#is it hard to ask for ppl to try to look past the surface level for dorian? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

stxleslyds · 4 years ago

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It’s very interesting to see your thoughts on Winnik cause personally while I like that he made jason a bit unhinged and fun in utrh his other characterizations of his were eh at best. Like why would jason not care about the world and why would he take over the drug trade of all things considering his history. I feel like Winnick had a very surface level understanding of Jason. There was a lot of his past to explore but it wasn’t explored that deeply. Plus I absolutely HATED his Bruce and talia characterization. And how he wrote Talia in both utrh and lost days was absolutely disgusting and his explanation for why he did it was that Jason loves Talia and that they were both messed up ppl??? Which is where I can’t forgive him. I feel like he was a one hit wonder because ever since utrh his Jason story started to go downhill. I also feel like it’s because DC doesn’t know how to write a character that’s from a poor background and that’s a huge disservice to Jason. I do hope that Rosenberg or another writer (hopefully female) does a good job on him. He’s been suffering under shitty writing for so long. Sorry for the long ask I really enjoy reading your posts.

Hi Anon, thank you for sending your ask!

Well, this is a great question because I love giving my opinions on Winick’s UtRH and Lost Days. I know those books (or some moments in them) are not everyone’s cup of tea and I had and have some problems with some of them but I have also come to understand them or even accept them as a writer bringing up a morally grey area in his books and doing it well (or at least I saw it that way after re-reading and researching a bit about his thoughts on those matters).

This is going to be a long post (I suppose) because there is a lot to cover and I want to let you know in a clear way why I think that what Winick wrote works beautifully for Jason. I will try to answer this as coherently as I can, so I will talk about the points you made in your ask separately so I make sure I don’t forget anything.

Let’s begin!

“Why would Jason not care about the world?”

I assume with that you meant about what happened in Bludhaven when Chemo was dropped there by the Society? That is valid but that really wasn’t Winick’s fault (I believe), that whole thing was shown in the book because back then the Bat-related books were more interconnected and that was what was happening in Dick’s Nightwing run at the time, which I think was used to explain why Dick suddenly stopped helping Bruce in Gotham.

And then I think Jason and Bruce watching that happen when they were having that conversation on that roof was very well planned out. I think Winick used that opportunity for Jason to be his peak level of little shit and make Bruce feel bad about not arriving in time to save another one of his kids. Even though Jason later revealed that he never blamed Batman for not arriving in time to save him, I believe Jason said that about Dick to make Bruce hurt more. Jason was trying to make Bruce stay in Gotham so either Bruce or him killed the Joker that night. Winick on the other hand had to finish his story, him branching out and having Batman go to Bludhaven would have benefited absolutely no one either, and it just didn’t fit the story that was being told in Under the Red Hood.

That’s why I think that Jason reacted that way to the Bludhaven and Chemo situation. If by caring about the world you meant something else let me know! (He obviously cared about Gotham in UtRH and other people in Lost Days).

“Why would he take over the drug trade of all things considering his history?”

Well, I have to be honest with you Jason wanting to control the drug trade in Gotham makes absolute sense to me, and even more when I think about Jason’s past history.

Jason and Bruce have always been (to me) clear opposites in various angles, and in UtRH, Winick talks about that a little bit too.

Batman was created to eradicate crime from Gotham after Bruce witnessed the death of his parents, that was the tragedy that set him off, and even though it was tragic and awful he had everything outside of his parents, he had a home, a support system, people that cared and gave him love, and money. He never had to be in contact with the cruel reality that was Gotham. We know through various stories that Gotham is deeply rotten and corrupted.

But Jason did know how corrupted, rotten and devoid of hope his city really was, he lived in the streets and in an abandoned apartment alone because he didn’t trust the police or social workers (he didn’t believe the system was helpful). He had seen his mother die at the hands of drugs after his father was sent to jail due to his criminal behaviour. Probably his father was a drug dealer and was the person that got his mother into drugs, (I believe that was later made canon, I might be wrong). But why did he do that? Maybe because he came from a poor and complicated background and nobody wanted to employ him so the real bad people of Gotham, like Black Mask, Cobblepot and many others, saw his vulnerability and his desperation to make money and they gave him a job as a drug dealer.

Considering that Jason was made out to have very deep problems with people selling drugs in schools and all that, I can estimate that maybe one of the big Drug Lords at the time employed Jason’s father when he was barely a teenager, that way he earned money, he stopped going to school and sold drugs to his peers so the bad people could control more people while they were vulnerable.

If all of that is true then Jason wanting to control the drug trade in Gotham, by becoming a Drug Lord himself, makes perfect sense to me. I mean let’s talk about this, what were his other options?

Kill every drug lord?

What if that set off a gang war in Gotham over who got to be the next big Drug Lord? I mean, it would be like real life, if someone dies in that sort of position there would always be someone else to take their place. Drugs are clearly (in Gotham) a great way to get money and power.

Also, if he killed all the drug lords then what happened to the people that were working for them, how could Jason help them get another job?

Explode every warehouse and facility with drugs in them?

And then what? Wait for Black Mask and the others to buy more and put a target on his back? Maybe kill some innocents so they can send a message to Red Hood that if he keeps destroying their drugs or whatever people will pay for it?

Maybe all the drug lords would come together and kill the Red Hood themselves, what could one man do against everyone else? Black Mask and the others had vulnerable people on a payroll, if they stopped working or went against what their boss said they would have been killed and then families would still be vulnerable and desperate to survive in Gotham.

Come forward as Jason Todd, the not so dead son of Bruce Wayne, and start a campaign against drugs?

Jason would have ended up dead in seconds, everywhere you look there are corrupt people. What could have been the point of that? What could have Jason be able to give families like his so they could stop living under the control of drugs and Drug Lords?

Jason being a Drug Lord himself was the best option because Jason KNOWS the reality of Gotham and Gotham’s people. His way of dealing with drugs could control the drug trade in the first 10 years and then eradicate it after that time. His plan was genius!

Jason knew that for people not to suffer as his family did, he had to take the slow and hard path of becoming the thing that he hated the most. He needed to attack the monster from within. So, when he made his first move he controlled the street-level dealers, he told them “I will protect you from both Black Mask and Batman if you stop dealing drugs to kids and in schoolyards if you do that, you are dead”, it is genius! By being clear about not wanting to have kids and high schoolers involved with drugs he set out a new path where those people weren’t forced into drugs and driven away from school. And that’s the way Winick made us see Jason’s not so new morals, he protects Gotham’s kids and he will kill you without hesitation if you endanger them.

From that he built, Winick made it clear, at first Jason would convince the people working for other Drug Lords to work for him if they followed his rules (and he offered them protection!). If Jason worked on the drug trade, he could have controlled who was inserted in the drug life or could have made it exclusive to the rich or club exclusive. In his intention of taking over the drug trade, he could have moved drugs away from Gotham’s most vulnerable.

And if he employed those vulnerable people, he would have made them work for him on other levels, that way those vulnerable people still had jobs and were protected from people like Black Mask. And in due time, fewer young and poor people would be involved with drugs or the drug trade.

Red Hood employs poor people and makes them not sell to other poor people or kids, he pays his employees good money so their families make a better life for themselves and their kids go to school, they are all protected by the Red Hood and his team (Jason could have trained others and make a team or gang that focused entirely on security), those people then get to retire with their families far away from drugs and maybe Gotham too.

I mean, Winick never did those things but I think that was the way he was thinking about it, he really set a golden path for future writers, his story had to finish Jason’s dilemma with Bruce and Joker but then his life as the Red Hood continued. And it could have been good if other writers used the characterization that Winick had given Jason: protector of children, killer of rapists and everyone that endangered women, children and teenagers. All of that was thrown away for a mythical fight with Ra’s al Ghul for people that were as trashy as Ra’s.

“I feel like Winick had a very surface-level understanding of Jason”.

I have to disagree. I think he understood Jason’s character before his death well and then built a grown-up version of him with those morals more developed after he suffered more and then saw how the world and Batman’s ways hadn’t changed after his murder.

We are talking about post-crisis Jason here; he was sweet and he loved being Robin but he also saw the world differently from Bruce and Batman. He lived a very different life than the one that Bruce lived when he was a kid. Jason even said that he “could fend for himself just fine” and that he had “graduated from the streets of crime alley”.

To me Winick understood this completely, he knew that Jason had had close contact with how drugs could affect people and what a criminal record could lead you to, but he also understood that Jason was a survivor of "crime alley" and all its worst people. He probably knew of things that people were doing of he saw them happening. He knew how to protect himself from those things but understood that not everyone could do it. And when Batman took him to Ma Gunn’s school Jason learned that Batman was ignorant of how awful and manipulative Gotham’s people could be. Ma Gunn wasn’t running an orphanage or cool school; she was teaching children how to steal and harm others. He hated it, he was “okay” when he was alone and now, he was locked in with older kids that beat him and Ma Gunn who was exploiting children’s vulnerability.

I assume Winick took that and maybe decided that was the moment when Jason knew that even if Batman was trying to do good, he still didn’t see Gotham (or that side of Gotham) for what it truly was.

When Jason became Robin and worked along with Batman, we could already see that Jason thought very differently about what should be done with rapists, and abusers of all kinds, Jason saw the world differently when he was a kid and a teenager and then after his death, Winick used that to build a Jason Todd that as a young adult still saw Gotham for what it truly was.

“There was a lot of his past to explore but it wasn’t explored that deeply”.

I am really confused by this (and I am very dumb), did you mean that his past before his death wasn’t explored? Because that was not the point of this book, the information was already there with Jason’s previous appearances in comics, and even then, Winick explored through flashbacks in UtRH how he saw Jason and what it was that Jason thought about crime.

If you didn’t mean that and you meant his past before the events of UtRH but after his death then, well, I would say that Winick couldn’t have fit that in UtRH but he did write a story about that time in 2010 when he wrote Red Hood: Lost Days.

“I absolutely hated his Bruce and Talia characterization”

I will only talk about the Bruce part here because you mentioned Talia later in your ask.

To me his Bruce was perfect. I really think that his characterization of him was spot on, but maybe I am biased because I don’t like Bruce at all? I suppose that you are talking about Bruce’s characterization in those last moments in "crime alley" with Jason and Joker? And how he decided that making Jason drop the weapon by throwing a batarang to his throat and saving Joker was a better option than Jason killing the Joker?

If it is that then I would love to see what you think Bruce would have done at that moment because I didn’t really see Bruce using a gun (in any way) as an in-character thing for him, and even though DC has always danced with the idea of Bruce actually killing somebody I know that they wouldn’t have him do it, and even less when it comes to killing the Joker.

I mean, Bruce brought back Joker from the dead when Dick finally killed that piece of shit so, yeah, I don’t know.

I feel like Winick was trying to show just how loyal and squared Bruce is when it comes to his own no killing rule. Jason wasn’t asking for Bruce to go on a killing spree he just wanted Bruce to kill the Joker and he didn’t. Winick even had Bruce say that about him not wanting to kill one person because he felt that if he did that, he wouldn’t be able to stop and I think that’s pretty true. Maybe it is a bit too much but I don’t think it’s a lie.

“How he wrote Talia in both UtRH and Lost Days was absolutely disgusting”

That is absolutely valid, listen, if you didn’t like how he wrote her at all I really can’t say anything against that. My first real and solid contact with Talia’s character was in that book, so when I read UtRH I really liked how he wrote Talia in that, it seemed to have that aspect of Talia’s love for Bruce being so strong that when she saw Jason was alive, she wanted to help him so Bruce could see how much he loved her. It is messed up but I believed it fitted her character, she had good intentions but her reasoning was a little bit wonky.

With Lost Days, I thought that her character was well written, she isn’t a hero and she isn’t a villain, she is just a player in the game that is the League of Assassins and that world. That obviously changed up until we had that scene happen between her and Jason, I was grossed out and I didn’t understand why that had happened which leads me to what you said next in your ask.

“His explanation for why he did it was that Jason loves Talia and that they were both messed up people”.

This is a part of the interview where Judd Winick answered a question about Jason and Talia sleeping together. The interview was done by Sara Lima in ComicVine’s podcast.

“SL: Why did you decide to write the romantic scene between Jason and Talia in Lost Days?

JW: For those playing at home, Jason Todd, at the end of Red Hood: Lost Days, and Talia slept together. I did that because it was really disturbing and to shine a light on the fact that these are not really well people. A lot of people didn’t like that, which was correct. “You weren’t supposed to like that. That was supposed to be, ‘oh God, stop that, what are you doing?’ It really was. As well as, for Talia, her reasons, being that Bruce had wound up inadvertently killing her father and she was ragingly angry with him and went from love to pure hate and still loving him at the same time. And Jason, given the opportunity to have sex with just about the only woman who Bruce has had sex with or really cares about, ‘Yeah, I’ll go there.’

SL: He’s like, ‘yeah, cause I hate that guy.’

JW: Yeah! ‘I hate that guy!’ And I think that Jason probably had the hots for Talia. She’s hot, he doesn’t exactly have a lot of relationships going on – It’s not a good thing for either of them. These are two people who murder people, two people who are screwed up, screwed up emotionally. There’s this question that why would he do that and Talia only loves Bruce. She might only love Bruce, but she does have sex with other people because that’s just sex. And we’re all grown-ups here. I think those who shake their fist and get angry at this kind of thing might be some of our older readers. I’m an older reader, but I acknowledge the fact that people aren’t that chaste and grow up: people have sex. That’s why I ended it like that; It was messed up.

Maybe it was in another interview or something but this is the only time that I have seen Winick talk about that and I don’t think he mentioned Jason loving Talia but he did say said that “These are two people who murder people, two people who are screwed up, screwed up emotionally”.

When I looked it up, I found that someone that is described as screwed up is a person that is “emotionally disturbed”. That description is one that I feel is valid for both Jason and Talia at the time, they both had a lot going on and were fighting some demons so maybe it’s not a nice thing to say but I can’t say that the statement isn’t true. Or at least that’s how I see it.

When I came across that interview for the first time, I wasn’t expecting Winick to apologise for writing that interaction but I did want an explanation so after he said, “A lot of people didn’t like that, which was correct. “You weren’t supposed to like that. That was supposed to be, ‘oh God, stop that, what are you doing?’ It really was” and “for Talia, her reasons, being that Bruce had wound up inadvertently killing her father and she was ragingly angry with him and went from love to pure hate and still loving him at the same time. And Jason, given the opportunity to have sex with just about the only woman who Bruce has had sex with or really cares about, ‘Yeah, I’ll go there.’”

I felt like that was enough, granted I didn’t like it and I still don’t like it but I don’t see it as Winick writing something disturbing with evil intentions, I just see it as him writing these two morally grey people doing some very morally grey stuff.

This is not me saying that this is how things have to be taken, I know and understand many people who absolutely don’t like this at all and that’s valid. I am not here to change your mind about that, personally when I read the why he wrote that I felt like that explanation was enough but that is just me.

“I feel like he was a one-hit-wonder because ever since UtRH his Jason story started to go downhill”

I think Winick was only meant to write Jason’s comeback to comics, around the time he was writing Outsiders and Green Arrow. And there was also the “Infinite Crisis” (Winick wasn’t involved with that one) event going on in the middle that explained some stuff like how Jason was resurrected which was explored in Batman Annual #25 in 2006 (like a year after the UtRH book had come out and it was also written by Winick). Then with the popularity of the UtRH book the animated movie was made (written by Judd Winick) and because that was coming out DC allowed Winick to write the six-issue mini of Red Hood: The Lost Days in 2010.

The UtRH story didn’t go downhill, DC simply couldn’t handle that level of mature storytelling at the time, just after that event ended DC was already planning on changing stuff and then the New 52 came years later.

Winick’s Jason even made an appearance in Outsiders #44-46, there Red Hood wanted to help the Outsiders break out a good man (Black Lightning) out of prison because he hadn’t killed anyone (it had actually been Slade). Jason/Red Hood’s characterization and story going downhill wasn't on Winick, it was on DC and their lack of interest in making their characters complex and dual.

“DC doesn’t know how to write a character that’s from a poor background and that’s a huge disservice to Jason”

Absolutely. But in my case, I do think that Winick did work with Jason’s background very well. To me, he set a path and no one could follow it but I might also be horribly wrong.

I also hope that Rosenberg does an amazing job! I absolutely love his work, as I have said before he is super funny and isn’t scared of writing characters who kill. I feel like he will bring back the sarcastic little shit that Jason once was but he will also bring back that sense of seriousness and dedication that Jason has for the work that he is doing. Rosenberg even showed us some of that in that prelude to Task Force Z in Detective Comics, I absolutely recommend them if you haven’t read them, issues #1041 and #1042 were the ones with that backup story.

I can see that we have very different opinions but that’s just a part of the comic world, we all perceive these comics differently and that’s valid! I am glad you enjoy reading my posts and I hope that even though we have those different opinions you were still able to enjoy my answer! If you think that I misunderstood anything that you say please let me know, sometimes my brain just doesn’t click.

Hope you have a fantastic week!

#jason todd #red hood #robin jason todd #utrh #red hood lost days #jasons characterization #dc comcis #asksss

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broken-balance-baby · 3 years ago

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ID LOVE TO HEAR MORE ABOUT THE RAPUNZEL AU!!! :D i'm curious abt ajay's past with the CIA & how he actually got that kind of job. and if there's any small pieces of trivia that wouldn't fit in other posts but ppl Must Know, go wild yaas

YESYEDY!!!! okay idk if im gonna add most of the specifics that lead to ajay having to deal with the work process but basically after serving his tour of duty he was on reserve for a Good While before decidedly applying to go to the CIA. he wasn’t really expecting it, it was just a means of running away from what his homelife used to be like now that ishwari was gone, in fact the process of how he got there was pretty boring. the usual “i’d like to apply for the job” settlements but that was UNTIL the CIA looked up his background and realized he might be useful as an asset to them. when they informed him about it and asked if he would like to be an informant/asset in KYRAT ITSELF immediately he was like ??? thats not what i signed up for but okay whatever. it’s my duty and gonna be above my paygrade so i might as well and the ThING IS. even after fucking hearing about what happened he just. didn’t seem to care about it like at all. especially with all the parts missing from pagan’s side, it just seemed to ajay that ishwari wasn’t mentioning any of it because she wanted to be american so badly. (his viewpoint not mine LMAOAHEHSUDH lord forgive his terrible inability to read people or put himself in other people’s shoes it’s the autism aksjenehs) (dw it also gets called out eventually) disclaimer: he does care, to a degree, but as much as every detail remains vivid to him he just took things on the surface level and didn’t think much of it up until the real story batted him in the head.

one of my throwaway characters from forgotten idols is actually mentioned here!!! his name is divin and he’s a sniper in the original fic, but since Bhadra is 17 here and 15 in the flashbacks he’s either in Banhi’s womb or like a toddler LOL. and yeah, Banhi and Achal have a kid despite being in a war.

I think at one point Pagan had to visit Paul’s family to deliver the news about him getting stabbed to death passing away which is the ONLY time Paul’s wife and daughter got to meet him. Paul’s wife just assumed he was a flamboyant brother-in-arms (if we can assume that Paul had military history this could apply very well) but she always found it rather odd that she never got to contact him again especially after learning that they “couldn’t recover the body”.

Chotu is a ferret. I’m trying my best to add him into the story even as just a comfort pet for both Bhadra and Noore but that would take awhile LOL.

One of the conditions Noore was supposed to have was rheumatoid arthritis and chronic traumatic encephalopathy. But then like, after awhile I realized how much of a bad idea that was (and how her having CTE would probably have killed her since she was stuck in Durgesh for 10 goddamn years man) and how hard that would be for literally everyone cause Noore needs to Move.

Noore and Ajay weren’t to be together by the end and instead were gonna separate after Ajay does some reflecting in America but I realized how pointless that would be + how I already did this fucking ending already so I had to go back to my pros and cons maps for the fucking ending and went with the one I’m going for right now. All is happy. I promise.

Just to adjust everything because I fucked up, Ajay is now 30.

Longinus and Bhadra have an interaction here!! He becomes a catalyst for something important that Bhadra does later on, but I headcanon that Longinus loves children and leaves wanting her to make her own decisions akhdksjs ITS CUTEEEE

Ajay is 6’2. Why? Well I mostly just wanted to, but men don’t stop growing until they hit 24(?) and considering the kind of workout you get in the military the amount of testosterone that gets pumped out is what made him fucking BIG. He’s already taller in canon than most of his Kyrati peers so I thought it would be fun to make his intimidation factor come with the added height lol.

Ajay never went to college.

Bhadra’s a very smart assed and hyper girl, all that pent up rage from being 14-15 with the Golden Path did a lot of shit to her so she’s in a lot more stable hands living with Rabi. Unlike COT!Bhadra she doesn’t have mental breakdowns or screaming fits, she actually learns how to communicate her feelings to Rabi because that’s a thing that he taught her to do. She’s a lot more stable than everyone in this fic lmao

That’s all I’ve got for now! I might add into this in a new post but for now I’ll keep the rest to the fics im writing, IM SUPER EXCITED!!! >:DDDDDD as always thanks for indulging bestie youre a fucken g 💕💕💕

#ask.exe #far cry 4 #rapunzel au #mickey

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tsipasce · 4 years ago

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Same Difference Ch.17

A/N: Here is your reward for enduring last week lmao. This one is a bit long, but cutting it up just didn't seem as gratifying so I hope you guys enjoy.

Also, thank you so much for all the kudos, comments and bookmarks on AO3 and FFN-- you guys are too kind :'). I'll try posting more regularly on Tumblr too if ppl wanna read it here. Let me know what y'all think~

There was darkness, then flickers of lights and the occasional overwhelming flow of noises before it ebbed to silence and darkness yet again. First, she felt she was on a hard surface like concrete, then cold metal, then something cushion-like… a bed? Her thoughts were incoherent, presenting more as disjointed words and feelings. Anger, regret, hurt, with a sprinkle of sadness on top. Her body was heavy, every limb feeling as though the blood had been replaced with lead. Her head lolled and she heard someone suddenly shift at her side, the bed dipping under the pressure of said someone leaning on it and over her but was too out of it to open her eyes. Acquiescing, she fell back into unconsciousness.

An indefinite amount of time passed while she was in the darkness before her senses began to return fully. She heard typing, now able to feel a presence nearby. She wanted to open her eyes, but the task seemed too daunting still, simply listening would have to be enough for now.

“I can stand watch for now, if you’d like.” One voice offered, softly.

“What I’d like is to be left alone.” The other replied curtly.

“I see. We’re going to leave in the next few hours, I’ll get everyone ready.”

“You do that.”

Well this guy sounds like a treat… Nanami thought, her sarcasm unsurprisingly returning before the rest of her senses and memories. There were footsteps and then a soft thud, like a door being carefully shut. A couple moments passed before she heard what sounded like a laptop being closed, then footsteps coming towards her, and then silence. She desperately wanted to wake up, but her body refused to cooperate, causing her eyes to flutter behind her eyelids as she struggled in vain to move. She could sense the presence hadn’t left and she felt anxious as to what might happen next before hearing a sigh. She felt a sheet being pulled up to cover her arms, where goosebumps had been forming from the draft in wherever she was.

“I’ll deal with you when I get back.” The voice said with a hint of annoyance, though it was betrayed by its gentle tone. Hearing footsteps growing fainter, a door opened and closed once more. The words themselves were threatening but the way they were spoken, she felt oddly comforted. Falling back into the darkness, she decided to cultivate her energy and try her luck at waking up again later.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Emerging from the darkness again, the pain began immediately. Her head throbbed and she reflexively tried to groan but found her mouth and throat painfully full. Instantly recognizing the feeling, panic set in, the only other thing she could perceive being the desperate need for it to stop. She grabbed the tube, disassembling and reassembling it outside her body. The large obstruction dropped unceremoniously to the floor and she coughed, glad to be rid of it.

“Don’t be so rough with the equipment.”

She rolled her head to the direction of the voice, a bright light hitting her eyes as she struggled to open them for the first time since… Damn. It all came rushing back to her at once, the voice no longer a mystery. Her vision focused and she found herself looking at Overhaul as he sat at her bedside. His mask was on as he stared at her blankly. She stared back for a beat, not knowing how to begin speaking about what brought them to this point. Deciding she should be fully awake and rested for that conversation, she mentally tabled it, opting for their usual banter instead.

“It’s still intact isn’t it?” She cleared her throat, massaging it as she continued, “How long was I out?”

“Three days.”

“THREE DAYS?” Her eyes shot wide, another coughing fit beginning as she raised her voice after not speaking for days.

“Yes, that’s what I said.” He grimaced, moving back a bit at her sudden outburst, “Cough in the other direction.”

“No surprise that your bedside manner could use some work.” She sighed as she adjusted to raise herself up, wincing as her sore muscles tried their best to comply. He promptly rose, putting a pillow behind her as she sat up, his expression blank yet attentive, “Thanks.”

He nodded as he took his seat again and the silence continued, painfully. It felt like their first meeting all over again, neither knowing how to broach the awkward topic. Looking back, Nanami was angry at how insufferably rude he could be but couldn’t ignore her own part in this. A pang of guilt sat heavily in her chest when she remembered how easily she let her emotions get the best of her; she hadn’t told someone off like that in ages. In her mind, it in no way absolved him, but to say it was all his fault would be a lie. In that moment of rage, she… What did I do anyway? She glanced down, now more confused than anything, her brows furrowing before looking at him.

“Let’s chat.”

He readjusted in his chair, leaning back as he crossed his legs and folded his arms across his chest, “Let’s.”

His body language oozed condescension as though she was about to be scolded like a child and she hated it, “Why’d you attack me. Again.”

His eyes narrowed, displeased with how she was beginning their talk,” That was going to be my question to you. I thought we had a deal.”

“What are you talking about? We did—we do—I did not attack you.” she defended. Nanami knew they were both wrong for getting so worked up, but she wouldn’t stoop that low over an argument. “I was wrong, we both were for getting so heated, but I wouldn’t just start throwing hands like that. So again, why did you attack me? I thought… I thought we got passed all that.”

His brow furrowed at the implication, his jaw clenching uncomfortably at the hurt in her voice, “We are. We’re far passed all of that.” He intoned with a level of sincerity that seemed foreign to him. Having spent the past three days chastising himself for putting her in this position, wishing the exchange could be taken back, it was difficult to sound detached. He’d been angry, but harming her had been something he’d put out of his mind some time ago, “I didn’t attack you either…”

They both shared a moment of sincere confusion. Overhaul hadn’t come out unscathed either, having to heal his own head injury as well as a cracked vertebra from the impact once he came to. “Then what the hell happened?” Nanami asked, speaking the question they were both wrestling with. She looked around the room for her bag at the same time Overhaul reached for his laptop.

“We should run tests.” They said in unison. He handed her her notebook from the bag and a pen as they began noting exactly what happened leading up to the explosion. As she recalled the events, there were a number of theories that came to mind, as well as ideas on how to safely perform reenactments of what transpired, but she also remembered the argument beforehand. He was somehow even more quiet than usual, and she could tell his gears were turning that morning, but the hostility seemed so out of the blue. Putting down her pen, he glanced up at her, noticing the sound of her writing had stopped and she was staring down thoughtfully.

“Did you think of something?”

“…Yeah. I did. Why’d you pick a fight with me that day?”

He looked back down at his keyboard and continued typing, “I don’t know what you mean. That little tiff was a joint effort.”

“No, no, no. It may have ended up that way, but you blew up at me after an entire week of solid teamwork. I expect the snide comments and the general air of grumpiness, but that was different… What happened?” He made the mistake of making eye contact with her. She didn’t look angry, just hurt.

Taken aback, all he could manage was “… I don’t know.” He wasn’t sure how to respond to that “emotion” nor did he have any plans to discuss feelings. If he was being honest, he wasn’t even sure why he did it himself. Perhaps it was self-sabotage and he was pushing her away, but to accept that would mean acknowledging they had gotten close; that he had, at some point, made the subconscious decision to stop viewing her as a pawn or even just a colleague, and to indulge the need for far more than their formal arrangement. He wasn’t ready to come to terms with the possible loss of his objectivity when it came to whatever went on between them, but he knew he’d have to confront the undercurrents of their relationship at some point. Right now, they had discovered a possible breakthrough in their research and there was no room for delay. With a ghost of a plan in mind for how to move forward with Nanami, he decided it would be more logical to smooth things over in the immediate moment with Dr. Watanabe; separating the two identities giving him the illusion of control. He continued” But I do know it won’t happen again. That was…unprofessional. How is your head?”

She bit her lip and exhaled, seeing the switch flick in his eyes knowing the wall had been put back up. “It’s... it’s fine. Just a little—no, really sore.” She confirmed with herself, rubbing her hand over the source of the pain to find stiches. Why wouldn’t he just overhaul this? “So, you decided to fix this the old-fashioned way, huh? The stitchwork is impeccable, but why go through the trouble? You could have just—”

“I didn’t want to touch you.”

“… Ouch.” She winced, glancing away as the abrupt response hurt a bit more than she expected.

Realizing it hadn’t been received how he planned, he clarified,” I meant I…didn’t want to use it on you. I was under the impression we had somehow attacked each other and assumed you might not find the prospect of me handling you in that way all that appealing.”

“…Oh. Well, thank you... I don’t mind if you touch me now” he rose a brow at this, “—I mean like to heal or—Oh you know what I mean.” She rolled her eyes before crossing her arms and continuing, “Just… just do it, please.” The last word tacked on with a mumble.

Letting out an amused breath, he rose, motioning her to turn so her back faced him as he removed his gloves. She quickly brushed her hair to the side, missing a few strands. She tensed as he was much closer than she was prepared for, feeling the warmth of his hands against the nape of her neck as he gently gathered the stray hairs and handed them to her to gather in front. Smoothing down the part, he leisurely ran his hands through her hair, losing himself for a second before noticing the tops of her ears had reddened and her breath had quickened at his ministrations. Refocusing, he disassembled the stitches before immediately healing the wound knowing even a millisecond of delay would prove very painful. “Done.”

Cracking her neck and rolling her shoulders, she felt normal again and ready to get out of bed as her muscles had been unused for the better part of three days. Checking the time on her phone on the nightstand she saw it was only 6 am, “So, you wanna go for a run?”

“That’s not funny.”

“Fine, fine. But on a serious note, I think we should head to the lab. I know the deal was 2 weeks bu—”

“You don’t have to bargain. Get cleaned up, I’ll start preparations for testing tomorrow.”

She turned to him, brows raised in surprise, “Well okay then. I’ll see you back at the house.”

“See you there.” He said before exiting her room, shutting the door softly.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

After a thorough scrubbing and stretching, she felt ready to get back to her remaining paperwork, putting on her favorite chunky turtleneck and sweatpants effectively pulling off the lazy-but-still-fashionable look. Brewing herself a cup of tea and pulling out her workbag, she thought it best to not dwell on all the Feels ™ that had continuously threatened to surface, which was undoubtedly exacerbated by their current living situation.

She was woman enough to admit she stared just a little too long, smiled just a bit too enthusiastically, and was way too excited by even the smallest bits of physical contact with him… But it’s just a crush. She lied to herself as though he hadn’t been the most intellectually stimulating person she’d had the pleasure of talking to. As though she’d ever felt silence more comfortable than their time in the lab or simply sharing meals together. As though— Girl if you don’t concentrate... She chastised herself before attempting to neatly compartmentalize her feelings, refusing to acknowledge just how much more difficult keeping them in check had become. It’s just because you’re all up under each other, it’ll pass.

Refocusing on the task at hand, she opened her laptop and pulled out a well-worn file folder, her gaze turning somber as her fingers traced the bend of it; evidence of the many nights she’d revisited it only to close it when the answers didn’t come. In the past month she’d taken on a patient who seemingly had nowhere to go. Many of her colleagues had turned him away, seemingly too jaded to go through the trouble of dealing with such a case. Nanami herself was puzzled when she reviewed his file, but she knew there was no other option; she had to at least try.

Kenta was a very jovial, large person with a personality to match. Built much like a strongman with tusks not unlike a walrus, he was hard to miss. Before he became her patient, she’d see him making small talk with the other patients, encouraging them though he himself was on the way to chemotherapy, his weight dwindling by the day. The previous doctors told him that he had osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. It was seemingly exacerbated by his quirk that gave him dense bones; they were perfect for diving, but apparently came at this very high price. The treatment had shown mild success, but her predecessors had decided his condition was becoming too advanced and an amputation was in order. After that visit, he attempted to keep his jovial nature, but his physical appearance continued to deteriorate, the medication and tests taking their toll. Full-hardy laughs were interrupted by coughing fits, round cheeks flexed into a habitual smile were replaced with gaunt hollows. Nanami couldn’t help but feel was cruel to be given such great power and still be unable to solve this problem.

She agonized, sincerely perplexed as to why someone as healthy and active as Kenta could have developed such an aggressive and rare form of cancer so quickly. It didn’t helped that after the first doctor’s diagnosis, the subsequent three doctors took little to no efforts to confirm said diagnosis, so she remained thoroughly unconvinced. She was a prodigy in her own right, but that alone couldn’t negate seniority. To go against the other doctors, she would need substantial proof of her theory—and also a theory to begin with.

Nanami was stirred from her thoughts by the sound of the silo being activated, as Overhaul stepped out. It had been hours since she had last gotten up as day turned into late night, too engrossed in her task. She glanced up for a moment, giving an absent-minded “hey” before returning to her work. It was unlike her to brush him off so quickly, and he assumed there were still hard feelings from earlier. Approaching her, he was about to speak before he caught a glimpse of her screen and notes, the file folder and its contents now haphazardly splayed on the coffee table, a few with drops of moisture on them.

“Didn’t I tell you no drinking in the living roo—” he stopped short, hearing a small sniffle escape her, before she attempted to cover it up by clearing her throat.

“Sorry, yeah, no drinking in the living room.” She laughed emptily, gathering the papers that were stained.

Seeing people cry was usually... uninspiring to him, to say the least; he couldn’t understand it, the need for such dramatic displays as an adult. But he found himself making exceptions more and more; she wasn’t one to throw herself on the floor in a tantrum—at least not seriously. Her tears were stifled, indignant, and his curiosity—yes, we’ll call it “curiosity”— got the better of him.

“What are you doing? Crying?”

“No!... Maybe.” She stubbornly corrected, further averting her gaze, hoping to use her hair as a curtain to obscure her face. Pausing for a beat, his attention turned to what he presumed was the source. He read over it as she attempted to fix her face. His brow furrowed, and Nanami turned back to see what he was doing. “Why do you care?”

“Osteosarcoma seems like an odd diagnosis for someone with his age and history.” He noted, choosing not to answer her question.

“That’s what I said!” she instinctually replied before remembering herself, “I mean quit snooping, this is patient-doctor information. It’s illegal to share.”

“Yet you brought it outside your office, to a yakuza base.” He deadpanned, pointing out the hypocrisy, taking a seat next to her on the couch. She pursed her lips, continuing to mull over theories, assuming he’d get bored and leave her be. “If not osteosarcoma, what do you think it could be?”

Knowing discretion was one of his strong suits, she decided to humor him. “I’m not sure. The tumor grew extremely fast and they began chemo almost immediately, so I didn’t get the benefit of a fresh diagnosis. He’d been perfectly healthy otherwise and his line of work kept him pretty active.”

“What’s his occupation?”

“He’s a commercial diver, it’s pretty fitting since his quirk gives him a lot of walrus-like qualities.”

“Sounds hazardous.”

“You’re one to talk. He’s practically made for it so drowning or being crushed under the pressure is near-impossible for him.”

“I was referring to all of the equipment. The fact that he’s kept all of his limbs up to this point is impressive.”

Slowly turning to him, a tired look on her face, she replied “… Your compliments are so very strange.”

Shrugging he continued, “It’s not that odd. The number of divers and sailors I’ve seen at port with mutilated legs is not small.”

Nanami was mid eye-roll when an epiphany struck her. Her eyes went wide, and she began frantically rummaging through the paperwork. "Shit-- wait, online!" grabbing her laptop, she began typing in a frenzy as Overhaul watched calmly. Finding Kenta's online records in the hospital database, she read a file from a month before his diagnosis stating he had been in a diving accident that severely fractured his leg where his tumor now was. She let out a shaky breath of excitement, "MO. It's fucking Myositis Ossificans! This explains why the 'tumor' grew so quickly. It's because it wasn't even really a tumor, just his body's response to a traumatic injury-- This is amazing!"

He felt the corner of his mouth tug upward, as she practically wiggled in genuine excitement. “That diagnosis sounds much more appropriate.”

Facing him on the couch, she reflexively grabbed him by his shoulders, lost in excitement, before realizing what she was doing. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to just grab you like that,” she hurriedly removed her hands before he waved it off. “It’s just... I’ve been poring over this since I got this case but hadn’t thought to make that connection since he never mentioned the injury.” Thinking back for a moment, it dawned on her, “... how did you know to ask?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb, it doesn’t suit you.”

Smiling, he rose, walking to the kitchen, “Would you like a cup?”

Very aware he was evading her question, she rolled her eyes smiling in kind “Sure. Of what?” She wrote down her final notes before putting away the files, tucking them and her laptop away as she waited for an answer.

Bringing over two cups of sake and the bottle, he sat next her with his own before sliding over her cup. She gave him a look and he sighed, “Consider it your reward for your work today. But don’t get used to it, my living room consumption rule still stands.”

She raised her hands in surrender, chuckling before taking a sip. “Oh! Let’s play a game.”

His brows furrowed as he continued to face forward still enjoying his drink,” Do I seem like a man who plays games?”

“Well, judging by the shogi board, I’d say yes.”

“… Just set the board.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a bit before starting the odd conversation, chatting and playing until they were on their fourth cup. Nanami was admittedly tipsy by this point and decided to ask something that had been on her mind for a while now with the aid of her liquid courage. If ever there was an opportunity, it was now, “Hey, why didn’t you ever become a doctor?” The question caught him off guard as he stopped drinking and peered off into the distance thoughtfully. His lips parting for a moment to speak before closing again to consider his answer.

“It would be difficult to treat people you can’t touch.”

“Hm… sounds like a copout. I wear gloves on the job at least 80% of the time and a lot of the non-surgical work that requires touching could easily be done by a nurse. So, what’s the real reason?”

“Well, you’re awfully bold tonight.”

“Eh, it’s your fault anyway,” she reminded him, toying with the sake glass. “So, are you gonna tell me or not?”

He considered her for a second before answering, “Win this game and I’ll tell you.”

“Easy.” She shot back before considering another outcome, “and what if I lose?”

He smiled easily, her stomach flipping as a glint of mischief was evident in his eyes, “Just try your best to win.”

Nanami was determined, or at least she convinced herself she was, not wanting to confront her curiosity at what he would do if she lost … or what he would do to me… Ok, let me put down this sake before I get a life sentence to horny jail. Recomposing herself a bit, she observed the board, stifling a smirk when she saw her path to victory. It was a moderately long game, but the outcome was in her favor as she took his king. Raising the piece betwixt her fingers, she smirked, “Now spill the beans.”

He stared into the proverbial abyss, slightly peeved at the loss, priding himself as a more-than proficient player before tonight. “Give me a moment.” He said casually raising a finger as he cleared his throat. Taking a measured sip from his cup before locking eyes with her, “I have a duty.” Nanami shot him an unsatisfactory look before he clarified, continuing, “Pops took me in when I had nothing to offer. This,” he began as he leered at his hands, recalling the destruction they regularly wrought, “is what I was meant to become in order to repay him. Bringing the yakuza back to their former glory and carrying on his legacy are my primary objectives. My time is limited since he’s not as young as he used to be. The years of schooling it would take to reap the benefits he deserves would prove much too long. Indulging in a dream like that is not in my nature, even if I did have the time. That is why.”

Her smile dulled as she processed his response. She wasn’t self-righteous enough to impose her own ideals on him, but it seemed like such a waste. His leading questions tonight were just one of many examples of his expertise. Even without the formal schooling he had a level of mastery that could easily earn him a degree, and coupled with his research skills, he could do a world of good. But instead here he was, content with just the opportunity to pay his debts. For someone so arrogant, he thought surprisingly little of his own nature. Maybe someday someone could convince him he didn’t have to carry around this weight all the time. Still very tipsy, she responded,” Well, if it’s a dream of yours to begin with, your nature can’t be all that bad now can it?” At this he knitted his brows, trying to accept the possibility. Seeing his hesitation, she continued, “You can do both, you know. Give yourself some more credit, bird brain.” She slurred the last insult, finishing her sake off with a gulp, not wanting to sound too soft. Feeling the consequences of her actions, she swayed sleepily in her seat before closing her eyes.

The next thing she knew, she felt herself being nudged awake, “Come on, get up. You need to get into bed.”

“But it’s sooo comfy here. Why are you being such a buzzkill, Kai?” she whined as he grasped her forearms, encouraging her to rise from her seat.

Stopping in his tracks, he asked a bit taken aback, “Where did you hear that name?”

“Your Poppy Pops told me” She almost sang, a grin plastered on her face.

“…Do not ever use the phrase ‘Poppy Pops’ again. Also, if couches were meant for sleeping, beds wouldn’t exist.” He responded irritated, though he handled her like porcelain, still remembering how unpleasant the last three days had been. Guiding Nanami to her room, he finally got her to lay down after tuning out a slew of other ridiculous nickname proposals, the drowsiness setting in as soon as her head hit the pillow. Knowing it would be too much work convincing a now drunk Nanami to get under the covers, he begrudgingly put a spare blanket over her. Before leaving, he looked back at her sleepy form. As much as they could grate each other’s nerves, no one had ever thought to encourage him or challenge his own thinking besides his father. He had never been a warm or sentimental person, having to try thrice as hard to grasp emotions that came so naturally to others, but she had planted a seed of doubt. Having always been so confident in his own lacking, he found a part of himself excited to be proven wrong for the first time. Before closing the door softly, he spoke “Thank you, Nanami.”

#overhaul #kai chisaki #chisaki kai #bnha #mha overhaul #overhaul fanfiction #mha fanfic #overhaul x oc #bnha fanfic #mha oc #overhaul x nanami #nanami watanabe #same difference #mc fanart #multichapter #fanfiction #fanfic #overhaul fanfic

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girlbookwrm · 7 years ago

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i DO recommend these fics, but this ISN’T actually a rec list

a while ago i did a meta about Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier and Hydra and the headcanons I put in The Terror of Knowing, and I mentioned that I wanted to compile a long-ass list of fics that inspired The Hundred Year Playlist and ppl (hi @conlatio and @marveluc) asked about it SO HERE, AT LONG FUCKING LAST, IT IS.

Fanfiction, like every other art form that has ever existed in the history of ever, is all about synthesis: combining pre-existing elements to make something new. It’s the making something new thing that’s exciting. (If you’re not making something new with your found material, that’s called plaigiarism and it’s distinctly uncool.)

When I was in college and grad school, if we used material from other scholars to make a new idea, we made sure to include a bibliography.

Now this is fic, so like. Everyone knows that we’re using found material. We put the fandom in the tags and everything. But there’s a lot of unseen inspiration, because it’s harder to tag all the fics and metas you read that gave you ideas and inspiration along the way.

I’m... making an attempt.

These are some, SOME of the fics that inspired the headcanons and characterizations and whatnot that then got incorporated into THYP. I’ve been reading MCU fic since 2014 (possibly earlier) and I didn’t even start thinking about THYP until 2017, so there’s probably a lot of stuff that went into my subconscious that I’ve forgotten about. I’m @ing the authors and sources when I know them, but if any of yall want me to like, un-@you (is that a thing??) or if any of you know of authors who have tumblrs that I DIDN’T @ but should have, pls let me knoooowwww

A (Probably Incomplete, but at least Attempted) Fanfic Bibliography for The Hundred Year Playlist

by Seriously I Don’t Have More Important Things To Do? Astonishing.

PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS IN THE FICS THEMSELVES. THYP may be rated T for Teen (and even that I debate about tbh, given all the swears and violence) but most of these fics are very emphatically not. some of them will probably squick you out, some of them might be triggering, so take care of yourselves.

I’ve divided the list into sections by the story they inspired, but all of these stories inspired all the parts of THYP, this is a very very very rough categorization. Think of it as my fanfic n headcanon spice rack. some stories are going to have more or less of one spice or another.

Dreamers With Empty Hands

All the Angels and the Saints by @cesperanza

"You're a brutal person, you know that? You're always rummaging through my guts with your bare hands!" and then Bucky turned away, his long, muscled back curving as he sat on the edge of the bed, hunched and struggling for breath. Steve wanted to draw him, and he also wanted to blot the image from his memory: this picture of Bucky in despair.

Speranza’s Socialist Steve is deeply flawed in a way that people don’t usually write him and i love it so much??? He’s angry, and egotistical, and righteous in a way that’s hard on the people around him and I was like YESGOOD MORE PLS. It’s also a masterful example of how to write a story that’s ostensibly Steve-POV but still manages to make Bucky not only a main player, but a driving force. It’s about Steve, on the surface, sure. But it’s also about Bucky, because Steve is about Bucky and I just *clenches fist* love it.

cascades.

This fic. THIS FIC. Hngh. Okay so this fic is good on so many levels, but for THYP, the takeaway was me very gently lifting the Bucky-Steve-Barnes Family dynamic and then adding more swears to get to my take on the Bucky-Steve-Barnes Family Dynamic. Namely:

“Steve was a bit of a Barnes, too, wasn’t he,” she says.

“He was ours,” says Rebecca, shrugging. “We were his.”

i crie???

More Man Than You

“You’re very pretty,” she said, and Steve tensed up.

“I’m not a fairy.”

“No, you’re not, are you?”

this fic has a study guide. and that’s literally all I feel I need to say about it. It’s an exploration of queer culture and masculinity in the 30s and 40s, thinly veiled as stucky fanfiction. (It’s also pretty brutal so I’ll reiterate that you need to heed the goddamn warnings)

Also, lest yall think I came up with Billy Thompson in a vacuum, I didn’t. In this fic, there’s a violent mob runner called Duke, and Steve comes up with a plan to take him down, and Bucky makes sure that there’s a Different plan that Steve doesn’t know about. It’s all executed a little differently in this fic, but the idea lodged in my brain and got reused in THYP, and kind of became a central theme.

Good Morning Heartache, What’s New?

The Night War by @praximeter

IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THIS WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE. This is... honestly, just one of the finest pieces of fiction i just

HNNNNGH

I don’t know that I can point to any specific part of this fic and say “this gave me that idea” it was more the... the feel of it. The way the Normandy invasion is written and the way the trauma is handled and the way Steve is just slightly to the left of being a real soldier and especially this:

He asked me with a smile on his face what goes through my mind when I line up my shot—God and country? Pearl Harbor? Uncle Sam? —and I stared at him struck dumb from the question so long that I think he thought I was just plain stupid. The fact is that it is none of those things—not even close. It is sick, numb fear and careful, barely breathing so that I don’t miss. I must never miss. And then when I shoot, an awful thought curls up from my trigger finger to my heart “how many mothers must be praying I will miss?”

The Thirteen Letters

oh you didn’t really think that Not Easily Conquered wasn’t going to be on this list, didja? OF COURSE IT’S ON THE LIST. But possibly not for the reason you might think. That fic is legen-fucking-dary of course, and the scene where Steve gets stabbed was obviously very inspirational for that bit in GMHWN where Steve gets shot in the thigh, but the scene that really got teeth into my brain and Would Not Let Go was the one where the Howlies meet the Winged Victory of Samothrace and

Bucky knows the truth now. It is a deep and insurmountable truth. She has no face. Like the operative whose head he beat in, like the boy who he killed one month into active duty, even like Bucky himself, Nike is faceless. Bucky feels unprepared, or like he should have brought an offering.

Beside him Steve quakes before the oldest and the only god.

look my fixation with statues didn’t come from nowhere is what i’m saying ok

Sincerely, Your Pal

This fic haunts me because i hate the ending. not because it’s not good (It IS good) or because it’s not the right ending for the story (it IS the right ending for the story) but just because i h a t e i t. I just like happy endings is all, and resolutions, and this fic is why THYP will have a happy ending.

But also, I really liked the way this fic dealt with Bucky in Basic and lines like this really caught in my brain:

And of course I want to kill some Nazis I guess but not because they’re people. Not because I actually want people to die because I don’t.

And that sentiment definitely fed into how I write Bucky especially.

The Terror of Knowing

there must have been a moment by @redstarwhitestar (magdaliny’s marvel sideblog)

Listen, I’ve been trying to make sure that there’s a good spread of writers on this list but magdaliny is the exception. Magdaliny is the exception for a lot of things and there must have been a moment when we could have said no is always the first fic I think of when I think of a fic about Bucky’s time as the Soldier. Which is ironic, because it’s very much about his time after that, but that first chapter made uhhhhhhhhhhh an impression.

The fractured nature of the narrative, the way that the reader can piece together a coherent timeline but the main character can’t... that was very influential on TTOK. example:

“Kill him,” the officer says.

The subject says: “Why?”

☙

“Kill him,” the officer says.

The subject makes a mess.

☙

“Kill him cleanly,” the officer says. “Good! Good lad.”

I’ll build a house inside of you

Another magdaliny G I F T, an AU where Nat is much younger and Bucky is her dad, and if you think that didn’t affect the way I write Bucky and Nat’s relationship in THYP, then you are dreaming.

Past the praises of the handlers, above the hot wet smell of cordite and blood, Natalia can hear crashing and shouting down the hall.

“—goddamn animals, they're little girls, they're just kids, you fucking—”

Her father screams in English, in Mandarin, in Russian, and then he just screams.

I know that’s a super sad excerpt but listen and hear me when I say this fic is actually really good and wholesome and it’s got A+++ OCs and All The Widows and it’s just really good ok

Memory

Bucky is hard AF to write and very few people write him half so well as magdaliny but one of those people is emilyenrose and this fic is M A S T E R F U L. Bittersweet and achingly perfect. It contains this beautiful moment that really stuck with me, where Steve is comparing the post WS “James” to the Pre War “Bucky” and realizes...

He truly hadn't known James all that well. James hadn't let him. Hadn't wanted him to. Hadn't wanted anyone near him, ever—

—the way Bucky went, when he was miserable, when he was angry...

and that, to me, was kind of key when I went on to write the Soldier, because the Soldier IS Bucky, even when he isn’t.

Fool For Sacrifice

Dona Nobis Pacem

THIS GODDAMN FIC came to me outta FUCKING NOWHERE, I’d already written the first draft for FFS, I’d already started posting it, for crying out loud. And then all of a sudden I stumble upon THIS and i just

It’s already fading, just hours after the skirmish. And the wounds Sam stitched will heal without a mark. And the welts on Steve’s chest will disappear. Like all of it never happened.

Fuck the serum. He keeps thinking it, saying it. Maybe if there were some goddamn scars, it’d be easier to process the damage.

This fic is heavy af, it’s like the 65k word version of That Chapter in FFS Where Steve Hits Rock Bottom. This was the fic I read when I was ramping myself up to tackle That Moment

three white horses

This is the other fic I read to ramp up for That Scene, and I think that probably shows in the way I wrote it. It is also is a Strong Contender for the title of Heavyweight Fic That Convinced Me Buck Is Jewish. Honestly I cannot praise this fic enough.

I think the thing that stuck hardest about the Steve in three white horses is the way he feels ghostly himself, like he’s only drifting through the present, and somehow most of his living happens in the past. It’s very beautifully done, and very subtly done, and it’s my go to fic if I am in Dire Need of a Good Clean Crie.

It’s getting an extra long excerpt because This Is My List And Neither God Nor Man Can Stop Me.

Steve's fingers touch metal when he reaches into the second-to-last box, and he feels the blood drain out of his face even before he's looked down. He knows the feel of it too well. He'd know it blind, a hundred years from now. It's Bucky's not-a-medal.

It'd been Bucky's grandfather's, or maybe his great-grandfather's, made of the kind of sterling silver that tarnishes if you look at it funny, so Bucky had always been polishing it; he'd traded cigarettes to the mess staff for baking soda and vinegar, during the war, but the thing was still soot-black half the time, like it is now. It'd been a fool's errand, wearing a thing like that in Axis territory, but Bucky'd worn it on his chain like the rest of the guys wore their Christophers and Michaels, and HYDRA'd ignored it. It was a subtle thing, though: nothing like wearing a Magen David, or the implacable H on Bucky's tags, just a thin slice of metal with a stylized branch and an oblique squiggle Steve only knows is the Hebrew word for life because Bucky told him so.

Bucky'd had a curious mix of reverence and irreverence about it, the same mixture that seemed to colour the whole of his religious life. He'd teased Steve sometimes, saying, “No, wait, you gotta kiss it before you enter the building, you schmuck, what are you, some kinda heathen?” with his legs around Steve's waist. Bucky hadn't complained when Steve had carried on with an inch of silver between his teeth, but Steve had offhandedly called it Bucky's good luck charm once, and Bucky'd blown up; it's not a superstition, he said, it's not a fucking amulet. He'd apologized later, and he'd explained, and said it was a touchy subject, just ingrained. Jews weren't supposed to believe in luck. Bucky'd thought maybe it was the opposite: maybe luck didn't believe in Jews.

Sparked Up Like a Book of Matches

AH YES, THE FIC THAT TAUGHT ME ABOUT LIL AUDREY JOKES. SIPPY CUPS OF SUPERBOOZE! A ROBOT CALLED SHITCAN!! WHAT MORE COULD YOU NEED IN A FIC??? I really like the way it addresses Steve being in the future is all

This one could probably also fall into the list of fics that inspired DWEH, in part because of This, which stuck with me Hard and heavily influenced the opening:

“...You ever have scarlet fever?"

Sam shakes his head.

"It starts in your throat, like an itch, and as your fever starts to climb, your tongue swells up and turns white and that's when they know, really, even before the rash, that it's scarlet fever. You can't swallow, it hurts so much. You're freezing and your joints ache and your fever keeps spiking and you start to hallucinate. I, uh, I thought things were crawling on me and there were voices that I didn't recognize whispering things that didn't make any sense. My mom had to fight me just to get me to drink broth, but I threw it up most of the time, anyway. Then I got pneumonia from being so worn down from the scarlet fever and I was so lucky, Sam. Nobody seems to understand how I lucky I was to make it through. Talking to people today, to make them understand I'd have to tell them I survived bird flu only to fall sick with Ebola."

listen. For reasons I can’t fully explain, I really wanted to read that happening so i wrote it, and this is what being a writer is All About.

Actually, on a second thought, I might be able to explain it: it’s because an experience like that is Capital F Formative, and I really wanted to explore how there’s a tiny sick kid rattling around inside Captain Beefcake’s souped up bod.

(And an additional shoutout to Steve Rogers’ American Captain, a webcomic that now exists only in the Wayback Machine, but which was L O V E L Y and I sincerely hope that the artist knows that)

No Hope for the Weary

Strays

This fic? is so fluffy?? Like literally so fluffy. But this fic (and, obviously, Infinite Coffee) were very much behind the inclusion of the God Damn Starbucks, and also the source of a lot of my headcanons about Barnes & Rogers: Secret Millennials. For Example: Bucky’s Notes on How To Be A Millennial:

- Lots of coffee. Travel mugs or paper cups from Starbucks place. Often looks guilty for drinking, obv derive pleasure from doing so. Unknown as to why. Investigate further? Why is there one every two blocks if no one wants it there?

Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail

This is another fandom classic that needs very little introduction. A+ characterization, A+ OCs, Utterly Charming from start to finish, and the originator of a very distinct way of talking that got very strongly coded in my brain as Winter Soldier Bucky.

He passes within 4 m of Barnes on his way back to his building. The mission imperative achieves a Doppler effect.

contactContactCONTACTContactcontact

Aw.

If They Haven’t Learned Your Name by @silentwalrus1

If I had to point to one (1) fic and say “Blame This Fic for THYP” it would be this one: the Fic that my roommate and The Gal Pal know as “The One With the USS Motherfucker.” This might seem like an odd statement, because if you’ve read them both, I don’t think you’d necessarily put them in the same class. silentwalrus is a genius of hilarity and THYP is a big pile of The Sads. ITHLYN is delightfully unassuming and I’m sometimes embarrassed by how pretentious THYP ended up being.

I would technically put this under the list of fics that heavily influenced NHFTW on account of the way it portrays Bucky going by gradual degrees from murderbot to mostly human person, but listen I could never write Cryptid!Bucky the way Silentwalrus has. It’s magnificent. And TBH the level of Intensity in ITHLYN’s Steve has is something I aspire to, and the Sam Characterization is On Point, and both those things influenced FFS, 112%. Nat’s Chaotic Slav Energy in this fic is OFF THE GODDAMN CHARTS and I LOVE IT. Every single side character, down to the spaceship is given the kind of care, attention, and characterization that just... it cannot be beat, my dudes.

16/10 highest recommendation. I could not possibly pick a single paragraph from this behemoth but uhhhhh

Two minutes in there’s a grunt and a slippery, gritty noise somewhere to her left, and then the Soldier barrels past at breakneck speed, vanishing down another tunnel. A second later Steve careens around the corner, bounces off the opposite wall and crashes away after him, so fast he’s nearly a blur. Natasha’s brain, entirely of its own accord, provides her with the utterly unhelpful accompaniment of a Yakety Sax soundtrack.

that’s it. that’s the fic.

Also, this fic is Stoutly To Blame for the playlist aspect of the hundred year playlist? Silentwalrus really got me good with Grounds for Divorce by Elbow, one of my all time favorite songs, which was then paired with one of my all time favorite chapters. By the time Caravan Palace’s Lone Digger made an appearance, I was sunk. This fic introduced me to Lyube, and gave me a new appreciation(?) for dubstep. So many of the songs ITHLYN used ended up in my Very Long Stucky Playlist, though I think the only one that then went on to become part of the Hundred Year Playlist: Upside Down and Inside Out by OK GO.

And Finally, the Coup De What The Fuck Ever:

Ain’t No Grave by @spitandvinegar

yet another fandom classic... I wasn’t sure where to put this fic, but I couldn’t NOT include it in the list. Spitandvinegar’s Steve is charming and so? Sweet? and the ANG Bucky is a delightful foulmouthed mess of a person, and the Sam/Claire pairing is something I DIDN’T KNOW I NEEDED, BUT I VERY MUCH NEEDED IT and I don’t know that I can point to a single thing and be like: Ah Yes, This Bit, but this is definitely one of my faves:

Imagine you live in this country, right? And there's a brutal war, and you witness and maybe participate in a horrific amount of violence, and you lose absolutely everyone you care about. Then you end up in this other country, where the culture and ways of doing things are completely foreign to you, and random assholes make fun of you for how you dress and act and talk while you're still coming to grips with the fact that everyone you love is gone and you can never go home again. Meanwhile, everyone around you is like "smile, motherfucker, you're in the Land of Plenty now, where there's a Starbucks on every corner and 500 channels on TV. You should be grateful! Why aren't you acting more grateful?" So you have to pretend to be grateful while you're dying inside. Sound like an traumatized, orphaned refugee? Also sounds like Steve fucking Rogers, Captain Goddamn America. Except that most refugees were part of a community of other people who were going through the same thing. Steve is all alone, the last damn unicorn, if the last unicorn had horrible screaming nightmares about the time when it helped to liberate Buchenwald.

Usually this explanation yields a "huh." People don't want Sad Refugee Steve: they want Captain America, Indestructible Defender of Freedom. But that doesn't mean that Sam isn't right, because he is right, goddamnit. So yeah, Sam's a little protective of Steve. And if the last unicorn finds out that its best damn unicorn friend in the whole world is actually alive, then damn straight, Sam's heading out with a tranq gun and bringing that damn unicorn in and starting a goddamn unicorn wildlife refuge in his backyard. Or something like that: at a certain point the metaphor kind of gets away from him.

Til The End of the Timeline

I’ve recced this so many times you’ve probably all gotten sick of hearing about it, but it’s an invaluable goddamn resource and you should all check it out.

A Shit Ton of Metas and Blogs, some of which are tagged with THYP Research but especially @steve-rogers-new-york and @hansbekhart‘s How To Brooklyn and @historicallyaccuratesteve

and last but certainly not least

LITERALLY EVERYTHING @quietnighty READS HOLY SHIT

If you’re looking for a common thread through all the above recs, it’s that almost all of them have podfics, and the vast majority of those podfics are by Quietnight. I am, and always have been, an audio learner. I read my writing aloud when I’m editing, I listen to audiobooks when I’m commuting, and when I’m cleaning, and when I’m playing computer games, because I like stories, and I especially like listening to stories. Quietnight’s podfics are Of The Highest Quality, and her taste in fic is Impeccable.

hooooly shit this post is long wow okay. I can’t promise I won’t add more to this later, but I’m leaving it for now because goddamn. it’s as complete as I can make it at this time. I’ve added a “THYP Fanfic Bibliography” tag in my bookmarks, and incidentally I really need to make sure I’ve gone through and kudosed all of these because goddamn.

#i don't know how to tag this #thyp research #?#fic rec #??#stucky fic rec #???

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kendrixtermina · 6 years ago

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Diamond Fusions Headcannons

First there’s the question of whether they ever fused at all in the past, since they only do it for fighting on homeworld, and the Diamonds would probably have been considered too powerful to “need” it

If that is the case, and the others eventually become cool with it in the present day (which might take until Steven reaches adulthood), they will probably really come to regret that they never fused with Pink while she was still alive and that they basically have only their own attitudes to blame for it.

Then again though the chances are low it’s not wholly impossible since they’re all the same gem type. Perhaps in the context of combat training (in which case there might be a situation where Steven asks them what their fusions are like, personality wise, which they probably never considered)

Which is in itself an interesting question - were they ever taught to fight?

One the one hand they would probably have been considered way too important to get on the front lines and have legions of soldiers to do the fighting for them - on the other hand they’re expected to have and project power

They DO seem to make the choice to toast the rebels themselves when they land on Earth without much of an entourage since they’re only expecting a small remnant force and have a personal vengeance thing going on. Same thing when all three of them blasted the earth.

When Blue and Yellow got into a fight with the CGs, you get a sense that while they’re equal in durability and raw power, Yellow has a lot more actual combat experience. They don’t land any actual damage on Blue apart from messing up her hairdo, but they did briefly have her somewhat cornered, you get the sense that she’s mostly used to just disciplining her underlings and that her lasers and pathokinetic aura usually do the trick there; Meanwhile Yellow punches her way out of the ship with her bare hands and proceeds to knock off half the opposition within the first minute. It’s amazing that our heroes were able to hold out as long as they did, but there’s a strong implication that they would have been toast if it weren’t for Steven’s intervention.

And of course it makes sense given that Yellow seems to be in charge of the conquering and has been for tens of thousands of years, you bet there were a few times were she would have been forced to defend herself, or at least want to be ready for it in case.

As for White, I wouldn’t peg her too far above Blue’s level in terms of skill, she has the (thought/motion controlled) mecha pull off a couple fancy kicks so she’s probably not doing it the first time, but they get her with relative ease once they form obsidian. Granted, she was probably fairly confident that they weren’t an actual threat since she could always just mind control them.

Did they have some attendants doing that, or did White teach them herself? I suppose by the time Pink came around, she would’ve left it to Yellow and Blue to prepare her. And, if fight training was a thing, that would come with the painfully ironic implication that Pink used everything they taught her against them once she rebelled.

So, back to fusions.

General Thoughts

I think that Blue and Yellow could already do it if they wished to, not so sure with the rest - but in any case I don’t expect any of them to hold much better than early-series Opal (perhaps slightly better than that for Yellow and Blue) because for all that they do care about each other they’re a dysfunctional bunch and have very different approaches to things.

Any fusions involving Steven would hold slightly better because he’s just good at it. One wonders who’d fuse with him first, Blue or Yellow. He generally tends to get along best with Blue (She’s usually the one carrying him around, the first he wins over and the first with whom he tries to talk about his own life in ways unrelated to accomplishing his mission) but she’s a lot more squeamish and proper and seemed akinda repulsed by the whole fusion thing, like there’s a long way between decriminalizing it and being willing to do try it. - Out of the three Yellow seems to be the most no-nonsense, experimental one,judging by the peace sign and so on.

A lot of ppl draw the fusions with extra eyes etc which would follow the general logic of having ppl with diferences in their pvs have four eyes etc. but then again they’re the same gem type so they might just come out larger but humanoid. Do the various Diamonds ‘count’ as different enough? I guess we won’t know unless we see it. though I think even the crew decides this more based on what looks the coolest.

If their markings around the eyes don’t combine somehow in a cool fashion, what is even the point.

Also, remember in the early seasons where Pearl and Amethyst would tend to clash with Sugilite and Sardonyx respectively, and be lowkey intimidated by them and both kinda provided an insight in how Pearl and Amethyst would act if they were more confident and/or in charge?

Pretty sure that at least early on or pre-Steven, the same would be going on whenever White fused with one of the younger Diamonds. (if not more so - while Garnet just happened to be the most powerful one, was upset when that got in the way of her friendships and is self-aware about her limitations, White is legit terrifying. Even when Steven wins her over she just goes straight to “creepy cute”, she doesn’t know how not to be. ) So basically Blue and Pink would be fundamentally creeped out by White’s and Yellow’s fusion, and likewise Yellow and Pink would like not to have to deal with White’s and Blue’s fusion.

White alone is at least “polite crazy” and prefers to leave the threats implied and “break them by talking” if she can, but a fusion with Blue or Yellow in the mix wouldn’t be nearly as distant so the crazy would be closer to the surface - besides you’d probably see more of Blue, Yellow and Pink’s negative traits manifested with less of the positive ones present because, after all, White is the one who brought them up to be villains rather than heroes.

This could probably be softened with some character development once White actually gets to a point where the other two can trust her again and not be on edge around her, and at that point she’d perhaps be adding something more like a playful whimsy and a bit more animated surface-level expressiveness than Blue and Yellow have on their own.

Individual Fusions

Yellow and Blue: I quite like that idea someone put forth that they might have an edgy mid 2000s goth thing going on - (in canonland a lot of the fusions have a ‘theme’) but if they go for ‘elegant’ instead it would probably be in more a modern-artsy than a fantasyesque way. One wonders how the round vs blocky shapes would be blended like it would have to be a midways point between them but also not look too much like White. (who might be a bit miffed if this fusion winds up taller than her)

With these two there’s some potential that they might complement each other in a positive way and sort of balance out some of their shortcomings like they would patient like Blue but responsible like Yellow, but still probably rather intense as both of them are in their own ways like the fusion would probably embody the sides of them that they show when they’re in private together without either of their facades, but also their dynamic of supporting each other through adversity, so they would probably be someone you can count on despite their sour demeanor.

White and Yellow: Cersei-Lannister esque metal dress. Hair is basically like White’s but shorter and spikier so it resembles are crown more than a star. All of Yellow’s pragmatic utilitarianism and harshness but not much of her consideration. As unreadable of White but with a hard frown instead of a smile. Big operatic voice.

White and Blue: Maximum Winter Witch aesthetic. Or possibly “The Fair Folk” instead. Probably rather introverted and somewhat apathetic but capricious if angered and relatively eerie/inhuman looking.

White and Pink: There’s just no way this wouldn’t end in a Sugilite or Malachite level debacle, there’s just way too many knots in that particular relationship. Might not even get her own voice. If this ever happened, they tried once or twice, it went south, and Pink got all the blame. Would hold together well enough but not in a good way. Looks and personality wise, the fusion would probably be like the ultimate bratty gremlin.

White and Steven: probably also gremlin-like but in a positive, playful fashion. I don’t think the outfit would be much less frilly, if anything you’d probably see a lot of Steven’s “fabulous” side surfacing here. Perhaps a doll-like theme?

Blue and Pink: Adorable as fuck and probably somewhat dreamy. Somewhere between princess classic and alice in wonderland. Probably holds harmonously enough while they’re doing Shenanigans, but prone to unfusing quite abruptly and inelegantly whenever Pink chooses to do something that would not jive with Blue “proper” sensibilities. (”Why don’t we sneak out of the arena like this-” “PIIINK”)

Blue and Steven: At this point so much character developement would need to have happened that it’s hard to guess where things might go. I mean could you picture Blue in pants? Would be nothing like the 1.0 version apart from the color sheme, probably on the sweet and reserved side and would reflect Steven’s influence a lot. Maybe they would have an “eerie psychic child” thing going on? Like if you put Blue and Steven together the result would probably have rather strong but somewhat volatile psychic abilities that would, to them, feel sigificantly different from their usual ones.

Yellow and Pink: Drawing a bit of a blank here since their aesthetics and approaches to things are so different. I guess you could say (and that correlates with other orange or red gems we have seen) that they would be somewhat fierce and impassioned, but I think they too might get some complementarity going on, if the result was more focussed than pink but not as uptight as yellow.

Yellow and Steven: Hm. Perhaps this would look like something out of a sci-fi comic/ video game, since Steven has a bit of a taste for that. He’s never really done serious except in momentary, over-the-top lapses so heaven knows what style of speaking that fusion would end up with. That said though it’s subtle Yellow is the one out of the bunch who does have a sorta funny, dorky side to her somewhere, and another commonality is that Yellow sure tends to look out for those around her (though not so much those outside her inner circle) - Like perhaps you’d get some of that, but their way of going about things would include some of Yellow’s more pragmatic approach.

#steven universe #diamond authority #yellow diamond #white diamond #blue diamond #pink Diamond

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impivus · 7 years ago

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very rushed very shit intro comin @ you all but here goes nothing ! i’m felix from the gmt tmz, i use he / him pronouns, and im gonna power nap any minute now because one thing you should know about me is that i’m eternally on the verge of passing out from minimum exertions during the day. this is my pain in the ass eunsu: not even going to sugar coat it - he’s the human personification of a headache dumpster fire all in one beefy package and i really don’t even blame your character if they just . ignore his presence because, me too !

under the cut there’s some information about him if you want to get to know more about him regardless. smash that mf heart if you want to plot.. and i will get to you ? sometime ? its an ambiguous promise but i keep them, discord is also an option so just ask if you’d prefer to plot on there. eun’s about is here but no plots as of yet because life is hard and We Cant all Have Everything

aka im lazy

* ☾ ✧ * º ━━ is that KIM JONGIN walking about ? nope ! that’s just EUN SU CHO. & i’ve been told that they work as a INFORMATION BROKER ! apparently, they are TWENTY FIVE ( 204 ) years old . some people say they are a CISMALE, DEMON ! HE is very CULTIVATED & INTUATIVE but also DECIETFUL & MENACING. i wonder if they are just as odd as the rest of us . ⇢ SYNOPSIS. MBTI TYPE / entp, the debater ZODIAC SIGN / scorpio ENNEAGRAM TYPE / 7w8 KINSEY SCALE / 3 MORAL ALIGNMENT / chaotic evil / neutral HOGWARTS HOUSE / slytherin ⇢ AESTHETICS.

goosebumps raised and feelings of growing dread, the dark corner of a room where light doesn’t reach, silver pocket - watches with dead batteries, the scratch of a record player needle, flares in the sky, bad ideas coming to life, half-assed clapping when it’s required, figures dancing within the shadows & a smile you shouldn’t trust .

⇢ OVERVIEW

literally anybody: when are you free? eun su: im forever imprisoned in my own personal hell so i am never truly "free" but i don't really have plans all next week except for monday

this is eun su, and will y’all believe me if i say he used to be a good egg before he turned into the rotten egg i’m presentin y’all with today ?? i kid u not.. bs free zone. he did once .. have a hort he was born to a cult of witches, his twin brother absorbing all the magic that was meant to be equally distributed between them in his mother’s womb, which pretty much left eunsu as the black sheep of the family. said cult had been living on a small, near enough desolated island for literal decades, entertaining themselves with magic, seeking out knowledge, observing the unassuming populace, and toying with other supernatural creatures who dared cross their paths. unfortunately for eunsu’s family, tragedy struck when one of his aunt’s tried to over throw the high priestess ( his mother ) in their coven. unyielding in her position and untouchable to the magic she was exposed to, her sister went about other ways to break the woman’s spirits, dabbling in black magic predominantly to achieve her goals. eunsu’s brother was, thus, cursed before he was even born with an incurable heart defect that would see him dead before he reached double figures. eunsu’s mother was broken not mourned over how much he missed out as on a child: but she mourned for the fact that he was the only child that harboured any magic in their veins, the only child that could’ve carried on their lineage. queue entrance of eunsu and his Whats the Worst that Could Happen Attitude. being young and naive, thought he could’ve been able to solve it by himself, solve the issues and earn his mother’s lacking affections. eun had heard about dark vessels that could miraculously grant wishes through summonings. though he didn’t have magic in his veins he had a fire in his heart, and after all, demons cared not for who or what they fed from: so long as they appeased their hunger. all it wanted in return was a good, pure soul, and that’s what the demon stole from him before it mended his twin brother’s heart, giving the boy a new lease of life that wasn’t intended for him from the start. pity that eunsu died before he got to the age of twenty, following a quick and hungry fever that overtook his frail body and too soon turned deadly. there was no surprise that, come judgement day, he was turned away at the gates of heaven, in exchange for becoming one of lucifer’s own.

as a result of being eternally cursed with immorality and a tainted soul, he's lived some hundred-odd years and is coping by making the current populace in jeonseoul suffer along with finding purpose in digging out the secrets of his past life, mayhaps trying to find the demon who cursed him.... which could definitely be a wc.. and strengthening his abilities as a demon.

his personality is a bit insufferable; eunsu keeps himself distant and cryptic, because he likes it that way. he's a real weirdo ( if u have ever watched hxh he’s hisoka.. THAT weird ) that's hard to forget: completely mischievous, dramatic, and malicious to boot. some days he's waxing poetic about the futility of having a sense of justice and the next he's using his demonic powers to make some innocent tourist think they're hallucinating as they attempt to walk into a steady flow of traffic.

ultimately life's a game to him and bih.. he’s here to have fun ! he's outlived his actual family and friends ( well, aside from his brother who he barely remembers, prolly be a wc if anyone’s interested ) and he's not looking to get attached to anyone. it would be great to Die because it’s his forever Mood but he also gets furious if anyone tries to actually expel him for real - so he'll simply prod at the world and its people until he gets the reactions he wants.

fair warning: it is a pain to genuinely care about eunsu and not many people will wanna do it. he comes and goes into people's lives as he pleases, stops reaching out once he's bored and only ever grazes the surface of a relationship based on its worth or his curiosities, innocent ppl, cute ppl, etc are just gonna be eaten up by him then dropped.

the people who will be closest to him are doubtlessly other demons ig ? but he also hates y’all too so.. don’t get too friendly like he’s not here to make friends he’s here to be Jeonseoul’s next top Demon. also since he died sumn like 200 years ago it’s possible some wizards / familiars knew of him and his coven, it’d be super interesting for someone to have known cute human eunsu in exchange for chaotic bastard demon eunsu

⇢ MISCELLANEOUS

since he’s a young demon, his horns are small and his wings barely span about two inches above his shoulder bones, he got itty bitty bat wings lbr he’s kinda pissed abt it. there’s tattoos over his scars from clashing with other demons / hunters / angels, but his devil’s mark lining the back of his neck, performed by first demon who took his soul, has never faded away.

he also works as an info broker, which ties in with the fact that he’s a contractual demon ! it's more of a hobby than a job, something he does for kicks and to restock his gambling money and alcohol money, but he offers a helping hand to solo clientele for private cases if need be, just remember to bring your negotiation skills because his manipulation skills are a1.

he's well-versed in witchcraft even if he can’t actually possess the abilities that actual witches can. while hardly the mentoring type, he could be convinced to equip people with his knowledge of latin, spells or dark magic they want if he's interested enough. then again he might decide to screw them over for kicks so ask him for favours with caution.

for someone who carries a ton of spite and secrets, he passes as an easygoing, casual literature major on the daily to disguise his true intentions. find him at the university pretending to be a student and failing miserably at it like edward’s thousand year old ass in twilight

he cheats at the casino with his demonic powers but does it infrequently enough to pass it as luck. play games with him at your own risk. casinos are one of his favourite places but he can really be found anywhere with ease but some other places he frequents are: beaches, libraries, museums, bars, etc !

he'll get on people's nerves, but getting him to care to the degree of hate is another story. living this long has numbed him; people don't surprise him anymore and he doesn't care to spend time thinking about others. the secret to getting him to turn deathly serious is as simple as telling him you can tell that he was once a good person - because the cheesy truth is he was. he just convinces himself that he's given up trying to remember his human life and finds it easier to live like he’s dead.. yknow which he is.

romance makes him queasy, he's a spiteful old bastard and the concept of sweet love rubs him 100% fictional. there's someone he fancied before he was cursed but i'll save you the story: that's a distant dream now.

he might quote romantic works or put some pretty words together but he's fake as Fuck. if he notices someone innocent and unsuspecting crushing on him they are in so much trouble. he'll kiss their hand then twirl them right off a cliff. corruption kink central right here laid ease

as of rn he’s trying to master how to teleport and shadow control but he really is like on level one and he’s got to get up to level 50 to achieve even a fifth of what these other demons can do

edit: i totally forgot to include eunsu’s ‘demonic’ title after he was banished to the perils of hell. it’s ironically just saint, and he goes around using that bc it’s blasphemous and a big ole middle finger to god himself. nobody will know his real name, but if there’s an off chance that they do, that’s a massive threat to eunsu and he’ll get his Snipers on Scene

tl;dr:

#oddintro #. I HAVE THE POWER OF GOD AND ANIME ON MY SIDE ── / OOC. ❞#so this is. a thing!

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bobcathoneybee · 4 years ago

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i think i already knew. i just wonder when it started. a bunch of other questions came to mind after we hung up. but of course he’s not going to share details, and wasn’t sure if i wanted to know, but i had a feeling, esp after the NYE plans comment. i also noticed that he has this look on his face in one of the screen grabs. like one of those fleeting subconscious facial expressions that came to the surface for just a little bit. easier to read with screenshots.

keep personal finances to self; anything with money to self really. that’s key. many ppl can come out of the woodwork if they know too much.

pls be safe. you know how a lot of ppl are with... being/claiming they’re being “safe”

-----

-is that my scarf (that i got you)? YES! i wore it on sunday, but you didn’t notice. how were the cookies? the strawberry one was really good, what was the other one, wasn’t sure what it was bc the flavor was a little light.

in no particular order, as i was about to get off the phone to finish dinner. and no wonder he didn’t immediately go to the microwave when the food was initially heated through.

-i wanted to talk to you about something. it’s not something we’ve really discussed after we broke up so i’m not sure how you would feel about it. im sort of seeing someone.i didnt know if you wanted to know or if you didnt want to know or how this would affect our friendship. what i wrote in the card is true. you’re my best friend and the best person in my life. what about gio?! i duno what to do with him, he even moved down to florida!

-we’ve always worked so well together. you get me. you’re the only one i still talk to as often as i do. *thinking (until she replaces me). that’s bc you’re the grumpier version of me! LOL i guess that is true

-i think i sort of knew tho, especially after you made the comment about not having to tell me anything when i asked (about the friend group it was), like whoa okay i’ll back off...was not expecting that reaction from you. yeah i realized that i probably should tell you

-i dont talk to any of them like that, we’re also not as close and i dont keep in contact with them, one bc shes married and that would be weird. I didnt speak to her much after we broke up. didn’t you wish each other happy birthdays and holidays stuff? they let you know they’re moving or their sister got married, the major life events? yeah

-after this past year, my intent was to eventually get back together. what i want to know if that’s even a possibility (or if that door is completed closed). i think there could be a possibility, but i dont want that to prevent you from seeing other ppl and figuring out what you want.

-look, i’m probably going to be alone at 65 okay? don’t you think you’re just making it a self-fulfilling prophecy? yes, but still.

-you dont even like people! i know! you dont know how exhilarating it is to just shut off your phone for the weekend and not talk to anyone. yeah, but now you’re going to make time for her. *pause, that’s true

-i didn’t want to feel guilty about not telling you and not being upfront about it. i respect you too much not to give you a heads up. i want us to meet ppl and figure out what we want or dont want. i dont know if this is going to go anywhere; it’s been slow-moving but i wanted to let you know.

-i wasn’t sure if i wanted to tell you bc i didn’t want to see you cry.

-you know you would say things like i’ll stop smoking WHEN i have kids (not if, when). i know i had to work through that myself too (about not having kids or getting married). i know but with all the weddings and kids the last few years... i think you needed to figure out what you wanted.

-it’s actually kinda hard dating (her) sometimes, it’s not the same. bc you can’t have chicken feet around her? LOL yes

-you just understand me so well. but i also dont want you to think i was using you to help me with measurement plans (for pitches) LOL. (this kid helps me with so much too.)

-you introduced me to new things all the time! you didn’t even like going to these places. i always grumble bc we have to leave the house but i still go when you suggest new places to check out (bc theyre usually always good!)

-i thought you were dating already. huh how do you mean? from the boat noodles comment. when i asked you about how you heard about it, you said some guy. LOL oh it’s bc i didnt know what it was and wanted to know if you knew/had it before. so did you go get it? no! it’s in astoria, why would i go to astoria?! was he asian? yes. it was one date. they’re so good! i shouldve had my mom make you some (when we were still dating) *side eye lollll sheeesh i tacked on that date with another appt i had in the city and it was on the way home! OH

-in case you’re on a date and such, i wouldn’t want to be calling you all the time. lollll my dates are probably on weekends, when you dont talk to me... oh that’s true

-how did you guys meet? app? NO i would never put my pictures up there. okay i’m assuming neighbor friend during one of your brunch gatherings. (assuming she’s brunch girl as nickname or something brunch related). don’t you have friends (who can introduce you to ppl)? NO everyone has a SO and we don’t go out bc covid, we’re on apps! it’s just A LOT of talking. i’m literally trying to pick the best of the bunch at this point. ah i was afraid you’d say that (picking among the bunch)

-ALSO THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE KNIVES! (superstition) OMG YES IT DOES. i purchased a knife set for jacob back then too bc his knives sucked and look what happened! LOL do you replace his actual name with jacob now? YES bc it’s funnier!

-you just need to lower your standards back down bc i’m the anomaly in your dataset! i’m wayyy up there at 1000, but the norm/avg is prob way down there so you’ll need to adjust. are you padding yourself up?! YES! but i’m awesome! it always happens that way. sheesh.

-ugh now i feel tied to my job even more. after the last big purchase? yeah. are you having buyer’s remorse? YES!

-my head hurts so much. it’s not as bad as yesterday when i felt like i had to go to the hospital. i was thinking about calling an ambulance. omg did you do the head squeeze?! that didn’t work at all! it felt like a large knife repeatedly stabbing my head. you know that area i press on behind your neck at the base of your head/skull, that area between your neck tendons and the one going up the sides, press on both points and push upward. i think you need to lift your head a bit from your neck *POP POP do you hear that?! IS THAT A KNOT?! ugh the massage place around the corner hasn’t opened. i think they’re done. it’s the only one i trust bc my mom went there so i know for sure they dont offer happy endings. LOL i dont think they do that where you are

-you should go see cindy. your health should be the one thing you prioritize this year. does she make house calls? yes she does. sometimes goes to brooklyn and used to go to UWS for friends. i wasn’t sure if you wanted me to stop seeing her (bc she’s your friend and our PT). i would never make you do that. shes the only one who seems to help you. besides, her office is closing, the guy is being sued for not paying rent... oh what?! yeah but try to see her twice a week, i’m not sure max once a week (once a month) is really doing anything for you.

-do you think i can just get surgery to fix this? LOL no! she said you weren’t a good candidate! see her more often. but she says what i’m doing now is more preventative (so it doesn’t get worse). it might be fixed. my mom’s PT/tui na people made that ball (from using mobile phones) behind her neck go away. try to see her twice a week! your health is very important.

-should i take another advil or aleve? what did you take first? advil, then take another advil. i mean i took it at 10am this morning. oh! okay then you can switch to aleve. hmm 2016 or 2018? can i still take it? probably, it’s less effective tho. okay i’ll take 2018.

-ive been taking heart burn meds. what are you lying down immediately after you eat again? ...noooo....? uh huh. you are, aren’t you”? either on the chaise or the bed? ..no..... if you’re gonna do that at least wait 30 mins and lay on your left side bc you know the of the stomach right? there’s that cup to the left for the acid to stay in so it doesn’t potentially open up the end of the esophagus iike when you lay on your right? ... maybe you should look this up on google! LOL other ppl don’t eat as much as i do! it won’t work! just try! ok fine.

-it’s been awhile (since we broke up) and so i think it’s time. im here if there’s anything you’d want to share (about anyone you’re dating), we can always talk about it. *thinking sheesh why would i want to tell you that (it’ll make you even better for her).

-i meant it when i said i’ll always be here for you

-i miss you a lot. i love you. *even tho i didnt say it back during FT, was still in some level of shock, i love you too.

#bobcat v

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black-strike-otp · 8 years ago

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part 98

When it’s hard to write becuz u feel like ur up too late keeping other ppl awake

Warm air moaned through the cracks and crevices of bent and misshapen metal. It gave off whistles and caused thinner pieces to wave in the air as a breeze came in from the Sea of Rust. There must have been a blistering storm going in order for the bots to feel the effects of it all the way to the colonial hideout. Luckily, it didn’t dampen the spirits or process of those hard at work.

Four bots stood together in a line, staring to the skies and the dark massive figure hovering high above Cybertron. Some bots dangling from chairs hanging from anchor points and rigged with harnesses, other climbing on ladders and even the structure itself as they received beams from Blackout to weld and bolt into place.

“Looks like they’re about done,” Barricade noted. “How tall did Blackout say it was?”

“I believe somewhere around the three-thousand foot mark?” Venus noted.

“At least it doesn’t require more than bare structure,” Novastrike whispered with awe. “Imagine if it was an apartment complex and the floors and walls we’d have to build.”

“May yet do,” Scorponok chattered. “If live long. See Cybertron reborn.”

The other three nodded with helms in various degrees of agreement. Although the possibility felt slim and out of reach, it was still a potential. The future was riddled with the unknown.

“That’s going to be one big target,” ‘Cade pointed out.

“No doubt,” Novastrike agreed. “But we need it to be tall enough to breech above possible lower level interference. It’s practically out of the atmosphere already, which means it should get a clear frequency signal out to space.”

Metal clanked as more beams rang against each other softly. As bots unhooked the tethers to beams they had secured, Blackout whirled around and came in low to pick up the final piece they’d be needing.

The top of the tower had been prefabricated and constructed on the ground. Its high-rise beams and adorning blinking lights to alert fliers and seekers not to hit the structure were attached. Bots from below and above were preparing the data streamers, cables, and power units from in various networks to make sure everything connected as smoothly as possible.

Blackout raised the massive composed structure off the ground effortlessly. Bots at various points on the ground and along the structure held on to extended straps to help keep it from swaying too much as his thrusters rumbled and he raised up with the item in tow to the very tippy top of the assembled piece. With nonstop progress, efficient workers, and a constant day and night shift of work, the project only had managed to take them roughly thirty days in total.

It was both a feet of engineering as it was a chronicle of the accounts of determination and willpower. If it stood, and worked as all hoped, it would be one of the most successful post Golden era achievements of the age.

In the opinion of all present and accounted for, at least. Some bots may be swayed to the belief that a synthetic energon could be adjusted over the years, though it still had not been perfected. Or other factors in medical care that had to be designed during the war were a good candidate too.

But the transmitter was teamwork at its finest. It held the hope of its builders in its simple commonplace design and with the very tippy top as Blackout held it into place for bots to begin checking, double checking, and triple checking every nut and bolt they put, every weld they placed. The antenna and various loads of equipment tucked snuggly at the bottom of it couldn’t be damaged, or all their work would be for nothing.

Blackout remained patiently still as the crew worked to assemble the remaining attachments and connect some vital last-minute wires between the computer and the antenna. Giving the thumbs up, some of the bots began to descend the behemoth whilst others got down the faster route: disarming their anchors and hanging to tethers and ladders still dangling from Blackout’s undercarriage to be taken down.

“Watching all these bots makes me wish I’d went into building fabrication,” ‘Cade stated thoughtfully.

Venus turned her optics to him, smiling sweetly as she speculated aloud, “That would have been nice, I guess I would have found a different mech to spend my time with at the institute.”

“Psh, I was only kidding,” he mumbled. “Building’s for chums.”

A working bot paused as he walked by, glancing to Barricade. The size of his derma were so massive that they protruded past a partially broken face mask he had in place. The bot gave a shake of his helm, walking away.

“I didn’t mean it!” Barricade called after him. “He knows I didn’t mean it, right?”

“Babe, maybe let the bots work in peace.”

“Besides,” he went on while placing a servo around Venus’ waist. “I like to burn rubber and cause too much trouble to stand in one spot for most of the day just doing the same task over and over again. I like to mix it up.”

Creating a soft ‘mhm’ in the back of her throat, Venus smiled with endearment as she leaned close to press a kiss against the side of his helm. The flashy cop purred his engines softly in response and returned the favor in kind with a kiss on her forehead.

“That’s gross,” Scorponok vowed with a tap of his pedes as he shifted himself and his gaze away from the couple.

“Don’t be mad just because you haven’t found a lady Insecticon yet Scorponok,” Barricade taunted lightly.

“Repugnant,” the scorpion clicked unhappily.

Pitying the poor bug for the josting he got too often, Novastrike stepped over to him and placed her servo upon his helm. He tilted his helm back so that three of his four golden optics turned to her, with one still focused on Blackout’s figure as he continued playing air life support to those getting off of the intergalactic transmitter.

Turning her optics to her beloved, Nova returned in watching as he helped down the last of the crew that awaited his pickup. He showed a tremendous amount of patience as he lowered himself softly to the surface of Cybertron and waited for bots to come unfasten all the tethers that had been latched on to various areas of his frame for structure. Even if Blackout liked to boost that he was more than capable of handling the weight easily, Novastrike found herself wincing inwardly. He hadn’t acted at all as of late like he’d been in pain, but when she truly thought about how he’d been spending day and night helping to get bots on and off the tower, lifting heavy equipment and rods, she felt a great deal of sympathy for her lovely mech.

Maybe she’d have to spend some time later with him if he would sit down long enough to let her give him some much needed TLC. A nice rubdown, a bit of polishing maybe, some well-deserved kisses while he just lounged.

Once the remainder of the fasteners were removed, Blackout reconfigured his armor around swiftly into his bipedal state. His helm gave an approving slight nod to the closest mech to him, saying something. They motioned with their servo up to the top of the immense construction project and then over to a nearby bot.

Unable to wait any longer, Novastrike darted around the workers pedes and over to Blackout. She could hear Venus and Scorponok try calling out to her. She guessed it was probably something about not getting in the way and being safe, but if the soaring pillar hadn’t fallen so far, she was pretty sure there was nothing to be concerned about.

As Blackout made his way over to a group of mechs stationed beside an enclosed monitor, Nova swerved to follow him.

“Evening Blackout!” the mech called out.

He nodded his helm respectfully.

“Just about to turn on the transmission signal you had recorded,” he stated. “The receiving unit should be finished in a couple joors. Some bots had to rewire a couple o’ things. But it’s not like our signal should be reading in the Andromeda galaxy right away since it has a lot o’ light-years to travel. You sure that’s where your friend is?”

Opening his mouth to answer, Blackout turned his optics down to the quiet huffing and puffing that came running up to his side. He raised an optic ridge down at Novastrike, grinning a little as she looked up to him.

“Hey,” she breathed out heavily.

“Hey to you too,” he rumbled, finding himself smiling a little wider.

“Are we about to turn this thing on?” Nova inquired, flicking her audio receptors forward.

“I was just about to say,” Blackout continued, turning his optics now to the mech. “That he was free to start transmitting. I’m not exactly sure where our ally is. I can only guess he started back to retracing our steps. Where we’d been and the area where we’d met up prior should have given him a good indication where to start working. How wide is our spectrum in the region?”

“About 8 light-years, give or take.”

“Well, we can certainly expect eventually to pick up some chatter and backfeed from the open receiver,” Blackout grunted with a nod of his helm. “Go ahead. Fire away.”

Bobbing his helm up and down, the mech turned into the partially enclosed monitor and moved around some wires into various plugs. He keystroked various things into the keypad and closed the box up.

Novastrike turned her helm back and squinted into the sky.

“Are we supposed to see if it’s doing anything?”

“No,” the engineer laughed. “It’s sending frequencies and coded encryption we can not hear; you won’t see anything but the warning lights along the tower maybe meant to indicate there’s a building so no one hits it.”

“How will we be able to receive anything back?” Novastrike asked desperately.

“Our coding indicates constant updates in the position and re-positioning of the tower as Cybertron circles its star,” the bot explained. “So long as there’s nothing that ends up blocking a sender's signal, they should be able to reply. It may get, how do I put this... back-logged, but so long as they put their message on a loop as we do, it will eventually arrive to the antenna.”

“There are two separate streaming data feeds. One sends, while the other receives. Our receiver isn’t ready; not a big problem as I said before as no bot will be getting our message instantaneously and if they are well, they’re close enough to Cybertron to turn their afts around and get here anyway. We should have it done not long from now. It offers a closed channel comm feed too that some of the crew and Blackout can privately access via their personal comm to check the receiver in real time to see if there’s any responses. Otherwise, we will have bots on manned duty keeping check on everything.”

“Sounds like a lot of work,” Novastrike breathed. She could feel stress just listening to this bot. She couldn’t imagine being in charge of any of this stuff.

Turning her optics up to Blackout, the little femme inquired quietly, “What did you send in the message, anyway?”

“I briefly left Nighthawk a status report that we were okay,” he responded. “Some minor details on our whereabouts, and an inquiry if he’d gotten any leads. I’ll have the loop changed if anything else comes up. Though, there will be no telling in what time or frame he may pick them up, if at all.”

Flicking her optics to the mech, Novastrike waited until he was walking away until she whispered, “How long can we loop our message through the antenna before some of these workers demand we start looping their messages in random directions hoping to get in contact with their friends?”

Blackout vented. “I don’t know. Considering this is the one and only way to currently communicate outside of Cybertron, it’s going to attract a lot of attention both from our own rogue faction as well as other bots. For the time being, bots are satisfied it’s complete and they know there’s a message getting out there. Vague, but out there. So we could get responses from any bot that technically hears the message.”

“Therefore,” he went on, “If we need to add more to the loop, there’s always the option of just making an extremely lengthy loop of data, or just debriefing specific bot’s names and a short mock of information they want to get out there. It’ll be like drawing straws if it comes to that though to decide who gets to grace the loop or not. We don’t need to add hundreds of names, it’ll just deter those who get the stream of information. No bot will want to, or may even be capable of, going through all that data to try looking for one name of someone they recognize and seeing a strange encrypted message.”

“Even if they do,” Blackout went on, “if we get a response, we would have to have a massive vote or some kind of elected mass to decide if we resume sending out the same feed, or try just signaling the one response we get with a reply to whomever the responder chooses to speak with.”

“Sounds... complicated,” Novastrike stated with an anxious smile. “You could have just told me ‘There’s only one message right now going out, it’s ours, and let’s hope to hear back from Nighthawk soon.”

Frowning, the obsidian giant drew his optic ridges together. “But that would not have been efficient as it hardly answered your questions.”

“Yeah, all the other stuff didn’t answer my questions much better,” she admitted.

Snorting back laughter, Blackout shook his helm slightly. He had a peaceful smile on his faceplate that warmed Novastrike’s spark as she watched him.

Extending his servo, the mech made a curling motion with his digits as he murmured softly, “May I?”

With a nod of her helm, Blackout knelt down and allowed her to climb upon his servo. As he rose to his full height, he brought her against his chassis. The thick, dark armor was already slightly warmed as the dark armored mech held her close to himself, directly over his spark chamber.

Snuggling back into her mech’s impervious armor plating of his chassis, Novastrike looked out at all the bustling bots walking around still. Some were congratulating each other, others were simply sharing dull-lit energon cubes, more still were wandering in the direction of the rogue base to probably get some much deserved rest.

She could make out Venus, Barricade, and Scorponok talking to a few of the bots in a huddled group. Some of the bots were making wild motions with their arms dramatically. The duo seemed invested in the conversation, though the scorpion not so much.

Nova had to smile a she watched ‘Cade take Venus by the servo. His arm moved back and forth with hers, their digits intertwined.

“What do we do now?” Novastrike whispered softly, turning her helm up to look into Blackout’s dark crimson optics.

He prepared a captivating small smile, just for her. With a twitch of his servo and rearrangement of his digits, Blackout managed to move his digits to be able to caress from her audio stacks down her backstrut.

She wriggled beneath the contact, purring vibrantly. Pressing her side against his armor, Novastrike looked to him with shimmering optics as she rested her cheek to him, listening to the mechanics of his body with her sensitive ears so close. The sound of his spark was just beneath the surface, pulsing quietly and humming an exceptionally beautiful tune.

“For now, all we can do is wait.”

#quid pro quo au #OTP AU #OTP Lit #OTP Friends #Cute OTP

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aliencrybby · 7 years ago

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Nov/Dec 2018 Monthly Tarot

1. The Chariot VII

2. The Emperor IV

3. The World XXI

4. 10 Wands (reversed)

5. 9 Wands (reversed)

6. 7 Pentacles

7. Page Wands

8. Queen Swords

9. The Magician I

Conscious (Ideas, dreams & aspirations)

Past: The Chariot

Present: The Emperor

Future: The World

Card 1, Conscious Past: The Chariot

The Chariot is a card of willpower, determination and strength. You have discovered how to make decisions in alignment with your values with the Lovers card, and now you are taking action on those decisions. When the Chariot appears in a Tarot reading, take it as a sign of encouragement. You have set your objectives and are now channelling your inner power with a fierce dedication to bring them to fruition. When you apply discipline, commitment and willpower to achieve your goals, you will succeed.

Now isn’t the time to be passive in the hope that things will work out in your favour. Take focused action and stick to the course, no matter what challenges may come your way – because, believe me, there will be challenges. You may be pulled in opposite directions and find your strength and conviction tested. Others may try to block you, distract you, or drag down the pursuit of your goal. But the Chariot is an invitation to draw upon your willpower and home in on what’s essential to you, so you can push past the obstacles in your way.

If you are curious about whether you have what it takes to achieve your aim or complete an important project, the Chariot is a sign you will be successful so long as you keep your focus and remain confident in your abilities. You need to use your willpower and self-discipline to concentrate on the task at hand. You can’t cut corners or take the easy route, or you will fail. Instead, see this endeavour as a test of your strength and conviction, and recognise that victory is within reach, but it’s up to you to follow through.

The Chariot calls you to assert yourself and be courageous. Be bold in expressing your desires and laying down your boundaries; otherwise, you will not get your way. You need to have faith in yourself and know fundamentally who you are and what you stand for (thus building off the personal belief systems and values established through the Lovers card).

In a very literal sense, the Chariot can represent travel, especially driving or taking a road trip. You may even be considering selling your home and buying an RV so you can head off and roam the country!

Source: ‘The Chariot Card Meanings’ by Biddy Tarot

This card speaks to me about the efforts I have made this year to fight for my career & artistic direction, particularly after a low blow in a menial job and finding myself unemployed 2 months after moving to a new area on my own. It also makes me think about the arduous process of my recent arts grant application which saw me putting myself out there by sharing my vision & ideas with other working artists & practitioners. The grant application-writing process tested my discipline & made me seriously contemplate my desires & motivations regarding my creative practice. I had to ask myself who I want to be as an artist & why? What do I want to achieve; how do I want to achieve it; what purpose does it serve? Which communities does it speak to & why? Completing the grant application & project outline meant actioning things I didn’t think I could do, contacting people who I thought were ‘out of my reach’ or ‘too important to talk to me’. That might sound like no big deal to some ppl; but as a working-class immigrant WoC outside the gates of accumulated privilege or white liberal arts circles of academia, this is a big deal. I had this division in my mind about who I was allowed to reach out to, what I had access to. I allowed myself to believe these lies due to repeated conditioning & systemically enforced idealogies. But I made it easier for it to permeate because deep down I feared my own failure/success. For a while now, I’ve been working to shift this perception. And I’m in the constant process of dismantling this ingrained colonialist idea in my life. Hopefully, my efforts can help others do the same too.

In a spiritual sense, I’ve done a lot of work to rise above & grow beyond the limitations of past traumas and hurts. I’ve worked this year like a dang boss to seek the roots of my anxieties & fears, in this life & in other iterations, addressing my experiences and the legacy of intergenerational trauma.

I’ve done an excavation of my dankest inner sludge built up from years & many years of traumas and bottled up hurts. I turned the soil inside my soul and planted new seeds of health, love, strength & courage. I befriended my shadows and learnt to trust my darkness as precious to me, teachers and friends just as much as my light.

Before the helm of the chariot are four figures, each with the face of a lion, a bull, a man, and an eagle… The figures represent the four directions and four corners of the physical plane that the Chariot traverses. The lion, bull, man, and eagle also represent the four fixed zodiac signs in astrology—Leo, Taurus, Aquarius, and Scorpio, corresponding with the four elements, Fire, Earth, Air, and Water. Fixed signs in astrology are the signs of divine order.

Source: ‘The Chariot with Benebelle Wen’ via Biddy Tarot

Card 2, Conscious-Present: The Emperor

So after so many years of hating on the Emperor, I decided to step up, take back my power and become the Emperor: I gave myself the position of CEO of my own life. I was to be my own Emperor. I stepped into the role with not very much confidence at all. I was like a Page of Cups work-experience kid, all nervous and knocking things over.

But when you embrace your inner Emperor, suddenly no one is there to judge you, reprimand you or roll their eyes when you spill your tea down your front. No one but you can decide how ridiculous or fabulous you are. Now that’s freedom.

Embracing my inner Emperor has given me courage, helped me to stand in my own power, allowed me to believe in myself and given me the drive and ambition to learn and develop the business skills I needed to take New Age Hipster from blog to successful business. And all with no one else’s approval needed.

The Emperor has taught me that although there will always be dumb council decisions, uni profs who don’t get your point and bosses on power trips, no one is in charge of my life but me.

The Emperor reminds us that we all have the power to rule our own lives. Whether we work for someone else, run our own biz or look after little ones at home. Whatever we do, we can do with the Emperor energy. Your boss may be a hard task-master, but he will never control your thoughts, what you have for lunch or how you spend your time out of the office. That’s all you baby!

The Emperor asks you to stand up to those who would try to pull you down by saying you’re not the boss of me, instead of blindly following someone else’s rule…

The Emperor understands that in order to be a successful leader of your own life you must balance the logical with the heart. You must follow your heart and work towards your dreams by taking focused action, having fab time management skills, get the work done, be able to minimise conflict and also gain the love and trust of your people (i.e. yourself).

So next time this guy comes up in a reading, don’t freak out that your boss is going to start being more demanding or that the new guy you just met is a total control freak. Perhaps it’s simply a sign from the universe for you to start running this ship that is your life.

Source: ‘The Emperor with Vix’ via Biddy Tarot

The Emperor card never really resonated with me either until I read this write-up. It’s so timely that he shows up as my Conscious Present card now when I’ve been thinking a lot about career direction, art practice, lifestyle & relationships, authenticity and basically: TAKING CHARGE OF MY LIFE.

Ofc the gears are always set in motion long before we feel any outward movement so it’s honestly impossible to define a clear start to this shift. Every experience is a lesson after all. But if I had to try, I’d say my 28th birthday marked the start of a conscious awakening. The Lion’s Gate opened and my spiritual ascension began. I felt the magic stirring. Looking back now, it’s so clear to me, that was the start of my levelling up. A new consciousness awakened like a new way of seeing — a way of sensing, really — though I know it’s always been inside me, just waiting until I was ready.

Now I’m at a certain peace with myself, where I’ve learnt to listen to the water and know it’s always flowing even when the surface seems still. I’ve journeyed inwards and pushed myself where I needed to. I’ve worked to forgive myself & others where holding on was holding me back. I wept, slept and waited when it was right to and stood to face my desires and fears when it was time. Now I feel ready for the next step and learning to glide. Continue with this work, commit, be courageous and before long, I have a feeling I’ll be learning how to soar and fly.

He sits upon a large stone throne, adorned with four rams’ heads (symbolic of his connection with Aries and the planet Mars). In his right hand, the Emperor holds an ankh, the Egyptian symbol of life, and in his left is an orb representing the world over which he rules.

He wears a red robe, indicative of his power, passion and energy for life. Underneath it, he wears a suit of armour, suggesting that he is protected from any threat (and any emotional response or vulnerability). His long white beard is symbolic of his age-old wisdom and experience, and along with his gold crown, he is an authority figure who demands to be heard.

Behind his throne looms a tall, impenetrable mountain range, signifying that he is backed by a solid foundation but resistant to making any changes unless he deems it necessary. Beneath the peaks flows a small river, giving some hope that despite his tough exterior, he is still an emotional being – it will just take a lot of digging and trust to open him up to his softer side.

Source: ‘The Emperor Card Meanings’ by Biddy Tarot

The Emperor points to the role of providing for family, protecting & defending loved ones. This is super in key with what I’ve been experiencing as an adult child this year in particular. A Gemini Moon child is said to often have difficult relationships with their parent/s (it normally says mother but I guess it means ‘caregiver you are emotionally closer to’). The Gemini Moon’s parent is normally said to have issues with mental or emotional instabilities (e.g. depression), often positioning the Gemini Moon child in the role of parent to their parent.

My mama raised me as a single mother, an immigrant with low socioeconomic status in a xenophobic society with terrible bias against Asian women. She raised me without a network of family to rely on in this country, though she has constantly done all that she can to help them in whatever limited ways from across the seas. She has survived domestic, psychological, emotional and financial abuse at my papa’s hands. Now she suffers from a diaspora which she cannot name. It affects her self-belief, her access to livelihood, work and friendships. But she is full of strength, joy, wit, love & laughter. She gets a real kick out of cooking and gardening. I believe she is a born creator.

My papa grew up traumatised by the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong in WW2 at a time when boys could not easily talk about their pain and men even less so. Throughout his life he has accomplished a lot and shared his wealth and prosperity with many of his friends & family who are in need or haven’t been as fortunate. Yet he has also led a life of his own emotional untruths. His relationship with my mama and the anguish it caused for his wife & sons has lived like a toxic elephant in his home all these years; and I don’t believe any of them have ever tried to look it in the eye. I know he has suffered emotional, financial and, it’s becoming increasingly clear, physical abuse, at his wife’s hands for close to thirty years.

Now as an adult child, I often parent my parents, specifically emotionally & mentally. I hope I give them some kind of spiritual nourishment giving them someone to talk to who will not judge them, but loves them & seeks to understand them. I was never ready before now. And yet now it seems to come with ease. It’s definitely not easy, but that’s difference between easy and ease.

You have a clear vision of what you want to create, and you organise those around you to manifest your goal. You listen to the advice of others, but you prefer to have the final say. Conflict doesn’t scare you, and you won’t hesitate to use your power to protect those you care about. And in return, those people will repay you with the loyalty and respect you deserve. Claim your authority as leader and influencer and don’t let others put you down.

This comes back to career/creative/life direction for me. I floundered about for so long finding work where I could hide my gifts & not risk my passions. I flopped about unfocused on a path I couldn’t find or follow. I ignored my skills, downplayed my desires, and sold myself short to match the unspoken expectations of others. I made myself smaller, made myself ‘easier’ to categorise as a ‘quirky Asian’ with a whitewashed tongue in order to make them feel ‘comfortable’. To be less of a ‘threat’ to their preconceived order of things.

Then for a few years I took the total opposite approach as I learnt more about the intersectionality. I would explore at people for ignorant opinions and take their views to heart (there are so many ways to respond instead of react). I called out every man & his dog for every racist, classist, sexist, gender-essentialist thing uttered — even if it was just for their sport and I was just amusement, even if I was upsetting myself, even if it was a total waste of my time. I don’t regret all of it though. I learnt a lot about myself in this period. And I will always stand in between rich yt folks calling the cops on elderly and disabled PoC. I will never let rich yt capitalist class-loving colonisers work me over and paint me as a bully for calling out racism in their workplace. I will never let those same colonisers get me to do their dirty work when trying to fire me for it. But the point is, I taxed myself dry. I needed direction, something productive to channel this into. I needed to face myself and ask, what’s the anger behind the anger? What lies behind the obvious? Figure it out, seek the source and figure out what ways exist within your power to address it.

I’m angry at the injustice, obviously. Angry at the enormity of these colonial, capitalist structures & even angrier at the passivity, denial and wilful ignorance oozing from cushy, comfy ‘nice’ folk with all the privileges in the world. But I can’t control any of that. I can’t control them. But I had let it control me.

What I needed was to take back control of my self. The things I can choose: my actions, my words, my thoughts, my energetic output, my boundaries. My connection to Sprit & this entire earthly universe. This is the fucking cornerstone of decolonising but it eluded me for years!

This year I began to interrogate my self with love & patience. I looked at myself & my hidden motivations with an unflinching eye. I didn’t aim to paint myself out as an intersectional WoC hero or a spiritual saint. I looked at myself as a complex human woman wanting to know her humanity better and realign with her Divine.

Among many things, I came to understand the best way to serve is by using our skills, talents & passions. That’s how we learn/unlearn and grow. It’s how we do our work here. As Diane di Prima said, “No one way works. It will take all of us shoving at the thing from all sides to bring it down.” We must all do our work in this fight for Earth & Great Spirit against the murderous systems of exploitative capitalist colonialism. We can only do it by living in authenticity & honesty in all things and in all facets. That means addressing our complicity, putting our flaws into the light and having the courage to create as a being rooted in Truth.

The Emperor reflects a system bound by rules and regulations. You create law and order by applying principles or guidelines to a specific situation. Create calm out of chaos by breaking down any problem into its parts and then mapping out the actions you need to take to resolve it. Be systematic, strategic and highly organised in your approach, and stick to your plan until the end.

The Emperor card also signifies world knowledge and expertise. Through the course of your life, you have gained valuable wisdom and life experience, and now you enjoy offering guidance, advice, and direction to someone who might benefit from it. You may be a teacher, coach, boss, or just a good friend who likes to take what you have learned and pass it on so that others can be as wise and powerful as you.

For me, drawing The Emperor in this spread is like a direct call to action. Step boldly into your destiny, bisssh!!!

Card 3, Conscious Future: The World

The spirit having form is a dance of sorts. It is the blending and sometimes the clash of different rhythms and desires. Our bodies crave comfort, our spirits crave growth…

The World Trump card reveals this vital and visceral integration of our passion and talents within the Mandorla, the blending of the two spheres of the Spirit and Human. The Mandorla (the elongated oval shape which provides the sacred stage for the World Dancer) is a sphere where the love of our own life gives and receives fully with the love of Life, the greater source and connection of us all. It is very much like the dancer becoming the music becoming the audience. It is the point of sacred merging and remembering. In some ways, the Mandorla itself is a world between the worlds. It represents that “orderly arrangement” of magic.

My very good friend Beverly Haskins once told me that the World card is essentially service. Once you have reached a certain prime and potential, it is important to give back to others. With the continuing journey of truly loving your life, help others with the love you do discover.

Source: ‘The World with Nancy Antenucci’ via Biddy Tarot

What a follow up to the previous card!! I talked about nurturing & cultivating passions & talents as the essence of our Divinity here on Earth and here she is singing her confirmation.

If the Emperor is about stepping into the role of Datu of my life, then The World is an invitation to dance in it.

The World card shows a naked woman wrapped in a purple cloth, dancing inside a large laurel wreath. She looks behind her to the past, while her body moves forward to the future. In her hands are two wands or batons, like the one the Magician holds. It is a symbol that what was manifested with the Magician has now come to completion with the World. The wreath is circular, symbolising a continual cycle of successful completion and new beginnings because, as the woman steps through the wreath, she is completing one phase but beginning another one almost straight away.

Around the wreath are four figures (a lion, bull, cherub and eagle), similar to those in the Wheel of Fortune. Both the World and the Wheel of Fortune speak to the cyclical nature of your life and your progression through its cycles. The four figures represent the four fixed signs of the Zodiac—Leo, Taurus, Aquarius, and Scorpio. They are symbolic of the four elements, the four suits of the Tarot, four compass points, four seasons, and the four corners of the Universe. They are here to guide you from one phase to the next, bringing balance and harmony to your journey.

When the World card appears in a Tarot reading, you are glowing with a sense of wholeness, achievement, fulfilment and completion. A long-term project, period of study, relationship or career has come full circle, and you are now revelling in the sense of closure and accomplishment. This card could represent graduation, a marriage, the birth of a child or achieving a long-held dream or aspiration. You have finally accomplished your goal or purpose. Everything has come together, and you are in the right place, doing the right thing, achieving what you have envisioned. You feel whole and complete.

Source: ‘The World Card Meanings’ by Biddy Tarot

Part of my vision of my life is one with community, healing, creation and reciprocal, self-sustained spiritual empowerment. I define myself as an artist and a person through this lens, even though at the moment I still feel like I’m in a transitional phase (forreal, when are we not tho). Relating this back to the Emperor once again feels like encouragement to find my bliss in new experiences, in rising to new challenges, in learning more, giving back more, and stepping boldly into my destiny.

Now, the World card invites you to reflect on your journey, honour your achievements and tune into your spiritual lessons. Celebrate your successes and bask in the joy of having brought your goals to fruition. All the triumphs and tribulations along your path have made you into the strong, wise, more experienced person you are now. Express gratitude for what you have created and harvested. Finally, make sure you don’t rush into the next big project; celebrating your journey will set you up for success when you are ready for your next challenge.

If you have not quite reached this point of completion, then you are very close! You may still need an added level of understanding to graduate to a higher level and enjoy real success. Look back at your past experiences and acknowledge how far you have come and what you learned along the way. It may surprise you to look back at your progress and see how much you achieved. This reflection may also be what you need to bring your project to its final stages.

If loose ends still remain, the World card asks you to bring them to completion. In doing so, you will clear the space for new beginnings and opportunities to emerge.

More literally, the World can mean world travel, particularly on a large scale. You may be lucky enough to embark on a six-month overseas trip, or are working, studying or living overseas for an extended period. This card reinforces Universal understanding and global awareness, and you will you will find a new appreciation for people and cultures from across the world.

P.S. YES PLS TRAVEL HMU

Material Realities: Current state, day-to-day life

Past: 10 of Wands (reversed)

Present: 9 of Wands (reversed)

Future: 7 of Pentacles

Card 4, Past Reality: 10 Wands (reversed)

Reversed, the Ten of Wands indicates that you are unnecessarily holding on to this burden when you do not need to. If you are feeling weighed down by your present circumstances, look at different ways you can lighten the load. Can you delegate certain tasks and responsibilities? Are you worrying about matters that do not concern you or cannot be changed? Do not become a martyr and take on more than you can realistically handle.

If you are going through a challenging time, then the Ten of Wands reversed indicates that this time will soon pass and you will feel less of a burden weighing on your shoulders.

You may be actively identifying those activities that do not bring you any value in your life and you are starting to release yourself from these unnecessary responsibilities. You may even be going through a purging process, clearing out old clothes and selling old furniture, in order to de-clutter and simplify your life. You will benefit from better organisation and prioritisation at this time.

Sometimes, the reversed Ten of Wands indicates that you are avoiding responsibility and making it even more difficult for others who must take on your share. Thus, the saying, “You have made your bed, now lie in it,” is very appropriate for this card.

Source: ‘Ten of Wands Card Meanings’ by Biddy Tarot

As I talked about in The Emperor, I used to burden myself with this self-appointed task of Racist Micro-and-Macro-Aggressions Officer, trying to ‘teach’ people who didn’t want to know, instead of concentrating on what I could do to feel fulfilment in the work to raise the global consciousness. I went through extreme burn out during this time, also relating to difficulties in my long-term relationship, feelings of isolation, smoking too much and just being generally unhappy without getting at the root cause. Since actively identifying what did not bring value in my life and actually brought pain, agitation and frustration into it, I released myself of them and freed up space in my soul for better things to grow.

Card 5, Present Reality: 9 Wands (reversed)

The Nine of Wands reversed suggests that you may be hesitant to make a long-term commitment. You may be feeling as if life is all work and no play, and you may feel overcome by responsibilities or a lack of support from those around you. You may also be lacking the necessary resources, such as finances, skills or time, in order to deal with the challenges head on. As such, you are hesitant to make any commitments in fear that your responsibilities will become all too much.

You may also be more inclined to be a little ‘on edge’ and on the defensive. The boundaries you have set around yourself are now becoming your cage, locking you into your old habits and behaviours. Be careful of dwelling on past frustrations and grievances. Just try to let go.

The Nine of Wands reversed asks you to be mindful not to make assumptions or hasty judgements. Lighten up a little and return to the Eight of Wands where you take life as it comes in all its various forms. Go with the flow and release yourself of the pressures you are feeling. A holiday or a break might do you some good where you can re-energise and rejuvenate yourself.

Sometimes, the reversed Nine of Wands can indicate extreme paranoia or even schizophrenia. You may feel as though you are constantly under attack or are being watched. Oftentimes, this is indicative of a fear from within, rather than an actual external threat. Counselling or psychological help is advised.

Source: ‘Nine of Wands Card Meanings’ by Biddy Tarot

I’ve experiences a few ‘firsts’ this year, working in box office & ushering at a theatre and as an artist’s model to make ends meet. I’ve also been working to cultivate and maintain relationships with arts organisations & practitioners in the hope that exciting opportunities might open up. This might sound simple enough but it’s pretty anxiety-inducing for me, having varying degrees of social anxiety and being born outside the privileged walls of capital-A Arts institutions & white academia.

On top of this, I’ve been working on illustration commissions and poster designs; trying to run my small online business; find employment as an arts worker with a living wage; as well as trying to organise my next videopoem & other video content — while also enjoying some cute social times.

This time last year, I moved further away from the city to a beautiful place where the rents are cheaper, the people are more ‘low SES’, a lot of the land hasn’t been built on (yet), and it’s easier to hear the spirits in the trees. This has been hugely beneficial for my development & overall health, but it’s a fair way to travel so I spend a lot of time at my lover’s house during busy periods when I need to be closer to work & the city. Which I’m so grateful for. But I also love the comfort of my own space and my bed, and have had less and less time to spend in it.

What I’m saying is, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed, especially during this end-of-year period where all industries are a frazzle, sliding over each others’ slick dripping pussies in the fight to the bottom line for consumerists’ throbbing D.

But there is light at the end of the money-making tunnel (please Gaia, pleaase). As of December, I’ll be freeing up my schedule a bit and setting some goals & plans for 2019. This should help me realign and reevaluate what needs to go, what needs to stay, and what needs working on. The more tension, the worse for the MH. So keeping up an awareness, even during hectic times, is key.

Card 6, Future Reality: 7 Pentacles

In the Seven of Pentacles, a man leans on his hoe, staring down at his abundant crop. He has worked long and hard, tending to his garden, and can now finally take a break to enjoy the fruits of his labour. However, he also looks tired and exhausted – even a little bored and ‘over it’ – from having worked so much to create this successful harvest. This card comes as a reminder that success comes from hard work and patience, but be careful not to overdo it and exhaust yourself.

The Seven of Pentacles shows that you have a strong desire to invest in those things that will provide long-term benefit and sustainable results. You understand the value of putting in time and energy now for longer-term rewards, and you are not necessarily looking for ‘quick wins’. You also want to make sure that you are focusing your attention on the right areas that will give you the biggest ‘bang for your buck’ instead of wasting time on areas that will not deliver any value. When this card appears in a Tarot reading, it is an invitation to step back from the day-to-day operations and look at the bigger picture. Appreciate and celebrate what you have created, and assess and evaluate your progress so far. Are you on track? Are you focused on the right tasks that will lead you to your goal? Similarly, if you are planning for the future, the Seven of Pentacles shows that you are taking a long-term view and you are assessing where you can best invest your time and energy for the maximum output. You do not want to keep putting your heart and soul into something if you are not getting the rewards for it and, no doubt, you have started to see that there are some areas in your life that are just become energy-sappers but without the reward. If you have been working extra hard or putting extra effort into something, it will finally pay off. Your effort will definitely be worth it, and you will see the results and rewards for your labour. You may have been working on something quite challenging and important for the last few months, and this is likely to come to a culmination. You are likely to see financial or other tangible rewards for all of your hard work. Sometimes, however, the Seven of Pentacles can indicate frustration with slow results. You have been labouring away at something important, and you may be starting to feel concerned that you will never be rewarded for your efforts. Be patient and appreciate the progress you have made so far. If your hard work has not yet paid off as planned, remember that your expectations may be unreasonable. There are no guarantees. Be grateful, focus on the present and do what you can with what you have.

Source: ‘Seven of Pentacles Card Meanings’ by Biddy Tarot

I really, really hope this speaks of good things to come! Hard work paying off sounds amazing. Let’s do that one please!!!

To me, this is a reminder of what I spoke about before: knowing the difference between what can be changed and what has to be released. Being present, working IN the moment, is a reward in itself. This is important to remember, especially during moments of frustration or stagnation when impatience and not-knowing gets the better of.

I think this is also a reminder that energy out is energy in; we must work towards our goals. Manifesting isn’t wanting something and sitting back to do nothing (that’s privilege yall). Manifesting is Intention, Action, Commitment & Energy!!

Unconscious: Undercurrent shaping the situation, where we come from & what baggage we drag with us

Past: Page of Wands

Present: Queen of Swords

Future: The Magician

Card 7, Past Unconscious: Page of Wands

The Page of Wands is similar to the Fool in that he is a free spirit who represents change and new beginnings. He has a true passion for life, despite his understanding of this world is not yet fully developed. He has not yet been weighed down by the burdens of the material world, coming and going as he pleases, and usually encouraging change wherever he goes. He is like the catalyst that inspires changes that might be impossible in any other situation.

The appearance of the Page of Wands indicates that you are experiencing a creative restlessness within you that is just waiting for some sort of expression, or, you may be on the verge of some sort of discovery or new phase of life. The Page of Wands represents the sudden creative spark that comes to you, suddenly and unexpectedly, and that starts you down the road of a new creative vision. Thus, he encourages you to express yourself and your individuality with light-hearted abandon. Listen to your unconscious mind and follow your creative urges, even if you are worried about being the lonely voice crying out in the wilderness. With persistence and a balanced perspective even the immature desires of the Page of Wands can be transformed into a beautiful creative vision that can change the world… You are enjoying being busy and involved in various activities and projects. You like the freedom of being able to choose what you will work on today, and hopefully it is different from what you worked on the day before… While you may look to this Page as an immature or child-like presence, he actually has a lot to offer you if you open yourself up to the possibilities that he shares with you.

Source: ‘Page of Wands Card Meanings’ by Biddy Tarot

This is spot on describing my inner state/unconscious earlier this year. I was a little naive about some things, maybe, because I was yet to fully understand the depths of my process/journey. How can you really know until you’re in it? This sense of hopefulness & optimism is still alive in me, although maybe a little more tempered with a bit more experience, though I also think I’ve moved on from the restlessness associated with the Page. Now I seem to be seeking some form of stability, being established in my own rights & being able to embark on new adventures from a place of direction & purpose. I used to like the aimlessness a lot more, but now I feel I want to be building something more tangible now, seeking the manifestation that comes after the initial sparks of possibility!!

Card 8, Present Unconscious: Queen of Swords

The Queen of Swords sits high on her throne with a stern look on her face indicating that no-one can fool her. In her right hand, she comfortably holds a sword pointed to the sky, and her left hand extends as if she has something to offer to others. Behind her is a spring sky, different from the winter settings on most other Swords cards, and this has an emergence and growth quality to it. The sky is clear, representing her clarity of mind as she considers matters of the intellect. The bird above her head symbolises the mind’s ability to soar above day-to-day issues in order to arrive at appropriate solutions.

The Queen of Swords represents the sternness of a mature intellect which is devoid of emotion. In mythology, the feminine is associated with emotion, yet in this card the woman is stern and composed, and without much feeling. This card therefore represents the intellect’s ability to judge and discern impartially, without the influence of emotion or sentimentality. She likes to know the how, what, why, where, when and who of everything to help her make sense of her environment and to better understand others. It is not that she does not care about others but she connects to other people through an intellectual understanding rather than an emotional understanding.

The Queen of Swords is a sign that you need to be independent in thought and in judgement. You must use your unbiased intelligence in order to make a judgement of a particular situation, drawing upon every piece of information and fact that you have gathered along the way. Empathy or compassion towards others may distract you from the task at hand, so it is important that you think with your head and not with your heart at this particular time. Do not let emotion get in the way. Rather, use fact and logic to make your decisions.

The Queen of Swords also has an innate ability to tell it like it is. She is a quick thinker and highly perceptive, and as such, she can cut through the noise and confusion to get straight to the point. There is certainly no ‘beating about the bush’, or ‘softening’ of her comments, opinions and thoughts. She is upfront and honest about her opinions, and expects the same from others. The best way to interact with the Queen of Swords, therefore, is to remain as impartial as possible, and to present your thoughts and opinions concisely and honestly.

Source:

This card has always kind of stumped me, although tbh she comes up in readings fairly regularly. I believe very much in the heart as a compass, so maybe I need to get more real with how I intellectually process situations to do with decision-making. I’m a sentimental gal so this feels like guidance telling me that while emotional connectedness is key, it’s also important to not let sentimentality become a cage.

This could apply to a lot of things: my attachment to my lifestyle away from the city could get in the way of doing the work that I love, or applying for a job. It could be saying yes to projects due to emotional attachments when really I don’t have the time, faculties or resources to bring it to fruition. Right now, this card feels like a message about discernment in decision-making, ensuring I am using my intellectual strengths in balance with my emotions to make the best choices for my life. Queen of Swords helps me remember that I must utilise all my skills, gifts & passions — and to remember the importance of intellectual rigour in my life.

Card 9, Future Unconscious: The Magician

“I wanted guidance and answers as to what I could do to make my situation better. It was then that the Magician began to jump out and consistently plague me. At first I’d pick the card up, sigh, and place him back into the deck feeling done and frustrated with the answer that I had received.But he continued to show up- jumping, falling out of the deck, even so much as getting mysteriously stuck to my slipper as I walked around the house miserable and lamenting…. I noticed first the infinity sign hovering above his head: infinite possibilities, the endless movement of energy, and also everlasting love.

“Do all things through and with love, Jess. For your Self and for others.”

The powers above are working through you- meaning that where you are being guided is no longer solely about you but a higher purpose, whether the topic of your question be about the work you feel called to do or a love that you are ready to share.

The hand held above his head is symbolic of assertion but more than that it works as a channel from God to man. “Allow the Provider to work through you and move you to this greater calling/direction.”

The hand gesturing to the ground brings that energy to be shared to the earth.

The Magician moves with purpose and with clear intention. He knows what he wants and what to do to manifest and direct energy because he has been inspired and then guided. All of what he needs lies here in front of him at his table.

“You have been given incredible gifts. Use what you were given to direct powerful intentions that lead to positive and desired outcomes.”

There’s a reason this card is one of the first of the story of the unfolding of the journey of the Major Arcana.

This is the card that holds the power directly within its hands- enough power to carry us through the journey of the other four suites and the Majors within the entire tarot deck.

This is the card of incredible manifestation- the beginning, the point in your life where you instinctively rise up and know that you are and have been empowered. Your choices and vision are supported by an incredibly benevolent universe/Provider that is reminding you now how very powerful you are when you step into faith, use your God given gifts, and take responsibility and action on creating the life of your dreams. With this card anything becomes possible and you are gifted the chance to see, feel, and own your potential knowing that no matter what lies ahead of you have been given all the tools at birth that you will need to live out your divine and unique life path filled with moments of adventure that include deep love, happiness, and incredible purpose.

This card is the shapeshifter.

“I can be ANY thing. There is nothing that I cannot do or be. It starts with me here. It starts with me now.”

Source: ‘The Magician with Jessica Wiggan’ via Biddy Tarot

I only started reading Tarot around two years ago but unlike Jess, I was enthralled when The Magician first appeared to me. Maybe it’s the illustration by Serena Rocca in my particular deck* but, to me, the card instantly felt alive with promise & potential. It seemed to speak to me of the power of balance in all things and the process of manifestation. Naturally, I was all about it.

Like Jess, after the first time I met The Magician, the card would reappear continuously and soon became a regular in my readings. Now, I usually take a photo of her and use it as my lock screen everytime she shows up. It reminds me of my own powers of manifestation and my responsibility (response-ability) in this life to use my gifts and passions and not squander the abundance given to me on this Earth.

The Magician card is numbered One – the number of new beginnings and opportunities – and associates with the planet of Mercury. He stands with one arm stretched upwards towards the Universe, and the other pointing down to the earth. His positioning represents his connection between the spiritual realms and the material realms. The Magician uses this relationship to create and manifest his goals in the physical realm. He is the conduit that converts energy into matter. The Magician’s robe is white, symbolising purity, and his cloak is red, representing worldly experience and knowledge.

On the table in front of him are the four symbols of the Tarot suits – a cup, pentacle, sword and wand – each symbolising one of the four elements – water, earth, air and fire. It is also a sign that he has all the tools (and elements) he needs to manifest his intentions into being. Above his head is the infinity symbol, and around his waist is a snake biting its own tail – both of which signal that he has access to unlimited potential. And in the foreground is an array of foliage and flowers, symbolising the blossoming and fruition of his ideas and aspirations.

As a master manifestor, the Magician brings you the tools, resources and energy you need to make your dreams come true. Seriously, everything you need right now is at your fingertips. You have the spiritual (fire), physical (earth), mental (air) and emotional (water) resources to manifest your desires. And when you combine them with the energy of the spiritual and earthly realms, you will become a manifestation powerhouse! The key is to bring these tools together synergistically so that the impact of what you create is greater than the separate parts. This is alchemy at its best!

BALANCE, BB!!

Now is the perfect time to move forward on an idea that you recently conceived. The seed of potential has sprouted, and you are being called to take action and bring your intention to fruition. The skills, knowledge and capabilities you have gathered along your life path have led you to where you are now, and whether or not you know it, you are ready to turn your ideas into reality.

In your quest to manifest your goals, you must establish a clear vision of what you will create (and why) before you act. It is not enough to be motivated by ego (money, status, or fame) – you need to have a soul connection to your goals and intentions. You are a powerful, creative being, and this is your opportunity to bring your Higher Self in alignment with your day-to-day actions to create the future you want most.

When you are clear about your ‘what’ and your ‘why’, the Magician calls on you to take inspired action. You will need focused attention and intense concentration to bring your goals to fruition. Focus on the ONE thing that will move you towards your goal. Commitment to the task is essential, so drop any distractions that may draw your focus away from what you want to achieve. Be methodical in your planning to make sure that you stay on track and carry out your tasks.

One of the first times The Magician popped out to say hey to me, I remember writing down a list of my priorities (outside of family & community), then narrowing the list down until I was clear about what was important to me. This clarity was perception-altering at the time; it helped me realise what my next steps should be on my path.

In this reading, I feel like this is a huge affirmation of my efforts to reevaluate, realign & refocus as the end of 2018 draws near. The next year is going to be huge and I want to make sure I go into it with a clarity of focus and intention.

No more wasted efforts, no more beating myself with a proverbial stick and hoping for candies to fall out. No mis-manifestations, no downplaying, no playing it safe, no bowing down or out due to cowardice or fear.

I have faced my own shadows. I will continue to face them always knowing them as parts of me, as guidance, as friends.

I will not hide from my own light. I will not let my fears dull it. I shine with the love of the Divine & my ancestors — and they are with me every step of the way.

P.S. The Magician & Queen of Swords cards came out simultaneously and could be read interchangeably as Card 7 & 8.

*The Tarot deck I use is the Group Tarot Deck by Girls Drawin’ Girls available here.

Tarot Wishlist

KAPWA Tarot (Pilipino Symbology and Ancestral Teachings) by Jana Umipig: http://www.janalynnecreativeproductions.com/shop

FAIRYTALE Tarot (Myths Legends and Deities From Around the World) by Yoshi Yoshitani: http://yoshiyoshitani.storenvy.com/

DELTA ENDURING Tarot (Southern Cartomancy) by Egan: http://www.deltaenduring.com/store/

FLAGSHIP Tarot by Trungles: http://www.trungles.com/flagship-tarot/

MODERN WITCH Tarot by Lisa Sterle: https://liminal11.com/2018/04/25/the-modern-witch-tarot/

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