scanning the area for something that sold chicken nuggets, that he happened to love. Though Y/N made fun of him for it frequently, referring to him as a cannibal, much to his dismay.
“Well, your amazingly attractive girlfriend,” Y/N pushed him down into the seat at the table, hands remaining on his shoulders as she spoke to him, and effectively giving Keigo quite the... view. “Is going to go get some chicken nuggets, do you want a drink?” 
Wow, she’s perfect.
Keigo finds himself nodding absently, distracted by the sight before him as he forces his eyes to return to her face, which dawns a confused look, “yes please, babe.” He sits back in his seat, offering her a smirk. 
“You’re so weird.”
“And you are so perfect.”
“Shut up.”
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SHINSOU HITOSHI
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HEADCANNONS
a respectful boy
does not look if he can avoid it, and if he does look, he is looking respectfully because shinsou drinks respect women juice
definitely the MOST flustered and cannot hide it because wow you look so good and you are his s/o, and oh-
“how do i look toshi?”
“uh,,, good. yeah you look really pretty today- not that you don’t look pretty everyday its just-”
not very big on PDA, does basic stuff like hand holding and will on occasion, kiss you, that’s probably not gonna change
if he gets jealous of all the people checking you out, he’s not gonna say anything, he’s just gonna hope you don’t dump him to go hang out with one them akshdkjashdjksa
gets insecure because this is a reminder of how amazing his lovely s/o is and wow you are just really hot and why are you dating him again? he doesn’t know, he’s gonna need a reminder
if anyone points out the fact that he’s staring at you he might cry kajshdjkahsdkj he’s definitely gonna be embarrassed and start blushing IMMENSELY it’ll be hilarious ngl
not the type to be possessive or jealous or anything
if you two somehow end up somewhere private then he probably will wanna make out with you but he’ll ask politely if he can kiss you and then things will escalate from there
overall a very respectful boy and will not look unless its an accident or explicitly given permission because he is also a very awkward boy please help him
you literally break shinsou with this outfit like he is flabbergasted shocked and simping for YOU
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SCENARIO
When Shinsou heard the knock on his door, he already knew who it was. He and his lovely girlfriend, Y/N L/N had agreed to go out together today, and she was meeting him at his dorm. 
“Come in.” He called out, leaning down to tie his shoes. 
Shinsou heard the door open, and a smile found its way onto his face as Y/N greeted him, “hi Hitoshi!” Moving up to look at her from his seat on his bed, Shinsou is greeted by a shirt he has never seen before.
Oh no.
His cheeks flush as he averts his eyes, “hey kitten.” Shinsou clears his throat, straightening in his seat on the bed, “you ready to go.” 
Y/N is grinning at him as she brings her hands to his shoulders and presses a kiss to his cheek, “definitely.” This position was not helping him focus on the task at hand.
Shinsou nods slowly, blinking a few times as he focuses his gaze on her face, earning him a raised brow, “right, let’s go.” He moves to sit up, just for Y/N to press him back down onto the bed by his shoulders.
“What’s up with you?”
He falters, mouth opening and closing for a moment as he struggles to find an excuse, “you look really nice today.” Is what he manages to come up with, though the look on Y/N’s face only brings more panic as he continues, “not that you don’t look nice everyday it’s just that uh-” Shinsou makes an odd hand gesture, contemplating ramming his head into the wall as he finally makes eye contact with his very amused girlfriend. 
“What makes you say that, baby?” She asks, tilting her head at him as her hands remain firmly planted on his shoulders.
Shinsou finds it hard not to cover his face with his hands as he replies, “your shirt.”
Y/N’s brows furrow, looking down at her shirt as though she’d forgotten what she’d worn that day, only for her face to morph into one of realization as her mouth forms an ‘o’ shape. This soon becomes laughter as she looks to Shinsou, “I never expected that from you Hitoshi.”
“I-I’m sorry?!”
Y/N is laughing even more at his words, a small smile on her face as she brings her hands to his face to bring him into a kiss. Shinsou melts into this kiss, hands coming to her waist. 
“I honestly can’t believe you actually-”
“I’m going to leave if you don’t shut up.”
“Sure you will.” 
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A/N: why was writing this so hard AND I MADE A GRILLED CHEESE FOR THE FIRST TIME I FEEL SO SUCCESSFUL
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TAGLISTS[lmk if you wanna be added or removed via ask or reply]
BNHA: @shawkneecaps
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ordinaryschmuck · 3 years ago
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What I Thought About "Hunting Palismans" From The Owl House
Salutations, random people on the internet who certainly won’t read this! I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons.
Today, I present to you reason #4,693 for why The Owl House is the best thing at the moment: It's the perfect balance of serialized storytelling with an episodic format. The story always moves forward with an exact order for how episodes should be watched, but each episode still functions as its own standalone tale. Having prior knowledge of what happened before adds more to the experience, but you can still watch whatever you want and still have an enjoyable time. Take "Hunting Palismans," for example. It adds so much more to the overarching narrative while slightly continuing other threads. But it's still something you can watch as is without remembering the past or wondering about the future.
However, to properly explain how requires spoilers. I wasn't kidding when I say that this episode adds so much, so you're going to want to be wary of that when you continue reading.
With that said, let's review, shall we?
WHAT I LIKED
Coven Heads Meeting: We already saw these fellow schmucks in the trailer, but that doesn't take away how cool they are! It's not explicitly stated which head belongs to which coven, but you can already tell who goes where just from their designs alone. And I love that. I love that just by showing us some excellent character designs, anybody with half a brain can already figure out the particular type of magic each Coven Head specializes in. It's a perfect example of the show-don't-tell level of storytelling that is always at its best through animation, and I'm all for it because of it.
What the Day of Unity is: Several fans, myself included, have already speculated that the Day of Unity was that Emperor Belos planned to combine the human world with the Boiling Isles and rule it all with an iron fist. That being said, figuring it out is one thing, but being told that it's true is a whole different level pants-s**ting horror that I AM NOT READY FOR! Even when it's going to happen, I can assure you that I will not be prepared to witness it ...and I am scared of when it does.
Belos Body Horror: ...Disney, I was already scared s**tless of this guy. I DO NOT NEED THIS!
That being said, seeing Belos do...whatever the f**k that was, helps explain further why he needs the magic in palismans. I always assumed because it's like fuel for a car, giving him the power he needs. Now, even though the answer is more apparent, there are still some questions to be had. Is he cursed, and the magic keeps it at bay like Eda's potions? Or did he experiment with the wrong type of magic, and the palismans keep him stable? Only the future can say for sure...and I'm also not prepared for the answers from that either.
Golden Guard is Belos’ Nephew: Gosh dangit, THE INTRO HASN'T EVEN STARTED YET, AND THIS EPISODE IS ALREADY GIVING SO MUCH!
But, yeah, the most powerful witch on the Isles is apparently Golden Boy's Grunkle Belos. That very knowledge is incredibly interesting to discuss while presenting possibilities for future narratives. I don't know about you, but I see the Golden Guard going down the path of Zuko, learning that the magic of friendship is worth much more than whatever power he gains from being Belos' nephew. And possibly earning his uncle's love seeing how he's the only family he has. It's a situation that's vastly different from Amity's because even when she defies her parents, she'll still have Edric and Emira at the end of the day. For Golden Guard, knowing that he lost a great family to wild magic, the inclination to go against Belos is a lot weaker due to him being all he has left.
Oh, and also, Belos' family getting wiped out because of wild magic. Yeah, not only does that give the best type of motivation for Belos' distaste for it, but it also explains the Golden Guard's hesitance to use it. He's inclined to so he can save his uncle, sure. It's only the fact that he knows what happens with wild magic that causes some resistance...Also, we're less than a minute in, and I'm already getting all of this from one discussion between two characters.
HOW IS THIS SHOW SO GOOD?!
Intro Changes: It's about time too. It seems weird that the crew waited to change Eda and King's designs in the intro this late in the game, but it also tells me that Amity dying her hair lavender is the last huge change this season will present. Otherwise, why change the intro at all if you were going to alter Luz, Willow, and Gus' designs anyway? It just doesn't make sense to me.
Luz Keeping the Echo Mouse as a Pet: The fact that she keeps the most important creature in the world to her as a pet...it's...it's adorable, alright? And as we established several times, I cannot hate adorable things.
Don't judge me!
Amity Staying Home: There are two plausible ways why Amity didn't go to school that day. Either she's getting punished for dying her hair or because she's trying to avoid Luz so they won't talk about the you-know-what. Either could work and seem understandable to Luz, thus explaining why she admits how "that makes sense." Although, there is something to discuss in how Luz is curious as to where Amity is. Judging from the tone of her voice, it's pretty clear that she wants to talk about the little peck on the cheek and maybe get some confirmation as to what it means. Because there is no going back from that. You can explain away saying or doing something stupid, but you cannot un-kiss a cheek. That is a point of no return, and if Amity really is avoiding Luz because of it, that means it's up to our favorite weirdo to make the first move. As for what that may entail...we'll just have to wait and see.
Frewin: We get two bits of information here for the price of one reveal here. Knowing that Frewin is a palisman is shocking enough, but the knowledge that Bump is partially blind and needs Frewin to see? That is an intriguing piece of intel that I would have never expected to get revealed. This is reason #5,279 for what makes The Owl House so good. Even when the show presents information you wouldn't guess, it's all so interesting anyways that you can't help but go along with it.
Adopting Palismans: First of all, love the fact that the Bat Queen makes a return to provide a solution to the palisman trees being rare and solving her own problem regarding the discarded palismans. It's a situation where everyone wins in a way that is so clever that I can't help but admire it.
Second, the idea of students choosing to adopt palismans instead is cute. I'd say it gives further insight into who these characters are in how they say what they want to be, but there's nothing really new added that fans couldn't figure out from the get go. But I will say that it's pretty cool to know that these characters have official staffs now. Speaking of which, if you're upset that their palismans don't match up with your headcanons...grow up.
This was a cute and smartly written scene that should not be bogged down by whiney fans who can't accept a series doing something different from what they expect.
Little Rascal: I’d take a bullet for this bird. That is all.
Luz Being Uncertain of her Future: A lot of fans offer several ideas of what the future could look like for Luz. Will she stay in the Boiling Isles? In Connecticut? Or will she go back and forth? We don't know, but one question we rarely brought up is what does Luz want? More specifically, what does she want to do? After everything Luz went through, the adventures she's gone on, and the lessons learned, what is something that Luz wants her future to be? That's an answer she doesn't really figure out, and I'm genuinely ok with that being a question that's tabled for another day. Most kids who ask that question themselves aren't always going to find an answer after a short amount of time and sometimes even need to spend their lives trying to figure it out. So having it be something Luz has to consider and probably find out in a future episode is the smarter option, as it allows time for it to simmer in her own mind and provides more insight into her character. As stated several times in this episode, she doesn't think things through, so it's nice that the writers finally allowed her some time to wonder what's next when the adventure is over.
Luz Having to Improvise Without Paper Glyphs: You want to know what my favorite Spider-Man moments are (this is relevant. Trust me). My favorite moments are when Spidey's web-shooters run out of fluid, and he's forced to improvise with that big brain of his to find a solution. That's sort of what happens with Luz in "Hunting Palismans." She didn't bring her glyphs with her (why would she), so she's forced to use the environment around her to make new ones. Plus, Luz also flexes her knowledge of the Boiling Isles by mixing her glyphs with a magical plant (which Willow certainly told her about) so that she and the Golden Guard could knock out Kikimora's dragon. It's yet another showcase of her intelligence that a lot of fans are too keen to overlook. Unfortunate to see, too, because looking at how well Luz can craft the perfect solutions by fighting smarter, not harder, is a fantastic add-on to her personality. I love characters who win through their wits rather than their raw powers, and I once again hope more people will catch onto that aspect of her too.
Golden Guard Whistling the Theme: Look, I love it when a show acknowledges its own theme song, ok? Leave me alone.
Luz and the Golden Guard: This is one of those dynamics you didn't know you wanted until you have it. And now that I have it, I DEMAND MORE!
Seriously, seeing these two interact off of each other was a ton of fun to watch. When Luz and GG are initially at each other's throats, their threats and mockery towards one another aren't out of spiteful anger between two mortal enemies. It's more like...two siblings who get on each other's nerves yet are supposed to deal with one another. It's equally adorable and hilarious, and yes, I absolutely loved that they're forced to work together in this episode because of it.
Although, while the entertainment value is fantastic, it also adds more proof of why Luz is the best character in the series. She spends one night with this guy, and that's more than what she needed to make a difference with him. I wouldn't go so far as to say that they're buddies now, but Luz definitely sowed the seeds into his redemption. He's far from willing to join her side, but he still does something he rarely does with anyone else: He told her that his name is Hunter. And this is what Luz does. Through nearly every person she meets on the Boiling Isles, she always manages to change them for the better. It'll be a while before Hunter deflects from Belos, but if Amity proves anything, Luz has a way of sneaking into people's hearts. They just need to spend more time with one another, and I can't wait to see what happens next because of it.
Kikimora Wanting to Kill Hunter: This shows a lot about who Kikimora is, but it potentially proves just how dysfunctional the Emperor's Coven can be. If Kiki proves anything, the coven must be filled with people willing to backstab and cheat their way to get on Emperor Belos' good side. Just look at Lilith. She literally cursed her own sister just to get in and received all the rewards because of it. The Emperor's Coven may be the best choice for witches to do magic, but if you're surrounded by people you can't trust, then is it really worth it?
The Guards Not Knowing Who Hunter is: This helps add to how much of a big deal it is for Hunter to reveal his name to Luz. If people can't even recognize his face, there's a chance it means that he keeps his true identity a secret except for those in his inner circle.
And the coven guards brushing off his brand is more than believable to me. They may be aware that Belos' right hand is young, but teens will be teens. Anybody with enough artistic talent can fake a brand. So it isn't too far off for those two to think Hunter was just a kid pulling a prank.
Hunter is Powerless Without his Staff: Not much to say here. It's just some more neat insight into Hunter's character that makes me wonder if even Belos' magic is real magic.
But I will say this: The fact that Hunter comes from a lineage of powerless witches, well, who's to say that isn't because of a...certain ancestor?
(*Cough* Hunter is related to Philip *Cough*)
Hunter vs Kiki: A pretty well-animated fight scene that adds potential drama to the story for the future. Now that Kikimora knows that Hunter helped Luz escape with the palismans (albeit unwillingly), she may or may not hold that over his head when the time comes. Or, at the very least, decides to keep a closer eye on him whenever he makes a slip-up.
Eda and King Getting Luz her own Palisman Wood: These last two weeks have been severely lacking in the Eda and King department, but scenes like this more than make up for it. Those two have formed such a bond with Luz to the point where they would do the impossible if it meant she would feel better. It proves just how much of a family they all are and the lengths they would go for each other. After all, weirdos have to stick together.
Little Rascal going to Hunter: Hunter is right. That was surprising.
Given how much Little Rascal stuck by Luz, I was more than positive that she would be the one he chose. So seeing Little Rascal pick Hunter instead is a much nicer twist. There could be multiple reasons why, and I'm just going to leave that to the analyzers in this fandom to decide. Especially since the answer isn't really all that important.
So, instead, I'm going to go ahead and sit in the corner as I wOrRy AbOuT tHe DaY tHaT bElOs FiNdS lItTlE rAsCal!
IT'S GONNA HAPPEN! AND I SWEAR TO ALL THAT IS HOLY, IF THE WRITERS KILL HIM, I WILL NOT BE HAPPY!
WHAT I DISLIKED
First, there's...um...
Well, there was this...
Ok, as much as I liked--No, that turned out well anyways...


...
...I've got nothing.
I, honest to goodness, have no complaints about "Hunting Palismans" Not even the tiniest of nitpicks I would usually ignore due to how well-executed everything else was.
It's all written fantastically to the point where it's...perfect.
IN CONCLUSION
"Hunting Palismans" is an easy A+. It introduces even more plot threads, gives insight into characters, and despite being essential to the story, it still manages to be a fun episode all on its own. And, I'd go so far as to say that it's one of the best, if not the best, episodes in the series. There's nothing bad about it, and that surprises me. I rarely find nothing bad to say about any story, even the ones I enjoy greatly. I'm sure there are some flaws that others would be more than happy to point out, but why bother hunting for the imperfections when I could accept that, for once, an episode is simply perfect.
(And that’s six hits in a row...THAT STINKER IS GOING TO HAPPEN! It hasn’t happened yet, BUT IT’S GOING TO HAPPEN! I CAN FEEL IT!)
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2tired2study · 4 years ago
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hi! i’ve recently finished the picture of dorian gray so let’s go over my favorite quotes (in order from the ones that appear in the book first to last)
if they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat
being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose i know
and as for believing things, i can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible
when our eyes met, i felt that i was growing pale. a curious sensation of terror came over me. i knew that i had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if i allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself
he, too, felt that we were destined to know each other
laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one
a man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies
i like persons better than principles, and i like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world
every day. i couldn’t be happy if i didn’t see him every day. he is absolutely necessary to me
he is all my art to me now
it is only the intellectually lost who ever argue
and the mind of a thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing
there is no such thing as a good influence, mr gray. all influence is immoral; immoral from the scientific point of view
he becomes an echo of someone else’s music
but the bravest man among us is afraid of himself
nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul
some day, when you are old and wrinkled and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and passion branded your lips with its hideous fires,you will feel it, you will feel it terribly
man is many things, but he is not rational
examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. if a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him
behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic
there was something fascinating in this son of love and death
really! and where do bad americans go to when they die?... they go to america
well, the way of paradoxes is the way of truth
all i want now is to look at life. you may come and look at it with me, if you care to
punctuality is the thief of time
it is only the sacred things that are worth touching
when one is in love, one always begins by deceiving ones self, and one always ends by deceiving others
there is always something infinitely mean about other peoples tragedies
how different he was now than the shy frightened boy he had met in basil hallwards studio! his nature had developed like a flower, had borne blossoms of scarlet flame. out of its secret hiding-place had crept his soul, and desire had come to meet it on the way
it is personalities, not principles, that move the age
people are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves
he lives the poetry that he cannot write. the others write the poetry that they dare not realize
human life—that appeared to him the one thing worth investigating
to note the curious hard logic of passion, and the emotional coloured life of the intellect—to observe where they had met, and where they separated, at what point they were in unison, and at what point they were at discord—there was a delight in that! what matter was the cost? one could never pay too high a price for any sensation
with his beautiful face, and his beautiful soul, he was a thing to wonder at. it was no matter how it all ended, or was destined to end. he was like one of those gracious figures in a pageant or a play, whose joys seem to be remote from one, but whose sorrows stir ones sense of beauty, and whose wounds are like red roses
the senses could refine, and the intellect could degrade
all that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same as our past, and that the sun we had done once, and with loathing, we would do many times, and with joy
it often happened that when we thought we were experimenting on others we were really experimenting on ourselves
the joy of a caged bird was in her voice
she was free in her prison of passion
i love him because he is like what love himself should be.
he was like a common gardener walking with a rose
he had the dislike of being stared at, which comes on geniuses late in life and never leaves the commonplace
to be in love is to surpass ones self
my wonderful lover, my god of graces
i wish i had, for as sure as there is a god in heaven, if he ever does you any wrong, i shall kill him
whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives
i don’t want to see dorian tied to some vile creature, who might degrade his nature and ruin his intellect
we are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices
and unselfish people are colourless. they lack individuality
you are much better than you pretend to be
of course, it is sudden—all really delightful things are
he is not like other men. he would never bring misery upon any one. his nature is too fine for that
but i am afraid i cannot claim my theory as my own. it belongs to nature, not to me
no civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever knows what a pleasure is
there was a gloom over him
he felt that dorian gray would never again be to him all that he had been in the past
any one you love must be marvellous
it is not good for ones morals to see bad acting
there are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating—people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing
you taught me what reality really is
you had made me understand what love really is
you are more to me than all art can ever be
there is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love
a faint echo of his love came back to him
we live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities
when we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us
i cant bear the idea of my soul being hideous
one can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing
nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner
it is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion
you were the most unspoiled creature in the whole world
of you wish me never to look at your picture again, i am content. i have always you to look at
from the moment i met you, your personality had the most extraordinary influence over me. i was dominated, soul, brain, and power, by you
i grew jealous of every one to whom you spoke. i wanted to have you all to myself. i was only happy when i was with you
i only knew that i had seen perfection face to face
i grew more and more absorbed in you
you are made to be worshipped
in every pleasure, cruelty has its place
but it was to teach man to concentrate himself upon the moments of life that is itself but a moment
out of the unreal shadows of the night comes back the real life that we had known. we have to resume it where we left off, and there steals over us a terrible sense of the necessity for the continuance of energy in the same wearisome round of stereotyped habits, or a wild longing, it nat be, that our eyelids might open some morning upon a world that had been refashioned anew in the darkness for our pleasure, a world in which things would have fresh shapes and colours, and be changed, or have other secrets, a world in which the past would have little or no place, or survive, at any rate, in no conscious form of obligation or regret, the remembrance of even joy having its bitterness and the memories of pleasure their pain
yet, as had been said of him before, no theory of life seemed to him to be of any importance compared with life itself
he saw that there was no mood of the mind that had not its counterpart
art, like nature, has her monsters
is insincerity such a terrible thing? i think not. it is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities
and mind you don’t talk about anything serious. nothing is serious nowadays. at least nothing should be
i am tired of myself tonight. i should like to be someone else
sin is a thing that writes itself across a mans face
you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite
that is the reason why i want you to be fine. you have not been fine
you have a wonderful influence. let it be for good, not for evil
i wonder do i know you? before i could answer that, i should have to see your soul
my god! don’t tell me that you are bad, and corrupt, and shameful
so you think it is only god who sees the soul, basil? draw that curtain back, and you will see mine
each of us has heaven and hell in him, basil
you are the one man who is able to save me
don’t speak about those days, dorian—they are dead... the dead linger sometimes
lord henry, i am not at all surprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked
life is a great disappointment
i like men who have a future and women who have a past
moderation is a fatal thing. enough is as bad as a meal. more than enough is as good as a feast
you always want to know what one has been doing. i always want to forget what i have been doing
his soul, certainly, was sick to death
he was prisoned in thought. memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away
ones days were too brief to take the burden of another’s errors on ones shoulders
it is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things
to define is to limit
to be popular one must be a mediocrity
romance lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art
i am searching for peace
the appeal to antiquity is fatal to us who are romanticists
sick with a wild terror of dying, and yet indifferent to life itself
horror seemed once more to lay its hand upon his heart
how terrible it was to think that conscience could raise such fearful phantoms
he had a wild adoration for you and that you were the dominant motive of his art
when you and he ceased to be great friends, he ceased to be a great artist
if a man treats life artistically, his brain is his heart
art has a soul, but that man had not
the soul is a terrible reality
to get back my youth i would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable
but a chance tone of colour in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once loved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten poem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music that you had ceased to play—i tell you, dorian, that it is on things like these that our lives depend
life has been your art
the books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world it’s own shame
the world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. the curves of your lips rewrite history
it was the living death of his own soul that troubled him
as it had killed the painter, so it would kill the painters work, and all that that meant. it would kill the past, and when that was dead, he would be free
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lady-of-glass-and-bone · 4 years ago
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Songs & Characters Pedro Pascal
How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful / Florence + The Machine
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I listened to the whole album and each song, sometimes specific lyrics, made me think of certain Pedro characters. I have no explanation, I just felt like doing this. I plan on doing the rest of Florence + The Machine’s albums with the Pedro boys. Maybe after that with different artists/albums and characters, maybe some Marvel or slashers? Send in your thoughts and some requests?
Lyrics and their characters below the cut because I have no self control.
Ship To Wreck / Javier Pena
And, ah, my love remind me, what was it that I said? I can't help but pull the earth around me to make my bed And, ah, my love remind me, what was it that I did? Did I drink too much? Am I losing touch? Did I build a ship to wreck?
What Kind Of Man / Dave York
And with one kiss / You inspired a fire of devotion that lasts for twenty years / What kind of man loves like this?
To let me dangle at a cruel angle / Oh, my feet don't touch the floor / Sometimes you're half in and then you're half out  / But you never close the door
How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful / Ezra
Between a crucifix and the Hollywood sign, we decided to get hurt Now there's a few things we have to burn Set our hearts ablaze, and every city was a gift And every skyline was like a kiss upon the lips And I was making you a wish In every skyline
So much time on the other side Waiting for you to wake up So much time on the other side Waiting for you to wake up Maybe I'll see you in another life If this one wasn't enough So much time on the other side
Queen of Peace / Din Djarin
His only son Cut down, but the battle won Oh, what is it worth When all that's left is hurt
Like the stars chase the sun Over the glowing hill, I will conquer Blood is running deep Some things never sleep
And my love is no good Against the fortress that it made of you Blood is running deep Sorrow that you keep
Various Storms & Saints / Jack ‘Whiskey’ Daniels and Maxwell Lord
You don't need no edge to cling from / Your heart is there, it's in your hands / I know it seems like forever / I know it seems like an age / But one day this will be over / I swear it's not so far away
Whiskey / But still you stumble, feet give way Outside the world seems a violent place But you had to have him, and so you did Some things you let go in order to live While all around you the buildings sway You sing it out loud, who made us this way I know you're bleeding, but you'll be okay Hold on to your heart, you'll keep it safe Hold on to your heart, don't give it away
Maxwell Lord /  And the air was full Of various storms and saints Praying in the street As the banks began to break And I'm in the throes of it Somewhere in the belly of the beast But you took your toll on me So I gave myself over willingly Oh, you got a hold on me I don't know how I don't just stand outside and scream I am teaching myself how to be free
Delilah / Marcus Pike and Frankie Morales
'Cause I'm gonna be free and I'm gonna be fine (Holding on for your call) / 'Cause I'm gonna be free and I'm gonna be fine(Maybe not tonight)
Marcus Pike / Strung up, strung out for your love Hang in, hung up, it's so rough I'm wrung and ringing out Why can't you let me know?
Strung up, strung out for your love Hang in, hung up, it's so rough I'm wrung and ringing out Why can't you let me know?
Frankie Morales / Too fast for freedom Sometimes it all falls down These chains never leave me I keep dragging them around
Now I'm dancing with Delilah and her vision is mine (Holding on for your call) A different kind of danger in the daylight (I can never let go) Took anything to cut you, I can find (Holding on for your call) A different kind of a danger in the daylight (Can't you let me know?)
Long & Lost / Dave York and Javier Pena
Dave York / Lost in the fog, these hollow hills Blood running hot, night chills Without your love I'll be So long and lost, are you missing me
Is it too late to come on home Are all those bridges now old stone Is it too late to come on home Can the city forgive, I hear its sad song
Javier Pena / I need the clouds to cover me Pull in the dark, surround me Without your love I'll be So long and lost, are you missing me
It's been so long between the words we spoke Will you be there up on the shore, I hope You wonder why it is that I came home I figured out where I belong
Caught / Jack ‘Whiskey’ Daniels and Max Phillips
Whiskey /  As if the dream of you, it sleeps too But it never slips away It just gains its strength and digs its hooks To drag me through the day
And I'm caught I forget all that I've been taught I can't keep calm, I can't keep still Pulled apart against my will
Max Phillips / Then you leave my head and crawl out of bed You subconscious solipsist And for those hours deep in the dark Perhaps you don't exist
And I was thrashing on the line Somewhere between Desperate and divine I can't keep calm, I can't keep still Persephone will have her fill
Third Eye / Frankie Morales, Pero Tovar, Javier Pena, Maxwell Lord
Frankie Morales / Don't make a shadow of yourself,always shutting out the light Caught in your own creation Look up, look up! It tore you open And oh, how much
'Cause there's a hole where your heart lies And I can see it with my third eye And though my touch, it magnifies You pull away, you don't know why 
Maxwell Lord / You don't have to be a ghost here amongst the living You are flesh and blood And you deserve to be loved and you deserve what you are given
'Cause your pain is a tribute The only thing you let hold you Wear it now like a mantle Always there to remind you
St. Jude / Ezra, Dave York, Din Djarin, Marcus Moreno
Ezra / Another conversation with no destination Another battle never won Each side is a loser So who cares who fired the gun
And I'm learning so I'm leaving And even though I'm grieving I'm trying to find a meaning Let loss reveal it Let loss reveal it
Din Djarin /  St Jude, the patron saint of the lost causes St Jude, we were lost before she started St Jude, we lay in bed as she whipped around us St Jude, maybe I've always been more comfortable in chaos
Marcus Moreno / And I was on the island and you were there too But somehow through the storm I couldn't get to you, Oh St Jude, somehow she knew And she came to give her blessing while causing devastation And I couldn't keep my mouth shut, I just had to mention Grabbing your attention
Mother / Javier Pena, Ezra, Pero Tovar
Javier Pena / I put my feet into the fountain The statues all asleep No use wishing on the water It grants you no relief
Mother, make me Make me a bird of prey So I can rise above this, let it fall away Mother, make me Make me a song so sweet Heaven trembles, fallen at our feet
Ezra / Oh lord, won't you leave me Leave me on my knees Cause I belong to the ground now And it belongs to thee
And oh lord, won't you leave me Leave me just like this Cause I belong to the ground now I want no more than this
How I long for the older The sun keeps burning deep Every stone in this city keeps reminding me Can you protect me from what I want? The love I let in, it left me so lost
Pero Tovar / Mother, make me Make me a big tall tree So I can shed my leaves and let it blow through me Mother, make me Make me a big grey cloud So I can rain on you things I can't say out loud
All these couples are kissing And I can't stand the heat I lost my shoes and left the party I wander in the street
Hiding / Frankie Morales, Marcus Moreno, Din Djarin, Maxwell Lord, Javier Pena
Frankie Morales / I know that you're hiding I know there's a part of you that I just cannot reach You don't have to let me in Just know that I'm still here I'm ready for you whenever Whenever you need Whenever you want to begin
Din Djarin / I know you've tried But something stops you every time You cry a little So do I So do I And it's your price That's keeping us still so far apart But if you give a little So will I So will I
Maxwell Lord / I know I seem shaky This hand's not fit for holding But if you let me, oh I will see you're wrong
Tell me I will be released Not sure I can deal with this Up all night again this week Breaking things that I should keep
Javier Pena / I think you hide When all the world's asleep and tired You cry a little So do I So do I I think you hide And you don't have to tell me why You cry a little So do I So do I
Tell me I will be released Not sure I can deal with this Up all night again this week Breaking things that I should keep
Make Up Your Mind / Pero Tovar, Max Phillips, Jack ‘Whiskey’ Daniels, Dave York
Max Phillips / I never thought that I'd be facing A sea that's bluer than the tide Now my knees are shaking And I can't look in your eyes
But if you're gonna make me do it How'd you want it done Is it best to sip it slowly Or drink it down in one
Make up your mind Let me live or let me love you While you've been saving your neck I've been breaking mine for you The power is on, the guillotine hums My back's to the wall, go on, let it fall, oh Make up your mind Before I make it up for you
Whiskey / I never thought I'd be a killer Cause there's so much to lose But if I can't drink the water What else can I do
And although the axe is heavy It just sits in my hands While you're changing like the current Not a shore on land
Every time I try to bring it down You always turn my head around
Pero Tovar  / The executioner's within me And he comes blindfold ready Sword in hand And arms so steady Every time I try to bring it down You always turn my head around But every time I try to bring it down You always turn my head around
Which Witch / Dave York
And it's my whole heart Weighted and measured inside And it's an old scar Trying to bleach it out
And it's my whole heart Deemed and delivered a crime I'm on trial, waiting 'til the beat comes out I'm on trial, waiting 'til the beat comes out
Who's a heretic now? Am I making sense? How can you make it stick? Waiting 'til the beat comes out
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lexsssu · 4 years ago
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Shall We Date: Worship Me AU - Uriel (Avatar of Chastity)
What if the MC gets transported to the Celestial Realm instead? What if the angels were the love interests?
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GENERAL HCs
Uriel — “The Flame of God/God is my Light”
Has a penchant for perfection
Give him a task and you bet your ass he’ll come back finished with results so phenomenal you’re sure that if you did it, there’s no way it would turn out this great
Reserved, but not exactly anti-social
It’s not that he doesn’t want to talk about himself whenever people ask about him, but it’s just that he thinks there are a million other things that are worth more to converse about than his exploits or the things he enjoyed
Chastity doesn’t just mean staying pure by abstaining from sexual relations and the lack of temptations one experiences, but being placed in the face of temptation and yet staying true to one’s morals. This is why Uriel doesn’t condemn anyone who decides to engage in such acts, whether within the sanctity of marriage or not, whether it is done because all parties hold sincere feelings for one another or not.
Gone is the ancient time and the rules that once applied then cannot be the same for current times. This is why Uriel has made it his mission to continuously study about humans, to stay up to date with the way they thought and felt so as he can better serve as a guiding beacon to them
When he’s not busy with his regular duties, you would normally find Uriel at the Celestial realm’s library with stacks of reference books on his table. Time is nothing to them, which is why for him it felt as if humans changed too quickly in so little time
An ideology that may have taken decades or centuries to form is but a blink of an eye to them which is why Mr. Perfectionist can’t help but immediately want to be informed in the hopes that it will help him improve himself
If he doesn’t keep adding and updating to his knowledge then how can he even hope to be one of the guiding virtues of humanity with outdated ideals?
Ideals can and will change over time, but his morals are the one thing that Uriel will never change.
His mind and body may be corrupted over time, because eternity is such a long time indeed, but the morals that made him who he is, what HE is will always stay the same
Tbh you can’t tempt this guy with anything
If you do manage to “tempt” him, know that you didn’t actually succeed but he just liked/pitied you enough to go with whatever fuckery you wanted him to commit
That's why he normally agrees with whatever bullshit his twin brother, Gabriel, tries to wrangle him into
Uriel ain't doing it because Gabriel tempted him, but because he loved his twin so much that he's willing to indulge him whenever he wanted to fuck shit up
Gabriel is the one who starts messes and Uriel is the one who just lets him be, because he's a supportive big brother
...Much to most of the other virtues' ever increasing stress
Is an advocate of "actions speak louder than words"
He's a serial head-patter
Will boop your nose when he notices you're a bit too lost in your thoughts
Azrael is normally the victim of his headpats and nose-boops
Since he makes it his job to know all that IS known, he finds some modicum of interest in that of the UNknown
Things like extraterrestrial beings for example. Basically, anything that didn't belong to any of the 3 worlds was within his scope of interest
If you check his YouTube history you'll see it's filled with UFO sightings, conspiracy theories, UMAs, etc.
Probably joined that raid in Area 51 while undercover—
Asks Gabriel to bring him souvenirs and pictures whenever his job takes him to a location near hotspots for UMAs, UFOs, and other strange otherworldly phenomena
Reminds Azrael every now and then to inform him if he ever ferries a soul that had come across any UMA and ask them about their encounter
As the virtue of chastity, it's up to him to teach the little cherubims about the birds and the bees as part of their training to become full-fledged angels
More often than not, his terminology and clinical way of explaining has traumatized most of the little ones

...much to Raphael's increasing stress
"And then the man will place his pe*** inside the woman's va**** where he would start thrusting continu—"
What's worse is that he even has diagrams for it
So many little cherubims lost their innocence to Uriel-sensei

He doesn't purposely try to annoy Raphael unlike Gabriel, it's just that his actions and way of going about things aren't the way most people would fo it and what's worse is that he unintentionally traumatizes people
And it's usually up to Raphael to do damage control on all the virtues' behalf
Raphael almost killed him that day he had to give that talk to Luke and his batch
"...What's wrong about telling them what happens between a man and a woman? It's biology and something that's done frequently by humans"
He doesn't see the point of beating around the bush when their purpose was to teach the new recruits about humanity and everything about them, including how they reproduce
Favorite food is pancakes

...because they look like flying saucers
Uriel enjoys stargazing at night, not just to look at the heavenly bodies but to spot any UFOs if he's lucky enough
He isn't particularly bad at cooking, but he's not great either
Pancakes are what he's most confident in cooking and he makes the best darn ones in all of the celestial realm
If he's the only one left at home and you're sick, don't expect chicken soup and be ready instead for a stack of warm and fluffy pancakes topped with some butter and generous helping of syrup, whipped cream, berries, and etc.
When the day finally comes that he falls in love with someone...the 3 worlds will know true fear—
But legit though, all those millennia of being a single pringle and practicing so much restraint flies out the window when this man finds himself utterly and deeply in love with you
JP VA: Daisuke Ono
ENG VA: Matthew Mercer
ROMANTIC HCs
He's read so much about the different forms of love and has felt them all except for romantic love so he's a bit rattled at first
Probably coops himself up in his room for a day or two to get his bearings
When he does finally step foot out of his room, there isn't any obvious changes at first but you can't help but feel that there's something different about Uriel
Uriel is now a man on a mission
As perfectly as he executed his tasks for millennia, as fierce as he wielded his flaming sword during the Great War against the rebels, and as ruthless as he was when he faced the truly wicked


Uriel will have you
Of course, regardless of how much he wanted you to become his that didn't mean he suddenly turned into some sort of barbaric brute that kidnapped women for sport
He will study you so thoroughly that at times it almost feels like he knows you more than you know yourself
The little mannerisms you make during your everyday life that escape your notice? It's a given that Uriel has seen and already safely filed them away in his mind for future reference
"...She likes pointing with her lips?...Cute
" What he wouldn't give to catch you doing that while he was with you so he could partake of your lips as well—
Once he’s interested in you, only God knows at this point what has to be done for him to even lose a small bit of it
You have essentially become a key figure in Uriel’s world
Uriel always has you at the back of his mind to the point that it could even be called obsessive
However, he’s still the virtue of chastity so you don’t have to worry about him ever forcing himself upon you or anything of that sort
He’s super clingy and sorta weird, but he loves you and the last thing he wanted is for you to become sad because of him or anything else
Though he honestly can’t deny that seeing the myriad of expressions on your face, from happiness to sadness, to surprise, excitement, anger, and etc. was one of his favorite hobbies ever since falling for you
Despite his earnest wish to make you his, Uriel surprisingly takes a long time to even confess
He’s a perfectionist so it’s a given that he’ll take everything into account, including how he’ll make you fall for him first before he even thinks about confessing
Bothers Raphael for some “research material” on how to woo you a.k.a. borrow some romance manga despite Raph’s initial protests
For the sake of his own sanity, Raph begrudgingly lends Uri his stash of romance manga
It’s both hilarious and somewhat disturbing to see how taken he is with something other than work and UMAs
Amused: Michael, Cainabel, Gabriel, Simeon
Scared/Disturbed: Raphael, Luke
Neutral/Confused: Seraphiel, Azrael
Secretly plays the alto saxophone, but doesn’t deem his skill worthy enough for you to hear so he practices when he’s absolutely sure that no one is there to hear him when his skills aren’t yet up to his standards
Lowkey jealous when you hangout with the demon brothers and tries to find ways to distract you from hanging out with them
“ I seem to have seen a creature most extraordinary earlier. I believe it was one of the UMAs detailed in the tome for mysterious dwellers of the nether. Mayhaps you’d like to accompany me on a hunt? ”
His face is as straight-laced as it always is, but if you knew him long enough and looked closer, you’d notice that his ears seemed to have the slightest twinge of redness to them.
Honestly speaking, he tries to be a smooth and cool boi when it comes to you, but this dork seems to lose all his tact when faced with the radiance of your eyes and the intensity of your smile
With how long it takes him to make everything perfect before he woo’s you, time and space itself will cease to exist before he finally deems himself ready
So you have to do the wooing yourself and show him that you love all of him, imperfections and quirkiness included
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kalimagik · 4 years ago
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Innocent
Draco Malfoy x Reader 
Based on the song “Innocent” by Taylor Swift 
Word Count: ~1700
Warning: death, saddness, I’m sorry...
A/N: I cannot be held responsible for the words that flowed through my fingers and onto the page. It’s sad and angsty and I’m really, really sorry. ANYWHOOOO...first Draco fic that I’m posting! If you enjoy reading, like, reblog, comment, or even follow! I’d love to hear from you all! Happy Reading <3
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*Not my GIF - Credit to owner 
The ink on his skin felt as though it burned when no one touched it. Even when it was covered up. Returning to Hogwarts seemed pointless for his 6th year. He was now a part of something bigger, why did he need to be at school for any reason besides fulfilling the Dark Lord’s wishes. Not to mention, facing his girlfriend at the time was not something he was looking forward to. 
Knowing her, she would see the mark right away. How could he explain it to her? 
Draco managed to avoid Y/N on the Hogwarts Express and he managed to avoid her during the welcome feast, but when she sought him out after, he had nowhere to hide. 
“Draco! There you are, love! Where have you been?” she asked sweetly. Draco couldn’t meet her gaze. He instinctively pulled his sleeve further down his arm, but he wasn’t slick enough to hide it from her. “What are you doing?” 
“It’s nothing. I’ve got to go,” Draco tried to brush her off. He walked towards the dungeons and to his dormitory where she couldn’t reach him. He felt awful, but he knew she’d be disappointed in him if she found out about his Dark Mark. 
He was successful in avoiding her for a few weeks until she cornered him in the courtyard. 
“Malfoy! What is wrong with you? I haven’t seen you in weeks!” Y/N demanded. 
“I’m fine. Just busy with school work.” Once again, Draco tugged at the sleeve covering his left arm.
“School just started. Why do you keep doing that?” Y/N grabbed for his arm and before he could stop her, she pulled his sleeve up. Open mouth and wide eyes was all she could manage. She had no words for him. 
Draco quickly pulled his sleeve back down. “I have to go,” he said abruptly. 
“No. You don’t. I know you don’t have any classes right now. You need to talk to me!” 
Draco couldn’t hold back from her any longer. Grabbing Y/N’s hand, he led her to the 6th floor boys bathroom. 
“I can’t go in here, Draco! It’s the loo for the boys,” Y/N insisted. 
“No one uses this one. Just come here so I can explain everything.” 
Before the words could leave his mouth, the tears began to roll down his cheek. The pressure was already amounting. Katie Bell was still in St. Mungo’s and he hadn’t meant to hurt her. 
Y/N was the first to speak. “I guess you really did it this time, huh? Left yourself in your warpath. Lost your balance on a tightrope. Lost your mind trying to get it back.” 
“I had to, Y/N. He was threatening my family. He was threatening you. You don’t belong anywhere near this fight
it isn’t fair.”
“I can handle it.” 
“You say that, but I can’t handle it. I- I think we need to take a break. We need to break-up. It’s the only way I can protect you.” The tears on Draco’s cheeks picked up in volume. Y/N could tell how genuine he was being and how he didn’t want to hurt her. 
Taking a deep breath, Y/N changed the subject. “Wasn’t it easier when we were little? Wasn’t it easier in our lunchbox days? There was always a bigger bed to crawl into. Mum would hold you close and care for you. Draco, I remember when we were little so fondly. Wasn’t it beautiful when you believed in everything and everybody believed in you? We didn’t have to worry about an impending war then.”
“I’m sorry, Y/N.” Draco managed. 
Y/N leaned towards Draco’s body, pressing her lips to his cheek. “It’s okay. I’ll wait for you
” 
----------------
The year continued and Draco’s state became worse and worse. Y/N could hardly recognize him. He seemed distracted and paranoid. One evening, Y/N found him in that same 6th floor bathroom. The end of the year was nearing and Draco had a job to do. A job that Y/N knew nothing about. 
“Hey, hey!” Y/N ran to him and pulled his head down to rest on her shoulder. She tried to soothe him with her words. “It’s alright, just wait and see. Your string of lights is still bright to me. Who you are is not where you’ve been. You’re still an innocent. You haven’t done anything you can’t come back from.” 
Draco’s breakdown hurt Y/N more than he could know, but she knew she needed to be strong for him. He had a rough few years ahead of him.ïżœïżœ
----------------
When the war finished, Y/N was there waiting for Draco. He was pardoned for his affiliation with Voldemort and was free to continue his life. Soon after his pardon, he proposed and married Y/N as soon as he could. He was finally happy. The days were good, he had Y/N beside him. 
Draco did some things he couldn’t speak of, but at night he’d live it all again. He wouldn’t be so shattered in his life now if only he had seen what he knew now then. Nevertheless, he would relive his past life in his nightmares.
He would awake with a start every single time. Sweat encasing him and heavy breathing that he could not control. But, without fail, Y/N would wake up and take his shaking body into her arms and whisper to him. “Wasn’t it easier in your firefly catching days? And everything out of reach, someone bigger brought down to you. Wasn’t it beautiful running wild until you fell asleep? Before the monsters caught up to you? I know it's a hard life, but it’s alright, just wait and see. Your string of lights is still bright to me. Who you are is not where you’ve been. You’re still an innocent.” 
Y/N would hold him until he was able to fall back to sleep. 
Starting a family and raising a son kept the couple busy, but that didn’t stop Draco from being influenced occasionally by those from his past. It didn’t stop him from hearing the sneers and comments made about him. They still stung. 
Even at 31, almost 32, Draco was starting to teach his son how to ride a broom. He couldn’t even do that in peace without passersby whispering about him. They brought up the worst of him. The parts of him that he didn’t want his son to know about because he wanted his son to have a chance to make his own reputation. 
Y/N could see his face harden with every single word, so she’d have to remind him how great everything was for them. She would have to remind him that they are still young. “Hey, Draco.” She would call his attention. “It’s okay, life is a tough crowd, 32 is still growing up now. Who you are is not what you did. Never forget that.” 
Time turned the flames to embers. The family had some new Septembers. Scorpius started at Hogwarts and began to make his own place. As Draco saw all his old classmates for the first time in years, sending their kids off to school, Y/N reminded him that every one of them (including herself) has messed up too. 
Life continued to change like the weather. Scorpius was enjoying school and starting to form his own life, away from his father’s reputation. Everything seemed to be going well, until Y/N got sick. Then life got hard for the Malfoys. 
Draco sat with Y/N for hours on end. He didn’t want to go to work. He really didn’t want to go anywhere that would take him away from her. But, as much as Y/N held on, Draco knew she wouldn’t be able to forever. The end was coming soon. 
“Draco?” Y/N choked out one evening when Scorpius was on break from school. 
“What is it, love? Do you need something? I can do whatever you need me too. Scorpius, can you go get your mum some water please?” 
Scorpius nodded and hurried out of the room. 
“Draco, look at me.” 
Draco brought Y/N’s hand to her cheek and she stroked her thumb across his skin. “Even after I’m gone
” 
“Don’t talk like that. You’re going to make it.” 
Y/N smiled softly, wishing that he could be right. “I hope you remember today is never too late to be brand new. Okay? You can be everything that our boy needs if you let yourself.” 
“I can’t do this without you.” Draco felt his eyes begin to swell and water. “I don’t want you to go.” 
There was that smile again. It seemed as though the hope it held was so misplaced, but it also seemed so full of peace. The tears began to fall. Draco wanted to be strong for her this time, but he couldn’t stop them from coming. 
“Shhh. It’s alright, just wait and see.” Y/N started as she always did when he was upset. “Your string of lights is still bright to me. Who you are is not where you’ve been
You can do this.” 
----------------
The sun shined and the birds sang. Draco knew that Y/N would have thought of today as a perfect day. The dreary English weather seemed to have let up just for her. 
There was a beautiful turn out for her funeral and Narcissa had taken Scorpius back to the house when the crowd started to disperse. Only Draco remained at her grave. How could he be strong now? 
A slight breeze blew past his figure, wrapping him up in a warm feeling. 
“Hello, love. I don’t understand why you had to go. You were still an innocent. This shouldn’t have happened to you.” Draco wiped his nose on his sleeve. He felt as though he had lost his balance on a tightrope again. But then he thought of Y/N, he knew that it was never too late to get it back. 
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hoodedwing · 4 years ago
Text
Babybird, please?
Summary: Jason returns to Gotham after a year-long sabbatical at his Arkansas safehouse. Nothing has changed in Gotham, but he probably did.  Dick realizes and puts the pieces together to make a horrible discovery.
Characters: Red Hood, Nightwing. Roy Harper (brief mentions). Cheshire (brief mentions), Lian Harper(brief mentions)
Warnings: Drinking. Injury flashbacks (we’re looking at an event gone too far). Anger issues. Also, swearing but from the last dude you’d expect.
Additional Notes: Jason deserves a happy Christmas and yep, I wrote this after Christmas so sue me. Also this seemed a little choppy to me
Word Count: 1,306 words
***
Christmas had long gone by and left trees still adorned with tinsel and other décor. It was supposed to keep people in a cheery mood, keep away the post-Christmas blues and amp Gothamites for New Year in an otherwise gloomy town.
It didn’t do the trick for Jason. With his hands shoved in his leather jacket, he kept his head low and speed fast, nimbly dodging excited throngs exchanging the occasional cheers and here’s to a happy new year, folks. Snow crunched under his boots as he rounded the corner to a bar.
Quietly, he sat down and warmed down a bit. A bartender amicably approached Jason who mumbled.
“Whisky, make it extra strong.”
Nodding, the bartender left. Jason drew himself closer, making his presence as small in possible. His eyes kept shifting to not spot a certain Dark Knight or at least (for small mercies) Bruce Wayne as another civilian. A rich and seemingly happy civilian who was often seen ruffling his sons’ hair and chatting away. 
The last time Jason saw Bruce, there wasn’t a happy civilian, no stroking of hair.
There was a batarang at his neck.
Jason absentmindedly rubs the faint scar as the bartender placed the alcohol in front of him. He pushes spare change with his other gloved palm and nods imperceptibly. He takes a small sip, lets the whisky warm him up internally and space out awhile.
He wasn’t supposed to be in Gotham but Jason was a rebel. A rebel since childhood. It’s probably the rebellion that kept him alive in Crime Alley’s dark and unlit paths. Paths even Batman would be scared shitless to enter himself, even when armed with his fancy toys up to the teeth.
He suppresses what he believed was probably anger or a by-product because man, today the whisky was definitely strong. He felt a little light-headed at the kick of it but it was good, it distracted him from the fact he returned to Gotham from Arkansas for Christmas.
He never celebrated Christmas outside Gotham. It seemed strange to suddenly break the tradition. Some things shouldn’t change, it probably does alter a person entirely. With the whole shitshow of a showdown on the rooftop with Batman, he probably didn’t want to go even remotely close to them. 
Nope, not even touching five streets near them
He finished the rest of his drink before his thought loop threatened to swallow him whole with old memories. Trudging outside the snow, he thought about calling Roy.
Maybe check in with him?  
See how Cheshire and Lian were? 
He hoped Lian didn’t mind too much about his absence on her fourth birthday that year. She was a sweet girl in such a cruel world, Jason could only hope she would still retain that sweetness under such a caring dad.
Dad
God, Jason really hated that word. Reminded him of Willis but Bruce wasn’t that much of a dad to him either. The word tasted acrid on his tongue, almost unnatural, like it didn’t belong there.
Is it bad he sometimes longed for dad?
Somebody suddenly knocks into him, pretty hard by the shoulder and distracts Jason from his second thought loop of the day. Bags spill everywhere and Jason isn’t sure where the pavement is anymore from under all the obnoxiously wrapped gifts and overly expensive-looking bags.
‘“Sorry! I’m in such a hurry. I missed Christmas with my family. Kinda sucks actually”
“No bother.”
Jason rasped a little, voice unrecognizable as he bent down to help pick up the scattered mess. He quickly shoves the gifts into each bag till some names caught his eye.
For Damian. 
For Tim
For Bruce
Jason’s heart stops.
He doesn’t have to look at the rest of the gifts to know who it was for.
“Hey, is everything alright?”
A hand outstretches towards Jason who takes it and held with more force than necessary. He heard the man let out a small ouch.
“Thanks man. Hey, if its too much, can I drop you anywhere? It’s really cold out here today. My car is a street down, we can stop by for donuts and hot coffee?”
Jason momentarily looks up and the man lets out a gasp.
“J.Jason?”
He looks the other direction, angry that he’s betrayed himself to look up to the voice because he knows its Dick and older brothers would keep younger ones safe.
Why does he have to gravitate again? Fall for the same trick? Didn’t Bruce, dad, Batman make it clear?
“What?”
“Offer for donuts and coffee still stands. Come.”
-
Jason finds himself at Dunkin’ Donuts with Dick.
He wouldn’t be here, surrounded by warm coffee and sugar-glazed creations as Dick smiled at him. Jason knows that smile is stretched thin, probably filled with questions 
Where were you on Christmas?
I couldn’t look for you, did you hide somewhere?
We miss you, aren’t we brothers?
He is prepared for all of them till Dick asks the one thing that strikes an arrow.
“Your neck, babybird. Who did that?”
Jason cannot answer, He contemplates lying for a while, testing the silence till he realizes that right now Dick could kick him back out into the lung-freezing cold.
He wouldn’t do that.
Bruce almost killed you. He did that.
“Jay?”
He registers someone’s hand on his shoulder. Jason licks his lips, tests the words. He knew the implications of telling Golden Boy right here and now that Bruce could’ve murdered him though somehow he ended up voiceless for some months instead.
“Bruce.”
Dick’s smile drops from a million kilowatts to one of anger.
“Asshole.”
Jason’s ears pricked up, when did he even pick up swearing?
“Wa-”
Dick held up a finger, commanding Jason into silence and thought through it. His eyebrows further knit in realization when he thought more about it. It seemed to add up.
Bruce returning home, untouched. A brief intercepted transmission of Roy that he’s taking Jason to Arkansas because he frankly looked like he went head-to-toe with Deathstroke. Jason not returning for awhile.
“You didn’t fight back.”
Tears form in Dick’s eyes. The words didn’t sound right to him. The Red Hood not laying even a bruise on Batman?
“You let him hit you!”
Dick cried out, slamming his fists against the table. A few patrons turn briefly to the scene before refocusing back on their own conversations.
Jason turned his head down, of all the people that would come in defense for him, it was Dickie Bird. 
“Jay, he could’ve killed you.”
Again.
“Dick-”
“Don’t Dick me! Where are you staying right now?”
Jason doesn’t bother coming up with a lie anymore.
“Arkansas still.”
Dick considers awhile.
“I can get you a place in Bludhaven. Shift in with me for now while I deal with the bastard.”
“But Bruce-”
Dick angrily turns to Jason.
“You of last people should be giving fucks about what Bruce says or does.”
He almost laughs at the sheer fucking irony of it right now till Dick squeezes Jason’s hand gently and he knows Dick actually means it.
He has a chance at actually living instead of hiding and being on the run for the rest of his life.
“Sure. If that’s okay with-”
“It’s always okay, Jay. Please tell me if things like these happen again. Bruce cannot get away like that. Beating the shit out of you and then prancing away. Jay, I’m so sorry.”
Dick buries his face into his palms and Jason sits there, twisting his hands together.
Till he gathers enough courage to calmly place a hand on Dick’s shoulder.
“Hey? We still have to finish these donuts and I can’t do it alone.”
Dick turns up, eyes red but cheekily smiling back as they devour the donuts on a cold, snowy day.
Except this time, Jason feels warmer than ever.
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dany-is-my-queen · 4 years ago
Text
Born To Be Yours | Part IV
Sansa Stark x Fem! Baratheon! Reader (Daenerys Targaryen x Fem! Baratheon! Reader)
Season 1-8
Word Count: 1,696
Pt.1 Pt.2 Pt.3 Pt.5 Pt.6 Pt.7 Pt.8 Pt.9
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“Has he done this before?” Ned asked, referring to Cersei’s wounded cheek.
“My brother would have killed him.” She answered.
”Your brother or your lover?”
“Jaime and I shared a womb. We came into this world together, we belong together. Do you love your children?”
“With all my heart.”
“No more than I love mine.” She confidently said.
“And they are all Jaime’s, except for Y/N.”
“The hair gives her away. I used to have resentment against her. Being the only creation that we brought to the world. Y/N was the only time we really gave it a try. A man who didn’t give a fuck for me. He never loved me but he loves her.” The Lannister woman held a neutral tone.
“When the King returns I will tell him the truth. You must be gone by then. Take the rest of your children and go.”
“You should have climbed those steps. When you play the game of thrones you win or you die. There is no middle ground.” Lord Eddard Stark discovered the secret Lord Arryn died for. It wasn’t his territory anymore.
“I should have spent more time with you. Show you how to be a man. You can learn a big deal from Y/N. I was never meant to be a father. Everyone out!” Cersei looked suspiciously at Ned, Joffrey left the room retaining the tears, not processing what was happening.
“Except you, thanks the gods for blessing me with a daughter like you.” You held his hand tightening the grip. “The girl, Daenerys. You and Ned were right. Varys, Littlefinger, my brother. worthless. No one would tell me no but the two of you. You are much alike. So honorable. She changed my mind. Let her live. Stop it if it’s not too late.”
“We will.”
“And my son, help him. Make him better than me. Help your brother. He’s not ready. Give him your council to make wise choices.” You nodded sobbing.
“I shall always remember this strength you gave.”
“It comes from yourself. Now give me a moment with this fool. And Y/N, don’t be scared even in the face of danger.”
“His grace has had a change of heart concerning Daenerys Targaryen. Princess Y/N convinced him. Whatever arrangements you made, unmade them. At once.” Your father’s best friend declared.
“I’m afraid those birds have flown. The girl is likely dead by now.” You scowled.
“But if it’s not the case stop sending sell swords or assassins to do the job. Also if it’s possible send other birds to abort the mission. That’s a command, Lord Varys.”
“Yes, my princess.” This Targaryen girl will survive.
You once more found little Arya with his dancing teacher, you approached while she was off guard earning a slight hit on your arm.
“I didn’t see you there.” The small one exclaimed.
“We don’t need eyes to see what’s around us, boy.” Syrio reminded her.
“I’m sorry about your father, Y/N.” You sat on the stairs. “I miss Robb, Bran, Rickon and Jon so much. Unlike Sansa, I prefer the North.”
“I met Jon. He seemed to be a good brother, better than Joffrey that’s for sure.”
“He gave me a sword. I named it Needle. I don’t have it here, I’ll show it to you tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait.” You smiled.
“Do you have any bastard siblings?”
“Plenty of them. But it is highly unlikely we’ll ever meet.” You squinted, thinking about the possibility.
“Wish I had a sister like you, mine hates me.”
“I don’t think you hate each other. You just have different opinions, different preferences. You share more than blood. I see a lot of potencial in you. You cannot use someone else’s fire. You can only use your own. And in order to do that, you must first be willing to believe that you have it.” She closed her eyes and proceeded with her classes.
This was crazy. Your mother locked you in your room. The King was dead. Everything was out of place.
“What‘s going on? Why you locked me up?” You shouted to Cersei. She frantically sighed.
“It was a precaution. We don’t know where your loyalty stands, Y/N. Your brother is the King now. Your friend’s father conspired to dethrone him and seize it from himself.”
“That’s insanity...-“
“The little bird was on her room. I haven’t seen the other.” Sandor entered with the redhead.
“Where’s Lady Arya?”
“We have guards looking for her. She won’t be able to hide forever.”
“Princess, what’s happening?” She anxiously asked. After your mother explained what her lord father allegedly did, she made her write a message to his older brother Robb, asking him to come to King’s Landing and swear fealty to Joffrey. You also learned from Lord Baelish that Renly and Loras flee the city before they took the Lord of Winterfell as a prisoner.
“My father would never do that! He is not a traitor” She spat once you two were alone.
“I know, my lady. It must be a misunderstanding.” You said trying to calm her nerves.
“Where do they took him?”
“To the dungeons, I suppose. Things are going to clarify.” The pretty little dove was completely bewildered, same as you.
That very night you went undercover to see the alleged offender.
“Lord Eddard. I brought you some water. Are you okay?” Holding a torchlight, you removed your hood kneeling to give him the canteen.
“Thanks for visiting me. I’m worried about my daughters. You know where they are?”
“We haven’t found Arya, we‘re still on the search. Sansa is alright, she’s under custody. I will protect her.”
“Thank you, Y/N.”
“Treason, my lord? I don’t think that makes sense. Why would you say my brother is not the rightful heir?” You raised an eyebrow.
“You are a clever young princess, I’m surprised you haven’t noticed yet.”
“About what?”
“I didn't know if it was appropriate to tell you.” He took another big gulp. “You are the only highborn child Robert had. Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella are your uncle Jaime’s bastards. Your mother confessed it to me the other day. They tried to kill Bran cause he saw them. Don’t say a word, not even mention it or you might face the same fate. Though you are the princess is better to be careful with your family.” He was speaking the truth. Deep down you’ve always suspected it, however it was hard to assimilate.
“Y-yes, I won’t say anything to anyone.” You promised. “If you bend the knee and say he is the one true heir to the crown, you might live.”
“Nothing haunts us like the things we don’t say. You have a gentle heart, don’t let the wrong people take advantage of it.” The late hand cautioned.
You were in the Thorne Room. Your mother called Ser Barristan, he stepped forward facing the new King. A huge crowd was there. You stood beside the Stark girl.
“You served the Realm good and faithfully. Every man and woman in the seven kingdoms owns you thanks. But it is time to put aside your armor and your sword. It is time to rest and look with pride at your many years of service.” The lioness said.
“Your Grace, the king's guards is a sworn brotherhood. Only death realizes us for our sacred trust.” He replied.
“You let my father died. You are too old to protect anybody.” The boy on the throne yelled.
“The council has determined Ser Jaime Lannister as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.” Jaime wasn’t even here, that was stupid.
“A man who profane his blade against the king he swore to defend.”
“Careful, Ser.”
“I am a knight. I shall die a knight! Here boy, melted it out and add it to the others.” He threw his sword and left the room.
“If anyone else has other matters to set before his grace, let him speak now or go ford and told his silence.” The northerner squeezed your hand before speaking.
“Your grace.”
“Lady Sansa of the House Stark.”
“Do you have some business with the king and the council, Sansa?”
“I do. As it pleases your grace I ask mercy for my father. Lord Eddard Stark who was hand of the King.”
“Treason is...-“ Pycelle interrupted her.
“Let her speak. I want to hear what she says.” Joffrey declared.
“Thank you, your grace.” You didn’t peel away your glance off her.
“Do you deny your father’s crime?” Baelish inquired.
“No, my lords, I know he must be punished. All I ask is mercy. I know my lord father must regret what he did. He was king Robert's friend and he loved him. You all know he loved him. He never wanted to be hand until the king asked him. They must have lied to him. Lord Renly or Lord Stannis or somebody. They must have lied!” He was clearly nervous, how could she not be? You wanted to intervene and help but you remained silence, it wasn’t the place.
“He said I wasn’t the king. Why would he say that?”
“He was badly hurt. Maester Pycelle was giving him milk of the poppy. He wasn’t himself otherwise he never would have said it.”
“A child’s faith... such sweet innocence. And yet they say wisdom often comes from the mouths of babes.” Lord Varys commented.
“Treason is treason!” The old maester repeated.
“Anything else?”
“If you still have any affection in your heart for me, please do me this kindness your grace.” She pleaded.
“Your sweet words have moved me. But your father needs to confess and say that I am the king or there will be no mercy for him.”
“He will.” You hope so too.
“Mother, please.” She walked passed ignoring you.
“There’s nothing I can do.”
“You are Queen Regent. You know the consequences.”
“Joffrey, have mercy. If you order to have his head you’ll bring war here. The North will fight you. Thousands and thousands of innocent people will die. You can prevent it.”
“You won’t tell me what to do, little sister.” He immediately dismissed you.
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han-shinsuke · 4 years ago
Text
Grand King’s Painting
đŸ„€ o i k a w a x u s h i j i m a đŸ„€
Do you ever feel tired of everything like really tired that you just wanted to lay in peace on a soft bed and close your eyes for eternity?
How I wish dying is as easy as sleeping.
I’m an accomplished man. I got everything. That's what people around me always says. But I’m not happy. I wished I could tell them. Instead, I am running away. From those people who thought that I’m a happy man.
After all these years of pretensions, I would like to know how it feels like to remove the mask I wear all the time for other people's satisfactions.
“Welcome home, young master, Tooru.” Oh, to be the real Oikawa Tooru once again.
/// t h i r d p e r s o n p o v
Fifteen Years Ago...
Odd. That’s how he sees the boy in olive brown hair and olive green eyes. His character matches the eerie feeling of the house he’s living. Tooru would never want to associate himself with a kid like that. If it wasn’t for the request of his dying grandmother, he won’t be in an old village, living in a mansion where his ancestors used to reside when they were alive. The mansion itself is a home of grandeur but Tooru cannot be persuaded by luxury. Even though he has been living a life of comfort that every kid his age would cry for, Tooru want something else. Something that could not be bought by money.
And the boy standing from the clearing in the woods, is a great example of thing that even him cannot buy.
“You are Grand Raya’s grandchild.” Every denizens in this town knows about it. The St. Vincent’s heir, Tooru Oikawa has arrived. That’s what the local newspaper posted in the front page.
Tooru extrudes his tongue at the boy he have tried bribing with his money, “stop tailing, you damn dog or I’ll throw you and your family out of this old and shitty village.”
Manners, Tooru. Manners. If his mother were here, that’s what she would be saying to him. St. Vincents’ are good people. His father, too. So, why he can’t be like them?
“I am not following you, Tooru. I lived here.” Wakatoshi turns his back at the boy he finds peculiarly beautiful. He would accept him. As long as he stay good and real. Tooru Oikawa will soon agree to be his friend. “Go home, little prince.”
“Freak.” Tooru bites back, walking drastically away from the clearing with Wakatoshi’s timid half-smile face lingering in his mind.
|‱‱|
“I had no choice.” As if his answer matters to the unsaid question, Tooru just shrugged his shoulders and instruct his butler to hand the canvas and paint kit to Wakatoshi who did nothing but just nod.
“Why are you hanging out with him? I’m really curious.” Shigeru finally voiced out his thoughts, stopping the heir from descending down the foyer.
Wakatoshi who have been doing his best to earn Tooru’s trust also stopped on his tracks. What would he say? He thought. Would he deny him?
“I had no choice.” Tooru answers, licking his lips.
The two young boy walks out of the mansion. Passing through the enormous porch and straight on the path towards the garden.
“Why do you keep saying you don’t have a choice? You’re not a corpse.” Wakatoshi lays the canvas and the kit under the bird bath. He face the peculiar beauty in front of him, buffled. “You are alive. Why can’t you choose?”
“I have hundreds of choices. I just don’t know how and which to choose.”
“Have you been dead?”
“What’s with the question?” Tooru dusts the canvas and put it on the easel. Motioning Wakatoshi to move away from the bird bath. What a strange boy for his age. Tooru wanders his mind to the query. Has anyone been dead and came back to life? The idea was crazy.
“If you really treasure your life then you will fight for the choices you are afraid to make. Even the dead get to choose in the afterlife, Tooru.”
Tooru pursed his lips in thin line. Orbs battling against Wakatoshi’s olive ones.
“I let you know a secret, I’m a coward that’s why I chose not to choose.”
|‱‱|
All his damn life, Tooru has been letting his mother and few of those people he trust to choose for him. Whether it’s about the clothes he would wear, the food he would eat or the individuals he would associate himself with, it all depends on them.
To put it simply, Tooru doesn’t trust himself enough to make a choice.
“Of all the worst choices sprawled on the table, why did you pick the worst of them all?” Grand Raya asked her grandchild who have been painting his subject on the wall of his bedroom.
“Do you think he’s a bad choice, grandma?” Tooru pauses, scrutinizing his unfinished work for any additional details. “It was my first time though, choosing what’s best out of the substandard options I had.”
“He may be a substandard for you but have you noticed yourself lately, Tooru? You are changing.” The old woman sat in comfort on the wheeled chair, resting her head between the mounted pillow atop of the soft backrest. “I will sleep for now, wake me up when dinner is ready.”
Grand Raya never opened her eyes again that day when she fell asleep. Tooru have done everything he could to shake his grandma back to life but the old lady had chosen death.
|‱‱|
He is nowhere to be found. At times like these, whenever he feel tired or out of focus, Wakatoshi would appear out of nowhere to give him the boost he might needed to accomplish his task. Tooru dropped his bag on the teak bench in their garden and decided to look for Wakatoshi in the woods where he lived.
“Hey.” Tooru calls the attention of the boy who is currently chopping firewoods in the backyard.
Wakatoshi sways the ax once more, dividing the wood into half before acknowledging the other boy’s presence, “Tooru.” He says, drying the beads of sweats running from his temple down to his face.
“You skipped class.” Tooru and Wakatoshi are both attending the same academy that’s why it was easy for Tooru to notice if his substandard friend is not around.
“I have fever and headache.”
“But you are chopping firewoods.” Oikawa notices that Wakatoshi’s lips is more red than usual. He has fever indeed.
“This will keep me warm later once the temperature drop at midnight.” Wakatoshi gathers the chopped firewoods and bring them inside the cabin.
Oikawa lend a hand and follows the taller boy inside, carrying the remaining woods.
“Have you eaten?”
“Not yet.”
“I’ll make you a porridge. Go to your room.”
It really bothers Tooru why his friend chose to live in the woods when he can afford to purchase a property in the town proper. From what he have heard, Wakatoshi’s parents are both miners and owned a mining company that operates in different countries.
“Still alive?” Tooru asks as he makes himself comfortable to intrude Wakatoshi’s peace.
The brunette sets the porridge on the bedside table and signal his friend to rise and eat the food he prepared.
“Barely alive.” Wakatoshi answered.
The two young souls ate in silence. Eyes stealing glances when one of them is not looking.
That night, Tooru had decided not to go back in his home. Instead, he spends the night attending the sick Wakatoshi who had nightmares due to his high body temperature.
“I’m sorry.” Tooru apologizes, realising his inappropriate action.
Wakatoshi touches his lips. Surprised by Tooru’s sudden lips press on his, “what were you apologizing for?”
Tooru hides his face, too embarrassed to face the boy he used to call freak.
“I kissed you.”
“I like it.”
He was surprised by his reply so he ended up staring at Wakatoshi’s face and lips.
“Wakatos—” Tooru did not get to finish his name. He was pulled by him, down to the bed and underneath his surging warmth.
Wakatoshi looks at him like he is the most exquisite creature in their world, “you are beautiful.” That’s what he said before claiming the brunette’s lips and let the four corners of the room to witness the fiery kiss they shared in the middle of that cold midnight.
|‱‱|
A week later ...
“I can’t find my father’s necklace.”
“Where was the last place you visit?”
“the river near your house, Wakatoshi.”
The next day, he was found dead under the river. Foot jammed between the massive rocks underwater.
Wakatoshi
died
finding
his
miracle’s gem.
|‱‱| P R E S E N T
“Welcome home, young master, Tooru.” Oh, to be the real Oikawa Tooru once again.
The brunette motions the butler to leave him alone and the man obeyed.
“I will see you now, freak.” Tooru smiles, setting down the wheeled chair where his grandmother died with a smile on her lips.
It was a great dream. Tooru saw his young self arguing with Wakatoshi in the garden. The freak was smiling at him while leaning against the bird bath.
“Stop moving, Wakatoshi! You’re gonna ruin my painting!” Tooru yells.
Wakatoshi flashes his rare eye smile and says, “you are really beautiful, Tooru.”
It was just a dream.
But it felt real.
Tooru had chosen.
He’ll stay there.
That’s where he belongs.
Inside Wakatoshi’s warmth.
Tooru Oikawa with the gem pressed tight on his chest... died in his sleep.
|‱‱|
“We’ll get that one,” said the two men who both pointed the decades old painting of a bird bath with a green gem on it.
The old man who sells painting on the street had to bite the inside of his mouth to prevent himself from crying.
The old man is Shigeru, the St. Vinvent’s former butler.
While the two men are Wakatoshi Ushijima and Tooru Oikawa... and this is their another life.
đŸ„€đŸ„€
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otterskin · 3 years ago
Text
Finnesang - Prologue : Two Birds, One Song
All published chapters on AO3 - but here’s Chapter One, just to hook you.
Blurb: Odin is missing a raven. Without Muninn, Odin isn’t quite who he used to be. The only thing more dangerous than a man with secrets is one who can no longer keep them.
After a near-perfect Coronation years ago, Thor's become exactly the kind of king he believes his father would be proud of - if his father were still the man Thor thought he was (if he ever was).
Loki knows his place - servant of Asgard, advisor to his brother, and caregiver to his ailing father. Important roles, defining ones - and yet he feels forgotten. Sometimes literally.
Being forgotten is fatal when all that you are is someone else’s lie.
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PART ONE:
UNMADE
ášČ ᛟ ášč
The RAVENS
Once we were ravens, and that only.
To be ravens is a good thing. Ravens can fly. The Sky belonged to us when we danced in it. At night we'd steal the stars away when our black bodies blotted them out. We did not belong to the Earth or the Sea, though we took the bounties of both. Some would call us thieves for that, but we were ravens only, and accountable to no-one.
And yet we were not content. We wished to have more.
We wished to be more.
When we heard it first, we could put no name to it. It was a sound, many of them, wound together in a tangle - and yet it could be followed.
So follow it we did.
We soared through rain and thunder, through blazing sun and piercing wind. Always, it moved forward, as living things must. We followed. We could not bear to live again in silence.
We beat our wings in time with its tempo and our hearts beat in time with its base. There was nothing but the song and the journey to possess it.
We followed it through forests, through villages, through cities and out into the sky again.
We saw a figure walking through clouds. He looked like one of the people who lived below - he was covered in scales like them, had four purple eyes like them, dressed as they did. But at once we saw that he was not one of them. None of them could walk the skies as easily as we flew in them. None of them sang as he did. He was a new thing, and we wanted to have him.
We danced about him, and he laughed in wonder at us.
He paused in his song to call out to us, as raucous as any lowly crow, “What are your names, then?”
We jeered. Play the sounds, creature.
He took up the thing of sticks and strings from around his neck and strummed it.
We ventured nearer, needing to feel the pulse of the tune. One of us landed on his right shoulder. One of us landed on his left. Through our toes, we could feel the rumble of his flesh, the rumble that became the sounds we would soon learn to call ‘music’.
"Hearing, I ask, from the ho-o-ly races
From Norn’s eyes, watching high and low
I will soon relate, to this tree of faces
Old tales remembered from long, long ago
”
We did not yet know what words were, but still we jittered to encounter them. The scales that disguised the singer as one of the people of below fell away, revealing pale, pinky flesh and worm-like toes where wing feathers should be. His eyes were now only two, and they were very, very blue.
"Have you no names, then? I’m between names myself at the moment. A fair number of them just
did not work out. Perhaps you can help me think of the next one.”
Before we could berate him for stopping, he continued to sing.
"I asked for companions, the Norns sent me birds
I asked them for names, but they gave me none
I suppose since I am the master of words
It falls to me to give them both some!"
He reached out to stroke our chests with a finger. It was warm. We didn’t dislike it.
“I may have made those lyrics for you, but the tune is not mine. I really should not be singing it. Yet lately, I cannot seem to get it out of my head

“My father was a fine singer himself,
Though only when he sang with my mother.
They sang this for me when I was my first self
When I still had a sister and brother.”
The music ended. We looked at the creature. He stared hollowly out across the green skies as if he did not like the colour of them.
“It seems that no matter where I go or what I call myself, I am burdened with memories and thoughts. Not just of what was, but what could have been. Do you know what that is like, my feathered friends?”
He seemed unhappy. That was no good - his song had brought us joy, and it would not do for him to have none of his own. We called his music to our minds and cawed to it best we could, harsh and throaty.
His eyes brightened. “You are very clever, aren’t you? You’re different from the birds on Asheim. Though not so clever that you’ve yet to realize what sordid company you’re keeping now.” He strummed his instrument with a grin. “I’ve thought of names for you. You shall be Huginn and Muninn - Thought and Memory. But names are not free, my corvid companions. Upon your wings I will settle a burden, so that I might journey lighter
”
He touched a wing-toe to his head. It began to glow, bright and silver. When he withdrew the toe, it came away with a long strand of silver. It broke free from his head, and at once began to wiggle like a worm. We could not help but swallow eagerly in anticipation. He offered the worm to the first of us on his right shoulder. Without hesitation, it was devoured. He put his finger to his head once more, and this time drew out a golden worm. This he offered to the second of us, on his left shoulder. Once again, it was devoured.
He continued in this manner until we were full to bursting. The silver and gold writhed in our guts, hot and cold, filling us with emptiness and sorrow, with warmth and joy, all at once. It was only then that we realized we were no longer only ravens.
Our minds were pulled away from our bodies, away from the green skies of our home. We were taken into another body, under a different sky, in a distant time.
There, we were a boy. There, there was a garden

It was a beautiful place.
A tall, red-bearded man held hands with a woman. Together they worked the land, pulling and pushing earth and water. Beside them were two children, a boy and girl. The girl coaxed plants from the soil, and the boy called animals to live in them.
The eyes we ravens watched from were distant, hovering far above the scene.
The man looked up at us. He opened his mouth, perhaps to call us down, to join them -
But all that came out was a terrible, wailing scream...
ᚌ
The ravens awoke, groggy with sleep. The baby’s wails echoed down the dark hallway, piercing even the great golden doors meant to shut away the rest of the world.
Thought looked at Memory. Memory looked back at Thought.
“You go,” croaked Thought.
“Muninn went last time,” complained Memory.
The wailing grew louder. It was a noise somewhere between a wolf having their teeth pulled and a crash collision between two speeding metal boats, complete with the two pilots arguing over whose fault it was afterwards. It was the very opposite of music.
“Huginn turn,” insisted Memory.
Huginn huffed, puffing up his feathers and shaking the sleep off of them. He flapped down off his golden perch and onto the bed. There was only one occupant, still slumbering on one side. On the other, the furs were flicked open. Huginn thought to look at the remaining shoes. The slippers were still there, but Frigga's boots were gone. Muninn remembered that she often went to the Garden at night - the only time she really could. She would not be back until sunrise.
Huginn hopped over to the remaining lump of furs. He pulled back the edges of them, revealing Odin’s face. He looked so very different from the creature who had walked the skies of the ravens’ homeworld. The red colour had long leached out of his hair, and his soft face had sprouted a grey beard and moustache to match it. At least his eyes had stayed the same - until a few nights ago when even one of them was taken from him.
Muninn recalled that he’d told them it was a trade of sorts. An eye for a baby. Huginn thought that was a rubbish trade. Odin's right eye had never screamed at them, which made it better by far.
Not wanting to waste any more potential sleep time, Huginn pecked near the newly-empty eye socket. At once the lump of furs erupted with a curse, sending Huginn flying into the air.
Odin attempted to insult his birds again but was drowned out by the baby screaming its boat-crash-wolf-yelp cry. So instead he sighed, beckoning to his birds to follow him as he lumbered out into the hallway.
Muninn tried to hide his beak under his wing and pretend he hadn’t seen the gesture. Huginn circled back and harassed him mercilessly.
“Need both,” Huginn tutted. “Always two ravens.”
Muninn relented, and soon both birds perched on Odin’s shoulders: Huginn on his right, Muninn on his left. As light as they were, Odin still moved slowly. He’d had very little sleep since returning from the final battle. The war itself hadn’t been particularly relaxing either.
Huginn felt the thought bloom in his mind as it occurred to Odin. How easy it seemed when I first took the child. Just seeing a friendly face after being abandoned had been enough to quell its cries.
They entered the nursery. Immediately the cries doubled in volume.
"Shhh-shhh-shh-sh.” Odin attempted, but the child only stopped its tears to hiccough loudly and suck in more breath, ammunition for further cacophony.
Hastily, Odin seized at a bottle waiting in a basket of ice and tried to stopper the babe with the bottle’s teat. Its mouth clamped shut and refused the milk, turning this way and that to escape.
“Still?” Odin asked it wearily.
I thought I saved you. But if you do not eat, all I have done is prolonged your death.
The thought tasted of hopelessness. It was not a favourite flavour of Huginn’s.
The babe reached out, seizing at Odin’s hand even as it ignored the bottle it held. Odin scooped the child into his arms, jostling the ravens as he patted its back. Nothing seemed wrong with it; its changing cloth was clean, its guts clear of gas. It was not even alone anymore - and yet it still would not stop crying.
“Go outside?” suggested Huginn.
“Remind baby of home,” agreed Muninn.
Odin nodded, eye still droopy with sleep.
They stepped onto the balcony. The night was clear and brimming with all the lights of Yggdrasil. As hoped, a chill was in the air.
And yet the baby still cried, digging into Odin’s beard as if trying to crawl away from the cold.
The old god sighed. “What am I to do?” he asked his ravens.
“Always, Odin ask only himself for counsel,” chided Muninn.
“I tried to turn to Frigga,” Odin protested half-heartedly.
Muginn cocked his head in judgement. The raven did not need to remind Odin of what he had done to Frigga. A flicker passed through both their minds: the memories of her face when he’d returned, bearing a strange infant to replace the one she so recently lost. She’d been waiting to share their grief - and Odin had instead asked her to disguise it, much like the false child he’d pressed to her breast.
“Odin did not think that one through,” observed Huginn.
“No. He did not,” agreed Odin, rubbing at the gauze over his socket again. He sighed.
Even Frigga’s reaction had been a friendlier welcome than he’d gotten from his own son.
I don’t know why I expected a warm welcome on my return - how could he even recognize me? He was but a babe when I left. But to see the boy instead glare at me with such suspicion, to insist on standing between his own mother and father...
But was the boy wrong to try and protect Frigga from me?
The first thing I did on my return was to break her heart.
“I am a wicked man,” Odin sighed.
"You are required to be a good king above being a good man. The two are often mutually exclusive concepts.”
Odin turned his head slightly to frown at Huginn. “That voice
”
The babe kicked him hard in the chest, trying again to squirm free of Odin’s grip.
Without thinking about it, he started to hum, bumping the child up and down as he did so.
Miraculously, the tiny creature quietened. Unscrunching its face, it peered up at him and his ravens. It seemed mesmerized by the tune.
Odin would have been glad of it, had he not recognized just what he was humming.
He stopped.
The babe immediately crumpled up again and began to fuss. Huginn, too, dipped his head in disappointment.
Despite his audience’s clear call for an encore, Odin did not pick up the tune again. Instead, he summoned the milk into his hand and tried again to feed the child. “Come on, boy,” he muttered, trying to turn its face back out from his chest. “I know it’s not as good as giant’s milk but we haven’t had any volunteers.”
His attempts jostled the ravens about on his shoulders, causing them to flap and squawk. Huginn wondered how comical they would appear to anyone walking in on the scene. Odin, King of Asgard, Conqueror, feared throughout the realms, encumbered by clingy ravens and an obstinate baby.
“Eat - the damn - milk,” Odin muttered, accompanying each word with the jab of the bottle.
“Baby liked that song,” Muninn recalled.
“Sing next time,” urged Huginn, a spark of independence clashing against Odin’s clear reticence.
“I don’t know that I can," the man muttered. “I haven’t sung in years,”
“Odin sang for many years before,” Muninn said slowly. “Muninn would know if Odin forgot how.”
“See? So sing now!” demanded Huginn.
The other raven looked away from his brother. “Muninn doesn’t like that song. It hurts.”
Huginn looked over at Muninn, scandalized. “We ravens like the song!"
But Muninn just fluffed his feathers again and wouldn’t meet Huginn’s beady eye.
The babe knocked the glass bottle from Odin’s hands. It hit the stone floor of the balcony and broke open.
Odin nearly cursed again, catching the ugly word with one syllable already hanging out of his mouth. Spending years around soldiers instead of the Court and his family had roughened his vocabulary. That was what he used his voice for, crass words and orders to make war. Not song. That belonged to a version of himself he’d long put behind him.
He would go and get a nursemaid and damn the consequences, he would go and fetch Eir and have her diagnose the child, he would go -
The baby detonated with a keening scream, piercing his eardrums and threatening to further shatter the glass bottle with its ferocity.
He would go mad if he didn’t do something right now.
Well, go madder. He must have been mad already to have taken this child in the first place.
It shouldn’t have come as easily as it did. For one thing, his voice had deepened significantly since he last said these words, and it strained at first, trying to hit the notes that used to be within easy reach. But even before he dropped to the next octave down, his seidr was stirred, flowing outwards with the euphony. In many ways, this had been how he’d first learned magic - how he first learned to speak with the air and sky, and all the intricate veins that threaded the universe together. A thousand strings to be plucked and molded into melody.
“Hearing, I ask, from the ho-o-ly races
From Norn’s eyes, watching high and low
I will soon relate, to this tree of faces
Old tales remembered from long, long ago.
Of old was the age when Ymir yet lived
No sea nor waves, nor sand was yet there
Earth was not yet, nor heavens forgive'd
All that was was the gap to nowhere.”
Muninn shifted uneasily. Memories of millennia were tangled inextricably in every bar. But to the babe, it was merely noise, clean and new and without connotation. Spellbound, it fell still in Odin’s arms.
“Lead me home, my mothers of yester
Lead me to my heart and its way
Free me from a body that festers
Free me from the urge to yet stay.
Take me from this o-ode to slaughter
Take me from Hel, though I may belong
Lead me to my sons and my daughters
Lead me home to the heart of my song.
Shield-time, sword-time, we enter the gold halls
Wind-time, Wolf-time, ere the world falls.”
Muninn thought of Bor, Father of Odin. He once said this was a sad song.
But did it have to be so for everyone who heard it? Odin wondered. Could it not be something else for this babe?
It could mean safety, comfort. It could mean that this child had a home
at least for a little while.
“Little while?” Muninn croaked. “How cruel.”
The All-Father ignored him and continued to sing.
“I remember yet the giants of yore
Who gave me bread in days gone by
Nine worlds I knew, Nine worlds at war
Nine voices became one battle cry
”
There were many ways this story could go. If it weren’t for me, this babe’s tale would have ended shortly after it had begun. What could be less cruel than the gift of possibilities?
“Muninn cannot remember the future, only past,” Muninn scolded. “Odin cannot know if saving baby means good or bad. It just is.”
“Even bad better than nothingness,” Huginn dissented. “This good deed.”
“Deeds have reasons why done,” Muninn muttered. “Were reasons good?”
Huginn turned his back on his brother, disgusted with his treachery. “Odin not parley with ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Odin just is. Muninn play silly games.”
“Only one rose from the sea of blood
Broken were oaths, words not what they seemed
Before the breath of liars, we scud
Shaped, like clouds, by forces unseen..."
“Odin make promise by taking baby,” insisted Muninn.
“Odin makes no promises,” Huginn hissed.
“I know the horn of Heimdall, well-hidden
As lost as the things it’s meant to return
What would I ask, if it were mine to be bidden?
Would I make new or ask to unburn?
Alone I waited when the Old One sought me
The Terror of Gods gazed in mine eyes:
‘What dost thou want? What comest thou to see?’
Dost thou look for something living or died?
‘Before thou ask, be aware there is cost -
An eye for an eye, a thought for a thought
If I am to return that which you lost
Be aware that the price is the same as the bought.
'Would you know yet more?
Knowing that wisdom is weight?
Would you know yet more?
Knowing no knowledge will sate?
Would you know yet more?
If you knew that knowing meant a forever war?’”
The babe was staring at Odin with rapt attention as if there was nothing in the universe more awe-inspiring than an old man mumbling his way through a doom-stricken ditty.
Odin tended to be the most powerful person in any room - or planet - or galaxy, really - that he happened to walk into, and so he was used to rapt attention. But there is nothing quite like being the end-all, be-all centre of existence in the eyes of an infant. For one thing, people tended to get nervous when the most powerful person in the galaxy walked into the room. This babe just wondered. It would have marvelled at him just the same if he were a moderately-successful goatherd.
This child knew so little of the world. So little about Odin. Hardly any different from most grown men, in that respect. How precious that ignorance was. How unfair that after all the world had done to this child in his short life that that innocence should be placed in Odin’s hands.
Moved to pity, Huginn bent down to preen at the babe’s few dark hairs. Muninn took off from the other shoulder, heading back inside.
“Lead me home, my brothers of yester
Lead me to my heart and its way
Free me from a body that festers
Free me from the urge to yet stay

Take me from this o-ode to slaughter
Take me from Hel, though I may belong
Lead me to my sons and my daughters
Lead me home to the heart of my song.
Shield-time, sword-time, we enter the gold halls
Wind-time, Wolf-time, ere the world falls.”
The song was nearly complete now, and Odin was surprised to find himself slowing down, as if unwilling to let the moment go. Each time he returned to the chorus, there seemed to be some strange reciprocity from the babe. Though it could not sing, its fledgeling magic nonetheless reverberated with the melody, like the threads of a spider’s web plucked by the breeze.
"The serpent is bright, but now I must sink
My father of yester is leading me home
The sky becomes light, no more must I think
of old tales remembered from long, long ago.
It didn’t seem till now...
...so long, long ago."
It was done.
Muninn returned, bearing with him a fresh bottle of milk. He dropped it into Odin’s waiting hand. The babe seemed loose, almost liquid in Odin’s grasp, though its eyes were still bright and alert. It didn’t fight the bottle this time - but neither did it suck at the teat. Odin sighed.
“Did I ever know what was in giant’s milk, Muninn?”
The raven considered, then shook his head.
“Can you think of anything that would convince the child to drink, Huginn?”
The second raven considered, then shook his head.
“Fat lot of good you both turned out to be, eh?” Odin sighed, but there was a smile in it.
The king tried to return the babe to its crib, but its fists had knotted painfully in place in his beard. It was no use; he’d just have to take it to bed and hope it would behave until morning.
When he settled back into his half of the mattress, another pang of guilt crossed his chest.
I should be with her.
Instead, he pulled the blanket back up over himself and carefully tried to lie down without disturbing the infant.
“Give her time,” he said, though the babe was already deep in sleep. “She’s a warm heart and love to spare. She just needs time to say goodbye.”
The babe gurgled. Then, unmistakably, it hummed. Clear as the skies when Thor was in good spirits, it was the song Odin had imprinted on him, already echoing back. He listened to it make its way through the tune. At points it would stop, as if waiting for something; it took Odin a little while to realize that, even in the depths of sleep, it was waiting for a response. He’d hum back to it, sometimes along with it, creating a strange little harmony.
“We’ll make a proper Asgardian out of you yet,” he chuckled, and for a moment he could imagine that Frigga had merely gone to freshen up, that the babe was everything Odin was pretending it was, that his family had been spared their latest tragedy and all was, for that moment, well. He could forget all the inconvenient parts of reality.
The world could just be him and his borrowed boy.
He could stop the crying.
He could make things right.
“Could. What a damning word that is.”
Odin cracked open his eye and saw him in the corner of the room. Wrapped in shadows, and just as immaterial. His beard was a deeper red than it ever had been in life, and the curve of the downward-pointing horns of his helmet outlined his harsh face.
“Could is a word for regrets. Regrets are the stories we wished we lived. You were always too fond of stories. Stories are not real.”
Odin shut his eye. “Neither are you, Father.” He didn’t need to open it again to know that Bor would no longer be there. It was just a passing thought.
But the spell had been broken.
The bed was cold. His wife was still gone to the Garden to mourn over her true son while he coddled a painted imposter in what should have been her sanctuary. And even then, the babe was still sickly, still hungry, and he had nothing to fill him. He had made nothing right, only forgotten that everything was still wrong.
“Huginn - Muninn,” Odin called. “Go to Jötunheim and observe the children there. Learn what they require to suckle and grow, and return soon.”
The ravens bobbed their heads in acceptance of their task. They took flight.
The skies of Asgard roiled with starlight, but the clever birds knew which precise point of light was Jötunheim’s sole sun. Together they flew, side by side, into the ether. Light streaked, sound ceased, space bent around them, and they tore through -
We tore through

We did, didn’t we? We ravens went to Jötunheim. We did - we saw and learned and we returned
The child lived, thanks to us
So why, why did the light and the sound continue, becoming darker, malevolent, angry? Why did it shout and accuse and become oh so terribly sad even as raging fire swept about us, between us, blackening the blackest of feathers and consuming, consuming, it was in Muninn’s mouth, it was in his stomach, it was devouring him from the inside out and he was in pain, such terrible pain and I, I the raven needed to go to my brother, needed to save him, but the moment we became I it was already too late.
Muninn was gone. A hole where a raven should be. I screamed for him, but a raven’s voice is not music, and it could not call him back.
I flew on.
My thoughts were dark.
Such angry, grieving thoughts.
My blood was dead. Taken from me. Stolen. By an enemy beyond my reach.
But not all my enemies were so.
Where was I going?
Somewhere cold, somewhere far away - and why?
To see the giants, the red eyes in the blizzard.
To Jötunheim, to the giants, to war -
As Asgard had done time and time again.
Yes, to war!
To war!
ᚌ
Huginn awoke with a start. Red light was streaming through the window behind him, courtesy of the sunset. He looked across from his golden perch to the empty one on the other side of the bed. As it had been for decades, it was empty.
So was the bed.
Huginn blinked at it. The sheets had been flung from the bed with force.
The door remained shut, likely still locked. But, as the breeze from the open window reminded the raven, that was not the only way out of this place.
With a flurry of greying feathers, Huginn took flight. He passed out the back of the golden room and felt the wispy touch of shattered spells try to catch at his feathers, to no avail.
The rook circled Asgard, wings straining, searching, searching.
He heard him before he saw him - the whistling of wind around the corners of the city and the low, dull roar of the stars as invisible strings drew from their raging hearts. Footfalls echoed mightily off the golden buildings, and at once Huginn knew they could not be dissuaded from their path.
There was nothing a raven, even one who was not only that, could do.
There was little anyone could do, really, but there were some who would try anyway. Inconveniently, today had to be the day they weren’t on Asgard.
Huginn braced his aching pinions, fixing his beady eyes on a star in the sky the way other ravens fixed on the glimmer of a mussel in the water.
He flew into the sky, following the faintest sounds of a half-remembered melody.
***
This and the rest on AO3:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/21638704/chapters/51598693
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chrichri-chan-18-love · 4 years ago
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Monsters are real (Yandere Hawks x Reader) Part 1
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You belonged in a family that was hated by everyone around you, you were all arrogant, filled with nothing but hatred and disgust for those around you. No one really knew how this whole thing began, why or who was responsible for all this madness. From a young age you were taught to trust only members of your family, outsiders were treated as if they were trash, wether they had a quirk or not didn’t matter, you were taught to view them the same, only changing your attitude when someone was about to enter the family.
 And speaking about you... you were their most treasured member, you had been born with not one but three quirks. Your mother had been born with two quirks and your father only had one, you had no idea how it happened but they were all powerfull quirks...
1) God’s threads (Threads connected to your brain and in colors of your choosing could come out of your hands and be used for a variety or reasons, from making a napkin to mind control, using it too much however creates cuts on your fingers and strong headaches.)
2) Metamorphosis (The ability to turn into animals you had seen even once in your life, however it has to be a live encounter, turning into animals you have seen in T.V is impossible)
3) Weather master (The power to change and control the weather around you, though it greatly weakens your body so it cannot be used for more than a few minutes.)
However as much as people hated you and your family, you were pro’s when it came down to your job of interest. In your case, it was management, thus you came into contact with a man that not only deserved to be hated, he actually deluded himself into believing that he hated you more than you hated him.
Hawks had tried, he had really tried to find something good in you... but there was nothing in there, you were mean and cared for no one but yourself. It went beyond the limits of logic... and during his moments of need, especially during his rut, you didn’t offer a helping hand. Instead you would degrade him, insult him and show your disgust until he just couldn’t take it anymore. He had seen you act the same with others, sometimes it was as bad as his case and others even worse. You didn’t care whose enemy you became, you never cared to say a kind word... you were just awful.
One day he came to his office, hoping, begging for you not to be there... but when he saw you, he snaped. Coming closer he shouted your name and you looked at him with your usual look of disgust, that always made him feel horrible about himself.
“What do you want, chicken face?”
“I’m your boss! You won’t talk to me like that!” He shouted, no longer trying to act like a kind and understanding man. You scoffed and focused on your computer instead.
“If you’re here only to annoy me, good job, you’ve done it. Is there anything else, I’m busy trying to clean YOUR mess, yet again.” You said and he growled, glaring at you with pure hatred.
“Pack your things, you’re fired!” He said and you smiled, looking at him with what he could only assume was sick pride.
“Looks like you’re not all you’re cracked up to be. Number two, Hawks. A flirty, worthless hybrid between a man and a bird... oh, the horrors nature creates.” You said and that had gone too far, he slapped you across the face, only to hear the click of a camera, causing him to look to his left, a boy resembling you had a hellish grin as he put his phone back into his pocket.
“Thanks, mister hero. That was a very nice performance.”
Hawks glared at you and you raised an eyebrow, clearly mocking him as you spoke.
“What are you looking at me for? I didn’t take the picture, then again, it’d be terrible if something like that were to go out to the public.” You said and Hawks wanted to kill you... you were a monster, the devil himself. 
“You bitch!!!”
“You can call me whatever you want Hawks. As long as I keep my job for another week, I don’t give a damn. But thankfully for me, I plan to resign after a week has passed.” You said and for the first time ever, Hawks saw a warm smile, eyes looking at the sky with a warmth that was so... unreal, it was almost as if he was seeing a different woman. Your cruel and horrible self was nowhere to be found.
“You’re lucky, sis.” The boy said and Hawks was now confused and curious... what the hell could possibly happen that would cause such a change?
“What do you mean? What are you up to?”
“I’m getting married, idiot. Or did you think I was planning on dealing with you for the rest of my life?” You asked still smilling and looking at the sky. Hawks was shocked, who the hell would be crazy enough to marry you?!
“What the hell?!”
You turned and glared at Hawks, sending chills down his spine. If the man you were going to marry was similar to you, then he knew it would only serve in the creation of more monsters like you.
“It’s rare though, to marry for love and not because you were ordered to.” The boy said and Hawks looked at the boy.
“Ordered to?” He asked and the boy raised an eyebrow, as if he had heard something stupid.
“You’re not the smartest bird in the flock, are you?”
“There is no need to explain to him anything, go back home. Mother made you something special, happy birthday Ryo.” You said with a warm smile, the boy nodded and left without another word.
Hawks was speechless... he didn’t know what to think. You were a monster, that’s what he had been telling to himself, that’s what he had seen... what you had showed him. But how could a monster show such love and care, he had imagined that you were as bad with your family as you were with others... but that wasn’t the case. You had goodness in your heart, there was something burried at the bottom... but he never had the chance to see or experience it.
Suddenly his anger seemed to dissapear, sure he still didn’t like you but... after what he had just witnessed... things were by all means new to him. A monster that had love in her heart, a feeling so weak but also so very precious.
“(Name), I... why are you so cruel? What did I ever do to you?” He asked, he had never bothered to ask you, he believed that there was no point... but now... he wanted to learn.
“Mind your own buisness, bird brain. You have an interview scheduled in four hours, so do me a favor and erase your face from my view.” You replied and Hawks took a sharp breath... all this time he saw you as both an alarming clock and a demon that existed for the sole purpose of tormenting him.
“No, not until you tell me truth. I want to know why you are being such a bitch to everyone.”
You rolled your eyes and used your first quirk to make him go out of the building. Hawks wasn’t used to you using your quirks... so getting to see what one of them could do, made him wonder... had you used them against anyone before?
The more Hawks began thinking, the more he decided that maybe... maybe he had indeed done something horrible to you, something that in your book was a step too far. Was it his flirting? His tendency to create scandals unintentionally? Maybe the fact that he always did things his way? That he was so relaxed and at times ignorant?
“I will find out... I will have the last laugh in this game.” He said and decided to try and see... were you really a monster? Or was that what you wanted people to believe?
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unintentionalgenius · 3 years ago
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so, I am a big music person, and while writing come then, and be broken I made a playlist for canon!verse buck + eddie, which I offer to you here:
Yes! Yes! Yes! // Hey Rosetta!
A Thousand Suns // Hey Rosetta!
The Fireman // George Strait
Brother // The Rural Alberta Advantage
Carry On // fun.
Texas Love Song // Slaid Cleaves
Is That Alright? // Lady Gaga (A Star is Born soundtrack)
Murder in the City // The Avett Brothers
Brand New Paradigm // Sons of Bill
Revolution Lover // Left at London
A Complete List of Fears Ages 5-28 (Aprox) // The Yellow Dress
Must Have Done Something Right // Relient K
Levi // Old Crow Medicine Show
When You Love Somebody // Fruit Bats
Ho Hey // The Lumineers
Headstart // Jade Bird
Autoclave // The Mountain Goats
Who Am I (Live) // NEEDTOBREATHE
Damn These Vampires // The Mountain Goats
commentary below the cut.
I freely admit some of my reasoning is inscrutable to anyone who isn't me, but some of these are absolute gems and I feel like they deserve more attention.
Yes! Yes! Yes! // Hey Rosetta!
I know it's messy but you'll make it right You don't want pity you want pride
The roof is falling in The roof is falling in I'm not kidding You can probably feel the wind No, no, not again Put your head on my legs It's not time for your untimely end, yet No no no no no no no not yet
Like. This is The Song for a man who keeps throwing his body at problems because that's how he gets love and for someone who just wants to save him.
A Thousand Suns // Hey Rosetta!
Everyone around wants to give you their hands Everyone around puts their hands on your back And they say: we want to thank you so much! we want to thank you so much! Cause all you did for them, you also did for us
What you've done is not yours alone What you've done echoes on and on
The argument for this one honestly feels self-explanatory. If they haven't used this in the show yet, they should. 911 music supervision team all I want is a mention in the credits.
The Fireman // George Strait
My friends, this is a song about a man who hooks up with broken-hearted people and goes "running around this town putting out old flames". I can't not. Also it firmly fits into my argument that because of how old he is and where he's from, Eddie is legally obligated to be into this period of country music.
Brother // The Rural Alberta Advantage
And I heard your final cry Through the dark tonight I'm coming back for you
There's a dream I had Where somebody watched out for me and you
Carry On // fun.
Though I've never been through hell like that I've closed enough windows To know you can never look back ...reads so much like something Eddie would say to Buck - your family sucks and mine sucks less but they still suck; sometimes you just gotta move on and build a new one. With me? đŸ„ș
Texas Love Song // Slaid Cleaves
Once again I just like peppering in little reminders that Eddie is Southern, and I can't not use this song since I know it exists. It's literally a love song where every good aspect of the beloved is compared to something wonderful about Texas. I will not be taking questions at this time.
Is That Alright? // Lady Gaga (A Star is Born soundtrack)
Say whatever you want about Lady Gaga or this film (I like both but neither are hills I will die on), this is a gorgeous song about wanting the entire rest of your life with someone. It still manages to be bittersweet without ever encoding an unhappy ending in the lyrics themselves. It's just beautiful, idk.
Murder in the City // The Avett Brothers
If I get murdered in the city Don't go revengin' in my name One person dead from such is plenty No need to go get locked away When I leave your arms The things that I think of No need to get over-alarmed I'm comin' home This verse has big first responder energy in general, which also makes it good for the show (again music supervision team feel free to borrow this I just want credit). The second verse has big Buck energy though:
I wonder which brother is better Which one our parents love the most I sure did get in lots of trouble They seem to let the other go
Brand New Paradigm // Sons of Bill
The world will keep on turning without you burning out the gears Seconds still collecting into just another year No need for you to pay such close attention all the time Quit passing on the left, let the world go passing by and by
This one just in general feels like a plea to two people who carry the entire world on their shoulders to let someone else carry it, goddammit. Or better yet, understand that no one has to.
Revolution Lover // Left at London
I know that your hope's been missin' I know we both coulda almost died I know it's harder everyday to provide But it's gonna change, I can feel it comin' And when it's here, we’ll be side-by-side I know we'll make it out of this one alive
It is honestly just textual at this point. Also this one is an absolute bop, 10/10.
A Complete List of Fears Ages 5-28 (Aprox) // The Yellow Dress
This song is exactly what it says on the tin, and also a wonderful love song framed with such lush domesticity I could cry.
Must Have Done Something Right // Relient K
We should get jerseys 'Cause we make a good team But yours would look better than mine 'Cause you're outta my league And I know that it's so cliche to tell you that everyday I spend with you is the new best day of my life Everyone watching us just turns away with disgust It's jealousy, they can see that we've got it going on
Ok Buck and I are about the same age, and Eddie is only a few years younger, so this has the benefit of being completely correct for the music of their (our) youth and ALSO is absolutely lyrically on point. I could have pasted the entire lyrics in here but I made myself only pick one section.
Levi // Old Crow Medicine Show
It's a song about a good ol' Southern boy who gets sent to war out in the desert "a million miles from home" where they "shot him down". It's mournful as hell but still manages to be upbeat.
When You Love Somebody // Fruit Bats
When you love somebody and bite your tongue all you get is a mouthful of blood
Ho Hey // The Lumineers
So show me family All the blood that I will bleed I don't know where I belong I don't know where I went wrong
Headstart // Jade Bird
I've more pride than many This is kind of rare for me Everyone knows that it's true You're the only one in the room But you don't see me, do you? Must be blind not to That's alright I'll keep on Putting myself on the line
Just. the biggest pining vibes. It's beautiful. Also musically a 10/10 song!
Autoclave // The Mountain Goats
And I am this great, unstable mass of blood and foam And no one in her right mind would make my home her home
This one is a big Buck song for me. The only problem is the gendered language in the lyrics but the vibe? Impeccable. It's just really anchored in this utter desperation to be seen and known and loved even when you think you don't deserve it.
Who Am I (Live) // NEEDTOBREATHE
Last night, confidence was shaken My wounds and my past was saying No one should ever love me like you do
Still I can't imagine that I've earned your trust I don't understand where your love comes from
horrifyingly, the deep dive I just did to grab these lyrics suggest this song?? is about??? God??? anyway all that aside it's SO good. Just pretend it's about a human relationship (idk that's probably heresy to the Christians don't @ me).
Damn These Vampires // The Mountain Goats
I cannot point you to an exact lyric or idea, but somehow this song just screams "sad city boys with a cowboy motif". Which - how could I not?
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lilyharvord · 4 years ago
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The Chain (Part 7)
Main concept: Two love struck idiots get sent back to a pretty UGH time period in their lives (that required me to reread all the books again) and have to hide the fact that they know everything.  
Find Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6  
tag list: @delilahlbard, @king-maven-calore, @thatoddgirl777, @elliekratzzz, @evangelineartemiasamos, @evangeline-of-montfort, @scxrletguardsdawn, @freaky-freiday, @petergrantkavinsky, @kuwei, @whatsup-gorls, @katiemoore (here ya go ((: thank you for your interest),  @redqueenetwork(let me know if you want a tag and I’ll add you to the list ((: )
I wake to watery blue sunlight. The sun has just finished peaking over the horizon, making me grumble immediately. There was no reason I should be up this early. I didn’t schedule training, and I didn’t promise Gisa breakfast. Besides, I’m exhausted and my head is foggy, which is a very unwelcome combination. 
Sighing loud enough that Cal should hear me, I bring my arm up to cover my eyes. “Cal, close the curtains.” I murmur, before smacking what would normally be his back. I only hit empty sheets though. My eyes fly open as I sit bolt upright. 
This isn’t Montfort. 
The buzzing in my head is from the cameras trained on me, and the fogginess is from the alcohol last night. The alcohol I drank to keep from grabbing the knife next to my hand and stabbing it through the top of Maven’s when he reached across to offer me a glass of water. Even with that moment, I had made it through the night. I had given him a smile, one that I almost thought was real. I’d forgotten that he had been funny, that he had a good sense of humor. He was kind to me last night. I know he had been the first time around too. Deep down in a place that Elara had never touched, he had protected that kernel of love that made him fall in love with a Red boy in Corvium. I wonder if Thomas knew that he was one of the few things that kept Maven from completely losing his mind. So odd how two Reds made two princes question everything. 
I rub at my forehead to try and alleviate the ache there before giving up and throwing the comforter back to swing my legs to the side. The marble floor is freezing, especially after the warmth of my bedding. I wish Cal was here, just so I could throw myself back under the blankets and I stick my feet against his legs to warm them. He always hissed at the feeling when I did it, but let me anyway, only to leach the warmth from one of his hands and press it against my thigh to make me squeal. 
I have half a mind to crawl back into bed, bury myself in pillows and blankets, and pretend I’m in Paradise Valley during a snow storm. A light knock on my door startles me though, and wipes away the remaining fog in my mind. No rest for the wicked apparently. 
Standing quickly and ignoring the gooseflesh that erupts on my skin, I hurry over to the chair where I unceremoniously tossed my robe from last night. I blindly shove one arm into a sleeve and call for another second from the maids waiting outside, hoping they at least give me that time to look semi-decent. 
The three of them hurry in though, the one at the front carrying my dreaded schedule. I’d almost forgotten about it, and honestly wish that I had. Lessons that will bore me to tears, and then tense lunches and dinners with the ladies of the court are going to haunt my days while Elara stalks my nightmares. More acting, more games within games, I think I’d rather run head first into a wall than do all of that. 
The girl, who can’t be much older than me, dips her head as she offers the thin piece of paper, drawing a sigh from me as I take it and sink reluctantly into the vanity chair. I know exactly what it will say, but that doesn’t stop me from scanning it to check for discrepancies. Nothing seems out of place. Then again, Elara was too smart to give herself away on something like this.
Protocol lessons will be miserable. I can remember most of what I learned, but I can’t exactly show up and claim that. Maybe I can tell Cal to put me in training earlier. There was no harm in that right? 
I know that the best part of my day will be Julian. I hadn’t seen him at the feast last night, not that he would show up to something like that. He probably spent the night surrounded by his books, sipping whatever bitter alcohol he was willing to stomach for the night. If he’s on my schedule, Elara can’t possibly know anything. She wouldn’t dare put us together. He’d been a major collaborator with me, and we posed a serious threat because of that.
I read the schedule over and over again as the maids arrange my hair and pick out my outfit. When I glance over my shoulder at the tight leggings on the bed that have been laid out, I grimace. “Anything more
 practical?” 
The maid brushing out the skirts of the gown to go with them glances at my closet hesitantly, only to disappear inside again. Another maid turns my head forward to the mirror as she begins painting my neck, chest and face with the silver paint. Her hands are delicate. With the work she does, and how well she does it, she must be an artist of some sort. 
Pants and a jacket appear in my peripheral vision, a silent question from the maid holding. I nod in agreement, and she hurries away to press and prepare them. My skin crawls in the growing silence. I can’t even hear the birds that are probably singing as they wake up outside. 
I don’t remember it being this awkward. Then again, I had been so focused on avoiding mistakes that I didn’t have time to think about the people around me. It had been that selfish part of me that fed the character of Mareena. She had died years ago though, and I plan to keep her dead and buried after what I did as her. 
I glance at myself in the mirror again, looking over the paint as the maid finishes and begins lining my eyes. It has been a long time since I let someone put this heavy of makeup on me. I look wicked and lovely. Beautiful, like a knife Evangeline would twirl between her fingers. 
Today will be the first chance to truly observe Elara since our encounter in the cells. Nothing appeared amiss last night, but I wasn’t going to put anything to chance in this den of wolves. Too much rides on my success to fail at this point. 
Stepping carefully into the pants, I let one of the maids help me into the jacket. Her fingers dance along my skin quicker than my lightning, careful to avoid touching the paint and smearing it. I feel like a china doll that might shatter if they handle me too roughly. 
Still, I’m ready earlier than I anticipate. Lucas and I might be able to simply stroll through the palace instead of the sprinting walk I remember from my first day. Even if I had arrived late before, arriving early this time around won’t change anything. In fact, it might even make Elara over look me more. I could use that to my advantage when I start poking my nose in places it doesn’t belong. 
The maids bow away from me when they finish, their hands tucked into the sides of their skirts. I raise my chin at the girl looking back at me in the mirrors. She looks cold, colder than I remember. I won’t let her take over again though. I won’t let her get the foothold she got during my initial time here. She had been armor then, but she’d still almost drowned me before I threw her to the side to save myself. 
Swallowing I turn away from the mirror and whisper my thanks to the maids before crossing the room for the doors. One rushes to open it for me, her eyes downcast. I glance her over, taking in her delicate features. She reminds me of Gisa so much, my stomach turns thinking about it. What is Gisa doing now besides bemoaning a lost future along with her broken hand? She heals, I remind myself, even if a part of her will never forget that phantom pain. 
I want to reach out and set my hand on this girl’s shoulder though. I want to comfort her, if only to reassure myself that everything will be fine. I squeeze my hand in a fist though and thank her before stepping into the hallway. I shouldn’t be thanking them so much, but the words leave my lips so easily. 
Lucas waits across the hall, his expression carefully schooled into neutrality. But the minute I step out and smirk at him, his lips quirk up in that grin that sometimes haunts my nightmares. He would have continued giving that smile to world if it wasn’t for me. 
“Babysitting duty again?” I tease lightly, hiding the hitch in my breath by adjusting my jacket and pulling it closed too tightly. Nodding in the direction of the breakfast room and starting at a comfortable pace for my short legs, he says, “Do you want an honest answer?”
With a shrug, I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. He gives me another smile and I give him a weak one in reply. “Here’s to us having a good friendship, Officer Samos.” I can’t bring myself to wish for it to be long. The pang I’d felt when I saw him for the first time again was not as bad as I thought it would be. It still ached, but at least I didn’t feel like I was swallowing nails when I looked at him. Maven was another matter entirely. The only positive was that I didn’t have to see him much around here. Not yet that is. 
“Likewise, my lady.” 
I chuckle at the title, both disgusted and amused by it. 
The breakfast room is empty when Lucas ushers me in ahead of him though. And when he enters on my heels, he glances around for a moment before whispering that the queen should be on her way. With a quick, practiced bow, he departs from the room. 
I’m earlier than I expected. I had hoped Elara was here already, that way she wouldn’t have the chance to surprise me. Lucas’s quick departure means Elara cannot be far away though, and I wonder if she scares him as much as she does everyone else. It’s odd to think everyone sneered at Cal’s mother just because there was a possibility that she had sung his father into marrying her, yet no one dared to whisper about the possibility that Elara might have done the same thing. I think if anyone tried they would end up dead though. I want to believe I would have said something. 
I walk by the wall of windows that overlook one of the numerous gardens, watching the way the rising sun’s rays catch on the dewy grass below. Reaching my hand out, I let the light play on the rings decorating my fingers. I miss my engagement ring, as silly as that is. I never thought I would miss a piece of jewelry. Still, I missed tracing the braided bands with my thumb and spinning it on my finger. It had become a habit during meetings while I was thinking. I miss that blood red stone the most though. 
The door from the other side of the room opens, and I tilt my head to see who it might be in the glass. Too bright to be Elara. My lips curl up in a smile as I spot Evangeline’s curtain of platinum hair cut across my peripheral vision. 
“Good morning, Lady Samos,” I tell her, not bothering to look at her as I do. Just the fact that I am not remotely surprised by her appearance will make her blood boil. I’m sure she spent countless hours perfecting her hair and outfit to make me feel inferior. The fact that I haven’t even deigned to give her the response she wants will send her reeling. I know it will. She’s too calculating to let it show when she replies though. 
“Such a change of costume for you Lady Titanos. Where are the pretty dresses?”
“I figured today called for practicality. Don’t you agree?” I finally turn to look at her, my smile rapier sharp. She returns the smile, her fingers dancing at her side.
Turning toward the table to sit down, I catch Elara sliding into the room like a wraith. Our eyes meet and I drop mine quickly, building up the mirrors I did when she first tried to invade my mind. It’s a maze in there, one that even I wouldn’t be able to find my way through. I trust it to hold, but only for a short time. My brain might be jelly by the end of this breakfast and I’ll have to go through the rest of my day with a headache if I’m not careful. 
Even during the long, grueling interrogation I had been terrified that she would find a crack in my armor, that she would slip through and find everything. I didn’t want to think about how pathetic I had felt, locked up in that silent stone cell, panic lacing my blood like a drug. There had been no way out, no way out if anything went horribly wrong. I guess I should be thankful that nothing did go wrong. 
She walks to the head of the table, where a neat placement is waiting for her. “You should eat quickly, Lady Blonos does not tolerate tardiness.” She drops into her chair with cat like grace, and without another word. One of the servants that came in with her hurries forward with a bowl of fruit. 
I edge toward the table, but not before Evangeline cuts by me, one of the rings on her finger elongating to a point that she tries to swipe at my hand with. I yank my hand away to grab the chair and pull it back, hiding the dodge expertly. My eyes dart to her, and although she tries to hide her surprise at my agility, some of it still slips out. 
“You’re still taking Protocol?” She asks as she slides into her chair, trying to hide her discomfort as I do the same. 
Raising a brow at her, I smoother my confusion. “You mean you aren’t?” 
A servant places a bowl in front of me, but I don’t tear my eyes from Evangeline. What possessed her to try and snap at me like she did? I know she wants the truth, and I know she’ll eventually try to get it in the training arena, but I didn’t think she’d be bold enough to try here. Maybe she thinks Elara isn’t in on it, and she’d get away with exposing me? I doubt it. Evangeline is not stupid. She knows a puppeteer when she sees one. 
I pick up my fork and spear a melon before taking my knife and spinning it just enough that it catches the light. With a graceful flick of my wrist I slice of the extra green rim that must have been missed. Evangeline eyes the fluidity of the movement though, her cheek twitching imperceptibly at the silent threat.
(///////)
I hate Protocol. 
That is all I think as I stalk with Lucas toward the Glass Terrace for luncheon. I hate Lady Blonos and I can’t wait until I never have to see her again. Cranky, nasty old woman, with fingers like spiders grabbing my shoulders. A heartbeat after the thought crosses my mind though, I grimace. She dies a quick death at least. My hand twitches towards my own throat, imaging the blade that severed her head from her shoulders. There will be one at my throat too soon enough, when Evangeline faces me in the Bowl of Bones. 
In my distraction, I almost miss when we step out into the warm sunlight. My first inhale of fresh air settles my nerves though. What I wouldn’t give to be outside all day. But as I step under the glass canopy, I end up just hoping I don’t sweat my paint off. It’s hotter out here than I remember, and the humidity is miserable. At least in Montfort when it got warm there was a breeze. A bead of sweat rolls down my neck, and I tense as it rolls between my shoulders blades. Shimmying to get rid of it, I feel a few more beads pop up on my hairline. Cursing, I try to stand as still as possible. 
Elane appears in front of me so suddenly I feel like she purposefully cloaked herself to surprise me. Sonya is not far behind her either. Two parts of Evangeline’s little trio. I wonder if she kept Sonya around to hide her affair with Elane. I doubt it. Sonya would have figured out the truth before anyone else. 
“Lady Mareena,” they coo in unison, before bowing stiffly. I incline my head in response, playing the game they have started. 
“I’m Sonya of House Iral.” Soyna tosses her hair gracefully. I can see the way she shifts to make sure that movement is perfect. I would smirk at the posturing if I wasn’t focusing on locating Elara in the crowd of ladies. “And I’m Elane of House Haven.” 
Oh, I know. I’ve had far too many awkward walk-ins on you and Evangeline in her office for my liking. Then again, she had snuck up on me and Cal plenty of times too. A perfect little spy. Her lips curl up in a delicate smile as I look her up and down. Flirt, I want to tease, and have to almost swallow my tongue to keep from saying just that. 
“We wanted to welcome you.” Elane says as she looks me over as well. A few weeks ago in Montfort, she had looked me up and down under the outdoor lights of a restaurant too. Smiling after I had thrown my head back to laugh at something Carmadon had said, she remarked that I was glowing. I had turned a pointed glare on her, and she had turned away to sip her wine with a smirk. I’d waved her away saying it was just a trick of the light. Now, I can feel the same stare as she observes me, looking for the most minute details to hold against me. 
“Thank you.” I clear my throat after that, letting her know she’s stared just a little too long. Her lips purse just a hint, and her cheeks flush white under her makeup. 
“You also participated in Queenstrial?” I ask quickly, giving her a chance to recover. She may be a pain in the ass now, but she is my friend in the future and I don’t need Sonya getting any ideas about anything.  
Still, Sonya almost sneers at my words. “We did. Obviously we were not so lucky as you or Evangeline.” 
Luck really had nothing to do with it. I would never consider myself lucky. I dip my head in understanding. “My intentions—”
“Your intentions remain to be seen,” Sonya purrs, before turning about quickly and snapping her fingers. “Grandmother, come meet Lady Mareena.” 
I scan the crowd of older women that Ara departs from, looking for a familiar orange gown. Anabel is nowhere to be seen though. I don’t know why I thought she would be here. How had she managed to slip back into the court during Maven’s reign though? 
Ara eyes me even as she walks over, making me stand a little taller to try and appear like I’m uncomfortable with her presence. It doesn’t take much to do that though. All I have to think about it how Ptolemus severed her head from her body. 
Sonya yaps away, trying to make me uncomfortable, and for a moment she probably thinks she’s succeeding. It’s Shade’s face flashing through my mind at the same time that I remember the light leaving his eyes that really drives me to shake slowly though. I can almost taste the smoke of Corros on my tongue when I inhale. I can hear the airship engines screaming behind me, calling me like a siren song. All I had to do was turn and keep running for them. But Shade, Shade had to come back for me because I had to get my revenge. 
My stomach drops and I know my face pales. Not right now, I can’t fall apart right now. I squeeze my hands into fists, focusing on my nails dig into my palms. 
Sonya finally stops speaking and I almost jump before dipping my head. “Apologies for my absent
 thoughts. It’s a pleasure to meet you my lady.”  
“I knew your father, Mareena. And your mother.” Ara observes coolly, her eyes looking me over like a butcher would their next slaughter. 
“I wish I could have known them like you do.” I reply, my mind still trying to keep up with the conversation while also trying to prevent a barrage of Samson’s carefully concocted memories from taking over. It’s a losing battle. My stomach turns as the Blackrun going down plays at an inhuman speed. Metal tears around me, and wind whips at my hair. I’m falling so fast that I can’t even draw enough air to scream. Am I falling into a cage or am I standing in a garden full of pretty women with fangs and claws? Am I wrapped in Cal’s arms or am I suffocating in the heat of this glass gazebo? 
“Your father had blue eyes, as did your mother.” Ara tests, her expression cold. 
I drag my eyes up and dare to meet hers. I tilt my head to the side, the sound of the gardens fading back into focus as by sheer willpower I force the memories back so that I can gather enough air to breathe. There is no way out of the corner I am in, and I can’t even begin to think of something to say to fill the silence. A whisper of skirts on stone distracts Ara as Elara cuts behind us to ask everyone to sit. I hide the twist of relief in my stomach by dipping my head again and excusing myself.
(/////////)
I’m so deep in my own thoughts, planning responses for any future Iral interrogations that I almost miss Maven appearing around the corner on my way to Julian’s. 
“Still alive?” His words make my back snap to ram rod straightness as I come to an abrupt stop that makes even Lucas stumble. My toes curl in my shoes and I can almost feel my lightning begging to come to the fore as Maven closes the distance. Why does he have to look so kind and young? How could I not have seen the honey coated trap for what it was? I’d needed a friend though, and he had been the perfect map to mirror all my insecurities onto. Elara probably didn’t even need to read my mind to know that. 
Play the game. I remind myself to smile sheepishly at him. I’m a good actress now, and I will make sure he believes every second of my performance. 
“Unfortunately for the other Queenstrial girls, yes.” The joke is a weak one, but he still chuckles at it. Next to me, I can feel Lucas’s presence still. He’ll usher me along so that we’re not late for Julian. His presence actually eases my tension. I don’t know if I’m ready to be alone with Maven just yet. The temptation to end all my suffering before it can begin might be too great. I need Lucas to get us moving again. I’d rather be early for Julian. The more time I spend with him, the happier I think I’ll be. And I’d rather be as far from Maven as physically possible right now. 
“They’re a slippery sort.” He admits, looking me over. I squeeze my hand into a fist, pushing my nail into my thumb to avoid lashing out at him. The silence gets so heavy his skin tinges silver and he looks down to avoid my unwavering glare.
“Where are you off to?” I finally mange to get out, forcing my fingers to unfurl. His eyes snap up and he blushes hard for a heartbeat. I caught him off guard. Good, slip up and give me a reason to hate you more in this moment. 
“I was actually on my way to walk in the garden. Cal was—” his lips draw tight for a moment before continuing “—supposed to meet me. He got caught up in a meeting.” 
I don’t want you around him either. I want to sneer and dig my nails into his neck when he shrugs in disinterest. I don’t want you hurting him more than you already have.
“How unfortunate,” I admit instead. He actually looks like he feels bad for Cal when he replies, “I don’t envy him his schedule.” 
Lucas clears his throat, and my eyes snap to him as he nods in the direction we should be going. “Someone told me she didn’t want to be late to anything today. And we’re going to be late now.” 
Maven’s eyes dart to him as if he just realized he was standing there. Tilting his head to the side like a little puppy, he says, “I was actually wondering if you were done for the day and wanted to join me in the garden.” 
“I have Lessons.” I want to smirk at the way his smile falls. He recovers marvelously though, and reaches out to take my hand. His skin is warm, the perfect temperature. He’d been icy last night. I wonder if Elara told him to find the perfect temperature, one to match Cal’s. 
“I won’t keep you then.” He murmurs before he passes us and continues down the hall. I feel like I’m going to be sick. That was how she did it. That was how she molded him into the perfect little shadow for me to love. She’d picked my brain for everything I liked about his brother from our first meeting and whispered it in his ear. Warm smiles and warm hands, she had probably told him, ooze sympathy and kindness, you’re the sibling that is unloved, the one to match my longing for something greater. Then she had molded his words and his ideals to match mine, the perfect counter to Cal’s abrasive thoughts of wanting to keep the world the way it was. I hadn’t even realized it, but Maven had put his foot in the door with this moment, and I had held it open for him. Sneaky son of a bitch. 
“You know, we’d get there much faster if you actually moved.” Lucas teases, making me almost jump. I glare at him before starting down the hallway so fast that he jogs his first few steps to catch up. 
“Shut up Lucas.” I growl under my breath.
(////////)
The minute I’m in Julian’s rooms I shrug off every bit of protocol, every nasty thought and let myself sag in relief. It smells just like his Montfort apartment in here. My heart aches even more when I remember the teas Sara used to put in my hands with her gentle smile as she sank down into one of the massive fluffy chairs they kept in their sitting room. It was always warm there too. Sara liked it cozy, and Julian let her have whatever it was she wanted, even if he melted into a puddle of sweat in every sweater he owned. 
Married for four years and Sara still acted as chaste as a young girl when he was around. I want them to have that happiness here too. I know I won’t see Julian smile the way he does when she walks behind him and trails her hand along his shoulders for a long time though. Every moment in Montfort was like she feared he’d disappear if she didn’t touch him continuously throughout the day.
I run my fingers along the faded covers of the books he keeps stacked around these rooms like columns holding up the weight of the world. I wish I could grab and carry stacks of them back to my room. I could bury myself in them and pretend I was curled up on my couch with my head in Cal’s lap while he ran his fingers through my hair and tried not to fall asleep. I could pretend I’m hundreds of miles and years away from this horrible place. 
I stop before the map I remember so well. I’d seen it so many times in this room that it had become a staple. I tilt my head as I look at the mess of lines and colors. The old world, before people tore it to shreds. We put it back together, or at least we had been trying to. I drag my eyes west from Archeon to find Ascendent buried deep in the mountains. It’s not even marked on this map. It never seemed so far away than in this moment. Even when I had looked at this map for the first time those mountains had only seemed a few hand lengths away. 
“It’s strange to look at the world as it once was,” Julian’s quiet voice makes me glance over my shoulder in his direction. In the silence of these rooms, he is a faint ember of life. He appears out of an aisle of his books, the afternoon sun cutting across his face like bars in a prison. His yellow robes whisper along the floor as he approaches me. I’d forgotten how this place had drained him. He looks like old, cracked paper. It’s fitting I suppose, but it’s not right. 
I can’t help but grin at him, unable to hide how happy I am to see him. He takes it in stride though, even giving me a little smile as he gestures to the map. “Can you find where we are?”
Don’t go so fast, I want to beg him. Let me stay here as long as physically possible. Let me be here in this sanctuary as long as possible. “I’ll try.” I whisper as I pull my eyes away from him to look at the map. He waits while I pretend to read. I could pick us out as easily as I can call lightning these days, but I go slow on purpose. Reaching up with a finger, I point to the inlet that is the Stilts. “There.” 
He nods, pleased. “Do you recognize anything else?” 
I bring my eyes back to the map. For a moment, I contemplate pointing out Montfort. Julian would be an impossibly useful ally here. The wisdom he could give us, the advice, it would be priceless. That’s a conversation to have with Cal though. He’ll probably refuse to bring Julian into this mess any earlier than we have to though. He can be so damn protective over the few people he has left. Julian would be able to handle himself though. Better than me and Cal probably. 
In the end, I point out Harbor Bay. His smile deeps and I relish in the warmth that floods through me by simply being in his presence. Even if he’s oblivious to our future relationship, I trust him more than anyone else here. 
“This is Delphie now,” he points out the city, and I nod as he traces the river to point out Archeon. We’ll be there soon enough, and Julian will not make it further than the gates of this city before Elara catches him and Sara. 
When he finishes, he looks at me expectantly and waits to hear anything else. Instead I turn to him and say, “The cameras are off in here.” 
His brows shoot up toward his hairline comically, and I have to stifle a laugh. I haven’t seen that look in a long time. There wasn’t much I could do to surprise him after our years together. The news I was planning on sharing might have been the last time I saw that look. 
“So there is a difference,” he mutters. 
“How did you get them to turn them off?” I want to know so that I can turn them off in my own room without people noticing. Cal and I could meet then, discuss our next moves without people noticing. We could meet to determine if things were proceeding correctly too. It would make all of this so much easier. 
“Mare, I’m here to teach you your histories, to teach you how to be Silver and how to be, ah, useful.” 
His lips pull into a disgusted expression, and I raise a brow as he changes the subject quickly. The way he looks at me though, makes me swallow the next words I am about to tell him. Instead, I tilt my head to the side and ask the same question I had asked before.
“How do you plan to do that Lord Jacos?” 
His eyes narrow for a moment, and I tense as I realize he never did tell me who he was. It’s not on my schedule, and there is no way Elara would tell me his name. She can barely spit out the name Jacos anyway. I have a feeling she thought Coriane’s spirit would be able to haunt her if she did utter it. 
“Your colors, yellow, house Jacos. Lady Blonos taught me the colors this morning. Your sister was Queen wasn’t she? Cal’s mother. You two even look a little similar.” I stumble over the words, trying to cover my tracks. It’s a pathetic attempt, one I know he can see right through. 
He at least has the grace and mercy to laugh outright at my last comment. The light returns to his eyes as he says, “your flattery will get you nowhere with me, Mare Barrow. But yes, I am the late Queen’s brother and Tiberias the Seventh, otherwise known as Cal, is my nephew.” He drops into a comically low bow. I chuckle at it. Even though I feel like I’m playing a game with him, it still feels like we are sharing a secret truth with each other. Forgotten gods, I just want to tell him the truth so that he can know and help me. I wonder if he would actually believe me if I did. Julian had seen plenty of crazy things in his life. What was one more?
“So you and I are supposed to stop a rebellion?” I ask as he rises. He tilts his head to the side, considering my words before saying, “yes, I suppose. My dear brother-in-law and his queen believe you can do so, if we use you properly.” 
“It’s idiotic,” I admit before turning back to look at the map. He watches my side profile carefully while I look over the map, and try to keep my eyes from snagging on Montfort. “They’re wrong if they think the riots will stop, and the people will stand down. The Scarlet Guard is marching, and they are not afraid. Change will come someday, whether that’s tomorrow or in a year, it will come. The world won’t stay the same, I won’t let it.” 
For a moment, the ragged inhale he takes makes me think I’ve said too much. But when he steps up next to me to look at the map he says, “I have waited a long time to hear someone say that. What my people are doing to you and yours is wrong to the deepest levels of humanity. You are right, change is coming, because the continuous cycle we put you through will end poorly.”
I look at him, seeing a different type of warrior. Julian had never been one for violence and destruction like me and Cal. He was built for manipulation and careful chess games. But he had spent just as much time if not more shaping the world alongside us. He would do it all over again too. I know he would. If he were in my shoes right now, he would suffer the hell, the torture, and any agony just to get us all to that shining future. “So what do we do?” 
He grins at me, a tiny hopeful smile that makes me square my shoulders proudly. 
“We start by figuring out exactly what you are.”
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thingwithfeathers · 3 years ago
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tag 9 people to learn more about their interests
tagged by: @enniomorricone :)
MUSIC
fave genre? indie/alternative rock, and pop but not really current pop more like 80s/90s.
fave artist? bastille, twenty one pilots, fleetwood mac, the clash, the smiths, abba, probably a lot more i can’t think of right now.
fave song? my joint favourite songs are ‘with or without you — u2â€Č and ‘landslide — fleetwood mac’
most listened song recently? 'song for zula — phosphorescent’ it’s become one of my favoure songs ever.
song currently stuck in your head?  any abba song because i was listening to them a lot earlier.
5 fave lyrics?
“It’s a hell of a long way to fall just to learn to get up” — the mess, the naked and famous.
“But now it’s just another show / and you leave them laughing when you go / and if you care, don’t let them know / don’t give yourself away / i’ve looked at love from both sides now / from give and take and still somehow / it’s loves illusions that i recall / i really don’t know love at all.” — both sides now, joni mitchell (this entire song though! really hard to choose lyrically because it’s a masterpiece).
“See, honey, i saw love / you see it came to me / it put it’s face up to my face so i could see / yeah then i saw love, disfugure me / into something i am not recognising / see the cage, it called, i said come on in / i will not open myself up this way again / but my heart is wild and my bones are steel / and i could kill you with my bare hands if i was free.” — song for zula, phosphorescent.
"Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love? / can the child within my heart rise above? / can i sail through the changing ocean tides? / can i handle the seasons of my life? / well, i’ve been afraid of changing / ‘cause i’ve built my life around you / but time makes you bolder / even children get older / and i’m getting older too.” — landslide, fleetwood mac.
“And then you put your hand in mine / and pulled me back from things divine / stop looking up for heaven / waiting to be buried / and all their words for glory / they always sounded empty / when we’re looking up for heaven.” — bastille, glory.
radio or your own playlist | solo artists or bands | pop or indie (depends!) | loud or silent volume in-between! I slow or fast songs | music video or lyrics video | speakers or headset | riding a bus in silence or while listening to music | driving in silence or with radio on.
BOOKS
fav book genre? just fiction in general. i’ve kind of grown out of young adult so i don’t really read a lot of that, and have been reading classics lately. just any books that make you really think and are written so beautifully that you can highlight quote after quote. i’ve also been reading a lot of non fiction spiritual books lately.
fav writer? recently, taylor jenkins reid. i’ve read two of her books and they’re incredibly gripping. love the simplicity and warmth of benjamin alire saenz as well, the care that ari & dante was written with. and also emily dickinson, especially her letters in particular to susan are just gorgeous.
fav book? aristotle & dante discover the secrets of the universe, wuthering heights, little women, a little life, and recently the seven husbands of evelyn hugo.
fav book series? i don’t really read book series, so the only thing coming to mind is harry potter which i only read for the first time about five years ago now.
comfort book? little women and aristotle & dante.
perfect book to read on a rainy day? any easy read, probably several i listed above.
fave characters? aristotle & dante, jo & beth march (little women), mina murray (dracula).
5 quotes from your fave books that you know by heart?
“You teach me now how cruel you’ve been — cruel and false. why did you despise me? why did you betray your own heart, cathy? i have not one word of comfort. you deserve this. you have killed yourself. yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they’ll blight you — they’ll damn you. you loved me — what right had you to leave me? what right — answer me — for the poor fancy you felt for linton? because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that god or satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will did it. i have not broken your heart — you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. so much the worse for me that i am strong. do i want to live? what kind of living will it be when you — oh god! would you like to live with your soul in the grave?”  — wuthering heights, emily bronte (i could choose so many from this book but this is the most underrated one in my opinion and deserves more recognition).
“I will love you forever, whatever happens. ‘til i die and after i die, and when i find my way out of the land of the dead i’ll drift about forever, all my atoms, ‘till i find you again. i’ll be looking for you, will, every moment, evert single moment. and when we do find each other again we’ll cling together so tight that nothing and no one’ll ever tear us apart. every atom of me and every atom of you... we’ll live in the birds and the flowers, and the dragonflies and pine trees, and in the clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams... and when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t just be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we’ll be joined so tight...” — his dark materials (amber spyglass), philip pullman. (don’t talk to me, this quote makes me actually ache)
“I wanted to tell them that i’d never had a friend, not ever, not a real one. until dante. i wanted to tell them that i never knew that people like dante existed in the world, people who looked at the stars, and knew the mysteries of water, and knew enough to know that birds belonged to the heavens and weren’t meant to be shot down from their graceful flights by mean and stupid boys. i wanted to tell them that he had changed my life and that i would never be the same, not ever. and that somehow it felt like it was dante who had saved my life and not the other way around. i wanted to tell them that he was the first human being aside from my mother who had ever made me want to talk about the things that scared me. i wanted to tell them so many things and yet i didn’t have the words. so, i just stupidly repeated myself, “dante’s my friend.”” — aristotle & dante discover the secrets of the universe, benjamin alire saenz.
“There are many beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind.”— little women, louisa may alcott.
“And so i try to be kind to everything i see and in everything i see, i see him.”— a little life, hanya yanagihara.
hardcover or paperback (paperback for general reading and hardback for special editions!) | buy or rent | standalone novels or book series | ebook or physical copy | reading at night or during the day | reading at home or in nature (i love nature and want to be able to read outside but i cannot be in nature without being hypervigilent of bugs so wouldn’t be able to concentrate) | listening to music while reading or reading in silence | reading in order or reading the ending (i also used to read the last line of a book first for a long time but i started to piss myself off when it wasn’t vague enough) | reliable or unreliable narrator  | realism or fantasy | one or multiple POVS | judging by the covers or by the summary (i can’t help it, i love pretty covers) | rereading or reading just once.
TV AND MOVIES
fave tv/movie genre? disaster/post apocalyptic, drama, sci-fi, documentary, occasional fantasy. i’m pretty on board with most things, other than horror but even that has some exceptions.
fave movie? titanic, shaun of the dead, little women (1994), eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, wuthering heights (2009 tv movie), portrait of a lady on fire, practical magic, the greatest showman, finding nemo, the grinch (2000).
comfort movie? finding nemo, little women (1994), shaun of the dead, all my favourite christmas movies which are too many to list.
fave tv show? friends, charmed, golden girls, gilmore girls, the walking dead, new girl. currently: 911.
most rewatched tv show? friends. i watch it almost every day and it would be impossible for me to count just how many times i’ve watched it from start to finish.
5 fave characters? all the friends on friends, piper halliwell (charmed), tara chambler (twd), glenn rhee (twd), maddie buckley (911).
tv shows or movies | short seasons (8-13 episodes) or full seasons (22 episodes or more) | one episode a week or binging (i’m conflicted because i miss the event of catching a show every week but at the same time once you binge watch you can’t go back) | one season or multiple seasons (but shows need to know when to stop) | one part or saga | half hour or one hour long episodes (depends on my mood) | subtitles on or off | rewatching or watching just once.
tagging: @bettyhofstadtdraper / @kubrickking / @koningen / @urispatty / @marmaladepotion / @mixye + anyone else that wants to do this, feel free to tag me to read :) !
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