#this movie maimed me healed me experimented on me and killed me all in one

[quicksilvergirl28]

Zahra: You better act like the sun shines out of his ass and you have a vitamin D deficiency *much later* Alex: Zahra: Alex: ... what do you mean you didn't mean literally

[ellewritesathing]

So Close - S.S. XLIX

Summary: The universe has a funny way of putting the things you want right in front of you, but just out of reach. Stiles and Y/N have been best friends ever since Scott brought him home, but when Stiles realizes that he might want to be something other than best friends, she leaves to go to some fancy private school up North. Now that she’s back though … maybe he’s got a shot? A Teen Wolf AU in which the reader has always been so close to Stiles and yet so far.

Masterlist   Prev. | Part 49

Word-count: 6.5k+

A/N: so i thought i had this queued up for a few weeks ago?? but here it is!! this was one of my favorite pieces to write

Maiming you and Theo and then eating the Ghost Rider’s pineal gland wasn’t the only thing on Hauptmann’s - or Douglas’, the name he used at the high school - agenda for last night. He’d stolen the Ghost Rider’s whip and made Corey disappear.

It wasn’t all bad news, though: Lydia had managed to do the impossible. She brought back something of Stiles’ - only been his lacrosse jersey, but it was enough to solidify Stiles’ existence far beyond what you and Lydia felt or what Theo apparently remembered. 

Malia managed to get some information out of a newly-healed Peter while they were looking for a rift in the woods. Peter told her a bit about what happened when he was in limbo, chalking up his surviving the rift between worlds to his werewolf abilities because he and Stiles had watched a human burn into nothing when he tried to cross it. 

You felt sick to your stomach listening to Malia summarize Peter’s information. Despite all the craziness that your friends had been through, Stiles was human. He didn’t want to be anything other than human, and you couldn’t force him to change even if you wanted to. 

But Scott was willing to change him. If it meant bringing Stiles home, Scott was willing to take the risk of biting him. 

When all you could bring yourself to do was stare at him, Scott added in a strained voice, “We have to get him through the rift.” He pushed himself off the wall and walked over to the desk where Liam and Malia were looking through papers as he said, “It’s the only way.” 

Peter raised his hand as you and Lydia walked hesitantly over to the desk. “Just to clarify: Are you planning on biting everyone in the train station?” he asked. 

“With Stiles back, he’ll be able to help us figure out a plan to bring back everyone else,” Scott said. “He’s good at that.” 

Annoyance tinged your vision. Did Scott want Stiles back because he was his best friend, or because he was the only one who could come up with a plan to save the day? 

“So the plan is to get Stiles back so that he can come up with a plan?” you asked, sounding more venomous than you meant to. 

Giving you a harsh look, Malia asked, “Whose side are you on?” 

“Malia, look around,” Peter said. Your annoyance grew as you realized that you had been agreeing with Peter. Oblivious to your thoughts, he continued, “We’re the only ones left in Beacon Hills. If they take us, Lydia will be the only left to haunt this place.”

“That’s why I’m the only person that’s going in,” Scott said. 

“No,” you said instantly. You were arguing before you even knew what your argument would be; all you knew was that Scott wouldn’t go in there alone. 

True to his older brother fashion, Scott talked over all your protests. “You guys will stay here with Mason. As long as somebody is left in Beacon Hills, the Wild Hunt can’t move on,” he said.

“I like your plan, Scott. I really do,” Peter said in a tone that implied that he didn’t like Scott’s plan, not even a little bit. “Especially the part about turning Stiles.” He stopped pacing. “But it can’t work.” 

“How do you know?” Malia asked. 

“Logic. Life experience,” Peter said. “Liam, what are the odds that he’ll get taken?” Without waiting for an answer, Peter went on. “What if Stiles isn’t there? What if there’s no Beacon Hills for you to come back to?”

“Okay, you got a better idea?” Liam asked. 

“Uh, yeah,” Peter said, sounding like it should have been obvious. “It’s called ‘run like hell.’” He turned to Malia while the rest of you were too stunned to say anything. “So, we leave in five?”

“You promised you’d help us,” Malia said as she walked closer to him. 

Watching her argue with him - knowing that Peter was her dad - made you feel like you were doing something you weren’t supposed to. You knew whatever happened with their relationship wasn’t any of your business, but you couldn’t block it out no matter how hard you tried.

“If you can’t help us find the rift-” Scott interrupted their argument, “Then we’ll find it ourselves.” 

“Scott, I admit that you have a flair for beating the odds,” Peter said with a sigh. You wanted more than anything for Derek to be here instead of him. “But this? You don’t walk away from this.” He started backing out of the sheriff’s station. “You run.”

“I hate him,” you said without meaning to. Ever since your memories of Peter had come back, you’d been very careful about what you said in front of Malia, but all the memories of comforting her and talking to her about Peter was nothing compared to the anger you felt in that moment. 

Malia turned away from the door with a sad look in her eye. She set her face into a carefully cold expression and said, “Me too.”

---

The new plan was essentially the same as the old plan: divide and conquer. Liam, Hayden, and Mason were supposed to babysit Theo in the sheriff’s station while you, Malia, Scott, and Lydia went into the woods to find the rift. 

“When you were out here the last time, how long until the Ghost Riders showed up?” Scott asked.

Malia stepped over the tree roots carefully, squinting against the sun slightly. “A couple minutes.”  

“That’s reassuring,” Lydia mumbled as she stepped over the same roots. 

“What is the rift supposed to like?” you asked. “Like some magical portal or more just noticing that something isn’t quite right?”

“If it’s a tear in the fabric of our world, then theoretically it could look like anything from a microscopic black hole to a free-floating Einstein-Rosen bridge,” Lydia said. 

After a second of awkward silence, you asked, “You, uh, don’t happen to have any pictures of those on you, do you?”

Lydia gave you a look that she only reserved for Liam when he tried to steal some of her Red Vines on movie nights. “No,” she said, “I don’t have any pictures on me.” 

“Let’s split up,” Scott suggested, in an attempt to diffuse the tension.

Instead of arguing, the four of you went off in opposite directions and hoped for the best. You didn’t get very far before Scott called you all to look at an old drain pipe. The bars had been broken and curled outwards, like something had burst out of the pipe.

Scott bent down to investigate and picked up a leaf. 

“The rift’s not above us,” Lydia said. “It’s below.”

“Well,” you said with a sigh and knelt down next to Scott in the dirt. “Who wants to go in first?”

Scott gave you an uneasy smile and crawled into the pipe. You followed close behind him, helping Lydia over the bent bars, and Malia crawled in after you guys. After about a minute, you guys arrived at a service hatch and climbed down the ladder to find yourselves in the same tunnels that the Dread Doctors had used. 

Dusting off your hands, you set to work looking for the rift in the very frustratingly normal-looking tunnels. You made your way as a group until you reached a fork in the road. You went left and Malia went right, and then Malia crashed backward into the floor.

“Found it!” Malia said triumphantly as you helped her to her feet. 

Lydia walked past you and towards the rippling in the air. She held a hand out but was careful not to touch it. “It’s remarkably similar,” she said quietly.

“To what?” you asked.

“To the Einstein-Rosen bridge,” Lydia said. “See why I couldn’t have shown you a picture?”

You sighed and nodded reluctantly before turning your attention to the rift. It looked almost like nothing, but you had to figure out a way to cross all that nothing without being flung backward by Lydia’s Einstein-Rosen bridge.

Malia, it seemed, was thinking something similar. She broke off a piece of pipe and threw it into the rift. After almost decapitating Scott, she picked up the pipe again and started ramming it into the rift. All that happened was that the pipe got burnt and Malia burnt out. She groaned and threw the pipe to the side.

“There’s gotta be another way,” you said. “Lyd, do you have any other ideas?”

“I just need a minute to think,” Lydia said with a strained smile. She lifted her hand to her face to help her think.

“Think about how to get through a supernatural rift that melts steel.” Scott met your eye and frowned slightly. 

“I didn’t say it would be easy,” Lydia said, sounding partly humorous and partly defensive.

A voice caught your attention from the dark. “But it doesn’t have to be so hard,” he said. Douglass. Hauptmann. Creepy physics teacher. He stepped into the light with a look that could only be described as devious.

“He followed our scent,” Scott said as he stepped forward. 

“I followed your desperation,” Douglass corrected. Your back ached with the memory of when he almost killed you; it had been so easy for him to take you out. “We’re all in a tough spot. Desperate to get inside and save everyone, and hoping to find a way to stop this army of the dead. We all want the same thing.”

There was something about the way he worded his sentences that creeped you out, but you were starting to think that everything he did creeped you out. 

“He has a point,” Lydia said with a reluctant tilt of his head. 

“Yeah, if he doesn’t kill anyone,” Malia said.

“Else,” Scott corrected. “If he doesn’t kill anyone else.”

“All that matters right now is getting through the rift,” Douglas said.

“Anything that touches the rift either bounces back or burns,” you said. “So you’re welcome to give it a try.”

“Oh, I think I’ll let someone else try it out first,” Douglas said with a sinister smile. He didn’t move, but Parrish walked out of the darkness behind him. He snarled at you, and his eyes were a bright green color instead of his usual golden red. 

Lydia called his name gently, trying to get his attention. 

“If the Hellhound can open the rift, we all go together,” Douglas said. 

“You’re the bad guy,” Malia told him. “I’m pretty sure helping you is a bad idea.”

“Good guy, bad guy. When has anything ever been so black and white?” Douglas asked. 

“Says the Nazi,” you scoffed. Your friends looked at you and you forgot they hadn’t been there when Douglas and Theo spoke to one another. 

“And he wants the Hunt for himself,” Liam said as he appeared from the other tunnel. He looked like he'd run all the way here from the police station. “He wants his own supernatural army.”

Douglas sighed and unfurled the whip he’d stolen from the Ghost Rider. Your breath hitched. 

“We’re not letting you through that rift,” Scott said.

“Not letting me?” Douglas repeated. “I see. You still think you have a say in the matter.”

Douglas cracked the whip and you pulled Liam back with you as your friends ducked. Scott shifted in an instant and roared at him, and Douglas cracked the whip again. He wasn’t trying to make any of you disappear, though you knew he wouldn’t hesitate if you didn’t move out of the way. Douglas just wanted you out of the way. 

You pulled your friends, one by one, to the side of the tunnel. 

“Hollenhund,” Douglas called. 

Parrish followed behind him obediently. He started tearing through the rift without needing to be told what to do, and for a moment you were too hopeful to remember that he wasn’t on your side. 

Scott remembered. “Parrish, stop!” he yelled.

But Parrish wasn’t listening to anyone other than Douglas. He continued to rip through the rift until it completely dissolved, not caring about how burnt and damaged he’d gotten in the process.

“Wunderbar,” Douglas said as he looked at what was left of the rift.

Parish roared at you as Douglas said something in German. He roared again as the burn marks spread further across his body. They started walking through the rift. 

“Now!” Scott yelled. 

The five of you bolted towards the rift but it sealed shut before you got there. Liam pulled you back before you lost an arm to the rift as it closed.

“No, no, no!” You pulled your arm away and reached out for the rift again, but Scott pulled you back just before two Ghost Riders stepped out. “No,” you whispered, backing away while keeping your eyes on the rift. 

“Y/N, take Liam and Lydia to the bunker,” Scott said over his shoulder. 

You forced yourself to look away from the rift and nodded at him. Taking one of Lydia’s hands in yours and Liam’s in the other, the three of you started running towards the bunker while you ignored the sinking feeling that hope was for suckers.

The bunker was further than you expected, and you had to keep tugging Liam back so Lydia could keep up. You froze when a roar broke through the tunnels. 

“That wasn’t Scott,” you said. You recognized it but you refused to let that roar belong to Scott. 

“Well, it didn’t sound promising,” Liam mumbled. 

“They rarely are. We need to keep going,” Lydia said. She shuffled to the front but all three of you stopped when you saw a Ghost Rider. It snarled at you and Lydia pulled you and Liam behind her.

You started to argue that you should be the one to take the hit, but the Ghost Rider raised his gun slowly up to the ceiling. He didn’t shoot at you. 

“What’s happening?” Liam whispered.

“I don’t know, but you guys need to stay behind me,” Lydia said. 

You couldn’t let anything happen to her. “Lyd-”

“Trust me,” she said.

Using Lydia as a shield, the three of you edged your way around the Ghost Rider and ignored the snarling until it was safe enough to start running to the bunker. It was closer now, but you didn’t stay long before Scott and Malia came to tell you that the coast was clear. 

The coast didn’t feel very clear when they told you that Peter was taken, or when you came home to an empty house. It was very, clearly muddy when the operator told you that the number you’d dialed had been disconnected and asked you politely to check the number and try again. 

“Scotty,” you said gently, reaching your hand across the table to hold his. Scott pressed the redial button. “Hey.” You touched his face. “We’re getting her back, okay? I promise.” 

Scott didn’t say anything. You held his hand a little tighter and let your other one fall to your side. 

“What do we do now?” Liam asked awkwardly. 

“We can’t hide from them,” Malia said, easing herself into the chair across from you.

“What about Lydia?” Liam asked as he stood up. “The Ghost Rider was afraid of her.”

“It wasn’t fear. It’s …” Lydia took a breath. She and Liam sat at the table. “It’s almost like reverence.”

“It doesn’t matter. The rift is gone,” Scott said. It had been a long time since you’d heard him sound so hopeless. “We’re the only ones left in Beacon Hills.” 

A knock at the door interrupted your hollow comforts and Noah stepped into the kitchen. You hadn’t realized how happy you were that he hadn’t disappeared like everyone else until you saw him, despite the argument you’d had the last time you’d seen each other. 

Noah met your eye as he pulled up a chair. “I have a son,” he said. “His name is Michislav Stilinski, but we call him Stiles. I remember.” He took a breath. “When Stiles was a little kid, he couldn’t say his first name. Not sure why, it pretty much rolls off the tongue,” Noah explained with a hollow laugh. “But, uh, the closest he could get was ‘mischief.’ His mother called him that until …” 

You reached a hand out to Noah and he didn’t pull away. His hand was warm.

“I remember when, uh- When Stiles first got his Jeep,” Noah went on. His voice sounded raw. “It belonged to his mother. She wanted him to have it. The first time when he took a spin behind the wheel, he went straight into a ditch. I gave him his first roll of duct tape that day. He was always getting into trouble, but he always had a good heart. Always.”

Noah squeezed your hand and you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. 

“And we’re here tonight because my goofball son decided to drag Scott - his greatest friend in the world - into the woods to see a dead body,” Noah finished. 

“How did you remember?” Scott asked softly.

Noah sighed. “It started with Stiles’ jersey,” he said with a look at Lydia. “Then I found the red string for his crime board. Finally, his whole room came back … and all the memories.” 

Your mind drifted to the Feliscore Arcade token in your pocket and you felt a sudden stab of jealousy that was so violent that you had to check to make sure that your claws weren’t out. They weren’t. Noah still had his fingers. 

“And then the strangest thing happened,” Noah said, snapping you back to reality. “I- I thought I saw him. It was like something opened right there in the middle of the room. Just for a moment.”

“A rift,” you said instantly. “It doesn’t matter the other the rift closed. If we remember Stiles, then we’ll open another one.” You got to your feet. “Can you- can you take me to his room? Anything. I need-” 

Lydia said your name when you were talking and then again louder when you didn’t listen to her. “We need to slow down and think,” she said.

“I can’t!” you snapped. “All we’ve been doing is waiting, Lydia. I need to remember him.”

“We will,” Lydia promised. Her voice was strained and her eyes pleading. “We just need a little more time. Please.”

You clenched your jaw and caught Noah’s eye. Reluctantly, you sat back down. “Okay,” you said quietly. “What are you thinking?” 

---

As you got the freezer ready in Chris’ bunker, you thought of submerging Isaac in ice water to get him to remember what happened when he found Boyd and Erica. It had been dangerous, but he insisted on doing it to find his friends. This was dangerous, but you all insisted on doing it to find Stiles.

As you hoped Isaac was doing alright, Scott slammed the bunker door shut behind Lydia and strained to turn the lock. 

“Do you think it’ll hold them off?” Malia asked. 

“No, but it’s all we’ve got,” you said. Your eyes flicked over to the freezer and you walked over to it. “I don’t know how cold this thing gets but it didn’t kill Parrish so I think I can handle it.” 

“What does freezing have to do with remembering anyway?” Malia asked, clearly not impressed by the freezer. 

“It’ll slow your heart rate and put you in a trance-like state,” Lydia explained. She looked at all the dials, buttons, and levers. “If we can figure out how to work it.”

“Well, this says ‘start’ and that says ‘stop’ so maybe it’s not that complicated,” Malia said. “Who’s first?”

“Me,” you said instantly. 

“No,” Scott said. He looked at you carefully, doing his best not to argue. “Please. I need to do this.”

“Okay,” you said quietly. You nodded at him. “Be careful, please.”

Scott nodded and flipped a switch on the freezer. He turned around to take off his shirt and you tried to prepare yourself for what was going to happen. At least when it had been Isaac, you could hold his hand, but there was no hand-holding through the metal.

“Okay. It’s doing something. Are you ready?” Malia asked. 

Scott gave a run-of-the-mill answer as he opened the freezer door. He looked at you as Lydia locked him inside. You hated this. 

“Remember,” Lydia said, “this will get cold enough to kill you. So if something feels wrong or like it’s not working-” 

“It’s going to work,” Scott said.

“I hope you’re not saying that because you think I know what I’m doing,” Lydia said.

Scott smiled. “I’m saying that because I know you can figure it out.”  

Without another word, Lydia nodded and turned the temperature down on the freezer. All four knobs were turned to their maximums.

Scott started gasping and shivering. “Oh, okay. Alright, yeah- that’s really cold,” Scott sputtered. “Like really cold.”

“Scotty, it’s okay.” You took a step closer and put your hand on the glass. “I’m right here with you and I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You’re safe.” You were distantly aware of Malia and Lydia talking behind you but you were focused on your brother. “I need you to focus on my voice, okay? Can you hear me in there?”

“Scott, you have to concentrate on Stiles,” Lydia said as she took a step closer to you. “Try to picture him in your head. Think about what he looks like. The things he said.” 

The freezer whirred loudly and Malia tensed. “I don’t like this,” she said. “Something’s wrong.”

“We need to give it a few seconds,” you said quietly. “With Isaac, he freaked out before it finally-” 

Scott groaned and put his hand on the glass, exactly opposite yours. And then his whole body went still. He opened his eyes and they shined a brilliant red. 

“Scott, can you hear me?” Lydia asked. He didn’t answer but his heart beat steadily. He was still breathing. “Scott, don’t fall asleep. You have to keep your eyes open.” 

Scott sounded far away when he spoke again, “I’m trying.”

“It’s not sleep. I think you’re losing consciousness,” Lydia explained. “And if you do that, I think we’re going to lose you.” Scott’s eyes kept fluttering closed. 

“Scott, stay awake,” Malia ordered. “Scott!”

Scott’s eyes closed. In that far away voice, he said, “Stiles, please let me out. It’s the full moon, I swear.” Your blood ran cold. It was working. “You know I wouldn’t do any of this on purpose. And it’s killing me. I feel completely … completely hopeless. Just let me out. Please?” 

Your heart was going to beat out of your chest. Scott kept mumbling disjointed conversation and looking around him like he was looking for something. 

“Scott, try to find him,” Lydia urged. “Try to find him in your memories.” 

Scott’s heartbeat skyrocketed and he looked more frantic. It was just like when Isaac didn’t want to remember finding Erica’s body. He was terrified.

“Find him in any memory. Good or bad,” Lydia told him.

Scott looked like he was having a panic attack. Malia said he looked like he was lost. 

“I think he is. I think maybe it’s too much information,” Lydia said. 

“Isaac overloaded when he tried to remember,” you said quietly. You took your eyes off Scott to look at Lydia. “How do we get him to focus?” 

Lydia took a shaky breath and looked at your brother. “Scott, can you hear me? You have to try to focus!”

Scott covered his ears with his hands. 

“You hear that?” Malia asked, walking towards the door. 

“Thunder?” Lydia asked. 

“Maybe,” Malia said. 

“Guys, we need to figure this out,” you said. “Scott is going to fry his brain if we can’t get him to focus, and then he’ll freeze to death.”

“I know!” Lydia took a shaky breath. “This is my first time opening a dimensional rift in space-time. I’m kind of just fumbling around in the dark here.” She got a look on her face that you recognized whenever she got an idea. “The dark,” she repeated. “I think we have to treat this more like actual hypnosis. They use images to guide you through the memories.”

“Okay, then let’s give him an image,” you said. 

“Scott, can you hear me?” Lydia asked again. “Listen to me. I need you to imagine this. Imagine you’re in the high school. Visualize yourself in the high school, in the corridor where all the lockers are. Just try to imagine standing there. That’s where your memories are. They’re all in the lockers. They’re locked away behind each one. Every memory of Stiles is in a separate locker.”

Scott was still straining. He looked like he was in pain. 

“Scott, you’re there. You’re in the high school,” Lydia said. “You’re standing there now.” 

Scott went still. He dropped his hands and looked around slowly, carefully.

“Stiles, you there?” Scott asked quietly. Louder, he said, “Lydia, I need your help. I don’t think I can do this. I can’t figure it out.”

“You have to keep looking,” Lydia said gently. 

“There are all these memories, but I don’t know which one’s the right one,” Scott said.

“Find another memory,” Lydia said. After your whispering, she added, “Any other memory will work. You just have to keep trying.”

Scott stayed still for a long time without saying anything else. 

“It’s getting too cold,” Lydia said behind you. She walked closer to the tank to read one of the gauges. “He’s getting too cold.”

“What if it’s not enough to remember him?” Malia asked. “What if it’s some kind of a connection he’s supposed to make because of a memory?”

“Like an emotional connection?” you asked. 

“That could be why it worked for Stilinski, right?” Malia asked. 

“Scotty,” you said hesitantly. “All these memories are important, but Stiles is more than just a memory, okay? He is your best friend. He’s the person that’s been with you even before you were bitten, and he’s the person that will be there for you long after all this is over. He’s a piece of you. Scotty, he’s more than a memory. He’s your brother.”

Scott was so still that he looked dead. His heart was thready, faint. For a moment, he stopped breathing. Then he gasped and his eyes burned bright. Malia managed to pull him out just before he collapsed. 

“What’s wrong? Why did you bring me out?” Scott cried. You never thought you’d be so happy to hear him whining.

“Your heart rate dropped. You were going to die,” Lydia told him harshly.

“We had to,” Malia said. 

“But- but nothing happened, did it?” Scott asked. You looked away from him. “It didn’t work.”

You wouldn’t allow yourself to feel hopeless. You stood up and set your jaw. “I’m going in,” you said. “We know how to make it work now. You can get me to focus quicker. I- I’ll remember more.” 

“No, put me back in,” Scott said. “I could feel something happening.” 

“Yeah, hypothermia,” you said as you stepped around him. “Scotty, you’ve gotta let me do this or it will kill you.”

Scott stared at you for a few hard seconds. “Okay,” he said eventually. 

“No, it’s too dangerous,” Lydia argued. 

“Lyd, I love you but I’m going in there whether you help me or not,” you said. “You can either help me, or you can let me fumble through the dark and melt my brain.” 

Lydia didn’t want to help you, but she knew you weren’t going to back down. “Okay, I have an idea for a visual,” she said. “But I’m not letting you kill yourself in there. If your heart rate drops-” 

“You’ll pull me out,” you said with a smile. You kissed her cheek as you dashed around her into the freezer. “Let’s do this.” 

Malia locked you in the freezer and Scott turned all the dials. You did your best to ignore them and focus on Lydia telling you to picture yourself in a car. Any car, as long as it had a radio. 

“Every memory is a station,” Lydia said in her calm and clear voice. “You can change the station whenever you want. Are you sitting in the car right now?”

You looked around and found yourself in the powder blue Jeep. You felt yourself smile. “Yeah,” you said, putting your hand on the old gearshift. “Yeah, I’m in the car.” 

“Okay, I need you to turn on the radio,” Lydia told you. “Every station is a new memory, and I need you to find a memory where you connected with Stiles. Can you do that?” 

“Yes,” you said quietly. You took your hand from the gearshift and touched the radio knob.

Taking a breath, you switched it on and immediately fell into a memory. 

The spring in your bed poked into your back uncomfortably, but you didn’t hardly noticed anymore. Your body was sore and tired, and all you could think about was Stiles’ voice on the other end of the line. 

“I really miss you,” you said before you could stop the words tumbling out of your mouth. Your hand tensed around the drawstring you’d been fiddling with. “I mean, not like you specifically. I miss being at home. With Scott. And my mom. And …”

“Me?” Stiles suggested drily. You heard him move around and sigh on the other end. “I miss you too, McCall. No one’s here to drive my Jeep into an old lady’s mailbox.”

“That was one time! It’s your fault for not telling me which one was the brake and which one was the accelerator.” 

“I thought that was pretty freaking self-explanatory.”

You argued with him but you laughed anyway. You were filled with a light feeling in your chest as the line got quieter. The tiredness in your muscles faded into fuzzy happiness.

“You still there?” Stiles asked quietly. 

“I’m still here,” you said softly. 

“Good.”  

The line was quiet again. After a few minutes, you heard Stiles snoring softly. 

“I’ll see you soon, Stilinski,” you said with a small smile. “I love you.” 

You breathed heavily and tried to focus. That wasn’t enough. You turned the station. 

Stiles taught you how to drive. You taught him how to punch someone without snapping his wrist. He wrote you letters while you were at Willow Creek. You wrote him poems. Stiles. Stiles. Stiles. 

He was everywhere but none of the memories were the right ones. None of them felt powerful enough to bring him back. You changed the station again, begging the Jeep to show you something meaningful. 

The cold air washed over your face mercilessly, but you didn’t mind. The music coming from inside the rave was so far away that it actually sounded peaceful; thumping in time with your heartbeat as you balanced along the inner arc of Stiles’ mountain ash barrier. 

“Is it always like this?” you asked, shooting him a teasing smile. He looked pretty in the moonlight. 

“Yeah, pretty much,” Stiles said with a half-hearted sigh. He looked like he was going to say something else but then he squinted at the bag in his hand. Something was wrong. “Hey, does it look like this bag is getting empty?” He brought it closer to his face to take a look, but before you could answer, he’d poured what was left into his hand. “Crap, crap, crap, cr-” 

“Stiles,” you said, snapping him out of his stupor. “Calm down.” You put your hands on each of his shoulders and shook him lightly as you took a deep breath that you hoped he’d mimic. 

Stiles refused to take a deep breath. Instead, he said, “Calm down? There’s like fifty feet of ground to cover and I’ve got like three sprinkles of magic fairy dust left!” He looked over to where the mountain ash needed to reach, shook his head, and took a shaky breath. “You know what? I’ll call Scott. Scott always knows what to do. I’ll call him.” 

Stiles started fumbling for his phone but you caught his wrist and placed your hand over his. He stopped moving. “Stiles,” you said gently. “You don’t need to call Scott. You’ve got this. Plus, he probably won’t answer anyway.” 

Stiles said your name in a replica of your tone of voice and added, “We don’t have enough mountain ash. Scott will help us.” 

“Stiles!” You let out an exasperated sigh and let go of his hand. Looking him straight in the eye, you said, “This is your job. It’s all on you. You’ve gotta believe you can do this. Scott believes you. Deaton believes in you. I believe-” 

You didn’t get the chance to tell Stiles that you believed in him because he kissed you. It was the first time that Stiles had ever kissed you, and it was better than anything you could have imagined. Your hand moved up to the side of his neck and your fingertips lightly covered his jaw. 

“What was that for?” you asked quietly when he pulled away. You looked in his eyes and tried to find the answer. 

When he spoke again, Stiles sounded like he was telling you a secret. Something he couldn’t quite explain himself. He said, “For believing in me.” 

You let out another harsh breath as Lydia yelled that they were pulling you out. 

“No!” you yelled. You changed the stations again until you found something.  “One more memory. I just need one more-”

“It’s me. I’m next.” Stiles' voice sounded hollow as he lowered his phone from his ear. He slid it into his pocket and then he started running. 

Even though you couldn’t remember him, you ran after him. He’d already been taken from you but you were determined not to let him disappear. 

When you finally caught up to him, you grabbed his hand. “Hey!” It took Stiles a painstaking second to realize that you weren’t a threat. He recognized you, even if you had no idea who was back then. “Hey, let me help you,” you said quietly.

“What’s my name?” Stiles asked with a trembling voice and tears in his eyes. You knew him, and you knew the way his hands felt, and you knew his favorite color was blue, but you didn’t know his name. All you knew was how badly you wanted to make him safe. “Oh, god. You don’t remember me.” 

“I know you,” you said adamantly. Your hand tightened around his. “I don’t- I don’t know how. I know you.” 

Even though your hands were intertwined, Stiles lifted your hands to either side of your face and kissed you. The kiss was over in a second but it felt like you’d been kissing him all your life. 

“I love you, but I’ve gotta go,” he said, sounding heartbroken. 

He pulled away and started running again when you grabbed his hand again. “No! Let me come with you,” you begged.  

Stiles looked like every second he spent with you broke his heart, and now you knew why. “You don’t even remember me.” 

“But I know you,” you said. You changed your grip on his hand so that your fingers laced together tightly. “And I’m not letting anything happen to you. So wherever you’re running … I’m running, too.”

“Okay,” Stiles said quietly, not entirely believing what he’d agreed to. He nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”

Stiles started running, leading through the school at a pace too slow for a werewolf. Back then, you’d thought he might have been like Lydia because of how he kept looking at things that you couldn’t see and pulling you out of invisible danger. 

“Don’t look at them,” Stiles warned. He sounded frantic. “Whatever you do, don’t fight them and don’t look at them or they’ll take you too.” 

“But I-” 

“Promise me.” 

“I promise. No matter-” 

The words caught in your throat. You wanted to yell ‘no matter what’ until you were blue in the face, but you had no control over the memory. 

Stiles dragged you to his Jeep and fumbled for the keys as you slammed the doors shut behind you. He froze when he realized there was no escaping. He looked around and took a deep breath, holding the keys in his hand. 

“Hey, we can still get out of here,” you said gently, leaning over to touch his hand. Fire spread through your fingertips.

“No,” Stiles said quietly. He looked over at you with the saddest, most hopeless expressions you’d ever seen. He broke your heart. “There’s no time.” 

“There’s plenty of time,” you argued. You moved closer, trying to move his keys into the ignition. “Just start the car. We can go anywhere you want.” 

“Hey, listen to me.” Stiles turned and cupped your face like he did in the hall, but he didn’t kiss you this time. “My name is Stiles. I’m gonna be erased, just like Alex. You’re going to forget me.” 

“Stiles,” you repeated. “Stiles, I won’t forget you. Not again, okay? I can’t- I can’t lose again.” 

“I love you,” Stiles said. And you knew he meant it. He knew you better than you knew yourself, and he loved you. 

“I lo-” 

The doors opened and you fell out of the freezer too soon. You didn’t get the chance to tell Stiles that you loved him, no matter what he did, no matter what happened to him. That you'd loved him since before you knew what love was. 

“No, no, no,” you cried, fighting against Scott to crawl your way back to the freezer. “Let me go back to him. I need to tell him-”  

“I know,” Scott said. He held you so tightly that his skin burned you to the touch. 

“Scotty, please.” You sounded pathetic. Your face was clammy and wet with tears. You didn’t even know what you were asking him for as the whole bunker shook and green light filtered through the few windows high up. “Stiles,” you whispered. 

You got to your feet and walked over to the door, leaning too heavily on Scott as the ice stubbornly clung to your bones and stabbed your muscles. There was a white light at the end of the tunnel and you pushed away from Scott to move towards it. 

And then he started walking towards you. Stiles was right there. 

You started running towards him with all the supernatural speed you could muster up, but he was gone before you even had the chance to give out beneath you. Stiles was gone and all he left you with was a pair of bloody palms to break your fall.

“No.” It was all you could get out. “No, I have to… have to get back in the freezer. I have to remember.”

Scott said your name gently as he helped you up. He told you that you couldn’t go back into the freezer because it would kill you. 

“But he was here,” you said. “You saw him.”

“We didn’t see anyone,” Malia said. 

“I saw him,” Lydia told you. “Stiles was here.”

Tagged: @ietss​  @used-avocado​  @trustfundparker​

[artificiallyimplantedmemories]

@videniye​ sent this meme: Send 🛡️ for your muse to take a bullet meant for mine. [x]

    Both of them have aggressively left behind a life of pain. Natalia doesn’t talk about her past, but the Red Room’s training sometimes still lurks in her mind. She covers it up with laughter and sass, and in Bucky and Steve, she’s found genuine friends. They care about her, make her feel like she has a place to belong, and the flirting (and eye candy, let’s be honest) is a definitely perk. As for Bucky, Nat has found out about his wartime experiences in bits and pieces, but still doesn’t have a holistic picture of everything that happened out there. Bucky is extremely reticent on this front (as people usually are with trauma), and Nat knows better than to push. It’s not like she’s any better, right?

    Still, as the months have gone on, they help heal each other. Sometimes, that comes under the guise of a new tattoo, sometimes it’s simply crashing on the floor together under a massive blanket to watch shitty movies. Steve is in the middle most of the time (because he gets cold most easily, and both Nat and Bucky know that he needs the most protecting), but the two of them also steal moments for themselves too.

    Steve pouts at them, but he knows he gets his own time with each of them too, so it’s fine. They deserve to be happy together.

    Nat has done a phenomenal job of covering her tracks. She and Ivan have purposely kept their operation local, off the radar from anyone who might be looking for them. They’re popular but niche, and don’t have so much as a website up in order to reduce their clientele. She respects Ivan immensely for that — after all, he neither had to take her in nor go on the run with her when things got bad. Besides all of that, his talents are enough to seriously make a name for himself if he wants, but he still settles for very nearly struggling by for the sake of his adopted daughter. It’s more than Natalia could have asked from anyone.

    Unfortunately, even the best laid plans are waylaid

    The Red Room comes back to claim their lost protégé, and Natasha is not prepared. It’s not that she can’t fight them off, as she does keep her training up secretly, but it’s the fact that she now has people to worry about, attachments that they can take advantage of.

    Sentiment is not worthwhile for an assassin, they tell her.           She should have left her heart on ice, and maybe she would not have failed.

    She refuses to believe that it’s true. She has felt more alive in the last few years than she has in the rest of her life combined. She’s been able to experience joys and sorrows the way that all people should. She’s had leaps of hope, brushes of gentleness, and even managed to destroy the fear that she had no soul left to spare. She has been whole here, and she would not trade it for the world.

    No. That is a lie.           She would trade it in a heartbeat for the safety of the people she loves.

    The first attack comes when she is alone. The Black Widow is easier to tackle without Ivan at her side. He is ex-military after all, and can put up a hell of a fight, has been proven to do so for the sake of his girl. If they can get in and kidnap or kill her first without him knowing, they’ll be better off. 

     It doesn’t go as they expect. She may have settled into a routine that doesn’t involve death on the daily, but she knows what signs to look for. Hyper-vigilance is an old friend, one she has yet to shake off. They not only fail to take her by surprise but also get three of their agents hurt in the process. That is a surprise to them. Natalia has aimed to maim and not to kill. Things have changed. Perhaps it’s complacency? Perhaps it’s a conscience? 

     Nat heads back using the most roundabout method she can, climbing up facades of buildings, ducking into abandoned homes, biding time in seedy bars and stealing a change of clothes. A beanie hides her bright hair, grime covers her face, and she looks like a homeless wanderer instead of the neat, clean, precise Natasha that people know here. She’s fired off a text to Ivan, letting him know that he needs to get away before people come to hunt him down too, but she doesn’t really have enough faith in his self-preservation where she’s involved. 

     He’ll probably be waiting for me with two shotguns and a hot-wired car, the madman, she thinks fondly. The KGB wouldn’t launch their attack on me without knowing my routine though. If they did, it would be highly unprofessional. So they’ll probably stay away from him as long as he keeps his head down and doesn’t do anything too terribly suspicious. 

     This is her hope as she ducks into the alley behind the shop. It’s closed today, and she goes through the hatch in it that leads up to the supply room, rather than having to use the front door. Quickly, she gathers long-disused supplies, a couple firearms, blades, a hat and coat with extra pockets. She’s glad that she stashed these here instead of at the apartment. Suddenly, there’s a lurch in her heart as she realizes that being on the run again means that she won’t get to say goodbye. Hell, fuck, and damn it all. At least Bucky and Steve deserve an explanation... 

     Survival comes first though, and she takes a moment to scrawl a note for them to leave in the shop. Inevitably, they’ll come around on Monday when she doesn’t show up for their lunch meeting, and they’ll find out at least a little about who she is, why she’s running. It’s an apology. An attempt at an explanation. An inadequate farewell. Natasha forces her hands not to shake as she rushes through the words, and it’s so very tempting to sign off with the three that she’s been wanting to say for the better part of a year. It’s not right though, to let them invest themselves when she’s only going to disappear, so she folds it and lays it on her desk with a sigh. Enough time has been wasted, she needs to go. 

     Scarf pulled up around her face, she rushes back to the apartment. There are raised voices inside, and her hackles go up so fast that they could have given her whiplash. One is the angry, low voice of Ivan, spitting his Russian in the way he does when he’s been backed into the corner about something. The other is a voice that sends chills down her back. She’d know that gravelly voice anywhere. The Headmistress herself has come to find her. 

     If she goes in, she may be dragged back to Russia and forced to resume a life of blood and bitterness. If she doesn’t go in, it’s entirely likely that Ivan will end up dead for arguing. She may still be able to ensure his safety, and so she takes a deep breath and opens the door. 

     The old woman sitting on Ivan’s chair (there’s a moment of colossally illogical rage at that) beckons Natalia in. They all know what her entering the apartment means. Almost immediately, Ivan sags in defeat. Once the redhead has made up her mind, there’s very little he can do to dissuade her. Still, his eyes plead for her to reconsider. She, in turn, carefully doesn’t meet his gaze. 

     “How kind of you to join us, little Spider,” the woman croaks, and the only sign of Nat’s displeasure is the hard set of her jaw. Her sidearm is within reach, but she’s not sure how many other assailants are currently hidden in nearby apartments, ready to blow them apart for making even the slightest wrong move. Ivan only got away with arguing for so long because it bought them time for her to arrive. “Your services are needed. I’m sure you understand.” 

     She does. The Black Widow was their top student, their little killing machine. If they want her back, it’s because there’s a high level assassination that needs to take place, and someone else has failed. 

     Her expression is one that cannot be classified. Perhaps there’s a hint of satisfaction, that she’s been able to outwit them for so long, perhaps resignation, pride and pain. There have been so many others after her, she knows, and none of them have lived up to her legacy. How they must be punished for that. She wishes she could save them. She wishes she wasn’t broken enough that she can’t scrounge up the appropriate amount of sympathy.

     “I take it that the Recluse has been punished?” 

     It’s an ultimatum given. You show me that you will torture your own daughter to gain my loyalty or I won’t go. It’s no less cruel to herself though. Anya was her friend once, so many years ago. 

     “I’ll let you personally oversee it,” comes the reply. How utterly horrible. 

     “Then you know what I will ask for in turn. Ivan and the others here go untouched, or I burn your entire operation to the ground, your own withered husk included.” 

     The Headmistress scoffs, but nods. She has expected as much. Natalia’s current life reeks of domesticity, but her senses are sharp. She has already proven that she is more valuable alive than dead, and her skills will be useful to the agency. They are the Dark Room now, even more deadly, with more experiments underway to create Natalia’s successor. So far, though, none have been quite so perfect. They need her back, even if they have to dispose of her later. 

     The redhead nods as well. “Leave. I have packing to do.” The Headmistress, accustomed to the Widow’s rudeness, rises. Just as the old woman gets to her feet, though, there is a knock at the door. Everyone freezes. 

     “Natasha, you in?” 

     Nat fights not to let her expression crumble. It’s Bucky, darling, sweet, wonderful Bucky who has seen too much and been through too much and does not need to know that his tattoo artist fling is about to vanish off the face of the planet in order to kill people. Her heart breaks a little, and if she hadn’t been in the presence of her most hated enemy, she would be shaking. 

     “Let him in,” the Headmistress whispers, and the redhead tenses further. 

     This can’t be happening. No, no, Bucky, run! Run away from here! She yells it in her mind, as if she can get him to listen, but there’s nothing doing. She hears him call her name again and has no choice. The Headmistress will kill him even if he walks away if Natalia does not prove that she’s willing to take orders. Slowly, she moves to the door, unlocks it, and opens it a fraction. 

     “Hey,” she murmurs, soft and sad and wishing she could do anything but this. “Sorry, this isn’t the best time.” 

     “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” 

     And gods, doesn’t that just make her eyes want to swim with tears. She closes them for a second, regaining control. There are others watching, even if the Headmistress is towards her back. She cannot afford to show weakness. “I’m fine, Bucky. It’s okay. Can I catch you back at your place in a little bit?” 

     “You may not,” the Headmistress interrupts, pulling the door wide. Her gnarled face sneers down at Bucky, then grabs Nat’s arm and drags her back in. “Why don’t you tell him why you’re leaving, hmm?” 

     “You’re leaving?” He sounds devastated, and the redhead wishes she could show any emotion at all here, that she could pretend that she didn’t have to be a weapon right now. Instead, she doesn’t even look at him anymore. 

     “You promised you wouldn’t touch them,” she says to the old woman instead. “He walks out of here and goes about his life without your interference. That’s part of the deal.” 

     “Oh he will, but I think he should know who you are first. I won’t hurt him, precious little Spider.” Her hands trail down Natalia’s jaw and she fights not to jerk away. The Headmistress’s touch has always been associated with painful stitches, whip marks, reminders of failure and that hasn’t faded even after all these years. When the woman pulls her hand back at last, it’s to motion to the weapons littering the apartment. “See these, Mr. Barnes?” (Oh god, she’s done her research she knows who they are, they’re not just casual acquaintances, I’m so screwed, Nat thinks.) “These are the tools of the trade for your precious friend here. Not a tattoo gun, but real ones. She’s made her life on taking the lives of others. Possibly even your own comrades — you were in the military too, weren’t you?” 

     Nat can see Bucky starting to shake a little. If she could just reach out her hand to take his, to reassure him that she got out as soon as she could, that she doesn’t hurt people anymore...! But she can’t because she’s just promised to go back into it, hasn’t she? For his good, even, but she is willing to kill again. She hates herself. The Headmistress keeps talking, and the buzz around her ears builds. She can practically feel the anxiety attack that he’s having manifesting within herself, and suddenly her self-control snaps. 

     “Enough.” She places herself in front of the old woman, glaring. “You would not say such things to someone you meant to have survive. Get out before I kill you myself.” 

     “Oh, Natalia,” comes the reply, hoarse and amused, “you would not survive killing me.” 

     She does leave though, at long last, and when it’s just the three of them in the room, the air whooshes out from Natasha’s throat, harsh and wet with emotion. “I’m sorry,” she whispers to Bucky, “I didn’t think she’d ever come back. I was naive, I’m sorry.” Bucky, for his part, remains silent, eyes glazed as he fights off the war in his head. Slowly, gently, Nat works her fingers into his tense ones, drags him close enough that he can feel her body heat, presses her forehead against his. “Please, Bucky, James, look at me darling. Breathe with me.” 

     It takes a long moment before his gaze shifts to hers almost mechanically, but her audible breaths seem to help. Ivan, blessed be, tucks all of the weapons out of sight. They’ll be bundled up into bags soon anyway, and gone with Natalia into the stark blankness of Russian winter. Nat tries to calculate how long she has like this, how she can maximize the good she can do for him before she has to disappear, and it just... doesn’t work. At any moment, KGB agents might break down her door and drag her out of here. Violence on their part will only cause Bucky more trauma. It’s time for her to ease him out of here. 

     “I’m sorry,” she says again. “I need you to go find Steve. He can help you, alright? But I can’t do that if you’re not somewhere safe. I need you safe, do you understand?” 

     This is not what she usually says. Normally, when his world is falling apart, she is the one telling him that he’s safe, that she’s there with him and not going anywhere, that everything will be fine as long as she’s there to protect him. It seems foolish to him that he has to take refuge in that, but he’s always believed it somehow, that she was capable of protecting him. He’d never questioned why. Now, with the image of guns laid out on her table and a knife strapped to her arm, he feels like it’s viscerally true. 

            It also feels like he’s letting her go to her death. He’s terrified. 

     “You have to come back,” he says at long last, and Natasha’s face twists in agony. Of course she wants to come back, she doesn’t even want to leave in the first place! She adores him, wants to keep him from harm, and here she is doing what she does best apparently — hurting the people around her. “Please promise me.” His voice is nearly a whisper. 

     Natalia cannot give false platitudes. She squeezes her eyes shut, shakes her head, presses kisses to his face. “Go, Bucky. Be well. Take care of Stevie for me and he’ll take care of you.” She pulls him into a bone-crushing hug and then shoves him away. “Go. The Headmistress is not patient. She can still come back and kill you. Run, please!”

     Ivan grabs her shoulder and hands her the duffel bag. They, too, are running out of time. He will come with her, against her wishes, because someone has to stay by her side. Better him, he supposes, who knows the workings of that world inside and out, than someone who will shake apart at the seams, no matter how much the young man may love Natalia. She needs someone who will not blink in the face of destruction, who will kill ruthlessly and precisely, just like she does. Bucky remains standing in the doorway as they leave, and Natalia can only hope he’ll get home safely. 

     Downstairs, a car waits. The Headmistress glares at Ivan, and shoos him away. He will get his own vehicle, only Natalia is allowed to ride with her. “I’ll go with him,” the redhead says, “to make sure you honor your word.” Without her in his company, she’s fairly sure that a bunch of the goons will immediately try to kill him. She’s not chancing it.

     When she turns back for a last look at the building though, the vision of Bucky in the doorway chills her. She can see at least three people moving towards him, and all she knows is that he is not safe not safe not safe those words were meaningless he’s not — 

     “Bucky!” 

     She throws caution into the wind, races back to his side and it’s just barely in the nick of time because gunfire starts raining down on them. She grabs him and drags him into a neighboring building, knowing that this one has a hidden cellar where she can stash him until the firefight dies down, but he’s dragging her through it, into the back and out into the alley, his hold on her is too tight and if she weren’t in top shape she’d be dragged along and she wants to yell that Ivan is still back there but... 

     But Ivan is better at taking care of himself, and right now Bucky needs to be as far away from the action as possible. She throws a flashbang behind her to stun her pursuers (the best she can manage while fighting not to trip over her own feet), and pulls a knife loose from its strap across her chest. She’ll throw it when she gets the chance. 

     The world is a blur around her for a moment (because holy fuck Bucky is fast), and finally they gasp as they lean against the wall just inside the back door of a local restaurant. Bucky is shaking with the adrenaline, but seems present enough to talk to, and Natasha hugs him tight. “They’ll come after me again, but this was a good distraction for them. You keep running, I’ll pull them off the other way. I know you don’t want to use this again, but...” She presses one of her guns into his hands. If it’s kill or be killed, she’d rather he did the killing. 

     His breath hitches as his hand closes around the weapon. She’s really just — 

     His thoughts are cut off by a kiss, slow and gentle and oh so familiar. “I wish this could happen any other way. I don’t want you to get hurt,” she says, and he finds himself nodding, unfathomably sad. She’s had this on her shoulders for so many years, unable to say a word. If he has to deal with his own PTSD for the sake of her survival, he’ll do it. He’ll suffer afterwards in silence, but he’ll do what he must for now. 

     Natalia presses another chaste kiss to his cheek, and then disappears out the back again. There are the sounds of gunshots in the distance, fading, and he heads outside. He should go home, he knows, he should find Steve, keep them safe however he can, make sure none of the agents that were after Nat come after them. He does none of those things. Instead, he discreetly follows the sounds of fighting. Long-buried instincts come to the forefront even as he fights the bile down, and the first man falls by his hand. A second is not far behind. Natalia is up on the rooftop, fighting someone hand to hand, Ivan is shooting at a retreating car, and he climbs the brick with shaking hands, hoping that everyone that matters is still safe. Carefully, he levers himself up onto the roof, injured arm practically vibrating in pain. Natasha appears to have some bruises and scrapes, but little else. 

     The relief does not last long. The man that Nat had been sparring dives off the roof, and instinctively Natasha goes to follow, setting her up precisely in line of a waiting sniper. Bucky spots the assassin half a moment before Nat does, and yells. 

     The moment seems to happen in slow motion. There’s not enough time for her to get out of the way, given her momentum, so he jumps, slamming himself into her instead. They take a rough tumble on the gravel, and Bucky hits his head. When his eyes reopen, bleary, he can see Natasha’s face set in fury like he’s never seen before. She shoots wildly until a bullet finally hits its mark and takes the sniper down, and then returns to his side, hurriedly propping him on his side and pressing down on his stomach. Her other hand fiddles with her phone, calling 911 and relaying the details before hanging up.

     Slowly, he looks down at her hand and... oh, that’s a lot of blood. 

     “You fool,” she whispers lovingly. “You absolute fool, why did you come back?”

     “Because you were here.” 

     She cries, ugly and beautiful and absolutely devastated. The bullet has gone deep. She can’t tell if he’ll survive, and she can’t bear the thought of him dying for her. She’d been willing to leave it all behind, to go on living without him as long as he was safe, but this... this is not something she can cope with. She can’t lose him, not like this. 

     “So help me god, if you don’t survive this, I will bring you back to life for the express purpose of murdering you myself. And you know Steve will do the same. Please... you’ve got to survive for me, okay? Please.” She hangs her head, hoping against hope, and there’s nothing she can do to fix this. There’s nothing she can say except... “I love you.”

[freevoidman]

Okay I’m reading through Porg’s update so some of y’all can save your braincells and here are some great highlights (under a readmore bc i couldn’t help but tear into a few things she suggested):

Flat out ignoring that Vergil had changed by the end of the game as a result of V and Urizen’s separate experiences.

In trying to make V and Urizen their own character, she throws out the idea of Vergil being manipulated by the Qliphoth/Urizen (??? somehow??? even though the tree is implied to be non-sentient i believe???), with V being a Devil hunter looking through the remains of Mallet Island (which was completely blown up, turned to rubble, and then swallowed by the sea, so... that can’t happen), finding the cane which makes him youthful and not sick but... having the cane makes it so he can only kill demons through the cane??? for some reason??? And he needs the Qliphoth fruit to heal himself and free him from the curse???

How did she make V’s backstory even more confusing and complicated how the fuck did she do that

Almost immediately after bringing up the cane, she instead changes it to be one of the rings he’s wearing because she wants her “precious V” to use weapons other than the cane, which makes all the prior paragraphs about the cane’s curse and only using it pointless. She’s the one writing this fic, why can’t she edit her own work so it’s more cohesive?

Despite saying that V should be a Devil Hunter, she doesn’t explain why someone who is supposed to be killing demons would form a pact with at least three to fight demons. Her rewrite dismisses Visions of V, and she even states later that the manga is a waste of time as it won’t ever be translated into English (which 1) is not a limiting factor to reading it as many people have translated it already and 2) doesn’t dismiss it’s value at building up V’s character, who she supposedly likes the best).

Also, for someone who complains about DMC5 being a rehash of DMC3, she’s sure doing her best to change it to a rehash of DMC1 (Vergil being controlled by an outside force, bringing back Mallet Island, bringing back Mundus [the cane is supposed to be tied to Mundus]).

V apparently can’t be human because she wants to give him a devil trigger, despite having 3 familiars and his own strength. Okay I guess?

Also it’s really fucking sick how she describes V changing, because it’s apparently V fusing with Nightmare? Devil May Cry has never been one for body horror but she straight up says she was inspired by “The Thing (1982), The Fly (1986), Bloodborne, and Resident Evil 7″ for the transformation imagery and I wanted to nope the fuck out of there real quick.

Her segments of actual fiction writing and dialogue are really bad it’s almost like a parody Youtube skit.

She switches between prose and script writing randomly, it’s really odd. She does it primarily with Dante i’ve noticed? Here’s an example I wrote of what she does:

“Hey, don’t stress out about it will you?” Says John following a few steps behind VINCENT: Don’t get your panties in a twist

And that just happens... randomly? Like, there’s no indication why she’s doing that it just happens.

She straight up writes notes in her fic about the controls for character actions in-game what the hell--

She also shamelessly puts in a link to artwork that clearly isn’t her’s (and I highly doubt she got permission to post about) to try and show what V’s Devil Trigger would look like. I couldn’t find it because I don’t know how pixiv works, but that’s just a shitty move, especially with how she treats artists on tumblr when they draw art of Vergil.

EDIT: Porg has now straight up copy-pasted the art into her fic without the artist’s permission which is, we all know, fucking theft. While it is good artistry, is just a weird mashup of Vergil’s and Dante’s. It’s not all that unique and I don’t understand why she had to reference a bunch of body horror shit when all the Devil Triggers in game are essentially just a large flash of light and a seamless transition between forms??? It’s good art, I’m not trying to bash the artist, but... Porg, you could’ve been a little more original here rather than just ripping off another artist’s designs...

Everyone in her fic acts super casually to seeing Vergil alive in the Qliphoth and it’s like... honey, no.

Vergil acts WILDLY out of character holy fuck. Like, I know I should have expected that but this is NOT how Vergil would act in the slightest. She’s pretty much writing an OC.

Building off of this: EVERYONE acts OOC and... it’s not exactly cringey, but it is perfect proof that Porg doesn’t know what she’s doing and hasn’t properly analyzed the characters.

Dante acts weirdly... detached? There’s no sign of him acting like his normal goofball-y self, and he’s much more serious than normal. He actually acts more like cannon Vergil than himself, actually. (He also knows CPR apparently? Which... is a skill he would really never bother learning, so...)

Nero doesn’t act nearly as emotional, and acts calmly for some reason. You can’t feel any of his emotions behind his dialogue, only through the adverbs added to the tags)

V is too informative. He knows way too much about random shit that... no one should rightfully know. I’ll mention it more later, but... V doesn’t act like himself and I don’t really know how to explain it.

Vergil is essentially her OC. Seriously--he’s not as brooding or snarky, he’s far too open and apologetic, there’s practically no sense of rivalry between him and Dante. Weirdly, he acts more like canon V than fic!V does, despite the fact that Porg wants to establish V and Vergil and separate characters. His actions also make no sense when put alongside his canon personality. We aren’t reading anything about Vergil, we’re reading about Porg’s weirdly idealized version of him.

I’m going to make a break in the post here because I feel like this is the part that needs the most attention:

Porg goes OUT OF HER WAY to dedicate a GIANT portion of this chapter to her own OC: Nero’s mom. There are several long paragraphs of establishing the relationship between her OC and Vergil, talking about leaving Fortuna, how they were ‘happy’ and then saying that after a hurricane (inspired by hurricane hugo, you’ll see later) she got separated from Vergil, never reconnected with him, GAVE BIRTH, died from a demon attack with Nero staying near her corpse, and then Nero was found by humans and taken off the mainland to be taken to an orphanage on Fortuna. She wanted a massive amount of time to be taken out of the fun parts of playing Devil May Cry to establish a relationship that would never come back and essentially turn into a 15 minute soap opera inserted into a game about having fun killing demons.

Alright back to the noted highlights.

Porg confirms in her fic that the universe of Devil May Cry happens in the US, and that Fortuna is an island along the southeast coast and I want to fucking rip my eyeballs out at this point.

The ONLY REASON why she is doing this is because she lives in Florida. I know she does, and she just wants to imply that this is all happening near her home turf. How anyone who lives in Florida thinks an island like Fortuna can exist is beyond me though, because playing through 4, most of the buildings are inspired by Italian designs, and no one in the states would build an entire island with italian designs. I’ve been to Florida multiple times--there’s no buildings there even REMOTELY designed to match Fortuna.

EDIT: I have been informed that Porg actually lives in Pennsylvania, not Florida, which makes both more and less sense. Why Florida? Why not a hidden island up on the east coast? Why does this have to be taking place in the states at all Porg???

Yeah, let’s take Nero off the MAINLAND OF FLORIDA after a DEVASTATING HURRICANE and send him to an orphanage on an ISLAND which would’ve been hit the hardest by ANY hurricane. TOTAL SENSE. 

She tries to make her own timeline for the series using actual real world dates and events and it’s terrible (she references Hurricane Hugo in 1989, and confidently states that 3 took place in 1990, despite all evidence for the actual dates of events being fan theory established through circumstantial evidence).

There’s so much horror movie inspiration here--not cheap horror, but really twisted shit that... doesn’t fit with Devil May Cry’s tone at all? In the slightest? She references Jacob’s Ladder, plus all the other body horror media I wrote above.

Straight up just tears Vergil’s arm off which sure, I guess we gotta make THAT a parallel between Nero and Vergil. They can have a father son moment over being physically maimed.

In the scene immediately before this, Urizen picks up Vergil by the head and roots around Vergil’s memories (somehow???) to show him all the ‘bad moments’ in his life to traumatize him. She describes it as the audience getting flashes of him falling to hell, charging Mundus, being Nelo Angelo, etc. 

This causes Vergil to cry and beg for Urizen to stop. Then Urizen rips off his arm. So. Yeah. Another point for the OOC!Vergil/OC-taking-Vergil’s-place board.

Also this point ALONE made me realize that Porg does not know how much time, effort, and money needs to be put into making assets. Like, the entire fic she was stressing that everything be done in 5′s HD Graphics--including the ruins of Mallet Island, so I have to assume she’d want these little snippets in HD too, which would be a massive money hole creating these assets for one scene that lasts maybe ten seconds total.

I know I stated it in one of my earlier posts, but most of what she’s writing would fit better with a sequel for the reboot series, not DMC5. It would make her OOC writing of Vergil make sense, all the horror movie inspiration and body horror shit would fit better there, especially all the crappy dialogue too.

She somehow made Griffon even MORE annoying than in cannon.

BTW if I had to listen to poetry while fighting the final boss of a video game, I’d sooner turn my PS4 off. Not that poetry isn’t cool and all, but it cheapens the final fight and distracts you. It wouldn’t work.

EDIT: I realized this point made no sense without context, sorry. Porg made the Book of Urizen (the poetry book by William Blake referenced multiple times by V) either weirdly prophetic or made it out like Blake had inner knowledge of demon powers or... something along those lines, and V magically has the knowledge that reciting poetry from the book about Urizen will... harm him? Weaken him? Open a gate to hell (she mentions a portal appearing near him)? It’s very unclear, but she essentially rewrites Urizen as the final boss, and makes it three stages (V [Griffon recites some verses, which is what the first point was about], Vergil and Dante [this is where Vergil gets his arm ripped off btw], and then Nero) with all three of them reading poetry from the book to deal the “final blow” to Urizen. I’d much rather have Vergil be the final boss than have to go through a three-stage boss fight while every character I play as recites poetry to kill the boss.

She mentions Dante using Sin DT against Urizen but I’m pretty sure with her fuckery of the game’s events Dante can’t GET Sin DT? Because there’s no fight between Nero and Urizen where he’d intervene?

COMPLETELY IGNORES VERGIL’S DEVELOPMENT OF WANTING TO TRAVEL WITH HIS BROTHER THROUGH HELL TO ELIMINATE THE QLIPHOTH FUCK OFF.

Also she changed the lore of the Qliphoth so that it sprouts semi-naturally around every 500 or so years? So... shouldn’t leaving the Qliphoth roots be fine now? Since it’s natural?

Nico acts like growing back arms is totally normal

Wrote an INCREDIBLY shoe-horned in moment in the van with Dante filling Trish and Lady in about finding Vergil and everything that happened where, once again, Trish and Lady act almost completely nonplussed that Vergil is alive after 20+ years in hell, with about 9 of those ten years being trapped under Mundus’ control and corrupted by the Demon King

Seriously why is no one surprised in this fic that Vergil survived? Dante has a brief moment before finding him, but everyone finds out and accepts it like flipping a switch (once again--ESPECIALLY DANTE, which is NOT how the grieving process works)

Porg states that the ending is trash because the twins are fighting in hell, but completely ignores that most of Dante and Vergil’s lives have been built on conflict and they like fighting demons, especially Dante. Both of them were happy and doing what they love.

She also completely ignores through this entire thing that Dante was really fucking depressed in the novels leading up to 5 but hey I don’t even know if she can read.

I can vaguely agree that Trish and Lady were sidelined and they should’ve had a bigger role. However, I can’t fault the directors for not doing this, because they were already developing three playable characters with their own unique fighting styles. She writes all this shit about the story, writes notes about controls and mission layouts, but forgets that it takes a lot more than pressing a single button to code a game.

She just doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Seriously, none of these things are cohesive or edited properly, and despite her saying she wanted better for Vergil, or Nero, or Dante, or V, she writes all of them incredibly out of character and doing illogical actions. I just... I don’t get it.

The best part is--I can’t even tell her about these things, or give constructive criticism. She moderates the comments on her fic and isn’t afraid to delete anything she doesn’t agree with or can’t make a ‘passionate rant’ about.

[shroud-of-roses]

Bronwyn’s Witchcraft FAQ

This is my FAQ for mobile users to access! I know tumblr is a pain, so here is my complete FAQ under the cut. I will update this as I add to my FAQ on my main tumblr page!

I have divided my FAQ into several sections, so feel free to look around till you find what you are searching for! The first section is for those of you that are curious about witchcraft, and want to learn more about it; whether that means you are thinking of trying it or know someone that is, I felt having it up at the top would be useful. Remember, my ask box and messages are always open, so let me know if your question isn’t on here, or you need further clarification!

Basic Witchcraft Questions

Is witchcraft real?

Yes, witchcraft is real. Many people practice witchcraft, and you’d be surprised to find that you probably know at least one witch personally. I have met at least four other witches that I know of. It’s a skill, art, and practice, and as real as any other.

What is witchcraft?

Witchcraft is the practice of using energy, tools, and other mediums such as herbs, candles, and crystals to bring about change. It is not the same across the board, and can be seen differently in many cultures, regions, and groups. In short, it is the intentional use of one’s own power to create an energetic shift that will change a future event or add something to an area, object, or person. It is neither inherently evil, nor inherently good; all things can be used in a positive, negative, or neutral way.

Are witches evil?

Witches can be anything. But being a witch does not automatically make you evil. A label doesn’t usually provide moral alignment. For example, I have met teachers, religious leaders, and peers that were kind, mean, or fairly neutral in nature. Their title as a teacher, religious leader, or peer did not change that factor. The same is true for witches.

Is witchcraft dangerous?

Witchcraft is a practice, just like gardening, yoga, or even medicine. Just as a gardener can accidentally come into contact with deadly nightshade if they don’t know what it looks like, so, too, can a witch make a mistake due to inexperience. As a whole, witchcraft is generally seen as something to be cautious with, but not something that will kill or seriously maim the practitioner. I always always always recommend learning about the more risky pieces of the practice before diving in, and even then, I suggest learning protection magic before any other kind. Research is an incredibly important piece of witchcraft, and leaving it behind is what is dangerous.

Are witches the same as Wiccans? Is Wicca the only way to be a witch?

This is a common misconception in the witchcraft community, especially among beginners. Wiccans are the members of a religion known as Wicca. Wicca was made and popularized in the 1950s-1960s by a man named Gerald Gardner. It was created to fit well with witchcraft. Witchcraft is an ancient, truly timeless practice, and came long before Wicca. Some witches are Wiccan, but not all of them. A lot of Wiccans are Witches, but that is not a requirement for being a Wiccan. You do not have to be a Wiccan to be a witch, or vice versa.

What is Wicca?

Wicca is a religion created by Gerald Gardner. He made and popularized it in the 1950s-1960s, and it is meant to be an ideal partner for witchcraft. However, being a witch is not necessary to be a Wiccan.

The religion centers around the worship and invocation of the “Goddess” or “Lady” and the “God” or “Lord”. Traditionally, these figures remain as such, without goddesses and gods from other cultures representing them. You can find more information about the rituals, altar setup, etc. from a local Wiccan group, or ask someone you know who practices it themselves. I am not Wiccan, but I will share what I know with you here.

Traditionally, people who want to become Wiccans are required to join a coven and become initiated (which varies from tradition to tradition, and group to group). There may be a High Priestess, Priestesses, High Priest, Priests, High Priesten, Priesten, or other leaders they can contact to set this up, or ask for resources and information.

Usually, a period of study leads up to the initiation. In this way, the person looking to become a Wiccan has the chance to learn, have support from others in their faith, and can see the religion actively portrayed by practitioners. There may be levels to go through or ceremonies to partake in before the final initiation, but, again, this can vary.

There are also Neo-Wiccans. Neo-Wicca is a more-recent derivative of Wicca, and does not require any sort of initiation or ties to any coven or group. Because of this, many feel that it is more convenient and personally fulfilling than traditional branches of Wicca. It relies on solitary practice, and may include more personal elements of the religion, such as frequent offerings, or even iconology of a specific deity in place of the general “God” and “Goddess”. In my experience, a majority of people that follow some type of Wicca on online forums are Neo-Wiccans, but may not specify that. This is pretty much the extent of my knowledge, but I know there are many resources out there!

Is “Witch” a gender neutral term? Can guys be witches?

Yes, it is a gender-neutral term. Anyone, regardless of race, social status, gender, age, nationality, etc. can be a witch. It is a very welcoming practice for anyone to participate in- or leave- as they see fit.

Are witches born or can someone learn to be one?

You can be a witch whether you were born into a witch’s family or not. You may hear the term “hereditary witch” every once in a while; this means the person who uses the title had a family member (usually a parent or grandparent) that was/is a witch. It doesn’t give them any extra power than someone who was born into a family without any close relatives that practice witchcraft. However, these people are generally taught by a witch and/or grow up around witchcraft, which can boost their experience and knowledge in the practice. No one is born and immediately a witch. To be a witch, you must practice witchcraft. Babies don’t do that.  

Can witches fly, perform telekinesis, or other similar things from movies?

There are always going to be people that claim they can move things with their minds or turn into a werewolf. Unfortunately, this just isn’t true. Magic, in the real-life sense of the word, cannot defy the limitations of our chemical make-up or give us incredible powers that will make us rival superheroes. Movies have a habit of dramatizing and stretching tales in every area, and witchcraft is no different.

What can a witch do? What is possible?

Witches can cast spells to bring financial success, draw in luck, draw in love, and many other things. They may cleanse homes, cast protection spells over them, and ward negative/malevolent energy/entities from themselves or others. Witches can curse and bless. Witches can call or banish rain, snow, etc. They can heal and use energy to create change. Witches can do many things, some more subtle than others.

How can a witch prove they are a witch/that their magic works?

First, I beg the question: why should they have to? It is their practice, and not everyone wants to show off the latest results of their spellwork or the energy manipulation they can achieve. If they want to show or tell you about their practice, they will. Respect boundaries, just like you would with anyone else.

Being a witch requires that you practice witchcraft. If that isn’t good enough for someone to see that you are, indeed, a witch, there isn’t much else to do other than help them learn about the practice. Send them here, if you want.

If you wanted to show someone that your magic works, I recommend trying out energy work (sending energy through one hand onto a willing participant, giving off a specific intention for them to describe to you), divination if you are psychically inclined, or sharing the purpose of your next spell with them, and then let your success speak for itself.

Sometimes, spells don’t work. And that is nothing to be ashamed of. Working on it and finding flaws is what helps you grow as a witch, and having people around you critique it like they could do better is not an encouraging thing. Don’t feel obligated to share, but do if you and the person in question wish to share the experience.

Do witches sacrifice animals?

Not really. Some practitioners of certain practices, religions, etc., do kill animals according to their tradition, but it’s not extremely common as far as I have seen in the years I have been a witch and part of this community. I have read a post regarding this topic from the point of view of a culture/religion that does kill animals in rituals, and they relayed that they don’t torture animals or prolong their suffering. Just like a butcher would, it is always swift and not cruel when done correctly.

Religion and its Relationship with Witchcraft

Do witches believe in God?

Some do, some don’t. Just as being a doctor is a practice, so is witchcraft. Being a doctor doesn’t determine your religion, and neither does being a witch. I am not Christian, nor do I believe in the Abrahamic God. Anyone, from any religion, can be a witch.

Do witches worship Satan?

As stated above, some do, some don’t. Theistic Satanism isn’t something I see all that often among witchcraft communities. I see a lot of LaVeyan satanists (atheistic), but not too many that worship or honour Satan. However, some do. And that should definitely be respected, and not seen as an inherently bad thing. They may view Satan differently than those who devote their lives to the Abrahamic God.  

Aren’t you scared of going to Hell?

I am not, at least, not actively. I don’t believe in the Abrahamic God; I am a Hellenic Polytheist (I worship and honour the Greek Gods). I don’t constantly fear what I don’t believe in. I was raised Catholic, and the shift was difficult. I may never truly stop doubting my eternity or my fears. But I am more comfortable with my life than I have ever been. I speak for myself alone and not anyone else. Other witches may feel differently.

Do you have to be religious to be a witch?

Nope! It is entirely optional. In fact, witchcraft is a different category that can overlap with religion but doesn’t have to.

Can I be religious and not include the god(s) I worship in my practice?

Absolutely. I do this, and many others do as well. If I want to ask my gods for something, I do it directly, without a spell. If I want to do something on my own, I do. They are separate, but I value them both an incredible amount.

Can I be religious and include the god(s) I worship in my practice?

Yes. However, depending on your religion, it may be easier/harder than other religions. Ultimately, you’ll need to as two questions: 1) Do I want to incorporate my religion into my practice? And 2) Is my pantheon/god/goddess open to witchcraft? Usually, the answers to this come fairly easily. You can ask your pantheon directly (through prayer, divination, etc) if you aren’t sure.

How do I make offerings/begin a journey into another religion/research a religion?

This varies widely from religion to religion. My religious blog (for Hellenic Polytheism (Reconstruction-based)) is @breathing-in-gilded-dust . There are many groups, blogs, and official sites for different religions. Here are my main recommendations that I have found over the years:

Hellenion.org - for Hellenic Polytheism; includes hymns, calendars, ritual examples, resources, ritual dates, clergy certification, and more.

Elaion.org - for Hellenic Polytheism; includes hymns, calendars, ritual examples, resources, ritual dates, and more.

Baringtheaegis.blogspot.com - the blog of an insightful, well-read Hellenic Polytheist. Full of information, articles, and plenty of wonderful posts to read! A great place to begin if you’re wondering about the religion.

Theoi.com - Thousands of articles about specific Hellenic Theoi/Theia (gods/goddesses), rituals, hymns, mythos, and so much more. A wonderful resource for epithets, simple knowledge of myths, and learning about the Theoi in ancient context.  

http://www.labrys.gr/en/ - Labrys is a religious group formed by Hellenic Polytheists. They have a book recommended by many people, I believe it is called Household Worship. They have good resources online, too!

Kemet.org - for Kemeticism; includes resources, information, guides, ritual examples, and more.

Sacred-texts.com - holds so many pieces of sacred texts from so many different religions and cultures. It is the epicenter of documentation of religions like Hellenic Polytheism, Kemeticism, Nordic Polytheism, and tons more. I highly recommend looking around on this site, it is a great resource.

https://chs.harvard.edu/ - This is Harvard’s center for Hellenic Studies. It has a digital library and a friend of mine, @songbirdspells, has recommended it!

https://secondgenerationimmigrant.tumblr.com/post/162862714335/free-academic-resources-masterpost - This is a link to a free academic resource masterpost. Make use of it for religious investigation! It can be super helpful when looking for historical documentations.

Is this a sign from the gods?

Only you can decide if something you see/feel/experience is a “sign”. There isn’t a specific formula or rule book for determining this, but the general consensus is: follow your heart. Cliche, I know. Many of us rarely receive signs, and some of us never have/will. And this is okay. We don’t need a dove to tell us Aphrodite is watching over us. We already know that.

Beginner Tips, Guides, and Resources for New Witches

How can I begin?

The best thing you can do to begin your journey into witchcraft is read, record, and learn. Keep a journal for things you want to be able to look back on later, preferably in a medium you can rearrange and easily update. I recommend binders or online documents (google drive is my favourite). Some things I recommend researching first include:

Protection and warding

Correspondences for herbs, crystals, colours, and moon phases (later on, you may want to reevaluate these correspondences and decide which ones work for you and which ones don’t. There isn’t one perfect set of meanings for anything, so after experimenting, you may find that a particular item works best for love or finances rather than sleeping.)

Commonly used terminology in witchcraft

Meditation or mindfulness practices

Energy work

Candle magic

Divination

Herbal medicine (Herbs are used as medicine. I highly recommend learning not only their correspondences or mundane uses but also their potential side effects. Certain people are more susceptible to side effects or potency of herbs, especially those who are pregnant, breastfeeding, have illnesses/diseases, or are on medications. Herbs are not necessarily a safe thing to dabble in. Learn before you use them. Don’t harvest any, especially if you aren’t sure what they are. I harvested red columbine a long time ago without the slightest idea as to what it was, and I handled them before I ate. My stomach had a hard time for a day or so, and I later learned they are toxic. I could have have ended up much worse than I did, and I learned my lesson about not picking plants that I am unable to positively identify.)

Sigil making (I describe my knowledge of sigils here)

Spell writing/anatomy and spellcasting

Traditional witchcraft practices in your area

The different uses of different water sources (rain, stream, ocean, storm, etc)

Crystal care (some crystals can be damaged/bleached of their colour in sunlight, or crumble in water or other substances. Learning about the hardness of a crystal and their tolerance to sunlight are important for anyone that wants to keep their crystals in good shape. Some crystals are toxic to touch or release toxic minerals if they become wet. Research is key with witchcraft, and mundane information is incredibly important as well.)

Sensing energy/emotion (empaths, sensitives, psychics, and mediums find this easier than others, but anyone can develop these kinds of skills to a certain extent.)

Simple spells to keep up with your home (sweep out negativity with a broom and a chant, ring bells to disperse stagnant energy, etc

The use of tools in witchcraft (bells, brooms, cauldrons, candles, wands, staves, etc)

What you can and cannot do as a witch (can’t fly among geese, unfortunately. But you can learn about the astral realm, a term for other planes that one can enter and explore in many different forms. Some call this “flying”.)

Different practices of different types of witchery.

These are just my personal recommendations, not the end-all-be-all of beginner topics. If you are interested in something, learning about it is a wonderful thing to do!

Do you have a masterpost of your resources?

Yes, I do! Here is a link to it.

What are some good beginner tools?

Witchcraft is about using what you already have to achieve something that you don’t (whether that be an object, scenario, or state of being). Use what you have, and make what you want. You don’t need expensive items to be a witch, or to be successful as one. My favourite tools are crystals, my handmade wand (cost me nothing to make, since I had the materials and tools at my house), herbs from around my area or in my spice cabinet, and anything I can create for a specific purpose. I love making poppets (dolls you can use to heal, bring things to you/someone/something/an idea, or even curse), and I use upcycled fabric for them. Some people find altars to be a very useful thing to have, since there is a specific space you can sit at to do your workings. I go back and forth as to whether or not I want/need one. I usually settle on having a sacred space without any decor except my main tools and a box with everything else I use.

Here is a super general list of things you may want to look into, but do not have to buy by any means:

Incense sticks/cones and/or resins (with charcoal discs) and a holder to burn them with

Three-ringed binder (to journal, record information, and write down ideas for witchcraft)

Candles and/or candle holders (tea lights are cheapest in bulk)

Crystals that are safe in water and to touch (citrine, carnelian, rose quartz, amethyst, and clear quartz are my must-haves that I trust for gem elixirs and handling)

Sachet bags (the dollar store has these, and they are great for carrying around items such as crystals, herbs, and enchanted items)

Jars (jar spells are wonderful, and you may also use these for storing objects while you aren’t using them)

Ribbon and/or string

Nails and/or pins

Divination tools

My mentor said I have to (insert ‘must’ here) to be a witch. Is this true?

Unless they said “you must practice witchcraft to be a witch”, then no, it isn’t true. There are some ‘mentors’ who use the inexperience and ignorance of a new practitioner to manipulate and abuse them. Sex magic, blood magic, making oaths, or participating in any sort of activity you are not comfortable in is not required for you to be a witch. Get away from that person as fast as you can if they say otherwise. You are welcome to explore lesser-followed paths, but please do not feel obligated to do so in any manner.

How do crystals work? What makes them ‘magical’?

Crystals vibrate at certain frequencies, many of which are great for setting our intentions and shifting our own energy alignments/focuses. Casting spells and directing energy comes from within, not from the crystals. They help us get to a specific vibration so we can use the vibration to make a change and cast a spell. Some crystals help people sleep due to their vibration while others give their bearer energy. Crystals may affect everyone in slightly different ways, but there are usually a few basic meanings agreed upon by a majority of people for a specific crystal.

What is cleansing? How do I cleanse things?

“Cleansing” is the act of clearing away energy from an object, person, or place. One can cleanse in many ways, but some common ones include burying an object for 24 hours (I recommend burying items in a pot of dirt, not in the ground, to ensure you can find it again and no animals will be harmed by it), submerging it in water/salt water (only for items that won’t be damaged, of course), sprinkling an item with salt, holding an object as water runs over it, as in a stream, smoke cleansing with sage or other smoke-producing herbs/woods/etc, placing crystals around the object/person/place, energetic resetting, and bell ringing (or any constant tone ringing through the air). There are many more, but these are common methods.

What is charging? How do I charge things?

“Charging” is the act of instilling an object with energy that can be used later on. Crystals can be charged to re-establish the energy they hold to amplify their vibrational qualities. It’s like replacing the batteries in a remote. The batteries don’t make the remote something different, they just power it to be able to do its job. You can charge things by placing them in a window during a full moon/visible moon (full moons tend to work best), charge things the same way, but in sunlight instead of moonlight, use your own energy to fill the object, place candles around an object, spin an object rapidly (ex: a wand), or surround an object with crystals or herbs. There are other ways, but these are things I have tried and really like.

What is enchanting? How do I enchant things?

“Enchanting” is filling an object with a specific intent and energy. Unlike charging, enchanting does reprogram an item’s properties/energy, usually temporarily. This works best with objects that do not have a powerful vibration like a crystal or herb does. I recommend pebbles, coins, jewelry, clothing items, etc. You can enchant an item with your own energy or the energy of objects that relate to what you want to enchant the item with. I have a post on enchanting wards here, but you could easily use it as a guide for any enchantment.

What are sigils? How do I make them? How do I charge them?

Sigils are symbols created for a specific intention and purpose. I have a complete guide with pictures, text instructions, and advice right here! It’s a google drive share link, so it gives you access and shares it with whatever email you’re signed into if it’s a gmail.

What are sabbats? Esbats?

Sabbats are the eight holidays celebrated by most Wiccans and some witches. The holidays stem from the ancient Celtic religion (if I am not correct, please let me know so I can change this). It does have religious ties because of this, but many people do not observe them. Some witches do celebrate in some way on some/all of the sabbat dates, due to the fact that half of them fall on equinoxes or solstices,  and the other half are the midway point between a solstice/equinox. They have fairly easy to follow dates, each with a distinctive name. They are based on the seasons, so the northern and southern hemisphere dates are very different. The sabbats are: Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane, Litha, Lammas (or Lughnasadh), Mabon, Samhain, and Yule. I suggest researching the dates of these sabbats for your area if you plan to observe them. I don’t observe them as they are named, but I do have a similar system for myself, based on the solstices/equinoxes/shifts in temperature and weather.

Esbats are meetings between witches as a coven, which are usually held on the new or full moon. Any meeting of a coven to do a ritual is considered an esbat. I believe this is primarily a Wiccan thing, but I could be wrong.

What is the wheel of the year? Do I have to follow it?

The wheel of the year is the observance of the eight sabbats. They are derived from an ancient European religion (Celtic, I believe), and are celebrated most frequently by Wiccans. The wheel of the year observes the equinoxes, solstices, and the midpoints between them. You do not have to follow the wheel of the year if you do not want to. I don’t, and I am happy as can be!

What are the elements, and how are they used? Do I have to use them?

The elements are frequently seen in circle casting and on pentacles. The elements are Earth, Air, Water, Fire, and Spirit. This grouping of five elements is representative of the whole self, the whole world, the whole Universe. They can be used in circle casting as mentioned, they can be used as sources of energy during spells or rituals, and they can be communicated with during meditations (among other things). It is not a necessary part of being a witch, but many people do use the elemental system in one way or another.

Do I have to pick a path and label it?

No, you certainly do not. You don’t even have to call yourself a witch. Labels are words. Call yourself what you like, if you call yourself anything at all.

Why do some people spell magic as “magick”?

The idea to spell “magic” as “magick” came from the man Aleister Crowley when he wanted to differentiate metaphysical occurences from magic tricks at parties. Many people do this for the same reason, but there isn’t really a necessity for it. If you’re in the witchcraft or spell tag, I doubt you’re going to confuse a stage magician with a witch. There are also some issues with the actual kind of magic Crowley was talking about, which was ceremonial magic that was leading one towards their highest, truest purpose. Most of the things I see that are tagged or referred to as magick do not fall into that category, only because it’s not the same form as what Crowley defined as ‘magick’. It’s an outdated word often used inaccurately, anyway. I cringe a little when I see it due to this, and some of the people I met only use it for attention or to seem more ‘witchy’.  

Do I have to use spells made by other people? Can I write and use my own?

You do not have to use spells by other people, and you definitely can write and use your own! The only disclaimer I have for this is that you should read and try spells by experienced people you trust to get a sense of what a well-rounded spell feels like. Study before you jump in, as with anything else, just in case. It also helps you figure out what you really like to do, and you can experiment with different spell types and tools/ingredients.

Do witches have to join a coven?

Nope. The only time a witch ‘has’ to join a coven is if they are a Traditional Wiccan looking to be initiated, but not all Traditional Wiccans are witches, anyway.

How and why do people use the moon and its phases in spellwork/magic?

The moon affects many mundane things, from the tides to menstrual cycles. It holds so much history and energy that can be used in magical workings. It reflects the light of the sun, and is charged constantly because of this. It is full of nearly untouched vibrancy, which is great for many spells and rituals!

What is a grimoire? What is a book of shadows?

A grimoire is a book of journals, spells, correspondences, and other useful information in the possession of a witch. They can be physical or digital. A Book of Shadows (sometimes referred to as BoS) is a similar book of such things, but has more specific ties to Wicca. It is full of rituals and texts regarding Traditional Wiccan practices, and is less ‘personal’, for lack of a better word. It may contain the Wiccan Rede, copies of important rituals used in the practitioner’s coven/sect, or texts written by trusted religious figures.

What is energy work? How can I practice?

Energy work is the manipulation of metaphysical energy to manifest an intent or infuse power into something. It can consist of making orbs to send to others (healing, cursing, etc.), the use of energy to shield/ward a person/place/thing, using one’s own energy to charge or enchant an item, and much more. Some people even focus on energy points within the body and center themselves through energetic rebalancing. You can practice with exercises put on the internet for it, such as my favourite:

Rub your hands together. Feel the friction and the heat- the energy- produced by the action. Stop for a few seconds, and do it again, this time focusing on the feeling between your hands. For me, it feels kind of tingly, even after the heat has faded for a few seconds.

Rub your hands together again, and then pull them apart, but not too far from each other (maybe three or four inches from the other). Visualize and try to feel a blob/ball of energy between your hands, fueled by the friction’s energy. Do this several times, and make the blob/ball bigger if it becomes easier. Practice makes perfect with this!

What is warding?

Warding is a type of magical action in which an object or energy form wards off an unwanted subject. The subject could be a person, negativity as a whole, malevolent entities, spirits, misfortune, etc. Wards can be made of physical items or energies anchored to an area, object, or person.

What is grounding?

Grounding is the act of reconnecting to the Earth and resetting your energy to a more mundane frequency. It involves releasing your energy into the ground while simultaneously taking in new energy from the Earth. This is usually done after centering, and is very refreshing for those of us who struggle with energy consumption. This technique is ideal for empaths as well, due to how accessible it is and how effective it can be.  

What is centering?

Centering is bringing awareness back to yourself, and being mindful of your body, its energy, and how you feel. Centering is always found in meditation, and is a great skill that is used in mindfulness. To center, you can use breathing, visualization, and specific thoughts that help you return to your mind. Everyone centers differently, but once you find your method, it is so great to be able to do!

This is overwhelming. What should I do?

Whew, I know, right? It can be extremely intimidating to begin a practice like this. My biggest pointer is to allow yourself time to learn. Don’t cram like you’re about to take the ACT/SAT. This is a fulfilling practice, not a guide to college! You have plenty of time to learn, grow, and absorb information, which is awesome! I definitely recommend joining some sort of community, whether offline or online. Tumblr is definitely my favourite place to hang out, but there are other forums. Discord seems to have a good many, and I occasionally see links on Tumblr to other social media groups!

Astrology

I am a Leo/etc. so why don’t I feel like one?

Your sun sign is a teeny weeny tiny bit of who you are, according to the stars. There are so many different stars that relate to you, “houses”, moons, etc. You can calculate your natal chart (see next question) to see what other signs you are. The sun sign is who you are publicly, while your moon sign is most likely a better representation of who you are on the inside. It blew my mind when I discovered natal charts!

What is a natal chart?

A natal chart is the positioning of certain celestial bodies on the day you were born. It also takes into account the time and place of your birth. I recommend calculating yours! I believe I calculated mine with astro.com, but the next question has a masterpost of good resources to try, and I am sure I got the link for mine in that list.

What are some resources for beginners interested in astrology?

I saw a great post of some awesome astrology links! Here is the link to it for your convenience.

Do I have to learn astrology to be a witch?

Nope! Astrology isn’t witchcraft, just something many witches and spiritual people like! Actually, many witches don’t have a clue about astrology, including me. I know what four of my signs are based off of my natal chart, and I understand the traits of some of the zodiac signs, but that’s about it. I can maybe draw a few constellations and miss a couple stars, but eh.

[scriptmedic]

Injury Analysis: Misery

Today's post is an excerpt from my upcoming book Maim Your Characters: How Injuries Work in Fiction. What follows is one of the nine injury analyses which appear in the book. 

Those who preorder the book, or who email me their receipt for a copy purchased from any retailer between 9/4/2017 and 9/11/2017 ( AuntScripty {at} gmail {dot} com ), will receive a package of bonus materials including three additional injury analyses and the official ScriptMedic injury worksheet.

The additional analyses are: John Silver's amputation in Black Sails, Root's transcendence into a demigod in Person of Interest, and the injury that changes the course of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

Misery, by Stephen King

Format: Novel (Also a feature film) Genre: Horror Reality: Realism

 We’ve been citing Misery as an example throughout this book, and now is the time to bring it all together.

 The Inciting Injury happens off-page and before the opening scene of the novel. Writer Paul Sheldon finishes his latest novel, a work he hopes will take him from being a Genre Hack to a Respected Author. Having finished his book, Paul drives off to take his manuscript to his publisher… and gets caught in a blizzard. He crashes his car into a ditch and is severely injured.

Paul’s legs are both broken, and he suffers a significant concussion and probable traumatic brain injury, though there’s little evidence of this other than his lapsed memory of the first days of his recovery.

The brilliance of Stephen King is in his slow exposition of the arc. We learn this story in bits and pieces as the story goes on.

 We learn later, for example, about the Immediate Treatment Annie Wilkes offered Paul when she “rescued” him from his car crash: she pulled him from his car in the middle of the blizzard, threw him on the backseat of her pickup like a gunnysack, and drove him to her house for care. (Annie is a once-upon-a-time nurse, who we later learn was barred from practicing after her patients kept dying suspiciously.)

As for her so-called Definitive Treatment for Paul Sheldon’s mangled legs… well, she splints his legs (badly), ignoring the most severe injuries (his broken hips). She also allows him time to rest, letting him sleep through the worst of the pain and the recovery.

Crucially for the addiction plot of the novel, she also force-feeds him Novril, a fictional painkiller that is supposed to be the allegory of codeine.

In fact, when we meet Paul, he is already deep in the throes of the Novril addiction, and numerous times we see his agony multiply without his medication. We see him force his way out of his room — risking his life, given that he’s held hostage — to get Novril. His addiction sets in deep, and it doesn’t let go.

 The entire book’s present tense is set in the Rocky Road to Recovery, where Paul is recuperating from his injuries, and the stumbling blocks on that road to recovery are staggeringly huge. In fact, those stumbling blocks are the plot points of the novel; the injury plot and the global plot are one and the same.

For one, he’s not getting proper physical therapy, so Paul never recovers to the point of being able to walk.

For another, he’s got the nasty Novril addiction to fight.

For a third, his captor is demanding he write her a novel all her own — meaning that he must be moved to a wheelchair well before he’s ready, and endure the pain of sitting with broken hips and legs. He must endure this for hours while he fights to write a novel she won’t kill him over.

Of course, the villain adds new injuries to the mix…

Annie Wilkes amputates his left foot with an axe, in a fit of rage over something Paul’s done. (In the movie, Annie, played by the brilliant Kathy Bates, hobbles Paul with a sledgehammer.)

Later, she cuts off his thumb, again for disobedience.

(While it’s tempting to see these as separate injury events, they function more as stumbling blocks in his global injury/recovery arc; although they’re mentioned, and the psychological impacts are profound, Sheldon’s story is more about his overall disability and the pickle it puts him in than the individual pieces that go wrong.)

To make matters worse, Paul develops an infection in his kidneys toward the end of the book.

 But come the Big Test, the big break where Sheldon escapes Annie’s wrath… well, that’s a trial, isn’t it? The woman has already killed a state trooper and outsmarted a half-dozen others.

Paul Sheldon has to take her down — mangled legs and all.

The image of Paul force-feeding Annie Wilkes burning pages of the manuscript she made him write is forever seared in the consciousness of anyone who reads the book (or watches the brilliant movie adaptation). Moreover, in spite of it all, Paul overcomes a formidable opponent with the tools he’s managed to wheedle from her: a typewriter, a stack of pages, a stolen can of lighter fluid, and a single match.

From an injury arc perspective? Well, in the struggle, Paul is forced to crawl on the floor. Annie grabs his still-healing stump and squeezes. He also gets glass in his arm from a broken champagne bottle.

He spends the end of the climax crawling to a closet looking for Novril, taking a small fistful before passing out. Later, when he wakes up, he’s rescued by cops coming to interview Annie Wilkes.

 In the New Normal, set nine months after his experience in Annie Wilkes’ hell house, Paul has had to undergo a reinjury (the rebreaking of his legs to allow them to heal properly this time), but now he’s at least walking; King graces us with the Clack… clack… clack… of his two walking sticks.

In fact, it becomes a horror refrain, as Paul is thinking about Annie even now. In his moments of terror in the hell house, he saw Annie everywhere: behind couches and doors… (His fear is unfounded; he’s really seeing a cross-eyed Siamese named Dumpster.)

So his New Normal is, despite everything, one of only partial disability: he can walk, on crutches, with the hope for better ability through further rehabilitation.

Now, as to Sheldon’s psychology…

Sheldon is an interesting case study for recovery because he has only one person to help him, and she’s the villain of the story, plain as day. While his (partial) recovery is in her interest — he has to be healthy enough to write for her, after all — it’s certainly not in her interest to have him recover fully.

So Paul spends the book in the space between absolutely broken and completely well, and will spend the rest of his life in that space — remember his amputations.

His addiction to Novril is his addiction to a few things: not only painless existence, but sleep and retreat.

 The Injury Arc

 Inciting Injury: Paul breaks his legs and hips in a nasty car crash.

Immediate Treatment: He’s rescued from the snowbank by his Number One Fan, Annie Wilkes.

Definitive Treatment: Annie has splinted Paul’s legs (badly), and he’s given time to recover in bed.

Rocks on the Rocky Road to Recovery: Paul must contend with a painkiller addiction, an evil captor (who is also an Angel of Death), he endures two new amputations, he’s got terrible pain, UTIs, and he must write through the pain and against the clock.

The Big Test: Paul must kill Annie Wilkes before she kills him. He succeeds!

The New Normal: Paul has Some Disability later on. (He actually lives through a medical reInjury, briefly summed up in the last chapter: his doctors have to rebreak his legs to let them set correctly.)

 What Can We Learn?

First of all, let’s just say it: none of us are ever going to write a novel as absolutely brilliant as Misery. I’m pretty sure it can’t be done. King is a bona fide genius, and that’s all there is on the topic.

What can we take away? How can we write a story like Misery?

Well…

For starters, look at how King used disability, not only by itself, but as a way to entrap his character. Annie Wilkes needs no chains to keep Paul Sheldon trapped in her house. She’s got his broken legs — and she can keep taking pieces of him any time she wants.

In fact, that’s one of the terrifying things about the story: there is always another level to sink to, whether it’s psychological or physical, always some fresh horror that can be visited upon Paul. Even when he leaves her custody he’s terrified.

But this can be seen from an opposite and empowering perspective: don’t discount the disabled hero! Paul still manages to kill Annie with what she’s given him (and what he’s stolen): a manuscript, a match, a typewriter, and some lighter fluid, in spite of all the crash and her wrath inflict upon his body. Go Paul!

Also, especially if it’s a one-off book, don’t be afraid to let your character be disabled in the end! Sheldon might be walking, but he’s walking on crutches. That’s okay — in fact, it’s perfectly appropriate. 

This post is an excerpt from the forthcoming Maim Your Characters, out September 4th, 2017 from Even Keel Press. If you'd like to read a 100-page sample of the book, click here. If you'd like to preorder signed print or digital copies of the book before 9/4/2017 and get your free bonus content, or claim Executive Producer status of the upcoming Blood on the Page, click here.

xoxo, Aunt Scripty

[thelonesomequeen]

Hamm at the Movies- Thor: Ragnarok

Hello everbody! Hamm at the movies here! Sorry for the delay in typing this up; other commitments got the best of me and I wanted to put exactly how I felt into words as best as I could, so this took some time to write. Look for a review of JUSTICE LEAGUE in the near future as well. And I’ll do my best to get that one to you faster!

“Thor: Ragnarok”- I want to start off this review by giving a little day dream and it involves what I would do if I had a time machine. And trust me, I’ll get to the Thor review, but I need to elaborate a bit. Now, I would do a few things and they are, in no particular order: A. buy stock in Apple, B. witness any sort of dinosaur era, any of them, really, C. catch a live Beatles show, D. tell the young me not to eat at that Ponderosa Steakhouse (long story) as it will be a disaster, etc. and there are many more. I would say that somewhere down my list, around letter Q, I would visit Christopher Nolan in the early/mid 2000’s and let him know that while I admire his idea of creating a serious, brooding Batman film saga, that the character is in fact, a comic book character, and it is okay to be outlandish, have villians that are not the usual caliber/cartoony (Clayface, Solomon Grundy, etc), and to most of all, respect the material and to make really good Batman movies, not just mob movies with the occasional Batman cameo/growl. Now, I know many folks are thinking that I’m crazy, that Nolan’s Batman’s movies are classics, etc. Don’t get me wrong: they are good. But, admist their problems, they created one fatal issue and that is what I’m going to call: the Nolan Effect. Since Nolan’s Batman films came out, many superheroes tried to mimic the dark and brooding feel that Nolan’s films had. The problem is: not every superhero fits what is trendy and successful. This brings me to “Thor: Ragnarok” and the tonal issues that plague it. I don’t blame Nolan on this one, but I have to look at the “Guardians of the Galaxy.” That film was a monster, getting strong reviews, huge box office profits, and by some chance in hell, making Groot and Rocket common household names. And why not: GOTG is a great film; it’s colorful, fun, exciting, funny, and full of off the wall craziness that suits the characters insanely well. It is true to the characters and story. James Gunn NAILED it with that flick, and to an extent, with GOTG: vol 2 (a bit too funny/Drax infested at times). Enter the previously described Nolan Effect: this formula works for this (these) character (s), so it must be applied across superhero films. So, following suit from its fellow Cosmic Marvel film series, the new Thor film takes cues from GOTG and adds in more color, silliness/quirkiness, and humor. The problem is though: it really disrupts the flow of events and takes away from the emotional impact of what we saw on the big screen, leaving viewers with a hodpodge experience.

The film opens with Thor (Chris Hemsworth) in quite the jam. He’s deep underground, in what can only be described as a Hell-ish chamber, dealing with the giant demonoid creature of Surtur, who is just counting down the minutes until he can be unleashed upon and destroy Asgard. Thanks to some quick thinking, Thor is able to escape Surtur’s clutches and return home. Upon his arrival, he finds Odin (Anthony Hopkins), lazily enjoying a play honoring Loki’s honorable sacrifice from “Thor: the Dark World.” And remember too (spoiler from T:TDW): Odin is really Loki and the real Odin is MIA. After a few more steps, Loki is fully back in the picture and the two brothers set off to find Odin and deal with a series of events that is triggering Ragnarok, which is essentially the Norse apocalypse, or for the film’s sake, the end of Asgard and it’s way of life. The two soon find themselves dealing with Heal (Cate Blanchett), a God in her own right who has an insatiable desire to kill, murder, maim, destroy, etc. You know, the usual stuff. During a fight with her, Loki and Thor are shot off into space and find themselves on Sakaar, home of the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum), who runs a gladiator style tournament of champions. Here, Thor is taken captive and forced to fight his old pal, the Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo). Not only does Thor have this to contend with, but meanwhile, Hela is terrorizing Asgard and it’s up to Thor’s ragtag group, also consisting of Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), to help stop her.

Per the usual Marvel fare, the movie is a lot of fun to be found here. There is an abundance of humor (get to more of that later), which for the most part lands. One point of humor comes from Korg, (voiced by writer/director Taika Waititi). He has this delightful New Zealand accent and has an ability to toss out pretty good one liners and observations. He is joined by Miek, a fellow bug warrior. And for fellow comic book readers, these two names (and the new planet) will make you salivate as it leads us another step closer to the never going to happen “Planet Hulk” storyline. That storyline had the Hulk being betrayed by Earth’s heroes and shot into space where he lands on a planet is forced to do battle in a gladiator style arena, which leads to the Hulk joining a revolution to overthrow an evil tyrant. So, as you can, see, several elements of that story line have been adapted into this film, using Thor as the main driving point. This helps bring in some great fight and action scenes involving Thor and Hulk in the arena. We also get some really cool action sequences that feature Loki, Thor, and Valkyrie as they fight their way to Hela and attempt to stop her plan of destroying Asgard. The cast is also pretty terrific here as well. Hemsworth’s comedy chops are let off the chain here, giving him many times to use his comedic timing and humor. Hiddleston could play Loki in his sleep and he has great chemistry with Hemsworth during their shared screen time. Blanchett is a great and formidable villain in Hela as she loves death, mayhem, and chaos and will do anything to achieve her goal. Ruffalo is solid here and his Hulk and Thor share some great scenes where they bicker and fight like siblings. And why not? The Hulk is immensely popular on Sakaar, almost revered. He’s cocky, got some swagger in his step, and is able to finally able to be away from pesky humans and Puny Banner. So, naturally, he isn’t too sure of Thor’s plan to get off the planet, but with Banners insistence, the two join forces. Tessa Thompson nearly steals the show as Valkyrie as she’s badass, feisty, and has an inner turmoil when it comes to helping Thor and Hulk. Jeff Goldblum is a huge highlight here as, well, he’s Jeff Goldblum, and his Grandmaster is a narcissistic and opportunistic ruler who only has his own self-interest at heart. Hopkins is here for a bit and while it’s short, his interactions with Loki and Thor makes for some heart of the story. These moments with Odin and his two sons are actually unexpected and bittersweet and allow the film to have some emotional resonance too.

And that leads me to some gripes I had about the movie, namely: the humor and forced jokes. It’s common knowledge at this point that you are going to get some laughs during Marvel films. You’ll get jokes, quips, one liners, zingers, etc, and I think, at the moment, we as an audience expect it and know full well going in that it’s going to be here. The problem here is that in “Thor: Ragnarok,” it’s really, really distracting and causes an odd shift in tone for the film. At the heart of things, Thor isn’t an incredibly funny character. At least, he’s not supposed to be. And I understand that the comic and film versions will differ and he has developed a sense of humor over the course of the films, I get that, but here the film suffers for its over-stuffed jokes. A few of the more dramatic moments are undermined by a zinger and it’s really frustrating. We have invested nearly a decade and 16 (!!!!!) films into these characters, so when we are delivered a dramatic moment or payoff, it should hit home, but T:R works to keep things too light and airy. You barely have a moment to process what you’ve just seen as you’re hit with a joke, pause for a chuckle and then whisked away to the next point in the film. Don’t get me wrong, some of the jokes work, but you’ve thrown so many during the film that it almost feels like a standup routine. And you have to realize: serious stuff happens in this movie. Characters don’t make it out, things of a sad/destructive nature happen (trying to be spoiler free!), and we, as an audience, should feel those intended emotions of loss, sadness, and pain; only, we don’t. It’s overshadowed by jokes and it sours things. Also, there are times when none of the death/loss is really mentioned again in the film; when a character falls, it’s not really referenced, there’s no sort of fallout, and it is frustrating when none of the surviving characters even mention a character that has fallen in battle. Of course, I don’t want things to be a completely sour affair and to be totally dark, but Marvel has shown that you can balance humor and drama. Even the first “Iron Man” had humor, but also had dramatic moments where Tony is coming to grips with his new found mission. I get that this film serves as a soft reboot of the Thor flicks and that, according to reports, things needed to be different after the last Thor movie was given a mediocre reception by fans and critics, but this tone and direction has me concerned.

In all, “Thor: Ragnarok” has good moments. It’s fun Marvel goodness: solid action, characters we know with a nice mix of new arrivals, inside jokes to the previous flicks, and it moves things along to the impending Infinity War. However, Marvel needs to step back and calm down with the humor and concentrate on making stories that connect. These are characters we know pretty well and the emotion of the events in the films should resonate with us and them. But it doesn’t and the film becomes forgettable. As I was typing this review, I found myself nearly forgetting the movie, and I had seen it fairly recently. A movie whose origin is based on the fall/apocalypse of Asgard should have some staying power. But instead, I’m drawing a blank on things. And personally, this sucks for me as I was REALLY stoked when I saw the teasers for the film. And, being a lifelong Hulk fan, I was excited to see elements of Planet Hulk being tossed in the movie too. But I left feeling underwhelmed, slightly bored, and wondering if I’ll have to hear more one liners and zingers when Thanos unleashes madness in Infinity Wars next year. And frankly, that makes me really nervous. Rating- **½ out of ****

[blackasteriia]

repost, do not reblog.

TAGGED BY: @deadmenanddemons like a  2 weaks ago whoops TAGGING: idk steal it and tag me

MUSE: Xion

𝟑 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐓𝐇𝐒.

Powerful. Xion has powerful white and black magic. She is extremely strong and durable; She does not feel pain. She can replicate the powers of her enemies. When you fight Xion, you fight Xion and yourself. She has been fighting since she was born. Take a look at that squish face and realize that she is a dangerous, experienced, warrior. 

Intelligent. No. i was meant to be adaptable. It could learn on the fly and come-up with complex battle tactics. Xion maintains that adaptable, analytical, and intelligent personality. She’s curious, she learns fast, and she has excellent memory. 

Compassionate. Xion is chaotic good to the bone. She doesn’t espouse the idealistic ‘power of friendship,’ like Sora does, but she is motivated by a deep set belief that she should do good. She refuses the jaded, cynicism of the Organization. Xion will not walk away from someone she can help, no matter who that is. 

𝟑 𝐖𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐒.

Trauma. Xion has experienced severe psychological and physical abuse.  Xion has nightmares, anxiety, paranoia, panic attacks, anger, and dissociation; The typical symptoms of PTSD. She is not well-adjusted. She is a child soldier thrown into society and told to cope. And she is struggling to manage.

Inexperience. Xion has fought in a war; Countless battles; And worked the equivalent of a 5-to-9 job as a monster hunter. She can feed and care for herself. Yet, by the end of Kingdom Hearts 3? She can’t read. She has never been in school. Never seen a movie. Dozens of basic experiences and events that make-up our day-to-day life, she has never known. She doesn’t know or understand most basic things. She’s literally three years old.

Independence. Xion has learned that the only person who will look out for her, is herself. She does not trust authority or people. She had as an independence streak a mile wide. Any encroachment on that independence is treated with fear, anger, and suspicion. She does not like asking for help, receiving help, and team work. She wants to do things alone.  

𝟑 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐒.

No. I. Xion learned she was a replica and recognized the volatility of that revelation. To protect herself and her friends, she kept it quiet. The surviving Organization Members later learned, but few understand the full nature of Xion’s origin. Xion hides it because she knows what she was made for: She is a weapon. There is nothing pretty about No. i. 

Heartless. This is dependent. There is a statue of secrecy Xion must maintain on certain worlds and with certain people. She shouldn’t reveal what is beyond that world’s knowledge. Nothing about the Heartless, magic, or other worlds. If you are a non-KH character, Xion will probably not talk to you about these things.

Experiences. Destroying Sora’s memories, the worlds she’s seen the darkness consume, a laundry list of traumas she does not want to talk about. She’s not particullary fond of reminiscing about the Organization. In many cases she will hide her affiliation, because of the Organization’s reputation. 

𝟑 𝐅𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐒

Loss of Self. People imprint on Xion, force alternate identities and appearances on her. She has had memories not her own forced into her skull in order to destroy her personality and identity. Xion does not fear death. She fears losing what tenuous strands of self she has scratched-out. That she will wake-up as someone else. 

Hurting others. Xion fears hurting the people she loves and cares about. She almost killed Roxas, if she wanted to, she could’ve. Xion knows she has an incredible potential for destruction. If she loses control she can easily maim or kill a normal human. Xion also knows she once had an unquestioning loyalty and obedience to Xemnas. The potential of that outcome haunts her.

Loss of Independence. We touched on this one. She doesn’t want to put herself in the position to be betrayed, compromised, or harmed again. Consider the above bullet point, and realize she is still terrified of that outcome. That if she invests her loyalty in the wrong person, the consequences could be dire. She is a victim of abuse and Xion isn’t interested in a repeat. 

𝟑 𝐆𝐎𝐀𝐋𝐒

Mastery of the Keyblade. Xion does not care about being a ‘Keyblade Master,’ that sounds arbitrary to her. She has a keyblade and she wants to master it. That includes her magic, her combat ability, and her replicate power. She is striving to become a better and stronger fighter. 

Studies. Xion is studying white magic, healing, and medicine with Even; She is learning science and magic in order to study it; And of course, all the subject she’s been denied. She teaches herself how to read because she wants to learn. She is voracious. She wants to understand the universe around her. This makes sense when you realize that no one has ever really taught her. 

Defeat Heartless, protect universe, and other Protagonist Duties. Nomura may make Xion useless and arbitrary in later games, but that doesn’t mean I will. Xion knows that she has a particular skill and ability that few have. She has a duty, almost an obligation, to act to stop the darkness and the heartless from consuming more worlds. Be it through research or battle, Xion intends to help others.